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loretian
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Alright, good responses. I'm looking forward to responding too.
Just wanted to let you guys know, it seems our posts times seem to be me in the morning, and most of you guys in the evening/night, and I just haven't had the time yet today to give a proper response (or even read everything yet).
I'm going to try and do it when I get off work, but if not, it might not be until tomorrow morning before I can do it.
Posted on 2004-03-04 20:07:17
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Tatzen
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Preserving stalactites? Who's heart would we break, seriously. The billions of drops of water wont be upset, I promise. Also, it seems incredibly lame to say, "don't you go playing with those evil rulers, and buying their oil. but OVERALL, please do not break the stalactites. mother nature spent 4 billion years on those and she will be very upset!"
I am extremely confused. What will be the result of destroying a small ecosystem, smashed into the frozen lands of alaska, hundreds of miles away from civilization be? It doesn't appear to be the least bit threatening... But I am not a tree hugger.
As for reasoning with the terrorists, I suggest we send a team of negotiators to the next al-qaeda camp we find. Their family will get a folded american flag, but they'll understand. We just wanted to talk. Religiously insane zealots, hellbent on destroying the infedels are not going to reason with us. That's insane. Next we will begin to negotiate with huge bears. After all, we were on their turf, they have a right to be pissed. Oh hey, maybe the next guy that tries to murder me for the contents of my wallet will also be interested in smalltalk, and reasoning. I mean HEY, what was I doing with a wallet full of money and a will to live. Damn. I was out of line. I shall have to correct that.
You greatly overestimate the mental capacity of the terrorists. If they were sane enough to comprehend negotiation, they wouldn't be offing themselves at regular intervals as a means of victory. Seriously. Picture an al-qaeda member telling an American, "Hmm ok. I didn't think of it that way. Hold on I'll call off the suicide bombers."
fsdjfklsdjf rage.
Posted on 2004-03-05 11:36:44
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RageCage
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ok, well first off... there ARE a lot of people in alaska, about 700,000. although I'm not really sure what about the enviroment up there is so much more important than some other oil rich place.
Posted on 2004-03-05 14:04:55
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Troupe
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Preserving stalactites? Who's heart would we break, seriously. The billions of drops of water wont be upset, I promise.
Hey have you heard of that park, whats it called... Yellowstone? Its supposed to be some sort of nature preserve... preserve, like nature or something... You know, maybe we should protect it... Awww fuck it, lets just torch the whole damn thing.
The reason we protect stuff in nature is so that we can enjoy it. I'm not saying if we harvest stalactites, mother nature is going to unleash her mighty wrath and kill us all in a mega VERGE inspired apocolypse, but you cant just go around destroying nature. You know those people, I think they're called environmentalists... Yeah, I'm pretty sure those people understand the environment. They understand that you can't just go destroying everything, because everything has a connection or relationship, whether its readily appearant or not. We think we can do anything we want because it doesnt affect us, but thats not how it works. Everything affects us, whether we know it or not, because the whole earth is just a huge ass web of biomass and inorganic matter. Sure, you could say, "I hate mosquitoes. Lets kill mosquitoes." And kill all the mosquitoes. But then bats and birds would have no food, and then rats would have no predators, so we would have a rat infestation, and if we klled rats and mice, then insects would start to overrun us, etc etc. Its ignorant to think you can destroy "isolated" ecosystems without widespread reprocussions.
You greatly overestimate the mental capacity of the terrorists. If they were sane enough to comprehend negotiation, they wouldn't be offing themselves at regular intervals as a means of victory.
No, its not that I overestimate the mental capacity of terrorists. Its that you have been the victim of masses of propaganda, my friend. I'm not sure how they did it, but somehow, some media managed to convince you that terrorists are not humans. I assume you think they must be monkeys or maybe giant nutria. I mean my god, do you think there is NO WAY to give these terrorists what they want? Maybe they just want us leave them the fuck alone and stop trying to police them. We haven't tried everything, dont allow yourself to be defeated so easily. If we think we have to kill every last one of them, then they've won. Thats what they want. They want us to go crazy and start killing people left and right. 1,000 or 2,000 people died in the WTC attacks. 10,000 have died so far in Iraq. How is that helping anyone? We are blowing the shit out of their country, how is that going to help terrorism? Thats just going to make us hate them more. Its like if a bully threw a pebble at you, and you whipped out an M16 and capped him. His friends are gonna be like,"Uhhhh, hey, you just killed my friend..." and they are going to do everything in their power to kick your ass.
fsdjfklsdjf rage.
