That's nonsense. Not everything is 'the same'. Politics, religions, nations...these are all human constructs. They are always worthy of questionning and critique. If they were not, we would sit in the dark ages forever with our flat world. People paid with their lives for questionning religious doctrine, and apparently parts of the world would like to maintain that ridiculous concept. We must always question and challenge to advance humanity. As for millions of families slaughtered ... it is beyond 'critique'. There is nothing to critique... they were murdered, infants were thrown into fire pits...there is no issue to question, to debate, to critique. It showed the darkest, hateful side of humanity, period. There is no analogy, it has nothing to do with 'Jewish privilege' anymore than it would be acceptable to post cartoons about lynchings of Blacks in the south or Indian families slaughtered. What would be the positive purpose of such? There is none...humanity must learn its lessons and move on. Your position on this is untenable.
As horrible as the Holocaust was...you must understand that Muslims feel oppresion for hundreds of years. And that the mockery of Allah is more then mocking Islam, it's mocking them and seeing them as inferior. While that may not be equivalent....you can not compare one people's pain to another. Their pain is legitimate and can not be dismissed.
Inadequate response that conveniently ignores the serious challenge to your argument. You're grasping at straws. This has nothing to do with comparing pain. The subject is whether the topics are appropriate for political statements through caricature or not. Again, you have the questionning of religion vs. the darkest, hateful side of humanity. Over the millenia, all religions have been questioned and it has been proven repeatedly that this is necessary. What purpose is there to criticize the victims of one of the worst atrocities in all human history? Look at who did it in this instance and the answer is simple...it's hate. You mentioned that this repulsion by the West has something to do with 'owing Jews' something... it does not. Caracitures of the holocaust are inappropriate because it was an inhuman event. It has nothing to do with Jews except they comprised (most of) the victims...it would still be inappropriate if it had been Blacks or Italians or Japanese. Would Nanking cartoons be acceptable under any guise? Slaves? Rwandans? It was an excuse for a hateful and unacceptable action. It was ridiculous and indefensible.
I'm disturbed that you find one kind of racism to be unacceptable, but not another. I think it's a double standard and have nothing further to say.
anyone who defends these is a jackoff. however we definitely should gauge offensiveness of something if a critical mass of the people who the cartoon/literature/etc is about are offended. not by our own sensibilities of whether it should be offensive or not.
Saying something should not be censored is not the same as defending it. The positive purpose of printing those disgusting cartoons is simply that nothing should be censored. And for most folks it serves as a reminder that some of the thinking that brought about the Holocaust exists in some form today.
I can provide you with plenty of verifiably fabricated examples of facts from racially motivated hate websites. That they are 'facts' doesn't mean that they are true. People in Nazi Germany accepted it as 'proven fact' that Jews were racially inferior. An important part of finding the truth is examining your sources with a critical eye. Otherwise he is just parroting everything he hears. If New Yorker accepts the facts from this website without making sure they are from a trustworthy, impartial source, how many other times in the past have his opinions been shaped by people with agendas willing to lie?
Ottomaton - why don't you dispute the facts? Show us the "real" data before dismissing "lies". If you can produce it, I will say you are right. But if you can not, you have to consider the possibility that the data has credence.
I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be trying to prove. You are the one who made claims about wealthy miserly jews controling America from behind the scenes. My only claim was that you have no evidence for that slanderous suposition. I think you have done a fine job of proving my case for me.
While "People in Nazi Germany accepted it as 'proven fact' that Jews are racially inferior," the site NewYorker cited did just quite the opposite by trying to present Jews as racially superior. So I am not sure your Nazi Germany reference I quoted served your purpose. After all, what NewYorker has been arguing all along is Jews as a group/race are doing better than others in many aspects. What's bothering me is that you flat out dismissed the 6 straightforward, mostly self-contained statements without actually disputing their truthfulness one by one. Furthermore, I am bewildered by your assertion "That they are 'facts' doesn't mean that they are true." To me facts are inherently true, how people utilize them is an entirely different matter. To give you an example, say three posters in GARM said the following on Yao: Poster A - a YOH: "Yao is 7'6". He is soft, if a 6'3" guard can grab 8 rebounds, Yao should at least get 20." Poster B - a neutral observer: "Yao is 7'6". We don't have many players in NBA who are as skillful as Yao with this size." Poster C - a YOF: "Yao is 7'6". Look guys, he dribbles like a PG and runs like a PF!" Each stated a fact and followed with an opinion. Does it matter if someone quoted "Yao is 7'6"" from A, B, or C? Not to me, I deal with facts only, in rational debate. I think that's the way to go, unless you want to add emotional elements into the mix ...
