Hating pedophiles as a class would not violate any existing law - but is kind of silly if you believe that it is a mental illness.
Would it be OK, dear enlightened, anonymous coward, for victims of criminal acts to hate the perpetrators.
If paedophilia is a mental illness, then this "class" cannot be allowed on the street. Just like wolves cannot be allowed on a playground, no matter how much of a race they are and how wrong it is to hate races.
If you don't agree, then I'll become a "stick lethal scorpions into AC's bedroom"-ile. Don't hate our class ! That's forbidden !
And religion sucks as a definition. What if a religion itself is racist ? E.g.
"And fight with them (infidels) until there is no more persecution and religion should be only for Allah" (8:39)
Then what do you do. In real life you're going to find most religions contain direct commands like this one (Christianity is, fortunately, an exception).
Most religions describe in their holy texts that the state is to be used for religious genocide. Perhaps it's Christ himself experienced this first-hand, that he outlawed it. But Christianity is an utter exception to the rule here.
So if you're answer is "racist religions are not allowed", then keep in mind that most world religions, including hinduism and islam, would be outlawed.
Because that practice (prosecuting/killing someone for expressing opinions) is an integral part of islam. Obviously "they" (meaning "liberals") are prosecuting him not for a "hate crime" but for saying something they don't like.
After all... being muslim is a CHOICE, not something you're born that can never change like your skin color. Therefore there is nothing racist about anything said about islam/muslims. Now look at what said choice means :
Sad fact is that most of the world just doesn't care. Most chocolate is purchased from cocoa farms in the Ivory Coast, many of those farms use (child) slave labor.
And in muslim countries, all of the former is still legal. And yes, that's because of their religion.
Heh, so you find that the democratic party's position of "talking with enemies" is equally bullshit ? Clearly Iran should be treated at least as badly as you suggest treating China, or even worse.
Look, either unfettered human rights law is the best solution for a society, or China's solution is the best.
The jury is still out, I'd say. May the best country win. Only an attitude like that has any chance whatsoever of winning people over.
If American society is, after all, a much worse situation, then it would be utterly completely seen as being the enemy. God damn America would be a widespread belief (or the Chinese translation of it).
Why would you even want to try to force American ways on Chinese ? It *is* the best solution, and the people *will* choose to implement it. Perhaps not tomorrow, but it will happen.
Just give them a few (okay, perhaps even a few dozen) years.
Once there were 3 people sitting at a bar. At the opposite side of the street is a building. One studies biology, one's an engineer, and one's a mathematician.
Two people go into the building at the other side of the street.
A few minutes pass.
3 people come back out.
First the biologist notices this. And he promptly declares that nature is beautiful. The engineer, a bit more at his senses, states that obviously there simply was someone already inside the building.
But, the mathematician realizes the obvious truth, and announces "You're both wrong. If now one more person enters the building, there will be no-one left inside".
Please show me your reason to think that Bush will push a theocracy. It hasn't arrived (not that that's any surprise to anyone).
Will Bush take even a single step towards a theocracy ? The first thing to do seems to me to consolidate the power of a single individual, out of the hands of the people.
What he does here is simple : he prohibits people from telling suspects they're under investigation for real crimes. How does that push a theocracy, as everyone here claims ?
Has he taken any single such step (a clear one, let's leave the conspiracies out of this one, shall we) ?
Nobody believes Bush wants to push a theocracy. At all.
Ahmadinejad "we don't have gays in Iran" and "we executed 28 of them last month", otoh IS a theocratic dictator (the reason he executes gays is simple : islam). Why exactly is the democratic party protecting him ? Talking to him ? Declaring his "good" intentions ? What do democrats want to accomplish by preventing any action meant to lessen the power of said theocrat ? Why did Carter go talk to terrorist theocrats that don't want to talk (read their charter) ? A lot of the darlings of the democratic party these days are theocrats.
"The feds" makes it seem like a nice bipartisan effort. It isn't. One party is pushing this. We both know which one.
Why do they want to prevent americans from defending themselves against the state ? Well there is really only one answer to that question, and we all know what it is...
Vote for anyone but Republicans in 2008 and vote out everyone who had anything to do with the poorly named Patriot act.
So that the NSL's get expanded to include "hate speech" ? Not just supressing that someone is being investigated (very reasonable thing to do, you don't let suspects know they're being tailed), to include the spreading of "hate-speech" political ideas.
That would be *so* much better.
You know, because that worked out so well in the Weimar republic.
Why exactly should the police inform single people that they're being watched to see if they want to kill others ?
Ow all "hate speech" as deemed acceptable or not by the democratic party obviously. Let's illustrate :
"We will help God destroy the 'white enemy'" (not hate speech) "If God is not for us and against white people," writes Cone, "then he is a murderer, and we had better kill him. The task of black theology is to kill gods who do not belong to the black community." (not hate speech) "Hmmm it seems that a lot of these terrorists are muslims... how strange" (hate speech)
I'm not accusing Obama of being a terrorist. Just accusing him of letting his socialist fantasies override his good judgement on the subject of terrorism.
If this paragraph is accurate then the problem is ideology. And not American Capitalism...
"In the section on suicide bombers, an important point the book makes is that contrary to popular belief, suicide bombers are rarely insane. They are most often intelligent, rational individuals with beliefs that those in the West finds difficult to comprehend. Nance does not for a second rationalize the actions of such groups and individuals. But notes that it is critical to understand why they do it in order to prevent future attacks."
If this is true then freedom of belief is only maintainable until the terrorist problem reaches a certain mass.
Although this has been known for some time. It's not poor, defenseless people who become terrorists, no matter how much mr. Obama would like them to be. It's knowledgeable, rational, intelligent and rich people, who have but to choose from the thousands of opportunities the world offers them (like he himself is, or any presidential candidate obviously).
Terrorists aren't terrorists because they're poor, undereducated or have been wronged. Terrorists are terrorists because they want to and DESPITE them being rich, fully educated and more than fairly treated by the world.
What does this mean for freedom of belief ? What will happen in the "long term" ?
If this is correct, then soon enough the terrorist belief system will turn out to be the only thing that a nation who does not want terrorists can attack.
So let's hear it... is xcode a real competitor to visual studio ?
Because let's be honest, while I use linux all the time, and I contribute every now and then to a number of linux apps. But I don't kid myself that anything that can run on linux (whether kdevelop or eclipse, or *even* vim) is half as good as visual studio.
And it's still the only real dev platform for smartphones and pda's. I have a maemo device, which is nice. But developing for it is a bitch to say the very least.
This guy simply does what all utopians do (whether socialists or pacifists or theocrats or...)
He lies.
In the same post he "does not support" preventive violence, he threathens to use massive violence against a person.
Needless to say, this person is not a pacifist at all. And you're right, obviously :
"pure pacifism can't really exist without someone else to do violence on their behalf"
Read Pakistan's secession war if you want to know what pure pacifism meant to Gandhi (using "negotiations" to get other people to fight for him, never lifting a finger himself. And he was very good at it, he got over 10 million people killed by doing this).
If Saddam had had nukes, he still would have got booted out of Kuwait, but he would have been safe from invasion.
No, Kuwait would have gotten nuked, after which there would be nobody left (Kuwait is really small, barely larger than Israel, with only a single city).
And there would have been no alternative to giving it to Iraq. After all, there would be maybe 10000 Kuwaiti's left world-wide.
What would have stopped Saddam from nuking them ? The common decency and conscience that mass-murdering thieves tend to exhibit in times of stress ?
Use them as deterrence? Push their will on the rest of the region, which is cowering in terror under the nuclear shadow?
Actually the region has seen a LOT of wars where the agressors KNOWINGLY attacked, even when they knew the attack would destroy them.
Take the Iraq-Iran war for example. Iraq saw Iran fall back over a mountain range, and tried to pursue. Less than a month after that the Iraqi army was in shambles, supply lines cut, barely capable of policing normal streets in territory on their own side of the border.
Are you saying Saddam didn't know that would happen ? He pushed the attack when he could have easily stopped in a quasi invulnerable position, which would have provided an ideal starting point for the next attack in 10 years.
Yet he attacked... and lost massively. (Iran lost massively too, because they kept sending in untrained children against buried-in posities. Iran lost about 500.000 of it's children that way, that is the main reason islam is so terribly unpopular in Iran nowadays)
But attacking, knowing full well that retaliation might come is not a rare event in the middle east.
Egypt's attacks against Israel. Hezbollah-Israel, Israel's independance war, Jordan versus Britain, Pakistan versus India (and even worse : Pakistan versus East-Pakistan/Bangladesh)... all are wars that the attacker could in no way hope to win...
And this is a tradition that goes back tens of centuries. When the muslims decided to attack the crusader states, they knew it would mean they'd fall to the mongols, that over 35 million people would starve (because there are letters, preserved by the libraries of Byzantium, that literally say this would happen). The muslims attacked, "won", got massacred by the mongols, and of the remaining muslims, at least 30 million starved, but not after killing the entire city that the sultan inhabited, including the sultan himself.
So let's be careful with "they won't attack if they can't reasonably win" ideas.
You make the stupid mistake to think that the Iranian government is there to defend it's people. It's not. It's there only to conquer, and to enforce islam (just read their constitution). Same with Saddam's government. It wasn't there for Iraqi's to prosper, it was there for Saddam to prosper. It attacked because of Saddam's pride.
Pacifism is not about inaction. Pacifism is about trying to reach results while resorting to more modern and less barbaric means.
