The Balkans and Kosovo... Josh weights in...
I am not a good judge of the internal dynamics of the Area of Interest... Josh seems to believe that this is a failure.. One we should look at with that in mind... Secularism failed to Identity politics...
Does anyone who has much more than my cursory view agree with Josh on this? I tend to believe in self determination... Still the region went through a bad time and the wounds are fresh and separation might be the best of the future.. I might be wrong but was this a true country or a soviet construct? I do understand his view that people need to live together and choice reconciliation to violence. That is IMHO the real thing lost but maybe trade and time will do that as separate states... The E.U. is the super state of the future in that area and maybe in the end that will be the coming together...
I thought it was interesting and since we get less of Josh as time goes by... I thought it might be interesting to see what he is writing about now...
--
Ask courageous questions. Do not be satisfied with superficial answers. Be open to wonder and at the same time subject all claims to knowledge, without exception, to intense skeptical scrutiny. Be aware of human fallibility. Cherish your species and your
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Aargh.
This is the kind of thing that makes me tear my hair out when it comes to liberal hawkishness and "humanitarian intervention". Now, Yglesias at least concedes that he doesn't know how to "create solutions". But it seems to me, reading between the lines of his piece, that he still believes there is a difference between what he wrote, and the following:
If you don't know how to do something, and you know you don't know how to do it, and you know that trying to do it is going to kill a whole lot of people, then don't f***ing do it. Stop enabling people who do it. Stop believing that purity of motive makes everything OK. Stop, for God's sake, trying to build the Star Trek transporter in your garage and then forcing your neighbors into it at gunpoint. Just stop.
--The other day I heard that ignorance and apathy are sweeping the country. I didn't know that, but I don't really care.
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)By the same token, recognize that liberal regimes are extremely valuable and should be preserved, whenever they come about (or appear nascent) at tremendous cost.
--It's impossible to debate if people simply hold beliefs that have no grounding in reality.
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| parent )and his conclusions are all presupposed rather than supported by facts. Needs improvement.
--"That Sam-I-am! That Sam-I-am! I do not like that Sam-I-am!"- Dr. Seuss
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)Kosovo would constitute a majority-Muslim state. I think that's the beginning and the end of the issue.
--It's impossible to debate if people simply hold beliefs that have no grounding in reality.
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)I think his view is colored by that.
--More Wagster!
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| parent )I posted a link and some commentary here at the time. It involved repression of that faith in Lebanon IIRC.
--Even a dead midget is far from light. - Confucius
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| parent )The name of the site is Orthovox
--More Wagster!
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| parent )neither it was a region, province, state et al.
--“Let us go forth to lead the land we love, asking His blessing and His help, but knowing that here on earth God’s work must truly be our own.”
John F. Kennedy
January 20, 1961
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)Even Tito wasn't a Soviet construct, man.
--It's impossible to debate if people simply hold beliefs that have no grounding in reality.
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| parent )but not a Soviet one: what was the Kingdom, later the Republic of Yugoslavia was cobbled together in the wake of WWI: the Slavic segments (Croats, Slovenes and some Serbs) of the Austro-Hungarian Empire were hived off into a nominal "state" in 1918, which was then attached to the Serbian/Montenegrin Kingdom, with Macedonia tossed in, I think, more-or-less as an afterthought; with the whole place retitled "Yugoslavia" in 1929. However, as we've seen: the forces of nationalism (or ethnic separatism) proved too strong in the end.
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| parent )How good they are is another story.
I don't see much evidence that this is a failure, I see it as inevitable.
--This place is my vacation.
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)Nonsense. America standeth athwart history, yelling STOP! And it had damn well better, if it knows what's good for it. You heard me, history. You're on notice.
--The other day I heard that ignorance and apathy are sweeping the country. I didn't know that, but I don't really care.
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| parent )of the ethnic Albanian Kosovar's and Serbs to get along or a failure of the US and other Western powers to make them?
"was this a true country or a soviet construct?"
What defines a true country? Kosovo is now the 7th country to be formed from the former Yugoslavia, which was never a Soviet construct so much as it was an agreed upon buffer state between the two Super Powers.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/85/Breakup_of_Yugoslavia.gif
--GW Bush, leading contender for worst President ever.
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)...the Serbian people will do anything for Kosovo,
Except live there.
******
And that's the truth.
Best Wishes, Traveller
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)And I seem to recall that he also recommended that New Orleans NOT be rebuilt after Katrina. His comment about the the EU embracing Islam is also ridiculous.
--I had discovered a great secret. That everyone loves themselves more than they love anybody else. And if I wanted them to love me, I better be like THEM!... Ken Nordine
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)New sharia row over Chancellor's plans for 'Islamic bonds'
New Orleans should not have been rebuilt. It has only returned to its slum roots at the cost of a bottomless bucket of cash.
Proverbs 24:27 Prepare thy work without, and put thy field in order, and afterwards build thy house.
In the Name of Jesus Christ, Amen
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| parent ).
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| parent )this was already answered on another thread, IIRC. And what does this have to do with Kosovo?
--I had discovered a great secret. That everyone loves themselves more than they love anybody else. And if I wanted them to love me, I better be like THEM!... Ken Nordine
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| parent )The Koran says it is sinful to make money from money.
Unlike a conventional bond which is debt-based, a "sukuk" is asset-based. Instead of receiving interest, bond holders receive "rent" on the asset, thereby complying with sharia law.
The Treasury consultation document says Government assets such as "buildings or a piece of infrastructure" would be switched to a "special-purpose vehicle" set up to administer the bond.
This would be carried out by a contract known as an "ijara".
The asset would then be leased back by the Government, generating rental payments for the Islamic bond holders.
*********
Shockingly, I agree with Timothy on this...but then Money knows no Religion or Cultural Norm.
Best Wishes, Traveller
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| parent )apropos of nothing.
--Even a dead midget is far from light. - Confucius
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| parent )Ticker AMANX, seeks income "according to Islamic principals." It's been around since 1986. (What they have to do with Amana, I don't know.)
Also, those wild-eyed dervishes at Dow Jones have been running Islamic indices since 1999. (http://www.djindexes.com/mdsidx/?event=showIslamic)
--They couldn't hit an elephant at this dist...
-- General John B. Sedgwick, 1864
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| parent )and it has nothing to do with the "embrace of Islam". The ME oil states have been accumulating a huge amount of dollars, and it's in their interest (and ours) that they have a way of recycling them through the world financial system.
Also, this isn't "sharia law", this is just structuring bonds under UK law to make them more attractive to investors from the ME.
--I blame it all on the Internet
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| parent )What is your speech holding forth now: the "they have cash" "we have product" equation of sedition against one's own nation? "Re-cycling"? The dollar is not and never has been a raw material of a generic system except in the dreams of seditionists.
Money does not trump anything ( much less everything ) and to pretend the world has no borders as if money had no borders is to be for mere globalism that is not-yet as if it already were. That's also called psy-ops and propaganda.
Perhaps you'll recall from the Inquiry into a new Definition of Money threads the advantages of having independent monies that do not exchange as limiting where particular monies can go to preserve identity; national defense and infrastructure is merely one part of that preservation.
That they have "dollars" or "pounds" in no way dictates that they can buy what Americans or the English can buy with those same dollars or pounds. To pretend as if they had some all powerful "right" to "equal buying rights" ( much less superior buying rights "to respect their mind set" ) merely because they hold dollars is simply a lie economist tell themselves to make their own mathematical models look real.
Proverbs 24:23-25 These things also come from the wise. It is not good to have respect of persons in judgment. He that saith unto the wicked, Thou art righteous, peoples shall curse him, nations shall abhor him; but to them that rebuke him shall be delight, and a good blessing cometh upon them.
In the Name of Jesus Christ, Amen
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| parent )To buy their oil, just cause we have some dinars?
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| parent )and oil is not a fundamental part of their national identity. And if you think we're buying it in dinars, you refute the argument of the sub-thread, which was basically dollars and/or pounds going wherever those who have them demand. They want our dollars and a place to spend them without the restraint that is even practiced among Americans or among the British.
Who cares about their dinars? They don't even care about their dinars.
Next you'll be saying all the keys for all the houses should be the same ..because sameness is "equality". What private ownership? It's a rather bizarre lie that I can only suppose is loved for its false reputation of filling those who say it with pride for saying something at all.
If it wasn't for the truth that there are very many seeking to make national policy on exactly that kind of nonsense, even to reply to some of this is beneath anyone.
Proverbs 9:12 If thou art wise, thou shalt be wise for thyself; and if thou scornest, thou alone shalt bear it.
IN the Name of Jesus Christ, Amen
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| parent )dont you leave it unlocked and trust in the lord?. I do.
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| parent )And the Serbs burning the American Embassy is what? Oh that's right they're Christians so it's OK.
--I had discovered a great secret. That everyone loves themselves more than they love anybody else. And if I wanted them to love me, I better be like THEM!... Ken Nordine
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| parent )whether you believe in it or not. National ledgers have to balance. As far as money (or capital) is concerned, many of the borders have indeed been removed.
BTW, it's "naive" not "nieve", the fact is that they have cash and we have assets they want to buy, and if a country continues to run a trade deficit these are the kinds of things that will happen. It is funny to hear Wall Street branded as seditious, I thought that was part of the American Way that we are upholding. Do you have any investments in the "imaginary market" that you are talking about?
--I blame it all on the Internet
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| parent )have simply yet to meet their day of judgment in no way makes what they have gotten away with righteous. You can denigrate rightousness for a long time and say "we can do whatever we want".
Then that day comes when all the evil is remembered before God and it turns out no one got away with anything. And saying "the American way" can destroy America is sedition as making lawlessness legal.
You may think that's cute.
Americans don't.
----
Not one dime's worth.
Proverbs 9:13-18 The foolish woman is clamorous; she is stupid, and knoweth nothing. And she sitteth at the entry of her house, on a seat in the high places of the city, to call passers-by who go right on their ways: Whoso is simple, let him turn in hither. And to him that is void of understanding she saith, Stolen waters are sweet, and the bread of secrecy is pleasant. But he knoweth not that the dead are there; that her guests are in the depths of Sheol.
