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from the when-you-DO-NOT-want-them-to-"think-of-the-children!" dept.
A couple of weeks ago this story was reported by The Daily Beast :
Members of an American-backed rebel group in Syria beheaded a young child in a grisly execution video.
The footage surfaced early Tuesday of members of Harakat Nour al-Din al-Zenki and a captured child in Handarat, near Aleppo. The young boy, who appears to be prepubescent, is then executed on the back of a pickup truck.
The gruesome videotaped murder of a child drew outrage on social media and the promise of an inquiry from the group's leadership, which has previously received U.S.-made weapons and American funding. The group no longer gets such backing. But it's also renewed questions about which rebels the American government has supported in Syria's ongoing civil war.
[...] State Department spokesperson John Kirby told The Daily Beast. "We strongly condemn this type of barbaric action, no matter what group is responsible. We encourage al-Zenki to investigate the incident and expect all parties to comply with their obligations under the law of armed conflict."
[...] the group's leadership issued a statement condemning the beheading. It said it formed a committee to investigate how such a crime could have happened.
More video from the incident has been released:
The victim is seen among a group of fighters from the US and Turkish backed militant group, in the same red pick-up truck that features in their video of his execution. In a chilling exchange the jihadist militants can be seen taunting the child, taking selfies, and threatening him with 'slaughter'.
When asked about his final wish, the child asks to be shot rather than slaughtered. Their shocking answer? "Slaughter. We are even worse than ISIS"
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Monday August 01 2016, @04:26PM
This is why our current election cycle is important. If elected, Hillary will back ANY group which promises a "regime change" in Syria. She doesn't care about Syrian children, she is committed to a regime change.
Trump may be dangerous in other ways, but he is not committed to the Washington and military-industrial goal of overthrowing Assad.
And, it's not just Syria and the Levant. We have the same crazy shit happening in eastern Europe. Ukraine? We, the United States, destabilized that country in the hope of profit. Yeah, both Syria and Ukraine have/had crummy governments, just like Iraq and Afghanistan did. But, what have we done for ANY OF THEM that improves the lives of the PEOPLE?!!? We've not done one damned good thing for any of those millions of people.
Please, people, vote third party. Stein or Johnson aren't much of a hope - they are such long shots, I don't think they can be elected. But, they are our best hope of making any long term changes in our government, without resorting to outright rebellion. Give the third parties 10% of the vote, so that they can get into the debates, and the funding, and all the other good stuff that the Republicrats are hoarding for themselves.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday August 01 2016, @04:30PM
...idiot. Remember what happened when that complete no-op Dubya was in office? The real crazies in the GOP, the Cheneys and Yoos and Rumsfelds, used him as a convenient rubber stamp for their sociopathic long game. The exact same fucking thing will happen if Trump gets elected.
You've been fooled by the narrative. The presidency is a symbol; it's nearly irrelevant.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 01 2016, @05:04PM
Indeed. W ran on a non-intervention platform: "I am not a nation-builder". But changed his tune big-time after 9/11. W's own father blamed Cheney et al in his autobiography for talking W into Iraq.
Presidents are like a box of chocolates: you never know what you are going to get. And Forest Trump is hardly giving consistent Mid-East policies even now, sounding like a non-interventionist one day, and a fist-pounding Rambo the next.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by CirclesInSand on Monday August 01 2016, @11:34PM
That's a big reason that you shouldn't vote for someone for president unless they've had a lot of legislative experience that you approve of. If someone has no legislative experience or bad legislative experience you can be sure they are going to be pushed around and give away like Bush and Obama were.
It's also a lot of the wisdom of letting the president be chosen by the federal congress, as was the original method of presidential election. The president is supposed to implement the policies of congress, not write his own policies, and the best way to do that is to have him be chosen by congress. It would also end all this news hype around what is supposed to be a very insignificant choice, the matter of who is president.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday August 02 2016, @04:49PM
That's a big reason that you shouldn't vote for someone for president unless they've had a lot of legislative experience that you approve of. If someone has no legislative experience or bad legislative experience you can be sure they are going to be pushed around and give away like Bush and Obama were
Sanders supporters should like Clinton then. Clinton voted the same way Sanders did 93% of the time [nytimes.com]when they were both in the Senate.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 01 2016, @05:06PM
You might have noticed that Dubya has been out of office for nearly a decade and policies have not changed.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 01 2016, @05:22PM
> The exact same fucking thing will happen if Trump gets elected.
It will be worse than that. As incurious as he was, at least Bush tried to govern. Trump just wants to win the election because its an ego stroke, he doesn't actually want to execute the duties of president. He'll completely abdicate all responsibility to the VP.
Watch as how he weasels out of ever actually debating Clinton. Debate prep takes weeks of detailed work, its practice for actually being president. He's constitutionally incapable of spending even 15 minutes on it. That's why he's such a fan of twitter.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Monday August 01 2016, @06:02PM
Better to have a power hungry, power mad woman invading foreign countries, than that we have a less than competent president?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 01 2016, @06:18PM
Yes clinton is the devil...
Your raw, uncomprehending anger is noted yet again for the record.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday August 01 2016, @07:30PM
There's nothing wrong with angry; angry doesn't mean wrong. Hell, if it did I'd be in deep trouble. What does mean wrong is...well, wrong. Which he is.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 01 2016, @08:23PM
uncomprehending
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Monday August 01 2016, @08:24PM
Better to have a power hungry, power mad woman invading foreign countries, than that we have a power hungry, power mad, less than competent president?
FTFY
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday August 02 2016, @01:37AM
Except, Trump hasn't spent his life in politics, trying to buy his way into the White House. Hillary has done exactly that.
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Tuesday August 02 2016, @07:52PM
Except, Trump hasn't spent his life in politics, trying to buy his way into the White House. Hillary has done exactly that.
No, this attempt to buy his way in is just an ego-pumping one-off lark for him. Another notch on his belt. Those are just perfect reasons to run. As for Hillary, the same can be said for almost every other candidate who has made a serious run for the presidency. We know what to expect from Hillary, what to support and what to fight against. Trump? He will do what he thinks is best for Trump at any given moment, regardless of any consequences. The job is too important for such whimsical egoism and self gratification.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 01 2016, @06:06PM
Trump just wants to win the election because its an ego stroke, he doesn't actually want to execute the duties of president.
I don't understand the thinking here. If it's all about his ego, wouldn't he need to go down in history as a good president, rather than as a bad one, to satisfy his ego?
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 01 2016, @06:15PM
That's hard work and its not even winning. Why bother when winning the election gets him all the fame? The entire country voted and decided he was the most important person in the world. That's what matters.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday August 01 2016, @06:01PM
So - you're saying that Trump is another moron neocon, who is prepared to be the tool of the neocons? And, you're calling ME the idiot?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday August 01 2016, @06:44PM
Yes, I am, because you are suggesting people throw their vote away on a third party, which in practice means spoiling for Trump.
