Live from the Middle East

[Chojin]

I thought this thread was gonna say "IT'S SATURDAY NIIIIIGHT!"

[mburbank]

Okay, Alphabits. You don't even have to start with a statement of your own. Take any article from any pundit or authority of politician or whatever, cut and paste it in the Abcdxxx, and briefly state what you think of it. It can even be one sentence 'I endorse this message'. In the spirit of honest discourse, I will attempt to respond to it in only in ways you deem relevant. If you like we can even take the article this thread started with.

Here's why I'm adamant it should be it's own thread. As you yourself admitted, you don't start many of your own. You like to come in to a conversation that's already going and declare that this or that part of it is irrellevant, and then complain that I or someone else already in the conversation is unreasonable because they refuse to discuss anything relevant, and that they are obviously crazy or lying to not recognize that what tey were talking about with someone else has nothing to do with the topic. You're like the boozy uncle at the Thanksgiving table louldy interupting and harranguing friends and family and acting as if you'd started the conversation in the first place.

[Abcdxxxx]

I've done some soul searching, and Burbank was right....

Originally Posted by Sethomas

I'd take beheading over torture any day. Funny how that aspect isn't really mentioned, that the American strategy is to beat them at their own game of brutality.

I'd take water boarding over spending the last seven months on my life dying a slow death in the hospital, poisoned from cyanide laced scraps off a suicide bomb.

There. Now we can get this stellar conversation back on track!

[derrida]

You have no gag reflex?

[Sethomas]

My point was a precursor to Burbank's. Being barbaric doesn't equate to being of low technology. Barbaric, in common usage (it originally meant "foreigner", especially referring to Persians because their language sounded like "bar bar bar bar" to the Athenians) means that one resorts to unsavory methods to achieve some end, with abject disregard for established ethical standards.

If someone is going to commit an execution, which is wrong in the Middle East and is wrong in Texas, the relative use of a needle versus a sword is a moot point. They're both symbolic. Elaborate rituals of injecting three different serums into the body to accomplish what a bullet would do more efficiently and quickly is just a way we can pat ourselves on the back for how sterile and clean we are. Using a sword is the same thing. "If it was good enough to kill a member of Mohammed's family, it's good enough to kill modern infidel." Calling one way of life (err, death) "barbaric" because it's different is illogical and essentially just plays on natural xenophobia. Sure, there's the psychological aspect, but many states impose the ritual of having the condemned spend his last day in a special cell with a window facing the death chamber. "Cruel and unusual" knows no better psychological method.

So, it's all about hypocrisy. More to the point, though, is the hypocrisy incurred by calling dozens of innocent deaths "barbaric" because blades are used, versus killing potentially hundreds of thousands of innocents with bullets and such, is asinine. It's essentially on par with calling them smelly for the whole left-hand thing. You can spew out as much rhetoric you want about breaking eggs to make an omellete (which you're stuffing down someone's throat at gunpoint), but when the Geneva Convention is called "quaint" and torture is approved, you lose any credibility you might have had.

So, this article makes no point besides how prevalent hypocrisy remains.

[Abcdxxxx]

Great point...if we lived in such a vacuum that we could take this essay on such a literal level, without playing dumb or whitewashing the scenario.

So you can argue there's no progressive modern manner to execute someone because the act itself is unethical and speaks towards a dark ages mentality....but that's your argument, and it's yet another swirve on the topic. All the author is trying to to is pick on the most blatant example and hope that it will open your eyes. Swap out beheadings for say, honor killings or some other act without an American equal,which you can't twist. I mean, come one on now, do you truly believe this article is merely about beheadings? Can you honestly say that anyone calling the extremists in question "barbaric" must me xenophobic?

[kahljorn]

beheadings seem like they would be relatively painless.

[mburbank]

Alphaboy, why don't you go to the lovely, clean thread I made for you and say what you think this articl IS about instead of just telling peopke in an ongoing thread about how they are wrong about what it's talking about? Or is that too hard?

[Sethomas]

Well, ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ, it's kind of hard to take the whole thing seriously in any light when it calls people Neanderthals.

[Ant10708]

Originally Posted by kahljorn

beheadings seem like they would be relatively painless.

Not using a dull blade

[Abcdxxxx]

It's perfectly reasonable and honest, to call the Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi crowd barabarians, along with other pejorative terms meant describe their backwards psychopathic mentality. There is a refusal to define this movement, assign blame for their collective actions, or even acknowledge their goals.

[Sethomas]

Well, you're an asshole as well, but I've yet to use a sub-human pejorative like "neanderthal" on you.

[Preechr]

I think I'm gonna go with Jewbacca on this one. Barbarians, animals, Neanderthals, Space Monkeys... I don't care what you call them, I believe very much in what humanity IS, and they ain't it, if I may be so bold and ignorant to flatly assert something so arrogant. Being human is more than walking upright and having thumbs. I can attempt to understand the twisted logic that wound up with terrorists choosing the life they have, but I don't have to agree with it and I certainly don't HAVE to catagorize it as human.

People might ask who am I to say so, but I'd answer who are we if we fail to make these distinctions?

[mburbank]

I don't know where I'd say they fall on the human/not human argument. I think they are probably all too human.

I also think, historically speaking, groups of people deciding other groups of people are less than human has never turned out very well. Case in point, the beheaders think we are infidels, which makes us less than human and suceptable to beheading.

So Alphaboy, what did you think the article that started all this off topic nonsense was about? I'm just asking. SAY! I bet you could use the thread I made for you to talk about it! Or if that's simply too emasculating for you, fine, go ahead, do it here. But try not to reference eveything else in this thread, because I want to be able to adress your argument on your terms once I know what it is.

[Preechr]

Originally Posted by mburbank

I don't know where I'd say they fall on the human/not human argument. I think they are probably all too human.

See, this is why I love arguing with you, Max. You are so bitter and hateful, it's cute. Normally, thinking such bad thoughts all the time makes people into monsters, but you have a way of wearing extreme cynicism like a teddy bear suit. What makes it even better is that I KNOW you mean it!

Originally Posted by mburbank

I also think, historically speaking, groups of people deciding other groups of people are less than human has never turned out very well. Case in point, the beheaders think we are infidels, which makes us less than human and suceptable to beheading.

But then, you also have a bad habit of avoiding the moral argument. This is a dangerous place for you to be, and I like you so much I'm gonna tell you why: On one hand, your viewpoint is passing negative moral judgement on EVERYBODY... you can call it realism or whatever you want, but what you are doing is most definitely and unavoidably judgement. We all SUCK, just some more than others, so the best thing to do is baby-proof the world so nobody gets hurt.

The problem is that when you choose to equivicate some random, destructive morality with any other morality... like you just did when you said that beheading for them is the same as how or why we fight them... you include your own moral code with the whole illogical mess. You negate your own viewpoint. Nobody's gonna respect your moral viewpoint when you say that all moral viewpoints, even your own, are meaningless. That's not even a real statement!

[mburbank]

Au contraire! I think having a constant awareness of the depths of human depravity is the best recipe for avoiding it. I think humility makes for wiser council than arrogance. Of course, there might be something in between. I just haven't seen it on anything resembling a national scale. Any national scale.

As I've said before, I think the US of A is, in the main, morally superior to the vast majority of the Arab world. It's an opinion and until someone comes up with a morality scale that works as well as the priodic table for predicting results, it's just an opinion, but there it is. Moral viewpoints aren't meaningless. They are just very sticky, easily abused and should not be confused with unified field theory.

My argument is: When historically, the morally superior party charges against the morally inferior (relatively speaking) Yelling "WE BE TEAM SUPERMAN, YOU ALL BE ORCS, OGRES and GOBALINS!" the results are frequently catastrophic and almost always coupled with corruption, brutality, eventually blowback and always the entrenchment of the belief that while all animals are equal, the side I'm on has halos and your side is naked and covere in pig crap.

