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@Patrick,

Hey, what happened to all the comments in this thread? The comment count shows 218, but there are no comments being displayed.

OK, fixed now. Thanks for telling me! It was a problem where deleting spam caused the comment number stored in the threads table to get out of sync with the real number of comments.

Please tell me about any more bugs to fix, or suggestions for improvement.

Dan8267 says

What are regulations? They are laws to prevent criminal behavior by corporations. But because the laws apply to corporations rather than the individuals, we call them "regulations" instead of "laws" and imply that they are a bad thing. Why don't we get rid of regulation of drug use, how much clothing one has to wear in pubic, and the content of speech on public airwaves?

Jesus Dan, this is gold.

Restrictions on personal behavior - upholding "standards of decency." (ie stopping shit I find "icky" or bothersome for some reason I can't exactly put my finger on but something to do with tradition.)

Restrictions on the use of property - an assault on freedom.

thunderlips11 says

"Uphold Science, Eradicate Superstition"

Whoever said that was trying to sell their own belief system.

There are many religious atheists. They are religiously rejecting other belief systems.

thunderlips11 says

Dan8267 says

But more dangerous. If religion takes off in Russia, it could cause them to be the next Afghanistan only with nukes.

Don't worry, it won't. It's just respect for tradition, and goes it mostly no deeper than St. Patrick's Day, Clovers, and Green Beer. Of course, there are always a few old farts that get all mystical as they approach death.

I think Putin thinks sponsoring Orthodoxy is important because the US is trying to encircle and fragment Russia, so it gives the Russians a piece of national identity. Not that I think the US project to break Russia into a thousand pieces has any chance of success either way.

When you compare the USA to the Nazis, it shows your ignorance. You are ignorant of the world Dan; very ignorant.

Truthplease says

When you compare the USA to the Nazis, it shows your ignorance. You are ignorant of the world Dan; very ignorant.

Who compared USA to the Nazis?

You want to see a real Nazi threat, take a look over here:
http://patrick.net/?p=1219684

Peter P says

There are many religious atheists. They are religiously rejecting other belief systems.

Keep fucking that chicken and I'll keep posting this retort.

http://www.youtube.com/embed/A41WZBcmnfc

If you can't demonstrate that Maher's analysis is wrong, then your assertion must be.

Truthplease says

When you compare the USA to the Nazis, it shows your ignorance. You are ignorant of the world Dan; very ignorant.

1. I did not compare the USA to the Nazis.

2. If I do compare the USA to the Nazis I'll have a damn good reason and if you cannot show that the reason is bad, then such a comparison is valid.

3. There are ways in which our government is like the Nazi regime For example, our government completely lacks respect for human life as demonstrated by the fact that our government tortured innocent people in Gitmo and other secret prisons. Now that's exactly the kind of values one would associate with Nazis.

One of the above images is from Nazi Germany, and the other is from Gitmo as ran by the USA. Notice the similarities.

OK, Truthplease, now that I've actually made a comparison between the USA and the Nazis, specifically that the US's use of torture centers mirrors the morality of the Nazis, let's see how use justify that torture done by the US is somehow morally superior to torture done by the Nazis.

Of course, you could live up to your handle, truthplease, and admit that the evils done by any nation are almost certainly by every other nation capable of getting away with it.

Oh, and if that example isn't enough... The Nazis are most well-known for genocide. Of course, their genocide was nowhere near the scope of the genocide committed by the United States against the Native Americans. Our government wiped out an entire continent of people. Oh, please challenge me on the premise that the US committed genocide. Please do. I'd love to go into detail about how our government has blocked international anti-genocide laws precisely because it knows it is guilty of genocide.

Peter P says

There are many religious atheists. They are religiously rejecting other belief systems.

Bill Maher via Dan already refuted this above.

