Intro to behavior modification: If you want to see an increase in a specific behavior, reward that behavior. If you wish to see a decrease in a specific behavior, punish it.

Ivan Pavlov proved this beyond a shadow of a doubt with his experiments in conditioning. Most everyone remembers Pavlov I’m sure. He hooked up a dog to a harness, rang a bell and gave the dog meat powder to induce salivation. In time, the pairing of the bell and meat powder conditioned the dog to salivate and finaly when only the bell was rung, the dog salivated.

A number of years ago, this conditioning was hammered home when I made a trip to the local grocery store. A harried mom with a todler in the basket seat walked down the candy aisle. Suddenly, the kid’s eyes lit on the bag of candies, his face screwed up and without another word, mom reached for the bag of candy, placed it in the basket and the kiddo was all smiles. Wonder how long it took the kid to condition mom?

All this comes to mind following a recent entry by Dr. Helen Smith in her Dr. Helen blog in which she states:

You would think that governments as well as people in general would understand that appeasing and rewarding negative behavior doesn’t work. It’s basic psychology 101–but one that not even most psychology professors understand or put to use. And apparently, this concept is foreign to many of the politically correct persuasion outside the classroom as well–for them, their feeling of moral “superiority” trumps human nature and causes liberals to turn a blind eye to justice and acts of violence.”

“In Bruce Bawer’s new book, While Europe Slept: How Radical Islam is Destroying the West from Within,the side effects of the appeasement of Muslims by the Danish government are clear–as their government pumps more and more welfare money into the pockets of disgruntled Muslims, the rate of violence against “infidels” there increases.”

One would think that this lesson would have been learned long ago, if not by the efforts of Neville Chamberlain than at least from the effects of non-response to the multiple attacks by the Islamofascists of Bin Laden and company. Time and time again the western response to Islamofascist terrorism has been placating the “Arab Street” which has, in turn, shown it’s absolute disdain for western culture by raising the stakes again and again.

This is becoming a sickening ritual. According to Publius Pundit:

The municipal government in Volgograd has decided to close down a local newspaper for printing a cartoon showing Jesus, Buddha, Mohammed, and Moses watching a crowd of clashing people while saying, “We never taught them to do that…” The mayor of the city is quoted as saying that the paper was shut down in order to prevent inter-religious strife; meanwhile, the prosecutor-general is looking to file charges.” [emphasis added]

For the life of me, I cannot understand why the west is allowing the threat of mob rule to dictate what the west can and cannot do. Islamofascists have no power other than the threat of violence. Using that threat they have bullied the West into believing that any hint of disrespect to any muslim will result in immediate and violent protest; and the West has bought into the threat.

The answer? Stand up to the Islamofascists and slap them down HARD every time. Jail them, deport them, treat them with the same disdain that they have treated us; our constitutional protections do not extend to those who use violence or threaten to use violence as a means of intimidation. As Dr. Helen notes:

Too bad European countries haven’t learned this lesson–appeasement of violence doesn’t work.”

UPDATE: Nicholas Stix writing at The Intellectual Conservative has some thoughts on reversing the Muslim threat.

XPosted at GM’s Corner

Said GM @ 6:11 pm | Permalink   

1. You’re asking alot from people that are unable to see the consequences of their own actions. When peace in the present is all that matters, rewarding bad behavior makes sense. For my take on this, go here.

   Comment by Glen — 2/26/2006 @ 6:21 pm

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2. Those that use violence jail them or deport them. This I can understand. Those that threaten violence, ok I understand that too so long as you are not talking about demonstrations. If they get too rowdy while demonstrating jail is a fine place for them and as long as they aren’t citizens go ahead and deport them. Of course in our country we would do this. They do the same in Europe. We, nor Europe, have taken to jaling or deporting folks based strictly on their religion but limit those actions to ones actually engaging in violence. So what do you mean by appeasement? What do you think is being appeased when jailing or deporting would be more appropriate aside from committing acts of violence?

   Comment by Carol — 2/26/2006 @ 6:57 pm

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3. Carol, the appeasement is all in the news. Read about the backing down of the MSM, read about the caterwauling of the EU heads of government, read about the Paris police saying it doesn’t appear to be anti-semitism in the murder of a jewish youth. Read about the act of war (burning the Danish Embassy) for which the Danes did nothing. This is appeasement and is no less so than Neville Chamberlains. Why do you think the islamofascists are continuing their war of attrition?

   Comment by GM — 2/26/2006 @ 7:16 pm

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4. So what would you have them do? If they catch the ones involved in the burning of the embassy they will be jailed. If the French catch the murderer of the Paris man he or they will be jailed and if not citizens likely deported. So seriously other than talking tough what would you have them do?

   You think MSM backed down? What over the cartoons? The Danes didn’t just publish those cartoons they solicited them. Yep that sounds like backing down. Then several months later France and Germany had to jump on the bandwagon and republish them-more backing down. Then with rioting going on in scores of countries even more newspapers in Australia, Russia etc printed samples of the cartoons. Oh lets see in Russia one newspaper was closed. Wow. Who would have expected that in Russia. Are you saying the papers and the heads of governments should all be talking tough talk? That only works if you are going to back it up with tough actions. The problem is most western countries have laws that limit the actions you can take to legal actions. Are you advocating a double standard perhaps whereby we have one set of laws for non-muslims and a different more stringent set for muslims? If not I don’t see what actions can be taken that doesn’t measure up to appeasement in your book.

   Comment by Carol — 2/26/2006 @ 7:37 pm

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