Hmmm…that was a GD post. I don’t want to get into a GD argument.
Anyway, my point is simply that before debating the effectiveness of Zenster’s suggestions that it is perfectly reasonable to question their ethicalness.
If you think that I am not smart enough to see how going into Afghanistan and killing every tenth person you see, wiping their civilization off the face of the earth, making up facts about your very own country and other nations in order to water a thirst for revenge is analogous with bombing during WWII, then you are correct in your underestimation.
You ask what is reasonable. Civilians killed during a war is reasonable. Civilians killed to make a point is not. Was flying jet planes into skyscrapers reasonable? Because the other side does it first, all of a sudden it’s reasonable? You think it is naive to expect your country’s actions to be justifiable? That we should just throw away all of our ethics and core beliefs when they are no longer convenient?
If you are to stupid to see my point Scylla, then I have underestimated you.
I suppose that for the record I should state that I was happy to be on Zenster’s “side” in many of those threads. He felt my paraphrasing of his comments were accurate, and I felt his grasp of my posts were spot-on as well. Anyone is willing to level attacks on me for both freely admitting my support then and now. (In fact, I would hope that such a thing, for the sake of intellectual honesty and completeness, would be done)
Since that caused no small rift in what I feel are important relationships (even if this is “just” a message board) I have attempted to remove myself from debates over posters’ responses to the WTC attack and I will continue to show that restraint by not making a comment directly attached to any specific stand Zenster may or may not have had in the threads listed in the OP.
Carry on, people.
I don’t get this. Great Debates spill into the pit all the time. It’s just that in the pit, you aren’t obligated to reign in your urge to be nasty.
Certainly nothing wrong with writing a sensible, reasoned post stating your position, which is what you did.
Although I don’t know that I’d frame the difference between civilians and soldiers as being about “value”, because it isn’t. It’s about choice. People who choose to enter the military do so with the understanding that they may have to put their lives on the line, and may have to actually lose their lives. As you say, it’s in the job description.
Civilians make no such choice. Not American civlians, not Afghan civilians. Therefore * targeting * civilians is 100% wrong, of course, absolutely. I’m stunned that this even needs to be pointed out.
stoid
It’s not that I think a GD argument is necessarily inappropriate in the Pit. It is that I don’t want to get into a GD argument. There is a reason I don’t go there; I don’t have time for posts that take 20-30 minutes to compose.
Though, when making GD arguments, using Pit language doesn’t help.
Scylla, I fear that you are missing the point of this pit thread. I explained it twice already, but it seems to be getting drowned in apologies–not from Zenster unfortunately, and not the kind of apologies one would hope for. Here we go again:
Zenster, whether he was discussing effective tactics or not, has spent over a month trying to increase cultural tensions and spreading misinformation at an alarming rate. The latter is certainly unacceptable behaviour, especially in Great Debates. He was challenged on his demagogic “inaccuracy” several times, by myself, Pldennison, Tomndebb, Biggirl, Triskadecamus, and plenty of others. In spite of this he continued.
No matter which way you look at it, no matter if some of Zenster’s points make sense (if one has patience for his clumsy presentation), Zenster has been spreading crap of all kinds on these boards, including dangerous crap. This is not news by any means, and I have yet to see it contested in a valid manner.
I think everyone, myself included, has made posts that cause severe cringing when they are remembered. But Zenster seemed engaged in a campaign of misinformation that was both energetic and persistent. One or two stupid posts are certainly forgiveable, unfortunately Zenster went all out.
Scylla, I fully appreciate your points on the degrees of relativity of arguments and the incorrect perceptions we often have of posters, but please do not insult me by sticking to this tangential point in the face of the references in the OP and from other posters. This is not an issue of “it’s all relative”, or “poor misunderstod Zenster”. Zenster has erred not just once or twice, but repeatedly beyond count. Zenster also chose to resort to ad hominem attacks rather than meet or submit to the challenges against his offensive nonsense–and it’s irrelevant whether he did so to preserve face. What counts in this forum is not face–he has little left by now–but the arguments one puts forward. If one puts forward volumes of bullshit, then one ought to be prepared to accept responsibility for that–or have the responsibility forcefully crammed down one’s throat when informed posters are understandably irritated by such large volumes of bullshit.
