While We Wait: Writer's Block & Other Lame Excuses

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Turkey should annex Israel and Palestine, reorganise it as a constitutional monarchy governed by Ottoman millet laws. They could put HRH Zeyneb Osman on the throne; she's going to need a new place to live soon, might as well put her up in Jerusalem.

See this is how we get things done!!! taillesskangaru for president!
 
  1. You're not American, so maybe you don't follow these things, but I am in fact completely unaware of another circumstance where a foreign leader has openly advocated for one Presidential candidate over another during the election season. So first, it was more or less unprecedented in modern history. Even Ehud Olmert, former Prime Minister of Israel, thought it was entirely inappropriate. Is Ehud Olmert an anti-Semite too, Grandkhan? Have you found his todtenkopf hat too? News article after news article calls it unprecedented, not just by an Israeli, but by anyone. I guess our entire media is anti-Semitic!
  2. I guess the Jewish media is anti-Semitic too, check this out: "He inserted himself into the election by presenting himself essentially as a GOP politician,” says Gershom Gorenberg, an Israeli journalist and the author of The Unmaking of Israel." What a Nazi!
  3. Check out President Bill Clinton's incredulity at Bibi's actions, which Perfectionist already quoted in this thread. I guess he's Hitler!
  4. You grossly misrepresent what he said. His words were "The world needs American strength, not apologies;" i.e., "Obama is weak," "Obama is an appeaser," "Obama will let 'the world' [Israel] down." Now again, you're not an American, so you haven't had to deal with Dick Cheney coming on TV every six weeks to proclaim America is in danger and terrorists will attack again because Obama is incompetent/weak/etc., but I have. I have sat through two election seasons of it. I don't appreciate it from Americans. I definitely don't appreciate it from a foreign leader. I really definitely don't appreciate it from a foreign leader when it's the first time in living memory a foreign leader has done such a thing. And it doesn't matter who that leader is or where they're from. It was beyond the pale. Literally everyone agrees. I guess the Nazis won WWII after all, huh?
So yes, please, continue to call my reasons anti-Semitic when both the entire press of the Free World, a former US President, and a former Israeli PM all called it ridiculous. But hurry up, I just can't wait to get started on the Fourth Reich.

No.

You've listed why it was dumb and wrong. I'll give you that. You've listed why a bunch of Bibi's opponents within Israel itself called it dumb, because, look, Bibi's an idiot.

You haven't said why you think, and I quote,

Bibi ... tried to meddle in the Presidential elections!)

Key word here - meddle in the Presidential elections. Not criticise Obama. Not take the unprecedented step of criticising a US president. Netanyahu publically wordfilter-ed Clinton out all the goddamn time (they actually hated eachother, mostly because Netanyahu is, on a very personal level, by all accounts abrasive as hell). Was this an attempt to "meddle in a US election?"

Was Obama and Sarkozy's moment where they talked about how abrasive Netanyahu was a deliberate attempt to "meddle" in Israeli internal politics?

Like, you get why I'm calling you an anti-semite, right? There's only one way somebody can think that an Israeli PM is literally "meddling" in US presidential elections and thats because they think that AIPAC is literally a kingmaker over any other lobby, and that when AIPAC does it its meddling vs. anybody else.

Especially coupled with "Israel is selling out vital military secrets to the PRC" (which didn't happen, harpy killers don't contain US produced subsystems and when Israel wanted to sell the Phalcon the US said no SO THEY DIDN'T, CLEARLY ENEMIES OF FREEDOM) which is literally "jews sold vital security secrets to the bolsheviks" with the words swapped out you get why I'm calling you an antisemite and you're doing nothing to prove your not other than deliberately or otherwise misunderstanding the question or saying that you were trolling, which makes you essentially a /pol/ poster.

I mean in the harsh light of day maybe you're not an antisemite, but goddamn it do you sound like one.

Imagine four Presidential vetos on the edge of a cliff...

Credit where credit's due, this was legitimately pretty funny.
 
