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The Political Thread

Started by The Legendary Shark, 09 April, 2010, 03:59:03 PM

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The Legendary Shark

Quote from: Professah Byah on 16 November, 2012, 01:01:17 PM
Harking back to the petulent "if you don't vote you can't complain" argument, for those not knowledgeable, in NI you basically have a choice between terrorist apologists, communists, religious bigots, white power affiliates,  and - most likely - some bloke you've known all your life who lives on your street who you wouldn't trust to shit himself let alone run any kind of public office, and just to make things even better, every single candidate is an anti-abortionist, except the fucking communist.
I do not vote because I would not piss on these people if they were on fire, and I'll gripe all I want about politics, thank you.  You don't like them apples, you can suck my dick, son.

Damn right.
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Frank

Quote from: Judge Jack on 16 November, 2012, 11:52:02 AM
However controversial Bomber Command's (along with the USAF) methods were, i think they were unquestionably fighting for our collective freedoms as well.

Aye; as my original post made clear, I wouldn't question the motives of the individuals involved or the ends to which their actions were directed, but I think the people responsible for the tactical decisions in that instance definitely lost sight of why they were doing what they were doing (to stop people who indiscriminately killed civilians in huge numbers):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=RXsNLUB6kF0#t=57s

The link in that Pat Mills blog I quoted (tinyurl.com/9ju64mj) features a comments section where Daily Mail readers vociferously respond to Ian Cobain's description of how the UK government continued to torture German POWs even after the end of WWII with the line that this wasn't half as bad as what the Nazis got up to. I'm not sure that makes any difference to the moral standards we set for ourselves, in fact I'd argue it's the fact we're supposed to uphold those values that distinguishes that conflict from every other pointless territorial dispute and factional squabble in the history of human conflict.

Jim_Campbell

Quote from: The Legendary Shark on 16 November, 2012, 12:33:58 PM
From that point of view, WWII had no winners.

I would suggest that you might have felt differently had the Nazis conquered Europe, North Africa and the UK and continued to feed any minority and political dissident they disapproved of into concentration camps... assuming your forebears passed muster with Nazis' sundry purity tests and you ever got born at all.

I am well aware that the vast majority of people fighting WWII on the Allied side had no idea of the Nazis' programme of industrialised genocide, and that there is evidence to suggest that some elements of the Powers-That-Were did know and appear to have cared very little, but to argue that stopping the fucking Nazis was not a generally positive outcome for the war beggars belief.

Jim
Stupidly Busy Letterer: Samples. | Blog
Less-Awesome-Artist: Scribbles.

Frank

Quote from: COMMANDO FORCES on 15 November, 2012, 07:39:35 PM
I hope you all made the effort to vote today, I drokkin' did :D



You were one of the few, CF; voter turnout was just 15% nationally, and there were an unusually high number of spoiled papers such as your own:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-20356910

The important point to be made here is that in elections with such low turnouts a very small number of people are responsible for making the decisions that affect all our lives, and those most motivated to vote often have some very odd ideas. Twilight's Last Gleaming covered this twenty years ago.

The Legendary Shark

Quote from: Jim_Campbell on 16 November, 2012, 01:15:35 PM
...but to argue that stopping the fucking Nazis was not a generally positive outcome for the war beggars belief.

Jim

That's not what I said and you know it.
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Spikes

#2990
Quote from: sauchie on 16 November, 2012, 01:09:57 PM
Aye; as my original post made clear, I wouldn't question the motives of the individuals involved or the ends to which their actions were directed

Yet that quote seemed to be saying otherwise..

Quote from: sauchie on 06 June, 1970, 03:31:53 PMI think the people responsible for the tactical decisions in that instance definitely lost sight of why they were doing what they were doing

To shorten/end the war, by practically any means necassary?
Its uncomfortable, destructive and its messy. Just like war, itself. Even the good ones.

This kind of bombing by the allies, first employed by the Nazis from the Spanish civil war onwards, as ive said, certainly isnt without controversy - not least for the appalling loss of life on both sides, and rightly should be debated. But for a long time, 'strategic' bombing, in whatever form, was the only means of hitting back.

Jim_Campbell

Quote from: The Legendary Shark on 16 November, 2012, 03:09:28 PM
That's not what I said and you know it.

I was merely observing that the "point of view" from which WWII had no winners is one of such incredibly narrow focus as to be practically worthless.

Wars are generally conducted between groups of people each equally convinced of the rightness of their cause and the moral superiority of one side over the other is usually a by-product of being the victor. WWII is a historical anomaly in as much as it had one side that could be characterised by almost any yardstick of human decency as 'the bad guys'. Any point of view that doesn't acknowledge the fact that the bad guys lost is going to get short shrift from me.

Jim
Stupidly Busy Letterer: Samples. | Blog
Less-Awesome-Artist: Scribbles.

The Legendary Shark

http://childvictimsofwar.org.uk/get-informed/uranium-weapons/

How is this, if true, any better than what the Nazis did? I'm also quite disappointed that Jim reduces the Second World War to a simplistic Bad Guys v Good Guys paradigm. Well, maybe he's right - but it seems to me that the Good Guys are now the Bad Guys. I don't want to be on the side of the Bad Guys.
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Spikes

Quote from: COMMANDO FORCES on 15 November, 2012, 07:39:35 PM
I hope you all made the effort to vote today, I drokkin' did :D



You certainly look to have dug that pencil in there with a passion, CF.

Trout

I wish to congratulate you all on this thread reaching 200 pages. It is laden with entertainment and irony. My favourite bit is when you all start on about the Nazis.


Jim_Campbell

Quote from: The Legendary Shark on 16 November, 2012, 03:33:29 PM
Well, maybe he's right - but it seems to me that the Good Guys are now the Bad Guys. I don't want to be on the side of the Bad Guys.

How is anything I said about a historical conflict relevant to the behaviour of any of the participants subsequent to that? It's possible for bad people to do good things and vice versa; it's possible for people and nations to do things that might be construed as 'good' and then go on to do things that are 'bad' -- the bad doesn't reverberate back through time and undo the good.

I've already acknowledged that stopping the Nazis' genocide was a largely unintended consequence of the war, so to suggest that I have a simplistic view of the conflict doesn't hold water.

Unintended or not, however, it was a consequence and one of the few in history that it's hard to argue isn't objectively morally positive.

Jim
Stupidly Busy Letterer: Samples. | Blog
Less-Awesome-Artist: Scribbles.

The Legendary Shark

By that same logic, if our forces and allies are using live uranium weapons to get around the ban on depleted uranium weapons, if the Iraqis or Iranians beat us that will be a morally positive outcome - which I would actually agree with.

'...the bad doesn't reverberate back through time and undo the good.' Tell that to Jimmy Savile! (Sarcasm.)
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The Legendary Shark

Quote from: Trout on 16 November, 2012, 03:43:49 PM
I wish to congratulate you all on this thread reaching 200 pages. It is laden with entertainment and irony. My favourite bit is when you all start on about the Nazis.



That's what Hitler would have said...
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Professor Bear

Quote from: Trout on 16 November, 2012, 03:43:49 PM
I wish to congratulate you all on this thread reaching 200 pages. It is laden with entertainment and irony. My favourite bit is when you all start on about the Nazis.

I'm pretty sure Godwin's Law doesn't actually apply to a discussion that is specifically about who the protagonists of the second world war might have been.

Trout

This whole thread needs a new law: "There is no online political discussion that cannot unexpectedly become even more insane".