Bohemian's Waterfall
He makes a similar sort of argument in another debate I am in. Here's the highlight of that debate:
Jace: Language is subjective, so it is a relatively simple matter for someone to regard conception as abortion..
Bohemian: And if I regard my couch as a rocket-ship then that makes me an astronaut.
The Red Herring is where ?
The red herring is in every post in this thread, where you avoid discussing that sleazy slimy business you did with your quotations. Manipulating a quotation to make it appear as if someone said something that they did not, to suit your own needs, demonstrates a lack of integrity. That's what I commented on. That's why I am in this thread/debate. That's what you are avoiding talking about. The longer you play this game the more spineless you make yourself out to be.
You might notice the name and picture of the person you are replying to is different, as I have said no such words.
Though I find your changing of Cartman's quote to be pretty pathetic. You even changed it back, so there is no possibility that you didn't notice it. Clearly you did, and just didn't care. It would benefit you to show more integrity in future posts.
More accurate to say that Gun control is like enforcing legislation so provenly crazy people don't get to drive cars. And also that people with histories of drunk driving don't don't drive.
I don't have a problem with background checks, or prohibiting people with felonies or potentially violent mental disorders to own firearms. However bans on high-capacity magazines, pistol grips, barrel shrouds and other "military style" features I do oppose.
Most shootings involve two people, the shooter and the victim. Despite the technical capability to cause more carnage, there are other factors that influence the number of victims. Consider that a S&W;9mm fires about 10 rounds a minute, and is the most common firearm used by Chicago-area criminals, one study found. The Sako M95 fires 600+ rounds a minute, there are about 300,000 of them in circulation and not one has been used to commit a crime. So one despite having a greater technical ability to create carnage, in reality, is involved in less of it. Our thinking on the matter has to be a bit deeper than "Well, that weapon is more dangerous".
Together Bill Gates and Warren Buffet are some of the greatest charitable forces in the country if not the world giving well over a trillion to charity in the past 50 years, they are self-made billionaire philanthropists, and only two of a handful of billionaires that were actually willing to pay higher taxes for the benefit of the nation.
On the other hand, who the f#ck is Chris Christie?
I was thinking about it in the other way...If she says nothing with great speed then there will be less crap, but if she says "nothing" with very low speed, then there will be a lot of crap. But I can see how you could read it the other way as well.
Yes, agreed. She is being quite childish, this is the reason I left other debate sites for the more serious format and less childishness. I don't know what she thinks she is accomplishing by driving more people away.
And all the down-votes are not accomplishing anything, I've gone through and up-voted every argument she has down-voted.
Isn't denying non-catholics access to contraceptives itself a violation of religious freedom? Why should other people's religious beliefs dictate whether I can have contraceptives provided or not? No one is asking them to use contraceptives, simply that those who choose to use them should have access.
http://digitaljournal.com/article/317009
You know this was the exact same insult levied against Ron Paul when he tried to explain the motivation for 9/11, typical.
Ron Paul never said the United States was the world's largest terrorist group. Comparing yourself to Ron Paul, won't do you any good.
I'm not trying to justify the act itself
That's exactly what you've done. Saying "It's the only way they can resist" is a justification, a false one at that. Let's look at your very first post in this debate. ThePyg said: 'inb4 gary says "terrorists taliban and insurgents are innocent"' and what was your response? You said "Innocent of what?". So not only do you think they are justified you think they are innocent. The fact that you've been trying to justify the actions of the Taliban is well documented throughout this debate.
Your denial will cost you this debate.
I was even unaware they used such practices, this is first time I've heard of Taliban strapping bombs to children, are you sure this is a routine practice and not an isolated incident?
Why am I not surprised that you were unaware of this? And yes, I'm very sure. One of my buddies on his first deployment had an 8 year old little girl walk up to him strapped with enough explosives to blow them all to hell. No, this is not an isolated incident. They have "schools" where they teach children the quickest way to get to heaven is to blow up Americans. Like I said, the Taliban has a fucked up ideology.
http://digitaljournal.com/article/317009
http://www.hrw.org/news/2011/08/31/afghanistan-taliban-should-stop-using-children-suicide-bombers
http://digitaljournal.com/article/317009
Well, maybe not anymore, but for most of the war the population supported the aims of the taliban against the foreign invaders
If that aim was getting rid of Americans, I'm sure they probably did have a majority support at one point, that support has since eroded. The more important point to make is that the Taliban ideology has always been a minority view. The Northern Alliance had been fighting the Taliban long before the U.S. came in.
Actually as the legal government of the country when it was invaded they have the legal high ground
Not when you harbor and give safe haven to the world's most wanted man, you don't. Not when you train and support the people responsible for the 9/11 attacks. As many international organizations will confirm, the United States was well within it's legal rights.
Can you not even realise when you make such stupid statement
You mean like saying that the United States Invaded Afghanistan for it's non-existent oil?
You are unbeleiveable. 9/11 was a crime, not an act of war.
Not according to Osama Bin Laden. According to him, it was a war against the Great Satan, and a war against the Infidels.
Now, by your logic, since he is responsible for hundreds of civilian deaths across latin american (e.g. in Cuba and Venezuala most notably), they have the legal right to invade the US,
No, you're right there is no excuse for that, I don't condone that, I don't agree with my government especially when it comes to things like this. I don't deny that my government does some really fucked up things. Although I can tell you exactly why this happened though. Ever since the cold war, there has been this irrational fear of communism, many conservatives believed that countries one-by-one would fall to communism and that The US would be swallowed up. They adopted policies to oppose communism by any means necessary, and sometimes that meant supporting brutal groups like the Contras.
is this not directly comparable to Afghanistan granting asylm to Bin ladn and few associates?
Somewhat. Although there are some important differences. First of all Luis filed for political asylum in the united States, that request was denied. So then he tried to sneak into the United States, was apprehended, detained by the department of Defense, and then held in an Texas Jail for nearly 5 years. He was charged with lying to federal agents and for falsifying his immigration papers. He was ruled innocent of those crimes. Although the trial was hardly fair, it's quite different than the story of Bin Laden in Afghanistan. Hell, the Taliban constructed training camps for Bin Laden's soldiers in Afghanistan. Luis posada, was one man. Osama Bin Laden had a small army.
The Taliban are an indigenous group that came to power with popular backing in Afghanistan in 1992
Bullshit it did. The Taliban seized military control of Afghanistan with Pakistani militia soldiers, weapons, and supplies. And without this Pakistani support it probably would have failed. The Taliban also launched rockets into cities, burned crop fields, denied UN food to 160,000 starving people, dragged people out of their homes and executed them. This caused people to flee the country. Popular support my ass.
Source:
......
more later
I'm not trying to justify anything
Bullshit you're not. Should we review past comments?
When I questioned you about the Taliban using children as suicide bombers you said and I quote: "it is the only way they can resist...", Please tell me what this is if not a justification? When I questioned about them using IEDs in heavily populated areas you again said: "the Taliban have had to use all available means of maintaining their existence"
I merely recognise the problem of big countries thinking they have some God given right to invade smaller weaker ones.
You think this is a war between countries?
I don't beleive this to be the case, their is a moral, legal, and principled dimension to any conflict
And the Taliban doesn't have either the moral nor the legal high ground. The Taliban was part of the Al Qaeda support structure, the U.S. was perfectly within it's right to take out that support structure.
You have an elementary misunderstanding of what action you are justified in carrying out, one of the real problems is that we (in the West) feel that we are the superior people, and we have the right to tell others how to live their lives
What do you think the Taliban has been doing since they came to power? Telling people how to live their lives. Remember what I said earlier, the Taliban represents a minority ideology and any who opposes that is threatened with violence or even death. You must obey by their rules. Anybody who thought the country shouldn't be ruled by their strict interpretations of the Koran was intimidated or killed. If you send your daughter to school they will blow up the school. Any attempt to uplift women or to modernize the country was meet with strong resistance from the Taliban.
The government and military which you support does, if you support them you must support their policies
I probably disagree with the Federal Government more than I agree with it, this however does not require me to agree with your assessments.
I wonder why they are unaware, could that be intentional at all?
Well if everybody knew about it then it wouldn't very well be clandestine, then would it?
Don't respond to this. I will edit the rest in later..
funding groups that are equally savage,
This issue is much more complex than I think you are willing to admit. Does the U.S. government support and fund rebel/insurgent forces in other countries. Yes. Are some of these groups using tactics banned by international law, yes. The US Government has a history of backing rebel/insurgent groups, if it perceives the Dictatorship which it is rebelling against as being the greater of the two evils. Sometimes I think the US government is wrong in it's assessment in who is the greater evil. Most of the time though the dictatorships are worse than the rebel/insurgent groups backed by the U.S.
Sometimes a war between different tribes or ethnicities is incorrectly viewed by western media and by Policy Makers as a "Revolution". When we pick sides in an ethnic or tribal war this can have ramifications, which is why the Conflict in Libya worried me. Time will tell.
Yes, current data suggests their support has dried up, but this is a recent development, for most fo the war they have had significant support
As I pointed out and as you neglected, the support was only for the --aims-- of the Taliban and not necessarily the Taliban itself or it's tactics, and even then it was still a minority.
obviously now that situ is impreoving they are realising that they don;t need the Taliban for the their security. Imagine that.
fair enough, you must be doing something right, I'll admit that
http://
you invaded to secure oil and gas interests
Apparently you don't realize that Afghanistan doesn't have any oil of it's own. It has to be imported into the country. But nice try.
http://www.indexmundi.com/afghanistan/
No, I'm saying you are largely responsible for allowing him and his puppet regime to come to power
You still haven't presented any evidence. Making yet more claims =/= evidence. Also I would like to point out that there is a world of different between allowing him to come to power and causing him to come to power. If you have evidence for the latter I would like to see it.
You'd be surprised what fragmented groups lacking any other effective means of resistance will do when their backs are against the wall, you say that with such certainty but it's quite obviously wrong, we are all human, and we all the same capacity to commit evil acts, although I admit when hideous attacks are mandated by your ideology (especially if it's religious) it can increase their savagery .
Therein lies the problem. You can justify any atrocity so long as it's committed by the losing side in the conflict.
In war there will always be SIDE A vs. SIDE B, and each will lay claim to the legitimacy of their cause, but the only clear way to distinguish a legitimate force from an illegitimate one is the moral boundaries they are willing to cross in the process. The Taliban doesn't have the support of the International Community precisely because of how it treats women and children. Their own women and children.
Now, aside from that, I really just can't stand your pontificating, you are currently backing and sponsoring any insurgent or terrorist group that will try to overthrow the elected government of Iran.
I am doing no such thing. I have no 'beef' with Iran. Iran more than any other nation has good reason to hate us, the CIA-led Iranian Coup was the result of neo-conservative war mongering. The problem is that the vast majority of Americans are completely unaware of these types of clandestine operations and are conducted without our consent. As much as Iran may hate us, they know in a war (either conventional or Nuclear) they would lose and they have expressed no desire to engage the United States in Conflict, contrary to what some Politicians may claim.
The Taliban still have significant support, and it is only recently that it has begun to wain as the polling data indicates so please let's not try to paint a false picture of the US being liberators, when you invaded they had significant support, and may still significant support.
The poll you linked to stated that only 29% of afghans are sympathetic to the aims of the Taliban. Not only is do these people represent a great minority, but those who sympathized only sympathized with the --aims-- of the Taliban, and not necessarily with the Taliban itself or the tactics of the Taliban.
