My previous interpretation of your stance was wrong, and I take it back. I had taken for granted that you would deem it ignortant to choose to be oppressed. If we don't assume that, then your argument that the Iraqi people are not ignorant is coherent.

In keeping with the spirit of most of this thread, you're preaching to the choir. I took issue not with that argument, but with a throwaway remark you made within it: that the Iraqis would knowingly vote for their own oppression (which is what electing an Islamic fundamentalist government is - as the Iraqis have lived in the region long enough to realise).

By what standards do you judge an oppressive government? As you said, people can make mistakes. There have been governments which, despite originally being democratically elected, have carried out acts of repression against their electorate. In IM you pointed to the Nazis as an example - though I doubt they had much of a mandate amongst German Jews, and the circumstances of their "election" are highly questionable. You say that democratic Islamist states, in the unlikely event of one ever arising, should be left to their own designs. Surely, then, Nazi Germany too should just have been left to it?

I see no reason why secular Islam should be inherently more anti-democratic than secular Christianity. By "Islamist", I mean "adherent to Sharia law", which is as compatible with democracy as slavery or the Holocaust.

The anti-war movement in this country is run by people who are also normally more liberal than tree-huggers-on-sticks, and they're happy to share a platform with the fascist Muslim Association of Britain. So you can't be too sure.

And no, boorite, I'm not equating you with such people. I'm convinced, in fact, that you would renounce the MAB.

quote:

---

My previous interpretation of your stance was wrong, and I take it back.

---

I forgot this:

---
What others say about boorite!

There's a difference between saying that people might elect a bad government and predicting that they will "immediately" vote themselves into tyranny.

I didn't say "immediately." I said "instantly."

---
What others say about boorite!

Meh.

Well, coalitions happen all the time. The Republicans in the U.S. arose from joining several camps who wanted to abolish slavery-- some who felt that blacks should be free and equal, some who felt that slavery wasn't right but would just as soon send the slaves back to Africa, and some who simply felt that slaves were taking away jobs from whites.

When you're faced with a common enemy, sometimes you have to band together, beat the enemy back, THEN fall apart from internal squabbles.

But really, boorite's a bleeding-heart liberal. At least he better be, or else he'll scar my childhood forever.

I still don't like Barbra Streisand.

---
What others say about boorite!

http://truthout.org/docs_03/030103A.shtml

---
"Jelly-belly gigglin, dancin and a-wigglin, honey that's the way I am!" Janice the Muppet

Did Bush Spike The Investigation Of Bin Laden?

Well, duh.

---
"Jelly-belly gigglin, dancin and a-wigglin, honey that's the way I am!" Janice the Muppet

I love this lady. and she's right. He probably doesn't have the knobs.

---
"Jelly-belly gigglin, dancin and a-wigglin, honey that's the way I am!" Janice the Muppet

The panel charged with figuring out why the FBI, the CIA and other federal agencies were unable to stop the Sept. 11 terrorist plot are working with 87% less money than we spent investigating Clinton's dick. Show us the money!

---
"Jelly-belly gigglin, dancin and a-wigglin, honey that's the way I am!" Janice the Muppet

Great article on the lunatics running this asylum called Earth.

Mainstream news is a fraud.

---
"Jelly-belly gigglin, dancin and a-wigglin, honey that's the way I am!" Janice the Muppet

Blix, Blix, he's our man, if he can't do it, NO ONE CAN!

---
f u

America, where are you?

---
"Jelly-belly gigglin, dancin and a-wigglin, honey that's the way I am!" Janice the Muppet

Saturday's Washington Post reported that much of the US's and Britain's "evidence" of Iraq's nuclear program was simply made up. Bush immediately ordered US troops in the Gulf to stand down, saying there would be no war based on fake evidence.

Haha, just kidding about that second part. The evidence doesn't matter. We're going to bomb the fuck out of Baghdad, and no one can stop us.

---
What others say about boorite!

*lol* boorite, you had me going there for a minute!

The Washington Post is slow on the uptake. That was reported here weeks ago. See earlier in this thread for proof.

The plagiarized thing, yes. But the fabricated thing?

Wouldn't surprise me. The Post is cowardly and servile. When East Timor was finally about to win its independence, the Post trumpeted that the UN "hadn't done enough to stop" Indonesia's atrocities against the Timorese. Nothing about Washington's vetoing every Security Council resolution aimed at doing that. So while it was technically true that the UN hadn't done enough...

---
What others say about boorite!

The mainstream press will always be subservient to government. Just watch the bbc or cnn news to see which order news stories are presented in. They will often bury important stories in the middle of the report, behind more inane tabloid crap.

---
My nuts look disturbingly like cooking apples. Should I see a doctor about it?

I like to try and keep arguments rational and dispassionate, but it's hard not to feel petty glee as Tony is slow-handclapped by a live studio audience. Great times.

Don't Go = Downer.

Here's a pick-me-up: I Feel Fine

Bush demands standing-O. How gay.

And here's a shocker.

---
"Jelly-belly gigglin, dancin and a-wigglin, honey that's the way I am!" Janice the Muppet

quote:

---

Bush demands standing-O. How gay.

And here's a shocker.

---

Doesn't that mean then that George W Bush is just a fanny who doesn't care about public opinion. He wants his own way and thusly surrounds himself with yes-men.

Oh yeah. That was obvious. Wasn't it?

---
My nuts look disturbingly like cooking apples. Should I see a doctor about it?

Damn! now I can't even remember what was "shocking"

---
"Jelly-belly gigglin, dancin and a-wigglin, honey that's the way I am!" Janice the Muppet