Absolutely, and that's why the examples of 'change' you give are completely trivial, such as a change of language
I'm assuming that accepting evolution is trivial then (hint, the Catholic cannon that the GP speaks of is inclusive of evolutionary theory).
Christians still work from books that are at least 2000 years old, are completely unchanged (besides translation) and yet have been largely discredited.
I am assuming that you are referring to the Bible. Where has it been discredited exactly? AFAIK, if anything, a lot of Bible stories have been confirmed via archaeology and scientific inquiry.
Why? Is the US really running gulags? How many political prisoners have died in Guantanamo due to forced labor, exposure to the elements, torture, disease, starvation, or who were just plain shot?
Guantanamo is a war-related prisoner camp where inmates are well fed, well cared for, and supplied with comforts including religious items and respect. Gulags were political forced labor camps where millions of people were either exterminated or worked to death. Like Amnesty International, any organization that equates the former with the latter has gone off the deep end.
It's sad, really. It's a shame for Amnesty International to discredit itself so thoroughly after all of the good that it has done throughout the world.
When I moved here from a Latin American country for the 10th grade on, I also thought test-taking, and classes in general were too easy. My solution was to take all of the Advanced Placement/Honors classes that I could. The difference was day and night. It was more challenging and infinitely more educational. A good education is still available if you are willing to find it.
I don't mind when people cricize the general education system; It is by and large turning into crud. But you now what? Those that succeed in life do it despite that crud because they look for a challenge instead of whining, not because they sit back and expect everything to come to them. That is the attitude that has made America what it is today and why it still leads despite it's faltering education system.
The education in the country that I came from is excellent, far superior than in the US. Yet the country is still a heavily mismanaged and corrupt nation that despite its high number of college graduates still does much worse than the US in almost every field.
Forgive me for posting a second reply to your post. I am aware that is bad etiquette, but despite our disagreement, you seem to have a good head on your shoulders and I just had to ask a question that may shed some light into the point of view that I'm coming from:
Despite the US's stains of dishonor in its international relations record, do you know of any other country that has pushed the course of democracy and self-determination as much as the US, or that has rebuilt a single country the way that the US has, or that has given even a single-digit percentage of the US's amount of aid to impoverished or war-torn nations?
Guatemala's was the US's "covert" war worse mistake. No, not mistake, crime of the highest order. You'll get no argment from me there.
Cuba on the other hand is headed by a repressive and murderous dictator that took the country by force. So I don't have much sympathy for it's government. It's people however, could certainly benefit from a lift of US sanctions.
I partially disagree with you on Panama. "Pineapple face" Noriega was pretty much hated by his own people as a corrupt and brutal leader.
As far as Mexico, the US involvement that you speak of has to do with Mexico's war of revolution, and the US hunt of Francisco Villa, a revolutionary leader, for the murder and the "seizing of assets" from US Nationals. I am Mexican myself, and I see this intervention as unfortunate since Villa is a hero of mine, but I also see the intervention as unavoidable.
As far as Honduras, you'll get no argument from me. The "banana" fiasco was a dark chapter in US foreign policy. Those most directly responsible should've been executed by the US's own justice system.
As far as Haiti, the US role in the latest "coup" is still unclear, so I can't provide much in the way of commentary.
As far as El Salvador, the US was in the side of the established government. Though the US's tactics were horrible, elections since have confirmed that the US, in principle, took the right side: The Sadinistas lost by a landslide in the first post-war elections and are still the runner-up to this day.
The Dominican Republic's US harassment really began in earnest just before WW II, when German intelligence was eyeing the country as a way to extend its sphere of influence. After the war, we focused on that country for way too long, but the whole issue was mostly naval in nature.
In Brazil we supported the coup with weapons that weren't actually delivered, but little else since the coup was successful on its own.
Chile was a US fuck-up, no question. We were fighting the spread of communism at the time, but what we did there is just unjustifiable.
I am unfamiliar with Grenada so I can't comment.
So what does your list tell us? That the US has had innocent blood in it's hands, just like most other countries that look after their own selfish interests abroad (including pretty much all of Western Europe). Overall, the US's interventions in South America have had to do with either capitalistic imperialism, or with the cold war. The cold war is over, and "free-trade" zones are making the old capitalistic imperialism stand irrelevant.
However, a democracy in Iraq will serve the US's interests better than anything else. That's why I think we'll succeed over there.
More often than not, democracy and capitalism around the world have served the US's interest best. The US, by and large is not a philanthropist country though there are times that it has been. In this case, the US's interests as well as the "right thing to do" for Iraq, coincide.
The Lancet is the best we have right now, until someone does better. You cannot deny that the deaths are at least 50,000, including combatant deaths. At what point did we cross the line? I don't know, you can't talk about lifes that way.
You don't read links, do you? Even the statisticians that worked in the report conceded that the true number could very well be on the very low-end of the 8-190k range.
This actually reminds me of a time I had the misfortune to verbally clash with a neo-nazi type person several years ago.
Your debate technique is really convincing. Since I've been called a neo-nazi by implication, you must be right! I'm sorry, I retract everything I've said up to now. How can I argue against your logic!! (hint: It's sarcasm).
By the way, until 2001 I really admired America, and I thought pretty much along your lines. After the world-changing event I (like many) asked "why?" and did a lot of reading into why someone could do such a thing.
So I guess that the main difference between you and me is that I don't brainwash so easily. That can be the only explanation since you haven't demonstrated having read anything of substance. How may times have you put your foot in your mouth now?
Invading Iraq was about the worst thing you could have done, you don't make new enemies when you are already fighting a multiple front war. Iraq is now a breeding ground of terror. The insurgent attacks will never stop, their will always be this threat to any government, even if it had the support of 99% of the population.
Right, because Saddam was a white lamb before we went in there? Did you forget about his open sponsorship of terrorism policies? About the love and tenderness for his people? For a guy that claims the moral high ground, you seem to have some very callous and rosy perceptions of the true evil in the world. But hell, you've already tried to defend him once, so I'm not surprised at all. We haven't made new enemies, we are just still fighting the old ones, it's just that now more are coming out of the closet. Remember how hated was America during the cold war, especially by Europe? Did you think that so much hatred just dissappeared once we won that war? This Anti-Americanism is way bigger and older than Iraq. Again, I suggest you do your homework.
