Vonnegut is so DEEP

My grandmother was never this nutty when she was 83. She was a funny but tough old broad, and she would have thought Vonnegut to be a complete nut for saying some of the statements he's reported to have made.

...Vonnegut said it was "sweet and honourable" to die for what you believe in, and rejected the idea that terrorists were motivated by twisted religious beliefs.

"They are dying for their own self-respect," he said. "It's a terrible thing to deprive someone of their self-respect. It's like your culture is nothing, your race is nothing, you're nothing."

You have to read the article... then you have to read Lileks's Screedblog for today. ;)

One suspects that Mr. V would hesitate to extend the same respect to American volunteers; one suspects he would believe they were motivated by twisted beliefs, religious or otherwise. The very fact that they had volunteered to be cogs in the war machine would be suspect. To borrow from another WW2 movie: everyone in the military ought to be freed on the grounds of insanity, as only an insane man would willingly agree to serve.

At one point, Vonnegut suggests that suicide bombers must feel an "amazing high" before blowing themselves up. Lileks brings some desperately needed sense to Vonnegut's quoted comments.

Mr. Vonnegut – again, a patriot whose dissent is being cruelly ground into the nurturing earth before your eyes – seems to think that suicide bombings literally happen in a vacuum, an unpopulated space where the bombers just pop like soap bubbles. It may be painless for them – alas – but it is not painless for the victims. You’d think such an obvious observation would go without saying, but we are dealing with an intellectual.

God help those of the anti-war, peace-activist, Bush-hater brigade who use the likes of Vonnegut to represent the movement. I can't imagine who would, but whoever they are (and however many they are) they are in dire need of some air.