Glenn Greenwald Owns Bill Maher

cincybearcat

Byrnzie wrote:

Or maybe this simply comes down to you believing yourself to be free and enlightened, while those other people are enslaved and oppressed? The same self-serving, one-eyed logic that has sustained bigotry and racism in the World for centuries.

Oh the irony.


And I still can't believe you won't admit that Muslim women are oppressed. Bringing up consumerism, etc is merely a deflection, and a bad one at that. You will go to great lengths to avoid admitting you are wrong about any portion of your argument.

It's the same as all those Christian ladies out there that believe there place must be in the home and working mothers are terrible. To those people, their lifestyle is not a choice. There are plenty stay at home moms however where it was simply their freedom of choice.

Byrnzie

cincybearcat wrote:

Byrnzie wrote:

Or maybe this simply comes down to you believing yourself to be free and enlightened, while those other people are enslaved and oppressed? The same self-serving, one-eyed logic that has sustained bigotry and racism in the World for centuries.

Oh the irony.

And what irony might that be?

cincybearcat wrote:

And I still can't believe you won't admit that Muslim women are oppressed.

Why? Because you say they are, so therefore it must be true? Did you not bother reading the quotations from Muslim women I posted on the previous page? They don't feel themselves to be oppressed. In fact, they think Western women are oppressed, and they have good reason for doing so.
The fact is that you don't know the first fucking thing about Islam or the Middle East, other than what you've been told by your t.v.

Eilian

Byrnzie wrote:

Why? Because you say they are, so therefore it must be true? Did you not bother reading the quotations from Muslim women I posted on the previous page? They don't feel themselves to be oppressed. In fact, they think Western women are oppressed, and they have good reason for doing so.
The fact is that you don't know the first fucking thing about Islam or the Middle East, other than what you've been told by your t.v.

Comparing the "oppression" of western women to that of women under Islam is shameful, and betrays a disgusting lack of compassion - you may as well have just likened female circumcision to the pressure of maintaining your figure. Given Islam's terrifying attitude to free expression, I will grant you that quote mining for testimonies from Muslim women with critical reports will be difficult as they are comparatively rare - for reasons we've already repeated ad nauseam.

But, they do occasionally surface, despite it being considered apostasy and punishable by death - read some Ayaan Hirsi Ali for a kick off.

bootlegger10

Byrnzie wrote:

Destroying the environment in order to surround ourselves with material crap is not a natural way of life. What is a natural way of life? You tell me.

Why isn't destroying the environment natural? If evolution is the accepted truth amongst those who have the uncanny ability to understand what happened billions of years ago, and we are just a collection of cells and nothing more, how can we possibly make natural or unnatural decisions? We are just existing as cells doing what cells do apparantely. Whose to say that humans were destined to inhabit the earth, or that oil in the earth was never intended to be burned? Was the earth destined to remain at certain temperatures and in a certain condition? Maybe over the lifespan of the earth it is natural for species to come and go (like dinosaurs for example).

Edit: Want to clarify I'm not arguing that we shouldn't take care of our fellow humans and environment. Moreso debating what is natural versus unnatural especially for those who don't believe in intelligent design.

dignin

bootlegger10 wrote:

Byrnzie wrote:

Destroying the environment in order to surround ourselves with material crap is not a natural way of life. What is a natural way of life? You tell me.

Why isn't destroying the environment natural? If evolution is the accepted truth amongst those who have the uncanny ability to understand what happened billions of years ago, and we are just a collection of cells and nothing more, how can we possibly make natural or unnatural decisions? We are just existing as cells doing what cells do apparantely. Whose to say that humans were destined to inhabit the earth, or that oil in the earth was never intended to be burned? Was the earth destined to remain at certain temperatures and in a certain condition? Maybe over the lifespan of the earth it is natural for species to come and go (like dinosaurs for example).

For serious? You actually believe this?

bootlegger10

dignin wrote:

bootlegger10 wrote:

Byrnzie wrote:

Destroying the environment in order to surround ourselves with material crap is not a natural way of life. What is a natural way of life? You tell me.

Why isn't destroying the environment natural? If evolution is the accepted truth amongst those who have the uncanny ability to understand what happened billions of years ago, and we are just a collection of cells and nothing more, how can we possibly make natural or unnatural decisions? We are just existing as cells doing what cells do apparantely. Whose to say that humans were destined to inhabit the earth, or that oil in the earth was never intended to be burned? Was the earth destined to remain at certain temperatures and in a certain condition? Maybe over the lifespan of the earth it is natural for species to come and go (like dinosaurs for example).

For serious? You actually believe this?

I don't think we should destroy the environment. I think we are more than a collection of cells unlike the evolutionists. I'm just wondering how one can judge natural versus unnatural. If humans have progressed to materialism at any costs, why is that unnatural? Evolution is survival of the fittest. Materialism and win at all costs falls right into that.

If evolution brought us here and not intelligent design, and we are just matter thrown together over billions of years, what makes anything natural or unnatural? Isn't it all random and things work themselves out over time? Was it unnatural for the dinosaurs to dissappear or were they just not smart enough to sense impending danger or whatever?

Just putting a theoretical argument out there. Not trying to say we shouldn't take care of our neighbors and environment.

Byrnzie

Eilian wrote:

Comparing the "oppression" of western women to that of women under Islam is shameful, and betrays a disgusting lack of compassion - you may as well have just likened female circumcision to the pressure of maintaining your figure. Given Islam's terrifying attitude to free expression, I will grant you that quote mining for testimonies from Muslim women with critical reports will be difficult as they are comparatively rare - for reasons we've already repeated ad nauseam.

But, they do occasionally surface, despite it being considered apostasy and punishable by death - read some Ayaan Hirsi Ali for a kick off.

That would be true if oppression in Islam is evident across the board, but it isn't. Not all Muslims are oppressed. Though I can see why it would benefit you to think so.

Byrnzie

bootlegger10 wrote:

Byrnzie wrote:

Destroying the environment in order to surround ourselves with material crap is not a natural way of life. What is a natural way of life? You tell me.

Why isn't destroying the environment natural? If evolution is the accepted truth amongst those who have the uncanny ability to understand what happened billions of years ago, and we are just a collection of cells and nothing more, how can we possibly make natural or unnatural decisions? We are just existing as cells doing what cells do apparantely. Whose to say that humans were destined to inhabit the earth, or that oil in the earth was never intended to be burned? Was the earth destined to remain at certain temperatures and in a certain condition? Maybe over the lifespan of the earth it is natural for species to come and go (like dinosaurs for example).

Edit: Want to clarify I'm not arguing that we shouldn't take care of our fellow humans and environment. Moreso debating what is natural versus unnatural especially for those who don't believe in intelligent design.

O.k, maybe we were always destined to destroy the Earth, and ourselves in the process, in which case, our destructive way of life is perfectly natural. Not intelligent, or beneficent in the long-term, but natural.

Byrnzie

This thread sure has taken a funny turn

cincybearcat

Byrnzie wrote:

Eilian wrote:

Comparing the "oppression" of western women to that of women under Islam is shameful, and betrays a disgusting lack of compassion - you may as well have just likened female circumcision to the pressure of maintaining your figure. Given Islam's terrifying attitude to free expression, I will grant you that quote mining for testimonies from Muslim women with critical reports will be difficult as they are comparatively rare - for reasons we've already repeated ad nauseam.

But, they do occasionally surface, despite it being considered apostasy and punishable by death - read some Ayaan Hirsi Ali for a kick off.

That would be true if oppression in Islam is evident across the board, but it isn't. Not all Muslims are oppressed. Though I can see why it would benefit you to think so.

Ah, this is a good point that iust concede. I never meant to suggest that all Muslim women are oppressed. I'm sure she choose it and everything they do. But
I don't believe that to be true for a large portion. Just like it wasn't true, IMO, for Christian ladies of the 1950s in the US.

bootlegger10

Byrnzie wrote:

bootlegger10 wrote:

Byrnzie wrote:

Destroying the environment in order to surround ourselves with material crap is not a natural way of life. What is a natural way of life? You tell me.

Why isn't destroying the environment natural? If evolution is the accepted truth amongst those who have the uncanny ability to understand what happened billions of years ago, and we are just a collection of cells and nothing more, how can we possibly make natural or unnatural decisions? We are just existing as cells doing what cells do apparantely. Whose to say that humans were destined to inhabit the earth, or that oil in the earth was never intended to be burned? Was the earth destined to remain at certain temperatures and in a certain condition? Maybe over the lifespan of the earth it is natural for species to come and go (like dinosaurs for example).

Edit: Want to clarify I'm not arguing that we shouldn't take care of our fellow humans and environment. Moreso debating what is natural versus unnatural especially for those who don't believe in intelligent design.

O.k, maybe we were always destined to destroy the Earth, and ourselves in the process, in which case, our destructive way of life is perfectly natural. Not intelligent, or beneficent in the long-term, but natural.

Hey, just having some fun here. Whose to say Earth is destroyed if global warming takes over or it turns into a barren wasteland? Was the earth considered destroyed during the Ice Age? Is Mars destroyed right now?

I guess what I'm trying to play devil's advocate on is if humans and every other piece of matter on this earth formed from a bunch of particles colliding into each other without intelligent design like most on this board would say, is there really a good or bad state of matter? Is the universe really worse off with plastic bottles in the ocean or is it indifferent? Just trying to put myself in the shoes of someone who doesn't believe in intelligent design and why they can think the world is better off one way or the other? What does it matter what the particles happened to form after the "big bang" and what they continue to form? Perhaps the response is that it is what it is and we need to make the best of it.

Way off topic and probably a very stupid, incoherent post. As someone who believes in intelligent design and believes the God put us here to be good stewards of the earth, I think it is easier to see there is a natural way and an un-natural way of doing things, and that there is a purpose and value to all things created and there are negative consequence to not taking care of each other and the environment.

Thirty Bills Unpaid

dignin wrote:

bootlegger10 wrote:

Byrnzie wrote:

Destroying the environment in order to surround ourselves with material crap is not a natural way of life. What is a natural way of life? You tell me.

Why isn't destroying the environment natural? If evolution is the accepted truth amongst those who have the uncanny ability to understand what happened billions of years ago, and we are just a collection of cells and nothing more, how can we possibly make natural or unnatural decisions? We are just existing as cells doing what cells do apparantely. Whose to say that humans were destined to inhabit the earth, or that oil in the earth was never intended to be burned? Was the earth destined to remain at certain temperatures and in a certain condition? Maybe over the lifespan of the earth it is natural for species to come and go (like dinosaurs for example).

For serious? You actually believe this?

Why is this so difficult to believe? This comment isn't a stretch by any means. We like to think we are pretty awesome, but it's safe to say that we have a heightened sense of self worth. It might be a fact that we are doing exactly what we were supposed to do given our state of evolution.

Thirty Bills Unpaid

And as for my above post... of course I am concerned with taking care of things that threaten our existence.

Eilian

Byrnzie wrote:

Eilian wrote:

Comparing the "oppression" of western women to that of women under Islam is shameful, and betrays a disgusting lack of compassion - you may as well have just likened female circumcision to the pressure of maintaining your figure. Given Islam's terrifying attitude to free expression, I will grant you that quote mining for testimonies from Muslim women with critical reports will be difficult as they are comparatively rare - for reasons we've already repeated ad nauseam.

But, they do occasionally surface, despite it being considered apostasy and punishable by death - read some Ayaan Hirsi Ali for a kick off.

That would be true if oppression in Islam is evident across the board, but it isn't. Not all Muslims are oppressed. Though I can see why it would benefit you to think so.

Conceded - not ALL Muslim women have an archaically oppressive time of it. Not ALL Muslims consider murdering infidels an inescapable duty. However, those that do are scripturally justified and given that there are 2 billion Muslims, even the smallest percentage should warrant your concern.

Could you explain that last bit please? What benefits am I enjoying?

Byrnzie

Eilian wrote:

Conceded - not ALL Muslim women have an archaically oppressive time of it. Not ALL Muslims consider murdering infidels an inescapable duty. However, those that do are scripturally justified and given that there are 2 billion Muslims, even the smallest percentage should warrant your concern.

So in your delusional, self-serving scheme of things. 2 Billion Muslims are 'scripturally justified' in murdering 'us'. This convenient fantasy must be a great fuel for your Islamophobia. Does this keep you awake at night? Did your countries ludicrous fear-mongering about the Communist menace creeping into your living room also keep you awake at night, or are you too young to remember that particular round of state-sponsored bullshit?

Eilian wrote:

Could you explain that last bit please? What benefits am I enjoying?

I posted this a few pages back, and it answers your question to a T. I'll post a part of it here again for your benefit:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... m-woolwich

Andrew Sullivan, terrorism, and the art of distortion

Glenn Greenwald
guardian.co.uk, Saturday 25 May 2013

'...the need to maintain the belief that Islam is a uniquely grave danger in the world - and that western violence against them is superior to their violence against the west - is one that is incredibly deep-seated and visceral. That seems to be true for several independent reasons.

