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Why Do People Hate America?


JGowans

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hakioawa said:

At the risk of making this a deeper philosophical arguement, where do these "ideas and morals" come from? w/o falling back to religon I'd argue that these come from people. People define morals. And the views of the majority do change. 100 years ago women could not vote. That was mainstream. That was moderate. That was moral. Today even the most right wing radicals would not this on recedning the right to vote from women.

 

hakioawa said:

Left and right (to me anyway) are defined by the characteristics of the systems themselves, related to a set of ideas and morals which do not change

 

When was the last time you read the Constitution? Do you have a copy of it in your home?

People do NOT define morals. cantfocus.gifMorals and values come from a strong system of standard beliefs, integity, and ethics. Men or people do not make these up - they live BY them.

Why not bring God into the subject? hellno3d.gifEveryone seems so afraid to state thier religious beliefs. yellowsleep.gif If it wasn't for men wanting to have freedom of religious practices - we wouldn't necessarily have our rights. Having faith in God, yourself, your family, your friends, and our country shouldn't be such a negative thing. wave.gif

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kitten said:

hakioawa said:

At the risk of making this a deeper philosophical arguement, where do these "ideas and morals" come from? w/o falling back to religon I'd argue that these come from people. People define morals. And the views of the majority do change. 100 years ago women could not vote. That was mainstream. That was moderate. That was moral. Today even the most right wing radicals would not this on recedning the right to vote from women.

 

hakioawa said:

Left and right (to me anyway) are defined by the characteristics of the systems themselves, related to a set of ideas and morals which do not change

 

When was the last time you read the Constitution? Do you have a copy of it in your home?

People do NOT define morals. cantfocus.gifMorals and values come from a strong system of standard beliefs, integity, and ethics. Men or people do not make these up - they live BY them.

Why not bring God into the subject? hellno3d.gifEveryone seems so afraid to state thier religious beliefs. yellowsleep.gif If it wasn't for men wanting to have freedom of religious practices - we wouldn't necessarily have our rights. Having faith in God, yourself, your family, your friends, and our country shouldn't be such a negative thing. wave.gif

 

ummm...apparantly Osama, our good buddy (that asshole), is a deeply religious man...only problem is, is that his interpretation of islam tells him he oughta whack us...

 

Another example of morals from religion would be the crusades?...ahhh yes, must conquer and destroy the infidel...

 

No, in my opinion, it is best to leave religion out of discussions of ethics and morality...

 

and before you rip me, consider this, i have my faith, and it is my business alone, but it is there...

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MtnGoat: Is this the right room for an argument?

 

j_b:(pause) I've told you once.

 

MtnGoat: No you haven't!

 

j_b: Yes I have.

 

Mtn: When?

 

j_b: Just now.

 

M: No you didn't!

 

j: Yes I did!

 

M: You didn't!

 

j: I did!

 

M: You didn't!

 

j: I'm telling you, I did!

 

M: You didn't!

 

j: Oh I'm sorry, is this a five page argument, or the full week?

 

M: Ah! (taking out his wallet and paying) Just the five pages.

 

j: Just the five pages. Thank you.

 

j: Anyway, I did.

 

M: You most certainly did not!

 

j: Now let's get one thing perfectly clear: I most definitely told you!

 

M: Oh no you didn't!

 

j: Oh yes I did!

 

M: Oh no you didn't!

 

j: Oh yes I did!

 

M: Oh no you didn't!

 

j: Oh yes I did!

 

M: Oh no you didn't!

 

j: Oh yes I did!

 

M: Oh no you didn't!

 

j: Oh yes I did!

 

M: Oh no you didn't!

 

j: Oh yes I did!

 

M: No you DIDN'T!

 

j: Oh yes I did!

 

M: No you DIDN'T!

 

j: Oh yes I did!

 

M: No you DIDN'T!

 

j: Oh yes I did!

 

M: Oh look, this isn't an argument!

 

 

 

(pause)

 

 

 

j: Yes it is!

 

M: No it isn't!

 

 

 

(pause)

 

 

 

M: It's just contradiction!

 

j: No it isn't!

 

M: It IS!

 

j: It is NOT!

 

M: You just contradicted me!

 

j: No I didn't!

 

M: You DID!

 

j: No no no!

 

M: You did just then!

 

j: Nonsense!

 

M: (exasperated) Oh, this is futile!! mad.gif

 

(pause)

 

j: No it isn't!

 

M: Yes it is!

 

(pause)

 

M: I came here for a good argument!

 

j: AH, no you didn't, you came here for an argument!

 

M: An argument isn't just contradiction.

 

j: Well! it CAN be!

 

M: No it can't!

