Was it right to repopulate Israel with Jews?

[Viceroy63]

Just to point this out, Prager University is not a university. Carry on.

OK; But what about the video? Any comments on that?

Here is the link again in case you did not notice it the first time. LOL. =)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63hTOaRu7h4

It's not from a real university. It's a dude who makes five minute videos on youtube. I'm not sure how I can more explicitly tell you that this a con.

So all that information that he presented was a lie. Israel was not immediately attacked by 7 Arab states/nation in 1948 upon becoming a nation and all the rest that he presented in the Video?

Did you even watch the video?

Here it is again for your refutation.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63hTOaRu7h4

[Symmetry]

Just to point this out, Prager University is not a university. Carry on.

OK; But what about the video? Any comments on that?

Here is the link again in case you did not notice it the first time. LOL. =)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63hTOaRu7h4

It's not from a real university. It's a dude who makes five minute videos on youtube. I'm not sure how I can more explicitly tell you that this a con.

So all that information that he presented was a lie. Israel was not immediately attacked by 7 Arab states/nation in 1948 upon becoming a nation and all the rest that he presented in the Video?

Did you even watch the video?

Here it is again for your refutation.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63hTOaRu7h4

The refutation starts with the fact that this a crazy man who claims to have a university. I guess I can point out the other weird issues in his minutes long youtube video on how the history of the middle east is not complicated and watching it will give you university credits at his non-existent university, but I'm tired of typing this sentence.

So I'll just stick with pointing out that this is a con.

[saxitoxin]

Just to point this out, Prager University is not a university. Carry on.

OK; But what about the video? Any comments on that?

Here is the link again in case you did not notice it the first time. LOL. =)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63hTOaRu7h4

It's not from a real university. It's a dude who makes five minute videos on youtube. I'm not sure how I can more explicitly tell you that this a con.

So all that information that he presented was a lie. Israel was not immediately attacked by 7 Arab states/nation in 1948 upon becoming a nation and all the rest that he presented in the Video?

Did you even watch the video?

Here it is again for your refutation.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63hTOaRu7h4

The refutation starts with the fact that this a crazy man who claims to have a university. I guess I can point out the other weird issues in his minutes long youtube video on how the history of the middle east is not complicated and watching it will give you university credits at his non-existent university, but I'm tired of typing this sentence.

So I'll just stick with pointing out that this is a con.

When Symm's on it, he's on it.

[Dukasaur]

Like the idea this is a religious conflict and Arabs can't live with Jews (it's not - it's a property rights dispute ... Arabs lived peacefully with Jews for 1,000 years), this is a deceptive characterization of the issue. The issue is not collective access to land, the issue is the seizure of individual properties - the application of eminent domain without compensation. Every word that doesn't address that reality is a smoke screen to confuse and muddy the issue and excuse non-payment of the financial obligations of the world's single largest deadbeat debtor.

80% of the conflict can be resolved tomorrow if the deadbeat pays the money it owes.

I'm not going to waste a lot of time refuting such nonsense. Just a few quick points:
1. If monetary compensation for alleged seizures was the issue, it would have been settled 50 years ago. Until recently nobody made any such demands, but now of course the revisionists are busy trying to edit them into the record. Good luck. Since such demands are still not getting prime-time billing in the official statements from any major Arab League leader, evidently they also have not yet been informed that this is a key issue.
And a couple more from the wikipedia article on the conflict:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli-Palestinian_conflict#Palestinian_refugees_of_the_1948_war

Karsh notes that the Palestinians were themselves the aggressors in the 1948-49 war who attempted to "cleanse" a neighboring ethnic community. Had the United Nations resolution of 29 November 1947, which called for two states in Palestine, not been subverted by force by the Arab world, there would have been no refugee problem in the first place. He reports of large numbers of Palestinian refugees leaving even before the outbreak of the 1948 war because of disillusionment and economic privation. The British High Commissioner for Palestine spoke of the "collapsing Arab morale in Palestine" that he partially attributed to the "increasing tendency of those who should be leading them to leave the country" and the considerable evacuations of the Arab effendi class. Huge numbers of Palestinians were also expelled by their leadership to prevent them from becoming Israeli citizens and in Haifa and Tiberias, tens of thousands of Arabs were forcibly evacuated on the instructions of the Arab Higher Committee.[86]

and

Since none of the 900,000 Jewish refugees who fled anti-Semitic violence in the Arab world was ever compensated or repatriated by their former countries of residence—to no objection on the part of Arab leaders—a precedent has been set whereby it is the responsibility of the nation which accepts the refugees to assimilate them.[92][93][94]

[Dukasaur]

Anyway, wealth can be measured in absolute terms such as money. Civil liberties cannot. Or, if you think you can devise a meaningful Unit of Freedom which is flexible enough to take in all the different things people mean when they say "freedom" by all means go ahead. Until then, the relative indices are all we have.

Why can't Freedom be measured in Dollars?

Why don't we measure mass in Kelvin or waiting times in Angstroms? Probably because using a scale that has a specific purpose for a very different purpose will result in misunderstandings at best or a dadaist state of incomprehensibility at worst.

Maybe you mean measuring our valuation of freedoms in dollars? You could say "I'm willing to pay ten thousand dollars for guaranteed freedom of speech." But assigning a value to it doesn't measure how much of it you have. If gas is worth 50 cents a gallon, it says nothing about how much a gallon is. And, if tomorrow the price goes up to 75 cents a gallon, the size of a gallon still hasn't changed.

[saxitoxin]

Like the idea this is a religious conflict and Arabs can't live with Jews (it's not - it's a property rights dispute ... Arabs lived peacefully with Jews for 1,000 years), this is a deceptive characterization of the issue. The issue is not collective access to land, the issue is the seizure of individual properties - the application of eminent domain without compensation. Every word that doesn't address that reality is a smoke screen to confuse and muddy the issue and excuse non-payment of the financial obligations of the world's single largest deadbeat debtor.

80% of the conflict can be resolved tomorrow if the deadbeat pays the money it owes.

I'm not going to waste a lot of time refuting such nonsense. Just a few quick points:
1. If monetary compensation for alleged seizures was the issue, it would have been settled 50 years ago. Until recently nobody made any such demands, but now of course the revisionists are busy trying to edit them into the record.

I think you need to stop getting your information from the Zionist Entertainment Complex.

Compensation has been almost universally seen by analysts of the Arab-Israeli conflict as a central and necessary feature of a final settlement of the refugee issue.
http://prrn.mcgill.ca/research/papers/brynen1.htm

[Viceroy63]

Just to point this out, Prager University is not a university. Carry on.

OK; But what about the video? Any comments on that?

Here is the link again in case you did not notice it the first time. LOL. =)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63hTOaRu7h4

It's not from a real university. It's a dude who makes five minute videos on youtube. I'm not sure how I can more explicitly tell you that this a con.

So all that information that he presented was a lie. Israel was not immediately attacked by 7 Arab states/nation in 1948 upon becoming a nation and all the rest that he presented in the Video?

Did you even watch the video?

Here it is again for your refutation.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63hTOaRu7h4

The refutation starts with the fact that this a crazy man who claims to have a university. I guess I can point out the other weird issues in his minutes long youtube video on how the history of the middle east is not complicated and watching it will give you university credits at his non-existent university, but I'm tired of typing this sentence.

So I'll just stick with pointing out that this is a con.

When Symm's on it, he's on it.

I guess I can sleep peacefully tonight knowing that "Symm's on it." LOL.

[DoomYoshi]

Anyway, wealth can be measured in absolute terms such as money. Civil liberties cannot. Or, if you think you can devise a meaningful Unit of Freedom which is flexible enough to take in all the different things people mean when they say "freedom" by all means go ahead. Until then, the relative indices are all we have.

Why can't Freedom be measured in Dollars?

Why don't we measure mass in Kelvin or waiting times in Angstroms? Probably because using a scale that has a specific purpose for a very different purpose will result in misunderstandings at best or a dadaist state of incomprehensibility at worst.

