Haezed

Carbon monoxide kills in sufficient quantity. Do not drive your car past my house anymore. You don't know that it won't harm me.

There is no social benefit to smoking. There is to driving cars.

I suppose you would have to ask what the effect the continued presence of the American military actually has. Are we really preventing civil war, or just helping to arm various factions within it? Are we suppressing terrorism, or acting as a magnet for it? We have captured or killed thousands and thousands of enemies of many different organizations and ranks, but do the attacks diminish? Is the "insurgency" in its "last throes," or is there even an end in sight?

I believe it has a stabilizing influence. The former. The former again. No. I don't know.

Is Darfur a helpful analogy, wherein one group has the will and power to slaughter another if there's no one (presumably us) there to stop them?

It is a helpful analogy if the result of failure is genocide. I don't think the exact nature of the power balance will make too much difference if we exit and the Sunnis are slaughtered en masse.

If that's true, then that implies the new puppet regime lacks the will and/or the power to prevent genocide in their own country.

No, I'm asking what if we leave Iraq to its own devices and it implodes. In that event, it would not be a puppet regime.

What is the significance of that? Are they simply incompetent, or are their motives suspect and contradictory, their commitment far less than our enemies?

Or could the simple fact that the Sunnis are outnumbered yet oppressed all others in this country for years lead to a blood bath?

If so, would Vietnam be a better analogy?

No, millions lost any chance for freedom in Vietnam after we left but there was no genocide.

Can anyone who's been following this for the past four years even straight-facedly claim to know what a "failure" would actually be?

Yes, pretty easily, to name a couple of examples:

Failure would be a real civil war, all out and fought to a conclusion to where one side had complete dominance over the other and exacted genocidal revenge.

Failure would be for the surviving entity(ies) to provide safe haven to terrorist groups to cook up WMDs and distribute them to proxies for use in the US.

The selfish ones are the anti-smokers who tell people to stop smoking for their own good (the non-smokers' good, that is, not the smokers'). Look very hard in the mirror. Stop lying to yourselves, and more importantly, stop lying to everyone else. The stats on long-term second-hand smoke are extremely dubious. The stats on short-term second-hand smoke exposure are outright lies.

How am I lying to myself? I don't know the science and have not made a claim that second hand smoke is dangerous.

Prove it's safe and remove it's noxious odor and I won't mind anyone smoking next to me.

It hasn't been proven that short term exposure causes no harm.

 

What matters is that it hasn't been proven that short term exposure causes harm.

I agree with all of this except the statement "what matters." I believe the burden of proof is on smokers to justify imposing the possibility of risk on others. Science proves negatives, e.g. drinking water does not cause cancer.

When I know that me and my family are not at risk due to other people's smoke, then my only objection will be to the noxious odor and discourteous behavior.

Just that a) sellability is a factor b) there are just way too many gruesome murders

a) This was a particularly gruesome murder and I'm not sure if it is typical fare.

b) I'm not sure if there are that many black on white crimes of this horrific nature; most are black on black.

c) If this were white on black crime, the result would be different. We all know it.

I would like to speak more on this, but simply such would be major in fallacy in regards to my term.

Eh?

Listen, what you might think as lawful will vary person to person in many ways. I think patriotism is getting off of oil dependence, a great deal of self proclaimed patriots have disagreed with me on this already in my lifetime. This is why the term is relative, it has not absolute basis save for what natural selection might say.

Let me try to tighten my point:

1. Patriotism commonly refers to an emotional state, not specific policy programs. It is usually referred to as love of country, which includes the principles of that country.

2. It is irrational to love the place where you land by accident of your birth. Ditto for the principles of that place because you might be in Germany in 1939. I don't have a love of the religion I was born into why should I of my country?

3. Love, like trust, must be earned.

4. I love this country because I view it to be an oasis of freedom in time and space. You go backwards or forwards in time and you might have a very less free life. I believe America has done great things for the world, is stumbling a bit right now, but generally has good intentions. We were blessed by founding fathers who understood that religious belief should not be coerced. I could go on but I love America for specific concrete reasons, even though I understand that it has not always done right, e.g. slavery.

5. If I did not believe these things, I would not love America. Why should I? The only reason is the genetic imperative to bond to a tribe (as has been discussed above) and our survival as a species may depend on decoupling our actions from the hard coding in our DNA.

