Haezed

I was tenatively agreeing with Dr. Phil's more general point which you address next. However, I'll wait for a source other than gaygamer to tell me whether the killer played violent games. I agree that video games are not vicariously responsible for the VT massacre and I'm not sure if Dr. Phil was claiming as such. He was making a more general point. Humans have indeed been violent forever, far more violent than they are today in America. Our civilizing culture has made a VT type action atypical which is wonderful and massively violent Video Games, perhaps, undermine that culture. I think it's a legitimate point worth discussing, although it's a bit like discussing gun control at this time. I'd almost rather defer the discussion to a time when fair comment can be made by both sides without invoking the hot button of VT. 1. Ad hominem. 2. I don't think Dr. Phil was making the direct connection. Did you see the link to the more vehement lawyer on the point? He argues that just like the army conducts simulations of warfare, these games allow mass killers to simulate mass killings. Again, I wouldn't censor but that doesn't mean that it is unfair to comment regarding the social responsibility of game authors, tobacco companies or rappers. I'm simply exercising my right of free speech.

And so it goes... Dr. Phil on point: KING: Dr. McGraw, are they treatable? Saieth LARRY KING: I'm not entirely sure Dr. Phil is completely wrong here.

Wow, I guess I didn't present such a straw man after all. What you are ignoring is the increasing capabilities of terrorism, particularly if GWB had allowed it to fester behind a nation state.

"Sarcasm is just another free service I offer." (From a T-Shirt given to me by my wife) Yes, that is the issue. Total capitulation would be the dissolution of the US government and the institution of Islamic law. I simply said we should debase ourselves until we are so pathetic that no one can envy us. You are going to let ego get in the way of survival? I'm testing the logic of a position that that assumes terrorism would not threaten to rearrange US skylines without provocation and that terrorists do not back down, ever, from a show of long term firm resolve like it took from the US in the cold war. If that is the case, what can be done? Let's pucker up and make nice. Otherwise we are going to lose a city.

I've had an epiphany. The key is not to give terrorists anything that they can use for recruitment. Very few deaths are actually caused by terrorism compared to auto accidents and we are over reacting to their rearrangement of our largest city's sky line and attempt to take out the capital. The problem is the suspense of all of this. Waiting for the next shoe to kick us in the backside is the real cause of our paranoia which in turn is the real root of all evil in the world. So why don't we simply punish ourselves for the terrorists? If we can make our country pathetic enough, maybe they'll shift to other targets. Self-flagellation is the only answer. I also think that we should suppress our economic development so we don't provoke any terrorists through envy, although I wonder if globalization won't accomplish this for us in short order. If that doesn't work, we can elect more democrats to public office. We could send them Britney Spears (if she dares grow her hair back) and a bunch of rappers every year so they can take symbolic action against our debased culture. What else? Israel, of course, has to go and perhaps we make the President make a journey to each year to various tyrants where he will pucker up and make nice as he should. Strawman you say? Reductio ad absurdum, I reply.

There you go again.... No, I've consistently said the label "war" is problematic. Conflict, campaign, whatever, I'm open to all ideas. The label of this thread is terminology of terror and the OP started out with a criticism of the current terminology. I agree with that criticism IF, and only IF, a real alternative could be crafted. If you are going to pose serious criticism of a superpower, you need to think as a superpower.

You know, the more I think about this the more I think you are right. GWB should have been far more aggressive in publically addressing this issue. Here the US is getting kicked in the teeth in international public opinion for a war brought for painfully altrusitic reasons and China is obstructing the redress of genocide. Hundreds of thousands displaced, over a million displaced from their homes and China & Russia are standing up for Sudan because of oil? And we are accused of fighting for oil? GWB should have made this a central issue to point out the sheer hypocrisy.

I think the problem has always been China and Russia, not our government. Here we have China and Russia barring sanctions against Darfur. Here we have China, Russia and some Muslim states objecting to a UN report blaming Sudan for continuing war crimes. The irony is that this lack of action really is about oil.

Today's news:

You are studiously refusing to apply a label which could be accepted as neutral or objective while at the same time carping about the use of the phrase "war on terror." It's easy to throw stones but not so easy to provide an alternative. A leader in times of conflict has to call the conflict something. I agree that war on terror is not accurate but at least it communicates GWB's perception of the event. To ask the administration to call their own efforts, "misguided" is to avoid answering the question. I understand that is your opinion. The elected president disagrees with this notion and you can't expect him to label his efforts based on a world view with which he disagrees. You would think so, wouldn't you? It's too bad that reality does not comform with this common sense view of the world as it should be. Yet you are packaging the "truth" in the most slanted terms. Doing nothing is the practical result of refusing to label a problem. Maybe we have never fought a "war on poverty" or a "war on terror" but you have to have some kind of tag line to reference the effort. Out of curiosity, do you disagree with GWB's invasion of Afghanistan?