What on earth does this mean?
My posts always seem so incoherent to me... maybe they'll make more sense to you. I always have to much to say and no words to express it.
Posted on 2004-03-05 14:19:37
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Omni
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What ticks me off the most is that Bush calls it a War on Terrorism.
You've heard before that you can't fight an idea, and that's certainly true. But he's not actually fighting the idea of terrorism. Instead, he uses the idea of Americans versus Terrorism to righteously inspire Americans into defeating what certainly must be an evil. Bush forces you to accept it as black or white. Either you're for us or against us. Good or evil.
And that's wrong. You can't fight terrorism. That's an idea. You can fight terrorists. Those are the people who put the idea into practice.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying war is completely wrong. I'm not saying it's right. In fact, I believe it's necessary when you have an enemy that will surrender at nothing to destroy you. When there is no way you can compromise or stop the threat, the only way to provide security to those in danger is to remove the threat. But the threat isn't the idea of Terrorism. It's people. Bush makes the decision much too shallow.
And the minute we start fighting other people, and not just an idea, it quits becoming black and white. We aren't talking about a War on Evil. We're talking about a war on people who apparently believe they have their own religious justification. And I don't care what their excuse is, but once we bring people into the equation, it quits becoming black and white and becomes a number of shades of gray.
But no, Bush doesn't tell you that. He doesn't tell you that terrorists are people, he doesn't tell you that he has declared war on not an idea, but a virtual demographic. He doesn't tell you that we've lost a lot of international support, but simply tells you that we don't need allies who would support terrorism.
He does tell you that America must fight a righteous war against a depersonalized, unrighteous enemy. Does this make it easier to stomach for those doing the fighting? Maybe.
Have you ever read those cliche stories about a chivalrous knight who is an overzealous advocate of justice, and deals it out so harsh because he doesn't actually think of the people, he only thinks of the crime they commit? Bush will hurt a lot of people--and they won't all be terrorists.
Posted on 2004-03-06 15:01:26 (last edited on 2004-03-06 15:03:36)
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mcgrue
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posted by tatzen
fsdjfklsdjf rage.
Remember the zen, tat. the zen!
Posted on 2004-03-06 17:09:38
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Tatzen
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The terrorists _are_ fucking animals. And to "give them what they want" is to surrender. Have a little fucking spine and national identity, jesus. When the japanese bombed pearl harbor, we did not call them up and say, "oh shit my bad. what'd we do wrong". no. we went to war and eventually nuked their asses. Problem solved. And the japanese were more human than these scumbags.
Posted on 2004-03-07 01:31:05
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Omni
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Keep in mind that we did that with regret. Even Truman wasn't sure he wanted to unleash the atomic bomb on Japan--he considered it too brutal to kill so much human life.
Anybody see a correlation between Japanese suicide bombers and Muslim Fundamentalist suicide bombers? Just a thought.
Posted on 2004-03-07 01:34:01
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TomT64
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If you're going to vote against Bush, vote Democrat. Because if you don't, tyou give Bush more of a chance to win, and if you like Nader, voting Democrat is helping ensure that the environment doesn't get WORSE, like it would if Bush wins. Also, anyone who says the future is in good hands with Bush is insane. All you get from him is minor money from tax cuts. I know Kerry wants to move the tax cut benefits to who REALLY needs them, not the rich people. So it's to your benefit if you're reading this board ALL THE WAY AROUND to vote Democrat. Please also note that within 10 years everyone is going to lynch anyone who had anything to do with fucking up the environment, so act now before you're one of those people who gets lynched!
Posted on 2004-03-07 01:52:05
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TomT64
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Oh yeah and one other thing. A president can't "fix" the economy as fast as he can wreck it. This goes for anyone in office. If you overspend (which Bush indeed did do) then you fuck up the economy. Plain and simple.
Posted on 2004-03-07 01:58:07
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Tatzen
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Actually anyone with any military strategic knowledge would know that nuking that decision was for the better. It may be regretful to have to drop the bomb, but it was certainly less regretful than losing the estimated 500,000-1,000,000 americans it would have required to sack mainland japan.
Also for the record, we killed a lot more civilians in single bombing runs than we did with the nukes. They were flashy and messy and powerful enough to scare the japanese into surrendering.
Posted on 2004-03-07 08:17:48
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Omni
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Well, yes, that too. Truman did figure he'd rather lose some Japanese rather than a million of his own troops. At least he did show some reservation though. That's all I'm saying.
Posted on 2004-03-07 17:49:45
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RageCage
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Actually anyone with any military strategic knowledge would know that nuking that decision was for the better. It may be regretful to have to drop the bomb, but it was certainly less regretful than losing the estimated 500,000-1,000,000 americans it would have required to sack mainland japan.
actually anyone with any strategic knoledge wouldent have thought that. we had a few choices in this situation.
1) bomb them without warning- lots of jap death, no american death(except 2 americanm prisioners apparently)
2) invade with our military- lots of american death and jap death but it would have been more fair I guess you could say...
3) threaten the japanese by saying we have nuclear bombs- might work considering they were so god damn close to defeat, but no one really knew the power of nuclear bombs at that time.
4) use the atom bomb on a uninhabited area of land in or close to japan(or as close to uninhabited as we can get)- this would have been the choice to make in my opinion. we had 2 bombs anyway, japanese were close to defeat, and this would sucessfully show the power of nuclear bombs. if we had done this, it is very possible we could have avoided the huge tragedy that was.
Also for the record, we killed a lot more civilians in single bombing runs than we did with the nukes. They were flashy and messy and powerful enough to scare the japanese into surrendering.
if you know about the effects of radiation from a nuke, they dont go away very fast at all. The radiation of the atom bomb still effect the japanese to this day but theyve had to learn to live with it.
Posted on 2004-03-07 18:21:09
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RageCage
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The terrorists _are_ fucking animals. And to "give them what they want" is to surrender. Have a little fucking spine and national identity, jesus. When the japanese bombed pearl harbor, we did not call them up and say, "oh shit my bad. what'd we do wrong". no. we went to war and eventually nuked their asses. Problem solved. And the japanese were more human than these scumbags.
holy shit. these "terrorists" are humans, remember? people don't do shit for no reason. osama's little terrorist party had some actual reasons to be heard. now dont get me wrong, what they did was wrong and cannot be justified but the US has done things just as bad if not worse only you dont hear about them because of PR.
we treated the japanese worse than we are these "terrorist". we actually put the majority of all japanese in america in camps and later realized that not one of them were a threat. infact there was only 2 threats found in america, both white americans who were spys for japan.
now this war on terrorism and these terrorist we refer to today are iraqis... what the fuck did the iraqis do that defines them as terrorists? the fact they're middle eastern? or maybe because they're keeping all that precious oil from us?
Posted on 2004-03-07 18:31:43
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andy
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I do not understand "national identity".
Posted on 2004-03-07 23:41:02
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Troupe
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The terrorists _are_ fucking animals. And to "give them what they want" is to surrender. Have a little fucking spine and national identity, jesus. When the japanese bombed pearl harbor, we did not call them up and say, "oh shit my bad. what'd we do wrong". no. we went to war and eventually nuked their asses. Problem solved. And the japanese were more human than these scumbags.
SPIN ATTACK!! SPIN ATTACK!!!
Obviously you have not only forgotten your Zen, but also that other people besides you exist and have feelings. We didn't solve any problems by nuking the Japanese. We created a world of problems by nuking the Japanese.
http://www.hiroshima-is.ac.jp/Hiroshima/radiation.htm
Remember that just because we make these people faceless enemies, they are still people just like us. I really encourage you to go to Hiroshima, and visit the peace park there. It shows you what a difference religion can have on people. The Japanese believe in harmony, nature, etc. They took one of the worst events in human history and made a fucking peace park out of it. What would we have done? We would have started another cycle of violence/vengeance and gotten more people killed. I really encourage you to go visit Hiroshima, not only for the peace park, but also so can see some of the memorials there (like the spot where the bomb was dropped). Its incredibly sadistic to say that we solved any problems by "nuking their asses". If you can go look face to face with a child that was affected by radiation sickness, or watch some footage of the aftereffects of the bombings, or tell someone who witnessed the events or lost someone to them you were glad it happened, and still come out unscathed, I'll leave you alone. But I'll still feel sorry for you.
Also, Omni's was unbelievely close to my own opinion. We saw the exact same thing in WWII with the Japanese. I've seen some propaganda videos that basically try to make the Japanese seem like they're all one, faceless enemy. Like, "Its just one big war machine that wants to take away our freedoms and liberties. Be scared, and kill them." Don't let propaganda convince you that people aren't people.
Posted on 2004-03-08 00:47:59
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arias
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Hey I'm not American so I don't know much about all these issues although I do read the papers.. Basically as an Asian, (I'm Indonesian but I studied in Singapore), I'd have to say that my general impression is that most asians do not like America.
We think of it as the land of the arrogant.. We cannot deny the fact that the US is the most powerful and richest nation in the world, but we do not see the sense of its arrogance and it's "We're the world-police, play by our rules." foreign policy. Of course not all asians are educated and many have a lack of understanding of the real workings of policies and the tradeoffs you have to make in decisions.
However, when the 9/11 incident happened and I was studying in my school hostel then, some of the hostelites (from an up and coming asian juggernaut nation..) actually cheered! Same for some Singaporeans.. the same happened for malay Indonesians and etc. I imagine this response would not be the same if the 9/11 happened on other countries in the world. There is a simple, direct hatred for American bigotry.
Just some asian perspective to give a global picture.
And tat-i-forgot-i-am-tat-zen said : And the japanese were more human than these scumbags.
Did you know what the japs did in WWII? Some examples other than the typical of rape, pillage and murder. They impaled newborn babies by throwing them in the air using their bayonets to pierce them (there are pictures.. I don't have them though). Some torture methods including forcing a person to drink a whole barrel of water, and then JUMPING on that person's stomach.
Of course, there are many others, but I'd say that there's no distinction between a fucker, and a motherfucker. Both are still fucked up.
Posted on 2004-03-08 03:23:04 (last edited on 2004-03-08 03:25:17)
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vecna
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This thread is really annoying. ^_^
I find myself mostly agreeing with Technetium, as a libertarian-leaning pseudo republican. Well, I am a republican... but I have a lot of gripes with the republican party presently and with this administration.
But if you ask me, regardless of your political ideology, unless you are exactly perfectly happy with either of the existing parties, the enemy of political progress is this two party system we've somehow ended up with. So long as we're locked in a perpetual 49/51 battle, there will be strikingly little difference between the parties in control and there will never be any break in business as usual.
I strongly disagree with the liberal ideology, but you know what, if Kerry wins.... extremely little will be any different.
Of course, it will never change. Hence: massive apathy and h8.
Anyway, to all the America haters out there who say stuff like 'Hiroshima is one of the worst events in human history' - please check this site for a little perspective. America is by no means innocent and always right, but we're hardly the bad guy that we're often painted as (and I realize that no one here has quite made that claim).
Hiroshima was a large loss of life, but it was quite probably the path of least bloodshed to end the war that JAPAN (and Germany) started.
As they say in B5, "Never start a fight, but always finish it."
Posted on 2004-03-08 03:48:05
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Toen
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A motherfucker is one magnitude greater than a regular fucker.
Posted on 2004-03-08 07:25:35
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mcgrue
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What's next up from motherfucker?
Posted on 2004-03-08 10:07:17
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