Biden's Biggest Blunder

Quote: AZDuffman

Nothing we can do about it. Can't make places colonies anymore, and why would we want a colony that costs us money?



You are right about islam, but quit adding the little disclaimer after. When we were fighting communism and the USSR we did not say that "communism is bad but that does not mean the Russian are bad people." We said communism was evil and left it at that. We did not bring in communist refugees and allow them to keep being communist. We made no bones about it being evil.

Today we have a left who hates every religion besides islam, which they defend to the end of the earth. They ignore the brutality of it because they have a bee up their tails about western Judeo-Christian values for whatever reason. They really are weird that way but to explain logic to a liberal is impossible.

100 years ago if we took a place like Afghanistan we would have brought in Christian missionaries to help de-islam the place. It would take 100 years for the project, but the problem would eventually be gone. Today that is not PC.

We are out of there, be happy.

The disclaimer is important, because without it (even with it) people jump all over you with "Islamaphobe" (which is an idiotic term, but that is another story...) Islam is leading to a lot of extremism because of the nature of the ideology.

I don't accept that Christianity taking over a developing country makes it better (look at Africa, a lot of militant Christianity, some very religious Christian countries that are not good places to live).

Theocracy is bad. America is great because it is secular (the first secular country in the world). Secularism leads to peace and openness (and only secular countries can have true freedom of and from religion).

I agree that many on the left feel a weird need to defend Islam (which is off because its about as ultra socially conservative as you can get). And, this is something I have never understood. Some of the right do, but not nearly to the same extent (some of the all religions must be respected crowd). Islam has very (wisely, from a strategic point) niche position of being a religion that bashing it has been deemed offensive (which, to expand on my above comment, is why I don't accept the term "Islamaphobe", especially if you look at the group that "invented" the word). They have done well to shield themselves from criticism, by fooling many people into thinking they are bigoted to be alarmed by certain beliefs.


As for colonies, Afghanistan is/was not a colony (of America), or even an occupation (both are loaded terms, often by anti-Americans). We spent money (and lives) to rebuild a country without direct gain (other than some strategic ground and philosophical goals), we did not go to steal resources or even profit in any way (despite how some frame it). Same with Iraq (which causes more conspiracies around oil), if we went there to take the oil we did a poor job....

Quote: Gandler

The disclaimer is important, because without it (even with it) people jump all over you with "Islamaphobe" (which is an idiotic term, but that is another story...) Islam is leading to a lot of extremism because of the nature of the ideology.

Let them jump all over it, I do not care what people blind to reality think. The ones defending Islam will be the first one's targeted given the lifestyles and beliefs they tend to have.

Quote:

I don't accept that Christianity taking over a developing country makes it better (look at Africa, a lot of militant Christianity, some very religious Christian countries that are not good places to live).

Theocracy is bad. America is great because it is secular (the first secular country in the world). Secularism leads to peace and openness (and only secular countries can have true freedom of and from religion).

Look around the world. Judeo-Christian nations were the first ones to defend human rights. If you are atheist you really cannot even believe in human rights because you deny there is a higher power that gives human rights in the first place. You are confusing a secular government with a secular nation. The USA government is secular, the nation was founded on Christian values and even now mostly remains so. Missionaries would be needed in Afghanistan to de-Islam it the same as we had to de-Nazifi Germany.

But, the USA does not have the stomach for the job anymore. So let it rot. Just keep our boys out.

Quote: AZDuffman

Let them jump all over it, I do not care what people blind to reality think. The ones defending Islam will be the first one's targeted given the lifestyles and beliefs they tend to have.



Look around the world. Judeo-Christian nations were the first ones to defend human rights. If you are atheist you really cannot even believe in human rights because you deny there is a higher power that gives human rights in the first place. You are confusing a secular government with a secular nation. The USA government is secular, the nation was founded on Christian values and even now mostly remains so. Missionaries would be needed in Afghanistan to de-Islam it the same as we had to de-Nazifi Germany.

But, the USA does not have the stomach for the job anymore. So let it rot. Just keep our boys out.

An atheist cannot believe in human rights? Why would a higher power be necessary for human rights?

A secular government is what matters. America is very religious (in my view sadly), but only a secular government can guarantee freedom of religion. In virtually any religious country there is a privileged position for (insert religion here), which puts everyone else at a disadvantage. Even the UK has designated seats in the parliament for the Church of England (something that would be laughed out of the room in America even in the most religious of communities).

I don't know if the nation was founded on Christian values, since that can mean many things (actually I know I would argue it was not in the sense that you mean). It was pretty openly founded on no association with religion. Some founding fathers were clearly Christians, many were not (many were more identified as deists, probably atheists by modern standards, but in the 1700s calling somebody an atheist was equivalent to calling somebody a pedophile now, basically the ultimate slur to somebody's character/morality, IE nobody would actually call themselves an atheist, even to prove a point).

