posted
There are two basic rights, as I see them. Those are: the right to life, and the right to liberty. Any law which interferes with these rights, or the rights that you have under those rights (i.e. -- freedom of speech coming under the general category 'right to liberty'), need to be stricken or overthrown.
I don't understand Omega's definition. I don't know why someone who claims to profess believe in a higher power thinks that slaves aren't oppressed. But that's Omega, and he's a good example of the flaws of modern conservatism.
quote:Off the top of my head, I'd define it as an official institution designed for the specific purpose of preventing members of a group from exercizing what would otherwise be their legal rights, for no reason other than the fact that they are part of said group.
Maybe official oppression is like having tanks parked outside your door to enforce a nobody-goes-outside-till-we-say curfew because you're a Palestinian and live in a certain area.
Or maybe it having soldiers smash through the walls to the house to your left then smashing your walls so they can then move through your house and smash the walls of the house to your right because you're a Palestinian and live in a certain area.
Or heck, maybe bulldozing the house alltogether because you're a Palestinian and live in a certain area is some form of oppression.
Or maybe government sponsored settlements is a kind of oppression.
All I know is the Palestinian people aren't being oppressed, especially by Isreal. Omega said so.
[ September 09, 2002, 14:56: Message edited by: Jay the Obscure ]
-------------------- Great is the guilt of an unnecessary war. ~ohn Adams
Once again the Bush Administration is worse than I had imagined, even though I thought I had already taken account of the fact that the Bush administration is invariably worse than I can imagine. ~Brad DeLong
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"I don't know why someone who claims to profess believe in a higher power thinks that slaves aren't oppressed."
You're joking, right? Omega's god is all about slavery, under all but one condition.
"[Israelites] shall not be sold as slaves. You shall not rule over [an Israelite servant] with harshness, but shall fear your god. As for your male and female slaves whom you may have: you may buy male and female slaves from among the nations that are round about you. You may also buy from among the strangers who sojourn with you and their families that are with you, who have been born in your land; and they may be your property. You may bequeath them to your sons after you, to inherit as a possession for ever; you may make slaves of them, but over your brethren the people of Israel you shall not rule, one over another, with harshness." -Yahweh, Leviticus 25:42-46
The Hebrews weren't allowed to take slaves from among themselves, but everybody else in the world was up for grabs.
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posted
Surely he was just having a bit of a laugh then?
-------------------- Yes, you're despicable, and... and picable... and... and you're definitely, definitely despicable. How a person can get so despicable in one lifetime is beyond me. It isn't as though I haven't met a lot of people. Goodness knows it isn't that. It isn't just that... it isn't... it's... it's despicable.
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capped
I WAS IN THE FUTURE, IT WAS TOO LATE TO RSVP
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posted
didn't God create sarcasm? when he created everything?
I once had a great conversation where i proved government and oppression doesn't exist. it might apply here but I'm not sure which side i would be supporting.
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posted
Why do I get the feeling that your definition of "prove" in this case is about as watertight at those who "prove" that evolution is all a bit silly?
-------------------- Yes, you're despicable, and... and picable... and... and you're definitely, definitely despicable. How a person can get so despicable in one lifetime is beyond me. It isn't as though I haven't met a lot of people. Goodness knows it isn't that. It isn't just that... it isn't... it's... it's despicable.
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posted
Isn't it, though? I mean fish with feet? C'mon. What's next? Externally-sponsored displacement of an indigenous population (who had occupied the land for centuries), rigid segregation funded and politically supported by foreign states which purportedly hold the ideals of 'freedom and justice for all' in high esteem, and brutal police-state tactics liberally applied in an on-going effort to undermine every attempt by said people to reconstruct their ever-lessening cultural infrastructure with the delusional expectation that these people will take it all in stride and not be upset? I mean that'd be really silly.
-------------------- "Nah. The 9th chevron is for changing the ringtone from "grindy-grindy chonk-chonk" to the theme tune to dallas." -Reverend42
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capped
I WAS IN THE FUTURE, IT WAS TOO LATE TO RSVP
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nobody can prove anything. the universe is a fluid series of uncertainties.
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posted
So the slaves weren't being oppressed, then? I mean, they had very few - if any - legal rights.
Of course they were being oppressed. The right in question was their right to freedom as a law-abiding citizen. Thus, I would modify my top-of-the-head definition to include any institution, not necessarily official ones, that violate people's rights. Of course, if they're widespread enough to qualify as a decent-sized oppression, the government has to ALLOW them, so they're, say, "passively official". I would also modify legal rights to extend to the general God-given rights, since as Jeff pointed out, some people don't have legal rights and are still oppressed.
Maybe official oppression is like having tanks parked outside your door to enforce a nobody-goes-outside-till-we-say curfew because you're a Palestinian and live in a certain area.
Or maybe it having soldiers smash through the walls to the house to your left then smashing your walls so they can then move through your house and smash the walls of the house to your right because you're a Palestinian and live in a certain area.
Or heck, maybe bulldozing the house alltogether because you're a Palestinian and live in a certain area is some form of oppression.
Or maybe government sponsored settlements is a kind of oppression.
Put quite simply: they started it. Israel was taking hit after hit after hit and doing NOTHING for quite some time. Some of their techniques are questionable, but then, you don't know what intelligence they have about the houses they demolish, and the international press has an annoying tendency to overreport anything Israel does that could be considered questionable.
Omega's god is all about slavery, under all but one condition.
For varying definitions of slavery. POWs and criminals? Heck, I'd STILL consider them fair game. You wanna punish someone in such a way that they actually CONTRIBUTE, that's the way to do it: make 'em work, don't let 'em leave, i.e. slavery. Then there are people in debt, in which case such a concept is more or less the same as garnishing wages. But also remember, slaves were released every... seven or fourty-nine years, I'm not quite sure which.
-------------------- "This is why you people think I'm so unknowable. You don't listen!" - God, "God, the Devil and Bob"
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posted
Which slaves?? Debtors/Indentured Servents were, but slaves????
-------------------- "You are a terrible human, Ritten." Magnus "Urgh, you are a sick sick person..." Austin Powers A leek too, pretty much a negi.....
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It's such a good argument because it ignores a whole ton of history.
-------------------- Great is the guilt of an unnecessary war. ~ohn Adams
Once again the Bush Administration is worse than I had imagined, even though I thought I had already taken account of the fact that the Bush administration is invariably worse than I can imagine. ~Brad DeLong
You're just babbling incoherently. ~C. Montgomery Burns
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posted
It's even better because his invocation of the term "they" indicates an acceptance of the principle of collective punishment along ethnic lines.
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capped
I WAS IN THE FUTURE, IT WAS TOO LATE TO RSVP
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grouping along any lines is a misperception of the concept of the individual.
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Cartman
just made by the Presbyterian Church
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But it's easier boy!
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quote:It's such a good argument because it ignores a whole ton of history.
It's such a good generalization that it begs to be backed up.
When Joe opens your door and invites the local thugs in to ransack your house, you don't up and give him the key again.
-------------------- "The best defense is not a good offense. The best defense is a terrifyingly accurate and devastatingly powerful offense, with multiply-overlapping kill zones and time-on-target artillery strikes." -- Laurence, Archangel of the Sword
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