I think it's clear SOMEONE has repressed homosexuality...

The Syrian moderates have given up on getting any help from the outside world, they are faced with fighting Assad's army and his use of Chemical Weapons alone, or with the assistance of Al Qaida fighters. As America and the rest of the world are all choosing to just continue to do nothing it is just reinforcing the desperation of the Syrian opposition in it's search for allies that will do anything to help them.

The only real meaningful assistance the outside world can give Assad's opposition is the implementation of a no-fly zone. That would be an act of war though, so the majority of the world has been railing in opposition to it, doubly so if America might be involved because it's fun to hate the empire. The Russians and Iranians don't want it because Assad is their man and they will oppose anything that evens the playing field. Even America's war hawk Kissinger crowd are against a no fly zone because because as bobknight33 observed seeing anti-american forces fight and kill anti-american forces is hardly something they want to slow down.

No the only people who want to a no-fly zone implemented over Syria are the Syrian opposition themselves and the very, very few of us who care about them and believe it would be to their benefit. It'll unfortunately take a landslide shift in public opinion to get enough of push for any nation to actually step up and provide meaningful help. I'm afraid the reality is we get to watch either a slide into Somalia like anarchy, or a continued escalation of ruthless repression from Assad that his chemical weapon attack was a precursor to.

Yes, insisting that diplomacy is likely to stop Assad's continued campaign of murdering his own people is a problem for me. Sure, maybe I should just accept it as naive and not malicious, but people are being killed while the world stands around yet again refusing to do anything, and that makes me angry.

I'm not trying to whitewash America's role in Iraq either. If anything I'd say my picture is a lot blacker than the people I disagree with the most. The only point I think I differ on is that I DO hold Saddam even more responsible for what he did than America or Saudi Arabia or any of his other backers. I see no reason to apologize for that. Read up on Saddam's Al Anfal campaign against the Kurds, his gassing of Kurdish villages was the least of the atrocities he committed against the Kurds. Saddam had been destroying everything in Iraq the entire time he was in power, from the absolute repression that was everyday life, to the endless feeding of Iraqi bodies to into the Iran-Iraq war, to the genocide of the Kurds, to the genocide of the Shia, Saddam had killed millions of Iraqis and systematically orchestrated and encouraged sectarian hatred and divisions. All that time America continued to callously back him because America was happy to see Iraq and Iran bleed themselves out against each other. If I find some solace in finally, at long last seeing America change it's tune and finally opposing Saddam it's not for because I think America is some humanitarian entity. You list all the devastation in Iraq since the American invasion, but just what realistic alternative version of Iraq do you see could exist today if non-intervention had been held to? Iraq today would STILL be under Saddam's control today, and I would insist anyone wanting that alternative doesn't know what Saddam really was like. I also insist it must be known that the Iraqi people were NOT going to manage to liberate themselves without foreign intervention. The Kurds contemplated it once, and it ended in a campaign of genocide and systematic rape to breed the Kurds out of existence. The Shia tried it once, and it ended in genocide for them too. The Iraqi people knew exactly how opposition to Saddam ended and it was NOT going to happen without someone coming in from outside.

Maybe I just see the world as that much more awful and horrific a place. Just because things are bad and horrific doesn't mean they couldn't be a far sight worse, and in fact haven't been a far sight worse in the recent past.

I don't object to demands for caution and concern that getting involved in a conflict can lead it escalate. I object to defending dictators with impossible barriers and burdens of proof. The fact the UN teams have trouble getting evidence shouldn't be touted as reason to question Assad's involvement when he steadily interferes and endeavors to hinder the UN investigations. If we require concrete evidence before declaring Assad guilty, and Assad refuses the UN access until they have concrete evidence a problem has arisen, no?

@bcglorf

coming from the sifter who states,and i quote:
"Oh, and he thinks the Iraq "problem" was created by America in the last decade. America's role started with support for Saddam, and from there 99% of the "problem" with Iraq needs be laid at Saddams feet for the decades of brutal repression destruction of Iraqi society that he committed. All that damage had everything to do with how horrific and ugly Iraq is today."

i think maybe you should do a bit of research before you throw broad generalizations out there.
i.e: how the sift embraces something.what are we? borg?

so you choose this thread to continue your berating of people who happen to disagree with you.

so let me be clear.
all those examples in your incomplete list are proven facts.
F.A.C.T.S
there is NO concrete evidence assad's regime is responsible.
there is suspicion.
some information implicates.
but to use the 2003 bush administration jargon,there is no smoking gun that led to a mushroom cloud.

and here we are 10 years later.
6 million displaced.
over a half million dead.
a culture practically destroyed.
a population in tatters and government ineffectual.
all based on a LIE.

so those of us suggesting non-intervention or diplomacy are assholes?

look at what YOU are suggesting!
bomb bomb bomb

so let me ask YOU.
what do you think bombing syria will do?

*edit-and who the fuck is giving assad the "benefit of the doubt"? so because people are being cautious in a complicated issue all of sudden they are fans of a brutal dictator?
fucking seriously?

Oh, and he thinks the Iraq "problem" was created by America in the last decade. America's role started with support for Saddam, and from there 99% of the "problem" with Iraq needs be laid at Saddams feet for the decades of brutal repression destruction of Iraqi society that he committed. All that damage had everything to do with how horrific and ugly Iraq is today.

I've been watching the conversation (yelling) about this trial and it's verdict. I think there's a simple disconnect that nobody seems to understand.

Black People live in a different America than White People.

I know people might get mad about that, but you haven't actually seen it so you don't really understand. So this might've been a miscarriage of justice or it might not have been. But if you've constantly been getting crap for being in this country then it's just one more thing.

People don't seem to understand that it wasn't long ago that it was illegal to be black and on the streets. They would arrest you just for hanging around while being black. Or you didn't even go to college, because that just didn't happen. The time signatures are all screwed up. Some people think we've put down the cudgel so you have to stop whining about it. That history of repression doesn't matter to people who haven't experienced it, it matters to those who DID experience it.

So most people's opinions of this don't matter, and they need to come at this from a different perspective and try to understand rather than scold.

Oh yeah, and Oregon. Lived in Portland before the mainstream Hipster-hijack, back when pretentious hippy-douchebag was in the incubation stages (1991-2).

Yeah, a lotta good sushi to be had there and the primary reason?? Pretentious kids from all over the country flocked to the land of no sunshine to escape the repression of their upbringing brokered by their disillusioned hippie parents who drank the Babylonian Kool-Aid at University (incubator for ineffectual putties), to bask in the aroma of their own farts.

You'd fit right in there gwiz

Well, I'm about to get down voted into oblivion, but I have to state this as bluntly as possible.

This is the most perverted kind of propaganda that can be trotted out by someone, and it sickens me to see it. Glen is absolutely correct in every fact he points out, and is in that respect, doing nothing but telling the truth and educating his audience with things they likely didn't know before, and should have. It would seem that should be an unqualified good thing then, but it's not.

What makes this offensive propagandizing to me is the absolutely deliberate omission of equally true, relevant and significant facts that Glen can't help but be aware of. His sole purpose for the omission is that it suddenly shifts things from black and white into the gray that audiences don't like as much.

I'll start from the most important point, and the very premise of the talk, why do they hate us? There is a bigger question though that is even more illuminating, and it is why to they(jihadist terrorists) hate and kill their fellow Islamic countrymen and neighbours? The fact here is that jihadi terrorists before 9/11 and even more so since, have killed tens and hundreds of times as many middle eastern muslims than they have white western infidels. Glen points out plenty of reasons people can have to be upset with America over it's past actions, which is legit in itself, but NONE of those reasons explain why these jihadists target there own fellow middle eastern muslims for the exact same violence and retribution America faced on 9/11. The fact this makes plain is that the jihadi terrorists will hate not only us, but everyone who is not willing to join them unconditionally. They are not the misunderstood, historically slighted and unjustly maligned people Glen's talk might lead people to think of them as. They(jihadi terrorists) do not deserve our sympathy or apologies, their countrymen and neighbours that are their biggest victims do.

