This is facetious reasoning, because I know and I presume you're intelligent enough to know that the sort of military operation where you bomb a country is not the same one where by you assert and maintain influence. We bombed Vietnamese targets in an attempt to hit supply lines and weaken resistance in order to launch a safer ground assault. We failed because of a lack of commitment of forces. We weren't losing the war in Vietnam, we were losing it at home, at the peace protests and at the election polls.
By 1968, more than 500,000 troops had been deployed to Vietnam, so carpet bombing raids, the use of napalm and cluster bombs, efforts to de-forest the country (Agent Orange), psy-ops, etc. were all part of the larger effort to destroy the NVA and declare a US victory.
Even with the draft and massive troop levels, the US was not able to stabilize the ground. As I mentioned, Eisenhower had been unwilling to commit troops to that region during his time when the French were getting their asses kicked, because he understood a ground invasion in SE Asia was going to be unsuccessful. So, I don't think it's accurate to say we had a "lack of commitment of forces."
Regarding losing the war at home, it took a long time for an organized anti-war movement to emerge (unlike Iraq), but you can't blame folks for having a conscience and realizing any strategic gains in SE Asia were not worth the cost to their families. On the economic front, the war threatened to destabilize the world economy (the Bretton-Woods Plan instituted after WWII to rebuild Europe) and Nixon was forced to unhinge the value of the dollar (then the international reserve currency) from the price of gold as a consequence. That's some serious **** right there. How much was winning Vietnam worth? Not that much.
Wars do in fact save lives. Incalcuable numbers. What's more, they save rights. You can't tangibly demonstrate how many lives were saved and how many people helped because we fought in WWII, but that doesn't mean we ought to have stayed out of it.
Well, I'm not arguing about WWII. We're talking about Vietnam.
Are you asserting that the US and other international powers ought never to interfere in affairs where human rights are being violated, genocide is occurring, and civilians are being tortured, raped, and slaughtered, because stopping it would invariably mean killing someone or the other?
I don't think it is the right for any nation to intervene, militarily, in the affairs others on their own. Now the UN has its flaws, but military intervention in the affairs of other should be a multilateral action. But this is all besides the point, the US did not blow Vietnam halfway to hell and kill millions of people in the defense of human rights.
Pretend that you're President of the US for a second; what are you saying is a good foreign policy on this sort of situation?[
Your suggestion is that you know of an alternative by which less people would have died? My point is that when death is inevitable, as is and has been the case in many conflicts and abuses across the world and throughout history, taking action to stem the slaughter and protect the innocent trumps attempting to keep our hands clean, and that when we take an action we have a duty to see it through. Our leaving Vietnam did not end the violent- it heightened it. More civilians died after we left than during the war. Too many peace protesters were too busy patting themselves on the back afterwards to acknowledge this.
Eisenhower had the good sense to know that a US land invasion of SE Asia would have been a rout, as it was. But it's not clear what the US could have done, this wasn't merely a lack of "military resolve" or "steely determination."
By the time Saigon was falling to the NVA in 1975 and the US was making its emergency withdrawal, the US had already dropped more than 10,000,000 tons of bombs and hundreds of thousands of tons of napalm. What was left? Full out nuclear assault? If that's what it takes to maintain Western influence in a agronomy-based peasant society, is it really worth it? Anyway, the US was losing the war badly, and "staying the course" was not a realistic option.
The Indochina Wars, of which the US was merely one player, claimed the lives of millions innocent civilians, but in no intellectually responsible way could it be said that US intervention in SE Asia "saved lives" during or after the conflict. It was a horrible catastrophy, poorly conceived, built on lies (i.e. Gulf of Tonkin), etc., much like the invasion of Iraq.
More civilians died after we left than during the war.
Do you have a source for this? After the US left South Vietnam, the country was quickly taken over by the NVA and order restored in short order. Then Vietnam turned its military ire outside its own borders.
From Page 1.
