"you pretend that anti-black and anti-Latino racism don't exist"

Eh? When did I claim that? Southern California is a simmering cauldron of racial tension. I talked to a black petition circulator yesterday who was ticked off by the displacement of blacks by Latinos. I heard a white man call the black shift manager at a local fast food joint the 'N' word a few weeks ago. There are race riots in SoCal high schools all the time, and there are some neighborhoods that are 'off limits' to certain races. There was a huge race riot (blacks vs. hispanics) in the prison a few miles from my house two years ago. Pointing out that a lot of people who are denounced by marxist idealogues as racist happen to support a black man for President of the United States does not mean there is no racism.

"your debate tactics allow you to completely sidestep the ugly racist rhetoric that permeates the entire paleo-libertarian milieu, and infects every single major writer of this ideological trend."

Murray Rothbard (who supported the Black Panthers before they went Red - some racist) wrote some arguably racist stuff for a short period before his death twenty years ago, therefore all libertarians are racist. But pointing out the completely blatant and over-the-top racism of Marx is 'irrelevant'.

"the draconian Republican anti-abortion legislation that is sweeping the country"

Do you have a bill number for this 'rape audit' law?

"As for being an obnoxious prick, it's clear as day to all who've read this thread that we were proceeding apace with an actual collegial interesting thread before you decided to whip out the "YER ALL ISLAMOPHOBES" routine for no reason whatsoever"

GFY. Your 'list' was obviously an attempt to pick a fight with me. Now you got one and you're whining about a lack of civility.

"And much of the Mizrahi/?Sephardi community was cleansed right after 1948, not "'well after1948"."

I've already debunked this in another thread. Rather than rehashing it, I'll just link to it:
http://webdiplomacy.net/forum.php?threadID=668114&page-thread=6#threadPager

Get over yourself. You're so self-absorbed that you think I would dedicate a historical list to you. I couldn't care less about what you thought of my list. I just think it's funny that my list is the source of your agitation when according to your criteria -having sufficient numbers of Muslim victories - mine should have been the damn model. No matter what I did, you would have railed about Islamophobia. It's consumed your brain.

But my god please regal me with stories about all my nefarious plots to pick a fight with you. Have I ever made a thread entitled "why do you hate Jews, honest I want to know I'm not trying to be a troll" ala Tolstoy except with Muslims? Stop projecting your own behavior onto me.

"Eh? When did I claim that?"

Oh I'm sorry, you claimed that only anti-Muslim (and anti-Mormon!) bigotry was acceptable to verbalize in public. See:

"Perhaps because it's the only form of bigotry that is still acceptable to verbalize in public these days (in addition, I suppose, to hatred of Mormons)."

And naturally virtually all of your examples of 'racial tensions' are of the Latino-Black antagonisms. Interestingly despite all the Californian whites constantly claiming blacks and latinos hate each other, the African-Americans in the South are, against all odds, the main organizers of immigrant solidarity movements in Alabama and Mississippi, where white Republicans are passing reactionary laws in order to expel the Latino population from the area (apparently this doesn't come close to the horrors faced by Mormons, right?). And apparently implement racist laws for the purpose of expulsion isn't an example of verbalizing racism in public. Nor is the fact that Fox News dedicates long hours to demonizing any and all aspects of black culture, and their highest viewed pundits express surprise that blacks behave themselves at some restaurants. Nevermind that Lou Dobbs dedicated his whole damn career to making Latinos responsible for everything from spreading diseases to forest fires. Nevermind that a parade of rightwing politicians blamed the black population of Katrina for their plight. Nevermind that the rightwing media openly blames minorities for the financial crisis, and nevermind that racist attacks against Obama have continued unabated and even with encouragement from the GOP. Nope, only Muslims are demonized publicly. At least in Tolstoy's la-la land.

"Murray Rothbard (who supported the Black Panthers before they went Red - some racist) wrote some arguably racist stuff for a short period before his death twenty years ago, therefore all libertarians are racist."

LOL, Rothbard wrote racist things but he was no racist. A "short period" indeed, try his whole career. He invented the strategy of an unholy alliance of small government conservatives and whites agitated about race as the way forward for paleo-libertarianism. http://www.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/ir/Ch5.html

That particular article is all sorts of awesome, for Rothbard hails enhancing police powers (unleashing the cops on "street thugs"). What a libertarian.

