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The Wrath

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Everything posted by The Wrath

  1. Let me clarify... The argument you're making suffers from the fundamental error that you accuse Biddle (et al) of making: the inability to identify the enemy. The stubborn refusal of some people to recognize that Islam is not a monolithic belief system--with hordes of unthinking drones who all want to destroy Western democracy--indicates either intellectual laziness, thick-headedness, or outright bigotry. Folding your arms and saying "I know everything I need to know about Islam" doesn't mean that you do.
  2. This debate ended 3 months ago. The argument you are making was just as wrong then as it is now.
  3. I love Dershowitz. Was Huckabee trying to suggest that "Love they neighbor as thyself" is one of the 10 Commandments?
  4. He was definitely a leftist. His memoir, Hitch 22, is his way of taking you along his intellectual journey. I had trouble following parts of it, because my own knowledge of 20th century history is pretty lacking, but the man has traveled everywhere on earth and personally met with dictators from Libya to Argentina. He describes his gradual disenchantment with the left, culminating in the left's response to 9/11. I think he is still generally left-leaning on economic issues. He endorsed Obama and seems to support a "regulated capitalism," much like our own Democrats...and, let's face it, America's Democrats are really just center-left, and not true leftists. Whatever bank regulations and "safety net" programs (like social security) he supports, he doesn't seem to be a fan of nationalizing private enterprise or introducing formal wealth redistribution programs.
  5. I don't remember the exact quote, but I remember his general response to a question about why Sean Penn and other celebrities seem so enamored of Hugo Chavez. His response was something to the effect of "Some people just can't accept that there really is no viable alternative to free market capitalism." Unless I've grossly misremembered something, I'd say that rules out placing him firmly on the left.
  6. Hitchens is not really a leftist. He used to be, but he has gradually morphed into one of those people who is so intelligent and well-read as to defy the classic categories of political leanings.
  7. I have so many, it's hard to know where to begin. I'll start with a couple of inspiring ones. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, after the tyrannical Nurse Ratched catches Billy Bibbet in bed with a woman: Billy: Um, I can explain everything. Ratched: Please do, Billy. Explain everything. Billy: Ev-ev-everything? Ratched: Aren't you ashamed Billy (not stuttering, for the first time in the movie): No, I'm not. Gattaca: "You wanna know how I did it? This is how I did it, Anton. I never saved anything for the swim back." And I'll end with a few that just make me smile. The Departed, when Leonardo DiCaprio is arresting crooked cop, Matt Damon: Damon: Go ahead, shoot a cop, Einstein. Watch what happens. DiCaprio: What would happen is this bullet would go right through your fuckin' head! Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: "But in the Latin alphabet...Jehova begins with an I!" Austin Powers: "Allow myself to introduce...myself. Monty Python and the Holy Grail (yes, this is entirely from memory): Man1: Halt! Who goes there? Arthur: It is I, Arthur, son of Uther Pendragon from the castle of Camelot. King of the Britons! Defeater of the Saxons! Sovereign of all England. Man 1: Pull the other one! Arthur: I am! And this is my trusty servant, Patsy. We have ridden the length and breadth of the land in search of knights who will join me in my court at Camelot. I must speak with your lord and master! Man 1: What? Ridden on a horse? Arthur: Yes. Man 1: You're using coconuts. Arthur: What? Man1: You've got two empty halves of coconut, and you're bangin' 'em together! Arthur: So? We have ridden since the snows of winter, cover this land. Through the Kingdom of Mercea, through... Man1: Where'd you get the coconuts? Arthur: We found them! Man1: Found them? In Mercea? The coconut's tropical! Arthur: What do you mean? Man1: Well, this is a temperate zone! Arthur: The swallow may fly south with the sun, or the house martin or the plummer may seek warmer climes in winter. Yet, these are not strangers to our land. Man1: Are you suggesting coconuts migrate? Arthur: Not at all. They could be carried. Man1: What, a swallow, carrying a coconut? Arthur: It could grip it by the husk! Man1: It's not a question of where he grips it. It's a simple question of weight ratios. A 5 ounce bird could not carry a 1 pound coconut! Arthur: Well it doesn't matter! Will you go and tell your master that Arthur from the court of Camelot is here? Man1: Listen. In order to maintain airspeed velocity, a swallow needs to beat 'is wings 43 times every second. Right? Arthur: Please! Man1: Am I right? Arthur: I'm not interested! Man2: It could be carried by an African swallow? Man1: Oh yeah, an African swallow maybe, but not a European swallow. That's my point. Man2: Oh yeah, I agree with that. Arthur: Will you ask your master if he wants to join my court at Camelot?! Man1: But then, of course, African swallows are not migratory, so they couldn't bring a coconut here anyway. Man2: Oh yeah. Man1: Wait a minute! Supposing 2 swallows carried it together? Man2: No, they'd have to have it on a line! Man1: Well, simple. They'll just use a standard creeper. Man2: What, held under the dorsal guiding feathers? Man1: Well, why not?
  8. Peikoff advised voting for the Republicans?
  9. I only had one actual election to vote for, and I voted for the Republican. In part because I wanted to see the Democrats lose the house, but also because my current representative is a 10-term Democrat, and there is nothing I hate more than a career politician.
  10. He did wind up paying settlements to "the Winklevii" (my favorite line of the movie), but it was probably just to avoid a trial. I admittedly don't know much about intellectual property law, but it's hard to see how they would have a case. It's not like there's a patent to be had for notion of a social networking website.
  11. I attended his talk on this subject at GWU last night and have started reading the book. Allow me to answer the objections in this thread by saying that he does attempt to establish the standard of value, philosophically (chapter 1). From there, his goal is to figure out what science has to say about how to best achieve the proper values. He sets out to show why the experience of conscious creatures is the proper standard of value for morality, and thinks that science can then help us maximize the well-being of conscious creatures. I find his ideas to be a breath of fresh air, despite the fact that I am not in complete agreement. I agree with his general approach, and it is a relief to see a well-known, public intellectual who is willing to engage in this kind of discourse.
  12. Uhh...no. You're referring to the doctrine of abrogation, which (very briefly summarized) means that God can change his mind and that whatever his last revelation was is the one that stands. The Satanic Verses are something completely different.
  13. I've never seen anyone in the mainstream media use McVeigh as a template for all right-wingers and/or Christians.
  14. Religion aside, I really would prefer that people like Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin not speak out on the issues even where I agree with them. Even though I agree with their conclusions on a range of issues, their arguments in support of those conclusions are so ridiculously weak and straw-mannish, that I am afraid of guilt by association.
  15. I don't have a "strategy." "Strategy" implies that I have some overarching goal to make you and/or Grames think like I do. I don't particularly care if you agree with me or not, but I still want to put my opinion out there. Having said that, I never said there isn't such a thing as "Islam." Merely that it's stupid to not differentiate its different forms when passing judgment on them. They may all deserve condemnation by the traits they have in common (i.e. belief in the supernatural and the preaching of falsehood.) But they do not all deserve condemnation for traits that only certain among them have. Whatever ideological principles there are that unify all of Islam, those are not the principles that led to 9/11, for the simple reason that the principles that directly led to 9/11 are not present in all Islamic sects. You might just as well say "Islamic ideology causes people to enter a trance and dance around in circles for hours on end." If someone does say that, you'd be quite right to point out that it's not "Islamic ideology," per se, but the ideology of a very specific sect that leads to that sort of behavior. I'm not going to repeat the Western liberal nonsense about Islam being a "religion of peace," because it is utter crap. What I will say, is that Islam is a writhing mass of contradictions that can be used to justify whatever someone wants it to. As you rightly point out, there are violent groups among Sunnis and Shi'a. There is plenty of ground in the Koran, hadith, etc. that provides fertile soil for terrorism to grow in, and it is foolish to claim otherwise. My only point is to illustrate that there are many sects of Islam who disagree with those interpretations and that, unless you wish to classify them as something other than "Islam," it makes no sense to lump them together with the violent sects and say that they are all motivated "by the same ideology." If the Sufis want to build a mosque (and for the sake of argument, I'll say an actual grand mosque with a dome, crescent moon, and minarets) near Ground Zero, that is fine with me. At least, it's as fine as I'd be with them having it anywhere else. I'd prefer it not to be anywhere, since I don't think Islam has anything positive to offer the world, but the Sufi sect had nothing to do with 9/11 and is not ideologically motivated to terrorism. I'm not going to place some sort of undeserved blame on them for the simple reason that it falls under the same general religious category as the Wahabbists.
