jpahmad

Chris, she sounds immature. I need some more information though. Does she agree with her friends decision to marry the Cuban guy? Or, does she think it's a bit ridiculous as well but is just backing her friend up out of principle (her principle that one should always support friends decisions no matter what). As for her friend. I feel sorry for her. She seems to be setting herself up for misery and pain. It's not anything to encourage and I doubt the sincerity of their friendship. I see four scenarios as of now: She (the girl your interested in) really thinks it's a good idea for her friend to marry this Cuban guy She doesn't think it's a good idea, but is backing her friend up out of principle (even if it is an irrational principle) She gets some kind of sadistic pleasure over seeing other people's lives become train wrecks and entertains herself by going over and being a "shoulder to cry on." She is really immature and hasn't had enough life experience yet to break out of a the "tweeny-bop" mindset that follows some girls well into their 20s. Conclusions for each scenario in respective order: She's an idiot and you should drop her asap She can't differentiate between supporting a friend and supporting a friend's bad decision. Therefore, she has major flaws with her thought process and this will surely lead to future troubles with you. Drop her asap She is dangerous. Drop her asap She may just be completely naive. This could be do to being young or in experienced. This is the best case scenario. You would still have to present the rational argument to her concerning her friends unfortunate choice a soon as possible. Her reaction to that argument will tell you what you need to know. Most likely, she won't like your rational thinking.

The "human nature" argument is a self-detonating argument. Don't spend any time or energy entertaining it.

oh I see

Is there a case to be made for taking the blue pill?

If man is inherenty irrational, we would not have survived 200,000 years of our pre-history. Not only would we not have figured out how to hunt effectively, but we wouldn't have figured out anything. We would have been quickly disposed of by other animals. That being said, subjugating other men is not irrational, it's evil. This is probably true, however, it doesn't effect the argument one way or the other for man being "irrational." Both cases, although they make sense to me, don't address the "bad human nature" argument. I would just stick to denying the assertion in the first place instead entertaining it and trying to make heads or tails of a world where "man is inherently irrational" I think it's pretty easily debunked. For example, ask the person who makes this claim why you should listen to him in the first place if he is inherently irrational?

There is still a power disparity in my amendment. Daddy (Israel with all of it's power) abuses a child (Palestinian people which includes literally Palestinian children) and in return the abused child (Palestinian people) lash out by killing another child (innocent Israeli civilians including Israeli children.) The catch here is that the original perpetrator, the Israeli government and soldiers, unfortunately never feel the retaliation. They get away while it's the civilians who take the backlash. I am making a separation between the Israel government and the Israeli people. Now, you might say that the Israeli people are culpable for what their government does. But, certainly the Israeli children are not.

I think a better analogy would be: "If you spank one of your kids, and you stop because you genuinely realize that you were wrong, they may get angry and decide to attack your other kid who looked like they were telling daddy to do it in the first place."

In all honesty, what is the point of this thread?

Robert, I understand that Israel has done just as much terrorizing in the past as Hamas. I never doubted that and if the purpose of this video was to balance things out a bit by showing how Israel is just as culpable of crimes against humanity as Hamas, then it did a good job. I have no problem with that. My personal experience when watching the video was one of disappointment. Why? Here are the reasons: Everyone with half a brain cell already knows that it "takes two to tango" and that Israel has done just as many horrible things over the years to the Palestinians as Hamas and/or radical Islamists have done to others. Those who don't already understand this are simpleton idiots who are not interested in "the truth" anyway. They just want to take sides and beat their chest. Figuring out who started it won't solve the problem anyway A lot of the specifics of conflict in history are based on hearsay and speculation. I don't know anyone that can make a video about historical disputes without depending on secondary resources. (contrast to Stefan's other videos like Zimmerman and circumcision where he used logic and scientific data.) I don't want people to think that FDR is oversimplifying a complex problem. It doesn't make us look good. Stef himself warned about the dangers of simplistic people who just beat their chests and shout platitudes. Not that that is what is being done in his video, but there are parallels. Finally, tell me how knowing the truth about the past is going to extinguish the flames felt in the heart of a Palestinian or Israeli child who just watched his/her loved ones get blown to pieces by shell fire? The problem isn't the past, it's the present! Someone in the present is firing missiles at people! These are the people who I thought Stefan was going to address. I thought he was going to speak to the people who need a reality check, who need to know that if they want peace, they have to just stop killing and see that on the other side of the wall, on the other side of the barricade, are human beings. But this, he did not do. He just fanned the flames of hate and anger. This is why I was disappointed. I'm just describing my feelings and reaction to the video. I love all the other truth videos. Maybe I'm over-reacting. Take it for what it's worth. Come to think of it, only at the end did Stefan start to get into what I was expecting to hear. Unfortunately, it was overshadowed by the other 90% of the video.

