Gyroscopic Investing

Mountaineer wrote: Sounds reasonable.  However, it will happen only when the snowball does not melt in that place doodle refuses to acknowledge. 

... Mountaineer

+1
I'd be all for PS's terms. I'd have to look it up but if memory serves, the Israelis pulled completely out of Gaza in or around '05, but then something happened that gave them no choice but to wall it up or take it back. For the past ten years then, the words & phrases one hears bandied about are occupation, open air prison, #freepalestine, concentration camp.

It worked until it didn't, and it didn't take long to fail.

When the British offered the Jews a state it was a crap deal but they begrudgingly accepted because, hey, they wanted a state that badly.

Yup. Obviously it won't happen. But it could.

That's why I think Israel has to take the initiative to basically give them a state. Show the world that they don't really want it as much as they want the perceived moral legitimacy to keep attacking Israelis.

Hamas is threatening today to begin launching rockets at Israeli cities when the 72-hour truce expires. Will it still be Israel's fault if they shoot back and possibly hurt somebody?

Reub wrote: Hamas is threatening today to begin launching rockets at Israeli cities when the 72-hour truce expires. Wiill it still be Israel's fault if they shoot back and possibly hurt somebody?

Reub I have the overwhelming sense there is more to the story. Where did you see this?

"With a deadline looming hours away, Hamas on Thursday rejected Israeli demands it disarm and threatened to resume its rocket attacks if its demands for lifting a crippling blockade on Gaza were not met.

The hard-line stance, voiced by a senior Hamas official at the group's first rally since a cease-fire in the Gaza war took effect on Tuesday, signalled that indirect negotiations in Cairo over a permanent truce in Gaza were not making headway. It was an ominous sign ahead of Friday's expiration of a temporary three-day truce that ended a month of fighting.

A text message from Hamas' military wing, the Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades, warned there would be no extension of the cease-fire if there was no agreement to permanently lift the blockade enforced by Israel and Egypt since the militant group overran Gaza in 2007.

Abu Obeida, the al-Qassam spokesman, appeared on the group's Al-Aqsa TV station and said Hamas was "ready to go to war again.'' He threatened to launch a long-term war of attrition that would cripple life in Israel's big cities and disrupt air traffic at Israel's international airport in Tel Aviv."

http://www.cjad.com/cjad-news/2014/08/0 ... nd-in-gaza

It's been all over the news today.

Reub, more on your earlier question:

Wave of anti-Semitic rallies hits cities across Germany
Jewish community braces itself ahead of Friday’s Al Quds Day March, which will be ‘so extreme’ even some far leftists are boycotting

BERLIN — An angry mob gathered on Berlin’s famed Kurfürstendamm avenue Thursday. Draped in Palestinian flags and shaking their fists in rage, they chanted in German, “Jude, Jude feiges Schwein! Komm heraus und kämpf allein!”? (“Jew, Jew, cowardly swine, come out and fight on your own!”?)

Earlier last week in Dortmund and Frankfurt anti-Israel protester chanted, “Hamas Hamas Juden ins gas!”? (“Hamas Hamas Jews to the gas!”?). On Friday, a 200-strong mob in Essen chimed in, “Scheiss Juden!”? (“Jewish shit”?)

This week, similar mobs gathered in Kassel, Nuremberg, Mainz, and other cities throughout Germany. The crowds are largely young, with both immigrants and native Germans, many of Middle Eastern origin.

http://www.timesofisrael.com/wave-of-an ... s-germany/

Must feel like 1938 all over again.

Reub wrote: "With a deadline looming hours away, Hamas on Thursday rejected Israeli demands it disarm and threatened to resume its rocket attacks if its demands for lifting a crippling blockade on Gaza were not met.

The hard-line stance, voiced by a senior Hamas official at the group's first rally since a cease-fire in the Gaza war took effect on Tuesday, signalled that indirect negotiations in Cairo over a permanent truce in Gaza were not making headway. It was an ominous sign ahead of Friday's expiration of a temporary three-day truce that ended a month of fighting.

A text message from Hamas' military wing, the Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades, warned there would be no extension of the cease-fire if there was no agreement to permanently lift the blockade enforced by Israel and Egypt since the militant group overran Gaza in 2007.

Abu Obeida, the al-Qassam spokesman, appeared on the group's Al-Aqsa TV station and said Hamas was "ready to go to war again.'' He threatened to launch a long-term war of attrition that would cripple life in Israel's big cities and disrupt air traffic at Israel's international airport in Tel Aviv."

http://www.cjad.com/cjad-news/2014/08/0 ... nd-in-gaza

It's been all over the news today.

So let's look at this. Hamas is refusing to turn it's weapons, thus rendering the pals completely defensless, and demanded that Israel stop preventing the pals from receiving medicine, food, fuel and other essentials from the outside world that is EAGER to get these supplies to them.

This is ridiculously twisted. It's the Israeli military that has killed thousands of civilians in a vicious attack and it's threatening to do more unless the pals surrender unconditionaly. It sounds as though they won't even agree to let basic aid flow into the ravaged areas where the people are sufferring.

What a peice of propaganda. Would you guys give up your guns in the face of such an attack? Would you not demand the lifting of cripling blockade that is causing the deaths no doubt of women and children.

How can you guys read this and sucumb to the propaganda?

Hard line stance? Ohhh yeah real hard line. "No you can't have our weapons, we'll be defenseless and stop preventing medicne and food coming in." Yeah that's real hard line right there.

OMG they're threatening to disrupt air travel? ohhhh my that just about makes up for thousands of dead and tens of thousands of homeless and hundreds of thousands sufferening. WOW

The pals are human beings. 

From the article: In the fighting, nearly 1,900 Palestinians, three-quarters of them civilians, have been killed, more than 9,000 wounded and some 250,000 people made homeless, according to Palestinian medical officials and the United Nations. Israel lost 64 soldiers and three civilians.

dualstow wrote: Reub, more on your earlier question:

Wave of anti-Semitic rallies hits cities across Germany
Jewish community braces itself ahead of Friday’s Al Quds Day March, which will be ‘so extreme’ even some far leftists are boycotting

BERLIN — An angry mob gathered on Berlin’s famed Kurfürstendamm avenue Thursday. Draped in Palestinian flags and shaking their fists in rage, they chanted in German, “Jude, Jude feiges Schwein! Komm heraus und kämpf allein!”? (“Jew, Jew, cowardly swine, come out and fight on your own!”?)

Earlier last week in Dortmund and Frankfurt anti-Israel protester chanted, “Hamas Hamas Juden ins gas!”? (“Hamas Hamas Jews to the gas!”?). On Friday, a 200-strong mob in Essen chimed in, “Scheiss Juden!”? (“Jewish shit”?)

This week, similar mobs gathered in Kassel, Nuremberg, Mainz, and other cities throughout Germany. The crowds are largely young, with both immigrants and native Germans, many of Middle Eastern origin.

http://www.timesofisrael.com/wave-of-an ... s-germany/

Must feel like 1938 all over again.

The Holocaust sympathy has just about run it's course I'm afraid and I feel bad for Jews everywhere. They are going to be subjected to the same hatred directed at muslims because of the actions of a few.

I am currently living with two full on practicing Jews. They are my dear friends and this is a pretty distressing time for them.

KShartle, Jews aren't looking for sympathy about the Holocaust. They're, um, looking to not have it repeated.

I'm just curious who "you guys" refers to in your post before the last one. The readers of this forum?
I'm saying this with a cool head, not in anger, but that penultimate post leads me to believe that you didn't read this thread from the beginning, but perhaps only when you jumped in.

From your comments on the demilitarization of Gaza to your indication of the disparity in casualties, I swear you may have missed every point that has been raised and addressed so far.  Or, you know, maybe it's been addressed but you don't buy it, in which case we should all stop repeating ourselves over and over.

dualstow wrote: KShartle, Jews aren't looking for sympathy about the Holocaust. They're, um, looking to not have it repeated.

I'm just curious who "you guys" refers to in your post before the last one. The readers of this forum?
I'm saying this with a cool head, not in anger, but that penultimate post leads me to believe that you didn't read this thread from the beginning, but perhaps only when you jumped in.

From your comments on the demilitarization of Gaza to your indication of the disparity in casualties, I swear you may have missed every point that has been raised and addressed so far.  Or, you know, maybe it's been addressed but you don't buy it, in which case we should all stop repeating ourselves over and over.

I did read it from the begining. I happen to have the opposite opinion from just about everyone else. It appears there was near unanimous support for the Israeli government's attack and full condemnation of Hamas. I am flabbergasted by this near unanimous agreement on what is really the extreme minority opinion worldwide. Not that worldwide opinion is an indication of what is right or wrong, I am just surprised by it.

