Eiuol
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Posts posted by Eiuol
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1 hour ago, AlexL said:
So: you admit that are not a military expert, that you know - next to - nothing about the Israeli military.
I'm assuming you're saying this because you know something more than me. Rather than a cryptic message that simply implies facts that are out there, just tell me the facts that you are thinking of. Obviously not being an expert doesn't mean I know nothing.
But by comparison to other countries, how is it that, by your own number, Israel has not been able to shape up in 50 years?
1 hour ago, AlexL said:It is not the army that decides about the start of war, about its end, about the tactics, methods, rules of engagement etc.
Then the Israeli military is incompetent because generals and commanders are not able to make any decision without first asking for permission. (Or worse yet, people within the government without military expertise are telling military commanders to flatten Gaza when perhaps the intelligent military decision is something far more nuanced and calculated). I don't really think this is the case but going by your reasoning, this is what I would conclude.
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12 hours ago, Easy Truth said:
Perhaps no number will change your mind. Then perhaps the only solution is 2.5 million people.
6 million is perfect. Not just an ideal solution, but a final solution.
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11 hours ago, Easy Truth said:
That is the proof right there that indiscriminate killing is happening and you resist seeing that killing "some" indiscriminately is indiscriminate killing.
The point is indiscriminate killing as a policy, I think that's what he's getting at. Not a failure of discrimination, but no attempt at it. This follows from the premise of "all actions in self-defense are justified, any bad consequence is purely in the hands of the initiator" makes it so that making any discrimination is going to get in the way of self-defense. Therefore, the best action is always to flatten and delete entire regions, without regard for innocent civilians or collateral damage.
The fact is, that there is some rational limit is not really a barrier to self-defense. It's actually possible to negotiate with terrorists, not in the sense of giving them what they want, but taking advantage of their short-term goals so that your long-term goals win out in the end. With modern technology, we can be so discriminant that innocent deaths are almost always catastrophic failures, and sometimes engaging in war is not even necessary. Imagine destroying Hamas without killing any civilians. It is possible. This is a more effective way to dismantle modern terrorism.
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On 12/20/2023 at 5:55 PM, AlexL said:
Then show it! Are you a military expert? What level of knowledge do you have specifically about Israeli military?
Israel has been in a constant state of war with gaps of maybe only a few years. I can't think of examples of countries that are unable to defeat their enemies for such a long period of time. What more do you want me to say? You could try to blame Islamic fundamentalism as the only reason, but so many countries have even stopped that within their own borders (like in the Balkans) or stopped any further escalation of direct attacks (the US after 9/11). It's still an issue, but it's not a constant threat.
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10 minutes ago, SpookyKitty said:
1) Where are you getting this from?
Reasoning in general. Being systematic, as in essentially and on purpose, rather than incidentally and ad hoc. I don't see how you can have an intent without an essential and purposeful goal.
14 minutes ago, SpookyKitty said:It does not require you to prove that they are doing it well.
Of course not, that's not why I'm bringing up incompetency. I'm mentioning it because Alex seems to be insisting that Israel not only did nothing wrong, but that what they are doing is making meaningful progress toward safety or individual rights. The fact that Israel has practically always been in a state of war suggests that what it's doing is causing more conflict and making everything worse. If the idea is that Israel should be allowed to do literally anything to defend itself (even though you and I agree that there is a rational limit, Alex and others disagree), then what it does should actually work.
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2 hours ago, SpookyKitty said:
One must also prove that there is a "special intent", on the part of the perpetrators of the mass killing, to eradicate a people group as such.
This is my point about the first part, that special intent requires systematic effort. You can't have ad hoc special intent, and you could only establish it by pointing out systematic effort.
2 hours ago, AlexL said:What is your point? In any war, more so in a urban war in "the most densely populated area in the world", shit happens: friendly fire, breach of the rules of engagement.
At the absolute minimum, it's easy to show that Israel does not have a competent military.
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11 hours ago, SpookyKitty said:
The word "systematic" does not appear anywhere in the UN genocide convention.
1-4 is ad hoc without any particular organization besides a general attitude or culture of behavior. 5-10 are all by nature systematic things. If you want to get specific, your link talks about a cultural climate that genocide arises out of.