Personally I'm not religious,
Believe me, that shows.
I just made a stab in the dark...
No way! Seriously?
I just made a stab in the dark that you were (based on your opinions) and going by your comment you clearly are...I'm not disputing divine origins, but as it stands the bible cannot be trusted. It's got more edits than a Star Wars original triology flick.
OK, since you are the genius and I'm the Idiot, I'm sure that you can point out a fact that I pulled out of my rear end the way that you have. And by the way, the bible is not "full of edits" because we still have texts in the original Hebrew and Greek. Whenever a new translation is made, it's made from the oldest texts possible. My decades-old copy of the bible reads "murder". It's the King James version that was mis-translated way back in the middle ages. You're right. You don't know squat about religion, either.
Do my a favor and stop embarrasing yourself. Go read something besides propaganda and maybe you will be able to do more than parrot someone else's misconceptions.
Now that we're there, we have to stay until the situation is relatively stable. I don't think we have a choice. But our presence there is predicated entirely upon greed and lies. (Do you really think that Bush believed Saddam and al-Qaeda were connected?) We'll be paying for this war for decades--us with our tax dollars, Iraqis with their lives. And for what? Aside from Bush, Cheney, Rummy and people with stock in Big Oil, who wins?
How about the Iraqi people? You might thing that everyone involved in the US leadership is a bastard, and you have the right to think that (I would partially disagree, but that's another topic). However, you have to acknowledge that the Iraqis don't have to worry about Saddam anymore, about repression, and about the UN sanctions. That may be something good to come out of this.
The path to freedom is always turbulent and uncertain, but if the rebuilding efforts are successful, then the Iraqi people stands to gain big time. You can think of it as hollow, or as restitution for what you consider your leadership's mistakes, or righteous and noble, or as whatever, but in the end, Iraqis do stand to gain.
Besides Vietnam, there hasn't been a country where the US has been involved in major military operations that hasn't netted a gain in freedom and economic prosperity, despite the expense in resident and in American blood. I don't think and I don't wish that Iraq will end any differently.
Because it shows that historically, the US doesn't care about "democracy building".
So post-WW II Germany, Japan, and South Korea, Afghanistan, Serbia, etc. don't count? I can give you dozens of countries with US-supported and sometimes US-build democracies, yet you just have Pinochet on your example. It's time that you started backing your assertions with facts (and no, stuff you got off of Michael Moore or your local liberal rag don't count as facts). Frankly, you're so mis-informed it's getting boring.
You listed CIVILIAN deaths with respect to Pinochet, however with Saddam you could ALL deaths on BOTH sides of a long running war.
If you bothered to look at the link, the non-civilian deaths on the Pinochet case added up to 3,000, still nowhere near Saddam's killings.
UN sanctions killed a million Iraqis as well. Saddam did no such thing, you are once again being selective with the facts. I feel I am wasting my time here.
UN Sanctions lined the pockets of Saddam and many UN officials at the expense of the Iraqi people. But let's pretend that your absurd claim is true. Saddam's aggression caused the sanctions. Are you excusing Saddam from the death of a million people? It sure sounds like it. Would you rather the sanctions continue?
Oh, and the Lancet lists the civilan causualties as over 100,000, and that does not include hotspots like Faluja. I always discuss the most conservative numbers as people like you deny the truth when it hurts.
The most concervative numbers? I hope that your knowledge of statistics is better than your knowledge of Pinochet since you keep putting your foot in your mouth (I suggest you take a class or two in statistical analysis, it's very helpful). Do you know what a confidence interval is? Well, it turns out that the Lancet study has been discredited because it had a confidence interval of 95% (a standard confidence interval for a t-distribution) for a range between 8,000 and 194,000 deaths. In other words, the "study" by the Lancet was so broad as to be meaningless. Picking a mid-point of 100,000 in the distribution is even a worse choice since you have no real mathematical basis for doing so. In short, the Lancet "study" was a shot-in-the dark guess and has been debunked by anyone with an ounce of knowledge on statistics. What the Lancet is saying based on its study is that they are 95% certain that the death toll is within the range of 8,000-190,000, but that they have no idea where, so they picked the middle. That is not a conservative method by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, it's not a method at all! Further, it turns out that the Lancet's methodolgy for collecting the numbers was also flawed (ignored recording differences, natural causes, wasn't random, used low-ball estimates of natural Iraqi death rates, used a statistically-biased sample, etc), inflating the upper limit of the range to a ridiculous 190,000+. Here's one article: http://slate.msn.com/id/2108887/ However, I suggest that you study statistics and look up a few more resources before claiming your numbers are "conservative".
Stick your bullshit straw man argument up your arse. Because I don't agree with a war that's killing people right now as you read this, this means that I want to see Iraqi people repressed?....
Blah, blah, blah.. Why don't you answer my challenge. If you hold the truth you have nothing to fear, right? Should the occupation end now? Is that ethical? Focus, bud, you are the smart one after all. Try someting radically different and give me some smart arguments supported with actual facts and real statistics.
I hope you believe in God, because you are hell bound for your support of this. Thou shalt not kill.
If you had a chance to kill a mass murderer before he commited more murders, would you? For your enlighement, the word in the orginal Hebrew is "ratsach" which actually translates
Did you ever even consider that it would be possible to save human lives and NOT lose $9 billion?
Yeah, so? Did you ever consider that it may cost money to save lives? I'm not excusing the loss of $9 billion and I hope that those responsible are brought to justice. I'm more concerned by those who say that money should be a more important subject in this war than lives saved, freedom, and a future. That is where nobility resides, not in money.
Hey, it was just ONE example, and I don't claim to be an expert.
Then why bring it up? Why throw around wild accusations if you don't know what you are talking about? You are accusing me of being a moron?