Third-party voters are usually intelligent and principled (usually...), i.e., not the kind of person who'd vote Trump anyway, so he's losing nothing. Clinton would be losing those votes, similar to what Nader did to Gore in 2000, and we simply cannot afford a repeat of that farce. I don't like Hillary at all, but she has my vote because I know Trump would be a figurehead and Cheney et. al would have another 4-8 years to fuck shit up if he wins. I don't even want to imagine 1-3 worse-than-Scalia appointees to the Supreme Court, which is what we'd get if Trump wins. THAT is why Clinton has my vote; it's the ultimate hold-your-nose moment.
I am a woman. I am rather poor. I am also a lesbian. I don't have the privilege to vote third-party and watch Trump burn the system down, because "the system" will take me with it.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by cubancigar11 on Monday August 01 2016, @06:54PM
The true reason why you will be voting for Hillary is because she is a woman.
The correct reason why not to vote for Hillary is because she is the system that needs to go burning down, forever into the that-was-a-bad-idea part of history, next to Hitler.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday August 01 2016, @07:24PM
Fuck you, cigar. I was a Sanders voter and am THIS close to still writing him in despite what I just said above. He is a much better person than Clinton, not to mention actually a better feminist, in that he considers the poor and minorities, whereas Hillary has turned it into a rich white womens' parlor game.
And if you think "burn the system down" with this particular set of candidates is the correct move, well...hope you have fun in hell next to the Fascists in post-WWII Spain. Seriously, how in Cthulhu's unholy name can you use a keyboard and still be so completely, holistically WRONG about so much?! No, we had our chance to burn ("Bern") the current system, and we collectively crucified him, just like the last socialist Jew who said to be good to the poor.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 01 2016, @09:57PM
OMG, seriously? Bernie as Jesus? You didn't just drink the kool aid, you mainlined it. Get real, sister. Bernie was controlled opposition, a bait and switch. His purpose was to motivate and politicize younger voters who would not have otherwise turned out and lined up behind the Wall-Street-bought-and-paid-for, status quo, say-anything-to-get-elected DNC establishment candidate. Everyone with any political awareness at all knew from the beginning that the fix was in for Clinton and that Bernie never stood a chance. He was there just to fire up the idealistic youngsters, get them engaged for the DNC, and then conveniently step aside when the time was right and hand his base over to Clinton. And that is EXACTLY what happened. You've been played, girl. Wake up and smell the toast burning. This is textbook political gamesmanship.
Here's the thing: you don't like Trump? Meh, I'm not crazy about the guy myself. But despite what the corporate-controlled media says I also don't think he's the next Hitler, either. At worst I think he'll be a do-nothing President, at best he might actually throw an occasional monkey wrench into the corrupt Washington machine. But the one thing I do know about Trump is that he's the closest thing to a Presidential candidate truly chosen by the People than any I've seen in my not-so-short lifetime. Trump was uninvited. The Republican establishment DIDN'T WANT HIM, and yet Trump won the nomination because the People did. You can be sure the RNC is currently fixing their system to ensure that shit never happens again. I expect the Republicans will soon be taking a page out of the DNC handbook and designating superdelegates for the next nomination.
So if you want to vote for Hillary, have at it. But don't delude yourself. Bernie's espoused ideals will not live on through Hillary. You'll be voting for a consummate politician, a master manipulator, and a true political insider who is only in it for her own interests, not the interests of the People. Rather than holding your nose and voting for Hillary out of media-hyped Trump fear, why don't you vote for someone you can at least stand behind ideologically? Sure, voting third party might mean four years of an ineffectual goofball in the White House, but frankly I think four years of Hillary would be demonstrably worse for the United States.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday August 02 2016, @05:15AM
I know damn sure Clinton is going to be more of Obama, which is more of Bush II, which is, frankly, more of Clinton. But the thought of the GOP placing SCOTUS justices is nauseating. She's got my vote because I can't countenance the idea of Three More Scalias on the SCOTUS. Fuck that noise.
And, hey, you know what? Controlled opposition or not, that little plan may very well have backfired on its planners...
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 01 2016, @10:17PM
Point of fact: Jesus told individuals to take care of the poor [biblegateway.com], most emphatically not governments-aka-force [quickmeme.com]. (He also said we will always have the poor among us [biblegateway.com], so forced equivalence is also not on His agenda for Earth before He comes back as a victorious warrior dictator.)
(Score: 3, Touché) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday August 02 2016, @05:21AM
Fucking hell...you, right here, are the problem. "Warrior-dictator." That's your issue right there: the ultimate authoritarian. How about you quit that cult of demon-worship before your soul quits your body and you learn the hard way why it's wrong? Please, take my advice on this: you are *really* not going to like the circumstances you end up in if you die as this particular kind of Christian.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 02 2016, @07:47PM
The random selection of your comments I've come across suggests you're extremely leery of the establishment of a Christian theocratic government. As the grandparent author [soylentnews.org] I strongly agree with you in that a theocratic government, especially for the USA where I live, must be rejected in favor of a government whose sole authority is derived from that of a single individual as it was during the Constitution's creation at the Philadelphia Convention.
I am convinced there will never be a human-created utopia, as evidenced by history's bloody record, and as such I will never lend my support to any humans trying to build one. Planned utopias whose creation requires force I plan to resist with force.
If the Bible is correct, and the God Jesus appears visibly in the sky as a prelude to His apparent single-handed victorious war against numerous countries whose populations include almost exclusively Muslims and aggressor enemies of the Israeli people... well, do you honestly expect me to think that if all that happens as predicted, then Jesus is somehow not also capable of the creation of a true utopia of which Him being dictator is the only rational choice? As such, while it seems oxymoronic, I am a die-hard advocate of personal liberty, an anti-authoritatian when it comes to human fiat, and yet am looking forward to a world takeover by a fully-God-and-human dictator whose credentials will be both blatantly obvious and impervious to forgery.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday August 02 2016, @08:09PM
...pick your fucking Bible up and READ IT. Jesus is no Utopian. He is literally Hitler to the Infinitieth Power; he (God) runs an eternal, inescapable concentration camp full of fear and fire and pain and torment and misery for what amount to his political prisoners.
And you would back this kind of character?! Naive fool! Anyone who would torture ANYONE ELSE for ANY length of time, let alone for eternity, would as soon do it to you for any reason or no reason at all. You...you complete God-damn, literally God-damn, fool! Sucking up to the biggest bully on the playground is NOT a sustainable long-term strategy!
I can't believe people like you are allowed to walk around free. We're fucked, aren't we...?
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 02 2016, @09:04PM
I am assuming that you are letting your emotions run roughshod over your reason. "I can't believe people like you are allowed to walk around free", implying you would see me killed or caged when I openly oppose all human tyrants regardless of their theology?
If the Bible is a pack of lies, there will be no unopposably powerful "space alien God" who rides thunder down to Earth, and people like me will continue to challenge usurpers until the heat death of the universe or until the very idea of liberty is stamped out, whichever comes first. It is to your own detriment if you support our murder or imprisonment.
