Posts made by Janus1

well (puffs up chest) it is my thread, i feel a certain, <grasps for=“” something=“”>thing for it.</grasps>

that logic does not follow. what im saying is, jews may consider themselves a culture, but either way they are a religion, straight up

Its called staying on topic. As the topic of this thread is God, and religion, I am mentioning this on this thread. I am not mentioning other problems, though they may be more serious, because that would be off topic. If you want to discuss them, make another thread, and I will gladly discuss them there.

see, it doesnt not have to be a conservative of importance, because you stereotyped all conservatives, since i am a conservative, and i dont see it as a scare, you are wrong. even though i am clearly not of importance

Ok, first of all, Mista Biggs, thats just shameful. Im like you, I dont research everything I buy, so something I own could be “slave” made, I will acknowledge that Falk, but I wouldnt knowingly buy something that was “slave” made.

Ok, on to the point.

We seem to differ in the defintion of slaves. I seem to have a broader definition.

I think the problem is not that, but that you keep referring to today, which IMO is unrelated to the question of whether we pay reparations to the descendants of former slaves, that was the topic, and the basis of my argument, if it is the same for you, than thats why we are differing so much, because you seem to be arguing about something different.

Can you be sure that nothing you own is “clean” and not produced in sweatshops

No Falk, I cant be sure. Like I already said, something could be slave made that I own, but I buy from brand names, that to the extent of my knowledge, dont use “slave” labor, and if I knew something was “slave” made, I wouldnt buy it.

Slave made products are still cheaper, but not at all for domestic use. Tariffs are more or less non-existant, except for things that non-western countries could produce and export to us (that is: food).

Ok, here, you are either talking about today, or need to brush up on your history.

The only problem with that: banks don’t die. They may be bought, merged or whatever, but the debt account will live forever! Try it, your grandkids will love you for that…

I fear I am going to lose my temper with this one, Its an analogy. You said bank in the scenario you used, so I am just clarifying. Of course banks dont die, but people do. You decided to akin the former slaves to the bank, but they die, even if the bank does not. unlike a son, grandson, etc, owing a debt to a bank from the father, they would not (IMO) owe a debt to a son, grandson, of a person the father owed a debt to, you either missed that, or ignored it, or something.

Nothing explains the difference between “between slavery and today”. I see your point (and went on to that in the following notion of my previous posting). My question still stands:
What happened between then and now? If i accepted that there was a “then and now”, i would accept that there is no slavery in the world anymore.
How would you call working in the sweatshops? I call it slavery, because that term fits best.

Again, I think you do not understand what I am saying. The things happening between then and now (if you dispute that there was a then and now, I will shoot you) are referring to the money, not the slavery. I was commenting on the transfership of money that invariably goes on.

WHAT ???
Existing slavery is unrelated to the point wether we should pay reparations for slavery?

Please, explain that. I can not follow you at all here.

Existing slavery of today, as you call it (im not going to argue that here, as it is mostly a question of semantics), is not included in the question of should we make people pay reparations to the descendants of slaves. when thinking about the past, you do not include the present, as it has no impact on it, rather, you do it the other way. the existing slavery of today, is a seperate matter.

Just think of that: Who produces, who is the one that the sweatshops work for? Third world people? First world corporations?

A simple misspeak on my part (i dont know if thats a word, but you get the point)

Second: “to save money” is “to profit”.

I would disagree with you on that, but i wont fight it.

and its not really blood money, because generally that applies to money for a murder, or assasination"

the difference being that mine is a complete thought, saying what it applies to, while yours simply disputes mine, without supplying what it does include now (and yes, i realize that grammatically, yours is also a complete thought)

Slavery today is not irrelevant.

Wrong

And i could give you a bucketful of examples for modern slavery. For the western societies that profited from slaves, it is pretty easy: all.

Im not asking for examples of western societies, im asking for examples of corporations and individuals

Seems like you ignored the “explicitly” i put in there.

Well then maybe I am missing something, but I fail to see how that changes it

Thus, the profit still is “with us”, though probably not traceable to a single person.

The descendants of former slaves also being a part of this society, the profit would then affect them as well, why pay reparations?

Slaves had no faces, the ones who profited (and the ones who received the interest) have no faces.

then again, how can you justify making individuals pay reparations to individuals, if there is no face?

You talk of “now”,

I talk of now? I TALK OF NOW?!? You are mentioning the slavery of today, I keep saying it has no relevance, when I talk of now, it is because you have

when i obviously talk of the past (Merkantilism!)

You mentioned it once

I used past the words “colonies”, mostly past tense for the verbs, and you did not notice that i was not talking of today?

If everything you said was about past slavery, then you seriously did not do a good job of getting your point across, because most of your argument seemed to consist of today

arrogant much? the accusation of stereotyping (it was a stereotype) is mostly because you have been, in my opinion anyway, one person i would deem very unlikely to stereotype, based on your past posts. unless im forgeting another one, or missed one, this is your first stereotype. in which case, congratulations! and kudos. hopefully many more will come

I say we just have the Israelis and Palestinians duke it out in one final showdown, winner take all, loser moves to Florida

thats the problem, when people disagree with taxes in general, rather than a specific tax (I do think this particular tax is pretty stupid)

not about power? no war is not about power, look at what CC said that I was responding to, for the sake of power, the sake of power being to get power, their war may be against power in your opinion, but it is not for the sake of power.

No one is saying guilt. Or at least, im not. I in fact said that Im sure the overwhelming majority of all these religions (except for some of those ones that are not widely accepted religions, because some of them have some pretty bizarre practices)
What Im saying is, I think the world would be better without religion, and Im using the acts of individuals as examples.

I fear the fanatics of “economic laws are natural laws” much more, with “profit”, “efficiency”, “profit” and “shareholder value” as battle cries. There power and money (and fear of being punished by their fellows) inspires a whole lot of things, mostly bad.

I dont totally disagree with that, but it has no relevance to this discussion. I do not claim that religion “scares me the most” or is anywhere near the worst problem

It doesnt matter how Jews see themselves, either way, they are a religion. And this is off topic

if you follow the logic of neo-liberlism

I dont follow the logic of neo-liberalism, I would say it is not logic at all

How can you be innocent if you buy the stuff that slaves have produced?

See now, thats just absurd.
First of all, I have never bought anything a slave produced
Second of all, like you said, slave made products were cheaper, not only because of that, but also because they were domestic goods, and did not have tariffs (this is within the US of course). are you going to make poor people buy more expensive goods?

If your dad accumulates debts, the banks will make sure that they get the money upon his death of his descendants

this is not the same as making descendants of slave owners pay reparations. The main difference being, that its not the same institution collecting from different debtors, its a different one. Its not like the scenario you said, where the dad died, but the bank is still there, its the dad died, and the bank died, and someone who used to work at the bank is trying to collect the money. To use a crude example, has anyone ever seen Family Guy? In one episode, a white man (the main character) discovers he has a black ancestor that used to be a slave. He also discovers that his inlaws are the decendants of his ancestor’s owners. He makes them pay him for this. Does he deserve any money for that?

If you profit from slave labor, you should pay for it. No matter wether you are on the producer or consumer side.

Ah, does that include the African tribes that “worked” for slave traders by providing them with slaves in exchange for liquor, and trinkets, and such? Does that mean they should pay reparations as well? or does it not apply to the slave trade?

so many things have happened between slavery and today,

… like what?

Its called a complete sentence Falk, why dont you read the full sentence before replying to a part of it, as the second part contains my point, the part you responded to applies to it.

This again is commonplace, everywhere in the third world.
So, there is de-facto slavery. We don’t see it, we profit from it. We as consumers and especially the producers should pay for it.
But, breaking human rights seems to be not a crime as long as there is profit adn “shareholder value” behind it.

