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Pre-emptive War: e.g. Should we nuke Tehran?

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Utter non-sense. Both of those nations, Iraq under Saddam and Iran under it's various leaders, have sponsored Islamic terrorism against the United States. Not to mention that a completely unfree nation does not deserve any respect as some sovereign entity that can enslave citizens and hog natural resources.

We have heavily sanctioned Iraq and Iran for their prior instances of this. In the meantime, Iran has not threatened the individual rights of the citizens of the US. And I never said that any unfree nation deserves respect; my issue stems from the fact that the rest of the world thinks they do. I can only envision the rest of the world taking our first-strike on Iran as being so hostile and so wrong based on their flawed moral code that the resultant actions of other nations against us would be devastating. We are not the "greatest" country in the world anymore, and we cannot handle being in a war against the rest of the world.

Quite a statement. I'd say something like that ought to be elaborated upon before it can be answered.

Israel is a mooching State which gets almost all of its power and funds from the US. It is a danger to be associated with Israel, as they do not think rationally, and their government, even in its best state, is not capable of thinking rationally (unlike the US, which can be brought back to a state of objective, rational structure). Their creation as a whole was based off of mooching from the international community, and the coercive actions of the UN. Israel is as much of a failure of a state as the rest of the countries on this planet, and is just as unjustifiably deadly in its actions. Additionally, their political goals are enormously religiously charged, as the government is based on the Jewish principle of Zionism, and this notion of Zionism has indeed caused millions of deaths over the years. The Israeli government is just as irrational as their neighbors' governments, only they have more power and money to get away with it.

We live in an imperfect system currently. However, to not take any action because it is funded by taxation would be an even greater evil that would lead to the eventual end of the American government

I think that the burden of proof lies on you with that one. The end of the American government? Please - I was there on 9/11. No government would nuke us - not even a powerful one. No terrorist organization has the ability to nuke us - they're not knowledgeable enough. I'm confident in America's national defense strength to that degree. If you aren't confident that America could circumvent a situation like this, then I'd say that you better check your premises as to why that event would be possible. Perhaps in a free society, the United States wouldn't have to worry about these things? I'd put the priority on the domestic United States to fix their own issues before we have to worry about the issues of others. Perhaps, then, there wouldn't be an issue to begin with. They go after the United States for a certain reason, and it's not because we're a predominantly Christian population. It's not because we're free and rich. If these were the reasons, they'd go after much easier targets than the United States!

Ummm...No? Every religion does not teach Mohammed preached. In fact, Islam is the only one. Certainly no religion can ever be considered good, but there is such a thing as levels of evil.

I meant that in the sense that all religions preach violence and non-retaliatory force. Islam is just the flavor of the month as far as violent religions are concerned.

Iraq and Iran both sponsored terrorist activity against America. Iran was much more successful in their actions. As a matter of fact, they've been at war with us for quite awhile now.

Perhaps we should have thought rationally before we overthrew an elected leader of a sovereign nation there and installed a political puppet of the United States CIA. Was that in our best interest? Iran was a democratic and free society after the Iranian Constitutional Revolution, and was one of the freest nations in the Middle East before the US and Britain tired of not having a forcefully imperial control over their oil. We are responsible for that region's transformation from a constitutional parliament-based system of government to a "Supreme Leader" form of rule. Perhaps Iran is at war with us for what they see as a perfectly justifiable reason.

You'd think that more Objectivists would realize how it was not rational or in our self-interest to dictate the way a sovereign, constitutional country was run. Had we not done that, I think there's a good chance we wouldn't be in the mess we're in today. Invading Iran would only be furthering our wrong position that we did nothing to spur their anger and hatred at us. If we pointed out the ways we've both wronged each other over the past 50-60 years, and came to an agreement which supported active trade and communication with that region, it's very possible that the next Iranian Revolution will be one in favor of our political system, rather than the one they utilize presently.

I'm sure that Ayn Rand would not have approved of our forceful overthrowing of the peaceful, successful free government of Iran. The question is, why do some here seem to be OK with it, or simply ignore it? It is a severely relevant fact that needs to be taken into account when we discuss the best course of action against Iran, and I find very few are willing to bring themselves to the inevitable, conclusive fact that the United States was actually wrong for a change.

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... a severely high ratio of innocents killed in Pakistan.
Innocent by being ignorant, or by wanting a secular government that supports freedom, but being terrorized into keeping shut? Ignorance will not protect a man who is stepping off a cliff... reality is like that.
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Innocent by being ignorant, or by wanting a secular government that supports freedom, but being terrorized into keeping shut? Ignorance will not protect a man who is stepping off a cliff... reality is like that.

Israel is not a secular government. If you don't think that their main purpose is defined by their Zionist goals, then you're blind to their intents.

And please, everyone, stop with the analogies. In no way is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict akin to a stupid man stepping off a cliff. These analogies highly belittle your arguments and are highly contradictory to Objectivist ways of thought. If we're going to deal in the real-world, in the rational and objective world of absolutes, then let's please remain there. These foolish analogies do no more than confuse those like myself who are trying to understand this concept and at the same time make you appear to not be all that conscious as to how Objectivism must be applied and debated.

Edited by Andrew Grathwohl
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Innocent by being ignorant, or by wanting a secular government that supports freedom, but being terrorized into keeping shut? Ignorance will not protect a man who is stepping off a cliff... reality is like that.

That analogy doesn't make sense, nor does it make sense in this discussion. The people in oppressive countries cannot protest their government's actions as we can in the US. They cannot because they are forced. You probably pay taxes because you are forced to and you would much rather live life outside of prison. I think it would be obvious that not everyone in Iran supports the entity initiating force against the US. Even if the people in those countries could and should do more than they are, that's not the same as supporting a government. Just because someone acts immorally doesn't mean force needs to be used against them. Force can only be justified when it is retaliatory in nature. Clearly, killing a person is initiating force. I understand it is not always possible to have 0 innocent deaths, and I accept that. But I'd rather keep that number as low as possible. Nukes aren't the only weapons we have... Specific weapons have specific uses.

Keep in mind that when I say innocent, I mean "those who do not support the initiation of force of their government".

Edited by Eiuol
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imperial control over their oil

I'm sorry, but property rights are not collective and certainly not racial. The oil was legally property of The Anglo-Persian Oil Company until it was nationalized by the Iranian government because they thought they had a racial right to the oil and they didn't like the contract they had signed. The CIA and MI6 had every right to arrest Mossadeq.

Looks like my original hunch about you being an anti-Semite was correct.

Your whole position is irrational and filled with self-contradictions. Iran has already attacked the United States and you say that those magically "don't count" because the UN put sanctions on Iran, which clearly is enough "retaliation" to stop Iran. I'm sorry, but either you defend yourself or you don't. You are a pacifist, why don't you have courage to admit it?

This needs to be merged into the "Can you list five reasons NOT to nuke Iran" thread.

...

Civillian non-combatants < The lives of American Soldiers

On this day, U.S. warplanes launch a new bombing offensive against Japan, dropping 2,000 tons of incendiary bombs on Tokyo over the course of the next 48 hours. Almost 16 square miles in and around the Japanese capital were incinerated, and between 80,000 and 130,000 Japanese civilians were killed in the worst single firestorm in recorded history.

This is how you wage a defensive war selfishly, not altruistically.

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That analogy doesn't make sense, nor does it make sense in this discussion. The people in oppressive countries cannot protest their government's actions as we can in the US.
So, you are saying that Iran is not under mullah rule because of any beliefs, attitudes, ignorance of the people who live in Iran, but just randomly?

You say, "Clearly, killing a person is initiating force". My reply: No, definitely not in the sense you mean it...i.e. not in the sense of "initiating force being a bad thing".

Edited by softwareNerd
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tired of not having a forcefully imperial control over their oil.

You really need to stop asserting that you're an Objectivist. Let your arguments stand on their merit. Claiming this high ground is embarrasing when you directly contradict the owner of the term.

As per this point. You need to learn a little about the history of middle east oil.

