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Morality question

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21:16 / 04.01.06

Following this breaking news concerning Ariel Sharon being rushed to hospital...

Too fat to live?

And, after Arafat's death and the resultant, relative peace in the region, and the biggest chance for a LASTING peace, for the first time in years, WOULD it be so bad if he kicked it? He definitely doesn't help matters, does he?

What do you think? Where do you stand, morally, and how much of you would wish this man dead, for the good of Israel?

21:36 / 04.01.06

Wouldn't wish him dead at all. I think that at this particular political moment, Sharon's death or incapacity is the worst possible thing that could happen to Israel and the Palestinians, simply because of the strength of the right wing and the weakness of the left in Israel today.

I'm just terribly afraid that if Sharon is out of the picture, the (significantly farther) right will almost inevitably take control. And those fuckers are SCARY.

Tryphena Absent

21:46 / 04.01.06

Well I'm not going to shed any tears over Sharon but I think this would be a very bad time for him to die, not because I necessarily think it would mean chaos in Israel- it's already quite chaotic and pretty harsh but because I think it would make him a martyr. He's started a new party and they're in the lead in opinion polls, to die now would be to leave a legacy over Israel that I would rather he didn't create.

And this, the source is the BBC, makes me feel nervous- The prime minister was carried to hospital in Jerusalem from his ranch in the Negev Desert in Israel's south by ambulance - a drive that normally takes more than an hour - instead of by helicopter.

Tryphena Absent

22:05 / 04.01.06

By the way the combination of "too fat to live" and Tits Win has really made you lose.

22:56 / 04.01.06

Is the morality question whether it's joking matter when the leader of Israel dies?

23:34 / 04.01.06

Well, he is fat - VERY fat, and I was thinking, personally, that fat = greedy Western-controlled ignorant pig, or words to that effect.

ONLY NICE THINGS

23:39 / 04.01.06

Like Buddha?

Let's start again. What do you think the implications of Ariel Sharon's death or inability to continue in Israeli politics would be, TW?

00:29 / 05.01.06

Well, most of the statues that I've seen, portray Buddha as more of a skinny, male/female type...

Implications of him dying would be, IMO, not particularly good at this present time, what with the Palistinian elections looming, and already threatened with being pushed back...On the other hand, which I prefer, I think that a fresh start for the Israeli government, and new leadership, whether it came from the right OR left, would have quite the same effect as it did when Arafat popped his clogs - a renewed interest, and effort, to acheive peace, because, you wouldn't want to come straight in kick up a fuss now would you.

My thinking is that, If I'd had to pick one of the two parties, when Arafat was still around, that I thought would be MORE likely to start making trouble should their respective leader 'suddenly perish', I would have said the Palestinians. Because they always have been more volatile. AND Arafat wasn't really in control there anyway...BUT This new guy seems to have pulled back everyone quite nicely. FORCING Sharon's hand. And God was it forced. In comparison, I reckon the Israelis, being a tougher, more intelligent lot, would be able to handle his death in just-as-good-a-fashion, if not better.

Which is why I'm in favour of him not coming out of that hospital anytime soon, in a 'still-can-govern' condition. Because he's been leading the country for a LONG time; getting entrenched in his position; being the guy at the top of the layer cake, ultimately-responsible, (hubristic tendencies) and increasingly hating and hating. You only need to look at the guy to see that he's a horrible old prick.

Morally, I think that his death would be acceptable, as it would lead to the greater good, than should he continue to rule.

I don't know who the alternatives would be, should he pass, but they won't come with the emptional baggage and resultant-bias that a man in his position must have picked up over the years. And I don't think that the Israelis are stupid enough to elect someone who'd muck up the current peace-efforts...

(Which incidentally would make now the PERFECT time for the grim reaper to go and pay fat-boy a visit...)

00:32 / 05.01.06

The Buddha is male, not "male/female". Representations of the younger Buddha tend to depict him as slim; older representations as fat. The 'fat and jolly' incarnation of the Buddha seems especially popular as a good luck charm.

00:48 / 05.01.06

Yeah, I know he's male, I was just trying to get across the idea that a lot of Oriental representations have 'blurred the line' of his sex, in order to have him appeal to more people in general, as well as get across the idea that he 'transcends boundaries,' which leads us round-the-house to maybe why he's also portrayed as 'large', when he probably wasn't in real-life - One of the core tenents of Buddhism is non-attachment, isn't it? (Or: Non-greed).

Despite that argument, Ariel Sharon is arguably not Buddha. Unless I'm missing something. I'll come back after I've taken my mediaction, just in case.

ONLY NICE THINGS

00:48 / 05.01.06

Good Lord, Tits. That's possibly the most insightful analysis of the Israeli political situation I've ever read. I particularly like the way you've put your finger on the way that Israelis are cleverer than Palestinians. Also, your analysis of Sharon, a man who turned his back on the party he led as Prime Minister in order to create a new party, as set in his ways is perhaps the most incisive piece of analysis I have encountered in this admittedly young year.

00:50 / 05.01.06

You wouldn't be in favour of moving this thread to the switchboard then, I take it?

ONLY NICE THINGS

00:54 / 05.01.06

I think that, given the further revelations that the Buddha is transgendered, that only greedy people are fat and that the best way to make a man look female is to make them "large", I honestly don't know whether this thread belongs in the Head Shop, the Laboratory or the Temple.

01:17 / 05.01.06

Or maybe the creation, the way it's going eh?

ONLY NICE THINGS

01:28 / 05.01.06

Let's start again. Is this actually a question about Ariel Sharon himself, or is it a purely hypothetical question - would you mind somebody dying if the result was the saving of a larger number of lives? If the former, then there is already a thread on his stroke in the Switchboard. If the latter, then it might be best not to confuse the issue by... well, in a perfect world by anything, but failing that by analysis of the current situation in Israel.

01:30 / 05.01.06

That's him pretty much fucked, then.

01:31 / 05.01.06

Yes I agree it was meant to be a morality thing...

08:52 / 05.01.06

I don't want anyone to die.

09:22 / 05.01.06

Yeah, I know he's male, I was just trying to get across the idea that a lot of Oriental representations have 'blurred the line' of his sex, in order to have him appeal to more people in general

That's absolute bollocks. I'm sorry, but it is. The Buddha is supposed to be the perfect human being and, as such, is perfectly physically proportioned - so he appears the way he does because those are the ideals of male beauty in a given culture, not because he's being spun for mass-market appeal.

which leads us round-the-house to maybe why he's also portrayed as 'large', when he probably wasn't in real-life - One of the core tenents of Buddhism is non-attachment, isn't it?

What the Buddha was like in real life isn't the issue; neither, for that matter, is the fact that Ariel Sharon isn't the Buddha. The point is that you equated a particular body shape with being a "greedy Western-controlled ignorant pig". Haus called you on your crass generalisation. There are plenty of other examples of physical fatness not automatically mapping onto greediness, Westernness (or Western-controlledness), ignorance or pigginess.

It's a side-point really, but it points up a particular kind of logic process, and tends to undermine the rest of your argument.

ONLY NICE THINGS

09:34 / 05.01.06

There are plenty of other examples of physical fatness not automatically mapping onto greediness, Westernness (or Western-controlledness), ignorance or pigginess.

Like being a woman, for example.

ONLY NICE THINGS

09:35 / 05.01.06

Probably a greedy one, mind.

Regrettable Juvenilia

09:38 / 05.01.06

What with the suggestion that new leadership even from the right would lead to a renewed interest and effort to acheive "peace", and the claims that the Palestinians have always been "more volatile" whereas the Israelis are "a tougher, more intelligent lot", I'm not sure the argument of the poster formerly known as 08 needs any further undermining.

10:12 / 05.01.06

To derail the thread further, the Buddha wasn't fat. At the time of his elightenment, he'd just given up on starving himself as a religious practice. So he was pretty skinny, but eventually returned to normal weight.

The 'fat Buddha' was a Chinese Ch'an monk called Hotei, who is often considered to be an emination of the bodhisattva Maitreya.

10:19 / 05.01.06

The fat Buddhas may largely emanate from China, but they're found elsewhere too. In Thailand, representations of the Buddha are found in all manner of body shapes, and at least one monk (the one I asked, in Bangkok!) seemed to believe the Buddha himself had gone through a period of being fat.

All of which is rather beside the point, the point being that a corpulent shape is not in itself indicative of greed, Westernness, ignorance or being a pig.

10:34 / 05.01.06

Well, check out this URL.

As Planet Baywatch points out that fat people (as well as the criminally untanned) are often evil - what more proof do you need?

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

11:34 / 05.01.06

I hate to come across as some sort of wishy-washy moderate, but couldn't he just, you know, not die but resign due to ill health?

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

11:35 / 05.01.06

(Thus giving himself more time to stuff his greedy face with pies and lard, or whatever it is he does to keep his Buddha-like shape).

Tryphena Absent

11:38 / 05.01.06

If he's capable of talking then I imagine he will resign. I can't believe Sharon can get through this without brain damage of some sort.

11:54 / 05.01.06

Just to clarify, the fat = greedy comment, was meant to relate to how fat Ariel Sharon is/was (fingers-crossed), and what I thought HIS size was a symptom/indicator of, bless his piggy-little heart.

Anyway, I stand by the idea that most fatties (I'm talking obese here) are greedy, and ignorant (of their own health, and looks, at least, to the point where even if they ARE aware they choose to evade doing something effective about it). I speak from personal experience having been a tub-of-lard mysef once upon a time. (Not that it's an all-inclusive worldview but...)

Exceptions - People with conditions forcing them to be fat; people on steroids; or people eating too many cakes because they're unhappy, maybe because a family member died, or, I don't know, because they're too fat to leave the house.

I stand by the Buddha being skinny, and the representations of him being miscontrued for other ends (maybe he's being sponsored by Dunkin' Donuts these days?) and don't honestly know about the male/female thing, which was my own reading of those many statues I saw...But, come on, it's possible...

11:59 / 05.01.06

Anyway, morality, etc.

I remember thinking, when Arafat was experiencing complications, that it would be great if he died. For everyone else. And that maybe it was the perfect time for the US to kill him, what with him being laid out on an operating table, unconscious. interesting take on the question there: "You're the surgeon, chosen to do the operation. You know that Arafat's been nothing but a hinderance to the peace process, in, if nothing else, his inability to pull the terrorist groups back long enough to inspire ANY truce. Would you fuck up the op?"

It's kind of like that logic that says prisoners who get executed and then found to be actually innocent are a necessary sacrifice, because the number of guilty that would reoffend if they got out, (if they weren't lethally injected, etc), would lead to a greater amount of deaths, or, the presence of the death penalty makes people think more about jabbing that knife into that 'perrrty girl's perrrty face!' and whether it's worth it.

Which could be avoided all round by just giving them life, I suppose. Maybe they should replace Sharon's brain with a muffin and declare it a "careless mistake, sorry!!!"

Regrettable Juvenilia

12:07 / 05.01.06

I'd like to tap-dance on your face in a pair of high heels.

12:08 / 05.01.06

I stand by the Buddha being skinny, and the representations of him being miscontrued for other ends (maybe he's being sponsored by Dunkin' Donuts these days?) and don't honestly know about the male/female thing, which was my own reading of those many statues I saw...But, come on, it's possible...

Well, it's possible that the Buddha was actually an alien from the planet Adipose, or that he never existed at all but was concocted by burgeoning fast food franchises in the 1890s in order to make obesity acceptable to Eastern markets.

However, just because something has occurred to one and is theoretically possible doesn't make it probable or a great arguing gambit.

Perhaps it's worth starting a thread on the (causal?) link between fatness and laziness and/or stupidity/ignorance? And geography, because while it's well established that obesity is far more common in the West, it doesn't automatically follow that fatness = Westernness.

12:12 / 05.01.06

If I were your hypothetical surgeon, TW, I might question my ability to know that Arafat's been "nothing but a hindrance" to any sort of peace process - just as I might question the simple equating of ability to control every single aggrieved splinter group or armed individual in Palestine with overall usefulness as a leader.

I guess that'd make me rather a self-aware surgeon, though.

Hattie's Kitchen

14:11 / 05.01.06

Anyway, I stand by the idea that most fatties (I'm talking obese here) are greedy, and ignorant (of their own health, and looks, at least, to the point where even if they ARE aware they choose to evade doing something effective about it). I speak from personal experience having been a tub-of-lard mysef once upon a time. (Not that it's an all-inclusive worldview but...)

Exceptions - People with conditions forcing them to be fat; people on steroids; or people eating too many cakes because they're unhappy, maybe because a family member died, or, I don't know, because they're too fat to leave the house.

Sorry for going off-topic, but that statement proves scientifically that you're a prize prick.

15:11 / 05.01.06

Fancy, all this bile for someone who doesn't like fat people?

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