If you're asking if it "pays" to be loyal, you're no longer talking about loyalty. Loyalty is about sticking with someone no matter how great the value of changing sides is. It's about willing to stick around even if it doesn't "pay". You're not asking about loyalty. You're just wondering if staying on will benefit you more in the long run.

your attitude pretty much sums up the reason why many non americans hate on the USA

Friend of mine actually said something similar to me. It's bad when people use that kind of thinking when they're assuming property prices will always go higher just because it has so far. It's just downright scary when you're using the same logic on resources that may or may not be replacable by The Next Big Thing.

Natives on Easter Island would no doubt have come up with a conservation plan if they had indeed come to the conclusion that there was NEVER going to be a replacement for wood. Part of the reason they chopped that island clean of trees is probably due to the same kind of thinking you're doing now.

sadly, it's because you support punishing others with death for their beliefs.

I intended to end this debate back there, but that crock of bullshit you just spewed requires a response.

Stopping someone from cutting your throat doesn't equate to your life being more valuable than his as you're proclaiming here. It equates that you value your life more than you value his beliefs. There's no conflict here.

The illusion to break here is that you're not tolerant of others. You're tolerant, to a point. But you're no more tolerant to people who have different views and beliefs as the people you denounce.

Why do we put theives in jail anyway? Do they not suffer because we do so? We do it because making them suffer IS the punishment for breaking the law of the land.

According to your logic, we should round all the policemen up as what they're doing is "bad". Catching thieves lead to their eventual suffering, and that's against the goal right?

Basically, your entire disagreement eventually comes down to the fact that you disagree with their law. Guess what, not everybody totally agrees with your laws either, no matter where you're from. The reason your country isn't a war-torn wasteland is because no one else is taking that as an excuse to invade and change your way of life.

this back and forth will go nowhere. you've expressed your views, as have I. A parting reminder, though, that you advocated killing for well...Certain Reason, even though you opened that last statement with "I don't promote killing people"

Hopefully that's something to think about. Also, might want to consider that they're blowing up your skyscrappers because you know, you're kinda putting the hurt on them over there. The much talked about virgins? That's not a prize. It's a eventuality. They expected to get them in any case, even if they lived to a thousand. There has to be another reason why they would prefer to do suicide runs.

you know evil when you see it? Guess what, so do these "fundamentalists". What? You're different? How? Oh right, because you're "free". Take a step back and see just how silly that sounds.

In a way, we in the "free" societies are worse than the muslim fundamentalists. We have the choice of accepting them for what they are, but we refuse to. Anything different from our ideals must be evil and exterminated.

Murder is more serious a crime than adultery only because society deems it so. Some civilizations deemed adultery worse than murder. Remember the religion they call christianity? I suppose that's evil too.

Deuteronomy 22:22 "If a man is found sleeping with another man's wife, both the man who slept with her and the woman must die."

Luke 16:18 "Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery, and the man who marries a divorced woman commits adultery."

Why don't you go out and tell the christians you see that they are either a)evil, or b)not really students of the bible.

In line with the scifi idea, i guess your solution for the piggies in speaker for the dead would be to exterminate such evil.

the correct solution, as referenced in numerous science fiction plots, is not to fight a different culture just because it's different, no matter how barbaric or silly it may seem. Ever wonder what would have happened if you americans found an alien civilisation on the moon? It'll probably be nuked to death by now. Other than military superiority gained in partly your geological advantage during ww2, what makes you americans constantly think you're so much better?