Ideas To Stop Islam

[Lycorth]

Bush is going to have to do a lot more work if he wants to be anything like Hitler. Hell, if Bush were like Hitler, we'd already have the Middle-east under American control and the resistance would be nowhere near as difficult as it is today. The Nazis were far more efficient than W's administration.

 

I love America, or rather the basic ideals framed by her Bill of Rights. To me, that's what it means to be patriotic. What America has become, however, is either laughable or at times, quite dangerous.

 

Is-lame can and will be stopped, eventually, but only when internal criticism overruns all attempts at suppression. We've seen it with Xianity; a few centuries ago, no criticism of Xianity (or rather the sect you belonged to) would have been tolerated - now Xians can only thump their chests and their Bibles while intelligent arguments and other forms of evidence against it are heaped up taller than any cathedral spire. Criticism from within eventually won out, so to support ex-muslims, I believe, is of the greatest importance.

 

You can destroy Is-lame if you kill everyone who believes in it, but that's neither ethical nor possible. The only people who can truly destroy Is-lame are Muslims themselves, by simply rejecting it. Sadly, it's the slow way, but it's the only sure way.

[Japedo]

Japedo, you’re right. Many here come across as being America bashers. It seems to me that in order for me to adopt your position I would have to radically alter my view of the U.S.

 

We are in no way in danger of becoming a dictatorship. This is pure hyperbole in my opinion. And though I may have plenty of criticisms of Bush, he is in no way close to becoming a Hitler.

 

What would gain me favor in your eyes? For me to say America sucks? I think it might go a long way towards it. If I said that then I suspect you would think that I was finally coming around.

 

I don’t think the U.S. is as pure as the wind driven snow, but neither do I feel that our dealings with the rest of the world are completely characterized by greed, bullying, or subterfuge.

 

LR, I'm not asking you to radically alter your view, Just maybe understand that 9/11 wasn't an unprovoked attack. Ignoring facts of what we do around the globe, doesn't make the facts irrelevant.

 

As far as a dictatorship goes. Are we at that point now? Some would argue yes the beginning stages of such, other would say no yet. All I pointed out was legislation was passed which makes it easier for it to become one. Put it this way. Imagine someone elected president that scares you to bone chilling degrees. Now picture them with the new powers given to the president. The ball starts rolling somewhere... and dictatorships don't happen over night. People become introduced to them slowly...

 

Looking back to just the 80s.

 

Could I imagine "Free speech" zones in this free country? (NO)

Could I imagine Guilty until proven innocent the norm (aka Military justice) (NO)

Could I imagine guilt by association? (NO)

Could I imagine being indefinitely held on no charge until the government can create such a charge? (No)

Could I imagine the government listening into my phone conversations, and reading my mail (emails now) with out warrant? (no)

Could I imagine Washington DC looking like the Kremlin (under communism) with armed guards all over the place and rocket launchers ready to fire? (No)

Could I imagine cameras on every corner ? (NO)

 

 

I could go on but you get the jest.. It's like the frogs in the water slowly being brought to a boil. The frogs don't have sense enough to feel the water getting hotter.. they think everything is normal so stay until it's to late. The American people have accepted these huge massive changes (and then some) with out so much as a whimper or condemnation.

 

 

 

America doesn't Suck, but In my opinion the government does. Please don't confuse love of country with love of government the two are not the same nor are they related. I detest this government because I love my country and the ideology it was built on.

 

Now in having said that... You don't need to win favor with anyone. Your opinion belongs to you. I like you no matter what your political ideologies are. Political ideologies don't define the person IMO. Bush might be a super guy to have a beer with.. I just detest him running the government while ignoring his oath to the constitution is all.

[pitchu]

LR, I'd suggest that, along with reading Noam Chomsky's works, you also get a taste for the unprecedented range of criticism he's collected through the years. Although I agree with many of his viewpoints, to me, the scandalous truth about Chomsky which mustn't be overlooked is that, in his research, he has twisted, lifted out of context, and in some cases actually re-written, to suit his aims, the words of others.

 

True and honest research and reportage is evidently too arduous a requirement for the lowly linguist-turned-philosopher-king who now compares himself to prophets of old who were also disbelieved and stoned.