However, you were claiming that the war in Iraq was justified because "he's the baddie" and my point was he's not the only one, and others are bad right now.
Well, that's quite an oversimplification of my point, but I'll let is slide. If he is a baddie, what is wrong with fixing one of the many problems in the world? Because there are others we shouldn't do anything? That's a pretty hopeless position, don't you think? Last I heard that's how WW II got started.
Also, you list Pinoches civilan deaths, then use total war death in regard to Saddam. Apples and Oranges.
Most deaths were civilian. Did you bother to look at the URL? It listed all death tolls for all conflicts up to modern times.
Wasn't an invasion, it was a liberation from an pre-existing invasion. HUGE difference.
And this was liberation from tyranny. Enemies and oppressors to a peoples are either foreign or domestic. Either way, they are enemies and oppressors. Were the Taliban foreign occupators?
"You didn't hear the stories saying "why didn't WE do anything".
There is no doubt that AT LEAST 100,000 people are dead that would not be dead if the USA had not invaded.
You jump from 21,795 to 100,000 just like that without any evidence whatsoever. That does wonders for your credibility.
Drop the moral high-ground buddy, it's not there. Either you are a callous bastard profiteering from this, or you are a sheep yourself
Ok, let's talk about moral high-ground. You claim that we shouldn't be there so Saddam could keep on killing another million. I'm sure that's the moral high ground. So, do you want the US troops to leave? Should we abandon all efforts at establishing a democracy? If Halliburton left today, would you be happy? If money is your preoccupation (your profit criticsm) is all of the money that Halliburton going to make worth more than all of the lives that Saddam could've taken up to now? You advocate inaction rather than going in for the wrong reasons. Yet inaction is exactly what Saddam wanted, so he could keep terrorizing his people. I don't care to excuse the orginal reasons for the war (that's a different discussion). I'm pointing out that at the present, I do have the moral high ground because I want the Iraqi people to succeed and live in a decent country. You do not want that?
Means are important as well as ends. Supporting the invasion doesn't mean you have to support lying to get support for it.
Thank you for an excellent point. I would mod you up but I've already posted comments on this story. It's not often that I want to mod up someone that replies to my post in disagreement.
You can certainly believe that Bush lied and hate him for it. Personally, I tend not to question motives because there's very seldom any conclusive evidence to know what anyone's motives actually were. I focus on judging actions and so far Bush has done a passable job on his actions. I don't think Bush lied, at least not on purpose. If you think he did, there is probably nothing I can do or say to convince you otherwise. However, despite your position on the "means" you seem to imply that you believe there is still some nobility in this Iraq business. It's great to hear that.
No, "our" objective is no-bid contracts for Halliburton.
So? Just for the sake of argument, let's assume that it was. Once again I ask: Does that make the liberation ignoble? If we didn't pay out any money to Hallibuton and the whole reconstruction was done by magial elves that could be paid in kibble, would you then be OK with the whole thing? Or would you rather we just pull out now and leave the Iraqis when they are at their most needy? Given the current situation, you seem to want to save money at the cost of human lives. That's a very compassionate and noble thought. I'm sure that Karl Marx would be proud.
Most of whom were worse than Saddam, e.g. Gen Pinoche.
Actually, the more reliable accepted figure for Pinochet is 10,000-20,000 civilian deaths, including the coup(http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstat6.htm) . How does that even remotely approaches Saddam's attrocities which number into the hundreds of thousands, and perhaps even million for all that we know? You lauch nice ad-homenims, but at the same time you seem to lack any sense of moral perspective.
Just for the record, I did grow up in central America and I am very well informed of the policies of the US government in the rest of the countinent.
While I am not excusing Pinochet and the move the US made at the time, the fact that you bring it up and attempt it to make it comparable to Hussein speaks to the desperation which you have in attempting to prove that the US is wrong right now. How are policies of a quarter centry ago more relevant to the present than the very actions and current sacrifice of the soldiers? Last time I checked, my calendar read "2005", not "1973".
There are numerous states worse than Saddam's Iraq, who are ACTIVELY commiting the crimes Saddam is accused of doing 10 years ago.
I agree with that. But you know how it is with the US. It's damn if you do, damn if you don't. Remember Somalia? We withdrew and while we were still mourning our dead the next ethnic cleansing crisis hit in Rwanda. We didn't do anything and let the rest of the "free" world hadle it for once. Remember how the rest of the world just chickened out, let the slaughter happen and then complained that the US didn't do anything?
Planning for the Iraq invasion PREDATES 9/11.
So, what does that have to do with anything? Last I checked Bill Clinton himself had a "get rid of Saddam" policy that didn't get implemented. It was commonly accepted by the world that Saddam was a growing threat before 9/11. I wholeheartedly agree with your factoid, but let's stick to the subject, shall we?
NO ONE wants their country invaded, regardless of the reasons.
Are you sure about that, or did you just pull that assertion out of the ether? I'm sure that the French would have disagreed with you during the Normany invasion. Ditto for the Afghanis in more modern times.
It's your quagmire and 100,000 people are dead because of YOU
I'm sorry, but it's hard to keep on taking you seriously if you are going to quote a figure that has been discredited by everyone and their grandma. The real death toll accepted by anyone with an ounce of sanity is around 15,000. It's funny how you attack me personally yet your position reflects points that are either grossly exaggerated (Pinochet and South America), or just plain propaganda that only extemists would spout (100,000? Please!). Next time that you reply to someone, please don't assume that you are better informed that they are because you end-up looking like the moron that you assume your oponent is. I suggest that you challenge your own assumptions, bud. That's how you stop being a sheep.
No, they are there because George W. Bush and many others lied and lied and lied and lied.
So if there were WMDs you'd be OK with the invasion and subsequent liberation?
If your answer is yes, then your talk of nobility means squat, since there is nothing noble in letting people continue to live in an oppressive regime had we known there were no weapons. In other words, you come from a selfish and shortsighted point of view where WMDs to you mean the difference between doing the right thing or turning a blind eye to brutality and oppression.