Less barbaric ? Cool ! Let's see what those means are, because that seems like a very good idea. Unless...
Instead of directly using violence against me, you will:
the expected outcome of a (successful) intervention of the Police, will finally end up in court in a fair trial, with the criminal being subject to what punition has been deemed relevant by the law
So this "totally different from barbaric violence" method consists of:
-> sending a detachement of armed men after me (in fact the entire police force, and more if necessary, in total you are sending a force that could build up to about 200.000 people, if necessary, after me) after me.
This is obviously more violent than going after me directly. And not just a little bit.
-> forcing me to submit to a "public" enquire as to what violence (which might include the death penalty but at minimum imprisonment, which is also violence).
Again this is more violent than going after me directly
-> extracting the actual "punition". Again this might mean slow execution, or otherwise long-term imprisonment, obviously both forms of violence.
Again... this involves a lot more and longer use of violence against me than you'd ever be able to do yourself.
Obviously your "less barbaric" methods turn out to be a hell of a lot more violent. The "less" part of the barbarity basically consists of massively organised violence, instead of a direct response.
But analysing your statement further, this turns out not to be the bottom of your hypocrisy.
You compare a situation where the horrible crime has been committed, with a situation where one might encounter a menace and is resorting preventively on violence.
No, this situation is fictional, and you are threatening massive violence upon my person RIGHT NOW to dissuade me from following through. This is not any more "non-violent" than me holding a gun to your head and asking for your wallet, or indeed raping your daughter.
You WANT something from me. Safety for yourself and others. I may or may not be willing to provide it to you.
If I'm not, you're saying you're going to imprison, or kill me. This is not non-violence AT ALL.
But again, your next statement deepens the hypocrisy in your post, because you repeat the original statement that was disproven.
IN THE VERY SAME POST where you threaten to imprison or kill me to dissuade me from a certain action you claim to be against preventive violence.
You're entire post is a large big honking "I physically threaten you to dissuade you from taking an action I don't like".... which is exactly what bombing an Iranian nuclear facility would be...
I demand to get at least the same treatment as Iran. Even if proven to be criminal, not respecting human rights or American law, threatening and attacking you and your family, because I think I'm better and get to do what I want (like Iran does), I want you to let me go WITHOUT CONSEQUENCES. Without police, without army, without so much as a fist, without violence, without ANYTHING.
In the words of Gandhi to the Jews of Germany in 1938. You are the victim (the Jew), and here's the action "non-violence" expects from you:
"I would claim Germany as my home even as the tallest gentile German may, and challenge him to shoot me or cast me in the dungeon; I would refuse to be expelled or to submit to discriminating treatment."
I want you to silently let me shoot you. To stand silently by as I rape your daughter. THAT is what Gandhi expected of the Jews, and of everybody else, in world war 2. That is what pacifism expects (and Gandhi did NOT
We're geeks here. So let's compare their options. They don't just have "a" nuclear program. There are many nuclear programs a country can pursue.
Specifically they built heavy water reactors and built cascades of over 3000 centrifuges.
There are also simpler, more efficient "light water" reactors, requiring very little if any enrichment. They know this, and specifically chose against them...
Why does one build heavy water reactors (and Ahmadinejad knows this, as he's a civil engineer), because you can build "heavy isotopes" with it. They want to use them to "cure aids" and stuff. Right.
But the part about heavy isotopes is true. Why do you want heavy isotopes ? Since these days we have a simple neutron-producing device, making small (okay... utterly tiny) amounts of medical isotopes is much simpler and much cheaper and flexible using alternative methods.
You want these reactors to produce large amounts of heavy isotopes. Which ones ? There's exactly one that's of any use : plutonium. There's exactly one thing those centrifuges produce : weapons grade purity uranium and plutonium. And there's one use for it : bombs.
Do they want bombs to avoid being nuked themselves ? Does Iran today need deterrence to avoid being bombed ?
There is only one conclusion with this course of action : they're making weapons, and they're making them because they want to attack (not necessarily with said nuclear weapons, but they want to attack, who and what is not clear, they want the bombs to prevent retaliation)
I wonder if you'd say the same thing if I killed (and raped, before AND after) your daughter and you have the choice of informing the police or staying silent.
Remember, before you answer : violence only creates more violence. You obviously know the police will use violence against me.
So... do you hide my crime ?
Peace man. Where do you live ? Is your daughter pretty ?
(this post is fiction, obviously, and only meant to illustrate the utter stupidity of this fake "pacifism", the fake "salvation" that non-violence supposedly provides).
Violence against Iran may prove to be a VERY good idea, it may prove to be a very bad idea. We don't know.
One thing is for sure however, Iran is using heavy water reactors, less efficient and more complex than light-water reactors. They make this uneconomical decision for a reason... because they can make bombs with it.
