JB Globe

Exactly - if you want to continue to make inflammatory posts then duck out of the thread, and/or offer one-liners about how sucky certain posts are - that's totally your prerogative. It's also my prerogative to note when you do that. Isn't this entire thread about a hypothetical? I didn't see you complaining earlier, maybe I missed it. True - this is where the historical kind of antisemitism comes from, the kind that has followed Jews around wherever we've been since Roman times. Of course, this is entirely different from what's happening today Go ahead and quote me on where I did this - I think you're making an empty claim to try and smear me. No where did I enable/excuse antisemitism. If there's less "sympathy" (or rather, concern for the human rights of) Jews, it's because by and large we're doing very well compared to other minority groups. If we're talking about why Israel receives more than its share of criticism than compared with other states, than there's a few reasons: 1 - Us Jews ourselves cultivated the image of Israel as a special nation, of the bastion of democracy in the Middle East, as an exciting new nation that will inspire the world . . . Then the intifada happened. 2 - Europe & NA expect more out of Israel than they do out of other nations, partly because as the chosen folks we're in their books supposed to have a higher commitment to the values God prescribed for mankind. That means more criticism when Israel does something wrong, but it also is directly related to why the US is so willing to give Israel boatloads of cash. 3 - There's the unfortunate truth that the situation on the ground is that a group of people who have been persecuted for most of our recent history are now oppressing the political freedom of another group of people. And as we know, hypocritical actions make for great books and newspaper articles. There's a difference between "failure" and oppression & discrimination. Sorry, but you can't just blatantly lie. Go ahead and quote me, or admit that you're just trying to smear me. My point was: That had Israel been created in a Christian-majority region, and had Israel treated the Christian inhabitants in the manner it treated the Muslim inhabitants of the current state of Israel, you would see an increase in the amount of antisemitism from Christians in the region - and also in Christian-majority countries in general. This isn't a radical concept - oppression or discrimination of one people by another people spawns dislike for the oppressor by those who identify with the oppressed. What on earth are you talking about? Again - QUOTE ME. All I said was that there is an undeniable link between the Holocaust and the creation of the state of Israel. And yes, sorry to bring up a historical fact - that the Holocaust prompted the world community to take a more serious look at Zionism, and yes - even caused people to be more sympathetic to the Zionist cause. Acknowledging this impact doesn't mean that the Holocaust was a good thing, that it was worth it, or that any rational person would have wanted it to occur. It just means that Zionist leaders played the hand they were dealt and translated it into something that helped them achieve their goals.

I disagree that the Holocaust caused Jews to be more discrete, case in point, NYC: we're not exactly on the DL there. Also, if you look at the synagogues built in Toronto before WWII vs. after, there's a huge difference in terms of how visible they are as synagogues. ie - http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3244/260101...e65e53b.jpg?v=0 vs. The Beth David Synagogue in North York that has walls covered from the roof to the ground with stylized Hebrew letters.

Not true. However there are always crackpots, and some of those crackpots happen to include Jews who think that the Holocaust was part of God's plan to establish the state of Israel - these folks tend to be either ultra-orthodox and/or extreme form of Zionist. Of course, there are ultra-orthodox who think the state of Israel is an abomination as well - that it can only be created by God and that since Zionists (humans) created it that it is blasphemy.

For the record, the above Mike David story is just as true as the one where he had that dinner at his place with all those "visible minority friends" that, uncoincidentally agree with every one of his xenophobic views, thus proving that he isn't racist because his friends say so. You see - just because Mike can't find stats to back up his claims, and just because the personal anecdotes he posts in lieu of those facts sound contrived and impossible, doesn't mean he has an irrational hatred of people who are different than he is. After all, like MD says - it's not bigoted to dislike ALL Italians, It's only bigoted to dislike ALL Jews. That's because Mike likes it when their Jew-country kills Muslims, and Muslims are bad, so that makes Jews good. Which of course means, that if Mike were to ever encounter my Jewish-Italian self, he may have an aneurysm.

