tar

Ten Oz, I get your point, but we as Coke want to see our brand in the deli window. We already have contracted to supply the vendor who has their cart in the deli parking lot. We can't just allow the Pepsi truck to run over the vendors cart. We encouraged the street vendor to set up in the right of way. There are other considerations here, other than fighting terrorism. And terrorism and rebel have some similar smell to them. Overtone wants to bring the leadership of the U.S. up on criminal charges for dropping bombs on people, for instance. So yes, I am trying to have it both ways, but I am trying to do it with deliberation, and by gaining consensus as to how we should proceed. My suggestion is to break our contract with the street vendor, and make an agreement with the deli owner to carry our product in exchange for our help in protecting him from Vito and the criminal mob shaking him down for protection money, scaring all the Coke drinkers away, and raping girls and beating up gays in the back parking lot. Regards, TAR We could then talk to the deli owner about his propensity toward killing the whistle blowers that are attempting to have him run an ethical business.

iNow, So its just a child misbehaving, for attention? I am thinking the opposite. It is the 18 year old rebelling against the parents. We have to remember that the area is no longer under British rule. Consider the way the U.N. and the world monitored Saddam. In his business big time. The U.S. provided the muscle, but the world bullied Saddam, as the world is bullying Assad, today. I am thinking that while we are debating proper parenting style, we are missing the point, that we should probably not be of the mind that things will only be right, when we have control of the world. I am forwarding the idea here, that there is a certain lack of respect shown, when we, as the West, feel that things will not be right until the rest of the world catches up to us. I think things will be better when Muslims work their way out of the 6th century, you feel things will be better when people stop believing in angels, gays feel things will be better when people stop listening to the Old Testament, Muslims feel things will be better when Christians stop associating Mary and Jesus with Allah and Jews stop charging interest. The reality of the situation is that "we" are all those things. Like the "Blind Men and the Elephant" each of us is partly right and partly wrong. We are certainly wrong to think that carpet bombing "those people" into the stone age, is going to solve any problems. And they are certainly wrong to strive against those in error, the disbelievers 'til all the world is for Allah and everybody lives like the Prophet (pbuh), lived. Somebody once posted a saying on another thread, said by a great thinker, that I don't remember the words of, but that had the idea that an intelligent mind, was one that could hold two conflicting ideas at the same time. I would extend that to also apply to an intelligent world. And the people of the mid East are grown ups. We should remember that. We are not their parents. Regards, TAR As far as Daesh goes though, I don't pretend to be either their child or parent, I am just their enemy, pure and simple. They go, or I go. I heard on the internet the other day that ISIS is telling their recruits to come to Libya, because getting to Syria is too difficult. Another place where the father of the house has been removed by the West. And I reserve the right to feel the parent of the recruits and protect them from the abusive parent, AND arrest the wife beater.

Ten Oz, No the Middle East is not a safe place, and it is more vulnerable to groups like Al Qaeda and Daesh, because it is unstable, but consider the reasons it is unstable. The Jews are afraid of the Palestinians and the Iranians, Hezbullah is afraid of the Jews, the Kurds are afraid of the Sunni, the Shia are afraid of...but the reprisals that keep this fear going, are not all, indeed not really that many, that are the fault of the U.S...except that in we emptied our shotgun at Saddam. I am not trying to Pontificate, I just have my feelings about how things went down, and are going down, and feel that people have been demonizing the U.s. and making us look like the evil one, even in situations where we were not. In looking back on the invasion of Iraq, I think the incident that started the Shia resistance against the U.S. was one I mentioned before in theory, and do not remember well enough to cite. A mortar shell landed in a marketplace. The U.S. was blamed. We know we didn't do it, but the parties interested in having us look bad, that were blaming us, might have even done it. So after the invasion many things happened. We hunted down Saddam, an interim government was cobbled together with our help and U.N. help and coalition help. We were hopeful that the Kurds and Sunni and the Shia could govern each other together. Sure we wanted some control over the oil and American companies like Halliburton gained wealth and contracts, but the people that wanted us out, fermented the vitriol. Regards, TAR These bombings and shootings like the one in Paris are done by people who want us out. Out of the Middle East, into the Sea, off the planet, I am not sure where it is they want us to go. I just know I am not leaving.

Another in the same conversation, that was a young boy during WWII had a father that was drafted a couple weeks before a rule came down that people his age with children should not be drafted. His father served in the Navy and was stationed off the coast of Japan, in an invasion fleet that would have invaded Japan had Japan not surrendered. Japan might not have surrendered had there not been Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The sailor's wife died of cancer while he was gone. Why did we do that? I think it was because we thought "this has got to end" and emptied our shotgun into the shooter. I don't think we should have a war with Syria, Ten Oz. I am suggesting we suspend the Arab Spring, and help Assad get his country back together, by with him, liberating Raqqa, from the Daesh. My thinking being, after 240,000 lives, "this has got to end". We need to admit our mistake in backing the rebels against Assad, drop our desire to have everybody live by our rules, and let them come out of the 6th century at the speed that making such a transition might take (without revolution). I am thinking Assad is more likely to understand the situation in his country than I am. If Assad could promise to not kill in reprisal, I see no good reason, other than saving face, for not volunteering our support in taking Raqqa back from Daesh. If on the other hand, we decide after deliberation, that Assad is really bad, and we need regime change, then the proper thing to do would be to spend our own blood and money to get the job done. This might involve going to war with Russia however, so we would have to be really sure that Assad needed to go. So is it better to go in in person, with Hezbullah and Iran and Russia and lose some lives and break some stuff, but defeat Daesh. Or is it better to have a World War against our ideological foes?

CharonY, But justification in retrospect and justification now, are two different notions. Like you said, when you use terrible means to stop terror, it seems as if you are just being terrible, and you forget you stopped the other terror. When Jihadi John chopped off the head of an American, I stood powerless to stop him. None of us could bear the sight. I actually never watched it happen, but I am pretty sure he did what he said he was going to do. It is imperative, in society, to not let people do things like that. You have to storm the theatre, and kill the hostage takers, there is not another way. I was reading the account of a shooter in America that was walking down the street, shooting people. Mostly black people were getting shot. The shooter would smile as he shot. The first policeman on the scene recounted that he looked the shooter in the eye and every human impulse he had was to run away. He thought "this has got to end" and instead of running, emptied his shotgun at the man. Regards, TAR Was talking to a gentleman over the weekend, whose uncle (I met the uncle,now departed) survived storming the beach at Normandy. Impossible situation, people drowning, being raked by machine gun from the high ground, seeking cover behind sand bags that turned out to be corpses...why did we do that?

ten oz, I believe you are thinking along the right lines. And here I would add, continuing the thought of control and who should be in it, that we want to be in control of how things are done in a country. Like we know better than the populace, how they want to be. Maybe there is a place for this type of thinking, maybe there are problems with it. Imperialist thinking often causes problems. In Ukraine a large portion of the population was leaning toward the West, and a large portion of the population was leaning toward mother Russia. But it takes two to tango. Yet neither side could let the other side have their way... I always wonder why we are made guilty when a person starves in another household, or another state, or another country. Are there not people living there, with good judgement and intelligence and capability. Do they not have parents, to show them how to survive? Why do we feel that others should be our wards? Is that perhaps not a dominance thing? In the debates I had on Guardian talk after 9/11, against the Anti-Zionists, two dominance ideas were evident, and hard to combat, in terms of establishing equality, and not a master slave relationship. Palestinians didn't want to be second class citizens to Jews as first class. And Iran and Arabs in general did not want to be second class world citizens to the West as First class. "I wouldn't have to beat my wife, if she would just do what I tell her"

Overtone, All children should learn these concepts, in this order, use these books that your local schoolboard will pay for, and the children will be tested, using school time, school buildings, and salaried employees as to whether or not they have learned the concepts, according to an imposed criteria and good teachers who have not taught to the test, or teachers with below average students, will be penalized and districts will lose federal money unless they comply. Regards, TAR Why are local school boards inept, and some unelected group of federal geniuses given the power to set some one size fits all policy? Any simpleton knows that each child is different, and each region of the country and each town is different in what they know, and what they need to know to survive. we have created great universities, and made wonderful advances and lead a good life, with wonderful technology and medicine at our disposal, without core curriculum How do you figure we did that, if we learned our concepts the wrong way? How did the geniuses get to be so smart if they didn't learn their concepts in the right order? why should "they" set policy for how and what my children learn? Shouldn't I, along with my neighbors decide such things, according to what we can afford? What if the kid's parents don't teach their kids anything?

Ophiolite, I am conflicted on a number of things. Same as everybody else. Overtone acts like she is not conflicted. I do believe my country right or wrong, because its the only one I have. If you are in another country and would like my support, then talk nice about me. Don't find all my faults and conflictions and rub them in my face, at the same time as you are looking for my support. Especially if you have the same conflicts going on in your individual mind, and in the collective mind of your country. I don't mind at all you attacking me personally, or using me as an example. I do it to myself all the time. Self inspection is fine with me. I like using myself as an example, because I have a little bit of everybody in my past. Friends that are on each side of most of the big debates that are raging across the globe. There is NO debate were one side has the "no-brainer" position, or else there would not be any debate. We would not be conflicted. And since I believe this, and I find such a complete no-brainer situation, as fighting the people that ordered the attack in Paris, I am steadfast in my support for France in her endeavors, and feel I need to be there helping to defeat Daesh. At the same time I would like to defeat Assad and Putin and keep Iran from having nuclear capability, and keep girls from getting whipped in the square, anywhere, and shun the Turks for chanting Alahku-Akbar at the soccer game during the moment of silence for the victims in Paris. That I can't do all that at once, is the reason why I have to take first things first. Defeat Daesh. Regards, TAR wait...do they get whipped in the square, or in private? Just remembered in that article I posted that the girl got taken into another room to be whipped and when her covering was taken off, she was found to have makeup on and more lashes were dealt There might be an element of domination and submission that we are dealing with here. Perhaps in many of our debates both individually and in groups and organizations and counties. Who has control? Who should have control?

Overtone, There are elements of the core curriculum mandates that I find insulting and oppressive. If I were to vote on a bill that was meant to mandate how my children should learn, I might vote against it myself. How is that, MigL? Regards, TAR

Overtone, "Regulators are hired by us, are accountable to us, work in public not in secrecy, and do not benefit from doing a bad job. If we set up competent government, that is. Businessmen are not hired by us, not accountable to us, work in secrecy, and can make big money for themselves by cheating us and ruining our communities and lives." Good point, I had not so much thought of it like that. I always figured that people should police themselves and have integrity, without anybody watching. Regards, TAR there was no scamming going on, our government was pressuring them to release some swiss bank account information, and they had to make some concessions and not allow their clients to "game the system" as I was doing and I don't know about that 85 percent thing the three things you mentioned all have some reasons for why they were opposed Overtone, On a personal note, how do you figure you are conservative? You mean like fiscally conservative?

Overtone, Yeah I was drawn off by the experimental bomb thing. I always thought of depleted uranium as being near inert, not really enough radiation to cause burns or injury. I read past it. Didn't sink in 'til MigL mentioned it again. And I looked it up and read the pulverized uranium after impact could become airborne and inhaled. So I apologize for not hearing what you were saying. So yes, I would like to keep my Mom from driving drunk. Regards, TAR sorry I go goofy and defensive when ever any anti-Zionist propaganda talking points or Marxist propaganda talking points are raised I guess its because I am pro Israel and pro capitalism and get defensive when someone talks bad about my mother. I don't want to believe anything bad about her. and pro military having been either active army or reserve for 6 of my 62 years I don't accept that I lack the right, obligation and power to stop those girls from getting whipped for wearing make-up. If the people in my country are my family, the people in Syria are the family down the street. I would like to prevent them from driving drunk as well.

Phi for All, I got your point. I was trying to make the point that trying to achieve "their own ends" is only an automatic negative, if you disagree with those ends. I have a personal grudge against regulation because I had a good investment scheme going that was dashed when UBS got into some issues with the government and banned the purchase of double shorts and double longs with their investors, because of pressures put on them by the government. If I wanted to keep anything, I could, but I couldn't buy. That was not my plan, but I chose to go all short, and sell my long positions and that proved to be an awful situation because the market recovered strongly an d I lost my shirt. I am against, in general, changing the rules in the middle of the game. At the time, I thought, well, I just have to go with the direction of the country being against the direction I would chose, and hope somebody else is in power, after four years. Obama got reelected...so I have to wait again. My point is, that if you agree with the policies of the President then anybody opposing him is an obstructionist, while if you disagree with the policies of the president, anybody opposing him might be opposing him on that particular issue for the same reason I oppose it. Just because I think Obama is an intelligent pragmatic leader, that has made some great moves and has guided us out of recession, does not mean I agree with everything he does. Regulation is one of those things he does, that makes no sense to me. If you trust businesses to police themselves, let them police themselves. If you don't trust them, why do you trust the regulators to do a better job? You just add layers of incomprehensible filings, increasing the cost of business and give immense power to agents, to create winners and losers. It makes a workable situation, unworkable, and doesn't always fix the targeted problem and could well cause unintended problems. So your definition of good legislation is already going to be that legislation that furthers your agenda. It is no surprise that the opposition would do things as if they are interested in their own ends. For instance, how does a raising of the minimum wage represent the interests of your constituents, if some of your constituents own, operate, work at and service, and eat at, and do business with a fast food restaurant that goes out of business because of the imposed wage hike? Regards, TAR it is my thought here, that our biggest problem is we don't hear the other's argument because we think they are doing it wrong and we are afraid to give an inch, because the other side winds up taking a mile, that we have to STOP the other party from getting their way, because if the other party gets their way, then we lose My suggestion therefore is that we don't make laws that 45 percent of the country doesn't want. If we make only laws that 90 percent of the country wants, then there would be no party line votes. That would be "good" legislation. If 90 percent of the population are not for it, it shouldn't be a law. why would you want to make 45 percent of the country outlaws? we have so many arbitrary laws that have been put in place to encourage this kind of behavior and discourage that kind of behavior, that normal law abiding citizens could run contrary the law without even intending to used to be ignorance of the law is no excuse Now, I do not think there is anybody that knows what the law is. It changes too often, for arbitrary reasons. And it is too complex with all sorts of ifs ands and buts, where you can read the thing, and STILL not know if you are about to do the right thing, the wrong thing, follow the letter and go against the principle, follow the principle and go against the letter, or what. I remember several years ago, after Sandy Hook, when the plan was to change the gun laws, and I was down in West Virginia and everyone was buying guns. Even people that didn't have any guns were buying guns, before a feared ban was put in place. I am not sure that people respond well to being told what to do. Couple years ago I remember a chain in another country making a one plate rule for their salad bar. It became a fad to go into the restaurant and build these elaborate towers of vegetables. Works of art and fun to boot. People can easily stay within the rules and defeat the purpose if they take it as a challenge. If you trust peoples judgement...trust it. Imagine that the people you agree with AND the people you disagree with are intelligent, capable folk with mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers that know how to be good people and can exercise good judgement, same as you can. That even a person completely on the other side of the aisle on every political issue would help you if you were in trouble. 'cause the most of us are good people.

Phi for All, But politics is a two way street. What is "good" legislation from one perspective might be bad from another. Party line voting takes place in the house and senate all the time. And on many occasions the President, before legislation is even written and voted on, says he will veto it. It is hard to compromise with someone who has already made up their mind, and will not back down, off their stance. So when impossible, unworkable plans are proposed and a republican says "that plan is impossible and unworkable" it is taken as obstructionist. Take the minimum wage. The president says he we are going to have 10 an hour...now people are asking for 15...why not 100 or 1000? Unfunded mandates, are not workable. You ask something be done with somebody else's money. I have heard too often the argument that we are a rich country we shouldn't have poor people around. That is a socialist, or communist argument. A robin hood type of morality. Bring the poor up at the expense of the rich. Then with your other hand use the wealth and power of the U.S. to enforce your policy and ideology, against the very people providing the wealth and power. Have you ever read Animal Farm? In any case we need rich people, they are Americans too, they are people too and they should not be treated like they owe us middle class people any more than poor people owe us, or that poor people are due more than middle class, or that any one segment is in control and everybody else should be subject to their whims. The last election cycle gave the congress to the republicans. By vote. The will of the populace. You say it doesn't count, because everybody that voted for a republican is a stupid greedy bigot. That they are obstructionists. The other way to look at the situation, is that the opposition is against unworkable plans. Regards, TAR one might think that intelligent people should have more of a say than stupid people one might say that rich people should have more of a say than poor people In everyday life intelligent, capable people do take leadership positions and have more say than stupid people. In everyday life rich, powerful people do run business and make projects happen and are the movers and shakers. But in a representative republic, the rule is one man (woman) one vote. My vote weighs the same as a gang member in Harlem, or a skinhead in So. California, or a Muslim in Chicago, or a good ole boy in West Virginia, a jew in NYC or one retired in Florida. Old and young, rich and poor, good and evil, we work together to make this country great. If it is not great, it is because we are not working together, but working at cross purposes. The key to governance is finding the purpose that everybody or at least 90 percent are happy with. Not this party line vote stuff. Regards, TAR In West Virginia there is a big meth problem and a lot of dependent people, dependent on government largess. I saw a 20 20 where a doctor would sign the papers for somebody to get a disability claim, and then take a kickback. People don't understand the difference between right and wrong anymore, with not knowing when you are supposed to take something for nothing, and when that is called stealing.

Good point MigL. Forgot about that. We could easily have introduced the Uranium into Fallujah. It did not have to be an experimental bomb delivered by the U.S. or Uranium owned by Saddam.

You guys? I thought you were a U.S. citizen Overtone. If our desires for regime change have resulting in refugees, then our desire for regime change in Syria is just as pertinent as our desire for regime change in Iraq. You can't split the American personality and take just the half you want. Well you can, but it is not workable, or consistent. Our state department and our president and the majority of our population was in spirit on the side of the Arab Spring. We wanted to see Assad out of power, and said as much. There were other ways to address grievances against Assad, than to back the rebels fighting him. I do not know all the reasons why the President is for regime change in Syria. But if we as a country are to stick our nose into other people's affairs, it is probably because we have reason to do so. There are interests we have. Friends we want to protect and enemies we want to weaken and destroy. Some of these concerns are physical, some are ideological, some are based on human agreements, rule of law, human rights concerns and justice. I heard an Arab cited in some article talk about how they would welcome U.S. support, if it didn't mean that the Israelis would be involved, in terms of bases and intelligence. So we are involved. Deeply involved already. We win one way we move, and lose in another way. You can't just take the wins. You have to take the loses as well. That is, if you wish to make the situation work and be consistent in your approach. Regards, TAR

Overtone, I read several accounts of the school thing and one had the word "past" in it referring to where the crowd was marching. I read another account that said the school was a "former" Baathist headquarters. All the accounts say the crowd was in front of the building that the 82nd was in as shots rang out. The last account you posted said the Fallujians swear to this day that the Americans shot first. That wording implies the American fire might have been returned even if the Americans shot first. I had suggested your account from the Revolution site, with the Marxist propaganda and anti capitalist papers and such on it might have been bias because it said "past" the building. Whatever the situation, whether the residents of Fallujah loved Americans or Hated Americans prior the incident, or what the mix of pro to anti Americans there were, or whether the building was a school or a headquarter and whether it had ever been a Baathist headquarters or not, all the accounts put together put the crowd AT the building, not marching past. And the 82nd was on high alert in an occupied city DURING an invasion. You cannot put constitutional rights to peacefully protest and proscriptions against billeting soldiers without payment and such into the picture, to make the 82nd look bad. We already established in this thread that the U.S. thought that people would throw flowers at their feet, for liberating them from Saddam. And that that was not the reception the Iraqis turned out giving us. Not because of peaceful pro American Shia and Kurds and moderate pro western Sunni, but because of rabble-rousers that used any means to make the U.S. look bad. Regards, TAR years of reprisal between shia and sunni and years of insurgence against the occupying forces Everybody knows its OK to get defeated by the U.S. because we are good guys and will help you rebuild. The tribal leader in Falujah said this when he told us we were giving rebuilding contracts to the wrong guys, the guys that had American blood on their hands were getting our contracts. We were helping our enemy, doing all the forgiving that we could, yet there were still people that would kill us, and find ways to make us look bad in the process. Against this Daesh thing, one of our options is not to treat them like potential friends. and by them, I mean the guys with the black flag I don't care if they were my friends before the 82nd and turned into my enemies because of it. They are still my enemies and there is not a chance that they care about my safety and pleasure. Zero chance. We still have a problem in Syria, in that Daesh is in there and we have nobody to send in after them. The Turks won't support past Turkmen territory and the Kurds find it inappropriate to proceed past ethnic Kurdish areas. Our secular friends in the area are too weak to do it, even with our support from the air and weapons and food and training. We have, two choices, I think, as the U.S. Send in special forces, or send in troops. The troops should not be there, unless it is OK with Assad. Probably the special forces should not be there, unless its OK with Assad. So the question I think we are up against as the U.S. is not whether to send in help to defeat Daesh, but to possibly suspend our wishes for regime change in Syria and actually assist Assad on the promise that there will be no reprisals against the people we supported to kill his troops, and that everybody fight Daesh together. And not each other. put the Arab Spring on hold and fight Daesh There are curretly 12,000 families in Ramadi held as human shields, against the advance of the Iraqi army. 300 to 500 fighters, holding a city hostage. We starve them and we starve the city. If civilians die it will be on our hands. But it is ISIS that is killing them, not the Iraqi army. If recruits flood to ISIS because the Iraqi army takes the city back and hundreds of civilians, or 1000s of civilians die...well then shame on the recruits. They have no idea about proper human behavior. they should be calling their fighter buddies on cell phone and urging them to let the innocents go if glory and honor is what they are after, let the human shields go, and get killed fighting Jihad

overtone, the former Baathist headquarters, the school, and the building the 82nd were on was one building your link used the word "past" to make it sound like they were peacefully on the way to do some noble community thing you characterized the whole situation differently than I would using the exact same facts you chose to read motivations into it, that were not consistent with the facts and the speculation that the U.S. used an experimental bomb, was in your article, to explain the existence of injuries of Fallujah residents consistent with those that Uranium would cause I didn't make it up. I just read your links. If you want to talk facts, lets talk facts. Your characterizations are getting annoying. And why do you not answer my question as to why you did not mention the fact that we were looking for Saddam at the time, and the Guard had blended into the population...the "crowd" of Fallujah. Taking this into account, one might not think that the 82nd was a major factor in causing ISIS. They were there to fight Saddam's guard. And may have well thought the guard has come to take back their headquarters. In fact there very well could have been fire coming from a former guard member in the crowd, using unarmed civilians as human shields. It is not like something like that wasn't done every gosh darn day we were in Iraq. Regards, TAR No, not OK. You don't fire the police chief because a cop shoots a perp. I would rather have the police than the perps. The police are on my team, the perps are off the team. The perps are not people who want to take care of me, they are people that want to hurt me. The 82nd is on my team. Bush and Cheney were on my team. Obama and Hilary are on my team. You are on my team. Shunning those that embarrass us and pointing out injustice and correcting it. But for me it is a family type thing, were everybody in the family is by default on my side, and only fall out of favor if they act against the team. Or break faith with me, or the 82nd, or my commander in chief, or the laws of the land, or the constitution. The abu graib prison guards broke faith with America and embarrassed me and you. If you let a thing like that put 29 percent of the population of your country off your team, I have to question your desire to support me and care about those 29 percent in the first place. I think you have some other agenda. Some agenda that you have not been able to push on the American people for 50 years. Overtone, So if America has shown she can't help, which you say is true and I say is false, and you are American, why do you think you can help the situation and the rest of the country is inept? What is the power you hold, or the intellect you hold, or the answer you hold that the rest of us are missing? If you have the answer for the Syria situation, sure would have been nice of you to let us know 240,000 lives ago. I doubt that hanging the President for assassinating Bin Laden would have saved those lives. Regards, TAR

Ok, except I do hate Baghdadi and whoever his Baathist friends might be. I read ISIS started out al-queda and split ,because they were too evil even for al-queda. If I already had pigeon holed al-queda as evil, Daesh has no redeeming social value at all, in my book. So lets put Putin, Hollande, Obama, Rouhani, Masum, Assad, Erdogan and Baghdadi in a room with a cartographer and see how big the ISIS state is going to be. by guess would be that Baghdadi's territory would be limited to the area between his right ear and his left ear

Dimreeper, Maybe before 9/11 I felt the same way. Now I realize that we have made enemies, and they are not interested in forgiving us. I quit my job and stormed out of a meeting with my boss and slammed the door behind me, got my stuff together, took it to the car and turned in my computer and security badge to my boss, thanking him for giving me a job. I can't work for him again. Even though I called the next morning and offered to stay around for 2 weeks and close out open business. I can't work for that company again. I burned my bridges by slamming the door. Even though I am still friends with all my workmates, I can't even go back and visit. My boss does not want me in the building. I have written him, he does not write back. Forgiveness is not a possibility. The thing is already fixed. How exactly do we forgive or expect forgiveness from a dead guy? Why exactly should we expect forgiveness from a sworn enemy who wants to kill us? We can just give the mile, but that would be doing what they want us to do, and we don't want to do what they want us to do, or we would have done it.

dimreeper, I don't disagree. Being right, is not important if being right makes you wrong. Like when a wife and husband both know they are right and the other is wrong. If proving yourself right, hurts the other person in that the one is sleeping on the couch and all pissed off and spiteful, what is the point of being right? I am all for burying the hatchet. But if you extend a hand, and say "ok you are right" lets not fight, and the other points out how you were also wrong in the crusades and bombing Berlin, and defeating Saddam and killing Bin Laden...then the other has no interest in making up. Regards, TAR Two problems with forgiveness is when you give an inch and a mile is taken, and when you run out of cheeks to turn. Take Chicago. The mayor fires the police chief, but that is not enough.

in a big world, trying to isolate the them from the we is difficult I don't think it hard though to put Daesh in the bad category. What is wrong with expecting every good person should be automatically on my team, also calling Daesh, them and not us. It is the criminals and the anti-Zionists, the Baathist ringleaders, and the backward Caliph I am against. And I and feel the distinction between good and evil is clear. I think "we" should capture "them" and put them in jail or kill them if they resist.

I prefer to choose sides. Use my judgement to determine who cares about me and my way of life, and who does not give a damn and would steal it from me. And make it sort of a star wars, Cinderella thing. The evil gets to be defeated, the good gets to stay around.

It is neither star wars or Cinderella but we each have an area of our thoughts with the bad stuff, the evil stuff that we should avoid and fight and destroy, because it is damaging or painful, and an area that houses the good stuff that is constructive and pleasant that we attempt to foster and protect and make manifest. The proper way to be, in my estimation is to search for those things that will give yourself pleasure, while allowing others to have pleasure. Pursuit of happiness. If there is somebody who gets pleasure out of your pain, they go in my evil bucket. the silliest thing about suicide bombers to me is the fact that they get NO pleasure from seeing me suffer, because they are dead and the silliest thing about pleasing people that have no interest in pleasing you, is that you are trying to please someone who has no interest in pleasing you

I am not sure world opinion is easy to agree with, or to isolate. for instance the war on terror is a global thing anti guns is a global movement, yet every country's government has them the world bank is counted on to pull the world out of recession yet world opinion is against the greedy banker reasonable people understand there is not an anthropomorphic god or any evidence of souls carrying on after death yet world opinion says our souls matter a lot and whether we are good or evil in this life matters, even after we die So which do you figure is real life for me, an American, with a bank account, living in a free society, in comfort and safety, with the support of my countrymen around me? That I am evil and a transgressor and a person in error...the great Satan, or that the evil that brought down the World Trade Center, is the force that is evil? I don't mind people disagreeing with me. I mind them killing me, and destroying my way of life.

dimreeper, Sandy Hook was evil.. 9/11 was evil. Sandy Hook was a guy with baggage, but he did a very evil act. There is a reaction in our country against guns, and bullies, but the guy was evil...pure evil. We can't kill him,or put him in jail, so we strike out at guns and bullies so that people like him can not easily kill innocents. We fight against bullies so that we don't create another evil guy that is mad at his 2nd grade classmates. 9/11 was a guy with baggage, but he did a very evil act. There is a reaction in our county against terrorists, and greedy oil barons, so that we don't get blown up in the café. But we know this evil doer is still alive. We can go after his command and control, chase him down, and put him out of business. He has been waiting to get us since Israel appeared on the Map. We cannot become communists or Muslim, inorder to placate them. Capitalists and Zionists are only bullies to communists and Muslims. To Capitalists and Zionists, capitalists and Zionists are just fine.