Israeli conscientious objector in prison

[Tassadar500]

Originally posted by Azazel

On what should happen in this country:

Volountary conscription to army or civil service (yes, it makes sense) for ALL.
Making many rights dependent on it
Rule of Law
Secularism
Destruction of the multicultural status quo
Better education
Higher wages
Stronger police
Complete reform of the FUBAR local government system
The nationalization of government ( yes, this makes sense, also )
The completion transformation of the 'jew' identity into 'Israeli' identity.

Volountary conscription to army or civil service (yes, it makes sense) for ALL.
Making many rights dependent on it
Rule of Law
Secularism
Destruction of the multicultural status quo
Better education
Higher wages
Stronger police
Complete reform of the FUBAR local government system
The nationalization of government ( yes, this makes sense, also )
The completion transformation of the 'jew' identity into 'Israeli' identity.

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Lord Nuclear
Secularism
The completion transformation of the 'jew' identity into 'Israeli' identity.

Why are you against those two?

[Az]

I hardly think it's relevant since he lives in Canadia.

btw, why didn't you ask him the same about multiculturalism?

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Azazel
btw, why didn't you ask him the same about multiculturalism?

I' exhausted and I didn't spot all the of his posts when I was quoting it

[Az]

it seems you also ran out of the letter 'm'.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by SpencerH
I agree with the right to be a conscientious objector to the military. In fact, I applaud his conviction. I also agree, however, with his being imprisoned during the time he would have served if no other non-military public service can be rendered.

So you applaud his convictions and his conviction as well.

I completely agree.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by General Ludd

Yes, because he is a huge benefit to society while locked up in prison.

For some people it's the most beneficial thing they can do for society.

Waaa, the guy broke the law and went to jail. Now he's got plenty of time to plan his campaign to change the law. Or play nintendo, whatever he wants. I don't think the draft is inherently immoral, and in any event the people of Israel can decide to get rid of it if they choose, and any individuals who disagree are free to take any number of actions, up to and including moving to a place where they won't be subject to conscription. There are a ten thousand more important things to worry about in the region than this guy's plight.

[Sirotnikov]

Originally posted by Whaleboy
Say what now? In arguing that you are equating conscription with tax-paying, and even prohibitive laws such as murder etc. I, on the other hand, maintain that your right to not be forced to serve in the army, with the inherent loss of freedom, danger and possibility of killing, is a completely different matter. Is this not obvious to you?

The inherent loss of freedom and possibility of killing is a risk that is undertaken by most Israelis just by being born here. Israel, as a society decided that the only way to successfully protect the rest of their democratic privelages is by conscription for several years.

Like I said, a society has rules and obligations, and you can't yell "foul play" whenever you want. Either you accept the rules of the society - or you're an outcast, as this guy is.

Likewise, a strawman .

It is not a strawman - but rather something you wish to circumvent.

You are assuming that conscription is so horrendous and evil that it "naturally" out-weighs the regular pro's and con's of following a society's rules. It's a nice thought - but it is not shared by the Israeli society as a whole and is not shared by me personally.

You can't pretend that your opinion is the world's accepted moral standard.

And before you attempt to prove it is by citing western countries - I'll remind you that western countries are bigger, have more population (same percentage of willing army goes will equal larger figures) and have much less threats that Israel - thus making your comparison between Israel and the US or the UK void.

Hardly, since you are supposed to be defending conscription not the existence of a standing army per se.
With that (believe it or not) I have no objection, my argument is against conscription, so a non-pacifist moral imperative as you suggest would involve the entire country being militarised. The fact that nations like the US and UK have a standing army, and highly professional and able ones at that with highly-trained career soldiers, disproves your supposition that without conscription there would be no army.

As I said before - Israel does not have 180 million people.

It has probably only around 2 million people who are of army age. (18-45?)

The sorrounding Arab armies probably have more than 2 million people conscripted right now. And while the risk of an all out war is small - the punishment for being unprepared is annihilation.

But you are yet to first establish this duty in context and explain why it must apply to him, more so when others are engaged in it.

I don't know how to explain it better than I already did - fact is many people on this forum did understand it.

It is a moral obligation for him not to circumvent a law that most people are following, at great expense for their private lives.

Above being illegal - it is unfair, that most people follow the law, and risk their lives or at least spend 3 years doing soemthing they don't like - while this guy is attempting to circumvent the system.

