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saying the pledge... with a twist
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 gbaArguably, that might require the person to be at least an adult, else the "guilt by association" with the Nazi Party would also tarnish the current Pope. As to applying "guilt by association" to homesteaders and settlers in the American prairie, who productively benefited from the forced resettlements of Native American tribes, pushed westward along the "Trails of Tears", still there is NO comparison between the forced relocation of the peoples of a conquered nation, and as a matter of the social policy of deliberate extermination, the forced and concerted gassing, sadistic torture, and incineration of one's own citizens and neighbours in the furtherance of one madman's evil vengeance. |
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guilt by association guilt by association is a truly troubling concept. should we execute the parents of murderers? like they do in n. korea. |
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and as a matter of the social policy of deliberate extermination, the forced and concerted gassing, sadistic torture, and incineration of one's own citizens and neighbours in the furtherance of one madman's evil vengeance.>> Am I to suppose from this argument that it's less terrible when the people concerned are on the other side? If so, I'm not sure I can agree. Also 'relocation' is putting it a bit mildly, I might be wrong but from what I've read it was one of the most efficient and thorough (for lack of a better term) genocides ever perpetrated, and that's quite astonishing considering this was a time before gas chambers and automatic weapons. However, this point <<"Guilt by association", I would think, applies to people living in the same setting, the same place and the same time.>> I do agree with, and so I too would question the relevance of this particular example. |
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tat3225 05-Feb-13, 20:05 |
Shamash Everything Nazi was destroyed. No nazi press, no swastikas, no freedom of speech or ideas or religion when it came to anything pertaining to the Third Reich. So by saying "guilt by association", I was saying that everyone from high ranking third reich officers to regular Germans who were caught up in a bad situation were universally prohibited from being Nazis under the presumption that everyone was a Nazi. Or rather, the Americans didn't care who believed what. Zero tolerance for anything Nazi. My point in saying this was to illustrate that 1) German identity still prevailed despite the destruction of the Nazi belief set, independent of hitler and his dramatic propaganda. And 2) that there are boundaries and limits to tolerance and freedoms. |
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tat3225 05-Feb-13, 20:42 |
Zorroloco Would you ask for my permission to hit me back? I'm just wondering because you referred to illegal invasions as though there is any other kind. You must not realize that, for example, we didn't ask Heinrich Himmler and Adolf Hitler for permission to cross the English Channel and invade their territory. I know that in your world everyone craps rainbows, worships the post-Beetles anti-American John Lennon, and really respects one another. Everything people do is art. People pick flowers and place them in hand woven baskets made out of organically grown vines. There is just so much love. So I'm wondering to what lengths you're willing to go to protect your world. Are you willing to invent nuclear bombs? Are you willing to make hard decisions like "will I have a long range heavy bomber and an operational nuclear bomb in enough time to bomb Europe and avoid a ground war? Or am I only capable of doing this in the Pacific for logistical reasons and will need to gear up for a ground war in Europe?" I'm just wondering if you'd ever acknowledge that no one wants to make the decisions you seem to be so disrespectfully apologetic for. Which is just one of many reasons why you are a spineless hypocrite who stands for nothing at all. |
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rmannstaedt 06-Feb-13, 02:36 |
tat and Islam You are being questioned by people who are (in your words) "spineless", "retarded", and "a clueless and naive sixth grader", and as a defence for your views you are trying to argue about Nazis?! How pathetic is that? Did you just blindly copy those anti-Islamic posts from some fundamentalist right-wing blog, without actually understanding them at all? Is that why you are unable to coherently argue for and defend the things you say? Did you actually understand anything you wrote, or are you really - as you seem so willing to accuse others of being - brainwashed? The problem, as you point out repeatedly, is "over there". Islam in the Western world is not (in more or less your words) the repressive, totalitarian, rape-institutionalizing force that it is in Islamic countries. Which begs the question: in what way is this "perhaps the most important issue facing the United States and the rest of the world."