We should take Ahmadinejad at his word.

Reasons to agree:

1. No one took Hitler seriously, but he tried to do all the crazy stuff he said he would, about trying to kill all the Jews, and take over the world.


2. Thursday, August 3, 2006 Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said the solution to the Middle East crisis is to destroy Israel (The Associated Press, By SEAN YOONG).


3. "It is no longer acceptable that a small minority would dominate the politics, economy and culture of major parts of the world by its complicated networks, and establish a new form of slavery, and harm the reputation of other nations, even European nations and the U.S., to attain its racist ambitions, (Speech at UN by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, 24/09/2009)


4. Ahmadinejad denied the murder of 6 million Jews. This is serious stuff.


5. Ahmadinejad's speeches are a cry for truth from a Holocaust denier, a cry for democracy from a leader who shoots freedom seeking protestors, and a cry for peace from the word's biggest sponsor of terror, who aspires to annihilate a UN member nation.


6. Ahmadinejad says the Jews are a small and greedy minority that controls the world through slavery. That's classic anti-Semitism which exposed the true face of that regime, to anyone who still in doubt.


7. Ahmadinejad tortures his own people and represses citizen protest he has the courage to say Israel was committing genocide

Reasons to agree:

1. Ahmadinejad doesn't really doubt the Holocaust, he just has to say stupid stuff like that in order for his stupid population to re-elect him.


2. Ahmadinejad doesn't really care about the Palestinians. He just uses them to distract his people from their own crappy lives under his rulership. The Palestinians are refugies from the 6-day war that the Muslim nations started. If Iran cared so much about them, they could let them live in Iran. When you start a war, and loose it, you loose territory. Israil ganed land from the Palestinians when the Muslims lost the 6 day war, and the Palistinians have been bitching about it ever sense. That is what happens when you loose a war that you start: you loose property, you loose your homes, you loose your homeland. It is your own dumb fault for starting the war. The Palestinians should blame the Aarabs for starting the war, and loosing it so profoundly. They shouldn't blame the victim of the war (Israil) for winning it, and then taking some extra land after the end of the war. Ahmadinejad knows all this, but the Aarabs don't want to be told that the Palestinian's problems are their fault, and so he tells them what they want to hear, and what gives him more power. But we should never assume he is so stupid to believe his own words.

---

Interest of those who agree:

1. Preventing the people with the most hate and anger in the world (Arabs) from attacking their "enemies" the Jews.


2. The desire to avoid the mistakes of the past.


3. Economic prosperity as a result of peace


4. Ahmadinejad wants to be taken at his word, so what are his interest?

Interest of those who disagree:

1. Feeling like they are smarter than those who use words to communicate.

Do you know a lot about the Arab Israil conflict? I just made all this stuff from what I hear on the news, but I would love your help.

Unraveling the Impact of Sanctions: Do They Truly Hurt a Country's Rulers?

Arguments against 'Sanctions do not harm the rulers of a bad country'

1. Logical Arguments:
1. Reasons to disagree:
1. Sanctions can destabilize an unjust regime by fomenting internal unrest and decreasing its financial resources.
2. Even if they don't destabilize an unjust regime, they prevent the unjust regime from getting more power and being able to, eventually, do more harm.
2. Opposing Evidence:
1. Historical examples, like South Africa's apartheid, where international sanctions have proven effective.
3. Opposing Books:
1. "The Sanctions Paradox: Economic Statecraft and International Relations" by Daniel W. Drezner
4. Opposing Videos:
1. YouTube: "Sanctions and Divestments" by Khan Academy
5. Opposing Organizations:
1. The Council on Foreign Relations
6. Opposing Podcasts:
1. Podcast: "The Power of Economic Sanctions" by The Lawfare Podcast
7. Unbiased Experts:
1. Robert Pape, political science professor at the University of Chicago
8. Benefits of Belief Rejection:
1. Physiological: Supports global human rights efforts
2. Safety: Enhances international security
3. Self-Actualization: Upholds principles of justice and accountability
9. Ethical Considerations:

Deontological Ethics: Duty-bound to oppose undemocratic or oppressive regimes and promote global justice.

a) Fundamental beliefs that must be rejected to reject this belief:

• The belief that economic pressure can lead to political change.
• The belief that foreign governments have an obligation to intervene in countries with bad rulers.

c) Criteria to demonstrate the strength of this belief:

• Knowledge of historical cases where sanctions didn't affect rulers.
• Understanding of economic and political theories that explain the ineffectiveness of sanctions.

d) Shared interests with potential dissenters:

• Desire for global peace and security.
• Concern for human rights.
• Interest in effective diplomatic strategies.

e) Key differences that need addressing:

• Differing views on the effectiveness of sanctions as a tool for change.
• Different priorities regarding interventionist versus isolationist policies.

f) Strategies for encouraging dialogue:

• Promoting respectful, evidence-based discussions on online platforms.
• Encouraging diverse perspectives in forums or debates.
• Using resources like groupintel.org and github.com/myklob/ideastockexchange to facilitate informed dialogue.

g) Key resources for comprehension:

• Books: "Economic Sanctions Reconsidered" by Gary Clyde Hufbauer, Jeffrey J. Schott, and Kimberly Ann Elliott, "The Sanctions Paradox: Economic Statecraft and International Relations" by Daniel W. Drezner
• Articles: "Sanctions: Neither War nor Peace" from the Council on Foreign Relations, "Why Economic Sanctions Do Not Work" by Robert A. Pape.
• Debates/Lectures: "Do Economic Sanctions Work?" lecture by Richard Nephew, Columbia University, "Sanctions and Divestments" lecture by Khan Academy.
• Understanding will be confirmed through our forum's tests.

Miranda rights are stupid

Reasons to agree:

1. Truth vs. Self-interest: Observations indicate that individuals are more inclined to speak truthfully before they read their Miranda rights. After these rights are presented, their responses tend to favor their self-interest. The quest for truth should outweigh any personal bias.

2. Avoiding 'Assembly-line Justice': The current legal system often falls into a pattern of "one-size-fits-all," leading to instances where individuals may avoid penalties based on technicalities, such as not being read their Miranda rights. This uniform approach lacks the nuance needed to address diverse situations and can disrupt the pursuit of justice.

3. Relevance of Statements: Miranda rights shouldn't impact the veracity of a statement. The information individuals provide before their rights are read should still be admissible in court, as it's not inherently untruthful.

4. Lawyers Evading Justice: Critics argue that Miranda rights serve as a tool for legal professionals to circumvent justice, enabling them to exploit loopholes and technicalities.

5. Encouraging Dishonesty: Reading Miranda rights may inadvertently remind potential offenders to deceive the police rather than providing an honest account of events.

6. Non-unanimous Decision: The Miranda ruling wasn't unanimous; it passed with a 5 to 4 decision. This close call questions its infallibility and the reverential treatment it often receives.

7. Benefits to Attorneys: Critics suggest that the "right to consult with an attorney before and during questioning" merely increases attorneys' workload instead of facilitating justice.

8. Unintended Consequences: Although Miranda rights were created to address coercive interrogation, some argue they have inadvertently led to more deceptive practices by reminding potential criminals to consult an attorney before speaking.

9. Shock vs. Self-interest: In the immediate aftermath of an incident, individuals are often shocked into answering truthfully. However, reading them their Miranda rights can shift their focus towards self-preservation.

10. Flaws in Law: Laws that don't penalize the guilty are flawed, argue critics. Many guilty individuals have avoided their lawful punishment due to technicalities involving Miranda rights.

11. Questionable Necessity: There are instances where it's clear that a confession was given voluntarily and was not coerced. Critics argue that Miranda rights seem irrelevant in such situations and do not serve their intended purpose.

Reasons to disagree

1. Being read your Miranda rights is good because an innocent person will be reminded to get their facts straight before they start talking. 

Dawkins is stupid when he says that God's jealousy contributes to him being one of the most unpleasant character in all fiction

Dawkins said: “The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.”

Reasons to agree:%

1. When God said he was a jealous God, he was telling his followers to not worship Ba'al. Worshipers of Ba'al would get their Golden statues glowing hot, and put living babies on the alter. It wasn't wrong for God to tell his followers to not worship other other Gods. If I really was the true God, and I had worked miracles, to prove it, then I would be jealous also if people started worshiping Ba'al. 


2. Just because your an athiest doesn't mean you can't think Richard Dawkins is an idiot.

Webpages that agree:

1. http://www.gotquestions.org/jealous-god.html

The fact that God allowed Men, Women, and Childen be killed so Israel could have a homeland is problematic: Score: -3

Reasons to agree: %

1. What is not to understand. It contradicts that God is Love, and that God killed innocent children.


2. Its not just problematic that God let bad things happen, like letting children die, but if the Old Testament is to be believed, that he caused them to be killed. Religious scholars go to so much effort to say that God put Adam and Eve in the Garden, but he had to let them make up their own mind, so that he couldn't be blamed for causing them to suffer, but that all goes out the window when he commands Israel to kill whole cities. 

        R2A(+): 2       R2AA(+): 0       R2DA(-): 0       

Reasons to disagree: %

1. Problematic does not mean insurmountable. The argument most often given is that it served the greater good. This argument says that God is allowed to follow the belief that the ends justifies the means. At first it might seem that only nutcases use this kind of logic. This is because most of us never face life and death decisions. But everyone in the military has to come to some sort of peace with the belief that their actions might kill innocent civilian, but may in the long run serve the greater good. A reasonable, compassionate person, who has reasons to believe in God, who would never use this logic for himself, can give his God more latitude in doing things he doesn't understand. 


2. There is much worse things that happen to people than being killed.


3. Problematic does not mean insurmountable. You can believe that most of the Old Testament was inspired, but parts of it were messed around with by scribes, and those who took care of the records. 


4. Ethically God is allowed to follow the Bill Cosby principle: "You know, I brought you in this world, and I can take you out."

        R2D(-): 4       R2AD(-): 1       R2DD(+): 0        Total Score: -3

The God of the Old Testament...

I have a friend who's Dad was a religious leader. He went on a 2-year mission for his church. Now he is not a big Richard Dawkins fan. He recently posted this on his facebook page...



"The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully."



I would like to take these accusations one at a time.



When God said he was a jealous God, he was telling his followers to not worship Ba'al. Worshipers of Ba'al would get their Golden statues glowing hot, and put living babies on the alter. It wasn't wrong for God to tell his followers to not worship other other Gods. If I really was the true God, and I had worked miracles, to prove it, then I would be jealous also if people started worshiping Ba'al. This accusation is stupid, and arrogant, and shows that he is not interested in seeing both sides of an issue. Anyone who spent more than a day looking into this issue would realize that Dawkins is an idiot... God cannot be jealous in the sense that you and I are... over people's houses, and stuff, or the way that unpleasant characters are from history... this is just a stupid guy twisting words, to say how stupid his opponents are...



But if I am missing his point on jealousy, please tell me...



The "petty" thing holds a little more water for me... I'm thinking of those kids that made fun of Elijia and God sent a bear to eat them... that seems sort of petty, from the outside, but they must have needed it, we are not getting the whole story, or it was incorrectly translated, but I agree with Dawkins on this one, that given the text we have, we might be able to find some petty examples of God's behavior... Also those people who tried to steady the ark... yes, they knew the rules, but its not like they were trying to do wrongly, they just saw it wobbling, and reached out to keep it from falling... of course only stupid people make conclusive decisions, without having all the evidence, but from just the text, it seems sort of petty to kill them for just trying to help... perhaps they were evil, and wanted to break the laws, but again, just from the text, I will concede this to Dawkins, unless someone has more evidence, or ideas...



"Unjust" goes with petty... the bears, the steading of the ark... however, if you look at the Old Testament as a whole, the God of the Old Testament is a big promoter of justice... the Solomon Story, about cutting the baby in half: this is a story that tries to get at the truth... The God of the Old Testament promotes justice, more than other books from that time... I would really like to look into it, and get a count of all the stories that seem to promote justice, and those that don't. When Jacob stole the birth-right by tricking his Dad, that does not seem to promote justice... the children of Egypt being killed, just because Pharaoh was stupid does not seem to be just, the killing Sodom and Gamora is fine with me, we are told they were wicked, and God bent over backwards to save those who were righteous... I feel this is self-rightouse of me to start this argument, as though I am the first person to think about this... I know this argument has been going on for a couple of thousands of years... if the God of the Old Testament is just... but I would like to think that a group of amateurs like us could outline, much like Wikipedia, the best arguments for and against the justice of God, and that will continual refinement, we could outline and continually improve our representation of the arguments for and against the belief... One of the apostles said that to believe in God is to know that all the rules will be fair and their will be wonderful surprises. I agree. If you believe in God, you have to believe that eventually everything will make sense, but in the mean time, lets keep our humility, but do the best we can...





"unforgiving control-freak". This gets me mad at Dawkins. He is just throwing mud to be man. What I want is Data. I want Dawkins to try and prove his point, and not just throw mud, and if we are right, I want us to prove it. I want to prove it once and for all... I want to gather all the best data, so that people in the future, will, with very little work, see the arguments made by both sides, well documented, researched, etc. Someone who creates and runs the universe is by definition in control. It is stupid to say that the person who bakes a cake, controls the heat, and ingredient too much. He should just let the oven do what it wants, and let the wheat go free...



"Control-freak" is a 3rd grade accusation, and proves why Dawkins should be ignored. However he is not ignored, and so when he makes substantial accusations, like, "unforgiving", we have to put-up or shut up. Is the God of the Old Testament "unforgiving". Who are major sinners that got a second chance in the Old Testament... he didn't just Kill Pharaoh... he was always sending prophets to "warn" sinning countries. This seems forgiving of sin...



Well that's enough for now: What do you think?

Words of Eternal Life

One of my favorite quotes stories is when Chris explained the sacrement and it weirded everyone out and they stopped following him. Then he asked his apostles or disciples if they were going to leave too. And I think it was Peter who said, Were would we go? You are the only one that has the words of Eternal Life. I thought that was cool

It was petty of God to send bears to kill youths that made fun of Elijah: Score -3

Reasons to agree: %

1. 
   