Not doing your civil duties equals to doing less for your country and society.

Obviously if conscription was not required, I wouldn't have said that a person who chooses to help a country in another way is helping his country less. But in this case, army is something everyone does by default - and everything else I do in my life for this country will be in addition to that.

A person who circumvents the social agreement and does not go to the army - will naturally do less for his country, because everyone did their military service, and he did not. He is, in a way, a leech.

Applied to your argument, you do realise that adding that means that your belief is that “Israelis are born unkind to Palestinians and the natural existence is when Israelis bully and exploit Palestinians” (sic)? Obviously I don’t think you’re saying that, I’m just demonstrating how your red herring will distort your argument. Advice is: don’t.

That is one particular way to look at it, which as you admitted - distorts my argument, by applying it only to Israelis and Palestinians.

But let me be frank - I do not have Palestinian interests in mind. I also do not believe it is my moral duty to have them in mind.

You're welcome to disagree with Hobbes - but I find the "natural state" convincing.

Every person is born with the interest to be selfish and unkind to others. He is tamed only by the rules of society - but his "natural" wishes are exported to a higher-level of countries, which protect his rights and in a way - act to fulfill his wishes by land-grabbing, conquering, bullying and what not.

You're welcome to think that this is bad and evil and all people and countries should LOOOOOVE each other.

I think it would be swell too.

But in the mean time - I think it is unrealistic and I believe people are by nature evil to one another, unless they congregate in allignment groups - and thus export their hostilities to a larger scale of "group against group".

Ummm wtf? I haven’t seen the numbers but if you have basically *the* most productive members of the workforce taken out of the economy (income tax, corporation tax or whatever equivalent etc, it all snowballs) and placed into the military, where they have to be paid by taxpayers money for that time, plus equipment, training, insurance etc… the economic impact is enormous! A differential that’s magnified by the high taxes I might add.

I disagree - most people who are 18 to 21 don't work too much and are either studying or working in silly jobs like fuel pumping and restaurant waiting. In the US it is the time when people go to college and get awfully drunk.

It is an age before maturity kicks in - and people of that age, while having a huge potencial, are usually highly unproductive.

Paying tax I can accept as a necessary evil because I still have my liberty, my right to free expression and association, and my right not to be ordered what to do against my will.

Excuse me? Being robbbed of 50% of your salary, having your socio-economical status lowered is very much a pain in the ass.

The military is a completely different situation. Fine if people want to join of their own free will, many do and get a lot out of it so good for them, but to force people? It’s analogous to throwing people in jail for 2/3 years of their life; in essence it’s the same with the addition of light arms. No-one could possibly defend that in terms of “patriotic duty”, especially if the alternative perfectly workable and far cheaper .

Of course one can defend it - it is a patriotic duty to defend your society in war. If you don't agree to that then there's something inherently wrong with your values.

If your brother was being punched in the face - would you first:

1) ask what the argument was about, see whether your brother is morally right and only then consider stepping in?

2) drop everything and jump in to defend your brother?

“It’s the law”. You can no more defend your argument by that than I can attack it by the same means, which was your earlier strawman. I can’t attack something because it’s legal, nor can you defend it. Try arguing by the virtues of the argument; it makes one look like less of a *****.

You're not getting my point, and as usual ignoring my argument instead of facing it.

Conscription duty is part of the social contract in Israel. The law part is only reponsible for the imprisonment of the said bugger. If the bugger has a problem with the social contract in Israel - he is welcome to move, or face the legal consequences.

The social contract - which you may not like, but it is still such and it is binding for the society members - determines that all 18 year olds serve in the military.

You think it is immoral - Israelis think it is a must. Your moral is not absolute - it is not accepted here, since such thinking is not viable in small defenseless countries.

I have no problem with people who call for the change of the social contract. There are some thinkers even within the army who ponder about losing the conscription. If a movement would start to change it - I'd have no beef with them.

I do have a beef with people who are aware of the social contract and attempt to find a way out. They are not saying "I believe there is a better solution for Israel". They are saying "I want the rules changed for my behalf, because it doesn't fit me to go to the army".

That is a line of thinking whcih I condem. That is exactly the line of thinking Yehiel here employs.

Israel is one of, if not the, strongest economies of the Middle East and Eastern Mediterranean, is fed by America to the tune of billions $US per annum, it has an airforce on a par technologically with the US and UK, and has historically shown itself to be able to use that technology to the best tactical advantage… numbers of troops by conscription have been irrelevant to it since 1967.

