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And more fear…

The New Neo Posted on by

A few more thoughts (in addition to these) about fear as a motivator for political stances:

I think one reason this “fraidy cat” accusation is such a persistent charge towards me is the pre-eminence of feelings among liberals and the Left. So, when looking for a reason for something as puzzling as my terrible apostasy, it’s easy to ascribe it to feelings (especially a feeling they can be condescending about, such as fear), rather than reason or cognition.

Anyone who actually reads my “A mind is a difficult thing to change” series (links on the right sidebar, folks) should understand that I’ve thought long and hard before reaching my conclusions. You may not agree with them, but the path was a mainly cognitive one–mixed with some emotion, as almost all cognitions are. But the main emotion was not fear.

What was the main emotion? I think perhaps outrage, which is more anger than fear, and betrayal, which is sorrow crossed with anger. The outrage is mainly towards the Islamic jihadists, the feeling of betrayal is mainly towards the press. I’m not going to go into it all over again; the “change” series discusses it almost ad nauseam, with more segments to come whenever I get enough time to write them (they’re all written in my head, but I know that doesn’t do my readers any good).

Comments

And more fear… — 144 Comments

  1. That fantasy reminds me of the Jim Crow white supremacists who talked about how happy the blackfolk were.

    I’ll stop now.

  2. Don’t forget the component of self congratulation in the imputation. If these folks assign your politics to fear, then they can claim their own position is a courageous one. I think it is this bit of self inflation that accounts for the popularity of the accusation. It is also an old trope, the left considering themselves as having the courage to break with convention and bourgeois morality.

  4. I doubt whether you changed your mind at all. You can’t believe half the stuff you write. Roger Simon is losing the race.

    Dictionary
    shill |??l| informal noun an accomplice of a hawker, gambler, or swindler who acts as an enthusiastic customer to entice or encourage others. verb [ intrans. ] act or work as such a person. ORIGIN early 20th cent.: probably from earlier shillaber, of unknown origin.

  6. Well, Neo, I see you are still infested with leftie trolls. As I’ve said many times here, I’m not a neo-con just a plain old conservative and fear has never been a component of our belief system nor is it part of the neo-con agenda. I think that Chuck has nailed it.

  7. Fear as a motivator? Ha — classical liberals aren’t motivated by fear. “If these folks assign your politics to fear” . . . then they do so because it affords them the delusion that they have ‘some’ superiority over you. How fashionable and lazy. It’s degrading to discuss because it’s the thing that dumb people liken to, but when it’s said so much a response can be educational i suppose, one would hope.

  8. Trogs like you guys have never had to implement your little fantasies have you…sorry trogs. Your ideas dont work on the ground, in the real world, the aspects you accuse liberals of not knowing anything about.

    Leftism is in many ways courage, trogs are comfortable numb.
    If courage is ‘superior’ then only because you see it that way, you ahve framed it in those terms.
    These are all your terms, which makes me wonder what the hell is it with your resentment? Pure resentment seeping from every word, and smugness too, that you allegedly hate. And dare I say it fear, yes fear.

    It is certainly harder, far harder, and not simplistic to strive for a liberal agenda. No not ‘fashionable and lazy’ Isaiah, your labels are though.

  9. gourney, I am a classical liberal, what kind are you? And I am not a neo-con.

    And, no, you don’t prove your courage by claiming others are full of fear. Nor do you prove it by an adolescent struggle against “convention”. Unless you are an adolescent. And too many like you always talk about how others are full of fear when you disagree with them. As for my courage, what the hell would you know about it except in the fantasy of your narrow-minded stereotypes?

    And, no, leftism isn’t courageous. Just self-inflated. It wasn’t courage to look the other way when Stalin slaughtered millions, when Ho slaughtered millions, or Pol Pot in the killing fields. Chomsky claimed the killing fields to be a lie as the evidence was mounting, just as the leftists denied the genocide against the Ukrainians no matter the evidence. I’ve read too much, been alive too long, to fall for that.

    Classical liberalism built the framework for the freedoms we have today. Not the current liberalism.

  10. “the feeling of betrayal [sorrow crossed with anger] is mainly towards the [liberal] press”

    Which explains, in part, your present lack of critical distance.

    Excerpts from a paper on envy:

    “The envious impulse is to attach, or to spoil the very source that one originally relied upon. This impulse can become diabolically destructive and undermining, since it mobilizes such powerful defences – devaluation of the good object, or rigid idealization.”

    “In envy, there is an aim to possess the good object, but when this is felt to be impossible, the aim becomes a need to spoil the goodness of the object, in order to remove the source of envious feelings. Consequently, envy is the diabolical need to destroy the very source of goodness that maturation and growth requires.”

    “Envy often serves to stir up envy and jealousy in others. A consequence of excessive envy is an early onset of guilt – a guilt felt as persecution, and the object arousing the guilt as the persecutor.”

    Of course the liberals have virtues you’re not recognizing; of course the conservatives have flaws you’re not acknowledging. You know you’re overextended. It explains the apple: you’ve got some guilt associated with what you’re writing here; you’re acting out, it’s not quite professional; in fact, taking away the apple would be downright self-destructive.

    But that apple enables you to indulge your envy.

    “In Klein’s theory, love and gratification are not enough – gratitude is needed too. Gratitude is closely linked with the trust in good figures. This includes the ability to accept and assimilate the loved primal object without greed and envy interfering too much. The wish to preserve and spare the good object then predominates.”

    Read Sun Tzu!

  11. Leftists are basically motivated by selfishness IMO (‘we want our share and yours too’) and try to instill fear in others to advance their agenda. In classic Chicken Little fashion, ‘The economy is falling, the economy is falling!’ and global warming due entirely to Americans polluting the atmosphere, ‘The sky is falling, the sky is falling!’ and other such false doomsday prophecies.
    They’re all for defending the US as long as it can be done quickly and doesn’t take much of a sacrifice on their part. They become easily bored and don’t like seeing money spent on anything that doesn’t directly and immediately involve me, myself, and I.

  12. Hi Neo,

    It seems to me that fear is a powerfull motivator in politics. The antidote to fear (in political discourse) is certainty. The ability to say: The government will protect you from xyz danger.

    Fear as a political tool is used by both the left and right. However, that does not mean that either side is motivated by fear, it just means that they use fear to get votes – especially the undecided middle of non-aligned voters. Both left and right are motivated by ideology.

    The right uses fear of uncertainty in areas of security. See the drug war, the war on terror, war on ‘moral decay’. All are sold as an antidote to the fear a person may feel from any of the above issues.

    The left uses economic fear. If the Republicans win, you’ll lose your job, your house will be buried in toxic sludge, everyone will die of disease with no medical care, etc. Your example of FDR is instructive, since the depression was the pivotal winning moment for the Democratic party and progressive theory, and fear of events like that happening again kept the Democrats in power for a long time.

    So to summarize. The right uses fear to win elections. They are hypocritical to do so, because they accuse the left of doing the same thing. The left points out the use of fear by the right – and is also completely hypocritical to do so.

    Of course, both sides will say that their use of fear is justified because their fears are real. The terrorists really do want to kill us. Non-management employees really will lose their jobs. Both sides are somewhat correct, but exagerate plenty too.

    James

  13. *COUGH HACK HACK*

    “The conservative mindset is based on fear”
    “The liberal mindset is based on delusional self-exaltation”
    “The conservative mindset is based on envy!”
    “The liberal mindset is based on selfishness!”

  14. There is no Right and there is no Left. There is a huge majority to the left and right of Center. When these people wake up and vote all the fringe elements and their constant blatherings and intrusions on regular folk will be drowned in sanity.

    The fringe will always unravel the whole fabric if they are not clipped at the edges.

    Neo – there is no spoon.

  15. Ariel – I’m bascially a centrist with liberal leanings, I dont even use the term liberal actually…
    I was responding to the terms here except for fear which I bought with me I suppose. I speak for myself because I cant make up stories like Aesop I guess so it sounds like Kerry…

    But I mean in my experience, working with Christian and Islamic communities where I found the biggest enemy was fear and fear derived misrecognition/hysteria generalizations.