[rquoter] There are three kinds of lies; lies, damn lies, and statistics [/rquoter] - Benjamin Disrali, or Mark Twain or someone else [rquoter] 97% of statistics are made up on the spot [/rquoter] -anonymous from dictionary.com: [rquoter] fact- 1.Knowledge or information based on real occurrences: an account based on fact; a blur of fact and fancy. 2. a.Something demonstrated to exist or known to have existed: Genetic engineering is now a fact. That Chaucer was a real person is an undisputed fact. b. A real occurrence; an event: had to prove the facts of the case. c. Something believed to be true or real: a document laced with mistaken facts. 3.A thing that has been done, especially a crime: an accessory before the fact. Law. The aspect of a case at law comprising events determined by evidence: The jury made a finding of fact. [/rquoter] Note the phrase 'mistaken facts'. Something is a fact if it is verifiably true or false. All I see on that website are some statistics. They are not proven in any way. I can throw some statistical 'facts' on a website and do the same thing. That doesn't mean that there is any real data behind it. I unfortunately have to deal with predjuiced people quite a bit. For the most part they love to rattle off madeup 'facts'. The other day I was communicating with someone who was absolutely convinced that it is fact that the number one cause of the spread of Rabies in the United States was illegal immigrants comming up from Mexico. He told me that thousands of illegal immigrants every year die from rabies that go unreported. I am not kidding. Following the logic of your arguments, I should then be required to go around the state and catalog all illegal immigrant deaths in order to prove him wrong. For me, simply showing that the person is a racist nutjob is significant enough proof that I don't need to continue. I don't think, perhaps, that you have much first hand experience with neo-nazis if you don't understand why my offhanded dismissal makes sense.
This statement shows me that you might perhaps not really understand the history involved here. In Nazi Germany the idea was that the Jews were lesser, greedy, base people. Through lying and deception that managed to hoard vast amounts of money and power and used it to control things behind the scenes and make stuff bad for honest, fair-haired Germans. That the German defeat in world war one was a result of a stab in the back by Jews and Communists (who were all Jews or Jewish lackeys). They were inferior because of their black hearts, not because they couldn't get power and money. New Yorker's comments at no case indicate that Jews are supposedly 'superior', but rather that they have a whole bunch of money and empowerment that enables them to excert influence and control - the same argument used in Nazi Germany. This argument is still used.
That's not what I said...you're taking what I said and bending it and distorting it into something sick and unreal. You can't win on facts, therefore you resort to a vivcious attack that's unbased. Typical - call someone an Anti-Semite when you can't admit to a point. So.... If I say Jews are empowered and wealthy that = wealthy miserly jews controling America from behind the scenes I think you are insane.
I've had New Yorker on ignore since about his third or fourth post in Sept '02 (when he registered) so I only see his posts through others' replies, but with a nod to Jesse Jackson maybe he should be referred to as "Hymie Towner" from now on.
I am not sure this quote has anything to do the definition of "fact." Anonymous? LOL. "Mistaken facts" is as interesting as "true lies." We may spend hours arguing the lexicographical merits of these oxymorons, but I think it'll be ill served in the current debate. Sure, but that doesn't mean they are not true. LOL ... Keith, your little maneuver has no bearing on the defintion of "fact." Nice try, though. Well, the "fact" that most racial bigots are likely to make up statistics to buttress their agenda doesn't necessarily mean everything they say is a lie. In your rabies virus example, the "number one cause" sounds like an opinion, but the "thousands die from rabies that go unreported" strikes me as something can be verified. Yeah, if you want to prove the guy is lying, the onus is on you to start your own investigation. Before any conclusion is reached, at most you can say it's an allegation that's unproven. How about we deal them one at a time, starting with "Jews make up less then 2% of the U.S. population"? I think some of these claimes can be easily verified with google search, others may require more effort. Regardless, I find the collective silence from Jewish posters (assuming you are not one) on these claims is somewhat unsettling.
Before going back on, let’s just backtrack for a minute and look at the supposition that wealth and empowerment in any way effect the discussion. Did wealth and power protect German Jews in Nazi Germany? But back to the matter at hand: There is an interesting thing to me about the 'fewer than 2%' statistic. By just now doing some quick Googling I discovered that it was one of the 'legitimate' estimates mentioned on the web (if anything on the web should be considered as legitimate) but it was the one which was most skewed in favor of New Yorker's position. This explains what I meant about the lies, damn lies, and statistics line. Actually it has a whole lot of bearing here. My statistics are on the web and they say you are one sexy thing, wnes. I found it while browsing the web, so it must be true, right? Before one believes everything they read on one might want to consider the reliability and credibility of the source. By quoting a neo-Nazi site and then saying: New York proved to me all I want to know about his ability to seek the truth. What kind of person just pulls some random statistics off of a website without reading it and considers that to be legitimate? Of course, but in such a situation I find that such tainted statistics cause the burden of proof to shift to me. As such I don't particularly feel it necessary to expend effort to craft a credible rebuttal. He would just pull some more stuff from another disreputable source. I have participated in plenty such 'discussions' around here and it doesn't go anywhere.
Give it up wnes, this Ottoman guy is a hopeless cause. He's happy to live in his delusional state just like the mullohs in Iran. Trying to persuade these people is about a useful application of energy as a dog running around in circles. It's a wonder when you try to bring debate to someone and they respond with personal attacks. The truth is when someone gets defensive...you know that they are desperately grasping to hold on to their reality even if it means tarring someone else at any cost. You are witnessing the core evil of humanity - an unwillingness to question what one believes and take a detached nuetral position where all sides and perspectives are weighed without passion. That's the essence of wisdom...and you can not bring wisdom to another person - they have to be open to it. This person is not. Give it up, I am.
In Iran, free speech is a given right to the supporters of the Theocracy. whom are in the minority. Free speech for the opposition does not exsist....
If the Jewish race have got anywhere, it's been through hardwork and determination. they've been through hell and back, yet they've allways remained steadfast. you gotta respect there courage and will to successed..