 

Wikipedia is a good jumping off place into the sea of people (of all political stripes) tearing their hair over what he's had the unmitigated gall to do:

 

http://www.answers.com/topic/criticism-of-noam-chomsky

[Vigile]

It seems to me that in order for me to adopt your position I would have to radically alter my view of the U.S.

 

Yes, from the polyannic view that the US can do no evil. It seems to me that you view the US as a monolyth. The US is many things. It is a nation of 300 million people with diverse opinions. It also has a monstrosity of a government that is also many things. In the government there is the CIA, an organization responsible for decades of global destabilization. An organization doing things in your name that you would be horrified with. Yet you seem to view the monolyth of the US with a religious faith and your view of this monolyth seems to be that while they are not perfect, they have the best of intentions.

 

But parts of the goverment do not have the best of intetions. I'm not talking about secret conspiratorial theories here. I'm talking about facts. Facts that were taught openly to me during my university education. Facts that are available and itemized and catagorized by writers such as Chomsky, a Harvard Professor. The US, via the CIA and its foreign policy is guilty of causing the deaths of millions, of openly promoting dictatorships and brutalizing civilizations around the globe. They do this to establish and protect their position as the dominant global economic leader. They do this at the behest of corporations, like United Fruit and Exxon, and they package it to citizens like yourself as protecting you from terrorism and spreading democracy.

 

You're not a dumb guy LR, just the oposite, but you seem willing to ignore not just a few outlyer cases, but what is virutally a totality of what the CIA and US global foreign policy has been all about for the past 50 or so years. They are worthy of bashing and hatred; unless that is you believe it virtuous to subjegate the world to what they have subjegated the world to.

 

Bashing this one aspect of the US does not mean that I'm a hater of all things American. Not even close. I, you, and nobody I know voted for the CIA or the corporate influences that are guiding US policies. This is why I say that the US is only partially to blame for 911. The terrorists also saw the US as a monolyth and they attacked the US people, who they realy shouldn't have had that type of beef with. Had they attacked the CIA and the Pentagon only, they would have been a bit closer, but they would have still killed many innocents. But it's ridiculous to think that the attacks came in a vaccum and it's blind patriotism that causes your distress when people like me point out facts that the US has continually involved itself in dastardly deeds overseas for years and years.

 

This type of unwillingness to be critical of the US, not just by yourself, but by the majority, is not healthy for US democracy and global human rights. It's also not healthy for the sons and daughters that get sent overseas.

 

As far as the dictarship issue, that's a whole other argument. You will have a tough time arguing that the voter's interests are ever addressed by our government though.

[Vigile]

LR, I'd suggest that, along with reading Noam Chomsky's works, you also get a taste for the unprecedented range of criticism he's collected through the years. Although I agree with many of his viewpoints, to me, the scandalous truth about Chomsky which mustn't be overlooked is that, in his research, he has twisted, lifted out of context, and in some cases actually re-written, to suit his aims, the words of others.

 

True and honest research and reportage is evidently too arduous a requirement for the lowly linguist-turned-philosopher-king who now compares himself to prophets of old who were also disbelieved and stoned.

 

Wikipedia is a good jumping off place into the sea of people (of all political stripes) tearing their hair over what he's had the unmitigated gall to do:

 

http://www.answers.com/topic/criticism-of-noam-chomsky

 

Pitchu, I'm in no way advocating that LR or anyone else ready Chomsky without their critical thinking cap on. As I have already admitted to LR in a PM, I have not myself read his works. It is my understanding that Chomsky has done a good job lining up the facts on what the CIA has been involved with over the decades; facts that I spent several years learning when I was getting my IR degree.

 

If you have another source that you feel is more objective it would be appreciated.

[Mankey]

I'm no sociologist, but I think the best way would be to support Ex-Muslims. They have their own apostates just as we are apostates of Christianity. I think Ex-Muslims would be best equipped to deal with the mind set of Islam.

Agreed.

 

Perhaps, having a large minority who criticizes superstitious bullshit about "God says" might reduce some folks to having to rationally justify beliefs and actions....

 

I usually do not waste my time on close minded theists. I think all apostates can do some good in dealing with apathetic atheists and agnostics as well. Also for Christians and Islamics in name only. Certain kinds of bullshit is getting a free pass when it shouldn't. A large minority of dissenters criticizing bullshit IS what is needed. Apostates can help inoculate people who have not been sucked into Christianity or Islam. Open minded theists in name only can be deconverted as well. Even those who still choose to believe can help, because they will be bothered by our complaints.....because they are humans too.

