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tat3225 04-Feb-13, 07:25	Deleted by tat3225 on 05-Feb-13, 11:01.
tat3225 04-Feb-13, 07:41	Deleted by tat3225 on 04-Feb-13, 07:45.
itchynscratchy 04-Feb-13, 07:41	Jeff, I'm not sure how helpful it is to engage in whataboutery. And to be fair to tat, she never denied the existence of a rape culture in the military, just that it is incomparable with the ritual subjugation of women in Islamic theocracies, and I think she has a point. Now I personally don't think it fair to hear arabic and automatically think about this stuff, any more than one would hear Russian and think about Stalin, but her point about the treatment of women in these countries is valid surely?
tat3225 04-Feb-13, 07:51	I read an article in Arab News last year about how Saudi women were having trouble keeping their slave girls in the house through one of the Islamic holidays (I forget which one.....I think it might have been ramadan actually), and the totally acceptable solution to this problem was to board the doors and literally lock the slave girls into the house. This is considered completely and totally acceptable in Saudi society, and women are engaging in the subjugation of other women.
proginoskes 04-Feb-13, 07:54	I agree that Tat does have a point, even if I don't connect rape with the Arabic language as such . . . rape (as we would define it here, not as they would define it) is INSTITUTIONALIZED in many, many Arabic speaking countries and Islam is used to justify it. These places do have a cultural and religious problem.
tat3225 04-Feb-13, 08:00	Zorroloco Who is afraid to travel to another country? Me? Wtf are you talking about??
zorroloco 04-Feb-13, 08:11	josh, itchy, tat yes they do indeed. but i always get irritated when someone who knows so little is willing to generalize about over a billion people. tat. yes you. tell me again how you would not travel to russia, even though you love the culture and the language.
tat3225 04-Feb-13, 08:29	zorroloco I said I would not travel to Russia right now. I never said that I have never or will never travel to Russia in the future. Go back and read the milestone approaching thread and tell me that I ever said such a thing. How you ever extrapolated what I said to mean that I am afraid to travel to another country or don't travel to other countries is beyond me.
zorroloco 04-Feb-13, 08:37	fear conservatives operate out of fear. fear of people who are different. fear of gays. fear of minorities. fear of myuslims. fear of terrorists. they are scared of everything. even afraid of high school kids saying the pledge in another language because they are unable to understand the difference between muslim, rapist, terrorist, arabic, or middle eastern. scaredy cats wanting to foist their fears on the rest of us. tat. i apologize. you did say you would not travel to russia now. why not?
proginoskes 04-Feb-13, 08:50	Do people take water for a hike in the desert out of "fear" of being dehydrated, or because water is a good idea and dehydration is a bad one . . .
tat3225 04-Feb-13, 08:53	zorroloco "someone who knows so little...." Right. Said by someone who is comparing sex culture in the US military to sex culture in Islamic countries. Furthermore, no one here is overgeneralizing more than you are. It's clear at this point that you believe I was overgeneralizing about all muslims and saying that all of them are rapists or condone rape. Most of them do, actually. You're probably making the massive mistake of connecting Islam in the US or Canada or Europe to Islam in other places. Very different things. This mistake is made by people who know enough about Islam to still believe it's a religion, but not enough about Islam to know that there is no such thing as Islam. I said to read Islamic text because in doing so, over time, it becomes abundantly clear that nearly anything can be justified with Islamic text, almost everything is contradicted in Islamic text, and the volume of Islamic text makes Islam itself meaningless. Except that predominately Islamic countries all seem to have the same traits. Notably Sunni Muslim countries. So Islam is a problem and DOES actually matter. A country like Indonesia is proof of this. When there was a separation between the people and the government, when the people had no control over the government at all, couldn't vote, nothing.....Indonesia was nothing like other Islamic countries because the Indonesian judicial system protected the people from their own beliefs. Once the Indonesian people gained voting rights, Sharia Law was added to the existing judicial system and has slowly but surely begun taking over because everything can be justified as being a violation of Islamic Law. Indonesia has begun the slow decline to join other predominately Muslim countries. For rape to be a bad thing or a crime, a person must have rights. If women don't have rights, then raping them isn't a big deal. It's only a big deal because a woman is either unmarried in which case she is supposed to be a virgin or married, in which case she is someone's property. But MORE importantly, a society in which women have no individual rights results in sex being something that women have no control over or say in at all. Which means that rape not only does not look like it does here, but it isn't recognized as wrong or thought of in the same way.
