401–410 of 1001 posts
What I find most absurd in all of this is the utter stupidity of beliefs in entirely man made fairytales that have been causing nonstop wars for the past few thousand years. Maybe eventually, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Mormonism, and any other gullible belief systems in fake sky people, written by total nutcases 1k+ years ago and miraculously still followed today, will end. Believing that you're somehow superior t…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can't even describe other states as "the world's only German state", or "French state" or "Polish state", "Russian state" etc. because racism, so what are we even talking about?
1. There's a lot of irony in your statement, since Jewish people were slaughtered and horribly mistreated in those other countries simply for being Jewish. So how have they not been ethno-states... or at least "anti-specific-ethno states"? 2. There are plenty of countries that are dominated by Islam, and yet their right to exist isn't generally questioned.
And that's the point, everyone else got criticized for it except for Israel, which has a bipartisan support (at least in America). And any critique of Israel being a Jewish state is somehow portrayed as a double standard against Jews. At the same time you can freely attack white, non-Jewish people on the basis of what European and American governments did without any fear of repercussions. Not saying that there should be repercussions, because I support free speech, just pointing this out.
The first part of your comment refers to Jews as ethnicity and the second as religion.
The first five paragraphs are all comments on how it must be difficult for a progressive Jew to simultaneously support progressive values and Israel
> If I were a Jew today, my sensibilities would be tormented. I would find it increasingly difficult to reconcile the long cycles of oppression that Jewish people have endured and the insatiable appetite for vengeful violence that Israel, my homeland, has now acquired.
It's only in the last paragraph that the author goes to a different place and starts blaming Jews directly.
> If I were a Jew I would be concerned about my insatiable appetite for war and killing in defense of myself.
I wonder what the author was thinking when he was writing it as it doesn't make much sense to me.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> but today it is all about getting scalps, You say "today" as if it's ever been any different. Has it?
In terms of getting people fired/removed/cancelled for remarks, yes absolutely. That may be a function of social media and the scale of communication in modern times, but either way the sensitivity of the vocal minority has definitely changed even in my relatively short life.
I agree, the "If I were a jew" sentence is an extremely tasteless and and insensitive way to put it, but from the rest of the quotes, his intent to criticize Israel's policies, not call into question the right to exist seems pretty clear.
If someone criticized the Chinese government, you wouldn't automatically accuse them of anti-asian racism either, would you?
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>But as a matter of probability, a lot of people who criticize Israel are also antisemitic. This is a meaningless statement though. We can expect that nearly anyone that's antisemitic would be critical of a country run and mostly inhabited by Jewish people. It becomes a problem when people try to extrapolate that fact to dismiss every criticism of Israel as "this guy's probably just antisemitic." Its only true as a m…
"people should stop using accusations of bigotry as a weapon to silence people" Huh? Are you seriously calling someones words who feels victimized, a weapon? Are you seriously holding fear of actual violence to an unsubstantiated standard? "If you want to call someone a bigot, its pretty important to make sure you are right about it." Please show me one other form of bigotry accusation you hold to the same standard.…
The idea of figuratively describing something as a weapon isn't new or unusual. I'm not even sure what you mean by the second sentence. I was talking about people defaulting to claims of bigotry at any sign of criticism. If every criticism of Israel, even legitimate criticisms not coming from a sense of bigotry, makes a person feel victimized then there is something wrong with that person. If words cannot be used as a weapon exactly how do criticisms of Israel make a person feel victimized?
>Please show me one other form of bigotry accusation you hold to the same standard.
I hold all forms of bigotry accusations to the same standard. The example given was basically "a lot of people exist that are antisemitic so we can assume that criticism of Israel is probably antisemitic." Which is an argument that's basically uses the same sloppy logic that actual bigots use to justify their beliefs. Calling someone a bigot can have severe consequences for that person whether they are actually bigots or not. The key part of that sentence is that it can have consequences when they are not guilty. Yet people throw accusations around assuming someone's intentions simply because they said something they don't like. That's wrong so its important to try to only make those accusations against people that are actually bigots. I'm not sure how that's controversial. Some people do this because they genuinely think that anyone that criticizes a thing they like is a bigot. However, some people know better and intentionally falsely accuse people of being antisemitic because they know that it makes people afraid to voice their opinions. Thus, I called it a figurative weapon.
>but I definitely would not rely on you to stand up or defend folks from actual antisemitism.
Well whether you rely on me or not I will do the right thing if a genocidal antisemitic political party attempts to take over US politics. In the meantime, if I see people doing bigoted things I will stand up for people being targeted. Like I always have. This is kind of what I was talking about though, you seem to have labelled me as an enemy of yours simply because I suggested that there are people that criticize Israel for reasons other than antisemitism. There is no government in the world that doesn't sometimes deserve to be criticized.
>Do you actually and critically think this is true or even appropriate to say?
I don't understand. Are you saying its impossible to be critical of Israel without being antisemitic?
To be clear, what I was saying wasn't intended as a defense of the person OP was about. I think that the Google employee's letter was poorly worded and offensive. I don't know if he's antisemitic, but the phrasing saying that "Jews have an insatiable appetite for war" comes across as bigoted to me. It could be the result of poor phrasing causing someone to say something that they didn't mean, but it might not be. I can't blame someone for interpreting his statement as antisemitism because it was an overtly antisemitic statement. He could be a different person today, but no one made him publish that.
Wow, 14 years ago. I hope the current progressive correct-thinkers realize the takes they make today have to hold up over a decade from now, otherwise the next wave is going to cancel them.
> As repugnant as his past anti-semitic rant was, people change and sometimes say and do stupid things. In a sane world this guy would not have been removed from his position and Damore would not have been fired. Instead we could have had a conversation to win hearts and minds, but today it is all about getting scalps, witch hunts and over-reaction. What we are currently doing sends people underground which radicaliz…