Said Mohammed bin Laden
In the Name of God, The Beneficent, The Merciful
Grandfather would have been frustrated. The proclamation of the Caliphate has not yet turned out to be our Deliverance. As you know, dear brother, Grandfather believed in the return to the period of the Rightly Guided Caliphs when the rulers of Islam ruled over an empire as true Defenders of the Faith. He envisaged the Caliphate holding sway again over the Muslim world, reconquering lost lands in Palestine and Asia, and rooting out the infidel Western influences or "globalization" as the Crusaders so euphemistically call it. The spiritual and temporal world would once again be in single obedience to the will of Allah, refuting the West's division of Church and State. In the end, as we've seen, the proclamation has not yet overcome these divisions even if the emergence of the Caliphate has put the fear of Allah in the Crusader powers (and Grandfather would have been pleased at this). Westernization has certainly lost its luster with many Muslims, and the Caliphate has rent asunder a number of contrived nation-states that were figments of the colonizers' imagination.
When I think back on it, I don't know how we missed seeing the emergence of the young Khalifah - but then we were all surprised, believer and infidel. The young preacher suddenly had a worldwide following. Even before he was proclaimed Khalifah, successor to the Prophet peace be upon Him, was revered everywhere among the faithful. Maybe it was because he was not al-Qaeda and had not led a political movement like Grandfather. He appeared all the more spiritual. He wasn't tainted with the unfortunate killings of innocents, which, whether Grandfather admitted it or not, deterred some from supporting al-Qaeda. From Muslim lands halfway around the world in the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, the expressions of allegiance and money came pouring in. Some in the ruling elites also embraced him, hoping to bolster their shaky grip on power. In Europe and America, non-practicing Muslims were awakened to their true identity and faith and, in some cases, left their bewildered Westernized parents to return to their homelands. Even some infidels were impressed with his spirituality; the Pope, for example, tried to initiate an interfaith dialogue with him. And anti-globalizers in the West idolized him. Within a short period, it became clear there was no alternative but to proclaim what so many had yearned for - a new Caliphate.
Oh, what confusion did we sow with the Crusaders. An almost forgotten word reentered the Western lexicon and histories of early Caliphs suddenly rose to be bestsellers on Amazon.com. They had been so smug thinking we had to trudge the same well-worn path behind them toward secularism if not outright conversion to the so-called Judeo-Christian value system. Can you imagine the look on their faces as Muslim athletes at the Olympics eschewed their national loyalties and instead proclaim their allegiance to the Caliphate? All was being brought down: the very structures that the West had wrought to imprison us in their worldview - democracy, nation states, and an international system run by them - appeared to be in tatters.
Oil was also on their minds and we had them over a barrel like never before. As uncertainty raged in the marketplace, rumors circulated about the US or NATO seizing the oil fields to secure them against a takeover by the Caliphate. We heard later that the US could not get its allies to go along with military intervention and Washington was itself worried about creating a worldwide Muslim backlash.
At this point, violence with the Shia started - somewhat suspiciously, increasing the confusion. The Caliph suspected Iran was stirring up trouble. Iran had been upset ever since the Caliphate was proclaimed. Saudi's Eastern Province with its large Shia population where the oil fields are located was particularly vulnerable. The Gulf state rulers also played their part.
And then we suspected Shia-dominated Iraq and behind Iraq the US and the CIA of formenting the trouble. But if the American infidels were behind it - which I believe was the case - they suffered the consequences. The tenuous peace inside the Iraq that America had stitched together so laboriously came undone with the sudden re-igniting of the Sunni insurgency; the insurgents proclaimed themselves the true Caliphate and battled anew both Shia and the American garrisons.
This has been a difficult challenge for the Caliph. The Caliphate represents wholeness and we risk seeing the unraveling of the Caliphate if the age-old Sunni-Shia division cannot be overcome. As a Sunni Arab, I should not show any compassion for a division the partisans of Ali brought upon the Dar al-Islam centuries ago, but, as then, not dealing with the breach has turned out to be a mistake. Some of their new thinkers are joining the likeminded reformers among Sunnis and winning the praise and support of the infidels. The reestablishment of cooperative - even if not warm - relations between the Persians and the Americans would be dangerous for us.
Our people are also too tempted and seduced by Western materialism. Oh the internet - both salvation and a trap set by the devil. It is what is bringing the Caliph so near to total power, spreading his appeal widely.
But it is also a weapon wielded by our enemies. More and more of the faithful see how others in the West live and they want those same things, not understanding the vice that accompanies it.
That along with the Sunni-Shia violence flusters the middle class. They have begun to try to leave our sacred lands. This has had the ironic result of distressing the Crusader powers in Europe and America. They do not mind seeing the Caliphate in trouble, but accepting a million or more refugees - most of them accustomed to a high standard of living - has been another thing. They are on the horns of a dilemma - more Muslims in their midst could stir up resentment; not accepting them could once again underline their hypocrisy.
Confusion reigns elsewhere. When the Caliphate was proclaimed, the expectation was that regimes would topple immediately. But that has not happened yet. Instead there are pockets of followers, undermining many states but not yet succeeding in toppling regimes. We are very close in Central Asia and in parts of Pakistan and Afghanistan where a civil war rages. Russia bogged down in fighting insurgencies and propping up Central Asian autocracies. In a paradoxical twist the United States is Russia's ally this time: instead of supplying money and arms for the mujahideen to fight the Soviets, they are helping the Russians to fight the mujahideen. In some countries two sets of authorities rule, neither of which has full control. Pashtunistan is declared but has not yet fully established its power. All of this has begun to deter the Crusaders from exploiting our resources. No pipelines are now being built and some were put out of business. Rising Asia has been hurt because construction of new pipelines has come to a halt. China eschewed any help from the US but has become increasingly concerned about Muslim bourgeois "irredentism" in its midst.
Southeast Asia and parts of East and West Africa are going almost the same way. The proclamation of the Caliphate emboldened the insurgents but has so far had its most powerful effect in driving a wedge into states and creating pockets where the Caliphate and Sharia rule. The Asians are difficult, though. They think they have discovered an Asian way.
The struggles continues in Palestine, too, despite the creation of a Palestinian state. The Zionists still occupy Muslim lands and share control of Jerusalem. The Europeans thought they could dodge a clash of civilizations, but they now see that growing numbers of Muslims in their midst are turning to the Caliph. The US also has infidel followers of the Caliph, including a senator's daughter. The US is caught in the middle, trying to buy off those supporting the Caliphate in order to pacify the Iraqi Sunnis, but not wanting to alienate Israel. Europe is piling the pressure on the Zionists for the first time, talking of sanctions against Israel.
So much confusion and turmoil, but this is great for us. At first with the new Caliphate our numbers dwindled and the core of al-Qaeda went out of business, but then began so many new struggles. We can fight to regain Muslim lands, even if the Caliph has turned its back on some struggles and is in danger of becoming soft. We cut deals with local warlords, exploiting their hospitality or paying tribute and are largely free to operate as we see fit. I'm hopeful ...
Lessons Learned:
A Caliphate would not have to be entirely successful for it to present a serious challenge to the international order. This scenario underlies the cross-cultural ideological debate that would intensify with growing religious identities.
* The IT revolution is likely to amplify the clash between Western and Muslim worlds.
* The appeal of a Caliphate among Muslims would vary from region to region, which argues for Western countries adopting a differentiated approach to counter it. Muslims in regions benefiting from globalization, such as parts of Asia and Europe, may be torn between the idea of a spiritual Caliphate and the material advantages of a globalized world.
