That's a nice strategy they got going there but it's fairly shortsighted. If you're mainly killing and terrorizing muslims, you're gonna run out of muslim supporters one day.
The same people whose families and friends you enslaved, raped and murdered won't help you.
The muslims that are somewhat moderate and far away from you will begin to understand that you are their biggest problem now, image wise and direct threat once your reach is big enough to touch them. They won't help you. They will look after their own interests, mainly deescalation.
Muslim nations will start seeing you as a problem as you hurt their economy, just consider how important tourism is for Turkey. Rich people will loose money. Money means more than faith.
Those true believers have many martyrs willing to die for the cause. The world has enough bombs for each one of them. No matter who presses that button.

They will fail. They will become insignificant or extinct. Somebody new will come along and fail as well. Repeat.

This utopia that you seek already exists where all are given an equal chance. Its the Republican TEA party.
The Democrats has enslaved the brother for centuries.

@newtboy: Just to be clear, I really appreciate your comments. It's nice to talk to an omnivore who doesn't just respond with "I'LL EAT TWICE AS MUCH MEAT AS YOU DO TO MAKE UP FOR YOUR VEGANISM!" I'm trying to be objective, and I appreciate your attempt as well.

That being said...

I respect the genuine care you give to your animals. I didn't know you or your family (or both) owned such a farm. It does sound like you do, truly, meet their needs as animals. However, (and I hate to bring out the really controversial stuff), I'm sure plenty of slave-owners treated their slaves with genuine humanity. But that doesn't excuse the categorical enslavement of other beings. Despite all care given to those animals, they are still not able to live their natural lives as animals on earth. I don't see why our subjugation, no matter how "humane", can be considered anything less than "inhumane".

Now, the comparison to "most children in the world" is a moot one. Yes, of course everywhere there are going to be worse things happening. But the point is that we are rational, (hopefully) decent, higher-order-understanding-of-the-universe beings. Humans seem to like to cherry-pick when their huge brain is an excuse for greatness, or ignored and "we're just animals after all". So, just because there is suffering outside the scope of our influence, we do all have the ability to stop eating meat. Pretty easily, in fact, since there are tons and tons and tons of other means to get all the nutrition we need (not to mention way, way healthier means).

The point is that we are completely and totally (especially as upper-middle class 1st-world citizens) capable of not eating meat this very moment. You can't, however, change the living conditions in the slums of India by yourself right now.

And explain to me how mentally handicapped humans are not animals. What is the distinction? They are both objectively less intelligent. If anything, animals are more capable of surviving on their own. What makes mentally handicapped people any more special than animals? Just because they're human? That seems arbitrary. True, they should be treated differently because they are different animals, but I mean why should one be treated to our moral consideration and one should not? What makes humans so damn special?

And that "sustenance" argument is really, really misguided. As said above, you can eat an entire vegan diet and be probably even more healthy than an omnivore. And animals are not minimally suffering. Yes, a very cherished, rare group, as your animals are, are "minimally suffering", but many, many, many, many more are being horribly abused for that sustenance that can be gained elsewhere (with suffering of its own, truly. I always hear the "well, there are people given slave wages to pick vegetables in California". But, you'll be eating those vegetables and fruits anyway. That's an entirely other battle that needs to be waged in other ways, not through lack of consumption).

My assumption was not that 100% of farmers treat their animals inhumanely. My assumption was that billions of animals are being treated inhumanely. And the way parents treat their children is a red herring. That's not my argument at all. And again, it's outside the realm of my influence.

And to counter your last argument... my same argument above follows for the "food chain/web" argument. Once and for all:

We are rational, amazing, smart, complex and powerful beings on this planet. We have it within our power (each of us) to not eat meat. This is "against nature". But so is basically OUR ENTIRE CIVILIZATION. What makes us truly different from animals is that exact ability. To step back and choose our actions. Are you saying humans not capable of choosing their actions -- those with so much in the 1st world countries? That we're all forced to, by nature, to eat meat? That is the cognitive dissonance I speak of. That we're so special because we are rational beings, but at the same time we must eat meat because we are not rational human beings.