    ‘Against convention’I was using oterhs terms and comments, I wouldn’t go around otherwise saying ‘hey its cool to be against convention’ though I may think that in other ways I guess.

    < As for my courage, what the hell would you know about it except in the fantasy of your narrow-minded stereotypes?> – I am going on and responding to the grand stereotypes as evidenced in your posts, and others here. I am suprized that you are a ‘classic liberal’, can you explain what exactly you mean by that?

    As for murder in the 20th century no one is innocent, left or right, looking or doing, but I agree with the hysteria of the left in regards to Comm, but the right is not much better with its record.

    – If you have the inclination can you elaborate on this for me?

  17. AGAIN!!! I GOT CUT, Ariel can you elaborate on your last paragraph, ie. classic liberalism and current liberalism, difference, why? what happened according to you?

  18. Justin:

    “The conservative mindset is based on envy!”

    I wasn’t describing the conservative mindset, I was describing the psychopathology of an individual.

  19. I see no shame in fear. Decent person MUST have fear – fear of God, fear of sin, fear of transgression of divine commandments. And when anybody declare himself free of fear of this kind, he actually declare his betrayal of humanity in himself. This is really the difference between classic liberals and neo-liberals: the first were God-fearing people, the second – godless, and this amputation of soul makes them feel so brave. But they will never get away with it: they, instead, feel chilling to bones fear of death, and the more they brag about their courage, the more telling this bravado betrays their self-deception.

  20. Here’s some elaboration for discussion, so-called liberals who apologize or capitulate to theocratic nihilist and multiculturalists who often demonstrate no regard for social or democratic values is what I would refer to as current liberals, neo-Liberals. And the criticism doesn’t stop here if you think about their vacuous perspective, i.e. “Bush is Hitler” If Conservatives are the greatest threat to the world, then what is Khomeni, Jong-Il, Assad, Al-Sahr, the Baathist, Hezbollah, etc? Are they the freedom fighters? Are they fighting for human freedom? Or are they fighting against it? A Classical liberal sees right through this BS, when impressionable minds rarely do. To ‘appear’ to be an apologist to Conservatism is one thing, I think neo-cons are worthy allies to classical liberals in regards to foreign policy, but to actually be an apologist to the alternative because of some parochial spat between conservatives and liberals should be beneath the contempt of anyone you takes themselves as a person with internationals social and democratic values.

  21. One thing Liberals fear most is the coming debate from the Right of what to do with the evolutionary parasites, which is what Liberals are. They are genetic aberrations incapable of defending themselves, their families and homes and their nation. They are genetic freaks, mutants. Fortunately many are homosexual so they are not breeding. There is a whispered-about-only fear the Left has of the Right. They know who owns all the guns. Do they fear chaos and a breakdown of society if terrorists truly succeeded in setting off some nuke bombs in the US? Because they are genetic aberrations, I don’t think they are capable of having this kind of fear. They need to because in the absence of order, what they have gets taken first and their wretched lives will be snuffed with as much compunction given to splattering the guts of a nagging fly. Terrorists certainly don’t fear these genetic freaks, now do they? What if the ultra extreme radical right started advocating the extermination of Liberals the way some Muslims advocate exterminating Americans? Would liberal parasites disregard it the way they do the terrorists? I dont think they would.

  22. Gourney,
    this is from THE LOCKESMITH INSTITUTE, unfortunately the url no longer seems to work but google Amy H. Sturgis and you might find the original:

    • an ethical emphasis on the individual as a rights-bearer prior to the existence of any state, community, or society,
    • the support of the right of property carried to its economic conclusion, a free-market system,
    • the desire for a limited constitutional government to protect individuals’ rights from others and from its own expansion, and
    • the universal (global and a historical) applicability of these above convictions

    The emphasis is on property rights, individual rights (thus supporting minority rights), and the universal application of same. Limited government is also another key tenet, as you can see. Liberalism that speaks of group rights, brands black conservatives as “race traitors” (uncle tom, sambo, etc.), pushes class warfare, supports totalitarians (both right and left have this problem, but geopolitics always get in the way), develops speech codes (beyond profanity or obscenity) and overly limits property rights is not classical liberalism. Its more a 20th century creation, from Marxist thought, into a “collectivist” liberalism, rather than derived from the Enlightenment. No one or group is 100% either form, but I see things as a matter of degree.

    Personally, I don’t care for the terms “left or right” either as they describe very little to me. It is far too subjective a description, leading to absurdities. I prefer a political spectrum of anarchist to totalitarian. The classical liberal leans more to anarchy, the collectivist liberal to totalitarianism.

    As for stereotypes, the human mind requires them so as to not have to reassess the same information constantly. Obviously some stereotypes are correct, some wrong, and some of limited usefulness. This belief that “all” stereotypes are bad is simply a stupid 20th Century platitude. “Fear”, as I have seen it used, would fall into the category of an often bad stereotype. The grand stereotypes I may have used are to speed the read, I know that a group characteristic is not shared by all members of a group.

    Regarding Islam, or religions in general, I do not consider numbers proof of worth. I judge worth by other measures. What I do not like about it is: 1) its founder was a militarist, and that means a great deal; 2) it is a supremacist, universalist religion (it maintains that its kingdom is the earth, with all other religions submissive and subservient); 3) it does not separate the political and the spiritual; and 4) Sharia. There is more but that list is sufficient. There is not enough room on this blog or any other to go over the differences between Islam and Christianity (I am not a Christian), both have bloody histories, but one gave us liberalism and the other cannot. Sharia is the telling danger of Islam, and I am afraid (the thinking version) far too many in Islam, Arab or not, wish to see th

  23. (cont.) this the law of all lands. I have seen some resistance to this in the Islamic world, in the secular countries, but I believe it may be a losing battle. Sharia stands against nearly every gain in human rights made in the last 200 years.

    As for courage and “convention”, I lived through the 1960’s in the US with the preening leftists screaming “power to the people”. The problem is they meant power only to the people that agreed with them, “rights” only to those who agreed with them, and “reeducation” for the rest. That is not courage, but cowardice.

    Finally, if you haven’t read any of Sidney Hook’s books, do so. Not a classical liberal, per se, but a leftist who became a “conservative” because the left changed around him.

  25. Nobody here ever comments on the excesses of the more extreme authoritarian posts, some of which are genuinely chilling.

    Not all conservatives are bastards, but most bastards are conservative, as the past few comments illustrate. The conservative movement has many factions but you certainly share an ugly authoritarianism, and the worst of you are keen to foist your objectivism on the world. You’d think your real enemy is the fractious, loose coalition of liberals who struggle to coordinate their message (in the face of a relatively homogenous, “on message,” well-financed opponent). Liberals are not to blame for what’s going on. The media is not to blame for what’s going on. The Bush administration has enjoyed control of the Congress and Senate, the White House, and a TV network. The administration has simply imploded, in part because they’ve tried to reform a culture they don’t understand with a military campaign the American embassador recently characterized as arrogant and stupid. If they’d dumped the billions they’ve spent so far in Iraq instead into renewing Afghanistan — the actual home of Al-Qaeda and the third-poorest country in the world — they could have turned it into a garden and a model state. You’d still have the global community on side and Islamic extremists would have a much harder time recruiting.

    Instead, the American military is now surrounded by jihadists, occupying a tiny node in the middle of a hostile civilization. I’ve posted earlier about the Internet-based coordination of the Islamic extremists: a whole new class of intellectual strategists has emerged thanks to the new medium. They’ve succeeded in leveraging connected intelligence for the purpose of formulating strategy. That’s why the war is going poorly: the enemy has the real technological advantage.

    Your tribe is so entranced by images of warplanes silhouetted against sunsets that you can’t fathom that America has less power than her opponents.

    In short, your way doesn’t work. But if the Democrats can’t turn things around with a more diplomatic strategy, I’m sure the Republicans will get another kick at the can, killing tens of thousands of innocent people, creating a million plus refugees, and bombing countries into the stone age.

  26. you certainly share an ugly authoritarianism

    if so . . . then what did the Baathish and Saddam share?? — any perspective here??