In the Name of Jesus Christ, Amen
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| parent )the last 30 years, it is American policy to reduce barriers that prevent capital from moving freely across borders. Allowing capital to flow means that things will get bought and sold. If you have a problem with foreign interests purchasing ownership in American companies, I suggest you complain to your legislator. Expect the price of oil and every other imported good to skyrocket, because without the recycling of dollars they will just be pieces of paper and foreigners will no longer be interested in accepting them in exchange for goods.
--I blame it all on the Internet
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| parent )that minus superior buying rights than even US or UK citizens do not have given to foreigners, the US or UK economy will collapse? Is that your premise?
"If I don't get to do with my dollars whatever I want I'll burn them" diplomacy? I suppose merely because they said it you take it as law? Let them burn them.
And don't be a diplomat.
We do not allow private interests to own government buildings except in limited cases where the government rents space it does not build and/or is past its prime and is not used for active government use. Yet you would have foreign interests buy public buildings in accordance with procedures that would not in any circumstance be given to US individuals at all, much less for religious distinctions --as is prohibited by law in what liberals call a "pluralistic" society.
Except for Islam?
If you are Islamic perhaps you should state so. Saying you are an atheist and so religion doesn't matter doesn't skip over the preferential treatment being proposed to the very religion at war with the world.
Perhaps you need to ask yourself what the effects of living with sedition/injustice has done to your mind and heart as default dipraxis method forced on you as part of the general population. Granted, criminals have gotten away with much. But what they have gotten away with has never been considered "the new economy" or its "rules" by anyone but themselves.
I personally do not consider you a criminal. But perhaps you, in the free will you say you have should do a self-check to see it you haven't been turned. I think it plain beyond all gainsaying that if you are against you own nation's independence of currency and security by definition you have been turned against your own people and to say the least can in no way help set up new independent nations such as Iraq. Or "Kosovo".
If you cannot even see the necessary restrictions that keep your own currency independent, how are you going to set up someone else's 'independent' currency?
The effects on each of us of being forced to live in the midst of old and perpetuated injustice against us should not be overlooked.
Ecc 8:11-13 Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the children of men is fully set in them to do evil. Though a sinner do evil a hundred times, and prolong his days , yet I know that it shall be well with them that fear God, because they fear before him; but it shall not be well with the wicked, neither shall he prolong his days as a shadow, because he feareth not before God.
In the Name of Jesus Christ, Amen
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| parent )all the stuff you're railing about is because there are foreign exchanges that convert currencies. They've been around for a while. When a country becomes involved in international trade and floats their currency, they do cede some control over their currency to the world markets. Sorry if that upsets you, but that's just the way it is.
I don't know where the "government buildings" stuff came in, but foreign entities can certainly buy private property here. When you talk about foreigners burning our currency, of course they will do no such thing, they'll simply refuse to take our currency in exchange for the things we want to buy, like oil. And yes, that would put quite a crimp in things. It may not destroy our currency, but it would certainly devalue it. It would also put a pretty big hit on the economy.
I don't know of any "superior" buying rights, so you'll have to explain that. As far as religious rights, private parties are given a lot of leeway in how they structure their private deals, so once again I'm not sure what you're getting at.
I do know one thing, which is that when one is profligate and spends like there's no tomorrow, tomorrow eventually comes. Unlike the prodigal son, there's no one available to forgive, just flinty eyed businessmen who expect value for their transactions.
--I blame it all on the Internet
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| parent )some vague theory of "foreign exchange" forces special rights on foreign possessors of US or UK currency. Surely even you know the 3COM and many others like it historically had to be scraped and is being redrawn over national security issues that a simple "they have dollars, we have product." paradigm doesn't explain. Why is there permanent oversight concerning that very issue if there is no issue by your definition of "foreign exchange"?
Where are you getting that? It can only come from criminals getting away with crimes involving money and national security over time so that now you just automatically assume other nations have superior rights than native citizens. That would be the dipraxis --the forced living under injustice that you have not possibly noticed that has subtly moved you from at least nationalistic to world consumer for the supposed benefit of a bigger field to use the "free" will in.
As for buying oil, they need to sell the oil exactly like we need to buy it. It isn't the one way street you imply. In truth, minus oil dollars and oil pounds, they would be nowhere near as wealthy as they are and they know that.
Proverbs 18:11 The rich man's wealth is his strong city, and as a high wall in his own imagination.
In the Name of Jesus Christ, Amen
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| parent )you have yet to define them. Explain exactly what they are so I can see if you have a point. There may be national security issues over some purchases by foreigners, but commodities and buildings generally don't qualify. As far as oil is concerned, it's a sellers market right now. There are plenty of countries that are happy to purchase oil, the sellers can afford to be choosy. They are sitting on an appreciating asset, they can afford to wait.
--I blame it all on the Internet
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| parent )It is the use of the currency that is the qualification:
who is spending?
buying government buildings that could not even be sold to UK citizens is what got us started here: the overt adoption of sharia law products as monetary instruments.
Do foreign countries or citizens of other countries have a right to use US dollars or UK pounds to buy whatever they want in the US and UK? No. That's a no-brainer.
Its a sellers market in oil only because of other issues involved that we can control: domestic exploration and production to name but two. That's quite beside the pretense of a scarcity of oil in the world that was never true.
You're speech is the one saying we have free will.
Psalm 9:18-20 For the needy one shall not be forgotten alway; the hope of the meek shall not perish for ever. Arise, Jehovah; let not man prevail: let the nations be judged in thy sight. Put them in fear, Jehovah: that the nations may know themselves to be but men. Selah.
In the Name of Jesus Christ, Amen
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| parent )that it's just a way of structuring a bond. I'm sure US and UK citizens could buy the same bonds if they wanted to. You also miss that there is also a huge market in municipal bonds, which do indeed allow US and UK citizens to "own" government buildings, as well as treatment plants, bridges, etc. The fact is that the holders of the bonds are "owners" only in the sense that they get an interest payment on the loan they extended to the government entity.
As far as your "no-brainer", you've avoided the issue of what happens when we want foreigners to accept our dollars for their assets but won't let them use those dollars to buy our assets. The answer is simple, they'll stop accepting our dollars. I'd like to see what kind of "creating speech" could fix that problem.
There is no pretense of scarcity. Oil production appears to have hit a limit while demand keeps rising. The US domestic oil reserves simply aren't enough to make a difference. Unpleasant truths, to be sure, but these problems won't be wished away by denial.
--I blame it all on the Internet
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| parent )structuring a bond "the sharia way" as an introduction to Sharia law ( i.e. nationally, as a government, "recognizing" the supposed authority of a religion other than Christianity, for England, with their Church of England as the "official Church" is treason as a slap at national sovereignty -note the Archbishop was used to introduce the subject.. in any area, not just "bond structures") is the superior right they ( foreigners ) would receive: recognition of a religious aspect of bondage.
Your speech is nothing if not repetitious: I'll take it as a given whenever you post part of your arguments will be "but..but you are avoiding the issue."
They will not stop accepting payment from those they cannot sell to in that quantity. Period. Not only so, but we don't even have to pay them in dollars. It is a buyers market when you buy in the quantity we do as there are no other customers who can do that.
I hope you don't ever have to haggle for anything. If you do, just hand them your whole wallet and tell them they can have your house too.
The first rule of haggling is No.
Don't confuse that with understanding truth.
Proverbs 24:24 He that saith unto the wicked, Thou art righteous, peoples shall curse him, nations shall abhor him;
In the Name of Jesus Christ, Amen
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| parent )because you claim tons of stuff without any proof or even logical argument. You are just as repetitious in your avoidance of backing up statements that you make. But you are correct in that I am wasting my time.
--I blame it all on the Internet
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| parent )I thought all free-willers were heathens, Christians and Muslims alike. So what's the dif?!
--I had discovered a great secret. That everyone loves themselves more than they love anybody else. And if I wanted them to love me, I better be like THEM!... Ken Nordine
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| parent )Mr. Timothy,
You said:
What makes you say this is a pretense? What evidence do you have that there are not constraints on world petrochemical supply aside from extraction, transport, and refinement capacity?
--For having lived long, I have experienced many instances of being obliged, by better information or fuller consideration, to change opinions, even on important subjects, which I once thought right but found to be otherwise - B. Franklin
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| parent )it is well known in the Gulf of Mexico and ANWAR there is much oil not being domestically extracted that has nothing to do with current technological issues or investment. The oil is there. It's not being tapped.
Period.
This is universally known. That does not even count other areas of the world. Middle Eastern oil isn't as "vital" as those who are running energy policy make out. The enrichment of foreign nations at the expense of domestic independence is treason. A LOT of those jobs in the middle east could be here in the US.
You haven't heard of the oil in Turkmenistan or the Caspian?
It is also universally understood that any plans to build new refinement facilities domestically are met with bogus constraints.
You were joking, right?
Proverbs 12:17 He that uttereth truth sheweth forth righteousness; but a false witness deceit.
In the Name of Jesus Christ, Amen
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| parent )translates here as "I'm holding a pair of twos, but I'll be darned if I'll admit it."
Here's a good article on the estimated reserves in ANWAR. Google is your friend, Timothy: I bet you can find cites for your position if you look.
As for this mideast oil kerfuffle you've started, the simple truth is this: we buy their oil because we need it. And unless your computer's powered by a windup flywheel, and you've converted your Civic into a horse-drawn wagon, you're buying their oil, too.
And then there's this gem:
Look at a map, Timothy. The Caspian and Turkmenistan border Iran, putting them in....
Wait for it...
The middle east.
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| parent )Not the Middle East. Perhaps you should look first and write second.
At least that's what the CIA Factbook says, as well as others. Who knows? You may be right and they ..wrong. They've been wrong before on other issues. It happens.
Google isn't an issue. Citing obvious truths as if they were in doubt are.
We didn't even mention how or if oil is replenished. I.E. Whether or not it is even a "non-renewable" resource.
We buy their oil because we are not pumping gas much of our own as we could.
Proverbs 24:3-6 Through wisdom is a house built, and by understanding it is established; and by knowledge are the chambers filled with all precious and pleasant substance. A wise man is strong, and a man of knowledge increaseth strength. For with good advice shalt thou make thy war; and in the multitude of counsellors there is safety.
In the Name of Jesus Christ, Amen
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| parent )I don't even know a thing about it except that apparently the turkmen are different from the turks and alexander probably conquered it at some point. Who cares, it's a hell hole ending in -stan in the same general area, the same points apply as over the border it shares with iran in the middle east.
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| parent )What other country has a month named after its (former) leader? I'll give you till the 4th of Bushril to look that one up.
--Even a dead midget is far from light. - Confucius
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| parent )It's offering a financial product to a market. The bonds are selling, right?
And this statement It will lead to the ownership of Government buildings and other assets currently belonging to British taxpayers being switched wholesale to wealthy Middle-Eastern businessmen and banks.
Is just silly, the same thing applies to any issue of gov't debt. Why the islam-mongering on it, do the same concerns apply to China, Japan?
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| parent )American military intervention failed to achieve the humanitarian or strategic goals to which it set itself. Americans acted like bumbling agents provocateurs, giving each ethnic/religious faction neither what it needed, nor what it wanted, other than an excuse to kill still more of the other guys. The ballyhooed overthrow of a tyrant turned out to be a mere intermission in an ongoing, blood-soaked tragedy. A few dozen American corporations cheerfully pocketed a few billion taxpayer dollars. And the American public doesn't give a damn because it is so last decade, and besides it was like, totally two interventions ago, dude.
Never mind! On to the next intervention! Long live the Pax Americana!
Thank goodness we have a two-party system, though, right? That way each party can continue to show its foreign-policy credentials by criticizing the military ventures of the other party, while talking up (or attempting to forget, as the case may be) its own.
--The other day I heard that ignorance and apathy are sweeping the country. I didn't know that, but I don't really care.
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)....the US Embassy in Belgrade. Yes I realize that this is a CNN video, hence a small ad you have to sit through, but there is a string of Videos from Belgrade and the burning of the Embassy here:
http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/world/2008/02/21/vo.serbia.protests.turn.violent.ap
Best Wishes, Traveller
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| parent )a target rich environment.
--"That Sam-I-am! That Sam-I-am! I do not like that Sam-I-am!"- Dr. Seuss
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| parent )I was about to do it myself.
Kosovo is simply the next Muslim narco state the US State Dept has sought to set up and as being against Christians as they do so. It is well known and well understood that the Muslims in Kosovo and the KLA have always been the pipeline into Europe of Afghanistan's heroin.
A search of 'kosovo heroin' on Google gives 195,000 links. It is not as if the Kosovo connection is a construct of "muslim haters" in a vacuum of reality. The reality is that the Serbs were being successful against the KLA and the US stepped in to, once again, persecute Christians in favor of Muslim drug runners.
The mere "recognition" of "Kosovo" by England and America or any in no way makes it an actual fact it has independence. Staged demonstrations wherein some "Christians" and Muslims come together to create a new drug slum that exports drugs as much as possible especially to Christians has simply become standard fare from the US State department.
What's next, John McCain or Obama "receiving" the Kosovarian dude who is wearing a joker smile, ethnic hat and new suit?
All of the staged news feeds are simply cover for doing so again. "Hateful nationalism?" "racism?" on the part of Serbs? "Our values" and "mutual prosperity" for the Kosovarians..? , the standard tools that are stock in trade for the manipulators to craft the image of the argument are simply the same 'ol lies borrowed off other manipulations because of a poverty of unique thought. Are they actually talking to you or to themselves in front of you?
It is simple theater.
This is simply another example of setting up lawless elements as supposed legitimate governance so that extreme law enforcement efforts will supposedly be mandated.
Where is BlaiseP and his technical background on the whole show?
Hmmm.
Proverbs 28:27,28 He that giveth unto the poor shall not lack; but he that withdraweth his eyes shall have many a curse. When the wicked rise, men hide themselves; but when they perish, the righteous increase.
In the Name of Jesus Christ, Amen
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)It's only recently that Albanian mafia groups based at Veliki Trnovac have gained control of Balkan trade routes -- Serb, Croat, Soviet, and Sicilian groups have controlled those routes since WWII.
As to whether the State Dept. (or let's say the US gov't as a whole) is somehow sponsoring the flow of Southwest Asian heroin into Europe and Russia, well, Afghanistan is currently producing record tonnages of heroin, putting the old Iranian and even older Chinese connections to shame.
Is there a "Heroin Policy"?
--Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way when you criticize them, you're a mile away and you have their shoes. -JH
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| parent )The situation on the ground now and for some years past. It is what's going on with those with who want genuine diplomatic cover for the trade in the current situation...
As for the US State Dept. sponsoring heroin, I think that has been obvious, though to think they do it alone is a bit fantastic. Who is getting a cut? Or literally, who isn't? As long as we can get past "its a Republican issue and the Democrats are angels on this" I have no problem with admitting the US State Dept is treasonous.
C.F.R.