Do they want bombs for defense ? Why don't you answer this question for yourself. Is it reasonable to assume they need deterrence ? Or do they want to attack ? (little detail : like they've done before, with MASSIVE casualties, they lost 500.000 people, most of them children in an attempt to expand into Iraq)
Relative to the criminal (most criminals don't agree on the criminality of their actions you know, so are they innocent ?)
Relative to the victim (then just about any violent crime would "morally" carry the death penalty, certainly rape would carry the death penalty under this relativeness).
Relative to the culture ? Then it wouldn't be a crime for nazis to steal from Jews. Or for KKK members to kill blacks (or for Wright parishoners to kill whites, racism after all, goes both ways). Or for muslims to kill infidels ala 9/11. Because that's allowed in their culture, that's not a crime under nazi law, kkk code or sharia.
Relative to me ? ("there would be peace if everyone did what I say")
Or are you simply a nihilist ? ("in the long run we're all dead")
Relative to whom are morals relative ? Just wondering.
"Persian or Afghani" ? You mean indo-European ? Those are countries, not ethnic groups. You cannot recognize an Afghan from a Dutch, except for language and predisposition to blowing himself up (oh sorry it's called "religion")
And what happens ? Who will write textbooks ? Well, simple : idealists. Lobbyists. Demagogues.
After all knowledgeable people will no longer put in the time and energy required.
So what can one expect to happen ? Textbooks, ALL textbooks will no longer be written, except in order to satisfy, not correctness of science, not ability to make students learn or understand, but...
Political (or more general : ideological). Note how one of the first things Harun Yahya did to advance his intelligent design on people : make it easy, write a biology textbook for them to use. Fortunately he is a muslim, and he quickly proceeded to step 2 of "submission", his religion, he threatened violence, which makes it clear to everyone just how right he is. However : he's still making advances.
If this gets anywhere ALL textbooks will advance an ideological agenda, for advancing an ideological agenda will be the only motivation left to write textbooks, and quality of those textbooks will be secondary to how much they push a certain ideology.
In other words : if these books become widespread enough to kill the market, impartial science will no longer be taught to students.
If something like this gets combined with the government mandating certain textbooks, the disaster will be complete.
Do you really think they will attack the American Citizens again?
When exactly did the Bush administration attack American citizens ?
Or are you a 9-11 loon and not mentioning the specific issue anymore for fear of being utterly ridiculed and completely proven wrong ?
Oh the Bush government confronted you with the fact that not everybody wants to play nice. Some people want to kill you, merely for the way your country works. And guess what ? "Some people" means somewhere in the 100-200 million people. The same people attacked the same building for the same reasons in the clinton administration, you do realise that ? It was not an attack on Bush, it was an attack on America.
Confronting people with reality. That should carry the death penalty. Fortunately there is one candidate completely opposed to it. However... reality seems to disagree.
Gore is neither sincere nor appropriate unfortunately.
Does he still have his own private jet and 5 cars ? I haven't read anywhere that he dropped them and the press would jump all over itself reporting any such events so al gore is just another "you have to do what I say" politician speaking out of his comfy private jet ordering 5 mercedesses to collect him 10 minutes later. That sort of person should be shunned. I don't like Bush (at all), but I prefer him 100x over Gore.
I'm sorry but making sure people stay alive TAKES PRECEDENCE over anything else. And yes making people stay alive today takes precedence over tomorrow. We should do what we can today, and plan for tomorrow.
And "fewer people later" is the most danguerous of policies that I have ever heard. It sounds like something a nazi would say. Programs like that are bound to not just fail, but to fail with genocides resulting from them. Sorry but any policy in that direction is just not discussable. At all.
And non-existant technologies are out of discussion until they are proven. They can get a research budget, even a big research budget, no problem. But that's all. Solar, wind,... are out of any short term energy supply plans (that means, btw, 10 years timeframe, and not 10 months)
That leaves our energy supply with exactly 2 options : nuclear (perhaps with a demo thorium plant constructed) and coal. That's it. All other technologies can get a research budget, maybe even a test plant, but nothing more. They can certainly not be phased in in the next 10 years, so let's quit discussing them for at least a year.
The problem that al gore and his fellow nutcases are "missing" is that even if it's not food crops, they still require farmland.
1 full tank of ethanol (55 liters) is enough to feed a human being FOR A YEAR.
So again, not using food crops will *again* make the food problem *worse*, not better. This "solution", while a nice feat of the researchers, is another disaster.
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Hating pedophiles as a class would not violate any existing law - but is kind of silly if you believe that it is a mental illness.
Would it be OK, dear enlightened, anonymous coward, for victims of criminal acts to hate the perpetrators.
If paedophilia is a mental illness, then this "class" cannot be allowed on the street. Just like wolves cannot be allowed on a playground, no matter how much of a race they are and how wrong it is to hate races.
