January 27, 2011

David Kato, the Ugandan gay rights activist, beaten to death with a hammer.

The NYT reports:
Police officials were quick to chalk up the motive to robbery, but the small and increasingly besieged gay community in Uganda suspects otherwise.

“David’s death is a result of the hatred planted in Uganda by U.S Evangelicals in 2009,” said Val Kalende, the chairperson of one of Uganda’s gay rights groups, in a statement. “The Ugandan Government and the so-called U.S Evangelicals must take responsibility for David’s blood.”

Mrs. Kalende was referring to visits in March 2009 by a group of American evangelicals, who held rallies and workshops in Uganda discussing how to make gay people straight, how gay men sodomized teenage boys and how “the gay movement is an evil institution” intended to “defeat the marriage-based society.”

The Americans involved said they had no intention of stoking a violent reaction. But the anti-gay bill came shortly thereafter.

158 comments:

Anonymous said...

This man wasn't killed during a robbery ... even though that's what the government says happened.

No, says the NY Times, he was killed by US conservatives ...just like Gabby.

Jared Loughner is probably laughing his ass off.

TWM said...

Damn Presbytarians . . . fricken Muslims pale in comparison.

traditionalguy said...

I Blame Bush.

Anonymous said...

25th paragraph:

"Friends said that Mr. Kato had recently put an alarm system in his house and was killed by an acquaintance, someone who had been inside several times before and was seen by neighbors on Wednesday. Mr. Kato’s neighborhood is known as a rough one, and several people have recently been beaten to death with iron bars there."

So, he wasn't killed because he was gay. He wasn't killed by Sarah Palin. He wasn't killed by evangelicals, or US conservatives.

His friend killed him in his "rough neighborhood" where many have been killed.

25th paragraph.

TWM said...

"So, he wasn't killed because he was gay. He wasn't killed by Sarah Palin. He wasn't killed by evangelicals, or US conservatives."

IDK, you sure his friend wasn't a Presbytarian?

Anonymous said...

I don't know the truth of this event.

But, it's pretty clear the Times is trying to manufacture a martyr.

Anonymous said...

29th paragraph:

"Mr. Kato’s death does not appear to be a hate crime, though the investigation has just started. 'It looks like theft, as some thing's were stolen,' Mrs. Nabakooba said."

29th paragraph

lucid said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

"IDK, you sure his friend wasn't a Presbytarian?"

No, but I'm fairly sure that Andrew Sullivan is about to initiate a hard-target search for the killer in Sarah Palin's uterus.

JH said...

great find Florida

Anonymous said...

"Hard to know what really happened."

No, it's not hard.

His friend killed him in a robbery.

His gayness had nothing whatsoever to do with it according to the NY Times, which reported that this does not appear to be a hate crime.

lucid said...

Hard to know what really happened. To me it seems to be more of a personal crime by someone he knew. A hammer is really an instrument of personal hatred, an attempt to obliterate. It's not the same as beating someone up because their sexuality makes you nervous.

But count on the NYTimes to turn it into a cliche with a political agenda. It is a wonder that people who read the Times are able to think at all.

The truth is that most journalists are not that smart, not very deep, and not really expert in the subjects they cover. They have what is really a superficial knowledge of their subjects and the appearance of knowledge and authority comes from appearing in print.

They are adept at giving the appearance of knowledge and authority without having the substance. Thus their reliance on cliches, moralizing, political agendsa, and stereotypes.

Dust Bunny Queen said...

Oh for Crimeny's sake (see not taking the Lord's name in vain)

Uganda has a gay rights group? Seriously? I guess this means that their economy and political situation is all hunky dory now since people have time to worry about Gay Rights.

lucid said...

@Florida.

Yeah, the Times buries that fact in the 25th paragraph, after all the cliched political explanations are first given credence by the judicious use of quotes and tendentious phrasings.

Automatic_Wing said...

The NYT's readership doesn't have much interest in reading about dead Africans unless the story can make them feel superior to other Americans. Hence the US evangelical angle.

The Crack Emcee said...

Florida,

This man wasn't killed during a robbery ... even though that's what the government says happened.

No, says the NY Times, he was killed by US conservatives ...just like Gabby.

Jared Loughner is probably laughing his ass off.


Yep. It sounds exactly like the same slight-of-hand journalism.

Haven't these people ever read "The Boy Who Cried 'Wolf'" before?

KCFleming said...

The NYTimes:
All the fake but accurate stories that fit.

It's the upscale version of the Nat'l Enquirer.

Fred4Pres said...

Of course those Christians killing gays. They are worse than the Muslims.

Or not.

But roll with it. It makes a good fundraising point for gay rights groups.

Kirby Olson said...

M.O. Check Sarah Palin's passport and find out if she has a hammer with bloodstains on it anywhere on her website or has ever spoken about "hammering" the Democrats. Go through her high school yearbook, go through her elementary school diaries to see if she has ever used the word "hammer," even if in a carpentry context. If so, front page headline: Palin Hammers Gay Activist in Uganda To Death.

Fen said...

Gee, its almost as if there's a list of journolists all coordinating on the narative... nah

coketown said...

Naturally, I think the plight of gays in Africa is a tragedy that deserves attention, but this story is not the vehicle to do it. I suspect the NYT had a story on gay hate crimes in Uganda drafted for months and was just waiting for a good time to spring it.

Compare the NYT's coverage with the BBC's and you'll see the political bias pretty clearly. The New York Times neglects to mention that the main suspect in Kato's death is his roommate, who is still on the run. Another suspect is in custody. They also ignore Uganda's deep history of violent crimes and the extreme poverty of the area in which Kato lived, where iron-bar attacks are extremely common.

Pinning the blame on an Evangelical workshop hosted two years ago is desperate, and I hope most people's bullshit meters went haywire after reading that article. By all means, draw attention to the oppression of gays in Uganda and their government's scandalous treatment of homosexuals there. But spare us these jerry-rigged concoctions that try too hard to hit all the right bogeymen: Evangelicals, homophobes, bigots.

PJ said...

There's a template for that:
http://abcnews.go.com/2020/Story?id=277685&page=1

AllenS said...

I'm not signed in to the NYT to be able to read the article. Did The Althouse Woman read the 25th and 29th paragraphs? That would have made a lot of difference knowing what was contained in those two paragraphs, instead of the paragraphs highlighted in this thread.

Trooper York said...

What shame that Kato was killed just as the Green Hornet movie came out.

Trooper York said...

What too soon?

Anonymous said...

" ... and I hope most people's bullshit meters went haywire after reading that article."

How can readers' bullshit meters go haywire when the NY Times supresses facts that don't support their false narrative?

Their story does not even contain the word: "roommate."

I had to read the story very carefully to find, buried in the 25th paragraph, that he was killed by an "acquaintance" known to neighbors and not until the 29th paragraph to discover that this wasn't a gay hate crime.

