England

For whatever it's worth I wish George Carlin was not only alive but also that he was ringing in on this discussion. I think he'd have something to say about the futility of it all.

I am kind of on the fence and if anything I think Februs has made the most cogent argument so far, I mean, "If it Looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck then it's probably a duck," but I also concur that there are more innocents or, if you prefer the term 'non-combatants', in the Muslim world than the a**holes that are perpetrating these heinous and cowardly acts. I am simply sickened by these acts. Hstorically I think these opposing factions would attack military personnel...knights...crusaders...soldiers, and as bad as that is at least these were 'fighting forces'. There is no glory, reason or anything that justifies blowing people up at a concert hall or running down civilians on a bridge. The world has gone insane.

Everyone has a voice...everyone is entitled to an opinion and I respect everyone who has chimed in on here, but that being said, tears have come to my eyes more than once in reading what is said on this thread. Not because it's been said, but because there has been reason for it to be said. Each time I pull up a news site and read about the latest senseless act of terrorism a part of me dies.

I come here in part as a release. I say, "OK...as twisted as I am being a spanko at least I can go here and be among like minded souls and get a bit of 'relief' and camaraderie and escape from the day to day" but then I see a thread like this and think, "Ummm...isn't this a spanking site?"

Anyhow, Just tossing my sticks on the fire here. Peace to all.

Jenny

Dear Wooz, I live in Sweden, but thanks to today's communication we have access to everything from the New York State to Bretbart so I try to get my info from the entire scale to try to keep an open mind. Being a North European, I however often get appalled by what I see in the Rush Limbaugh show, The Blaze or Glenn Back and I get sick to my stomach when I realize that some people actually have this opinion. Over here, they'd have so many prosecutions regarding slander, call for violence and racism that they'd be off the air long ago. Probably being seen as a communist by at least 50% of the US population, I am shocked by what I see as outright lies from the Fox media industry, for example their vicious verbal attacks on Sweden with one fake 'expert' after the other, while piling lies a mile high against my country, amazing as it seems backed by the president himself. I could never understand why we were in the line of fire this spring. Diversion?

I agree, there is a problem with lack of freedom of press in the US, in my left wing eyes mostly due to millionaires owning certain parts of the industry, mostly having their mind to the right and that an amazingly large part of the population actively chose to only get their information from one source. The further to the right that you are, the less likely you are to take in information from the whole spectrum. It's like being a western capitalist in Russia and by your own will choosing to only get your information from Pravda. But the scale depends on what country you live in. Amazing at it might seem to many Americans, Michael Moore is considered center liberal here.

What I was referring to was the World Press Freedom index (RSF) by the Reporters Without Borders, which is a worldwide acclaimed organization that does look strictly at reporters chances to do their work, independent of the political climate in the country. I'm sorry for my initial somewhat sloppy reference. You can Google it and you'll find the complete list. A 43d is not as bad as it seems at first, some western nations as Poland, Hungary, Argentina, Brazil and Greece are still behind the USA. When I was a kid I always believed that the USA would consistently be on top of that list though, so this is bugging me.

When you write that much of the problem regarding freedom of press is due to lack of backbone from the elected representatives, how do you mean that they should act to improve the situation? I'm sorry to be a bit slow in this, I can only blame my cultural background, that it's not always directly obvious to me what you refer to here. Often I feel like an odd bird in the discussions here. Americans and Brits who are a vast majority on this page speak the same cultural lingo while I speak, well, I don't know, but with my North European references it is sometimes hard for me to follow what people mean between the lines.

You're completely right about me being picky regarding what century Islam saw the light of day, I felt that already when I wrote that comment. My only defense is that I'm unnecessary picky when it comes to details, sorry.

I'll check out George Carlin, I have no idea who it is.

Thanks for responding to me.




Well, basically these knights and crusaders were executing unarmed non-combatants, women and children when 'cleansing' the promised land, separating people by religion in conquered areas and killing all Moslems families. As soon as they met a real army they got their asses kicked good.

But I am not in any way defending Islam, even though I seem to find myself consistently fall back into what looks like that when writing my replies here. I think Islam is wrong, but I think it's unfair to pinpoint that religion as the sole root of the problem. i think the problem is the political situation and hopelessness of life in the war torn countries that these people come from. I think all religions are wrong. I want a world free from religion, instead based on science and cooperation. I just don't think that Islam is much worse than everything else from the pool of nutty beliefs. To use a popular phrase I think "society is to blame", meaning the situation in those countries that produce terrorists and by that I mean the Middle East.

But as stated by many clever commenters here - discussing religion doesn't get us anywhere, even though it is interesting to exchange ideas and points of view, but it's not as if we'll ever convert each other and there is no need to. But we must be able to ventilate our thoughts in peace with each other and I think we do that pretty well.

But as also stated, this a spanking page and I think that I should really considering dropping this subject now, no matter how enlightening and stimulating I find it to discuss with people of opposing opinions. I'll try to revert back to red bottoms now, promise.

I don't know here to start, I really wish I'd never seen this discussion as it seems to have brought out some of the very worst in people on a par with some of the hate-filled political groups on spanking/BDSM websites that are poorly moderated.

I have an interest in all this, I admit. I used to live in Manchester and went to a church in an inner city area not a million miles from Februs where we always tried to build relationships with local imams and mosques. We used lots of Asian restaurants and local shops which were almost all Muslim-owned and received great courtesy and service. Only last month I was passing through Manchester and called into a busy takeaway which we used only intermittently and hadn't been to for over a year - the man recognised me and asked after my family; he remembered me!

Now my son has married a girl who lives in the Middle East, in a very stable and secure country. OK, it's not exactly a democracy as we would term it, but it's much safer than Britain or the US, not to mention cleaner. And we even have distant Muslim relatives now! My wife's best friend is a Muslim woman from Manchester who is a governor of a Muslim girls' school and they are very carefully checked that the education they offer is not promoting extremism.

Suffice it to say that these overwhelmingly kind and gracious people are very far from the crazy evil bombers and it makes me angry when it is alleged that it's because they aren't "proper" Muslims and the murderers are the only ones being true to their faith. The early Muslims, like the Jews, were oppressed and persecuted and had to fight for their very existence, hence the warfare-related passages in their holy books; Christians of course didn't have any political or military clout in the days when the New Testament was written, but once they'd achieved this the pacific teachings of Jesus were basically thrown out of the window!

There is NO justification in the Qu'ran for killing innocent people in a nation where, despite being in a religious minority, Muslims are given full citizenship and freedom of worship and lifestyle. The vast majority of Muslims know this full well, but young people are being radicalised by world politics, particularly the actions of Western nations in the last few years. Most of the UK's Muslims are second or third generation and have lived here peacefully for decades without any talk of jihad or Islamic state, even though they were being treated like shit by corrupt police and racist scum.

If you're looking for "countries that produce terrorists", the one that stands head and shoulders above the rest is Saudi Arabia, whose oil riches have been used to spread a particular virulent form of Islamic austerity way beyond Qu'ranic mandate - not for the rich Saudis themselves, of course, they can always afford to get drunk or laid somewhere whilst laying the law down for everyone else. However they buy our weapons, we buy their oil, so THIS is what nobody will talk about, and the root cause of much of the current malaise.

I think its good people speak their minds better than hearing the same old PC garbage we get on the BBC and Channel 4. We have all met decent Muslims but some aspects of their religion belong in the dark ages. You are welcome to your opinion but don't dismiss other peoples opinion as less worthy as your own. Not seen much hatred on this thread so far!