Edited by KendallJ
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I should clarify that without a specific context of what is being nuked, it's hard to go any further into the discussion of whether or not nuking Iran is right or wrong. I'm not saying the civilians are the responsibility of the invading force. It's simply that it's not the civilians you're retaliating against. You definitely should use all force necessary to obliterate the threat. But the civilians are not the threat. I'm not saying that "if one civilian dies, that is bad enough". I doubt you would ask the military to come and carpet bomb a serial killer's neighborhood. Given existing technology, it is certainly possible to attack the specific threat and ignore everything else. I do not believe nukes are as accurate at eliminating specific targets.

If tactical bombing existed in WW2, I'd feel confident in saying that tactical bombings would have been enough to end WW2. I'm not sure how much destruction was expected from dropping the nukes, but I don't believe they were targeted at military or government targets specifically. It's not exactly the nuking I have a problem with, just what was nuked (cities rather than government or military facilities).

Except both cities were filled with weapons and ammunition manufacturing sites; the Japanese at the time made most such things by hand. To claim that they were civilian targets is absurd.

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Nonsense. I've met plenty of big names in the Objectivist community who take a foreign policy position of non-interventionism.

This is a bit like claiming you've met a lot of movie stars and not naming names. It carries no weight without the concrete evidence. Start listing guy.

There are 15 pages on this thread guys. I personally participated in multiple pages of it. Your arguments are all given here before in fact. And they've been answered here before.

It must be said, additionally, that Libertarianism in the US takes most of its influence from the Objectivist way of thought. The classical liberalism / minarchist government models that most of them subscribe to come directly from Ayn Rand's ideas regarding the use of force by the State - that the only proper role of government is police, courts, and national defense.

Many people claim that their ideas derive from Rand, but the real test if is Objectivists, and most notably Rand herself agreed with such claims. You might try reading Libertarianism the perversion of Liberty by Peter Swartz.

Rand certainly influenced libertarians. That does not mean that Libertarianism is Objectivism.

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Start listing guy.
Fill in libertarian person's name, ideally someone who is a fan of Rand's. Ron Paul perhaps! :D

P.S. I've merged this latest thread with an older 500-post thread that went over all the relevant aspects of the argument a few times.

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So, you are saying that Iran is not under mullah rule because of any beliefs, attitudes, ignorance of the people who live in Iran, but just randomly?

You say, "Clearly, killing a person is initiating force". My reply: No, definitely not in the sense you mean it...i.e. not in the sense of "initiating force being a bad thing".

I was only saying that "killing is force", and if it's retaliatory, of course it isn't bad.

Of course mullah rule can come about because people let it come about. And don't forget the people who were simply born in Iran and had no affect on why Iran is the way it is today. There is almost no way to know who is innocent and who is not. That is why I say try to limit any attack to the specific target. I don't want to say "I'll just drop a nuke. That'll do it." I only want to retaliate against the thing that is initiating force. But again, without going into a detailed and specific hypothetical scenario, it is hard to say what military action is necessary. I think tactical bombing would be plenty of force to stop Iran, while you think using a nuke is the sufficient amount of force needed.

@Maarten

That's why I was saying I don't know what level of destruction was expected. I do not know what the specific target of those nukes were, but that's not the point of this topic. I'll have to research the topic more.

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I think tactical bombing would be plenty of force to stop Iran, while you think using a nuke is the sufficient amount of force needed.
Do I? That's news to me. I think you'll find very few people in this thread who say we ought to nuke Iran. There just aren't that many military experts here. It is quite a different thing to say: "whatever it takes, including nukes, if that's what it takes".
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I'm sorry, but property rights are not collective and certainly not racial. The oil was legally property of The Anglo-Persian Oil Company until it was nationalized by the Iranian government because they thought they had a racial right to the oil and they didn't like the contract they had signed. The CIA and MI6 had every right to arrest Mossadeq.

Looks like my original hunch about you being an anti-Semite was correct.

Your whole position is irrational and filled with self-contradictions. Iran has already attacked the United States and you say that those magically "don't count" because the UN put sanctions on Iran, which clearly is enough "retaliation" to stop Iran. I'm sorry, but either you defend yourself or you don't. You are a pacifist, why don't you have courage to admit it?

This needs to be merged into the "Can you list five reasons NOT to nuke Iran" thread.

...

Civillian non-combatants < The lives of American Soldiers

This is how you wage a defensive war selfishly, not altruistically.

You do a great disservice to your argument by trying to associate my ideas with a negative label, and by your pathetically desperate attempts at labeling me. Look, I'm not an anti-Semite, as if that's even relevant to this discussion. I come from a Russian Jewish background, similar to Rand. I hate all religions equally, including that of my ancestors, believe me.

APOC? Hah! You should call it what it really was - The British Petroleum Company. The British colonized the Iranian oil market, by contract, but did not hold up its end of that contract. It didn't aid in the building of schools and hospitals, it didn't provide the wages agreed to in the contract, and it didn't offer to attain a new contract or deal with the Iranians. It was incredibly irrational to want to nationalize their oil in lieu of some more capitalistic approach, but regardless, it was the British, not the Iranians, who disrespected a contractual agreement.

I didn't say Iran attacked anybody - I can't think of any one instance when the Iranian government itself actually attacked the United States. I do know that the Iranian people held Americans hostage for 444 days, but that was because the US, by force, didn't allow the Iranians to try the Shah for the crimes he committed. I also know that some terrorist groups were given weapons by the Iranian government, which Israel and the US sold to Iran for cooperation with the Hezbollah hostages release back in '85. For this reason, I know that the United States and Israel enabled any attack that occurred from then on by people connected to the Iranian government. However, similar to a drunk driver, we must punish for the crime, and not the intent. The drunk driver must get prosecuted for hitting an innocent citizen - the fact that he was drunk was merely the reason for him committing the crime. Iran was the alcohol in the late 80s and early 90s terrorist attacks against US interests (and, of course, had nothing to do with 9/11).

The problem is that the you're drawing an insane conclusion from a seemingly true premise, as you seem to think that if a foreign government is "tyrannical", this justifies other governments not only "retaliating" against them but invading entire foreign territories and waging total war against not only the foreign governments but the civilian populations. This is an absurd justification for initiating force against innocent bystanders. It also opens up a subjective can of worms in which different governments are treated as being better or worse relative to each other, and legitimizing otherwise illegitimate governments in the process.

Apparently you have no qualms whatsoever with targeting entire civilian populations. You rationalize this by essentially saying that those within the "country" of the "bad guys" bear moral responsibility for what their government does. This is a blatantly collectivist viewpoint. Someone who just so happens to be born within the territory of a tyrannical government is not responsible for what some powerful men in an ivory tower do. Punishing people for the crimes of others is not justice, it's monstrously contradictory in nature. Blaming and exercising force on entire populations within a territory for the actions of their governments, which they essentially have no control over, is collective guilt. Objectivists are supposed to be the ultimate opponents of collectivism, yet when it comes to foreign policy you appear to be a die-hard collectivist, treating entire "nations" as bearing responsibility for the actions of a few powerful men within them. In your words, innocent bystanders can legitimately be murdered in the crossfire of conflicts between governments. The axiom of non-aggression applies to everyone but the individual within a tyrannous government, it seems? I wonder if the founders of the US overstepped the boundaries when trying to fight for themselves for their free society...

I still cannot understand how this obligation to use retaliatory force should apply to Iran. And even so, I am amazed by the lack of consideration for the greater consequences associated with the actions preferred by some of the members here. None of you fear nuclear war waged against the US? None of you fear an economic disaster which will render your individual rights useless and void by our own government? None of you fear the consequences of our actions? Don't these tragedies far outweigh any possible successful outcomes associated with striking Iran at this very sensitive point in American history? The United States government hardly even suffices as a free nation anymore when looking beyond the surface - even guilty of many of the same crimes we rightfully consider the Iranians as being so despicable for committing - and yet I think many of the members here are strangely endowed with undeserved nationalism.

I am not a pacifist; I fully supported the original US intent of going after the Taliban after September 11th, 2001. This wasn't even because I happened to survive these attacks, but because I completely understood that an identifiable group of people had committed an intrinsic crime against the US, and the US had an obligation to use retaliatory force against those responsible.

