It's not about people losing their faith. It's about reforming Muslim society. Basing their societies around extremist religious views is not going to work. It will keep their societies closed, poor, and sexist, among other things.
Because the reason people argue for affirmative action is increasing diversity. Isn't that what you want to increase in the Iraqi government. Furthermore, gerrymandering is affirmative action in government, and conservatives are staunchly against it. Why argue for it here?
I'm not in favor of extremists either. We saw what the Taliban was like. But the faith as a whole isn't like that. That's my point. The nation with the largest Muslim population has a female president. Most muslims live outside the middle east. I'm against extremists as well. That's why I said that if DaDakota only meant extremists when he was talking about the Muslim faith losing... then he should disregard my post.
No, I mean the muslim faith LOSING it's POWER BASE !!!! Not it's faith, just it's control over the people. That is a very very very very good thing. DD PS. Extremism is a terrible catalyst for terrorists, but a lot of the mullahs are just as bad...they want one thing only..control of the masses.
point noted, but the first thing you jump on me about is race, and I get tired of it, I'm only trying to make a point. You shouldn't be so quick to judge me. I post about many things on this board, and I get tired of everyone accusing me of only throwing race in their faces to the point it makes me respond like that. I was just making a point. I've never started a thread about gerrymandering or affirmative action. I've responded in threads about affirmative action. I've never started a thread on reparations, yet the local BBS idiot, has accused me of supporting that. But what can you expect from a guy who has preconceived notions of just about everyone on here. When I first logged on here, I used to see a lot of race related topics. Its stupid for people not to expect me to respond as if I'm going to ignore a thread that directly relates to me. When I respond in those threads, the first response I get back is black people are always talking about race. And I think anyone who has been on this board for the past 4 months knows I have a lot of opinions on a lot of topics. And what's even worse is that other local idiots like Refman, even throw it my face in threads that race in which race was never brought up, like what he wrote in response to me on the last Bill Clinton thread.
Hrm, I need to clarify my first post a bit. When I say that education defeats religion, i was not talking about a society of atheists. I was referring more to curing the fundamentalist ignorant aspects of religion. Current hypocrisies in this country include the debate about prayer in school and how we can't make it through a single election without the candidates mentioning family values and god as much as possible. Christianity is not the only religion that has family values.
Pgabrial, Well just because they throw it in your face does not mean the rest of us do. I was just sarcastically commenting on your sarcasm, and you tossed in a terrible comment. I thought you had thicker skin then that. Heretic, I concur completely with your take on education, also you can throw in quality of life as well. DD
I agree with Donald Rumsfeld and Da Dakota. As far as I am concerned, if Iraq became like Iran, what was the whole war good for...one would go from one evil to another.
pgabriel...I think you misunderstood what I meant by minority rights. I meant any minority (women, dissenting viewpoints, handicapped people, fat people, and so on)...not just racial minorities. Supporting affirmative action doesn't mean supporting minority rights. Affirmative action is a failed plan that tried to even the playing field for minorities. My support of it does not matter, but the fact that this sort of legislation was enacted is an example of how America tries to protect minorities. Anyhow, I wanted to clarify that just so you understood.
Exactly, and the argument against is always "ITS UNAMERICAN TO PROTECT ANY GROUP". Are you going to tell me that that argument has never been used? Thats what this potential policy is in favor of.
Minorities (not just race, but party affiliation, class, sex, etc) do not have extra civil rights that are not granted also to the majority in the constitution. The civil rights expressly written into the Constitutition (see amendments mostly) were to ensure the minority was protected from an oppressive majority. In theory, the majority shouldn't have to worry about its civil rights since its regime is currently in power. Protected civil rights, being a tenet of democracy, would prevent a representative democracy via law from becoming a theocracy, unless every person consents to it. Oppression by the majority is no better than oppression by one. The same protected civil rights that would prevent a theocracy from forming in Iraq are the same protected civil rights that prevent America from becoming Bushica. I would have no problem if an area of Iraq became a theocracy as long as everyone in the area consented to it.
