posted
I think it's time to review Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land. There is a preacher in there who earns a special place in 'heaven' as a reward for his earthly crusades.
If there is 'Divine justice' Robertson already has reservations, and if there is no Divine justice, it's still fun to imagine him there.
Posts: 337 | Registered: Nov 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Paul Goldner: "Think about how angry y'all are at Robertson, and just for saying something. While Ariel Sharon bulldozered the homes of businesses of 9,000 innocent men, women and children who hadn't done a thing to deserve it."
I think the classification of "not having done a thing to deserve it," is... off the mark?
Hardly. Do you think they were like outlaw gangs, squatting in some fort? That's the problem with the term "settlement".
These were families living in suburban towns and farms. You've clearly never been there, or any of the towns in Judea and Samaria.
Many of them moved there because there were good deals on houses with yards and room for children to run around.
Many moved there because they believed it is an important mitzvah to settle the Land of Israel, of which that land is a part.
Some felt that they were serving an important national purpose by creating a strategic depth in the Gaza Strip that would make it more difficult for the Arabs to attack towns within the Green Line.
A belief, incidentally, which was immediately proven correct when the Arabs moved their missile batteries up to the ruins of the Jewish towns and started firing missiles into Israeli villages inside the internationally recognized borders.
Kids got on the bus in the morning and went to school. People had block parties to get to know new neighbors. Neighbors commiserated about the crummy contractors who screwed up the plumbing in their houses.
None of these people danced in the streets when Arabs died. None of these people trained their children to chant "With blood and fire, we will liberate the land." None of these people sent their children with explosive belts to blow up innocent civilians.
You have a lot of nerve suggesting that the victims of Sharon's machinations had done anything whatsoever to deserve the destruction of their homes and livelihoods.
Posts: 12266 | Registered: Jul 2005
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quote: Think about how angry y'all are at Robertson, and just for saying something. While Ariel Sharon bulldozered the homes of businesses of 9,000 innocent men, women and children who hadn't done a thing to deserve it.
And Israel has been bulldozing the homes and businesses of Palestinians for decades.
Bulldozing the homes of people who actually carried out terrorist attacks against civilians. Every action taken against the Arabs has been for the purpose of protecting us against their homocidal/genocidal attacks. When they stop, we stop. Every single time. Of course, they never stop for more than a few days at any time, so when they start up again, we do as well.
They call checkpoints repression. And yet dozens of suicide bombers have been caught at these checkpoints in the last year alone. Had the checkpoints not been there, countless innocent Jews would have been murdered.
This is what happens over and over. Israel takes defensive measures, sometimes active, like assassinating terrorist leaders, sometimes as a deterrent, like destroying the homes of actual terrorists who have carried out attacks, and sometimes passive, like the security fence (the so-called "wall").
And people with absolutely no sense of proportion whatsoever compare these defensive acts to the brutal murders they're intended to prevent, or even to the destruction of the homes and businesses and communities of towns and villages full of people who never lifted a finger against another human being in their lives. It really is kind of disgusting. I expected better of you.
Posts: 12266 | Registered: Jul 2005
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quote:Bulldozing the homes of people who actually carried out terrorist attacks against civilians.
B.S. I personally know at least two families with absolutely no involvement in terrorism who had homes bulldozed.
quote:And people with absolutely no sense of proportion whatsoever compare these defensive acts to the brutal murders they're intended to prevent, or even to the destruction of the homes and businesses and communities of towns and villages full of people who never lifted a finger against another human being in their lives. It really is kind of disgusting. I expected better of you.
No one has, in this thread, compared them to terrorist acts. They've said that innocent Palestinians have had their homes bulldozed.
I tend to sympathize far more with Israel than the Palestinians, but pretending that the Israelis have done no wrong is pointless and weakens your ability to defend them.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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posted
Uhh, person-for-person, Israel is doomed. By like 1000:1, as long as this dumb crap continues Israel is the clear loser, which leads me to believe that in the in the area of self-defense, Israel has the right to do anything it needs to to stay alive. But that's from a guy who lives an ocean away and doesnt know enough hebrew or arabic to understand the actual arguments. I do read the Iranian press though, and the "Zionist Regime" almost never comes off well.
