How about now?

KevinKohler said:

I agree, but the problem is, you're assuming this particular group of people are governed by logic and reason, like those Ukrainians. They aren't. They are governed by a religion that flouts logic and reason...no, PUNISHES logic and reason. We have been wearing the white hat as far as our handling of the middle east is concerned for a good while, now, and what has happened? Is there less terrorism, or MORE, today, than 50 years ago?


Define insanity.

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1. You're assuming people there are different from people here. If you've spent years traveling this world and knew what it was like to live in another nation with a very different culture - as I have - then you'd know that while individual personalities vary wildly, as a whole, people really are the same all over the world. We all have - after adjusting for differences in cultures and traditions - pretty much the same wants, same needs, same goals.

2. You're thinking there's more terrorism now than before...but what you're not getting is that the ONLY reason you're hearing so much more about terrorism now is because of modern mass media and the internet. Start digging into history, and you'll find something that you'll NEVER hear in conservative media: after adjusting for population, the past 20 years have been the most peaceful twenty years in recorded human history.

Yep - that's right! When it comes to war and terrorism, AFTER we take population into account, humanity's had it better for the past 20 years than ever before. Ever.

Go ahead and try to prove me wrong. Feel free - any twenty-year period in human history you care to name. Go for it.

Thom Paine said:

Howdy GC

I agree with your white hat analogy.

There are just and principled wars and generosity should be freely given to the survivors be they friend or foe.

My posit is based upon the intentional taking of another life, be it emotional, mental, one body part at a time, slowly, or rapidly, is not anything near moral ergo: there is no moral high ground to be had. Any personal belief in such seems, to me, an attempted self placating of one's conscience.

War must be wickedly vicious and brutal to help insure that the foe realizes the diminishing returns of of his actions; much as we are witnessing with the public display of IS transgressions and others' historical malevolence. Referencing IS, they have people afraid of them before approaching a combat arena.... should we decide to stop them we must instill that same fear in them; sans the "we must be nicer, gentler of thought about killing". Another example might be the devastation of the atomic bomb. Once people saw that devastation .. no one wants to play that game ... so that violent display may have kept the planet from a world wide conflict.

The world isn't pretty at the moment and what may happen in the near future is even uglier.

This has been a slight thread drift but I thought it necessary to explain further. ( apologies to all )

Have a nice eve GC

Thom Paine

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1 - instilling fear in the local populace hardly ever works as advertised - ask the Nazis how their fear-instilling tactics worked on the Eastern Front against the partisans. Same thing in Belgium when the Germans marched through in WWI - there were a few Belgian snipers who shot some Germans, and the Germans did reprisals killing scores of civilians...and all that did was harden the local populace against the Germans. For that matter, ask the Chinese today about how much fun they're having with the Uighurs over in Xinjiang province - China's got overwhelming force in spades...but the Uighurs are not going gently into that good night.

Think about it - if America somehow became weak and some other nation came in and took over, do you really think that after they kill a few million of us, that we'd meekly begin obeying? Or would we harden our hearts all the more? The same goes for all peoples all over the world. If you want the locals to accept your rule, you MUST convince them you're the good guys. Otherwise, they'll never accept you until you've gotten rid of all of them.

2 - Japan was already considering surrender before the bombs - the atom bombs only accounted for 2% of the bombing damage done to the Japanese mainland (according to Martin Caidan in "A Torch to the Enemy"). They weren't even sure what had hit Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but they had already seen the very same kind of devastation from LeMay's firebombing raids.

clownboy said:

Your anime example is a great one to illustrate my point. Ever tried to understand what they are on about in those shows, even when they are all in English? It's incomprehensible culturally. Certainly this isn't something new to you, we've been making jokes about it for years. "All your base belong to us!".

But really, look at the hentai stuff, it's all tentacles and shame. Different cultures, different kinks.