If you don't agree, then I'll become a "stick lethal scorpions into AC's bedroom"-ile. Don't hate our class ! That's forbidden !
And religion sucks as a definition. What if a religion itself is racist ? E.g.
"And fight with them (infidels) until there is no more persecution and religion should be only for Allah" (8:39)
Then what do you do. In real life you're going to find most religions contain direct commands like this one (Christianity is, fortunately, an exception).
Most religions describe in their holy texts that the state is to be used for religious genocide. Perhaps it's Christ himself experienced this first-hand, that he outlawed it. But Christianity is an utter exception to the rule here.
So if you're answer is "racist religions are not allowed", then keep in mind that most world religions, including hinduism and islam, would be outlawed.
So what is your answer ? Let's hear it.
Because that practice (prosecuting/killing someone for expressing opinions) is an integral part of islam. Obviously "they" (meaning "liberals") are prosecuting him not for a "hate crime" but for saying something they don't like.
... being muslim is a CHOICE, not something you're born that can never change like your skin color. Therefore there is nothing racist about anything said about islam/muslims. Now look at what said choice means :
After all
Google "asma bint marwan".
Sad fact is that most of the world just doesn't care. Most chocolate is purchased from cocoa farms in the Ivory Coast, many of those farms use (child) slave labor.
And in muslim countries, all of the former is still legal. And yes, that's because of their religion.
Heh, so you find that the democratic party's position of "talking with enemies" is equally bullshit ? Clearly Iran should be treated at least as badly as you suggest treating China, or even worse.
Look, either unfettered human rights law is the best solution for a society, or China's solution is the best.
The jury is still out, I'd say. May the best country win. Only an attitude like that has any chance whatsoever of winning people over.
If American society is, after all, a much worse situation, then it would be utterly completely seen as being the enemy. God damn America would be a widespread belief (or the Chinese translation of it).
Why would you even want to try to force American ways on Chinese ? It *is* the best solution, and the people *will* choose to implement it. Perhaps not tomorrow, but it will happen.
Just give them a few (okay, perhaps even a few dozen) years.
Once there were 3 people sitting at a bar. At the opposite side of the street is a building. One studies biology, one's an engineer, and one's a mathematician.
Two people go into the building at the other side of the street.
A few minutes pass.
3 people come back out.
First the biologist notices this. And he promptly declares that nature is beautiful. The engineer, a bit more at his senses, states that obviously there simply was someone already inside the building.
But, the mathematician realizes the obvious truth, and announces "You're both wrong. If now one more person enters the building, there will be no-one left inside".
Please show me your reason to think that Bush will push a theocracy. It hasn't arrived (not that that's any surprise to anyone).
Will Bush take even a single step towards a theocracy ? The first thing to do seems to me to consolidate the power of a single individual, out of the hands of the people.
What he does here is simple : he prohibits people from telling suspects they're under investigation for real crimes. How does that push a theocracy, as everyone here claims ?
Has he taken any single such step (a clear one, let's leave the conspiracies out of this one, shall we) ?
Nobody believes Bush wants to push a theocracy. At all.
Ahmadinejad "we don't have gays in Iran" and "we executed 28 of them last month", otoh IS a theocratic dictator (the reason he executes gays is simple : islam). Why exactly is the democratic party protecting him ? Talking to him ? Declaring his "good" intentions ? What do democrats want to accomplish by preventing any action meant to lessen the power of said theocrat ? Why did Carter go talk to terrorist theocrats that don't want to talk (read their charter) ? A lot of the darlings of the democratic party these days are theocrats.
And the Feds continue to disarm the citizenry.
...
"The feds" makes it seem like a nice bipartisan effort. It isn't. One party is pushing this. We both know which one.
Why do they want to prevent americans from defending themselves against the state ? Well there is really only one answer to that question, and we all know what it is
Vote for anyone but Republicans in 2008 and vote out everyone who had anything to do with the poorly named Patriot act.
... how strange" (hate speech)
So that the NSL's get expanded to include "hate speech" ? Not just supressing that someone is being investigated (very reasonable thing to do, you don't let suspects know they're being tailed), to include the spreading of "hate-speech" political ideas.
That would be *so* much better.
You know, because that worked out so well in the Weimar republic.
Why exactly should the police inform single people that they're being watched to see if they want to kill others ?
Ow all "hate speech" as deemed acceptable or not by the democratic party obviously. Let's illustrate :
"We will help God destroy the 'white enemy'" (not hate speech)
"If God is not for us and against white people," writes Cone, "then he is a murderer, and we had better kill him. The task of black theology is to kill gods who do not belong to the black community." (not hate speech)
"Hmmm it seems that a lot of these terrorists are muslims
I'm not accusing Obama of being a terrorist. Just accusing him of letting his socialist fantasies override his good judgement on the subject of terrorism.