Posts: 1156 | Registered: Jan 2004
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quote:which leads me to believe that in the in the area of self-defense, Israel has the right to do anything it needs to to stay alive.
Even if that's true, it doesn't make kmboots statement that innocent Palestinians' homes have been bulldozed false. If one wants to proceed with the kind of justification you've made for bulldozing innocents' homes, then one shouldn't deny it's been done.
I think much of what Israel has done - including at least some seizure of land controlled by Palestinians - is justified by the security threat. But that doesn't mean that those seizures didn't occur.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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quote: Bulldozing the homes of people who actually carried out terrorist attacks against civilians.
Bulldozing the homes of suicide bombers is pointless. You aren't punishing the person who actually committed the crime, you're punishing their family.
The point is entirely lost on them. And for that matter, everyone else.
Except that the families of suicide bombers get paid a lot of money for it. Some suicide bombers do it to make that money for their family, and/or to give their family a higher status. Knowing that it's also going to lose them their home may very well reduce the number of them who do it.
Posts: 12266 | Registered: Jul 2005
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posted
Kind of a mixed message when you screw up and bulldoze the wrong houses though isn't it? They probably figure there's no harm in doing it anyway, if there's a chance you might bulldoze their houses even if they are innocent.
Your reasoning, and their understanding of your reasoning are two different things.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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posted
Most of these people don't reason. They've been crapped on for so long, by Israel and the rest of the Arab world, that all there is left is anger. Unfortunately the average Palestinian doesn't have access to even a relatively free press, all they get is pre-digested demagoguery. And then they tell their friends.
The whole situation sucks more than a little bit, and I worry about what's going to happen in the near future, when the new Israeli Administration get situated.
Posts: 1156 | Registered: Jan 2004
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posted
Happy Monday! Did we all have a good weekend?
Lisa,
My point was simply that being forced to leave your home when the people in charge draw and redraw boundaries is unfair and terrible no matter which side you are on.
Posts: 11187 | Registered: Sep 2005
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posted
What Theaca wrote about that scary patient reminds me about a couple of “devout” Christian guy’s I used to work with. One of them liked to read his Bible . . . while driving like a maniac in his pickup . . . with worn down tires . . . down the public highway. His attitude was that God would surely protect him ‘cause he was, after all, reading the Bible.
The other guy, who happened to be my supervisor, was pretty much sympathetic to folks who shoot abortion doctors and bomb abortion clinics. He told me, “Abortion is such an abomination that we are justified in doing whatever it takes to stop it.”
I found out later, after he moved to another city, that he also considered my church to be an abomination. Talk about scary! I was almost glad that we have legal abortion in this country because that gave him something else to focus on instead of me and my “abominable” church.
With Christians like these the lions wouldn’t have had a chance. At any rate, about Pat Robertson, do you want to know what strikes me as ironic? I’m going to tell you anyway. I’m willing to bet that here is a guy who vehemently, with foam flecked lips, repudiates the very concept of modern day direct revelation from God. And yet he sits there with his smug little grin and presumes to know what God is thinking.
(Help me out here, is that irony or hypocrisy ? I can’t decide which.)
Hmmm, I wonder, did Pat Robertson said anything similar when Yasser Arafat died?
Posts: 631 | Registered: Oct 1999
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quote:I’m willing to bet that here is a guy who vehemently, with foam flecked lips, repudiates the very concept of modern day direct revelation from God.
I doubt this is true. Can you cite it?
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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quote:I’m willing to bet that here is a guy who vehemently, with foam flecked lips, repudiates the very concept of modern day direct revelation from God.
posted
Um, I thought you were saying Robertson is a guy who vehemently, with foam flecked lips, repudiates the very concept of modern day direct revelation from God (based on " At any rate, about Pat Robertson, do you want to know...").
If you weren't, then disregard my comment entirely because it is based on a mistaken understanding of your intent.
If you were speaking of Robertson, can you expand on the connection the article you linked has with your comments on Robertson's belief in direct revelation?
posted
Um, I'm not the source of the original quote, and I misread it ("bet there is a guy who..."), so... Disregard my comment. Irrelevant.
Posts: 3826 | Registered: May 2005
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