11 hours ago, SpookyKitty said:there was no special intent by any part of US leadership to destroy the Vietnamese people as such.
My Lai massacre. This is as much a genocide as anything based on what you're saying. Killing anything that moves. And not just a few soldiers that did it. I mean, clearly we are distinguishing forms of barbarism, but I'm saying the word genocide has to be something direct and pervasive. To an extent all war is about 'us' versus 'them' since the vast majority of wars are unjustified. All unjustified wars are in some way racist. Of wars that are only partially justified, you will still find people who support the war for racist reasons.
There seems to be a difference between starting a war with racist overtones, as opposed to merely exterminating. I mean, the founding charter of Hamas called for the extermination of Jews, not just the end of the Israeli state. If it was just the end of the Israeli state, that wouldn't be genocidal even though it would be still grounded in racism because of what Hamas thought about Jews. The extermination of Jews is genocidal, because that's not just seeking what they see as justice, or what they see as self-defense, but seeking out extermination in and of itself.
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52 minutes ago, SpookyKitty said:
This is simply a description of how genocides typically occur
And importantly, it mentions the systematic nature of it, not in an ad hoc disorganized way. I'm thinking of Vietnam, where US soldiers did horrific things, but not perpetrated in a way that was systematic by the US military or cohesive across the US military. As bad as this was, and being probably racially motivated, it wasn't genocide. I don't think what you say is as clear as you make it out to be, other than being the horrific nature of war in general when bad actors do bad things.
52 minutes ago, SpookyKitty said:Hunting down the third victim and then killing him after killing the first two, even though it was absolutely clear that none of them were a threat and were surrendering, is not incompetence by any stretch of the imagination.
How did the chain of command run here? Were the soldiers bad actors, ignoring orders or normal procedure? Could it be brought about by a culture of violence within the military that commanders fail to deal with, rather than overt orders to kill everybody on sight? That's what I mean by incompetence. Poor leadership and poor guidance on their own also lead to atrocities, like what happened in Vietnam.
52 minutes ago, SpookyKitty said:Is anyone here going to sit there and seriously tell me that 87% of the Knesset cannot form a government against the ABSOLUTELY INSANE 13%?
I will watch the video. But the statement here doesn't indicate anything other than unwillingness to deal with internal threats to liberty.
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46 minutes ago, SpookyKitty said:
I do not need to show evidence of all the other steps when we are clearly already at the extermination phase.
4-8 are missing. Even if you went all the way to 6, there is still not enough for it to be a genocide. Of course genocides don't happen instantly, there is a process, but you still have to establish that the intent is all the way to 9.
53 minutes ago, SpookyKitty said:What???
Good thing you aren't then.
53 minutes ago, SpookyKitty said:This is not an "error". This is systematic and has been going on for a long time.
Since I think it's hyperbole to say it's a genocide, my explanation is incompetency primarily.
55 minutes ago, SpookyKitty said:This is a strawman argument.
You were condemning an entire government based on a minority group within that government. 13% is a sickening number for that kind of group, but to consider that explicit moral endorsement by the political decision-makers is entirely different. I'll take a look at your video, but from the sounds of what you told us, it just talks about one group, not the way that the Israeli government has incorporated the ideas of that group specifically.
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On 12/18/2023 at 11:47 AM, SpookyKitty said:
Genocides almost never occur in an all at once fashion. Genocide and holocaust scholars recognize that genocides happen in stages of escalating hate and violence:
But by that standard, there needs to be evidence that they are going through with the rest of the steps. There is a good case for all the way up to and including 3, but the rest of the steps indicate a systematic plan of action. Genocide still sounds like hyperbole; an improperly waged war may have racist overtones depending on who is defending it, but that doesn't then make the war a genocide. Vietnam was not a genocide for example, as bad as it was. In this case, there is justification for the war even if not justification for the way the war has been waged, which is different than genocides where literally the only violation was existing.
Now you might argue that Israel manufactured the kidnappings, a sort of social engineering project, but then we are getting into territory like "did the CIA kill Kennedy?" If there is an equivalent to the Gulf of Tonkin incident, then you have a case to make. Otherwise, I think you are reaching. Give me documents, testimony, something stating intent.
