Slashdot Mirror
NACI: Gov't of South Africa Pushes Open Source
GNU lover writes "National Advisory Council on Innovation in South Africa
has issued a release concering the use of Open Source and the digital divide." The use of open source in the 3rd/2nd world is one way to get around licensing costs - at least more honest then pirating.
why do they always have to say "it's been awhile" at the start of these things?
either publish slashback regularly, or skip saying that. foo.
go get it
I think we need to go back to the moon and set up some bases, to better prepare us for mars, and to shut up those idiots who think nasa is in the business of special effects and sound stages. Or maybe turn the ISS into something useful, like a launch pad for some really cool ships or something. Mars would be cool and all, but not with current technology, where it takes months just for a probe to get there and malfunction. And we need some more time to get off our asses and join the rest of the world in the metric system for christ's sake!
Shift happens. Fire it up.
Where NASA was asking for our opinion on where to go in space? Well, the results are in. Lo and behold, we all want to go to Mars.
The poll, alas, was only about robotic exploration priorities. The Planetary Society is dedicated to promoting robotic exploration off the planet and is mildly biased against such projects as the ISS and human exploration of Mars and the Moon. To support human exploration, join the National Space Society.
Note: I support the use of robots as precursors to sending the scientists and colonists. Both programs have merit, and provide me with a paycheck in the private sector.
(A modified version of GNU is used on millions of computers, but the users often are not aware of this, because the whole system is widely confused with its kernel program, whose name is "Linux.")
...After the dollar signs fade from their eyes...
Yeah, sure, Dick. Whatever. Live in your own little fantasy world.
Anyone else notice that he's dropped GNU/Linux altogether? Now it's just GNU. No credit given at all to the kernel. I guess it's just not important.
Funny, I didn't think Dick had a problem with people making money with software.
He isn't pro-Free software in the least. He is simply pro-GPL and anti-everything else.
It reminds me of Pres. Clinton when giving the speech to a group of seniors:
(paraphrase)
"Now we could give back all your money to use as you see fit."
<applause>
"But that wouldn't be a good idea because you might squander it."
<boos>
Everything he says sounds great until he gets to the punchline. Boo, Dick, Boo.
I wish that I could trust what you're posting. However, I don't really need to trust it. Historically, the United States Gov hasn't really promoted the 'compassion' that it likes to portray. I mean, how about Iraq and the sanctions against it? That action alone has killed many many more people than the World Trade Center attack. It's too bad that there's not more public outrage over these atrocities. I hope that soon the Ministry of Truth will slip, and the general public will notice.
Hi.
:)
I hate to burst your optimistic bubble... But the public knows, and they don't give a shit. Because when it's us killing them, it's okay. We always have a good reason.
As for me, I'm useless because I'm too cynical to think I could actually do anything but point out how fucked everything is and how right I am to be cynical. So, no need to point it out how useless I am, I already know.
The enemies of Democracy are
Anyone else notice that he's dropped GNU/Linux altogether? Now it's just GNU. No credit given at all to the kernel. I guess it's just not important.
That's because the issues are the same, whether you run GNU/Linux, GNU/Solaris, GNU/Win32, GNU/DOS, or any other port of the GNU userland.
He isn't pro-Free software in the least. He is simply pro-GPL and anti-everything else.
He's pro-free software. He understands that BSD-class licenses (especially for noddy programs under 2 KLOC or for software used in embedded systems), weak copyleft licenses (especially for free clones of common libraries), and GPL-class strong copyleft licenses all have their place.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Indeed, intent matters. But my observation is that our cavalier attitude toward killing civilians ("collateral damage") makes our intent not so much different from theirs. It is exactly the point that treating civilian casualties as "regrettable but unavoidable" in the pursuit of our goals makes us as culpable as them for those civilians we kill.
If it is intent that matters, then in this case the specific target does not. You, I, and the military leaders of the US, knew that civilians casualties would result from our attacks. Yet we performed them anyway. Similarly, al Queda knew civilians would die, but they did it anyway. In both cases, these are "acceptable losses" in the pursuit of our goals. How are they different? Is being able to hope/pretend that civilians won't die because you're attacking "military targets" so important, when the hope is fundamentaly empty? I say no. Because for all the talk about "regretable civilian casualties", not a single fewer bomb is dropped as a result.
You can hang on the fact that bin Laden attacked a civilian target, but that's a result of the difference in capability, not intent. al Queda doesn't have fleets of F-15s to drop smart-bombs. The goal of al Queda isn't to kill civilians -- that's just the means they have at their disposal. Isn't this obvious? We've already demonstrated what the outcome of a direct military conflict is. Faced with that reality, can't you see them sitting around in their "war room" talking about the unfortunate "collateral damage"?
I think the intent is the same. Our goals are more important than their deaths. Which means, that if what you say is true -- intent matters -- the only difference between the US government and terrorists is that the goverment has a bigger budget.
The enemies of Democracy are
To a point, I agree. Again, Saddam made a clear choice, and he has to be held accountable for it.
But when he'd made that choice, and the sanctions were demonstrably not working for what we had hoped, then wouldn't continuing them be considered fscked?
I also wonder why exactly "option C" didn't occur to us as a likely outcome. Did we really think that the man who used chemical weapons on his own people wouldn't keep that money to himself? Surely not. GB Sr. may be many things, but an idiot he was not. He had to know that to protect his power, Saddam would make his people suffer. Knowing this, if we really cared about his people, we wouldn't have imposed sanctions. I conclude that our hope was that indeed he would be overthrown. And I'd say that overthrowing a government by indirectly making its people suffer to the point that they revolt is pretty fscking fscked.
But that's just me.
The enemies of Democracy are
If Saddam is so fucking concerned about his citizens, why doesn't he allow the UN Weapons inspectors back? Many of the sanctions were imposed because he kicked them out a few years ago.
I remember before the Gulf War, when Iraq invaded Kuwait. Bonehead peaceniks like you said that we should impose sanctions, not go to war. Go to war we did, and the peaceniks protested and howled. But then, when Iraq started rebuilding its military and developing weapons of mass destruction, Clinton went the sanction route, and the peaceniks are crying out again.
So, what's it going to be? Sanctions or war? What the fuck are they supposed to do? Hand Saddam a Congressional Medal of Honour every time he invades a weaker neighbour or massacres some of his own citizens?
He runs into a big problem: not only is the latest software expensive with all manner of bewildering bells and whistles that he does not need, but it doesn't run on such an old machine. What is he to do? Would it be legal to find and use an old copy of the operating system and spreadsheet? "Certainly not", replies his software dealer, and sternly warns him of the fate that awaits users of illegal software copies.
I've got a problem with this scenario. Are we REALLY saying that if I found someone who had a LEGALLY LICENSED copy of Windows 95 from 1995, we could not engage in any sort of transaction to transfer the license (per whatever terms were stated in the Win95 original license) over to me?
Arguing that ANY transfer of license at all is 'illegal' to bolster the 'open source' frenzy strikes me as very shortsighted. It's just not necessary to make up or exaggerate the situation to make the case for open software.
creation science book
"The use of open source in the 3rd/2nd world is one way to get around licensing costs"
Now if only they could license food...
------
Today's Top Deals
This would be probably educational, as well as a possible boost in moral.
Something titled: "Countries in the world where open source is recommended"
Extra brownie points for links, etc.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Needless to say, lowering software costs by violating proprietary license conditions is not an option. Happily, there are often legal alternatives to proprietary software: non-proprietary "open software". (emphasis by me)
Sounds like their saying that they could just steal proprietry software, but it makes them sad.
Using open source is not only good for these people monetarily, it's good for them emotionally, since it makes them happy. - lol
I just hope they fully understand the prinicpal behind releasing any code that uses GPL code in it, i.e. using GPL software components as opposed to just using GPL software applications.
.. would be to clean up the "HTML" produced by Microsoft Word for their report. My eyes are burning!
News Flash! Poor Counties Choose Free Operating Systems!
Justin Dubs
"at least more honest then pirating."
Well, the honesty of pirating depends on your point of view, the practical consequences (trade sanctions, government raids, etc.) do add a significant potential cost factor to pirating that isn't there for open source software.
If Open Source can win the minds of the actual majority of the world, Microsoft may one day be forced to be compatible with it in order to continue doing business in these places. One can only hope...
BlackGriffen
Just a quick comment: these terms have a specific political meaning and they're not being used correctly here. The first world is defined as being the post-war US+Allies+Japan capitalist bloc, the second world is defined as being Russia and it's allied Soviet republics. The third world is defined as being the non-committed nations, often times former colonies now under self-rule. This can be verifed with a simple search on the web, or the old way - reading a book. South Africa, for all it's faults, is not a second or third world country - it was and is a member of the US-led capitalist bloc, and as such, like the former Brit colonies of Oz and Canada, it's a first world country. So there.
South Africa finds itself in the unenvieable position of being one of the most stable and prosperous nations in Africa, with a democracy that works.
:)
:)
It's unenvieable because we have to take the responsibility for the rest of Africa and try to somehow clean up the mess it's in, but at the same time, not be seen in the same light as a country like Zimbabwe, our next door neighbour - unfortunately, this is happening anyway !
Open source is a good place to start in Africa, but it's not much use in many countries in Africa if there's no computers, or power !
Lets face it, computers for the population of poorer nations is not really as important as a stable economy and jobs - you can't eat computers !
What is important is getting the government and government departments of those poor nations on track regarding the use of computers to try to make things more efficient - South Africa, which is fairly technologically adept - is in a good position to make this happen. IOW, a smaller undertaking to try to help the infrastructure of poorer countries cope.
Yes, we do have the latest computer hardware and software over here in South Afica and techies who know how to use them
So, South Africa should take a leading role in providing cheap computer solutions to poorer nations - good for us ! - it's nice to read something positive about Africa for a change
A slashdotting - you get the stick first and then the carrot !
Everybody talks like if they knew since years that 3rd world countries use Open source... well, i have beent on a lot of this countries for long and will tell you something:
They DONT use open source stuff, its usually more difficult than Microsoft software and there is not enough education there to, lets say, recompile the kernel. They are in a piracy hipe, you can find full streets of pirated software stores and you can find from screensavers to SQL 2000.
They use Windows and more Windows, all pirated, even small to medium corporations use pirates Microsoft stuff, goverment has so many things to worry that looking for pirated software isnt even in the list.
Sigs are for morons... Wait a minute...
You know, I sometimes wonder if copying is really immoral, or if we have been brought up to think so.
Limited protections against copying in a western, capitalistic society makes sense; you want to protect new ventures by providing them with protections against their work being taken and sold by a competitor without regards to the development costs.
However, I wonder if other cultures somewhere do not have this sort of mentality. I just wonder if in some societies and cultures, if one person would be considered immoral for wanting more rights to something they took part in making than everyone else?
I don't know the answer, I'm just curious of other's insights.
A discussion is on the same website here I Read through a few of the discussions. Most of them would be better than 5:Insightful. And maybe people would copy a few of them here :-)
I'm not saying that you shouldn't be able to resell old software,but Microsoft cerainly has.
"Prefiero morir de pie que vivir siempre arrodillado!"
I agree, those idiots in Redmond had better shut up. =:> I don't see the folks from Debian busting into grade schools looking for old versions of Emacs without documentation. The extortion of hundreds of thousands of dollars from US public school systems for "unregistered" and "pirated" coppies of Word and what not is a matter of public record. So, if second hand PC's get you that much trouble here, where M$'s avowed interest is the children, how do you think they will act overseas? The only frenzy I see is people reacting to the new blue screen of death, programs they pay for advertising at them, the mega improved clippy animations and quirkyness in general. They get a daily rise out of such insults. It's imposible to exaggurate the situation as people who don't have to deal with it all won't believe half of the truth.
Are we REALLY saying that if I found someone who had a LEGALLY LICENSED copy of Windows 95 from 1995, we could not engage in any sort of transaction to transfer the license (per whatever terms were stated in the Win95 original license) over to me?
Yes, Microsoft really says that, as was extensively documented here by Michael's excellent copyrant. Let's not forget the Naked PC effort, where M$ tried to quash the sales of any computer without an OS. Kinda goes to show you where there heart is.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
It must be the political spelling: Governor pushs math initiative
"these terms have a specific political meaning and they're not being used correctly here."
these terms have more than a political meaning, they have a socio-economic meaning as well. In order to be a 1st world nation, that nation must be a "modern" country. In order to me modern (as defined by the textbook I had for Comparative Politics last semester) one must have attained or be close to attaining the following items:
1.A quality infrastructure (roads, rails, etc.)
2.technology/science/reason (as opposed to religion controlling information)
3.urbanization
4.internatl. trade
5.capatalist/market economy (although on the surface many African nations have a market economy, it is usually highly "regulated" by various strong men)
6.rule by a sovereign majority (can we say military dictator?)
7.emphasis on individual freedom as opposed to enhancement of group/leader of group (again, can we say military dictator?)
8.centralization of government (for the most part the countries in Africa have this)
9.national conciousneses (this is still a long way off with all the tribal identities in Africa)
So, in actuality, many of the African nations are third world, and most of the rest 2nd world countries due to the level of (most often the lack of) modernization.
(Before you right this off as a troll, please read on and think about how different your lifestyle is from that of the majority of the people in the world, who have no access to a telephone line, let alone the internet.)
OK, it's a no-brainer that open source software would be a good fit for governments that, in many cases, have problems feeding, clothing and housing their populations.*
But how, practically is this achievable on anything other than an administrative level? Running Linux and Star Office rather than Microsoft Windows and Office and employing sysadmins with the relative skills is all doable in the halls of power but how can open source be brought to the people?
In countries where many rural areas lack running water, let alone electricity, is it realistic to hope that the open source movement can help the common man?
OK, so a little off the government's licensing costs can't hurt but will it really make a meaningful difference? Not to Joe Average it won't.
If there was some way of getting cheap (second hand?) no-thrills PCs to local schools in a developing country then I think open source software could make a difference but, for all sorts of reasons, this just isn't practical.
For one thing, even open source software requires support (and so does the hardware it runs on). You might find all the support you need online but someone who lives miles from the nearest telephone is going to find it a little harder.
I'd love it for it to be possible, but it's not. The real world just doesn't work that way.
In my humble opinion, hoping for open source software to take off in the developing world before it happens in the developed world is a pipe dream.
(* No, I don't put South Africa in this category. Thanks to it's mineral riches, it's one of the few countries in Africa that can stand on its own two feet. It's a pity that the interest payments alone on crippling debt stops other african nations from being so self-sufficient, but that's another story.)
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
Then why did you put the word "wrong!!" in the subject line? Just because other countries had systems of apartheid doesn't invalidate what the first poster said.
The difference between South Africa and the rest of the countries is they made a concentrated effort to remove it years ago, while up until recently South Africa still followed this barbaric practice. South Africa's system was also was a lot more pervasive than in either the US or Australia.
Since when does Slashdot cover this open-source stuff? I, for one, am appalled by this editorial mischief.
visit the hwky website for a lyrical genius infusion.
s/pirating/copyright infringement/g;
NaCl: Gov't of South Africa Pushes Open Source
Alright, who else read this title and wondered why South Africa was taking orders from a dipole molecule? My font makes a capitol I look like a lowercase l. I need to get some sleep...