Maybe you mean measuring our valuation of freedoms in dollars? You could say "I'm willing to pay ten thousand dollars for guaranteed freedom of speech." But assigning a value to it doesn't measure how much of it you have. If gas is worth 50 cents a gallon, it says nothing about how much a gallon is. And, if tomorrow the price goes up to 75 cents a gallon, the size of a gallon still hasn't changed.

Two Possible Arguments against this:
1)What do we measure our valuation of dollars in?

If a dollar buys an ounce of gold, and tomorrow a dollar buys half an ounce, has the size of a dollar changed? Has the value of gold changed? Now this may seem like mere wordplay, but if you think about various permutations of words "value, dollar, gold" and how they interplay with each other, the only possible conclusion is that wealth itself is merely the assignment of value to something. And as you yourself say: "assigning a value to it doesn't measure how much of it you have".

2) My main argument is that you miss the point completely. I am claiming that the terms wealth and freedom are interchangeable. How best to restrict someone's freedom? Steal or otherwise take their money. This is Libertarianism 101. I am not sure why you don't follow.

Freedom of Speech is a terrible example in any case. It's a pipe-dream, a mere fantasy. Sure, you can have freedom of speech, but does that mean you say everything that pops into your head? I don't think so. Humans, as social creatures, are innately in tune with what is acceptable speech, regardless of any direct sanctions on speech. Humans who don't are classified as socially retarded.

Now, it is true that difficult to hear stuff does need to be said from time to time. This is the job of the artist. Great Art (by my definition) is art that says something you don't want to hear. It has to be confrontational, but it has to do it in a way that actually sends a message. For example, certain death metal bands are certainly confrontational - but other than "I eat Satan's Vagina" often the message itself is missing. That is confrontational by Form. Then you get the subversive confrontation. This is the best art, although new messages are few and far between. Most artists say the same thing over and over again until a brilliant mind comes who challenges the newest cliche.

Where I am going with this: A minor subset of Freedom of Speech exists for artists, most of whom don't deserve/need the freedom. Other variations on the theme are basically political catchphrasery.

[patches70]

Your whole post was deluded, but this is particularly bad-

Freedom of Speech is a terrible example in any case. It's a pipe-dream, a mere fantasy. Sure, you can have freedom of speech, but does that mean you say everything that pops into your head? I don't think so. Humans, as social creatures, are innately in tune with what is acceptable speech, regardless of any direct sanctions on speech. Humans who don't are classified as socially retarded.

You completely miss the point of what Freedom of Speech is.

Here, I'll show you.

"Hamas sucks balls. Totalitarian shitheads to the bone and they should be tossed in a prison, the murdering bastards."

Now, if I were Palestinian in the Gaza strip and I said that outside or typed it on my facebook page or what the hell ever, Hamas would show up shortly and disappear me.

Now, imagine I'm an Israeli in Tel Aviv-

"The Israeli government sucks, criminal bastards who deal injustice upon the Palestinians and they should be tossed in prison, the murdering bastards."

I could type that on my facebook or even chant it in a public protest and guess what? I won't be disappeared by the government.


Freedom of speech is easy, everywhere. It's freedom after speech that's the problem. You seem to have forgotten why this is a basic human right. You don't remember or never learned what it was like living as a serf under the thumb of Kings and Queens with guillotines wh'd have your head if you uttered even the slightest displeasure with the establishment.

It's not about saying what is socially acceptable, you can do that as well. In free nations even saying what's socially taboo won't land you in prison, which is evident from the massive Jew hating going on in this thread.

Lots of crazy anti semitic bile being spewed here and as disgusting as it is no one suffers any ill consequences except for flaming. Which makes little difference. Only those who feel some need to be accepted socially give a crap about social taboos.

So of course freedom of speech "political catchphrasery", that's what it's intended for. Not just for artists who wanna paint Jesus getting pissed on.
And where is your deference to artists freedom of speech for the Muslim world? Or even the Western world in regards? Can't speak ill of the Prophet, or you'll get your head chopped off.
Freedom, eh?

Not quite......

[Metsfanmax]

Now, imagine I'm an Israeli in Tel Aviv-

"The Israeli government sucks, criminal bastards who deal injustice upon the Palestinians and they should be tossed in prison, the murdering bastards."

I could type that on my facebook or even chant it in a public protest and guess what? I won't be disappeared by the government.

Yes indeed, in Israel you can freely criticize the government without fear of retribution.

Oh, wait...

[Viceroy63]

I was watching a documentary about Israel and there was this punishment pronounce by God in the Bible, where the People would be scattered throughout the earth and their land would lay desolate. Until... In the latter days when God would bring back his people from all the nations of the earth and the land would once again bloom and produce fruit.

Sure enough, historians for thousands of years, have always noted what a desert the land of Israel was. Even the Romans found it particularly difficult to build roads through that region because it was just so hard to find good drinking water and nothing grew in the desert. Nobody even wanted to live in that region because it was just all desert land, until now. Ok, or most of it anyway.

Now the Jews are back in the land and God is making that land to blossom and flourish, and where once it was just an endless desert, now there is Grass and trees as far as the eyes can see everywhere and farming communities and all and everyone wants to own Israel. It's prime real estate in the midst of nations enveloped in deserts.

Anyone else thinks that there could be something to that?

[patches70]

Yes indeed, in Israel you can freely criticize the government without fear of retribution.

Oh, wait...

Exactly, stuff like this happens because too many people have this sentiment-

Freedom of Speech is a terrible example in any case. It's a pipe-dream, a mere fantasy.

[/quote]

When the right of free speech is treated how people like Yoshi here treat it, then it's no wonder that freedom declines. Be it loss of liberty in the name of God, or country, or the need to feel "safe".

I don't know who is worse, the people who try to stomp free speech or the people who don't care whether or not they have freedom of speech, like Yoshi here.

But tell me, Mets, since you are quick to criticize Israel, where is your condemnation of Hamas? Are you saying they are more apt to allow freedom of speech than Israel?

Why are not the Palestinian authority held to the same standard as Israel?

None of you Palephiles can answer that without exposing your outright Jew hatred. You silly saps would be hating life in the Gaza living under the thumb of Hamas, unless you were willing to be a thug for them. Which, sad to say, I think is probably a good possibility for many of you. Thug wanna be's.

[Metsfanmax]

But tell me, Mets, since you are quick to criticize Israel, where is your condemnation of Hamas? Are you saying they are more apt to allow freedom of speech than Israel?

No. Israel has markedly better protections of freedom than any of its neighbors in the Middle East. But "Israel is better than Afghanistan" is not exactly a ringing endorsement.

Incidentally, criticism of the Israeli government is not the same as "Jew hatred." That sort of rhetoric is exactly why the discussion on Israel is so divisive and polarized.

[saxitoxin]

I was watching a documentary ... In the latter days when God would bring back his people from all the nations of the earth and the land would once again bloom and produce fruit. Now the Jews are back in the land and God is making that land to blossom and flourish, and where once it was just an endless desert, now there is Grass and trees as far as the eyes can see everywhere and farming communities and all and everyone wants to own Israel.

lmao

I, too, was watching a documentary the other day. After the clock strikes midnight, if the Princess hasn't returned home her carriage will turn into a giant pumpkin. Who else has seen that documentary?

[DoomYoshi]

Patches, I agree with you that Freedom of Speech can be taken away. However, I disagree that we can ever truly achieve it. In other words, if there was a freedom of speech scale, you could have a negative value (Hamas Palestine) but you could never achieve zero (unless you are a hermit) or a positive value.

Freedom of Speech is a negatively defined concept. It's defined by what you can't do - at a fundamental level. The political aspect comes in when they twist it around to be defined by what you can do.

EDIT: If you don't believe me, insert the folllowing phrase in the following listed situations:

"Hamas sucks balls. Totalitarian shitheads to the bone and they should be tossed in a prison, the murdering bastards."

A job interview, in lieu of "Hello, I'm Patches70"
Immediately before intercourse - say it while yelling and drooling all over your lover
Mow the message into the white house lawn
carve the message into Obama's Head with bullets
Blast the message onto the Moon with Nuclear Missiles

Where has your freedom of speech gotten you? Nowhere. It's an illusion.

This is sort of like a situation in which I take away your driver's license. Then I give it back and you are thankful for it. You shouldn't be thankful for it. I am the one who took it away from you. Likewise, we shouldn't be thankful that the powers that be allow us to insult Hamas in a chatroom.

[DoomYoshi]

And another thing. The internet back in the 90s (pre-Google) was great. It was populated by assholes (who almost had freedom of speech) and libertarians who would let them have it. Back then most of it was anonymous. Now with Facebook things you post are no longer anonymous. Sure, you can hypothetically type anything you want... but can you really? Everything you say can be scrutinized, so we still get no freedom after speech.

If I posted 600 copies of the Bible in every thread on this site, I would be banned. Even in the anonymous parts of the internet, there is no freedom of speech.

Hell, we aren't even allowed explaining why Hitler was the greatest person who ever lived, so where is this fucking freedom you are talking about?

[patches70]

But tell me, Mets, since you are quick to criticize Israel, where is your condemnation of Hamas? Are you saying they are more apt to allow freedom of speech than Israel?

No. Israel has markedly better protections of freedom than any of its neighbors in the Middle East. But "Israel is better than Afghanistan" is not exactly a ringing endorsement.

Incidentally, criticism of the Israeli government is not the same as "Jew hatred." That sort of rhetoric is exactly why the discussion on Israel is so divisive and polarized.

Again, you fail to answer why you hold Israel to a different standard than the Palestinian Authority.

There is no criticism that can land effectively on Israel when the Palestinian authorities are proven scumbags as well.
In a battle between two scumbags, what fool picks sides unless they have skin in the game?

I have no stake in the outcome, let them fight it out, let them talk it out, makes no difference. But since everyone wants to blame Israel and ignore Hamas, I feel it prudent to point out the Hamas Charter, Article 13. No negotiated settlement is possible so long as Hamas is in control, as is stated in their own Charter. The expulsion of the Jews is the only way.
Does it matter that there have been Jews living there since before recorded history? Apparently not to some of you.
And these are the people some of you have chosen to side with.

http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/hamas.asp

The Palestinians need to get their own house in order if they ever want to have a chance of having a nation of their own. But hey, if the Palestinians want to go the route of violence to achieve their goal, then more power to 'em, cause that's what they need, a whole hell of a lot more power.

[Metsfanmax]

Again, you fail to answer why you hold Israel to a different standard than the Palestinian Authority.

There is no criticism that can land effectively on Israel when the Palestinian authorities are proven scumbags as well.
In a battle between two scumbags, what fool picks sides unless they have skin in the game?

My criticism of Israel's curtailing of free speech has nothing to do with Palestine. Why would it?

[Dukasaur]

Like the idea this is a religious conflict and Arabs can't live with Jews (it's not - it's a property rights dispute ... Arabs lived peacefully with Jews for 1,000 years), this is a deceptive characterization of the issue. The issue is not collective access to land, the issue is the seizure of individual properties - the application of eminent domain without compensation. Every word that doesn't address that reality is a smoke screen to confuse and muddy the issue and excuse non-payment of the financial obligations of the world's single largest deadbeat debtor.

80% of the conflict can be resolved tomorrow if the deadbeat pays the money it owes.

I'm not going to waste a lot of time refuting such nonsense. Just a few quick points:
1. If monetary compensation for alleged seizures was the issue, it would have been settled 50 years ago. Until recently nobody made any such demands, but now of course the revisionists are busy trying to edit them into the record.

I think you need to stop getting your information from the Zionist Entertainment Complex.

Compensation has been almost universally seen by analysts of the Arab-Israeli conflict as a central and necessary feature of a final settlement of the refugee issue.
http://prrn.mcgill.ca/research/papers/brynen1.htm

From your own posted link:

Any Palestinian compensation claims against Israel will likely be met by Jewish claims for former properties seized in the Arab world. According to the World Organization of Jews from Arab Countries, the value of these properties is about five to ten times greater than the value of properties lost by Palestinians in 1948.

[patches70]

Again, you fail to answer why you hold Israel to a different standard than the Palestinian Authority.

There is no criticism that can land effectively on Israel when the Palestinian authorities are proven scumbags as well.
In a battle between two scumbags, what fool picks sides unless they have skin in the game?

My criticism of Israel's curtailing of free speech has nothing to do with Palestine. Why would it?

Then where is your criticism of Doom Yoshi for -

Freedom of Speech is a terrible example in any case. It's a pipe-dream, a mere fantasy.

I mean, you seem to think that freedom of speech is pretty important (hence your rightful criticism of Israel), but instead of setting Yoshi straight, you feel it prudent to attack on Israel, why?

Why did you ignore my point that Liberty dies in the face of fear, country and religion? The Israeli's are falling into the same trap we in the US are falling into, giving up our liberty for a perceived feeling of "safety". It's ridiculous.
But you ignore all that and just point out Israel.
Why?


Scratch that, I've seen enough of your posts. You are a wanna be dictator who thinks everyone should believe as you do. You are the one who would have no problem using the Power of The State to force your will upon anyone and everyone who might fall into your grasp.

[Metsfanmax]

Then where is your criticism of Doom Yoshi for -

Freedom of Speech is a terrible example in any case. It's a pipe-dream, a mere fantasy.

I didn't bother. I cannot see a constructive way to argue against such a pessimistic and absolutist point of view.

I mean, you seem to think that freedom of speech is pretty important (hence your rightful criticism of Israel), but instead of setting Yoshi straight, you feel it prudent to attack on Israel, why?

You were comparing Israel to Palestine but I wanted to make it clear that Israel still is not ideal when it comes to this freedom, even if it is better than Hamas. My point wasn't to attack Israel, it was to set the record straight, even though I do condemn the laws that Israel passed last year.

Why did you ignore my point that Liberty dies in the face of fear, country and religion? The Israeli's are falling into the same trap we in the US are falling into, giving up our liberty for a perceived feeling of "safety". It's ridiculous.
But you ignore all that and just point out Israel.
Why?

I don't feel like responding to every single argument made in a thread. There is not much to be gleaned from my absence of commentary, yet you seem to be finding a lot of ammunition there.

[patches70]

Patches, I agree with you that Freedom of Speech can be taken away. However, I disagree that we can ever truly achieve it. In other words, if there was a freedom of speech scale, you could have a negative value (Hamas Palestine) but you could never achieve zero (unless you are a hermit) or a positive value.

Freedom of Speech is a negatively defined concept. It's defined by what you can't do - at a fundamental level. The political aspect comes in when they twist it around to be defined by what you can do.

EDIT: If you don't believe me, insert the folllowing phrase in the following listed situations:

"Hamas sucks balls. Totalitarian shitheads to the bone and they should be tossed in a prison, the murdering bastards."

A job interview, in lieu of "Hello, I'm Patches70"
Immediately before intercourse - say it while yelling and drooling all over your lover
Mow the message into the white house lawn
carve the message into Obama's Head with bullets
Blast the message onto the Moon with Nuclear Missiles

Where has your freedom of speech gotten you? Nowhere. It's an illusion.

What do you mean?
Everything has consequences.
In the job interview I might not get the job.
With my lover, I doubt it would make much difference, we'll still be having intercourse.
I can't mow it into the law, because then I'd be damaging some one else's property. I wouldn't get in trouble for the message, I'd get in trouble for destruction of property that isn't mine.
Carving the message into Obama's head is assault, scratch that, murder since it's with bullets.
Nuclear missiles don't work so well in space. Look it up. You might see a quick flash of light, but there would be no blast. Only a huge amount of radiation emitted but not blast.

Your examples are stupid and deluded, can't you see that? None of them having a thing to do with Free speech, I'm beginning to think you have exactly zero idea of what Free Speech even is.

Just because one has the right of free speech doesn't mean anyone has to listen to it.

You complain about messages on this site curtailing your freedom of speech. This is a private site. Nothing at all prevents you from getting your own site dedicated to talking about how great whomever was. More power to you, no one is stopping you. While you're at it, you can post copy after copy of the bible or anything else you want and no one will ever ban you. Likely no one will ever talk to you either, but your freedom is there.
On your site you can tell anyone you want to take a flying leap and ban them to your heart's desire, because it'll be your site.
Property rights. A different thing than speech rights. No right can impede another's rights. If it does, that's not a right, it's theft or destruction.

