Thread: Ultimate Test of Civility ~ 2nd Amendment

Originally Posted by Wildtim

On 9/11 I have two images indelibly burned into my brain, that of a jet hitting the world trade center under the direction of terrorists, and that of people not more than fifty miles from my house rushing into the streets to dance and celebrate that fact.

That certainly distressed me. Plus the absence of any leader condemning the act or that kind of behavior.

It raises issues of allegiance that need to be investigated, and if there's any kind of actual support for terrorism, punishment is proper. Until that's proven, it's an oaffish and insulting expression of speech. There are ways to protest it, including boycotts and publicly outing the people that did it.

We can't condone beatings or worse.

There's an Arab neighborhood in Brookly I used to go to a lot. Once they started finding underground activity there, I stopped going. It's been years.

Originally Posted by Joe Lerch

That certainly distressed me. Plus the absence of any leader condemning the act or that kind of behavior.

It raises issues of allegiance that need to be investigated, and if there's any kind of actual support for terrorism, punishment is proper. Until that's proven, it's an oaffish and insulting expression of speech. There are ways to protest it, including boycotts and publicly outing the people that did it.

We can't condone beatings or worse.

There's an Arab neighborhood in Brookly I used to go to a lot. Once they started finding underground activity there, I stopped going. It's been years.

Having been in that area and met some of its residents I think the problem could be more than half solved if the INS did a sweep in that area. I think I find this most disturbing and dangerous.

I don't think the Christian nuts are the same thing. They may bother you, and cause some emotional distress, but they don't hurt anyone. Why beat them up because they don't agree with you or annoy you? Those are the kinds of things the Nazis did. Isn't this just a question of freedom of speech?

I don't know what should happen to those protesters (I know what many would like to do ).They have the freedom of speech, but on the other hand there are things you just don't do! I understand we cannot pick and choose what we "allow" as free speech, but certainly you can understand why many of us would like to see a mack truck roll into a crowd of these retards!

Lets say your wife smoked all her life and died of lung cancer. Do you want clowns like this parading around at your wifes funeral saying she deserved to die and that all smokers should die a terrible slow death for their habit? If you want to protest the war do it in a proper way. There is no need to ruin a family's funeral for a loved one. If the media would refuse to cover stories like this I have a feeling these pieces of crap would knock it off since they wouldn't gain anything from it.

A co-worker's son was killed in Iraq recently. He lives in a small town so we didn't think these people would show up, but it was still in the back of his mind. Many of us volunteered to stand guard at the funeral home so he didn't have to worry about anyone trying anything stupid. That should be the last thing on a parents mind when they are trying to deal with what has happened. We had a few dozen of the bikers show up just in case and it was neat to see their support.

I lived in Lebanon for over a year, and was there during the leadup to the Iraq War and for the first six months of it. I've also travelled to Egypt and Syria. I was teaching English in a Palestinian refugee camp the morning the war started. Real live Arabs are rather different from Fox News Arabs, to say the least. Most people though not all were passionately critical of American policy, but I never once encountered personal hostility. Not once. It is my experience in fact that Arabs are on the whole better at making distinctions between governments and individuals than we are. This may be due to the fact that their own governments are so transparently corrupt and often tyrannical, making it obviously bogus in their eyes to equate people and governments. Or it may have to do with the fact that they're weak and we're strong, and they know a lot more about America than the average American knows about them. People from large, powerful countries tend to be incurious about what lies outside their bubble of wealth and prosperity. Think about how much we know and care about the lives of celebrities, and how little that interest is reciprocated; that'll give you a good idea of the equation I'm talking about.

There was a big street protest at the beginning of the war. One popular placard said, "We Love Your Institutions, We Hate Your Policies." That's probably the single most common political sentiment I've encountered in the Middle East.

I'm not saying I never met anyone who tried to justify terrorism. I met plenty. But they tended to justify it in tactical terms: it's the weapon of the weak against the strong, a necessary evil, give us F16s and we'll gladly fight a fair fight on even terrain, and so forth and so on. I always rejected these arguments. But I never met anyone who talked about eradication, annihilation, or sterilization, or who argued that victims of terrorism deserved their fate.

The most naive idea of all is that this is somehow a clash of cultures, a fundamental clash between the values of Islam and those of the West. It's a seductive idea, because it eliminates the need for rational thought, ethical self-scrutiny, and other nuisances. It is easier to talk in simple and essential terms than it is to read history. But it's also a self-evidently ridiculous idea. Islam has been around for 13 centuries. The conflict with the West began about 50 years ago, in the wake of the breakup of the Ottoman empire, the carving up of the Middle east into colonial mandates, the creation of the state of Israel and so on. I'm not saying "it's our fault," and anyone who says I'm "blaming America" is just flailing around with a strawman. What I'm saying is that the animating causes of our conflict with the Arab world are historical, not religious. Religious fervor, jihad etc., has become a vehicle for a conflict that has to do with other things. A couple of generations ago the vehicle was communism. Ever notice that Arab opposition to the West was ideologically secular and socialist up until the breakup of the Soviet Union? And how the baton of "resistance" (often meaning terrorism) has seamlessly passed into the hands of the fundamentalists in the last couple decades? (Hostile secular regimes like today's Syria and Saddam's Iraq represent holdovers from the first period into the second.) So much for a clash of religions and civilizations.

