The Politics of Christopher Gambino/America

ISAW

Angry Banana wrote:

the banning of religious wear is not a liberal move, it's as draconian and as conservative as anything that has made international news in the last decade!

what about sickhs? what if they claim they need to wear turbans all the time? What if the law says you have to wear a helmet on a motorcycle?

Pluralism, as Ireland have. And as America have. Secularism, just like the head-scarf ban, is completely unfair on those with religious views (and we're talking 68% of our population at the last estimate) and favours purely atheistic views (<10% of the population).

I happen to agree with you on this in spite of my belief in natural Law. But Italian stallion will tell you that right is right even if only the minority believe it is right. furthermore he will tell you that might is right since the minority (the US about five per cent of the worlds population. Actually less since it is the mindset controlling the US) can decide when it is right to invade others (there are excuses but in hindsight they dont get ratified a bit like a lynching. "Yee hah string up them rapin negras. Opps sorry seems they didnt rape that white lady after all" Replace "rape" with "WMD wielding terrorist" and "negras" with "fundamentalist Iraquis" and you might see what I mean.)

I agree forcing Christian beliefs on anyone is unfair (but technically you can't do that because Christianity cannot be forced onto anyone, it must be accepted) and indoctrination is not acceptable, but evangelising is a totally different thing.

If you think the invasion of Iraq has created a belief that the Us loves freedom and democracy and is saving the Iraqui prople you have a lot to learn.

What's the difference between trying to get somebody to convert to your religion?

I think you are missing the point. there is nothing wrong with evangalising. Mind you the Jews have a rule against it and see it as wrong! But the invasion of Iraq was not a "Crusade" (Bush used the word first) to convert Islam.

If I was a parent of an eight year old I would not be happy with him seeing the Janet Jackson thing.

FAR FAR far far worse are the bodies of women children and Us troops which the US media hav a ban on in the "free" US!

And the 2000 year-old book is not 2000 years old. It was first written 5000 years ago - but if it is actually the word of God (shock shock horror horror!) it does not matter when it was written because it's - wait for it - eternal.

If you are claiming fragments of Job can be dated to 3000 BC I would like to see your evidence.

Not least because there is no one Christian religion .

yo are wrong! ALL Christians attest to one Christ! ALL attest to one true Christian religion

Did you forget about the small little split there that happened a while back? Christians (exclusive of Catholics) dictate that what is wrong is set not by man but by God as portrayed in the Bible. I'm sure some religion (Catholosism) came out against it,

Nope! The Roman Church and "Catholic" means universal i.e ther is one Catholic church. Anyway the Roman Church would claim that the continuity of christ's work subsists in the Roman Church. It does not deny others are Christian. Furthermore the roman Church would say that they accept the Bible but the written tradition is not the only tradition. What for example did illiterate people do for 200 years after Christ? What did lilterate peeople do - even they had no Bible. they might not have had even fragments of the Bible. They went by the oral Tradition. this runs parallel to the written tradition.

To put in simplistic terms the Roman Church focus in the body of Christ ( the word made flesh), the Orthodox on the spirit and the Protestants on the word itself.

ISAW

ItalianStallion wrote:

the very act of banning symbols is imposing the quasi-religion of secular humanism. you are infrenging on other freedom of expression. sort of hypocrytical to me.

I agree.

but anyone who admires france doesnt have any credibility anyway.

well you realise you have spurned the founding fathers of the US constitution? They had an ambassador to France. Know his name? Indeed, one could claim that the exchange of ideas from France brought about the break from England. And the French gave the US the Statue of Liberty! Don't you admire that statue?

your wong about adultury. it is legal. im sure some one like you would not like marrige as you probably see it as the oppression of women, but it is the oldest instution we have.

How about prostitution? that must be as old. should that be protected because it is old as well?

it should be protected.... showing semi-pornographic matereal is not Christian and not decent. i would let my children play with guns to protect their future but as i wouldnt let them look at pornography as that would endanger and corrupt it.

Would you let them look at the results of torture victims after US troops finished with them? Or the results of bombings? Or the dead bodies of young Americans who had half theior faces blown away? Possible by friendly fire even? what about the pictures of people shot by guns used to protect people? do you think looking at this would safeguard and ensure their moral fibre rather than endanger and corrupt it? Guns and naked bodied (living or dead) have no concience. It is the people that use them and how they use them that brings a moral perspective.

did you honestly not compherend what i said about religion? it comes from our response to God's revelation. part of that was written in our hearts, which we call NATURAL LAW. its really not that difficult to understand. religion (reaction to God) is our response. it is nessesary and those who profess not to have it cant be trusted because they dont believe in morality (atheistic morals are called 'ethics'.).

So why do you claim the US and ONLY the US have morality? Why do you claim that ONLY the US can decide who to invade and ONLY the US can decide if a US soldier did wrong. Surely if it is an immoral act it is not up to the US to say so? Are you playing God?

if you think all of the Christian religion is based on the bible, then you are incorrect.

True. I made this point elsewhere.

you seem to be defending drug use. its not out of religious spite that they are banned, its because they are gateway drugs.

Not only that. I have a problem in giving money to crime lords who create heroine addicts. that is ultimately where the money goes. there is no organised group of indigenous hippies growing hemp to offer it cheap to people who want it. If there was there whould be lots of grass and nearly no compressed hash which is easier to sumggle from abroad.
I also think that the idea is that sex, drugs , alcohol, going to the gym, rugby baseball etc. can all be a form of glorifying the body or the material. Replacing the spiritual with the material would be seen as greviously wrong.

they open the door to alot of bad behavior and make the user lazy and stupid. althoug many of these can apply to alcohol, i implore you to ask yourself, would you rather you children have the odd drink, or somke the odd joint? marijuana is a filthy drug that glorifies excapism. somehow, i have a feeling that you smoke alot of it though.

Hmm. Judgemental. Unforgiving. Self Righteous. all have sinned an come short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23)
As regards the written tradition. Jesus is recorded as writing only twice.
John 8:1-11
I suggest you re-read it.

Pet

How can you POSSIBLY think that was a brilliant decision?! Can you imagine the international outcry that would ensue if George Bush brought in such a law? What would your views be on that if, just like in France, it really only affected Muslims?

Firstly, George Bush would never bring in a law like that, he doesn't have the balls. He would never piss off his fundamentalist supporters like that. And, it doesn't just affect Muslims, it affects everyone.
But further to the headscarf thing: That's not actually a part of the Islamic religion, it's part of a Middle-Eastern cultural mindset, one which is discriminatory and demeaning to women, and treats them as inferior citizens, so I agree that it should be banned.

but the banning of religious wear is not a liberal move, it's as draconian and as conservative as anything that has made international news in the last decade!

That's why I admire the decision. It flew in the face of wishy-washy thinking - they took a stand, even though it was possibly dangerous.

I think that evangelising is frowned upon because it's annoying, not because it's ethically wrong.

Yes, I'm with you on that. I don't threaten Mormons or whatever when they come to the door, I just tell them I'm not interested. And I wouldn't agree with it being made illegal either.

We're getting on moral relativism here. Personally I think that acts of a homosexual nature are morally wrong, as set down by God. But I do not think that homosexuals should be oppressed or criminalised. I see lying as morally wrong, and I lie. I draw the line of state intervention on where the act could/does impinge on others. For example, if you and Kealy agree to have a fight in private that's fine. But in public no, because some ole' one could be frightened and that's unfair to public order. And if you require a state hospital bed afterwards you have to pay, or else you'll be using others' taxes. The same logic applies to abortion, you are/could be killing someone. It may be morally wrong to agree to fight (I dunno, probably not) but it's not within the realm of the State to intervene, because although the State should seek perfect morality, it will never achieve it because of its morally corrupt state itself.

You just avoided the issue completely. Gay marriage (in a legal sense) should be legal, because it can only have good results for the gay population (less promiscuity, more encouragement to have lasting relationships, etc). But mainly, I don't see any ethical reason not to. The only objections come from the religious section of the population. And I'm saying, that is unfair (not to mention stupid and detrimental).

And I'm of the opinion that my form of Christianity (read ~Catholosism) states that you need to agree with it yourself in the first place.

What does the "it" refer to? If "it" refers to what the religion itself says..I'm not so sure about that. I never remember being encouraged to question what the Bible or the Pope said - I was told to take it as face value, along with everyone else..

However, I believe that their sexual acts are sins/morally wrong.

That's fine, you're perfectly entitled to that belief (and any others) as long as you don't push them onto others. I'm not saying that people who think homosexuality is a sin should be locked up, I'm just saying it's not right for them, especially if they are in power, to deny the rights of others based on those beliefs.

No we haven't.

Alcohol, tobacco.

Wrong again. Not least because there is no one Christian religion . Did you forget about the small little split there that happened a while back? Christians (exclusive of Catholics) dictate that what is wrong is set not by man but by God as portrayed in the Bible. I'm sure some religion (Catholosism) came out against it, but afaik there's nothing in the Bible about it - and papal infallability only came about in the 1800's, which dictates that the Pontiff becomes so united with God in his decision through ages and ages of prayer that his dictats cannot be wrong. Even still, the point is that it's from God - so if a Christian religion dictates something, say eating fish on a Friday, it's not necessarily wrong.

That's what I meant. There's a clear distinction between what was said in the Bible, and what "religious authorities" dictate. And that's a problem in itself - people can spin the Bible to suit anything they want.

John

Michael Jackson not guilty? The lunatics have taken over the asylum

Pet

im sure some one like you would not like marrige as you probably see it as the oppression of women, but it is the oldest instution we have.

but then someone who's an alleged "intellectual" like your self probably knew that and wanted to play the devils advocate (im giving you the benefit of the doubt).

somehow, i have a feeling that you smoke alot of it though.

Lol, nice assumptions there, I'm so glad to fit the stereotype so efficiently. Where did I claim to be an "intellectual"? I'm a science student, mainly concerned with logic and reason. And no, I actually didn't know that - I'm never ashamed to state when I'm out of my depth or when I don't know something.

the very act of banning symbols is imposing the quasi-religion of secular humanism. you are infrenging on other freedom of expression. sort of hypocrytical to me. but anyone who admires france doesnt have any credibility anyway. this is not an attack of you, but really, france? come on!

As far as I'm aware, the ban only applies in public schools, not anywhere else, so where's the problem? It ties into the uniformity model more than anything else. That's why I agree with it. A complete public ban would be ridiculous, and it would never happen.
And btw, France have the best standard of living in the world. I'm sure there are plenty of areas where they could improve, but I'd much rather live there than the US. And that's how a country should be judged - on how safe and comfortable it is to live there.

forcing secular humanism denies the rights of all faiths as you deny atheists rights could be denied. athiests are wrong, somthing all religions can agree on. their godless philosophy (sorry budhists) is a great danger to humanity. it seeks "progression" by any means, even if is destructive to our families, our bodies and our human dignity.

Secular humanism in law denies the rights of nobody, unless it's the right of a person to live in a theocratic state. And if they want that, they should move. Please read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secular_humanism on secular humanism and point out what is so destructive and wrong about it. As far as I can see, it sounds like utopia. If you think it's going to reduce the significance of religion in your life, it's not. Eg in Canada, there are separate civil Shariah courts for dealing with private family matters, I'm sure the same could be done for willing Christians.

your wong about adultury. it is legal. im sure some one like you would not like marrige as you probably see it as the oppression of women, but it is the oldest instution we have. it should be protected.

I have no problems with traditional marriage, but as I said previously, there are no ethical reasons to outlaw gay marriage, and only good can come out of it. I'm sure gay people have no desire for a religious marriage (and it will never happen anyway), so where's the problem? State recognition is not going to cheapen the institute of marriage or the family.

as for the nipple argument, you cant excape from your own hipocracy. the paragraph in reference came just after a previous one where you defended europe's commitment to Christian morality. showing semi-pornographic matereal is not Christian and not decent. i would let my children play with guns to protect their future but as i wouldnt let them look at pornography as that would endanger and corrupt it.

Y'see, that's another problem I have with American fundamentalist Christians. They see any nudity whatsoever as pornographic. Now I agree the Janet Jackson nipple incident wasn't exactly the most innocuous way to expose a breast..but I'd imagine that you would be completely opposed to having a set of breasts (even in even an innocuous context) shown on national television in an advertisement (like they do in France). There is nothing un-Christian about nudity or sex.

as for gay marrige, yes it is a religious issue. since the VAST majority of Americans are Christian, our values arereflected in the law. the constution doesnt deny that, and protecting it protects our right to put Christian inspired policy into action.

