The rising of a new antisemitism

D_Gunther Snotpole

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Dr Rock said:
moral of the story: moral absolutism doesn't work in the real world. you will never convince, for example, the jordanian or lebanese governments that they should just accept the existence of israel and find something else to do. you'll CERTAINLY never convince any palestinian terrorists to stop attacking israeli targets. sure, it'd be real nice if israel HAD worked out okay and solved more problems than it caused, but after 60 years it's pretty clear that ain't gonna happen. the israeli government are nationalistic scumbags because non-nationalistic scumbag governments can't survive in the middle east, where people are not just ready but eager to massacre each other over the slightest difference of opinion. all that the creation of a jewish state in an arab-dominated region has done has been to make life even more miserable for an even greater (and ever-increasing) number of people, just so that the US and UK governments can have their little power-base in the middle of the world's largest oil-producing region.

1) Through its peace treaty, the Jordanian government has accepted the existence of Israel, as has the Egyptian government.

2) Maybe you're right, maybe no Palestinian terrorist organization will ever stop attacking Israel -- but I don't know how you can be sure of that. (Note: I'm not saying, either, that you can be sure they will stop attacking Israel.)
But there are changes occurring in the Arab world, changes that the Iraq situation has stifled a bit.
Among the intellectual elites, greater willingness to recognize that Arabs/Muslims are responsible for many of their own problems, and that Arabs/Muslims at minimum will have to be the major agents of any improvement achieved.
Among Muslims generally, a greater willingness to speak out forcefully against the hijacking of their faith.
So if we give things, say, 10 years, Dr. Rock, I wouldn't be surprised to see quite an improvement. I'm not predicting it, only saying it won't be nearly as surprising as it might have seemed five years ago.
Of course, things won't move in a straight line.

3) Israel is much more than an outpost of Western economic ambition.
 

ledroit

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Proudly_Italian said:
Well, those 35.000 Jews ARE Italians, and are a part of our nation.

Great post. The true scandal in the 1930s/1940s in my opinion was that Germans or Italians butchered fellow citizens and used religion or ethnicity as an excuse.

In the US right now we have the scandal of straight citizens ready to do exactly the same thing (literally or figuratively) to gay citizens. How is this any different? I think it would take little more than a truly big terrorist attack, radically disrupting the US economy, and you would see its leading right-wing politicians acting like the very best of fascists. Part of the blame for this is just corruption and the uncontrolled lust for power, but another part has to stem from the simplistic US tendency to "locate" fascism in other places, other times, other people. This is a nice way of claiming that it could never, ever happen in the US. That is the great thing about demonizations in general. They become convenient ways of claiming, "I could never do such a horrible thing myself"--without the need to produce the evidence.

Eugenicists in the 1920s (in the US as well as in Europe) claimed spurious scientific authority for their "programs," just like the Bush administration now claims a spurious kind of religious authority for exempting itself from ordinary rules of accountability and international law, whether the topic is Iraq, terror, global climate change, or homosexuality.

Standing by in silence while fascists do this in the US is just as bad now as it was in 1933, when fascists did it in the greatest countries of western Europe. There is nothing ethical at all in claiming you are not accountable to others. And if something is not ethical, it can't be religious nor patriotic.
 

D_Gunther Snotpole

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Mkymkus said:
In the US right now we have the scandal of straight citizens ready to do exactly the same thing (literally or figuratively) to gay citizens. How is this any different? I think it would take little more than a truly big terrorist attack, radically disrupting the US economy, and you would see its leading right-wing politicians acting like the very best of fascists.

What are you saying, Mkymkus? A truly big terrorist attack causing a reaction against gays? I personally don't see any evidence. There has always been the radical fringe that likes to shoot guns into gay bars -- but surely their numbers aren't growing, and are in fact probably falling, given the advances of the last 35 years or so, particularly in the last decade.

The gay marriage issue aside, surely there's more tolerance of gay people than before. We're not at the Promised Land, but yesterday's problems were far more grievous.

But maybe you have some point I've never considered.
 

Dr Rock

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dong20 said:
Well, with respect then so is equating circumcision to Rape and Murder.
assault causing ABH is generally considered to be on a par with rape, at least in this country's legal system. i don't see how else one can define neonatal circumcision.

Rejecting an argument on the grounds that the perpetrator of the crime made an informed lifestyle choice to drive while drunk and hit and possibly kill one or more people somehow makes it less unethical than circumcision?
what? that's a truly bizarre inference. the nature of the crime and the responsibility for it are always the same; the difference in these cases is in the judicial recognition of that. who is responsible for committing the crime? the driver / circumcizer. who is punished by law? the driver. the circumcizer gets off scot-free; in fact s/he gets PAID to commit their crime. only their victims suffer for it.

But in general, circumcision isn't a crime, driving while drunk and killing someone is yet we seem to express less moral and ethical revulsion at '000s of annual vehicular homicides than circumcision!
i don't think so. i would be equally disgusted by either. see above: the reason you hear more people expressing their disgust over circumcision is precisely BECAUSE it's still legal, whereas drunk driving is already heavily penalized under law.

senor rubirosa said:
Through its peace treaty, the Jordanian government has accepted the existence of Israel
... and i believe them. :rolleyes:

So if we give things, say, 10 years, Dr. Rock, I wouldn't be surprised to see quite an improvement.
i doubt the middle east has much more than 10 years left. the entire wretched subcontinent has been circling the drain for some time now at ever-increasing speed.
 

dong20

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Dr Rock said:
assault causing ABH is generally considered to be on a par with rape, at least in this country's legal system. i don't see how else one can define neonatal circumcision.

Yes....that's how you define it. However, currently for much of the world that's not how the law defines it. But from a moral perpective I don't diasagree with you.

Dr Rock said:
what? that's a truly bizarre inference. the nature of the crime and the responsibility for it are always the same; the difference in these cases is in the judicial recognition of that. who is responsible for committing the crime? the driver / circumcizer. who is punished by law? the driver. the circumcizer gets off scot-free; in fact s/he gets PAID to commit their crime. only their victims suffer for it.

Again, your argument is based on a premise that it is a legal crime as opposed to a moral crime, which again for the most part it is not. I know there should be no difference....But the legality/illegality of something makes no difference to whether I am outaged by it.

Dr Rock said:
.....i would be equally disgusted by either. see above: the reason you hear more people expressing their disgust over circumcision is precisely BECAUSE it's still legal, whereas drunk driving is already heavily penalized under law.

A great many things that we find disgusting are still legal, but making something illegal doesn't make it less disgusting, not to me. I'm sure that's not what you mean but I don't measure my morality in terms of the law. I don't believe the two are co-dependent.

Changing the legality of something should have no impact on it's morality, if it's wrong it's wrong, my whole point has been about the degree of wrongness it represents in a broader context.

I do think that the penalties for 'Vehicular Homicide' for example, certainly in the UK are woefully inadequate. If you need examples I'll be happy to oblige. But I don't think penalties are what is of key relevance here. I wasn't really talking about penalties...more the relative impacts of the crimes themselves both on society and the victims.

Before you say so....No, I'm not trying to dismiss the later impact on the infant. I agree with you, I am disgusted by both just not quite to the same degree, that's all I have been saying all along...honestly.:biggrin1:
 

B_dxjnorto

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Rape usually causes no loss of genital tissue. It's a child's first sexual experience followed by amputation, then sometimes a dick sucking holy man. If routine infant circumcision is not rape, what is it?

How do Jewish nationalism and child abuse go together? It has been suggested for centuries that Jewish persons integrate and quit doing these circumpaedophilic things.