ROFLMAO

War of 1973 anyone?

This is what happens when people with no military knowledge talk about military stuff.

Electronics and high-tech is never a substitute for qualified man-power. And an army can't do without infantry and without tank and canon drivers and operators.

This is not to mention that in the unlikely circumstance of a major infantry war (airforce and tanks demand fewer numbers), if Israel cannot defend itself ( ), then the US certainly will come to its aid, possibly the UK. I wouldn’t count on NATO and the UN however.

The US does whatever it feels it wants.
It is bad national strategy to hope your interests always coindcide with that of a world superpower which has plenty of interest in Oil and other ****.

As I recall the age at which you must serve your time with the army is between 18 and 45? May be wrong on that latter point, but it’s certainly not 21 .

Huh?
People serve in the army between 18-21. Those who choose to follow a career - continue it until 45. Those who don't - don't, except practice maneuvers every few years -which has already been tremendously cut down.



[...]

And yet your buses, nightclubs, cafes and conscripted soldiers are *still* being killed by terrorists. Stick isn’t working. Try the carrot. Being strong and aggressive is all well and good when legions of soldiers and heavy armour are knocking politely at your gate, but when it comes to a threat from deep within a society that you have been brutally oppressing for half a century, you’ll find the sociologist and the economist far more useful than an F16 and a tank.

Your picture is pretty but false.
Our buses and nightclubs are still being killed by people who don't want Israel to exist. Sending them to therapy won't do any good, and their social economic status has little effect on their terrorist attacks. Bin Laden is a good example of that. Hamas leaders too are all wealthy white-collar engineers and doctors.

This is a purely ideological matter. Most terrorist groups are supported by Iran - which has never suffered Israel's "brutal opression".

My own inclinations and thoughts are irrelevant, though I will indulge you. No, I would not risk the lives of myself, my friends, or anyone I have power over, for a goal I care about. Goals, concepts and ideologies are just ideas and pieces of paper and I would not risk anyone’s life for it. To kill to save the life of others? A brutal “needs of the many” situation exists there… but see above, while that view may be applicable to Britain in 1940, a tactical solution to a non-tactical problem just isn’t going to work.

In short - would you or would you not defend your country in world war 2?

Would you or would you not join world war 2 if your country wasn't attacked, but simply to stop german agression in Europe? to stop the genocide in europe?



Granted, and I can certainly understand how you might combat it in part with the secret services… something Israel is particularly good at I might add . Something tells me that the best approach lies halfway between our views… such is the way these things work.

Firstly, I think the idea of Israel is a bad one. I wouldn’t support disbanding it now because that would cause more problems than it would solve, but if I was back in 1948 I would oppose it. How is that anti-Jewish? I am Jewish by birth myself. It is merely anti-Zionist, and Jewish |= Zionist. I actually consider Israel to be detrimental to the interests of Judaism in the long term, since my fear is of Jewish Nazism hence my thread the other week.

Denying the natural right of a people for self determination in their father's land is both agianst universally accepted morals (and UN charter) and is to an extent racist.

Denying the natural right of the Jewish people for self determination, while supporting the self-determination of other peoples is most certainly racist and anti-Jewish.

It is a moral problem, not a practical one, as you try and present it.

Your fear of "causing problems" to either side, is constant and evident from most of your posts. It is also unwise in my opinion - since fear should never prevent you from making a "just" decision.

There obviously has to be precursors to the existence of a Palestinian state, peace being primary among them for social and logistic reasons, and it should fall to the side best able to pre-empt peace to do so. That side in this case is Israel.

This is again quite silly.

Peace is a double sided initiative.
Violence is one sided.

You can't pre-empt peace, when you have on the other side groups like Hamas and PIJ, and when the other side is unwilling to curb their power.

Sharon on the other hand, is risking his political power and his life (to an extent) to curb the power of the settler movement and do what he thinks is "just'.



Your post was way too long and repetitive to address as a whole, and I've just recently woken up - so I'm off to have a very late breakfast.

[Whaleboy]

The inherent loss of freedom and possibility of killing is a risk that is undertaken by most Israelis just by being born here. Israel, as a society decided that the only way to successfully protect the rest of their democratic privelages is by conscription for several years.

Hang on, there is an inherent loss of freedom and the possibility of being killed, just by being an Israeli? While I might see that being used to protect borderline irrelevant political rights used once every four years to no great effect, where are the civil rights?

Like I said, a society has rules and obligations, and you can't yell "foul play" whenever you want. Either you accept the rules of the society - or you're an outcast, as this guy is.

You accuse me of circumvention but you have completely ignored my argument, and my attack on yours for saying “it’s legal so it’s ok”. No dice.

You are assuming that conscription is so horrendous and evil that it "naturally" out-weighs the regular pro's and con's of following a society's rules. It's a nice thought - but it is not shared by the Israeli society as a whole and is not shared by me personally.

Not my assumption at all, I try to work with necessary logical barriers rather than sufficiencies, and in this respect, the limit lies in not being forced to give up ones own personal liberties, either in the army or jail as the consequence for being a refusenik. Paying taxes, filling forms, hell maybe even the odd jury service now and again is fine, but conscription crosses that line. If Israel wants to claim to be a free society, then conscription with no recourse is incompatible with that. A nationalistic junta-by-democracy on the other hand, perhaps would be more fitting, which is the concession you need in order to make your argument consistent.

You can't pretend that your opinion is the world's accepted moral standard.

As I said previously, being a conscientious objector in the UK is legal when conscription is used, and as far as I know that goes for the US too. Indeed the only countries where that is not the case is Israel and decidedly undemocratic third world states that essentially pressgang people into military service, with reference to organisations like “The Lords Resistance Army” and various other African militias.

And before you attempt to prove it is by citing western countries - I'll remind you that western countries are bigger, have more population (same percentage of willing army goes will equal larger figures) and have much less threats that Israel - thus making your comparison between Israel and the US or the UK void.

The Israeli population as of 2004 was just over 6.7M, if you anticipate 2% of the population for example entering the army under voluntary conditions, that’s 134’000 in the armed forces. The figure for the UK, is, as of Jan 2005 (http://www.dasa.mod.uk/natstats/tsp4/tsp4tab1.html) is just under 190’000. The UK’s population is ~60M. Israeli’s are educated and indoctrinated with a history of war and persecution, and encouraged to engage in a society with decidedly militaristic elements… more like the USA, so I cannot imagine 2% of the population is going to be a particular problem under voluntary conditions. As for the threats, an infantry war would be engaged on at most three fronts at once, and assuming a defensive war *cough* the numbers should be sufficient, when you account for the quality and quantity of Israeli military hardware, as opposed to that of most of the Arab world; largely machinery of Soviet design that’s bordering on obsolescence. Methinks my comparisons are just fine .

The sorrounding Arab armies probably have more than 2 million people conscripted right now. And while the risk of an all out war is small - the punishment for being unprepared is annihilation.

As I said before, defensive war, air superiority, tank and artillery superiority, American support and better training and equipment. Oh yes and nukes . My money would definitely be on Israel.

It is a moral obligation for him not to circumvent a law that most people are following, at great expense for their private lives.

You could say the same of a hypothetical law that required people to jump off a cliff… not to follow that law is perfectly reasonable, and one should not be lamented for failing to provide a cushion to break the fall of others. Unless you provide some other moral imperative for conscription, the two situations are nigh-on identical.

Not doing your civil duties equals to doing less for your country and society.

As I said before. If you define “civil duties” as doing merely “something” for your country, what if that something undermined the future security and wellbeing of that nation? Just because it happens to be under the right banner and supported by the government doesn’t mean that it’s going to be patriotic; unless you’re too dumb to question the government, its intentions, and understand the lessons of history thereof.

A person who circumvents the social agreement and does not go to the army - will naturally do less for his country, because everyone did their military service, and he did not. He is, in a way, a leech.

Well again you fall foul of the argument above, and I fear also falling for a kind of positivist populism. Further to this is the question; “what of the individual?” An obligation to contribute(sic) or a choice? That goes for the legal argument. An obligation to contribute your own liberties or a choice resulting in their removal regardless? Heil mein fuhrer, because it is “mein fuhrer” who decides what is in that countries interests, whereas a feature of a free society is that the interests is the collective sum of the individuals’. The only leech is sight is the economic black hole of the armed forces .

But let me be frank - I do not have Palestinian interests in mind. I also do not believe it is my moral duty to have them in mind.

Why not? Where and why draw a line between Israeli and Palestinian?