Quote from "Goatchunx" »
I think it's definitely a well-placed sentiment of yours, but I disagree that they "lay down their lives" so that you and I may live in peace. That would be true if they were defending the US against foreign enemies, but the military has not been used for a defensive function, in my view, since WWII. But if you or anyone else can an instance in which the military has been used defensively since, I'd be much obliged.
This is where the whole "pre-emptive war" thing gets messy. But, yes, I believe all nations should have a means of defending themselves. But when those means have to travel thousands of miles over oceans, other nations, etc. to "defend themselves," well it's not as easy to say any such action is "defensive," by nature. By definition that would seem to be "military aggression," not the opposite.
Am I the only person who thinks it was wrong to simply cut Palestine in half and hand half of it over to the Jews?
No.
Re: Carter. For reasons I don't completely understand, criticizing Israel in the public forum is sure to lead to horror and disaster, politically. Accusations of being an "antisemite" for criticizing the Israeli government is a foregone conclusion.
If you ask me to drive you to the airport, I can't let you off on the interstate halfway there.
When you drive your friend to the airport, it's unlikely that you'll end up killing 2,000,000 - 6,000,000 innocent civilians (re: Vietnam). Even I am a terrible driver, but still, you or I couldn't inflict that much death on a simple errant.
In any case, I fail to see your point. The Vietnam war was flawed from its inception, as is the invasion and occupation of secular Iraq. Both wars, like most wars, were built on lies and lives were destroyed needlessly, as in most wars.
Even the part about women's suffrage being immoral?
Heh, well, you know what I mean.
Quote from "Dark_Knight" »
Actually, the proper use of that analogy would be...
Child =/= Adult. Acorn =/= Oak Tree.
No, here you're manipulating my analogy to prove some other point.
Fetus =/= Child. Which is to say that a fetus, as far as I'm concerned, is not a child--and accordingly, does not have an inherent right to life. It is as an acorn, and not a tree; potential, yes--but not actual.
Child =/= Adult. Sure, but who cares? The definitions here are murkier, we've all known adults who acted like children and vice versa.
If you wish to say that abortion is not murder (which legally it isn't, but that's off topic), you must prove that the fetus is somehow not human, which means it is not of the species Homo sapiens. And if that's true, you're basically going to have to do the impossible; either prove that it is an organism without a species, or prove that it somehow changes species through birth.
This just isn't a compelling argument to me. I'm not interested whether or not they're of the same species. That doesn't really illuminate anything or sway me rationally. I am simply saying that a fetus isn't a person. That is all. If it's not a person, it is a metabolic function of the woman--to which she's entitled to regulate as she sees fit.
Seriously, Bardo. Where'd all this mumbo-jumbo come from??? You're all over the place!
Debate isn't the same, anymore... I'm usually not posting unless someone brings up some old topic they didn't bother looking up. And how the hell did you and T2 slough off the ends of your screen names???
Hey Msun.
Yeah, that was pretty random. I stand by what I say, though I could have phrased and structured things a little more artfully.
As for changing my screen name, I PM'd one of the admins (like a year ago) and they did it for me. How is the debate forum different?
Sorry for the delay in responding, I forgot I posted here. It's been a while since I've been in the habit of being a Debate Forum regular....
Quote from Laton »
This statement just makes me ask the question: Do you have children of your own?
Indeed I do, wonderful twin daughters.
First of all, to say that folks shouldn't legislate one way or another on abortion is just silly - you can apply that idea to almost any other issue in today's society where legislation is accepted and approved. For example, why should society legislate murder as being illegal? It doesn't affect you (if you're not the one being murdered), so why stick your nose in it? Seeing as society considers murder a moral affront, and has thereby legislated to make it illegal, abortion can be considered a similar issue.
Well, there are a number of social issues where I see the government having no authority to legislate, yet they do. And that something is "accepted and approved" isn't terribly compelling. Women's suffrage, slavery, etc., etc. all perfectly normal and acceptable, yet immoral and wrong--when seen through the eyes of history.
