Behavior of the British Captives
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It would have only been bad military behavior if they had been captured by an enemy they were engaged in combat operations against. In this case they were not endangering an ongoing military campaign by cooperating with the enemy. They did what they needed to do ensure their own safety and there is no harm and no shame in that.
Modern liberalism has never achieved anything other than giving Secularists something to feel morally superior about
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Nathan Addy wrote:
Berkeley liberal,
Is that PC for Communist these days?
Rob Graham wrote:
Is that PC for Communist these days?
Doesn't mean that for me. I tend to be pretty socially liberal, which really just means socially libertarian. If you tell me that smoking a little pot on the weekends and practicing the new Scientology/Buddhism mashup you just invented between hard core make out sessions with your gay lover makes you a better and more charitable person in your community, and that corresponds with my observations about you, then who am i to judge you personally? I think people should not hurt others all the time, and help others some of the time. Whatever you want to do in between that, be my guest. Rights-wise, I tend to take a pretty strong stand that rights are quite inviolate. Although about 99% of them really should have had their asses kicked more as children, I'll defend loud abortion haters on soapboxes, loud abortion lovers on soapboxes, and Maddox on a soapbox, who happens to be against abortion, but for killing babies. And I generally never have any problem whatsoever with people who hold any of those positions, as long as they are willing to discuss it rationally, quietly, and in some combination of listening/taking turns. And though it's not really my thing, as long as you don't mind doing a little spot check to make sure you want that gun in order to "bear arms" and not "commit crimes", be my guest on that one too. And to anyone who doesn't necessarily feel that rights are something that must be always, always, always be vigorously defended, I heartily invite you to look up and read article 50 of the soviet constitution; it'll tell you exactly how much nice words on paper can be worth if you don't defend to the death the meanings of those worlds. I feel pretty strongly that increasing security at the expense of giving up privacy is a bad thing, not really understanding how people who feel that government is the problem and hate the idea of giving them money, lest they cause trouble with it, are fine with the idea of these same people watching everything you do 24/7, always trawling for suspicious behaviors. I really like the ideas behind the basic social programs. I think that the idea of "social securities", where a society makes a guarantee that so long as you're always trying your best, we collectively will ensure you can live outside of squalor and otherwise try to get you a leg up (the ideas behind SS, affirmative action, ideas of national healthcare coverage guarantees, low cost
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Hush, you deep purple communist!
-- Raaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!
Seriously, it's not a good debate unless someone gets called a "cheese eating surrender monkey", and if offering myself as chum can be that catalyst, I'm happy to do it. :laugh: (Although check out a cousin post of mine for a much longer, Bull Durham-style rant about what I actually believe, a rant I'd like to see someone seriously argue they disagree with.)
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Rob Graham wrote:
Is that PC for Communist these days?
Doesn't mean that for me. I tend to be pretty socially liberal, which really just means socially libertarian. If you tell me that smoking a little pot on the weekends and practicing the new Scientology/Buddhism mashup you just invented between hard core make out sessions with your gay lover makes you a better and more charitable person in your community, and that corresponds with my observations about you, then who am i to judge you personally? I think people should not hurt others all the time, and help others some of the time. Whatever you want to do in between that, be my guest. Rights-wise, I tend to take a pretty strong stand that rights are quite inviolate. Although about 99% of them really should have had their asses kicked more as children, I'll defend loud abortion haters on soapboxes, loud abortion lovers on soapboxes, and Maddox on a soapbox, who happens to be against abortion, but for killing babies. And I generally never have any problem whatsoever with people who hold any of those positions, as long as they are willing to discuss it rationally, quietly, and in some combination of listening/taking turns. And though it's not really my thing, as long as you don't mind doing a little spot check to make sure you want that gun in order to "bear arms" and not "commit crimes", be my guest on that one too. And to anyone who doesn't necessarily feel that rights are something that must be always, always, always be vigorously defended, I heartily invite you to look up and read article 50 of the soviet constitution; it'll tell you exactly how much nice words on paper can be worth if you don't defend to the death the meanings of those worlds. I feel pretty strongly that increasing security at the expense of giving up privacy is a bad thing, not really understanding how people who feel that government is the problem and hate the idea of giving them money, lest they cause trouble with it, are fine with the idea of these same people watching everything you do 24/7, always trawling for suspicious behaviors. I really like the ideas behind the basic social programs. I think that the idea of "social securities", where a society makes a guarantee that so long as you're always trying your best, we collectively will ensure you can live outside of squalor and otherwise try to get you a leg up (the ideas behind SS, affirmative action, ideas of national healthcare coverage guarantees, low cost
Nathan Addy wrote:
Call me whatever the hell you want to call me.
Fuck'n commie.
Modern liberalism has never achieved anything other than giving Secularists something to feel morally superior about
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Hush, you deep purple communist!
-- Raaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!
Actually, as a follow up, my joke about lack of responses does get at a problem I think about sometimes. American politics obviously is and has been particularly contentious for a while now (last 12 years to a first approximation), and everyone says they hate it, that these bastards all ought to be lined up against the wall and shot so real citizens can forget all the superficial political bickering and partisan power grubbing for the sake of itself and really get back to good politics: high level philosophical and sociological discussions about what it means to be a country, how should we try to balance individual rights vs group rights in order to be a strong and good country (determining what in fact it even means to be a strong and good country), and then, once the country has been structured, how do we point that out into the world and act as a responsible and distinguished country amongst a world of several hundred countries? The problem is that no one ever really seems to want to do that! As soon as the debate gets elevated above the reality show in which officials behave badly in some terrible, terrible approximation of what I just described, the people who are normally so vocal, the true believers you'd hope you could engage more constructivly by trying to take the discussion away from settings that encourages name calling, they all grow silent. It's like how everyone always reports to the media they have no interest whatsoever in celebrity news and want more accurate, intelligent news, but whenever a media company tries to do that they lose all their readership out of a sudden lack of interest. The biggest problem with current American government is that people actually like it they way it is, in spite of all their words. Apparently people found honest intellectual debate too challenging, and decided they want titillation (with incredible examples on both sides of the aisle).
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Nathan Addy wrote:
Call me whatever the hell you want to call me.
Fuck'n commie.
Modern liberalism has never achieved anything other than giving Secularists something to feel morally superior about
You caught me!!!
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Actually, as a follow up, my joke about lack of responses does get at a problem I think about sometimes. American politics obviously is and has been particularly contentious for a while now (last 12 years to a first approximation), and everyone says they hate it, that these bastards all ought to be lined up against the wall and shot so real citizens can forget all the superficial political bickering and partisan power grubbing for the sake of itself and really get back to good politics: high level philosophical and sociological discussions about what it means to be a country, how should we try to balance individual rights vs group rights in order to be a strong and good country (determining what in fact it even means to be a strong and good country), and then, once the country has been structured, how do we point that out into the world and act as a responsible and distinguished country amongst a world of several hundred countries? The problem is that no one ever really seems to want to do that! As soon as the debate gets elevated above the reality show in which officials behave badly in some terrible, terrible approximation of what I just described, the people who are normally so vocal, the true believers you'd hope you could engage more constructivly by trying to take the discussion away from settings that encourages name calling, they all grow silent. It's like how everyone always reports to the media they have no interest whatsoever in celebrity news and want more accurate, intelligent news, but whenever a media company tries to do that they lose all their readership out of a sudden lack of interest. The biggest problem with current American government is that people actually like it they way it is, in spite of all their words. Apparently people found honest intellectual debate too challenging, and decided they want titillation (with incredible examples on both sides of the aisle).
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...or maybe it's cuz' we have the attention span of fleas? :doh:
"If you drink, don't drive. Don't even putt." - Dean Martin
Mike Mullikin wrote:
attention span of fleas
Well it *is* an hour to go to the weekend here on the west coast, and parts east will already be out the door, so I don't blame anyone here today. It's just that it that idea that we periodically ought to work to find common ground, as opposed to always focusing on differences (it is of course much easier for me to find differences with a fundamentalist Christian neocon than similarieties) seems to be getting lost, on average, over time. That's something I think can't help but think will cause big problems down the line. Again, I don't want to use any single example of any discussion, especially this one, which occurs during a time everyone wants to take off, to illustrate this, it's just a general thought I have about where I see American political discourse headed these days.
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Did you see them? One was a 250 pound girl while another was a 4'11 guy. I don't blame them for surrendering. That's not necessarily an act of cowardice, but a calculation (and they may have been told not to engage). The US military code of conduct, however, says that American captured soldiers are not allowed to give any aid to the enemy (just name, rank and serial number). So I don't think that, once captured, they should have helped Iran the way they did. But at the same time, who can blame them? We're all aware of the numerous decapitation videos. And we also know that the coalition forces have been so weakened by the left that no military action is possible, so I'm sure they knew there would be no rescue.
According to http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,823871,00.html?iid=chix-sphere[^] "A line of resistance must be drawn somewhere, and initially as far forward as possible," the Defense Department's Advisory Committee on Prisoners of War reported to the President. "The name, rank and service number provisions of the Geneva conventions is accepted as this line of resistance. However, in the face of experience, it is recognized that the P.W. may be subjected to an extreme of coercion beyond his ability to resist. If in his battle with the interrogator he is driven from his first line of resistance, he must be trained for resistance in successive positions. And, to stand on the final line to the end - no disclosure of vital military information, and above all no disloyalty in word or deed to his country, his service or his comrades." President Eisenhower appended his own soldierly footnote: "Every member of the armed forces of the U.S. is expected to measure up . . ." Espeir, I would suggest that these British Servicepersons recognised the extent of their positions whilst under capture and behaved in a way not dissimilar to the passage quoted above. I do not believe that any vital military information was surrendered and no disloyalties to the UK or UK forces happened. If push comes to shove, then military action might be the only solution, however, although the politicians may not always be trusted, you can be assured the UK citizens will always support the UK armed forces in time of conflict.
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Mike Mullikin wrote:
attention span of fleas
Well it *is* an hour to go to the weekend here on the west coast, and parts east will already be out the door, so I don't blame anyone here today. It's just that it that idea that we periodically ought to work to find common ground, as opposed to always focusing on differences (it is of course much easier for me to find differences with a fundamentalist Christian neocon than similarieties) seems to be getting lost, on average, over time. That's something I think can't help but think will cause big problems down the line. Again, I don't want to use any single example of any discussion, especially this one, which occurs during a time everyone wants to take off, to illustrate this, it's just a general thought I have about where I see American political discourse headed these days.
Nathan Addy wrote:
that idea that we periodically ought to work to find common ground
and just what do you think the common ground would consist of? Frankly, I think the political differences in ths US today are more extreme than those that lead to our Civil War in 1860. If Civil War were still possible in a modern industrial state, we would already be in a second one.
Modern liberalism has never achieved anything other than giving Secularists something to feel morally superior about
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More like, just because the hard thing is usually the best thing, doesn't mean it always is. It's tough for me to judge with 20/20 hindsight; I think things worked out for the best, relatively, although I was starting to get antsy several days ago (in an effort to prevent hostility, I figured it would be best to wait a week to see if Iran gave them back). Yes, the noblest thing, the 300-esque purity of purpose (which obviously was the right thing for them -- talking more about the real battle at Thermopolae than the movie version of the comic) is oftentimes the best choice of action. But here, if that meant that when the Iranians came to attack them they fought bravely to the death, or even if they showed up with bruises on television after resisting, something that would have forced our hands, we could potentially be beginning a war with Iran today. Like I said, I can't really judge. But in the end, I think we can all agree that the most important thing is that everyone is home safe and sound. Nevertheless, the choices made and how they relate to the larger picture are interesting, and probably quite important to discuss.
Nathan Addy wrote:
the choices made and how they relate to the larger picture are interesting, and probably quite important to discuss.
you're probably correct and I think Stan stated it very well further on down. that said, my guess, irrespective of lives saved and confrontation avoided, Amanutjob and his raghead religous leaders have probably been encouraged.
Mike The NYT - my leftist brochure. dennisd45: My view of the world is slightly more nuanced dennisd45 (the NAMBLA supporter) wrote: I know exactly what it means. So shut up you mother killing baby raper.
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Nathan Addy wrote:
that idea that we periodically ought to work to find common ground
and just what do you think the common ground would consist of? Frankly, I think the political differences in ths US today are more extreme than those that lead to our Civil War in 1860. If Civil War were still possible in a modern industrial state, we would already be in a second one.
Modern liberalism has never achieved anything other than giving Secularists something to feel morally superior about
What did I say that you disagreed with? You know I was joking about the communist thing. I'm not a liberal in the traditional sense, really more of an independent. And I'm only 25, but I've never not held my nose when voting for a candidate. I gave you your first 5 for that first comment you wrote; I thought that was right. I'll definitely agree that your average domagtic left and dogmatic right wing politicos today don't seem to be getting it done, but why don't you think you and I can't? (or are you even saying that?)
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What did I say that you disagreed with? You know I was joking about the communist thing. I'm not a liberal in the traditional sense, really more of an independent. And I'm only 25, but I've never not held my nose when voting for a candidate. I gave you your first 5 for that first comment you wrote; I thought that was right. I'll definitely agree that your average domagtic left and dogmatic right wing politicos today don't seem to be getting it done, but why don't you think you and I can't? (or are you even saying that?)
I'm just asking where the common ground is. I personally don't see any. Any common ground is looking more and more like no-mans-land all the time - venture into it at your own peril.
Modern liberalism has never achieved anything other than giving Secularists something to feel morally superior about
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I'm just asking where the common ground is. I personally don't see any. Any common ground is looking more and more like no-mans-land all the time - venture into it at your own peril.
Modern liberalism has never achieved anything other than giving Secularists something to feel morally superior about
Well, how about in trying to figure out some good way to get rights back to the states? California can do its own thing, and whatever state you're in can do its own thing? Can we agree on that? That California as a state can do stem cells and more socially progressive things, and your state can do it's own thing on that front? I think there are some really basic things I'd like to enforce nationally amongst all the states, the constitution, basically (and not necessarily all of the associated case law either), but other than that I think the feds should handle a few 'global issues' like military and some economic stuff (but no social stuff at all). Does that work for both of us?
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Well, how about in trying to figure out some good way to get rights back to the states? California can do its own thing, and whatever state you're in can do its own thing? Can we agree on that? That California as a state can do stem cells and more socially progressive things, and your state can do it's own thing on that front? I think there are some really basic things I'd like to enforce nationally amongst all the states, the constitution, basically (and not necessarily all of the associated case law either), but other than that I think the feds should handle a few 'global issues' like military and some economic stuff (but no social stuff at all). Does that work for both of us?
Nathan Addy wrote:
Does that work for both of us?
Absolutely. But that makes both of us radical right wing extremists - once you add issues like abortion,gay rights, civil rights, prayer in school, etc, to the list of things that can be decided by the states and local communities.
Modern liberalism has never achieved anything other than giving Secularists something to feel morally superior about