601–610 of 737 posts
I work with a Muslim and I'm a Christian. Since we are both very conservative, I actually have more in common with him than with my secular coworkers and friends. Unfortunately we both work remotely and live several hundred miles from each other. I think we could be good friends if we lived closer. One thing I have learned talking with my Muslim coworker is that, just like in Christianity, there are many divisions an…
Gaeme Wood over at the Atlantic has a riveting piece on "What ISIS really wants". Best long form investigative journalism I've read in nearly a decade. http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/03/what-isi... (Warning: It's really long, but answers a whole lot of questions that a whole lot of westerners, outsiders have about that group, the region, their funding, recruiting, idealogy and why they still haven't…
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Yes of course they're long term goal is a caliphate. But they attacked the US because our presence was a direct obstacle. They didn't put suicide bombers in China or Copenhagen or Paris for that matter. Back in 1991 after Saddam invaded Kuwait, I remember thinking "why the hell do we have to solve the problem? Why not force Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf States to take responsibility for their security?" Practically…
> But they attacked the US because our presence was a direct obstacle. They didn't put suicide bombers in China or Copenhagen or Paris for that matter. al-Qaeda has for more than a decade overtly targeted China over its policies in Xinjiang, and the Chinese government claimed that the East Turkistan Islamic Movement behind many attacks there was tied to al-Qaeda (and, indeed, some senior leaders of that organization…
BTW if you ever go to a Uighur restaurant try the horse. Tastes like chipped beef.
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Even if the US military is subject to the "rule of law" (which is another argument), how does that in any way excuse or lessen any atrocities it commits? I try hard to be open-minded, but that is one commonly-expressed view that deeply disturbs me.
>how does that in any way excuse or lessen any atrocities it commits? Rule of law does not excuse or lessen atrocities, it defines them. Moreover, the laws of war are specifically designed to lessen/avoid atrocities by limiting: 1. When a nation-state may engage in the use of armed force, and 2. How a nation-state may actually use armed force. Having an open mind, I ask you to look within and ask whether the US is sp…
Are you saying that codified law is the only thing that determines what is and isn't an atrocity? As in, anything that's legal isn't an atrocity? I certainly do not agree with that.
> Having an open mind, I ask you to look within and ask whether the US is specifically targeting civilians, or has simply targeted military actors hiding among civilian populations?
I don't have any clue, but I don't think that's the primary concern. I think there can be unacceptable civilian casualties even if there is a legitimate military target in the middle of civilians.
> No matter what you answer, you must acknowledge IS is responsible for planning/executing military style attacks against civilians specifically.
Of course, but why is that relevant? The existence of a worse actor does not make the acts of another actor more excusable.
> We can agree to disagree, certainly there is nothing wrong with an all life is sacred approach, but you should not feel deeply disturbed that the law distinguishes between responding to a military attack with the use of force targeted at those most responsible and a non-state actor engaging in terrorist/quasi-military attacks against civilian populations?
That's not what disturbs me. What disturbs me is the notion that a formal law in any way determines the acceptability of a violent act.
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But note that some people desire attributes of society that they consider to qualify as "open society" that many other people who also claim to want an "open society" oppose. For instance, one might beliege that an open society would not have hate speech laws or copyright laws, and that anyone who supports such laws has "beliefs incompatible with an open society."
In particular on HN there are plenty of a very extreme breed of libertarians who believe 'open society' means no regulation or taxes as well. It's a generic weasel word that means "stuff I like and not stuff I don't like".
However, in actuality, libertarianism and anarcho-capitalism is very clear about what its core foundations are. And you'll only find the left-libertarians that are very wishy-washy about their beliefs such that each one has their own definition of "stuff I like, and not stuff I don't like".
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The right answer? Kill Assad and help the people take back Syria. We should have done it three years ago before much of the moderate resistance was killed but it still needs doing. And as for your Israel jab, they're better to the Palestinians than the Arab states in the area are. And none of the Israelis I've talked to seem to have inherently racist beliefs but many of the recently middle-eastern Arabs do. (About th…
Right? Just like killing Saddam and Gadafi stabilized the region. I'm sure nothing bad would happen. It's not like something worse than Al Quaida can happen again. Europe fully deserves the migrant crisis. It went into Middle East guns blazing, and expects to come out of it unscathed.
I mostly agree with fineman, except that I think it's too late for backing secular resistance to have much of a point. Just like Iraq, we left them high and dry when they needed us, and so now the only chance of having any significant influence is a direct invasion, which nobody has much stomach for anymore.
I'd summarize as grow up already. The fingers of Islamist and totalitarian interference are already all over this conflict, and have been for decades. The West keeping out of it only guarantees that one or the other will win and any chance of secular democracy will lose.
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I'm not in Europe, but I've heard about Geert Wilders and seen him speak in a few online videos. He doesn't actually seem to be that radical, except in terms of immigration where he seems to be taking a tough stance. But as all seemingly extremists becoming prime ministers, he'll eventually learn to see a bit more of the bigger picture and cool down if he gets in office.
At the risk of Godwinning this thread, that's something I read in some old documents too. That time it didn't work.
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You can find pretty horrific stuff in the Bible too (I don't have time to look for much more but http://biblehub.com/deuteronomy/22-21.htm is a good example). http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/ is a good tool to go to the juicy parts quickly. Both the Qoran and the Bible (and some other sacred books) are full of stuff that is horrific, yet discarded as obviously outdated by 99.9999% of their practitionners. In my boo…
> discarded as obviously outdated by 99.9999% of their practitionners This is plainly not the case, as we are witnessing the formation and rapid growth of Isamic State.
I'm Muslim and the problem is not about Islam. Problem is all about the people who want to gain money for themselves. I know a truth that makes sense anytime I remember; everything is related to money or sex in this world. Nothing else matters. Religion is just a tool to manage the money.
Thank you downvoters, I couldn't do it without you! Meh..
I imagine your original comment was downvoted because it made a grand generic claim and didn't really contain any information other than that you think that.
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> For example, there is an unconfortable number of Christians who do have a fundamentalist mindset, too (although I didn't find any exact numbers). Even fundamentalist Christians don't have divine commandments to kill apostates. Nor do atheists, agnostics, Buddhists, or Jews (well, they do, but it hasn't been in force since the Exile.) This is a false equivalency.
Funny though, how the fundamentalists christians have killed many more muslims than muslims have killed christians. I really dislike this, "but xtians are less violent than muslims because they have a mandate to kill apostates" approach, because it ignores so much of the reality. Not to mention, without diving into old/new testament theology, that there are plenty of commands to kill in the bible, even of unbeleivers…