No idea. I'm responding to a thread topic entitled "Rap versus Rock."

Did you notice how I started that list with the two words "humor break." The ten worst list was mostly poking fun, not an attempt to find the really scummy lyrics. They are stupid more than parodies. Is it okay to parody the parodyers (if that is a word)? Back at you with the "lighten up." I know you don't want me to ligten up about a song that speaks of the kidnapping and rape of kids? These are random things I found online with 20 minutes without any effort to scrape the bottom.

Me? I'm not sure. How about the campaign against islamic fascists (but not all of Islam, only the fascist elements)? That will get the liberals on my side since they have an emotional aversion to fascism. Umm... no it's not. It's not just international. Each nation has the right to protect itself although cooperation is also key. It's not just by police. It uses spooks and the military. It's not just one action. It's an ongoing campaign. They are not just criminals. They are varied but there are commonalities in their ideology and they consider you to be their enemy. You would not have taken out the Taliban in Afghanistan? Iraq is debatable but Afghanistan? How would you have brought the "nasty" criminals in Afghanistan to justice? I know. They should have elected me.

Let me rephrase: Assuming you believe there is actually a threat in play against the US in the world today and that a meaningful diplomatic and, at times, military, effort must be mustered against that threat, what would you call that effort? If you don't call it anything, you can also pretend that no problem exists.

Actually, I don't think our "terror extermination" efforts are going to go away either.

How about # 2 on this list:

Humor break: The ten worst rap lyrics:

How would you label this struggle if not a war on terror?

True, which is why I never said we shouldn't try.

Damned liberals.

The F the man music of earlier years was basically telling the man to leave young people alone, not condoning violent crimes. "Hey, teacher, leave those kids alone!" The 60s at least had a peaceful yearning quality from what I can discern even though there were some more radical groups. Here's a simple test everyone can take: Name then ten songs from your youth which were the most misogynistic. Lay em out there, the ones that degraded and diminished women to the worst degree. (Feel free to exclude any that used the B word in a positive sense.) After this assignment, we'll see if they are really comparable to the ten most misogynistic I can find from today's gangbanger rap. Some lines need to be drawn and not all are the same. We would all condemn a song celebrating random murder of grade school children and that line shouldn't yield to a younger generation's need to shock. The same holds true for songs which are racist, pro-Nazi or misogynistic. The line is difficult to draw but that doesn't mean gangbanger rapsters aren't a mile on the wrong side of whereever it should be drawn.

1. No one is talking about censoring rap in these threads. We are talking about whether those who profit from it are socially responsible. 2. While each generation's job is to shock the older generation, some lines should be drawn by our socieity (no, not by the government) with respect to lyrics which are racist, pro-Nazi or misogynist. We debate about where the line should be drawn but IMO those three categories are on the other side to any thinking person.

Because the worst kinds of hell on earth have come from idiots in power who think they can engineer heaven on earth. Humans are imperfect and you are not going to stamp those imperfections out of any human system. I believe we should do our best for those around us but I also believe that imperfect situations arise which simply cannot be fixed by the government (see your post in Darfur thread). PS: You have a very bright son! I was speaking of economic, not military, systems and I think what I said holds true. Fear of death would result in people figuring out what it takes not to draw attention and innovation would suffer. I think it's a conservative trait whether you agree with the conclusion or not. The OP made something of the reverse point. It matters because it's relevant to the OP and Pangloss asked us to try to think of traits of conservatives.

American conservatives are more inclined to believe that: Collective guilt does not obviate individual responsibility; Governments should act like doctors, with their first mandate to do no harm; The world will never be perfect and efforts to make it so are destined to fail catastrophically; A system which does not effectively harnass greed cannot compete with a system which does; America is more often in the right than in the wrong; If you are smart and government doesn't unfairly get in your way, failure is your own fault no matter what your background. Those are all the generalities I can trot out on short notice.

I'm not going to argue with you if you are contending that liberals are emotionally adverse to the point of irrationality in this regard. I've never made this assumption but I can't really speak for liberals. I see more emotional aversion to GWB than to Saddam. Google informs me that the phrase started in the Boer war but, of course, it's real meaning derives from WWII. The analogy breaks down beyond all reason at this point. If liberalism reflexively saw grey, they would understand the case for war was not dependent solely on the existence of WMDs. Kerry did even worse than Bush at Yale, with 4 Ds in his Freshman year. I agree that Clinton was a brainiac but George Sr. was Phi Betta Kappa at Yale. (Of course, we have GWB because of GHB.) He certainly was one of the elites familiar with high culture. The only reference I could find re Dukakis is that the got a D in physics,, a subject in which Carter must have excelled. Reagan was in a category by himself. Going back to the 70s, Nixon and McGovern were probably intellectually similar, both being champion debaters. LBJ certainly didn't fit any elitist mold. I don't see the evidence.