The KLA in the back pocket:
1. takes control from others who would have used it to bankroll ..other weapons.
2. self-finances black projects
3. ?
Not saying its a good thing or that you think its a good thing. Just for a moment, think like a globalist in the "by any and all means" category. What does even a criminal stand to gain by that over the long term as a "tool of diplomacy" or tyranny to introduce harsh law enforcement measures to solve the problem they created to solve it that way? They do away with the value of what they wanted when they started.
I think it universally condemned and rightly so. I'm for the death penalty --that has nothing to do with "deterrence". But again, we are living in a default dipraxis method of perpetuating injustice based on lack of law enforcement that has seduced whole populations into evils and treason they never would have fallen for otherwise. So for free willers, self checks are in order, no?
It makes them appear to have a power that in fact does not exist. If you searched them, you wouldn't find any power on them. The Kosovarians either.
Proverbs 18:12 Before destruction the heart of man is haughty; and before honour goeth humility.
In the Name of Jesus Christ, Amen
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| parent )and the State Dept. isn't even calling the shots there.
--Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way when you criticize them, you're a mile away and you have their shoes. -JH
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| parent )we are way, way, way past the "its a Republican issue and the Democrats are angels on this" point-maybe even as far out as the orbit of Neptune.
--I had discovered a great secret. That everyone loves themselves more than they love anybody else. And if I wanted them to love me, I better be like THEM!... Ken Nordine
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| parent )Simple, really. No demand, no supply.
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| parent )war, fraud, child abuse, and all of humanity's other vices. In seriousness though, treatment & cessation programs are a lot cheaper than police interdiction efforts, all of which pump profits into the very market they're aimed at repressing in the first place.
--Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way when you criticize them, you're a mile away and you have their shoes. -JH
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| parent )...executions for drug addiction or even dealing....Oh, we are truly in parallel universes with completely different mind-sets.
Yes, this may be true in the ME, Malaysia and China, and it is effective to stop drugs in their tracks.
But that is not America.
No way, no how.
We are at our core a redemptive society...or so I hope.
Best Wishes, Traveller
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| parent )your power to redeem and God's.
That's at the heart of real redemption. The nanny state pretense at redemption and its approach to criminality encourages criminality and treason.
There is no such thing as being "redeemed" back into a emotional economy a criminal has supposed fallen off of. They are a criminal because they believed in that emotional economy as god to begin with.
The death penalty should be enforced and yet has no deterrent effect. No free will --no deterrent effect. God controls all that. If you believe in God you have restraint. If not, you are unjustly afraid of your neighbors and criminalize them in your eyes before they ever do anything even as they get used as mere foils to worship emotion.
It is more than a bit hypocritical to worry over the welfare of the criminal rather than the multitude of victims of repeat offenders. True law enforcement is a reflection of the finality of eternal issues and is a grace. When the Church lost that society lost that.
Granted tyranny is trying to make the people afraid of the law enforcers rather than God. But when the people fear God, they are essentially at peace with each other. It would seem the real money is the fear of God and the real charity giving it away as God does it through us.
If you don't believe in God, all you have left is criminality as everything you do is arbitrary.
Isaiah 33:5,6 Jehovah is exalted; for he dwelleth on high: he hath filled Zion with justice and righteousness; and he shall be the stability of thy times, the riches of salvation, wisdom and knowledge: the fear of Jehovah shall be your treasure.
In the Name of Jesus Christ, Amen
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| parent )This is a logical error.
Criminality exists, whether God is believed in or not, because criminals offend terrestrial laws and contracts.
Just as good and bad exist, whether God is believed in or not.
A belief in a God changes perception, not existence.
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| parent )I'd either refuse to pay taxes or leave the country altogether.
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| parent )the statute books and used as frequently as it is, then it might be used as a deterrent.
I'm against capital punishment btw, and am campaigning to get it off the statutes here. Not that it is used frequently - only once in the last 20 years in y state - which rather begs the question why its there at all.
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| parent )Then we can get rid of STDs by telling people not to have premarital sex. Man, I can't believe nobody ever thought of this.
What? It's been tried? Oh. Must have been something wrong with the slogans. Let's try again!
--The other day I heard that ignorance and apathy are sweeping the country. I didn't know that, but I don't really care.
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| parent )think that not enough is being done to reduce demand. China was able to eliminate mass opium addiction within a generation of the 1949 revolution. Why can't the West do it too?
And I don't just mean de-addiction programmes and feel good happy clappy stuff.
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| parent )Mao started executing opium dealers and sentencing addicts to hard labor and "treatment", while using his centralized control of the economy to tear up & replant opium fields. There are few limits to what a truly uninhibited government can accomplish (the Cultural Revolution, for example), but that stuff doesn't play in the free world, and rightly so.
