Ahmadinejad invites Bush to speak at an Iranian University

Originally posted by StellarX

Originally posted by Herman
Oh, Stellar, how backwards can you be? Can you get through a single post
without assuming something about the person with whom you're debating?

I can but why bother when i think i have a handle on how the other mind works? Based on what you have claimed so far i have not yet had reason to change my mind either!

And therein lies the problem - your assumption that you have a handle on how my mind works based on a couple of points I made about an issue in Iran. People like you have severe pathological disorders that are way beyond my time allotment here on this little forum to diagnose and treat. It's a little scary to me, actually, that there are so many people like you running around thinking that they have a "handle" on the way everyone else's minds work. Didn't anybody ever teach you anything about not judging a person's entire frame of mind by a few things they've said?

A real debate? If only you knew as much about me as i think i know about you.

Man are you in for a surprise.....

And if you only knew half as much as you think you know about me, you'd be a genius.

No, you are! Are you five? I simply repeated what you said as i believed it to be a even more accurate description of you! You thought i didn't 'understand'? Man....

Really!? I hadn't noticed. The fact that you think you have to explain that to me just makes you even more hilarious in my eyes.

I used to believe in few of the things you still do so i am quite familiar with your point of view!

Excluding anything about our current discussion, would you like to name a few things that you think I believe in? In fact, I think we can make a fun little game out of this. I'll start off by listing all of the things I presume to know about you.

You're presumptuous.

You're pretentious.

You're judgemental.

That's about it, and that's the way it should be seeing as how we barely even know each other.

Would you like to show me where I've been dogmatic, or is this just another word you've been trained to throw at me?

Trained by who? I mean who do you think has their hand up my shirt making me type this? Is this another one of those communist/fundamentalist conspiracies you must believe in to consider the Iranians 'dangerous' to anyone but themselves?

Why don't you first answer my question instead of dodging it? I'm not sure who "trained" you. It could have been your parents, friends, teachers, co-workers, who knows. All I know is that you have a very strange readiness to pounce on me over ideas about me that you've pulled out of nowhere. To me, it shows that you've clearly been influenced by something. Maybe a bad run-in with a number of people who share my opinion of Iran?

Stop projecting your feelings of insecurity onto me and lets not start measuring our reproductive organs! I do not think i am 'better' than you but i do know that i am far more knowledgeable and certainly closer to a objective truth than you.

I'm projecting my insecurities on you? That's a riot considering all of the things you've projected onto me. What could possibly happen to a person to make them feel warranted in making such outrageous assumptions. You're really starting to interest me, here.

By their regurgitation of the same old nonsensical empty minded propaganda? How else would i know? Do you think i am prescient?

Fair enough. Go ahead and tell me what propaganda I regurgitate. Since you've already made so many assumptions about my ignorance, why don't we leave out Iran. Tell me what I believe. What are my opinions on issues like abortion, gay marriage, the death penalty. Who am I going to vote for in the next U.S election? What do I look like? What is my name? I think realizing that you know absolutely nothing about me outside of these two areas we've discussed might awaken something in you. And cheating by going back and maybe having a look at the "Member pics" section is strongly discouraged. I want to know what you were thinking when you made all of your assumptions about me. There's no way for me to know, though, so I guess we're on the honor system.

I am prejudiced against ignorant people who refuse to become better informed.

That includes a host of Americans but it's certainly not limited to them...

So if my opinion differs from yours, I suppose I'm ignorant. I guess you think you've got the highest foothold on ever single issue you have an opinion on. You really do think that you know everything, don't you?

Reading alternative sources is not good enough when your simply looking to find anything that 'backs up' the propaganda you saw on CNN/FOX and BBC.

I don't watch the news on Television. I don't read FOX, CNN, or the BBC. Three strikes right there.

Then you would have been far better informed and would not be buying into such vapid lies and misrepresentations.

So you figure that anybody who views the same information that you do will share your opinion on the matter? Typical.

Maybe i give the Israeli's ( or more specifically their Zionist backers and state machinery) far too much credit but i can not trust the Memri organizations translation work .

en.wikipedia.org...

If you can show me videos translated by the Iranian media institutions then i can give it some attention but frankly i don't really care if they shout 'death' to anything knowing that they are so entirely unable to make good on their threats. If they ever dared they would be obliterated and this they well understand.

I didn't see anything that shows me what I've seen was mistranslated.

It's not something i normally say but it's what you wanted me to say and something i will say and defend when dealing with your type of unreasonable ignorance.

Sure, I'm unreasonable. Have you ever admitted to being wrong?

The Israeli regime and their backers 'needs to wiped from the pages of history' and the war crime discussion hall that is the white house should probably be removed entirely.

You almost launched into a little speech there, didn't you? Passionate!

Because the American war machine that has killed so many millions over the years just allows innocent silly inscriptions while those dastardly Iranians really MEAN it

Twisting my words. Our soldiers mean it, but the things written on our bombs aren't the center piece of televised parades hosted by the president himself.

And the weapon loaded weapon parades that still happen in so many US cities? Do we need to see such parades in the US when most the equipment they could use is busy being employed in foreign lands? It's no different when the Iranians do it and far easier to understand given that they are ACTUALLY BEING THREATENED with violence. What are the Iranians going to do short of getting their country destroyed? Who in their right minds are afraid of Iran?

The point that I was making is that yes, the Iranians are hostile towards us. I don't know what you're trying to turn this into.

Oh, and of course everybody knows that threats never grow. Why nip something in the bud when you can wait until it's a force to be reckoned with?

I know how to do research and i think my method works very well indeed!

Other than being transparent, your methods are great?

So you just believe their conclusions but not what their saying? Sorry if i don't understand that contradiction!

Whose conclusion am I believing? Want to tell me where I get my news?

According to my theory you probably will, yes.

Wrong again, sorry.

And what do you know about the real world that you do not think i do?

I know that reading a book about how to deal with people is a lot different than actually dealing with them.

I could tell that you were only twenty years old ( to be honest i thought you would be younger but i know everyone matures at their own rate )

Some are behind others, and that's O.K. You'll get there eventually, buddy. Some day you'll have this startling realization that you can't just pigeon hole everybody you meet.

It used to work so why wouldn't it again?

When did it work, and where is this utopia?

Utopia is based on people owning their own labour with no need to sell it to make a living. If everyone were thus satisfied i have a hard time believing that we would have many or any of the current inter-country problems.

Who do you suggest provides all of the labor? I thought you wanted more freedom, but if the way people go about gaining their wealth is strictly monitored, doesn't that require more government control?

Better than what? Why do you think it's natural do always want to do better? Where did you come up with such a ridiculous capitalist notion anyways?

How do you think society ended up where it is today? Why do you think we've improved so much as a species, unlike every other living species on this planet? Was it purely our intelligence and our ability to effectively communicate? How do you explain all of the ground-breaking inventions that shaped our culture today, and continues to shape it. How do you explain governments, tribes, large groups of friends, etc? Let me ask you this - do you feel you will ever be truly satisfied? Ask yourself honestly, do you think you will ever come to a point in your life when you think "Well, this is it. This is all I'll ever need. I'm perfectly happy living this way for the rest of my life until the day I die." Obviously that point in your life will never come to be. Why do you think that is?

[edit on 7-10-2007 by Herman]

Do you realize this whole long discussion is a digression of your assumptions? I really don't have the time to sit here and respond to every one of your points individually, so let me just go with the general idea.

One minute you say that you just want to give more people freedom, and you almost seem to embrace anarchy.

The best way to make that possible is to give everybody freedom. But we can't simply let everybody loose and have some anarchistic society.

You don't seem to trust your fellow human beings and i must ask why your so suspicious of them? What have they done to you to result in your fear of freedom for everyone?

Later on, you'll talk about workers in sweat shops being treated unfairly. Should we regulate this? Where do we draw the lines? Why don't you just lay it out there for me - Stellar's plan for a utopia! Because clearly we've already observed what people will do when given complete freedom, or anarchy. It's right here, all around us. History is what happened when people were given complete freedom. Do you think we just started out with governments? No, we had an instinct to form small tribes, select leaders, etc. Dictators emerged. We've seen the terrible things that people do even when it's against the "Law," what do you think would happen in an anarchistic society? Child molesters? Would there be any heroes to save those poor indonesians in the sweat shops? If we, as human beings, had complete freedom, those sweat shops would be perfectly acceptable. So should we somehow regulate anarchy? Should the government be there only if they need to step in and give people back their freedom? Your logic is twisted.

And sorry if I'm not too eager to share a lot of information about my family to strangers on the internet, but I would rather not go into strict details. You asked how much my uncle makes a year. I can tell you that when he was earning his wealth, it was many millions. Everything he did was legal. He did not own a sweat shop or pay anybody below minimum wage. I'm sure some of his workers would probably complain that they're not millionaires after how hard they worked for the company, but should that be punishable? Should people not be allowed to make their own educated decisions? Should everybody be at the same level of wealth? That would require taking away a lot of freedom, and I thought you were in support of freedom. If two people start out in the same place, and one winds up exploiting the other, should it be illegal? Should that be regulated? These are the problems we run into when we start making claims like you have.

Like I said, I believe in the freedom to succeed and fail. If you give everybody freedom, not everybody is going to come out on top. We tax based on percentage of income - that's why I see over-taxing the rich as unfair. I don't see why we should raise taxes to such an unbelievable high percentage because somebody has been successful enough to be considered rich. Sure, maybe putting people who earn over a million dollars per year in a 20% or even 30% tax bracket would be fine while everybody else stays at 10%, but 40? 50? 60? It's wrong to be taking so much money from people who have worked hard enough to earn it, and I'll say that weather or not I make a fortune myself someday (Most likely not considering the career paths I'm considering.)