Posts made by Janus1

my ancestors didnt own slaves. the first ones arrived in the US well after slavery ended, and were either too poor in Europe to have owned slaves, or werent alive while slavery was practiced in Europe (I have researched my family true, I know with as much certainty as can be possible that no one in my family ever owned a slave). Now I take it you didnt specifically mean me, but simply referred to me as an example. so ill answer your question anyway. I think the only people that have any claim to reparations are those who were slaves, and only of their former owners. but since they are all dead by now, their are no due reparations. That is not to say people cant give money on their own, feeling guilt, but it cant be something they are forced to do, as they have no responsibility. Aside from not having been alive to affect the situation in any way, so many things have happened between slavery and today, that even if someones ancestors made wealth from slavery, that money may not have any affect today. The people could be poor today, or wealthy by other means, their money did not necessarily come to them from their ancestors. Not to mention, I would say that most likely every one on earth, or close to it, has at least one person in their ancestry that once did something terrible to someone else and got money for it. should we hold them responsible too? of course not. and its not really blood money, because generally that applies to money for a murder, or assasination

i dont think the germans should have to pay reparations, if for no other reason then it wasnt all germans who did this to jews, it was the nazis. and i dont think people today owe any reparations for slavery. we cant hold the people of today responsible for the actions of their ancestors that they never even could have met

interesting comparison CC, but its not quite the same. actual wars have been conducted in the name of religion, as have terrorist acts. while i see where you are coming from, dont even try to compare it to the van halen scenario you posed, they are not at all the same. if you think that i think it will solve all the worlds problems, then you should take your head out of your own a$$. no one thing could solve all the world’s problems, there are too many of them, and many of them are unrelated. but lets not digress. you asked how this would benefit me, well it wouldnt necessarily, but it doesnt have to. there could be a direct benefit to me, other than me being happy that religion is gone, but i think it is just a good idea, so i dont need any direct benefit from it

that was me, sorry, i forgot to log in

couldnt be CC, are you sure you are feeling ok?

theres a difference between prayer and religion. you can believe in a god, and pray to a god, but not practice a religion. as i was saying, private belief in god is fine, many people privately believe in worse things. this can include prayer. you can still pray, even if religion is abolished.

believing in god is not necessarily a waste of time, because i know plenty of believers who dont practice in any way. i think what it is is a false hope. like many false hopes, its not necessarily a bad thing, but it can prove to be one of the worst things there is.

Grigory said:

most wars ever fought have had some type of religious component

how true it is. one of many examples is the crusades, which cost thousands (im sure more, but i dont want to overestimate) of lives.

the islamic terrorist groups are examples as well. true, they are not the true representation of an islamic person, as it is a peaceful religion, but they are acting in the name of god (or allah) none the less.

ill leave with this thought.

while religion can be a very good thing, bringing joy, wonder, and meaning to people’s lives, and inspiring them to be good, honest people, it can also be a terrible thing, bringing pain and suffering, and inspiring mass slaughters, and countless “holy” wars. while you can see this as a regretful occurence, but think the benefits outweigh them, i think that religion of any kind, when practiced on any kind of large scale only leads to problems, and i think that belief in god is one thing, while religion is something truly different. if you choose to believe in god, that is all well and good, but it should be a private thing. if there truly is a god, i seriously doubt that it would require sacraments and rituals to be considered a “good, decent person” who belongs in heaven, or your belief equivalent. i think that religion should be abolished everywhere

Im not going to sit here and pretend to be nonbiased, because I have a strong opinion about this, and Im really not going to bother to listen to any arguments, I dont think you will change my mind. But anyway, Id like to take something Rooney said, rascism works both ways. Of course there are white people who are discriminatory against blacks, its called humanity. It is impossible, thats right, impossible, to completely eliminate all forms of rascism, there will always be someone who doesnt treat someone equally in whatever way, based on his or her race. But that person could be white, black, indian, native american, arab, whatever. rascism does not just work from the majority to the minority, it goes the other way too. its been predicted that sometime during the century (i forget the specifics, its been a little while since Ive heard this) the populations of i believe the latino and asian peoples will outnumber that of whites in the United States. When that happens, the whites will become a minority. It will be interesting to see whether whites are still called rascist while no other group is, or whether the new majorities will be the rascist ones. Im just guessing here, but I would bet that blacks and other minorities in the US commit at least as many acts of rascism as whites (and thats rascism of any and all forms). like rooney said, BET, that is rascist. when you have black comics up on stage, making joke after joke about white people, and “whitey keeping them down” thats rascism. not everybody will realize or admit this, because A) its funny, and B) black people are incapable of rascism (notice the sarcasm) if a white comic went up and made rascist jokes like black comics do, theyd never be able to perform again. Im not going to sit here and dispute racial profiling either, because it does happen. I think it is taken out of context sometimes, the facts are often distorted, and its seen as more major than it truly is. Like D:S said, racial profiling was conducted on arabs after 9:11. you can argue all day about the morality of this, but the fact remains, the vast majority of these islamic terrorist groups are arab, and no body can say they wont be planning another attack. if the black panthers commit a terrorist act, do we check white people to see if they are members? similarly, would we check black people if the KKK commited a terrorist act? no, thats foolish. the media also plays a major role in so-called racial profiling. case in point, the ahmedu diallo shooting a number of years ago. was it racial profiling? perhaps, but perhaps the cops felt legitemetly threatened. i didnt follow the case, so i dont know how it turned out, but it was immediately called racial profiling. yes, he was shot excessively, (like 46 times or sumthin) but that does not make it racial profiling, maybe unneccessary use of force or sumthin like that. and again, like the fact that people seem to think minorities are incapable of rascism, only acts of rascism against blacks are reported in the media.

DEATH WISH

News Anchor, Dan Rather, The Reverened Jesse Jackson, Cokie Roberts, reporter from National Public Radio and an Israeli soldier were hiking through the jungle one day when they were captured by cannibals. They were tied up, led to the village and brought before the chief.

The chief said, “I am familiar with your western custom of granting the condemned a last wish. Before we kill and eat you, do you have any last requests?”

Dan Rather said, “Well, I’m a Texan; so I’d like one last bowlful of hot, spicy chili.” The chief nodded to an underling, who left and returned with the chili. Rather ate it all and said, “Now I can die content.”

Jesse Jackson said, “You know, the thing in this life I am proudest of is my work on behalf of the poor and oppressed. So before I go, I want to sing “We Shall Overcome” one last time.”

The chief said, “Go right ahead, we’re listening.” Jackson sang the song, and then said, “Now I can die in peace.”

Cokie Roberts said, “I’m a reporter to the end. I want to take out my tape recorder and describe the scene here and what’s about to happen. Maybe someday someone will hear it and know that I was on the job til the end.”

The chief directed an aide to hand over the tape recorder, and Roberts dictated some comments. She then said, “Now I can die happy.”

The chief turned and said, “And now, Mr. Israeli soldier, what is your final wish?”

“Kick me in the ass.” said the Israeli.

“What?” said the chief. “Will you mock us in your last hour?”

“No, I’m not kidding. I want you to kick me in the ass.” insisted the Israeli.

So the chief untied the soldier, shoved him into the open, and kicked him in the ass. The Israeli went sprawling, but rolled to his knees, pulled a 9mm pistol from his waistband, and shot the chief dead. In the resulting confusion, he leapt to his knapsack, pulled out his uzi, and sprayed the cannibals with gunfire. In a flash, the cannibals were dead or fleeing for their lives.

As the Israeli was untying the others, they asked him, “Why didn’t you just shoot them? Why did you ask them to kick you in the ass?”

“What!?” said the Israeli, “And AGAIN have you jerks call ME the aggressor?!?”

A Joke I found on another webpage, basically a variation of another joke I have heard before. Now I dont care what your position on the Israel/Palestine situation is, but thats a funny joke.

Just posting to say im going to be away for at least 11 days. I know, i know, i will be sorely missed (dont cry falk). I have to go to a conference in DC.
Its called the CYLC (Congressional Youth Leadership Convention) the name really cracks me up.
Basically its a BS convention about leadership (there are already so many of them) and its based around Congress (this is the part that cracks me up)
But its also looking pretty fun, and at the very least, Im sure I can find someone else who sees the humor in the name, and we can laugh at it together.

its a great website, but ive seen a lot of what he has (not in exact wording) on a lot of other websites. possible they took it from him, but i saw the others first, so im biased. anyway, its ok he thinks his website is the best in the universe, cause he knows he is totally biased

lol, i hope other people got that

ok, im too lazy to read anybody’s postings of websites, so here goes……

CREATIONISM IS TOTALLY WRONG!!! EVOLUTION IS WHAT HAPPENED, DEAL WITH IT!!!

lol, thats probably a major grenade right there. o well

Falk, notice the line, attempted. He may not have ever succeeded. I think he probably did, but it doesnt matter.

Evilness is all in perspective, thats why its not really a good term. To the “evil” the “good” are the “evil” ones. So its not really an applicable term.
You can assume whatever you want, the fact is, you are wrong. I absolutely want a legal system, and you can ask me about it in another thread if you want, but I wholly (well, mostly at least) disagree with our current legal system, and if you continue falsely saying that i dont want any legal system, i will probably get pissed off to the point where i get myself banned again (uhoh, shouldnt have told you that)

Quote:
…but I would not abolish a legal system all together.
…
Oh, you mean like Iraq under Saddam’s rule?

Well, you can paint it pink if you want, and call it legal system.

First, just surrender the point. and second, did i miss something? paint it all pink and call it a legal system? WTF are you talking about? I think I must have missed a joke or something, because IDK WTF you are talking about with this.

LOL!
haxorboy wrote:

“Is that all you got, bring it on cuz we have the A Team and you suck”

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! I didnt even read the rest of your post! thats just too funny

yea, its mostly that, plus many do it just to avoid the inevitable hippies in America who protest depiction of the swastika because “it promotes naziism” yea right. anyway, Wolfenstein, for one, does depict swastikas, and other nazi symbols

semantics

CC, no I honestly do not care that I was lied to because I know that the American people are selfish, ignorant idiots when taken as a group, and often times even as individuals. The only thing that would gain their support for a war in Iraq, no matter how justified at the time (in my opinion at least) was to say there are WMD in Iraq, which there still may be, or may have been. It does seem very likely now that we have been lied to, but I personally dont care, because there is still a chance they were telling the truth, and I think the war was justified, WMD or not.

Falk, what we know Saddam has done is to invade Kuwait. Attempted to purchase materials to build nuclear weapons, violated UN decrees with his possession of missiles he should not have had, obstructed UN weapons inspectors, tortured countless citizens of his country, instructed his son (either Uday or Qusay, Im unable to recall which) to slaughter hundreds of Muslims (I think the shiites, my memory on the matter escapes me at the time), allowed his sons to torture, rape, and kill the people of his country at a whim.
What we can assume he has done, and what he has probably done is to aid and abeit terrorists and terrorist organizations, solicited and/or contributed to attacks on the US and other nations, obtain and hide WMD

Falk wrote

You don’t want any legal system, you want the strongest to be able to force its will onto others no matter what……

You are twisting my words. Ive never once argued against having a legal system of any kind, I just think our current system is BS. I would chance much of the current system if given the chance, but I would not abolish a legal system all together.

WHat kind of state would you like to live in, where the ones with power have ultimate power and the peole are nothing more than sheep to be slaughtered?

Oh, you mean like Iraq under Saddam’s rule?

And GWB is not much more like a little puppet.

Your DAMN RIGHT he is. He is absolutely a puppet. The other Republicans are running the show, GWB is like a decoy. You ever see Robin Williams Live on Broadway? Notice how GWB never speaks while Cheney is drinking water? and notice how Cheney was in the Bunker after 9-11 and GWB was out there? :)

But then, If you agree that Bush is a puppet, why does it matter whether or not he is an idiot? why attack Bush, when he is merely the puppet for others?

The difference being however that there is evidence supporting evolution

I dont think it matters whether or not the information about WMD was exaggerated, or even forged to justify a war, because i think that the need for justification was ridiculous. I think based on what we know Saddam has done, and what we can assume he has done, and also what we guess he has done, there was more than enough evidence to justify a war.