Don’t Burn the Bible, Or This Kitten Gets It
[Guest post by Aaron Worthing; if you have tips, please send them here. Or by Twitter @AaronWorthing.]
Strap yourselves in, because this is a long one. But hey, Rule 5 is in effect!
So on March 20, Terry Jones, a pastor in Florida, burnt a Koran had a Koran burned after finding it guilty of being an evil book that promotes violence. The burning of the Koran in condemnation for its alleged violence then prompted three days of rioting and several people killed since last Friday by people incapable of recognizing irony or the simple fact that they were making his point. I thought that everyone would understand who was and was not responsible for that, but apparently not.
Now let me start by saying that any person who doesn’t burn a Koran and don’t want others to burn a Koran because they consider it rude and they are nice people and they don’t like to do that sort of thing, more power to you. But everyone who says, “don’t burn the Koran because those nutty Muslims might kill people” are getting it profoundly wrong, starting with Joe Klein:
Jones has a right to burn the Koran. And Rick Warren has a right–no, more than a right: a moral responsibly–to blast Jones for the nitwit bigot he is, and to rally mainstream evangelicals against this profoundly disgusting, and extremely dangerous, act. Warren tries to stay out of the political spotlight and he is to be admired for that. But this is different and, as David Petraeus warned last time Jones threatened this sort of unChristian behavior, not just the lives of unarmed UN and other aid workers, but also of American troops, are at stake.
But there should be no confusion about this: Jones’s act was murderous as any suicide bomber’s. If there is a hell, he’s just guaranteed himself an afterlifetime membership.
And we had Harry Reid declare for some reason that there should maybe should be hearings on the matter:
We’ll– we’ll take a look at this, of course. John Kerry, the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, has been on top of this. He’s made many trips to Afghanistan. And I think we’ll take a look at this as to whether we need hearings or not, I don’t know.
And in the same program Sen. Lindsay Graham said:
You know I wish we could find some way to– to– to hold people accountable. Free speech is a great idea but we’re in a war. During World War II, you had limits on what you could say if it would inspire the enemy. So burning a Koran is a terrible thing. But it doesn’t justify killing someone. Burning a bible would be a terrible thing but it doesn’t justify murder. But having said that, any time we can push back here in America against actions like this that put our troops at risk we ought to do it. So I look forward to working with Senator Kerry and Reid and others to condemn this, condemn violence all over the world based in the name of religion. But General Petraeus understands better than anybody else in America what happens when something like this is done in our country. And he was right to condemn it. And I think Congress would be right to reinforce what General Petraeus said.
Graham later doubled down:
I don’t believe that killing someone is an appropriate reaction to burning the Koran, the Bible, or anything else, like I said Sunday; but those who believe that free speech allows you to burn the flag, I disagree. Those who want free speech to allow you to go to a funeral and picket a family, and giving more misery to their lives than they have already suffered, I disagree. And if I could do something about behavior that puts our troops at risk, I would. But in this case, you probably can’t. It’s not about the Koran; it’s about putting our troops at risk. And I think all of us owe the troops the support we’re capable of giving.
So he doesn’t think he can ban it, but he would if he thought the law would let him.
The logic is very simple. Everyone knew that if he did this thing that violence would erupt, therefore he is responsible for the violence, right?
Well, with surprising frequency, we can cite Abraham Lincoln as guidance as indeed he faced a very similar situation. In 1860, long before he was the Republican nominee for President, he confronted fears that this union would break if the nation dared elect a Republican president, addressing his remarks to the South:
But you will not abide the election of a Republican president! In that supposed event, you say, you will destroy the Union; and then, you say, the great crime of having destroyed it will be upon us! That is [clever]. A highwayman holds a pistol to my ear, and mutters through his teeth, “[Give me your money], or I shall kill you, and then you will be a murderer!”
To be sure, what the robber demanded of me – my money – was my own; and I had a clear right to keep it; but it was no more my own than my vote is my own; and the threat of death to me, to extort my money, and the threat of destruction to the Union, to extort my vote, can scarcely be distinguished in principle.
(Old-timey slang replaced with modern language.) The metaphor works perfectly. What the robber demanded of Lincoln—his money—was his own and he had a clear right to keep it. But it was no more his own than my God-given right to freedom of speech and freedom of religion is my own, and the threat of death to extort Lincoln’s money, and the threat of death to strangers to extort my silence, can scarcely be distinguished in principle.
A more thoughtful response, meanwhile, comes from James Taranto of the Wall St. Journal. He confronted this excellent argument by Mollie Hemmingway:
Basically, no matter how short the skirt the girl’s wearing, she doesn’t deserve to be raped. I always thought it was also wise to dress modestly but that wasn’t the point. The point was that the rapist is responsible for the rape, not the victim or society.
Murdering people who have nothing to do with the Koran burning is another animal from rape entirely, but it is still surprising to me to see how the media suggests that the pastor who oversaw the Koran burning–Terry Jones–is responsible for murders he didn’t commit. . . . Clearly the media is focused on the “short skirt” angle to this case.
And this is how he responded:
There are two big problems with this analogy. First, burning a Koran is an offense against Muslims, just as burning an American flag is an offense against Americans. It is not merely imprudent but morally objectionable. That does not justify a violent reaction, but it does make the provocation different in kind from that of a rape victim’s wearing a short skirt. A better analogy might be to an adulterous wife who is murdered by her cuckolded husband. He is guilty of a serious crime, but it is also true that she wronged him.
I’ll get to the second difference in a moment, but let’s tear apart that first one. James, in case you haven’t been paying attention for the last… thirty years, everything is an offense against radical Muslims. This is an offense:
So is this:
Indeed, even this is:
So does drinking. So does seeing eye dogs. So does Piglet. Indeed, opposing laws that would impose death for blasphemy apparently can result in death. In case you missed it, for the radicals, it’s the religion of perpetual outrage and offense. Everything pisses them off, James, including you, me, and anyone else not being a Muslim.
The fact is Terry Jones didn’t hurt a soul. No actual people were burnt along with that Koran, unlike the girls in a Saudi school who burned to death because they were not allowed to leave the building in an “indecent” state. And to assign blame to Jones, validates their psychosis. They are told that not only is this considered normal behavior, but it gets results. Not that they are likely to know or care about what you or I say, but they are likely to notice Senators Reid and Graham.
And that brings me to James the second point:
Second, Terry Jones is not a victim. He is safe in Florida; the people who were killed in retaliation for his offense–including, according to Agence France-Presse, “four Nepalese, one Swedish, one Norwegian and one Romanian worker”–had nothing to do with it.
Okay, then James, you have to tell us that you believe in socialism. Or the kitten gets it:
I suppose if you don’t care much for animals, I can threaten the life of a child instead, possibly even someone you love. I mean if all it takes to coerce a person into silence is to threaten a third party, then our freedom is tenuous indeed.
(Note: to slow people, like Charles Johnson, I am engaged in a hypothetical. No actual kittens or people are being threatened, although I am not sure I can say that about the site I took that photo from.)
In the end, James, we have to pay attention not just to the situation right in front of us but the incentives we are creating. Today they say, “don’t burn a Koran or the kitten gets it.” Tomorrow it’s don’t vote Republican/Democrat or the kitten gets it. Or don’t speak out against the president. So the correct response is to live brave lives where we say what is on our minds, with only the most limited restrictions on freedom (like you can’t reveal troop positions live on TV, Geraldo) and of course our own self-imposed limitations on taste.
Finally, I don’t buy the argument that this hurts our war effort, either. As Mark Steyn wrote, this betrays a lack of confidence in our own superior culture:
The reason we’re losing this thing is because of a lack of cultural confidence, of which the fetal cringe of this worthless husk out-parodies anything Coward could have concocted. When I’m speaking on this subject, I often get asked to reprise the words I quote in my book, from Gen. Sir Charles Napier in India explaining to the locals his position on suttee — the tradition of burning widows on the funeral pyres of their husbands. General Napier was impeccably multicultural:
You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows.You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours.
In the absence of cultural confidence overseas, we are expending blood and treasure building an Afghanistan fit only for pederasts, tribal heroin cartels, and the blood-soaked savages of Mazar e-Sharif. In the absence of cultural confidence at home, we are sending the message that the bedrock principles of free, pluralist societies will bend and crumble in a vain race to keep up with the ever touchier sensitivities of the perpetually aggrieved. Claire Berlinski has it right: The real “racists” here are not this no-name pastor and his minimal flock but Reid, Graham, and the Times — for they assume that a significant proportion of Muslims are not responsible human beings but animals no more capable of rational behavior than the tiger who mauled Siegfried’s Roy. If that is true, certain consequences follow therefrom. The abandonment of the First Amendment is not one of them.
We will not win this war by appeasement.
Of course I might be blinded by my own biases and experiences, but I will end by quoting from South Park on the Mohammed Cartoon controversy:
Freedom of speech is at stake here, don’t you all see? If anything, we should all make cartoons of Mohammed and show the terrorists and the extremists that we are all united in the belief that every person has a right to say what they want. Look people, it’s been really easy for us to stand up for free speech lately. For the past few decades, we haven’t had to risk anything to defend it. One of those times is right now. And if we aren’t willing to risk what we have now, then we just believe in free speech, but won’t defend it.
Don’t just believe in free speech. Defend it. Or at the very least, don’t let the bastards bully you into silence.
Update: Newtons bit in the comments points out that Paster Jones didn’t personally burn it, but instead ordered it burnt. The post has been appropriately corrected. And also corrected for embarrassing error about Lincoln’s biography.
[Posted and authored by Aaron Worthing.]
if we think really hard can we think of a way to hold Princess Lindsey accountable?
I bet we can.
happyfeet (71628d) — 4/4/2011 @ 6:33 pmEveryone knew that if he did this thing that violence would erupt, therefore he is responsible for the violence, right?
Well, no. Because it’s possible that people who would respond violently might never have heard of it.
Now, we do know that media reports of actions against the Koran will provoke violence, even if the reports are not true (Newsweek, May 2005). Therefore, shouldn’t responsibility belong to the media outlets that reported the burning?
malclave (1db6c5) — 4/4/2011 @ 6:41 pmTherefore, shouldn’t responsibility belong to the media outlets that reported the burning?
I suppose they’ll be held to the same level of responsibility as was Newsweek over its phony reports of flushed Korans at Gitmo.
AD-RtR/OS! (965f73) — 4/4/2011 @ 6:50 pmOne thing I’m pretty sure of is that people who kill over affronts to their religion are either not confident about their religion or they are ordinary people in difficult circumstances and easily swayed by manipulative people.
Ag80 (98fa24) — 4/4/2011 @ 6:58 pmmal
read the whole thing. i agree basically with you.
Aaron Worthing (73a7ea) — 4/4/2011 @ 7:00 pmWell, malclave, even Newsweek deserves to operate free of ‘the murderer’s veto’ (ace).
Though, of course you have a point. The MSM acts as though Mulsims have no moral choice capability, but they are the ones who are most responsible for the stimulus that they claim forces them to murder people.
By their rules, they are to blame.
I’m tempted to have an Everyone Burn the Quran blog, but like Ace, I am afraid I allow the murderer’s veto to apply to me.
Dustin (c16eca) — 4/4/2011 @ 7:01 pmThere is a failure of logic, moral fibre (as the Brits used to call it when they referred to cowards) and historical awareness. The Afghan morons could not have learned about the Koran burning if Karzai had not decided to show that he is leaving our team. The cartoon controversy was similarly contrived, as was the Newsweak nonsense about flushing Korans down composting toilets that have no water.
I wrote over a year ago, that we should get out of Afghanistan. This week, Powerline came out with something similar .
These people are little changed from the time of Alexander the Great. Steven Pressfield has written a novel about Alexander and makes the point that nothing has changed but the weapons.
It is not Terry Jones fault that primitive people who are devotees of a primitive and violent religion will kill people to avenge slights they don’t even know about. These are people who will stone women to death for rapes. They will not allow kites to be flown or music to be played. We cannot make these people into modern middle class citizens of a free country.
We smashed the Taliban. We can do it again. It is not worth the lives of our troops and our national treasure to try to make these people something they are not and will never be. It is not defeat to recognize this. As we make this decision, we should also make quite clear that Pakistan is the enabler (as modern social theory states) and it will be held responsible. By being turned into a parking lot if necessary.
Mike K (8f3f19) — 4/4/2011 @ 7:02 pmIt is not worth the lives of our troops and our national treasure to try to make these people something they are not and will never be.
Maybe even more importantly: not only something they are not and will never be, but something they do not want to be either.
We are sacrificing the lives of young American men and women for what?
Dana (9f3823) — 4/4/2011 @ 7:07 pmwe should stay in Afghanistan and put a bullet in Karzai’s head to where he dies and then we should build some roads and a supermarket where people can buy tasty illy issimo caffe and pretzel chips and Bret Michaels Trop-A-Rocka Snapple and fajitas. Then we should legalize heroin and kill some Taliban whether they are in Afghanistan or Pakistan. After that we can get missionaries from various and sundry non-violent Christian faiths to stamp out the Afghans’ backwards religion. We can stigmatize the practice of the native religion and give out tasty strawberry cupcakes from Famous Cupcakes to the people who can recite the most bible versus by heart. Then we can start a auditions for Afghani Idol and even an Afghan version of Glee!
See the problem with our efforts in Afghanistan has been an utter and complete inability to visualize success. It’s a crisis of imagination. But it’s really not that hard you just have to try.
happyfeet (71628d) — 4/4/2011 @ 7:14 pmjust *start auditions* I mean
happyfeet (71628d) — 4/4/2011 @ 7:15 pmDustin
> I’m tempted to have an Everyone Burn the Quran blog
if you do that, i will contribute.
But bluntly if they start holding hearings, I will start doing it on the old everyone draw mohammed blog.
Aaron Worthing (73a7ea) — 4/4/2011 @ 7:21 pmI think they drink tea over there, pikachu, but the Cupcake Manifesto, soon to be another Robert Ludlum
narciso (b545d5) — 4/4/2011 @ 7:21 pmtale, has promise.
________________________________________
The vicious behavior of followers of Islam should be puzzling to all of us. Nothing in that religion’s history, particularly that of its founder, would suggest violent actions are to be expected.
The instigators of, as one example, 9-11 would have been so alien and bizarre to Mohammed. He’d have been horrified. And the Afghans who murdered the UN workers? Mohammed would have been appalled.
As-Salamu Alaykum.
(That goes double for “useful idiots” — virtually all of the left — like Joe Klein.)
Mark (411533) — 4/4/2011 @ 7:26 pm“It’s a crisis of imagination. But it’s really not that hard you just have to try.”
Mr. Feets – Journaling about it would help I think. I know it helps me.
daleyrocks (9b57b3) — 4/4/2011 @ 7:35 pmSomebody somewhere burned a Koran.
I gotta go kill some people.
Look what that dude made me do!
_________________________________
Remarkably like progressive thinking.
daleyrocks (9b57b3) — 4/4/2011 @ 7:37 pmActually, this sounds like a good business opportunity.
“Send me $10.00 bucks and I will burn
a Koran for you. Not only that, I will post the digital recording to the net, as well as post your reasons for joining in the fun, and for an
extra $1.50, allow you make your own personal
dedication.”
Don’t thank me. I’m just willing to do the jobs that our Senators won’t do.
Jack (f9fe53) — 4/4/2011 @ 7:39 pmLincoln’s analogy, though good, doesn’t quite reflect what has happened here.
What would be better is if the robber sent a letter to Lincoln, told him to forward all of his cash, or the he (the robber) would go murder the nearest bearded man with a top hat.
There is a great post from a forum I post on that I’m going to quote here. Please note that the last paragraph is mocking the liberals, not agreeing with them:
I think it sums up the hypocrisy of the left quite well.
Newtons.Bit (b78b37) — 4/4/2011 @ 7:40 pm1. As malclave pointed out above, it wasn’t Terry Jones burning the Koran that enraged these Moslems; it was the press reporting that he’d done so. So if we must monkey with the first amendment and ban some conduct to avoid a repetition of the murders, then surely it’s the reporting that we should ban, rather than the burning. And if it’s claimed that Jones should have restrained himself and voluntarily refrained from exercising his right to burn the Koran, then by the exact same argument the press should have restrained themselves from publishing the news. Had they all boycotted the story (as they are so good at boycotting stories that it doesn’t suit them to report), none of this would have happened. And had he known he would get no publicity, he would never have done it in the first place.
As for the morality of the act itself, just because the First Amendment means the government can’t distinguish between religions doesn’t mean we shouldn’t. Not all religions are equally worthy of respect, and as Mark says Islam is one that richly deserves to be held in contempt. It is, in Louis Farrakhan’s words, a gutter religion. Yes, there are millions of peaceful, civilised Moslems; but it is they, not the terrorists and jihadists, who are living a perversion of the True Islam, as taught by Mohammed. If Mohammed were to return from the dead he’d have no problem with Osama bin Laden; whereas Jesus wouldn’t give the Crusaders the time of day.
Milhouse (ea66e3) — 4/4/2011 @ 7:40 pmWhile I doubt that many here are great fans of Wodehouse’s Psmith, Journalist, I have no doubt that the quote:
is correct and appropriate to this post.
And if you don’t read your Wodehouse, you won’t grow up big and strong.
Uncle Pinky (8c0966) — 4/4/2011 @ 7:43 pmAaron, I appreciate your thoughtful and sincere nod to those of us who believe that we don’t have to speak offensively in order to defend or justify or assert our free speech rights.
Your photos reminded me of something I posted back in October 2003 about a young woman originally from Afghanistan who was competing in a beauty contest as “Miss Afghanistan.” I still notice that post getting a dozen or more hits each week through Google or other search engines when people from all over the world — including some majority-Muslim countries — searching on that term. No one has ever threatened me or tried to bully me into taking it down, and I wouldn’t if they did, regardless of their reasoning.
But I didn’t post it with the intention of offending anyone, even though it — and especially the bikini photos in it, although they’re quite modest by western standards — obviously has that potential. And I still don’t agree that it’s a prudent strategy to “push back” against intolerance with deliberate offense-giving.
Beldar (cd529f) — 4/4/2011 @ 7:43 pmAnd just a point of fact, Jones didn’t actually burn it. Pastor Wayne Sapp did. Jones was in attendance.
Newtons.Bit (b78b37) — 4/4/2011 @ 7:44 pmthanks newton’s, and corrected.
Aaron Worthing (73a7ea) — 4/4/2011 @ 7:55 pmNot to pick nits, but Lincoln’s highwayman analogy is from his Cooper Union Speech, given Feb. 27, 1860. The Republicans nominated him for President not long after that (in May, 1860).
melanerpes (5c0dda) — 4/4/2011 @ 7:56 pmYou know what? F**k Afghanistan. Every US military member out by Friday, and they can go all go to hell.
F**k all of them.
Scott Jacobs (d027b8) — 4/4/2011 @ 8:01 pmThis is a rather lengthy post and very broad in scope. That it’s all packed into a single post makes it difficult to focus on the whole and not the separate parts that are troubling… but this struck me from the get-go:
Who does Klein think he is that he can determine that one man, Rick Warren is morally obligated to bring Terry Jones to his knees?
Rick Warren is a private citizen not employed by the government.
It would seem if any Christian should be charged with the task of taking this nitwit bigot to the woodshed, and to rally mainstream evangelicals against this profoundly disgusting, and extremely dangerous act, it should be the pastor on the WH payroll (Director of the WH Faith and Neighborhood Initiatives, Joshua DuBois).
From the second sentence, Klein reveals he is less concerned with the insanity that rages through ME and the push for squelching freedoms here, and more concerned with seeing evangelicals schooled in what he believes is the moral high ground. The irony being, of course, he takes the moral low road to push his own narrow-minded bigotry against a select group of Americans.
Dana (9f3823) — 4/4/2011 @ 8:01 pmAs Aaron mentioned in the post, the radicals are perpetually offended and outraged by a great number of things, but mostly, I suspect, by our brazen nerve to exist and live as non-Muslims.
So really, it doesn’t matter if it’s Piglet that offends, or seeing eye dogs, or wearing a bikini, or anything else because the blunt fact that we exist and don’t believe is their built-in justification for violence.
You can break it down into the particulars that offend or leave it at the whole which offends. Either way, infidels always come up short.
Dana (9f3823) — 4/4/2011 @ 8:10 pmmel
thanks for nitpicking, and that is what i get for going on memory. corrected.
Aaron Worthing (73a7ea) — 4/4/2011 @ 8:22 pmI don’t know, Dana. I think they are outraged because their religion is based on being outraged. Even if the entire planet became Muslim tomorrow and the USA and Israel were sucked into a black hole, the Islamofascists would be outraged because they simply must be outraged.