In a free society, there are no "obligations." You could say: "if you want to do business with someone, you are obligated to keep your word." That's the only way I see the term being used in a free society.

Lians, at 49.59 in the video, Stefan sort of makes a comparison "from the stand point of the victims" between the Jews and the Nazis. The Nazis were a national socialist party in Germany at a certain point in time that lived and died. There are no longer any openly card carrying Nazis walking around the streets of Germany who do not receive severe condemnation. What the Israeli rulers and their henchmen did to the Palestinians in the 1940s Arab-Israeli war was absolutely ethnic cleansing and exactly the same thing that Hitler did to the Jews. However, when Stefan says "Jews" it seems he is referring to all Jews past and present who live in that part of the world. The truth is great, but I don't think you are representing the truth when you compare modern day Israelis to a 1940 gang of thugs who wiped out a population. Tell me Lians, what is the truth about the people who occupy Israel now? Are they comparable to Nazis in the eyes of the Palestinians? After all, they are the ones who suffer the retaliation of enraged Palestinians. No that doesn't quite work. The Palestinians still have a relationship with the Israeli government. They are neighbors and prisoners. Also, you wrote "did you harm", the Israeli government is still doing harm to the Palestinians. For example, if you defoo from an abusive past, if you truly defoo, that means you have no relationship with that person, therefore, there is no longer any abuse. In this case, digging up dirt from the past will not effect you negatively. For the Palestinians, digging up the truth about their past relationship with the Israeli government, will do both the Palestinians and the Israeli people much more harm (the Palestinians will become more enraged), and unfortunately, no one in Israeli government will suffer. Only the people will suffer. Don't hate it till you try it

You are correct. How else can there be peace? One side puts down their guns and lets the other side blow them away? Not Israel, people in Israel. You have to stop talking about a country like it's an actuall thing. In these videos, we aim to address people, not made up concepts like "country." People in Israel are intelligent and educated, they can understand the NAP. The rulers in Israel are a different breed though. They are the real aggressors against the Palestinians and they should face the consequences of their crimes. However, to get to the rulers, you have to get to the people first. So it's a quantum leap to understand the NAP but not a quantum leap to understand Jewish and Palestinian history for the past 500 years? So if I hate my neighbor, and wish him dead, and my only deterrent to killing him is the fear of reprisal from a third party(which would be disadvantageous to me), then we should celebrate that my not killing him is comparable to making peace? I would still hate my neighbor. The only peace that matters, or holds in this world, is peace as a result of a principle. Any other form of "peace" is just a house of cards ready to blow away at the slightest little point of contention between two people.

I thought we were trying to get away from laws here on FDR. "Consequences for breaking the law"? What are you talking abut man? I don't think you get what I am saying. All of human history has been based on force. All of it. There is no reason to go into the details. The solution is the same whether Israel initiated force first, or the Palestinians initiated force first. Stop killing. Israel should be encouraged to remove all restrictions from the people that they have imprisoned, and the Palestinians should be encourage not to launch missiles and blow themselves up in public. What's so hard to understand about this? Fyi, one doesn't need to know history to understand that the initiation of force is bad. 4 year old children can understand the NAP.

I'm sorry, I just don't see how the past is relevant if your goal is to stop the killing. Just explain to me how the above history lesson is going to encourage both sides to stop the violence? Would it not enrage Palestinians even further? Would it not give them even more of a reason to become martyrs? What is our goal? To decide who was right and who was wrong? Or to stop the killing? This video just pointed out the blatantly obvious. Religious and nationalistic people are crazy and will ultimately end up killing each other. What else is new? I guess I was expecting something different from a "truth about" video, not just the recounting of the ways in which one band of irrational thugs destroys another band of irrational thugs, who probably did some pillaging and raping of their own in the not to distant past.

How about "no more killing." Let's start with that. "claim their land back"? What does that mean? Israel should just leave Palestinians the f#$k alone and not put any restrictions on what they can and can't do. The two groups of people should just mix together. The past needs to be put in the past. If Israel suffers from an attack due to "releasing the hostages", then it's their own damn fault for what they did in the past. Unfortunately, it won't be the people who caused the problem who get killed. So, if Freedomain Radio wants the killing to stop (this is what it's all about right?), then both sides of the conflict have to be addressed in the video. Stefan did it a little at the end, but I feel the majority of the video was spent on historical "he said, she said." I'm not claiming that the data or information in the video wan inaccurate, I'm just claiming that it doesn't matter one way or the other.

remember I also said this: I also said this: It's not the children's past, but the adult's past. And the children have to die for it! What does your "UPB translation" imply? That is is o.k. for Palestinians who are angry and want revenge, to kill innocent Israeli children in suicide bombings? The children have nothing to do with this. By that reasoning, it would have then be permissible for Osama Bin Laden to destroy all of New York because our rulers are sociopaths.

