Random thoughts inspired by the current memeorandum page:
1.) Anyone dumb enough to pay money to Charlie Sheen deserves what they get. End of story.
2.) I refuse to click the links and see what they say, but I am guessing the reactions to that scumbag minister burning a Quran (Christianity, the religion of peace!), leading to the deaths of multiple UN workers include a.) brief paeans to the 1st amendment, b.) clownish posts about how the murderers are really responsible, c.) sheepish remarks about draw mohammed day, d.) chest-thumping from the war party/”freedom isn’t free” jackasses. Personally, I’d like to ship all these draw Mohammed/Burn a Quran jackasses to the homes of the victims and explain how shit happens and they died defending the American 1st Amendment. That should go over well.
3.) Pinch Sulzberger is concern-trolling us about lawyers losing their jobs because the death penalty was ended in Illinois. I’m seriously reconsidering my stance on the NY Times paywall. I may not buy it when my free offer is over.
4.) The AIPAC crowd is very upset at Goldstone again. Conspicuously absent from all discussions are the fact that over a thousand Palestinians were killed. Shit happens. War is heck. Anyone who moves is a VC.
5.) The Times reports that Republicans are going to go after Medicaid. Of course they are. The poor don’t vote in the numbers the elderly do.
Chet
Really? I’d like to ship your ass to the home of Theo van Gogh’s widow so you can explain how anybody who pisses off the Muzzies deserves whatever he gets.
How’d you think that’s gonna go over, dumbass?
Whatever happened to people being responsible for their own actions?
different church-lady
Fixed.
Mark S.
I read that Charlie Sheen story earlier. What the hell were these people expecting? Jokes about the size of airline peanut bags?
I thought Illinois banned the death penalty a decade ago. Maybe the governor just commuted all the sentences. I’m too lazy to look it up.
Bob Loblaw
Ah, I see. They were noble and victimized savage murderers.
Well, he did falsely accuse Israel of knowing crimes against humanity…
CJ
You know, I used the phrase concern trolling in conversation the other day and had to explain it afterward. I felt like a nerd.
Quiddity
I’ve been reading comments at various conservative/religious blogs regarding Terry Jones and the burning of the Koran. While there are many comments that fit John’s description, there are a healthy number taking the view that Jones is a nut and, instead of burning the book, should get his ass over there (Mecca, Afghanistan) and debate the issue personally with the Muslims.
TenguPhule
Fuck the Republicans and their 2012 Drown the Government in the Toilet Budget proposal.
The Liberal Education camps can’t come soon enough.
JPL
@Chet: hmm…the way I interpret John’s comment is that he thinks Jones needs to be responsible for his own actions.
Dan
I think you’ve way oversimplified at least two of these items, maybe more.
With the koran burning, it shouldn’t be that difficult to see that there are various levels of responsibility here and that the person who burns the koran is way lower on the scale than the people who committed murder (and not against the person who burned it) in response.
With Goldstone, there’s been plenty of discussion of the casualties. War leads to casualties; the issue in the Goldstone report was whether there were war crimes. War Crimes have a very specific definition. Goldstone has backtracked on his claims of Israeli war crimes. That is big news.
Hubris
I’m sorry–are you saying the people who murdered other people aren’t responsible for it?
Mark S.
@Mark S.:
I’m actually not too lazy to look it up! Former Governor George Ryan issued a moratorium on executions in 2000. Poor George is in prison right now for corruption convictions.
Joel
Actually, “b” is right. But that doesn’t preclude Terry Jones and the Jyllands-Posten (or anyone else for that matter) from being wrong. Of course all these “demonstrations” are nothing more than callow bullying and should be called out as such. No one who engages in this type of speech is brave or anything close to it, although they’d like to think they are.
Comrade DougJ
Those people might have thought it would be fun to boo Charlie Sheen off the stage. I can see where they are coming from.
AAA Bonds
Charlie Sheen is a reprehensible wife-beater but with him, none of us have ever been led astray as to what we were getting for our money or time.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
No….the Taliban are the VietCong.
The Palestinians are polish jews in the warsaw ghetto.
Your analogy finder is FAIL.
Defense against proselytization is a REFLEX. Want to end islamic terrorism? Stop pushing missionary democracy in majority muslim states.
IT IS AN AUTOMATIC RESPONSE.
Do you remember my contemporary fable of snake po king?
Out here in the west we have a whole class of citizens that we call snake po kers.
They come in to urgent care with a snake bite and their story is always the same….they were jogging or cycling, just exercising their peaceful constitutional right to freedom of exercise, and the snake jumped out and bit them!
….but….the snake bite is always on their hand or wrist.
so obviously these peaceful free exercise advocates had picked up a stick and were snake po king.
Pastor Jones picked up the stick. Karzai wants him arrested, and Petraeus and Co are trying to negotiate permanent bases. Good luck with that on top of the Kill Squad trial.
I hope someone puts a fatwah on him too, just like that retard Molly Norris.
They can spend the rest of their lives in hiding.
Roger Moore
Clarified that for you. The Republicans don’t care how many of any group vote in general; they care how many votes that group generates for them. If there were a group that uniformly voted 100% turnout but 98% Democratic, they’d be the Republicans’ favorite target.
Comrade Mary
From Charles Johnson at Little Green Footballs:
I don’t think anyone’s saying that Jones is equally as guilty as the people who actually committed the murders, but putting him on the same moral level as those imams sounds about right.
Brachiator
This is not stopping the GOP from going after AARP:
The GOP loves enemies lists.
AAA Bonds
Questions of war crimes under international law aside, there is no question that Israel is conducting ineffective and morally wrong policy.
And unlike Charlie Sheen, I do not have a lot of choice as to whether to pay for it. (Although I suppose I am footing Sheen’s tax cut too.)
Ed Marshall
@Bob Loblaw:
What is your bitch exactly? “Crimes against humanity” is a term of art in the international law field. I guess you think you have some sort of defense about Operation Cast Lead, I’m morbidly interested to hear it.
Jennifer
@Chet: You know Chet, if all things were equal that would be my take on it, too.
But how much do you think the average illiterate Afghan knows about the American constitution and its guarantee of freedom of speech & religion? My guess would be that the vast majority of them know fuck-all about it, and why should they? It’s not something that’s been especially pertinent in their miserable lives.
Beyond that I’d note that to people who grew accustomed to seeing people executed for flying kites, burning a Koran is a really big deal. If all that piddling shit was a good enough reason to kill for, then this is fricken’ HUGE.
Bottom line, and not to be paternalistic here, but whether it’s right or wrong, it was pretty predictable how some people would react to the incident. If you know up front that it’s going to spark this type of a response for an action that has all the subtlety of “NYAH, NYAH, NYAH!”, then you aren’t being a brave defender of free speech by doing this sort of a thing, but rather, an asshole. Because there are certainly any number of other, more mature and sophisticated ways to advance an argument which would not so predictably lead to this type of end.
Caz
Regarding your paragraph 2: where are all the posts about the scumbag muslims who terrorize innocent people all over the world, and how about a post about the scumbag palestinians that shoot rockets into Israel on a daily basis trying to kill innocent jews?
How about being outraged by actions or our enemies instead of actions of those on our side of this struggle.
And I’m saying that a single incident either way might be blogworthy, but your selective criticisms are inappropriate.
I bet you’re one of those people who makes it a priority to see that U.S. Marines are punished for doing something not according to the book while they are putting their lives on the line for our country.
I can think of many more offensive and criminal acts committed by other scumbags than this koran burning thing, but you never seem to have the time or inclination to blog or get riled up about those.
Funny how that works.
AAA Bonds
@Brachiator:
Well, fact: if they take down AARP, AIPAC becomes the biggest lobby in the United States.
AAA Bonds
@Caz:
I am totally okay with the Israelis doing whatever with their planes and tanks and bulldozers as long as we don’t send them money to do it.
However, at this point, the IDF are my employees, and I am really lost as to what they are doing for me.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Dan:
no. dumbass, the response is fucking hardwired.
Christians believe their faith commands them to proselytize. Muslims believe their faith commands them to resist proselytization.
Can’t turn off proselytizing in xtians, can’t turn off the response in muslims.
That is why the Taliban killed the toothbrush doctors.
You might think that is a disproportionate response BUT YOU CAN’T FUCKING CHANGE PEOPLES RELIGION.
Culture of Truth
Burning a copy of book, especially if you do it knowing it will inflame people, is really fucking stupid.
Killing people because some other guy 5,000 miles away burned a copy of a book is really, really, fucking stupid.
jrg
Medicaid pays for a ton of nursing home care.
I agree with Sully for a change… This is another example in a long line of examples where a foreign engagement might be used to attack free speech here at home (burning a Koran should be allowed even though it’s profoundly moronic). Remember that the next time someone tells you the troops are “fighting for our freedom”.
Joseph Nobles
Personally I think Terry Jones should Nut Up For Jeebus and go burn a Koran in Kandahar already. It’s easy burning Holy Books when other people are guaranteed to be the martyrs.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Jennifer: also a dumbass.
Shariah law forbids proselytization. Freedom of speech legalizes proselytization.
Islam is INCOMPATIBLE with missionary democracy.
The US has killed hundreds of thousands of muslim civilians in A-stan and Iraq and they still WON’T TAKE YOUR JESUSHUMPER DEMOCRACY.
give up already.
John Cole
@Chet:
Not what I meant, jackass. Of course the murderers are ultimately responsible, which is why I said those making this argument would do so in “clownish posts.” Of course the murderers are responsible, but so too are those who insist on inciting them, just because they can.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Culture of Truth: it is a response.
you cannot turn it off, any more than you can stop christians proselytizing.
JPL
Fox News today spent several minutes talking about the Koran burning and how the internet should not give Jones a forum.
Discuss.
Southern Beale
I was listening to the BBC World Service on the radio tonight and they interviewed some angry people who had shelled out good money for this charade. One person said he couldn’t believe he spent $300 for that show. I’m like, dude! You and me both!
Idiots.
Southern Beale
Someone on the Twittah posted this Toronto Craiglist ad seeking right-wing commenters on blogs, Facebook and newspaper forums. Bonus pay for “controversial postings that heat up a topic or forum thread.”
And then I saw this:
That set off my bullshit meter. I’m thinking it’s a hoax.
delphi_ote
“I am guessing the reactions to that scumbag minister telling people to boycott the busses and sit in restaurants (Christianity, the religion of peace!), leading to the deaths of multiple civil rights workers include a.) brief paeans to the 1st amendment, b.) clownish posts about how the murderers are really responsible, c.) sheepish remarks about the East L.A. walkouts, d.) chest-thumping from the war party/”freedom isn’t free” jackasses. Personally, I’d like to ship all these protesting jackasses to the homes of the victims and explain how shit happens and they died defending the American 1st Amendment. That should go over well.”
Jones is an asshole of epic proportions, but if you don’t like your rhetoric when you switch out the characters, you’re probably making a mistake somewhere along the way. If Jones is responsible for the actions some backwards assholes took in response to his protests, so was King.
