perfect
All things being equal, wiping out the Israelies would solve the problem as well.
You’d be good with that, right?
Which is what Hamas already wants to do to the Israelis. The difference being is that I DON’T advocate it and they do. It makes it easy to determine which side I actually support and makes me wonder why others are so idiotic in their opinions (and posts).
Are all Palestinians Hamas?
Hamas had already ‘thrown itself out of power’. It took a junior role in the new unity government. Israel then blocked the entry of new government officials into Gaza.
It’s expanding housing in settlements and announced it is seizing more land for roads
Neither side wants peace on anything like acceptable terms. As i’ve said before - the Palestinians need to accept that they are one of history’s losers. They’ve lost. The Fat Lady is singing.
Yes, it sucks that Gaza is essentially a heavily armed open prison but every day and every rocket means the eventual deal will be even shittier than the one on offer the day before.
Take what you can get and start over because if they don’t the population of Gaza will be sitting in Sinai refugee camps in 10-20 years time just like the Greater Israel lot want.
Are all Democrats Americans? Are Democrats responsible for what the government does even if the government does something they don’t like? Damned straight they are. The same way that all Americans are responsible for what their government does even if they don’t like it or didn’t vote for it. If the citizens of a country aren’t responsible then who is? Because if it isn’t them, then it isn’t anybody. Unless you think that only one person could be responsible while 300 million sat idly by and did nothing to prevent it.
Must be nice to have such a black and white view of the world. Makes it all so nice and simple for you.
Must be nice to sit back letting others make the big decisions and then blame everyone else for what happens.
It’s certainly preferable to having all the decisions made for you but taking responsibility anyway.
Also, you’re an idiot.
And how do you propose we exercise this responsibility? Marching? Tried that in our millions before the Iraq invasion. Blowing shit up? What do you have in mind?
No. The people responsible are the people who abuse representative democracy to do these things and the people who act as their PR cheerleaders. The way the US and UK press essentially abandoned any pretence at journalism makes then pretty responsible.
And human nature being what it is - the more Israel blows people up in Gaza the stronger will become the support for Hamas and their stupid rocket-firing bullshit.
Hamas should cut it out and make peace. Gazans should, if ever given a chance, vote them out. But that’s not how human being work. You cannot cow a people to that degree without becoming monsters yourselves.
Are you serious? Within a democracy I can acknowledge some degree of individual culpability. BUT, the idea that I am personally responsible for decisions I not only didn’t make but didn’t support is absurd. In fact, it devalues the whole idea of democracy. Because if the only measure of ME is the actions of my government, and I can only exercise a one-three hundred millionth share, then what’s the point?
And what happens when we extend that logic to Stalin’s Soviet Union? Who makes the decisions? A handful of power brokers who deftly play one armed group off of another, with everyone else afraid of them. That’s who. The idea that a repressed population can always turn to armed rebellion is romantic, but it isn’t always true.
Sorry for the meandering, but this is precisely the problem with the logic I see applied to the Israeli actions in Gaza. Yes, there are LOTS of bad Hamas members and Hamas supporters. But there are also LOTS of innocents. And even if you try to tell me that all adults are inherently culpable for Hamas’ position, you’re disregarding the vast numbers of children who surely don’t deserve that treatment. Or are you saying that they too are culpable?
So you actually haven’t read what I’ve written on children?
With regards to the Soviet Union. Any idea how that came about? An armed rebellion perchance?
There are few innocents, usually there are just differing grades of responsibility. Some people deserve a good hanging while others an eye roll and a head shake. I don’t know why this is such a difficult concept.
If I had said that all the Palestinians equal Hamas, then I would have no problem with them being wiped out. Notice I didn’t say that, did I? Notice I said I didn’t advocate that? Guess not.
I have a problem with this statement and several other related ones you have made in this thread. Of course, I can only speak for myself, but I am guessing that what others are also finding objectionable with your position is its binary morality.
You’re partially* correct that the citizens of a nation are ultimately responsible for its actions. However, the pie of responsibility is not simply sliced up in millions of identical slices. Whatever the society, some people have always gotten bigger slices of that pie by virtue of their positions of power. The freer the society, the more equal the pieces. This is why, for example, sane people don’t blame Ivan, a lathe-operator in 1968 Smolensk, for crushing the Prague Spring. His counterpart in Dallas is rightly held to a higher standard, as he actually voted for Nixon and continuance of the Vietnam War.
*Being situated in an anarchic international setting, all nations have their freedom of action circumscribed to a degree.
Yeah, but all Palestinians are responsible for Hamas. So fuck 'em! Amarite?
Jesus fucking Christ! Do you people read?
I’m not the one being black and white here. It is the posters responding and attributing things to me that I’ve already clarified.
Yes. I think that every one of the savages should be stuck up on a pike just as Vlad the Impaler would have done.:rolleyes:
Well, I realize you think you’ve clarified things…but communication is kind of a two-way street, yanno? I’m perfectly willing to be called an idiot, but there ae certainly some aspects of your stance that I just don’t get.
Like f’rinstance your assertion that everyone is responsible…except children. Are children always innocents? Never culpable? At what age do they gain even partial responsibility for the acts of their countrymen and governments? 16? 18? Voting age? Age of consent? Age of reason? When they join a lobbying firm?
Then what the fuck are you trying to say, other than the obvious? i.e. that Hamas are assholes and anyone who supports them is an asshole by association.
Yes, I know. But when other posters are driving with their lights off and texting on their phones, it gets annoying.
Every one has a relative level of responsibility for what happens around them. Obviously, the capability to reason plays a part. So, many posters in this thread don’t have to worry about being responsible for anything.
But there in no reason to go into that level of detail. Isn’t it enough to say that the citizens of a country are primarily responsible for what their government does? At least that fits in with the thread at hand.
Take someone who, confronted with the Iraq War, wrote letters to politicians to oppose the war, voted for the candidates likeliest to oppose it, marched against it, committed civil disobedience in protest of the war, talked about it to anyone who would listen. Assuming you oppose that stupid war, is that one of the people who deserves an eye roll and a head shake? If so, why? What responsibility do they have for that war? What should they have done instead of those actions, in your opinion?
And that’s in a democracy. Thinking that your average Palenstinian schmoe has ANY power to affect Hamas is frankly laughable.
The concept is “difficult” because it’s no nearly nuanced enough, because it fails to acknowledge that in most countries, power is in reality exercised by a fraction of the populace, and that blaming the masses for the actions taken by the assholes in power is unreasonable.