Thomas Jefferson is a great example, and his "bible" is excellent and interesting read (basically an edit of the bible which takes out all of the crazy stories and just sticks with some of the very basic philosophies, which makes it very short, even far shorter, which he allegedly made the first draft by literally cutting passages out of the bible with a knife and pasting together in a more logical manner). Thomas Paine (the best founding father), is an even better example of somebody who is almost certainly an atheist ("The Age of Reason" being overlooked by his more historically popular publications). Even founding fathers who were overtly Christian (George Washington for an easy example), went out of their way to make clear that no religion would be protected or established as an official religion. Even the most hardcore Christian founding fathers had no desire to make this a Christian country. There is a reason the First Amendment of the BOR is the First Amendment, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof...." (it goes on to cover free speech and press which are equally important).

Quote: Gandler

An atheist cannot believe in human rights? Why would a higher power be necessary for human rights?

Because human rights come from a higher power. They are God given, or if you prefer, nature given. Because if they are man given then they can just be man taken. For example, if you do not believe in a higher power and say they are "man given" then by logic you have to believe it is OK for a North Korea to put people in concentration camps because their leader just decided it was OK to do so and since they are the leader that has to be perfectly fine.

To say that there are "human rights" appeals to those rights existing from some kind of higher power since you say they exist naturally and should not be able to be taken away.

You seem to confuse being a "Christian country" with having a Christian theocracy as the government. You need to get over this and understand the difference. I will say it again, Western values tend to be Judeo0-Christian values. The whole idea of human rights comes from those same values. Without them you would have a world that you really would not like. A world pretty like what the USSR was.

Quote: AZDuffman

Because human rights come from a higher power. .

For once, you probably could have said they come from common sense. PETA would have us believe most people aren't recognizing natural rights of animals.

In other words, coming from a higher power is just nonsense. Christianity tolerated slavery. It only means what people think the higher power said it means at the particular time.

Rights are a series of compromises. You can't act like those "free men" who say they are bound by nothing, and will come on your property if they feel like it and eat apples off your tree. But you can't have security so tight and so unforgiving that it's easy to get in trouble.

Quote: AZDuffman

Because human rights come from a higher power. They are God given, or if you prefer, nature given. Because if they are man given then they can just be man taken. For example, if you do not believe in a higher power and say they are "man given" then by logic you have to believe it is OK for a North Korea to put people in concentration camps because their leader just decided it was OK to do so and since they are the leader that has to be perfectly fine.

To say that there are "human rights" appeals to those rights existing from some kind of higher power since you say they exist naturally and should not be able to be taken away.

You seem to confuse being a "Christian country" with having a Christian theocracy as the government. You need to get over this and understand the difference. I will say it again, Western values tend to be Judeo0-Christian values. The whole idea of human rights comes from those same values. Without them you would have a world that you really would not like. A world pretty like what the USSR was.

No, you are confusing secular countries with atheistic countries. USSR and other communist countries were (in some cases are) atheistic (and prohibit all and/or certain religions). Secular means no State religion, but freedom of all religion.

For example UK is not a theocracy, but its a religious country (Church of England, designated voting seats for its Bishops in Parliment, etc....) This is a prime example of a religious country that is developed and Western, with an unfair power balance, but is not a theocracy.

There is a lot of middle ground between theocracy and atheistic (secular being the perfect middle ground, like America).

Western Values are secular, Thomas Paine is a great example of this.

Quote: rxwine

For once, you probably could have said they come from common sense.

Who's common sense? USSR and others thought Gulags to help people "get their minds right" was common sense. Liberals in the USA would probably support such a Gulag system considering how they try to destroy anyone who does not have their mind right and accept liberal doctrine. "Diversity Training" is just a gentile Gulag you can say.

Sorry, but if you do not believe in some kind of higher power you cannot believe in any kind of "natural" rights because it all comes from other humans.

Quote: AZDuffman

Because human rights come from a higher power. They are God given,

Human rights, like all 'rights', come from an agreement. They do not exist anywhere outside of our agreement. A god has nothing to do with any of it. Human rights evolved over a long long period of time. And they are still very localized. In places like Afghanistan human rights as we interpret them don't exist. And they very much believe in some kind of god.

Quote: AZDuffman

Who's common sense? USSR and others thought Gulags to help people "get their minds right" was common sense. Liberals in the USA would probably support such a Gulag system considering how they try to destroy anyone who does not have their mind right and accept liberal doctrine. "Diversity Training" is just a gentile Gulag you can say.

Sorry, but if you do not believe in some kind of higher power you cannot believe in any kind of "natural" rights because it all comes from other humans.

Who's the arbiter of this nonsense of the higher power?

Quote: AZDuffman

Sorry, but if you do not believe in some kind of higher power you cannot believe in any kind of "natural" rights because it all comes from other humans.

Which is where it obviously comes from. Lengthy scholarly books have been written about the origins and history of human rights and some god never enters into any of it. How many 'human rights' violations are there in the Bible, thousands? That's because the idea didn't even exist when the Bible was written.