Yes, there is a line to be drawn at respecting other people’s beliefs. Everybody must find their own place to draw that line, and clitorectomies and bombing innocent children is FAR beyond my line. Fuck those cultures and societies that support these things. It is my belief that there is a basic bottom-line code of decent human conduct that operates at a level below and above the level of culture and society.
I hope nobody will mind if I use this argument in a debate about circumcision (including circumcision for religious reasons, of course…)
I really doubt anyone will mind, clair,…as long as you prove harm was being done, as in the examples this comment was used to condem above.
Quit confusing understanding with morality, you elitist ass! I never, EVER condonded suicide bombings and suicide bombers as innocent people. They ARE murders, but sadly it goes a bit deeper then your simplfed whitewashed threoy of they are “evil” that it. So, quit hijacking this pit thread with your own personal gripe!
I objected to him brashing a whole culture and society “fucked up” so it is YOU with your head so far up your ass. If you don’t like this then good for you I don’t like mass-murder either. However keep your bigotry to your own goddamned self!
“Elitist”? Because I condemn suicide bombings? Interesting use of the word.
Nope, sorry, no shades of grey here, no need to understand. Suicide bombers only cause more sufering; they don’t relieve it. blowing up people only brings more retaliation.
Sorry, pal, but the observation that Arab society is fucked up isn’t bigotry, it’s a sensible judgement. It’s OK to kill people but not to wear makeup? What kind of warped, depraved values do you live by?
“I objected to him brashing a whole culture and society “fucked up” so it is YOU with your head so far up your ass.”
This makes no sense. You want to calm down and try logic?
With all due respect, efrem, I’m glad you’re not as far “out there” as your initial comment would lead one to believe but I’m still a bit fuzzy about your stance.
**
That is an oversimplfyed view of things and which will only lead to more confusion and carnge. If your just blowing off steam, fine (I guess this is the “pit”), but you can’t just cast things off as “fucked up”. That is very dangerous.
Would you like to ask the audience about that? The culture and society is fucked up! It condones mass murder! It tells its young people that if they blow themselves to hell, and take a bunch of innocents with them, they’ll get eternal life and 70 willing virgins! It is the definition of fucked up! Look up “fucked up” in the dictionary and you’ll see a picture of this!
Listen, recognizing total fucked-up-ness does not make me a bigot, and your use of really big type doesn’t make me one. I post what I want, when I want, and how I want, and if you don’t like it, tough shit.
I’m sorry, was compelety incoherant and I was a bit mad. On another thread I think gobear was teasing me on this. But my point was that labeling is dangerous espealy in this situation.
I can and I do. A society that raises children who think “mass murder = okay, but make-up = not okay” is capital-F fucked up. This is not a condemnation of every Palestinian person or every aspect of Palestinian culture. It is a condemnation of the mindset that would lead people to raise children who believe that murder is okay but immodesty is not – neatly and starking inverting the morality practices by sane cultures that are not fucked-up.
And it’s “bashing,” not “brashing,” genius.
Come on gobear. What about your oath as a sdmb member to fight ignorance?
Now you are saying “no need to understand” we must understand. I know that must be the anger talking.
jodi
I know you are angry and I am not going to pick a fight with you. However, please stop reveling in your bigotry.
EFREM, I am not particularly mad at you, but I HATE this argument: We can’t label people! That’s dangerous! Again – bullshit. The chick who wants to saw her arms off to replace them with hooks (“Dorrance Stainless Steel Hooks,” if I recall correctly) is not merely making a “livestyle choice.” She’s nuts. Maybe not clinically, but nuts in the real world sense of doing something that defies logic and common decency. By the same token, raising children to blow up themselves and others is nuts – especially when you simultaneously raise them to think that above all, they must be modest. This leads to an absurd dichotomy: Mass murder = okay/Showing a little leg = not okay. That is just wrong, on so many levels.
Dangerous to label, my ass. It’s never dangerous to speak the truth.
EFREM, I say this without a speck of anger. I cannot revel in what I do not have. Much as you might like to think I am, I am not a bigot. Ask around. And much as it might make my opinion easier for you to dismiss if I were, still I am not. Again, ask around. If you’d like to take a shot at showing me how I am a bigot, be my guest, but I think you’ll find it’s not as easy to prove the label as it is to apply it.
PERHAPS, she said quietly, what efrem is saying, is that not every Palestinian or Every Israeli feels the way the most outspoken of their factions do. So to call suicide bombers fucked up is most certainly ok, but to call the man with the fruit cart, just trying to live life fucked up is not.
correct?
I am glad that you don’t concider yourseldf a bigot. However branishing a whole culture is the wrong thing to do. That is what I objected too in the first place, and that is what I find wrong.
gobear: Sorry, pal, but the observation that Arab society is fucked up isn’t bigotry, it’s a sensible judgement.
Emphasis mine. I think this is the part of this critique that efrem is objecting to (and so do I). I don’t think anyone has a problem with saying that wishing to slaughter innocent civilians is fucked up (and of course, that also applies, e.g., to Israelis who favor indiscriminate killings of Palestinian civilians or Americans who favor indiscriminate killings of Afghani civilians merely as a warning pour encourager les autres.)
However, to say that this view is a fundamental characteristic of all of Palestinian society, much less all of the various Arab societies in the world, is seriously screwy. Worse, it’s self-serving and lazy; it just functions as an excuse to ignore the actual diverse views of people in those societies by saying “oh, they’re all fucked up.” That is bigotry.
JAR, it is not merely the suicide bomber that’s fucked up, it’s the society that births him as well. It’s paying their families $20 grand, and painting them as heroes and martyrs, and telling 5- and 10- and 15-year-olds that they can do nothing finer than to end their lives murdering others. It is a society-fostered mindset that is twisted and wrong. And you’re right, it may not include every individual in Palestinian society, but it is clearly a societal problem, not an individual one.