Terrible Editorials, Opinion Pieces and Letters to the Editor

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Punished Chuck: Dec 27, 2010

shotgunbadger posted:

Balkans and Ireland: no religious component at all to the strife.

Like, yea saying 'no without religion there would be literally no problems' is stupid as poo poo, but how on earth do you use two famous examples of religious infighting to try to argue that?

I was kind of with D'Souza at first at the "In his bestseller "The God Delusion," Richard Dawkins contends that most of the world's recent conflicts � in the Middle East, in the Balkans, in Northern Ireland, in Kashmir, and in Sri Lanka � show the vitality of religion's murderous impulse" part, because describing any of those conflicts as being religious in basis is an over-simplification at best--while there is a religious component to each of them, characterizing these conflicts as "hurrrr kill the infidel" is disingenuous.

But then he kept talking and :psyboom:

For content, I live just outside Dallas, which is a pretty liberal, multicultural, generally awesome place to live despite everyone thinking Texas is some kind of :bahgawd:

hellhole, in my suburb particularly, so the political opinion pieces are generally okay. Then, I read this:

Some fuckstick from Highland Village posted:

Her penalty is too severe
Re: "28-year term set in boy's death -- Grandmother abandoned blind and deaf child known as 'Wylie's Angel' in brush," Thursday news story.
Have we lost our senses? It appears that his grandmother was the only person who really cared for Gerren Isgrigg.
He was 6 years old, blind, speechless and helpless. I can't imagine what it would be like to care for him for years. But I expect Darlene Phillips simply went bankrupt emotionally and made a bad decision. Of course, she is defenseless and broken, and she pleaded guilty.
Did nobody in Wylie know about this awful living situation before it happened? The courtroom was full. The lawyers and judge agreed to 28 years in prison.
I have worked in prison. This lady does not belong there. She is a victim, as well. She needs some type of supervised existence for less expense than prison. Yet our lawmakers in Austin are cutting the budget for helping helpless people.
Being a Christian, I can't help but think: "What would Jesus have done for Darlene Phillips before the tragedy and now?"

For everyone not from the area, "Wylie's Angel" is Gerren Isgrigg, a little disabled boy that was left to die in the woods by his grandmother. And apparently she was the only one who cared for him? gently caress this guy. There's a difference between "making a bad decision" and leaving your disabled grandson to die alone.

edit: I should add that pleading for a reduced sentence because she wasn't in a right state of mind is okay, it's the "was the only person who cared for him" and suggesting that because she's being sentenced to prison for allowing her helpless blind grandchild to die alone we've "lost our minds" that bothers me.

Punished Chuck fucked around with this message at 19:05 on Jun 3, 2011

# ¿ Jun 3, 2011 19:02

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Punished Chuck: Dec 27, 2010

Bruce Leroy posted:

I totally agree with you, but isn't it kind of a "chicken and the egg" thing with these conflicts over what their true "bases" are?

E.g. how do we determine whether it was ethnic tensions or religious conflict that came first in engendering the hatred that led to violence in the Balkans? We know that both are important causes for the conflict, but how do we know which came first and which is more influential and fundamental to the hatred and conflict?

Was the sentiment among the Serbians that committed genocide against Muslim Bosnians (A) "We hate those filthy Bosnians and they're evil Muslims, too" or (B) "We hate those loving Muslims and they're even worse because they're Bosnian, too"?

Right, it does get murky, but--correct me if I'm wrong, somebody--my impression from Balkan goons in the Mladic GBS thread is that it all originated after WWII, with the Serbian belief that Bosnian Muslims were Nazi collaborators. The Kashmir conflict is over control of Kashmir with some religious overtones. The Tamil conflict didn't have anything at all to do with religion, it was on ethnic lines--although the Tamil Tigers did try to push Muslims out of the north, it was because they thought the Muslims, as a group, supported the Sri Lankan government, not specifically because they were a different religion. The Middle East conflict can be laid more at the feet of European colonialism than Islam. Same goes for the other conflicts Dawkins mentions: religion is a component, and saying it isn't would be dishonest, but so would calling the conflicts religious in nature when it's only partly so.

Although I think everyone can agree that D'Souza's point on this issue lost all credibility when he made a bunch of poo poo up about Hitler

# ¿ Jun 4, 2011 02:00

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