Love Thy Enemy?

Bigby's Nose · Post by **Bigby's Nose** » Mon Mar 09, 2009 11:35 pm

Xandax, what are you referring to when you say that Mandela used his "hardship" status for personal gain?

Demortis · Post by **Demortis** » Mon Mar 09, 2009 11:38 pm

Bigby's Nose wrote:So, Demortis, forgiving your captors is out? You'd rather give the bastards what they've got coming and then go out in style, so to speak? What if forgiving your captors could get you a reward? Like eventual freedom without strings attached for your cooperation and good behavior?

I have always been one to want "To go out in a blaze of glory". Im the type of person that cant take a cage. Forgiving someone who brutally beats me and then offers a reward for it? Sorry, thats a feeding hand I would gladly bite. Ive already been there in that kinda situation, granted, I left with little to no scarring. But I dont take lightly to abuse, I have always fought it, "Tooth and claw" as it were. I believe in a Totem animal and have called upon it at times to help with situations like that. If a friend is in the same situation, then I will do what is needed to free them. Its the way I was taught.

Xandax · Post by **Xandax** » Tue Mar 10, 2009 12:06 am

Bigby's Nose wrote:Xandax, what are you referring to when you say that Mandela used his "hardship" status for personal gain?

I was just using Mandela as an example, and wasn't pointing to anything specific.

But there is no doubt that Mandela's ordeal brought him a great deal of influence, and then it publicity-wise is much better to say that he is forgiving then vindictive

fable · Post by **fable** » Tue Mar 10, 2009 6:53 am

I seem to recall reading that Nelson Mandela began advising other inmates early on in old South African regime's famous jails for "black insurgents" that they should see their captors as well as themselves as victims of a terrible system. He preached forgiveness even after seeing and experiencing many terrible things over the years he spent there, long before he could have gained anything by it. Had Mandela kept an eye to power, the easiest, best road ahead would have been to stay with the armed rebellion model until apartheid was removed, then begun campaigning on a platform of moderate integration. None of this was in his message.

Still, I can't speak for him. So each of us must make up their own minds.

Even if we accept this experience as rightful and theirs, is there any way to transmute it into something we can--no, not own, but incorporate as something more personal than just words in a religious pamphlet? How do you, meaning anyone, faced with this situation, get themselves from A to B?

I meant by this that the message would have to be somehow personalized, to be made more real for the individual listener, if it was to have any genuine impact. So while reading what Mandela has written about his beliefs while still living under apartheid would be one thing, to get some awareness of that experience into a given auditor might actually require a personal dialog between Mandela and that person, an exchange of questions, observations, and emotional states that is more immediate. Barring that, some of the faithful of any religion will suggest that their deity/saint/avatar/leader can engage in a true, living dialog with a suitably receptive vehicle. But as this can't be proven to a skeptical person, the point is moot, since the effect of transmission (back to our subject concerning how one feels about and deals with enemies) is lost.

LeoStarDragon1 · Post by **LeoStarDragon1** » Tue Mar 10, 2009 7:44 am

Ah, Here It Is Now!

jklinders wrote:LeoStarDragon said
What's to debate about? I know what I mean by "hate" and "anger"! It's what do you mean by it? That's the mystery here! A different thread? Whatever for?

Just the politics Leo Star Dragon, as much as I love to debate 'em, I was in serious danger of drifting off topic. You have proven my point again of course since someone you cared for directly was nearly hurt 9/11. I am more distant from it by the fact no one I knew was there. Still it impacted everyone.

On a more serious note, I am flattered and glad that I am a bit more coherant than that fine example of a trucker you mentioned.

Good Morning, Forum Folks!

#00: To Fable: Get well soon! (By the way, you're in the lounge and got it placed under quarantine! What are you going to do about it?)

#01: To Lady Dragonfly: Thanks for the encouragement!

#02: To "jklinders": "Here's a line! Catch it!" *Tosses the rope to you.*

Politics?! Well, uh, yours is the Canadian brand and mine isn't. So, uh, I guess that would be more like, "compare and contrast" rather than "debate".
As in, "Oh, you do it like that up there? We do it like this down here." Or, "Does Conan O'Brian really sneak into Parliament when no one is looking and bang the gavel just because he was dared to?" Questions and issues like that I'm supposing.

If this keeps up, I'm going to charge you a service fee of one gold Septim for each point I prove for you again!

As for Ellen, I didn't know about her risk until the last class reunion. Until then, it was just that one female celebrity on the airplane that I knew about. Otherwise the people were strangers, even if fellow Americans or Earthlings. Not being a New Yorker, or a Pennsylvanien, or a Washingtonian, I didn't feel a direct impact, as in local terms, just a sympathy, because of what Timothy did to OKC. (I felt the blast vibrations in my bed, but went back to sleep when I didn't hear anything else.)

I have an enemy who was on his way to the Social Security offices there, but stopped to buy some cigarettes. So he missed out on being a victim. If he had been a victim, he'd be on the Memorial, with people thinking of him as an "innocent" victim, without knowing that he's a child abuser, wife beater and a druggie. Now that would have been irony. But at least, I'd never have known him had he made it on time. Plus he'd never have abused his family. (He broke his baby girl's arm and his wife's jaw during an argument.) She divorced him and he was arrested and got a year tacked on for punching his guard. He may be out by now though. The daughter will be 14 this June if my math is right, and my memory, if she's still alive that is. I consider him an enemy because his wife was my date/girlfriend when they met, or so I thought at the time.

So anyway, in summary, I know what you mean. But had you wrote that to begin with, it would have saved us both a lot of typewriting!

To close, I'm not in school anymore. Sure I vote, but I don't debate.

galraen · Post by **galraen** » Tue Mar 10, 2009 7:56 am

Sorry, but I'm a vindictive [expletive deleted] and if I come to regard someone as my enemy, gloves are off! Fortunately I don't know anyone that falls into that category, so the gloves are well and truly on on a personal level.

There are those I do consider enemies in a more impersonal way, and I'll take a poke at them at every oportunity.

fable · Post by **fable** » Tue Mar 10, 2009 1:13 pm

Four posts have been removed for spamming up a pretty decent discussion thread. Come on, guys! It's not like you can't discuss William Shattner somewhere else, unless it's because you or anybody else hate his acting and consider it a bane on civilization. Let's keep to the subject.

LeoStarDragon1 · Post by **LeoStarDragon1** » Tue Mar 10, 2009 1:18 pm

Huh?

fable wrote:Four posts have been removed for spamming up a pretty decent discussion thread. Come on, guys! It's not like you can't discuss William Shattner somewhere else, unless it's because you or anybody else hate his acting and consider it a bane on civilization. Let's keep to the subject.

Huh?

Demortis · Post by **Demortis** » Tue Mar 10, 2009 1:33 pm

fable wrote:Four posts have been removed for spamming up a pretty decent discussion thread. Come on, guys! It's not like you can't discuss William Shattner somewhere else, unless it's because you or anybody else hate his acting and consider it a bane on civilization. Let's keep to the subject.

Leave it to Fable to ruin a bad morning with something so funny that it actually makes you cry. Thanks Fable, now I dont have to hate the day, just the morons that attempt to run me over...

Back on topic. So, we have pretty much just stated the fact, that we each have our own opinions about hate, political leaders, Mandela being chief among them in this day and age, who spouts the "Love thy Enemy" speech. Its always good to see that here on GB that one can have a civil conversation and not have to worry about people who should have been dropped as children:laugh:

LeoStarDragon1 · Post by **LeoStarDragon1** » Tue Mar 10, 2009 1:36 pm

He Insulted Mister Shatner!

Demortis wrote:Leave it to Fable to ruin a bad morning with something so funny that it actually makes you cry. Thanks Fable, now I dont have to hate the day, just the morons that attempt to run me over...

Back on topic. So, we have pretty much just stated the fact, that we each have our own opinions about hate, political leaders, Mandela being chief among them in this day and age, who spouts the "Love thy Enemy" speech. Its always good to see that here on GB that one can have a civil conversation and not have to worry about people who should have been dropped as children:laugh:

Hm. It didn't appear civil to me at all. Hence why I didn't get involved.

Demortis · Post by **Demortis** » Tue Mar 10, 2009 1:44 pm

LeoStarDragon1 wrote:Hm. It didn't appear civil to me at all. Hence why I didn't get involved.

More civil then anywhere else on the web

Besides, people here state facts and have the research to back them up. Thats why I always come back here to listen to people with more wisdom then what I have.

LeoStarDragon1 · Post by **LeoStarDragon1** » Tue Mar 10, 2009 2:12 pm

"Gran Torino"

Demortis wrote:More civil then anywhere else on the web Besides, people here state facts and have the research to back them up. Thats why I always come back here to listen to people with more wisdom then what I have.

Hm. Maybe. I saw the movie "Gran Torino". According to it, you can insult somebody on a regular basis and still be the best of friends. I find that a strange, alien concept. Family's still family, but you can loose friends. So when I call my father something or he calls me something, we both know that we are still family, that love and support each other. With friends, it's can be like a powder keg with people playing with matches near it. One wrong word and "KABOOM!"

In person I don't take well to people insulting people I admire. The expression, "Do unto others as you'd have them do onto you." Well, I assume people are treating me the way they'd want me to treat them! So if you start off rude to me, I'll be just as rude to you. :mischief: or

?

Bigby's Nose · Post by **Bigby's Nose** » Tue Mar 10, 2009 6:36 pm

The Autobiography of Malcolm X is a good example of a story of how someone overcame his (very intense) hatred. Malcolm goes into a lot of detail about his feelings about whites, how he was victimized by some of them, and how he came to forgive them. Of course, his change of heart had a lot to do with his religious beliefs but the interesting thing here is that before Islam changed his heart, he believed that Islam gave him the right to hate whites. So his story definitely has something to offer to the non-religious - it says a lot about the role and effects of perception.

Reading The Autobiography of Malcolm X isn't the same as talking to Mandela on the phone, but we gotta do what we can.

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Love Thy Enemy?

Indeed, why should you bother?