Spurious
You know how many racists I know that apparently aren't racist because they are willing to make all sorts of excuses and not admit it's about race?
Likewise, your conduct belies any respect you might claim for Muslims.
I mean, look at your response. First of all you ask me which lines, then you play ignoramus--a convincing performance, at that--and now you go on to write,
First you ask about the lines he wrote, and then I tell you, and then you dodge the subject, and then you come back to reassert what is contradictory to what has been established.
What? You call that honest?
And yet you go so far as to admit that this is about what PM said in another topic.
Never mind that we put up with that kind of crap here in the West. Jeez, I thought holocaust revisionism was child's play, but apparently it's a tougher issue than I had given it credit for. I mean, seriously ... there's a topic in which nobody points out the confusion between the topic assertion regarding the Holocaust in general and the topic article's examination centering on the numbers at Auschwitz.
And never mind that we in the West comfortably mock the death tolls abroad, see no violence in starving folks in order to afford another yacht, ad nauseam.
If PM and Muslims in general piss you off as much as your leap to irrationality indicates, then don't you think it worth actually paying attention? Or are you just here to clutter up the board?
Bells
To a certain extent. He still has a political out that he hasn't inherently disqualified.
To reconsider briefly a notion from the prior section:
In the West we mock the death tolls abroad. Now ... as tired as I am of listening to people hount the Jews, it's kind of hard to work around a couple of factors unique to Sciforums.
When PM makes it about all Jews and not just Israel ... well, hell, we've got pro-Israeli voices in countries not Israel making the same argument. It's just more acceptable, apparently, when a Jew makes Israel about all Jews than when a Muslim does.
The first part of the issue is that "all's fair." As an American, I claim what I believe to be the "high road." Sometimes, maintaining the "high road" requires some painful sacrifices.
We've let the obligations of the high road make the scenery unattractive. The result is a sharpening of traditional American hypocrisy.
• We mock death tolls abroad but lament our own
• In a nation that still argues in religious fits about morality and public policy, in a nation that has enough of a Christian voice to identify itself as such against Communism and Islam, in a nation that is at war because God told the evangelical-Chrsitian President to bomb Iraq--we actually respond to challenges as if we wanted to be Muslim. The irony, lost on most of my American neighbors, is not completely unnoticed in the world.
• We're willing to stoop to the gutter. Being right on those occasions that we are isn't enough. We have to proclaim it from the mountains until people resent our bratty boasting.
And all of this is accepted. It's so culturally-ingrained that we don't notice it. And yet we do it.
And then someone comes along and says all the same things we do with different names in the same places, and suddenly it's unfair?
The bottom line is that even if I were empowered to solve the situation with the wave of my hand, I can do nothign to solve it justly as long as Western attitudes remain. Muslims in the twenty-first century are going to have a hard enough time letting their daughters date and arguing with their sons about why they shouldn't have the car stereo up so loud.
And think of that. Think of how traumatic the last fifty years have been for the United States. We've modernized, grown, and gone insane. Guess what? Muslims get to go through that once the Arabic world stabilizes economically. And while it's nice to help folks avoid the pitfalls of our own paths, this is not well-accomplished by trapping a people in a bygone era.
As long as the Western faction at Sciforums (e.g. the majority) is entitled a certain degree of inherent or temporal bigotry, so it shall be for all not Western.
This can make it difficult to mark the line by, say, an Islamic perspective if you're, say, an American or Canadian or Australian moderator raised in the post-Christian or Judeo-Christian experience. But on the one hand I'm aware that we get away with what we complain about in PM largely because of cultural correspondences, and to the other I'm aware that it's all politics.
Sure, we're sensitive to certain things; the Holocaust bit seems to have incited some apoplexy around here. But I don't really care. Because we're insensate when it comes to how certain things feel to other people. Of course I'm tired of people bagging unnecessarily on the Jews. But what slays me about it is that the people most concerned with it can't seem to handle the situation at all. Child's play, I tells ya. Holocaust revisionism is as simple as hell to deal with. And yet how am I supposed to regard the intellects that simply panic at the first hint?
Of course the advice should apply to PM, and to everyone. Justice would be to move on and deal with real issues without hyperbole or pretense. In the meantime, however, since justice isn't due for a while, I'll buck for equality. PM is repugnant, the people say? Very well. I shall continue to grant him that license in my personal assessment as a poster as long as repugnant is the way of the walk.
The ongoing debate about Proud Muslim is not completely isolated in my opinion. I hold it against a backdrop of subtle and not-so-subtle anti-Islamism that has almost always been here. Before 9/11 it was a result of ignorance, and posters generally shied away from being too critical of things they hadn't studied. But starting right after 9/11, we've had to put up with a string of people calling for all sorts of barbarism against people who happen to be Muslims, and as this meshes reasonably with the conventional wisdom, it doens't really stick out in the same manner as, say, Holocaust revisionism.
But it's the same thing. And it's happening now, not fifty years ago. Jew-baiting is a bit like finding a guy who masturbates--you don't need to put much effort into it.
I'm starting to wonder if maybe we shouldn't actually go ahead and make Islam the enemy. People generally have more respect for their enemies than has been shown Islam in general around here. And suddenly people are disturbed because it's their preferred groups on the receiving end of it?
It's all horsesh@t. But I will not tolerate this situation whereby the only way people will pretend to be civilized or intelligent is if the Islamic voice either Westernizes completely or silences itself.
Seriously ... if anyone ever wants to know why 9/11 happened, just pay close attention to the national discourse. It's lowbrow, greedy, and threatening.
Terrorists hate liberty? Well, whatever. It's amazing how loosely we use the word "terrorist." I mean, apparently, resisting occupation by engaging a regular soldier is an act of terrorism. Oh, that's right. The war ended over a year ago.
By the same looseness, Americans hate life.
People can have whatever terms of discussion they want. But they need to be honest within those terms or else communication is impossible.
Now, I've already been asked in the last twenty-four hours why Americans should require a good reason before going to war. So as a general comment, anyone asking me to explain the metaphysical benefit of communication will only be serving as yet another explanation for the jets.
Invert Nexus
Well ... it is layered. But the irony--for me, at least--is that I actually used to communicate in a "diplomatic style." Friends have broken me of the habit of explicit and calculated condemnations.
Well, that and it's a particular issue I'm sensitive to right now. I really am curious about that bit in the Berg execution about the scholars and how the terrorists lament to Allah. It disturbs me that even my favorite political cartoonists are undertaking the lack-of-condemnation issue with the Muslim world without acknowledging obligations to not criticize a fellow Muslim, Islam and orthopraxy, and that diatribe preceding the Berg murder.
I'm convinced we have evidence of that condemnation people seek. It's just not so explicitly worded that Americans are satisfied. In the end, you're probably not nitpicking; I should be more sensitive to the general demand that everything be spelled out in bullet-list sound-bite McNuggets.
But life is performance art, and there's no reason I can't take more care to split the relevant conditions into two separate sentences instead of stacking the slam on the tail end. Rhythmic laziness, I guess.
You know how many racists I know that apparently aren't racist because they are willing to make all sorts of excuses and not admit it's about race?
Likewise, your conduct belies any respect you might claim for Muslims.
I mean, look at your response. First of all you ask me which lines, then you play ignoramus--a convincing performance, at that--and now you go on to write,
First you ask about the lines he wrote, and then I tell you, and then you dodge the subject, and then you come back to reassert what is contradictory to what has been established.
What? You call that honest?
And yet you go so far as to admit that this is about what PM said in another topic.
Never mind that we put up with that kind of crap here in the West. Jeez, I thought holocaust revisionism was child's play, but apparently it's a tougher issue than I had given it credit for. I mean, seriously ... there's a topic in which nobody points out the confusion between the topic assertion regarding the Holocaust in general and the topic article's examination centering on the numbers at Auschwitz.
And never mind that we in the West comfortably mock the death tolls abroad, see no violence in starving folks in order to afford another yacht, ad nauseam.
If PM and Muslims in general piss you off as much as your leap to irrationality indicates, then don't you think it worth actually paying attention? Or are you just here to clutter up the board?
Bells
To a certain extent. He still has a political out that he hasn't inherently disqualified.
To reconsider briefly a notion from the prior section:
In the West we mock the death tolls abroad. Now ... as tired as I am of listening to people hount the Jews, it's kind of hard to work around a couple of factors unique to Sciforums.
When PM makes it about all Jews and not just Israel ... well, hell, we've got pro-Israeli voices in countries not Israel making the same argument. It's just more acceptable, apparently, when a Jew makes Israel about all Jews than when a Muslim does.
The first part of the issue is that "all's fair." As an American, I claim what I believe to be the "high road." Sometimes, maintaining the "high road" requires some painful sacrifices.
We've let the obligations of the high road make the scenery unattractive. The result is a sharpening of traditional American hypocrisy.
• We mock death tolls abroad but lament our own
• In a nation that still argues in religious fits about morality and public policy, in a nation that has enough of a Christian voice to identify itself as such against Communism and Islam, in a nation that is at war because God told the evangelical-Chrsitian President to bomb Iraq--we actually respond to challenges as if we wanted to be Muslim. The irony, lost on most of my American neighbors, is not completely unnoticed in the world.
• We're willing to stoop to the gutter. Being right on those occasions that we are isn't enough. We have to proclaim it from the mountains until people resent our bratty boasting.
