Muslim Menu runs into high speed trouble in Spain

[Oakman]

psyched wrote:

I say shove razorblades down their throats if they don't like it.

I say you're overreacting. Muslims are not the only group that take their food preparation seriously. It's no skin off your nose that they do. Worry about Muslim atrocities in Darfur and let the food fights take care of themselves.

Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface

[Stan Shannon]

Or, as a society, we could just acknowledge that obligating ourselves legally to being infinitely tolerant of every possible cultural preference was a really goddamned stupid idea to begin with and just go back to the far more intelligent practical intolerance of our past - eat what we serve or go hungry, your choice.

Chaining ourselves to the moral high ground does not make us good guys. Aside from making us easy targets, it merely makes us idiotic prisoners of our own self loathing.

[Stan Shannon]

Oakman wrote:

Muslims are not the only group that take their food preparation seriously. It's no skin off your nose that they do.

Actually it is skin off our nose, and tommorow it will be the entire nose. The notion that we in the west are for some bizarre reason obligated to accomodate alien customs and traditions is a major problem. When the only custom a culture ahers to is that of unrestrained tolerance of alien cultural traditions, it is a doomed culture.

Chaining ourselves to the moral high ground does not make us good guys. Aside from making us easy targets, it merely makes us idiotic prisoners of our own self loathing.

[R Giskard Reventlov]

Not often I find myself giving you AND Oakman a 5 at the same time in the same thread with the same topic. Somehow you're both right. Wonderful.

me, me, me

[Oakman]

Stan Shannon wrote:

The notion that we in the west are for some bizarre reason obligated to accomodate alien customs and traditions is a major problem.

Once again you espouse the beliefs, attitudes and tactics of the statist cultures you affect to despise. How much better you would like the U.S. of A if only we threw those you disapproved of into concentration camps. The kind of society you long to be a part of has been tried over and over again throughout history. And they have always proved to be short-lived, often destroyed by their neighbors to whom they were repugnant. I shan't bother to quote Jefferson on tolerance to you, for you obviously have no truck with the likes of him.

Stan Shannon wrote:

When the only custom a culture adheres to is that of unrestrained tolerance of alien cultural traditions, it is a doomed culture.

Do call me when this is the only custom the US adheres to. Wait, never mind. I'll be long dead, and so will my grand-kids. "Only custom!" What arrant nonsense.

Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface

[Oakman]

digital man wrote:

Somehow you're both right

Better that than give us both 1's, eh wot? For what it's worth, I have never claimed to be the repository of all the truth or that almost anyone - even illion - did not sometimes get it right. Maybe even righter than I did. :omg:

Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface

[Oakman]

Stan Shannon wrote:

we could just acknowledge that obligating ourselves legally to being infinitely tolerant of every possible cultural preference was a really goddamned stupid idea to begin with.

ROFL. This was a capitalist decision, made by a corporation, in order to attract customers. No laws were passed, none were broken.

Stan Shannon wrote:

just go back to the far more intelligent practical intolerance of our past - eat what we serve or go hungry, your choice.

Ah yes. I'm not surprised to hear that you spring from a long line of prison inhabitants. (The only question in my mind would be whether they were inmates or guards.) Strangely enough, in my entire life, I have never encountered that attitude by anyone who was selling me a meal. Even in the Service, where I definitely wasn't paying for my food, I was offered choices. I will admit that my mother made me eat my spinach, but somehow, I don't think you were feeling parental towards these people you wish to humiliate for no other reason than they wish their food to be prepared differently than you do.

Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface

[Stan Shannon]

Oakman wrote:

Once again you espouse the beliefs, attitudes and tactics of the statist cultures you affect to despise. How much better you would like the U.S. of A if only we threw those you disapproved of into concentration camps. The kind of society you long to be a part of has been tried over and over again throughout history. And they have always proved to be short-lived, often destroyed by their neighbors to whom they were repugnant. I shan't bother to quote Jefferson on tolerance to you, for you obviously have no truck with the likes of him.

You define the real issue quite nicely. Any time there is any suggestion that we, as a society, do not fall all over ourselves accomodating every possible cultural preference every single human being on the planet brings to our society with them when they wash up on our shores, than some how that is the same as wanting to 'throw those we disapprove of into concentration camps'. I don't want to throw any one into any concentration camp, but I do wish to be able to freely express my disapprovla of their moronic traditions and tell them to get off my goddmaned train if they don't like the food.

Oakman wrote:

I shan't bother to quote Jefferson on tolerance to you, for you obviously have no truck with the likes of him.

Yes, and once again, you are using Jefferson to destroy Jefferson. You would take some off hand comment he made in some letter about 'tolerance' and use it to destroy any possibility of using freedom of speech, religion or the press, to tell those who come here that they suck. At the end of the day, the freedom to discriminate is the most profound freedom of them all. It is the only freedom that gives any real meaning to all the others.

