Who lost under President Bush?

[The Bear's Key]

Welcome back ParanoiA. I had been saddened not having you around.

 

 

Yes, that's so cool. Now we can go back and let those gang rape victims know they *did* have something to do with it afterall. That short skirt with "hottie" written on the ass getting toasty with a group of aggressive teenage males...it's not like she didn't put herself in the situation right? And that's what we tell them with tears streaming down their face in the ER too right? "Next time just don't dress like a slut, dear". Yeah, sorry, but I don't agree.

 

This logic uses the premise that humans cannot be expected to be ethical given hyper opportunity as opposed to regular, good ole standard opportunity. Somehow, a locked door between my jewelry and someone else's lack of ethics gives me excuse from responsiblity, but once that lock isn't used, the opportunity is too attractive for normal ethical humans and we graduate to a whole new concept of blame and responsiblity. That's more hindsight scrambling to build a logical exception when one empathizes with such dramatic opportunity - in other words, this says more about you and your ethics and morals, that you would tier the degree of opportunity in order to partition blame. Strange.

 

Tell me, do you also do this with drive by murder victims? After all, they know how dangerous it is on the street, and if they're out walking at 3 am then aren't they partly to blame to being murdered by a gang that thought they were a rival gang member? How about when kiddos are tricked by strangers and assaulted or kidnapped after they've been taught at school not to talk to them? Do we let them and their parents know how they share in the blame?

 

Pardon me while I find somewhere to puke...

Go find a mirror and puke on it.

 

Sometimes we're so obsessed, it's possible to twist the concept of freedom so much we assume wild thoughts/motives onto people and conversations.

 

If you as a parent had sent off your kid flashing huge bills of money, instead of warning them to hide the money from view -- knowing it's unsafe in the neighboring areas -- then you'd share blame for what'd happen. I don't know where you get the idea that the robbers are somehow excused by your irresponsibility deserving a share of blame, by the way.

 

And, of course a woman victim shouldn't get blamed for wearing clothes that are revealing. But walking unprotected in a place where you're going to trigger the sexual desperation of very twisted mindsets is stupid, dangerous, and irresponsible.

 

Had the woman strolled naked through such a place, it'd be repugnant for anyone to see it as permission to trespass her body. Does it mean that women didn't act stupidly? If not, your reasoning sounds awfully a bit like political correctness.

 

Maybe you're thinking of instances where stupid guys are having conversations and say it's the woman's fault if she teases a guy by wearing something extremely revealing. That kind of conversation pisses me off too. But our conversation now isn't about personal choice of wear -- as it's perfectly legitimate for a woman to even go naked is she damn well pleased and not have to suffer harrassment or assault. But if she entered a back alley in that manner without escort or protection, it doesn't mean she's inviting what happens, but it does mean she's highly naive and incompetent of rational thought is she doesn't get it, that odds are worse in such a vacant/hidden place than it would be in a crowded street or in a daylit park.

 

However, if she knew full what to expect and didn't get suprised by the obvious approaches that will happen, and prepared mentally to not cower and instead project herself as strongly independent -- her stance more likely to cause intimidation and ready to defend herself -- that I can respect.

 

But whatever, if you still continue to have a problem, then I don't get your view that, when anyone's highlighting someone else's personal irresponsibility -- for example, they unwisely hadn't readied any precautionary steps for escape or defense -- it's somehow an excuse for the victim's assaulters.

 

Don't you see when a girl at the strip club leaves for her vehicle with a bodyguard in tow? And what if she claimed "oh I'll be alright, nothing could happen". The bodygaurd will escort her regardless and possibly say "don't be so naive".

 

Just so we're clear on the matter, a girl should wear any revealing clothes that she pleases -- or none whatsoever -- and it doesn't mean she's to blame if victimized. Although in a few cases, she needs to learn responsibilty and forethought if she believes walking naked in dangerous places is a fantastic idea.

 

 

Since when is the ACLU "the left"? Are we watching Fox News again?

 

The ACLU has a considerable record fighting for civil rights that others would consider conservative positions. Like college students being free to protest gun control policies in colleges using an empty holster protest. Because civil liberties is a central theme in liberal and libertarian ideology, does not corroborate any endorsement of either ideology. In fact, they're more aligned with libertarians since liberals are now offenders of civil liberties. Maybe I should start referring to the "Libertarian ACLU".

It's most definitely left. The Right are the ones who consistently demonize the ACLU. Or at minimum, the left shares its values just as do libertarians.

 

Here's the deal. I'm not left, but I do share certain values with the liberals, and several values with conservatives, and libertarians even more. But if you happen to think libertarians are somehow immune of being a threat to liberties, you're mistaken. A naive population is as big a threat to liberties as most other threats, and I've met plenty of naive libertarians. So cut the shit (please ) and think instead how many of us can work together on solving very real problems in the world and to liberties today.

