[Stryke 9]

Daveb: We didn't care about Hitler when it was restricted to Germany. In fact, the people of the U.S. actively supported Hitler's anti-semitism at the time. We didn't fight WWII over the Holocaust- we didn't even know about it. We fought WWII because we ourselves came under attack, if you'll remember. And that time we were in the right. If you'll notice, every time we've been fighting to protect out own interests (WWII, Afghanistan) we've been more or less in the right. Every time we've gone crusadin' (Vietnam, Bay of Pigs, practically any South American nation), we've been unquestionably in the wrong

[Zeronet]

Yeah, Saddamns role model was Stalin and now explain to me why we shouldnt kill him?

[daveb]

aveb: So, your argument is "Well, other countries are even worse than us!!"? That's just weak, I've gotta say. If despots couldn't think up better, they'd be dead in a hurry. So why's it a legitimate excuse here?

No, I'm not. Its apples and oranges. To even try to suggest there's some linear graph that you can draw between "doesn't allow people to smoke weed" and "beheads homosexuals" is 100% bogus.

Your argument is this : we're so morally and oppressively corrupt that we have no right to be enforcing our will on other nations. Correct?

You're basing this argument on "oppressions" in the US such as disallowing pot and being anti-polygamy. Those are moral judgements. There's no similarities between that and keeping people as slaves. Again - moral relativism as an argument is vacuous.

[Stryke 9]

Zeronet:...For the same reason the Whatever of, say, Albania doesn't send a task force to kill Bush.

[daveb]

We didn't care about Hitler when it was restricted to Germany. In fact, the people of the U.S. actively supported Hitler's anti-semitism at the time. We didn't fight WWII over the Holocaust- we didn't even know about it.

But according to you, even if we did know about it, we should have just left well enough alone because we weren't in immediate danger?

[Zeronet]

Originally posted by Stryke 9
Zeronet:...For the same reason the Whatever of, say, Albania doesn't send a task force to kill Bush.

What because there is no reason to and Bush isnt a evil madman intent on destroying the west for crimes against Islam?

[Stryke 9]

Then why use it? It's your own argument. You're going to tell me that people who deny homosexuals the right to marry or have sex over here are right, while people who deny homosexuals the right to state that they are homosexual "over there" are wrong? No, THAT'S bogus. Right and wrong are nothing but relative, but in my eyes the US and the nations it harasses as oppressive both deserve to be destroyed.

Slavery IS a moral judgement, BTW. The plantation owner sees it as perfectly justified. Are you trying to say that you are the final, omniscient source on objective right and wrong, that you determine what is moral and immoral? That's not just arrogant, that's literally playing God.

[daveb]

I think my fingers are going to fall off from furious typing

[Top Gun]

Because of the deadly sexual transmitted diseases that are everywhere. I don't know about in your country but in ours or at least in my state you still have to take a blood test when you apply for a marriage application.

You would have though that all of this kind of crap would have stopped as soon as effective contraception became available (aka. not restricted by zealots, the Greeks and Romans readily used Condoms) again. Anyone promoting Abstinence as a way of avoiding pregnancy/STDs shouldn't kid themselvs that that's the real reason why they're doing it.

[daveb]

Then why use it? It's your own argument.

Wait, how did this become _my_ argument? You're the one who posted "none of our business what Saddam does in his own country- he took it over, the people are still the majority, if they wanted him out they'd throw him out. "  I'm saying that extending that logic to Hitler (where the connection between Saddam and Hitler is demonstrable) clearly demonstrates the emptiness of the argument.

 You're going to tell me that people who deny homosexuals the right to marry or have sex over here are right, while people who deny homosexuals the right to state that they are homosexual "over there" are wrong?

The sophistry is running _way_ high here. You're spinning "beheading homosexuals" into "denying them the right to state what they are" and then taking that sanitized statement and comparing it with "disallowing homosexual marriages", _and_ ignoring the fact that our country is actively changing to accomodate different lifestyles.   :/

[Stryke 9]

*gasp* *pant*

About the Holocaust- it really didn't start until AFTER Germany had begun invading everything, anyway. Including our allies. So even if we'd known about it and had not been attacked, we would have gone in anyway sooner or later. Pearl Harbor was more of an excuse than anything else- those elements of the US not behind Hitler were just itching to blow some foreigners away (we really were a lovely country back then, eh? The eyes of historians have no mercy). But, we were threatened with invasion (as we would have been soon enough anyway) and that's why we went to war.

[Top Gun]

Originally posted by daveb
I think my fingers are going to fall off from furious typing

Don't worry, this is just preparation for the next religious debate that comes round once every so often

[daveb]

100% true.

Doesn't even begin to answer the question of "if we knew Hitler was doing it, how can you justify your we-can't-interfere-in-his-business argument?"

