CCCToad on 31/1/2010 at 01:48
Quote Posted by LittleFlower
So basically, all politicians have to conform to the ubiquitous state-religion. Or else they have less, or no, chance of getting elected ?
How is this different from the situation in Afghanistan ?
The Afghans don't like the Taliban. But they like the Western military a lot less. I've heard they say things like: "We don't like the Taliban. But we know how to deal with them. We say we are a muslim, the men wear beards, the women wear veils. And we're fine. At least they don't shoot at us, they don't throw bombs on our villages, they don't stop and search us for no reason, they don't support a corrupt regime and maintain corruption. All we need to do is play as if we are good muslims, and all is fine".
Sounds a lot like what US politicians have to do to survive.
Even assuming you were correct(which you aren't about Afghanistan) There is no equivalency between the two. One problem is one of advertising: politicians like labels because it allows them to sell themselves like any other "brand", and having to conform to one of those labels is a side effect.
The other, and more substantial, reason that the situations aren't equivalent is becuase there is no threat of violence backing up the stereotype. Politicans who do not meet that image will not have their house blown up, or their possession burned, or their family killed, or anything of the sort. Hell, we hardly even enforce any kind of moral code on our politicians. They are allowed to (for example) have an adulterous affair, kill the person involved in a drunken car accident, and then callously joke about it later without anyone even caring.
We don't force our politicans to conform to a certain code of behavior: we (collectively) like them to meet a certain image, and if they don't meet that image we punish them. Its why religion is seldom even mentioned by politicians, and if asked they dance around the issue.
Second:
Quote:
The Afghans don't like the Taliban. But they like the Western military a lot less.
Making a blanket statement like that and applying it as if it is true reveals how little you actually know about Afghanistan. In some areas, that can be true. In most AO's, its more true to say that the Afghans are more afraid of the Taliban than they are confident in the U.S. military's ability to fight the Taliban. Most of them simply don't care either way: they just want to be left alone.
Also, note that I said "most". This statement might seem contradictory if you interpret my previous statement as a generalization, but its not intended to be: Its true in some areas, but not others. The political situation in Afghanistan consists of an extremely complex web of different Tribes and ethnicities, each with their own ties, their own ideas, and their own feuds.
Making any broad generalizations about "Afghanistan" is almost always a fallacy, and should be avoided. The fact that people don't avoid thinking about it that way is a contributing factor(how significant is debatable) to our continued failure there.
ercles on 31/1/2010 at 02:21
Quote Posted by LittleFlower
I have no idea what you are talking about.
There's a lot of stuff happening in Dutch politics in the last 10 years. But I have no wish to explain everything here. Unless you ask about something specific. Dutch politics ist just as full with leftish, conservative and confessional motards as politics in any other country in the world.
I've been hearing from some Euro friends that the Dutch are considering moving towards making dope illegal because of the fact that it's acting as a gateway drug.
Gryzemuis on 31/1/2010 at 13:52
Quote Posted by CCCToad
Even assuming you were correct(which you aren't about Afghanistan) There is no equivalency between the two. One problem is one of advertising: politicians like labels because it allows them to sell themselves like any other "brand", and having to conform to one of those labels is a side effect.
You got to think a bit more abstract.
Of course there is no 100% equivalency. It's the basic underlying. You have to conform to the major religion, in some way or another, or you're asking for extra trouble. Whether that's major trouble (Afghanistan) or minor trouble, that's less important. I had hoped that since WWII, people would slowly get smarter, and abandon religion. After all, religion is nothing more than fairytales, which help insecure and dumb people to feel more safe and comfort. ("Opium of the people"). When people get smarter, read and learn more, learn about science, you'd hope they realize that the core of religions is just superstition, which is being transfered from generation to generation via brainwashing little kids.
But no. Religions have learned to fight back, and are slowly gaining ground again. And I don't understand why.
