US/Iraq

[Calum]

psyjax:- why compare the US to the roman empire in particular? empires are widely different. thousands of years ago, the chinese conquered most of the known world. they had a working empire, but they decided that it was too much administration to keep up with for what technology they had at the time... and they pushed off home! amazing. i can't see the US doing that.

also, the british so called empire making deals with the dodgiest natives of any country you wish to conquer and then helping them kill each other off until only the passive ones are left, and i don't think the british empire has lasted anything like the thousand years that the roman one did, so where's the precedent?

bazoukas:- chinese is actually a more prolific language on the internet at the moment and i think it has a faster growing number of speakers than english does too. i suspect japanese might be coming up there too.

VoidMain, you are one of the best political debaters here! a bit hard headed maybe, but that's a survival characteristic...
anyway, one exception i have to what you said:- 'no casualties'? do you mean no civilian casualties? do you mean no american casualties? do you mean that hundreds of iraqi deaths are okay? (i think that casualties are casualties even if they are noncivilian 'enemies').

This is like those animal rights activists who plant a bomb in a research lab because they test on animals there, but then the bomb kills a security guard. they may say they were justified, and i agree entirely with their cause however in that instance i think they were very very wrong to resort to a destructive form of action, and the death of the guard proves it. those activists might not have felt satisfied to protest peacefully and through the normal channels (which is something you still have the right to do in america i think) but their impatience has ruined the public credibility of peaceful people who feel the same way as they do.

[voidmain]

quote:Originally posted by Calum:
VoidMain, you are one of the best political debaters here! a bit hard headed maybe, but that's a survival characteristic...

Thanks (I think), but I really would rather debate Windows vs Linux.    

 

quote:anyway, one exception i have to what you said:- 'no casualties'? do you mean no civilian casualties? do you mean no american casualties? do you mean that hundreds of iraqi deaths are okay? (i think that casualties are casualties even if they are noncivilian 'enemies').

No, I meant little or no casualties counting all human beings equally.  I believe the Isreal example had only one death (total). If I recall it was an extremely late evening or early morning surgical strike of a nuclear plant using F-16s. The plant was under development and was "suspected" of being used or at least dual used as a nuclear weapons plant if I recall but I would have to check my facts. It's been a fews years but I do recall it happening and to tell you the truth I had forgotten about it until it was brought up by the congressman in that one sentence.  

Now it's hard to believe that even at that early morning hour for such an important item as this that there would have only been a single guard in the place.  I would have to check my facts on this as well (and I probably should have done that before posting this), but you would have to agree that in a case like this casualties would be small right?

 

quote:This is like those animal rights activists who plant a bomb in a research lab because they test on animals there, but then the bomb kills a security guard. they may say they were justified, and i agree entirely with their cause however in that instance i think they were very very wrong to resort to a destructive form of action, and the death of the guard proves it. those activists might not have felt satisfied to protest peacefully and through the normal channels (which is something you still have the right to do in america i think) but their impatience has ruined the public credibility of peaceful people who feel the same way as they do.

I believe this comparison is about as far from what we are discussing as Mercury and Pluto.  I agree with your assessment of the situation in your example (well not really) but a nuclear blast in the middle of London is a "little" more serious than keeping hamburger out of McDonalds. Of course there are going to be pissed off people. There will be pissed off people no matter what action is taken, or even if no action is taken at all. And there may be a few deaths. Which action, or which non-action will result in the most deaths?  That is the real question.

And we lose more and more rights every day in America, unfortunately at the hands of both parties. It sure would be fun to meet in a pub somewhere and discuss this shit over a good wheat beer! Many good debates happen over good brew, but of course many are also forgotten by sunrise.

[ September 05, 2002: Message edited by: VoidMain ]

[Calum]

very true!    

my comparison was intended metaphorically, i was just saying that perhaps the means doesn't always justify the ends, depending on what the ends are or who is in charge of deciding the means. also, it is often difficult to figure out how things will pan out in the long run, and mistakes get made.

also, re: rights, you know it has been illegal since 1994 in the UK for citizens to gather peacefully? i think your constitution in the US guarantees you that right, however any group of peaceful protestors, here, or even a group of nine or more people all listening to the same music (would you believe!) can be given one verbal warning from any policeman and if they do not immediately leave the area (private or public) then they can be arrested and thrown in jail for six months.

that's what comes of having a legal system that is older than the idea of a constitution. in many cases, our legal system is older than our actual country, hence the total lack of checks and balances here.

whose round is it? i'll buy you a Schoefferhofer!

[ September 05, 2002: Message edited by: Calum ]

[voidmain]

Wow, I don't recall the law being made to ban peaceful gatherings. That is getting sort of harsh. Yes, according to the first amendment of our constitution we are allowed to "freely assemble".  Now I suppose that could be interpereted to mean we have the right to use our GNU assembler to turn our source ASM code into object code but I'm sure that's not what the founding fathers meant.

For the most part, we continue to have that right although I have seen restrictions put on this right or at least brought up. But for the most part we can still rally/demonstrate "peacefully" as long as we are not infringing on other people's rights and as long as it is done on public property (there are tresspassing issues of course involved with such demonstrations on private property so you could be cuffed and taken away in those cases).

It is very scary how fast our rights are being eaten up by new law just in recent history though. This is probably my second bigest concern next to national security issues in the last 10 years.

Ok, this round is on me.  It'll be from a local micro brewery and one I find much like the true German beer (non-import) taste.  It'll be a couple of cold draft Schlaflys right from "The Tap Room". Take your pick on the one you would like to try:
http://www.schlafly.com/brewery.shtml
http://www.schlafly.com/

[ September 05, 2002: Message edited by: VoidMain ]

[Calum]

yep, for some reason there wasn't a lot of publicity about this law when it came in. here's the full transcript of the law in question, the criminal justice and public order act 1994 it's very long winded but it gets very interesting around points fifty and sixty.

note that all the language is deliberately vague, it's all 'if a policeman believes this then he can...' or 'when a superintendent has reasonable suspicion that...'.

Basically this document makes everything illegal, the intention is obviously so that if the police want to prosecute somebody for something, they can arrest him, and basically pick something out of this document with which to charge him.

Thankfully the police here have enough on their hands, and many choose not to allow this law to influence them in their duties much, from what i have gathered.

btw, nice assemler quip there, i wondered if you were going to try to deftly twist this political discussion around towards linux again!  

[psyjax]

I think the US is a bit of an empire. Not in the traditional sense but in the political/economic sense.

Instead of having to impose it's rule by force or direct presence, it can do so thrugh economic sanctions, or seting up governments, keeping the man down  (cliche) etc.

This country enjoys much privalege, at the expense of many others. Many countries in the third world are basicaly indentured servants to US economic interests.

But that is another thread.

[ September 05, 2002: Message edited by: psyjax ]

[voidmain]

You're not going to buy a round psyjax?

[Calum]

hey ya! it's okay, psyjax, i've had enough beer already.

just thought i should post this link to show you what a breathtaking opinion i saw on this very topic at another forum which i frequent.