This is a potentially very volitile topic, and we've been able to keep it civil. I've deleted my request that people examine their personal beliefs about the relative value of pals vs. Israelis.

I will take a look through again though. I didn't seen any reference to the hundreds of palestinians kidnapped by the Israeli military at the start of this conflict. I don't know whether it preceded any rockets or not.

I really am sympathetic to your position, Kshartle. I really am. It's really sad that these two groups of people who can't live in peace with one another and have a tremendous disparity of power have to live side by side. It's sad that an enormous of Palestinian civilians have been killed by Israeli attacks. It is sad that they live in what is effectively a ghetto.

You said that The Palestinians shouldn't give up their weapons, and the Israelis should lift the blockade. From a contextless perspective, I agree. Forced disarmament is bad, and trade is good. Self-defense is moral, and blockades are immoral.

But what if you knew that those hypothetical weapons were going to be deliberately used to kill innocent people? What if you knew that a good part of the trade was going to be facilitating the acquisition and construction of more weapons that would be deliberately used to kill innocent people? Wouldn't that introduce some moral ambiguity into the situation? Would you sell a gun to a man who told you he was going to kill his wife with it? If he told you that he was going to kill your brother? If he told you he was going to kill you?

You mentioned the casualties, for example: Somewhere in there, unless I'm mixing this up with another forum, there's got to be something about the difference in casualties. Just to quickly rehash, 'A' says this has more to do with Israelis using Iron Dome, air raid warnings and shelters, and with Hamas not being very good at killing Israelis. (Although they did get better later in the war). Rich people are not automatically nor by definition more evil than poor people. Those with better weapons and defenses are not automatically or by definition the aggressors.

'B' says, Shelters? Yeah, but the Gazans can't build underground shelters. And, there's a cement shortage due to the blockade.

A says: tunnels. Hamas has been building them since the last intifada, they're often lined with cement, and they're underground.
---
And again, while I agree with you that Jews around the world are taking flak because of the actions of "a few" (Israel), I also think that Israel should not be taking this flak either. That's not to say that they are perfect or blameless. They have some bad soldiers and some bad politicians just like everywhere else. And they make mistakes. But I for one am glad they didn't stop until the tunnels were destroyed. The death of children and innocents is tragic and Hamas is the cause of it, not Israel's decision not to forgo self-defense. If Churchill were here I bet he'd be cheering them on and voicing his disgust with 'The Guardian' and other British publications.

When Israel is finally utterly destroyed, the worst people on this planet will be happy, but there will be others, former critics of Israel who will say, "You know, I guess the Israelis weren't as bad as I thought. They truly did use restraint this time. Good for them."

Pointedstick wrote: But what if you knew that those hypothetical weapons were going to be deliberately used to kill innocent people? What if you knew that a good part of the trade was going to be facilitating the acquisition and construction of more weapons that would be deliberately used to kill innocent people? (Then you are engaging in minority report style "justice")

What do you expect the Pals to do? They have been pushed off their land. They have been subject to far worse than apatheid conditions as well as blockades preventing free trade with the outside world. Thousands of their people are rotting in Israeli dungeons. In fact, the Israelis used the murder of the three Jewish boys as an excuse to go in and kidnapp hundreds of pals in the west bank, it apprears to me BEFORE any rockets were coming over. And let's not pretend the pals don't put up with horrible treatment all the time.

I live in the Tampa Bay area. Did you see the savage beating the American boy took at the hands of the IDF? A boy, held down by soldiers while another kicked in him the face and pummeled him. Brutal. We saw it because he's American. How often does it happen and we don't hear about it?

Guys you act like they don't have a legitimate reason to want to be armed. They can never do anything to Israel using these arms except provoke responses like this.  The ultimate solution will never be military action from Tel Aviv. I'm certain that the Israeli politicians know this. They use this to stay in power.

Ask yourself what the Pals are supposed to do? I suppose they could go all Ghandi on them. Maybe they need a Ghandi. I'm afraid he would get killed by Hamas or some other group. The Hamas leasership benefits from the conflict as well.

Ahhh shit, nevermind. The nature of Democracy means Israel will NEVER stop with the overwhelming military responses. The last one to advocate negotiation was Rabin and he was assasinated. The pals are never going to give up the loss of their homeland and the injuries they've suffered and so militant groups will be as popular as ever.

A solution will have to be imposed from the outside by the UN or something.

