I agree with you wholeheartedly. People are repeating catch phrases they hear on TV without actually thinking about their meanings. Terrorists have never historically won wars precisely for the reasons you mentioned; they just murder civilians for the sake of getting their 20 seconds on TV and many society simply feeds the beast.
Good news never ends up on TV because it's boring, but that basically implies that we pay news services to give us horrific violent news, which in turn enpowers people using horrific violence to get media attention.
I would even go so far as to say that the number of innocents destroyed by the false accusations total information would bring would outnumber the victims saved. Bring on the terrorists! Prove it. Stop pulling numbers out of your ass. I keep on hearing these Orweillian predictions left and right but the fact of the matter is that the only Orweillian states in existance today at in the Middle East and Russia. These are the very states producing and arming terrorists and I find it ironic that you claim that "bad things will happen" if we allow wiretapping when in fact historically they never happened this way. How many democratic countries have slipped into a totalitianism as a result of wiretapping?... I count zero.
Totalitian states might uses wiretapping but wiretapping does not transform a nation into a Totalitian state.
That's because Christians don't threaten or kill people who convert away from the religion or become less religion nor do they do the same to people from other religions. The same can't be said of other religions.
You moved away from Christianity because you could. There have been people stoned to death in Muslim countries from converting to Christianity and there have been people stabbed to death in western nations for "insulting Islam". Brainwashing enforced with threats works just fine, especially in isolated communities which imply that people with differing opinions not only are wrong but rather they are evil. I'm just saying that there is a line beyond which there is very little opportunity to step away from brainwashing.
I guess you are right, there is a distinction, but I still disagree with you that bigots should be allowed to spread racism even if they don't explicitly advocade violence. I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree on this point.
Freedom of Speech is there to ensure that you are allowed to say things which offend other people's beliefs without fear. It is not there to allow bigots to spread racism.
Sure it is. You aren't qualified to make that distinction.
In most places, violent acts are criminal acts. If someone advocates violent crimes, then that should be in turn a criminal act. And it usually is. How can you disagree with me in the first part yet in the second part state that advocating violence is indeed a crime? The two are one and the same in my book.
You're putting words in my mouth. Using your line of reasoning you are implying that the US medical system must be better than the Canadian one because with the former each citizen manages their own funds whereas in the latter the government does it on their behalf. Most people I've ever talked with would strongly disagree.
There are some things that the state should butt out of and there are others it should not. All within reason. If you wish the state to butt out of everything then you are an anarchist and will never be happy no matter what your government does.
Freedom of Speech is there to ensure that you are allowed to say things which offend other people's beliefs without fear. It is not there to allow bigots to spread racism. The former allows me to question other people's religions and beliefs whereas the latter takes it one step further by allowing me to advocate violence against a group of people. Abusing Freedom of Speech for the sake of violence is criminal.
If I question whether Jesus really existed and a bunch of radical Christians say I should be burned alive then I consider this criminal. Equally so if I have to go underground because people want to kill me for publishing cartoons of the prophet Mohamed. Freedom of Speech for the sake of discussion is one thing, when it is for the sake of violence it is another thing altogether.
If true, that indicates a much deeper problem than one teacher spewing bs. They weren't locked with the guy for months, were they? These kids have other teachers, they have parents, they have the culture around them in the form of tv and music. No one teacher has that much influence over his students. The brainwashing must have been reinforced at another level. Wow, you obviously haven't dealt much with kids. They're far more likely to believe anything the teacher tells them than adults are. How can you honestly expect elementary or early high-school students to doubt what they're being taught? Most kids eat this up. You'd be extremely hard pressed to find elementary students in *any* country that do not do this so don't tell me this is a problem of lack of critical thinking:)
These are cases where the harm is obvious. Hate speech doesn't fall into those categories. Excuse me if I humbly disagree. I have talked with countless people who have been duped into believing hate literature they were peddled on the street and on campuses simply because they were not very history-aware. I routinely see people peddle lies laced with truth on campuses and most people *do* believe this stuff and it *does* harm society when a whole slew of people get brainwashed into hating an ethnic group simply because of libel. If people were passing out hate literature about black people on campuses you can be sure they would be *tons* of noise about it, and rightfully so. Why should it be any different for other ethnic groups?
