Good piece by Glenn about the reaction of lawmakers to the jackass in Florida burning Korans. Personally, I am of the opinion that he has every right to burn them, and I have every right to point out he is a total asshole and that his actions are helping no one and that he may have contributed to the deaths of those people. I find absolutely no inconsistency between recognizing that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances” and me using that right to call Rev. Jones a colossal asshole.
Additionally, my main problem with all this nonsense about Koran burning and the Draw Mohammed nonsense is that sure, they have every right to do it, but what exactly do they think they are accomplishing? Add in that much of it is the same warblogger chest-thumping and keyboard warfighting that so nauseates anyone with common sense, and that much of this is motivated with hatred for Islam.
Personally, as long as Congress doesn’t do anything to actually attempt to restrict this scumbag’s right to burn the Koran, and I’m not going to get that worked up about it. I’ve said my piece- I think the guy is a jerk.
singfoom
Bigoted asshole does stupid thing to offend people of a major religion. Assholes who follow that religion kill people in response. And we’re all like President Scroob, surrounded by assholes.
It’s dumb to burn holy books. It’s even dumber to kill people because some guy not really associated with the people you kill offended your sensibilities.
All I know is that if I had a lost a family member due to bigoted asshole A, I would do my utmost to destroy his career and life as much as possible.
But since he’s a fundamentalist Christian, big daddy Jeebus already forgave him, so he doesn’t owe anyone shit, right?
Just Some Fuckhead
How do you dispose of an old worn out Koran? Just curious.
JPL
Jones can do what he wants but why does he have a forum? Fox News Sunday spent several minutes talking about the fact that he shouldn’t have a forum.. Why are we talking about the asshole… Sorry.. but he should not be discussed.
stuckinred
It’s worth it to read Pat Lang on this issue.
WaterGirl
‘May have contributed to the deaths of those people.” Doesn’t sound strong enough to me.
I also think words like asshole and jerk aren’t strong enough for someone who deliberately provoked violent action (even if he couldn’t predict the details of the violent action). And he did it even after some high ranking military person came out and said that burning the Koran would make things much more difficult for us in Afghanistan.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
Since I’m the Elephant’s Child and filled with ‘satiable curtiosity, and also since you are a Large Shiny-Toothed Crocodile that has also been a Military Man….do you suppose you could answer my question, John Cole?
What is the mission in Afghanistan?
The Political Nihilist Formerly Known As Kryptik
He’s legally within his rights, but morally guilty. Sure, I’m pretty well positive that the instigators of the riot were just looking for something they could make a flashpoint, but that still doesn’t change the fact that Terry Jones, in all his assholeness, is purposefully provoking Muslims in general as well as trying to push eliminationist rhetoric toward Muslim-Americans to make it clear that they’re nto ‘real Americans’ to him and his ilk. That’s my stand and I’m sticking to it.
Just Some Fuckhead
@WaterGirl:
Surely they felt a bit of patriotic pride as they died for Jones’ freedom.
El Tiburon
Of course his actions pale in comparison to the overall thuggery of our Blessed Nation.
I’m sure if asked, Obama et al would express strong regret and remorse for his actions.
Then immediately order another drone strike killing someone’s son or daughter.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@stuckinred: this is true. The Uncreated Revealed Quran is outside time and space.
your point is?
singfoom
@stuckinred: That helps in terms of understanding the ferocity of the response, but still doesn’t excuse those incredibly ignorant assholes who decided that they were like god and should hold the power of life and death over people who had done nothing wrong.
pragmatism
terry jones, like donald trump (and many others) just wants to ensure that we keep saying “terry jones” or donald trump or so and so.
John Cole
@Hermione Granger-Weasley: Beats the fuck out of me. I support a complete and total withdrawal.
The Dangerman
I sincerely hope the local authorities aren’t spending a dime protecting his well exposed ass. His future can provide a lesson in what happens when you want to take a shit on a billion or so people. Golden Rule, asshole.
Mnemosyne
@Just Some Fuckhead:
The same way you dispose of a worn out American flag. Oddly, that still hasn’t stopped conservatives from trying to pass an amendment to make it illegal to burn the flag.
(Edited for clarity)
stuckinred
@Hermione Granger-Weasley: I posted it because I thought it informed the issue. You have a problem with that?
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@John Cole: shukran jazakallah John Cole.
Could it also be immediate?
Your honesty is greatly appreciated.
@singfoom: dude they were THERE, helping the American torturerapist invaderoccupiers, and thus proselytizers Allah recommends proportional and symmetrical response for proselytizers.
Its in the Quran.
stuckinred
@The Dangerman: The NYT article on him yesterday said there were two squad cars posted at the entrance to his property.
Brachiator
Yep.
Another good discussion is here, at the evolution is true blog site, which takes on a nutcase who finds a way to blame atheists for part of the ugly outcome of the nutcase pastor’s actions:
singfoom
Jones will eventually pay for what he has done. It’s quite amazing to me that anyone who labels himself a “Christian” would spend so much time generating hate.
I’m sure once he has to face some kind of negative consequences, he’ll start bleating about his first amendment rights, because if he’s stupid enough to think that Koran burning is a Christian activity, he’s stupid enough to think that the First Amendment protects you from the consequences of what you say.
Montysano
We live in the age of reality teevee, aka the Celebration of the Asshole. If you’re offending people and pissing them off, you’re a playa. If you’re a decent person, you’re a chump and a looser (sp). It’s how we roll, and you’re soaking in it.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@The Dangerman: 1.8 billion. naow.
The Dangerman
@stuckinred:
Well, that makes me sad; I wouldn’t have wasted the money on him in this tight economy.
stuckinred
@The Dangerman: If someone offed his ass the local pd would be in a bind. In addition, the asshole has made a lot of noise about being strapped so someone else might get killed as well.
