What dodge? The post right above states that the Israeli gang ought to leave the Palestinian people alone. Accusations are not ad hominem, FYI.
Really? So what do you think it means when I say that the Israeli gang is an aggressor against the Palestinians? What a liar you are.
Nah, I’ve given up on the mods acting when they didn’t act against your blatant and disgusting insults toward Malachi. “Fucking cunt” really doesn’t belong on this forum. I’m quite dissapointed that no action was taken against you for that. Maybe I should just pm Daniel James Sanchez directly? Would that make you happy?
No. There is nothing wrong with condemning the Israeli gang. My problem is with you hating Jews. Remember when I asked who you were referring to and you got all snarky and started calling Malachi a “fucking cunt”?
Yeah. You hate Jews.
What can I say? You like to contradict yourself. Like, how about this:
When I say: Yet whenever you can, you make disgusting comments such as the Israeli gang being the aggressor, as if the Palestininian gangs are not aggressors.
You say: Because they are under a military occupation. I see a hard time thinking that they can be aggressors if they are throwing rocks at tanks…
Come on. Really? Because that’s clearly what we were talking about…You tried to deflect the murder of innocent Jews into self-defense against aggressors…Jewish civilians != soldiers in tanks.
Nice try, Aristophanes.
It’s been real. I’m going to bed. I have work to do tomorrow.
ahahahahaaahahahah Not one time have I said anything even close to that. You simply have no arguments, so you retreat into accusations of racism. I don’t even use “Jew” or “Jewish” to describe Israel or the occupiers. I refer to the State of Israel. Every time. Call me a “jew hater” all you want, I don’t care. I know better.
_**
You pretend that Israeli tanks somehow aren’t killing civilians. it is only car bombs from those dirty arabs that kill civilians.
Does Noam Chomsky hate Jews? (You can start at minute 38:00 to get his view of terrorism and aggression.)
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that this debate is in a thread titled ‘What is wrong with this forum?’. Come on, ‘Jew hater’, really?? I agree with Aristophanes here and my girlfriend is Jewish. Checkmate. (Sorry I couldnt resist stooping to your level of argumentation)
EDIT: Also being atheist does not mean you can’t be considered Jewish at the same time.
Weird, I was just thinking this to myself. I suppose this is just one of those issues that even the normally reasonable can let emotion take over.
While I agree that both sides act as aggressors against innocent civilians, and am against the idea of any state, it seems that the state “in charge” (Israel) gets cut a lot more slack from the western world for its atrocities and the atrocities committed by the Palestinians is highlighted, even though it would seem that the Israeli military, in weaponry, collateral damage, injuries, and deaths seems to be more egregious in its aggression than the Palestinians, who are not free of guilt and are worthy of criticism, as well.
Finally a bit of history revisionism. True or false you tell me? This guy does appear to have an agenda or an axe to grind, but it realy is an interesting discussion.
All the history aside, Israeli state is a relatively new creation that i could never agree with under any circumstances and that does not mean i am siding with Palestinians or Islam. In fact I am against Islam and all religions and would like for all religions to be eradicated, that however does not mean that I support ethnic cleansing or segregation or the destruction of peoples property.
Of course, if Israel were in private hands (as parts of it were, de facto, in the last years of the British Empire’s occupation):
Arabs would leave it alone.
If they didn’t, private land owners wouldn’t respond to aggression with military force (resulting in collateral damage). They would use really strong language and feather dusters.
Why did you decide to bring Noam Chomsky? Oh, because he is Jewish, and Jews don’t hate other Jews? You’ve never heard of ‘self-hating Jews’, have you?
I was going to write a reply, but then my laptop’s battery ran out (seems to be a common theme, but not the forum’s fault).
The gist is that Israel has its share of problems because it is a schizophrenic Jewish democracy (the fact that it is Jewish makes it more schizophrenic, because everyone thinks he is right, and everyone else is an idiot). It tries to be democratic, but ‘Jewish’ (whatever that means; since the politicians are not, sadly, religious fanatics, they don’t really know themselves). It tries to be civil, but based on Jewish religious values. Etc. But in that, it is not different from the rest of the democracies, who by their nature are self-contradictory and schizophrenic, each in its own way (just look at the mess in Germany, where citizens have to pay a church tax, but if they don’t, they are banned from attending churches).
But, I just don’t see what private land ownership would change, except speed things up in the way of destroying the belligerent fuckers surrounding Israel. The ‘settlers’ have been living in the ‘territories’ for centuries, or at least for decades. That land did not belong to anyone in particular before they settled, much of it was desert, which they turned into gardens. One would imagine that a libertarian be on the side of the settlers, but no. States are fucking their citizens all over the world, and Israel is actually one of the more benign ones, but there is this strange fascination with the little strip of land in the Middle East.
So, I have no idea who is an anti-semite or what. It just smells a little funny. I just don’t see many libertarians constantly criticizing UK and being on the side of the ‘real IRA’.
So, what would be your response if your daughter was blown up going to school in a bus by Native American Liberation Front whose goal is to get the disease-ridden Europeans off their ancestral lands (to which they actually have a good claim) and dismantle the White ‘settlements’ all over N. and S. America?
I agree that mods should had done something about this as it makes the forum look bad. At the same time I think the reason you’re infuriated with Aristophanes’ posting isn’t his unnaceptably liberal use of profanities, but because of positions he stakes out.
Ah, but you forget about human action my friend. We do not have to elect to support simply certain organizations or persons. We may support certain actions and causes of organizations and peoples. Aristophanes may easily choose to support not the PLO, but only the Palestianian cause the PLO claims to be struggling for along with some of its actions (not all of them) and remain a perfectly tidy libertarian.
Strange how I never felt he needed to clarify anything as he had been perfectly clear from the start. He said “the racist demons running the state of Israel”. So it is clear who he did mean and who he did not mean. I do not believe every single Israeli is in the business of running the state of Israel.
Aristophanes has a point here. He uses profanities, but your accusing him of racism is much worse because it is dishonest and because of the consequence it could have. Him using a profanity just makes him look silly, but unjustly branding a person a racist could create real problems for them. Just because he stakes out a position you do not like and is passionate about it does not somehow prove he is a racist.
It does not sound to me like you would be terribly interested in discovering a competing interpretation like that.
That isn’t a valid argument. You can not complain that someone makes the argument A, without also making the argument B alongside it. Some kind of demand to only be able to criticize Israel when one also criticizes the PLO and to the exact same extent is very silly. (So I couldn’t criticize Romney/Johnson without also criticizing Johnson/Romney even if I really wanted to write about just the one on this particular day?) Also to do so would make one’s critiques completly irrelevant as Rothbard warned when he wrote against sectarianism and irrelevancy in the War Guilt in the Middle East.
Since he readily conceeds the point Palestians are guilty of some aggression, he probably used it as a shorthand simplification since ‘in virtually every war, one side is far more guilty than the other, and on one side must be pinned the basic responsibility for aggression’.
I think more comparable scenario would be if Germans expelled from Silesia and Eastern Pomerania in 1945, which are now in Poland, would be blowing up civilian buses in these two regions. Would this be justified as a way to try to get ridd of squatters from their land they were forcefully driven off from, since it is obvious that no lesser use of force is ever going to work? Is it OK to use explosives to blow up a squatter who is occupying your land if there is absolutely no other way of getting rid of them? Well that is a more philosophical-ethical question, but I think your answer should be the same for both cases. On the practical side we may ask how come the Germans are not doing this? Is it because, they are not primitive savages as some have suggested the Palestians are, or is because the Poles are content to occupy only the regions they gained and cleansed in 1945 and are not maintaining the occupation of Germany beyond the Oder river so as to be preventing real German statehood even in the cut-down Germany?
Warning: Long post ahead! For any who are interested, this is the thread that started it all. Also, I am uncensoring Aristophanes’ posts. He edited them later, but I am uncensoring them so that you can better see understand my point of view:
Actually, it’s the fact that he used profanities and insults and a distraction of grammar from my original question that caused me to believe that he is an antisemite.
First, I would like to repost a post I wrote last year. I did not expect any of you to be familiar with it or go out of your way to search for my viewpoints on this matter, but I would like you all to see what my beliefs on the subject have been:
So, I would like to point out that I have actually been consistent on these forums about condemning both the Israeli and Palestinian gangs. And this was from a thread more than a year ago, not from just a week ago.
Second, I would like to point out that when Clayton was talking about circumcision, I did not ever accuse him of antisemitism nor did I suspect him of that. The reason is that Clayton was very clear as to why he was against it. When I asked him and critiqued his position, he did not create a smokescreen to hide behind. He was blunt and honest about why he believes what he does, and his reasons have absolutely nothing to do with Jews and everything to do with the practice in itself.
So, it seems some of you think that I think Aristophanes is an antisemite because he is against the state of Israel. Well, I’m against the state of Israel, and I’m not an antisemite. So, why do I think Aristophanes is an antisemite? Let’s look at the exchange that started this whole absurdity:
My response:
Now, you might wonder why I asked this question. Well, I have no real problem with the first part. It might not be true. After all, the rulers of Israel might not actually hate Palestinians…they might just use them as a scapegoat for justifying many of the actions they do (such as expanding settlements). But, I think Aristophanes is correct. I do think that many of the rulers of Israel are racists and demons.
So, why would I ask him to clarify? Because of the following sentence: “They deserve what they get”. To me, that seemed like a red flag. Who deserves what they get? After all, most of the Israeli victims of Palestinian violence are probably Israeli civilians. To be clear, I am not saying that no Palestinian violence is justified. I am saying that out of all the violence done by the various Palestinians, it’s been my understanding that the people on the receiving end were mostly Israeli civilians, not Israeli soldiers or politicians. Perhaps that is incorrect, but it is why I asked for Aristophanes to clarify.
So, while Aristophanes set off a red flag in my head, I had not accused him of anything. You see, what I actually did was give him the benefit of the doubt and asked him what he meant.
Now, let’s look at the response I got from Aristophanes:
Okay…Really? Was that the appropriate response to my question? Keep in mind I had not accused him of anything. Anyway, Malachi responed to Aristophanes with this:
And then I responded with this:
This is Aristophanes’ uncensored response:
Let’s examine this post. Okay, so of course Aristophanes starts off with the insults. Let’s move past that to his response to what I wrote. When I said the “state” can refer to a great many things, what did Aristophanes do? Did he define what he meant by state? No, he absolutely did not. Instead, he decided to insult my understanding of grammar.
So, I have now asked him twice, and he has twice refused to answer my question. Now, you might say, “But look, gotlucky! Aristophanes did say ‘They refers to those that run the state of Israel.’” But here’s the thing, that’s not what my question was. Aristophanes said “they” deserve what they get, so that’s why I wanted to know who he was referring to with the term “state”. But hell, Malachi could be right, that Aristophanes considers anyone who pays taxes to the Israeli government to be included in that.
That is precisely why I asked him what he meant by what he said. I did not expect to be insulted and have him hide his beliefs behind a smokescreen.
Anyway, in one of Aristophanes following responses, he says:
Okay, so Aristophanes is making this more about grammar. “They” referred to “racists and demons” and not “the state”. Who cares? It’s not at all answering my question! I want to know who he considers to deserve what they get!
Now, I am not going to repost every post from the lovely yet irrelevant debate about grammar between Malachi and Aristophanes. But, I think this one deserves to be reposted:
Let’s examine this one. Aristophanes said this verbatim: "The straight fact is that the people in the US and Israel are to a level responsible for what their states have done. Brainwashing and all that shit aside, they all vote. They all place the leaders into power regardless of the structure of elites that help influence it. Being petty has its price. I cannot wait until interest rates rise.
Then the people in the US might learn a fucking lesson."
So, Marko, perhaps you can see why I would want Aristophanes to clarify? So “the people in the US and Israel are to a level responsible for what their states have done”? Interesting. So, does that mean that the Israeli civilians ought to be counted among those that get what they deserve?
Perhaps you are beginning to see why my question was not so silly?
Oh, and of course Aristophanes is still hiding behind the grammar of it all. I mean, come on. Malachi, that “sleazy truck stop educated ass” as Aristophanes so classlessly put, was able to understand the purpose of my question. Why couldn’t this genius figure it out?
Anyway, let’s move on to what I said:
Now for Aristophanes’ response:
AHA! Now we see that all along Aristophanes claimed to know what the purpose of my question was. He just knew it all along? Okay, so then why wouldn’t he just clarify what he meant? I don’t see Clayton pull this nonsense. I don’t see you, Marko, pull this crap either. And of course, in a later post, Aristophanes insinuates the possibility that he has been trolling me.
As I have no explained above, that is not why I asked Aristophanes to clarify. I asked him to clarify because of his statement regarding certain people getting what they deserve. I wanted to know who those certain people were.
I will not accuse you of dishonesty even though I think you are mistaken. I do not think you read the thread that sparked this ridiculousness. As I have now pointed out above, what lead me to believing that Aristophanes is an antisemite is the fact that he delibrately created a smokescreen so as to not respond to my question.
Then again, perhaps he was trolling me as he insinuated. But then he really shouldn’t cry foul, as he would have delibrately gone out of his way to make it seem that he was an antisemite so as to call me out for false accusations.
I gave Aristophanes the benefit of the doubt originally. He abused that by thoroughly insulting both me and Malachi. I’m done giving him the benefit of the doubt.
It is true that one does not have to criticize both at the same time. I viewed his criticisms as additional signals to his previous behavior.
Again, normally I would give someone the benefit of the doubt, but after Aristophanes’ massive tangents about grammar, I decided to take him at his written word.
Regarding Rothbard, you will note that Rothbard states “thus launching a series of aggressions against the Arabs of the Middle East.” He does not say that the state of Israel is the aggressor. He states that the state of Israel is an aggressor.
Anyway, this is my last post in this thread. The point of this post was to explain why I believe that Aristophanes is either an antisemite or a troll. Obviously, you all may disagree, but I will emphasize that it was absolutely not because Aristophanes criticizes the state of Israel. Aristophanes’ general behavior is what lead me to believe it. If any of you want to PM me about it, that is fine. But I think I will not fuel this anymore in public. Obviously, Aristophanes can have the last word in public on this matter.
“So “the people in the US and Israel are to a level responsible for what their states have done”? Interesting. So, does that mean that the Israeli civilians ought to be counted among those that get what they deserve?”
Perhaps. And so what? The civilians who have given popular support to an aggressor state, and thus, according to Aristophanes, deserve to suffer, happen to be Jewish. That does not mean they deserve to suffer because they are Jewish.
You are going through an awful lot of trouble to connect non-anti-semitic dots to make an anti-semitic picture. Unless someone actually says anti-semitic things, it is not okay to smear them as an anti-semite here.
You seem to be under impression that the ‘settlers’ are living on the land, on which private Arabs used to live. That’s not true. They live on the land that Arab government claimed as its own that Israeli government started claiming as its own after it expanded its ‘borders’ in a defensive war. Government claims (which are of no concern to the libertarians) aside, the lands on which the settlements are built were ownerless. They had never been homesteaded before the settlers came. Bedouins (nomads) claimed them as their own, but in the sense that they allowed their camels and livestock eat the grass on a given spot and then would move on, coming back in five years. I.e., it was a typical statist claim, the same way that France claimed ‘Louisiana’ as belonging to the French king.
This is quite different from coming and kicking out Silezian Germans out of their houses and allowing Poles to settle in the same houses (or on the same land).
East Jerusalem is the only exception to the above, but that’s a whole another story.
You seem to be under the impression I’m talking about the 500,000 Jewish settlers in the West Bank. Actually, I’m talking about the 5 million Jewish settlers in Israel proper.
Whose land are they living on? Most of the lands were privately bought by Jews before 1948 or were ownerless (‘publicly owned’ as pro-Arab web-sites call them).
(I am not talking about E. Jerusalem and the few villages in which documented displacement has happened.)
Some from Arabs and some, presumably, from the British and Turkish gov’ts. (The sales of land went all the way back to at least 18th century or so.)
Also, as my wife points out, if you look at some of these pre-1948 maps, you will see that certain areas were X% owned by the Arabs. Well, all those Arabs still live there! They still live in their villages and cities and most of them had not been displaced.
I am not disputing the fact that Arabs were kicked out of W. Jerusalem and a few isolated villages (and I agree that kicking them out was criminal).
In other words, all the international outcry, etc., involving these maps is that Israel (a ‘Jewish state’) controls the lands that used to belong to Arabs. Instead, an Arabic state must control them, the argument goes.
But why would a libertarian fall for this argument? Likewise, why would a libertarian care whether N. Ireland is under the Queen’s rule, or (S.) Ireland’s gov’t’s rule? What matters is whether a private person X lives on his own territory (whatever that means – in any country – considering that most ‘private’ territories were bought from the gov’t; including, e.g., USA in the former Louisiana Purchase territory) or on somebody else’s territory who has a better demonstrable claim.
Also, going back to terrorism question, if you are going to blow up a police station belonging to the state (a criminal organization) that has (supposedly) displaced you, that’s one thing.
If you blow up the person who is living on specifically your land who was sold this land by the government (which is what most Americans are doing vis-a-vis Native American land), that’s another thing.
If you you blow up indiscriminately someone who is supposedly ‘represented’ by the gov’t that supposedly displaced you, that’s a totally another thing.
There may be an argument about the first and second cases, but third is absolutely without any doubt (in my mind) criminal. And that is what West-Bank and Gaza Arab terrorist are doing. (Note that I did not just call all Arabs living there terrorists.)
