And you're wrong again. You'll disagree with me, of course, and you're not going to listen to me, but it bears saying: You are correct that fighting terrorism requires not only that you capture and kill those who are already out to do harm, but to reduce the number of others who will get sucked into such a bad ideology. I think you simply disagree with me that fanaticism is the inevitable by-product of hopelessness and oppression (of course, people like Aluk and I have differeing definitions of oppression. Mine typically involves death camps, torture, and limited economic and personal opportunity. Theirs has little to do with anybody actually being hurt or oppressed, and actually INCLUDES things like freedom and self-determination). Under my view, it makes perfect sense that terrorism, fanaticism, and prejudice rise up in the armpits of the world, such as the Middle East, but is also to be found in the Balkans, South America, Africa, and all Communist nations. The solution, therefore, is to plant freedom, self-determination, and security in these areas.
I won't respond to your entire post Ditto seeing as you've so conveniently rendered your comments irrelevant. But I will say this: Your assumptions of me are unnecessary. I haven't even seen you or heard of you until this post so how you could automatically assume to know what I think is beyond me.
What people for some reason find objectionable is the notion that this requires the use of unbending force against those who do not want these things.
No, that's not it. What we find objectionable is how sloppy and uncaring that force is exerted.
Again, nobody will listen to me when I say that change through 'peaceful humanitarian aid' accomplishes nothing, as has been demonstrated over the last half-century, because it does nothing about the purely criminal thugs who prevent people for getting these things for themselves, and even steal the aid when it comes. You cannot improve people's whole life by giving them your money (or, in the case of the government and most charities, other people's money). Charity is short term. Independence, law (good law), and security, are long term.
How nice of you to separate the points I was making and treat them as if they were to be done individually. Of course humanitarian aid alone cannot solve the problem. Read my post again. Carefully this time. It says that a combination of military force, humanitarian support and the cutting off of financial support will help.
The problem with America's relations with other nations is indeed arrogance, elitism, illogical ideology, and self-righteousness... and I don't mean on our part. We know the lessons of history. It is other nations that have rejected them.
And that's exactly the kind of attitude that got us into this war in the first place. I'd like to bring you back down to reality if I may. America is not a moral superiority just because we have a strong military and a two hundred year old democracy.
That the war was illegal is not exactly universally accepted: http://news.bbc.co.u...ast/3661736.stm
Whether it's accepted or not isn't the issue. The fact that it was illegal is.
I'm not going to pretend that my religion doesn't affect my opposition to gay marriage, because it does. So, I'll say it before and I'll say it again: I am in favor of gay civil unions, just not gay marriage.
Then I will take this as a "yes" to my question that you are in favor of the goverment telling you who you can and can't marry.
I am most certainly not calling homosexuals animals. I'm just saying where do you draw the line? How do you do it?
Who says there has to be a line drawn? What is this need you feel you must have in separating yourself as us and them?
To respond to your last sentence, I'll tell you why divorce isn't entirely bad. Divorced people break up because they realize they don't love each other, at least not as much as they used to. If two people don't love each other, why should they retain a bond of love? To save face? Then it's a sham, and you continue to pervert the sanctity of marriage (five bucks says at least someone interprets this as me calling gay marriage perverted).
So you agree that it is a bond of love and not of man and woman?
The whole point about the war in Iraq has been about long term effects. If Bush was so interested in immediate results, Iraq wouldn't be a warzone right now. But as you stated, we agree on the terrorism thing. Except for one part: the Bush administration has focused on more than just killing terrorists -- we've been preventing attacks (supposedly) and freezing terrorist funds, to cut off their monetary supply.
Immediate results effect long term results. If Bush was interested in long term results he would have secured Iraq early and suppressed any insurgency before it could flare up into a huge rebellion not the other way around.
Also, do you have any facts or evidence to support your claim that we've (as you put it) "supposedly" prevented attacks?
But as Dryth has used against me so many times, peoples and nations are represnted, naturally, by their governments.
My fault I was confusing that with something else.
Taxes pay for things you want and more. Privatizing things mean you only pay for things you want. The quality of roads would be proportional to the number of people who want to drive. Certain things are responsibilities of the government. These include police, firefighters, public education, and a few others. There is nothing wrong with wanting taxes to support these. Fiscal conservatives prefer to leave it at that. Obviously a state with no taxation at all will have some problems.
For services you actually want, you'd pay just as much. You just lose the convenience of thinking things like roads and parks are free.
I'm not sure what you're driving at. I thought I did, but I don't.
You just described every serious politician ever. Politicians in the country only have any foresight up to 4 or 6 years, depending on the office. This is why environmental issues are constantly ignored and we aren't doing anything about the depletion of oil. If they can't see effects before the election, career politicians see no point in starting policies.
You missed the point of what I was saying. What I meant by "immediate results" is that Bush was more interested in winning the war instead of what they were going to do afterwards. Same thing with the tax cuts. He was more interested in cutting taxes then in planning long term spending.
A question for both thabto and Hero? How is it the government's duty to protect the sanctity of marraige? Marraige is a moral issue.
That's exactly what I'm saying. It's not.
It's political equivalent is the civil union. I propose make civil unions fully legal, and marriage fully moral. This ways gays and atheists can have civil unions and get their tax breaks and visitation rights. Religious people get the civil union plus the sanctity of marraige and spiritual union.
But you're forgetting one very important thing: Gay people can be religious, too. And I'm sure that they hold the word marriage just as high in their book as you and HoW hold it.
P.S. I liked how Thabto countered the slipper slope fallacy with the slippery slope fallacy and you all want to pay him for it.
It's my technique, see. You counter a fallacy with another fallacy.
Seriously though, if you look back at the definition of slippery slope fallacy you'll see that in order for it to count as such b and c must be presented without any evidence to support them as the next logical step. In the case of HoW's fallacy there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever that any government would allow people to marry animals. In the case of my (supposed) fallacy I have the examples of segragation and the constitutional (and dare I say Christian) justification of slavery and that no slave can be truly counted as a human being. Sorry Steve. Try again.
Thank you thabto. Excellent point. I think you deserve a cash prize for that.
I'd like small, unmarked, nonsequential bills please as I plan to be leaving the country soon in search of a cave with a built in refrigerator and network connection.