* The proclamation of a Caliphate would not lessen the likelihood of terrorism and, in formenting more conflict, could fuel a new generation of terrorists intent on attacking those opposing to the Caliphate, whether inside or outside the Muslim world.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
01/15/2005 7:01:48 PM ||
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Absolutely marvelous fisking of Pein's article on the CBS forgeries by the expert he questions, Joe Newcomer.
KA-POW!
(I know this needs to go to Page 71).
Cheeze! It's six miles long! I'm putting your concluding comments up top...
This is such a major takedown. Newcomer exposes this guy for the incompetent, fraudulent hack he is. I will be looking for Pein's response, assuming he ever shows his face again.
Hat tip: Charles Johnson and his Littlegreenfootballs.
I was both amused and dismayed at the recent article published in the Columbia Journalism Review. I was amused because it is, like most of the attempts to justify the "validity" of the CBS memos, completely ridiculous, and like most such articles, written by someone without the slightest qualification to actually make such an assessment. I was dismayed because it was published in what appears to be a legitimate publication, and as such reflects the "best thinking" that should be represented by such a journal. This is very sad. If we think Dan Rather's being hoaxed by an inept forgery is bad, just wait until the people with the apparent quality of journalistic training this article represents get out there. Apparently, critical thinking is not held in high esteem. The School of Journalism should find this article embarrassing. (If they do not, then the University should be deeply embarrassed to have such a school).
It is worth pointing out that good reporter will listen, and learn, and do research to learn. Pein apparently takes the attitude that if he can't understand something with a superficial reading, it must be either wrong, or unworthy of any effort to understand. He is very much of the school "My mind is made up. Don't confuse me with facts". Is this what we are expecting our journalism schools to produce now?
When someone makes an assertion, it is expected that they will be able to prove their assertion. CBS made the assertion that these memos were authentic without any proof whatsoever. There was at least one person with whom I appeared on Fox News Network who was a professional document examiner, who informed CBS on Sunday (before the story broke) that she could not authenticate the documents. They chose to ignore her and claim them authentic anyway. The trick is apparently to keep asking experts more and more restricted questions until you find an expert who will answer "yes" to some tiny specialized query. Then expand the answer to cover the entire original question. Example: find a man who has written a book on signature analysis, in which he says it is impossible to authenticate a copy of a signature. Convince him to claim a faxed copy of a signature could have been authentic (he did not authenticate it; he merely said he could not exclude it from being authentic). Generalize from this that the documents are authentic. This seems to set a new standard for investigative reporting. Not to mention a new standard for "analytic thought".
Let me address some of my concerns with Pein's article. I'm getting a bit tired of this whole affair, so I tend to put more whimsy and sarcasm into this discussion than I would put in a scientific report. Otherwise, I'd find the whole thing a lot more tedious than it has become.
Continued on Page 49
#4
Dishman - tell us something we didn't know. ;-p
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
01/15/2005 19:08 Comments ||
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#5
I was dismayed because it was published in what appears to be a legitimate publication, and as such reflects the "best thinking" that should be represented by such a journal. This is very sad.
What is sad is that Charles thought CJR was a legitimate publication till writing this. I thought he, abovce all, would know the emperor has no clothes.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
01/15/2005 19:37 Comments ||
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Amir Taheri
Earlier this month Algerian security forces tracked down and captured Nureddin Boudiafi after a nine-week hunt and five days of intense fire-fights in the woods near the capital Algiers.
Wonder who Boudiafi is and why his capture merits attention? Well, the man was the leader of the Islamic Armed Group (GIA), the deadliest of terrorist gangs that have shed Algerian blood, killing over 150,000 people, since 1992. Boudiafi described himself as Emir Al-Momeneen or "Prince of the Faithful", and issued fatwas (religious edicts) sentencing anyone he didn't like to death. He had seized control of the group last July after staging a coup against the then "emir", a certain Rashid Abu-Turab, who had had an equally black record of mischief and murder. Both men had been graduates of the school of terror set up by the so-called "Arab Afghans" in Afghanistan in the 1980s, and belonged to the same movement that produced Osama Bin Laden and Abu-Mussab Al-Zarqawi, the "emir" of the Sunni terrorists in Iraq.
So, why is Boudiafi's capture significant? One reason, for starters, is that the capture establishes firmly that the terror groups are now on the run, pursued by the Algerians security. This was not always the case. For more than 10 years the terrorists held the initiative, attacking where and when they wished, forcing the government's forces into a defensive posture. The terrorists specialized in mass killings. In Bin Talha, a suburb of the capital Algiers, for example, they cut the throats of some 800 people, mostly women and children, in a single night. They also targeted the ordinary personnel of the army and the police, in the hope of discouraging young Algerians from enlisting in government forces.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: tipper ||
01/15/2005 11:56:51 AM ||
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#1
This is rather fun - especially given that it comes from ArabNews, heh.
So Amir, a very smart guy using the Algerian experience as a relevant corollary and model, confirms what the dastardly "neo-cons" have said and pushed for all along: elections. Double heh.
MY FELLOW AMERICANS, I had intended to reach out to all of you and bring a divided nation together. But I changed my mind. America isn't divided by political ethos or ethnic origin. America isn't divided by region or religion. America is divided by jerks. Who wants to bring a bunch of jerks together with the rest of us? Let them stew in Berkeley, Boston, and Ann Arbor.
The media say that I won the election on the strength of moral values. If the other fellow had become president, would the media have said that he won the election on the strength of immoral values? For once the media would have been right.
We are all sinners. But jerks revel in their sins. You can tell by their reaction to the Ten Commandments. Post those Ten Commandments in a courthouse or a statehouse, in a public school or a public park, and the jerks go crazy. Why is that? Christians believe in the Ten Commandments. So do Muslims. Jews, too, obviously. Show the Ten Commandments to Hindus, Buddhists, Confucians, or to people with just good will and common sense and nobody says, "Whoa! That's all wrong!"
But jerks take issue with every one of the Ten Commandments. Jerks are particularly offended by the first two Commandments. Of course people of faith, decent people, differ on interpretations of the first two Commandments. For example, we don't all agree about the meaning of "Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image." However, we do all agree about "Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them" when them is Freud, Marx, and Dan Rather.
"Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain." How many times, over the last few months, have we heard, "Ohmigod, ohmigod, ohmigod, I can't believe George Bush won"?
"Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy." Let's be fair about this. We did see a lot of white, non-Hispanic Democrats in churches in 2004. But they were all running for president. And the churches were inner-city black churches. I happen to know that there are churches in the white, non-Hispanic suburbs where these Democrats live. Apparently jerks can't find them.
"Honor thy father and thy mother." Are telling lies about a bankrupt Social Security system and trying to block its privatization reform ways to do this?
"Thou shalt not kill." Why, in the opinion of jerks, is it wrong to kill a baby but all right to kill a baby that's so little he hasn't been born yet? And why do the same jerks who favor abortion oppose the death penalty? We can imagine people so full of loving kindness that they can accept neither the abortionist nor the executioner. We can even imagine people so cold-hearted that they embrace them both. But it takes a real jerk to argue in favor of killing perfect innocents and letting Terry Nichols live.
"Thou shalt not commit adultery." The jerks have begun praising marriage lately. But only if the bride and groom each have a beard.
"Thou shalt not steal." In 2004 the United States government spent $2,318,800,000,000. Thus every American benefited from $7,919.37 worth of federal services. Let me ask the jerks something. Say you're average jerks, a "blended family" of four. Did you pay $31,677.48 in taxes last year? If you didn't, you took things from other Americans. What did you give in return?
"Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor." Especially not in return for vast wealth, abundant prizes, and lavish praise from fellow jerks. I'm talking to you, Michael Moore.