The pacifist line is such a straw man argument, by the way. It is intellectually dishonest. I fully advocate self-defense. The problem is that what you advocate is not self-defense but pre-emptive force and outright initiations of aggression. The accusation that I advocate just sitting there and allowing oneself to be agitated by foreign entities is absurd. Your view is totally warped, as it is the America government that is agitating the average people within foreign territories. It is precisely those people, the people you favor attacking, who have the moral right of self-defense against both foreign invaders and their own tyrannous governments.

The objectivist political doctrine is opposed to taxation. Yet your stance on currently existing issues fully support making use of tax-funded government institutions like the military. This is severely inconsistent, and very - very- contradictory.

But while objectivism is supposed to be about objectivity and reason, consistency is not a word that describes your political doctrine. The word hypocrisy describes it much better.

Fill in libertarian person's name, ideally someone who is a fan of Rand's. Ron Paul perhaps! banghead.gif

Ron Paul is no Objectivist. He's a paleolibertarian.

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What the hell is this? The America I love and respect - albeit from a distance, and as a foreigner who's never even visited it - is running around like a headless chicken.

When this thread was started, someone posted this :' We have to do it [nuke] in self defence'. Yeah, that was Dec. 2006, and the U.S. has been attacked how many times since then?

Someone else wrote 'We owe it to the victims of 9/11'.

So vengeance directed at that many-headed monster of fundamental Islam is going to solve anything.

Look at this terribly wasted effort [and life] called Iraq.

So what is it America, do you want to be the police of the world, or do you want to close down your borders and leave the world.?

Neither, is the answer I would like to hear. Has anyone heard the saying " You have nothing to fear, but fear itself ". ?

What is this ' Nuke Tehran' bullshit ?!! I am firmly in agreement with a strike against Iran [or N. korea] with due cause , and at the appropriate time, but it must and should be a surgical strike , based upon Intelligence, taking out critical targets and leaders. Take some advice from the Israelis, who've had to become experts at this.

On the subject of Israel,( and I'm not biased just because I had an Israeli mother :D ) , there's an ignoramus on this thread who states: a. Zionism has caused millions of deaths , and b. The Israeli government is just as irrational as their neighbours. Pity, as I thought he was,at first, raising some very intelligent points. With these two utter falsehoods, he has declared his prejudice.

Back to the U.S. , and I , and other people of good will, empathize with you. Your President is in the M.East spreading the word of Christian charity and appeasement to a bunch of people who see this as weakness. As I have heard it personally from those who know - " An Arab is either at your feet, or at your throat ". America will never, ever win a popularity contest over there.

You, in the home of freedom and rationalism, have to tread that fine line between self-restraint and benevolence, AND uncompromising self defence and justice. You are the example, like it or not, to the rest of us.

You Objectivists especially should be able to " Keep your heads, when all about you, are losing theirs', and blaming it on you."

Please.

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I didn't say Iran attacked anybody - I can't think of any one instance when the Iranian government itself actually attacked the United States.
I think this borders on intellectual dishonesty. You very well know that Iran has been operating a proxy war of terrorism. To pretend that the lack of attacks by uniformed Iranian soldiers is some evidence of the peaceful intent of that regime is either monumental ignorance or dishonesty. Which is it?
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I think this borders on intellectual dishonesty. You very well know that Iran has been operating a proxy war of terrorism. To pretend that the lack of attacks by uniformed Iranian soldiers is some evidence of the peaceful intent of that regime is either monumental ignorance or dishonesty. Which is it?