You repeatedly assume that words don't make a difference but they make a *very* big difference. The Holocaust didn't start with gas chambers, it started with words. Do you honestly believe that the Jews of Germany didn't try to counter the hate literature as you suggested? It didn't make a difference. It is very difficult for a minority group to defend itself from hate literature distributed amongst a majority population. Governments have to step in to protect all minorities from this kind of hate literature because they're the only ones with the power and responsibility to do so.
The very serious problem with laws like the Patriot Act and its Canadian counterparts is that curbing rights doesn't necessarily protect society, but often has the opposite effect. And where is *your* proof?:)
Haha. Newsflash for you: most citizens *are* sheep. Most people don't watch the news, read newspapers or anything of the sort. They are routinely approach by idiots on the street or otherwise peddling them conspiracy theories. Most people don't know enough history to know better and don't put in the effort to double check their sources. That's life. You might dislike it but most people aren't intellectual geniuses:)
I'm trying to make two points beyond the ones you made:
1) The teacher shouldn't have just been fired and disbarred but rather put in jail for at least ten years. They interviewed his students ten years after the incident and the vast majority of them said the only reason he got into trouble was because "The Jews control the media". This guy just brainwashed an entire generation of kids. He should pay severely for that kind of thing.
2) I'm not saying we should make it *impossible* for racists to post hate-literate. I'm saying we make it exceedingly difficult for them to get people to look at it once they post it. I don't care if they post millions of pages of crap if no one is able to find it. It is comparable to posting propeganda on YouTube versus posting it on a cryptic site most people won't run across. I don't care about the latter.
That's ignorant crap. The first person convicted under Canadian anti-hate laws was a teacher that brainwashed an entire class that Jews control the world and the Holocaust never happened. The fact of the matter is that hatemongers target people who don't know better. We don't care that they go underground because that is *precisely* what we want: to prevent them from spreading their hate literature to the layman. If only 0.001% of the population can access their literature I consider that a very big win.
We are fully aware that people like you (the bad people) are out there trying take away our liberties for the smallest and most false sense of security. Thats why we applaud this. Its a victory against you bad people. Don't worry we know you exist! Dear sir, rights (be they Freedom of Speech or otherwise) do not exist in a vaccum. I fully understand your apprehensiveness when laws are passed which limit your rights but you must remember that *no* right is unlimited. If you allowed people to abuse democractic rights to undermine that same democracy you will end up with no rights to talk about before very long. One should not be allowed to abuse Freedom of Speech to spread hate literature.
I am not calling for your rights to be limited ad-hoc but rather I am saying that there are many reasonable limitations on rights which exist to safeguard those same rights you take for granted. Please do not misinterpret my intentions, I keep on saying *reasonable* limitations. I simply don't understand people who refuse *any* limitations on rights and they somehow believe that the world will take care of itself. History has proven time and again that it will not.
Virtually every Canadian news agency that covered this event highlighted how the law was voted down purely for political reasons, not for morale ones. The law was originally introduced by the Liberal party which is the exact same party that voted against it this time. The Liberal party is simply trying to bring up the minority Conservative government for obvious political reasons. This has absolutely nothing to do with moral objection, as many Liberal members broke rank from their party and actually voted *for* the bill.
You can be sure this bill will come back in one form or another introduced by the Liberals if not by the Conservatives. You can't close your eyes and pretend that bad people don't exist and those advocating such an approach are ignorant in my view.
This is so ignorant I don't know where to begin.
1) The US does not invade countries left and right randomly, otherwise they would have invaded much easier to conquer countries many times over. They did not. Iran is getting flak from the US and UN precisely because they are persueing nuclear weapons and have expressed genocidal intent to use them in the near future.
2) The government is capitulating to leftists such as yourself that endlessly whine that the US should negotiate with Iran and Syria. It figures: the second they do what leftists want those same leftists use that action against them. Same idea as the first Gulf War. Back then people critized the US for abandoning Saddam's opponents as they rose up against him and were slaughtered. So the second time around they commited to supporting them long-term and they got critized for that as well. You can't please these people.
3) You obviously know very little about GPS satellites, as they do not track people's positions on the ground but rather individual readers acertain positions by *receiving* transmissions from the satellites. Whatever spy satellite technology Iran has, you can be sure it poses no threat to U.S. troops whose technology is *way* ahead of Iran. The only reason suicide bombing works against western troops is because it is an extremely *low* tech weapon that cannot be fought easily with high tech weaponry. It levels the playing field between mass-murderering suicide bombers and coalition troops that try to protect civilians from them. It's not coincidence that suicide bombings kill far more civilians than military targets worldwide. They are the obvious choice for cowards who do not value civilian lives. People might criticize western nations for collateral damage but they cause *way* less civilian deaths than suicide bombings ever will, plus the latter is done with intent to harm civilians whereas the former is not.
Blah blah blah, those Arabs don't respect human life like we do blah blah probably not even circumsized. I never said any of that. Had you actually read the article you would have understood more than you do now.
It doesn't matter how much diplomatic muscle we flex in Iran's face because it isn't "politically correct" or "socially hip" to question one's government in Iran as it is in western countries. You're not going topple governments or change minds by words alone. The US has been banking that Iran's mullahs are going to be overthrown "any day now" for over two decades. It simply isn't going to happen. We tried the sanctions game against Iraq and how far did it take us in the decades that passed? People were starving in the streets while Saddam was building palaces. Diplomatic pressure and sanctions failed miserably to change the minds of the leadership at the top because at the end of the day the people at the top did not feel any heat from the people at the bottom.
Oh, and they also had a military that posed a very real threat to the rest of the world. All Iran has is oil, and the potential to maybe get nuclear weapons in the near future. Not to minimize the threat posed by nuclear weapons, but only the threat of using the weapons can actually accomplish their goals. Actually using them? Mutually Assurred Destruction still works. How is Mutually Assurred Destruction relevant when these guys are using suicide bombers and see nothing wrong with their deaths?
The first offer misses the point. It basically says, "In exchange for giving up your nuclear program, we'll make your country reliant on a power source that the West can turn off with the flip of a switch." I'm less clear on their objections to the second offer. The second offer would ensure that Iran can use nuclear energy without enriching the byproduct because it would be forced to return the biproduct to Europe. Europe would ensure that Iran would never have enough nuclear fuel to produce nuclear weapons while ensuring they did have enough fuel to produce energy. They rejected it outright.
As for the first offer, it is quite reasonable in light of the fact that Iran has absolutely no logical need for nuclear energy. Like I said before, they have the world's second largest oil supply. It is highly suspect that they are investigating nuclear energy at this time when they have the oil *and* they did not investigate any other alternative energy method which is not in dispute (think wind, hydro, ethenol, etc). On top of which they repeatedly threaten their neighbors. It just doesn't add up.
I'm not against sanctions, or military intervention if it comes to that. But it shouldn't be our decision alone. Our judgment seems rather impaired at present. Fair enough but when do you draw the line? We played this game with Iraq for decades. If you want to avert war, we need to enforce sanctions within the very near future (I'm talking months not years). The lesson I draw from World War II is that we can't rely on other people to take care of our welfare. We need to take proactive reasonable measures to address genocide *before* it happens. One must remember that genocide in WW2 did not begin with gas chambers, it began with words. The fact that no one has done anything about the increasing racism in the middle-east (where kids are being brainwashed to hate the west in schools) is indicative to me that no one is going to solve the problem on our behalf. Someone has to initiate action for other countries to take active interest. I'm not saying that action has to be military in nature, but saying stuff like "it's not our decision to make" is plain wrong in my book. It's everyone's business! Those countries who choose to stay out of the debate can't complain they weren't consulted later. The US has repeatedly ask for dialog with other nations in the world to try to solve this diplomatically.
This Holocaust Will Be Different: http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?apage=1&cid =1167467762531&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFu ll
1) You talk about "the best interest" of the Iranian government as if they held the same value system as we do. Was it any different when the allies were trying to appease Nazi Germany? Do you honestly believe that there was any way to appease Nazi Germany to stop its hostilities?
Iran, by their own admission, is an Islamic nation. They believe (again, see national TV broadcasts) that every Muslim who dies "fighting the infidels" goes to heaven with 72 virgins and they preach this to no end. Why is it that you think they would care how many of their people potentially die in the name of wiping out Israel and the USA? Just take a look at Iraq, they are slaughtering their own people without a care in the world. It doesn't take a genius to figure out what happens if you blow up a truck bomb in a market full of civilians. I'm not saying all Shia muslims think this way, but the extremists among them certainly do.
2) This has absolutely nothing to do with "insulting their sovereignty". Every single time the UN or Europe has politely requested that Iran allow more supervision of its nuclear development (as required by treaties they have signed) and/or negotiation to temporarily cease such development they got a threat back from their government. The EU has repeatedly offered to supply Iran with energy to its heart's content (generated abroad, shipped to Iran) and also allowing Iran to have nuclear power plants but they'd have to ship the resulting biproduct back to Europe and they have refused on both counts. They replied with something along the lines of "if you don't shut up, we'll accelerate our nuclear development and deport whatever inspectors are left in the country". And then they did exactly that.
You also seem to forget that Iran's nuclear development has been ongoing for decades now; most of the world only became aware of this once the media picked up the story. In parallel to all of this, they have also developed a continental missile that is able to hit any country in the middle east as well as part of Europe. Again, why would they need such a system unless they planned on using it vis-a-vis nuclear weapons?
Please tell me, what is the politically correct way to stop a hostile Iran or Nazi Germany from developing nuclear weapons? I'd really love to know:)
Lost in translation...? You have obviously not viewed the video. The words "A World Without Zionism" is written in plain English. What exactly got lost in translation? If you read any Arab newspaper you will find the words "Zionist Enemy" substituted for "The Jews" or "Israel". It doesn't take a genius to put one and one together.
I've asked before and I'll ask again: why does Iran need nuclear energy? They hold the world's second largest oil supply.
On the one hand they won't need alternative energy for the next couple decades, on the other hand they have repeatedly threatened to wipe their enemies off the face of the map. It doesn't take a genius to put one and one together. It also doesn't take much imagination to figure out what they want, 60 years after Nazi Germany rose to power and was defeated.
Last time I checked Britian, France, India, Israel, and China did not threaten to wipe their neighbors off the face of the earth, but Iran did. How can you honestly risk such a thing for the sake of political correctness?
Clearly my message is not getting through to you so at this time I will refer you to http://www.aish.com/jewishissues/jewishsociety/Ant i-Semitism_in_3D.asp
Tell me by the way... in this theoretical "one world" of yours, is anyone allowed to hold different views than your own? Where do all the Christians, Jews and Muslims go?
It is one thing to hold views which differ from others. It is a completely different thing to force your views on others as you are doing. Jews have a right to have their own country as much as Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, etc do. Holding Israel to different standards than the rest of the world is nothing short of racism. You say "Israel" yet you mean to say "the Jews". You make broad-stroke baseless accusations about Israel without any factual basis and there is simply no way one can refute such things, or need to.
You might label yourself as an anti-Zionist but so long as you impose different standards on Israel as you do on the rest of the world that makes you racist.
1) Israel is a Jewish country that gives all citizens (Jewish or otherwise) full democratic rights. Canada and the USA are Christian countries that gives all citizens (Christian or otherwise) full democratic rights. Israel has as much a right to exist as a Jewish nation as Canada has a right to exist as a Christian nation. Your problem is that you're not conscience of the fact that Canada and the USA are based on a Christian value system that deeply penetrates their legal system, holidays, economy, etc. Israel is no different.
2) I find it very amusing how people such as yourself label Israel as an aparthid with respect to Gaza. First of all, I don't think you understand the definition of the word. Over 20% of Israel's population is non-Jewish and have full rights as citizens. Gaza (and other Arab countries for that matter) refuse to allow Jews to live within their territory at all. It is utterly racist that Arabs refuse for Jews to be allowed into their country (not to mention gaining citizenship or equal rights) and it is utterly racist that people such as yourself label Israel as an aparthid when Israel *does* give Arabs rights within Israel while Arabs do not give Israelis rights within their countries.
Millions of Jews were forcibly expelled from Arab countries in 1948, even more than the number of the so-called Palestinian refugees, yet I don't hear a single person argueing for their rights. You can't argue for the rights of Palestinian refugees without argueing for the rights of Jewish refugees too.
Israel withdrew all its citizens and military from Gaza over a year ago. It opened the border between Gaza and Egypt and Palestinians are in full control of that territory. To hear you whine about this just reinforces my point of view that there isn't anything Israel can do to please people like you.
Israelis are not going to commit suicide just because it would make you and your double-standards happy. You first!
First of all, that's conjecture. Second of all, Israel has never threatened to wipe any other country off the map with or without nuclear weaponds. In 1973 (Yom Kippur War: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yom_Kippur_War) when Israel was almost defeated by its Arab neighbors, Israel did not threaten to use nor use its alleged nuclear weapons even when its back was against the wall. Can you honestly say the same about other countries in the middle east?
Ask yourself this: why does Iran, that has the world's second largest oil reserves, need nuclear energy? It doesn't take a genius to put one and one together.
I personally believe that people just love scapegoating the US regardless of whether or not what they say is true or not. If Nazi Germany came to power today instead of 60 years ago and the US tried warning people about it they would *still* allege that the US was making up facts and come to Germany's defense. Just because the US says something does not automatically make it untrue.
The point that you miss is that the Jewish concept of Messianic era is not about Jews taking over the world and defeating their enemies, but rather it's about Israel continuing to exist within its current borders but its enemies will stop trying to attack it. Messianic Judaism does not believe that all non-Jews will go to hell or something (Judaism does not even have the concept of hell as Christians mean it) but rather that Jews will finally be able to live in peace in the world, coexisting with their neighbors.
Frankly, your post reeks of that classic anti-semitic implication that "Jews control the world". I suggest you get off your high horse and actually talk to some Jewish people and discover for yourself that they are normal human beings like everyone else who just want to live in peace like everyone else.
For all the anti-US trolling on slashdot you seem to be very ignorant of one very obvious question: why does Iran, which holds the second largest oil supply in the world, need nuclear energy?
On the one hand they have repeatedly declared they'd like to wipe "big satan" (USA) and "little satan" (Israel) off the map. On the other hand they have absolutely no need for nuclear energy anytime in the forseeable future. How can any sane human being not put one and one together?!
The US did not manufacture any of these statements; they don't need to. Iran's own president has repeatedly made declarations to this effect on their national TV station. If you insist on ignoring anything the US says, how do you explain the fact that Iran's own news agency has published this?
Slashdot Mirror
I agree with you wholeheartedly. People are repeating catch phrases they hear on TV without actually thinking about their meanings. Terrorists have never historically won wars precisely for the reasons you mentioned; they just murder civilians for the sake of getting their 20 seconds on TV and many society simply feeds the beast.
Good news never ends up on TV because it's boring, but that basically implies that we pay news services to give us horrific violent news, which in turn enpowers people using horrific violence to get media attention.
Totalitian states might uses wiretapping but wiretapping does not transform a nation into a Totalitian state.
No, as I've already stated: kids will believe anything you tell them at a young age. I'm talking about two different kinds of brainwashing.
