Is it ok to kill children?
- Thread starter guerilla
- Start date
Not certain I am as angry as tired as having race thrown in my face all of the time. I can bet those people saying the "sand n*******" comment would be just as likely to say some similar racist thing if they were all white and acting the same way. It is a description, but I do not believe race has anything to do with it.
The media latches on anything that they believe will capture attention for the next ratings sheet. There are no journalists around - likely because people no longer have "outrage" left -
I remember reading the book "The Death Of Outrage" a decade ago, amazing how true it is.
I can see how you would think that, it probably comes across that way. In this case though, I'm pretty sure you didn't read what I am saying.
If out of all the people in this thread, we are the ones too far apart to converse, I find it ironic you were the one to start the OP.
Terrorism and War aren't really very different, they are both about a group of people saying we don't care for what your group of people are doing, and we are going to do something about it.
If you don't have a large budget, then you do what you can to emphasize/promote your beliefs. The formative U.S. didn't exactly follow "accepted" practices when seeking independence.
Terrorism and war, IMHO, drain the best from humanity. Taking the future of your society and throwing them with weapons against the weapons and future of another's society is so fundamentally wrong that I have problems understanding why people would support it.
Perhaps that's the downside to living in a democratic society, you might have strong feelings about an issue, but those who live in the same society who have a totally different outlook also have just as much political influence as you.
Apologies for the semi-thread hijack.
If you don't have a large budget, then you do what you can to emphasize/promote your beliefs. The formative U.S. didn't exactly follow "accepted" practices when seeking independence.
Terrorism and war, IMHO, drain the best from humanity. Taking the future of your society and throwing them with weapons against the weapons and future of another's society is so fundamentally wrong that I have problems understanding why people would support it.
Perhaps that's the downside to living in a democratic society, you might have strong feelings about an issue, but those who live in the same society who have a totally different outlook also have just as much political influence as you.
Apologies for the semi-thread hijack.
More boring moral equivalency bullshit between military and terrorism. How turgid contemporary leftist thought has become. No wonder you got a little pat on the head from the resident military-hater here.
I know a good number of people who started their careers with military training. Meaning they joined the military, got training and embarked on a career. CAREER, not job training.
That kind of generally makes me pro-military, not pro-war.
Did you have some kind of non-troll contribution?
That kind of generally makes me pro-military, not pro-war.
Did you have some kind of non-troll contribution?
This isn't really how it works though is it? You're just simplifying things.
Countries don't just come out and say, "Hey, we have the technical means to take over and rule over these guys over here. Lets do it!"
No.. They play to our self interests. The biggest one being protection.
It's often sold to us on the stand point "It's either them or us."
As long as we accept this. As long as we're willing to kill, for any reason, those reasons will be played to and we will continue killing.
Would you bomb a village, possibly killing thousands of innocent people, if it would save the life of your daughter?
As long as you answer yes to this, there will be war.
Is that not simplifying things?
I don't imagine we'll ever get to a point where the answer to your question would be "no", because we're pretty hard-wired to do whatever it takes to protect our own, and I don't see anything fundamentally wrong with that. That instinct is probably a big part of why we're here and able to have this conversation right now.
Personally, I don't believe that people living in the mountains in the middle east would be particularly interested in destroying me or my family if the people that supposedly represent me weren't bothering the shit out of them and killing their people/devastating their communities.
War is always the action of governments. Propaganda (often interchangeable with "lies") are always used to get the masses on board by selling them on the idea of personal safety or some profound world-saving cause. Propaganda was and still is used to get people on board with religion and speaking against it would often and unfortunately still does result in people being killed. But it isn't nearly as common as it once was.
If we can spread the idea that truth and facts are universal and that propaganda is used to get people to think/behave in contradiction to basic, intuitive moral principles (it's wrong to kill, wrong to steal, etc, unless these people over here do it), then the legitimacy of governments will fade and over time they will be rejected just as the vast majority of people now reject the idea of human slavery, even though it was once entirely common and widely accepted (and had always existed).
There are no commercials or billboards telling you that you should do whatever it takes to protect your family. Or that you should have sex because it's awesome. Where there is truth, there is no need for propaganda. If people can begin to differentiate what is real from what is fabricated, then we make progress. And that is already happening now more than ever before, even if it is still a relatively very small group of people.