 

Here's blunt: I respect honesty, but am unimpressed with superioty complex of political ideology. I can't help but love when people speak bluntly and unapologetically -- without of course masking it as simply a reason/excuse to talk nonsense or a veiled attempt to wield control. (not talking about you btw)

 

My blunt opinion is this: the attitude of various libertarians seems defeatist. As if the world's this awful machine where the anti-liberty police threatens every nook and cranny. Believe it or not, such alarm does often threaten liberty because the energy from it's easily misdirected. And, that free enterprise is the miracle cure, has a preachy quality to it with too many parallels of biblical rhetoric (or prophecy) for my tastes. I'd be with libertarians if the ideology can be tempered enough in such aspects to be compatible with real life.

 

Glad we could talk.

[ParanoiA]

Just so we're clear on the matter, a girl should wear any revealing clothes that she pleases -- or none whatsoever -- and it doesn't mean she's to blame if victimized. Although in a few cases, she needs to learn responsibilty and forethought if she believes walking naked in dangerous places is a fantastic idea.

 

You just spent 9 short paragraphs before this one on how the victim shares blame directly proportional to the degree they present opportunity to law breakers to turn right around and state women aren't to blame if sexually victimized over how much plant matter they adorn themselves with. Hell, even in the following sentence there contradicts the first one.

 

Looks like you have more work to do here. Finding glaring holes in your belief system isn't the most pleasant feeling, but we're smart people and we can work it out. I understand the conflict, and I think it's based on the assumption of blame within a legal framework.

 

There are things I can do to prevent others from violating the law. Like, I could surround my house with a 16 foot electrical fence. That will drastically reduce the potential for home invasion and etc. But does that mean I now share in blame since I *didn't* put up that 16 foot fence? What if I never *thought* of the idea...am I still partly to blame?

 

Our ability to mitigate the damage by law breakers is directly tied to our imagination and the ability to foresee opportunity. All imaginations are not equal. Thus, right out of the gate, people already share in blame proportional to their talent for criminal empathy, using that logic.

 

No, I think there's a clear distinction between blame and prevention. A woman can go out of her way to prevent criminal opportunity by altering her behavior, her clothing..etc. But that's quite clearly, to me anyway, demonstrations of prevention. We would all probably agree that walking around naked at 3 in the morning is a really dumb idea - because it's universally realized, even among the stupidest of humans, as the most obvious abdication of prevention. Not because she's now partly to blame - but because she's removed all sense of prevention, leaving herself incredibly vulnerable to the criminal element. We can all expect each other to invoke a bit more prevention in their behavior than that.

 

Again, just to summarize, there's a clear difference between blame (like the theif stealing money dangling out of a toddler's diaper) and prevention (like not dangling money out of your toddler's diaper). Failing to imagine criminal intentions is no standard for distributing blame or responsibility.

 

 

My blunt opinion is this: the attitude of various libertarians seems defeatist. As if the world's this awful machine where the anti-liberty police threatens every nook and cranny. Believe it or not, such alarm does often threaten liberty because the energy from it's easily misdirected. And, that free enterprise is the miracle cure, has a preachy quality to it with too many parallels of biblical rhetoric (or prophecy) for my tastes. I'd be with libertarians if the ideology can be tempered enough in such aspects to be compatible with real life.

 

Well I'm sure I don't speak for all libertarians, and I'm hesitant to stamp that title on my forehead since there are many aspects of the ideology I don't buy into (such as privatized police, pure militia defense..etc), but your interpretation of anti-liberty police threatening every nook and cranny suggests you misunderstand the initial accusation: that government is a necessary evil, not an evolutionary benchmark.

 

The philosophy driving libertarians, or classical liberals, is a philosophy who's end game is pure self governance without the need for authority roles or force of any kind. That's an ideal that will never be met, as far as I can tell. But it's similar to the ostensible goal of crime control: to eliminate crime. That also will never be met, but all policies on crime control should be steering in that direction; we should drive to that goal for the best possible result. (we actually don't do this anymore, as we have now "accepted" crime to an unhealthy level, so probably a bad example on my part, but hopefully you'll allow me this sloppy comparison in the interest of constricted time..)

 

In the context of human nature, anti-liberty *is* threatening from every nook and cranny, but this is a statement about the nature of subordination psychology. The attraction by a number of humans to want to be ruled by fair masters, in trade for the security and social justice promised by the institution. This is in direct contradiction to libertarian philosophy to refuse rule by others, to hold freedom and liberty above promises of economic security and social sanitization.

 

While there is still contempt in my statements, I think it really does boil down to leader/follower or independent/codependent pyschological disparity between humans. And that's always been the part about politics that saddens me the most. It's not that socialism "doesn't work" or that capitalism "doesn't work" or that nanny states "don't work" - all of these arrangements "work". It's not about what works, it's about what set of advantages and disadvantages the people want to negotiate. We just have different preferences from each other, but we're made to fight about the preferences we ALL must live under.

 

That's politics under a centralized government.

 

Welcome back ParanoiA. I had been saddened not having you around.

 

Thanks, and I always like a good round with you TBK. My whole contribution in this thread is one big moment of weakness, I actually had no intention of posting here, but you have a knack for getting my passions broiling. Good job.

 

Regardless, take care.

Edited November 18, 2010 by ParanoiA

[Sisyphus]

Whether or not a foreign policy position produces terrorists should NEVER be a primary reason to do or not to do that thing.

 

There is an exception to that. Namely, if the goal of the policy is to reduce terrorism, as in fighting a "war" on it. Just saying.

[Mr Skeptic]

You just spent 9 short paragraphs before this one on how the victim shares blame directly proportional to the degree they present opportunity to law breakers to turn right around and state women aren't to blame if sexually victimized over how much plant matter they adorn themselves with. Hell, even in the following sentence there contradicts the first one.

 

Looks like you have more work to do here. Finding glaring holes in your belief system isn't the most pleasant feeling, but we're smart people and we can work it out. I understand the conflict, and I think it's based on the assumption of blame within a legal framework.

 

There are things I can do to prevent others from violating the law. Like, I could surround my house with a 16 foot electrical fence. That will drastically reduce the potential for home invasion and etc. But does that mean I now share in blame since I *didn't* put up that 16 foot fence? What if I never *thought* of the idea...am I still partly to blame?

 

Our ability to mitigate the damage by law breakers is directly tied to our imagination and the ability to foresee opportunity. All imaginations are not equal. Thus, right out of the gate, people already share in blame proportional to their talent for criminal empathy, using that logic.

 

No, I think there's a clear distinction between blame and prevention. A woman can go out of her way to prevent criminal opportunity by altering her behavior, her clothing..etc. But that's quite clearly, to me anyway, demonstrations of prevention. We would all probably agree that walking around naked at 3 in the morning is a really dumb idea - because it's universally realized, even among the stupidest of humans, as the most obvious abdication of prevention. Not because she's now partly to blame - but because she's removed all sense of prevention, leaving herself incredibly vulnerable to the criminal element. We can all expect each other to invoke a bit more prevention in their behavior than that.

 

Again, just to summarize, there's a clear difference between blame (like the theif stealing money dangling out of a toddler's diaper) and prevention (like not dangling money out of your toddler's diaper). Failing to imagine criminal intentions is no standard for distributing blame or responsibility.

 

Yes, I did mean that the person who got victimized probably shares some of the blame (but in a practical, not legal sense). The criminal would bear the full legal responsibility, since the victim is not legally required to practice prevention (well not in most cases, it would be pretty offensive if they tried to make it so, but there is such a thing as criminal negligence). Where I said blame I only meant in the practical sense, not in the legal sense. Now, compare that to if some company were to leave their payroll salaries on a table in the front lawn, and they got robbed. Same as the previous example, except this time with other people's money and now the victim's share of the blame becomes legal blame (again without excusing the criminal).

 

The victim's facilitation of a crime (or lack of prevention) could well play a role in the sentencing (but not guilt). For example, if someone stole a pile of jewelry that someone left on their lawn chair vs someone who broke into someone's house, cracked the safe, and stole the jewelry, the second case should receive a much harsher sentence since it demonstrates plenty of criminal intent and planning, and the first only a momentary weakness in the face of a golden opportunity.

[Sisyphus]

You just spent 9 short paragraphs before this one on how the victim shares blame directly proportional to the degree they present opportunity to law breakers to turn right around and state women aren't to blame if sexually victimized over how much plant matter they adorn themselves with.

 

I don't think the "dressing slutty means you deserve to get raped" or "leaving your door unlocked means you deserve to get robbed" analogy is quite apt, here, since neither of those things actually hurts anybody. Right or wrong, the terrorists claim grievances, not just tempting opportunity. So maybe it's more like, I rob your house, so you hunt me down and shoot me and my family. You're still a murderer, but I'm still a thief.

[Pangloss]

Whether or not a foreign policy position produces terrorists should NEVER be a primary reason to do or not to do that thing.

There is an exception to that. Namely, if the goal of the policy is to reduce terrorism, as in fighting a "war" on it. Just saying.

 

You're saying that if you go do something (militarily speaking) in order to reduce terrorism, and you instead increase it, then that's an error, right?

