Willie71

Instead of focusing on getting rid of the religion, maybe promoting the social conditions that decrease religiosity. Decreasing poverty, fear, instability, and increasing standards of living, improving education and access to education, oh yeah, and stop bombing the shit out of everyone or supporting brutal dictatorial regimes would go a long way to shifting toward secular society. Iran was quite secular until the US got involved a few decades ago. People think of the middle act as a bunch of guys in tents with camels in the desert. That is pretty far from the truth.

Easy to read, well organized, and quite insightful the only criticism is that Danahar makes little effort to hide his feelings about Bush II. While well deserved, it seemed out of sync with an otherwise really well written book. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17287002-the-new-middle-east

This situation requires a hybrid response, much like the NCR status we have in Canada. Nothing wrong with removing a driver's licence or secure treatment (if they agree) or jail time. Not all drunk drivers are addicted to alcohol. The opportunity to treat an addiction must be present as punnishment as deterrence is not associated with success at all. I don't mean the Mickey Mouse D&A groups run by correctional officers. I mean evidence informed treatments by qualified professionals.

That's too bad. You had an opportunity to dramatically increase your understanding here. I was looking through my book collection last night to see what I could recommend as a primer on the Middle East. I even picked a book to recommend.

Or in the case of western barbarism, drones and missiles.

Let's be clear. If you want to hold on to ideas that contradict what the evidence shows, education might not be the best option for you. That's OK. Education is about broadening perspectives and learning new things. Regarding BLM. They are correctly stating that black lives have not mattered to the police, and that needs to change. I'm not sure why this is so hard to understand. The propaganda that black lives matter believe they matter more than other lives is absurd, calling into question the intellectual honesty of those who propagate those views.

Drug abuse is a medical issue, not a criminal issue. Trying to screw a nail in with a screwdriver tends not to work very well. Use the right tool for the job, which needle exchange programs do.

Tampitump tried unsuccessfully to show that all followers were following a monolithic ideology, demonstrably false. He claimed it was the ideology that was the problem, not the people. This is getting confusing as the goalposts seem to keep moving.

To the OP, liberals criticize Islam all the time. We just don't generalize it to all of Islam or all Muslims. The argument that seems to offend the conservative minded is the defence of the majority of Muslims who are not radical fundamentalists. Liberals have a bias toward supporting the underdog, and in western culture, Islam is demonized and somewhat powerless. Liberals do not have that manichian perspective that is inherent in conservatives. Defending most Muslims from persecution =/= defending radical fundamentalist Islam. We should have learned something from WWII. Trump certainly did.

Your argument is that the idea of Islam is dangerous. What you miss is there is no idea of Islam. It's a red herring. Islam is a diverse, dynamic, multifaceted belief system with multiple expressions. Do you understand why the idea of Islam is nonsensical? We all agree that a literal interpretation of the qoran is dangerous. You are arguing all Islam is like this. That is an unsupportable position.

You realize the people leaving the Middle East to come to western countries are RUNNING AWAY FROM the fundamentalism, right? You claim to know what mainstream Islam is about, but you haven't read the Qoran. This is puzzling. As I said, I think all these fairy tales are harmful, but singling one out is problematic. There are a lot of Muslims in my area. None of them live by sharia law. Women have jobs and use birth control. How do you explain that? Your evidence is a pew research poll of middle eastern countries. Have you read the description of the polling, and what the numbers mean? The questions were likely to result in an overrepresentation of pro fundamentalist endorsements for several obvious reasons. The most glaring problem is the issue of endorsing an idea is different from acting on it. Your Christian friends are a prime example. Ask then if God's law supersedes man's law, and most will say yes, because that is what they were indoctrinated with. Yet they wouldn't stone adulterers. You must be aware that the Middle East was much more secular a few decades ago, until western forces overthrew secular governments to get cheaper access to oil, followed by Reagan propping up.Wahabbists in the 80's to "fight communism." The extremism you see today was finally brought to fruition with Bush II's crusade toppling any stability that might have existed in the Middle East. I'm not excusing the garbage that happens, but we doused the embers in gasoline and took a blow torch to it, with predictable results. Just a suggestion. You have made some strong statements about how you hold the truth regarding Islam that everyone else doesn't get. There are many extremely well read and knowledgeable people here. The wealth of information you could learn from these people for free is unprecidented. I belong to a few forums, but this one is the classiest and most evidence informed forum on the web, in my honest opinion. I am no expert on the Middle East, but am much better informed than what you are currently referencing. I lost respect for Sam Harris when he became a neocon on Islam. He is very well informed on a lot if issues, but it seems he saw the dollar signs and sold out on this topic. There is big money in Islamic fear mongering. He totally lacks knowledge of the history, or the nuance in the situation. Totally below what he brought to the table previously.

