Starlight, you are mistaken in your belief that Dave somehow cares that you are Jewish, or dislikes you because of it.
Shine on, you crazy diamond.
Sorry, but I’m not really willing to take your word for it given his constant accusations of mental illness.
He doesn’t make them against you, for instance.
Thanks for that, Timex. I mean, hell, TheWombat’s a guy I’ve known for 15+ years, and he’s Jewish. We’ve met in person, we’ve worked together, and we’ve always gotten along well. If I somehow had it in for Jews (WHICH I DO NOT), he would know. And say so.
You are not acting rationally, and you are attributing malicious intent where there is none. And that irrationality is what is leading to his accusations of mental illness.
Step back, and accept that he does not hate Jews, and is not a bad person. Then see what happens. I guarantee the conversation will be more civil and productive.
The alternative is that he is an evil antisemite, but if that is the case, then discussion with him is pointless anyway, so if you truly believe that, then just stop arguing with him.
You are asking me to give him the benefit of the doubt. Which I am not willing to extend. Outside places like 4chan, the sustained levy of mental illness accusations is very very much overwhelmingly a tactic of the far right, both here and in America. It’s something I freely admit I have a personal animus about, not least because one of the things I’ve worked on was games for people who are actually seriously mentally ill*, I’ve seen it and it’s nothing like the internet accusations made.
So simply making that sort of accusation in a sustained way DOES make you a bad person, as far as I’m concerned. So no, no benefit of the doubt. Especially given he’s repeatedly told people to ignore me and trumpeted that he’s ignoring me, but obviously does not.
It’s perfectly rational to respond to the sort of hostility he’s shown me from day one on these forums. He’s never been civil or productive to me here (which does make me wonder who he thinks I am, if we have a history or something). And while you might not want to mock nasty people, I ain’t big enough not to.
edit; Or rather, I’m quite willing to restrain myself outside P&R, and do. Here? Pfft.
(*And there’s no way in shit they’re going to be able to write things like this, or consistently participate productively elsewhere at the same time. Mental illness isn’t a switch)
Then as i said, if you do not believe that Dave is arguing in good faith, then the exercise is futile and you should stop.
The only two rational options here are accept that you have mistaken his ultimate motivation, or stop talking to him.
Starlight, the very first time I became aware of you was in a thread about disaster relief here on QT3’s P&R forum. I posted about a newspaper article I read in the 80’s when I lived in New Orleans, an article that said a study should be performed about what areas of the city should be condemned as too dangerous (this was long before Katrina). People in those areas would then be paid to leave. You claimed to have read that never-performed study and went on to invent fake statistics from it. We got off to a horrible start because of that.
Later, in this thread, you decided I was an anti-Semite and posted this little gem:
Bolding mine. That was only the first time you’ve leveled the anti-Semitic charge against me, not the last. And then there’s the way you accused many others who disagreed with you about Israel, including people like Timex and Janster, of being my sock puppet accounts.
So yeah, we haven’t been friends. We have a history, but it’s one that was written here. And when your definition of rational means that I “want dead Jews” and “clearly want genocide,” I dismiss you as irrational for damned good reasons.
I have to “accept” goodwill I won’t grant or be censored? No. That’s a complete false choice. A fake one, even. Not challenging him means that his poison will spread, as far as I’m concerned. He apparently has no sense of humour, no willingness to admit that his views can be challenged and is still insisting even now that an entire area has not been studied because he said do - he outright rejected all the evidence (so I removed it as a waste of time, letting people rant at themselves is a perfectly good tactic from my PoV).
Dave - You have not “dismissed me as irrational”, you have engaged in a sustained campaign of calling me mentally ill, including to other posters. And now you’ve decided without my doing so what I’m calling you - which I haven’t, my actual insult was something else entirely. You’re lying again.
But hey, olive branch. Let’s give Timex’s policy a try. If your views don’t include those, then you’ll be willing here and now to condemn, without reservation or insult, the actions of Hamas (and nobody else, Hamas in isolation). Well?
(If you throw this back at me…)
Calling you mental and calling you irrational are two ways I say the same thing, and that’s no lie.
