Unfortunately, yes. It’s the price you pay for free speech.
Ok, prehaps I glossed over the thread too hastily and inadvertantly hijacked it. That wasn’t my intention. I just felt like saying something. I’m not sure why gobear is in such a froth. He has admitted to be affected by “blinding rage”. I’d say that has something to do with it.
So I’ll offer one opinion of my own …
Should Osama bin Laden be punished (if the evidence points to him)?
Definitely. I am a big fan of justice.
Should he be tortured, and forced to choke on his own shit, and drawn and quartered and have his severed head impaled with a spike and hermetically sealed in a jar so it can go on tour of middle schools so that our children can be taught a lesson?
No, because I’m not a fucking psychopath.
I’m all for justice. I am not all for violence. However, I’m not so ignorant that I don’t think some violence will come to pass in this issue. You can’t make an omelette without breaking a few eggs and all that.
Dropzone, why is it that it took you until your 11th post to this thread to get around to stating clearly what your specific objection to the OP was? Do you just like hearing yourself talk?
Well, now. I believe in freedom of speech. I don’t want that taken away, not even from Fred Phelps. I liked the description posted by a Canadian on a thread awhile back, of a Mountie helping Phelps light a Canadian flag on fire, so Phelps wouldn’t hurt himself. I thought that was really cool.
But…what you said that I was responding to with the Phelps comparison was:
I don’t want Phelps’ rights violated, but I sure as hell don’t “salute” him. I mean, I get what you’re saying, and I can understand saluting people who stand up for what they believe, even if you don’t agree with them, up to a point, anyway. But I can’t go so far as to say I would salute anybody who “stands up for what they believe” and is “sincere”.
In my opinion, to call Fred Phelps an asshole would be an insult to all the hard-working assholes of the world, which are, after all, necessary orifices which perform the vital function of waste elimination. Fred Phelps is more like a hemorrhoid–he’s a useless and harmful swelling on an asshole.
Aye aye aye. In the past couple weeks, I (a person who believes in peace) have had almost as much venom thrown at me as fucking Osama himself. I’ve been called whiny and rich (funny- because I just realized that I don’t have enough money to go shopping for food this week), immoral (like Jesus, I guess), anti-capitalist (well, yeah, but that’s unrelated), a divider (uhhh…isn’t it divisive to sit around calling other people divisive…and did we all check our duty to think critically about the world at the door when this happened?) and a host of other bad things.
Yo! Peace is a good thing! Peace would have prevented this mess! Yeah, it is unlikely…but the peace protesters of this nation serve a very important symbolic purpose. Try not to think of them as people working towards an actual goal as much as a reminder of the one value that could save us all. We need to remember peace as we gear up for war. We need to imagine what a peaceful world would be like. Peaceniks sit on the other side of the scale, and help to keep our nation in balance. They also inspire the kind of critical thinking that will prevent a groupthink scenerio.
Please, save your vile for those that have killed. Without those few protesting for peace, this nation could get awful scary awful quickly.
I’ll clarify my statements a little, since I suppose they were a little vague.
But maybe we should just start a GD thread or something, because I really didn’t mean to hijack. I just got a little lazy in not reading the whole thread thoroughly.
I salute the idea of excersising the right to free speech and peaceable assembly. Outside of any message that is being put forth, the first thing I can do is say, “good for you - this is what the constiturion was ensuring you can do, and you’re doing it.”
After that I can address the issue of what’s being protested.
For the Phelps thing, yes he is reprehensible. I don’t support his message or his protests by any strectch of the imagination. It is also my opinion that he and his ilk represent a microscopic minority of people. They give ignorance a bad name. They also seem to be their own worst enemies. I don’t even see how he can be taken seriously – his ignorance is laughable. Education can and will defeat them. In the meanttime, if I have the right to stand on the corner and preach about the wonders of Cream Soda, I have to allow him to say whatever he wants too. Rational disagrement is the logical step. Or should we just have Phelps’ head on plate too?
As for the bin Laden/war thing. I’m on the side that war is bad. I’m also of the opinion that people who kill 6000 innocent people shouldn’t be able to get away with it. So, yes, I am torn. I don’t want a war. I don’t want any more innocent people to die, no matter what country they live in. But I think bin Laden needs to be stopped. Terrorism needs to be stopped. Unfortunately, none of this will stop without a little fire to fight the fire.
That, in my opinion, is a rational analysis of the situation (albeit astronomically limited in scope). It is also my opinion that wishing to see another human being tortured, no matter what he has done, only displays man’s more ugly emotions.
Does anyone really want to see bin Laden have his head blown off, or be chopped in two or be forced to choke to death on his own feces? Why would anybody want to “see” that? What kind of warped brain would welcome sights such as those?
Ya know, I’m not “itching for war”. I really hate war. It sucks. It’s hell. People die horrible deaths, lives are shattered, and basically it’s a waste of life and resources.
HOWEVER - I do feel that, sometimes, war is the lesser of two evils. And I most certainly do feel that people have a right to defend themselves, up to and including the use of deadly force if that is what is required to stop the attackers.
I think having some voices for peace - in even the most justified of wars - is a good influence. After the war (asssuming these days that there WILL be anything or anyone around “after”) we will have to make peace and that requires people not motivated to shed blood and continue the conflict.
I really do wish there was a way to stop further terrorist attacks without killing anymore people. I really do wish this. However, I can’t imagine what would work. It takes two parties to make peace but only one to make war. They will attack and kill again regardless of what we do or don’t do - the only questions are where, when, how often, and how many dead.
So, I must admit that I can see only war and violence, an extermination of the terrorists, as a viable solution to this problem. This doesn’t mean I in any way look forward to this, or enjoy it, or think it’s a good thing. I DO think a “war on terrorism” is preferable to letting the bad guys win, though.
If a pacifist can come up with a non-violent solution that will WORK I’d be happy to entertain the idea and even implement it. But so far there’s nothing from the pacifist camp that is workable or hasn’t been tried already, either by us or someone else, in opposing these guys. Remember, this isn’t a conflict that started on September 11 but something that goes back at least until 1979 and possibly farther into the past. It didn’t start overnight, we aren’t going to finish it that quick, either.
I’m gonna have to refer you to some of my arguments on this thread.
As for the whole “I hope bin Laden’s eyeballs are eaten by fire ants!” thing: I doubt he (or whoever was behind this attack) will be captured by Interpol and brought back to stand trial with a team of defense attorneys and all that. I can’t really say I’m all that bothered by the prospect of him (i.e., bin Laden or whoever was behind this attack) being on the receiving end of a cruise missile or a Special Forces sniper’s bullet. (And I’m not even really a death penalty supporter.) That said, I don’t really want him tortured in horrible and ingenious ways. Maybe if I was closer to the tragedy, and had actually lost friends and loved ones, I would feel differently–but I think I would be feeling differently, not thinking differently. I also don’t believe in eternal damnation to Hell, and in fact I think it’s a horrible idea, The Onion’s article notwithstanding (and of course part of the point of that was a satire on the evident beliefs of the terrorists that they’d be instantly transported to Paradise for their deeds).
So, kill the perpetrators and planners, kill them violently–blow them to bits–but I don’t want to capture them and impale them or burn them alive or stake them out in Central Park to be torn to pieces by an enraged mob of Manhattanites.
I don’t necessarily want to see it, but I wouldn’t mind if Osama bin Laden suffered horribly. After all, there are people in NYC and here in Virginia who have been burned horribly through his actions, people who have been maimed for life, not to mention people who have killed in unimaginably awful circumstances.
So no, I don’t want to understand bin Laden, I don’t want to sympathize with him, I don’t want to see his side of the story, I don’t want to give him probation.
I want him, his followers, and his whole stinking organization wiped off the face of the Earth.
Most of them don’t have one. A friend who went to the protest really wanted to shout (in response to “War is not the answer”), “then what is?”
Personally, I’m very anti war. And very pro-black ops. We used to be so good at that sort of thing. Well, at least better at that sort of thing. It seems to me that the current situation–i.e. we want a few guys out of a whole country that is only sorta connected with them–calls for a good covert “grab em and fly off” approach. It sends the “don’t fuck with us” message without all the horridness of a war.
Hell, I don’t know how feasible that is (not being a military intelligence type), but if we can, I like that option best.
