You didn’t read what I wrote either, and therefor you are not part of the solution either. In fact, you are part of the problem, because by misunderstanding the situation, and not even trying to comprehend my points (which are all valid and important), you are not supporting the correct side. And unfortunately, there are times when you have to grow up, and pick sides.
Which side do you pick? You pick the side that has a value system closest to yours, and has an ideology that more closely matches yours. You don’t always pick the obvious side, or the easiest side to pick, but you gotta make the right decision because if you don’t, the result will be devastating and it won’t be until after a horrific disaster happens that people will be ashamed about being so wrong for so long and not doing something about it sooner.
This entire problem can go away as easily as it started, if the world stops supporting the wrong side. That wrong side is the side that wages holy war, and seeks to eradicate a people. Israel does not seek to eradicate anyone, Israel seeks to exist. Simply exist. How about you leave it the fuck alone and stop attacking it? That’s what people around the would should be asking.
And I did read what you wrote, unfortunately I read the whole thing. The only problem is that a lot of your shit was infantile and full of, well, shit.
I’m sure you are well meaning, but frankly, I don’t think you know enough to really contribute anything meaningful to the situation or the discussion. You are part of the ignorant masses, who simply look at pictures of dead children and scream “foul” without understanding half a thing about the situation.
You’ve already said quite firmly that you don’t believe that the relevant factors described are relevant, so why would your opinion matter to somebody who doesn’t agree with your refutations.
That’s not debate, that’s just you saying ‘no, you’re wrong’ and covering your ears.
The paragraph before that you spend mostly throwing up a bunch of deliberate misunderstandings (Israeli citizens are rich compared to Palestinian citizens and live better lives) but you quickly swing into Straw Men
And the rest of the paragraph where you decide only one of they key points I’m operating off of was correct? That’s pretty much all genetic logical fallacies
Next paragraph ignored quite literally half of what you replied to, threw in a few false cause arguments. Propose other completely unrelated solutions (except with single sentences)
Next paragraph you spend bouncing between performing some major composition fallacies and again a failure to understand a key point of the argument (everyone gets more land)
You then go on a tirade about how ‘I have to pick sides’, and tell it with three whole paragraphs of classic black-or-white logical fallacies.
Then you went right into ad hominem. Now, I can’t argue that I state that your attitude was part of the problem, but I did explain what I meant and I was not unclear that the intent is to remove people with your attitude from power and not let you around children if you can’t let go of your hate. That’s a component of the argument and not a personal attack. It also is, hopefully, a temporary state for some.
If you’re going to actually try to have a reasoned debate I’d expect a point by point refutation rather than just another logical fallacy laid on top of the others.
You think you’re being sophisticated and thorough, but again, I think you don’t understand a very simple issue here. I am not the problem: I’m a pacifist, I live in peace with Jews, Arabs, and anyone else. I want peace, but to have peace both sides have to want peace.
Hamas and Hezbollah do not want peace. They want the destruction of Israel. Did you read their charter? It’s on Wikipedia. I invite you to read their charter. Did you look into ISIS and their charter? I invite you to educate yourself. Once you educate yourself, let’s have a real discussion. And I suggest we have that discussion in chat or even voice, real-time, instead of here on the boingboing discussion boards. And once we talk one on one, you can ask me whatever you want, and I will show you my news sources and articles where I get my information, and we may end up agreeing to disagree but I will at the very least not threaten your life because you are an infidel. At the very least, you’ll discover I’m a really nice guy, who really just wants the endless cycle of violence to end. We can discuss all of your points one by one, and I’ll explain to you why none of them make sense, and how some of them have been considered and why they were rejected, etc.
In fact, you know what I really want?
I want humanity to stop fighting. I want humanity to divert its resources to:
Curing disease.
Prolonging life.
Bringing MOCs to the masses, so everybody can get an education (I love Khan Academy for example)
Vastly expanding space exploration and the search for ET life.
Invest in modern technologies for the betterment of humanity.
A huge part of the work I do on a day to day basis, is to help the unbanked and non-privileged get access to resources. One of my dreams is to deploy my systems in Gaza (although we are starting in Africa, Gaza would be a perfect place as well). But I know for a fact that until radical elements leave Gaza, that it would be an awful investment.
In what sense an awful investment? What do your systems do? Sounds like provision of financial services to the under-served.
I’d say a population with a hope of dignified existence would be more peaceful, they could see a better way out. They could envisage not supporting or turning a blind eye to Hamas. They could become unafraid. In that sense, even if the investment were financially unviable, if it caused even a small change, it would help the situation.
Israel does not lack support or sympathy. We were horrified by the bus bombings over time. But I am appalled by the current military tactics.
Coming back to earth, grounding the military situation in actuality, I’d really appreciate your responding to my question of whether alternative methods could be employed in this situation to discover the tunnels. I believe, deeply, they could.
You don’t have to hurt anybody yourself to elect those that espouse policies that result in the unnecessary killing of others.
That’s the same thing that pacifists in Palestine do.
Hamas <> People of Palestine.
just as
Likud <> Peple of Israel.
You were very firm and confident when stating how you understood the idea before disregarding it completely and resorted to ad hominem attacks in this thread.
I feel it’s more appropriate to continue the discussion right here, unless you feel like retracting your earlier statements completely and admitting you just leaped to judgement rather than reading and understanding what you were replying to.
Look, I get that reading a couple of pages is hard when it says things you don’t like and forgiving people is kind of hard too, but this is in the context of condoning activity that results in hundreds of dead children it’s appropriate to expect you’d actually done some homework before you come back with with something like
Sure, that was from like two posts earlier, but the internet remembers things.
One of the problems with Sharia law is that even if it does contain 5% good stuff, the remaining 95% is horrible. It is also very easy to twist it to one’s own interpretations. But in its core, it is an awful, draconian and archaic system that does not sit well with Western ideology.
Let’s look at some of the basic tenets of Sharia law:
• Theft is punishable by amputation of the right hand.
• Criticizing or denying any part of the Quran is punishable by death.
• Criticizing or denying Muhammad is a prophet is punishable by death.
• Criticizing or denying Allah, the moon god of Islam is punishable by death.
• A Muslim who becomes a non-Muslim is punishable by death.
• A non-Muslim who leads a Muslim away from Islam is punishable by death.
• A non-Muslim man who marries a Muslim woman is punishable by death.
• A man can marry an infant girl and consummate the marriage when she is 9 years old.
• Girls’ clitoris should be cut (per Muhammad’s words in Book 41, Kitab Al-Adab, Hadith 5251).
• A woman can have 1 husband, but a man can have up to 4 wives; Muhammad can have more (yey!).
• A man can unilaterally divorce his wife but a woman needs her husband’s consent to divorce.
• A man can beat his wife for insubordination.
• Testimonies of four male witnesses are required to prove rape against a woman.
• A woman who has been raped cannot testify in court against her rapist(s).
• A woman’s testimony in court, allowed only in property cases, carries half the weight of a man’s.
• A female heir inherits half of what a male heir inherits.
• A woman cannot drive a car, as it leads to fitnah (upheaval).
• A woman cannot speak alone to a man who is not her husband or relative.
• Meat to be eaten must come from animals that have been sacrificed to Allah - i.e., be Halal.
• Muslims should engage in Taqiyya and lie to non-Muslims to advance Islam.
• The list goes on, and makes me want to puke.
She is Naama Margolese, 8, the daughter of American immigrants who are observant modern Orthodox Jews. An Israeli weekend television program told the story of how Naama had become terrified of walking to her elementary school here after ultra-Orthodox men spit on her, insulted her and called her a prostitute because her modest dress did not adhere exactly to their more rigorous dress code.
Yes, Extreme elements exist in Orthodox Judaism as well. However if you compare numbers, it’s a few hundred individuals on the Jewish side, compared to, oh, just a few hundred million people on the Muslim side. And the Jewish extremists won’t rape that woman.
There are extremists, and even criminals, on all sides. The question is, what does the local society/community do about it. On the Jewish side, criminals are prosecuted and go to jail. On the Muslim side, well, they were following Shari’a law. They are free to walk, and inflict more damage.
Here’s an English translation of a phenomenon happening in Denmark:
To be fair, Malaysia has experience of the creeping amplification of Sharia law. But the pre-conditions for this were the 1961 post-independence resolution by the Malays to ensure control of the country through population expansion.
Malaysia has been famously moderate; they are also commercially astute, and understand very well that should they tip into Sharia extremism as a nation, they will commercially suffer.
So. A real world example that reflects Skaag’s postulations. There are other local media incidents in the UK reflective of the same issue - but they are highly localised, and rapidly contained. The UK is keen to be multi-cultural, but not to allow the balance to be up-turned.
Edit: And yes, the awful Scandi rape thing is a thing.
Hmmm. Just a guess but very similar trolling style. Ignores points. Ad hominem followed by claims of grandiose projects which absolve any negative leakage… @skaag meet @NikFromNYCeeeee
We are human beings, and we are deeply disturbed by what’s going on in the world. We may not always succeed in satisfying all of your requirements of an “intelligent” discussion.
However, we are good people, and the points we make are valid. That shit is scary as hell. And I never intend to engage in Ad Hominem, but if I think you don’t know what you are talking about, or you did not educate yourself enough on a matter, I will certainly point that out. Do not take it personally, I will gladly have a beer with you and discuss, and you’ll see I am an extremely kind and patient bloke in general.
I have a daughter, and the thought of someone raping her because she decided to wear a t-shirt because it’s a warm day outside, scares me and infuriates me. I want my daughter to be able to wear whatever she wants, without someone deciding she deserves rape or genital mutilation.
You are entitled to your opinions, however let me correct you on one thing: it is not a conspiracy if the perpetrators announce their intentions openly. They say, openly, that one day the Islamic flag will fly on the white house. The enforcement of Islam as a world religion is in their charters.
I do not think you want that. And I do not think it smart to under-estimate a bunch of religious nuts. First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you… yada yada. Let’s not allow history to repeat itself.
So far, the few religions that are NOT missionary, are Buddhism, Taoism, Paganism and Judaism. Judaism is, in fact, a very “private club”: Rabbis try to discourage you from converting. It is the anti-thesis of missionary religions such as early christianity and Islam.
Rabbi Nuchem Rosenberg—who is 63 with a long, graying beard—recently sat down with me to explain what he described as a “child-rape assembly line” among sects of fundamentalist Jews. He cleared his throat. “I’m going to be graphic,” he said.
I will leave you alone now. I was curious as to whether you might recognize that you are saying NOT ALL JEWS while also saying BEWARE ALL MUSLIMS, but instead you doubled down.
But when you replied with “We…” I did for a moment think you were also talking for nik. Which was weird.
But I think you mean another we.
Perhaps the royal ‘we’?
As in “We are not impressed”.
At least you are willing to engage in conversation and as far as backtracking or whatever, maybe that’s even an enlightened move when one realises one has jumped the gun and uttered something awful.
Again, apologies if I’ve stepped over that line, thanks for at least trying.
I value sincere dialectics above almost everything else.
I asked you to show me where, in what could be defined as the “Western world,” women have been forced to modify their apparel due to Sharia law. Furthermore, show how this has led to both rape and/or general acceptance of rape due to Sharia law.
A reminder of the faces of those who have nothing to do with this conflict, but who face a perilous present and a very bleak future because of it:
Israeli shelling has destroyed or damaged 142 schools, 89 of which were UN run. Unicef has estimated that those children who have survived the conflict will be left with severe psychological difficulties and will require immediate psycho-social support.
Israel started the current conflict because Hamas and Fatah had reconciled their differences in April 2014 sufficiently that a new political process could begin. There existed a unified political body inside Gaza, with negotiable demands that the world could work with. The need for war was to prevent a political process gaining traction. Three Israelis were killed by Palestinians on 12 June. On the pretext that they had been taken hostage, the IDF invaded Gaza and conducted a rampage, killing six Palestinians unconnected to the disappearances, conducting mass arrests, and demolishing houses. A July 6 airstrike by Israel on Gaza killed 7 Palestinians and prompted Hamas to start launching rockets…
