The Orlando shooting and the motivation for Islamic terrorism...

[walkstall]

Yes, conservative but more libertarian than many here. I do not like such labels though, as they seem to have lost much of their meaning. For example, there is no doubt that climate change is REAL and the biggest component of that is due to human activities. The only question now, really, is how earth's systems will deal with it and how we address the problem (free market or strict government regulation? The former the better way I think). We do not know where the tipping points are. Does that make me not a conservative? Of course not. In fact, I would argue, just the opposite is the case, But many conservatives attack me for this. But (thinking of Regan's 80% comment) that is silly. If one want 100% consensus, move to North Korea.

God bless.

[Solar]

Yes, conservative but more libertarian than many here. I do not like such labels though, as they seem to have lost much of their meaning. For example, there is no doubt that climate change is REAL and the biggest component of that is due to human activities. The only question now, really, is how earth's systems will deal with it and how we address the problem (free market or strict government regulation? The former the better way I think). We do not know where the tipping points are. Does that make me not a conservative? Of course not. In fact, I would argue, just the opposite is the case. But many conservatives attack me for this. But (thinking of Reagan's 80% comment) that is silly. If one want 100% consensus, move to North Korea.

God bless.

Nah, just ignorant and uninformed.

[walkstall]

Nah, just ignorant and uninformed.

They think and feel ......

[CitizenWriter]

This is a good example of what I am talking about.

Do volcanoes inject a lot of C0₂ into the atmosphere? Yes. Is it a significant contributor to climate change? No. There have been many scientific studies that have conclusively shown that to be the case. The number I remember (I could be off but not by much) is that this component is about 1% of the total (averaged out). And I see you included an image of the sun; solar variability has been conclusively ruled out as having anything to do with climate change, has been for several years now.

Attack the science all you want. But if you want to be taken seriously, you need to know what you are talking about.

I did not come to this forum to discuss climate change. But thank you for proving my point.

God bless.

[walkstall]

This is a good example of what I am talking about.

Do volcanoes inject a lot of C0₂ into the atmosphere? Yes. Is it a significant contributor to climate change? No. There have been many scientific studies that have conclusively shown that to be the case. The number I remember (I could be off but not by much) is that this component is about 1% of the total (averaged out). And I see you included an image of the sun; solar variability has been conclusively ruled out as having anything to do with climate change, has been for several years now.

Attack the science all you want. But if you want to be taken seriously, you need to know what you are talking about.

I did not come to this forum to discuss climate change. But thank you for proving my point.

God bless.

Remember the government pays science and they will not cut off the cash cow. 


http://conservativepoliticalforum.com/library/global-cooling-20421/

http://conservativepoliticalforum.com/library/what-you-don't-know-about-climate-change/

[jdzbrain]

Yes, conservative but more libertarian than many here. I do not like such labels though, as they seem to have lost much of their meaning. For example, there is no doubt that climate change is REAL and the biggest component of that is due to human activities. The only question now, really, is how earth's systems will deal with it and how we address the problem (free market or strict government regulation? The former the better way I think). We do not know where the tipping points are. Does that make me not a conservative? Of course not. In fact, I would argue, just the opposite is the case. But many conservatives attack me for this. But (thinking of Reagan's 80% comment) that is silly. If one want 100% consensus, move to North Korea.

God bless.

LMAOff!!!

Brother, you are lost as last year's easter egg.  Man made climate change is based on junk science, manipulated and just flat ALTERED statistical analysis by a bunch of bike riding activist with more fear than brains.  The data for temperature jumps used to support this insanity can be traced back to the very day that they started playing with the standards for how and where collection stations must be built and when the data for analysis is collected. 

IS climate change a fact?  HELL yes.  Is it our fault?  You're kidding, right?  Our climate made more drastic changes in the 10 thousand years before we discovered fire than it has in the 20 thousand since the last ice age.  But...I suppose a bunch of neanderthals burning sticks and twigs could have caused the last great ice age or that portion of Europe that had the industry to burn coal could have caused the "Year without a summer"  in 1816.  NOT!  ;~)

Oh...and that WAS caused by a volcano by the way.

My suggestion...hide and watch.  Cause you DANG sure ain't gonna stop the planet!

[Solar]

LMAOff!!!

Brother, you are lost as last year's easter egg.  Man made climate change is based on junk science, manipulated and just flat ALTERED statistical analysis by a bunch of bike riding activist with more fear than brains.  The data for temperature jumps used to support this insanity can be traced back to the very day that they started playing with the standards for how and where collection stations must be built and when the data for analysis is collected. 

IS climate change a fact?  HELL yes.  Is it our fault?  You're kidding, right?  Our climate made more drastic changes in the 10 thousand years before we discovered fire than it has in the 20 thousand since the last ice age.  But...I suppose a bunch of neanderthals burning sticks and twigs could have caused the last great ice age or that portion of Europe that had the industry to burn coal could have caused the "Year without a summer"  in 1816.  NOT!  ;~)

Oh...and that WAS caused by a volcano by the way.

My suggestion...hide and watch.  Cause you DANG sure ain't gonna stop the planet!

That's a perfect description!

[quiller]

I think another lap around the barn tied behind the horse is in order, he hasn't eaten enough excrement yet.

Game on!!!!!

[tac]

   

[jrodefeld]

I'm going to try another line of argument that you maybe would be able to relate to.  I understand that you have strong opinions about the religion of Islam and I know I won't change your opinion on that.  However, my arguments do not rely on taking a sympathetic view of Islam.  I want to examine the morality of our foreign policy on its merits, irrespective of the human rights abuses radical Islamic regimes are responsible for.

As a libertarian, I subscribe to something called the Non-aggression Principle.  This is the belief that all humans are self-owners and it is wrong to initiate aggression against others.  Notice that I said initiate.  I am not a pacifist and I believe that all people have the natural right of self defense.  If someone initiates aggression against you, you have the right to defend your life and property through the proportional use of defensive force.  Similarly, the law and courts can exact proportional penalties against individuals who have been found guilty of having violated the rights of others.  This also is not initiatory force, but compensatory sanction i.e. "justice" rendered against a rights-violator.

I already made it clear that it is just and reasonable for any nation who suffers a terrorist attack to bring to justice those who were responsible for the attack.  The key is that the response has to be proportional with every effort made to target ONLY those directly responsible.

Our foreign policy in the middle east over decades is not a proportional response to a terrorist attack.  It is unjustified aggression when judged on it's own.

Do you believe that children are innocent?  Does the accident of birth, whereby some children are born to Muslim parents in a middle eastern nation mean that their lives are forfeit?

More than 500,000 women and children died due to the United States enforced sanctions against Iraq during the 1990s.  Can you honestly argue that this policy, judged on its own, is justifiable?  Madeline Albright said on 60 minutes that the price was "worth it". 

In 1953, Iranians elected a moderate leaders in a democratic election.  His name was Mohammed Mossadegh.  The CIA staged a coup, overthrowing his administration and replacing him with the Shah, one of the most brutal dictators the region had seen.  The Iranian people lived under an oppressive regime for several decades because of US interference into their right of self-determination.

Is this justified? 

Our military has performed water-boarding against multiple terrorist suspects, some hundreds of times.  Every expert agrees that water-boarding IS torture.  It is not "simulated drowning".  It IS drowning.  They flood a suspects throat and lungs with water until the person enters what they refer to as the "death spiral", which means they are literally dying.  They are walking through the tunnel of light and the life is leaving their bodies.  Then medical staff resuscitates the suspect, makes them cough out the water and then they do it again.  This is medieval, barbaric stuff.

http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/waterboarding-torture-article-1.227670

http://www.commondreams.org/news/2007/11/01/waterboarding-torture-i-did-it-myself-says-us-advisor

Hundreds of terrorist suspects have been kept illegally at Guantanamo for years, never charged with any crime.  Many of them have proven to be innocent but they are not released because they might want to attack the United States!  No shit.  But I guess it's just their radical religion that makes them want to attack the United States, not being illegally captured, tortured and held in a military prison for a decade without charges.

As I mentioned before, our drone program has overwhelmingly been killing innocent people NOT terrorists.  This is not a proportional response to the threat of terrorism.

Our military has been interfering in the internal affairs of Muslim countries for decades and the act of doing so is immoral when judged on it's merits.  Iraq, and the millions who lived there, had NOTHING to do with 9/11 or any terrorist attack against the United States, so how can it be justified that our military deposed their government and destroyed their country? 

And, considering you are so concerned about radical Islam, isn't it interesting to note that most of the countries that the United States has intervened against have been secular rather than fundamentalist?  There was a not insignificant number of Christians who lived in Iraq prior to our invasion.  Now they have all fled, and the fundamentalist ISIS have taken over.

This intervention, these unprovoked and non-proportional attacks against Muslim nations by our military are acts of initiatory aggression are wrong, period. 

ISIS and Al Qaeda killers are barbaric and horrible, no question about it.  But our military aggression has been barbaric and savage as well.  If you start with clearly defined principles and a clear, consistent moral standard by which action is to be judged, then it becomes much easier to see the world with clear eyes.

Yes, I think we should stop intervening in the Middle East because it provokes blowback, hatred of the United States, and makes us more susceptible to terrorist attacks.  But I ALSO oppose the intervention because it is immoral when judged on its own.

Terrorism is just a tactic used by a desperate people who don't have any other means available to them to fight against a much more powerful adversary.  We should treat terrorism as a law enforcement issue, not something for our military to be concerned with.  If we do have a large scale terrorist attack like 9/11, we can defend ourselves and get justice against the perpetrators.  But a single large terrorist attack does not justify a disproportional invasion of a sovereign nation and the murder of innocent people.

Take a big piece of paper and write on one side the number of Americans that have been killed by terrorist attacks and on the other write how many Muslims have been killed by our military over the past thirty years. 

[quiller]

I'm going to try another line of argument that you maybe would be able to relate to.   

Nope. It does convince me you're an arab-loving apologist. Yawn. That makes you a liberal.

[jrodefeld]

Nope. It does convince me you're an arab-loving apologist. Yawn. That makes you a liberal.

"Arab-loving apologist"?  What is that supposed to mean?  You might not agree with my opinions but there has been some thought put into them and some research done to bolster my views.  You've been reduced to name-calling at this point.

I'm a libertarian, which means I support a radical reduction in the size and scope of the State over private human affairs or, preferably, the elimination of the State.

I thought conservatives of your ilk believed in small government and the Constitution?  I guess this doesn't apply to foreign policy then?

[Cryptic Bert]

The reason is we are not Muslim. The motivation is we are weak.

[je_freedom]

ISIS and Al Qaeda killers are barbaric and horrible, no question about it.  But our military aggression has been barbaric and savage as well.  If you start with clearly defined principles and a clear, consistent moral standard by which action is to be judged, then it becomes much easier to see the world with clear eyes.

It's hard to see the world with clear eyes because the world is so messy.
Factions have been retaliating for retaliations for past attacks for thousands of years.
Nearly every nation on Earth lives on land that it took from some other nation.

The global ruling clique is behind the "war on terror."
9-11 could have been prevented. 
Young officers in the Able Danger office in the Pentagon warned about Osama bin Laden.
Their superiors stifled the warning.
The ruling clique wanted a "Pearl Harbor type event"
to spark a war.

One could argue that the "war on terror" is motivated by
LEFT wing ideology, not conservatism.
It's more accurate to say that the global ruling clique
infiltrates and corrupts EVERY institution they can.
They use left vs. right conflict to manipulate events to produce results
that NEITHER side wants, but the global ruling clique does.
The ruling clique doesn't want EITHER side to win.
They keep the conflict going because they want BOTH sides to lose!

For a vivid illustration of the principle, see:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day_of_the_Dove

[quiller]

"Arab-loving apologist"?  What is that supposed to mean?  You might not agree with my opinions but there has been some thought put into them and some research done to bolster my views.  You've been reduced to name-calling at this point.

I'm a libertarian, which means I support a radical reduction in the size and scope of the State over private human affairs or, preferably, the elimination of the State.

I thought conservatives of your ilk believed in small government and the Constitution?  I guess this doesn't apply to foreign policy then?

I see no reason to waste time answering point by point the things SENTIENT adults already know. Pull your liberal head out of your Barack Obama.