[General Battuta]

Then why would you claim that I 'don't get it'

Because "it" is what I'm saying.

How can I not get it when I'm making the same argument you are? When I'm saying the SAME THING you did?

What basis did you have for that claim?

Do you believe that violence is increasing or decreasing in the historical scheme of things?

[Unknown Target]

Then why would you claim that I 'don't get it'

Because "it" is what I'm saying.

How can I not get it when I'm making the same argument you are? When I'm saying the SAME THING you did?

If that's true then why are you so angry? I imagine you should be happy that we agree and want to talk about other things that you think we might agree on?

[General Battuta]

I don't get angry in arguments on the Internet. They're arguments on the Internet, they're an opportunity to pit wits and knowledge against each other. In fact I rather enjoy this bit of them.

So you now admit you were in agreement with me. Why did you make a claim that we disagreed and that I didn't grasp something? What basis did you have for that claim?

Do you believe that violence is increasing or decreasing in the historical scheme of things?

[Unknown Target]

So you now admit you were in agreement with me.

You said that to me. To be honest I don't even know what we're discussing anymore. Perhaps you could please restate your position and we can go from there?

[Grizzly]

GUYS!

[General Battuta]

Sure, that's a reasonable request.

My argument is that Guantanamo Bay is harmful even if it successfully detains some terrorists because the injustices perpetrated there drive more people to terrorism. They kill, which in turn allows those in power to justify further injustice, creating a cycle of violence similar to those seen in many other conflict zones.

Do you agree or disagree with this?

Do you believe that violence is increasing or decreasing in the historical scheme of things?

[General Battuta]

GUYS!

Hey I'm cross-examining the witness.

[Unknown Target]

GUYS!

We were having a debate, relax, it's cool.

Sure, that's a reasonable request.

My argument is that Guantanamo Bay is harmful even if it successfully detains some terrorists because the injustices perpetrated there drive more people to terrorism. They kill, which in turn allows those in power to justify further injustice, creating a cycle of violence similar to those seen in many other conflict zones.

Do you agree or disagree with this?

Do you believe that violence is increasing or decreasing in the historical scheme of things?

Yes I agree that Guantanamo Bay is harmful.

I honestly don't care if it's increasing or decreasing historically though, because I know that it's increasing now, and we should take steps to alter course - such as closing Guantanamo Bay.

[General Battuta]

I honestly don't care if it's increasing or decreasing historically though, because I know that it's increasing now, and we should take steps to alter course - such as closing Guantanamo Bay..

How do you know that?

If you agree with this argument, why did you make the following statement:

The consequences of that car bomb are the consequences of people seeing those pictures and of hearing those stories from Gitmo, GB.

and then, when I asserted that this was my argument as well, go on to state

You don't get what those consequences are, GB. The consequences are the people who are killed in those blasts - on both sides. The lives and communities they take with them, the hopes and dreams that die with them. The endless cycle that seems to go on forever these days.

What grounds did you have to believe that I did not understand this?

May I remind you that we're operating by your rules? This is the Socratic method of debate you have repeatedly advocated.

[Mustang19]

Why not? Why do you automatically assume that other countries would not want to have an equal interest in having a fair justice system? Why is our justice system "the best"?

Um, no. The rule of law is not high on the agenda in countries I mentioned, like Afghanistan.

[Grizzly]

GUYS!

We were having a debate, relax, it's cool.

Sorry! reacting a bit too fast there.

Why not? Why do you automatically assume that other countries would not want to have an equal interest in having a fair justice system? Why is our justice system "the best"?

Um, no. The rule of law is not high on the agenda in countries I mentioned, like Afghanistan.

The rule of law is a requirement of a country to function in the first place, how would it not be high?

[General Battuta]

Indeed, Mustang is correct. Rule of law and civil society are big predictors of successful transitions to democracy. Nations that lack these traits (Togo, for example) often have trouble getting past the usual pitfalls of modernization. I did a paper on it once!

Why not? Why do you automatically assume that other countries would not want to have an equal interest in having a fair justice system? Why is our justice system "the best"?

Um, no. The rule of law is not high on the agenda in countries I mentioned, like Afghanistan.

The rule of law is a requirement of a country to function in the first place, how would it not be high?

It's not a rule - you can have rule by fiat, rule by force, many dictatorial or junta-based systems roll that way.

[Grizzly]

Hmmm. I geuss you are right. But how is it not high on the agenda of Afghanistan? I thought our very presence there and us training the police force etc. was all towards achieving that goal.

[Black Wolf]

Biologically there are no races, they don't exist.

False. Sure, the differences aren't what your average racist redneck pretends they are, but the genetic differences, while small, are enough to make significant differences in certain specific areas, most prominently in medicine. If there are no races, then we should ignore the greater propensity for, for example, diabetes in aboriginal Australians, or the weaker immunity to Malaria in caucasians.

As for Gitmo, while I definitiely don't support it, I can see the argument for detaining the leadership of Al Quaeda there. The reality is, that while it probably does radicalize a certain number of people, and probably a greater number than are detained, you do have to consider quantity vs quality. I'd personally trade a few hundred extra JI foot soldiers if it meant putting Abu Bakar Bashir away forever and ever, for example.

[General Battuta]

Biologically there are no races, they don't exist.

False. Sure, the differences aren't what your average racist redneck pretends they are, but the genetic differences, while small, are enough to make significant differences in certain specific areas, most prominently in medicine. If there are no races, then we should ignore the greater propensity for, for example, diabetes in aboriginal Australians, or the weaker immunity to Malaria in caucasians.

You're confusing concepts. What you're talking about are populations. They don't match to any of the traditional social markers of race.

Populations are statistical tendencies, groupings based on shared alleles. But the appeal of marking these tendencies hides the fact that variation is within the groups is enormous, far larger than variation between the groups.

Race used scientifically speaks to fuzzy sets of traits (I literally mean the mathematical term fuzzy sets). When I say race doesn't exist I mean the strong, naive sense used popularly.

[Mustang19]

Hmmm. I geuss you are right. But how is it not high on the agenda of Afghanistan? I thought our very presence there and us training the police force etc. was all towards achieving that goal.

The last Afghan election was blatantly rigged. Also there's not nearly as much of a fuss about things like access to legal counsel or corporal punishment.

You really think America only supports democracies, don't you?

[Black Wolf]

Human populations separated by geography and time are called races. The term's picked up a lot of baggage, ys, but you can't just say it's describing something that doesn;t exist.

[General Battuta]

Human populations separated by geography and time are called races. The term's picked up a lot of baggage, ys, but you can't just say it's describing something that doesn;t exist.

No they're not. That's a population (source: Chicago evolutionary biologists, **** I'm too lazy but I bet Wikipedia has it too), and that term is important because it doesn't mean anything like the old use of 'race' did. Races are social constructs that are at best weakly coupled with the actual genetic populations.

ed: Here's an example. The African population is paraphyletic to all other human populations. In common parlance we refer to Africans as 'a race'. Yet the African population contains significantly more genetic diversity than all other populations - meaning that there's far less of a wall around them than there is around everyone else on Earth.

Similarly, the genetic markers used to identify ancestral population don't map to a race like 'Asian'. Instead you'd get markers for ancestral populations that are quite diverse and differentiated.

[Black Wolf]

So you admit that they exist, and that all you're doing is rebranding it?

Thanks.

[General Battuta]

Nope, reread the above post by me.

'Race', the term, was never used to refer to what the word 'population' means. It has always referred to something socially constructed. In the past it was also believed to refer to something biological. That turned out to be false; ergo, race does not exist biologically.