On the other hand, if the Bible proves true, then the Creator God is love, truth, and justice incarnate, even if the details aren't something able to be grasped with a human mind. If I could comprehend the totality of the observable universe, I might be more concerned with my inability to comprehend the total nature of the Creator; however, as I can't comprehend the totality of the mere creation, what sense does it make to reject the Creator on the basis of my own limitations? While not on the same scale, I liken choices and consequences to observable laws such as gravity. Why would a God of love cause me the pain and suffering of a broken leg if I jump off my roof in disregard of gravity?
The lake of fire is very disturbing. Yet the same place is discussed in Matthew 22 [biblegateway.com], which ultimately boils down to a situation of "freedom of association". Those who choose not to associate with God will not be forced to, although the place where God is not present will not be pleasant. God is never involved in the torment of individuals - instead it is the work of His enemies, such as Lucifer, whose goals are described as killing, stealing, and destroying. If there is a place where God will not be, but where killers, thieves, and destroyers will run rampant, is it not only possible but probable that the tormentors will in fact be those same beings who refused association with God? There is even an eerie parallel in the Stanford Prison Experiment [wikipedia.org] where, in the absence of oversight, those with power/force began inflicting abuse on those whom which they could within a mere six days. What would you expect of a place where powerful beings, killers and destroyers, are set loose among others who want nothing to do with God for eternity without the all-powerful embodiment of love, truth, and justice being present?
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday August 03 2016, @02:54AM
Ah, it's you again. I recognize your style. Why don't you ever sign your posts? In any case, I realize that you are likely a lost cause, but will happily use you as an example to anyone else who might be watching. To start us off with: your entire wall of text was by turns irrelevant, fallacious, and outright sociopathic. Rather than waste the pixels and electrons analyzing it in fine detail, I'm going to get right down to brass tacks.
Now, I am going to assume you are not a Calvinist, from the sound of your post. I will also assume that your theodicy of choice is something along the lines of Plantinga's free will defense, i.e., your attempted solution to the Problem of Evil is that free will leads to sin. Is this correct?
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 03 2016, @05:00AM
The content of a message should carry more weight than the messenger, that's my excuse. I'm still confused as to why you'd rather see myself and people with my mindset dead or caged, particularly in that we seem to generally agree on the scope of governmental authority (within the USA, at the least) being limited to that of a single individual human's - it remains of interest to me, particularly if there is some reason for it beyond flippant emotionalism.
I'm not much for theological punditry. So many words written, almost always to justify some transparently stupid claim (I'm the vicar of Christ, buy indulgences!; Jesus will end up saving whomever He wants, so I'll just sit on the couch; God makes me do evil) versus a concise summation: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. [...] Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. [biblegateway.com] Seems pretty straightforward to me: doing so is "good". Not doing so is "evil". The very existence of good/evil begs the question that reveals an ultimate authority, else there is no such thing as "evil" and any imaginable atrocity is perfectly acceptable as long as the perpetrator can avoid negative consequences. As near as I can determine, I do have free will and have used it to do both good and evil in my past. Against humans, restitution is the goal. Against the Creator, I have no currency to use for restitution, but am able to ask for freely-given forgiveness [biblegateway.com], resulting in reconciliation of a broken relationship.
Free will allows for the option to break relationships, but does not require it.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday August 03 2016, @05:18AM
Answer the question, please. If you can; it may be you're so theologically illiterate I can't even class you as an apologist, but boy do you love to run your big mouth...
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 03 2016, @05:44AM
You say that I like using words as much as you like using ad hominem insults?
Free will allows for evil, but does not require evil.
Along with your response, will you finally deign to detail why you openly advocate for myself and others like me to be killed or caged (or drowned on the Flordia coast)? I'd prefer to sort the problem out with words before it came to a shooting match.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday August 03 2016, @03:52PM
Okay, so just so I have this straight here: you DO actually advocate a free-will theodicy, in other words, that the solution to the Problem of Evil is "necessarily, significantly-free, non-God essences will sin?" I want to make sure I'm representing you correctly before I shred you in public...
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 03 2016, @04:45PM
You're leading hard. For the third time: free will allows for the choice to choose evil, but does not require evil to ever be chosen.
(Once again, you refuse to disclose the motive for your openly disclosed impulses for killing, drowning, or kidnapping people who advocate for recognition of "self-ownership" and the necessary deconstruction of governments' power to match its legitimate authority of being limited to that of a single individual's.)
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday August 03 2016, @05:11PM
The answer to the second part of it has nothing to do with government, really; it's just karma for you and your kind...the souls of all those you've killed from Nicaea all the way up till the present day for "heresy" or disbelief are screaming for your blood. You personally weren't involved (though you might have been, in a previous incarnation), but your continued support of the same ideology and the same death cult and the same demon you worship as God makes you guilty. Please, please, disavow this religion of devil worship; if you die in this mindset you're going to end up in your idea of Hell for I don't know how long.
As to the rest: interesting, so you've decided to go against the grain of major apologists such as Alvin Plantinga. So, if free will qua free will does not necessarily lead to sin, what does? What is your solution to the Problem of Evil?
This should be very interesting...and probably darkly hilarious :)
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 03 2016, @08:22PM
The idea of "karma" is directly harmful to the concept of a self-owning human. Such a human learns about their surroundings, makes choices, deals with the consequences of said choices, then dies. The concept of karma then dictates, what, that the same human being is reborn in different cirumstances but without any knowledge of their responsibility as to how said circumstances came about? That sounds like a blanket dismissal of personal responsibility (because said "person" no longer exists in any recognizable form), an impediment to offers of charity, and a terrible attitude for someone concerned about the wellbeing of the poor to take: "they are poor because it's their karma; if I try to help them, it'll actually hurt them because they need to suffer for their karma". I understand this exact scenario to be a horrific problem in places like India. As far as ascribing to me the responsibility for murders of "heretics", it is identical in form as if you supported the genocide of the Native Americans because their ancestors wiped out the Clovis people. To the contrary, the view I hold regards the initiation of the use of force as a crime against a self-owning being regardless of the theology of the attacker and/or the victim, and this view is in harmony with the voluntary nature of the claimed relationships between the Biblical Creator and humans.
The concepts and basic arguments of "free will, evil existing, and God as described in the Bible" I am long familiar with. A crash-course on Alvin Plantinga seems to suggest that his "free will defense" does logically resolve the "Problem of Evil" [utm.edu]. Yes, this does require that the Creator cannot do certain things, such as contradict His nature. This doesn't change the practicality of the claim of unlimited power in that all of creation is supposed to be under the complete control of its Creator, to the point of seemingly impossible feats such as making the sun stand still in the sky without flinging humans off the earth or stripping the sun of its fuel via inertia. Yes, this does suggest that humans may lose their free will at some point, by being unable to choose evil after obtaining a glorified body. None of these seem problematic for a person who desires to continually do "good", yet regularly does "evil" due to what is traditionally described as character flaws.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday August 03 2016, @08:41PM
Will you stop cranking out these walls of irrelevant (and, more importantly, WRONG) text and engage with what is being said to you? I'm done wasting my time on Gish Gallops. Plantinga's free will defense does not answer the problem of evil--and his use of modal logic in some other arguments is, politely put, rather questionable.
