Globally Rational

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Today, Israeli forces attacked a Hamas leader’s house and killed his 14-year old daughter, among other civilians. This is a few days after Hamas offered Israel a 6-month cease-fire, which Israel is planning on rejecting because they don’t want to talk to Hamas. What I’d like to know is this: what exactly is […]

Popularity: 26% [?]

Many people in the US say that you should “support our troops” so that they don’t have to use a more controversial phrase like “support the war.” This leads to a sort of emotional connection between a person and the war in Iraq, and we tend to think something along the lines of “well, […]

Popularity: 30% [?]

This is a continuation of the “parsing a country song” series, which I started a couple of weeks ago; click here to see the first article. Here is the third stanza and the chorus:
Now this nation that I love has fallen under attack.
A mighty sucker punch came flying in from somewhere in the […]

Popularity: 22% [?]

Which comes first in a country: the immigrants or the economic success?
It’s like the chicken-and-egg paradox. If there was no promise of success, then immigrants wouldn’t come; meanwhile, if there were no immigrants, there wouldn’t be enough people to succeed (in cosmopolitan countries like the US). Of course, there are exceptions to the […]

Popularity: 25% [?]

People often tell me that Muslims deserve the treatment they get because we tend to produce more extremists than other religions. Let’s disregard all other factors (for example, the fact that Christian extremists have been common in the past, just not today) and take a look at one of the many incidences where a Jewish rabbi calls for extremist action. I don’t have a problem with every Israeli just because a few of them call for atrocities… so why do people have a problem with all Arabs just because a few of them do the same?

Popularity: 19% [?]

I often hear country music songs that try to convince people to support certain political issues without actually presenting any real evidence. Their purpose is just to appeal to your emotions. Today I present the first two stanzas from Toby Keith’s “Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue” (the whole song would be […]

Popularity: 8% [?]

If you were an employer looking at resumès (let’s say that the job candidates are actually cities), would you hire Beijing? Take a look at their resumè:

They invaded Tibet years ago and still refuse to let them have their independence; meanwhile, they continue to oppress the locals.
They refuse to accept the independent status of […]

Popularity: 12% [?]

In the past 100 years, the US has established a reputation as one of the world’s best places to live. The best way to gauge this is by the fact that the US is the first choice for potential migrants in India, China, and all over the world. The obvious reason is that we […]

Popularity: 12% [?]

Wikipedia defines “terrorism” as “violence against civilians to achieve political or ideological objectives by creating fear.” Here are some examples of accepted terrorist organizations:

Al-Qaeda, for obvious reasons.
The Irish Republican Army (IRA), which conducts violent attacks in an attempt to promote the independence of Northern Ireland from the UK.
Hamas, a political party that is said […]

Popularity: 7% [?]

We hear a lot of propaganda aimed at convincing the American people that Arabs are evil, the war is justified, and America is the best thing that ever happened to the world. Some people believe it all, and some people (i.e. the people who are probably reading this) believe none of it… but did […]

Popularity: 7% [?]