Litlebritdifrnt
Okay lets just say for a moment that some black preacher of some sort of religion somewhere decided to burn a bible in protest of slavery, the white christians in some Southern State then decided to sling up an innocent black guy who had nothing to do with the preacher in protest.
What would you do?
Mnemosyne
@Brachiator:
I would argue this point, because Jones knew exactly the reaction he would get from the last time he tried to pull this stunt. It was, IMO, essentially the same thing as standing directly in front of the enflamed mob because of his previous speech.
stuckinred
@Litlebritdifrnt: Attack the UN headquarters in Biloxi?
Stillwater
@Hermione Granger-Weasley: What is the mission in Afghanistan?
Wait a minute. That’s a trick question! You know as well as anybody what the mission is: to proselytize Muslims with JCDemocracy.
Sinner repent!
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@singfoom:
actually the muslims were following the law of the Quran.
They were not pretending to be god, but following god’s law.
RESPOND ONLY TO THE EXTENT OF THE ATTACK LEVELLED AGAINST YOU; (16:25)
They felt burning the Quran required the death of some local proselytizers, because of the seriousness of the offense. Certainly they would have preferred to kill Jones, but they could not reach him.
Brachiator
@Mnemosyne:
Fair point. I offered the link to the blog to add to the debate discussion, not to argue any particular point of view on this issue.
And unfortunately I don’t have time to post the link just now, but an official in Pakistan was murdered not too long ago simply because he opposes rigid anti-blasphemy laws. He did not do or say anything blasphemous. The battle for tolerance, has been a part of Islam, and is taking place within Islam. It’s not just about Westerners doing stuff that upsets people.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Stillwater: that is my analysis. I am interested in other humans opinions. Perhaps I am wrong….persuade me.
Think of it as a poll.
What is the mission?
Ahasuerus
@stuckinred: Torch a Unitarian Meeting House in Des Moines.
singfoom
@Hermione Granger-Weasley: I am not interested in the self-justification those who have faith in any religion have provided themselves.
I have absolutely no tolerance and no respect for those who would do evil and point to a holy book to justify their repugnant actions, regardless of the religion.
What you say may be true, but it is besides the point.
The Dangerman
@stuckinred:
Well, anyone standing next to this Dude should have their insurance premiums increased markedly; can’t we just fly him over Kabul, give him a chute, and wish him well with a little shove?
Stillwater
@Hermione Granger-Weasley: They were not pretending to be god, but following god’s law.
RESPOND ONLY TO THE EXTENT OF THE ATTACK LEVELLED AGAINST YOU; (16:25)
They felt burning the Quran required the death of some local proselytizers,
Did you know, HG-W/M_C, that Christians routinely stone people to death for wearing cloth made from two fibers? They’re not pretending to be God, they’re just following God’s law.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Brachiator:
this is false.
Islam is a tolerant religion. It does not allow proselytizing though.
Jews and christians could be citizens of the Caliphate.
They just could not proselytize.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Stillwater: just answer my question please.
What is the mission?
Fifi
@singfoom – April 4, 2011 | 7:42 pm:
What do you mean “pay”? What do you wish happens to him? For which reason? For burning a copy of a book?
Please, singfoom, be honest, be a bit more specific.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@singfoom: it is true. But you do not understand islamic culture, or wish too.
bi la kayfah
Can you answer my question?
What is the mission?
Stillwater
@Hermione Granger-Weasley: Clearly, the mission is to proselytize proselytization-immune Muslims. And impose some good’ole freedom of speech too. We won’t rest till we get that freedom of speech enshrined in their lawz!
singfoom
@Fifi: I want him to be haunted by the fact that he caused people to die. I want him to live with that guilt until he dies a natural death. I want him to realize his actions were in no way Christian and that he should be ashamed of himself for the rest of his life.
I want him to be shunned by the world-wide Christian community. I want his views found repugnant and puerile and bigoted by the majority people in the United States.
What, do you think I want the guy hurt or killed? When I’m talking about how fucking ignorant it was of the people who did the killing in Afghanistan?
I’m not a believer, but I’m not dumb enough to think that more violence will solve anything or that he deserves that. Plus, I find life with guilt a crueler punishment than death or violence.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
I’m not threadjacking. Kabul is in Afghanistan.
That is why the NATO workers were killed there.
Anyone? What is the mission?
stuckinred
@Hermione Granger-Weasley: why are you such a pain in the ass? anyone?
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Stillwater: that is dishonest. i am genuinely interested in what you think the mission is.
why did the killings happen in kabul?
because no one knows what the mission is?
stuckinred
@Hermione Granger-Weasley: you are genuinely fucking annoying
Bex
@Just Some Fuckhead: The same way you would dispose of an old worn our Bible. Bury it.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Hermione Granger-Weasley:
The mission is to postpone the inevitable until after the 2012 elections.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@stuckinred: why do you think the killings happened in Kabul instead of in Tehran or Islambad?
The Dangerman
Burn down the mission, if we’re gonna stay alive
/Elton
Just Some Fuckhead
Hermione, darling.. could you help us figure out how to dispose of an old worn out Koran?
Bex
@Just Some Fuckhead: Edit. worn out Bible.
stuckinred
@Hermione Granger-Weasley: why don’t you quit being such a jerk and just tell us what you want us to hear ?
Bex
@Just Some Fuckhead: The same way you would dispose of an old worn out Bible. Bury it.
Asshole
Brandenburg v. Ohio covered this issue nicely back in 1969.
“…[T]he constitutional guarantees of free speech and free press do not permit a State to forbid or proscribe advocacy of the use of force or of law violation except where such advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action.”
The key issue is imminence. Jones is a fucking asshole, so are the KKK and a lot of other people. But if I incite you to violent action, my legal culpability deteriorates the longer the time period between my incitement and your action. The longer you have to think about it, the more “cooling time” is involved. What Jones did is clearly protected under the Constitution.
How about if some Christian fundamentalists said that the next time they heard an atheist bash Christians they’d go kill someone, and then an atheist burned the Bible so a couple days later those Fundies went out and killed someone? Would the atheist be culpable for hurting the deranged Christians’ feelings? Would we have to ignore imminence and jail the atheist for “inciting” the killing by pissing the Christians off?
The two main groups at the forefront of First Amendment rights battles throughout the twentieth century were two of the least popular, least-likeable groups in twentieth-century America: publicly racist assholes (neo-Nazis, the KKK), and Jehovah’s Witnesses. Those fuckers are expanding First Amendment protection for all of us. We should thank them for a number of rights we take for granted nowadays. Jones is an asshole, but he has every right to be an asshole. The same laws that protect that asshole protect the rest of us.
Remember, before the Supreme Court adopted the multi-pronged Brandenburg test of intent, imminence, and likelihood, they’d sent Eugene V. Debs to prison for the heinous crime of criticizing WWI conscription and hypothetically jeopardizing the safety of his nation. Half the people who post on this blog could’ve hypothetically been jailed by now, either for arguing against America’s military adventures in wartime or for being curmudgeons who raise the spectre of a “clear and present danger” of religious violence by trash-talking religion.
stuckinred
@The Dangerman: From this day on I own my father’s gun.
Roger Moore
@stuckinred:
She might tell us what she wants us to hear, but I don’t think the “quit being such a jerk” part is going to happen.
cathyx
@Bex: The way you dispose of an old worn out Bible is to pass it on to the next generation.
singfoom
@Hermione Granger-Weasley: I’m hoping if I answer the question, you’ll STFU about “The Mission” and keep on topic.
AFAIK, the mission was originally to capture Bin Laden and destroy the safe haven for Al-Qaeda that Afghanistan was at the time.
We did ok the second objective but we either failed or didn’t actually want to capture Bin Laden.
Then the mission became democracy building, which was a stupid idea, but we didn’t have any better idea after bombing the fuck out of the Taliban, who looked like Al Qaeda except they weren’t Arabs, but Pashtuns.
The mission now? Cover our asses and the international aid workers until we can get the fuck out. Because you can’t nation build for another people.
Now, will you STFU and talk about assholes burning korans and stop threadjacking?
Mnemosyne
@Asshole:
Well, close. It’s more like if, say, PZ Myers said he was going to burn a Bible, and the Christian fundamentalists said that if he did that, they were going to go kill some people, and after drawing it out for months, Myers ignored everyone around him — including the POTUS — begging him not to burn the Bible and did it anyway.
I really don’t see completely unfettered free speech as an unmitigated good. Per the Florida Court of Appeals, Fox News can knowingly lie during their broadcasts and it’s still protected under the First Amendment. How is that good for anyone?
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@stuckinred: look, I’m really curious. Why Kabul? Was it coincidental? Were the NATO workers just lowhanging fruit? And Americans had too much protection to penetrate?
The major Draw Muhammed Day protests were in Islamabad.
And no one can tell me what the mission is in A-stan.
That is astonishing.
We have been fighting there for ten years, and no one knows what the mission is?
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@singfoom:
ok. Proselytizing.
shukran for your honesty.
stuckinred
@Hermione Granger-Weasley: What the fuck ARE you babbling about:
KABUL — Ten foreign UN workers were killed on Friday in an attack on the UN headquarters in the northern Afghan city of Mazar-i-Sharif by demonstrators protesting at the burning of the Koran by a US pastor, police told AFP.
WaterGirl
@Hermione Granger-Weasley:
You are not the teacher, so no one is required to answer you.
Nor are you in charge of this thread, so no one is required to answer you.
The fact that most of us here have not responded to your REPEATED DEMAND that we answer your question does not mean that “no one knows what the mission is”.
Edit:
Shorter WaterGirl:
You are being a bully and most people do not respond well that.
Bex
@cathyx: Assuming there is one. But someday it will have to be disposed of and the correct way to do it is to bury it, as you would a Qur’an.
Garrigus Carraig
HGW is clearly a malfunctioning chatbot. Which I don’t even.
Asshole
@Mnemosyne:
Atheists are on notice that some religious people are violent and dangerously insecure. So they’re on notice- bashing religion might get people killed. Not sure what the POTUS bit matters for.
Free speech includes the freedom to lie. The solution to lies and hatred is more speech, not less. The solution to Jones burning a Koran is for other Christians to come out against him and for the nation at large to make it clear how despicable they find his actions- which, to our national credit, is what has happened.
The alternative to correcting bad speech with more speech is to muzzle speech. That’s all well and good when people you dislike are muzzled, like Jones. But I suspect that there are more people out there who disagree with you than there are people who agree with you, so I’m fairly sure that your views would wind up criminalized more quickly than most of theirs would.
As for Fox News being full of shit, they have the same right to broadcast bullshit that Colbert does. You really want the government stepping in and deciding what can be broadcast as news and what can’t?
Roger Moore
@stuckinred:
Notice that she also can’t tell UN from NATO. Apparently she has been memetically programmed to be unable recognize the difference.
Stillwater
@Hermione Granger-Weasley: So, it was a trick question after-all. For someone who bitches about proselytizing all the time, you sure can’t stop yourself from incessantly doing just that.
I say again unto you: SINNER REPENT!
BruinKid
I view Jones like Jigsaw in the Saw movies. No, he didn’t personally pull the trigger or flip the switch. But he set into motion the chain of events. And he KNEW this was going to happen; he’s said so repeatedly, and seemed downright gleeful on the news this weekend that the murders justified his belief about Muslims.
singfoom
@Hermione Granger-Weasley: Is there a reason you talk to other people on the internet when all you really want is to confirm your own bias?
Fail.
arguingwithsignposts
Hmmm. I think HGW/M_c’s rants need more EDK hate.
singfoom
@Asshole: Co-sign on all of this, but I have to ask…
While I agree with the idea that the reaction to hate and lies should be more speech, do you really think there shouldn’t be any kind of law that regulates what large media companies can say?
I don’t think Fox should be shut down or anything, but surely a fine or a requirement that they show a correction to their lies is a reasonable idea given the size of their megaphone?
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@WaterGirl:
sure it does.
@Stillwater: i don’t proselytize. yours is better for you. you can’t be a sufi, anyways. not possible. whatever you are is what you should be.
Greg
I will never, not even if I live to be a hundred, understand why people would be offended by, or think they could make some sort of statement by, the burning of a few pieces of paper or a scrap of cloth. Because that’s all they are: pieces of paper and scraps of cloth.
Stillwater
@Hermione Granger-Weasley: i don’t proselytize.
How would you describe the little shit-shows you put on here?
Tax Analyst
@Just Some Fuckhead:
I’m pretty sure you don’t have some asshole bigot burn it.
Cassidy
@Hermione Granger-Weasley: Skip the foreplay and get straight to the part where you go “You’re wrong and I’ll prove how much smarter I am by explaining it…”
FSM!
Roger Moore
@Greg:
Just because you aren’t offended doesn’t mean that anyone else is dumb for being offended. Those things are powerful enough symbols that some people will see attacks on them as equivalent to attacks on the things they symbolize.
It’s like burning a person in effigy. Yes, it’s literally only destroying a doll, but it’s a powerful way of displaying contempt and hatred for the person it represents. I can’t burn effigies of Allah or the United States, but burning the Koran or the Stars and Stripes is fundamentally the same thing.
zuzu (not that one, the other one)
@singfoom:
What’s so amazing about it? It happens all the time. They’re quite happy to incite murder when it comes to abortion doctors and gays.
I’d like to know where the “Dude, you *have* no Quran!” guy was this time.
Dennis SGMM
@Cassidy:
I liked the statements “you can’t be a sufi, anyways. not possible.”
I don’t know that much about Sufism but I’d have to guess that one of the modern day qualifications is to obsess for months on end about some blog’s front pager.
DougW
If this asshat found that someone had burned a bible, he’d have gone ballistic. It stands pretty clear to me that like mr. Rushdie, this butt-hole is now on a death watch… He’s made his bed, and must lie in it. You can’t make such an insulting statement about another religion and expect to live very long….
Asshole
@singfoom:
Not per se, no. But…
The best theory I could think of would be some kind of consumer fraud/protection, if you’re advertising yourself as providing news. If you provide “news” that’s total bullshit, then maybe it could be regulated under anti-fraud statutes. But again, this is something I’d be very, very hesitant to see government get involved in. I have little doubt that the next GOP President would use it to try and censor the news by claiming that some genuinely objective news source was lying- after gagging that news source and preventing them from corroborating their stories.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Dennis SGMM: haha, but that is OVAH.
I am thinking about other things now.
And so, off she went to the great grey green greasy limpopo river, all hung about with fever trees, eating melons and throwing the rinds about.
Because she could not pick them up.
Tim, Interrupted
Cole, I asked this question in another thread and you never replied, so I’ll try again. Quoting you:
So, Cole…how many murders do you figure YOU are responsible for, having had a hand in inciting the nation and the U.S. military machine to war in Iraq? How many of those hundreds of thousands dead are on your head? How would you compare and contras the Koran burner’s “responsibility” with your own?
And how do you handle the knowledge of what you helped cause, on a daily basis? How do you function with that level of guilt. I mean, if the burner is responsible for the seven or eight or however many dead following his act, how many heads must you have on YOUR conscience?
I would like to know how you apply your reasoning to your own situation?
Tim, Interrupted
@El Tiburon:
THIS too.
Cassidy
@Tim, Interrupted: You buy goods that have taxes. Said taxes go into the treasury. You bought a smartbomb or rocket that killed a child. How do you reconcile that, jackass?
Good god. I rarely comment over here anymore. Did someone plant an insufferable prick garden?
Tim, Interrupted
@Cassidy:
o
As you well know, you embecile, I have zero control over how the fascist government of the united states uses its tax money. Cole certainly has control over his mouth and keyboard.
I assume you’re hoping Cole notices your brave decision to leap into the fray on his behalf here. Perhaps you’re hoping he will lower his testicles into your mouth as a reward, but that is unlikely. Don’t concern yourself. I’m sure JC can handle my impertinence on his own.
Fuzz
I always wondered what Jones would think of the Muslim soldiers/cops/informants who put their lives on the line for a cause that most Americans (myself included) profess is important but haven’t fought or sacrificed for. I also wonder if they realize how many US and allied servicemen they’re putting in danger by doing these things.
PS: You’re being snarky Hermi, you know what the mission is in A’stan. You don’t agree with it, but stop saying no one can say what it is. The mission is to assist Karzai’s government and stand up his security forces while inflicting battlefield losses on the Taliban in Afghanistan and, if you’re the CIA, Pakistan. See the 2010 spring/summer offensives in Kandahar and Helmand and the campaigns in Kunar, Nuristan and the regions bordering Pakistan in the east. Read some articles in the NYT by CJ Chivers, Alyssa Rubin and Dexter Filkins. You may not think it’s worth some 21 year old being maimed for, and many would agree, but we know what the mission overall is.
Cassidy
@Tim, Interrupted: Ooohhh… tea-bagging jokes. Must have hit a sore spot.
And you’re a dishonest sack of shit. You have plenty of control about how much you pay into the treasury. You could not buy a car…no taxes. You could grow your own food…no taxes. You could make your own clothes….very minimal taxes for materials. But I guess a little blood on your hands is worth the convenience.
