Subject:
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Re: Terrorists hate freedom
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Sun, 14 Mar 2004 00:39:04 GMT
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Viewed:
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438 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, John Neal wrote:
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Richard Parsons wrote:
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You know, I had kinda hoped that someone other than John might have spoken
up in defence here.
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(snippage)
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How does the Guantanamo Bay gulag fit in with this? This is denying others’
rights in a vain attempt to win improved security and thereby freedom.
Surely John is not accusing the American administration of being disgusting
hypocrites.
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First, I think we all can agree that no nation is perfect, including the US.
That said, I am reticent about commenting on Guantanamo because I don’t
believe that enough facts are about the interned are readily available. I
wouldn’t mind debating a similar hypothetical situation if all of the
“givens” were agreed upon.
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I think Richard was talking about the “givens” that they have been held for up
to 2 years without being charged, in the name of “security”. Something that the
administration would frown upon in the name of freedom.
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Oppression never justifies the murder of innocents.
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Interesting theory. No sense in it at all in relation to adult ‘innocents’.
The brutally and mercilessly oppressed could well be open to the entirely
sensible argument that those who take benefit from the oppression are guilty
nonetheless. This isn’t a supposition of mine - this is part of the
indoctrination.
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I have to flat-out reject that assertion. If you cannot agree that women,
pregnant women, the eldery along with children are not innocents, then this
might be a short discussion.
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Women, pregnant women, the elderly, and even children can tie bombs around their
waist and detonate them on buses. Though most children probably wouldn’t do it
if they knew the consequences.
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This is key, because “terrorism” is defined as
the targeting of innocents with the goal of breaking a society or group’s
resolve-- to use its own humanity against itself in order to cooerce it
into change. It is, in fact, impossible to “terrorize” a military, because
violence perpetrated against an army is called “war”, not “terrorism”. This
is why terrorism is so disgusting, because it is so cowardly. If you want
to oppose a government, then rise up against the government!, not against
its citizens! But the cowards might think, “We are not powerful enough to
oppose the government, let us strike out at it by killing its citizens
instead”. This is not “clever”, but immoral and despicable. Or, at its
essence: 2 wrongs don’t make a right.
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I agree totally. Obviously Truman didn’t.
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Liberation from Evil = Evil from Liberation.
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I don’t get this, sorry.
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If I am being evilly oppressed, and I use evil to liberate myself, I am
mimicing my oppressor and therefore loosing any moral justification for
freeing myself.
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Does freedom require moral justification now?
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I am a fan of democracy. A big fan. I don’t believe in forcing on people,
and I don’t believe in simply giving it to people. Democracy has to be won.
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This is a very interesting assertion. I’m not sure what to do with it. On
the one hand, I believe that things obtained freely are valued less than
things earned. But does this apply to freedoms which we believe are innate
and the right of every person?
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Does that include the freedoms that require moral justification?
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Are we all be truly “free” if there are
others who are oppressed? Are we, as Democracies, and especially as
Super-Power Democracies morally bound to help the oppressed people of the
world? Are the free obligated to help the unfree? Are the wealthy obligated
to assist the poor?
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Nope, but it sure does give you a warm, fuzzy feeling.
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You think, to your credit, that if everyone were just rational
and all viewpoints were considered, a peace can be formed. The problem is
that there are people in this world who don’t value rational thought.
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Its true, there are some. But not many. Over time (even if its
generations), and on the evidence of their own eyes, almost everyone can be
engaged in a reappraisal of their ideas. Hopefully even you can come to see
the humanity in these ‘terrorists’.
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I disagree, and I use the Palestinians as an example. They have “struggled”
for national identity for almost 60 years. Certainly if nationhood were
their agenda, it would have transpired by now.
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Where does it say “all disputes shall be resolved in 60 years”?
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That’s the point!!!! There is NOTHING that would ever motivate me to
deliberately and savagely kill INNOCENT CHILDREN! These people are
beyond rational thinking.
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I am pleased for you that your life has never exposed you the kind of
injustice that much of the rest of the (mainly non-western) world lives with
every day. It will make it harder for you to understand. Even so, it is a
worthy endeavour.
And this is part of what makes the argument about ‘innocents’ (other than
children) rather thin. It is possible to live in such a nice and mentally
undemanding world for so long that it is not possible to imagine it could be
any other way for anyone else. And by this lack of imagination, we can fail
to appreciate issues. And by failing to appreciate the issues, we fail to
address them. By failing to address them we support the very systems that
cause the problem. Its only a short skip and a rhetorical jump to find
these happy, unimaginative people just as guilty as those who participate
knowingly.
