Brutus….
Once again you fail so blatantly to abstract more than your own opinion from the written word of others that I am more or less certain that there is no point in dignifying you with a response.
However, full of desire to see a world ‘where everyone will hold hands and sing’ as I am, I’ll just go ahead and grace you with another chance to become a better man.
Let’s start with the Japanese and the Nazis.
I’m a little disappointed in the progress you have shown in this subject. I was expecting that we would be ready to move on to the extended course material very soon, but it looks like we’re going to have to work on this some more.
Although I commend your fact-finding efforts, which merit you, your capacity for analysis of the subject matter is still wanting and in desperate need for bettering.
It’s not a ‘who killed the most’ argument nor is it a ‘of all the bad guys who was the badest’ game. Both are useless discussions. We could spend the rest of the year raking up who killed who out of the 56 million or however many it actually was that died in WWII. It’s been done, so let’s just say that the figures although inconclusive are readily available and move on. Well actually I’ll play the game for another sentence. As it happens the body count puts Germany at the pole position, with around 30 million killed by a not too conservative count and possibly around 40 million remotely within the scope of realistic estimates, but as I just said that’s not the point. As for why it is useless to try to find ‘the badest guys’, well you wouldn’t get it since your course literature so far in life obviously hasn’t included any chapters on the pit falls of arguing absolutes from subjective stands.
Another shot at expressing myself a little clearer for you:
Had you bothered to read something about WWII that was not just a running account of events, but contained some serious analysis of the causes and effects of the war you would know that the German war and the Japanese war had somewhat different basis. Although there are striking similarities. The Nazi war contained an element of absolute destruction that the Japanese lacked. Hitler’s goals were expansionist based on a severely deluded belief in the need for ‘lebensraum’ for a ‘race’ that doesn’t exist. Japans goals were expansionist for reasons of antiquated views on national development, security and stability. At no moment did the Japanese intend to wipe out whole groups or nations of people. They intended to subjugate them. At every moment did the Nazis try to wipe out whole groups and nations of people. Subjugation was only for some ‘favored’ parts of the ‘non-German races’. A maybe slight but significant difference. As the Japanese process of subjugation started it looked like that was going to be a pretty bloody process indeed, but it’s still a different ideological ground that begs for a separate analysis. Note analysis not judgment. See the difference? Do you? Now really, Do You? OK, never mind we’ll just say that grown ups know the difference and one day you might get it as well.
Once again you managed to infer that I was being apologetic of atrocity only because I pointed out that a simplistic view you have of the world needs some more nuance.
The Branch Davidians
Brutus, you have shown some progress in this subject lately. Although we have a long ways to go it’s a promising start that we can hopefully build on in the future. You have inserted nuance and made somewhat balanced analysis of a situation that by someone with your capabilities could otherwise easily be judged in painfully idiotic ways. I give you C+ for that part of the exercise. Sadly I have to note that your complete lack of capacity towards abstraction and your consequent failure to understand the point of my bringing the case of Waco up in your exercises only merits you a F. Therefore the overall note can’t be better than D-.
The analogy was not there to show an equal situation, but to show you how wrong your blanket statements are. Now some other members have clued you in on your fallacy in assuming what the education was of the mass murdering hijackers of September 11. In your next efforts I would recommend that you try harder to understand things from other viewpoints than your own and that you apply more forethought to the work you put forth. I would also propose that it could be good to read some books on rhetoric and logical reasoning.
Let’s move on to terrorism.
How to deal with it? By preemptively and punitively enforcing the laws of our nations without prejudice and within the boundaries of the conventions on human rights and conflict laid down in various international agreements. How else? Your proposition goes against that and asks for the governments of our nations to act illegally and to break various international laws and conventions that the terrorists happen to be breaking, which justifies us to go after them with force. Is that a smart thing to do or a Brutus thing to do?
G8… holding hands and singing… and so on
Oh Brutus, you fool.
I really don’t feel like explaining to you what part of the political spectrum I adhere to. Let’s just say that I feel deeply ashamed that we have to have you and your ilk tagging along out on our extreme fringe.
Sparc
