"Shortwave Sportfishing" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 14 Aug 2005 09:58:46 -0700, "Mr Wizzard"
wrote:

~~ snippage ~~

So thats IT? - their contribution to the above was a "zero" ?
(how ironic). But joking aside, this is "good". Is there more?
I mean, what you spelled out here is important (and thats good),
but lets build on that - lets see why there hasn't been more.

How do you define "more"?

Simple: "something"..... Point being, the "drive",
or "natural will" to do good, contribure to the
advancements to society and the like.... You
just don't *see* that (if it exists). Even in "social"
programs, you just don't see it. Take the Pali's...
What are the other Muslim/Arab lands doing to
help the plight of the Pali's? What are they doing
to provide food/medicine/housing/money for the
Pali's? Do you happen to *know* what the
tonnage and $$ amount of rice/food that the United
States donates to poor countries? How about the
major Arab nations - do you know the amount
that they donate?



If I look around at the array of
individuals who provide me and my family with health care, three of
the doctors, including my internist, are Muslim and are very good at
what they do. I work with a Iranian on occasion who has made some
very interesting and valuable contributions to quantum physics -
notably in the area of quantum foam.

Look, yer missing the point my friend!..... All of
these Muslims that you speak of are HERE in the
US of A - the question was what the "Arab/" muslims
are doing? - in THEIR countries? You answer
actually speaks more to my point anyways... This,
and Western cultures "promote" good things like this.



It's like asking what Americans have contributed to the world

Shall I state for you the tonnage and dollar amount
of rice, and food we donate? How about manufacturing?
Software? textiles? crops? Chemicals ? Boeing ?
Microsoft?, Dow Corning, etc. etc.

- space
science? Mostly Jewish physicists and conscripted ex-Nazi German
rocketeers. Medicine, certainly, but so have individuals who were
French, German, Japanese and the first heart transplant was done by a
South African.

More to my point: where are/were the Arabs/Muslims
with all of this? Why no Arabs in space?, Chemists?
You talk about Jewish contributions, and ex-Nazi's,
and the Germans, the French, the Japaneese, and
even South African, and thats all rehashing my point:
every other culture is into doing *some* form of
advancements, and contributions to humanity, and
mankind, but *why* are we struggling tring to fill
in the score cards of the Arabs/Muslims? WTF?
Has the media been keeping this from us?



You can't define a society by what individuals accomplish as
individuals.

No, but you CAN (and we DO) define a "society"
by what they DON'T do as compared to how other
similar societies behaved, and developed over the years.




At some point we need to look at this, and understand why
they fell out of the game so long ago, and see what it will
take to get them back in to the game (if they want to).

The Arabs have always been assimilators (you will be assimilated -
snerk) and as their society adapted to the influences of other
cultures and systems, advances were made everywhere from China to
Britain. They were the main trading group of merchants and
entrepreneurs throughout the Middle East and beyond and spread these
different ideas around igniting the scientific/industrial and other
revolutions.

Ok, great - we got something here (finally).
So lets expand on this. So these "assimilators",
or trade of "assimilation" as you suggest. So
say this trade as value. So what heppend to it?
That can be their contribution. So why are they
not spreading this around? So say the newfangled
thing is "food/donations" (in the form of Oil for Food,
and the dollar amount that we give to Egypt), right?
So why haven't they "assimilated" some of this smack
to their own? The Palistenians? Other poor Arabs?
And if what you say were true, and held much merit,
what is the natural "growth" of this? - how do they
prevent themselves from stagnating with this stuff?



if they don't, we need to find out why, and what to do with
a self-destructive culture that doesn't (that happens to want
to take out the rest of the world). We've seen other despondent
and self-destructive cultures before, but one that wants to also
take out the other side is something we're not used to.
(Hitler didn't want to take "out" the world, he just wanted
to control it - very different).

I understand what you are saying and I appreciate that view, but to my
mind, societies evolve, devolve and evolve once more. Certainly, the
current situation isn't the best, but this is basically a tribal
conflict similar to any number of ethnic/tribal conflicts that
continue to infest world order and peace.

Not true. Tribal conflict with the Iran/Iraq thing
of the 80's, Tribal with the 6-day war of Isreal,
tribal conflict with the first gulf war, yeah, maybe.
But!, how is this "Tribal conflict" when it involves
the West, and the USA? And I think this notion
is a deversion anyway.



I'm not at all sure there is an answer.

The answer is to keep doing what we
are doing. We give ENDLESS tolerance
to dictators, and hostle terror states, but
when they slip up, or the time becomes
right, we go in and enforce what they say
they were going to do, and we change things
for them. They will eventually get the message.