Glen also goes on to list the deaths from sanctions on Iraq as an American crime. Apparently Saddam's horrific(then American approved) war on Iran, his genocide of the Kurds, his extensive use of chemical weapons in both, his complete seizure of Kuwait and his genocide of Iraqi Shiites are not relevant to the discussion of placing sanctions on his country. In Glen's discussion, despite this laundry list of crimes against humanity, Saddam is entirely innocent and not in anyway to blame for the children starving in his country while he continued to build himself new palaces and kept his personal guard and secret police forces well equipped and well fed. How is one to take this seriously?

Finally, Glen omits a terrifically important American crime in East Timor that Bin Laden listed. No, sadly it's not our tacit support for the pro Islamic genocide of the people there in the past, but it was America's support for an end to that genocidal repression and support for a free and independent East Timor. This was listed near the very top of American crimes. When Zarqawi blew up the Canal Hotel in Baghdad, he was very clear that it wasn't for Iraqi children dead at the hands of American sanctions. It was because Sérgio Vieira de Mello(killed in the blast) helped over see the transition to a free East Timor.

I'm afraid I am beyond disappointed by talks like this, I find them offensive and contemptible.

Um, what he's saying is quantified over and over again. Gay guys talking in a higher, more feminine voice, is nothing new and nothing special. It's the same reason straight women do. It's part of biology. Deep voice = masculinity while higher voice = femininity.

If the gay guy has been repressing himself to fit in with what society expects him to, he's probably learned to talk in a higher pitched voice against his natural urges. For instance, go talk to a baby or a little kid. Listen to what you do to your voice. Did someone teach you to do that? No. It's a natural instinct because we naturally find higher pitched voices less intimidating and more feminine.

Now, that's not to say all gay guys are feminine. Some are very masculine and would retain a deeper voice, only they find other guys attractive. Hell, they may still find a higher pitched voice attractive. Nothing strange, unusual or weird about it. It just happens.

What's going on with schools?

Chronic underfunding, systematic repression of minorities and poor people, a government run by the wealthy, of the wealthy and for the wealthy that ignores the problems elsewhere in society.

I can say the same. I still enjoyed them, but I just wasn't into them as much. After book 4 I was ready for the series to end. It took 4+ books just for the promised "winter" to come. Starks clearly never met George Martin.

This series is a real exercise in the importance of keeping relate-able characters throughout a narrative. I'm still rooting for Arya (my favorite), and Bran (though his actor seems to be growing worse at portraying him). It's a pity the show turned Jon Snow into sexually-repressed Emo.

There is only one Moral imperative observable in nature. "Nothing is true and everything is permitted"

"Nothing is true..." :

All concepts of truth are relative and dependant upon a supporting paradigm(s) to facilitate meaning and context. To say "killing is wrong" would only be meaningful within a structure that defines both A. the intended meaning of the terms used (i.e. linguistic convention) and B. the causal relationships and imperatives of the ethical code/structure under which one is operating
(e.g. Christians might say "because God will get you", or Deontologists might say "because the act is always more important than the consequence, or Consequentialists that say the opposite of the Deontologists etc.)
Either way "Truth" is just a meaningless noise leaving ones mouth unless there is at least some intellectual structure in which to define it. Ascribing "truth" to "God" is just another such intellectual structure.

"......everything is permitted":

Given all moral/ethical imperatives are by their very nature intellectual constructs and that none (as we define them) appear irrefutably to occur in nature we must conclude that the only "moral judge/authority" that provably exists in the cosmos must be our own minds (you can't even prove 100% that other minds necessarily exist). The only acts prohibited by nature are those defined by its physical laws, one cannot commit a physical action that does not have an equal and opposite reaction for instance. Thus "everything is permitted".
However as the fact that ones own mind is and can be the only moral authority it is also implicit in this "truth" (see what I did there?) that one should endeavour to not be found wanting in the eyes of this ethical arbiter. After all your own conscience is the one person you can never avoid! Thus "everything is permitted" when "truly" understood (again lol) does not encourage one to "do what you want" but rather to consider your every action with the utmost care. No one knows your true motivations & desires better than your own sub-conscious and no one could ever punish you as hard for your mistakes.

Hardened violent criminals who repent their crimes rarely do so because prison is an unpleasant environment (they are often hardened men, accustomed to physical hardship). They repent because the enforced solitude forces them to confront themselves!

Thus I assert; moral behaviour is a product of wisdom and self awareness only! Anything else is brainwashing and (often dangerous) delusion as it deprives one of the true (and complicated) reasons for why some choices/beliefs would be mistakes. (e.g. the sexual repression of Christian culture that still remains firmly in place amongst many (most) atheists).

Love is the law, Love under will.
And do what thau wilt shall be the whole of the law.

No one is saying that people don't try to influence opinion in education, but this is an accusation on education as a whole. The education system is not designed for compliance to train worker bees, its designed to create a system of managing large classrooms with minimal staff. Its still wrong doing that and I'm certain that it is having a detrimental effect. But classrooms are still lead by the teacher and each teacher would have to repress thinking outside the box individually. I don't know about you, but my teachers did the opposite. If it is a conspiracy, its very poorly managed.

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.

God is clearly not a static foundation on which humanity bases their morals. Any cursory examination of Christian history shows that interpretations of what a Godly foundation for a life advicates have varied wildly at least from era to era, if not person to person.

There has not only overriding agreement of right and wrong between Christians throughout the ages, but also between cultures regardless of religion. Every culture has basically the same laws; don't lie, don't cheat, don't kill, don't steal etc. This is pointing to the fact that God didn't just tell us what is moral and immoral in the bible, He wrote it on our hearts. However, you are right in that actions speak louder than words. If you want to look at Christian history, it's very plain that calling yourself a Christian doesn't make you a moral person. Jesus said you will know a tree by its fruits, and a lot of Christian fruit in history has been rotten. There has also been quite a bit of good fruit as well. However, you can't pin down whether God gave a moral law to the actions of sinful human beings when the bible actually predicts the massive apostasy and moral inconsistency that you are describing. Take a look at Matthew 24, for instance.

Is there a foundation for static morality without a God to give it to you? Of course there isn't. And again I'll ask where or when we were guaranteed any such thing.

Well, it seems you agree with Ravi after all. This is exactly his point, and mine. There is no foundation for morality (or meaning, etc) without God and therefore atheism is incoherent. Atheism leads to nihilism which is inconsistent with your own experience.

But lets say that we do deserve such certainty, it still begs the question of why this foundation for morality of yours seems to have a curiously diverse array of outcomes in terms of moral norms over the millennia.

It has a diverse array of outcomes because human nature is corrupt and we can only imperfectly follow Gods laws. It also has nothing to do with what we deserve, but what is true.

Oh wait, I forgot. Your take on this whole thing is actually the only correct one, because of a personal relevation from God - of course. I guess we can now ignore all those other people who felt they had the same thing, because they just weren't lucky enough to benefit from the secure foundation of morality you have found.

It's not my take, it's what Jesus taught us:

John 14:6

Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

So your argument is with Jesus and not with me. You ask Him whether this is true or not.

And yes, spending 20 minutes detailing how Hitler and Stalin may have used certain limited aspects of atheistic thought processes to reach conclusions that are clearly not necessary outcomes of such premises, not by a long shot, and then using that to discredit an entire world view - is indeed Reducto ad Hitlerum in every possible sense of the term.

As TheGenk said, that's weak man.

Hitler is debatable but Stalins regime was atheistic at its core and that isn't debatable. Atheism wasn't peripheral to it, it was the foundation. Stalin brutally imposed atheism on the populace, and killed millions of Christians who refused to deny Christ. Don't take my word for it:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Christians_in_the_Soviet_Union

The history of Christianity in the Soviet Union was not limited to repression and secularization. Soviet policy toward religion was based on the ideology of Marxism-Leninism, which made atheism the official doctrine of the Soviet Union. Marxism-Leninism has consistently advocated the control, suppression, and the elimination of religion.[1]

The state was committed to the destruction of religion,[2][3] and destroyed churches, mosques and temples, ridiculed, harassed and executed religious leaders, flooded the schools and media with atheistic propaganda, and generally promoted 'scientific atheism' as the truth that society should accept.[4][5]

Religious beliefs and practices persisted among the majority of the population,[4] in the domestic and private spheres but also in the scattered public spaces allowed by a state that recognised its failure to eradicate religion and the political dangers of an unrelenting culture war.[2][6]