First of all, I'm not down with trying to win this by resorting to belittling you, I understand that me calling you prejudiced seems harsh, but come on! I don't have a desk job!! There are no computers at my work! I can't post all the time, just when I wake up, and when I get off work to unwind etc. (or during writing). Also, I've been posting since the beginning of this thread, and I post when I disagree with you or others, not when I agree, out of respect for the person you might be debating.stinky wrote:Dude, everyone's fucking prejudiced, to some extent.... that's my fucking point, if you can read my statements. It's a culture thing. What's acceptablet to one culture is not acceptable to another. If you claim not to be, than you're not living in the real world. Where you grew up, what you were/are subjucted to, that affects how you view things. You're making it out to be black and white, and that's not how it really is. I'm not racist the way you're inferring, by making a statement that in Arab culture, weakness is taken advantage of. I'm sorry, that is far from a racist statement, and you're too blinded by your ego to see otherwise. You're not even reading the entire thread, you're just jumping in when you feel like it to blantantly rant unobjectively. whatever..
Never called your posts ranting, so yeah fuck you a bit for that! :/
Machinesworking wrote:you're justifying harsh treatment by blaming the victim
When you use cultural stereotypes in a thread about politics to explain and justify Israel's treatment of the arabs, then yes, you are blaming the victim. You have pretty much said that Israel's policy makes sense in light of a perceived cultural stereotype, but in no way do you infer that this is unjust or wrong. In fact you have flummoxed between denying you said anything like that, to defending it.stinky wrote:That's not what i'm doing in the slightest. You're not even being logical.
Basically IMO, if you can use cultural stereotypes on arabs, but think it's perfectly OK for Israelis to chant "anti semitic" whenever they feel like it, then you are working off a different set of rules than I am.
Machinesworking wrote: Making blanket statements about cultures is seriously dangerous, period!
Negative stereotypes don't ferment tolerance IMO.stinky wrote:You're correct, but not understanding the differences in culture is just as dangerous. The whole world can't be a melting pot like in the US, and even in the US, Europe, every Western society, it's not working as well you'd like to think. Just throwing out the differences between us and saying that it's prejudice to notice them will foment intolerance under the surface that will manifest itself just as unjustly.
My basic beef here is that you are working really hard in this thread to make sure that any person who is anti Israel knows that there is a bias against Israel simply because they win their battles for the most part, and they are a new country etc.... those are great points IMO.
but when it comes to arabs, I feel you don't give them that consideration. You shouldn't use cultural stereotypes to judge the political actions of a country or people, THAT is where I see it as you being prejudiced. You can't even realistically say that the this whole "arabs will take advantage of weakness" thing is anything more than a reaction to the western expansionism in the territory. Given that it's possible that this is in fact the case, what good do you think will develop from Israel and the west perceiving arabs by a stereotype such as that?
Do you think that thinking along those lines will help to change the situation?