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 06/07/2007 02:29:25 AM · #26
Originally posted by Skip:
nobody needs help from the united states. everybody can take care of themselves. they don't need our presence, they don't want it, why should we bother? why should we assume any place else in the world would need or want what we have, or go through what the US went through to get where it is. obviously, somewhere, it's the US and Bush's fault that girl was killed. is there any chance that our being outside our borders is doing any good in the world anywhere? if there is, is that good enough to justify all the bad that we cause? really. we should just stop helping and just come home. completely. we can't get it right when we try, or we try for the wrong reasons. we should just stop trying. we should just let the rest of the world be. maybe if we did, then there wouldn't be any problems anywhere anymore...


Wow! I've never read such ridiculous nonsense.
 06/07/2007 02:35:28 AM · #27
Originally posted by Klearchos:
Western policy in the region was to keep poor and uneducated all the nations of the region and mainly the ones that had petrol, for obvious reasons... It is funny but the richer in petrol is a nation of this area the poorest and uneducated its population is... As western countries we supported specific leaders to achieve that... (Saddam was originally an American ally in the area) ... or our policy in other countries led to rise of theocratic regims as a reaction of the population (Iran)

I hope you will forgive me for my English...


I'll forgive you for your English, but not for the ridiculous statements you wrote above. It is absolutely a lie to say that it is Western policy to keep the nations of the region poor and uneducated. What F*%$ing nonsense you spew! Also, your statement that Saddam was an American ally is also incorrect. He was never a U.S. ally and we didn't put him in power. He was always aligned with the Soviet Union. We did help Iraq a little bit (a very little bit) in their war with Iran, but that was because Iran had turned into a major enemy of the U.S. That does not make Saddam an ally. Go study some history.
 06/07/2007 02:40:51 AM · #28
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
I did not click the link, but I can only imagine. Not to hijack the thread, but moments like this make me think long and hard about a passage written by CS Lewis.

"And, of course, that raises a very big question. If a good God made the world why has it gone wrong? And for many years [when I was an atheist] I simply refused to listen to the Christian answers to this question, because I kept on feeling "whatever you say, and however clever your arguments are, isn't it much simpler and easier to say that the world was not made by any intelligent power? Aren't all of your arguments simply a complicated attempt to avoid the obvious?" But then that threw me back into another difficulty.

"My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust? ... Of course I could have given up my idea of justice by saying that it was nothing but a private idea of my own. But if I did that, then my argument against God collapsed too--for the argument depended on saying that the world was really unjust, not simply that it did not happen to please my private fancies. Thus in the very act of trying to prove that God did not exist--in other words, that the whole of reality was senseless--I found I was forced to assume that one part of reality--namely my idea of justice--was full of sense. Consequently atheism turns out to be too simple. If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark. Dark would be without meaning."

I'm happy to pick that up in another thread if people want.


Just because we don't know if the universe has meaning or not is proof of nothing other than proof of our ignorance.

For 99.999999999999% of the species to ever roam this earth just and unjust holds no meaning. It's just a human invention like the wheel. Like a cow who moves to the shade to keep cool we humans do things to make ourselves more comfortable. Saying there are things such as justice in this world comforts us to go about our business and interactions with others as does religion which comforts us when faced with the reality of our own mortality.

Message edited by author 2007-06-07 02:43:17.
 06/07/2007 02:43:44 AM · #29
Wow! This thread is titled "MAD WORLD" not "MAD DPC".
 06/07/2007 02:47:50 AM · #30
yes you are right oman. everyone who disagrees with the US invasion is spewing nonsense. however was I so blind.

Come on. You honestly think we've improved things over there? You honestly think we are over there on noble intentions and that bringing up Darfur is silly because well damn we can't help EVVVERYONE? That's pretty naive.
 06/07/2007 03:11:07 AM · #31
President Bush and James Baker committed billions of taxpayer dollars to assist Saddam Hussein. Bush and Baker allowed the export of U.S. technology that directly helped Baghdad build a huge arsenal of chemical, biological and possibly nuclear weapons. The arms were given to help Iraq fight Iran. Thats just a few things I remember from the top of my head. You say thats a little bit?

Message edited by author 2007-06-07 03:22:36.
 06/07/2007 03:26:34 AM · #32
Originally posted by superdave:
President Bush and James Baker committed billions of taxpayer dollars to assist Saddam Hussein. Bush and Baker allowed the export of U.S. technology that directly helped Baghdad build a huge arsenal of chemical, biological and possibly nuclear weapons. The arms were given to help Iraq fight Iran. Thats just a few things I remember from the top of my head. You say thats a little bit?


:) Thanks for facts. I wanted to argue that point but I have absolutely no factual recal. I'm better with concepts, but that holds little ground in a debate.

Like the No Child Left Behind bill... read a large part of the darn thing and really disagreed with it but get me in an argument about it and I couldn't have told you why... couldn't remember the details.

Damn my brain. Thanks for people like you that have some brains. :)
 06/07/2007 03:29:53 AM · #33
From an Interview of Noam Chomsky for the first Gulf war: "I think the main reason for the first Gulf war was what's called "credibility": Saddam had defied orders; no one can get away with that. Ask any Mafia Don and you'll get the explanation. There's good reason to suppose that a negotiated withdrawal would have been possible, but that wouldn't make the point; again, ask your favorite Don. The reason for leaving Saddam in place was explained very openly and frankly: as the diplomatic correspondent of the New York Times, Thomas Friedman, explained when the US backed Saddam's crushing of the Kurds, "the best of all worlds" for Washington would be an "iron-fisted junta" ruling Iraq just as Saddam did, but with a different name, because his is now embarrassing, and since no one like that seemed to be around, they'd have to settle with second-best, their old friend and ally the butcher of Baghdad himself. You can find plenty of material about all of this in what I wrote at the time, reprinted in Deterring Democracy; more has appeared since."

Notice that we are speaking about the Kurds... That means the ethnocity of the murdered girl
 06/07/2007 03:32:17 AM · #34
Originally posted by Klearchos:
From an Interview of Noam Chomsky for the first Gulf war: "I think the main reason for the first Gulf war was what's called "credibility": Saddam had defied orders; no one can get away with that. Ask any Mafia Don and you'll get the explanation. There's good reason to suppose that a negotiated withdrawal would have been possible, but that wouldn't make the point; again, ask your favorite Don. The reason for leaving Saddam in place was explained very openly and frankly: as the diplomatic correspondent of the New York Times, Thomas Friedman, explained when the US backed Saddam's crushing of the Kurds, "the best of all worlds" for Washington would be an "iron-fisted junta" ruling Iraq just as Saddam did, but with a different name, because his is now embarrassing, and since no one like that seemed to be around, they'd have to settle with second-best, their old friend and ally the butcher of Baghdad himself. You can find plenty of material about all of this in what I wrote at the time, reprinted in Deterring Democracy; more has appeared since."

Notice that we are speaking about the Kurds... That means the ethnocity of the murdered girl


wow did you creat a profile just to resond to that? lol, either way thanks for the info.
 06/07/2007 03:34:10 AM · #35
USA bring democracy? With witch way?Bombing from distance,killing for oil,gold and power?No man something is going wrong here?
Africa,Serbia,Irak,Palestain,Cuba,Afganistan e.t.c a few samples of the kind of democracy that creates terrorism .....
We have to bring education to the people and respect to the world and ourselves not "democracy"
Originally posted by aerogurl:
that deeply disturbs me..

In a time when the USA is trying to *bring democracy* to the Middle East, we need to stop and look at stuff like this and realize that it is not democracy we need to help them with, its the separation of church and state. The laws of most Middle Eastern countries allow for *Honor Killings* for adulterous wives and promiscuous daughters. The UN (or whoever) should make it so that all nations must remove religion from their legal system. I am a religious person, so don't bash me for hating on religions of the world, I just think they have their place, and its not in a legal system that allows murder of innocent children.


