this "solution" to the return of pop ups is of course akin to curing your hangnail by cutting off your foot
are you familiar with the phenomenon of the guy who doesn't own a television, and must remind every stranger he meets of this fact, constantly? if you look at the comments here, this article seems to have brought out the similarly quirky "look at me! i don't use javascript! i don't use flash!" brigade
ok, so you are proud of your bare html existence. good for you
but you might have noticed that the internet has evolved since 1994, and technologies, such as AJAX, are transforming the web browsing experience in GOOD ways, such as google maps. javascript is not merely cruft to make your anchor links animate. likewise, can you argue with the success and value of a site like youtube? which, by the way, works in flash?
javascript and flash are not in any way absolute negatives for the internet experience. they are merely useful tools whose usage is evolving, in good and bad ways. to disavow that obvious observation and just flat out block them does not make you wiser, it makes you an odd appendix of history. trumpeting your monklike ascetic internet existence doesn't add anything of value to the conversation, because, no, blocking javascript and flash is most definitely not the solution, really
when you announce that you don't use these technologies, all you show us is that you are indulging in some sort of odd attention-seeking disorder with a strange misplaced pride
but germany's nonreligious ruling party is called the christian democrats, the usa with its separation of church and state starts with "in god we trust", despotic north korea is officially called the democratic people's republic, and ultracapitalist china is ruled by a communist party
all of which goes to show that surface symbolism has nothing to do with substantative reality
if you showed me how israeli candidates were first vetted by a rabbinical council, you'd have a point. but no, sorry, israel is not a theocracy
again, please, by all means, despie israel if you want to. but do it for real reasons, not made up ones
that you are the propagandized one? that you are the one who is blind and prejudiced?
i went to great pains to validate my comments as neither pro-western nor anti-western, that the concerns i am raising are equally apparent in beijing, or moscow, or caracas, or toronto. i repeated this sentiment multiple times
and, completely tone deaf, all you can think about is my apparent western bias
really? what if i actually have no such bias in my words here? and the only bias is yours, your complete inability to appreciate my words as completely without regional favoritism
you may attack my concerns about theocracy from a universal global humanist level of concern, please, i welcome that sort of criticism
but you may not, if you wish to retain a grasp on any sort of intellectual coherence, attack me on my so-called phantom western bias, that you perceive in me, some sort of secret insight in to my thinking, when i am completely aware of the concept of regional bias, and went to great pains to scrub out of my comments. but you still see it there huh? you're some sort of paranoid schizophrenic secret code reader then?
there is no bias in my words. really. it was scrubbed of regional bias. it was said as an appeal to universal human concerns. get over YOUR bias, your inability to appreciate an intellectual point based on principles and absolutely free and clear of regional favoritism
problem is, if they ever came close to overthrowing the ayatollahs, i worry about the ayatollahs bringing on the end times with a few nukes: "if i am removed from power, i wlll remove israel from the earth, for judgment day is upon us". a normal iranian would enver do that. a religious zealot, of any religion, would do that
it does no good talking about the basic humanity and goodness of the average iranian. for it is the nature of their government our criticism is confined to. i'm certain north koreans and zimbabweans are good people too. but what of their governments? what do you say about their governments? saying iranians are nice people and that someday the government will change is just a nice way of avoiding a problem. the current theocracy in tehran is a current real genuine problem, and they shows no signs of disappearing for awhile. so you need to deal with them as they are, and not merely wait for the day they are gone. that could be decades
then i can pretty much equate any concept i want with any other concept, and mean not a damn thing
which is pretty much all your comment is: propaganda without substance
dude, you can hate the west and the usa all you want, please be my guest. my only demand of you is that your thoughts show some coherence. but currently, your comments are incoherent, without meaning. try again
but it is most certainly not a theocracy. if you don't understand that, you don't understand what the word means
and i agree with you, us support for israel should be stopped, it is a cold war leftover from when egypt and syria sided with the ussr
but you are insane: blaming israel for 9/11 is like blaming iraqis for the usa invading iraq: if they had overthrown saddam hussein in time, the usa would not have been aggrevated by his actions to justify an invasion. this line of thinking is of course, utterly stupid. the usa is to blame for invading iraq, al qaeda is to blame for 9/11. any other creative lines of thinking about blame on such issues is incoherent