The NY Times is just no longer a credible news organization.

Why Althouse feels the need to link to it so often is beyond my comprehension. There are many fine news organizations that do not go out of their way to create false stories.

It's a disservice that she's sending eyeballs to their advertisers on stories such as this one that are clearly false narratives.

Why not reward real news organizations instead with those eyeballs?

madAsHell said...

Is that you Sheriff Dupnik?

William said...

There's a subtext of racism in this article. It seems to indicate that blacks are not capable of homophobia without prompting from white evangelicals.....The last refuge of white supremacy is the left's belief in the supremacy of white evil. Nothing is truly evil unless it has a white etiology. It says here that blacks are just as inclined to homophobia as whites and that Christianity would mitigate and not aggravate their homophobia. Conversion to Islam, on the other hand, would sanctify the prejudice.

TMink said...

Fred Phelps traveled to Uganda in 2009? Who knew?

Phelps is not even an Evangelical his is a sick fuck who hides his racism and bigotry behind Christianity.

I guess nobody on the more flamboyant side of the gay rights movement understands how much the hyperbole and drama turn people off. And how many gay folks have Evangelicals killed in the last two days compared to the Taliban?

I think the score is 0 to 2. If that fact is not included in the narrative, nobody will give any consideration to the idea. If a camper is eaten, look for the bear, you can ignore the bunny.

Trey

TMink said...

William, what an outstanding post. I will endeavor to write more like you.

Trey

FedkaTheConvict said...

You guys know exactly why Althouse lends a sympathetic ear and links to these stories. It doesn't matter how far-fetched the story appears....

Unknown said...

Black people in some parts of the world seem to be a lot less tolerant of homosexuality.

In Jamaica, there is no attempt to hide the general dislike for the practice.

PS Troop, Ann is gonna tell your mother on you.

Anonymous said...

"Black people in some parts of the world seem to be a lot less tolerant of homosexuality."

Barack Obama opposes gay marriage.

So, you're right. Black people in some parts of the world - namely the United States - are not tolerant of practices they find immoral and outside the mainstream.

Eric said...

It's hard for me to imagine a few evangelicals running workshops for the locals were able to instill murderous hate in people who didn't feel it already.

Time to get new timber to support the creaky narrative. This plank is warped and laden with termites.

Anonymous said...

It is, apparently, hatred to claim that God has given us a law to live by and that to violate that is a sin in God's eyes.

Never mind that God send his Son to pay the price of all sin, and who happily and readily erases yours upon simple repentance.

Never mind that God's law might have been given in love as a guide to living a more abundant and joyful life.

These are concepts too difficult for the left who only see hatred if someone points to a claimed superior way of life.

Are there Pharisaic Christians that condemn where Christ forgives? Yes. Are all Christians like that? Certainly not.

I'm Full of Soup said...

Americans are still No. 1 at being blamed for everything.

Trooper York said...

You know they are killing African Christian's and aminists everyday in Darfu because of who they are and the New York Times doesn't feel like that is worthy of a story. At least not recently.

Why is that I wonder?

DADvocate said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
DADvocate said...

We need a page in the newspaper with just the news. It used to be the editorial page was for editorializing and the rest of the paper for straight news, uh, objective news. Now it's all editorializing. (Which is what it's been all along. It's just more obviouis now.)

Uganda sends Christian missionaries to the U.S. The pastor at my Catholic church in rural Kentucky is Ugandan. Should gay people in our community be nervous? Sometimes, but not because of this priest.

Anonymous said...

"It's hard for me to imagine a few evangelicals running workshops for the locals were able to instill murderous hate in people who didn't feel it already."

Especially since the evangelicals left in 2009 ... two years ago.

That's the false narrative. The NY Times is staffed by haters, people who hate it when Christians counsel gays to go straight and to get right with God (before the Muslims sone them).

And so Jeffrey Gettleman - who because he is gay should not be reporting this story - ginned up this false narrative and the NY Times has tried to pass it off as the truth.

Kato was killed by his "roommate" in a crime of passion and robbery, according to BBC Uganda - which has a reporter actually in Uganda.

NY Times "reporter" Jeffrey Gettlemen is not even in Uganda. He is in Nairobi, Kenya. Exactly how he can "report" a story when he is not even in the same country where the event occurred is beyond my comprehension.

BBC Uganda doesn't say explicitly that the roommate was Kato's gay lover.

But they infer it anyway.

Trooper York said...

The priest who filled in this summer for our pastor was from Uganda. A finer and more holy man would be hard to find.

People like the pissants at the New York Times just don't think African's are real people who can decide things for themselves. Just like they think they have to tell the rest of us what to do.

I wouldn't use the New York Times to pick up dogshit.

The only thing worse than a journalist is a lawyer.

ricpic said...

Titus told me that although he's willing to put up with India in his ongoing search for ultimate hog he draws the line at Uganda.

Anonymous said...

"I wouldn't use the New York Times to pick up dogshit."

You, sir, have now gone over the line.

Picking up dogshit is in fact the best use for the NY Times that has so far been invented.

I demand you retract your hasty sentiment.

David said...

That's right. Because Africans are otherwise so pro gay rights.

SteveR said...

If they didn't have easily available hammers in Uganda this would not have happened.

Emil Blatz said...

I's say he was killed by the fact that it was not a Nerf (tm) hammer.

Phil 314 said...

This is not the first time such a connection has been made, requiring a denial/denunciation.

Trooper York said...

You know they really should institute a ten day waiting period before you can buy a hammer. Now you can just walk into a hardware store and buy a hammer without any identity check or anything.

Anonymous said...

Uganda's pretty tough. I understand they have rustlers, cut throats, murderers, bounty hunters, desperadoes, mugs, pugs, thugs, nitwits, halfwits, dimwits, vipers, snipers, con men, Indian agents, Mexican bandits, muggers, buggerers, bushwhackers, hornswogglers, horse thieves, bull dykes, train robbers, bank robbers, ass-kickers, shit-kickers and Methodists.

jr565 said...

I blame the Beatles "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" which outlines how to kill people with hammers. Paul McCartney is a murderer. Though, we already knew that since the days of Helter Skelter.

jr565 said...

Florida wrote:
You, sir, have now gone over the line.

Picking up dogshit is in fact the best use for the NY Times that has so far been invented.

I demand you retract your hasty sentiment.

If you get the Sunday edition you can pick up shit with it for about 3 weeks, PLUS line your birdcage with it. Not to mention the crossword puzzles. That's some serious value.

Gabriel Hanna said...

Suppose that the President of Iran came to the US Congress, talked about how evil gays are, and suggested that the US adopt laws against gays similar to those that exist in Iran.

If any American Congressmen then voted for those laws, who would we hold responsible? We would hold the American Congressmen responsible, not the President of Iran. He had not power to change our laws, only our government can do that. We would blame our own government and hold them responsible.

Apparently, black Africans are children who are not to be held morally responsible for their decisions. This is what progressives really think.

Anonymous said...

"This is what regressives really think."

FIFY

MayBee said...

Perhaps he was even killed by a gay lover.

AlphaLiberal said...

There is nothing so hateful that conservatives will not defend it.

So evangelicals go to Uganda, preach hate against homosexuals to thousands of peoples and a month later Uganda takes up a law meting out death penalty to homosexuals.

American conservatives have no problem with that. All they care about is if someone points out the consequences of the preachings of the false prophets.

For three days, according to participants and audio recordings, thousands of Ugandans, including police officers, teachers and national politicians, listened raptly to the Americans, who were presented as experts on homosexuality. The visitors discussed how to make gay people straight, how gay men often sodomized teenage boys and how “the gay movement is an evil institution” whose goal is “to defeat the marriage-based society and replace it with a culture of sexual promiscuity.”

Preaching hate, after all, is core to the existence of the modern conservative.

For example, last year a Latino family was shot dead by Minuteman leaders near Tucson Arizona, including a 9 year old girl. The news media has barely covered this.

Conservatives do not criticize or denounce those murders, either.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

You know they are killing African Christian's and aminists everyday in Darfu because of who they are and the New York Times doesn't feel like that is worthy of a story. At least not recently.

There was Cristian Missionary woman killed just south of the border.

Not one word in the NYT.

Gabriel Hanna said...

Didn't Alpha Liberal flounce? I thought Althouse was such a stew of racism and violent rhetoric that his conscience prevented him having anything more to do with her?

See what I did there? AL's conscience. A joke.

Anyway, AL, please justify for us why you think Africans are children who are not responsible for doing something bad, if white people gave them the idea.

Racist. Those gays in Uganda are just a prop for you and your fellow progressives.

It wasn't "conservatives" who went to Uganda, and it isn't "conservatives" who made Uganda's laws, and it's not "conservatives" who are killing gays in Africa.

AlphaLiberal said...

Report from Uganda

From one of the false prophets. He talks about reaching 1,000s of people with his message of hate and lies about gays, and in describing gays as preying on children.

http://www.defendthefamily.com/pfrc/archives.php?id=2345952

Jesus never preached against homosexuals. The Book of Leviticus is selectively used by the false prophets, ignoring many bizarre passages they do not listen to, many in close proximity to the passage they cling to for their hate.

"...he wasn't killed because he was gay."

That conclusion does not follow at all from the text you showed. the acquaintance could have been harassing him.

It would be nice, just once, if a conservative would criticize hatred preached by other cons. Does not happen.

Moose said...

Didn't even look - did they manage to work Sarah Palin into the story? Surely she had something to do with it...

MayBee said...

American conservatives have no problem with that. All they care about is if someone points out the consequences of the preachings of the false prophets.

Who is ok with it?
Do you think Ugandans are less able to handle such speeches than, say, Americans are able to handle Fred Phelps?

Gabriel Hanna said...

@Alpha Liberal:

Quit making excuses for your racism and patriarchal attitudes toward balck Africans, and the go die in a fire, troll.

Africans are adults who are capable of making their own decisions. Who taught Muslims in Nigeria to kill gays? It's been going on for a long time.

But Alpha Lib the Great White Father knows what's best for those Africans, why they can't think of anything unless white people told them about it, right Alpha Lib?

Racist troll.

AlphaLiberal said...

Mother describes border vigilante killings in Arizona

Reporting from Tucson —
As her mother tells it, 9-year-old Brisenia Flores had begged the border vigilantes who had just broken into her house, "Please don't shoot me."

But they did — in the face at point-blank range, prosecutors allege, as Brisenia's father sat dead on the couch and her mother lay on the floor, pretending that she too had been killed in the gunfire.


and...

Shortly before 1 a.m. on May 30, 2009, Gonzalez was woken by her husband, who told her that police seemed to be at the door. The two went to the front room, where their daughter Brisenia was sleeping on the couch so she could be close to her new dog.

There were two people in camouflage outside — a short, heavyset woman who did all the talking and a tall man carrying a rifle and pistol, his face blackened by greasepaint, Gonzalez said. The woman told them they were accused of harboring fugitives and needed to open the door.

Once the pair were inside, the man —identified by authorities as Jason Bush — told Flores, "Don't take this personal, but this bullet has your name on it," Gonzalez testified Tuesday.

According to testimony, Bush shot Flores, then Gonzalez. Gonzalez was hit in the shoulder and leg and slumped to the floor. She testified that she played dead as she heard Bush pump more bullets into her husband as Brisenia woke up.

"Why did you shoot my dad?" the girl asked, sobbing, according to Gonzalez's testimony. "Why did you shoot my mom?"

Gonzalez said she heard Bush slowly reload his gun and that he then ignored Brisenia's pleas and fired.

More men entered the house and ransacked the place. After they left, Gonzalez called 911. On a tape of the recording, played for the jury Tuesday, she suddenly realized that the attackers were returning, and crawled to the kitchen to grab her husband's gun.


Right wingers keep on killing.

Calypso Facto said...

O/T, but too funny to pass up:

Jay Carney -- the communications director for Vice President Joe Biden -- will be named the new White House press secretary

Biden had a communications director? And someone thought he was worth promoting?!?

Anonymous said...

It would be nice, just once, if a conservative would criticize hatred preached by other cons. Does not happen.

Nice change of subject, Omega.

The issue is, who really killed Kato?

You don't know. I don't know. According to this and other articles, Kato may have been killed by his own roommate.

You might wait until you know the facts before you start to work with the martyrdom manufacture.

But, that wouldn't serve your purpose. You're more interested in performing a Dupnik.

Gabriel Hanna said...

Don't feed the troll. Let Alpha Liberal peddle his racist bullshit; let him double down if he wants. Just ignore him.

Anonymous said...

And, now Omega, you've changed the subject yet again, accusing the commenters on this site of approving of murders that I suspect most of us weren't even aware had occurred.

Any more wild accusations you'd like to make without any sort of proof?

You've strayed to the other side of the world, and you don't seem to have anything specific to say about Kato's killing, which is in fact what this posting is about.

Lumping crimes all over the world together in a sort of random fashion may amuse you. Most of us tend (at least those of us who are sane) tend to judge a single incident on its merits.

coketown said...

@alphaliberal: From the very article you linked to: "Shortly after her arrest, members of the Minutemen movement disavowed her, saying they did not trust her and that she had stayed on its fringes."

So much for nobody disavowing her actions. But very clever using a story about a Ugandan to segue into a story about some lunatic in Arizona. I guess since there's brown victims in both stories, you feel they're intrinsically connected. Racist.

Gabriel Hanna said...

Who taught African Muslims to kill gays?

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

In the 12 northern states that have adopted Shari'a law, anal intercourse (Liwat) is punished with 100 lashes (for unmarried Muslim men) and one year's imprisonment and death by stoning for married or divorced Muslim men.

