Bush's Handling Of The War

[Thorngrub]

"misdirecting my ire"?

Could be, Art.

If you don't mind my saying so, I simply believe you are misdirecting your patriotism.

We'll get through this, man. Hang in there

[Thorngrub]

artknocker said:

RIGHT-WING CONSPIRACY ALERT!!!! We're ALL in on it, you know--me and Roc and any (and all!) conservative right-wingers!

Never did say this. Never even intimated it might be true. settle down

[Artknocker]

thorny said:

artknocker said:

Well, he apparently thinks it's so obvious that Bush & Co. are screwing us, yet he points that out quite clearly. Don't you see something wrong with someone spouting off relentlessly about our president who's trying (and I emphasize "trying") to protect us, yet saves no venom for those who are actually trying to kill us?

There is no "try", there is only "DO", and sure, he's "DOING" us, that's for sure.

He can "mean well" till the cows come home, but at the end of the day, if his best efforts are not getting the proper job done, he should STEP DOWN.

And if he DON'T STEP DOWN I (cuz of some misplaced FANATICISM that "GOD" is on his side), then it is UP TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE TO BRING HIS ASS DOWN.

And we will, Art & Roccer. We will. This WELL-MEANING president WILL BE BROUGHT DOWN by us earnest Americans who only want what is best FOR ALL OF US.

And by ALL OF US I do mean MUSLIMS, JEWS, CHIRSTIANS, PAGANS, you fucking NAME it.

This is AMERICA - - NOT fucking JESUS LAND. Get it through your heads.

::seeing right through the prejudice here::
Oh, that'd be a fucking tragedy, wouldn't it? God forbid those fundamentalist right-wing Christian "nuts" gain any power. Nevermind that this country was founded on Judeo-Christian principles and that we are a mainly Christian country to this day. You'd rather do away with all that in the hypocritical name of so-called "tolerance" and "diversity", wouldn't you? Because as we all know radical Christians are just as dangerous as radical Islamists! They're liable to blow us all up, too! Pat Robertson is the devil!!! (There's that moral relativism again.)

[Artknocker]

It IS to a certain extent "Jesus land", as you so eloquently put it. You should get THAT through your head.

[Artknocker]

(calmly:) Thorn. Mary. Bin Laden started this whole shit. Equating our attempt to prevent another tragedy equal to or greater than 9/11--no matter how bad it may fail--to 9/11 itself is reckless and offensive. "Human beings"? But were they innocent? Or are you with Ward Churchhill in saying that the 9/11 victims were not innocent either? "Viciously murdered"? So our troops are no better than the brown bombers, eh? Moral Fucking Relativism makes me want to puke.

[shin]

rocdoc said:

Aah, so spake the 'above the fray'-fool, mister Kenny...

If you're the one who needs to slap around a woman, placebo or not, to calm you down...honestly I wouldn't spread such ideas around a msg board so obviously.
Sick fucker.

Um.

Realdoll's are for fucking, not hitting. Kenny meant fucking it to relieve tension and stress.

Nice Rorschach free association.

Honestly? I wouldn't be making such connections around a message board so obviously, either.

_{Sick fucker.}

[Artknocker]

We don't have to just go after bin Laden and his cronies directly in order to stave off terrorism that threatens us just because he attacked us on 9/11. Are you two gonna bitch if we go into North Korea if Kim Jong Il pulls a Saddam? (wait, I already know the answer to that)

[rockysigman]

Wow, Art hates moral relativism so much that he can't help himself but rail against it even in discussions that don't reference it and have nothing to do with it whatsoever. That's dedication.

[Mary]

artknocker said:

(calmly:) Thorn. Mary. Bin Laden started this whole shit. Equating our attempt to prevent another tragedy equal to or greater than 9/11--no matter how bad it may fail--to 9/11 itself is reckless and offensive. "Human beings"? But were they innocent? Or are you with Ward Churchhill in saying that the 9/11 victims were not innocent either? "Viciously murdered"? So our troops are no better than the brown bombers, eh? Moral Fucking Relativism makes me want to puke.

1) I'm not thorn. I never "equated" anything that bush did to anything that bin laden did. Ever.

2) When on earth did I say anything about agreeing with ward churchill? If you're going to debate imaginary people, please don't name them Mary.

3) You have absolutely no idea what moral relativism is. Moral relativism is the position that there is no universal foundation for morality, and therefore, all moral systems are equally credible (or, really, equally incredible). Anyone who attacks Bush because they believe the war in Iraq is morally unjustifiable is by definition NOT a moral relativist, because they are clearly applying and defending one particular moral system.

4) I'm not remotely interested in deducing the state of George Bush's heart are motives. They may entirely pure. He may be sincerely trying to make the world free and just and humane. My only interest is in whether his actions benefit humanity or harm humanity - regardless of his intentions. In my opinion, his actions harm humanity. As a citizen of America, then, should I not voice my opinion?

M

[Artknocker]

Christ, if you can't (or more likely won't) figure out what part I'm talking to you about...oh, fuck it. You asked what relevance bin Laden has in this discussion. We wouldn't be having this discussion or in any of this shit if it wasn't for him! The rest is directed at Thorn. No shit you're not him.

I did not say that anyone who is against the war and/or attacks Bush because of it is a moral relativist. Please don't simplify my posts like that. Re-read them if you need to. Christ.

Voice it all you want. Whether you cross the line over into obstructionism is up to you.

[Mary]

The following article was in the Economist, that well-known left-wing commie rag. Actually, this is simply the short lead-in to a three-page article, but I'm not about to copy the whole thing.

Lessons from Anarchy

Today's jihadists, like yesterday's anarchists, will fade. Terrorism won't.