If you answer no, then your argument that Bush lied is meaningless since either way you'd be against the war. Again, there is no nobility in that.
There is nothing noble about fighting for lies.
You seem to confuse objectives with reasons. Our reason for action at the time was in part, the mistaken view that Saddam has weapons. Our objective now is a free and democratic Iraq, and there is plenty of nobility in that. We are there, and rebuilding. That my friend is nobility, but I seriously doubt that someone so hung up on hate for the president will be able to see past the hate.
Wow, talk about a knee-yerk comment. Here in California we have state-funded embryonic stem cell research. California, in case you've missed it, is part of the United States.
Just because the Federal Government won't fund it doesn't mean we aren't working on it. Private and state-level government funding is quite significant already.
I get a huge difference in MPG if I drive coservatively vs. aggresively. Of course, my car as a 3.8L V6 Supercharged Series III engine.
According to the trip computer, If I drive conservatively (i.e. without engaging the supercharger), I only get around 200 HP but pretty good fuel efficiency (around 22-24 MPG). If I drive more aggresively, I get considerably more power, but the supercharger gulps gas like there's no tomorrow (around 17-18 MGP average).
If your engine has either a supercharger or a turbo (or two), trust me, you'll most certanly notice the difference in fuel efficiency.
So... what you are saying is that the Bible is not accurate right?
When did the GP said that? Are YOU the one that's drunk by any chance?
The poster simply said that the book of Genesis is not meant to be taken as a literal history of the world. I agree. Genesis is meant to illustrate how man fell out of favor with God, and highlight man's misuse of free will. It is not an almanac.
Think of it this way. Is Newtonian gravitational theory accurate? It is accurate for everyday physics calculations and we use it millions of times every day, but as we approach high velocities and extremely large/small scales, it is no longer appropriate and Newtonian physics breaks down since it's merely a rough approximation of a more complex phenomenon. In other words, that the appropriateness of a concept depend on a frame of reference, and that we simply do not have a frame of reference for the book of Genesis.
The rest of your comment is such a gross non-sequitur that I won't procced further, lest you end up even more confused. But judging by the way you contorted the GP's words to mean what you wanted them to, I'm not sure that you are open minded enough to take my words at face value anyway.
Amen to that, brother. Science, by and large, is unconcerned with things that cannot be proven: Science concerns itself with time and space. A time-space reality, and a time-only reality that we can call "phsychobilia."
However the only realm that science can have a hard time cracking is "intelegibilia", which is that reality which is neither time nor space. In other words, this is the only reality that can exist independent of our universe. Concepts by themsevels, for example, are intellegibilia since they can exist outside a purely physical time-dependent world. Pure matemathical concepts, pure logic, as well as faith all belong to this realm. The creator (or creating force, whichever you believe) that created the universe must also be of this this realm.
Since pure concepts belong to this realm, whatever you understand in terms of intellegibilia will shape your physical existance. Whether you believe in religion or not, this also explains the appeal, power, and pervasiveness of religion.
To understand religion as well as science, we must realize the limitations and nature of both concepts. It's very easy to confuse the reality of once concept with that of another. Such confusion can give rise to erroneous thought such as for example, the belief that natural phenomena such as evolution are contrary to God and that God literally created the world in six days. Or, by contrast, the belief that God must not exist because there is no physical proof.
Irrelevant. If a lake requires a license to fish, and a person likes to go fishing but has the worst of luck and never catches anything, does he still need license to fish that lake? By law, he is a fisherman even if he catches nothing: He still belongs to a class (group) of people that we call fishermen and though not everyone catches fish, some will, since by and large that's the main characteristing of being a fisherman.
As a group, heterosexual marriage perpetuates the society. As a group, gay marriage doesn't. By implicitly definining the term "marriage" first as an entire group and then implicitly changing that definition to mean just specific cases (each case that doesn't produce children) you are, through implication, commiting what is commonly known as the informal fallacy of equivocation. Here's another example of that fallacy:
"(i) Only man is rational. (ii) No woman is a man. (iii) Therefore no woman is rational." (taken from http://www.positiveatheism.org/writ/fallacy.htm).
or a variation involving a classic example from Lewis Carroll's "Through the Looking Glass":
"You couldn't have it if you did want it," the Queen said. "The rule is jam tomorrow and jam yesterday - but never Jam today." "It must come sometimes to Jam today," Alice objected. "No, it can't," said the Queen. "It's jam every other day: today isn't every other day, you know". (Taken from http://www.kcmetro.cc.mo.us/longview/ctac/fallacy. htm)
Sure it is. People used the same arguments against interracial marriage 50 years ago, including the point you just mentioned; just change same sex to some hand-wringing about keeping to your own kind.
No it isn't. Race is an arbitrary "distinction". Sex isn't an arbitrary distinction. It is very much real and definite. Did you know that the genetic differences alone between a man and a woman are greater than the genetic differences between a male human and a male chimpanzee?
The polygamy argument is a non-sequitor - there is no way that allowing 2 guys to get hitched will lead to more support for harems in the US.
It is no more of a non-sequitur argument than your "interracial" marriage argument. There is no way that allowing interracial marriage should result in allowing gay marriage. In fact, the polygamy argument is more valid than the interracial argument because the interracial argument does nothing to change the traditional, legal, and religious definition of marriage, but both polygamy and gay marriage would change the meaning of "marriage" as it currently stands.
First point: hetero marriage doesn't always involve child-rearing, and some gays want to adopt children.
I agree with that. I prefer that a child be adopted by a heterosexual couple but if that can't be done, I'm all for gay couple adopting children. There is a certain nobility about willing to adopt, and my hat's off to all of those who do. By all means, I also think gay couples should get the tax credits and benefits that go along with raising a child if they do adopt.
On your second point, perhaps I wasn't specific enough. It is the future of a stable society that depends not only on reproduction, but on child rearing, and heterosexual marriage is the most efficient means of accomplishing both tasks (efficient in terms of resources as well as results). That's why heterosexual marriage is specifically recognized by government.
They just want legal recognition for their personal commitment to each other.
I agree with that too. I just don't think that legal recognition has to mean marriage, because marriage is already defined to be something very specific. And the specificity of this definition has very deep legal, traditional, and religious ramifications. I'm sure that if the country voted on it, civil union legislation would pass hands down. It's the issue of calling it "marriage" that people have a problem with.
Sorry, no. Church has nothing to do with this - this is solely about government recognition of a union, and the government should have to recognize that union, as the primary reason that they're interested is because married people have a bunch of rights already enumerated in this thread. The high points are inheritance, parental rights, and social security.
Have you wonder exactly WHY married people have those rights? Why is the government in the marriage business to begin with? It's because the points that you mention have to do with the long-term preservation of the society and the perpetuation of the state. In other words: Efficient and effective reproduction and child-rearing. Gay marriage, just like marriage between relatives or polygamy, by nature have aspects that are contrary to that principle.
Heh, you're a dense one. 50 years ago, the black man would have been lynched [wsws.org]for such an offense.
Nope, you're dense. The interracial marriage issue is not related to gay marriage. The crux of the problem is that gay marriage is marriage within the same sex (not gender, sex). Interracial marriage is marriage between different sexes. It's funny how you are trying to imply that one has to do with the other while at the same time dismissing the polygamy argument.
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I'm assuming that accepting evolution is trivial then (hint, the Catholic cannon that the GP speaks of is inclusive of evolutionary theory).
Christians still work from books that are at least 2000 years old, are completely unchanged (besides translation) and yet have been largely discredited.
I am assuming that you are referring to the Bible. Where has it been discredited exactly? AFAIK, if anything, a lot of Bible stories have been confirmed via archaeology and scientific inquiry.
Guantanamo is a war-related prisoner camp where inmates are well fed, well cared for, and supplied with comforts including religious items and respect. Gulags were political forced labor camps where millions of people were either exterminated or worked to death. Like Amnesty International, any organization that equates the former with the latter has gone off the deep end.
It's sad, really. It's a shame for Amnesty International to discredit itself so thoroughly after all of the good that it has done throughout the world.
When I moved here from a Latin American country for the 10th grade on, I also thought test-taking, and classes in general were too easy. My solution was to take all of the Advanced Placement/Honors classes that I could. The difference was day and night. It was more challenging and infinitely more educational. A good education is still available if you are willing to find it.
I don't mind when people cricize the general education system; It is by and large turning into crud. But you now what? Those that succeed in life do it despite that crud because they look for a challenge instead of whining, not because they sit back and expect everything to come to them. That is the attitude that has made America what it is today and why it still leads despite it's faltering education system.
The education in the country that I came from is excellent, far superior than in the US. Yet the country is still a heavily mismanaged and corrupt nation that despite its high number of college graduates still does much worse than the US in almost every field.
Despite the US's stains of dishonor in its international relations record, do you know of any other country that has pushed the course of democracy and self-determination as much as the US, or that has rebuilt a single country the way that the US has, or that has given even a single-digit percentage of the US's amount of aid to impoverished or war-torn nations?
Cuba on the other hand is headed by a repressive and murderous dictator that took the country by force. So I don't have much sympathy for it's government. It's people however, could certainly benefit from a lift of US sanctions.
I partially disagree with you on Panama. "Pineapple face" Noriega was pretty much hated by his own people as a corrupt and brutal leader.
As far as Mexico, the US involvement that you speak of has to do with Mexico's war of revolution, and the US hunt of Francisco Villa, a revolutionary leader, for the murder and the "seizing of assets" from US Nationals. I am Mexican myself, and I see this intervention as unfortunate since Villa is a hero of mine, but I also see the intervention as unavoidable.
As far as Honduras, you'll get no argument from me. The "banana" fiasco was a dark chapter in US foreign policy. Those most directly responsible should've been executed by the US's own justice system.
As far as Haiti, the US role in the latest "coup" is still unclear, so I can't provide much in the way of commentary.
As far as El Salvador, the US was in the side of the established government. Though the US's tactics were horrible, elections since have confirmed that the US, in principle, took the right side: The Sadinistas lost by a landslide in the first post-war elections and are still the runner-up to this day.
The Dominican Republic's US harassment really began in earnest just before WW II, when German intelligence was eyeing the country as a way to extend its sphere of influence. After the war, we focused on that country for way too long, but the whole issue was mostly naval in nature.
In Brazil we supported the coup with weapons that weren't actually delivered, but little else since the coup was successful on its own.
Chile was a US fuck-up, no question. We were fighting the spread of communism at the time, but what we did there is just unjustifiable.
I am unfamiliar with Grenada so I can't comment.
So what does your list tell us? That the US has had innocent blood in it's hands, just like most other countries that look after their own selfish interests abroad (including pretty much all of Western Europe). Overall, the US's interventions in South America have had to do with either capitalistic imperialism, or with the cold war. The cold war is over, and "free-trade" zones are making the old capitalistic imperialism stand irrelevant.
However, a democracy in Iraq will serve the US's interests better than anything else. That's why I think we'll succeed over there.
More often than not, democracy and capitalism around the world have served the US's interest best. The US, by and large is not a philanthropist country though there are times that it has been. In this case, the US's interests as well as the "right thing to do" for Iraq, coincide.
You don't read links, do you? Even the statisticians that worked in the report conceded that the true number could very well be on the very low-end of the 8-190k range.
This actually reminds me of a time I had the misfortune to verbally clash with a neo-nazi type person several years ago.
Your debate technique is really convincing. Since I've been called a neo-nazi by implication, you must be right! I'm sorry, I retract everything I've said up to now. How can I argue against your logic!! (hint: It's sarcasm).
By the way, until 2001 I really admired America, and I thought pretty much along your lines. After the world-changing event I (like many) asked "why?" and did a lot of reading into why someone could do such a thing.
So I guess that the main difference between you and me is that I don't brainwash so easily. That can be the only explanation since you haven't demonstrated having read anything of substance. How may times have you put your foot in your mouth now?
