its not a country, a country cant do anything. there are people, persons doing this.

Saudi Arabia and Pakistan are our allies, yet are the sources of the terrorism moreso than Afghanistan.

The FSA are civilians responding to their countrymen being MASSACRED, women, children, old people, by the GOVERNMENT, the SAA.

Really clueless people who think the FSA are terrorists and SAA is legitimate. Disinformation is winning despite the clear video evidence that Assad is massacring civilians of opposing religious factions. I see this clearly, but then again I watch the actual videos from places that dont put commentary on them. Its disgusting what they, the leaders of Syria, have done to the children of Syria using the army as a tool. You do not attack civilians or give militia leeway to do so.

Support the FSA.

Can't have 'em denuding the countryside now, can they?

(thought 1st they were gonna massacre those poor old turtles)

*quality mash-up
spoiler: This song is used brilliantly in the 2013 redux of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, oh.....and the movie probably sucks like all the reduxs have

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

Churchill said that Americans can always be counted on to do the right thing...after they have exhausted all other possibilities. I think 2-3 more school massacres will probably do it. :-(

*promote

As "poor, bombed massacred and isolated" as 1.4 billion can be, huh? That must be it. They were DRIVEN to their violent, sexually-repressed, misogynistic culture by outside forces. I guess it really IS ok for them to fly planes into buildings, spray acid in the faces of young schoolgirls, dismember strangers watching a footrace, kill cartoonists who draw their prophet (or just... somebody because a cartoonist drew their prophet), and kick and beat and stone to death daughters who dishonor their family by going and getting themselves raped. Islam has nothing to do with it.

Ok.

Let's just disagree to agree.

(But I will say it's not every day that someone who blows up people and tosses bombs at police evades capture into a neighborhood after car jackings and shootouts with the proven desire to massacre innocent people without provocation, and all with a big smile.)

Apparently Howard was not happy about this and felt that Oliver was disrespectful. Do your research Howard!

Also, I went on the march against the gun ban when it was introduced. The laws in my state of Victoria were largely in line with the reforms but there were several new ones that were and are inconsistent. For instance, you can not have a pump action shot-gun but you can have a pump action centre-fire rifle. Admitedly I was only 17 at the time and mostly went to take photos for my uni degree. However, the laws became nationwide and bought Tasmania, the place where the massacre that prompted the ban, in to line with what the rest of the nation deemed acceptable. While I don't think there is a 100% correlation between the ban and the lack of subsequent massacres the gun laws were sensible and could easily be adopted anywhere else in the world where rationality prevails over dogmatism.

Debate, yay! Let's take this in order:

@00Scud00 You don't actually disagree with me it seems. Christian fundamentalism is (almost) as dangerous as Islam fundamentalism imo, with the tiny caveat that Jesus' message was mostly pacific passive-aggressive, à la "be nice to everyone here, me and Dad will torture our enemies in the afterlife", whereas Muhammed's was very much "death to the infidel, by our hand and/or God's" (e.g. s2:191-3; s4:89; 5:33; 9:52, etc). As for nation-building, it is more rooted in Islam - if only by virtue of being what their holiest figure did, contrary to the "kingdom-of-heaven-is-not-on-earth" Jesus (of course, Christianity's inherent One Truth totalitarianism is, as history shows, a perfect backup ideology for colonizing and war-weilding as well.
Of course people growing up with Islam will, for the most part, adhere to the good and ignore (sadly, instead of revolting against) the evil, just like with any other religion. That does not change the inherent wrongness and dangerousness of the ideology itself.
"You're condemning an entire belief system and billions of Muslims based on a statistically small group of whackjobs, doesn't sound very scientific to me. the comparatively greater (observable and quantifiable) numbers of threats/acts of violence done in the name of Islam than those in the name of other religious ideologies in this point in history " FTFClarity. If I mention >100'000person-riots demanding the deaths of atheist bloggers, which religious beliefs are most likely to be at the source there? Proportionally, which religious beliefs have, today, the most negative effects on women? Which population of ex-"religion" is most likely to receive death threats and/or be killed for religious reasons? I could go on, but I think the point is made that, proportionally, Islam is the greatest cause of religious-fueled harm today.

@Yogi, apples and oranges dear, not to mention your very narrow definition of Islam's toll (the sunnis bombed by chiites and vice-versa, and all the honour-killing victims, to name only a couple, would not agree with you). The US-wrought massacres in the ME are unforgiveable, no doubt about it, but most of the excuses made to justify it were secular, not religious. Fundamentalist Islam is above all a threat to its immediate neighbours (usually other muslims). Islamist terrorism is only one aspect of the ideology's dangers, and takes its greatest toll in Africa and the ME. Counting only US victims is terribly self-centered.