If this paragraph is accurate then the problem is ideology. And not American Capitalism ...
"In the section on suicide bombers, an important point the book makes is that contrary to popular belief, suicide bombers are rarely insane. They are most often intelligent, rational individuals with beliefs that those in the West finds difficult to comprehend. Nance does not for a second rationalize the actions of such groups and individuals. But notes that it is critical to understand why they do it in order to prevent future attacks."
If this is true then freedom of belief is only maintainable until the terrorist problem reaches a certain mass.
Although this has been known for some time. It's not poor, defenseless people who become terrorists, no matter how much mr. Obama would like them to be. It's knowledgeable, rational, intelligent and rich people, who have but to choose from the thousands of opportunities the world offers them (like he himself is, or any presidential candidate obviously).
Terrorists aren't terrorists because they're poor, undereducated or have been wronged. Terrorists are terrorists because they want to and DESPITE them being rich, fully educated and more than fairly treated by the world.
What does this mean for freedom of belief ? What will happen in the "long term" ?
If this is correct, then soon enough the terrorist belief system will turn out to be the only thing that a nation who does not want terrorists can attack.
So let's hear it ... is xcode a real competitor to visual studio ?
Because let's be honest, while I use linux all the time, and I contribute every now and then to a number of linux apps. But I don't kid myself that anything that can run on linux (whether kdevelop or eclipse, or *even* vim) is half as good as visual studio.
And it's still the only real dev platform for smartphones and pda's. I have a maemo device, which is nice. But developing for it is a bitch to say the very least.
This guy simply does what all utopians do (whether socialists or pacifists or theocrats or ...)
He lies.
In the same post he "does not support" preventive violence, he threathens to use massive violence against a person.
Needless to say, this person is not a pacifist at all. And you're right, obviously :
"pure pacifism can't really exist without someone else to do violence on their behalf"
Read Pakistan's secession war if you want to know what pure pacifism meant to Gandhi (using "negotiations" to get other people to fight for him, never lifting a finger himself. And he was very good at it, he got over 10 million people killed by doing this).
If Saddam had had nukes, he still would have got booted out of Kuwait, but he would have been safe from invasion.
... and lost massively. (Iran lost massively too, because they kept sending in untrained children against buried-in posities. Iran lost about 500.000 of it's children that way, that is the main reason islam is so terribly unpopular in Iran nowadays)
... all are wars that the attacker could in no way hope to win ...
No, Kuwait would have gotten nuked, after which there would be nobody left (Kuwait is really small, barely larger than Israel, with only a single city).
And there would have been no alternative to giving it to Iraq. After all, there would be maybe 10000 Kuwaiti's left world-wide.
What would have stopped Saddam from nuking them ? The common decency and conscience that mass-murdering thieves tend to exhibit in times of stress ?
Use them as deterrence? Push their will on the rest of the region, which is cowering in terror under the nuclear shadow?
Actually the region has seen a LOT of wars where the agressors KNOWINGLY attacked, even when they knew the attack would destroy them.
Take the Iraq-Iran war for example. Iraq saw Iran fall back over a mountain range, and tried to pursue. Less than a month after that the Iraqi army was in shambles, supply lines cut, barely capable of policing normal streets in territory on their own side of the border.
Are you saying Saddam didn't know that would happen ? He pushed the attack when he could have easily stopped in a quasi invulnerable position, which would have provided an ideal starting point for the next attack in 10 years.
Yet he attacked
But attacking, knowing full well that retaliation might come is not a rare event in the middle east.
Egypt's attacks against Israel. Hezbollah-Israel, Israel's independance war, Jordan versus Britain, Pakistan versus India (and even worse : Pakistan versus East-Pakistan/Bangladesh)
And this is a tradition that goes back tens of centuries. When the muslims decided to attack the crusader states, they knew it would mean they'd fall to the mongols, that over 35 million people would starve (because there are letters, preserved by the libraries of Byzantium, that literally say this would happen). The muslims attacked, "won", got massacred by the mongols, and of the remaining muslims, at least 30 million starved, but not after killing the entire city that the sultan inhabited, including the sultan himself.
So let's be careful with "they won't attack if they can't reasonably win" ideas.
You make the stupid mistake to think that the Iranian government is there to defend it's people. It's not. It's there only to conquer, and to enforce islam (just read their constitution). Same with Saddam's government. It wasn't there for Iraqi's to prosper, it was there for Saddam to prosper. It attacked because of Saddam's pride.
Agreed. Let's develop a form of energy independent from oil so we don't have to keep sending our money over there, and leave them happily alone.
That would leave them with only a single option : attack.
Lack of money and resources, and lack of ways to keep the people occupied was the reason nazi germany attacked.
Why would Iran be any different in the same situation ? Because they care so much about hanging gays, oops, I mean human rights.