Whether the United States was a Liberator or not is a matter of semantics, but the truth of the Matter is that Afghanistan was in Pretty terrible shape when we entered it, being one of the poorest and most illiterate nations in the region. More hospitals, schools, wells, roads and radio towers have been built under US occupation then during the entire duration of Taliban Control. Your link also indicates that those who think the country is moving in the right country outnumber those who do not.
You cannot give the U.S. credit, even when Credit is due.
I admit that even in recent time Karzi has come against the US on certain issues, particularly drone attacks against his own people (that even killed his own cousin), so ya recently he had to come out against you in order to maintain what little credibility he has even though he's rigged every election he's stood in and only rose to power because of you, his regime has been a classic puppet regime from the day you created it.
So you think the United States rigged Afghan elections to elect a man that dislikes us? Evidence?
Holy Christ man, I would like to have a conversation without it turning into a novel. You know you don't have to respond to every single sentence I write. Dispute the argument not each individual sentences. I simply don't have the time to respond to all of this.
And Also a word of recommendation: I wouldn't use InfoWars as a source if I were you. Alex Jones is a well known conspiracy nut, and his website is not a credible source of information.
Maybe someday China will invade your country and then US citizens will take up arms against them if your military is defeated, then self righteous Chinese people can post statistic like about US insurgents.
They could post it but it wouldn't be in their favor. I very much doubt Americans would strap suicide bombs onto children, use human shields, decapitate civilians on video or plant IEDs in busy marketplaces.
We also have better aim ;-)
But to give you some perspective, the insurgency especially in Afghanistan isn't just an anti-occupation force. Imagine if China invaded the US, now imagine a corrupt and violent Radical religious group has taken control of the country and was recruiting Americans to fight against the Chinese Occupiers. That's basically the situation in Afghanistan. The Taliban and other sectarian groups are entities with radical fringe ideologies that the average afghan would never support and under the Taliban Afghans have suffered. So many are forced to choose between this crazy radical religious group and an occupying foreign power. The only reason we have anywhere near the level of support we have now is because of how we operate (not in spite of it). People have a tendency to prefer their own countrymen to foreigners, the fact that we have the level of support we do from local afghans is a miracle in itself.
Oh yes, the government that was put into power witbh US backing, ya, there not a corrupt puppet regime at all
Oh yes, because President Karzai loves us {Rolls eyes}.
That was sarcasm in case you didn't catch it....
About 78% of civilian casualties in Afghanistan, are caused by anti-government forces.
Source:
http://unama.unmissions.org/Portals/
Do you doubt that the overwhelming majority of people who suffered and died at the hands of your countries hideous aggression were civilians?
I doubt that this graph is even remotely close to reality. According to this graph not a single insurgent, Sectarian extremist, Militant, Iraqi soldier or afghan soldier was killed in the course of the whole conflict, which is obviously false.
Innocent of what? If you mean innocent of committing an aggression against the US, and doing nothing substantial to provoke or antagonise the US
You mean the Taliban? Except for harboring, training, and supplying Al Qaeda forces. Besides decapitating civilian hostages and videotaping it and posting it on the internet. Besides planting IEDs where civilians live and work. Besides using children as suicide bombers. Besides assassinating Government officials. Besides spraying battery acid in the face of little girls who dare to go to school. Girls are not allowed to go to school according to Taliban Theology.
This in addition to Al Qaeda forces and Al Qaeda leaders, (those directly responsible for 9/11) that have been found in both countries. As well as foreign Radical Islamic militia groups that bolster Taliban forces.
Congratulations you are an apologist for the of Islamic Extremism.
Yes you would. In time you will come to understand. Kids are like little balls of energy, and when they are using that energy it is usually to scream, yell, annoy, and to destroy property. When you keep small children occupied, they become like little Gandhis. I have yet to meet a parent who is not elated by the prospect of something which occupies their children. You cannot possibly watch or entertain a child 24/7 especially when you are busy doing other things (like driving). Trust me on this.
