GOP 2012 ticket prediction

[TommyGunn]

Tommy:

When Wallace asked his opinion on the Palestinian right of return issue, it seemed obvious (to me) that Cain didn't understand what he was being asked. After 3 increasingly detailed promptings by Wallace, Cain finally said it "needed to be negotiated". In light of recent news, if he doesn't grasp the basic concept, I'm concerned.

To say he needs more info to decide the U.S. Future in Afghanistan, I'm alright with, though it means a media hatchet job similar to what Palin took in '08.

Well, that part wasn't what I wasn't thinking about in the earlier posts, but you're right.  The "right of return" issue so far as the Palestinians are concerned is something I believe Israelis are seriously concerned with, as some feel it would damage Israel maybe fatally (according to some experts.) 
This is a serious point of concern and Cain needs to get himself schooled on the issue quickly. 
He really ought to have already done this; it was a cinch it was going to come up on a major TV interview.  Some local yokel anchor might possibly have overlooked it, but not Chris Wallace on Fox. 
Major blunder on Herman Cain's part.  Maybe not fatal, but major.

[roo_ster]

Well, that part wasn't what I wasn't thinking about in the earlier posts, but you're right.  The "right of return" issue so far as the Palestinians are concerned is something I believe Israelis are seriously concerned with, as some feel it would damage Israel maybe fatally (according to some experts.) 
This is a serious point of concern and Cain needs to get himself schooled on the issue quickly. 
He really ought to have already done this; it was a cinch it was going to come up on a major TV interview.  Some local yokel anchor might possibly have overlooked it, but not Chris Wallace on Fox. 
Major blunder on Herman Cain's part.  Maybe not fatal, but major.

Only "major" because of the all-out-of-proportion coverage of Israel & its relations with ME countries here in the USA, due to the efforts of both sides on that issue.  When looked at objectively, the problems of a tiny non-oil-bearing country in the ME really ought not get a superpower all in a tizzy...and claiming that such a tiny country is the "key to peace in the ME" is laughable.

That said, after reading Cain's website and stance on the issues, I am very "meh" on him.  Quite a few places where he & I diverge, politically.

[longeyes]

Israel matters because the attitude of the Muslim world toward Israel reveals The Problem with Islam: Islam cannot tolerate Non-Islam.  That applies as much to the Western world, to America, as it does to Israel.  We continue to talk around the real issue.

[MicroBalrog]

Israel matters because the attitude of the Muslim world toward Israel reveals The Problem with Islam: Islam cannot tolerate non-Islam.  That applies as much to the Western world, to America, as it does to Israel.  We continue to talk around the real issue.

Israel continues to be at peace with Jordan and Egypt, and continues to cooperate with Jordanian and Egyptian authorities to combat Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

[longeyes]

That does not change my basic point.  Muslims are smart enough to temporize when they have to; no one disputes that.  The problems arise when they feel they don't have to.

[MicroBalrog]

That does not change my basic point.  Muslims are smart enough to temporize when they have to; no one disputes that.  The problems arise when they feel they don't have to.

So, what kind of events would need to transpire to falsify your theory?

[longeyes]

Acceptance of the validity of the Israeli state.  And, who knows, maybe the recognition that it might become a model of what's possible, not something to be feared or destroyed?

[MicroBalrog]

Acceptance of the validity of the Israeli state.  And, who knows, maybe the recognition that it might become a model of what's possible, not something to be feared or destroyed?

Egypt and Jordan have accepted the validity of the Israeli state. They have embassies in Israel, and Israel has embassies here. The armed forces of the three countries cross-train and cooperate. Egyptian soldiers fight Hamas using every lethal weapon in their arsenal, including chemical weaponry pumped into the weapons-smuggling tunnels - something Israel has so far not done.

[grampster]

The problem with Islam is not Islam per se.  It's all of the Wahabbists and fringe Sunni's and Shia.
In fact, if Israel was to move to New Jersey, the Wahabbi's would begin a campaign of terror to stamp out every other Muslim other than themselves.