The idea that natives don't live in the modern world might make sense if most natives didn't live in cities. And really - what is the point of this post other than plain-old bigoted - "I'm better than you, scumbag!" After all, it's not as if any of the "superiors" here have anything other than animosity towards native folks.

And considering that the middle class in Canada & the US has been shrinking for a decade or longer, and those folks slipping into lower classes of income, I'd say that the ability of people to work themselves up the ladder is being hindered by an economic system which favours those who already are in the top income bracket.

While those who aren't rich gain absolutely nothing, and then still lose when the hard times hit. That kind of system only sounds good for a select group of people. A father who earns $25 million dollars a year who looses $5 million during an economic crisis is still stinking rich. A father who earns $25K a year and looses $5K of that may be out of a home. But you're right, the rich person looses the most amount of total money, so who cares about the fact that, in practical terms, the poor person is loosing more. . . . You know, there's a reason why Laissez-faire capitalism is criticized as being out of touch the reality of most ordinary people - because it doesn't concern itself with the reality of most ordinary people. Which of course, often means that their investments run counter to the interests of the nation that they are a part of. In an unbalanced economic system where individuals don't have equal access to the means of generating capital, wealth redistribution isn't stealing - it's a means of leveling the playing field and in turn, ensuring economic and social stability. Perhaps you could explain to me just how exactly, if the Free Market is Jesus and government regulation Satan - why the free market wasn't able to make the lives of 90% of people better? Why didn't they see their incomes grow during such a long economic boom? Surely the test of any economic system is to ask: is your life any better now than it was 10 years ago?

Fantastic rebuttal - why don't you explain why it's so horrific? Oh wait, that's right - you don't do responses, just one-liners. To re-iterate: The Holocaust is the Ha-Shoah is the Holocaust. It was horrible - however we as Jews cannot ignore the fact that the Holocaust is directly related to both the creation of Israel & to the decline in antisemitism in Western Europe and North America. The reason for the later is of course because of the Allies' animosity towards the Nazis, and since Jews were the victims of the Nazis, we in turn became the allies of the Allies. Also - there was a general sense in society that in the face of the Holocaust that overt antisemitism was now quite tasteless (because of course, it WAS culturally acceptable throughout the '30's) considering the type of horror that the Jewish people had just been through. I don't think any of my other earlier points need any clarification - go ahead and respond . . . Or not, which would be your usual game.

If the past 10-15 years of strong economic growth didn't translate into middle/lower income folks see their income increase relative to inflation, while at the same time the richest folks in society saw their income skyrocket, I think it's safe to say that the notion of trickle-down economics is pretty much dead in the water. Turns out that no - rich folks don't invest their money won on the stock market into small mom-and-pop businesses that transfers wealth from the upper echelons of society to the bottom. They put that money into, among other things, off-shore accounts to avoid having to pay taxes to the country that enabled them to make that money in the first place. The past 15 years combined with the current crises provides enough evidence that yes, we do need a social contract, and yes - some amount of socialist (yes, I said it) wealth-redistribution is necessary in order to avoid wealth concentration. It's not perfect, but it works for the most part when done right and in moderation. It's a hell of a lot better than the "let the magic free market handle it" approach - which just doesn't work at all.

So would I. I'm especially interested since crime-by-ethnicity stats aren't recorded, and there are so many unsolved murders where we don't know the identity of the perp. Although I'm sure Jamaicans are over-represented in terms of violent crime, that has a lot to do with Jamaicans being over-represented below the poverty line. Plus, it's not news to any Jamaican folks that too many young Jamaican males are dying from gun violence - they just don't like to admit it because bigots are waiting in the wings to use that info to denounce their community as a whole and use it as justification for all kinds of discriminatory polices against them (which end up worsening the situation, not improving it).

