Blatantly political rant

[RickyMaveety]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

I meant "to your own standard" as you corrected. (Not offended, I'm not the most skilled talker/writer.)

I resist the imposition of other standards on me, and when I really spell it out in unmistakeable language, the person who does the imposition suddenly gets bent out of shape, denying that that's what they're doing, when it's blatantly obvious that is what they're doing. They're upset that they got their hand caught in the cookie jar, so to speak...

Well, that's what makes us human, I suppose, the ability to rationalize our getting our hands caught in the cookie jar into something other than what it is ... trying to steal that damn cookie.

Trying to steal the other guy's cookies is what really makes the world go round ... we just call it (1) turning them into God fearing Christians, or (2) bringing them democracy (I always love that one ...), or (3) freeing the world of tyranny (what ... so they can be tyrannized by us or someone who will give us more cookies??).

Ah, human beings. The only creatures I know of who will murder a man and call it "war" or an "execution" or even "self defense." Mind you ... I'm all for some of those rationalizations ... not for all of them. But dead is dead ... murder is still murder no matter who or what got murdered. (Yes, I know the legal definition of "murder" only applies to human beings ... but that's really just one more rationalization.)

Oh ... I'm remembering a great Woody Allen quote ... I'm certain I'll get it wrong, but it was something about rationalization being more important than sex. You could get through the day without sex ... but not without a good rationalization.

[RickyMaveety]

Originally Posted by wgrimm

I'm a peacenik, because I think that if peace is reasonably possible, that it's the path to choose. War is a messy affair, with dead bodies and blown off limbs and sucking chest wounds. Avoid it if you can. I also believe that, if one fights a war, one should plan well and win it. I haven't seen good planning in our "war on terror."

Want to prevent aircraft hijackings? Arm the pilots (this stopped the "skyjjackings" to Cuba in the 70s), teach the pilots defensive maneuvers (remember when a Chinese pilot foiled a hijacking a few years back by rapid maneuvers of the aircraft that broke their necks?), perhaps install a device that would allow the flight crew to depressurize the aircraft during a hijack attempt. Hard to stick your pistol in the pilot's face when you can't breathe. And look at how el Al handles security- they don't care if it isn't politically correct to strip search and anal-probe passenger if he fits a terrorist profile. El Al hasn't had a plane hijacked recently.

Want to defeat terrorists (Taliban/al qaeda) in Afghanistan? Bomb the Hindu Kush with very dirty nuclear devices. When they pop their heads out of their caves and breathe in some radioactive cobalt isotopes, they'll live for a few weeks if they are unlucky. Pump mustard gas into their caves, or sarin, or VX. Mine the area with VX gas bombs. Don't waste troops hunting them on their turf. No one- not the British nor even the Soviets- succeeded with that strategy. Fight to win- not using their rules.

And finally, target the countries that support terror, no matter who they are. Let them understand that they take the beating if terrorist attacks occur, even if they are our "friends" like Saudia Arabia (this nation supports terrorists with a great deal of cash- this is where Osama comes from). Not many people will support these towel-wearing boneheads if they might die by doing so.

Sounds tough, doesn't it? But it would work better than our current protocols. Why did we choose our current approach? Well, it is great for funding of the military and various "alphabet agencies". Doesn't necessarily win the war, though.

I might have agreed with you up to a point, but then you used "towel-wearing boneheads" to describe a group of terrorists. Boneheads .... ok. If by "towel wearing" you mean "turban wearing" ... please be advised that terms like that have gotten a lot of wonderful people (I'm thinking of the Sikhs ... who to my knowledge are not even remotely involved in any terrorist acts) injured and on occasion killed. For no other reason than they were wearing a turban.

It's bad enough that a lot of my Muslim friends feel threatened every time some bonehead does something cruel and stupid in the name of Allah, but when other boneheads start picking on the Sikhs ... well, that gets my dander up.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by wgrimm

Pollution is almost a non-issue. Pollution is a cost of production- make the producers pay to eliminate it. Oh, but that alsways seems to upset the industrialist class.

The costs of doing so will be factored into the price you get charged for the product. How happy will you be about paying it?

Such things tend not to be done because no one wants to go first. It increases costs and requires higher prices, and no one wants to be the first to charge more unless they feel that their competitors will follow suit. Since price is a major factor in which product you buy, the temptation for a competitor to not follow suit and gain market share at the first company's expense by offering lower prices will be well nigh irresistible. Such actions tend to finally take place when the political climate compells everyone in the industry to do it, or else.

Anyways, the real cure for many environmental and industrial ills is simply to lower the numbers of humans living on earth. But no one wants to touch that political hot potato....