 

Varokhar wrote "Is-lame can and will be stopped, eventually, but only when internal criticism overruns all attempts at suppression. We've seen it with Xianity; a few centuries ago, no criticism of Xianity (or rather the sect you belonged to) would have been tolerated - now Xians can only thump their chests and their Bibles while intelligent arguments and other forms of evidence against it are heaped up taller than any cathedral spire. Criticism from within eventually won out, so to support ex-muslims, I believe, is of the greatest importance."

 

Yes. Ex-Muslims would be best equipped to deal with the mind set of Islam.

 

I agree with Varokhar as well a Vigile.

 

You think we need to find the sacred huh? How about fairness? How do we do our best in being fair? It sure as heck aint through superstitious thinking. Nor is it through blind obedience.....which religions, leaders and governments inculcate. Want to try to stop the cycle? Rational methods and not through babying superstition or blind patriotism/tribalism.

 

Citizens of the world should view government as a necessary evil and start talking to people all over the world through the internet. No more patriotism. This does not mean being anti-government it just means no more smack. Tribalism or patriotism is smack. Its dope. Just like religion is. It is time for mankeys all over the world to consider trying to give their neighbors a fair shake and helping each other out.

 

Oh yea. We can spread democracy by not destroying democracies. We can spread democracy by enjoying it ourselves and by not being hypocrites. If a people wants democracy eventually they will have democracy. It may even cost them. Thats the way it will be with some peoples through no real fault of their own. Trade and being on good terms with a country can mean democratic ideals bleeding into the populace. If they like it they eventually shall have it. Can't make a horse drink if it don't want to.

[Grandpa Harley]

Quite how one can survive to adulthood and take anyone's word at face value defeats me...

 

The clause

 

"I feel that our dealings with the rest of the world are completely characterized by greed, bullying, or subterfuge."

 

resulted in an Earl Grey Enema of my sinuses...

 

1) Trade is mostly selling someone some thing they want for more than it is worth (called 'profit')

2) The pursuit of unlimited profit is greed. One thing about Western democracy governance; it is a temp job, four, maybe five years. Thus any senior politician is looking for a parachute. This is why Oil et al have such a powerful lobby. Non executive directorships, a four books deal and the after dinner speaking circuit are the way. So, mostly the latter part of any government is setting up the next job. The govermental version of ringing the agency every hour while doing you nails...

3)Inflicting ones societal mores so that one has someone to trade with is 'bullying' dressed as 'good works'... it was why missionary work was so popular. Selling the white man's 'dream' so you could rape their country and sell them Cheese Whizz and modified corn starch based snacks (look up Finlandisation)

4) When overt measures fail, covert ones will suffice until you've made the target sufficient hell that you can then turn up as heroes. Look at Chile and Cuba (Chile worked, Cuba failed, although the US measures contra-Cuba have made it the child sex capital of the west.

 

Thing is, the US/West is not the only game in town any more..

 

But to claim that any government has noble aspirations, or that any commentator is wholly honest (Chomsky et al) is naivety in extremis.

[Mankey]

Quite how one can survive to adulthood and take anyone's word at face value defeats me...

 

The clause

 

"I feel that our dealings with the rest of the world are completely characterized by greed, bullying, or subterfuge."

I never made that claim. But there is some greed, bullying and subterfuge. Enough that it causes problems.

 

 

1) Trade is mostly selling someone some thing they want for more than it is worth (called 'profit')

2) The pursuit of unlimited profit is greed. One thing about Western democracy governance; it is a temp job, four, maybe five years. Thus any senior politician is looking for a parachute. This is why Oil et al have such a powerful lobby. Non executive directorships, a four books deal and the after dinner speaking circuit are the way. So, mostly the latter part of any government is setting up the next job. The govermental version of ringing the agency every hour while doing you nails...

Who ships the goods? People do. Do people sometimes talk when doing business. You bet. If there is trade then tourism might be allowed as well. Ideas get exchanged.