Quote:
Making a blanket statement like that and applying it as if it is true reveals how little you actually know about Afghanistan. In some areas, that can be true. In most AO's, its more true to say that the Afghans are more afraid of the Taliban than they are confident in the U.S. military's ability to fight the Taliban. Most of them simply don't care either way: they just want to be left alone.
How is that different from what I said ?
I basically said that all/most/some/a few Afghans don't care if the Taliban would come back. They'd just grow a beard, call themselves muslims, and go on with their lives. The exact percentage is up for discussion. I don't care. I used this opinion of all/most/some/a few/none Afghans as an example to show how religions can force themselves onto a nation while it seems rather innocent. (Yeah, of course the Taliban do a lot more radical things than force you to wear a beard. I know).
Quote:
The political situation in Afghanistan consists of an extremely complex web of different Tribes and ethnicities, each with their own ties, their own ideas, and their own feuds.
Yeah. And that's why you shouldn't do any "ant-fucking" (nit-picking in proper english), when we discuss a general observation about religion silently seeping its way into politics.
Gryzemuis on 31/1/2010 at 14:12
Quote Posted by ercles
I've been hearing from some Euro friends that the Dutch are considering moving towards making dope illegal because of the fact that it's acting as a gateway drug.
No.
Nobody in the Netherlands cares what kind of drugs you use. As long as you don't bother other people. I believe our soft-drug and hard-drug usage are below the European averages. They definitely are below US averages. Our hard-drug usage is probably a bit inflated by the use of XTC. In the seventies (and eighties), heroin addicts were a problem. But most of them are dead, and kids are smart enough to stay away from heroin. I think we also have a negligible amount of crack users. And the so-called effect that soft-drug users will quicker move to hard-drugs is also mostly nonsense. Imho, alcohol is a much bigger problem with Dutch youth than drugs.
We have 2 problems with our soft-drug policy.
1) Loads of foreigners coming to NL to buy soft-drugs. This makes it so that our "coffee-shops" can be very busy. Especially in cities near the borders with Germany and Belgium (French buyers). This can cause nuisances to people living close to those shops. Customers till after midnight, people pissing in the streets, people being loud. The normal stuff you can expect from normal bars. Because coffee-shops are legally in a shady area, it is sometimes harder to keep the nuisance under control.
2) And this is the bigger problem. We allow coffee-shops to sell soft-drugs in small quantities. But it is still forbidden to produce, transport or sell large quantities of soft-drugs. Coffee-shops are allowed to have 0.5 kilograms of softdrugs in house for sale. But some sell several kilos per day. This inconsistency was just ignored, to prevent more legal or political problems. A shady area. Well, the result was that shady people ran the business side of coffee-shops. And this slowly transformed into a more organized type of crime. I don't know if it was other criminals that moved into softdrugs, or the harddrugs dealers moving into softdrugs. Or it was just that the coffee-shop owners made so much money over the last 20-30 years, that they started mixing their business with bigger semi-legal and illegal businesses. Anyway, as a result, the softdrugs business is now so big that it has grown out of control. Politicians wanna keep control over everything, so they are now talking about ways to change the softdrugs business.
And there is always pressure from other countries. Germany and France especially. But we don't care about that. It's just that the last 8 years we've had a confessional party in our goverment (and we didn't have that in the 8 years before). And the Christians are always quicker to forbid anything that is fun. So they've been talking once in a while about changing our softdrugs policy. But it ain't gonna happen. It's just talk to keep Germany and France happy.
CCCToad on 31/1/2010 at 18:50
Quote:
Of course there is no 100% equivalency. It's the basic underlying. You have to conform to the major religion, in some way or another, or you're asking for extra trouble. Whether that's major trouble (Afghanistan) or minor trouble, that's less important. I had hoped that since WWII, people would slowly get smarter, and abandon religion. After all, religion is nothing more than fairytales, which help insecure and dumb people to feel more safe and comfort. ("Opium of the people"). When people get smarter, read and learn more, learn about science, you'd hope they realize that the core of religions is just superstition, which is being transfered from generation to generation via brainwashing little kids.
