Re:The Saddam/911 myth persists because powerful
on
Why Myths Persist
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· Score: 1
Did you even read any of the quotes? Most of them are pretty specifically about terrorism and the "general" link to Iraq.
And of course a blowjob is a sexual relationship, but clinton actually tried to defend himself saying that he thought oral sex didn't fall under the legal definition of a sexual relationship.
Arguing that clinton was right is just as absurd as claiming that bush didn't try to make a link between iraq and 9/11 prior to the invasion.
Re:The Saddam/911 myth persists because powerful
on
Why Myths Persist
·
· Score: 1
What I want to know is, who in the Administration EVER said that Saddam plotted 9/11?
I'll grant you nome of the quotes state it directly, but that many mentions of 9/11, terrorism and Iraq...
The irony is that many of the people who would claim that bush TECHNICALLY didn't say there was a link, are probably the first to lambast Clinton for trying to get of the hook on the perjury charges in the Lewinsky case. TECHNICALLY a blowjob isn't a sexual relationship:)
Because corporations cannot (yet) put me in prison.
Governments are very, very scary institutions. Read up on active vs. passive rights sometime.
No, didn't think about that... they can just sue you for millions of dollars, deny you the right to get a job for no real reason, and screw you over without any real risk of retribution from the state... but you're right. Can't throw you in prison:)
Government has supreme power over it's people, even the power to use violence; it's really a completely unstable arrangement. The only thing keeping it in check is the democratic elections.
So, it's always seemed a little paradoxical to me that americans were so afraid of their government, yet choose not to excercise the one thing that's supposed to put it's power in check. Namely democratic elections. The voter turnouts are always dismally low, at least compared to other western countries.
The two party system, and the lack of proportionate representation, really leaves a very large portion of the population without real power - thus making them indifferent to the democracy, leading to a government that's not really kept in check by the people. A goverment that's not kept in check by it people will naturally evolve into somethen that should be feared! It doesn't have any motivation to fix the democratic system either. So I guess it does make sense, but it's a little sad to watch I think.
Either the evil corporations have access to your info, or the government does.
[sarcasm] Oh, great! So if I don't want my government to spy on me I can move to the US! That's wonderful.[/sarcasm}
It's the most ridiculous thing I heard all day.
Oh, and another ting: Why do you trust random corporations more than your government?!?! At least with the goverment you have a say in who makes the decisions, and you can punish them if they screw up.
This is of course just a realization that the US isn't as democratic as they like to pretend, as evidenced by the low voter turnouts at elections.
Go ahead and mod me down! But please stop and think if this troll might be making just a little bit of sense before you hit the moderate button.
You should look up the study itself.
The whole point that they checked biomarkers to make sure that it wasn't a bias in the self reporting, and it wasn't.
A burning question... does this call into question the carbon dating methods that "proved" this creature was 11 million years old? Or does this finally prove that these creatures have resurrected from their fossilized remains?
It's important to realize that radio carbon dating can't be used to date anything that much older than around 50,000 - 60,000 years old. After that period of time, there simply isn't enough C14 left in the samples to measure.
Another important thing to notice is that the amount of radioactive CO2 in the atmosphere varies with time, depending on cosmic radiation, so you have to use a reference to calibrate your result against, like dendrochronology or air captured in glaciers.
In other words, this animal DEFINITELY wasn't dated with radiocarbon dating... the age was probably based geology - ie. how deep the animal was found. (But I'm not a paleontologist)
Actually plants have respiration just the same as animals. During the day, plants turn consumes CO2 - but that is *largely* offset by the reverse process during the night.
The only carbon that is sequestered is the carbon used to increase the biomass of the forest, and that number isn't too impressive for the slow growing forests of north america/europe.
As the work doesn't appear to have been published yet, my guess is that it will turn out to be a bit less remarkable than it currently sounds.
Parts of it has definitely been published before...
and here , in 2004, for example.
Although I haven't had time to read all of it yet, it's still sounds pretty amazing.
But the phenotype has some characteristics that might not be too fortunate in humans... They develop large amounts of lymphocytes that shows up as lumps under the skin... probably won't look too pretty.