The first & most concrete recommendation in this report is:
...
1. Make Open Standards a non-negotiable base for ICT in the Public Sector.
This is interesting, because it stops tie-in to one company - without having to mandate open source. So, no use of MS Word for publishing documents
However, if you're proposing to use an open standard for e.g. word processing, what do you choose? HTML is fine for publishing, RTF is too basic for complex documents. Is there actually an open, widely accepted WP standard which you could use? Or are they only mandating open standards for publication and not for internal use (given that the report was written in Word this is possible)?
You're (not 'your') an idiot ;) Grade 12 Geography. First world nations include those you listed, EXCLUDING the USSR, plus most of Europe, Austalia, Japan and others. Second world is a category which was reversed for the USSR and communist nations! Third world included all underdeveloped nations. Incidently there are also "forth" and "fifth" world classifications, which served to break up the "third world" category more precisely.
It is an issue of some contention as to whether SA is "first" or "third" world. It is generally considered to be a duality - much of our infrastructure and cities is first world, but the problems of poverty and service delivery are typical of third world nations.
i-name =twylite [http://public.xdi.org/=twylite], see idcommons.net
Some of you say it's impossible to promote opensource without Internet access. In my opinion it's not their major problem.
:)
:D
Once I saw a documentary about SUN donating an UNIX workstation to an Africa country(don't recall which one, but it's so under-developed) for educational research. The major problem they've got is not being able to connect to internet, their problem is to get steady supply of electricity to boot up the workstation.
But the power of desperate users is unlimited! To solve the problem, they built a dynamo from a bicycle. It's bizarre to see how they use the workstation - someone is bicycling very hard while the operator types very very fast(No X, just CLI, sorry!).
I've never complaint my internet connection since.
(I'm also aware that South Africa is not like the other under-developed countries in Africa, just a thought. ^_^)
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
While it may take 5 to 10 years for changes like this to start having an effect. More programmers more practical applications. Free Software grows with the user base (and programmer base).
I think we should be asking what we can do to help. You could say invest in this process.
For instance should we through the FSF or another organization make sure that the local languages are supported and/or that applications that make sense to local people are written. We could also put efforts behind developing an open hardware slandered for development.
So what could/should we be doing to help/invest in this process?
In terms of a national strategy, the choice is clear.
If South Africa chooses the proprietary route, the cost in many cases will be higher, and much of the expenditure goes out of the country. The country becomes dependent on foreign companies for much of our technological requirements, and hostage to currency fluctuations.
If South Africa chooses the open route, the cost will often be lower, and much of the cost will remain in the country. Further, South Africa can break dependence on foreign companies, and potentially become a player in the world software development and software services markets.
Man...didn't you just HATE when you were in high school and you couldn't find a community resource for guided access to government Web site, and that all the files you downloaded were in some strange proprietary format? Man that sucked. I can just see it now - "So, you really think school kids will be building national IT infrastructure for us?" "Sure, sure! Maybe we can get pizza parlor managers and goat herders in on it too!" "Suhweet!"
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
Much like they used to do here, if Microsoft realizes that people will start using open source, they'll turn off WPA, give away copies, etc.
If it is intent that matters, then in this case the specific target does not. You, I, and the military leaders of the US, knew that civilians casualties would result from our attacks. Yet we performed them anyway.
But if we had an easy option, we wouldn't. Our goal is not civilian death.
You can hang on the fact that bin Laden attacked a civilian target, but that's a result of the difference in capability, not intent.
Bull. You think that they couldn't have hit a military target with those planes? Nellis Air Force Base could have been hit without much problem. There are many other military installations that are easy targets. Yet they chose a purely civilain target. That's intent.
Our goals are more important than their deaths.
Our goal is to save lives from further civilian attacks. Thousands more people die, versus a few hundred.
But if we had an easy option, we wouldn't. Our goal is not civilian death.
I think the same could be said for them. I can't prove it, but it's a consistent hypothesis. Their "goal" isn't to kill civilians, either. Saying it is is dismissive. If they had an easy option, they wouldn't.
Bull. You think that they couldn't have hit a military target with those planes? Nellis Air Force Base could have been hit without much problem. There are many other military installations that are easy targets. Yet they chose a purely civilain target. That's intent.
Bull. Only someone defending what is debateably the world's most powerful military would use this excuse. I mean, even I can see that hitting one air force base isn't going to do anything. They only had those planes -- they had to make them count, and no air force base "counts" that much. Remember, they can't match us militarily? Even obliterating an air force as large as Nellis isn't going to change that in the slightest.
The enemies of Democracy are
Could you please provide specific examples of South African communists in positions of power?
Spare us the three year old arguments please. Compilation of the Linux kernel has not been necessary for at least that length of time.
It is an option, that's all.
Extremely well said.
-- Will program for bandwidth
Thanks for advertising your MORAL IDIOCY for all to read, Mr. Burke.
Big words. I see you didn't think it was worth advertising your own plain-ol' regular idiocy, Mr. Coward. I mean hell, you can think I'm wrong, but at least a non-simian could have strung some logical thoughts together to try to show why. But I guess to you the opposite of "MORAL IDIOCY" is "MORAL DISSENTARY". Honestly, I've never seen someone spew more blather from their gut and call it "rational" before.
So, an idiot like yourself looks ONLY at collateral damage and says "gee, same numbers, the perpetrators must be equally evil".
Only someone so thoroughly afraid of thinking about reality could think calling dead people "collateral damage" changes anything. You have an action which you know will kill civilians, even though they aren't your "target". You take the action. Civilians die. You then say it was an accident. They're "collateral damage". You're not responsible, because you "didn't mean to". Only a fool like you would think that's logicaly tenable. A doctor who kills her patient because she took an action that would almost certainly result in death doesn't get off the hook just because she didn't want them to die.
thanks to Western COMPASSION FOR INNOCENTS, even citizens of ENEMY NATIONS, we've gone through CENTURIES of improving weapons of war so they CAN be more precise?
You are a moron of epic proportions. I say this because a moron of normal stature would be able to see that the past centuries have not been spent making weapons more precise to save civilian lives, but making them more deadly. From the trebuchet to the gatling gun to the cluster bomb, you are proven a fool again and again.
Weapons are made more precise because they are more effective that way, not because of any notion of "saving lives" (except those of our own soldiers). You've seen films of bomb runs on German factories in WWII, didn't you? Did you see the number of planes they flew, and number of bombs they had to drop? Smart bombs that can drop down the chimney of a factory and explode are much more efficient and more importantly more likely to destroy the target. How can you even utter the statement that weapons are developed out of "compassion for innocents" in regards to the same country that invented the air-burst incendiary bomb and Agent Orange?
Meanwhile, what has militant Islam done but embrace the concept that THE MORE INNOCENTS THEY KILL, THE EASIER IT IS TO PERSUADE ENEMIES TO SURRENDER?
Maybe they learned it from us. After all, wasn't that the justification behind completely destroying two entire cities in WWII? Wasn't that partly why General LeMay conducted his fire-bombing campaign against Tokyo, killing more than at Hiroshima, to show he could do the same thing without the bomb? And it worked.
Feel free to try to justify why that was different, or why that was okay. I may even agree, depending on how well you can parrot smarter people's arguments. But that supports my point -- when it is us faced with a situation in which we can achieve our goals only through massive and deliberate slaughter of civilians (and debateably no other way), we do it, and you don't call us "evil".
Where are the precision munitions being developed and used by organizations like Al Queda so they can AVOID killing innocent civilians in enemy nations?
