:doh: Iraq will not "revert" to Taliban rule! Iraq was never under Taliban rule to begin with! Iraq didn't even have any problems with muslim extremists until the 2003 invasion. READ something! Especially your own posts, preferably before your post them.
Of course not. What would have been "more acceptable" is if your government didn't invade Iraq at all: there were NO WMDs, NO links to al-Qaeda or Osama and, until the US invasion, NO muslim extremist problems in Iraq. Granted, everyone was kept under Saddam's boot. But on that note (in case "freedom" or "liberty" or "apple pie" were the next support-the-invasion cards), a tyrant in power is no legal or legitimate reason to invade and occupy a country; otherwise North Korea, Zimbabwe and Saudi Arabia (among others) would be next on the US "to liberate" list. But, of course, they're not and they won't be. Zimbabwe isn't strategically important enough to "liberate" (yet), the Saudis have a pocket full of Bushes and their hand on the oil spigot and North Korea has one million fully indoctrinated soliders ready to defend it and a formidable military built on the backs of its starving population.
They DID look and they DID find muslim extremists responsible. What's more, the investigation continues as we speak. Google it yourself. This, the latest news on the case, found by me on Google News is from today, five hours ago: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7359426.stm
Investigations often take time - it's not really the done thing in most parts of the world to point a finger and invade a country because it's full of people who look like they might be guilty. Seriously, I mean it: read something and do some research, especially before you state your opinions as fact. It's very, very easy to avoid looking completely ignorant if you just use a combination of your brain and the internet. Just because the slack-jawed Birtney-obsessed US media may tell you nothing about the rest of the world, it's no reason to assume that nothing is happening.
Yeah, poor you, how dare anyone jump down your throat at the merest hint of a ridiculously flawed & paranoid analogy?
Stick with me Sam. Trust me, I'm gradually working toward a point here, in my own roundabout way ...
An utterly fatuous question, but I'll answer it anyway: most sane, rational governments (hopefully, mine included) would conduct a competent investigation to find out who was responsible and punish them - not simply point the bone at a conveniently unarmed & suspiciously resource-rich country or two and bomb the shit out of them for five years, enriching their friends and killing a million goddam civilians.
Oh sweet lord, the arrogance!
Yeah Mike, you're quite right. The USA is the only country in the world who thinks islamic extremism and jihadis are dangerous, while everyone else in the world (including Spain, which has plenty of spare trains so they're fine, and the UK which has no experience with terrorism on home soil at all, unless you count, well, those mangled trains and decades of IRA attacks) is kicking back sipping espresso coffees with foam on top and laughing at those ridiculous neocon idiots running your country into the ground, causing damage that'll take decades to fix, both in the US and anywhere & everywhere else the US decides to "liberate".
Or, maybe, perhaps the rest of the world is (a) attempting to seek out terrorists using whatever law enforcement & intelligence methods they have and (b) trying to avoid creating even more jihadis by not invading their countries under false pretenses, not
standing idly by while Israel does whatever it wants, not cosying up to brutal religious tyrants like the Saudis and not locking people up without charges or legal assistance in detention camps and secret prisons all over the world and ****ing torturing them.
Just because the rest of the world isn't spending themselves into an economic coma making their foreign policy look like a Michael Bay film and constantly crowing about it from the rooftops, it doesn't mean we're sitting around staring vacantly and wondering what the hell to do next. Get over yourself, get over your Team America: World Police fantasy & go read something.
Last edited by Hankstar, .
Of course I meant the jihadists wish to "destroy all they think the West stands for". Continue being with me Samwise, I shall be more explicit in the future.
As for fundamentalism, however, I think that's the very definition of intolerance. Intolerance of dissent, intolerant of criticism - just because some fundamentalists aren't violent extremists (thin line indeed), it doesn't mean they're accepting or tolerant of anything even slightly contrary to or questioning of their beliefs.
Fundamentalism of any flavour states "the scripture says (x) and no deviation from (x) will be tolerated". Extremists (who, by necessity, must be fundamentalists to begin with) simpy back that up with action. While a fundy may attempt to impose their narrow views on others or keep their own on the "right path" of strict scriptural adherence, the extremist will seek to punish those who don't tow the line or bow down. Often, as I said, the line between fundy and fundy extremist is very thin.
Much like those sacred books which state they are the truth; and because they are sacred books which state the truth they must be true - after all, they're sacred books! Ah, circular reasoning. Tasty!
The draft-dodgers in the White House don't seem to have learned a thing from Vietnam ...
Hitler rode a wave of acute national humiliation which followed Germany's capitulation at the end of WWI. He turned that anger and shame towards extreme nationalism and fuelled it with deeply-rooted anti-semitism which had its roots in the hateful 16th century writings of Martin Luther. Certainly, Hitler was appeased by Western European leaders - they were all doing business with him until September 1939, oblivious or apathetic toward his treatment of Jews and other minorities (so was the US until early 1941, one Prescott Bush doing very well) and making out handsomely.
The point is, Hitler was in control of a revitalised, robust and industrialised country with considerable economic clout and reinvigorated & re-armed military - miraculous, considering the post-WWI hole Germany had to climb out of. The leaders of the world were happy to do business with him until Hitler took it way too far and attacked a peaceful nation under false pretenses.
That's the difference between Hitler's National Socialists and the various groups of jihadists around the world: the jihadists have nothing the rest of the world wants - the only card they can play is threatening anyone who speaks against them. Certainly, political correctness prevents robust dialogue with some parts of the Islamic world because of this (Danish cartoons, anyone?), but an actual invasion or "takeover" is very, vary far from possible. The Nazis were centralised, efficiently organised, well-funded and extremely well-armed with a rock-solid (if utterly repulsive) ideology driving them - they also had a nation united behind them. The jihadists are widespread, disorganised and have nothing but fear to play with. They have their own solid ideology but there are so many schisms and splits in Islam, even among the extremists, it's difficult to imagine them getting united enough to even come close to "taking over the world". It's right to be wary of these people and be on your guard, but comparing them to the Nazi war machine is a false analogy.
Another thing the Nazis did was to catch a lot of people off guard. Much of the world didn't learn about the true evil of the Third Reich until after the war. However, the world knows, right now, that there's a small percentage of the Islamic world which seeks to destroy "The West" and all it stands for.
OK, maybe you oughta sharpen up the sledgehammer so I don't get confused
Lots of people have discussed humans' propensity to believe in gods and how that belief arose. My personal view is that it's more an external, cultural/societal sort of pressure than a genetic on/off switch. When we're young we don't know what's good for us, so it's natural to defer to & trust authority figures when it comes to what to eat, what's safe & unsafe, what's the right way to behave and every other aspect of life. Small children are very eager to believe what adults tell them, and don't have strong enough reasoning capacities not to anyway. It's a matter of survival to trust your parents or elders. I think the readiness to believe in gods is related to that unquestioning trust in your elders - if your parents are the ultimate power in your world and then they reveal there's an even higher power watching over the whole universe, that's going to make a very heavy impression on a child's mind (it did on mine, but iirc it wasn't my folks who told me about it). From what I've seen, most religious or formerly religious people are or were that way from childhood - I'd be very interested to see how religious numbers would be affected if parents left religious choices up to their kids when they're old enough to think about such things themselves.As for prophets or messiahs, I'm not sure you need to find the switch for it in someone's DNA. Some people in this world are very charismatic & persuasive and have large numbers of followers and are even viewed as prophets, but it's not always a good thing - think David Koresh, Benny Hinn, head prophet of the FLDS (uber-Mormons), Reverend Jim Jones, Charles Manson. Prophets & con-men & great politicians all have the same sort of skills, it's just a question of which direction they point them in.
Hey, Sting's alright. I saw The Police earlier this year and that old bastard can still rock
Oy vay - the search for the Kwizats Haderach! You should read the very excellent "Dune" series by Frank Herbert - if you like your scifi with a big healthy dose of selective breeding for supreme beings. Sounds right up your alley
Seriously though, you're gonna be have to be a lot less vague about these "god" and "messiah" genes. What are god/messiah qualities anyway? How are we to recognise them? There have been some incredibly charismatic & intelligent people through history and some undoubtedly great leaders - were they gods, in full or on part? Or just born with amazing, but still human, minds?
