Discussion (54)¬

1. Crusader Rabid says:

   October 23, 2009 at 10:25 am

   @grouchy-one: no that’s not a definition, broad or otherwise, I just indicated a specific form of lying, which is fiction in the same way as if someone posted “all gays are terrorists”, for eg.
2. Daoloth says:

   October 23, 2009 at 11:01 am

   @ST and My cat is G. Thanks for your comments. Very thoughtful. Craving your indulgence I will try to explain my position.
   I am not a pacifist- just conflicted about human nature! And hence inconsistent, I’m afraid.
   I was brought up by a “war hero” (my father) who said that he and the others who joined up were idiots who were sold a bill of goods. It was me who always tried to argue that the war he fought in was a just one- his point was that this was utterly irreleavnt to why he and the others joined up. He maintained that young men were easily manipulable idiots. I have not resolved this conflict myself.
   I see young islamists talking the same way as young men did way back then with the older ones egging them on. I think that human nature is the same everywhere.
   I also used to think that most joined thinking that it would not happen to them-because that kind of makes sense to me- but then I read some of the accounts of the first world war and started wondering what kept people in the trenches and going over the top day after day in the teeth of certain death. There are a lot of reasons of course (red caps with guns being one) but at least part of the reason is a sacrificial attitude. Some examples:
   “Since my earliest childhood I have always dreamed of dying for my country. Let me sleep where the accident of battle shall have placed me, by the side of those who, like myself, shall have died for France” (George Morillot- letter to parents, 1914.)
   “The last sixteen months have been the most glorious in the history of Europe. Heroism has come back to the earth….The old heart of the earth needed to be warmed with the red wine of the battlefield” (P.H.Pearse, founder of Irish revolutionary movement, observing WWI carnage).
   There is a surprisingly large amount of this stuff. I have never felt like this in my life, but then I have never felt part of something that has been threatened. Or that it is claimed is being threatened.
   Young men, especially, can be made to feel like this remarkably easily- they do not have to be stupid, poor, ill-educated or mad- just witness our local home-grown sacrificial victims for, say, the 7/7 bombings.
3. John Moore says:

   October 23, 2009 at 12:32 pm

   Finally GOD has shown us the truth….http://news.yahoo.com/comics/unstrange-phenomena.com
4. Kristian says:

   October 24, 2009 at 2:15 pm

   WTF, Crusader Bunny? “a sarcastic homophobic sheep-fucker who makes a threat to ‘firebomb any venue where homosexuals hang out’, thats OK so long as I pretend to be a Christian”
   Are you *completely* mad? You’re OK to accuse me of the rest of the things (I willingly plead guilty to the very first accusation, the rest we can settle in court) – but accusing me of being a Christian?