How To Negotiate With Terrorists

This brief blog entry takes you through a series of negotiations over time between peacemakers and terrorists:

A peacemaker walks up to the left side of a line. A terrorist walks up to the right side of the line. The peacemaker introduces himself. The terrorist kills him.

A peacemaker walks up to the left side of the line. A terrorist walks up to the right side of the line. The peacemaker asks, "why did you kill my friend?" The terrorist kills him and rapes his wife.

A peacemaker walks up to the left side of the line. A terrorist walks up to the right side of the line. The peacemaker says, "Stop that!" The terrorist kills him, rapes his daughter and kills his wife.

A peacemaker walks up to the left side of the line. A terrorist walks up to the right side of the line. The peacemaker says, "I'll pay you $1000 if you stop attacking us." The terrorist agrees to the deal, takes the $1000, and kills him.

A peacemaker walks up to the left side of the line. A terrorist walks up to the right side of the line. The peacemaker appeals to the United Nations. The United Nations says the peacemaker is at fault. The terrorist kills him.

A peacemaker walks up to the left side of the line. A terrorist walks up to the right side of the line. The peacemaker now has a gun, and threatens to use it. Other peacemakers start chanting the old 60's whine, "Can't we all just get along?" The peacemaker hesitates. The terrorist kills him.

A peacemaker walks up to the left side of the line. A terrorist walks up to the right side of the line. The peacemaker tries to convince his peacemaker friends that the terrorists aren't going to respond to negotiations, but they insist that if he kills the terrorist it'll just make the other terrorists mad. The peacemaker reluctantly agrees to try negotiating again. The terrorist kills him., his entire family, and his neighbor's family.

A heated debate now ensues between the peacemakers who want to be nice to the terrorists and the peacemakers who believe that there can never be peace until the terrorists are all dead. While they are debating, the terrorists kill 15 more peacemakers.

A peacemaker walks up to the left side of the line. A terrorist walks up to the right side of the line. The peacemaker asks himself, "Which is more important: being liked by everyone, or protecting my family?" The terrorist pulls a knife to kill the peacemaker, but the peacemaker pulls a gun and kills the terrorist first. The United Nations condemns the peacemaker's use of unproportional force. Many of his peacemaker friends turn against him.

A peacemaker walks up to the left side of the line. A terrorist walks up to the right side of the line. The peacemaker apologizes for what his friend did to the other terrorist. The terrorist kills him, his entire family and his neighbors, and threatens to destroy the city as soon as they develop a bigger weapon.

A peacemaker refuses to meet at the line because every time a peacemaker goes to the line the terrorist kills him. A terrorist walks up to the right side of the line and fires rockets into the peacemaker's town. The United Nations condemns the way the peacemaker provoked the terrorist by refusing to come to the line and meet with him.

Generations pass and not much changes until one day when the son of a peacemaker decides that the old strategy simply won't work. He walks up to the left side of the line a little early. As the terrorist approaches the right side of the line the peacemaker shoots him. Another terrorist approaches to replace the first, and the peacemaker shoots him too. This scene plays out several more times. Then a terrorist approaches carrying a white flag, but he also has weapons. The peacemaker shoots him. A terrorist next approaches with a ceasefire resolution from the U.N. The peacemaker shoots him also. A large group of terrorists approach and the peacemaker shoots them all and drops a nuclear bomb on the city they came from. The peacemaker continues killing the terrorists until the terrorists are all dead.

There is finally peace on earth and the United Nations takes the credit.

(No peacemakers or terrorists were harmed during the writing of this blog.)

Brainstorming (BS) Guidelines

When brainstorming I try to adhere to several firm guidelines:

1. Most importantly... No self-censoring of ideas. All ideas are considered. I may think that an idea is a bad idea, but that bad idea might lead to other ideas that eventually lead to a good idea that could have otherwise been missed.

2. If you ask the wrong question you're likely to get a wrong answer. It's ok to alter the question.

3. We should never accept conventional wisdom without first examining it from all angles. Even if the entire world believes something - and especially if it appears to be obviously true - we should not blindly assume it to be true or correct.

4. Update conclusions to take into account changing circumstances and/or new information.

5. Two heads are better than one. Three are better yet. If you have an idea - even a bad idea (see #1) - I invite you to share it with me, but only once. Sharing the same idea over and over is not helpful.

6. I will usually ignore dogmatic comments from those who disagree with my analysis, except to the extent that they provide new information or insights. I may respond collectively to blocks of similar comments if I think there's a valid reason to do so.

7. More guidelines will be added as needed.

Nothing Profound

Some people go to a blogger's first post hoping to catch a glimpse into what the blogger really thinks. Sorry, but you won't find such a summary here. In fact, you're not likely to find anything profound or overly revealing in this post.

What I will tell you is that HH Blowhard is a general topic blog that can go scatter style in any direction. I might talk about war in the Mideast, or I might recall something I thought of in the shower this morning. I like coffee. Get the idea?

I'll try to use meaningful titles to help guide you away from the posts you're not interested in, and I'll hope to occasionally see some of you on the other side of the wall.