This entire argument was not endorsed by PETA, because they're a bunch of assholes -- but despite being assholes one can't argue that they have brought about change. Change comes from all angles. Grassroots, insane radicals, scientists, humanitarians. They all try to bring change in different ways and succeed influencing different groups. PETA's brazenness is its power. Large corporations, like McDonald's, must respond to such a power. Despite being assholes. Both of them.

--

I want to end on a note of humility -- that I admit to having that same cognitive dissonance when it comes to animals. As a cat owner, I often visualize the mound of turkey carcasses that both of my lovable kittens live on top of. And they truly are carnivores in that they cannot find sustenance outside of meat. How do I rationalize all the turkey deaths (my cats only exclusively eat turkey for some goddamn reason) just so I can have my lovable pets? I can't. And it kills me. Not sure if I'll get cats after they die.

--

Thanks for reading. That was a lot.

there many forms of enslavement,to wit most people are wholly unaware,either unwittingly or unwillingly.

"none are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free" van goethe.

consider this my friends:
if you accept currency for your labors,where you toil for anothers financial gain.you are literally renting yourself.trading your time,creativity and labors for coin.you are a wage slave and a hundred years ago our ancestors were very aware of this and found it detestable.they literally saw it as a form of slavery.

now as @Lawdeedaw pointed out,there are some protections put forth by our government,along with other governments,but those were not just handed out.they had to be fought for,and many died for those protections.by whom? wage slaves,but in those days they KNEW thats what they were,and proceeded from that premise.

the philosophy of the matrix even addressed this very idea of slavery (yep,i went there).that the majority of the people had become so entrenched and immersed in the system,that to even question the system would illicit a violent and defensive response.they would fight to remain in the system.

just look at our friend @Barbar 's reaction.
even the term "slave" was enough for a visceral reaction.

i am reminded of a doug stanhope routine in where he states " at least i KNOW i am a slave,YOU,however..remain clueless".

so let us take the term "slave" off the table and instead use the dynamic of "power vs powerlessness".

the current systems of power have the majority of people running on hamster wheel of desperation.may it be "pay check to paycheck" or "mortgage and credit cards" or the subtle doctrine of "conform and obey".this could also be "all of the above".

the real question is this:
do you consider yourself free?
because a comfortable slave.....is still a slave.
the term may be dramatic,but it is accurate.

Your video, the enslavement of humanity, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

That basically means that the only way an action scene can be good is via realism, and that's not true.

I would agree so much as to say that I don't think that Avengers scene was necessarily great, but it is good. I want to preface this first with I'm not a huge Avengers fan. I'm honestly not a big comic book fan either, so this isn't coming from a fan boy.

Why was it good? First off, it is very plot connected. It demonstrated Tony Stark being forward thinking and anticipating the Hulk potentially going Hulk and hurting/killing people... It's the same for his motivation to construct what became The Vision. It stays within both his and Hulk's character. Stark maintains his wise cracking self, even when it's not probably appropriate.

Immortality? Hardly. It conveyed how much damage could be done. IE, buildings and stuff didn't just get destroyed because, LOOK! STUFF BLOWING UP! The scene actually demonstrates the flaws/vulnerabilities of both Stark and the Hulk. Stark didn't just beat him, and that was that. They were very lucky nobody died (admittedly pretty conveniently). It took a bit of good luck for Stark to stop the Hulk that there was a huge building under construction nearby. It shows that even just the Hulk could potentially overpower whatever Stark cooks up to stop him, let alone whatever actual Supervillian comes along who is actually scheming to destroy/enslave the world, and he can make mistakes despite his best attempts (which is brought about Ultron as well). It demonstrated the Hulk's fragility of setting him off. Yet it also demonstrated that without Stark, the Hulk would have continued smashing and destroying. That was one of the themes in the movie, that technological innovation is something we need, yet can destroy us all.

Was it potentially overdone and there was some stuff that they could have toned down to keep with that darker ethos? Sure. The scene ain't perfect, but it's really damn good.

Unknown.

If the ECB pulls ELA, the Greek banking system goes belly up. Again, consequences unknown, but Deutsche Bank for instance didn't seem particularly stable during the last months, so the denial of any contagion risk might have been premature. Additionally, Draghi is tasked with maintaining the stability of the Euro and taking away Greece's last lifeline might just be too far out of his mandate, even for him. Keeping ELA up without increasing the limit will achieve the same result within days though.

