TheLeviathan

I didn't miss his point at all, but if his argument is fair about supporting the emotion of free speech means endorsing their specific acts....than he is endorsing murder by supporting the emotion behind being offended by the cartoons. Since I find that argument stupid both way, I don't find much use for therticle.

Of course the cartoons are racist.....that's the point. Their satire is designed to speak to a truth by being over the top to make the point. No one is defending it for being good, clean fun and no matter how deliberately offensive it may be is really irrelevant. I get his larger point but one could argue his very point against him as well. If solidarity with free speech is somehow an endorsement of racism...couldn't his argument against the cartoons mean he is somehow in solidarity with murder. Of course no one would suggest anything of the sort seriously. Couple his dubious thesis with that ridiculous, conspiracy type paragraph questions if they are Islamists (it's mind blowing to call their characterization an assumption - it really shows his motives) and you got a pretty worthless position IMO.

That's a good article and there is an entire web of problematic relationships in our world that lead to a great many injustices. Nationalism is a profoundly powerful motivator as well, probably second only to religion. Those issues should absolutely be on the table for consideration when we talk about how to address the problem. And I'm honestly not sure a "good" solution exists because of how complicated these issues are.

Finally! A metric Gardy can get behind!

I worry he'll regress because the part of the defense he still needs most is awful. I know it hurt him last year, but I worry he'll have some particularly bad luck from it with this group.

I agree and for me this is why Islam has to be at the center of this problem. People get heated about many things they care about, but there is simply nothing like religion to spark craziness. If you take Islam out of these actions it's like trying to explain a fire without any fuel. Doesn't make Islam bad (each religion has their particular problems I'd argue), but it does mean that Islam specifically is part of this problem.

Quick hitters: 1."just as much fervor" as suicide bombers and passionate protests seems like an unequal amount of fervor to me. 2. You don't think there is a reason religion is used as the crutch/justification? You think that's purely coincidental? 3. Religion definitely isn't the sole divide, I agree. I would argue it is the divide driven with the most zeal and least compromise, however. That's a central part of the problem.

Spycake = /thread

Oh I'd say it is central issue for precisely the reasons you point out Ben. Religion inflames passions and those extremes are really critical to developing a willingness to die to kill others.

You're absolutely right ben, but there is something special about religion when it comes to this sort of thing. Religion is a deeply personal, deeply held, and often deeply devoted subject for people in their lives. It has the power to generate fierce passion. Sometimes that passion manifests in some truly remarkable things to help others. Sometimes it manifests in profoundly harmful ways. The truth is that trying to carve religion out of this issue is absurd. It's central, perverted though it is, to why this is happening. It is deeply woven into the passion and justification these men and women use for their actions. Much like other religious crazy people in the present and the past, they have wrapped themselves in their beliefs and genuinely feel that the atrocities they are committing are right and justified. Rarely does anything other than religion fuel that sort of mindset. But as I said earlier to Bark, that doesn't make religion inherently evil or anything. Even if we did away with it something else would take it's place, but it is the nature of what we're talking about. As important or unimportant as any geo-political, wealth distribution, foreign policy, or anything else is in why this happens - it isn't the fuel that lights this fire. You simply can't pry religion out of this without totally living in a fantasy world.

That analogy doesn't work...at all. And manages to be both offensive to rape victims and derail the conversation. Those other issues might be the reason why the religion is being perverted, but how does it help to stick our head in the sand that this is a problem Islam is having? Sometimes it's coincidence that people share a faith and do bad things, sometimes it's something about that religion that is part of the problem. I'd argue the same thing about Catholicism and pedophilia. So we can acknowledge this is a problem for Islam without eliminating any of those other issues from the table. (Notice, before this becomes your argument, that I'm not saying this is a problem WITH Islam. But it is a problem for Islam that is creating a problem for many others)

Oh, and just to be clear, what Raoila did was ridiculous, stupid, and unacceptable. He tried to then wrap himself in the protection of an "unwritten rule" that is equally stupid and ridiculous. But no one in their right mind buys his cover or his behavior, as well they shouldn't. That's a good example of a football player being stupid with unwritten rules - they're just extremely rare. In baseball they're fairly common, that's the difference. (All sports, I'd add, have the running up the score unwritten rule though. What Porter and Lewis got mad about is a phenomenon unique to baseball)

Well, that wasn't a brawl either, but the equivalent would be what this thread started with. Lowrie/Bo Porter, Rasmus/Lewis, oh hell: here is a whole (Part 1 mind you) video of brawls started over non-violations. I stopped counting after 5 because, well, you won't find nearly that many in any other sport. But by all means try.

Oh of course there was some hyperbole in that, but yes, Pedro just told us that famous fight started with a Yo Momma joke from Posada. And in so doing he tossed an old guy around for it. That's ridiculous. Imagine Vince Wilfork making a Yo Momma joke to Flacco and Flacco running over and attacking Belichek. That's the equivalent.