There has been evidence of Qum forces in Labanon. Also in the early middle part of this decade NPR did a report on what we were up against in Afghanistan and one of the enemy groups that was shooting at us was led by a guy with "tiar" in his name. No, that's not one of my classic typo's for "tiara". that's a name ending in Iran; as in Shapur Baktiar. And to think, that was actually covered on NPR (gasp)

Whether these constitue legal grounds for war, I don't know. I could argue both ways here. It is a violation of a nations integrity but does it rise to the level of full-out amred conflict without some intermediate level of contact, I don't know. There's talk that we had Special Forces doing things in Iran. I guess this sort of thing goes on all the time amongst nations and may be considered too small an action for a full response. But then to, there is the case of Eminiar and Vendikar which fought a "clean" 500 year war that Kirk brought to a head and the two sides decided it just wasn't worth the hassle to continue the war in reality. So I guess as long as it stays low level, nations will put up with this sort of thing

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It also opens up a subjective can of worms in which different governments are treated as being better or worse relative to each other, and legitimizing otherwise illegitimate governments in the process.

Various governments are better or worse judged by the standard of their principled and de facto protection of individual rights. Treating governments differently according to that judgement is justice.

Apparently you have no qualms whatsoever with targeting entire civilian populations. You rationalize this by essentially saying that those within the "country" of the "bad guys" bear moral responsibility for what their government does. This is a blatantly collectivist viewpoint. Someone who just so happens to be born within the territory of a tyrannical government is not responsible for what some powerful men in an ivory tower do. Punishing people for the crimes of others is not justice, it's monstrously contradictory in nature. Blaming and exercising force on entire populations within a territory for the actions of their governments, which they essentially have no control over, is collective guilt. Objectivists are supposed to be the ultimate opponents of collectivism, yet when it comes to foreign policy you appear to be a die-hard collectivist, treating entire "nations" as bearing responsibility for the actions of a few powerful men within them. In your words, innocent bystanders can legitimately be murdered in the crossfire of conflicts between governments. The axiom of non-aggression applies to everyone but the individual within a tyrannous government, it seems? I wonder if the founders of the US overstepped the boundaries when trying to fight for themselves for their free society...

The population of a territory controlled by a government is the source of strength for that government, whether they consent to every action of that government or not. Collectivism as an ideological justification for disposing of individual lives for the sake of a common good is false, immoral and impractical. But when it comes to war and contests of force it is an objective fact that greater force wins. Other things being equal, a greater force is achieved by collective action by a larger crowd than the enemy has. The practicality of collective action in the use of force is not the same thing as collectivism as political ideology. Your entire argument hinges upon this equivocation and falls apart now that it is identified.

The time for moral arguments is before the war starts. Once the war starts, it is immoral to hinder the swift conclusion of war with out of context concerns for individual justice. Any action which undermines the enemy's strength and will to fight is permitted and necessary in war in order to bring it to a conclusion in the shortest possible time. War is not criminal justice, killing people in war is not punishment.

There are limits to what is permissible in war but such limits arise from the context of war, and cannot be contradictory to it. In other words, a professional ethics applies. For example, killing or torturing prisoners or raping enemy combatants or civilians increases the enemy's will to fight therefore is forbidden.

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Do I? That's news to me. I think you'll find very few people in this thread who say we ought to nuke Iran. There just aren't that many military experts here. It is quite a different thing to say: "whatever it takes, including nukes, if that's what it takes".

My own mistake, I was probably still focused on another post I responded to earlier. However, my statement still applies to what I think about nuking Iran in general (which is the title of the thread), or any other sort of military action.

Yet your stance on currently existing issues fully support making use of tax-funded government institutions like the military. This is severely inconsistent, and very - very- contradictory.

Like I said earlier, what are you supposed to do when your only defense force is funded with taxes?

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You, in the home of freedom and rationalism, have to tread that fine line between self-restraint and benevolence, AND uncompromising self defence and justice.

I'll take justice over self-restraint any time. And why should we be benevolent towards those who wish to destroy us?

BTW, you probably meant to say rationality. Rationalism is something quite different.

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Israel is not a secular government. If you don't think that their main purpose is defined by their Zionist goals, then you're blind to their intents.

Their main purpose can be easily deduced from what they are doing with their current power: they are providing a democracy with at least as much freedom as any European democracy, for all Israeli citizens. Any observer who fails to look at Israeli society, as it is, and instead chooses to focus on small issues that are present in most western democracies, is giving in to anti Israel propaganda.

If they had a different purpose (like say a religious tyranny), they would have implemented it already, just as the Palestinians implemented one in Gaza.