This leads to the same conclusions your views do, though. We can’t appease them. They can’t even appease themselves.
If there was a global virus that left 5 Islamofascists as the only remaining human beings, they would all be outraged at eachother.
Dustin (c16eca) — 4/4/2011 @ 8:27 pmIslam is a religion of evil it must be considered a hate crime or we will all rue the day.
DohBiden (984d23) — 4/4/2011 @ 8:33 pmIslam is NOT a religion of evil just some of it is very redneck.
happyfeet (71628d) — 4/4/2011 @ 8:37 pmHow the hell is islam redneck you knucklehead?
And yes it is dumbshat.
DohBiden (984d23) — 4/4/2011 @ 8:42 pmMazar e-Sharif should be utterly flattened by B52s and artillery fire. Leave nothing standing and no one alive. This is what they understand. They must learn a hard lesson; act like animals and they will be put down like animals. They will never love us, that doesn’t matter, but they need to fear us.
cubanbob (409ac2) — 4/4/2011 @ 8:42 pmAnd yes it is evil i mean.
DohBiden (984d23) — 4/4/2011 @ 8:43 pmthere’s a huge contingent of igmos in islam just like there’s a huge contingent of igmos in christianity … the islam rednecks suffer a lot more though from the cultural poverty of their little countries plus a culture what is impregnated with a readiness to violence what doesn’t get sublimated by other stuff like it does in most other places
happyfeet (71628d) — 4/4/2011 @ 8:50 pmplus a lot of them don’t have a very good selection of premium ice cream available they probably mostly get the blue bunny in the 10-gallon bucket and call it good
happyfeet (71628d) — 4/4/2011 @ 8:51 pmDustin, if you are correct, then that makes all efforts at appeasement even more ridiculous and pathetic than originally thought. (Lindsay Graham, I’m talking to you.)
Dana (9f3823) — 4/4/2011 @ 8:53 pmWell, perhaps the ice cream is part of it, but also I think the lack of available wives, and therefore happy families, is another element of the cultural poverty. In many middle eastern countries, wealthy men obtain multiple wives, leaving a lot of men single and angry.
We’re a too good to indiscriminately bomb a city of Muslims just because a few are horrible, and I’m not sure leaving Afghanistan is in our interests either (though if we aren’t going to win, maybe it is).
I do think we need to figure out if winning hearts and minds is possible. I don’t think it is unless we directly target Islamofascism as wrong. That argument can be easily made. Propaganda against Muhammad’s pedophile nature, against Islam’s contradictions, about the failure of Islam to handle a fair fight with the West…
I’m thinking of the kinds of rhetoric we would pump into Japan or Germany in WWII. Are we pumping that kind of rhetoric into backwards societies? They think Jews make blood pastries. Do we tell them that is so stupid anyone who believes that is an imbecile?
They are killing people at the drop of a hat, so perhaps we should get some mileage out of it.
Dustin (c16eca) — 4/4/2011 @ 8:58 pmhappyfeet, ironically, the hub loves Blue Bunny. It’s an emergency in our home if he opens the freezer and there’s no Blue Bunny. An immediate trip to the market is required. (which is where he just returned from!)
Dana (9f3823) — 4/4/2011 @ 9:01 pmhey cletus let’s go burn us a ko-ran! Daddy! Daddy! What’s a two dollar beeeyul? Cletus says he got a two dollar beeeyul!
Daddy?
Daddy!
What’s a two dollar beeeyul?
happyfeet (71628d) — 4/4/2011 @ 9:02 pmDana, here’s an example.
Note that the targeted include “Muslim sects they consider heretical.” And please notice what I’m sure you’ve noticed years ago: the sleazy politicians claim the violence came from Americans Agents. Not that this is relevant to our discussion, but every traffic jam in Tehran is blamed on Jews or the British. I hate to generalize, but the one thing the middle east needs more of is societies taking responsibility for themselves.
Dustin (c16eca) — 4/4/2011 @ 9:03 pmsorry that’s just the only one I can think of what comes in a big tub I know not all of it comes like that
but for reals like those “five” ones from Haagen-Dazs are really tasty and I think a lot of your average jihadists are deprived of tasty premium ice creams like that just cause of they don’t get distributed in the Afghan hinterlands
happyfeet (71628d) — 4/4/2011 @ 9:04 pmWith all due respect, Islam is not a religion of evil. If it were it would not be one of the largest religions in the world.
It offers a just life for its followers if they follow simple rules. It does not allow deviance from its rules. It is a religion of purity.
By its nature, it cannot tolerate dissent. All who believe have to believe absolutely. Otherwise, it no longer can exist as a belief system. It can not, nor will it allow, any discussion otherwise.
That doesn’t make it evil, but it does make it insidious.
At some point the West will have to make a decision that trying to fight absolutism is a lost cause and trying to drag ancient beliefs into the 21st Century may be best left to the dynamics of the modern world, rather than direct action.
Ag80 (98fa24) — 4/4/2011 @ 9:07 pmI agree Mr. Dustin we have been very very timid culturally and the fact of the matter is we’re American and our culture is cool and theirs sucks ass.
happyfeet (71628d) — 4/4/2011 @ 9:08 pmIslam is a cult and it needs to branded as such.
DohBiden (984d23) — 4/4/2011 @ 9:09 pmSince Islam proscribes alcohol Muslims have proxy drinking games: Every time a koran gets burned they take a life.
pinandpuller (ac62c3) — 4/4/2011 @ 9:09 pmIf I grant that Islam is a cult, it is a darned big cult. That doesn’t diminish the problem of its radical members.
Ag80 (98fa24) — 4/4/2011 @ 9:15 pm“With all due respect, Islam is not a religion of evil. If it were it would not be one of the largest religions in the world.
It offers a just life for its followers if they follow simple rules. It does not allow deviance from its rules. It is a religion of purity.
By its nature, it cannot tolerate dissent. All who believe have to believe absolutely. Otherwise, it no longer can exist as a belief system. It can not, nor will it allow, any discussion otherwise.
That doesn’t make it evil, but it does make it insidious.”
The way you portray it Ag80, Islam sounds a lot like Amway.
pinandpuller (ac62c3) — 4/4/2011 @ 9:20 pmWhat choice do we have? If we ignore them, we lose more buildings, or even cities, as they are gradually getting closer to nuking somebody.
I think planting seeds of doubt will inflame the already deranged, but it can work wonders. I think our PC culture gives so much sensitivity and deference to Islam that Muslims get the idea their religion deserves that. It’s like the bully who trips a kid, who then is very respectful.
I don’t think we have a choice but to be directly focused on the war on terror, as difficult as it is. I think we should constantly compare their completely idiotic society to our own slightly stupid society. What hopelessly single Muslim man, contemplating violence, afraid of the Jewish conspiracy to make his bubblegum lose flavor quickly, wouldn’t love to have the life of an American man? He just doesn’t know it yet, but that’s basically what a lot of Americans want for him. The first thing I think we need to do is mock their faith, and that’s also the last thing we’re willing to do.
Dustin (c16eca) — 4/4/2011 @ 9:23 pmIt is a lot like Amway. Except without the capitalism part.
Amway likes to make money, as does Islam, but with Islam, you can’t charge interest.
Ag80 (98fa24) — 4/4/2011 @ 9:26 pm“I’d like to propose a quick test: I’ll burn a Bible, a Koran, a copy of Chevy Power magazine, a Talmud, a U.S. flag, a Book of Mormon, and a Lakers jersey. We’ll see how many UN aid workers each one kills.”
From Tam.
SPQR (26be8b) — 4/4/2011 @ 9:26 pmIslam is a vile religion founded by a pedophile.
DohBiden (984d23) — 4/4/2011 @ 9:28 pmLA Lakers fans can be pretty intense.
Dustin (c16eca) — 4/4/2011 @ 9:30 pmDustin:
I think people want to protect their self-interests. At some point, people tend to say: what?
Hence the current unrest in the Middle East.
The Israeli bogeyman is outlasting it’s usefulness.
Ag80 (98fa24) — 4/4/2011 @ 9:33 pmJoe Klein makes me want to puke.
Dave Surls (f8f178) — 4/4/2011 @ 9:46 pmLittle John and George Lopez engaging in an obama lovefest on lopez tonight.
Get a room guys 🙄
DohBiden (984d23) — 4/4/2011 @ 9:51 pmThe more critical point here is that this whole mindset is wrong on another entire, objective level.
Look into the developments in the last 50-odd years on the idea of the Iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma.
On the whole, it proves that
1) The Jews Were Right: “An Eye for an Eye” is the right general strategy. “Tit-for-tat”.
2) Gandhi was Wrong: “An eye for an eye only winds up making the whole world blind”. Gandhi was only successful because he was dealing with the essentially decent Brits, and not the Nazis or their moral equivalents.
The Muslims commit outrage after outrage, and we “turn the other cheek”.
Jones is right, even though probably for the wrong reasons.
It’s about damned time to play tit for tat.
We need to burn a Koran for each and every one of the people killed by Islam.
We need to wrap a Koran with an artist’s drawing of Mohamed F***ing and being f***ed by a pig — a pork sandwich, as it were, cover THAT with pig feces, and THEN burn it. And flush the ashes and remnants down a toilet.
>:(
For every single solitary person killed by ISLAM for religious reasons.
IgotBupkis, President, United Anarchist Society (c9dcd8) — 4/4/2011 @ 9:51 pmBurn a koran and chuckles the idiot sides with the muslims.
DohBiden (984d23) — 4/4/2011 @ 9:52 pmIrrelevant correction: Except that the Jews have always understood that as “[the value of] an eye for an eye”, i.e. that the assailant must make the victim whole. Jewish law has never provided for actually putting out the eye of an assailant. The only true “tit-for-tat” provisions in Jewish law are for murder, and for conspiracy to give false testimony against someone.
Milhouse (ea66e3) — 4/4/2011 @ 10:07 pmGen. Petraeus’ speech made me want to puke. This surely marks the end of our civilization.
9/11 was the First Sack of Rome. I can’t imagine what’s next.
William Tecumseh Sherman (0131bf) — 4/4/2011 @ 10:18 pmOops, that was me.
Patricia (0131bf) — 4/4/2011 @ 10:19 pm__________________________________________
there’s a huge contingent of igmos in islam just like there’s a huge contingent of igmos in christianity
Oh, there’s that bit of moral relativism or moral equivalence cropping up, sort of like George W Bush saying, right after 9-11, that Islam was a “religion of peace.”
Due to my ignorance at the time and until not too long ago, I actually fell for such BS. IOW, I wasn’t aware of just how ruthless and violent Islam’s founder was. I assumed his background and history were somewhat parallel to that of Christ’s. Oops.
And, yes, there have been fanatics tied to Christianity and horrible things have been done in the name of Christ. But such people and their behavior could not be held up for closer inspection and characterized as reminiscent of the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. By contrast, it’s difficult to place the bloodthirsty terrorists of 9-11, etc, against the backdrop of Mohamed without concluding that such Islamicists are not all that far removed from their prophet’s MO, from his history as a vengeful warrior.
Mark (411533) — 4/4/2011 @ 10:22 pmMike K posits that Afghanistan could be turned into a “parking lot”.
AD-RtR/OS! (965f73) — 4/4/2011 @ 10:41 pmHow much better would the world be if the Poppy Fields were replaced by a Mushroom Garden?
If you take the time to compare the God of the Bible to Allah of the Koran, I believe you will discover they are not one and the same.
navyvet (db5856) — 4/4/2011 @ 10:43 pm_____________________________________________
I think our PC culture gives so much sensitivity and deference to Islam that Muslims get the idea their religion deserves that.
You know things have truly gone off the deep end in this country — in the Western World in general — based on assessments like the following. IOW, if conservatives are guilty of PC BS, imagine how much worse things are right now with all the ultra-liberals in the White House and throughout DC:
Beyond this crap fest of PC run amok, I’m reminded of how Islam and many of its devout followers are like a weird mix of ultra-conservatism (very chauvinistic, clannish, sexist, traditionalist, etc) and ultra-liberalism (lots of pity parties, pro-victimization, jealousy towards the success of others, a ridiculous, sickening lack of common sense). It’s truly the WORST of both worlds.
Mark (411533) — 4/4/2011 @ 10:46 pmThankfully, you have a great point.
It shouldn’t surprise me that Islam wasn’t built to last, and people do eventually resist. Sadly, I’m not all that confident that they will recognize the reason they are miserable, but you still have a point.
Dustin (c16eca) — 4/4/2011 @ 11:00 pmIt matters little what the majority of muslims believe if they keep it to themselves. Most Germans didn’t want more war and a police state, but they were intimidated into keeping quiet until it was too late.
When it comes to reading their scriptures, the extremists have plenty to back their interpretations, but the “moderate, peaceful” believers must rely on ignoring their holy works.
Estragon (ec6a4b) — 4/4/2011 @ 11:01 pmSounds like Mohammed had Henry II beat to all hell in the “Who will [kill] this annoying person for me?” exclamation business.
deepelemblues (a78b16) — 4/4/2011 @ 11:02 pmwe need to burn korans, mock, insult and depict mohamed, (piss be upon him), routinely and relentlessly in well publicized events that are glowingly trumpeted to the masses of the islamic mob until either the head bangers become desensitized to the events, and thus stop overreacting, or they kill themselves off in paroxysms of rage.
if they stop over reacting, they will be on the first step to what the rest of us consider civilization, and there may be hope for them after all.
if they kill themselves off, it will be no great loss to civilization.
redc1c4 (fb8750) — 4/4/2011 @ 11:21 pmand, i forgot to add, i’m okay with either outcome.
redc1c4 (fb8750) — 4/4/2011 @ 11:22 pmIf you’ve already read at least four or five other books on Lincoln, I recommend to you Harry Holzer’s “Lincoln at Cooper Union: The Speech That Made Abraham Lincoln President.” I’m sure you can find it at Amazon.com through Patterico’s link in the sidebar.
Beldar (cd529f) — 4/5/2011 @ 1:36 am(And if you haven’t read four or five books about Lincoln, you really should!)
Beldar (cd529f) — 4/5/2011 @ 1:37 amAaron:
I think you have it backwards, and Ace has it right. The only argument for someone who strongly disagrees with the Qu’ran NOT doing this is innocent people get killed. Otherwise, there is nothing wrong whatsoever with protesting against symbols you disagree with, including burning them, provided you own the copy you burn.
But this isn’t just a symbol: this is a description of and user manual for some major world-class evil, as evil as the Bible. I think it’s appropriate to burn it if one wishes.
Christoph (8ec277) — 4/5/2011 @ 2:09 amI believe that I could stop war with islamist overnight.
raugaj (bda54f) — 4/5/2011 @ 3:28 amLet’s make it known that all of our cartridges are coated with lard.
Tell me why that wouldn’t work. A head shot with a bacon wrapped piece of metal leaves little time for cleansing and little hope for hook ups with 72 virgins.
These days they’d come up with a fatwa in about 30 minutes about how barbaric we are and martyrs killed with pig-bullets get 317 virgins instead of 72.
deepelemblues (a78b16) — 4/5/2011 @ 3:51 amraugaj (#71), you know about the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857, in which tens of thousands died? Its trigger was a rumor that “the paper cartridges that were standard issue with the [new Enfield] rifle were greased with lard (pork fat) which was regarded as unclean by Muslims, or tallow (beef fat), regarded as anathema to Hindus.”
So no, I don’t think that would stop the current problems. You probably already know about this and were joking anyway, eh?
Beldar (cd529f) — 4/5/2011 @ 4:07 amThis site is just another Joos conspiracy of Great Satan Zionists. Praise be to Allah and his Prophet Mohammed, may dogs urinate on his beard and pigs defecate in his mouth.
cedarhill (01711d) — 4/5/2011 @ 4:31 amBeldar- your link is not really 100% apt and may even make my point a bit. The sepoy didn’t want to bite the lard coated ammo as it was “unclean” and that was a small part of a long festering list. Their reluctance to bite the cartridges somewhat makes my point.
raugaj (bda54f) — 4/5/2011 @ 4:33 amAs to whether or not I’m kidding- really more being farcical. America is not about to use a tactic like this. That doesn’t mean that I don’t like the idea.
I yearn for a leader that would embrace any approach that would identify our enemy and seek to quash him without considering offenses to sensibilities.
Not the same thing, Beldar. Those were our soldiers (well, the UK’s) outraged at being tricked into handling an unclean substance. Naturally they’d object to firing such bullets. This is about enemy soldiers who will no longer be quite so eager to be shot with those bullets, if they believe them to be unclean. The appropriate analogy is to the Moro Rebellion, when the USA forces used to wrap dead Moros in pig skin and stuff their mouths with pork, with apparent success.
Milhouse (ea66e3) — 4/5/2011 @ 4:34 amAt the risk of high-jacking the thread with a previous offhand comment, I will say that I was unaware of the Moro Rebellion, but am starting to think that I wasn’t farcical afterall. Hard to argue with the fact that stuffing pork in the mouths of the Moros put a stop to the suicide attacks.
raugaj (bda54f) — 4/5/2011 @ 5:00 amWell, we don’t actually know how well it worked, if at all.
Milhouse (ea66e3) — 4/5/2011 @ 5:18 amBeldar
Thanks for the recommendation. you know me well enough to know i know alot of civil war history. but that one is new to me.
raug
> Tell me why that wouldn’t work. A head shot with a bacon wrapped piece of metal
well, the downside is that we might eat the bullets. 🙂
Aaron Worthing (e7d72e) — 4/5/2011 @ 5:35 amI believe that the anti-war protests in the United States gave encouragement to the Viet Cong and the Iraqi insurgents, such encouragement leading to the deaths of American soldiers.
So, based on that belief, can we, to use the esteemed Senator Graham’s formulation, arrest the organizers and participants in those marches, as well as the media which broadcast them, and hold them accountable for the deaths of those American soldiers?
The inquisitive Dana (3e4784) — 4/5/2011 @ 6:07 amdana
to be fair to graham, i don’t think graham is a hypocrite. i think he is dubious on speech generally.
but there are lots of people who would look very bad if we held them accountable for everything they said that might endanger our troops.
Aaron Worthing (e7d72e) — 4/5/2011 @ 6:23 amPrincess Lindsey makes flag burning a fun idea
happyfeet (71628d) — 4/5/2011 @ 6:28 amAaron: Holzer’s book puts the Cooper Union speech into a very rich context, and taught me some interesting stuff I didn’t know about not only Lincoln and the origins of the Civil War, but the origins of the Republican Party and how it came to put Lincoln into the White House. I read it back to back with Doris Kearns Goodwin’s “Team of Rivals” and was thoroughly sated — for about six weeks. 🙂
Beldar (cd529f) — 4/5/2011 @ 6:36 ambeldar
the cooper’s union speech is an underappreciated classic. one thing that david donald brought to fore in his biography of lincoln was that lincoln had an interesting dynamic. he had what can be best described as a “western hick” voice, one that is stereotyped as “stupid.” So during the cooper’s union address and many others, it started with people thinking, “who the hell is this hick?” But then they noticed that despite the accent, he was saying something really smart. they realized he was a “diamond in the rough” and that won them over.
Aaron Worthing (e7d72e) — 4/5/2011 @ 6:44 amYeah. The thing that was silly about “draw Mohammed” was that freedom of speech — if you really gave it some thought — wasn’t truly “at stake” and it was never seriously threatened. So “draw Mohammad” was just an excuse to act like a d*uchebag, much in the same way that Paster Jones acted.
But the violent reaction from radical Muslims is, of course, condemnable. Respecting one’s religion is one thing, but it doesn’t compel me (or anyone) to respect another’s religious taboos.
Kman (5576bf) — 4/5/2011 @ 7:30 amKman
> The thing that was silly about “draw Mohammed” was that freedom of speech — if you really gave it some thought — wasn’t truly “at stake” and it was never seriously threatened.
Its amazing. Revolution islam used threats of death to convince comedy central to censor itself and you saw no threat to freedom of speech. To this day most newspapers have not run the danish cartoons, but move along, nothing to see here.
you have to be willfully ignorant of reality to ignore the threat to freedom of speech and religion.
> So “draw Mohammad” was just an excuse to act like a d*uchebag
you on the other hand need no excuse.
Aaron Worthing (e7d72e) — 4/5/2011 @ 7:35 amKman
Btw, do you think Theo van Gogh would agree with you about the issue of whether freedom of speech is being threatened in the West?
Its amazing that they kill people that criticize them and intimidate others into silence based on those killings, but you don’t see any problem whatsoever.
I guess the obsessive weirdo is back.