if a wife gets beaten, who is to blame? the wife? or the husband? the wife could have done a million things that made the husband beat her, but he is the one who raised the hand, therefore, he is the one to blame, 100%. you have the ultimate responsibility for the choices of actions that come out of you. anything else is bullshit
jack is going to realize his one true calling is internet trolling, and he will have a spectacular future
but right now, he is on a roll with this real life trolling act. in the outrageousness of it all you can almost smell the desperation, the need for a fix: attention, by any means necessary. the mark of a true troll
during the cold war the essence of MAD was that the russians loved their children too. and therefore, would not nuke the west. and visa versa
in iran's war with iraq, they gave children little wooden keys around their neck, and sent them out to clean minefields. the wooden keys were so they could get to heaven
now this makes perfect sense from a fundamentalist religious point of view that heaven is superior to earth, that death for the religious cause is the highest achievement. and so from that point of view, ther eis still ove for their children. every society has such relgious fundamentalists, but only in iran are such fundamentalists the ones with the finger on the nuclear trigger finger, the ultimate arbiters of power
how can MAD work against someone who believes death is superior to life? that killing one's children is a blessing for their children? this is the philosophy of suicide bombers. suicide bombers are celebrated as martyrs in deeply religious sects rather than condemned. or just look at ancient christian iconography: all the saints who died bloody deaths: these are the heroes. again, the problem is not islam, the problem is theocracy
all religions have a story about armageddeon. and with religious fundamentalists, you see actions that are self-fulfilling prophecy. if a cult believes the end of the world is coming, they all commit suicide: they self-fulfilled their own myths
so if some ayatollah believes in the rapture of the afterlife, that the mahdi will soon come when all is afire and aflame of wickedness on the earth, why not press the button to hurry all of us along to the final judgment and the much better place?
the principle of MAD does not work on religious fundamentalists
"If Theocracies are so bad, why aren't you worried about Tibet?"
tibet as sovereign entity doesn't exist, and its theocratic structure has been outlawed by the chinese. but were tibet an independent theocracy with nukes, i would be equally worried about it as i am about iran. conversely, if iran were still a theocracy, but didn't have nukes, i wouldn't be nearly as worried about iran as i am
"Seriously, bigotry is the problem, not Theocracy"
this is like saying cancer is a problem, not heart attacks. they are both fatal problems
"While I think that there are better methods of administration, the types of democracy that we have in most western countries are not participatory nor representative... it is effectively a mediaocracy."
this is called self-disenfranchisement. your belief merely supports your own lack of accountability, and has no value when applied to the society you live in (assuming you live in a western country). you are projecting self-referential psychology like a teenager onto those aroud you. no, those around you are perfectly capable of believing and seeing the realit yof their vote mattering, and their opinion tyo be independent. this may not be true of you, but it is true of plenty in your society. i just voted for barack obama 3 months ago. where is my lack of participation or representation?
and what the heck is a "mediaocracy"? ultimate power rests in an editorial news room? a meaningless buzzword
in the west, i can choose to consume any media i like. this includes al jazeera or iran's mouthpiece, if i choose to. now, if i lived in iran, meanwhile, and i clicked on those links, and they pointed to the bbc or the new york times, i would be blocked, and perhaps even reported for unislamic activities, for not sticking with the governing parties official media. is that the "mediaocracy" you are talking about?
"Knowledge and culture sharing are a better solution that trying to stop nukes"
yes, and world war ii would have never happened if hitler and tojo were given hugs and kisses. pffft. man i need some of what you are smoking
"The whole clash of cultures idea is also patently absurd"
in some subsaharan cultures, they perform clitorectomies on female children. do you have a problem with that? congratulations, you are engaging in a clash of cultures
"it's clash of money and oil interests in the upper echelons of both so-called empires at the expense of their own peoples that is the real problem."
how did you get to work or school today? did you ride a car or bus? do you have a job or do you pay for school? in either case, you have money and oil interests. but you have this absurd idea that only the "upper echelons" are the ones gobbling up money and oil just because its cool in a hollywood bad guy sort of way. or, perhaps, governments are concerned with access to resources and the flow of capital, for the rightful reason of the well-being of their citizens. could that be it? nah...
