RationalBiker

In my opinion it's her event, either her father wants to be there for HER or he doesn't. He shouldn't be able to dictate who she shares the experience with. If he can't peacefully co-exist in the same CROWD of people, that suggests something about pettiness over priorities to me, lacking a fuller context of the situation.

I thought of a context in which the public display of brutality may well be appropriate; in prison where one lives with other like-minded savages and the only way to earn respect is by demonstrating brutality.

There are no conditions that currently come to mind, though I'll hold short of saying there are none. As far as the existing comment, I was merely using your verbiage. You said we couldn't but we are. If you want to clarify what you meant by that, I'll answer that. I'm not here to discuss other time periods, I'm talking about now, with the world as it is "this day and age". The gravity of taking human life, enemy or otherwise, is not lost on me even if it is lost on my enemy. Basing my civility on my enemies lack of civility seems second-handed to me. Even if his culture and beliefs have made him a savage, I should not allow that to make me a savage. While I agree with you that we should be more proactive in seeking out and killing the enemy, it would be false to assume that making that killing a public spectacle is the only other way go handle it, you seem to be presenting that as "its either this way or that way". We can be more brutal and more proactive without entertaining your wishful thinking.

Actually, I meant to say "Yes" but with the rest of what I wrote. I don't have a problem with ruthlessly killing the enemy. I have a problem with making the killing of the enemy a public spectacle. Because as you have noted, we've had a difficult time thus far dealing with the problem. If we have more people dedicated to being a part of that problem, the problem becomes even more difficult. Except that we are still existing and we are not being unnecessarily ruthless. I'm drawing a distinction between being ruthless in killing the enemy and making an unnecessary public display of it. Killing the enemy is necessary, dragging their entrails through the street or posting their head on a spear at the gate is not. I don't think it is smart in this day and age to shake your fist (globally speaking) oblivious to the rest of the world as if there will be no consequences.

Not only is it far from perfect, it is understandable why it didn't get a wide theatrical release for reasons aside from its message. My criticism is based on what I expect from any "good" dramatic movie. But it is only right to do it when it is deserved. As the saying goes, "you can't polish a turd".

No. The goal there was to kill the enemy. We killed bin Laden and thus the goal was accomplished. Capturing him only to make the killing of him a public spectacle would be the barbaric part. Yes, and it was politically smart. Not only did we avoid a whole bunch of political wrangling about who was going to get his body (perhaps allowing some fanatics to parade his corpse through the streets to rile up the masses), but we likely prevented pissing off a whole bunch of other muslims that are far less dedicated to our destruction. Given who we're fighting, do you think making a public spectacle of the death of their leader would make the cow down and throw in the towel? I think it would have quite the opposite impact, as well as angering far more moderate muslims.

I'm glad to live in America where we don't do these kinds of things. I would expect to see this in Afghanistan or Iraq perhaps, where life is more barbaric and less civilized.

I'm not sure I'm included in the above quote, but I judged it based on elements I expect to be in any good dramatic movie, not just an Atlas Shrugged movie. The characters are one dimensional and they do not develop in any significant way in the story. The dialog is fired at the audience like there is a race to get it all out before the end of the movie. You can ask people who did not like the movie to "rethink their premises" in the same manner that you could be asked to rethink how objective you are being in judging the quality of the movie. I liked the fact that the material is getting out there in a more visible medium, but as far as I'm concerned, the movie is poorly done. Even if the follow up(s) are equally poor, I'd still go seem them just the see the material on screen. And though this is not a part of my argument as to the quality of the movie, my wife fell asleep during the movie and she loves a good drama as much as the next person.

But the fact that actual Islamic experts disagree widely doesn't necessarily mean that they are all wrong. A "cursory" examination of the document is not sufficient to determine there is no "true" version to be extracted, scholarly knowledge may well be needed to understand whether or not it was "truly" contradictory. Cursory examinations typically miss lots of context. I'm suggesting that the claim you are making is equally uninformed as SkyTrooper's if the standard for an accurate judgment is scholarly knowledge.

Do you have a scholarly knowledge of Islam backing up your judgement?

I got mellow. More mellow that I generally already am is like being dead. After a couple times I stopped. It wasn't very worthwhile for me. Edit: I should add that when I tried it "back in the day" (almost 30 years ago), the strains were very likely far less potent than the strains available today.

Most people on this forum don't think with their nuts anyway.

You don't know what to ask because you keep thinking in terms of the false dichotomy you've created. There are more alternatives that you are evading that involve people actually taking responsibility for their own lives and choices, and not bending other men to their will by force of government. You argue in favor of the predator versus the RATiONALLY self-interested individual.

New heights of ridiculousness.

Okay, so I missed the sarcasm...

No, they will not get paid, they will be dead. We are not talking about estates. The individual is responsible for the hazards they choose to endure to make money. Businesses who can no longer get employees to work for them because the job is not sufficiently safe must elect to make the job safer OR risk going out of business.

Do you think they get paid when they are dead?

John Wayne Gacy seemed like he was a pillar of his community.

Whoever said "the system" was supposed to work in anyone's SELF interest? Reexamine the word "self" in your question above. More adequately phrased, were people taking jobs that exposed themselves to risks that were not in their self-interest? Why release the individual of accounting responsibly for his or her own accord and blame such responsibility on "the system"? It is not a proper government function to protect people from their own bad decisions or choices or whatever level of risk they wish to take with their lives.

You are left to that conclusion, not we. http://www.prlog.org/11469927-islam-bin-laden-must-answer-to-god-for-killing-so-many-innocent-people.html Apparently the author of this piece shows that Islam is not a religion that supports bin Laden or terrorism if we use the standard that "Islam is as Islam does, according to the interpretation of each person practicing it.". Using that standard does not make sense.

Is that a quote? If so, who from?

What prevents both from happening?

In my opinion, what it covers of the novel it covers pretty faithfully. However, I felt like i was on the John Galt line the first time they fired it up... we had to get through 300 miles of dialog in 90 minutes, okay, 97 minutes to be exact. They condensed what they had to accomplish so much, that it was all about getting the dialog out, and very little about developing characters, about getting the viewers to really feel invested in the characters. You could tell by their actions that they were devoted to accomplishing their goals and and pursuing their values, but I was not convinced that they were actually passionate about those pursuits. In short, I felt the acting to be somewhat flat all around. Now, I do love the fact that it appears they were diligent in faithfully relaying the material from the book, as much of it as they could cover in the time they had. If they ever continue it, I will go see the remaining parts.

We're ALL going to die at some point. The question is when and how much could we have accomplished if we had longer than we would have if we were shot down before our natural death. I agree the symbolism is important. I'm guessing the Taliban aren't thinking... well, he was going to die soon anyway so it might as well be at the hands of our sworn enemies. And we are glad they took his body too so we won't have to worry about funeral costs. I'm sure the American will give him a burial suited for our heroic leader.

Drinks all round fellas!!!