| |
vecna
|
I've posted this before, but check out this before you call nagasaki and hiroshima the '2nd biggest crimes against humanity'. Its probably in the top 20 if you disregard the arguement about it actually saving lives, I won't touch that one either way, but its definitely not the 2nd.
I agree with grue. politics is teh gay.
vote 3rd party in 2004!
Posted on 2004-06-23 22:55:36
|
Zip
|
Fair point, on a purely numeric basis. Indeed, it's not even the largest committed (and brushed aside) by America. However I do feel that the introduction of atomics to the world in such a manner warrants a great deal more abhorrence than that tends to get. For all of the cold war paranoia over the bomb, America are still the only country to have used it. It certainly has been a good century for genocide, though I think that site trying to attribute blame to one person for each is a little unrealistic.
As for politics - I think anyone who says they want to be a politician should be immediately disqualified.
Zip
[Edit: Boy that's a dodgy source you've given there vec, just been reading a bit more of his stuff and his rhetoric is as partisan as they come. I like this rather idealised essay on American politics. However, your point is still valid, even though many of his aren't]
Posted on 2004-06-23 23:32:20 (last edited on 2004-06-24 00:00:30)
|
Zip
|
Don't mean to be coming across as anti-American here - more anti-people-with power. It was after all Europe that was the prime exploiter and killer of the previous century. Just something about being in charge that make people think doing whatever they want is the right thing. It may even be that the current conflicts turn out amicably, I just don't think Bush and Blair should be encouraged to think that it's right to start wars.
Zip
Posted on 2004-06-23 23:47:55
|
Alex
|
Quote:Originally posted by Zip
It was after all Europe that was the prime exploiter and killer of the previous century.
You mean Asia? By that list alone five of the top six were Asian, with the Holocaust being the only European genocide in the top 30 (obviously counting the USSR as being primarily in Asia).
Posted on 2004-06-24 00:04:57
|
Zip
|
previous By which I meant previous to the one being discussed, so 1800-1900. Boy, I never knew living in the 21st century would get so confusing. :D
Zip
Posted on 2004-06-24 00:11:24
|
vecna
|
This guys views are irrelevant, only the number are what I was citing; I dont think anyone really disputes these numbers, this is just the best page that had them all in one place on a quick google search.
I don't really understand why "its worse" that it was a nuclear attack, why that makes it somehow worse than slaughtering people any other way. Nuclear bombs are still basically just big bombs. A massive modern conventional bomb like the 'Daisy Cutter' unleashed in New York would still cause destruction on an incredible scale. The fact of the matter is, we can probably 'destroy the world many times over' without even needing to resort to nuclear weapons. Obviously there's the radiation, but again, thats not really any worse than say, biological/chemical warfare - which countries like Japan, Germany, and Iraq under Saddam have already engaged in.
The nuclear blast killed just as many people as an otherwise concerted bombing campaign against the same population center would have. But a conventional bombing raid would not have [immediately] ended the war. At that point in history, an atomic bomb was able to, largely because it was new, and Japan did not know we only had two of them - it was the 'shock and awe' factor that was more important than the casualties.
Posted on 2004-06-24 01:21:45
|
Zip
|
As I said, your point is still valid.
My main point over this is NOT any empirical one, rather that this was a major mark in indiscriminate, and lasting destruction, and one that has largely been forgotten.
Zip
Posted on 2004-06-24 01:41:58
|
Alex
|
Quote: Originally posted by Zip
[Edit: Boy that's a dodgy source you've given there vec, just been reading a bit more of his stuff and his rhetoric is as partisan as they come. I like this rather idealised essay on American politics. However, your point is still valid, even though many of his aren't]
What a discovery, Zip! He's not so much a partisan as a complete nutter! I don't think I've ever seen a single article that says so many outrageously silly things and contradicts itself so many times. And his side column "A note on USA vs Europe, 2003", is worth a chuckle or two. Overall, he has some rather strange views about his own country, but clearly knows nothing whatsoever about the rest of the world whom he sees as being some kind of morally-inferior subspecies.
"France even banned the English language"
No it didn't. Please don't ever write any more articles.
Quote: Originally posted by vecna
The nuclear blast killed just as many people as an otherwise concerted bombing campaign against the same population center would have.
I'd disagree with that. Regular bombing takes much longer and is much less effective. During the Blitz on London the Nazis killed, through an 8 month day and night bombing campaign, a total of about 40,000 civilians. Whereas 100,000 people in Hiroshima alone were killed instantly with no chance of escape.
Posted on 2004-06-24 02:01:59
|
Zip
|
Hehe Alex, you're great. By the way, according to our friend, this is what we've been up to in the UK the last ten years:
1994: the "Chunnel" between Britain and France opens
1996: the "mad cow disease" spreads in Britain and millions of cows have to be slaughtered
1997: Britain cedes Hong Kong back to China
1997: Joanne Kathleen Rowling publishes the first Harry Potter book, destined to become a world-wide phenomenon
1997: British biologist Ian Wilmut clones a sheep, Dolly.
1997: Lady Diana dies in a mysterious car accident
1998: Britain and northern Ireland agree on a solution for autonomy
1999: Scotland inaugurates its own Parliament
1999: NATO bombs Serbia to stop repression against ethnic Albanians in Kosovo
2000: the serial killer Harold Shipman, a doctor, is sentenced to life in prison for murdering 15 patients while working at a hospital, but is suspected to have killed between 215 and 260 people over a 23-year period, mainly elderly women, by lethal injection.
2000: Eva Morris dies at 115, the oldest British person of all times
2000: British and American biologists decipher the entire human DNA
2001: Britain fights alongside the USA against Afghanistan
2003: British Airways retires the supersonic jet Concorde
2003: Tony Blair and George W Bush order the invasion of Iraq to depose Saddam Hussein
This is my fav. though, in his 'Wars and Casualties of the 20th Century':
2003: Iraq's liberation war - USA, UK and Australia vs Saddam Hussein (14,000)
Classic.
Zip
Posted on 2004-06-24 02:25:59
|
vecna
|
Quote:Originally posted by Alex
I'd disagree with that. Regular bombing takes much longer and is much less effective. During the Blitz on London the Nazis killed, through an 8 month day and night bombing campaign, a total of about 40,000 civilians. Whereas 100,000 people in Hiroshima alone were killed instantly with no chance of escape.
While that was true at the time, due to inaccuracy, lower yields, slower planes, and poorer navigation, in today's world we could easily kill 100,000 people with no chance of escape using conventional weapons - for whatever comfort you can take from that. Of course, now is not the past, but my point is simply that I reject the notion that Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings were 'more evil' than the sum of their death toll because it was nuclear rather than any other means we have of killing the same number of people. The difference was that because it was nuclear, it ended the war, while other methods would not have. In other words, it had a lesser cost of lives for peace. While attempting to apply such logic to moral arguements where people's lives are involved is rather turbid, the morality or immorality of war is a difficult enough thing to define to begin with.
Posted on 2004-06-24 02:26:08
|
loretian
|
Quote:Originally posted by RageCage
That is all taken from the first 3 paragraphs, see the negitive opinionated remarks? Thats called name-calling.
Uh... what?? Being negative is not called "name calling". I'm not even arguing with whether he's been negative or not, but name calling refers to calling someone or something a name (usually in a negative sense), which he doesn't do.
Anyway, yeah, it's negative, of course. That's the whole point of the article. However, I'd consider it very positive compared to anything Moore has to say, since it's not rooted in lies.
Posted on 2004-06-24 04:58:38
|
Gayo
|
Posted on 2004-06-24 10:51:50
|
Alex
|
Quote:Originally posted by vecna
While that was true at the time, due to inaccuracy, lower yields, slower planes, and poorer navigation, in today's world we could easily kill 100,000 people with no chance of escape using conventional weapons.
By chance of escape I mean that with conventional weapons you can jump into your car and drive away when they start falling, or go and hide in the cellar or something and you're not guaranteed to die or even end up with a single scratch. But driving away or hiding from a nuclear weapon would be a pointless waste of your last few seconds (not to say impossible because as soon as you knew about it, you'd be dead anyway). And if the blast itself doesn't get you the lasting effects probably will - 140,000 were dead in Hiroshima by the end of 1945. But this is still all numbers and stuff. I think the objection a lot of people had/have was that nuclear weapons weren't used to destroy military tagets, as was claimed. The only reason to deploy a weapon capable of levelling a city, is to level a city, for there are no military targets that big. It was a weapon designed specifically to kill 100,000 civilians which is what I think makes it 'more evil' than conventional weapons. And the usage itself was wrong. It wan't necessarily necessary [sic] to use it on a city (let alone two) to prove to Japan how powerful it was. It should have been demonstrated to them by dropping it in a more remote area, and saying something liek "the next one'll be on Tokyo if you don't surrender". Would have been worth a try at least? Anyway, that's just how I see it.
Quote:Originally posted by Zip
This is my fav. though, in his 'Wars and Casualties of the 20th Century':
2003: Iraq's liberation war - USA, UK and Australia vs Saddam Hussein (14,000)
Aha! I'm not the only one who doesn't know which century is which then. It even happens to the best of us... ;)
And in 1997 Harry Potter is mentioned... it sends a shiver down my spine to think that anyone considers that to have been a dominant event of even one year of our history. The Domesday Book was an important book, so was the Magna Carta. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone isn't (except possibly to kids, and Mrs Rowling's bank manager).
Posted on 2004-06-24 12:09:25 (last edited on 2004-06-24 12:41:59)
|
RageCage
|
Quote: Originally posted by loretian
Quote:Originally posted by RageCage
That is all taken from the first 3 paragraphs, see the negitive opinionated remarks? Thats called name-calling.
Uh... what?? Being negative is not called "name calling". I'm not even arguing with whether he's been negative or not, but name calling refers to calling someone or something a name (usually in a negative sense), which he doesn't do.
Anyway, yeah, it's negative, of course. That's the whole point of the article. However, I'd consider it very positive compared to anything Moore has to say, since it's not rooted in lies.
Maybe you should look it up before trying to define it your self.
Name-calling is not professional and generally weakens the arguement. Its wonderful at making people who already support his ideas support him but it's useless as a valid objective argument.
Posted on 2004-06-24 20:21:39 (last edited on 2004-06-24 20:23:44)
|
loretian
|
Quote: Originally posted by RageCage
Maybe you should look it up before trying to define it your self.
Name-calling is not professional and generally weakens the arguement. Its wonderful at making people who already support his ideas support him but it's useless as a valid objective argument.
Well, I honestly don't know what's up with that definition, but I still don't consider that name-calling. Generally speaking, I only consider unprofessional if they're actually doing "mud-slinging", which I don't consider this to be. He's just saying what it is (or what he thinks it is). It seems like you're taking the fact that he trashes it so thoroughly as a reason to say it's not a good argument. Can you argue against the point he makes (once the movie comes out)?
Posted on 2004-06-24 20:34:31
|
Troupe
|
I have to side with lore on this. While his slander was dirty, it wasn't immature.
I have little else to say about that topic, I haven't seen the movie and have no fucking idea what he is talking about.
As far as Hiroshima, that is list is obviously bullshit, becuase Hiroshima killed a couple hundred thousand people, yet isnt on there. I give that list no value whatsoever. Its not whats on there, its the omissions that are important.
Posted on 2004-06-24 22:19:29
|
RageCage
|
Quote: Originally posted by loretian
Quote:Originally posted by RageCage
Maybe you should look it up before trying to define it your self.
Name-calling is not professional and generally weakens the arguement. Its wonderful at making people who already support his ideas support him but it's useless as a valid objective argument.
Well, I honestly don't know what's up with that definition, but I still don't consider that name-calling. Generally speaking, I only consider unprofessional if they're actually doing "mud-slinging", which I don't consider this to be. He's just saying what it is (or what he thinks it is). It seems like you're taking the fact that he trashes it so thoroughly as a reason to say it's not a good argument. Can you argue against the point he makes (once the movie comes out)?
First off, its not their definition that's wrong, its yours... dont act like dictionary.com made a mistake and that the definition is wrong. If you cant accept that then its not worth my time trying to argue anything with you.
With that out of the way, I was emphasizing the slander more than it really is only because you wouldent seem to recognize it as slander.
As for my point as of why I'm bringing up the trash talk, it's a journalists job to write objectively, not to go forcing ideas on people. His objective in his article is to discredit Michael Moore though presenting the 'truth' to the facts Moore brings up in his film. When he starts off his article with trash talk against Moore, it discourages any Moore supporter of reading the rest of his article.
When presenting an argument you want to sway the opposing side to your side, this journalist does a horrible horrible job of doing that.
...
Also, Troupe, how is insulting not immature in the first place?
Posted on 2004-06-24 22:34:14 (last edited on 2004-06-24 22:36:09)
|
Alex
|
The Oxford English Dictionary (defining words since 1879) says that "name-calling" is "abusive language; a crude substitute for argument". Personally, I'd take their definition over dictionary.com's, but I don't see that in the argument anyway. If Mr Hitchens had called Moore an ugly, overweight, overly-hairy orangutan, then he could be accused of name-calling, but I don't see his arguments descending to anything of the like.
Posted on 2004-06-24 23:27:34
|
RageCage
|
you know that name-calling doesnt necessarily have to be direct at a person right? If so... I cant see how you could possibly not see it
Posted on 2004-06-24 23:42:24
|
Alex
|
If you're referring to where he says "to describe this film as a piece of crap would be to run the risk of a discourse that would never again rise above the excremental" then he's saying that he's not calling it a piece of crap, but will explain in better terms in the rest of the article why he would call it a piece of crap if he simply wanted to write a "discourse that would never again rise above the excremental". As for the other remarks regarding Moore or the film, it's pretty difficult to criticise anything without using negative adjectives, unless you write entirely entirely in sarcasm. ;)
Posted on 2004-06-25 00:34:14 (last edited on 2004-06-25 00:35:10)
|
|
|
