Liam

You've just demonstrated exactly the same thing... No, mine was amusing. Yours... not so much. ;^)

By including "French", you're railing against what you see as attackers of Anglo culture, not white culture. Big difference.

Maybe he was racing to get to Jenna's kegger? Jenna's kegger was legal. I knowe it's a small distinction to a liberal, but there it is... You've just demonstrated how foreign the concept of friendly ribbing has become to morose conservatives.

Maybe he was racing to get to Jenna's kegger?

I don't want to make this discussion go off track, but in a world of moral absolutism, how can you set a standard (that treating someone as an equal does not mean you have to condone the lifestyle) but then not extend that standard to other aspects of life?

I honestly expected better of you. How foolish of me. Show me where in any of my responses I claimed that any of the reasons alQaeda or its supporters cite as inspiration to join jihad are justified? The truth is alQaeda uses resentment of domestic political oppression within the Arab world as a recruiting tool. They use US support of government in countries like Egypt and Saudi Arabia to gain recruits. Identifying that as a recruiting tool is not an assessment of its legitimacy on my part. Beyond that, I certainly never suggested changing US policy to appease alQaeda -- it can't be done (and even if it were possible, not only would appeasement of alQaeda be immoral, but history has shown that appeasement never works as a long-term strategy). For someone who claims to know alQaeda's motivations based solely on their written word, you seem to have difficulty looking to the written word of people within this debate.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19606530/ <<He denounced Egypt, Jordan and Saudi at length. He warned Iraq’s Sunni minority against seeing them as allies, saying they pretend to support the Sunni cause while allying themselves with the United States. If Saudi Arabia controls Iraq or Sunni regions of Iraq, “the Iraqis would then suffer the same repression and humiliation which the people suffer under Saudi rule under the pretext of combating terrorism — i.e., combatting jihad and preserving American security,” al-Zawahri said. The al-Qaida deputy also laid out an al-Qaida strategy, saying in the near-term militant should target U.S. and Israeli interests “everywhere” in retaliation for “attacks on the Islamic nation” in Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia. The long-term strategy calls for “diligent work to change these corrupt and corrupting (Arab) regimes.” >> Just doing as you say: listening to their self-articulated reasons for jihad. Want to tell me how off the mark I was?

I think the 240 USD speeding ticket I got today counts as breaking the law. D'oh!

Psychologically speaking, it has been shown that conservatives are more prone to authoritarianism. It provides comfort and consistency. Dissent challenges that stability and must be stamped down, regardless of the source of dissent, particularly if it's one of your own.

Thanks for the post -- it was a good read and much more nuanced than "they're savages". As I said before, I don't think our positions are all that far apart. We share a common objective: how to defeat the enemy before us. There's much in your post I can agree with.

Well, Texas has been getting terrible rains and floods. They gave us Bush. I think the Bishop is on to something.

I listed poverty among some of the stated reasons because it has been among some of the stated reasons why some people are drawn to Islamist groups. As is western support and protection of dictatorial regimes, like the House of Saud and Mubarak in Egypt. Israel is a common complaint "on the Arab street", the recruiting grounds for tomorrow's jihadists. I do not mention these because I am some loony liberal or seek to blame the west or justify their thoughts. Nothing could be farther from the truth. I am simply identifying the things that make it easier for those who favor the New Caliphate to attract the recruits who do their bidding -- particularly among middle class families whose kids should want to be part of the west. Your position on this and mine are not completely apart (that they are the greatest threat and must be defeated), but the key difference is that I want to see into their minds and find explanations that can help us peel off the next generation of Muslims before they become jihadist recruits. You appear to think you have every answer: that they are savages. If you only ever characterize your enemies as insane or as savages, you will never be able to get into their minds and you will never know how to defeat it. What's the point of trying to understand a savage? A savage lacks logic and when you cannot reason, blowing them up is the only remaining solution. I think the solution is easier -- find out what makes someone join a group like this and find a way to win the heart and mind of potential recruits before it's too late. By the way, how's that "strawman" list of Pelosi and Dean quotes coming? Oh, and as of 7:00 pm (last time I listened to the news) you're wrong: British police have been leaking that every detainee in their custody is a foreign national, NOT a British citizen among them.

Well, it's not all about you. And saying Islamists hate us for our freedom is most certainly not a liberal strawman. Just look to the rightwingers' "Dear Leader" -- I'm sure I could google up dozens of times Bush and Cheney have claimed they hate us for our freedom. Can you find as many quotes from Nancy Pelosi or Howard Dean (or any of the liberals of your choice) saying it's all about poverty? Truth is, it's a combination of things including politics, a sense of helplessness and national failure, a religion that does not allow dissent or free thought, dislike of western liberal democracies, support for Israel, poverty in their homelands, oppression by western-supported dictators, etc. It's a bunch of reasons.

