BS: A nation founded on injustice?

Subject: RE: BS: A nation founded on injustice?
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 03 Sep 09 - 06:48 PM

LH, I agree with every word you said about the lack of good reason for being in Afghanistan, and Iraq, and in fact anywhere outside our own borders.

Nonetheless, to equate our soldiers with slaves is to denigrate, and debase, a fine bunch of men who have signed up voluntarily to put themselves in harms way in our service, which has cost 220 of them everything they had.

By all means query the actions of the fools and blackguards who have put them where they are, but don't blame a worker for doing his job, when it's his boss that is screwing up.

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: A nation founded on injustice?
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 03 Sep 09 - 06:52 PM

""Not that I disagree with you, overall, LH, but you said that Afghanistan and Iraq are physically and technologically incapable of threatening us at the present time. If 9-11 proved anything, it is that, with when you combine malice, imagination, and determination, you can do a lot with a little.""

Very true! So true, in fact, that terrorists do not need training camps in Afghanistan to function. They can learn all they need to know on the internet.

These are not representatives of any country, so what LH says is largely true.

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: A nation founded on injustice?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 04 Sep 09 - 10:53 AM

My sympathies are very much with the soldiers, Don, as well as with anyone else who gets hurt in these wars. Soldiers go forth with a strong sense of duty and try to do their best, and I recognize that.

Subject: RE: BS: A nation founded on injustice?
From: Amos
Date: 04 Sep 09 - 11:40 AM

LH:

It would indeed have been wiser to treat the 9-11 perps as criminals. But you should not lose sight of the fact that the Taliban of Afghanistan provided them with a baseof operations and covered for them.


A

Subject: RE: BS: A nation founded on injustice?
From: Ebbie
Date: 04 Sep 09 - 12:23 PM

"There are always a few radicals in any society, though, people of exceptional vision and independence of mind, who question such normalities and suggest that they are immoral and wrong. Such radical thinkers are considered "troublemakers" by the vast majority of people around them." Little Hawk, Sept. 2, 12:21 pm

I frequently make the point that a person of his of her age is not remarkable. It is what most of us are.

It is people you describe here that are ahead of their time- and that is why we remember them.

Subject: RE: BS: A nation founded on injustice?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 04 Sep 09 - 01:10 PM

I'm not so convinced of your theory regarding the Taliban's protection of Al Quaeda, Amos. I'm not even so convinced that the people who planned 911 and carried it out really emanated from Al Quaeda camps in Afghanistan. They may have, but there are other possibilities.

In any case, say that there were allegedly some American White supremacists operating some secret camps in Idaho in 2001. Allegedly. And say that a horrible terrorist attack was carried out in 2001 on Russia or China, using hijacked airliners. Next, say that the Russians or Chinese asserted that those attacks had been carried out by people from the White supremacist groups in Idaho....and they extrapolated that to mean that the whole USA was therefore guilty of an act of war on Russia or China, and that they were going to bomb and invade the USA if all the White supremacists (American residents) weren't immediately extradited and turned over for trial in Moscow or Beijing.

What would be the USA's reaction to such a demand by the Russians and Chinese? OUTRAGE, that's what. The USA would tell them to go to hell, and would further ask for irrefutable proof that American residents had committed the attacks in Russia or China.

Say there were no living survivors among the terrorist attackers,   no one that the Russians or Chinese could bring forward and say for sure, "This person did it. And he's one of yours."

The whole situation would be ridiculous. And the Russians and Chinese would never push it that far anyway...because the risk to their own nations would be too great.

So....when the USA decided that Osama Bin Laden was behind the 911 attacks and that he was based in Afghanistan, the Afghan government did a perfectly normal thing that any government would do: they requested that the USA provide evidence to back up its charges. They requested proof. The USA did nothing of the sort. They simply issued the charges and said, basically, "Surrender to our will NOW or we will give you a taste of 'shock and awe'."

The Afghans did what any sovereign nation in the same circumstance would do. They asked for the incriminating evidence. They asked for irrefutable proof. They asked for due process of law. They said that if they were provided with that that they would arrest Osama Bin Laden and his people and try them.

They got none of that, they simply got attacked by the superpower...for something they didn't do, and something they could most likely not have known about or prevented from happening in the first place.

That's ridiculous. No country would have done other than the Afghans did, given the situation.

My town is NOT guilty if a band of criminals secretly based in my town goes and robs a bank in Toronto and kills someone. The police in my town require some kind of evidence in order to get warrants and go out and arrest those criminals. Not just hysterical accusations by Toronto. Evidence.

I believe, Amos, that that war was orchestrated for reasons other than 911...reasons that are still keeping American forces engaged in the Afghan war. I think 911 was equivalent to the Reichstag fire. It enabled a major political/strategic shift to occur by frightening and angering the American public into supporting some very radical policies both domestic and foreign that they would otherwise never have supported.

Subject: RE: BS: A nation founded on injustice?
From: Donuel
Date: 04 Sep 09 - 01:14 PM

Even the most intelligent people sometimes miss a crucial point.



By way of some of the first English immigrants landing on the eastern shore of this continent it is argued that Aneruca was founded on the premise that religious freedom is paramount and could not be attained back home.

When I look at religions I find that all or most of them have injustice built into them.

Islam :       HONOR killings
Babtist :       Women must be subservient and OBEY
Catholicism :   The Pope is infallable and SPEAKS for God
Evangelists :   Some Guy down the street speaks for God
Jewish : The Old Testament... nuff said.