Let's read what you say :
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:
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... this involves a lot more and longer use of violence against me than you'd ever be able to do yourself.
... which is exactly what bombing an Iranian nuclear facility would be ...
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Pacifism is not about inaction. Pacifism is about trying to reach results while resorting to more modern and less barbaric means.
Less barbaric ? Cool ! Let's see what those means are, because that seems like a very good idea. Unless
Instead of directly using violence against me, you will
the expected outcome of a (successful) intervention of the Police, will finally end up in court in a fair trial, with the criminal being subject to what punition has been deemed relevant by the law
So this "totally different from barbaric violence" method consists of
-> sending a detachement of armed men after me (in fact the entire police force, and more if necessary, in total you are sending a force that could build up to about 200.000 people, if necessary, after me) after me.
This is obviously more violent than going after me directly. And not just a little bit.
-> forcing me to submit to a "public" enquire as to what violence (which might include the death penalty but at minimum imprisonment, which is also violence).
Again this is more violent than going after me directly
-> extracting the actual "punition". Again this might mean slow execution, or otherwise long-term imprisonment, obviously both forms of violence.
Again
Obviously your "less barbaric" methods turn out to be a hell of a lot more violent. The "less" part of the barbarity basically consists of massively organised violence, instead of a direct response.
But analysing your statement further, this turns out not to be the bottom of your hypocrisy.
You compare a situation where the horrible crime has been committed, with a situation where one might encounter a menace and is resorting preventively on violence.
No, this situation is fictional, and you are threatening massive violence upon my person RIGHT NOW to dissuade me from following through. This is not any more "non-violent" than me holding a gun to your head and asking for your wallet, or indeed raping your daughter.
You WANT something from me. Safety for yourself and others. I may or may not be willing to provide it to you.
If I'm not, you're saying you're going to imprison, or kill me. This is not non-violence AT ALL.
But again, your next statement deepens the hypocrisy in your post, because you repeat the original statement that was disproven.
IN THE VERY SAME POST where you threaten to imprison or kill me to dissuade me from a certain action you claim to be against preventive violence.
You're entire post is a large big honking "I physically threaten you to dissuade you from taking an action I don't like".
I demand to get at least the same treatment as Iran. Even if proven to be criminal, not respecting human rights or American law, threatening and attacking you and your family, because I think I'm better and get to do what I want (like Iran does), I want you to let me go WITHOUT CONSEQUENCES. Without police, without army, without so much as a fist, without violence, without ANYTHING.
In the words of Gandhi to the Jews of Germany in 1938. You are the victim (the Jew), and here's the action "non-violence" expects from you
"I would claim Germany as my home even as the tallest gentile German may, and challenge him to shoot me or cast me in the dungeon; I would refuse to be expelled or to submit to discriminating treatment."
I want you to silently let me shoot you. To stand silently by as I rape your daughter. THAT is what Gandhi expected of the Jews, and of everybody else, in world war 2. That is what pacifism expects (and Gandhi did NOT
We're geeks here. So let's compare their options. They don't just have "a" nuclear program. There are many nuclear programs a country can pursue.
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Specifically they built heavy water reactors and built cascades of over 3000 centrifuges.
There are also simpler, more efficient "light water" reactors, requiring very little if any enrichment. They know this, and specifically chose against them
Why does one build heavy water reactors (and Ahmadinejad knows this, as he's a civil engineer), because you can build "heavy isotopes" with it. They want to use them to "cure aids" and stuff. Right.
But the part about heavy isotopes is true. Why do you want heavy isotopes ? Since these days we have a simple neutron-producing device, making small (okay... utterly tiny) amounts of medical isotopes is much simpler and much cheaper and flexible using alternative methods.
You want these reactors to produce large amounts of heavy isotopes. Which ones ? There's exactly one that's of any use : plutonium. There's exactly one thing those centrifuges produce : weapons grade purity uranium and plutonium. And there's one use for it : bombs.
Do they want bombs to avoid being nuked themselves ? Does Iran today need deterrence to avoid being bombed ?
There is only one conclusion with this course of action : they're making weapons, and they're making them because they want to attack (not necessarily with said nuclear weapons, but they want to attack, who and what is not clear, they want the bombs to prevent retaliation)
I wonder if you'd say the same thing if I killed (and raped, before AND after) your daughter and you have the choice of informing the police or staying silent.
... do you hide my crime ?
... because they can make bombs with it.
Remember, before you answer : violence only creates more violence. You obviously know the police will use violence against me.
So
Peace man. Where do you live ? Is your daughter pretty ?
(this post is fiction, obviously, and only meant to illustrate the utter stupidity of this fake "pacifism", the fake "salvation" that non-violence supposedly provides).
Violence against Iran may prove to be a VERY good idea, it may prove to be a very bad idea. We don't know.