Invading Iraq was about the worst thing you could have done, you don't make new enemies when you are already fighting a multiple front war. Iraq is now a breeding ground of terror. The insurgent attacks will never stop, their will always be this threat to any government, even if it had the support of 99% of the population.
Right, because Saddam was a white lamb before we went in there? Did you forget about his open sponsorship of terrorism policies? About the love and tenderness for his people? For a guy that claims the moral high ground, you seem to have some very callous and rosy perceptions of the true evil in the world. But hell, you've already tried to defend him once, so I'm not surprised at all. We haven't made new enemies, we are just still fighting the old ones, it's just that now more are coming out of the closet. Remember how hated was America during the cold war, especially by Europe? Did you think that so much hatred just dissappeared once we won that war? This Anti-Americanism is way bigger and older than Iraq. Again, I suggest you do your homework.
Personally I'm not religious,
Believe me, that shows.
I just made a stab in the dark...
No way! Seriously?
I just made a stab in the dark that you were (based on your opinions) and going by your comment you clearly are...I'm not disputing divine origins, but as it stands the bible cannot be trusted. It's got more edits than a Star Wars original triology flick.
OK, since you are the genius and I'm the Idiot, I'm sure that you can point out a fact that I pulled out of my rear end the way that you have. And by the way, the bible is not "full of edits" because we still have texts in the original Hebrew and Greek. Whenever a new translation is made, it's made from the oldest texts possible. My decades-old copy of the bible reads "murder". It's the King James version that was mis-translated way back in the middle ages. You're right. You don't know squat about religion, either.
Do my a favor and stop embarrasing yourself. Go read something besides propaganda and maybe you will be able to do more than parrot someone else's misconceptions.
What specifically are you referring to?
How about the Iraqi people? You might thing that everyone involved in the US leadership is a bastard, and you have the right to think that (I would partially disagree, but that's another topic). However, you have to acknowledge that the Iraqis don't have to worry about Saddam anymore, about repression, and about the UN sanctions. That may be something good to come out of this.
The path to freedom is always turbulent and uncertain, but if the rebuilding efforts are successful, then the Iraqi people stands to gain big time. You can think of it as hollow, or as restitution for what you consider your leadership's mistakes, or righteous and noble, or as whatever, but in the end, Iraqis do stand to gain.
Besides Vietnam, there hasn't been a country where the US has been involved in major military operations that hasn't netted a gain in freedom and economic prosperity, despite the expense in resident and in American blood. I don't think and I don't wish that Iraq will end any differently.
So post-WW II Germany, Japan, and South Korea, Afghanistan, Serbia, etc. don't count? I can give you dozens of countries with US-supported and sometimes US-build democracies, yet you just have Pinochet on your example. It's time that you started backing your assertions with facts (and no, stuff you got off of Michael Moore or your local liberal rag don't count as facts). Frankly, you're so mis-informed it's getting boring.
You listed CIVILIAN deaths with respect to Pinochet, however with Saddam you could ALL deaths on BOTH sides of a long running war.
If you bothered to look at the link, the non-civilian deaths on the Pinochet case added up to 3,000, still nowhere near Saddam's killings.
UN sanctions killed a million Iraqis as well. Saddam did no such thing, you are once again being selective with the facts. I feel I am wasting my time here.
UN Sanctions lined the pockets of Saddam and many UN officials at the expense of the Iraqi people. But let's pretend that your absurd claim is true. Saddam's aggression caused the sanctions. Are you excusing Saddam from the death of a million people? It sure sounds like it. Would you rather the sanctions continue?
Oh, and the Lancet lists the civilan causualties as over 100,000, and that does not include hotspots like Faluja. I always discuss the most conservative numbers as people like you deny the truth when it hurts.
The most concervative numbers? I hope that your knowledge of statistics is better than your knowledge of Pinochet since you keep putting your foot in your mouth (I suggest you take a class or two in statistical analysis, it's very helpful). Do you know what a confidence interval is? Well, it turns out that the Lancet study has been discredited because it had a confidence interval of 95% (a standard confidence interval for a t-distribution) for a range between 8,000 and 194,000 deaths. In other words, the "study" by the Lancet was so broad as to be meaningless. Picking a mid-point of 100,000 in the distribution is even a worse choice since you have no real mathematical basis for doing so. In short, the Lancet "study" was a shot-in-the dark guess and has been debunked by anyone with an ounce of knowledge on statistics. What the Lancet is saying based on its study is that they are 95% certain that the death toll is within the range of 8,000-190,000, but that they have no idea where, so they picked the middle. That is not a conservative method by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, it's not a method at all! Further, it turns out that the Lancet's methodolgy for collecting the numbers was also flawed (ignored recording differences, natural causes, wasn't random, used low-ball estimates of natural Iraqi death rates, used a statistically-biased sample, etc), inflating the upper limit of the range to a ridiculous 190,000+. Here's one article: http://slate.msn.com/id/2108887/ However, I suggest that you study statistics and look up a few more resources before claiming your numbers are "conservative".
Stick your bullshit straw man argument up your arse. Because I don't agree with a war that's killing people right now as you read this, this means that I want to see Iraqi people repressed?....
Blah, blah, blah.. Why don't you answer my challenge. If you hold the truth you have nothing to fear, right? Should the occupation end now? Is that ethical? Focus, bud, you are the smart one after all. Try someting radically different and give me some smart arguments supported with actual facts and real statistics.
I hope you believe in God, because you are hell bound for your support of this. Thou shalt not kill.
If you had a chance to kill a mass murderer before he commited more murders, would you? For your enlighement, the word in the orginal Hebrew is "ratsach" which actually translates
Yeah, so? Did you ever consider that it may cost money to save lives? I'm not excusing the loss of $9 billion and I hope that those responsible are brought to justice. I'm more concerned by those who say that money should be a more important subject in this war than lives saved, freedom, and a future. That is where nobility resides, not in money.
Then why bring it up? Why throw around wild accusations if you don't know what you are talking about? You are accusing me of being a moron?
However, you were claiming that the war in Iraq was justified because "he's the baddie" and my point was he's not the only one, and others are bad right now.
Well, that's quite an oversimplification of my point, but I'll let is slide. If he is a baddie, what is wrong with fixing one of the many problems in the world? Because there are others we shouldn't do anything? That's a pretty hopeless position, don't you think? Last I heard that's how WW II got started.
Also, you list Pinoches civilan deaths, then use total war death in regard to Saddam. Apples and Oranges.
Most deaths were civilian. Did you bother to look at the URL? It listed all death tolls for all conflicts up to modern times.
Wasn't an invasion, it was a liberation from an pre-existing invasion. HUGE difference.
And this was liberation from tyranny. Enemies and oppressors to a peoples are either foreign or domestic. Either way, they are enemies and oppressors. Were the Taliban foreign occupators?
"You didn't hear the stories saying "why didn't WE do anything".
You either have a short memory, or you weren't paying attention ( http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/rwarev.htm http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/040412/ 12spotlight.htm).
There is no doubt that AT LEAST 100,000 people are dead that would not be dead if the USA had not invaded.
You jump from 21,795 to 100,000 just like that without any evidence whatsoever. That does wonders for your credibility.
Drop the moral high-ground buddy, it's not there. Either you are a callous bastard profiteering from this, or you are a sheep yourself
Ok, let's talk about moral high-ground. You claim that we shouldn't be there so Saddam could keep on killing another million. I'm sure that's the moral high ground. So, do you want the US troops to leave? Should we abandon all efforts at establishing a democracy? If Halliburton left today, would you be happy? If money is your preoccupation (your profit criticsm) is all of the money that Halliburton going to make worth more than all of the lives that Saddam could've taken up to now? You advocate inaction rather than going in for the wrong reasons. Yet inaction is exactly what Saddam wanted, so he could keep terrorizing his people. I don't care to excuse the orginal reasons for the war (that's a different discussion). I'm pointing out that at the present, I do have the moral high ground because I want the Iraqi people to succeed and live in a decent country. You do not want that?
Well, I used to drive a minivan. So it's a step up for me. :-)
Thank you for an excellent point. I would mod you up but I've already posted comments on this story. It's not often that I want to mod up someone that replies to my post in disagreement.
You can certainly believe that Bush lied and hate him for it. Personally, I tend not to question motives because there's very seldom any conclusive evidence to know what anyone's motives actually were. I focus on judging actions and so far Bush has done a passable job on his actions. I don't think Bush lied, at least not on purpose. If you think he did, there is probably nothing I can do or say to convince you otherwise. However, despite your position on the "means" you seem to imply that you believe there is still some nobility in this Iraq business. It's great to hear that.
So? Just for the sake of argument, let's assume that it was. Once again I ask: Does that make the liberation ignoble? If we didn't pay out any money to Hallibuton and the whole reconstruction was done by magial elves that could be paid in kibble, would you then be OK with the whole thing? Or would you rather we just pull out now and leave the Iraqis when they are at their most needy? Given the current situation, you seem to want to save money at the cost of human lives. That's a very compassionate and noble thought. I'm sure that Karl Marx would be proud.
Actually, the more reliable accepted figure for Pinochet is 10,000-20,000 civilian deaths, including the coup(http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstat6.htm) . How does that even remotely approaches Saddam's attrocities which number into the hundreds of thousands, and perhaps even million for all that we know? You lauch nice ad-homenims, but at the same time you seem to lack any sense of moral perspective.
Just for the record, I did grow up in central America and I am very well informed of the policies of the US government in the rest of the countinent.
While I am not excusing Pinochet and the move the US made at the time, the fact that you bring it up and attempt it to make it comparable to Hussein speaks to the desperation which you have in attempting to prove that the US is wrong right now. How are policies of a quarter centry ago more relevant to the present than the very actions and current sacrifice of the soldiers? Last time I checked, my calendar read "2005", not "1973".
There are numerous states worse than Saddam's Iraq, who are ACTIVELY commiting the crimes Saddam is accused of doing 10 years ago.
I agree with that. But you know how it is with the US. It's damn if you do, damn if you don't. Remember Somalia? We withdrew and while we were still mourning our dead the next ethnic cleansing crisis hit in Rwanda. We didn't do anything and let the rest of the "free" world hadle it for once. Remember how the rest of the world just chickened out, let the slaughter happen and then complained that the US didn't do anything?
Planning for the Iraq invasion PREDATES 9/11.
So, what does that have to do with anything? Last I checked Bill Clinton himself had a "get rid of Saddam" policy that didn't get implemented. It was commonly accepted by the world that Saddam was a growing threat before 9/11. I wholeheartedly agree with your factoid, but let's stick to the subject, shall we?
NO ONE wants their country invaded, regardless of the reasons.
Are you sure about that, or did you just pull that assertion out of the ether? I'm sure that the French would have disagreed with you during the Normany invasion. Ditto for the Afghanis in more modern times.
It's your quagmire and 100,000 people are dead because of YOU
I'm sorry, but it's hard to keep on taking you seriously if you are going to quote a figure that has been discredited by everyone and their grandma. The real death toll accepted by anyone with an ounce of sanity is around 15,000. It's funny how you attack me personally yet your position reflects points that are either grossly exaggerated (Pinochet and South America), or just plain propaganda that only extemists would spout (100,000? Please!). Next time that you reply to someone, please don't assume that you are better informed that they are because you end-up looking like the moron that you assume your oponent is. I suggest that you challenge your own assumptions, bud. That's how you stop being a sheep.
So if there were WMDs you'd be OK with the invasion and subsequent liberation?
If your answer is yes, then your talk of nobility means squat, since there is nothing noble in letting people continue to live in an oppressive regime had we known there were no weapons. In other words, you come from a selfish and shortsighted point of view where WMDs to you mean the difference between doing the right thing or turning a blind eye to brutality and oppression.
If you answer no, then your argument that Bush lied is meaningless since either way you'd be against the war. Again, there is no nobility in that.
There is nothing noble about fighting for lies.
