Gandhi was also protesting the control of a nation that believed in human dignity. If India had been under the control of that pure fucking evil, he would’ve been annihilated in a heartbeat.
Should one’s wishes be their foreign policy, as a leader in a world of cruelty? There’s a question.
EDIT: Does anyone remember that we were trying to leverage the situation against Iran, by supporting Iraq in the 80’s? They thought the Islamic Republic to the east was worse.
I’m sorry, what was Saddam? Just pure fucking evil? He wasn’t dark enough for you? I had thought about pointing out that the U.S. was never in any real danger during WWII, until I realized that by “free world” you probably meant the Soviet Union.
But don’t call me reprehensible for being against the Iraq war, and trying to tie that anti-war stance in with a pro-Saddam stance, because it’s just not true.
I’m not saying that you are pro-Saddam. I’m aware that you find Saddam distasteful. I find it reprehensible that you don’t feel that he was distasteful enough.
Call all those other administrations reprehensible for not declaring outright war on people who are evil in regards to human rights.
It’s a pretty long list…
Reagan had his hands full with the U.S.S.R. I have and will continue to critisize Bush Sr. and Clinton for their total lack of meaningful action on any front. And I didn’t say that we should declare outright war at every turn; Saddam has been very specifically under the criticism of the U.S. government for years, and this criticism - including diplomatic pressure, military actions, and economic sanctions - was useless. War was the only option for removing him from power.
And people like Gandhi seemed to find a way around violence to achieve their point. I think it’s tragic that everyone’s first thought is to violence to get what they want.
Gandhi achieved what he wanted because Britain was not Saddam, and because he appeased some of the more disturbing elements of his own country. In many spheres of Indian society - individuals facing serious caste-based discrimination, for instance - Gandhi is reviled for handing India to traditionalists on a plate. I wasn’t there, so I don’t know if he got everything he could, or if he really felt that Hindu religious law was necessary for good governance. What I can say is that if what you’re looking for is meaningful human rights on a universal level, Gandhi is hardly a model for action. Non-violence is fine when you’re dealing with a group or individual with a sense of decency. Saddam wasn’t going to give up power because we asked politely.
And who’s first thought was violence? The U.S. tried non-violence with Saddam for over a decade.
But you’re probably right. It probably is the only way, some of the time. I just wish it didn’t have to be.
And I wish that everyone would be decent, hard working, and self-responsible. But I don’t advocate running the U.S. under the assumption that everyone is decent, hard working, and self-responsible. As long as you know that the world isn’t what you wish it could be, you are going to have to accept that some policies will not be the same as they would be in your dream world.
Distateful enough for what? Going in, getting innocent civilians killed, plunging the nation into chaos, and killing 19 and 20 year old kids from this country in the process? All based on a mission that was never: we’re doing it for the good of human rights.
I’m not exactly a political realist, but the argument makes sense in this case.
You’re making it sound like I’m apolgozing for Saddam. I’m not.
But you’re also making the assumption that this war was fought because we are going to take human rights to every nation on earth, no matter what the cost.
And that’s not true.
We won’t be declaring war on Burma at any point…so really, nothing was accomplished. We got rid of one dictator, but the Iraqis still have shitty lives, and thousands more are dead know than when Saddam is in power.
And please don’t compare Saddam Hussein to the Nazi Third Reich.
As a history major, I find it almost laughable. Nothing can even begin to compare with Nazi Germany and the Holocaust, so don’t try.
Oh, and there’s a lot of debate as to whether or not Reagan’s policies were really the cause of the downfall in the Soviet Union. A lot of American sources seem to think so…but the freshly opened Soviet archives seem to think somewhat differently. So let’s not blow the old codger and give him a big fat apology for supporting Saddam Hussein and the militant islamics (Osama bin Ladin included) in Afghanistan because he was too busy destroying the EEEEEEEEVIL Empire.
And about Gandhi, you seem to think the British were these benevolent respectors of human dignity…but they weren’t. They were a colonial empire, and they treated their subjects like shit. They massacred a peaceful Indian demonstration with machine guns…just for shits and giggles.
Why can’t we actively support groups like this in the United States, while also, and I’m going to emphasize this point as much as i can, NEVER SUPPORT ANOTHER CRAZY ASS BATSHIT INSANE ASSHOLE DICTATOR AGAIN…NO MATTER HOW ANTI-SOVIET/ANTI-IRAN/ANTI-WHATEVER HE MAY BE. Shit, in the 50’s the CIA ran around all over the place starting revolutions, and getting people out of power through good old fashioned grassroots rioting. Leftists seem to be pretty darn good at it… What says we have to start bombing? Aren’t we the richest greatest nation in the world? Can’t we think of something other than all out war???
Ok? Let’s fix the future, because eventually, these assholes are going to die off. Carpet bombing cities in the name of human liberation is kinda…I don’t know…stupid.
So is cutting off their food and medicine.
How many kids did we kill in Iraq because of our sanctions? Doesn’t that make us murderors as well?
One more thing, from this week’s Newsweek:
“Cheney has repeatedly suggested that Baghdad has ties to Al Qaeda. He has pointedly refused to rule out suggestions that Iraq was somehow to blame for the 9/11 attacks, and may even have played a role in the terrorist bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993. The CIA and FBI, as well as a congressional investigation publicly corrected the vice president. There was no evidence, Bush admitted, to suggest that the Iraqis were behind 9/11.”
Back to the subject of this thread, THIS is why I want a new president. This administration has proven itself to be a gigantic sucker for terrible intelligence. You fuck up on the job, get 400 Americans and thousands of innocent Iraqis killed in the process…you need to go.
As noted, there are myriad perfectly reasonable reasons to own a large number of guns.
Okay, you’ve all noticed I made one attempt at a half-serious post in here then gave up. Contrary to popular belief, this is not because I am an uninformed fool. This is because I have ADD and am not as passionate as some of you folk about this discussion. But I just have to step in right nwo and address this post.
I don’t consider there are any good reasons to own a gun unless you’re an officer of law or a serviceman. Certainly the argument of hunting could be brought up, so I’ll concede that one, although I dislike hunting and the guns involved are of a considerably less dangerous nature.
Aside from hunting and upholding the law, do you honestly believe there are any reasons to own a gun? Guns are made to kill people, they aren’t designed to keep anyone safe. No one can survive a bullet through the head… unless they’re insanely lucky but that’s so unlikely I’m wasting my point mentioning it. The things one can do with a gun are fairly limited:
1- Kill someone.
2- Wound someone.
3- Threaten to kill or wound someone.
4- Hang it on their walls.
Why oh why would you need a gun? For self-defense? I don’t see the logic in that. No one is going to come into your home to kill you, only to be deterred by a gun. Sure, you might shoot him before he shoots you, but if the guy’s HARDCORRRRRE enough to try to KILL you in cold blood, he’s not going to run away crying at the sight of your handgun/assault rifle. And there are many more ways to ensure your safety, many of them non-lethal. Burglar alarm, pepper spray, guard dog, tazer(not sure about the legality of that one), you name it.
And thinking you can waltz in and stop a crime with a gun is madness. A trained police officer can handle an armed robbery with an empty gun or even bare-handed. Your shaking hand on a tiny thing you took out of your purse is only going to make the criminal nervous. If someone’s gun goes off by accident, you’re boned.
And why is it okay to collect guns? I know that if someone finds a home-made bomb in my hotel room while I visit the big apple, I’ll be arrested under the fucking patriot act. So why is it cool for Mr. NRA to own a german semi-autmatic shotgun? Certainly you might agree it’s a question of degree, but a rifle can kill more people than most bombs, and it spares property damage! Or you might point at my sword collection and call me a flaming hypocrite liberal, but 1: those things aren’t sharp enough to cut butter and most importantly 2: It’s much harder to kill someone with a sword than a gun. If you don’t think that’s a factor, why are bricks legal? They can also be used as a murder weapon. So it comes down to a question of degree once again and judging from the columbine shootings and other assorted crimes, I’d say the degree is high enough.
What happiness can a gun bring you? “I could kill someone with this!” is pretty much all it can give you. I could understand the thing about security, but I myself feel very secure walking through the dingiest part of Toronto and Montreal. So maybe your need for guns stems from some national insecurity and pathological inability to trust each other, which would explain a lot but that’s pure speculation.
As Trotsky said, if you truly believe guns are not the real problem, then whoever’s in charge of the guns (nra seem to have nominated themselves) should be putting SOME effort into finding what the real problem is, unless they want all the fun of guns but none of the responsibility.
I myself think that, uh-oh, Television and video games are to blame. Aw, qit your clamoring you video game fags. Can you name me any culture which has this many games and movies featuring gun violence. Die Hard, Terminator, Resident Evil, Halo, Max Payne, The Matrix, Wild Wild West, any Vin Diesel ‘movie’, the list goes on and on and on and on…
The Japanese entertainment industry has produced some violent things, but they mostly center around swords, super-powers or exxxxxtremmme martial arts, all means of violence which are not quite easy to accomplish, let alone acquire. Oh sure, anyone can have a sword, but also, anyone knows the stigma of honor associated with it, not to mention the skill required to wield it. On the other hand, American entertainment and culture have glorified the gun as easy to use, ‘cool’ and a problem-solver. Every nameless soldier James Bond mows down is a small part of responsibility hollywood takes away from the layman.
Crud, this is the core of my argument (sorta) but I gotta jet. To be continued.
Micheal Moore
Fine, so we’re agreed. You think that the moral position would have been to leave the Iraqis under the power of Saddam. I think that that position is disgusting.
You’re making it sound like I’m apolgozing for Saddam. I’m not.
You have actively apologized for Saddam. When you claim that the U.S. was wrong to attack Iraq because former U.S. Presidents have supported and/or tolerated him, you are apologizing for him. Yes, former Presidents have done things that I (and you) disaprove of, but what if they hadn’t? Would it have been okay to remove Saddam had no U.S. support ever been given?
I know that you don’t approve of Saddam, but one of your major arguments against the war is past U.S. support. In other words, it isn’t his fault, it’s the U.S.'s fault. That sounds like an apology to me.
Of course, prior to this post I had never intended to say that you were apologizing. I maintained merely that you did not find his behavior bad enough to warrent removal from power.
But you’re also making the assumption that this war was fought because we are going to take human rights to every nation on earth, no matter what the cost.
And that’s not true.
WWII was not fought to take human rights to every nation earth. Sometimes you have to do the best that you can.
We won’t be declaring war on Burma at any point…so really, nothing was accomplished. We got rid of one dictator, but the Iraqis still have shitty lives, and thousands more are dead know than when Saddam is in power.
This is idiotic. If you truly believe that this war has no potential importance, and I mean on the international stage, then you have problems that I cannot even begin to fathom.
And please don’t compare Saddam Hussein to the Nazi Third Reich.
As a history major, I find it almost laughable. Nothing can even begin to compare with Nazi Germany and the Holocaust, so don’t try.
As an economics major, I find almost everything you say on every topic to be laughable. As a math major, I find almost everything you say to be so logically incoherent as to be disturbing.
Oh, and there’s a lot of debate as to whether or not Reagan’s policies were really the cause of the downfall in the Soviet Union. A lot of American sources seem to think so…but the freshly opened Soviet archives seem to think somewhat differently. So let’s not blow the old codger and give him a big fat apology for supporting Saddam Hussein and the militant islamics (Osama bin Ladin included) in Afghanistan because he was too busy destroying the EEEEEEEEVIL Empire.
I’m not giving him an apology, I’m giving him a break. Even if you fail to buy that his policies contributed to the downfall of the Soviet Union, you still have to admit that he, and everyone else in the world, thought that they had that power. He made mistakes. He also did a lot of things right, so I’m not going to give him quite the grief that I give that empty shell of a President who followed him.
And about Gandhi, you seem to think the British were these benevolent respectors of human dignity…but they weren’t. They were a colonial empire, and they treated their subjects like shit. They massacred a peaceful Indian demonstration with machine guns…just for shits and giggles.
I didn’t say that they were benevolent, I said that they weren’t Saddam. And they weren’t. Saddam would have shot Gandhi, kidnapped and tortured the families of his followers, and then, for good measure, would have had his sons rape any women he may have met during his life. Gandhi would never have been successful against Saddam. And as for treating their subjects poorly, I’m not going to deny that they did some terrible things. However, as you often insist that Reagan’s accomplishments be balanced against his failures, I need to point out that if it weren’t for Great Britain wives would still be burnt on their husbands’ funeral pyres, the caste system would not even be an issue for discussion, and the subcontinent would probably be embroiled in perpetual war. So don’t pretend that Great Britain was the Great Satan.
Why can’t we actively support groups like this in the United States, while also, and I’m going to emphasize this point as much as i can, NEVER SUPPORT ANOTHER CRAZY ASS BATSHIT INSANE ASSHOLE DICTATOR AGAIN…NO MATTER HOW ANTI-SOVIET/ANTI-IRAN/ANTI-WHATEVER HE MAY BE.
I really wish that you would stop making this point. You’ve said it before, and I agreed with you then. Then you repeated it and I agreed. Then, you repeated it again, and again I agreed. There is no debate on this point. There is no call on this forum for supporting dictators in the name of political expediency. So, next time you feel like trying to impress us with your genius plan to stop supporting dictators, get over yourself. We’ve heard it before, and more importantly we’ve all thought of it ourselves.
And the reason that the U.S. does not give more support to these (non-violent) groups is that they are ludicrous. You name me a time when non-violence has succeeded against a dictator, without some kind of seriously mitigating economic or religious factor coming into play. As a general rule dictators don’t give up power just because someone asks them to.
Shit, in the 50’s the CIA ran around all over the place starting revolutions, and getting people out of power through good old fashioned grassroots rioting. Leftists seem to be pretty darn good at it… What says we have to start bombing? Aren’t we the richest greatest nation in the world? Can’t we think of something other than all out war???
Well, those efforts are fine, if what you want is for the existing government to be replaced by whatever local strongman looks best able to oust them. If you want to create real change, you need to do a Germany/Japan style occupation with strong support for the new government. It’s just a fact.
Ok? Let’s fix the future, because eventually, these assholes are going to die off. Carpet bombing cities in the name of human liberation is kinda…I don’t know…stupid.
What, since WWII, which you (strangely) supported, has the U.S. carpet bombed? Certainly not Iraq, as I’m sure you noticed during the war.
And again, I see that we are agreed. I feel that leaving Saddam in power would have been inhuman; you feel that the correct, moral course of action would have been to leave him in charge of the Iraqi people until he died. In other words, they didn’t deserve the help of the U.S.
So is cutting off their food and medicine.
How many kids did we kill in Iraq because of our sanctions? Doesn’t that make us murderors as well?
“Us?” I never supported sanctions. During the entire Clinton presidency (the time when these sanctions had their greatest effect) I called for the removal of Saddam from power. Had he been removed (by Clinton or, better yet, by Bush Sr.), those sanctions would not have been necessary. Further, it should be trivially obvious, even to you, that Saddam was cutting off food and medicine, not the U.S. The responsibility for those deaths falls to him.
Vietnam
Guns are not made to kill people. They CAN kill. The existence of a gun can be traced back to the mechanization of the bow and arrow, reducing it from stringing, aiming, and getting enough strength to launch it very far to simply aiming. It eased the process of attack and made it all relatively painless…for the attacker, and you get more time to decide, as well, if you want to aim for a leg or knee or aim for their important parts. Now, if the people who have these weapons are only those who are against the law, outright acquiring them in violation of whatever, what is the innocent to do against one such enemy before law enforcement arrives (assuming of course we’re not in a totalitarian state upheld by fear and governmentally-sanctioned terror, extreme left-wing or right making no difference). But hold on, I see you raised that issue as well…
Again, you misunderstand something, or you attribute to guns alone a quality that is true regardless of the weapon. If anyone really wants to kill you, he can train long enough and hard enough to be horrifically silent, he can learn how to pick locks, shut down a security from the outside (watch Entrapment), then enter a house when you’re asleep, walk down the hall or up the stairs, and ram a knife (a sharp edge, not even a commercially made one is required) into your head or heart. Bruce Lee himself talked about this, that if a guy you’re fighting is OBSESSED with doing something like “biting your nose off,” he’ll likely succeed (unless of course, as jeet kune do was created for, you defeat him before he starts making the moves).
“There exists on Earth no defense that can’t be gotten around by a smart man,” a quote I remember. All it depends on is desire…and desire is really the focal point of this whole affair. How bad do you want something? Guns allow people who don’t REALLY want something to try to take it anyway, yes…but it also allows the defense.
Spineless cowards are really the problem, in crime. They run when they’re outgunned, they save their own skin…precisely the same logic they use when trying to get your stuff to begin with. “I want it, me, me, me.” When they are faced with the opponent having that shiny weapon and not being helpless against their shiny weapon, they usually decide to pass up that one in favor of someone else, until they do find what they’re looking for…namely, some weakling to bully, rob, whatever. Sucks I say, but that’s reality.
Yes, he can, or he can be slaughtered by a sufficiently intelligent monster. That’s the reason they arm them, just in case. My hand wouldn’t be shaking, now that you mention it, because I’ve gone over in my head whether I’d be willing to murder, even for a cause. The answer remains, ‘possibly’. This bleeds over into the realm of philosophy and martial arts, however, being cool and icy in the face of any dangers…guns the issue. Yes, if a gun goes off by accident one is in trouble. Conveyer-belts in factories have gone ON by accident and ended up crushing workers to death. Machines in general can be like that, and that is what a gun is. “A machine, designed for the express purpose of launching lightning-quick projectiles into a target.”
It’s okay to collect guns, for one, because Americans, for one, don’t want to live in a world where the government regulates everything. Collecting guns has an air of danger about it as well, that being the whole point. People (again, far more of them being males of those I’ve met, the ‘sexist’ reality) can LIKE danger. “It was the worst storm I ever thought possible, and we were trapped in the middle of it…thought we were all going to die. It was the best time of my life.” Guns are machines, as mentioned before, and remarkable ones. The power inherent in them, the danger of their use, the Grave Responsiblity that someone responsible feels being around them…it’s all cool in the same way that we love watching most Arnie movies like True Lies or T2 itself. “Wow, cooooool.”
You raise an interesting point, though. Being arrested for having a homemade bomb and not for carrying automatic weapons is ridiculous. Should guns be taken away? I say no. Bomb-permits should be allowed to private civilians. Seriously. It can work for guns, it can work for any weapon…make sure the user is not a NUT with a sufficiently stern way of testing, and there you go. If they then commit a terrorist act, enforce the death penalty. Since everyone naturally likes their own life (those who don’t care having been strained from the ranks of bomb-permit applicants aforehand), most people will then SHY AWAY from building bombs, and those who don’t will feel some serious responsibility, eh?
Curiously, why the h*ll have swords that don’t have any edge? That’s like playing a racing video game and calling it death-defying.
I like your comment on bricks. They’re not employed in fratricidal warfare near enough, though maybe the Muslims are starting to make a go of it.
Yes, people can feel secure, but I’ve found that’s more affiliated with women who get gun permits. You still may not accept it, but I’ve learned (in person, hearing them say it, both irl and ol) that they like the feeling of danger and violence associated with it. They want to feel badass, if not actually be badass. They can kill someone. KILL someone…the power… They like feeling power, just like the monolithic bureaucracy of the Soviet Union hijacked the people’s rebellion to oppression, and made it even worse than before. Those officials loved the power, as do some in your country who are trying to tip-toe ahead with legislature to put computer chips in people to track them “and provide security,” last I heard…from Vancouver, I think.
When you have a history, as a race, of that fratricidal warfare mentioned above, and barbarians storming in from nowhere and subjecting your ancestors to an iron yoke (or the barbarians BEING your ancestors), you tend to get paranoid…as a race. Or you meekly follow whoever has the money and the weapons, that’s long been around.
We like weapons. It reminds us of the Wild West, which is even mentioned in one of the movies there. We like the feeling of chaos, and you and your weapon being a law unto itself. Individuality to the ULTIMATE extreme…and we love it. Notice how medieval tales of knights wandering the countryside also makes the publishers big bucks.
You hit it on the head, responsibility is the issue. People are irresponsible with what they have. Go look at the amount ONE PERSON can make from the lottery. Go look at men who waste their wages on booze and prostitution. They do nothing with what they have, and that’s why the stay there. Why should they be more responsible with guns then they are with the their lives? In a way, it’s the same thing.
Those superpowers are rarely real (not time for a debate on the paranormal). Those extreme martial arts make bile rise in me because they are nothing but sensationalism, and I agree with Master Lee that they do a tremendous disservice to martial art as a whole, especially martial arts movies which cater to it rather than the fluid brilliance of real abilities, such as those he himself showed in his five films. You can’t really have them, is the thing…as for the swords, they are the Japanese equivalent to guns in that they are part of their heritage. Guns, in the West, are part of ours (however, there’s a lot of laser-weaponry in modern anime, which you forgot about…they have it too). How to really enjoy stuff that you can’t really have, if you really wanted it (it then being illegal and all)? And if people DO enjoy it, aren’t they being hypocritical about banning the very things that would give them pleasure? Sounds like a gray, dreary world to me…kinda like this one, a lot.
Our culture wants things instantly. Note the use of the word snail-mail, when a lot of people LIKE the act of opening letters. We want it now, we speed on the highways to get ahead, we want the lead, and we want power. All of this, I believe, attributable to human nature…since they’ve done this for thousands of years, but only recently have we not being playing for keeps. Guns are a manifestation of the quick-solution that everyone wants, rather than loading up that bow and arrow, and all the training needed to wield it.
Humans…are lazy. And that is why guns exist, scientifically.
You’re talking down to me like my argument makes no good sense.
But you’re clutching at semantic straws.
You think that war is a good means to an end. I don’t.
You think that the Iraq mission was benevolent in nature, because we ousted Saddam. I thought it was a bad idea because of the costs involved, so that makes me some sort of reprehensible monster.
And then you make grandiose claims about my support of Saddam, and my evident hatred of the Iraqi people. But I don’t hate them, nor do I support Saddam. I don’t know how much more clearly I can say this. Even if you want to label me unamerican or whatever for not wanting to go to war under false pretenses, I still don’t like Saddam, I’m glad that he’s gone, and I hope that a working democracy can be set up in Iraq. But what I fear is what happened in Iran…and is a hostile fundamentalist Islamic nation any better than a hostile dictatorship (Iraq was never fundamentalist Islamic) in the region? Reagan worked for years under the argument that the Islamic fundamentalists were always worse than a brutal dictatorship.
From a realist perspective you’ve got to understand that Saddam is one bad ruler out of a whole group around the world. If we’re just going to go after one of them, the point is completely lost. We’re not accomplishing anything, nor can we hope to accomplish anything, because we can’t just declare wars on every place with a bad ruler.
You seem to think we can, and should. So whatever…maybe it does make me logically laughable…
All I know is what the history and politics throughout the 20th century has taught me. When France tried to undertake its campaign of civilization around the world, all they managed to do was piss of various locales. Their intentions were good, sure enough, but sometimes even subjugated people get more nationalist than we give them credit for.
I’m not going to claim that the Iraqi people liked living under Saddam…but how do you explain the mass demonstrations/popular insurgents in Iraq? They’re certainly not being paid to do what they’re doing (like blowing themselves up).
I read information about that CIA report the other day that said that the average Iraqi is more likely to aid and support the insurgents than they were to support the United States or its governing council in Iraq.
So how long are we in this for? Is it still worth it?
You say yes, I say no. And I’d imagine that the 12-16,000 dead Iraqi civilians and their families would probably agree with me.
Oh, and about your questioning of my support of WWII based on some Socratic leap of logic where because I don’t support the Iraq war, I logically shouldn’t support WWII, but I don’t even know why you’d say that, as Iraq and WWII are nothing alike. It’s hard to comprehend the scale and scope of WWII. 6 million Jews slaughtered in cold blood, millions of Russians, millions of Germans, millions of Brits, hundreds of thousands of Americans, Italians, millions of Japanese, millions of Chinese civilians tortured in almost impossibly brutal ways…it’s ridiculous to even begin to compare the evil in WWII with Saddam Hussein. Yeah, he was pretty bad. No Hitler. Not even close.
And if we’re going after “bad guys” in the world, why don’t we start with someone a whole heck of a lot worse? Like the ruling party in China? Or maybe the royal family of Saudi Arabia? YOUR NON SUPPORT OF ATTACKING CHINA IN AN ALL OUT WAR IS REPREHENSIBLE. I DEMAND THAT YOU GO JOIN THE ARMY AND KILL THE GREAT SATAN THAT IS RED CHINA! I DEMAND IT, OR ELSE, LOGICALLY, YOU CAN’T BE IN SUPPORT OF THE IRAQ WAR, AND YOU ARE UNAMERCIAN!
Hurrr.
Oskar Schindler was once told, “He who saves one life saves the world entire.” How different is murdering 1 million in cold blood vs. murdering 12 million in cold blood? It could be effectively argued that the Kurds didn’t number as many as the Jews did in Europe, and that Germany was more frightening because they were at the cutting edge of technological firepower in their day.
What ranking can one put on genocide, I wonder.
Trot, it doesn’t. Mostly because it is actually a set of arguments, thrown at the wall to see what sticks, and none of them are any good. Here’s your problem: you don’t think that the U.S. should have helped the Iraqi people; the moral position, according to you, would have been to leave the situation as it was. However, you don’t want to say that, possibly because you are, in fact, a decent human being. So instead you try to dodge the issue, saying:
Fine, so what? This makes it somehow less incumbent on the U.S. to remove him from power?
Again, so what? America (and the rest of the world) believed that he did, and he certainly wasn’t doing anything to dissuade them from this belief. Further, this obviously has nothing to do with human rights abuses.
This is possibly the craziest of your arguments. It is tantamount to saying that so long as the U.S. cannot stamp out totalitarianism entirely, it should not work to improve human rights anywhere. Saddam was visible as a human rights abuser, he had a relatively well trained, well equiped military. With the exception of North Korea and China, pretty much every other human rights abuser on earth saw a display of “we did it to him, we can do it to you.” This should encourage many of these nations to rethink their policies, hopefully eliminating the need to consider military action in the future.
Obviously, I don’t think that you’re actually a monster. I just think that you aren’t using your head. I have never accused you of liking Saddam, and nor will I, so please stop repeating this.
But you’re clutching at semantic straws.
I have not yet begun to critisize your semantics.
I’m not twisting your words to use them against you; that the U.S. should not have toppled Saddam is actually the position you have taken.
You think that war is a good means to an end. I don’t.
No, I think that the ends were important to achieve. Inasmuch as war was the only way to achieve these ends, I supported war. It isn’t the means that we disagree about; you clearly feel that war has its place. It is the importance of the ends on which we disagree, and the fact that you don’t find the freedom from Saddam of the Iraqi people to be an important end is what so bothers me.
You think that the Iraq mission was benevolent in nature, because we ousted Saddam. I thought it was a bad idea because of the costs involved, so that makes me some sort of reprehensible monster.
Not a monster. Just reprehensible, and only reprehensible in my opinion. We both look at the cost/benefits of this action; I see it as worthwile, you don’t. What bothers me is the implicitly low value you place on Iraq’s freedom. I know that you value it; I think that you don’t value it enough.
And then you make grandiose claims about my support of Saddam, and my evident hatred of the Iraqi people. But I don’t hate them, nor do I support Saddam.
Dear god, this is where a little practice in the art of semantics would really do you some good. What I have said is not that you didn’t hate Saddam, or desire Iraq’s freedom. I have said that you didn’t hate him enough, that you don’t desire Iraq’s freedom enough. Everything, as I am sure you are aware, is not always black and white.
I don’t know how much more clearly I can say this. Even if you want to label me unamerican or whatever for not wanting to go to war under false pretenses, I still don’t like Saddam, I’m glad that he’s gone, and I hope that a working democracy can be set up in Iraq.
I am aware of all of this. This is the problem with people on the Left; they assume that disagreement indicates a lack of understanding. I understand your position. I find it disgusting.
And I never called you unamerican. Unless you have define American as “not disgusting in any way.” In which case the world is empty of Americans.
But what I fear is what happened in Iran…and is a hostile fundamentalist Islamic nation any better than a hostile dictatorship (Iraq was never fundamentalist Islamic) in the region? Reagan worked for years under the argument that the Islamic fundamentalists were always worse than a brutal dictatorship.
This is a good and reasonable fear. It is of course possible that this could occur. It is probable that it will occur if the U.S. leaves prematurely. Where the U.S. has failed at nation building, it has failed out of a lack of support. When the U.S. puts resources, manpower, and other support into a country, it gets Germany. There is no reason why Iraq cannot become a fully democratic nation, given the proper time.
And, in fact, here is an example of a logical failing in your argument. Earlier (not in the post I am quoting) you state that Saddam would have died had we waited. What would have happened then? Do you have any doubt that Saddam’s death would have resulted in an Islamic nation under religious law? If that outcome is truly what you fear, then I suggest that you should fully support U.S. intervention, as it is likely the only way to avoid such an outcome.
From a realist perspective you’ve got to understand that Saddam is one bad ruler out of a whole group around the world. If we’re just going to go after one of them, the point is completely lost. We’re not accomplishing anything, nor can we hope to accomplish anything, because we can’t just declare wars on every place with a bad ruler.
If. If there is no credible policy advanced that the U.S. will not tolerate human rights abusers, then you are correct in that the world will still have totalitarianism. However, this war would still not have been a waste, because (assuming the U.S. stays as long as it should) Iraq will be free, and will put pressure on the remainder of the Middle East. Enormous pressure, from an economic standpoint.
You seem to think we can, and should. So whatever…maybe it does make me logically laughable…
I think that we should support human rights. I think that if we need to force people from power, then we should. I do not think that it should be done all at once, and nor have I stated as much. But I do think that it should be done.
Also, that logically laughable line was half-way a joke, and was aimed at your arguments in general. You do often make points that conflict with each other; I have called you on it in the past only to be rebuffed. As a person who takes logic seriously I find it slightly disturbing; think of how you would feel if I refused to acknowledge some piece of history.
Oof, gotta go, I’ll try to address the rest of your arguments later.
So it’s also a probem with the right, eh? Or are you “your other left”? Again the saluting, Mr. Critt, you deserve it. I understood what you meant with your argument on the left having a lack of evidence to back up their claims. However, it’s just silly to state that the “left” makes arguments without evidence, even if that’s not exactly what you meant, since very few arguments are based on fact when they are of a political nature. But that’s just my opinion…
Also it’s just irresponsible to make broad generalizations based on somone’s political orientation. I have a problem with your use of the term “the left” as a derogatory term. In fact, I have a problem with anyone using deragatory terms to make generalizations on groups of people. Apparently you don’t have a problem with that. It shows quite a bit about your character, and to quote you, “I find it disgusting.”
Here’s some interesting information on coalition casualties in Iraq:
I refuse to reply to the business going on between Aaron and T because I think T has the best of it, so I’ll just come after this.
It is clearly your opinion, and it’s flat-out wrong. People making political arguments quite often present facts for those arguments, and we’ll take one of T’s arguments to demonstrate that: guns. It is clear that private gun possession in the United States reduces crime. This is actual evidence presented over and over again by those on “the right” (I hate this term because it’s nonsense) - and it is consistently ignored by those on “the left” because they just so badly want to be right. I’m not saying that liberals are the only people who ignore evidence, because that’s a nonsensical position, but there is plenty of evidence and plenty of people just plain ignore it.
Also it’s just irresponsible to make broad generalizations based on somone’s political orientation.
What are you talking about? Of course it’s not. Political orientation is based on agreeing with a certain set of beliefs, and acting as if someone who identifies himself with those beliefs will believe something that follows from them is nothing if not reasonable. Don’t be insane because you think you should be able to get away with intellectual dishonesty.
have a problem with your use of the term “the left” as a derogatory term. In fact, I have a problem with anyone using deragatory terms to make generalizations on groups of people. Apparently you don’t have a problem with that. It shows quite a bit about your character, and to quote you, “I find it disgusting.”
Oh please. People on these forums use all sorts of generalizations like this to make derogatory generalizations. Why don’t you yell at Aaron for all the things he says about Christians and Republicans? Who’s the hypocrite now?
My <i>opinion</i> is wrong? Are you implying that anyone who has an opinion that differs from yours is wrong, or that it’s just coincidence that you are always right and that everyone else is wrong?
Wait, where is the evidence for that? Got any links to websites that support these “facts” you spou- mention all the time? How about some evidence of the other claims you made, like the constantly ignored and always wanting to be right parts. Are you sure those aren’t just your opinions?
Oh, now you’re saying that people who disagree with you are intellectualy dishonest too. Also, once again you’re stating your opinion as if it is fact. Are you even listening to yourself? You’re being extremely intolerant to other people’s beliefs now, and that’s pretty damned low.
Do I even need to yell at him for that? We all know how he can be, but I guess I had higher standards from you intellectuals on the right. We know how intellectually honest and logical you guys are, but at least Trotsky is tolerant of others beliefs, even if he disagrees with them. He may mock/insult Christians/Republicans, but he has never said that they were wrong in thinking what they do.
I will not disagree that very few arguments are based on fact. However, if we wish to create public policy that will “succeed” (for the purposes of this argument, a success will be a policy that has the effect for which the policy was justified, with the negative consequences of the policy also falling within some pre-defined bounds), then we must consider facts during debates. This is a very broad criticism, meant to encompass much (though certainly not all) of political discourse, but it is not the criticism I originally made. My original criticism was of, in particular, “liberals,” and their failure, not of presenting evidence, but of considering it when it has been presented.
I suppose that I don’t understand what you mean by “that’s just my opinion.” Is it your opinion that political discourse, as practiced, contains very few facts? Or is it your opinion that political discourse should contain very few facts? If the second, then I beg you to consider the logical corollaries of that position. Some of them are quite disturbing.
Also it’s just irresponsible to make broad generalizations based on somone’s political orientation. I have a problem with your use of the term “the left” as a derogatory term. In fact, I have a problem with anyone using deragatory terms to make generalizations on groups of people. Apparently you don’t have a problem with that. It shows quite a bit about your character, and to quote you, “I find it disgusting.”
I wasn’t using Left as a derogatory term. I was using it to classify a political ideology. I chose Left because not all adherents to the broadly applicable positions of this ideology are Democrats, so I couldn’t use that as a definition, and none of them have beliefs that can reasonably be defined as liberal, so I could not use that term either. So, I settled on Left. If you have a suggested term I will be more than happy to use it. I rather dislike using Left myself.
In any case, I then criticized this ideology for failure to acknowledge facts and failure to consider disagreement as just that - disagreement. Failure to honestly consider facts I can back up, as I have demonstrated using the issue of guns. There are other examples of you desire to hear them.
As for the criticism of argumentative arrogance, or failure to consider that a disgreement may stem from more than a misunderstanding of the presented argument, this charge I will withdraw in the general case. My assertion was based on personal experience in debates, and so I can apply it only in the particular case of followers of said ideology with whom I have argued in the past. It was clear, for example, from many of Trot’s posts that he felt that I did not realize that he disliked Saddam, despite my own acknowledgement of this fact. He believed, I was forced to conclude, that my position of disgust was taken because I did not understand the arguments he was making. This was not the case, however; I understood his arguments full well, I just found them reprehensible. This led me to my above criticism; it was clear to me that Trot was not considering the possibility that someone could find his beliefs disturbing on a moral level, and that anyone who claimed as much simply did not understand what those beliefs were.
I does, however, seem clear that many (again, not all) followers of this ideology feel that disagreement indicates incompetence. Take for example Al Franken, or Michael Moore.
Further, to accuse someone of hypocrisy you must be capable of showing that his behavior does not coincide with his stated, prescribed behavior. So, to call me a hypocrite, you would need to be able to demonstrate an occasion on which I personally had refused to consider facts, or when I had refused to believe that honest disagreement with one of my opinions was possible. Actually, you would need to demonstrate something stronger than this, specifically that I continued to do one or the other, as it is entirely possible for behavior to change after (or even without) thoughtful consideration.