Charles Murray devoted his whole career to "proving" the intellectual inferiority of blacks (with Rothbard giving him the two thumbs up, saying that "In short; racialist science is properly not an act of aggression or a cover for oppression of one group over another, but, on the contrary, an operation in defense of private property against assaults by aggressors."). Pat Buchanan's racist credentials don't even merit comment. Rockwell is widely regarded as the ghost writer for RP's newsletters, there are plenty of gems to find there.
http://newsone.com/nation/casey-gane-mccalla/ron-pauls-racist-newsletters-revealed/

He expressed faux "admiration" for black separatists which had long been expressed by white separatists, which is why the KKK had no problem with Marcus Garvey. They had a mutual interest in racial separatism. I guess that means the KKK isn't racist.

And of course anybody who bothers looking at the LVMI knows full well the kind of racist crankery that overwhelms that place. LVMI, btw, founded by Rockwell.

You guys suck.

Honestly, way to derail a perfectly good thread

It's Putin... Did you *actually* expect something else?

I expect all people not to suck and am disappointed every minute of every day.

I was more referring to the derailing of a perfectly good thread...

I'm not to blame for this. Don't start nothing, won't be nothing.

Um, you argued back therefore you share in the responsibility for derailing it. That is my only word on the subject. Argue back about that if you like, but a wise man once told me that if I have a problem with 5 different people, the problem isn't them, it's me.

What if the five different people surrounded you in an alley and beat you up, Draug?
And the alley was behind your home, and had a usually high crime rate?

What then? Huh?

"Argue back about that if you like, but a wise man once told me that if I have a problem with 5 different people, the problem isn't them, it's me."

That wise man was not Israel.

Anyway if you want to stop derailing the thread, then stop derailing the thread.

@semck - He meant on an individual basis and with ragrds to an argument, not a physical altercation brought on by criminal elements, but point taken.

In no particular order:
Trebia
Zama
Marathon
Stalingrad
Hastings
Otumba
Waterloo
Somme
Cannea
Midway

Actually on second thought take out Trebia and add Trenton

dont see how Zama keeps showing up, Hannibal had already been kicked out of italy and his numidian allies had already turned on him.

not saying its wrong, id just be interested to hear the reasoning behind it

I grouped the battles into cathegories.

Future badasses establish themselves:
Sack of Rome (387 BC) - Romans just waited that one out but imagine the city being razed to ground instead of merely sacked. Bye, Rome and all it's spiritual successors.
Badr - If Muslims lost, Muhammad could pack his bags. Tolstoy doesn't participate in this thread and no off-topic with Putin ever takes place.
Battle of the Thirteen sides - What if Temüjin failed to win there? Would he have time to heal the wound from Zurgadai's arrow before they ripped him to pieces?

Changing the status quo:
Marathon et al. - Persians rolling all over Greece doesn't look like a good prospect for maintaining the Greek cultural heritage.
Yarmouk - If one the greatest generals in the history and at his prime couldn't manage to strip Roman Empire of its pride, who would?
Hastings - Medieval Europe would be hard to recognize if the fortune went the other way.
Nancy - Ditto for Early Modern one. Death of Charles the Bold propelled territorial disputes rivaled only by disintegration of Lotharingia.
Siege of Vienna (1529, the first one was by Corvinus, lads) - Ottomans? In my region?

Final straw:
Gaugamela - Alexander made it. Hellenism may flourish and influence vast areas now.
Stalingrad - Nazis can finally get to them Baku oilfields. Operation Pike vol. 2 wouldn't save the day. Do not want.

Guess I can't write down much Asian battles from the top of my head, wars would be a different cup of tea. And Sekigahara, Panipats or Battle of Red Cliffs are not up to the par.

Can someone please explain why they think Waterloo was so important. If Wellington had lost there, Napoleon would have lost later anyway, he was heavily outnumbered strategically. Also the battle of Britain. Do people seriously think the Kriegsmarine could have got past the RN?

There's no reasoning with the BoB types. The idea that a bunch of dogfighting between the Messerschmitts & Spitfires was the most important 'battle' in world history is a testament to the bullshitting/mythmaking powers of one Winston Churchill. It is too absurd to contemplate.