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Listen, again I must vehemently disagree. We have not discussed “morality”
yet, but now is a good time. I need to know if you believe that the
deliberate killing of innocents justifies a greater good. From what you’ve
said so far, I believe you do.
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And what about you? Given the world situation in 1945, would you kill thousands
of “innocent” civilians if you were pretty sure it would end a war?
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Discover that the things that would make you
behave the way they do
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That’s a profoundly offensive and disgusting lie!
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I agree that that there are some people who could simply not countenance the
idea of striking another, and maybe you are one of these. In my time I have
found myself in situations where I knew that if I did not act, and hurt
someone, a much greater hurt would be done. To my own surprise, I have
found it in myself to act.
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Let’s be clear what we are talking about here. Are you saying that you would
kill an innocent person to alleviate some “greater hurt”? I ask you: what
can be worse than an innocent being killed? I know of nothing, except
more of the same.
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And yet here you say it can
be rational to do so. In the thousands.
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But far lesser actions, actions directed
at the oppression have unfortunate side-effects for your ‘innocents’, and
have been lumped in with what we call ‘terrorism’. I would hope that I
could find other more useful and less violent things I could do that might
actually make a difference, but if I couldn’t, if there weren’t, what then?
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So, you are acknowledging that if you tried and tried and tried to liberate
yourself and couldn’t, you could then justify murdering babies (innocents).
I need to know if you believe that if someone is desperate enough, they are
justified in killing innocents.
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Do you mean morally or rationally justified?
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The simple truth is that it has nothing to do with economics. This
is about religious intolerance; you are a target because you are not one
of them, not because you oppress them in some way.
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Goodness gracious. Can anyone seriously ascribe to this painfully
simplistic and jingoistic view? Its nice, because you don’t have to think
too hard, you can just work out what religion or club or lodge someone
belongs to, and on that basis, support them or shun them.
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Show me the economic oppression being suffered by al-qaeda. Their leader is
a multi-millionaire.
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But their leader doesn’t fly planes into buildings or blow himself up on buses.
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What are their demands? What do they want? Why don’t
we know these things?
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Why weren’t we told the real objective of invading Iraq beforehand?
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Islam is not new. Its been around for considerably longer than western
democracy, and even longer than the United States of America. Yet the faith
has not been driving people to ruthlessly and violently lash out. For a
time, it was the Muslim world that was the scientific and philosophical
light of humanity. So why has it suddenly reared up now?
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“Wahabism” is a particularily violent anti-Western form of Islam. Why? Who
knows; who cares. There is no rational or moral justification for it.
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And yet it will continue until we find out why.
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And it is scary as hell, because it points out that in these ‘terrorist’s’
minds, they are mostly everyday people, with an extraordinary conviction.
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Again, this is patently absurd. “Everyday people” do not consider targeting
innocents to butcher in the most heinous of ways.
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And yet heinous crimes occur against innocent people every day in your own
country.
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we can’t simply kill or imprison them all, even though we seem keen to spend
a great deal of money, and undermine a great many personal liberties in an
attempt to do just this. We really need to find a way to understand.
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That’s all. All we need to do is understand “evil”. Well, good luck, my
friend. One doesn’t need to understand evil to combat it; only to identify
it. And that is your problem and the problem with the Left in general-- you
cannot acknowledge or identify evil.
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OK. So show me all the evil in the world. Then show me how you would propose
combatting it.
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Continue on our current course,
evading understanding, thinking that ‘terrorists hate freedom’ only adds
fertiliser around the plant, and makes it grow stronger and larger.
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Any insight into the reasons/issues/demands of al-qaeda you have would be
most helpful. Understanding WRT movitations appears to be a luxury-- all I
understand now is that if I don’t stop them, they won’t stop.
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And do you seriously think the current course is going to stop them?
ROSCO
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: Terrorists hate freedom
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| (...) There are so many different legal issues-- definitions of POWs and of being "at war" and the Geneva Convention and whatnot. It's lawyer stuff and I really try to avoid it. That doesn't mean that there aren't people out there who aren't on up (...) (21 years ago, 14-Mar-04, to lugnet.off-topic.debate, FTX)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: Terrorists hate freedom
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| (...) (snippage) (...) First, I think we all can agree that no nation is perfect, including the US. That said, I am reticent about commenting on Guantanamo because I don't believe that enough facts are about the interned are readily available. I (...) (21 years ago, 13-Mar-04, to lugnet.off-topic.debate, FTX)
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