It doesn't fit the right-wing stereotype that they hate us for our freedom, either. If anything, the perpetrators of these acts (and 9/11) have more access to freedom, wealth and education than the proverbial man on the Arab street. "Hating us for our freedom" is just as ignorant and as foolish a position as blaming it all on poverty. But don't let balance get in the way of a well-formed prejudice.

I was in London last week. I have read a bit about the non-integration of Muslims in Europe and all I can say is that I have never seen more head-to-toe burqas than in London last week. I lived in NYC for a while (which is just as international a city as is London), and such things are just never seen.

This woman seems to think that we are all drug infested because we share the same nationality as some who are. Is that fair? Did you take her to task for *that* statement?

I have two daughters, so they probably wouldn't play with guns, anyhow. Though one was Queen Amidala for Halloween last year and her costume came with a Star Wars laser pistol and she somtimes still shoots me with it. It doesn't bother me -- I think the overall lessons the kid learns in the home are far more important than a plastic toy. In our case, we're not a gun-owning household and we discuss the dangers of real guns (you never do know what they might find in a friend's house), so I don't expect either of my kids will be cavalier about guns as they age.

I don't mean to be insulting to this woman because she can only form opinions based on the information she receives. What I question is the quality of the news reporting available to her if this is all she knows about the US. But based on what she sees: "They are a drug infested, self-abosrobed society that allows their children to run wild in the streets, their children to carry guns and their girls to dress like porn stars,. Marriage doe snot exist in America, single women shamelessly sleeping around and having babies out of wedlock. Like animals they seek only their base pleasure and nothing more." Yes, we are self-absorbed, no argument there. We consume too many of the world's resources and are too wasteful. But I see only good, drug-free kids among my kids' peers, not the bad ones she describes. Her statement about marriage is simply bizarre. And it's probably shocking to her that we don't reign in women like chattel, but we recognize that women are equal and free to live their lives as they see fit. In any event, I would prefer to live in a country that allows me and all of us to live an immoral life of my own choosing (provided I don't hurt others) than one that threatens me with judicial punishment or mob violence because I am different or wish to be a free spirit. "I worry all the time that my children will be killed by them. In truth, I am deeply, deeply afraid of America at all times. It is a wicked immoral society that influences the world away from morals and values. Homosexuals are on their programmes and in their news, they celebrate this!" I won't criticize her concern for her kids. I fear for my kids, too. And it may be un-PC to say it, but I fear that her kids will some day come over here and kill my kids. But I would ask her what kind of morals does a society possess when it honors and elevates individuals who strap bombs to their bodies and then walk into crowded markets filled with innocent civilians? As far as celebrating gay people, as a gay man I can tell you I am hardly celebrated. We may have moved away from stoning gay people in the town square as may (or may not) happen where she lives, but other than a few minstrel show-like gay characters on TV sitcoms, gays are hardly embraced by everyone in the US. There are still a few dark corners of the US where gay people wouldn't travel or go for fear of danger. And anyone who knows the slightest bit about Bush's 2004 election strategy knows it was all about God, guns and gays. Celebrated? No. "Criminals make money from books and tv appearances, and become heroes. they celebrate the evil instead of feeling the shame they should be feeling. What have they given to the world but grief and war? Yes, I am afraid of america, to my very soul." She obviously does not know that many (most?) states in the US have passed laws whereby criminals are prevented from profiting from the exploits of their crimes. Grief and war? The US looks after its own interests, just like her country. The US sometimes wages wars to further or to protect its interests, just like her country. But I'd wager, regardless of where she's from, that the US has produced more good than her home country. Technological innovations, new medicines, genetics research, industrial production, agricultural advancements, individual liberties, philanthropic development, educational progress -- I'm confident the things her country has given the world pale in comparison to many of the great things Americans have produced. Aside from that, how much did her country or countrymen give in the wake of the tsunami? Or to feed starving kids in Ethiopia in the 80's? What did they do to stop ethnic cleansing in Kosovo or to provide vaccines to sub-Sahara Africa? I think the US is far from perfect, but to slag all Americans as the epitome of evil or the US as a country as devoid of any good is simply ignorant.

Coulter has no substance. The sad thing is she is very intelligent and could probably produce some insightful stuff, but has the woman ever published or said anything substantive or sober or though-provoking? When did she last publish an intelligent article about tax policy or immigration or the judicial system or foreign relations that was free of insults or character attacks? Everything I have ever read by her descends into the "Ted Kennedy is a fat drunkard and a woman killer" school of political commentary. She is a molotov cocktail thrower. She is not substantive in the slightest, so saying the left attacks her style and not her substance is wrong. All she is is style.

I disagree with anyone who blames Canadians for pot smuggled into the US, nor do I blame Colombians for the voracious coke habits of Miami Beach partiers. It's the US government's responsibility to stop the contraband at the border and it's the US consumer's fault such trades even exist. (To the extent the Canadian or Colombian governments know illegal products are being exported to the US and decide to look the other way, *then* I would place some of the blame on those other countries. Short of such a scenario, criticism of Canada or Colombia is unfair, IMO.) Likewise, it is Canada's responsibility to secure its own border and police the products entering its sovereign space. If the US government was colluding with smugglers, I'd agree that "*US* guns" are the problem. But placing the blame on the US for the appetite for illegal guns on the part of your own homegrown hoodlums is deflecting your own national responsibility. Mad cow? Even if the infected cow came from the US, did it contract the disease in the US or Canada? If there was a US product Canadians imported and relied upon and it was discovered that a test batch contained life-threatening levels of poison X, you don't think Canadian officials would stop importation till the situation was assessed and remedied?

I'm not an advocate of cruelly killing animals... but I love me a boiled crustacean with lots of drawn butter. I think this one falls into the "who cares?" category. *LOL

Is the implication that the US was the last to abolish slavery or that we reluctantly joined with progressives in Europe and Canada? The first Northern US state to abolish slavery was Vermont in 1777 (technically, before it was even a state), 26 years before the practice ended in Canada. The last Northern US state to abolish slavery was New Jersey in 1804, only one year after Canada abolished slavery, but before the British Parliament passed the Slave Trade Act of 1807 (which merely established a fine for each slave found on a British vessel). Slavery was still practiced and flourished and did a terrific job of enriching Mother England in each of its colonies well past 1807. Slavery was not fully outlawed in the British colonies till the 1830's. France and Denmark didn't fully abolish slavery till almost 1850 - and slavery was still practiced in one form or another in French colonies in Africa till the 20th century. The Dutch maintained slavery into the 1860's (and some would say they held slaves till WW2 in some outposts). It is true that some US states held on to slavery till the 1860's, but the US is the only nation that sacrificed hundreds of thousands of its sons on the battlefield to liberate slaves.

Is your inference that there is something wrong with being either American or Israeli?

I'm probably a Democrat, but I voted "right decision, poorly handled" (or whatever the middle one was). For me, the ultimate issue (both then and now) was whether or not the UN was going to continue to issue resolution after resolution without the intent of backing them up or enforcing them. Did that mean war was necessary? I don't know, but I think the threat of war was probably necessary in Saddam's case. I got furious with the administration when WMDs were never turned up and became apoplectic with the abuses at Abu Ghraib and upon hearing stories of soldiers' lacking body armor, etc. Nation-building was never a primary argument advanced by Bush. My issue with the Iraq war is that it was so entirely botched by Bush and his cronies that it has made the US even less secure. The war in Iraq was fought on the cheap and with far too few boots on the ground. No one did their homework or did any post-war planning. The war took the focus off al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The administration used the war for domestic political purposes and set up the battlefield of Iraq as the definitional battle in the entire war on terror. Failure there means a win by the people who... who... who hate our freedom (yeah, that's it!). The war was fought so as to increase the hatred of the US globally and in the Islamic world, in particular. The war has now served as a major training ground for militants who wish to export jihad globally. The war severed the US from its traditional allies, who up till then, were still mostly "with us" and "against them". I think the threat of war against Saddam was the only real outcome of the UN resolution scheme, but I entirely disagree with the manner in which this war has been waged.

I'm certainly no gun nut, but blaming the smuggling of guns into Canada on the US is entirely unfair. I think blaming the US is done partly to reinforce among Canadians the notion that there is a criminal element in their midst, as if it wasn't for that big, bad US next door, Canada would be a crime-free utopia. Illegally smuggled guns in Canada is a law- and border-enforcement problem that resides within Canada, and responsibility for controlling it is a Canadian problem. To the extent US border controls do not catch illegal items crossing the border, the US shares the burden. But to completely absolve Canadian customs and Canadian law enforcement AND the criminal element within Canada is utterly disingenuous.