Jay Austin and Lauren Geoghegan quit their jobs in Washington, D.C. to experience the world in their late 20s. Austin wrote on the trip how he had found great decency everywhere they had gone. He wrote: “Evil is a make-believe concept we’ve invented to deal with the complexities of fellow humans holding values and beliefs and perspectives different than our own… By and large, humans are kind. Self-interested sometimes, myopic sometimes, but kind. Generous and wonderful and kind.” That inspiring world adventure came to the end in Tajikistan when they and two other cyclists were hit by a car filled with ISIS fighters who jumped and stabbed them to death as “nonbelievers.”
Austin worked at the Department of Housing and Urban Development while Geoghegan worked at Georgetown’s Admissions office. They both felt that life was passing them by — a point Austin wrote about on his blog:
“I’ve grown tired of meetings, of teleconferences, of timesheets and password changes and Monday morning elevator commiseration. I’ve grown tired of spending the best hours of my day in front of a glowing rectangle, of coloring the best years of my life in swaths of grey and beige. I’ve missed too many sunsets while my back was turned. Too many thunderstorms went unwatched, too many gentle breezes unnoticed. There’s magic out there, in this great big beautiful world, and I’ve long since scooped up the last of the scraps to be found in my cubicle.
I know there’s another way to live. I’ve dabbled in it. But now it’s time to commit. To go all-in. I’m thankful for this privilege. The privilege to commit. The privilege to walk away from a well-paying life of comfort. To charge headlong into indulgence, rough but ultimately temporary.”
Much has been made about Austin’s writing the following:
“You watch the news and you read the papers and you’re led to believe that the world is a big, scary place. People, the narrative goes, are not to be trusted. People are bad. People are evil. People are axe murderers and monsters and worse.
I don’t buy it. Evil is a make-believe concept we’ve invented to deal with the complexities of fellow humans holding values and beliefs and perspectives different than our own — it’s easier to dismiss an opinion as abhorrent than strive to understand it. Badness exists, sure, but even that’s quite rare. By and large, humans are kind. Self-interested sometimes, myopic sometimes, but kind. Generous and wonderful and kind. No greater revelation has come from our journey than this.”
However, this passage was written in the context of the couple staying as guests with a family in Morocco. Moreover, there was not a travel advisory on this country until after this heinous crime. According to Snopes, when they set out, the U.S. State Department listed the country as a relatively low-risk destination for American travelers, giving it a Level 1 “travel advisory” o “exercise normal precautions.” On terrorism, people were advised:
While terrorist organizations are known to have a presence in the region, terrorist attacks have been infrequent in recent years and focused on local government targets, such as law enforcement and security services.
After the attack, it was upgraded to Level 2 for travellers to “exercise increased caution.”
Whatever their view of evil, they found it along that road when they were savagely murdered with two other cyclists, one from Switzerland and the other from the Netherlands. ISIS celebrated the murders as the killing of “disbelievers.” Of course, the cyclists were the believers. They believed in humanity and decency, but found men who believe that God loves those who torture and murder others.
Would it be totally wrong to say that Austin wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer???
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Squeeky – I had a teach I supervised who was like Austin, I used to describe him as “other-worldly”.
Did you teach someone like any one of the other three cyclists murdered? How about someone like any one of the others in their party?
I think you are missing the irony here. Austin specifically said that evil people were just make-believe, and then he gets stabbed to death. That’s as ironic as those Dumb Unitarians, with their Black Lives Matter sign, getting the crap beaten out of them down in New Orlean by savage black thugs. That’s as ironic as the stupid broad who jumped into the polar bear cage at the zoo to pet the nice bear or whatever, getting eaten alive. That’s as ironic as the Last Words of Every Redneck who says, “Hey Maw, lookit this!”
Me, if I have been cycling somewhere, especially in a Muslim country, I would had a knife or two in my boots. Some pepper spray, and maybe an AK-47 if I could have bought one at a local bazaar. At least a .45 or something. Maybe a scimitar. Or some loose bacon I could throw at them.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
His views on the world around him are irrelevant to his death. He died because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. There were others present who weren’t killed, not because they had better worldviews, but because they were protected in automobiles or just slightly less convenient targets.
DSS, Naivete often clouds physical awareness and it is that awareness that can mean the difference between life and death.
Allan, the lot of you keep scrounging for a reason to blame these people because you don’t care for them. It’s dishonest and a waste of time. They weren’t killed because they were naive.
i appreciate what Spas is saying. He has a point.
I also appreciate that they remind one, for some reason, of the starry eyed missionaries of yesteryear who ended up being cooked in the pot by savages.
DSS may have a point but he is aiming it at the wrong people.
DSS, I am not blaming these people for being there nor do I have any dislike for them. I have been in the wrong place at the wrong time as well. I blame him, as I said before, for his naivete based on his own statement. I repeat: ” Naivete often clouds physical awareness and it is that awareness that can mean the difference between life and death.” That doesn’t mean their physical awareness was clouded. That is just one option among many. You cannot assume DSS, that you have the one and only right answer. You don’t. I am sure we have all seen examples where naivete may have led to a death that could have been avoided.
Poor Old Austin. He didn’t get a wake up call. Instead, the damn alarm clock exploded on him.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Yep, evil is a made up thing. . .
https://metro.co.uk/2018/08/17/four-children-stabbed-south-london-one-boy-disembowelled-7850208/
It’s “made up” fresh every day, just like donuts and bread.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
“Badness exists, sure, but even that’s quite rare. By and large, humans are kind. Self-interested sometimes, myopic sometimes, but kind. Generous and wonderful and kind.”
Sad, sad story.
The realities of the worldview of human nature of a Hobbes, a Locke come to the fore in this story while the worldview of Rousseau fade like the innocence of a child upon puberty.
It is in our choice of governments we reveal our view of human nature, in our view of parenting even. Lean heavily upon Locke and you have a system of government with its checks and balances like the United States. Lean too heavily upon Rousseau and you have a French Revolution.
“The interest of the man must be connected with the constitutional rights of the place. It may be a reflection on human nature, that such devices should be necessary to control the abuses of government. But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature?
If men were angels, no government would be necessary.
If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself. A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions.”
Madison Federalist #51
How sorry I am for those young people and how bad I feel that such a thing should happen.
Sometimes attributed to Edmund Burke: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.” The problem is that before good men can do anything there must be recognition that evil exists. We see evil around us today, illegal aliens that have raped and killed, yet we see what we consider good people hiding them in sanctuary cities so they can rape and kill again.
I am so very sorry for the murder of this couple, and for what their families are going through now.
Jay Austin’s incredibly naive statement that evil does not exist automatically raises the question of whether they engaged in a dangerous undertaking which exposed them to that danger.
TSS has a very good point that Tajikistan has a low crime rate. I have no idea where else the couple traveled. Were they planning on cycling through North Korea because Kim Jong Un is misunderstood? On its surface, Tajikistan would be seen as a lower risk tourist destination. The major risks are car accidents and avalanches on mountain roads. I was not aware that ISIS had a significant presence in Tajikistan. However, it has been a concern of the government for years. One would hope that this couple researched every place where they traveled.
I have a few thoughts on their tragedy. First, in the interests of self preservation, one must be on guard when you are out anywhere, whether in the US or abroad. Know your area and what to look for, for instance drunk drivers after a holiday.
Second, there are unique considerations in Muslim majority nations. Dubai is an extremely low crime country. You can literally leave a suitcase on the side of the road, return in an hour, and know for a fact that it will still be there. They still chop off the hands of thieves in Dubai. However, if you dress in a rainbow and go around banging a drum, singing, “I’m a gay Jew!” you are probably going to die in this low crime nation. The couple did nothing of the sort, but I am just pointing out that crime can be selective in a low crime area. I learned to my great surprise that there are towns where women do not wear shorts in South America. I did not expect that, and had to hustle back to my hotel the attention I was drawing was so great. Likewise, you have to be cautious about certain things in any foreign country.
Unfortunately, ISIS and radical Islam in general has been viewed as a threat in Tajikistan for many years. The country is 95% Islamic with an authoritarian leader, which checks a few boxes for precautions that outsiders would have to take in this otherwise low crime country. Here is a 2015 article complaining that it is patently unfair for the State of Tajikistan to show such concern over radical Islamization based simply on the increasing piety of Muslims after the religious suppression of the Soviet Union ended. The article writes that the attempts to force secularization are wrong. Obviously, the rise of ISIS in the area lends some irony in hindsight. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/03071847.2015.1102550?needAccess=true&
There are issues in Muslim majority countries. Even moderate ones are overwhelmingly anti-semitic, and take a dim view of apostasy. This is a requirement of the religion, actually. According to Pew research, the majority of Muslims in Tajikistan believe stoning women should be the penalty for adultery. About half believe their country’s laws correlate somewhat closely to Sharia. Again, this indicates that security precautions would be required to avoid violence or running afoul of the law in a Muslim majority nation.
There has been ISIS activity in Tajikistan, which would immediately have checked it off of my list of cycling venues. For instance, Gulmurod Khalimov left his special forces command and joined ISIS.
The problem with ISIS is that they are following the Qu’ran and Hadith more closely than other Muslims. Even though they won’t admit it, Muslims around the world are actually reforming the religion, or at least picking and choosing which parts to follow and which to ignore. Mohammad expressly stated that his life, and that of his followers, were the best example of living a good Muslim life, and that all others should follow. He also said that his was going to be the best generation of Muslims, with subsequent decline. This is a problem because Mohammad was a warlord who raped, pillaged, and was heavily engaged in the slave trade. He also granted himself many more wives and sex slaves than any of his followers. By modern standards, he would be considered a pedophile because he married his wife at 6 and consummated the marriage when she was 9. All of this is an embarrassment to Muslims. Many modern Muslims have absolutely no idea how crazy so many of Mohammad’s teachings are. The problem is that they are supposed to have come down directly from Allah, and are therefore unchanging no matter the era in which we live. He taught that a man has the right to have sex with any of his women whenever he wanted, even while she was riding on her camel. He did not even need to give her time to stop her camel and dismount. He was allowed to have sex with his sex slaves in his wives’ beds. He encouraged his men to temporarily marry women in other countries so they could have sex with them, and them “divorce” them directly after coitus. He advised people that if a fly landed in their drink, they should grab the fly and dunk it in, because a disease was in one wing, and the cure was in the other. Best to dunk them both to make sure. He said that one could drink water befouled with rotting carcasses, because water is still water no matter what else is in it. He preached peaceful verses when he was powerless, and sword versus later when he commanded armies. When he found his adopted son’s wife comely, he coincidentally had a revelation from Allah that adoption was wrong. One could care for an orphan but one could not adopt them, as that would be wronging the late father. That freed him up to accept his no-longer-adopted-son’s wife as one of his own. He had his armies wait until dawn to raid. If they heard the call to prayer, then they would not attack, but if they did not, then they would put every town and village to the sword, kill the men, rape the women, and make them slaves. He advised that people should be offered the opportunity to voluntarily convert to Islam, or else they would be killed, which is why Islam is now the majority in the Middle East, which used to be Jewish, Christian, and pagan. He was so angered at the rejection of his religion by Jewish people, and at all the beatings he got for proselytizing, that he called upon his people to kill every Jew behind every rock until the ground was soaked in their blood. Anti-semitism is actually a requirement of the faith. Even having Jewish friends is prohibited.
So…if Muslims are called to emulate Mohammad in every way, what do they do about this? I have known a great many Muslims, and they don’t follow pretty much any of Mohammad’s teachings, except going to Mosque, urinating sitting down, using that watering can and the left hand (which holds Satan) in the bathroom, and most of them didn’t even pray 5 times a day. Most women didn’t even wear hijab or roosari, but when they prayed at home, they would bundle up in a sheet. For them, they only focused on the Peaceful verses, and found Islam to be a great comfort, especially the part about letting go of worries and letting whatever Allah wills to happen, just happen. They would never consider themselves to be reformers, but that is exactly what they are. This gives hope for the religion, if they could only find a way to acknowledge the reform of a violent manuscript which is supposed to be the direct word of Allah. It would be a great book and supporting teaching if all of the sword verses, rape, slavery, polygamy, beating of women, lower value of women, claims that most women go to hell, death to unbelievers, directive to conquer the world and make it Islamic, and the like were simply taken out. Otherwise, I cannot reconcile all of the violence expressly called for with peace and tolerance. Moderates just skip all of those parts, but eventually I hope there will be true, organized reform, just as I hope the Catholic Church reforms.
In fact, since there are so many variations in how Islam is practiced, Muslims around the world have basically make up their own Protestant versions of the faith, which is exactly why ISIS is so pissed. First there are the Shia and Sunni differences on the heir to Islam and who rode a winged horse to heaven. Then, there are the wide range of differences in how strict Islam is practiced. Even though imams around the world have said that female genital mutilation is called for in the Quran, there are differences in the severity, and in many places, it has fallen out of favor as something the hicks do. Unless ISIS is drinking befouled water and dunking flies in their drinks, then even they are not following the strictest interpretation of Islam. I wish they would, because that would solve the global ISIS problem on its own. In the holier than thou wars, ISIS and to a lesser extent Boko Haram are actually practicing Islam as it was taught. Their directive is conquest and the forceful expansion of Islam. The Qu’ran states that Muslims who do not properly practice Islam in ALL its teachings must be killed as apostates. Therefore, ISIS kills a great many Muslims for not keeping the faith, even, tragically, little kids.
What do you think they would do when they encounter a naive couple bicycling around Tajikistan? They get rewarded by Allah for killing non believers.
Dang it, that was too long a post. When will I learn how to be concise instead of writing these oeuvres?
Karen……I do the same thing sometimes~ It looks so much bigger after you hit the “post comment” button. But you write so well!
It’s true that posts are smaller in my head than they look in acreage of screen after they are posted.
But thank you for your kind words!
tl; dr
Here is a wikipedia article (sorry Paul) on the plight of Tajik Jews. There are only 100 left in the country because of persecution by the anti-semitic Muslims. Most were evacuated out of the country for their own safety. One must recall that the Qu’ran preaches that Jews must pay a Jizya, the non believer tax, because non believers are considered a source of easy income. Otherwise, Jews are to be killed everywhere they are found, and behind every rock.
They really sound like sweeties in Tajikistan.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Tajikistan
Karen S – you do not get on Turley’s blog if you are killing Jews on a regular basis. BTW, I think that is horrible. You do get press if you kill a couple of American tourists.
Karen, it’s a post-Soviet Republic, not a Taliban state. The place was in a very disorderly condition between 1991 and 1998. It’s also deeply poor. Standards of living are higher in Israel by a factor of 10. Russian colonists also left the country en bloc during the civil war.
Karen, don’t worry about the length. The content is informative. Your comments are the only ones I make a point to read, because they are so interesting.
FFS – now I am hurt. 🙂
Whoops. Meant to say one of the few that I read. Of course I read yours, unless you’re engaging with the resident trolls. Which raises a question: Does L4D pay compensation to JT for running her blog on his site?
FFS – when Annie/Inga was here, she was often numero uno when the lists of top commenters would come out. I think L4D likes replacing her which is why she was top on my list for suspicious persons who might be Annie/Inga.
I am sorry you don’t read my stuff when I am dealing with the resident trolls, it is really over their heads and I would like a good audience once in a while. 😉
Paul C……….I know I speak for some of us cheap seats commenters in the balcony when I say “you’re lookin’ good to us, fella!” So, thumbs up, fist bumps, and cold beers all around. ( Hold it. I think I just may have, inadvertently, written the first line for a new hit country song)
Cindy Bragg – I would go both Country and Western. No sense cutting yourself off from a revenue source. 😉
😊
Why I think so Cindy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHGo5BX2jQA
oops, wrong song.
I guess it’s because of you great gals God made Oklahoma:)
Cindy,
I wish to encourage you to follow you dreams.
Among other great people I’ve meet Mr Garth Brooks, an Okie was one. He went to a friend of my wife & I church & I meet him one day, he started going to the same dentist as I as he raise his daughters.
He was very approachable & decent as most are here in the Heartland USA..
I sense you’d like to try your. I suggest you do it as soon as you can, as Garth & those type people, as I, feel great helping people achieve their goals. GL
Oops
I have travelled quite a bit, mostly in the U.S. but some abroad. I find a similar vein in humanity. Most people (the vast majority) are indeed kind. But as these people found out. It only takes one or two really really bad people to mess up your day.
Still voting and taking part I do stay in Mexico most of the year. Biggest risk is Hurricanes and I live on a boat. Why? I like the weather but the big reason is the USA priced itself out of the market for affordable living. Drawing median income puts me in the upper lower cast of the USA while in Mexico it’s in the midde.;middle class or higher. Medicine is 40% of the cost so until recently I just paid out of pocket. Now with tsome old age stuff scheduled an appointment with VA. One of the good ones. which has been frequented by a lot of my friends. However I checked the area out first before choosing.
yeah and you can buy knockoffs like that controy crap they use for margaritas instead of cointreau.
While the description of the crime is offered in a religious context, the killing could also be viewed as a normal response to the West attacking others with impunity for centuries, rather than providing a sincere long-term offer to advance the quality of life around the world.
Wow, more amazingly narrow understanding of history and human events. You may have an argument if you focus more on recent history. While it would be nice to see more plowshares than swords, there are models of relative success (such as the Constitution of the United States), but it is not up to us, nor do we, or have we ever had the power or insight to have other humans adopt some successful strategies for self management. Also, the West not having to defend itself? Ask Charles Martel about that. Or why do most of us carry the genes from Khans.
Maybe you might want to address the failure of our own places, such as Baltimore and Chicago. I would have ridden my bike in most other ‘stans before I would ride in those cities. Read about Chicago last weekend.
Hail Charles the Hammer!
No Chris. Killing peaceful bicyclists in a country where tourism is allowed is not a normal response.
I oppose Monsanto and yet I don’t kill any Monsanto employees.
And the US spends billions of dollars in aid around the world, responding to natural disasters, funding programs to improve quality of life, help other countries get clean drinking water and medicines.
I am gobsmacked at what you are justifying, and your misperceptions.
If you honestly believe that anyone carrying out such crimes is taking the time to engage in any form of critical thinking, it’s pretty clear that your perspective is based solely on the ingestion of data and your own Western brain, two things that I guarantee you real life will endlessly contradict, as it did for these two poor folks. There really is such a thing as blind hatred, and it doesn’t care about particulars.
While the description of the crime is offered in a religious context, the killing could also be viewed as a normal response to the West attacking others with impunity for centuries,
By ignorant morons.
“the killing could also be viewed as a normal response to the West attacking others with impunity for centuries”
HUH??? Have you ever read a World History book??? No, of course not. Everybody is attacking everybody else all the time. But to you, this is just a normal response because evil is like this totally made-up concept man. . .
Here is a good talk on this very point about the Evil White People who took everybody else’s land, and stuff. Put it on in the background as you surf around.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UzL4za_8u4o
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
“I” ists have little in the way of brain power. nor common sense. After the Gulf Wars heated uip they still insisted on sailing their boats through the Red Sea Area even though everiy insurance company in the world banned that route as an active war zone. Sure enough manhy were pirated. One commercial ship cuttining corners had to be rescued by Navy Seals. Others like these two wing nuts paid for the trip withii their lives.; Feel sorry for them. Not hardly. Stupid is as stupid does. The California attitude is better off wiping itself out than being encouraged. “I” meand “Zero” to the rest of the world. be it CHicago or Houston or ISIS strongholds.
The bubble bursts
We should resurrect Æsop to write a fable for this one.
Darren:
No need. He already wrote it. It’s called the Wolves and the Sheep. It reads a lot like our victim’s blog post lamenting all the things that kept him safe. Here goes:
The Wolves and the Sheep
The Wolves approached the Sheep one fine day with a proposal of peace. “The Dogs always bark on our approach and attack us even while we have done you no harm. Just dismiss them and we can live in peace.” The Sheep were also annoyed by all the dogs barking and were taken in by the proposal and sent the Dogs away. Upon this, the Wolves fell upon the Sheep and had the finest dinner of their lives.
~ Aesop
That’s a good fable. I love Aesop. Perpetually current because human nature that underlies society is unchanging.
I have made a great notice of this too.
Aesop’s fables talk about human foibles thousands of years ago, and here we are and they are exactly the same.
New social environments, but people have fundamentally stayed the same.
Human nature is our constant.
Here’s a lesson for our progressive friends:
“How now!” cried Jupiter “Are you not yet content? You have what you asked for and so you have only yourselves to blame for your misfortunes.”
http://mythfolklore.net/aesopica/milowinter/25.htm
Those Greeks knew a thing or two about human nature.
Darren, read the State Department advisory for travelers to Tajikistan. Prior to this incident, it was a set of warnings to beware of pickpockets. It’s not a country which has had trouble with violent crime in the last 10 years. It did suffer severe political violence at one time…20+ years ago.
Let me elaborate. IMHO, what killed these two goobers is Theoryitis. That is when a person has a theory about something, and then proceeds to ignore reality, and live in the make-believe fantasy theory lala land, inside their own head.
You see it here a lot, where maniacal leftists are convinced that Trump is a racist, and the most horrible person who ever lived, and a white nationalist, and when you ask them to define a racist, or a white nationalist, and maybe why is white nationalism a bad thing, but not brown nationalism, or yellow nationalism, or black nationalism, they go limp and slink off.
And, on the right with the “Capitalism Can Solve Everything If We Only Quit Regulating Businesses, who will rationally self-regulate – – – in spite pf a plethora of stories like Wells Fargo who will scam the beejesus out of its customers, or Big Pharma who pushes dangerous drugs on the market before they are fully vetted.
Here, these two knuckleheads had a particularly dangerous theory, and just stopping for a moment and asking how come of people are sooo good, do we have these armed guys called POLICEMEN all over the place, or how come 28,000 people got murdered in Mexico last year, and like 60,000+ in Brazil, etc.
If ISIS hadn’t killed them, it would have been savage black gang members as the pair rode their bicycles thru Chicongo or Detroit on some torrid summer Friday night.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Gnite everyone.
Now play nice kids…. unless you see an opportunity to kick the living crap out of those Commie/Nazi/Islamic azzholes. LOL:)
I don’t think anyone slinks off from you. Rather, I think most are quite clear that you are a timid, frightened, small-minded, intolerant, bigoted, racist. If I’ve left any of your “attributes” out, I apologize in advance. On the bright side, I’m sure you’ve got some heartwarming tales about marshmellow cookouts around the burning crosses, oh, and lynchings.
this is to squeeKKK
Ah Mark I’ll bet the Chicongo is the one that got you, but your so much smarter than everyone here. You go high when they go low, marky.
that’s CHIRAQ to you my friend!
Mark m:
Is any criticism of any race allowed in your world without being called a racist etc?
@mespo727272
A racist or bigot is defined as someone who disagrees or is winning an argument with a liberal.
SJW (NOT)
And this is to Mark M.
Don’t always agree with Squeeky but she is thoughtful and observant. Why don’t you actually refute what she writes, point by point, instead of name calling? Calling someone a bigot is not an answer or argument.
There are very few leftists who will actually debate you, name calling is much easier and satisfying. It is a good way to virtue signal to all that you are a “good white” as opposed to other “bad whites”. Plus you do not have to actually get your hands dirty. No, virtue signaling is much easier.
SJW (NOT)
True. Part of the problem is, that the Left can NOT rationally defend most of their positions. How do you rationally defend letting in millions of low-skilled no-skilled workers into a country with massive under employment? How does one rationally say that cheap labor doesn’t drive down wages, and hurt blacks the most of all? How does one rationally defend that all while hollering for a $15 minimum wage?
How does one rationally go berserk when a Zimmerman shoots a thug who is banging his head against the concrete? Or, pretend to worry about black lives, when blacks as a group don’t care enough about black lives to get married so that a young black life will have two parents or care enough about black lives to not make a living by selling them drugs, or killing each other to beat the band?
Too many Democrats are Democrats for the same reason some people dance around with rattlesnakes while gibbering in tongues – – – it is just their faith, and not based in reason or rationality at all.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
I also don’ “debate” (as if) with flat-earthers, either. If you, your ilk, or the sqeeKKK need a “debate” to determine that “All men are created equal,” or if it’s not plainly self-evident to you that your fellow human should be “judged by the content of their character rather than the color of their skin,” then perhaps you too, can carpool or hayride with the squeeKKK down to the weekend two-fer-one white sale for extra pillowcases.
this is to “but there were some good people on BOTH sides, right?” sjw
i dont debate that all men are equal. i just look with two eyes and know that they are not. nobody is the same, nobody is equal,. that was just a lie penned by a rich guy to sign up the poor guys to fight in his war against the crown.
or so a wise friend observed to me of late
This is the same State Department that spawned Benghazi and okayed selling yellow cake thei precursor of nuclear weapons and even in my life time has failed o provide accurate warnings or no warnings at all?
Take the Mexico Warnings. The one category of peope with the lowest death by weapons rate in Mexicoi last year was US and Canadians who live six months to twelve months in Mexico.
Most of the 1 or less per one hundred thousand drug related and most of them were within 50 miles of the border. Second most dangeous areas Cancun and Acapulco.
At the same time Houston was running 10 per hundred thousand the USA in general around five per hundred thousand and Chicago just had 12 in one weekend.
I live much of the year in Mexico. In my area we have had three shootings in six years none involving US or Canadian citizens.
Yet when I return tot he USA I feel compelled to strap on a licensed weapon. Sometimes Ii do sometimes I don’t .But I don’t go to certain neighborhoods. Kazhakistan just didn’t get posted in time. but it’s in the middle of a major religious war area.
I worked on a shipi that heard SOS calls from three yachts even when we were allowed through the Red Sea. We did not deviate course or speed but passed it on. Soon a Navy recon plane made a fly over.. Yep. Three of them. decided to hug the Yemani side. They were lucky paid the baksheesh robbed of most of their supplies and kept going. Gimme a break fly a US flag or exhibit a US passport in those places? I don’t need a State Department warning. .
“Hug the Yemani side”. So much is encapsulated in that little phrase.
i am i am i am yemeni
and the shower is my enemy
that’s a little ditty I learned in detroit. i hear a lot of arabs dont like them, not just the sauds
And that is a great example of being aware of your surroundings and the prevalent threats, regardless of whether you are in the US or not. There are indeed very dangerous places in the US.
I second your theory. Well said.
I am glad to see this story here! I posted it on the Hippo thread earlier.
What do you say about people sooo utterly f*cking stupid as these two??? The problem is, our country is ate up with morons like these, who carry on about racial justice, and no borders, and let’s go have sex with some frigging stranger on Tindr!, and let’s turn the drug pushers loose out of prison sooo they can help their community!
That is why America is doomed.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
What do you say about people sooo utterly f*cking stupid as these two???
They didn’t do anything stupid. Tajikistan isn’t a particularly violent country. It’s life expectancy at birth (70 years) is about that of the United States in 1970. It’s just a poor country. They weren’t engaged in some extreme sport. They were cycling on a paved road.
Good. YOU go there I’ll stick to Mexico versus the USA where it’s much safer,.
TSTD:
I agree with you that Tajikistan is low terrorism. However the State Department travel advisory as of August 3rd is:
https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/traveladvisories/traveladvisories/tajikistan-travel-advisory.html
This couple was murdered July 29th. This travel advisory was updated August 3rd. I do not know what it said prior to their trip. I do know that the country has been fighting radicalization, and ISIS, for years.
Even in a relatively low crime area, and a popular spot for climbers who bag peaks, I would never, ever travel to an area with any significant ISIS presence without the military.
That said, I don’t know how to find prior travel advisories. For all I know, when they booked their trip, it could have said the country is all about peace and love.
Excuse me, I meant to say “low crime” in my opening sentence.
That travel advisory was issued after these four people were murdered.
It’s a bit-h when the travel advisory comes out after one is already in the place under advisement. I got caught in one of those dilemmas and it was not pleasant. When arriving back to the US I kissed the ground knowing how good this nation is.
TSTD:
“That travel advisory was issued after these four people were murdered.” Right. Which is why I wrote:
“This couple was murdered July 29th. This travel advisory was updated August 3rd. I do not know what it said prior to their trip. I do know that the country has been fighting radicalization, and ISIS, for years.
Even in a relatively low crime area, and a popular spot for climbers who bag peaks, I would never, ever travel to an area with any significant ISIS presence without the military.
That said, I don’t know how to find prior travel advisories. For all I know, when they booked their trip, it could have said the country is all about peace and love.”
The country of Tajikistan has been fighting Islamic extremism and ISIS for years. If the State Department neglected to remark upon that, then it was negligent.
This reminds me of how my Dad said they used to call the Pentagon the “fumble fortress”.
Again, the travel advisory in effect had been issued in February 2017. It listed a number of precautions concerning pickpockets. The CIA World Factbook has a squibb about the government having had (over the last 8 years) intermittent conflict with gangsters, but the party of cyclists were nowhere near where those two sets of gangsters have their strongholds.
This whole thread has been dominated by a mixture of stupidity and malice.
The Canadian travel advisory from a Google search: https://travel.gc.ca/destinations-print/tajikistan
Tajikistan
Last updated: May 1, 2018 10:55 ET
Still valid: August 17, 2018 12:04 ET
Latest updates: Editorial.
Risk level(s)
Tajikistan – Exercise a high degree of caution
Exercise a high degree of caution in Tajikistan due to crime.
Borders with Afghanistan, the Kyrgyz Republic and Uzbekistan – Avoid non-essential travel
Avoid non-essential travel to the areas within 30 km of the borders with Afghanistan, the Kyrgyz Republic and Uzbekistan because of security concerns.
Safety and security situation
Safety and security
Borders with Afghanistan, the Kyrgyz Republic and Uzbekistan (see Advisory)
The security situation along the border with Afghanistan remains unstable, as this area is used as a transit point for drugs and other forms of illegal trafficking.
Marked and unmarked minefields are present in areas bordering Afghanistan, the Kyrgyz Republic and Uzbekistan. Exercise extreme caution when travelling to these areas.
Continued at site
Allan, they were 60 miles away from the nearest border, didn’t run over any mines. There’s also no indication their murder had anything to do with contraband. ISIS claims they did it, the Tajik government thinks its someone else.
DSS, I think the attitude of the individual was naive but I am not saying he did something wrong. I only added that warning to round things out and add some depth into whatever warnings we are reading.
People shouldn’t be so naive, but there is no problem with risk-taking. I remember the Cocoanut Grove killings in Miami years ago. Cocoanut Grove was a hot spot but walk 2 blocks in the wrong direction from its center and one could be killed. That happened to tourists many years ago.
I’ve traveled a lot and took some risks. Knowing a certain area was dangerous our group was accompanied by 4 trained men carrying machine guns and we weren’t in the middle of nowhere or far from total civility which was almost around ‘the corner’. I once traveled to a place where the travel warnings came out while I was there. I think one or a couple of Americans died but I enjoyed myself and made it out alive. I always carried a sizeable amount of money to quickly solve problems before they escalated. I only had to use that once.
The country of Tajikistan has been fighting Islamic extremism and ISIS for years.
It hasn’t. There is nothing in the CIA World Factbook on ISIS in Tajikistan and the news reports indicate that this is the first ISIS operation logged in Tajikistan. (NB, the Tajik government is blaming someone else).
@squeeky
You are right, America is doomed and I want a divorce.
Very sad.
I have a nephew with a similar “all you need is love” view of reality.
A favorite movie, a comedy, from 1968 (“How Sweet It Is”), has one of my favorite parent-child verbal exchanges: The college-aged son exclaimed to his father, a professional photo-journalist, that he, the son, was going to quit college and travel the world to find peace and love! The dad, without missing a beat, dryly responds: “I’ve BEEN around the world. Take a gun.”
I’m still chuckling.
mespo….James Garner played the father…..No one can deliver a line like that better than he,,,IMO!
Couldn’t agree more, Cindy. Luck favors the prepared.
“the world is a big, scary place. People, the narrative goes, are not to be trusted. People are bad. People are evil. People are axe murderers and monsters and worse.”
Not everyone by any means. Most people are decent, kind and to be trusted. But being aware that evil people exist when you are in places where they exist is how you survive.
I’ve been in these places, and I would never dream of doing what they did, that led to their deaths.
They were in Tajikistan, not Brazil. They might have been a target because they were occidental foreigners. In the last 10 years in that country, murder hasn’t been any more frequent than it is in a typical American suburb.
Wally, the last State Department travel advisory for Tajikistan prior to this crime was issued on 3 February 2017. This is what it said:
* Avoid large crowds and public transportation to the extent possible.
* Do not draw unnecessary attention to yourself.
* Maintain awareness of your surroundings and situation.
And a women in pants bicycling is not drawing unecessary attention? They had no clue what a potential Taliban area is like.
It’s a post-Soviet republic, lunkhead. Women have been wearing pants for about 90 years.
These people got what they deserved – just as England and France did, during World War II.
How can anyone reach adulthood, and think of the world as a grand place, and its inhabitants as fine and decent – just waiting to be loved? This is a superb example of delusional thinking – of a flight from reality.
Carl:
I wouldn’t say “deserved,” since we don’t exonerate their killers as agents of natural justice. Let’s just say naïveté and youthful idealism don’t interact well with 12th Century barbarism. It’s our fault as a society for letting kids think this way aided mightily in that folly by their parents.
Mespo, they were in Tajikistan, once a component of the Soviet Union and run by the same sort of bosses which run most of the other post-Soviet states. The current autocrat has been in office for 26 years and came out of the old nomenklatura (specifically the collective farm apparat). The country had a wretched civil war during the immediate post-Soviet years, but that’s been over for more than 20 years. Per the UN office which collates this data, the homicide rate in Tajikistan has bounced around 1.9 per 100,000 the last 10 years. That would be approximately normal in Eastern Europe. Russia’s homicide rate has bounced around 13 per 100,000 in that time period. America’s has been about 5 per 100,000. Currently, they have the lowest homicide rate of any of the Central Asian republics.
Mespo,
“It’s our fault as a society for letting kids think this way aided mightily in that folly by their parents.”
They lived a too sheltered life. It seems they got through school without having to think too deeply about the gulags or the Holocaust.
Badness is not rare. People can be quite kind on the surface, in public, yet steal paperclips or envelopes from their employer or smack their wife around out of view of others.
“But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?” Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
They may have been overly sheltered or much that went on around them did not register. That’s not what got them killed. They were killed because they crossed paths with a car full of gruesome characters. It doesn’t matter how wise you fancy you are or how savvy you fancy you are. Random chance can bite your ass.
“Random chance can bite your a**.”
Agreed. However, his writing about evil is incredibly naive, and it is to that that I responded.
He may be naive. That played very little role in his death. I grew up in an ordinary part of America. Outside the city slums and points adjacent, the homicide rate averages about 2.4 per 100,000. That is to say, it’s less safe than Tajikistan. Someone gets killed while undertaking a banal recreational activity, people don’t typically say ‘he was incredibly naive’.
TSS,
“He may be naive. That played very little role in his death.”
Agreed.
“Someone gets killed while undertaking a banal recreational activity”
He did not get killed because a car accidentally hit him, which happens to a fair number of cyclists. He got killed by unexpected malevolence, which is only ironic in light of his perspective on evil, that evil is a made-up idea. His naivete about evil is not causal in his death, only sad and ironic.
I said nothing about their deaths, yet you continue to bring it up. Plenty of people could have that same incredibly naive perspective yet die peacefully and non-ironically in their sleep at 97 after having lived a life personally untarnished by any kind of malevolence.
It ain’t called the Heart of Darkness for nothing. Good thoughts as always PR!
Thank you, Mespo!
Mespo,
““It’s our fault as a society for letting kids think this way aided mightily in that folly by their parents.”
In addition to reading One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, The Gulag Archipelago, Night, or The Hiding Place (or Jordan Peterson’s lecture on Cain and Abel, for that matter), what do you think, we, as a society should be doing to prevent such naivete?
PR:
I think you have to get kids out of their bubble. I’d suggest supervised charitable/public service work in inner cities, Appalachia etc. Kids need to see two things: that Bad people exist in small numbers and that they wreak havoc on poorer communities who can’t fight back. They pick up on that fast when they talk to the residents.They need discussion about root causes like poverty, illegitimacy, ideology and just plain meanness. They need to know how to defend themselves mentally and physicaly and only then are they equipped to deal with good and bad in the world. Caution is not a bad thing but it’s portrayed that way.
Mespo,
Getting kids out of their bubble sounds like a good start. However, many of the school shootings or attacks have occurred in what I perceive to be fairly well-heeled districts. Poverty and illegitimacy are not so much at play there to produce malevolence and nihilism. The discussion of root causes of ideologies and just plain meanness (and what gives meaning so as to prevent nihilism) would hopefully prick kids’ consciences more in the well-heeled districts.
Evil wreaks havoc on those who cannot or do not defend themselves. How to get people to step past the perception (and balancing act) of “it’s not my problem”?
Girding kids mentally to confront evil is complicated. What to say, what to do..what to notice.
Socrates asked what makes a good person. Perhaps kids aren’t so sure what that means anymore than they see what would imbue life with good meaning.
” However, many of the school shootings or attacks have occurred in what I perceive to be fairly well-heeled districts. ”
Parkland, Stoneman Douglas, is such a well-heeled district where relatively intelligent and affluent people live. I believe the underlying structure and temperament of our society has permitted a lot of these bad things to occur. I found out how much worse things were when I listened to Andrew Pollock whose daughter was shot 9 times and killed even though I had read many reports on the massacre. He blames a lot more people and actions than we might have thought from just reading the newspaper reports. Then, I hear of 12 fatal shootings in Chicago over one weekend and 72,000 drug deaths last year yet we focus on drivel and do nothing about those things that are destroying the fabric of the nation.
.
The well-heeled crowd is deathly afraid of calling a freak a freak so they tolerate them. This emboldens them and their anti-social proclivities. In every school, they know exactly who the weirdos are. They just can’t say so ’cause its so very un-PC.
Mespo,
“The well-heeled crowd is deathly afraid of calling a freak a freak so they tolerate them. This emboldens them and their anti-social proclivities. ”
This still does not quite get to the heart of the problem–the cause of the isolation, alienation, resentment, and nihilism of the perpetrators. Many were on or had recently come off antidepressants or other mind-altering prescribed drugs (why prompted that need?–more people are on such things now than ever). Some were from broken homes.
Labeling someone won’t stop them from going to the dark places where they want to exact revenge against the existence of as many people around them as possible.
Does this turn into pre-crime and Minority Report? I hope not! What can be done to quell such malevolence?
“What prompted”
Blast typos!
The Left’s ideology is pure nihilism.
The Stoneman-Douglas school shooting and those dead children are a result of such toleration. In fact, all those children killed are an extension of that toleration into Obama’s Promise program that almost directly led to the deaths of all those children.
When you substitute reason for sentimentality you get irrational – and deadly – results.
And what makes a good person now is the same thing that made one in ancient Athens: placing your own interests below your fellow man’s when the circumstances call for it. Really pretty simple — and rare.
These people got what they deserved –
No, they ddn’t, and no one who wasn’t a moral idiot would suggest they did. The most obtrusive thing that differentiates them from you is that they’ll be missed by someone.
ISIS has to prove they are important so killing unarmed Americans proves they still exist as a powerful entity.
Since the Garden of Eden naïveté is a lethal flaw.
Two of the four people they killed were not Americans.
I hope he and his companions have gone to that good place he thought was out there because here evil is a very real concept and can fool you in thinking it’s good.
PS: This might be a lesson to our young who think socialism is a good concept. Watch what you ask for, you never know how good you have it until you lose it.
Are any of you capable of reading the papers without riding some stupid hobby horse? They weren’t killed by ‘socialism’ and they weren’t killed by being naive. They had a random encounter with some very ugly people. Such people are not all that common in Tajikistan, which has about 170 homicides a year (the vast majority common crimes without a political dimension).
I’d no more go bike riding in Tajikistan than I would Cabrini Green in the 70s or West Garfield Park now.
That’s your personal preference. On the South Side of Chicago, there’s a complex of neighborhoods with a population of about 650,000. On the West Side, there’s another complex of neighborhoods with a population of about 350,000. The homicide rate in these neighborhoods is around 47 per 100,000. That in Tajikistan is around 1.9 per 100,000. That’s a 25:1 differential. The risk calculus is different.
It is indeed. Personal preference about time, location and risk/reward is what got me through about six decades with only a scrape or two. It got these two dreamers killed.
Eating dinner can get you killed. Crossing the street can get you killed. You still do it, because you have business to attend to and eating dinner and crossing the street aren’t inherently dangerous activities. Neither is shlepping about Tajikistan. It was in 1995, but that was then and this is now. Again, look at the travel advisory in effect from February 2017 to July 2018. Nothing about violent crime because that’s not the problem in that country.
If you don’t care to travel or ride a bicycle, that’s fine. Neither do I. It’s pig-headed to yap as if people are taking their life in their hands doing these things. This couple was not.
You go to a foreign country where you don’t know the hot spots you are taking risk. Hell you do that in NY or Chicago, it’s the same. Staisfistics about safety don’t do much good when uttered at your funeral.
You go to a foreign country where you don’t know the hot spots you are taking risk.
Again, there were no travel advisories about ‘hot spots’, likely because there have been no hot spots for 20+ years. How many ‘hot spots’ do you find at a suburban mall? Tajikistan isn’t any more dangerous than that in aggregate. .
Staisfistics about safety don’t do much good
That’s how you assess risk. Doesn’t compute for lawyers, I know.
I assess risk in a macro and then a micro way if I have to go there. For example, I have no problem attending some of Richmond’s poorer crime-ridden areas but I do on my own terms. The fact that I know many of the families there helps but it’s not foolproof. Tajikistan is too big a macro risk for me given my lack of familiarity and the large Muslim population not partial to Westerners.
yeah i think like you. and i rode my bike south of Hyde Park on the Lakeshore trail more than once. Just past the Museum of Science and Industry, things changed fast. I thought I had gone up the Zambezi. There was an element of thrill seeking in it, but at some point I turned around and hauled ass back north.
Good move.
Ah, a political “scholar” I take it. Kindly–sir–elaborate on the connection between a random murder in some faraway land, and the socioeconomic-political theory of “socialism.” But hold on a sec, so I can get materials together so that I can take notes, I’m sure your but a fount of information.
this is to “I used to just spout random sh*t on reddit, but now I feel smarty-pants posting it here” zambini
Mark you forgot to ad “basket of deplorable”, racist, bigot and of course You are just so much smarter. But in fact your an f’in left wing weenie who is still lamenting over an election you lost. You see you stupid piss Clam I know what socialism is first hand, Dk wad.
GZ, this is the rare thread where others are making so many stupid statements that Marky Marky Mark has been completely upstaged.
I will, of course, allow you to wear your own jacket, if it suits you. I do wonder however, how I made it so long on this mortal plane without being introduced to a “piss Clam.” Do tell.
this is to “ya, just throwin up a word salad is sometimes easier than getting tired head from hard thinkin” zambini
Here get your head out of the sand, your obviously not American: Soft-shell clams or sand gaper, scientific name Mya arenaria, popularly called “steamers”, “softshells”, “longnecks”, “piss clams”, “Ipswich clams”, or “Essex clams” are a species of edible saltwater. Marky
They should have told the jihadis that they were good, progressive liberals. Would have stopped them in their tracks immediately.
The fate of the boy who cried “No Wolf!”
mespo…….that’s good.
Oh pity they had not read what was posted on Muslim sites following the killings in Paris the evening and night of the siege on the Bataclan, openly firing on, if I recall correctly, 9 cafes in the 11 Arond. Those sites posted in glee at taking down the great prostitute of the West
Well now they’ve met it, full frontal evil.