 

That's fine, but I think in looking at the story of "producing more terrorists in Iraq", for example, we (as a society) have failed to distinguish between producing a long-term terrorist motivation (which I agree it's an error if we've produced more of this), and the kind of short-term terrorism that goes away as soon as local economics improve. The number of terrorist attacks that took place in the mid-2000s in Iraq was staggering, and it was produced in part by the US presence there.

 

But we dug in our heels, put out the biggest fires, and focused a lot of resources on the infrastructure, economy and government. It's paid off (number of attacks down since the surge), though clearly the job is going to be very long term even after we leave. On the other hand, we could have pulled out in 2007 -- would that have made the terrorists go away, or would they have grown and thrived amidst the Gaza-like rubble?

 

There's an even simpler justification there: If the terrorists are mad, you're probably doing something right.

[Mr Skeptic]

There's an even simpler justification there: If the terrorists are mad, you're probably doing something right.

 

It's one thing to make the terrorists mad (who cares they're already mad), quite another to make the civilians terrorists. If your actions are converting people to terrorism, that doesn't make for a very effective war on terror.

[lemur]

It's one thing to make the terrorists mad (who cares they're already mad), quite another to make the civilians terrorists. If your actions are converting people to terrorism, that doesn't make for a very effective war on terror.

You don't seem to have an everyday familiarity with how intimidation and repression work. Imagine you have a very threatening boss who intimidates employees consistently to the point that many of them take his/her side to avoid getting on his/her bad side. Now, let's say you decide to stand up to your boss because he's wrong about something but everyone knows he's just going to become more abusive if confronted. Well, when you start confronting him and the abuse increases, at least some and maybe many of your colleagues are going to start harassing you to get you to back off. Why? Because they would rather keep the peace with a bully than stand up to him/her and risk escalation of conflict. This is why, imo, Bush said that you're either on the side of terrorism or against it; i.e. because keeping the peace with terror-based regimes requires repressing challenges to those regimes. These are authorities who are more concerned with maintaining their own territorial dominance than responding reasonably to democratic challenges to their power.

[Pangloss]

It's one thing to make the terrorists mad (who cares they're already mad), quite another to make the civilians terrorists. If your actions are converting people to terrorism, that doesn't make for a very effective war on terror.

 

You appear to have missed the majority of my post. I'll paraphrase it:

 

I think in looking at "producing more civilian terrorists" we have failed to distinguish between producing a long-term terrorist motivation and the kind of short-term terrorism that goes away as soon as local economics improve. We tend to lump the two together as if they're the same thing. I don't believe that they are.

 

In Iraq we dug in our heels, put out the biggest fires, and focused a lot of resources on the infrastructure, economy and government. It's paid off (number of attacks down since the surge), though clearly the job is going to be very long term even after we leave. On the other hand, we could have pulled out in 2007 -- would that have made the terrorists go away, or would they have grown and thrived amidst the Gaza-like rubble?

[Mr Skeptic]

You appear to have missed the majority of my post. I'll paraphrase it:

 

I think in looking at "producing more civilian terrorists" we have failed to distinguish between producing a long-term terrorist motivation and the kind of short-term terrorism that goes away as soon as local economics improve. We tend to lump the two together as if they're the same thing. I don't believe that they are.

 

In Iraq we dug in our heels, put out the biggest fires, and focused a lot of resources on the infrastructure, economy and government. It's paid off (number of attacks down since the surge), though clearly the job is going to be very long term even after we leave. On the other hand, we could have pulled out in 2007 -- would that have made the terrorists go away, or would they have grown and thrived amidst the Gaza-like rubble?

 

That's a false comparison, and you know it. How about you compare the whole war vs no war at all? I know destroying the power structure and then leaving it up for grabs is a bad idea, but that might be what we're doing in the Middle East as a whole (see: Iran). But at least that will be at the nation level. In any case, are you willing to go with the comparison of trashing Iraq and rebuilding vs not trashing it at all, or are you going to insist on comparing that to trashing the place and leaving it in ruins and up for grabs?

[Pangloss]

That's a false comparison, and you know it. How about you compare the whole war vs no war at all? I know destroying the power structure and then leaving it up for grabs is a bad idea, but that might be what we're doing in the Middle East as a whole (see: Iran). But at least that will be at the nation level. In any case, are you willing to go with the comparison of trashing Iraq and rebuilding vs not trashing it at all, or are you going to insist on comparing that to trashing the place and leaving it in ruins and up for grabs?

 

I don't understand. I agree that there would have been fewer "terrorists" in the world had we not invaded Iraq. What I'm saying is that there is a difference between well-organized, global terrorism initiatives, and the kind of cafeteria terrorists produced by a warzone, with its corresponding economic and social upheavals.

 

Why is that a 'false comparison'?