Timewaster's Guide Archive

I guess I don't see intelligence about a state in 1990 being equivalent to intelligence about a state in 2002.  My mistake, I forgot Husein had a time machine.  I never said the first gulf war wasn't warranted.

If Bush (and his administration) was trying to stop Husein because of a fear of weapons of mass destruction, I don't think he would have found it necesary to fix the intelligence around his policy of invasion.  It seems like the policy of invasion would have been fixed around the intelligence.  That's generally how "reacting" to something works.  It seems to me like if the administration was less fixed on going to war before they had the intelligence to back it up, they might not have blatantly ignored good intelligence, dismissing it because it doesn't fit with their world view.  And, I don't know, maybe that wouldn't have happened if Bush didn't have people censoring everything he sees and everybody he talks about, and if the administration didn't completely surround itself with yes men who think exactly like them.  That probably would have led to a little more "discussion" about invasion, and little less "ignoring information from our own intelligence divisions."

These boards have no official affiliation with the Mormon faith.

Also, since I can say just about anything I want and it will have the same affect on your posts and attitude towards life, I would like to say that you were banned because there once was a fly and a flea in a flue.  They were stuck there, what could they do?

"Let us fly," said the flea.

Let us flee!" said the fly.  So they flew through a hole in the flue.

Chocolate Sneeze.

Edit:  Spelling was to be desired.

By the way, removing a genocidal maniac from power is not a "social experiment".

Okay, so according to Card we went in to spread democracy and freedom.  I'd say invading a country to see spread ideals in a moderately unfamiliar way is a social experiment.  Secondly

In late February 2002, the CIA sent former Ambassador Joseph Wilson to investigate reports that Iraq was attempting to purchase additional yellowcake from Niger. Wilson returned and informed the CIA that reports of yellowcake sales to Iraq were "unequivocally wrong."...On May 1, 2005 the "Downing Street memo" was published in The Sunday Times. It contained an overview of a secret July 23, 2002 meeting among UK Labour government, defense, and intelligence figures who discussed the build-up to the Iraq war — including direct references to classified U.S. policy of the time. The memo stated, "Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."...On September 18, 2002, George Tenet briefed Bush that Saddam Hussein did not have weapons of mass destruction. Bush dismissed this top-secret intelligence from Saddam's inner circle which was approved by two senior CIA officers, but it turned out to be completely accurate....Indeed, Colin Powell, in his address to the U.N. Security Council just prior to the war, made reference to the aluminum tubes. But a report released by the Institute for Science and International Security in 2002 reported that it was highly unlikely that the tubes could be used to enrich uranium. Powell later admitted he had presented an inaccurate case to the United Nations on Iraqi weapons, and the intelligence he was relying on was, in some cases, "deliberately misleading."

Wikipedia's page on "Iraq War" (second Gulf War), all sources are cited.

Sounds like a lot of bad intelligence to me.  But that's a different story, anyway--the point is Card acts as though it was our ultimate goal the entire invasion was to spread freedom and democracy.  Seems like, even if our intelligence was assumed to be good (not something I am granting), we went in for self preservation or selfish means, not for spreading democracy.  Card sugar coats it because he wont come of as convincingly at attacking one group if the alternative group is seen as incompetent.  It's dishonest editorializing, just like most liberal snuff is complete bullshit in the same manner.  I figure he's just about as good as the people he's bashing because he is doing most the things he bashes.

Also, a massively mandatory military would require some shifting of policy (not all people in the military are troops, too--especially since in a mandatory military policy most the troops would be stationed at home like a national reserve, since I can't imagine we would ever actually use our people, God forbid, in actual peacekeeping missions unless it was cried for by the western international community).  I understand that.  I still feel it is something that should be looked into.  Surely you aren't suggesting, Green, that people who are drafted are inadequate to serve?  I believe you've been in the military--every aspect of the military is geared towards making people into those who fit into the military.  I mean, they hire psychologists to work out ways to take people who would not normally be a good soldier and train them into being who you meet in the military.

It's not a perfect idea, but I think it could be implemented well and I think it would solve a lot of problems.  That's just one person's opinion.

On the face of it, the statement "The United States has no right to tell another country how to run, or invade it to dictate how it should run." sounds very reasonable, however I am not sure there are never exceptions.