And then there is the Tenth Commandment. "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor anything that is thy neighbor's." The Ten Commandments are God's basic rules about how we should live--a brief list of sacred obligations and solemn moral precepts. The first nine Commandments concern theological principles and social law. But then, right at the end, is "Don't envy your buddy's cow." How did that make the top ten? What's it doing there? Why would God, with just ten things to tell Moses, choose as one of those things jealousy about the starter mansion with in-ground pool next door?
Yet think how important the Tenth Commandment is to a community, to a nation, indeed to a presidential election. If you want a mule, if you want a pot roast, if you want a cleaning lady, don't be a jerk and whine about what the people across the street have--go get your own.
The Tenth Commandment sends a message to all the jerks who want redistribution of wealth, higher taxes, more government programs, more government regulation, more government, less free enterprise, and less freedom. And the message is clear and concise: Go to hell.
Posted by: tipper ||
01/15/2005 9:27:44 AM ||
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#1
Heh, sweet. PJ always has his own slant, and it's always worthy, lol! The subtlety with which he handles envy, a very common and seemingly innocuous vice, is especially brilliant. In closing, with a mere 4 sentences, he transforms it from a pinprick against greed into The Painfully Blunt Skewer That Pierced The Fatted Socialist Pig, now turning slowly in Dante's Hell... should be ready for slathering on the BBQ sauce by halftime, lol!. Phriggin' awesome, TJ!
#2
.com, you are so right! Bravo, P.J., bravo! Those last 2 paragraphs (4 sentences) sum up one of the few problems I have with the Feds and even with President Bush himself. Should be interesting to see how the cutting and holding the line goes in this next budget cycle.
Posted by: BA ||
01/15/2005 11:57 Comments ||
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#3
Sounds like PJ been hanging at Uncle Jims again.
Exceptions exist, of course. Jason and Freddy and Pinhead don't reproduce - they just kill. But all of those characters have evolved (degenerated?) into semi-sympathetic anti-heroes - avatars of an adolescent will to power. And it's true that Godzilla ended up in a family way, but that exception proves the rule: Godzilla had his son in the late sixties and early seventies, at which time he discarded the whole disguised-symbol-of-American-nuclear-aggression vibe in favor of a more mellow, dim-witted-defender-of-Japan-against-poorly-adjusted-monsters approach. When monsters start appearing in movies that have the word "Vs." in the title, they aren't really monsters anymore.
Generally, though, monsters reproduce by hijacking the bodies and souls of the living - or by crafting perverse facsimiles of themselves that inevitably turn against them. Just like the Left!
Moreover, history teaches us that children are the most successful way to ensure that your cultural and ideological preferences survive after you depart. Eventually, the Greatest Generation and the Baby Boomers will die, and their preferences for big government and laissez-faire social morality will die with them. If, in 50 years, the home-schooled and Sunday-schooled outnumber the boarding schooled and Ivy Leagued, who can doubt that conservatism will own the future?
What's a non-reproducing leftie to do? Discarding leftism is out. Having more ⊠ick ⊠children ⊠with their stinky diapers and expensive college educations and drain on the world's limited resources and whiny tantrums right in the middle of All Things Considered ⊠is out, too. So the Left is, er, left with two options for ensuring the survival of their ideology: the Bride of Frankenstein option and the Dracula option.
The Bride of Frankenstein option is immigration. By importing hordes of proto-citizens unassimilated into the prevailing culture, the Left hopes to create an overclass of ethnic leaders dependent on affirmative action and government jobs to maintain their mandarin status. In turn, those ethnic leaders will keep the underclass immigrants dependent upon welfare handouts and government-enforced language barriers - and, thus, wedded to leftist economic policies. If the mass of immigrants is big enough to exercise appreciable political power, and if the prevailing culture is sufficiently indifferent to assimilating new arrivals, this strategy can work for a time. Indeed, in just this fashion, the Left has kept a stranglehold on black and Hispanic votes for decades. And, best of all, immigrants reproduce in large numbers, so you don't have to!
The problem, of course, is that the Bride of Frankenstein reviles the monster it was created to marry. The Europeans are learning to their horror that their Arab immigrants detest and revile the socially liberal ideology that their presence permits. Similarly, the American left is discovering that most blacks and Hispanics want no part of the radically heterodox morality that leftist intellectuals promulgate. Whereas the left wants to reform (or, in the extreme, abolish) bourgeois middle-class American morality, most American minorities want to embrace that morality more fully. As the '60s generation of minority leaders passes away, a new, independent-minded, and conservative-friendly generation of leaders is coming to take their place. And this new generation of leaders will not be bought off as easily as their parents were.
The innate social conservatism of American minorities will push them to the social Right - not as quickly as conservative immigration cheerleaders would have you believe, and not before contemporary minority leaders inflict serious damage on America from the Left, but soon enough to dash the hopes of a liberal legacy.
The remaining option is the Dracula option: the hijacking of little red-state kids through academia and the mass media. It's the lament of conservatives since time out of mind, and it's the plot of Tom Wolfe's latest novel: every year, conservative families spend outrageous sums in order to send their smartest, most capable children to elite colleges, wherein radical leftists brainwash them into newly-minted blue-staters. And the less-capable red-state kids hear the siren call of leftist values every time they flip the "on" switch on the idiot box. Prime-time television and the network news highlight the glamour and appeal of liberal places, beliefs, and lifestyles, while conservative values are either ridiculed ("dumb old Dad"), reviled ("The priest did it? The businessman was corrupt? Who'd've guessed?"), dismissed ("We at CBS News stand by our story"), or ignored (insert any aspect of religious life here). The old song is still mostly true: How ya gonna keep 'em down on the farm, after they've seen a TV show about Paree?
In the movies and in the book, Dracula dies when a stake is driven through his heart. Sadly, we won't be staking Harvard or CBS anytime soon. But there's another way to kill a vampire: starve him. Without fresh blood, vampires wither into irrelevance. At the beginning of Bram Stoker's Dracula, Dracula was weak and enfeebled for want of fresh blood. Keep the fresh blood away, and the vampire ceases to be a problem.
The process of starving the leftist vampires is already underway. The readership of mainstream newspapers is declining, even as the major networks suffer drops in their ratings. Cable TV and the Internet allow ordinary people to enjoy news and entertainment free of the vampiric taint. Similarly, the massive rise in college tuitions will eventually compel red-state America to find alternatives to the elite college monopoly. In the next 20 to 30 years, Internet schooling will grow more effective, more affordable, and more selective. We will soon see Internet universities with competitive acceptance. Red-state community colleges and commuter schools will improve their ability to provide practical, no-frills, undergraduate-focused educations at reasonable prices that the bloated blue-state schools cannot match. As more and more middle-class red-state parents send their sharp kids to local and/or Internet-based colleges, the stigma attached to those colleges will be broken - and the power of the Academic Left to produce bright new leftists will decline precipitously.
Monsters never truly die, of course - there's always room for a sequel. Leftism will reappear in every generation. But the leftism of tomorrow will be a leftism compatible with the mores of the socially conservative children who will win the Darwinian sweepstakes, even though those kids don't believe in Darwin. If the Left means to survive in its current form, it will need a better Bride, or a better way to bite us in the neck.
Posted by: tipper ||
01/15/2005 4:37:20 AM ||
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I'm still mulling over my hypothesis that the left isn't as socially "liberal" as everyone thinks. In particular the western fringe of Europe.
