Will it still have been worth it?
By succeeds, I mean Iraq has a working representative govt., the insurgency is a non-factor, and our troop strength is comparable to what we have in Germany. Let’s also assume a timeframe of 5 years, a cost of $500 billion, 4,000 soldiers dead + 30,000 wounded, and 30,000 dead Iraqi civilians.
My friend, who’s a bit older than me, had an amnio done, with the full intention of aborting if it picked up Down’s (or other catastrophic defects). I didn’t see a problem with this, though my own beliefs concerning reincarnation might be a factor ;)
Predictions, post em here.
Edit: Seems like SARS to me. All doom and gloom and never really materialized. But part of me worries about this. The Spanish Flu was an avian one. This one could actually be bad.
Why would you want to restrict democracy? Let the people vote for whomever they please. As Bush is finding out, you can only fool the people for so long. If you screw them over long enough, eventually they turn on you.
Besides, Clinton will be back in the White House anyway ;)
Janus, we’ll probably never agree on the nature of morality. Maybe having kids has clouded my judgement ;)
thats not true at all. i can say he was a bad guy, based on my standards.
But you have to qualify it with “based on my standards…according to me…the way my beliefs are… etc.” Intuitively though, it just seems like some things are morally repugnant without qualification. Usually involving kids.
and universal arguments always fall apart when you ask WHY something is universally wrong. they either respond “well, uh…because it seems like it”, or “because of God/natural law”. but thats not an answer at all. for one thing, it requires belief in one of those things, which not everyone has, so youve just made a relativist argument yourself.
But you’re left with the equally unappetizing statement: “Well, I guess sometimes it’s all right to torture children for the fun of it.”
thats interesting, because as a christian, there is only one morality that is true for you.
I’m not a Christian. I just like what Christ says. I don’t believe in his divinity or anything.
anyway, this runs into problems, because whats universal? murder, you would probably say. but what constitutes murder? intent? intent with malice? and what else would be considered a universal moral? what if i think abortion is murder, but you dont (i actually dont, and you may, im not sure)? how do we know who is right? we have the same cultural background, so its not a culturally based relative moral, is it? its universal in your system? but who is right? how are we to know?
You can’t prove ethics. In the end, you have to go on intution.
consider murder again. hobbes says that in the state of nature, might literally makes right (im stronger than you, so your food is now mine), and morals are nonexistant, meaning whatever you can do, you should, if you want to. mankind forms societies to elevate themselves from this primal state, so that its possible for people to peacefully coexist, without worrying they will be clubbed to death over their french fries at lunch time.
the notion of murder being wrong arises from this. its a practical consideration taken by man that killing each other is wrong, so they can establish a society. and different cultures formed different rules about what is allowable (many societies do, or did, practice ritualistic slayings). these do not come from some underlying moral principle, but for strictly pragmatic reasons. morality is an artificial construct, not a natural guiding force that determines rightness and wrongness in the world.
I like Locke’s way of thinking. Also, I don’t think the sense of wrongness we feel when hearing about a kid kidnapped and killed is just societal upbringing. But I can’t prove this. I also can’t prove I’m not dreaming either, so what the hell, right?
I’ll go toe to toe with you on the gospel marry, I know it. I never claimed to be a christian because there is a big difference between following christ and going to church. I have learned a lot from the Gospel, I don’t follow it comepletely… but it does offer wisdom. But before you start “throwing stones” at the christians, you don’t follow the gospel Komepletely (OMG, A SPELLING ERROR!!! MY ARGUMENT IS RUINED!) either. Jesus said that if you want to be perfect that you should give away everything you own and follow him. You have to be on a computer to post on forums… so I am assuming you still have stuff.
I will go so far as to say the left probably is closer to what Jesus preached than the right. Welfare - give things away. Illegal Aliens - give things away. Don’t defend yourself - turn the other cheek. The welfare state means an impovrished lifestyle, and that is what Jesus preached. I think the right has the abortion issue on its side… but that’s about it.
Although I respect christ and his teachings, I am not going to take it on faith that I am going to be fed, clothed and housed from god just because God loves me more than a bird (if you know the gospel, you know what I am talking about).
I just know what I read as well. The role-model for Christians is Jesus. Jesus repeatedly condemned violence and even said you should comfort and aid thy enemy. Now I know no one can be Jesus, but voting for Bush? How can a self-respecting Christian vote for a war-monger? That’s not even a hard choice to make (like resisting the temptation to hit someone back). Bush = preemptive war and dead innocent people. You can’t get much more opposite to Jesus’s teachings than that.
Just because you’re an atheist doesn’t mean you’re a nihilist. Plenty of atheists have a moral standard they try to live up to (Kant tried to ground morality in pure reason, and in metaethics, there is the belief that the truths of morality are like the truths of mathematics). Are you saying the only thing stopping you from robbing a bank or murdering someone for profit is the fear of getting caught?
not necessarily. i have morals, but they are not christian morals. and im a moral relativist, so i have my own sense of right and wrong, not one based on religion, or some “natural law”. as to kant, i dont subscribe to his belief.
As a relatavist, you can’t even say Saddam was a bad guy. The best you can do is say, “Well, I personally wouldn’t have done that…” Relatavism always seems to fall apart when you ask the relatavist, “Is it wrong to rape a child?” and they respond “Well, it depends…”. Some things just seem universally wrong.
