Phillep says:

You are making your insults meaningless by making everything morally equivalent, no matter that one thing is horrible and the other frivolous.

You do remember how “panties on head” were “torture”, right? So, the natural result of that was a poll showing that most US citizens thought “torture” was okay. After all, water boarding, feeding people feet first into shredders, feeding people to starving dogs, and drilling holes in them with hand drills are all “morally equivalent” to something as frivolous as “panties on head”.

Huh. “Shallow”.

JPV says:

gquaglia said

#5 with all due respect, you are wrong. Islamic rule of the world is the ultimate goal. We could pull everyone out and it wouldn’t make a lick of difference.

—–

You, just like the vast majority of Americans, are a complete and utter moron.

FuZ3 says:

Terrorists fight because the hate something. Freedom fighters fight because they love something.

bobbo says:

Yea, well, even things that are very different from one another can have points in common.

When the commonalities are more important than the differences, then it is fair to say they are “the same” at least for those commonalities.

What is not accurate is to say any two things that share some common elements are the same for all their characteristics.

You will find this logical error in just about every argument that starts without defining its terms.

Happens all the time.

pjakobs says:

on telling the difference: I saw a TV programme here in Germany the other day with the title “Ben or Bin”. They had quotes from Ben(edict, the current pope) and Bin (Ladin). It was quite amazing how little the two differ in their judgement of the state of the western society.

But who would be amazed by that, after all, Ben was heading the organization that used to be the spanish inquisition before becoming pope.

pj

Guido says:

#22: Ariana Huffington is a hideous old hag.

As for this article: It’s nice to see that intellectual rationalization is alive and well.

I expect better of you Mr. Dvorak.

pedro says:

#29 yeah, just two years ago the inquisition was still running.

Mister Catshit says:

#21 Philleep,

The short answer is yes, you are shallow.

The longer answer takes a deeper reply. I’ll type slow as I understand you don’t read very fast. It is OK to move your lips.

In #19, you wrote:

Everyone is a terrorist, so no one is a terrorist, so it makes no difference at all if anyone blows up a bunch of people?

If you are the parent, child, sibling, neighbor, or whatever of the person killed, does it matter if the cause was a child with explosives strapped to his body or a 500 kg bomb dropped from a F-16? The end result is the same. Another innocent life taken because of someone else. Not many people jump up and down for joy because their mother was killed by those fighting for a good cause.

Would it make any difference if the US government is killing a bunch of people? Wheee.

They and their friends, the Israelis, do with impunity. They do it under the banner of “freedom”. The lives of the people they conquered mean nothing. So I guess the “freedom” only applies to them.

In #21, you wrote:

You do remember how “panties on head” were [sic] “torture”, right? So, the natural result of that was a poll showing that most US citizens thought “torture” was okay.

Panties on the head was just one thing. I don’t recall anyone suggesting that in itself amounted to torture. It was degrading and extremely insulting to the prisoners. It was classified as abuse.

What was classified as torture was the snarling dogs inches from the prisoners faces. Forcing prisoners to make human pyramids while naked. Putting them into cold cells without clothing or blankets. Taping wires to their genitals then making them stand with their arms outstretched or they would be zapped. Forcing prisoners to have sex with each other. Sodomizing boys. Making women strip in front of men.

Nor do I ever recall US citizens thinking torture was ever “OK”. Torture has always been anathema to Americans, in fact, to the whole civilized world.

After all, water boarding, feeding people feet first into shredders, feeding people to starving dogs, and drilling holes in them with hand drills are all “morally equivalent” to something as frivolous as “panties on head”.

As I pointed out, the “panties” episode is abuse. Only you and the other shallow people equate it as torture and therefore allowable. Maybe the question should be where is the line between abuse and torture. If it was that offensive to your culture and beliefs, then maybe it is torture.