The Disgruntled Chemist sends along a 4 part post documenting the proceedings from a meeting of the College Republicans at the University of California, Irvine:
It was a panel discussion; the main issue was whether or not Muslims in the United States are doing enough to distance themselves from terrorists and to support the War on Terror. As you’ll see, the conversation soon diverged from that.
The narration / recounting (from a liberal/ progressive perspective) seems far tougher on the “conservatives” in the crowd, but I’ll leave it up to you to decide. If the account is accurate, then I (and probably just about any other conservative who comments here) would distance him/herself from some of the more reprehensible racist behavior.
But one interesting observation that can be drawn from the report is this:
whether or not you believe the reportage to be ideologically weighted, we, as a political collective, seem to have reached a point where “conversation” and debate is moot—that is, among certain strains of partisans, talking past each other, followed inevitably by ad hominem confrontation, is the current state of political discourse, and promises to stay that way for some time.
Lay the blame for this wherever you’d like. There’s certainly plenty to go around.
Interesting to me, though, is why I was sent this report. Because unless protein wisdom is stuck somewhere between Tbogg and firegodlake on The Disgruntled Chemist’s blogroll, I seem an unlikely recipient.
Unless, of course, the correspondent(s) is trying to suggest that conservatism is innately xenophobic / anti-Muslim. In which case, he could’ve perhaps found a better site against which to level such implied criticisms than one supporting the UAE deal (on the basis that to back away now would be sending an anti-classically liberal message), and one whose proprietor routinely argues for the necessity of deconstructing the notion of identity politics in order to re-embrace the notion of the individual—the very remedy to the kind of sectarian confrontations documented in the report.
Or maybe they just really dig me, who knows. The author has commented here a number of times, and for the most part has been quite respectful of the debates.
I don’t know who sent it to you, but it wasn’t me. I’ve actually never read this site before. Sorry.
But thanks for the link love.
The narration / recounting (from a liberal/ progressive perspective) seems far tougher on the “conservatives†in the crowd, but I’ll leave it up to you to decide.
I’m sorry you got that impression; I did try to be as impartial as I could. The fact was, the audience was mostly conservative, and most of the cheering/yelling/chanting had a conservative slant (like all the cheering for “I love President Bush” and similar sentiments). I did note (though perhaps with too little emphasis) that the Muslims and other non-conservatives in the crowd were shouting over the panel, and that the panel was shouting right back over them.
we seem to have reached a point where “conversation†and debate is mootâ€â€that among certain strains of partisans, talking past each other, followed inevitably by ad hominem confrontation, is the current state of political discourse
That’s exactly right, and the reason that I posted this series. It’s something I’ve been harping on for quite a while (and it got me in a bit of trouble with the readers of a certain military-themed conservative website). I’m glad you got that message out of it, because I think it’s important.
Anyway, thanks again for the link, and I hope you and your readers will take the time to look around the blog.
“Unless, of course, the correspondent(s) is trying to suggest that conservatism is innately xenophobic / anti-Muslim.”
Conservatism is not innately anti-Muslim. But decency is innately anti-Islam. Perhaps conservatism will soon “get with the program.”
I haven’t finished reading it yet, but glancing at the blogroll and then matching it against this statement
Would seem to indicate a lie. Am I wrong?
You know what, nevermind. I think I am wrong. Kneejerk reaction. apologies.
Yeah, those freakin’ conservatives are so damn anti-Muslim that they freed 50 million of them from oppressive tyranny and are sticking around in Iraq to help them build a democracy.
HATERS!
Defense Guy, it most certainly was a lie. I was trying to get people to talk to me honestly about their motivations for being there. I thought that might not happen if they knew I was a progressive blogger who would be writing about them.
Off topic, but there seems to be another false allegation of gang rape that was videotaped to show the “victim” was a willing participant. Lesson learned- always, and I mean always, videotape tag-team action.
The Disgruntled Chemist
It doesn’t matter. The label you apply to yourself doesn’t matter one bit in the greater scheme of things. It was a kneejerk reaction on my part to try to classify you. So again, apologies.
Now, I’ll finish actually reading your posts.
