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berntb

>>demonizing countries like Syria

How can you "demonize" that type of brutal regimes? What more can you say about them? That Assad eats children?

>>One could say it all depends on your stance vis-a-vis Israel.

>>the ruling Saudis will be quick to repress it and assure Israel none of this will happen again

Sigh, so Saudi Arabia is pro Israel? :-)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitism_in_the_Arab_world#...

This is a model of what happens there without conspiracy theories:

Saudi Arabia is needed as an ally by the US. It is called "realpolitik" -- all countries, including democracies, use it and lie about it. (The difference with democracies is that they do support human rights, as long as it doesn't cost too much.)

North Korea sells/sold nuclear tech to Syria/Iran; are you really claiming they have "neutral" relations with Israel?

And so on... please don't write this kind of thing on HN.

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I would say this whole thread took a wrong turn with noduerme's deeply rude, ignorant, arrogant an plain racist post. We would all have gained something had it never existed.

Sure. I'm the racist. Not the guys who posted this on pastebin: "Judaism.txt, it includes 65 Zionist people who purchased stuff from Judaism web site"

Certainly sounds racially motivated to me.

Let's say we accept, for a moment, that not all Jews are Zionists, that "criticism of Israel" isn't motivated by anti-semitism. Let's even pretend for a second that stealing civilians' credit card numbers is a valid form of criticism against a state or government. Let's forget that Saudi schoolbooks call Jews the "children of apes and pigs." Why not. Even so, why would buying something from a "Judaism web site" make someone a Zionist (or even an Israeli, for that matter)? For all we know some of those people could have been the next Noam Chomsky or (insert other groveling apologist here).

And what do you think they're hoping people will do with this list of Jewish names? Why the fuck is it acceptable to be making lists of Jewish names anyway? If that's not racist, I don't know what is. We'd be better off if that had never existed; but at least it proves plainly that nothing about this hack qualifies as a legitimate political statement.

All you managed to demonstrate is that you are not the only racist in the world. I'm also relieved you didn't question the rest of the assessment, and agree your comment was deeply rude, ignorant and arrogant. That's a start.

I never said the release was warranted, fair, right or anything close to that. In fact, I did not even manifest an opinion about it. I only pointed out your message was not up to our standards (http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html) and that it was full of telling misconceptions.

I'm not a racist, thanks very much. I don't put Arabs into one category, and I don't have a problem with them. In fact, I have two half-brothers who are Lebanese, and I grew up with plenty of Arabic culture (and food). I've been to Lebanon, and also to Israel.

Having said that, I wouldn't go to Saudi Arabia for a million dollars. It's not racist to point out the shortcomings of a national culture. Name one piece of technology used in this attack that was invented or even built in Saudi Arabia. Name one program that was written there. If you can't, it's not my fault. And clearly they're not so oppressed by Israel and the West that they can't afford to buy nice things, or build their own industries if they choose to. I know Lebanese guys who've moved back to Beirut to do startups. Look at Qatar and Dubai. They're too busy branching out and moving beyond an oil economy to be envious of middle-class Israelis.

It's also not racist to point out the lack of character involved in attacking civilians in another country, allegedly in protest of a foreign government, while you yourself live in a phony, sham-theocratic dictatorship.

If anything, I think it's people like yourself with your "good intentions" of pointing out who-must-be-a-racist, without deigning to criticize the giant racist elephant in the room, who are mostly responsible for the continuation of problems in the ME. To quote a famous Christian, first take the plank out of your own eye.

> It's not racist to point out the shortcomings of a national culture

No it's not. What's racist is your assumption that hadn't you (an implicitly superior culture, which is also a somewhat racist idea) told them what natural resource they had under their feet and taught them how to explore it they'd never figure it out for themselves and would be a primitive society. You imply that they are somehow better off because of it when, in fact, the money the country got for its riches was funneled to a small group of religious fundamentalists that, because of it, are able to rule the country unquestioned. One could argue they still have a very primitive society, only now they have money and weapons. You also imply they would never be able to develop the tools used to glean the data, an assumption that's also probably untrue and fail to mention the fact that most script-kids who pull tricks like this around the planet have no knowledge of the inner workings of the tools they use and would never be able to develop them from scratch.

And finally, I did not comment on Saudi Arabia's form of government, its repressive laws or the sadly misguided idiots who pulled this trick and their ideas about how the world works. I, myself, don't like the idea of theocracies (and absolutist monarchies) and regard them as incompatible with democracy.

Unfortunately, this is not the world I live in and we have to coexist with the less than ideal systems other people want (sometimes for no good reason) to live under. We don't have the right to impose our own way of life - or worse, an artificial one that favors us - upon others.

Also, the fact there is a giant racist elephant in the room does not make your own behavior and discourse any more helpful. Let's discuss the elephant when we get to it and, in the meantime, let's not put more little elephants in the room. I'd say there are enough of them already.