[MicroBalrog]

The problem with Islam is not Islam per se.  It's all of the Wahabbists and fringe Sunni's and Shia.
In fact, if Israel was to move to New Jersey, the Wahabbi's would begin a  continue their campaign of terror to stamp out every other Muslim other than themselves.

FTFY.

[longeyes]

The problem with Islam is not Islam per se.  It's all of the Wahabbists and fringe Sunni's and Shia.
In fact, if Israel was to move to New Jersey, the Wahabbi's would begin a campaign of terror to stamp out every other Muslim other than themselves.

The internecine mayhem among Muslims does not validate your position that Islam is somehow benign at the core.

[grampster]

Benign at it's core.  Your words not mine.  My words are per se.  There is a difference especially as it pertains to the word "problem".  I agree that Muslims are behind most of the violence around the world.  But small groups of any persuasion can have a major impact if they are on a mission.  The evil mission is connected to Wahabbi's generally and Shia and Sunni to a degree.

[MicroBalrog]

The internecine mayhem among Muslims does not validate your position that Islam is somehow benign at the core.

Need I point out that 'internecine mayhem' occured, historically, among men of all religions?

[longeyes]

Benign at it's core.  Your words not mine.  My words are per se.  There is a difference especially as it pertains to the word "problem".  I agree that Muslims are behind most of the violence around the world.  But small groups of any persuasion can have a major impact if they are on a mission.  The evil mission is connected to Wahabbi's generally and Shia and Sunni to a degree.

Small groups?  You think the history of Islamic aggression is about small groups striking out on their own?

[longeyes]

Need I point out that 'internecine mayhem' occured, historically, among men of all religions?

Yes, but reform has mitigated the worst impulses of most--with one striking exception.

[MicroBalrog]

Yes, but reform has mitigated the worst impulses of most--with one striking exception.

When do you think this 'reform' occured?

[grampster]

The trouble with most of the violence in the world it is as a result of grudges being held sometimes for thousands of years.  If Men could drag themselves into the present and not ascribe anything to the past except as a lesson for the present, we'd be much better off.

[longeyes]

When do you think this 'reform' occured?

I don't see any Christian Crusades, do you?  Do you organized violence perpetrated under the Christian flag?  Or Jewish?  In the name of these faiths?  

Or are you suggesting that there's been no reform movement in Christianity and Judaism?  To find equivalency among these major faiths in matters of violence strikes me as, frankly, absurd.

[MicroBalrog]

I don't see any Christian Crusades, do you?  Do you organized violence perpetrated under the Christian flag?  Or Jewish?  In the name of these faiths? 

What I am saying is that people-naming-themselves-Christians have continuously been declaring wars, engaging in atrocities, etc., even in recent times. Sometimes religion has been the justification for these acts - ever hear the phrase "Commerce, Civilization, and the Cross"? It doesn't come from the Crusade era. - but at other times not. Just because people self-identify as Christians doesn't make them immune to being evil, or misguided.

A lot of the conflicts which are claimed by the media, and even by the participants themselves, to be "Islam motivated", are motivated by internal ethnic, political, and tribal struggles. Take, for instance, the Iran-Iraq war. True, the Iranians waved the flag of Jihad, but it really was all about "foreigners are invading our country."

[longeyes]

You know, when people tell me they are fighting for Allah, for Islam, I assume they know what they are fighting for and are smart enough to convey their own motivations if they are bothering to name them?

I don't idealize what motivates the West's worst behavior.  I know this: it's not Christianity.  If Christianity plays any significant role in the behavior of the Western world it's in encouraging a form of naive passivity in the face of aggression that conduces to cultural suicide.  But that, to me, isn't really Christianity, it's more like cultural exhaustion...or perhaps narcissistic satiety.

[roo_ster]

Small groups?  You think the history of Islamic aggression is about small groups striking out on their own?

Yep, small & unrepresentative bands of angry oppressed youths up and conquered the Levant, N Africa, and out to the Indus River.  They were wholly unrepresentative of the peace-loving bedouin artists and philosophers who stayed on in Mecca.