(Notice how this difficulty just melts away if you criticize Jones for what he said instead of the reaction to it.)
JPL
After reading the comments on this thread, I have decided not to go see Sheen when he comes to Atlanta.
Moonbatman
I disagree. It is nice to know that John Cole agrees with me that all acts of violence committed by Muslims are the fault of Terry Jones’ Koran Burning.
Peace Out. The Power is Yours.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@Dan:
No, he hasn’t. He still says essentially the same thing now that he did then: there were war crimes committed by members of the Israeli armed forces. What he has done in the last week is say that he doesn’t think that these war crimes were committed as an act of deliberately policy by the Israeli government. He categorically states that there were war crimes committed by both sides.
Even in the original report, it was merely an open question as to whether or not the Israeli government ordered the crimes. The reason for that is that the Israeli government refused to cooperate with his commission, and he thus had no way to evaluate whether it was true or not. What has changed since then is that there was a different UN backed investigation that the Israelis did cooperate with. Thus, he now thinks a conclusion can be drawn over it.
However, he still is skeptical of the Israeli government’s actions since the fighting. He acknowledges that they are conducting investigations of their own soldiers, but also points out that, in the two years since the fighting, they haven’t managed to complete any of them. He didn’t come right out and say it, but he definitely leaves the impression that he thinks the Israelis are foot dragging, at best.
Jennifer
@Hermione Granger-Weasley: Spoken like one who knows dumbass up close and personal.
Extremist Islamic states are not inevitable, but they can’t be changed at the point of a gun, either.
We’re talking about a country in which no one under the age of 35 remembers what it was like not to be at war, and in which the only type of education available for probably the last 20 of those years was through radical madrassas.
They believe what they believe because it’s the only thing that was taught. Kind of like a lot of Christians do. Extremist Christians find excuses to kill people for real or imagined trangressions as well.
Culture of Truth
I equate those who exploited this incident those who would do here in the U.S. Some obscure pastor in Florida, with no ties to anyone in authority, but condemned by officials from Obama on down, burns a Koran, and rightly condemned by nearly every one, but for those in Afghanistan, who for there own reasons, spread word of the incident around and agitated those persons who are are easily susceptible to such a message. A form of astroturf terrorism.
bkny
what pressures do you suppose were brought to bear on richard goldstone to make him backtrack like this.
Culture of Truth
@Hermione Granger-Weasley: I’m not sure what you mean, but it seems to support my condemnation of both, one more than the other.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
You know…..let me try to explain this to the juicers like I explained it to Ed Marshall.
shariah forbids proselytization. Freedom of speech legalizes proselytization. Therefore freedom of speech and al-Islam are incompatible.
It is pretty simple.
Hellenic democracy is consent of the governed.
That is in the Quran.
Free speech is not.
The Law of God is quite clear on how to respond to arguments and attacks of proselytizers. In God’s Law (the Quran) the proper response to such attacks is: ” (16:125). RESPOND ONLY TO THE EXTENT OF THE ATTACK LEVELLED AGAINST YOU. Thus resistance to proselytization is both symmetrical and proportional. See Afghanistan. That is why 30k Taliban are kicking ass on 100k US troops and 250k NATO and coalition forces. The Taliban are the FUCKING VIETCONG!
YOU CANT CHANGE THE RELIGION OF A WHOLE COUNTRY, RETARDS.
Allow me to use a South Park analogy to explain this.
Take it away Matt and Trey
Marklar, these marklars want to change our marklar. If we let them come here they will build more marklars. They use marklar to try and force marklars to believe their marklar. If they stay here they will build marklars and more marklars to replace all our marklars.
Marklar can only be marklar. That is the limit of marklar. If you insist on marklar, the marklars will marklar you right back.
Marklar?
Omnes Omnibus
Jones has a First Amendment right to be an asshole. That doesn’t make him any less of an asshole. As far as responsibility goes, Jones wanted to provoke a response and he succeeded. I doubt it was the response he sought, but it is the response he got. Morally, he bears some responsibility.
Anya
@Bob Loblaw: Of course he was mistaken, crimes against Humanity, as an Intentional Law, applies only to African dictators.
Ed Marshall
@Hermione Granger-Weasley:
Go to a fucking mosque, quit being an internet idiot, quit slandering people that you don’t know anything about. Grow up, if you are trolling it isn’t funny. If you are an idiot, quit doing this shit, and at least check to see if I’m not right that you are ignorant and foolish with some religious authority and get back to us on who checked off on this horseshit, preferably someone with greater religious authority than Matt Stone and Trey Parker.
Jennifer
@Hermione Granger-Weasley: Your argument would be more compelling if I didn’t happen to personally have several Muslim friends who have no problem with freedom of religion and speech in this country. Of course they aren’t Afghan goatherds in remote mountainous villages whose only education has been indoctrination into radical Islam, either.
pablo
Jihad on Gainesville! Get TF out! Go Gators!
bkny
@Southern Beale: first of all — ugh, the bbc world services;
secondly, what did this fucking moran expect — that charlie was gonna share his hookers and blow with the audience. $300 friggin dollars. you wanna bet that went straight on to his credit card and he’s gonna be months paying it off.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Culture of Truth: in a way that is true. both are wrong. But proportionality doesnt matter. Killing christians is a REFLEX RESPONSE to Quran burning.
But because of the basis of faith in both religions, you cannot stop the response.
You can only head off the initial action.
Its like that dumbass Molly Norris wanting to teach muslims a “tolerance lesson”.
You can’t change peoples faith with reason.
She is sorry now.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@Hermione Granger-Weasley: You seem to be arguing that belief in a religion exempts one from any moral responsibility from one’s actions. I realize that you are a tedious idiot, but this is poorly thought out, even for you.
THE
@Hermione Granger-Weasley:
But you can change religions of whole countries Shams.
Britain just became majority “no religion”.
And I believe it’s not the first European country to do that.
And museums are full of sacred relics to ancient gods that no-one worships any more.
Southern Beale
@bkny:
I find the BBC vastly superior to the crap we get on American media! But nothing is perfect ….
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Jennifer: of course YOU FUCKING INTRANSIGENT MORON. Freedom of speech is LEGAL in america.
I am not saying it wouldn’t be better to have freedom of speech and freedom of religion as part of shariah law. All my muslim friends think that too.
IM SAYING IT CANT BE DONE.
We have spent 10 years and KILLED HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF MUSLIMS TRYING TO DO THAT!
it just can’t be done.
Bob Loblaw
@bkny:
Those rascally Jews! Always up to their evil Jew ways.
…Seriously, if you can’t bring yourself to realize it was wrong for Goldstone to publicly accuse Israel of a policy of indiscriminate civilian targeting because he didn’t receive the full cooperation he apparently required to not come to such a conclusion, I don’t know what to tell you.
It does nothing for the Palestinian cause to further distort conditions on the ground.
Ed Marshall
@Jennifer:
Harry-Potter-chan is about 18, and converted to Islam from reading either the Weekly Standard or random Jihadist websites.
eric
@Comrade Mary: For those who believe in Terry JOnes rights to free speech just remember that the Confederate South took up arms against our great country and lost. Yet we don’t force them to name parts of their lands after Lincoln, Grant, or Sherman, nor do we justly force them to commemorate our Union victories over them. We don’t do that because of our wisdom.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@THE: that is not change IMPOSED FROM THE OUTSIDE.
that is evo theory of culture in action.
;)
The problem with COIN and the Bush Doctrine is that both trigger AUTOMATIC ANTI PROSEYLTIZATION REFLEX.
That is why this, and we are still gettin an asswhupping in A-stan and Iraq has shariah in the constitution.
Church Lady
@Hermione Granger-Weasley: Hundreds of thousands? Do you subscribe to The Lancet?
Roger Moore
@Chet:
I think there’s a profound difference between Theo van Gogh and Terry Jones. Van Gogh pissed off Muslims by publicizing things about them they didn’t want publicized. He knew the risks of doing so and took those risks on himself, which required considerable courage. I don’t know if what he was saying about Muslims was correct, but he said something clearly and accepted the consequences of his actions. Terry Jones pissed off Muslims half way across the world by doing something that was only intended to show his contempt for them. He let the negative consequences of his actions fall on other people. Until Jones is willing to put his own ass on the line, he doesn’t deserve to be spoken of in the same breath as van Gogh.
Anne Laurie
@Hermione Granger-Weasley:
Now this is just silly. You changed yours, didn’t you?
Even if you mean “you can’t change the way other people practice their religion”, it’s silly. Because people are creative, there are multiple interpretations of Islam available, even in Truly Serious First Principles Fundamentalist sharia-embracing states. Just as the ‘Christianity’ of Terry Jones has fvck-all to do with mainstream American Christian philosophy, Catholic practices during the 15th century, or the two-thousand-year-old ethics of a Jewish resister/terrorist as interpreted by his little band of semi-literate followers… when the imams and their political enablers calculate that it’s more profitable for them if True Universal Islam reduces Koran-burning, Prophet-drawing, adulterer-beheading and other culturally nontransmissive acts to mere metaphorical fatwas, then the Rules Will Change. Of course there will be at least a couple generations who don’t change their personal behavior (look at the Tridentine nutbags in the Catholic church), but state-running religions adapt their “inviolatable core principles”… because: Evolution!, remember?
Ed Marshall
@Bob Loblaw:
Yeah, all those corpses were terrorists, at a hundred to one ratio from the rockets that were supposedly the causus beli. They were mostly children, but that is just how perfidious the residents of the Gaza Strip are. The IDF got those little terrorists in toddlerhood, because they were mini-terrorists. It’s so obvious.
Omnes Omnibus
@Chet: Muzzies? Seriously? Come on.
Jay in Oregon
After reading that article, I think I know where the juggalos went when Insane Clown Posse blew up in their faces.
Bob Loblaw
@Hermione Granger-Weasley:
Bummer for your theory that half the people killed in Mazar-i-Sharif were Nepalese UN workers. But maybe they don’t count because they don’t fit in your Christian-Muslim endless crusade theory. Or you just have zero idea what you’re talking about. As usual.
Mark S.
Also at the meme: Is there anything the free market can’t solve? Obesity? How about Healthy Living vouchers? But WSJ guy thinks it might be better to do nothing:
I wonder what drugs you need to take to believe that in two hundred years, 15 billion people will be living like Paris Hilton.
Cat Lady
@CJ:
Yeah, try explaining two wetsuits and a dildo to an apolitical family member as shorthand for Republican family values hypocrisy. Awkward!
If so called Christians would gut check themselves with the Golden Rule we’d be so far ahead on the evolutionary path. Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should. Get a brain morans.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Ed Marshall: so what?
This is what matters.
Spent all that fucking money and not a single muslim converted to jesushumping, right?
Because it cant be done.
THE
@Hermione Granger-Weasley:
Sometimes religions come from outside like Islam, Christianity, Buddhism.
