It's called
POSTED BY: rue
UPDATED: Monday, August 15, 2005 19:31
VIEWED: 3230
PAGE 4 of 4
Quote:
Originally posted by SergeantX:
This is key. I think 9/11 really tipped the balance for a lot of people. And I can honestly understand why, but it's not good. I really think, that for many, "Kill 'em all and let God sort 'em out" has become more than just hyperbole. They won't, usually, be willing to say this out loud, but I do think a great many of them know that what we're doing is wrong and they just don't care. They think it's justifiable revenge or somesuch.
If I'm right, it means the terrorists really have been able to damage our society deeply. I keep hoping it will be self-correcting at some point. I hope we can turn it around before we do a complete nosedive into fascism. But I don't know.
I completely agree with your first paragraph and couldn't disagree more with the lead sentence of your second paragraph
. What the terrorists have been able to do is kill Americans. Everything else that happened after that, we did to our own selves. Any damage that has been done to our society was done by Americans. Whether it is the erosion of privacy and the taking away of certain freedoms in an effort to feel safer. Whether it is the abdication of our foreign policy to PNAC and their dreams of Mideast Empire. Whether it is turning our back on the Geneva Convention and endorsing torture. And all the other changes that have been made since 9/11 that move our society in a disturbing direction. The good news is that we can reverse and move our country back in a healthier direction. The bad news is that many Americans may not want to. But I refuse to give the terrorists credit for changing our society. They're murderers. That's it.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by SoupCatcher:
What the terrorists have been able to do is kill Americans. Everything else that happened after that, we did to our own selves. Any damage that has been done to our society was done by Americans. Whether it is the erosion of privacy and the taking away of certain freedoms in an effort to feel safer. Whether it is the abdication of our foreign policy to PNAC and their dreams of Mideast Empire. Whether it is turning our back on the Geneva Convention and endorsing torture. And all the other changes that have been made since 9/11 that move our society in a disturbing direction. The good news is that we can reverse and move our country back in a healthier direction. The bad news is that many Americans may not want to. But I refuse to give the terrorists credit for changing our society. They're murderers. That's it.
That's a good point. And an important distinction to make because we have to admit it's been our own fear/anger/grief that's driven the changes before we can effectively reverse them.
SergeantX
"Dream a little dream or you can live a little dream. I'd rather live it, cause dreamers always chase but never get it." Aesop Rock
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Yeah, I tend to see our history in terms of vectors. We move in one direction until we reach the point where a majority of us think we've gone far enough and then we start moving back. Somewhere in there is a centerline that reflects the ideal of America. Occasionally that centerline gets radically shifted (emancipation, suffrage, worker protection, equal rights, etc). And often that centerline falls far short of our potential.
In my opinion, we all got out of whack after 9/11. And we've gotten pretty far away from what I think of as the American ideal. And it's going to take a majority of us waking up and saying, "Too far."
In the case of this particular topic, torture, I feel we need to lay everything on the table. Publish the pictures, the videos, all the accounts. Then let's have a dialogue as a country and decide whether or not this is something we should be doing. My hope is that we all take a collective deep breath and agree that this is not behavior we should be engaging in. Let other countries torture, rape, and kill their prisoners of war. Let other countries deport their prisoners of war to allies who will do the dirty work for them. Let other countries hold people in secret without putting them on trial. We need to stop now. We're better than this.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by SergeantX:
That's a good point. And an important distinction to make because we have to admit it's been our own fear/anger/grief that's driven the changes before we can effectively reverse them.
I agree, but it drives both sides of a discussion. In many ways fear/anger/grief drives resistance to meaningful changes before we can implement them.
Take the example of singling out certain ethnic groups for greater scrutiny in airports. Racial profiling is as wrong as any wrong that exists in American society. Statistical profiling, however, is a reasonable and neccessary safety precaution. Yet they are essentially the same act. One merely has a emotional context that rightly drives resistance it the policy.
Our goal should not be to eliminate, prevent, or even enact an effective policy, but rather to remove the emotional context, so that the policy's merits are more easily judged.
H
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Someone needs notify Haken that we have a hacker on the site. Someone has hijacked Hero's account!
Well, whoever you are, I totally agree. In fact, I'm actually more comfortable with reasonably implemented profiling, with healthy respect for the presumption of innocence, than I am with the 'random' searches that are being held up as 'fair and balanced' or somesuch. Like any potentially intrusive law enforcement, it needs to be kept on a short leash, but if you have a reasonable decription of a suspect its stupid to waste time on people who obviously don't fit that description.
SergeantX
"Dream a little dream or you can live a little dream. I'd rather live it, cause dreamers always chase but never get it." Aesop Rock
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by SoupCatcher:
Yeah, I tend to see our history in terms of vectors. We move in one direction until we reach the point where a majority of us think we've gone far enough and then we start moving back. Somewhere in there is a centerline that reflects the ideal of America. Occasionally that centerline gets radically shifted (emancipation, suffrage, worker protection, equal rights, etc). And often that centerline falls far short of our potential.
In my opinion, we all got out of whack after 9/11. And we've gotten pretty far away from what I think of as the American ideal. And it's going to take a majority of us waking up and saying, "Too far."
In the case of this particular topic, torture, I feel we need to lay everything on the table. Publish the pictures, the videos, all the accounts. Then let's have a dialogue as a country and decide whether or not this is something we should be doing. My hope is that we all take a collective deep breath and agree that this is not behavior we should be engaging in. Let other countries torture, rape, and kill their prisoners of war. Let other countries deport their prisoners of war to allies who will do the dirty work for them. Let other countries hold people in secret without putting them on trial. We need to stop now. We're better than this.
Well said, Soupcatcher (your previous post, too). The debate should be about what kind of people we want to be, not whether we are as bad as someone else or not. I don't want "torturing, lying, greedy ba****ds" to be the usual descriptors levied against my country. And "not quite as bad as the next guy" is way too close for me.
And, as for useful descriptors of what constitutes torture, I think one ought to ask the question: "Would you allow it to be applied to your daughter (or son) on the off chance that she/he might thereby be induced to supply some useful information to an enemy?". If you can't honestly answer "yes", then it's torture. And I don't think many of us would answer in the affirmative.
perfessergee
(PS, if you're currently occupying the Disssertation Cave, you have my deepest sympathies. I remember its ugly topography all too well.......... Good luck!)
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME