Being forced to drop a bing cherry into a beer mug with your ass cheeks, while having a Pledge Master shouting “Faggot!!!!” 1 inch from your ear, should be against the Geneva Conventions.

Especially when they make you chug the beer and eat the cherry before having to do it all over again until you get right.

Maybe I wasn’t clear. When we pretend that extermination camp guards or suicide bombers aren’t human, we’re flattering ourselves.

‘What we have seen of the interrogation methods from release of duments under the FIOI act and media outlets, I was treated in a worse manner in basic training when I joined the Army and then again when I pleged a fraternity in college.”

Gosh. Sorry to hear that you were beaten to death. You write really well for a corpse.

duments should be documents

As for your side comment about CIA torturers… What we have seen of the interrogation methods from release of duments under the FIOI act and media outlets, I was treated in a worse manner in basic training when I joined the Army and then again when I pleged a fraternity in college.

I understand why rage and horror would make you feel that way, but you’d be wrong. It’s comforting to create a category called “monster” and dump some of the behaviours that appal us into a category other than human. Unfortunately, what’s really required is a reappraisal of what humans are capable of. (I’ve never understood why some people feel this somehow diminishes the culpability of concentration camp guards or CIA torturere or Islamist suicide bombers, by the way – they all remain totally responsible for their behaviours.)

I was sent to Mogadishu in 1993 under the mission of Operation Restore Hope and the people that I saw there, while they were trying to kill me, were not evil like the animals in Iraq are. For the most part, they wanted to make sure that their families were fed and well taken care of.
The terrorists that are in Iraq are not fighting for their families when they walk into a marketplace and blow themselves up, they are trying to force the population to accept a radical view of Islam that glorifies violence and denigrates anyone not male and accepting of their viewpoint concerning the Muslim faith.

When I first started paying attention to the blog world, I was over at The Shotgun and I did not understand why people were using the word “multiculturalist” as if it were an insult. I challenged Kathy Shaidle about her position. I also pointed out that if the Shotgun Bloggers had their way with Canadian culture, there wouldn’t be Indians, Immigrants, African-Canadians, Gays, Arabs, or French people. I said when you add up all the people that the So-Con/Can-Con world deems undesirables, and list them, you get the essence of their argument. That to them, Canadian society is Mostly ALL Anglo-Saxon, English-speaking Christians and THAT is it.

Anyways, Kathy Shaidle in response to my request linked to an article about moral relativism and cultural superiority that almost completely was along the same lines as David’s claptrap.

When I tried to politely point out that there were some heavy duty flaws in the logic of the article Shaidle had linked to, Kate McMillan started to erase my comments and re-write them to make it look like I was conceeding the discussion to Kathy and her.

These people are totally and utterly blinded to their own hatreds and logical fallacies and they will brook no dissent from anybody who even politely will try to challenge them.

Notice that David (while staying polite) simply re-jigs his dogma in different words to try and put forward the same points that have just been refuted.
Repitition, no matter how cleverly done is NOT refutation.

Anyways, I was just amazed at the time that not only was this attitude about muslims and multi-culturalism held by people who were literate, but that there was such vehement fury should anybody contradict it in any fashion.

I really did wonder just what the hell had happened to conservatives in Canada.

It’s only after several years and seeing how easily marginalized these people are that I’ve calmed down about this. People like David hang out with hatemongers like Shaidle or McMillan and such – and they forget that they are in real life very much alone with their odd little perspectives on the world.

A case in point might be the free-speechers crusade and the Union of Bloggers business. The petition to abolish the HRC has been up for almost 4 months and they’ve managed to cull 3000+ signatures, some of which are “anon” and from the UK or United States. That’s less than 0.01 percent of the Canadian population.

And yet to read Ezra or Kate or Kathy or the free-speech fanatics, you would think that THEY really do represent the average Canadian. And there’s a contradiction in that too. They simultaneously try to claim to be representing “the white minority” as underdogs, while simultaneously bragging about how they are more read than Mainstream Media outlets. It’s a contradiction. You can’t be a lowly blogger fighting the good fight, and at the same time claim to represent the mainstream of thought in this country. Sooner or later one of these claims cancels out the other.

Mike – what gets me is the unremitting sameness of the litany of ignorance parroted by the Davids of the world, and the way the same stupid ideas whip round the moronosphere, each trailing an air of faux-erudition. I first read his hilarious misinterpretation of Eid over at the “Centre for Vigilant Freedom”, and tried to post a rebuttal, which, of course, they censored. By and large I don’t bother with this particular flavour of idiot anymore.

Not me.

I was in the military for 12 years. You demonize your enemy makes ‘em easier to kill. It’s not just race. I joined at the height of the cold war. I was trained to kill “Ivan” the pinko commie bastard who was a 10 foot tall killing machine who was out to destroy everything I held dear. The fact that the dude who might have been in my fire zone probably wasn’t named Ivan, but was some scared shitless conscript from Belarus who wanted to be a veteranarian when his hitch was up, might have made me hesitate blowing his head off. So it’s not just race that is used to de-hemanize, ideology is used too. It’s harsh, but it’s a necissary evil. You need your soldiers to be able to kill the enemy on command. Feel remorse and regret on your own time.

Soldiers also talk to each other like that. You call each other the most vile names you can think of to take the piss out of each other. It’s actually a form of bonding. You call each other the worse names you can think of just to show that those things don’t matter. Not to say I didn’t see it lead to the odd punch up, but in the end you’re still buddies.

Oh David this:

“It is a hate-based cult, and anyone who actually reads Islam’s own foundational documents–which ALL Muslims claim are the word of Allah, the guiding light of their faith and practice, can plainly see that the vast weight of proclamations are of hate, violence, excuses for mistreatment of anyone not Muslim.”

could easily be changed to

“It is a hate-based cult, and anyone who actually reads Christianity’s own foundational documents–which ALL Christians claim are the word of God, the guiding light of their faith and practice, can plainly see that the vast weight of proclamations are of hate, violence, excuses for mistreatment of anyone not Christian.”

It would be just as true.

Clearly you are a sad, angry hate-filled man who has decided it is the Muslims who are the cause of all the worlds problems. If only they were gone, the world would be a better place, right? Why does that sound familiar?

I really pity you. I also think you are a fool and an example of the kind of dangerous demagogue that must be fought at every turn.

Just so you know where you stand.

David, I don’t argue any more with folks who thinks Elvis exist, or who reproduce, note for note, the same chorus of uninformed anti-Muslim pseudo erudition, consisting, without fail, of the same ingnorant misquotations. You bore me. You’re a stupid shit who has read the same handful of hate websites and culled the same crap as every other idiot of your ilk. You’ve neither the wit nor the mind to be worth engaging. Sorry.

As far as the word “racism” goes would you be happier if I did this

racism bigotry

Your argument hangs on

(a) playing with words (although international definitions of racism do include “race, colour, descent, or national or ethnic origin“), and

(b) hate

Again, these attributes put you in ….. ah ….. well known historic company.

Western Civilization’s “nastiest parts of history” are not even a patch on the murderous continuity of oppression, slavery and hatemongering of Islam, a record that is unchanged from Mohammed’s first “great victory” of mass murder, rape, looting and enslavement of the Jewish community at Medina. At the very least, Western Civilization has grown to view such things as abhorent; Islamic society simply views such things committed against the kafir as following The Butcher of Medina.

Facts. For “factoids” you can’t even look to “balbulican” who had no argument, no facts, no nothing at all to offer but simply namecalling and–the lowest of arguments in discourse–shock! spelling!

Oh, my! What horrors!

What a loon.

And I stand by my assertion: it is Islam that demonizes itself. It is a hate-based cult, and anyone who actually reads Islam’s own foundational documents–which ALL Muslims claim are the word of Allah, the guiding light of their faith and practice, can plainly see that the vast weight of proclamations are of hate, violence, excuses for mistreatment of anyone not Muslim. “balbulican”–READ the Koran, the Hadith and the Sira (you can read, can’t you?). That you have not is obvious by your comment. When you have, then make a fact-based argument, if you can.

*crickets chirping*

Right “balbulican”. Not going to bother to actually read the documents upon which Islam functions, are you? Until you do, anything you have to say on the matter is worth less than a zero with the rim kicked off.