Posts by expatbrit

6

Queen Elizabeth controls and has amended U.S. Social Security

by Pleasuredome in

.

thought this may be of interest to american tax payers..... http://www.libertyforum.org/showflat.php?cat=&board=news_constitution&number=764407&t=-1

expatbrit

Demm it all, we are not amused at being rumbled. Hem hem.

H.M. The Queen, borrowing (soon to be Sir) Expatbrit's account.

163

Moral absolutes

by Aztec in

i keep saying i am going to start a thread on this topic so here goes.... what, if anything, is always morally wrong?

murder, rape, incest?

how much do you think your belief, or lack thereof, in a higher power influences your opinion?.

expatbrit

I wonder Expat if you are saying that we have an inherent standard of morality on our own and I wonder where you draw this conclusion from? I haven't read Hobbes so you are light years ahead of me. What do you mean by perceived self-interest?

What I mean by "perceived self-interest" is that whatever we think will be of benefit to ourselves becomes morally right or good, and whatever we think will be detrimental to ourselves becomes morally bad or wrong. It is "perceived" rather than "known" because we could easily be wrong, and something that appears beneficial may turn out to be detrimental after all. This is how we all form our ethics and morality, and why a person can condemn an action taken by others, yet rationalise it as acceptable when (s)he performs that same action.

Expatbrit

163

Moral absolutes

by Aztec in

i keep saying i am going to start a thread on this topic so here goes.... what, if anything, is always morally wrong?

murder, rape, incest?

how much do you think your belief, or lack thereof, in a higher power influences your opinion?.

expatbrit

Aztec:

It may indeed kill you. It damn near finished off me!....lol

Expatbrit

117

Letter from a friend in Iraq

by Yerusalyim in

ok, i won't give his name, but he is a major with an engineer unit in iraq.

here's what he has to say on iraq, i've highlighted a few interesting points.

it has been a while since i have written to my friends about what's really going on here in iraq.

expatbrit

You know Simon, one day we should post on a subject where we can agree with each other....lol

As for me assuming that anti-Saddam = pro-Western, I'm not sure where you get that from. It's entirely possible to be anti-Saddam and anti-Western. Of course, it's rather a stretch to visualise someone being pro-Saddam and pro-Western, but that's a different story. The point of the article I quoted was that the reality of the situation in Iraq is not the hopeless mess that the political left is presenting it as. As it pointed out, Iraqis know that if the coalition had not come there, they would have still been lumbered with Saddam. They also realise that if the coalition does not now remain, the country will dissolve into chaos beyond the most desired dreams of the anti-war crowd.

Btw, your statement

The only reason they are in the mess they are in now is because of western interference in the past.

accords absolutely no responsibility to non-Western nations and people for their own predicaments. This is plainly ridiculous, and any cursory examination will show that the mess they are in is because they have lacked the wisdom and forsesight to embrace democracy and free-trade capitalism. It is also classically left wing, since that branch of politics is based upon the idea that people are not capable of taking responsibility for themselves, but rather must have their lives administered by the socialist state. This is why left wingers constantly engage in a chorus of complaint rather than solving their own problems.

Aztec:

Would you like to play a game? Here are three words: oil, people, weapons. Please put these categories into the order of importance that you think they should go. Once you've done that, you'll be on the way to appreciating why I supported the war in Iraq, and will continue to do so even if it turns out that the most powerful weapon Saddam had was a used tampon inserter.

Expatbrit

117

Letter from a friend in Iraq

by Yerusalyim in

ok, i won't give his name, but he is a major with an engineer unit in iraq.

here's what he has to say on iraq, i've highlighted a few interesting points.

it has been a while since i have written to my friends about what's really going on here in iraq.

expatbrit

The Real Iraq
By Amir Taheri
New York Post | July 18, 2003

Open up almost any American or European publication these days, and you'll be bombarded with grim news about "horrific" conditions in Iraq - and America's "poor handling" of the post-war reconstruction effort. All of which, it is claimed, is made all the more tragic - because President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair maliciously exaggerated the threat from Iraq. They may have won the war, but they're losing they peace.

Author and Middle East expert Amir Taheri spent several days on the ground in Iraq last week and found reality to be starkly different from what is so ubiquitously reported.

Here is a first-hand account of an Iraq that is rapidly moving forward in nearly every aspect of life - political, economic and cultural. And a people that, while understandably skeptical after decades of tyranny, is nonetheless hopeful - and grateful for their liberation.

---- New York Post Editors

BAGHDAD, IRAQ

'THE Iraqi Intifada!"

This is the cover story offered by Al- Watan Al-Arabi, a pro-Saddam Hussein weekly published in Paris. It finds an echo in the latest issue of America's Time magazine, which paints a bleak prospect for the newly liberated country. The daily Al Quds, another pro-Saddam paper, quotes from The Washington Post in support of its claim that "a popular war of resistance" is growing in Iraq. Some newspapers in the United States, Britain and "old Europe" go further by claiming that Iraq has become a "quagmire" or "another Vietnam." The Parisian daily Le Monde prefers the term "engrenage," which is both more chic and French.

This chorus wants us to believe that most Iraqis regret the ancien regime, and are ready to kill and die to expel their liberators.

Sorry, guys, this is not the case.

Neither the wishful thinking of part of the Arab media, long in the pay of Saddam, nor the visceral dislike of part of the Western media for George W. Bush and Tony Blair changes the facts on the ground in Iraq.

ONE fact is that a visitor to Iraq these days never finds anyone who wants Saddam back.

There are many complaints, mostly in Baghdad, about lack of security and power cuts. There is anxiety about the future at a time that middle-class unemployment is estimated at 40 percent. Iraqis also wonder why it is that the coalition does not communicate with them more effectively. That does not mean that there is popular support for violent action against the coalition.

Another fact is that the violence we have witnessed, especially against American troops, in the past six weeks is limited to less than 1 percent of the Iraqi territory, in the so-called "Sunni Triangle," which includes parts of Baghdad.

Elsewhere, the coalition presence is either accepted as a fact of life or welcomed. On the 4th of July some shops and private homes in various parts of Iraq, including the Kurdish areas and cities in the Shiite heartland, put up the star-spangled flag as a show of gratitude to the United States.

"We see our liberation as the start of a friendship with the U.S. and the U.K. that should last a thousand years," says Khalid Kishtaini, one of Iraq's leading novelists. "The U.S. and the U.K. showed that a friend in need is a friend indeed. Nothing can change that."

In the early days of the liberation, some mosque preachers tested the waters by speaking against "occupation." They soon realized that their congregations had a different idea. Today, the main theme in sermons at the mosques is about a partnership between the Iraqi people and the coalition to rebuild the war-shattered country and put it on the path of democracy.

Even the radical Shiite cleric Muqtada Sadr now says that "some good" could come out of the coalition's presence in Iraq. "The coalition must help us stabilize the situation," he says. "The healing period that we need would not be possible if we are suddenly left alone."

Yet another fact is that all 67 of Iraq's cities and 85 percent of the smaller towns now have fully functioning municipalities. Several ministries, including that of health and education, have also managed to get parts of their operations going again. The petroleum industry, too, is being revived with plans to produce up to 2.8 million barrels of crude oil a day before the year is out.

To be sure, life in Iraq today is no bed of roses. But don't forget that this is an immediate post-war situation. There is no famine - in fact, the bazaars are more replenished with food than ever since the late 1970s - while food prices, having jumped in the first weeks after liberation, are now lower than they were in the last years of Saddam's rule.

MOST hospitals are functioning again with essential medical supplies trickling in for the first time since 1999. Also, some 85 percent of primary and secondary schools and all but two of the nation's universities have reopened with a full turnout of pupils and teachers.

The difference is that there no longer are any mukahebrat (secret police) agents roaming the campuses and sitting at the back of classrooms to make sure lecturers and students do not discuss forbidden topics. Nor are the students required to start every day with a solemn oath of allegiance to the dictator.

There has been no mass exodus anywhere in Iraq. On the contrary, many Iraqis, driven out of their homes by Saddam, are returning to their towns and villages.

Their return has given the building industry, moribund in the last years of Saddam, a boost. Iraqi exiles and refugees abroad are also coming home, many from Iran and Turkey. Last month alone the Iranian Red Crescent recorded the repatriation of more than 10,000 Iraqis, mostly Kurds and Shiites.

In Iraq today there are no "displaced persons," no uprooted communities and no long lines of war victims in search of a safe haven.

FOR the first time in almost 50 years there are also no political prisoners, no executions, no torture and no limit on freedom of expression. Iraq today is the only Muslim country where all shades of opinion - from the extremist Islamists of the Hezbollah to Stalinists, and passing by liberals, socialists, Arab nationalists and moderate Islamists - have full freedom to compete in an open market of ideas. Better still, all are now represented in the newly created Governing Assembly (Majlis al-Hukum). Iraq is also the only Muslim country where more than 100 newspapers and weeklies, representing all shades of opinion, appear without a police permit and are subjected to no censorship.

Much is made of power cuts, especially in Baghdad. But this is partly due to a 30 percent seasonal increase in demand because of air-conditioning use in temperatures that reach 115 degrees. In other cities - for example, Basra - the country's second-most populous urban center, more electricity is used than at any time under Saddam Hussein.

A stroll in the open-air book markets of the Rashid Street reveals that thousands of books, blacklisted and banned under Saddam Hussein, are now available for sale. Among the banned authors were almost all of Iraq's best writers and poets, whom many young Iraqis discover for the first time. Stalls, offering video and audiotapes for sale, are appearing in Baghdad and other major cities, again giving Iraqis access to a forbidden cultural universe.

The flower stalls along the Tigris are also making a comeback.

"Business is good," says Hashem Yassin, one florist. "In the past, we sold a lot of flowers for funerals and placement on tombs. Now we sell for weddings, birthday parties and gifts of friendship."

The free-market economy is making its first inroads into Iraq's socialistic system in a number of small ways. Hundreds of hawkers are offering a variety of imported goods and making brisk business by selling soft drinks, often bottled in Iran, and biscuits and chewing gums from Turkey.

Some teahouses, in competition to attract clients, offer satellite television as an additional attraction. Every evening people pack the teahouses to watch, and zap and discuss, what they have seen in an atmosphere of freedom unknown under Saddam. It may be hard for Westerners to understand the Iraqis' exhilaration at being able to watch television of their choice.

But this is a country where, under Saddam, people could be condemned as spies and hanged for owning a satellite dish.

Another symbol of newly won freedom is the multiplication of cellular and satellite phones. Most belong to returning exiles. But their appearance is reassuring to many Iraqis. Under Saddam, their illegal possession could carry the death penalty.

The portrayal of Baghdad as an oriental version of the Far West in Hollywood Westerns misses the point. It ignores the fact that life is creeping back to normal, that weddings, always popular in summer, are being celebrated again, often with traditional tribal ostentation. The first rock concert since the war, offered by a boys' band, has already taken place, and Iraq's National Football (soccer) Squad has resumed training under a German coach.

THERE are two Iraqs today: One as portrayed by those in America and Europe who wish to use it as a means of damaging Bush and Blair, and the other as it really exists, home to 24 million people with many hopes and aspirations and, naturally, some anxiety about the future.

"After we have aired our grievances we remember the essential point: Saddam is gone," says Mohsen Saleh, a geologist in Baghdad. "A man who is cured of cancer does not complain about a common cold."

29

Are Americans The Victims of a Hoax?

by reporter in

expatbrit

Didn't you know Alan? The planes were remote controlled. It's all a fiendish conspiracy by the Zionists at Radioshack.

Expatbrit

12

Question for those who still occasionally attend meetings

by unique1 in

jw
friends

do you do things just to piss the brothers off when you go to a meeting?

like just to be rebellious i always wear a skirt above the knee and cross my legs to make it even shorter, because i enjoy the disapproving looks.

i even wore pants to the meeting when i was feeling extra sassy.

expatbrit

Oh go on Matty, tell 'em how you've been wearing shorter skirts to the meetings too.

Expatbrit

865

WoMD ... so where are they?

by Simon in

now, the war is over, the weapons were not used and of course have not been found.. how threatening could they be if they did not even use them when being invaded by a massive force (of the countries they hate)?!

perhaps, as many suspect, they didn't use them because they didn't have them?.

now we're being told that we'll have to be patient and give them time to find them.

expatbrit

What I said was:

wondered when the left would start turning Saddam Hussein into a folk hero/martyr.

Putting up a poster which contains a direct comparison between George Bush (an elected leader) and Saddam Hussein (a dictator), with Bush being portrayed negatively and Hussein being portrayed neutrally (i.e. in more of a positive light than Bush) can quite reasonably be regarded as the first step in a transformation of Hussein into a folk hero/martyr, in my opinion.

Expatbrit (who wonders where the concern was when people were dying "every day" during Hussein's bloodbath.

865

WoMD ... so where are they?

by Simon in

now, the war is over, the weapons were not used and of course have not been found.. how threatening could they be if they did not even use them when being invaded by a massive force (of the countries they hate)?!

perhaps, as many suspect, they didn't use them because they didn't have them?.

now we're being told that we'll have to be patient and give them time to find them.

expatbrit

Interesting. I wondered when the left would start turning Saddam Hussein into a folk hero/martyr.

Expatbrit

163

Moral absolutes

by Aztec in

i keep saying i am going to start a thread on this topic so here goes.... what, if anything, is always morally wrong?

murder, rape, incest?

how much do you think your belief, or lack thereof, in a higher power influences your opinion?.

expatbrit

Hey Aztec, getting deep here, are we?

My viewpoint on it is the same as Elsewhere's. There are no moral absolutes. Rather our ethics and morals are formed by our own perceived self-interest. This was explored by the philosopher Thomas Hobbes. [shameless plug]Here's a post I did on it a while ago: http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/6/21395/1.ashx [/shameless plug] The Hobbesian world-view very effectively explains human behaviour (particularly hypocrisy) very nicely, without the need to multiply entities unnecessarily, such as God

As to whether God could be a source of absolute morals, Plato demolished that idea thousands of years ago in his dialogue Euthyphro. Put briefly, if God was the source of morality, then he could decide that raping children was good, and it would then be good simply because God says so. If you respond to that and say "God would never say that something so horrible as child-rape is good", then what you're saying is that God has merely recognized the inherent badness of child-rape. But that means that there is a standard of morality independent of God, in which case, God cannot be the source of morality. So why do we need God? Why not instead just bypass God and go to the source? Trouble is, the same argument applies equally to any source of morality higher than God. You get into an inifinite loop. Another good reason why there can be no source of absolute morality.

Expatbrit