"I, for one extend my hand of congratulations to the Iranian people and look very suspiciously at those who would tell them what to do/think/go to war over."
i agree with you 100%. i am glad you are finally ready to stand with me and condemn the ayatollahs and their constant war propagandizing of the iranian people
"Ditto applies to the American administration (and anyone else who is spineless enough not to sign the nuclear disarmament treaty),"
absolutely, we need to engage in nuclear disarmament. how does belief in that allow for iran getting nukes? iran should get nukes because the usa has them? ok, you can believe that if you want
but now you are expressing belief in nuclear proliferation. make up your mind, but you can't believe in nuclear disarmament and iran getting nukes at the same time. either you insist iran not get nukes and the usa get rid of them, or that the usa keep its nukes and iran get them too. but saying the usa
"I'm an atheist and a pretty cynical person and I seriously doubt that The Pope, Osama, or Iranian Ayatollahs actually believe in God"
serious reality adjustment needed: that you are cynical does not mean the world is cynical. this is some serious teenager level self-referential psychology going on here
there are a wide range of mindsets out there in the world. some of them, no, most of them, diverge radically from your worldview and your attitudes, for better or worse
it is of course, of questionable and dubious intermingling of church and state on a strictly symbolic level. but what the usa does have is a clear and explicit command to separate church and state, which has been bourne out by numerous judicial rulings for decades
i guess you could say that it is kind of like how north korea is officially called the "Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK)" when of course, it is a petty despotic dictatorship and doesn't have anything remotely democratic about it
or the fact that china is ruled by a communist party... that currently embraces the most capitalist philosophy in the world
all of which could go to show that surface level symbolism speaks very little about the actual substance of how a government works
there is this common belief that any motivation based on fear is wrong. but there really is nothing wrong with the emotion of fear. fear keeps you alive. fear based on IRRATIONAL beliefs is of course wrong. but my fear of iran is based on a RATIONAL determination: a theocracy with nuclear weapons is the last thing this world needs
seriously, if you are not scared of a theocracy of nuclear weapons, what are you scared of? i would go so far as to say that if you are not scared of a theocracy with nukes, there is something wrong with you
this doesn't validate all of the irrational fears people have in this world. but even for the most rational of persons, there exists a subset of considerations for which the emotion of fear is a completely valid response
there is something very wrong with someone who is afraid of irrational things. equally so, there is something very wrong with someone isn't afraid of anything. it's like not feeling pain: at first glance, not feeling any pain seems to have nothing but upside. until you consider the scenarios of picking up a hot skillet, or cutting yourself with a chainsaw: pain keeps you alive. likewise, having no fear seems like a good thing, until you consider all of the scenarios where fear keeps you alive
someone who goes through life afraid a lion is going to jump out of the shadows at any moment and attack them is not defensible. but being afraid when an actual genuine lion is actually jumping out at you is perfectly appropriate, valid, and preferable
the emotion of fear is not the problem, fear of irrational things is the problem, and the two concepts are different
has nothing to do with being pro-israel, or pro-western, or anti-muslim
suspicion of iran has to do with it being a theocracy. doesn't matter that it is a muslim or christian theocracy, or whether it is located in the middle east, or south america, or antarctica. the issue is it being a theocracy. begnning of valid concern about iran, end of valid concern about iran
if someone is concerned about iran, it very well could be for mindless ethnocentrism, religious bigotry, or tibal chest thumping reasons. it is very easy to be concerned about iran for the lowest and most disgraceful reasons
but someone can also be concerned about iran simply from a strictly globalist, humanist, universal, highminded reason:
a theocracy is a very bad thing
why?
we are talking about a government that has, ensconced in its constituion, a bunch of grumpy old men, who are above all law or ability to be questioned, who act in the name of god, and have a monopoly on interpretting the will of god, according to law. that doesn't bother you?
power in iran is not ahmadinejad. power is in the ayatollahs. ahmadinejad is a figurehead. he does not hold the final power. the ayatollahs can freely choose to disavow any candidate form office, and have done so exorbitantly in past elections to disallow popular reform candidates from running
would you consider it a problem if the pope could, without any ability to question or veto his decision, walk into the elections in germany, or the usa, or great britain, and simply cherry pick the candidates he wants to run?
again, the problem is not islam. the problem is not the middle east. the problem is not being anti-israeli. the problem is not being anti-western. all of these instincts are perfectly valid and defensible world views
the problem is with iran being a THEOCRACY. on that issue alone, is suspicion of iran perfectly valid, from either a pro-western or anti-western point of view
pay attention to the below text... this government is going to get a nuclear warhead:
The Islamic Republic is a system based on belief in: 1.the One God (as stated in the phrase "There is no god except Allah"), His exclusive sovereignty and the right to legislate, and the necessity of submission to His commands; 2.Divine revelation and its fundamental role in setting forth the laws; 3.the return to God in the Hereafter, and the constructive role of this belief in the course of man's ascent towards God; 4.the justice of God in creation and legislation; 5.continuous leadership (imamah) and perpetual guidance, and its fundamental role in ensuring the uninterrupted process of the revolution of Islam; 6.the exalted dignity and value of man, and his freedom coupled with responsibility before God
so these grumpy old men, with a monopoly on intepretting what the will of god is, are about to get control over a nuclear warhead
and people wish to say that if you are concerned about this, you must be some brain dead tribal pro-western muslim hater?
Slashdot Mirror
this "solution" to the return of pop ups is of course akin to curing your hangnail by cutting off your foot
are you familiar with the phenomenon of the guy who doesn't own a television, and must remind every stranger he meets of this fact, constantly? if you look at the comments here, this article seems to have brought out the similarly quirky "look at me! i don't use javascript! i don't use flash!" brigade
ok, so you are proud of your bare html existence. good for you
but you might have noticed that the internet has evolved since 1994, and technologies, such as AJAX, are transforming the web browsing experience in GOOD ways, such as google maps. javascript is not merely cruft to make your anchor links animate. likewise, can you argue with the success and value of a site like youtube? which, by the way, works in flash?
javascript and flash are not in any way absolute negatives for the internet experience. they are merely useful tools whose usage is evolving, in good and bad ways. to disavow that obvious observation and just flat out block them does not make you wiser, it makes you an odd appendix of history. trumpeting your monklike ascetic internet existence doesn't add anything of value to the conversation, because, no, blocking javascript and flash is most definitely not the solution, really
when you announce that you don't use these technologies, all you show us is that you are indulging in some sort of odd attention-seeking disorder with a strange misplaced pride
if you are true star trek fan, yes
as anyone knowledgeable of the star trek timeline is intimate with
put your forehead in your hand and stare at the table in shame in your best jean luc picard and hand in your star trek credentials at the door
is compounding your embarassment
let's say they know dams cause earthquakes. ok, so there will be some minor earthquakes. but 7.9? no one is going to predict anything that large
still, let's assume the dam is still the trigger for the 7.9 earthquake. emphasis on trigger. its going to happen someday anyway
if they never built the dam, we'd be talking about the 7.9 or 8.3 sichuan earthquake of 2031 or 2102
but germany's nonreligious ruling party is called the christian democrats, the usa with its separation of church and state starts with "in god we trust", despotic north korea is officially called the democratic people's republic, and ultracapitalist china is ruled by a communist party
all of which goes to show that surface symbolism has nothing to do with substantative reality
if you showed me how israeli candidates were first vetted by a rabbinical council, you'd have a point. but no, sorry, israel is not a theocracy
again, please, by all means, despie israel if you want to. but do it for real reasons, not made up ones
that you are the propagandized one? that you are the one who is blind and prejudiced?
i went to great pains to validate my comments as neither pro-western nor anti-western, that the concerns i am raising are equally apparent in beijing, or moscow, or caracas, or toronto. i repeated this sentiment multiple times
and, completely tone deaf, all you can think about is my apparent western bias
really? what if i actually have no such bias in my words here? and the only bias is yours, your complete inability to appreciate my words as completely without regional favoritism
you may attack my concerns about theocracy from a universal global humanist level of concern, please, i welcome that sort of criticism
but you may not, if you wish to retain a grasp on any sort of intellectual coherence, attack me on my so-called phantom western bias, that you perceive in me, some sort of secret insight in to my thinking, when i am completely aware of the concept of regional bias, and went to great pains to scrub out of my comments. but you still see it there huh? you're some sort of paranoid schizophrenic secret code reader then?
there is no bias in my words. really. it was scrubbed of regional bias. it was said as an appeal to universal human concerns. get over YOUR bias, your inability to appreciate an intellectual point based on principles and absolutely free and clear of regional favoritism
and they are trying to overthrow the government
problem is, if they ever came close to overthrowing the ayatollahs, i worry about the ayatollahs bringing on the end times with a few nukes: "if i am removed from power, i wlll remove israel from the earth, for judgment day is upon us". a normal iranian would enver do that. a religious zealot, of any religion, would do that
it does no good talking about the basic humanity and goodness of the average iranian. for it is the nature of their government our criticism is confined to. i'm certain north koreans and zimbabweans are good people too. but what of their governments? what do you say about their governments? saying iranians are nice people and that someday the government will change is just a nice way of avoiding a problem. the current theocracy in tehran is a current real genuine problem, and they shows no signs of disappearing for awhile. so you need to deal with them as they are, and not merely wait for the day they are gone. that could be decades
then i can pretty much equate any concept i want with any other concept, and mean not a damn thing
which is pretty much all your comment is: propaganda without substance
dude, you can hate the west and the usa all you want, please be my guest. my only demand of you is that your thoughts show some coherence. but currently, your comments are incoherent, without meaning. try again
but it is most certainly not a theocracy. if you don't understand that, you don't understand what the word means
and i agree with you, us support for israel should be stopped, it is a cold war leftover from when egypt and syria sided with the ussr
but you are insane: blaming israel for 9/11 is like blaming iraqis for the usa invading iraq: if they had overthrown saddam hussein in time, the usa would not have been aggrevated by his actions to justify an invasion. this line of thinking is of course, utterly stupid. the usa is to blame for invading iraq, al qaeda is to blame for 9/11. any other creative lines of thinking about blame on such issues is incoherent
if a wife gets beaten, who is to blame? the wife? or the husband? the wife could have done a million things that made the husband beat her, but he is the one who raised the hand, therefore, he is the one to blame, 100%. you have the ultimate responsibility for the choices of actions that come out of you. anything else is bullshit
theme: the many different weird and wonderful effects of testosterone
jack is going to realize his one true calling is internet trolling, and he will have a spectacular future
but right now, he is on a roll with this real life trolling act. in the outrageousness of it all you can almost smell the desperation, the need for a fix: attention, by any means necessary. the mark of a true troll
"enforce protectionism...
in the name of the free market!"
during the cold war the essence of MAD was that the russians loved their children too. and therefore, would not nuke the west. and visa versa
in iran's war with iraq, they gave children little wooden keys around their neck, and sent them out to clean minefields. the wooden keys were so they could get to heaven
now this makes perfect sense from a fundamentalist religious point of view that heaven is superior to earth, that death for the religious cause is the highest achievement. and so from that point of view, ther eis still ove for their children. every society has such relgious fundamentalists, but only in iran are such fundamentalists the ones with the finger on the nuclear trigger finger, the ultimate arbiters of power
how can MAD work against someone who believes death is superior to life? that killing one's children is a blessing for their children? this is the philosophy of suicide bombers. suicide bombers are celebrated as martyrs in deeply religious sects rather than condemned. or just look at ancient christian iconography: all the saints who died bloody deaths: these are the heroes. again, the problem is not islam, the problem is theocracy
all religions have a story about armageddeon. and with religious fundamentalists, you see actions that are self-fulfilling prophecy. if a cult believes the end of the world is coming, they all commit suicide: they self-fulfilled their own myths
so if some ayatollah believes in the rapture of the afterlife, that the mahdi will soon come when all is afire and aflame of wickedness on the earth, why not press the button to hurry all of us along to the final judgment and the much better place?
the principle of MAD does not work on religious fundamentalists
that's why a theocracy with nukes is so scary
"If Theocracies are so bad, why aren't you worried about Tibet?"
tibet as sovereign entity doesn't exist, and its theocratic structure has been outlawed by the chinese. but were tibet an independent theocracy with nukes, i would be equally worried about it as i am about iran. conversely, if iran were still a theocracy, but didn't have nukes, i wouldn't be nearly as worried about iran as i am
"Seriously, bigotry is the problem, not Theocracy"
this is like saying cancer is a problem, not heart attacks. they are both fatal problems
"While I think that there are better methods of administration, the types of democracy that we have in most western countries are not participatory nor representative... it is effectively a mediaocracy."
this is called self-disenfranchisement. your belief merely supports your own lack of accountability, and has no value when applied to the society you live in (assuming you live in a western country). you are projecting self-referential psychology like a teenager onto those aroud you. no, those around you are perfectly capable of believing and seeing the realit yof their vote mattering, and their opinion tyo be independent. this may not be true of you, but it is true of plenty in your society. i just voted for barack obama 3 months ago. where is my lack of participation or representation?
and what the heck is a "mediaocracy"? ultimate power rests in an editorial news room? a meaningless buzzword
in the west, i can choose to consume any media i like. this includes al jazeera or iran's mouthpiece, if i choose to. now, if i lived in iran, meanwhile, and i clicked on those links, and they pointed to the bbc or the new york times, i would be blocked, and perhaps even reported for unislamic activities, for not sticking with the governing parties official media. is that the "mediaocracy" you are talking about?
"Knowledge and culture sharing are a better solution that trying to stop nukes"
yes, and world war ii would have never happened if hitler and tojo were given hugs and kisses. pffft. man i need some of what you are smoking
"The whole clash of cultures idea is also patently absurd"
in some subsaharan cultures, they perform clitorectomies on female children. do you have a problem with that? congratulations, you are engaging in a clash of cultures
"it's clash of money and oil interests in the upper echelons of both so-called empires at the expense of their own peoples that is the real problem."
how did you get to work or school today? did you ride a car or bus? do you have a job or do you pay for school? in either case, you have money and oil interests. but you have this absurd idea that only the "upper echelons" are the ones gobbling up money and oil just because its cool in a hollywood bad guy sort of way. or, perhaps, governments are concerned with access to resources and the flow of capital, for the rightful reason of the well-being of their citizens. could that be it? nah...
"I, for one extend my hand of congratulations to the Iranian people and look very suspiciously at those who would tell them what to do/think/go to war over."
i agree with you 100%. i am glad you are finally ready to stand with me and condemn the ayatollahs and their constant war propagandizing of the iranian people
"Ditto applies to the American administration (and anyone else who is spineless enough not to sign the nuclear disarmament treaty),"
absolutely, we need to engage in nuclear disarmament. how does belief in that allow for iran getting nukes? iran should get nukes because the usa has them? ok, you can believe that if you want
but now you are expressing belief in nuclear proliferation. make up your mind, but you can't believe in nuclear disarmament and iran getting nukes at the same time. either you insist iran not get nukes and the usa get rid of them, or that the usa keep its nukes and iran get them too. but saying the usa
whose political party is the christian democratic union
surface level symbolism versus social reality
"I'm an atheist and a pretty cynical person and I seriously doubt that The Pope, Osama, or Iranian Ayatollahs actually believe in God"
serious reality adjustment needed: that you are cynical does not mean the world is cynical. this is some serious teenager level self-referential psychology going on here
there are a wide range of mindsets out there in the world. some of them, no, most of them, diverge radically from your worldview and your attitudes, for better or worse
i make a throwaway sophomoric sex joke and i get serious analysis and get rated "insightful"
it is of course, of questionable and dubious intermingling of church and state on a strictly symbolic level. but what the usa does have is a clear and explicit command to separate church and state, which has been bourne out by numerous judicial rulings for decades
i guess you could say that it is kind of like how north korea is officially called the "Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK)" when of course, it is a petty despotic dictatorship and doesn't have anything remotely democratic about it
or the fact that china is ruled by a communist party... that currently embraces the most capitalist philosophy in the world
all of which could go to show that surface level symbolism speaks very little about the actual substance of how a government works
no, the usa is not anywhere near a theocracy
enough about some other guy's sexual fantasy life being destroyed
can we get back to the urgent need to make fully human women with four breasts and two vaginas now please?
there is this common belief that any motivation based on fear is wrong. but there really is nothing wrong with the emotion of fear. fear keeps you alive. fear based on IRRATIONAL beliefs is of course wrong. but my fear of iran is based on a RATIONAL determination: a theocracy with nuclear weapons is the last thing this world needs
seriously, if you are not scared of a theocracy of nuclear weapons, what are you scared of? i would go so far as to say that if you are not scared of a theocracy with nukes, there is something wrong with you
this doesn't validate all of the irrational fears people have in this world. but even for the most rational of persons, there exists a subset of considerations for which the emotion of fear is a completely valid response
there is something very wrong with someone who is afraid of irrational things. equally so, there is something very wrong with someone isn't afraid of anything. it's like not feeling pain: at first glance, not feeling any pain seems to have nothing but upside. until you consider the scenarios of picking up a hot skillet, or cutting yourself with a chainsaw: pain keeps you alive. likewise, having no fear seems like a good thing, until you consider all of the scenarios where fear keeps you alive
someone who goes through life afraid a lion is going to jump out of the shadows at any moment and attack them is not defensible. but being afraid when an actual genuine lion is actually jumping out at you is perfectly appropriate, valid, and preferable
the emotion of fear is not the problem, fear of irrational things is the problem, and the two concepts are different
its their government thats the problem
concern about a theocracy having nuclear weapons is a perfectly valid concern
yes, many who are concerned about iran are blindly ethnocentric, or religiously bigotted
but its also possible to be concerned about a theocracy with nukes, without being pro or anti muslim, or pro or anti western, or pro or anti anything
that iran is muslim is not the problem
that iran hates israel is not the problem
that iran hates the west is not the problem
that iran is full of persians is not the problem
that iran is a THEOCRACY with NUCLEAR weapons is what bothers me
that doesn't bother you?
has nothing to do with being pro-israel, or pro-western, or anti-muslim
suspicion of iran has to do with it being a theocracy. doesn't matter that it is a muslim or christian theocracy, or whether it is located in the middle east, or south america, or antarctica. the issue is it being a theocracy. begnning of valid concern about iran, end of valid concern about iran
if someone is concerned about iran, it very well could be for mindless ethnocentrism, religious bigotry, or tibal chest thumping reasons. it is very easy to be concerned about iran for the lowest and most disgraceful reasons
but someone can also be concerned about iran simply from a strictly globalist, humanist, universal, highminded reason:
a theocracy is a very bad thing
why?
we are talking about a government that has, ensconced in its constituion, a bunch of grumpy old men, who are above all law or ability to be questioned, who act in the name of god, and have a monopoly on interpretting the will of god, according to law. that doesn't bother you?
power in iran is not ahmadinejad. power is in the ayatollahs. ahmadinejad is a figurehead. he does not hold the final power. the ayatollahs can freely choose to disavow any candidate form office, and have done so exorbitantly in past elections to disallow popular reform candidates from running
would you consider it a problem if the pope could, without any ability to question or veto his decision, walk into the elections in germany, or the usa, or great britain, and simply cherry pick the candidates he wants to run?
again, the problem is not islam. the problem is not the middle east. the problem is not being anti-israeli. the problem is not being anti-western. all of these instincts are perfectly valid and defensible world views
the problem is with iran being a THEOCRACY. on that issue alone, is suspicion of iran perfectly valid, from either a pro-western or anti-western point of view
pay attention to the below text... this government is going to get a nuclear warhead:
http://www.iranonline.com/iran/iran-info/Government/constitution-1.html
so these grumpy old men, with a monopoly on intepretting what the will of god is, are about to get control over a nuclear warhead
and people wish to say that if you are concerned about this, you must be some brain dead tribal pro-western muslim hater?
really?
not only does that contradict federal work laws, it shows you depend more on unsupported hysteria than reality
you've defeated your own argument by revealing a failed mentality
someone should point out to those fretting about foreigners that the attitude of north korea leads to an economy like north korea's