 

M: An argument is a connected series of statement intended to establish a

 

proposition.

 

j: No it isn't!

 

M: Yes it is! 'tisn't just contradiction.

 

j: Look, if I *argue* with you, I must take up a contrary position!

 

M: Yes but it isn't just saying "no it isn't".

 

j: Yes it is!

 

M: No it isn't!

 

j: Yes it is!

 

M: No it isn't!

 

j: Yes it is!

 

M: No it ISN'T! Argument is an intellectual process. Contradiction is just

 

the automatic gainsaying of anything the other person says.

 

j: It is NOT!

 

M: It is!

 

j: Not at all!

 

M: It is!

 

 

 

The Arguer (j_b) stops.

 

 

 

j_b: Thank you, that's it.

 

MtnGoat: (stunned) What?

 

j: That's it. Good morning.

 

M: But I was just getting interested!

 

j: I'm sorry, the five pages are up.

 

M: That was never five minutes!!

 

j: I'm afraid it was.

 

M: (leading on) No it wasn't.....

 

j: I'm sorry, I'm not allowed to argue any more.

 

M: WHAT??

 

j: If you want me to go on arguing, you'll have to pay for another five

 

pages.

 

M: But that was never five pages just now!

 

Oh Come on!

 

Oh this is...

 

This is ridiculous!

 

j: I told you...

 

I told you, I'm not allowed to argue unless you PAY!

 

M: Oh all right. (takes out his wallet and pays again.) There you are.

 

j: Thank you.

 

M: (clears throat) Well...

 

O: Well WHAT?

 

M: That was never five pages just now.

 

j: I told you, I'm not allowed to argue unless you've paid!

 

M: Well I just paid!

 

j: No you didn't!

 

M: I DID!!!

 

j: YOU didn't!

 

M: I DID!!!

 

j: YOU didn't!

 

M: I DID!!!

 

j: YOU didn't!

 

M: I DID!!!

 

j: YOU didn't!

 

M: I don't want to argue about that!

 

ad nauseum.... moon.gifrolleyes.gif

 

 

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Then we must conclude that you, I and Rush Linbaugh are all bleeding heart liberals. While Mula Omar and Bin Laden are right wingers.

 

I think it depends on which scale you use. Most I've seen label anarchy as extreme right and totalitarianism as extreme left. The farther you go left, the more control over all aspects of society is assumed to belong to the state.

 

IMO this places all of us to the right of Omar and bin Ladin, since they desire total subservience of personal life, state law, and buisness to Islamic rules.

 

Wether or not they desire religious rule, to agnostic or humanistic reasons for totalitarianism, they share the goal of total control and the idea that all spheres of life must be regulated by the state with say, the fascists of Europe in the 30s and early 40's, not to mention Marxist ideologies.

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I think the punch line is something like j b saying, "Maybe I'm just arguing in my spare time."

 

the_finger.gifthe_finger.gif

 

I remember a bunch of threads where there was a fun arguement going on, and then Goat and j b ruin it.

 

It's kind of like traveling in the desert SW and runing into some place where some asshole named Anasazi went and ruined everything. wazzup.gifcantfocus.gif

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AlpineK said:

I think the punch line is something like j b saying, "Maybe I'm just arguing in my spare time."

 

the_finger.gifthe_finger.gif

 

I remember a bunch of threads where there was a fun arguement going on, and then Goat and j b ruin it.

 

I think for them THE NEW ARGUMENT FORUM boxing_smiley.gif will be perfect!

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Dru said:

figures-kokopelli.gif

 

"Help! I've got this giant spike stuck in my head and it hurts so bad my dreadlocks are standing up straight! OW!"

yellaf.gifyellaf.gifyellaf.gifyellaf.gifyellaf.gif and here I thought you were taking up the indian flute wink.gif I was realy going to post to name Kokopelli, but I see you already know who he is blush.gif or rather was grin.gif or maybe will be wink.gif
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Goat: in your attempt to rebut my post, you have proven my point.

 

I wrote that Fairweather professes to like debate but then expresses indignation at the willingness of someone (Gowans) to express their views. He had not said that he disagreed with Gowans so much as that he felt Gowans was wrong to say what he thought on these issues. My second main point was that you and Fairweather are all into this "we are the strongest nation on earth and that is the way it should be and everybody should do what we say" business, and that you keep thrusting these ideas at us without engaging in direct discussion.