You're welcome to disagree with Hobbes - but I find the "natural state" convincing.

Every person is born with the interest to be selfish and unkind to others. He is tamed only by the rules of society - but his "natural" wishes are exported to a higher-level of countries, which protect his rights and in a way - act to fulfill his wishes by land-grabbing, conquering, bullying and what not.

You're welcome to think that this is bad and evil and all people and countries should LOOOOOVE each other.

I think it would be swell too.

But in the mean time - I think it is unrealistic and I believe people are by nature evil to one another, unless they congregate in allignment groups - and thus export their hostilities to a larger scale of "group against group".

A common problem with people attempting to bastardise Hobbes is that they fall foul of Hume, specifically is-ought. You’re describing human nature; you’re not saying anything prescriptive. I think it would be going out on a limb to say that we should be selfish and unkind to others, indeed that would go against the founding principles of the Eretz Yisrael: Light unto Nations. Now I happen to concur with human egoism, though not in Hobbesian terms, but if we’re talking about what one should do and whether those who don’t should be chastised then you have to speak in categorical terms which is incompatible with Hobbes. I believe I have previously refuted an attempt to universalise conscription, but by all means continue!

Of course one can defend it - it is a patriotic duty to defend your society in war. If you don't agree to that then there's something inherently wrong with your values.

But I’m not a patriot, if we assume patriot to be opposed to pacifist in a time of war. But is that a safe assumption? For it to be so, a pacifist has to be intrinsically sympathetic to the interests of the given nations enemy, which they usually aren’t, and when they are they cannot by definition be pacifist if they support the enemy’s military effort, and from the given nations POV, they become treasonous. The trouble is, the given nations view is subjective and distorted by their own view of the enemy… by no means it is absolute, which is why pacifism in a time of war is not indicative of something “inherently wrong with your values”. It probably means that you’re less of a flag ****er because that militaristic element has been removed but all that shows is just how much of our national distinctions are based upon opposition militaristic “us and them” attitudes.

If your brother was being punched in the face - would you first:

1) ask what the argument was about, see whether your brother is morally right and only then consider stepping in?

2) drop everything and jump in to defend your brother?

If it was my brother, I’d drop everything and jump in. If it was some guy in Preston who I’ve never met and care for no more than his attacker, then I’d grab a box of popcorn and spend the evening cursing CNN for not rendering in Firefox properly.

Which brings an interesting question, relevant to your argument. Would I have fought in WWI? Of course not. Would I have fought in World War II? A situation somewhat more stark for British Jews like myself rather than others, and yes I probably would have, as a matter of self-defence, which means I’d have been more inclined to fight in the Battle of Britain rather than flattening Dresden… but that war was Germany’s fault and not the UK’s, and any binary answer to pacifism is confounded if it is your nation that is under attack. This means that conscription is a little more defensible for Israel if it is under attack, and for consistencies sake prepared to admit that it is no longer a free society as a result. But as for the current conflict? The pacifists’ choices are clear since it is Israel that started and perpetuates this situation, and brings terrorism and the massacre of innocents of both sides upon itself . When the Egyptians are sprinting across Sinai, the Lebanese sprawling across the Golan heights and dried blood caught in the tracks of Israeli tanks… then we’ll talk .

If the bugger has a problem with the social contract in Israel - he is welcome to move, or face the legal consequences.

But he was already there no? The choice facing immigrants is different to that facing born citizens, and I have mentioned that many times before, it is you ignoring my arguments.

I do have a beef with people who are aware of the social contract and attempt to find a way out. They are not saying "I believe there is a better solution for Israel". They are saying "I want the rules changed for my behalf, because it doesn't fit me to go to the army".

One would assume that being a conscientious objector is a sufficient condition to saying “I believe there is a better solution for Israel”.

Electronics and high-tech is never a substitute for qualified man-power. And an army can't do without infantry and without tank and canon drivers and operators.

Granted, but the idea of machinery is to multiply the effectiveness of a given unit of manpower, such that a high-tech, highly trained small army is the match for a larger, lesser trained force.

It is bad national strategy to hope your interests always coindcide with that of a world superpower which has plenty of interest in Oil and other ****.

You think it would be politically viable for the US to do anything BUT aid Israel at the drop of a hat?

Our buses and nightclubs are still being killed by people who don't want Israel to exist. Sending them to therapy won't do any good, and their social economic status has little effect on their terrorist attacks. Bin Laden is a good example of that. Hamas leaders too are all wealthy white-collar engineers and doctors.