That's definitely true, but there are alternatives to coal and oil. We use significant amounts of wind energy in Denmark (and as soon as Hydrogen becomes more useful, so will wind energy). Sweden uses a lot of nuclear energy. Electricity is virtually free in Norway because of their hydroelectric plants. Iceland uses significant amounts of geothermal and hydroelectric energy etc... where there is a will there's a way. Conventional cars are also highly reliant on low oil prices. If they don't stay low, using electricity gives us the possibility of switching to coal, nuclear or something even more clever, reducing our reliance on the middle east.
I'm still not entirely convinced that it won't be cleaner than normal cars, but at least putting the cars on rails and taking away the driver for a major part of the trip will at least make it more efficient than a "normal" electric car.
Besides the RUF is meant to reduce traffic, noise and pollution in the city... it might not make the greenhouse effect go away, but it will help air quality in the cities (which is also a big issue, at least for the people living there). Electric cars are certainly less noisy than conventional cars are.
Besides, I just meant to show that there might be a simpler, cheaper and less error prone way to reduce accidents with out all the expensive gadgets and advanced computer software... and it might even solve a few other problems along the way. The benefits of rail with the flexibiilty of cars.
Rail can't replace roads. It's much less flexible than pavement, more expensive to maintain and not compatible with the existing transportation.
Being Danish I just have to push this idea.
The cars are electrical but run on both normal wheels and have the ability to run on rails.
You put rails on all the major roads, so when youre going on long trips, you simply put your RUF (car), on the rails, lean back, read a book, while your car gets recharged and gets you where you want to go. When you are almost where you want to go, you are taken of the rails and take over steering like a normal car.
Same when you just need to get groceries... the RUF works just like a normal car.
You don't even need a lot of expensive, heavy batteries because you will never need to drive it very far without getting it on the rails.
Most people posting here don't seem to realise why broadcasting select ads based on your viewing habits is an invasion of privacy.
The ads that are shown on your TV will reflect who you are, and what you watch when you are alone in the privacy of your own home. That might not be the image you want your friends or family to see when they come over to see a football match.
Taking it to the extreme; If you watch a lot of porn when you are alone, having the TV show you ads for the newest adult movies when your girfriend uses your TV might *not* be desirable.
(The above is of course a hyperbole - advertising adult movies is probably illegal almost everywhere)
Nice article, but I'm not too fond of the explanation of the mouse trap example. The suggest that maybe the mousetrap had another function before gaining it's mouse trapping ability.
A much neater way of demonstrating the flaw in Behe's reasoning is to look at the Venus flytrap (carnivorous plant). It has the same elements as the mousetrap, spring mechanism, jaws for catching the fly, a frame (stem) that everything is mounted on, bait (red colour and possibly a scent). While Behe is correct in stating that no part of the Venus flytrap can be removed without the plant failing, he doesn't consider the possiblity that maybe the plant lost an element in the last evolutionary step (not gained, as his simplistic view of evolution would have us believe). And indeed that is what biologists know happened: the venus fly trap used to be sticky, so the interlocking jaw wasn't strictly necessary before, but merely improved on the fairly efficient method of catching flies on a sticky surface.
Then the example in TFA is pretty bad. It's exactly an example of an external packet containing a wrong checksum.
If the system is in isolation, you would have to come up with the idea of sending a malformed packet yourself instead of just letting it run until it crashed. that doesn't seem a very likely thing to try.
i'd call it the Food for IP program. like food for oil, but not corrupt.
I know it isn't a political post, but just to catch this before it becomes one of those memes that everyone repeat even though they are false, like "Al Gore says he invented the internet":
Is there actually any evidence that the system is corrupt?
I'm willing to beleive the evidence that Saddam Hussein tried to use the program in that way, but thats not the same as evidence that it actually worked.
Finding evidence that the mafia was planning to try to pay off some cop is not evidence that the cop is actually corrupt.
The reason you have to be particularily wary about beleiving claims about the food for oil program is that Bush has a vested interest in hurting Kofi Annan... the guy actually attacked his war in iraq publically.