But I have to say, Israel killing three of its own is a catastrophic error, it indicates that Israel lacks competency. Lack of competency is different than genocidal intent, though.
1 hour ago, SpookyKitty said:then watch this lecture by Israeli investigative journalist David Sheen wherein he describes the Israeli far-right "Messianic" movement and its connections to the Israeli government.
Don't be like the people who say that since they found a few Nazis in the Ukrainian military, the Ukrainian military must be infested by Nazis.
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7 hours ago, stansfield123 said:
it's at war with totalitarian Islam
The more I think about it, the more evident it is that Israel has consistently failed at fighting it. Strictly on the pragmatic side, Israel sucks at fighting totalitarian Islam. Ideological failure if you ask me. I prefer Israel over Hamas, but I'd much rather something over both of them. An unequivocal defender of liberty, not someone just barely good enough.
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7 hours ago, EC said:
Wrong, but this will be my last comment on this craziness with anyone.The question amounted to: What if SpookyKitty from Catland travels to Dogland under her own volition and under no one else's knowledge nor directive from anyone else in Catland, goes crazy, randomly decides--by herself--with no knowledge nor direction from anyone else to randomly blow up Dogland's largest and most famous doghouse, should Dogland then attack Catland for SpookyKitty's lone act of terrorism when it was only SpookyKitty and literally nobody else in any manner involved in the act?
Presumably, Dogland would launch a nuclear missile at SK in self-defense, killing millions of innocent Catlandians as collateral damage. The blood is on SK'S hands! If Dogland should not send a nuke, why are you saying that Dogland shouldn't defend itself!?
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4 hours ago, EC said:
That *reason* is what makes it an invalid question, not that "I stated it", i.e. pointed out the fallacy that makes it invalid.
I think you completely misunderstood the point of the question, you have the reason all wrong.
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2 hours ago, whYNOT said:
you will not have a remaining iota of respect for his rights, he has renounced them.
This is incorrect though, you shouldn't cease to respect their rights. You responded as if respecting their rights would mean you would have to forgo self-defense. I can see why you would think that SK meant some kind of self sacrificial action. So I posted to clarify. And then SK liked my post, suggesting that my added clarification was the correct interpretation. If you want to talk about what Rand thought, she has never spoken about anyone losing rights, not even people who have violated rights.
A person may try to harm me in some way, but the fact that they want to harm does not itself mean they lose all rights whatsoever. You still can't initiate force against them. In the context of this discussion, Palestinians are not categorically without rights, and if any Palestinians want harm in some vague way doesn't give Israel free reign. Against Hamas, sure, since they explicitly call for the initiation of force for the sake of Islamic fundamentalism.
50 minutes ago, SpookyKitty said:I am simply asking you whether or not individual acts of terrorism are sufficient to justify a nuclear strike.
It's a pretty good question actually. Since the claim is stated that any act of retaliation is justified, it makes sense to go to the extreme. Nuclear strike on one person, with millions of casualties of people who did nothing at all. That's absurd, so you would have to modify the original claim to be that there is some rational limit to what kind of collateral damage is justified.
It's pretty common that the reaction to reductio ad absurdum is "that conclusion is ridiculous, you're taking me out of context, that's not what I meant, your question is invalid because of how ridiculous it is!"
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3 minutes ago, whYNOT said:
But your attacker must be permitted - by you - his freedom of action to hurt or kill you?
You forgot to finish the sentence, where I say that it isn't a violation of their rights if you respond with self-defense. They aren't losing anything since you are not initiating force. It's not okay to respond with force because they lost their rights, what makes it okay is that you have the right to self-defense when somebody initiates force against you.
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16 hours ago, SpookyKitty said:
You absolutely must always respect the rights of those trying to harm you.
Or more specifically, they still maintain their rights, but because they initiated force, it isn't a violation of their rights to respond with self-defense. For whatever reason, people supportive of individual rights like to argue that people "lose" their rights if they initiate force. But that's not true. And anyway, it's not as if Palestinians are equivalent to Hamas!
- SpookyKitty, EC and tadmjones
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On 12/6/2023 at 12:21 AM, KeerthiEva said:
Thank you for sharing your thoughts and experiences with Ayn Rand's ideas and Objectivism. It's interesting to hear how her writings have had a personal and broad impact on your understanding of life and your place in the world. NJMCDirect is an online ticket payment portal that helps to make the ticket payment to Municipal Court of New Jersey by logging on to www.njmcdirect.com.