  27. The leftists who fought in the Spanish Civil War were brave. They put their lives on the line trying to defeat an actual fascist enemy.

    American leftists today are in no danger whatsoever. I would venture to say that a sleeker, fatter, wealthier, more self-satisfied Left has never existed in the history of leftistm. The “power” you “speak truth” to exists, in part, to make your lives more comfortable, and to insulate you from any negative consequences your speech and actions might entail in a less liberal and prosperous society.

    There’s no bravery in bashing Bush or speaking out against the Iraq war, or leaving insulting comments on blogs. You’re not doing anything special – you’re simply exercising your rights as an American citizen, same as the rest of us. There’s no need to puff yourselves up and pretend you’re doing something transgressive and dangerous. Just say your peace and be satisfied.

    By doing so, you will assure people that your statements proceed from your intellects, not from your egos. You might be taken more seriously that way.

  28. If they’d dumped the billions they’ve spent so far in Iraq instead into renewing Afghanistan — the actual home of Al-Qaeda and the third-poorest country in the world — they could have turned it into a garden and a model state.

    The actual home of al Qaeda is Saudi Arabia. 95% of Saudis support bin laden, and the nation still sends millions to al Qaeda through ‘charities’ like Al Haramain.

    We can’t win any war against terrorism, sharia, Islamofascism or al Qaeda while we’re allied with Saudis and their ilk, which is a fact that the right and the left refuse to face.

    However, the fact that both the left and the right believe we should ally with our enemies proves that they don’t disagree about everything. That’s something.

  30. Of course, both sides will say that their use of fear is justified because their fears are real. The terrorists really do want to kill us. Non-management employees really will lose their jobs. Both sides are somewhat correct, but exagerate plenty too.

    The Right doesn’t use fear to gin up support amongst the Right, because the Right only support people who offer us the slab of meat we require. The right, including American Jacksonians and classical liberals, are bloodthirsty, they are not afraid of death.

    So this prevents the Right from getting political support through the use of fear.They must offer some sacrificial lambs for that fear, and most often times it is the bodies of our enemies.

  31. Would you say that left and right are observing the same phenomena, recognizing the same facts, but coming to different conclusions?

    Seems to me like the left view is (to simplify): A is true, B is true, C isn’t working, therefore the logical thing to do is give up.

    The right view tends to be: A is true, B is true, C isn’t working, therefore the logical thing to do is to keep trying C until it does work.

    Left’s choice will defer the problem, fiddle with it, analyze it, discuss it with everyone, kiss some asses, during which time the problem will get worse until something extremely bad happens again.

    Right’s choice will continue to not work, sink more lives and treasure into a black hole, use up what little political capital we have in the world, but possibly keep the fighting over there rather than over here.

    Anybody got a Plan D?

  33. Mary I happen to actually agree with you that the Saudis are not our friends. I disagree that everyone but you refuses to face it. I haven’t looked at it in detail, but the Bush family apparently has close ties to the House of Saud, perhaps that might have something to do with the soft touch?

    But our relationship with SA does not negate the fact that Afghanistan was a center of terrorist activity and we should have decidedly finished what we started there before (if ever) going into Iraq.

    (I have to say I love this new “Sun Tzu” anonymous, s/he is really telling it like it is.)

    As for the “fear” factor, the reason for the accusation is so clear I don’t see how you cannot be being purposely obtuse not to get it.

    It’s the fear of a man allergic to bees, lashing out wildly at flies.

    It’s the fear that if we don’t get out there and show the world that we can kick some Arab ass, we’ll be perceived as “weak.”

    It’s the fear that if we don’t look like we are doing something BIG against TERRORISTS, we will lose the power to further our extreme-right political agenda.

    Yes Saddam was an evil man, and yes he violated the UN agreements, and yes he took potshots at our planes, and yes he had a nuclear centrifuge buried in his backyard, but that is all still a very low bar for justifying a US invasion.

    Whether or not anyone actually used the term or not, the Bush Admin actually thought taking and rebuilding Iraq was going to be a cakewalk, (“weeks not months” = “gonna be a cakewalk”) an easy way to flex our muscle and show the “islamofascists” we are tough guys, so “bring it on” and we’ll “stay the course”. It hasn’t turned out that way and no matter how much you want to blame it on a “lack of unity” or “leftists” commenting on blogs or press bias, Bush has done this 100% his way, so suck it up. He’s swiped a fly off of a hornet’s nest with a $300 billion fly-swatter and the bees are still out there.

  34. Let me ask, though: on 9/11, the United States was attacked in a spectacular and brutal way by a fairly small group of people directed by bin Laden and his organization. In response to this, you’ve decided that the entire world now has to follow your limited vision of whatever makes you feel safe.

    Is this rational? Does this make sense? Wouldn’t you say that following this idea has created more problems for us than we had before? The decision to attack Iraq, and your wholehearted support of it, seems more like blindly striking out at anyone who vaguely resembles the 9/11 criminals than a reasoned analysis of the situation.

  35. I think a lot of the “fear” accusation by the left is simply projection, a neurosis they’ve become poster children for.

    *Their* actions, I believe, have been strongly motivated by fear. 9/11 revealed that the world’s a scary place, getting scarier, and that some tough choices would have to be made for liberal democracy to survive in it. Nearly all of which would challenge cherished tenets of the Left’s mythology.

    Their response, essentially, has been to construct a fantasy world to live in, with a comprehensible enemy and plan of action: Evil Republicans are the root of everything bad in the world – destroy them, and everything will go back to the “normal” of 9/10 America.

  36. Yes Saddam was an evil man, and yes he violated the UN agreements, and yes he took potshots at our planes, and yes he had a nuclear centrifuge buried in his backyard, but that is all still a very low bar for justifying a US invasion.

    It was simply time to go to war with Saddam and whn you go to war you go with what you have — the resolution was before the UN Security Council and it was either then or . . . when? Iraq had forfeited it’s sovereignty and was emploding as a state — and was on the verge of being envaded by Iran, saudi Arabia, and Turkey — which to the benefit of the Iraqi people is only happening in a small way thanks the US lead coalition holding them back, otherwise it would have been a Rowanda-like bloodbath, Saddam was also attacking a seeking to annex his neighbors, genocide against the Kurds and another who stepped out of line, harboring international terrorist, and running around weapons inspector over WMDs. If the world had listened to the Left then Saddam would still be in power, adding more bodies to mass graves, Kuwait would have been annexed, and furthermore going back few years, if the world had listened to the Left Bosnia would have been part of a greater Serbia and Kosovo would have been ethnically cleansed.

  37. Mary I happen to actually agree with you that the Saudis are not our friends. I disagree that everyone but you refuses to face it. I haven’t looked at it in detail, but the Bush family apparently has close ties to the House of Saud, perhaps that might have something to do with the soft touch?

    The members of the Bush administration, like Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter and every other administration, Republican and Democrat have a close friend$hip with our Saudi allies.

    Most members of the state department and most major universities have also received friendship/donations/bribes.

    Anyway, speaking of the ‘fear factor’, research proves that Democrats are more easily frightened than Republicans:

    The researchers had already zeroed in on those images and their effect among Democrats on the part of the brain that responds to threats and danger, the amygdala. Mr. Graham, like other Democrats tested so far, reacted to the Sept. 11 images with noticeably more activity in the amygdala than did the Republicans, said the lead researcher, Marco Iacoboni, an associate professor at the U.C.L.A. Neuropsychiatric Institute who directs a laboratory at the Ahmanson Lovelace Brain Mapping Center there.

    …the researchers noted that same spike in amygdala activity when the Democrats watched the nuclear explosion in the “Daisy” spot, which promoted a Democrat.

    Mr. Freedman suggested another interpretation based on his political experience: the theory that Democrats are generally more alarmed by any use of force than Republicans are. For now, Professor Iacoboni leans toward this second interpretation, though he is withholding judgment until the experiment is over.