This is just one of those cases where you have to think critically and not just be another sheep repeating what your government (or karl rove) tells you to beleive.
But I'd have to disagree with him... he is *extremely* picky.
He will only settle for the top 2% beautiful girls.
The top 2% is comparable to *the* ultimate babe in your highschool.
If he's not willing to accept girls who are not at least as beautiful as that girl everyone lusted for in highschool who is at the same time smarter than 85% of people out there, then you've got issues.
I've met one girl personally throughout all of my life that *might* qualify according to those criteria...
what wonderfully circular logic. don't question an article for its lack of information, as doing so is devoid of information. wow.
Yeah, He's attacking the article for lack of information about something that's irrelevant to it.
It doesn't matter how many papers have been written on the subject, the important point is: "all scientist agree".
His criticism is irrelevant to the subject of the article, but by stating it anyway he makes it seem as though there is some problem anyway.
Either way I don't know why I'm even replying to your post... it sucks for failing to adress the effects of climate change on trout reproduction.
Why haven't you?
Are you hiding something... It sure looks that way.
Ok. How many of those actually attempted to show a LINK between global warming and human activities rather than just "accept" it?
By asking this question you raise doubt about the quality of the work without actually presenting evidence that only a minority of the scientists do serious work on this. But if you are driving an SUV a statement like that might seem insightful even though it's completely void of information.
The begged question is Will it be bad or will it be good? Wouldn't warmer climates provide more arable land? What I get out of this is "We dont know what it means, but it looks like at least SOME climate changes are caused by man".
You would have to be pretty biased to read it that way.
Two trains are heading for a collision, the respective train drivers have a lot of options, they can jump out or try to stop the train.
I could state that the question of what to do is open - but you would probably argue that I'm begging the question "Will a train collision be good or will it be bad?"
The sentence you quote has nothing to do with whether anthropogenic climate changes are good or bad.
Oh yeah... a pet peeve of mine... "begging the question" can mean two different things. If you use it the way you do you confuse the people who took the time to find out what it means, and if you use it correctly a majority of people will misunderstand what you say - so it's probably better not to use the expression at all.
I think you misunderstood me... what I said was:
If you think low minimum wages are good because they create jobs, why don't you think organizing labor to avoid people working overtime at the cost of family AND employment?
I wasn't making a case for higher minimum wages, but a case for less overtime.
What's always puzzled me is this:
Whenever americans discuss minimum wages, people argue that you higher minimum wages means less jobs. And jobs are good, so it doesn't matter that you can't actually live off a minimum wage.
Whenever unions come up, noone sees a problem with people working overtime (is overtime one of these so called "family values" you are so fond of?), even though unions would force the companies to hire more people.
but whatever... I actually decided to give up trying to understand american politics last month.
Nazism = libel. Well, I suppose you could make the argument, analogizing from specifici individuals to an entire groupassuming everything national socialism says is anti-semitic propaganda, which like, I guess 0.6 is approx. equal to 1, in some places.
Pleeease! The NPD is NOT illegal in germany! Get a clue.
In fact the NPD got almost 10% of the votes in some parts of germany in the last election.
In the real world, when you go beyond simply baing xenophobic and voting for a national socialist party, to actully supporting nazism - then I fail to see how that can make you anything but antisemitic. The party was bloody responsible for mass murder!
riginal poster points out that suppression of politically-charged speech happens on a continuum and that some of those countries who would condemn Turkey are only a little bit further on the left of it.
Condemning politically charged speech? Is that what you think this is about? The guy compiled a list of sites about the PKK. He didn't support terrorism, or communism for that matter. And if you think that supressing politically charged speech is all the Turk/Kurd conflict is all about then you seriously need to read up on it.
Ask yourself this question. Which did more to facilitate the rise of Nazi-ism before and during WWII: propaganda against the Jews or government limits on free speech, threatening anyone who spoke out to defend the Jews and reveal the evil that was being perpetrated against them.
Actually I am pretty confident that it was a german economy in shambles, combined with populistic nazi propaganda... I'm sorry... the history books I read doesn't seem to agree with the ones you read.
In the USA, groups such as the KKK are prefectly allowed to spew their propaganda, and yet they remain a small minority and haven't convinced the mainstream population of anything except that they are bigots.
WTF?!?! Where did you find those history books?
Until recently most southern states had a system not unlike south african apartheid.
Racism is still rampant in these states, at least compared to countries like Germany. I have to be honest though, my evidence for the latter claim is completely anecdotal. I've known two persons who've studied in american southern states who were appalled how apparently intelligent middle class people there could have so terifying opinions in race debates.
So, no, I'm not convinced that the american strategy of simply accepting the KKK has been succesful.
In the US, libel can only be against an individual, not a group, and thus political speech isn't affected in most cases. Also, to prove libel, the injured party must prove the allegations are false and damaging, and in the case of public figures such as politicians, the burden is even higher, so as not to potentially affect any political speech. Also, in the US, libel is a civil, not a criminal offence. There is a huge difference! You can't go to jail or get a criminal record for a civil offence.
Unfortunately these kinds of things has time and time again lead to some very real damages. Burned mosques, synagogues, and chuches. Countless racially motivated murders, holocaust, etc. etc.
And don't tell me you haven't seen any of this in America.
Having your judicial system disregard this, and only take into account economical damages is says more about your judicial system than it does about what is morally and ethically acceptable.
No, you can not legislate morality and ethics, only behaviour. Morality and ethics are expressions of a person's internal belief system. Society creates laws to govern the behaviour of those individuals whose sense of morality and ethics are deficient or unacceptable (this is important) as defined by that society.
Of course that is correct; you can, and should, legislate acting upon ethics and morals that are different from the norms of the rest of society. That is why it's not illegal to agree with al-queda or the neonazis, only to actively support them.
I interpreted grandparents post differently though.
Actually, the legislation regarding PKK is a part of the legislation that restricts the civil liberties of the kurdish minority.
Bannning support of PKK could be compared to the german legislation.
Passing legislation that makes it illegal to even gather information about a political party, as part of academic work, for example, is a restriction of civil liberties.
ethnic adj : of or relating to races or large groups of people classed according to common traits and customs.
ethnic adj : a member of an ethnic group; esp : one retaining traditional customs, outlook, and language.
According to these dictionary definitions jews and kurds are ethnic groups. Kurds look distinctly different from Turks, they have a seperate language and customs. Just like jews can be told apart from aryans, to use nazi terminology, and have retain a different language, hebrew, and have a distinct outlook and customs, according to their religion.
I think you misunderstood the problem with nazism, it wasn't that they acknowledged the differences between different ethnic groups, because there are, per definition, differences. It was that they beleived it should have a bearing on their civil liberties, and that they should be exterminated.
So, why have them then? To make things easier is not a very good reason. After all, the USA Patriot Act merely makes certain police activities easier.... With regular libel laws you have to prove harm at some level-speech is a lot more protected. Even the speech that I think has no redeeming value...
It simplifies the laws by clarifying them.
Why are clear laws good? Well, they make it easier to determine when you've crossed them. If some deluded people choose to interpret a very general law in a way that justifies their actions, that could land them in jail. Having clear, specific laws makes it a lot easier to be a law abiding ciztizen. That is a good thing.
Also, it is the job of the legislative branch to legislate and determine what should be punished and what should not. If you cut all clarifications in the law away, you end up with little less than "you must not be evil". While that contains the essence of all laws, you leave it to the judges to determine what is good and what is evil, and that is NOT their job. Their job is to uphold the law.
You can't legislate morality/ethics.
Hate to burst your bubble, but you can. It is in fact ALL law is; a clear specification of what is good and bad behaviour, ie. morality/ethics.
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Did you even read any of the quotes?
Most of them are pretty specifically about terrorism and the "general" link to Iraq.
And of course a blowjob is a sexual relationship, but clinton actually tried to defend himself saying that he thought oral sex didn't fall under the legal definition of a sexual relationship.
Arguing that clinton was right is just as absurd as claiming that bush didn't try to make a link between iraq and 9/11 prior to the invasion.
Behold the power of the INTERNET:
Quotes from BBC.
I'll grant you nome of the quotes state it directly, but that many mentions of 9/11, terrorism and Iraq... The irony is that many of the people who would claim that bush TECHNICALLY didn't say there was a link, are probably the first to lambast Clinton for trying to get of the hook on the perjury charges in the Lewinsky case. TECHNICALLY a blowjob isn't a sexual relationship
No, didn't think about that... they can just sue you for millions of dollars, deny you the right to get a job for no real reason, and screw you over without any real risk of retribution from the state... but you're right. Can't throw you in prison
Government has supreme power over it's people, even the power to use violence; it's really a completely unstable arrangement. The only thing keeping it in check is the democratic elections.
So, it's always seemed a little paradoxical to me that americans were so afraid of their government, yet choose not to excercise the one thing that's supposed to put it's power in check. Namely democratic elections. The voter turnouts are always dismally low, at least compared to other western countries.
The two party system, and the lack of proportionate representation, really leaves a very large portion of the population without real power - thus making them indifferent to the democracy, leading to a government that's not really kept in check by the people. A goverment that's not kept in check by it people will naturally evolve into somethen that should be feared! It doesn't have any motivation to fix the democratic system either. So I guess it does make sense, but it's a little sad to watch I think.
[sarcasm] Oh, great! So if I don't want my government to spy on me I can move to the US! That's wonderful.[/sarcasm}
It's the most ridiculous thing I heard all day.
Oh, and another ting: Why do you trust random corporations more than your government?!?! At least with the goverment you have a say in who makes the decisions, and you can punish them if they screw up.
This is of course just a realization that the US isn't as democratic as they like to pretend, as evidenced by the low voter turnouts at elections.
Go ahead and mod me down! But please stop and think if this troll might be making just a little bit of sense before you hit the moderate button.
You should look up the study itself.
The whole point that they checked biomarkers to make sure that it wasn't a bias in the self reporting, and it wasn't.
Actually plants have respiration just the same as animals.
During the day, plants turn consumes CO2 - but that is *largely* offset by the reverse process during the night.
The only carbon that is sequestered is the carbon used to increase the biomass of the forest, and that number isn't too impressive for the slow growing forests of north america/europe.
sorry
Parts of it has definitely been published before... and here , in 2004, for example.
Although I haven't had time to read all of it yet, it's still sounds pretty amazing. But the phenotype has some characteristics that might not be too fortunate in humans... They develop large amounts of lymphocytes that shows up as lumps under the skin... probably won't look too pretty.
That's definitely true, but there are alternatives to coal and oil. We use significant amounts of wind energy in Denmark (and as soon as Hydrogen becomes more useful, so will wind energy). Sweden uses a lot of nuclear energy. Electricity is virtually free in Norway because of their hydroelectric plants. Iceland uses significant amounts of geothermal and hydroelectric energy etc... where there is a will there's a way.
Conventional cars are also highly reliant on low oil prices. If they don't stay low, using electricity gives us the possibility of switching to coal, nuclear or something even more clever, reducing our reliance on the middle east.
I'm still not entirely convinced that it won't be cleaner than normal cars, but at least putting the cars on rails and taking away the driver for a major part of the trip will at least make it more efficient than a "normal" electric car.
Besides the RUF is meant to reduce traffic, noise and pollution in the city... it might not make the greenhouse effect go away, but it will help air quality in the cities (which is also a big issue, at least for the people living there). Electric cars are certainly less noisy than conventional cars are.
Besides, I just meant to show that there might be a simpler, cheaper and less error prone way to reduce accidents with out all the expensive gadgets and advanced computer software... and it might even solve a few other problems along the way. The benefits of rail with the flexibiilty of cars.
The cars are electrical but run on both normal wheels and have the ability to run on rails. You put rails on all the major roads, so when youre going on long trips, you simply put your RUF (car), on the rails, lean back, read a book, while your car gets recharged and gets you where you want to go. When you are almost where you want to go, you are taken of the rails and take over steering like a normal car. Same when you just need to get groceries... the RUF works just like a normal car.
You don't even need a lot of expensive, heavy batteries because you will never need to drive it very far without getting it on the rails.
Most people posting here don't seem to realise why broadcasting select ads based on your viewing habits is an invasion of privacy.
The ads that are shown on your TV will reflect who you are, and what you watch when you are alone in the privacy of your own home. That might not be the image you want your friends or family to see when they come over to see a football match.
Taking it to the extreme; If you watch a lot of porn when you are alone, having the TV show you ads for the newest adult movies when your girfriend uses your TV might *not* be desirable.
(The above is of course a hyperbole - advertising adult movies is probably illegal almost everywhere)
Nice article, but I'm not too fond of the explanation of the mouse trap example.
The suggest that maybe the mousetrap had another function before gaining it's mouse trapping ability.
A much neater way of demonstrating the flaw in Behe's reasoning is to look at the Venus flytrap (carnivorous plant). It has the same elements as the mousetrap, spring mechanism, jaws for catching the fly, a frame (stem) that everything is mounted on, bait (red colour and possibly a scent).
While Behe is correct in stating that no part of the Venus flytrap can be removed without the plant failing, he doesn't consider the possiblity that maybe the plant lost an element in the last evolutionary step (not gained, as his simplistic view of evolution would have us believe).
And indeed that is what biologists know happened: the venus fly trap used to be sticky, so the interlocking jaw wasn't strictly necessary before, but merely improved on the fairly efficient method of catching flies on a sticky surface.
Then the example in TFA is pretty bad.
It's exactly an example of an external packet containing a wrong checksum.
If the system is in isolation, you would have to come up with the idea of sending a malformed packet yourself instead of just letting it run until it crashed. that doesn't seem a very likely thing to try.
I know it isn't a political post, but just to catch this before it becomes one of those memes that everyone repeat even though they are false, like "Al Gore says he invented the internet":
Is there actually any evidence that the system is corrupt?
I'm willing to beleive the evidence that Saddam Hussein tried to use the program in that way, but thats not the same as evidence that it actually worked.
Finding evidence that the mafia was planning to try to pay off some cop is not evidence that the cop is actually corrupt.
The reason you have to be particularily wary about beleiving claims about the food for oil program is that Bush has a vested interest in hurting Kofi Annan... the guy actually attacked his war in iraq publically.
This is just one of those cases where you have to think critically and not just be another sheep repeating what your government (or karl rove) tells you to beleive.
Agreed... that great stuff.
But I'd have to disagree with him... he is *extremely* picky. He will only settle for the top 2% beautiful girls.
The top 2% is comparable to *the* ultimate babe in your highschool.
If he's not willing to accept girls who are not at least as beautiful as that girl everyone lusted for in highschool who is at the same time smarter than 85% of people out there, then you've got issues.
I've met one girl personally throughout all of my life that *might* qualify according to those criteria...
Yeah, He's attacking the article for lack of information about something that's irrelevant to it.
It doesn't matter how many papers have been written on the subject, the important point is: "all scientist agree".
His criticism is irrelevant to the subject of the article, but by stating it anyway he makes it seem as though there is some problem anyway.
Either way I don't know why I'm even replying to your post... it sucks for failing to adress the effects of climate change on trout reproduction.
Why haven't you?
Are you hiding something... It sure looks that way.
By asking this question you raise doubt about the quality of the work without actually presenting evidence that only a minority of the scientists do serious work on this. But if you are driving an SUV a statement like that might seem insightful even though it's completely void of information.
You would have to be pretty biased to read it that way.
Two trains are heading for a collision, the respective train drivers have a lot of options, they can jump out or try to stop the train.
I could state that the question of what to do is open - but you would probably argue that I'm begging the question "Will a train collision be good or will it be bad?"
The sentence you quote has nothing to do with whether anthropogenic climate changes are good or bad.
Oh yeah... a pet peeve of mine... "begging the question" can mean two different things. If you use it the way you do you confuse the people who took the time to find out what it means, and if you use it correctly a majority of people will misunderstand what you say - so it's probably better not to use the expression at all.
If you think low minimum wages are good because they create jobs, why don't you think organizing labor to avoid people working overtime at the cost of family AND employment?
I wasn't making a case for higher minimum wages, but a case for less overtime.
What's always puzzled me is this:
Whenever americans discuss minimum wages, people argue that you higher minimum wages means less jobs. And jobs are good, so it doesn't matter that you can't actually live off a minimum wage.
Whenever unions come up, noone sees a problem with people working overtime (is overtime one of these so called "family values" you are so fond of?), even though unions would force the companies to hire more people.
but whatever... I actually decided to give up trying to understand american politics last month.
Pleeease! The NPD is NOT illegal in germany! Get a clue.
In fact the NPD got almost 10% of the votes in some parts of germany in the last election.
In the real world, when you go beyond simply baing xenophobic and voting for a national socialist party, to actully supporting nazism - then I fail to see how that can make you anything but antisemitic. The party was bloody responsible for mass murder!
Condemning politically charged speech? Is that what you think this is about? The guy compiled a list of sites about the PKK. He didn't support terrorism, or communism for that matter. And if you think that supressing politically charged speech is all the Turk/Kurd conflict is all about then you seriously need to read up on it.
Yeah, but I like to think I'm good at it ;)
Actually I am pretty confident that it was a german economy in shambles, combined with populistic nazi propaganda... I'm sorry... the history books I read doesn't seem to agree with the ones you read.
WTF?!?! Where did you find those history books?
Until recently most southern states had a system not unlike south african apartheid.
Racism is still rampant in these states, at least compared to countries like Germany. I have to be honest though, my evidence for the latter claim is completely anecdotal. I've known two persons who've studied in american southern states who were appalled how apparently intelligent middle class people there could have so terifying opinions in race debates.
So, no, I'm not convinced that the american strategy of simply accepting the KKK has been succesful.
Unfortunately these kinds of things has time and time again lead to some very real damages. Burned mosques, synagogues, and chuches. Countless racially motivated murders, holocaust, etc. etc.
And don't tell me you haven't seen any of this in America. Having your judicial system disregard this, and only take into account economical damages is says more about your judicial system than it does about what is morally and ethically acceptable.
Of course that is correct; you can, and should, legislate acting upon ethics and morals that are different from the norms of the rest of society. That is why it's not illegal to agree with al-queda or the neonazis, only to actively support them.
I interpreted grandparents post differently though.
Actually, the legislation regarding PKK is a part of the legislation that restricts the civil liberties of the kurdish minority.
Bannning support of PKK could be compared to the german legislation.
Passing legislation that makes it illegal to even gather information about a political party, as part of academic work, for example, is a restriction of civil liberties.
ethnic adj : of or relating to races or large groups of people classed according to common traits and customs.
ethnic adj : a member of an ethnic group; esp : one retaining traditional customs, outlook, and language.
According to these dictionary definitions jews and kurds are ethnic groups. Kurds look distinctly different from Turks, they have a seperate language and customs. Just like jews can be told apart from aryans, to use nazi terminology, and have retain a different language, hebrew, and have a distinct outlook and customs, according to their religion.
I think you misunderstood the problem with nazism, it wasn't that they acknowledged the differences between different ethnic groups, because there are, per definition, differences. It was that they beleived it should have a bearing on their civil liberties, and that they should be exterminated.
It simplifies the laws by clarifying them.
Why are clear laws good? Well, they make it easier to determine when you've crossed them. If some deluded people choose to interpret a very general law in a way that justifies their actions, that could land them in jail. Having clear, specific laws makes it a lot easier to be a law abiding ciztizen. That is a good thing.
Also, it is the job of the legislative branch to legislate and determine what should be punished and what should not. If you cut all clarifications in the law away, you end up with little less than "you must not be evil". While that contains the essence of all laws, you leave it to the judges to determine what is good and what is evil, and that is NOT their job. Their job is to uphold the law.
Hate to burst your bubble, but you can. It is in fact ALL law is; a clear specification of what is good and bad behaviour, ie. morality/ethics.