blungld;842613269 said:

---

It shouldn't puzzle you at all. It is a threatening device. Frankly they make me really uncomfortable. When Grandpa takes out his rifles, I leave the room. I was never a gun guy or a car guy. I can't relate to America's fascination with them and people's driving desire to wield them. I went to shooting ranges as a kid and have been around guns many times, and I always hated it and was more than a little disturbed by the other guys who were clearly getting off on the destruction and machismo (something gun enthusiast always want to balk at being part of the equation, but go to any place any person is shutting a gun and tell me honestly they are not having adrenaline rush and feeling like a "bad ass"). This is an area where many gun enthusiast are very disingenuous. They want to put forward their passion for guns and gun rights, but they will NOT cop to the place where that passion originates or how it is expressed as a very primal feeling of power, destruction, might, etc. They try and sit straight faced and talk calmly about responsible gun ownership and their detached joy of owning a gun, when their actual desire and experience handling the weapon is anything but dispassionate and entirely rational.

Maybe guns don't hold any iconic connotation of violence to you, but they certainly do culturally. They are a completely charged image. Look at 90% of movie posters, the omnipresence of guns, the position the gun is held, and who is holding it, all are signifiers. Guns are coded with meaning. In a film the moment a gun is drawn, it changes the scene. The camera and music react to it. We can't take our eye off of it. It holds emotional power. It immediately raises the stakes, drama, and heartbeat of the viewer.

Just because you may feel comfortable around guns does not mean that they don't have a huge visual power and are not deployed iconography with deep cultural/psychological significance throughout the world. So yes, the design, the firepower, and the firing rate are all part of the discussion to both limit the destructive power and the sexiness of violence. Copycat crimes ae not committed with pink pop guns, they are committed with what LOOKs military and bad ass. Cuz that's how the shooters want to feel.

---

+1

Not to mention that guns are created with one primary purpose: to kill. The same cannot be said of cars or knives.

Vandalus;842613283 said:

---

Please explain how you/we/trump/cruz would go about "bombing ISIS to hell in a week?" Would this bombing be indiscriminate, at the risk of killing hundreds of thousands of innocents? Millions?

Okay - so now it's done - we've carpet bombed them all to death. Now what? Wars over, no more worries for Americans? Does anyone on the ground get to survive? If so, what's to prevent the next generation from taking up the call to arms? Hell, we just bombed the hell out of them without a care in the world for whether the target was an extremist or just a regular guy. That seems to me to be pretty good motivation to want to kill Americans.

Perhaps we should just nuke them and be done with it, right? Great idea you got there.

---

smh. Then we can rest on our moral high ground on top of all those civilian bodies knowing that such genocide will not drive moderates into becoming extremist. Would we use the same tactics to deal with home grown terrorists in America?

calbear93;842613286 said:

---

smh. Then we can rest on our moral high ground on top of all those civilian bodies knowing that such genocide will not drive moderates into becoming extremist. Would we use the same tactics to deal with home grown terrorists in America?

---

What's your suggestion then? Do you agree that we should "bomb them to hell in a week" a la Ted Cruz's claim today that we should be carpet bombing them until the sand glows? Or do you disagree with such calls to violence?

SonOfCalVa;842613203 said:

---

In Eugene Burdick's first novel (Cal prof, Ugly American author) the Ninth Wave, he created a political campaign based on the social equation that Fear + Hate = Power ... precient.
Especially with the deadly duo of Trump and Cruz, they're pushing Fear, moving into Hate, which will give them Power.
Happened twice before, before my time: Germany against non-Aryans (Jews, Gypsies, etc) and HERE, Japanese internment camps.
Not calling Trumpet and Cruz "names" but the behavior seems very similar. Cruz is being cast as a more "moderate" Trump.
As Sinclair Lewis wrote: It Can Happen Here.

---

Correct. As an American and a Jew, I'm really alarmed by the increasingly extreme dialogue spewed by Trump and Cruz. I don't fear for myself, thankfully, but fear for the "other". Coincidentally, my wife is Nisei (First Generation Japanese-American), and all of my mother-in-law's friends who were born in the US were rounded up into the internment camps. My father, who served in WWII, frequently told me that aside from the holocaust, his greatest regret about WWII was Japanese American internment. If memory serves, Earl Warren was California Governor during the war and I believe his guilt and regret over participating in that program encouraged his bravery on the SCOTUS. These times are indeed scary. We haven't seen home-grown terrorism like this since The Depression, and that lead us to the shameful years of McCarthyism. Very scary indeed.