    Democrats interpret this as proof that they “care” more, but as far as I know, the amygdala is only responsible for the basic fear response. According to research, when Dems see something violent, they’re more likely to be scared

  38. “The leftists who fought in the Spanish Civil War were brave.”

    bugs, I agree wholeheartedly. I would only add that the ones who were Communist, a good number were, would have only imposed their form of totalitarian tyranny for that of the facist. The Comintern was ruled effectively by Stalin, so I could not call those I identified as freedom fighters. The others fighting the facists were, but not the Communists. I am not implying in anyway that you said they were freedom fighters.

    “There’s no need to puff yourselves up and pretend you’re doing something transgressive and dangerous.”

    Something the American left, and perhaps the European left, does too often. Remember Alec Baldwin saying how dangerous it was to speak out (to millions of people using the mass media)? Compare that to those who spoke out using samizdat for example, there was true danger and they knew it well.

  39. For some reason I dropped the “s” from fascist, a term derived from the Roman “fascia” symbol.

  40. “Sharia is the telling danger of Islam”

    Yeah, like common law is to the west. You couldn’t make this stuff up.

    And Ariel, the US was actually “looking the other way” when Pol Pot killed 30% of the Cambodian population. You actually continued to recognise the Khmer Rouge throughout.

    It was those nasty leftists that beat you out of Viet Nam that had to put a stop to it. Probably the only genuine just war in history.

  41. Spotter,

    There is no comparison between english common law and sharia. Pure simplistic, ignorant nonsense

    You should read more closely, I pointed out that geopolitics get in the way, and the French, British, Russians, Germans, etc. all play the game. The Khmer Rouge and the Vietnamese were at odds by the time the killing fields blossomed with death. And yeah the US looked the other way, and that has absolutely nothing to do with Chomsky so good try at obfuscation and misdirection.

    “Those nasty leftists…etc.”. Do you mean the ones that wear Mao t-shirts or Che?

  42. There is no comparison between english common law and sharia. Pure simplistic, ignorant nonsense
    Ariel | 11.03.06 – 3:48 pm | #

    On the contrary, there is an obvious parallel. Most islamic countries use the principles of sharia as the basis of their legal systems, as commonwealth countries do common law (which it can be argued came from christian tenets).

    The strongly antIslamic (as I suspect you are) concentrate on the obscure and brutal aspects as written 16 centuries ago, and they love to point out interpretations of obscure fanatics to promote fear and loathing. The fact is that modern interpretations have evolved and few follow the fundamentalists. Sharia and democracy can live side by side.

    Your position is arrogant and chauvanist.

  43. spotter:

    Here’s some kinder, gentler shari’a:

    “A Saudi court has sentenced a gang rape victim to 90 lashes of the whip because she was alone in a car with a man to whom she was not married.

    The sentence was passed at the end of a trial in which the al- Qateef high criminal court convicted four Saudis convicted of the rape, sentencing them to prison terms and a total of 2,230 lashes.

    The four, all married, were sentenced respectively to five years and 1,000 lashes, four years and 800 lashes, four years and 350 lashes, and one year and 80 lashes.

    A fifth, married, man who was stated to have filmed the rape on his mobile phone still faces investigation. Two others alleged to have taken part in the rape evaded capture.

    Saudi courts take marital status into account in sexual crimes. A male friend of the rape victim was also sentenced to 90 lashes for being alone with her in the car.

    The court heard that the victim and her friend were followed by the assailants to their car, kidnapped and taken to a remote farm, where the raping occurred.

    The victim was quoted by Okaz newspaper as saying she had expected harsher penalties for the assailants, especially as they had pleaded not guilty.

    Her husband and family said that they would appeal to the court Saturday for harsher penalties for a crime which has shocked public opinion in Saudi Arabia and been the subject of months of debate.”

    Now please shut up.

  44. “In response to this, you’ve decided that the entire world now has to follow your limited vision of whatever makes you feel safe.”

    Good summation, it seems you’re finally starting to understand. But I have an even better summary of neocon attitudes: “Don’t tread on me.”

  45. Stumbley,

    the Saudis are Salafist fundamentalists and very much a minority in the muslim world. Your example (if true) proves nothing about the value or otherwise of sharia in general, but is an indication of the brutality in Saudi Arabia (who are your dear leader’s closest friends).

    As with all things, there are many interpretations and views and variations. Sharia, as a basis for the legal systems of islamic countries is nothing to be feared and frankly, none of America’s business.

  46. Take a look at Iran, Saudia Arabia, and the Sudan, for example. Sharia still gives a woman half standing in the courts. It creates the absudity of a woman reporting rape and then being tried for adultery. So obscure you can’t see it, eh?

    It still enshrines Islamic supremecy, whether the jizya tax is applied or not. It is entirely religious law, no argument needed. And I do recognize that Islam is not monolithic. It is the rejection or serious reduction of Sharia that allows the democracies. Does Turkey have Sharia as the law of the land? Just curious.

    The english common law evolved. It is not a religious law drawn from a religious work. Did Christian thought affect it?, certainly, but it is not a Christian religious document with God backing it.

    My position is not multi-cultural, absolutely. Your’s reeks of it. As for “arrogant and chauvinist”, why would you think that charge would bother me? Your arguments are so poor as to waste my time, so such a charge has no standing with me. I do enough introspection to know my faults.

    And I would apply the same charges and assessment to Christianity or any other religion if such was the case. I spent a good portion of my life against Christianity, why would I fear such a silly term as “antiislamic”, since I can judge any religion by what it does.

    Your obvious parallel is for kindergarteners.

    Update: I believe every case would be dismissed by you. Very telling. Not to be feared by you I am sure, but there are a lot of women, homosexuals, and apostates that do.
    And, no, the Islamic world is welcome to Sharia, but then it will never be free either. And it is not welcome here as a legal system.

  47. I haven’t actually made an argument yet other than the clear statement of fact that sharia is open to interpretation that can and does serve as a basis of a workable legal system.

    “. I do enough introspection to know my faults. ”

    I find that hard to believe.

    You come across as a shill for the extreme right. You know as well as I that sharia isn’t coming to america, so what is your problem?

    Don’t pretend that you give a damn about muslim women or gays, please. You’re killing muslims by the hundreds of thousands, breaking their countries and stealing their resources, so please, don’t feign concern for them.

    Not a christian but a classic liberal. Hmmm, let me see, a zionist fear monger.

  48. I knew the Zionist “charge” would come out. You are predictable.

    Sharia is still religious law. I know very well the injustices that religious law is so very prone to, and it always has the backing of God. The Stalinist legal system was also very workable, for those on top.

    Notice you left out apostates, very telling again. No arguments offered so far that are worth anything.

    The rest is simply leftist boiler plate.

    Again, the usual attempts at epithets are simply snorers. “Shill for the extreme right” is very funny given what I wrote to Gourney. You need to actually read without filters.

  49. “You’re killing muslims by the hundreds of thousands, breaking their countries and stealing their resources, so please, don’t feign concern for them.”

    Last I saw, it was Shi’as killing Sunnis, not Americans. You know, muslims killing muslims. So don’t YOU “feign concern for them.”

    And whose resources are we “stealing”? Don’t recall stealing anything from Iraq, Iran, or anywhere else. Seems to me we PAY for all of the oil I think you’re referring to.

  50. Anonymous 5:25 PM

    It isn’t obvious to those who think in leftist boilerplate.

    Oh, and spotter (I hope that isn’t a reference to that silly belief in being unclean ), Islam is also an overarching patriarchal, misogynist religion. But, hey, I didn’t write the Qu’ran, so its not my fault.

  51. the Saudis are Salafist fundamentalists…

    Only al Qaeda Saudis are Salafists. Salafism is influenced by Saudi Wahhabism, but it isn’t the same thing. Salafism is more influenced by Sayyid Qutb, and his version of Mein Kampf, “Milestones”, which claimed that good muslims must wage violent jihad in order to establish a worldwide Caliphate.

    …and very much a minority in the muslim world.

    According to non-Wahhabi Muslims, Saudi extremism influences more than 80% of the mosques in the United States. That figure is the same or higher in most mosques around the world.

    I haven’t actually made an argument yet other than the clear statement of fact that sharia is open to interpretation that can and does serve as a basis of a workable legal system.