6. If someone despises this country, not its current president, but its history, culture and overall impact in this world, it is irrational for them to be patriotic. They may be good people; in fact, if they are correct, they may be the best of people but logically they should not be patriotic people.

Before you go off on some tangent,[/qoute]

 

What tangent? The OP was to discuss the consequences of failure, something those who want to leave in short order do not want to discuss.

 

I am in the national guard and have been on deployment. I have had the luxury of dealing with fight or flight and all that good stuff, even got little metals on my 214.

 

I honor your service. My uncle flew bombers over germany. My dad served in the Korean war. I grew up in a generation that did not have such choices to make yet I deeply sincerely honor their service. My father died last Sunday and I was privileged to give a portion of the Eulogy along with my brother and my mother was presented with the flag which made chills run down my spine.

 

 

Now with that said, I think the real problem is the choices bush made. The question could have easily have been the one of what if we stay.

 

Yes, that has been discussed ad nauseum. The OP was asking the other question for a change.

 

Its been four years of the same, we don’t have enough people for the mission. Shinseki put it at over 400,000 boots on the ground and then left when bush gave the go ahead at a far smaller number. Say what you want, but nothing is going to change in Iraq, the country is slowing being eroded into nothing but death for everyone involved.

 

You are not responsive to the OP. I understand this position and you could be right.

 

Everyday it’s the same, more troops killed, more civilians killed, Iraq burns more into chaos. Politicians say a lot of things, but just look past your political bias at the reality on the ground. The democrats are folding like dried out twigs really, and the bush admin has become something of a tyrant monster giving the middle finger to the American people.

 

Now are you questioning Bush's patriotism?

 

The reality of Iraq to me is nothing but bad news we are going to have to face, unless you favor a draft, and even then I don’t see anything positive.

 

I see a lot of conclusions here without analysis and no real discussion of the OP.

The armour that is being (perhaps) procured goes under the capitalisation of MRAP (mine resistent ambush protected) vehicles. I think this is tied to funding of the Iraq war, so vetoing the war means vetoing MRAP.

No it doesn't. It mean's telling congress to either override the veto or send a bill that funds MRAP, etc without strings.

See, it all depends on what you mean by "patriot," and what you mean by "country." I think you might be looking at it too narrowly. For example, risking Godwin's attention, let's cut right to the chase and talk about everyone's favorite evil empire, Nazi Germany.

 

Now, what would it mean to live in such a country and be a patriot? "To love Germany" is true but obviously too vague. So what ways could there be?

 

You could be a Nazi because you believe wholeheartedly in the mission and be willing to die for it. But that's not really love of the country, that's love of a particular idealogy, although the idealogy in question muddles the issue a little by necessitating you believe in the natural supremacy of Germany...

 

You could be someone who sees your country is in trouble, and fight for it against those who would threaten it. This is pretty straightforward, and could be mocked as "blindly following orders," but it's not really that (at least not all the time). This could be done for several reasons. It could be a sense of duty, either from some oath taken earlier (perhaps as a military officer) or just a general belief that one is obliged not to abandon one's fellow citizens. Or it could simply be love of the country, no matter how dark the times become, and even if you don't necessarily agree with decisions the leaders make.

 

Or, for the same reasons, you could do the exact opposite. You could fight against, not your country, but the way your country is going. The men who tried to assassinate Hitler did it out of love for Germany, and a desire to save it from the terrible path he had taken it down. Certainly they were considered traitors at the time, and by their actions they were. But I think what makes a patriot or a traitor is the motivations behind those actions.

All of this makes my point; i would not be patriotic to the US if I did not think that there were objective reasons to be proud of the country, its history and culture. If I hated the US, felt it was the greatest threat to world peace, I would not be patriotic so I wouldn't object to people questioning my patriotism.

I don’t really give that much credit to the question.

Why not? Why wouldn't the Shia exact terrible revenge if we left?

I personally find it more of a product of partisan sniping then anything positive.

Stephanopoulos is hardly partisan.

Yeah I watched that interview and I thought it was a pretty astute question, and it thoroughly caught him off guard. So much so that it got me wondering if Stephanopoulos has it in for Edwards. Not that his branch of the Democratic party is any better, but at least his former employer voted for putting actions behind words.

 

Where we'll be is that we'll have created the second Shi'a state. But the Sunnis won't let it go at that. I think it could become a major battleground in a larger Sunni-Shi'a conflict.

 

Hm. I wonder why Israel isn't pressing us to pull out immediately.

I thought Stephanopoulos tore Edwards into fluffy little pieces in that interview. I don't think there was personal animus but I do think Stephanopoulos showed Edwards is a lightweight.

I agree the question was incredibly astute. If you accept the democratic premise that we screwed up by going into Iraq, and that a civil war has resulted, it's not a far step to say that genocide could occur if we leave. Is that a morally defensible position? Are we now compelled to take fix the mess we caused (if you accept the democratic premise)?

With political and media pressure mounting to pull out in the near term, I think we should discuss what the world will look like after we fail.

The question was put to John Edwards last Sunday as to whether genocide would result from a US pull out and I thought Edwards didn't really have an answer. He was also asked why some want to put troops into Darfur to stop genocide but not leave troops in Iraq to prevent genocide.

Let's assume that Iraq is a losing cause and we're going to fail miserably. What does that future hold?

"Safe water shortage threatens Iraq’s children

News item 22 March 2007"

 

http://www.unicef.org.uk/press/news_detail.asp?news_id=917

This article really does point out the evil we are fighting - they will sabatoge the water systems killing kids to gain power.

I'm free to use my grill while you have to deal with the aroma of steaks and beer, if you're my neighbor.

Similiarly, if my mulch bin starts to rot and spreads unpleasant odors throughout my neighborhood, I may be subject to a nuisance action in court or a complaint before my homeowner's association.

I would agree with reporting all hate crimes, or crimes motivated by racism for instance. Homicide rates in the U.S are quite staggering compared to say other nations in the world in general. I would also like to know what percent of these crimes were race related for instance, but its hard to say really, simply because I don’t know if they record such statistics or even release them if they are indeed recorded.

 

PC is like the united nations, its all loved until you figure out its not just about you.

I don't think you can know which crimes are hate related. Questions of intent are hard for juries, let alone for newspapers.

The national review article was making the larger point that most of the violence is black on black yet very few newspapers report the monthly/annual statistics that most murder victims are black.

There's an even simpler answer given by those at snopes.com

Yes, that is in the link I provided in the OP. I was supplementing that possibility with another. Both arguments are a bit weak, however, given the sensational nature of this crime. Sensational crimes usually create sensational news.

As Pangloss says, however, it really doesn't matter what the cause is if the result is the underreporting of an important social problem.

with smoking, tho, the argument is that you can choose wether to go to smoking or non-smoking places. alternatively, the law could have been that bars have to have non-smoking areas. so legislation was not required (i realise you pretty much said this earlyer on, just pointing out the analogy is flawed)

There was a day when smoking was omnipresent. You couldn't go anywhere without coming back home with the foul stench of tobbacy on your clothes.

Let me give some examples to make the point. Driving is necessary and benefits society so we put up with pollution and risk of death. However, there is no benefit to society to allow people to drive drunk. The driver may get pleasure from this and he may even pose more of a risk to himself than other people as he may crash into inanimate objects.

Contrast this to talking on a cell phone while driving. We grumble about this because it can create a similar risk to being drunk; however, we've not outlawed this practice yet because there is social utility to letting people use this otherwise wasted time to make connections. Texting while driving is a similiar example where there is a balancing we do as a society to see if the risk is justified by the benefit.

Smoking has no benefit to society, only possible pleasure to the user. Therefore, I see no reason to accept any risk of incidental injury to those who choose not to smoke.

This is ludricrous.

Ludicrous? Ahem. Tsk tsk. Tut tut.

Anyway, driving is a function that has social utility and is necessary. So let me refine my statement to say that if someone wants to engage in a potentially deadly activity with zero social utility, I say go ahead so long as there is zero chance that it can harm other people.

If you disagree that the burden of proof should be 100%, what burden of proof would you apply? Surely you would not say it is on the non-smoker to prove that second hand smoke is deadly?

Interestingly, you bypass my second point which would make this a moot debate.

My google has the snopes gadget pop up on my home page and this horrific story turned out to be true. It's floating around the internet as an example of media bias in that the story was not picked up by the larger outlets. A national review author put it this way:

Yet the murders of Channon Christian and Christopher Newsome are known to almost no one outside Tennessee. Why?

 

It’s simple: the four suspects accused of killing Christian and Newsome are blacks from the inner city of Knoxville.

