The US Constitution was set up and amended in such a way that religions could not be interfered with by the state, but such that religions could invade the state and exert influence there. It’s not so much a Freedom from Religion as it is a Freedom for Religious People. Goddamn puritans.
It’s because adherence to religious dress codes is not a clear indicator of fundamentalism or evangelism. Women who choose to wear burkas, niqabs headscarves etc are not immediately downtrodden and subservient women who agree with religious sexism. A Sikh man choosing to wear a turban and not shave his body hair is not a clear indicator that he’s a fundamentalist in any way.
Judge politicians by their words and actions, not by how they look. There are many religious zealots who wear simple suits and dresses.
Yeah, Israel are straight-up taking plays from the Soviet handbook here. Indiscriminate murder of civilians is okay if you get one bad dude. They’ve already dehumanised Palestinians beyond belief, it’s no wonder that they view murder of innocent Palestinians as being completely different to murder of innocent Israelis.
Do you guys use ‘Preponderance of Evidence’ as the standard of proof for civil cases in the US? In Australia we use ‘On the Balance of Probabilities’. I wonder if there’s a technical difference there.
(Tiny pedantic note but the Burden of Proof is about who has to produce the evidence, not the level of evidence required to make a finding - that’s the Standard of Proof)
While that makes sense if the top-level universe follows our laws of physics, we can’t guarantee that the top-level actually has to follow the same rules as simulations. Perhaps energy and/or matter can be created from thin air, meaning that there are no issues of conservation of energy or matter. A universe like this has literally limitless energy, and so the amount of energy it uses to simulate universes, either separately or within other universes, becomes negligible or a moot point. Perhaps the simulators are more interested in what their simulations simulate rather than their own simulations; perhaps they’re trying to create new patterns of thought that they can’t imagine to create themselves. There are just a lot of questions with Simulation Theory.
It reminds me of the segments seen in Monstera Deliciosa fruit, except that's got a long cylindrical shape rather than a spheroid shape that can measure upto 30-40cm long by 10cm wide. Those segments are a pale yellow though, and they taste like banana crossed with pineapple. Kind of looks like a banana x pineapple as well!
Well the good news is it’s neither a Redback nor a Funnel Web Spider, so it’s extremely unlikely to have a serious effect if you’re bitten. I can’t tell exactly what it is, but it’s not a deadly spider. You can use a stick and ice-cream container to get it off and reposition the spider in your yard. If you want to prevent spiders from nesting on your bike again, use a residual crawling bug spray (you can find these at Bunnings or Colesworth) every six months or so in the affected areas. That should keep them at bay.
My retort to that argument was always along the lines of “do you know the detail of every single policy that the party/candidate you vote for is running with?” And the answer is always invariably ‘no’. For some reason it’s fine to vote for our elected representatives without educating yourself, but not fine to vote for a referendum without educating yourself.
I wish everyone in this camp chose to cast an informal vote instead, there’s a chance the referendum might have eked out a Yes that way.
Palestinian resistance is the last thing you should critique
Here you’re conflating Hamas with all Palestinians and implying that Hamas’ actions are merely ‘Palestinian resistance’ which is just incorrect. Palestinian civilians should NOT be lumped in with their unelected (in the last 17 years) leaders, much as Jewish people should not be lumped in with Israel/their government. The majority of Palestinian citizens have never had an opportunity to vote for their leaders.
That point aside, the killing of civilians, whether intentional or through reckless disregard, should never be last on the list of condemnation. We can want Palestine to win their freedom and independence while criticising how Hamas is attempting to achieve that. We should be critiquing innocent slaughter wherever it exists and regardless of who is the perpetrator or victim.
We can walk and chew gum. We can critique Hamas AND the Israeli government / IDF. We can accept Israel’s responsibility in pushing the Palestinian people to desperation for survival through apartheid and genocide, and we can condemn Hamas’ killing of civilians. We can call for Israel to immediately ceasefire and we can call for Hamas to immediately ceasefire. We can feel for Palestinian civilians even as we feel for Israeli citizens.
This is not black and white; life rarely is. It’s steeped in nuance. That’s okay to talk about.
Level-headed people are not saying that Palestine shouldn’t fight back against the occupation, they’re just deriding the method they’re using. It’s hard to support a regime that kills civilians and children, even if they’re doing it in response to their civilians and children being killed. Two wrongs usually don’t make a right.
Now the question that I think is still rhetorical and whose answer people can’t agree upon is this: what is the appropriate response to apartheid and genocide? Many would agree that attacking the IDF, government officials etc. would constitute reasonable reactive force, however this is particularly difficult for Palestine due to Israel’s domination of the geography.
What should Hamas do that can expedite the end of apartheid and genocide? I don’t know. It’s a fucked situation. I feel deeply for the Palestinians, especially the almost 50% of them that are under the age of 18, and believe that they need to be liberated. I also feel deeply for Israeli citizens, many of whom didn’t vote for Netanyahu, who have been killed as a result of the Hamas incursion.
This issue is flooded with nuance that’s just going over many people’s heads.
Hamas were voted into power 17 years ago with no subsequent elections, and won with only ~44% of the vote. The current median age in Palestine is 19.6 years old. Therefore, at most ~44% of Palestinians aged over 35 voted for Hamas, which would make up far less than a quarter of the total population - probably less than 20% of all Palestinians.
I can’t imagine what that’s like; I’m so sorry for your experience. It’s not okay for others to lump you in with a crowd based solely on your religion or cultural background. That’s honestly just discrimination, and no tolerant society should accept that. I hope that we soon have a day where your existence doesn’t need to be explained to those who don’t understand it.
Will the experience of war victims resonate with the victors of that war? Will the victors understand the oppressed and be able to prove their position with adequate psychology? Does the psychology of an occupied people differ from the psychology from the oppressors? Does a person whose culture has been stripped from them require the same counsel as those who believes that illegally occupied territories are their’s?
Many confounding variables exist here that may interact with being militarily oppressed, and therefore comparisons between the two sides are incomparable. I don’t have the answers to these questions. I wish I did, because then I’d be able to secure facts. In this situation the only secure facts are that both sides have committed atrocities and crimes against humanity.
I’m sorry you’ve had to deal with that. That’s not okay. You deserve to have an identity beyond Zionism and whatever makes up the current Knesset. I’m sorry that other people don’t have the nuance to understand you. Please keep bringing your point forth, we need to hear more Jewish and Palestinian voices in this conflict.
My voice honestly doesn’t matter. I’m not Palestinian nor am I Israeli. But I hope it’s heard and brings civilians - the innocent casualties on both sides - together to understand that their respective representatives are engaging in atrocities and to protest those so-called representatives.
Sure, but someone who lives in Addis Ababa probably doesn’t have the cultural knowledge to give adequate therapy to someone in Pyongyang, despite them both being located in cities.
Could someone in London counsel someone in New York? Probably, because the cultures are quite similar and share a root ethnicity and language. But that Londonian probably won’t have as much luck counselling someone in Ho Chi Minh.
The US Constitution was set up and amended in such a way that religions could not be interfered with by the state, but such that religions could invade the state and exert influence there. It’s not so much a Freedom from Religion as it is a Freedom for Religious People. Goddamn puritans.