But that’s a goal not a proposal to get there. How would you feel about dispersing all the inner city blacks across sub-Saharan Africa to solve the drug gang crisis? Because you know, they are like children fighting over a lemonade stand.
As said, that’s a nice goal, but proposing a solution that doesn’t understand the underlying causes of the violence and drug use is doomed to failure. Relocating poor blacks with no skills or prospects isn’t going to reduce violence, and may in fact increase it by spreading it to areas that are currently peaceful.
You’re looking at very complex issues, treating the participants as children, and trying to impose an unmanageable solution that won’t do what you want because you don’t understand why things are happening.
You may be able to separate two children who are fighting; the problem is pretty simple. But that doesn’t really scale up to the Middle East.
Like, say, the settlers and the Native Americans?
What I mean is, certainly poverty and desperation will lead to trouble and to temptation, trouble and temptation that I will probably never understand because I am not driven to such a dire situation. Regardless, however, everyone is, at the bottom line, responsible for their own actions. Whether that be setting off bombs or selling crack, it is a choice, and claiming “oh well, it’s a very complex situation” that is not an excuse, no situation is complex enough, or hard enough that setting off bombs or selling crack is a justified action to take.
You’re making more ignorant statements.
Neither the Palestinians nor the Israelis are “irrational”.
They don’t have a “disagreement” and they don’t “not understand each other”. They have a conflict and they both understand completely the other side’s view.
It is the outsiders who don’t understand them or their cause.
And no, while both sides engage in brutal violence, the violence is never “random” or “indiscriminate”. They always have specific goals, purposes, and targets.
Obviously, that doesn’t mean I’m a defender or either Yasser Arafat, Abu Nidal, Menachem Begin or Ariel Sharon.
Seriously, educate yourself.
Just because you claim you “think logically” doesn’t mean you do or that your arguments are.
No, but it certainly has a bearing on your analysis and understanding of the situation. Similarly, my being Muslim has on mine of the situation.
So, you acted rather harshly to a simple reference to a famous poem “The White Man’s Burden” and demanded to know why people thought you were white.
So, are you white or are you not?
So what do you think of my awesome plan to clean up drug violence?
When I use the term rational I am - not - referring to precision of methods or tactics. I find it kind of odd, actually, that that is the definition of rational that you employ to this situation.
Well, if you corrected for the economic problems - and - you were able to relocate people to a new, better environment, I think it would work out very well, actually.
Why can’t setting off bombs be an entirely justified action? If someone referred to me and mine as being like unto children before sending in guys in target uniforms bent on forcibly resettling us – well, look, I’m the first to admit that guns have their uses against anyone obliging enough to march up to my door and announce his desire to stop living, goodness knows it isn’t that, but I don’t see why I should rule out bombs.
Actually, my plan would be to have the entire political will of the rest of the planet shame them into doing the right thing. If, however, their reaction would be anything like certain posters here making excuses for the continued atrocities, well, international will would not make any difference.
Really, that’s your plan? I notice the word “shame” does not appear until this post.
If the reaction is as I’d expect, then, yes, your proposal will make no difference; indeed, I think this may be one of the few SDMB threads we can get 100% agreement on.
You’re sending the Palestinians to the Argentine desert but I have to find a new better environment for crack dealing fanatics?
He got pretty close with this other one:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/poll.php?do=showresults&pollid=6898
For crack dealers, what could possibly be a better environment than crack houses?
Well he’s taking religious fanatics away from their holy city so I’ll have to wait on the OP’s input before I answer that.
Yet another silly comment. Do you actually think that, to use your terms, “the Jews” and “the Muslims” care what white western Christians think of them?
Particularly, white westerners who almost proudly proclaim they know nothing of the situation.
What made you think I was unaware of that.
Those are two paragraphs you’re quoting. The first where you made the borderline bigoted comment that the Israelis and Palestinians were “irrational”, while in the second I responded to your claims that they engaged in violence that was “indiscriminate” and “random”.
I’m not sure why you didn’t recognize that.
Can I ask you a question?
This isn’t an insult or a dig, but have you ever been diagnosed with Aspergerger’s or something similar?
I ask because my sister has it and while she’s smart, cool, and caring(as I’m sure you are) it can lead to many miscommunications.
If that’s true of you it wouldn’t make you dumb or mean you weren’t fit to talk with, but might explain some of the communications issues we’re having.
I didn’t say it would be easy. But “just as easy [as ethnically cleansing the area]”
I know this is a foolish highjack – but – I think it would be harder to kill all the citizens of a largish city than to forcibly relocate them. They’ll fight back a lot harder.
(Of course, classically, you can do it stealthily, so they think they’re being relocated, but when they get to the death-stations, they learn better…too late!)
For example, you could force a pretty massive migration out of southern California just by blowing up the canals and pipelines that bring in most of the water. It would even be a semi-voluntary migration. Jerusalem, too, doesn’t have its own water supply, at least not enough for its current population.
Then there’s a light crop-dusting with plutonium salts… :eek: