US Politics Mega-thread - Page 1283

On September 11 2014 13:52 Adreme wrote:
I find it surprising that something like that isn't already a federal law but I guess passing stuff has been sort of tricky lately and I can see businesses lobbying really heavily against it but I still don't see a reason why something like this isn't national law.




There is no greater then. By the standards of the Christian faith both are considered equally divine and both just as holy as the other. From a practical standpoint yes most denominations focus more on the New but that's there own faith considers both as equals.

On September 11 2014 23:12 xDaunt wrote:
I'm trying to figure out why all of you sensible liberals are okay with Muslims charging non-Muslims a special tax to simply exist in their countries. Somehow I don't think that such discrimination would fly today. Allowing non-Muslims into positions of power doesn't quite make it right. And again, like I pointed out earlier, this is was the status quo during the best of times for non-Muslims under Muslim rule. Take a look at what happened during the Muslim conquests or even during the latter stages of Al Andalus to get a more complete picture.

On September 11 2014 23:22 Yoav wrote:
We're not okay with it. It's horrible. But what we're saying is that Isis has gone above and beyond. Christian communities that survived fourteen centuries of Muslim conquest have been wiped out or forced to flee.

Isis is not a historical throwback. Yes, there were pogroms against minorities in middle ages Near East, as in middle age Europe. But as the Shoah was a rupture from the nature of the past of scattered atrocities, so is Isis. Yes, they haven't opened gas chambers yet, but given time and resources, they have made very clear they would love to. And mass crucifixions get you headed that direction pretty quickly..

On September 12 2014 00:17 xDaunt wrote:

No, ISIS is a historical throwback in many ways. You'll find its parallels in both the initial Muslim conquests and in the medieval enforcement of Sharia law. Overlook or excuse this all you want, but that's the truth.

On September 11 2014 12:55 xDaunt wrote:

I'm under no delusions that the less intellectually honest participants in this thread aren't really interested in what I'm actually saying, but I think that the point in my original statement is clear. It is dishonest to say that ISIS is not Islam or to otherwise go out of one's way to distinguish ISIS from Islam. It would be like saying that all of those fundamentalist Christian denominations that hate gays and Planned Parenthood aren't real Christians. As for ISIS and Islam, I'm not even going to pretend to be qualified to say conclusively that ISIS represents the purist form of Islam. HOWEVER, as an educated observer, it is readily apparent to me why ISIS can and does stake such a claim.

On September 11 2014 23:12 xDaunt wrote:
I'm trying to figure out why all of you sensible liberals are okay with Muslims charging non-Muslims a special tax to simply exist in their countries. Somehow I don't think that such discrimination would fly today. Allowing non-Muslims into positions of power doesn't quite make it right. And again, like I pointed out earlier, this is was the status quo during the best of times for non-Muslims under Muslim rule. Take a look at what happened during the Muslim conquests or even during the latter stages of Al Andalus to get a more complete picture.

On September 12 2014 01:03 Danglars wrote:
This religion would just be a no-name sect hidden in the Arabian peninsula without Jihad and the periodic rise of aggressive military leaders.

On September 12 2014 01:03 Danglars wrote:
I get the idea that oppressive regimes are tolerated only if Muslims are running the show. You're allowed to turn a blind eye to history if its the history of Muslim conquest, but the crusades are definitely still super relevant. A successful group of Islamic terrorists? Clearly fringe, as if Sharia law's something new, convert/cower/die is something new, and wiping out native populations represents such a grave departure from Muhammed's teaching that they're not really Muslims anymore! Grow up in your understanding of Islam, and even just power and use of force, and don't waste hours pointing out nuances in the history of war and genocide. This religion would just be a no-name sect hidden in the Arabian peninsula without Jihad and the periodic rise of aggressive military leaders.

On September 12 2014 01:34 Jormundr wrote:

Yeah we only "tolerate" "oppressive regimes" when they're muslim. Which is why the conservatives dance for the national zionists (or nazis for short). But hey, the Palestinians deserve to be slaughtered for Israeli political games every 3-5 years. They are muslims after all so conservative (christian) wisdom would dictate that their lives are of no value.

On September 12 2014 02:39 Stratos_speAr wrote:


All the last two pages show is your ignorance of history. There's a reason you're rarely taken seriously anymore.

WASHINGTON -- Though the law will be a year older, Republicans will push a vote to repeal Obamacare if they take back the Senate in November, a top GOP senator told reporters Thursday morning.

“I suspect we will vote to repeal early to put on record the fact that we Republicans think it was a bad policy and we think it is hurting our constituents,” said Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio), appearing at a breakfast hosted by the Christian Science Monitor. “We think health care costs should be going down, not up. We think people should be able to keep the insurance that they had. They are worried about the fact that the next shoe to drop is going to be employer coverage.”

As Portman’s remarks indicated, a repeal vote by a Republican-controlled Senate would be a largely perfunctory exercise, designed to register GOP opposition with the health care law once again. The president would never sign such a measure, even if he were severely chastened by the 2014 election results. Even top conservative donors concede as much.

What's more, the dynamics would be complicated by the fact that the next Congress convenes during the Affordable Care Act's second open-enrollment period, meaning a repeal vote would be taking place at the same time that people were signing up for coverage under the law.

Portman said that Senate Republicans should present an alternative health care proposal to couple with the repeal effort.

"I think we should,” he said. "I think it is something that ought to go along with repeal to say, 'Yes, we think this is the wrong way to go. But we also think the health care system must be improved.'"

The idea that the GOP will come up with an alternative to Obamacare is enough to make many health care reform advocates roll their eyes. House Republicans have been promising an alternative health care bill for years to go along with their numerous repeal votes. No such bill has materialized.

Tax Breaks May Turn San Francisco's Vacant Lots Into Urban Farms

In San Francisco, there's a new program aimed at property owners who can resist the temptations of the sky-high real estate development market and turn their vacant lots into agricultural oases instead.

Many sustainability advocates have applauded the creation of the tax incentive, announced in August. But critics say there is no room in San Francisco to devote space to corn, beans and kale when homes cost millions and rent is at least $2,000 per bedroom in desirable areas. ...

On September 11 2014 18:25 LingBlingBling wrote:


That is silly, with the wide spread of virus and infections these days, health risk is a big thing. The only people lobbying against this, are the wealthy CEO's of major companies with no soul or heart.

Not everyone can afford to go to a hospital, human well being is more important, this is one of the better mandates passed in a very long time, something that is really good for the people for once.

When Oregon state officials last month denied a key permit to a huge proposed facility for exporting coal to Asia, they deepened a geographic divide that is increasingly shaping the U.S. energy debate.

The Oregon decision blocked an ambitious export plan from Australia-based Ambre Energy. Ambre wanted to send coal by train and barge from the Powder River Basin in Wyoming and Montana to a new terminal in Boardman, Oregon, and then ship up to 8.8 million tons annually to Asia. But Oregon's lands department rejected the plan, concluding it threatened local waterways and impinged on Native Americans' fishing rights.

The decision marked another milestone in the convergence of Oregon, Washington, and California around a regional energy strategy that is defining the green alternative in the national argument over powering America's future. Step by step, the three West Coast states are systematically unplugging from the coal economy—and moving more broadly to embrace a low-carbon strategy meant to reduce the risk of climate change.

This reevaluation comes as the federal Environmental Protection Agency is advancing regulations that would require states to slash their carbon emissions from generating electricity. By disconnecting so thoroughly from coal, the most carbon-intensive fuel, the Pacific states are providing a cutting-edge model for the Democratic-leaning, environmentalist-friendly states (such as those along the East Coast) most likely to embrace those mandates.

Meanwhile, across the geographic divide, conservative red states—many of which produce fossil fuels, rely heavily on coal-fired electricity, or both—are mobilizing against the EPA regulations and the broader energy transition they would promote. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell from coal-dependent Kentucky crystallized this resistance when he said recently that if the GOP takes control of the upper chamber, he would use mandatory spending bills to try to block the EPA rules, possibly risking a government shutdown.

On September 12 2014 01:49 xDaunt wrote:

Israel has nothing to do with this. All it takes is a cursory review of the past 2 pages of this thread to see liberal apologism for Islam in action.

On September 12 2014 02:46 xDaunt wrote:



EDIT: I'm waiting.

EDIT 2: You've had an hour, and still no response. That's what I thought. Next time, go educate yourself on what the big boys are discussing before you make such bold and wrong proclamations, junior.

On September 12 2014 04:35 KwarK wrote:

It is literally a historical fact that throughout most of its history the Caliphates have treated non Muslim minorities with far, far more tolerance than the west ever did. The reason we ended up with religious homogeneity in the west is because we literally committed genocide. We butchered Jews, we butchered pagans, we butchered Bogomils and Cathars, hell, the Protostants tried to ethnically cleanse the Catholics from Ireland. When we took Muslim lands we massacred them or drove them out. Compare that to the Ottoman empire which, in five centuries of rule, left the Armenian church untouched until the Great War. Or the flourishing of the Christian populations of the Balkans under Ottoman rule. There is a reason that the Balkans is such a powderkeg of little ethnicities and religious feuds while the western nations are not and that reason is that no central power genocided them and replaced them with a homogenous group with which a nation could be built.

The fact of the matter is, unfortunately, that stable nations are built on genocide. You kill everyone not like you, replace them with people like you and then agree about how shit should be run. The problems endemic in the old Ottoman Empire are a testament to how unwilling they were to butcher the minorities.

On September 12 2014 04:42 Sub40APM wrote:

tough day at the office? you seem particularly hostile today.

On September 12 2014 01:27 Yoav wrote:


I mean, maybe. Christianity's expansion to Europe happened almost entirely due to missionary activity. The large number of Asian Christians are really in spite of a very hostile political climate to them at pretty much all times, except very recently, and only even then only in a minority of countries. The conversion of the populaces of the Americas and Africa are more the result of the Muslim strategy of "take over, then proselytize," though in many places the conversion was well ahead of the conquest. Christianity would still be big, if not as big, without military conquests by Christian nations; Islam could in theory have done the same.

On September 12 2014 04:45 xDaunt wrote:

I don't really disagree with any of this. There certainly is an argument to be made that, compared to Christians, Muslims were more tolerant of minorities. My only points are as follows: 1) per modern standards, the way that Muslims treated minorities is unacceptable; 2) this impermissible mode of treatment is prescribed by Muslim religious texts; and 3) these prior two facts cannot be dismissed when considering the current state of Islam and the prospect(s) of states emerging that are governed by Muslim law.