 

Uh oh, we’re not supposed to talk about such things, are we. We’re careful to step ever so gingerly around issues of race and crime, except of course when there is an opportunity, as in the Duke case, to point to a group of privileged whites and say, “See? Look at how badly they’ve behaved! Look at how they treated that poor black single mother!” And in the Michigan case we can look down our noses at a prosperous suburban white family and say, “Look how screwed up they are!” A visitor from a foreign land might read the news and suspect America was plagued by rampaging hordes of collegiate lacrosse players and middle-aged suburbanites. And all the while the far more serious problem of violent crime among minorities in our inner cities is almost completely ignored.

I think there is another explanation for the failure for this story to make national news. There was a time when reporting of black on white crime, or alleged crimes, caused lynching and riots and newspapers still step gingerly for this reason.

The Riot began on May, 31,1921 because of an incident the day before. A black man named Dick Rowland, stepped into an elevator in the Drexel Building operated by a woman named Sarah Page. Suddenly, a scream was heard and Rowland got nervous and ran out. Rowland was accused of a sexual attack against Page. One version of the incident holds that Rowland stepped on Page's foot, throwing her off balance. When Rowland reached out to keep her from falling, she screamed. The next day, Rowland was arrested and held in the courthouse lockup. Headlines in the local newspapers inflamed public opinion and there was talk in the white community of lynch justice. The black community, equally incensed, prepared to defend him. Outside the courthouse, 75 armed black men mustered, offering their services to protect Rowland The Sheriff refused the offer.

 

A white man then tried to disarm one of the black men. While they were wrestling over the gun, it discharged. That was the spark the turned the incident into a massive racial conflict. Fighting broke out and continued through the night. Homes were looted and burned.

I agree with the national review author that newspapers should publish statistics showing the victims race when they report monthly or yearly homocide victims. As he writes, "only when the true magnitude of this problem is acknowledged can its solutions be identified and implemented."

1. Smoking is deadly but people should have the right to engage in deadly activities so long as the there is zero chance that any of the risk is passed on to other people. If it is difficult to prove the negative too bad, keep your smoke to yourself and away from me and my family.

2. Independent of the science, there should be no right to waft noxious vapors towards other people in public spaces. However, a restaurant, for example, should have the right to declare itself a strictly smoking restaurant or, if feasible, a sealed portion thereof.

3. Smokers are not inferior people. We all have our vices.

4. Tobacco litigation is an assault on individual responsibility. It says a lot about the change in our society that tobacco companies went from never losing to always losing in such a short time period. This is not a good trend.

That's a bit of a loaded example, to be fair.

Why?

And particularly since they're only bad because we say they are...why is "crap" just fine, but "shit" is a dirty word? They mean the same thing.

 

Let's just eliminate the silly idea of a word being dirty...

What is kind of funny is that everyone seems to be in general agreement here but I've not heard anyone write the worst words as examples.

I think there should be some taboo against using certain words in certain places.

The Democratic position was always less troops. I don't know anything about this but I always thought more troops would be a good idea -- more troops now and we pull out sooner.

 

The armor got fixed a while ago so that's why you dont hear about that anymore.

I'm a bit confused as well. John Kerry had a plan that was going to win the war but I guess he didn't share it with the rest of the democrats. Too bad, really.

But the question is would you ban it because it's annoying or because "the science says it's dangerous"?

 

It may sound like hair-splitting, but I think these situations are important because stuff like this undermines the credibility of science over the long haul. Between overinflated importance assigned to statistical studies that clearly don't account for all the variables, and scientists who are willing to sell their credibilty for increased income, the perceived value of scientific research has taken a beating.

It comes down to burden of proof. My attitude on global warming, for example, is that given the consequnces of being wrong we should err on the side of having a low carbon footprint where possible. I couldn't hope to analyze all of the studies and consensus can be wrong; nonetheless, the basic idea that we shouldn't muck around with the constituents of the atmosphere in any material way is common sense. This basic idea must bow to some extent to practicalities.

In much the same way, I try to avoid breathing fumes from burning substances even where I'm not really familiar with the science involved. Suppose I'm a official in charge of giving out permits for use of a public park. A group applies for a permit to burn a 10' tall stack of old computers which would send clouds of smoke of an indeterminate character up the nostrils of the other users of the park. Should I be required to have iron clad scientific evidence before I say this is a bad idea and refuse the permit?