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Author Topic: 9/11 Its been a while but I never saw this mentioned...  (Read 17420 times)

Jackrabbit

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Re: 9/11 Its been a while but I never saw this mentioned...
« Reply #75 on: January 25, 2009, 03:23:55 am »

What was almost a well thought out and reasonable discusion has degenerated into insults and inquisitions.

I'm certain we all have better things to do with our time. Like not talk about this.
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Cheeetar

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Re: 9/11 Its been a while but I never saw this mentioned...
« Reply #76 on: January 25, 2009, 05:22:21 am »

What was almost a well thought out and reasonable discusion has degenerated into insults and inquisitions.

I'm certain we all have better things to do with our time. Like not talk about this.
Fishersalwaysdie entered the thread.
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Il Palazzo

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Re: 9/11 Its been a while but I never saw this mentioned...
« Reply #77 on: January 25, 2009, 06:49:17 am »

Wasn't this thread supposed to discuss politics-related issue?

We're talking morality
But that's what I've been trying to tell you. I'm not talking morality. I'm pointing out the similarities, not equating both ideas.
It's you who cling to this morality issue and thus rise in a rightous rage, because you think that somebody insulted you by calling your country immoral.

Now, if you can't see my point, I could elaborate a bit. But people here are too averse to this kind of discussion. Should you still want to talk about this subject, it might be better switch to PM-ing.
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Jude

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Re: 9/11 Its been a while but I never saw this mentioned...
« Reply #78 on: January 25, 2009, 11:58:04 am »

It's the internet what do you expect, intelligent discussion uninterrupted by idiots?

Anyway, have I mentioned how much I enjoy watching conservatives cry their eyes out about how Obama is going to ruin everyone's shit? I'm sure they'd much rather have McCain. His first executive act would be to declare war on Iran, then die and let Palin into the Office, at which point Satan would come and claim the earth as his own.
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mainiac

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Re: 9/11 Its been a while but I never saw this mentioned...
« Reply #79 on: January 25, 2009, 01:33:53 pm »

We're talking morality
But that's what I've been trying to tell you. I'm not talking morality. I'm pointing out the similarities, not equating both ideas.
It's you who cling to this morality issue and thus rise in a rightous rage, because you think that somebody insulted you by calling your country immoral.

I'm not in a righteous rage.  Far from it.  I'm on a personal quest to correct every single misconception on the internet.
Mine is a long and difficult journey...

But seriously, I'm not defending the U.S. government as an apologist.  I'm defending the U.S. government as someone who likes for intellectual discussion to be honest, because that's how we learn the most from it.  I think labeling Gitmo an "Inquisition" is dishonest and deprives us of the perspective that comes from honest debate.  But maybe I'm wrong, if I am, then learning I am gives me a new insight into geopolitics.  While I was disrespectful before, that was because you seemed more interested in sabotaging real debate rather then having a legitimate difference of opinion.

Anywho, I think I understand your argument pretty well, up to one wrinkle.  You are comparing the inquisition and Gitmo detention.  You note, correctly, that they are alike in that the government has pre-emptively associated it's prisoners with a negative label.  In both cases, the label helps the government act against this group of people.  I'm with you this far and agree.

However, it appears to me that our views sharply diverge past this point.  You state that the morality of the action plays no part in naming it (and imply it plays no part in comparing it to other actions.)  I disagree with this view.  The morality of some actions is intrinsic to a definition (such as with murder and self defense), thus comparing the actions without regard to the morality implicit in the definitions, is only a partial comparison.  I think that using a partial comparison in this way (Inquisition to Gitmo), presents a greatly distorted picture.

If we ignore morality, any incarceration can be called an inquisition.  Look at criminal justice (when the system works.)  First, people are given a label "criminal."  In this context, criminal is meant to mean "those who hurt others."  This label is used as an excuse by the government to inflict suffering upon these people, fining them, compelling them to abandon the behavior, imprisoning them or even excecuting them.  But even extremely liberal people would not object to the principle of incarceration or say all incarceration is by definition is an inquisition.  While many people object that incarceration affects many people it should not (just like in Gitmo), they would not contest the fact that some people being incarcerated are done so legitimately.  They might suggest alternatives courses or demand a due process even for the obviously guilty.  They might object to how often the label "criminal" is misapplied, in the courts or in the laws.  But people don't consider the correct application of criminal justice to be illegitimate or to be an Inquisition.

