I would say that Stalin, the Kin Jong's, Various African Tribal Genocides, and Pol Pot might disagree with your account of wholesale slaughter being reserved for the 'white' Europeans and their descendants. That is just to name a few. Also, what is a 'white' European? I mean the southern Europeans have quite a bit of Moorish blood in them, do they still count as 'white'?

All sarcasm aside, your argument is extremely flawed. Conquerors tend to lay waste to the societies they conquer, not always in terms of total lives lost, but in terms of cultural death. The reason why 'white' people are vilified for this lately is because for the past several hundred years they have been the ones expanding and taking over the regions you speak of. This is not exclusive to a skin color or originating locale, it is absolutely a core of our human nature.

I gave some examples earlier of non-European conquerors, but they are fairly recent. If we look in history at other groups, we find the same meme. The Steppe Horse Tribes were BRUTAL to cities and countries that did not capitulate. Look up "Measuring against the linchpin". That saying came from the fact that if you resisted Mongol rule, they would slaughter every male taller than the linchpin of a wagon wheel. The Aztecs and Mayans ruled southern American empires through great brutality, including human sacrifice for 'religious' purposes. Recent discoveries even indicate that it was considered a good omen if the sacrifices were crying in pain before they were to die. Remains recently found showed "All shared one feature: serious cavities, abscesses or bone infections painful enough to make them cry."

Slavery originated as early as human recorded history, if not sooner. Slavery can be traced back to the earliest records, such as the Code of Hammurabi (c. 1760 BC), which refers to it as an established institution. Slavery is rare among hunter-gatherer populations. Mass slavery requires economic surpluses and a high population density to be viable. Although slavery in some form or another existed in most European countries, it wasn't until after contact with the Arabic African slave traders that it soared in the 15th and 16th centuries.

tl;dr

You are referring to recent history to make an example while completely ignoring THOUSANDS of years of similar history. All humanity is flawed, narrowing it down to a singular group with cherry picked data is not going to persuade anyone with a brain.

I do have some anger issues-The crux of that issue perhaps possibly, my perception that I might be living in an era of mass-hypnotism of the planet's inhabitants through technologies envisioned originally to afford power now hi-jacked (and historically so) by charlatans posing as world leaders?

Another obvious turd lodged in my craw? How about a social-evolutionary path akin to Bradbury's "Fahrenheit" or Orwell's "84" turning an entire continent of what formerly consisted of self-determined, practical, and classically educated hard-working sorts into a cast of extras from "Idiocracy?"

Yeah, it pisses me off that so many people are distracted by what they are being told about some illusory process in which the common citizen might take part to imagine some bright future for mankind falling somewhere between the golden rule and the code of Hammurabi. The planet is being hi-jacked by a new breed of criminals frighteningly similar to the most egregious of old-For everything there is a season my friend, Solomon's wisdom in Ecclesiastes 3 it just as pertinent today as it will be for humans for the next 10,000 years-"a time to kill and heal, a time to break down, and a time to build up."

I'd like to imagine the new-construction-upon-the-ashes to include projects both organic and nano-technological in nature with the transformation of our specie's bodies, minds, souls and spirits as a prime objective.

You are living in these wonderful and frightening times, consider this incarnation your most favorable having been born when, where, how, why, and what you are-You are an amazing collection of cellular consciousness manifest in the wonder of flesh.
It's pretty fucking cool actually, and these are the ideas upon which I try to meditate upon every waking hour.

Oh yeah, and I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore, Hail Satan, Hail Eris, Jesus Saves.


(BTW, to answer your inquiry as to the "knowledge" that administrations keep in the dirty-little-secrets folder? Do you really have to ask about need-to-know information that would end the lives of yourself and everyone you know, because that's what the United States can do for you alla-Hoover, alla-Bush, alla-New World Order Über Alles.
What you think you know you don't, and you can't form an opinion or come to a conclusion on a subject for which you have incomplete data with which to arrive at those opinions or conclusions. Simple deductive reasoning or even a pragmatic model of the scientific method should make this screamingly clear to anyone who distrusts the anemically hostile Babylonian system .

So, I've been thinking about conflict and rhetorical escalation. I genuinely feel bad for hurting blankfists feelings to the point that he will not speak to me, but in all honesty, I feel my comments were far less severe than his, which got me thinking about how arguments effect feelings.

There are two ways to view what is appropriate in a heated discussion.

#1) tit for tat-Code of Hammurabi-eye for an eye: If someone says something nasty to you, you say something nasty back and all is fair.

#2) Taking personal boundaries into consideration: Personal boundaries can vary greatly from person to person; some are resistant to high levels of verbal aggression, some can take very little. And, to make things more complicated, people can have different boundary tolerances between what they give and take. So in this sense, the least offensive language in the world dealt to a sensitive person could be seen as more cruel than the most offensive insult in the world dealt to someone with a high tolerance to invective.

I'm not sure which is correct - my right brain and left brain are beating the shit out of each other.

I don't like the idea of going past peoples boundaries, but at the same time, I feel that when others get exceedingly aggressive, they would be well served to experience some of that aggression turned back on them. Of course, I don't say this out loud, so the logic of it all is lost, and in the end I've just hurt someone's feelings whom I care about.

I'd love to hear more opinions on this. I think this gets at the heart of the psychology of this all. I'm also a bit high, and Netrunner says I can be incomprehensible in this state, so hopefully this comment is comprehensible.

Post Script:

#3): Always be completely polite and completely respectful, regardless of anything. This may be the way to go, but you need to be Ghandi or Mother Teresa to have the patience to pull this off.

Congress needs to support the decriminalization of all controlled substances for starters. Criminalize the banking industry putting the charlatans of the world's largest scam in modern history in maximum security zoos, then immediately criminalize the Pharmaceutical and Agribusiness industry's eugenics arrangement with the elite-Next, go after the legal system and the prison industry....let's get back to some basic common-sense when deciding what s righteous and what is foul, like Hammurabi did!!
(I especially like this one) ⇓⇓⇓


"If a judge try a case, reach a decision, and present his judgment in writing; if later error shall appear in his decision, and it be through his own fault, then he shall pay twelve times the fine set by him in the case, and he shall be publicly removed from the judge's bench, and never again shall he sit there to render judgement."

Can we kill some supreme court justice assholes who are obviously in the back pocket of some of the same entities mentioned above??..In a public manner? Quickly?!!

I'm with you there man! I'm sure someone will put the 500 million aside out of the stimulus package to have that done. It's chump change.

Oh wait, those shuttles are considered barely flight worthy as is and will not fly after next year, and those new ships due in 2015, if they come in time, do not have the awesome payload to bring stuff back in from what I understand. I think the shuttle have returned a few nasty radioactive satellites in the past with that cool cargo bay.

Better that it does some more awesome science and go down in flames I suppose than be brought back to earth so my wife can molester it with her acidic fingers like with the stele of Hammurabi.

Being a fixture in the Kool-Aid Brigade libmedia doesn't take any guts.

She, you, and I all have freedom from fear of government retaliation for questioning leaders.

Remember that for these next four years.

(I hear she was a real pain in the ass to Hammurabi, too).

You have no sense of humour, Grimm. I'm actually well-aware of Hammurabi -- don't need any more history lessons.

Grimm wrote: "Not that this quote has anything to do with anything Ron Paul does or does not stand for.."

Ron Paul is an anarcho-capitalist or right-wing libertarian. The point I was making is that given the chance to implement it, an anarcho-capitalist program will weaken whatever legal mechanisms remain, as recourse for the people, against massive corporate power. (It's a bitter irony that few seem aware of--that it's this same corporate power that historically has so subverted government to its aims, to the expense of the public good, to the point where people now are contemptuous of government, but not the other.)

qualm wrote:

"The purpose of government is to protect the weak from the powerful"
Hammurabi

Not that this quote has anything to do with anything Ron Paul does or does not stand for...but that quote by Hammurabi does not exist anywhere except in your mind.

Hammurabi believed that the gods had instructed him "to destroy the wicked and the evil-doers; so that the strong should not harm the weak". Not bad...but he also believed in things like putting people to death if they helped a slave escape or helped a slave by letting them hide in their house...kind of contradicts himself doesn't he?

"The purpose of government is to eradicate the poor."
Hammurabi