Africans have been killing gays for a long time, but American leftists don't care unless they can use them as against American conservatives.

The Ugandans who kill gay people are evil. The Ugandans who pass laws making homosexuality a capital offense are evil. To approve of those laws is also evil, but not nearly as evil as actually killing people.

But to the Left, Africans are children, incapable of thinking for themselves and not repsonsible for their actions. Alpha Liberal proved that on his own, without my help.

Anonymous said...

"The Book of Leviticus is selectively used by the false prophets ..."

Alphaliberal ... why are you calling Mohammed a "false prophet?"

These are clearly the mad ramblings of a raving Islamaphobe.

They will catch up to you and make you pay for your hate speech against American Muslims.

I can't imagine that Ann will allow these anti-Muslim slurs to remain posted on her blog any more than she'd allow Jew-haters to post here.

But she does like to let folks hang themselves with their own rope, so maybe she'll let your anti-Islamic speech remain.

Calypso Facto said...

Damn, that was a REALLY effective visit from those evangelists: "In Africa, homosexuality is illegal for gay men in 29 countries" (Africa Online News)

Or...not: "there are outspoken policies towards homosexuality, mostly founded in the Shari' a law"

Eric said...

We need a page in the newspaper with just the news. It used to be the editorial page was for editorializing and the rest of the paper for straight news, uh, objective news. Now it's all editorializing. (Which is what it's been all along. It's just more obviouis now.)

Funny you should mention that. I ran across something earlier today on wikipedia which made me laugh. It's from the page on the Union general George Meade:

“Following an incident in June 1864, in which Meade disciplined reporter Edward Cropsey from The Philadelphia Inquirer newspaper for an unfavorable article, all of the press assigned to his army agreed to mention Meade only in conjunction with setbacks. Meade apparently knew nothing of this arrangement, and the reporters giving all of the credit to Grant angered Meade.”

Gabriel Hanna said...

BTW, did we all notice Alpha Liberal's careful ommissions in what he quoted about the "border vigilante"?

Prosecutors allege that in May 2009, Shawna Forde decided to strike an odd alliance with drug dealers in southern Arizona: Forde would help the traffickers ransack their rivals' houses for stashes of drugs and cash, which could then fund her fledgling group, Minutemen American Defense.


She killed them for drugs and money, not because they were Mexican. Some reason you left that out of your story? Maybe because all you care about is politics, you don't give a shit about murder?

Alpha Liberal, you are a liar and a troll, die in a fire. kthxbye

Eric said...

There is nothing so hateful that conservatives will not defend it.

Hey Al, you should probably read what other people write before you go off impugning their character.

Liberals seem to have a problem identifying cause and effect relationships. Maybe that's the problem.

Anonymous said...

Alpha Liberal, you are a liar and a troll...

I'd say he something worse than that.

He's looking to make political hay out of murder, and apparently just about any murder he can find anywhere in the world.

I don't know what you call a person who does that, but it's pretty damned low.

Maybe we should call such a person a... Dupnik.

Anonymous said...

"Right wingers keep on killing."

Alpha ... do you relly believe that if "right-wingers" wanted to kill you liberals there'd only be one dead person?

As heavily armed as we are?

I can go down to the Wally World and buy thousands of rounds of ammo on any given Wednesday.

The reason nobody gets excited about "right wing killers" is that they're a figment of your fucking imagination. Your narrative fails because it isn't even remotely believeable.

If "right-wingers" wanted liberals dead, you wouldn't be able to walk down the sidewalk without tripping over bodies everywhere.

Be happy we only want you out of office.

garage mahal said...

Who taught Muslims in Nigeria to kill gays?

Why do you keep bringing up Nigeria when the topic is Uganda? Is it because Uganda is 84% Christian? Yea, I think that's about right for a hack like yourself.

Anonymous said...

Does it matter if this particular murder was a result of the efforts of American evangelicals?

No, not so much.

What matters much more is that American evangelicals are so fucking evil and hypocritical that they can go to a foreign country, drum up hate, and encourage that country's government to start harassing and maybe murdering its gay people.

But, eh, all you conservatives seem to be a-okay with that. You speak of it like there is nothing wrong with it at all.

Aren't you a ashamed of that? Or at least ashamed of what these people are doing in the name of your God?

Ankur said...

"Alpha ... do you relly believe that if "right-wingers" wanted to kill you liberals there'd only be one dead person?

As heavily armed as we are?"

And THAT is why I believe leftists should rediscover the second amendment instead of trying to curtail it. It's a balance of power issue, after all.

In fact, I think people should be allowed to buy tanks from private corporations. Wouldn't it be nice to be able to drive down to the nearest Tank dealership and buy a tricked out M41 with leather seats, navigation, multi-CD less than 10k miles, most of it in off road conditions? Of course, all tanks come pre-equipped with sun-roofs/moon-roofs. In peacetime, they could be used as tractors/bobcats, to level earth for planting lawns, to take down messy trees, and the machine gun could be modified to spray brush-be-gone for clearing out weed.

Automatic_Wing said...

Julius - This guy had his head bashed in by his boyfriend. It had nothing to do with the hated evangelicals.

But I guess that doesn't matter or something? Fake but accurate?

Gabriel Hanna said...

The whole troll brigade is here! You guys got a batsignal? I assume it's in the shape of a giant butthurt.

@garage mahal:

Is it because Uganda is 84% Christian? Yea, I think that's about right for a hack like yourself.

I'm an atheist, have said so here many times, and argued against Christianity many times, hack.

The reason Nigeria is relevant is because hatred of homsexuals is endemic in Africa, Christian and Muslim alike, hack.

@Julius:But, eh, all you conservatives seem to be a-okay with that. You speak of it like there is nothing wrong with it at all.


Nobody here said it's okay to kill gays.

Why don't you go to Africa and straighten it out, Julius? You're white, right, they'll do whatever you say, right? Africans don't think for themselves and aren't responsible for anything they do, only their Great White Fathers are, right? That's why you blame people on other continents for stuff Africans do.

Gabriel Hanna said...

Uganda's governments, and those of other African countries, have been killing gays for decades, trolls. you don;t care enough to inform yourself on the issue; you're just flogging their corpses for Democratic votes.

Anonymous said...

Does it matter if this particular murder was a result of the efforts of American evangelicals?

Does it matter whether you actually know what happened?

Because you don't.

Another Dupnik, politicizing murder for personal profit. How much lower can you get?

That makes you a lowlife, Julius.

David said...

From Christianity Today, March 1, 2004:

American Missionaries, Local Student Killed in Uganda
Couple was willing to help anyone, anywhere, anytime.
By Rob Moll

March 1, 2004
An American missionary couple who have worked in Africa for five years were killed in Uganda last week. After dark on the evening of Thursday, March 18, a group of between five and seven men, dressed in military uniforms, attacked and shot Warren and Donna Pett near their home in the district of Yumbe.

The Petts, originally dairy farmers from Brookfield, Wisconsin, outside Milwaukee, have worked since 1998 in Uganda, Zaire, and Kenya with the Africa Inland Mission (AIM). "They are truly beloved people because they had great hearts," said Mel Lawrenz, senior pastor of Elmbrook Church. "They served the youth ministry here, willing to help anybody, anywhere, anytime, which is why they were willing to go to Uganda."

Selling the farm for missions
Elmbrook annually hosts a Harvest Festival, in which missionaries and other international guests speak to the church on missions. "Warren and Donna heard the stories and saw the faces of people who had gone before them and made these decisions, and I think that had an impact on them," said Scott Arbeiter, Elmbrook's senior associate pastor . In 1997, the Petts sold their 100-year-old family farm and headed to Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo).

They maintained strong contacts with the church, however, and were home as recently as January to visit Donna's ill mother. "I think one of the reasons for the shock in the congregation is because of how wide their connections were," said Lawrenz. "I've been hearing from all the kids in the youth ministry who remember spending time at their farm. They got very personally connected with the young people that they were involved with."

Gabriel Hanna said...

Zimbabwe's Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai has joined President Robert Mugabe in dismissing calls to enshrine gay rights in the new constitution.

"I totally agree with the president," he said, state media report.

Homosexual acts are currently illegal in Zimbabwe. Mr Mugabe once said gays were "worse than pigs and dogs", sparking international condemnation.

Gay rights have become a controversial issue in several African countries in recent months.

Mr Tsvangirai joined his long-time rival Mr Mugabe in a power-sharing government a year ago but relations between the two men remain tense.


President Mugabe told a belated celebration of International Women's Day that he had recently learned of moves to introduce gay rights in the new constitution currently being discussed.

"That issue is not debatable, it's not up for discussion," he said, according to the state-owned Herald newspaper.

"It is just madness, insanity. The ancestors will turn in their graves should we allow this to happen."

And Mr Tsvangirai said he agreed.

"Women make up 52% of the population... There are more women than men, so why should men be proposing to men?"


Mugabe regards homsexuality as an unAfrican colonial imposition. Where did Mugabe learned that kind of talk? From Republicans and conservatives, right, who always go one about colonialism, right? He's been talking like that for twenty years. Where was the troll brigade?

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

So let me see if I got the new guilty by whatever means necessary ala Tucson Palin & Rush..

Kato went to Uganda to make amends for letting a guilty murderer walk free by not telling the whole truth to the police and when he testified.

Now he himself has fallen at the hands of another OJ like criminal..

See.. I can do guilt by association too.. liberal is easy, comedy is hard.

Gabriel Hanna said...

@Julius:

From Wikipedia, LGBT rights in Uganda:

Note: Prior to 2000, only male homosexuality was criminalized, then in 2000 under the Penal Code Amendment (Gender References) Act 2000 all references to "any male" was changed to "any person" so that lesbianism was also criminalized as well.

Where were you and the other trolls twelve years ago?

Anonymous said...

And, of course, Uganda is just a peaceful country where murder is virtually unknown, right?

For instance, from Wikipedia, during Idi Amin's reign as dictator (1971-79):

The killings, motivated by ethnic, political and financial factors, continued throughout Amin's eight-year reign.[31] The exact number of people killed is unknown. The International Commission of Jurists estimated the death toll at no fewer than 80,000 and more likely around 300,000. An estimate compiled by exile organizations with the help of Amnesty International puts the number killed at 500,000.

Read a little bit about the history of Uganda. Political violence isn't unusual in Uganda. It's endemic.

Calypso Facto said...

GH said "hatred of homsexuals is endemic in Africa, Christian and Muslim alike"

Don't forget about the Rastafaris. Against homosexuality big time and a sizable population in Uganda.

Not that religion usually matters much when a guy kills and robs his roommate (despite what the NYT would like you to think), but, you know, I like to be fair.

tim maguire said...

Those evangelicals sure wield some awesome powers, don't they? They walk into a community, make a speech demonizing a heretofore beloved class of citizens, and in no time those citizens are being murdered while the government passes laws against them.

Those evangelicals sure wield some awesome powers, don't they?

Methadras said...

Well, at least he didn't get fisted to death.

TMink said...

Alpha, show me the hate.

The last time you said something like this you put up a link to a video that showed you to be a hysteric.

Show me the hate or nobody will believe you.

Trey

garage mahal said...

Those evangelicals sure wield some awesome powers, don't they? They walk into a community, make a speech demonizing a heretofore beloved class of citizens, and in no time those citizens are being murdered while the government passes laws against them.

I'm sure these crackpot evangelicals like Scott Lively, who travel to Uganda on Junkets for Jesus, have conferences in Uganda dubbed "Seminar on Exposing the Homosexuals' Agenda", are doing this because they feel it will have no effect whatsoever. Meeting with religious and political leaders in Uganda is purely coincidental.

James Inhofe-

Inhofe is just as blunt when it comes to spreading God's word. On December 21, 2008, the Oklahoman ran a story that might have become a major scandal had it not appeared so close to Christmas.* During the previous nine years, Inhofe had taken 20 international trips, spending at least $187,000 in public money—not including the cost of military transport—to promote what he called "a Jesus thing." He visited Eastern Europe and the Middle East, but his real focus was Africa, especially Uganda, a country he has adopted as a personal responsibility.

You can talk all you want about these loons have no power over people in Africa, but obviously they all disagree with you.

Anonymous said...

You can talk all you want about these loons have no power over people in Africa, but obviously they all disagree with you.

A complete distraction, garage, since you don't know the cause or perpetrator of this murder.

Another vicious Dupnik, attempting to profit politically from murder.

You really are a low bastard.

This is the lowest you've sunk so far, bastard.

Anonymous said...

So, now, we've got three lowlife son-of-a-bitches trying to score political points over a murder on the other side of the world, even though they don't have a fucking clue about the particulars of this murder.

Three Dupniks:

garage
Julius
Omega

What lowlife fucks!

pavlova8 said...

Between the work of the missionaries and the army nobody will be safe. I read somewhere that the US military are in more than 150 countries around the world, with more than 369,000 of its 1,580,255 active-duty personnel serving outside the United States and its territories. Many of these personnel are still located at installations activated during the Cold War and since 2001 the US has redeployed some of its forces to the middle east.
Combat zones
Iraq - Approximately 50,000 US personnel (advisors) as of 19 Aug, 2010.
Afghanistan – Approximately 98,000 US personnel as of 25 Aug, 2010.
Africa
Djibouti, Africa – 3,500
Kenya - 42
Cairo, Egypt – 52
Sinai Desert, Egypt - Approximately 500 personnel..
Asia
South Korea – 28,500
Japan – 32,803
Philippines - 95
Diego Garcia - 311
Jakarta, Indonesia - 27
Singapore – 125
Thailand – 96
Malaysia - 15
Oceania
Australia - 140
Marshall Islands - 17
New Zealand - 5
Europe


US military bases in Germany in 2009.
Germany – 57,080
Souda Bay, Greece - 386
Italy – 9,855
United Kingdom – 9,825
Spain – 1,286
Norway - 81
Sweden - 12
Belgium – 1,328
Portugal – 826
Netherlands – 579
Greece – 363
Greenland - 126
France - 55
Poland - 100
Turkey – 1,594
Kosovo - 830
Middle East
Qatar – 8,029
Bahrain – 1,495
Kuwait - 10,548
Oman - 36
United Arab Emirates - 96
Western Hemisphere
Antigua - 2
Colombia - 123
Saint Helena - 3
Guantanamo Bay, Cuba – 932
Netherlands Antilles - 10

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

While we are all hailing accusations back and forth..

I just want to say that baby jesus never condemned homosexuals.. so while we all may have the right to point fingers and and engage in all kinds of free speech while you are pointing the finger at "Christians" bear in mind that people do and have done all kinds of terrible things in his name.. but that in no way makes the baby jesus i pray to responsible.

Now go ahead and level all that whatever you want to call it (dont want to run afoul of the new civility) at me ;)

knox said...

The reason Nigeria is relevant is because hatred of homsexuals is endemic in Africa, Christian and Muslim alike

Sad, but true.

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

Do we have any other vicious Dupniks out there eager to score political points over a murder of a man they don't even know?

Certainly, the real point of this must be to score political points. Finding the actual murderer is secondary. The death of Kato seems to be of no importance but the scoring of propaganda points.

Any more Dupniks want to weight in on this?

dbp said...

Two things:

1. Something must be done about hammer-violence in Africa.

2. How is it that a handful of American evangelicals can turn all of Uganda against homosexuals, but are utterly powerless to do the same here?

Anonymous said...

So, what is behind the determination of our Three Dupniks to make this murder into a political martyrdom?

Same as the Tucson massacre.

Here's the logic. If you're opposed to the gay activist agenda, you think that murdering gays is acceptable. In fact, you might be "dog whistling" loonies out there in the hope that they will murder gays.

So, of course, all opposition to the gay activist agenda must be silenced, lest it incite the loons.

garage, in particular, is an evil SOB in this debate. He's advocating censorship of his political opponents, branding them as accessories in any potential murders he regard as political, while at the same time denying that he's advocating censorship.

Anonymous said...

Is there supposed to be some sort of point to that list of US military deployments? Perhaps those 42 guys stationed in Kenya snuck over one night with a bag of $500 US Army hammers.

garage mahal said...

How is it that a handful of American evangelicals can turn all of Uganda against homosexuals, but are utterly powerless to do the same here?

I think you just answered yourself. Because they can't do it here.

bagoh20 said...

"His gayness had nothing whatsoever to do with it..."

Gays tend to have nicer stuff than the average. So maybe it did.

Anonymous said...

PAVLOVA:

Between the work of the missionaries and the army nobody will be safe. I read somewhere that the US military are in more than 150 countries around the world, with more than 369,000 of its 1,580,255

Count the countries on your list.
Equal 150?

Sweden - 12 Antigua - 2 Saint Helena - 3 Netherlands Antilles - 10..what kind of 'base' has these numbers of total personnel?

Lincolntf said...

Where were the Ugandan Sociologists Association when we needed them?

Anonymous said...

We've got groups of Yankee preachers,
Teaching us to fake we're straight;
We've got the Minister of Ethics,
Telling us we've earned his hate.
Now it's all designed to blow our minds,
But our minds will never be blown,
Like the hammer that'll hit cha
When you git your pictcha
On the cover of the Rolling Stone.

Rolling Stone, gonna see my picture on the cover,
Find some way to hide it from my mother,
Gonna see my lifeless face
On the cover of the Rolling Stone.

Caroline said...

pavlova8: Between the work of the missionaries and the army nobody will be safe.

I just heard a bell ring. Time for another cookie. Or cake, if you prefer.

Phil 314 said...

AL;
You left out a key fact from the Shauna Ford home invasion and killing story. Yes there is a connection with two of the three suspect to a Minuteman group, however note what the now famous Sheriff Dupnik stated :

The trio are alleged to have dressed as law enforcement officers and forced their way into a home about 10 miles north of the Mexican border in rural Arivaca on May 30, wounding a woman and fatally shooting her husband and their 9-year-old daughter. Their motive was financial, Dupnik said.

Paints a slightly different picture

Sprezzatura said...

"Given the state Uganda's in I wouldn't rule out this being a hate crime, but I wouldn't rule out it being just a regular crime either."

Too bad this comment didn't come earlier in the thread. There was a lot of blather before someone made this obvious point.

Though, I'd tip the scales toward 'regular crime.' But that says more about me than it does about the state of affairs in Uganda. Unlike, it seems, many here, I am not a Ugandan expert--never even been there. So, my judgements/interpretations are based on what I do know and what I have experienced/witnessed, which is not Uganda.

Revenant said...

Didn't Alpha Liberal flounce?

I thought he got banned for repeated slander. I forget.

Phil 314 said...

I read somewhere ...

Pavlova;
Never use that phrase. Everything after will seem meaningless

Methadras said...

Ankur said...

And THAT is why I believe leftists should rediscover the second amendment instead of trying to curtail it. It's a balance of power issue, after all.


That wouldn't work, since leftards only believe in disarmament for everyone. They think if responsible countries like the US disarm that rogue states like the DPRK and Iran will too. They are idiots and AlphaLiar continues to peddle his nonsense. He's a clueless drech.

Crimso said...

I'm pretty sure that the 3 US soldiers on St. Helena are just a prudent precaution against another Hundred Days lead by Zombie Napoleon.

And I'm quite certain the real power behind Idi Amin was the Jehovah's Witnesses.

Methadras said...

shoutingthomas said...

So, now, we've got three lowlife son-of-a-bitches trying to score political points over a murder on the other side of the world, even though they don't have a fucking clue about the particulars of this murder.

Three Dupniks:

garage
Julius
Omega

What lowlife fucks!


And only because they would have never known about this outside of the althouseverse, so they latch onto it as their typical anti-conservative screed to promote their leftard ideology. Then they see this, jump to links, go batshit crazy, then come back here with their moral superiority showing. They aren't just lowlife fucks, they are parasites and they don't care.

Methadras said...

dbp said...

Two things:

1. Something must be done about hammer-violence in Africa.


Well, they could become mil-spec'ed hammers and cost $600 so those poor africans couldn't afford them anymore. Price them out of the hammer murder market.

2. How is it that a handful of American evangelicals can turn all of Uganda against homosexuals, but are utterly powerless to do the same here?

Well, didn't you know. Africans, particularly Ugandans are stupid people living in an 8th world shit hole, so naturally because of their sub-human status they will believe anything the great white devil tells them. This is fresh Fred Phelps country over there.

Crimso said...

"I think you just answered yourself. Because they can't do it here."

So why did they come back? Or did they? Hmmmm, anybody check to see if they headed to Northern Afghanistan next? With the 2 year delay, we could track where they've already been and stop massacres yet to reach fruition.

Methadras said...

Revenant said...

When you work with and hang out with gay men and women, you realize that they're just as decent as the rest of us.


OMG!!! Really? We had no idea that they were decent as the rest of us. Why, we always thought that they were evil and wanted to spread their dirty, filthy predilections upon the rest of us and to rape our young men. Dear Lord, I mean, what have we done. WHAT HAVE WE DONE to those poor gay men and women? The shock, the horror of it all!!! NOES!!!!!!!!eleventy!!!!!!!!

Anonymous said...

"I'm pretty sure that the 3 US soldiers on St. Helena are just a prudent precaution against another Hundred Days lead by Zombie Napoleon."

When I saw that St Helena posting I burst out laughing. I am trying to visualize the look on the poor SOB's face when he opened his orders and they said "St Helena". I thought Thule or some frozen post on the DEW line was the ultimate exile.

Revenant said...

OMG!!! Really? We had no idea that they were decent as the rest of us. Why, we always thought that they were evil and wanted to spread their dirty, filthy predilections upon the rest of us and to rape our young men

The sarcasm would work better if there weren't still tens of millions of American Christians who believe exactly that.

Just sayin'.

MayBee said...

"How is it that a handful of American evangelicals can turn all of Uganda against homosexuals, but are utterly powerless to do the same here?"

Garage: "I think you just answered yourself. Because they can't do it here."

That would answer the question if the question was "why would they try to..."

That they can't do it here does certainly not explain why they'd be successful there.

Eric said...

Aren't you missing the word "anymore" from the end of that sentence? After all, the religious right was pretty successful at turning people against homosexuals up until around a generation ago.

You might have the causality arrow wrong here. Churches mirror the prejudices of the local population as often as they change them.

The sarcasm would work better if there weren't still tens of millions of American Christians who believe exactly that.

"Tens of millions"? I doubt that.

888 said...

"But the anti-gay bill came shortly thereafter."

I don't know latin but I think the fallacy quoted here is post hoc ergo propter hoc.

coketown said...

All this bickering has given me a splitting headache. I'm going to go get hammered. Peace!

Revenant said...

You might have the causality arrow wrong here. Churches mirror the prejudices of the local population as often as they change them.

In this particular case, the prejudice in question is unambiguously endorsed in the holy books of the major western religions. That makes it pretty hard to blame society.

You could, I suppose, blame ancient Israeli and Arab society.

lucid said...

dpb asks, "How is it that a handful of American evangelicals can turn all of Uganda against homosexuals, but are utterly powerless to do the same here?"

The answer is that there aren't enough Ugandans here.

Anonymous said...

"Mugabe regards homsexuality as an unAfrican colonial imposition. Where did Mugabe learned that kind of talk?"

Maybe he learned it from Barack Obama, who also is against gay marriage in the United States.

Peas.

Pod.

Both of them.

Eric said...

In this particular case, the prejudice in question is unambiguously endorsed in the holy books of the major western religions. That makes it pretty hard to blame society.

There are a whole lot of prejudices "unambiguously endorsed" in the bible, especially the old testament, that few Christians subscribe to.

I don't think you would see any less prejudice against gays if there were no organized religion. The holy books just give people an excuse to do what they want to do anyway.

Gabriel Hanna said...

@Revenant:

There's a lot of evangelical Christians in the world, but only in Africa are large numbers of them engaged in the judicial murders of homosexuals. Which of course is only one of the many social pathologies endemic to Africa.

That some evangelicals went to Uganda and peddled their anti-gay papers doesn't explain the killings all over Africa, going back decades, in Christian and Muslim countries, in Western-allied and Soviet-allied countries.

And those evangelicals are not morally responsible for what Africans do, unless you agree with Alpha Liberal that Africans are children who aren't mature enough to be morally responsible.

Again, suppose Robert Mugabe came over here and convinced members of Congress to vote for the same laws that Zimbabwe has--who would you hold primarily responsible? You'd hold the Americans responsible because you consider them full human beings who are capapble of making moral judgements. If your answer is different for Africans, that's paternalism at best and racism at worst.

Revenant said...

I don't think you would see any less prejudice against gays if there were no organized religion. The holy books just give people an excuse to do what they want to do anyway.

If anti-gay sentiment is something people just "want to do", why does it vary so much from culture to culture? Why has it changed so much in this country over the last few decades? Did we all mutate or something? :)

It seems to me that anti-gay sentiment has to be primarily learned rather than inborn, or such rapid change would be impossible.

Anonymous said...

"In this particular case, the prejudice in question is unambiguously endorsed in the holy books of the major western religions."
Actually, the prejudice is pretty damn lukewarm in the case of Christianity. Anyone who reads the books will realize that it's mentioned just twice, never by Jesus, and one of the mentions is clearly referring to same sex pedophilia in the original language.

As to the Leviticus stuff, anyone Christian who relies on that just flat out doesn't know their own religion. Jesus clearly stated that his purpose was to form a new covenant between God and man, rendering the old one, based upon Talmudic law, null and void. Old Testament strictures against homosexuality have no more relevance to Christians than the ones against shellfish or mixed fibers.

Methadras said...

You know this will happen in bizarro world. Homosexual rights morons will flood Uganda to protest the hammer death of one of their fellow travelers. There will be great gnashing of teeth and beatings of breasts (not with hammers). Then they will convince the Ugandans that being teh gay is good, just like the dirty, evil, white, evangelicals told those very same Ugandans that teh gay was evil and dirty. Then the homosexual activists will leave Uganda thinking they have won a great day for their fellow pufters only some short time later they start to kill them because they have been branded as witches or possessed by witches. It'll happen.

Gabriel Hanna said...

@Revenant:

If anti-gay sentiment is something people just "want to do", why does it vary so much from culture to culture?

Tell me about it. The only homosexual relations the Greeks and Romans approved of would now considered pedophilia--much like today's Afghanistan.

The ways of being human are bounded but infinite.

Methadras said...

Revenant said...

It seems to me that anti-gay sentiment has to be primarily learned rather than inborn, or such rapid change would be impossible


You mean like being a homosexual.

Methadras said...

wasdave said...

"In this particular case, the prejudice in question is unambiguously endorsed in the holy books of the major western religions."
Actually, the prejudice is pretty damn lukewarm in the case of Christianity. Anyone who reads the books will realize that it's mentioned just twice, never by Jesus, and one of the mentions is clearly referring to same sex pedophilia in the original language.

As to the Leviticus stuff, anyone Christian who relies on that just flat out doesn't know their own religion. Jesus clearly stated that his purpose was to form a new covenant between God and man, rendering the old one, based upon Talmudic law, null and void. Old Testament strictures against homosexuality have no more relevance to Christians than the ones against shellfish or mixed fibers.


You can say this all day long, but it doesn't matter. Unless you've been a christian and/or understand the distinctions of what Christ said and intended on doing, then you will never understand the differences between the old and new testaments.

Gabriel Hanna said...

@Methadras and wasdave:

If it were obvious what parts of the Old Testament and what parts of the New are most important to Christians, there wouldn't be thousands of denominations each with its own reading.

Anonymous said...

Nice how you assume that I'm not or "haven't been" a Christian. What leads you to that assumption?

Primitive Thinker said...

You haven't heard? Christ said that he did not come to abolish the Law but to fulfill it. The main issues between Christian demoninations comes down to maintaining "The Proper Distinction Between Law and Gospel" Are people made righteous before God thru their faith or thru their works?

Revenant said...

Gabriel,

I didn't blame the evangelicals for the murders. Like I said, we don't even know if the guy was murdered because of his orientation. The evangelicals are guilty of spreading lies and bigotry. They are not, so far as I know, guilty of murder.

When a person is killed by people who wrongly consider him or her to be depraved and evil, we should place the moral responsibility for the act on the killer. But the people who did their damnedest to *convince* the killer that the victim was depraved and evil aren't entirely innocent, are they? Ideas do have consequences.

You can't go around saying "Jews kill children and eat them" and then say "oh, gosh, I am both shocked AND dismayed that someone went out and killed some Jews". If it does turn out that this Ugandan murder was a "hate crime", what are the evangelicals going to say? "As God is our witness, we never thought anyone would take us seriously when we said gay people rape children?"

pavlova8 said...

the list is not all the 150 countries, its a snippet and its relevant to the debate because my point is - why is the USA meddling in so many countries - either with missionaries or with soldiers?

Revenant said...

wasdave,

You're confusing the covenant with the law. The covenant was the arrangement between God and Abraham. The laws were rules the members of the covenant were expected to live by.

Jesus presented new interpretations of the laws. He didn't "repeal" any of them. His failure to mention homosexuality just means that the laws against it remain in place, although presumably with the death penalty aspect revoked since Jesus wanted punishment left up to God.

NotWhoIUsedtoBe said...

It's not Christian to hate gay people.

Revenant said...

It seems to me that anti-gay sentiment has to be primarily learned rather than inborn, or such rapid change would be impossible

You mean like being a homosexual.

I mean that what is like being a homosexual?

Revenant said...

why is the USA meddling in so many countries - either with missionaries or with soldiers?

How are missionaries an example of the USA "meddling"? Were they dispatched there by the State Department?

Eric said...

It seems to me that anti-gay sentiment has to be primarily learned rather than inborn, or such rapid change would be impossible.

I think it's exactly the opposite - an inborn "ick" reaction from straight people that gets controlled (or not) by civilization like many inborn impulses.

I think there are quite a few base impulses that lurk just below the surface, waiting for the time when it's "okay" to feel a certain way or do certain things.

Crimso said...

"why is the USA meddling in so many countries - either with missionaries or with soldiers?"

I sense the imminent deployment of the "E" word. Let me stop you. The word you're looking for is "hegemony." There's really nothing inherently wrong with being a hegemon, inasmuch as countries can be classified as belonging to one of two groups: those who fuck with others, and those who get fucked with. It's certainly tempting to vilify and disparage the former, but the experiences of, e.g., the Poles leads me to conclude that it is better to live in the former rather than the latter. And no, we can't all just get along. Nations act in their own best interests, always have and always will.

Anonymous said...

"Jesus presented new interpretations of the laws. He didn't "repeal" any of them. His failure to mention homosexuality just means that the laws against it remain in place,"

Your argument would have a lot more force if you followed all of the laws in question. If you do, good on you, but I'm willing to bet that you don't.

Revenant said...

Your argument would have a lot more force if you followed all of the laws in question.

Your response has the advantage of being not merely fallacious, but funny as well. I'm not a Christian.

What was that you were saying, earlier... something about people making assumptions about your religious beliefs without any evidence?

Fen said...

why is the USA meddling in so many countries - either with missionaries or with soldiers?

So, risking my life to lead a food/medicine convoy (LAV 25s) from Mogadishu to Badera was "meddling".

Guess I should have let all those Somolis just starve to death.

...and to think that Alpha is lecturing us about conservative "murderers". WTF has he ever done for anyone but himself? Typical Liberal. Typical Democrat.

Fen said...

"How is it that a handful of American evangelicals can turn all of Uganda against homosexuals, but are utterly powerless to do the same here?"

Its because Africans are an inferior race. More easily misled, more prone to go feral and all uncivilized at the slightest provocation. At least, thats the Liberal argument...

Methadras said...

wasdave said...

Nice how you assume that I'm not or "haven't been" a Christian. What leads you to that assumption?


Sorry, I think you misunderstood the way I was saying it. I wasn't assuming you are or are not a christian. I was speaking about it from an outside point of view. Sorry if I implied you weren't one. Not my intent.

Anonymous said...

PAVLOVA:

"..the list is not all the 150 countries, its a snippet and its relevant to the debate because my point is -.."


Where's the complete list? You haven't got one. You ran with this hearsay because it supports your world view not the facts.

Michael said...

They simply have to employ hate crime laws.

Sofa King said...

Wouldn't it be nice to be able to drive down to the nearest Tank dealership and buy a tricked out M41 with leather seats, navigation, multi-CD less than 10k miles, most of it in off road conditions?

I don't know why you think you couldn't, if you had the money to waste. Of course the M41 is quite old and have been almost entirely scrapped, but I'm pretty sure that if you write General Dynamics a big enough check, they'll make you any kind of tank that you want. You'll need to pay the NFA taxes on the armament of course, but if you can afford a tank this should be no challenge for you.

DaveW said...

pavlova8-

I'm going to take a wild guess that your list includes USMC embassy guards. In most countries that is a largely ceremonial position. That would give us a small troop count in every country that has an embassy.

A quick google isn't helping me but that's my guess. They could also be liaison I guess.

Calypso Facto said...

Pavlova asked: "why is the USA meddling in so many countries?"

There are about 195 countries on this planet. I'm willing to bet all 194 others have people in the USA trying to influence opinion. In your terms they're all "meddling" with the USA. But why shouldn't they be? And why shouldn't the US? What's wrong with communication?

SGT Ted said...

Looks like the gay group trying to pimp the dead guy as a Gay martyr in order to smear evangelicals.

And Trooper York wins the thread with his "Green Hornet" entry.

Revenant said...

Looks like the gay group trying to pimp the dead guy as a Gay martyr in order to smear evangelicals.

It's getting to be so's a fellow can't even go around falsely accusing folks of child rape without finding himself the victim of a smear campaign. I just don't know what this world's coming to.