In the end spite and ranting will draw so many away that I will be the only old-timer left.
Oh, come on now, Exie, I’m not all that upset. In fact, I’m not upset at all. I merely found your “disgust” and holier-than-thou attitude to be lacking in basis of fact and felt compelled to make the necessary correction.
Nice segue there, Exie, but we’re not talking about history, we’re talking about they way things are now! Or at least we were, until you decided to try to worm your way out of having to admit my statement regarding the pervasiveness of Muslim terrorists and terrorist groups was accurate.
My, my, my – you do go on, don’t you? I certainly don’t use it to support such things! I’m merely making a statement of fact. You and anyone else can make of it what you will, but whether they use to support negative actions by the U.S. or you use it to claim the danger they will, it changes nothing with regard to the fact that what I’ve said is indeed fact. (You might want to consider a career as a mainstream journalist, however, as it is much in favor of suppressing perfectly obvious facts in an effort to keep people from becoming cognizant of facts that might tend to persuade them in the direction the media doesn’t want them to go.) The problem isn’t the fact that I claim Muslim terrorism is so widespread, it’s the fact that Muslim terrorism is so widespread!
Again, what the hell does any of this have to do with the price of tea in China. We are discussing the prevalence of Islamic terrorism throughout the world, or at least we were until you decided to change horses in midstream and try to make this a history lesson.
And you must be operating in a massive mental fog if you can’t separate my comments about the pervasiveness of Muslim terrorists vs. whatever else has gone on the world in regard to other terrorist acts. In the first place, they’ve done a hell of a lot more than create problems in Israel and the 9/11 attack. A hell of a lot more. And secondly, how does my comment illustrating the widespread terrorist activity on the part of Muslim terrorists mean I don’t know about the many other acts of terrorism perpetrated by others? What a stupid thing to say! If I’m concerned about the effect of the tsunami does it mean I know nothing about tornadoes in the U.S.? If I’m worried about heart disease does it mean, ipso facto, that I know nothing about the problems associated with obesity?
Of course it doesn’t, and you know it! Frankly, you’re appear to be grasping at straws.
Translation: "I have not known you to decide you were wrong and I am right despite my many protestations that this is so, therefore you are a stubborn, ignorant fool who can only be redeemed by adopting and following this mantra: “You are right, Excalibre! You are right, Excalibre! You are right, Excalibre!”
As you are showing by your own example, my friend. (Yes, the "friend’ part is a whoosh!) :rolleyes:
Are you nuts??? I offered it to you, and you certainly haven’t liked or defended me! And I’ve offered it to many others who haven’t necessarily liked or defended me at the time I offered it, though we may have become friends since then. But the thing is, I speak out of fact, remember…not out of an attempt to manipulate the person I’m speaking to (as appears to be the case with you). If I respect somebody, I say so regardless of their feelings about me. If I don’t respect them, I don’t offer it no matter how much they may like me. It’s about the facts, remember? – it’s all about the facts! And the fact of the matter is, I’m quite happy to retract both the compliments and the respect I offered you as they were clearly misplaced.
Yes, I remember once a couple of months ago when you weren’t able to tell whether you were being whooshed by something I said in response to one of your inanities. I think I’ll just keep you guessing. It’s such fun watching you try to figure things out.
Oh, that’s okay…I can probably keep up. :rolleyes:
Just try to use a little (genuine) logic and to stay on topic instead of veering off into history lessons that pertain to nothing regarding the argument at hand, m’kay?
John Mace:
…Bill Clinton and the rest of the Democratic Leadership Council?
Are they liberal/lefty, John?
What’s the cut-off point between “history” and “now,” in your estimation?
Into semantic hair-splitting today, are we? And even more to the point, what possible difference does it make?
I offered a challenge earlier in this thread asking if anyone could point to a terrorist group with more members and which was more widespread throughout the world, and as usual no one has come up with anything other than the usual protestations of bigotry on my part.
If I’m wrong, point to another group of terrorists with more members and which is more widespread throughout the globe. If not, then concede the fact that even though you don’t like it, it’s true that Muslim terrorists are both the largest in number and the most pervasive throughout the world.
The point is that this is a fact. How is it to be dealt with if we are afraid even to acknowledge it? It is all well and good to try to eliminate bias and prejudice from your life, but not to the point that you deny obvious facts – and extremely dangerous ones at that.
This is where the problem lies, SA. From your phrasing here, it appears that you are classifying Muslim terrorists as one group. As “a terrorist group”. Fact is, there are a multitude of different terrorist groups whose membership is wholly or mostly Muslim, whose ideology is more or less based on fundamentalist Islamic tenets, but who are entirely separate organizations.
There were a lot of radical-socialist groups running loose in various parts of the globe a few decades ago. They all claimed to be followers of Marx and Lenin. Were they all really one terrorist group? Nope, they were home-grown rebels reacting to perceived injustices in their own particular corner of the globe, drawing upon concepts inherent in the Marxist-Leninist ideology to support their individual struggle, offering a loose confederacy of aid and comfort at times to co-ideologues, but by no means operating under a single command structure.
Wow, Bill Clinton and the Democratic Leadership Council post on the SDMB? Far out.
Ya gotta wonder, though - if they were paying attention to business maybe the party would be in better shape. 
Heh. But I posted that to show, Jack, that social libertarianism combined with free market capitalism is representative of the mainstream of the Democratic Party. (Note the founders, members, and past presidents of the DLC, and it’s like a roll call of the Democratic stars of the last fifteen years.) John was saying that many of the conservatives here are more properly characterized as libertarian, but that many of the liberals aren’t – and asked, as a litmus test, that tom~ name a poster who is considered liberal but is a free market type. I’m saying that by John’s standard, the Democratic mainstream is more properly considered libertarian rather than liberal…thus invalidating his previous objection to the board’s centrism, reprinted below. 
Oh, and one more thing.
Jackmannii:
Many liberals would argue that the party is in the shape it’s in because Clinton and the rest of the DLC gang paid too much attention to business.
Yes, I know that, ETA. That’s why I’ve been speaking in terms of global proliferation and numbers of members, and I’ve tried to avoid phrasing that would make it sound like they were a singular unit. And I’ve been pretty successful up until the comment above.
However, there are even factions within factions within factions, and I believe that if we get bogged down in trying to be surgically precise about every comment we make, we won’t ever get beyond that. And besides, there are certain common denominators that qualify them as a group in my opinion: They are all Muslim-based and Muslim-oriented (I know you know the difference, but Excalibre may not 
), they are intolerant of faiths and lifestyles not their own, and they all employ the use of terrorism – particularly against innocent people not their enemies – to try to acheive their ends. I refer to them as a group based upon those common denominators.
So what do we do with this morsel of intelligence, SA? You are pains to convince us that this is the most mundane and obvious of facts, what use do you propose we make of it? Have you alerted the media?
You see, I can use your own definition to refute you. The Sandinistas were not the Baader-Meinhof Gang were not Shining Path were not the Khmer Rouge were not… and so on. Or do you believe that every Marxist-Leninist terror organization was/is part of one group?
I’d argue that it is in fact important to parse out the particular grievances/rationales of particular groups so as to devise strategies and tactics to negate their popular support – and no terrorist group can survive without some degree of popular support.
Semantic? What on Earth is “semantic” about the difference between “now” and “then”? And as for what possible difference it could make, I personally would say “none.” You’re the one who’s suggested some arbitrary and undefined difference between current terrorism and historical terrorism. You tell me what difference it makes, because I certainly don’t see one.
But for the purposes of this discussion, it would be helpful to know if you’re going to ignore any cites for terrorism before a certain SA-defined time frame before anyone wastes their time digging them up.
You aren’t supposed to do anything with it, luci…and on preview, Miller. If you’ll recall, rjung brought it up from an old thread in an effort to prove that “righties” here think 99.9999% of Muslims are terrorists. I’ve merely been trying to set the record straight and defend myself from the further misrepresentations that have occurred in this thread.
ETF, sorry, but I think most people not wanting to get bogged down in semantics will get my point. The fact of the matter, once again, is that Muslim terrorism is the greatest terrorist threat, by far, that exists in the world at this point in time. I don’t see what good is accomplished by trying to take into account the particular goals and grievances of each individual faction, just as communism, in toto, was considered our enemy (and the enemy of the many countries that fell to its tanks and armies) during the cold war. I don’t recall a great deal of effort made in those days to single out this faction or that. It’s the same here. Muslim terrorism, in any and all of its various incarnations, is the problem.
(Btw, I apparently thought you had changed your name to EddyTeddyAndy. My apologies. :smack: )
No, but they neither post here nor could they be considered libertarian. That’s what we were talking about.
No, I was merely demonstrating that righties on the SDMB will throw out outrageously incindiary things with nary a second thought – stuff that makes “Conservatives hate the truth” look like a love-tap by comparison.
1/ Your position is based on assumptions. It would all be a whole lot more impressive if you could come up with any actual study and you and other conservatives would have if you could have by now.
2/ Even assuming you are right that liberals would get wrong answers on the issues you raise, it doesn’t meet the issue as relevant to this thread. The issues you suggest liberals would be ignorant of are pissy little things in terms of what looms large in current political chatter. Contrastingly, the PIPA study’s key findings are about the Iraq war and the reasons for going into it, which looms very large.
3/ The PIPA study’s findings are that many 'Pubbies think certain things were important considerations in the decision to go to war, agree that the Bush administration is saying certain things about those considerations but are ignorant of the fact that what they are being told is wrong.
4/ That is a demonstrative and arguably representative example which is important to the OP because if myself and many others are right, the reason the boards are dominated by lefties at the moment is because it is a very hard time to be a thinking conservative: on at least one very large policy issue Bush is peddling ignorance (the antithesis of the ethos of these boards) and many 'Pubbies are lapping it up. This gives lefties something prominent to righteously jeer about to which thinking 'Pubbies have no good comeback.
5/ To demonstrate my point in reverse, IF there was a Dems leader who was garnering support for major policy by peddling ignorance, and IF that ignorance played into the biases of lefties such that they lapped it up then these boards would probably become a hard place to show your face as a thinking lefty. Not because these boards would be skewing right, but because the lefties would be saddled with a putative leader who was an ignorance peddling asshole.
If you’re not saying this particular quiz did what you describe, then what’s your point?
Interestingly, I have long maintained (and have posted it on these boards) that “communism” was never the enemy, but only the bogeyman used to whip up mindless support in our (legitimate) power struggle with the Soviet Union. Miilions of people were killed and enslaved by our allies and quite a few legitimate democratic movements were suppressed in the name of “fighting communism” when we should have been opposing Soviet aggression and supporting democracy regardless where it bloomed.
We are now repeating the same errors with the “War on Terror” by creating bogeymen (and supporting oppressive governments) when we think that we can get some short term benefit in one fight or another while we breed the next generation of people who will threaten us. When we declaim “Muslim terrorism” we create an environment in which disparate bands of political agitators can draw together in mutual support based on the fact that we have already lumped them together, so the Filipino dissident and the Uzbeki dissident, who initially looked on themselves as simply fighting Manila or Tashkent, now look around to see themselves as a world-wide brotherhood struggling against The (Christian, Secular) West. Now, some of that “brotherhood” or comon cause had existed in the 1990s, but by reifying it in our speeches and our public proclamations and especially our political alliances, we give it a reality that did not exist before and make it easier (for example) for Arabs to recruit Indonesians to their cause. I find it interesting, for example how many hot spots in the world that are currently under “siege” from “Muslim terrorists” were under siege from “Communists” just a few yeas ago. I suspect that most of those places have an ongoing internal power struggle that continues through the decades specifically because we keep finding excuses to champion one side or the other in the name of fighting world wide plagues rather than working to find a just settlement among the fighters that would let the next generation grow up in peace.
(I found it interesting among the obituaries and restrospectives on George Kennan, when he died a few weeks ago, that my positions were very close to those of the “Architect of the Cold War” who, having formulated the initial position of containment, had to spend the next 50 years railing futilely against successive administrations who kept giving lip service to “containment” while continuing to support wars and dictators in complete contradiction to Kennan’s plan.)
…But they are social libertarians who are big fans of the free market. I thought that’s what we were talking about.
This is what we were talking about (emphasis added):
In that context of that exchange, and my example of Apos, it should be clear that “someone” means “someone who posts on the SDMB”. Not to mention the subject of this thread being the political leanings of the SDMB posters.