That’s exactly what it means. If you’re going to make a statement with conviction, you might want to learn some definitions.
De facto: in fact, or in effect, whether by right or not.
De jure: according to rightful entitlement or claim; by right.
Capital: the most important city or town of a country or region, usually its seat of government and administrative center.
So regardless of whether you, me or anyone else agrees with Jerusalem being the capital… it IS their capital. That’s where the seat of government is. In fact the phrase de facto points out that some people believe they have no right to it. That doesn’t keep parliament and the PM from meeting there.
I accuse them of nothing. I couldn’t hack or spy my way out of a paper bag. I trip in my own house and can’t buy the wife flowers without her figuring it out.
A great many people who can spy believe that Assange got his information from the Russians. The fact that he sat on Russian leaks and worked for Russian TV stations point that way as well.
And? He’s the President. Israel is our ally, much more than SA/Egypt/Turkey/Iraq combined. Trump is pulling out of the middle east (or trying to). We give them money so they can absorb rocket attacks and international hatred for us. Pretty convenient eh? Maybe his Jewish son-in-law put him under a spell!
Freedom of speech means you have to absorb mean words sometimes. Feelsbadman
None of which the west would have had without the renaissance and the enlightenment, which emphasized freedom of speech, reason, secularism, scientific method etc… we are prosperous because of our values.
Stand up how? By getting killed? How are you standing up for this freedom?
It wasn’t recognized as such by anyone until Trump did so the other day. And the Palestinian Authority also claims Jerusalem as their capital, despite not having US backing. Is it also the de facto capital of Palestine?
And you can say something about there not being a state of Palestine, but it was given UN recognition a few years ago.
The Knesset is in Givat Ram, not Jerusalem.
Not only the Russians benefitted from Wikileaks. There are plenty of articles like this:
So why is he going further than any other president?
You took one statement out of context and to make it sound like something else, this is not relevant to what I was saying there.
Perhaps one thing led to another, but refugees aren’t coming here for the “values”.
Free-thinkers who mock the very idea of a god as a sky fairy, an imaginary friend, still hold to taboos and morals that palpably derive from Christianity. In 2002, in Amsterdam, the World Humanist Congress affirmed ‘the worth, dignity and autonomy of the individual and the right of every human being to the greatest possible freedom compatible with the rights of others’. Yet this — despite humanists’ stated ambition to provide ‘an alternative to dogmatic religion’ — was nothing if not itself a statement of belief. The humanist assumption that atheism and a concern for human life go together was just that: an assumption. What basis — other than mere sentimentality — was there to argue for it? Perhaps, as the humanist manifesto declared, through ‘the application of the methods of science’. Yet this was barely any less of a myth than the biblical story that God had created humanity in his own image. It is not truth that science offers moralists, but a mirror. Racists identify it with racist values; liberals with liberal values. The primary dogma of humanism — ‘that morality is an intrinsic part of human nature based on understanding and a concern for others’ — finds no more corroboration in science than did the dogma of the Nazis that anyone not fit for life should be exterminated. The wellspring of humanist values lies not in reason, not in evidence-based thinking, but in the past, and specifically in the story of how a cult inspired by the execution of an obscure criminal in a long-vanished empire emerged to become ‘the most powerful of hegemonic cultural systems in the history of the world’.
Listened to a talk years ago by an atheist historian explaining the “Christian roots of the scientific method”. Guys like Newton believed that God’s creation was full of mysteries and it was their obligation as Chriatians to unearth the mysteries of that creation. They also believed that falsifying the results of your research was tantamount to blasphemy.
Heard another talk that the renaissance and enlightenment amounted to a “singularity”.
Still wonder how history would’ve been different if the Romans would’ve started the industrial revolution. They knew about steam engines and they knew how to make steel gears. I’m sure they could have come up with standardized parts given how they ran legions. Slave labor was just so cheap for them that labor saving devices made little sense.
Of course they didn’t come just for welfare, you chose one item from a list of things. But you can be certain they would rather come to a country that will give them a home and money when they arrive rather than somewhere they will get nothing.
I’m not against refugees, I just don’t think that messing up other countries and then giving money to those who flee is sustainable. It would be better not to mess up other countries in the first place, however if this thread is any indication, few people in America think that way so things will continue to get worse.
That doesn’t mean he’s right. Humanism, in the West, can be traced to the ancient Greeks. It emerged in Italy well after the establishment of Christianity after Italian scholars and writers (like Plutarch) were exposed to the writings of the Greeks and Romans (pagans). The Christian morals at that time suppressed free speech and thought. Heretics were tortured and burned at the stake, or in the case of Pico Della Mirandola, poisoned.
And when you add in the influence that hermeticism had, you indeed look to the past. It’s just much further back than Christ as it goes back to the ancient Egyptians. It’s probably more accurate to say that humanism influenced Christianity more than Christianity influenced humanism.
The refugees I know, the ones who are Muslim, came here so their kids, male and female, could get an education and enjoy the freedoms this country offers. They are not expecting handouts and their children work harder than their American peers and have better manners.