But no. Religions have learned to fight back, and are slowly gaining ground again. And I don't understand why.
Most of that was just you venting your personal convictions about religion, which none of us will never know a definitive answer to. They key is this:
Quote:
Of course there is no 100% equivalency. It's the basic underlying. You have to conform to the major religion, in some way or another, or you're asking for extra trouble
There is no actual equivalency. In the United States, religion doesn't have the force of law. You can not be arrested, jailed, or fined because you violated part of a religious code. A few old laws still do exist on the books, but that is usually because they are forgotten laws: nobody enforces them or cares about them. As a general rule the judiciary branch will strike down any laws that attempt to secularize a religious teaching: even here in Georgia the sole holdout is a blue law.
The only common factor is that you can find people everywhere who are viciously intolerant and want to cleanse society of any views that they disagree with. Thats human nature, and not a flaw of any particular government. Heck, you can even find them on this forum.
Second, the fact that politicians pray publicly isn't that substantial. It serves the same purpose as Obama wearing a hardhat or Sarah Palin's "Hurr, I from Alaska!" speeches: they are trying to give the impression that they genuinly good, caring people who understand your problems and feel your pain. Since a majority of Americans polled believe their leaders are "corrupt", the success of those stunts is dubious at best. Its a whole different can of worms, but my point is that they aren't (primarily) doing it from fear of retribution: they are trying to craft an image.
Kolya on 31/1/2010 at 21:39
Quote Posted by LittleFlower
It's just talk to keep Germany and France happy.
And happy we are. Now play some dub.
Tocky on 31/1/2010 at 23:10
Quote Posted by LittleFlower
I've heard they say things like: "We don't like the Taliban. But we know how to deal with them. We say we are a muslim, the men wear beards, the women wear veils. And we're fine. At least they don't shoot at us, they don't throw bombs on our villages, they don't stop and search us for no reason, they don't support a corrupt regime and maintain corruption. All we need to do is play as if we are good muslims, and all is fine".
CCC did a most eloquant rebuttle but I just have to point out how every single part of this statement is wrong. The Taliban were and are a corrupt regime. While they were in power they executed dozens in soccer stadiums every day for the most minor of offences. They were in a war with the northern portion of thier country and constantly stopped and searched any vehicle that came within range. There was no semblace of elections for corruption to even happen in. They bombed a courtyard full of muslim children accepting candy from marines. They support themselves with heroin production. They fire from within the populace knowing full well that return fire will kill innocents and are counting on the propaganda value.
And why not? You swallow that shit whole. You equate them with US religious intolerance when there is little similarity. I may despise those here who cloak themselves in the flag or religion to gain favor with certain groups but I hardly think we are on a par with the sort of Khmer Rouge type of totalitarianism the Taliban was and is.
tartley on 1/2/2010 at 09:02
Quote Posted by hopper
Say hi to your Queen for me, and try to opt out of paying for her rather posh lifestyle. Then come back and teach me about backwardness.
And any mention of Germany at all by you invokes Godwin by default.
Ha! I shall be appropriately circumspect then.
Hey Hopper. I wasn't intending to accuse you of backwardness. I was just saying, it's daft that Governments get a say over where people can choose to live, that's all. I feel like there's a lot of important things like that which are required before someone can call themselves 'free', so it's worth making a fuss about.
For the record, the English Royal family makes more money for the UK than we spend on them - it turns out they are a profitable operation. Partly through tourism, but mostly when they entertain foreign dignitaries who then order hundreds of British tanks or helicopters. Apparently military goods is one of our biggest exports. :-(
I don't agree with it, but the Queen wields no political power, so it's not a terribly high priority of mine to get her head chopped off just yet.
tartley on 1/2/2010 at 09:06
Quote Posted by dethtoll
Welcome to TTLG. Run for your life.
I see what you mean. Heh.