 

3)Inflicting ones societal mores so that one has someone to trade with is 'bullying' dressed as 'good works'... it was why missionary work was so popular. Selling the white man's 'dream' so you could rape their country and sell them Cheese Whizz and modified corn starch based snacks (look up Finlandisation)

Agreed.

 

Who says people can't adapt the ideas of others through interaction? Trade and tourism. Patriotism/chauvinism makes mankeys too pigheaded to consider foreign ideas. This can work both ways.

 

4) When overt measures fail, covert ones will suffice until you've made the target sufficient hell that you can then turn up as heroes. Look at Chile and Cuba (Chile worked, Cuba failed, although the US measures contra-Cuba have made it the child sex capital of the west.

Yikes!

 

Thing is, the US/West is not the only game in town any more..

 

But to claim that any government has noble aspirations, or that any commentator is wholly honest (Chomsky et al) is naivety in extremis.

Agreed. I got an idea. How bout all Free Thinkers jump ship and colonize the moon....far far away from all the reckless bullshit.

[Grandpa Harley]

I was actually responding to LR...

 

But on the subject of

 

"How bout all Free Thinkers jump ship and colonize the moon....far far away from all the reckless bullshit."

 

 

Two or three bastards would get together and start a government... then two other bastards would set up another group to oppose the policies of the first lot and before you realise it, Hell has broken out...

[Mankey]

I was actually responding to LR...

I was just trying to help in my own silly way. hehe.

 

But on the subject of

 

"How bout all Free Thinkers jump ship and colonize the moon....far far away from all the reckless bullshit."

 

 

Two or three bastards would get together and start a government... then two other bastards would set up another group to oppose the policies of the first lot and before you realise it, Hell has broken out...

I think more often than most folks Free Thinkers at least try to degunk their junk using reason as well as heart. There is a difference between stupid and reckless stupidity.

[Legion]

Japedo, I will try and distinguish between the government and the people.

 

Pitchu, it’s nice to hear from you. Don’t worry I’ll put Chomsky through the paces.

 

Vigile, I don’t want to have a polyanna view, but neither am I willing to scrap the American experiment. I have hopes for the U.S. I want to see us become wise and compassionate. However, I don’t think we are there yet.

 

Gramps, do you see only the foibles of our nation? Our clumsiness? The malicious intent of some few? I’m not going to take the time to lay out our good deeds. But they are there. I’m sure of it.

 

Mankey, keep on swingin’.

[Grandpa Harley]

The only foible of 'your nation' is the bunch of snake oil salesmen you persist in electing... I mean, look at the choice for next President

 

Ru-Paul

Barack 'Nyarlathotep' Obama

Billary

Theree guys who look like extras from the Sopranos

"Mayor" Guilliani

The Mormon Android and his clone sons...

 

Not one I'd buy a used car from, or trust further than I could spit a rat (rattus norwegicus to be exact... I'd not have a black rat in my mouth if you paid)

 

From the founding fathers forward there's not one who'd not have skinned his mother and sold her for parchment and glue in exchange power.

[Japedo]

The only foible of 'your nation' is the bunch of snake oil salesmen you persist in electing... I mean, look at the choice for next President

 

Ru-Paul

Barack 'Nyarlathotep' Obama

Billary

Theree guys who look like extras from the Sopranos

"Mayor" Guilliani

The Mormon Android and his clone sons...

 

If these aren't the most honest and precise campaign slogans.. I dunno what is..

 

 

---------

 

LR,

 

I contend it's not our duty to spread anything. We are suppose to be a sovereign nation, also respecting other sovereign nations. 'Spreading' anything by force is just a polite way of saying you're dictating by force. Freedom can not be forced, it can only be obtained. If the people in other countries want to adopt the US way of doing things it is within their right to do so. They can overthrow their own governments and fight for independence. It is not the United States Job to force anyone to emulate our ways. Anything done by force at the point of the gun is not done in the name of good, except defense of your own self, loved ones and country. Our men and women who are fighting over in Iraq, Afghanistan are not doing so at the defense of this country, they are an occupying force in a foreign land, its not the troops fault its the government who put them there's fault. Iraq's civil war is none of our business.

[Grandpa Harley]

I think more often than most folks Free Thinkers at least try to degunk their junk using reason as well as heart. There is a difference between stupid and reckless stupidity.

 

 

Optimism is a great trait in a person. However, hope is the first thing that gets rohypnoled and handed to the cocaine crazed frat boys of reality....

[Grandpa Harley]

The only foible of 'your nation' is the bunch of snake oil salesmen you persist in electing... I mean, look at the choice for next President

 

Ru-Paul

Barack 'Nyarlathotep' Obama

Billary

Theree guys who look like extras from the Sopranos

"Mayor" Guilliani

The Mormon Android and his clone sons...

 

If these aren't the most honest and precise campaign slogans.. I dunno what is..

 

 

I know, I missed my calling as a PR man

[Mankey]

Mankey, keep on swingin’.

Antitheism is a valid position, but it aint the only valid position. Neither are the problems that comes from superstition the only issues we must face. Its gonna take all kinds of personalities to tackle the issues, and there is no room for magic and miracles or blind obedience. Religion is not only irrational prejudice, it is politics and culture. Religion can also help in turning bad situations into worse situations. Patriotism is dope just like religion is. None of these should get a free pass. Nothing can be sacred, because once that happens that thing gets a free pass. The west fucks up and its victims make fucked up situations more fucked up.

 

The only people who say "We gota respect their beliefs" are people who are either enablers or who themselves hold irrational beliefs. How can we degunk our junk when our junk is sacred? Irrational beliefs or irrational discrimination is prejudice when you are close minded or got faith. Racism, tribalism, religion and patriotism is reckless stupidity and there are some who manipulate us through our prejudices to get richer. We can eventually grow out of these. We just have to stop being enablers. That is why its good that people world wide talk to each other. Regular folks. Voters. I think that in itself will make the world a little better eventually. Once the world gets small enough many governments will have to start being fair because that is what regular folks....who are the worlds majority...will want. We want security. Science is a part of the equation, but "the sacred" most certainly is not. If something truly has merit it doesn't need to be labeled "sacred".

[pitchu]

The following is on Chomsky, as requested, Vigile. Chomsky, btw, is a professor at M.I.T., not Harvard, where one of his arch-rivals, Alan Dershowitz, is Professor of Law.

 

This stuff is all over the web, and some of Chomsky's critics you (and I) will necessarily admire more than others, but the same sorts of complaints continue to crop up, no matter the credentials or leanings of the particular critic. The Anti-Chomsky Reader is a source, also.

 

Here follows a section of a debate from FrontPage Magazine online. Tom Nichols is Chairman of Strategy and Policy at the U.S. Naval War College. Nichols:

 

Well, Mr. Summers is right that Chomsky is ignored in the academic journals, and he has come up with a rather elegant explanation of why that might be. But there's a much simpler and sensible answer: Chomsky is ignored because his work is not serious work. It has nothing to do with Chomsky's faux-anarchism or his discomfiting aging tenured radicals--and I would remind Mr Summers that Chomsky does his work from a comfortable tenured perch at a major university--and has everything to do with the fact that Chomsky's works are not scholarly works of history or politics, but deceptively-written propaganda masquerading as scholarship. Basically, large chunks of them are fiction, and so the journals don't review his books for the same reason they don't review comic books or Danielle Steel novels.

 

Mr. Summers says he began recently to read Chomsky "seriously." But there's the rub: Chomsky can't be read seriously, because Chomsky himself pays no attention to even basic rules of evidence or argument. If he needs to invent material to support an argument, he does, and then audaciously creates an empty footnote to make it appear as though he's done his homework and is referencing an actual fact. In his article, Mr. Summers lauds Chomsky's scholarship, but I defy him to do what I did in The Anti-Chomsky Reader, and actually try to follow some of Chomsky's footnotes. As every scholar knows, the whole point of references are to allow other scholars to replicate your research and thus confirm or debate your interpretation, but Chomsky's references are meant to obscure the fact that he's basically making stuff up. When you have, for example, footnotes that support important and controversial points by referencing four or five books in their *entirety*--including, most often, Chomsky's own books--that's not only lousy scholarship, it's a terrible insult to the reader.

 

So, in my view, Chomsky's invisibility in the academic world has nothing to do with his politics or his views on "power," and everything to do with the fact that his books are really fundamentally silly and not worth the time or attention of a serious reviewer. I've written a lot of book reviews in my career, and as we all know, they take a lot of time and intellectual energy. Since Chomsky doesn't bother to respect his readers--and I have come to suspect that Chomsky knows that most of his readers are not intellectually equipped to really evaluate either his arguments or his methods anyway--why should serious readers bother to respect his works or treat them as though they were written in a true spirit of scholarly inquiry, which they so obviously were not?

