Or when you might need to fight of an attack by a thuggish shark
People think with their emotions. And when asked stuff in a poll they are likely to just pop off whatever they think is provocative or whatever they are assed about today or this week…it’s pretty meaningless. None of these people have the power to bomb Agrabah OR send it aid or take in it’s refugees…or kill that fucking parrot either.
In addition, BOTH political sides (self described at that) wanted to ‘carpet bomb’ it, but neither side wanted to do so in the majority, so even evil Republicans (heck, even those idiot who support Trump) weren’t ready to send in the bombers just yet. This is just a lot of horseshit to make liberals and non-Americans feel superior or self satisfied, and you are just parsing that main point by nitpicking it all. 
My point was that you could craft a poll to make any group look foolish if you want to. The OPs point is that Americans are evil and want to carpet bomb everyone AND we are too stupid to know that you can’t bomb Agrabah, even if it’s got a seriously fucking annoying parrot hanging out in the bazaar.
Indeed, the important thing to remember, as always, is that both sides do it.
No, that isn’t that OPs point.
The OPs point is that it has become so casual, so easy and simple, to propose the bombing of civilian populations as an answer. Evidence?
A leading GOP presidential candidate proposed a war crime as his policy. That’s a professional US politician not knowing the time of day in an international context, and recommending blowing women and children into tiny pieces, on national tv, with the intention of improving his ratings.
This poll doesn’t exactly alleviate concerns as to that casual industrialised murder.
Its the imagery. How many times did that film clip run on Da Media, the delta-winged jet plane lifting off from the aircraft carrier with enough explosives to take out an armored division. Every time I see it, my heart sinks a bit, other people went to a different Sunday School than I did, they are elated, exalted, America! fuck yeah, fuck you!
No one has offered it as a direct and effective solution to the refugee crisis. Yet.
That both sides can be made to look idiot? Absolutely. Glad we are on the same page.
[QUOTE=up_the_junction]
The OPs point is that it has become so casual, so easy and simple, to propose the bombing of civilian populations as an answer. Evidence?
[/QUOTE]
That’s a more nuanced point than the one you brought up in this OP…it’s also more nuanced than anything you’ve ever posted to date. So, yeah, I don’t believe that was your point at all. Evidence? Pretty much your OP, everything you’ve posted in this thread until this post, and everything you’ve posted in other threads. My cite? My post is my cite, of course.
Come back when, A) he gets elected (fat chance) and B) he actually proposes it WHEN HE’S IN OFFICE, and C) he actually is able to follow through on doing it. When those things happen (which none of them ever will), you might have a point. Until then it’s just hot air and horseshit…as usual in US political races. If the candidates on either side ever did a quarter of the things they SAY they will do to get their base on board…well, it would be something to see, that’s for sure.
:rolleyes:
No problem, we will just magic-carpet bomb it.
No, just bomb the capital. It is called Tash-something, right? We can find Tash-something pretty easily, right? Oh, here it is, and it is full of Uzbэks! Nobody likes them, it will be a public service.
He’s got the right to stand his water.
If you were to learn that 44% of Democrats surveyed supported allowing refugees from Agrabah to resettle in the United States, would you be more inclined to accept that both Democrats and Republicans exist, in reasonably equal proportions, who don’t understand that Agrabah is the fictional sultanate from “Aladdin?”
So, if someone says lets admit refugees from Agrabah and my initial, knee jerk reaction is to give comfort to the wretched, widows and orphans who crave shelter and food in a place where no one is actively trying to kill them…But I’m a dumbass hoping to help people that don’t exist, how very foolish.
And the other guy hears about bombing Agrabah, and his instinctive, knee jerk reaction is sure, lets get 'em! kill for peace… Which is the side dominated by people who can’t wait to tell you how Christian they are…and are going to shrug off the collateral damage…to kill people who don’t exist, how very foolish…
We are, somehow, equivalent?
That’s a fair point – except that it shifts the ground from, "Ha, ha, those dummies don’t even know that Agrabah is a fake place from ‘Aladdin,’ to the more nuanced claim about choosing to bomb being inconsistent with Christian values.
I don’t favor bombing Agrabah, but I suppose that if some hypothetical Christian was confusing it with a real place, he might have some rationale that was not inconsistent with his faith, as he understood it.
So far as I can tell, though, the thrust of this thread was the idiocy of Republicans outdistancing that of Democrats because so many more of them expressed implicit belief that Agrabah was real.
You seriously can’t see a difference between wanting to help people without knowing who they are, and wanting to bomb people without knowing who they are?
Certainly. There are many differences.
But those differences are not relevant to a conclusion about the stupidity of poll respondents in believing that Agrabah is a real-world locale and a suitable target for bombing or a real source of refugees.
So if someone were to offer that poll result to claim, for example, the Republicans are more hawkish than Democrats for their willingness to bomb, or that Democrats are more willing to accept immigrants than Republicans, the surveys would support such conclusions.
Do you understand the distinction now?
Well, yes. Now that you explain to me what I said. Of course, if sets of both are roughly equivalent in their ignorance, then “stupid” or “not stupid” doesn’t really enter into it. The main distinction is their instinctive reactions. One being hostile and aggressive, the other, generous and empathetic.
Of course, if you have filed a Writ of Thread Relevance restricting post content to a defined set of interpretations, I’ll just have to shut up about that, because, well, the law is the law!
You’re welcome to try to move the thread in any direction you like. However, a stealth change of topic, wherein you suddenly attack a new position without clarifying that you are in fact shifting targets leads to the impression that your argument is leveled against the original proposition. This is a special case of the strawman fallacy, one in which readers may find themselves agreeing with your attack and believing it represents support of the original thesis.
I think the OP is taking pot shots at Americans, rather they trying to play Democrats off Republicans. Look at post #71, for example. Many non-Americans aren’t especially impressed with the different between Rs and Ds when it comes to foreign policy. Obama isn’t feted in Europe so much these days as he was when he was the Nobel Peace Prize wining superstar president.
A fête worse than death, do you think?
The Europeans had high hopes for Obama, but his presidency definitely bombed after that first year.
Or, they had high hopes for us, that we had finally turned away from the madness and hubris that made the Iraq war seem sensible and worthwhile. And let it be further noted, in the interests of the clarity that favors my views, Norway is not Europe. Just like Minnesota is not the USA, though it might be better for all concerned if they were.
If you’re correct, then the second survey lends credence to his position!