This is unrelated to making people pay reparations for slavery, it has no relevance. Notice you said third world, as in, thats where the producers are, since we agree they should pay, go after them. I disagree with you that consumers should pay, but thats the foundation of this argument. you also use the word profit. If the term consumer is used, this applies also to people who buy, say, Nikes which are made in sweatshops, then you are saying that they profit from this, which is not true, they save money perhaps, something entirely different (but with the price of nikes, they may not actually be transferring these savings onto the consumers.)

First, the term blood money no longer refers to murder etc. only.

……? is that it? thats all you have to say on that? what a good argument, simply saying what i said is no longer true, youve convinced me.

we as the western societies profited of slaves, some cooperations and individuals still profit from it.

Name some. give me some examples of these, and also, are we talking about the slavery that was conducted up till the 13th amendment? Or the “slavery” that is being conducted today, in which case, that is irrelevant

Sure, people could be poor today.

Dont tell me you are disputing the fact that people are poor? please dont tell me that

But how to become wealthy another way, with explicitly not profiting from the stoeln wealth of your society?

this is logic along the same lines as saying “how to drink without drinking the same water as dinosaurs did?” thats ridiculous. and its my society now? you can take it, and criticize it all you want, but dont call it mine.

Because it was not an individual doing something to another individual.

By that logic, individuals should not have to repay individuals, because it was not an individual doing something to another individual, another difference in your dad’s debts to the bank scenario

No western society has clean hands, as the economies of us have been interweaved for quite some time.

No society on earth has clean hands. Every economy is interweaved, its a global economy. Western economies have effects on Eastern economies, and vice versa. Eastern economies also have their own evils to worry about

how long was that period? because there is a few billion years of history before the industrial revolution, and a couple hundred after

does anybody else think Falk killed it?

I think this might have already been done on here, but whatever.
What are your feelings on affirmative action?

should those who decended from my mothers side of the family pay for something that took place nearly 100 years prior to their arrival in the country?

Of course they shouldn’t. Should they feel bad that it took place? Absolutely, everyone should feel bad it took place, but it shouldn’t rule your life. And if you want to contribute money to a Black rights group, or if you want to pay reparations, you can go ahead, but to make people is just shameful.

Yes it is Falk, I personally was so shocked by it, that I could not stand up for an hour.

According to Falk, I am a “USie” and I am a conservative, but I dont see it as a scare.

I can see where you are coming from CC, often I would find myself agreeing with you. But in the case of religion, Im not blaming it for all the problems, like so many people are so quick to do with rock music, and violent videogames (though you may have gotten that impression). What I mean to say is, religion is clearly the cause of many specific acts of war and violence, and bloodshed, and terror. The overwhelming majority of it is not a bad thing, unless you dont like people feeling good about themselves. But there is also another kind of bad with religion. The religious fanatics, who instead of going to war with others, try to force others to follow their beliefs, through political means, and that applies sometimes to atheists as well (namely, the morons trying to ban the pledge of allegiance because the word “god” is in it). Again, these people are part of the minority. But religion, above all other things, is something which inspires great emotion in people, be it good or bad. Be it hope, anger, happiness, whatever. I think for individual people, religion is often one of the best parts of their lives, or at least a great thing for them to have in it. But when you look at people as a group, religion more often than not is a bringer of problems and conflict. Would people truly be better off without religion? Maybe, maybe not. I personally think so, because anything that inspires great emotion can be a wonderful thing, or a terrible thing, and the line is paper thin. All of this will probably amount to nothing more than rhetoric anyway, as I think it is unlikely that there will ever be a widely accepted attempt to remove religion. If it ever is abolished, more likely it will be the will of some dicatator, or authoritarian government, rather than a popularly accepted practice. If it happens that way, than it will not be truly representative of how it could be, as it will have been taken forcefully from people.

someone likes to stereotype

Janus1 wrote:
… actual wars have been conducted in the name of religion, …

but for the sake of power

the terrorists like al qaeda are conducting a jihad in their eyes. they are fighting a holy war, in the name of religion, and about religion as well. they are seriously screwed up in their interpretation of the religion, but that just further serves my point