"Messiah" translates to "anointed". You could liken it to "chosen" or "blessed" I suppose. How would you search someone's DNA to find if they've been "blessed" or "chosen"? Chosen by whom? For what? Do we need to be saved? Are we that screwed as a species that we can't possibly think ourselves out of it and need a freakin superman, an ubermensch, to save us from ... something? Sorry if I seem to be picking you to bits here, but your questions just beget more questions
@flymike - Frontpagemag? Sheesh. Have mercy. Distrusting the media is one thing (the BBC & most mainstream outlets certainly deserve a healthy mistrust), but if you think any magazine that plugs that freakish, vicious, bafflingly ignorant Ann Coulter (her memorable quote regarding muslims: "We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity" - google it), uses the laughable term "islamofascism" repeatedly on its front page and regards war with Iran as a done deal has any credibility, you really need to do some wider reading.
Think this is sto0pid, check his other posts. Entertaining reading
Not if you're Andrew Symonds. Dude's bulletproof and can hit further than Jesus
Prohibition outlawed alcohol (I assume that's the Prohibition you're talking about). Everyone loves alcohol and the reasoning behind banning alcohol was flawed at best, completely retarded at worst. It ushered in an unprecedented wave of organised crime activity that took years to undo. Thing is, booze isn't designed to kill people and there's absolutely no comparison to made between guns and alchohol.
There are a lot of reasons the world hears more about US gun crime than anywhere else. Higher population is one, of course, but the higher number of gun crimes per capita is another. The type of gun crime makes a difference too. All countries experience murders, robberies, and suicides but spree-shootings at schools and other public places barely happen at all elsewhere. People are naturally horrified by and interested in them - especially when it comes to the reasons a clearly disturbed person can get access to guns at all, let alone automatic handguns or assault weapons. FYI the last random spree shooting in Australia happened in 1996. Martin Bryant (who's still alive and in custody) packed Colt AR-15 and FN assault rifles, went to Port Arthur in Tasmania and killed 35 people.
Last edited by Hankstar, .
No thread required then! Jolly good
Pistols are pretty much out (unless you're a sporting/club shooter, but there are lots of restrictions on where you can use it and how to carry it). It's not hard to get a license for shotguns and rifles though, especially if you're a farmer or just live in the country.
Assault weapons (i.e. all semi-auto and full-auto rifles & shotguns etc.) are banned down here, as are handguns (sporting pistol shooters are exempt iirc). After the 35 deaths at the Port Arthur massacre, people started asking why a mentally ill man had access to pistols and assault rifles and the government answered by saying "well, he shouldn't have and neither should anyone else."
I'm not intimate with our gun laws but basically, you much need to be military or a cop to be able to carry a gun on you down here. If you want to own something like an AK or Uzi or even a Colt 45 you'd better keep it under your bed. Penalties for banned weapons are very, very stiff so it's basically crims who carry guns. Fortunately (especially in Melbourne & especially lately) they mostly seem to use them on each other.
People down here simply don't need or think about guns that much. Among the law-abiding, it's sporting shooters/hunters (rifles, pistols, shotguns) or farmers (shotguns, rifles) that own them. Most people live in or near large citites and there's not a huge hunting culture here - people are more likely to hit the snow or the beach on their holidays than go kill stuff. Noone needs to hunt for food and there's no big game like deer. Up north, however, it's always open season on feral water buffalo and feral pigs (the pigs are a lot more dangerous than they sound). In my home state of South Australia there's a feral goat problem up north so they're fair game too. Kangaroos are culled when their numbers pose threats to crops and to their own survival. Plenty of crusty old bushies hunt backpackers, but most people consider such behaviour unacceptable. Most people.
Gun crime happens, of course, but it's nowhere as big a problem as it is in the US. You really don't hear of that many gun crimes here, but no society's perfect - every place has its share of psychos and we're no different.
I look at US gun problems, school shootings etc and think it's a bit of a chicken/egg problem: is this constitutional right to bear arms necessary for people to protect themselves from all those gun-bearing crims; or is the right to bear arms the whole source of the problem - the whole reason people can legally acquire assault weapons or pistols (weapons designed to specifically kill humans) in the first place? Bit of both imho.
I'm not intimate with our gun laws but basically, you much need to be military or a cop to be able to carry a gun on you down here. If you want to own something like an AK or Uzi or even a Colt 45 you'd better keep it under your bed. Penalties for banned weapons are very, very stiff so it's basically crims who carry guns. Fortunately (especially in Melbourne & especially lately) they mostly seem to use them on each other.