You say leaders. I think there is a difference between leaders consumed by power and suicide bombers whose sociological hatred is preyed upon. In a way, they’re victims just like those that die on the streets of Israel. It would certainly take less time than turning the West bank into a glass lake, but if Israel stops pissing off the Arabs it would be far more effective at reducing the number of people the leaders of terrorist orgs can prey upon for their membership. You think there’s much difference between thousands of people in the street burning Israeli flags, and suicide bombers? Symptoms on the same scale, and symptomatic of the same problem, an Israeli problem.

In short - would you or would you not defend your country in world war 2?

Would you or would you not join world war 2 if your country wasn't attacked, but simply to stop german agression in Europe? to stop the genocide in europe?

Well it is a tough one and I’ve dealt with some of that previously. Perhaps it’s pushing pacifism to its limits. Certainly all good ideas have their limits and one has to be humble enough to recognise that. Truth be told, if I knew about the holocaust and had the option to fight, I don’t know what I’d do, perhaps support the war effort at home in some way if not get blood on my hands. That’s truly exceptional though, I think that’s the danger of using WWII in modern analogies. By default a war of aggression is out of the question for the pacifist.

Denying the natural right of a people for self determination in their father's land is both agianst universally accepted morals (and UN charter) and is to an extent racist.

I could say that my fatherland is just South of Pixie mountain in Antarctic Atlantis, but that gives me no claim there. Do I have a right to go and live in humanity’s evolutionary home; just south of the Congo rainforest, merely because my distant ancestors came from there? It’s a ridiculous, emotive argument. If you want to talk about universally accepted morals, then do so because I call bull****. As for the UN charter, you can’t just pick and mix bits to praise and deride in the same argument without qualification, and how exactly is it racist? Are you saying that those who criticise Zionism are “to an extent racist”? Again, elaborate.

Denying the natural right of the Jewish people for self determination, while supporting the self-determination of other peoples is most certainly racist and anti-Jewish.

One group of people who had lived there for the better part of 2000 years, and another group who just arrived. I would naturally have supported the right to self determination for the Palestinians in 1948. In principle, I would have support that same right for the Jews, but there was no available political space without impacting on other peoples’ self determination, in which case thousands of people have died for a bad idea. And I don’t like how this is turned into a Jewish issue, this is a Zionist issue. I live in Britain but I am infinitely more happy here than I would be in my supposed homeland. I feel no obligation, temptation or compulsion to go there, and it’s not like I’m the only one. Israel is the homeland of the Zionists, not the Jews, until all Jews are willing to stake a claim there, if not actually live. I don’t buy the “land of our forefathers” argument, so I cannot stake a claim.

It is a moral problem, not a practical one, as you try and present it.

Trouble is that morality kills more people than practicality. Mix morality with stupidity and I don’t want to be around then the **** goes down.

You can't pre-empt peace, when you have on the other side groups like Hamas and PIJ, and when the other side is unwilling to curb their power.

Sure you can. If I’m on the ground and you’re laying into me with a 2by4, then suddenly stop… then sure I might weakly hit you back and you can prosecute me under the full force of the law for doing so, but in the long term by stopping you have pre-empted peace. Of course stopping popular wars is far, far harder for a democracy than starting them.

Sharon on the other hand, is risking his political power and his life (to an extent) to curb the power of the settler movement and do what he thinks is "just'.

And he is to be applauded for doing so, though I can’t pretend to even want to keep track of the wars between doves and hawks in the Knesset .

Your post was way too long and repetitive to address as a whole, and I've just recently woken up - so I'm off to have a very late breakfast.

You’re free to answer the points you want (not that you needed me to tell you ), I got a lazy afternoon so I don’t care either way.

[Az]

boring discussions.

[Eli]

Azazel

[Whaleboy]

Az, what's your argument? I would read, but I'm a lazy, lazy man.

[Sirotnikov]

Bah.

I read your post and it has so many wrong things in it, but I'm too damn lazy to write a counter post.

Promise me this - either you come to Israel or I come to England, and we grab a bite and a beer and argue for 4 hours or so, ok?

[Sava]

conscription

freedom

[Whaleboy]

Promise me this - either you come to Israel or I come to England, and we grab a bite and a beer and argue for 4 hours or so, ok?

I can handle that
Beer
Food