1) So we rationalize invading because it's to free the Iraqis, and then turn around and rationalize staying and not giving them the freedom they want because we're the ones who invaded!?!?!?!?! You don;t see a slight aspect of circular reasoning at work here? 2) Why do we get to be the ones who decide when they're 'ready'? Because we have more military might than anyone else? Because we're us? What the hell gives us the moral imperative to decide what is best for others in their own country? Thet didn't ask us to get involved in the first place, so why should they be beholden to us? 3) Thoecracies might be a bad way for us to go, but what makes it the wrong way for them? Seperation of church and state, democracy, these are NOT universal concepts...these are NOT absolute virtues...These are what we have decided works best for us. It is not up to us to assume that what works best for us automatically works best for others, let alone enforce our opinion. This is not the equivalent of campfire songs; this is a fundamental difference between living in a free society, and taking part in cultural imperialism. This kind of step, not to mention the arrogant geo-centric assumptions upon which it is premised, has incalcualbe effects in the real world. We are invading other countries, setting up governemnts that we want, ignoring what those people want, saying that they just don't know what's best for them yet, and calling it freedom. 4) DD...I am sincerely saddened to see this kind of attitude in you. This jingoism, this cultural arrogance...to actually say that we know what's best for others in their own country, merely because we are we, and they aren't...and to enforce it...wow. I have spent years defending America against criticism, most of it in the form of saying that Americans feel and act just the way you are now doing...that American assume they know better, are better, and anyone who says otherwise is ignorant or jealous....I have refuted the claim that Americans would ever say things like Might is Right, or your version, to applaud " A show of force' to get others in line with the US way...I dismissed these as anti-American resentment...Pointed out that all superpowers have been resented...but I am now eating my words. DD...I am addressing this to you because, unlike johnheath or his ilk, I actually have respect for you in other areas..and in a way that makes this kind of mindset more depressing, more dicouraging. Do you actually believe that we know better than the world...that we have the right to enforce our way of doing things because we have the might...or do you actually assume that we are just better, just more right..and that that superiority allows us or compels us to make others do as we see fit? Do you not hear the echoes of the kind of thinking we fought agsint back in 1776 and 1942 in those words? How can we say that we know better for others in their own land when the world disagrees...and we know so much better that we can treat the residents of that nation like a parent with an undeveoped child; we will control them and tell them what to do until they have grown enough to handle it on their own...Then we will 'allow' them to do what they want in their own land... We did object to Hussein because he was a dictator, right, not just because of his methods? What are we if we decide that the people he dictated to are not 'ready' to do or know what they want, so we will dictate to them until they are, and we will be the ones who decide when that is? How are we not merely replacing one sytem of dictatorship with another, albeit less violently?
MacBeth, To generalize that the US knows more about the world in most things would be a crazy concept. I do however, think that the Iraqi people in this current power vaccum are not ready to take the reigns and make good well thought out decisions concerning their own government. What makes it our right to choose you ask, well the fact that it was us who took out their repressive leadership. Not only is it our right to help set up their government as victors, it is our duty as a free people to help them make choices that protect all Iraqis and not just the majority. Look I have said that if the Iraqi government is elected and becomes anti-US that is their choice. However, a theocracy is not an option, and as we currently control the country we should do everything possible to prevent a theocratic government. Draft a constitution that seperates church and state, stay a few years to help with the building of a stable federal republic, and then leave as a governing body, but have a couple of substantial military basis in Iraq for 50 or so years. The problem in the middle east in general is that people are taught religion at home, at church, and in the education system and if you are hammered home an edict from birth, you know nothing else. Therefore it behooves us to move to seperate church and state and to educate the masses in Iraq and let them experience a growth in economy, and in freedoms that they have never had before...than let's see how they feel about us. We have done the easy part in taking out Saddam, now we must win over the people.......and you do that by education and increasing the standard of living for all of Iraq. As for my take on Rumsfeld, I think he is a nut sometimes, but others I take what he says as a pragmatic approach and concur with him. This is one of those cases. DD
Just one point on this. It may be our right if we went in as conquerors. Supposedly though we were going in as liberators. As conquerors we could chose whatever we want, and live with our lies before the war, and the immorality of being a first strike conqueroring nation. If we truly went there as liberators, then our job should be to liberate, and not Colonize Iraq.
Blade, Who said anything about colonization, did we colonize Germany, Italy, France, China, North Africa, etc...etc...etc...? Come on now, you are grasping at straws. DD
Choosing the govt. of another country while deciding their future for them, and alreayd handing out contracts that dertimine how they will be rebuilt and by whom, as well as stationing troops there, is as good as colonization. No we didn't colonize those places, perhaps because in part our allies were involved at least as much as we were, and everyone was kept in check. Now that's not the case, and the Bushies seem willing to exclude as many of allies from having a say in this as possible. Those countries also weren't attacked on a first strike mission, so things are already different. If you don't want to call controling a conquered country on the other side of the world colonization, then you don't have to, but it's about as close as it can be to colonization.
