Tolerance.

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Svy - Sorry, in the larger debate, they are quite unimportant here. The growing movement against the war and, what some see as American oppression resulting from the war, has moved from the left - where it began with Howard Dean and his followers - and is beginning to include many in the mainstream as well. But now we are starting to weave politics into the mix...

 

Except, USA have started to support torture, with the whole Guantanamo Bay deal, and the letter from the administratior(Cheney I think it was) to the troops of Iraq to approve of the methods used in Abu Garibh.
And executions are murder, remember that. Cuba may murder people, but in the government's view, it's executions. America executes people too, and it's still murder.

It is institutionalized in USA too, but not in the same wide spread as in the aforementioned countries.

If you read my whole post, which you did since you later responded to my comment about it, murder is not the only thing that makes a nation oppresive.

And in the Stalinists' mind, severe situations require harsh measures. It's all the same, except under a different name.

So, it's ok when it fits you? Gotcha!

Your view seems to be heavy influented by the fact that you hates all leftists(As you have promoted the genocide of leftists before, and all who is related to them, I take it you hate them), and therefore, discussing it with you is like talking to a brick wall. It's nothing personal, and I think you feel the same here, but continue down this path would be off-topic and that's not where we should go. Open a new topic if you want to continue discuss this, and I'll gladly join in.
I'm not chickening out, it's just that we've been warned before, that's all.

Which is, essentialy, the very same thing I said.

By several scientists. It's been discussed on SP before, and if you dig, you should be able to find it.

Education based on cold, hard facts, is proper education.

Would you be happier with one with a total capitalist past and ideology in power? And if so, it shows the flaw in your argument.

Hmm, could it be that the white male have always been in power and have always recieved better education and chances to become more learned?

As I said above, until schools teach facts instead of opinions, then total freedom of the majority isn't possible, it's as simple as that.

 

Guantanamo Bay? You mean a chick taking a picture with a bunch of prisioners? sure, that makes Fidel Castro regime pales in cruelty compared to it.
If you think take makes the US a totalitarian state that supports murder and torture, in the same lines of Cuba or North Korea, then you lack sense of proportion.

War does not count as execution. If you mean criminal execution... Well, not all states allow it, and even the ones which do, that has nothing to do with what is done in Cuba or North Korea.

Criminal execution is, in some state. In Cuba and North Korea political execution - and torture - is institutionalized. It is as simple as that.

But if Denmark has troops in the Iraq, that makes them at least as bad as the US.

Please, let us not start with sophisms... There was no severe situation in the SU. Just a commie bastard - Stalin - murdering my people. Unless you can elaborate how Stalin's actions were justified by the "severe situation". Because I can certainly say which extreme situations Franco had to deal with: Namely, saving Spain from having commies in power who would murder the Spanish people as Stalin did to my own.

Did you not read what I have written? I said objectively speaking, which means, opposed to subjectivism. In other words, it is not a matter of opnions - mine included.

We have a problem here. My "view" is not quite mine. I just "copied and pasted" Marx's. You should be thankful you got a lesson for free about him.
Anyway, it is not like speaking to a "brick wall", and I would be glad not to be called a "genocider". I merelly mentioned how socialism and syndicalism are most related, by quoting Marx's thoughts.
That said, if you wish to continue, feel free to open a new thread, as it is you who need to refute my last claim - which is based upon Marx anyway, so I dont think there is much room for refuting.

Strange, I thought you implied the US is as bad as Cuba or North Korea.

It is not what the study I have mentioned imply, or the Bell Shaped Curve for instance...

Since we dont seem to agree which are the "cold, hard facts", there is a problem with your reasoning.

Which is not the point. You said education should not be based upon personal agendas. I said this is hardly a possibility, with people like Zapatero being given positions to teach.

Dont you think scientifical studies take into account social upbringing, social class, etc? Or do you think they chose random people from the street?