rmannstaedt 04-Feb-13, 09:12	yes itchyn, her point about treatment of women in those countries is valid, and it is not comparable to whatever may be happening in the military (which it seems jeff is significantly more knowledgeable about than either tat or myself). On another point - personally I think it is an interesting experience to be called "retarded" and a "clueless and naive 6th grader" by a girl who seems to get her entire worldview and opinions from Fox News and rabid, right-wing anti-arab pro-military conservative radio-hosts like Rush Limbaugh. She should try getting outside the door once in a while and - even if it hurts a bit at first - actually think for herself. So, you want me to defend those countries, tat? Is that it? More fun for you to rant about them if you have someone who will actually defend them? Ok with me. You won't like it, but you asked for it! First, what I did, in my original post, was to point out that your associations were incorrect. Ok, that was not entirely fair - it is YOUR associations, so of course they cannot be "incorrect" as such. But, objectively speaking - a thing you should try once in a while - they are. Yes, I conceded the point about women burning themselves, but on all the rest I have been spot-on: * terrorism: look to your own country, girl. How many American children have died recently after being shot - by Americans? * violence: who was it who started an illegal war in the Middle-East by lying to the entire world about mythical WMDs? How many people died in that madness, girl, and it's follow-up in Afghanistan? Violence - sure, the US is great on violence! * poverty: have you seen pictures from Africa recently? Like, say, at any time at all during your entire lifespan? Poverty in the Middle-East pales in comparison! * acid attacks: not a word from you on that one, after I rebutted you. * corrupt governments: tell me again, how is it that lobbying actually works, in the US? * harsh punishments: yes sure, them too. Now, in addition to your bigoted worldview skewing your associations towards the crazy end of the red spectrum, you obviously do not know - or has no respect at all for - the fact that Western culture, as we know it, would not even remotely exist if its roots hadn't been nurtured and cherished by the Muslims during the dark middle ages, while the Catholic church tried - and virtually succeeded! - to strangle every free thought and idea it could find in Europe. You owe the Arabs the very existence of your precious, American culture and freedom, girl! And no, even writing the above (read it again, girl!) I am still not defending the way Arab countries are treating women - or the rest of their populace, for that matter. Because, believe it or not, there is such a thing as a "fair trial". You have heard of it, maybe? It means that you have to weigh in with your evidence, consider it, and even think about it a bit - before rushing out to the square and lynch the other guy. That is - you, thinking, not Fox News and mad, retarded people like Rush Limbaugh. And, you know what? It also means that it is actually possible to reach a verdict which says, that the defendant is guilty of some offenses but not of others. Now, you come out, you rant about how Muslim culture is singularly bad because of all those points you listed. And yes, they are bad - but not, in those cases I wrote about, singularly so. If you want to construe this as me "defending those countries", then by all means: go ahead. Make my day. I guess it means that I am, at heart, more true to those fundamental, American ideals of fairness and equality than you are. PS: just read your 08:53 post. Interesting points. You are wrong about one thing though: it is not at all a requirement for a religion that it is coherent. Or if it was, Christianity could never be recognized as a religion either.