I don't like to dwell too much on hypotheticals, and even less on impossibilities, so I won't comment on the idea of moving the current state of Israel. What I will suggest is that had Israel in fact been created in some of the alternative locations (had Zionist leaders not been able to create it in Palestine) there would be a huge difference in terms of how the world, specifically the Western world views Israel and Jews. There's no doubt in my mind that if Israel were created in Europe, and Israelis were politically oppressing several million Christians for several decades, that instead of Goi's viewing us as model-minorities, we'd instead be subject to a high level of anti-semitism - socially and politically. After all, anti-semitism in Western Europe & NA really only started to decline after WWII, and half of us had to be wiped off the face of the earth for it to start decreasing.

Lying only makes you look pathetic, it's a terrible tool to use in a debate.

You could have said that the minute folks started generalizing that Muslims are inherently terrorists.

Well, they're both Christians - with differing interpretations of the Gospel, but they're still Christians. Just like Sunni & Shia Muslims - they're both followers of Islam, just with different interpretations. And really, as everyone else has said - it appears from your initial post that this is simply an incident which you're using to bash the Islamic world as a whole - you didn't even make the very easy gesture of saying "radical" before you said "Islam" or use "Islamic Extremists" or anything of the sort.

If we're in agreement that child soldiers are often abused and/or manipulated into becoming child soldiers, than how can you sit there and tell me that the actions they take (at the command of those people who have manipulated them / abused them) are actions they've made completely of their own free will? How can you make the argument that a 15 year old should be considered an adult when they take a life but not when they want to drink a beer? Or drive a car? I'm reminded of a rebel group, I believe it was the RUF in Sierra Leone / Liberia, who used to get their child soldiers addicted to drugs and then withhold their next hit until they completed a task (say, killing or raping someone). By your book, a kid who was brought up in this mess and who was 15 would be held totally responsible for what they did, and in an adult court at that? It seems ridiculous and cruel. And so your solution to all of this is, what? To disregard international law? To treat a 10 year old as if he was an adult? How will jailing a 10 year old, or 15 year old for life, some of whom you claim are willing to blow themselves up to kill you, deter them? I say it won't do a thing, because the people that abuse & manipulate these kids will just find more fodder for their agenda. And of course, these folks WANT you to act more like them, the more barbaric our tactics become, the more they're proven right when they claim we're barbarians. The more people join their ranks, and the more people back home grow disillusioned with the whole scheme. If you are in fact in the military, I feel for you - it must be incredibly frustrating to be in a conflict that has no military solution but where your superiors don't seem to have any other real ideas. The Canadian public was sold on the Afghanistan mission because we were supposedly doing something noble over there - what you're telling me is that when shit hits the fan our commitment to international law and human rights get tossed aside. If that's the case, I don't really see any reason to be over there. I was confident we could fight a war and maintain our dignity, and keep a clear line between us and the terrorists. Now what you're telling me is in order to beat them we have to slowly become more and more like them. It starts with treating teenagers like adults in court, then we ship prisoners we suspect of being Taliban to the Afghanis to rough up and interrogate, be they innocent civilians in the wrong place or not, then we start seeing civilians in general as the enemy . . . Then we don't have anyone left to save in Afghanistan, because we've turned the entire country into our enemy. You might be a soldier, but you're not a child psychologist, and I've yet to see a SINGLE STUDY that proves that children that are exposed to traumatic events and/or have an abusive upbringing mature quicker than kids who don't experience these things. The only thing that these events do to a child is make them more f'd-up. You don't become an adult when you imitate the actions of the adults around you - that goes for a child shooting a gun, or a teenager having sex. If a five year old murders his father because he imitated what Yosemite Sam does on TV with his gun, is he an adult? No, because he didn That's what I'm talking about - after the battle is over, and after the battle is over, a 15 year old isn't an adult and shouldn't be tried in adult court. Which is EXACTLY why it's ridiculous to try and say that they are as responsible for their actions as an adult is. Even you agree they've been brainwashed.