>>Unfortunately, this is not the world I live in and we have to coexist with the less than ideal systems other people want (sometimes for no good reason) to live under. We don't have the right to impose our own way of life

You think the North Koreans made an informed choice to starve while the party elite drank good whiskey?!

Tyrants like those just has no right of existence.

They made a choice. Not an informed one.

It's their job to get rid of their tyrant. We may help them, but we have no right to expect them to pick a form of government that pleases us. It's their country.

Of course people have responsibility for their own country.

But "pick their own lifestyle" argument can be used with slaves, which have been kept ignorant by their owners.

I don't know where you come from and might be putting opinions into your fingers, but modern (mostly left extremist) cultural relativistic acceptance of tyrants is truly abhorrent.

(Sorry for coming in late.)

"We would all have gained something had it never existed."

Fuck off, Mr. Wannabe Censor. Progress requires unfettered conversation of all types, not just the ones of which you approve.

"... noduerme's deeply rude, ignorant, arrogant an[d] plain racist post."

It was none of those things. What he said is basically correct, and it reminded me of 2005's Syriana, in which there was a conversation between Matt Damon as Bryan Woodman, an energy analyst, and Alexander Siddig as Prince Nasir Al-Subaai, successor to the Emir.

NASIR: An ancestor of mine owned this bird's [falcon's] ancestor before Christ was born. Six more North Field blocks will be available for development. We would like to offer your firm the right to represent them.

WOODMAN: If I were your economic advisor I'd tell you it's not the dumbest thing you've ever done, but it'll probably be the dumbest thing you do today. Probably. But why would you need an economic advisor? Twenty years ago you had the highest GNP in the world and now you're tied with Paraguay. Your second biggest export is second-hand goods. Followed by dates on which you lose five cents a pound. You want to know what the business world thinks of you. They think a hundred years ago you were chopping each other's heads off in the desert and that's exactly where you'll be in another hundred. So, yes, on behalf of my firm, I accept your money.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syriana

I included the first sentence, about the falcon, because it shows that Nasir is proud of his people having been around for a long time, but that apparent plus is effectively countered by Woodman's observation about their primitive nature, and how the oil money is really the only thing keeping them from regressing. Sure, the film is fictional, but there is a lot of truth to be found in it.

> Fuck off, Mr. Wannabe Censor

I'm not one who wants to impose restraint on others. I merely suggest a little bit of tact makes dialog possible. Or, more important, that its lack may make dialog impossible.

> Progress requires unfettered conversation of all types, not just the ones of which you approve.

It also requires the conversation itself, which may be rendered unproductive by the kind of comment made upstream.

> it reminded me of 2005's Syriana, in which there was a conversation between Matt Damon as Bryan Woodman, an energy analyst, and Alexander Siddig as Prince Nasir Al-Subaai

Is all your knowledge in Middle East affairs derived from a movie?

Read up on the resource curse on Wikipedia, it is probably the other way -- too much natural resources stop development. (Except for Norway, which still have problems despite their oil fond.)

>> How can you "demonize" that type of brutal regimes? What more can you say about them? That Assad eats children?

I was referring to the _relative_ treatment. I thought this was clearly implied. Syria's regime is definitely not above blame. But neither is Saudi Arabia and it deserves an equal share of 'demonization' by the government and the media.

>> Sigh, so Saudi Arabia is pro Israel? :-)

You musn't mistake public policy that carries no weight with actual behavior. Egypt under Mubarak was trumpeted as anti-Israel, but was clearly colluding with them in Gaza affairs. Saudi Arabia is unique in that there is a strong powerful extremist movement that needs to be placated by the ruling family. This makes for more empty talk that confuses many.

>> North Korea sells/sold nuclear tech to Syria/Iran; are you really claiming they have "neutral" relations with Israel?

They too have had their share of trouble as we all know, but I may be wrong on this one.

>> please don't write this kind of thing on HN

What kind of thing? When you see remarks like those of noduerme being upvoted, it's important that people understand that our governments are just as responsible for sustaining the abuses going on in the MidEast so that they don't misdirect their hate towards muslims/arabs.

>>I was referring to the _relative_ treatment.

And I discussed Syria/SA re "realpolitik". You didn't answer.

>>it's important that people understand that our governments are just as responsible for sustaining the abuses going on in the MidEast so that they don't misdirect their hate towards muslims/arabs.

So I should have opinions, because that would have good influences in the world...

Respect, troll -- you know how to push my buttons! (Yeah yeah, it is your honest opinion...)

(Why would anyone hate a bunch of countries that haven't modernized yet? Compare Middle East treatment of women, homosexuals, jews etc etc to many western countries 150 years ago.)

The US is obviously responsible for all the human rights violations happening in the Mid East the last 30 years? (Hell, even the Bush administrations tried to influence for human rights and Obama seems to even play cards with islamists to get rid of dicators!)

Enough, good night.

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