chaz- 04-Feb-13, 09:45	rmann... ... your post was level-headed, and I very much appreciate the frequent civility portrayed (something that's often missing entirely, or ambushed by thoughtless lambasting). It does seem you're becoming irritated at times (as I would as well). Tat is very passionate about her positions, many laced with truths and conclusions based upon her own education and her own experiences ... which is what most of us have. I challenge her to defend her thoughts more carefully ... she earns much less respect by belittlement of others. I would not like to see her valid points lost because of that. Muslims are extraordinarily misunderstood in this country ... a culture plastered by the actions of a relatively few extremists on one hand and a culture that has lingered longer on its worldly evolution (than either the West or Asia) on the other. It is here where we must extend a better example to copy, rather than to challenge and alienate, IMHO. What we lack is patience ... and we bear too many fears of the unknowns. We have often become the product of manufactured media. All these stages will not suddenly evaporate. On balance, this has been a very instructional and useful thread ... I have gained much from reading it every day.
zorroloco 04-Feb-13, 09:48	josh so you think we should be afraid of gay people because allowing them to marry is somehow comparable to dying of thirst?
zorroloco 04-Feb-13, 10:09	anyway i am still wanting someone who finds what these students did objectionable to defend why they feel that way. in my book, they are pledging allegiance to the american flag, and america. i see no difference in the language used - be it spanish, arabic, fulani, mandarin, or sign language - the meaning is the same. the first amendment was written EXACTLY for situations like this. i think the people who confound the arabic language with islamic fundamentalism are misguided and uneducated. generalizing and stereotyping is bad logic, bad human relations, and says a lot more about the person doing the generalizing than it does about the people being stereotyped. let me ask you this - should iraqis hats anything written in english just because america invaded their country illegally and destroyed their infrastructure and kiiled hundereds of thousands of their people? or should they be able to differentiate the english language from our pooor actions?
chaz- 04-Feb-13, 10:20	z ... ... I don't disagree with your suggestion that there's nothing wrong with saying the Pledge in Arabic (or any other language). If I were to have any challenge to this thinking, it might depend upon the intention of the speaker. If they speak from a position of respect or honor, then it is what it is ... no problem. If it's solely done to irritate (unreasonably), to incite, to mock, to disrespect (etc.), then it is wrong (I'm also trying to leave some room for free speech here, but that's a separate point). When observers are not able to understand the intention of the speaker, then it's easy for misunderstandings to occur. We all continue to become educated about such things in small doses at different speeds.
rmannstaedt 04-Feb-13, 10:20	chaz5 Thank you. Yes, I did grow slightly sarcastic in my last post. I shouldn't have, I guess; it really doesn't cost anything to be civil, and debates would be so much more informative - we really could learn something from each other - if we could actually keep things a bit level. So, thanks for the reminder.   About experience: I have spent more than 40 years of my life reading, studying, and thinking about every aspect of life that I could find, with special focus on culture, politics, economics, religion, and history. I believe that makes me somewhat knowledgeable about what is going on in the world. Still, the world is vast and it is not possible for any of us to know nearly everything. We all have gaps, and sometimes we must face the unpleasant truth that the things we know may not be true after all. There are several of tat's points and arguments that I was either unaware of or hadn't considered in that light - including her note about Indonesia. Now, it is my belief that any theocracy will, by its very nature, face serious problems in the form of stagnation, bigotry, and a need for institutionalized violence and repression. The reason: we live in a world which is so dynamic, and where it is so easy for "foreign" (meaning: non-theocratically approved) ideas to pervade any society, that it has to be very harsh and absolute in its rejection of such. A theocracy, today, can only exist if it keeps its populace strictly in line with the "authorized" way of belief. This, I believe, is what is actually happening in Indonesia. It doesn't, as such, have anything to do with Islam; it has everything to do with a theocracy fighting for its survival. If - to take a (hopefully!) absurd example - the Tea Party movement rose to power in the US, then we could very well see exactly the same thing happening there. Except, of course, that we would speak of "biblical punishment" (an eye for an eye...) rather than shariah law. On a related note: I believe that Turkey - even with the democratically elected religious leadership they have today - is a direct proof that muslim countries can be very different from the images tat conjures. They are relatively poor, yes, and that directly impacts other parts of their society as well, including the penal system, but Turkey - and that part of the Osmannic Empire before them - has always been a gateway between East and West; a place where ideas met and mixed. As a consequence, Turkey today incorporates many western aspects into their culture and society.
