A little Chinese sabre rattling

Maphusio said:
My point being they have done less destruction and chaos to the world than many other civilizations. While people were being lynched in England for learning the legacy the Greeks left behind Islam was allowing all religions to practice under the same mosque cure disease give the gift of complex mathematics and allowing conquered lands to remain as they were before they came. They incorporated each land into their own with little bias or discrimination. Now it is true they have done the wrong thing now and then. How many times has the wrong thing been done to them?

Since everybody tends to go a little wayward with comments, I’ll allow my self the same luxury and say that the “little ones” always hate the bullying big ones, especially when they encroach their rightfully owned territory and resources. As far as Ottoman empire goes most of what you is true – they were reasonably “sophisticated” when viewed in the prism of medieval savagery. But that still doesn’t mean that my people feel indebted to them for making a battlefield out of our country for 400 years. It was precisely here that they exhausted all their military might in a terrible attrition war which cost Croatia dearly. If it weren’t for them we’d now have a population of 20 million, instead of just under 5 million.
That’s it for this month. I’m going away to Korcula, a medieval fortified renaissance island port, which btw, never fell to the Turkish invasion attempts .
As far as China goes, I really hope they keep putting more of those fancy warships into the seas, if nothing else but so that I can make plastic models of them.
Adieu
 
Max Demian said:
Since everybody tends to go a little wayward with comments, I’ll allow my self the same luxury

Am I the only one that likes this newbie extremely well?
 
Max Demian said:
Maphusio said:
My point being they have done less destruction and chaos to the world than many other civilizations. While people were being lynched in England for learning the legacy the Greeks left behind Islam was allowing all religions to practice under the same mosque cure disease give the gift of complex mathematics and allowing conquered lands to remain as they were before they came. They incorporated each land into their own with little bias or discrimination. Now it is true they have done the wrong thing now and then. How many times has the wrong thing been done to them?

Since everybody tends to go a little wayward with comments, I’ll allow my self the same luxury and say that the “little ones” always hate the bullying big ones, especially when they encroach their rightfully owned territory and resources. As far as Ottoman empire goes most of what you is true – they were reasonably “sophisticated” when viewed in the prism of medieval savagery. But that still doesn’t mean that my people feel indebted to them for making a battlefield out of our country for 400 years. It was precisely here that they exhausted all their military might in a terrible attrition war which cost Croatia dearly. If it weren’t for them we’d now have a population of 20 million, instead of just under 5 million.
That’s it for this month. I’m going away to Korcula, a medieval fortified renaissance island port, which btw, never fell to the Turkish invasion attempts .
As far as China goes, I really hope they keep putting more of those fancy warships into the seas, if nothing else but so that I can make plastic models of them.
Adieu

Wild I never knew that about home. But as I said they were conquerors just like any empire.

On another note, there are quite a few Croatians here whats the deal?
 
Max Demian said:
Since everybody tends to go a little wayward with comments, I’ll allow my self the same luxury and say that the “little ones” always hate the bullying big ones, especially when they encroach their rightfully owned territory and resources.

I concur with most of what you are saying, but that statement there puzzles me. How is any point in time justified as having the "right" to own those resources, given that the ancestors of those settlers were conquerers themselves? It may be a bit pedantic or waxing moral relativism, but the point remains. I can sympathize with how the people are treated, but I can't see how people enforce "rights" to material property save through violence, or some systemic method of law agreed upon by all parties (yeah, that'll happen).
 
CCR said:
And judging a nation on how they treat a tiny minority like the Jewish population is sillyness

Oh CCR, how am I supposed to take anything you say seriously from this day forward now? :(
 
Kharn said:
Aye, equally, Christianity and the USA and its liberal way of lifestyle will one day become backward, insignificant, dust in the wind.

Inevitability of time. It's happened to everyone, it'll happen to us

Not neccesarilly. Cores and peripheries really only shift when the cores go conservative and try to withhold any progress.

Just look at what happened between the Christian and the Muslim world, for example. The Christian world was for centuries a periphery of the Muslim world, until the Christians started adapting and perfecting Muslim ideas that had been cemented into place by Muslim consevatives - and thus generally showing greater flexibility than the Muslim world.

In these days, where information is easily distributed and aquired, the 'danger' of peripheries adapting and surpassing core ideas is of course perhaps greater than ever before. Therefore, to 'stay ahead' all one need to do is to retain flexibilty.

Or, as I said a million times before: conservatives always lose.
 
If conservatives always lose... Why do they own America? Why is it a sin to be anything but conservative here? I am called anti-American for thinking the way I do. Laws are passed that are more rediculous than the last. Yet few can stand to this power that has been created.
 
