Iraq: Ten years later
POSTED BY: Niki2
UPDATED: Saturday, March 23, 2013 00:10
VIEWED: 10954
PAGE 7 of 9
And I read on.., wow, this thread's gone weird! CTS continues to chose her moral superiority over effecting actual change. That's OK. Just thank goodness there are people actually willing to DO stuff and make the hard decisions.
And CTS - so you as Obama, because you couldn't snap your fingers and make everything perfect (your own personal version of perfect, whether anyone else agrees with you or not) would quit and run away to enjoy your pedestal. You would allow darker forces to take over and extend the war, leading to many many more innocents dead. Whereas, if you'd stayed and actually fought the good fight, you could have wound it down. Now who has murder on their conscience?
But, please, live in your fairy tale so you can feel superior.
Byte: you can't take all statements made toward CTS as statements made toward you, then get upset at Niki for "confusing" you. You have claimed CTS's statements as your own.
Despite your eagerness to read everything in the most negative light (do you really need so badly to be a victim?) I have indeed put a lot of effort into communicating with you. I feel it is disrespectful how you put up strawmen. I stated a list of things that I believe would be different under Gore. I am ready to defend those, if you would pay me the respect of having a CONVERSATION with me about them, rather than being offended over a strawman and running away.
You'll note that I specifically stated that nothing would be perfect, and that Gore would have his problems. That I DID NOT VOTE FOR HIM. No, apparently you didn't note any of that, because then your strawman wouldn't stand.
Well, shoot. If Byte and CTS run away, who else is there to talk to? Why can't anyone have a debate without being either a Rappy brickwall or going all emotional over things that weren't said?
*sad sigh*
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Quote:
Originally posted by MAL4PREZ:
You would allow darker forces to take over
This is exactly the mindset I am arguing against. There is no "dark" and "darker." Some things are black and white. Some things MUST be black and white.
Imagine you're in a room with a bunch of gangrapists. They force you to rape the girl too. You say, "No way!" They say, "I expected you to say that. But if you don't rape her, I will kill her. So do it to save her from a worse fate."
Then you say, "OK, she gets raped by one more person, or she dies. Getting raped one more time is the lesser of two evils." So you make the "hard decision" and join in the rape.
This is the mindset Obama and his supporters are working out of.
Now substitute gangrape and death with other possibilities. Say, kill the girl or I will skin her alive. Say, kill and eat the girl, or I will eat her alive. It doesn't matter. There is no end to how low the dark can go. The rules of choice remain the same. Choose dark or choose darker. As long as you let them corner you into that forced choice, you will never get out of the dark zone.
I am saying it is wrong. As long as people work within this mindset, and live by the rules of these moral economics, things will never change.
Real change comes from one person saying, "No, I will NOT cross that line, no matter what you threaten me with. You will NOT corrupt me." Then the next person finds it easier to say no. And the next. It is the only way to make the perverse rule makers to be the only ones standing, left with no power.
This is not about moral superiority. I am trying to make a case to change the "lesser of two evils" mindset because getting other people to see this is the only way to change the system.
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Disobedience is not an issue if obedience is not the goal.
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Quote:
Originally posted by canttakesky:Quote:No. But I would try. And then I would resign in protest if I couldn't succeed. I would not be a part of the system at the expense of those innocent lives. No.
Originally posted by MAL4PREZ:
Again I ask: if you were suddenly Obama, in some Freaky Friday mind swap, do you think you'd be able to stop all the wars and corporate abuses on a dime? With no other innocent victims ever just because you said so?
And murder is a CLEARER evil than gangrape.
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Disobedience is not an issue if obedience is not the goal.
Your solution to everything seems to be to just give up.
Yeah, that'll get a lot done.
Excuse me while I soak in all these sweet, sweet conservative tears.
"We will never have the elite, smart people on our side." -- Rick "Frothy" Santorum
"Goram it kid, let's frak this thing and go home! Engage!"
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Quote:And then you proceed to give a fictional example right of some 24 style TV show. Not very realistic. But I'll get back to that.
Originally posted by canttakesky:Quote:
Originally posted by MAL4PREZ:
You would allow darker forces to take over
This is exactly the mindset I am arguing against. There is no "dark" and "darker." Some things are black and white. Some things MUST be black and white.
