This is incredible! Why are the Brits succumbing to this nonsense? Do they have a saturation point? Is this indicative of Western Europe, in general? Is this a harbinger for the US? QUESTIONS, QUESTIONS, QUESTIONS !!!
And please, leftwingers, do you research before dumping your garbage on us. Pat Condell is an atheist, and he is not a rightwinger. Indeed, if you called him that he would take it as a gross insult. He is a comedian and a classical liberal who has tangled with American Christian fundamentalists. He's not an Islamophobe (indeed, he makes the case that the progressive enablers who coddle the easily-offended Muslims are the true Islamophobes). He is against any religion demanding special treatment under the law, and I stand four-square behind him on that.
Special treatment for any religion, as we discussed here yesterday, is antithetical to modern-day Western liberal democracy.
Some who push back at such criticism divert the topic by claiming we have an irrational fear of "terrorism." That's a canard.
Such islamists may never set off an explosion, and they may never butcher even one infidel in our streets, but they do pose a clear and present danger to our liberal democratic values. They have already chilled free speech in Britain and causes people, under pain of law, to avoid certain behaviors.
That, folks, is a de-facto threat to any culture such passive-aggressive illiberal true-believers infest.
I don't want that here, and any liberal who really measures up to the name wouldn't want it here either.
Don't "Classical Liberals" qualify in essence as "Conservative" by today's standards, Kurt? Fundamentalists of ALL stripes are are hardly "conservative," even though they may identify themselves as such. "Fundies" are what-I-choose-to-call COERCIONISTS -- Spiritual Terrorists, if you will. In that regard they are no different from Hitlerian Fascists or Bolsheviks.
The problem of how best to deal with "INTOLERANCE" seems to be the core of all these arguments.
I, myself, find intolerance in others absolutely INTOLERABLE, and for that I routinely get accused of being an "extremist" or a "fascist."
Perhaps so -- by the definitions too many want to hold today, but not by mine. I do believe the degree of sincere benignity in one's aims ought to be taken into account before rendering judgment.
There is NOTHING "benign" about Bolsheviks, Nazis, or The New Left any more than there was about Genghis Khan, Vlad the Impaler, the Conquistadores, or ISLAM.
How we might counteract these evils without becoming evil, ourselves, seems an insoluble problem.
If we must act like monsters in order to survive, I suppose we have no other choice -- or do we?
Not only that Farmer, we can be sufficiently unaware of our own bigotry that we aren't careful defining the monsters. Now Condell is a douche and needs to be deconstructed a bit.
There was a sex ring running around molesting children while the authorities ignored them. Of course that describes the Boston archdiocese a decade ago. Is Catholicism the marker here?
Likewise in England the cops let these guys operate at will. Now just what is the issue and why is religion the marker.
He truly IS a comedian...and the real joke is WHAT IDIOT WOULD DENY THERE'S TERRORISM? Speaking of religion, NOT understanding that terror is a danger around the world is a bigger true believer than the Pope!
The difference between the catholic church and muslims you asked about in your funny little jab is this: islam was started by a pedophile rapist. Christianity was not.
I suppose that it only goes to show that "blinders" can come in both religious and ideological varieties (as in America, the child abuse happened entirely within the Christian culture). Had the Islamic child abuse happened in Pakistan, the blinders would have been, as in America, purely "religious". But as the abuse in Britain happened entirely within another culture amongst and affected those of a completely different religious tradition, the "blinders" must have only been entirely ideological.
Well Mr. Sanders you may wish to go into a little more depth. The practices you refer to were standard in Semitic cultures and had nothing to do with Islam.
Again, we often let sex rings run for a good deal of time. you can look into the details of the Hasidic coverup in Brooklyn a couple years ago. When someone finally spoke up h was shunned by the community.
But keep going because there isn't any way you win this one.
z, to intimate that I don't believe Muslim terrorism exists is ridiculous. Where the hell do you get these ideas? As far as caliphates. Please point to the group that can unite the governments of Indonesia, India, Pakistan, Iran, Egypt and Turkey for a starter. It's an absurd notion fit only for the most paranoid among us.
What it has to do is this. The "pedophilia" you fringe right wingers dwell on was :
1. Not pedophilia by the cultural norms of the time.
2. Uniform throughout Semitic cultures.
3. Present in the Old Testament.
Now, if you think you can talk about contemporary pedophilia without including Roman Catholics and Orthodox Jews , among the most notorious, have at it. Good luck, because it is a human pathology.
Ducky, never BS a BSer. thanks. I've accused you of not reading posts or comments before responding to them. Perhaps you haven't been reading your own?
Britain has gone from being one of the drawn upon models for our Bill of Rights, to being a caricature of it's former self. How long can we maintain a 'special relationship' when a ship of state is on this course?
Try to remember, Kurt, --difficult though it may be, that in the end "Amor vincit omnia. If we cease to believe and continually cherish that concept, we shall lose our souls -- the most precious Gift God ever gave us.
The course, as Pat Condell said elsewhere, is expressed by the likes of the Andy Choudary types who want to turn England into a rainy Saudi Arabia. More here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTLeZWdr328
I hope to follow up with general comments later, but just one quick point for now: it puzzles me that he doesn't mention class re police mishandling of the Rotherham cases. All the victims were "underprivileged," to continue the video's euphemistic style. It's clear to me that not only was there an aspect of ethnic/religious nervousness about the police mishandling, there was also a prevailing attitude that girls "like that" are willing participants in sex and drug orgies anyway.
What Condell is the enemy of is illiberal forces hijacking a culture, chilling speech and putting formerly-free people on their P's and Q's, sometimes under pain of state prosecution, as he has documented.
JMJ has mentioned that Condell is anti-Christianity.
So what? Since when are we all carbon copies of each other?
My stepfather-in-law is a militant atheist, but he has so many wonderful qualities that I don't toss away as garbage every piece of advice that he has. Just because someone is wrong about one matter does not mean that he is wrong about every matter.
That's supposed to be a message to us Christians that since he's anti Christian (which he isn't, he's just an atheist), we must get outraged and throw away all the truth in his statements. It's pure Alinsky.... and only works among the small minded.
Yes indeed, in a way the state-sponsored stooges and Obama court jesters like Colbert and Jon Stewart are not. And that goes for the Hollywood hopium smokers as well.
When the arts stop casting a critical eye upon those in power, and instead bend over and fellates them, the polity is in trouble.
People like you who claim to be artistic liberals, but who are really strong-man-worshiping statists are far more dangerous than any boogeyman dreamed up by SPLC.
Off TOPIC alert!: I just had to come tell you that NOW WE KNOW WHY Obama doesn't want Keystone Pipeline; he actually doesn't understand it. He told Myanmar's press corps that it's Canadian oil and won't benefit us, anyway...when much of it is American crude. How do we get a president who knows what he's talking about before making sweeping royal orders?? oh, my.
Z, My best friend of some 40 years lives in Texas.
Last night, we was telling me four things that she'd heard about the pipeline:
1. Eminent domain is being used to try to seize prime grazing line so as to put in the pipeline.
2. The pipeline will run very close to an aquifer that supplies cattle country. The ranchers are concerned about leaks and the pipeline as a target of terrorist attacks.
3. The oil is to be refined in East Texas and shipped out of the United States.
4. Jobs that the pipeline are supposed to bring are mostly temporary.
Not that I've heard Obama mentioned the above points.
She also told me that a lot of people living west of the Mississippi are opposed to the pipeline.
What I wish would happen is FACTS starting appearing on the political scene again; FACTS we can trust. And a clueless or deceitful president isn't helping.
Unless the pipeline is a 'fait accompli,' I'm pretty sure no land would be seized via any unsavory or savory method. And we all know that there is some risk to aquifers; that's the major complaint. And critics of that comment remind us that nothing can be 100% guaranteed as to safety but all risks would be addressed! 12,000 jobs; and anybody who thinks they aren't temporary isn't thinking; it's a pipeline, once it's laid, it's there, and most jobs, not all, will go...but it'll be a few years of work, which I think is worth it.
No, Obama doesn't talk about those points, and I believe if he did, and if the GOP would also discuss ALL the points, America might have a clue and we could have an honest dealing with the situation.
My only beef is that it seems like nobody's got real facts. "Heard about the pipeline" makes us all wonder "from whom?" I'm glad you shared that; all opinions MUST be considered.
Then can we please get some FACTS from SOMEONE!? :-)
Z, Then can we please get some FACTS from SOMEONE!?
Hear! Hear!
My friend in Texas is on the ground there. She also owns the mineral rights on property in Oklahoma; she has family in Oklahoma, too. If anybody whom I know has facts, it is she.
I'll ask her about the jobs. For all I know, that has been contracted out to another country that brings in its own employees (not Americans).
She did mention about the company owning the pipeline being immune from law suit. I'll get more details from her.
The risk to aquifers is a very big deal in cattle country. That I do know as a fact.
I had a small oil leak in my basement here last year -- an old line under the concrete floor. I heat with oil. What a mess to deal with! The smell of oil in the whole house is finally gone. But what if that oil had leaked into the water line and on into the water supply for the area?
I'm pretty sure no land would be seized via any unsavory or savory method.
There was eminent domain for the pipeline in play, but a law suit in Texas put a stop to it.
Jobs contracted out? IMAGINE if that happened? With this gov't, it darned well could....
We all know the keystone pipeline's not immune to problems; and we all know there are obviously pros and cons. I just wish we could hear them all and that the gov't would pay attention and openly TRUTHFULLY discuss.
that's a fantastic point; the INFORMATION AGE is here and we have less information than ever. Particularly with this White House. Well, when you have Melissa Francis and Sharyl Atkisson (sp?) being told to shut up about Obama Care numbers or having their article files hacked and removed for criticizing Obama...we have an Information Age in direct juxtaposition with a fascist White House...not good.
Z, Just think how ill-informed we'd be without the web! Still, I spend hours upon hours chasing the facts. The mainstream media will not cover the issues that we need to know about.
Also, a consideration is that fact that we're sending oil by rail now, which can be REALLY dangerous!
and yes...if it weren't for the web, you can bet that a lot more stories wouldn't be known. Imagine depending on the Networks for NEWS anymore, with the obfuscation of so many subjects? Did you know CNN didn't cover Gruber until Conservative Jake Tapper finally did about four days later? Networks, too, were at least late, and I'm not sure all ever covered it. Then we have CNBC and CBS having told journalists to stop telling the truth? WOW.
and if you all only knew what's going on in Germany. A curiosity is the outrage islamists in Germany are causing to Germans and our media isn't covering it. I think it's the same reason why most Americans haven't been corrected in thinking German health care is free. If you get my drift.
We welcome civil dialogue at Always on Watch. Comments that include any of the following are subject to deletion: 1. Any use of profanity or abusive language 2. Off topic comments and spam 3. Use of personal invective
This is incredible! Why are the Brits succumbing to this nonsense? Do they have a saturation point? Is this indicative of Western Europe, in general? Is this a harbinger for the US? QUESTIONS, QUESTIONS, QUESTIONS !!!
ReplyDeletePat Condell is awesome!
ReplyDeleteAnd please, leftwingers, do you research before dumping your garbage on us. Pat Condell is an atheist, and he is not a rightwinger. Indeed, if you called him that he would take it as a gross insult. He is a comedian and a classical liberal who has tangled with American Christian fundamentalists. He's not an Islamophobe (indeed, he makes the case that the progressive enablers who coddle the easily-offended Muslims are the true Islamophobes). He is against any religion demanding special treatment under the law, and I stand four-square behind him on that.
Special treatment for any religion, as we discussed here yesterday, is antithetical to modern-day Western liberal democracy.
Some who push back at such criticism divert the topic by claiming we have an irrational fear of "terrorism." That's a canard.
Such islamists may never set off an explosion, and they may never butcher even one infidel in our streets, but they do pose a clear and present danger to our liberal democratic values. They have already chilled free speech in Britain and causes people, under pain of law, to avoid certain behaviors.
That, folks, is a de-facto threat to any culture such passive-aggressive illiberal true-believers infest.
I don't want that here, and any liberal who really measures up to the name wouldn't want it here either.
He's a comedian alright.
DeleteDon't "Classical Liberals" qualify in essence as "Conservative" by today's standards, Kurt? Fundamentalists of ALL stripes are are hardly "conservative," even though they may identify themselves as such. "Fundies" are what-I-choose-to-call COERCIONISTS -- Spiritual Terrorists, if you will. In that regard they are no different from Hitlerian Fascists or Bolsheviks.
DeleteThe problem of how best to deal with "INTOLERANCE" seems to be the core of all these arguments.
I, myself, find intolerance in others absolutely INTOLERABLE, and for that I routinely get accused of being an "extremist" or a "fascist."
Perhaps so -- by the definitions too many want to hold today, but not by mine. I do believe the degree of sincere benignity in one's aims ought to be taken into account before rendering judgment.
There is NOTHING "benign" about Bolsheviks, Nazis, or The New Left any more than there was about Genghis Khan, Vlad the Impaler, the Conquistadores, or ISLAM.
How we might counteract these evils without becoming evil, ourselves, seems an insoluble problem.
If we must act like monsters in order to survive, I suppose we have no other choice -- or do we?
Classical liberalism is what "I" always try and "Conserve". ;)
DeleteHe who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.
Delete- Friedrich Nietzsche, "Beyond Good and Evil" (Aphorism 146)
....and the "abyss/gap" that separates us from the monsters must necessarily narrow if blows are to be landed upon the other side. ;)
FJ,
DeleteNietzsche was absolutely correct with that one. I often think of that aphorism these days.
Not only that Farmer, we can be sufficiently unaware of our own bigotry that we aren't careful defining the monsters.
DeleteNow Condell is a douche and needs to be deconstructed a bit.
There was a sex ring running around molesting children while the authorities ignored them. Of course that describes the Boston archdiocese a decade ago. Is Catholicism the marker here?
Likewise in England the cops let these guys operate at will. Now just what is the issue and why is religion the marker.
He truly IS a comedian...and the real joke is WHAT IDIOT WOULD DENY THERE'S TERRORISM? Speaking of religion, NOT understanding that terror is a danger around the world is a bigger true believer than the Pope!
DeleteI don't think anyone would deny terrorism exists. Hard to imagine where you got that idea.
DeleteSex rings facilitated by the authorities also exist. This was one of them.
The difference between the catholic church and muslims you asked about in your funny little jab is this: islam was started by a pedophile rapist. Christianity was not.
DeleteI think catholics are christians, ain't they?
@ ducky,
DeleteI suppose that it only goes to show that "blinders" can come in both religious and ideological varieties (as in America, the child abuse happened entirely within the Christian culture). Had the Islamic child abuse happened in Pakistan, the blinders would have been, as in America, purely "religious". But as the abuse in Britain happened entirely within another culture amongst and affected those of a completely different religious tradition, the "blinders" must have only been entirely ideological.
Well Mr. Sanders you may wish to go into a little more depth. The practices you refer to were standard in Semitic cultures and had nothing to do with Islam.
DeleteAgain, we often let sex rings run for a good deal of time. you can look into the details of the Hasidic coverup in Brooklyn a couple years ago. When someone finally spoke up h was shunned by the community.
But keep going because there isn't any way you win this one.
z, to intimate that I don't believe Muslim terrorism exists is ridiculous. Where the hell do you get these ideas?
As far as caliphates. Please point to the group that can unite the governments of Indonesia, India, Pakistan, Iran, Egypt and Turkey for a starter. It's an absurd notion fit only for the most paranoid among us.
Mr. Ducky,
DeleteWhat does any of that have to do with islam's founder being a murderous pedophile?
Unlike the founder of Christianity, I might add.
What it has to do is this. The "pedophilia" you fringe right wingers dwell on was :
Delete1. Not pedophilia by the cultural norms of the time.
2. Uniform throughout Semitic cultures.
3. Present in the Old Testament.
Now, if you think you can talk about contemporary pedophilia without including Roman Catholics and Orthodox Jews , among the most notorious, have at it.
Good luck, because it is a human pathology.
Ducky, never BS a BSer. thanks.
DeleteI've accused you of not reading posts or comments before responding to them. Perhaps you haven't been reading your own?
Britain has gone from being one of the drawn upon models for our Bill of Rights, to being a caricature of it's former self. How long can we maintain a 'special relationship' when a ship of state is on this course?
ReplyDeleteGood question, and here's the answer: We can maintain the 'special relationship' because we are going down the same road.
DeleteTry to remember, Kurt, --difficult though it may be, that in the end "Amor vincit omnia. If we cease to believe and continually cherish that concept, we shall lose our souls -- the most precious Gift God ever gave us.
DeleteGod truly is Love and vice versa.
FT,
DeleteDoes love really conquer all? In the eternal scheme, yes, I believe that it does.
Temporally? I don't think so -- at least not in the short term. And the long term can be very, very long.
SF - Britain has been in the fast to perdition of late. Hopefully, we don't catch up with them.
DeleteThe course, as Pat Condell said elsewhere, is expressed by the likes of the Andy Choudary types who want to turn England into a rainy Saudi Arabia. More here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTLeZWdr328
DeleteI hope to follow up with general comments later, but just one quick point for now: it puzzles me that he doesn't mention class re police mishandling of the Rotherham cases. All the victims were "underprivileged," to continue the video's euphemistic style. It's clear to me that not only was there an aspect of ethnic/religious nervousness about the police mishandling, there was also a prevailing attitude that girls "like that" are willing participants in sex and drug orgies anyway.
ReplyDeletePlus you are dealing with cops so there is a good chance they were being paid off.
DeleteThe enemy of my enemy..., huh cons?
ReplyDeleteYou do realize that to Condell the next stupidest Abrahamic faith would be yours, right?
JMJ
See my comment above, and tell us something we don't know.
DeleteWhat Condell is the enemy of is illiberal forces hijacking a culture, chilling speech and putting formerly-free people on their P's and Q's, sometimes under pain of state prosecution, as he has documented.
DeleteAnd you call yourself a 'liberal.'
Yeah, right.
JMJ has mentioned that Condell is anti-Christianity.
ReplyDeleteSo what? Since when are we all carbon copies of each other?
My stepfather-in-law is a militant atheist, but he has so many wonderful qualities that I don't toss away as garbage every piece of advice that he has. Just because someone is wrong about one matter does not mean that he is wrong about every matter.
That's supposed to be a message to us Christians that since he's anti Christian (which he isn't, he's just an atheist), we must get outraged and throw away all the truth in his statements.
DeleteIt's pure Alinsky.... and only works among the small minded.
@ Ducky: "He's a comedian alright."
ReplyDeleteYes indeed, in a way the state-sponsored stooges and Obama court jesters like Colbert and Jon Stewart are not. And that goes for the Hollywood hopium smokers as well.
When the arts stop casting a critical eye upon those in power, and instead bend over and fellates them, the polity is in trouble.
People like you who claim to be artistic liberals, but who are really strong-man-worshiping statists are far more dangerous than any boogeyman dreamed up by SPLC.
Off TOPIC alert!:
ReplyDeleteI just had to come tell you that NOW WE KNOW WHY Obama doesn't want Keystone Pipeline; he actually doesn't understand it. He told Myanmar's press corps that it's Canadian oil and won't benefit us, anyway...when much of it is American crude. How do we get a president who knows what he's talking about before making sweeping royal orders?? oh, my.
Z,
DeleteMy best friend of some 40 years lives in Texas.
Last night, we was telling me four things that she'd heard about the pipeline:
1. Eminent domain is being used to try to seize prime grazing line so as to put in the pipeline.
2. The pipeline will run very close to an aquifer that supplies cattle country. The ranchers are concerned about leaks and the pipeline as a target of terrorist attacks.
3. The oil is to be refined in East Texas and shipped out of the United States.
4. Jobs that the pipeline are supposed to bring are mostly temporary.
Not that I've heard Obama mentioned the above points.
She also told me that a lot of people living west of the Mississippi are opposed to the pipeline.
What I wish would happen is FACTS starting appearing on the political scene again; FACTS we can trust. And a clueless or deceitful president isn't helping.
DeleteUnless the pipeline is a 'fait accompli,' I'm pretty sure no land would be seized via any unsavory or savory method.
And we all know that there is some risk to aquifers; that's the major complaint. And critics of that comment remind us that nothing can be 100% guaranteed as to safety but all risks would be addressed!
12,000 jobs; and anybody who thinks they aren't temporary isn't thinking; it's a pipeline, once it's laid, it's there, and most jobs, not all, will go...but it'll be a few years of work, which I think is worth it.
No, Obama doesn't talk about those points, and I believe if he did, and if the GOP would also discuss ALL the points, America might have a clue and we could have an honest dealing with the situation.
My only beef is that it seems like nobody's got real facts. "Heard about the pipeline" makes us all wonder "from whom?"
I'm glad you shared that; all opinions MUST be considered.
Then can we please get some FACTS from SOMEONE!? :-)
Z,
DeleteThen can we please get some FACTS from SOMEONE!?
Hear! Hear!
My friend in Texas is on the ground there. She also owns the mineral rights on property in Oklahoma; she has family in Oklahoma, too. If anybody whom I know has facts, it is she.
I'll ask her about the jobs. For all I know, that has been contracted out to another country that brings in its own employees (not Americans).
She did mention about the company owning the pipeline being immune from law suit. I'll get more details from her.
The risk to aquifers is a very big deal in cattle country. That I do know as a fact.
I had a small oil leak in my basement here last year -- an old line under the concrete floor. I heat with oil. What a mess to deal with! The smell of oil in the whole house is finally gone. But what if that oil had leaked into the water line and on into the water supply for the area?
I'm pretty sure no land would be seized via any unsavory or savory method.
There was eminent domain for the pipeline in play, but a law suit in Texas put a stop to it.
Jobs contracted out? IMAGINE if that happened? With this gov't, it darned well could....
DeleteWe all know the keystone pipeline's not immune to problems; and we all know there are obviously pros and cons.
I just wish we could hear them all and that the gov't would pay attention and openly TRUTHFULLY discuss.
Z,
DeleteI'm bone weary of the smoke and mirrors -- no matter who is blowing the smoke.
I spend hours upon hours trying to find the facts. And in the Information Age, too.
that's a fantastic point; the INFORMATION AGE is here and we have less information than ever. Particularly with this White House.
DeleteWell, when you have Melissa Francis and Sharyl Atkisson (sp?) being told to shut up about Obama Care numbers or having their article files hacked and removed for criticizing Obama...we have an Information Age in direct juxtaposition with a fascist White House...not good.
Z,
DeleteJust think how ill-informed we'd be without the web! Still, I spend hours upon hours chasing the facts. The mainstream media will not cover the issues that we need to know about.
Also, a consideration is that fact that we're sending oil by rail now, which can be REALLY dangerous!
Deleteand yes...if it weren't for the web, you can bet that a lot more stories wouldn't be known. Imagine depending on the Networks for NEWS anymore, with the obfuscation of so many subjects?
Did you know CNN didn't cover Gruber until Conservative Jake Tapper finally did about four days later? Networks, too, were at least late, and I'm not sure all ever covered it.
Then we have CNBC and CBS having told journalists to stop telling the truth? WOW.
and if you all only knew what's going on in Germany. A curiosity is the outrage islamists in Germany are causing to Germans and our media isn't covering it.
ReplyDeleteI think it's the same reason why most Americans haven't been corrected in thinking German health care is free. If you get my drift.
Z,
ReplyDeleteOur media do a poor job of covering a lot of what is going on in Europe -- especially when it comes to anything that will put Islam in a bad light.