Message edited by author 2007-06-07 03:37:18.
 06/07/2007 04:54:44 AM · #36
all this talk of democracy, freedom, etc etc.

propaganda, and people eat it up like candy thinking it's patriotic.

no, it's patriotic to have a brain and use your rights given to speak out against the government when neccessary. All this stuff about being against the troops if you are against Bush is nonsense.

Politicians and the media have such a great way of tying sentimental or emotion pin pricks with the issues at hand without any real connection. Like the Iraq war and 911. Hello, who even talks about Osama any more?
 06/07/2007 05:48:15 AM · #37
omanotter, how is what i say such rediculous nonsense?

i really think it's time to quit trying to help, at least as a country, from a foriegn policy standpoint. either we quit, or we turn the keys to the treasury and the controls of the rest of our resources over to people like escaptetooz who know better how to solve the problems of the world. it is so obvious that this thing called the USA is a horrible result, an atrocity built on 400 years of end-justifies-the-means thinking. instead of solving problems, it only creates them. the only thing that has improved is the governments ability to keep stealing from the rest of the world and making its citizenry feel good about it. yes, it is time for us to just quit all this nonsense, admit the colonization was a mistake, and find some way to start over. maybe escaptetooz and her professors can come up with something that will let us all live in harmony.
 06/07/2007 06:06:45 AM · #38
Originally posted by Skip:
omanotter, how is what i say such rediculous nonsense?

i really think it's time to quit trying to help, at least as a country, from a foriegn policy standpoint. either we quit, or we turn the keys to the treasury and the controls of the rest of our resources over to people like escaptetooz who know better how to solve the problems of the world. it is so obvious that this thing called the USA is a horrible result, an atrocity built on 400 years of end-justifies-the-means thinking. instead of solving problems, it only creates them. the only thing that has improved is the governments ability to keep stealing from the rest of the world and making its citizenry feel good about it. yes, it is time for us to just quit all this nonsense, admit the colonization was a mistake, and find some way to start over. maybe escaptetooz and her professors can come up with something that will let us all live in harmony.


:/ are you making fun of me?
 06/07/2007 06:32:57 AM · #39
Originally posted by escapetooz:
:/ are you making fun of me?

no, just accepting the reality of what you keep saying and echoing.

if it is so obvious that the US was built by the barbaric actions of the european invaders, and that everything subsequent has been built on greed, and that where we are today is a place where most of the world would rather us keep to ourselves, then what's the solution?

i see none. so, we quit. not quitting like, "i'm taking my ball and going home," but quitting like, "i'm just tired of fighting with everyone and i am taking a break from it--you just play along without me."

no matter what you do, for whatever intention, it is going to be criticized. it is never going to be enough. it is never going to be fair. it is never going to be perfect. and it is always going to cause damage to something or somebody somewhere. today, rather than trying to work with what we have, rather than trying to find small successes and build on them, we are constantly faced by those that only want to shout us down and eviscerate us because we weren't completely successful, pure in intent, perfect, and fair. the problem is: everybody expects it, but it will never happen. and given the amount of angst and bitterness that results from our repeated failures, i am simply saying let's quit. let's let someone else do it because i'm tired of hearing about how bad a job we're doing and how bad we are.

06/07/2007 06:42:30 AM · #40
I have just watched that most disturbing act of pointless killing. That was truly sickening. I feel dirty just for looking at it.

So much for the religion of peace.

I don't know which was more appalling the childs death or the crowd and its ghoulish behaviour.

It remains a mystery to me the depths that humanity can plunge itself.

Hidious

Message edited by author 2007-06-07 06:47:46.
 06/07/2007 07:25:57 AM · #41
Originally posted by Skip:



if it is so obvious that the US was built by the barbaric actions of the european invaders, and that everything subsequent has been built on greed, and that where we are today is a place where most of the world would rather us keep to ourselves, then what's the solution?

i see none. so, we quit. not quitting like, "i'm taking my ball and going home," but quitting like, "i'm just tired of fighting with everyone and i am taking a break from it--you just play along without me."

rather than trying to find small successes and build on them, we are constantly faced by those that only want to shout us down and eviscerate us because we weren't completely successful, pure in intent, perfect, and fair. the problem is: everybody expects it, but it will never happen. and given the amount of angst and bitterness that results from our repeated failures, i am simply saying let's quit. let's let someone else do it because i'm tired of hearing about how bad a job we're doing and how bad we are.