Only baseball players start brawls and go after each other over stealing a base in the second inning. Please, I beg you, to find the last brawl started in the NFL over a team running up the score. Even the NBA or NHL. And that's taking it easy on you. I'm not even asking you to find a brawl for a hockey player scoring when they were up 2-0 in the third. Or an NBA player for dunking the ball up by 12 in the third quarter. Or anything else as ridiculous as what baseball players do.

How is there any other way to interpret Pedro's remarks? He's bashing Posada for some personal stuff, fine I get that, but he says that history with Posada was at the center of the brawl with Zimmerman. He claims that yo momma joke, especially offensive to Latin players I guess, is why that started. If baseball wants to put a rule against bat flips and bad language - I'll bash them for it just like I do with the No Fun League. The taunting penalties and things like that are ridiculous and unnecessary. Suh's behavior was totally unacceptable and he should have been suspended. Now that we risked policy violations for being off-topic....can we get back to baseball players acting like 5 year olds?

This is right in the article: So, yes, that's exactly what Pedro said. As for the rest of that post - this is a baseball forum correct? Why do I have to talk about hockey and football in a baseball thread? Not to mention you still, somehow, haven't managed to grasp the distinction between a rules violation and an unwritten rules violation. An illegal check in hockey is against the rules. Like sliding 12 feet out of the baseline to spike a guy in baseball. That's an apples-to-apples comparison. Bunting in the second inning, saying a "yo momma" joke, or stealing a base up by 3 runs are NOTHING like what Suh did. And yet, every year, guys throw baseballs at each other for such offenses. In no other sport does that happen with anywhere near the frequency or insanity of baseball. And I only keep this thread going because I love baseball and these antics are shamefully stupid and immature.

This is a great place to vent, I was wondering when someone would post about the happenings in Paris. Sometimes we need to hear hard things that challege our beliefs. If every conversation on important matters have to keep both sides "comfortable".....then I'd suggest that conversation isn't going to get us very close to any real solutions.

But he's wrong. They really are about the religion and the KKK, or the Westboro Baptist church, or whatever else really is about the religion. That's not to say the religion itself is evil or vile or anything like that, but this particular strain of brutish behavior is being born of that religion. Just like the maniacal behavior of Christians in the middle ages was being born of that religion. Trying to distance these actions from Islam seems a tad silly when you look at what happened here. Two men who believed what they were doing was honorable and following a specific code. (They only killed men, spared women and children) They praised their God and followed what they believed were the dictates of the prophet of their God. They found much of their inspiration for these attacks from leaders within that religion. Even a perversion of a religion is still about that religion. We could argue what factors are driving that perversion, but the inherent power of religion over people is instrumental in why these things are happening. Until we accept that, and acknowledge that it means nothing negative about the religion itself, we're not going to be able to help defeat that perversion.

I'm also unsure what you thought you were reading...but Pedro pretty clearly implied that a "Yo Momma" joke from Posada necessitated a brawl.

I'm not religious either Bark and I share your disdain for these terrorists, but I would suggest that religion is just the popular choice to fulfill a particular human need that would lead us down the same path no matter what it was. People want to belong and they want to feel like they have answers. If religion ceased to exist tomorrow people would find something else to become equally obsessed over and the zealotry would start all over. Short of an alien invasion or something else ridiculously preposterous at this point I'm not sure how we overcome that basic human problem that manifests itself most through religion. To share in your thread's theme: I'm so sick and tired of the argument "You can't say X! It's a generalization!" As if every discussion has to contain some kind of systematic breakdown of where every person or thing that might fall under that generalization fits. We see it from the right about the argument that policing needs changes. (Not all cops are bad and that's what these protests are saying!) We see it from the left on the issue of Islam being the source of this homicidal nonsense (You can't say Islam is part of the problem, that's racist!). Both of those arguments are stupid and totally derail necessary conversations. Sometimes things are true in a general sense and making a general argument doesn't entail that you mean every single person or thing that fits in that category is a problem. You can carry generalizations too far, certainly, but they are not inherently bad arguments. They are, frankly, necessary to have conversations about sweeping social issues. Everytime some jerk launches that argument my blood boils because it's like dropping a hornets nest into a room.

In news of major league players being babies about small transgressions normal adults handle without violence: Pedro thinks mom jokes are justification for tossing around the elderly. I really like Pedro but holy crap that's dumb man.

This link indicates that he's got one more year at this point. I like how candid Ryan can be and he strikes me as genuinely apologetic for mistakes. To me it's a separate issue from his Ivory Tower the Pohlads and some fans have placed him in.

That's precisely the problem, for every time I get to hear the Pixies I have to trudge through 12 or 13 folksy, poetry-jam style songs by no-names. I tried the Current, I really wanted to support what they stand for too, but I just don't like the music they play. They're the kind of bands I could get into live if I'm having a beer and enjoying a night out with the wife and I hear their whole set list. Not the kind I want to hear mixed with other similar bands on a radio station.

I think he means that there are a lot more folksy, soft sounds as opposed to a Q101. (I dearly miss that station and was sad to see what has happened to it since I left Chicago)