Not many peoples have the means to do this. Many countries ban ownership of weapons or only allow them to its supporters as a means of control. Kind of what many on the left want to do in the US. Can't have those pesky mobs armed as well.

Comment about liberals = Strawman

Otherwise, if there is a will, there is a way. Simply put, if people believe in something enough, they will sacrifice the time, blood, and effort to achieve it.

Not at all. It's pointing out hypocrisy.

Ironically, your calling those a strawman is a strawman. Instead of addressing the points about the disconnect between what liberals claim are their ideals and what liberals actually do, you just call it a strawman to point out the issue.

"But maybe they are not talking about the 'Palestinian cause' as 90% of 'Palestinians' see it because I really fail to see how calling for the murder of all Jews, murdering those Arab politicians who actually make peace, and executing homosexials will immediately lead to peace. But that's just me."

If you don't see how it might be hypocritical to claim to want peace and a "just solution" and then support the side where 90% of the people vote for Nazis and worse, what can I do?

If Israel executed homosexuals and openly announced a will to exterminate all Arabs (or even some of them) and tried to do exactly that, I would be a hypocrite if I claimed to be for peace and justice when I support Israel. And liberals are hypocrites when they talk about peace and then support the war against Israel. (And make no mistake, that's what the "Palestinian cause" is and always has been, according to their own words.)

I agree it seems odd, but I've talked to many of those very people that you bash nearly ever day. At one time I was extremely active in helping the truly innocent people in palestine. Those people I worked with wanted peace for both sides, but felt that Israel was - even if it was in "self defense" - being borderline unethical. They felt that Israel could handle it better.

In my opinion, Taltamir just went and bagged up all liberals in one fell swoop. Sorry, but that's not exactly sound thinking.

So at least you see the weird part of it.

How do you determine who the innocent are?

Are the 90% who vote for war "innocent"? I assume their children are. Do you recommend that we take their children away from them so that the guilty cannot use the innocent as human shields? Because they do.

Are the 90% who vote for the PLO or Hamas, who both want war with Israel truly "innocent"?

The other 10%, I grant, are for all I care truly innocent.

But the 90% voting for war will have to vote against war before I count them as "innocent".

Yes, I am sick and tired of people who think that Israel is automatically borderline unethical, despite the fact that Israel goes far beyond any other country's attempts when it comes to protecting the innocent even among the enemy.

Which other country builds field hospitals for enemy civilians for a single attack? Do the US build field hospitals in Pakistan to treat victims whenever they bomb a village? Israel does when it attacks Gaza.

You really don't realise it, I see that, but that automatic assumption that Israel is unethical (or borderline such) is the problem.

If the stories were true, I wonder why any Arab ever walks the streets in Israel without fear. And I wonder why Israeli tax payers pay so much for hospitals for the enemy. I wonder why Arab women from Gaza give birth in Israeli hospitals while the same hospital is being bombed by the government the Gazans elected.

I agree that Israel could handle a lot of things better. But I do believe that supporting the cause of war and genocide goes a bit far when it comes to opposing Israel's alleged unethical behaviour.

There are better ways to handle Israel's shortcomings than to support those who want war with Israel and scream for the death of all Jews.

And don't tell me Palestinian Arabs are not doing that. Their voters were very clear about what they want. And if it was election fraud, the people are free to demonstrate against the government they didn't want. I somehow doubt that the PLO or Hamas could afford to violently crush a revolution that Israel would certainly support.

If you are truly interested in making the world a better place you can invest your energy into helping the truly innocent, like the people of Darfur. If the money invested to rebuild Gaza were to be spent instead on rebuilding and defending Darfur, we would have two wars less in the world. But who would want that?

Leauki... I'm not a liberal, but would you mind if I defend them and get upset if someone says something unflattering about them? But, I repeat, I'm not a liberal.    /sarcasm

Be my guest.

I really can't comment on behave of liberals Leauki. Just wanted AJ to know how he appears to my eyes on your thread and others, for when he asks for proof, but I'm sure you're aware.

I get it.

I was a bit worried when he re-defined what the "Palestinian cause" is (for him) in order to avoid the actual question and when he summarised my remark about Arab imperialism with "if people wish to live under a ruler, then that is there their choice".

For me the "Palestinian cause" is whatever the Palestinian Arabs themselves say in Arabic. When Hamas, backed by the votes of the people, tells me that it is about murdering all Jews and believing in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, that's good enough for me. And when the PLO tell me that Arafat's mentor and Hitler's friend, the "Grand Mufti of Jerusalem" is their "national hero", then he is their national hero for all I care.

Wtf, ultimately it IS their choice. If people like it that way, then what right do we or anyone have to change that?

The reason I often defend them is because they're fallaciously lumped together by morons. Seriously though, Leauki, and many others on this site tend to just put them all in the same pile - which makes them easier to dismiss. I mean hell, why would anyone want to address their arguments, lets just group them together and be done with it. If you're going to talk about liberals, then you need to address the varying degrees of liberals (progressives, social democrats, etc. ) - not as a group.

Present the arguments. I'll address them.

Draginol is also good at taking apart arguments point by point with actual numbers and his own experiences.

The Massalith have in no way chosen to be slaughtered by their Arab government.

Neither did the Dinka happily accept slavery for the heck of it.

Some people are weaker than others. And then the others will rule. If we are lucky, those others are civilised. If we are very lucky, they are more civilised than the people they rule. But in some cases imperialism is just evil.

Sorry, but you ultimately have the ability to take the shit you're given, or to turn it into roses; they couldve moved, appealed for help, etc. In the end they just dealt with it.

Where could they have moved?

They did appeal for help. The world ignored them. Anybody who spoke up against the Arabs was an evil imperialist Zionist or, unless that is included anyway, a racist.

And they were dealt with, all right: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darfur_genocide

400,000 dead in just a few years while the world was looking at Gaza, worried because 1000 Arabs died. Four billion dollars have been pledged to "rebuild Gaza". And the genocide in Sudan is going on.

Yes, some people care. Notably liberals care. But they don't manage to organise protests that even remotely resemble those they can organise against Israel or for Saddam.

And what disappoints me most is that Obama doesn't care. I didn't expect much from him, but I thought he would at least care about Africa. Perhaps I fell for my own bias, thinking that the son of an African would feel a connection with Africa. But he doesn't have to feel such a connection. He's right. He is American, not African. It's still sad though because Africa celebrates him (like they did George Bush before him, but Bush was popular because of what he did for Africa).

Obama wants to make peace in the middle east, but like others before him, he is focused on the smallest war and thinks that problems can be solved by giving more money to the enemy and rebuilding his infrastructure.