First, it's a by-product of base tribalism. Americans and westerners have been relentlessly bombarded with the message that We are the Noble and Innocent Victims and those Muslims are the Evil, Primitive, Savage Aggressors, so that's what many people are trained to believe, and view any challenge to that as an assault on their core tribalistic convictions. The defining tribalistic belief that Our Side is Superior (and our violence thus inherently more noble than theirs) has been stoked by political leaders since politics began to sustain support for their aggression and entrench their own power. It's a potent drive - something humans instinctively want to believe - and is therefore one that is easily manipulated by skillful propagandists.

Second, all sorts of agendas are advanced by maintaining these premises in place. As the scholar Remi Brulin has documented, "terrorism" in its recent incarnation was designed by the US to justify all of the violence it wanted to do in the world from Central America to the Middle East, and by Israel to universalize the vicious and intractable conflicts it has with its Arab neighbors (our wars aren't just our fights with them over land; it's a global struggle to stop a plague that is also your fight: against Terrorism). A great new book by Harvard's Lisa Stampnitzky makes the argument indicated by its title: "Disciplining Terror: How Experts Invented 'Terrorism'". The functional meaninglessness of the term "terrorism" and its highly manipulative exploitation are vital to several political agendas. That fact renders the guardians of those agendas furious when the conventional and highly emotional understanding of the term is questioned, and especially when it's suggested that anti-western violence isn't best understood as the by-product of unique pathologies in Islam but rather in the context of decades of western aggression toward that region.

...Third, and I think most significantly, there is a very potent human need to deny responsibility for our own actions and avoid being shown the worst attributes of our own behavior, and a corresponding "kill-the-messenger" impulse aimed at those who want to focus on (rather than hide) all of that. It's not irrelevant that Sullivan (along with Jeffrey Goldberg, Tom Friedman and Christopher Hitchens) was one of the world's most vocal, most passionate, and most effective media cheerleaders for the attack on Iraq (which he yesterday acknowledged was "a criminal enterprise and strategic catastrophe" even while justifying it on the ground that it "removed one of the most vicious mass murderers of Muslims on the planet"). But Sullivan was not only that: he also led the way (along with Hitchens) in implanting in the public mind the idea that the US and the UK were leading a Grand Civilization War, and he spouted some of the most repellent rhetoric of demonization against anyone who uttered any protest.

,,,I used to wonder how people like Sullivan and other Americans and westerners, who continuously justify any manner of violence and militarism by their own side, could possibly spend so much time pointing to others and depicting them - those people over there - as the embodiment of violence and savage aggression. But at some point I realized that it's precisely because they continuously justify so much violence and aggression from their side that they have such a boundless compulsion to depict others as the Uniquely Primitive and Violent Evil. That's how they absolve themselves. It's how they distract themselves from the reality of what they support and what their governments do in the world. And it's why few things produce quite as much personal resentment and anger than demanding that they first gaze into a mirror before issuing these absolutist denunciations about others.

Byrnzie

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... lamophobia

'What is indisputable is that there were no jihadist attacks in Britain before 9/11, itself claimed as a response to US support for Arab dictatorships, Israeli occupation and murderous sanctions on Iraq. Wars supposedly fought to keep Britain safe have been shown to do the exact opposite.

Given the bloodshed, torture, mass incarceration and destruction that US-British occupation has inflicted on Afghanistan and Iraq, and the civilian slaughter inflicted in the drone war from Pakistan to Yemen, the only surprise is that there haven't been more terror attacks.

...The wars should be ended because they are wrong and a failure – but also because they fuel terrorism and divide communities.'

Eilian

Byrnzie wrote:

Eilian wrote:

Conceded - not ALL Muslim women have an archaically oppressive time of it. Not ALL Muslims consider murdering infidels an inescapable duty. However, those that do are scripturally justified and given that there are 2 billion Muslims, even the smallest percentage should warrant your concern.

So in your delusional, self-serving scheme of things. 2 Billion Muslims are 'scripturally justified' in murdering 'us'. This convenient fantasy must be a great fuel for your Islamophobia. Does this keep you awake at night? Did your countries ludicrous fear-mongering about the Communist menace creeping into your living room also keep you awake at night, or are you too young to remember that particular round of state-sponsored bullshit?