They all teach some form of ' who to hate and why '.


Is it any wonder that Republicans defend most of their polices on the foundation of Christianity? Be it unfair or not to claim that God wants a oil pipe line or defense contract, if one opposes their claim, they will say or imply that you are going against God's word/law.

Its a great scam if you are the one using it, but it is unjust.

Subject: RE: BS: A nation founded on injustice?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 04 Sep 09 - 01:24 PM

There's an ugly side and a beautiful side in most religious traditions. You'll find either one if you look for it. The kindly and loving find the beautiful side. The judgemental and cruel find the ugly side. They both use it in the way that comes naturally to them.

Kind of like a kitchen knife. You can use it to cut vegetables and make a delicious meal for the hungry...or you can use it to cut someone's throat and then take their wallet.

The problem is not in the knife. The problem is in the attitude of the one who uses it.

Subject: RE: BS: A nation founded on injustice?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 04 Sep 09 - 06:07 PM

The Pilgrim Fathers weren't actually for religious freedom in the abstract. They wanted not just the freedom to worship in their own way, but also the freedom to outlaw any other way of worshipping.

Subject: RE: BS: A nation founded on injustice?
From: Donuel
Date: 04 Sep 09 - 09:01 PM

good points you guys


Religious freedom for some did mean that others must be punished if they dared disagree with the leaders freedom. Just like today when Plain pals talk about REAL Americans.

Religion is a knife all right, expcept for the music.
Religion often tends to life's tragic cuts as well as its joys. Living within a framework is a comfort to many. I too celebrate family holidays with a morality play at its foundation. It can be fun and people have an excuse to gather outside the home or market.

however
The God business always becomes intractibly evil in maintaining its own defense and power of long standing laws made by their leaders.

Here I would like to interject:
A law can only take away a natural right and freedom.
A law can not create freedom, it can not create inalienable rights, it can only modify our being.


for example I will cite Catholicism since they claim to have an infallible leader who has an I-phone app to talk to God...

The Pope still outlaws the use of condoms for AIDS infected men who want to have sex with uninfected girls or wives.
Go out and multiply AIDS.

What is the blessing there? Where is the humanity? Is God once again moving in a mysterius way? Is this what we are to expect from God's will? Is this just the sick evil trade off a Pope uses to maintain tradition?

The Pope chooses evil over a sensible decision because they have to maintain the myth of their own infallibility, with the threat of taking away the goodies that they promise by excommunication.
When excomunication was not enough they tortured and killed.

To be balanced I see a similar extremeism among fellow Jews who go around ranking who is a truer Jew or seeking vengengence above all other things in life. The more "reformed" the more rational Jews become, at least in my eyes. When they become reformed enough they become transmogrified athiests with the Jewish culture as an attitude, a knowledge and a wisdom celebrated among friends, family and the world.

People outside religion who merely usurp or pretend to be religious are nearly as evil. Like Madoff's tradeoff selling mostly to Jews or Jim Baker who ripped off Christians. Using religion as a political tool to fool a homogeneous group is so old I am frankly amazed that it is not worn out and that it works today as well as it did thousands of years ago.

Subject: RE: BS: A nation founded on injustice?
From: olddude
Date: 04 Sep 09 - 09:09 PM

Donuel
As a Catholic, I can explain that the church believes the Pope infallible only in the area of the sacraments, confession, communion and the like. They are religious only. Anything else he is speaking for himself. Like most catholic if he wants to talk about confession or communion he has my ear. If he wants to talk about politics etc. he is on his own. Some listen like they do to anyone they agree with, others ignore ... pretty much the same with condom use and the like ... my friend ... Pretty much most churches are off the mark when it comes to God. Me I don't believe I have to go to any church to praise God. It is with me and in my heart not in any leader or building. That is how I see it anyway.

Subject: RE: BS: A nation founded on injustice?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 04 Sep 09 - 10:47 PM

Religion doesn't have to propose a God at all, Donuel. The 3 great religions which arose in the Middle East do feature a God, yes...and so do a great many other religions...while some feature a large number of gods and goddesses (which are sometimes merely symbolic of different aspects of life). But Buddhism and Taoism do not feature a God. Buddhism and Taoism instead propose a spiritual way of life for human beings to directly apply IN their daily lives, a balanced and harmonious way of behaviour that greatly improves one's life if followed wisely and improves one's personal development and destiny.

Have you ever read any Buddhist or Taoist books? If you did, you would not find anything about "God" in them, but you would find a great deal about moral and ethical issues, health issues, techniques for mastery of one's negative emotions, techniques for overcoming negativity, hostility, addictive behaviours, and so on.

Very sensible and moderate stuff, in fact. No "god" is necessary to deal with any of it. Check it out if you have not yet done so.

Subject: RE: BS: A nation founded on injustice?
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 05 Sep 09 - 10:31 AM

""Pretty much most churches are off the mark when it comes to God. Me I don't believe I have to go to any church to praise God. It is with me and in my heart not in any leader or building. That is how I see it anyway.""

Exactly how I see it too, Olddude, Faith, and Religion are NOT synonymous, and churches and priests are not essential to Faith.

I am not by any means religious, but if I were that way inclined, Buddhism would do for me. Respect for ALL life somehow gels with my idea of what a God would want.

Don T.