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[Trekkin]

Guys, I have the idea to fix America. What is our big problem right now? The average civility has gone down. So all we need to do is get more civil people in order to bring that average up.

Hence, it is obvious that the solution to Trump and the alt-right is to #AnnexCanada.

We don't need to annex them. If they ask to be a state we legally have to let them in.

I don't think that's how it actually works? I know that's what Texas did, but different situation. We'd still have to split Canada up into it's consistuent provinces, and do something about Quebec? Quebec would probably be all NOPE NOPE NOPE! GET ME OUTTA HERE! even though the US has it's own 'French Quarter' in Louisiana. Nobody speaks French there anymore, but influences are definetly there.

I was making an oblique reference to Article IX of the Articles of Confederation, which says “Canada acceding to this confederation, and adjoining in the measures of the United States, shall be admitted into, and entitled to all the advantages of this Union; but no other colony shall be admitted into the same, unless such admission be agreed to by nine States.”

Now, the Articles of Confederation are obviously superseded by the Constitution (provided you agree it was legally ratified), but it's still funny.

[wierd]

*shrug*

I still feel that lumping tyrants in with benevolent organizers is like lumping slashers in with doctors, because both know how to use a scalpel.

Or more aptly--- calling a visceral torture expert a "surgeon."

[Trekkin]

*shrug*

I still feel that lumping tyrants in with benevolent organizers is like lumping slashers in with doctors, because both know how to use a scalpel.

Or more aptly--- calling a visceral torture expert a "surgeon."

And yet, words mean what they mean regardless of your feelings on the matter, as you are so very fond of reminding others.

[wierd]

True enough. 

[smjjames]

A leader can be either a benevolent or a malevolent organizer. I get your point, but it's all in the context, nobody is saying that the terrorist leaders are benevolent just because one calls them a leader.

[wierd]

Such one liners as "Just exhibiting leadership", are what set me off there.

Compare "Just performing surgery."

Using a spanish spider on somebody is hardly "performing surgery".

Likewise, I would say that using mind tricks to compel the gullible into acts of horror is hardly "leadership", even if it uses the same tools.

[Loud Whispers]

Theres imagined oppression and theres actual oppression.

I personally would say the distinction between imagined and actual oppression is largely irrelevant, for obvious reasons. Just as one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter, so too do perspectives on what constitutes oppression do. In the case of American far-right terror, I would say it's not a case of oppression, imagined or actual, we're just going back to square one. This is in reply to Max more than anything; if it was a reaction to perceived oppression, then stopping all far-right terror in the USA would be as simple as convincing them that the USA is run by White Americans. Not exactly a hard sell, yet the terrorism remains. This is because they are their own various groups & individuals with heterogenous purposes, whose convictions are rooted in various causes and motivations which you can't really generalise across all of them. Breaking their conviction will be harder than convincing them that their oppression is imagined, because they don't believe they're oppressed to begin with

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The US is a cosmopolitan society.  It contains people who practice islam.  It contains people who would very much like Sharia law enacted, because they ascribe to extremist islam.  (Just like it contains people who would very much like to institute religiously themed laws and government, because they too are extreme in their religiosity.  See also, those crazy as bugnuts southern baptists.)
With such a diverse demographic to work with, you are almost certain to have individuals with a combination of poor analytical prowess (and thus, easily manipulated to service), and a vested interest in the promised changes, which you can "convince" or "compel" to service.
The unscrupulous action is the very act of such convincing or compulsion to such a kind of service.  It is very much the kind of think a tyrannical oppressor does. Not the kind of thing that a genuinely concerned leader of a community would do.
AGAIN-- it is the manipulation of a person to action, via a shared commonality, such that the "Oppression!" being enacted by the local government abroad, can be internalized as "just the beginning!" of things that "Will happen here too, unless it is stopped!"
As for your semantic quibbling-- here's some of my own.
A slasher and a doctor both know how to use a scalpel.  The doctor uses it to remove malignancies, and does his best to assure that his patient does not experience suffering.  The slasher does it to heighten his own pleasure, and nothing more.
The leader knows how to manipulate people into doing things they would otherwise not do, but does so to improve the conditions of his fellow community members, not strictly for himself.
The tyrant knows how to manipulate people into doing things they would otherwise not do, but does so to keep everyone else down, and to further enshrine his position at the top, and all the benefits that brings him.
For the same reason we do not conflate slashers and doctors, we should not conflate real leaders with tyrants.

There are many styles of leadership and many types of leader. Whatever moral values we ascribe to the various types, it does not change the fact that they are leaders. A leader is first and foremost one who motivates another to do what they would not otherwise normally do - whether this be motivation through good humour, friendship, approval, fear, prejudice, reward, appreciation, manipulation and so forth. A doctor who uses their scalpel to perform unnecessary cosmetic surgeries for their own profit is no less a doctor than the doctor who works for the National Health Service using their scalpel to remove malignant tumors, much in the same way that Josef Stalin is a leader just as much as Mahatma Gandhi is.
To use your own analogy, a slasher is a violent murderer, who does not possess the skill or precision needed to be a doctor. Meanwhile even a doctor who is a serial killer, like the UK's Harold Shipman, does not cease to be accurately described as a doctor for as long as they practice medicine as a doctor, much in the same way that a leader who practices leadership is a leader, regardless of how much of the world they butcher.