Subconscious refers to the motivations and memories influencing thoughts and behaviours without being in conscious awareness. This cones from the largely debunked Freudian and psychodynamic theories. There are much more sophisticated understandings now that call into question the idea that we even have free will, that free will is an illusion. Unconscious means a lack of consciousness, like being in a coma, or knocked out cold. Totally different things.

You are not being criticized for criticizing an idea. Islam is a complex evolved and evolving religion. It is not a single monolithic ideology. The failure to distinguish different interpretations as being different ideologies and lumping them togerpther is coming from a place of ignorance. To lump together such a wide variety of ideologies and expressions of ideologies into one monolith meets the definition of bigotry because of this inaccurate generalization. Criticize fundamentalist Islam, especially Wahabbism, and no one will challenge you. Claim fundamentalist Islam is worse in the western world than fundamentalist Christianity, and you will be challenged. Fundamentalist Judaism is problematic in some areas, but simply because there are fewer Jews than Christians or Muslims the net effect is smaller. I'm not sympathetic to any of these fairy tales, but the majority of people who label themselves any of these groups are usually culturally religious, not having ever read the texts themselves. They gather at holidays, know the nice stories, and believe the love, peace, kindness messages that each claim to harbour. To claim the Muslim version of this group is ideologically dangerous is intellectually vacuous.

I'm sure you are also aware that moderate Muslims in the western world are more tolerant of homosexuals and gay marriage than comparable Christians? I'm sure you are aware that right wing terrorist attacks in the western world (often Christians) are far more frequent than Islamic attacks? I typically don't go for the "....but the other guys are worse." argument, but we are comparing western values to supposed Islamic values. The reality is the patriot groups and the Islamic terrorist's are such a small problem in the western world that we should be much more worried about lightning strikes. Keeping people fearful as well as the divide and conquer technique keeps people from organizing themselves to focus on the real injustices that we face, such as Americans being left with Clinton vs. Trump. On the OP, most successful economies are mixed economies. As already noted, some services need to focus on quality over cost, because of vulnerabilities, and others do better with competition. Corporatism creates massive wealth inequality, similar to fascism, which is corporatism plus nationalism. Monopolies are lousy, and on the other extreme, complete government control over the economy doesn't work very well either. There are many examples of successful mixed economies. There are no examples that I am aware of with successful supply side economies, nor successful government controlled economies. Do you have any polling on how many Christians believe the bible's/God's laws supersede man's laws. You might believe the US is a Theocracy looking at those numbers. Sharia law is not any more scary than Leviticus.

And yet somehow, she isn't guilty of destroying evidence or obstruction. Whether the e-mails themselves were a big deal, and I personally don't think they were, except any that might have showed pay to play, is seaparate from how the evidence was handles. I think those are the ones still missing. Don't forget the purgery thing, where she claimed there were no classified e-mails, and that she turned over all of the e-mails. That is verifiable fact that she lied. No security risk? The Russians hacked her? Hmmmm..... Who believes the stupid excuses or the lies. The e-mails seen so far suggest the possibility/probability of pay to play, but that's not the issue. Bush and Cheney weren't convicted as war criminals either. The elite rarely are held accountable. Bush and Cheney weren't convicted as war criminals either. The elite rarely are held accountable. To be fair to Swansort, she did say "largely" not "only." However largely implies the majority, and that is hyperbolic in itself.

The fact is that she was cleared, not that she didn't do anything wrong. Guilty people are cleared, and innocent people are convicted. The verdict is often detached from truth, especially at the extreme ends of the socioeconomic spectrum. What a bunch of nonsense. Did you even read what I posted? This response seems to suggest you didn't read it, or didn't understand it.

Who is the arbiter of what is true or false? I've shown that sworn testimony in a congressional hearing can be false. Sorry, the fact that it is a congressional hearing does not mean the information is factual or unbiased. I am not conflating anything here. I linked the Abby Martin video because it contains multiple issues that have been shown to be factual, regardless of the format it is presented in. Whether Abby Martin was incorrect years ago or not has no bearing on this actual information. Whether it was presented in a hearing, on a blog, or in an empire files report doesn't change whether it's accurate. That is too simplistic a metric. The only inference that can be made by the source is the probability of inaccuracy based on historical accuracy. I already told you the information is hard to get to, and I'm simply not interested in taking a long time to search it out again to show you that you are incorrect. I think you are falling prey to motivated reasoning, and are invested in maintaining your false view of Clinton. You were wrong about the definition of evidence, and you were wrong about congressional hearing sworn testimony. Your haughty responses remind me of the dunning Krueger effect. You appear to not know what you don't know and appear overconfident you are correct.