I’ve asked my husband to videotape all our sessions, notwithstanding that they’re one-on-one. ‘Cause who knows what I’ll claim about ‘em next week? It’s for his own protection.
But to the larger point about the state of national political discourse, as regards left-right dialogue, I have to agree with you Jeff. There’s just no point anymore. Different realities.
But so what? Seriously. Who cares? The Left has taken collective leave of its senses in an unavoidably public fashion in the last 5 years or so, and the sad truth is, as a political ideology/movement, it hasn’t had a fresh idea in 30-40 years.
I ignore the left except where to pay attention to them yields partisan gains or amuses me. Otherwise, when I want to survey where the exciting and substantive political/ideological debates are taking place, I look to the internal divisions on the Right.
I’m not saying this is an optimal situation. Clearly, not having a coherent and effective opposition leads to stagnancy and, yes, corruption for the majority party. That’s our challenge as “conservatives” from an electoral and governing perspective: keeping the GOP honest without the assistance of sane Democrats (Lieberman notwithstanding).
But really? I don’t feel that bad at all about ignoring moonbats except to point and laugh. They brought it on themselves.
Disgruntled Chemist —
Here’s the original email I received. Sorry for the confusion:
The mailer’s handle I recognize, and as I say, he’s always been respectful here.
The slight partisan leanings in the narration weren’t anything blatantly offensive—which is why I allow for readers to draw their own conclusions. At any rate, it seems that we reached a kind of agreement about the main lesson of the evening.
So that’s, like, a rapprochement of sorts, yes?
Oh, now I know who sent the email.
And yeah, I think we did agree on the main lesson to be taken from the evening. I don’t think there’s some higher, my-side-is-better-than-your-side claim that anybody can make based on the evening. Both sides came off looking pretty bad, in my opinion; the conservatives were just louder and more numerous, since the event was sponsored by the Campus Republicans.
OK, so I finished reading the posts. Is this supposed to be indicitive of some greater message about christian tolerance, or in some supposed to show the equivelance between Christian/Jewish and Muslim anger?
I find it a one sided account of the event that should be balanced by reading other accounts as well. Bad behavior is hardly limited to one particular group in this world, but you really have to be blind not to recognize that people are dying over Muslim anger in larger and larger parts of the world. What does our chemist friend have to say about that?
Attila Girl,
It’s always good policy when you make a recording to find a safe place to store that recording.
For example, I’m a database administrator, and I always store database backups at a safe, secure, off-site location.
If you don’t have such a location in mind, I’d like to offer my services (and I sure many of the men of this site would join me) in seeing to it that these tapes are kept safe.
Hmmmm.
I read through the posts that covered the meeting with the College Republicans.
Frankly I don’t think that any of this either has anything to do with anti-Islam, anti-muslim, xenophobia or anything similar. However I do think that this does have a relationship with a post by Jim Geraghty (TKS) where he described that it appears many in the West have reached a “tipping point”.
In this people have come to the conclusion that a reform of Islam from without, or from within, may not be possible. Or if possible it may not be permanent.
I think perhaps, particularly on the Right, that there has come a certain increasing belief that it’s simply not possible to have a friendly or even neutral relationship with Islam. I know that Jeff would like to deal with individuals on an individual basis. However the problem with this in Islamic terms is that it’s perfectly permissible for muslims to lie to infidels. That muslims are allowed to sign any treaty desired by infidels because, by definition, no treaty between muslims and infidels has any legal validity whatsoever.
Going back to a previous comment of mine (link) it’s apparent that international law is in effect a form of multi-culturalism. The assumption there is that there are points of commonality that allow many disparate nations and cultures to interact within the scope of international law. But that assumes that all members treat that international law with equal validity.
And it’s clear that in Islam, this is not the case at all. That Islamic nations can very easily repudiate international treaties and agreements with hardly a hesitation. The Palestinians and the Oslo Accords are a prime example of this. Agreements were made, treaties were signed and the ink not even dry before the Palestinians violated every single term, and yet they continue to demand adherence to those very same terms by all other signatories.
Similar actions by Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya, etc etc etc.
*shrug* I’ll have to think about this more.
Just for the record, I emailed Jeff the link. I attended the UC Irvine event with The Disgruntled Chemist and found his coverage to be very complete and well-documented.