Thankfully, like everyone else who thinks as you do, you've fatally undermined your free will defense, though you chose the second horn of the dilemma rather than the first. This if anything makes you easier to deal with than the ones who insist that we retain our free will with a glorified body :) Hmm, guess free will isn't THAT important to the Flying Canaanite Genocide Fairy, now is it?
And, my oh my, we haven't even gotten into how completely self-contradictory the very description of this Yahweh fellow is. From the looks of it, though, we may not need to. Man, and I thought Harman was disappointing...
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 03 2016, @09:37PM
Oh, please. I bit on your claim that Jesus was an advocate for government-force-as-charity, and have just been following your own Gish Gallops [rationalwiki.org] from there.
1. Jesus wasn't a socialist [soylentnews.org]
2. Follower of Yahweh != governmental authoritarian [soylentnews.org] (not in the USA at least)
3. God does/will not participate in torture, oh and you'd prefer peaceable people be murdered or kidnapped [soylentnews.org]
4. Detail-free handwaving regarding the topics of free will, existence of evil, and omnipotence, along with the assumption that the human mind is capable of grasping the totality of the universe, let alone anything greater [soylentnews.org] (see: Godel's Incompleteness Theorums [wikipedia.org])
Offloading the bulk of your text to multipage esoteric references while claiming my comments compare to a "wall of text" is laughable. If you want to engage in a discussion, then feel free to start. You've been coy with anything of substance (though I do thank you for finally giving some explaination to your wishes for others' demise) while at the same time ignoring my [soylentnews.org] repeated [soylentnews.org] answer [soylentnews.org] to your own question [soylentnews.org].
Even this last post of yours is filled with a myriad of rabbit trails:
A. How does Plantinga's free will defense not answer the Problem of Evil
B. How does an error in "other arguments" from Plantinga invalidate (presumably) his Free Will Defense
C. A (so far) naked assertion that a person who entertains the possibility of a future loss of free will is "easier to deal with"
D. An invitation to engage without an actual question beyond an apparently rhetorical one regarding speculation the value of free will
E. More ad hominem
... well? Care to dispense with the Gish Gallops and share the reasoning for why you believe Jesus was an advocate for using governments to forcibly extract resources from some people in order to take care of the poor, like that "other socialist Jew" Bernie?
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday August 04 2016, @08:00AM
I don't think Jesus gave a good himself-damn about WHERE the money came from so much as that it DID come. Remember "render unto Caesar?" Besides which, if you know your history (which you of course do not...) you would know that charity partly consisted of leaving the edges of vineyards and the corners of fields unreaped, i.e., very literally giving a portion of the fruits of their labor to the poor. In a service-sector economy with a fiat currency, rather than an Iron-age agrarian milieu, the equivalent of this would be...you guessed it, tax money put toward social programs.
Also, this is the guy who thought the end of the world was coming Real Soon Now (TM)--which kiiiiiinda makes you wonder why he said "the poor ye have always with you" if that's the case, doesn't it? Yet *another* contradiction...you really oughtta think these things through before you start spitballing. You're badly outclassed here.
Regarding Plantinga's Attempted Free Will Defense not answering the PoE: I'm not sure you can follow this, as it involves modal logic, but the compressed version of his argument goes like this: basically, it is logically impossible (that is, there is no possible state of affairs, or "possible world" as he calls them) for significantly-free, non-God essences to exist while sin does not. That is, there is no set of circumstances in which significantly-free, non-God essences obtain and sin does not.
This raises the question: "Are you sure about that? What about your heaven?" And THAT leads us to the following four possibilities:
1) Free will obtains, and sin does not obtain, in heaven.
2) Free will does not obtain, and neither does sin, in heaven
3) Free will obtains, and so can/does sin, in heaven
4) Free will does not obtain, but sin does, in heaven.
Now, #4 is obviously absurd from a Christian point of view. #3 is also deadly to the Christian worldview...despite that fact that, unless something has changed drastically since the supposed rebellion in heaven, this is likely the correct answer. More on that later. #1 is what most people challenged with this say, and it is also instantly and globally fatal to the entire genus of free-will theodicies for what should be obvious reasons to anyone with a shred of intellectual honesty; anyone who does not see this is refusing to, rather than incapable of, understanding.
#2 is the answer you chose; oh, sure, you're *trying* to dodge the implications by saying free will may be "somewhat reduced" rather than entirely eliminated with glorification, but that's not gonna work: if we are ONE IOTA LESS FREE, the defense fails, for what should also be fairly obvious reasons to anyone who doesn't have an emotionally-motivated reason not to understand this.
I have never, ever, not in the entire decade I've been doing counter-apologetics, met anyone so happily and blindly willing to impale himself on the second horn of this dilemma. It's almost making me wonder if you didn't understand the question. That is what I mean when I say you're easier to deal with than the people who insist on #1; you've completely undermined yourself. Now in fairness, this one trips up even people with PhDs in theology; so far I've deconverted 3, gotten blocked by one, and gotten death threats from another, all of whom had at least graduate degrees in theology :)
Regarding point B: I don't actually think he argues very well. His continued popularity baffles me, frankly. Several of his arguments have actually made me say, out loud into the empty room in which I was reading them, "Good grief, is he serious?!" Take, for example, the Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism: the entire sordid mess is based on the false premise that in a naturalistic worldview, all propositions are on an equal footing. If I recall correctly, his example concerns a caveman and a sabre-toothed cat, with the assertion being that on naturalism, said caveman is precisely as likely to think "Hurr hurr pet da floofy" as "Run like hell, this thing thinks I'm 160 pounds of Kaveman Kibble."
This, of course, betrays a profound and wide-ranging ignorance of everything from sociology to biology to ethology to ecology. The flaw of this argument is assuming 1) that all propositions exist in a vacuum, rather than an interacting and in many cases hierarchical system with one another and with, for example, instincts, possible "genetic memory" effects, and so forth, and 2) it begs the question by implicitly assuming what it wishes to prove: that a naturalistic worldview would not allow any sort of "error checking" of this sort of proposition--beyond the obvious, that being getting turned into tiger munchies.
Do you see why I don't hold Plantinga in very high regard now? I am a geologist by training and I fix computers (and get condescended to by people who think women can't fix computers...) for a living, and I can shred this guy in seconds.
Now, regarding Godel's Incompleteness Theorem: that's actually something I've been wondering about with regard to epistemology for a while now. The Theorem, if I recall right, states that certain classes of formal logic cannot be proven to be internally consistent within themselves; it's the "does the container contain itself?" problem rephrased for logic basically. You're strawmanning here, though; I never said we need to understand the totality of the universe. You've fallen into the same trap Plantinga did in the EaaN.