Will Reks
@Hermione Granger-Weasley
How do you explain why Muslims flocked to Afghanistan to help fight the godless Soviets? Why do many Chechens resist Russian imperialism?
You are answering a question no one asked with your simplistic views. Not to mention that they are flawed.
wasabi gasp
There’s that story of some dude who sneaks up to a lion and shoves a thorn into its paw so hard that the lion shows his gratitude by mauling the dude, and every other dude, to death for ever and ever. That’s a classic.
AAA Bonds
The more of these Sheen articles I read, the more I become convinced that there is something there. The EW reviewer mentions the Simpsons scene where Homer breaks the ant farm in space, but the best reference seems to be Lisa’s nightmare about being second best and what she says upon waking: “Why would they come to our concert just to boo us?”
This is no dream, and it’s a legitimate question. The Sheen audience members have to know that they would boo and heckle and walk out.
The 24-hour Charlie Sheen show, perhaps, is real catharsis right now. It’s a good way for people to reassure themselves that many rich people are just as likely as anyone else to be ugly, stupid, detestable dolts, in a country where that sort of talk is considered evidence of poor thinking and low character.
The best way to use this is to point out the hideous little trolls scuttling around Wall Street, and the disgusting inner lives of the pretty faces like Reshma Saujani that they use to mask their bland whitebread insecurities. We can point out that, unlike Sheen’s, their criminal acts have hurt each and every one of us, personally, with the full knowledge of the perpetrators.
Then, maybe, we can start rounding them up for their trials.
bkny
@Southern Beale: oh, i just meant that the american stupid was picked up and broadcast far and wide by them… lol.
Caz
Yeah, the Quran also says you can beat your wife if she cheats on you. And it directly calls for the killing of jews. Anyone who thinks islam is a religion of peace is either sorely misinformed or lying. And it isn’t just a small minority of muslim extremists that hate the west and try to kill innocent people, or support the killing thereof. It is the rule, rather than the exception, that killing of non-muslims is not only acceptable, but a required tenet of the faith.
This country is too ignorant, corrupt, and politically correct to win a war against muslim terrorism. Ever wonder by China never gets attacked by islamic extremists? They are just as much non-believers as the west. The difference is the response from China – that is why they concentrate their efforts on the west rather than countries like China.
Bob Loblaw
@Ed Marshall:
You can fairly accuse Israel of disproportionate action. You can fairly accuse Israel of ghettoizing Gazans, and of crippling the development and growth of Gazan society and the health of the Gazan people. You can fairly accuse Israel of all sorts of destructive, stupid, and mendacious acts.
That should be enough. There’s no reason to give up the moral high ground of truth telling to start making accusations you can’t actually back up.
Omnes Omnibus
@wasabi gasp: Did the dude win the game of Truth or Dare?
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Bob Loblaw: you are right, i should have said, Proselytizers.
People that work for the UN or NATO are regarded as proselytizers in muslim nations.
Let us call it what it is.
Muslims against proselytizers.
TenguPhule
And the bible calls for fucking your daughter.
Oh and let’s not forget buying forgiveness for any sin through money to a church.
Lie, rape and kill, then donate your ill gotten gains on death and get a free ticket to Heaven!
Omnes Omnibus
@Caz: Have you ever read the Bible? Pages upon pages of stuff people should be killed for doing or not doing or both. In other words, you are a dipshit.
Yutsano
@Caz:
Do you think you could stop and think for a second before you answer a question?
jrg
@Caz:
Yes. The aqua camels are coming ashore on Virginia Beach as we speak. They have already begun enslaving the Hooters waitresses there… Moron.
Yutsano
Bah. Moderation for no reason at all. FYWP.
Omnes Omnibus
@Hermione Granger-Weasley: I am again convinced that that you just really have no idea what you are talking about.
Ed Marshall
@Bob Loblaw:
In International Law parlance everything you mentioned are by definition “Crimes against humanity”. Maybe you want to water down the definition, or make a special exemption for the Israeli government, but under the legal regime as it exists, there was no other word for it.
Roger Moore
@Hermione Granger-Weasley:
I like pie, too, but you won’t see me writing post after post about it on Balloon-Juice.
PIGL
@Chet: In time of war (as authoritarian fucktards never tire of calling it) some American citizens engaged in activities which had the reasonably forseeable consequence of the deaths of some allies or at least of UN personel under the protection of the occupation forces.
This was deliberate provocation, exactly equivalent to shouting fire in a crowded theatre. The persons who did it should be tried, and those guilty should be executed. The persons at the scene who instigated or did the actual killing should also be executed. They are jointly and severaly liable, and the locally fetishised First Amendment to the US Constitution don’t enter into it.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Anne Laurie: Because, Shaman, you understand nothing about al-Islam.
I reverted in the middle of my arabic studies, in a country where free speech is the Law.
Mnemosyne
@Omnes Omnibus:
No, I’m pretty sure that this was the response he sought. He’s probably doing a happy dance right now that he was able to prove that Islam is an evil religion by provoking Afghans into murdering people. Heck, you even have militant atheists like Chet buying into Jones’ “proof” that all Muslims are murderers at heart.
Yutsano
@Hermione Granger-Weasley:
When one makes a blanket assertion like that, one is expected to provide evidence of said assertion. Otherwise you would be rightly regarded as communicating out of a lower body orifice.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Omnes Omnibus: That is because you are a Proselytizer. You think yours is best, right?
You can’t turn it off.
Mark S.
@Caz:
They do, you moron.
Comrade Mary
@Yutsano: I never knew you could make a pie with shit. The things I learn on this blog.
Amir_Khalid
That Charlie Sheen’s show was a wreck is no surprise at all. This man is clearly very ill. He should be getting treatment, not making a fool of himself in public. But what’s really sad to me is that he wasn’t persuaded to cancel his show. Is he too far gone to listen to reason?
Elia Isquire
I let myself get too pissed off when reading the responses to the Goldstone piece–and I noticed what seemed to be a pretty clear case of message coordination by the wannabe Likudniks (but maybe I’m just p-noid).
I still don’t really understand some of the choices he made in terms of how he wrote it and where he published it.
EDIT: And I see that some people in this thread are making the same dishonest arguments. Goldstone totally admitted he was lying, guys; and also, too Climategate proved global warming is a scam!
Roger Moore
@TenguPhule:
No, it doesn’t. To the contrary, it explicitly forbids a wide range of incest, including parent-child, stepparent/child, sibling, uncle/niece, and aunt/nephew. It includes some stories about incest- Lot’s daughters getting him drunk so they can sleep with him, for instance- but those are always presented as historical events rather than examples to follow.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Yutsano: Two things. For 10 years and a trillion dollars we have been trying to impose/install/standup/implant/force missionary democracy on A-stan and Iraq with COIN. What is the result? Iraq has shariah in the constitution and 30k Taliban are wiping the floor with 100k american troops and 250k NATO/Coalition forces. These are facts.
Both Molly Norris and Terry Jones provoked a reflexive RELIGIOUS response.
The toothbrush doctors did not see themselves as missionaries.
The Taliban did.
This is a religion that is profoundly, deeply, different than American nominal christianity.
All outgroup proselytizers are considered evil in Islam.
hamletta
@Hermione Granger-Weasley: As a lifelong member of the Frozen Chosen, I am walking, talking evidence that you are wrong.
@efgoldman:
If you’re talking about the Law Of Statistically Inborn Credulity, I believe that’s attributable to PT Barnum.
Yutsano
@Comrade Mary: Well technically honey is bee vomit. So I guess in some bizarre way anything is culinarily possible.
@Hermione Granger-Weasley: You do realize in that entire word salad you just threw up you didn’t address the point I made at all.
Mark S.
@Yutsano:
You got put in moderation because you were making the same point I was making.
And now, back to the matako-chan and her cudlipped friends show.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Anne Laurie: The problem is, Shaman, that al-Islam can’t evolve. Because there are still 150000 proselytizers in Iraq and A-stan.
We muslims say of quranic exegesis, that things are either in or out of mutawatir. It means, still sending, still in transmission. Like most islamic scholars agree that covering is no longer in mutawatir.
But as long as there is still a buttload of missionaries with guns in MENA…..Our 150k Troops…. defense against proselytizing can’t be turned off.
It is still valid.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Yutsano: sure i did. They are all proselytizers according to al-Islam. A-stan is 99% muslim.
bi la kayfah
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@Bob Loblaw: Give me a specific accusation that Goldstone made up. Not something where he said that there is evidence that something might have been deliberate Israeli government policy, but we don’t know because they didn’t cooperate with the investigation. Where he just flat out accused them of something that has since been shown to be inaccurate.
Yutsano
@Hermione Granger-Weasley: Sigh. Your theoretical certitude has grown tiresome. Go away.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Anne Laurie:
Like Egypt? Like Indonesia?
Indonesia has blasphemy laws.
Egypt has shariah in the constitution.
77.2 % of Egyptians just voted for this.
84% of egyptians support the death penalty for apostasy.
Egypt is 90% muslim.
eemom
What a perfect Cole-esq, “news roundup for dummies” distillation of the current headlines, complete with knee-jerk, no-brain, one-sentence, everybody-sucks-but-me, um, “opinions.”
Leading with Charlie Sheen is an especially nice touch. I hope Oprah’s got some talent scouts out here in the blogosphere.
THE
@Hermione Granger-Weasley:
If that’s true, then it’s doomed HG-W.
Because the outside world is not going to go away.
Broadcasting, satellites, the internet.
Because the world has had heaps of systems that resisted change.
It worked until it didn’t.
Mandramas
@Caz: Well, also the book of Deuteronomy also suggest to stone to death your wife is she is unfaitfull. So, Judaism and by legacy Christianity are not “religions of peace”.
The short answers is that Sacred Books are historical documents wroten centuries ago and religions (as any belief) are big, contradictorious and prone to change and adapt. A simplistic view of a religion can be “peaceful” won’t work.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@Elia Isquire:
No, he didn’t. He said that there is information available now that was not available to his investigation that would have led to different conclusions. However, he stands by the claim that many of the specific incidents were war crimes. What has changed is that there is now enough information to say that the commission of war crimes was not deliberate Israeli policy. That’s a very different thing.
Omnes Omnibus
@Hermione Granger-Weasley: You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
rikyrah
the secret that is untold is that % wise – the largest amount of MEDICAID DOLLARS…
goes to THE ELDERLY.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Yutsano: can’t take being WRONG, eh?
Look at A-stan. The harder we proselytize the harder they resist.
What is the end game? Everyone (even Petraeus) knows.
An islamic state with shariah in the constitution and the Taliban in the government. 400 billion taxpayer dollars and 2000 dead american soldiers FOR NOTHING.
I rest my case, counselor.
go for it. make yours.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Omnes Omnibus: make your case for why I am wrong then and stop pretending you don’t understand what I’m saying.
You understand. You just don’t like it.
eemom
@rikyrah:
please. Don’t distress Cole with subtleties. It would totally fuck up his schtick.