Reasons to disagree: %

1. You can believe that the Old Testament was mostly inspired, but not believe every story. 


2. Short stories don't tell every detail. You shouldn't judge the God of the Old Testament from one short story without knowing all the detail. It is better to focus on all the stories, and try to get a general direction.



3. This story was probably exaggerated over the years, so that it no longer relates what really happened. The moral is to not make fun of religious leaders, but well intended translators over the years probably oversimplified the story, so that the story sounds unjust to our more sensitive ears. 

        R2D(-): 3       R2AD(-): 0       R2DD(+): 0        Total Score: -3

It would be impossible to identify and round up all 10 to 11 million of the current undocumented.

Anyways I want to do a really good job of outlining the major arguments about immigration, as I think it is one of the major issues facing our country. So what I want to do is sort of a wikipedia style group effort of outlining the issues… with that said, I'll just jump in.

John McCain said: "It would be impossible to identify and round up all 10 to 11 million of the current undocumented." He said this in a May 13, 2005 press release titled "Members of Congress Introduce Comprehensive Border Security & Immigration Reform Bill [S 2611].

In the future, I would like to outline all the issues here, but for now we can have a Normal conversation.


Here are some of the reasons that I have heard to disagree with McCain:

1. No one is proposing that we "round illegal aliens up". 


2. Illegal Aliens came to America on their own; they don't need someone to drive them away 


3. You wouldn't have to get all 11 million illegal aliens to go back, just 1/2 of them in 10 years would be a good start. 


4. According to Wikipedia their are 77 million students in America (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_the_United_States). Lets be conservative and say that only 1 in 7 of our elementary and secondary students ride a school bus each morning. This means that our local communities all transport 10 million students each morning. Their are buss drivers that are not driving buses each and every summer, and kids that are not going to school. Local communities could run a program that would only last each summer. Whenever illegal immigrants are found, during the operation of normal police work, they could be incarcerated until their is a buss load of them, a buss driver, and a couple of policemen all get to take a field trip to Mexico. If they have legitimate reasons to be in America, they can file the necessary paperwork from their home country. 

Have I forgot anything? Can we say something better? Instead of just producing quality, I want to go back and say things as best as they can be said. If you agree with McCain, why?


A technique taught in Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In, by Roger Fisher and William L. Ury, is to focus on interest not positions. In addition to having a place for listing pros and cons, I would like to have a place for the listing of interest. If we are going to make progress sometimes we have to stop listening to the stupid things people are saying, and try to figure out what their motivation is, and what makes them want to say those stupid things. It will often turn out that the real reason someone supports something has nothing to do with the arguments that they try to use to advance their ideas.


With that said, here are some of the interest of those who agree and disagree with McCain:


Interest of those who agree:

1. The desire to see America grow in size to compete with China.


2. The desire to make America look more like them, if they are Hispanic.


3. The desire for America to be more diverse, if they have liberal guilt.


4. The desire to see America more Catholic.


5. Financial interest if your company would have to move overseas if not for cheap illegal labor.


6. Financial interest if you just don't like paying your workers very much.

Interest of those who disagree: %

1. Rule of law (if some people have to come in the legal way, and wait in line, everyone should have to come in the legal way, and wait their turn in line).


2. The desire to not see America become more Catholic.


3. The desire to keep American culture less diverse, or with positive spin more "unified".

Well, I got things started, please HELP ME OUT! I think that we can basically set all the arguments about 10 million aside, and until you can convince people that the rule of law is more important than whatever their underlying interest are, we are going to have a tough row to hoe. So that is my next post: The rule of law is more important than compassion for illegal immigrants.

Unions are the average person's lobbying firm

Reasons to disagree:

1. Unions often represent the needs of the "average people", as long as you define "average people" as union members. Union members are often average people, i.e. good hard working Americans. However, more precisely, unions are the lobbying firm oftheir union members. It may be true that the "average person's" needs are aligned with the union members, but often the union member's desires may conflict with the desire of the larger community of average people. For instance the average person may want the government's budget to be balanced, however a union, as any good special interest, is focused on a more narrow band of goals: the desires of union members. The average person may want to have their kids to have good teachers. The average person may not have a pension, may have to pay for their health care, and may want the people teaching his children to be rewarded and advanced with merit pay. In all these cases the union is going to be lobbying against the desires of the average person, and for the desires of its members. The whole problem is special interest. Good historians are saying this is what destroyed Rome: politicians only cared about their needs. Special interest only cared about their needs. You had the rich merchants trying to get richer, the new Romans vs. the Old Romans. No one cared if the whole thing burned, as long as each group was able to fight for their dirty little scrap of what was left. We need to come reason TOGETHER and determine what is good for the country as a whole.