That's because Christians don't threaten or kill people who convert away from the religion or become less religion nor do they do the same to people from other religions. The same can't be said of other religions. You moved away from Christianity because you could. There have been people stoned to death in Muslim countries from converting to Christianity and there have been people stabbed to death in western nations for "insulting Islam". Brainwashing enforced with threats works just fine, especially in isolated communities which imply that people with differing opinions not only are wrong but rather they are evil. I'm just saying that there is a line beyond which there is very little opportunity to step away from brainwashing.
I guess you are right, there is a distinction, but I still disagree with you that bigots should be allowed to spread racism even if they don't explicitly advocade violence. I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree on this point.
You're putting words in my mouth. Using your line of reasoning you are implying that the US medical system must be better than the Canadian one because with the former each citizen manages their own funds whereas in the latter the government does it on their behalf. Most people I've ever talked with would strongly disagree. There are some things that the state should butt out of and there are others it should not. All within reason. If you wish the state to butt out of everything then you are an anarchist and will never be happy no matter what your government does. Freedom of Speech is there to ensure that you are allowed to say things which offend other people's beliefs without fear. It is not there to allow bigots to spread racism. The former allows me to question other people's religions and beliefs whereas the latter takes it one step further by allowing me to advocate violence against a group of people. Abusing Freedom of Speech for the sake of violence is criminal. If I question whether Jesus really existed and a bunch of radical Christians say I should be burned alive then I consider this criminal. Equally so if I have to go underground because people want to kill me for publishing cartoons of the prophet Mohamed. Freedom of Speech for the sake of discussion is one thing, when it is for the sake of violence it is another thing altogether.
Haha. Newsflash for you: most citizens *are* sheep. Most people don't watch the news, read newspapers or anything of the sort. They are routinely approach by idiots on the street or otherwise peddling them conspiracy theories. Most people don't know enough history to know better and don't put in the effort to double check their sources. That's life. You might dislike it but most people aren't intellectual geniuses :)
I'm trying to make two points beyond the ones you made: 1) The teacher shouldn't have just been fired and disbarred but rather put in jail for at least ten years. They interviewed his students ten years after the incident and the vast majority of them said the only reason he got into trouble was because "The Jews control the media". This guy just brainwashed an entire generation of kids. He should pay severely for that kind of thing. 2) I'm not saying we should make it *impossible* for racists to post hate-literate. I'm saying we make it exceedingly difficult for them to get people to look at it once they post it. I don't care if they post millions of pages of crap if no one is able to find it. It is comparable to posting propeganda on YouTube versus posting it on a cryptic site most people won't run across. I don't care about the latter.
That's ignorant crap. The first person convicted under Canadian anti-hate laws was a teacher that brainwashed an entire class that Jews control the world and the Holocaust never happened. The fact of the matter is that hatemongers target people who don't know better. We don't care that they go underground because that is *precisely* what we want: to prevent them from spreading their hate literature to the layman. If only 0.001% of the population can access their literature I consider that a very big win.
Virtually every Canadian news agency that covered this event highlighted how the law was voted down purely for political reasons, not for morale ones. The law was originally introduced by the Liberal party which is the exact same party that voted against it this time. The Liberal party is simply trying to bring up the minority Conservative government for obvious political reasons. This has absolutely nothing to do with moral objection, as many Liberal members broke rank from their party and actually voted *for* the bill. You can be sure this bill will come back in one form or another introduced by the Liberals if not by the Conservatives. You can't close your eyes and pretend that bad people don't exist and those advocating such an approach are ignorant in my view.