If Greece fails to make its payment to the IMF tomorrow, it's at the discretion of Lagarde whether she pulls the plug. Info has been somewhat contradictory, but there should be a 30 day window before the board has to call it a default.

If a default is triggered this week, it's up to the ECB and the EC again. They have shown unwillingness to let things go bust, all the recent months of muddling through should be testament to that.

They cannot have a failed state within Europe without feeding right into the anti-European parties on both ends of the spectrum; they cannot throw Greece out of the EZ; they cannot revitalise the Greek economy without doing a 180 against their own ideology; they cannot let Syriza pull Greece out of the shit without encouraging Podemos. It's an impasse alright.

Should the Greek people vote against the proposal, a proposal that is no longer on the table, it'll be back to negotiations. Should they vote in favour of it, and should it still be available to them at that time in the first place, Tsipras might even get a majority for it in parliament, but Syriza will blow apart right then and there. The left wing cannot agree to further enslavement.

If, however, everything goes sour and Greece does indeed exit the EZ, introduce a new Drachma, the whole shebang, then we're in uncharted terrorities. The situation in Greece would deteriorate even further, given how much they rely on imports, especially of fuel. And the EU, already shaky from the tens of thousands of bodies floating in the Med, the falling standard of living for tens of millions and the sustained unemployment of an entire generation; this fecking union cannot turn the cradle of democracy into a failed state and survive. The governments might be ok with it, but the French people would rip this shit to shreds one way or another, and rightfully so.

To take a less emotional counterpoint :

a) Internal attacks like this, when considering the massive population of people (1/3rd of a billion), are extremely rare. Lightning strikes compete very well with these in terms of lethality. So what exactly do you do? Turn the country inside out (do things legislatively/executively that affect everyone) because there's a chance that 1 in 300 million people will once every year or two do something like this?

Also) Southern generals fought over secession. Today, the civil war is taught as being largely over slavery - but that's heavily revisionist, since at the time of the civil war the war's implications on slavery weren't even mentioned outside of black newspapers. White people were fighting over who gets to run the south, the south, or the much richer and better politically connected north.

To illustrate, the emancipation proclamation only freed slaves in the states participating in the cesession, not elsewhere. The remainder were freed after the civil war. Reason dictates that it was done primarily to cause disruption in the rebelling south, and not for any particular racial sympathy. (Here's a map for those interested. States marked in blue got to keep their slaves : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Emancipation_Proclamation.PNG).

In general, throughout human history, the defeated are usually historically revised to appear as bad as possible, so there are no questions about whether the right thing was done, and no sympathies linger for the defeated. So the south being turned into a ~1~dimensional~evil~enslaving~caricature~ of history is rather normal. Although, critical thinking people should probably know better than to fall for ancient propaganda.

-scheherazade

You are once again sounding insane.
First, "conservatives" barely exist, and you are not one.
Neocons, like yourself, still believe in enslavement...they claim to be the "law and order" party, which means they write ridiculous laws (drug war, debtors prison, privatize prisons and let prison guards write laws, etc.) that put people in jail/prison for money...a type of enslavement.
Regulation is not enslavement.
Yeah, I see you can't even read yourself....they "haven't changed since Lincoln", but they have changed positions 100% since Nixon....and you don't seem to have the capacity to understand the two things are mutually exclusive.
What...you don't think there are enough highways, but there are too many salamanders? That seems like a typical assessment from you.


Oh, and for your last post, you are absolutely clearly racist. No question about it for anyone who's read your posts. When you separate people by race then talk crap about the other groups, that's racist, and you do it daily. You seem to just not know what the word means, that's the only explanation for you claiming to NOT be racist. The rest of your post is just insane straw men you made up....as in "only white people can be racist"...no one said or implied any such thing...you just WISH they had so your argument would make sense.

Oh I under stand - Conservatives understand. Liberals don't .

Both parties have not evolved. Liberals still believe in enslavement. Republicans still believe that enslavement is bad and this idea have not changed since Lincoln.



With respect your silly EPA analogy Yes it was started by Nixon. But today they have too much overreaching power. When you can stop a Highway from starting because of a simply salamander habitat will be lost then Yes their powers do need to be greatly curtailed.