You seem to confuse objectives with reasons. Our reason for action at the time was in part, the mistaken view that Saddam has weapons. Our objective now is a free and democratic Iraq, and there is plenty of nobility in that. We are there, and rebuilding. That my friend is nobility, but I seriously doubt that someone so hung up on hate for the president will be able to see past the hate.
Just because the Federal Government won't fund it doesn't mean we aren't working on it. Private and state-level government funding is quite significant already.
According to the trip computer, If I drive conservatively (i.e. without engaging the supercharger), I only get around 200 HP but pretty good fuel efficiency (around 22-24 MPG). If I drive more aggresively, I get considerably more power, but the supercharger gulps gas like there's no tomorrow (around 17-18 MGP average).
If your engine has either a supercharger or a turbo (or two), trust me, you'll most certanly notice the difference in fuel efficiency.
When did the GP said that? Are YOU the one that's drunk by any chance?
The poster simply said that the book of Genesis is not meant to be taken as a literal history of the world. I agree. Genesis is meant to illustrate how man fell out of favor with God, and highlight man's misuse of free will. It is not an almanac.
Think of it this way. Is Newtonian gravitational theory accurate? It is accurate for everyday physics calculations and we use it millions of times every day, but as we approach high velocities and extremely large/small scales, it is no longer appropriate and Newtonian physics breaks down since it's merely a rough approximation of a more complex phenomenon. In other words, that the appropriateness of a concept depend on a frame of reference, and that we simply do not have a frame of reference for the book of Genesis.
The rest of your comment is such a gross non-sequitur that I won't procced further, lest you end up even more confused. But judging by the way you contorted the GP's words to mean what you wanted them to, I'm not sure that you are open minded enough to take my words at face value anyway.
However the only realm that science can have a hard time cracking is "intelegibilia", which is that reality which is neither time nor space. In other words, this is the only reality that can exist independent of our universe. Concepts by themsevels, for example, are intellegibilia since they can exist outside a purely physical time-dependent world. Pure matemathical concepts, pure logic, as well as faith all belong to this realm. The creator (or creating force, whichever you believe) that created the universe must also be of this this realm.
Since pure concepts belong to this realm, whatever you understand in terms of intellegibilia will shape your physical existance. Whether you believe in religion or not, this also explains the appeal, power, and pervasiveness of religion.
To understand religion as well as science, we must realize the limitations and nature of both concepts. It's very easy to confuse the reality of once concept with that of another. Such confusion can give rise to erroneous thought such as for example, the belief that natural phenomena such as evolution are contrary to God and that God literally created the world in six days. Or, by contrast, the belief that God must not exist because there is no physical proof.
Irrelevant. If a lake requires a license to fish, and a person likes to go fishing but has the worst of luck and never catches anything, does he still need license to fish that lake? By law, he is a fisherman even if he catches nothing: He still belongs to a class (group) of people that we call fishermen and though not everyone catches fish, some will, since by and large that's the main characteristing of being a fisherman.
As a group, heterosexual marriage perpetuates the society. As a group, gay marriage doesn't. By implicitly definining the term "marriage" first as an entire group and then implicitly changing that definition to mean just specific cases (each case that doesn't produce children) you are, through implication, commiting what is commonly known as the informal fallacy of equivocation. Here's another example of that fallacy:
"(i) Only man is rational. (ii) No woman is a man. (iii) Therefore no woman is rational." (taken from http://www.positiveatheism.org/writ/fallacy.htm).
or a variation involving a classic example from Lewis Carroll's "Through the Looking Glass":
"You couldn't have it if you did want it," the Queen said. "The rule is jam tomorrow and jam yesterday - but never Jam today." "It must come sometimes to Jam today," Alice objected. "No, it can't," said the Queen. "It's jam every other day: today isn't every other day, you know". (Taken from http://www.kcmetro.cc.mo.us/longview/ctac/fallacy. htm)
No it isn't. Race is an arbitrary "distinction". Sex isn't an arbitrary distinction. It is very much real and definite. Did you know that the genetic differences alone between a man and a woman are greater than the genetic differences between a male human and a male chimpanzee?
The polygamy argument is a non-sequitor - there is no way that allowing 2 guys to get hitched will lead to more support for harems in the US.
It is no more of a non-sequitur argument than your "interracial" marriage argument. There is no way that allowing interracial marriage should result in allowing gay marriage. In fact, the polygamy argument is more valid than the interracial argument because the interracial argument does nothing to change the traditional, legal, and religious definition of marriage, but both polygamy and gay marriage would change the meaning of "marriage" as it currently stands.
I agree with that. I prefer that a child be adopted by a heterosexual couple but if that can't be done, I'm all for gay couple adopting children. There is a certain nobility about willing to adopt, and my hat's off to all of those who do. By all means, I also think gay couples should get the tax credits and benefits that go along with raising a child if they do adopt.
On your second point, perhaps I wasn't specific enough. It is the future of a stable society that depends not only on reproduction, but on child rearing, and heterosexual marriage is the most efficient means of accomplishing both tasks (efficient in terms of resources as well as results). That's why heterosexual marriage is specifically recognized by government.
They just want legal recognition for their personal commitment to each other.
I agree with that too. I just don't think that legal recognition has to mean marriage, because marriage is already defined to be something very specific. And the specificity of this definition has very deep legal, traditional, and religious ramifications. I'm sure that if the country voted on it, civil union legislation would pass hands down. It's the issue of calling it "marriage" that people have a problem with.
Have you wonder exactly WHY married people have those rights? Why is the government in the marriage business to begin with? It's because the points that you mention have to do with the long-term preservation of the society and the perpetuation of the state. In other words: Efficient and effective reproduction and child-rearing. Gay marriage, just like marriage between relatives or polygamy, by nature have aspects that are contrary to that principle.
Nope, you're dense. The interracial marriage issue is not related to gay marriage. The crux of the problem is that gay marriage is marriage within the same sex (not gender, sex). Interracial marriage is marriage between different sexes. It's funny how you are trying to imply that one has to do with the other while at the same time dismissing the polygamy argument.