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No, it's not incomprehensible culturally - if you can't comprehend the plots and themes of anime, that's your problem, because there's millions of Americans who comprehend it just fine (and I'm one of them). My personal favorite is the "Ghost in the Shell" series, where (in the 2nd Gig series) it helps if you have a clue about "Catcher in the Rye" by J.D. Salinger.

Sabanist said:

Oh right, lets not upset them. I get your strategy. You must have studied military strategy in france

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Ah. Another one of those who thinks the French are 'surrender monkeys'. FYI, up until the last few years of Napoleon's rule they had had the best land-based military on the planet for at least a couple centuries. That, and in WWI they sometimes lost 20K men killed in one day, and quite a few times when it was 'only' 10K men killed in a day...and they still stood fast against the Boche.

Think about that - in WWI there were times that they lost more in a single week than we lost in the entire Vietnam War, but they didn't surrender. What forced them to surrender in WWII wasn't fear or cowardice, but a few stupid decisions by their leaders combined with superior tactics by the Germans.

In other words, it would do you a world of good to take a second look at those you despise...because if you do, sometimes you will find that they've got more guts than you do.

KevinKohler said:

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/pakis...s-102006931.html;_ylt=A0LEVvPiv5BUiwwAlQ4PxQt.



Well? Is torture OK now?


How about it, those of you with kids? Imagine you get home form work today, and your kids are dead because some militants went to their school methodically went from one to the next, murdering them.


Would torture be OK for you then?

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Not really. It's an absurd hypothetical which overlooks all the damage that the policy in general produces. But let's go with these intellectually dishonest and lazy scenarios.

How about it, you come home from work and your spouse has been picked up by police on suspicion of terrorist activity. A neighbor turned them in for the reward money, and they were taken, thrown in a prison without legal council, and tortured to gain information they didn't have. In the meanwhile, a real terrorist who successfully remained under the radar carries out this attack on your kids school killing them all

Would you be against torture then?



See how stupid it is?

Thom Paine said:

I always wonder why and how anyone can claim moral high ground in war.

In war, Moral High Ground Does NOT Exist.

Thom Paine

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But we're a Christian nation, and in Christianity, the moral high ground DOES exist. Can't play for the Devil and claim God.

Deuce said:

Not if you stoop to their level, no. Why wound anyone want America to be more like them and not less?

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Fear, anger, unintelligent emotion.

Fenton said:

They're desperately trying to turn the Democrats Senate report on " torture " into something someone gives a crap about.

If they have to twist someones words ? Why not.

They've already twisted the definition of " torture " to feed their narrative

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It's not working out for them. The slaughtering of children in Pakistan by the Taliban stole the shock value from them. Other then the 24 hour cable news banter, very few outside of politics give a sh*t about a few 9/11 terrorists getting water boarded or forced to listen to rock music.

j-mac said:

So, lets see....You're buying into Feinstein's one sided, biased, cherry picked report...Arguing what every liberal on this board is arguing, and attacking conservatives, and libertarians that disagree with the liberal slant on the current 'look over here' tactic by demo's....

But you're a "conservative".... mmmmmk :roll:

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Real torture would have been showing them unflattering pics of Hillary klinton:



http://www.jpattitude.com/Images/PolPics/Hillary.jpg

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/wp-conte...enghazi-Libya-on-Jan.-23-2013-AFP-800x430.jpg

KevinKohler said:

Then force feed them pork. If what you say is true, hell is the only thing they fear....should we not give them a taste?

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According to Muslims, it only works if they voluntarily eat it. Force feeding them means nothing.

Glen Contrarian;1064106347]1. You're assuming people there are different from people here. If you've spent years traveling this world and knew what it was like to live in another nation with a very different culture - as I have - then you'd know that while individual personalities vary wildly, as a whole, people really are the same all over the world. We all have - after adjusting for differences in cultures and traditions - pretty much the same wants, same needs, same goals.