Vandalus;842613292 said:

---

What's your suggestion then? Do you agree that we should "bomb them to hell in a week" a la Ted Cruz's claim today that we should be carpet bombing them until the sand glows? Or do you disagree with such calls to violence?

---

I was shaking my head at the original suggestion that we pocket bomb an entire area populated by civilians to get rid of ISIS. If we do that, then we are not fighting ISIS on a moral basis but on a vengeance basis since we would be no better than them from a moral standpoint.

SonOfCalVa;842613284 said:

---

You are NUTZ

---

;This ^

calbear93;842613299 said:

---

I was shaking my head at the original suggestion that we pocket bomb an entire area populated by civilians to get rid of ISIS. If we do that, then we are not fighting ISIS on a moral basis but on a vengeance basis since we would be no better than them from a moral standpoint.

---

Gotcha. I wasn't sure if you were shaking your head at my post in condemnation of the "bomb everyone" line of thinking or the opposite.

calbear93;842613255 said:

---

Statements like these are so dishonest and disingenuous that you lose credibility. What Christian organization is currently promoting destruction of non-believers? Yes, there are soldiers who also happen to be Christians who are obligated to fight in wars engaged in by their country. We have US soldiers who are Muslims, who are Christians, who are Buddhist, and who are atheists who fight under the authority of our country to protect the interest of their fellow Americans. Are you seriously comparing them to ISIS? If not, what is your point? I don't know whether Islam promotes violence, but defending Muslims do not require you to be dishonest about Christianity. If someone who claims he is a Christian commits a criminal act, that makes the recording of a beheading of a fellow American by ISIS OK in your eyes? That makes Christianity and Islam one and the same? Or are you saying that ISIS is not a Muslim organization? Since there are atheist who kill as well, are atheist driven to kill for their lack of faith just like extreme Islamist are driven to kill for their faith? Are they one and the same? What really is your point? That Christians and atheists are no better than ISIS? No one quotes the New Testament as justification and authorization for killing. There may be people who claim to be Christians who commit horror, but not in the name of obeying the requirements of the New Testament.

Let's be honest. The most dangerous terrorist organizations are those who adopt an extreme interpretation of Islam. It doesn't mean that the crazies have not hijacked the religion but trying to besmirch Christianity to defend Islam is not going to make your defense any more convincing.

http://nationalinterest.org/feature/washington-watching-the-5-deadliest-terrorist-groups-the-11687

---

Yes, true points very well made. But this is counter to the "narrative".

Strykur;842613220 said:

---

People are really pissed off and we have a guy in the White House who resides in the satisfaction of his own inaction and self-serving platitudes rather than a decisive leader who is not afraid to make difficult if not questionable or perhaps even reprehensible decisions. We could bomb ISIS to hell in a week yet Obama is stuck on an island surrounded by the waters of rules of engagement and is afraid to dive in, for him he would rather do nothing than sink-or-swim. Trump is the exact opposite, he comes from a life of luxury but is also an experienced dealmaker who is not afraid to get his hands dirty or getting burned, he has a winner's mentality which is reflected in his brash and grandiose campaign flair. Clinton may be experienced and sensible but she is also part of the Washington elite and voters don't want another soft leader like Obama. I do not see her beating Trump unless she really shows assertion like we haven't seen before. Trump is the anti-Obama and voters will be looking for that in 2016.

---

Except that these same people were just as mad two months after his first election, when I was traveling through the red states. The President was a N*****,a Muslim, a socialist, a communist, the reason for the collapse of the economy, the man who signed TARP, not to mention the man who would take our guns away.

The hate existed long before he did had a staff in place.

NVBear78;842613307 said:

---

Yes, true points very well made. But this is counter to the "narrative".

---

Southern Baptists, and other Christians, endorsed slavery for centuries in this country. Of course, it was endorsed and condoned in our Constiution. Does that fit the "narrative" of Real America?

Bobodeluxe;842613334 said:

---

Except that these same people were just as mad two months after his first election, when I was traveling through the red states. The President was a N*****,a Muslim, a socialist, a communist, the reason for the collapse of the economy, the man who signed TARP, not to mention the man who would take our guns away.

The hate existed long before he did had a staff in place.

---

Not with people I knew, the many that didn't vote for him were pleased nevertheless that our nation had elected the first African American President.

However when the way he governed (knowingly telling untruths such as "if you like you insurance/doctor you can keep them, "we will be most transparent administration in history and will post all new Legislation on web for all to see in advance" combined with ramming through all legislation on strictly a partisan basis) became apparent people quickly became disenchanted.

Combined with Foreign Policy issues like turning his back on the Green Revolution in Iran but supporting the Muslim
Brotherhood in Egypt along with bailing completely on a stabilized Iraq has given rise to well reasoned people disagreeing vehemently with this presidents domestic and foreign policies.

Bobodeluxe;842613335 said:

---

Southern Baptists, and other Christians, endorsed slavery for centuries in this country. Of course, it was endorsed and condoned in our Constiution. Does that fit the "narrative" of Real America?

---

Not sure when "Southern Baptists" came into being but many, many abolitionists were Christians. Many gave their lives fighting against slavery in the Civil War. And this was the birth of the Republican Party.

calbear93;842613299 said:

---

I was shaking my head at the original suggestion that we pocket bomb an entire area populated by civilians to get rid of ISIS. If we do that, then we are not fighting ISIS on a moral basis but on a vengeance basis since we would be no better than them from a moral standpoint.

---

Hah, what foolishness. There is no moral high ground in war. Your dismay with vengeance would have made you a pacifist on December 8th, 1941:

Bobodeluxe;842613335 said:

---

Southern Baptists, and other Christians, endorsed slavery for centuries in this country. Of course, it was endorsed and condoned in our Constiution. Does that fit the "narrative" of Real America?

---

Christians endorsed slavery in the name of religion? What are you talking about? There may have been Christian slave owners and there were slaves when the books in the New Testament were written, but Christianity endorses slavery? Wow, this is Trump like twisting of facts. You should be ashamed.

No, Jesus didn't come to disrupt the social order as the Jews had wanted Him to do. The Jews thought that the Messiah would free them from the enslaving rule of the Roman empire. He instead taught to give to Caesar what is Caesar's because this is not our home and this is not our final destination. The point was that, whether you are a master or a slave, treat each other as brothers and sisters in Christ and find contentment in this lifetime and serve each other. Those who cared that deeply about whether someone was a slave or not a slave or saw the end goal of salvation as material blessings in this world (i.e., Joel Olsteen's "Your Best Life NOW") missed the point. In fact, one of the most touching epistles about forgiveness involves a master and a runaway slave (Philemon). God himself came to serve. Paul and each of the apostles lived in poverty, were imprisoned and, other than John (who was exiled on an island) served and were killed. Those were Jesus' closest friends. And they suffered gladly knowing that they had eternity of glory in God's presence. But that doesn't fit your narrative, so you claim that Christians and Christianity endorsed slavery. Just so you know, my friend, abolitionists were Christians, and the former slave owner who wrote Amazing Grace became an abolitionist after he became a Christian.

calbear93;842613354 said:

---

Christians endorsed slavery in the name of religion? What are you talking about? There may have been Christian slave owners and there were slaves when the books in the New Testament were written, but Christianity endorses slavery? Wow, this is Trump like twisting of facts. You should be ashamed.

No, Jesus didn't come to disrupt the social order as the Jews had wanted Him to do. The Jews thought that the Messiah would free them from the enslaving rule of the Roman empire. He instead taught to give to Caesar what is Caesar's because this is not our home and this is not our final destination. The point was that, whether you are a master or a slave, treat each other as brothers and sisters in Christ and find contentment in this lifetime and serve each other. Those who cared that deeply about whether someone was a slave or not a slave or saw the end goal of salvation as material blessings in this world (i.e., Joel Olsteen's "Your Best Life NOW") missed the point. In fact, one of the most touching epistles about forgiveness involves a master and a runaway slave (Philemon). God himself came to serve. Paul and each of the apostles lived in poverty, were imprisoned and, other than John (who was exiled on an island) served and were killed. Those were Jesus' closest friends. And they suffered gladly knowing that they had eternity of glory in God's presence. But that doesn't fit your narrative, so you claim that Christians and Christianity endorsed slavery. Just so you know, my friend, abolitionists were Christians, and the former slave owner who wrote Amazing Grace became an abolitionist after he became a Christian.

