What utter bullshit. You know these things are not true so you preëmpt any call that you back up your distortions of the actual facts by saying they are only perceptions. But the whole point is the perceptions do not match the reality.
American children are not herded into stadiums. Soldiers are not on the streets.
I am not a Nietzschean.
Not at all. Just that goodness is subjective. And the ultimate arbitration of differing subjective views of the good of the good is power.
Do believe that an actual absolute and objective good exists? How can test this hypothesis in a falsifiable manner?
Tank, I’m not about to get (further) into an argument where it is clear I am not as knowledgeable as you.
I have, however, e-mailed the author of said article. Whether he decides to post here, respond to my correspondence directly or simply ignore my question, you’ll be the first to know.
BG, can you tell me how you’re going to force despotic regimes into your hypothetical one world government?
And Der Trihs, your thinking is extremely simplistic. If I’m the US, it’s in my best interest for as many countries as possible to be ruled by stable, peaceful regimes. If their society is still on the primitive side of the scale, they are producing raw materials for my economy. As their standard of living improves, they become a market. It’s a win/win situation, and win/win situations are always preferable and longer lasting than win/lose ones.
I take the same position on existence of the good as Dawkins does on God:
But, if you don’t want to use a scientific approach, that is fine. Can you tell if there is an actual absolute and objective good using your choice of approach?
You ignore the fact that in the sociopathic world you propose, there’s no such thing as a peaceful regime, and in all the world there are nothing but enemies. If the world worked like you thought, every country on Earth would be trying to drag America down as a danger to themselves, and America would have long ago either ground the world under in a military dictatorship, or used nuclear weapons to destroy civilization outside it’s own borders. And probably in the end, turned upon itself in civil wars until collapse.
That’s the kind of behavior you get from people or organizations that are ruthless and emotionless and selfish.
It looks like this in cross section. The DU penetrator is the long thin dart-like object in the middle of the round; the perforated tube directly beneath it is part of the round’s propellant ignition system. The stuff that looks like rabbit food is the propellant, and the hourglass-shaped part is the plastic discarding sabot.
As you can see, the 40mm DU penetrator makes up a small part of the 41.1 pound (I stand corrected) munition; given the density of DU, I’d guess it makes up about 60% to 75% of the weight. In spite of my best efforts, after my “Great M16A2 Trigger [dis]Assembly Fiasco,” the Army never let me dissect/disassemble one of the 829s.
So, even though it’s a 41.1 lb (18.6 kg) DU munition, there is not 41.1 lbs of DU present in it.
And none of the hits from a casual search for “bunker buster munitions” yielded anything with DU in it.
First of all, don’t call bullshit on what I say I know. I believe very much that our current administration signs away rights of people on flimsy moral justification. I believe that american citizens (see Jose Padillia) are taken away and denied certain basic legal rights. (And now I wait for you to say ‘Oh, you BELIEVE it, huh?’)
However, I’ll rewind a bit- I was quoting a MOVIE and using it as a show of how other nations see us. I kind-of assume you realize this. You may not. If not, I’ve now explained it. People see our nation in this way. That is the perception. I’ve talked to people from both Russia and England and they’ve both aserted this perception of a stripping of rights of citizens. I was quoting a movie that had examples of that, and saying that it reminded me of the current situation, but I repeat, for your benefit, It was a movie.
It does, however, illustrate how we’re seen in the world. Is this clear now?
As for your assertian you’re not a neitzchien, I will say that you have a similar viewpoint when it comes to power being the ultimate rule of all decision. Hence my assumption you were a follower.
I am simply stunned that there are still people supporting the invasion of Iraq. Not simply supporting the troops that are there now; nor simply saying, “We broke it; we bought it,”; nor simply trying to maintain our national reputation as a badass; but in all seriousness saying that the invasion of Iraq was correct.
Opposition to the war expands beyond DU claims. Agreed. And if DU ends up being as safe as peanutbutter pie, our invasion of Iraq will rate just behind slavery as our nations greatest disgrace.
What gives us the right to invade any country? I am Canadian, (Thank God!) No way in hell would we ever be on board with overthrowing a country and installing a puppet regime. History shows it never works.
Humanitarian efforts doesn’t seem to do much better, but the main reason for that is people just don’t give a shit about anyone other then themselves. Harsh, but true.
These are the same people that think Bush is a good President, he isn’t stripping your rights and freedoms, isn’t imprisoning people in illegal jails in other countries, advocating and allowing torture… and on and on and on…
There is more further on in the wiki page regarding it’s toxicity, but I’m not sure it’s the same as the fall out of a Hiroshima bomb. According to my wiki link to Little boy earlier:
Folks at Hiroshima suffered from the gamma burst of the open air nuclear reaction, not from lingering fall out dust, which would be the main complaint against DU munitions. So it appears to be a different kettle of fish.
In regards to the legal status, in the Legal Status in Weapons section of the wiki DU article, it’s clear that some folks want the stuff banned, and tried to do so under the idea that the stuff is inhumane. However, even in their own arguments, they admit:
So the legal status is up in the air, too, along with land mines, cluster bombs, NAPALM, and the like.
But the last paragraph of the quote in post #126 is very telling:
I am not sure I can come up with a mental image of “nuclear bomb fallout without the blast effects”. What does that look like? Everything intact, but coated with a fine layer of ash? Is that even right?
I can come up with a mental picture of Hiroshima.
I think the author is banking on the reader conflating the two images. YMMV.