    That’s not a statement of fact. If you knew anything about Sharia, you’d know that it hasn’t been open to interpretation (Ijtihad) for many centuries.

    Sharia, as a basis for the legal systems of islamic countries is nothing to be feared and frankly, none of America’s business.

    Sharia criminal laws, when enforced by an Islamic state, require misogyny, apartheid and in some cases genocide. They’re brutal when compared to every other legal system on the planet. States that are ruled by these laws are always dismal and/or failed states. The goal of Saudi and Iran-sponsored terrorist groups is to rule through Sharia, following Qutb’s direction.

    The creation of more failed, brutal totalitarian states is everyone’s business.

  52. Most of Roger Simon’s little keyboard army are zionist provocateurs, stirring up religious hatred and bigotry.

    since you are a humorless zealot, I assume you don’t get the irony of that statement..

  53. I never once spoke of imposing our system on anyone. My reference to sharia is more Europe and demographics.

    Sorry you have to make things out of whole cloth to win your arguments with yourself. As for zionist provocateur and “stirring up religious hate and bigotry” those are keywords for Islamic shills and non-thinking multi-culturalists. And, yes, you are predictable. Sorry, but I know your kind (hey, I didn’t even need to come up with a nice little label for you, why bother).

    No, you silly person you, I am an atheist and all religions are open to examination and criticism (thought I gave it away with “against Christianity”). That is free thought, free speech, that is freedom. To look at all beliefs and practices with a critical eye. But you aren’t for that are you, because that’s bigotry to you. How telling. Bet you stir up a little of the anti-Christian and anti-Judaism, come on you can be honest, you can do it.

    As for the Sauds, I despise them, but hey baby that’s geopolitics for you. Be careful, though, and look to the skies, because geopolitics are fluid.

    Honestly, I do not know who Roger Simon is and could care less. Must mean something in your world, but not mine.

    I’ve spent more time on you than your worth, but hey it’s been fun.

  55. A zealot? For what/who.which do you think I am a zealot?

    Mary, you clearly have little knowledge of the reality based world. The muslim world just isn’t like you imagine it. You are living in a bigotted bubble world of unreality.

    You should get out more.

  56. Mary,
    Had I stayed serious with spotter, I would have liked to have responded as concisely as you did. Bravo.

    After his “obvious parallel” which was nothing but nominal, they are both legal systems, duh, I couldn’t take him seriously, He proved me correct with the usual tiresome charges. When all else fails, scream “bigot, imperialist, zionist, etc.”, shame it doesn’t work any more. Sidney Hook cured me of the fear of “epithets of abuse”.

    Glad you did take him seriously though.

  57. Ariel:

    One has only to look at his/her referenced “homepage” to see where his sympathies lie. I for one would much rather be a “bigoted Zionist imperialist” than an apologist for fanatical suicide bombers.

  58. Oh, he has the “If Americans Knew” website. I ran across that a ways back, it had some good info, just some really ignorant conclusions. No wonder he throws out epithets for arguments, strawmen for arguments, no argument for an argument.

    The reasoning on that site is like his “obvious parallel”, nominal with no insight but a lot of sophistry. Worthless.

    The funniest thing was no mention of the Roman driven diaspora, wouldn’t sit well with his arguments, or lack thereof.

  61. No, if all Palestinians were suicide bombers, they would all be dead. Sheesh.

    As for sharia and Europe, do you know what the word “demographics” means? At the current rate of replacement, most western European ethnic groups will be effectively gone in two centuries.

    Finally, if you want to talk about lala land, or is it halal land, the “muslims, Christians, and jews lived in perfect harmony in Muslim lands” is a Muslim fantasy past. I know Assyrian and Armenian Christians, and have read some Coptic sites, that would call that pure BS. They knew the sword that constantly hung over their necks.

  62. Spotter: Are you Palestinian? You sound a lot like one of the commenters on Prof. Abu’ Khalil’s blog, angryarab.blogspot.com. Is your user name whistleblower?

  64. Read Sun Tzu!

    Oh, please…. I had to read that nonsense as a staff officer in the Army….

    Sun Tzu is the Nostradamus of military thinking–his ‘principles’ can be used equally to justify of deny any course of action at all.

    Pure swill for pseudo-intellectuals.

    SLA Marshall’s writing is more scientific and holds up to history.

  65. Had I stayed serious with spotter, I would have liked to have responded as concisely as you did. Bravo.

    Thanks, Ariel – spotter is running out of whatever few arguments he had. it’s hard to stay serious..

  66. Actually, I wasn’t talking about the Genocide, which the Turks still deny, but everyday living. And the Armenians are, or were, part of my family. And my area has one of the largest Assyrian christian communites, 15,000 strong, in the US. As well as one of the larger Hindu temples. And yeah I get around, unlike you in your bubble.

    Interestingly, I haven’t said anything about which you rant. And again you put out the nominal with no depth “mankind is a story of war and bloodshed”. Kindergarten stuff again.

    And as for Muslim threat, the Christian west, the last part of Christendom not conquered by the sword of Islam, was a third world region that fought off Islam for nearly a thousand years until the Muslim world had fallen too far behind and too far into decay. If that region had then returned to the Muslim world the same courtesy, there would be no Muslim world.

    “Steal their oil and still their land” is delusional. You’re so 1920s guy. Hey, just to let you know, movies have sound now. They even come on shiny discs, not those big reels of film.

    I think I have more interest in freedom and liberty than you, and would probably want it for a lot more people than you. Because I am not full of hate like you are.

  68. You know as well as I that sharia isn’t coming to america, so what is your problem?

    Border’s Books won’t sell a magazine with a funny picture of Mohammed. Bacon is next…. The camel’s nose is already in the tent.

    Don’t pretend that you give a damn about muslim women or gays, please.

    I really, really don’t.

    you’re killing muslims by the hundreds of thousands, breaking their countries and stealing their resources, so please, don’t feign concern for them.

    And I wholly approve of it.

    Just as the stone-age cultures in The Americas were rolled over by the European empires, the medieval Middle Eastern cultures will be rolled over by the Anglosphere.

    It’s the way of the world….

    Yeah, yeah–I’m a war monger…. Blah, blah genocide…

  73. The same could be said for you, but it would actually mean something.

    You are the hateful one.

  74. No, I think Gray, whilst a despicable and loathsome individual, is probably the only honest one here.

    Yes. More honest than you:

    I know which side I fight on and I know why.

    You won’t even admit you are on the side of the Musselmen and you certainly don’t know why.

  75. Spotter: Are you one of those sophisticated propagndists armed with your phD and a blackberry? I know your kind all too well. Are you a muslim???

  76. Really, one of the most extraordinary things I heard was on the morning after 9/11:

    A Sikh said to me: “I have meditated on this all night and I now understand–we’re going to have to kill them all.”

    That was really something coming from a Sikh–the guys who made their bones fighting the Moslem Mughal Empire 500 years ago in Northern India.

    I realized this was just a battle in a long, long fight.

    Islam since its inception has been nothing but hateful and harmful–the antithesis of freedom and anathema to liberty.

    Any place on earth under the yoke of the Musselman is a pesthole!

  77. People like you used to burn witches.

    No, I’m a friend of Liberty. I’m not a Christian. In fact, I have more than a passing knowledge of the occult.

    (But I’m full of hate?)

    Yes, and hatred for your own kind. You are a self-loathing euro-peon and a quisling.

  78. I urge everyone to go to this site:

    http://angryarab.blogspot.com

    Read the comments by mostly Arab-Americans and islamists sympathizers intellectuals and then decide whether we have to be afraid or not. The actual post by the professor are very harmless compared to what most of the commenters post.

  79. Red,

    spotter is a very closed system. Everyone is a liar or an ideologue, except for him of course. He has the irrefutable truth, can’t refute it because he can’t hear you.

    Read back and you’ll see he argues by pronouncement, assertion, epithet, or ridicule. Its kindergarten stuff.

    Every one is evil but him, by which he profoundly illustrates his own character.

    Gourney,
    good link. goes back to the Rumsfield doctrine of a swift, light, technologically superior force. Doesn’t work in an occupation, that is where the main mistake. You know, initially, the Kurds and Shia were glad we deposed Saddam, they had wanted it from Desert Storm on. But we failed them by not having enough troops on the ground.

    If I remember right, Iraq was a constitutional monarcy from 23 to around mid-to-late 50s. Shame. I’ve tried to track down an Iraqi friend of mine, but I think he went back, I hope he isn’t in harms way.

    See you on another thread. Sorry about my flash temper, on the other hand you insulted me personally, but I generally don’t use it on people that I know are a waste of time, which is why spotter is a source of amusement and you got my anger. Left-handed complement.

  80. Red,

    Been there. And you are right.
    Used to have a number of islamic sites bookmarked, some just plain silly regarding history, others as hateful as The Storm. They aren’t victims, just the losers.

  81. Mark,

    You’re a bonehead if you think we are all neo-cons. You’re blinded by your own prejudices. Mote and log.

    spotter, silly, silly, boy, my kind were burned by the Christians as heretics or spawn of Satan, and killed by the Muslims if we spoke our mind. You still have the stench of hate and bigotry, besides the fact that you just can’t get anything straight.

  82. Read Sun Tzu!

    Oh, please…. I had to read that nonsense as a staff officer in the Army….

    Sun Tzu is the Nostradamus of military thinking–his ‘principles’ can be used equally to justify of deny any course of action at all.

    Pure swill for pseudo-intellectuals.

    SLA Marshall’s writing is more scientific and holds up to history.

    SLA Marshall’s a 20th century author whose research was demonstrated in 1988 to have been

  83. Ariel:

    When was the last time a liberal had an original thought? Their ignorance are immense because they appear to be sufficiently satisfied with the knowledge they think they possess, and which will never grow beyond what it is now. For simplicity’s sake let’s call it “voluntary and perpetual ignorance”. I believe this to be a liberal disease that atrophies the brain and corrupts the heart and soul of a man. Since they will be forever sick and ignorant, it behooves the rest of us to stop responding to their predictable comments, which emanate from that small portion of their head, which still functions, namely, the medulla oblongata , the lower part of the brain stem.

  84. Gord, you people suck. How is it that you continued to “debate” with spotter for that long, when, if memory serves, they resorted to citing facts a grand total of three times in this whole thread (out of 15 posts)?

  85. Red,

    It depends on the type of liberalism The collectivist version tends to be reactionary now, trying to defend their failures.

    I generally go for the leftists though, they are funnier. Leftists are some of the most bigoted, hateful people I know. Perpetually angry over the world’s injustices, standing ready to commit their own injustices. Let’s all sing the Internationale.

    The current anonymous sounds like neoneconned. Probably the same, but for his sake I hope not because he is unhealthily obsessed with this site. A caricature out of Hoffer’s “True Believer”.

  86. spotter, you wouldn’t know a classical liberal from your butt. It isn’t possible for you to make the distinction. I am glad I amuse you, but (not your kind) I promise that you amuse me more.

    Do you like Barney?

  88. Justin,

    He amuses me. He hasn’t offered a single cogent argument or refutation, the salafist was as close as he came to one, but is so full of himself. He is classic.

    Justin, I know from your corner this can be infuriating because feeding his ego keeps him here, but still I need to know…

    spotter, do you like Barney?

  89. spotter,
    that was truly incoherent. And I see you are an ageist too. More bigotry. And more strawmen.

    Do you like Barney?

  90. Holmes,

    mea culpa. The kindergartener was too amusing. A guilty pleasure. I’ll say goodnight.

  92. Mark,

    As in leftist, or closed-minded, or “true believer”.

    I am sorry, but your soft racism is showing. I think in terms of beliefs, ideologies, dialectics, not race. I have no idea of anyone’s race here and don’t care. Good try, but you blew it. The next time you read “your kind”, don’t pollute it with your prejudices.

    And you owe me an apology for such a sleazy accusation.

    Guess I said goodnight too early.

  93. They are more Israeli Likudnik than they are American, they have no qualms about Americans dying or America being put at risk, and they positively enjoy and promote internecine violence between arab factions.

    I’m curious: what’s the motivation for someone with no Christian or Jewish sympathies to be more pro-Israel than pro-self? And while we’re at it, what’s the motivation for a Muslim to be pro-Israel?

  94. spotter,

    Obviously, you couldn’t tell a racist from your butt either.

    Pathetic try, “look he’s the racist, not me, he’s the bigot, not me, look at him, look at him, please look at him”.

  95. Oh, sorry, Mark, you meant the “my kind” about being burned at the stake. Which actually makes your accusation even sleazier.

    I am an atheist, “my kind were burned by the Christians as heretics or spawn of Satan, and killed by the Muslims if we spoke our mind.” So that is racist? How the hell could you get racism out of that? Each group, atheist, Christian, or Muslim, represents a belief system. And “my kind” is racist in that context? What, is the use of the word “kind” (a group united by common traits and interests) racist now?

  98. and what on earth is a racist “theme”. You guys just pull this stuff out of your butts.

    A little bit hostile? I was referring to terms/phrases that have racist connotations or second meanings which are not part of the literal meaning. Racist idioms, if you will. Those things tend to go right over my head.

  99. You’re now the arbiter of what is self-respecting for athiests? Atheists don’t have systematic beliefs? Wow, all these years and I missed it.

    Belief: a tenet or body of tenets held by a group.

    Thus atheism is a belief system, but with few tenets. Do I need to define tenet for you?

    What was Humanist Manifesto II about? Agreeing on no shared principles?

    And I noticed you dropped the racism now.

    Do you understand the word kind in context now? Or must I go over it again?

  100. Atheism, according to the individuals in the atheist organizations that I belong to, is the lack of belief in a god or gods. It is not that we believe that a god (or gods) does not exist but that we lack “belief”. If you are an atheist then you are a very unsophisticated one. We don’t run across to many of you but I suppose it is possible.

    I have never heard a fellow atheist use words like “my kind” so yeh I am still waiting for a sincere explanation of what was behind your exclusionary term.

  102. Atheism, according to the individuals in the atheist organizations that I belong to, is the lack of belief in a god or gods. It is not that we believe that a god (or gods) does not exist but that we lack “belief”. If you are an atheist then you are a very unsophisticated one. We don’t run across to many of you but I suppose it is possible.

    I have never heard a fellow atheist use words like “my kind” so yeh I am still waiting for a sincere explanation of what was behind your exclusionary term.

    Kind of splitting hairs, isn’t it? At least in my line of work (biological sciences), you either believe something to be true, believe something to be false, or believe there is not enough evidence to tell (although I guess in this particular case you could also believe that it’s fundamentally impossible to make a determination). One can only lack a belief if they choose to not so much as think about the issue. You have at least thought about whether any god(s) exist, yes?

    Or will you simply dismiss me for taking a fiercely rational, connotation-ignorant, nothing-sacred view of the world?

  103. Mark,

    Obviously, we travel in different circles. Atheism is the lack of belief in gods, and yes I understand the lack of “belief” in gods. But it would be inaccurate, and unsophisticated, to say that atheists do not develop belief systems, a set of tenets, principles, to guide them. Systems that tend to have common tenets. The Humanist Manifesto II was such. You have heard of it, haven’t you?

    And you dwell too much on your preconceived connotations, or spend too much time in your groups. Had I used “my group” you wouldn’t be going off, or would you?, yet “kind” has the same meaning as group. And I gave a very specific, sincere explanation of your taking something out of context to give it an unintended meaning, your subjective connotation, to suit your purposes.

    I am not afraid of the words belief, in context, or faith, in context, as words have more than one meaning. If the atheists you know are unable to distinguish the meanings between “belief” in gods, and beliefs, or the forms of faith, faith-belief/faith-reason, then I’m sorry, but that is a lack of sophistication, and very much a form of rigidity. And I am curious, but organizations by their very nature are exclusionary, why do you belong to one? To be around people with a common interest?