Oakman wrote:

Do call me when this is the only custom the US adheres to. Wait, never mind. I'll be long dead, and so will my grand-kids. "Only custom!" What arrant nonsense

It is not nonsense. Any culture which has a cultural imperative to be tolerant of alien cultures will, through a process of attrition, become what those other culturs are. It is inevitable. At some point you have to be willing to say "Ok,thats it, get off our fucking train" or "Oh, sorry, we will change to accomodate you. We will even get off the train to make more room for you"

Chaining ourselves to the moral high groun

[Stan Shannon]

Renfe Operadora is the state-owned company which operates freight and passenger trains on the 1668-mm [^] Ironcially, however, it would be even worse if it were a private company. It would prove beyond doubt that demographic change is now driving capitalistic accomodation, which would even further prove what a very bad decision the political requirement to accomodate other peoples and their cultures has been.

Chaining ourselves to the moral high ground does not make us good guys. Aside from making us easy targets, it merely makes us idiotic prisoners of our own self loathing.

modified on Saturday, July 12, 2008 10:57 AM

[Oakman]

Stan Shannon wrote:

Any time there is any suggestion that we, as a society, do not fall all over ourselves accomodating every possible cultural preference every single human being on the planet brings to our society with them when they wash up on our shores,

Didn't you plagiarize this from Sitting Bull?

Stan Shannon wrote:

I don't want to throw any one into any concentration camp, but I do wish to be able to freely express my disapprovla of their moronic traditions and tell them to get off my goddmaned train if they don't like the food.

You have so expressed yourself without fear; and it's not your train. So why the Jeanne Dixon prophesies filled with gloom and doom? By the way - would you tell them to get to the back of the goddamned bus as well?

Stan Shannon wrote:

Yes, and once again, you are using Jefferson to destroy Jefferson.

And once again I point out that you are welcome to prove me wrong by quoting Jefferson to gainsay what I have presented. You do not take me up on this because you know, that with a few exceptions, you cannot.

Stan Shannon wrote:

You would take some off hand comment he made in some letter

I have, in the past, quoted his inaugural speeches. You have found it as easy to dismiss them as any of his other writings. Face it, Stan, you despise everything that Jefferson stood for except for the right of the states to nullify the actions of the Feds.

Stan Shannon wrote:

Any culture which has a cultural imperative to be tolerant of alien cultures will, through a process of attrition, become what those other culturs are.

You seem convinced that Muslim culture is so superior to Western that it must win if it is allowed to compete. I would have expected to read this in a post by Adnan, but I thought you had more faith in what you held dear. I don't suppose you'd want to read jefferson on the right to have all ideas expressed so that truth would prevail? No, I thought not. By the way, I wonder if you'd like to explain the longevity of the the Third Reich, certainly the epitome of your kind of intolerant culture. How fared their racial purity? Is 'Aryan' culture widespread?

Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface

[Oakman]

Stan Shannon wrote:

Renfe Operadora is the state-owned company which operates freight and passenger trains on the 1668-mm [^]

I knew that Stan. But that does not mean that they are not run in a way to attract customers, Stan. You make the mistake of assuming that a government - especially one with the fine old fascist bachground of Spain- isn't interested in selling tickets on their train? There was a government once in Montgomery, Alabama that thought that they could treat some of their bus-riders like second-class citizens and still have them as customers. They were wrong and it took a little over a year, but they finally realised their choice was bankruptcy or equality. Of course, in a nice dictatorial state, the kind you would run, it might take even longer -- or maybe the bus service would be discontinued. You have often struck me as the kind of person who would cut off his nose to spite his face.

Stan Shannon wrote:

demographic change is now driving capitalistic accomodation

Always has, always will. You don't really think they sold as much fish on Friday in New England before the Canucks and Irish showed up, do you?

Stan Shannon wrote:

what a very bad decision the political requirement to accomodate other peoples and their cultures has been.

Once upon a time, my veddy veddy waspish ancestors said exactly the same thing about the Irish. Of course, on the other side of my family, I am half Irish. And yet the sun still shines and the earth still revolves. Armageddon did not come after all. . . Hmmmm. . ."Shannon." You aren't one of the damned immigrants, are you? With all your foreign ideas and ways? :laugh:

Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface

[Stan Shannon]

Oakman wrote:

Didn't you plagiarize this from Sitting Bull?

No, but the reference certainly proves my point.

Oakman wrote:

You have so expressed yourself without fear; and it's not your train. So why the Jeanne Dixon prophesies filled with gloom and doom? By the way - would you tell them to get to the back of the goddamned bus as well?

If I can't tell them to get to the back of the bus, than obviously I cannot express myself 'without fear' now can I?

Oakman wrote:

And once again I point out that you are welcome to prove me wrong by quoting Jefferson to gainsay what I have presented. You do not take me up on this because you know, that with a few exceptions, you cannot. And once again I point out that you are welcome to prove me wrong by quoting Jefferson to gainsay what I have presented. You do not take me up on this because you know, that with a few exceptions, you cannot.