However, the government is certainly empowered to create laws that make it illegal to wrongfully take someone's life or steal their property. In these cases, another is depriving us of our life or stuff--this seems to be one of the many benefits of civilization, where we can live our lives with minimal fear of random acts violence, etc.
While slightly off-topic, one area where I see the government having no legal right to legislate is on homosexual marriage. Literally, no one is harmed and everyone wins. To me, this would also fall into the category of "abstract moral affront" where someone sees something they don't approve of (i.e. people of the same sex wanting a legal union that entitles them to certain rights) and seeks to prevent others from doing this. It is abstract because it is never going to affect you personally (though, I'm probably using the word "abstract" wrong in the technical sense). This is unlike murder or theft where we're dealing with some rather concrete actions and results.
Secondly, you consider abortion to be a woman's right issue more than anything else? Even more than the taking of the life inside the mother?
Yes and yes. Due to some minor medical stuff, we became aware of our budding daughters very early in the pregnancy (like 6 weeks). Following the pregnancy through ultra-sound almost every week (multiple births are considered "high risk" and receive far more prenatal care than singleton pregnancies), and I can't honestly say that some undifferentiated cluster of cells constitutes a "human being," and thus afforded the same rights as you or me.
Anyway, those cell blobs had all of the genetic information required to make beautiful little people out of them, but they weren't people. As the pregnancy progressed, they certainly became "little people" at some point and I believe it would then be akin to murder to abort the pregnancy then. This is also recognized by the medical and legal community where third trimester abortions are illegal, and rightly so.
And this is the magical crux of the debate, which has been explored ad nauseum and will never be resolved: when does a fetus become a person? I have no idea, but I don't believe it is in the first trimester and I certainly don't believe it is a "person" (deserving of special rights) at the moment of conception, where, presumably, you do.
you consider a woman's rights higher priority than the taking of a life/potential life? That seems cold-hearted and callous to me.
Quote from "Dark Knight" »
"What about the death of the child?" After all, isn't that a, well, pretty life-altering event, killing the child?
Fetus =/= Child. Acorn =/= Oak Tree.
It takes two people to have a child, and the father has an equal representation on what happens to that life. Granted, society is not perfect, and there are alot of deadbeats in the world (male and female), so it's not a black-and-white issue. But to generalize that the female has almost all of the rights as to what happens to the baby inside her is ridiculous.
Deadbeats aside, countless studies show that it is the woman, not the man, that will usually suffer in her career, education, and lifelong earning potential from become a mother. And the lifelong consequences are worse when the pregnancy happens very early in the woman's life (high school, for instance). So, if the female doesn't want to be a mother at that point in her life, I would fully support her terminating the pregnancy. This is true for my own girls as well.
Quote from "Extremestan" »
The pro-choice position is "the whim of the woman > the life of the fetus." That's much harder to reconcile.
I wouldn't be so dismissive to call a woman's thoughtful decision to terminate a pregnancy for her own well-being, future, etc. to be merely a "whim."
* Enters the forum cautiously, muttering something under my breath *
I understand abortion to be a women's rights issue more than anything else. Overwhelmingly the burden of little dudes falls strongly on the mother and motherhood is probably the most life-altering thing aside from the birth and death of the mother herself. I don't think it's appropriate for folks to legislate one way or the other on the topic, which doesn't affect them--other than as an abstract moral affront.
Further, studies of schools have shown some rather interesting patterns. Children who attend mixed elementary schools and middle schools rarely divide themselves, say, in the lunch room, by race. In high school and beyond, racial divisions become more common, which points to environmental factors rather than biological ones.
Agreed. I went to a very mixed elementary school, and was even a minority as a white christian kid. The neighborhood was predominantly Jewish, but there were many hispanic, SE Asian, African-American, etc. kids and we all got along and played together.
I didn't have have my first brush with racism until my family moved to a homogenous white middle-class neighborhood when I went to Middle School.
By 1968, more than 500,000 troops had been deployed to Vietnam, so carpet bombing raids, the use of napalm and cluster bombs, efforts to de-forest the country (Agent Orange), psy-ops, etc. were all part of the larger effort to destroy the NVA and declare a US victory.
Even with the draft and massive troop levels, the US was not able to stabilize the ground. As I mentioned, Eisenhower had been unwilling to commit troops to that region during his time when the French were getting their asses kicked, because he understood a ground invasion in SE Asia was going to be unsuccessful. So, I don't think it's accurate to say we had a "lack of commitment of forces."
Regarding losing the war at home, it took a long time for an organized anti-war movement to emerge (unlike Iraq), but you can't blame folks for having a conscience and realizing any strategic gains in SE Asia were not worth the cost to their families. On the economic front, the war threatened to destabilize the world economy (the Bretton-Woods Plan instituted after WWII to rebuild Europe) and Nixon was forced to unhinge the value of the dollar (then the international reserve currency) from the price of gold as a consequence. That's some serious **** right there. How much was winning Vietnam worth? Not that much.
Well, I'm not arguing about WWII. We're talking about Vietnam.
I don't think it is the right for any nation to intervene, militarily, in the affairs others on their own. Now the UN has its flaws, but military intervention in the affairs of other should be a multilateral action. But this is all besides the point, the US did not blow Vietnam halfway to hell and kill millions of people in the defense of human rights.
I'd work with my allies, of course.
Eisenhower had the good sense to know that a US land invasion of SE Asia would have been a rout, as it was. But it's not clear what the US could have done, this wasn't merely a lack of "military resolve" or "steely determination."
By the time Saigon was falling to the NVA in 1975 and the US was making its emergency withdrawal, the US had already dropped more than 10,000,000 tons of bombs and hundreds of thousands of tons of napalm. What was left? Full out nuclear assault? If that's what it takes to maintain Western influence in a agronomy-based peasant society, is it really worth it? Anyway, the US was losing the war badly, and "staying the course" was not a realistic option.
The Indochina Wars, of which the US was merely one player, claimed the lives of millions innocent civilians, but in no intellectually responsible way could it be said that US intervention in SE Asia "saved lives" during or after the conflict. It was a horrible catastrophy, poorly conceived, built on lies (i.e. Gulf of Tonkin), etc., much like the invasion of Iraq.
From Page 1.
This is where the whole "pre-emptive war" thing gets messy. But, yes, I believe all nations should have a means of defending themselves. But when those means have to travel thousands of miles over oceans, other nations, etc. to "defend themselves," well it's not as easy to say any such action is "defensive," by nature. By definition that would seem to be "military aggression," not the opposite.
No.
Re: Carter. For reasons I don't completely understand, criticizing Israel in the public forum is sure to lead to horror and disaster, politically. Accusations of being an "antisemite" for criticizing the Israeli government is a foregone conclusion.
When you drive your friend to the airport, it's unlikely that you'll end up killing 2,000,000 - 6,000,000 innocent civilians (re: Vietnam). Even I am a terrible driver, but still, you or I couldn't inflict that much death on a simple errant.
In any case, I fail to see your point. The Vietnam war was flawed from its inception, as is the invasion and occupation of secular Iraq. Both wars, like most wars, were built on lies and lives were destroyed needlessly, as in most wars.
Blue's canonical creature should be DRAGONS!!!
Who cares if Red can claim them as their own too? CHK showed that Dragons aren't just a one-color creature type.
Heh, well, you know what I mean.
No, here you're manipulating my analogy to prove some other point.
Fetus =/= Child. Which is to say that a fetus, as far as I'm concerned, is not a child--and accordingly, does not have an inherent right to life. It is as an acorn, and not a tree; potential, yes--but not actual.
Child =/= Adult. Sure, but who cares? The definitions here are murkier, we've all known adults who acted like children and vice versa.
This just isn't a compelling argument to me. I'm not interested whether or not they're of the same species. That doesn't really illuminate anything or sway me rationally. I am simply saying that a fetus isn't a person. That is all. If it's not a person, it is a metabolic function of the woman--to which she's entitled to regulate as she sees fit.
Hey Msun.
Yeah, that was pretty random.
As for changing my screen name, I PM'd one of the admins (like a year ago) and they did it for me. How is the debate forum different?
Indeed I do, wonderful twin daughters.
Well, there are a number of social issues where I see the government having no authority to legislate, yet they do. And that something is "accepted and approved" isn't terribly compelling. Women's suffrage, slavery, etc., etc. all perfectly normal and acceptable, yet immoral and wrong--when seen through the eyes of history.
However, the government is certainly empowered to create laws that make it illegal to wrongfully take someone's life or steal their property. In these cases, another is depriving us of our life or stuff--this seems to be one of the many benefits of civilization, where we can live our lives with minimal fear of random acts violence, etc.
While slightly off-topic, one area where I see the government having no legal right to legislate is on homosexual marriage. Literally, no one is harmed and everyone wins. To me, this would also fall into the category of "abstract moral affront" where someone sees something they don't approve of (i.e. people of the same sex wanting a legal union that entitles them to certain rights) and seeks to prevent others from doing this. It is abstract because it is never going to affect you personally (though, I'm probably using the word "abstract" wrong in the technical sense). This is unlike murder or theft where we're dealing with some rather concrete actions and results.
Yes and yes. Due to some minor medical stuff, we became aware of our budding daughters very early in the pregnancy (like 6 weeks). Following the pregnancy through ultra-sound almost every week (multiple births are considered "high risk" and receive far more prenatal care than singleton pregnancies), and I can't honestly say that some undifferentiated cluster of cells constitutes a "human being," and thus afforded the same rights as you or me.
Anyway, those cell blobs had all of the genetic information required to make beautiful little people out of them, but they weren't people. As the pregnancy progressed, they certainly became "little people" at some point and I believe it would then be akin to murder to abort the pregnancy then. This is also recognized by the medical and legal community where third trimester abortions are illegal, and rightly so.
And this is the magical crux of the debate, which has been explored ad nauseum and will never be resolved: when does a fetus become a person? I have no idea, but I don't believe it is in the first trimester and I certainly don't believe it is a "person" (deserving of special rights) at the moment of conception, where, presumably, you do.
Fetus =/= Child. Acorn =/= Oak Tree.
Deadbeats aside, countless studies show that it is the woman, not the man, that will usually suffer in her career, education, and lifelong earning potential from become a mother. And the lifelong consequences are worse when the pregnancy happens very early in the woman's life (high school, for instance). So, if the female doesn't want to be a mother at that point in her life, I would fully support her terminating the pregnancy. This is true for my own girls as well.
I wouldn't be so dismissive to call a woman's thoughtful decision to terminate a pregnancy for her own well-being, future, etc. to be merely a "whim."
Hate for the leaders of a country =/= hate for the people of a country.
I understand abortion to be a women's rights issue more than anything else. Overwhelmingly the burden of little dudes falls strongly on the mother and motherhood is probably the most life-altering thing aside from the birth and death of the mother herself. I don't think it's appropriate for folks to legislate one way or the other on the topic, which doesn't affect them--other than as an abstract moral affront.
BTW, "Hi," MTGS.
"Unpleasant drunken state..." Hrm.
Agreed. I went to a very mixed elementary school, and was even a minority as a white christian kid. The neighborhood was predominantly Jewish, but there were many hispanic, SE Asian, African-American, etc. kids and we all got along and played together.
I didn't have have my first brush with racism until my family moved to a homogenous white middle-class neighborhood when I went to Middle School.
I'm convinced racism is learned, not inherent.
There are many ways to bankrupt the gov't and turn the machinery over to private-sector cronies. Many ways indeed.
@ T2's custom title: <3.
cumming's is dreamy and i absolutely love that poem.
This one too.
all and all and if by if, i am well tonight.
(though a little bored) - bardo
Did anyone do anything notably cool?