  104. Ariel
    Yes I also apologise to anyone whose been on the end of my hasty and illjudged temper but i think Ive got as good as Ive given.

    Still writing back to this theme later though, not now however, just viewing at mo’

  105. Gourney, are you trolling again? How could you say you don’t like sharia? My God, you must be a neo-con too, after all, if you agree with a single thing here you must be a neo-con.

    Sarcasm, the last refuge.

  106. Gourney, you have got and given. You’re a decent person, OK a little deluded :), but still a decent person. Have a good night.

  107. “Kind of splitting hairs, isn’t it?”

    No it isn’t and it isn’t even subtle.

    “One can only lack a belief if they choose to not so much as think about the issue.”

    Wrong! The existence of God/Gods assertion is not an “issue”. It is an assertion. One can recognize that any question in regards to the validity of this assertion is ridiculous simply because no reproducable observation has ever been offered to establish the validity of the assertion.

  108. Who rides so late through the windy night?
    The father holding his young son so tight.
    The boy is cradled safe in his arm,
    He holds him sure and he holds him warm.

    Why is your face so frightened my son?
    The King of elves, father, see him yon?
    The Elfin King with his tail and crown?
    It is the fog, my son, streaming down.

    Yes, you my dear child, come go with me!
    The games I play, you’ll like them, come see.
    The shore is coloured with flow’rs in bloom,
    My mother’s gold gowns, you will see soon.

    Oh father, father, can you not hear
    What the elfking promises? I fear!
    Be calm, stay quiet my dearest son,
    The wind blows the dry leaves of autumn.

    My darling boy, won’t you come with me?
    I have daughters in whose care you’ll be.
    My daughters dance round the fairy ring.
    Each night they’ll cradle you, dance and sing.

    Father, dear father, can you not see
    The elf king’s daughter staring at me?
    My son, my son, I see it so well:
    Gray meadows on which the moonlight fell.

    I love you for your beauty of course,
    If free you’ll not come, I will use force.
    Father, dear father, he’s touching me.
    Of elf king’s hurt, father please, free me.

    Dread grips the father, he spurs the roan,
    In loving arms he feels the boy moan.
    At last, the courtyard, with fear and dread,
    He looks at the child; the boy is dead

  109. Ariel

    Stop trying to con me I know you are not an atheist. If you were you would not confuse or conflate the terms atheist and humanist. To conflate the two terms is symptomatic of a theist. You don’t fool me.

  110. Horseshit. What atheist group do you belong to, con artist? Are they so ignorant as to not know that the Humanist Manifesto II is the SECULAR Humanist Manifesto, the first one is the Religious one?
    You didn’t know that? Do you know what secular means?Or do you think because the Pope uses the word “humanist” (religious) that atheists can’t use it in a secular way?

    Have you ever heard of Paul Kurtz? Do you know what eupraxophy means?

    http://www.secularhumanism.org/library/shb/conn_15_4.htm

    That is the latest Humanist Manifesto, one of the signatories is Richard Dawkins, you know, the famous theist. Are you just a joke as an atheist? Or am I in a Kafka short story?
    You remind me of Shaw’s Britannius, your group’s little customs are the laws of the universe. If this is the depth of your atheism, you have a long education before you. Sophisticated, my ass, you sound small-thinking and rigid like Murray did. Which is why I never joined American Atheists.

  111. Thought I might use that name for that post, since there aren’t any other real ones around.

    Mark, old boy, get out of your group, “your kind”, of atheists. They are stunting your knowledge of atheism and they have too many rigid concepts and terms. Small minded.

    Either that or I am being conned. Which is a distinct possibility, given your ignorance.

  114. Wrong! The existence of God/Gods assertion is not an “issue”. It is an assertion. One can recognize that any question in regards to the validity of this assertion is ridiculous simply because no reproducable observation has ever been offered to establish the validity of the assertion.

    News flash: anything (including negatives) that you hold to be true or probably true in your mind is a belief, regardless of whether it’s an unsupported assertion (faith), a factually supported theory, or an absolute truth. Of course, we in the natural sciences avoid dealing in absolutes like the plague; we prefer to form beliefs based on evidence, and quantify the probability that our beliefs are correct, based on the available data (confidence intervals and p-values).

    You believe that there is no evidence, therefore you believe. You really strike me as the religious type, though – that is, somebody who holds a box sacred, and will lash out at anyone who goes outside that box. It’s actually kind of embarrassing to watch.

  117. Ariel

    You have got to be one of the most dense people I have ever run across. Humanists are generally considered a subset of atheists. All atheists are not humanists. Do I have to draw you a Ven diagram in crayon?

    Once again your theism is not so easily disguised.

  119. Justin

    It is obvious that you are very young so I will excuse your lack of sophistication. You really need to come to grips with what the word “belief” means. I do not “believe” anything. Either a hypothesis concerning the universe in which we live is REPRODUCIBLY DEMONSTRATED to describe and predict the behavior of some aspect of our universe or it isn’t. Belief is the choice to accept a hypothesis as true despite a lack of the above.

  120. No, because I don’t think you could draw a Venn diagram, and you would probably break the crayon.

    Never said or even implied that all atheists are humanists. But you language implied that no atheists are humanists. Which is assinine.

    By the way, I didn’t confuse or conflate humanism and atheism, you did. You haven’t added one argument that I already haven’t seen, but you have given this a Kafka air with your rigid mind.

    Have you considered it is your reading of something that is the actual problem?

    And again why do you belong to an organization, given that you imply “exclusionary” is some moral or ethical crime?

  121. Ariel

    You are a rabidly simple minded bafoon. I belong to organizations because I know that within those organizations I can find individuals willing to discuss questions of interest to me. I do not join them to isolate myself amongst people of “my kind”.

    “Have you considered it is your reading of something that is the actual problem? ”

    You should actually read what you write sometime. You were the one to bring humanism into the discussion in response to discussion about atheists.

    Oh and Ariel, all of us here know how to use google so don’t think you can fein initimate knowledge and experience with a subject matter by googling it. You are a theist who got stuck in a tight spot when arguing with spotter so you invoked the “say anything” neocon mantra to get your butt free. Talk to the hand from here on out.

  122. Kind: a group united by a common interest.
    Are you so dense that you can’t understand simple words? Or do you carry so much emotional baggage that you can’t help projecting it onto others?

    And I was ridiculing you on your use of the word “kind” and “exclusionary”.

    mark, from now on we are enemies. You are the kind of atheist I despise, rigid, dogmatic, all the qualities of the worst of the religionists. How disgusting.

  123. It is obvious that you are very young so I will excuse your lack of sophistication. You really need to come to grips with what the word “belief” means. I do not “believe” anything. Either a hypothesis concerning the universe in which we live is REPRODUCIBLY DEMONSTRATED to describe and predict the behavior of some aspect of our universe or it isn’t. Belief is the choice to accept a hypothesis as true despite a lack of the above.

    Does “sophistication” mean making up things as you go along? Science itself deals in probable truth – never absolute truth. No hypothesis, theory, or scientific “law” is absolute. You cannot prove a hypothesis correct; you can only demonstrate that based on the evidence and methodology it is x% likely to be true (and even that x is estimated based on the evidence, and thus subject to error). You choose whether or not to believe that the conclusion is true, knowing full well that there is some non-zero chance that the conclusion is false. And knowing that there’s always a possibility that the conclusion is incorrect, you must not hesitate to discard your belief if newer, stronger evidence contradicts that belief. That is the scientific method.

    Main Entry: be·lief
    Pronunciation: b&-‘lEf
    Function: noun
    Etymology: Middle English beleave, probably alteration of Old English gelEafa, from ge-, associative prefix + lEafa; akin to Old English lyfan — more at BELIEVE
    1 : a state or habit of mind in which trust or confidence is placed in some person or thing
    2 : something believed; especially : a tenet or body of tenets held by a group
    3 : conviction of the truth of some statement or the reality of some being or phenomenon especially when based on examination of evidence

    http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/belief

    The evidence suggests that your belief in the meaning of the word ‘belief’ is mistaken. You seem to have an agenda behind your definition that may be clouding your objectivity in this matter.

  124. “Does “sophistication” mean making up things as you go along?”

    Justin,

    For him, yes it does. Words mean what he says they do, just like the Mad Hatter. I’ve known his kind, the dogmatic, rigid, angry atheist. They made up the Communist movements for example. Real pieces of work, always preening how rational they are while often saying some of the most irrational things.

    I gave up that pretentious, egotistical version of atheism a long time ago. Too much like the worst of the religionists.

  125. Religion doesn’t have a monopoly on fanaticism, Ariel. Anyone that saw an environmentalist try to wipe out 3/4ths of humanity, would understand.

  127. bugs, your problem is with Bush, not with the right. The right would do things a lot differently than Bush, because Bush is neither wolly a Jacksonian nor is he wholly a classical liberal. He is a compassionate conservative, because he means what he says and says what he means. Therefore, he combines the traits of anti-nation building that the Democrats did not have in WWII and in 1935, with Jeffersonian style democracy and autonomy.

    If you want a plan D, you need to get rid of Bush’s advisers, and source him some of the real deal. It is unlikely he will change his principles for your sake, but if you give him the information he isn’t getting right now, and give him new ideas and alternative plans, he might consider going for them. It is better than nothing. However, because Bush is surrounded by the bureacracy and politics in Washington, nothing is getting through.

    You don’t need to believe as mary does, that we need to concentrate on the Cold War before WWII had been won., to see that the right would love Bush to change, if only it didn’t mean that the Left would win via destroying the objectives of freedom and liberty.

  128. Oh and Ariel, all of us here know how to use google so don’t think you can fein initimate knowledge and experience with a subject matter by googling it. You are a theist who got stuck in a tight spot when arguing with spotter so you invoked the “say anything” neocon mantra to get your butt free. Talk to the hand from here on out.
    mark | 11.04.06 – 2:47 pm | #

    Everyday the Left gets more High Schoolish. While they’re talking to the hand, I’m practicing my self-defense moves and training my mind to soak up violence and reflect it back to the aggressor.

    One of the questions I’ve always wondered is, how many people on the Left are martial artists, those who did sports competition fighting, and how many on the right are trained in self-defense (which is not the same as sports competition)?

    All in all, it is two questions. How many people know martial arts and self-defense techniques, and how many of those people are to the Left and the Right. These statistics, have never been totaled, as far as I know.

    The reason why I say this, is because most people who went through a discipline training course in their lives, whether that be bootcamp or karate, tend to be saner and calmer than your usual High School boy and girl.

    So is the Left having a deficiency in the discipline department, is that why they are cuckoo and venting on blogs like this one?

  129. I’m afraid we are all a little deluded, thank god really, otherwise well, it’d be a bit boring. AS for objectivity…yes we all seem to think we personally are!

    Anonymous are you related to Nobody in the Odyssey? But you say that some of the comments here are chilling, yes they were a shock to me, it seemed as though there was real palpable hate (or fear?) but they have desisted some what. It’s also laziness on everyones part sometimes, but you Anonymous have never been lazy, to your credit.

    ‘Elf king’ Loyal Achates? ‘Elf King’!?

    Yes Ariel I dont see the funny side (or even the human side) of sharia. It is ludicrous, and people who champion it should look at its tenets. They aint pretty. This clash of civilizations is really a clash between the 21 century and the 17th. Now Im not lumping muslims together, but Fund Muslims I have no time for at all, and correct me if Im wrong but Turkey (say) does not practice Sharia (but believe me I aint no fan of Turkey). Fundy Muslims are surely the most delusional of all the fundies. And in the sober light of day it does spring from this religion of theirs. As for Eurabia, that’s realpolitik in action…so be it…can’t fight demographics…
    But I think the Euros will turn extreme at some stage actually.

    I appreciate the classic liberal line and identify with it, but as you imply realpolitik overrides, that’s our condition. Current liberals are politically correct? Which undermines their ability to deal with threats? From within and without?

    Bugs I loved your show and love it still but you are being wascally…Leftists? What about people too far on either extreme?
    Also I think that it is more than fair to bash Bush and hold the fool acountable, (if you can indeed hold a fool accountable). Doesn’t mean that I disagree with all Republicans. Infact many Republicans disagree with Bush.
    I would and many libs might vote Republican depending on the candidate. I would vote for Powell (as long as Armitage was VP 😉 )
    Maybe even Rice, but she may have been too tainted by this awful awful adminstration. She is toeing the party line but she is not what she currently is projecting. Again that doesnt mean conservative thought is corrupt.
    Agree? or no?

    still reading through this enormous thread…later

  131. Gourney,

    You know, its getting bad when I agree with most of what you wrote. Note something, there are often points of agreement even between seemingly opposing parties. I used to have long arguments with a IWW (Wobbly) atheist. We had atheism in common, of course (my kind of people), and after each long argument we found many areas of agreement. If people want antagonism, it’s easy to generate, the rigid do it quite well, but to find the commonalities takes work and decency mixed with charity.

    And when you read this thread, be aware, I felt I was dancing with the mentally ill.

  133. Maybe we should triangulate Ariel!

    Yes the thread got quite carried away, not toooo badly I guess, hard to follow yes.

    I don’t think that comments should be deleted though.

    Maybe we should unthread here and thread to the new as they (might)say.

    Especially the French!!!!Lol They’ll end up another Robin Williams joke.

  135. It’s happening again…I wrote that the Euros will probably turn extreme at some stage…

    esp the french…
    it’s all in the delivery as you can tell……

  139. The liberal Anonymous of course!
    I think the one who worked for the NYT…(of course of course). Well the one who has got facts at his/her fingertips,
    but I think that unless you’re just doing a one time post you should not be allowed to use Anon, cause its annoying…lol it gives the post a veneer of objectivity!…

    Justin – So you posted and became Anonymous?

    Checked out yr site, interesting, you really into languages hmm? Nice.

  140. Somehow, I feel like Puck, wrapping up after the actors have left the stage …

    But, for the audience:

    Bugs:Would you say that left and right are observing the same phenomena, recognizing the same facts, but coming to different conclusions?

    No, actually, I wouldn’t. Each side has its own set of very carefully nurtured and pruned facts, ignoring some phenomena that the other considers essential.

    Seems to me like the left view is (to simplify): A is true, B is true, C isn’t working, therefore the logical thing to do is give up.

    The right view tends to be: A is true, B is true, C isn’t working, therefore the logical thing to do is to keep trying C until it does work.

    Actually, let’s step back one administration. I think the left thought C was working, but after 9/11, Bush and those who agree with him believed C had been a massive failure and turned to D. D is exactly what the left defines as failure and hoped to avoid, and they would be quite happy going back to C.

    What’s E? I don’t know, but I hope a pint of stout is involved.

    Goodnight, all!

  141. Justin – So you posted and became Anonymous?

    Yeah. Which is really strange. Normally when web browser caches choke they forget EVERYTHING you had entered on a page, rather than just one item.

    Checked out yr site, interesting, you really into languages hmm? Nice.

    Yeah. For some reason I just became really interested in languages like a year ago. Since then I’ve learned some about Ancient Greek, German, Old English, and Finnish. With most languages I’m not so interested in being able to speak the languages as I’m curious about how the basic mechanics/grammar of the languages work, but I have learned enough about Spanish, Latin, and Japanese to be able to comprehend them moderately, if I have a dictionary handy. 😛 Spanish is the only one of those that I’ve ever had any training in (took it in high school, although my knowledge has gone downhill since then).

    Speaking of language, it must suck to be a non-native English speaker reading my stuff. I was reading an essay I wrote on a test recently, and realizing how ridiculously complex the grammatical structures in my formal writing are; hopefully my casual writing isn’t that bad 😛

  143. Guess I’m puck now.
    I regret my post of 11.04.06 – 3:02 pm
    It was silly and uncalled for. And I apologize to all who had to read the last infantile sentence.
    Justin, in your post of 11.04.06 – 5:17 pm you did a much better job than I of nailing Mark the dogmatic atheist to the wall. His use of words really threw me for a loop. It was definitely creepy.

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