Re: Are Muslims the Only Ones?

ijdavis@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Ian Davis) wrote in
news:dtv821$2l2$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx:


Courts exist to ensure that justice is done --
not that injustice is perpetuated. I am not advocating that people go
to war about past injustices, though I do agree that injustice is one
of the motivating factors that does provoke war. I am advocating that
the legal system exist the better to ensure that justice is respected,
irrespective of who that justice is too.


In my lifetime, court remedies won't be available for disputes such as
these. The U.N. is about as close as I'm likely to see.

I am not a professor. I am a programmer. As a parent I have tried to
be firstly consistent in all I do and say, and secondly to call it the
way I see it. However, since that has historically not been
appreciated I now spend my time routinely thinking a lot and saying
little.

Sorry for the professor inference. For some reason, I thought you also
taught.

"Thinking a lot and saying little." There's a certain wisdom in that.
I've noticed as I get older I am less certain about all those
assumptions I made earlier in my life about what I "knew for sure."




I think that a willingness to seek the truth in all matters a great
defence against being irrational. But that said I also see in my self
a bias as to where I choose to look for truth. Sometimes I am
internally conflicted by encountering notions that seem plausable
while simultaneously seeming absurd. For example the claim by some
that the US is seeking to provoke civil war in Iraq seems plausable
given the degree to which it has acted in a manner likely to generate
such a war.. on the other hand it seems absurd that the US would wish
to see civil war in Iraq because such a war would entail an order of
magnitude more risk to the US than invading Iraq ever did. I find in
myself a strong dislike of that sensation produced by simply not
knowing what truth is. It may be that it is this which causes people
to readily believe what they are told about the past, myself included,
in preference to actually searching for the truth about the past.

I quite understand the frustration of trying to grasp the truth. Not
only is it confusing, but understanding is almost impossible sometimes
because of active twisting of the truth to serve agendas.

Being open to truth, being willing to listen to both sides, being
willing to change views with better information are the only things that
seem to have helped - and they don't always come naturally to me.
Despite what my writing may indicate, I tend to hold my opinions more
lightly these days. For one, I'm less sure of my ability to sort
everything out correctly, and two I don't identify as strongly with
opinions as I used to.

Opinions are sometimes useful for discussion purposes though.



No, I don't accept that all subjective frameworks of perception are
equally valid and rational. I think there is a correct framework
which is right, and all others to some degree or other in departing
from the correct framework wrong to a lesser or greater extent. But I
think it is part of the wrong framework of perception to extrapolate
from this belief to "my framework is correct" and other frameworks are
therefore wrong. I think one is likely to be nearer to the correct
framework by presuming that ones own framework is somewhat flawed.

I agree with this in general.




The history of history is that people have always somewhere or other
been fleeing discrimination and persecution. In the US context this
has often been connected with those persecuted peoples founding new
states in which they could hope to live in peace.

Many found refuge in America and probably Canada by means of
immigration. In the U.S., many immigrants endured discrimination and
poverty for generations before assimilating/becoming assimilated into
the culture.

I don't know how this refuge for the persecuted is going to play out in
the future. I think the rapid intermingling of cultures is going to make
for some very messy politics during the next few decades.


This is something that many in America take as given. That somehow
Israel took a wasteland and turned it into a garden.. that somehow
what they took had no value, and what they created did. This is a
very convenient belief for Israel to encourage, because one can
rationalise that if what was taken had no value, then nothing was
actually taken worth having. But Palestine was not a wasteland before
1948. It was a place.. a place with towns and cities.

<snipped for brevity.

I concur with the statement that taking what someone else has is not
justified on the basis that they are not "using it," or that "it's
worthless." The West in particular, I think, is driven to do this
because of its deeply embedded concepts about property (everything has
to be owned by somebody, and if it's not, it's yours for the taking.)
and best economic use. (If the mountain has minerals, the economic value
justifies the destruction of the natural beauty and any spiritual
value.) Westerners are struggling to overcome this, but it's a slow
process.

Our whole nation was founded on the premise that the Indians weren't
really making good productive use of the land.

But I don't believe the Israelis were handed anything the West really
valued or wanted. And I do admire their ability to create thriving
modern urban centers, where they did not exist before. I think their
sojourns in Europe had equipped them with many skills and possibilities
that the indigenous culture did not possess - not that this is a
justifcation for seizing land.

I said that. I said that the Arab nations wished to keep Palestinians
as impoverished refugees, not because that was in the interests of
those Palestinians, but because it served arab political objectives.

OK. We somewhat agree here.

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Are Muslims the Only Ones?
    ... of the motivating factors that does provoke war. ... defend South Vietnam from the north as the Americans were. ... I think that a willingness to seek the truth in all matters a great ... from the correct framework wrong to a lesser or greater extent. ...
    (soc.religion.quaker)
  • Re: computer simulation
    ... Personal experience can only be personal truth - not actual truth. ... War is not about freedom. ... I watch both BBC and Fox News. ... Then it is not religion it is a philosophy - one that already exists. ...
    (talk.origins)
  • NBC: The Path to 9/11--A Postmortem; By Victor Davis Hanson
    ... It's hard to believe that Bill Clinton or the film's numerous critics ... over subjective and objective truth. ... What are we to say about throat-clearing historians who damned the ... time of war. ...
    (rec.music.artists.springsteen)
  • OT: Truth and imagination
    ... No, right and wrong are moral determinations, truth and falsehood ... neither did we make war on and invade Iran. ... terrorists, who are terrorist sympathizers, who are terrorist ...
    (comp.sys.hp.mpe)
  • THE KEY TO STOPPING WORLD WAR III
    ... 9/11 TRUTH - THE KEY TO STOPPING WORLD WAR III ... RESOLUTION SUBMITTED TO THE 9/11 TRUTH CHICAGO ... attack will come in the wake of a new 9/11 or new Gulf of Tonkin incident. ... Hayden for the CIA, the Democratic Party has ...
    (alt.gathering.rainbow)
Loading