More sane stuff from Israel

BBC News - Jerusalem rabbis 'condemn dog to death by stoning'

A Jewish rabbinical court condemned to death by stoning a stray dog it feared was the reincarnation of a lawyer who insulted its judges, reports say.

The dog entered the Jerusalem financial court several weeks ago and would not leave, reports Israeli website Ynet.

It reminded a judge of a curse passed on a now deceased secular lawyer about 20 years ago, when judges bid his spirit to enter the body of a dog

The animal is said to have escaped before the sentence was carried out.

One of the judges at the court in the city's ultra-Orthodox Mea Shearim neighbourhood had reportedly asked local children to carry out the sentence.

A truly enlightened society.:banana:

BBC News - Jerusalem court denies dog condemned to stoning

Reports that a Jewish rabbinical court in Israel condemned a stray dog to death by stoning have been strongly denied.

The source of the report, Israel's Maariv newspaper, apologised for its headline and for any offence caused.

The head of the court, Yehoshua Levin, was quoted by Maariv as saying: "There is no basis for abuse of animals from the side of Jewish Halacha [law].''

Even if this story is true, you base the actions of a few as a representation of many?

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Originally Posted by Laughing Man

Even if this story is true, you base the actions of a few as a representation of many?

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He's got a point there Xei.

Meh. Assuming it's true, the people of a "democracy" are responsible for the actions of their government. If their high court is stoning dogs to death because they're the reincarnation of somebody, then that's a problem with the whole society.

Rabbis believe in reincarnation?

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Originally Posted by PhilosopherStoned

Meh. Assuming it's true, the people of a "democracy" are responsible for the actions of their government. If their high court is stoning dogs to death because their the reincarnation of somebody, then that's a problem with the whole society.

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The people are not the government. What people want and what the government does are two separate things.

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Originally Posted by Laughing Man

The people are not the government. What people want and what the government does are two separate things.

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Notice how I specified "democracy". What's the point of a "democracy" where the people "vote" if the people are not responsible for the actions of their government?

The whole story is probably BS anyways though.

People always want to demonize Israel by any means possible, and this is a perfect example. Why is this even in the news?

becuz israel sucks LOL

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Originally Posted by A Roxxor

becuz israel sucks LOL

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You do NOT know what you are talking about.

Israel is responsible for creating most electronic devices you use today. Even the USB stick (flash drive) that you commonly use, was created by an Israeli.

Actually, Israel writes most of the software for them, the hardware itself is usually made in asia.

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Originally Posted by PhilosopherStoned

Notice how I specified "democracy". What's the point of a "democracy" where the people "vote" if the people are not responsible for the actions of their government?

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To give illusion of legitimacy and validation.

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Originally Posted by Carera

You do NOT know what you are talking about.

Israel is responsible for creating most electronic devices you use today. Even the USB stick (flash drive) that you commonly use, was created by an Israeli.

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Right. So The fact that I get some stupid, shiny toy justifies the genocide of Palistinians. It all makes so much sense now.

Do the Isrealis make good yogurt? Cause that would seal the deal for me at least. Since Greece is going under, I'm going to need a new supplier. If Israel steps up, they can slaugher all the arabs they want and I won't complain a bit.

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Originally Posted by Laughing Man

To give illusion of legitimacy and validation.

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And by conferring the legitimacy and validation upon the government (i.e. by paying taxes and following other laws) the people take responsibility for the actions of "their" government. So the legitimacy and validation is (unfortunately) not an illusion.

PhilosopherStoned, lmao. You are seriously just asking for an argument.

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Originally Posted by PhilosopherStoned

justifies the genocide of Palistinians.

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Do you really thing what's going on in Israel is a genocide?

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Originally Posted by Spartiate

Do you really thing what's going on in Israel is a genocide?

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Yes.

From Wikipedia - Genocide:

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Genocide is defined as "the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group",[1] though what constitutes enough of a "part" to qualify as genocide has been subject to much debate by legal scholars.

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The theft of land is, in my opinion, implicit in this definition. The "Israelis" want the Palistinians to disappear. For a people deprived of land, that's the only opportunity.

The Jews were without a land for a long time and they weren't considered exterminated :lol:.

But seriously, two issues come to mind with that. Israelis aren't systematically killing Palestinians or denying them of their culture in occupied territories, which they could probably do really easily if they wanted. Now have the Palestinians ever really owned the land? Tell me when was the last time that an independent Palestinian nation had control over the Levant? On the other side of the coin, many neighboring Arab nations have called for the complete eradication of Israel, which is more suiting to the term genocide...

Also would you consider the current American actions in the Middle-East genocides?

Good points and they deserve a more considered response than I can give right now.

As to your last question, I would say that the ongoing american genocide against the native nations of this continent and the Hawai'ian archipelago is a bigger concern to me. For the simple reason that if that was to stop, then so would everything else the USA does that I don't like.

Specifically, I'm referring to the law referred to as "blood quantum" by which the federal government determines who is a Navajo rather than leaving it up to the Navajo nation¹. If a Navajo marries a Cree, (each "half blooded"), then it should be up to the Navajo and the Cree to decide which nation(s) the child is a citizen of. If the child has less than a certain percentage Navajo blood, then the USA doesn't recognize them as a citizen of the Navajo nation. This contradicts the most fundamental right of a sovereign nation, i.e. the right to determine who its citizens are.

Because of the way population genetics work, these nations will either be inbred or dissapated in a matter of generations. This is a predictable result. That's genocide.

^{1) What's that? The Navajo aren't a nation? Then why did we sign treaties with them?}

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Originally Posted by PhilosopherStoned

And by conferring the legitimacy and validation upon the government (i.e. by paying taxes and following other laws) the people take responsibility for the actions of "their" government. So the legitimacy and validation is (unfortunately) not an illusion.

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It's not "the people" that get officials elected though and once in office no politician has to listen to any of the individuals who elected him. He/She doesn't have to make good on any campaign promises made. Even if "the people" elected someone to office, that is only true for themselves. Such an official has no legitimacy beyond those who elected him/her as their leader. Therefore anyone who didn't elect this official is not beholden to him/her in any manner. Yet officials that aren't even in a person's district let alone state supposedly have control over people who did not elect them and write laws for "the people" in places they haven't even been. That is the illusion of government. They try to validate their existence through fallacy by appealing to the majority. Following laws is not an action which establishes legitimacy nor does paying taxes since individuals are forced, in many cases, against their will or be coerced into following these laws. Don't pay your taxes, go to jail. Don't follow the speed limit and don't pay the fines, go to jail.

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Originally Posted by Spartiate

The Jews were without a land for a long time and they weren't considered exterminated :lol:.

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Correct. The Jews aren't the Israelis. The Israelis had a country in ancient times. Then a portion of Jews decided to resurrect the dead language (hebrew) of that nation and start a new country on the same area. The Jews were the result (afaik) of the ancient Isrealis being displaced. That would be a genocide that resulted in a transition from the Israelis to the Jews. They are two fundamentally distinct people.

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Israelis aren't systematically killing Palestinians or denying them of their culture in occupied territories, which they could probably do really easily if they wanted.

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They are denied right of travel. They have been split off into separate territories where it is difficult to get from one to the other. Want to go to your brother's wedding? Better hope that Israel says "yes". This is a direct denial of culture. Also, there's very little difference between systematically killing Palestinians and stirring up a hornet's nest (i.e. bulldozing some old ladies house because her sone was a radicalized suicide bomber) and pushing further Palistinians into a radicalized world view so that you get to kill them (and bulldoze more houses) later.

I don't expect that the long term result of this will be a literal extermination of the Palistinians but rather a complete and total degradation of their culture into a fundamentalist morass of violent, angry men. Sort of like what the US achieved through the 70's and 80's with Americans of recent African Descent after they made some progress in undoing some of the damage that had been done by generations of slavery followed by generations of segregation and random, unpunished violence.

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Now have the Palestinians ever really owned the land? Tell me when was the last time that an independent Palestinian nation had control over the Levant?

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It's irrelevant what country "owns" the land. What matters is which individual families are allowed access and opportunity to land ownership.

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On the other side of the coin, many neighboring Arab nations have called for the complete eradication of Israel, which is more suiting to the term genocide...

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Isreal should be eradicated along with the non-secular arab government's of the region. The people shouldn't be killed of course, but the Israeli government should definitely be dismantled as it is a racist, terrorist organization.

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Also would you consider the current American actions in the Middle-East genocides?

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It's debatable. Either way, genocide isn't a priori bad. I'm currently engaged in professional genocide myself as I have a monthly weeding gig. The guy says I'm the most effective long term weeder he's ever seen. This is because I know what I'm doing and do it well. I'm engaging in genocide and I do it by purposefully targeting the repoductive phase of particular species to achieve complete local extinction.

Furthermore, as a cultural imperialist, I have no problem with doing the same to memebers of my own species. I'm on the record as saying that I don't think that creationists should be allowed to raise children. So I am in favor of tearing down fundamentalist governments.

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Originally Posted by Laughing Man

It's not "the people" that get officials elected though and once in office no politician has to listen to any of the individuals who elected him. He/She doesn't have to make good on any campaign promises made. Even if "the people" elected someone to office, that is only true for themselves. Such an official has no legitimacy beyond those who elected him/her as their leader. Therefore anyone who didn't elect this official is not beholden to him/her in any manner. Yet officials that aren't even in a person's district let alone state supposedly have control over people who did not elect them and write laws for "the people" in places they haven't even been. That is the illusion of government. They try to validate their existence through fallacy by appealing to the majority. Following laws is not an action which establishes legitimacy nor does paying taxes since individuals are forced, in many cases, against their will or be coerced into following these laws. Don't pay your taxes, go to jail. Don't follow the speed limit and don't pay the fines, go to jail.

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As they say, "freedom isn't free". Sack up and drop out.

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Originally Posted by PhilosopherStoned

As they say, "freedom isn't free". Sack up and drop out.

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Who is "they" and what makes freedom 'unfree?' I would love nothing more then to "drop out" of the American government, the problem arises that I am incapable, because of the use of force, to remain on my property and purse the necessities of life such as transportation, medical supplies and other basic goods.

"They say" is a phrase of speach that is common in US english and is used to mean "Other people say and I agree." In this case, "they" generally consists of people glorifying US imperialism. Of course I'm using it in another way...


Freedom is not free because people (specifically, thugs, i.e. any large center of power) will try to take it away. Surely, you agree with that? Hence it needs to be worked for.

Unfortunately, if by "your" property, you mean "land", then your ownership of it is an illusion. You're just renting it from the government. Only to disguise the fact that they're little more than a protection racket, they call it "taxes".

I can assure you that all the necessities of life are available without privately "owned" land.

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Originally Posted by PhilosopherStoned

Freedom is not free because people (specifically, thugs, i.e. any large center of power) will try to take it away. Surely, you agree with that? Hence it needs to be worked for.

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If it can be taken away then one must assume that it is there in the first place. How did freedom get there in the first place and barring the "take it away" part which is after the fact of having it, what was the cost?

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Originally Posted by PhilosopherStoned

Unfortunately, if by "your" property, you mean "land", then your ownership of it is an illusion. You're just renting it from the government. Only to disguise the fact that they're little more than a protection racket, they call it "taxes".
I can assure you that all the necessities of life are available without privately "owned" land.

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Perhaps according to your lifestyle but I don't see cause for you making the claim that my necessities are available without privately owned land unless you are assuming that we have exact tastes. If the government "owns" the land, then when did they acquire it? What is your theory for the acquisition of land? Is it mere claim?

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Originally Posted by Laughing Man

If it can be taken away then one must assume that it is there in the first place. How did freedom get there in the first place and barring the "take it away" part which is after the fact of having it, what was the cost?

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My ability to be free can be supressed through overwhelming force. Yes, I may still be free to fight it. But I have to fight that force or comply with it. Hence my freedom has been obstructed, i.e. "taken away".

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Perhaps according to your lifestyle but I don't see cause for you making the claim that my necessities are available without privately owned land unless you are assuming that we have exact tastes. If the government "owns" the land, then when did they acquire it? What is your theory for the acquisition of land? Is it mere claim?

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What do "tastes" have to do with necessities. Barring some medical condition, our necessities are all the same. You originally said "necessities". Now you're saying "tastes". Which is it? You're not so confused by economics that you think they're both the same are you?