And all of this is accepted. It's so culturally-ingrained that we don't notice it. And yet we do it.
And then someone comes along and says all the same things we do with different names in the same places, and suddenly it's unfair?
The bottom line is that even if I were empowered to solve the situation with the wave of my hand, I can do nothign to solve it justly as long as Western attitudes remain. Muslims in the twenty-first century are going to have a hard enough time letting their daughters date and arguing with their sons about why they shouldn't have the car stereo up so loud.
And think of that. Think of how traumatic the last fifty years have been for the United States. We've modernized, grown, and gone insane. Guess what? Muslims get to go through that once the Arabic world stabilizes economically. And while it's nice to help folks avoid the pitfalls of our own paths, this is not well-accomplished by trapping a people in a bygone era.
As long as the Western faction at Sciforums (e.g. the majority) is entitled a certain degree of inherent or temporal bigotry, so it shall be for all not Western.
This can make it difficult to mark the line by, say, an Islamic perspective if you're, say, an American or Canadian or Australian moderator raised in the post-Christian or Judeo-Christian experience. But on the one hand I'm aware that we get away with what we complain about in PM largely because of cultural correspondences, and to the other I'm aware that it's all politics.
Sure, we're sensitive to certain things; the Holocaust bit seems to have incited some apoplexy around here. But I don't really care. Because we're insensate when it comes to how certain things feel to other people. Of course I'm tired of people bagging unnecessarily on the Jews. But what slays me about it is that the people most concerned with it can't seem to handle the situation at all. Child's play, I tells ya. Holocaust revisionism is as simple as hell to deal with. And yet how am I supposed to regard the intellects that simply panic at the first hint?
Of course the advice should apply to PM, and to everyone. Justice would be to move on and deal with real issues without hyperbole or pretense. In the meantime, however, since justice isn't due for a while, I'll buck for equality. PM is repugnant, the people say? Very well. I shall continue to grant him that license in my personal assessment as a poster as long as repugnant is the way of the walk.
The ongoing debate about Proud Muslim is not completely isolated in my opinion. I hold it against a backdrop of subtle and not-so-subtle anti-Islamism that has almost always been here. Before 9/11 it was a result of ignorance, and posters generally shied away from being too critical of things they hadn't studied. But starting right after 9/11, we've had to put up with a string of people calling for all sorts of barbarism against people who happen to be Muslims, and as this meshes reasonably with the conventional wisdom, it doens't really stick out in the same manner as, say, Holocaust revisionism.
But it's the same thing. And it's happening now, not fifty years ago. Jew-baiting is a bit like finding a guy who masturbates--you don't need to put much effort into it.
I'm starting to wonder if maybe we shouldn't actually go ahead and make Islam the enemy. People generally have more respect for their enemies than has been shown Islam in general around here. And suddenly people are disturbed because it's their preferred groups on the receiving end of it?
It's all horsesh@t. But I will not tolerate this situation whereby the only way people will pretend to be civilized or intelligent is if the Islamic voice either Westernizes completely or silences itself.
Seriously ... if anyone ever wants to know why 9/11 happened, just pay close attention to the national discourse. It's lowbrow, greedy, and threatening.
Terrorists hate liberty? Well, whatever. It's amazing how loosely we use the word "terrorist." I mean, apparently, resisting occupation by engaging a regular soldier is an act of terrorism. Oh, that's right. The war ended over a year ago.
By the same looseness, Americans hate life.
People can have whatever terms of discussion they want. But they need to be honest within those terms or else communication is impossible.
Now, I've already been asked in the last twenty-four hours why Americans should require a good reason before going to war. So as a general comment, anyone asking me to explain the metaphysical benefit of communication will only be serving as yet another explanation for the jets.
Invert Nexus
Well ... it is layered. But the irony--for me, at least--is that I actually used to communicate in a "diplomatic style." Friends have broken me of the habit of explicit and calculated condemnations.
Well, that and it's a particular issue I'm sensitive to right now. I really am curious about that bit in the Berg execution about the scholars and how the terrorists lament to Allah. It disturbs me that even my favorite political cartoonists are undertaking the lack-of-condemnation issue with the Muslim world without acknowledging obligations to not criticize a fellow Muslim, Islam and orthopraxy, and that diatribe preceding the Berg murder.
I'm convinced we have evidence of that condemnation people seek. It's just not so explicitly worded that Americans are satisfied. In the end, you're probably not nitpicking; I should be more sensitive to the general demand that everything be spelled out in bullet-list sound-bite McNuggets.
But life is performance art, and there's no reason I can't take more care to split the relevant conditions into two separate sentences instead of stacking the slam on the tail end. Rhythmic laziness, I guess.