proginoskes 04-Feb-13, 10:25	jeff I told you, if you go back, why I find what they did disrespectful. It would be like me wearing my "come and take it" shirt around the weekend after Sandyhook. It's in bad taste. Putting a Crucifix into urine and taking a picture of it in the name of art, is in bad taste. When people react and find themselves shocked, I often find it's quite intellectually dishonest to blame the shocked, when there is no introspection seen on the side of the shockers. Farting in public is legal, but if it pisses you off, it's your fault right? And no one is "afraid" of the gays, nor are gay's marrying the comparison that I'm making about water and the desert. It's all about what is a good idea and then further from that how to go about proceeding with change. Gay marriage, even though it's not the topic of this discussion, and it's acceptance is a change that can and will have consequences for a culture, civilization, and country. "Gay culture" for lack of a better term is generally subversive in just about every way to our basic judeo-christian culture and ethic that are/were foundational to this country, and an embrace of gay culture will change our culture. Many have made an assessment that this would be good, some think this would be bad, and others are cautious.
zorroloco 04-Feb-13, 10:30	change our culture so did abolition of slavery. so did legalization of miscegenation. sometimes changing a culture is a good thing. and i would argue that individual freedom is more foundational to our culture than is some archaic and puritan 'morality' that is a holdover from shepherding days in the middle east 2000 years ago. alos, keep in mind that these were high school kids responding to a situation they saw as a problem. do you really expect them to respond in a thoughtful and adult manner? they are not adults. for me, i applaud their awareness of inequality and their willingness to take an unpopular stand to make a point - they are true americans engaged in dissent. those who would squlch their first amendment rights for political correctness are unamerican. dissent is american!
chaz- 04-Feb-13, 10:31	rmann... ... I definitely agree with your point about Turkey. I once lived with a Turkish family in WashDC a while back and still speak a little Turkish, and have traveled to the Middle East. I'm no expert, but I have been more deeply educated about Islamic culture than most Americans. Turkey uses the Western alphabet (a little bit modified), and has embraced many Western ideals ... they have adapted to Western culture both as immigrants to Europe and the US, and within their borders. They have quite likely evolved culturally more than their Muslim brethren and set a pretty good example for other Middle East adolescent democracies to copy.
proginoskes 04-Feb-13, 10:40	jeff Sure. Changes can, do, and often need to occur with their ultimate change in culture. Though, I would argue that abolition of slavery and legalizing interracial marrying did not make us a more immoral nation like abortion and homosexuality have, and ultimately that has spiritual consequences on top of any insidious and subversive these changes have into the practical culture. You know I'm also a big believer in individual rights. Why do you think I support the 2nd amendment so much? Why was my biggest complaint about Obama his support and furtherance of the police state? Like I said, these kids have a "right" do what they did, but is it the best way to go about making their point. All things may be lawful, but not all things are expedient.
zorroloco 04-Feb-13, 10:52	josh you think homosexuality makes us a less moral nation? as for abortion, it has always existed, and will always exist. legalizing it is the moral thing to do because it keeps girls from dying from botched illegal back alley abortions - girls and woman will seek abortions whether they are legal or not - just as people do drugs, legal or not. prohibiting them does not stop them... it only drives them underground making them dangerous and profitable for the wrong people. again, these kids were... kids. and they came up with a creative and non-violent way to make their point. you may find it distasteful. so what? dissent is always unpopular.
