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02-01-2017, 12:03 PM | #1781 (permalink) |
SOPHIE FOREVER
Join Date: Aug 2011
Location: East of the Southern North American West
Posts: 35,541
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Twitter was on its way out, then this election kicked off. I wonder if Twitter is involved with any of the Russian hacking?
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Studies show that when a given norm is changed in the face of the unchanging, the remaining contradictions will parallel the truth. |
02-01-2017, 12:06 PM | #1782 (permalink) | ||||
MB quadrant's JM Vincent
Join Date: Dec 2009
Location: Washington, DC
Posts: 3,762
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2. It's not a matter of "what if?", it's a matter of "what would it take?". Religious texts are vague, translated a million times over, and couched in metaphor. Anything like that can be interpreted to fit your world view. Replace Muslims with Christians and I guarantee you we would be saying Christianity is a religion of violence. ANY belief system coupled with poverty and poor education can be taken advantage of. 3. I never said I agreed with all of this up until Donald Trump. It's just that up until this point, our world leaders recognized the tenuous situation and threw in a splash of diplomacy to keep things from boiling over. This ban now signals to that side of the world that yes - we are at war with Islam, not just extremism. This will galvanize them further. 4. Planned Parenthood. Plenty of domestic terrorism going on there. Quote:
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What influence? Seems to me to western world does what they want regardless of how much yelling the extremists do. Seeing it on the news all the time is not the same thing as having lots of influence.
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Confusion will be my epitaph... |
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02-01-2017, 12:21 PM | #1784 (permalink) | |
Toasted Poster
Join Date: Oct 2014
Location: SoCal by way of Boston
Posts: 11,332
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Quote:
ˈməzləm,ˈmo͝ozləm/ noun 1. a follower of the religion of Islam. adjective 1. relating to the Muslims or their religion. If you are born Muslim you are pretty much predisposed to the Islamic faith.
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“The fact that we live at the bottom of a deep gravity well, on the surface of a gas covered planet going around a nuclear fireball 90 million miles away and think this to be normal is obviously some indication of how skewed our perspective tends to be.” |
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02-01-2017, 12:44 PM | #1785 (permalink) | |
Account Disabled
Join Date: Nov 2012
Location: The Black Country
Posts: 8,827
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The reason I worded my post that way is because I was considering 'cultural Muslims', in places like Egypt as far as I am aware there are ID cards with your religion printed on them, whether you practice the religion or not. I heard a doctor talking about it recently. 2:30 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_UC2dr-PT0Q |
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02-01-2017, 01:24 PM | #1786 (permalink) | |
Music Addict
Join Date: Feb 2004
Location: DC
Posts: 3,320
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Quote:
Whether it's nationalism, racial hegemony, religious invocation, etc. all of these tribal mindsets, which as recently evolved creatures we're susceptible to, can trace their roots to the inculcation of the weak and the stupid (stupid as in 'not knowing', not a statement of intellectual capacity). I recently finished a book by Brian Fishman (a counterterrorism fellow at International Security Program and former Combating Terrorism Center director at West Point) titled The Master Plan: ISIS, al-Qaeda, and the Jihadi Strategy for Final Victory. It was a fascinating read for many reasons but the last 3-4 pages or so should be passed around Capitol Hill. Think we have fake news in the States? Imagine what passes as news in authoritarian or semi-lawless areas of the world. Trump's complete lack of nuance fuels a wrongly held belief (although these days it's tipping into half) that America hates Islam. We don't give a damn about Islam. Much like we don't care about what any one person believes. Free expression - it's a glorious thing. But when Trump is quoted as saying "ban all Muslims" no matter the context he thinks it was in, it is blasted to all the poor, dispossessed, aimless, and hopeless youths in countries ravaged by Western meddling and local power squabbles and makes a compelling case for sticking it to the great Satan. The language Trump uses is so un-nuanced (and this is me generously assuming that he truly has no problem with Muslims) that a casual Muslim observer in say, Indonesia, now thinks that it is American policy to exclude and possible persecute Muslims. Thus, this person is more susceptible to whispers of 'crusader invasions' and 'desecration of the holy land'. This travel ban was broad, preemptive, unreviewed, and as we've seen, unpopular. Trump claims he has a mandate for this action. Depends on which poll you read and how the question was posed. What this does show is that Americans have a FUNDAMENTAL misunderstanding of what Islam is and what it teaches. Look at Catholicism in the 1500's. Look at Protestantism in in 1650-1750 in New England. And if you're thinking "well duh, but Christians grew up" I'd ask you to look at Mecca, Medina, Baghdad, Istanbul at those same times - centers of civilization, learning, culture. Long post and sorry if it's a bit ranty. I'm pretty convinced that most Americans know about Islam solely through bin Laden's propaganda videos and the bad guys in True Lies. But hey, they're brown and write in squiggles, so why should we try to understand their 1300 year old culture.
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One note timeless, came out of nowhere... |
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02-01-2017, 02:00 PM | #1787 (permalink) |
Toasted Poster
Join Date: Oct 2014
Location: SoCal by way of Boston
Posts: 11,332
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^^^^^
Outstanding post. Watch Bourdain's episode where he visits Saudi Arabia to get a real perspective.
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“The fact that we live at the bottom of a deep gravity well, on the surface of a gas covered planet going around a nuclear fireball 90 million miles away and think this to be normal is obviously some indication of how skewed our perspective tends to be.” |
02-01-2017, 02:13 PM | #1788 (permalink) |
Aficionado of Fine Filth
Join Date: Nov 2009
Location: You don't want to look in there.
Posts: 6,898
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Looked like a bit of confusion from his Saudi host when he said "I'm blown away."
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02-01-2017, 02:23 PM | #1789 (permalink) | |
Fck Ths Thngs
Join Date: May 2014
Location: NJ
Posts: 6,261
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02-01-2017, 02:35 PM | #1790 (permalink) | |
MB quadrant's JM Vincent
Join Date: Dec 2009
Location: Washington, DC
Posts: 3,762
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Of course. I was just using his language to make a point. I doubt there's a sleeping dragon behind my poor old grandma.
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Confusion will be my epitaph... |
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