TheLeviathan
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Everything posted by TheLeviathan
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I really think we just need a smart liberal to identify the problem and a smart libertarian to solve it. 95% of our issues would be solved just with that simple process.
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Some texts say, in effect "you should kill that guy if....." or "you should chop off that dude's hand if....." What seems to be the issue is not so much interpretation but points of emphasis. For many years the Christians emphasized some pretty hardcore stuff and did all sorts of horrible things. Some still emphasize those same things just with less outward violence. ISIS is taking actual Islam and just picking and choosing the parts that serve it's purposes best. What it believes are the "true" words. And again, that makes is undeniably Islamic at it's core, but it need not speak to the many practicing Moslems around the world who are wonderful people. (And, from my experience, kick ass cooks!)
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And yet it's being made about the author. We probably don't need to go down this route, but most of your response is some of the go-to liberal responses to situations that drive me up the freaking wall. We all know what the righties do with fear mongering and oversimplification. But the left's "I only see it through my prism of the world, so I can't understand" and "it paints all Islam" BS has got to stop. No it doesn't paint all Islam - it paints ISIS. And yes you can understand it, because it uses facts. Calling ISIS Islamic is accurate. Just like calling the Crusades Christian is accurate. When did accuracy and truth take a back-seat to over sensitivity, subjective-only lenses, trigger words, and "isms" for the left? And holy hell when will it stop? I'd like one side of the aisle to at least be mildly palatable to listen to and if neither are going to indulge in facts we're in a lot of damn trouble.
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Yup, the Crusades were definitely Christian. Wasn't the end all be all of that religion either. unfortunately the dominant voices in our country almost all take one ridiculous side or the other. I'm having trouble thinking of anyone able to separate these ideas. I suppose it doesn't help when even an article as relatively factual and straightforward as Wood's gets the lefty treatment. (I'm sure some righties used it to enflame Islamaphobia) Doesnt leave a lot of room for good sense in the discussion.
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I'd love it if Sanders and Rand were left alone to handle most of our major decisions. They'd work out some pretty damn good solutions I think. Neither would make good Presidents, but they're the kind of people we need telling everyone else to shut up and think about what lunacy the party line is taking.
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Exactly. The right is bordering to over the cliff on Islamaphobia. Absolutely. But the left is a pack of hypocrites. They have no problem attacking "Christians" about gay marriage but if you point out that ISIS is Islamic in nature they cry "racism". (A preposterous charge in it's own right) We have to be able to call this what it is without lefties being emboldened to yell "racist" - that has to stop. It's worse than the Islamaphobia in some respects because that response is just stupid overreaction. The left's response is more calculated and....I can't find the word for it but sinister comes to mind. Islam is being corrupted for many reasons social/political/economical/etc. It has nothing to do with the true nature of the religion that it is so frequently being used as a catalyst for horrific violence. But IT IS being used as such. It is a central cog in what these zealots are doing. Ignoring that or over generalizing it to all Islam are the absolute heights of stupidity.
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Rand Paul calling out Republicans on military spending is a HUGE moment. He isn't going anywhere in this election, but man I hope he stays in it to keep needling Rubio and others on those policies.
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I think part of what makes them fearsome is their religious zealotry. Their version of Islam is central, but it need not be an indictment of all Islam. The inability to make that distinction is very problematic.
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I'm going to need an actual quote....I'm not sure where you got that from.
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Most of the decrying has been the "yeah but it's not REAL Islam". I haven't seen many disputes of facts, only disputes about interpretations of Islam. To that I have two things to say: A) Most all religions end up being interpreted by each individual. The One True _______ isn't really a thing for any religion on the planet. This author's point wasn't that this is The One True Islam, it's that ISIS believes it is and many of their beliefs have basis in the religion. Sure, ISIS might be picking and choosing what it wants out of the Koran.....but, really, how common is that? Christians do it all the time. That's what holy books are - vague, full of contradictions, and moldable into what you want to make it personally. Getting caught up in the "right way" to read something is a bizarre way to approach religion IMO. So it's not a good interpretation of Islam - so what? Where does that get us? Wood's article lets us understand how they think, what they believe, what motivates them. That's the stated value of the piece. And that has value. Getting caught in some politically correct back and forth about what is or is not a good interpretation completely misses the damn point and provides nothing to the situation.
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I wasn't suggesting you were, sorry if it came off that way. Was talking of the more general reaction in your link.
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Berardino: Vargas Drawing Interest In Asia
TheLeviathan replied to Nick Nelson's topic in Minnesota Twins Talk
Yeah, not sure I see an upside to this. Seems like the worst kind of giving up I could imagine for a player with his team control and valuable assets as a player. -
Also, I think Wood's response article is interesting.
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I guess I just don't see much value in deliberately white washing their beliefs because of those (likely already) Islamaphobic people. I think what he did to boldly lay out just how whacked out they are has tremendous value. He shouldn't have to run from truth for the sake of hurt feelings.
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He's not saying this is THE end-all be-all of Islam for all time. But it is for these guys. What difference does it make what the rest of the Muslim world thinks about it? If we want to understand ISIS, we have to understand how they think. What they believe. We have so damn many people rushing to the front to say "No....that's not what Islam is really about!" I really don't care. I'm not looking to condemn all Muslims, just these violent bastards. All I care is that if there is a horde or murdering, raping zealots on the loose - what do THEY believe about themselves? That's far more telling way to look at things and a far better prism for understanding them. Getting lost in a web of interpretations about what is "really" Islam is just a fool's errand IMO.
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The Front Office and Settling For Mediocrity
TheLeviathan replied to DaveW's topic in Minnesota Twins Talk
I agree on the selling point being right, not sure on the return yet. Going to let that play out a bit. I don't think it's automatically a fail like many seem to here. -
Many cults and religions have walked themselves gladly to the gates of the apocalypse confident they were right. Religion, man, that's the most powerful drug of all.
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You may not have understood the point of the article. Right at the top it talks about who they see themselves as. Frankly, all of those other Islamic leaders could be right. (I bristle anytime someone starts talking about "correct" readings of holy texts. That answer depends about as much on which way the wind is blowing as actual scholarship. Christians included) But it doesn't matter how genuinely correct their viewing of their religion is. The Atlantic article is trying to show us who they think they are. And really, that's all that matters.
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Well said. And yet....these bastards. I just don't know. Glad I'm not one making any decisions on the matter, they all seem like morally and strategically poor choices.
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And therein lies one of the other horrible problems. We might leave with noble intentions, but how do we keep those? Not only in how we conduct ourselves during the conflict, but in the aftermath as well. I want to say that these bastards are just too evil to live, but I don't trust Western governments to leave it much better off in the wake of getting rid of them either.
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By the same vague connections about murder I could probably get Lizzy Borden involved in the conversation too, but that doesn't do a damn bit of good. No, this thread of inane thought started with someone trying to compare fundamentalist Christians in America (annoying, don't agree with them but not even close to the same friggin thing) to ISIS. Then it compared lone gunman murderers to an army of religious zealots. This stems from some need by those in our country to falsely equivocate what we know as "bad" with what is happening there. It is not even close to the same thing. ISIS is an army of religious zealots bent on forcing they apocalypse and they are raping, slaughtering, torturing, enslaving, and terrifying their way to it. So no, not analogous in any meaningful way and sure as hell not as a critique of a thorough piece in the Atlantic.
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It's a BS point meant to equivocate America with ISIS. There are few places in the world where an organization such as this exists, in all corners of the world. Cheapening the Atlantic article by including random perpetrators of violence in America to some how...what? Makes us understand it? Show we are just as bad? Please, we have plenty to take account for, Obama's reckless drone strikes included, but that's simply a false equivalency. Look, anyone that carries out a heinous act against another person could be said to have employed "radical violence" and "targeted innocent people". Every rape and murder would seem to qualify by that flimsy measure. So every rapist and murderer in America or Brazil or Australia is somehow an equivalency to ISIS? Methinks you've stretched that comparison too thin and lost the big picture. Which is what the original poster did with that preposterous claim.
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So American mass shooters are equivalent to ISIS? Oy vay.....
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If the author had spent any time diverting his attention to annoying literal American Christians....I hope it was his editor who kept him on track. It wasn't about religions extremism. It was about ISIS. And as annoying as those people are here in the US it is absolutely preposterous to say that they are "doing the same, with the same violence and conviction" Seriously, preposterous is as nicely as I can describe that notion. It's not even remotely the same.
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Playing for some real stakes in that one.....