tat3225 04-Feb-13, 11:00	rmannstaedt 1. Normally when people are going to use my gender to degrade me, they are more subtle about it. 2. I was not the one who brought up Islam. It was YOU who blamed things that I initially listed on Islam or stated it was "muslim" thing. Again, that was YOU. Do I think Islam is involved? Yes. The sexual culture in Islamic countries is clearly represented in much of Islamic text. The relationship between the two things boils down to the chicken and the egg question of which came first. 3. Stop talking about Christianity. I haven't fed into that because it's beside the point and doesn't matter. Furthermore, there are several ways in which Islam is, in fact, different from Christianity in ways that actually do matter with regards to what we are talking about here. In Islam, God was never on Earth in one singular human form. Mohammad was his messenger and was NOT Allah. Allah does not sin, Allah did not randomly inpregnate a human woman and Allah's son was not sacrificed by the Romans for all the sins of mankind. Islamic text is far more sexual than Christian text and again, immaculate conception is not the central focus of Islam. The amount of Islamic text in existence dwarfs Christian text. Islam involves more judgement and punishment here on Earth by people acting on BEHALF of Allah, rather than after death. Forgiveness is also not the same in Islam, though the word "forgive" is used in translations of Islamic text. Forgiveness means that something wrong has been made right through punishment or some kind or retaliation. In a sense, all muslims play God by carrying out the will and wishes of Allah, who is violent and controls using fear, while simultaneously believing that they have little control over their lives and everything happens as the product of Allah's will. Most importantly, Allah is a being, to a greater degree than God is thought of as a person or "being" in Christianity. Even though, paradoxically, Christians believe that God actually was on Earth as a human being in the form of Jesus. Muslims do not. Wafa Sultan hit the nail on the head in her book titled, A God Who Hates. Which could also easily have been named A God Who is Feared. Which is a key difference between the concept of God in Christianity and Allah in Islam. Christians are motivated by God or fear God in a different way. One faith is not necessarily better or worse, but they are in fact different in subtle yet meaningful ways. The history of both doesnt matter here. It is totally irrelevant to the comparing and contrasting of cultures today and the role of Islam in these cultures. 4. I never asked you to defend certain cultures or countries. I said that you did. Both by blaming Islam or by denying that certain things happen. You totally insisted that some things flat out don't happen. But they do. 5. It's interesting that you brought up fairness and equaliy and fair trial. These are ideas found in countries like the United States or Denmark but unfortunately do not apply to the nations we're talking nor are they found there. The concepts are lost in translation and there are entire populations who don't know anything about these things. What you have said about not drawing conclusions is analogous to watching a baby get beaten while simultaneously insisting that we don't know if the person who is administering the beating is guilty until he has had a fair trial. A fair trial will determine that this person is guilty, because there is a pile of evidence proving that he is. He actually IS guilty, but you are ignoring what is right in front of you until someone tells you that he is. That's called being brainwashed and totally unable to think for oneself. Also, it enables controlling leadership because you believe that whatever you are told is fair, is fair. Without ever questioning it. Right now, your continued circle of denial and waffling is actually the opposite of fair because it ignores the truth. 6. Your comparisons of the US government to say, the government in Iran or Pakistan or Saudi Arabia or Yemen do not make sense to me. The corruption you have mentioned, lobbying, is done within certain parameters. It's also done within a government which provides and protects basic human rights among it's people. It's like you're trying to compare a professional basketball player with a youth basketball player by saying, "well they both miss shots." 7. It's good that you mentioned accidental death in the United States that happens to occur via objects like firearms. It's actually relevant to the conversation because we actually CARE about and RECORD these deaths. The government doesn't give a crap about these kinds of things in the places I have been talking about, doesn't protect children and administers harsh punishments themselves. People die of illness and other health related crisis WAY more than they do in the United States. I could go on and on. Hence the rape culture, totally different sex culture and different cultural ideas when it comes to individuality or individual rights.
hennybogan1953 04-Feb-13, 11:07	youtu.be Circus monkey clapping at misguided children goofing the Pledge of Allegiance.