Grandkhan, I also think bibi was meddling. Simply because he is a Republican, and his paymaster Sheldon probably told him too.

Bibi is no fool, he knows that in order to stay in control nothing can change.

but yeah the Israel is selling american secrets to PRC without any supporting evidence sounds terribly antisemitic.
 
AIPAC is actually a historically strong lobby, Grandkhan. Largely because of people like you who have successfully helped convince people that anti-Israel = anti-Semite.
 
Was Obama and Sarkozy's moment where they talked about how abrasive Netanyahu was a deliberate attempt to "meddle" in Israeli internal politics?
Having a hot mic is not the same as literally campaigning for a party goddamn dude what the hell.

There's only one way somebody can think that an Israeli PM is literally "meddling" in US presidential elections and thats because they think that AIPAC is literally a kingmaker over any other lobby, and that when AIPAC does it its meddling vs. anybody else.
Merriam-Webster said:
med·dle verb \ˈme-dəl\
: to become involved in the activities and concerns of other people when your involvement is not wanted
: to change or handle something in a way that is unwanted or harmful
med·dledmed·dling

Full Definition of MEDDLE

intransitive verb
: to interest oneself in what is not one's concern : interfere without right or propriety
That word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

Especially coupled with "Israel is selling out vital military secrets to the PRC" (which didn't happen, harpy killers don't contain US produced subsystems and when Israel wanted to sell the Phalcon the US said no SO THEY DIDN'T, CLEARLY ENEMIES OF FREEDOM) which is literally "jews sold vital security secrets to the bolsheviks" with the words swapped out you get why I'm calling you an antisemite and you're doing nothing to prove your not other than deliberately or otherwise misunderstanding the question or saying that you were trolling, which makes you essentially a /pol/ poster.
Two cases. No sources cited. Okay, fine. Have two more. How about that time the CIA told the Senate Israel sold the Python and that time the Israeli Defense Ministry’s Head of Defense Export Control resigned over US anger at sales to the PRC? See, I notice a pattern with all these stories, and it's that Israel appears generally disinclined to adhere to agreements it makes with the US on limiting exports of military technology. Now maybe they waffle and knuckle under to US pressure in the end but you know, I don't view that as reliable behavior from a supposed ally. And I do think it deserves mockery, if not condemnation.

I mean in the harsh light of day maybe you're not an antisemite, but goddamn it do you sound like one.
In the harsh light of day, you have some sense in your head, but goddamn if you don't come off half-cocked right out of the gate swingin'.
 
Netanyahu has a personal history of being, to put it bluntly, an abrasive douche. He really can't stop it. Everybody who has to deal with him can't stand him.

I'd figure its less an attempt at meddling as much as it is Netanyahu being typically undiplomatic and absolutely losing patience with the US over Iran, because, as said before, Netanyahu thinks that politeness is for . A deliberate attempt at meddling I doubt. I'll give you that Adelson's papers are the Fox of Israel though.

EDIT 1: AIPAC isn't even top 20 in terms of donations to candidates or expenditures and hasn't been in the last two elections. AIPAC's main staying power is in the fact that wealthy people (presumeably mostly wealthy Jewish people) ring up AIPAC and say "I want to donate to a candidate who supports Israel" and AIPAC gives them directions. As in, people who support Israel already ask AIPAC where to put their money. Its almost like the system is working or something.

No wait screw jews for voting in their interests or something, they can't do that.

Like, people treat AIPAC as some kind of organisation that has nigh total control of the US despite the fact that in 2012 the National Association of Realtors spent like ten times as much on lobbying (and thats not even counting how much they spent on actual donations) because they fundamentally think that jews voting and donating in their interests is somehow a conspiracy. Like, are the realtors seeking to undermine the US for their own interests?
EDIT 2:

again, Netanyahu losing his because he's a moron isn't campaigning. To call it "interfering" is dumb as balls given that, again, Netanyahu has no way of actually influencing US elections. i know exactly what it means and meddling actually requires action.

link 1. except the python-3 that israel sold had any us components switched out for israeli built and designed ones.
link 2. israel tries to sell. us says no. head of defence expert control resigns. CLEARLY TRYING TO SELL VITAL US SECRETS TO THE CHINESE
 
See what political correctness breeds...you get these words that don't mean anything really and people using them as the scarlet letter or the mark of the beast.
 
