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Poselyanin's comments:
on Islam in the Northwest
No, no, I am not at all saying that it is ok to kill innocent people. I do condemn 9-11. Of course! That kind of stuff cannot be justified. But I also find no justification for invading Iraq. We teach our kids that two wrong do not make a right. Well, instead of killing bin Laden (who, btw, is still alive and well!!!), we invaded some other country that had nothing to do with our 9-11 and the civilian death-toll is now around 100,000--that is 37 times (!) more than the 9-11 deaths. I don't know who started this conflict--the Muslims when they invaded the Christian Constantinople (it is still occupied and known as Istanbul), the popes who sent knights to free the city (unsuccessfully), the British 100 years ago, the American oil companies in the 20th century--I don't know, but that's why we have all'em politicians who are supposed to be fixing the problem. Instead we pretend that bin Laden and the millions who support him and ones like him are jest a few bad criminals. It is indeed criminal not to see the larger issue.
posted 2 years, 5 months ago
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on Islam in the Northwest
Of course, it is minority of Muslims who participate in violent jihad, just as is is a minority of Roman Catholic priests who are pedophiles, and it was a very small minority of Puritans who actually burnt witches in New England. But I think that the term "islamic terrorist" still pretty accurately describes the problem. Pretending that they are just "a few bad apples" may prevent both Muslims and non-Muslims from seeing the problem, and if you cannot see the problem you cannot solve it. Imagine if we said that there is no achievement gap, but instead it's just a few smart kids and a few not-so-smart, and color does not matter? If we put it that way, we cannot solve it, because there is no problem--just a few kids with a few differences. People are driven by ideologies, and wahabi Islam clearly has a very strong ideology of violent jihad. This ideology produces not just a few bad apples, but hundreds and thousands of militants who are fighting and are ready to die. I am not saying who is right and who is wrong: maybe they are fighting for a good cause, and maybe the West really offended them in some way. But to pretend that these are just a few bad guys with no country, no religion, no ideology, and no cause--is just ridiculous and dangerous, as it gets us nowhere.
posted 2 years, 5 months ago
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on The Face of Race
Emily, I listened to you repeatedly asking for specific facts or examples of how the institutional racism mechanism works, but all I heard in reply was assertions that it's bad, and it's there, and it's plentiful--but no real answer to your question. So, if the unemployment office has 10 White employees, 2 Hispanic employees, and 2 Black employees--how does this adversely affect a Black unemployed man who came into the office looking for a job? I also heard a complaint about "western business world view" or something like that as a feature of institutional racism. I am not entirely sure what this is, but whatever it is, should we adopt an Eastern world view? Why?
posted 3 years ago
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on Paying Per Mile
posted 4 years, 4 months ago
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