And hence, this is the American problem.

WE, America, act as the holder of all answers. From the inception of this government and the Revolution, "Manifest Destiney", Civil War, The Mexican American war, The Indian Wars, and The Spanish American War, we, Americans, were making a country, taking in some instances, to become what this nation is today.

Since WWII, the Cold War, The Korean war, The Vietnam war, The Gulf war, and now The Iraq War, we, America, act as the Crusaders had.

We, America, act as the world police, the worlds human services, the worlds econamists, the worlds polititions, the worlds health advisors, the worlds loan man, and the worlds leader.

We, America, also have other countries that want to be like us, but always fall way short of that mark, so we get illegals from around the world that infiltrate our boarders so that they too can follow that "Dream" we so greatly advertise.

We, America, have fallen short ourselves when it comes to our own people. Education, health, taxes, what happened to the "pursuit of happiness" clause in the declaration? It's barley there is what happened.

The little girl is a sad case indeed.

But,I wonder how that region would of been if Israli's were not recognized back in WW I, oil was not an issue, and the allies just let those countries, those tribes, find their own "Manifest Destiny". I wonder if they would still be as "back wards" as they seem today.

I just wonder if these backward societies would be more atuned to the Amerian standard of civility and human rights and justice if we had just let them alone.

Or, would a continent of a Tally Ban like society emerge if we had'nt interfered?

Message edited by author 2007-06-07 08:20:56.
 06/07/2007 11:23:49 AM · #42
Originally posted by yanko:
Saying there are things such as justice in this world comforts us to go about our business and interactions with others as does religion which comforts us when faced with the reality of our own mortality.


Perhaps that's true, but it seems like a gossamer curtain that the typical intellectual atheist would want to knock a hole in. Atheism has a lot going for it. It's simple, it's powerful, it's rational. But just like religion, it has "issues". When it comes to the widely held belief that "right and wrong" are more than a simple matter of opinion and that free will exists, then the convoluted answers belong on the atheist side.

I guess that was the small point of my post. I found it a powerful example that to the person the thread denounced the act as evil. Nobody said, "honor killings are a tradition that goes back centuries in this people group. If they deem it to be right then we have no business telling them it's wrong." We all believe that this is wrong. We also all believe that the "wrong" goes deeper than just our opinion.
 06/07/2007 01:02:09 PM · #43
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
...When it comes to the widely held belief that "right and wrong" are more than a simple matter of opinion and that free will exists, then the convoluted answers belong on the atheist side.


Hey doc... you might want to interject this in the other thread that dealt with this specific issue. I truly don't believe that atheism is at the forefront of the argument here.

Ray
 06/07/2007 01:20:14 PM · #44
being Muslim myself, i feel it necessary to clarify some points on this before it encourages hatred of my religion. already i see some comments like "so much for the religion of peace".

The truth about this incident is that she wanted to marry a muslim guy, and because her family were against it - they stoned her to death. These people followed an ancient tribal religion of the Iraqi's, similar to the kind of tribal religion that may be followed by tribes in the rainforest of South America for all we know.

Aswad, a member of a minority Kurdish religious group called Yezidi, was condemned to death as an âhonour killingâ by other men in her family and hardline religious leaders because of her relationship with the Sunni Muslim boy.

Furthermore, this is from an article on an Islamic forum:
The punishment of stoning is the hadd punishment for the married adulterer, which essentially entails that it functions exclusively as a deterrent. Here's why. To apply this punishment you need four witnesses to the actual act of penetration who observed it from four different angles and if there is even the slightest contradiction in the most minute details of their testimony, they are punished with eighty lashes for false accusation of adultery. Thus, the implementation of the hadd punishment for zina is a practical impossibility. As the fatwâ committee under the supervision of Shaykh 'Abdul-Wahâb At-Turaryrî notes:

It is not enough for four people to show up at court and give testimony. The witnesses and their backgrounds have to be carefully scrutinized by the courts to determine their trustworthiness and honesty. They have to be able to demonstrate that they saw the crime. It is not easy to explain how one was able to witness such an act without being guilty of any wrongdoing oneself. The witnesses have to see actual sexual penetration. This is not an easy thing to explain.

