Aliens: The Real Enemy?

The other night we watched Battle: Los Angeles, which for all practical purposes is a modern war movie, but with the science fictiony twist of the enemy being extraterrestrials. Earlier in the summer we went to see Battleship, which was the same basic plot, but focused on the Navy, and Hawai'i (which I'm all for).

This seems to be the way all war movies are going to be from now on. Aliens are the new arch-enemy.

Of course, we have seen this all before in various forms since the 1950s, with War of the Worlds and The Day the Earth Stood Still. However, since Independence Day, it has been the case that mostly, if not exclusively, all war movies involve aliens as the opponent. The only exception would be historical war movies.

There must be some covert and unpublished order given to Hollywood that we cannot have any human enemies for a prospective war in a movie. Why? Perhaps because we are all supposed to be one big happy One World Order. To get us all in that frame of mind we must not think of any other nation or people as an enemy.

But also, perhaps, mostly is a fear of not being politically correct, internationally.

Pick any country to use as an enemy against the U.S. in a movie and I bet you will run into writers, directors, producers and actors who will worry about offending that nation. Why, to think that some other nation could actually perpetrate some evil plot against the U.S.—unless we are also guilty of something—is unthinkable. How dare we imply that some country might be a true enemy! That would be considered bigoted.

(As an aside, also notice how all spy movies involve U.S. spies in cahoots with other U.S. spies against—you guessed it—U.S. spies. Don't we actually spy against other nations?

Also, I would rather have peace than war. We should be getting out of as many conflicts as possible and just make sure our own borders are secure. Then we should be the disseminators of liberty via debate, proclamation and diplomacy—with the security of a strong and ready military.)

You see, aliens are safe. Regardless of the unlikely idea that they could get here in the first place (a whole ’nuther science issue), they make obvious and uncomplicated enemies. Since they don't represent any other nation, there is no fear of offending anyone.

Don’t get me wrong; I enjoy a good alien action plot occasionally. This is just an observation of our pop culture, and perhaps a recognition of an overarching “understanding” of the message we are supposed to get from all this lack of authentic war movie enemies, i.e., a country that really exists as a possible threat, such as China, Russia, North Korea or Iran, cannot possibly exist. 

You get the idea.

Islamic Anger Shows They Are Not Ready For Liberty

Protests over an offensive movie?

Of course, you should have heard by now about the two sieges and murders of U.S. embassies in Egypt and Libya at the hand of Islamic extremists. Supposedly this is in response to an "insult" to Mohammed in a movie that was made and released in the U.S. on YouTube. I think this is a lame excuse, but if it has any real connection, it is hardly commensurate with the murder of three people who had nothing to do with it.

What are they thinking?

What is the mentality of such an attack against a U.S. embassy in response to a movie release that people may find offensive (and, true, Hollywood gives people plenty to be offended about)? I am hearing many reports that at least the Libya attack was not motivated by the YouTube movie. But if either of these, or the growing number of embassy "demonstrations" erupting today (and beyond?), is a result of offense at this movie, does that give you any sense of objective reasonableness within the Islamic mindset?

Let's take this idea further. 

Let's say you and a bunch of friends and neighbors and family members become greatly offended at some insult to Jesus, or some famous historical figure of U.S. history, such as George Washington, presented in some Bollywood movie. What are you going to do about it? Perhaps you would write letters to the producer. Maybe you would organize a boycott of the movie. Probably you would set up a protest at one of the theaters that showed it (hard to do that to YouTube, though), which did happen a couple of decades ago over a very blasphemous Jesus movie.

Would you stage a siege of the India embassy in Washington D.C? Of course not! Why not? Because everybody knows that the government of India was not responsible for the production of that movie at all.

Islam radicals only know of totalitarianism

How does this relate to what the radical islamists are doing then? If a movie upsets them then they go and besiege the U.S. embassy. Why? Obviously, they think that the U.S. government is responsible for whether the movie was made, for what it said, and that it was released and allowed to be played.

You must remember, that most of the islamic countries are unlearned, and mostly have the perspective of thousands of years of tribal existence, which was monarchical in nature. That is, the only freedom you have is what the ruler of your tribe, or nation, allows you to have. That's it. And if what you do is only what your ruler allows, then what you are allowed to do is the responsibility of your ruler.

So when the radical islamists look at something coming from America, or the West, then they look at it from the governmental ideals they live in. They have no conception of liberty, of free market economy, of personal responsibility within the context of a nation or as a citizen. There is no philosophical foundation in their outlook for any of the freedoms that we as U.S. citizens conceive of or enjoy.

Blame the U.S. government for it all

So no matter what comes from our society to offend the radical islamists, they will continue to throw their anger against the U.S. government. The sooner we pull everything out of the Middle East, the sooner they will forget about the U.S. and they will have to put up with each other. And if their history is any indication, that will mean they will be infighting and at each other's throats within a few years. Or we can allow China to go in and try to put them in peaceful order. Let them wear out their military and use up all their financial resources to futilely keep the area stable.