Besides which, in a metaphysically-naturalistic worldview (which I do NOT hold to, by the way...you likely assume I'm an atheist, when I'm actually a Deist or panpsychist) the WORST possible outcome is global scepticism, a permanent, unsettling feeling that we may be being fooled all the time. However, on a theistic worldview, this is the BEST possible outcome you can hope for, and in an Abrahamic worldview you can't even hope for that, since the Bible contains numerous instances of Yahweh admitting outright that he, whether directly or through "lying spirits," deceives humans and manipulates their minds...which, by the way, ALSO throws your idiotic free-will theodicy out the window.
How would you know if you were being fooled by Yahweh? How would you know to what extent? You don't, and can't, but you DO know that if his claims about himself are honest, he HAS done it before. The complete atheist, the metaphysical naturalist, has no such fear.
Furthermore, the universe of the Abrahamic theist is basically a cartoon; think specifically of that Looney Tunes short where Bugs Bunny in the role of animator spends a solid 10 minutes trolling the ever-loving shit out of poor Daffy Duck. This is why I laugh when apologists attempt a "uniformity of nature" argument; the whole bloody point of theism is that nature is NOT uniform, that $GOD is able to tell the laws of reality, which he made and is by definition absolutely-sovereign over, to go fuck themselves sideways.
Lastly: I would prefer to heal your mind and rescue you from this hellacious death cult rather than see you die, but in the same way a doctor must fear Ebola while s/he treats the Ebola victim, containment is sometimes necessary. Much as I dislike the idea, neutralizing you might be appropriate. And there is, as mentioned, a kind of poetic justice in you suffering the sort of thing your kind has inflicted on its foes from Constantine to the Enlightenment...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 04 2016, @10:49AM
Of course. I spent the better part of ten years bashing ideas around into a shape that has thus far survived remarkably well for its assertion that USians in general are not (or not obligated) to follow government diktat unless it falls within the scope of a single "normal" person's authority as a self-owning individual. The USA is not a theocracy, establishing one would appear to violate the Romans 13-esque God-established authority (oddly enough), and since I have no authority to take half of your paychecks by force neither can I delegate such authority to a government. [soylentnews.org] Socialism (theocratic or otherwise) is as inappropriate for today's USA as is stoning rebellious children by the city gate, and this assertion nonetheless remains in harmony with the Biblical directives to obey authority (assuming that the American Revolution was also so harmonious).
Considering that time is relative [wikipedia.org], I'm very hesitant to demand literalism - from a human's perspective - from the words of a being who potentially views time as a whole [biblegateway.com], and/or who is not subject to time as we know it due to the likelihood that time itself is a part of the created universe. I might as well lump other claims to God's contradictory nature in here as well: the hardening of Pharaoh's heart [biblegateway.com] is not a situation for which I have the answer I'd like, although such a case may be addressed by God abandoning the mind of a human who continually rejects Him [biblegateway.com], or by mere omniscience knowing in advance Pharaoh's own chosen reaction to the plagues,
Now's a good a time as any to disclose that I assemble my views primarily based on the preponderance of evidence rather than trying to solve all the mysteries of the universe with my own mind. The world's smartest humans have been unable to do so, thus I doubt I have the ability (hence my nod to Godel). I do try to use reason and logic where they can obviously apply, particularly among the observables of human behavior and records of history. Nor am I trying to impose my thought process upon you, but only to communicate it.
Now, as for logic as it applies to Plantinga's Free Will Defense [utm.edu], I'll first note that you brought it up along with the "Problem of Evil" rather than respond directly to my counter-claim that the Creator does not "torture ANYONE ELSE for ANY length of time" [soylentnews.org]. There are familiar concepts in both, but I was not familiar with Plantinga nor did I present his views for a defense. Nonetheless, I read through multiple descriptions of his FWD, and even though you seem to disagree, there is an explicit case (listed as "W4" [utm.edu]) describing just such a free-will world without evil - in fact, according to the Bible, that seemed to be the intended plan for Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden. (Note that dissatisfaction with Plantinga's reasoning on a different topic, EaaN, cannot by itself invalidate different reasoning in a separate topic, FWD.)
As to the matter of free will, I can't speak to God's valuation of it, but I'll draw a parallel in human legalism with a concept I'm quite familiar with: consent. Consent is what differentiates a crime from a non-crime. If I were to give consent to someone else to remove, say, my drug-addiction problem, even at any price, then no crime could have been committed. In the same way, I am of the opinion that I would prefer to do "good" in all situations even though I regularly choose "evil"; if I could give consent to someone I trusted to be able to rid myself of the temptation to do "evil", I believe I would. This seems the essence of the situation in which one of Yahweh's followers might possibly trade some or all of their free will in exchange for finally being free of the temptations to choose "evil". Any removal of free will in such a case would itself be an act of free will.
Considering that I can't know for certain that I'm not, say, a dismbodied brain in a jar somewhere: I don't think I could. Trust is essential. If I do the best I can to judge the observable evidence and am fooled by a reality-warping superbeing, oh well - not much I see myself being able to do about that situation.
I suppose I shouldn't continue to be surprised by your repeated justification for my kidnapping/murder. I am saddened, though. Nonetheless, I recognize that evil exists, and that I have a measure of responsibility [biblegateway.com] which includes taking steps to protect my own personal safety that extends to the physical [biblegateway.com], another topic I am keen to discuss with other Christians. I don't plot or entertain thoughts of your disappearance nor execution, but merely plan for defense against criminals of any stripe.
(I hope you'll excuse me for mostly ignoring your continued insults and chest-thumping; I would have thought that you were confident enough in your other assertions that you could have done without them, but...)
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday August 05 2016, @03:33AM
Good grief, you're hopeless. This is like giving medicine to a corpse. Not one single thing I said got through to you did it?
Oh well...can't really say I'm surprised :/ The truth stands for itself; those who have ears to hear, as the saying goes, will hear. Those who deliberately wish not to hear...well, give it some time. You'll come around, either here or in the next world.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 05 2016, @06:03AM
You made some assertions, and I believe I found errors in them. My reply [soylentnews.org] noted the apparent errors and made counter-assertions to the primary point (using some pretty solid evidence [soylentnews.org] if I do say so myself) and the following minor points. You can of course disagree with me without further explaination. However, if you expect others to blindly accept assertions that appear faulty to even a cursory examination, I don't believe you have the audience you're expecting.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday August 05 2016, @04:58PM
*siiiigh* This isn't FOR you, idiot. I know you can't be saved. You're not even capable of doing an honest analysis of your own beliefs, and it's fairly obvious why. No, this is for the benefit of anyone watching who may either attempt to use your arguments, or who may face someone who does and would like the antidote.
You made your choice a long time ago. All you're good for now is to be a negative example, a warning.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Monday August 01 2016, @10:52PM
I was a Bernie supporter and I'm afraid I'll be canceling your vote as I WILL be voting Trump. Trump is against more ME wars and against TPP, Hillary has made it clear she thinks we should be at war with Syria and Iran and her choice as VP has made it clear she will fast track TPP the second she gets through the door. Also the fact that they trotted an illegals little kid to try to pull heartstrings while not even knowing the name of the pregnant woman murdered by an illegal who had been deported FIVE times in San Fran?
