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Post by fretslider on May 29, 2013 17:07:43 GMT -5
Unfortunately, the only way to deal with zealots like that is to fight fire with hotter fire; to make them more scared of us than we could be of them. Not the current path of hand-wringing and appeasement practised by the blinkered yoghurt-knitting sock-puppets of the liberati.
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Post by beth on May 29, 2013 18:59:35 GMT -5
When it comes to the common courtesy we hold so dear, and btw, I believe that's just as true in England, even though most there seem to be more reserved, we can talk all day about the problems it can cause when dealing with other, less honorable cultures, but it's very very hard for us to abandon our natural need to be polite.
We've been a multi-cultural country from the start. it would no more enter our minds here, in the Greater Ohio River Valloey, to be suspicious or rude to the parents of a child in our child's class at school than to insult people attending church with us, or those seated near us in a movie theater or at a concert.
But, we're slowly learning violence can strike at schools and movie theaters and even in churches or in a high-rise or on a plane ... suddenly and with no warning. Of course that's always been the case, but it seems to be amazingly common place more and more.
Maybe there's a little hesitation to our casual assumptions that all's always well and we don't need to be concerned about the guy walking the streets with a machete ... as long as we don't bother him ... maybe smile when he glances our way, nothing bad will happen.
Maybe ...
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Post by beth on May 29, 2013 22:01:30 GMT -5
Unfortunately, the only way to deal with zealots like that is to fight fire with hotter fire; to make them more scared of us than we could be of them. Not the current path of hand-wringing and appeasement practised by the blinkered yoghurt-knitting sock-puppets of the liberati. A wee bit drastic but if it came to that ....
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Tempus Fugit
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Post by Tempus Fugit on May 30, 2013 1:58:35 GMT -5
What grips my s**t is the radicals allowed to freely walk amongst us claiming we are killing their brothers in Syria. Do they think we're that that thick? Assad is killing them - and he's getting his weapons from Russia, not the EU! Hague is talking about getting the embargo dropped so we can arm the dissidents so they can "defend themselves." That's still wrong, according to Choudary. It's still wrong according to me, too, since it seems if we do that we'll be arming a sizeable number of AQ wannabe's. Pouring more arms in will do us no favours, they can get arms from their Arab brethren in Lebanon etc. Whatever follows Assad will probably be a fairly fundamentalist Islamic state. Apparently, the Americans are not happy with the end of the embargo. The reasons are a bit vague but I imagine its because when we go shopping for arms for the Syrian rebels they will have to be idiot-proof to avoid having to spend months training people up (which will mean boots on the ground*). This means simple Soviet-origin weapons, not complex, heavily-engineered American ones. Since the Russians aren't keen that will mean we have to buy license-manufactured or straight copies. Which means shopping in China, the US's biggest trading rival. * According to several SAS "memoirs," when we weren't going into Afghanistan to arm and train the mujahideen we weren't getting them to cross into Pakistan and then weren't flying them by the Hercules-load to one of the remoter uninhabited Outer Hebrides for intensive four-week courses on tactics and using the Stinger missiles we weren't supplying them with.
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Tempus Fugit
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Post by Tempus Fugit on May 30, 2013 2:00:40 GMT -5
I have to admit that I temporarily binned UKIP and voted Tory in the vain hope we'd bin the LimpDumb and decisively shove Brown and Co. out of the picture for a long time, whilst knowing that the UKIP candidate wouldn't do too well. We still have the LimpDumb so I might as well have helped skew the stats with UKIP votes anyway. If only I'd known then what I know now - a quarter of the vote and third place...! Nothing wrong with tactical voting - I've been doing it for years - but I would draw the line at EVER voting for <hawk, spit> a Labour candidate Oh, definitely. I'd sooner ingest my own faecal remnants whilst poking myself in the eye with a sharp stick than vote for those hand-shandy merchants.
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Post by fretslider on May 30, 2013 2:00:58 GMT -5
Geopolitics - dontcha just lurv it.
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Tempus Fugit
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Post by Tempus Fugit on May 30, 2013 2:03:55 GMT -5
Maybe they were attacked because those of us capable of walking around without our craniums firmly inserted into our fundamental orifices can see that, admirable as they may well be, such attitudes are a big cause and part of the problem, and nowhere near the solution.
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Tempus Fugit
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Post by Tempus Fugit on May 30, 2013 2:07:40 GMT -5
Having liberal values of tolerance, freedom, compassion and so on is totally NOT remotely like appeasement. By the way appeasement was directed towards the Nazis and (on the left) the Communists. History tells us that, as Jefferson famously said, 'a nation that values security over freedom will end up having neither.' The lesson of history is that the MORE liberal values dominate a society the MORE civilised it becomes. And what Jesus said about the mote was that it was all very well noticing the mote in your brother's eye but it was totally wrong NOT to notice the beam in your OWN eye! But I honestly believe that morality and decency will win out in the end in spite of all the oppressors on left, right and religious zealots. Us liberals stand for a higher set of values than they do with their prejudices and intolerance and hatred of freedom, compassion and tolerance. Well, you carry on in your own fluffy little world, Lin, but it won't save you when the time comes - the Rules of Engagement for dealing with the fundies are different to the more 'civilised' wars of recent times Shoot first and ask questions later? In broad terms that's the only way but when you narrow it down you end up with a Brazilian electrician (who, admittedly, was here illegally*) making a mess of a public station and most definitely not getting an open coffin. * I do think that we missed a trick there, not capitalising on the subtext: Oi! Here illegally? Look what happens! Oh, leaving so soon? - 'bye, then!
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Tempus Fugit
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Post by Tempus Fugit on May 30, 2013 2:08:52 GMT -5
When in trouble, when in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout I shall remember that one. Brilliant!
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Post by markindurham on May 30, 2013 2:22:14 GMT -5
Maybe they were attacked because those of us capable of walking around without our craniums firmly inserted into our fundamental orifices can see that, admirable as they may well be, such attitudes are a big cause and part of the problem, and nowhere near the solution. Correctimundo
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Post by markindurham on May 30, 2013 2:25:00 GMT -5
Well, you carry on in your own fluffy little world, Lin, but it won't save you when the time comes - the Rules of Engagement for dealing with the fundies are different to the more 'civilised' wars of recent times Shoot first and ask questions later? In broad terms that's the only way but when you narrow it down you end up with a Brazilian electrician (who, admittedly, was here illegally*) making a mess of a public station and most definitely not getting an open coffin. * I do think that we missed a trick there, not capitalising on the subtext: Oi! Here illegally? Look what happens! Oh, leaving so soon? - 'bye, then! True enough - by attempting to flee, given the highly-charged atmosphere prevailing at the time, he became a very worthwhile candidate for a Darwin Award...
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Post by markindurham on May 30, 2013 2:31:13 GMT -5
When in trouble, when in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout I shall remember that one. Brilliant! I first heard this one attributed to a very nervous Captain, over 30 years ago, who DID have a habit of going out of one bridge wing door, round the back of the lum - sorry, funnel, and back in through the bridge wing door on the other side... I didn't believe it until I actually saw it! "If in Danger or in Doubt, run in circles, scream and shout..."
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Post by mouse on May 30, 2013 4:26:01 GMT -5
"""But I honestly believe that morality and decency will win out in the end in spite of all the oppressors on left, right and religious zealots""".
well it didnt win out in Russia Germany turkey and so on and so forth ...and it certainly hasn't won out in world islam and we have 1400 yrs of documented oppression to prove it it has never won out when faced with either right or left.....the moral high ground doesn't look so good when the highest you get is swinging from a rope
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Post by markindurham on May 30, 2013 5:28:03 GMT -5
"""But I honestly believe that morality and decency will win out in the end in spite of all the oppressors on left, right and religious zealots""". well it didnt win out in Russia Germany turkey and so on and so forth ...and it certainly hasn't won out in world islam and we have 1400 yrs of documented oppression to prove it it has never won out when faced with either right or left.....the moral high ground doesn't look so good when the highest you get is swinging from a rope Those who fail to learn from the mistakes of history are doomed to repeat them... We do appear to have learned from the likes of Stalin etc - and one must mention Hitler, of course, but without invoking Godwin... However, these weren't religious doctrines. Islam is different; it IS. Perhaps Lin can tell us where islam has actually added value to a nation and its indigenous people, once it's arrived? Or maybe donna can, seeing as it's only those two posters who seem hell-bent on defending the indefensible?
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Post by mouse on May 30, 2013 8:00:38 GMT -5
well we have asked before and all we received was..............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................silence
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