Iran may be about to revive an old custom. A law passed by the Iranian parliament needs only the approval of “Supreme Guide” Ali Khamenehi to become practice.
It actually was passed two years ago, but languished until recently “revived at the behest of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.” What a surprise.
Here’s the gist of it:
Iran’s roughly 25,000 Jews would have to sew a yellow strip of cloth on the front of their clothes, while Christians would wear red badges and Zoroastrians would be forced to wear blue cloth.
Oh well, there are so few of them left in Iran, anyway. But it wasn’t always that way.
[NOTE: Allahpundit cautions that the story may not be true.
And here’s more on the confusion.
Still more evidence that this is likely to be false.]
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May 22nd, 2006 at 10:25 am
I’m just putting it own as a historical note here, but if it turns out that the legislation in Iran gets passed with the necessary amendments requiring Jews and whatevers to wear certified special clothing, I predict that the Left and everyone who opposed this story… will act as if they’ve never heard of it.
May 22nd, 2006 at 10:25 am
The US is broken into independent states. That is why it is called the United States….
May 22nd, 2006 at 10:25 am
The United States is the only nation that was strong enough to stand up to the Soviet Union. You see us as a ‘father figure’.
Um … thats a BIG NO.
We are the only nation that can defend Europe, if Europe is attacked by Islamists, martians, rabid greenpeace activists, whatever, in the near future. As a result, if the US goes down, you go down with us.
No. Thats pretty paranoid, and wrong on so many levels. Maybe martians.
If you form a centralized government and that government is attacked and collapses, everyone goes down with it. That’s why centralization is, and probably always was, a very bad idea.
What simplistic ooze!!! So lets break the US into independent states then. Or China into provinces, or India into pre independence statelets?
Subsidiarity dahling, look it up.
May 22nd, 2006 at 10:25 am
Get out of the Balkans and let Europe mind their own back yard, oh, but I forgot, we’re there because they wouldn’t.
Golly such superiority. Jesus, listen to yourself a second.
Although you do almost make another point here. I’ll accept military intervention if there is broad acceptance. As in this case, the Europeans and the UN had made a hash of it, and almost everyone in the EU agreed that something needed to be done.
It may not have been perfect, but it wasn’t the one fingered salute we are currently getting. Surprisingly that pisses people off.
May 22nd, 2006 at 10:25 am
So how much per pupil per year should we be spending then? You tell me. As for where GDP doesn’t apply- this would be it, because at some point, there’s no increase in quality of education for dollar spent, so your attempt to use GDP penalizes us for being more productive…
I’ll certainly concede that point. Nonetheless, you should be spending the billions currently spent on the military elsewhere, on productive pursuits, thats what I’m driving at.
The US education system is pretty unbalanced when compared to other minority world countries, there are certainly plenty of schools in the US that could benefit from the extra funds. I take it we can agree on that:-)?
May 22nd, 2006 at 10:25 am
No, people with stupid, destructive internationalist/utopian dreams kill people.
No people with dreams of never ending global hegemony are the ones that kill people and are currently killing people.
I do not accept that 5% of the global population can dictate to the rest of us how global problems should be resolved.
That is completely regressive, and a kind of global feudal system. I will not take up arms about this issue, but will continue to tell you that you represent the oppressor in this equation.
I trust you realise how depressingly unoriginal you fellows are? Every oppressor from the Romans to the British wheels out the same justification for their brutality.
Start from the position that we all have a stake in ensuring our mutual safety and people will be prepared to discuss.
Dictate spittle flecked positions from on high and hysterical proclamations about dhimmi hood, the collapse of western civilisation and other absurd rubbish and the rational mind simply tunes you out:-)
Deservedly. If we listened to this kind of terrified drivel we’d still be in caves.
May 22nd, 2006 at 10:25 am
You can’t go back and kill your own grandfather, you should know better than to suggest that to people, douglas.
May 22nd, 2006 at 10:25 am
“neoneoconned said…
will largely have disappeared within a hundred years…”
Go back a hundred years and look at people predictions. See if youc an find any as dramatic as yours which came true. Good luck.
May 22nd, 2006 at 10:25 am
“bmcworldcitizen said…
It’s kinda fun in a way though watching yanks flounder on geography though. You included. My statement was accurate, rest assured.
I’m going out on a limb and suggesting we are talking about …. Indonesia!!
Do I win a prize?”
Yes. The Booby prize. He said his second closest neighbor was the biggest islamic state which would be Indonesia. Obviously that is then not where he is. I suggest the National Geographic Society Atlas, it’s very good.
That said, I recant my comment that you are a bright guy, given the above, and this:
“Such waste is completely indefensible, in any world. So don’t waste your breath trying.”
The mark of an open mind. Kudos.
and this:
“bmcworldcitizen said…
Stupid, destructive internationalist/utopian dreams never die, do they, no matter how many people they kill.
Dreams don’t kill people, people kill people:-)”
No, people with stupid, destructive internationalist/utopian dreams kill people.
SO back to facts- what about this:
“Education, however fundeds is still poorly funded. The only reason that GDP funding in the US is not at the absolute bottom the pack is because of rich parents in rich areas making up the government shortfall for their schools.”
So how much per pupil per year should we be spending then? You tell me. As for where GDP doesn’t apply- this would be it, because at some point, there’s no increase in quality of education for dollar spent, so your attempt to use GDP penalizes us for being more productive…
Regards our defense budget, we could spend less, lots less- and not use things like GBU’s and laser guided bombs which reduce civilian casualties, but then you’d just be more angry. Or we could support the UN with our military infrastructure less and save a bundle. Get out of the Balkans and let Europe mind their own back yard, oh, but I forgot, we’re there because they wouldn’t.
But then, you’re not really listening anyway, so I may as well stop talking…
May 22nd, 2006 at 10:25 am
Maybe we’ll all be controlled by corporations. Like in “Rollerball”
May 22nd, 2006 at 10:25 am
here is a little idea for you . These nation states which you talk about as though there are separate individuals,, will largely have disappeared within a hundred years as globalisation and the needs of international capital brush away the limitations they place on trade.
how silly will this seem then
May 22nd, 2006 at 10:25 am
That is certainly true, but not what I am proposing. As usual you people are batting at shadows
Pacifism and internationalism are exactly what you are proposing, and we already know they won’t work.
The United States is the only nation that was strong enough to stand up to the Soviet Union. You see us as a ‘father figure’. We are the only nation that can defend Europe, if Europe is attacked by Islamists, martians, rabid greenpeace activists, whatever, in the near future. As a result, if the US goes down, you go down with us.
If you form a centralized government and that government is attacked and collapses, everyone goes down with it. That’s why centralization is, and probably always was, a very bad idea.
Decentralization is the only solution. The nations that make up the EU have to grow up, stop relying on the UN or the US, and start learning how to take care of their own selves. A nation that can’t defend itself is not a viable nation.
Pacifist, internationalist prattling is not part of the future, it’s the failure of the past.
May 22nd, 2006 at 10:25 am
There, there poppet it won’t be so bad. We won’t let the nasty Muslims eat you.
She won’t let them eat you, you mean. Which is unfortunate. I think you’d make a good dhimmi, and we may well have a chance to find out.
May 22nd, 2006 at 10:25 am
Pacifism is more like a religion than a workable political system.
That is certainly true, but not what I am proposing. As usual you people are batting at shadows.
What is happening in Iraq, and what is planned for Iran is naked aggression, nothing less. Please stop trying to dress it up as altruism, that is simply disgusting.
For 55 years the east and west faced off until the west eventually won the argument. The same is true of the gradual conversions of Spain, Greece, Portugal and more recently Turkey to relatively stable democracies.
Note that all of this was accomplished (largely) without violence. In the main, we won the argument, not the war. We avoided the war.
The same can be accomplished in Iran, in fact everywhere now that people living in democratic nations are numerically more numerous, than those living under totalitarian regimes.
However you and your ilk are too frightened to take that route, because it entails some small element of personal and national risk.
This is anathema, because you, like a large number of Americans are subconsciously proto fascist, the master race in this case being American. A small minority are consciously fascist, but I’ll give you chaps the benefit of the doubt:-)
Worse still, the “other” in this case is much, much weaker than for example the Soviet Union was during the cold war. This has the counter intuitive effect of making the option of force more, rather than less attractive. That’s the badly frightened bully factor kicking in. Too attractive for a weak minded incompetent like Bush to resist:-(
Of course Americans are decent human beings just like the rest of us, simply slaughtering people would not be acceptable. Thus, Islamic terrorists are depicted as omnipotent villains with dreams of world domination, genocide, and the obliteration of the United States. When looked at rationally it really is a wonder such piffle keeps you people spooked.
Global governance, is the logical path for humans. Since the first tribal spat, we have aggregated into larger and larger groups.
It’s simply a question of working out the details, and keeping the regressives among us from panicking.
There, there poppet it won’t be so bad. We won’t let the nasty Muslims eat you.
May 22nd, 2006 at 10:25 am
bmc: So these deaths are totally in the hands of the other side?
Yes. Nobody forces them to make war on us in the first place.