Because adaptation has more to do with it than "conservatism." Conservatism is a relative term that applies on an individual basis. What's key in surviving as a society is its adaptability to new ideas and trends. This has more to do with pride and stubborness than it does a fondness for tradition. The reason the Muslims were left behind scientifically is because they assumed they were right.
 
Bradylama said:
Because adaptation has more to do with it than "conservatism." Conservatism is a relative term that applies on an individual basis. What's key in surviving as a society is its adaptability to new ideas and trends. This has more to do with pride and stubborness than it does a fondness for tradition. The reason the Muslims were left behind scientifically is because they assumed they were right.

A VERY interesting concept there... Very interesting. One I had never concieved. You could esaly apply this to any civilization that fell. Ugs, I spend my time studying the past of civilizations and I always take the book reason for the fall. Maybe the fall was so simple, for many civilizations.
 
And that's the thing. Even in supposedly progressive societies (e.g. Communist) there is still a chance of failure, because its foundations could prove to be false. The survivability of a culture and society is a matter of finding what's wrong and correcting the mistake. Human societies are a trial-and-error process, just like human development itself. We wouldn't even be at this stage of development if somebody wasn't willing to question the nature of the status quo.

A capitalist, Representative Democracy is supposedly the best system we've come up with. Other political and economic models work in principle, but people are generally less satisfied with the results. Now it's simply a matter of determining what the next stage of political and economic development will be. Because our way of life is pretty good doesn't mean that it can't be better.
 
Maphusio said:
If conservatives always lose... Why do they own America? Why is it a sin to be anything but conservative here? I am called anti-American for thinking the way I do. Laws are passed that are more rediculous than the last. Yet few can stand to this power that has been created.

They don't own America, any more than a pathatic majority (51% of voters...) can own anything. I'm sure that the 50% (or more, perhaps) of the population that is liberal and doesn't care for the Republican Congress would disagree with you about the "sin to be anything but conservative" comment.

I also can't help but draw a blank when I start thinking about "this power that has been created". Liberals invariably talk about W as if he were some unassailable juggernaut and the Republican Congress as if they were some sort of Gestapo. W and his congress haven't been able to do shit over the past five years, and most of his 'reforms' will probably get rejected the next time this country swings back into liberalism, as it always does every 15 years or so.

And as for ridiculous legislation, I agree about the Patriot Act and the flag-burning horse manure of a law. But that's politics as usual, and the only reason why conservatives are getting the blame is because they were in power when happened.
 
Not exactly related to the Chinese, but equally important. All I can really say is that I can't believe some people.

DENVER — A Colorado congressman told a radio show host that the U.S. could "take out" Islamic holy sites if Muslim fundamentalist terrorists attacked the country with nuclear weapons.

Rep. Tom Tancredo (search) made his remarks Friday on WFLA-AM in Orlando, Fla. His spokesman stressed he was only speaking hypothetically.

Talk show host Pat Campbell (search) asked the Littleton Republican how the country should respond if terrorists struck several U.S. cities with nuclear weapons.

"Well, what if you said something like — if this happens in the United States, and we determine that it is the result of extremist, fundamentalist Muslims, you know, you could take out their holy sites," Tancredo answered.

"You're talking about bombing Mecca," Campbell said.

"Yeah," Tancredo responded.

The congressman later said he was "just throwing out some ideas" and that an "ultimate threat" might have to be met with an "ultimate response."

Spokesman Will Adams said Sunday the four-term congressman doesn't support threatening holy Islamic sites but that Tancredo was grappling with the hypothetical situation of a terrorist strike deadlier than the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

"We have an enemy with no uniform, no state, who looks like you and me and only emerges right before an attack. How do we go after someone like that?" Adams said.

"What is near and dear to them? They're willing to sacrifice everything in this world for the next one. What is the pressure point that would deter them from their murderous impulses?" he said.

Tancredo is known in the House for his tough stand on immigration and had a 100 percent rating last year from the American Conservative Union (search) his votes and positions on issues.

Mohammad Noorzai, coordinator of the Colorado Muslim Council (search) and a native of Afghanistan, said Tancredo's remarks were radical and unrepresentative but that people in Tancredo's position need to watch their words when it comes to sacred religious sites and texts.

Source: FOX News
 
Pajari I can't say that changed my mind any. I am not the only person that notices those who do not think like the administration (even republicans) are looked at as the enemy. I believe it was Tavis Smiley, who had a good guest on a while back. His guest was a senator (republican) that wrote a book regarding that her and many other republicans that were not extremist enough, and not with the flow were treated like dirt, threatened and alienated.
A good source:
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_10/004890.php

And Specialist, that is one holarious post.
 
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