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CyborgUprising
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06 Nov 2012, 9:19 pm

The terrorists are taught at an early age that anyone who strays from their interpretation of faith and practice or whoever engages in conversation, commerce or any other ties to "the West" is not an innocent civilian. This is the only way they can justify to themselves and the citizens of the countries they reside in the killing of women, children, the elderly and other non-combatants. The only ones deserving of anyone's sympathy in this situation are the civilians and children who are brainwashed and ignorant of any other viewpoint. Unfortunately, nits become lice and these children will (very likely) grow into terrorists and pass on the things they were taught to their children.

Also, the term "Jihad" (struggle) is not being properly utilized by many non-native speakers. There are two main forms of Jihad; the greater and the lesser Jihad. The greater struggle entails being honest, not ripping others off, keeping humble, not lying or bearing false witness and maintaining a good relationship with God. The lesser struggle involves waging war to settle a conflict as a last resort. The act of waging war is called al-jihad al-saif/jihad bis saif, or the "struggle of (or by) the sword." This is the definition we seem to have latched on to in our media. According to religious doctrine, it is forbidden to destroy resources or harm non-combatants. In an attempt to justify their acts, they have claimed that non-combatant status does not exist for those who have "loose morals" or who associate with "the West."

Note: this is not to be construed as a defense for the terrorists (I find them just as repulsive as the rest of you), but merely a clarification of the definition of the term and the common confusion we "Westerners" tend to have in relation to the two forms of jihad.



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06 Nov 2012, 11:41 pm

MarketAndChurch wrote:
marshall wrote:
MarketAndChurch wrote:
it is a left wing impulse to say that morality is all relative and draw moral equivalents.... they have their suicide bombers, we have our abortion clinic bombers, its all relative, we shouldn't judge. The terrorists are weak, and fighting the powers that be, and the Left also identify's with that as well. There is no objective morality, the weak, the poor, the powerless are to be admired and the strong, the rich, and the powerful criticized. That is how the left everywhere divide the world. One mans terrorist is another mans freedom fighter is never said about the US military. The left never shrug at the negative accusations thrown at our military, and use that line. So for them, it is only true about terrorists, and secondly, those terrorists are freedom fighters. The question they do love to ask is "What did we do to deserve this?" It is an interesting question, mainly because I have yet to understand the motivations behind it. If anyone knows, feel free to enlighten me.


The right's "my country right or wrong" attitude looks a lot like moral relativism. Only the right doesn't see their own hypocrisy. The right must be certain in it's absolute moral righteousness because to ask questions is to portray weakness. Moral uncertainty is the enemy of the right. It is safer to assume your country only acts for noble causes and be wrong than to have less than 100% moral clarity and portray vulnerability. The right operates on the principles of fear, loyalty, and blind deference to those they see as their protectors. These are the same moral codes street gangs operate on. Loyalty to the home team trumps everything else.

Also, to the right, trying to understand the psychological motives of the enemy is too dangerous because it threatens moral clarity. Nevermind that understanding the motives of terrorists might help us better combat them on the ideological front. Nope, it's better to just assume they are cartoonish simple minded monsters with no motive other than pure evil. Then we can justify bombing them into the stone age, civilian casualties be damned.


But you see, that's where you have to ask whether claims are true or not, and debate them.
Quote:
I think Vietnam was moral. South Korea was moral. WW2 was moral. The Cold War was moral. Kosovo was moral. Desert Storm was moral. The Iraq war was moral. And if we disagree, then we can debate them.
When the right says those actions are moral, it is not because they fear moral uncertainty or do not want to be portrayed as weak on those issues. It is because they actually believe in those positions, and you should not excuse that just because you cannot possibly imagine someone taking those positions. That is the Left's problem: Not taking the Right seriously. They think someone either has to be misinformed, stupid, or has bad intentions to hold the positions that the Right does, thus barring the Left-winger from taking someone who holds those positions in a serious light.

Here's the problem. You are 100% certain all of those items are moral. For the most part people on the left do not claim 100% certainty on the morality or immorality of those wars. Right wing people tend to believe things with absolute certainty while fewer on the left do. I also do not question that the right actually believes the things they believe. I question their subconscious motives for believing the things they do because they tend to respond emotionally and accuse people on the left of lacking loyalty to their country if they dare to point out that America is far from perfect. Introspective criticism is not interpreted as constructive but as "hating America" or "rooting for the enemy". Maybe this isn't the case with you but since you're from Portland you might not have experience with the typical uber-patriotic Republicans that exists in the Midwest and South. You point out anything that shows their beliefs to be hypocritical they get mad at you and call you a terrorist sympathizer. They will not have a rational argument. No, I admit that I do not completely understand the emotion of "patriotism" and am revolted when it is used to justify actions I see as evil. It is a two way street as uber-patriots do not understand where I am coming from either and it is really pointless to try to have a debate with each of us having to resist the mutual urge to pummel the other unconscious.

Quote:
Loyalty is a normal social demand of any human movement. Where does any left wing group break from Leftism's Race, Gender, and Class trinity? When they do, they are corrected by the left as an immoral movement, and distance themselves from it.

Well, I diverge from that stereotype so I can't really comment. It bothers me that there are a lot of injustices the left don't pay as much attention to as the "big three". I think it's because politicians pander to the biggest groups at the expense of the smaller groups. They don't talk enough about the injustice of letting disabled veterans go homeless or the lack of treatment people who come back from combat with things like PTSD or severe depression and can't work.

I also don't have a problem with loyalty unless it leads to hypocrisy and immorality. Just look at the artificial elevation of loyalty in the organized crime culture. You know what gangs do to members who "snitch". It gives me a bad feeling when my country starts acting with the morality of a mob boss.

Quote:
On the right, we see you bombing a bunch of people, inciting hateful policies and behaviors against women, minorities, gays, and instituting a theocratic state that is hostile to personal freedom, and we don't care what you think, because we could give 2-sh**'s about intentions. The road to hell has been paved by good intentions, so it is something we cannot preoccupy ourselves with. When you behave an indecent manner, especially by killing the innocent, you may have had the most beautiful intentions, as Mao had to collectivize proletariat forces for a better future, but none of it matters in the final analysis if it does not produce good. We ask what does good... you ask what sounds good, what feels good, what means good. The questions we ask are determined by our values, and we have completely different values.


I have no idea what you're talking about here. I could repeat that whole paragraph, almost word-for-word, and apply it to the right. The right believes the end justifies the means when it comes to starting wars, supporting dictators, and overthrowing democratic governments. The good intentions are all about promoting freedom and prosperity throughout the world. Sounds good doesn't it? But is it good? The road to hell is paved with Republican Neoconservative good intentions. Reagan branded the Afghan Mujahedin "freedom fighters" when they were fighting the Russians. They were just as backwards and fanatical back then as they are today, yet we were providing them with weapons and intelligence. It feels good to say we were helping the "freedom fighters", a battered underdog trying to overthrow the unjust Soviet imperial expansionism into their homeland. Never mind the fact that they beat their women, execute gays, and basically outlaw anything that could be considered "fun" since joy is incomparable with their severe interpretation of Islam.



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08 Nov 2012, 8:32 pm

Inuyasha wrote:
Misslizard wrote:
I have read it ,I have a copy.But the Bible isn't nonviolent either,those old prophets were fond of smiteing cultures they didn't like,lots of hellfire,brimstone,stoning,turning people into salt pillars,and Elijah had bears devour a couple of kids for making fun of his baldness.The crusades werent exactly peaceful either,wasn't Pope Innocent one of the instigators?
The real terrorists wear suits and work on Wall street,plus fanatical fundamentalists of ALL religions.


The Bible reads more like a historical text though, and thus is recording events. It isn't a strict rulebook like the Quran, instead it mostly records past events like a modern history book.


You opinion is incorrect.(last 2 sentences)



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09 Nov 2012, 4:23 am

Do people who blow up innocent women and children by strapping bombs to other innocent women and children deserve our sympathy?

Image



MarketAndChurch
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09 Nov 2012, 4:37 am

Inuyasha wrote:

The Bible reads more like a historical text though, and thus is recording events. It isn't a strict rulebook like the Quran, instead it mostly records past events like a modern history book.


it has to be read as describing reality, and also suggesting what it should be, there is a back and forth between the two and sometimes its hard to tell when is it speaking suggestively and when is it bluntly framing things.


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09 Nov 2012, 4:43 am

Misslizard wrote:
I have read it ,I have a copy.But the Bible isn't nonviolent either,those old prophets were fond of smiteing cultures they didn't like,lots of hellfire,brimstone,stoning,turning people into salt pillars,and Elijah had bears devour a couple of kids for making fun of his baldness.The crusades werent exactly peaceful either,wasn't Pope Innocent one of the instigators?
The real terrorists wear suits and work on Wall street,plus fanatical fundamentalists of ALL religions.


Do note that God could not give the land to Abraham until the natives were rotten enough to be displaced... God can do anything, he could have just had them all disappear. But he didn't, he only promised the land to Abraham, and his seed would then conquer it in later times.

I can't speak about Elijah because I have not studied that yet.

The Israelites had a task: discredit polytheism intellectually, and destroy it physically. The commandments to put to death those who worship false Gods is for the Jew to apply to the Jew living within Israel. Resident aliens were to be treated respectfully unless they broke a heavy law like leading a Jew astray to false Gods or sacrificing their children for a better harvest.


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10 Nov 2012, 1:26 am

marshall wrote:
MarketAndChurch wrote:
marshall wrote:
MarketAndChurch wrote:
it is a left wing impulse to say that morality is all relative and draw moral equivalents.... they have their suicide bombers, we have our abortion clinic bombers, its all relative, we shouldn't judge. The terrorists are weak, and fighting the powers that be, and the Left also identify's with that as well. There is no objective morality, the weak, the poor, the powerless are to be admired and the strong, the rich, and the powerful criticized. That is how the left everywhere divide the world. One mans terrorist is another mans freedom fighter is never said about the US military. The left never shrug at the negative accusations thrown at our military, and use that line. So for them, it is only true about terrorists, and secondly, those terrorists are freedom fighters. The question they do love to ask is "What did we do to deserve this?" It is an interesting question, mainly because I have yet to understand the motivations behind it. If anyone knows, feel free to enlighten me.


The right's "my country right or wrong" attitude looks a lot like moral relativism. Only the right doesn't see their own hypocrisy. The right must be certain in it's absolute moral righteousness because to ask questions is to portray weakness. Moral uncertainty is the enemy of the right. It is safer to assume your country only acts for noble causes and be wrong than to have less than 100% moral clarity and portray vulnerability. The right operates on the principles of fear, loyalty, and blind deference to those they see as their protectors. These are the same moral codes street gangs operate on. Loyalty to the home team trumps everything else.

Also, to the right, trying to understand the psychological motives of the enemy is too dangerous because it threatens moral clarity. Nevermind that understanding the motives of terrorists might help us better combat them on the ideological front. Nope, it's better to just assume they are cartoonish simple minded monsters with no motive other than pure evil. Then we can justify bombing them into the stone age, civilian casualties be damned.


But you see, that's where you have to ask whether claims are true or not, and debate them.
Quote:
I think Vietnam was moral. South Korea was moral. WW2 was moral. The Cold War was moral. Kosovo was moral. Desert Storm was moral. The Iraq war was moral. And if we disagree, then we can debate them.
When the right says those actions are moral, it is not because they fear moral uncertainty or do not want to be portrayed as weak on those issues. It is because they actually believe in those positions, and you should not excuse that just because you cannot possibly imagine someone taking those positions. That is the Left's problem: Not taking the Right seriously. They think someone either has to be misinformed, stupid, or has bad intentions to hold the positions that the Right does, thus barring the Left-winger from taking someone who holds those positions in a serious light.



Here's the problem. You are 100% certain all of those items are moral. For the most part people on the left do not claim 100% certainty on the morality or immorality of those wars. Right wing people tend to believe things with absolute certainty while fewer on the left do. I also do not question that the right actually believes the things they believe. I question their subconscious motives for believing the things they do because they tend to respond emotionally and accuse people on the left of lacking loyalty to their country if they dare to point out that America is far from perfect. Introspective criticism is not interpreted as constructive but as "hating America" or "rooting for the enemy". Maybe this isn't the case with you but since you're from Portland you might not have experience with the typical uber-patriotic Republicans that exists in the Midwest and South. You point out anything that shows their beliefs to be hypocritical they get mad at you and call you a terrorist sympathizer. They will not have a rational argument. No, I admit that I do not completely understand the emotion of "patriotism" and am revolted when it is used to justify actions I see as evil. It is a two way street as uber-patriots do not understand where I am coming from either and it is really pointless to try to have a debate with each of us having to resist the mutual urge to pummel the other unconscious.

Quote:
Loyalty is a normal social demand of any human movement. Where does any left wing group break from Leftism's Race, Gender, and Class trinity? When they do, they are corrected by the left as an immoral movement, and distance themselves from it.

Well, I diverge from that stereotype so I can't really comment. It bothers me that there are a lot of injustices the left don't pay as much attention to as the "big three". I think it's because politicians pander to the biggest groups at the expense of the smaller groups. They don't talk enough about the injustice of letting disabled veterans go homeless or the lack of treatment people who come back from combat with things like PTSD or severe depression and can't work.

I also don't have a problem with loyalty unless it leads to hypocrisy and immorality. Just look at the artificial elevation of loyalty in the organized crime culture. You know what gangs do to members who "snitch". It gives me a bad feeling when my country starts acting with the morality of a mob boss.

Quote:
On the right, we see you bombing a bunch of people, inciting hateful policies and behaviors against women, minorities, gays, and instituting a theocratic state that is hostile to personal freedom, and we don't care what you think, because we could give 2-sh**'s about intentions. The road to hell has been paved by good intentions, so it is something we cannot preoccupy ourselves with. When you behave an indecent manner, especially by killing the innocent, you may have had the most beautiful intentions, as Mao had to collectivize proletariat forces for a better future, but none of it matters in the final analysis if it does not produce good. We ask what does good... you ask what sounds good, what feels good, what means good. The questions we ask are determined by our values, and we have completely different values.


I have no idea what you're talking about here. I could repeat that whole paragraph, almost word-for-word, and apply it to the right. The right believes the end justifies the means when it comes to starting wars, supporting dictators, and overthrowing democratic governments. The good intentions are all about promoting freedom and prosperity throughout the world. Sounds good doesn't it? But is it good? The road to hell is paved with Republican Neoconservative good intentions. Reagan branded the Afghan Mujahedin "freedom fighters" when they were fighting the Russians. They were just as backwards and fanatical back then as they are today, yet we were providing them with weapons and intelligence. It feels good to say we were helping the "freedom fighters", a battered underdog trying to overthrow the unjust Soviet imperial expansionism into their homeland. Never mind the fact that they beat their women, execute gays, and basically outlaw anything that could be considered "fun" since joy is incomparable with their severe interpretation of Islam.




At the Onset:
The opinion on the left ranges from "It was a necessary evil" (which is an oxymoron because how could it be evil if it was necessary), to that it was outright immoral, a criminal act, and a crime against humanity. I have yet to find a leftist who agrees that the Vietnam war was a moral act.


"The Left Is Unpatriotic?" & What Hurts The Right:
The reason the right passionately argues that the left is unpatriotic is because you guys do nothing but ascribe bad intentions to our wars as being materialistic pursuits, which would immediately define the losses we've taken as a result of those campaigns as being in vain... pointless, for the greed of the wealthy and the powerful. Our intentions to them are chauvinistic, nationalistic nonsense, which is more palpable and digestible, but to say that It was only fueled by our greed for resources and economic imperialism is deeply unsettling.

This materialistic deconstruction of American idealism in the name of resources to render all of those deaths meaningless… 100% meaningless… we didn't attempt to free the South Koreans from Mao-like communists because of liberty… we did it for selfish imperialistic pursuit of resources, and the 30,000 that perished as a result was all in vain.... That is what hurts us on the Right. Either these military excursions were moral, or not, but don't ascribe bad intentions to our cause… and if you do, please be willing to retract them if we debate and you are wrong, because your freedom to debate in a free society was fought for by those who died in those excursions, especially if you are a korean, a french, a brit, a spaniard, an italian, a chinese, a vietnamese, etc.

Members of the left may be patriotic, but the Left, definitionally, is not. Their views of the world make it so.


"Meaning Well" on the Right:
I fully understand what you are talking about, but you are speaking about Reagan with the power of hindsight. If Reagan came to 2012 and we simply described the course of events over the last 12 years, he would not have supplied those fighters with those arms, and he may have even gone to war with them, or, he may have continued with his policies to combat the soviets, and then taken those animals out afterwards.

Reagan was working in a world where the Soviets have conquered all of Eastern Europe, they were supporting the communist movements in many parts of the world that were resulting in the deaths of 10's of millions of people, they were dictators, brutal, unfree, and anyone fighting them, even monsters, deserved our support because the alternative of either a soviet take over or a soviet puppet regime will be worse.

In a world where your choice is between a terrible option, and an even worse option, seeing the soviets expand into territory that could then allow them or communism to conquer all of Asia and further their reach into the middle east was not an option. Communism has already claimed 100 million lives, enough is enough, and when weighing our options, we did not have any choice. I would applaud Bush, JFK, Johnson, Clinton, or Obama if they were in Reagan's seat and made the same decisions.

So your example is one where we meant well and we did well. The logical followup would be to wait it out until the greatest threat to humanity imploded, and then to ask those we helped to change, or face sanctions. If they continued down that road without meeting our demands, we would then take them on with military action. If we could have taken on Stalin and Hitler at the same time, we would have. But Hitler was the greater threat to humanity so he had to go first.


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10 Nov 2012, 2:12 am

They should be......thrown into a volcano and laughed at as they burn to death...if they dont explode already!! :twisted:


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10 Nov 2012, 9:29 am

If they want to promote Islam as a religion of peace, they need to act like it.


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10 Nov 2012, 4:50 pm

AspieOtaku wrote:
Now here is another rather controversial topic at first I would say no to the question but I wonder since in their shoes they are fighting for their way of life and land just in an extreme way.Feel free to put your imput on the issue.


No. Never. They are the Enemy. They must be stopped at all cost.



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10 Nov 2012, 4:57 pm

CyborgUprising wrote:

Also, the term "Jihad" (struggle) is not being properly utilized by many non-native speakers.


Jihad means struggle or working to overcome. The true Jihad is to overcome one's own evil inclinations and weaknesses. It is not about strapping on a bomb.

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10 Nov 2012, 5:13 pm

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MAHkQvC4bV4[/youtube]Ya know it makes you wonder if George Lucas based the sandpeople of Tatooine off the Jihadists! I mean same intelligence am I right?[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1mfxGd0YCw[/youtube]


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03 Jun 2013, 4:30 pm

We should deploy / utilize autistic mercenaries in combat operations and if possible, work private security in the Middle East and Africa.



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03 Jun 2013, 4:36 pm

Misslizard wrote:
Don't they think they are going to have dozens of virgins and plenty of hash after they die?
Seems like some of the young men may be brainwashed into thinking they are going to have a bang up good time in that afterlife.Anyway Islam is suppose to be about peace so I don't think they can even be considered real Muslims.The Sufis are peaceful,I don't think Rumi expected anyone to fly a plane into a building killing innocents.no one who kills innocent victims has my sympathy.


Islam is about Submission, not Peace.

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03 Jun 2013, 4:45 pm

Misslizard wrote:
The Sufis are peaceful


And they are persecuted in many Muslim countries, where they are seen as kuffar and are thus hated.

Same with the Ahmadi Muslims. The hatred shown to them is psychotic.



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03 Jun 2013, 6:11 pm

Jihadists, above all, are human beings. Of course they deserve some measure of respect. It's easy to forget that they have families themselves, children, mothers, siblings. Something made them think a particular way, some hardship or emptiness in their lives, and they filled it with religion. I personally don't subscribe to their philosophy, but they can believe whatever the hell they want. For my part, I refuse it. I find it despicable. However, dehumanizing them helps no one.

However, with that considered, what they do is more important. Terrorism is never acceptable, no matter the excuse. There's a type of person that brims with sympathy for them, because they are poor Muslims who have been kicked around by the big countries. That's not me. You blow up a civilian target, you die. You beat women, you get beat. Simple.