Once they choose to do so, then our object should be to stop them at whatever the cost. If we can do so without harming a hair on anyone’s head, then good, that’s what we should do. But if it costs 10000 lives or 10 million, then that’s terrible but that’s war. Don’t start it in the first place is the best policy.
May 22nd, 2006 at 10:25 am
However the concept of agreed, negotiated world peace is not the problem. The delusion of subjugation be force is the problem, of which you and a signficant minority of your fellow country men appear to be the latest iteration.
You’re not getting the point - Mao was selling the concept of internationalism and world peace vs. the evil American imperialists.
Some hopeless innocents believed the Maoist/Stalinist propaganda about world peace, and they stored it forever in their hearts. That’s the message the pacifist UN promotes. That’s the pacifist message you’re trying to sell.
Read the Glucksman essay. Often, the world has to make a choice between tolerating war and tolerating genocide. The promoters of internationalism and world peace will always choose genocide, guaranteeing that millions of innocents die instead of hundreds or thousands.
Also, see Neo-neocon’s essays on pacifism, which explain how pacifism is not based on fact or reality, but on faith.
Pacifism is more like a religion than a workable political system.
May 22nd, 2006 at 10:25 am
How many innocent people have been killed in the name of internationalism’s world peace? The last estimate was 100 million.
Easily. However the concept of agreed, negotiated world peace is not the problem. The delusion of subjugation be force is the problem, of which you and a signficant minority of your fellow country men appear to be the latest iteration.
May 22nd, 2006 at 10:25 am
It’s not dreams, it’s false slogans engineered by people who knowingly manipulate people for power, Mary.
Americans don’t tend to think free speech is all that much of a danger to the Republic. It is revolutionary people that are the problem, that must be purged and eliminated if you want stability and progression.
As such, most reasonable people don’t really believe that dreams are evil, given the existence of the American people. However, they do comprehend that people are evil, and it is not wise to trust people like Mao, or Ammanie, or Chirac to revolutionalize anything other than a way to kill the most people in the least amount of time.
May 22nd, 2006 at 10:25 am
Dreams don’t kill people, people kill people:-)
How many innocent people have been killed in the name of internationalism’s world peace? The last estimate was 100 million.
May 22nd, 2006 at 10:25 am
Stupid, destructive internationalist/utopian dreams never die, do they, no matter how many people they kill.
Dreams don’t kill people, people kill people:-)
May 22nd, 2006 at 10:25 am
You’d think they’d be more grateful, but they aren’t.
Absolutely. So stop doing it. Spend the money on something else. Please.
Honestly, it’s like a feudal lord complaining about the ungrateful peasants lack of appreciation for the “protection” he affords them:-)
May 22nd, 2006 at 10:25 am
The reason why we spend so much on defense and everyone else spends so little, is because we are providing a socialist welfare protection for countries under the US Hegemony umbrella. You’d think they’d be more grateful, but they aren’t.
I wish I had the patience to explain to people like BMC why they don’t get it in terms of defense spending, or Americans killing non-existent innocents or anythingelse lik that. But even I did, they would not believe it, they would think it is a propaganda line, and that there is a more “rational” solution.
So my response to this Catch 22 is to ignore it.
May 22nd, 2006 at 10:25 am
but preventing them from harming any of our or our allies’ people certainly is — how many of their innocent people end up being killed in that process is entirely in their hands, as is the fate of the people of any country that chooses to make war on us.”
So these deaths are totally in the hands of the other side?
May 22nd, 2006 at 10:25 am
Being a neocon is a tough road to hoe hoe hoe.
Not even Ydidmommyleaveus has had the good grace to fly in on his podracer and drop a kind comment
Tsk tsk. Who needs enemies etc…….
Ho-o-oly shit. Do you always go into a hallucinatory rage when there’s chocolate milk involved? For that matter, how does chocolate milk have anything to do with being a neocon? Thanks, though, that gave me quite a laugh.
May 22nd, 2006 at 10:25 am
bmc: Is your safety so important to you, that to eliminate any possible risk, innocent people must die?
Oh please — this is just the worst sort of pious, preening, disingenuous rectitude that the left loves to wallow in. In case you’ve forgotten, you’ve been there before and I’ve answered you before — in case you missed that, here it is again:
“re: Iranian support of terrorists: Lets kill tens of thousands of their innocent people in case they kill one of ours?
Sometimes, bmc, you really should think before you type. Supporting terrorists to attack us or our allies is just another form of warfare. Killing “tens of thousands of their innocent people” isn’t the point or the objective, but preventing them from harming any of our or our allies’ people certainly is — how many of their innocent people end up being killed in that process is entirely in their hands, as is the fate of the people of any country that chooses to make war on us.”
You know, maybe you should just stick to comparative prison statistics, arms expenditures, cheese production, that sort of thing. Anything more abstract seems to give you problems.
May 22nd, 2006 at 10:25 am
More helpful anti-patriotism quotes:
“In the fight for complete liberation the oppressed people rely first of all on their own struggle and then, and only then, on international assistance. The people who have triumphed in their own revolution should help those still struggling for liberation. This is our internationalist duty.”
“We must unite with the proletariat of all the capitalist countries, with the proletariat of Japan, Britain, the United States, Germany, Italy and all other capitalist countries, before it is possible to overthrow imperialism, to liberate our nation and people, and to liberate the other nations and peoples of the world. This is our internationalism, the internationalism with which we oppose both narrow nationalism and narrow patriotism.”
“The people of the countries in the socialist camp should unite, the people of the countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America should unite, the people of all the continents should unite, all peace-loving countries should unite, and all countries subjected to U.S. aggression, control, intervention or bullying should unite, and so form the broadest united front to oppose the U.S. imperialist policies of aggression and war and to defend world peace.”
All quotes thanks to the great internationalist champion of world peace and murderer of millions, Mao Zedong
Stupid, destructive internationalist/utopian dreams never die, do they, no matter how many people they kill.
May 22nd, 2006 at 10:25 am
You’re going to have to do better if you ever want to achieve your dream of becoming an American.
I’m more of an american than you’ll ever if the principles of the republic mean anything.
Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism - how passionately I hate them! ~Albert Einstein
To me, it seems a dreadful indignity to have a soul controlled by geography. ~George Santayana
Patriotism is the willingness to kill and be killed for trivial reasons. ~Bertrand Russell
Patriotism is often an arbitrary veneration of real estate above principles. ~George Jean Nathan
Seriously, for a moment at least. Does the above leave you unmoved Sally? Is there no part of you that wonders if you are wrong about Iran/Iraq or muslims in general?
Are you genuinely unmoved by the killing of innocent people a half a world away in your name? Do you consider none of them innocent?
Is your safety so important to you, that to eliminate any possible risk, innocent people must die?
May 22nd, 2006 at 10:25 am
And you’d be obliterated in the wink of eye if it weren’t for the powerful protectors you now affect to spit upon.
Wow … your paranoia genuinely knows no bounds. In the wink of an eye you say?
ROTFL
“The muslims are coming, the muslims are coming!!!”
Really …. and so Geography fixated.
May 22nd, 2006 at 10:25 am
American wannabe: Oh boo hoo…. Boo, bloody, hoo…. Sniff…. Hick…. Get a damn spine…. killing innocent people….
And so on.
Kinda repeating yourself there, worldcitizen. Pull yourself together, and see if you can get that rage and envy a little more under control or otherwise you’ll soon be drooling along with the other trolls here — who are entertaining, but only in a pathetic sort of way.
You come from a tiny bit of a country whose best citizens fled to America and elsewhere years ago, leaving an unfortunately high percentage of dregs like yourself. And you’d be obliterated in the wink of eye if it weren’t for the powerful protectors you now affect to spit upon. You’re going to have to do better if you ever want to achieve your dream of becoming an American.
May 22nd, 2006 at 10:25 am
Oh boo hoo. We are the richest most heavily armed nation on the planet, we represent 5% of the global population, yet we insist on doing as we please and will be bound by no one. Sniff.
Yet everyone keeps on beating us up about it, insisting they have a say in case we blow up the planet, or touch off a war that will kill millions. Meanwhile, we are just trying to protect ourselves from the savage scourge of the neolithic islamic sheep herder. Hick.
It’s all so scary and we are right but no on will listen to us. Boo, bloody, hoo.
Thats what you sound like sweetie.
Jesus, you really are a whiny git. Honestly. Get a damn spine, face up to the risk we all share and stop your goverment killing innocent people.
Then get your government around a table with all the other governments, and sort this stuff out.
This is just the same nonsense that every nation state has been through, now playing out on a planetary scale. Lets skip the revolution (or the counter revolution) and cut straight to the negotiations.
If you can’t grasp that this is a must, find yourself a quite secluded spot without internet coverage, and hang out there for the next 20 to 30 years. I suspect it’s going to be boisterous and your not going to like the direction things are taking.
May 22nd, 2006 at 10:25 am
wannabe pseudo American: Oh Sally I’m so sorry! Too many words, huh?
Not too many words as such, wannabe, just too many random words, irrelevant words, silly words. The imitation of an American commercial was just okay, for example, not up to your previous high standard — you might want to stick to short put-downs for awhile, to improve your concentration (no charge for the advice).