Mandramas
@Hermione Granger-Weasley: Evolution is not the right word. Evolution can be faster or statical; and don’t have a prefijed direction. It just means hereditary. What means “evolve”? Become a little more like you? They can evolve in a totally diferent society, it they want, or become westernized, or be extinted. It could happens in a couple of decades, or in 600 years. History is not a Civilization game.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Mandramas: And Israeli democracy doesn’t have freedom of religion. Jewesses are forbidden to outmarry.
Its the law.
Dumbass americans haven’t got a clue about other cultures.
That is why the Epic and Endless horrorshows of Iraq and A-stan.
Church Lady
Why has Cole let M-chan (supposedly banned) come back as Hermoine? Can’t he check the ISP address? If, by some far stretch, our resident witch isn’t of the cud lip accusing variety, can’t she be banned too, just for being extremely boring?
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Mandramas: I am using terminology from Evolutionary Theory of Culture. It is a college course.
Kathryn
@Hermione Granger-Weasley: Time for you to open the gates of ijtihad then, eh?
arguingwithsignposts
Since my internet sucks, I’ll just ask if there’s been a cudlip yet and go to bed.
Yutsano
@Hermione Granger-Weasley: Spouting assertions with no underlying evidence does nothing for you. Just saying WHAT YOU THINK is true does not make it so. I’m done with you, back to scrolling past as soon as I see your nym.
Bob Loblaw
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN):
She was being sarcastic, dipshit. Hence the tie to Climategate.
Get your house in order.
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN):
Coming up to conclusions without the necessary corroborating data is the definition of making something up. That’s what extrapolation is. It’s not a matter of malice in this case, but it is what it is.
Goldstone’s report was as much an activist document as it was an accountability document. That activism had its upsides (forcing greater Israeli public scrutiny for the IDF’s behavior), and downsides (having to walk back a charge of intentional civilian slaughter as a military and political objective).
Church Lady
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN): So Goldstone gets an “Oops, my bad” and everyone (i.e. the Israeli government) is supposed to forgive and forget?
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Church Lady: you know church lady…muslims don’t relly give a shit if you want to believe in the sillie jesus godhead– you are people of the book, like the jews, and we all believe in the same Al-lah.
But we do care A LOT that you want to make us believe it too.
We can’t, because of surah ikhlas, “the purity”.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Yutsano: because YOU LOST.
;)
poco
@Church Lady: Yeah, that’s what has me confused too.
And, Goldstone alone cannot retract anything from a joint fact finding mission report by the UN. There are other writers and researchers who contributed–and we haven’t heard any retractions from any of them.
Church Lady
@Hermione Granger-Weasley: Silly witches shouldn’t take Internet names quite so literally. It shows cud lip tendencies.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Kathryn: like i explained to AL, we can’t. Defense against proselytization response is still sending, still in mutawatir.
Because there are still 150000 missionaries with guns in Iraq and A-stan.
Stop proselytizing and muslims can stop resisting.
Church Lady
@poco: Sucks for him that it’s referred to as the Goldstone Report.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@poco: Cole knows exactly who i am. He can ban me anytime.
Mandramas
@Hermione Granger-Weasley: Sound nice. I should take a look on this.
I believe that all the Bush wars are ol’ and plain conquest wars, that were more troublesome that they expected. Like any empire in the history, to conquers a nation don’t means to convert this to the invader’s empire. It could happens, or it could not. Obviously, conquered nations wants to regain independence and freedom, and any ideology that can be used as a national identity factor should be used.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
Has anyone ever seen Charlie Sheen and Hermoine Weasel_chan together? It would be irresponsible not to speculate.
Wally Ballou
@PIGL: Execute him, huh? Would this standard also apply for someone who decided to, say, publicly burn a US flag on Memorial Day, leading to the deaths of several DFHs at the hands of enraged VFW types?
Anne Laurie
@Hermione Granger-Weasley:
… just like ‘outgroup proselytizers’ are considered evil by fundamentalist Christians, Jews, and Hindus. But it’s only in societies where the fundamentalists are in charge that those O-Ps get murdered, sometimes by the state. Part of the political evolution of “modernizing nations” like India, or Egypt, involves the tipping point where religious authorities can dictate that people should be punished by the state for proselytizing. Historically, there’s a point where the ruling authorities no longer find it convenient to keep killing heretics, and there’s usually a blowback as the religious authorities (hand in hand with the local barons, sheiks, landsmen) start inciting their particular mob of peasants to step up and do god’s work because the King & his councilors are no longer up to the job. See, for instance, Elizabethan England, where some of my ancestors and probably quite a few of yours were kept very busy tap-dancing between the warring mobs of “true” Catholics and “real” Protestants.
The imams in MENA, and quite a few of the passing-for-secular authorities both high and low, are using the American / NATO/ UN / Not-Them armies as bogeymen to keep their followers in line. I’m sure many of the imams and even a few of the sheiks believe they are doing God’s Work, and it’s only a coincidence that God happens to agree with their wishes 99.87% of the time. Doesn’t mean that “Islam” is the worlds’ first and only unstoppable, unmodifiable One True Religion — just that it’s become sufficiently mature to be going through the same status conversion as every other surviving monotheism. British subjects are no longer permitted to kill their fellows for being insufficiently Anglican; Chinese citizens are no longer permitted to kill their fellows for being insufficiently Maoist; and in (let’s say) 20 years Iranians will not be permitted to kill other Iranians for infractions against Islam. Twenty years after that, Iranians won’t even be permitted to kill Iraqis or Americans for infractions against Islam. As you keep repeating — Memetic Evolution!
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Church Lady:
nope. Al-Jazeerha and Wikileaks.
You are a WEC, right?
Dennis SGMM
Is there a Pointless Thread of the Year Award? If so, we have a nominee.
eemom
I found the Goldstone story interesting, and linked it last night, because it raises a host of complex and subtle issues beyond the standard IP argument fare.
Saying “yeah, but fuck that shit, 1000 Palestinians were killed” lands us right back into the land of simplistic idiocy.
Similar with the Quran story. Eh, fuck all that First Amendment shit. And anybody who says the killers are responsible is a clown. Fuck subtlety, complexity, nuance, and moral ambiguity. Cole’s here to tell it like it IS, fuck yeah.
I think somebody needs a vacation.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@Bob Loblaw:
Coming up with provisional conclusions in a case where one of the parties has stonewalled everything they can isn’t making things up. It’s saying what your best estimate is given the information available. I’m not sure how Goldstone was supposed to do anything else.
I’m still waiting for you to show where this was a charge, as opposed to a theory based upon the information available and left open for subsequent investigation. Goldstone’s investigation was never supposed to operate on a level of judicial scrutiny. Even so, I think the best you can say about Israel’s behavior is that it was grossly negligent with regards to civilian casualties. I guess, in my opinion, I don’t see enough of a difference between deliberate policy and gross negligence to try to hang this much weight on it.
wasabi gasp
@Omnes Omnibus: The dude was just pointing out lion ferocity, but I guess you could call it a win.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Anne Laurie:
But Shaman…..you still don’t understand.
This is democracy in action.
And islamic democracy allows proselytizers to be put to death under islamic law.
It is the consent of the governed.
84% of egyptians support the death penalty for apostasy, 82% of Pakistanis support the death penalty for apostasy.
Are you sure you are a shaman?
You don’t seem very shaman like. You seem like a garden variety western culture chauvinist.
eemom
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN): @
you know, you really ought to read what Goldstone just said about those exact issues.
Perhaps, given that this is a quintessential example of what we condescending asshole lawyers call a “statement against interest,” it’s entitled to a bit of credibiity, and armchair assholes like you and Cole ought to just STFU.
At least, until you READ the goddamn thing. Which I’m willing to bet neither of you has done.
FlipYrWhig
I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a thread here that would be massively _improved_ by accusations of who’s sockpuppeting whom and who ruined whose blog first. Then this one came along.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Anne Laurie:
No, but Islam has evolved defense against proselytization as an EGT strategy.
In the beginning there were the Jews.
Tribal membership was by birth or bridecapture.
Then came the christians. Any one could join their tribe by accepting the christ. So proselytizing became the strongest evolutionary strategy for increasing reps.
Then came Islam. A large part of shariah is defense against proselytization. No outmarriage for muslimahs, no outgroup preaching, no church building, harsh penalties for blasphemy and apostasy….no freedom of religion, no freedom of speech.
See? It is an evolutionary response.
And tolerance and freedom of religion and speech will come to Islam eventually…..but not while Terry Jones is burning Qurans and we have 150000 missionaries with guns parked in A-stan and Iraq killing muslims.
It can’t happen NAOW is what im saying.
Mandramas
@Hermione Granger-Weasley: The Shaman says something like you; except that he is optimistic. And, in a sense, every goberment, not even democracy, do the thinks the people more or less wants.
Bob Loblaw
@eemom:
Oh great, Israel, legalism, and screaming at Cole. We’ve hit the eemom trifecta. Ten bonus points.
Mandramas
@Hermione Granger-Weasley: “Islam has evolved defense against proselytization as an EGT strategy”.
You have gained me with this sentence.
THE
@Hermione Granger-Weasley:
How do you put a proselytizer to death, when he is burning Korans on YouTube from the other side of the world?
I predict the imitators are going viral round about now.
In the years to come, there is going to be a holocaust of burning Korans.
Imaged with mobile phones and uploaded by any punk with a grievance.
Burning Korans is going to become a leading source of greenhouse gases. You can’t foresee this?
It will become a popular form of vandalism, because the Muslims take it soooo seriously that they make themselves an irresistible target for any provocateur.
Human nature is far more wicked than you imagine.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@eemom:
You mean this? That’s what I’ve been describing. If you want to take exception to how I’ve described it, please provide specifics.
eemom
@Bob Loblaw:
by God, you’re right! Why aren’t there bells going off? And money spewing out of gaming machines??
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Anne Laurie: and I certainly do not believe that al-Islam is “the one true religion”.
That is those proselytizers.
;)
I believe yours is better for you, and mine is better for me, and all paths are the One Path.
Gene in Princeton
@Caz: Rockets into Sderot are rockets into territory occupied by Israelis at the expense of the Palestinians–former residents of Sderot–who were pushed into Gaza as refugees. I’m not sure where the “innocent Jews” comes in, except that random rockets may kill children, who have no complicity in their parents’ crimes. Two wrongs don’t make a right. Is that what you mean? The children?
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Mandramas: Are you a Maynard-Smith otaku?
And Anne Laurie is a GIRL shaman.
;)
Cain
@Jennifer:
So I need to say on thing. They aren’t following “radical” Islam. They are following Islam. The thing is, it is easy to incite a murderous mob that will go out and kill people.
It happens all the time in North India, and there isn’t anything particular radical about Hinduism. In fact it is quite progressive, but people in that part of the world can easily be incited especially if you have a crowd that that can get real ugly and start going on a witch hunt. I think this is less about “Islam the religion” and more of a component of the people there.
Anne Laurie
@Hermione Granger-Weasley:
Never claimed to be a shaman, just an animist. And if animism has a “first principle”, it is that everything evolves, but human constructs like ‘democracy’ evolve fastest of all, because Coyote Never Rests. If there is such a thing as ‘Islamic democracy’ outside of your skull, there are multiple interpretations in action right this very minute, because some self-identified Islamic states actively put people to death for “proselytizing” but others don’t — or they claim that they intend to put proselytizers to death, but there’s always an excellent reason why any particular proselytizer manages to skate (recantation, exile, logic-chopping). And most of the actual deaths seem to happen, as with the sad current incidents, because a rabble of True Believers who can’t even read the book they revere get hopped up on primate tribal rage-hormones by their local Big Men and go looking for something to break. The difference between the followers of Pastor Jones or the Westboro Baptist Church and the Afghani mob that murdered the UN soldiers is not that Americans are more “civilized” or that Afghanis are more “religious”. It’s that Jones and Phelps know that anything more dangerous than waving placards and burning other peoples’ Holy Books would get them into a world of hurt, while the Koran-thumpers using Jones’ noxious idiocy to incite their flock to mass murder know they can get away with it.
Mark S.
@Hermione Granger-Weasley:
What do you mean by shaman?
Can we have a matako-chan lexicon?
Tim, Interrupted
@John Cole:
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?
I really would like to know how this line of thinking pans our in your particular case.
Mandramas
@Hermione Granger-Weasley:
What? Do somebody really think that the objective of the wars and Jones is to “change” Islam? I think that it was mostly get money, being sure that “the oil must flow” and also have an excuse to control better any dissident on USA.
‘Course Islam won’t change with an invading army in their countries. It is a “Red Dawn” scenario.
Kathryn
@Hermione Granger-Weasley: The umma is always right — that trumps haditha. Ijtihad should be opened for all Muslims to participate in, it was always the essential nature of what Muhammad taught. With ijtihad the umma can return to that central teaching.
Barring that, how about looking for a nice tariqa to join? Because you don’t seem happy. Be hopeful, in 50 years the US is close to 50% unchurched population. Britain is majority “no religion” following much of Europe. Change can happen very quickly – and breaking the authorities and institutions of secular but still religious mindsets is part of that. And yes, US wars against muslims need to stop and we need to stop pushing “western democracy” as the new religion, understood. But to see everything as completely unyielding and immutable is YOU doing religion, and proseltyzing in your own way.
Again, just a suggestion, a nice sufi lodge would be fun and offer some new points of view. Maybe something dervish…
Do I need to DIAF again? I’m getting good at that.
Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN): Would have said this had I gotten here soon enough to say, but you said it probably better than I would have, so everyone is really better served!
The Magnes Zionist has a great (read: reality-based) analysis of the op/ed:
http://bit.ly/dSYYuc
Elia Isquire
I think describing Goldstone’s article as a “statement against interest” is a really, really tendentious framing of this issue. It seems to me a lot of the people who are jumping all over him and claiming this is tantamount to an apology or retraction seem to have the ability to read Goldstone’s mind, certainly to a degree beyond my capacity. Maybe they’re facebook buddies with the man?
I just have difficulty shedding a tear for the Israeli government when it refused to participate. I don’t think Goldstone came to the conclusions he did as a punishment for that choice–and if he did that would be abhorrent–and I don’t understand the argument that he should’ve refrained from commenting on any issue that, without Israel’s input, he had less than 100% of the possible evidence. It wasn’t a legal document; it had the power of symbolism and recommendation, nothing more.
Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther
@bkny: I do not for one minute believe this is a result of pressure. The man has rather a history of investigating war crimes — he’s not a straw that bends to pressure.
All he says in his op/ed is “If I had had this information before, it would have had an impact on what I wrote.”
See also Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)‘s response at #41
Mandramas
@Hermione Granger-Weasley: Not otaku, but I had enjoyed a Dawkins book. Sorry, Anne Laurie :(
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Anne Laurie: I thot you SAID you were a shamanist.
Pardon, my bad.
Again, you do not understand. Shariah law is interpreted differently by different islamic jurists.
That is why there are variants.
Of course there is islamic democracy. Hellenic democracy just means “consent of the governed”.
How do you define democracy?
. No. This is a RESPONSE. No one incited them, just like no one incited the Taliban to kill the toothbrush doctors. They did it automatically.
Wow….you are an islamophobe. I am surprised.
Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN): in my opinion, I don’t see enough of a difference between deliberate policy and gross negligence to try to hang this much weight on it. <- This Israeli says: This.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Kathryn:
that is wrong, proselytizer. sunnah and hadith guide the ummah. you can think of it as a kind of memetic hygiene….preventing single phrase interpretations like snakehandlers and shakers.
Like I said, muslims dont care what you believe. qalb can take any form.
We just care that you want to make us believe it too.
;)
Im sorry i told you to DIAF. Intransigent stupidity makes me cross.
No one of Importance
Does anyone else believe that “Hermione Granger-Weasley” is an imposter?
I’m suspicious because Hermione Granger is too much of a feminist and independent woman to take a man’s surname, even hyphenated – and Ron’s too subordinate to insist. I also doubt Hermione could keep her svelte figure if she had such an obsession with pie, and even then I can’t believe that’s all she would ever talk about.
Call me a nasty old skeptic, but until she tosses out a spell or two and turns John Cole into a JRT lover, I remain unconvinced that we have graduate visitors from Hogwarts blessing the blog with their presence.
rikyrah
I can’t wait for all those Middle-Class White folks, especially those that voted GOP – from around the country to realize that the GOP is cutting off the money for Mom and Dad’s Nursing Home.
I say Middle-Class White folks, not to say that Middle-Class folks who aren’t White don’t use Medicaid for Mom and Dad’s Nursing Home, it’s just that the likelihood of them having the schizophrenia of voting for the people who would throw Mom and Dad out onto the street is just smaller….because they don’t live in the land of delusion where they believe that the GOP is NOT talking about them when they discuss ‘ cuts’……and a whole lot of White Middle-Class and Working Class do.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Mandramas: which book? My favorite is the Blind Watchmaker.
But Maynard-smiths book is fantastic. Dawkins has a chapter in it.
The most beautiful maths ever.
;)
Kathryn
@Hermione Granger-Weasley: No, proselytizer, that is right. The Umma is always right — that is the safeguard against error, such as yours. The Umma changes always, and the umma is Islam.
Cain
@Amir_Khalid:
No, the guy is brilliant.. look how much coverage he is getting? The guy is putting on a show and inviting concern trolling. There are whole levels of people making money from Charlie Sheen.. specifically talk show hosts and morning shows. Crazy. Look at us talking about him in a political blog. Flawless victory.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Mandramas: the objective of COIN and the Bush doctrine is to standup/implant/install/spread/force/impose missionary democracy. It can’t be done in majority muslim nations, and that is why 30k Taliban are kicking America’s ass and why Iraq has shariah in the constitution.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Kathryn: I am a mevlevi Sufi. We are forbidden to proselytize.
Yours is better for you, mine is better for me.
I do not want you in my faith.
;)
One of my shayyks says al-Islam is a process. if you like, Terry Jones and 150k missionaries with guns are blocking the evolution of Islam.
Mark S.
@Hermione Granger-Weasley:
You’re the one who characterizes Muslims as mindless, intolerant zealots.
Why the fuck did you convert to Islam in the first place?
Yutsano
@Mark S.: My guess is, after long observation of her behavior, is because all teh kool kidz were doing it.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mark S.: It is possible that she is, in fact, and mindless, intolerant zealot at heart. But I will say that it is just as possible that she is not, but instead has absorbed a large amount of jargon from a variety of sources without gaining any real understanding of the material. Then again, she could be DougJ.
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
They won’t. They can’t. They will find it extremely hard to accept that policies advertised/intended to only impact minorities could use it againt them.
Far off topic, but consider the Right’s opinion of gun control. It was perfectly fine as long as only nigras and Chinamen were kept disarmed; but the world will come to a burning end if Straight Christian White Men can’t have their individual arsenals.
eemom
@rikyrah:
well, speaking as a white person who was acutely aware of what was paying for my late Father’s nursing home care, I can personally disclaim the idiocy of others of my species. However, I’m the last one to doubt that such idiocy exists.
Yutsano
@Omnes Omnibus:
Have we ever seen the two of them in the same place at the same time? It would be irresponsible not to speculate.
Roger Moore
@No one of Importance:
It’s always possible that she’s simply assumed an American audience and translated “treacle tart” into “pie” for our benefit. Though given my recollection of the series, I’d expect the real Hermione to spend a lot more time discussing toast than any other food.
FTFY
OB nit; none of the major characters is actually a Hogwarts graduate. Harry, Ron, and Hermione failed to return for their seventh and final year, and thus are Hogwarts dropouts, not graduates.
THE
@HG-W
Then Terry Jones has won, because he and his 10 million imitators aren’t going to go away.
Do you have any idea what the population of provocateurs on the Internet is?
Omnes Omnibus
@Yutsano:
That statement always creates a dilemma for me. I want to speculate, yet irresponsibility has a siren song that is hard to resist.
4jkb4ia
This whole Koran-burning thing was actually done better in the open thread this morning. Then I actually read the interview with this so-called pastor in the NYT.
He said:
and that it was to “stir the pot”. So now we have evidence of intent. His intent at the very least was not to care if he provoked. We also have stories about peaceful protests in Kabul and one other city and the UN representative having what he thinks is definitive proof that Taliban agitators were responsible for the killings in Mazar-i-Sharif. So you have two sides of this looking for an excuse.
Also, too, I was so dumb that I didn’t make the analogy between putting the Koran on trial and putting the Talmud on trial, which was done before it was burned in 1242, on the spot. But it came eventually.
And eemom has been here enough that she knows there is a good possibility all a post like the OP means is cranky.
eemom
…..aaand, before our very eyes, the thread MORPHS into a Harry Potter freaknut fest. Poof.
Roger Moore
@Yutsano:
Nah, I think it’s because she was mimetically programmed to adopt Islam.
Mandramas
@href=”#comment-2510830″>Hermione Granger-Weasley: Only the ol’ good selfish gene. I will look for the Maynard-smiths books.
No one of Importance
@Roger Moore:
Actually, your fix is how I had it by mistake, and added the word you removed afterwards. I was afraid of hurting Cole’s feelings. You know what a sensitive soul he is.
Ah, see, I only know the films, and not the books. Hence the greater congnitive dissonance when I try to imagine the lovely Emma Watson bleating over and over and over and over about pie, because you don’t keep those girlish lines if you eat more than one pie – or tart – every leap year.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Yutsano: DougJ is a bio-luddite. I am not.
All: I was raised catholic, transitioned to atheism in middle school.
The reason I reverted was simple. Al-lah spoke to me and said “say the shahada.” I could hardly refuse.
