What's new
USCHO Fan Forum

This is a sample guest message. Register a free account today to become a member! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members through your own private inbox!

  • The USCHO Fan Forum has migrated to a new plaform, xenForo. Most of the function of the forum should work in familiar ways. Please note that you can switch between light and dark modes by clicking on the gear icon in the upper right of the main menu bar. We are hoping that this new platform will prove to be faster and more reliable. Please feel free to explore its features.

Obama XIV: President VISTA with SP2

Status
Not open for further replies.
Re: Obama XIV: President VISTA with SP2

John Boehner managed to leave the bars early enough last night to make a "major" speech on the economy today.

Calls for Obama to fire his entire economic team.

House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) called Tuesday for the mass firing of the Obama administration's economic team, including Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and White House adviser Larry Summers, arguing that November's midterm elections are shaping up as a referendum on sustained unemployment across the nation and saying the "writing is on the wall."

Interesting.
 
Re: Obama XIV: President VISTA with SP2

I want to take your class - with that sort of grading on a curve, it should be a cinch to get an A+.

If "Muslim tolerance" increased from 50 to 100 in the last 20 years, then "Christian tolerance" would be around 500 - and yet are still somehow the bad guys in the little drama in your head.

(and this is coming from a guy with THAT in his signature)

In a hundred years, society has seen huge change. And the signs are there that others are going through that change. Believe it or not, that's good news.

And your sig is off base. It totally puts waay too much responsibility on religion and too little on people. Pure and simple, Christ is about love. On the other hand extremists already exist...just as they've been drawn to racism, patriotism, etc, they are also drawn to religion. You have to understand the problem to deal with it.
 
Re: Obama XIV: President VISTA with SP2

He's apparantly gravely ill. But Hitch cuts through the reflexive "pro-Muslinm" BS surrounding "Imam" Rauf to point out a "moderate" he is not.

http://www.slate.com/id/2264770/

Although I don't agree with Hitchins on a lot of stuff, I respect that he makes a real effort to think through and consider different viewpoints and is someone of substance. Hope he recovers.
 
Re: Obama XIV: President VISTA with SP2

Don't play the martyr. You're better than that.

Oh please. Like I care how a loudmouth on the Internet views me personally. I'm talking about the position in general.

The backlash has been dismal because it has been characterized by so much demagoguery and idiocy.

By people who support - and in many cases, outright WANT - the mosque at Ground Zero.

FWIW, I wasn't quoting Paul to appeal to his authority. I was quoting the idea that he phrased so well.

One always has to consider the source.
 
Re: Obama XIV: President VISTA with SP2

Yeah, so these headlines have been popping up for a couple weeks now and I just can't see a case for getting worked up over some muslims building a mosque in NYC.
Let me double check.
Yep, don't care.
For one thing, to me there's no such thing as "sacred ground". For another, we're picking the wrong (and an ineffective/counter-productive) fight.
5mn and William Saletan hit closest to the mark, IMO.
By all means, let's have a thoughtful conversation about Islam and its place in the United States. Let's ask the imam what he means when he says sharia is compatible with the U.S. Constitution. Let's confront the reluctance of Muslim clerics, including this one, to denounce Hamas. And let's demand transparency in the fundraising process so extremists don't finance the new building. Moving the building farther away from Ground Zero won't advance any of these discussions. It's the wrong fight. Let it go.
 
Re: Obama XIV: President VISTA with SP2

And your sig is off base. It totally puts waay too much responsibility on religion and too little on people. Pure and simple, Christ is about love. On the other hand extremists already exist...just as they've been drawn to racism, patriotism, etc, they are also drawn to religion. You have to understand the problem to deal with it.

To put it simply: People fight each other. People do terrible things to each other. It's what we do, it's what we've always done. Take religion out of the equation, and people would just fight over something else (money, land, politics, women, whatever matters to people... you know, the stuff that starts the vast majority of armed conflicts in this world).
 
Re: Obama XIV: President VISTA with SP2

To put it simply: People fight each other. People do terrible things to each other. It's what we do, it's what we've always done. Take religion out of the equation, and people would just fight over something else (money, land, politics, women, whatever matters to people... you know, the stuff that starts the vast majority of armed conflicts in this world).

Hmmm...let's see if I understand your argument: If people didn't hate each other because of their skin color, then they'd hate each other for other reasons, so society is really no better or worse off whether racism exists.

How'd I do?
 
what degree of freedom would you like them to have? sharia law? execution of those who draw cartoons of Mohammed? multiple wives? it really isn't as simple of free practice of religion.

For every solid argument showing opposition to the mosque there has to be one batsh*t crazy one I suppose. Cause Parise knows those of us that support gay marriage also believe that not only should a man be able to marry a 6 year-old boy from Kazhakstan, but his pet llama as well.
 
Re: Obama XIV: President VISTA with SP2

Hmmm...let's see if I understand your argument: If people didn't hate each other because of their skin color, then they'd hate each other for other reasons, so society is really no better or worse off whether racism exists.

How'd I do?

Noting that people fight each other over all sorts of stupid stuff, and always have, isn't the same as saying it is ok or good to do so.
 
Re: Obama XIV: President VISTA with SP2

Hmmm...let's see if I understand your argument: If people didn't hate each other because of their skin color, then they'd hate each other for other reasons, so society is really no better or worse off whether racism exists.