Inquisition (persecuting people for a belief) can never be legitimate.  Even if we do legitimately persecute them because that belief harms others (hate crimes for example), we are not persecuting them for holding that belief, but for the harm.  Any persecution that is persecuting the belief alone is an inquisition and is, by definition, illegitimate.

Detention of terrorists is clearly not an illegitimate action by definition.  Some of the men at Gitmo are very dangerous and very guilty and should not be released.  Many of them are not guilty or dangerous and have been wrongfully imprisoned due to an over-eagerness to imprison.  However the administration did not apply the label "terrorist" because they wanted to imprison the not guilty among them.  They decided that the label "terrorist" applied FIRST and that these men were dangerous, and based on that decision, they should be imprisoned.

To summerize,
Inquisition: illegitimate by definition because it's based off of what people believe, a fundemental human right.
Gitmo: not illegitimate by definition because it's with an intent to prevent harm.

You might say that morality plays no part in the definition, but when people think of an Inquisition, they think of persecuting a belief, not persecuting malicious action.  If you want to show that Gitmo is an Inquisition, I believe you need to show that the "terrorism" of the Gitmo detainees is a belief, not a malicious action.  But the differences between these are very, very based around morality, as I have repeatedly tried to argue.  Therefore, I don't see how you can possibly argue that morality is irrelevent to this difference.

If we completely ignore the moral aspect, inquisition becomes meaningless.  Let's say I ask my friend to wait five minutes for me.  Ooh!  That's an inquisition.  I'm detaining him by forcing him to wait and I'm doing it because of who he is, my friend.  Morality is key to what inquisition is.

Edit:  Goddamn it, I did it again.  Ever since I got on this medication, I keep absurdly over thinking things and not realizing how long it's taking.  It wasn't until I hit post that I was like "dear god, that's long!"
« Last Edit: January 25, 2009, 01:35:48 pm by mainiac »
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« Last Edit: February 10, 1988, 03:27:23 pm by UR MOM »
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Il Palazzo

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Re: 9/11 Its been a while but I never saw this mentioned...
« Reply #80 on: January 25, 2009, 01:41:35 pm »

Quote from: mainiac
long post
While I agree here, I also disagree there. Give me some time to assemble a coherent argumentation.

edit: this will take a while, I ain't got any of those magic pillsTM of yours;( and the subject gets broader and broader...
« Last Edit: January 25, 2009, 03:02:11 pm by Il Palazzo »
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mainiac

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Re: 9/11 Its been a while but I never saw this mentioned...
« Reply #81 on: January 25, 2009, 03:15:24 pm »

Quote from: mainiac
long post
While I agree here, I also disagree there. Give me some time to assemble a coherent argumentation.

edit: this will take a while, I ain't got any of those magic pillsTM of yours;( and the subject gets broader and broader...

Okay, let's simplify:
I argue that inquisition involves persecuting people for bad reasons.  Gitmo was about persecuting people for good reasons.  The judgement of those evaluating people at Gitmo was criminally negligent, but their reasons for persecution (they are terrorists) were legit.  So while Gitmo is criminal negligence, it is not inquisition.
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« Last Edit: February 10, 1988, 03:27:23 pm by UR MOM »
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codezero

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Re: 9/11 Its been a while but I never saw this mentioned...
« Reply #82 on: January 25, 2009, 04:26:18 pm »

I'll simplify it even more.
The inquisitors felt threatened by the inquisitee's
Terriorsts felt threatened by America
America felt threatened by terrorists (rightly)
America imprison 'terrorists' (against international protocol, placing little trust in foreign nations and allies)

Murder or Self defence depend on which side you're on. ie 5000 gassed Kurds is murder, 100,000 dead Iraqi's is self defence.
« Last Edit: January 25, 2009, 04:28:21 pm by codezero »
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Immortal

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Re: 9/11 Its been a while but I never saw this mentioned...
« Reply #83 on: January 25, 2009, 04:40:37 pm »

Wasn't this thread supposed to discuss politics-related issue?
This thread was supposed to be about that damn movie I mentioned in the opening post, I was expecting you guys to point out the flaws such as steel losing 50% strength at 600C(?), and how it is weird that there was a small hole in the pentagon and not a plane shaped one..
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mainiac

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Re: 9/11 Its been a while but I never saw this mentioned...
« Reply #84 on: January 25, 2009, 04:45:25 pm »

Murder or Self defence[sic] depend

This is exactly the point I've been making.  Thank you for ignoring my arguments.

The whole Iraqi/Kurd deaths thing is missing the point however.  I've been arguing that the honest meaning of inquisition does not cover matters like Gitmo.  Saying that people use words dishonestly doesn't not make that use of inquisition any more honest.

Yeash, now I can't get George Orwell out of my head.  He wrote volumes on how a totalitarian won't stop at attacking the truth but will attack the very notion of a truth itself.  Only once truth is meanless can they paint the version of reality they want people to believe.

Following some of the logic used in this debate so far...
codezero argues that truth is meaningless
totalitarians advance the view that truth is meaningless
therefore totalitarians are codezero.

...wait I might have mixed that up.
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« Last Edit: February 10, 1988, 03:27:23 pm by UR MOM »
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Pandarsenic

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codezero

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Re: 9/11 Its been a while but I never saw this mentioned...
« Reply #86 on: January 25, 2009, 05:01:40 pm »

Ok I ignored that part on subjective morality, I thought maybe you didn't mean it like it reads, given my discordance with the rest of your argument. /apology

I'm not arguing that truth is meaningless though, it's only meaningless if you don't take a side, and I said America 'rightly' fears terrorists. But it's easy to compare with the Inquisition when you consider that the Inquisitors probably also feared their victims. They both seem to go overboard with persecution for reasons that were right to them.
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Il Palazzo

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Re: 9/11 Its been a while but I never saw this mentioned...
« Reply #87 on: January 25, 2009, 05:10:50 pm »

Okay, let's simplify
Oh, come on, some patience! I was trying to write a dissertation on morality and stuff.
Quote
I argue that inquisition involves persecuting people for bad reasons.  Gitmo was about persecuting people for good reasons.  The judgement of those evaluating people at Gitmo was criminally negligent, but their reasons for persecution (they are terrorists) were legit.  So while Gitmo is criminal negligence, it is not inquisition.
(I think I've managed to keep this short)
I argue that you cannot use present day morality to judge past occurences. Actually, I'd insist on not using morality as an argument for anything altogether. I'll try to express my reasons in the following.
Your labeling of 'good' and 'bad' reasons is dictated by your(XXI century, American) morality, which is not a constant, neither over time, nor place. In fact, in the eyes of, say, 14th century European the actions of inquisition were moral - "saving heretic's soul from damnation" or "ensuring your soul's eternal life" was an important part of their mindset. Just as yours is probably "spreading democracy", "the right to fight for one's freedom" and whatever else you particular society imbued you with.
This transient, fluid form of morality is one of the reasons why you shouldn't view any historical event through it, and claim objectiveness.
Look at this, fitting I think, example which I encountered while reading the 14th cent. Chinese novel(sort of) "Romance of the three kingdoms" -
 the Emperor's cousin, Liu Bei stops for the night at the cottage of some peasant, who, being poor, is unable to offer his guest a fitting meal. So he kills his wife and serves her meat. When Liu Bei learns about this, he's moved by the poor mans loyalty to the imperial family and thanks the peasant.
No mention of evils of cannibalism, no condemnation of ungrateful noble, no terrible taboos broken. The serf did the right - moral - thing.

In the light of the above, neither inq. nor Gntnm should be described using the moral terms. Which leaves you with two stikingly similar occurences. What they do have in common, that includes morality, is that both base on it their blatant disrespect for laws.
(it's ok to invade Iraq - we're freeing those poor people to the joys of democracy!
It's ok to confiscate Knights Templar's wealth, they sold their souls to the devil!)

Any notion of legitimacy(or lack thereof) of any action should be based on it's by-the-law execution.

Also: apologies to Immortal for hijacking the thread. Still it's probably better than hijacking a plane. Besides, didn't everybody agree on the general silliness of the provided video?
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Jude

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Re: 9/11 Its been a while but I never saw this mentioned...
« Reply #88 on: January 25, 2009, 05:21:52 pm »

Murder or Self defence[sic] depend


Transatlantic grammar nazis are here
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Alexhans

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Re: 9/11 Its been a while but I never saw this mentioned...
« Reply #89 on: January 25, 2009, 06:05:16 pm »

Quote
I'm not in a righteous rage.  Far from it.  I'm on a personal quest to correct every single misconception on the internet.
Mine is a long and difficult journey...
dude... and I thought I had a big EGO.  good luck with that...  Advice: Never visit a shrink.  :P


Oh... good book about the ethics and morality... "More than Human" by Theodore Sturgeon (has anyone read it)

now I should shift this post to good books and move it even farther away from its real purpose...  ;D
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