Arabic script on the side of busses makes Virginians wet their pants...

[GePap]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
That is absolutely incorrect. Well its rude in the extreme to tell someone THEIR pain was a learning experience, its still true. Ive learned from pain, and I know of others close to me who have as well. Suffering tells you what it feels like to suffer, it makes possible empathy with others who suffer, it lets you know you can survive suffering, etc.

Knowing what suffering feels like may help you empathize, but then you can always also sympathize with someone in order to help them. But heavy suffering is something that most people can't forget- and either they get over it, or it consumes them. Too many people get consumed by their suffering and it defines them. And not everyone who suffers can empathize with others who suffer, because they come to assume their suffering is unique. If suffering makes you empathetic, then why would so many abused people abuse their own children?

Id rather go to therapy for say, depression with a therapist whos HAD it, (as well as being trained in good techniques, etc) cause there are things they will know that someone else will not.

That's a personal choice. A therapist well trained in the subject is good enough. I have never seen empathy being superior to sympathy.

[GePap]

[QUOTE] Originally posted by lord of the mark

Originally posted by GePap
Thats not the way the english language works, or an auto accident victim could never sue in court, since cars arent allowed in court houses. Only an ex-victim could sue in court, or one who is being voluntarily victimized. Its a nice therapy rhetorical flourish ("im not a victim any more") but its not really true.

You sue as someone who WAS a victim of a car accident.
Was, as in not currently. Ten months after a car acicdent you tell people " I was the victim of a car accident. If you told them I am the victim of a car accident, they look at you funny, as they should, unless the person you are speaking to happens to be EMS or the fire department taking you out of the wreck.

As for "volutary victim", the only volutary victims I can think of as sadomasochists. The vast majority of people do not subject themselves to suffering - that is in fact the entire basis upon which the punishment system is based.

youre quibbling over words. You know what I meant.

I know what you mean, which is exactly why I used different words. Language has meaning. How you say something is a choice. To say damage can be undone is a different idea than saying damage can never actually be undone, only fixed. I don;t think damage can ever be "undone", one reason why suffereing is not ever good, because it damages someone, and while someone can fix themselves, some of the damage remains, however small.

Whether something is "the central narrative" is rhetoric. There are truths beyond facts.

That is your belief, one you obviously hold being a religious person as well. I don;t believe there is some objective "truth", nor does information create any "truth", objective or otherwise.

[Vesayen]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui


Wow... they sat in the wrong seats because they thought they'd been upgraded to first class. Apparently that's now a federal offense... being mistaken as to your seat and all.

Threadjacks:

The last time I flew I was flying back from Israel and I accidentally sat in the wrong seat because I read the wrong number for my seat off my ticket.

They took me off the plane and grilled me... sitting in the wrong seat is no laughing matter, I was terrified ><.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Jesus (apt on this day ). A lady was mistakenly sitting in my seat on a flight from Colorado to Atlanta (because she couldn't read what time her flight was.. yeah, she was bright), but nothing happened to her. They just told her that wasn't her seat or plane and wait for hers.

[Straybow]

Was she loudly praying in a foreign language, criticizing US action in Iraq, or resisting the instructions of the airline staff? Did you ask her if she was Muslim, and if she were, would it have made the slightest difference to how she was treated?

No? Thanks for proving the point that it is behavior that defines the reaction, not race or religion.

[KrazyHorse]

Errrr....what?

[Straybow]

Originally posted by GePap
But one thing is certainly clear to me. Being a victim, acting like a victim, making a culture of being a victim is poisonous, its dangerous, its stupid. Being a victim does not enoble. Suffering does not enoble. Sticking to a narrative in which we are victims is a terrible narrative to have. And I see no people who have taken the mantle of victimhoood and made it central to their narrative as going anywhere admirable.

My, what a wandering diatribe. There really are Islamists who live and breath to do us harm. We haven't turned it into a polemic against Islam. We don't blame them for things that didn't do or haven't publicly declared their intent to do.

9/11 was a criminal act. Those responsible are murderers, and need to be found and prosecuted. But the sad fact is that by keeping our victimization from 9.11 alive we keep their work alive. We remain afraid. That is the whole point of terrorism, to spread fear.

Psychobabble crap. We don't "keep their work alive." They are doing that all by themselves. We don't release "Death to Islam" tapes to be aired on Al Jezeera.

We aren't afraid, we are vigilant. Do you honestly not understand the difference, or is it that you can only prop up your beliefs with this conflation?

[Straybow]

Originally posted by GePap
The phrase "war on terror" is a semantic boodogle. such a "war" is a winable as a "war on drugs" or a "war on poverty."

See how much success we have had in those two other wars?

So, we should just ignore the existance and effects of drugs and poverty? No?

The difference is that terrorism is not a substance trafficked for simple financial gain of the producers and distributors. The difference is that terrorism isn't a simple lack of material goods and services that can be countered by providing education and employment.

Terrorism is something that has to be fought, literally rather than figuratively. Again, is this concept difficult to understand, or just inconvenient to your rhetoric?

