Gantz_Playboy said:
Anyone else hear that for the First time in USA History the Credit Rating of the USA has been DownGraded?? from AAA to AA+ – Jimmy Carter is breathing a sign of Relief!

And yet, the the entire world outside of extreme rightwing parts of US media considers this to be a result of the Republicans in the House of Representatives being incredibly stupid about the debt ceiling. In Tea Party land it's Obama's fault…

Republicans: We're fucking up the US credit rating and blaming Obama for it!

I really do hope you choose Michele Bachmann as your candidate. You actually seem deluded enough to think she has a hope in hell. It'd be so much fun to watch.

kudichan said:

Then perhaps George W Bush was a great supporter of self-determination.

And perhaps you should not call it self-determination. It seems like imposition of one's own values. If that's what it is, then call it that.

Of course self-determination requires the ability to decide. If you live under a dictatorship, you can’t do that.

And if GWBs motive for the attacks on Iraq and Afghanistan had been to introduce democracy, and he had had an actual plan to do so, then he could have been seen as a supporter of self determination. Unfortunately, it wasn’t his motive, and he had no plan.

And as for your comments about Islam VS Christianity. The only Middle Eastern arabic country that had some semblance of democracy was Lebanon (until a lot of shit happened to them in the 80s, Thank you PLO, Syria, Israel et al). They were also the most liberal Arab country, by quite a lot. Turkey is, more or less, a democracy and also happens to be relatively liberal (unless you are a Kurd).

And the hardcore Cover-Up-The-Women Stone-The-Unbelievers countries are the dictatorships.

Curious eh? Maybe it’s not Islam that’s the problem but dictatorships.

kudichan said:

And you're not the first Swede I've had an online argument with who felt that he was enlightened and had a duty to educate the rest of the world. Is this missionary/prophet mentality common amongst Swedes?

Actually, I was being ironic, and mainly directed against myself there. So I’d say it’s a general internet communication problem (not hearing tone of voice et cetera).

I was kind bemused you seeme to take it so seriously.

Anyway. For self-determination that, of course, requires real democracy (and real democracy requires extensive human rights, which would limit Sharia quite a lot). Self-determination for dictatorships is an absurd idea.
Other than that, if you believe you mainly have seen leftist praise hamas unconditionally, that’s you. It’s similar to leftist saying they only see the “other side” praising Israel unconditionally.

As for libertarian atheist types praising the religious right for their opposition to militant Islam while pointing out they’re still twits… The main problem there is that the difference, from a liberal/libertarian atheist perspective, between the religious right and militant Islam is fairly minor. The religious right opposes Militant Islam basically because they shout “Allah!” instead of “Jesus!”.

kudichan said:

Oh, but they do want Sharia law! Not for [i]themselves[/i], obviously. But it's multiculturalism and cultural relativism, you see? [i]They[/i] don't want to live like that, but diversity is good, so brown people should live like that. As long as the people subject to Sharia law are in foreign countries or in Muslim ghettos in Europe, then it's beautiful.

I'm right wing now? Economically, yes. But I'm probably far more liberal than you are. That's why I think that both white people [i]and[/i] brown people should not be subject to religious fundamentalist law.

Try to stop thinking in terms of the two party system; something that extremists on both ends of the political spectrum have a problem with is understanding that the world does not fit neatly into two camps. This is actually the reason for this retarded "liberal" practice. The West is bad, so anyone who rejects Western values is good!

And I'm curious as to how you came to the conclusion that there aren't substantial numbers of "liberals" who actually defend Hamas. Have you never read The Guardian? Have you never seen a debate at a university about the Middle East? Have you never seen a left wing political march (even if it has nothing to do with Israel, no left wing march would be complete without the Palestinian flags and support for Hamas). Or have you done these things and repressed the memories because they were too uncomfortable?

Whatever the case may be, your head is buried so deep in the sand that I'm surprised you haven't struck oil.

No. They don’t want Sharia law. Neither do they want it for diversity. In fact, they don’t weant it at all. Not even for, as you say, brown people. Thing is, neither do they want to tell somebody how to live their life. Self determination.

And I doubt you’re more liberal than me. Neither you nor I want religious fundamentalist law. But you are kinda crazy and actually believe leftwingers want that, when what the leftwingers generally want for others is self-determination; meaning democracy and human rights.

And why the hell would I think in terms of a two party system? I’m Swedish, we have actual democracy here. ;)

As for defending Hamas, we went through this before. Sometimes, you have common goals with somebody. That doesn’t mean you have all goals in common. If you defend the good things Hamas does (yes, there are plenty of those) it doesn’t mean you defend the bad they do (plenty of that too). In fact, most leftist are quite clear about that.

Just turn it around… Somebody defends Israel’s right to exist… How often do you see the response “So you support the killing of Palestinian children?”.

Isn’t this bloody obvious? Do people actually, really, don’t understand that just because you defend something good/right somebody does, and admoinish the bad/wrong, does not mean you defend the thing as a whole?

kudichan said:

Yes they are.

I don't ally with them; I merely have interests that coincide. Believe it or not, it's possible for the religious right to be correct about something; even a broken clock tells the right time twice a day. If you had any sense of perspective, you'd see that the religious right in the US, fucktarded though they are, are nowhere near as bad as half of the mainstream political parties in the Islamic world. The Westboro Baptist Church's claims about sexuality wouldn't raise an eyebrow in Saudi Arabia.

However, a huge number of left-wing people in the West (particularly in Europe, but the disease is spreading across the Atlantic), seem to give their full support to groups like Hamas. They don't think that Hamas are a bunch of idiots who just happen to be correct in saying that some of Israel's actions are harsh; they embrace them.

No. It’s you projecting, and making up a straw-man. Sorry. It’s merely interests that coincide.

Feel educated, now that your mind has been opened. “You mean… They agree with things they agree with and disagree with the things they disagree with… Just like me? And all this ‘they support Hamas fully, they want Sharia law!!!!’ is just me being ignorant? I never knew!”

Your stuff about feminists defending ffemale circumcision… yeah, right. Dig up a loony that calls her feminist that does, and I’ll dig up plenty loonies on your side.

Of course, you may mistake somebody _explaining_ something with somebody _defending_ something. It’s a common mistake rightwingers do. They think understanding something means you like it…

kudichan said:
They're the only ones who need to be [i]told[/i] to watch out, and therefore they get singled out. People on other parts of the political spectrum generally don't side with people who want to destroy their way of life or even kill them. This is a uniquely "liberal" problem.

And yet you ally with the religious right, who would ban this site in an instant if they had the power. Could it be that people don’t join sides, but merely have interests? Sometimes they coincide, then you co-operate on that. Other times you don’t. Then you don’t co-operate on that.

It’s the American Right which is so deeply into identity politics that they can’t see this. They only think in terms of groupings. If a group they have decided to dislike have some opinions that are good, those opinions must be bad because they have decided to dislike that group.

It’s the Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter level of politics.

Looking through what age which you can marry in the US… One thing a lot of US states have in common with certain Middle Eastern countries is that the age limit is lower for females than for males.

“Massachusetts: 18 for first marriage, 14 (male) 12 (female) with parental and judicial consent.”
“Mississippi: 17 for males, 15 for females, no minimum with parental and judicial consent.”

And so on.

Oh, America…

Sometimes, the difference between these forums and FreeRepublic is less than clear.

So much Crazy Paranoia.

sifian said:
The notion that dogs and cats should not be eaten is a moronic appeal to emotion. It's unsettling to think of eating one's companion, and I surely don't condone eating the family pet, or stealing someone's pet for food, but beyond that, there is no reason not to eat dogs and cats.

Dogs and cats are both carnivores. There IS a good reason to not eat cat or dog meat.
Horse meat, on the other hand, is quite fine, and having a problem with eating it is purely emotional.

[url=http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/b9/MagrittePipe.jpg]Ceci n’est pas une pipe.[/url]

GTR said:
Why does every Japanese website seem to be straight out of 1990s Geocities?

Because some people know that having their website take 1+ gigabyte to run is idiotic? (Yeah, looking at Sankaku Complex. For every idiotic thing I block, 3 new are added).

tingle said:
Why are all the Nordic royalty not blonde hair blue eyes? I figured if they have a uniquely scandinavian bloodline with lots of inbreeding they would be all nordic looking.

Part of it may be due to people not knowing anything about the nordics (black hair being very common, and having been so for millenia, in parts of Sweden and many parts of Finland for example). Part of it may have been ignorance about how the royal lines of Europe crossbreeeded. Part of it may have been due to people not knowing both blue eyes and blonde hair are from recessive genes. Part of it may have been due to general American Ignorance. Most of it probably due to all of the above.
Trick question: What hair colour did Thor have according to Old Norse mythology?
(Not to mention the current Swedish line of kings was adopted from France in 1818…)

Being boring and checking actual facts (Swedish sources, yo)… The game in question was NOT banned. It was the publisher deciding not to release it in Sweden, due to fear it might be.
Somebody apparantly reported it to the police under the child pornography law, and the comment from the police was that they wouldn’t proceed with the case due to lack of evidence, since “a girl in a g-string is not porn”. Nevertheless, publisher got cold feet or somesuch.
http://feber.se/spel/art/210805/inget_dead_or_alive_dimensions/

Facts, Getting in the way of a good story since forever :/

Fox, CNN, MSNBC, ABC, whatever…

It always amuses me no end when Americans think their local news networks have even the combined spread, reach and influence of BBC.

So many Americans are so… parochial :)

Don’t ever stop!

“I don’t know where bin Laden is. I have no idea and really don’t care. It’s not that important. It’s not our priority.”
- G.W. Bush, 3/13/02

jamesownsall said:
I mean, how could anyone take them seriously about 'defending religion' when they put little boys to dance in female clothing and sometimes rape them?

I’m confused, are we talking about Catholics here?