People down here simply don't need or think about guns that much. Among the law-abiding, it's sporting shooters/hunters (rifles, pistols, shotguns) or farmers (shotguns, rifles) that own them. Most people live in or near large citites and there's not a huge hunting culture here - people are more likely to hit the snow or the beach on their holidays than go kill stuff. Noone needs to hunt for food and there's no big game like deer. Up north, however, it's always open season on feral water buffalo and feral pigs (the pigs are a lot more dangerous than they sound). In my home state of South Australia there's a feral goat problem up north so they're fair game too. Kangaroos are culled when their numbers pose threats to crops and to their own survival. Plenty of crusty old bushies hunt backpackers, but most people consider such behaviour unacceptable. Most people.
Gun crime happens, of course, but it's nowhere as big a problem as it is in the US. You really don't hear of that many gun crimes here, but no society's perfect - every place has its share of psychos and we're no different.
I look at US gun problems, school shootings etc and think it's a bit of a chicken/egg problem: is this constitutional right to bear arms necessary for people to protect themselves from all those gun-bearing crims; or is the right to bear arms the whole source of the problem - the whole reason people can legally acquire assault weapons or pistols (weapons designed to specifically kill humans) in the first place? Bit of both imho.
Last edited by Hankstar, .
No worries. To err is human; to forgive divine
As for that thread you're afraid to start:
As for that thread you're afraid to start:
That says more about your (possibly biased) opinion of Islam than anything else 
Getting your ma a gift for yourself, that's really frickin low. You even seem to think being a selfish little tosser is something to brag about! I'm so impressed.
Twat.
Twat.
It really pisses me off that [some] religious people believe that all atheists are like the one aggressive atheist they happened to meet on an internet forum. Please don't include all non-believers in your sweeping generalizations.
We don't all think the same goddam thing! Atheists, like any other group of people, have a wide spectrum of opinions and beliefs on every topic (speaking for myself, I haven't said one damn thing about comparing religions in this thread). The one and only thing atheists agree on is their non-belief! The same goes for anything that unites people - just because a lot of people agree on one thing, it doesn't mean they agree on everything. You'd have realised that if you'd thought about it. Take this forum - everyone here is united by their appreciation for LFS, but look at the amount of disagreements that take place in every section, every single day! Look at this one thread that's been going for days and days!
Bottom line: if you feel like you're being unfairly thrown into a category, how is it okay for you to do exactly the same thing?
Verily, I quake in my sandals. Put up or ... continue to pack up
Last edited by Hankstar, .
[/quotemine]
I love you too
Hmm, 12.20pm, time for a pub lunch. Pint and a parmigiana. Hell yeah. Sleep tight!
The sad thing is that it maligns Lolcats!
No, he got English confused with lolcat and "content" confused with :spam:
lol @ "intarblag" Consider it part of my languarsenal forever!
I'm also chuckling thinking about an evangelical atheist: "Good morning sir, madam, can I take a few minutes to talk to you about the good news of no-god, and the fact that once you die you'll simply cease to exist and your body will be eaten by worms and the bacteria that live inside you even as we speak?"
Consider it part of my languarsenal forever!I'm also chuckling thinking about an evangelical atheist: "Good morning sir, madam, can I take a few minutes to talk to you about the good news of no-god, and the fact that once you die you'll simply cease to exist and your body will be eaten by worms and the bacteria that live inside you even as we speak?"
Now onto The Areas Of My Expertise by John "I'm a PC" Hodgman. It's a combination between an almanac and an encyclopaedia - it contains all you need to know about Franklin D Roosevelt's war on hoboes (and on the nature, habits & secret schemes of the hobo in general), the mysterious & rarely-sighted airborne US state of "Hohoq", What Will Happen In The Future and food, drink and cheese (a kind of food)
Sheesh, you've never hidden a small animal before? Bah...
I think we can all agree that pushing a viewpoint on someone is a bad thing (yeah, I do crap on a lot, but I'm absolutely uninterested in de-converting people). I think people should always be free to choose - if certain people can just keep their chosen beliefs away from my doorstep on a Saturday morning, everyone'll be happy
I think I've noticed something (and correct me if I'm wrong) - it never seems to be non-believers who start these threads ...
I think I've noticed something (and correct me if I'm wrong) - it never seems to be non-believers who start these threads ...
FGED GREDG RDFGDR GSFDG