This is so ignorant I don't know where to begin. 1) The US does not invade countries left and right randomly, otherwise they would have invaded much easier to conquer countries many times over. They did not. Iran is getting flak from the US and UN precisely because they are persueing nuclear weapons and have expressed genocidal intent to use them in the near future. 2) The government is capitulating to leftists such as yourself that endlessly whine that the US should negotiate with Iran and Syria. It figures: the second they do what leftists want those same leftists use that action against them. Same idea as the first Gulf War. Back then people critized the US for abandoning Saddam's opponents as they rose up against him and were slaughtered. So the second time around they commited to supporting them long-term and they got critized for that as well. You can't please these people. 3) You obviously know very little about GPS satellites, as they do not track people's positions on the ground but rather individual readers acertain positions by *receiving* transmissions from the satellites. Whatever spy satellite technology Iran has, you can be sure it poses no threat to U.S. troops whose technology is *way* ahead of Iran. The only reason suicide bombing works against western troops is because it is an extremely *low* tech weapon that cannot be fought easily with high tech weaponry. It levels the playing field between mass-murderering suicide bombers and coalition troops that try to protect civilians from them. It's not coincidence that suicide bombings kill far more civilians than military targets worldwide. They are the obvious choice for cowards who do not value civilian lives. People might criticize western nations for collateral damage but they cause *way* less civilian deaths than suicide bombings ever will, plus the latter is done with intent to harm civilians whereas the former is not.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?apage=1&cid =1167467762531&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFu ll
This Holocaust Will Be Different: http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?apage=1&cid =1167467762531&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFu ll
1) You talk about "the best interest" of the Iranian government as if they held the same value system as we do. Was it any different when the allies were trying to appease Nazi Germany? Do you honestly believe that there was any way to appease Nazi Germany to stop its hostilities?
Iran, by their own admission, is an Islamic nation. They believe (again, see national TV broadcasts) that every Muslim who dies "fighting the infidels" goes to heaven with 72 virgins and they preach this to no end. Why is it that you think they would care how many of their people potentially die in the name of wiping out Israel and the USA? Just take a look at Iraq, they are slaughtering their own people without a care in the world. It doesn't take a genius to figure out what happens if you blow up a truck bomb in a market full of civilians. I'm not saying all Shia muslims think this way, but the extremists among them certainly do.
2) This has absolutely nothing to do with "insulting their sovereignty". Every single time the UN or Europe has politely requested that Iran allow more supervision of its nuclear development (as required by treaties they have signed) and/or negotiation to temporarily cease such development they got a threat back from their government. The EU has repeatedly offered to supply Iran with energy to its heart's content (generated abroad, shipped to Iran) and also allowing Iran to have nuclear power plants but they'd have to ship the resulting biproduct back to Europe and they have refused on both counts. They replied with something along the lines of "if you don't shut up, we'll accelerate our nuclear development and deport whatever inspectors are left in the country". And then they did exactly that.
You also seem to forget that Iran's nuclear development has been ongoing for decades now; most of the world only became aware of this once the media picked up the story. In parallel to all of this, they have also developed a continental missile that is able to hit any country in the middle east as well as part of Europe. Again, why would they need such a system unless they planned on using it vis-a-vis nuclear weapons?
Please tell me, what is the politically correct way to stop a hostile Iran or Nazi Germany from developing nuclear weapons? I'd really love to know :)
Lost in translation...? You have obviously not viewed the video. The words "A World Without Zionism" is written in plain English. What exactly got lost in translation? If you read any Arab newspaper you will find the words "Zionist Enemy" substituted for "The Jews" or "Israel". It doesn't take a genius to put one and one together.
I've asked before and I'll ask again: why does Iran need nuclear energy? They hold the world's second largest oil supply. On the one hand they won't need alternative energy for the next couple decades, on the other hand they have repeatedly threatened to wipe their enemies off the face of the map. It doesn't take a genius to put one and one together. It also doesn't take much imagination to figure out what they want, 60 years after Nazi Germany rose to power and was defeated. Last time I checked Britian, France, India, Israel, and China did not threaten to wipe their neighbors off the face of the earth, but Iran did. How can you honestly risk such a thing for the sake of political correctness?
Clearly my message is not getting through to you so at this time I will refer you to http://www.aish.com/jewishissues/jewishsociety/Ant i-Semitism_in_3D.asp
Tell me by the way... in this theoretical "one world" of yours, is anyone allowed to hold different views than your own? Where do all the Christians, Jews and Muslims go?