Because we didn't supply them with those types of munitions when we were arming them during the Russian invasion? Seriously, can you so easily pretend ignorance of the realities of the relative budget of our military vs that of al queda? Even the most slightly logical person would recognize that al queda simply doesn't have the resources to compete with us militarily, and thus you can't judge them because they can't.
It's a sign of just how far you are from rational that your whole "argument" depends on the fact that now, today we have the ability to launch smart bombs and cruise missles that minimize civilian death. Before Dessert Storm, we didn't have that capability -- and it made no difference. We carpet-bombed, napalmed, and clustered-bombed to achieve our goals, and the civilian casualties did nothing to stop us then. Our intent is obvious.
You poor fool. Do you -really- think that if al queda had a military as large and advanced as ours that they would resort to blowing office buildings? Don't you think they'd much rather just drive our military out of the region? Don't you think it is the fact that this is clearly impossible that leaves them with what options they have? Do you think our government is truly any different, and if they were faced with the same choice they wouldn't choose the same? I think this is demonstrably false.
For that matter, can you point to ANY rational discussion among prominent militant Muslims that actually identifies most victims of 9/11 as "innocent"?
Since "innocent" isn't a rational word, I can't say I'm surprised. What difference does "innocence" make? What are they innocent of? If everyone in the building had been a convicted child molester, would it have been a commendable action? No one deserves to die like that, and being "innocent" doesn't mean anything. Rational people (who aren't trying to inspire an emotional reaction in non-rationals such as yourself) think more in terms of civilians. Miltary personnel don't deserve to die, but at least they have accepted the risk. At least in countries that don't have mandatory military service.
with the USA forming the NOSECONE, has made SUBSTANTIAL SACRIFICES of its young men and its economic progress by STRIVING TO PRESERVE INNOCENT LIFE while waging war to preserve its own national and cultural identity.
I see the higher cognitive portions of your brain have been replaced by a hamster running in a wheel labeled "PATRIOTISM". This statement is laughably stupid in so many ways.
First, if you can actually demonstrate how a blown-up building is a threat to our cultural identity then I'll take back every bad thing I said about you, and fly to the moon using only the power of love. Unless you think our cultural identity somehowe involves thinking we're imortal and loved by everyone, in which case all bets are off because you're more out of touch than you sound. The only threat to our cultural identity is our willingness to let our government take more power for itself at the cost of our freedom in the name of a tragedy. But your Patriot Hamster Brain has sucked up what we've been told, and you sacrifice the very thing you think you're protecting.
Second, if you think our government has been "STRIVING TO PRESERVE INNOCENT LIFE", your Patriot Hamster has been busy making up new propoganda for you to believe. How hard did this government strive in Somalia before they gave up? They didn't even acknowledge Rwanda until there was virtually no more "innocent" life to protect.
Third, how can you call our government the "NOSECONE" of Western humanitarian efforts? In the UN summit on race, when Israel's tendency to kill a hundred palestinians for every dead Israeli soldier was brought up, two countries walked out. Israel... and us. Not even the rest of the Western World sees us like you describe. Not even our government tries to portray itself as the preservers of all that is good that you suggest.
But, you think the USA and Al Queda are morally equivalent, so give up all your ties to the West and go live with fundamentalist Muslims. Surely you'll notice no difference in how you're treated?
I see you are too stupid to even grasp the difference between moral superiority and nice place to live. Your Hamster is too busy running full tilt to let the thought in that I'm saying we -are- responsible for deaths resulting directly from our actions, and that this is separate from issues like personal liberty.
It should be offensive to all intelligent people that someone so obviously dominated by emotional thought and blind, fanciful patriotism would even utter the word "rational" as though they are capable of recognizing it.
Or, in short: You are an idiot. If you disagree with me, find someone with a brain to argue for you.
The enemies of Democracy are
Their "goal" isn't to kill civilians, either.
Our goal is to stop terrorist attacks on our soil, and stop the resulting deaths and injuries, which we try to follow with minimal civilian deaths. Their goal regards killing civilians as a good thing, and doesn't care how many on their side die.
I mean, even I can see that hitting one air force base isn't going to do anything. They only had those planes -- they had to make them count, and no air force base "counts" that much.
They made them count, but in a way that would piss off the rest of the world. Had they attacked an Air Force base, it would have been a sign that they weren't killing unrelated civilians. A show of strength (and everyone would have known what they could have hit), without the mass death.
But obliterating four civilian aircraft full of innocents, two office buildings full of innocents, and so on, is going to change that?
No, we'll still be militarily indomitable. Clearly, military might is not feasible. Thus other methods become necessary.
So, please, tell us all how Al Queda bettered their prospects by carefully calculating that 2001-09-11 would achieve their objectives (which you appear to be claiming are morally neutral with respect to those of the US government) with sufficiently greater likelihood than attacking Nellis instead to justify the willful murder of thousands of innocent civilians.
First, I'm not claiming moral neutrality with respect to the US government. I'm clamining equivalency, a lack of superiority. Neither actions are morally "neutral".
Second, I'm not claiming justification. I was very explicit about that, so I can't see how you missed it. I'm claiming not that murdering thousands of innocent civilians is justifiable, but that it isn't justifiable when we do it either.
Third, the way in which what they did could have helped is to demonstrate the ability to hurt us despite lacking military strength. Since our military might can't be beaten, they tried to break the spirit behind it. It's the same reason we dropped a nuke on Hiroshima -- to say "look, if you don't give in, your people will die". They obviously failed in their gambit because 1) it turns out our 'spirit' is more likely to turn vengeful than be broken and 2) they didn't do nearly enough damage to cause us to fold like Japan did.
That's speculation, by the way. An expert on terrorist history would be able to give a more accurate explanation. But you don't need to be an expert to see that the odds of having an effect are better than trying to match our military muscle.
The enemies of Democracy are
Um, right. But what you ignore by taking my statement out of context is that I was questioning the assertion that our campaign has anything to do with "saving lives" of those who suffer under the Taliban.
The enemies of Democracy are
By that reasoning, boycotts against Nike, Nestle, and so on, were fscked for as long as they didn't immediately achieve their objective, since they inevitably (though indirectly, like US sanctions against Iraq), caused innocent people to suffer.
Well, there are actually some important differences. First, you'd have to justify the suffering you're expecting (vs demonstrable suffering in the Iraqi case) as such boycotts are in force. Second, clearly Nike is more succeptible to such economic leverage. Nike is much easier to force because a boycott directly threatens the thing that keeps them alive -- shoe sale income. All the 3rd world's child labor won't save them if no one buys their shoes. Whereas with the sanctions of Iraq, you are merely forcing a choice between things, one of which is what keeps Saddam alive -- his military.
the end result would not clearly have been that the corporations involved would end up with weapons of mass destruction and the means to use them.
Which is a way in which the situations are similar. Thanks for pointing that out.
Surely it isn't guaranteed that weapons of mass destruction would arrise merely from lifting economic sanctions. Surely it is possible to differentiate between those sanctions and nuclear regulators.
I'm sure I'm not the only one to wonder, so I'll ask: to who or what do you owe your education in moral issues, teaching you to reason (if I may use that word loosely) the way you do?
Literature. I read a lot. Stephen Donaldson to Franz Kafka. George Orwell to the Apostle Paul (and friends). Not an exhaustive list, but I've hit the major ones with the last 3 at least. That, keeping my eyes open, and always thinking "there must be another way to look at this" has served me pretty well.
I'd ask you the same question, but I know already: using alien technology from area 51, George Bush beamed what he wanted you to think directly onto your brain.
Okay, that's probably not it... But you can't tell just by looking at the results!
The enemies of Democracy are
Thankfully, most rational people recognize that the goals of the respective organizations are exactly what make one more moral and ethical than the other.