[Max™]

Similarly no one should be allowed to dismiss the idea that a bunch of bitchcunt white bread babies actually think they're being oppressed when one of them shoots up a synagogue: they should be mocked and punched for being shitty nazis until they grow up or move to somewhere unfit for humans like... Quebec?

[Loud Whispers]

Similarly no one should be allowed to dismiss the idea that a bunch of bitchcunt white bread babies actually think they're being oppressed when one of them shoots up a synagogue: they should be mocked and punched for being shitty nazis until they grow up or move to somewhere unfit for humans like... Quebec?

I would advise against punching terrorists, it does not change their mind and they carry weapons they intend to use - you neither neutralise them, persuade them, and then you give them a reason to attack with a target to pick. Also no bully Quebec, they did nothing wrong, even if they are French

[Max™]

Being French is wrong, it's a filthy habit and they should know better like the rest of us.

[wierd]

Technically, they stop being a doctor when they cease upholding the physician's oath...  at which point, they are engaged in dubious practice.

There are several physician's oaths, depending on locality, but they all stem from the same basic root of the oath of Hippocrates, which holds the basic agreement that a physician is not to harm patients.  A doctor that is also a serial killer? Yeah, he's violating his oath, and no longer a physician.  He cannot rightly call himself one.


I accede that "leader" is a morality-agnostic term.  I will contend that it should be supplanted with a term that properly implements such distinction.

[Loud Whispers]

Being French is wrong, it's a filthy habit and they should know better like the rest of us.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I mean I agree but I feel Americans ought to have more sympathy for the French ;p

Technically, they stop being a doctor when they cease upholding the physician's oath...  at which point, they are engaged in dubious practice.
There are several physician's oaths, depending on locality, but they all stem from the same basic root of the oath of Hippocrates, which holds the basic agreement that a physician is not to harm patients.  A doctor that is also a serial killer? Yeah, he's violating his oath, and no longer a physician.  He cannot rightly call himself one.
I accede that "leader" is a morality-agnostic term.  I will contend that it should be supplanted with a term that properly implements such distinction.

The technicality is not universal - but even if it was, it would still be insufficient by comparison to its simplest definition as a qualified practitioner of medicine. The variance of oaths includes important distinctions, so for example if you have a doctor whose oath includes abortion to violate their ethical remit, and one whose oath does not and you put them both in a room together - would one be a doctor, and the other not, simply because their oaths conflict? Nah, they both remain doctors, because they are both qualified practitioners of medicine.
A doctor that is a serial killer who abuses the trust of their post does not cease to be a doctor as they conduct their killings - it is an important part of their crimes to be recognised that they abused their station, as they were not a mere serial killer, they were one who abused their authority and the trust their patients had in them. Same goes for leadership; for legal purposes you can see this in how a General tried for crimes against humanity does not cease to be a General because they abused their station, on the contrary their crimes are made graver by the fact that they were a Doctor, a General, a Leader e.t.c.
I personally do not want moral dimensions to be added to useful nouns, where terms with moral connotations already exist. It allows us to speak of the leadership qualities of good leaders who were malevolent, incompetent or self-serving; which is to say we can speak of how they motivated their people, maintained their leadership, and use moral qualifiers to speak of their moral qualities in clearly distinct contexts.

[wierd]

qualified (as in, skilled and capable), and blessed by regulatory oversight are not the same thing.  See also, the glut of people who were practicing doctors who cannot call themselves that in the US, because they have not been blessed by completing a residency program, (and are often actively excluded from doing so.)

See also, why a person who knows all the ins and outs of mechanical engineering, cannot call themselves an engineer without passing and attaining the regulatory approvals.

The latter is intended to assure quality in the former.   


Your argument also fails to address the reason why the oath of Hippocrates even took off the way it did. Prior to his school of medicine (and more specifically, how his school of medicine REQUIRED the taking of the oath before they would even TEACH you), getting medical treatment was very much a gamble, with many peddlers of knowingly poor quality remedies roaming the countryside doing much more harm than good, and enriching themselves on the suffering of others.  The establishment of his order of physicians elevated medicine from untrustworthy palp, to a reputable higher calling that patients could trust.  It is very much this trust that enables modern medicine as a practice, and why the tradition of taking the oath persists. 

In light of your question about physicians and being presented with a circumstance where they could not operate due to a conflict with their oath, the doctor with the conflict would recuse himself, and insist on not performing the surgery.  He might or might not (depending on how his oath is interpreted; If this was a doctor from the Hippocratic school, he would not direct elsewhere, for instance.) direct the patient to another physician that is capable of performing the surgery without violating his tenets.  What he should NOT do, is perform the surgery in violation of his oath.

You will find similar oaths, for similar reasons, in many other civically oriented professions, such as being a legal counsel.

[smjjames]

Could we get off the semantic circle somewhere? We could go on forever about semantics. Besides, the tangent is going WAY offtopic.

[Loud Whispers]

*EDIT

Could we get off the semantic circle somewhere? We could go on forever about semantics. Besides, the tangent is going WAY offtopic.

Right yeah I'll stop