You could hardly objectively differentiate between facts and opinions so far, and as I said, scientifical studies prove to be right the exact opposite from which you believe are "facts". Would you still force into people what you believe are facts?
Anyway, total freedom will always be impossible, with a cultured population of otherwise. This does not mean we should be hostages to people who believe their facts should be teached to us, by force

 

Svyatoslav,
those who bemoan the lack of 'tolerance' to their ideas, usually have radical ones. You're a point in case. Yes, it has this radical chic to belittle torture in Gitmo or Abu Ghraib as 'You mean a chic taking a picture with a bunch of prisioners?'. Yes it has this radical chick to say: 'Yes, I dont believe in leftists, because I know for a fact 98% of them are criminals. I have a wide experience in this regard.' and don't forget: 'I am a Slavic Nationalist. I dont like that Slavs mix with non-Slavs, thank you.'

You're an enfant provocateur, and you seem to very much like that pose. Alas, in his wonderful flower garden God in His wisdom also left a place for weed and mushrooms.

There still is the real possibility that people are reacting 'intolerant', because other people simply speak nonsense.

It is doubtless attractive to depict oneself as the persecuted patron saint of freedom of speech.

Populists and polemists, left or right, both like that mantle, as the lofty claim of being persecuted by any 'establishment' gives them the pose of defiance - and this indispensable radical chic: 'They just can't stand me speaking truth to power (or: the conservative/ liberal/ leftist establisment - suggesting they are some sort of 'rebel')! And look at my courage in face of their opression! They even call me silly names!' That notion basically is what the bogus 'liberal media bias' stuff from the U.S. is all about. From you I get the same stuff in a different package.


[ September 29, 2005, 13:14: Message edited by: Ragusa ]

 

If you want to refute my claims with facts and an objective discussion, that is fine, and I am willing to do it with anyone who is also willing, as I did so far.
However, I will not lose my time replying to smart ass pseudo psychological analyses of me.

Read above.

You are talking nonsense, and yet just imagine if your nonsense was intolerated. Not something you would enjoy I am sure.
And not, I dont regard myself as a saint of freedom of speech. So far you have not been objective in the least.

I understand you were probably waiting for the opportunity to spew a few pseudo psychological nonsense you have been learning, but you have chosen the wrong person, wrong moment and the wrong place to do so.

 

I personally dislike tolerance. I believe (and I think I've posted this before) that if someone wants to dislike or even hate someone than that is their right. It is like the old saying "Your right to wave your fist around ends when it hits my nose."

If someone wants to hate someone for some irrational reason than it is shame on them, it isn't society's problem, unless that person acts on that hate, then we have a crime. If a certain group doesn't like that other groups don't like them, it shouldn't be the law's job to make everyone like them. They need to focus on making themselves more likeable. Forcing things down someone's throat has never worked in the history of mankind (I may be slightly exaggerating here).

 

TGS: Agreed - you can't make people like each other, especially by resorting to law; it will only drive that enmity deeper. The problem with your reasoning (which I think is fair, mind you) is determining the point at which dislike transforms into action. There will always be a grey area which is determined by individual or group sensitivities, or which (admittedly) may be hijacked by activists in the name of an agenda.

This is one of the reasons why vilification laws are so contentious, IMO: is it unacceptable to preach violence and hatred about a group or groups to others who may act on it, but not actually commit it yourself?

EDIT: Changed "will" to "may".

Svy,

I'd argue you're missing the point, here. Certainly, I wouldn't characterise the US as being as oppressive of its own people as the Chinese government, or Castro's Cuba. However, Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay were not the actions of a few "rotten apples"; this attitude goes back and up a long, long way. Private England and company may have been acting on sadistic personal impulses, but to suggest that nobody knew what was going on, that such conduct was unsanctioned by military command personnel, is naive at best.

