Eagler: and where are the pirates today? the same place terrorists will be in the future - erased from mainstream Pirates were never "mainstream", except in adventure books.
Pirates are still there - in some areas.
Goods are cheap no manufacture now unlike in old times. The majority of the price of the goods is distribution and retail - which would cost a pirate even more than usual. So stealing goods in bulk is out. Nobody transports chests of gold anymore for compact portable treasure.
Piracy is just not cost-effective on a large scale.
Frogm4n: least the Germans and Japanese on average were far more educated and were not religious fanatics. Many palestinians are well eduated. Many of the 9/11 hijackers were well educated - western educated and thoroughly familiar with western way of life. The terrorism is not caused by ignorance and failure to understand that means a huge mistake in knowing your enemy.
Miko, the inferiority complex i talk about is different then you think it is. You raise an interesting topic that deserves examination - maybe even as a separate thread. I believe you are mistaken about their feeling of inferiority, unless you drastically redefine that term. Here it goes.
They believe that they are the chosen people, and that God has granted them the best way of living and that everything they do is far superior to the infidals. People always
feel their culture is superior - otherwise they would not be practicing it and switch to another one. Everybody does that, including westerners. Some westerners actually profess hate for western culture and denigrade it, but that is also part of their culture - feling superior over the culture of the "unwashed masses".
Western people are willing to believe their (socialist) culture is superior in view of incontrovertible evidence of decay and corruption of morals and social institutions (family, marriage, parenthood) and self-inflicted extinction that culture imparts on those afflicted. They are blind to it but the arabs see that.
So when secular states have superior economics You mean consumption? It's one of major hyppoctritical tents of even our civilisation that materialism is bad and consumerism is bad and spiritual, moral and educational aspects are much more important than flashy gadgets. Most western people beieve that "free markets do not work" and are root fo all evils - even though it's solely to the free markets that west - and humanity - owes the progress of the last 300 years. That is being dismantled even as we speak.
Arabs have children who love and respect their parents while westerners have neutered dogs and gadgets. If "economics" says that western way is "superior", it just shows how twisted and false mainstream western economics is.
Did you include superior military might in superior economics? Most would, so I will address it here.
One might readily acknowlege someone's superior strength while beliving himself superior in terms of civilisation.
An underclass bum can beat up a nobel laureate, a desease can kill the best of us, a barbarian invasion can overwhelm a civilisation. That does not mean that undeclass, desease-causing germs and barbarians are superior.
...culture... 
Oh, you were serious?
You think arabs and muslims want their daughters behave like Britney Spears or janet Jackson? Want they daughers to be valued for appearance like cattle?
Want their sons abandon God and traditions in pursuit of matirial wealth? Just tell me, what superior qualities do they see in our culture? It's spreadabilirty due to pandering to the lowest instincts?
...and freedoms... There are plenty of freedoms that they enjoy that we do not. there are also freedoms that they do not have - and many of them are fine with it.
But most westerners are also fine with losing many freedoms to the government - they do not mind curtailment of their rights at all.
The westerner may have more freedom to speak nonsense to strangers or show boobs on TV but they have no freedom to raise their children they way they see fit - the government mandates strict guidelines and can take children away on a whim.
it kind of speaks against what they believe. And therefor is satans doing. It does nothing of a sort. They believe we are corrupt and headed towards the inevitable downfall. They are fighting against being contaminated, corrupted and subjected to the same fate.
Dowding: Miko - unfortunately I don't read Arabic, and if you're going to argue the English translation... Nothing of that kind - no implied meaning in my question. I was only looking for a study-buddy. My arabic is way too lousy to dare communicating with a native speaker at this point.
miko