Simonjester wrote:

Kshartle wrote: So let's look at this. Hamas is refusing to turn it's weapons, thus rendering the pals completely defensless, and demanded that Israel stop preventing the pals from receiving medicine, food, fuel and other essentials from the outside world that is EAGER to get these supplies to them.

This is ridiculously twisted. It's the Israeli military that has killed thousands of civilians in a vicious attack and it's threatening to do more unless the pals surrender unconditionaly. It sounds as though they won't even agree to let basic aid flow into the ravaged areas where the people are sufferring.

What a peice of propaganda. Would you guys give up your guns in the face of such an attack? Would you not demand the lifting of crippling blockade that is causing the deaths no doubt of women and children.

How can you guys read this and sucumb to the propaganda?

Hard line stance? Ohhh yeah real hard line. "No you can't have our weapons, we'll be defenseless and stop preventing medicne and food coming in." Yeah that's real hard line right there.

the problem with lifting the blockade is the pals have pretty much promised to use any lowering of restrictions to bring in weapons rockets and other means to fight till the Jews no longer exist, suffering women and children are not the whole story no matter how much it tugs the heart strings, especially if lifting the blockade doesn't stop civilians, women and children from suffering it just helps move the suffering from one population to the other..

When have they promised this? When you say "pretty much" does that mean they actually have? And quite frankly, the US has given a tremendous amount of weapons to Israel including hundreds of nuculear weapons. Why do they get to have weapons and the Pals don't? Why is it a crime to be armed?

Simonjester wrote:
its not a crime to be armed, but as many previous posts have gone into, who is the aggressor here is not as cut and dried as - it must be the Israelis since they have nukes or fight better - they (the pals) have made it clear with their actions their position is, no compromise no two state option, Israel ceases to exist or we fight till it happens.. i would think NAP justifies force in self defense when this is the position taken by their neighbor and that neighbor is using force against them....

I'm going to bed, but I had to get up and type one last time before sleep, if only to say:

Kshartle wrote: What do you expect the Pals to do? They have been pushed off their land.
Wrong.
They have been subject to far worse than apatheid conditions
No.
. Thousands of their people are rotting in Israeli dungeons.
Lack of context + false characterization of Israeli prisons, where Palestinians are treated well, as "dungeons" or a place to "rot".

You can repeat these and other things as often as you like; it doesn't make them so.

Are you kidding me? Hamas has instigated this crisis every step of the way committing a double war crime...mass targeting civilians while placing their rockets amongst their own Palestinian hostages. They are just one group of many virulent jihadist murderers that include Al Qaeda, ISIS, Boko Harem, the Taliban just to name a few and they need to be removed and eradicated. Get some moral clarity!

(I can sense the moderators coming to close this thread any moment now)

Great debate fellas.  Let's keep keeping it civil. In spite of some big disagreements in some areas. Abortion, religion and Israel (not to mention good anarchist vs statist battles) have all had good discussions on this forum. Some heated at times.  But holy shit if anyone saw this from any other forum I've encountered I think they'd be either flabbergasted at how civil this stuff is or just bored for the lack of vitriol.

It's weird being on K's side on an argument, and while I totally enjoyed PS's "solution," I'm still left with a huge hole in my gut on solving this topic at the statist level. There's just too much philosophically screaming "get the hell out of this tit-for-tat bullshit."  I think HB's got the only right answers on this (on the individualist level).

So true, moda.

The problem is that like with abortion, there is no clean solution that will leave everyone walking away happy, and nobody is willing to make or accept the compromises that would be required to resolve the impasse. It's a perfect pickle. You have two sides claiming legal, historical, and moral rights to the same piece of land. You have a massive disparity of power. You have a lot of shady behavior from the losers that explains how they lost. You also have a lot of shady behavior from the winners that feeds that gut reaction to root for their enemies, the underdogs. You have some uncomfortable historical parallels between what the winners are doing to the losing side and what the winners suffered themselves in the past (blockaded Gaza could very easily be viewed as a ghetto, or an "open-air prison" as some have called it). You have to wrestle with the fact that the winners seem to want peace more than the losers, but then you have to ask yourself why you wouldn't be picking up a gun and fighting with all of your might if you were the loser. You have to ask yourself if picking up a gun and fighting would actually work if the winners were driving tanks and flying airplanes. You have to ask yourself what fighting in the face of such a clearly superior enemy without a realistic plan to beat them could possibly hope to accomplish.