Ah but this is not the paradigm of who migrated to Europe. Mostly military aged males coming for the free stuff. They burned down migrant centers in France when they ran out of Nutella and gummy bears.
That’s mostly true over here too. However, back in the 90’s a lot of Somalians came over here and were largely the opposite, most of the men and boys causing all sorts of trouble. They seem to have calmed down in recent years, but even now a good portion of the shootings in Ottawa involve Somalians.
Most refugees and immigrants come here because their country is messed up, if they had the option to live there comfortably they would have stayed.
Yeah, the bad ones went to Europe. What happened over there is a disaster. Merkel is crazy, welcoming all migrants until over a million came and they had to shut the border.
Also, regarding the topic of whether or not refugees came for welfare and refugee benefits, in Europe there are plenty of migrants who want to go specifically to Germany because the welfare and benefits are the highest. Places with lower benefits have less migrants. The EU has open borders so you can just take a train to any country with basically no restrictions.
Yes it can, but it was highly selective - especially not applying to living furniture that were the slaves.
He, a historian of Ancient Rome (and Greece) is simply articulating a thought that consciously or unconsciously appeared to, for example, most people reading Cicero’s letters to Atticus. How a deceptively familiar world with an off the cuff remark suddenly becomes something much more alien with casual disregard for the lives of slaves and barbarians. In other word, despite him being an atheist his immediate reactions of what’s “right” and “wrong” stem from Christian cultural legacy.
Sure, Christianity triumphed in the late Roman Empire through violence and being the most intolerant religion (Hypatia cough cough) but notably Paul provided seedlings of theoretical concepts that centuries later would be expanded upon in renaissance and in enlightenment, despite the Inquisition and what not.
Yes. They showed they were not going to stop being what they were simply because some people didn’t like them. You can find countless examples of this in all sorts of countries. South Parks creators have received death threats throughout their career. They don’t censor themselves and when they tried to put an image of Muhammad in they did it. Comedy Central blacked it out but they still did it.
What kind of world would we live in if with every single threat artists, journalists, musicians, politicians etc said “we will bow down to anyone who threatens us because we are scared.”
I’m not an artist and certainly not good or well recognized enough to create something that could potentially get me killed. I would like to think that if I had that power and wanted to create something that may offend someone I would do it.
Again, you seem to be against freedom. Everyone left at Charlie Hebdo printed the next issue. What part of freedom of expression are you against? I’m beyond thankful that we have people with the balls to do things that may offend someone. That may get them hurt. That may even end their life.
After that who was celebrated? It wasn’t the people carrying out the attack. It was those with the balls to say fuck the risk we believe in freedom.
I’m not against freedom, I just don’t think it is wise to do things that are likely to get you killed and have no benefit to anybody, other than maybe selling a few magazines.
The kind of world that the US government wants.
So here’s the thing, you and others are against Assange for releasing information on US war crimes but some dumb Frenchmen who needlessly provoke violence against themselves and other innocent civilians are some sort of freedom fighters. This seems rather backwards. If Hebdo or whoever wants to publish stuff that will get them killed and they have the legal right to do so then whatever, that’s their business and their own fault if they die. Exposing and opposing war crimes is actually a worthy cause, and despite allegations of Assange being mixed up with Russia, Trump, Mossad, or whoever, the charges they have him on are something worth rallying against. If he was being charged for helping rig the election in favour of Trump then maybe that would be a different story, but I don’t imagine Trump would want that.
Of course it isn’t wise. The smart thing would be to censor yourself. Bow down to pressure. Save your own ass. Don’t speak out against governments or people who may wish you harm for doing so.
Our country came about from people doing stuff that wasn’t wise. Change comes from people doing stuff that isn’t wise. Gandhi, MLK, and many others doing a bunch of stuff that certainly was risky and not the safe thing to do.
I’m not sure why you’re inventing positions I haven’t taken. I think you’re mixing me up with someone else
I don’t see how you can equate those two examples with some homo-erotic caricatures of Muhammad. I’m not Muslim, I don’t really care personally, but Charlie Hedbo was not standing up for any worthy principles at any time. They were using freedom of speech as an excuse to piss of some Muslims and it got them killed, and there was absolutely nothing to be gained.
It looks like I’m the only person in this thread who doesn’t want to see Assange extradited and locked up until now.
You are a bit late to this discussion, this talk about blasphemy and such started with me comparing Assange being held for extradition to the US to extraditing someone to Saudi Arabia for blaspheming Muhammad. If what you did is not illegal where you are and the charges are unreasonable then I don’t believe that you should be extradited, but some freedom-loving Americans seem to think otherwise.
Worthy principles are completely subjective. To a lot of people what MLK was doing wasn’t worthy at all. To them it was standing up and saying something knowing the risks. It’s the same middle finger thrown at people as anyone before them. We are going to say something because we believe in the right to say something.
You could easily have said MLK was using freedom of speech to piss off a ton of Americans and it got him killed.
