bleeding heart

A strong argument for the overall awesomeness of this country, to be sure.

But connotatively, the meaning shifts in subtle but important ways--precisely according to "context," which interestingly is your argument. Because the word is a qualifier to "dangerous," the qualified word profoundly affects the connotation of the qualifier. That's just grammar. Otherwise, they would use "not very", or "not especially" rather than "moderately." For example, summoning too from the dictionary definitions, a "moderately well-established hypothesis" does not connote "not very"; it conntes "imperfect" but, unequivocally, very real. Put another way, and this is the way the word is quite obviously being used here: If there is a "moderate" chance that you'll get in a car accident today, you'd have to be suicidal to go at all. In this context, it doesn't mean "not much of a chance." No one would ever use "moderately dangerous" to mean "not very dangerous." No one.

They barely considered the "savages" at all, considering them a subhuman blip on an empty and virginal land. There is nothing analogous about the contemporary situation.

And yet some of us aren't shivering in terror, maddened by visions of the caliphate's crescent shadow looming over Western civilization.

!!!! Your long-term argument--ad nauseum--has been precisely and explicitly the opposte.

This is true if you determine that "moderately dangerous" equals "not a serious problem."

It's basically how I feel, too. In a similar vein, some posters frequently ask why I would complain about Canada's behaviour, while giving, let's say Iran, a "free pass." Leaving aside the bizarre formulation (how do I give Iran, which I condemn as a thuggish band of theocratic fanatics oppressing their own people, a "free pass"? ), I simply think that democratic principles insist that we be more concerned with our own behaviour than with that of others.' That's also an elementary moral principle, but I digress..... It certainly has nothing to do with some pissing contest over which is worse...an irrelevant sidebar to such discussions, in my view.

Me too. I realized that there is an entity called "the Left" whose sole purpose is to destroy society, so I thought: hey, gotta get me some a' that.

Even as far as this analogy goes (and I don't hink it works well even on its own, conveniently-defined terms), no man is forced to use his body soley for the sake of supporting a child...as is the entire, specific, and only case with a pregnancy. That is, he would have to work anyway, for his own sake...it's not as if he could live easy, earning zero income, if it weren't for those damned oppressive women with the "unfair" advantage. An "advantage," not incidentally, which is predicated on biological differences...so it gets silly to lay blame at that point.

Well, of course. The funny thing about "media bias" is that it does indeed exist, I think, and I think it can be demonstrated...but it's not generally a right-left issue. It's biased towards Establishment Power (meaning, at all times, both Democrat and Republican, in these American examples), for several interrelated reasons.

Yeah, kraychik really is a right-wing lunatic...or else he's an extremely disciplined puppet, and in my experience such types are not especially disciplined, and their caricatures are too obvious. We briefly had a supposed Radical Jihadist Muslim on this board....but he kept saying things like "My three strong sons will destroy you infidel sons of dogs and monkeys!"; and "The Muslims will win through your immigration policies!" Awesome stuff.

Holy cow, you're not kidding! My vote for jaw-dropping post of the week. On the other hand, I'm really now agreeing with all the posters who have pointed out that this particular poster isn't at all or in any way serious. It's all about provocation.

As madmax said, the poll is for fun, and not to be taken seriously. Besides, the poor taste is all Anders'. Madmax laughing at Anders is not in poor taste...it's in good taste!

???? It doesn't intervene. And no one has suggested that it should. You're arguing with phantoms in your imagination.

But is your final clause here not an assumption, based largely on faith, and so is at the very least an arguable proposition? Do we always and only use military force for just and defensive purposes?

That's not by any stretch the "only difference." Unless you genuinely believe that most immigrants are coming here with the express desire of taking over and implanting their own culture(s) and laws and societies over our own, as we are a bunch of subhuman savages. Adding to that that we are talking about multiple cultures, rather than a small handful of dictinctly similar European ones,(and almost totally dominated by two, in fact) as in the "encounter." At any rate, if that's the claim (that they are planning to take us over) it's going to take some serious evidence to back it up. If it's a simple matter of demographics, that doesn't work either in this case, as has been explained multiple times. {edit: I see that Dre beat me to it, with a roughly identical sentiment.)

Meh. I assume you understand that I would disgree with this assessment. Or is that, too, going to throw you into a frenzy of invective and ill-conceived notions?

Well, I hope and trust you've got a good many years left. We still owe each other a beer, for one thing. But personally, I not only don't think Werstern civilization is going to die off; I think it's reaching a point of being truly triumphant, in that the best qualities of Western civlization are winning out. It's not a neat and straight historical line, but I think my assessment is correct. Meanwhile, it behooves us to continue criticizing ourselves from every angle (which is precisely why these debates occur at all)...to help ensure that the best qualities of the West win out, and the worst fade into obscurity.

Computer Science is only a few decades old. I think it's all bunk. No doubt I can find a couple of blogs about it....

It's a pretty messy and confused game, you're right about that.

I'm preeeettttyy sure that you are the coward in this little game of yours, kraychik. As for moral relativity, yours goes without saying. Yeah, a remark about "Arab and Israeli violence and intransigence" is so incredibly off the wall, so utterly indefensible.... And there it is again: you pull bile from thin air and fashion it into a weapon against a fantasy opponent who is unrelated to the poster with whom you're ostensibly having a discussion. Did you hone your dishonest debating methods through years of being smacked down by more intelligent posters? Or is it a natural character flaw?

You ask a lot of people. Unfair.

I didn't. I was responding to another poster (and I guarantee you that's not what she meant, either, as I predict your coming fury), and offering a quick and throaway agreement with the idea that violent jihadists aren't too awesome. O my controversial opinions! But glad to see you can almost, if not quite, differentiate between separate posters. A terrific skill.

As you well know: Arab violence and intransigence, and Israeli violence and intransigence. But kraychik, you aren't even seriously asking a question. you're trolling, itching for fights, dishonestly inventing other people's positions for them, all in between bouts of wishing you could join your boy Nugent on one of his teenie girl escapades....