From: Mike Lorrey (mlorrey@yahoo.com)
Date: Wed Apr 16 2003 - 19:20:20 MDT
--- Charles Hixson <charleshixsn@earthlink.net> wrote:
> Mike Lorrey wrote:
>
> > ...
> >
> >This isn't really analogous to the real world situation. Better
> >description would be a gun walking in your direction, wearing gang
> >colors and tatoos, who you have witnessed mugging other neighbors in
> >the past, you've even stopped one of them yourself, yet the police
> >refuse to do anything about the punk because he is paying various
> >police commissioners off.
> >...
> >=====
> >Mike Lorrey
> >
> >
> More like he's toting a knife, and you're carrying not only a .45,
> but also an UZI. And you weigh 5 times what he does, and are 3
> times as tall. And that's still underestimating the mis-match.
How well you are armed is entirely irrelevant. Lets take your example.
The punk brandishes the knife and snarls at you. You brandish the UZI
and say "Okay, punk, are you sure you want some of this? You'd better
turn that knife over, you might hurt somebody with it."
Instead, the idiot raises the knife and charges, screaming "You have no
UZI, I am invicible, I will disembowel you to the gates of hell!!"
Are you telling me that you would stand right there, no matter what you
are armed with, and just let the punk stab you? Hell no. You'll kneecap
him and take his knife away.
>
> During the middle-ages the great crime that the Christians charges
> the Muslims with was the burning of the Library at Alexandria. They
> didn't do it, but they were blamed anyway. (It did happen while
> they were in charge, soon after the conquest of Alexandria.) Now
> Bagdad's library wasn't as significant, but it wasn't minor.
> Especially if Arabic is you native tongue. Whatever our reputation
> was, it's now worse. That we didn't do it isn't going to cut much
> ice. We were in charge, and didn't do anything to stop it or put
> out the fire, or even collect the scraps
> of parchment that flutter out on the flames.
The Library of Alexandria has burned a number of times. It burned in
the time of the Ptolemies, during the Roman Empire, several times, most
notably around the time that the Hellenic philosopher/mathematician
Hypatia was flayed alive with abalone shells by a mob of Coptic
Christians (arabs all).
Any time you mix dried and aging paper with oil or gas lanterns, you
are asking for a bonfire.
The library also burned a couple times while under Muslim control, and
at least once under the torch of the Crusaders.
It is so typically arab that all the looting of Iraq is being done by
Iraqis, and they have nothing to say for themselves except "Why don't
you stop us from doing this to ourselves?"
Freedom is about personal responsibility. Now that Iraqis are free, it
is their responsibility to take responsibility for their own property
as well as their own actions.
=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
- Gen. John Stark
"Pacifists are Objectively Pro-Fascist." - George Orwell
"Treason doth never Prosper. What is the Reason?
For if it Prosper, none Dare call it Treason..." - Ovid
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