Actually, as usual, I can quite easily. Regardless of anything Jefferson wrote or said about tolerance, the concept is no where to be found in the actual text of the constitution - the foundation of actual Jeffersonian democracy.

Oakman wrote:

You seem convinced that Muslim culture is so superior to Western that it must win if it is allowed to compete. I would have expected to read this in a post by Adnan, but I thought you had more faith in what you held dear. I don't suppose you'd want to read jefferson on the right to have all ideas expressed so that truth would prevail? No, I thought not.

Jon, that is really dumb. The culture that has the spine to say "fuck you and the horse you rode in here on" is the one that is clearly superior. You are not defining a society where all ideas can be expressed. You are defining a society where some ideas are considered too dangerous to be expressed - if they offend someone's cultural preferences or somehow violate Jefferson's views on tolerance.

Oakman wrote:

By the way, I wonder if you'd like to explain the longevity of the the Third Reich, certainly the epitome of your kind of intolerant culture. How fared their racial purity? Is 'Aryan' culture widespread?

Again with the real nonsense. So unless I am willing to be forced to accept things I disagree with, I'm a Nazi. Wo

[R Giskard Reventlov]

Oakman wrote:

Better that than give us both 1's

That is innuendo over here! :-)

Oakman wrote:

eh wot

Nobody really says that, old chap. :-)

Oakman wrote:

For what it's worth, I have never claimed to be the repository of all the truth

Only billy-no-mates Illion does that: the rest of us are normal. Why do people still respond to his bleatings? Somedays it's like the Illionbox in here. Ah well, it's the weekend and we're arguing over where to go for a vacation. Lovely.

me, me, me

[Oakman]

Stan Shannon wrote:

No, but the reference certainly proves my point.

Only in "History for Idiots." What settled the competition for land in North America was the capability of manufacturing ever-improving weapons.

Stan Shannon wrote:

If I can't tell them to get to the back of the bus, than obviously I cannot express myself 'without fear' now can I?

I didn't ask you whether you could, I asked you if you wanted to.

Stan Shannon wrote:

Regardless of anything Jefferson wrote or said about tolerance,

As I said, you despise Jefferson. It's only the idea that the states trump the Feds that appeals to you.

Stan Shannon wrote:

The culture that has the spine to say "f*** you and the horse you rode in here on" is the one that is clearly superior.

Stan Shannon wrote:

You are not defining a society where all ideas can be expressed. You are defining a society where some ideas are considered too dangerous to be expressed

Stan, you are an idiot if you think that I'd defend the right for Muslims or Catholics or Blacks or any group that has played the professional victim card to ban ideas - most of which you have had the opportunity to hear me speak up for. It is you are are defining a society where Muslims cannot be served as paying customers, where blacks need to sit behind the line on the bus, where intolerance for anything that doesn't suit you becomes enshrined in law by the community so so fondly imagine shares your fear of everything that is different.

Stan Shannon wrote:

unless I am willing to be forced to accept things I disagree with, I'm a Nazi

No, you are a statist. NAZIs just happen to be a particularly appropriate example of statists. If you'd prefer I'll draw my next example from Stalin's Russia. As you have pointed out all societies which glorify the state over individual freedom have more in common than not.

Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface

[Oakman]

digital man wrote:

Nobody really says that, old chap

Old bean, are you trying to tell me that Colonel Blimp has popped off?

Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface

[Lost User]

Stan Shannon wrote:

At the end of the day, the freedom to discriminate is the most profound freedom of them all

I get the impression that you regret the day when slavery and human bondage on the plantation was stopped.

[Stan Shannon]

Richard A. Abbott wrote:

get the impression that you regret the day when slavery and human bondage on the plantation was stopped.

So, if I express any negitivity towards points of view I find objectionable, or people I just don't happen to like, I'm not only a Nazi I'm pro-slavery? Wow, thats one hell of an unassailable intellectual template you've bound me up with. Almost feels like...shackles. Brave new world, indeed.

Chaining ourselves to the moral high ground does not make us good guys. Aside from making us easy targets, it merely makes us idiotic prisoners of our own self loathing.

[Paul Conrad]

Stan Shannon wrote:

just go back to the far more intelligent practical intolerance of our past - eat what we serve or go hungry, your choice.

Good point. I bet the squirrels outside my house don't give a damn how their food is prepared. Just eat it or die....

"The clue train passed his station without stopping." - John Simmons / outlaw programmer "Real programmers just throw a bunch of 1s and 0s at the computer to see what sticks" - Pete O'Hanlon

[Oakman]

Stan Shannon wrote:

I'm not only a Nazi I'm pro-slavery

If you say so . . . :laugh:

Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface

[R Giskard Reventlov]

Not 'alf; gorn to jingo 'eaven. :)

me, me, me