Yes. I think that falls under the heading intent, which I made several lengthy posts about. I say under, because goals are a function of intent. Or, as I'm using the terms, intent could be considered "disposition" of a sort, a more far-reaching aspect than a "goal", used in the sense of something more short-term.
Here, try this example out, so you don't get so confused by your anti-American hate.
If you truly think I'm motivated by anti-American hate, either you are dumb or I've managed to grossly misrepresent myself. Don't be offended, I actually think it is the latter. I can't blame you for jumping to that conclusion since I have the rather non-mainstream opinion that we aren't the best people on earth. But that's not hate... That's called "reality". I actually like this country a lot.
[Snipped a long analogy which is a stinging indictment of my backwards thinking and broken reasoning... or at least it would be if it was analogous to reality]
You're analogy is a little off, but I'll help steer it toward reality.
First, a little backstory. Billy learned how to kill and rape because he was trained how by Marsha herself. Billy was being beaten up by Tina, a woman Marsha hated, and she gave Billy the training for free because of this.
Second, Marsha herself was hardly a saint. She'd committed murder and rape herself on a number of occasions. The townsfolk knew, but they don't like to talk about it, and pretend it never happened, or that she "had a good reason". She treated them nice, and they just couldn't admit they'd been taken in. It'd all happened on the other side of town, so it was easy to ignore. Plus, since she was the biggest and meanest, there was a sense of safety in having her around.
But they never liked Billy to begin with. His crimes they didn't have to ignore.
Third, the reason Billy isn't getting what he wants out of life is because what he wants in life is for Marsha to leave his house. She practically moved in. She'd already taken the porch facing the lake and given it to one of her homeless chums, without asking anyone else if they minded. And she talked a lot about letting him and his friends (other graduates of Marsha's "training program") make their own decisions... and she did, so long as she approved. She helped them commit crimes when they got in fights with each other. And she made it clear she wasn't going anywhere; "and you'll like it" she added menacingly.
When the fighting started, some were rather worried about the lengths Marsha would go to. They realized what Billy did was bad and he needed to be stopped, but they also realized that, really, Marsha was in a problem of her own creation (and they were paying the price for). And in the end she didn't give a shit about anyone who got caught in the crossfire. She'd do what it took to keep the townsfolk from turning on her, sure -- which wasn't much, since they didn't want to. If she didn't force their hand, she was safe.
They realized that Marsha didn't really take any risks at all. She was huge, strong, and the only skills Billy had to fight her were ones Marsha had given him. And they remember how "open" the dialogue was. There was only one thing you could say to not be branded as a "Billy-lover" or "Marsha-hater". The others didn't care about history. Their friends had died, and that was all that mattered. Perspective was an enemy, since it damaged resolve. They quelched it willingly.
And then, the prologue.
Marsha didn't kill everyone, of course.
But those left didn't necessarily feel "rescued" as the townsfolk had assumed they would. They buried their friends, who hadn't been involved at all except to be near Billy when Marsha burst in. They had never really liked or trusted Marsha -- they knew her past -- but they also didn't condone Billy's violence. But then, reacting to their loss much as most of the townsfolk had, they suddenly saw Marsha in a different light. Suddenly, Billy didn't seem so crazy. They still disliked violence, but what else could they do? In an ironic reflection of the previous words of Marsha's supporters, they gathered together, grit their teeth, and said "We must do what has to be done".
Repeat endlessly, in various villages of different sizes, over and over... and you have human history.
If I've learned one thing from this, it's that learning history doesn't stop it from repeating -- it just lets you recognize it when it's happening.
The enemies of Democracy are
Our goal is to stop terrorist attacks on our soil, and stop the resulting deaths and injuries, which we try to follow with minimal civilian deaths. Their goal regards killing civilians as a good thing, and doesn't care how many on their side die.
Well, yes, but "good thing" I think is misleading. That's the method they have chosen, and so executing that successfully is a "good thing". But from the view of just civilian deaths by themselves... No, I don't think it's viewed as a "good thing".
The main difference I think is that, unlike us, they don't feel the need to justify civilian deaths by calling it "collateral damage". Does not having to lie to yourself to feel comfortable with your actions indicate a greater level of "evil"? I guess that's arguable either way.
They made them count, but in a way that would piss off the rest of the world. Had they attacked an Air Force base, it would have been a sign that they weren't killing unrelated civilians. A show of strength (and everyone would have known what they could have hit), without the mass death.
A very good point. I absolutely agree. 100%. If I was an al queda leader (not bloody likely, for the same reason I'm not a Major General in the Army) I would have argued for that. Their choice is unforgiveable, and I want to make it clear again that I think that, even though I can see why they'd choose to.
And it was probably a tactical error, too, because of the backlash as you say.
But...
I also don't think we needed to bomb Nagisaka. Tricking the Japanese into thinking we had lots of bombs wasn't worth it. In fact, I don't think we needed to bomb Hiroshima, either. I think a demonstration, over water, would have been more than enough to make the point. Hell, use both, and give them the impression you have so many you can -waste- them in demonstrations.
But no one listened to me (what with being unborn by 30 years). Still, maybe that's part of the reason I can't label them as "evil" and us as "good".
The enemies of Democracy are
If they need Open Source software, then surely they can help us develop it as well. I'm sure there are folks in the US who would pay SA's for their services of furthering various projects. Then, that's money into their economy which can be used for further improvements.
Could you please identify where that assertion was made? I must have missed it; I saw an assertion of saving lives generally (e.g. of US citizens), and plenty of morally idiotic assertions on your part, but I didn't see that.
Look it up yourself. In the parent the the post where you quoted me, the poster was attempting to suggest that the harm done by the dead civilians was outweighed by the "estimated 100K" lives saved.
BTW, it's becoming increasingly obvious that "moraly idiotic" to you means "not asserting that the US is Good by Divine Right", and i'm starting to take pride in the moniker.
The enemies of Democracy are
Seems to me that waging a war to, e.g. in just one dimension, ensure the freedom of peoples (especially US citizen) to practice the religion they individually choose is morally superior to Al Queda's waging war (I'll call it that, since you try to equate their terrorism to our war) to impose their religion throughout the world.
Hah. How exactly is this war "ensuring the freedom of peoples"? The only threats to freedom I see are coming from John Ashcroft, the FBI, and the knee-jerk reactionism along with manipulative patriotism that lets them get away with it. You can argue that we're protecting -safety-, but freedom? It is to laugh. I bet you think Saddam was going to somehow steal your freedom, and that the Gulf War had nothing to do with oil.
WHAT ARE THEIR AIMS, in your words? What are the corresponding aims of the US government?
Ah, you see I thought we both knew that.
In the short term, al queda wants us the hell out of the middle east. To them, we are meddlers and imperialists with no right to be there. We control the local governments and then stand back and pretend we're not, as if they're too stupid to realize that we're doing it. I know this must be hard for you to grasp, but to them we are oppressors. Ceasing that oppression is their goal. Long term? Who is to say. "Destroy America" might go the way that "Destroy Communism" did in this country, were they to get their near-term goal.
Feel free to argue why they're wrong, but you will be wasting your breath because it's beside the point.
The U.S. goals? Harder to say, but expanding our hegemony seems to be chief among them.
But you consistently ignore one of my points, which is: the US has an imperfect military, therefore it is impossible for it to exist, especially be deployed in any useful fashion, without accidentally taking innocent human life.
That's true, I am ignoring it. If by "ignoring it" you mean "using it as one of the central cruxes of my argument, without which I wouldn't have a leg to stand on". I assume you are using that definition, because you're not too stupid to have realized how important this was. You obviously recall me saying that because civilian causualties are -inevitable-, and -unavoidable-, there is no way we could take military action without knowing in advance that civilian causualties -would- result. Then you remember me saying, when we take the action and civilians die, calling those deaths "accidents" or acting like they weren't -expected- is balderdash. We might not have -wanted- civilians die, but we -knew- they would.
You try to support their claim by presenting some kind of "cosmic fairness" argument: "Al Queda has a weaker military, therefore it is necessary for them to murder civilians".
What the hell? That's not even close. Cosmic fairness? Where did you even get the idea I'm talking about fairness? I'm talking about practicality. al Queda can't match our military, and thus engaging our military is removed from the list of practical actions.
just as someone would be a mathematical idiot if they equated two expressions that were clearly not identical by simply renaming two independent variables to the same name and then canceling them -- regardless of how much pseudo-intellectual hand-waving they engaged in to justify their results.
That's great! I love that analogy. So I guess I'm an idiot, because no matter how I try to make the equations look the same with some hand-waving -- let's call this process "algebra" -- you'll still insist they are different because the variables have different names.
Amazing how you willfuly choose to ignore or overlook any factor in the equation of US vs. Al Queda morality that might favor the USA.
You haven't -made- any except to assert as axiom that we're superior because we're a democracy. And I think I treat that with all the respect it deserves.
No, it's not the same reason. The nukes were dropped to say "look, we're not going to surrender unconditionally to your military, nor are we going to sacrifice another hundreds of thousands of American lives to defeat you conventionally, even though we believe it's sufficiently inevitable that you could see it if you were behaving rationally".
Um... No. We'd already said we weren't going to surrender. As for "sufficiently inevitable" - the Japanese believed that they were "morally superior" and thus would prevail against superior forces. Nothing you said was the actual message sent. The whole point wasn't to say we weren't going to sacrifice lives... It was to show what they would lose if they didn't surrender. "We won't surrender" isn't a way to make the enemy surrender.
When the emperor witnessed the power of the bomb, he saw my message, not yours. In fact, I've never seen it put the way you did before.
Anyway, I find it somewhat disturbing that you can justify to yourself wiping out 100,000 civilians for any reason.
Yet the history of what I'd call morally superior cultures suggests that they need not have "on-paper" military muscle that matches the enemy to win.
Oh, this should be interesting.
The USA did not match the British on paper during the Revolution, or during the War of 1812. Yet it won. Israel was sure-dead in the various campaigns conducted against it over the past various decades. Yet it won.
Haha! So, the reason we succeded in revolting was because we were "morally superior", not because most of Britain's army was already indisposed and they couldn't send reinforcements. You -do- know that Britain was already at war at the time, right? If that hadn't been the case, our little "colonial rebellion" would have been crushed.
What history shows is two things: a nation-state, culture, people, whatever, that values human life, democracy, freedom of thought, and so on, will be able to defeat an enemy possessing greater numbers, land, and ammunition, if that enemy doesn't value those things nearly as much.
Therefore, the fact that Al Queda is militarily inferior to the USA suggests that it is morally inferior as well, since it is willing to target innocent civilians to achieve political aims.
OMFG! If history shows you that, I want whatever you're smoking cus it's good shit! Though evidently kills braincells. I guess the Chinese were able to stave off the Mongols because of their deep and abiding love of democracy, then? I mean, your lack of understanding of the point of the nukes should have hinted... but are you really such an idiot?
So let me ask you -- what was it about us that made us morally superior to the Native Americans and let us win? Was it slavery? That we were invaders on what was rightfully their land? The fact that we were happy to wipe them out man, woman, child, to take that land? Or does democracy trump all other virtues? Haha!
This is wonderful. I've heard of "might makes right" as a brutaly pragmatic philosophy... But never have I heard "right makes might"! That's hi-fucking-larious. Apparently when you heard that history was written by the victors, you thought this was just and good... Because if their version of history wasn't right, then why did they win?
So, let me get this straight (I'm having trouble grasping how insane you are)... By you're "right makes might" theory, or alternatively "God loves the one left standing": Nazi Germany was morally superior to Poland, France, and northern Africa, but only barely better than Britain, until they were saved by the ultimate righteousness (us, of course). And apparently death camps didn't put Germany below Italy's level, since Italy was the first Axis power to fall. And I guess the Jews were morally bankrupt because they were so easily subjugated, until we gave them Israel and they suddenly became saints that could fight off multiple nations at once using their mighty Freedom Cannon (powered by Democracy)!
Oh, man, that's insane. But it makes sense of some things. I guess it means that the Hutus were morally superior to the Tutsis (beacuse they loved democracy!), and the reason we didn't intervene is because we knew that. Well, that's one less thing to blame our government for! Turns out they were just doing God's work!
So if that's true, I guess that means we should stop talking, because apparently North Vietnam is morally superior to us -- vastly so, cus they really kicked our ass! So find a Vietnemese person and ask them what they think, and I'll believe them, because I don't want to get my ass kicked for being morally inferior!
But in all seriousness... At this point I'm actually pissed that you had the gall to call me a moral idiot. I've had this discussion before with smart people who disagreed with me, and they could bring up good points. But you... You have the moral sense of a six-year-old schoolyard bully... You probably -were- one, and never grew out of it. Too bad those you terrorized weren't 'righteous' enough to teach you a lesson. Well, stay in your sandbox little boy, and let people with fully developed minds debate about things in the real world, where life is more complicated than "I can beat you up, so I'm right".
The enemies of Democracy are
Actually, that was one of the first openly revolutionary move on the part of Ghandi to free India from the British.
At the time, it was illegal to obtain salt -- except by purchase from government sources. In a tropical country, this is pretty close to taxing air.
His revolutionary move was to gather together thousands of people who picked up dried sea salt along the beach. The movie "Ghandi" portrays the government forces beating people as they moved forward to pick salt up off the ground.
This is, perhaps, where the multinationals want to go tomorrow.
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
time fragmentation problem . . .
1st/2nd world is the Free/Communist split. The second world is nearly gone--the USSR threw in the towel, nad it's subject states ran. The 2nd world is now pretty much limited to N. Korea, Cuba, and Red China . . . and Chinaisheading towards economic freedom which historically leads to political freedom in spite fo the ruling class's attempts to keep control, while Cuba probably veers off the day after Fidel discovers Hell . . .
The 3d world were those that tried to stay out of both the U.S./W. Europe and the Soviet spheres of influence--in some cases successfully plaing both off against the other by threats to go the other way, getting massive goodies from each. Most of these countries were indeed underdeveloped, but that's not really what made them first world (I don't recall any developed countries that didn't either remain free or have a Bolshevik style overthrow of the legitimite government . .
hawk
Hmm, I didn't read that as meaning "estimated 100K lives of those living under Taliban rule saved", which is what I thought you claimed had been said.
That is what was said. You didn't read it that way because you're a semi-literate idiot of incomprehensible stupidity and a brain shielded by three feet of cement against outside thought. To quote:
"The number of lives saved is estimated to be in excess of 100,000 over the next few years, mostly woman and children. They have been saved because food supplies can now reach famine stricken areas. Something not possible when the Taliban ran things."
How the hell could you not read that as saving lives "of those living under Taliban rule"?! It's explicit! What, did you think he was saying that the Taliban was blocking food shipments to famine-stricken areas in Somalia?! Or maybe the Taliban was so evil that they were causing people to starve to death right here in the U.S. (land of Democracy!)! No, no, wait... You thought that when all the other Middle East nations saw how morally superior we are that they'd see the light, embrace Democracy, and use that to feed their starving children!
Jeeze, you should just end all your posts with "I'm an idiot. Q.E.D.", since that seems to be the subtext of every word you utter.
So, no, I don't buy the Divine Right argument.
Ah, glad to know you think we can fall out of favor. So it's only George W. Bush who rules by Divine Right. Haha. He's the source of our moral (and thus military) superiority -- a man who thinks free speech should be limited to stop people from making fun of him? The man who wanted to bully his freedom-abusing "anti-terrorism" bill through Congress? This is the man who "loves freedom democracy" enough to grant us victory over the Taliban? The man who grants corporate interests whatever they desire because it lines his own pockets to do so? The man who wants to let criminal MS off the hook because it would "shake up our economy"? Who benefited more than the Taliban did from the attack? Haha! Oh god, I'm dying here. You'll question the Democrat's actions, but you aren't even inquisitive about what happens when a Republican is in office. I would take heart that we mostly agree about the Sudanese incident , but since your "reasoning" is basically a direct repitition of the Official Republican Party Line on the subject, and you don't show any other critical thinking skills, I can't use it to think that maybe - maybe - you can open your eyes and see reality past your Democracy-colored glasses. Your particular brand of insanity only lets you home in on the actions of that one individual, and not consider all the other actions taken by other (and oddly Republican) Presidents in the Middle East. Do the words Iran Contra mean a fucking thing to you? Oh no, it's all that damn dirty Democrat liar's fault! He ruined our moral integrity so that our Freedom Force-Field (powered by Democracy!) could be breached by terrorists! But Bush not only has better policy, he's morally superior, and it's proven by our ability to drop smart bombs from stealth fighters (they're cloaked with Justice!) that "accidentaly" blow up civilans! If God didn't want them dead, He would have stopped the bombs! Haha! No, no... If God didn't want us to bomb them, He wouldn't have given us bombs! It's sad, because you're an offense to those who are merely mindlessly partisan and closed minded. Rush Limbaugh (who is at least smarter than a very, very stupid rock) would disown you.
Your other, mind-bendingly insane post demonstrates exactly what you think, you damn loon. Your crazy "right makes might" philosophy (if something so primitive can be called by such a lofty name) is tainted by your politics, which seem to have been aquired by shoving a Jerry Fallwel book up your ass until it hit your brain stem. The result is one of the most bizarre (yet stupid) things I've ever seen. It's oddly fascinating, like roadkill. Which explains that smell of rotting flesh coming from your head.
*sigh* Well, I'm actually starting to get bored of mocking you, so I'm done. Thanks for being so insane/stupid. It's been fun.
The enemies of Democracy are
Nothing I said implied that nation X winning a victory over nation Y meant it was morally superior.
Sorry, couldn't resist... You're such an idiot, you don't even know what you say means.
Yet the history of what I'd call morally superior cultures suggests that they need not have "on-paper" military muscle that matches the enemy to win.
What history shows is two things: a nation-state, culture, people, whatever, that values human life, democracy, freedom of thought, and so on, will be able to defeat an enemy possessing greater numbers, land, and ammunition, if that enemy doesn't value those things nearly as much.
Therefore, the fact that Al Queda is militarily inferior to the USA suggests that it is morally inferior as well, since it is willing to target innocent civilians to achieve political aims.
Morally superior nations win over morally inferior wons. You say this explecitly and repeatedly, using almost those exact words. Morally superior implies victory. You're retarded ass can't even make the logical leap with your own statement to see that the contrapositive - Not victory implies not morally superior -- follows directly! You even actually say that, but still don't understand what you, yourself, typed! Not even a logic consequence, or a "natural extension", but the very words you typed!
Or, you're an idiot. Q.E.D.
The enemies of Democracy are
Like I said, I'm bored of mocking you, so I'm responding to the only vaguely insightful thing you've said. It's not a gem - it's really just a rock. But it stands out from the shit as though it were the Hope Diamond.
Actually, the townsfolk themselves did that, via their "United Townsfolk" organization, thinking that the solution to homelessness was to take other people's property and give it to the homeless.
You're right. You're actually right. But you're not so right that you aren't still a retard. The action was taken by the UN, but that does nothing to reduce our role in that action, what with being a superpower and all. And in the analogy, it was from the perspective of those pissed off about the action, and they don't care about whatever dismissive crap you want to pile on the issue. They don't care about the difference between subtle control and unsubtle control.
Despite trying to give you a serious response, I'm not interested in yours. I'm done mocking, and there's nothing else I could do with more insane reversals of cause and effect where their hatred of us causes them to be pissed about us fucking with them instead of the reverse. You're a loon, and your cyclical logic that our justification is that we're morally superior, and we're morally superior because we're justified. You are ignorant of history -- even recent -- and actions taken by your own country.
Okay, I'm starting to mock again. I'm done now. Really.
The enemies of Democracy are
I'm drawing quotes from several previous posts. If this gets confusing... tough. I don't mock you at all in this post, except to exercise my love of self-referntial sentences and admit that maybe you deserve it.
It does nothing to reduce our role in the action, compared to your depiction of the US being fully responsible -- Marsha unilaterally deciding to move Jacob into Bill's house??
That's right. Sharing responsibility doesn't reduce it. If there were 500 people in Al Qaeda all with equal authority to bin Laden, and all agreed to bomb the WTC, each would be as culpable as bin Laden is by himself today.
Surely you can't mean that. Because that would imply that the only way the USA could escape full culpability for that act would be if it had launched all-out war on the UN to prevent it happening.
Um, no. Having it be not our idea, and not agree with the idea, would reduce our culpability greatly. If it was plausible that we were a dissenting minority, pressured somehow into accepting the majority decision, that would be sufficient. Given the U.S.'s position after WWII, however, it is difficult to see what "pressure" could have been great enough to cause us to bow. But that's beside the point, because we didn't bow, we agreed whole-heartedly.
No, the analogy was from an objective viewpoint, illustrating the distinctions between how people view reality and reality itself.
Once I got done with it, yes. You see, when you said in the other post...
(Note how cleverly this Tina supporter words it: the dead ones were "involved" because Marsha "burst in" and were merely "near Billy", not because Billy burst in, took hostages, and killed a few. This sort of willfully-manipulative rhetoric is a classic means by which Tina and her supporters convince many of the moral equivalence of good and evil.)
... you weren't pointing out some horrible flaw in my analogy, or the "classc means" of Tina... I was demonstrating events as seen by those bystanders. You see, the third person perspective does not need be objective. In literature, it rarely is. And honestly, you must take into account subjective point of view to have any hope of analyzing this situation. You use events as you see them to make moral judgements and practical evaluations. Others do the same. To discuss moral issues without perspective, to pretend to be able to discuss them "objectively", is to accept that one's own view is the only one worthy of judging. You yourself have judged events based solely on your own experience, but called it "objective". By seeing how someone else experienced something, and trying to understand it, you expand your possible viewpoints to include another view. This is not the path to objectivity (which is still impossible -- you cannot escape subjectivity, no more than you can escape the perception of self), it is the path to having more than one subjective viewpoint from which to judge things. I believe that having more viewpoints is always good, and I also believe that you can understand another viewpoint and find it valid without agreeing with it (which doesn't seem to be a commonly held belief). So yes, I included a stilted viewpoint that is as those people see it. The purpose was to show how their viewpoint on Marsha's actions leads to similar decisions on their part as did the townsfolk's viewpoint on Billy's actions.
How serious can your response truly be, when you don't answer straightforward questions,like, did my original analogy, with a morally neutral backstory, suggest to you Marsha was morally equivalent, in her actions, to Billy?