If the condition of four witnesses of determined trustworthiness is not fulfilled, each of those who accused the person of adultery is given 80 lashes with a whip as the punishment for bearing false witness.

Allah says: âAnd those who launch a charge against chaste women, and produce not four witnesses (to support their allegations), flog them with eighty stripes; and reject their evidence ever after: for such men are wicked transgressors.â [Sûrah al-Nûr: 4]

The punishments for fornication and adultery are designed more to protect society from the open practice of licentious sexual behavior than they are designed to punish people.

It is nearly impossible to get a conviction for adultery except in a case where it is carried out in public for all eyes to see. With this threat of severe punishment, people will keep their evil deeds concealed and society as a whole will be protected.

It is worth noting that in the 1400 years of Islamic history, these stringent conditions have never been met even once. And due to the deterrent effect, sexual immorality is suffocated and eradicated in an Islamic society.


Message edited by author 2007-06-07 14:08:17.
 06/07/2007 02:20:58 PM · #45
Originally posted by k4ffy:
It is worth noting that in the 1400 years of Islamic history, these stringent conditions have never been met even once. And due to the deterrent effect, sexual immorality is suffocated and eradicated in an Islamic society.
[/b]


Hey k4ffy, thanks for the viewpoint. Interesting. I don't quite get the deterrent effect though. If the average person knows that the standard of proof is so high to have never been reached in 1400 years, how would this act as a deterrent?
 06/07/2007 02:21:09 PM · #46
bump, to make sure my reply above reaches as many as possible
 06/07/2007 02:26:15 PM · #47
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
Originally posted by k4ffy:
It is worth noting that in the 1400 years of Islamic history, these stringent conditions have never been met even once. And due to the deterrent effect, sexual immorality is suffocated and eradicated in an Islamic society.
[/b]


Hey k4ffy, thanks for the viewpoint. Interesting. I don't quite get the deterrent effect though. If the average person knows that the standard of proof is so high to have never been reached in 1400 years, how would this act as a deterrent?


in my humble opinion, and from my own personal viewpoint, whether or not the average person knows that the standard of proof is so high that it is likely to never be met, the fact that such a strict punishment is "prescribed" (i put it in quotes to emphasize that it is not supposed to be put into practice) should indicate the serious nature of the "crime" involved.

as a more relatable example, knowing you'd never get proven guilty for a murder would not encourage most people to commit murder, since they know it to be wrong, and feel it to be wrong. however, in many places in the world if you DO get proven guilty for murder, the punishment is indeed death, through various means ranging from beheading to lethal injection. in the same manner, whether or not you are proven guilty for adultery is in a way irrelevant. the ruling exists only to indicate the severity of the action.

does this make sense?
 06/07/2007 02:34:22 PM · #48
yes, makes more sense. It's just a way of telling people "this is extra serious".
 06/07/2007 02:37:11 PM · #49
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
yes, makes more sense. It's just a way of telling people "this is extra serious".


precisely. the people that you see in videos such as the one posted are condemned and abhorred by Muslims and non-Muslims alike, and are lost souls who take the judgement of others into their own hands. Unfortunately, Islam gets brought into the loop since others assume that if they're from a predominantly Muslim nation, they must be Muslim too.
 06/07/2007 02:52:07 PM · #50
Originally posted by k4ffy:
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
yes, makes more sense. It's just a way of telling people "this is extra serious".


precisely. the people that you see in videos such as the one posted are condemned and abhorred by Muslims and non-Muslims alike, and are lost souls who take the judgement of others into their own hands. Unfortunately, Islam gets brought into the loop since others assume that if they're from a predominantly Muslim nation, they must be Muslim too.


Yup, works the same way for Christians too. Because ther e are violent Christians many people tar them all with the same brush. I think an IED at that location would have cleared a lot of things up.
Yelling God is Great while stoning someone. None of them deserve to breath.
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