Sure, not all of Zenster’s output is bullshit. I was annoyed by his numerous posts related to the WTC tragedy, which, as far as I know, is when he started with his demagoguery. Let’s keep in mind that it’s his bullshit that is the focus of this pit thread, not his entire 4300+ posting history.
I quote pldennison one more time, drawing special attention to his shrewd observations on Zenster’s annoying and transparently demagogic writing style:
Please, let’s not turn this into a “what can we possibly do about the Taleban problem” discussion when there are many such threads in GD. Discussing whether Zenster’s frequently inconsistent attitudes are valid or not is mere distraction from the fact that Zenster has spread misinformation, insisted on supporting the misinformation, and resorted to personal attacks when conventional support for the misinformation failed.
Zenster, you may retract and apologize at any time, but you will not get away with posting demagogic nonsense. There’s a song by Zucchero which goes, loosely translated: “what could be more vulgar than wilful stupidity?”
obfusciatrist:
Enough of a hijack. You’re arguing from a philosophical idiological/basis. I’m arguing from a tactical/pragmatic standpoint. Frankly I don’t hear about many philosophers on the battlefield. And your knee-jerk line by line refutation leaves me weary.
Stoid:
A good point. But what about the calue of soldiers in conscription armies? Also, if you read some recruitment materials that talk about the responsibility of the army and the government’s responsibility to the soldier who joins up, I think you’ll see that dying to prevent enemy casualties, is most emphatically not in the job description.
Abe:
Yes, and I thought PLD made a fine and unassailable point to which I do not disagree. However not all the arguments being sent against Zenster are so equally well rooted.
Scylla, you are an ass.
Please, next highlight the stupid comments that spew from you so I’ll know the ones that are available for knee-jerk refutation.
If you honestly believe that any action in war is acceptable, then not only do I strenuously disagree with you but consider you to be an extremely despicable example of a human.
I did not take this into philosophy, you did. I was arguing against very specific proposals for very specific world realities. You are the one that decided to track the entire history of war into this conversation.
But I am the second person in this thread to whom you have said “I’m weary of you, go away.” Strangely, both of these have come after significant resistance to your stupidity. If you want to take your ball and go home, that’s fine, but please shut up about it.
Obfusciatrist:
Fuck you, too.
Oh grow up.
(It would be your turn, but I believe you’ve taken the ball home)
This was a nice clean thread until the potty mouths opened up.
Continue.
Biggirl:
The point is that you don’t know what will be recquired to win a war.
At the outset of the civil war Sherman argued that it would be long and bloody, and unlike any other previous war, because of our heightened capacity for killing. He argued that the rules of chivalrous conduct would get thrown out the window. People laughed at him. These were Americans fighting. They would never do these things. They would their honor. People thought he was so crazy they put him an insane asylum.
Three years later he had proven right. If anything it was worse than he had described.
So they took him out of the insane asylum and made him a general. He marched to the sea and destroyed the cities and infrastucture of support for the Confederates along the way.
In spite of Obfusciatrist’s ignorant “Sherman was wrong to do that,” most scholars consider that what he did was both necessary and ultimately saved lives on both sides as he crushed the Confederate ability to fight and support it’s troops, crushed their morale, and drastically shortened a protracted and brutal conflict by his actions.
Does that help you understand what I mean?
Zenster’s arguing that it’s gonna be a brutal conflict, and there will be brutal requirements asked of us. He might be right.
The reason this has nothing to do with his attitude of seeming to revel in this possibility, or his posting of misinformation is because I’ve previously acknowledged the correctness of those accusations to PLD on page 1. I didn’t think it was necessary to do so again.
One thing I can say about Zenster is that he feels strongly about a varied number of subjects. In this thread, he makes some very strong comments about some young men who tortured animals.
Most of the threads that are mentioned in the OP were from very shortly after the attacks, when emotions were running very high. I disagreed with Zenster in this thread, but I count him as one of my friends. We disagree on many points, but that does not make me dislike him or think that he is a bad person.
One of the purposes of this message board is to fight ignorance, and I believe this is done more efficiently and effectively by not attacking those with whom you disagree, even if they attack you. I think it sometimes happens that people feel they are being attacked simply because someone else disagrees with them.
Having said that, I must say that I have difficulty rationalizing any killing for any reason.
Sorry. He has done no such thing. He has not called on our society to steel itself with the resolve to pursue a vicious, if necessary, fight. Instead, Zenster has been urging actions that are (1) counter-productive, (2) based on erroneous assumptions, (3) and are morally reprehensible. There may be a way to argue oneself into point number (3) in a “last extremity” situation, but to urge actions that will cause oneself more harm than good, based on a total lack of understanding of the genuine situation is foolish, even if one never worried about morals or ethics.
It is not his rhetoric that troubles me, so much as his willful refusal to pause long enough to eliminate (or even reconsider) his factual errors or to consider the genuine ramifications of the actions he proposes.
I suppose that it is nice that he feels troubled proposing the responses he has put forth. However, to put forth a bad proposal–one that will harm many innocents, fail to secure its purported objective, and ultimately return harm on oneself–is simply not mitigated by feeling bad about it.
I’m sorry I’m going to have to kill you, but it’s for my own good.
This isn’t a pro-choice thread, Stoid 
I think I need another Zenster interperter, Scylla, perhaps even Zenster himself. It looks to me that you are doing exactly what you have accused me (and others) of doing: namely picking and choosing only the points which support your view and completely ignoring everything else Zenster has said.
Re-read the quotes I posted. He is not talking about “total war”, he’s talking about killing civilians on purpose to teach them a lesson. It doesn’t matter one whit to him that the Afganis people (and the UAE and the Saudis) had nothing to do with these terrorist acts. Appealing to the tactician in him doesn’t and hasn’t worked because he doesn’t really seem to care that genocide will only make terrorists out of people who wouldn’t have given two shits either way.
Biggirl:
You’ve labelled me “interpretor.” Personally, I don’t want the job. But, with so many people interpreting every single post of his in the worst possible light, somebody ought to at least take the other side, as I don’t think he merits a blanket condemnation, nor am I generally in favor of gang rapes.
Certainly, you may disagree with much of what he says, but disagreement and a personal condemnation over those aspects that don’t merit it is nasty and unkind.
I’ll admit though, that I’m a little hurt by your accusation of selectivity.
I thought in my previous post I made it pretty clear that I acknowledged valid criticisms concerning Zenster’s rhetoric. I also did so earlier in the thread.
This would be the third time.
I don’t understand why you keep making the same accusation, but ignore my rebuttal. Would you please do me a favor (tone doesn’t come across well in an MB, but I’m asking this sincerely not sarcastically,) and either address my rebuttal and explain why it’s insufficient, or withdraw the accusation as a mistake?
You’ve repeated your accusation, but you haven’t acknowledged my direct reply.
I try not to argue from an intractable standpoint. Show me I’m wrong and I’ll change my mind.
That’s not the case with everybody here.
I just read some interesting words. Let me ask them as a question to you and anybody else here.
Do you think your viewpoint will change if and when we see the first videos of American soldiers being tortured and beheaded?
I think it would be wise to base our attitudes and expectations on the likelihood that that is the kind of war we are getting into.
All else aside, I think that aspect of Zenster’s postings is spot on.
You keep saying “Zenster seems to be saying”. Then you say, O.K., he did say so and so, but he’s really arguing this point.
My last post was aimed at taking Zenster out of the equation unless and until he shows up in this thread and speaks for himself. The discussion on how much a country should compromise its ethics in order to win a war was (and still is) an interesting one.
P.S. I ran my last post through a spell checker because I cannot spell for the life of me. It corrected my spelling of interpetor to interpeter. Now I’m totally confused.
Mine will not.
We sent in soldiers to do a job. It will make me incredibly mad and sad. But would it make me want to have our soldiers pick out the closest Afghan citizens and slit their throats? NO.
Your turn.