Might there perhaps be another way to proceeed, one that acknowledges that evil is perpetrated by humans who no matter how evil still have inallianable rights, That we have been known to make mistakes about who's evil and who just happens to not like us as much as we do, that we should watch for evil in our own ranks even as we fight it in others and that generally speaking a Rah rah we are the champions style foreign policy makes enemies as rapidly as it defeats them. I won't say it never works. It worked well in WWII, but I think that had an enormous amount to do with how rapidly we dropped the Rah rah once the fight was over, somthing nobody did at te end of WWI .

[Abcdxxxx]

Precchr's right.... and when someone attempts to say "oh you're an asshole, and we invented nukes, why should I judge an oprressive moolah?" they are in fact judging all of humanity by default. We're not all on the same level. There is right, and there is wrong, and I'd hope you're not so morally bankrupt that you can't pull of a little rational thinking.

I'm not going to keep repeating myself. The movement in question needs to be defined, AND regarded as less then acceptable for our standard of evolution EVEN IF we live in a shitty world full of shitty people. That's just how rotten they are. What would it take for you to be able to acknowledge this without shame? How many lives? What methods of oppression would cross the line for you? Seriously, what would it take for you to say "okay, these people are not functioning up to the standards of the modern world, and our standards ain't that high to begin with".

[mburbank]

"As I've said before, I think the US of A is, in the main, morally superior to the vast majority of the Arab world."
-Me, being reasonable and clarifying

"We're not all on the same level. There is right, and there is wrong, and I'd hope you're not so morally bankrupt that you can't pull of a little rational thinking. "
-Alphaboy, continuing to muddy the waters by being so morally bankrupt he continues to argue against a fake me that's easy to argue with, instead of a real me, that isn't.

"I'm not going to keep repeating myself."
-Alphaboy

Is this a new policy? When will it go into effect. I'm assuming right after the paragraph preceeding it.

"The movement in question needs to be defined, "
-Alphaboy
PLEASE do. That would allow me to reagrd them as

"less then acceptable for our standard of evolution EVEN IF we live in a shitty world full of shitty people."

You also need to define 'acceptable'. What does them being 'unacceptable' to us empower us to do, since while admittedly shitty they are more so. Might it be possible to address their inacceptability in such a way that they become more acceptable instead of less aceeptable? Becuase so far, our approach seems to be making more people more inaceptable. I'm pefectly willing to say they are unacceptable, but I'd like to be really clear on who they are and how many acceptable people we are willing to convert into more unacceptable people in our quest to make all people acceptable to us. I just don't think we should let how marvellously acceptable we are to go to our head in the process.

"What would it take for you to be able to acknowledge this without shame"
-Alphbestboy

You can call it shame if you like. I prefer to call it humility. Humility is an admirable characteristic, and it makes people ever so much more acceptable. Sadly, I have acknowledged your point over and over and over, (let me do it again. 'They' to use your broad brush, are morally inferior to 'Us'. 'They' do things that are even more barbaric than the things we do, and given the chance, they would probably be even more barbaric on a larger scale. Good Lord! I said all that and I'm not feeling even a smidge of shame! How about that?) but I fear you won't be satisfied as by 'acknowlodging' you mostly want me to parrot your position identically and cease ever mentioning any relationship (or even existance) of our actions.

What would it take for you to admit that our ever so slightly superior mentality may have in some small way contributed to the dire straights we find ourselves in, and that being aware of it and behaving somewhat differently as far as foreign policy goes might help us find our way to better straights? Do you think you could do that without feeling you've utterly capitualted to terrorism? Or are you so didactic, so utterly sure of the degree of our cutural moral superiority that you can't?

"Seriously, what would it take for you to say "okay, these people are not functioning up to the standards of the modern world, and our standards ain't that high to begin with"."
-Alphabajudge

okay, these people are not functioning up to the standards of the modern world, and our standards ain't that high to begin with. I'm saying it again, so that you'll be able to hue to your new policy of not repeating yourself. I even cut n' pasted you, so there could be no chance of my deviating from your opinion.

I'll leave the questions of how you sort the 'them' from the 'not them' or how you keep the currently 'not them' from becoming 'them' when you collatterally kill lots of their 'not them' friends and relatives while attempting to bring 'them' up to the standards of the modern world for a different thread. Why? Because I, Max Burbank, agree that okay, these people are not functioning up to the standards of the modern world, and our standards ain't that high to begin with.

Say, I know the perfect thread for you to go sort out who you think exactly 'these people' are and how we should modernize them effectively. It's got your very own name on it! AND you could do it without repeating yourself!

[Abcdxxxx]

Burbank, you're a child. Your attempt at word play is silly and contrarian. I'd suggest you read your own last post, and then reread the article that started this post, and see if you can't figure out on your own what a turnip you sound like.

In the meantime, I'll indulge your schizoprenia long enough to say, It's not our job to sort out the "thems" from the "not thems". That's for Muslims and Arabs to decide, as a matter of their own self interest. I'd like to assume the majority view themselves in the not them category, but they're reluctant to make that distinction too. The largest Muslim organizations in the world have alligned themselves in the "them" category. That puts them in much greater danger for collateral killing. By the way, where are Muslims being collaterally killed by Americans because they're Muslim? Now back up a second. Do you know what else puts Muslims in collateral danger of being killed? The game of pretending there isn't one single islamic movement which has culminated in the climate outlined in the article we're supposedly discussing. By whitewashing the situation or attempting to turn the guilt back towards the United States you are in effect responsible for the continued abuse of innocent Muslims by Muslims themselves. Collateral killing? Try Darfur. Try any of the incidents being reported daily involving Islamic violence....

...and if you don't disagree, there's no reason to respond , Burbank.

[Preechr]

Originally Posted by mburbank

Au contraire! I think having a constant awareness of the depths of human depravity is the best recipe for avoiding it. I think humility makes for wiser council than arrogance. Of course, there might be something in between. I just haven't seen it on anything resembling a national scale. Any national scale.

I'm gonna respond just to that first part. You may never have personally SEEN it, but it did exist once. It was called the United States of America, and it existed for a little while right after the Republic was founded. It was a product of human thought, and so not perfect in form, but it did exist.

A few real guys got together in the spirit of humility, armed with all the latest Liberal ideas, and hammered out a plan for a nation that was tempered by the understanding that even any one of them would surely go nuts with all the power available to an absolute, unchecked ruler. This was the first time any nation was founded on these kind of ideas. This was the first Liberal national experiment.

Benjamin Franklin once said the Continental Congress gave us "a Republican, if they can keep it." Something like that... We had it for a little less time than the time it took us to figure out how to take advantage of it for personal gain.

Max, it's easy to SAY there's something you want to see ogevrnemtn be like in one way, but it's a Hell of a lot harder to think it all the way through and dream up how it might actually work. You just cannot have a socialist government based in the idea that we all get what we want whether or not we have earned it and also, at the same time, have a goevrnment wherein we aren't subject to the whim of those that want from us what we don't think it's fair to give.

America used to be the country where we actually based our culture on the concept that humans are fundamentally crappy people if you don't obstruct that option. Is it still? Why or why not?

[mburbank]

Alphaboy, you're a wiener. Your attempt at debate is silly and contrarian. I'd suggest you read your own last post, and then reread the article that started this post, and the following posts, and see if you can't figure out on your own what a turnip you sound like. Because lord knows I can't tell you. It's too hard. I'd have to think. So why don't you just go back and see how you are totally wrong and I am totally right, and then come back here and admit it, otherwise I'll call you names and accuse you of being morally bankrupt, which is easier.

Or here's an idea. Try being a little bit less of a douchebag and I'll adress your concerns with less 'word play'.

