Jayb, there are prices that are not financial and yes, the young people and their parents will and are paying those prices today.

The price will get higher and higher as the elderly live longer and continue to exert their fear-filled, self-gratifying stranglehold on society.

In our world of exponential change, the young already have a great deal to cope with. It would be nice if their elders and purported "betters" let them get on with dealing with it.

Hi Jayb,

Yeah, I remember when I was at Penrith State Primary School, there was a bully in our class, a big Pommie kid, he used to stand over other kids and push them around until some little kid belted him in the eye (and ran like hell) and he was okay after that.

Young people these days are not under any more pressure than fifty or sixty years ago. Sure, they're looking down from much greater heights of affluence and comfort, but I recall those times sixty-odd years ago as a much more dog-eat-dog world, much more make-or-break, literally. I remember getting into a fight with a couple of kids in Wagga, I guess we were all about twelve, trying to punch the living sh!t out of each other.

Maybe it was a much more physical world then, less cerebral, and that kids these days are tormented much more by personality attacks, character smears, poor things.

Wouldn't be young for quids !

Joe

Lego,

On your invitation to ask you questions (your post 27bFeb 2:54 SM), I will attempt to scrutinise your observations (your post 26 Feb 4 PM) in a rational environment dealing with genuine references as opposed to medieval distortions of Islam one can grab from hundreds of hate-sites and pedal without any responsibility or care.

On your repeated “scriptures of Islam”, let us be clear on the basic fact the only scripture Islam has is Quran. Hadith, a human collection of verbal accounts about 200 years after the death of Muhammad (Saw) must pass the basic test that it DOES NOT CONTRADICT QURAN.

I will start with two of your observations, obviously borrowed from hate-sites as pointed out earlier:

I) <<The scriptures of the Islamic faith order believers to make war on non believers to spread Islam. True.>>

II) <<The scriptures of Islam order believers to kill "idolaters" who will not convert to Islam. True.>>

The Islamic Faith is clear on the subject of your observations which can be clearly understood through the following injunctions of Quran :

1- There is no compulsion in religion (Quran 2:256);

2- Muhammad ‘s (Saw) response to “idolaters”: Unto you your religion and unto me my religion (Quran 109:6).

Given that your observations stand in stark contradiction of Quran, my First Question to you is: Where is a QUOTE FROM QURAN THAT SUPPORTS YOUR ABOVE NOTED OBSERVATIONS. Every sentence of Quran is readily quotable and verifiable today.

My second question to you is: Do you spread hatred against other religions as well or you have (for reason you may like to disclose) reserved this privilege for Islam only.

Being a Muslim myself, the knowledge of your religious inclination or a lack of it will help save time in pursuing this discussion in the right context.

Hi Crai,

Yeah, those elderly b@stards ! Working all their lives, and then having the gall to want to live in some sort of comfort, while young people - the inheritors of the world - have to struggle and scrape and envy those with. So unfair !

Why can't elderly people top themselves at seventy or seventy five, and immediately give over all their property to young people ?! After all, those young people are so much more superior, worthy, they know so much more, than wrinkled-up, smelly old people who clutter up buses and doctors' waiting rooms.

So how long before you're in that situation, Craig ? Welcome to the second half of your life :)

Joe

TheHypocrisy,
So are you an unpaid Sayanim or employed directly by Israeli foreign affairs?

Joe, I'm 52 this year and I hope to live to some reasonable age. I'm at the tail end of the baby boom, in other words. Unlike most of the "grumpy old men" here though, I've lived my life well and without regrets. I'm not going to spend my last years trying to make everyone else miserable: resentful and fearful of losing a life I never really used.

The problem for society is that there has possibly never been a time in history when so much of the population has been elderly and certainly there has never been a time when so many of the elderly have not been within extended family units.

There has also never been a time when such a high proportion of women in their reproductive years have been without families around them. Nor has there ever been a time when women have spent so much of their time being unavailable for their children, or when children have spent so long being children.

These are not trivial issues. They have had and continue to have enormous social consequences. Pretending, as you do in your unworthily stupid trolling of NC, that the most important issue is some aspect of Islam, is purest idiocy.

The appeal of Islamism to disaffected youth is that it provides a "justification" for acting out their frustration, lack of hope and alienation. If it didn't exist, some other justification would be found. Outlaw bikers call themselves the 1%, meaning they see themselves as being a tiny minority who are able to choose whether or not to obey the rules of society. It is no surprise that they draw their membership from among the same demographic as the radical Islamists