But hey, olive branch. Let’s give Timex’s policy a try. If your views don’t include those, then you’ll be willing here and now to condemn, without reservation or insult, the actions of Hamas (and nobody else, Hamas in isolation). Well?
There are things about Hamas I’ll happily condemn–their charter, for example, or their terrorist acts and holocaust denial. But I can’t do this “without reservation” or “in isolation” because I see the existence of Hamas as in large part a product of Israeli refusal to work seriously and sincerely for the two state solution. Remember, Hamas didn’t exist until the late 80’s, by which time the settlement movement was in full swing. If Israel didn’t want to encourage radicalism in occupied territories, they should have worked to liberate them, not incorporate them. Hamas does not exist in isolation any more than Israel does.
Even if you believe that Israel’s actions led to hamas, that shouldn’t necessarily prevent you from condemning them. I mean, it doesn’t make their actions any better.
I listed several things I’ll “happily condemn,” so it didn’t.
So, you can’t.
Well, then, I am not willing to grant you benefit of the doubt on what you said in the first sentence there, about “two ways I say the same thing”. There’s simple no common ground I can find with you, as a Labour Zionist who supports a two-state solution because of his Zionism, who supports Peace Now and who is utterly dismayed at this election result. None.
Timex - welp Tried…
Well, it seems kind of a fine point here, but it’s causing you to talk past each other. I don’t really see you as not condemning anything that hamas does, but merely want to point out that Israel is not without blame in the current situation. I don’t think those two positions are mutually exclusive. But I’m not sure what the reservation of the condemnation would be in this case
Eh, perhaps you’re right. I’ll condemn those things about Hamas unreservedly then.
I’m quite happy in condeming Hamas (for their actions) and Israel (for their actions). They both sadly deserve each other based on those actions, historic and current, and until they both are able to step back from the brink their situations will not improve.
Here i put the responsibility on Israel, as the legal state with the largest ability to do stuff (like kill more civilians, use more money etc) FIRST, and any improvement in the rotten status quo in the region rests on Israeli shoulders imho. They are the big time players here, they are the only ones that can actually improve the situation in the middle east, but over many decades they decide to make it worse (again imho). The ratio death count does not lie.
So Israel is bad for defending it’s people, Zak, while Hamas uses them as disposable shields?
Sorry, but that argument is nonsense.
I don’t believe any one thinks Israel is bad for defending itself. Its when you start persecuting large swaths of people because of there religion or culture that things get bad. You paint with very broad strokes there Starlight. Broad enough to make people wonder about own biases. Perhaps, look in the mirror sometimes and recognize that not all the people living under Hamas believe as they do, and wish for an end to the violence. Perhaps accept that some of these people are in desperate straights and are slowly being boxed in.
It seems to me, you should consider the other side of the coin a bit.
The comparative kill-count is exactly that, legowarrior. It’s an argument that if it was equal, Israel wouldn’t be in the wrong.
Also, you obviously don’t know many people on the political extremes, because there’s plenty of that out there.
In fact, I have repeatedly supported the Palestinians of Gaza, against Hamas. Once more, I support the two-state solution, I support Peace Now…oppose the settlements…
Your representation of me has completely different views to what I’ve expressed. So…I gotta ask at this stage do you actually bother reading my posts, or are you talking to yourself?
Reading LegoWarrior’s posts, i can’t tell which side he is talking about.
To sum it up…
-People are responsible for the actions of their government and thus “deserve it”
-Their actions are making the other side respond with force
-They are just making things worse with their actions
-They are causing civilian deaths
Really, the only way to tell the two sides apart with that description is that one intentionally causes civilian deaths and the other unintentionally causes them.
And really, people are still trying to claim that a military force accidentally killing civilians who are in a crowded war zone is worse than a terrorist force intentionally targeting both enemy and friendly civilians? Even if you think the military force could have done better (which may or may not be true depending on the situation), this is still a moronic opinion. I suppose you believe that the USA deserved 9/11 as well?
As a general statement, Palestinian supporters will never convince moderates with this crap. The USA is also NEVER going to support a Muslim Terrorist organization that intentionally targets civilians over a nation that many feel is similar to ourselves (including a western approved religion), no matter how many dumb things Israel does.