Zierro

What about your statement? Subjective or objective?

Most people really don't want to be in jail. But I will agree that there are much better methods of justice than throwing a bunch of wrong-doers in a building to think about what they've done. As for exacting justice, that is impossible, but that's no reason to at least try making things the best they can realistically be. It's also not to "undo injustices" but rather to prevent potential injustices and make a better tomorrow.

If you were to kill someone over money and nothing more, that is terribly wrong. But like I said, a robber will most likely try to take your money by force if you refuse to give it peacefully. If they do engage in violence, a gun would be appropriate for the situation. If warning them you mean business by pointing a gun at them isn't enough to keep them from attacking you, your safest bet would be to pull the trigger. And if you were to do that, you've just made the world a better place for the innocent - nothing wrong about that. My great-grandmother, she was like 80 at the time, entered a bank and made a withdrawal, had $20 in her hand, the bank was robbed, a robber pushed her onto the ground breaking her arm and took the money. That man deserves punishment because he breached the line of moral dignity. It has nothing to do with the fact that she's $20 short. It's about establishing a precedent of what should happen to you if you were to breach that line. Call it a scare tactic if you must, but to me it sounds like the most successful method of keeping people in line. And yes, it's a shame that it has to come to that but it's the lesser of two evils - in my personal opinion, it ignores human dignity more to let people like this get off the hook than to punish them.

It's not so much that I think it's acceptable to think about that stuff, because thoughts are surely free game to argue against (although that's not really the case with fetishes). It's just that I think it's irrelevant to the field of morality. Something should only be considered "immoral" if people are being harmed or negatively effected. If someone were to think, "I would like to rape a child today, but I don't want to put them through that pain so I won't," what exactly did they do wrong that has a relevance to the world/society? They made the decision not to, so why punish them? Perhaps a better way of putting it would be to say that the specific thoughts are immoral, but the act of thinking itself is not immoral - if that makes any sense. Kind of like how you can have a violent thought, but you're not being violent unless you actually act upon it.

If someone is willing to have a baby even under rough circumstances, why would you mention abortion? I agree with Serpent that it shows responsibility therefore making abortion look like the lesser option. I mean I support abortion but it's kind of funny how some of you jumped to it so quickly, despite her saying she wanted it. Somebody's an angsty virgin today.

What harm is caused by thinking about something but not acting upon it? It's a common thing people do all the time and it at least shows moral restraint. It isn't immoral unless you decided to actually go through with it and cause the harm. It's pretty rude to verbalize every flaw you see in someone. I don't think you really meant to say that because you're implying that it's wrong not to go up to a fat person and call them fat.

She wasn't not supporting the Razorbacks. she wore a hat that she had with her to keep her hair dry. She didn't shout at the top of her voice "Razorbacks suck!". She wore clothes that the situation called for. It was the coaches arse'ness (not a word but it works) that made the situation. You aren't American / from the area. You can't understand. Like I said before, there are some incredibly stupid football fans in America. I know a guy who got the hell beat out of him for wearing a Cowboys jersey in Philadelphia. I'm American and I agree with everything he said. You yourself even admitted how ridiculous football fans can get over teams, so why are you siding with them?

I think the hatred against America is a problem too, but making an US VS THEM campaign is not the way to alleviate it. Sounds like it would just make Islams even angrier. Not on internet forums. O:)

All You Can Eat Buffets Yeah, that's probably what he meant because psychopathy is an abnormal lack of empathy (anti-social behavior), and some compulsive liars do so to make others happy which shows a little too much empathy.

I don't think cartoons should have restrictions. There's been depictions of murder and whatnot which I personally think is a little more dark than child porn. The argument that it encourages actual acts of pedophilia reminds me of the argument that pot is a gateway drug to meth/heroin or that playing GTA games make you want to kill people. Obviously there is going to be some correlation there, but it doesn't really mean anything. I bet there's a correlation between entering a store and stealing. :smile:

What's the difference between vigilante justice and legal justice? Juries, cops, judges, etc. are all just as capable of making mistakes and having conflicts of interest. I think the best part of a vigilante system would be that it's driven by moral passion instead of a paycheck. I find it absurd that a cop can beat someone up for petty theft or badmouthing authority, but you will get arrested if you beat up a rapist. It's also funny that juries are involuntary and you will get in trouble for not attending, but being a voluntary vigilante is a no no. Justice should be everyone's game because everyone is involved.

He's one of us. We expect better of our own for some reason. Expecting less of Muslims isn't very fair to anyone. Americans have a higher etiquette they need to abide by which is unfair to us, and Muslims are perceived as incapable of being reasonable people which is unfair to them. Funny story: I could see the clear double standards of this issue before book burning was even mentioned. I guess people just don't want to believe that there's quite a bit of hatred against America, and they will cover their ears and call you a bigot anytime you merely point out the hatred.

Wait, what are we talking about here? A robber or some joker that will just go away peacefully if you tell them you won't give up the money? In reality, they'd probably try to take it from you with force. And if that were the case, I don't think it would be such a bad thing to eliminate a public threat. It's moreso about making the world a safer place for the innocent than saving your $100, although I can't speak for everybody. Some people will use any excuse to use a gun. This is why I'm not a big fan of the laws. Guns will always be around, legal or not. You can hide guns, make guns, smuggle guns, etc. They are not going away so it's unfair to unequip law-abiding citizens who have them for self-defense, while all the crooks use underhanded methods of obtaining them.

I never said all Muslims or even the majority of Muslims are terrorists. I'm just saying that it's stupid to equate terrorism to lizard spacemen and all those extreme examples, because based on evidence, it's FAR more likely/plausible.

Toy Story 3 Surprisingly, it held my attention the entire time.

To make generalizations is to use logic. Seeing a group of people perpetuate the same behavior and then expecting it to happen again is using a logical thought process. How else would we gather empirical evidence? Yeah, keep thinking of the most ridiculous possible examples. Now let me try - there's a possibility it will rain tomorrow. Isn't it just so convenient to relate the thing we're discussing to extremely uncommon or extremely common scenarios to make our arguments look better? Usually with this type of thing, we look at evidence. Evidence shows us that living on Jupiter is highly unlikely. Evidence shows us that flying and teleporting are more likely well beyond a human's capabilities. Evidence shows us that religions have been known to use violent/sly/extreme/unethical tactics to combat opposing religions. Now tell me what's more likely.

1. I don't believe Islam =/= terrorism. I believe that some Islam are terrorists. 2. I have admitted the possibility that the mosque is built for good intentions or even no intentions. I just think the bad intention is a possibility too. 3. I don't recall ever saying which possibility is the most likely, and if it sounded like that then I'm sorry. Besides, this has nothing to do with "likelihood", and saying so would indicate some sort of generalization. "The Islamic, more often than not, are not using mosques as symbols of conquest." Where did you obtain this piece of knowledge?

You think you're so smart because you use big words. Well, let me tell you something with extreme substantiation. -.-

Of course you say that now after the videos have been posted. It's much easier to say I don't believe this video exists until I see it, and therefore any arguments citing this video are invalid. So by saying "it's much easier to say" you weren't actually saying it? lol And where do modern American Muslims' roots lie? Terrorism has been proven to exist. Lizard men have not. Also, whether the building should be built or not is irrelevant to whether it was meant as a bad thing or not. Even if it was meant as disrespect, they still have the legal right to build it. Not the wisest of things to say when you initiated the argument with personal attacks. However, coming from a completely one-sided person, I guess it's to be expected. And your evidence for this claim is where...? Not really. I could use a video to prove the existence of dogs. And honestly, what do you expect when they're demanding videos from us?

"Separation of church and state" isn't as common of a practice as it is here in US. Their religion and politics tie into one another, and to an extreme I might add. PS: I appreciate that you legitimately do want to have a debate/get to the bottom of this, unlike a lot of other trouble makers in here. :thumbup:

A video of Islamics burning the American flag has absolutely no relevance to terrorism? So you jump to the convenient assumption that we're liars? It was ten freaking years ago. I thought your other posts were pretty bad, but this really tops things off. You guys are, without a doubt in my mind, completely one-sided to this issue. You can't even accept the fact that it's a possibility. Oh and just for argument's sake:

Yeah, this is generally how debating works, Rocco. Because I never said that all Muslims are terrorists, which is what you are implying by saying, "The fact that some Americans want to kill terrorists does not mean all Americans do." No [cabbage]. I never said anything of the sort. However, what I did say (read carefully for once), is that some Muslims are terrorists or hold up terrorist ideals. These people show us the possibility that building the mosque might not have been in good taste. I'm making a large assumption? No, it's called rhetoric. If by assumption, you mean I believe in the possibility, then I guess... but is it really that much of a stretch saying "terrorism being behind the mosque is not impossible"? Unless you actually want to argue with me that it's impossible. :-o But wouldn't that be making a huge baseless assumption?? I mean, just because there have been faked videos before, that doesn't mean that this one is!! :-D On a serious note, you're finally making sense now. You shouldn't pick and choose where to apply this logic though - questioning things should be universal. I don't take it as proof of the ideology of an entire people. It just shows that the ideology is much more prevalent than a lot of you are making it out to be, you know, by comparing the possibility of terrorist motives with lizard men and whatnot.

I never said all Muslims are terrorists. Some are though. Seriously, Rocco, you're not reading half of my posts.

Again, if terrorism is such a small-scale unheard of thing, explain why I saw a video of an entire Islamic town (children and everything) celebrating over 9/11 during that week. It really is ridiculous to assume that the only ones with terrorist ideals in their minds are solely the hijackers and bombers. I like how you jump to the conclusion that they are definitely a whole separate unrelated group of Muslims. Am I the only one here NOT jumping to conclusions?

Like I've said time and time again, the fact that 9/11 happened and that it was being casually celebrated raises a bit of suspicion. I'm not jumping to conclusions though. I'm merely being speculative. But the fact that you guys are going to complain about me being speculative really shows how biased you are towards always giving Islam the benefit of the doubt. Don't get me wrong - no ulterior motives behind the mosque is a possibility as well, but this isn't the only possibility. And with religion being involved, that's just a little too hard to swallow that easily. PS: I was responding to Bentomat in that post.