I see that you have picked up one particular rhetorical device, however, and are managing actually to make a kind of point with it, however repetitively — like psychological projection, this device is simply to reflect one’s own weakness onto one’s opponents. If you have a tendency for slothful self-indulgence, for example, accuse your opposite of being fat and indolent first; and if your own views are shaped by a fear of terrorists, accuse your opponents of being “fueled by fear”. It’s not a very subtle device — just a slight variation on the “I know you are but what am I” taunt of schoolkids — but it’s nice to see you can focus on a point at least.
When you’re ready for a little more challenge, here’s something to think about as an exercise (again, no charge): fear and courage are not opposites — in fact, there is no courage if there is no fear in the first place, fear that in itself may be an entirely rational response to a situation. But when your fear leads you to try to deny it rather than confront it, telling yourself with increasing desperation that there’s really “nothing to be afraid of”, then you’ve created a trap for yourself. And when you find yourself, in that trap, looking pathetically for ways to appease and even “sympathize” with those threatening you, then you can rightly be accused of being merely a coward. Which won’t get you out of the trap and won’t save you.
May 22nd, 2006 at 10:25 am
As far as militias go, did you hear about a bombing in Oklahoma a while back?
Yeah, we killed the guy who did it. We dispose of our trash, unlike those who invite it to stay and pay its welfare benefits.
May 22nd, 2006 at 10:25 am
It’s kinda fun in a way though watching yanks flounder on geography though. You included. My statement was accurate, rest assured.
I’m going out on a limb and suggesting we are talking about …. Indonesia!!
Do I win a prize?
May 22nd, 2006 at 10:25 am
Douglas I take issue with a number of points you make.
Education, however fundeds is still poorly funded. The only reason that GDP funding in the US is not at the absolute bottom the pack is because of rich parents in rich areas making up the government shortfall for their schools. The impoverished, wether at home or abroad can as usual, simply go hang.
The GDP expenditure for the military, in this case does not tell the whole story. The US is the richest economy on the world, and accounts for 50% of total global expenditure on arms. This does not include the Iraq War. Such waste is completely indefensible, in any world. So don’t waste your breath trying.
I’m not clear on what financing had to do with my point? Namely that republicans pander to the richest elements in society. So some rich people have a conscience, and support the lesser of two evils? So what? Thats good I guess.
For the record, I’m not an American, and I don’t much care for the democrats or the republicans. To an objective external observer they seem almost indistinguishable from each other.
On the other hand, I hardly noticed Clinton, but this other fool is constantly in my face, and frankly I’m sick of it.
The real irony is that Bush may have done more, literally than any president before him, to foster an awareness of the desperate need for democratic global structures.
We really need to replace the train wreck we currently have, with laws that can contain the excesses of the larger nation states.
I agree with you that I’m a bright guy, but nothing I have said here is a “fake line”. Or “demonstrably false”, certainly you have singularly failed to demonstrate that this is the case. Other than the military GDP info which we agree on, but interpret differently, you’ve simply wandered off on an independent track about US campaign financing.
Finally, you want kudos for not killing more people? OK, well done. Honestly though what a bunch of whining babies you sub 30%’ers have become.
In a rational world, risk is equal to impact multiplied by probability. As the Linguasphere Dictionary puts it: “In professional risk assessment, risk combines the probability of a negative event occurring with how harmful that event would be.” But Bush has spent four years urging Americans to ignore that way of thinking.
One can protect against the threat of terrorism with courage, calm and resolve — the attributes that have generally defined your nation as it has confronted other threats. Hysteria and fear-mongering are the opposite of strength.
Most people know individuals in their lives who live in this type of irrational, all-consuming fear — people who are scared, pathologically risk-averse, always hiding and exerting excess caution lest something go wrong.
In its more extreme version, that sort of fear manifests as a life-destroying mental disorder
The Bush administration has been trying to reduce your country to a collective version of that affliction. And it is hard to imagine what a nation fueled by such fear can accomplish.
The administration has managed to get away with the Orwellian idea that fear is the hallmark of courage, and a rational and calm approach is a mark of cowardice.
Your entire response, in fact most of this thread is more the same. Defence of the indefensible, or the irrelevant.
You, sally nyomythus etc. have simply succumbed to the lie. Don’t worry though, hopefully real americans will be along shortly to save to day.
May 22nd, 2006 at 10:25 am
Well I can do without another racist diatribe from the scumbags that would only serve to divert the arguments. It is nothing to do with getting jollies.
It’s kinda fun in a way though watching yanks flounder on geography though. You included. My statement was accurate, rest assured.
May 22nd, 2006 at 10:25 am
Honk Kong, Pakistan, Australia, Viet Nam; whatever- you’re still inaccurate with that ’second closest’ statement. It doesn’t work for any country accurately.
And again, why you get your jollies keeping it secret is a mystery.
May 22nd, 2006 at 10:25 am
And, as for this…
“Confude is in Hong Kong (why he thinks it’s fun to keep it ’secret’ is beyond me), and it’s somewhat inaccurate to say “My country ’s second closest neighbour is the world’s largest Islamic state.” It’s two away, but not the second closest. Get an atlas please.”
What? Not close no cigar.
May 22nd, 2006 at 10:25 am
What it doesn’t tell you though is the non declared campaign funding for push polling and other dirty little tricks by friends of the republicans.
As bmc said though, the choices are very limited between candidate. All this rubbish about “far left” makes me laugh.
There was more distinct policy differences between the 2 main candidates in Iran than in 2004 US.
May 22nd, 2006 at 10:25 am
bmcworldcitizen said…
“confudforeigner is British (I think?) and I am Irish.”
Confude is in Hong Kong (why he thinks it’s fun to keep it ’secret’ is beyond me), and it’s somewhat inaccurate to say “My country ’s second closest neighbour is the world’s largest Islamic state.” It’s two away, but not the second closest. Get an atlas please.
back to BMC:”For a (mostly) glowing example of how to deal with terrorism, examine the relationship between Britian and Ireland from the late 1960’s to today.
Ask yourself why, when the IRA, was bombing the heart out of British cities in the 70’s and 80’s, why the British did not simply carpet bomb Dublin, or invade the South?”
Seriously? Describe “bombing the heart out of”. The blitz would qualify, but the IRA? They killed, what, a few hundred civilians over three decades?
Why not ‘ask yourself why, when al Qaeda, was bombing the heart out of American cities on 9/11, why the Americans did not simply carpet bomb Mecca, Tehran, Baghdad, and Damascus?
What’s good for the goose is good for the gander, isn’t it? If the Brits were civil for not carpet bombing the south, then we must be pretty civilized as well, eh?
And this:”These sub standard poverty stricken idiots insist on voting for a party that refuses to fund health care, social security or education adequately, all the while spending $250 billion a year on the military. As a side bar, that ignores the extra expenditure for Iraq.”
We spend FAR more on education than the military, but you’re too busy spouting party line rhetoric to know. You have to look at state and local expenditures, because education isn’t supposed to be primarily funded at the federal level in our system- local dollars, local control.
“In 2000 the Department of Defense spent $295 billion versus $392 billion spent in 2000-1 on public elementary and secondary education. That doesn’t even include the amount spent on higher education or spent in the private sector. If we total up all of these education expenditures, we find that $700 billion was spent on education during the 2000-1 school year, which represents more than 7 percent of our Gross Domestic Product. The Defense Department, by comparison received 3 percent of GDP during 2000.”
The article is here with links to the appropriate stats etc. It even starts out with your beloved bumpersticker about bombers and bake sales.
“I can see why selfish and comfortably well off people, say in the top 30% income bracket would vote for the republicans.”
More empty rhetoric. The Republican party gets more money from small donations than the Democrat party- who’s the party of the rich?
“The study also found that Republicans raised more than Democrats from individuals who contributed small and medium amounts of money during the 2002 election cycle, but Democrats far outpaced Republicans among deep-pocketed givers.
Republican candidates and parties topped their Democratic counterparts, $68 million to $44 million, in fundraising from individuals who contributed under $1,000 in itemized contributions for the 2002 elections. Among donors giving $1,000 or more, Republicans again beat out Democrats, $317 million to $307 million.
But the trend was reversed among individuals at higher giving levels, from whom Democrats raised far more money than Republicans. Among donors of $10,000 or more, Democrats out-raised Republicans, $140 million to $111 million. Among donors of $100,000 or more, Democrats raised $72 million to the Republicans’ $34 million. And among the most generous givers - those contributing $1 million or more - Democrats far outdistanced Republicans, $36 million to just over $3 million.”
That’s here, again links and all.
You’re a bright enough guy- quit buying the fake lines they throw out- particularly the so easily demonstrably false ones.
oh,and Conned, as for calling me dougLESS- I think I haven’t heard that one in almost thirty years- which puts you at about seventh grade level.
May 22nd, 2006 at 10:25 am
case for or against something
Oh Sally I’m so sorry! Too many words, huh?
Spending billions on blowing stuff up? BAD.
Spending billions on health, social security and education? GOOD.
You missing the point? PRICELESS:-)
May 22nd, 2006 at 10:25 am
Welcome back bmc. Silly’s hypocrisy knows no bounds as you can see. She is a young version of that which you speak. You know the one. The loud shrill whining brat that is so self absorbed with her own ‘cleverness’ that she doesn’t realise that everyone is laughing at her. Subtle as a kick in the cods and as clever as a brick. All botox and silicon and full of assertiveness training.
