Dark Helmet 's Techdirt Comments

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  • On the post: Iranian Cleric Suggests The West Ban And Criminalize Negative Portrayals Of Muslims To Prevent Radicalization

    Dark Helmet ( profile ), 04 May, 2015 @ 05:42am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

    Actually, the google summary is correct. Which, again, is the reason Saddam Hussein committed genocide, as did Hitler, despite their killings not being "complete"....

  • On the post: Iranian Cleric Suggests The West Ban And Criminalize Negative Portrayals Of Muslims To Prevent Radicalization

    Dark Helmet ( profile ), 01 May, 2015 @ 11:57am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

    Try again, brah: https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=genocide+definition

    Genocide means to kill a large group of people (read: substantial portion of peoples) because of their religion, ethnicity, or national politics.

    Hence, Hitler committed genocide even though the Jewish people still exist. Saddam Hussein committed genocide even though the Kurds still exist.

  • On the post: Iranian Cleric Suggests The West Ban And Criminalize Negative Portrayals Of Muslims To Prevent Radicalization

    Dark Helmet ( profile ), 01 May, 2015 @ 10:09am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

    Genocide does NOT mean you try to kill off the entire race. Look up the definition of the word.

  • On the post: Iranian Cleric Suggests The West Ban And Criminalize Negative Portrayals Of Muslims To Prevent Radicalization

    Dark Helmet ( profile ), 01 May, 2015 @ 05:32am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

    "Before that the region had been subject to centuries of the "Islamic ratchet" gradually squeezing out Jews and Christians. Before the time of Mohammed Jews were a major part of the population of what is now Saudi Arabia. Islam drove them out."

    This is true of SOME Arab areas, but not of Islamic areas generally. The Persians, for instance, would have to be considered massively more tolerant to their Jewish population than their European counterparts.

    "Christians were the majority in Egypt, Palestine and Syria. Jews were a significant minority. Centuries of apostasy laws, coercion and financial incentives have gradually reduced their numbers. The flip side of the creation of Israel has been the elimination of Jews from the surrounding countries such as Egypt."

    You can't have that both ways. Either Islam pushed the Jews out, or the creation of Israel caused them to leave. It's one or the other, not both. Frankly, the latter is the one that is true.

    "Also ALL of the countries in the middle east are "new countries". They were all created by western fiat out of the ruins of the Ottoman empire. There is nothing special about Israel in this respect."

    Now you're just being silly. While it's true that European colonialism did redraw the borders to create countries (Britain-Iraq, Britain/France-Iran, etc.), those borders never actually dealt with massive displacement of existing populations. They were drawn for economic reasons, chiefly to do with oil resources and colonial expansion. The creation of Israel and the act of dropping a non-native population in its midst, and then allowing that nation to run contrary to the NPT America signed (Israel refused to sign it and pretends it doesn't have nuclear weapons), supporting its annexation of neighboring lands, and refusing to award the Palestinians a state of their own when EVERYONE KNOWS that's the solution to the conflict is beyond cruel....

  • On the post: Iranian Cleric Suggests The West Ban And Criminalize Negative Portrayals Of Muslims To Prevent Radicalization

    Dark Helmet ( profile ), 30 Apr, 2015 @ 02:54pm

    Re: Re: Re:

    "Just out of curiosity, what would you consider the appropriate response to being invaded and having your land colonized by people who do not recognize your entire cultural/racial/religious right to exist, at all, and have been trying to wipe your people off the face of the earth for centuries?"

    This could have been written for the people in the Middle East that the US decided to plop a new country on top of....

  • On the post: Iranian Cleric Suggests The West Ban And Criminalize Negative Portrayals Of Muslims To Prevent Radicalization

    Dark Helmet ( profile ), 30 Apr, 2015 @ 01:44pm

    Re:

    Israeli policy is at best skirting the line of genocide and at worst a policy of racism that the idea for which they seem to have gotten from their own history less than a century ago. Their overreaction to the threats they do actually face only exacerbates those threats and their complicit work with the United States to continuously veto important UN resolutions that inch Palestine closer to statehood mark them as duplicitous as they are petty.