On the face of it, anarchists, who believe in no government, have little in common with jihadists, who believe in imposing a particularly rigid form of goverment on everyone. The theoreticians for both movements have often been bearded and angry, of course, and their followers have readily taken to the bomb. But there the similarities end, don't they, so what lessons can be drawn from a bunch of zealots who flourished over 100 years ago, and whose ideology now counts for practically nothing?

At least two, actually. The first is that repression, expulsion and restrictions on free speech do little to end terrorism. All were tried, often with great vigour, at the end of the 19th century when the anarchist violence that terrified much of Europe and parts of America was at its zenith. As our report on pages 17-20 makes clear, governments had good reason to respond. Austria, France, Italy, Spain, and the United States all lost an empress, king, president or prime minister to anarchist assassins. Such murders were so common that King Umberto of Italy, throwing himself aside to escape a stabbing, casually remarked, "These are the risks of the job." (He was later shot dead.) Anarchists also killed lots of less exalted innocents.

Then, as now, governments responded to the clamour for action with measures to criminalise anyone preaching or condoning violence and, if they were foreign, to keep them out of the country. Spain brought in courts-martial for bmbers, foreshadowing perhaps America's military commissions for Guantanamo trials. Britain, with a tradition of tolerating dissent, became home to many continental radicals, such as those driven out of Germny after the two attempts on Kaiser Wilhelm I's life in 1878. Britain, however, was not afflicted with bombings as other countries were. Spain, where every kind of retribution including the crudest of tortures were the standard response, suffered many more outrages. Yet few lessons seem o have been learnt. Several of the new measures announced on August 5th by Tony Blair, Britain's prime minister, echo almost exactly those passed in France after a bomb had been lobbed into the French parliament in 1893.

In both Britain and America, new attacks are said to be inevitable. Yet every new attack is followed by new measures, as though such measures could have averted an inevitability had they been in place before. They could not, both logically and because terrorism cannot be defeated, as countries can be. That is the second lesson to be drawn from the anarchists.

The enduring allure of idealism and violence

Throughout history, men seized with a sense of injustice, or purpose, or hatred, or inadequacy, have resorted to bloodshed. The anarchists were not the first. They were merely particularly potent believers in violence in the furtherance of an idealistic, millenarian vision. Jihadists are too. Most anarchists, like most Islamists, were not violent. But, like the jihadists, they had their firebrands and, like the jihadists, they had an ideology that could be twisted to appeal to a certain kind of wounded utopian lacking all capacity for empathy.

Such people can be caught, sometimes before they have done anything terrible. That argues for excellent intelligence and police work. Perhaps their numbers can be reduced by ameliorating the grievances tht lend them the justification for their attacks. That argues for political action. And certainly the public needs reassurance. That argues for honest explanation - that terrorism does not threaten any western government, that retribution, like police injustices committed in nervous haste, is likely to provoke mre violence, that new restrictions are unlikely to bring new safety. Honest explanation, and simple history, also suggests that this wave of terror will pass, just as the anarchist wave passed, but that terrorism will not - not as long as strange men are captivated by strange ideas. The jihadist will go. Others will take the stage.

***

Major props to the Economist for stating, clearly and unequivocally, that "ending" terrorism once and for all is a preposterous fantasy which will justifyng unending wars and repressions.

M

[shin]

artknocker said:

We wouldn't be having this discussion or in any of this shit if it wasn't for him!

Oh, but we would. We'd be in Iraq anyway. And the amazing thing is that you're going to be shocked and ask for evidence. Then it all just starts all over again.

[rockysigman]

artknocker said:

I did not say that anyone who is against the war and/or attacks Bush because of it is a moral relativist. Please don't simplify my posts like that. Re-read them if you need to. Christ.

I re-read your post a few times and I still have no idea what moral relativism has to do with anything you were talking about. I'd say it was completely irrelevent to your argument, except for the fact that you cited your hatred for moral relativism several times over your last few posts.

[Artknocker]

Sept 11 was a TERRIBLE TRAGEDY, and I won't have you diminish my respect of that. What I am trying to show you is that a FAR MORE TERRIBLE TRAGEDY THAN THAT IS UNDERWAY CURRENTLY, and it is the UTTERLY FRUITLESS WAR IN IRAQ, an event that is now responsible for having VICIOUSLY MURDERED so many more human beings than were killed on 911 that it really makes you wonder if there is any justice whatsoever in what we're doing.

Moral relativism. He confirmed it for me. It's just not a rational argument.


Take your 'GOSPEL TRUTH' and KEEP IT TO YOURSELVES, why don't you? That's another thing going down the shitter in this country: our first amendment rights . . .

Keep it to myself? What about my First Amendment right? Funny how Thorn (and Shin who encourages me to choke on my own tongue) are all for free speech--except when it comes to opposing viewpoints, that is. Then that speech has to be silenced.

[rockysigman]

artknocker said:

Sept 11 was a TERRIBLE TRAGEDY, and I won't have you diminish my respect of that. What I am trying to show you is that a FAR MORE TERRIBLE TRAGEDY THAN THAT IS UNDERWAY CURRENTLY, and it is the UTTERLY FRUITLESS WAR IN IRAQ, an event that is now responsible for having VICIOUSLY MURDERED so many more human beings than were killed on 911 that it really makes you wonder if there is any justice whatsoever in what we're doing.

Moral relativism. He confirmed it for me. It's just not a rational argument.

That's not moral relativism. Mary provided a pretty good definition there.

What you're calling moral relativism is really just calling one thing more or less immoral than another. That's not what moral relativism is. It's just the opposite actually.