"It's not our job to sort out the "thems" from the "not thems"."
-Alphacleanser

I'll accept that as an argument. So, if the 'Thems' are unnaceptable, what is it our job to do? What does not accepting them mean? Can you plot if for me somewhere between not inviting them to parties and the complete eradication of all their bloodlines? It might give me some idea of where your moral bank account stands. I mean, I hate to imply that you're on the 'contrarian' side, but apart from the unloading of bile and demands that people accept your general worldview as physical law, I haven't seen much in the way of what you think should be done or what we might do differently than we are doing.

"By the way, where are Muslims being collaterally killed by Americans because they're Muslim?"
-Alphabobtuse

Well, I certainly don't think it's a matter of policy. I think collateral death loads have a lot more to do with immediate geographical location when things blow up or bullets are flying. I also think this collateral death adds to the overal number of those in the 'them' column more quickly than it subtracts. I hope I answered that question without being in some way offensive or blind. Feel free to disagree, but try to be nice.

"By whitewashing the situation or attempting to turn the guilt back towards the United States you are in effect responsible for the continued abuse of innocent Muslims by Muslims themselves."
-Alphabwithmeoragainstme

Ouch. So as opposed to having an opinion based on my personal moral convictions and beliefs about what the United States ought to be, I'm actually an accomplice to murder. Where as you, who are (I assume) an actual suporter of the actual use of actual bombs which we know for a fact sometimes kill actual innocent people, have clean hands. And here I'd been assuming that you and I were exchanging ideas on a message board. Plus, I'd been feeling more connected by my tax dollars and my citizenship with abuses we commit on Muslims than I was with Muslim on Mulsim violence I'm resposible for via attitude and typing. I will have to reevaluate.

"...and if you don't disagree, there's no reason to respond , Burbank."
Alphabahanh?

That's true if you see this discussion as having the following dimensions.
A.) Alphaboy is absolutely right about everything he says.
OR
B.) Alphaboy is absolutely wrong about everything he says.

I would suggest that anyone who sees only these two possabilities should never, ever call anyone else a child.

C.) Alphaboy, while quite correct in many of his observations, is often very wrong in the conclusions he draws, and often insists that his correct observations are the only relevant information as opposed to a product of tunel vision. Which is not to say that the limmited scope of this vision is not valid.


And Preech; I'm utterly exhausted now. I shall have to return to your perfectly reasonable opposition to my statements after some thought, and perhaps a nap.

[Abcdxxxx]

Well you responded...so I guess that would mean you disagree with me?!! Seemed more like you're preoccupied with disliking me. They're not one in the same.

If people were tarring and feathering minorities down South, would you evoke 60 years of world events involving their homeland? Or does your psuedo-liberalism even extend past self hate?

[mburbank]

That has only the teeniest bit to do with anything I just wrote, and you wouldn't have even needed to read it to make a response. Why would I answer your question when you totaly ignored all the questions I just asked you? If you want to talk to yourself, you don't need to type.

[kahljorn]

I like this thread :O

"I can attempt to understand the twisted logic that wound up with terrorists choosing the life they have, but I don't have to agree with it and I certainly don't HAVE to catagorize it as human. "

You know I really don't know why people think humans are anything more than animals. OH WE HAVE FREEWILL WE CAN CHOOSE THINGS IT'S BEYOND OUR BIOLOGY GOD GAVE US MAGIC POWERS WE HAVE A MORAL COMPASS. Nature-nurture is too stupid. ANIMALS DONT HAVE THE POWER TO CHOOSE: I have two objections. First off, if you set two plates of food in front of an animal they're going to "Choose", of course this might not be "Morally motivated" but whatever. Secondly, the thing that makes humans "Better" than animals is our big brains, our big brains make us seem like we have more choices because we have a higher capacity for observation and memorization. It doesn't have anything to do with being morally superior, because the morals we are presented with are still largely decided by the culture we are born into. Morals are really non-existant.
In fact if you look at what "Morals" have done for our society since we've begun you'll see they've basically done jack and shit for us, presenting more problems than anything. For example, morals go against the natural way. It's natural for animals to kill animals for their own personal well-being: in human society our protection of life has allowed us to flourish absolutely, however now we are presented with problems like overpopulation because there's too many of us-- and really what is the point of there being so damn many of us, half of us are worthless retards who are just around to barely sustain society. This could probably be called Cultural lag. Morals don't really lead us down the path of "Right", it's just right according to our own selfish desires.
If you want to start talking about what it's necessary to become "Human" and shed our animal nature that could be fun, but for the most part it's always going to have to do with the shedding of government, the shedding of morality and the shedding of most other things. Really, you can't have mass "Humanity" instantaneously, and if you did the world would cease functioning as it is.

" You just cannot have a socialist government based in the idea that we all get what we want whether or not we have earned it and also, at the same time, have a goevrnment wherein we aren't subject to the whim of those that want from us what we don't think it's fair to give. "
Government doesn't really work anyway. We pretend like we have a meritous, fair society but actually those who are in power are usually the least meritous. It's alot easier to sell a house than build a house, for a small example. Or maybe it's alot easier to declare war as president than it actually is to fight in a war and get shot at. I mean really, whether or not you have a socialist Government doesn't really change that basic underlying nature, and for the most part it can't really be avoided. In fact I thought socialism was, eventualy, supposed to address this nature?
I mean, part ( a very large part ) of the reason President Bush is a president is because of the family he was born into. How fucking hard is that? Did he fight his way into that womb? Sperm battles aside, he has done very little to "Earn" his position, and yet he takes plenty away that many people don't feel is fair to give.

[Preechr]

You are a very weird guy, kahljorn.

I totally respect your ability to use logic and form opinions, yet I generally have no respect for your opinions once stated. Please don't take that as an insult. Your ability to be so right and so wrong at the same time amazes me. The world inside your head is brightly lit and everything seems well-connected, it's just that what's in there generally has no relation whatsoever to reality.

I keep wanting to sit down and take apart posts of yours such as this one, but then I remember the times I've tried that before. It makes me dizzy. It just does no good. We could discuss stuff for days at a time, and nothing would come of it. You are either one click on the dial away from being Geggy (whom I don't consider stupid, just confused) or a troll that does a great job of keeping threads going.

The answers you invent to problems you've invented show how intelligent you are. The problem is, you haven't ever bothered to accumulate any actual WISDOM. If a discussion comes up about a book or a person, you are Johnny on the spot with all the knowledge you've accumulated from a cursory glance at Wikipedia or a quick skim of a linked article, but you won't actually go out and get a freakin BOOK on a topic that interests you and READ IT, preferring instead to ask someone to nutshell whatever it is for you.

That's a tremendous waste, in my opinion, of the above average brain in your head. Quit being so intellectually lazy. Stop making up excuses for how you behave. There's no nobility to it at all, no matter how easily you can convince yourself there is. Again, this is not an insult. If I felt you had no chance of progressing past the level you've chosen, I'd just ignore you and move on. You can question my right to say this or the accuracy of my assessment of you, but I'd ask you to first question what it is you are defending and why.

If you respected the power of objective reasoning at all, you wouldn't be caught saying things like, "You know I really don't know why people think humans are anything more than animals." I once made you an offer that I'd mail you brand-spanking-new copies of several books I'd love to see you read. That offer is still open. PM me an address, and you will have them in a week.

You will re-join reality one day, but doing so is a life-long process. You will thoroughly enjoy it, and it will totally be worth the trouble, and I hope you will do it sooner rather than after you go completely nuts. The world needs people like you to consider themselves more than just animals. What makes you human is that you can THINK. You can REASON. You have options other than instinct and self-gratification. You have no limits other than those you place on yourself. I promise you that I'm not the only person in the world that's noticed the chains that bind you.