I personally attended the event at UC Irvine because I support the display of the cartoons. I had hoped that the panel discussion would be enlightening, that it would encourage open and free debate about a serious issueâ€â€Islamic fundamentalism. However I was dismayed that the event disintegrated into a shouting match between angry, ignorant conservatives and indignant, fundamentalist Muslims (there were a few anti-Bush folks in the audience who shouted too).
But the fact that rational debate was impossible can be gathered from the Chemist’s coverage. How are we supposed to have a discussion about the dangers of Islamic fundamentalism if the panelists refer to Islam as “an evil religion” and the crowd shouts “shut up Osama!”?
The experience proved to me that free speech is dead, on all sides.
Where we ever not at this point?
Goodness gracious, I must disagree with Agi as it is NOT obvious from the Chemist’s coverage that rational debate is impossible. And I thought the Chemist’s report was straight up.
But the event was not a debate. And it was NOT a presentation that would cover all (or both) sides of the topic in question. It was a pannel discussion in front of an audience–a college audience. And it was meant to be provocative, in order to attact an audience.
But I will concede that the Chemist’s personal reaction to the event is that the Chemist “feels” that rational debate is not possible. But this is a conclusion likely in error–in spite of the Chemist’s emotions–as no rational debate was poised to occur at the event.
No one should be shocked that a college audience acted their age, producing catcalls, and other interruptions while the panelists were speaking.
Attending such events will be those whose motivations are to be sufficiently disruptive as to be tossed from the event by campus police–it makes for a reputation of notoriety in the local and campus community. Such antics of disruption and protest, i.e. civil disobedience, are very much a part of the long history of “street” theatre where the circus-like atmosphere thus created becomes the larger story, while the event’s original purpose fades into the backstory.
Are people on opposing sides of issues talking past each other? Yes. Does a tolerance of “anything goes” behavior have the consequence of “in your face” public speech? Most certainly.
Then, does one conclude that free spech is dead? Hardly.
Sorry to say, but this is the reaction of a young adult student with little life experience outside of a college campus, with 90% of adulthood yet to exprience.
The wisdom of youth tempered by the modesty of years.
I live in L.A., and this story led the late night newscasts here. I got the definite impression that it was loud, but that nothing got communicated. And some fights almost broke out. That’s it.
I expect news reporters to cover the conflict, so it’s possible that something may have been accomplished that evening. But I can’t tell from the news, so I wish I had been there. At least buildings weren’t burned down.
And for the second time in my life, I’ll agree with actus!!!
There seems to be an urban legend regarding some recent past period of pastoral and harmonious behavior attending the public issues and debates of the age. And urban legend it is.
The best I might offer up is the period between the end of the Korean War, and the Soviet launch of Sputnik. I’m sure someone with a better knowledge of history will disabuse me of that notion.
None the less, some brief period, even 50 years ago is hardly worthy of a debate point.
Cheers.
I think brown v. board of ed came out in that period. I don’t know much about all of the forms of debate at the time, but the AL legislature did pass a resolution saying that Justice Hugo Black (a native, ex-KKK) should not be buried in the “fine alabama soil.”
yes, all Muslims are the enemy, especially this man:
<a href=”http://www.michaelyon-online.com/wp/iraqi-family-loses-children.htm” target=”_blank”>
arrrgh!!
http://www.michaelyon-online.com/wp/iraqi-family-loses-children.htm
Actus,
Forbes wasn’t pointing out great cooperation, merely a phase of much-less-crummy cooperation.
IMHO, I think that the increasing application of essentially network centric warfare models to democratic processes has, inevitably, resulted in some realignments, and those realignments are bound to be more turbulent than otherwise. Not all times of partisan turbulence are associated with a ground shift, but I think the reverse is true.
BRD
Yeah, actus, you’re right about Brown v. Board. I was sure someone would point out an event that would narrow that pastoral time frame. It was argued in ‘52, reargued in ‘53, and decided in ‘54. And as the fillibustered Civil Rights Act of 1957 followed a few years later, there must’ve been 15 minutes of harmony in 1956!
Cheers.
But wouldn’t that imply the correspondent had read, understood, and responded to the actual content of protein wisdom, thereby contradicting the original premise?
Do you take Visa?
Accurate? Reprehensible? Racist? Was it? Here’s audio and video of the event and anyone who chooses can really decide for themelves.
Read and hear what really happened. The Disgruntled Chemist isn’t quite representing what really happened.
http://www.rayra.net/Political_Coverage/UCI_Cartoons_Panel/uci_cartoons_panel.html
It was a pannel discussion in front of an audience–a college audience. And it was meant to be provocative, in order to attact an audience.
Just one clarification: the people in the audience were not all, or even mostly, college-aged. It was people from the surrounding community, well older than college age, making up most of the audience.
You’re right in that no debate was possible in such a setting, but they did give the impression that such was the goal. There were two moderators, supposedly timed periods in which speech was to occur, and a “questions from the audience” period. However, as I said, it swiftly degenerated from that to a point where debate was impossible.
The Disgruntled Chemist isn’t quite representing what really happened.
I know this is the current wisdom on LGF, and there’s nothing I can say to refute it. Just listen openly and honestly, and then think about what else I could have heard from my seat in the tenth row (I think the dude with the tape recorder was in the back). Also, a lot of what’s in my posts comes from one-on-one conversation with people, which obviously the tape recorder couldn’t hear.
But hey, people are gonna believe what they want. Not a lot I can do about that.
Was the auditorium so huge that someone in the back couldn’t possibly hear what went on in there?
Please, be honest.
I tried listening to the audio of the reverend, and couldn’t make out what he was saying. The sound quality is not that great. I haven’t seen any video links on the site yet.
No, Ardsgaine, the sound quality is not good, but is still nothing like what was described.
lol. sure there is. You can stop telling lies which feed your ilk’s preconceptions.
And a second laugh for your audacity in trying to claim equal standing for our two accounts. That’s ‘the Grey fallacy’, and it’s a lame trick to pull. All viewpoints are NOT equal, chum. Especially when your account is so full of demonstrable lies.
My report is there (just have a little video to add, still).
I have shown my ‘proofs’ in a manner FAR less subjective than yours. Your entire account is stuffed with caricatured dog-eared memes, outright lies, and the whole thing lays on a foundation of your attending under false pretenses, by your own admission. My account is 100 photographs, a near-complete audio-stream, and almost no cliches.
All anyone has to do is read your account of a creepy vicious atmosphere, then go look at my pictures of a diverse audience, and listen to audio of that same audience clapping at various times in support of ALL the panelists, and at times scorning ALL the panelists (go read my report for an account of just who those panelists were, see what Disgruntled Chems doesn’t want to discuss), and look at the video I’m about to post of nearly 80% of the audience standing by request of Mr Abed Jlelati to show their LOVE of muslims, and any reader will see what a complete and utter fabrication your account of the evening was.
Hmmmm.
Well well well.
Perhaps I should have taken Disgruntled Chemists posts with a grain of salt after all. He’s already shown that he has no compunction about lying right to someone’s face. Why should he have any compunction about lying on a blog?
So I have to ask. Do you actually have anything to substantiate these allegations you’re making Disgruntled Chemist?
Frankly I was willing to take you on face value, but now I see how foolish that was. The number of liberals I know that would refuse to lie, deceive or commit outright fraud on a political issue to conservatives is vanishingly small. So why should you be different?
Have you got anything but your tortured prose?
What frightful little webs we weave.
Chemist hurt himself badly with one critical error. If someone walked up to me saying they were a blogger, a liberal blogger, or a conservative blogger, and they were not rude or agitating for something, my answers to their questions would be the same.
Chremist’s assumption that there’s some sort of conspiracy that the secret handshake of flying false colors will let him in on probably colored his account, his questions, his very observations.
Chemist, I’m willing to assume that, like most people, you’re basically honest. The fact that you felt the need to lie about your status indicates that you went into the situation with not only a preconception, but a very strong one. Strong enough to color your perception of individual moments and conversations, and the overall “feel” of the event.
That’s not to say that others have no preconceptions, but you’ve made the critical mistake of coming forth and saying, “Yeah, I lied to you, but THIS time I’m telling the truth.”
