Terror & Intimidation - Parallels with the “Stockholm Syndrome"

The Stockholm Syndrome: This can explain a lot of odd and counterproductive behavior created by the terror and intimidation of Islam in many parts of the world. From afar we might wonder why people don't respond more forcibly to the aggression of Islamic terrorism. We often wonder about Israel's reaction. Of all countries, we would expect Israel to react with firm and incessant resolve whenever they are threatened or attacked by the Islamic world around them. After all, six million Jews were slaughtered only 60 years ago. Several neighboring nations vow to wipe Israel off the map. Many of Israel's leaders are aware of Islam's hatred of Jews and their vow to eradicate them. Yet Israel is plagued by many of her leaders who are conciliatory, appeasing liberals, rather than the firm and resolute conservatives we would intuitively expect given the facts. Can the Stockholm Syndrome be an explanation for this?

Israel is surrounded in a manner suggestive of "captors". Israel is "Patty Hurst." The surrounding Islamic nations are "The Symbianese Liberation Army," analogically speaking. Being in the position they are in, Israel, viscerally, feels helpless and beholden. They truly are of split mind, on one hand feeling a desperate need to defend themselves, but on the other hand grateful for every reprieve from warfare or perception of annihilation they can get. So grateful that many grasp at irrational straws of conciliation and illusions of peace from illusionary treaties. The captives grow more beholden as the captive become more emboldened. The book, “The Oslo Syndrome” written in 2005 documents this very relationship.

The same principles of human behavior are at work in Western European countries whose populations near Islamic majorities. As the Muslim numbers increase, so does Muslim intolerance and intimidation. With both their dwindling percentages and the Muslim intimidation, the "natives" in those western nations reach a point where rather than face the perceived inevitable end to their culture, they reach out in a desperate, perverted "friendship" with those who are quickly overtaking their centuries old culture, religion, and political system. This, too, is where the Stockholm Syndrome is playing out.

Even in the United States, it would be no surprise to learn that some of our leaders who "buddy up" and defend Islamic leaders are doing so out of fear of what they see as "the inevitable." They see the coming Islamic wave being so over powering and so certain that they feel it is better to befriend than declare hostilities. They feel it is better or easier to compromise their own values and culture to accommodate a diametrically opposed ideology than it is to challenge it. So they accommodate it.

So while some of our accommodation of the hostile supremacist Islamic ideology is due to our ignorance of its nature, some is also due to fear. The Stockholm Syndrome provides an easier way out rather than facing up to the challenge.

The other component of our failure to face the Islamic challenge, one that is not even on the radar for many of us, is this: We don't feel our values, our religion (if any), our culture and form of government are worth defending. The fact is, the decline of a dynamic Christian faith in this nation and much of the west has left a vacuum. Nature abhors it – Islam is filling it.

We have become so critical of ourselves, who we are, where we came from, how we got here, that anything else - anything else - appears that it might be better.

That is why we were willing to embrace "hope and change" without even caring what the "change" would lead us to. We are so desperate for something different that our attitude when facing the challenge of a completely foreign and contrary ideology might as well be - "Whatever." We care that much.

LiveJournal Tags: Stockholm syndrome,terror,terrorism,threats and intimidation,Israel,Islam and intimidation

The Stockholm Syndrome and Trickle Down Theory

As a conservative, a blasphemous thought has encroached into my mind concening the benefits of the "trickle down" theory we often hear about during discussions of how to stimulate the economy. I wonder whether most of us might be subject to the Stockholm Syndrome in this regard.

The conservative's solution to economic woes is usually centered around "the trickle down" theory. The opposite solution embraced by most liberals and many moderates is "tax the rich and tax big business" because they can afford it.

In an article entitled "Trickle-Down Ignorance" by Thomas Sowell (April 2, 2005) he states:

"What is often confused with a trickle-down theory is supply-side economics, such as that advocated by Arthur Laffer. That theory is that tax cuts can generate more tax revenue for the government because it changes people's behavior, causing more economic activity to take place, leading to more taxable income, as well as a faster growing economy.

Sowell continues: "Whether it will happen in a given set of circumstances is what is controversial, but none of this has anything to do with money trickling down from the rich to the poor. It has to do with the creation of more wealth in the economy as a whole."

The question I am plagued with: Does "the creation of more wealth in the economy as a whole" necessarily mean that the middle and lower classes benefit? Or do we just hope we will benefit? Does this merely result in the rich just getting richer and the middle and poor getting poorer?

Turning to the "Stockholm syndrome" for a moment, as Wikipedia defines it, the

"Stockholm syndrome is a psychological response sometimes seen in an abducted hostage, in which the hostage shows signs of loyalty to the hostage-taker, regardless of the danger (or at least risk) in which they have been placed. The syndrome is named after the Norrmalmstorg robbery of Kreditbanken at Norrmalmstorg, Stockholm, Sweden, in which the bank robbers held bank employees hostage from August 23 to August 28 in 1973. In this case, the victims became emotionally attached to their victimizers, and even defended their captors after they were freed from their six-day ordeal."

The Stockholm Syndrome is "Loyalty to a more powerful abuser — in spite of the danger that this loyalty puts the victim in — is common among victims of domestic abuse, battered partners and child abuse (dependent children). In many instances the victims choose to remain loyal to their abuser, and choose not to leave him or her, even when they are offered a safe placement in foster homes or safe houses. This mental phenomenon is also known as Trauma-Bonding or Bonding-to-the-Perpetrator."

I wonder if the poor and middle classes who support the idea of the "trickle down theory" are subject to the Stockholm Syndrome?" Out of years of conditioning, are we being loyal to a more powerful abuser - in spite of the disadvantages we might reap from buying into the alleged benefits of trickle down theory espoused by the wealthy and big business (the "abuser")?

Before we buy into the alleged benefits of the trickle down theory with its' tax cuts for the wealthy and big business, let's understand whether or not there are any real economic benefits for the rest of us. Let's dare to step out of the shadow of the abuser and look at objective evidence. As Sowell wrote, all too often we take one side of an issue for granted and blindly accept it as fact without bothering to understand the other side.

It is way too easy for us to feel excessively dependent on the wealthy to make our economy work as the easy way to continue feeling comfortable and taken care of.

Let's not be intimidated by those who might be abusers who use us to further their quest for tax-free and often obscenely excessive wealth.