zorroloco 04-Feb-13, 11:10	tat even if all you say is 100% accurate, which i dispute, it is COMPLETELY IRRELEVANT to this thread! this thread is not about muslim culture. it is your preconceptions and stereotypes and prejudices that allow you to tie them together. these were american kids saying the american pledge of allegiance in america using the arabic and spanish languages to PLEDGE ALLEGIANC TO AMERICA!. what is troubling to me is that you do not even seem to understand this basic idea! there are many, many arabic speaking christians, jews, hindus and atheists. but you are so mixed up in your thinking that you automatically equate arabic with muslim fundamentalism.
tat3225 04-Feb-13, 11:12	"This, I believe, is what is actually happening in Indonesia. It doesn't, as such, have anything to do with Islam; it has everything to do with a theocracy fighting for its survival. If - to take a (hopefully!) absurd example - the Tea Party movement rose to power in the US, then we could very well see exactly the same thing happening there. Except, of course, that we would speak of "biblical punishment" (an eye for an eye...) rather than shariah law." What's truly bizarre to me is that you claim to understand culture yet you talk about theocracy as though its a distinctly separate thing. Instead of seeing spiritual beliefs as nothing more than the product of existing cultural trends and ways of thinking. Theocracy is not fighting for survival. The Indonesian people are Sunni Muslims. They want to believe in this, do believe in this, and ARE democratic because the majority rules. Obviously you have never read the Sharia, and are not familiar with crime & punishment in Saudi Arabia and other countries who's legal systems ARE the Sharia. So frequently it's the people claiming that something like the practice of Islam is misunderstood, who themselves are the ones who do not understand.
proginoskes 04-Feb-13, 11:15	Jeff Yes. I think the embrace of homosexuality and abortion have made us a less moral nation, easily. The argument that abortion has always happened is not an argument for it's morality. As to the legality of both . . . I'm not making any arguments here for or against the legality of any of it.
tat3225 04-Feb-13, 11:26	zorroloco I SAID THAT THE SOUND OF ARABIC REMINDS ME OF THE THINGS I LISTED. ME. AGAIN, ME. IT WAS YOU WHO CALLED ME PREDJUDICE BECAUSE OF THIS, PROJECTED ON TO MY PERSPECTIVE AND CRITICIZED WHAT I SAID. BECAUSE YOU ARE BEING A PSYCHOTIC LIBERAL WHO IS TOTALLY INTOLERANT AND DOESN'T UNDERSTAND WHAT I AM SAYING WHICH IS WHY THIS IS WRITTEN IN CAPS. Just like you extrapolated what I said in a different thread in ways that are totally untrue and then used completely false information against me. Or brought homosexuality into this conversation by throwing gays under the bus and essentially reinforcing the notion that gays are discriminated against........by discriminating against gays yourself by choosing to use gay people in the context that you did. Clearly you haven't read much of what has been written in this thread, otherwise you wouldn't have accused me of writing things that are off topic. WHICH BRINGS ME TO MY FINAL POINT OF STATING THAT WHAT IS BEING DISCUSSED ACTUALLY DOES HAVE TO DO WITH THE TOPIC AT HAND. IN THE SAME WAY THAT USING RACIAL SLURS REPRESENTS BIGOTRY AND PREDJUDICE, THE ARABIC LANGUAGE IS SPOKEN IN PLACES LIKE SAUDI ARABIA AND TO ME, IS REPRESENTATIVE OF SUBJUGATION AND A HOST OF OTHER CRAPPY THINGS. IF ARABIC SOUNDS LIKE BEAUTIFUL MUSIC TO YOUR EARS THEN GREAT. IT DOES NOT TO ME.
tat3225 04-Feb-13, 11:32	btw zorroloco What wasn't true about my post? I find it especially interesting that you dismissed point number 1.
zorroloco 04-Feb-13, 11:40	tat i did not address your points because i think they are irrelevant to this thread. as for your point, yes. i clearly understand that the sound of arabic reminds you of terrorism, women's oppression and islamic fundamentalism that is what i find troubling.
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