I rarely agree with you, but on this issue, I do. It also confounds me that Clinton is presented as super qualified but didn't know how documents were marked classified, what the laws were regarding storage of government documents, and claimed to not know what wiping a hard drive meant. "You mean like with a rag?" Or something similar was her quote. I'll have to dig up that video again. Either she's inept, and unqualified, or she's lying through her teeth. I pick the latter. Why smash the blackberries with a hammer if there was nothing to hide? Pathetic apologetics. This might jog your memory on the 'facts" and "evidence" in congressional hearings. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2015/may/21/congress-manufactures-doubt-and-denial-in-climate-change-hearing

Believe what you like. Do you remember how congress handled climate change? You don't believe anyone lies under oath? No political favours were cashed in? No evidence was ignored, mishandled, lost, or destroyed? Yeah, and Cosby, O.J., and the L.A. Rodney King cops were innocent? Sorry, that's simply intellectually dishonest to try to use that as factual information. I get it, you think Abby Martin is biased, but she's pretty much as close as we get to investigative journalists in the modern media. Too bad that's not good enough for you, but the fiction presented in a congressional hearing is "fact."

Here's a definition of evidence: Congressional hearings are factually based? Ok, I see where you are going. Not interested.

Evidence itself isn't biased. That's why I made the distinction of the reporting. I have taken time to look at the reporting in the Empire Files video. It's public record, but it's time consuming to track down. You never did note your source of "unbiased evidence." Care to share with us? You are aware the Empire a Files is a center left/left outlet, not a right wing outlet, right? Criticisms from the left tend to be much more credible on average, and I have not seen a neutral source in years. The better alternative isn't necessarily a good alternative. That isn't a logically sound position. If I was American, I would vote third party, or write in Sanders. In contrast to most people, you think positively of H. Clinton. Not one to argue from the majority, as this is logically weak, but I'm certainly not alone being concerned by a Clinton presidency. Why do you think that is? The left tends to ignore the right wing smears. I don't give much credibility to Benghazi, whitewater etc. and most on the left I talk to do as well. With this much negativity to surrounding her, and recent polls showing her tied with trump, the DNC plan to put their thumb on the scale for Clinton in the primary isn't looking very wise now. This race is way too close for comfort.

What does trump have to do with this? We are talking about Clinton and I've already stated I think trump is worse. This really puzzles me with this manichian view of the world. Where do you find your unbiased reporting? I haven't seen any unbiased reporting regarding American politics in quite a few years. The evidence is the evidence. The analysis and opinion can be discarded.

It's not just an opinion piece. The information presented is public record. It took me months to search out these stories, and they are for the most part accurate. There are a few details that are disagreed upon by different sources, but much like climate science, the trend is clear. I'm not into cherry picking a few holes and calling it a day. It makes no difference to me if you look at reality on this. Inform yourself, or believe the fairy tale that Clinton is a progressive champion and be let down. I'm not going to spend days linking multiple sources for you to dismiss. You can search out each of these points and evaluate for yourself if you like. To say Abby Martin is just opinion is dismissing well established facts like the crime bill Clinton supported, her entanglement with lobbyists and foreign powers, her support of the Iraq war long after most criticized it, her push to intervene in Lybia, push for a no fly zone in Syria, and interventionist push with Iran. Are you denying all of those things? They all fit the policies that Third Way Democrats advocate too, not even a shift from the norm, but this is mysogynistic right wing smear material? Keep deluding yourself. Do you believe all the Clinton Propaganda you hear? I thought I typed "all criticisms." which was my intent. I wasn't clear. My fault.

I never said that mysogyny doesn't exist, did I? Strawman. I have defended Clinton when criticisms are things like her pantsuits, voice, or this last one, not smiling. The money laundering of the Clinton foundation? Couldn't care less if it's a woman or a man. Not being aware of the "actual evidence" of the Clinton corruption means one is engaging in motivated reasoning, or you get all of your news from CNN. Clinton has record low favourability for a reason. It's not just right wing BS attacks.

Yes, I agree with you on the limits of this video. Price has done a pretty good job of debunking a single historical Jesus person in his books and lectures. Given that there were several timelines as to when Jesus would have lived, and Paul's writings never put him on earth at all, I can't see much reason to believe there was a real Jesus who inspired the writings decades later. The Incredible Shrinking Son of Man was one of the more influential books in my historicity journey. I recommend it to anyone new in this journey. Carrier wrote a pretty good book on this topic as well, and I referenced it quite a few pages back. Any pro historical Jesus perspective that I have seen is mostly apologetics, or the argument from incredulity.