Oh yeah, Waterloo and BoB were cool but that's hardly enough to get into top 10.

@Santa about ZAMA, arguments in favor:
Most important battles all times -> most influential in leading to world as shaped today (culture, political, religion etc) -> roman civilization is very influential -> Defeat of carthage is of paramount importance in securing the roman dominance, empire, hence influence.

The romans defeated carthage by first preventing hasdrubal from entering Italy to unite with his brother. Secondly by scipio's bold move of instead of trying to evict hannibal, which was proven unsuccesful up to that point, lure him away out of italy by actually attacking carthage instead. Defence by attack. Gutsy and with hindsight a brilliant move.

A symbol of the first can be the Battle of the Metaurus, symbol of the second strategy can be Battle of zama. I would say Scipio's move was more decisive, hannibal was recalled to carthage and his supreme force was cunningly beaten by the romans.

Shoot Santa..! :)

A few of my inputs:

Huai-Hai (Chinese Civil War)
Nagasaki (WWII)
Quebec (Wolfe and Montcalme - forgot the name of this war...)
Constantinople (Fall of Eastern Roman Empire)

@Santa:
Zama: Hannibal wasn't kicked out of Italy, he was called back when Scipio arrived in Africa. Zama as a result was the historic defeat of Carthage, had Hannibal won, Carthage would have survived the second punic war, and Rome wouldn't have become the massive empire known today.
Waterloo: I was leaving the house while typing this, and was to lazy to replace it with the name of the battle against Russia napoleon lost.

He wasn't called back, he was isolated in italy and when hasdrubal was defeated he abandoned italy.

I take it back, he was called back but only after his brothers were defeated and kept from reinforcing him. He was isolated and recalled for that reason

Hannibal won many battles, but I would argue that Roman institutions and the Roman way of doing things (such as the way they managed their alliances) are what led to them becoming an Empire. This is how Rome was always able to bounce back after seemly catastrophic defeats. Thus Hannibal could have wandered around Italy until old age, and Rome would have still gone on to rule most of Europe.
Hannibal is extremely significant, however . The conflict with Carthage helped shape the Roman mindset. It made them look beyond Italy and it made them realize the value of pre-emptive strikes. This might strike some as far-fetched but I think there are parallels between the Punic Wars and its effect on Rome and WW2 and its effect the USA.

Re: the Battle of Britain. Gentlemen, that battle was a little more than "a little dogfighting between messerschmitts and spitfires". The entire german strategy was to destroy the RAF so that they could drive the Royal Navy from the Channel in order to launch Sealion. The Kriegsmarine was merely to escort a flotilla of barges across the ditch once that had been accomplished by air power.
The fact that the RAF never was defeated, and Sealion was ultimately cancelled gives it it's importance.The first major defeat of German power; the first nation not to buckle and surrender, and a perfect staging area for the Allied counter-attack in '44, enabling the Allies to keep western europe out of the hands of the USSR.
Pretty damned important i think.

@Fasces - I think Leipzig is the battle you're thinking of with Napoleon.
@GallantZ - 7 years war, and the fall of Constantinople was merely symbolic. Turks were already in Serbia by then.
re: Zama - I think that the importance of this battle is over-stated. After the battle of Cannae (and several smaller scale victories by Hannibal), 2 of the 3 consuls were dead, over half of their military tribune was dead, 16 legions had been defeated or destroyed, 20% of Rome's population of war age had been killed, and most of Rome's allies in Italy were destroyed. It was the measures that Rome adopted after this battle, not the battle of zama itself that was the turning point for Rome. By the time Zama happened, Hannibal didn't even have the manpower to conduct an adequate campaign on the Italian peninsula.

re: Battle of Britain - let me just say this...the US had air superiority at Guadalcanal and still had trouble resupplying our 20,000 troops. Now try Germany, with no real fleet to provide support (half of their ships had been lost or damaged in Norway) trying to supply hundreds of thousands or millions of troops in an invasion of England. I find myself doubting the feasibility of it. The royal navy was too large, and if they did invade England, I think the US would have went to war or good ole Joe would have launched an attack of his own before they finished mopping up England