Oh, and you broke Goodwin's Law you schmuck.

[Dukasaur]

Anyway, wealth can be measured in absolute terms such as money. Civil liberties cannot. Or, if you think you can devise a meaningful Unit of Freedom which is flexible enough to take in all the different things people mean when they say "freedom" by all means go ahead. Until then, the relative indices are all we have.

Why can't Freedom be measured in Dollars?

Why don't we measure mass in Kelvin or waiting times in Angstroms? Probably because using a scale that has a specific purpose for a very different purpose will result in misunderstandings at best or a dadaist state of incomprehensibility at worst.

Maybe you mean measuring our valuation of freedoms in dollars? You could say "I'm willing to pay ten thousand dollars for guaranteed freedom of speech." But assigning a value to it doesn't measure how much of it you have. If gas is worth 50 cents a gallon, it says nothing about how much a gallon is. And, if tomorrow the price goes up to 75 cents a gallon, the size of a gallon still hasn't changed.

Two Possible Arguments against this:
1)What do we measure our valuation of dollars in?

If a dollar buys an ounce of gold, and tomorrow a dollar buys half an ounce, has the size of a dollar changed? Has the value of gold changed? Now this may seem like mere wordplay, but if you think about various permutations of words "value, dollar, gold" and how they interplay with each other, the only possible conclusion is that wealth itself is merely the assignment of value to something. And as you yourself say: "assigning a value to it doesn't measure how much of it you have".

Exactly.

2) My main argument is that you miss the point completely. I am claiming that the terms wealth and freedom are interchangeable. How best to restrict someone's freedom? Steal or otherwise take their money. This is Libertarianism 101. I am not sure why you don't follow.

Sure, depriving someone of money will curtail their freedom, just as depriving someone of money will curtail their ability to gas up their car, but it still doesn't mean that you can measure freedom in dollars or gas in dollars.

In Moscow there have been some billionaires who thought that they were wealthy enough to get away with openly pointing out Putin's flaws. He had them jailed and/or killed nonetheless, proving them wrong. So, in Russia a billion dollars won't buy you freedom to criticize the President.

On the other hand, if you live in some isolated settlement in Northern Ontario, the only person really interested in constraining your actions is the local game warden, so a few hundred dollars a year to keep all your hunting and fishing tags up-to-date will buy you a hell of a lot of freedom.

So, sure you can trade wealth for freedom, but the exchange rate varies widely from time to time and from place to place.

Freedom of Speech is a terrible example in any case. It's a pipe-dream, a mere fantasy. Sure, you can have freedom of speech, but does that mean you say everything that pops into your head? I don't think so. Humans, as social creatures, are innately in tune with what is acceptable speech, regardless of any direct sanctions on speech. Humans who don't are classified as socially retarded.

Now, it is true that difficult to hear stuff does need to be said from time to time. This is the job of the artist. Great Art (by my definition) is art that says something you don't want to hear. It has to be confrontational, but it has to do it in a way that actually sends a message. For example, certain death metal bands are certainly confrontational - but other than "I eat Satan's Vagina" often the message itself is missing. That is confrontational by Form. Then you get the subversive confrontation. This is the best art, although new messages are few and far between. Most artists say the same thing over and over again until a brilliant mind comes who challenges the newest cliche.

Where I am going with this: A minor subset of Freedom of Speech exists for artists, most of whom don't deserve/need the freedom. Other variations on the theme are basically political catchphrasery.

Possibly true, but irrelevant. Sure, you are constrained by many things, but an Index of Freedom only measures constraint by government. Social mores and commercial considerations are dependent variables here.

[saxitoxin]

So, to sum up the arguments thus far ...

Pro-Palestine Side:


Pro-Israel Side:

[Metsfanmax]

So, to sum up the arguments thus far ...

Pro-Palestine Side:


Pro-Israel Side:

I still can't think of it as quite this simple. In particular, I wonder how history would have been different if the Palestinians (and Muslims in general) did not also lay claim to that particular piece of land for religious reasons.