How'd I do?
Actually, probably not too far off, in a weird sort of way. Bob's criticism of your question is still valid, though.

People with hate in their heart will have hate in their heart. If there were no such thing as racism or if we were all one race, it's perfectly reasonable to figure that they'd probably find something else to hate.

Think of two drunk idiots getting into a bar fight over a football game. Does it make sense to blame football for them being the kind of morons who get into a drunken bar fight? Is football responsible for their actions? (Of course not) Would they still have fought each other that same night if there were no football? (Maybe, maybe not) Would they be very likely to get into a fight at some other bar on some other night? (Almost certainly, don't you think?)
 
Last edited:
Re: Obama XIV: President VISTA with SP2

One thing these "isms" give people, though, is a language. Every non-sociopath feels, at some, perhaps inherent, level the Golden Rule is a standard of behavior. At the same time, everybody has a tendency to believe their own **** don't stink. So that's a contradiction, and it's very useful to have a prefab justification for why you feel somebody you have never met is less civilized (racism) or logical (sexism) or caring (sexism again, the other way) or motivated by an appreciation of the transcendent (religious bigotry) than you. The "isms" -- or their socially-acceptable, political equivalents -- give a conceptual framework to grunt "me good, you bad." Mix in resentment and paranoia and, voila, the whole circus of prejudice.
 
Last edited:
Re: Obama XIV: President VISTA with SP2

Noting that people fight each other over all sorts of stupid stuff, and always have, isn't the same as saying it is ok or good to do so.

Very, very true, so it's a good thing I didn't say that. Whew - dodged a bullet, there...
 
Re: Obama XIV: President VISTA with SP2

Very, very true, so it's a good thing I didn't say that. Whew - dodged a bullet, there...

You implied that Exile's statement implicitly said racism is ok, when I didn't read that at all. That's all I was pointing out was that I didn't see anything he said saying "is really no better or worse off whether racism exists" as you imply he said. Glad to help out on that.
 
Re: Obama XIV: President VISTA with SP2

The "no mosques on National Holy Ground" types aren't racist. They're xenophobic*. There's a difference.

(* Or, they're supersecularists -- if they would, say, object to a church there too. Somehow I don't think most of the Fox Assisted Living Community fit this description.)
 
Re: Obama XIV: President VISTA with SP2

hey, maybe we should just bop on over to Jerusalem and plop a church on the Mount, next to the mosque. If we did so, the whole Muslim world would go nuts.
 
Re: Obama XIV: President VISTA with SP2

hey, maybe we should just bop on over to Jerusalem and plop a church on the Mount, next to the mosque. If we did so, the whole Muslim world would go nuts.

Why do people keep bringing up this argument?

Did I miss something? Has Israel adopted our Constitution?
 
Re: Obama XIV: President VISTA with SP2

Thought the whole point was we hold ourselves to a standard we can be proud of, but if you defended water-boarding and elective warfare that's kind of "quaint."
 
Re: Obama XIV: President VISTA with SP2

Why do people keep bringing up this argument?

Did I miss something? Has Israel adopted our Constitution?

That's beside the point, though it's interesting that Israel controls the Mount and has allowed full Muslim control of it, though Israel has a reasonable argument for use of it themselves.

If it's fundamentally right to plop a mosque anywhere, then it should be fundamentally ok to plop a church or synagogue anywhere also. If people were realistic and reasonable, they would acknowledge that certain locations are sensitive to others and would be best to avoid if we care about our fellow man's feelings. But, alas, for the most part we don't.
 
Re: Obama XIV: President VISTA with SP2

Thought the whole point was we hold ourselves to a standard we can be proud of, but if you defended water-boarding and elective warfare that's kind of "quaint."

Yup, let's fire up the death towers and get the beheadings and chopping of hands off and such underway.
 
Re: Obama XIV: President VISTA with SP2

That's beside the point, though it's interesting that Israel controls the Mount and has allowed full Muslim control of it, though Israel has a reasonable argument for use of it themselves.

If it's fundamentally right to plop a mosque anywhere, then it should be fundamentally ok to plop a church or synagogue anywhere also. If people were realistic and reasonable, they would acknowledge that certain locations are sensitive to others and would be best to avoid if we care about our fellow man's feelings. But, alas, for the most part we don't.

Well, since we're in the US and not elsewhere, I can tell you that it is most certainly a fundamental right that you can plop a mosque at any location you could also plop a church. Any restrictions on such land uses would have to apply equally to any faith.

And sorry, I just don't buy your sensitivity argument.

Richard Cohen put it well in today's Post:

When it comes to the mosque that's neither too close to Ground Zero for its proponents nor far enough away for its opponents, the disturbing word "compromise" is now being tossed around. It has been suggested by New York Gov. David Paterson, Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan and, in Sunday's Post, Karen Hughes, once an important adviser to George W. Bush. These are all well-meaning people, but they do not understand that in this case, the difference between compromise and defeat is nonexistent.

This is not a complicated matter. If you believe that an entire religion of upward of a billion followers attacked the United States on Sept. 11, 2001, then it is understandable that locating a mosque near the fallen World Trade Center might be upsetting. But the facts are otherwise. Islam was not in on the attack -- just a sliver of believers. That being the case, those people with legitimate hurt feelings are mistaken. They need our understanding, not our indulgence.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top