Aaron Worthing (e7d72e) — 4/5/2011 @ 7:42 amSelf-censorship isn’t a “freedom of speech” issue. LOTS of people are afraid to speak out on LOTS of subjects for fear of reprisal (for example, a worker might be afraid to criticize his/her boss and/or company policy… or a man might be afraid to tell his sig other that, yes, her butt does look fat in that).
But let’s not pump our chest up, wrap ourselves in the flag, and pretend these are First Amendment issues.
I think his chief complaint would be about being killed, rather than being unable to speak.
Did I say that? Ever?
Kman (5576bf) — 4/5/2011 @ 7:59 amI posted an article in Usenet on this subject.
As I pointed out.
And
It is important to note that out of a billion Muslims, only a few thousand in one city decided to react murderously. Other demonstrations against the Quran burning were as peaceful as the typical anti-war protest.
Michael Ejercito (64388b) — 4/5/2011 @ 8:07 amKman
> Self-censorship isn’t a “freedom of speech” issue
Anything that reduces your freedom is a freedom issue. I don’t know why you think that private violence is a problem.
And in any case you are drawing a douchy distinction. You know I am talking about censorship by private violence. So why bother making this douchy point?
Oh, because you are a douche.
Seriously, so according to you this is how it works.
The government says “if you say this, we will kill you” and this is a problem.
But if AQ says “if you say this, we will kill you” this is not a problem. Or at least not a matter of freedom of speech.
> pretend these are First Amendment issues.
Well, thank God I didn’t actually say “First Amendment.” You make fun of my dyslexia, but my reading comprehension beats yours any day of the week.
> I think his chief complaint would be about being killed, rather than being unable to speak.
Well, gosh, its too bad he isn’t around to say that. And actually I think his chief complaint if we could run a séance on him is that he was killed in order to silence him and intimidate others into silence.
> Did I say that? Ever?
When you say freedom of speech is not at stake, yeah, that is what you are saying. Maybe you are too stupid to actually realize the ordinary meaning of your words. If you want to plead “stupid” I will accept that. But yeah, that is what you are saying, stalker-boi.
Aaron Worthing (e7d72e) — 4/5/2011 @ 8:12 ammichael
crude, but i like it (language warning at the link).
Of course in your taylor swift example, they would be debating whether her dresses were too short.
And, btw, i suspect that is close to what happened with jodie foster and hinkley. i mean hinkley shot reagan to impress foster. so did he try to reach out to her, first, say, “be my girlfriend or i will shoot ronnie to impress you!”? i honestly don’t know, but i am willing to bet she had some level of warning he might do something like this.
Aaron Worthing (e7d72e) — 4/5/2011 @ 8:17 amI have an idea! Let’s say to the radical Muslim world “If you want us to behave to you in a civilized fashion, then you must return that courtesy. If you behave like violent animals to us, so we will behave toward you …. and we are better at it.”
C. S. P. Schofield (8b1968) — 4/5/2011 @ 8:28 amLOL. This from the guy who threatens to ban commenters when they say something he doesn’t like.
Look, the freedom to speak does not mean — and has never meant — that one can be free from the consequences of his/her speech. My point is that everyday, in any number of situations, we are each faced with the choice to speak (and face the consequences), or not to speak. And sometimes we do, and sometimes we don’t.
Obviously, it shouldn’t be the case that people get killed over cartoons… or words, or ideas. But if you’re intentionally doing something provocative — like burning a Koran, or a flag, or a cross — don’t whine about your free speech when the response is the one you were trying to elicit and/or could foresee in the first place.
Kman (5576bf) — 4/5/2011 @ 8:32 amKman: suggesting there isn’t a serious problem when there is an extremely serious problem. As if Aaron needed any help.
Dustin (c16eca) — 4/5/2011 @ 8:33 amI missed the part where the pastor was “whining about his free speech,” Kman. Do you have a source for that?
carlitos (00428f) — 4/5/2011 @ 8:34 amAaron has never done that, Kman. He tries to engage everyone. He wishes you were banned because you’ve been following him for 9 years, and it’s extremely creepy. In the short time I’ve been paying attention, I’ve noticed you like to reference real life issues of Aaron’s in a strange way, too.
You are stalking him, but you are aware of Patterico’s rules and carefully stay on this side of them. It is hilarious that you’re pretending Aaron would ban someone for mere disagreement.
Dustin (c16eca) — 4/5/2011 @ 8:35 amThe God of the Bible ordered the genocide of Amalek (1 Samuel 15).
Did Allah of the Quran order genocide?
Michael Ejercito (64388b) — 4/5/2011 @ 8:43 amKman
> This from the guy who threatens to ban commenters when they say something he doesn’t like.
That’s a lie, Kman, and you know it.
> Look, the freedom to speak does not mean — and has never meant — that one can be free from the consequences of his/her speech
No, freedom of speech is the right to speak freely without being physically punished or killed, whether by the state or private violence. And to rational people that is what it has ALWAYS meant.
Seriously, in germany, long before hitler came to power those who might have spoken out against him were silenced. Not by gestapo thugs–that came later when hitler actually was in power. No, by private groups called the brownshirts.
And in the south, after the civil war, they didn’t use the law to overthrow democracy. they used the KKK and the red shirts.
But you think private violence is not a problem. Its sad that you have such a cramped concept of freedom. But not terribly surprising.
Aaron Worthing (e7d72e) — 4/5/2011 @ 8:45 amI was referring not just to him, but his defenders. Inartfully worded.
Kman (5576bf) — 4/5/2011 @ 8:49 amMichael, it’s God’s world, and He can order anything He likes. But God never spoke to Mohammed, or authorised any of his crimes.
Milhouse (ea66e3) — 4/5/2011 @ 8:52 amCristoph, that is very douchy equivalence making, and it certainly isn’t Ace’s POV. Obviously you are trying to troll up a reaction.
You also clearly did not read this post and Ace’s well enough to understand them. Ace and Aaron agree on the issue of moral responsibility for inflaming nutty Muslims (it’s on them). Aaron’s comment that some will not want to burn the Quran because they personally find that rude is also not in conflict with Ace’s point.
They both also agree that the Muslims want a murderer’s veto, and insofar as they disagree, it’s the way Ace openly acknowledges that he is persuaded against inflaming their violence by their murderer’s veto, and Aaron says we must resist it instead.
So rather than a fundamental disagreement, they agree for the most part on the morality of the situation, and disagree on whether we should resist.
It’s particularly odd that you go off the rails lecturing Aaron that burning Qurans is good speech, and in my book, you’re even douchier than normal to refuse to accept that someone might find burning a Quran to be an ugly thing to do. You’re wrong about the Bible and the Quran. They are not purely evil, and burning someone’s religious text is very insulting. You deny that because of moral cowardice.
When Aaron defends burning the Quran, or drawing Muhammad, he isn’t a coward: he admits this hurts some feelings. He is willing to ‘break some eggs’ because he wants to make a statement the he stands for free speech, rather than the Cristoph statement of religious intolerance. You have completely misunderstood the issue here.
It’s not Islam itself Aaron is intolerant of, but just the murders in response to unwanted speech.
Dustin (c16eca) — 4/5/2011 @ 8:55 amFair enough.
God’s might makes right.
Michael Ejercito (64388b) — 4/5/2011 @ 8:56 amThis whole “God vs. Allah” thing leaves out a whole lot of Gods. Thor is not pleased; I’d keep your head down during the lightning strikes.
carlitos (00428f) — 4/5/2011 @ 8:57 amNo. Just the evil parts are evil.
carlitos (00428f) — 4/5/2011 @ 8:59 amcarlitos, yes, there are evil parts in both books.
And I realize it’s out of step to talk about good Muslims (I know some).
I’m not trying to claim I’m offended that someone would disrespect either book. That’s freedom of choice, and I think without it the entire concept of faith is denied.
My point was both that Cristoph was trying to be a douche troll to throw the Bible in as evil, and also that this completely misses Aaron’s point. He isn’t drawing Muhammad because he is intolerant of Islam. Telling him some other religion is just as bad as Islam completely misses his point. He is intolerant of the murderer’s veto to free speech.
Ace does dance around a bit whether we can hold the murderers responsible for what they did, but he does this as an intellectual exercise. It’s not hard to see that he and Aaron, place direct moral responsibility in the same place.
Dustin (c16eca) — 4/5/2011 @ 9:07 amNot His might, but the fact that the world and everyone in it belongs to Him. And the fact that He created the very concepts of right and wrong, and He created our reason that lets us distinguish them, so obeying His orders is definition right.
Milhouse (ea66e3) — 4/5/2011 @ 9:07 amMilhouse,
Since God doesn’t do email, you have to trust your local God representative to tell you the orders. Don’t you see the flaw in this process? The orders that are “by definition right” come to you through human beings. In Pakistan, those guys issue “orders” to kill the infidel using the same logic as yours. God “told” them that those were the orders.
carlitos (00428f) — 4/5/2011 @ 9:16 amRather, some think they have access to God via prayer and their God given personal conscience. I don’t wish to speak for Milhouse, but I know murdering people in God’s name is wrong because God built me to know it is wrong. When I read the Quran, especially the later parts of it, it is in stark contrast with my sense of justice. The old testament is as well, but much of the new testament, especially in how it discusses the old, works.
I think many religious people have some version of this explanation. Somehow they claim to have special access, via their soul or prayer or God leading them or whatever, to their religious views. They often aren’t merely trusting their local God representative.
At any rate, my point is that people who take religion to an extreme are defective. They should have some ground rules built-in to their hearts and minds, and if they are religious, they should associate that code with God’s guidance.
Dustin (c16eca) — 4/5/2011 @ 9:21 am____________________________________________
don’t whine about your free speech when the response is the one you were trying to elicit and/or could foresee in the first place.
But be honest. If the players were reversed, and the outraged — meaning the Islamcists — weren’t associated with a non-Western, Third-World society and religion (“such sad, noble, sympathetic underdogs!!!”), and, in turn, the instigators — the book burners — weren’t associated with the Western World (“my heart doesn’t bleed for greedy imperialists, racists, capitalists!!”), you wouldn’t find your pangs to rationalize and make excuses about the situation quite so intact.
If there is any good that may come out of this socio-cultural quagmire, it will be that some of those on the effete left throughout the West will be bitten in the butt the hardest if particular trends — Islamicization (meaning a peculiar type of ultra-rightism) — continue on and come to an illogical, pathetic end. Or a situation in which growing portions of Europe and North America become subtle variations of Iran following the fall of the Shah or quite possibly (or likely?) Egypt after Mubarak.