1 - You horned in on the conversation by choice. 2 - He's a big boy and I'm sure he can handle himself. 3 - You still haven't actually responded to any points I've raised.

Agreed, obviously - but at the end of the day a bullet doesn't fire itself, a human being does. And my point is that the deadliness of a weapon doesn't have ANY bearing on the the issue here - If a child is too young to have legally been capable of mens rea - than that's the end of the story. If 15 year old is considered too irresponsible to purchase a beer, or operate a car, how on earth can you make the argument that this same child is responsible enough to make the decision to kill another human being FULLY INDEPENDENT of manipulation by adults using this child for their own purposes?

Translation - you're too much of an idiot to come up with an actual response.

I think he was asking you what is the MORAL difference between someone who advocates terrorism versus someone who advocates NUCLEAR GENOCIDE as a response to terrorism.

Well if the resident board troll thinks so, it must be true. So my commitment to disrupting and containing terrorist networks through intelligence, good police work, and building public support against terrorism is the reason that terrorists do what they do? That's cute. Now why don't you connect the dots and show me how? I mean, I'm an idiot and you're a self-proclaimed genius - it should be extremely simple for you.

I don't have kids, but I can tell you that in a few years when I do, they'll know right in wrong not because of some genetic ability to do so, but because I TAUGHT THEM the difference. What kind of nasty, pessimistic, cold-hearted, SOB are you that thinks that CHILDREN who (Very, very rarely) do these kinds of things do so simply because they chose to do so? Any rational person who knows even just a little bit about child psychology knows that a child kills a cat, either something isn't right at home (abuse) or they need help (mental illness). The ability of teenagers to make rational adult decisions differs from person to person - but 16 is the average, which is why we use that age as the point which teens can be charged with adult crimes. We can't start arbitrarily charging people younger than 16 with adult crimes just because some people with an ulterior motive are angry at them - because once you do that, there's no limit to how low you can go in age (I fully believe that there'd be people that would hold a 10 year old responsible if they hated Muslims enough to do so). Besides, by ignoring international law, we're giving other regimes the perfect excuse to ignore it even more than they do already. And of course, if you had their upbringing, you'd probably be acting pretty similar. And yes, unlike adults, they get a pass. Do you know why? Because they're CHILDREN. A kid with a gun is still a kid. Pulling a trigger doesn't make you a man. It's just makes you a little boy with a bigger and deadlier toy.

Sorry, you don't care that you have less class than Omar Khadr's sister?

No, actually, what JBG is doing is comparing HIS idea of Islam as a whole to Christianity as a whole, by using the actions of extremists to generalize about the entire Muslim world. When he posts his initial argument in posts like this he does not make distinctions between moderate Muslims and terrorists (ie - this post). Only later on when confronted by someone that he's a anti-Islamic bigot does he say something like "I was just talking about the extremists" yet he doesn't retract or edit his initial post, so his initial argument still stands. He just makes that flippant comment as a means of getting out of being branded a bigot. So, not only does he not know what he's talking about, he's also an intellectual coward because he doesn't stand by his arguments and will not respond directly to any criticism of them - he also is not honest about his true views on the matter.

Troll? Sock puppet? I hope? . . . For your sake . . .

Because, as we both know from lived and learned experience: people who live in ethnically segregated communities or monocultural communities don't get to interact with non-white folks on a daily basis like we do, they don't have a memory bank full of positive relationships and interactions with non-white folks like we do. The only way they know non-white folks is through the media, and more often than not, that comes in the form of crime reports and other negative press. It's not like there isn't a lot of white criminals as well, but they don't view white folks negatively because they have a lot of positive relationships to draw on to balance out the negative imagery. Of course, if you live in an all-white town, you're not going to have the opportunity to say, have a best friend who's Muslim and who's family treats your Jewish ass like one of their own. There's a reason why studies show a correlation between how many friends one has who are of a different ethnicity than themselves, and that person's tendency towards xenophobia.