How do you propose it be done?
______
Dennis

[RickyMaveety]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

The costs of doing so will be factored into the price you get charged for the product. How happy will you be about paying it?

Such things tend not to be done because no one wants to go first. It increases costs and requires higher prices, and no one wants to be the first to charge more unless they feel that their competitors will follow suit. Since price is a major factor in which product you buy, the temptation for a competitor to not follow suit and gain market share at the first company's expense by offering lower prices will be well nigh irresistible. Such actions tend to finally take place when the political climate compells everyone in the industry to do it, or else.


How do you propose it be done?
______
Dennis

Well, let's see what we have to choose from (rustles around in her bag) ...

OK on the menu for our large population reduction we have:

1. War
2. Famine
3. Plague
4. Flood
5. Earthquake

With plague, you get eggroll.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by wgrimm

Sounds tough, doesn't it? But it would work better than our current protocols. Why did we choose our current approach? Well, it is great for funding of the military and various "alphabet agencies". Doesn't necessarily win the war, though.

Very tough, but for different reasons than you propose.

I live in NYC. I was here when the hijacked airliners took down the World Trade Center towers. I've seen Ground Zero. I have vivid memories of the immediate aftermath.

Nevertheless, I had mixed feelings about US military involvement in Afghanistan. My concern wasn't with going in and kicking out the Taliban. I was all in favor of removing them from power. My worry was what would happen next.

The US approach tends to assume that the application of democracy cures all ills. The problem is, the seeds of democracy require fertile soil in which to take root and grow, and an assortment of preexisting conditions that simply aren't there in Afghanistan. My gut feel was that turning Afghanistan from a poverty ridden patchwork of feuding ethnic and tribal rivalries to a functioning and economically healthy nation of any sort, democratic or not, would take 50 years. The US tends to like the quick fix, and has a political system where a politician's time horizon extends only as far as the next election. I couldn't see us realistically committing to that long term an effort. But if we don't commit to a long term effort, what happens when we leave?

Similar considerations apply in Iraq. Saddam Hussein presided over a patchwork quilt of religious sects and ethnic groups who hated each other, and kept a lid on the pot through main force. We went in and removed Saddam, and that pot promptly boiled over. The fact that it did should have come as no surprise to anyone, though it apparently has.

They're shooting at each other. We happen to be caught in the middle.

So while you can argue over the morality of whether we should have gone in in the first place, we did, and the question I have now is whether we can morally leave and let the place go to hell in a handbasket. Like it or not, we're the ones stuck with trying to keep a lid on the pot. There are ways to address the conditions that keep the pot boiling, but again, they require a longer term commitment than we appear to be willing to make.
_______
Dennis

[slayda]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

Or put the right to vote granted only by having volunteered, with nobody being denied the chance. Read Heinlein's Starship Troopers.

Actually if you read it closer, it was granted only to those Honorably Discharged. Those in service (i.e. had volunteered) could not vote.

[slayda]

Originally Posted by Patricia

Techically, 'sentient' means able to feel --ie capable of feeling pain. (It's not concerned with rationality.)

Jeremy Bentham, the utilitarian philosopher argued that all sentient beings should have moral standing:


"The day may come when the rest of animal creation may acquire those rights which never could have been withholden from them but by the hand of tyranny. The French have already discovered that the blackness of the skin is no reason why a human being should be abandoned without redress to the caprice of a tormentor. It may one day come to be recognised that the number of the legs, the villosity of the skin, or the termination of the os sacrum, are reasons equally insufficient for abandoning a sensitive being to the same fate. What else is it that should trace the insuperable line? Is it the faculty of reason, or perhaps the faculty of discourse? But a full-grown horse or dog is beyond comparison a more rational, as well a more conversible animal, than an infant of a day, or a week, or even a month, old. But suppose they were otherwise, what would it avail? The question is not, Can they reason? nor Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?"

(Bentham, Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, Ch. 18 - NB.. Bentham was writing before the abolition of slavery in Britain but after it had been abolished briefly during the French Revolution.)

Interestingly enough, scientists are discovering that plants can suffer, even from the threat of pruning.

[RickyMaveety]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

Very tough, but for different reasons than you propose.

I live in NYC. I was here when the hijacked airliners took down the World Trade Center towers. I've seen Ground Zero. I have vivid memories of the immediate aftermath.

Nevertheless, I had mixed feelings about US military involvement in Afghanistan. My concern wasn't with going in and kicking out the Taliban. I was all in favor of removing them from power. My worry was what would happen next.

The US approach tends to assume that the application of democracy cures all ills. The problem is, the seeds of democracy require fertile soil in which to take root and grow, and an assortment of preexisting conditions that simply aren't there in Afghanistan. My gut feel was that turning Afghanistan from a poverty ridden patchwork of feuding ethnic and tribal rivalries to a functioning and economically healthy nation of any sort, democratic or not, would take 50 years. The US tends to like the quick fix, and has a political system where a politician's time horizon extends only as far as the next election. I couldn't see us realistically committing to that long term an effort. But if we don't commit to a long term effort, what happens when we leave?

Similar considerations apply in Iraq. Saddam Hussein presided over a patchwork quilt of religious sects and ethnic groups who hated each other, and kept a lid on the pot through main force. We went in and removed Saddam, and that pot promptly boiled over. The fact that it did should have come as no surprise to anyone, though it apparently has.

They're shooting at each other. We happen to be caught in the middle.

So while you can argue over the morality of whether we should have gone in in the first place, we did, and the question I have now is whether we can morally leave and let the place go to hell in a handbasket. Like it or not, we're the ones stuck with trying to keep a lid on the pot. There are ways to address the conditions that keep the pot boiling, but again, they require a longer term commitment than we appear to be willing to make.
_______
Dennis

Man, you are one logical and well read sort of person!!

[slayda]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

Very tough, but for different reasons than you propose.

I live in NYC. I was here when the hijacked airliners took down the World Trade Center towers. I've seen Ground Zero. I have vivid memories of the immediate aftermath.

Nevertheless, I had mixed feelings about US military involvement in Afghanistan. My concern wasn't with going in and kicking out the Taliban. I was all in favor of removing them from power. My worry was what would happen next.

The US approach tends to assume that the application of democracy cures all ills. The problem is, the seeds of democracy require fertile soil in which to take root and grow, and an assortment of preexisting conditions that simply aren't there in Afghanistan. My gut feel was that turning Afghanistan from a poverty ridden patchwork of feuding ethnic and tribal rivalries to a functioning and economically healthy nation of any sort, democratic or not, would take 50 years. The US tends to like the quick fix, and has a political system where a politician's time horizon extends only as far as the next election. I couldn't see us realistically committing to that long term an effort. But if we don't commit to a long term effort, what happens when we leave?

Similar considerations apply in Iraq. Saddam Hussein presided over a patchwork quilt of religious sects and ethnic groups who hated each other, and kept a lid on the pot through main force. We went in and removed Saddam, and that pot promptly boiled over. The fact that it did should have come as no surprise to anyone, though it apparently has.

They're shooting at each other. We happen to be caught in the middle.

So while you can argue over the morality of whether we should have gone in in the first place, we did, and the question I have now is whether we can morally leave and let the place go to hell in a handbasket. Like it or not, we're the ones stuck with trying to keep a lid on the pot. There are ways to address the conditions that keep the pot boiling, but again, they require a longer term commitment than we appear to be willing to make.
_______
Dennis

The problem is identifying the enemy. In the past the enemy was more or less confined to a geographical area. With terrorists, they could be your next door neighbor who goes to your church (read church as any religious assembly place), is the same race as you are, or someone completely different. They don't wear signs saying "I am a terrorist". This makes it very difficult to determine the enemy. If it were not so then they would not be so terrifying. To label all of some class as the enemy because they are different from you, just generates more terror and Ricky said above. There is no easy answer. Maybe there is no answer at all, but being the type of person I am, I will continue to search for one, at least for myself.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

I resist the imposition of other standards on me, and when I really spell it out in unmistakeable language, the person who does the imposition suddenly gets bent out of shape, denying that that's what they're doing, when it's blatantly obvious that is what they're doing. They're upset that they got their hand caught in the cookie jar, so to speak...

This is interesting to me, because it begs the question(s): Do you resist change for a reason, or do you simply resist? IOW, do you refuse to change something because you are fully convinced that your way is simply right?

Or, do you simply refuse because you believe that no man has a right to tell you what to do, under any circumstances?

Here's a real world example: I used to ride a motorcycle to work, and I did it with the conviction that I was improving the world, because I was using less gas (and, of course, saving me money). Then it was pointed out to me one day that, although I was indeed saving gas, I was also riding a carbureted V-twin engine based on 1950s technology, with no electronic fuel injection or catalytic converters, etc... and that mile per mile, I was actually polluting the air more than the average SUV!

This information forced me to re-evaluate my commuting choices. Now, I take the train to work, and I'm selling my bike. I have already vowed that, if I get another bike, I will only get one that runs cleanly and efficiently. Because I learned something new, I was willing to change.

So: Under the same circumstances, would you have changed? Would you have accepted the new information given to you? Would you replace the bike, or would you continue to ride it? Would you say that your enjoyment of riding would outweigh the new downside you'd just learned about, so you'd just decide to ignore it?

Or, would you simply take the stance that this person has no right to expect you to stop riding (or replace your bike), and ignore him?

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

Or, would you simply take the stance that this person has no right to expect you to stop riding (or replace your bike), and ignore him?

He's already stated up thread that he's perfectly willing to change, given a good reason why he should and how he'll benefit if he does.

I feel roughly the same. Try to simply tell me what to do, and I may say "Who the <bleep> are you to tell me that? No!".

Put it to me as "I think you should consider doing it this way. Here's why I think so, and what you'll get from it!", I'm perfectly happy to listen, and if it makes sense to me, I'm likely to say "You're absolutely right! That is a better alternative. Thanks for pointing it out to me!"

The carrot almost always works better than the stick, and wearing an air of moral superiority is guaranteed to rub people the wrong way, even if you are right. (And perhaps especially if you're right... )
______
Dennis

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

This is interesting to me, because it begs the question(s): Do you resist change for a reason, or do you simply resist? IOW, do you refuse to change something because you are fully convinced that your way is simply right?

Or, do you simply refuse because you believe that no man has a right to tell you what to do, under any circumstances?

Here's a real world example: I used to ride a motorcycle to work, and I did it with the conviction that I was improving the world, because I was using less gas (and, of course, saving me money). Then it was pointed out to me one day that, although I was indeed saving gas, I was also riding a carbureted V-twin engine based on 1950s technology, with no electronic fuel injection or catalytic converters, etc... and that mile per mile, I was actually polluting the air more than the average SUV!

This information forced me to re-evaluate my commuting choices. Now, I take the train to work, and I'm selling my bike. I have already vowed that, if I get another bike, I will only get one that runs cleanly and efficiently. Because I learned something new, I was willing to change.

So: Under the same circumstances, would you have changed? Would you have accepted the new information given to you? Would you replace the bike, or would you continue to ride it? Would you say that your enjoyment of riding would outweigh the new downside you'd just learned about, so you'd just decide to ignore it?

Or, would you simply take the stance that this person has no right to expect you to stop riding (or replace your bike), and ignore him?

First, I argee with DM's response. He has it pegged.

In addition, consider how much I have been listening and responding to questions about my underlying philosophy, and how much I have attempted to look at the other viewpoints. I think this shows a mind that is not closed. But I ask the following question.

How is it different from utterly refusing to change because somebody tells you to, and being the somebody demand another person do as they order? To me, they are just mirrors of each other.... And if they are mirrors, why is one acceptable to you, and not the other?

Let me mirror your original question back at you. Do you demand dominance for a reason, or just to enforce dominance?

[Patricia]

Originally Posted by slayda

Interestingly enough, scientists are discovering that plants can suffer, even from the threat of pruning.

You are thinking of Thomkin and Bird's 'The Secret Life of Plants.'
This is based on some truly deplorable pseudo-science. Plant do not have a nervous system and cannot feel.

There are some rebuttals here:
http://www.paghat.com/telepathic.html

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by slayda

The problem is identifying the enemy. In the past the enemy was more or less confined to a geographical area. With terrorists, they could be your next door neighbor who goes to your church (read church as any religious assembly place), is the same race as you are, or someone completely different. They don't wear signs saying "I am a terrorist". This makes it very difficult to determine the enemy. If it were not so then they would not be so terrifying. To label all of some class as the enemy because they are different from you, just generates more terror and Ricky said above. There is no easy answer. Maybe there is no answer at all, but being the type of person I am, I will continue to search for one, at least for myself.

That's indeed part of the problem.

I have an old friend who thinks Bush seriously missed the boat after 9/11 by not calling for a declaration of war. Interesting idea, but a declaration of war against whom? War is normally considered a conflict between nations, and that's not what this is.

The same old friend believes that this isn't really about us at all: what we are seeing is essentially a civil war in the middle east between moderate and fundamentalist factions of Islam. We simply happen to be caught in the middle. I think he may be on to something.

Ultimately, I think terrorism will be addressed by the folks who live over there. Terrorism requires some level of support from the local population. If the terrorists make life difficult enough where they come from, that support may dry up.
______
Dennis

[jamesdmanley]

ive always wondered why we dont hear an outcry from the muslim community as a whole condemning terrorist acts? men voted for womens suffrage. prior to the civil war there were plenty of free people fighting against slavery. germans fought the nazis and helped the jews. during the civil rights era there were many whites speaking out for black rights. there are pleny of examples in history when the oppressor/aggressor stood up for the victim. so why dont we hear anything now? maybe we just arent hearing about it here ...