I'm inclined to believe in Hanlon's razor, so I would be agreeable to the notion that Bibi is just an idiot who blundered his way into an unprecedented gaffe rather than any kind of master manipulator and certainly he is far too tactless to represent any kind of conspiracy against or direct security risk to the United States vis-a-vis its politics. I'm fully cognizant that AIPAC, much like the NRA, has a much bigger shadow than it does actual clout.

Whatever Bibi's motivations for doing the things he does though, what he has managed to achieve through his behavior and policies is to force me, at least, to look back over Israeli conduct with something of a jaundiced eye. I do not like the pattern of what I see, and I don't like the look of where things appear to be going. I'm neither pro-Hamas nor anti-Israel. But likewise I could no longer be called casually anti-Hamas and pro-Israel. I do not take our alliance for granted and I do not effortlessly extend the benefit of the doubt anymore.

Israel is going to have to work to regain its credibility with me, not that I matter. Until it does though, I'm going to take the piss out of the things they are, frankly, cocking up, because public backlash is the only practicable way I currently see of getting them off the path they're on.

link 1. except the python-3 that israel sold had any us components switched out for israeli built and designed ones.
And it's still a capability and technology transfer of hardware near or de facto equivalent to what the US fields, often developed in loose collaboration with the US at those R&D facilities you mentioned so many posts ago. Just because these doesn't use US parts doesn't mean it's necessarily A-OK to wantonly sell them. I would be just as upset if Japan sold the Mitsubishi F-2 to North Korea for some reason, even if it isn't a 1:1 copy of the F-16 and 60% of it is made in Japan and it's technically obsolete. I wouldn't approve if it was 100% made in Japan. Israel is of course not alone in this given, say, French sale of hardware to Saddam prior to the Gulf War and their resistance to divulging the capabilities of said platforms even after reentering NATO and joining the Coalition, but the fact that Israel repeatedly has to get to a point where the US tells it "No, don't sell those things," is by itself kinda stupid even if they agree not to, let alone when they do and write it off as an indigenous copy.

It's not exactly a secret that the US and the PRC are sizing one another up if not on a collision course, and that Chinese acquisitions of defense hardware, hook or crook, are done with counterbalancing the US in mind. That has been evident since at least the turn of the century. Israel should have a reasonable expectation that selling things to the PRC will irritate the US. They don't seem to have internalized that. Now one can ask: should the US dictate arms sales of its allies to potential enemies even when they don't directly involve American technology? Given the diffusion of arms suppliers, the overwhelming American funding defense R&D in the West, and whom the buyers tend to be aiming that technology against, I don't think it's unreasonable to complain when American allies sell or think of selling defense technology to America's would-be rivals even if it isn't stamped Made in U.S.A.

The Europeans would absolutely be doing it too if they could. Sure. And it would be just as sketchy in my opinion.

which is literally "jews sold vital security secrets to the bolsheviks" with the words swapped out
Having reviewed this, I'm also just going to directly say I was entirely unaware this was ever an actual Nazi talking point, considering the transparent stupidity of it given they... you know, more or less entirely rebuilt both the Luftwaffe and Wehrmacht within the Soviet Union, with Soviet assistance. I can understand how my remarks would look like a dog whistle in that context. Ignorance sucks. I still stand by what I say in the above paragraphs.
 
You haven't been in OT anytime recently, have you?

I haven't been anywhere on this site anytime recently. Which, granted, must make all this look worse than it would in context.

While I'm here, though - are you seriously exploding because of what Netanyahu said? Or did this argument have some other start point (I honestly couldn't find where it started, gave up after a few pages of backtracking) and then just sort of move towards Bibi at some point? Because I can't for the life of me get into the mentality where I would care about something like that.
 