? You could point out that it is a moral issue, yes, and we could argue about that. But are there no other, pressing issues affecting us, here, more directly? Like, say, how 46 million Americans live in poverty (www.povertyusa.org) for instance? Is the elected way of life of other people - a way of life that they (both men and women!) defend to the very point of giving up their own lives for it - more important than the plight of your own people? Islam is a religion. It is the youngest of the great, monotheistic religions in the world today, but it is still quite old. Its history spans more than 1.500 years, encompasses great wonders and vast horrors - just as its sibling religions, Christianity and Judaism, do. Some 1.4 billion people follow it today (www.nationmaster.com), and they span a great variety of lifestyles and cultures. Countries like Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Syria, Iran, Turkey, Tunisia, Indonesia ... all of them are Islamic, most of them are democratic. Your posts, tat, are great at conjuring up images of mass rape, women lighting themselves on fire, and violent repression. But that is not the way of life that far most of these people experience. In Egypt, for instance, women are marching the streets in protest against the newly elected Muslim president. In Syria, half the country is in violent uprising against the government. In Turkey, women have high positions and dress in western styles. In Iran, arguably the most Islamic of all those countries, women are free to argue and walk about safely without fear of men or repression - as long as they adhere to the Islam codex of dress and behaviour. How do I know this? My brother's wife is a Muslim, from Iran. She lives in Denmark, is well integrated, has a job, family, speaks Danish fluently... and goes visiting her friends and family in both Iran and Turkey at least once a year. Neither she nor any of her friends there are being raped, repressed, or even fearful of the men around them. And she, having a huge network of friends as well as an amazingly fiery and open personality, would know about it. Yes, Islam is a complex religion, with texts conflicting and gainsaying each other all over the place. And I am not going to defend things like, say, Sharia law - which I find abominable the same way the Spanish Inquisition was abominable. But most Muslims are actually contend to live their lives like everybody else, without repressing and raping each other all the time. The problem is not Islam. It is not even Islamic fundamentalism. The problem is religious fundamentalism. I find very little difference between the Islamic fundamentalist, who maims and kill other people, and the Christian fundamentalist, who maims and kill American nurses and doctors. Do you? Both are rabid dogs who have no place in a modern society. The main difference: the Islamic fundamentalist is mainly over there, in Islamic countries, where the only people he or she can actually hurt are other Muslims around - and those soldiers we send over there to help the fundamentalists get some more target practice. |
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tat of course their are legal invasions. what would you call the d day invasion of normandy? or the russians invasion of germany? an invasion is legal when it is a reaction to another nations aggression. when it is illegal is when it is based on false pretense (iraq) or as aggression to gain territory (germany invading poland). <I know that in your world everyone craps rainbows, worships the post-Beetles anti-American John Lennon, and really respects one another. Everything people do is art. People pick flowers and place them in hand woven baskets made out of organically grown vines. There is just so much love.> no you don't! you seem to actually know very little of anything except how to generalize and call names. for a while you seemed pretty sharp and interesting. now you just seem bigoted, prejudiced, and small minded. not to mention antagonistic, irritating and mean-spirited. and for the record, i would not have developed nukes, but would have a strong military. and i have made more hard decisions in my life than you will ever think about. you with your upper middle class snotty know it all attitude. i think i liked you better when you were done with this forum. but carry on. this is the first amendment club and even people like you get to have their say. although i do think your personal attacks have gotten pretty extreme, i will not delete them. i have principles. |