---

And today there is one ideology that in the form of ISIS practices slavery in the most horrific ways...

NVBear78;842613358 said:

---

And today there is one ideology that in the form of ISIS practices slavery in the most horrific ways...

---

Out of curiosity, where do you get your knowledge of Islam besides right-winged extremist websites?

Islam does not condone slavery.

ISIS partisans think they have the religious duty to kill or enslave members of the Yazidi community as part of their struggle [jihad] against their enemies.

This argument is plainly wrong, hypocritical and astonishingly ahistorical.

It is also an affront to right-thinking Muslims everywhere and a criminal perversion of Islamic law, particularly its primary source, the Quran

Jurists around the world acknowledge that there is now a universal consensus recognizing an irrefutable human right to be free from slavery and slave-trading.

This right, like the rights to be free from genocide, torture, racial discrimination and piracy, has become a bedrock principle of human affairs. ISIS seeks to remove Islamic jurisprudence from this universal consensus by citing Quranic verses that recognize the existence of chattel slavery.

Citation to Quranic verses on chattel slavery at first blush seems to make this point because the Quran, like other religious texts, accepted the existence of chattel slavery as a fact of life at the time of its revelation.

It is also true, however, that the Quran established an entirely new ethic on the issue of slavery and ISIS's selective use of certain Quranic texts to justify contemporary chattel slavery ignores this fact.
First, consistent with the new ethic, the emphasis in all of the revelations on slavery is on the emancipation of slaves, not on their capture or the continuation of the institution of slavery.

There is not one single verse suggesting that the practice should continue. Further, the Quran makes no mention of slave-markets or slave-trading and it repeatedly exhorts believers to free their slaves as an exemplification of their piety and belief in God.

Out of curiosity, what does the Bible say about Slavery?

MiZery;842613371 said:

---

Out of curiosity, where do you get your knowledge of Islam besides right-winged extremist websites?

Islam does not condone slavery.

ISIS partisans think they have the religious duty to kill or enslave members of the Yazidi community as part of their struggle [jihad] against their enemies.

This argument is plainly wrong, hypocritical and astonishingly ahistorical.

It is also an affront to right-thinking Muslims everywhere and a criminal perversion of Islamic law, particularly its primary source, the Quran

Jurists around the world acknowledge that there is now a universal consensus recognizing an irrefutable human right to be free from slavery and slave-trading.

This right, like the rights to be free from genocide, torture, racial discrimination and piracy, has become a bedrock principle of human affairs. ISIS seeks to remove Islamic jurisprudence from this universal consensus by citing Quranic verses that recognize the existence of chattel slavery.

Citation to Quranic verses on chattel slavery at first blush seems to make this point because the Quran, like other religious texts, accepted the existence of chattel slavery as a fact of life at the time of its revelation.

It is also true, however, that the Quran established an entirely new ethic on the issue of slavery and ISIS's selective use of certain Quranic texts to justify contemporary chattel slavery ignores this fact.
First, consistent with the new ethic, the emphasis in all of the revelations on slavery is on the emancipation of slaves, not on their capture or the continuation of the institution of slavery.

There is not one single verse suggesting that the practice should continue. Further, the Quran makes no mention of slave-markets or slave-trading and it repeatedly exhorts believers to free their slaves as an exemplification of their piety and belief in God.

Out of curiosity, what does the Bible say about Slavery?

---

Didn't you read about the poor American woman held as a captive slave by ISIS. Even the NYT covered that.

mvargus;842612929 said:

---

You do realize that Muslims conquered most of North Africa, Spain and nearly reached Austria in their drive through Eastern Europe. That was an aggressive war of expansion. Yes, there are those who now claim that fighting is only to be in defense of Islam, but anyone who studies the history of Islam and the Koran understand that the religion does allow and encourage wars of conquest.

Even during the establishment of the religion the followers were warlike. Its' hard to be 100% sure of anything since there is no contemporary written accounts, but most accounts suggest that after Mohammed was kicked out of Mecca and went to Medina he organized some of the tribes and took to raiding caravans to fund the new religion. (He had worked on caravans and would have known where and how to attack.) He also eventually ordered that the Jews in Medina be purged after initially allowing them to live in peace. At least there are tales that suggest that is what happened. Neither was an act of defense of Islam.

And those accounts are used by Muslims to show that war is allowed. However, its also not really discussed with anyone outside the religion, you have to dig hard to discover these tales.

---

Thi is absolutely incorrect, where do you get your information from?

MiZery;842613376 said:

---

Thi is absolutely incorrect, where do you get your information from?

---

Multiple accounts report this history. Is there something specific you disagree with?

NVBear78;842613128 said:

---

It is a myth that Muhammed and Muslims only fight in defense.

---

Oh yeah? Give me an example of a battle in which the Islamic army were on the offense and why they attacked? In fact Islam spreading by the sword is the biggest misnomer by conservatives...

Vandalus;842613283 said:

---

Please explain how you/we/trump/cruz would go about "bombing ISIS to hell in a week?" Would this bombing be indiscriminate, at the risk of killing hundreds of thousands of innocents? Millions?

Okay - so now it's done - we've carpet bombed them all to death. Now what? Wars over, no more worries for Americans? Does anyone on the ground get to survive? If so, what's to prevent the next generation from taking up the call to arms? Hell, we just bombed the hell out of them without a care in the world for whether the target was an extremist or just a regular guy. That seems to me to be pretty good motivation to want to kill Americans.

Perhaps we should just nuke them and be done with it, right? Great idea you got there.

---

Bombing them is the easy part but they occupy territory and have to be removed; that would be relatively easy too. What's difficult is who then occupies and governs that region; it can't be us (again); it would have to be a moderate Sunni group to replace ISIS. Which means you need an Arab army to fight along the West. Bush 1 could have pulled this off but he's the last President who could. Since the actions of Bush 2 and Obama largely created ISIS, we don't have the knowledge, leadership or the will.

calbear93;842613171 said:

---

I agree with you, and that is the reason why presidential elections are usually led by the more moderate candidates. Yet, for some reason, we seem to be at risk of selecting extreme candidates on both sides (Trump/Cruz and Sanders) in the primary.

---

I have yet to see anything about Sanders that is other than confluent with positions with which major American majorities would agree if presented neutrally in a poll context. The idea that there is an actual left in this country, let alone an extreme left, is laughable. It's getting to the point where positions that are sane and reasonable are labeled extreme left (because there is nothing to the left of them, and no reasonable way of attacking them).

MiZery;842613380 said:

---

Oh yeah? Give me an example of a battle in which the Islamic army were on the offense and why they attacked? In fact Islam spreading by the sword is the biggest misnomer by conservatives...

---

Muslim conquest of Persia/Iran

mikecohen;842613402 said:

---

I have yet to see anything about Sanders that is other than confluent with positions with which major American majorities would agree if presented neutrally in a poll context. The idea that there is an actual left in this country, let alone an extreme left, is laughable. It's getting to the point where positions that are sane and reasonable are labeled extreme left (because there is nothing to the left of them, and no reasonable way of attacking them).

---

+1. In England, Sanders (whom I support) would, at best, be a very middle of the road member of the Labor party. US politics has moved so far to the right that moderate positions, such as acknowledging the demand side of economics and implementing policies that enable demand, are laughably called leftist.

NVBear78;842613378 said:

---

Multiple accounts report this history. Is there something specific you disagree with?

---

Yes pretty much all of the battles. Example, the Jews of Medina.

As soon as Prophet emigrated to Madina, he established the Constitution of Madina. It was the first multicultural, multi-religion constitution in the world that gave everyone equal rights, including the Jews. It gave legal autonomy and the right to practice one's own religion freely. It required a commitment to defend the city of Madina against external aggression.

The Prophet upheld both the letter and spirit of this agreement. Even non-Muslim scholars, such as Montgomery Watts, never mention that the Prophet betrayed his agreements. In fact, it was the other way around; other parties committed acts that were contrary to the agreement. This occurred on more than one occasion. Penalty was imposed but only to the specific group of people who committed the offense. Had it been applied to all, one could suspect group bias, such as anti-Semitism. However, that was not the case.

Furthermore, the punishment was always proportionate to the offense that was committed. Uncovering a Muslim woman was different to conspiring to kill the Prophet, and such actions were handled in different manners.

The ultimate betrayal occurred in the Battle of the Trench, when a group of Jews from Madina contacted the enemy, renounced the constitution of Madinah, and helped the enemy during war against Madinah. In modern times, this is referred to as high treason at the time of war.

Penalty was imposed but it was not the Prophet's sentence. The people of Banu Quraiza had their own arbitrator. He ruled according to the law of the Torah, which specifies killing of men for treason. The Prophet simply agreed with his sentence. To say that the Prophet massacred Jews is therefore a distortion of historical facts.

Islam was never spread by the sword. This is a very persistent myth that continues to pop up. There is no historical record of this happening. It is true that under the Ottoman Empire may non-Muslim nations came under Rule of the Ottomans, but many people in those nations retained their traditional religion. Even Spain when under the Rule of Muslims kept a very large Catholic Majority.

Conversion by the sword is a tactic that has never worked for any religion. It is impossible to keep the populace from eventually revolting.

While Jizyah taxes ended over 100 years ago, in favor of a more simplified tax system, talk of it still is a common topic on Anti-Islamic sites.

What is unfair about Jizyah? It was often less that the Zakat (charity) paid by Muslims. Plus it was only collected from healthy, military fit males. In exchange they were exempt from military duty. This was not an additional taz. If they had desired they could have paid the higher Zakat and served in the military. but most chose to pay the lesser Jizyah and not serve in the military.

In fact if you want to hear of forced conversions. What happened to jews and Muslims during the Spanish inquisition?

If there were forced conversions, why are there millions of Christians in the middle east? Why was the Jewish golden age under islamic rule?

GB54;842613182 said:

---

It would help. The other problem is that both parties have become more restricted ideologically, to the point that they are adopting positions that are barriers to entry. No Republican can support gun control or more access to abortion now; likewise no Democrat can support less gun control or call for less abortions. But in fact these positions are just representative of the loyalists who vote in primaries not necessarily representative of how people think; the country has a much more nuanced view of these things. I would welcome more democracy-open primaries, less or no party affiliation, maybe even proportional representation that might lead to more splintering but also more more participation as the two parties need to be disrupted. In fact, this is the one good thing I see out of the Trump candidacy-it represents a total rejection of the party and its leaders.

---

"no Democrat can call for less abortions". This is absolutely nuts. Widely held, if not mainstream, Republican absolutist positions on birth control and abortion, coupled with parallel positions against sex education in local school boards where Republican thought dominates, plus wildly inadequate institutions for adoption of needy children, essentially guarantees more abortions. NOBODY LIKES ABORTION, OR CALLS FOR MORE OF THEM, and to suggest otherwise is inane. The labels on this dispute represent a massive political failure on the part of people who advocate for reasonable sexual and reproductive policy, essentially because these labels completely fail to deal with the moral imperatives that face women when giving birth presents a circumstance of great harm to many - a reality in the modern world which the opponents of sexual education, moral un-absolutism, birth control, etc., deny with the force of burying one's head in the sand in the middle of railroad tracks, refusing the see or hear the real forces that destroy people's lives; and the worst thing about the debate is the failure to recognize that the anti-abortion side of it is so strongly advocating that the government constitute the arbiter of morality in these complicated moral scenarios, with essentially an on/off CRIMINAL switch. This is so ugly it is almost un-speakable. But, in the context, in which this dialog takes place, what the discussion perhaps most pertinently represents is the attempt of people taking extreme, un-human positions to try to suggest that there is a balancing "extreme" on an imagined, but non-existent dialectic opposite to what is essentially a Fascistic position (i.e., one which cannot even cognize, let alone tolerate, any other position).

Cal_Fan2;842613404 said:

---

Muslim conquest of Persia/Iran

---

Thats why there's millions of christians there right?

MiZery;842613411 said:

---

Thats why there's millions of christians there right?

---

You asked someone to name one and I did. LOL....... Not to worry, you guys seem to be having so much fun expounding your biases I thought I'd at least get one question right.

Cal_Fan2;842613412 said:

---

You asked someone to name one and I did. LOL.......

---

It wasn't by force or by sword. In fact, the non Muslims were able to florish inder Muslim rule. The conversions to Islam by locals was eventual..proving that they weren't forced.

Quran says no religion by compulsion.

Strykur;842613220 said:

---

People are really pissed off and we have a guy in the White House who resides in the satisfaction of his own inaction and self-serving platitudes rather than a decisive leader who is not afraid to make difficult if not questionable or perhaps even reprehensible decisions. We could bomb ISIS to hell in a week yet Obama is stuck on an island surrounded by the waters of rules of engagement and is afraid to dive in, for him he would rather do nothing than sink-or-swim. Trump is the exact opposite, he comes from a life of luxury but is also an experienced dealmaker who is not afraid to get his hands dirty or getting burned, he has a winner's mentality which is reflected in his brash and grandiose campaign flair. Clinton may be experienced and sensible but she is also part of the Washington elite and voters don't want another soft leader like Obama. I do not see her beating Trump unless she really shows assertion like we haven't seen before. Trump is the anti-Obama and voters will be looking for that in 2016.

---

My God! Don't you realize that the attitude you espouse, in the form of the invasion of Iraq, is directly responsible for at least hundreds of thousands of deaths and maimings, plus the internal and external displacement of literally millions of people, and the opening of the Pandora's Box of the Muslim version of the Catholic/Protestant religious wars in the European past (in all the numerous forms we see it taking now in the Middle East) -- i.e., mass suffering on a scale not seen since WWII, which entirely didn't need to happen at all. I humbly believe that the argument that this is preferable to the even ugly imperfection which it displaced, or indeed that it has any acceptable justification, is immoral.

blungld;842613269 said:

---

It shouldn't puzzle you at all. It is a threatening device. Frankly they make me really uncomfortable. When Grandpa takes out his rifles, I leave the room. I was never a gun guy or a car guy. I can't relate to America's fascination with them and people's driving desire to wield them. I went to shooting ranges as a kid and have been around guns many times, and I always hated it and was more than a little disturbed by the other guys who were clearly getting off on the destruction and machismo (something gun enthusiast always want to balk at being part of the equation, but go to any place any person is shutting a gun and tell me honestly they are not having adrenaline rush and feeling like a "bad ass"). This is an area where many gun enthusiast are very disingenuous. They want to put forward their passion for guns and gun rights, but they will NOT cop to the place where that passion originates or how it is expressed as a very primal feeling of power, destruction, might, etc. They try and sit straight faced and talk calmly about responsible gun ownership and their detached joy of owning a gun, when their actual desire and experience handling the weapon is anything but dispassionate and entirely rational.

Maybe guns don't hold any iconic connotation of violence to you, but they certainly do culturally. They are a completely charged image. Look at 90% of movie posters, the omnipresence of guns, the position the gun is held, and who is holding it, all are signifiers. Guns are coded with meaning. In a film the moment a gun is drawn, it changes the scene. The camera and music react to it. We can't take our eye off of it. It holds emotional power. It immediately raises the stakes, drama, and heartbeat of the viewer.

Just because you may feel comfortable around guns does not mean that they don't have a huge visual power and are not deployed iconography with deep cultural/psychological significance throughout the world. So yes, the design, the firepower, and the firing rate are all part of the discussion to both limit the destructive power and the sexiness of violence. Copycat crimes ae not committed with pink pop guns, they are committed with what LOOKs military and bad ass. Cuz that's how the shooters want to feel.

---

Really well said.

sycasey;842613285 said:

---

+1

Not to mention that guns are created with one primary purpose: to kill. The same cannot be said of cars or knives.

---

I've been struck recently by how, in the old cowboy movies of the 30s and 40s, fights would regularly break out among characters and/or mobs of characters all wearing 6-guns, and nobody draws.

MiZery;842613415 said:

---

It wasn't by force or by sword. In fact, the non Muslims were able to florish inder Muslim rule. The conversions to Islam by locals was eventual..proving that they weren't forced.

Quran says no religion by compulsion.

---

Ok, if you say so. I looked it up and it seems like there were invading armies, battles and raids on villages by Arab Muslims. Guess they didn't use swords and fought hand to hand. Never knew that. Invasion and conquest, to me, usually includes battles and such....oh well, I guess peaceful invasion is better.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muslim_conquest_of_Persia

MiZery;842613415 said:

---

It wasn't by force or by sword. In fact, the non Muslims were able to florish inder Muslim rule. The conversions to Islam by locals was eventual..proving that they weren't forced.

Quran says no religion by compulsion.

---

And you really believe this, you have great faith.

Strykur;842613348 said:

---

Hah, what foolishness. There is no moral high ground in war. Your dismay with vengeance would have made you a pacifist on December 8th, 1941:

---

Given that my grandfather was a pearl harbor survivor, earning a purple heart for his efforts, I resent the implication that the threat to our national security that we are facing now is anywhere near as significant as what the Axis represented in WWII.