 

**********************************************************

 

Oliver Kamm is the son of translator Anthea Bell. Kamm studied at Oxford University and the London School of Economics. He went on to a career in the Bank of England and the securities industry. He helped start a pan-European investment bank in 1997 and is part of its management. He is a founder of WMG Advisors, a hedge fund and financial services group. Kamm, having a long background with the Labour Party, describes his politics as left-wing. Others would argue this last claim. (I think he's a left-winger, but a peculiar one.) His quote, below, is from here:

 

http://oliverkamm.typepad.com/blog/2004/10...ky_and_dec.html

 

I particularly refer interested readers to the example (which I discuss in this post) of Chomsky’s quoting out of context the late Daniel Patrick Moynihan, former US Ambassador to the UN and then Democratic Senator for New York, with regard to US diplomacy over the Indonesian invasion of Timor. I stress the example for two reasons. First, it is one of the cases that Chomsky cites most frequently to demonstrate the hypocrisy of US foreign policy. It is his stock response to those who believe that progressives should have supported US military intervention in Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq. Secondly, while an important part of Chomsky’s case, it has not – so far as I know – been debunked before.

 

In my earlier post I quoted the appearance of this argument in just two of Chomsky's books, A New Generation Draws the Line and Chronicles of Dissent. In fact you trip across it in most of his books, in more or less flagrantly dishonest versions. Here are three examples that illustrate these gradations of deception.

 

In Deterring Democracy (1991, p.200), Chomsky appends to the Moynihan quotation:

 

[Moynihan] adds that within a few weeks some 60,000 people had been killed, “10 per cent of the population, almost the proportion of casualties experienced by the Soviet Union during the Second World War.”

 

In Rogue States (2000, pp. 55-56), he again gives the Moynihan quotation (in which Moynihan speaks of his “no inconsiderable success”) and adds:

 

Success was indeed considerable. Moynihan cites reports that within two months some 60,000 people had been killed, “10 per cent of the population, almost the proportion of casualties experienced by the Soviet Union during the Second World War.” A sign of the success he adds, is that within a year, “the subject disappeared from the press.”

 

Finally, in a speech in London in 1994 (and reprinted in the magazine Red Pepper), he stated:

 

Moynihan was particularly honest and, to give him credit, he said in his memoirs that at the time of the Indonesian invasion: "The State Department wanted things to turn out as they did. It was my responsibility to render the United Nations utterly ineffective in any action and I carried that out with no inconsiderable success." And the next sentence of the memoirs says that within the next two months 60,000 people were killed, approximately the proportion of the population that the Nazis killed in Eastern Europe. And then he turns to some other topic. So he's taking credit for having succeeded in killing a proportion of the population comparable to what Nazis did in Eastern Europe...

 

In Example 1, Chomsky runs together two separate passages in order to insinuate falsely that Moynihan judges success by the number of people killed by Indonesian forces. In Example 2, Chomsky embellishes this by explicitly attributing, rather than merely insinuating, that judgement to Moynihan. In Example 3 he goes further still, identifying this judgement as an explicit statement by Moynihan immediately after the comment about “no inconsiderable success”.

 

Rather than explicate again the dishonesty involved in Chomsky’s citations, I refer readers to my earlier post. What I find especially disturbing about Chomsky’s methodology is that in every case (forgivable in a speech, but not in a book that’s decked out with the appearance of scholarship) he drops the page references that would enable his readers to check his claims. The reason for this is not hard to fathom: if he were to give page references, it would be obvious that a rather large ellipsis is involved. I have put those page references back in. I invite readers to obtain a library copy of Moynihan's book and check that I have cited it accurately and in context, and verify that Chomsky has not.

 

Finally, note the trickery involved in Chomsky’s remark, “A sign of the success [Moynihan] adds, is that within a year, ‘the subject disappeared from the press.’” Moynihan says nothing at all about a disappearance of press coverage being “a sign of success”. Chomsky has taken a genuine quotation, wrenched it out of context, and provided a new context that clearly conveys to the reader that the words “a sign of success” are an accurate paraphrase of what is to be found in the book. They are not: Chomsky is lying.

 

I cannot stress enough that as well as being a standard Chomsky argument this is a characteristic technique.

 

Dershowitz has literally begged Chomsky readers to examine Chomsky's footnotes. I heard him beg.

[Vigile]

Hi Pitchu,

 

I have no intention of defending Chomsky, whom I have not even read. I stand corrected on the MIT.

 

I was hoping for a more objective source I could point LR to if you have one. Gramps posted one on the previous page.

[Grandpa Harley]

I'm not sure if it's this thread, but I think it was my personal liking of Gore Vidal. I don't know how much of an accurate source Gore Vidal would be regarded. After all, anyone who cares enough to write about this sort of thing almost certainly has an agenda of some sort.

 

My personal 'agenda' is that generally politicians want money and power. They may wrap them selves in the cloths of righteousness, while mouthing words of patriotism and faith. However they pollute all they touch and the greatest trick they ever pulled on the people was the idea of being a 'patriot'... The concept that the place of one's birth has a cosmic signficance and hands one inherent superiority over the the rest of the world, who are blighted for being born in the 'wrong' place. It is just pandering to the little bit of everyone's ego that believes one is 'special'... it even mops up the people who don't believe they are god's chosen....and gets two hooks into those who think they're God's Chosen People in God's Own Country... Hell, we (The British) built an Empire on that shit...

[pitchu]

I'm not sure if it's this thread, but I think it was my personal liking of Gore Vidal. I don't know how much of an accurate source Gore Vidal would be regarded. After all, anyone who cares enough to write about this sort of thing almost certainly has an agenda of some sort.

Nicely ignoring the rest of your post, I'll say that I admire Vidal, too, for the most part, but don't know if he fits Vigile's bill as an objective source. I don't know if human objectivity of perspective on Chomsky's views is even possible, but I do stand by the conviction that there are objective guidelines for the production of responsible scholarly works, and if anybody doesn't adhere to those rules, their work should be automatically suspect.

[Grandpa Harley]

One thing about GV... he's not got eyes on the presidency... being gay as Caesar's Camp tends to preclude that sort of thing in the US

[The Sage Nabooru]

Perhaps I should clarify. I'm not trying to make excuses for Islamic terrorism and I admit that its book supports it. Still, you can't simply burn all the copies and declare a jihad against Islam; that's just being hypocritical by using their own tactics with a different ideology.

 

Ultimately the best we can do is 1. not tolerate extremist behavior and prosecute it just like any other crime, and 2., which is tied in with the first: allow and compel Muslims to open their minds to other possibilities. Christianity lost its killing power when Europeans and Americans starting thinking about the option of both more liberal, compassionate forms of Christianity and ideas entirely outside of it.

[Mankey]

Perhaps I should clarify. I'm not trying to make excuses for Islamic terrorism and I admit that its book supports it.

No reason to think you are making excuses for them. None that I can see.

 

Still, you can't simply burn all the copies and declare a jihad against Islam; that's just being hypocritical by using their own tactics with a different ideology.

These kinds of antitheists, or apostates do not even exist as far as I know. I know of no such people. You are projecting the religionists flaws onto others unfairly.

 

People have a right to know what is in the bible, qu'ran and hadiths. People have the right to know the two religions histories. Apostates who are interested have the right to do so. Nothing wrong with that. Plenty of non-islamics and christians to warn, as well as open minded believers. No harassment is necessary. Inoculating the open minded is not harassment and that in istelf can do a lot of good.

 

Ultimately the best we can do is 1. not tolerate extremist behavior and prosecute it just like any other crime, and 2., which is tied in with the first: allow and compel Muslims to open their minds to other possibilities. Christianity lost its killing power when Europeans and Americans starting thinking about the option of both more liberal, compassionate forms of Christianity and ideas entirely outside of it.

I think everyone should try a lot of different things without violence or harassment. But no one should have to do anything only people who want to help in these problems.

[The Sage Nabooru]

Well of course. I don't think anyone should be compelled to think differently if they don't want to, that's just another form of restriction.

[Mankey]

Well of course. I don't think anyone should be compelled to think differently if they don't want to, that's just another form of restriction.

Sorry I can be a little thick sometimes. hehe.