Perhaps because that is a ridiculous question. Your story was about as "morally neutral" as the Brother's Grimm are neutral on the subject of gender roles. You stilted it as much as you could, or at least that's what you would have been doing if you weren't presenting what you see as "reality". I didn't answer the question, because the answer is meaningless. I ignore things that aren't worth responding too, no matter how important you think they are. I normally don't answer meaningless questions. Yet I will, and the answer would be "no, they were not morally equivalent".
In another post, you said:
First, how about you answer the question based solely on the analogy, assuming a morally neutral backstory, without having to "decorate" in ways you didn't bother to mention in your posts morally equating the US with al Queda?
Ah, I see your issue now. When I posted without decoration or backstory, I didn't bother to mention it not because it is irrelevant, but because I assumed that since all the decorations are part of the public record, I didn't have to. Because intent is what matters, the backstory is critically important. It is by viewing one's actions over time that you can begin to determine intent. There is no better way to predict what someone would do in a certain situation than to study what they have done in previous situations. The past is the only guide we have to the future. Thus for the question of intent, the why not the what, we cannot ignore the backstory.
Which I hope explains why your analogy was not worth it to me to consider seriously, as it stood.
Now, with this understanding, let me explain my position. First, anytime I say "we", or "the US", I'm referring specifically to the government. In my (admittedly non-exhaustive, but also self-directed and not driven solely by popular conception or word of mouth) study of our own actions during and since WWII, I have concluded that our intent is to protect our own interests, both political and economic, by any means necessary. These "means" are restrained by political reality, public reaction to the means (if they are discovered), and our capabilities. Nothing else obvious comes to mind. Not an abiding sense of "goodness", to be sure. Which isn't to say that we don't think our interests are good. Fighting communism, preserving our solidarity, etc. I'll take it as given that we believe we are "in the right". Because I have no doubt that Al Qaeda, from its viewpoint, sees it's own goals as "in the right". In that way, we are similar. It is what we are willing to do to achieve those goals that I see the picture of similarity completed.
This is, of course, a conclusion you will not agree with, nor will you any time soon even if you decide to give it due consideration. It took me a long time, myself, and I was a cynic to begin with. But let me try to support it.
I started with the fact that there was a situation in which we decided to use not one, but two nuclear weapons. Targeted at civilians. No "accidental" death here. Justification is not important to argue for or against, because that would only establish the necessary modifier to my "any means". I personally (meaning from my viewpoint) do not think that it was necessary, but I can understand that from the viewpoint of the decision makers of the time it may have seemed so.
Now I fast-forward to post-Vietnam, not because of a lack of interesting data points, but because I wish to keep this short and get to the important part to show that my hypothesis applies recently, not just half a century ago.
You said that you thought that we had learned our lesson from Vietnam. And indeed we have. We have learned that it's better to use a proxy to fight our wars for us. The public reaction is less severe when it comes to the death of some other country's soldiers. It is easier to conceal the actions of a proxy, and thus prevent public reaction. It makes it possible to maneuver around political realities that would prevent us from dircetly intervening. And atrocities of the kind committed by our own soldiers in Vietnam achieve all of the above benefits as well. With a proxy, while your "means" are limited greatly by not being able to use your own forces, they are in other ways greatly liberated.
Central America in the 80's is a perfect example. Rather than dispose of unfavorable governments ourself, we paid for and directed rebellions against them. Nicaragua was such a case. They had overthrown a fascist regime that was created and supported by our own government, and proceded to do very well for themselves without our help, and without giving in to our business interests. They were starting to show communist tendencies, and the opposing groups that inevitably appeared were the tools by which we exercised our interests.
You see, Regan was trying to free hostages, which is surely a noble cause by itself, even if the method did make us war profiteers by selling weapons to both sides of a war at the same time. But that wasn't the extent of it. The profits of this war profiteering went to fund the Contras, since Congress had dropped support. Thus what had at first seemed like merely breaking the law and our stated policy on terrorism to save hostages ended up being just the means for us to further our interests in Central America.
Not that this was the only problem with the Contras. Outside of money from arms sales to Iran, the Contras were also funded by drug money, with the coordination and cooperation of the CIA. Massive amounts of cocaine entered this country, starting the boom of that and derivative drugs in the US. It is conspicuous in the detail that the CIA doesn't deny this, but merely asserts that an investigation of their financial records showed no evidence. That documents in the public record would contradict the former statement might explain why.
The Contras themselves engaged in actions that could be called terroristic. They didn't restrict themselves to military targets, by any means. And this wasn't just the unfortunate action of our tool -- they received training in many of these activities by us. Our field training manuals on interrogation were somewhat disturbing in that they argued against -direct- physical torture simply because it is ineffective -- recommending instead indirect physical pain, and mental pain. Torture, assassination, hired death squads. Is this the action of a morally superior government, or of one that is willing to do whatever it takes to achieve its goals?
And of course all of this comes along with rampant concealment and manipulation of information. Clearly, public reaction can be manipulated both in extend and even existence, and thus increase those means which are available for achieving ends.
When Iraq invaded Kuwait, there was no proxy to fight for us. But that was fine, because political reality was such that we could engage them ourselves, with lots of help even. Whatever humanitarian reasons might have been given as motivations -- much like the saving of starving Afghans -- was so much crap, as we ignored Iraq's actions against the Kurds even as we supplied them with more weapons for their war with Iran.
And speaking of ignoring, despite our vow of "Never Again", our response to genocide has demonstrated that our intent is anything other than humanitarian. If there is one thing anyone in this century can agree on morally, it is that genocide represents one of the greatest evils imagineable. Yet when it happens in countries that are not of national interest, it is ignored by our Vietnam-wisened government. A pathetic bombing cannot compare to what happened in Rwanda, or in Bosnia. We never intervened in Rwanda, and what little action we took in Bosnia may have actually made it worse. In this case, our interest was to not get involved, and this was done by whatever method made this politically feasible. You blame Clinton for lying about getting his winky wet? What about lying about genocide and ethnic cleansing? Claiming ignorance so that we wouldn't have to get involved?
"By any means necessary" was a phrase Malcom X could have easily borrowed from the CIA handbook. We have done things that we would like people to believe only countries like China would do. We do these things, and we conceal them, lie about them, and justify them because of "national security". Our interests.
Willing to achieve its goals by any means necessary, limited only by political reality, capability, and public reaction. Am I talking about the US or Al Qaeda? I'm talking about both. Al Qaeda is operating within grossly different parameters of political reality, capability, and public reaction. These differences are the source of the conceptual problem of seeing the two groups as "the same", but that is only a matter of situation, of "viewpoint" not intent. The intent is the same -- what I want, no matter what. It is my conclusion that were the U.S. government to have the same limiting parameters as Al Qaeda, its actions would be no different. Thus, they are morally equivalent.
And, from my viewpoint, equally reprehensible.
So now you probably think I'm a loon. That's fine. Is it because my analysis of events is flawed? Or because you don't believe the events I describe transpired? The former may be true, or it may just depend on my own subjectivity. The latter... Well, that's really the triumph of our government. They can release documents proving what I've said, readily available under the FOIA, and people still don't believe it.
By the way, there is one question you haven't asked, though it's probably because you think you know the answer. You never asked me if I thought we should have attacked Afghanistan, even though we all know civilians would die. If you had asked, I would have said "I can't see what else we can do... So yes."
Necessity is a horrible thing.
You are ignorant of history -- even recent -- and actions taken by your own country.
Thanks for trying to educate me (NOT!!).
Thanks for making it sound like it's my fucking job! Educate yourself. I'm not your tutor.
But I'll throw you a bone. Outside of Google, a good place to start is
here.
Okay, I'm starting to mock again. I'm done now. Really.
Promise?
Hey, I didn't mock you, did I? And now I'm done, period. Happy truth-hunting. Cya on the other side.
The enemies of Democracy are