But a moral absolutist also runs into some similar problems. I’ve read a bit about a compromise position: some moral truths are universal, while some are relative based on culture, belief systems, etc.
im not a christian, im an atheist. i have no guiding moral principles that i am supposed to follow
Just because you’re an atheist doesn’t mean you’re a nihilist. Plenty of atheists have a moral standard they try to live up to (Kant tried to ground morality in pure reason, and in metaethics, there is the belief that the truths of morality are like the truths of mathematics). Are you saying the only thing stopping you from robbing a bank or murdering someone for profit is the fear of getting caught?
I think it was the 2000 election. I’ll double check the LA TIMES article, but I’m pretty sure.
Edit: You’re right, it was 1988. Was Gore pro-life back then?
She donated $1000 to Gore’s campaign. I can’t see a pro-lifer doing that.
I have wet dreams about Bush getting caught ordering the leak and resigning in disgrace. Tapes and all.
and 3, Christians shouldnt wish harm or misery on their neighbors, and you are saying here that you would revel in Bush’s disgrace.
That’s true, but I’m only human. And are you trying to tell me that you won’t feel just a little guilty pleasure when Hussein is found guility and most likely executed for crimes against humanity?
you should take your sig a too heart a little bit more than you do
What, you can’t love stupid people? Anyway, Bush got the fundamentalist Christian vote, which has always puzzled me.
1, Christians should be pacifists, and I can’t understand how they can vote for a fellow Christian who invaded a nation and killed tens of thousands of innocent people. That’s a big no-no, according to everything Jesus teaches. And 2, fundamentalists of any religion aren’t exactly the best critical thinkers in the world. My in-laws are almost all Mormon and almost as a rule you can’t talk to them critically about their religion. You get the intellectual euquivalent of putting hands over ears and saying “nanananana”
Ahh, so Bush got the “intellectual” vote, eh? A lot of things come to mind when you mention the South. Genius is not one of them.
Rove has taken it to an art-form
so hes bad because he is good at it?
He’s very good at underhanded techniques to destory political opponents. This is good or bad depending on your viewpoint. Generally, I think that insuinating that your opponent has an illegitimate child through push-polling (as what happened to McCain) is despicable, but others might applaud his imagination.
I have wet dreams about Bush getting caught ordering the leak and resigning in disgrace. Tapes and all.
can girls have wet dreams?
Lol, I needed a metaphor a wargaming community could understand ;)
Very good Sci-fi yarn. Had some genuinely creepy parts as well. Some great lines too.
“Remember, it’s ok to leave them to die.”
If you can’t beat them fair and by arguments, denounce them …. that is exactly what Rove does,
dems do that too, dont pretend like its unique to rove
Rove has taken it to an art-form (i.e. McCain in the primaries and the hatchet-job the Swift Boat vets did on Kerry). If there is any justice in the world, Rove will be indicted for leaking Plume’s name. I have wet dreams about Bush getting caught ordering the leak and resigning in disgrace. Tapes and all.
Zooey, the order you’re adovacting seems to be the “punish the majority for the actions of the minority” type. If we can’t identify insurgents (which is the main problem in Iraq), then you suggest we exact a heavy toll on the population until supporting the insurgency becomes so dangerous, it falls apart? Like Roman decimation or German liquidation?
There are two reasons heavy-handed techniques would never work:
1. The American people would never support indiscriminate killings. One of the reasons we invest so heavily in precision weapons is that despite our obsession with violence, Americans have a very low tolerance for having actual blood on the military’s hands. Summarily executing people, razing towns, rounding up young men of a certain ethnic make-up, etc. would absolutely tank public support for the war. Look at the outcry over Abu Gharib. Destroying a village in retaliation for anything the insurgents do would not go over well on the nightly news.
2. The insurgency would increase. It wouldn’t matter how much we punish people we suspect of helping insurgents. It would be like Nazi Germany trying to stop Russian Partisans. We are so fanatically hated by a segment of the population, that retaliation would simply feed into their justification for hating us even more. And also garner them even more recruits.
There is one real reason we are in Iraq. A show of force (to aquire the bases needed for future shows of force).
Because THIS show of force has been sooo efective. What’s going on is pathetic- we can’t even subdue a country the size of California. You think Iran is afraid of us? LOL, we can’t even bail out our own cities, let alone invade another country. We might as well have given Iran the green light to get as many nukes as they want. By the time we get our shit together in Iraq (if that is even possible anymore), Iran will have enough nukes to be in the same position N. Korea is.
Any more planes fly into buildings or what not, 100,000 pissed off Americans are going to invade the country who let it happen.
Uh, no we won’t. Our capacity to invade anyone is gone. You can only stretch the volunteer army so far and it’s already near the breaking point. The worst we can do are airstrikes or lob a couple nukes.
That is a DETERANT! That is worth fighting for. That makes us safer. The fanatics in the middle east respect and respond to 1 thing, and one thing only. Strength, either we show we have the ability and will, or they win. Know what OBL favorite movie is? Black hawk down. Kill a few americans and they run.
I’m sure OBL is quaking in fear over our inability to catch him for the last five years. Or maybe its the rapid speed with which we crushed the insurgency in Iraq. Oh, wait.
Since we can’t invade anyone, ironically our deterrant now is the same as it was pre-invasion: the threat of airstrikes.
It is impossible to argue logicaly on this with anyone who can not grasp the very simple reality that the only language people (and the governments) of the middle east will understand is force.
And violence never begets more violence :roll: