assassin_696

Now that you've started having a reasonable debate with warri0r, and backing up your claims i'm willing to take you a little more seriously. Simply making positive statements like "being gay is a choice" and not backing them up is no way to convince anyone, especially when warri0r had already posted a fairly extensively (and credibly) researched base of material showing that it isn't a choice. FYI, I only believe it not to be a choice because that's what the evidence shows. I'm not doctoring the evidence to fit my own opinions, which wouldn't be affected either way whether it was a choice or not. Since warri0r is infinitely more knowledgable about biology than me, I'll leave that to one side, and simply bring you up the second half of your response. Why is believing everybody is equal cabbage? Even if being gay was a choice, why should that affect your opinion of them? I know you've put forward arguments before, but they were mostly full of emotive crap, start afresh with your new attitude and we can get somewhere.

Wow, deja vu there for a second.. It's not as simple as that. The US people wouldn't want it, the government would. Iranian oil control, middle eastern territory that can help with their continuous middle eastern take over plan, and at the same time instilling fear and demoralisation into the hearts of every citizen, so they will do what they're told and make no fuss about it. Money isn't anything when we're talking about the people who have ultimate control. 20 years down the line they'll own everything, so it doesn't really matter if they lose a few bil for the time being. I appreciate that, but it's also an election year, and although Bush hasn't got anything to lose because he isn't a candidate, going to war again isn't going to put his party in a good light. And any democrat that gets elected would be likely to withdraw troops straight away anyway. The second half of your argument confused me, what do you mean they'll own everything in 20 years time?

It depends what you mean by "the war". The war in Iraq I suppose was pitched as a logical extension of the war in Afghanistan, but I doubt the motives were the same. I disagree with going to war with Iraq for non-existent WMD's or for oil, and also because, sad as it may be for the Iraqi people who suffered under Hussein, a non-overtly fundamentalist dictatorship in Iraq was the only thing keeping it stable. As soon as that collapsed it was inevitable that the two rival religious parties would try and seize power, with the rest of the middle east paying far too much active interest. That said, now that the damage is done I feel that it's important that America should stay as long as is necessary to try and enforce at least some level of stability. Stability will always be fragile, but it's in America's interests to try and at least maintain it for now.

14 of the 19 members implicated in 9/11 catastrophe were from Saudi Arabia, not Afghanistan. Among those that includes the terrorist pilots. Osama Bin Ladin, the reason they entered Afghanistan if I remember correctly, is Saudi Arabian. So, what, they'd invade the middle eastern country which they have the strongest diplomatic relations with? Besides, the country of origin of the implicated members has nothing to do with where they were based/being funded by. The 9/11 attacks were by Al-Qaeda, an Afghan terrorist organisation. It might be a guerrilla operation in some respects, but the country to invade is still Afghanistan if you want to try and stop them. I don't think the victims take kindly to referring 9/11 as a "nipping at their heels". In fact, that way of thinking is missing the point entirely. Its not nipping at your heels, its trying to make a damn point. Don't be foolish and assume they gave their lives just for an adrenaline rush. Don't be so naive to think that's all I thought the 9/11 attacks were. I know fullwell their motivation behind them, and I know fullwell it wasn't for an adrenaline rush. "Nipping at their heels" is a figure of speech only related to the size of the attack. 9/11 was terrible, and catastophic compared to most other terrorist attacks, but hardly a deathblow to America. It would take a terrorist attack some considerable order of magnitude higher to do any truly apocalyptic damage to America. How is it taking the interests of american economy and its citizens into affair, when the american economy has never been as weak as it is now in 2008? Affecting the entire nation and its citizens. Are you forgetting what the planes brought down in New York? The World Trade Centre, symbolic of the heart of the American (and indeed, world) economy. Bringing down the WTC was a defiant attack against free market capitalism, which sent the US economy into temporary turmoil. America couldn't risk the economy bottoming out like it did on 9/12 again, so it decided to remove that threat. What's the problem? The current problem is the American economy is largely due to the economic policies of Bush and the war in Iraq (which I disagreed with), not Afghanistan.

What on earth...? Arranged marriages is a form of slavery. You can't put it in the same line with adult peoples own choice of marrying someone, be it polygamic marriage or monigamic marriage. Rebdragon, I thought that banning raven was a bit extreme.. but then I read his post him calling homosexuals "nothing but a feral, worthless animals" I bet the guy is a rasist too.. Arrange marriages is most cases is for the benifit of all parties involved, This is an outside concept to people here in the us and Europe that believe love is the most important thing. Arrange marriages has a far less divorce rate then regualr marriages. And just becuase a marriage is arranged doesnt mean someones being treated unfairly, both parties are pushed into this, Neither side says oh I want that girl make her marry me. In most all cases its desided even before the children are born. Two points to make (little OT but oh well): 1. There's a difference between an arranged marriage and a forced arranged marriage. The former is a cultural thing, I can see the practicalities of it even though it's a bit weird but hey, it seems to work for some people. The latter is barbaric. 2. Arranged marriages might have lower divorce rates, but if this is because there are extreme social pressures from the families not to divorce (very often the case, lots of cases in the UK about this recently) then the statistic is meaningless and doesn't reflect how successful the marriage is.