So, back to the central commentary box…. Richie?
May 22nd, 2006 at 10:25 am
Manifestly moronic more like.
Oh, now that’s very funny indeed. Droll. And it works on so many levels, as Homer would say (not the Greek).
I only hope it hasn’t tired you too much, bcm, because, in all honesty, the rest of your “comment” has a kind of chest-puffed-out, school-yard silliness about it that rather takes away from the humor. One day you might want to try making an actual case for or against something, as opposed to a collection of random stats and insults. Still, that one liner was terrif.
May 22nd, 2006 at 10:25 am
Which fat indolent masses are you talking about? Do you mean the British tourists who stumble of the plane, drunk as always, spending most of the trip complaining about the tea, ‘Oh, they don’t make it properly here, do they, not like at home’, squriting suncream all over their puffy, raw, swollen, purulent flesh ’cause they overdid it on the first day?
That was very funny indeed:-) Even though I’m a peaceful Irishman, I can still get a mild hit from an anti British rant. To be fair, any British person would be amused as well.
Though it is a cliche, most cliches have some factual support lurking in the background. Your unkind, but amusing characterisation of British tourists does, and so does my rather nasty evisceration of the American stereotype.
I don’t think that all Americans are fat, stupid, religous freaks who would believe whatever moronically inconsistent tripe Jerry Falwell and his ilk dribble.
However, clearly some (probably 5%-10%) Americans are like that. Enough at least to swing elections to the republicans. As corrupt and mean spirited a bunch of sour pusses as ever were put into power by choice.
These sub standard poverty stricken idiots insist on voting for a party that refuses to fund health care, social security or education adequately, all the while spending $250 billion a year on the military. As a side bar, that ignores the extra expenditure for Iraq.
I can see why selfish and comfortably well off people, say in the top 30% income bracket would vote for the republicans. It’s despicable, but logical from the perspective of their pocket books. Although not overly logical from almost any other standpoint. But these other poor saps? Talk about duped/brainwashed/dazzled by the messianic myth of the manifest destiny.
Manifestly moronic more like.
Not that the democrats are a vast improvement, they are really just a lighter shade of gray. However given your electoral system, state of the art in 1795, your not exactly spoilt for choice, are you?:-)
May 22nd, 2006 at 10:25 am
Don’t mind confud, Justin. He’s a little sore from repeated whackings on another thread.
May 22nd, 2006 at 10:25 am
Gee, I just love your blog Justin.Its kewl. I guess the number of comments is a commentary on your life in general and social interaction skills. Being a neocon is a tough road to hoe hoe hoe.
Not even Ydidmommyleaveus has had the good grace to fly in on his podracer and drop a kind comment
Tsk tsk. Who needs enemies etc…….
May 22nd, 2006 at 10:25 am
And, what time do you milk your cows man?
After the chocolate is good and mixed
May 22nd, 2006 at 10:25 am
Ymacompletespanker said…
I notice that Confud is lying again and avoiding the statistics. I guess evidence and statistics are only good if it backs what Confud weaves out of sewer mist.
Listen knucklehead. I didn’t respond, because you weren’t talking to me. That was bmc the Irish islamofascist sympathiser. I am a totally different islamofascist sympathiser who’s not from Ireland and doesn’t live in a Scandinavian country where the girls are friendly, blonde and don’t get plastic implants inserted into their bits to help them achieve nirvana and find their inner me.
There are plenty of my questions that you have ignored of mine though.
I am particularly intrigued by the supporter of the BBC comment.
What does one of them do pray tell?
And, what time do you milk your cows man?
May 22nd, 2006 at 10:25 am
Wow, a yank that does Monty Python. I’m shocked.
Every country has its trash. You seem to have more than your fair share to be blunt, but that is what you get for having a substandard education system.
Most western countries have stupid drug laws so that doesn’t explain the huge disparity in the rates.
As far as militias go, did you hear about a bombing in Oklahoma a while back? Hmmm.
May 22nd, 2006 at 10:25 am
Especially not when compared to other minority world countries like the states of the EU, with similar or better reporting, policing and judicial systems. Congratulations?
We have a large prison population because we have stupid, draconian drug laws. We imprison people for nonviolent crimes.
Our system has faults that need to be corrected, but at least the government isn’t letting the inmates take over the asylum like they are in the EU At least we don’t have al Qaeda living next door with the government paying their welfare benefits. Foreign paramilitaries are setting up camp on your land, and you’re too concerned with their ‘human rights’ to do anything about it.
However, you need something to sell the fat, indolent, religious masses. Unless you are one of them, and believe all this rubbish? Sorry to burst your bubble coppertop:-) Welcome to the real world.
Which fat indolent masses are you talking about? Do you mean the British tourists who stumble of the plane, drunk as always, spending most of the trip complaining about the tea, ‘Oh, they don’t make it properly here, do they, not like at home’, squriting suncream all over their puffy, raw, swollen, purulent flesh ’cause they overdid it on the first day?
Or is that a cliche?
May 22nd, 2006 at 10:25 am
I notice that Confud is lying again and avoiding the statistics. I guess evidence and statistics are only good if it backs what Confud weaves out of sewer mist.
May 22nd, 2006 at 10:25 am
I guess you’re not a true believer then. It’s hard for people that don’t believe in much of anything, to fight people like terroists, who do truely believe.
Gee you’re a real hard man Ywannabe. Trembling in my boots at the thought of you over there marshalling your keyboardist masses.
Actually you should get out off yer lily white, get over to Britain and proclaim your philosophy loudly (as all good young Americans can be) down the pub on a Friday night. Then we’d see the whites of your eyes. After all the Brits no nothing about fighting or what it’s like to be a real man with real beliefs.
Pistonwristedgibbon.
May 22nd, 2006 at 10:25 am
Which would a normal person prefer, having criminals locked up like we do here in the US or having them out of jail and never prosecuted like in Britain?
After all, no American should believe that just because a lot of child rapists aren’t in jail, that there are fewer child rapists out in the streets.
I like Americans generally, heck I’m such a wannabe pseudo American myself it’s embarrasing.
There are two Americas, as John Edwards said. The Hollywood Americans and the martial Americans. 4 if you count the political philosophies, but we won’t get into that.
Not that I’d kill anyone for it, but the occasional verbal savaging is perfectly alright:-)
I guess you’re not a true believer then. It’s hard for people that don’t believe in much of anything, to fight people like terroists, who do truely believe.
May 22nd, 2006 at 10:25 am
Ymarsakar … that wasn’t a terrible post. Hope it kept you out of trouble:-)
Your biggest problem in defending the indefensible (although that never stops you people), is that the statistics are per capita.
Now I’ll certainly accept there may be some play in the system as regards general crime, but not enough to explain homicides, and absolutely not prison populations. That stands in a league all on it’s own.
Especially not when compared to other minority world countries like the states of the EU, with similar or better reporting, policing and judicial systems. Congratulations?
Sigh …. but facts and figures won’t do it for you.
Sally, last crack at you. The fat, indolent, religious masses I refer to do not encompass all Americans.
I like Americans generally, heck I’m such a wannabe pseudo American myself it’s embarrasing. However, I do now viscerally despise the 5% of Americans, the fat, indolent, religious, hypocritcal morons that have foisted GWB on the world.
Not that I’d kill anyone for it, but the occasional verbal savaging is perfectly alright:-)
My real pity I reserve for the marginally intelligent who ought to know better, but have allowed their fear to become so overwhelming, that they part company with all morality in pursuit of security. They will tolerate any attack, champion torture and even sacrifice their own civil liberties on the altar of security.
I’ve got Sally pegged as one of those. Grow up, get a spine. Stop your government killing people.
Yankee go home, isn’t that what we say??
G’night.
May 22nd, 2006 at 10:25 am
bmc re: Iranian nukes: Actually they don’t [have them].
Actually you don’t know they don’t and neither does anyone else. We do know they have nuclear processing equipment, intend to get a lot more of it, and, if they don’t have nuclear weapons already, will certainly be in a position to have them in a relatively short time. We also know that a one of their prominent leaders has expressed the desirability of possessing nuclear weapons for the express purpose of obliterating Israel — a goal that a number of their leaders have repeatedly announced.
re: Iranian support of terrorists: Lets kill tens of thousands of their innocent people in case they kill one of ours?
Sometimes, bmc, you really should think before you type. Supporting terrorists to attack us or our allies is just another form of warfare. Killing “tens of thousands of their innocent people” isn’t the point or the objective, but preventing them from harming any of our or our allies’ people certainly is — how many of their innocent people end up being killed in that process is entirely in their hands, as is the fate of the people of any country that chooses to make war on us.
re: why they’re murderously hostile to us, freedom and democracy: It’s a deep and abiding mystery.
Only to you and your fellow islamofascist sympathizers. The answer to your “deep and abiding mystery” is that they espouse a theocratic ideology that, among many other similar niceties, stones women for adultery and hangs them for being raped. They rightly see that such an ideology is threatened by the very existence of a free, properous, and democratic nation in their region, and indeed in the world. They understand quite clearly what the befuddled and neurotic left of the West professes not to see — that their world-view cannot co-exist with the modern world, and that if they do nothing they will go under.