    There, I did what you asked. And I was free to do it. Anything else?

  • On the post: Would It Have Been Better To Let The Indiana Religious Freedom Law Stand And Let The Internet And Free Market Work?

    Dark Helmet ( profile ), 10 Apr, 2015 @ 10:48am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Historical amnesia.

    "That's the thing about the First Amendment. You have to support it even in cases where the effect is something you find distasteful"

    You want to be very careful about invoking the 1st Amendment to defend a law giving preferential rights to religious groups.

    If you want an argument that this law was unconstitutional, I could quite easily make one: it guarantees the rights of some citizens that can't be enjoyed by others. For instance, an atheist could never claim his right to discrimination in service on religious grounds. I would think this would fall, if anything, under unequal protections under the law, and likely violates the 1st Amendment as the government is to take no position on questions to do with religion or God.

  • On the post: Would It Have Been Better To Let The Indiana Religious Freedom Law Stand And Let The Internet And Free Market Work?

    Dark Helmet ( profile ), 10 Apr, 2015 @ 06:03am

    Re: Seriously?

    "Seriously?

    Alright, Tim, you are not seeing the obvious here. There was a time when companies could segregate based on skin color. Do you think that should have been left alone, too? Jeezuz, dude, wtf?"

    You're missing my entire point, which you would have gotten had you read the post carefully. My entire point was that society in general MAY have progressed enough when, coupled with the democratizing force of the internet, renders the blowback over this law and its amending unnecessary. I think anyone who reads me here knows quite well which side of the LGBT rights issue I'm on.

    Put another way, the war isn't supposed to go on eternally. You craft civil rights laws because society can't do the work of protecting minorities themselves. But once society CAN do that work? Then you don't go on crafting new laws, because there's no need. I happen to be hopeful that, on LGBT rights, perhaps that time has arrived.

    Anyone who took the post to be some endorsement of religion-based discrimination needs to read back my other work and then immediately sign up for a course in remedial literacy....

  • On the post: Sanity: Trademark Suit Rules That Florida Pizza Joints Don't Compete With The NJ Turnpike

    Dark Helmet ( profile ), 31 Mar, 2015 @ 11:17am

    Re: Re: Re: GSP not same as NJT

    Correct, I did that once in the article, and I've now corrected it. The other suggestions of error in the post I would argue were incorrect, but this inverse job I mistakenly did was my fault and it's been updated in the post.

  • On the post: No Copyright Lives Forever: How The Apathy Of IP Rights Holders About Their Copyrights Killed A Game Re-Release

    Dark Helmet ( profile ), 25 Mar, 2015 @ 10:45am

    Re: Y'know

    Blech, this is 100% my fault. I occasionally use place holder titles for posts in the form of whatever pops into my head. In this case, I was pissed about the content of the source post and used a dumb title as a placeholder which held over in the URL for some reason. Doesn't excuse it, but that's what happened.

    I hope my history of posting here affirms that I'm not rapey or homophobic, but from the URL title I get how it comes off that way. This was my dumb mistake and it sure as hell won't happen again.

    Thank you for pointing it out the way you did.

  • On the post: BART, The Train Service, Goes After Brewery Over BART, The Beer

    Dark Helmet ( profile ), 24 Mar, 2015 @ 09:56am

    Re: Definetly infrigning

    "I think I'll name mine Greyhound..."

    Introducing, from the venerable Dark Helmet Brewing Company, our Suburban Express IPA!

  • On the post: Walmart Not Horsing Around With Parody Domain Site

    Dark Helmet ( profile ), 12 Mar, 2015 @ 03:25am

    Re:

    Didn't really mean to imply condescension. Jeph's walmart.horse project isn't dumb, it's just kind of a simple little thing that should have been glossed over by Walmart.

    I know this is going to sound insulting as well when I don't mean it to be, but the .horse thing isn't "dumb", it's just kind of "insignificant"....

  • On the post: Connecticut Town Takes Down Painting Including Image Of Mother Teresa Over Bogus Copyright Claim

    Dark Helmet ( profile ), 03 Mar, 2015 @ 01:49pm

    Re:

    Perhaps it would have been more apropos to incorporate her in a mural depicting all the money she took from the Duvalier family in Haiti or the money she refused to return that was given to her out of the savings and loan scandal?

    Helping people. PPPFFFFFTTTT!

  • On the post: Connecticut Town Takes Down Painting Including Image Of Mother Teresa Over Bogus Copyright Claim

    Dark Helmet ( profile ), 03 Mar, 2015 @ 01:09pm

    Re: By all means, do some reading....

    Couldn't agree with this more....

  • On the post: There Is No Way That Hillary Clinton Didn't Know She Was Supposed To Use A Government Email Account

    Dark Helmet ( profile ), 03 Mar, 2015 @ 12:01pm

    Re: Dealbreaker for me

    "And there goes any possibility I will vote for her in 2016."

    THIS convinced you? Not the campaign of abuse against her husband's accusers? Not the turtle head act she pulled during her husband's scandal, setting back women's rights singlehandedly? Not the shady money pouring into the Clinton Foundation from foreign governments?

    The Clinton family is easily the worst political family of our time and there have been some real shitheads here....

  • On the post: Capcom Removes Advertised Offline Co-Op From Resident Evil Reboot, Updates Steam Page After Sales Begin

    Dark Helmet ( profile ), 03 Mar, 2015 @ 05:28am

    Re: Umbrella...

    I'm just glad SOMEONE caught it ;)

  • On the post: Have You Been Debating What Color Some Random Dress Is All Day? Thank Fair Use

    Dark Helmet ( profile ), 27 Feb, 2015 @ 01:20pm

    Oh, me! I know the answer!

    The dress is fugly, which is all that really matters....

  • On the post: Sriracha Boss On Trademark: Mmmmm, No Thanks

    Dark Helmet ( profile ), 13 Feb, 2015 @ 07:09am

    Re:

    "Nothing kicks a slice up a notch like a good dose of rooster sauce."

    Don't forget a dusting of Parmesan cheese. It's the ONLY correct way to eat a pizza....

  • On the post: French Government Declares Independence From Free Speech: Broad Internet Take-Down Powers Now In Place

    Dark Helmet ( profile ), 10 Feb, 2015 @ 11:56am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Absolute Free Speech is an American value

    "So it would be more accurate to say that both revolutions were influenced by the politics/philosophy/culture of the enlightenment era (which itself had much of its roots in France) than to say that one was the direct precursor to the other. Indeed, even your quoted Wikipedia page continues:"

    This is part of what I meant. It's worth noting that nowhere in my comment did I argue that the French Revolution led to the American revolution in a chronological way. In fact, if anything, the opposite is true.

    But that's not the case with respect to the transformation of the concept of universal rights and Free Speech. One of the reasons Jefferson was so invested in the French Revolution was because of the proving ground France represented for UNIVERSAL rights being snatched from a mainland monarchy. What could have been written off as an "American" thing, as the original comment did, suddenly became a global ideal once the French wrestled it for themselves.

    What was an isolated American thing became something much more during the French Revolution. It in fact solidified the aims the founding fathers established as something more than a rebellious colony playing at running a country.

    As I said before, know your fucking history.

  • On the post: French Government Declares Independence From Free Speech: Broad Internet Take-Down Powers Now In Place

    Dark Helmet ( profile ), 10 Feb, 2015 @ 06:21am

    Re: Absolute Free Speech is an American value

    "Absolute Free Speech is an American value

    And you are wrong for using your values to judge another culture with different values."

    It would be nice, before poisoning the comments with this kind of stupidity, if you would just learn your history. The outcome of the French Revolution, to which I linked, and to which the very "American value" you refer, are undeniably linked to the Declaration of Rights that France produced. That declaration said, among other things, that some rights are universal and not national, including...wait for it...free and open speech.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaration_of_the_Rights_of_Man_and_of_the_Citizen#Substance

    The truth is America owes a great deal to the French Revolution and to the enlightenment. It would be nice if you knew that, rather than spouting nonsense....

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