What about wearing clothes spun from mixed fibres? Or working on a Sunday? Should you make those illegal? Or perhaps you'd like to reintroduce slavery, seeing as it's permitted in the Bible? Modern society has declared all of the above moot, and most of modern society has declared the whole homosexuality ban rubbish as well. Picking and choosing is a bit hypocritical..

we seek goodness because it is what is right, not because we are afraid of hell. it is out of free will, not coersion. Jesus even said that thinking adultury is commiting it. i will cross apply this to your argument about murder. the athiest would only refrain out of fear of legal consequences. not a great restraint, especially with police as "proficient" as the Garda in solving crimes.

No, the atheist, if he had any humanity or decency, would realise that murder is ethically wrong. That's why he'd refrain. And I only used murder as an extreme example - the same applies to anything else.

If the Bible tells me not to eat shellfish, I think about it. And I realise "that's rubbish, there's nothing wrong with eating shellfish if it's cooked properly" so I eat it. (There's also the fact that you can disclaim parts of the Bible due to its age, but fundamentalists don't like that, they need the "all or nothing" approach, which is where Creationism and its associated bull**** comes from.)

being a hedonist is very wrong. seeking pleasure for the sake of pleasure is a corrupting, matrealist spiral that only serves to take away one's dignity. self denial and restraint are the only way to live a fulfilling and happy life. i speak from expirence (not the gay kind).

Would you be willing to testify that you've never had sex (I'm assuming you're not yet married)? Or masturbated? (Or eaten when you aren't hungry, or eaten for the taste and not the nutritional value?)

you seem to be defending drug use. its not out of religious spite that they are banned, its because they are gateway drugs. they open the door to alot of bad behavior and make the user lazy and stupid.

That's absolute RUBBISH. I can't believe you're spouting that. Lazy and stupid? Some of the most successful people I know are regular drug users, and they have no ill-effects because they are responsible.

althoug many of these can apply to alcohol, i implore you to ask yourself, would you rather you children have the odd drink, or somke the odd joint? marijuana is a filthy drug that glorifies excapism. somehow, i have a feeling that you smoke alot of it though.

I'd MUCH rather they smoked the odd joint, because it would have much less health consequences for them. Drugs aren't just about being lazy or stupid, a lot of them are about achieving a clarity of mind or a spiritual perspective otherwise inaccessible. And they've been used like that, safely and responsibly, for hundreds of years.

I do see your point about heavy marijuana users, yes they do become stupid and lazy, and lose all ambition. But not everyone who drinks is an alcoholic, and the same applies to marijuana (I prefer to call it cannabis btw, less confusion). I'd never propose some kind of complete deregulation of it, I'd like to see it available in limited amounts from licensed sellers. It would do a lot more good than having to get crap-quality stuff from drug dealers.

ItalianStallion

ApeXaviour wrote:

Okay christopher, I'm dec by the way. I have to say the same about your honesty and openness to constructive discussion rather than petty squabbling, admirable to say the very least, refreshing from the usual sectarian drivel that arises from a difference in politics.

Mary Mcaleese is an adulterer? Never heard that. I know our taoiseach is/was legally separated and had a girlfriend. Hardly adultery except in the strictest legal sense, but remember divorce is only recently legal in ireland.
I strongly and with great vigor disagree however that in europe adultery is in any way acceptable socially. I would even go as far as saying it is less accepted than in the US. We do in general however hold the opinion that what ever a politician (person in general?) does in their personal life as long as it does not interfere/corrupt their work (within reason of course) then it is none of our business really. Hence our sympathy for Bill w.r.t. impeachment proceedings for "raping whitehouse interns" -Ann Coulter on Fox News :rolleyes:


Tell that to fundamental religious people will you? Rev fred phelps for one. That man and his possé are evil incarnate imo. Religion is fine in my books, but like any belief system it has its extremes. Extremes are usually no good..
I'm not an atheist (I'm agnostic) but I have no need of a religion or belief to tell me what is right and wrong, neither will my kids. I had a heavy god-fearing catholic upbringing and had to de-brainwash myself of all that during adolescence..

As you said, I can see how how religion has its place in your history with the pilgrims escaping persecution in europe etc. However up until a point we had a similarly christian past. America in the first half of the last century was (afaik) in general less religious than europe (of this I am not 100% sure but it was certainly a hell of a lot less religious than it is now). It was between the late 40's to late 60's during the cold war that america experienced a sharp upsurge in church attendance etc. This, according to some, is at least partially due to america seeing themselves as the antitheses of the godless communists. I would be of this opinion.

heheh I like that spin you put on it. I guess we should never have legalised condoms then.
I think a better way to put it is that we progress in legalising things that we haven't been conditioned into thinking are fundamentally wrong without due cause. e.g. homosexuality and other victimless crimes. imo abortion is not a victimless crime, so I'm with you there if nowhere else.

I agree with most of what you said pet except this. I consider this a conservative intrusion onto these kids' beliefs. It is a censorship of sorts. I hate this beaurocratic crap about school uniform. We are not robots, we can decide to bend rules in obvious circumstances. This is one trait I will give america, they are more accomodating to differences in their own country. I guess its inevitable considering the are THE cultural melting pot. This extends to other things too.. every see fly away home? A bunch of geese and 2 canadian kite-planes land illegally (from canada) in a US air-force base and cause their planes to scramble. Once the CO heard their excuse (they were teaching them migrating routes) he said sod the rules (they should have gone to jail) and accomodated them as best he could.

sorry, i meant birdie. our piritcnical views of sex make it much more of a faux pas. look at what we did to clinton! an adulturer would never be elected here. a president's personal life is important because it shows the result of his charcter over the decades of his life. the president is looked up to by millions and i wouldent want my children having a cheating husband as a posotive role model.

it sounds like you rebelled durring addolesence and havent fully come around yet. many people go through that stage, although i never did. when you have children and you want them to learn values based on somthing solid, you will probably come around. dont say it wont happen either. agnostic is greek for not knowing, but i think that expirence of creation will help you come around. i will say a prayer for you.
interesting hypothesis about the cold war, but i would disagree. it was durring the forties that the notion of seperation of church and state was first introduced and it has deffinatly been down hill since the sixties. i will grant a core of your argument though, that durring a war, a nation becomes more introspective and conservative. did you know that there is actually a connection between the legenth of a womans hem line on her skirt and that nation's state of military perparedness? it legenthens under national stress.
im against contraception but you probably guessed that. in homosexuality, the community is the victem. 'gay' culture is a diseased and corrupting.

ItalianStallion

Shadowlands wrote:

because right or wrong (we have faith that its right) we will not be hindered by nations hostile to our interests.

you sound like an islamic extremist. ever think that you and your cronies are just the same thing?

btw, how can you support the death penalty and be pro-life without the slightest feckin irony?

no, im a nationalist. if you dont think that about your country, you are either not patrotic or just limp-wristed.
FYI: cronies implies those with me. i only stand with the muslims on some social issues such as liberalism, communism, abortion and a high regard for the family.
the death penalty is not unchristian, as cannon law recognizes the right of a legitimate state to execute.

ItalianStallion

Pet wrote:

I got suspended more times than I care to remember for not wearing my full uniform..I hated it so much at the time (didn't help that it was scratchy and uncomfortable and completely ginga), but I realised there was a purpose to it. Alright, they didn't have to be such Nazis about it, and the piercings thing really ****ed me off, but it created an environment and broke down a lot of barriers.



I don't hate America; and as easy as it is to stereotype, 49% of the population voted for Kerry, and the fact that they'd go to such lengths to avoid Bush speaks volumes. There never used to be a problem with the US before the last 5 or 6 years. It's probably Bush and his abrasiveness, coupled with an upsurge in blind patriotism after September 11th. Despite all that, it's a fairly advanced country; it just happens to have some terrible policies and practices. Criticism is partly constructive, it's like "Shame on you, you should know better!" as much as anything else.



As Liouville said, the really conservative ones wouldn't let their daughters into a public school (or even a mixed one methinks)..But as far as I'm aware, the headscarf is more a cultural symbol than a religious one, so that's a really good point. And I don't think the French accounted for that in their decision. But I still think it was a brave move; it flew in the face of the excessive political correctness that seems to abound lately.

id blame it more on the cowerdice of europe in the face of trying times.

ItalianStallion

Pet wrote:

It's a bit **** for you 49% alright I'd imagine..I've visited the US plenty of times in the past and only ever had brilliant experiences with the people I've met..okay the midwest was totally lacking in culture, but the cities more than compensated for that (I San Francisco).
It just seems to me that Bush has mobilised a small but very loud section of the population to stand up and declare their opinions in an obnoxious fashion; people who would otherwise be sitting out getting a nice shade of crimson on their necks..
Oh, and just in case you're apprehensive; I've never witnessed any anti-American comments being made to Americans on campus; you'll get the typical jokes and windups, but I'd be quite surprised if anyone gave you abuse. There's quite a few of them around and they get on great..

ok, your just a cultural snob, plain and simple. you look down on American culture like brits look down on Irish culture. Like it or not, our culture of fast food, elvis and FREEDOM seems to be dominating your native ones. our red-necks (im one on the weekends) are the most dominant force on this planet. while you whine from your college campus's, we are deciding the fate of the world. does it bother you that no matter what you do with your life, the best of my clique will always make more money, have a greater voice and be more important on the world stage?

ItalianStallion

ISAW wrote:

You refer here to gypsies. Yopu originally asked why irish gaols have so many Gypsies and Nigerians? I would ask you to check out your facts. Romany gypsies constitute maybe three per cent of the "traveller" population. The level of petty crime among them is I would venture far less than among the itenerant population. Furthermore when it comes to embeslement, fanancial fraud, offshore laundering etc. the level of crime is probably far less than the general population.



are you now going to campaign for the removal of the Jim Rose tour from the US?


Actually my point was that judges dont come from a background of poverty and lack of education. Furthermore, poverty actually is the biggest correlation factor affecting lack of education.



"good homes" ? don't poor people have "good homes"? Or does your God not like poor people as much? You miss the point. Poor people are less likely to become professionals. Now why do you think that is? Is it because god loves them less? Is it because they are less capable? Or is it maybe because because they dont have the same chances and opportunities primaraily because of their poverty?



Yes in petty crime the travellers have a higher rate. They are also very Roman Catholic so I dont think you will criticise all the things they excell at will you? The majority (about 80 per cent ) of Mountjoy Prison come from five particular areas of Dublin not from caravan parks! I will let you guess if any of these areas are middle or upper class. Poor areas produce more of the type we put in gaol. Furthermore poor areas dont have the same access to "getting off". My question still stands. does God love the poor and the meek less? Was Jesus lying in the Sermon on the mount?


I didnt drop it. It correlates. But you do not commit to poverty nor commit education.



I accept people choose to commit crime. But please justify how rich people have an easier choice and tend to commit the sort of crime that does more monetary damage but they do less time in gaol.



Making a buch from the talent of disenfranchised balcks. Ah well. NBothing new there. They did it before with Elvis.



had she been convicted of a capital crime you would support her being executed! So what would have changed. In her vegitative state if found guilty of a capital crime having a death penalty how would she have become different to the "santified" person?

My point about natural universal law was that Bush claims to ascribe to this but at the same time claims international war crimes can only apply to other armies and not to the US army.



discontent with what? If they were discontented with a democrat administration you would praise them.




No they weren't!



There was smoke and mirrors but no gun!



I challenge it! they were not being good Muslims just as fundamentalist christians who kill innocent people are not good christians.



And you want to be a lawyer? first, I could be a Satanist Muslim or athiest and hate the Us legal syatem (which I dont) but still that system would have to operate by it's rulea and i could use those rules to defend myself.
Second I am not making a defence here. you are! The point is not whether or not I believe in god but whether your god loves rich people better than poor ones? If he does not then why are the US prisons filled with poor people?



But above you claimed that judges should be above party politics?



when did Iraq threaten the US? The WMD thing has been shown to be invented! And if you are defending people from mass murder why did you not act in Africa, the Phillipnes, Central America. Actually why did the US act in support of mass murdering dictators?



check out http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstat7.htm
http://www.zmag.org/CrisesCurEvts/interventions.htm
http://costofwar.com/



Prove it! the vast majotity of military actions above are economic in interest.


If you believe in a universal morality then why not support universal war crimes as you did in the case of the Nazi's?



nor am I so I wont argue about that.

You've odviously never been in temple bar on the weekends. they live by begging and picking pockets! oh, and romney gypsies dont travel in this country. they are generally settled. anyway, you only further my notion that minorities commit a greater amount of crime then the general population. do you think so many blacks are in jail due to racism? thats what i detect you hint at. Clerence Thomas (black) voted against affirmative action in the supreme court. is he racist too?
as for your education link with poverty, while it is a great factor, there are also culutral reasons. many more hispanics finish school percentage wise then blacks. one group puts a higher value in education then the other.
you cant blame lesser performance entirely on poverty. there is somthing called 'personal responsibility'. this makes someone responseable for their actions. a poor person with the ability can go to college if they really wanted to. the fault lies with them, not the system. ever hear of the American dream? my father found it. not by government programs, but through hard work. i applaud the mexicans for working so hard for that vision. they should be an example to us all.
why would you even ask if God loves the poor less? i blame much of the crime on a system that rewards people with the dole and housing when they dont deserve it. it negates the value of work and thus the lure of easy money holds sway.
as for federal or "white collar crimes" they dont usually have the factor of volience in them, so the mandated sentences are much shorter, as they should be. you must admit that volient acts are much worse then ones on paper.
whats your point about disenfranchised blacks? fine, we make money on them. they make money on them too. it doesnt negate the general poor quality of rap's message, it only gloirfies it.
as for schivo, that poor woman was starved and dehydrated to death. that gruesome fate was much worse then her semi-vegetative state. if she was a condemed criminal, she should have been executed when/if she recovered. i would let the courts decide that slippery slope in that case though.

i have a date now, so have to finish the rest of your arguments later. wish me luck my friend!
Christopher

Pet

ok, your just a cultural snob, plain and simple. you look down on American culture like brits look down on Irish culture. Like it or not, our culture of fast food, elvis and FREEDOM seems to be dominating your native ones. our red-necks (im one on the weekends) are the most dominant force on this planet. while you whine from your college campus's, we are deciding the fate of the world.

Unless you're taking the piss, you just fulfilled the stereotype, to the very last. How convenient.

does it bother you that no matter what you do with your life, the best of my clique will always make more money, have a greater voice and be more important on the world stage?

No! Not a bit! I have absolutely no desire to be either rich or poweful (hence my distate for matters political and materialistic), so it doesn't bother me at all. Your desires for the above seem spiritually redundant to me, and you're doing nothing for your karma.

ISAW

ItalianStallion wrote:

an adulturer would never be elected here.

What about Roosevelt? and he wasn't the only one!

it sounds like you rebelled durring addolesence and havent fully come around yet.
...
many people go through that stage, although i never did.

throwing stones again! Did you not give a pubic interview to the Trinity News admitting you had been up 15 times to the Junior dean? Were all of those incidents justified?

when you have children and you want them to learn values based on somthing solid, you will probably come around. dont say it wont happen either. agnostic is greek for not knowing, but i think that expirence of creation will help you come around. i will say a prayer for you.

that is kind of you but please forgoe preaching from the high ground.

interesting hypothesis about the cold war, but i would disagree. it was durring the forties that the notion of seperation of church and state was first introduced and it has deffinatly been down hill since the sixties.

actually in france it was something like 1905! they beat the US public school system to it by several decades.

im against contraception but you probably guessed that. in homosexuality, the community is the victem. 'gay' culture is a diseased and corrupting.

So do you believe people ( and I include married couples) should abstain from sex? Otherwise one might have overpopulation.

And what is a "gay culture"? to my knowledge no majority of large communities have been openly gay. accept in the US that is e.g parts of Florida and California. Even when sex with minoirs and homosexuality were acceptable in ancient Greece it was not a mojority practice. In many cases it is an extension IMHO of the worship of the material. that would put homosexuality in with hetrosesuals on the sin scale. I really wonder if you could point to a tenet of Christianity which suggests homosexuality is evil. The Roman Catholic Church does not do so! and remember God loves fags too.

Shadowlands

I'm more of a patriot that you'll ever be. Forgive me for wanting Americans to stay at home and survive - not to go off to die, or lose limbs. Forgive me for wishing that 100,000 Iraqis hadn't died. I doubt that is weak to feel that war was unjustified in the case of Iraq. I protested the war in NY, and state my opinions despite the fact that "my fellow Americans" may not like to hear them - that is far more brave than going along blindly with an incompetent fool like Bush.

I never said that it was against Christian law to have a death penalty, however when you hold such high regard for human life in other ways, why not respect all forms of human life without hypocrisy?

Many of your responses to Pet, about American life and how "great" it is are truly unfounded. In America, at least 40 million people lack basic health care, and although one might critize the state of the Irish health care system at least everybody is covered. You say "the best of my clique will always make more money" - what an elitist. You obviously don't care about the less fortunate. Yes, America's rich families seem to be getting even more rich, however the poor are getting poorer, and while you think that may be ideal for you and your kind, it's not. You may not care now, but you will one day when those people who you ignore so callously cry out for a change. Because change will happen when those who are also citizens, need I remind you, get fed up with this very type of behaviour. Don't forget the unions, strikes, and riots that happened as a result of the "glided age" in America, when similar corpoate greed and excess was excused. And who cares about importance on the world stage when all you use it for is more power and more wealth instead of important things like helping people? Did you forget your Christian values?

Don't feel sorry for Ireland. It was voted the No.1 country for quality of life by Economist Magazine - an American magazine. It was 13 spots ahead of the US. I suggest you read an article at

http://www.irishabroad.com/news/irishpost/news/irelandsqualitytheworld.asp

ISAW

ItalianStallion wrote:

You have odviously never been in temple bar on the weekends.

i lived in the City centre for ten years. I also did eleven years national service. so I don't think I need you to tell me whether temple Bar is representative of Irish culture as a whole.

they live by begging and picking pockets! oh, and romney gypsies dont travel in this country. they are generally settled. anyway, you only further my notion that minorities commit a greater amount of crime then the general population.

that was my contention. More fraud, offshore laundering etc. is done my the minority of people who have the majority of the money.

do you think so many blacks are in jail due to racism? thats what i detect you hint at.

Trying to reverse the question will not answer it. I asked why are US prisons filled with blacks and poor people. well why are they? I don't think God loves them less. do you? so if god does not love them less what is the reason that poor people are in gaol and rich people are not in gaol. It is quite a simple question. It deserves an answer.

as for your education link with poverty, while it is a great factor, there are also culutral reasons.

The biggest correlating factor is poverty. Poor people get less education. You picked on a poor minority and claimed they commit crime. Sure enough they do. But so do a rich minority. so why are the rich minority not locked up to the same degree? You moralised about the evil poor people. so why not apply equal treatment?

many more hispanics finish school percentage wise then blacks. one group puts a higher value in education then the other.

this also its true. But at a recent conference in the royal Irish Academy I saw the US stats. BOTH these minorities fall short of the ruling whites.

you cant blame lesser performance entirely on poverty.

I didnt I claimed it was the largest correlating factor!

there is somthing called 'personal responsibility'.

I dealt with the choice issue already. I wont rehearse it.

why would you even ask if God loves the poor less? i blame much of the crime on a system that rewards people with the dole and housing when they dont deserve it. it negates the value of work and thus the lure of easy money holds sway.

this is a nonsense economic argument. Add up all the dole fraud and it comes to peanuts compared to the systematic abuse of old people; the offshore accounts; the frauds; overspending in public service; etc. I mean AIB had a 600 million dollar fraud in the US last year. This alone dwarfs the dole fraud over the whole last government! and dole fraud is difficult when there is 3 per cent unemployment!

as for federal or "white collar crimes" they dont usually have the factor of volience in them, so the mandated sentences are much shorter, as they should be. you must admit that volient acts are much worse then ones on paper.

But Hitler probably never killed a Jew. He did order it! do you really believe that punching someong is much worse than sneakily depriving him and his family of a house and job by using lawyers? Do you really think that the savings and loans scandal was not as bad as someone assualting a democrat congressman with a custard pie?

whats your point about disenfranchised blacks? fine, we make money on them. they make money on them too. it doesnt negate the general poor quality of rap's message, it only gloirfies it.

My point is clearly made earlier. I wont rehearse it. But now you are claiming that marketing crap is justified.
God or Mammon, make the choice before you dis the black mans voice.

as for schivo, that poor woman was starved and dehydrated to death. that gruesome fate was much worse then her semi-vegetative state.

there is a difference between harming someone and allown them by inaction to be harmed. If you thought about that then you would realise why so many people in africa, asia and the Middle East are suffering a gruesome fate.

if she was a condemed criminal, she should have been executed when/if she recovered.

Why do that? why allow someone to recover in order to execute them? Particularly since they havent recovered in a decade?

ItalianStallion

ISAW wrote:

My point about natural universal law was that Bush claims to ascribe to this but at the same time claims international war crimes can only apply to other armies and not to the US army.



discontent with what? If they were discontented with a democrat administration you would praise them.




There was smoke and mirrors but no gun!


I challenge it! they were not being good Muslims just as fundamentalist christians who kill innocent people are not good christians.


And you want to be a lawyer? first, I could be a Satanist Muslim or athiest and hate the Us legal syatem (which I dont) but still that system would have to operate by it's rulea and i could use those rules to defend myself.
Second I am not making a defence here. you are! The point is not whether or not I believe in god but whether your god loves rich people better than poor ones? If he does not then why are the US prisons filled with poor people?



But above you claimed that judges should be above party politics?

when did Iraq threaten the US? The WMD thing has been shown to be invented! And if you are defending people from mass murder why did you not act in Africa, the Phillipnes, Central America. Actually why did the US act in support of mass murdering dictators?



check out http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstat7.htm
http://www.zmag.org/CrisesCurEvts/interventions.htm
http://costofwar.com/



Prove it! the vast majotity of military actions above are economic in interest.


If you believe in a universal morality then why not support universal war crimes as you did in the case of the Nazi's?



nor am I so I wont argue about that.

im back. lastnight was nice. she cooked chicken enchaladas and we had alot of wine and watched an old gregory peck movie. i was so drunk by the end, i couldent find my car. when i found it, i took a nap and then tried to drive back home, but couldent remember where home was, so i slept in the back untill dawn and i remembered. today i was in court. the guy i work for was defending a mentally retarded man who was busted with drugs. an interesting case.

anyway, the reason we dont like the idea of an international court is because it will be used by our enemies to try our soldiers and leaders. it will be run like the UN. tell me why we should listen to a group that appoints CHINA, CUBA ans LYBIA to its council for human rights? the court would opperate the same way, and therefore, have no imperium. No foreign nation shall have jurisdiction greater then our own. too bad if you dont like that, but thats the way it is.

all prisions are generally filled with poor people. your point is again moot.
judges are supposed to be abopve party lines. affirmative action was unconstutional. the democrats supported unconstutional action like they do on abortion. some democrats are prolife though.

as for wars of economic interest, the first gulf war was started with the invasion of one of our allies. there was no economic interest in kosovo (i was against that action). no economc interest in veitman, korea, WWII, WWI, the Spanish war, the Civil War, Franco Prussian War, Napolonic wars.... etc.
as for islam, let me explain why the terrorists waging "jihad" are being good muslims. There is often the prolbem of conflicting passages in the koran that alternate between volient calls and peacefull, figurative calls. how is one to interpret which have more weight? well, koranic scholars since the begining have put more weight on the latter passages, because they came from a later and more recent date in the false prophet muhammed's life. how/why do they differ from the earler ones? well, in the begingng of his movement, he was relatively peacefull and wrote with kinder phrases and described jihad as an inner struggle. but once he was expelled from mecca, he beging to wax in his anger. this is reflected by the growing anger in the koran. as he gathers armies and destroys cities, spreading islam by the sword, he becomes enraged, and this is corresponds to the passages in the koran that speak about spreading islam by volient means. to kill those who wont convert and so on. one must understand that muhammed was no peacefull man, but a general who spread his message at the head of an army. knowing and understanding this, is is pretty clear that those islamicists are actually following in his steps and living the islam that the koran describes. those who say its a peacefull religion are either bad muslims or trying to infultrate. so now you know.

ItalianStallion

ISAW wrote:

[i.e dont as people in the middle east supporting the US]

Indded they DO count! But it is not much help to say to dead women and childred "you are free! You are also dead but you are free!" And when they have a constitution and a government that decides to tell the Us tto pull out will you then say they don't count?



This just isnt true! I recently listened to a Republlican politiican on US TV refer to Lebanon as a "democracy of a sort". I wrote something about it then and looked up the CIA fact book. I seem to remember at least five. Yemen (which was an old imperial colony), is Jordan constitutional? I note the Us are fond of praising the Kewait parliament as pals but I wouldnt regard them or the other personal pals of Bush the Saudis as democracies. Egypt I believe?

Israel just is NOT the only democracy in the Middle East. But your premise that the US are about supporting democracy is silly. they have supported dictatorships under the Republicans and Democrats for decades! As have the Brits French and Germans! WMD were first used in Iraq under Churchills orders!It is no wonder if they dont like the French who carved the place up with the Brits when the Germans and Turks couldnt because they lost the War! the US were busy consolidating South and Central America and the Pacific at the time.



But not the principle of natural law? That principle states that right and wroing were done before any law was written. That there are universally wrong actions! But the Us will not accept (in spite of committing tham) that these actions can be tried in International courts. At the same time they claim that there are Universal Human rights but deny prisioners in Guantanamo Bay due process.



But I just pointed out that the "right thing" for the US is defined by the US and not by any universal moral code.

most of the casualties in inaq were inflicted by iraqis on fellow iraqis, so your point has no teeth. the elected leadership wants us to stay at the moment.

as for democracies, jordan is not one. it is ruled by a king that has almost abosolute powers. yemen is called a republic, but then so is china. the officials are not accountable to anyone.
turkey, though not techinacally in the M.E is a military dictatorship of sorts like pakistan. Egypt is not a democracy either. i agree that we dont always support democracies, and that the premise of bringing them in is not as accurate as saying eliminating our enemies is.
as for wmd's, you accuse us of selling them to unstable nations, but several european nations just ok'd the sale of weapons the the biggest abuser of human rights on the planet! im really going to be angry if we get into a war with china over tiwan and they use weapons against us that our allegged "allies" sold them.

the prisoners in GITMO are getting due process. that is how terrorists too dangerous to have in america are to be treated and processed.

Godless european states cant choose to argue Natural law when they deny it through instutionalized secular humanism. "human rights" are often a cover word opeing up society up to dangerous or perverse threats.

ItalianStallion

ISAW wrote:

I really should ask:

What had 911 and muslim fundamentalism to do with Iraq?
Where were their any WMD in Iraq?
Didn't Bush and his people claim there were WMD?

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-1593607_1,00.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/12/AR2005051201857.html


Hmmm. wonder why you didn't "defend" yourselves from the regimes of Libya Iran or North Korea? Don't they kill their people? And they are not pally with the US like Saddam was! the mind boggles.

iraq was ruled by a despotic enemy of the United States, we reserve the right to nutrealize that and any other threat of the sort.

there were wmd's but now i think their in Syria. even if their not, its a good excuse to attack that wicked sponsor on international terrorism. they give governmental funding to hisbullah, which carries out many of the homocide bombings in Israel (saddam also gave the famlies of those "myrtars" $10,000 each.
im gung-ho about attacking the nations you mention. bombs away! i bet silly europeans would be out defending those wonderfull nations. would you be in the streets? i remember the communists protesting about afginistan outside college. "1,2,3,4 THE IMPEREALIST SYSTEM LEADS TO WAR! 5,6,7,8 DEFEND THE CHINEESE WORKERS STATE!"

ItalianStallion

Angry Banana wrote:

Wrong again. Not least because there is no one Christian religion . Did you forget about the small little split there that happened a while back? Christians (exclusive of Catholics) dictate that what is wrong is set not by man but by God as portrayed in the Bible. I'm sure some religion (Catholosism) came out against it, but afaik there's nothing in the Bible about it - and papal infallability only came about in the 1800's, which dictates that the Pontiff becomes so united with God in his decision through ages and ages of prayer that his dictats cannot be wrong. Even still, the point is that it's from God - so if a Christian religion dictates something, say eating fish on a Friday, it's not necessarily wrong.

thanks for nipping a few of those points in the budd! but i dont think you understand Papal Infalibility though. it was declared dogma in the 1800's, but the concept is much older. the Pope has only spoke infallibly a few times in history. as loyal Catholics, we can see these as abosolutes, such as abortion and liberalism/modernism.

ItalianStallion

Angry Banana wrote:

You fail to note that while 49% voted for Kerry, 51% voted for Bush. Not the election result I would have liked to have seen, but we must respect the democratic majority. And a +1% majority when it comes to a Boolean-esque election is the same as a +10%. Democracy is the worst form of Government, except for all the others.

Agree with the minority thing, but it's only an exagerrated case of the reality of democracy. FF have about 45% of the seats in the Dáil, but out of the people you know, how many would openly say FF are their main party? They just have a very strong core that is good at influencing the population as a whole. Ditto Bush.

i think its more accurate to say that Bush's values better reflected those of the majority of Americans. we have always generally been a conservative, God loving nation.

ItalianStallion

ISAW wrote:

I suggest you look up semetic. Palestineans are semetic as well!



this is just quite plainly incorrect. I already told you this was wrong. Check the CIA factbook and then make the claim again. I know if you do you will not come back here and lie because I know you to be honest.

Jordan - constitutional monarchy - just like the UK
Yemen - republic - just like Ireland
Egypt, Turkey,
georgia- oops they might not be to hot on the Us or on russia.

then there are others like the recently ejected ambassador in Tashkent Uzbeckistan Craig Murray, who has been an outspoken critic of the regime's human rights record. He was dumped from his job not because he pointed to the fact that they actually boiled people in oil among other tortures but because he claimed MI6 and the CIA used this for information thereby giving it tacid approval! Do the US support democracies and despise dictators in the region? Well I suggest you look at the facts before you make the claims.



First I would remind you of your comments on gypsies. Gypsies are people who travel around and dont claim to own any plot. the land is for everyone. This land is your land this land is my land sort of thing. Now the original inhabitants of america thought the same way. Europeans came and enforced their enclosure and land ownership mentality. They killed off the natives and fenced off the land even against their own people. Thats called cattle baron mentality. Oil barons replaced the cattle men. But the mentality is the same. The Mc donalds mentality is where the cattle men thinking resides now.

Second the European Imperialist mentality didn't come to the fore in france until Napoleon Bonepart. that was after the English had begun Empire building and after their American colonies got independance. the mindset of the ruling classes was (and stillis) European. the British tried much the same in Ireland beginning seven centuries before that. Indeed the Us has more in common with the British empire than the Irish rebel. Many of them currently hark back to the ritual and pomp which was part of the Anglican culture. Indeed parts of this are left over in Trinity. And I have nothing against ritual if it is not enforcing a tradition.

fine, but semetic in common usage denotes those of Jewish origen. anti-semetic refers exclusevly to a hate of Jews.
your wrong on the imprarealist argument. ever heard of the french and indian war? that was exclusevly over the new world colonies and several decades before bonapart. look even further back to the wars of Louis XIV. as you can tell, im a big supporter of imperealism!

ItalianStallion

ISAW wrote:

I agree.

well you realise you have spurned the founding fathers of the US constitution? They had an ambassador to France. Know his name? Indeed, one could claim that the exchange of ideas from France brought about the break from England. And the French gave the US the Statue of Liberty! Don't you admire that statue?


How about prostitution? that must be as old. should that be protected because it is old as well?

Would you let them look at the results of torture victims after US troops finished with them? Or the results of bombings? Or the dead bodies of young Americans who had half theior faces blown away? Possible by friendly fire even? what about the pictures of people shot by guns used to protect people? do you think looking at this would safeguard and ensure their moral fibre rather than endanger and corrupt it? Guns and naked bodied (living or dead) have no concience. It is the people that use them and how they use them that brings a moral perspective.



So why do you claim the US and ONLY the US have morality? Why do you claim that ONLY the US can decide who to invade and ONLY the US can decide if a US soldier did wrong. Surely if it is an immoral act it is not up to the US to say so? Are you playing God?


True. I made this point elsewhere.


Not only that. I have a problem in giving money to crime lords who create heroine addicts. that is ultimately where the money goes. there is no organised group of indigenous hippies growing hemp to offer it cheap to people who want it. If there was there whould be lots of grass and nearly no compressed hash which is easier to sumggle from abroad.
I also think that the idea is that sex, drugs , alcohol, going to the gym, rugby baseball etc. can all be a form of glorifying the body or the material. Replacing the spiritual with the material would be seen as greviously wrong.



Hmm. Judgemental. Unforgiving. Self Righteous. all have sinned an come short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23)
As regards the written tradition. Jesus is recorded as writing only twice.
John 8:1-11
I suggest you re-read it.

that was old france, they were once a great nation, but shortly after their revolution, went to the can. bonapart's greatest acheivement was getting his men to hold their rifles and fire instead of dropping them and running away. google search "french military victories" trust me, the results are really funny!
comparing marrige to prostution is ascenine.
i dont cliam that we are the only moral nation. but we do have an obligation to eliminate our enemies, as they are great threats to the rest of the world.

ItalianStallion

Pet wrote:

Unless you're taking the piss, you just fulfilled the stereotype, to the very last. How convenient.



No! Not a bit! I have absolutely no desire to be either rich or poweful (hence my distate for matters political and materialistic), so it doesn't bother me at all. Your desires for the above seem spiritually redundant to me, and you're doing nothing for your karma.

you still seem to be attempting to hold the position that you are better or more sophisticated then we are. although i dont know you i can assume it bothers you that THIS red-neck is more cultured, better traveled, more sophisticated and better read then you.
it is not my desires for those matrealistic goals that motivates me, but they will come naturally to someone following my path in life. mommy tells me I souldent rest so much on my laurals though

Pet

you still seem to be attempting to hold the position that you are better or more sophisticated then we are.

We? Did you not read my "small but loud minority" comment?

i can assume it bothers you that THIS red-neck is more cultured, better traveled, more sophisticated and better read then you.

How can you be sure of any of the above?

Btw this has taken a bit of a personal turn, not that I mind, I've got more ammo than you...but still.

Time Magazine

ISAW wrote:

what about sickhs? what if they claim they need to wear turbans all the time? What if the law says you have to wear a helmet on a motorcycle?

Sikhs should be allowed to wear "forbidden dress" as well. However I think that the Church/State thing should be regulated to an extent for practicality issues. Not because of discrimination etc etc, but because it would be abused by little Johnny claiming his religion dictates he wears a "F*ck you" tshirt etc. Common sense, basically.

I happen to agree with you on this in spite of my belief in natural Law. But Italian stallion will tell you that right is right even if only the minority believe it is right. furthermore he will tell you that might is right since the minority (the US about five per cent of the worlds population. Actually less since it is the mindset controlling the US) can decide when it is right to invade others (there are excuses but in hindsight they dont get ratified a bit like a lynching. "Yee hah string up them rapin negras. Opps sorry seems they didnt rape that white lady after all" Replace "rape" with "WMD wielding terrorist" and "negras" with "fundamentalist Iraquis" and you might see what I mean.)

Might is of course not right. And democratic mandates do not dictate justice/justification either. But I have my views on Iraq. Granted, the fact that people regret the situation that has transpired - and we're talking about Saddam being its alternative - but I think it COULD be a potentially vital strateigic move for democracy. What it needs is legitimacy though. But let's not get all Fukuyama on this .

If you think the invasion of Iraq has created a belief that the Us loves freedom and democracy and is saving the Iraqui prople you have a lot to learn.

And if you think that John2's face is ugly you have a lot to learn to. In other words, that thought never entered my head!

I think you are missing the point. there is nothing wrong with evangalising. Mind you the Jews have a rule against it and see it as wrong! But the invasion of Iraq was not a "Crusade" (Bush used the word first) to convert Islam.

Pet, roughly wrote:

We look down on evangelisation

FAR FAR far far worse are the bodies of women children and Us troops which the US media hav a ban on in the "free" US!

Agreed, but that does not detract from the fact that I wouldn't want boobs on TV at 6pm.

If you are claiming fragments of Job can be dated to 3000 BC I would like to see your evidence.

I'll take you up on this again.

yo are wrong! ALL Christians attest to one Christ! ALL attest to one true Christian religion

In the sense that they have the same Christ of course it's one, but come on, don't dispute they're not equal one. That's beyond pedantic and getting into the French headscarf territory..

Nope! The Roman Church and "Catholic" means universal i.e ther is one Catholic church. Anyway the Roman Church would claim that the continuity of christ's work subsists in the Roman Church. It does not deny others are Christian. Furthermore the roman Church would say that they accept the Bible but the written tradition is not the only tradition. What for example did illiterate people do for 200 years after Christ? What did lilterate peeople do - even they had no Bible. they might not have had even fragments of the Bible. They went by the oral Tradition. this runs parallel to the written tradition.

To put in simplistic terms the Roman Church focus in the body of Christ ( the word made flesh), the Orthodox on the spirit and the Protestants on the word itself.

Was that a rant? I don't quite know what you're getting at.

Time Magazine

Pet wrote:

Firstly, George Bush would never bring in a law like that, he doesn't have the balls. He would never piss off his fundamentalist supporters like that. And, it doesn't just affect Muslims, it affects everyone.
But further to the headscarf thing: That's not actually a part of the Islamic religion, it's part of a Middle-Eastern cultural mindset, one which is discriminatory and demeaning to women, and treats them as inferior citizens, so I agree that it should be banned.

OK, how would you like it if Bush made a daring move to attack a Middle-Eastern country with a history of treating women as inferior? Oh throw in the fact that this country's El Presidenté has actually used chemical weapons on his own people and has actually committed genocide. And speaking of daring moves, what's your view on Reagan's Latin-America policy?

To the best of my knowledge, women are treated alright in France.

That's why I admire the decision. It flew in the face of wishy-washy thinking - they took a stand, even though it was possibly dangerous.

A bit like risky and brave like erecting the Berlin Wall or invading Vietnam or the initiation of Total War?

You just avoided the issue completely. Gay marriage (in a legal sense) should be legal, because it can only have good results for the gay population (less promiscuity, more encouragement to have lasting relationships, etc). But mainly, I don't see any ethical reason not to. The only objections come from the religious section of the population. And I'm saying, that is unfair (not to mention stupid and detrimental).

Not true. A lot of people don't have the State's children to be adopted by gay people. Actually I'd say this is the main reason in our increasingly socially- not metaphysically- minded society.

What does the "it" refer to? If "it" refers to what the religion itself says..I'm not so sure about that. I never remember being encouraged to question what the Bible or the Pope said - I was told to take it as face value, along with everyone else..

It refers to the Word and hence the religion and the way of life and all that. And I think you have a bit of beer-goggles on, I think you were told to accept it, as is the tradition of humans since their beginning to pass their heritage onto their kids. You are now in the same country as you were brought up, about 5-10 years later, (I assume) you're not Christian anymore - and do you face any problems because of it?

That's fine, you're perfectly entitled to that belief (and any others) as long as you don't push them onto others.

That's just not true on two counts. First the moral absolutist point, which is way too long-winded for me to get into. And second, (as an example) I was viscerously against the recent citizenship referendum - but the view of the majority has been pushed on me.

I'm not saying that people who think homosexuality is a sin should be locked up, I'm just saying it's not right for them, especially if they are in power, to deny the rights of others based on those beliefs.

Moral relativism vs democracy again.

Alcohol, tobacco.

AFAIK, never "legalised" because they were never illegal. But if you find proof against, point taken. And alcohol is not as damaging as cocaine or heroin ffs!

That's what I meant. There's a clear distinction between what was said in the Bible, and what "religious authorities" dictate.

With the exception of the Crusades, what? Not recently.

ItalianStallion

Pet wrote:

We? Did you not read my "small but loud minority" comment?



How can you be sure of any of the above?

Btw this has taken a bit of a personal turn, not that I mind, I've got more ammo than you...but still.

the small, but loud minority is the ones you see protesting outside certain colleges for obscure and extremist positions such as socialism, feminism and leaving the taliban/saddam in power.

I'm a little Teapot Short and spout.

my favorite was when you said somthing along the lines of "russia decided to end the cold war by choosing a peacefull alternative." HAHAHA, are you for real? thats gotta be a joke right? russia didnt choose anything. they LOST the cold war because they tried to keep up with our juggernaught of free production with a rotten communist system that starved its people in order to build bombs. awesome! i just love the ignorance and distortion of the revisionists of the left! keep up the good work, it is people like that that will make sure the liberals will not be in power in my country for a very long time (think democratic national chairman Howard Dean)!
this is not personal as i dont know who you are, but i know the cut of you and your meilu's jibb. please dont take any of this too personally, but do take the criticisms to heart. step out of the fringe shadows of obscurity and into the light of reason.
AMDG

ItalianStallion

ISAW wrote:

i lived in the City centre for ten years. I also did eleven years national service. so I don't think I need you to tell me whether temple Bar is representative of Irish culture as a whole.

that was my contention. More fraud, offshore laundering etc. is done my the minority of people who have the majority of the money.



Trying to reverse the question will not answer it. I asked why are US prisons filled with blacks and poor people. well why are they? I don't think God loves them less. do you? so if god does not love them less what is the reason that poor people are in gaol and rich people are not in gaol. It is quite a simple question. It deserves an answer.


The biggest correlating factor is poverty. Poor people get less education. You picked on a poor minority and claimed they commit crime. Sure enough they do. But so do a rich minority. so why are the rich minority not locked up to the same degree? You moralised about the evil poor people. so why not apply equal treatment?


this also its true. But at a recent conference in the royal Irish Academy I saw the US stats. BOTH these minorities fall short of the ruling whites.


I didnt I claimed it was the largest correlating factor!

I dealt with the choice issue already. I wont rehearse it.


this is a nonsense economic argument. Add up all the dole fraud and it comes to peanuts compared to the systematic abuse of old people; the offshore accounts; the frauds; overspending in public service; etc. I mean AIB had a 600 million dollar fraud in the US last year. This alone dwarfs the dole fraud over the whole last government! and dole fraud is difficult when there is 3 per cent unemployment!



But Hitler probably never killed a Jew. He did order it! do you really believe that punching someong is much worse than sneakily depriving him and his family of a house and job by using lawyers? Do you really think that the savings and loans scandal was not as bad as someone assualting a democrat congressman with a custard pie?


My point is clearly made earlier. I wont rehearse it. But now you are claiming that marketing crap is justified.
God or Mammon, make the choice before you dis the black mans voice.


there is a difference between harming someone and allown them by inaction to be harmed. If you thought about that then you would realise why so many people in africa, asia and the Middle East are suffering a gruesome fate.


Why do that? why allow someone to recover in order to execute them? Particularly since they havent recovered in a decade?

about temple bar, i was refering to gypsie crime. its rampant there. they commit many petty crimes. the nigerians mostly focus on fraud. they were the ones who made those fake euros and have you ever gotten one of those emails promising you millions from a dodgy nigerian source? www.ebolamonkeyman.com
as for white collar crime, whats your point? there are many very poor places in the world with extremely low crime rates. it is usually the urban poor who keep the crime rates high. they are lured by easy money and matrealism. it wasnt always so bad, but liberalizations of the past century took many of their ideas of honour and honesty that would have othrwise held them back.
as for white collar crime vs. volient crime, one offends the personal rights of the victem more. rape and murder are the worst of offences. nothing having to do with money can come close, as the value of an intividual is so much more then that. walking into a bank (or post office in Ireland) and robbing it for a crack addiction is so much worse then taking millions from fraud. in the former, a brazen act of malice occurs, while in the former, a subdued act occurs. the intent to do wrong was worse in the former, so the sentence has to be much more severe. compare federal prisions to state ones. state prisions are horrible places because of the nature of the inmates. federal is not as bad, because the inmates are not as likely to commit volient acts against the community at large.
hitler's crime is still grouped with volient offences, as he conspired to commit them. you cant compare this to cheating on your taxes as it trivilizes millions who died.
as for the success of the races, mexicans are at least closing the gap of their own accord, not with hand outs like the black community seeks. have you ever heard of reparations? nonesence! people need to take more personal responsibility for their fates.
on executing a sick person, i point out a case where a condemned man tried to kill himself by eating battery acid. he was nursed back to health so that he could experience his sentence without his faculties numbbed. he shouldent be allowed to excapt the wheels of justice. as for schivo, i know your a Catholic, so how could you argue against the protection of life in good spirit? come on mate, i know you have alot of integrety, i always liked that in you. how can you justify her cruel death?

oh, and its republicans who get the whipcream pies from stupid college brats, not democrats.

Pet

i am only assuming that you are uncultured because you went to college in the city you are from (as opposed to somthing more exotic and gaining a diffrent perspective) and seem to have opinions that are based on a very distorted view of reality. tell me do you see the hight of cultural enlightenment as smoking drugs with a homosexual, HIV posotive, palestinian feminist activist after an anti-american protest in france? I bet you 'backpacked' accross america and europe and think you have seen them so well. look at the ignorant comment about the midwest. to think that way, i know that you odviously saw little of it.

How does that make me uncultured? I'm educated in the State I was born and raised in, because it suits me financially and logistically..

The height of cultural enlightenment for me, would be to spend some time in China, as it is so different in so many ways to the culture I'm from. Smoking drugs with a homosexual, HIV positive etc is something I can do without even needing to walk outside the college gates..so no.

I didn't backpack, I lived and worked. And I think that's about the closest you can get to a culture; its people.

The Midwest of America: I stand by my convictions. Chainstore, stripmall, fast food chain, fat people, one town exactly like the next. There were plenty of towns with character, and some happening cities, but ~60% of it was just a great void. Where's the history? Tradition? What sets one apart from the next? Maybe I missed some big aspect of midwestern culture; if I did please point it out.

my favorite was when you said somthing along the lines of "russia decided to end the cold war by choosing a peacefull alternative." HAHAHA, are you for real? thats gotta be a joke right? russia didnt choose anything. they LOST the cold war because they tried to keep up with our juggernaught of free production with a rotten communist system that starved its people in order to build bombs. awesome! i just love the ignorance and distortion of the revisionists of the left! keep up the good work, it is people like that that will make sure the liberals will not be in power in my country for a very long time (think democratic national chairman Howard Dean)!

Whoah, nelly. I didn't make any references to Russia or whatnot. Maybe ISAW or AB did..

this is not personal as i dont know who you are, but i know the cut of you and your meilu's jibb. please dont take any of this too personally, but do take the criticisms to heart. step out of the fringe shadows of obscurity and into the light of reason.

I'm not taking it personally, and yes I'm fully aware that as a 19 year old freshman, I have a lot to learn. But just because you're 4? 5? years older than me doesn't lend your opinion any more weight..

Time Magazine

Pet wrote:

How does that make me uncultured? I'm educated in the State I was born and raised in, because it suits me financially and logistically..[/UGH]Don't take this personally, but you're poor so you suck.

The height of cultural enlightenment for me, would be to spend some time in China, as it is so different in so many ways to the culture I'm from. Smoking drugs with a homosexual, HIV positive etc is something I can do without even needing to walk outside the college gates..so no.

Like China ever did anything for the world. Actually, in fairness, nobody can talk about China/Chinese culture and talk about enlightenment.

I didn't backpack, I lived and worked. And I think that's about the closest you can get to a culture; its people.

Don't take this personally, but culture exists only in America, not Temple Bar.

The Midwest of America: I stand by my convictions. Chainstore, stripmall, fast food chain, fat people, one town exactly like the next. There were plenty of towns with character, and some happening cities, but ~60% of it was just a great void. Where's the history? Tradition? What sets one apart from the next? Maybe I missed some big aspect of midwestern culture; if I did please point it out.

Natural law dictates that your humanistic views are moronic you fag.

Whoah, nelly. I didn't make any references to Russia or whatnot. Maybe ISAW or AB did..

This bit's real: That was Indy I think.

I'm not taking it personally, and yes I'm fully aware that as a 19 year old freshman, I have a lot to learn. But just because you're 4? 5? years older than me doesn't lend your opinion any more weight..

Don't take it personally, but respect your elders kiddo.

Pet

OK, how would you like it if Bush made a daring move to attack a Middle-Eastern country with a history of treating women as inferior? Oh throw in the fact that this country's El Presidenté has actually used chemical weapons on his own people and has actually committed genocide. And speaking of daring moves, what's your view on Reagan's Latin-America policy?

I think that good will eventually come out of the "war on terror"; Bush went in for the wrong reasons (oil) but hopefully they can bring lasting democracy to the area. I don't know what Reagan's policy on Latin-America is, as I said, I have little time for politics..

Not true. A lot of people don't have the State's children to be adopted by gay people. Actually I'd say this is the main reason in our increasingly socially- not metaphysically- minded society.

I don't think the proposed model for gay marriage includes adoption rights; I'd personally disagree with it myself. It would be pushing too hard and too fast, and the effects of a same-sex couple raising children hasn't been properly studied. That said, it would be much better than a single-parent family, so people who harp on about "protecting the family" really need to wake up from their dream of 1950's domestic bliss.

AFAIK, never "legalised" because they were never illegal. But if you find proof against, point taken. And alcohol is not as damaging as cocaine or heroin ffs!

If you care to reread my points, I didn't include "pharmaceutically enhanced drugs" in the set of drugs that are less harmful than alcohol and tobacco. And show me a study proving that cocaine/heroin cause cancer and/or respiratory disease (this is just me being awkward and sciencey btw :P).

ItalianStallion

Pet wrote:

How does that make me uncultured? I'm educated in the State I was born and raised in, because it suits me financially and logistically..

The height of cultural enlightenment for me, would be to spend some time in China, as it is so different in so many ways to the culture I'm from. Smoking drugs with a homosexual, HIV positive etc is something I can do without even needing to walk outside the college gates..so no.

I didn't backpack, I lived and worked. And I think that's about the closest you can get to a culture; its people.

The Midwest of America: I stand by my convictions. Chainstore, stripmall, fast food chain, fat people, one town exactly like the next. There were plenty of towns with character, and some happening cities, but ~60% of it was just a great void. Where's the history? Tradition? What sets one apart from the next? Maybe I missed some big aspect of midwestern culture; if I did please point it out.



Whoah, nelly. I didn't make any references to Russia or whatnot. Maybe ISAW or AB did..



I'm not taking it personally, and yes I'm fully aware that as a 19 year old freshman, I have a lot to learn. But just because you're 4? 5? years older than me doesn't lend your opinion any more weight..

it means you have had less exposure to something outside your typical surroundings. dont let financial limitation be an excuse for not recieving a well rounded education either.
china? interesting, but why would you want to visit the greatest abuser of human rights on the planet? they do have a beautifull culture and history, but the only way i could see myself going there would be leading a regiment or dropping bombs. communism is the most evil thing the world has ever been threatned with, bar none.
as for the homosexual druggie, that was my point. many people in college do things along those lines and see themselves as dabbeling in great cultural expirences. most of them hang around the SU or the GMB.
if you worked in the US, you probably had a MCjob, so i think thats a bad angle from which to see the us. you judge it from one of its lowest angles. imagine how the eastern europeans that come here to work see the Irish lower classes. i agree that the best way to see a culture is to live in it for an extended time. it was one of the reasons I went to Ireland. next year at lawschool, i will be in yankee culture in michagen. very different from my home in the South, but one of the reasons i choose it. tell me, did you work in a city for a while, save up, then take a bus accross the midwest starting in boston or NYC? sort of a well beaten path for europeans.
as for the midwest, that emptiness is part of the culture. it contributes the ther persona of the people. i wish you had deduced that, but to be fair i doubt i always had that wisdom myself. it holds part of the Americana from another age. did you see the shifting times there? i find it fascinating, though i think im a bit spoiled on all of that due to over 6 decades of national geographic magazines in my garage. i know its the pot calling the kettle black, but you are being closeminded shortsighted and pretentious in your deductions. i implore you to educate yourself in regards to the merits of skilled observation. you have to have the insight to look under the surface. can you say you honestly did that?

sorry about the russia one, i must have given you credit for someone else's folly. have to look back at that post, i know it wanst indy. the person that wrote it was a real tosser!

dont feel singled out for your age, only your typical issues. i wish you all the best in your continuing education.
CG

ItalianStallion

Darth Bobo wrote:

'the greatest threat to humanity' - how??????
And russia didn't lose per say, they chose a different more peacefull path, they could easily have kept going with the cold war against american and quite possibly never have lost. -- typical american attitude to assume some sort of victory when the other side it doesn't like to fight anymore (O in that case we win)
.........

this post is awsome! Darth Bobo, you must be a geinus amongst your chums!
when a side cant fight anymore IT LOSES! they quit because their system broke down. they lost the means of production and a system rotten to the core collapsed on its self. it marked the end of their system and the end of the "evil empire."they are no more because capitalism beat communism on its own terms- production. does that upset you? did you want to see the whole world enslaved by the socialist dream? the dark menace seems to be gripping europe tighter and tighter. i bet you like that. communism has only killed 100 million people. LETS GIVE IT ANOTHER TRY!

ISAW

ItalianStallion wrote:

about temple bar, i was refering to gypsie crime. its rampant there. they commit many petty crimes.

and the people who run the drug business there are gypsies? and the assaults are all done by gypsies? and what is your definition of "rampant"? how many crimes? What proportion of the overall population? By the way don't you remember where we came into all this? I asked you why the US prisions have such a vast proportion of minorities and of poor people. I asked you if the rich dont commit crimes or if maybe you contend they committed the same amount and that God loved them more? so there are two points here:

First saying it does not make it so. Second if a certan type of crime is committed more by poor people (and it may be that poeple are convicted more from certain groups) then how come that is true?

The nigerians mostly focus on fraud.

I think in spite of the grammar the Nigerans have other things to do.

they were the ones who made those fake euros and have you ever gotten one of those emails promising you millions from a dodgy nigerian source?

It may have originated in Nigeria but the e mails come from many uncontrolled countries.
And have you ever heard of the "savings and loans" sam?

as for white collar crime, whats your point? there are many very poor places in the world with extremely low crime rates.

Care to name three of these places where there are less poor people in gaol compared to rich people?

it is usually the urban poor who keep the crime rates high. they are lured by easy money and matrealism. it wasnt always so bad, but liberalizations of the past century took many of their ideas of honour and honesty that would have othrwise held them back.

Yeah like giving the balcks and women the vote. nasty liberalisation that eh?:)

as for white collar crime vs. volient crime, one offends the personal rights of the victem more. rape and murder are the worst of offences. nothing having to do with money can come close, as the value of an intividual is so much more then that. walking into a bank (or post office in Ireland) and robbing it for a crack addiction is so much worse then taking millions from fraud. in the former, a brazen act of malice occurs, while in the former, a subdued act occurs. the intent to do wrong was worse in the former, so the sentence has to be much more severe. compare federal prisions to state ones. state prisions are horrible places because of the nature of the inmates. federal is not as bad, because the inmates are not as likely to commit volient acts against the community at large.

So applying your logic if they can show Saddam Hussein never actually did any killings himself he was a much better person than the people he ordered to do the killings?

hitler's crime is still grouped with volient offences, as he conspired to commit them.

what in god's name do you mean "conspired to commit them"?

as for the success of the races, mexicans are at least closing the gap of their own accord, not with hand outs like the black community seeks. have you ever heard of reparations? nonesence! people need to take more personal responsibility for their fates.

I don't think they will want to bury your heart at Wounded Knee! you may as well say Palestineans or Mohicians are closing the gap.

as for schivo, i know your a Catholic, so how could you argue against the protection of life in good spirit? come on mate, i know you have alot of integrety, i always liked that in you. how can you justify her cruel death?

I am not selective. to me all life is sacred. Nobody is beyond redemption. I do not agree with the death penalty under any circumstances. But my personal beliefs are not the point. Nor am I argueing about them. I am pointing to a universal argument that stands apart from what I believe and would force others to believe. Can anyone select out any cruel deaths?
Christ forgave criminals. He didn't select out the guilty and say they deserves a cruel death. Nor did he stary an uprising and try to carry on fighting. He allowed injustivce to be done to him. they may well have said "well he isnt fighting back. We won! We must be right!" but they were not right were they?

ISAW

ItalianStallion wrote:

this post is awsome! Darth Bobo, you must be a geinus amongst your chums!
when a side cant fight anymore IT LOSES!

I think you might gain from studying the cruifiction.

they quit because their system broke down. they lost the means of production and a system rotten to the core collapsed on its self. it marked the end of their system and the end of the "evil empire."they are no more because capitalism beat communism on its own terms- production. does that upset you? did you want to see the whole world enslaved by the socialist dream? the dark menace seems to be gripping europe tighter and tighter. i bet you like that. communism has only killed 100 million people. LETS GIVE IT ANOTHER TRY!

saddam was not communist! He was a US client! China is communist. China is a big US client. So why aren't the US going large on the abuse of human rights in China? China is currently the largest production economy in the world. I mean a third of the World steel production is consumed by China. Guess who is selling them steel?

ItalianStallion

ISAW wrote:

and the people who run the drug business there are gypsies? and the assaults are all done by gypsies? and what is your definition of "rampant"? how many crimes? What proportion of the overall population? By the way don't you remember where we came into all this? I asked you why the US prisions have such a vast proportion of minorities and of poor people. I asked you if the rich dont commit crimes or if maybe you contend they committed the same amount and that God loved them more? so there are two points here:

First saying it does not make it so. Second if a certan type of crime is committed more by poor people (and it may be that poeple are convicted more from certain groups) then how come that is true?

I think in spite of the grammar the Nigerans have other things to do.



It may have originated in Nigeria but the e mails come from many uncontrolled countries.
And have you ever heard of the "savings and loans" sam?

Care to name three of these places where there are less poor people in gaol compared to rich people?

Yeah like giving the balcks and women the vote. nasty liberalisation that eh?:)



So applying your logic if they can show Saddam Hussein never actually did any killings himself he was a much better person than the people he ordered to do the killings?

what in god's name do you mean "conspired to commit them"?


I don't think they will want to bury your heart at Wounded Knee! you may as well say Palestineans or Mohicians are closing the gap.



I am not selective. to me all life is sacred. Nobody is beyond redemption. I do not agree with the death penalty under any circumstances. But my personal beliefs are not the point. Nor am I argueing about them. I am pointing to a universal argument that stands apart from what I believe and would force others to believe. Can anyone select out any cruel deaths?
Christ forgave criminals. He didn't select out the guilty and say they deserves a cruel death. Nor did he stary an uprising and try to carry on fighting. He allowed injustivce to be done to him. they may well have said "well he isnt fighting back. We won! We must be right!" but they were not right were they?

stop being an academic eletist! poor people commit more crimes for many reasons. what is your point? they are desprate. it is their fault, not the system, so stop playing the blame game and passing the personal responsibility buck.
www.ebolamonkeyman.com check it out! funny site
the rich dont commit crime as frequently as they are not as desprate. care to name a place in the world where rural crime outnumbers urban crime? didnt think so.
as for the saddam argument, cross apply my hitler one. his was conspiracy to commit genocide, not a white collar crime. i dont think you seem to be making the connection. one deals with assets while the other deals with lives and volience. by conspired to commit crimes, i am implying that it was an orgnized and though out process that carries the same or greater penalties under the law as the person who actually pulled the trigger/used wmd's on Kurdish villages.
The Christ did not decry the system of capital punishment either. the sence a reading of the gospells gives is that the unrepentent man deserved his fate. saddam is going to be executed, does that bother you? life in prision is not a fair punishment for certain horrific crime. would you have incarcerated hitler or stalin? no, after torture, they should have been executed. that is only just.

ItalianStallion

ISAW wrote:

I think you might gain from studying the cruifiction.


saddam was not communist! He was a US client! China is communist. China is a big US client. So why aren't the US going large on the abuse of human rights in China? China is currently the largest production economy in the world. I mean a third of the World steel production is consumed by China. Guess who is selling them steel?

are you comparing the ussr to Jesus? sounds like you are. the ussr did not give up on the cold war because it was an innocent myrtar, it LOST because its horrible system crumbled and communism failed. they tried to match our stride and lost the pace and tumbled. Ill let you say that the ussr died so that we might live, but it wasnt their choice. the wicked leaders were defeated and America WON the cold war. you cant deny that and be honest with yourself.

as for saddam, he was a socialist though. i am against recognizing china. the real china is Taiwan. why is amnesty so silent on china? because they have no integrety! i think we should have a trade war with them. to win that, all we would have to do is blockade their m.east oil resources and they would grind to a halt.

John

ItalianStallion wrote:

The Christ did not decry the system of capital punishment either. the sence a reading of the gospells gives is that the unrepentent man deserved his fate.

But isn't God who's meant to do the judging, not man?

ItalianStallion

John2 wrote:

But isn't God who's meant to do the judging, not man?

by that logic, we wouldent judge right from wrong as it would be reduced to personal preffrence. there would be no punishment for criminals either. see the slippery slope?

ISAW

ItalianStallion wrote:

stop being an academic eletist! poor people commit more crimes for many reasons. what is your point? they are desprate. it is their fault, not the system, so stop playing the blame game and passing the personal responsibility buck.

What is their fault? Being poor? Being desperate? what are the reasons? It is very easy to say the problems of crime can be solved by locking more people up. In fact crime in the US has not decreased by this no more than the death penalty assisted in reducing capital crimes! It is a deal harder to tackle the causes of crime. You are claiming that people commit crime because they are desperate. I am asking you how is it that they are desperate? Is it because God loves them less than reich people who are not as desperate?

I did not claim they had not choice. i pointed to the fact that the choice is made harder for some. Now in what proportion did Jesus, St. Francis or Mother Theresa sit down to eat with the powerful or with the poor?

the rich dont commit crime as frequently as they are not as desprate. care to name a place in the world where rural crime outnumbers urban crime? didnt think so.

Prepare for your cocky attitude to be deflated. Ireland is onethe country and I will retutrn to that below. The point I ask you is how is it the rich are not desperate as you claim? what is the reason for that? Is it because God loves them more or because rich people are better people? So please tell me what is the reason.

As regards urban versus rural crime. I would say more IRA prisoners come from rural areas. Certainly unlicenced bulls are much more prevalent in rural areas. I would think car tax and insurance in particular is more widespread in the back of beyond. And in some circumstances in spite of tiny popolations rural areas are greater on absolute figures even if we disregard per capita ratio. Another springs to mind is Pitcairn Island where the level of child sex with adults is extermely high. I am sure there are more but that is off the top of my head.

Rule one for lawyers: do not ask questions you don not already have the answer to!

as for the saddam argument, cross apply my hitler one. his was conspiracy to commit genocide, not a white collar crime.

Let me get this straingt the only exception was conspiracy? Now it is attempt to commit genocide? Okay please don;t add more exceptions. What is a conspiracy? What conspiracy was Saddam involved in in which he was committing genocide? When did the US know of this? What did they do about it then? You are claiming ordering or participating in genocide is a violent crime but you also claim that if someone else judged that a US force committed genocide then they would be wrong. So how can you claim to follow the natural Law which applies to all peoplr but when a massacre occurs like Mai Lai or inhuman treatment (which would not be allowed under US law) in Guantanamo Bay you claim the US should apply different laws?

i dont think you seem to be making the connection. one deals with assets while the other deals with lives and volience. by conspired to commit crimes, i am implying that it was an orgnized and though out process that carries the same or greater penalties under the law as the person who actually pulled the trigger/used wmd's on Kurdish villages.

There is evidence to suggest that Iranians actually launched the attack on Kurdish villages. Leaving that aside for a moment are you seriously claiming that the US invaded Iraq to protect Kurds by being attacked by WMD
Funny how they never said that at the time. they claimed that it was 1. WMD which they had knowledge of andf evidence for. 2. Support of muslim fundamentalist by Iraq. 3. REmoving a dictator in the support of democracy which the Iraqui people wanted.
1 and 2 are gone ! they were a get up! There is no support for them. As regards 3 if the demaocrtic goivernment asks the Us to leave will you agree to that? And why did you support and trade with the dictator ( and continue to do so with other ones) when he was in power? why did yo usupport the dictator in a christian country like the Phillipenes?

The Christ did not decry the system of capital punishment either. the sence a reading of the gospells gives is that the unrepentent man deserved his fate. saddam is going to be executed, does that bother you?

The point was they you claimed that those that lose by not chosing to fight deserve what they get and by not chosing to fight they lose and you seem to think they are wimps anyway ( as if that is a crime - a big bully boy kid on the block argument really). I only asked you what would Jesus do? What would he do if confronted by the military and accused of a capital crime? Would he use might and his power to crush his opponents? Or would he allow them to persecute him? Would he be prepared to suffer and die for their wrong doing. Now go and tell someone that you bring justice by the sword and see how far that will get you.

life in prision is not a fair punishment for certain horrific crime. would you have incarcerated hitler or stalin? no, after torture, they should have been executed. that is only just.

So you would torture them first. well it seems that whether they are guilty or innocent the torture has already begun on some! what will you say if they are innocent? "Crucify them! Give US our great freedom fighter Barrabbas!" who is not a wimp? Crucify the semite!

I apply this to others in gaol not to Saddam. But as regards Stalin/Hitler/Saddam no I would not be in favour of the death penalty. Ever heard of Rudolp Hess? The US kept him under guard for about 40 years!

ISAW

ItalianStallion wrote:

are you comparing the ussr to Jesus? sounds like you are. the ussr did not give up on the cold war because it was an innocent myrtar, it LOST because its horrible system crumbled and communism failed.

This is a complete red herring! nowhere was the USSR mentioned! I mentioned China. You know that country Nixon cosied up to? The one Bush is very pally with? The one with the bad human rights record? The one which banns the Roman Catholic Church?

they tried to match our stride and lost the pace and tumbled. Ill let you say that the ussr died so that we might live, but it wasnt their choice. the wicked leaders were defeated and America WON the cold war. you cant deny that and be honest with yourself.

I didnt mention Russia. I mentioned communist China. You cant deny that can you? And the US is trading with them! How can you support such double standards?

as for saddam, he was a socialist though.

But your argument was based on the cold war and communism. Saddam was supported by the US in the cold war! the foundation of you r argument is flawed.

i am against recognizing china. the real china is Taiwan. why is amnesty so silent on china?

I suggest you look it up. amsnesty isnt! The Us administration is! Amnesty publish a great deal of material on china. The Irish also have weighed in on this!

i think we should have a trade war with them. [China]to win that, all we would have to do is blockade their m.east oil resources and they would grind to a halt.

But I thought the Middle East interests of the Us had NOTHING to do with oil? I thought you believed the US were in the Middle East to support democracy? Now it seems there are strategic interests you admit?


Mind you the Us import most of their oil. What would you do if freely trading countries decided to stop selling you oil and sell it to China instead? What iof that threat existed by someone building up the largest reserves of oil in the world? Hmmm?

ISAW

ItalianStallion wrote:

fine, but semetic in common usage denotes those of Jewish origen. anti-semetic refers exclusevly to a hate of Jews.

according to what?

your wrong on the imprarealist argument. ever heard of the french and indian war? that was exclusevly over the new world colonies and several decades before bonapart. look even further back to the wars of Louis XIV. as you can tell, im a big supporter of imperealism!

i dindt deny they had colonies. as did the english. But it wasnt until Elizabeth I they started on global domination! The Spanish and Portugese had colonies but I would not claim an Empire in spite of being a world power. The Japanese and Chinese and Russians had an Empire. The Mongolians had the largest one ever. Anyway Empires require a large mobile military (usually bigger and better than anyone elses) and an interest in dominating economic interests over the largest possible region. Wonder who is doing that these days?

Render onto Imperialists what they deserve and onto God what is Gods. we got the British Empire out of ruling Ireland. the Americans got the French and British out of there. O Tempora O mores! Plus ce change plus cest le meme chose.

As to running down Napoleon. I suggest you read what some of the greatest scholars and military historians as West Point have ot say of him. as an all round politician/leader/military man I would rate him second only to alexander the Great mainly because of Alexanders slightly better strategic capability. Otherwise he was probably superiour. I think most US military men who sutdied or practice the field would agree with me.

ISAW

ItalianStallion wrote:

it means you have had less exposure to something outside your typical surroundings. dont let financial limitation be an excuse for not recieving a well rounded education either.

argument form ignorance. I would guess over ninety per cent of Us citczens never travel more than 200 miles from home and never apply for a passport!

china? interesting, but why would you want to visit the greatest abuser of human rights on the planet?

Because your president does? Your business leaders do? Your president is opening new trade deals every other day? Yeah why would you agree with Bush?

they do have a beautifull culture and history, but the only way i could see myself going there would be leading a regiment or dropping bombs. communism is the most evil thing the world has ever been threatned with, bar none.

so economic interests are the most important issues. What happened to rendering onto caesar? Seems God has been demoted to second place? Let me get this correct. communism (an economic philosophy of "to each according to his needs and from each according to his means") the most evil thing the worlds has ever been threatned with? I suggest you inform the monasteries who practiced just that for centuries!

if you worked in the US, you probably had a MCjob, so i think thats a bad angle from which to see the us. you judge it from one of its lowest angles.

Yeah they should have stayed with rich fundamentalist Arabs like Bush would? Or famous scientologist movie stars? ?

imagine how the eastern europeans that come here to work see the Irish lower classes. i agree that the best way to see a culture is to live in it for an extended time. it was one of the reasons I went to Ireland. next year at lawschool, i will be in yankee culture in michagen. very different from my home in the South, but one of the reasons i choose it. tell me, did you work in a city for a while, save up, then take a bus accross the midwest starting in boston or NYC? sort of a well beaten path for europeans.

I suggest yo uread some Russians. "War and Peace" or "Crime and Punishment" maybe?
I don't think your attitude to the poor has changed one whit from your experience. Care to please show me how it has? Your class concious judjementalism comes accross. You blatently claim that lower class people are somehow unworthy and the better off are better people. this (you should know) is completely anti Christian! Your brother is every man. Not those you select out as worthy!
[/QUOTE]

ItalianStallion

ISAW wrote:

What is their fault? Being poor? Being desperate? what are the reasons? It is very easy to say the problems of crime can be solved by locking more people up. In fact crime in the US has not decreased by this no more than the death penalty assisted in reducing capital crimes! It is a deal harder to tackle the causes of crime. You are claiming that people commit crime because they are desperate. I am asking you how is it that they are desperate? Is it because God loves them less than reich people who are not as desperate?

I did not claim they had not choice. i pointed to the fact that the choice is made harder for some. Now in what proportion did Jesus, St. Francis or Mother Theresa sit down to eat with the powerful or with the poor?


Prepare for your cocky attitude to be deflated. Ireland is onethe country and I will retutrn to that below. The point I ask you is how is it the rich are not desperate as you claim? what is the reason for that? Is it because God loves them more or because rich people are better people? So please tell me what is the reason.

As regards urban versus rural crime. I would say more IRA prisoners come from rural areas. Certainly unlicenced bulls are much more prevalent in rural areas. I would think car tax and insurance in particular is more widespread in the back of beyond. And in some circumstances in spite of tiny popolations rural areas are greater on absolute figures even if we disregard per capita ratio. Another springs to mind is Pitcairn Island where the level of child sex with adults is extermely high. I am sure there are more but that is off the top of my head.

Rule one for lawyers: do not ask questions you don not already have the answer to!



Let me get this straingt the only exception was conspiracy? Now it is attempt to commit genocide? Okay please don;t add more exceptions. What is a conspiracy? What conspiracy was Saddam involved in in which he was committing genocide? When did the US know of this? What did they do about it then? You are claiming ordering or participating in genocide is a violent crime but you also claim that if someone else judged that a US force committed genocide then they would be wrong. So how can you claim to follow the natural Law which applies to all peoplr but when a massacre occurs like Mai Lai or inhuman treatment (which would not be allowed under US law) in Guantanamo Bay you claim the US should apply different laws?



There is evidence to suggest that Iranians actually launched the attack on Kurdish villages. Leaving that aside for a moment are you seriously claiming that the US invaded Iraq to protect Kurds by being attacked by WMD
Funny how they never said that at the time. they claimed that it was 1. WMD which they had knowledge of andf evidence for. 2. Support of muslim fundamentalist by Iraq. 3. REmoving a dictator in the support of democracy which the Iraqui people wanted.
1 and 2 are gone ! they were a get up! There is no support for them. As regards 3 if the demaocrtic goivernment asks the Us to leave will you agree to that? And why did you support and trade with the dictator ( and continue to do so with other ones) when he was in power? why did yo usupport the dictator in a christian country like the Phillipenes?

The point was they you claimed that those that lose by not chosing to fight deserve what they get and by not chosing to fight they lose and you seem to think they are wimps anyway ( as if that is a crime - a big bully boy kid on the block argument really). I only asked you what would Jesus do? What would he do if confronted by the military and accused of a capital crime? Would he use might and his power to crush his opponents? Or would he allow them to persecute him? Would he be prepared to suffer and die for their wrong doing. Now go and tell someone that you bring justice by the sword and see how far that will get you.


So you would torture them first. well it seems that whether they are guilty or innocent the torture has already begun on some! what will you say if they are innocent? "Crucify them! Give US our great freedom fighter Barrabbas!" who is not a wimp? Crucify the semite!

I apply this to others in gaol not to Saddam. But as regards Stalin/Hitler/Saddam no I would not be in favour of the death penalty. Ever heard of Rudolp Hess? The US kept him under guard for about 40 years!

actually, the crime rate has been in steady decline since bush took over. stiffer and longer penalties prevent a large amount of recitivism. the best prediction of future behavior is past behavior. on this note, those who have committed offences in the past are more likely to commit again in the future. strict sentences have helped greatly.
capital punishment doesnt reduce crime, but it does one thing better then all other punishments, namelt that, PUNISH!
what is your continuing point about the resons for the indigent crime rate? there is no one factor, but deliquency runs higher then in the general population. please WHAT IS YOUR POINT?
the wealthy do not live 'hand to mouth' so they dont have to worry about where the money will come from. but then again, with a welfare state, neither do the poor! they just want extra money for more drugs/booze.
Jesus ate with all sorts of people. remember the parable of Zacharias? Yes, he was a defender of the poor, as am I, but i think the best way to help them is to create a system fair to all, not one that is unbalanced in favour of those of a certain status. we have to continue to pass bills such as the voucher program that gives them a refund for their public school tax that they can use to go to a private school. nationalization is not the answer. on the strain, faith-based inatitives are also great at helping the poor. it gives money to Churches, temples, synagouges etc which are closer the the people then the federal government. the decentralization of power is much better in a democracy then a large buracracy. anyone living in europe should understand that.
rural crime doesnt compare, youre grasping at evergrowing desprate straws.

as for saddam, we did more then Ireland/the eu ever could/ were willing to do.
in guantanamo bay, there are some of the most nasty charcters in the world. the reason they are not on American soil is because if they were, they would be entitled to the same rights as our citizens, which they are not. they were captured as international terrorists and should be treated as such.
i cant tell what you mean. if we didnt go, saddam would still be in power. would you have perfered that? all you do is complain but YOU OFFER NO ALTERNATIVE!
we would leave if they asked us, but they have already stressed the need for us to stay till they can handel the situation. dont you watch the news or read aljazeera.net?

are you trying to say russia didnt lose the cold war? that is insane! ideas like that stem from a socialist european bitterness that we defeated the evil empire. God was on our side on this one. he would never let that scourage of humanity enslave the world. I believe God was actively involved in hepling peoples hearts be converted and rally for the cause. he gave them vision like our great president Reagan and the Holy Father.
brrabbas was a murder, just like the gitmo detainees. it is you who call for their freedom.

ItalianStallion

ISAW wrote:

according to what?

i dindt deny they had colonies. as did the english. But it wasnt until Elizabeth I they started on global domination! The Spanish and Portugese had colonies but I would not claim an Empire in spite of being a world power. The Japanese and Chinese and Russians had an Empire. The Mongolians had the largest one ever. Anyway Empires require a large mobile military (usually bigger and better than anyone elses) and an interest in dominating economic interests over the largest possible region. Wonder who is doing that these days?

Render onto Imperialists what they deserve and onto God what is Gods. we got the British Empire out of ruling Ireland. the Americans got the French and British out of there. O Tempora O mores! Plus ce change plus cest le meme chose.

As to running down Napoleon. I suggest you read what some of the greatest scholars and military historians as West Point have ot say of him. as an all round politician/leader/military man I would rate him second only to alexander the Great mainly because of Alexanders slightly better strategic capability. Otherwise he was probably superiour. I think most US military men who sutdied or practice the field would agree with me.

according to daniel webster!
an·ti-Sem·i·tism (nt-sm-tzm, nt-)
n.
1. Hostility toward or prejudice against Jews or Judaism.
2. Discrimination against Jews.

empire is a great thing! it is only the losers of history that hate it. colonies benefit and recieve developement. I wish the Romans had conquered Ireland.

alexander didnt have that great of stragetic ability, he generally used the phlaynx formation but did have a sound calvary. his stregenth generally came in his impetus, his daring and his numbers though.
i personally have a soft spot for Napoleon(who was actually an Italian).
i think he was a great general, although the French have historically made poor troops. honestly though, I think Caesar was the best general. ever read his contemporary writtings? pure genius, anthough he wasnt as easy to like as bonapart google search "french military victories" the results are really funny!

ItalianStallion

ISAW wrote:

Because your president does? Your business leaders do? Your president is opening new trade deals every other day? Yeah why would you agree with Bush?


so economic interests are the most important issues. What happened to rendering onto caesar? Seems God has been demoted to second place? Let me get this correct. communism (an economic philosophy of "to each according to his needs and from each according to his means") the most evil thing the worlds has ever been threatned with? I suggest you inform the monasteries who practiced just that for centuries!


Yeah they should have stayed with rich fundamentalist Arabs like Bush would? Or famous scientologist movie stars? ?


I suggest yo uread some Russians. "War and Peace" or "Crime and Punishment" maybe?
I don't think your attitude to the poor has changed one whit from your experience. Care to please show me how it has? Your class concious judjementalism comes accross. You blatently claim that lower class people are somehow unworthy and the better off are better people. this (you should know) is completely anti Christian! Your brother is every man. Not those you select out as worthy!

[/QUOTE]

carrot and stick with china. some say export capitalism, i say drop bombs. we armed saddam like the eu is planning to arm china. a bit hypocritical of them to complain now. what do you think about that?
communism was the greatest threat we have ever faced. sorry if thats not "PC" in academic circles where they generally think communism is an acceptable form of government, but the cause of communism has killed more people in the last century then anything except abortion. even hitler was pro-choice.
i finished war and peace last summer. tolstoy is great. remember how he described boneparts place in history? i doubt it as i think your name dropping, but it contradicts your earlier point about him.
i just dont think the poor have any place in government (tolstoy agreed). laws should often be for the poor, but never by them, unless you count the influence of poor clergy.

ISAW

ItalianStallion wrote:

carrot and stick with china. some say export capitalism, i say drop bombs. we armed saddam like the eu is planning to arm china. a bit hypocritical of them to complain now. what do you think about that?
[/quote]

I think you will learn when you study law that you can not be guilty of something that has not happened yet! You can't accuse someone of a hypocracy that has not happened.
You also present a false dichotomy. It is not a case of the EU and the Us and who is the "goodie" and who is the "baddie" in the simplistic presentation you outline. THe US sold weapons to Saddam. So did the French and Germans! the difference is that the Europeans didnt invade this time! They did envade several times in the past! People die because of economic greed and control. It is not a case of communist theory versus capitalist theory it is a case of life and death and the ordinary people caught up in powerfull interests' agendas.
And do you admit you disagree with the Current administration? they want contracts in china and not war with China. Contracts with a communist abuser of human rights. Do you disagree with this current US administration then?

communism was the greatest threat we have ever faced. sorry if thats not "PC" in academic circles where they generally think communism is an acceptable form of government, but the cause of communism has killed more people in the last century then anything except abortion. even hitler was pro-choice.

You are referring to Stalin and Mao. If you remove these two regimes you will then note that right wing dictatorships were fully supported by the US. Now two wrongs do noit make a right. You can not suggest that the US supported dictators who opposed communists because it was a "lesser" evil. It is not for a Christian to chose to do evil.

i finished war and peace last summer. tolstoy is great. remember how he described boneparts place in history? i doubt it as i think your name dropping, but it contradicts your earlier point about him.

Nope. The point here was the place of the common man in history and war seen from that perspective.

The other point is an age old question "Do people make history or vice versa?"

there is no doubting the ability of some people in history whether or not the circumstances of the time allowed them to come to power. ther is no contradiction. Bonaparte was one of the greatest leaders of all time. that does not measn he was right or a good person. The same applies to Hitler Bush Saddam Christ. Leadership does not require moral guidance to be successful. The Antichrist will be a great leader. It isnt all about winning battles and being powerful.

i just dont think the poor have any place in government (tolstoy agreed). laws should often be for the poor, but never by them, unless you count the influence of poor clergy.

Ah well. thee goes the meek inhereting the Earth then I guess! Was christ lying? Maybe he meant cheesemakers rather than peace makers? Or maybe he was speaking metaphorically and referring to all dairy workers in general:)
I don't Francis of Asissi would have much time for your theory of the rich ruling over the poor but I think you have let slip your plutocratic beliefs. You may be quite content to accept that the billionares do not control the world since they sold it to the trillionaires but one might suggest you can not serve God and Mammon.
Gilded tombs do worms enfold, often have I heard it told, all that glisters....

ISAW

ItalianStallion wrote:

according to daniel webster!
an·ti-Sem·i·tism (nt-sm-tzm, nt-)
n.
1. Hostility toward or prejudice against Jews or Judaism.
2. Discrimination against Jews.

Double plus ungood you beginning with "anti"


American Heritage Dictionary:
semitic:
Of, relating to, or constituting a subgroup of the Afro-Asiatic language group that includes Arabic, Hebrew, Amharic, and Aramaic.

semite:
A member of a group of Semitic-speaking peoples of the Near East and northern Africa, including the Arabs, Arameans, Babylonians, Carthaginians, Ethiopians, Hebrews, and Phoenicians.

It comes from the people of Shem.

empire is a great thing! it is only the losers of history that hate it. colonies benefit and recieve developement. I wish the Romans had conquered Ireland.

Tosh! the British Empire controlled Ireland and Ireland did worse and was milked white under British rule. And why don't you wish the British Empire had held onto their colonies? Ireland and the US for example?

alexander didnt have that great of stragetic ability, he generally used the phlaynx formation but did have a sound calvary. his stregenth generally came in his impetus, his daring and his numbers though.

At the largest his army numbered about 40,000. He frequently peeled off troops to garrison new conquests. He faced Persian Armies which numbered up to 1,000,000. He is regarder as the greatest military leader ever by most military historians.

i personally have a soft spot for Napoleon(who was actually an Italian).

Corsican?

i think he was a great general, although the French have historically made poor troops. honestly though, I think Caesar was the best general. ever read his contemporary writtings? pure genius,

I used to study them. The genius was he penned them and wrote about himself in the third person!

anthough he wasnt as easy to like as bonapart google search "french military victories" the results are really funny!

I suggest you contact some military historians at West Point and ask is Napoleon was a joke as a general. Dont judge results by Google. ever search under "WMD" and hit the "I feel lucky" button?

ISAW

ItalianStallion wrote:

communism was the greatest threat we have ever faced. ...but the cause of communism has killed more people in the last century then anything except abortion. [/QUOTE]

I would point to the fact that one can claim Imperialism did more damage than communism. In particular "imperialism" can encompass Mao and Stalin as well as the US French British germans Belgians Dutch, Japanese etc. some were democracies, some dictatorships some monarchies but all sought to extend their political and ecomomic control over others. I wonder where you get your abortion stats but I would remind you that theUS and China have legal abortion. Ireland doesn't!

We have strayed from the point of violent crime as opposed to non violent crime. Are you really suggesting that hitting drug pushing overlord is worse than his running his business without actually physically attacking anyone?

ItalianStallion

ISAW wrote:

[And do you admit you disagree with the Current administration? they want contracts in china and not war with China. Contracts with a communist abuser of human rights. Do you disagree with this current US administration then?]
i disagree with cooperation with china and have always called for all out war against the existing evil empire. many hawks in my party agree. we would start by blocading their oil suppliers and they would grind to a halt.


[You are referring to Stalin and Mao. If you remove these two regimes you will then note that right wing dictatorships were fully supported by the US. Now two wrongs do noit make a right. You can not suggest that the US supported dictators who opposed communists because it was a "lesser" evil. It is not for a Christian to chose to do evil.]
whats wrong with dictatorships when they are good ones? i fully support heroes like Franco, Pinochet, De Valera and that guy in Argentina in the seventies. the benefit of dictatorships is that good policy doesnt get held up by voting. this can be a negative in cases where a liberal has power or the leader gets to greedy, but a good ruler is a good ruler. the average person is too stupid to decide their fate anyway, and that is one of the prolbems i have against democracy.



[Nope. The point here was the place of the common man in history and war seen from that perspective.]
but Tolstoy's idea was that people dont really cause the great events and that they would have happened with out them. he saw the french invasion as inevitable, even if there was no boneparte.

ItalianStallion

ISAW wrote:

Double plus ungood you beginning with "anti"
I love 1984 too.

American Heritage Dictionary:
semitic:
Of, relating to, or constituting a subgroup of the Afro-Asiatic language group that includes Arabic, Hebrew, Amharic, and Aramaic.

semite:
A member of a group of Semitic-speaking peoples of the Near East and northern Africa, including the Arabs, Arameans, Babylonians, Carthaginians, Ethiopians, Hebrews, and Phoenicians.

It comes from the people of Shem.

ok, but your dodging the original point. most people who hate Jews also hate Israel. that is ANTI-SEMITISM by deffinition. you can debate weather they belong in the land, but that is an issue seperate from ANTI-SEMITISM. you are running around in circles, arguing over a point that means nothing in the debate other then a certain someone trying to look clever. you have tried and failed to link the information to any valid point.



[Tosh! the British Empire controlled Ireland and Ireland did worse and was milked white under British rule. And why don't you wish the British Empire had held onto their colonies? Ireland and the US for example?]
i respect a civilized nations right to build empires.



At the largest his army numbered about 40,000. He frequently peeled off troops to garrison new conquests. He faced Persian Armies which numbered up to 1,000,000. He is regarder as the greatest military leader ever by most military historians.
When he fought the Persians initially, yes. and they were all macedonian too. but as he advanced, his army picked up many more men from the newly conqured lands. by the time he fought king porus in india, he had well over 100,000 men. the reason for the growth was due to the ease of conquest. he would mass his forces in his later days and overwhelm his enemies. he was a great and daring commander, but there was better. i name Caesar. you must have only read his Gallic Wars. other accounts, even by his enemies describe his prowess. his planning of campaigns were the key. he never lost a battle and almost always led them.



[Corsican?]
actually, he was low ranking Italian nobility. he changed the way his name was prononced and i think even its spelling.



[I suggest you contact some military historians at West Point and ask is Napoleon was a joke as a general. Dont judge results by Google. ever search under "WMD" and hit the "I feel lucky" button?]
bing an enlisted man in the FCA for a few years makes you no athority. i agree that NB was among the greatest, but his soldiers were not, i guess that made him even more the man! the french have historically proven themselves to be of the lowest caliber in regards to heroism on the battle field/defending their country/collabrating with the enemy/etc.