Yes, but reform has mitigated the worst impulses of most--with one striking exception.

When do you think this 'reform' occured?

For Judaism, after the destruction of the temple.  Hard to get all uppity when your land is taken, your religious temples destroyed, and your people are dispersed all over the Earth(1).

For Christianity, I suspect sometime after the cryptically named "Reformation."

You know, when people tell me they are fighting for Allah, for Islam, I assume they know what they are fighting for and are smart enough to convey their own motivations if they are bothering to name them?

Heh.

"When someone tells you they are going to murder you, believe them."

(1)   Might that work for Islam, if they are not willing to play nice with others?

[Perd Hapley]

For Christianity, I suspect sometime after the cryptically named "Reformation."

For Christianity,  the question must be reversed. I.e, in what places/times has Christianity been subverted by pseudo-Christian appeals to brute force?

[MicroBalrog]

You know, when people tell me they are fighting for Allah, for Islam, I assume they know what they are fighting for and are smart enough to convey their own motivations if they are bothering to name them?

I don't idealize what motivates the West's worst behavior.  I know this: it's not Christianity.  If Christianity plays any significant role in the behavior of the Western world it's in encouraging a form of naive passivity in the face of aggression that conduces to cultural suicide.  But that, to me, isn't really Christianity, it's more like cultural exhaustion...or perhaps narcissistic satiety.

So how much do you know of the motives of the tribal wars between various Muslim groups in Africa? Or the Iran-Iraq war?

The flag of Christ has been raised during the Teutons' invasions of Russia. The Muslims conquered Northern Africa. So bloody what? People rode out and conquered each other all the time up until very recent history. THat's what everybody did. True, the Arabs were slightly less developed than the Europeans - the British were at least visibly improving the condition of peoples they conquered, abolishing slavery and human sacrifice - but there's no reason to believe Islam as a whole is our enemy.

I don't idealize what motivates the West's worst behavior.  I know this: it's not Christianity.  If Christianity plays any significant role in the behavior of the Western world it's in encouraging a form of naive passivity in the face of aggression that conduces to cultural suicide.

We are not being passive in the face of Radical Islam. We go out, kill the leaders of the Wahabbis, crush their camps with artillery fire, and destroy their support with PSYOPS.

The Wahabbis are cowardly, incompetent, and weak.

Let us observe:

Nowhere is the gap between sinister stereotype and ridiculous reality more apparent than in Afghanistan, where it’s fair to say that the Taliban employ the world’s worst suicide bombers: one in two manages to kill only himself. And this success rate hasn’t improved at all in the five years they’ve been using suicide bombers, despite the experience of hundreds of attacks—or attempted attacks. In Afghanistan, as in many cultures, a manly embrace is a time-honored tradition for warriors before they go off to face death. Thus, many suicide bombers never even make it out of their training camp or safe house, as the pressure from these group hugs triggers the explosives in suicide vests. According to several sources at the United Nations, as many as six would-be suicide bombers died last July after one such embrace in Paktika.

[longeyes]

The fact that Muslims fight each other does not change the fact that Islam cannot co-exist, except uncomfortably, with Non-Islam.  All you're saying is that Muslims cannot get along--with anyone.  Is part of this the fact that they're human beings?  Yeah, definitely, but culture and ideology matter, culture and ideology shape and dispose.  When you begin with an all-powerful Deity whose actions are arbitrary, unquestionable, and all-controlling, your culture tends to take a certain path...

Which "Teuton invasion" are you referring to?  We keep coming back to the fact that no one is fighting wars in the name of Jesus Christ any more.  "Deus Vult" is history.  Would that we could say that about the battle-cry of "Allah u akbar!"

It's not about whether the Muslims were "slightly less developed," it's about what their values were and are.  There have been, and are, numerous "developed" cultures that none of us would have wanted to live in.

[MicroBalrog]

Hey, at least Cain had an actual job in the private sector.

Do explain how being a law professor is somehow not a 'real job'.