I see the word retaliate thrown around a lot since the attacks. Interestingly, my dictionaries definition of the word is “to return like for like; esp., to repay evil with evil.”
Other words i’ve heard in relation to this are revenge, punishment, and justice. These concepts, however, have no value on the international scale. What should be sought is a way to prevent this from happening again, and what is good for your country, and for the world (sometimes this involves seeking justice or meting punishment).
I think a major military offensive will be counter-productive to a fight against Islamic terrorism. Bombing Muslim countries is not a way to dispel the image of America as “The Great Satan”. Even a surgical strike against bin Laden will do little. It may disorganise Mid-East terrorists temporarily (and it may not), but more will take their place. The only way to deal with this is to strike at the root of the problem so we don’t have to keep fighting the symptoms.
I think dropzone pretty much hit the fish on the head with his proposal. Increase American (and UN) presence in Islamic countries … install some puppet (or at least friendly) governments … help them economically, invade them economically … instill tolerance of other cultures through understanding. Dying for your religion seems a little less attractive when you have something to live for.
bin Laden would say the exact same, yet opposite, things. That America is to blame for all the innocents that are killed. And that the US was the aggressor when they established their presence in Islamic countries and gave aid to Islam’s enemies. To use a couple trite analogies: two sides of the same coin and can’t see the forest from the trees.
Not to get all civil in this whirlwind of Pitishness, but I think we need to do one more thing. We need, both for ourselves and for potential future adversaries, an “oh fuck” moment – something that makes people sit up and say, “holy shit, messing with those guys is a bad, bad idea.”
But I don’t know what form that moment should take for a civilized nation. Perhaps we should start a thread soliciting ideas?
This assumes such a thing is even possible. What have you heard that makes you think it is? Because everything that I have seen and heard tells me it isn’t.
There is no “oh, fuck!” moment for people who not only don’t care about dying, but embrace it. The only possible (and even this is not sure) way that you might be able to solicit this reaction is by doing things that the United States simply cannot do: torture people. Maybe if we employed some of the creative tactics put forth in this and other threads, involving live dismemberments, red ants, fire, etc, we might freak these guys out. MAYBE. But since we aren’t going to go there…what do we have? Starvation? Already there. Disease? Check. Death? Bring it on!
While your desire to acheive the “Oh, Fuck!” moment is certainly understandable…in this instance, it is a touching fantasy.
Afghanis view our unwillingness to take casualties as a weakness. They are right. And I am not the only one to say this, some guy on nightline in a military outfit with lots of shiny shit on his chest said the same thing. They will happily die for their cause, over and over again. Us? Not so much… And you know what that means? They are tougher than we are.
While I admit I find the idea somewhat attractive, a wholescale effort to Westernize and “civilize” places like Afghanistan–complete with an “American (and UN) presence” and “puppet” governments–will definitely not serve to dispel our image as “The Great Satan” in the eyes of the zealots. On the whole, they’d probably prefer we just bomb them.
Which you are welcome to do. I am generally wrongest when I’m loudest. Or most open to criticism, at least.
I suppose this is the wrong time and place to congratulate gobear and anthracite on their posting milestones but, since I don’t much care, I will anyway. So there!
If this happens, I will be running the pool on how long it takes for some mealy-mouthed whiny-ass liberal to start bitching about American cultural imperialism.
Of course they would! Then they can play the victim and get loads of recruits with nothing to lose! As I mentioned once before here, Abdul is a lot less likely to become a suicide bomber if it’s going to interfere with his promotion at the software company.
In addition, as was proven in the American and French Revolutions, it is a large middle class that tyrants fear the most and who create the most successful, longest lasting revolts. Folks with something to lose aren’t going to put up with Talibanish bullshit. The key to stability is not the Soviet “bring everybody down to the same level” way. It is bringing everybody UP at least to a reasonable level, and give them the chance to rise farther. A place where I heartily DISAGREE with some of the protestors is role of Capitalism. I see it as generally positive.
I believe that giving us an “Oh, FUCK!” moment was the intent of the perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks. You’ll notice it didn’t work on us any better than the Blitz worked on the English. Folks don’t seem to be wired that way.