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Not a single post on Wednesday's tragedy?

Then what do you do when somebody wants to ban what you say?

Who gets to make that call? One of my favorite movie quotes:

William Roper: So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!

Sir Thomas More: Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?

William Roper: Yes, I'd cut down every law in England to do that!

Sir Thomas More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man's laws, not God's! And if you cut them down, and you're just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake!

Wait, what? When was it that someone argued for a law that banned anything?

By the way, in real life More was an intolerant asshole who had people tortured and burned at the stake because their obscure religious doctrines differed from his. He's the worst possible example of the beneficent rule of law, notwithstanding what's claimed in the hagiographic "A Man for All Seasons".
 
My heart really hurts for the families and friends of those who were shot and killed. This young man was very troubled and was not living in reality. He said the reason why he did this was because he thought blacks were ruining the country. Why would he pick church going people then? It could be because they were easy targets since they didn't have guns. If he had gone into the inner city where there are gangs they would have shot and killed him after he shot two rounds.

Indy "conservative" radio talk show host Greg Garrison took a similar position this morning regarding guns.

He said shootings like this are bound to occur and those attending a church without a gun are both not facing up to reality and are irresponsible.

I put conservative in quotes because I don't think Garrison has the right to speak for conservatives in spite of his self proclaimed right to do so as endorsed by the station which hired him. The station of course looking for ratings which apparently the station thinks Garrison can provide.
 
Wait, what? When was it that someone argued for a law that banned anything?

By the way, in real life More was an intolerant asshole who had people tortured and burned at the stake because their obscure religious doctrines differed from his. He's the worst possible example of the beneficent rule of law, notwithstanding what's claimed in the hagiographic "A Man for All Seasons".
Yeah, I never understood the love for Sir Thomas. Thomas Cromwell would be the better idol for the American thinker.
 
Indy "conservative" radio talk show host Greg Garrison took a similar position this morning regarding guns.

He said shootings like this are bound to occur and those attending a church without a gun are both not facing up to reality and are irresponsible.

I can't wait to go to church to hear my pastor's sermon Sunday. I can guarantee you he won't he advocating anyone coming to church armed.
 
That's because yo
Yeah, I never understood the love for Sir Thomas. Thomas Cromwell would be the better idol for the American thinker.
It's the words in the quote

That are important. It doesn't matter if it's fiction or history. BTW, I like some Shakespeare quotes too, also the Wizzard of Oz and Alice in Wonderland. I'm pretty sure those are all fiction.

You
More nonsense.

I love history, particularly including the history of the Civil War. We should absolutely teach this history. But -- speaking as Mr. Obvious now -- I'm not arguing against history. I'm arguing against monuments that glorify the villains of history. How can this obvious distinction escape you?

And I suggest that you re-study the history of the Civil War. It was fought because the Confederate States could not countenance any restraints on the expansion of slavery in this country. They rebelled against the Constitution of the Framers to preserve their right to buy and sell people like cattle. By all means, let's memorialize that history in South Carolina, the first secessionist state, which still flies the rebel flag. In lieu of martially triumphant memorials to the loser Robert E, Lee, let's have memorials to the brutal slave markets where slave families were broken apart. That would be an excellent way to repurpose the wasted RE Lee materials into something that more closely resembled the actual history.
Yeah, I never understood the love for Sir Thomas. Thomas Cromwell would be the better idol for the American thinker.
Yeah, I never understood the love for Sir Thomas. Thomas Cromwell would be the better idol for the American thinker.
Yeah, I never understood the love for Sir Thomas. Thomas Cromwell would be the better idol for the American thinker.
 
Yeah, I never understood the love for Sir Thomas. Thomas Cromwell would be the better idol for the American thinker.
It's the words in the quote
That are important.

It doesn't matter if it's fiction or history. BTW, I like some Shakespeare quotes too, also the Wizzard of Oz and Alice in Wonderland. I'm pretty sure those are all fiction.
 
And your reponse is equally nuts

The kid was crazy. Maybe not legally crazy, but crazy. IIRC, you said Maj. Hassan acted not because he was a Muslim, but because he was off his rocker. What is the difference?