Posted by: Phil Fraering ||
01/15/2005 9:26 Comments ||
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It also ignores the possibility of a resurrection of the left. While the specifics of such a re-birth are unknown, the process might be revealed in what happened to the right during the ascendancy of the left. First of all, the right was co-opted by its extremists, then systematically excluded from power--and this is where the left finds itself today. Then for many years, the right found its greatest successes among its centrists, later called "country club republicans" (today, they are called "RINOs".) The centrists consistantly joined with the opposition, as long as they got a piece of the action. This action kept them in office and got them seniority and power in their party. And only after the republicans had philosophically reformed enough to have a powerful new movement "conservatism", were they able to overthrow these centrists in their own party, then overcome the democrat leftists, who were descending into rock bottom. The 20th Century time frame for this cycle began with the fall of the Wilson administration and republican ascendancy. This lasted until the collapse of Hoover, and the rise of the FDR democrat. The Eisenhower years were the height of the republican centrist years, with the continuing decline of the old republican extreme in the early 1960s, giving way to the conservative rise under Reagan, and the removal of the left from most seats of power, which took many years. We are now at a point where the democrats will have to be split between those willing to cooperate and those that are obstinate. The cooperative will ascend in the democrat party and remain in power until a new leftist philosophy comes along.
#3
You know, I've never before seen such utterly shameless dehumanization of the political opposition, without a hint of even a caveat or self-mockery.
Are such examples of rhetoric "they are not really humans, they are monsters in disguise and living vermin" still considered acceptable in America? Because in Europe I believe such rhetoric has been out of style since the fall of the Nazis. The person who'd use it would be seen as beneath contempt, same way I'm seeing the writer of this article now.
Moreover, history teaches us that children are the most successful way to ensure that your cultural and ideological preferences survive after you depart.
The difference between the liberal Europe and the "conservative" America, is the huge number of teenage moms in the latter.
In liberal Europe we don't tend to consider children as a "tool" for us to use in order to expand a parent's ideological or other power.
But the article seems to enjoy the fact that the Christian Religious Right is the same in this matter as the Arab world, both treating reproduction as if children were pawns in a bid for power.
#6
You are a brave man. No way I could tell a wife or a girlfriend carrying my baby that 'reproduction' is seperate from child rearing. Not worth the inevitable grief that will follow that spewage.
That's an oxymoron. You cannot be dishonest and post material in an open forum without having intentions of being so.
I wrote that demographics is politics, responding to your contention that child rearing isn't a part of demographics, which is an absurd leap of logic on your part. Child rearing and 'reproduction' are as inseperable as demographics and 'reproduction.' You acknowleged one but failed to acknowledge the other.
#9
*sigh* It's all about the individual and the collective, badanov.
This article (despite its claims that "lefties" are zombies) views children and reproduction as nothing but a tool to propagate the collective ideology, rather than individuals on their own right. I've seen the same attitude before. "Let's have lots and lots of children, because we Greeks are few, while Turks are getting too many".
It's a disgusting attitude that treats children (and people in their entirety) as if they were nothing more than demographics, foot-soldiers for a never ending war, and a tool for politics. Rather than have politics a tool for the service of people.
Romania's Ceausescu was the same way, and so have all religious commandments opposing contraception been. The desire of powermad individuals to outnumber the competition.
#10
Leave it to Aris to twist "children are the most successful way to ensure that your cultural and ideological preferences survive" into "views children and reproduction as nothing but a tool to propagate the collective ideology". Nothing but a tool? It doesn't say that. This thread has been Arisified.
Posted by: Tom ||
01/15/2005 11:42 Comments ||
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conservative" America, is the huge number of teenage moms in the latter
Aris, American "teenage moms" occur primarily in black and Hispanic population groups, which typically vote Democrat.
You may not like the author's style of writing but some of his points are well taken. Population is politics, and to suggest that only coarse Nazi-like conservatives would consider that relationship is dishonest. You don't have to look much further than Canada to see how the left (Trudeau and Chretien)ensured their party's power through the use of a high infusion of Third World immigration because otherwise their own anti-traditional family positions would cull their numbers of left wing voters in short order. The Liberals have almost completely limited Christian European immigration, and don't tell me that's by accident.
#12
Back with his stalking. Everyone else talking about the issue at hand, but TOM coming to talk about me. Have you ever participated in any thread where I've not been involved, Tom? Have you ever made a post that didn't include atleast one reference to me?
FRED, WHEN THE HELL WILL YOU SAY SOMETHING ABOUT THE PEOPLE THAT HAVE ADMITTED CONTINUOUSLY PLAYING BAITING GAMES IN RANTBURG?
Leave it to Aris to twist "children are the most successful way to ensure that your cultural and ideological preferences survive" into "views children and reproduction as nothing but a tool to propagate the collective ideology".
I'm sorry to say that it doesn't require much twisting at all. The two are the same. It requires quite a lot of twisting to pretend they are different, however.
#13
In America, most of us fall in love with another person, so much so we want to have children that has our and our partner's attributes. In my view, there is nothing wrong with that and indeed, it should be encouraged. I don't usually associate falling in love/marrying with sociology.
I personally am not that cynical nor so far removed from reality I see a plot under every bed, the way you imply with your statement:
'Let's have lots and lots of children, because we Greeks are few, while Turks are getting too many". It's a disgusting attitude that treats children (and people in their entirety) as if they were nothing more than demographics, foot-soldiers for a never ending war, and a tool for politics.'
Do try to acknowledge that many individuals' motives are not for ill but from factors no one will ever be able to conceive or digest. Subjects like politics and demographics will be more easily in your grasp if you do. Right now, you seem to have the problem of trying to find a cause behind everything you disagree with. Most times there isn't an explanation.
#14
Aris, American "teenage moms" occur primarily in black and Hispanic population groups, which typically vote Democrat.
Wrong actually: Most teenage moms are white. http://www.fastennetwork.org/Display.asp?Page=TeenPregnancyStats
But it doesn't matter actually. Most Hispanics and black population may vote Democrat on economic and racial issues, but at the article itself says, in "moral traditions" they believe Republican.
I guess it's because Hispanics often come from Catholic-dominated societies, and because of the role of the churches in the black communities.
#15
FRED, WHEN THE HELL WILL YOU SAY SOMETHING ABOUT THE PEOPLE THAT HAVE ADMITTED CONTINUOUSLY PLAYING BAITING GAMES IN RANTBURG?
Fred, I'll settle this:
Tom, you bad boy! Go to your corner and stick your nose in the corner until you hear the bell ring. When it does ring, you can come out and beat the living sh*t out of Aris,
#16
Are such examples of rhetoric "they are not really humans, they are monsters in disguise and living vermin" still considered acceptable in America? Because in Europe I believe such rhetoric has been out of style since the fall of the Nazis.
really, dickwad? What do you think Mladic told his troops? What did the european killers hear before Srebrenica? Pep talks? Riiiggghhtt
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/15/2005 11:58 Comments ||
Top||
#17
*You* said "children and reproduction as nothing but a tool", Aris -- nobody else did. An unfair characterization of the article. Your "debating techniques", like this twisting of the words of others to an extreme, are juvenile. They throw the thread into a debate over your twist instead of what the article says (i.e., the thread gets Arisified).
And yes, I post on threads you don't. [Another Aris twist attempt.] But if you are going to post such twisted nonsense, you can expect me to comment on it. Why do you feel entitled to exclude me from a thread just because you start Arisifying it?
Posted by: Tom ||
01/15/2005 12:03 Comments ||
Top||
#18
"FRED, WHEN THE HELL WILL YOU SAY SOMETHING ABOUT THE PEOPLE THAT HAVE ADMITTED CONTINUOUSLY PLAYING BAITING GAMES IN RANTBURG?"
Oh, Aris, stop being such a smacked ass. If you don't like the way people treat you here, just get the hell out, you self-absorbed, thin-skinned, whining little jerk.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
01/15/2005 12:03 Comments ||
Top||
#19
BOT - good point on the Left's obsession with illegal immigration as a voting gain, not a societal loss
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/15/2005 12:05 Comments ||
Top||
#20
And how many fans did Mladic have throughout Europe, "dickwad"? Did his words have pan-European appeal? Were they even broadcast pan-*Serbia*? Or was it a mere dozen thousands out of a population of hundreds of millions of European that would find those words acceptable, a small segment of his native tribe?
Stop playing your games, and stop obsessing over me, Frank. You are out of your league and hopelessly ignorant. Yesterday you were trying to claim "nobody in Rantburg supports the use of torture" -- which was bullshit as I easily gave you several examples of Rantburgers and a ready thread, when you accused me of misrepresenting people.
Get a grip with reality, and *stop obsessing over me*.
Aris - if most teenage moms are white because the majority of the population is white. Kind of a duh, don't you think? The question isn't so much race, as it is economic status and immigrants tend to be poor.
Besides, it's not so much "teenage" pregnacies that are the problem, but broken families that need welfare support. In Utah, they marry young, but the families stay together thus "teenage pregnancy" = motherhood.
#23
BTW - Aris, outside the cheap paperbacks you've masterbated over, teen motherhood is WAY down, for all races and classes IN AMERICA, a place you know absolutely nothing about
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/15/2005 12:10 Comments ||
Top||
#24
And how many fans did Mladic have throughout Europe, "dickwad"? Did his words have pan-European appeal?
Apparently enough so, Europe didn't want to intervene to stop the Srbs.
Yesterday you were trying to claim "nobody in Rantburg supports the use of torture" -- which was bullshit as I easily gave you several examples of Rantburgers and a ready thread, when you accused me of misrepresenting people.
You are off topic. Do try to stay on the same page and on subject, s'il vous plait.
You may think so. I don't. Even the rhetoric to the point of "red-state kids" and the like, indicates he sees kids as nothing but an expression of their backgrounds. Collectivist.
#27
there is nothing wrong with teenage pregnancy if the family stays together - which gets to the point of this artice. Those who are interested in doing what humans have done since the beginning of time - raise a family - are sick of the morals being imposed on them by the left. To have a healthy family and community requires values. The 10 commandments are simply a time-tested formula for achieving just that.
#29
Bulldog> So you combine blacks and hispanics as a single group? Very well, instead of "most teenage moms are white" I should have said "the largest group of teenage moms belongs to the 'white' population". You are right.
In Utah, they marry young, but the families stay together
Utah is actually slightly above the average in divorce rates, having a 4.7 rate compared to a national 4.6.
Most conservative places like Texas, Alabama, Mississipi and so forth are even worse.
The places where families stay together are liberal ones like Massachusetts, New Jersey and New York. It's conservative places where families seem to tend to break, according to statistics anyway.
#30
Even the rhetoric to the point of "red-state kids" and the like, indicates he sees kids as nothing but an expression of their backgrounds.
Oh Lordy, Aris. This is a discussion abouyt demographics, what we have come to know the 'Roe' effect.' And your protestations to the contrary notwithstanding, it is a real phenomenom, one which is rapidly consuming Europe to the point where it could well become a Moslem superstate in my daughter's lifetime.
And despite what you believe, there is nothing evil about falling inlove, marrying, having a few kids, buying a nice car and a nice house, and hoping to Christ your kids don;t turn into simpering, whimpering socialists. Its all anyone can ever ask for.
Honest, Aris. There is no evil here. It's really only love.
#31
Aris, the most recent data from the U.S. National Center for Health Statistics show teenage motherhood is disproportionately black and Hispanic, with these two minority groups accounting for more than half of all teenage births. Although whites (what the census bureau calls ânon-Hispanic whitesâ) are approximately 60 percent of the American population age 17 and younger, their birth rate declined to 29, whereas the birth rates for teen blacks and teen Hispanics as of 2002 were 68 and 83 respectively. Check the handy dandy little graphs on this site.
http://www.prcdc.org/summaries/teenpreg04/teenpreg04.html
#34
Yes. They've done it for millions of years. What's so different now? Trillions of people have had started their families as teenagers and lived happy, productive lives.
The point of the article is that people who want to do what humans do - raise a family - want to raise them in a healthy environment.
#35
Aris - expert on all things American - like divorce
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/15/2005 12:29 Comments ||
Top||
#36
"They've done it for millions of years. What's so different now?"
You forget that for most of those millions of years, human quality of life has been severely worse than it's now.
Also our babies die less often early in life, are more likely to live full lives, we don't need to start as early just in order to get our replacement number of two. How's that for demographics?
Not to mention that little girls are less often handed over to dirty old men.
How's that where demographics are concerned?
"Trillions" of people? Reminds me of when a greek singer had said that Greece had been a Christian nations for millions of years.
And when "babies of teenage mothers" are among the high risk groups for "sudden death infant syndrome", I think you should reconsider the suitability of teenage mothers to *be* teenage mothers.
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/15/2005 12:46 Comments ||
Top||
#40
I forgot that conservatives place great value on the life of infants only *before* they were born, they don't care about how likely they are to mysteriously die afterwards.
#42
Aris
I think the analogy to fictitious monsters is valid in this case and your moralizing about "dehumanization" is a strawman. It is not equivalent to Nazi rhetoric that directly characterized others as vermin and animals. You have adopted the classic left-authoritarian tactic of disputing the modes and symbols of expression to divert attention from the ideas expressed.
The author's contention is that media and academic indoctrination, and lax immigration policies, are methods of demographic and political manipulation. There is really no doubt of this, in contrast to the blood libels and other fantasies that circulated among the Nazis, and that are still current among their latter-day imitators in Europe.
The author has rightly condemned, not endorsed, these practices, and has cited them as a danger. The behavior is monstrous on its face. The allusion to folkloric monsters is illustrative, and is not intended to be persuasive on its face (unlike the demonization of Americans commonly found in Euro-bigot culture).
Failure to address this monstrous practice of subornation would be the endorsement
you seek to condemn. The author has not done that. He has done the opposite. Simply expressing a fact, or a perceived fact, does not imply endorsement, except to those who follow the doctrines and methodology of the late Dr. Goebbels.
You claim that dehumanization is absent from European discourse, what of the characterizations of Bush as a monkey, or of Sharon as an ogre devouring Palestinian children, or the many representations of American soldiers as pigs and beasts, or the common characterizations of Jews found in practically every mosque on the Continent?
As for reducing children to political pawns, political demographics is an actual science, no different from the consumer demographics that drive the institutional media. Your concern for human dignity is laudable, but what kind of dignity is advanced by condemning the rational analysis of verified facts?
Personally, I do not agree with the article's contentions, since the media and academic comlexes are rapidly losing their power to suborn and indoctrinate. This process will eventually spread to the rest of the world, which is what the prevailing power-structures of those areas fear most. That does not make the contentions monstrous or dehumanizing themselves, any more than the prosecution of a crime makes one a criminal.
#43
I said that racial demographics don't matter actually.
Err, Aris, you were the one you threw out the red herring about conservatives and their white teen baby making machines.
Aris racial demographics do matter. In America, despite the outrage expressed by black ministers about moral values, most blacks still voted Democrat. Ditto for Hispanics- the majority still vote Democrat, though GWB experienced a slight increase in both groups due to the gay marriage thingey that translated into "moral values." Leftist "multi-cultural propaganda" will keep blacks and Hispanics in the underclass indefinitely, which liberals love, because underclass groups will always vote for the political party that promises them the most government entitlements. In Canada, visible minorities imported from Third World countries always vote Liberal Party because with each successive wave of uneducated immigrants, their low wages go even lower and they and their children need to stay on the dole. Conservatives are associated with small government, individual resourcefulness, so un-assimilated underclass Third World minorities aren't going to vote for a party that is not in their best interests.
