User talk:Hand

Well, art is art, isn't it? Still, on the other hand, water is water! And east is east and west is west and if you take cranberries and stew them like applesauce they taste much more like prunes than rhubarb does. Now, uh... now you tell me what you know. ~ Groucho Marx

Hi. Welcome to English Wikiquote. Enjoy! -- Herby talk thyme 12:26, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
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Reversions
I notice that you have now reverted the changes of another user three times within 24 hours. This is something that is not considered correct on Wikis. I must ask you not to revert this edit further now. Discussion must take place on the talk page and not through reversion.

I am going to place the edit back again myself. If you revert that without discussion I will request an administrator considers blocking your edits. Please help me not to take that action. Thanks -- Herby talk thyme 13:01, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

''The article in question is of course the page on the September 11, 2001 attacks. I now post here the recent edits of myself and others on the talk page there as both a reference and response:''


 * Islam

The September 11, 2001 attacks have been important in the history of jihad and therefore Islam.--Inesculent 10:15, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

It is important in the history of the extremes of human bigotry, stupidity and sheer malice, is important in a many ways to the history of the world, as attacks by terrorist zealots on thousands of innocent people's lives, but that doesn't mean we should put the category "Earth" and "Humans" on the page, or categories tags for Islam and all the other religious and political designations that people use on the pages for "Stupidity" "Bigotry" and such, just because many religious and political zealots happen to be stupid bigots. The article is not fundamentally about Islam, and should not be categorized as if it was anymore than an article on the Cuba or Puerto Rico should be labeled "Christianity" because they were incidentally "discovered" by Christopher Columbus on an ostensibly Christian as well as mercantile and political mission. There are connections and relations that can be made between nearly everything, but that doesn't mean that they all belong in the same categories. The Universe and everything in it is a subject of study and speculation for Islam, and nearly every other religion, and therefore important for them, that doesn't mean we put labels of every religion on every subject on the entire project: Stars, Moons, Cats, Dogs, Cows and everything. To put the "category" "Islam: on this article about the acts of a few deluded nitwit assholes, just because they happened to think that they were good and great muslims for killing thousands of people is not appropriate. The ultimate Jihad is against such human stupidity as leads people into embracing paths of tyranny or terrorism as if they were holy and sacred paths of righteousness. The Wikipedia article doesn't use such a category label, but it does use "Islamist terrorism" — that might be appropriate, but I don't think there are enough articles here for there to be any real need for such a category. ~ Hand 10:56, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
 * As far as I know, Saifullah Shaykh Osama bin Laden is a highly respected Islamic scholar in the Islamic world. Ulema Council of Pakistan, Humood bin Uqla Ash-Shu'aibi, Abu Qatada, Fathi Yakan, Musa al-Qarni, and many others who don't admit it believe that he is the lion of Islam and support his actions.--Inesculent 11:08, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Nearly anyone some people agree with or admire can be called a great scholar or a hero by them. Some people who hate him might believe him to be Satan or Iblis incarnate, but that doesn't make it so.

I believe any committed terrorists no matter what their professed religion, politics, zeal or intelligence are less admirable in the ultimate scheme of things than a rabid dog or a plague flea on a sewer rat's ass. Even rats and plague fleas can do a lot of damage to innocent human beings but they remain fleas and rats, and really can't help being what exactly what they are. A terrorist is someone whose bigotry has blinded him to what it actually takes to be a decent human being, and the great tragedy is they do have the capacity to be so much more than people driven by hatreds and contempt for others who do not bow down to the same idols of human minds and customs as they do. I'm one of those people who will assert that any religious or political belief system that drives people to value their capacity for hatred, destruction, and oppression more than their capacities for love, creation, and charity is a foul abysmal idolatry of their own prejudices, no matter what holy names they might give to them. I also believe that at the core of most religions are actually forms of wisdom and respect far different from the foul ways they have often been perverted by human bigotry. ~ Hand 11:55, 22 June 2007 (UTC)


 * This is obviously a difficulty subject seen from many varying views. Could I ask that words are carefully chosen in this discussion and that you both assume good faith and remain civil.  This is a platform for information rather than what seems to be moving towards a more heated debate.  I have been watching RC so the edits and reversions show up. My thanks in advance & regards -- Herby  talk thyme 12:25, 22 June 2007 (UTC)


 * --Inesculent 12:31, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

I did some of my previous editing after being up for a while, and and I had to get some sleep. I woke up a short while ago, and surveyed the situation here, to see that the worst of the tags was re-applied with the warning that it should not be further removed without discussion.

I have worked on many wikis, and browsed many I've never actually worked on. After a bit of stress recently, I started out editing here earlier, thinking I might just relax a bit and focus on doing some work on the pages for comedians, but reverted some obvious vandalism on a few pages, and then decided I'd do a little work on the Learned Hand page. After I did some work there I then reverted what seemed to me to be a rather obvious over-extension of a category, of someone attaching the category label for a religion to some specific acts of terrorism that have had pages created here. There is a category for Islam at Wikipedia that has existed a hell of a lot longer than the one here, and it is not applied to their article on these terrorists attacks, and I assume that if there has been any effort to apply the tag there was similarly rejected as inappropriate. I am not really inclined to look through the long edit log and 29 pages of archived discussions to see if this actually occurred or not.

The act of labeling this act with the category tag for "Islam" could be seen either as an effort of someone who is among the pro-terrorist factions to imply a fundamental endorsement of Islam for their paths of terrorism or anti-Islamic factions to stain Islamic traditions in general by implying that there is such fundamental endorsement to such acts of extreme bigotry and malice. Despite a historically greater tendency to the glorification of militarism and oppression of people of other faiths that might be argued as evident in Islam or any of the other "Abrahamic religions", I believe such diabolical acts are not promoted as acts of sanctity by most sane people of any religious, non-religious, political or military traditions.

I believe that there is a fundamental endorsement of such acts and such characterizations by many people blinded by particular forms of bigotry and devoted to them, and certainly many bigots and insane people seek to make even their worst impulses seem religiously sanctified, but I believe that despite the widespread dominion of ignorance, confusion and bigotry in many forms over people's lives, that most muslims and most people of other faiths would say that extremist terrorism should not be treated as if it were a sixth pillar of Islam. Whether the effort to do so comes from rabidly pro-terrorist nitwits or from rabidly anti-Islamic or generally anti-religious nitwits I do object to any attempt to imply that it should be endorsed, sanctified, or even condoned by people who are not nitwits.

That I use the term nitwit as a term for those who would endorse terrorism, or endorse attaching the implication of a religious obligation to it, might be seen as unduly harsh or merely provocative by some, but I use the term in referring to people of very limited rationality, extreme bias, or extreme indifference to avoid using even harsher terms. Many nitwits and insane people of many political and religious traditions can cite many chapters and verses of laws, manifestos and scripture to support their particular forms of extremism, bigotry, or indifference to the lives and fortunes of others as absolute imperatives that others must accept or be damned. Most people who have not lost a great deal of their common sense and sense of common humanity tend to reject anyone's claims of absolute virtue or authority, examine many peoples views of things, think for themselves, let others do the same, and reject the temptations to embrace the worst paths of tyranny, terrorism, dishonesty or cowardice no matter what fragments of laws or scriptures might be cited to support them. ~ Hand 19:22, 22 June 2007 (UTC)