3 - Burning of black churches - My understanding is there was no recent wave of black church burning. That is not to say that black churches did not burn but so did white churches and non churches. The overall arson rate and the rate of each of these categories did not go up significantly in recent years.
Tim, this was about two years ago all throughout the South. Clinton made a big deal of it. I can't remember what sparked all the burnings.
4 - Beating to death - One murder out of hatred. Not a continuing campaign of death and terror.
Sorry, but I don't have time to put them all down. Recently, I was reading a list of all the hate crimes in the past 5 years. There was one dragging death of a black man in TX, another was a dismemberment of a black man in TX, the castration and killiing of a gay man in ALA. etc. The list was long and gruesome.
5 - A more important point for all of the above - I didn't say Americans do not have hatred. But the fact that Americans can hate and kill doesn't mean that it is wrong to condemn others who hate and kill, esp. when they do so on such a large scale. I condemn hatred and esp. murder no matter who does it.
Tim, you got to remember that I was posting to Harry, not you. And my point to Harry is that there are two sides to every argument, that we are not always innocent and that we have done our share of sh*t. That doesn't make what happen to the WTC right at all. Its unforgivable. Its just that things are not always black and white.
The topics you have bought up were "How do you know they hate?" (Which I think I answered) and "Our military does bad things too". None of the above where actions by the US military, let alone recent continuing actions that are part of the policy of our government or military.
The terrorists attacks were not done by a standing armed force. It was done by private citizens acting on their own initiative and acting in a military way; meaning they are well funded, well organized, well disciplined and have very definite objectives.
And in the past, there were atrocities committed by the US military. Its been a while since I have read stuff on the Vietnam war but one of those atrocities, I believe, is the Mai Lai [sp] massacre....don't have time to look it up and confirm it. And that was not the only one.
You mentioned earlier that we hit a Sudanese factory [I read it was a hospital by the way] by mistake. That's what we were told but was that the truth? Didn't we know there were civilian facilities near by when the missiles went off? I'm sure we did but that did not stop us from trying to take out our target.
And I am not saying necessarily that that was wrong of us to do. War is hell. I just do not want to sit here and pretend that when we fire missiles, the people suddenly put on a happy face and flowers bloom.
I do think that a line from the bible is very apt here: "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone".
This is probably apt when talking about a harshly punishing a person who had committed adultery. (like in the case where this quote comes from). It is not relevant to a case where someone has committed murder on multiple occasions and is planning to do it again. I am not without sin, but I would not hesitate to throw any stone that would help stamp out Al-Qaida.
I am not saying you. I am saying the collective you...that makes up this country. I was applying the biblical phrase to the country as a whole, not to individuals.
ted |