 

In your point-by-point rebuttal, you address neither of these points, but to assert that you have debated back and forth. However, way back on, like, page 3 o4 4 of this thread, folks were talking about our ignorance as a nation, the arrogance of our foreign policy, and whether or not it had anything to do with why people hate us, and you come into the discussion with your statement that we should not consider using fewer resources and that there is no reason we should sign any of the treaties that are sought by virtually all of the nations that we recognize as "civilized nations." Yes, these points were tangential to the main gist of the discussion, but you completely ignored the main points and jumped in with your "tired old rhetoric." Back to your point-by-point rebuttal, you write that:

 

Seems to me the ideas tossed out in opposition are at least as old as anything else offered up here.

Do ideas lose validity because they're old? Nope. Only the content matters and if the content can

be beaten, then that's what invalidates the idea, not it's age.

 

WTF??? Are you trying to say that your statements are no more rhetorical than those from the poster's that you call the "far leftists" on this board? Are you saying your ideas are no older than any others? Are you saying that old ideas can be good ideas? Come out and say it, man! (And, by the way, I disagree with you on both points.)

 

And then you continue. You try to rebut my characterization of your position that we should only cooperate with those who will "hop to," and you deny that you think this but then you (for like the third time in this thread alone) assert how it is our right to only support those nations that "support our position." I have to agree with your premise, at some level, but you have to recognize, I think, that where we issue specific demands and tie those to whether or not we will give or withhold economic aid and military support, we are doing so as the richest and most powerful nation on the earth. For the nations that we manipulate this way, it is not a matter of "free choice." Clearly, you don't want to cede this point but the fact is you are advocating cooperating only with those nations that are willing to "hop to." Arguing with you is like trying to debate with a delusional schizophrenic sometimes.

 

And then you try to debate my "newsflash" about how Gowan's "laundry list" is a set of ideas that are really quite mainstream. The nonsense of your rebuttal of this point has already been taken up by others. It's not like J. Gowans set forth the dogma of Norm Chomski or anything.

 

Take a look at JayB's posts for an example of someone who I disagree with, but with whom I can at least have an engaged debate. The level of engagement is not measured by the number of times you can break somebody's post into pieces and then post something that in some way addresses each micropoint, but whether or not you can follow their arguments, respond, and then whether or not they can follow yours and respond.

 

By the way: happy Fourth of July. I saw a bald eagle this morning -- in a Seattle Park. A Seattle park that is under continual development for special interest groups and is now proposed for privatization and huge areas of astroturf. I wonder if the eagle will be flying there after they have redeveloped the whole thing.

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Fairweather said:

I do continue to maintain however, that JGowans should become a voting citizen....or mind his manners as I would do as a guest in another land.

Just an FYI Fairweather, that I'm a bit more than a guest in as much that I've been educated in the U.S., am a homeowner in the U.S. and have been paying taxes in the U.S. for the past 9 years. I think I've earned my right to an opinion.

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hakioawa said:

Left and right (to me anyway) are defined by the characteristics of the systems themselves, related to a set of ideas and morals which do not change

 

When was the last time you read the Constitution? Do you have a copy of it in your home?

People do NOT define morals. cantfocus.gifMorals and values come from a strong system of standard beliefs, integity, and ethics. Men or people do not make these up - they live BY them.

Why not bring God into the subject? hellno3d.gifEveryone seems so afraid to state thier religious beliefs. yellowsleep.gif If it wasn't for men wanting to have freedom of religious practices - we wouldn't necessarily have our rights. Having faith in God, yourself, your family, your friends, and our country shouldn't be such a negative thing. wave.gif

 

Ok lets bring god into it. The problem is. I've never met such an animal. Where does he/she/it live? I'm sure it would be fun to have one over sometime for

bigdrink.gifbigdrink.gif. I do not believe in such a beast. So how can morals be derived from a myth?

 

As to the constitution. Yes, I have in fact read it. However I have read the Constitution of The United States of America. You may have heard of it. We just celibrated our birthday a fer days ago. The US constitution says a lot about establishment of a poilitical system. I can't seem to find the place where it establishes a moral system. Perhaps you could point it out to me?

 

The admendments do say Congress may enact no law baring or establishing religion. The declaration of Independence does say somthing about a creator. In particular that we do have certain rights. But does not establish a moral code to live by.

 

So if we live by a moral code. And god does not define it. Which for me he does not. Where does this moral code come from. For me it must be the case that morality is derived from people. But I'm open to other options.

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MisterE said:

MtnGoat: Is this the right room for an argument?

 

j_b:(pause) I've told you once.

 

MtnGoat: No you haven't!

 

j_b: Yes I have.

 

blah blah blah

 

j: YOU didn't!

 

M: I don't want to argue about that!

 

ad nauseum.... moon.gifrolleyes.gif

 

Don't let him fool you, RuMR. It's from Monty Python's Flying Circus, ca. late 70s.

 

E: Give credit where credit is due. rolleyes.gif

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