(1) He may have been crazy, in the sense that all mass murderers are to varying degrees, but there's a reason he chose a black church to unleash the crazy. He had embraced a neoconfederate ideology and was a full-bore racist. Are you really denying this? Have you not read the news?

(2) I have no idea what I said about Hasan, though the fact that you think there are two mutually-exclusive explanations called "because he was off his rocker" and "because he was a Muslim" demonstrates both your simplistic views on this as well as your religious prejudice (as though simply being a Muslim is a motivation for violence). In any event, had the US government been flying the flag of Al Qaeda at the time, I'm quite sure that I would not have dismissed criticism of that decision as silly, lightweight, etc. Of course, the US government would never have flown the flag of Al Qaeda because, with the notable exception of the Confederate flag, no one thinks it's a remotely sane idea for the government to proudly display symbols of violent oppression.

And what about you? Was it your view that Hasan was just crazy, or do you conveniently reserve that judgment only for mass murderers who are white males like you? Would you have been cool with the US government flying the flag of Al Qaeda, or is this the reference to Hasan just an irrelevant digression?
 
It's the words in the quote
That are important.

It doesn't matter if it's fiction or history. BTW, I like some Shakespeare quotes too, also the Wizzard of Oz and Alice in Wonderland. I'm pretty sure those are all fiction.
Whatever, but you can't deny there's this strange Thomas More fetish out there among Americans. I suppose it's the noble and courageous way he met his maker more than anything that people respect.

Well, that and Utopia. If More had governed the way he'd written, he might have never lost his head.
 
Stay focused Rerun

If a young, crazy, anti-semite kid, who was drugged, were to commit murders in a New York synagogue, and some commentator said this proves NY needs to take down a Nazi flag, I'd indeed say that is a light-weight response to the killing.

From a broader perspective, why should any flags besides the state flag and US flag be flying over any state capital? I don't get it.

Secondly, this country is too large, too populated, too diverse to be a democracy. It's time to break apart the union. How can you govern when S. Carolina is in the same country as NY and California?

Thirdly, how can anyone possibly believe in god after living this? I'd like to see the media bring a bigger discussion on religion into this. Religion is a sham. Also, why is everyone and their mother a reverend?

Fourthly, I expected we would see "race wars". The commentary from all sides is vitriolic. Too many bigots with too much time on their hands.

And to goat... I don't think poor whites in Appalachia are any better off than blacks. Most of these whacky honkys are poor too.
 
(1) He may have been crazy, in the sense that all mass murderers are to varying degrees, but there's a reason he chose a black church to unleash the crazy. He had embraced a neoconfederate ideology and was a full-bore racist. Are you really denying this? Have you not read the news?

(2) I have no idea what I said about Hasan, though the fact that you think there are two mutually-exclusive explanations called "because he was off his rocker" and "because he was a Muslim" demonstrates both your simplistic views on this as well as your religious prejudice (as though simply being a Muslim is a motivation for violence). In any event, had the US government been flying the flag of Al Qaeda at the time, I'm quite sure that I would not have dismissed criticism of that decision as silly, lightweight, etc. Of course, the US government would never have flown the flag of Al Qaeda because, with the notable exception of the Confederate flag, no one thinks it's a remotely sane idea for the government to proudly display symbols of violent oppression.

And what about you? Was it your view that Hasan was just crazy, or do you conveniently reserve that judgment only for mass murderers who are white males like you? Would you have been cool with the US government flying the flag of Al Qaeda, or is this the reference to Hasan just an irrelevant digression?
Most importantly, I'm bothered by COH's implication that "He's a Muslim" and "He's a white supremacist" are morally equivalent.
 
And to goat... I don't think poor whites in Appalachia are any better off than blacks. Most of these whacky honkys are poor too.
So what?

Blacks are poorer, on average. That's a fact. If you're trying to claim that Roof couldn't be expected to view the world from beyond his own small experience of it, you might have a point.
 
Yes. We should tear them down. There is no reason why monuments to racist traitors should remain as symbols of misplaced respect. A better memorial to Robert E. Lee, for example, would be something like the moving Vietnam War Memorial that paid tribute to those who died to end the pernicious influence of both himself and all those like him.