Originally Posted by Joe Lerch

I don't think anybody said that, and I would strongly disagree if they did.

What I think Kees said is that you can't condemn and destroy a race because the nuts come from that race. Although the terrorists should get what they deserve (I wish them the worst), you need to prove that they're terrorists first, and you need to do it using legal means not a kangaroo court. I'm talking about fundamental principals of justice: habeas corpus, know what you're accused of and what the evidence is, and give the opportunity and legal help to disprove it. Without that, you really don't know if you have a guilty person.

I'm not saying that anybody here said that, but if you look at some of the posts on the BBC website for example...whoa boy.

I agree that you can't destroy a whole race. However, there does come a time when a society/culture must address their crazies if they start hurting other people and thus hurting the whole society when the backlash comes. I don't see Muslims doing this. I'm also not talking about the legal status of any particular individuals, but of a perceived cultural/political disposition - see Wildtim's post above for example.

In the West, we bend over backward to be tolerant, perhaps to a fault. The other side makes no effort at all to be tolerant. I'm tired of being told that we're not tolerant enough of their intolerance - there is a double standard if you know what I mean.

Jordan

In the West, we bend over backward to be tolerant, perhaps to a fault. The other side makes no effort at all to be tolerant. I'm tired of being told that we're not tolerant enough of their intolerance - there is a double standard if you know what I mean.

Jordan, I like the way you think... your other post as well.

Originally Posted by jnich67

I agree that you can't destroy a whole race. However, there does come a time when a society/culture must address their crazies if they start hurting other people and thus hurting the whole society when the backlash comes. I don't see Muslims doing this. I'm also not talking about the legal status of any particular individuals, but of a perceived cultural/political disposition - see Wildtim's post above for example.

The truth is that the moderate Muslim states encourage the crazies. That way, we take the heat, instead of the government. I think there's a tacit understanding by our government that that's happening. We do it to keep regimes in power that abuse their people but are friendly to us. Sadam Hussien is just one example. He was our man before the firsr Iraq war. And you can find plenty of old pictures of our politicians, including Mr. cheney, paling around with him. Many of the weapons he used against us the first time were given to him to use against Iran.

There's always been a double standard, with us being held to a higher standard. The world was never surprized when the Soviets or Chinese were abusive of their people or others, but the slightest wrongs by us always brought criticism. It's because we always claimed to hold the moral high ground. As the defenders of democracy, our constitution and creed demanded it. I don't think our allies, and certainly not our critics see us that way anymore. Now when we pressure the Chinese they just turn it back on us.

Originally Posted by Joe Lerch

I don't think the Christian nuts are the same thing. They may bother you, and cause some emotional distress, but they don't hurt anyone. Why beat them up because they don't agree with you or annoy you? Those are the kinds of things the Nazis did. Isn't this just a question of freedom of speech?

I dunno, Im willing to bet that christian nuts have killed more people than other group in history including the nazis, but I cant prove that. Bottom line, muslim, christian or jewish, its all killing in the name of a religous belief which is more dangerous and harder to stop than anything else IMO. Tolerence for this type of killing which we have witnessed as long as there has been organized religion should not be an option. The only reason we have "tolerence" for the muslims and not the jews or anyone else is because our government is afraid of them. There is a difference between tolerence and fear, but our government seems to think that we are to dumb to notice.

Originally Posted by JLStorm

I dunno, Im willing to bet that christian nuts have killed more people than other group in history including the nazis, but I cant prove that. Bottom line, muslim, christian or jewish, its all killing in the name of a religous belief which is more dangerous and harder to stop than anything else IMO. Tolerence for this type of killing which we have witnessed as long as there has been organized religion should not be an option. The only reason we have "tolerence" for the muslims and not the jews or anyone else is because our government is afraid of them. There is a difference between tolerence and fear, but our government seems to think that we are to dumb to notice.

I agree with you, but of course I was just talking about those particular Christian nuts.

Every religion has its Taliban, and when the Christian Taliban faces off against the Moslem Taliban you have a crusade. Remember how bloody those were? The first time the crusaders came into Jerusalem they started slaughtering locals in robes. They didn't know they were Christians. They were not saints. They thought nothing of pluindering Christian towns that refused to help them or of getting in a little early practice by carrying on pogroms on the way to the middle east.

Honestly what would probably solve the whole problem for us without nationalistic but probably with plenty of religous violence would be a period of muslim reformation. Ala Martain Luther, a rising up of the grass roots muslim to question the teachings of the church and begin a movment that allowed for less control by the religous leaders and not incosequently a better understanding of the tenants of their own religion for the masses. This would give the aggitative types who now become "holy warriors" a better place to turn their energies and also require them to be able to justify to themselves their own actions rather than the old line of the leader said it was all right.