Government and philosophy - Page 3

On February 10 2011 06:11 Millitron wrote:
I'm friends IRL with the OP, and have had discussions like this with him in the past, so when he said that the government's purpose is to protect the people, I am 99% sure he doesn't mean protection like in a Nanny State. He's more worried with the people's liberties being protected rather than their physical health.

Wherebugsgo, I think we're both arguing for the same thing, and our differences are simply misunderstandings. I don't think self-defense is always justified, and I agree there are specific instances which are not justified, but we can't just get rid of all self-defense because its misused here and there. Its a matter for the courts, and so since it has to be judged on a case-by-case basis, doesn't make for very good discussion in an abstract sense.

On the issue of global scale self-defense, I saw that specialist team idea as a means to avoid all the hardship we've caused the local populace while still removing the terrorists. I see that a corrupt administration could eliminate peaceful, political enemies this way, but they could do that with a full-scale invasion too. I agree we should get support of the country which harbored those individuals as well, unless they seem to be in league with the leaders of said country.

Afghanistan is a perfect example of this. The people who plotted 9/11 were (or maybe still are?) in Afghanistan. While the government of Afghanistan had nothing to do with it, they also do not have the means nor the will to extradite the offenders. The best course of action I think would be to simply have special forces teams nab the terrorists in the night, hopefully with permission from the Afghan government. Much less hardship for both sides than a full-scale war.

On February 11 2011 02:42 Millitron wrote:
Look, Al-Qaeda operatives planned 9/11. Sure they were Saudis and not Afghans, but Al-Qaeda did have a major presence in Afghanistan. It doesn't really matter where someone is from, but rather where they are now. Why invade Saudi Arabia to look for the 9/11 conspirators when we know they aren't there? Its like with Bonnie and Clyde. They were both originally from Texas, but they caught them in Louisiana. They could've searched Texas all they wanted, but they'd never find them.

I agree that the wars were a pretty bad idea, but you can't just condemn terrorists, and expect it to have an effect. We condemn criminals all the time, but lo and behold, there's still crime. You have to actually physically stop the terrorists, because as history has shown, no one has ever been deterred from anything by a simple condemnation. Whether that physical intervention is a full-scale invasion, or just a few special forces strikes is another question entirely.
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As for accomplishments of the two wars, in Afghanistan, we've captured or killed numerous Al-Qaeda leaders, including iirc their second-in-command, as well as thousands of lower ranking "front-line" members. In Iraq, we deposed the absolutely brutal Hussein regime, which, while it did not help the War on Terror, is still a good thing. Further, while we did not find anywhere near the amount of WMD's we were told existed, we DID find a few artillery shells full of poison gas (Sarin gas iirc). I agree the invasion of Iraq wasn't necessary, or even a good idea, but it hasn't been ALL bad

On February 11 2011 06:50 wherebugsgo wrote:


No, it's not like Bonnie and Clyde. If you want to make the comparison, make it accurate. If we took the Afghan approach to finding terrorists and applied it to finding wild west criminals, it would be like bombing the entire western United States because, say, we know Bonnie and Clyde were last seen somewhere in the Rockies. The collateral damage would be billions of dollars and the lives of thousands of innocent civilians. For what? Two criminals hiding in a cave.

Second, sure, there were Al-Qaeda operatives in Afghanistan. But there were more in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Oman, Algeria, Sudan, Syria, and Lebanon, but you didn't see the U.S. pursue any of those regions. In fact, the only reason terrorist concentrations rose after 2002 in Afghanistan was because we invaded them! The invasion sparked increases in recruitments AND deaths, but did nothing to actually reduce the reasons for terrorism.

Terrorists act against the United States because they believe we are a superpower and a bully. They believe that Americans are ignorant of the world and that we let our government walk over them. They do not like our unquestionable support for Israel. By invading Middle Eastern countries, we confirm these belief and encourage more terrorism.

In fact, from that view, Americans ARE ignorant about why Muslim countries dislike us. About half of Americans believe it has to do with "our freedom" or "our democracy." In fact, it has much more to do with American foreign policy and the conflicts we have instigated, and this reaches back through the Cold War.

On the other hand, what happens if you approach the situation diplomatically, and strengthen our defense at home rather than squandering billions of dollars in doing little more than "overthrowing" a government and simultaneously killing hundreds of thousands of people? Well, you don't exacerbate hate for America. You don't give terrorist agencies an opportunity to recruit more members. The world was behind us after 9/11, and the United States decided to act immaturely in rage by invading political entities that had less to do with the attacks and more to do with the personal convictions of our leaders. We blew a perfect opportunity to effect more peace worldwide by needlessly invading two countries that couldn't be pinpointed to a map by more than half of this country.



And what's happened with terrorist activity and recruitment? It hasn't slowed. Incidents have stayed steady or risen since our invasion.

By our mere presence in both countries, we and the terrorists are killing thousands of innocent civilians. We have accomplished nil. Our security at home is no better than it was 9 years ago; we're merely more paranoid. Undercover U.S. agents, for example, have routinely been able to sneak bomb-making materials past airport security officials for years. Yet, we continue to waste money by sending U.S. citizens to die in wars that have claimed the lives of 120,000 civilians at LEAST in both theatres combined, a figure that is forty times the death toll on 9/11. This speaks nothing of the injuries, the economic damage, or the damage to our worldwide reputation. The world hates us because we go around waving a massive stick that basically symbolizes our country's hypocrisy.

The "absolutely brutal Hussein regime?" LOL. The war in Iraq has now killed, by the most conservative estimate, at least 115,000 people. The toll ranges from anywhere between 100,000 and 600,000 casualties, and all of this over an 8 year span, as the war began in 2003. It is estimated that anywhere between 200,000 and 800,000 casualties occurred under Saddam Hussein's regime of roughly 24 years. While I'm not defending Saddam Hussein's regime, one can clearly see the more "brutal" here...

Finally, the best way to show that the U.S. has been the hypocrite of the world? We used to call Osama bin Laden a "freedom fighter" in the 1980s. Nothing he has done has changed since then, but now he's a "terrorist." Heck, we probably provided his "terrorist organization" the same armament they use today to kill U.S. soldiers.

On February 11 2011 10:12 Millitron wrote:

I am well aware that the wars are dumb, and that Iraq was a pretty stupid place to invade. Don't go blaming civilian deaths the terrorists have caused on us though. Because by that logic, England caused all the civilian casualties in the Battle of Britain. We aren't the ones killing civilians in Iraq, the insurgents are. They are the brutal ones. Plus, remember Saddamn used poison gas (VX I think?) on his own citizens. He wiped out multiple villages with the stuff. He had torture chambers where he had political opposition eliminated. How do you propose to approach the situation diplomatically? Negotiating with terrorists only shows them that terrorism is effective, and that they should do it more often.

Some of the more fundamentalist Muslims DO hate democracy as well. The idea is that if the people decide the laws, they could in theory make a law that was against Sharia Law.

Osama hated us well before we waged any wars in the middle east. Al-Qaeda bombed US embassies in Africa well before we ever waged a war in the middle east.

On February 04 2011 02:58 Kimaker wrote:
Thus gain, or property, as satisfaction is indicative of sadism and thus a mental disturbance, is the reason for the existence of government.

On February 13 2011 13:07 wherebugsgo wrote:


Number one, are you off your rocker? No, that is NOT my logic. If you think that's logic, then you need to seriously reconsider your definition of the word.

By my logic, the Germans were responsible for the civilian deaths in England, and the Allies (the English included) were responsible for the civilian deaths in Dresden, Berlin, and Potsdam. Let's not even talk about Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The U.S. has killed thousands of civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan. Sure, the insurgents have too, but the U.S. actually possesses ways of killing civilians more efficiently (unfortunately) Coalition friendly fire has caused plenty of deaths too.

Second, what does what Saddam did have to do with our involvement in the area? I could say the same about COUNTLESS dictators around the world, yet the U.S. does nothing to stop them. The simple fact of the matter is, we are not the international police. It is not our job to go and invade countries just because they're run in a way different to our system. We are a democracy, and we were created through the revolt of the people. We were not created by some liberator country that invaded the colonies to lift the British rule. Thus, we should treat other countries similarly; democracy can only spread as the will of the people.

What the fuck are you talking about? Fundamentalist Muslims don't hate democracy any more than we do. Have you even read the news in the past 3 weeks? If Muslims hated democracy, why did hundreds of thousands of people in Egypt protest and demand that Hosni Mubarak step down? The U.S. diplomatically handled the situation in Egypt. If we invaded and overthrew Mubarak then the Egyptian people would hate us and think that we were there for our own self-interest. In fact, that would probably be true just as it is true in Iraq.

We don't negotiate with terrorists. We negotiate with the states where we think they may be hiding. Negotiation with political entities is possible because those states know their own lands better than we do. They know what the terrorists want, and they know ways to reduce the reasons for violence. In Africa, for example, terrorist and rebel groups exist because of corrupt governments and widespread poverty. We can't just go and invade Africa because there are violent groups there. If we did, the entire world would turn on us. We can provide African countries aid and negotiate with the existing political entities there (including the UN) however.

With terrorism, the U.S. should have acted calmly after 9/11 and rallied the support it was shown by the world. We should have launched a campaign to educate the U.S. people about Muslims and Islam, to show the average American that most Muslims are not radical terrorists bent on bringing down America. We should have strengthened our security policies and not just squandered money on new technologies such as full-body scanners that are far more ineffective than well-trained security personnel.

We should have partnered with European, commonwealth, and Asian countries to closely monitor transportation lanes and places that would be of interest to those who possess the intent to inflict hurt upon us. We should have improved our emergency system responses and put more money into the public safety system so that in the case of a disaster, confusion does not add to the problems already present. This would help not only with terrorism, but also with natural disasters such as Hurricane Katrina (which was a total fail on the part of the government because the reform to emergency services and public safety had just not happened) and earthquakes.

We should have begun talks with the governments of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Yemen, India, Indonesia, Pakistan, etc. with the help of the U.N. and NATO to help combat terrorism at its roots.

The simple fact of the matter is, if you attack insurgents directly, you'll kill some, sure. You'll lose some of your own people as well. However, you haven't done anything to solve the issue of WHY terrorists exist. Instead, you'll see recruitment go up because the terrorists now have even more of a reason to fight. This is exactly what we've seen recently. Insurgents die, but they're easily replaced. You can always find more radicals to support your cause if the cause is ever-present. In the eyes of the terrorists, the oppressive United States has not left the Middle East yet. Until our military presence there is minimal like it was before 2001, we will continue to encounter conflict.