As an American, I despise the Confederacy. By all means melt them down. Your argument is like Germans demanding the protected heritage of the swastika.

Amen. The fact that these things are so deeply embedded in our public institutions that it's hard for Co.H to imagine getting rid of them is precisely what is so maddening about it.
 
Most importantly, I'm bothered by COH's implication that "He's a Muslim" and "He's a white supremacist" are morally equivalent.

Yeah, that's what I was trying to capture here: "I have no idea what I said about Hasan, though the fact that you think there are two mutually-exclusive explanations called "because he was off his rocker" and "because he was a Muslim" demonstrates both your simplistic views on this as well as your religious prejudice (as though simply being a Muslim is a motivation for violence)."
 
Amen. The fact that these things are so deeply embedded in our public institutions that it's hard for Co.H to imagine getting rid of them is precisely what is so maddening about it.
I think this is a trickier situation than we'd like to admit. William Wallace, Owain Glyndwr, Guy Fawkes and Oliver Cromwell all made the list of 100 Greatest Britons. At some point, you have to look back at your nation's history through the lens of, you know, history.

This would be a lot easier if we had handled reconstruction and civil rights properly, from the beginning. For all the supposed progress we've made, I don't think our country even comes close to the equality and racial harmony that the victors of the Civil War expected to find within a few short years of the war ending. We screwed it up, and turned the black-white problem into an everlasting one, instead of one we could look back at and say, "This is how it once was." If the blacks had actually been truly freed after the war, it would be a lot easier to look at a statute of Robert E. Lee, or even the Confederate flag, as merely an remembrance of history, instead of as a symbol of the wrong side of an ongoing battle.
 
Yeah, that's what I was trying to capture here: "I have no idea what I said about Hasan, though the fact that you think there are two mutually-exclusive explanations called "because he was off his rocker" and "because he was a Muslim" demonstrates both your simplistic views on this as well as your religious prejudice (as though simply being a Muslim is a motivation for violence)."
I know you were. I thought it deserved repetition, because it was singularly disturbing.
 
So what?

Blacks are poorer, on average. That's a fact. If you're trying to claim that Roof couldn't be expected to view the world from beyond his own small experience of it, you might have a point.

Correct.

"That a man like Dylan Roof could look around and see the black community suffering higher unemployment, higher poverty, lower wages, more violence, more incarceration, lower standards of education, lower levels of property ownership, etc., and say to himself, "Yeah, they are what's wrong with this country."

A guy like roof or any of these whacks don't see that. They aren't exactly Harvard grads driving Ferraris. They are usually poor and all they hear is blame Blacky. Blame Obama.

Sadly, the media will beat this to death for the next week until there is another crises and no real change will
occur. A lot of talk and discussion and 0 action on anything.
 
I'll give you points for

Blunt honesty.

For me, the history of the civil war, why it was fought, including the emotions involved, ought to be preserved and understood. This is why I enjoy the Shaara books about some of our war history. He gets into the emotional underpinnings of both sides. Maybe you'd like to exterminate that and replace it with your feelings of more than a century later but not me.

A little over a year ago I posted about a book my son was reading on the the Mississippi government's direct involvement in continuing segregation and the White Citizens Councils filled with virulent racists. The files covered in the book had been recently publicized. The state of Mississippi had sought to keep them from public access, but the courts forced open access. The point I was trying to make had to do with Kennedy's attempt to broker a peaceful end to Ole Miss segregation. (Students at Ole Miss hung a noose around the James Meredith's statue last year.) You, admittedly, took my post in another direction. You could not understand why we had to go over those parts of history again

I'm confused on where you stand. Is it only parts of history that should be studied and absorbed? Is the Civil War worth studying but not the egregious behavior of the southern states to (successful) attempts to deny rights to a large portion of its citizens?

The behavior of southern leaders relative to their black citizens over the next century should also preserved and understood. A nation's history should be viewed in its entirety. The rights. The wrongs. It is how a nation deals with adversity that defines its legacy.
 
Correct.

"That a man like Dylan Roof could look around and see the black community suffering higher unemployment, higher poverty, lower wages, more violence, more incarceration, lower standards of education, lower levels of property ownership, etc., and say to himself, "Yeah, they are what's wrong with this country."

A guy like roof or any of these whacks don't see that. They aren't exactly Harvard grads driving Ferraris. They are usually poor and all they hear is blame Blacky. Blame Obama.

Sadly, the media will beat this to death for the next week until there is another crises and no real change will
occur. A lot of talk and discussion and 0 action on anything.
Well, if you go back to my first foray into this thread, you'll see that I have absolutely been assigning blame to the people in the media and the politicians who have push Roof in that direction. He didn't come up with this all by himself.
 
Yeah, that's what I was trying to capture here: "I have no idea what I said about Hasan, though the fact that you think there are two mutually-exclusive explanations called "because he was off his rocker" and "because he was a Muslim" demonstrates both your simplistic views on this as well as your religious prejudice (as though simply being a Muslim is a motivation for violence)."
I am misusing your otherwise excellent post to hang this repost of what I wish many of us would read.
 
Most importantly, I'm bothered by COH's implication that "He's a Muslim" and "He's a white supremacist" are morally equivalent.

Good Grief

Do you deny strong elements of religioius supremacy in the Muslim faith? Maybe you ought to ask an Armenian about that. Or maybe the First Christians who are being exterminated in ISIS controlled areas of he ME and in Africa as I write this.

You are and your CO.HDS along with Rerun are taking this discussion way off of the rails.
 
I also agree with Ta Nehisi-Coates:

Last night, Dylann Roof walked into a Charleston church, sat for an hour, and then killed nine people. Roof’s crime cannot be divorced from the ideology of white supremacy which long animated his state nor from its potent symbol—the Confederate flag. Visitors to Charleston have long been treated to South Carolina’s attempt to clean its history and depict its secession as something other than a war to guarantee the enslavement of the majority of its residents. This notion is belied by any serious interrogation of the Civil War and the primary documents of its instigators. Yet the Confederate battle flag—the flag of Dylann Roof—still flies on the Capitol grounds in Columbia.

. . . Moral cowardice requires choice and action. It demands that its adherents repeatedly look away, that they favor the fanciful over the plain, myth over history, the dream over the real. Here is another choice.

Take down the flag. Take it down now.

Put it in a museum. Inscribe beneath it the years 1861-2015. Move forward. Abandon this charlatanism. Drive out this cult of death and chains. Save your lovely souls. Move forward. Do it now.​
I have little time for people who argue that the War of Rebellion was about anything except slavery. All symbols of the rebellion are made of traitors and should be treated as the swastika.
 
Good Grief

Do you deny strong elements of religioius supremacy in the Muslim faith? Maybe you ought to ask an Armenian about that. Or maybe the First Christians who are being exterminated in ISIS controlled areas of he ME and in Africa as I write this.

You are and your CO.HDS along with Rerun are taking this discussion way off of the rails.
Good grief, indeed.

For you, "He's a Muslim" is the same as "He's a white supremacist."

You can fathom the possibility that a white person might not be a white supremacist.

You cannot fahtom the possibility that Muslim might not be an Islamic extremist.

I've been trying to get you to own up to this for - what, a year or more? - glad to see you've finally come clean.
 
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Yeah, that's what I was trying to capture here: "I have no idea what I said about Hasan, though the fact that you think there are two mutually-exclusive explanations called "because he was off his rocker" and "because he was a Muslim" demonstrates both your simplistic views on this as well as your religious prejudice (as though simply being a Muslim is a motivation for violence)."

Now you are being simplistic

It is undeniable that simply being a Muslim, for some people, is a motivation for violence. Otherwise, why do you think Iraq fell apart after Hussein went down? It is also true that many Muslims are peaceful and want to live their lives and raise their families like anybody else.

But almost every day we here of people becoming "radicalized" in the Muslim faith. Obama's Justice department is just now starting on a social media campaign to counter the radicalization through that source. Just what the hell does radicalization mean if it doesn't include people like Major Hassan or the kids who blew up the London subways, or the kids who leave comfortable Western lives to join ISIS? These people are Muslims and they are motivated for violence.

The world is complicated. And those who shoot black people because they hate blacks are complicated too.

 
Now you are being simplistic

It is undeniable that simply being a Muslim, for some people, is a motivation for violence. Otherwise, why do you think Iraq fell apart after Hussein went down? It is also true that many Muslims are peaceful and want to live their lives and raise their families like anybody else.

But almost every day we here of people becoming "radicalized" in the Muslim faith. Obama's Justice department is just now starting on a social media campaign to counter the radicalization through that source. Just what the hell does radicalization mean if it doesn't include people like Major Hassan or the kids who blew up the London subways, or the kids who leave comfortable Western lives to join ISIS? These people are Muslims and they are motivated for violence.

The world is complicated. And those who shoot black people because they hate blacks are complicated too.

I take issue with your post. It's not simply being a muslim... there is a specific branch of islam that is responsible for ISIS and 99% of terrorist activities. 1. Sunni. 2. Saudi/Wahhabist/Salafist.

It's extremely rare to read about Shiite terrorism.
 
Good grief, indeed.

For you, "He's a Muslim" is the same as "He's a white supremacist."

You can fathom the possibility that a white person might not be a white supremacist.

You cannot fahtom the possibility that Muslim might not be an Islamic extremist.

I've been trying to get you to own up to this for - what, a year or more? - glad to see you've finally come clean.
You don't know squat

Maybe in our next lives we can have a conversation without you telling me what I think. Your opening sentence doesn't even make sense. How many ways, and how often do I need to say, that not all Muslims are violent extremists before you can understand this very simple concept. You claim to be a person of science and language, but you don't show it with me. Maybe you can take a pill for your CO.HDS.
 
You don't know squat

Maybe in our next lives we can have a conversation without you telling me what I think. Your opening sentence doesn't even make sense. How many ways, and how often do I need to say, that not all Muslims are violent extremists before you can understand this very simple concept. You claim to be a person of science and language, but you don't show it with me. Maybe you can take a pill for your CO.HDS.
You explicitly equated calling someone a "white supremacist" with calling someone a "Muslim" in the context of explanation of violent activity. Your words. Yours. I'm not telling you what you think. I'm describing what you said.
 
I take issue with your post. It's not simply being a muslim... there is a specific branch of islam that is responsible for ISIS and 99% of terrorist activities. 1. Sunni. 2. Saudi/Wahhabist/Salafist.

It's extremely rare to read about Shiite terrorism.

I think you are correct that the Shiite being less aggressive, but the Shia are backers of most of the violence against Israel, not the Saudis. And then the Hezbollah, Shia nationalist, flag. Oh wait, flags don't mean anything, except when they do.
Hezbollah_Flag.jpg
 
You explicitly equated calling someone a "white supremacist" with calling someone a "Muslim" in the context of explanation of violent activity. Your words. Yours. I'm not telling you what you think. I'm describing what you said.

You still dont know squat

I was talking about Major Hassan who was a severly radicalized and violent Muslim. That is undeniable.

You still have a bad case of CO.HDS
 
I think you are correct that the Shiite being less aggressive, but the Shia are backers of most of the violence against Israel, not the Saudis. And then the Hezbollah, Shia nationalist, flag. Oh wait, flags don't mean anything, except when they do.
Hezbollah_Flag.jpg

The Israel issue is a matter of domestic politics for the regime imo. Otherwise Israelis and Iranians have very good, friendly relations.
 
Affirmative action is a preposterous hijack, but your claim that invidious discrimination and affirmative action are indistinguishable is both morally blind and logically invalid. Here is your argument:

(1) Bank robbers use guns.

(2) The police use guns.

(3) Therefore bank robbers and the police are indistinguishable.​

Racial discrimination is racial discrimination. Our unwillingness to recognize this -- and to instead insist on recognizing "good" discrimination and "bad" discrimination -- is a stumbling block to getting to where we (say, anyway) we want to be.

I'm sure Goat is regretful that he hijacked the thread by bringing affirmative action into it.
 
You still dont know squat

I was talking about Major Hassan who was a severly radicalized and violent Muslim. That is undeniable.

You still have a bad case of CO.HDS
So what? Of course he was. The problem is that you find blaming his violent behavior on the fact that he is Muslim - not radicalized, just plain Muslim - to be the equivalent of blaming Roof's violence on being a white supremacist. In other words, in your mind (or at least in your rhetoric - I wouldn't want to claim to know whoa you think, even when it's obvious as all day!) Muslim and Muslim extremist are the same thing.
 
Racial discrimination is racial discrimination. Our unwillingness to recognize this -- and to instead insist on recognizing "good" discrimination and "bad" discrimination -- is a stumbling block to getting to where we (say, anyway) we want to be.

I'm sure Goat is regretful that he hijacked the thread by bringing affirmative action into it.
Get over yourself. I didn't hijack shit.

I suppose it's my fault for forgetting I can't even make reference to something like AA without the Reverse Discrimination Brigade coming out in full force.

I normally like talking to you crazed, but this thread is bad form on your part.
 
Get over yourself. I didn't hijack shit.

I suppose it's my fault for forgetting I can't even make reference to something like AA without the Reverse Discrimination Brigade coming out in full force.

I normally like talking to you crazed, but this thread is bad form on your part.
You've meandered all over this thread like a lazy river, inconsistent from beginning to end. You spend far more time telling others what they think than you do making anything approaching sound arguments, with occasional forays into vain attempts to demonstrate your intellect. You should read more and post less. Much less.
 
So what? Of course he was. The problem is that you find blaming his violent behavior on the fact that he is Muslim - not radicalized, just plain Muslim - to be the equivalent of blaming Roof's violence on being a white supremacist. In other words, in your mind (or at least in your rhetoric - I wouldn't want to claim to know whoa you think, even when it's obvious as all day!) Muslim and Muslim extremist are the same thing.

Good grief. Are you drunk or something?

"
Muslim and Muslim extremist are the same thing". I haven't said this all day. I haven't said this ever. I don't believe this. I've said the exact opposite. I have commented about Muslim victims of Muslim extremists many times. You are making this up now--period. You have been making it up for years. I call you on it each time you bring it up, but you never change. All you do is "know" what I mean and what I say makes no difference. Your alleged proof by talking about my "words" falls apart each time you bring it up. Am I making myself clear, or do I need to draw a picture? Your CO.HDS is overwhelming.
 
Good grief. Are you drunk or something?

"
Muslim and Muslim extremist are the same thing". I haven't said this all day. I haven't said this ever. I don't believe this. I've said the exact opposite. I have commented about Muslim victims of Muslim extremists many times. You are making this up now--period. You have been making it up for years. I call you on it each time you bring it up, but you never change. All you do is "know" what I mean and what I say makes no difference. Your alleged proof by talking about my "words" falls apart each time you bring it up. Am I making myself clear, or do I need to draw a picture? Your CO.HDS is overwhelming.
Then why did you equate calling Roof a white supremacist to calling Hasan a Muslim?
 
You've meandered all over this thread like a lazy river, inconsistent from beginning to end. You spend far more time telling others what they think than you do making anything approaching sound arguments, with occasional forays into vain attempts to demonstrate your intellect. You should read more and post less. Much less.
Who the hell are you?
 
Then why did you equate calling Roof a white supremacist to calling Hasan a Muslim?
Confirmation bias is a bitch isn't it goat

Espeically when you are confirming your biases about conservatives.

I didn't equate Roof and Hasan.

I was CE'ing Rerun about this comment he made:

"Here, the kid acted on precisely the racial ideology that the flag conveys to millions of South Carolinians -- that blacks are inferior and should be subjugated."
For some Muslims, maybe including Maj. Hassan, Islam is supreme, and the supremacy should be enforced with violence and intimidation. My question had to do with how you separate garden variety being nuts from being ideological. As I recall He said Hassan was nuts, but he said Roof was being ideological. The obvious next question to be asked is how do you know the difference?

 
Confirmation bias is a bitch isn't it goat

Espeically when you are confirming your biases about conservatives.

I didn't equate Roof and Hasan.

I was CE'ing Rerun about this comment he made:

"Here, the kid acted on precisely the racial ideology that the flag conveys to millions of South Carolinians -- that blacks are inferior and should be subjugated."

You did it by contrasting him having a problem with you calling Hassan a Muslim. Not an extremist. A Muslim.

Is this really so hard?
 
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