Because of this link at the bottom, I'm quite confident that this is AI generated content. The response is wildly generic.
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12 hours ago, stansfield123 said:
The reason why Rand's ideas and "God's rules" are similar
What are you talking about? There is no similarity when it comes to things like pride and self-interest. If all you want to say is that people build on ideas over time, sure, that's right.
12 hours ago, stansfield123 said:Their methodology is producing roughly the same results as ours
12 hours ago, stansfield123 said:When people's reasoning is rooted in "the greater good", we see dramatically different outcomes. We see the Dark Ages, we see the Holocaust, we see the Soviet Union, we see Hamas and 9/11.
You are literally explaining to us how it is that any reasoning based on irrationality or religious dogma leads to bad things happening, and even how Rand's ideas are different. What matters is the extent people adopt that thinking. The most you are saying is that people in Western society at least generally adhere to a common sense notion of rationality, despite contrary ideas in the culture as well. Rand defends Western civilization wherever it explicitly preaches rationality, while utterly excoriating Christianity for exactly the bad things you are referencing.
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On 11/22/2023 at 3:17 PM, stansfield123 said:
but does that actually produce a DIFFERENT LIFE?
Well, even in your examples, people lead different lives relative to the beliefs they hold. To the extent that I believe similar things as people around me, I am like other people. But to the extent that people adopt their own code, the less they will fit into a specific "mold". You don't need a different analysis than that.
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Individual rights are the proper basis on which to run a country.
7 minutes ago, stansfield123 said:Saying that "France doesn't operate based on an ethnic identity" is the exact same thing as saying that "France doesn't have an ethnic identity".
There is so much to unpack here that I honestly lost interest in the discussion.
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7 minutes ago, stansfield123 said:
Do you think France would be a better place, if it didn't have an ethnic identity?
You missed the second part, about operating a country based on ethnic identity. I said nothing about having an ethnic identity. Having an ethnic identity or supporting it is no issue to me.
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On 11/8/2023 at 4:19 PM, AlexL said:
Then tell me what do you find unclear in what I wrote. Here is it again:
I told you what I thought based on what you wrote. If you think my reasoning went wrong, you have to point out where. What you wrote is perfectly clear, I just think you don't realize the implications of what you're saying.
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37 minutes ago, AlexL said:
There is nothing here about some ethnicity being better as another.
No, you didn't say that Jewish is the best identity. You dropped the context of your own statement about Jews being the best ethnicity for Israel. Pretty much an ethnostate premise, including the idea that "realistically" it's just a fact that people of the shared ethnicity will be ready to risk their lives more than those of a different ethnicity.
45 minutes ago, AlexL said:Try to challenge what I really wrote,
Then clarify what you wrote.
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8 hours ago, AlexL said:
My comment was not about ethnic purity.
But you are incapable of challenging it without misrepresenting it.
To say that some ethnicity is better as the majority is to say that any other ethnicity or mix thereof is worse *because* of their ethnicity. This is part of why Rand considered ethnicity to be an anti-concept. You are making a consideration based on an ethnicity itself being responsible for different ideas or thoughts.
You might not intend to convey ethnic purity as desirable, but that's the consequence.
Israelo-Palestinian Conflict: 2023 Edition
in Terrorism and Islamic Fundamentalism
Posted
I find that many people think anything short of absolute war (ie flatten and delete the entire area) is self sacrificial, or is giving into terrorists. But that is a very shortsighted way of thinking, ignoring that this can in fact create more violence, or fail to secure individual rights. The US has improved in this regard since Vietnam, so even though I said killing no innocents is possible, my idea was that military actions can be more efficient over time.
I get what you are saying about indiscriminate killing, but it usually refers to a policy of killing without an attempt to distinguish who you kill. Anyway, the more important point is that Israel can and should do better. It's better overall to destroy less things, people included, it creates opportunity for growth and trade. Distinguishing who you kill is a good thing in war.
If you just want to nitpick that overall it is the government and not merely the military, fine. In that case, the Israeli government is completely incompetent, military included. I should have said those making military decisions are incompetent.