I'm not so delusional that I think this could feasibly be achieved in my lifetime. But at least I'm not delusional enough to think that governments are some kind of fundamental part of humanity that always have been and always will be, therefore I don't have to feel bad about the fact that innocent kids are being killed by the people that supposedly represent me because that's "just the way it is." See, I brought it back home!
You're right, it is. It's pointed to resemble the OP.
I understand what you're saying, but you are creating a wall between yourself and "these people".
Are you really any different?
Instead of dehumanizing people who disagree with you, try and understand them. Are they really acting illogically? Or are they just working under a different description of objective reality than you are?
As far as I know, the majority of Americans do indeed believe 9/11 was 100% real. They believe our security is at risk and we are fighting to protect our own. They do look at their daughters and reason, "well, you gotta do what you can to protect your own".
Is this so illogical? Is their reasoning so terribly off? If you believe the middle east did have real desires to harm your family, would you not feel the same?
What is "government" made of? People. These people are banding together for a reason. A very large part of the reason I believe is the interest of self defense.
I think once we find the common denominator between all human beings (regardless of race, culture, party, etc...) we can transcend war as a whole by creating a global society/structure that adheres to the most basic fundamentals of humanity. However, before we can evolve past our archaic "tribe vs tribe" mentality, we must study & understand our species entirely.
It won't happen anytime soon. We're still children, after all, and the current global paradigm is one of scarcity & competition.
In the meantime, enjoy the violence. It can be entertaining - especially when you get to watch it all from a safe distance.
It won't happen anytime soon. We're still children, after all, and the current global paradigm is one of scarcity & competition.
In the meantime, enjoy the violence. It can be entertaining - especially when you get to watch it all from a safe distance.
Reality is scarce.
There is nothing we can do about the fact that time is scarce and everything in the universe is unique and so also "scarce" (no two atoms occupy the same space, simultaneously)
What we can try to do is find an enlightened way to deal with scarcity, where many people can get what they want (markets via trade) without having to resort to violence or deception (confiscation/theft via government).
@guerilla
confiscation/theft via government
That's what governments do. There are systems in place to minimize the damage, but it requires acceptance that they'll do what their rules dictate. Working within the system to minimize personal outflow is just kind of "normal" IMO.
I actually believe in abundance, which certainly is a byproduct of my environment. I don't take what I can't use, if I have more than I can use, I share.
People share with me what they can't use.
No obligations, just the way a society should work.
You provide some interesting thoughts, thanks for that.
confiscation/theft via government
That's what governments do. There are systems in place to minimize the damage, but it requires acceptance that they'll do what their rules dictate. Working within the system to minimize personal outflow is just kind of "normal" IMO.
I actually believe in abundance, which certainly is a byproduct of my environment. I don't take what I can't use, if I have more than I can use, I share.
People share with me what they can't use.
No obligations, just the way a society should work.
You provide some interesting thoughts, thanks for that.
I have no idea what this means.
Abundance in the sense you mention it is different from what I meant by scarcity.
I'm sure that the clear majority of Americans support actions like arresting serial killers, or the raid on Bin Laden's compound, but opinions aren't quite the same for larger scale stuff like the Iraq War.
A Decade on, Most are Critical of the U.S.-Led War in Iraq - ABC News
"Islamic extremists are exploiting the Iraqi conflict to recruit new anti-U.S. jihadists," CIA Director Porter J. Goss told the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.
"These jihadists who survive will leave Iraq experienced and focused on acts of urban terrorism," he said.
War Helps Recruit Terrorists, Hill Told (washingtonpost.com)
In Quantum Feat, Atom Is Seen in 2 Places at Once - New York Times
Nobel Prize Awarded to Two Quantum Physicists | Dr. Kaku's Universe | Big Think)
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvYYYlgVAao]Aaron O'Connell: Making sense of a visible quantum object - YouTube[/ame]
Thanks Moxie, your adding solid stats into threads is pretty awesome.
You're right, support for the war as a whole has waned lately. The important statistic though is the percent of people who approved of the war directly after 9/11.
It's the same reason we could easily be talked into a war with North Korea and many others.