Cassidy
@Tim, Interrupted: Oh wow, I just realized…the money you choose to pay for goods and services was used to send Soldiers, a couple of which committed acts of rape. You funded a rape! Wow, you really are a monstrous shitstain. How’s it feel to know some young girl was raped and murdered and you paid for it?
Tim, Interrupted
@Cassidy:
It feels great. I like how it feels, actually. So now that I have answered your questions, I would like Cole to answer mine. That OK with you, Cassie?
Cassidy
Take that up with him. But at least you’re finally being honest. That whole soapbox thing wasn’t working for you.
Svensker
@Greg:
The thing no one seems to be factoring into the equation is that we are occupying Muslim lands and the Muslim folks who live in those lands are a bit sensitive about whether we really should be there and what we’re doing. So while we’re bombing their wedding parties and killing their kids, one of “our” people back in our home burns something they think is really important and insults the crap out of them. That minor detail adds a bit of piquancy to the situation.
Svensker
@Asshole:
Canada has a nice little law that says if you’re a news provider you are not allowed to lie or mislead while providing news. It just stopped a Fox-style station from opening up there — the PM Harper actually tried to get the law changed to allow lying in the news, but it didn’t go through. Heh.
Shade Tail
@Tim, Interrupted:
At this point, I doubt Mr. Cole will get around to answering you. He probably missed you in all the noise. Either that or he’s too busy laughing his ass off at your pretentious bullshit.
In any case, don’t get your hopes up.
Mnemosyne
@Asshole:
Well, if you wanted to prove that atheists are single-minded assholes who can’t deal with metaphors, you just proved your point.
And if you have no idea why the POTUS part of that metaphor has anything to do with it, you haven’t been following the Jones story closely enough to make an intelligent comment about it.
That’s the strategy the left has been following for the past 30 years. All we have to do is point out that Limbaugh, Beck, Palin, Hannity, Coulter etc are lying and people will totally come around and believe us.
Of course, that completely discounts that that’s not how the human brain actually works. If you tell a conservative that something he believes to be the truth is a lie, he will double down and believe in the lie even harder than before you spoke to him.
IOW, your “solution” is actually making things worse than before, because “more speech” is just making people believe the lies must be true if so many people are saying they’re lies.
And, yes, I have no problem with profit-making media organizations being required by the government to fulfill certain requirements. If they don’t like it, they can give up their government-issued broadcast license and find another way to spread their lies. They have the right to tell lies, but they don’t have the right to require the government to allow them to broadcast those lies on the public airwaves.
RadioOne
I wouldn’t worry. Congress will never take away the right of someone like Terry Jones to burn as many piles of Korans he deems needed to make a political statement.
Jeff
Was the person who created a picture of the Virgin Mary out of elephant dung a total asshole?
Triassic Sands
@Hermione Granger-Weasley:
The mission is for the president (and other Democrats) to not look weak or be open to criticism by Republicans for being weak. Democratic presidents are afraid to be seen as not tough enough, which, in this case, means not getting out of a war that has outlived its usefulness.
If that isn’t “mission” enough for you, you haven’t been paying attention to American politics for the last fifty or sixty years.
Triassic Sands
@Hermione Granger-Weasley:
PS If Obama were paying a bigger political price for remaining in Afghanistan, the mission
would probablymight change pretty quickly. Then, Obama would have to weigh the political damage from staying against the political damage from having Republicans characterize him as weak. (Just another Muslim sissy who wants the Taliban to win.)Pie-Lover
Sounds like to some people around here, censorship is fine as long as it’s only views they don’t like getting censored. That makes me wonder why they even bother staying in America, when surely there’s some dictatorship out there whose oppression more closely approximates their preferred flavor of thought policing.
bob h
I’d like to see some of these guys get fatwas. Real, serious Salman Rushdie-class fatwas. You’d see some bedwetting then.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Fuzz: I know what it is. Its proselytizing westernstyle democracy. That is what the Bush Doctrine and COIN are. But a lot of the juicers are going balls to the wall to deny that. Je m’amuse.
They are getting all hot and bothered about defending an incredibly stupid Bush admin policy that never could have worked.
Obama has been trying to GTFO since he took office. The mini-surge was just the surge redux– a way to save a few scraps of face while leaving. But he can’t SAY that, because we still live in Distributed Jesusland.
Maybe it will change after he wins in 2012.
The thing that astonishes me is that juicers still desperately want to believe in some core American protestant goodness that is superior to the rest of the world. They say, “true” christians don’t do that, muslims are barbarian savages.
But christians do that. And Big White Christian Bwana is always with us. He knows best. Even Animist Anne Laurie buys into that. ;)
The Framers and Founders were geniuses. They laid out a design for a civil utopia as well as they could. The fucking anglosaxon protestant conservatives have tried to screw it up ever since.
I tried to talk about this on the Vile Impoverished Black Muslim Somali Pirates kill Noble Rich White Christian American Missionaries thread and got banned.
Religion is not rational.
Burning a Quran is not rational, and killing the Quran-burners memetic tribesmen in revenge is not rational.
When I look at the horrific and ongoing cost of Iraq and A-stan, I continue to remain gobsmackingly astonished at how stupid the conservative christian base is. I think protestant christianity is actually memetic selection for stupid at this point. That would explain creationism, supply side economics, AGW denialism and Afghanistan.
And christian individualism has also led to Peak Oil.
Can you dig it, Spock?
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Triassic Sands:
for anyone with eyes to see and ears to hear, the Taliban ARE winning.
Do you know what is uberhilarious?
The race between Exum’s dissertation progress and Obama’s sekrut plan to GTFO A-stan. Exum’s dissertation is on some aspect of validating COIN in A-stan.
Its super funnie.
You see….no one expected the Arab Spring. And now things are speeding up in the COIN fail process in A-stan. Atrocity incidence is ramping up and neighboring countries are falling to islamism….like Cambodia fell to the commies.