I talking about something that happened in reality. There were definitely lighter and darker forces in 2009. There was one candidate singing songs about "bomb bomb Iran" and another speaking openly against these wars. In my fiction where you are playing Obama, and you got elected and found that you were not a dictator and you could not immediately reshape the world into your vision for it, you have said that you would quit. OK, so the VP would step up and work toward ending the wars.
But if your whole administration went away and was replaced by McCain's (because we are talking about the effect of my "blame-worthy" vote for Obama rather than McCain), then McCain would very very likely send yet more troops into Iraq and Afghanistan, would invade Iran and who knows what other countries. (But do you think Palin would have stayed on for the whole four years? Or would she quit early again, because she can't get her way either...)
So, because you quit since you were incapable of committing yourself to something imperfect, our new reality in 2013 would be continuing escalation in Iraq and Afghanistan and new wars in Syria and North Korea and who knows where else.
Yeah. Reality. You can't always get your way. Doesn't mean the other way is not worse.
OK, sure, so you and I could come up with fictional situations all day, but the vote cast in 2008 was very real choice between a bad situation that would get worse or bad situation with a chance to improve. Which it HAS. We are out of Iraq. There is a new agreement to get of Afghanistan. The drones are way fucking wrong, but they have been outed and I believe they are also on their way out - because people have NOT run away, even us who you choose to blame are staying involved and calling Obama out on these things.
Really, where you get "fawning" is beyond me. Do you really I think I fawn over him? Or is this your RWA brain, not able to understand that a vote, that "support", does not mean unconditional worship?
Back to your fictional example. The way I see the choice you are advocating, is that when you see the gang rape happening you say: "well, if I go over there I'll be forced to either rape her or watch her get killed, so instead I'll turn on my headphones and go over to that nice coffee shop and have a latte. I'll remove myself from the situation so I don't have to blame myself for any of this."
Not going to fix a damned thing.
Hey, you can choose to do what you want. But don't even start getting down on people who have chosen NOT to walk away. [EDIT the rest of this paragraph: I choose to believe you didn't really mean to compare a vote for a Obama to a choice to join a gang rape. It kind of seems like you made that comparison, but I think - I hope! - you didn't mean it that way.]
What you can't seem to get through your RWA head is that Obama is NOT a dictator, and he could not change the world. Yes, he could have done a helluva lot better, but I'm seeing for damned sure that he's done a lot than you - a quitter - would have done.
Cause what have you changed by quitting the system? Really? What are the real effects, other than how you feel about yourself, and what you can say to people online when you don't agree with them?
Quote:Then don't tell me you are morally superior to me. Yes, you did say it outright. And you imply it every time you blame me for casting a vote, as if it's my fault Obama isn't making the world into Wonderlan
This is not about moral superiority.
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Ahhh, Mal4. Just think how else you could have spent all the time you just wasted pissing into the wind, time you'll never get back in your life. Tch.
If you're through 
, I'm sure we can find more interesting things to discuss.
It IS incredibly ironic that I put this post up specifically TO remind people that we didn't "fix" Iraq and things are pretty awful there, after all the thousands and thousands of deaths on every side. Most of us agree about that, I think, yet CTTS has taken it to a completely illogical level, that Obama's a monster and there's no difference between him and McCain, or Romney, or (for gawd's sake) PALIN! That's exactly what she's saying: Everything is black, there are no grays. You really want to keep trying to get through to someone like that? Silly gel...
As far as I'm concerned, when it comes to someone unwilling to partake in the flawed process BECAUSE IT'S FLAWED and for essentially no other reason, in a country where we are DAMNED lucky to have as good a process as we HAVE, their attitude makes them totally irrelevant. I'm willing to spend a few minutes trying to point out the irrationality of their stance, but beyond that...neh.
I considered for a few minutes the value of contrasting different administrations; there's good and bad in all of them, and what each accomplished might be interesting to compare and contrast, and would show quite clearly how wrong CTTS is. But it would take time I'm not willing to invest, at least right now, and would do the "in one ear, out the other" with her anyway. Hell, even school children learn how different administrations handle things differently, better, worse, or just differently. She don't get it; end of story.
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Quote:Because your solution and my solution are not the same. That's what we are arguing about, isn't it? The solution.
Originally posted by MAL4PREZ:
Why aren't we talking about the problem, and looking for solutions,
Your solution is to vote for the lesser of two evils.
My solution is to say a resounding and defiant NO to BOTH evils, and pick a third option that isn't evil.
Yes, I believe my solution is morally superior. When I say it isn't about moral superiority, I mean it's superfluous to the solution. Mine is the only one that can give us the results we actually WANT, rather than the result that we reluctantly will tolerate.
Quote:
[EDIT the rest of this paragraph: I choose to believe you didn't really mean to compare a vote for a Obama to a choice to join a gang rape. It kind of seems like you made that comparison, but I think - I hope! - you didn't mean it that way.]
Yes. I DID mean it that way.
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Disobedience is not an issue if obedience is not the goal.
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Quote:Yes, that is EXACTLY what I am saying.
Originally posted by Niki2:
that Obama's a monster and there's no difference between him and McCain, or Romney, or (for gawd's sake) PALIN! That's exactly what she's saying:
Any difference between Obama and any of the Reps is cosmetic.
It would be like saying there is no difference between the gangrapist who is a star athlete and class president and the gangrapist who is the high school dropout and drug addict. When you're at the level of gangrape, none of those other differences amount to a hill of beans.
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Disobedience is not an issue if obedience is not the goal.
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Quote:
Originally posted by BYTEMITE:Quote:
You are clearly not getting it, less people have died as a result of the Iraq war than did Sadam's reign.
Yet people STILL DIED, and we contributed in a major way to the over-all death toll in the region. We also originally put Saddam in POWER, and so are responsible for what he did.
It's not a question of us being better or worse based on the number of people we killed versus how many people Saddam Hussein killed, it's a question of we did the SAME THING. Which is KILLING PEOPLE.
You think our leaders are better than Saddam Hussein? Lol. Just you wait.
And the only reason we want to go to war with Iran is because Israel wants to go to war with Iran. I guess that's totally righteous and a good reason though.
1. We didn't put Sadam in power. You are thinking of the Taliban in Afghanistan, who we also didn't directly put in power (we trained them), they just so happened to be the "last man standing" in the Civil Wars following the defeat of the Soviets.
2. Our leaders may be corrupt, they may make terrible decisions, however last I checked I did not have to worry about being arrested and tortured to death for saying that they have been doing a bad job. If you truly think our leaders are as bad as Sadam, then I am convinced you have never been outside of the US, that you have never seen what others suffer through, and that you will never understand how lucky you are to be an American. The bottom 1% of the Poor people in America still would be in the top 50% (economically) of the worlds class structure.
3. The reason why the US could(good catch, I don't want to go into any war)go to war with Iran has to do with the fact that they have working nuclear facilities. On top of this Iran has stated that it wishes to wipe Israel, our ally, off the face of the Earth. They have stated that they want to "wipe away" the western world.
4. It took killing people to end the holocaust, heck it took killing a TON of people to defeat the Germans and the Japanese. Civilians did die as a result of the American Invasion. I guess we never should have stopped that either?
On Fixing Iraq: We removed a problem, but no nation or being could fix that place. It isn't a "lack of government" problem, it is a lack of common unity/sense of nationality problem.
"But who prays for Satan? Who, in eighteen centuries, has had the common humanity to pray for the one sinner that needed it the most?"- Mark Twain
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Penguin, nicely put! The only serious problem I have with what you wrote is, you WANT to go to war with Iran?? That boggles my mind. I would respectfully request that you not include anyone here but yourself in your "we" unless someone else speaks up to agree with you. I most certainly do NOT!
But as for the rest; in my opinion, pretty well said. I don't think it's quite as black and white as you portray, tho'. I would say there's more to it regarding Iraq than only "a lack of common unity/sense of nationality problem", but certainly that's part of it, and part of the problem in Afghanistan/Pakistan as well, as you noted before.
I still say you're all pissing into the wind, however. You'll never get past CTTS mental block that everything, EVERYTHING about our government is black, black, black. I wish she could visit a few of those other countries...or maybe just learn about them?
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Quote:Some people beg to differ.
Originally posted by penquin11:
We didn't put Sadam in power.
http://www.representativepress.org/CIASaddam.html
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Disobedience is not an issue if obedience is not the goal.
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