One thing is for sure however, Iran is using heavy water reactors, less efficient and more complex than light-water reactors. They make this uneconomical decision for a reason
Do they want bombs for defense ? Why don't you answer this question for yourself. Is it reasonable to assume they need deterrence ? Or do they want to attack ? (little detail : like they've done before, with MASSIVE casualties, they lost 500.000 people, most of them children in an attempt to expand into Iraq)
Relative to whom ?
Relative to the criminal (most criminals don't agree on the criminality of their actions you know, so are they innocent ?)
Relative to the victim (then just about any violent crime would "morally" carry the death penalty, certainly rape would carry the death penalty under this relativeness).
Relative to the culture ? Then it wouldn't be a crime for nazis to steal from Jews. Or for KKK members to kill blacks (or for Wright parishoners to kill whites, racism after all, goes both ways). Or for muslims to kill infidels ala 9/11. Because that's allowed in their culture, that's not a crime under nazi law, kkk code or sharia.
Relative to me ? ("there would be peace if everyone did what I say")
Or are you simply a nihilist ? ("in the long run we're all dead")
Relative to whom are morals relative ? Just wondering.
"Persian or Afghani" ? You mean indo-European ? Those are countries, not ethnic groups. You cannot recognize an Afghan from a Dutch, except for language and predisposition to blowing himself up (oh sorry it's called "religion")
And what happens ? Who will write textbooks ? Well, simple : idealists. Lobbyists. Demagogues.
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After all knowledgeable people will no longer put in the time and energy required.
So what can one expect to happen ? Textbooks, ALL textbooks will no longer be written, except in order to satisfy, not correctness of science, not ability to make students learn or understand, but
Political (or more general : ideological). Note how one of the first things Harun Yahya did to advance his intelligent design on people : make it easy, write a biology textbook for them to use. Fortunately he is a muslim, and he quickly proceeded to step 2 of "submission", his religion, he threatened violence, which makes it clear to everyone just how right he is. However : he's still making advances.
If this gets anywhere ALL textbooks will advance an ideological agenda, for advancing an ideological agenda will be the only motivation left to write textbooks, and quality of those textbooks will be secondary to how much they push a certain ideology.
In other words : if these books become widespread enough to kill the market, impartial science will no longer be taught to students.
If something like this gets combined with the government mandating certain textbooks, the disaster will be complete.
Do you really think they will attack the American Citizens again?
... reality seems to disagree.
When exactly did the Bush administration attack American citizens ?
Or are you a 9-11 loon and not mentioning the specific issue anymore for fear of being utterly ridiculed and completely proven wrong ?
Oh the Bush government confronted you with the fact that not everybody wants to play nice. Some people want to kill you, merely for the way your country works. And guess what ? "Some people" means somewhere in the 100-200 million people. The same people attacked the same building for the same reasons in the clinton administration, you do realise that ? It was not an attack on Bush, it was an attack on America.
Confronting people with reality. That should carry the death penalty. Fortunately there is one candidate completely opposed to it. However
Gore is neither sincere nor appropriate unfortunately.
... are out of any short term energy supply plans (that means, btw, 10 years timeframe, and not 10 months)
Does he still have his own private jet and 5 cars ? I haven't read anywhere that he dropped them and the press would jump all over itself reporting any such events so al gore is just another "you have to do what I say" politician speaking out of his comfy private jet ordering 5 mercedesses to collect him 10 minutes later. That sort of person should be shunned. I don't like Bush (at all), but I prefer him 100x over Gore.
I'm sorry but making sure people stay alive TAKES PRECEDENCE over anything else. And yes making people stay alive today takes precedence over tomorrow. We should do what we can today, and plan for tomorrow.
And "fewer people later" is the most danguerous of policies that I have ever heard. It sounds like something a nazi would say. Programs like that are bound to not just fail, but to fail with genocides resulting from them. Sorry but any policy in that direction is just not discussable. At all.
And non-existant technologies are out of discussion until they are proven. They can get a research budget, even a big research budget, no problem. But that's all. Solar, wind,
That leaves our energy supply with exactly 2 options : nuclear (perhaps with a demo thorium plant constructed) and coal. That's it. All other technologies can get a research budget, maybe even a test plant, but nothing more. They can certainly not be phased in in the next 10 years, so let's quit discussing them for at least a year.
The problem that al gore and his fellow nutcases are "missing" is that even if it's not food crops, they still require farmland.
1 full tank of ethanol (55 liters) is enough to feed a human being FOR A YEAR.
So again, not using food crops will *again* make the food problem *worse*, not better. This "solution", while a nice feat of the researchers, is another disaster.
Heh in Belgium it's 7 dollars per gallon (7.05, and rising). And that's diesel.
8.5$ per gallon for normal unleaded fuel.
The rest of Europe isn't much cheaper than this.
$1/gallon would be VERY welcome.
Laser pointers do !