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by GePap


You sue as someone who WAS a victim of a car accident.
Was, as in not currently. Ten months after a car acicdent you tell people " I was the victim of a car accident. If you told them I am the victim of a car accident, they look at you funny, as they should, unless the person you are speaking to happens to be EMS or the fire department taking you out of the wreck.
.

"At the Law Office of William T. Burdin, we are a full service law firm with more than 22 years of experience. We provide free initial consultation for personal injury cases.

We fight hard for you to make sure you receive the best settlement possible.

The Law Office of William T. Burdin is licensed in Massachusetts and New Hampshire. Call today for your legal matters.


Are you an accident victim in Massachusetts or New Hampshire?

If so call us today!"


"We sometime says "i am a victim" sometimes "was a victim" depending on context. With friends youd normally just say "i was hit by car". In court you would be referred to as the victim. Even though the accident is over. Certainly not "ex-victim".


Some damage CAN be undone, other damage cant be undone, and other damage can be more than corrected. We wont rebuild the WTC exactly as it was built in 1971, that would be silly, the real estate market is different, office building are built differently now. Lives cant be brought back (which is why the dead are always victims. Some of the living can be healed, some completely, some partially, some not at all.

Anyway this is all a diversion from the OP. The folks who called in about the bus werent doing so cause they saw themselves as victims of 9-11, but because they wanted to avoid being victims of a new terrorist act, as I do when i look for packages on the subway. They just made a mistake as to what to be worried about - silly to think the transit authority would allow a terrorist message. I dont believe every communication in Arabic is innocent, and my great respect for culture in that language and the other languages that use that script doesnt change that. Though my inclination is to have more Americans LEARN Arabic (and Urdu, and Farsi) which will BOTH increase our safety AND grant us access to the riches of culture.

[GePap]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
Anyway this is all a diversion from the OP. The folks who called in about the bus werent doing so cause they saw themselves as victims of 9-11, but because they wanted to avoid being victims of a new terrorist act, as I do when i look for packages on the subway. They just made a mistake as to what to be worried about - silly to think the transit authority would allow a terrorist message. I dont believe every communication in Arabic is innocent, and my great respect for culture in that language and the other languages that use that script doesnt change that. Though my inclination is to have more Americans LEARN Arabic (and Urdu, and Farsi) which will BOTH increase our safety AND grant us access to the riches of culture.

Are you daft enough to think that a government agency like a transportation commission or authority would allow commercials in a foreign language to be painted on their busses without asking beforehand what it means????

Give me a break.

I agree with KH, the people who complained are basically stupid, not just out of ignorance, but bigotry.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Straybow

The difference is that terrorism is not a substance trafficked for simple financial gain of the producers and distributors. The difference is that terrorism isn't a simple lack of material goods and services that can be countered by providing education and employment.

Terrorism is something that has to be fought, literally rather than figuratively. Again, is this concept difficult to understand, or just inconvenient to your rhetoric?

Terrorism is a concept.

Fighting "terrorism" is like fighting "fear" and "war."

Good luck

[Straybow]

Fighting "war." I suppose you think if we would just lay down our weapons there'd be no more war. Kittens would play at our feet and songbirds flit about our heads forever.

We "fight" war by making aggression too expensive to contemplate. Sometimes it still doesn't work and we actually have to act. Liking kicking the crap out of Saddam Hussein.

Terrorists want to make the status quo unacceptable. They intend to make the cost in human lives and suffering higher than the cost of changing the status quo to their liking.

One fights terrorists by making their fight unacceptable, by similar means if necessary. That's why it is called a war on terror.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by GePap


Are you daft enough to think that a government agency like a transportation commission or authority would allow commercials in a foreign language to be painted on their busses without asking beforehand what it means????

"silly to think the transit authority would allow a terrorist message."


Are you unable to read?

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by GePap


Terrorism is a concept.

So is aggression. So is a border. So is "impressment of sailors" So is "unrestricted submarine warfare" So is "taxation without representation"

Concepts that describe realities in this world.


Look we really could call it " the war on Al Qaeda and other Qutbist groups that threaten international violence, accompanied by a campaign of pressure against Hamas, Hezbollah and other radical Islamist (but NOT Qutbist) groups that attack allies of the West using terrorist means, plus dont anybody think that we only are concerned with Islamists, lest the Sri Lankans complain we are ignoring the atrocities commited by the Tamil tigers and the Brits think we are continuing to hypocritically shelter the IRA and its radical offshoots"

Which would thus be the "WAQOQGTTIVABCPAHHHORIBNQGTAAWUTMPDATTWOACWILTSKCWA IACBTTBTWACHSIRO"

Instead of the WOT. But I think that might violate the reduction in paperwork act.

"and so Romeo would, were he not Romeo called"

[Darius871]

Originally posted by GePap


Terrorism is a concept.

Fighting "terrorism" is like fighting "fear" and "war."

It's not merely some ethereal concept, it is a tactic.

A "war on terrorism" therefore means using organized violence to eliminate those individuals who elect to utilize said tactic.

Would rephrasing it as a "war on terrorists" abate your petty semantic quibbling?