May 22nd, 2006 at 10:25 am
Try to find Iraq, the US, Europe on this chart of economic growth
Like they say, bad economy leads to revolts cause, anything is better than whoring, right?
May 22nd, 2006 at 10:25 am
All you are doing is inventing positions that don’t really exist so that you can (in your own very small way) deride them.
Isn’t that what Confud and conned has been doing for awhile now with this whole ‘Good vs Evil black and white’ America is good everyone else is evil bit?
All the time. Ever since GWB and his band of homocidial incompetents hijacked the worlds largest economy, and most powerful military.
What yatcha gonna do when we come for ya?
It’s a dystopian nightmare.
Everyone should read 1984 and The Draka Series by Sm Stirling if they want a dystopia.
http://neo-neocon.blogspot.com/2006/05/new-dress-code-may-go-into-effect-in.html#c114831460686225000
If that isn’t dystopia for you, I don’t know what is
The US for example imprisons (domestic criminals, not gitmo etc.) 6 times, yes you read that right, 6 times as many people as Sweden.
Maybe that’s because Sweden has 9 million people and the US has 300 million people.
Here’s how you interpret US statistics
When people live in big cities, crime and murders are endemic. It just can’t be helped. North Dakota and Maine has few if any people, people living in small towns always have less crime than those in big cities. If you pool up 50 small towns and then find one big city equal to the population of all 50, the crime between city and town would be quite different.
With rapes and assaults, it has to do with lack of willingness to report it. So a high crime nation with a lot of terrorism going on and bad police work, can actually have a “lower” number of reported and convicted crimes than a orderly society like America. South Korea, for example, has huge organized riots yet their crime is reported to be lower than the US. Why does that sound not exactly right?
England has a pop of 50 mil and US a pop of 300 mil but England has 5,170,830 in total crime compared to the US 23,677,800. Multiplying the pop of England by six, we get around 30 million.
If this is the percentage of England’s assault victims, then what would the real stats be for those that are unwilling to report the assault cause their confidence in the police is low?
#1 United States 2,238,480
#2 South Africa 535,461
#3 United Kingdom 450,865
May 22nd, 2006 at 10:25 am
No, they’ve got nukes
Actually they don’t. They can barely reprocess low grade uranium for nuclear power. But don’t let the facts stand in the way of your delusion.
and terrorists.
Well you might have something there. Lets kill tens of thousands of their innocent people in case they kill one of ours?
And they are murderously hostile to us, our allies, and our free and democratic values.
Truish, hostile certainly, but what could be causing it? It’s a deep and abiding mystery.
May 22nd, 2006 at 10:25 am
Oh of course!!! They’ve got oil.
No, they’ve got nukes and terrorists. And they are murderously hostile to us, our allies, and our free and democratic values. All of which, I fully understand, mean nothing to you at all, but do mean something to what you so revealingly refer to as “the fat, indolent, religious masses”.
May 22nd, 2006 at 10:25 am
there are a lot more reasons to invade Iran that that
Oh of course!!! They’ve got oil. However, you need something to sell the fat, indolent, religious masses. Unless you are one of them, and believe all this rubbish? Sorry to burst your bubble coppertop:-) Welcome to the real world.
Just invading to take the oil could be intepreted as, well, theft. You know how the simple minded feel that’s wrong, they don’t see the higher purpose.
You need a convincing lie. Trot all the drivel out, lets hear it. I’m a hardsell so if you convince me, you can convince your credulous, ill informed country men of anything:-)
May 22nd, 2006 at 10:25 am
That operative word being taken from, um … let me see, one of your most prominent terrorist apologists defending a favored falsehood of his own! I’d say it’s ironic, but that would be like trying to explain a joke to the literal-minded.
Don’t worry about it, though — there are a lot more reasons to invade Iran that that. It’s — how do you lefties like to put it? — overdetermined.
May 22nd, 2006 at 10:25 am
Juan Cole put it, in a different context, this story was “one of those hoaxes that bespeaks a reality”, and quite useful for that reason alone.
The operative word being um … let me see …. HOAX!
You are really reaching when you are using a hoax to justify an invasion.
May 22nd, 2006 at 10:25 am
bmc: Foxnews, freerepublic or powerline are no, no’s I’m afraid.
As are the BBC, democratic underground and daily kos.
These are, by now, generally recognized facts, bmc, and if you don’t know that I think it would do you good to take on a little research yourself (in fact, I think a bit more learning in general help you out). As a hint, you might start with the Wikipedia entry on the Battle of Jenin, and follow the links from there.
Good luck with that — it might save you from a life of trolling!
Speaking of which, and just before confud beds himself downunder to dream of trolling triumphs, I thought I’d revert to the topic that started this thread in the first place — the proposed Iranian dress code for Jews. As the execrable Juan Cole put it, in a different context, this story was “one of those hoaxes that bespeaks a reality”, and quite useful for that reason alone.
May 22nd, 2006 at 10:25 am
Oh my spelling is deserting me now. I must say adieu and goodnight all. (That’ll confuse ‘em) I can hear them now ” But its DAY time”. Hee hee. Just put it down to a quirk in the internet.
It’s been fun but I must sleep. No world domination or nuking small impoverished countries without me though. You have to promise.
May 22nd, 2006 at 10:25 am
Wow, tell me is there a blue/red split here? The republicans imprison and the democrats rehabilitate? I honestly don’t know, slap me down if I deserve it:-)
The three states with the lowest ratio of imprisoned to unimprisoned population are: Minnesota (121 per 100,000), Maine (128/100,000), and North Dakota (120/100,000). The three states with the highest ratio are: Louisiana (763/100,000), Texas (704/100,000), and Oklahoma (653/100,000).
The United States has the highest numerical prison population of any reporting world nation. Russia, which is currently in the process of releasing a number of improperly incarcerated citizens, has a rate of 644 per 100,000, and a 2002 total population of around 900,000. For the most part, the U.S. rate is five to eight times that of the Western European nations and Canada. The rate in England and Wales, for example, is 139 persons imprisoned per 100,000 residents while in Norway it is 59 per 100,000. The prison population in China was 111 per 100,000 in 2001 (sentenced prisoners only)
By golly imprisioned per capita than those Chinese human rights abusers. That doesn’t look good.
May 22nd, 2006 at 10:25 am
Ronald D. Fuchs
Cool name too.
May 22nd, 2006 at 10:25 am
I’m not going to debate British domestic politics but I think you’ll find that crime has actually decreased since Blair came to power. The Tory papers won’t let that get in the way though and nor should they. He has a huge credibility problem which stems originally from him lying about the justification for war.
May 22nd, 2006 at 10:25 am
Are you seriously this whifty or are you just doing an odd parody?
It’s a parody, the rest of us fund education.
Which explains a lot actually ….
May 22nd, 2006 at 10:25 am
If you tolerate and appease crime, you get more crime. If you tolerate and appease terrorism, you get more terrorism.
If I just keep HITTING THIS NAIL HARD ENOUGH ….
For the record crime rates in most EU countries are a good bit lower than the US, most especially for homicide, which is telling.
Most informative though, are prison populations. The US for example imprisons (domestic criminals, not gitmo etc.) 6 times, yes you read that right, 6 times as many people as Sweden.
The figures for other EU countries are similar. You can look it up :
http://www.nationmaster.com/index.php
If you can find a per capita prison rate in an EU country even the same as the US, I’ll eat my hat.
May 22nd, 2006 at 10:25 am
Most of the world’s media, including the US media, sees Bush as the biggest threat. In contrast, most of the 6 billion people out there don’t give a damn about Bush, the UN or Israel. If they’re angry at the US, it’s because they tried to get a green card and failed.
Oh thats right. It’s the medias fault. This great left wing propoganda machine that just happens to be mostly owned by largely right wing plutocrats. Amazing.
Oh and we’re back on Luke Skywalker’s proposition. Everyone wants to be you and their jealous of your money and power.
Utter tosh. I’m sure plenty of 3rd world people would love to live their for the better prospects and consumer goods, (oh and yhey probably aspire to plastic breast implants to raise their self esteem and look forward to having regular psychiatry sessions as a status symbol too) but most of the rest of us are pretty comfortable being outside the nuthouse while kids like you have any say.
May 22nd, 2006 at 10:25 am
It’ll be a great day when education gets all the money it wants and the Air Force has to hold a bake sale to buy bombers
That’s almost as deep as ‘visualize world peace’.
Are you seriously this whifty or are you just doing an odd parody?
May 22nd, 2006 at 10:25 am
The UN is not the world’s mommy and neither is the US.
Well that’s certainly true.
The UN is the mommy, and the US is the daddy, a deranged abusive daddy. Daddy is very angry, VERY ANGRY indeed.
Now daddy has to hit you because you’ve been bad. VERY BAD. You made me hit you, I didn’t want to, but YOU ALWAYS FORCE ME.
Mommy looks on …. wringing her hands helplessly.
May 22nd, 2006 at 10:25 am
Blair spent pretty much all his political capital on supporting your little Texan fruitcake. Nobody really knows why given that the case for war was obviously spurious but I suspect his deeply held catholocism, a desire to cement ties with the US and a promise of progress in the Israeli/ Palestinian debacle were factors. Haha.