Anne Laurie
@Mandramas:
Why? I enjoy Dawkins myself. Don’t agree with him, but his fierce performance-art pieces in defence of Scientism as a religion are usually quite fun to read.
Roger Moore
@eemom:
Sorry, but a HP freaknut fest is a step up from
Matoko ChanHermione Granger-Weasley taking over the thread. Hell, a Randroid wankfest would be a step up from her blather.Hermione Granger-Weasley
@THE: /sigh
we have been over this.
Defense against proselytization is the most successful evolutionary strategy on the planet right now.
In 20 years one out of every four humans on the planet will be muslim.
And some of them will also be chinese.
;)
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Yutsano: That would be my guess as well. Sigh. It’s tiring however it happened. I see a new timeout in her future.
@Omnes Omnibus: Bite your tongue. Charlie Sheen, perhaps. Doug J, never. Or perhaps I underestimate his skills.
Citizen Alan
@Omnes Omnibus:
You give him far too much credit. I have not doubt that these murders were exactly the response he desired. The deaths of UN officials he probably hated on principle anyway? Perpetrated by angry Muslims thereby allowing him to condemn all of Islam for violent extremism and validate his bigotry and that of his followers? As Charlie Sheen would say: Winning!
THE
HG-W it seems that way to you, because you only look at what fits your hypothesis.
I regularly challenge you to look at wider data but you won’t.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Roger Moore:
alas, that is as impossible as implementing COIN doctrine. Some things simply cannot be done.
and please, of course we went back to school and finished. Ron is highly placed in the Ministry for Magic. We expect he will run for minister someday.
And Harry has Dumbledore’s job, as Head of Hogwarts.
Of course.
;)
Anne Laurie
@Hermione Granger-Weasley:
And these devout Islamicists knew about Pastor Jones’ offense how? By a twitching along their ‘someone is
wrong on the internetsimpious on the other side of the world’ autonomous neural net? Somebody told them an offense had been committed, and somebody told them (had already taught them) that the correct response to such offense was to go kill some blasphemers. This is not ‘automatic’, like the impulse to pull one’s hand away from a flame or to brush a fly away from one’s eyeball — this is, at the most reductive, a conditioned response to a deliberate message. I don’t think it makes me an “Islamaphobe” to give Afghan Muslims more credit than to assume they have so little free will that pointing in some random direction and yelling KILL THE INFIDEL! demands their compliance automatically. People, even monotheists, are usually smarter than that.Mandramas
@Anne Laurie: The sorry was becaused i get confused. Nevermind.
In any case, I enjoy Dawkins because I agree with him. Unfortunatelly, I don’t have any good examples that merits to be enjoyed in the oposite side.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@4jkb4ia:
yup. And the freakout over shariah is the analog of the McCarthy witchhunts.
But now it is Green Domino Theory instead of Red Domino Theory. America is having a nervous breakdown over muslims instead of communists.
That is why I think A-stan is turning into Vietnam II. Atrocities are ramping up and neighboring countries are falling to enemy ideology.
And we have no exit strategy, and are planning permanent bases.
Anne Laurie
@Omnes Omnibus:
No, she’s too good even for DougJ’s skills. I recognise the meme-pattern, tragically. Not that she’ll ever forgive me for saying this, but the main difference between me and MC_Weasley is 30 years’ experience and the fact that her parents had money.
Xenos
@Cain:
Fucking homo sapiens, how do they work?
Omnes Omnibus
@Citizen Alan: Perhaps you are correct about Jones wanting the response he got. He is, of course, morally responsible to some extent.
Anya
@Caz: You must have a reference for your assertion. Give me the verses from the Quran that support your claim. It is a false assumption that the Quran mandates killing of Jews or any religious group. Here are few verses from the Quran that contradict your bigoted claim.
(
For centuries Christians and Jews lived side by side with Muslims peacefully and despite the attempts of bigots like you to distort that history, it’s a reality. It’s highly problematic when you make a complex geopolitical situation into a religious one.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Anne Laurie:
social media. Social media started all the Arab protest movements. the jihaadists have websites. The clergy all have websites. Young people all over the world have cells even if they dont have computers.
Those were not old people killing the NATO employees.
They were young muslim men.
You really don’t understand at all. You are blinded by western culture chauvinism. Muslims LIKE Islam. They like being muslims.
Mostly they think Islam is so wonderful that everyone will be a muslim one day.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Anne Laurie: ouch. that is going to leave a mark.
;)
suzanne
I’ve missed m_c calling me fat and old.
Duncan Dönitz (formerly Otto Graf von Pfmidtnöchtler-Pízsmőgy, Mumphrey, et al.)
Is Caz really the best troll the right can find to send here? All this “We’re too politically correct to hunt down and kill all the filthy, savage Muslims” crap really is kind of lame. It just doesn’t feel like his (her? its?) heart is really in it. It’s too perfunctory, too predictible. Where’s the passion? Where’s the originality? Where’s the over-the-top, batshit-crazy, teabag-shit-show-fail-parade, apocalyptic frothing at the mouth? This is just sad.
suzanne
BTW, here’s some cute.
DPirate
Why are we changing the spelling of koran? If it’s just phonetics I thought the idea was to get rid of the Q entirely.
Gator90
So Goldstone basically admits that he falsely accused Israel of intentionally targeting civilians, but blames Israel for failing to cooperate with him, even as he acknowledges that his investigation was performed under the auspices of an organization with a longstanding bias against Israel (gee, wonder why they didn’t want to cooperate). What a wanker.
suzanne
@Hermione Granger-Weasley:
I note the racism inherent in this statement, as if Muslims are somehow categorically lacking in self-control.
Derek
Koran-burning is fucked up because it’s book-burning. The act is a violent act in itself, because its an attempt to shame and burn the ideas. Fear of a violent reaction isn’t why it’s wrong. Yeah, being an asshole to the whole of Islam for the express purpose of being an asshole is going cause a violent reaction. That’s really problem though, isn’t it? Nobody should react with violence over being offended, and it shouldn’t be acceptable.
Poking the bear probably isn’t the solution, but the fact that they, and I use they as shorthand “the type of person that would react to a offense of a religious belief with violence”,would kill over it isn’t a thing that should be allowed to be, tacitly or explicitly. Nothing is going to change if that’s the status quo.
I wish I personally had a better answer to this question, but there is a severe moral poverty on both sides of the issue.
DPirate
No edit button today: Unless you are going for “kwuurahn”, it seems wrong.
Wolfdaughter
@Caz:
Oh, fer Chrissake, another low-hanging fruit. C’mon, I can quote chapter and verse from the Bible that’s every bit as ugly, misogynistic, whatever, for passages in the Quran. And please don’t say, oh, all the vicious passages are in the OT. At least one of Paul’s letters, for instance, counsels men to treat their women essentially as fine horseflesh, and if they must administer a beating, use a rod no thicker than the man’s thumb (hence the “rule of thumb” adage. And certainly in Paulian writings, women are ALWAYS subservient to men.
And as for why the Afghanis and the Pakistanis haven’t reacted against China, don’t you think that could have just a little to do with the fact that China hasn’t invaded them or interfered with them? DUH!
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Anne Laurie:
kill some proselytizers, not blasphemers.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@suzanne: racism?
its religionism.
articles of faith are not amenable to reason.
anyways, muslim is not a race.
Ima muslim and ima cauc.
There are also black muslims and asian muslims and semitic muslims.
Do you know who else are semites?
Jews.
;)
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@suzanne: I never called you fat. I called you stupid.
Yutsano
@suzanne: IT’Z A BEBEH!!
Wolfdaughter
@Hermione Granger-Weasley:
I could tell that you are very young, with the certitudes that young people have. Life will undoubtedly smack you upside the face. I hope you’re capable of learning from it.
I also know you will not understand my post. At 65, I look back on myself at 18 or 20 or 25, and realize that I’ve come a long way, educationally, emotionally, intellectually. When I was your age I was very ignorant, as you are continually demonstrating in your supercilious posts. You cannot understand my post because you have not experienced what I or others have experienced and lived.
I was against the Iraq war, against the Afghan war, and am very much on the fence about Libya. I agree with you that we don’t understand these cultures. Also it isn’t our right to try to impose our version of democracy on these peoples, or to suck all of their resources away.
But proselytizing? Yes, there are fundamentalist Christians in this country who do see it as their mission to force their particularly brand of worship on everyone else. A lot of them have scary power right now and they are showing how poor leaders they are. But UN workers as proselytizers? Even all American soldiers? Here is where you go off the track. It is not OFFICIAL GOVERNMENTAL POLICY to try to convert Muslims. That isn’t why we’re making war on them. IMHO, our biggest motive is extraction of their resources.
The Islamic cultures (by no means monolithic) have legitimate grievances against us and Europe. They don’t always pick the wisest ways to try to gain redress. And our policies are horribly counterproductive. There is plenty of wrong and blame to go around.
suzanne
@m_c: And I likened you to a smack-addled baboon. It was fun.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Wolfdaughter:
yes. Because they ARE THERE.
Proselytizing is thinking yours is best. Thinking you own the truth.
I am sure the NATO workers, COIN soldiers, and the toothbrush doctors had no intent of proselytizing. But the act of being there is proselytizing TO MUSLIMS THAT LIVE THERE.
The Islamic cultures (by no means monolithic).
Ima mevlevi Sufi, Captain Obvious.
I know this.
And im sorry about the arrogance, but this is GOBSMACKING obvious.
Islam can’t reform to be tolerant WHEN WE ARE FUCKING INVADING AND OCCUPYING THEIR COUNTRIES.
Joey Maloney
@JPL: I used to be a liberal, but ever since reading the comments in this thread I’m outraged by Islam.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Wolfdaughter:
Are you unfamiliar with COIN?
COIN is about standingup/imposing/implanting/installing OUR VERSION of missionary democracy.
That is proselytizing.
That is POLICY.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Joey Maloney: does that make you a conservative now?
Joey Maloney
The Times reports that Republicans are going to go after Medicaid.
At this point, pretty much the only hope I have left is that those guys who wrote The Fourth Turning are right. I mean, there’s no question that we’re heading for a generational crisis. The specifics are impossible to predict, but at some point in the next twenty years Americans are going to look around and realize that greed, selfishness, and wilfull ignorance have turned their once-proud country into a third-world shithole.
That part’s not in doubt. I can only hope that as the book predicts, out of the crisis will come a new sense of community and shared sacrifice, and renewal of our civic and political institutions. Because, let’s face it, there is NO POSSIBLE WAY that our current disfunctional system can address the problems facing us.
Joey Maloney
@Mark S.: (to H Gm_c-W:)
The question contains its own answer, grasshopper.
Cain
@Xenos:
It gets worse, there are mobs that go and kill a couple because they had the audacity to be in different castes. Pathetic. Same thing can happen if a woman cheats with another man. These are all hindus. Similar stuff happens with Muslims. The bloodiest is when it is Muslim vs Hindus. Oh boy.. that is some fucked up violence.