I want to add that a lot of people have very wrong ideas about what "addiction" is and how it can be defeated. Addiction is not different in kind from other human desires, but different in degree; even the difference in degree is not as great as the horror-struck media portrayals and Trainspotting would have us believe. It's true that addicts experience a powerful urge to use drugs, and it's true that their resistance does not depend on their willingness to exercise that popular figment of the imagination known as "willpower", but it's not true that addiction supersedes all other aspects of the personality. Heroin addicts still manage to feed themselves, you'll note, and if they are reckless in their decision-making, it is in ways that non-addicts also tend to be reckless (i.e. a failure to properly appreciate long-term consequences). There is a very effective way to prevent an addict from shooting up: hold a gun to his head. This is essentially what Mao did to China. There's no question that it works, but there's also no question that the average citizen doesn't want a gun held to his head for that or any other reason.
--The other day I heard that ignorance and apathy are sweeping the country. I didn't know that, but I don't really care.
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| parent )since the death penalty exists in the US, I'm not entirely sure why it isn't used, logically. As for ripping up the opium fields, well, there aren't any in the US, are they? So the task should be easier, no? Are you sure there isn't another reason - protection of drug dealing by a criminal-politician nexus? Thats the usual mechanism in the rest of the world.
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| parent )Because our criminal justice system is badly damaged, consistently returning false guilty verdicts against minority and indigent defendants.
--It's impossible to debate if people simply hold beliefs that have no grounding in reality.
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| parent )It's hard enough to get murderers executed these day. Also, if you make drug dealing a capital crime, you give drug dealers an incentive to kill potential witnesses above and beyond the usual, since unless we bring back some really nasty forms of torture as punishment--forbidden by the Eighth Amendment and generally not something we'd want to do routinely--they'd have nothing to lose by doing so (except perhaps the more skittish part of their client base).
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| parent )there is a measurable change in brain chemistry, with opiates especially. The actual reactions at the synapse level are changed.
--I blame it all on the Internet
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| parent )All learning, all thought, all habit represents a change in brain chemistry. If we knew where and how to look, we could find a difference in brain chemistry between people who bite their nails and people who don't, or people who drink five cups of coffee a day and people who don't.
Addiction represents a relatively severe and rapid change, but it is still utilizing the normal reward systems of the brain, which are designed to downregulate themselves. It is not a separate and unique process.
--The other day I heard that ignorance and apathy are sweeping the country. I didn't know that, but I don't really care.
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| parent )essentially swamps the brain's signaling mechanism and reorders the natural feedback loops. It doesn't just cause yearning, it punishes with pain when the drug is absent. We can argue semantics, but to me that represents a qualitative difference over normal behavior.
--I blame it all on the Internet
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| parent )Withdrawal sickness is not the problem. Addicts can usually get through withdrawal OK (speaking from personal experience here). Most relapse occurs when addicts take up the drug again after the "withdrawal" is over, for reasons not essentially different from the reason why gambling addicts go back to the craps table. People don't stop being addicts when they stop being sick. So except for a small number of unusual cases (for instance, people with a strong enough physical dependence on alcohol can actually die from withdrawal), the syndrome you are describing is not what we need to consider when evaluating addiction.
The traditional concept of a split between drugs or activities that cause physical dependence (i.e. initiate withdrawal sickness upon cessation) and ones that don't is a big part of the problem I have with our general approach to addiction. For instance, I've heard it argued that marijuana is "not addictive". This is complete bunk; marijuana definitely can be addictive, and I have known people who would qualify as marijuana addicts under any realistic definition of the term. It just doesn't have any significant withdrawal effects.
--The other day I heard that ignorance and apathy are sweeping the country. I didn't know that, but I don't really care.
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| parent )Addiction is proving to be an incredibly useful test bed for neurochemistry. It seems an addiction rewires the brain in ways we're just now beginning to understand. There are genetic predispositions to addictions, and many people fall prey to multiple addictions, but that only seems to be a minor part of the problem. Incidentally, I don't hold with addiction as a "disease" in the classic definition, it's way more complex. There are aspects of personal responsibility in the definition, not that I'm going to jump on my soapbox to outright "blame" addicts for their behavior.
An addiction rewires many of the satisfaction mechanisms in the brain. They stay rewired, even after "cleaning up". AA has said this forever: once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic. I got into a stress situation (a consulting firm above me in the food chain was engaged in a massive fraud against the government) and I jumped back into a cigarette addiction after 23 years of not smoking. It was as if I'd never quit.
I did quit smoking weed. I got tired of dealing with low-lifes, the anxiety over being potentially arrested and losing my clearances, the retching, the low-level blur of forgetfulness and anomie. There was a day when I could have been called a weed addict,if your definition of addiction is using every day. But I'd disagree with the assertion there are no withdrawal effects. I miss it still, and it's been decades since I smoked it last. I'd return to weed in a heartbeat, if I could get it legally, and in hash form. The satisfaction centers of the brain get used to the jolt of dopamine, and nothing short of an altered state can produce those jolts.
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| parent )That's one of the most misleading labels ever applied in the history of psychology. (It doesn't even apply to most of the conditions that are bizarrely lumped together as "mental illness".)
I think most of the adherents of the disease model are well-meaning people who see the choice as being between "it's not their fault" or "it is their fault". This is not a useful or accurate distinction for treatment purposes. It's a relic of the legal system; an understandable one, because other people are often injured by the behavior of an addict, and to that extent it is necessary to assign blame -- but when the question at hand is "what is addiction and how do we fix it?", we must move past such concerns.
The real problem is an atomistic, dualistic model of the self that obsessively wants to divide the world into "things I can control" and "things I cannot control", "things inside me" and "things outside me". Addiction is not external to the self, but neither can it easily be brought to bear by the self's other motivations (without assistance); addiction is a characteristic of a malfunctioning self. It can neither be excised nor exorcised. It can only be superseded by new patterns of thought and behavior.
Well. Off the soapbox. Maybe I'll write a diary.
--The other day I heard that ignorance and apathy are sweeping the country. I didn't know that, but I don't really care.
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| parent )The "mental illness as disease" model is tremendously successful, both in terms of describing physiologically what is taking place and in terms of allowing persons who suffer from mental illness to accurately assess their conditions and gain relief.
--It's impossible to debate if people simply hold beliefs that have no grounding in reality.
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| parent )Last I heard, psychiatrists still had "cure" rates comparable to African witch doctors. I studied four years of psychology and came away from it with the deep conviction that the psychiatric community does not know how people suffer, why people suffer, or what makes them stop suffering. They're decent at treating some disorders in some people, but most psychiatric medication is little more than anesthesia -- I say that as someone who has both studied it and been on it.
The disease model isn't entirely wrong, but it's more wrong than it's right.
--The other day I heard that ignorance and apathy are sweeping the country. I didn't know that, but I don't really care.
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| parent )My personal experience with mental health professionals is overall very positive. Low cure rates, but very high control rates. Sorta like treating diabetes.
--It's impossible to debate if people simply hold beliefs that have no grounding in reality.
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| parent )Whether psychiatrists "cure" depression, anxiety or similar real-world problems depends entirely on how you use that term, IMO. But I have seen the tremendously positive effects psychiatrists can have on improving the day-to-day quality of life of the afflicted. Would transcendental meditation or other non-medicinal treatment have the same effect? That's a uselessly hypothetical question from the POV of the patient who needs help simply getting through each day.
--Even a dead midget is far from light. - Confucius
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| parent )- Login or register to post comments
| parent )Not in my experience. Suicide is the 11th ranking cause of death in the US. Roughly 33k in 06.
And in my unfortunate experience w. mutiple cases, not from lack of psychiatric attention.
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| parent )...I wonder if that's a sign of prosperity. I mean, we all have to die of something, and if we're all basically dying of old age except for those killed in accident or who take their own lives, then suicide will creep slowly upward.
--It's impossible to debate if people simply hold beliefs that have no grounding in reality.
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| parent ). . .sometimes even in situations where mental health professionals could help, the patients aren't willing to cooperate. The best medication in the world won't do any good if the patient refuses to take it--or stops taking it once they're no longer under constant scrutiny.
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| parent )the term has become meaningless in general conversation, I agree that when people talk about computers being addictive it's lost all specific reference to physiological addiction.
--I blame it all on the Internet
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| parent )Today's front page.
Cocaine's Effects on Brain Metabolism May Contribute to Abuse
There's been quite a bit of work done here on the chemistry and behavior of the brain of addicts.
--Guard, protect and cherish your land, for there is no afterlife for a place that started out as Heaven.
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| parent )-o-0-o-
--Even a dead midget is far from light. - Confucius
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| parent )"Brain metabolism may contribute to abuse". This is like saying "silicon chips may contribute to all the stuff personal computers do".
Dualism is such an entrenched assumption that most people, even researchers in fields like neurology and addiction, don't even realize they're making it.
--The other day I heard that ignorance and apathy are sweeping the country. I didn't know that, but I don't really care.
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| parent )telling yourself that and maybe some day it will become true!
--I had discovered a great secret. That everyone loves themselves more than they love anybody else. And if I wanted them to love me, I better be like THEM!... Ken Nordine
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| parent )My opinions on the nature of addiction, or the historical stuff about Mao? I admit I am very opinionated about the former; I think the modern American debates over drug use are predicated on a set of assumptions that is almost entirely wrong. This is probably not the place to elaborate, though. Perhaps I will write a diary.
--The other day I heard that ignorance and apathy are sweeping the country. I didn't know that, but I don't really care.
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| parent )I can't tell due to your sentence structure. If you are, please expand with specifics.
--Even a dead midget is far from light. - Confucius
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| parent )...on this subject. You can read his musings here, but also see the extended debate in comments:
http://fistfulofeuros.net/afoe/minorities-and-integration/kosovo-independence-tomorrow#comments
I would note that as terrific as Josh's writing is, and it is, AFFoE has a wonderfully smart coterie of authors...just reviewing the site now I am, as always, impressed.
I don't always agree, but I am impressed.
As to Kosovo? A failed mini-state? People did not realize what the rise of Nationalism was from 1820 to 1870...a force that could not be stopped. Something may be going on here in the same vein...a new force, a new way of organizing...that trumps good economic sense.
We won't know for another 50 years.
The US presence in Kosovo is not inconsiderable. Please see below Camp Bondsteel:
We did get our Balkan Base and Kosovo got its independence, for whatever that's worth.
Best Wishes, Traveller
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)