Quote from: bryant.coleman on March 23, 2017, 02:32:33 PM

Quote from: episteme on March 23, 2017, 12:34:35 PM

- ironically or paradoxially, the middle east and people there (whether muslim, jewish, druze, bedouin, etc.) seem a whole lot saner, particularly in their everyday interactions compared to the west, where the neurosis/psychosis spectrum reigns.

It depends on a lot of things. First of all, no Israeli mainstream political party engages in Muslim appeasement (I am not considering Meretz as a mainstream party). And secondly, the Syrians have lived for decades under the secular regime of Assad. The population there is quite moderate, at least when compared to the other Arabs.

yeah, it does depend on a lot of things.
unless i've missed something, i think all israeli mainstream parties are from the center right.
and for a good reason.
the whole dynamics there are different.
and yeah, assad may be a creep, but it ain't an easy task to keep that shit together.
read somewhere that persia/iran, after three thousand years of ethnic reconciliations (and the occasional genocide) eventually decided to make up a 2 million man army and simply occupy themselves, so to speak.