I'm sorry but Shilary and the rotten to the core DNC is not something I can possibly support, will Trump be bad? I do not know, can't be any worse than Hillary and maybe 4 years of Trump will give an impetus to either get a decent third party or get rid of the corruption in the DNC.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 1) by kurenai.tsubasa on Monday August 01 2016, @11:48PM
Why not Johnson/Weld?
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Tuesday August 02 2016, @01:04AM
Because until our entire political system is changed I have a better chance of becoming POTUS than they do?
As long as we have first past the post and the electoral college the MOST a third party can do is be a spoiler for one of the two parties that can win, and frankly I don't want to risk helping Shillary win a damned thing other than a trip to PMITA prison.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 1) by stackOVFL on Tuesday August 02 2016, @07:38PM
Hell, I'd vote fer ya! Anyone who's handle is Harryfeet can't be bad! Heck, that names an example of good old American honestly there :P
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 02 2016, @01:12AM
Don't forget the fact that Putin probably has all of Hillary's emails indexed and ready to go for blackmail.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 02 2016, @02:01AM
> Trump is against more ME wars and against TPP,
How do you know? Trump has one defining position, Trump first, whatever it takes.
You think he's actually protectionist?
Ignore the fact that lots of his merch, and practically all of Ivanka's merch is manufactured overseas.
Just this weekend it came out he had recently applied for 65 HB2 visas [vanityfair.com] for people like waiters and housekeepers at his maralago resort, as if there was no one locally qualified for such jobs in all of palm beach.
You think Trump is going to keep any promises at all? You are just hearing what you want hear because he's on all sides of every issue.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 02 2016, @06:32PM
I used to work for Ursula Burns. She used to talk in public about the value of engineers, the importance of STEM etc. and then sent 15% of us to work for an Indian outsourcing company where we were told we'd have to find new work for new customers and were replaced by cheap, over-worked Indians. Over in Oregon, she cut the factory workers' wages and made a bunch of them redundant. Never trust these people.
(Score: 2) by turgid on Tuesday August 02 2016, @01:49PM
Trump is the candidate for division, bigotry, selfishness, xenophobia, racism, proud ignorance of facts, outright stupidity... He may claim to be against wars in the Middle East, but as soon as a new bogeyman appears, the American public will clamour for action to be taken, and Trump will not let an opportunity pass by for him to further inflate his ego. Trump is a danger to the whole world, not just America. Please do everything you can to keep him away from power. He has even picked a Tea Party loony as his running mate. How much more warning do you need?
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 01 2016, @10:20PM
This is the US own little prisoners dilemma. Always choosing the perceived lesser evil and be condemned to the same bad choice in a couple of years.
I am not saying you have much choice though. Breaking the prison is the only real solution.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 02 2016, @12:45AM
Yes, I am, because you are suggesting people throw their vote away on a third party, which in practice means spoiling for Trump.
Cool, another short-sighted moron. [soylentnews.org] But hey, every election is the most important election ever, so it's never a time to vote third party. Why does it seem like the candidates sometimes get even more evil than usual? Nevermind, ignore that and vote for more evil scumbags.
But hey, I'll apparently be voting for Trump and Hillary at the exact same time, since I'll be supporting neither. Maybe if the candidates weren't so terrible, things would be different. Clearly the best way to change that is to vote for Party X no matter how terrible they are; then they'd have a huge incentive to change!
Fuck you. It's not up to you to decide whether or not my vote is "wasted". Clinton isn't entitled to my vote, and I'll have none of your short-sighted nonsense that helped bring upon this mess in the first place.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday August 02 2016, @05:12AM
Fuck you right back, dipshit. I don't stand a snowball's chance in hell of surviving if Trump becomes president, and voting third party is only going to spoil for him for reasons I (wasted my time on...?) explaining upthread. I don't like Clinton, but I hate the idea of the GOP getting to place Supreme Court justices even more.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2, Touché) by jrial on Tuesday August 02 2016, @10:32AM
Maybe you should click on the link in the summary, then click through to the link to the actual video. A young prepubescent kid gets his head cut off by some barbaric men under the guise of religion, men who we thought would be above this. That is what this article is about. A young kid dying, a mother who will never see him grow up, and how we can ensure when we back people in that conflict, we're backing the good guys (if there is such a thing even) so that we are not accessory to such crimes in the future.
And here you are, predictably engaging in your favourite passtime of arguing with anyone and everyone on the Internet about your lesbian feminist sensibilities, like in every thread I've seen you participate in. There are places and times for this, but this is not it. Have some decency; not every conversation should be about you and your imaginary first-world problems.
And learn to have a discussion like an adult. Opening up with "fuck you, dipshit" and the myriad of variations witnessed in this thread does not make people more likely to take you or your message more seriously. Teenagers speak like that, and see how serious they're taken by the rest of society.
Install windows on my workstation? You crazy? Got any idea how much I paid for the damn thing?
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday August 02 2016, @04:17PM
Has it occurred to you that when faced with people who can only discourse at the level of a teenager, that's the appropriate speech style to use? I've tried going over their heads and it didn't get anywhere. Sometimes you gotta sink to your audience's level if you want to be understood.
As to the rest of your comment, quit your bitching; this is a side thread about the upcoming possibilities for the US president, and if you had actually READ my damn posts, you'd see why a GOP presidency would be an unmitigated disaster for the entire country. Trump, if elected, would line the Oval Office with mirrors and spend the next 4 years sitting around whacking off to his own reflection; meanwhile, the shadowy sociopaths behind the GOP machine, the toxic combination of Dominionists and corporate raiders, would have complete control over the political process.
Trump, like Dubya before him, would be a useful symbolic rubber stamp for the Cheneys and the Rumsfelds and the Yoos and the Wolfowitzes etc. of the party. Can you imagine what kind of complete havoc allowing anywhere from one to three GOP SCOTUS nominees would wreak on this country's civil rights, infrastructure, and economy?!
If you think my motivation is, as you put it, "feminist sensibilities," you're either lazy beyond belief or deluded. This is about all of us who aren't mega-wealthy...yes, even you. The GOP does not like you, it does not care about you, and if you're voting for Trump, congratulations, the term "useful idiot" was created for you.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Blightbow on Tuesday August 02 2016, @05:08PM
Has it occurred to you that when faced with people who can only discourse at the level of a teenager, that's the appropriate speech style to use? I've tried going over their heads and it didn't get anywhere. Sometimes you gotta sink to your audience's level if you want to be understood.
and if you're voting for Trump, congratulations, the term "useful idiot" was created for you.
Please compare and contrast your preamble with your conclusion.
We understand that you don't want Trump in office. Neither do I. That does not change the fact that your emotions make you a poor spokesperson for your cause, particularly to those such as myself who will not be voting for Hillary and you are trying to convince otherwise. I forgive you because it's the same exact bullshit that the rest of the country is caught up in, but you need to take a step back like everyone else.
The fallacy that "[other people are immature idiots and it is okay to conduct myself that way]" is self-perpetuating, and it does not win many new people to your cause. It doesn't change the mind of the people you're exchanging barbs with, and it is unimpressive to those who are undecided or spectating from the outside. It is little more than blind catharsis that perpetuates a fucked up system.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday August 02 2016, @05:43PM
I've given up on those people. There is nothing that can be done to change an authoritarian follower's mind; it's something on the irrational, emotional level, and if an authoritarian-type does not implicitly trust you, s/he will NEVER listen to anything you say no matter HOW correct it is and no matter WHAT terms you couch it in.
There is only one thing to do with memetic plague-bearers like this: contain and ridicule, in the perhaps-vain hope that some cosmic ray will hit their brain just right and flip the exact biological bit needed to get them to see reason...and prevent others from being infected. It's not fair, but ridicule sets off the same parts of the brain actual physical assault does, doubly-so in the case of someone whose identity is completely tied into their politics. There's also the social/psychological group-dynamic aspect of it, that being, people will be less likely to support the ridiculed one even if that's not necessarily rational.
For my part...the gloves are off. We are looking at a potentially civilization-ending catastrophe here. I will be dipped in shit if I don't fight this. Yes, this is the same scummy tactic the hard authoritarians use, and I am not proud of myself for having sunk to this, but I don't see any alternative. Reason does not work; you may as well give medicine to the dead :(
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 02 2016, @02:09AM
If you are going to vote for clinton, then you have to commit to holding her accountable to her campaign promises.
Bernie started his campaign with the intent of moving the democrat party closer to his positions. He achieved that in both clinton's changes and the official planks of the party. But "holding your nose" suggests your going to vote and then give up on Bernie's entire campaign. Politicians listen to constituents - both for threats to throw them out next term, but also when they organize and demonstrate in ways that a cynic would say are embarrassing to the politician but that a realist would understand as politicians trying to do the right thing.
Look at the civil rights movement: Those leaders spoke vehemently out against the policies of the Democrats. But they went on to vote for them. I don’t think you have to pick between holding someone accountable and giving them your vote. Martin Luther King held LBJ accountable — but he also gave him his vote, because that was the better option to advance MLK’s cause.
Bernie has made it clear from the start of his campaign to his endorsement of clinton that he understands this. If only more of his supporters did.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 02 2016, @03:15AM
If only more of his supporters did.
The only thing to understand is that it's wrong. What we've seen is that voting for evil results in evil. Threatening someone you've already voted in is nearly pointless unless you can get a huge majority of their constituents to care about a particular issue, which is almost never the case.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 02 2016, @03:28AM
> What we've seen is that voting for evil results in evil.
Ah, to be young and simple-minded again.
You write like I did when I was a college freshman.
I didn't realize there was anyone that young on soylent.
One day you'll learn you aren't smarter than MLK was.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday August 02 2016, @05:10AM
I'm wracking my brains trying to figure out how We the People can make Clinton's life a living Hell if she reneges. All I can think of at this point is Sanders becoming a social firebrand and keeping his entire constituency all riled up, preferably with something like "I gave you my votes to save this nation from Trump, Hillary; these are my supporters I told to vote for you. We're all watching."
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 02 2016, @12:35PM
> I'm wracking my brains trying to figure out how We the People can make Clinton's life a living Hell if she reneges.
If you expect something that extreme you are living in lalaland. When did any civil rights movement ever make an allied politician's "life a living Hell?"
And yet they've accomplished tons of progress.
If you want change you have to work for it, and work hard for it. Just voting is not enough. You can argue the fairness of that, play the role of martyr and accomplish nothing. Or you can become involved and be part of the long, hard, unrewarding slog that actually accomplishes something. Just like software development is 99% invisible, boring, technical work so too is pretty much any other larger-scale effort, including political activism. If that work is distasteful to you, that's totally legit. But you can't shirk it and then complain about a lack of results. That's the logic of juveniles.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday August 02 2016, @04:08PM
I do anti-human-trafficking work, in addition to holding down 2 jobs. You couldn't know this since we've never met, but now that you do I'll thank you not to accuse me of being just another keyboard-warrior whiner, thanks.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 02 2016, @05:47PM
Wow, you sure read his whole comment before flying off into your usual auto-flame, didn't you.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday August 02 2016, @06:04PM
Yes, I did. And if you had read MINE, you'd see that the entire premise of it is "if you vote third party you'll be spoiling in favor of Trump, not Clinton."
Pot, meet kettle--if you were any blacker you'd get shot while driving.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 03 2016, @12:30AM
And I am black, you racist bitch.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday August 03 2016, @02:50AM
Fool. Your feelings about who you're voting for don't change the facts about what a third party vote means in this election. And I don't give a damn what color you are; you could be orange with a purple and green paisley pattern and a tattoo of Rob Zombie on your left ass cheek and it wouldn't change the reality of the situation.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Thexalon on Monday August 01 2016, @05:00PM
The way to make the decision between voting for the third party you actually want versus the lesser evil:
1. If you are polled, you should say you support the third-party candidate. Always.
2. If you are in a state that is not considered competitive between the major parties (this is the majority of the country), vote for the third-party candidate of your choice.
3. If you are in a state that is considered competitive between the major parties, vote for the lesser evil.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Monday August 01 2016, @05:20PM
The polls are only accurate 19 times out of 20. That means with 50 states, you can expect 2 races that appear to have a clear winner, when in fact, it is closer to an even split.
I advocate never voting for the lesser evil. That just perpetuates the 2 party system.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Tuesday August 02 2016, @07:23AM
3a) Vote for the most-likely-to-be-larger party, hopeing to unlock strategy 2 next time;
3b) Vote for the party which is going to make the bigger fuckup (yes, the greater evil), hoping to encourage a wider realisation that the big 2 are evil.
Or, of course:
3c) resorting to outright rebellion (a consequence of (3b) perhaps)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 02 2016, @12:24PM
> I advocate never voting for the lesser evil. That just perpetuates the 2 party system.
That entire argument relies on the assumption that there is ever a pure unadulterated good to vote for.
That's obviously sophomoric.
Its just hiding from the fact that every candidate is a mixture of "good" and "evil" and you are just rationalizing your preconceived biases about the trade-offs that you prefer.
(Score: 2) by JeanCroix on Tuesday August 02 2016, @06:04PM
I am in such a state, and I define the lesser evil to be a third party.
(Score: 2) by jdavidb on Monday August 01 2016, @06:07PM
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 01 2016, @07:37PM
Ukraine was Russian accomplishment.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Monday August 01 2016, @08:02PM
Okay, so we quit selling them weapons. Who do you think will move in on that very juicy market? Unfortunate as it may be, the only solution that has ever worked was bombing them until unconditional surrender is achieved and then a "Marshall Plan" to rebuild, and then indefinite occupation. Anybody really believe that if we applied our present methods to Europe and Japan that they would be enjoying the relative peace and great prosperity they have today? The culture thing is irrelevant. What we are engaging in is Chamberlain/Vichy style of appeasement, or simply war as a business. Or maybe the Middle East is "The Mouse That Roared".
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2, Flamebait) by Runaway1956 on Monday August 01 2016, @08:16PM
Only a masochist occupies and rebuilds the country he has just defeated.
Afghanistan should have been a punitive campaign. Not even a war, just a punitive campaign. Go in, kick ass, destroy their warmaking capability, maybe some infrastructure (not that they had a whole lot of that), take prisoners, the GTFO. Let them rebuild themselves.
Iraq never should have happened, plain and simple, in which case, we would have had no obligations to them at all. But, if we really HAD TO get Saddam, we should have got him, then GTFO. We stayed around for - what, exactly? To give DAESH reason to get established?
That nation building is some crazy shite. It worked after WW2 because we got meaningful surrenders from a vanquished people. Not to mention, we displayed a ferocity in WW2 which we are not willing to go back to. Firebombing Dresden, and atomic bombs in Japan alike demonstrated that we were willing to kill every last man, woman, and child if we didn't get the surrenders we were lookiing for.
Today, we are emasculated imitations of the warriors who won WW2, strutting about, trying to convince people that we are just as tough as our fathers - or in most cases here, our grandfathers.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Monday August 01 2016, @08:38PM
Sounds like you agree with me then. Yeah, show them how crazy we can be, and I'd wager you would get the desired results. They will sit down and shut up. But it still requires the Marshall Plan and the occupation if you want longer term results. I am very interested in hearing how the present situation is better. This is a clear case of *shit, or get off the pot*. I mean, aside for the guaranteed profits from the war business. And in case nobody noticed, we are playing both sides, just like with the Iran/Iraq war. These guys aren't answering the call of Allah, it's the good old American dollar [indiatimes.com] that reels them in. Beats the hell of working in the brickyards for virtually nothing.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Tuesday August 02 2016, @03:04AM
Discussion elsewhere today on this very thing. And I pointed out: Soldiers don't win wars. Collateral damage wins wars. When one side has had enough of collateral damage, that's when they surrender.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Tuesday August 02 2016, @10:11AM
Only a masochist occupies and rebuilds the country he has just defeated.
Very true. After all, look at what the allies did in Germany and Japan after the Second World War, only to have these two become their implacable enemy for the second half of the twentieth century, sending suicide bombers to attack them and embarking on terrorist actions for decades.
As always, you display a complete lack of understanding of history. Go and read up on the Treaty of Versailles and the causes of World War II to understand why people more intelligent than you realised that this was a stupid policy before you were born.
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday August 02 2016, @03:00PM
The treaty of Versaille was instrumenal in the ongoing rape of Germany, for years after the war ended. Defeat in WW1 didn't lead to WW2 - instead, the ongoing rape of Germany made it possible for Hitler to appeal to German's sense of justice, on his path to taking power.
France is at least as responsible for WW2 as Germany was.
And, nowhere in my punitive expedition post did I make any mention of decades-long exploitation of a former adversary. Kick ass, don't take any names, go home, and go about your own business. That way, there are no grudges for later generations to settle with our children/grandchildren.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday August 01 2016, @09:48PM
You and Runway are both wrong.
Rebuilding Germany and Japan worked because both of those were advanced cultures that were not bound by a backwards religion. The problem is that both of them attempted to form empires and brutalize their neighbors (in Germany's case because they blamed everyone else for their problems, and they were partly right since they had a crappy punitive treaty forced on them at the end of WWI). Both nations were already extremely modern and technological societies at the time, with advanced economies, which is why they were such formidable opponents. And in neither nation was religious fundamentalism a real problem, nor did their societies have any tribalism left; Germans and Japanese of 1945 were just as mentally invested in the nation-state concept as we are now, if not more so.
In the middle eastern nations, the reason the stable countries (for a while) have or had dictators is because that was what was necessary to keep the religious fundamentalists from taking over, and also because the societies there are tribal in nature, rather than based on nationalism. In Iraq, the civilian government has had a terrible time trying to keep the place united because all the tribes are always fighting each other, and one group basically invites ISIS in because they haven't bought into the multi-ethnic civilian government. And in Syria, all the rebels are actually a bunch of religious crazies who want to set up a theocracy. In Egypt, they overthrew their dictator and promptly elected a bunch of wacky Islamists.
The simple fact is that these societies are simply not capable of running modern democratic republican forms of government; their people don't really understand the whole idea of nations, there's too much internal strife, and there's too much backwards religious thought. Any attempts at nation-building will fail there. The only things that'll work are indefinite occupation and foreign administration (with a rather brutal hand), or just GettingTFO. The first option both makes you look like a bully, as every colonizing country does, plus it invites a lot of blow-back in the form of terrorist attacks. So the second option is the only sensible one. These cultures need another half-millennia or so to get their acts together, just as the European cultures did to get from burning heretics at the stake to having modern tolerant societies.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Tuesday August 02 2016, @02:20AM
It was Brzezinski [counterpunch.org] who brought religion to the forefront. And almost all your "crazies" are only in it for the money [express.co.uk]. I don't know why everybody has to keep repeating government press releases presented to the mass media, a lot of it is plain old bigotry. This is a war nobody is fighting to win. It's all about keeping it going. And the worst "failure", as it were, is that of containment, which has its own propaganda value as well. Please, leave all the religious/tribal mumbo-jumbo outside. The same operating principles operate worldwide. Unconditional surrender and rebuilding(and yes, indefinite occupation, we can even use the same Russians as the same convenient pretext we use for Europe and Japan) are achievable, but nobody can stomach the necessary brutality. Killing people more slowly and steadily seems more palatable for some reason. Peace is bad for business.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Tuesday August 02 2016, @02:37AM
Damn, this just caught my eye:
These cultures need another half-millennia or so to get their acts together, just as the European cultures did to get from burning heretics at the stake to having modern tolerant societies.
Europe did not have modern tolerant society until after World War 2. Never once before then was the entire continent at peace. Every minute of every day since breaks the old record. It is unprecedented. And I can guarantee you that it would revert back to its old ways if that irresistible force ever bugged out. Even now their old right wing nationalism is on the rise. And if it wasn't for that little slap down in the Balkans, the whole continent would once again have been engulfed. So excuse me if I don't agree that they have modern tolerant societies anywhere outside all the fashionable spots, and even inside there are still doubts. Their "tolerance" is very superficial and brittle.
Sorry, but what you said there reeks of bigotry.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Tuesday August 02 2016, @08:40AM
And you've forgotten Francoist Spain.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Wednesday August 03 2016, @03:49AM
I sure wish I could show you what would happen to Europe if the US withdrew, or even more so if they sold weapons to the various religious groups and incited them in the same fashion they do in the Middle East.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by turgid on Monday August 01 2016, @09:40PM
Trump, like Farage and Le Pen, is a Putin stooge. A vote for Trump is to do Putin's dirty work for him. Two words: useful idiot.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Tuesday August 02 2016, @09:03AM
"Republicans ... the dumbest group of voters in the country". Each one of those is a useful idiot too. As is almost every Democrat voter too, of course.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves