[Thanos]

As any national leader has very little control over what happens in the gutter levels of society there should be a limit on how much responsibility he has to accept for it. Presidents and prime ministers are just elected representatives. They're not great all-fathers that are given some kind of magic wand with which they're supposed to cure every ill out there. Obama is no more personally/morally/karmically responsible for the bad personal behaviour of the crackers and ghetto creatures in the US than Harper is for the pathological nonsense that keeps occurring on Native reserves in Canada.

[ShepherdsDog]

They take more credit and blame than they deserve.

[Thanos]

Just like (the supposed) god does. The heightened expectations from the dullards out there must come along with all the bullshit promises they make as they're trying to win occupancy of the big chair.

[ShepherdsDog]

Ummmm....politicians claim credit all the time. I've yet to hear God...or a god claim actual credit for anything.

[Thanos]

Politicians unfortunately exist. God(s) fortunately don't.

[OnTheIce]

andyt andyt:

You're not a victim. Does that mean you also think that blacks aren't victims of racism?

Every race is victim of racism. It's inevitable.

Despite what the media has been telling us for the last 30 years or so, black people aren't the only ones who experience racism and it's perfectly acceptable for a Caucasian person to talk about racism.

[ShepherdsDog]

So how can you place blame on something that doesn't exist for human cruelty and deprivations? I can claim I killed people because the 'voices' told me so....the voices aren't real, so they would bear no responsibility for the crimes I committed. it's funny that many who don't believe, or claim not to, who go out of their way to insult something they claim not to believe in. Who are they really trying to offend?

[Thanos]

ShepherdsDog ShepherdsDog:

So how can you place blame on something that doesn't exist for human cruelty and deprivations? I can claim I killed people because the 'voices' told me so....the voices aren't real, so they would bear no responsibility for the crimes I committed. it's funny that many who don't believe, or claim not to, who go out of their way to insult something they claim not to believe in. Who are they really trying to offend?

Early childhood programming where, even if you're not a churchgoer, you're still drenched in the overwhelming social assumption that it exists. Not as bad in the West these days as it is in the Muslim part of the world, but it's still there in ways that are both obvious and insidious. The god of the three major religions is bad fiction at best, so poor that it wouldn't even be accepted as scripts for modern comic books. But it's so pervasive that it's impossible to escape. When I get pissed off I resort to the 'fer chrissakes' or 'for god's sake' epithets as much as anyone else does. Now though I force myself to stop, and say 'no, no, it's not there, you're speaking to thin air, there's nothing there that's listening to you'. It's all I can do because the reflexive utterances are just too strong to ever completely eliminate. It's like having a computer that by all means should be completely kick-ass but if the BIOS is flawed or corrupted by something stupid someone put into it it's never going to properly work the way it should.

[Zipperfish]

ShepherdsDog ShepherdsDog:

So how can you place blame on something that doesn't exist for human cruelty and deprivations? I can claim I killed people because the 'voices' told me so....the voices aren't real, so they would bear no responsibility for the crimes I committed. it's funny that many who don't believe, or claim not to, who go out of their way to insult something they claim not to believe in. Who are they really trying to offend?

Why does someone have to bear responsibility? What if it's just bad brain chemicals.

[Thanos]

Zipperfish Zipperfish:

ShepherdsDog ShepherdsDog:

So how can you place blame on something that doesn't exist for human cruelty and deprivations? I can claim I killed people because the 'voices' told me so....the voices aren't real, so they would bear no responsibility for the crimes I committed. it's funny that many who don't believe, or claim not to, who go out of their way to insult something they claim not to believe in. Who are they really trying to offend?

Why does someone have to bear responsibility? What if it's just bad brain chemicals.

Not sure what excuse the Muslims are using for their actions but I'm certain that you can put a lot of the worst of historical Christian behaviour down to ergot poisoning, contaminated drinking water, and drinking from cups made out of lead. Things that science identified and helped to eliminate but, y'know, fuck science because only Jeeeeeeeezus matters.

[Zipperfish]

Thanos Thanos:

Not sure what excuse the Muslims are using for their actions but I'm certain that you can put a lot of the worst of historical Christian behaviour down to ergot poisoning, contaminated drinking water, and drinking from cups made out of lead. Things that science identified and helped to eliminate but, y'know, fuck science because only Jeeeeeeeezus matters.

I finfished reading The Source, by Michener--basically a 10,000 year history of the Jews. Great read, but holy crap was it dense! Anyways, Michener seems to capture that barbarian mindset at the time. The Crusaders would run in and completely massacre a town, only to find out that it was actually a Christian town. There's a bloodlust in people--Cry Havoc and let slip the dogs of war.

Perhaps even worse than that is our ability to ignore cruelty, to completely put it our of our minds. No violence is required at all. When the Gestapo comes and hauls awaythe family next door, you simply lean over and shut the blinds. One tiny turn of the wrist.

Civility is not our natural state. It takes work to maintain it and a commitment to a common ethos. While jettisoning religion allows us to wash our hands of its infamies, it also means we lose that touchstone for our common morality. We're becoming demoralized as a culture. A demoralized person, or culture, cannot make a decision, because you need more than just information to make a decision. You need a context of right and wrong.

[ShepherdsDog]

$1:

The Crusaders would run in and completely massacre a town, only to find out that it was actually a Christian town. There's a bloodlust in people--Cry Havoc and let slip the dogs of war.

Keep in mind the Crusaders sacked Constantinople, one of the greatest cities of Christendom. It never really recovered from that sacking and fell to the Turks a couple centuries later.

And, more importantly, the very same crusaders were sacking and butchering each other back in Europe before the Pope called for any crusades.

[BRAH]

Obama uses N-word to argue racism is alive in America

[Brenda]

I dont understand why there is such an ourage.
Because Obama calls a spade a spade?
Wow.

[andyt]

Brenda Brenda:

I dont understand why there is such an ourage.
Because Obama calls a spade a spade?
Wow.

Because people want to deny that racism still exists, or because the Ni****s are racist too, so it all balances out.

Or just because it's Obama. Doesn't matter what he says, the right has hysterics.