Lians, this may sound stupid, but I don't get what the specifics of Israel/Palestine history have do with solving the problem they have now. History makes it is absolutely clear what caused the problem. It's force. Why does anything else need to be said? The solution is to stop using force. There is no justification for either side to continue to use force today. The past doesn't matter at this point. The only problem I see is that if Israel just put down their weapons and called a truce, which included allowing Palestinians to integrate into the rest of Israel, then Hamas and the whole Arab world would just annihilate Israel. I don't think Israel wants to use force anymore, but Hamas does. I feel that you are exacerbating the problem by digging into history's atrocities and pointing fingers. What is that going to solve? I mean, Stefan spent the majority of the video on pointing out the horrible things the Israelis did in the past. Yes, they were horrible, as most of history is horrible, but why fan the flames? Really. We owe it to the children of both groups to move on. It's not the children's past, but the adult's past. And the children have to die for it! Please tell me, how will this video, describing the intricacies of what adults did in the past, help children now? The adults had their chance and f#*!ed up. I frankly don't give a crap about who was right and who was wrong in the past. Anyone who uses force now is culpable! And anyone who uses force now, has the blood of children on their hands. That goes for both sides. I guess I feel like this video is giving one side more justification to be enraged, and thus, continue to act violently. What was the the angle? What do you hope to accomplish with this truth video? I suppose maybe to get U.S. to stop supporting Israel. Is that it? That's good, but this video broadcasts all over the world, why don't you talk directly to the Palestinians as well? What are you going to tell them? Good research by the way

You can't be a pubic school teacher and not violate the NAP everyday, all day. If you're into Freedomain Radio and you work in one of the most coercive and disgusting environments on the planet, then get ready to experience a crisis of conscience. I was there.

Yeah, but then you have to go back and re-read them. Eventually a frame of reference does form and you begin to see the narrative as something with shape and direction. The first time I read The Magus, I just sort of read it on a superficial level and sat back and enjoyed the ride with all its twists and turns. The writing is rich enough to be able to enjoy the book just through its prose. But it did leave me confused about the ending and I felt that maybe Fowles's was just trying to be provocative or enigmatic for the sake of being enigmatic. Kind of like the television show "Lost." But after reading analysis of the book by other people, learning a bit about existentialism and what it means to "live authentically", I began to see the structure. After I found free-domain radio however, I am able to see how the idea of freedom absolutely saturates the novel. But not just freedom, but freedom and all the responsibility that comes with it. This is the lesson that Nicholas Urfe needs to learn. And this is the ultimate purpose of the Conchis's theater. Essentially, the book has the classical structure of the "heroes quest." Urfe's disposition to live is one way, then he goes on a journey (the island), is transformed into something else, then returns home in the end (when he's waiting around for Alison) If you think about Nicholas's pompous, arrogant, almost nihilistic attitude in the beginning, you can recognize that he embodies just about everything that people on the FDR forum despise. Because he has no principles, no sense of responsibility for his own life, Conchis is able to just tool with him and lead him around on a wild goose chase for the duration of the book. He essentially looks like a pathetic loser the entire duration of the novel. I think in the end, he realizes that without principles, life would just be one meaningless wild goose chase that makes fools of everybody. This is how I interpret the novel. There are many other themes I suppose, but I just mostly focus on the one I brought up. I do want to add though, even though Alison is regularly seen as portraying the female victim (which is annoying), I don't think she has that much of a significant role in the novel. It's like, she is just a place holder for "normal life", or something that is "knowable." I'm sure a lot of women read this book as some kind of romance novel, but that's just ridiculous. It's very easy for someone to read the novel and say "you see, Nicholas got taught a lesson and should have been faithful to Alison." As far as I'm concerned, Alison is just as much of an idiot as Nicholas.

Please indulge me.

I'd like to hear your opinion. I'm curious. You can either post it here or private message me.

yes, your blasting them with too much information.

So essentially, after listening to the video, I gather that you should just treat your child in the same manner as you would a friend. A friend to whom you are morally responsible for feeding and housing. That makes sense to me. However, I do discourage my friends from chasing what I would consider a whim (one-night stands for example) if I think it is not in their rational self-interest. There are also things like motivation. I motivate my friends to do or not do certain things (without using force). If I can do this with my friend, can't I do this with my child?

Is there a point or age at which we should discourage them from following their whims?