@SDGundamX Hello old debate-buddy; I will freely admit that I do not want to spend days and days compiling exact numbers of "victims of Islam" vs "victims of other religions", and I think it is rather a dismissive tactic to demand such data. That is why I formulated the question differently in the response above to 00Scud00: take a look at the state of the world, and simply compare. Does this paint all of Islam in a broad brush? You think it does, I do not. I do not find it contradictory to accept the wide variety of "Islams" and Islamic practices/interpretations while arguing that the core fundamentals of Islam, i.e. the founding texts and exemplary figures, can and sadly often do lead to or are invoked to motivate violence and unethical behaviour, and that at this point in history it is the one that does so the most. I do not imply that there is "one" practice of Islam, that is you projecting. There are, however, a set of texts at the core of Islam, and with it a set of beliefs (as you yourself point out).
There is a reason why "moderate" Christians, Muslims, etc. are called "moderate": they only "moderately" adhere to that core. And yes, Muslims disagree with eachother about how to live/interpret that core, and sometimes (like the Christians and Jews etc. before them) kill eachother over their disagreements.

Is there good stuff to be found in those fundamentals? Yes, of course, but they are basics of human empathy and animal morality, and do not require holy validation (this applies for all religious fundamentals of course).

You and many others seem to be unable to dissociate "hating an ideology" from "hating every individual who adheres to it, no matter to what degree". It is noteworthy that the people who accuse others of painting Islam/Muslims "with one broad stroke" are often guilty of implying exactly that when they make that accusation: "you express dislike of Islam and/or the acts of certain Muslims, ergo you can only be expressing dislike for all of them, because one=all!"

As for equating Islam with danger, there is nothing wrong with that. What is wrong is to equate Muslim people with danger, and yes, there is a huge difference, one that people like myself think so obvious as to not have to spell it out until opposing voices accuse us of not making that difference, often because they themselves cannot. When the fundamentals say "believing something other than Islam is worse than murder" and "kill the non-believer", it is a dangerous ideology. Thankfully we know that the majority of individuals will eschew that part of the fundamentals, gaining the "moderate" achievement. This does not diminish the danger inherent in the fundamentals.

@Babymech It is not ignorant to say that Chechens have been bombed, massacred, and isolated, and are poor as all get-out. It is ignorant to suggest that these are the only possible reasons a culture might have violent strains running through it, and that one should by all means not look towards the beliefs that explicitly command killing people who don't believe what you do. Moreover, my history is pretty rusty, but of all the many places and peoples the US has bombed and massacred, I don't remember Chechnya being among them. The Boston bombing may have been political in nature, but suggesting that it can only be so and cannot have religious motivations is simplistic and counter to, well, reality.

@hpqp How is it ignorant to say that Chechens have been bombed, massacred, and isolated, and are poor as all get-out, you preposterously pompous prick? No offense, just asking.

Man Muslims are just batshit crazy. Turns out that when they're poor, bombed massacred and isolated, they get violent strains running through their culture. WEIRD

Well see, what happened TangledThorns was, since the proposed, inane bills appear to be falling on "fuck THAT noise" ears in the Senate, it's regarded as a crushing defeat for the cause of insanity, so they simply stopped talking about it. Took almost as long to forget the Great Privileged Rich White Kid Massacre of Newtown

It's very hard to accidentally kill someone with a fire extinguisher. But I'm sure someone is going to go into an elementary school and massacre children with one very soon.

Amazing the lengths people will go to to protect their toys.

"The quiet massacre that happens everyday"

....these cuntz
Sorry folks, we get kinna rabid when the douche-factor³ of Sink Ungark's blubbering starts to wax (insert adj) Cenk.

Well, the U.S. is the country that holds title to the largest civilian massacres in history, though I suppose if you counted up the total civilians killed, China might beat the U.S. by a bit.

In most other ways though China and some third-world countries have the U.S. beat for corruption.

It was a confiscation policy. All guns that were banned HAD to be handed in. This was easily enforced by our mandatory gun registration laws in most states (except in Tasmania where the massacre that trigger this scheme occurred). People could hand in any gun they wanted even if it wasn't banned. I am not sure if there was compensation involved.

One stupid outcome was that many antique and rare guns were destroyed rather than rendered inopporeable or transferred to museums etc. My neighbour handed in a very valuable double barrell shotgun that was destroyed despite it being legal. He didn't want it anymore and like manny citizens took advantage of the amnesty to dispose of it.

You can still own pump action and semi-auto guns. You just need a special license for them. To get the license you need an especially good reason to need such weapons. There are strict regulations surrounding their storage and use. That said, my brother got a job as a pest controller for a class D license which enabled him to have grenade launchers if he wanted.

tl:dr - Australians have a very sensible approach to guns. You didn't see any whining about self protection in this vid did you?