All of this injects such a hopeless amount of moral ambiguity to the situation that we mostly approach it from our own biased perspectives. I will admit that my own Jewish heritage and direct relatives who live in Israel as Israeli citizens colors my perception. But I try to keep an open mind and view the situation through historical rather than emotional eyes, as much as I know it's basically impossible. Better to strive for it and fall short, though.

In the end, what happens will probably be settled by force rather than words. The U.N. is a paper tiger and the other Arab states are a mess. Let's face it: the Israelis can flatten anyone they want. That's why I find it so tragic that the Palestinians can't just accept their situation and behave rationally. But they can't. "Honor culture," as Mountaineer put it, is just the perfect way to describe what guides them. They feel like they've been dishonored and will not admit weakness or even defeat, no matter how obvious it may be to everyone. There's something noble about it, too. Despite their poverty, their squalor, their ineffective resistance in the face of a juggernaut that just gets their own people killed en masse… they have a pride that has been extinguished from our crass, banal, image-over-substance culture.

Damn, now I want to watch Lawrence of Arabia again.

Simonjester wrote:
well summarized PS +1

Pointedstick wrote:I will admit that my own Jewish heritage and direct relatives who live in Israel as Israeli citizens colors my perception.

It's funny; I always picture you as a black guy, because of the avatar.

Xan wrote:

Pointedstick wrote:I will admit that my own Jewish heritage and direct relatives who live in Israel as Israeli citizens colors my perception.

It's funny; I always picture you as a black guy, because of the avatar.

How do you know I'm not a black Jew!?!

Man, that would be awesome.

There is no ambiguity here. Rather it is good versus evil. Jihadists use their outrage and victimhood all around the world as a weapon to help achieve their goal of worldwide domination along with the eradication of other religions and freedoms.

Pointedstick wrote:

Xan wrote:

Pointedstick wrote:I will admit that my own Jewish heritage and direct relatives who live in Israel as Israeli citizens colors my perception.

It's funny; I always picture you as a black guy, because of the avatar.

How do you know I'm not a black Jew!?!

Man, that would be awesome.

You could have come in from Ethiopia. 

Reub wrote: There is no ambiguity here. Rather it is good versus evil. Jihadists use their outrage and victimhood all around the world as a weapon to help achieve their goal of worldwide domination along with the eradication of other religions and freedoms.

Seems a bit more complicated than that, Reub. But, I'm sensing that some of the more prolifiic voices here have very little historical knowledge behind them, and I'm running out of patience and energy. I think I'll bow out while I'm still in a fairly good mood, lest I break the civility. Have a good discussion fellas.  I'm going to continue with Edward Said and Yaacov Lozowick.

Let's put this in anarcho-capitalist, free society terms.

Here's how it all started:

There is a large piece of arid land with several houses built upon it. The land is largely barren, but has pockets of fertility and vegetation, as well as a beautiful stone gazebo in a lush meadow that is considered to be its greatest feature. The land has been owned for 400 years by a property management company called Ottoma Enterprises.

A man named Alan and his large family are currently renting several of the houses on this property. Some of the extended relatives of another man named Joe are also renting a different house on the property. These people are currently living in relative if wary peace with one another. Various ancestors of Alan and Joe's families have been renting houses on this land for hundreds, perhaps even thousands of years. Both families each owned this land at various times in history, but neither of them has for a long time. Far in the past, the Joes owned the land before the Alans existed, but the Alans were the last ones to have owned it before becoming renters.

Joe and his family are, for various unfair reasons, not well-liked in their community. The Joes have faced severe discrimination in their housing opportunities, having been repeatedly kicked out and even victimized by their landlords. Joe decides they need a house and some land of their own. Joe and most his family are currently living in group homes owned by various other property management companies, one of which is named United Kingdoms. The directors of United Kingdoms are themselves not especially fold of the Joes, and are eager to be rid of them.

United Kingdoms wishes to acquire all of the properties owned by Ottoma Enterprises, and conspires to initiate a hostile takeover. The directors of United Kingdoms make deals with both Joe and Alan, soliciting their support in exchange for giving them the land in question. Neither Alan nor Joe knows that the same deal has been made to the other man.

Joe uses his financial connections to put pressure on Ottoma Enterprises, while Alan urges his family to make trouble and vandalize Ottoma Enterprises' properties. Eventually, the gambit succeeds, and Ottoma Enterprises is absorbed in the hostile takeover.

Soon afterwards, a crazy mass-murderer named Naxi Allemani kills many members of Joe's extended family before an investigation partially sponsored by United Kingdoms apprehends the killer and results in his banishment and death in a self-defense killing when he refuses to leave. Joe feels grateful to United Kingdoms for the company's efforts to stop Allemani and the promise they have made that the Joes can live on this piece of land. Joe encourages the surviving members of his family to move there.

Joe visits the property in question to see his Joeish relatives and scout the area in anticipation of building a beautiful compound. He encounters Alan and his family speaking worriedly in Alanic. Alan explains that he has the same goal and was also promised all of the land. Each man becomes upset. Their distraught families begin to glare angrily at one another.

Alan and Joe appeal to United Kingdoms, which awkwardly insists that these competing promises are not actually contradictory, and encourages the two parties to live on the same piece of property.

Alan and Joe people grudgingly agree to try, and Joe brings in his family. The Joes and the Alans all and try to live together, but it rapidly becomes clear that they have nothing in common and don't much like one another. Their kids regularly get in fistfights for no good reason and their houses are repeatedly vandalized. Tensions rise.

In the meantime, the United Kingdoms goes bankrupt and disclaims all responsibility in the matter! In the confusion of the bankruptcy, the title to the land cannot be found in United Kingdoms' archives, and neither Joe nor Alan has it, either.

Feeling guilty, a director of United Kingdoms visits the disputed property and tells Alan and Joe that he will personally sponsor a private arbitrator to resolve the dispute so that the Alans and the Joes can live in peace. Alan and Joe agree to this. The arbitrator rules that the land should be subdivided, deeming that Alan's family should get 2/3 of it, and Joe's family should get the remaining 1/3. The arbitrator also rules that the gazebo--the most desirable appurtenance to the land, after all--should be owned in trust by a new holding company administered by the arbitrator himself, to prevent either family from attempting to monopolize the beautiful gazebo.

Both men are upset with this deal. Alan claims that the Joes have gotten some of the better pieces of the land, leaving him and his family with more desert. Joe points out that the Alans are set to receive twice as much land as he has gotten, and further protests that he did not get the Gazebo, which Joe's family loves but Alan's family does not feel as strongly about and has actually kept in a state of relative disrepair.

Joe grudgingly accepts the deal, though. He is happy to have gotten anything at all. Alan, outraged, rejects it outright, having expected that the arbitrator was going to give him everything. Alan pulls out a crude pistol and forces the arbitrator off the land. Joe runs off to grab his own weapon and warn his family.

Alan's family members emerge from their houses with their own weapons, mostly rusty swords and crude single-shot muskets. They announce their intention to force Joe's family off the land or kill them. The Joes members prepare to defend themselves and get out their own weapons, which largely consist of modern pistols and automatic rifles.

Alan's family appeals to their neighbors, none of which like Joe or his family very much. He stokes them into a frenzy, warning them of all of the awful things that will happen if Joe and his family are allowed to live in his rightful land. His neighbors take up arms and join in the fight.

Joe and his family rapidly build fortifications, and, to everyone's surprise, are not immediately overrun. In fact, with their superior firepower, discipline, and will, they hold off every attack by the Alans and their neighbors, and even venture out and begin to drive Alan's family members out of the gazebo, which they desperately want for themselves. Suddenly, Alan's neighbors claim his houses for themselves and begin to invade them! By the time the smoke clears and arbitrators and their deputies arrive, they find that many of the houses are inhabited by Alan's family but controlled by his neighbors, who are claiming that the houses and their land are actually theirs to manage, promising to bog down this dispute in red tape for years. Alan's family is left in control of none of the houses and now lives at the pleasure of his former neighbors!

Joe finds that he has a great deal of land, and that Alan's family had been pushed off their own land by their neighbors, who had stabbed them in the back under the guise of helping them. Joe immediately begins organizing projects to improve the land. Alan bitterly begins petitioning his neighbors to leave his houses. The year is 1949.

Only one solution has had anywhere near a lasting effect throughout history.  The one with the bigger stick beats the opponent into unconditional surrender and submission.  Everyone lives happily everafter (for a few years) and then the cycle repeats.  That is just what sinners have done since the beginning and do now.  Just like fish swim, birds fly, dogs bark, animals mate.  It is just the natural thing to do.  Oh you say, this time will be different, we are more civilized.  I say, bullshit, look at reality and facts.  DEAL WITH IT!

... Mountaineer