 A change then : Ethnic cleansing in Bosnia. Why should we have (by your reasoning) just left well enough alone. C'mon, I'm trying to get you to say what you don't want to say......

[Stryke 9]

Originally posted by daveb


Wait, how did this become _my_ argument?  

You were the one saying that we were better than some other nations, and that thus we were "right". THAT'S "moral relativism", not pointing out that poking our nose where it doesn't belong is how we get it chopped off.

Who beheads homosexuals, anyway? Some nations arrest them as homosexuals- thus they stay closeted. Our nation only arrrests them if they do not choose the Catholic-dictated (and the Catholics were the open-minded ones) life of chastity- so we prevent them from having sex, which is pretty much the action that defines homosexuality. See now?

And like hell we're "trying to accomodate them". If we were trying, their basic rights would be valid in more than two states. If we were trying, we wouldn't have only moved to let them be treated as human beings after they had demonstrated that they were as noisy, powerful, and, politically and possibly numerically speaking, as large a minority as blacks were when civil rights caught on.

[Stryke 9]

Yeah. It wasn't "ethnic cleansing" in the Holocaust sense of the word that was going on in the Balkans, anyway. More of a race-based civil war that had been going on for decades, if not centuries. It wasn't our business to prod into their Hatfield-and-McCoy feuding, and it matters not in the least that they chose to draw the battle lines based on geneaology, rather than property. That's their thing. They'd been doing it forever. So?

[daveb]

You were the one saying that we were better than some other nations, and that thus we were "right". THAT'S "moral relativism",

It most definitely is _not_. Moral relativism is trying to define a gray area between two extremes where there is none and using that to justify any ol' argument. Like - "sardines are living creatures _just like humans_. We don't net and eat humans do we? So why do we let the sardine atrocities continue?" By stating "we are in the right" and "they are in the wrong" I'm making a clear judgement not trying to equate one as the other multiplied by some arbitrary factor.

And like hell we're "trying to accomodate them". If we were trying, their basic rights would be valid in more than two states.

Two more than there were 10 years ago. I'm not saying its fast. Of course there's resistance. Many people have religious problems with homosexuality. But don't forget, if you're _truly_ tolerant you have to understand that their beliefs actually have weight - and you need to compromise. Otherwise you're just operating on an agenda.

[daveb]

Originally posted by Stryke 9
Yeah. It wasn't "ethnic cleansing" in the Holocaust sense of the word that was going on in the Balkans, anyway. More of a race-based civil war that had been going on for decades, if not centuries. It wasn't our business to prod into their Hatfield-and-McCoy feuding, and it matters not in the least that they chose to draw the battle lines based on geneaology, rather than property. That's their thing. They'd been doing it forever. So?

Well, at least you have clarity. If you can sit by and say "I'm tolerant! Whee!" while the mass graves are dug that's uh, fine with me I guess.

[Stryke 9]

Daveb- So, you're willing to compromise with homophobes but not those who are equally unpleasant towards Serbs?

I can abide by homophobes, even try to see where they are coming from, but neither side does me any harm, so I'm all for letting both do as they please unless they DO. Domestically, the only crime should be the one that directly harms some other non-consenting party (I'm not talking about gambling the family's savings away, that's the family's problem for giving total access to someone with an addictive personality, anyway). Internationally, NONE OF IT IS ANY OF OUR BUSINESS. The same moral rules can't apply between countries in people- in the domestic theater, if you see your neighbor hit his wife, you might want to help her. Internationally, you wait ffor the wife to brain the asshole with a saucepan.

[daveb]

So, you're willing to compromise with homophobes but not those who are equally unpleasant towards Serbs?

C'mon, surely you can recognize the relativism here. You're equating Christians who don't want to have homosexuality espoused as "normal" to an army running around massacring and burying people in a genocidal manner?   While one may be morally suspicious or even repulsive - its not even the same galaxy supercluster as genocide.

> Internationally, NONE OF IT IS ANY OF OUR BUSINESS.

::shrug:: I disagree. When those ICBM's Iraq is working on are pointed at your house, it will very rapidly become your business. You may feel morally superior but you're still dead.

"Gun control is the idea that a woman raped and strangled with her panty hose is somehow morally superior than one with a smoking gun explaining to the cops how the dead rapist got that hole in his head". Same philosophy here. You shouldn't moralize yourself into suicide.

[Stryke 9]

So, you're assuming that, while WE have nukes, we're RESPONSIBLE enough to be entrusted with them, while if our enemy nations had them, they would even ignore the inevitable prospect of MAD in their haste to push the button? Come now. Saddam may be a psycho and a despot, but his actions show he's no idiot. He's at least as safe with a nuke as we are.

However, were there any evidence that he HAD nukes and WAS preparing to blow us into the stratosphere (Just who, I wonder? We're an extremely large nation. He could aim for DC, I suppose, and were he really, really advanced the shockwave would just about reach the Pentagon), invasion would be justified.