It is one thing to hold views which differ from others. It is a completely different thing to force your views on others as you are doing. Jews have a right to have their own country as much as Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, etc do. Holding Israel to different standards than the rest of the world is nothing short of racism. You say "Israel" yet you mean to say "the Jews". You make broad-stroke baseless accusations about Israel without any factual basis and there is simply no way one can refute such things, or need to.
You might label yourself as an anti-Zionist but so long as you impose different standards on Israel as you do on the rest of the world that makes you racist. 1) Israel is a Jewish country that gives all citizens (Jewish or otherwise) full democratic rights. Canada and the USA are Christian countries that gives all citizens (Christian or otherwise) full democratic rights. Israel has as much a right to exist as a Jewish nation as Canada has a right to exist as a Christian nation. Your problem is that you're not conscience of the fact that Canada and the USA are based on a Christian value system that deeply penetrates their legal system, holidays, economy, etc. Israel is no different. 2) I find it very amusing how people such as yourself label Israel as an aparthid with respect to Gaza. First of all, I don't think you understand the definition of the word. Over 20% of Israel's population is non-Jewish and have full rights as citizens. Gaza (and other Arab countries for that matter) refuse to allow Jews to live within their territory at all. It is utterly racist that Arabs refuse for Jews to be allowed into their country (not to mention gaining citizenship or equal rights) and it is utterly racist that people such as yourself label Israel as an aparthid when Israel *does* give Arabs rights within Israel while Arabs do not give Israelis rights within their countries. Millions of Jews were forcibly expelled from Arab countries in 1948, even more than the number of the so-called Palestinian refugees, yet I don't hear a single person argueing for their rights. You can't argue for the rights of Palestinian refugees without argueing for the rights of Jewish refugees too. Israel withdrew all its citizens and military from Gaza over a year ago. It opened the border between Gaza and Egypt and Palestinians are in full control of that territory. To hear you whine about this just reinforces my point of view that there isn't anything Israel can do to please people like you. Israelis are not going to commit suicide just because it would make you and your double-standards happy. You first!
First of all, that's conjecture. Second of all, Israel has never threatened to wipe any other country off the map with or without nuclear weaponds. In 1973 (Yom Kippur War: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yom_Kippur_War) when Israel was almost defeated by its Arab neighbors, Israel did not threaten to use nor use its alleged nuclear weapons even when its back was against the wall. Can you honestly say the same about other countries in the middle east? Ask yourself this: why does Iran, that has the world's second largest oil reserves, need nuclear energy? It doesn't take a genius to put one and one together. I personally believe that people just love scapegoating the US regardless of whether or not what they say is true or not. If Nazi Germany came to power today instead of 60 years ago and the US tried warning people about it they would *still* allege that the US was making up facts and come to Germany's defense. Just because the US says something does not automatically make it untrue.
The point that you miss is that the Jewish concept of Messianic era is not about Jews taking over the world and defeating their enemies, but rather it's about Israel continuing to exist within its current borders but its enemies will stop trying to attack it. Messianic Judaism does not believe that all non-Jews will go to hell or something (Judaism does not even have the concept of hell as Christians mean it) but rather that Jews will finally be able to live in peace in the world, coexisting with their neighbors. Frankly, your post reeks of that classic anti-semitic implication that "Jews control the world". I suggest you get off your high horse and actually talk to some Jewish people and discover for yourself that they are normal human beings like everyone else who just want to live in peace like everyone else.
For all the anti-US trolling on slashdot you seem to be very ignorant of one very obvious question: why does Iran, which holds the second largest oil supply in the world, need nuclear energy?
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On the one hand they have repeatedly declared they'd like to wipe "big satan" (USA) and "little satan" (Israel) off the map. On the other hand they have absolutely no need for nuclear energy anytime in the forseeable future. How can any sane human being not put one and one together?!
The US did not manufacture any of these statements; they don't need to. Iran's own president has repeatedly made declarations to this effect on their national TV station. If you insist on ignoring anything the US says, how do you explain the fact that Iran's own news agency has published this?
Here are a few sources of further reading:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_reserves#Iran
http://memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Page=countries&