Mark (411533) — 4/5/2011 @ 9:23 amGood points Dustin. I’d add that people who take anything (not just religion) to an extreme are probably defective.
I read somewhere that psychotics served a purpose in the gene pool, due to the nature of man’s existence in primitive times. Someone had to do the fighting, after all. As society matures, we have to collectively figure out how to manage these folks out of the mainstream.
carlitos (00428f) — 4/5/2011 @ 9:31 amSo true!
If it were some ridiculously unlikely major Republican who got violent whenever someone disrespected Jesus, Kman would not tell people ‘do not whine, you could foresee that reaction!!!!!!!’ when this guy reacted to the protestors.
Kman is desperately clawing for any argument to oppose Aaron, of course, but it’s good that you focused on this one. He’s adjusting his moral compass out of personal creepy hatred.
You can’t resist someone who is violently evil without expecting some ugly feedback.
In other words, never oppose the concept of violent censorship. Kman said so. If you do, it’s all your fault now. We no longer get to have peaceful protests. Rosa Parks: she had no right to whine about a reaction she expected to occur. That wasn’t bravery, that was her fault. MLK: no whining that he risked his life, because he knew that was coming.
Kman’s ability to say absolutely anything he can think of in order to disagree with Aaron is pretty amusing, but obviously it’s also really sad.
Dustin (c16eca) — 4/5/2011 @ 9:32 amI love how the majority of people who have a problem with chris christie giving taxes to millionaires are the same people who don’t pay their taxes.
on topic-I like how the usual suspects at hot air[Blatantblue and Nickderinger] insist muslims are not to blame whenever they go on a rampage.
DohBiden (984d23) — 4/5/2011 @ 9:36 amPastor Terry Jones isn’t Rosa Parks or MLK. Take some time to figure out what the difference is, and, assuming you’re successful, THEN you’ll understand my position.
Kman (5576bf) — 4/5/2011 @ 9:41 am_______________________________________
in order to disagree with Aaron is pretty amusing
Dustin, that would be one thing, but I imagine Kman is illustrating something far worse: the ass-backwards and phony nature of a strain of liberal sentiment, referring to the biases of far too many people on the left.
I’ll give you an example of what I’m referring to. Right after the Fort Hood massacre, a person in my workplace who is a big “leftie,” a major fan of Obama and Democrats/liberals in general (and who knows my political stance on most issues) — before leaving the office to run an errand — looked at me and with a smirky grin said “Assalamu alaikum.”
I don’t really mind such folks on the left if they at least don’t delude themselves into believing their ideology conveys upon them a glow of humaneness and compassion.
Mark (411533) — 4/5/2011 @ 9:45 amI understand your position really well, Kman. I know you don’t intend to bash Rosa Parks, of course. What you intend to do is lie about right and wrong.
You didn’t really mean this. That’s my point. It’s absolutely stupid and ad hoc, based entirely on your creepy obsession with saying the opposite of whatever Aaron says.
You don’t really think it’s wrong to whine about responses you could foresee, or that a protestor who intended to draw out a response is always giving up their right to complain about that response.
But you did say that, and if we apply that to situations, it is clearly an asinine concept. It’s even an evil concept, Kman. Your reaction to my pointing this out is to vaguely warn me to figure out what you really meant, but I quoted you, jackass.
Dustin (c16eca) — 4/5/2011 @ 9:46 amAt the very least, Kman shows a willingness to abandon any principle for the tiniest chance to get Aaron’s attention again.
Say, Kman, you say you are in favor of dissent, and that this blog is an echo chamber. May I please comment on your blog, or even know its url, in dissent of the views I disagree with, or is Mark right that you are phoney about your principles?
Dustin (c16eca) — 4/5/2011 @ 9:51 amAnd
Um, no. We know what God wants because He told us, not through any representative, or through subjective feelings, but directly. Unlike the Koran, which rests on the word of one madman who claimed that Gabriel appeared to him, the original Bible rests on God appearing in person to the entire nation, over a million men, women, and children. None of them could have any doubt that God was real, or that Moshe’s accounts of their conversations were correct. There was no relying on anyone else’s word. So when He told them to wipe out Amalek, they knew that this was what He wanted. And faced with that evidence, any subjective squeamish feelings had to give way.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, but when you have that evidence you must follow it.
Milhouse (ea66e3) — 4/5/2011 @ 9:58 amI’m not the topic.
Please try harder to get over your obsession with me, your amateurish psychoanalytical profiles of me, your amusing theories about what my motivations are, my blog, etc. If it’s boring to me, I’m sure it’s boring to others.
Thanks.
Kman (5576bf) — 4/5/2011 @ 10:05 amOK, but what’s your evidence? You are telling me you believe a religious story because that story is about extraordinary evidence, but this is circular logic. What’s your evidence that the story about extraordinary evidence is true?
I think you dismissed my explanation a little too quickly. I think a lot of people would say they believe such a story because their deity somehow touched them personally in a way they interpret as support for that story or religion or ‘God representative’.
No, many Jews and Christians and others believe that story because they have faith. None of them can prove it. If God and his actions were explainable with the evidence at hand, it would be science rather than religion.
Dustin (c16eca) — 4/5/2011 @ 10:06 amThis is a discussion thread, Kman. When you make an absurd point, don’t complain that people are going to explain why it’s absurd. When you do this over and over and over again, don’t be surprised when people come to mock you for your pattern.
You called this blog an echo chamber, and then you do all you can to prevent readers here from discussing your behavior on your blog because you are ashamed of yourself.
sorry, Kman, you lost the argument yet again. If you would stop knee jerk opposition, you wouldn’t say so many absurd things.
Dustin (c16eca) — 4/5/2011 @ 10:09 amKman don’t project troll.
BTW i like how you ignorant liberals insist burning the koran is not protected by the 1st amendment. So much for being liberals.
DohBiden (984d23) — 4/5/2011 @ 10:09 amAmen. Saying that the bible is true because it says so in the bible is circular logic. The Koran says it is true too, just like the Völsunga Saga, the Tao-te-ching and the Vedas. This “my religion is better than your religion because mine is real and yours isn’t” thing always leads to trouble.
carlitos (00428f) — 4/5/2011 @ 10:15 amCarlitos the bible is not the koran so please shut your ignorant paulnut mouth.
DohBiden (984d23) — 4/5/2011 @ 10:18 amI did not say that the Koran was the bible, and I am certainly not ignorant. And what’s a paulnut?
carlitos (00428f) — 4/5/2011 @ 10:20 amSorry………BTW a paulnut is someone who worsips ron paul no matter what.
I apologize for jumping to conclusions.
DohBiden (984d23) — 4/5/2011 @ 10:21 amworships*
DohBiden (984d23) — 4/5/2011 @ 10:22 amThanks.
I think that I share the opinion of our esteemed host regarding Ron Paul – I can’t bring myself to support him, despite the fiscal restraint. He’s too nuts for me.
carlitos (00428f) — 4/5/2011 @ 10:25 amcarlitos, I do think Milhouse makes a great distinction, however, between how the Quran is entirely via one prophet, and the Bible or Talmud is via the experiences of a lot of authors. Setting aside the additional aspect of stories where God interacted with a large number of witnesses, I think the multiple authors aspect of the New Testament and the texts of Judaism is a very interesting distinction that forces the reader to deal with contradictions and interpretations in a way I personally find preferable to how the Quran can be interpreted.
When there’s a contradiction in the Quran, generally the latter texts prevail (which is particularly bothersome as the Quran gets worse as you go along).
But beyond that, it’s all Muhammad’s dictation. I find that to be weak.
Dustin (c16eca) — 4/5/2011 @ 10:26 amAccording to Kmans ilk Burning the bible is free speech but burning the Koran not so much.
So much for them proclaming to be liberals.
DohBiden (984d23) — 4/5/2011 @ 10:32 amSomebody above said “we are too good” to bomb Muslims back into the stone age.
We are not too good, and we are not suicidal; we just don’t think we have to yet. Must be human nature to practice denial about problems. Bury head in sand, hope it goes away, then try half measures, then make excuses, etc. etc.
The efforts to postpone then tame war just make it worse when it breaks out. We will bomb hell out of somebody again, when we are out of choices, and wring our hands over it for generations. Something kind of futile about it all.
Why can I never make it here before (guess who) ruins the thread?
jodetoad (7720fb) — 4/5/2011 @ 10:44 amDustin
> It’s not Islam itself Aaron is intolerant of, but just the murders in response to unwanted speech.
I am really intolerant… of intolerance.
> yes, there are evil parts in both books.
Whether the books are bad or good is beside the point, really. I don’t care if they were burning a copy of the Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr. (available on the left through amazon—buy one today!) I don’t care if it is a klan rally burning MLK in effigy, the only justifiable limitation might be content-neutral public burning regulations.
Carl
> Thor is not pleased
How does he feel about his new movie? 🙂
Mark
> But be honest. If the players were reversed
They were indeed with the P-ss Christ. No one was beheaded, but some people were pretty peeved about forcing the taxpayers to pay for it. Which is the chutzpah of it. liberals went to the mat on that one saying that art that is blasphemous to christianity should not only be tolerated, but paid for by the taxpayer. This kind of hypocrisy makes me wonder if it had to do with who was being blasphemed, and perhaps how sharp the relevant scimitars were.
I mean either they were more supportive of the p-ss Christ because they hate Christians, or love Muslims, or are scared of Muslims. There is no fourth explanation.
Kman
> Take some time to figure out what the difference is
There are differences, but not any that are relevant. For instance, was it a government sniper that shot King? Is he any less silent having been shot by a private citizen?
I mean when Gabby Giffords got shot I thought that was a direct affront to democracy. And you seemed to agree. But now suddenly private violence to silence people is NO BIG DEAL.
Care to actually point to a relevant difference instead of pretending you have credibility with anyone?
And I missed this gem:
> don’t whine about your free speech when the response is the one you were trying to elicit and/or could foresee in the first place.
So MLK’s family should not lament his death? Because Dr. King very much saw that bullet coming. I mean not literally that particular bullet, but he knew what happened to civil rights leaders. Anyone who reads his biography (available from Amazon on the left sidebar!) will hear him frequently talk about the possibility that he or his family would die.
And I suppose we shouldn’t mourn Shahbaz Bhatti, either.
You are a moral desert sometimes, Kman.
> I’m not the topic.
Since you made my tolerance of other people’s speech a topic, I think asking you to subject yourself to the same scrutiny is fair game. You lie and claim I threaten to ban people I don’t like. But you clearly exclude Dustin entirely. Now why is that?
Doh
> BTW a paulnut is someone who wors[h]ips ron paul no matter what.
what if they worship his son instead?
Aaron Worthing (e7d72e) — 4/5/2011 @ 10:44 amjode
sorry about the thread ruiner.
Aaron Worthing (e7d72e) — 4/5/2011 @ 10:45 amor the holy paul ghost
happyfeet (a55ba0) — 4/5/2011 @ 10:50 am______________________________________
it’s all Muhammad’s dictation
I rarely notice people — in the media, blogosphere, casual conversations, etc — noting just how ruthless and vengeful Muhammad was. Some of that is due to the ignorance I myself was guilty of until not too many years ago. Of course, some of that is also because followers of Islam don’t want to admit that their theology is corrupt at its core, meaning the background of Islam’s founder. And then some of that is due to the tears of “progressives” who find it difficult to criticize anything associated with the “underdog”—ie, the sad, dejected, put-upon, noble, long-suffering people of the Middle East/Third World.
Mark (411533) — 4/5/2011 @ 10:50 amLet me focus my comment.
Muhammad took up the task of explaining a lot of morality. How to do business, how to be a good person, etc.
and
and
But he dictated this over 23 years. He started in 610 in a cave. In 613, his followers were fleeing persecution. In 622, he assembled various tribes into an army and ‘returned’ to Medina to kick some asses. Between 622 and the last revelations from Allah in 632, Muhammad conquered the Arabian peninsula.
So his project changed from setting down some ideas about morality, to resisting persecution, to taking over. And when he contradicted his own writings, the latter verses prevail.
This is a lot different from Moses and the Ten Commandments. You have many more commandments, but you proceed through Judaism or Christianity with the idea that there are fundamental laws.
Muhammad kept adding to his religion until he died. I don’t think even he thought he did a very good job with it. For example, when his wife was accused of adultery, he got a phone call from Allah to change the religion to require four witnesses.
Instead of various authors weaving their ideas together, as difficult as that is, we have one guy constantly fiddling with his religion as it changes from oppressed to oppressor.
Dustin (c16eca) — 4/5/2011 @ 10:50 amI hear more and more of this lately. This is one of Obama’s greatest failures. we have lost faith in our cultural superiority, or the idea we can win the middle east over to western civilization concepts of democracy or what I consider moral decency.
A few years ago more of us were confident (though certainly it wasn’t like we were cocky) that Iraq could succeed so much that the rest of the Middle East followed over time. Obama has failed to follow through as a leader, and that makes Jodetoad right that we could eventually resort to a much harsher conclusion to this conflict.
As Jode says, we are running out of choices.
Dustin (c16eca) — 4/5/2011 @ 10:56 am____________________________________________
I mean either they were more supportive of the p-ss Christ because they hate Christians, or love Muslims, or are scared of Muslims.
I suspect a lot of the POV of folks on the left originates from the same ass-backwards biases that make them spend more time worrying about — as one example — the way society treats convicted murderers than the way it deals with the victims of such killers.
Again, it’s both laughable and sickening because a variety of these liberals undoubtedly believe their ideology is embedded in humane, beautiful, wonderful, loving sentiments.
Mark (411533) — 4/5/2011 @ 10:57 amMichael Ejercito and Dustin claimed that the Bible was evil, or contained evil parts, and was thus no more worthy of respect than the Koran. Michael gave a specific example: the genocide of Amalek. So I pointed out that the people who carried out that genocide had the necessary evidence that God had ordered them to do it. I’m not called on to do anything like that, so I don’t need that level of evidence.
As for how I know it’s true, it’s because at the beginning of Deuteronomy Moshe tells the older members of his audience “I’m not talking to your children, who don’t remember these events, but to you, who were there and personally witnessed them, so you know they’re true. And I’m charging you to pass it on to your descendants, and tell them what you saw and heard, so they’ll know it’s true, and will pass it on in their turn.” I know it’s true because it was passed on to me.
There is no time since Sinai at which this extraordinary story could have been made up and introduced, because it rests on the testimony of an entire nation. If you were to come across a claim that something happened in China 3300 years ago, you’d have no way to confirm it; but if someone were to tell you that some enormously extraordinary thing happened to your own great-great-grandparents, all 16 of them, the first thing you’d do would be to wonder why your parents and grandparents never thought to mention it. So you’d check with them, if they were still alive, and ask whether their parents and grandparents had ever told them of such a thing. And if they hadn’t, you’d wonder why not, if it were true.
So when an entire nation hands down a story from generation to generation, along with the confirmation that this really happened to them, that itself is strong evidence that it’s true. This is especially so when that nation is characterised by their stubbornness and skepticism, by their refusal to accept newfangled beliefs that their ancestors didn’t hand down. So how did they come to believe this story, if it weren’t true?
This may not add up to absolute proof of the sort that the first few generations had, but as I said we don’t need that sort of proof, because we’re not called on to do things that require it. The people who were told to wipe out Amalek needed absolute proof that the order came from God, and they had it.
Milhouse (ea66e3) — 4/5/2011 @ 11:01 amWhat if they worship his son instead?
If they worship him based upon his fiscal issues than cool.
DohBiden (984d23) — 4/5/2011 @ 11:04 amdustin
imho, as a matter of faith, i do not believe the koran is God’s word.
And bluntly i reason in a very john calvin way that God would have nothing to do with this b*stard mohammed. calvinists like to say, if you assume that God is all knowing and all powerful, what would you expect form him. An all powerful, all knowing and basically good God would see what Mohammed planned for Aisha, and prevented it. i won’t say how. Perhaps he would have cracked thunder and said from the clouds, “do not dare touch that child.” or maybe he would have, ahem, made mohammed physically incapable of performing the deed (if you know what I mean). Or maybe God would have just found someone else to be his prophet. I won’t presume to know all the details, but God would not have tolerated the leader of his faith raping a 9 year old girl.
Which is irrelevant to the discussion. I don’t care if the issue is a satanist burning the bible. Or burning a copy of the constitution or the declaration of independance (although i am concerned with obama metaphorically burning the constitution). if you want to follow a barbaric child rapist that is your right as long as you don’t follow his example in that respect. but your right to believe doesn’t negate my freedom.
Aaron Worthing (e7d72e) — 4/5/2011 @ 11:07 am_________________________________________
You shall not commit adultery. Surely it is a shameful deed and an evil way.
He probably was mainly concerned with a husband looking like a cuckold, nothing more, nothing less.
The following text is from a site that actually cites negative characterizations of Mohamed in order to create a moral equivalence with the history of Judaism. IOW, a kind of “yea, my guy was rotten, but so was yours!”
Mark (411533) — 4/5/2011 @ 11:07 amDustin
> We will bomb hell out of somebody again
I say it over and over again: Chamberlain made things worse. if england had listened to churchhill all along, WWII either wouldn’t have happened, or it would have been a minor war on par with operation desert storm. Germany would have been stomped for its insolence and that would have been the end of it. oh, and of course churchill would have been branded by history as an evil warmonger picking on poor little germany instead of the savior he would have been in that scenario.
Aaron Worthing (e7d72e) — 4/5/2011 @ 11:10 amNo, that’s not at all what I said.
I did say there was evil in the Bible, but I believe the Bible can be interpreted intelligently. I believe it is Holy.
The Bible was written by men, though inspired by God, and it isn’t perfect. Don’t misunderstand me, if I’ve been unclear. I do not think the Quran and the Christian Bible or the Talmud are on the same moral level.
Not by any stretch. However, I do not think even my own religious texts are perfect.
Dustin (c16eca) — 4/5/2011 @ 11:14 amAnd even if you did you have the right to say your opinion.
DohBiden (984d23) — 4/5/2011 @ 11:18 amThe original Bible (the first five books), though, was not written by men, so the same considerations don’t apply.
Milhouse (ea66e3) — 4/5/2011 @ 11:19 amThis is completely true. To understand Muhammad is to disrespect him. He is no Moses or Jesus.
For a long time, when I read the Quran or think about Muhammad, I cannot resist picturing L Ron Hubbard in a turban on a comedy sitcom. I realize this is dismissing the bloodshed, but that’s how I picture him, and it’s very amusing. Here’s the 40 year old guy in a cave trying to get his life on track, so he makes up a religion… only… he can’t read or write. That’s funny. Mark mentions Aisha… a lot of Muhammad’s marriages were political. When she was accused of adultery, and Muhammad had the convenient revelation that adultery required 4 witnesses, that must have been pretty hilarious in some respects. It’s the most unusual burden imaginable for such a private offense, and it’s so lax towards the accused it would make Johnny Cochran look like Ed Begley in Hang ’em High. But it was politically extremely convenient for Muhammad, and as he explained it to his bandit/warlords, the head scratching was probably not very public. I’d insert a laugh track, but the long term consequences aren’t nearly that funny.
Milhouse, to understand David or Solomon is to understand how men have to choose between evil and good. I think you can generalize this to the entire project of religion. Religion is distinct from a personal relationship with God or your faith or even morality. Religion is a social practice comprised of flawed people. When I say the Bible has some evil in it, that was not meant to express a condemnation, but rather a fact of life.
In fact, I specifically ridiculed someone for saying the Quran and the Bible are on the same moral level far up in this thread.
Dustin (c16eca) — 4/5/2011 @ 11:25 amThis is one of Obama’s greatest failures. we have lost faith in our cultural superiority, or the idea we can win the middle east over to western civilization concepts of democracy or what I consider moral decency.
Doesn’t this assume that the ME wants to change and adapt to a form of democracy and/or that they even view it as a desirable outcome? In a tribal culture that still functions with a 7th century Draconian mindset, what makes you believe they (as a collective group) see anything wrong with how they are, thus needing to change? I think if a country has been locked in a tribal culture for centuries, there is a pretty good possibility that they see themselves as morally and culturally superior – not the other way around. We are the ones lacking in their eyes, not them.
Dana (9f3823) — 4/5/2011 @ 11:27 amMay I ask if Milhouse’s take is a mainstream Christian view? I was always a “divinely inspired” type of guy.
carlitos (00428f) — 4/5/2011 @ 11:28 amI thought the oldest books in the bible, such as Job, were oral traditions carried on for a very long time, and thought to be either inspired or the experiences of men.
Dustin (c16eca) — 4/5/2011 @ 11:34 amMillhouse,
It has traditionally been held that the Pentateuch was authored by Moses.
*Exodus 17:14 “Then the Lord instructed Moses, ‘Write this down as a permanent record…'”
*Exodus 24:4 “Then Moses carefully wrote down all the Lord’s instructions.”
*Exodus 34:27 “And the Lord said to Moses, ‘Write down all these instructions, for they represents the terms of my covenant with you and with Israel.'”
Etc.
Dana (9f3823) — 4/5/2011 @ 11:35 amI’am sorry I do not buy the bull that Jones is to blame for a bunch of psychos who kill for every little thing.
DohBiden (984d23) — 4/5/2011 @ 11:39 amDana, that makes Moshe the stenographer, not the Author.
Milhouse (ea66e3) — 4/5/2011 @ 11:42 amMilhouse, I think one issue is that Moses was a man. It’s not a secret he was imperfect, which is essential to his great life story.
If all your stenographers are imperfect men, who reassemble and translate your books (particularly a problem for Christians like me), you have to allow for problems. People have a hard time with bias.
If your answer to that is God used his power to maintain the truth, that’s fine, but faith.
Dustin (c16eca) — 4/5/2011 @ 11:45 amMillhouse,
Clearly God chose Moses for the task, resulting in a relationship and intimacy between them that did not exist between Him and others.
Clearly the influence of personality and character of the writers can been seen as well. They were not just machines. One can go through the entire Bible and see this evidenced by comparing the unique writing styles.
Dana (9f3823) — 4/5/2011 @ 11:56 amYes because Conservatives are chauvinists?
Surrrrrrrrrrrrrrre 🙄
DohBiden (984d23) — 4/5/2011 @ 11:59 amKman wrote:
So, if you decide to burn a flag in some protest or join the Fred Phelps clan at one of their lovely parties, and a few bikers decide to kick your candy ass over it, you’d be fine with that, right?
I wonder what Kman thinks women who wear short skirts in public have asked for.
The snarky Dana (3e4784) — 4/5/2011 @ 1:38 pmJodetoad wrote:
I thought that they were already there.
The realistic Dana (3e4784) — 4/5/2011 @ 1:41 pmdana
its like an old norm macdonald joke. “they say we should bomb them back to the stone age. that was like, what? three weeks ago?”
Aaron Worthing (e7d72e) — 4/5/2011 @ 1:42 pmWhatever the opposite of Aaron’s position is. Unless Aaron has recently noted Kman’s knee jerk opposition, at which point he attempts to take the opposite of that position or simply flees the thread (like he did with this thread).
It’s kinda complicated.
Dustin (c16eca) — 4/5/2011 @ 1:51 pmI wouldn’t be FINE with it, but I think I shouldn’t whine about it… if I was intentionally being a provocative douche about it.
I mean, if I was upset at my government, and I decided to burn a flag on the street corner, that’s one thing.
But if I decided to burn a flag just to show I had free speech rights, and I decided to do it in front of the VFW while they were having an outdoor picnic (in other words, if I was being dick-ish about it), then I think — even despite the fact that I have a RIGHT to do what I did — I don’t have much room to whine when I get my ass kicked.
Kman (5576bf) — 4/5/2011 @ 1:56 pmIt is so amusing that Kman is arguing against being a provocative douche.
By your own claims, don’t you think following Aaron around for a decade is douchey? don’t you think emailing him creepy personal stuff is douchey? Don’t you think calling this blog an echo chamber, when you’ve been caught aggressively lying about what people (including yourself) said, among a host of other rude comments, yet you’re still here, is douchey? Dont’ you think calling this blog an echo chamber while forbidding commenters here from commenting on your blog (URL, Please) is douchey?
But half of your comments whine about how people are reacting to you being a creepy jerk. How strange, Kman! It’s as though you didn’t mean what you said about this moral of yours that protestors can’t whine about expected outcomes of brave refusal to back down to thugs.
The truth is that you go out of your way to be a provocative douche, and you also go out of your way to whine that people merely quote your own freaking comments to note they are incorrect.
Dustin (c16eca) — 4/5/2011 @ 2:02 pmDustin
Kman said: “if I was intentionally being a provocative douche”
Wow, how is that for irony. Kman imagining IF he was a provocative douche. i mean you would think that he would stand up for the principle that it is not okay to do physical harm to provocative douches if only for self-preservation. i mean he has been a provocative douche to just about everyone on this blog, especially by making fun of my handicaps.
Aaron Worthing (e7d72e) — 4/5/2011 @ 2:03 pmThat doesn’t hold a candle to his “barren” remark, not that I wish to bring that up. But yes, he loves to reference things in his clever but nasty way. Again, he called this blog an echo chamber, even though he’s proof it goes to an extreme to tolerate dissenting opinions, and even though Kman goes to an extreme to deny dissenting opinions (URL, please).
Regardless, to bring this closer to the target, I’m glad he has a blog and can express any opinion he has. It’s amusing that he censors himself out of shame, but that too is free speech.
Dustin (c16eca) — 4/5/2011 @ 2:06 pmI’ll try more neutral language and maybe (!) Kman will get it.
But if you’re intentionally doing something provocative —- like burning a Koran, or a flag, or a cross —- don’t whine about your free speech when the response is the one you were trying to elicit and/or could foresee in the first place.
Which generated the predictable reply (I was going to use Ghandi myself) :
To which Kman responded thusly:
So what you have there is a textbook case of special pleading.
carlitos (00428f) — 4/5/2011 @ 2:09 pmcarl
its a good point. basically he really only believes in free speech if he likes the message.
Aaron Worthing (e7d72e) — 4/5/2011 @ 2:14 pmMichael Ejercito points to 1 Samuel 15 as an example of equivalency between the Koran and the Bible. I’d like to point out that God gives a reason why He commands Saul to slay Amalek.
In 1 Samuel 15 He says, “I will punish Amalek for what he did to Israel, how he ambushed him on the way when he came up from Egypt.”
Deuteronomy 25:17-18 gives more detail on the ambush, “Remember what Amalek did to you on the way as you were coming out of Egypt, how he met you on the way and attacked your rear ranks, all the stragglers at your rear, when you were tired and weary; and he did not fear God.”
Stragglers at the rear were almost certainly the old and infirm and the very young and their families. I disagree strenuously that the Koran and the Bible are equivalents.
bonhomme (85be17) — 4/5/2011 @ 2:43 pmIf I were to set a flag on fire in front of Veterans than I have every right to whine about those zionazis kicking my ass because i dared to stand up to the man.
FIFY Kman to expose the real you.
DohBiden (984d23) — 4/5/2011 @ 2:55 pmKman wrote:
You wrote this as though there are times you aren’t a provocative douche; has this ever been the case within the past several years?
Of course, in using the terminology you did, surely you realize that characterizing a product meant for women in a derogatory manner puts you out, out, out! amongst Progressives. You are just so denounced!
The sexist pig Dana (5a4fb2) — 4/5/2011 @ 5:49 pmHere is something that disturbs me.
Prosecutorial misconduct, even when it results in the wrongful imprisonment of an innocent man, never results in a violent, let alone murderous, reaction.
Is the Quran really that much more important than the Constitution or justice?
Michael Ejercito (64388b) — 4/5/2011 @ 6:54 pmI wish I had something intellectual to say, but all I could think of is, Why don’t we Photoshop Obama’s face into an Arab burnoose and distribute it as the Prophet Mohammed in the name of Terry Jones?
flataffect (b6610c) — 4/5/2011 @ 9:05 pmMichael, that ruling makes sense as a legal issue. It’s a horrible policy, and the law should be changed, but if the law says you need negligence to sue the government, and Conick employed lawyers to handle an issue, that isn’t negligent because lawyers already know what they need to know.
It’s interesting reading Balko for how he phrases everything in the most aggressive manner possible. he’s very slick, and he usually finds a case with a victim who really did get screwed, but uses that to argue aggressively.
As a legal issue, it’s not negligence when you plan well and yet you still have a disaster.
Let’s hope the law is changed, rather than hoping for activism to ignore the law.
Anyway, I’m having a very hard time seeing your point. You really think the Islamofascists won’t get violent over US Government prosecutions? What exactly leads you to say the Quran is considered more important than the Constitution to anyone but Muslims? I’m just confused about your point.
Dustin (c16eca) — 4/5/2011 @ 9:16 pmDana, the classic Jewish view is that God is literally the author of the Torah (Pentateuch), with Moses merely being the scribe–taking dictation from God, more or less, even to the exact spelling. Christianity, by and large, does not share this.
Jewish tradition, I should mention, has a fairly clear image of a true prophetic experience and how exactly the Old Testament prophets experienced, with certain things being almost univeral among prophets. Mohammed’s visions and auditions of the Q’uranic text match those descriptions closely–for instance, the appearance of an angel at the very beginning.
kishnevi (337084) — 4/5/2011 @ 9:57 pmJewish tradition also acknowledges that some prophetic experiences originate from what the Bible calls “lying spirits”; and Islam acknowledges that Mohammed had at least one episode in which such a lying spirit “revealed” itself (the so called Satanic verses). It’s not far fetched therefore to say that other episodes involving lying spirits occurred, but that Mohammed never discerned them, and allowed the resulting “revelations” to be accepted as Divine in origin.
As a man he may have been imperfect, but that’s irrelevant since he was not the author; unless you claim that one of his faults was that he was bad at taking dictation, and that the Perfect Author didn’t notice and correct his mistakes.
Which is an excellent reason for not relying on translations. We have the original text that Moshe wrote down, at God’s dictation (barring a few spelling errors that may have crept in over time, but that affect neither pronunciation nor meaning). So we can be as certain as we need to be that it’s what God really said and wanted. We aren’t called on today to do anything that would require stronger proof.
Milhouse (ea66e3) — 4/6/2011 @ 1:16 amFrom what I read, the issue was of monetary liability, which required an interpretation of Section 1983.
The ruling is consistent with Van De Kamp v. Goldstein, 555 U.S.___, a unanimous ruling from 2009 holding that Section 1983 did not authorize a district attorney from being personally liable for employees’ official conduct.
If there is an in justice, it is the fault of the Congress for not fashioning an appropriate remedy.
When was the last time someone was murdered in retaliation to the abuses Balko documented?
Michael Ejercito (64388b) — 4/6/2011 @ 1:59 amMaybe you mean something else, but if not, can you please show me this original text? This would probably attract a few museum attendees – the original word of God as written by Moses. I’d love to see that.
carlitos (00428f) — 4/6/2011 @ 7:21 am