Eilian wrote:

Could you explain that last bit please? What benefits am I enjoying?

I'm under no delusion. Neither am I prepared to defend every military excursion into the Muslim world - you are attributing to me, opinions I have not stated. I don't mind telling you that the potential repercussions of religious belief, from Islam to Christianity and all points between, concern me greatly. Because, just as a Christian could find warrant for stoning rape victims to death in the Old Testament, the Muslim can justify all manner of atrocity with reference to the scripture.

I enjoy little benefit however, in recognising that I am far less likely to find Christians pelting women with stones than I am Muslims murdering or even just threatening murder for reasons as trivial as a cartoon. The suggestion made by the toadying clack of sycophantic apologists you keep citing, especially George Galloway, that we bear responsibility for terrorist actions, as if things would be different if we hadn't been so mean to them is repellent and whether you intend it to or not, pangs of sympathetic agreement with their "retaliation".

You seem more likely to argue against points I've not made than digest the ones I have - were this not the case you'd appreciate how unreasonable it is to dismiss my concerns as "fantasy".

Yes, I am too young to have lost sleep over the threat of Communism.

Byrnzie

Eilian wrote:

The suggestion made by the toadying clack of sycophantic apologists you keep citing, especially George Galloway, that we bear responsibility for terrorist actions, as if things would be different if we hadn't been so mean to them is repellent and whether you intend it to or not, pangs of sympathetic agreement with their "retaliation".

Of course it's repellent to you, because you believe that 'we', in our superiority, have a right to inflict massive violence on 'them', and if those on the receiving end of that violence (or those of the same religion who are sympathetic to their plight) decide to retaliate then it must be due to some intrinsic hatred and violence inherent in their culture or religion. Never mind ten years of aerial bombardments, and the ransacking of their countries. To consider that they might have a problem with that and want to retaliate is just 'repellent', right?

Eilian

Byrnzie wrote:

Eilian wrote:

The suggestion made by the toadying clack of sycophantic apologists you keep citing, especially George Galloway, that we bear responsibility for terrorist actions, as if things would be different if we hadn't been so mean to them is repellent and whether you intend it to or not, pangs of sympathetic agreement with their "retaliation".

Of course it's repellent to you, because you believe that 'we', in our superiority, have a right to inflict massive violence on 'them', and if those on the receiving end of that violence (or those of the same religion who are sympathetic to their plight) decide to retaliate then it must be due to some intrinsic hatred and violence inherent in their culture or religion. Never mind ten years of aerial bombardments, and the ransacking of their countries. To consider that they might have a problem with that and want to retaliate is just 'repellent', right?

Your inability to read is putting me at risk of tediously repeating myself. It is repellent not because we are automatically justified militarily - I thought it would have been abundantly clear that I do not feel this way from my last post - but because it suggests tacit support of their actions. It also suggests that if they didn't believe themselves to be divinely instructed to do it, they would still consider their actions appropriate - which, frankly, cannot be believed by a thinking person.

You content yourself with arguing straw men.

dignin

Thirty Bills Unpaid wrote:

dignin wrote:

bootlegger10 wrote:

Why isn't destroying the environment natural? If evolution is the accepted truth amongst those who have the uncanny ability to understand what happened billions of years ago, and we are just a collection of cells and nothing more, how can we possibly make natural or unnatural decisions? We are just existing as cells doing what cells do apparantely. Whose to say that humans were destined to inhabit the earth, or that oil in the earth was never intended to be burned? Was the earth destined to remain at certain temperatures and in a certain condition? Maybe over the lifespan of the earth it is natural for species to come and go (like dinosaurs for example).

For serious? You actually believe this?

Why is this so difficult to believe? This comment isn't a stretch by any means. We like to think we are pretty awesome, but it's safe to say that we have a heightened sense of self worth. It might be a fact that we are doing exactly what we were supposed to do given our state of evolution.

It is a stretch.

We have lived within the confines of our environment for thousands of years without destroying it on a global scale. It hasn't been till the last 200 or so years that we have changed our climate globally.

To say that any species evolves to want to kill itself is a little ridiculous.

Over the lifespan it is natural for species to come and go.....but unlike the dinosaurs....it is not natural to extinct ones own self. Can you find an example of this anywhere else in nature?

You also know you are arguing on the side of someone who apparently doesn't believe in evolution right?