Which, true or false, plays extremely poorly.
HA HA!!
Hey Chemist, my friend has a saying…
“If you can’t run with the big dogs, stay on the porch.”
sorry ‘bout your ass.
I just read a little more of Chemist’s work. Sorry I hadn’t done so before I posted above, I wouldn’t have been so polite.
I no longer assume he’s basically honest. Delusional is more like it, props to Rayra for documenting it.
Gad, what a maroon.
TW: And in public, too.
Interesting.
rayra argues that there was no abundance of “Muslims are all out to kill me” speech, and lefty chemist replies:
But yet, in his 4 part breakdown of the event, the Waiting to get in section says:
“I took the opportunity, while we were waiting, to talk to some of the people on my side of the barricade. I told them that I was the author of a small conservative blog, and I was planning to write a post about why people had come to the event and how the evening unfolded. The first man I talked to was a Democrat, about seventy years old. He was Jewish, he said, and he was here because he felt it was important to support the College Republicans as they stood up to the Muslims. The following is a direct quote from him to me:
His wife stated that she was there because “this is America, and it’s important for us to support free speech”.
The Muslim protesters by this point had set up a PA system, and had done the call to prayer. The crowd of protesters kneeled towards Mecca and prayed, and then the speaker started up. He told the crowd that they were going to partake in some chants, and the last one would be about the Prophet Mohammed. Again, direct quotes:
After some more speaking by the protest leader, and some counter-protesting by the people on our side of the barricades, the doors were opened and in we went.
Make that Lying Leftist Chemist. Tell us again about the evil Christian Republicans, Lefty.
Jeff says:
And then Lying Lefty Chemist says:
But LLC’s post says:
So, I guess LLC means that he digs ad hominem, hyperbolic rhetoric and generally talking past each other. He’s clearly not trying to stop it in any way, shape or form.
I’d just like to know what effect the Jewish Democrat had on him, in comparison to the evil Christian Republicans.
So what have we learned here? Rallies and protests tend to attract an inordinate number of extremists, and extremists tend to have extreme views.
tw: care-> because they do
Hey Rayra,
I stole one of your pictures for a joke post. I could not find your address on your site so couldn’t ask permission. If you want me to take it down I will be most happy to oblige.
I read the Disgruntled Chemist’s piece, which didn’t sound anything like what I read here. Which is true? How to know? I tell you, these pictures are pretty telling.
I think to a major degree this is the root cause of the rift in American society, that we seem to live in different realities.
I have a few liberal friends who I trust enough to occasionally debate politics. We respect each others opinions, and from my neocon end, their views are rational given their assumptions and values. The problem is that every debate seems to hinge around evidence that varies considerably between us.
Example: when the cartoon problem first surfaced, we had a friendly argument over the issue. One described the cartoons as including scenes of Mohammed as paedophile. Now, I’d seen the cartoons on the internet at that point, and although the pictures were fuzzy, I didn’t see anything that looked more offensive than what appears in my local newspaper. It took me a few days to realize that he had heard descriptions including the three additional cartoons that the Danish Muslim clerics added, whereas I had only actually seen the 12 cartoons the Danish newspaper published.
It all boils down to the fact that I don’t trust the media to give me the full story, whereas they don’t trust the network of bloggers I rely on for context. I see an argument from an unknown source, such as the Disgruntled Chemist, and I don’t trust it until the source has proved itself over time. This is the critical failure of the media; it has proven to me that it cannot be trusted as an impatial watchdog, and without a universally recognized basis for facts, our realities drift further apart.
Just found this little nugget at the Chemist’s:
Emphasis mine.
Can I at least question your allegiances, if not your patriotism? What a sniveling little pissant this one turned out to be.
This is why nobody believes undercover cops and secret agents.
Do these ideas make a whooshing sound when they go sailing past your head?
Which is why they make surreptitious recordings as proof, like rayra did.
tw: Maybe actus is high.
Hmmm.
Are you actually trying to infer that Disgruntled Chemist is on par with undercover cops and secret agents?
Just the logic being used.
PWhich has nothing to do with Actus’ point. Pablo is quite stupid.
I’ve now seen four accounts of the events discussed. Chemist’s account is… unique.
In less delicate terms, full of shit and agenda-driven.
It’s a pity, really. When this started I was all “hey, great, someone of a different political bent who wants a real discussion,” and now I can’t help but come to the conclusion that it’s “another lying self-aggrandazing asshole out to start some shit.”
It’s really sad, how often this turns out to be the case. I’d really enjoy a serious discussion.
It speaks directly to the point actus is attempting to make. Would you like to flesh your criticism out, asshat? Here’s a hint: preview is your friend. If you’re going to call someone stupid, it helps not to look stupid while doing so.
Here is a clue for actus and Josh:
The topic of the thread is rational, honest, good faith discourse between opposing agendas. Undercover cops and secret agents aren’t concerned with honest, good faith discussions, and it appears neither was the disgruntled chemist. Another topic was ad hominem attacks, which I confess I can’t pass up when dealing with disingenuous (actus) dumbasses (Josh) like you two.
‘kay, rayra, pablo, i’ll bite. How is DC pretending to be a College Republican any….different…at…all from Zombie pretending to be a moonbat to infiltrate demonstrations for her photos?
and rayra, since you didn’t do interviews, your recording can’t disprove DC’s statements.
a pox on all your houses, i say.
here’s my comment from the Chemists.
playah
Do you have something that shows that zombie does this? Lies, that is.
playah grrrl
Zombie only documents. Zombie doesn’t engage the subjects of photos/essays, there is only observation. So, zombie isn’t lying to anyone.
Furthermore, my problem isn’t so much with Chemists misrepresentation itself, as much as it is with the prejudiced mindset it evidences.
“I am going to lie to them because if I don’t they’ll lie to me.” Chemist is presupposing a conclusion that he has no evidence to support. Highly unscientific, if you ask me.
I don’t see any of that in zombie’s work. Zombie simply relays the messages the left is putting on display. They hit the streets, and zombie brings back pictures of them.
Lastly, Zombie doesn’t have to lie. Zombie only needs to let people make incorrect assumptions, which leftists do very, very well.
Does that cover it?
As stated above, I have seen no evidence of Zombie lying. But in any case, Zombie documents and lets us examine the evidence. DC asked us to accept his written account, then admitted he misrepresented himself because of deeply held prejudices. I don’t think it is unreasonable to conclude that those feelings also colored his account.
Also, zombie is one of his subjects, born and raised among them. zombie is Berkley, so his perspective is very enlightning.
Chemist is petrified of his subjects before ever having met them, and shaken beyond consolation after encountering them.
You don’t want to take something as Gospel just because some emotional dude wrote it down, do ya?
tw: front
Don’t do it!
Pablo, i’ve known zombie for two years. we both came to lgf about the same time. she’s a grrl. and “ethnic”. i may even know who she is, since i think i’ve read a book by her.
She is not without prejudice.
certainly you can bias a slide show.
it is not even hard.
i like zombie a lot, but she is not unbiased, and it creeps through in her work. and i think what she and the chemist are doing is perfectly legitimate.
but let’s try another example.
take this book Dr. Yes showed us. Norah Vincent pretended to be a man to do research on what it was like. Was that legitimate research?
it is a very interesting book, and she could never have written it if she haden’t pretended.
I see christians and muslims both treated as some big undifferentiated gob. i resent it. you should too.
the argument from the right reads like, “moderate muslims, stand up against the fundamentalists or we will define you ALL as part of them.” and that is just what the fundamentalists want too.
Bush is barely treading water on his attempts to keep defining the groups as separate. And no one here is helpful, with their manifestos and tipping points. You are all just counting coup on Islam, validating your personal beliefs that christianity is far superior to islam without knowing anything about it.
And i am not criticising lgf. lgf was the first place i ever commented, and like Allah says, it is the best blog ever.
i am just saying, you are not without bias. Rayra’s presentation will be excellent and thorough, but there will be bias creep. the way to get an accurate picture is to put rayra’s stuff with the chemist’s stuff, and analyse all the data.
Only Science is without bias.
Playah grrrl, unless you know zombie personally, which you obviously don’t, you’re making assumptions. Zombie is decidedly noncommittal in regard to such inquiries, for reasons I’m sure you can appreciate.
That, of course, is not the point. The point is that “Chemist’s stuff” is 100% Chemist produced, and it is only his impression which is clearly influenced by his bias and the emotional devastation caused by his perception of the events.
Rayra and zombie both provide objective, documentary evidence in the way of audio and visual recording of the events they cover. As we all know, you can edit things nine ways to Friday, but you are still restricted by the raw material.
In this case, rayra has posted all of the session, with the exception of the first minute or so, which he missed.
How is that biased, and how can you possibly compare it to shit Chemist made up and has no supportive evidence for other than the perceived value of his word to support??
When the two disagree, who do you believe? The written description, or the Memorex replay?
Raw recodings are without bias. Cameras and microphones neither blink nor editorialize.
PG, I’m sorry. I missed this part where you lost your frigging mind.
I’m happy for you that you’re able to asses my knowledge of subjects and my beliefs from your perch there on Olympus. Tell Zeus I said “‘sup, Homey!”, would you?
It’s just a vocal minority.
Most conservatives don’t think this way.
They’re responding in a way that is regretable, but, under the circumstances, understandable, but regretable.
They’ve been provoked.
We need to understand their circumstances before we judge them.
What could make people so angry? Someone must have done something terrible to them to bring out this nasty behavior.
Have I missed anything? I’m trying to get the hang of this.
Pablo, i can pull up the lgf archives and show you. Charles never alters his archives.
zombie is a grrl, and i can guess her ethnicity.
you’re more longtime lgf than either of us, but you musta missed those discussions.
but that’s irrelevent.
link please for rayra’s stuff–is it up on lgf?
and yes, you and others cherry-pick the haditha and the Qu’ran for quotes, taking everything out of context.
i stand by my claim that you don’t know much about Islam, as it is practiced by the majority of muslims.
i can cherry pick the old testament if you like for horrid stuff. the truth is, the RCC put the heathen to the sword and burnt heretics in the bad old days. but the RCC evolved. i want to know how and when Islam can evolve, not if it can. I know it can evolve. Everything evolves.
I believe in the Bush Doctrine with all my heart. Islam can evolve, and be compatible with democracy. But how long will it take? It took christianity hundreds, even thousands of years. Standing on a soapbox and screeching about how horrific Islam is based on cherry picking the texts is not helpful to GW’s cause.
funnie you should mention Zeus.
my next blogpost is on The New Pythagoreans.
Bloggers like Jeff and Charles are the mathematikoi, the speakers of the inner circle. You and i are akousmatikoi, the listeners.
and pablo…
but the selection of which material to record or photograph can certainly be biased.
don’t try to tell me that data selection is unbiased. remember what my training is. it can only be unbiased if it is randomized.
that is why there is experimental design for science.
and i don’t object to bias creep. you can’t eliminate it without formal scientific methodology. but you have to acknowledge it.
the Chemist is open about this being his perspective as presented. he has photos also.
I plan to look at all the available data.
i am interested in it.
Oh, brother. Okay, I’ll bite. Abortion may or may not be killing children. On the other hand, bankers are killing nobody at all, nor are waiters, nor are stock brokers, nor are CPAs, but ole Mohammed couldn’t wait to blow them up, just the same [unless you ascribe to some five degrees of separation BS that they are capitalists, therefore genocidaires, in which case, F-O]. How many virgins await Tom Hill?
Might as well say that the philosophy of Tupac IS EXACTLY the same as the LAPD, when it puts two to the head of some gangbanger…because its all about survival, man, and Thug-Life, yo.
So where to begin with this sophistry? Maybe with the great global warming-cooling, ie the weather, or maybe with cell-phone radiation tumors and powerline cancer clusters, and nuclear winter, and silent springs? Maybe Mengele’s scientific Yeah, whatever, the march of science, and all. Oceania has always been at war with Eurasia and allied with EastAsia, until they weren’t.
Oh, brother. Where’s Nishi at?
Not only can you not back up what you say you want to do, deliver Truth from science, you make the same idiot, twelve-year-old response: I’m tired of my parents fighting, so I’m going to throw a brick through the neighbor’s window. If you two can’t live in peace, we all go to war. The beatings will stop once morale improves.
You are ridiculous.
And of course, as the uber-scientific scientist, who believes so stridently in, of course, evolution, I’m pretty sure you’ll lose this one too. After all, religion itself is the product of evolution from the rights of paganism to the robust monotheisms that have utterly wiped out the earlier forms. Evolution, no? And Europe, that bastion of secularism and love of the ‘life of the mind’, it will last another generation secular…or it will refind its Christian roots, or its new Muslim roots. Because you need, you know, people, and secular “science” tends to not care so much for them.
Go ahead, secularism is dead, long live God.
and perhaps i am losing my friggin’ mind.
that damned agnostic infected me with biomemes.
La La La, la di la di la.
Hmmmm, somehow, I must have missed that little gem between your missives on the threat from abortion clinic bombers and jihadis (btw, can anyone actually remember the last time a clinic was actually bombed? Fact is, just one episode of bombing a German disco , or Bali, was as bad as the entire Black Night of terror for twenty years of abortion clinic bombings, and that was just the warm-up of Middle Eastern terrorism. If I have to minimize the unpardonable, you’ve minimized the apocylpetic nature of Muslim jihad, that has already spawned genocides within our lifetimes in Algeria, Sudan, and massacres from India to Beslan to NYC and Thailand) and your own declaration of jihad against the apostates.
Cheerio.
BECAUSE IT’S ALL THE SAME!!!!!
tw: I went back to Ohio and my citywas gone. There was no train station, yada, yada, yada.
pablo, you were supposed to give me links.
Vercingetorix, it is pointless for us to argue.
Science and technology will roll over you like surf.
I can wait.
Oh, rayra’s audio/video? Here.
And what will the Islamists be up to while this happens?
shukran for the video link, pablo.
i think rayra is exactly as biased as the chemist, just in the opposite way. taken together the two perspectives give a a much more accurate picture. Kull wahad, he calls muslim audience members fools in one part.
but each perspective is one man’s truth.
they both cover the man in the red jacket rushing the muslim heckler, and the heckler getting expelled. but rayra finds the red jacket man’s action understandable, while the chemist is shocked and perhaps frightened. bias creep.
like Vercingetorix and Ann Coulter excusing Paul Hill’s actions because abortion doctors may-or-may-not-be murderers, or because Atta killed more people.
I really think that events like this are part of the process, and helpful over all, if we can get beyond stereotypes and screeching from soapboxes on both sides.
I am interested in what the right means by the concept of “moderate muslim”. What does that mean to you? Someone who is exactly like us, just, err, muslim instead of judeo-christian?
that is a valid question, i guess.
Kurzweil predicts the Singularity in about 30 years. I would expect we will know if the Bush Doctrine stands or falls by then. One of the pillars of the doctrine (heh), is the premise that most of the 1.5 billion muslims in the world can be acculturated to modern, freetrade, self-ruling societies. That is why Bush tries hard to keep the fundamentalists separate in definition from the moderates. He is not stupid, actually he is sort of genius on this. What is the alternative? Kill-em-all? Conversion at swordpoint?
But the whole tipping point thing looks very bad to me. Most people here, many who i really respect, don’t understand that by declaring all Islam basically evil, they are undoing GW’s work and pushing the moderates into the fundamentalist camp.
In thirty years, however, if Islamists still exist, they will lose their faith and be unable to attribute their acts to Islam. I expect all traditional religions will be overwhelmed by the information overload and GNR tech of the Singularity, and new non-traditional adaptations of religion will spring up.
i think rayra is exactly as biased as the chemist, just in the opposite way.
You’re certainly entitled to your own biased opinion. We’re all biased. Duh.
Rayra’s reportage is not as far as the audio and video is concerned, and if you cannot recognize the difference between the factual values of the two reports, I can’t help you.
i said nothing about data content, or “factual values” as you term it. of course there is more content in rayra’s stuff.
i said….rayra’s bias is equivalent and opposite to the chemist’s.
you are blinkered indeed if you can’t see that.
BECAUSE IT’S ALL THE SAME!!!
tw: find
Jeff, how the hell do you do that?
On second thought, if the turing word had been “worth”, that would have been really fucking cool.