I would disagree with your assessment on the reasons for Hitler's uprising. A lot of Hitler's rise had to do with the general vulnerability of the country because of the harsh conditions the Treaty of Versailles put them under.

The Versailles treaty lead the Germans to murder the six million Jews who lived among them and had nothing to do with the Versailles treaty. But you're an Objectivist. Got it.

So you support defending Israel? What exactly is so important about them that we must risk our standing in the world to protect them?

Stop manipulating the conversation. No one on this forum agrees with you that defending our greatest ally in the Middle East would jeopardize our standing in the world, and leaving them to be destroyed would not. So stop setting up your argument on the false premise that this is true.

If you had even the slightest understanding of Objectivist epistemology, you would know that manipulating an argument doesn't make you right.

Considering our sanctions have caused the airline industry in Iran ALONE to be in the gutter, that would account for over 1,500 lives right there.

Your methods of assigning blame are ridiculous. First, you blame Versailles for the rise of a genocidal dictator, now the US cutting ties with a nation that held our embassy staff hostage and helps Hezbollah is to blame for them not being able to fly airplanes or come up with medical care.

What's next, am I to blame for you being late for work tomorrow, because I kept you up with my post?

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there's an ignoramus on this thread who states: a. Zionism has caused millions of deaths , and b. The Israeli government is just as irrational as their neighbours. Pity, as I thought he was,at first, raising some very intelligent points. With these two utter falsehoods, he has declared his prejudice.

Zionism, over a multitude of different cultures and religions, has indeed caused a huge number of deaths throughout the history of humanity. This ridiculous obsession between the various religious groups in getting back to their "fatherland" has resulted in the slaughterings, deaths, depravities, and worthlessnesses of an uncountable number of people - everything from the crusades to the present Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

You must understand that Zionism does not refer to just Jews, nor does it refer to just the present nationalist Zionist movement of the past 60-70 years. It's been an ongoing problem since the original establishment of the Judeo-Christian code. People have been ruthlessly killing one another over this issue for hundreds of years!

The Israeli government is treated like a step-child by the United States government, and has to rely on us for a significant amount of its resources, weapons, and military management. We undermine Israel's sovereignty by not allowing them sign agreements until the US agrees to their terms as well. Israel's existence, and general success as a nation, is based almost entirely on the US's sacrificial selflessness. If this is acting rational, then I will apologize and retract my statements.

And again, for the last time, I say this coming from a Jewish background and having a number of close family members living in Israel presently. I have nothing irrationally against the Jews, or the right for Israel's existence as a nation. They took it and they won it - it's theirs. But I denounce their pretense to loot, mooch, and survive based on the merits of others, and also question the way in which the nation was first established by the UN. Surely, any nation who exists in this manner must be questioned? Also remember that my criticism can expand to a number of similarly-behaving countries around the world - I do not limit such criticisms to just the ones who happen to occupy the news these days.

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And again, for the last time, I say this coming from a Jewish background and having a number of close family members living in Israel presently. I have nothing irrationally against the Jews, or the right for Israel's existence as a nation.

You most certainly do. You just accused them of being driven by their Zionist ideology, and you think the US should stop defending them. So, unless you think that a Zionist tyranny has the right to exist (which would be an odd right to assign to people), you are against Israel's right to exist.

And, no matter how many times you're going to bring it up, your bloodline is in no way going to prevent you from being irrationally against Israel, or Jews. Saying that you're not against Israel because your part Jew is an irrational argument in itself.

The fact is that most Jews moved to Israel to avoid persecution (in Europe and the Soviet Union), and are not driven by Zionism at all. You think they are, because your twisted ideology drives you to the propaganda that claims they are.

Edited by Jake_Ellison
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You most certainly do. You just accused them of being driven by their Zionist ideology, and you think the US should stop defending them. So, unless you think that a Zionist tyranny has the right to exist (which would be an odd right to assign to people), you are against Israel's right to exist.

And, no matter how many times you're going to bring it up, your bloodline is in no way going to prevent you from being irrationally against Israel, or Jews. Saying that you're not against Israel because your part Jew is an irrational argument in itself.