@das, I believe it started as a minority of apologists for IDF's bombing of gaza, vs people who think it might not have been a good thing all round, a somewhat irreconcilable disagreement.

Funnily enough, one of IDF's former campaigns in gaza was the cause of another bitter argument on another forum I used to visit, back in 2008 I think. That had a much smaller following but the moderator was Israeli. The forum closed shortly afterwards.
 
I'm relieved if so. At least that's a real argument. Netanyahu deigning to criticise Obama is some seriously irrelevant nonsense, regardless of whose side you are on.

And it's a perpetual argument mill that's not going to run out any time soon. Though I suppose it is picking up pace more and more.
 
So tell me, what would you do if you were an Israeli policy maker?

I would not be an israeli policy maker, because I believe to make any policy that is backed up with threats of violence against peaceful people is immoral. You can pretend to be a thug master if you'd like but I will not.

I understand if it's difficult for you to take on the role of a nation's leadership in some kind of "simulated experience", perhaps conducted on an Internet forum, and perhaps involving the adjudication of such by strangers on the Internet. Nevertheless, I would encourage you to try.

I bet you feel particularly happy about this little addition, don't you? You have to go further out of your way to make some sort of useless demeaning comment. What is the goal here, other than to make yourself look like that ridiculous kid that always smarted off for no good reason in the middle of class?

To be clear, to take the role of a nation's leadership is to take the role of the leader of a group of thugs who impress their will (through the threat of violence) onto an entire peaceful population so to extract wealth and enforce their a version of morality upon them that is beneficial to the gang in question. So yes, it would be difficult for me to take on the role of the leader of a gang of thugs, so sorry. Especially a gang of thugs who arbitrarily kick an entire population from their homes, and then blames that population for getting militant. Yeah I'm really sorry I can't sympathize.
 
Just to be clear, you're saying all governments are gangs of thugs? And that you therefore cannot play in any NES ever, because you are too far above such lowly behaviour?
 
Just to be clear, you're saying all governments are gangs of thugs? And that you therefore cannot play in any NES ever, because you are too far above such lowly behaviour?

You are correct on your first point. NES, however, is a voluntary exchange without any force or coersion, so I see no problem playing a forum game in which we take the roles of the thugs (In fact I find it constructive to do so, so that we can see governments for what they are). It's when we take that to the real world where I see problems.

Anyone who has played a NES should get that all governments are gangs of thugs.
 
Generally governments having a monopoly on the legitimate use of force should ideally prevent you from being assaulted by, y'know, actual gangs of thugs. It's not an ideal that is always, or even often reached, but a blanket condemnation seems rather silly.
 
Generally governments having a monopoly on the legitimate use of force should ideally prevent you from being assaulted by, y'know, actual gangs of thugs. It's not an ideal that is always, or even often reached, but a blanket condemnation seems rather silly.

What you feel is legitimate, I do not. Who is right? Does the gang of thugs have any less legitimate reasons to use force? They both use force for the same things, so I would guess not. Governments do not prevent you from being assaulted. They show up afterword to write a report and follow up only so much as to maintain their credibility to the masses.
 
Like it or not we are all part of the "masses" (a deeply offensive term in this context, really). And our governments draw their legitimacy from the consent of the governed, which unless I've missed something has not yet been revoked.
 
I'm glad we're clear on that much, I suppose. I wasn't sure as to what you meant by "to take the role of", exactly, but now it has been made clear.

Personally I think that if you say "all governments are gangs of thugs", you have no foot to stand on when arguing against any specific governments behaving as gangs of thugs in any particular instance - since they are only being true to their nature, while any times when they seemingly behave as anything else is just a ruse to get people's guard down.

EDIT: I am so offended by the implication that I, das, might be part of the masses! :lol:
 
Yeah that might have been excessive, but people talking about the "masses" or "sheep" or whatever usually means they think they're separate and better, which is never really true and strikes me as presumptuous. Just because we're talking about politics instead of pop culture doesn't really set us above people.
 
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