I think something bad is coming.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
Clarification:
Both are SYMBOLIC acts. Jones was symbolically burning al-Islam, the Kabul assassins were symbolically killing crusaders.
Mandramas
@Hermione Granger-Weasley: It was not christian individualism. It was a little big ideology called Capitalism. Iraq and Afgtan was invaded since a large part of the industry is weapon based, and to secure vital oil resources needed to maintain the oil economy standard. It was, always, money.
Proselitism is a 3rd rate excuse for the newspapers. Why Bush did not proselitice Mubarak’s Egypt or Saudi Arabia, if it was the plan? Or Paquistan? America can tolerate any despotism, as long at it’s pays.
THE
@Hermione Granger-Weasley:
I don’t even know what you’re trying to say here HG-W
We’ve had enormous benefit out of oil. But it turned out to be a finite resource.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Mandramas: @THE: free market capitalism is the economic branch of christianity. Christian individualism is the belief that all the resources of the world were put there for man to use up.
Dominion. The Prosperity Gospel.
This oppositionary to eastern philosophy…universalism, connectedness, the unity of existance.
THE
Whatever you say HGW. It’s your delusion.
arguingwithsignposts
@Hermione Granger-Weasley:
Your understanding of christianity is about as deep as most westerners’ understanding of islam. I’d suggest you stick to things you know about before you reveal your stupidity even more.
singfoom
@Hermione Granger-Weasley: It’s Christian/Capitalist converting turtles all the way down isn’t it?
It’s great you can reduce something so complex to something so simple.
Again, since I was kind enough to answer your question, will you ever answer mine?
What’s the point of talking to people about these things if regardless of they say or the points they make, you reduce it down to prosletyzing?
Can you not see your confirmation bias looming right in front of you?
THE
You need to be aware HGW that capitalist enterprises of considerable sophistication already existed in Ancient Rome.
keestadoll
@singfoom:
Why would you be amazed at all? It’s part two of the zealot playbook.
Part One: spread the Word.
Part Two: demonize anyone and everything contradictory to it (and be sure to exploit ignorance as you go) AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE.
This playbook is available in multiple translations and is formatted as a form letter for use by various religious leaders.
Mandramas
@Hermione Granger-Weasley:
Debatable. The Free Market capitalism was created, in the modern form, on 1700’s, and specially on the protestant countries (with extreme variants as calvinism, where being rich granted you the heaven); so, FMC is a brainchild of protestantism, not christianity as a whole. In fact, the economy model predessor of the capitalism, feudalism, is more like a economic branch of early western christianity.
vanya
Free market capitalism is completely anathema to Christianity as that religion was understood from the death of Christ until about the 18th century (or until the late 20th century in Catholic countries). But American evangelicals have strayed so far from traditional Christian beliefs that it’s tempting to give the religion an entirely different name at this point.
THE
Yes I’d agree with Mandramas that Christendom was feudalistic, but there are capitalistic elements in the city states of Italy in the Renaissance.
It was here that much of the machinery of banking and stocks and double entry book-keeping were perfected. One thinks of the Medici Bank.
But the Renaissance wasn’t so much Christian as humanistic. It was a conscious attempt to revive the lost glories of the classical world. The very word “Renaissance” suggests as much.
THE
I would go so far as to suggest that primitive Christianity was communistic.
Mandramas
@THE: Indeed. The first letter of credit was popularly attributed to the templar knight, even when there are evidence that similar agreements were performed by the phoenicians. Also, some ages of chinese history also have a very complex market economy.
The point is, in any culture, all the main components (economics, ideological, religion, art) are related and interconected. American’s imperialism ambicions as a superpower are not unique neither excepcional; they are the same empire ambicions of every big country in the history. Only the cultural responses and “politicaly correct excuses” varies.
Tim, Interrupted
@Pie-Lover:
Yup.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@singfoom: Dig Sean commenting at Secular Racists.
@vanya: exactly. Modern Christianity has been hijacked by the Randians.
@Mandramas: it is individualism, not feudalism. That is how a relative handful of anglosaxons ruled the world. Modern form christianity is a highly successful CSS (culturally stable strategy). For one thing it allows moral certitude in exploiting black, brown, yellow and red humans “for their own good.” And also allows conservative elites to lie for the good of the many.
But it is not going to be successful in the future because of a lot of things, Peak Oil being one of them. The new arms race of global human capital being another. Social media and technology are probably the most important new events that portend the end of modern christianity.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
Pardon, my comment is in moderation. We will have to wait to continue.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@THE: that is certainly not true today, now is it?
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Mandramas: You will love this. Think of wahdat al wujud (unity of being) and wahdat al shuhud (unity of consciousness). The antithesis of modern christian free market Randian individualism, everyone for themself.
What is the world wide web? What is the social network?
The web is unity of being without sharing geo-location. Connectivity across spacetime.
Social media is unity of consciousness. A thought cloud of connected like-minded individual nodes.
Mandramas
No religion changed more that Christianity in the last two millenia. Buddishm and Islam also changed, too, but not in the same scale. I guess that Christian memes are more prone to mutation. Christianity was simpler that Buddism, have less “entry barriers” that Judaism or Islam (Kashrut and halal), but have very compelling images and moral traits that granted survival. Of course, every country or social class taken the Christianism and made their own “brand”, since their simpleness allow to use it to justify almost everything.
arguingwithsignposts
Ahem:
Hermione Granger-Weasley
Can i get my comment out of moderation please? I cant rewrite it, I have no idea what triggered the filter.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@arguingwithsignposts: see Mandramas comment.
memetic mutation over the last 2000 years.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Mandramas:
like Randian economics.
from my moderated comment.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Mandramas: it is individualism, not feudalism. That is how a relative handful of anglosaxons ruled the world. Modern form christianity is a highly successful CSS (culturally stable strategy). For one thing it allows moral certitude in exploiting black, brown, yellow and red humans “for their own good.” And also allows conservative elites to lie for the good of the many.
But it is not going to be successful in the future because of a lot of things, Peak Oil being one of them. The new arms race of global human capital being another. Social media and technology are probably the most important new events that portend the end of modern christianity.
arguingwithsignposts
@Hermione Granger-Weasley:
Keep moving your goalposts m_c.
When you are called out on it, you say “no, I meant *now*.” Never mind that there are christianists who practice social democratic economics in europe, for instance.
Given that Rand had absolutely no use for organized religion, that’s a little rich.
You really are swinging wildly here.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@vanya: exactly. Modern Christianity has been hijacked by the Randians. Consider social justice. That was one of Issa’s founding principles as I understand from my readings. Now conservative christian elites warn congregants away from churches that practice social justice.
arguingwithsignposts
@Hermione Granger-Weasley:
m_c – modern form christianity isn’t just fundamentalists, you know. like i said, you’re way out of your depth here.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@arguingwithsignposts: that is not original, i took it from Sean in my moderated comment..
The fact that Rand was also a sexual libertine doesn’t prevent the sexually repressed bedroomsniffing conservative christians from slavering over her writings.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@arguingwithsignposts: false. I just gave social justice examples and prurient bedroom sniffing examples.
You don’t like what I’m saying, but it is the truth.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@arguingwithsignposts: modern form christianity in america is all conservatives.
conservative christians, christian conservatives.
Not all christians in america are conservatives, but all conservatives are “judeochristians”. Modern conservative christianity is politico/socio-economic.
And it is also all white.
Mandramas
@Hermione Granger-Weasley: Hmm, gunpower based weapons was a winning card, too. Probably individualism also triggers a degree of innovation that allow to access to world-changing tech, then. But scientific method trump that. Also, a strategy that was successful a millenia don’t need to be successful next year.
Christianity don’t have any special approach to enslave people, it was a very old human custom. All religions allows moral certitude to enslave, kill and torture, if it is needed. It was just natural when most of the religions where made. In fact, Jews and Muslim have a lot of moral and religious justifications to do that. Christianity is just so big that anything can be justified. Jews can’t eat pork, full stop. Christians… nothing is forbidden, really.
Stillwater
@Hermione Granger-Weasley: You don’t like what I’m saying, but it is the truth.
Proselytizer!
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Mandramas:
exactly, nothing is forbidden. Salvation by faith.
Rape, kill, murder, enslave, starve the poor, get filthy rich, and have a death bed conversion!
Hallelujah! That is whole meaning of born-agains.
But social media and the interwebz are going to choke off modern form christianity, because american conservative christians cant lie and cover things up for the outgroup anymore.
And the outgroup population mass is going to eventually just physically swamp anglosaxon christians.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Stillwater: like i said, im not a proselytizer. My culture, my faith and my world view are wildly inappropriate for someone like you.
Yours is better for you, Stillwater.
I seek to convince no one.
I am only a rawi, a reciter….or perhaps a bene gesserit truthsayer.
;)
arguingwithsignposts
m_c, you are so full of it it’s not even funny anymore. your thesis is factually inaccurate, your inability to accept that a major world religion isn’t as WEC as you want it to be, and your inability to even debate in good faith are tiresome.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Mandramas:
the innovation of the market. the mantra of free market boggarts every where.
/giggles behind hand
;)
arguingwithsignposts
@Hermione Granger-Weasley:
Well, you’re doin that right.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@arguingwithsignposts: bring it. show me where I’m wrong.
…if you can.
;)
Stillwater
@Hermione Granger-Weasley:
I am only a rawi, a reciter…. Of a single note, recited ad nauseam as if from tiny cue cards, without any thought or broader understanding, without any awareness of your audience, impervious to counterarguments or countervailing evidence, inflexible in your commitment to it’s truth, oblivious to the limited explanatory scope of what you advocate, completely disregarding of the fact that others not only think you’re wrong, but have demonstrated that fact. Your recitations are tautological, impossible to refute, and therefore an instance of anti-empirical thinking that not too long ago you vilified in others. What the fuck happened to you?
or perhaps a bene gesserit truthsayer. In other words, a proselytizer.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@arguingwithsignposts:
let us start with that.
American conservative christianity is wholly informed by WEC doctrine. Ensoulment, creationism, freemarket values, AGW denialism, supply side economics.
But are they major?
“christians” are 33% of the world population. But most of them are neither white or american.
America is 70% nominally christian. 70% of 330 million is approx 213 million.
I hardly think Modern American Conservative Christianity, the WEC brand, is a “major” religion.
singfoom
@Hermione Granger-Weasley: Boo, one note troll who won’t answer my question directly after I do you the favor of answering your threadjacking question.
I’m done with you. You add nothing. All you have is your word salad about Christianity prosletyzing and Islam and how we don’t understand Islam.
Cool, you think I don’t understand Islam. I don’t give a fuck. Bye bye.
You should change your handle back to M_C and rant about Fetus Slaves. At least that was entertaining.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@singfoom: What was your question?
I forgot.
;)
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Stillwater: A bene gessert truthsayer is not a proselytizer.
You are thinking of the Missionaria Protectiva.
Dude, I can’t proselytize you. It is forbidden to discuss the mechanics of attaining fana with the uninitiate.
Besides, we all believe in the same Allah.
;)
Ash Can
Can someone give the record player a whack? Damned thing’s stuck again.
THE
@Hermione Granger-Weasley:
The market creates the highly competitive environment that rewards innovation.
As long as consumers are prepared to pay a premium for the latest or best thing, producers are going to keep trying to capture that premium.
It’s the consumer preference that drives it.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Stillwater: Here is an original thought, fresh for the juicer community.
Isn’t that cool? I never thought of that before.
;)
THE
I call it meaningless twaddle – mental masturbation
Stillwater
@Hermione Granger-Weasley: Dude, I can’t proselytize you. It is forbidden to discuss the mechanics of attaining fana with the uninitiate.
The simple fact that you can’t understand the meaning of this sentence
outside of your own very limited preconceptions constitutes a demonstration that you hold tautological, self-serving, anti-empirical views. And your continued repetition of those views for the sole purpose of getting people to accept them constitutes a form of proselytization.
You’re turning into a huge fucking joke M_C. At least show a little self-awareness here and understand that not proselytizing means you ought to stop trying to change people’s minds.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Ash Can: sry Ash, I don’t think you have the substrate to enter this discussion.
;)
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Stillwater:
Hmm…I thought that is debating or arguing.
Proselytizing means the act of preaching to religiously convert, and evangelizing means thinking your religion is the best, and you own the only truth.
I do not seek to convert you, and I am not evangelizing.
Yours is better for you, mine is better for me.
;)
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Stillwater:
/yawn.
Link please.
This is like EDK saying i ” said awful racist things”.
He had no linkage either….not a single one.
;)
Did you see where Suzanne called me a racist?
PWN’D!
wat a dimbo.
c’mon, Still, step up and give me a link.
/sideways smile
Mandramas
@Hermione Granger-Weasley: I though that Missionaria Protectiva mission’s is to seeds Messiah-like legends that could apply to the Kwisatz Haderach. Very memetic indeed.
singfoom
Can someone please bring up the atomics? I think that’s the only thing that will break through the shield walls of deliberate obtuseness and world salad bullshit here.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@THE: so hard to be a Vulcan these days.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Mandramas: meme seeds of conversion.
pyscho-religious pre-myths.
@singfoom: could you repeat your question please? I am sorry but I missed it.
Mandramas
@THE: No. Consumer’s fuels the free market economy process, but don’t drive it. Products are by logical, limited, so consumer can only choose the options that producers offers.
Innovation is not granted in a free market; it is only granted in a very complex set of circumstances; more like a instable equilibrium. If innovation is risky or expensive, no producers will innovate. If a business falls in a oligopoly situation, no big producers will innovate and lesser producers will be kicked off of the market due to entry barriers, specially artificially induced entry barriers created by lobbyists. Since a oligopoly situation is the less risky and the one that grants the higher profit, any businessman will try to transform their business into oligopoly, and frequently they does. End of the history.
THE
@Mandramas:
I say they are two different versions of the same story, that is actually a complex interplay. Oligopoly is not so easy to achieve in a global market. There are always new players entering from somewhere.
Mandramas
@Hermione Granger-Weasley: One day, the twittersphere will gain auto conscience. Maybe it was the Mahdi. An world spanning IA messiah.
priscianus jr
@WaterGirl:
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Mandramas:
I am a believer. In Strong AI as well as in the Real.
;)
wa yuzhira bihi sirrahu ilayi
Nutella
@Hermione Granger-Weasley:
So you’ve got your fingers in your ears, refusing to listen to Brachiator about the specific incident he mentioned:
If you simply assert that Islam is tolerant it doesn’t make it so. Mohammed and Jesus were both lovely tolerant fellows but neither of the religions they founded are consistently tolerant today. Both Islam and Christianity now include vast numbers of bitterly intolerant people who believe that they are protecting their religion by their murderous intolerance. That official in Pakistan was murdered by people who thought they were protecting Islam.
Asshole
@Mnemosyne:
Ah, the ad hominem. Exhibit A of an argument lost. You’re also doing a fine job of proving my point- if you didn’t think that additional speech helped, you’d shut the fuck up and go hit somebody.
It’s not the slightest bit relevant to the issue of incitement. Having Very Important People beg you not to do something doesn’t affect that issue one way or the other. If you can’t understand that, maybe I need to explain what incitement means again. I can go more slowly next time, if it will help.
And they’re losing, too. Sorry it annoys you that you have to hear people that you disagree with. Perhaps Stalinist Russia would’ve been more your speed. As for me, I’m grateful that the neo-Nazis and the Tea Baggers have a right to blather on. It ensures me my right to call them morons.
How does this make the slightest difference as to what Constitutional rights I should or should not enjoy? Do you even care about freedom at all, or is it only applicable to viewpoints you agree with? Doesn’t the hypocrisy of that bother you at all, or is free speech only valid until your view has a slight majority- at which point every other view must be ruthlessly suppressed?
And yet, America has moved inexorably to the left since its foundation, despite money and bigotry combining forces from day one to prevent any form of progress. How does one reconcile your views with our national history?
Remember you said that when President Palin tries to yank MSNBC’s broadcasting license. You really won’t have any grounds to complain at all, since you’ve so firmly entrenched yourself in the idea that policing speech you dislike is perfectly acceptable.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Nutella: you ARE a moron. we MUSLIMS have discussed that constantly on muslim blogs, and on Dr. Ghamidi’s site. People like Dr. Ghamidi who is Pakistani, can’t stop this behavior while there are 150000 missionaries with guns right across the border. It can’t be done. And assclowns like you scolding al-Islam from the safety of your free speech fortress just make this worse.
Dumbass America is digging her own grave pushing missionary democracy on people that will NEVER take it.
Look at what it is costing you you fucking preening scold.
And you are getting NOTHING from it.
From now on everyday there are more Taliban, every Friday is a day of rage, everyday some dumbass crusader commits an atrocity, and every day is another day closer to the world seeing America run like a whipped cur.
FUCK OFF Big White Christian Bwana.
Bleed out and die already.
And you have you have your own White Evangelical Christian Taliban at home busily fucking you over. Go mind your own bidness, Proselytizer.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
And you know what else? If everyone in America asked someone WHAT IS THE MISSION once a day, then maybe we could FUCKING GTFO.