Read for meaning, tomndebb. I was asking Lemur866 if he intended it to be a *Islam vs. The West * situation. If I misread his statement, then my bad, but it seemed that he was setting that conflict up with his historical context. I certainly didn’t mean to set it up that way.
Did that whole paragraph condense into “Monarchy = Bad. Democracy = Good”? We could start a whole 'nother thread on the suitability of Democracy for specified groups/nations/peoples. Or are you playing the Colonialism Fugue?
Who are you slotting into that “monarchial” role, tomndebb? Are you implying that the Islamic extremists view the US as that monarchial/god’s authority megalith? It certainly doesn’t look like the terrorists (who we identify as Muslim, which is fairly accurate) want to remove themselves from the strictures of Islam (although I’ve read arguments that state that they have already removed themselves from mainstream (at least) Islam).
Again, why so insulting? Have the rules in GD changed recently? The last time
I checked, claiming someone is ‘silly’ and ‘ignorant’ is a pretty cheap way to run a debate, Mr. Moderator.
When you ascribe “political motivations” to the suicide bombers, are you referring to the aims of the group as a whole, or the individual SBs? If you’re claiming the latter, it’s got to be a whoosh.
Of course the Islamist extremists do not put the U.S. into the role of the monarchy. They consider that representative, secular government (as opposed to the theocratic Caliphate they desire) to be degenerate. That was the whole point of Lemur866’s post. The world has been (slowly and haltingly, in fits and starts) moving away from the Divine Right of Kings since the eighteenth century. That worldwide movement is the war that the Islamists have already lost.
No, we’re not. The OP asked us if we supported forced interrogation of suspected terrorists. The main part of our disagreement stems from the fact that I’m working off of pragmatism and you’re working off of morals.
I am possibly OK with that. Key would be his conviction. I’d have to think my way through it.
A Wiki cite? I find it odd that you’d give me a supposed objective response on a question that everyone surely has to agree is subjective.
MrDibble, I applaud your convictions, and I think you argue them well. I think we’ve mined this for what it’s worth. Have a great weekend, and send me some of those ‘pilchards’ (I have no idea what they are, but I like the name).
I specifically noted that your sources of information (the people whose works you have read talking about the 72 virgins) are full of malarkey. You have simply been the victim of their rhetoric. (Note my allusion to the moon goddess nonsense that is part and parcel with their claims and which has no relation to anything you have posted.)
I am not not permitted to claim a poster is silly–although arguments can be so characterized–but there are no similar restrictions in discussing sources outside the SDMB.
Now who is being insulting? I don’t even know what you are trying to argue, here. Do you think that a suicide bomber has a political motive separate from or contrary to that of the movement for which he or she acts?
I doubt that you have any reason to say this other than to prop up your side of the argument. Even if a religious motivation is number 1, (although not ancient medieval fairy tales about virgins), political goals would probably be #2. There are far more ways with a better outlook on life than suicide to enter Paradise.
Don’t link yourself to something silly. The “72 Virgins” has only shown up in reports from Westerners poring over bad information from corrupted texts and from a tiny number of anti-Islamist Muslim apologists who are attempting to ingratiate themselves with some Western faction. They have not been appearing in farewell letters to families from the suicide bombers. (And it still would not explain the motivation for the many women suicides.)
No. I made no “implication.” I was very explicit in my statements that the “72 virgins” schtick was silly. My “hands are clean” because I attacked the idea and I attacked the sites that promote that nonsense without making any claim that you, as a poster, were suffering any defects of intelligence.
I never said “72 Virgins”. That’s your phrase. I was a Political Science/International Relations major in college, with 20 hours of Arabic language courses. I am well-equipped to make my own opinions and create my own throughts on this matter, thanks.
-Cem
False dichotomy - by choosing pragmatism, you are taking a moral stance. All our actions and conscious choices have moral weight.
But you torture him before his trial - what are you going to do if he’s acquitted, untorture him?
I’m not even going to bother pointing out the (at least two) logical fallacies you just employed, but if you don’t like Wiki, I have lots of other cites: Maybe you’ll listen to these guys? They’ve dealt with fallacious arguments a lot. This guy? His site is dedicated to just logical fallacies. How about these guys? They’re a peer-reviewed resource run by professionals in the field of philosophy.
And no, when it comes to logical fallacies, there’s nothing subjective about them. I’m afraid you are just plain wrong on this one.
You too, and pilchards are a large sardine - but I’m nowhere near Natal at the moment. Best I can do you is a snoek (mmmm, delicious) or a Red Roman.
If you want to take this hijack even further, then you need to provide some authoritative source for the idea that the actual people committing suicide are doing so to gain a “virgin-replete Heaven.” I have already noted that religious belief might be high in their inspiration, but you are the one who started this hijack with a reference-free scoffing at the idea that they might be motivated by a sense of hopelessness and then topped it off with the “virgin” comment.
So, you’d like me to find a poll conducted on Suicide Bombers, and what their reasons are (were) for blowing themselves up? I’ll Google posthumous polling and see what I can come up with.
As you stated, it’s a hijack…I’m OK with letting it die.
Sorry, MrDibble, but nothing you wrote indicates to me that anything I said was wrong. You’re still refusing to answer the question by denying there is a question. I agree that it’s a hypothetical question but it’s not a surreal one. Saying that when you’re confronted with a choice between A and B, you’ll choose an imaginary C doesn’t answer the question and certainly doesn’t give you the right to assume a moral superiority over the people who chose a real answer.
I’m sorry, but in the real world, the excluded middle seldom applies. So no, you’re not going to trap me in a false dilemma - your Morton’s Fork isn’t going to prick me. And yes, it is surreal. There is no imaginary in the C options for torture. As has been shown repeatedly in this thread, real experts in interrogation say that C works better, and always has.
Or, less sarcastically, you could search for what suicide bombers have themselves said in their final recorded statements, as to their reasons. Here, I’ll get you started:
[
This really bugged me. To everyone but the most devout pacifist, killing someone to save someone from serious harm isn’t murder, it is self-defense or justifiable defense of another.
Or it could be that people who agree with your opinions are people whose opinions you think are right.
So if you kill somebody but you had a good reason, it’s no longer called killing.
“My God! You horrible monster, you murdered all those people!”
“What are you talking about? I was just entertaining myself. And I happen to find sticking a knife in people amusing. So I don’t consider what I did to be murder.”
Killing is knowingly causing another person’s death. In the overwhelming majority of cases, that’s wrong. But in a few circumstances, it can be the right thing to do. But, right or wrong, it’s still killing.
No. You have changed the language. You originally used the word murder. However, the word murder has a specific meaning beyond killing and a person to kills in defense is regarded as having killed, but not as havinmg murdered. If you meant “kill” in your first statement, you should not have used the word “murder.”
It appears that you do understand the difference, but that is not what you originally posted (bolding mine).
Your first clause compares murder to rape, then you change the language to “kill” in the second clause.
One may consider murder and rape to be nearly equivalent while having less objection to killing in other circumstances.
Actually what I wrote was: “If you think murder and rape are both immoral, what would you do if the only way you could stop a rape was to kill the rapist? Which is more immoral; rape or murder?” It’s pretty clear I was using “kill” as a verb and “murder” as a noun for the same act. No particular reason; I just thought it scanned better that way. I figure both killing and murder (or murdering) are the act of intentionally causing another person’s death (and I realize in other contexts, there are distinctions between the two words but I wasn’t seeking those distinctions here). Motives can vary: you did it do defend yourself or another person from being killed; you did it because you’re a soldier and that person was an enemy combatant; you did it because you’re carrying out a capital punishment; you did it because you just robbed a store and don’t want to leave any witnesses; you did it because you’re drunk and somebody insulted your favorite football team; you did it because the voices in your head told you to; etc.
But I don’t necessarily agree that sometimes you can kill a person and it doesn’t “count”. “I didn’t kill that guy because I was wearing a uniform when I shot him.” No, you killed him - you may have had a good reason for killing him but he’s still dead and you did it.
I think redefinitions are part of the issue here. People who focus on the words rather than the actions have an easier time not thinking about what they’re doing. They can claim that torture is wrong and say they never torture people - they just “forcefully interrogate” them. Of they can claim that killing is wrong and say they’d never kill a person - but they might “defend themselves” under certain circumtances. People should say what they’re doing, so they have to stop and think about whether or not it’s right or wrong.
I think it scans better because you’re trying to equivocate on your terminology in order to create a strawman dilemma when, in fact, for the vast majority of humanity there is little to no moral dilemma to seize: nearly everyone in the world subscribes to the justifiability of killing someone to defend someone else who is in great peril.
“Murder” is a specific crime that cannot be justified. “Killing” may or may not be justified. All murderers kill, not all killers murder. The way you phrased it, you’re taking to seize upon the immorality of murder and apply it to a situation in which everyone but the pure pacifist would say that deadly force is justified.
What “other contexts?” You mean like a dictionary context, as in, the dictionary consistently describes murder as a type of killing that is malicious, brutal, and unlawful? Your attempt to toy with people’s morality by changing the common and the textbook definition of a key word has been noted. But I’m left wondering: did you actually mean “rape” in that scenario, or should we consider that you actually meant “having sex?” Because I’m against someone murdering people who are merely having sex.