Gamm is gone, but John and George are more than here.

[Robert R. Frump]

Was Gramm out of touch? He was not alone.

https://pol.moveon.org/donate/inyourhead.html?id=13273-9510288-SDxq7Fx&t=3

[Maggie]

That isn't condemning just Americans. That is a general statement that describes the ways in which people obtain knowledge.

"By Allah, he is not capable of solving the problems that come to him nor is fit for the position assigned to him. Whatever he does not know he does not regard it worth knowing. He does not realise that what is beyond his reach is within the reach of others."

And clearly, you do not know the text from which that is derived. Most likely because you've dismissed classics of Islamic history as unnecessary. And clearly, this has handicapped this country. Blaming others for this country's ignorance and arrogance...well..what can I say?

Read the excerpt again with an open mind. Ask yourself, do you go to the texts or do you rely on someone else's eye witness report?

Btw, the last paragraph of that is misplaced and belongs to the quote i.e. the part beginning "I complain.."

Emir Ali ibn Abi Taleb (pbuh) said that, not me but I share his convictions all the way.

Ignorant people cause so much suffering to others.

[Robert R. Frump]

You gotta love folks who rail against ignorance and then condemn all Americans -- a population that includes a few million Muslims. Anyone who thinks they can use the phrase "We Muslims..." needs to show me a few credentials.

[Maggie]

"Disagree. The American worker is the most productive worker in the world."

Really? Actually no. Having worked with people from all over the world at a regional referral medical center in Riyadh....I'd say that the hardest working people are actually Filipinos.

Do American's have better critical thinking skills? Well, sometimes but they've lost alot of ground. This is demonstrated in the failures of the educational system. Isolationism has produced that and isolationisms main goal is to keep people ignorant of Foreign Affairs, expecially Zionism. In order to keep people ignorant of those issues, the other ignorances ensue.

The very great political and religious leader of the Shia muslims (Iran, South Lebanon, Southern Iraq) said:

"Among(1) all the people the most detested before Allah are two persons. One is he who is devoted to his self. So he is deviated from the true path and loves speaking about (foul) innovations and inviting towards wrong path. He is therefore a nuisance for those who are enamoured of him, is himself misled from the guidance of those preceding him, misleads those who follow him in his life or after his death, carries the weight of others' sins and is entangled in his own misdeeds.

The other man is he who has picked up ignorance. He moves among the ignorant, is senseless in the thick of mischief and is blind to the advantages of peace. Those resembling like men have named him scholar but he is not so. He goes out early morning to collect things whose deficiency is better than plenty, till when he has quenched his thirst from polluted water and acquired meaningless things.

He sits among the people as a judge responsible for solving whatever is confusing to the others. If an ambiguous problem is presented before him he manages shabby argument about it of his own accord and passes judgement on its basis. In this way he is entangled in the confusion of doubts as in the spider's web, not knowing whether he was right or wrong. If he is right he fears lest he erred, while if he is wrong he hopes he is right. He is ignorant, wandering astray in ignorance and riding on carriages aimlessly moving in darkness. He did not try to find reality of knowledge. He scatters the traditions as the wind scatters the dry leaves.

By Allah, he is not capable of solving the problems that come to him nor is fit for the position assigned to him. Whatever he does not know he does not regard it worth knowing. He does not realise that what is beyond his reach is within the reach of others. If anything is not clear to him he keeps quiet over it because he knows his own ignorance. Lost lives are crying against his unjust verdicts, and properties (that have been wrongly disposed of) are grumbling against him."

And yes, we muslims do complain about the ignorance of the arrogant. It is one thing to be arrogant when you possess knowledge and a completely other thing when you are arrogant and ignorant at the same time.

Americans are both arrogant and ignorant. Their leaders are the same as they are and deserve each other. In fact, GWB was highly favored post 9/11. He claimed that "God" i.e. Allah picked him and as a successful Shia muslim I'd have to agree. Allah picked GWB to lead the ignorant right into the mess that they are in. No one on this planet could reason with a one of you. Well...maybe not all of you non muslims but most. Even those who support the Palestinian cause are against what we believe in as muslims.

America has this coming to it. Absolutely. The whining that you see is only evidence of their internal suffering however they suffer this plague in ignorance. Suffering through a trial with knowledge is a much, much different reality.

I complain to Allah about persons who live ignorant and die misguided. For them nothing is more worthless than Qur'an if it is recited as it should be recited, nor anything more valuable than the Qur'an if its verses are removed from their places, nor anything more vicious than virtue nor more virtuous than vice.

[Robert R. Frump]

I'd have to agree with at least some of what you say. I do believe Braised Cod makes some good points as well. Theoretically, I should be able to support a progressive or moderate Republican, but I feel the GOP has lost its way completely in Rove land. If only one of those guys had been in a war, Iraq might have been handled differently. MBA's manage widgets but the world is not the way of widgets.
I think we should end our bickering, join hands and blame the media!

[Braised Cod]

This is what happens when the "Straight Talk Express" collides with the current ship of state that values "perception management" over telling the truth. As Michael Kinsley put it best: "A gaffe is when a politician tells the truth." Gramm did tell the truth, not about the American people, but as how the GOP leadership views the American people. From a party that convinced two-thirds of Fox News watchers the Saddam Hussein was responsible for 9/11, telling them that their economic pain is all in their head is a perfectly predictable "strategery." Unfortunately, the Charles Foster Kane philosophy of "people will think what I tell them to think" is beginning to wear thin. The cognitive dissidence required to be a loyal Republican has reached intolerable proportions. Terrorist angst, abortion and gay marriage are becoming less important than the seismic shift in wealth in this country that is hollowing out the middle class. People are finally waking up to the fact that "trickle down economics" was a flat out lie. The best illustration I've heard for this myth is if you feed enough grain to the Wall Street bull, there will be plenty of shit for the files. I believe Obama had it right when he said, "pain trickles up." With any luck, it will soon be the GOP who whines.

[Robert R. Frump]

Disagree. The American worker is the most productive worker in the world. Americans want a lot and they work hard to get it. Most families have two working adults and sacrifice a lot in commuting and long hours. They suffer a lot. And they will give as much as they are asked, if they are lead well and asked to do more than 'go shopping.' Our leaders specifically, Gramm, set up a rigged system where one percent of the population benefits in a system that only backfires for the other 99 percent. Suggesting that ARCS and subprime debacles engineered by Gramm and Wall Street are wrong is not whining. Being concerned that housing values run up and then punctured by defective financial engineering is wrong is not whining. Being concerned over huge deficits that threaten our nation and our stability is not whining. These folks never feel the brunt of flawed systems they have devised and flawed policies they have lead.