The US should stop defending everybody! It's not just Israel - I assign no special ranking to Israel. They're just one nation in the group of "nations that aren't the United States" that I think we shouldn't be defending, giving subsidies to, etc.

The fact is that most Jews moved to Israel to avoid persecution (in Europe and the Soviet Union), and are not driven by Zionism at all. You think they are, because your twisted ideology drives you to the propaganda that claims they are.

Look, "most Jews" aren't committing the violence and hatred caused by Zionism. A select few in the ivory towers are causing these problems, just as they always have been. Would you honestly believe, for example, that all the millions that died in the various crusades, died for a movement spurred by a collection of citizens? These battles were initiated by, and fought under the name of, the various religious rulers that were involved in the conflict. And remember, Zionism isn't limited to just Jews or the present State of Israel. The Christians and Muslims are also trying to take back the land that they think was divinely given to them. The fact is this: Israel is supposedly the religious home to Judeo-Christian thinking, so anybody who asserts themselves as followers of this sect of religion follows a religious text that says Israel is their homeland. And because of this, there will be Zionists in every imaginable sect of these religions, as there will always be this divinely inspired idea that they can kill and savagely plot against others who they think are in "their" homeland fraudulently.

I cannot believe that I am being accused of being some sort of bigot when we here are all supposed to recognize the absurdities and irrationalities behind religion. Unbelievable...

Edited by Andrew Grathwohl
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The Versailles treaty lead the Germans to murder the six million Jews who lived among them and had nothing to do with the Versailles treaty. But you're an Objectivist. Got it.

If Germany were a free state, nobody like Hitler could have ever risen to power. You disagree with this?

Stop manipulating the conversation. No one on this forum agrees with you that defending our greatest ally in the Middle East would jeopardize our standing in the world, and leaving them to be destroyed would not. So stop setting up your argument on the false premise that this is true.

If you had even the slightest understanding of Objectivist epistemology, you would know that manipulating an argument doesn't make you right.

The point I intended to deliver was that even IF nuclear bombing Iran were in the defense of Israel, doing so would put us in a lot more danger than we were in before the fact. Your disgustingly childish inability to read my argument regarding the Treaty of Versailles as written, however, is a wonderful example of your hypocrisy.

Your methods of assigning blame are ridiculous. First, you blame Versailles for the rise of a genocidal dictator, now the US cutting ties with a nation that held our embassy staff hostage and helps Hezbollah is to blame for them not being able to fly airplanes or come up with medical care.

What's next, am I to blame for you being late for work tomorrow, because I kept you up with my post?

Once again, manipulating the conversation, and manipulating history. I never thought I'd see the day... :P

After WWI, Germany was not a free nation, and fell under the rule of a dictator because of its high vulnerability. This is just history, man.

We refused to hand the Shah over for trial to the Iranians, and they took hostages in response. We sanctioned Iran, and furthermore punished other nations and bodies of people who wished to make deals with Iran - we're perfectly within our right to do that. We just have to realize that doing this inevitably rises cost of living to an unsustainable level for the ordinary citizen, and causes huge deficiencies in modern technology and management, because Middle Eastern politics is highly irrational and idiotic. This realization is called being rational - something you are supposed to be in favor of. It should be something that the US expected to happen, and our inability to foresee this is largely why we have a huge mess on our hands.

Feel free to place these concerns on the people getting sanctioned by us, but you do so at the risk of being highly unreasonable and unrealistic. It is extremely unrealistic, and not in our interest, to expect that the Iranians would just "sit there and take it" and that they would be able to manage their new problems introduced to them by us well. America should have expected her policies to result the ways they did. America should have foreseen the problems that have arisen. America should anticipate what types of strategies will bring what types of results. Like in Atlas Shrugged, sometimes we have to work to uphold the present situation because the rest of the world surrounding us is irrational. When it becomes too hard to bare, and when there is a formidable alternative system (which we do not possess in the US), we can begin to change things by means of protest and doing what is right. But making the decision as to when is key. If you do these things at the wrong times, then you are wrong.

Edited by Andrew Grathwohl
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