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I agree with some of what you say in your last post, and tat certainly has gone off the deep end, but if we can debate this in a civil way, that quote does read as textbook apologism. Turkey, as far as I know, is exceptional in being a relatively progressive and predominantly muslim state. Of the others you mentioned Saudi is in no way democratic, Syria is in civil war at the moment partly because it's not democratic, Iran held elections but then seemed to ignore the result and Tunisia and Egypt have only last year rebelled against dictatorships so to paint them as established democratic nations is stretching the definition a bit. <<In Egypt, for instance, women are marching the streets in protest against the newly elected Muslim president.>> Are you not concerned as to why? << In Iran, arguably the most Islamic of all those countries, women are free to argue and walk about safely without fear of men or repression - as long as they adhere to the Islam codex of dress and behaviour.>> Free so long as.... is not free. <<The problem is not Islam.>> Agreed. << But most Muslims are actually contend to live their lives like everybody else, without repressing and raping each other all the time.>> Also agreed <<I find very little difference between the Islamic fundamentalist, who maims and kill other people, and the Christian fundamentalist, who maims and kill American nurses and doctors. Do you?>> I do, and the difference is that Islamic fundamentalists are in charge in many of these countries. While there is no functional difference between the two actions, one set of people hold far more power than the other, and have that power backed up by a larger proportion of the population (please note I did not say a majority). That makes them a much larger threat to Western values of freedom. I am not for a minute suggesting that all muslims would resort to terrorism or that they all hold values that are incompatible with the western ideals, but that doesn't excuse the larger minority that do. Pretending that these countries are fine because ''most of the people are alright guys really'' doesn't do a thing to help those that are oppressed, and subjugated and we should be fighting these aspects of the culture tooth and nail. |
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rmannstaedt 06-Feb-13, 06:31 |
itchynscratchy (no, that was not ironically meant) I certainly agree that Saudi Arabia is not democratic at all, and you are totally correct about the civil war in Syria being - amongst other reasons - prompted by an undemocratic (but also non-Islamic) leadership. About the elections in Iran ... whether they are democratic or not is debatable; there was a vote and there was a change in leadership, so something at least happened. We can debate about whether the change in leadership was because of the vote, but ... I really don't have enough information to say that. Do you? (and that was an honest question - if you have some information, then please - I would like to know) About Egypt: the protests - men and women alike - are because they do not agree with the new constitution being pushed through by their democratically elected president, Morsi. I am certainly concerned about the implications of the constitution, but ... it's their country, isn't it? They even had a democratic election where they elected him. It is one of the fundamental precepts of a democracy: we must abide by the decision of the majority. We may not like that decision, we may not agree with it, we may demonstrate, voice our disagreement, and do whatever else it takes - within the rules of democracy - to see that decision overturned. But while it stands, we must abide it. But, the whole point of Egypt - in the context of tat's arguments - is different: you see *women* marching in the streets, with the men. Not repressed at-home-being-raped-and-beaten women, but angry, powerfully active women. And women who are, without a doubt, Muslims in an Islamic country. Not at all the kind of image she conjures in her posts, is it? That is also the reason I listed Syria. Not as an example of democracy, but because we also there have women - devout Muslims, living in an Islamic country, even in an Islamic country which repress them - and they still take up arms and voice their protests. I saw an article the other day, about one of them: a mother with two young children, devout Muslim, who took up arms and began using a sniper rifle against her repressors (which, by the way, make her a terrorist, doesn't it?). About the religious fundamentalists - Muslim and Christian. Now, as you said, there is no functional difference between the two actions, but there is - as you point out - a difference in the actual power wielded by those two groups: the Muslim fundamentalists are in control of some countries, the Christian fundamentalists are still working on that. But ... a threat to Western values of freedom? I think it is rather the other way around: we are a threat to their religious values and views of how people should live. Now, there is a debate here which I would love to take - but I really think it should be in another thread: to what extend can and should we help those who, in our view of the world, are oppressed by others? What are the actual weapons of "tooth and nail" that we can and should use, where, and how? Those are very, very interesting questions, I think. Do we really have the moral right to impose our belief system, our set of values, on other people? |
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changeling 06-Feb-13, 07:20 |
Ruben Personally I do not think so, but by the same token other belief systems do not have the right to expect 'our' belief systems and values to change either, unless invited! I think any culture being encroached upon by another with an agenda of changing the norm within that culture has the right to say no, if you want to live in 'our' particular part of the world, and within our particular 'culture', the onus is on you to adapt to the given normal values. This is where Islam is becoming a danger. The very nature of Islam insists that their values, traditions and morals be enforced wherever they may migrate to. I must point out that so called Muslim moderates who migrate (for whatever reason) perpetuate the spread of the Islamic character by their very silence and failure to integrate. We must remember that Islam is not solely a religion as is Christianity or Judaism, it is also a political beast. The spread of Islam when one looks at it is very seductive in countries where education has or is lacking. Indonesia for instance was not always an Islamic nation, now the largest Islamic nation on earth in terms of numbers. Neither was Malaysia, Somalia, and others. One can argue that Christianity dictated in Europe for centuries the politics of those countries, but not any more. The so called 'western' culture cannot be enforced in an Islamic nation for instance ( by law). One only has to look at Egypt alone to see that. It is becoming increasingly obvious that the Muslim Brotherhood for example will rule Egypt completely before much longer, regardless of whether women (or any other opposition) protest in the streets or not, and that sharia law will become a dominant factor in Egyptian politics. Turkey is a very different kettle of fish as they are (and have always been) at the crossroads of differing civilizations in terms of religion and politics. Turkey still wants to become part of the European Union for example. I don't think any other Islamic majority nation is in this category. |
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tat3225 06-Feb-13, 07:50 |
rmannstaedt I'd have patience for the fact that you're trying to have debates in a language that is not your own, but I see it as further evidence of your ignorance because I speak, read, and write Russian as a second language and I would never try to argue with a bunch of Russians online in order to AVOID the very communication problems you have here. This is not to say that someone who doesn't speak English or who doesn't know about British, American or Australian culture should not participate. Rather, if you're going to, realize that your interpretation of what is said has a high likelyhood of being inaccurate. In which case, you should ask whether or not your interpretation is accurate before assuming it is. Not that any of this matters because you went and degraded an educated American woman for being female. Then you expected her to continue to talk to you or even read what you had to say. Strong work. Since then, you have written numerous long posts, each becoming increasingly more angry, with an expectation that I still want to have anything to do with talking to you. You keep accusing me of "refusing to argue my points" when actually two things are going on: 1) You have an unrealistic expectation that I respond to your posts. 2) Nearly everything you have said reflects, again, a lack of understanding for what I said and/or reflects a complete ignorance for global human rights issues in general. The latter having nothing at all to do with language issues. Finally, it is not my job to educate you on the things you are trying to talk about. That is your responsibility. The majority of things you've angrily said to me reflect your own ignorance or lack of knowledge. You've assumed my statements are incorrect and based on nothing. Or that I have no experience with Islamic countries. Your ignorance was clear when you blew past what Shamash said, and never bothered to check the profiles of the people you're discussing things with or arguing against. Or maybe you checked Shamash's profile and don't know anything about Uzbekistan. Uzbekistan is a totally land-locked country of about 30 million people located to the southwest of Kazakstan, northeast of Turkmenistan, north of Afghanistan and west of Kyrgztan and Tajikistan. Its a predmoniately Sunni Muslim country. By predominately I mean that between 80-90% of the Uzbek population is Muslim. The people in Uzbekistan are at the mercy of a government that not only lies to the outside world but does things like forcibly sterilize women, without their consent, for the sake of population control. It is well known that things like rape, abuse, and so on are prevalent in countries like this. Hundreds of women set themselves on fire in Uzbekistan each year, like Afghani women and women in other places, as a means to commit suicide. Women have no voting rights, are discriminated against in the workplace, aren't protected against genital mutilation and so on. The list of womens rights issues is long and distinguished. So it's interesting that you would disregard Shamash's statement in which he clearly makes a connection between Islamic leadership/populations and horrible treatment of women. He also touches on the fact that westerners avoid holding Islamic leadership/populations accountable for their actions. I honestly cannot think of a more stupid, ignorant and thoughtless thing to do than to ignore this and challenge it while sitting in a country like Denmark which has the privilege of having the United States as a babysitter, had the privilege of having the United States and Russia liberate it from Nazi rule and has the privilege of having a strong economy because of the billions of dollars spent by the United States to build the Europe you call home. |
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tat3225 06-Feb-13, 08:03 |
zorroloco Ok. |
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tat |
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hennybogan1953 06-Feb-13, 08:58 |
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hennybogan1953 06-Feb-13, 09:06 |
"sometimes you act really silly. it is like if i pointed out how football has issues with concussions and brain injury and you say, 'well yeah, but basketball is bad for their knees." yes, but they are different subjects." |
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henny |
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hennybogan1953 06-Feb-13, 09:26 |
(no, that was not ironically meant) The problem is not Cancer. It is not even Cancerous tumors. The problem is all sickness. I find very little difference between the inoperable cancer, who maims and kill other people, and the common cold, who maims and kills 8 people. Do you? Both are rabid dogs who have no place in a modern society. |
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hennybogan1953 06-Feb-13, 09:31 |
(no, that was not ironically meant) The problem is not Wilt Chamberlain. It is not even all women Wilt Chamberlain had sex with. The problem is all sex. I find very little difference between the 20,000 women Wilt Chamberlain slept with and the Henny, who slept with (considerably less, but more than 8 less than 20,000) women. Do you? Both are rabid dogs who have no place in a modern society. |
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hennybogan1953 06-Feb-13, 09:36 |
(no, that was not ironically meant) The problem is not Chess. It is not even good Chess. The problem is all Chess. I find very little difference between the Shamash"s Chess rating 2500, who beats ALL people, and the Henny rating at 1450, who beats 8 people. Do you? Both are geniuses who are awesome Chess players. |
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hennybogan1953 06-Feb-13, 09:38 |
(no, that was not ironically meant) The problem is not Islam. It is not even Islamic fundamentalism. The problem is religious fundamentalism. I find very little difference between the Islamic fundamentalist, who maims and kills millions of other people, and the Christian fundamentalist, who maims and kills 8 American nurses and doctors. Do you? Both are rabid dogs who have no place in a modern society. |
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shamash 06-Feb-13, 09:55 |
Deleted by shamash on 06-Feb-13, 09:55.
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shamash 06-Feb-13, 09:58 |
Deleted by shamash on 06-Feb-13, 10:03.
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hennybogan1953 06-Feb-13, 10:03 |
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hennychess game (and even if a coupla moves later you did an exchange sacrifice of your King's rook for her King's bishop, it would be well worth the swap) |
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hennybogan1953 06-Feb-13, 10:07 |
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rmannstaedt 06-Feb-13, 11:35 |
tat I am still going to remind you though: you have yet to answer even a single one of the points I made. |
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tat |
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josh |
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rmannstaedt 06-Feb-13, 15:10 |
shamash I am not going to speak bad of people who aren't here, so I won't say a word about tat, except: she claims that you have actual experience and knowledge of the life of common Muslims in Uzbekistan. Is that actually the case, and - if so - would you care to share some with us? I have three reasons for asking: 1: It is very easy for anyone to write some exotic country on their GameKnot profile, which means I am usually careful about just assuming that it is actually true. If you say so, in actual conversation, that is another matter however. 2. I know very, very little about Uzbekistan, except that it was previously part of the Soviet Union and people are predominantly Muslim there. 3. She mentioned that things like forcible sterilization of women happens there. I have heard of that - but only in India. Just one, small request though: could you, possibly, write your reply in a prose which is a little more ... "normal" (?) than your usual style? I am very fluent in English, even though it's not my first language, but the way you sometimes write things means that I have to parse it more like a poem than like common prose. |
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