Hey Lantern, why don't you tell us how "totally not racist" you are..

while claiming that black people are inherently violent, underachieving, thugs & savages.

Oh but wait, you "have a bi-racial relative" so you couldn't POSSIBLY be an unapologetic racist.

Nope, you just believe the first biracial president is "unamerican" because he spent 4 years as a child in -*gasp!* - a "foreign" country.

[You know, like how Republican Ted Cruz is a Cuban-Canadian with an untrustworthy racist father]

Or maybe you can tell us how the "black community" conspired to make certain that open racism and discrimination in EVERY facet of life was perfectly acceptable until the 1960s.

Pssh, seems EXTREMELY racist to still benefit from the enslavement of an entire group of people..
- not to mention the whole murdering & subjugating the indigenous population beforehand -
..then blame that group for not being able to "fix their own problems", doesn't it?

P.S. - It does. Because it is. Because you're a racist.

Just like my hispanic grandmother.. oh, and she has TWO bi-racial grandkids.

Racist want to keep blacks on the plantation. That is the liberal agenda. I am not liberal.

Democrats policies have cause more harm to blacks. Then again Democrats held the south back then and formed the KKK. Today they enslave blacks economically and have decimated the family structure with their policies.

Since the 60's 85% of Black population vote for democrats during the elections.

The problem for black people is that they continually vote for democrats that do little to nothing for them. Black votes are being taken for granted by Democrats.

Conversely Republicans won't promise much since they know the wont get their vote.

Please read again...and write again, reading what you write before submitting. I can't follow your first paragraph. What little I can understand completely ignores what I wrote and makes stuff up to argue against.

I didn't say atheists have a monopoly on morality, I said morality doesn't come from religions, and atheists are more moral than religious people. I gave clear statistics about criminal behavior to prove my point.
EDIT:It seems you are saying if it's not religious in origin, the only thing left is political affiliation!? OMFG! That's so wrong I don't know where to start, I hope I just misunderstand you.
Reading/writing comprehension matters.
read my last paragraph in the post above...you exhibit those symptoms.

The answer to all your demographic questions, the religious group.
Religious 'morality' allows for murder, rape, and slavery of the non devout, and so is more responsible for the decline, and for many of the schisms in society.
You watch too much fox news, liberals don't 'control all major media and schools'. "Conservatives" (which are not conservative, they want to be more 'progressive' than liberals by "going back" to a time that never existed) never shut up pushing their insane, debunked ideas day and night. Their morality supports slavery and rape and wage disparity so disastrous that it may lead to class warfare. (how you treat the least of your brethren...etc.)
(EDIT: also investigate the saying 'eat the rich'-Jean-Jacques Rousseau )

More abortions for Christians than atheists, they can't be seen haveing out of wedlock children and many can't use birth control.
Abstinence only sex-ed actually promotes pre-marital sex (if you look at the results).
Christians have more adulterous affairs... for entertainment, and more divorce too.
Religious 'morality' is all 'morality decided by self'. (You don't stone non Christians or people who work on Sunday, do you? If not, you absolutely don't take your morality from the bible.)
Religion totally enslaves the poor.

Any other fallacies you need me to destroy?

Really, your hanging your morality hat on atheists. Ok lets buy you argument its not Christians or atheists ( 10% population and you hang you hat on it.) for this morality issue. Then what all is really left is ideology. at that point there are only real 2 types those who are conservatives and those who are liberals.

Which demographic is more at fault for this morality decline?
Which ideological group is more responsible for the decline.
The liberals control all major media,(news and entertainment) schools ,( local and universities). They push their liberal ideas day in and out.

Which group promotes abortions ( murder)?
Which group promotes pre marital sex?
Which group routinely promoted adulterous affairs as entertaining?
Which group promotes "morality decided by self"
Which group promotes enslaving the poor?

I don't owe $200k either, because I chose to buy insurance. You seem to believe that you have a right to breath and a heart beat, and you would be correct. However, you are incorrect in believing that you have the right to force someone to take care of you, to enslave them to provide you with medical care. If you are such a nice person, why don't you appeal to someone's sympathy to take care of you?

Have you even considered why medical care is expensive? Why are there so many barriers to competition that keep prices high?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHXzAU8_0fg