I would add an issue of motivation. What you call "religiously rejecting" is, I think, more likely the political response to organized religion hijacking American government. It isn't about reciting "Jehovah doesn't exist" as a mantra expecting supernatural intervention from the ghost of Christopher Hitchens. The issue is that American government confers enormous subsidy and privilege upon anything the IRS certifies as a "bona fide" religion. Romney's cult has amassed over $30 billion and wields terrible political power. The Pope controls $2 billion personally plus the vast resources of the Vatican, plus the Knights of Columbus (basically the mafia, they don't even pretend to be a charity). Objecting to their influence is like objecting to the more far-fetched claims of chiropractic. Public money shouldn't be subsidizing organizations that take $ under false pretenses. And, on the subject of money, for most of American history it didn't all say "In God we trust." The founders rejected religious mottoes in favor of "e pluribus unum" (out of many, one) and the more ambiguous "annuit coeptis" (the eye of providence is watching). The original pledge of allegiance did not say "one nation under god," it said "one nation indivisible." The currency and pledge were deliberately changed in the 1950s for the sole purpose of fusing American and religious symbols. When any organized lobby tries to take over the government, which belongs to everyone, it is logical to expect a reaction. BTW, only two groups of people are exempt from Obamacare's insurance mandate: illegal aliens and adherents of "bona fide" religions recognized by the IRS who object on religious grounds; no other objection is permitted, only "bona fide" religious objection.

Wrong Dan, that picture isn't Gitmo. That picture is Abu ghraib. I am sure you believe Abu ghraib is just like the nazi death camps. In that case, you are wrong. The USA's morality isn't even relevant guy, the nazis purposely tried to extinguish a race of people. Abu ghraib was more like the Stanford prison experiment. www.prisonexp.org

We don't have any info on Gitmo. We only have the government's word. We do have people who were wrongfully imprisoned AND tortured trying to sue the US government, but not getting anywhere because the Judges fall for the National Security BS and dismiss their claims as too harmful to national security to be revealed.

That means to me they have a leg to stand on.

BTW, we hung Japanese Officers for waterboarding. WW2 Vets must be turning in their grave.

thunderlips11 says

Japanese Officers for waterboarding

...were hanged. Returning to the original topic, you can see the difference. When GW Bush ordered the American military to invade Iraq, he was acting on orders from God (tm). Therefore, everything they did, including waterboarding, was the will of God (tm). So it was all good. In contrast, when Japanese Buddhists used waterboarding, they didn't have God (tm) on their side - not W's God anyway. They had some fat giggling lesser "god" on their side, not the muscular, iron-pumping Real God (tm) that W believes in. Of course, to an atheist, waterboarding is the same no matter who does it, so if it's bad when the perpetrators are Japanese Buddhists then it's equally bad when the perpetrators are American Christians (tm). Applying the same rules to Americans as to foreigners is unpatriotic, and siding with foreigners against Americans is un-American, which means atheists hate America. Get it?

Truthplease says

The USA's morality isn't even relevant guy, the nazis purposely tried to extinguish a race of people.

Torture is torture, no matter what country does it. And, yes, the USA did purposely try to extinguish a race of people, the Native Americans. Under the guise of Manifest Destiny, the good old USA slaughtered an entire continent of people.

From http://www.enotes.com/native-americans-reference/native-americans

The international community has not legally admonished the United States for genocidal acts against Native Americans, yet it is clear that examples of genocidal acts and crimes against humanity are a well-cited page in U.S. history. Notorious incidents, such as the Trail of Tears, the Sand Creek Massacre, and the massacre of the Yuki of northern California are covered in depth in separate entries in this encyclopedia. More controversial, however, is whether the colonies and the United States participated in genocidal acts as an overall policy toward Native Americans. The Native-American population decrease since the arrival of Spanish explorer Christopher Columbus alone signals the toll colonization and U.S. settlement took on the native population. Scholars estimate that approximately 10 million pre-Columbian Native Americans resided in the present-day United States. That number has since fallen to approximately 2.4 million. While this population decrease cannot be attributed solely to the actions of the U.S. government, they certainly played a key role. In addition to population decrease, Native Americans have also experienced significant cultural and proprietary losses as a result of U.S. governmental actions. The total effect has posed a serious threat to the sustainability of the Native-American people and culture.

The United States' guilt in genocide is transparent when you consider that the USA refused to ratify Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide when it was written on December 9, 1948 because doing so would make the USA liable for the genocides of Native Americans and African Americans.

I'm not saying that America is worse than the Nazis, but I am saying that the same kind of assholes who turned Germany into Nazi Germany operate in our country and most others and that our history is ripe with the exact same kind of evils that permeated Nazi Germany, Stalin's Russia, Nero's Rome, and every other empire in all of human history.

It is faulty and dangerous to assume that America is above committing crimes against humanity, especially since it has a long history of such crimes. True patriotism isn't whitewashing your country's history, but rather trying to get your country to live up to the principles it espouses.

There hasn't been a single decade in which America has lived up to its principles. The closest we came was in the 1990s when we were the only superpower left. That was a pivotal point in history, a once in a millennium opportunity to reshape the world for the better.