Before you respond to other people’s posts, do you even stop to read anything they’ve said or bother to consider an elementary textbook in logic or a dictionary or anything that might correlate your thoughts with reality? Forgive me if I’m being “intolerant,” but you have yet to say anything that makes sense.
Actually, what I’m saying is that people who hold opinions that differ markedly from the facts of reality are wrong. Don’t be so nonsensical as to claim that any opinion is prima facie correct simply because it’s an opinion. If my opinion were that ice is a liquid, I would be incorrect. This is no different.
Wait, where is the evidence for that? Got any links to websites that support these “facts” you spou- mention all the time?
I’ll direct you (for starters) to www.gunsandcrime.org, or to the CDC. The CDC has recently found that there is no evidence as yet that current gun control laws have been effective in reducing firearm violence. That may be because the current laws are not strict enough, or because they’re dumb. I think the above website helps clarify the position well enough. THERE. You have your facts. Now what?
How about some evidence of the other claims you made, like the constantly ignored and always wanting to be right parts. Are you sure those aren’t just your opinions?
Well, I’ve shown you my facts. Now it is your job to not ignore them. Let’s see you do it.
Also, I’m actually rather sure that those ARE my opinions, but I don’t come from Crazyville where opinions don’t reference facts. Which means my opinions are founded on what I see as the facts of the matter. You can’t just have a totally uninformed thought that contrasts sharply with reality and call it an opinion because you don’t want to have to face the fact that it might be wrong. Talk about intellectual dishonesty.
Oh, now you’re saying that people who disagree with you are intellectualy dishonest too.
No no no. Reading comprehension, for Christ’s sake. What I have specifically said is that you aren’t allowed to claim that you are a member of an ideologically-defined group (like Communists or Roman Catholics or whatever) and then yell at people for drawing totally reasonable conclusions about what you believe. If I accused Lenin of not believing in God and he whined about me making generalizations, I would take him not seriously at all.
As an example, take Aaron. He and I disagree all the time, but I think he engages in very little intellectual dishonesty. Some of what he says, as pointed out by T, can be construed as inherently contradictory. But for the most part, he seems more than willing to consider facts that worry his opinions, as his last post on the gun control issue seems to indicate. He does not actually disrespect people who are willing to engage in real substantive debate with him, just as I respect him for the same. What I do disrespect is when people like you start attacking me for being some kind of intolerant ogre without first stopping to wonder if maybe I’m not actually Ann Coulter.
Also, once again you’re stating your opinion as if it is fact.
What are you even talking about? There is all sorts of shoddy reasoning in this argument. Here are my major complaints:
OF COURSE I’m stating my opinion as if it is fact. I have opinions because I believe that certain things are true of the world, and as such, I act as if those things are true of the world. If I were to say “I believe that gravity exists, but I’m probably wrong” I would hope you would stop listening to me.
Opinions are based on facts. If I see that a fair number of things are a certain way, I’m bound to draw conclusions that are not yet proven to be true… and these are my opinions. Opinions are not some magical entity that exists in Fantasyland where you don’t have to have any knowledge of reality to hold an opinion. So my opinions are conclusions I draw from facts about reality, and I’m not sure why I wouldn’t treat them as if they are true.
Are you even listening to yourself? You’re being extremely intolerant to other people’s beliefs now, and that’s pretty damned low.
Intolerant of which beliefs? I’ll ask you, “Are you even listening to yourself?” Or “Are you even aware that words are pouring from you haphazardly?”
As a point of order, everyone is intolerant of some beliefs. If I were to tell you that I think (and I obviously don’t think this) that black people are inferior to white people and should be enslaved, you would most certainly not tolerate that particular belief. The only way to tolerate all beliefs is to assume that there is no such thing as reality and that, therefore, no one is right about anything… or maybe that everyone is right about everything. Either way, the consequences are the same: intellectual anarchy. Since I’m assuming you think there are things that are true of the world, and more importantly that you think there are certain moral facts (i.e., racism/slavery is wrong), you are obligated to be intolerant of certain beliefs. So does that make you “pretty damned low”? I would answer this question in the negative, but I’m a bigot, so what do I know?
Do I even need to yell at him for that? We all know how he can be
WHAT?! It’s not acceptable for me or T to say things like that about liberals, but Aaron can say whatever he wants because “we all know how he can be.” We’re still talking about intellectual dishonesty, right?
We know how intellectually honest and logical you guys are, but at least Trotsky is tolerant of others beliefs, even if he disagrees with them. He may mock/insult Christians/Republicans, but he has never said that they were wrong in thinking what they do.
Aaron has never said Christians or Republicans are wrong? You must realize how absurd this is. He says it all the time. Aaron is no more tolerant of conservative ideology than I am of liberal, and you are just plain crazy if you believe that. By the way, are you raving? Mocking and insulting groups of people IS intolerance, unless you have some more fantasy/magic definitions for words.
There are a lot more violent right-wing nutcases than there are violent left-wing nutcases.
There are no good reasons to own lots of guns.
Firstly, you’re never going to be fighting with more than one gun. Having extras is just ridiculous.
Second, there’s no reason at all for you to own milspec gear except for armed insurrection. Trot pointed out the sheer ridiculousness of wanting an assault rifle so that you could mow down rioters. Wake up. You are not Duke Nukem. You are not the guy in Postal. You are not Judge fucking Dredd.
You want to collect guns? Fine. Get the chambers filled in so that they’ll never fire another shot.
You want to go hunting? Keep your guns at the lodge. And rifles only, punk.
You want some home invasions statistics?
In 2% of home invasions against gun owners, the owners of the house get to use their gun against the intruder.
It is more than twice as likely for the criminal to take the homeowner’s gun and shoot him with it
In the vast majority of cases, the gun remains in a drawer somewhere while the robbing or the raping or whatever goes on unimpeded. How useful.
Next, most violent criminals are poor. They cannot afford to buy guns. How, then, do they get guns? Well, most of them are stolen from the homes of people like you. That’s right, the vast majority of guns on the black market are brought into circulation thanks to itinerat gun-nuts.
Also, guns in homes add a whole new level of deadliness to domestic disputes. Look at statistics on violence in the homes of police officers, who are forced to keep guns at home. Instead of cooling off, pull out your gun and blow the bitch’s brains out! A means of dealing certain death at your fingertips changes everything, and not for the better.
Finally, your arguments are all empirically denied, as has been pointed out. Look, if you will, to the UK, or Canada or Japan, or especially Australia, which recently implemented gun control (and don’t try to respond with that retarded myth about gun murders increasing in australia after the ban. Snopes.com has already debunked that, and besides: the Australia institute of criminology has statistics that tell a different story.)
You, right now, are like a church official proclaiming that the world is flat, after Magellan has just finished sailing round it. These other countries watch Dead Alive and play GTA III, and yet don’t go killing each other with guns. Because they don’t have them. No matter how logical you may consider your arguments, they have still been proven wrong. You have a less valid argument than fucking creationists.
Yeah, just like eliminating those drug trade shows totally rid this country of illegal drug usage.
Good thing that you can’t grow guns in your back yard. Or that poor columbians can’t raise guns as a cash crop. Or that guns can’t be easily hidden.
Drugs are a whole different ballgame. They are wanted by teens for disposable pleasure, rather than for long term security by middle-aged adults. There is an entirely different network of supply and distribution.
Can we say “false analogy?”
LPFab is right, I don’t know of an organization in America (besides, possibly, governmental organizations such as sheriff’s offices or polices officer’s associations) that is more vocal in their calls for responsible gun ownership.
Pity they wouldn’t know responsible if it raped them up the ass.
The fact is that Iraq was always a greater danger to the U.S. than was Saudi Arabia. The Saudi royal family, recently mugged by the reality that Jihad can’t be bought off forever with protection money, is starting to heavily crack down on terrorism - and, I suspect, will be rethinking their funding of these groups. Am I mad at Saudi Arabia? Hell, yes. Should they face punishment? Damn right. Does it need to be war? Of course not. The U.S. didn’t go to war with Afghanistan or with Iraq for revenge. The U.S. went to war with Afghanistan because they refused to stop providing sanctuary for terrorists, and were therefore a danger to every country targeted by such terrorists.
I supported the war in Afganistan. But as soon as it stopped being glamorous, we forgot about them. Afganistan is sliding into a pit of tiny autocracies, our warlord allies showing their true colors at last. The ‘democratic government’ has no power once you get a few miles away from the capital.
We got bored and abandoned an entire fucking nation. And surprise, surprise. It’s going to the crapper.
The U.S. went to war with Iraq because there was credible (i.e., believed by intelligence services of every Security Council nation, as well as the U.S. Senate and, of course, former President Clinton) information that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, that he would be willing to sell these weapons, and that he had contacts with terrorist groups.
Let’s get a source on that, chum. Because the prevailing view is that Rumsfeld told the CIA what he wanted them to conclude, and made them do it. British and American intelligence personnel have been speaking up across the board about how there was no credible intelligence, but that the political leader couldn’t have cared less.
His willingness to sell should be obvious; the man was sleaze who thought that he could get away with anything, and tried. His ties to terrorist organizations are well documented. As for the weapons themselves, I have mentioned in earlier posts that hiding such weapons in a country the size of Iraq would be easy under the worst of circumstances, and this was hardly the worst of circumstances for Saddam. The U.S. has not yet found any weapons, but it would be idiotic in the extreme to assume that they therefore never existed.
Terrorism: the 1980s. Whoops!
Why should we assume that he had WMDs? Because he was the kind of guy who would have wanted them? You’re just grasping for straws. This is truly pathetic. It would be idiotic in the extreme to assume WMDs with nothing more than the word of Ahmed Chalabi.
Of course it is a possibility that they never existed, but so what? The weapons were a reason for attacking Saddam; they are not an all-purpose reason. France has such weapons, but as France is the international equivalent of a senile, ranting old woman there is no real risk in France having such weapons. Saddam was a thug who killed thousands of his own people, was a danger to regional (and, given the region in question, international) stability, and was an all-around rat bastard. Therefore, in this case such a risk exists. If he didn’t want to get attacked, all he had to do was either prove he had no such weapons (actually, not even this much; just prove that what he admitted to having in the past was gone) or not be such a monster. He failed at both.
Uh oh, a minute ago, you said that we attacked Saddam because he was a threat to the United States. Hmm. Now we are fighting for Justice!
Except that we didn’t know about the killings until after the war. Why? Because we had no post-gulf war intelligence on Iraq. We had no idea what the fuck he was doing. Which is why it was idiotic to attack him based on guesses and rumors.
As for nukes, though it is, of course, impossible to prove a negative, just before the invasion, Saddam agreed to allow U.S. troops to do weapons inspections. This may have turned out to be bullshit, but the fact that the Bush administration ignored the offer shows that they regarded the time before the war as mere public relations pacification rather than any real deliberation.
Oh, and if you read the New York Times, then you’d know that new evidence has come to light suggesting that Saddam planned the whole thing so far. He let his army crumple like a wet paper bag while hiding millions, if not billions of dollars, and secreting conventional weapons around iraq in pockets for his autonomous guerilla cells. He then planned his hiding carefully.
If you think about it, it was the only viable option for him in the face of overwhelming US power on the battlefield. But we played right into his hands. Because our country is run by fucktards.
Trot, it is flatly disgusting to condemn the removal of Saddam. It actually makes me ill to think that some people could dislike George Bush so much that they think leaving the Iraqi people under the thumb of Saddam would have been the right thing to do. You should be ashamed of yourself. Leaving him in power would have been a continued insult to even the smallest shred of human decency. What kind of “social justice” is that?
One can be opposed to Saddam and also opposed to idiotic uses of unilateral power to violate other nation’s sovreignity. And our views have been validated by the aftereffects of the war and our failure to fix up Iraq.
Also, note that our attack on Saddam caused North Korea to (quite rightly) feel threatened. Diplomatic talks collapsed and they went nuclear. They are a real threat to world security, and their populace suffers far more than the Iraqis ever did. Pity the current administration is only interested in antagonizing them with tough-guy posturing.
I’ll take after you and ask for a source for this. I happen to think most of the extremely poor violent criminals in inner-cities are more likely to be left-wing than right-wing and that this assertion you’re making is foolish because it makes no difference how violent nutcases are likely to vote.
There are no good reasons to own lots of guns.
False. The good reasons for owning lots of guns are the same as the good reasons for owning lots of anything.
Firstly, you’re never going to be fighting with more than one gun. Having extras is just ridiculous.
You can never play more than one videogame at a time, or read more than one book at a time, etc. Therefore having extras is just ridiculous. I hope you see why this argument makes no sense.
Second, there’s no reason at all for you to own milspec gear except for armed insurrection. Trot pointed out the sheer ridiculousness of wanting an assault rifle so that you could mow down rioters. Wake up. You are not Duke Nukem. You are not the guy in Postal. You are not Judge fucking Dredd.
Isn’t that one of the reasons why the NRA supports having such gear? Isn’t that also the reason the Second Amendment exists? The people of the United States have a vested interest in being able to confront a tyrannical government. I don’t care if you think that’s archaic - that’s the rules.
You want to collect guns? Fine. Get the chambers filled in so that they’ll never fire another shot.
You want to collect videogames? Fine. Scratch the CDs and fill in the cartridges so you can’t play them. The fact that guns are dangerous does not make this a disanalogy unless you are irresponsible enough to assume that people who collect guns do so for the express purpose of killing people with them… which is foolish.
You want to go hunting? Keep your guns at the lodge. And rifles only, punk.
Yes, God forbid you have any right to have your property in your own home. This is such an authoritarian thing to say that I find it hard to believe you actually agree with it.
You want some home invasions statistics?
In 2% of home invasions against gun owners, the owners of the house get to use their gun against the intruder.
It is more than twice as likely for the criminal to take the homeowner’s gun and shoot him with it
In the vast majority of cases, the gun remains in a drawer somewhere while the robbing or the raping or whatever goes on unimpeded. How useful.
The problem with these statistics is that they fail to take into account (because they are unable to do so) that the mere fact of gun ownership serves as a massive deterrent to crime in the first place. Also, I’d like to point out that your paternalism in this argument is awfully insulting. “Because ownership of something can be dangerous to the owner, he/she should not be allowed to own it.” Do you feel the same way about narcotic drugs? Alcohol? Hair dryers? Why are guns different? Oh yeah, because you hate them.
Next, most violent criminals are poor. They cannot afford to buy guns. How, then, do they get guns? Well, most of them are stolen from the homes of people like you. That’s right, the vast majority of guns on the black market are brought into circulation thanks to itinerat gun-nuts.
So… your argument is that, because people can steal things from you (which is illegal, you know) and use them to hurt other people, you should not be allowed to own those things? This is an awfully silly argument.
Also, guns in homes add a whole new level of deadliness to domestic disputes. Look at statistics on violence in the homes of police officers, who are forced to keep guns at home. Instead of cooling off, pull out your gun and blow the bitch’s brains out! A means of dealing certain death at your fingertips changes everything, and not for the better.
Again, paternalism, the very sort of thing that people who advocate for legalization of narcotics say is not a sufficient basis for legislation.
Finally, your arguments are all empirically denied, as has been pointed out. Look, if you will, to the UK, or Canada or Japan, or especially Australia, which recently implemented gun control (and don’t try to respond with that retarded myth about gun murders increasing in australia after the ban. Snopes.com has already debunked that, and besides: the Australia institute of criminology has statistics that tell a different story.)
Actually, the empirical denial is far from conclusive. Your own precious snopes.com offers the proviso that the situation in Australia provides no confirming evidence in either direction and that comparison between Australia and the US isn’t necessarily wise. I stand by T’s previous claim that comparing the United States to these other countries is like comparing apples and oranges. It refuses to acknowledge the very salient fact that Americans enjoy (and always have enjoyed) a constitutional right to own firearms, which is wildly different from the situation in much of the rest of the world. You also ignore the fact that gun violence in Brazil and Russia (despite stiffer gun control laws) is worse than in the US. So, actually, none of our arguments are empirically denied, unless you choose to limit your sample of other countries to countrie that support your argument… which is not the way I would suggest doing things. The important statistic to note is that communities within the United States have experienced crime reduction by implementing laws that allow for concealed carry permits and such. And comparing the United States to itself makes a whole lot more sense than comparing it to Australia.
You, right now, are like a church official proclaiming that the world is flat, after Magellan has just finished sailing round it. These other countries watch Dead Alive and play GTA III, and yet don’t go killing each other with guns. Because they don’t have them. No matter how logical you may consider your arguments, they have still been proven wrong. You have a less valid argument than fucking creationists.
Hardly. Things like the shape of the Earth and evolution are not culture-specific, so this analogy, half-serious as it was, does not work. There are legitimate studies that indicate that the United States and Australia are entirely different beasts, and you chooose to ignore those.
Good thing that you can’t grow guns in your back yard. Or that poor columbians can’t raise guns as a cash crop. Or that guns can’t be easily hidden.
Which kinds of guns can’t be easily hidden? Also, the major reason why there is not a huge black market in guns is because guns can be legally obtained. Trust me, if guns are prohibited the way drugs are, things would almost certainly change.
Drugs are a whole different ballgame. They are wanted by teens for disposable pleasure, rather than for long term security by middle-aged adults. There is an entirely different network of supply and distribution.
Wait, I thought guns were desired so that criminals could murder people and steal their things. If guns are only desired for long term security, exactly why do you have such a problem with them?
Pity they wouldn’t know responsible if it raped them up the ass.
This is clever. You should be so proud. You should also go meet some members of the NRA (like most of my family) and try to actually learn some things about gun owners before you just classify them as nuts and murderers.
I supported the war in Afganistan. But as soon as it stopped being glamorous, we forgot about them. Afganistan is sliding into a pit of tiny autocracies, our warlord allies showing their true colors at last. The ‘democratic government’ has no power once you get a few miles away from the capital.
Neither did the United States government prior to the ratification of the Constitution. Why don’t we see what happens instead of assuming that all problems can be solved instantaneously?
We got bored and abandoned an entire fucking nation. And surprise, surprise. It’s going to the crapper.
Yeah, I’m sure all those Afghan women are so pissed that their country is spiraling into disaster.
Why should we assume that he had WMDs? Because he was the kind of guy who would have wanted them? You’re just grasping for straws. This is truly pathetic. It would be idiotic in the extreme to assume WMDs with nothing more than the word of Ahmed Chalabi.
Actually, we should assume he had WMDs because we were partially responsible for allowing him to obtain them and because he had previously used them against the Kurds in his own country. When he refused to cooperate fully with inspectors, he was hardly creating the impression that the weapons had been destroyed.
Uh oh, a minute ago, you said that we attacked Saddam because he was a threat to the United States. Hmm. Now we are fighting for Justice!
Yeah, because it’s impossible to do something for two different reasons simultaneously. Also, I love that your implicit argument is that threats to the United States don’t represent injustice. That’s awfully smooth.
Except that we didn’t know about the killings until after the war. Why? Because we had no post-gulf war intelligence on Iraq. We had no idea what the fuck he was doing. Which is why it was idiotic to attack him based on guesses and rumors.
Who didn’t know that Saddam had killed thousands of his own people until after the war. Even I knew that and I’m not a member of the CIA. His gassing of the Kurds was common knowledge, among other things.
As for nukes, though it is, of course, impossible to prove a negative, just before the invasion, Saddam agreed to allow U.S. troops to do weapons inspections. This may have turned out to be bullshit, but the fact that the Bush administration ignored the offer shows that they regarded the time before the war as mere public relations pacification rather than any real deliberation.
Or they were tired of placating a murderous dictator who was just trying to buy himself five more minutes. Please, if Saddam waited until the eve of war to make concessions, how serious do you honestly believe he was about cooperating?
Oh, and if you read the New York Times, then you’d know that new evidence has come to light suggesting that Saddam planned the whole thing so far. He let his army crumple like a wet paper bag while hiding millions, if not billions of dollars, and secreting conventional weapons around iraq in pockets for his autonomous guerilla cells. He then planned his hiding carefully.
If you think about it, it was the only viable option for him in the face of overwhelming US power on the battlefield. But we played right into his hands. Because our country is run by fucktards.
And…? What is the conclusion of this argument? That we should have just left him alone and saved ourselves the inconvenience of having to care about those brown-skinned aborigines being oppressed over there on one of the bad continents?
One can be opposed to Saddam and also opposed to idiotic uses of unilateral power to violate other nation’s sovreignity. And our views have been validated by the aftereffects of the war and our failure to fix up Iraq.
Funny… I was under the impression that the United States was founded on the notion that nations ruled without the consent of their citizens have no claim to sovereignty. I know the UN disagrees, but when did we sell our souls to the rest of the world?
Also, note that our attack on Saddam caused North Korea to (quite rightly) feel threatened. Diplomatic talks collapsed and they went nuclear. They are a real threat to world security, and their populace suffers far more than the Iraqis ever did. Pity the current administration is only interested in antagonizing them with tough-guy posturing.
T has responded to this argument so many times it’s just laughable. The fact that we cannot stomp out all evil is no grounds for the claim that we should stop trying. If you believe the North Korea would not have gone nuclear anyway, you are a gigantic fool. They have no interest in compromising with the United States and you don’t want them to either. If we had convinced them to not develop nuclear weapons, you would probably be screaming just as loudly about our violations of their sovereignty. After all, if Iraq’s “sovereignty” grants Saddam the right to kill thousands of his own citizens, isn’t every nation entitled to possess nuclear weapons?