Hold it down a bit there squire. I've not been watching this thread to any degree so you may have a point, you may not. I would prefer it if you would put a bit more to it when you make a statement like that though. As it stands it comes off as being a spot on the patronising side and doesn't show your reasons for the statement.

I know it can often be appealing to play the age card (much as I wish I couldn't) but if you're going to do it you need to explain the wisdom gained from those extra years of experience.

I understand the terroristic motives, but to be frank, I don't care. While the people might not be evil, I do believe that the act of terrorism is. And yes, before someone chimes in with the fact that the American Revolution could be construed as a terrorist uprising, I probably would have been a Tory.

So there we have it. I don't care. Terrorism means killing those that you don't know. It means killing civillians. The innocents. They may have a sob-story, but fuck terrorists.

Oddly enough, I'm more sympathetic to murderers. They saw their victims. There was reason behind the killing (more often than not) even if it isn't a good one. But they knew. They saw. Terrorism is anonymous, cowardly.

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And if you agree or disagree with someone, chief, argue logically, please. No need to be a jerk.

That's a bit of an over-reaction in my eyes. Ange is mature enough to shrug it off and say "Meh, he's a tosser", imo.

Well, he had registered using someone else's email address and they've complained to me a couple of times, so his account has been delete now anyway.

There actually *is* a logic behind it. It's rather distasteful, but what about this subject isn't?

To a reactionary fundamentalist people it's easy to see how they can see every citizen of a democracy as a target. A fundamental principle of a democracy is that everyone has a voice in electing their representatives. Ultimately, the people are responsible for their government and hence their actions on the world stage.

If the citizens are responsible, why not strike back at them?

Of course in reality things do not work quite this way (even if our own rhetoric says it should), but this is a battle of beliefs and ideals.

It's for the same reason why I do not think this 'war' can be won through bombs, tanks, or regime changes. You can only fight one ideal with another, and one that people can relate to. Otherwise it is all meaningless.

As for The Chief... sorry to see a new face go, new blood is always welcome. But those things he said were completely uncalled for.

well, the emo that you speack of is a teenage dispotion to self pity and angst. EMo does not stand for emotional, but emotive hardcore. Emotive heardcore was a movement in rock druing the 90's. Despite of what mtv and preppy magasines such as"17" or other crap like that say emo has nothgin to to with self loathing. Mtv has brought up the belief that bands such as "dashboard confetionals" and "mcr" are emo bands. Which is crap because bands like "Rites of Spring" and "I hate myself" are real emo. "Emo" as in emotional is obviously trash because isn't all music baseds on emotions? In that perspective brittany spears, and frank sinatra would be "emotional". So in reality terrorists and emo kids have nothing in comon. Yet, terrorists and teenage over melodrmatic want-to-be emo kids do share comon intrests. (This is pretty much all in a theory of relativaty)

You have absolutely no idea what you're talking about, do you?

This topic has nothing to do with emo music. It's simply saying that the Islam faith is loud, intolerant, and whiny while expecting not just to be accepted in the world, but almost to be lauded. It's that mentality that makes them emo.

Which, as we have already discussed, is not always the case with all members of the faith.

My apollogies. I have one question for people who know more than me. how come when Muslims are trying to get non-muslims in the united states to be muslims they say it's a religion of peace and virtue, but in the middleast they go around killing everyone who isn't a muslim. They also never mention the Jihad which is a massive part of the muslim faith. They only mention the quoran.

ok, I'm gonna separate this into answerable questions, so I don't confuse myself >.>

Why are Muslims trying to get non-muslims in the US to be Muslims?

erm...I've never actually experienced a Muslim trying to convert me, but I imagine that if they were to do it (and this is ruling out the extremists because, well, they're not typical of the faith) it would be to close friends and family. The reason is fairly obvious in that anyone believing in a faith that dictates someone outside that faith won't be saved will want to save their friends and family. But like I said, I've never had an instance of a Muslim attempting to convert me.

Why is it a religion of peace and virtue if Muslims are going around killing everyone who isn't a Muslim?

Well, those would be the extremests that have been mentioned. Extremests are dubbed so because they don't follow their religion the way they're suppossed to. Mainstream Muslims don't go around randomly killing non-Muslims, or I imagine a good portion of my campus would be dead by now.

Why don't they mention the Jihad and just the Qur'an?

Well, the Qur'an is a holy text, while the Jihad is not, so I imagine that would be the start. Then there's the fact that while to Westerners (or, in fact, anyone who isn't a Muslim) it may seem as though everyone and their uncle runs around screaming Jihad on everyone else. Infact, Jihad is quite a huge deal in the Muslim faith; nothing to be taken lightly. Jihad (at least, accoring to Wikipedia), can mean a 'holy war' or it can mean a general struggle, so it also very much depends on the context of the word. Wikipedia also mentions that the different sects within the Islamic faith interperet Jihad differently, so that could be part of it as well.

Ok... I'll just say this and then leave this thread be.

I'd suggest everyone with willpower enough to do so read up on the muslim faith. Believe me when I say, it's not as different from Christianity as most people so love to think.

Maybe then you can see that it's not muslims doing it, it's specific people under the name of their religion.
Claiming 'muslims' are this way and that under some grand generalistic flag is like saying:

'oh my god, I heard a kid in the states in the states shot some other kids in a school. I think we should go over to the states and teach them how it's done in the UK, so they learn how to not be dumb'

Of course everyone in the states isn't some crazy arsed automatic weapon wielding fruit cake, but believe me when I say that the media over here in the UK sure does like to peddle it to us like that's the way it is at least once every 2 months.

To bring home this point some more they not so many weeks ago published these most interesting stats from the 'CDC National Center for Health Statistics':

In 2003 (the most recent year for which data is available), there were 30,136 gun deaths in the U.S:
16,907 suicides (56% of all U.S gun deaths),
11,920 homicides (40% of all U.S gun deaths),
730 unintentional shootings (2% of all U.S gun deaths),
347 from legal intervention and 232 from undetermined intent (2% of all U.S gun deaths combined).


Let's put that in comparison to terrorist related deaths:
2,929 terrorism-related deaths around the world since the attacks on New York and Washington
- according to the Bush administration, which would be 2929 in 5 years compared to the 30136 gun deaths in just 2003 alone.

Do I believe all people in the states are automatic weapon wielding fruitloops, after listening to all the media reports and a film industry that bangs out film after film after film about violent deaths and heros saving the world with mp5's and dual wielding pistols in slow motion? No, no I don't.

How is it then people are so easily swayed to believe the Islam is the cause of the problem instead of noticing it's 'certain people' and not the religion?

Because that would involve paying attention to the facts, stupid.

If even 1% of the Muslim world were these radical fruit-loops then the world would be on fire. As that isn't the case...

The crazies have a very high media profile, that's about it.

It really is like saying Fred Phelps and his ilk are representative of the western world.

Pretty much. Those with the most extreme views get the most media attention because they're easily reduced to ciphers. They can spit out quick rants that make good sound bites, whereas those with more moderate and well-reasoned view take a longer time to calmly discuss many aspects of the situation. People also want to get their information in small, easily understandable packages, so they like big black-and-white broad-brush pictures of events. You'd think that all the stations doing twenty-four-hour news would take more time to expand things into a big picture, but some people wouldn't listen even if they did.