Well, I guess he has his catholocism left.
Are you talking about big or little C catholicism here?
Blair spent pretty much all his political capital on supporting your little Texan fruitcake
Blair lost most of his political capital on his domestic failure - mostly due to the mess he made of the criminal justice system:
Mr Blair, who promised in 1994 to be “tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime” will say that most people do not think that Labour has made Britain safer or fairer.
The Prime Minister, who promised yesterday to consider new legislation to stop offenders taking advantage of the Human Rights Act, will admit that the justice system is far from what voters want.
Speaking at the launch of Let’s Talk, a Labour consultation exercise, Mr Blair is expected to say: “I believe people want a society without prejudice but with rules; rules that are fair; that we all play by; and rules that when broken carry a penalty. The truth is most people don’t think we have such a society.
The Human Rights act was one of those EU tolerant/multi-culti things that encourages tolerance of crime. It’s not a coincidence that crime rates are rising throughout the EU.
If you tolerate and appease crime, you get more crime. If you tolerate and appease terrorism, you get more terrorism.
May 22nd, 2006 at 10:25 am
Anyone ever feel like we’re in the twilight zone?
All the time. Ever since GWB and his band of homocidial incompetents hijacked the worlds largest economy, and most powerful military.
It’s a dystopian nightmare.
It’ll be a great day when education gets all the money it wants and the Air Force has to hold a bake sale to buy bombers. ~Author unknown, quoted in You Said a Mouthful edited by Ronald D. Fuchs
Cool quote eh?
May 22nd, 2006 at 10:25 am
Yduzhisbrainfart,
your a child. All you are doing is inventing positions that don’t really exist so that you can (in your own very small way) deride them. Give up. You’re not fooling anyone.
Oh, maybe Sally the nonracist zionist or nihimyfoot who has the cops phone mumber pinned to his kitchen door in case of rowdy teenagers are fooled. but that ain’t avictory in any man’s language.
Onward neocon soldiers! Foooor ward March!
May 22nd, 2006 at 10:25 am
Most of the world see the US under Bush as the biggest threat to peace and most people are coming to the realization that Israel is the worst terrorist state. It only stays viable with massive US funding and escapes censure via use of the veto. A power most countries would like to see abolished
When the world’s people elect you as their spokesman? Most of the world’s media, including the US media, sees Bush as the biggest threat. In contrast, most of the 6 billion people out there don’t give a damn about Bush, the UN or Israel. If they’re angry at the US, it’s because they tried to get a green card and failed.
If smaller countries want more control over their lives, they should stop expecting the US or the UN to solve all of their problems. They should try to help themselves. The UN is not the world’s mommy and neither is the US.
May 22nd, 2006 at 10:25 am
Oh those brave Israeli boys and their chivalry. I take it all back.
Actually I don’t, sloppy. You’ll have to do better I’m afraid. It is clear propoganda when you use terms like ‘murderous’ Palestinians ambushing ‘brave’ Israelis.
Well, those brave Israelis were in tanks and bulldozers and apache helicopters firing missiles at people largely armed with ancient Kalashnikovs. I note it didn’t tell us about the old man in the wheel chair run over by a tank did it?
Have a look around Sally and get a balanced view. All you are doing is looking for propaganda to suit your unchangeable beliefs. Now come back when you grow up.
May 22nd, 2006 at 10:25 am
Some common propaganda lines from the, now nutty, Left.
Good vs Evil. Anyone who is an underdog is Good, except if it is America or other non-white people.
Underdogs that are non-white and have been abused by the West= Good.
Israeli atrocities. It’s not the bully beating on a defenseless kid, it is the defenseless kid beating on the bully cause the kid took away the baseball bat from the bully. That kind of logic.
There’s a bunch of other stuff, but I’m not gonna bother writing it down.
US terrorizes, Anyone else that fights US and Israel and the West, is a guerrila.
Then learn the lesson the rest of the civilised world has learnt.
That might be more convincing had not America been protecting Europe’s ass during the 80s.
Israel and the injustice being meted out on the Palestinians is absolutely the number one rallying cry for Muslim extremism because it can rightly IMO be held up as proof of western double standards and hypocrisy.
The only proof I see is that people like Confud feel so guilty about shafting it to the little guy, they’re willing to tolerate lots of heinous things to get rid of their guilt, regardless of who gets killed in the process. People without a conscience are anti-social. People with a conscience willing to do anything to shut it down, aren’t any better.
I’m not defending anything of the sort. I’m saying that the Palestinians deserve some justice.
They deserved a swift kick in the ass, but Israel was too kind to give it to the spoiled Palestinians, and now we have what we have.
Except I see the americans as that minority in global society willing to destroy it to save it.
Anyone ever feel like we’re in the twilight zone?
Which part of “I am not British” didn’t you understand?
The not part. There’s only like two choices. Canada or Australia. And they are even more British than the British in their culture.
May 22nd, 2006 at 10:25 am
First principles Sally, you can’t just post a rush of text without some sources.
I’m pretty certain I don’t beleive a word you say (not because you are a purposefulliar, just misguided), but I’d believe some neutral sources.
How about some … or did you make that up?
Foxnews, freerepublic or powerline are no, no’s I’m afraid.
May 22nd, 2006 at 10:25 am
I know you’re scared by self-defense, war, or anything that sounds sooo violent, but that attitude is less than helpful. I think you mean well, but why don’t you concentrate your efforts on things you do well. Like, I don’t know, comedy? Cricket?
This is obviously directed at the British but neither of us are. (Refer to my handy hint elsewhere about a big book called an ATLAS)
That aside, does it really do your argument justice to be deriding your allies? Blair spent pretty much all his political capital on supporting your little Texan fruitcake. Nobody really knows why given that the case for war was obviously spurious but I suspect his deeply held catholocism, a desire to cement ties with the US and a promise of progress in the Israeli/ Palestinian debacle were factors. Haha.
Well, I guess he has his catholocism left.
May 22nd, 2006 at 10:25 am
Which part of “I am not British” didn’t you understand?
Oooops I am sorry about that. Look lads he’s not British, that was rumour that I started. I’m Irish, I live in Sweden and I find confudeforeigner’s attitudes closely mirror my own.
By all means have a go at Ireland or Sweden, I’m sure there is some irrelevant but damning factoid you can dredge up.
May 22nd, 2006 at 10:25 am
For anyone other than trolls still reading this thread, it might be useful to set the record straight re: the Jenin “massacre” and other similar “incidents” on the part of Israeli forces. In large part this is because these events are instructive in a variety of ways about the tactics and responses of both sides in the larger war on Islamism.
Jenin had for some time been a major base from which Palestinian terrorists launched attacks that deliberately set out to kill as many unarmed and unwarned people, including women, children and handicapped, as they possibly could — some examples just before the battle of Jenin include the Moment cafe massacre of Mar 9/02 in which 11 people were murdered, the Matza restaurant massacre of Mar 31/02 that slaughtered 15, and the Passover massacre in the Park Hotel in Netanya, that murdered 30. To this and much more, Israel eventually responded by attacking one of the primary bases of the killers in April of 2002, and by the middle of that month had gained control of the town. In the fighting, Israel had deliberately put its own soldiers’ lives at greater risk in order to minimize casualties among non-combatants (though of course in fighting terrorists anyone able to walk or talk is a potential combatant), and as a result lost 23 of their own people, 13 in one ambush that had been planned precisely to take advantage of Israeli concerns for civilians.
Palestinian terrorists and their Western helpers were ready well before the battle to use accusations of “massacre” as part of their larger PR campaign against the Israelis, and they put this campaign into full gear very quickly: spokesmen first claimed that over 250 were killed, then “500 or more”, then that Israel was digging mass graves for 900, and then a general assertion that “thousands” had died. These claims were amplified and spread around the world by sympathetic Western media, only too willing to believe lies and exaggerations from the murderous Palestinians, but entirely skeptical of Israeli accounts. In the end, however, it was impossible to avoid the conclusion: 75 total dead, including the 23 Israeli soldiers, about 30 Palestinian terrorists, and 22 Palestinian civilians. Yes, despite the Israeli efforts, some civilians were killed and wounded, which is a feature of any war but a tragedy nonetheless.
It’s simply not possible for anyone not severely morally impaired to compare this action to the deliberate bombing of restaurants, buses, and weddings, and conclude that they’re morally equivalent. That so many on the left do exactly that, however, is evidence that one of two conditions must be true: either they are indeed severely morally impaired — quite possibly true of the bulk of them who are weak and impressionable creatures, frightened by the murderous violence of the terrorists into abandoning what moral scruples they ever had — or they are themselves on the side of the terrorists, and willing to brazen out bare-faced lies in order to provide cover for the murderers they covertly admire and support. And that’s no doubt the case with a goodly number of Western “apologists”, including our incipient troll, confud, for example (who, by the way, is an Ozzie).
May 22nd, 2006 at 10:25 am
Are we supposed to accept the UN as a ‘moral force’ in the world?
Everyone wants reform of the UN, but the US would never accept the reforms that smaller countries would want and need for their security. It is important to remember that the UN is a body made up of constituent nations who decide it’s actions. The US is one of those and indeed has the most power within it.
Most of the world see the US under Bush as the biggest threat to peace and most people are coming to the realization that Israel is the worst terrorist state. It only stays viable with massive US funding and escapes censure via use of the veto. A power most countries would like to see abolished.
You can’t starve it, render it ineffective and then bully it into acting as a tool of US hegemony whilst attacking it at every opportunity and expect it to be effective. It is a very convenient whipping boy though.
May 22nd, 2006 at 10:25 am
Which part of “I am not British” didn’t you understand?
May 22nd, 2006 at 10:25 am
The general thinking here amongst your friends is taht the US and Israel aren’t bound by any rules. International law, the Geneva Conventions etc are optional and UN Security Council resolutions are only valid against your enemies and if you can’t get one by force of argument who cares?
Force is the way small children choose to resolve differences, not adults.
Are we supposed to accept the UN as a ‘moral force’ in the world? With their history of child abuse, tolerance of genocide, and general corruption, they’re less ‘moral’ than John Gotti’s crew.
I see that you’re both in agreement about violence. It’s always baad, even in self defense.
Speaking of general incompetence in dealing with violence, crime and terrorism, why don’t we talk about the British attitude towards self defense. It’s ‘violent’, so therefore it’s bad.
That attitude isn’t working out very well for you, is it? Britain’s crime rate is worse than America’s.
Have you outlawed kitchen knives and hoodies yet?
I know you’re scared by self-defense, war, or anything that sounds sooo violent, but that attitude is less than helpful. I think you mean well, but why don’t you concentrate your efforts on things you do well. Like, I don’t know, comedy? Cricket?
May 22nd, 2006 at 10:25 am
Oh, and well done Munster.
May 22nd, 2006 at 10:25 am
Well as an citizen of a country largely at peace with itself, with a GDP on par with the US, living within the peaceful environs of the EU, you look like the nihilist to me.
Heaar hear. (I’m just not in the EU.)
May 22nd, 2006 at 10:25 am
The British know as much about dealing with terrorism as they know about fine food and dental care. If we follow British advice in regards to terrorism, we’re doomed.
Well as an citizen of a country largely at peace with itself, with a GDP on par with the US, living within the peaceful environs of the EU, you look like the nihilist to me.
In point of fact, I agree with you here : The nihilistic philosophy that a certain group of terrorists/oppressors can do whatever they want to “save” their society will eventually destroy the society. Glucksman calls this “belligerent hubris”
Except I see the americans as that minority in global society willing to destroy it to save it.
Force is the way small children choose to resolve differences, not adults.
May 22nd, 2006 at 10:25 am
Edward Said: The Last Interview
I have this video but I haven’t watched it — I’m going to watch it now
May 22nd, 2006 at 10:25 am
Society can survive war. War follows the established rules. Resistance movements target enemy combatants and their infrastructure. Resistance movements like the American Revolution don’t destroy a society. Frequently they create a better society.
Well lets stick to the established rules then shall we. The general thinking here amongst your friends is taht the US and Israel aren’t bound by any rules. International law, the Geneva Conventions etc are optional and UN Security Council resolutions are only valid against your enemies and if you can’t get one by force of argument who cares? We’ll go it alone anyhow. Yeeha.
May 22nd, 2006 at 10:25 am
I am not British.
May 22nd, 2006 at 10:25 am
Actually, it’s how everyone fights when they are little guy
No, it’s how totalitarians fight when they’re the little guy and/or the big guy. If ‘everyone’ resorted to terrorism when they felt ‘little’ or oppressed, there would be no world to speak of right now.
Andre Glucksman killed the ‘one man’s freedom fighter..’ routine with this essay here:
“…what do extremist ideologies like the communism or Nazism of yesteryear and the Islamism of today have in common? After all, they support ostensibly very different ideals – the superior race, mankind united in socialism, the community of Muslim believers (the Umma). Tomorrow, it could be altogether different ideals: some theological, some scientific, others racist. But the common characteristic is nihilism.”
The root element is the attitude that anything goes, particularly when with regard to ordinary people: I can do whatever I want, without scruples. Goehring put it like this: my consciousness is Adolf Hitler. Bolsheviks said: man is made of iron. And the Islamists whom I visited in Algeria said that you have the right to kill little Muslim children, in order to save them.”
The nihilistic philosophy that a certain group of terrorists/oppressors can do whatever they want to “save” their society will eventually destroy the society. Glucksman calls this “belligerent hubris”
Wherever you go, this belligerent hubris is considered lethal. In the huts of the Amazon, young men are taught to conquer this capacity for excessive violence. You can fight together, but you cannot fight in any way that comes to hand, and you don’t set out to fight just anyone. The same idea occurs in the teachings of the Greeks, the paidera. All European education is based on the same principle.
All European education used to be based on that principle.
Most people are repulsed by terrorism for the same reason we’re repulsed by cannibalism and incest. It’s taboo, a crime against humanity, abhorrent because it can destroy a whole community, not just individual lives.
Society can survive war. War follows the established rules. Resistance movements target enemy combatants and their infrastructure. Resistance movements like the American Revolution don’t destroy a society. Frequently they create a better society.
In contrast, terrorists target toddlers, genocidal dictators target thousands of unarmed civilians. They don’t do this because they’re following rules, they’re doing it because they want to do it and no one will stop them.
A society built on terrorism or genocide becomes a culture of death. We saw what life was like under Taliban rule. We saw Palestinian society under Arafat, we see the genocide and slavery in the Sudan.
The goal of ‘little guy’ terrorists is to gain political power. When we give them political power, we lose the war.
For a (mostly) glowing example of how to deal with terrorism, examine the relationship between Britian and Ireland from the late 1960’s to today.
By giving political power to the IRA, Britain lost the war against terrorism. Britain also gave control of Mecca and Medina to the Wahhabis of Saudi Arabia, a group that most Muslims loathe and regard as totalitarian/terrorist. Terrorists who were expelled from Egypt, Yemen and the Sudan have found a happy, welfare-subsidized home in Britain.
The British know as much about dealing with terrorism as they know about fine food and dental care. If we follow British advice in regards to terrorism, we’re doomed.
May 22nd, 2006 at 10:25 am
Israel and the injustice being meted out on the Palestinians is absolutely the number one rallying cry for Muslim extremism because it can rightly IMO be held up as proof of western double standards and hypocrisy.
The Sudanese are fighting what they see as a seccessionist movement in the south of their country and yes other muslims are committing acts of barbarity all over the place, That doesn’t mean either a) all muslims are “islamists” and by that I take to mean sectarian extremists, or b) that the Israelis are really quite nice chaps.
The Palestinians have never had an army as such and have little choice but to fight a guerilla war. They’ve been cast adrift by most of the lovely dictators in the arab states too don’t forget.
Iraq under Saddam was most certainly a secular state, he kept the mullahs very much under the thumb. He killed way more shiite arabs than he killed Kurds but we don’t like to talk about that because that was when he was our client, remember.
He murdered more shiites in the few months after the Kuwait thang after Bush1 kindly let the republican guards scamper off and then invited the Shiites to “rise up”, which they jolly well did and were left to the ravages of Saddams military might.
And don’t forget the marsh arabs who he exterminated in his US/Saudi funded 8 year war to destabilise those nasty mullahs in Iran who kicked our good friend the Shah Palahvi and his peacock throne out of their lives.
I’m not defending anything of the sort. I’m saying that the Palestinians deserve some justice.
Don’t try that nonsense tactic of with us or agin us with me. That is for dolts like GWB.
May 22nd, 2006 at 10:25 am
confudforeigner is British (I think?) and I am Irish.
For a (mostly) glowing example of how to deal with terrorism, examine the relationship between Britian and Ireland from the late 1960’s to today.
Ask yourself why, when the IRA, was bombing the heart out of British cities in the 70’s and 80’s, why the British did not simply carpet bomb Dublin, or invade the South?
Ask yourself what both countries would like today if that course of action had been taken?
Then learn the lesson the rest of the civilised world has learnt.
May 22nd, 2006 at 10:25 am
Sloppy you are the prize hypocrite of this board. When you’ve been presented with verifiable facts that don’t suit your good v evil black v white view you are reduced to personal insult by calling your opponent “sympathizers” and “5th columnists” and “apologists” without any evidence or reason by logic to back those accusations up.
It is clear that we disagree on the methods to stop terrorism but to accuse us of being on the side of the terrorists is low indeed.
Your outright denial of historical facts is the intellectual equivalent of putting your fingers in your ears and saying “nah nah nana nah I can’t heeeeear you”. Your little hissy fits a childish and pathetic.
You are siding willingly with a nutcase who gets his inspiration from Star Wars and espouses the righteous ideal of killing all 1.3 billion moslems in the world.
Get a grip and wake up to yourself.
May 22nd, 2006 at 10:25 am
‘Terrorist’ tactics have been used by the Arabs for centuries. It’s how they fight, especially when their conventional military forces are way too weak to fight a real battle.
Actually, it’s how everyone fights when they are little guy.
What do define as a real battle? Overwhelming air superiority, or overwhelming armoured support?
It’s a toss up as to which is the most heroic, isn’t it?
May 22nd, 2006 at 10:25 am
Proves nothing, you’re clutching at straws to justify you’re irrational fears. You’re just a sook and a coward.
Sock it to ‘em:-)
May 22nd, 2006 at 10:25 am
You’re just a sook and a coward.
You’re a wee sook yourself, you are, mindlessly prattling the Arab anti-colonialist line. Have you read Edward Said or did you just look at the pictures? We’re all so impressed.
Where have you been hiding your head. Have a look at the tactics used by the zionists in 1948. Terrorism in all its glory in anyones language. And the atrocities committed in the name of Israel since, Sharon et al refer to arabs as cockroaches.
‘Terrorist’ tactics have been used by the Arabs for centuries. It’s how they fight, especially when their conventional military forces are way too weak to fight a real battle.
If Israel is the source of terrorism and conflict, then why are Islamists massacring moderate Muslims in Darfur? Why are Islamists murdering Hindus in India, Buddhists in Thailand, atheists in Chechnya, Christians in the Carribean? Why are Muslims murdering Muslims in the name of Allah?
Why did the so-called ’secular’ Saddam Hussein murder hundreds of thousands of Kurds? Why are the Kurds more sympathetic to the Jews than they are to fellow Muslims who happen to be Arabs? The so-called Israeli/Palestinian conflict is a smaller part of a larger campaign of Arab/Islamist ethnic cleansing, a campaign that targets Christians, Jews, Kurds, Zoroastrians and moderate/liberal Muslims. It’s old-fashioned imperialism. You’re defending the imperialism you pretend to be fighting.
May 22nd, 2006 at 10:25 am
nconned (aka spankee, elvis, proud neocon, etc., etc.): Good riddance to you. A spiteful bunch of narrow minded smug and arrogant little people.
confud: Before I came across this outrageously racist site I wouldn’t have thought it possible that there were such sick stupid willfully ignorant people in the world. Your minds are as diseased as the terrorists.
Here’s the funny and sad thing about trolls: they lose all personal identity as they blend into clones of one another — this kind of “writing”, for example, could be done faster, easier and better by a simple insult generator. Which, in point of fact, is about all they are. But not only do they lose their identity, they lose their wills as well — no longer able not to “comment”, they obsess over their target day and night, stuck to it like flies on flypaper.
May 22nd, 2006 at 10:25 am
I’m pretty sure there is some nasty stuff in your silly book too. I can’t quote them because I wouldn’t allow one in my house.
If you don’t know then hush up and listen.
BTW: I’m not religious, I don’t go to church, I very rarely pray, though I have a high respect ‘real’ religion. My departure from the Left is a separtion sometimes one thread at a time.
May 22nd, 2006 at 10:25 am
I’m pretty sure there is some nasty stuff in your silly book too. I can’t quote them because I wouldn’t allow one in my house. To me they are equally specious and repugnant.
The mullahs are no worse than some of your (US) nuttier bible bashers and there’s a certain Mr Paisley in Northern Ireland that has disgusted me with his religious bigotry intolerance and incitement to violence for many a long year. And let us not forget those lovely Serbian Orthodox chaps just recently.
They all disgust me. Religious intolerance and chauvanism of all types is a blight on the world and you’re just trying to tell me that yours is somehow justified but failing.
Proves nothing, you’re clutching at straws to justify you’re irrational fears. You’re just a sook and a coward.
May 22nd, 2006 at 10:25 am
Dress codes and humiliating ones at that are old mandates of Islam … it’s been going on for the past 13 centuries. There are dress codes for Muslims and dress codes for non-Muslims. To re-emphasize the importance of dress codes with such vigor is a progressive move that Allah smiles upon. In Islam, the non-believer, according to the doctrine of Islam, are unclean beings on the level of pigs and dogs — very different from any other ‘religion’. Soullessness is not a religion.
[9.95] They will swear to you by Allah when you return to them so that you may turn aside from them; so do turn aside from them; surely they are unclean and their abode is hell; a recompense for what they earned.
[10.100] And it is not for a soul to believe except by Allah’s permission; and He casts uncleanness on those who will not understand.
[74.5] And uncleanness do shun,
REMEMBER: This is the Quran not the Bible. There is no revision in the Quran, no New Testament.
May 22nd, 2006 at 10:25 am
Getting back to the point……
Jewish MP denies Iran badge plan
From correspondents in Tehran
20may06
IRAN’S only Jewish MP strongly denied reports in a Canadian newspaper overnight that Iran may force non-Muslims to wear coloured badges in public so they can be identified.
“This report is a complete fabrication and is totally false,” Maurice Motammed said in Tehran. “It is a lie, and the people who invented it wanted to make political gain” by doing so.
The National Post newspaper quoted human rights groups as saying that Iran’s parliament passed a law this week setting a public dress code and requiring non-Muslims to wear special insignia.
Jews, Christians and Zoroastrians would be forced to wear a yellow, red or blue strip of cloth, respectively, on the front of their clothes, it said.
Mr Motammed said he had been present in parliament when a bill to promote “an Iranian and Islamic style of dress for women” was voted. “In the law, there is no mention of religious minorities,” he added.
MPs representing Iran’s Jewish, Christian and Zoroastrian minorities sit on all parliamentary committees, particularly the cultural one, he said.
“This is an insult to the Iranian people and to religious minorities in Iran,” he said.
And this is from one of Murdoch’s rags too, so you can take it as gospel.
May 22nd, 2006 at 10:25 am
Monday, 29 April, 2002, 14:31 GMT 15:31 UK
Expert weighs up Jenin ‘massacre’
Jenin: Palestinians say a massacre took place there
British military expert David Holley tells the BBC why he thinks there was not a massacre in the Jenin refugee camp and why he believes Israel is right to challenge the UN fact-finding mission.
Mr Holley, who is a Major in the British Territorial Army and a military adviser to Amnesty International, visited Jenin at the weekend.
What did you see in Jenin?
“There is an extensive area - about 200 metres (600ft) by about 100 metres (300ft) - that has been completely flattened. It is just like a building site or the aftermath of an earthquake. No houses, just rubble.”
So what leads you to the conclusion that there was no massacre?
“I think massacre is a word that is too often used in these sorts of situations and it doesn’t really help.
“What we have got here is possibly 54 bodies found so far, with possibly 20 or 30 unaccounted for but we can’t really verify these figures until the whole site is cleared.
“Talking to people and talking to witnesses, even very credible witnesses, it just appears there was no wholesale killing.
The bodies are there to be seen
“Clearly the… civilians who died in the battle were caught in crossfire and there have been one or two civilians who were shot and executed.”
How do you know they were civilians?
“The bodies are there to be seen. You have children, women, old men and cripples who have lived their lived in wheelchairs so clearly these were not fighters.”
What about signs of war crimes?
Water and electricity was cut off to the town. That is a fact, it cannot be denied, and that is a crime
“The hard fact is that water and electricity were cut off to the town. That cannot be denied and that is a crime.
“Another fact is that for nine days no wounded were taken to the hospital, the Israelis blocked it.
“That is a fact, that is a war crime. You cannot stop medical services from administering to the wounded. These are facts we have at the moment that cannot be disputed and need to be investigated.
“Then we have testimonies from witnesses.
“There is no hard evidence, there is no footage for instance, yet. But some very credible witnesses have come forward who have told stories of how they have seen executions.
“They have seen snipers cutting people down in the streets with clear views of civilians trying to get away from the fighting. These are individual killings that need to be investigated.”
Why is the Israeli Government objecting to the make-up of the fact-finding team?
“I think Israel has a very valid point. The UN team was going to be made up of UN civil servants, and I think you would then get a very one-sided view of what happened in Jenin.
“I think it is important that you do have military men and anti-terrorist experts on that UN commission.
“I think it is unfair for a lawyer to go to Jenin to then build up a military picture of what happened.
“You do need a soldier’s perspective to say, well, this was a close quarter battle in an urban environment, unfortunately soldiers will make mistakes and will throw a hand grenade through the wrong window, will shoot at a twitching curtain, because that is the way war is.”
May 22nd, 2006 at 10:25 am
great argument dougless - trouble is you have me all mixed up with someone else. I don’t offer kneejerk anti-us stuff the way you and neo scrabble around for anything that will prop up your simplistic black and white view of the world
May 22nd, 2006 at 10:25 am
Report of the Commission of Inquiry into
the Events at the Refugee Camps in Beirut
(The Kahan Commission)
(February 8, 1983)
The Commission determined that the massacre at Sabra and Shatilla was carried out by a Phalangist unit, acting on its own but its entry was known to Israel. No Israeli was directly responsible for the events which occurred in the camps. But the Commission asserted that Israel had indirect responsibility for the massacre since the I.D.F. held the area, Mr. Begin was found responsible for not exercising greater involvement and awareness in the matter of introducing the Phalangists into the camps. Mr. Sharon was found responsible for ignoring the danger of bloodshed and revenge when he approved the entry of the Phalangists into the camps as well as not taking appropriate measures to prevent bloodshed. Mr. Shamir erred by not taking action after being alerted by communications Minister Zippori. Chief of Staff Eitan did not give the appropriate orders to prevent the massacre. The Commission recommended that the Defense Minister resign, that the Director of Military Intelligence not continue in his post and other senior officers be remove