#44
good and on the mark points, 2X and AC. As usual, the topic and content of the post have little to do with his pontificating. I'm a little more pessimistic about the lessening of indoctrination than you are, AC. When the left feels their power lessing through accountability in schools and academia, they will strike back, hard, in desperation. Have to keep the spotlight on them....they work best in the dark
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/15/2005 13:13 Comments ||
Top||
#45
Aris, you are a liar.
"all religious commandments opposing contraception been. The desire of powermad individuals to outnumber the competition."
WRONG
The Catholic Church follows the Bible and God's instruction in Genesis to be fruitful and multiply. And natural law for the consequences of that set of instructions from God.
Its a matter of religious beleif not cold political calculation - you reveal your cynicism and constant political and anti-religioud bias by your very making of such a lie in a public forum.
Remember (as you woudl if you bothered to actually understand the issue before shwoing yourself to be a lair), up until 1930, all Protestant denominations agreed with the Catholic Churchâs teaching condemning contraception as sinful. The Anglican church was the first to fold and other protestants followed.
Its all based on the doctrine of Humanae Vitae, had you the integrity to actually read the belief and basis for opposition to birth control. Its based on the ancient philosophy of Natural Law. The natural law purpose of sex is procreation. The view opf the Church is that the pleasure that sexual intercourse provides is an additional blessing from God, intended to offer the possibility of new life while strengthening the bond of intimacy, respect, and love between husband and wife. The loving environment this bond creates is the perfect setting for nurturing children. And to avoid the possibility of procreation is to thwart God's will and Natural Law.
This doctrine is not new in the Church - you can look up the writings of Clement of Alexandria in 195AD, The council of Nicea, St Augustine, and from the protestant side even Martin Luther and John Calvin address this.
And the reason is not to "outpopulate" anyone - it is a moral issue, as said by Pope Paul VI:
"Let them consider, how wide and easy a road would thus be opened up towards conjugal infidelity and the general lowering of morality.Not much experience is needed in order to know human weakness, and to understand that menâespecially the young, who are so vulnerable on this pointâhave need of encouragement to be faithful to the moral law, so that they must not be offered some easy means of eluding its observance. It is also to be feared that the man, growing used to the employment of anti-conceptive practices, may finally lose respect for the woman and, no longer caring for her physical and psychological equilibrium, may come to the point of considering her as a mere instrument of selfish enjoyment, and no longer as his respected and beloved companion" "
Note how precient he is - look at the Rap culture and its treatment of women as "Bitches And Ho's", the surge of teen pregnancy (since birth control is imperfect at best), and the huge number of men who take no responsibility for the children they create, using the woman as a piece of facility, not as a properly lived partner for life.
Face it Airs - this is a moral opposition, and you slandered all the religious peole in your outright lie.
The Pope and the Church were right. The consequences predicted are there, right in your face. And the reaonsing behind the opposition to Contraception is plaingly NOT "powermad", but very moral.
Finally:
You may not agree with the reglious, philosophical and moral points I presneted, but that is not the issue here. So before you do your usual weasel act and try to change the subject or twist your words, let me remind you: The issue is that you lied when stating that all religious opposition to birth control was intended as a tool for the "Powermad" to "outreproduce" the others. I've shown quite the opposite.
Apologize, NOW, Aris, for being a liar, as well as a bigot.
#46
2xstandard, notice who first mentioned anything about race (wasn't me).
And when I disputed a data-point about the racial makeup, I only did it with the note that the point wasn't important anyway, and explained my reasoning why -- once again see #14. Yes, I'm talking about conservative culture, but never cared to say anything about *white* conservative culture in specific.
As for the black and the Hispanic communities, you are repeating the very points I made. This is about conservatism on "moral traditions", which related to reproductive practices in those communities. Those communities nonetheless mostly vote Democrat for *other* reasons (like financial and racial issues), not the "moral traditions" issues which affect reproduction.
"Conservatives are associated with small government, individual resourcefulness, so un-assimilated underclass Third World minorities aren't going to vote for a party that is not in their best interests"
When you talk about why people *won't* vote for them, I think you should also mention the *negative* points they are associated with, things like "serving the purposes of the plutocracy and big business".
#47
Aris, per your request re #25, here are three places that I posted yesterday that you didn't:
http://rantburg.com/poparticle.asp?HC=Main&D=2005-01-14&ID=53619
http://rantburg.com/poparticle.asp?HC=Main&D=2005-01-14&ID=53693
http://rantburg.com/poparticle.asp?HC=Main&D=2005-01-14&ID=53692
See, you are wrong again.
I'm not "stalking" you or "obsessing over" you. I'm just pointing out your foolishness. And you would bite bait even if it was labeled "BAIT" in six inch bold letters. Now stop whining to Fred and STFU about *my* presence *your* threads.
Posted by: Tom ||
01/15/2005 13:19 Comments ||
Top||
#48
Can we put up another pinata yet? This one's looking a little ragged.
#51
It's a disgusting attitude that treats children (and people in their entirety) as if they were nothing more than demographics, foot-soldiers for a never ending war, and a tool for politics. Rather than have politics a tool for the service of people.
Idealism is nice. Unfortunately it doesn't last long against reality.
#52
Face it Airs - this is a moral opposition, and you slandered all the religious peole in your outright lie.
No, actually I only attacked the person who first made that instruction, not the ones who blindly follow it.
The Catholic Church follows the Bible and God's instruction in Genesis to be fruitful and multiply. And natural law for the consequences of that set of instructions from God.
And who wrote the bible? And who chose to ignore Paul's much later instruction that it's preferable to be agamous and childless than married with children?
Yes, sure the Catholic Church follows religious instruction. But sorry, this non-believer here won't believe said religious instruction was God-written.
NOW, Aris, for being a liar, as well as a bigot.
I don't think you comprehend the concept of a lie, which is "words meant to deceive".
I said that all such religious commandments were the desire of powermad individuals with the wish to overpopulate the competition. If I slandered anyone that'd be people like Moses and Mohammed, not the people who follow their instructions out of foolish faith. And since I genuinely believe both Moses and Mohammed to have been powermad murderers, there was no lie in stating their commandments to have been created of powermad individuals.
If I apologize to anyone, it'll have to be them, after they convince me they honestly didn't have any such powermad desire.
#56
Demographic analysis is the reason I think current trends will end in a Malthusian catastrophe, of war rather than of starvation. Thanks to technology, our ability to feed people has managed to keep pace with increasing population. The problem is that culturally backward and aggressive elements are the ones most likely to have the highest birthrates, and they are utterly heedless of the consequences, seeing numbers as the road to power. The Demographic invasion of Europe by Muslims has been discussed many times here. Numbers alone will not bring power, however, and the illusion that they will is extremely dangerous.
I think it will lead to hubris and a premature showdown. The forces of the Enlightenment will inevitably prevail, but billions, not millions, will perish in the process.
#57
In my more conspiratorial moments, I examine the idea that the current media culture is really some sort of racist plot to incite third-worlders to a premature test of power and their resulting annihilation.
In minimizing the faults of Islamic society, exaggerating its accomplishments, and championing its crude propaganda, the media follow a pattern that is applied to all expanding populations and third world issues. The real weaknesses of these societies are ignored and tend to grow and fester in a permissive cultural environment, fatally weakening them even as their numbers grow exponentially.
Further, media empowerment of the authoritarian environmental movement, which is often openly genocidal, serves to further undermine any effort to cope with these dangerous trends.
In inciting third world populations and affirming their delusions of power, the institutional media and their agents are simply fattening them up for the slaughter.
#58
I forgot that conservatives place great value on the life of infants only *before* they were born, they don't care about how likely they are to mysteriously die afterwards.
And you wonder why people dislike you.
Ah well, it just reinforces the bozo bit I've set on you.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
01/15/2005 15:03 Comments ||
Top||
#59
Is every one in Greece over educated and under experienced?
#60
and unaware of it? Arrogance is a vice, isn't it, as is assuming moral superiority where none exists. I'm a sinner, and I know it
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/15/2005 15:32 Comments ||
Top||
#61
AC - I've had thought along the same lines before, although not to anything like the same depth, I'm sure. A sort of unintentional conspiracy that serves to inflate expansionist Islam like a balloon. It may look impressive while it grows, but in truth it's insubstantial, and keep pumping it up and it's going to pop...
#62
I for one was a young teenage father , my son is an intelligent hard working youth with much to give the world and no bitterness at all alos i come from a poor background but am not *cough* ethnically challeneged in any way , and eerm i found the style in which this article was written quite offensive , damn poorly constructed and weakly executed . For once I am half heartedly sticking up for Aris in the way this article was WRITTEN . Even reading between the lines , its a load of bollocks , badly constructed bollocks at that . Valid points = zero . post count = laughable .
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
01/15/2005 17:04 Comments ||
Top||
#65
Here is your atempt to change what you said: " actually I only attacked the person who first made that instruction"
You said "all religious commandments opposing contraception been. The desire of powermad individuals to outnumber the competition."
The pope and others and peopel of faith like myself are not powermad. And your words didnt mention the "person who made that instruction". For to a beleiver, that "person" is God Himself - those are His words. Your weasel attempt requires us to disbeielve that those are Gods word recorded in our scripture, meaning you fundamentally slander our religion, going back to the days of pre-history. All your lame attempts at equivocation after the fact do not change it: you LIED and you are a bigot against religious people.
YOU LIED
Note the qualifier you used. ALL.
I simple showed that the term "all" did not apply.
You, as predicted, tried to wist away, and weasel away from your own words.
Then you tried to attack the person pointing out your lie. You even questioned the definition odf a lie, picking a convenient one, but not the truest wone. Given your anti-religious bigotry, your words were meant to decieve - your use of "All" is such an obvious unthinking and blanket condemnation that it shows your bigoted intent.
Secondly, the most common definition is to knowingly make a statement that is not true, not your slanted definiton that requires intent to decieve. A lie is ismply making a statment that you know not to be true. And you KNEW that it is not the intnt of ALL religious to outpupulate others, as well as you KNEW that a vast majority of religious are NOT :pwermad".
SO you deliverately made a known false statement.
Aris: you lied no matter how you shade it or try to weasel away. ANd you compun3ede they lie by refusing to admit it, and further indicating your anti-religious bigotry.
These are classic responses from liars like you.
Admit it. And apologize for it.
Your statement was bigoted and a lie.
And you will be forgiven.
If not, I will call attneiton to you as a Liar and Bigot every time you post to this board. I will make it the mission of either me or some software to remind everyone that ever sees a post by you that you are a unrepentant, decetptive equivocating liar and anti-religious bigot.
#66
And Aris, I am going to be visitng Greece this summer - seeing the places where early Christianity first had its hard tests. Remind me of what part you live in so this old man can either avoid it, or kick your ass personally.
#68
religion sucks? I'd disagree. Most of your societal norms came about through religion, social compact, or fear of a higher power. Otherwise we'd all be visigoths :-)
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/15/2005 17:58 Comments ||
Top||
#69
hmm looking back on history , has religion hindered or progressed humanity ? I would have to say to advance humankind then in the early stages of non global communications then it had some beneifts , but ffs in todays society , there isnt anything religion can bring to the table at all ..
#70
Okay, MacNails, you already admitted to being drunk (on the Graner thread). You had best sign off before "your own abilities" deteriorate even more.
Posted by: Tom ||
01/15/2005 18:04 Comments ||
Top||
#71
G'night Mac.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
01/15/2005 18:06 Comments ||
Top||
#72
bleh whatever Tom . At least i have an excuse to sign off m8 . Your arguements diminsh quickly without alcohol . And prolly evaporate just as fast too .
#74
G'nite Mac - a different day - a different Mac...
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/15/2005 18:14 Comments ||
Top||
#75
hehe Frank , for once i think 'we agree to disagree '. Take care and I'll read and mull over my rantings tomorrow morning over a fresh pot of coffee ...
Take care my friend . I hope to see a 100+ post count in the morn :)
#79
It's not surprising that many people reject religion - the churches have done as poor of a job as teaching to truth as Jessie Jackson has done teaching about civil rights.
All religions teach the lessons of the death bed - nobody ever says, "I wished I'd gotten that job or worked harder" but they do realize that family, love, forgiveness, and having lived a decent life, without hurting others is important and what REALLY makes you happy.
Religion - (jury's out on Islam) with it's focus on family and doing right is advice on how to live a good life. If you do this...you will get good results. As for life advice, Liberals are offering the grapefruit diet - conservatives are offering eat less and exercise more.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
01/15/2005 23:25 Comments ||
Top||
#81
Aris, you are a liar.
"all religious commandments opposing contraception been. The desire of powermad individuals to outnumber the competition."
WRONG
The Catholic Church follows the Bible and God's instruction in Genesis to be fruitful and multiply. And natural law for the consequences of that set of instructions from God.
Its a matter of religious beleif not cold political calculation - you reveal your cynicism and constant political and anti-religioud bias by your very making of such a lie in a public forum.
Remember (as you woudl if you bothered to actually understand the issue before shwoing yourself to be a lair), up until 1930, all Protestant denominations agreed with the Catholic Churchâs teaching condemning contraception as sinful. The Anglican church was the first to fold and other protestants followed.
Its all based on the doctrine of Humanae Vitae, had you the integrity to actually read the belief and basis for opposition to birth control. Its based on the ancient philosophy of Natural Law. The natural law purpose of sex is procreation. The view opf the Church is that the pleasure that sexual intercourse provides is an additional blessing from God, intended to offer the possibility of new life while strengthening the bond of intimacy, respect, and love between husband and wife. The loving environment this bond creates is the perfect setting for nurturing children. And to avoid the possibility of procreation is to thwart God's will and Natural Law.
This doctrine is not new in the Church - you can look up the writings of Clement of Alexandria in 195AD, The council of Nicea, St Augustine, and from the protestant side even Martin Luther and John Calvin address this.
And the reason is not to "outpopulate" anyone - it is a moral issue, as said by Pope Paul VI:
"Let them consider, how wide and easy a road would thus be opened up towards conjugal infidelity and the general lowering of morality.Not much experience is needed in order to know human weakness, and to understand that menâespecially the young, who are so vulnerable on this pointâhave need of encouragement to be faithful to the moral law, so that they must not be offered some easy means of eluding its observance. It is also to be feared that the man, growing used to the employment of anti-conceptive practices, may finally lose respect for the woman and, no longer caring for her physical and psychological equilibrium, may come to the point of considering her as a mere instrument of selfish enjoyment, and no longer as his respected and beloved companion" "
Note how precient he is - look at the Rap culture and its treatment of women as "Bitches And Ho's", the surge of teen pregnancy (since birth control is imperfect at best), and the huge number of men who take no responsibility for the children they create, using the woman as a piece of facility, not as a properly lived partner for life.
Face it Airs - this is a moral opposition, and you slandered all the religious peole in your outright lie.
The Pope and the Church were right. The consequences predicted are there, right in your face. And the reaonsing behind the opposition to Contraception is plaingly NOT "powermad", but very moral.
Finally:
You may not agree with the reglious, philosophical and moral points I presneted, but that is not the issue here. So before you do your usual weasel act and try to change the subject or twist your words, let me remind you: The issue is that you lied when stating that all religious opposition to birth control was intended as a tool for the "Powermad" to "outreproduce" the others. I've shown quite the opposite.
Apologize, NOW, Aris, for being a liar, as well as a bigot.
#82
Here is your atempt to change what you said: " actually I only attacked the person who first made that instruction"
You said "all religious commandments opposing contraception been. The desire of powermad individuals to outnumber the competition."
The pope and others and peopel of faith like myself are not powermad. And your words didnt mention the "person who made that instruction". For to a beleiver, that "person" is God Himself - those are His words. Your weasel attempt requires us to disbeielve that those are Gods word recorded in our scripture, meaning you fundamentally slander our religion, going back to the days of pre-history. All your lame attempts at equivocation after the fact do not change it: you LIED and you are a bigot against religious people.
YOU LIED
Note the qualifier you used. ALL.
I simple showed that the term "all" did not apply.
You, as predicted, tried to wist away, and weasel away from your own words.
Then you tried to attack the person pointing out your lie. You even questioned the definition odf a lie, picking a convenient one, but not the truest wone. Given your anti-religious bigotry, your words were meant to decieve - your use of "All" is such an obvious unthinking and blanket condemnation that it shows your bigoted intent.
Secondly, the most common definition is to knowingly make a statement that is not true, not your slanted definiton that requires intent to decieve. A lie is ismply making a statment that you know not to be true. And you KNEW that it is not the intnt of ALL religious to outpupulate others, as well as you KNEW that a vast majority of religious are NOT :pwermad".
SO you deliverately made a known false statement.
Aris: you lied no matter how you shade it or try to weasel away. ANd you compun3ede they lie by refusing to admit it, and further indicating your anti-religious bigotry.
These are classic responses from liars like you.
Admit it. And apologize for it.
Your statement was bigoted and a lie.
And you will be forgiven.
If not, I will call attneiton to you as a Liar and Bigot every time you post to this board. I will make it the mission of either me or some software to remind everyone that ever sees a post by you that you are a unrepentant, decetptive equivocating liar and anti-religious bigot.
#83
And Aris, I am going to be visitng Greece this summer - seeing the places where early Christianity first had its hard tests. Remind me of what part you live in so this old man can either avoid it, or kick your ass personally.
"all religious commandments opposing contraception been. The desire of powermad individuals to outnumber the competition."
WRONG
The Catholic Church follows the Bible and God's instruction in Genesis to be fruitful and multiply. And natural law for the consequences of that set of instructions from God.
Its a matter of religious beleif not cold political calculation - you reveal your cynicism and constant political and anti-religioud bias by your very making of such a lie in a public forum.
Remember (as you woudl if you bothered to actually understand the issue before shwoing yourself to be a lair), up until 1930, all Protestant denominations agreed with the Catholic Churchâs teaching condemning contraception as sinful. The Anglican church was the first to fold and other protestants followed.
Its all based on the doctrine of Humanae Vitae, had you the integrity to actually read the belief and basis for opposition to birth control. Its based on the ancient philosophy of Natural Law. The natural law purpose of sex is procreation. The view opf the Church is that the pleasure that sexual intercourse provides is an additional blessing from God, intended to offer the possibility of new life while strengthening the bond of intimacy, respect, and love between husband and wife. The loving environment this bond creates is the perfect setting for nurturing children. And to avoid the possibility of procreation is to thwart God's will and Natural Law.
This doctrine is not new in the Church - you can look up the writings of Clement of Alexandria in 195AD, The council of Nicea, St Augustine, and from the protestant side even Martin Luther and John Calvin address this.
And the reason is not to "outpopulate" anyone - it is a moral issue, as said by Pope Paul VI:
"Let them consider, how wide and easy a road would thus be opened up towards conjugal infidelity and the general lowering of morality.Not much experience is needed in order to know human weakness, and to understand that menâespecially the young, who are so vulnerable on this pointâhave need of encouragement to be faithful to the moral law, so that they must not be offered some easy means of eluding its observance. It is also to be feared that the man, growing used to the employment of anti-conceptive practices, may finally lose respect for the woman and, no longer caring for her physical and psychological equilibrium, may come to the point of considering her as a mere instrument of selfish enjoyment, and no longer as his respected and beloved companion" "
Note how precient he is - look at the Rap culture and its treatment of women as "Bitches And Ho's", the surge of teen pregnancy (since birth control is imperfect at best), and the huge number of men who take no responsibility for the children they create, using the woman as a piece of facility, not as a properly lived partner for life.
Face it Airs - this is a moral opposition, and you slandered all the religious peole in your outright lie.
The Pope and the Church were right. The consequences predicted are there, right in your face. And the reaonsing behind the opposition to Contraception is plaingly NOT "powermad", but very moral.
Finally:
You may not agree with the reglious, philosophical and moral points I presneted, but that is not the issue here. So before you do your usual weasel act and try to change the subject or twist your words, let me remind you: The issue is that you lied when stating that all religious opposition to birth control was intended as a tool for the "Powermad" to "outreproduce" the others. I've shown quite the opposite.
Apologize, NOW, Aris, for being a liar, as well as a bigot.
#85
Here is your atempt to change what you said: " actually I only attacked the person who first made that instruction"
You said "all religious commandments opposing contraception been. The desire of powermad individuals to outnumber the competition."
The pope and others and peopel of faith like myself are not powermad. And your words didnt mention the "person who made that instruction". For to a beleiver, that "person" is God Himself - those are His words. Your weasel attempt requires us to disbeielve that those are Gods word recorded in our scripture, meaning you fundamentally slander our religion, going back to the days of pre-history. All your lame attempts at equivocation after the fact do not change it: you LIED and you are a bigot against religious people.
YOU LIED
Note the qualifier you used. ALL.
I simple showed that the term "all" did not apply.
You, as predicted, tried to wist away, and weasel away from your own words.
Then you tried to attack the person pointing out your lie. You even questioned the definition odf a lie, picking a convenient one, but not the truest wone. Given your anti-religious bigotry, your words were meant to decieve - your use of "All" is such an obvious unthinking and blanket condemnation that it shows your bigoted intent.
Secondly, the most common definition is to knowingly make a statement that is not true, not your slanted definiton that requires intent to decieve. A lie is ismply making a statment that you know not to be true. And you KNEW that it is not the intnt of ALL religious to outpupulate others, as well as you KNEW that a vast majority of religious are NOT :pwermad".
SO you deliverately made a known false statement.
Aris: you lied no matter how you shade it or try to weasel away. ANd you compun3ede they lie by refusing to admit it, and further indicating your anti-religious bigotry.
These are classic responses from liars like you.
Admit it. And apologize for it.
Your statement was bigoted and a lie.
And you will be forgiven.
If not, I will call attneiton to you as a Liar and Bigot every time you post to this board. I will make it the mission of either me or some software to remind everyone that ever sees a post by you that you are a unrepentant, decetptive equivocating liar and anti-religious bigot.
#86
And Aris, I am going to be visitng Greece this summer - seeing the places where early Christianity first had its hard tests. Remind me of what part you live in so this old man can either avoid it, or kick your ass personally.
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