And we blew it. The Bush administration took our civilization back 800 years by removing the right of Habeas Corpus and bring back torture -- and yes, Bush and Condoleezza Rice explicitly decided to use torture in Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay, and other prisons outside the reach of the law. Denying this does not change the ugly history of our country. All denial does is ensure that we do not deserve forgiveness.

The Germans have rehabilitated themselves from the Holocaust by acknowledging its existences, its horrific nature, and its significance. They have shown remorse for their actions, and that is exactly why today we hold no bad feelings towards them. America should show remorse for the slaughter of Native Americans, slavery, lynching, the false imprisonment of Japanese Americans during WWII, the radiation experimentation on African Americans, the use of torture and sexual dehumanization during the Bush and Obama administrations, and the killing of civilians including children with drone strikes. If we show no remorse, we will never wash away the guilt and we will never be forgiven by the rest of the world.

True patriotism isn't pretending that your country is better than it is. True patriotism is admitting your country's crimes so as to prevent future ones and your country's faults so as to correct them. The first step to solving a problem -- any problem -- is to acknowledge it. Without that first step, America could never be made into a truly great nation.

Dan8267 says

True patriotism isn't pretending that your country is better than it is.

I am not pretending. We are a great nation. Sure, horrible things happened along the way, but horrible things happen all the time all over the world. The world is a better place since the USA has been the superpower. Who would you chose to be the world super power if it wasn't the United States?

Truthplease says

I am not pretending. We are a great nation. Sure, horrible things happened along the way, but horrible things happen all the time all over the world.

America has done great good and great evil. I've never claimed otherwise, but remember, you got upset about me comparing the USA to Nazis when I hadn't even done so, so I had to remind you of the great evil part.

All nations do great good and great evil. America is not the greatest nation. There is no greatest nation. Some nations are better at some things and other nations are better at other. Beating ones chest does nothing but show others we're arrogant, the stereotype of the "ugly American". I think we can be better than that by recognizing our flaws and our vulnerabilities. If the forces of evil can so quickly take over Germany in the 1930s, it is foolish to think that the same forces couldn't and don't operate in our own country. The price of freedom is eternal vigilance. There is nothing special about America that makes it immune to tyranny.

This is precisely why things like the use of torture, secret prisons, the suspension of Habeas Corpus, and the acceptance of dehumanizing treatment of "terrorists" should scare every American. It is precisely these things that threaten America far more than any external power could.

Truthplease says

The world is a better place since the USA has been the superpower.

But is the world a better place because the USA has been a superpower? The world has certainly become a less violent place because of technology, telecommunications, and world-wide trade. But I can't find any examples of how the USA used it's superpower status for good. The establishment of the Peace Corps and foreign aid have done good, but that's not superpower stuff.

Fighting the Soviet Union was in our selfish interests and we used the same tactics they did. Our CIA assassinated foreign leaders, promoted dictators, and started wars (Charley Wilson). So it's not like we were the good guys in the cold war. Both sides were bad guys. Just ask Vietnam and Korea.

There was certainly the potential for the USA to use its sole superpower status in the 1990s for the greater good of mankind, but we didn't. We could have promoted republics, toppled dictatorships, ended human trafficking, established international environmental protection laws that would have avoided climate change -- which is now unavoidable -- and created a fair trade system that would have developed the third world without moving all US jobs to India and China. But we didn't. Instead, we let greedy corporations increase their executives' pay by selling out the country.

Personally, I'm looking forward to the post-imperial phase of American society. Judging from Europe, post-imperial societies are much nicer to live in than imperial societies. Just look at France or Britain.

Truthplease says

Who would you chose to be the world super power if it wasn't the United States?

The Metagovernment.

As to what that is, I'd have to write about it. It isn't any nation.

"Why the religious hate atheists?" is as a good question as "Why the snow is always black?"

But an interesting question is: why one certain atheist is constantly posting hatred messages about religious people?

Truthplease says

When you compare the USA to the Nazis, it shows your ignorance.

Look, one is free to compare anything to anything. If one can demonstrate existing similarities the comparisson is valid no matter how uncomfortable you may feel about it.

holy fuck that video is good. pun intended.

christianity is like that, but islam is 100x like that.

you rejected islam didn't you? asshole!

What video?

christianity is like that, but islam is 100x like that.

True, but the core problem is the same, and so is the solution.

indigenous says

What video?

The one in the original post.