I think it's better to say "Sometimes it might be okay to tell people what they can't do, rather than saying sometimes it might be okay to tell people what they have to do.  But, yeah, the essence of what you meant (I think) sounds viable--sometimes evil people do evil things and other people have to say, "you have been bad, you cannot do this anymore."  But I don't think it's ever okay for us to say, "you can't do this and you must do this," like invading a country and telling it that it must be a republic now.

Darxbane has a great point--trying to find a reason to dislike a candidate because you dislike a candidate is silly.  If you disagree with her platform, then you disagree with her platform.  It's probably best not to judge the candidate before you her him or her speak, though, otherwise it's easy to misinterpret what they say or infer intentions (for the better or the worse) to match your pre-existing thoughts.  The fact is, that is what a majority of politics is (thanks to a party system)--pre-existing ideas on candidates before seeing, hearing or having any knowledge of them, sometimes followed by research to back the already made biases.

Miyabi, you should never be afraid to say what you think because you're afraid it will affect how people think of you.  You think what you think, and you have every right to express it.  I don't think anybody here will dislike you just because you disagree with them or they disagree with you.  And if they do, in all honesty, you probably don't need a person like that to like you, anyway.  People of differing views should be able to consult each other MORE frequently and fervently than people who share the same view--it leads t0 more enlightenment and a farther expansion of you base set of ideas.  I mean, if you look at the thread "Question", it's blatantly obvious Ookla and I completely disagree.  I don't dislike Ookla any more for it, and I don't get the impression Ookla dislikes me any more because of it (and we were talking about a VERY touchy subject).

That being said, you've essentially said in this thread the US had no right to get go into war with Japan because they weren't invading us.  The Nazis weren't invading us.  I think it's a pretty good thing that we went to war with them.

As for the issues with Israel and the Arabian Sub-Continent, whatever you might think the US has done to any of those countries, the fact is that the organizations and nations that get involved in actions like the attack on the Pentagon, and the attack on the Towers are headed by devious individuals.  When we were providing weapons to Afghanistan so they could repel the USSR, they weren't complaining.  The people in charge need an enemy to gain power, and the west matches the requirements for an enemy religiously, culturally and historically.  That doesn't mean it is historically justified, it just means that they have enough to move the masses.

Also, I find it somewhat amusing that you basically said, "We as a nation should act selfishly for self-preservation" in saying we shouldn't have gone to war with Japan because they weren't bugging us, and then you complain about things we do which are geared towards self-preservation, like creating a US-friendly state in the Middle East.  :-P.

Alright, Ookla--if somehow me expressing my opinion and not expressly saying, "I think" before every statement offended you, I apologize.  Obviously what I say is opinion.  Secondly, the idea behind a debate is to convince the other side of your point of view (well, actually the idea is to convince those not participating of your view, but that's really getting into a different area of discussion).  If I wasn't attempting to make my point seen, then I wouldn't be talking.  I never ridiculed anybody's ideas, no matter if I thought they were stupid or not.  I simply countered them with my take.  I used words like "disgusting" as imagery to strengthen what I am saying, not as an attack on what somebody else had said.  I didn't call somebody else disgusting, I didn't say somebody else's idea disgusting--I said that I considered a specific act disgusting--and I was NOT the first to do so.  Nobody except you seems to have misconstrued my intent, as I haven't heard a complaint from any other person.  This leads me to believe that my intent was clear, and if you misconstrued it, it is of your own doing. 

I, however, may have been vague or unclear, and if I was, I offer my sincerest apologies to all who feel I have intended to insult their views or themselves.

Secondly, I have been expressing my opinion of a law about abortions, not my opinion about abortions themselves.  Based on this thread, you could make assumptions about whether or not I would support a friend of mine, a girlfriend of mine or a relative of mine getting an abortion, but you would have no way to know for sure.  Because it is irrelevant if I would support it or not--the fact that I dislike something does not give me the right to not allow somebody else to do it.

As for abortion not doing harm, science shows it is extraordinarily unlikely that pain is caused by early abortions.  At risk of repeating myself, killing a fetus is simply not killing a baby--it has the same outcome with the same amount of suffering as not having the pregnancy at all.  Now, personally, do I consider that fetus a person--I may.  But I understand that others may not, and since I have no evidence to show otherwise, I refuse to push onto another by law what they do not believe.

I would definitely be in favor of laws that require abortion education before abortion, in which a to-be mother must be told what will happen in an abortion, and that while it is considered unlikely by medicine, it is possible that the fetus may be able to feel pain.  I would also be in favor of a law that prohibits abortion past the seventh month, at which point modern medicine states it is much more likely the fetus can feel pain.  I would even support a law that stated those who want to receive abortions must do so on a waiting list or three or four days, to make sure that she has had time to think about the decision.  None of these solutions trample her ability to do so, but they do encourage serious thought on the serious issue before engaging in abortions, and they also draw a line of when an abortion can be had at a point that all people can see, using science, that suffering is caused.

A fetus isn't a parasite because it needs its mother to survive.  It's a parasite because it drains resources from inside of another creature for survival without giving resources in return.  A chicken egg doesn't do that, neither does a born baby.

There are people who jump through hoops to get a child in adoption, that doesn't change the fact that there are tons of children who don't get adopted.  There aren't going to be more people jumping through hoops to get children when there are more of them, there will just be more kids who wont get adopted (at least this is the most likely outcome).

I don't believe that not making a law because it is difficult to enforce is okay, either.  I do believe, however, that if there is a law which is so difficult for people to agree on even being a good law to make, the fact that it would be difficult to enforce is a piece of information which should be weighed, since clearly morality is difficult to determine.

And, as I have stated earlier, I'm just expressing my views, I'm not hell bent on convincing anybody.  If I do, great, if I don't, also great.  I'm more interested in the friendly exchange of ideas than I am of the results of said exchange.  I never "laughed at" anybody, nor did I scorn a single person.  I simply took their ideas, and gave a response.  I never made any personal insults at ideas or people, nor did I tell anybody  explicitly they are wrong (I only did so by disagreeing, which is perfectly acceptable), and I openly said that I was not expecting to persuade anybody of anything, but that I was just expressing my opinion.  If me being long-winded is a sign of "ramming" opinions down throats, simply because I like to speak my mind and try to do so clearly, then I guess I have a habit of ramming my opinion down others' throats.  Fortunately, free speech allows me to do so, ESPECIALLY when I'm doing so in a manner which does not include any negative remarks about the ideas of others--you have the right to ignore me, and you have the right to ridicule me or my ideas.  I was just suggesting ridicule is probably not the best route, and not something I would have expected from such a distinguished member of such a fine community.  Especially somebody who feels so strongly about the issue, as I'm sure you've heard you catch more bees with honey than with vinegar.

If I gave you the impression that I was laughing at your ideas, I think you were reading my messages with an intent that they did not have, and I apologize for the misunderstanding.  I never meant to make you or anybody else feel alienated or undercut simply because I disagree--I just meant to disagree.

I misspoke.  I meant not non-biased, but I meant a reasoning that is something that can be used universally despite creed based on provable, logical or scientific fact/probability.  This is biased, of course, but it is also something that all people can be shown.

And abortion only tramples life if you count a fetus or an embryo as a life.  It is technically living, but so is grass--we don't worry about its rights.

Loud_G, your reason for not wanting abortion outlawed is the most valid reason, and that is preservation of life (not HUMAN life, but life).

However, your argument from your last post and your second-to-last post conflict.  You say that it is okay to kill any living being (you went as low as germs) if they harm us, and you said that the only reason germs are killed is because they endanger humans.  That is blatantly false, we kill things every day because they are inconvenient.  We do our best to kill light flus and colds which are not fatal (to over 99% of the population), and we are so willing to do so that we are okay potentially making them stronger.  We rip out tree because they block our satellite dishes (and in doing so kill plenty of animals who were using our subdivisions as an ecosystem).  Should it be illegal to build homes because they inflict damage and take lives of animals, plants and germs?  It would make us uncomfortable, but you said that being uncomfortable is never a reason to kill.  We allow dogs to be put down because they bark too aggressively, even if they've never attacked a person--in fact, if a dog seems to aggressive it is LAW that it is killed.

And saying that it is immoral to push one's views on another, and therefor it should not be done is only pushing morality in a very slight sense of protecting myself.  It is not putting ANY law in place telling others what to do, nor am I suggesting we do so.  I am not advocating any national FORCE to push this morality into order.  That is the difference.

Darxbane, like I said, at the point that the fetus is functioning enough to be able to recognize suffering (which is AT EARLIEST the third trimester according to modern estimates, and CERTAINLY not within the first several weeks of pregnancy), it should be protected as a sentient creature, and should be given the natural rights of a sentient creature, which includes not being forced to suffer needlessly.