  16. Hiring Bill Clinton is hardly necessary. A mosque, as commonly understood, is not a community center with a basketball court that also happens to have a Muslim prayer room. If Christians opened a similar building, it would not be called a church. The way opponents of this project talk about it, you'd get the idea that a gigantic piece of Arabian architecture--complete with a crescent moon sitting atop a grand dome and minarets from which pour the muezzin call--is going to be sitting on top of the ruins of the twin towers. You say that as though there is only one Islamic ideology. 9/11 was caused by bin Laden's particular interpretation of his particular version of Wahhabism. Whirling Dervishes follow a completely different ideology, and it's silly to pretend there is more of a connection between them than there actually is. If we're going to lump the various Islamic ideologies into a single subheading, to create the illusion that they are more closely related than they actually are, why stop there? Why not take it one step further and just call it monotheistic ideology?
  17. I'm dying to know how it is "self-righteous" or "leftist" to point out the objective fact that the building is not a mosque, nor on Ground Zero. And in answer to your last post, yes "Muslim" does indeed encompass both bin Laden and the "Ground Zero imam." And the word atheist encompasses Ayn Rand and Joseph Stalin. It is not incumbent on you or anyone else to differentiate between Muslim and non-Muslim, unless you really hit the books on Islam. It makes no difference whether you consider both bin Laden and Rauf to be Muslims. What matters is that each man considers himself to be a Muslim, and it is up to you to distinguish between them. How do you justify lumping together all people who call themselves Muslims, based on the beliefs and actions of a few? Yes, there are many Muslims who commit atrocities in the name of their religion, but there are far more who do not. Sure, any Muslim cleric can be rightly said to want to "spread Islam." But you are willfully omitting the rather salient difference that not all of them wish to do it by violent force.
  18. Considering most people in this country are against the mosque, I would hesitate before saying that Obama is getting easy points on this one. His recent statement on this issue was dead-on, but I suspect he might actually pay a political price for it.
  19. Just now saw these comments...I will be missed?

  20. One of the best movies I've seen in a long time. I'm convinced that Leonardo DiCaprio is no longer capable of being in a bad movie. Every movie I've seen with him recently has been fantastic. This is also the second movie he has starred in, in the past 6 months, that has made me question my sanity (the other being Shutter Island). Christopher Nolan has shown himself to be one of the finest directors currently active and not just a one-trick pony (unlike that self-congratulatory, Hitchcock-wannabe hack, M. Night Shyamalan). There are so many concepts in this movie that are difficult to wrap my head around (the notion of 3 seconds turning into decades worth of dream-time, for instance), but Nolan did a superb job of weaving them all together so that they actually make sense. I might go see it again this upcoming weekend.
  21. This is one of many reasons I am glad I no longer live in the South in general, and Texas in particular.
  22. You should spend all your money, declare bankruptcy, and then blame Germany.
  23. I have been studying Arabic since October, which is similar to Hebrew. The first thing you need to do is learn the alphabet. Rosetta Stone software will be good for vocabulary and such, but to actually learn to speak the language, there is no replacement for practicing with native speakers.
  24. Wow, there's a lot of bad advice in this thread. If I understand this post, it boils down to "start having sex with fat chicks so you can get practice and be able to please dumb--but hot--bitches."
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