I'm not American, I'm British. My standpoint isn't as black and white as that. All i'm arguing is that if a terrorist organisation makes a strike against a country, then that country has a right to not to simply seek revenge, but to remove the threat and safeguard that country's interests. I don't condone America's actions because I think that retribution is the right way to go about things, I condone them because they eliminated an actual (not just perceived) threat. That's what the priority should be. FYI, I disagree with the dealth penalty. Most of the world is fully aware of the might of the American military, but that won't stop terrorist subects from nipping at their heels if they think they can get away with it. Your choice, just sayin, America is a secular nation who's decisions aren't really based on a Biblical text. I think you'll find most countries act in the interests of their economy and citizens.

If you want to use a fallacious point to back up your argument, then back off when I point out the error, that's fine, but don't expect me to take any of your ramblings after that too seriously.

The American constitution is a secular one, American beliefs are not built up around the Bible. So, that argument isn't really valid. But if you want to get into morals, it would be pretty dangerous to turn the other cheek at the level of nation states. The Taliban may not be a committed terrorist group, but their affliations with Al-Queada are easily enough to make it the threat that it was. P.s. If you're interested in why it says "In God We Trust" on the US dollar, read this article:

Apparently forcing yourself up earlier (10 mins or so) than normal helps you sleep at night.

Which war that America participated in recently was in your opinion necessary? In my opinion, human lives overrule oil conflicts. 9/11 happened, and the invasion of Afghanistan hasn't prevented terrorist strikes. Afghanistan wasn't really about oil, it was about sending a message out to any would be terrorists that America will not tolerate an attack to her citizens on her soil. Public opinion was very much in favour of that war, and I can see why, the Taliban was a clear and present danger to US citizens and interests which needed removing. As for Iraq (which was probably more oil motivated), well that's a different issue.

And as it was posted by cryztalwing the credibility of the thread is also not that great. Thank god i'm not the only one doubting the accuracy of this article.

I don't think Iran are really ballsy enough to provoke the US with the current administration, knowing that they'd probably face a war. Why risk a war with the US which might invade and take control of their oil resources, when oil is proving so lucrative at the moment? Next January they might well test out whoever the next president is, but they know that the current one is permanently on a warpath. As for America, would they really want to risk another war with a middle eastern nation, costing them billions of dollars of taxpayers money and thousands of American lives? I doubt it. I doubt public opinion is really in favour of another war unless it's necessary.

Strawman argument, ergo the rest of your post is bunk. As well as being bunk, it's also extremely bigoted, but you're not worth the time it would take to deconstruct point by point.

"Regret in life is useless, it's in the past, all we have is now" - Marlon Brando

EDIT: Sorry Ambassadar, I read your post on page 8 and responded to it on page 10. :P Since Nadril's already made my main argument, and you've responded to it, feel free to ignore this, but i'll leave it here. That's interesting. You might be right with the gay people you know, but all the gay people I know find it very hard to act on their homosexuality because they're so embarassed about it in the first place. They find it much harder to "be gay" than a straight person. I think it's unfair to generalize homosexuals as immediately more promiscous than heterosexuals simply because they've already "sinned" once. But, since you would deny homosexuals marriage (correct me if i'm wrong) then they are forced to forever live in sin, wheras you can simply get married. How is that fair?

It's about time. The Israeli occupation of Palestine is just another example of western supported colonialism and subjugation of a less technologically advanced people. Don't get me wrong, I support the state of Israel's right to exist, but only an idiot would put the Jews in Gaza to make them safer. Israel would do itself a favour to seek a two state solution and give up expansionism in the west bank.

Drowning, or being trapped in a really small space. I'm not that claustrophic, but if I thought I was trapped I would probably panick a bit.

Please use the sticky in the future for resizing. :) Locked, since it's been done.

english has now been deported :

Basicly, you leave no appleS but you do leave AN apple Is there an echo? :?

Hot Tears - Sarabeth Tucek

insane, I take your point that from a purely gene centric view homosexuality is a disaster in the natural world (although sperm banks provide a way round this in the developed world, but this is probably irrelevant when it comes to evolutionary advantages, since they're a relatively new development). But the gene centered point of view is only an issue if you are a gene. Since when have we based our conceptions of what can be considered socially acceptable on what our genes want? Rape might be an attractive short term strategy for some genes, but that doesn't make it right. To clarify, are both the couples told that their sole objective is to promote their species? In that case i'd assign equal probabilities to them passing on their genes, since both are equally potentially capable. If they're not told this though, then yes, I agree with you, but again, why be concerned over their genes' wishes? It doesn't totally impair it the ability to reproduce, only the desire.

But how can it be 2 if you leave no apples :? You leave no apples, but you do leave an apple.

Yeah, it's gotta be two. Not really maths though.

Split off the bickering.