For your consideration, Scott Adams's perspective on recent events:

(From the Dilbert Newsletter, issue 48.0)

Dumb Rich People 
----------------
I recently read an article by an economist who said that poverty 
causes people to become terrorists. He used big words and was very 
convincing.

Then I watched TV coverage of a high school hazing ritual in an 
upscale suburban neighborhood. Dozens of well-to-do Induhviduals 
paid for the privilege of sitting in a field and having mud, paint, 
garbage, eggs, pig guts, and excrement shoved up their nostrils 
while being beaten with blunt objects.

I'm not an economist, but my theory is that you can convince a 
certain percentage of Induhviduals to do any dangerous thing, 
whether they happen to be poor or not. So let's stop picking on 
poor people. If peer pressure can convince 20% of rich kids to 
start smoking cigarettes -- and it does -- it isn't much of a leap 
to convince them to grow scraggly beards and drive exploding cars. 
It's mostly a difference in timing.

Osama inherited half a billion dollars. So I rule out poverty as a 
cause of terror. I blame rich Induhviduals, and peer pressure.
Peer pressure is the most powerful force on the planet, and we need 
to use it to our advantage. For example, I recommend that the 
Western media and politicians stop using the menacing-yet-cool 
phrase "Al-Qaeda" and start referring to the group as the 
"frickin' Induhviduals."

Like the proverbial dog chasing a car, the Induhviduals haven't 
considered what would happen if they caught one. For example, 
let's say they (the Induhviduals, not the dogs) accomplish their 
stated goal of destroying the economies of the Western world. Is 
that really a good plan for people who live in a desert and import 
most of their food?

Just for the record, if I'm down to my last potato, I'm not sharing 
it with a guy who wants to kill me so he can get a better supply 
of virgins in paradise. That lesson is a little thing I call 
Economics 101, infidel style.

For the Induhviduals, it must look as if Americans are really dumb 
to have the most awesome arsenal in the history of the world and 
still be unable to stop terror attacks. They don't realize that the 
way Americans look at it is that, so far, we're "really mad," but 
not yet "REALLY, REALLY mad." Oh, there's a difference. Americans 
understand that somewhere between "inconvenient air travel" and 
"complete breakdown of Western civilization," the "REALLY, REALLY 
mad" part kicks in. I won't give away what happens then, but 
remember you first heard the phrase "New Iowa" in the Dilbert 
Newsletter.

And let's stop calling the terrorist supporters "fundamentalists," 
because that sounds like it could be a good thing. I recommend a 
more descriptive label, such as "slow learners," to keep things in 
perspective. Then let's airdrop science and economics textbooks on 
their terrorist training camps with condescending notes, such as, 
"Maybe this will help. Call us if you have questions."

This would be a small step, in the sense that reading books about 
economics is only slightly better than suicide. But you have to 
start somewhere.

That's my plan. If you have a better one, be sure to include it in 
your next newsletter.

Veloci--that's another way of looking at it--raptor
(Member: DNRC; Minister Plenipotentiary of Punmanship)


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