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I have never lived in another country, but I've traveled through Europe...spent a week in Germany, two in Italy, a couple days in France, two weeks in Spain (probably my fav...DEF the best PHOTOS out of the bunch)...And I agree, in general, people are the same. But you are FAILING, badly, to account for that which seems to cause us to act AGAINST our nature. Religion.

2. You're thinking there's more terrorism now than before...but what you're not getting is that the ONLY reason you're hearing so much more about terrorism now is because of modern mass media and the internet. Start digging into history, and you'll find something that you'll NEVER hear in conservative media: after adjusting for population, the past 20 years have been the most peaceful twenty years in recorded human history.

Click to expand...

Likely as a DIRECT result of our removing our white hat, and being less and less "mr nice guy".

Yep - that's right! When it comes to war and terrorism, AFTER we take population into account, humanity's had it better for the past 20 years than ever before. Ever.

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Combining the two invalidates your argument...this info you profess is likely defining war as a legal action, which we haven't done in quite some time. Nuclear deterrent prevents that...it is a forced peace, because no peace would lead up to the eradication of the human race, something I don't think even irrational religious zealots want.

Go ahead and try to prove me wrong. Feel free - any twenty-year period in human history you care to name. Go for it.

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I don't need to, your argument supports my argument.


Thanks?

Cephus said:

According to Muslims, it only works if they voluntarily eat it. Force feeding them means nothing.

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01. Associating anything with Allah
02. Murder
03. Practising magic
04. Not Praying
05. Not paying Zakat
06. Not fasting on a Day of Ramadan without excuse
07. Not performing Hajj, while being able to do so
08. Disrespect to parents
09. Abandoning relatives
10. Fornication and Adultery
11. Homosexuality(sodomy)
12. Interest(Riba)
13. Wrongfully consuming the property of an orphan
14. Lying about Allah and His Messenger
15. Running away from the battlefield
16. A leader's deceiving his people and being unjust to them
17. Pride and arrogance
18. Bearing false witness
19. Drinking Khamr (wine)
20. Gambling
21. Slandering chaste women
22. Stealing from the spoils of war
23. Stealing
24. Highway Robbery
25. Taking false oath
26. Oppression
27. Illegal gain
28. Consuming wealth acquired unlawfully
29. Committing suicide
30. Frequent lying
31. Judging unjustly
32. Giving and Accepting bribes
33. Woman's imitating man and man's imitating woman
34. Being cuckold
35. Marrying a divorced woman in order to make her lawful for the husband
36. Not protecting oneself from urine
37. Showing-off
38. Learning knowledge of the religion for the sake of this world and concealing that knowledge
39. Bertrayal of trust
40. Recounting favours
41. Denying Allah's Decree
42. Listening (to) people's private conversations
43. Carrying tales
44. Cursing
45. Breaking contracts
46. Believing in fortune-tellers and astrologers
47. A woman's bad conduct towards her husband
48. Making statues and pictures
49. Lamenting, wailing, tearing the clothing, and doing other things of this sort when an affliction befalls
50. Treating others unjustly
51. Overbearing conduct toward the wife, the servant, the weak, and animals
52. Offending one's neighbour
53. Offending and abusing Muslims
54. Offending people and having an arrogant attitude toward them
55. Trailing one's garment in pride
56. Men's wearing silk and gold
57. A slave's running away from his master
58. Slaughtering an animal which has been dedicated to anyone other than Allah
59. To knowingly ascribe one's paternity to a father other than one's own
60. Arguing and disputing violently
61. Witholding excess water
62. Giving short weight or measure
63. Feeling secure from Allah's Plan
64. Offending Allah's righteous friends
65. Not praying in congregation but praying alone without an excuse
66. Persistently missing Friday Prayers without any excuse
67. Unsurping the rights of the heir through bequests
68. Deceiving and plotting evil
69. Spying for the enemy of the Muslims
70. Cursing or insulting any of the Companiions of Allah's Messenger


These are the sins. I'm CERTAIN we can find SOMETHING on the list to use against them.