Wow, what sort of ****** up country mourns the death of politicians?
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Wow, what sort of ****** up country mourns the death of politicians?
i'd rather a politican than some old antique like the queen mother.
i'm shure your country has mourned politicans before :|
btw, Reagan wasn't just some politician he did actually become pres. so he is slighty more important
I can't help myself.
[img="http://www.dragonclawz.com/photos/00003213.jpg"]
When I become president, the first thing I am going to do is rid the world of hippies...more specifically, the types of hippies that write garbage such as that.
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don't get this confused with getting rid of the democratic party...I only mean to get rid of hippies...subsequently if you are a democrat, even a fairly liberal one, just as long as you are not a hippy you shall be all set.
Yeah, damn hippies and their freedom of speech.
Bah you know the rule: You don't say that you'll get rid of them, you say that you'll "persuade" them to see things your way.
Howdy,
I have kids older than alot of you folks, I lived through the Reagan years, The Nixon Years, The Bush Sr., Years....
Ronnie was the perfect president for the times, he understood that the way to stop atomic war was to impliment MAD, he knew the way to deal with terrorist was to be one. In todays society he would probably have a pretty short political life but in his day he was a great president and should always be concidered a great statesman.
M.R.
I read a book called "The Arab Mind" by ... nuts, I can't find the book, so I don't know the author (I will edit this if I find it).Quote:
Yeah, damn hippies and their freedom of speech.
It is a very good book that puts the whole arab-America situation in perspective. Basically, one of the very un-addressed underlying themes with the arab "anti-America" situation is that they are trying to conserve a very specific way of life. This way of life used to be called "Mohammadism", but that phrase is no longer mainstream. These are very, very religious and spiritual people that pray 5 times a day (I cannot actually remember if this is the correct number, but I believe it is), travel to Mecca yearly, and believe that Allah will save their souls.
Islam is today what Christianity used to be 200 years ago. These people see the advent of technology, as well as the decline in spirituality, and link the two together. Bin Laden is fighting (a losing battle) to preserve a way of life. These people are afraid that once they start to adopt "American" practices their way of life will fade away (which, it probably will).
The reason I quoted you, was that I am sick of listening to people that think they are insightful by saying things like "the United States government is full of terrorists because it is a conservative government, and these terrorists are trying to conserve a way of life, so therefore they are really the same!"
Granted, that cartoon had a bit more substance than that, but I still think Reagan did more good than bad, and the government will never be perfect anyway.
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The author is Patai, and I found an interesting article discussing this book.
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ide...b_mind?mode=PF
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Originally Posted by itld
well he did an excellent job, ya know training bin laden and giving him weapons and all. of course back then he was fighting communism, so that was ok, and who cares if a couple of arabs get sore, they can't do anything to us can they!
</sarcasm>
So, what would you have done in his place whackaxe?
I think that's a fair question. You'd think that most people would just be glad that the cold war is over.
Howdy,
Don't forget where Bin Ladin's family got thier $$$. It was from contracting in Saudi including US Air Force Bases and intelligence facilities.
And as AFAIK We, The USA had very little to do with directly trainig OBL's cause, black market maybe but nothing directly.
M.R.
let me begin:Quote:
It is a very good book that puts the whole arab-America situation in perspective. Basically, one of the very un-addressed underlying themes with the arab "anti-America" situation is that they are trying to conserve a very specific way of life. This way of life used to be called "Mohammadism", but that phrase is no longer mainstream. These are very, very religious and spiritual people that pray 5 times a day (I cannot actually remember if this is the correct number, but I believe it is), travel to Mecca yearly, and believe that Allah will save their souls.
it was only called this by Europeans(it has always been called Islam by its followers since its inception). It is improper to call it "Mohammadism" because you are suggesting they worship Muhammad, which is far from the truth(Muhammad might of been a great prophet, but he is still a man, and raising anyone up as a fellow god to Allah is blaspheme in Islam).Quote:
This way of life used to be called "Mohammadism", but that phrase is no longer mainstream.
almost right, there are 5 prayers that are required of all muslims, but most pray alot more than that.Quote:
These are very, very religious and spiritual people that pray 5 times a day (I cannot actually remember if this is the correct number, but I believe it is)
wrong, while some people have the means to do so more than once, alot of them dont. Islam only requires one Hajj during the lifetime of a Muslim.Quote:
travel to Mecca yearly,
Sorry to be nitpicky, but I am very serious about Islam and plan to officially convert sometime this year, just wanted to get some facts straight. :)
oh contraire, the US CIA trained the Muhajjadin of Afghanistan, and guess who was one of those who was trained . . . you guess it, UBL(there is no 'O' in the arabic language). We also gave them alot of stinger missiles(I forgot the exact number, several thousand though) to take down Russian attack helicopters/jets.Quote:
The USA had very little to do with directly trainig OBL's cause, black market maybe but nothing directly.
the MAD doctrine was just plain . . . mad, it relied too much upon the idea that your enemy actually cares if he dies, which is why I am glad Reagan is not in the presidential office today.Quote:
Ronnie was the perfect president for the times, he understood that the way to stop atomic war was to impliment MAD, he knew the way to deal with terrorist was to be one.
Dropping to your opponent's level is however a pretty good way of doing things, pretty un-American though.
They are all moot points, and you are a bit too thick to realize that. Even if those nitpicky details were slightly inaccurate, the message I was trying to send remains exactly the same, and it has been a few years since I read the book (and I don't plan on converting to Islam, so I don't care that much if they go to Mecca yearly, hourly, or once in a lifetime). I was just trying to say this: they're really freaking religious. Perhaps I should have just said that without all of the whistles and bells.
And good luck converting to Islam in the United States...I hope you don't get your ass kicked too badly at high school, or at least I hope they spare you your lunch money.
Not to be nitpicky, but his point was to correct factual errors, not use those corrections in any kind of argument, so I don't think you can blithely accuse him of missing the point. And obviously for him, they aren't moot points; moreover, if you want to make a point about being religious, it really helps to get your facts straight. For instance, you said the Hajj was yearly; that's a lot different from once-in-a-lifetime. Also, the whole Mohammadism bit is an important point; if the book you read was purporting to get into the Arab mind and it made the sort of mistake that lead you to believe Muslims called Islam Mohammadism, then that diminishes the credibility of the book. I also got the impression from his post that he thought Mohammadism was somewhat disrespectful; if that's true, then he has at least the right to bring up why that's the case. Now, he made none of these points -- he was gracious enough not to rub in the fact that you got your facts wrong. He did was anyone of intellectual integrity ought to do -- correct misunderstandings.Quote:
Originally Posted by vNvNation
Speaking of missing the point, you didn't bother to respond to the second half of his post, where it does make an argument. Maybe he should not have bothered with the first half of the post -- but maybe you should have gotten your facts straight. If you don't, your opinion is less credible, no matter what book you read.
Oh, and your last little dig was pretty rude; maybe you're right, but maybe you aren't: you have no idea what his surroundings or like.
How do you figure I was wrong?Quote:
if you want to make a point about being religious, it really helps to get your facts straight
This doesn't prove that I was inaccurate, it proves that I remembered that there are 5 required prayers. The fact that "most pray a lot more than that" doesn't prove me wrong.Quote:
almost right, there are 5 prayers that are required of all muslims, but most pray alot more than that.
So that means that there definitely are some that can in fact do it yearly, which means I wasn't totally "wrong".Quote:
wrong, while some people have the means to do so more than once, alot of them dont. Islam only requires one Hajj during the lifetime of a Muslim.
All in all, I've done pretty damn good getting my facts straight...notice that the only one here who seems to know more is the one who wants to convert.
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Rude eh? Maybe I should've said "I hope you get your ass kicked" instead of "I hope you DON'T get your ass kicked", because I sincerely hope he DOESN'T get hurt over this, because the last thing anybody needs is to get hurt.Quote:
Oh, and your last little dig was pretty rude; maybe you're right, but maybe you aren't: you have no idea what his surroundings or like.
His surroundings? He does, in fact, live in the United States I assume...
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...to things I didn't post...Quote:
Speaking of missing the point, you didn't bother to respond to the second half of his post, where it does make an argument
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I would also like to mention I received a private email from another elder on this site expressing things similar to what I've said about Ev, so it's not like I'm alone here.