Some of that can be reined in with a strong civic sense and belief in law and order. Even a strong tribal law would help.
cain
cain
Cain
@Hermione Granger-Weasley:
Bah. That’s just your opinion. I’ll like to speak to an imam and ask his opinion.
This is just a simple case of wormtongue’istic bullshit that got everyone into a murderous rage and they went on a rampage.
priscianus jr
@Chet: @Chet:
Anne Laurie
@Joey Maloney:
Money isn’t just power, it’s insulation. Being poor means needing roommates, needing a job (not just ‘a career’ or ‘something worthy of my talents’ but ‘a means to eat’), needing friends who will pick you up when you miss the last train & can’t afford a cab. Being poor means having to pay attention to other people’s opinions, even when they’re stupid & wrong. The dark side of the American dream has always been having fvck-you money — being able to slam out of the meeting, light out for the territory, go hide out in the parental guesthouse & contemplate the purity of one’s uncompromising ideals. Rich is better than poor any day, but if there’s any bright facet to the immediate future, it’s the chance that having to share smaller spaces, take public transit, ‘make do’ with public schools & public parks & public institutions rather than walling ourselves into gated communities carefully sorted by age, ethnicity & income level… might actual remind us about words like ‘civic’ and ‘civilization’.
Xenos
@Cain: My objection is to your projecting this sort of mob behaviour to those people over there. If there is a distinction between the occasional murderous sectarian mob violence in southern Asia and a good old fashioned American lynching, I don’t see it.
James Byrd was the latest, just 13 years ago. I would like to be confident that we will not see more, but I very much expect some unpleasantness arising from the marginalization of the tea party movement over the next few years.
Xenos
@Anne Laurie: The process of sorting out where, exactly, to live in the greater Boston suburbs so as to maximize the opportunities for one’s children is absurd. It also forces people to make very selfish decisions and then to invest so heavily into those decisions that most of one’s career is warped by a sense of panic and insecurity.
Now that I am out of that scene I can barely believe I ever put up with such madness. Our educational financing system, like our medical care financing system, is strongly counter-civilizational. A country can survive a couple broken systems, but more and more it seems like every system (higher ed, transportation, defense, food production, health care) is maladaptive and driving itself to destruction.
Norwonk
Burning a Quran can be considered bad manners. Killing random foreigners because someone on the other side of the world burns a Quran is a disgusting, horrific crime.
Let’s not forget that difference, please.
A Humble Lurker
@delphi_ote:
Bull. Crap. King and the protesters risked their own personal safety doing what they did. King’s death is proof enough of that. They took responsibility for what they did, and nobody’s skin but their own was put in the line of fire. This jackass burned a Qur’an knowing (or believing) he could do it out of reach of radical, murderous, pissed off Muslims.
Not to mention, I’d say what he was saying was a tad different than what this nut was saying, wouldn’t you? And that the circumstances surrounding both these men’s speech are a tad different, also?
I get the point you’re trying to make, but in my view, that’s an inapt analogy.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Norwonk:
But killing random foreigners in large numbers is okfine, because they need that wunnerful missionary democracy so they wont plow airplanes into skyscrapers?
There are 4.5 MILLION muslim orphans in Iraq alone. Who do you think they blame when Terry Jones burns a Quran? the answer is “Any westerner they can get their hands on, or anyone they think is helping America.”
AND WE ARE STILL DOING IT IN A-STAN AND WE KNOW IT DOESNT WORK.
What is the mission you dumb fucker?
Slaughtering muslim dads with drones so we can build girls schools for their orphaned daughters?
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Cain: no you stupid motherfucking retard. There are 4.5 million orphans in Iraq alone. When Jones burns a Quran who do they blame?
Any Westerner they can get their hands on.
I’m pretty sure some cleric has put out a death fatwah on Jones too. But hes perfectly safe unless he travels toa country where we have slaughtered hundreds of thousands of brown people in the name of “democracy”.
30k Taliban are kicking ass on 100k of America’s finest plus another 250k of mercs, NATO, and Karzai’s troops.
Could you be any stupider?
THE
Please HG-W – a death fatwa on Jones is the worst move imaginable.
It will make him a martyr and lead to people burning Korans in his memory.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
I tried to explain to explain to you dumbass juicers why Iraq and A-stan are such MONUMENTAL FAILS. All we have done there is make a lot more muslims that hate us at a horrific cost in blood, treasure, and global stature.
You, yourselves, can’t turn off the proselytizing. You think missionary democracy would be better for those poor violent savages.
That might even be true BUT IT CAN’T BE DONE.
And the reason COIN CAN NEVER WORK is simple and obvious.
When muslims are democratically empowered to vote, they vote for more Islam, not less, and never for westernstyle democracy with freedom of speech and freedom of religion.
Never.
You all saw the protests in Tahir Square.
77.2 of egyptians just voted for shariah law. You try to make this out as some sort of mistake. It is democracy in action.
But their culture is DIFFERENT from than ours and evolved SPECIFICALLY TO BE RESISTANT TO CHRISTIAN PROSELYTIZATION.
It is still resistant to proselytization.
And there are still 150000 American troops in Iraq and A-stan bleeding and dying and commiting atrocities in service of an unjust, immoral, and unwinnable war.
Terrorism is a RESPONSE to western meddling.
Want to stop islamic terrorism?
GTFO of MENA Big White Missionary JesusBwana.
I am rude. But I’m outraged at the loss of life.
And your response is to mock my faith and tell me I don’t know what im talking about?
And get mad when I point out how stupid you are and get pissy because muslims dont want your missionary democracy?
/spit
Omnes Omnibus
@Hermione Granger-Weasley: A couple of points: 1) Your level of certitude tends to be off-putting to people. You may be correct on any given factual point that you make, but you have a tendency to use those facts to reach a certain conclusion and then deny that any other conclusion is possible. It is seldom the case that a set of facts can lead to one, and only one conclusion. Just because someone disagrees with you does does not necessarily make that person stupid. 2) Proselytization refers to attempts to convert people to one’s religion. In broader terms, it can be an attempt to convert someone to a different belief in general. When you flatly state that we have 150000 troops in the Middle East who are proselytizing, you ignore the probability that the vast majority of soldiers there are simply doing a job, fixing trucks, serving as assistant gunner in a howitzer gun crew, processing payroll paperwork, etc.; that is the extent of their duties. 3) Your assumption that religious motivations are primary drivers of policy is, in my opinion, wildly off base. They may, indeed, be primary for you, but projecting your motivations onto other individuals, let alone nation-states, is fraught with perils.
I am doing you the courtesy of taking you seriously and trying to explain why your apparently heartfelt arguments are not persuasive. You, of course, may treat my observations as you wish.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@THE: I CANT CONTROL THIS.
There are a lot of clerics that would like to see Islam modernize, like Dr. Javid Gamadi. I have been in his online group for 2 years.
But those liberal clerics cannot change shariah law while there are 150000 missionaries with guns or “armed social workers” or w/e the fuck our troops are now…as an occupation force killing muslims. While ignorant low-IQ WEC bigots are burning Qurans and protesting mosques in America the land of freedom of religion.
And muslims SEE this on the interwebz. The whole world sees America’s bullshytt now, because of social media.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Omnes Omnibus:
I am stating HOW OUR TROOPS ARE PERCIEVED.
Social media means the Iraqi Kill Squad and Terry Jones get front page coverage there. Like the toothbrush doctors, our troops dont think they are proselytizers. That is how muslims see them.
Do you have questions? Really? This stuff is gobsmackingly obvious. I AM FUCKING FURIOUS. Where do think the 4.5 million orphans in Iraq came from? Why are the Taliban winning?
WHAT THE FUCK IS THE MISSION?
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Omnes Omnibus:
is READ THE COIN MANUAL.
America is attempting to proselytize/install/implant/impose/standup/spread westernstyle democracy. That cannot be done.
If there is some other mission, I would love to hear it. Please, Omnes, tell me WTF we are doing in A-stan.
Tell me what American taxpayers are getting for this.
PIGL
@Wally Ballou: depends on whether it counts as depraved indifference, which it does not, as you know fully well. No DFHs actually existing in the real world, you know. Maybe it’s time to update your stereotypes.
Omnes Omnibus
@Hermione Granger-Weasley: That the troops are perceived as proselytizers is a reasonable argument, but it is not the one you make. You flat out state, time and time again, that they are proselytizers. As far as the certitude goes, I am sure you are aware, and if you are not you should be, that the majority of people on the blog, front-pagers and commenters alike, are in favor of withdrawing from Iraq and Afghanistan. There are differences over timing and tactics, but not over the need to get out. As a result, comments from you implying that you are the only person who understands this are both condescending and insulting. Okay, you are furious; why spend your time blowing up at people who more or less agree with your overall point?
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Omnes Omnibus:
pardon, that was the Afghan Kill Squad. I was thinking of the Iraqi Rape Squad.
Every. Single. Arab. Protest. started with social media. Americans can scold and whine about Evuul Islam and how much better judeochristan democracy would be for those poor benighted ignorant muslim savages….but what does the Arab Street see?
They see the sensationalist coverage that we don’t get here. The Western media has tried to bury Abu Ghraib, Camp No, Baghram, the Kill Squad, Gharani massacre, Fallujah massacre, etc, etc.
But that is all front page over there.
Do you see what we are doing to our soldiers? Did you read the Rollingstone article on the Kill Squad? They don’t know what the fuck the mission is either.
Its My Lai all over again. There were Kill Squads in Vietnam but we didnt find out about them until much later.
Now social media prevents that.
The world has changed. America can lead, follow, or get the fuck out of the way. Obama at least is trying to lead in Libya.
THE
HG-W I’m not suggesting that you can control it. The best way to deal with that kind of provocation, in an age of viral online mimicry, is to ignore it. Personally I hope Pastor Jones lives a very long time and just fades into irrelevance.
I have a lot of skepticism toward the project of modernizing Abrahamic religions. My observation of liberal religious movements, is that liberal churches are often too intellectual for their audience.
People who are attracted to the religious are not looking for the rational and the modern. Modernistic religions never seem to attract the passion that more emotional movements can achieve. YMMV
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Omnes Omnibus:
Then what are they, if not proselytizers? Aren’t they there to spread westernstyle democracy to end islamic terrorism?
What is the mission?
And I’m attacking people that still can’t give up on the Bush Doctrine, that still think if muslims would just be more like christians or westerners or buddhists then everything would be swell. If they would just lie back and take our western democracy for their own good, right?
I am telling them IT CANT BE DONE.
We have been there FOR TEN FUCKING YEARS TRYING.
Omnes Omnibus
@Hermione Granger-Weasley: You are flat out contradicting what you said in your previous comment and ignoring virtually everything that I said. If you cannot be bothered to take seriously what other commenters say, why should you expect that they pay attention to anything you say except to mock it? I am beginning to regret this attempt to speak with you.
THE
I think that is a key question HG-W. And I’ll tell you, it’s much more complex than you think.
It is at least as much about shaping central Asia and the relationship between Pakistan India and China as it is about Afghanistan as such.
Dr. Squid
@THE: Remember these are religious leaders issuing fatwas. Like here, they’re not very bright over there either.
Meanwhile, is Pinch really saying that the death penalty is a economic engine that we can’t afford to give up?
What. A. Scumbag.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Omnes Omnibus: ditto. I am not contradicting. you are are ducking.
America has been proselytizing westernstyle democracy for 10 years in Iraq and A-stan. Empirically Iraq has shariah in the constitution and A-stan has more Taliban than 10 years ago. And more every year. And the Taliban are winning, 30k to 100k. And this is what it has cost so far.
When do you and the rest of these deniers admit failure?
Just tell me what the mission is if it is not proselytizing/standingup/implanting/intalling westernstyle democracy?
What is the mission Omnes?
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Omnes Omnibus: Let me try one more time. It is not that hard.
1. Islam evolved to be resistant to christian proselytization. From Evolutionary Theory of Culture. This is not disputable.
2. Resistance to proselytization is encoded in contemporary shariah law. Not just resistance to christian proselytization but generic resistance to any proselytization.
3. For 10 years America has attempted to standup/install/spread/impose/implant westernstyle democracy in Iraq and A-stan. This is proselytizing to muslims, whatever you may call it.
4. The attempt to “spread” westernstyle democracy HAS FAILED after a horrific cost in blood and treasure.
Do you understand me?
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Omnes Omnibus: and they mock me because that is all they have got.
They can’t contradict me and neither can you.
Allow me to mock you back.
What is the mission, Omnes?
Chris
@Hermione Granger-Weasley:
Frankly Makoto, I may have missed a few things while reading this really, really long thread and I apologize if I have. But what I’ve read from most of the people here (right wing guest trolls notwithstanding) is that they think it’s wrong to murder UN workers (*not* soldiers who kill Afghans mark you) in retaliation for a Koran burning done on the other side of the world by a person they probably didn’t agree with in the first place.
They’re not even arguing that our troops should stay there and change things. Most of them have said many, many, many times on previous threads that they consider the wars to be equally wrong, immoral and murderous, and that the 4.5 million orphans and all the other damage the Western powers have caused are a monstrous crime. It’s just that in addition to those things, they also believe this particular killing of UN workers was also wrong.
Frankly, if that makes them proselytizers, then call me a proselytizer. Doesn’t sound like a bad thing to be.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Chris: Yes, being a proselytizer is a very bad thing to be.
Just ask Starvin’ Marvin and Kyle.
The juicers still insist that westernstyle democracy and baby jeebus would stop the ignorant muslim savages from killing NATO workers in Kabul.
And that might even be true.
The problem is IT CANNOT BE DONE.
And we have trying to do it for 10 years with simply awful results.
No, they believe it was somehow MORE WRONG than burning a Quran.
And you do too, because you think yours is better, and you cannot it turn it off.
Chris
@Hermione Granger-Weasley:
Perhaps they believe that about Western style democracy (though your definition of that is confusing at best). I haven’t seen all that much love for the Baby Jeebus on this blog. In fact, plenty of them have pointed out that Baby Jeebus followers would do the exact same thing under the right circumstances.
@Hermione Granger-Weasley:
In that burning a Koran does not end a human life and killing human rights workers does… yes. We do believe that.
If that offends your morality, or that of the average Afghani, that’s your prerogative. Question, though. According to what you’ve said, Muslims are culturally programmed for certain things. And WE CAN’T CHANGE THEIR MINDS, FUCK IT WHY CAN’T WE REALIZE THAT!?!?! Out of curiosity, has it never occurred to you that Balloon Juicers are equally programmed to believe that, for example, killing people is worse than burning a book, even a holy book? And that you can’t change their minds about that either? Sooo… why are you here? Just wondering.
mds
@rikyrah:
Yes, you can wait. The implementation is booted out to 2021, which, given how much money it saves, is entirely inexplicable. Why on earth would they exempt everyone who’s currently 55 or older, when we supposedly have to deal with the crushing deficit right now? It’s a mystery.
Omnes Omnibus
@Hermione Granger-Weasley: You are operating on the presumption that I support the current operations in Afghanistan. This presumption is mistaken. I believe that since early 2003, the US has, at best, been spinning its wheels in Afghanistan.
I began this little interaction after it appeared that you were frustrated by the fact that you do not seem to be able to get your point across to people this blog. Taking that frustration at face value, I offered some observations as to why you might be having difficulties. I meant to be helpful. This is a mistake I am unlikely to make again.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Omnes Omnibus: its ok. Chris just explained it.
Can’t stop christians/westerners from proselytizing, can’t stop muslims from resisting proselytization.
I accept that. I just thought explaining WHY muslims are resistant to proselytization might help.
Its like I can’t explain to my palestian friend why westerners can’t turn off the proselytization and dont see it as offensive and…well….stupid.
But the difference the juicers seem UNABLE to understand is that WE WENT THERE AND KILLED thousands and thousands of THEM AND INVADED AND OCCUPIED AND WE ARE STILL THERE committing atrocities and making more Taliban. The muslims didnt come here and invade and occupy America.
I still think Kyle said it best.
Wolfdaughter
@Hermione Granger-Weasley:
Aha, I see. Part of the problem is that you really do not know what proselytizing is.
Definition of proselytizing according to Random House dictionaries:
Proselytize: to convert or attempt to convert as a proselyte. Proselyte: a person who has changed from one opinion, religious belief, sect, or the like, to another; convert.
So UN workers and the majority of American soldiers are not making any active efforts to convert; therefore, they are not proselytizers. They are there to provide aid or to prosecute a war. I don’t agree with the latter purpose and would like to see our soldiers pulled out. Some of them undoubtedly believe that their way is better, but that’s NOT proselytizing.
I would certainly agree that our invasions are contributing mightily to the intolerance, but not all Islamics are intolerant, even in the war-torn countries. And we do need to pull out and let them deal with their problems in their own ways.
The idea that we can make war and show them how to do things and that they will just bow their heads and go, “Yassuh boss, you’re right, I see the error of my ways now, I’ll just get right on it”–well this idea is utterly preposterous, yet you see lots of people on all sides of any issue proceeding as if this is the likely outcome of might makes right. (Deity of choice) save us from fundamentalists of all stripes!
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Wolfdaughter: I just have one thing to say. For both you and Omnes.
If we are not proselytizing westernstyle democracy, WTF are we doing there?
srsly.
What is the mission?
Chris
@Wolfdaughter:
A magnet on one of my Jewish friends’ refrigerator read “Dear Jesus, please protect me from your followers.” I laughed. Snarkier version of Gandhi’s “I like your Christ, I don’t like your Christians.”
Wolfdaughter
Hermione:
OK, I googled the COIN program. I believe you’re referring to the fact that Marines in Iraq were dropping coins with “Christian” messages on them in the middle of cities, etc. THIS WAS INDIVIDUAL MARINES, not governmental policy. It was stupid, and it was investigated by higher military authorities, and they at least attempted to stop it. I’d be willing to bet that there are still Marines out there who still have coins which they drop various places, but that doesn’t make it the reason that we rototilled Iraq.
This is a ludicrous and false statement. Where do you get this crap? Go ahead, look back through the comments and archives. You will have a lot a difficulty finding any but a few statements which could be read to indicate a belief in western style democracy and baby jeebus to be a good way to work in the Islamic world. And you would also note, if you were being the least bit objective, that such believers were instantly piled upon by the overwhelming majority of Juicers.
Another ridiculously unsupported statement. Au contraire, mon amie (NOT) most of us here agree with your statement.
You really are an arrogant little twit. As I’ve said previously, I hope age provides some perspective for you in the future. I somewhat doubt that. I was an asshole at your age too (and still have my moments) but I was never as arrogantly sure of my opinions as you are.
And based upon your posts, your reading skills need serious remediation. I’m surprised you are passing your college courses.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Wolfdaughter: What is the mission then?
Just tell me that.
That is all you have to do to prove me wrong.
Bring it.
;)
FlipYrWhig
@Wolfdaughter: There’s not much point in engaging. Like Peggy Noonan said,
magic dolphins will save usjust walk on by.THE
Wolfdaughter,
COIN is COunter INinsurgency.
General Petraeus wrote the book on it.
THE
@Hermione Granger-Weasley:
There is a lot more that I could say about the fundamental flaw in this modernization project, that gets to the heart of what quasi-pagans like me think is wrong about Abrahamic religion in general. And why it really can’t be reformed.
The problem with Abrahamic religion is that it is a belief system constructed by theologians, scholars, lawyers, bishops, councils, sitting around a table and designing a religion. Look into the history of any of them, and that is what you find.
Genuine religion, natural religion, doesn’t arise that way. It arises from the grassroots, through stories told around a campfire for ten thousand years.
It is shaped by the innate tendencies in the humans mind, and by real human needs, and by nature through evolutionary processes.
The difference between natural religion and theologians’ religions, is like the difference between a natural flower and a plastic flower.
The natural flower is complex and rich and a product of natural evolution in the wild.
The plastic flower looks similar on the surface, but is simple, logical, manufactured in a factory and designed by a committee.
To create a natural religion, you have to leave people free.
You have to get rid of the sacred books that impose doctrinal uniformity.
You have to get rid of the professional clerical elite, and their systems of dogma, and rules, and laws.
And you have to trust human imagination and natural creativity.
And then you have to wait.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@FlipYrWhig: lololol!
quoting Peggy Noonan.
Do you remember the contesxt of that Peggy quote? She wanted to walk on by the Bush Torture adminstration.
okthen, Flip. You doooooo eeeeet.
What is the mission?
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@THE: yup, and counter insurgency is implemented by standing up a westernstyle democracy.
Population centric COIN is standing up a westernstyle democracy while exercising “responsibilty to protect” on civilians.
Your turn Spock.
What is the mission?
THE
OK The mission.
1. It’s all about oil.
2. The problem is that the industrial world is dependent for its most important energy resource on an alien culture.
3. Our attempts to secure our access to oil, lead us into inevitable conflict with this culture.
4. We are encountering resistance from this culture in the form of terrorist movements, that consolidate in remote and inaccessible parts of the world like Afghanistan and Yemen, and Somalia, etc.
5. We have invaded those remote places to suppress hostile activity until such time as we can extricate ourselves technologically from our oil-dependence.
6. We invent all sorts of propaganda to justify being there but really it’s all about oil.
7. Did I mention it elsewhere? It’s all about oil.
Chet
@JPL: In what way was Jones not responsible for his actions? Did the ignition of a stack of paper start a grassfire or something? Did he burn paper in a designated “Do not burn” area? Did he improperly dispose of the ashes?
If you’re talking about that recent trouble in Afghanistan, those weren’t the actions of Terry Jones, those were the actions of a crowd of murderous religious fanatics. I’ve not seen any evidence that Terry Jones hasn’t taken responsibility for the actions he was actually responsible for.