Note: I am running late. I try to proofread longer posts for typos, but I just don't have time for a proper job at the moment
Billo_Really has several times taken the effort to make substantive replies to some of my posts, and I wish to reciprocate, so I have elected to favor substance over style.
-OC
You're right, Christian evangelical's are more of a threat to this country than radical Islam. But maybe that will change when muslims get their own lobby groups like AIPAC.
I shall simply leave it to others to digest this pearl.
I oppose slavery in all forms. I oppose it in Virginia
and Ancient Persia. Subjugating people is wrong no matter what part of history you live in.
Why keep it "private"? Ask and you shall recieve.
I wished to spare you embarrassment.
. . .
My assessment was directed at the holier than thou way you debate. Do you really think your perspective is the right way to look at this situation? Or the only way? And what makes you think your argument is rational?
Yes.
No, but probably the best way.
Because I really on history, facts, and experience. I study and analyze, I am suspicious of powerful emotion clouding judgment, because I have a deep understanding of the highs and lows of human nature.
. . . And quite frankly, it is pretty arrogant to speak as though my "emotions" are "heightened" or irrational just because I don't buy into your argument. You need to look at your own views and ask yourself, "Is a fanatical fringe group of another religion justification to kill over 1 million men, women and children in another country?"
Militant Islam is hardly a fringe group. Note the support its victories enjoy in the mass Islamic population.
The justification is long term survival, which for any country, trumps all other considerations, with the possible exception of virulent expansionism or conquest. For the latter concerns, occasionally a country will risk the former. For instance, Nazi germane, and Imperial Japan to cite recent examples.
This is sad perhaps, but true. Pretty ideals or high sounding words have little change of altering this state of affairs in the foreseeable future.
I could make the same case of "Western Civilization" being a threat to "Traditional Islam". After all, we're the ones who started bombing first. We started ****ing with them, before they started ****ing with us.
Actually, it is rather short work to dismiss the argument that the West was the firth threat. Islamic aggression began at its inception, at a time when the west had yet to coalesce into an overarching super-culture.
If we have become a threat to Traditional Islam, it is because the concepts of universal Human rights and Freedom are inimical to the benighted philosophy.
I will "take a stand" and fight anyone that is a threat to my country. . .
Will you? Would you even recongize a threat until it was too late for any resistance other that an act of desperation? How, if you refuse to look at the evidence?
Again with the personal attacks. What makes you think that I haven't studied?
I make no personal attacks. Indeed my patience with you should be seen as a sign that I believe that you have intelligence worthy of appealing to.
I consider you, and others on the Left to be victims who have been taught or allowed to suppress analytical thought in favor of rhetoric and emotionalism.
I believe that you have been taught to consciously or subconsciously judge reality by how beautiful, pleasant, or satisfying a particular assertion is, instead of its objective merit. An example is the idea of equality among religions, philosophies and societies -- a lovely sounding lie.
Or, to make another example, creating champions of evil to battle, (Neo-Cons, Conservatives, Evangelicals,) because one does not
really believe that such groups could ever harm them: a comforting belief. To address actual foes that truly wish to inflict real harm is a very discomforting notion from which many are taught to flee.
As to what makes me think you haven't studied. . . well, I think I will just pass on answering that.
. . . And a "fact" is nothing more than an "agreement" between two people.
. . .
Whoever taught you this deserves punishment.
This single idea that has been foisted on you is one of the most vicious assaults on your mind that I hope you ever have to endure. U would almost equate it with a rape.
This is a concept to be taught to a slave.
A fact exists irregardless of anyone's opinion. I hope that you come to accept this a some point.
Didn't you already say this above?
I may have. Repetition is a low-level instructional technique that seems to be indispensable.
I don't have to study the specific differences of the various religions. They are not a threat to this country. You're more of a threat than they are!
Please reconsider your lack if interest in study. I appreciate you belief in my power and influence, however.
You're trying to say the Bush Doctrine is justified because of another cultures fanatics. I'm saying that every culture has fanatics and that they are a police issue, not a national security one.
There is almost too much here to respond to in a short post. I would ask you to consider though what happens whet the fanatics count among their memebers the police in a country, such as in Nazi Germany.
And are you aware that the Police in our country are neither trained nor equipped to deal with say, an insurgency? The Military however is.
By all means, if you want to suggest something worth reading, I welcome all of it. I learn something new every day of my life. The more I know, the more I find out what I don't know.
I posted material above. I'd be more than honored if you'd peruse some of it.
I'm not one of those people who put so much stock into their political views, they never admit to being wrong. I'm one of the few posters on this website who has actually come out and apologized for being wrong on a particular issue. Some around here think that is tantamount to death. I think it's just another part of life, 50% of the time.
You are to be commended for these traits, and I do so now without reservation.
Now an aside.
I am not the terrible person you mat think. I am someone who gives a great deal of thought to what goes wrong in human affairs and how it might have been avoided once past.
I have a visceral detestation for the waste of human potential.
I vastly prefer to live in peace with everyone and for countries to do likewise. But I realize that the power to make peace is almost entirely in the hands of the aggressor. That is, no matter how much we may want peace, if another entity wants war, or even limited violence, it is almost impossible to deny them.
I support the notion of preemptive war, because once hostility is inevitable, I want to see the damage limited for the party that did not originally promote hostilities. Doing otherwise is to allow innocents to bear the burden of an ethical code held by the leaders.
When I am being abrasive in some of these posts, it usually stems from what I said above, I am deeply offended by the mental habits that have been instilled in many of the young in the West. I am not a conspiracy nut, but there are momenmts when I wonder what has led to such a degredation in the teaching of hard thinking.
Perhaps we'll find fertile ground for agreement on other topics.