Just because the US doesn't oppress its own citizenry as openly as other nations, that does not mean that it is not oppressive. However, I'm getting into Foucauldian aspects of power and control here, which (while certainly relevant to a discussion on the nature of oppression and abuse of power) is wandering .

[ September 30, 2005, 02:33: Message edited by: NonSequitur ]

 

@NonSequitur:

That would qualify as publicly calling for a crime, an offence around here. If there were a specified target of the calling, that would be inciting a crime, punishable like the resulting crime. Perhaps even a form of perpetration, if the calling target were used as a mere tool to be ordered around.

As for the US not oppressing the citizenry more overtly than other countries do... depends to what countries you would like to compare the US. I think police and prison abuse exceeds what you could find in Europe.

@TGS: Agreed.

 

Chev,

I should change that statement to be a bit more morally ambiguous.

And I agree, such behaviour is criminal if there is a direct, observable link between advocacy and action. However, it's seldom as blatant or causally direct as this, which is why vilification laws are such a difficult issue. If the act is not carried out, it becomes quite ethically fraught - I think it's better seen as a subset of harassment law in such cases.

On the other part, I was starting to slide into thinking about economic and systemic oppression rather than overt acts - but you're right, there are few examples I can cite from post-Communist Europe. Sadly, I cannot say the same for Australia (our treatment of Aborigines, in particular, is a combination of both kinds of oppression, IMO).

 

NonSequitur,

You can find a degree of corruption and abuse of power everywhere, in the US included. This does not make the US the least comparable to Cuba or North Korea. I guess that is the botton line.
The murder and torture in Cuba, for instance, is something Castro himself stimulate.
It goes like that: political murder and torture in Cuba is NOT punished, because the goverment itself is the perpetrator. It can be advertised and proved by the whole world, but no one will give a damn about it there - the goverment who should take the responsability to punish the criminals anyway. In the US, the soldiers who were hinted at taking part in the whole episode, are being investigated and some were punished already. Thus, Cuban's goverment allows and actually take part in the crimes, wherein the US goverment takes measures against the criminals as soon as the info gets to them. In other words, it takes no part in the crimes.
I see a world of difference. To make an analogy, a parent who has no control whatsoever over his son, for indifference or whatever reason, can certainly be blamed, in a way, if his son commits a crime, because his parent was not there to oversee his actions. In the other hand, a parent who stimulates his son to commit crimes, and dont think there is anything wrong with it, is someone evil and corrupt in his own nature. The first one is absent, the latter is plain evil.

 

Well for such a well financed police/army/secret service the info gets to them really slow (it gets to the media first actually)

 

Sure, but that means incompetence.

 

It seems more like tolerance (at best).

 

@ Svy/Incarnate,

I'm not one to presume conspiracy where incompetence is an adequate explanation, but there is no chance in hell that top-level people didn't know about these abuses. They were aware that something was going on - they had reports, and chose not to act on them.

@ Svy,

Sorry, but that last part is . It'd be much more accurate to state that they took action when they couldn't deny it; specifically, when it splashed over the front page of every major newspaper in the country. Even then, all that happened was that the "rotten apple" defence got wheeled out (as it always does) and meant that the people who were stupid/unlucky enough to get busted went down.

All that means, of course, is that it's business as usual after that. A couple of schmucks go down, cursing the army that betrayed them and being presented as evil, ungrateful wretches. Not that I think Castro or anyone else engaging in state-sponsored torture or abuse is any better, but at least they aren't preaching values to the world at the same time.

 

Well, I think everyone is on agreement that the government can do little to make people like each other. There are no laws against intolerance. It is perfectly legal for the Klan to parade down Main Street, and spout their hatered towards black and Jewish people and the government does not stop them. It is society that condemns this type of behavior. Once it becomes a crime, then the government can act.

Also, many large corporations have policies against intolerance. And the intolerant can quickly be shown to the door for their anti-social attitudes.

 

I see your point, but does there come a point where you can't stop the momentum of your fist before it strikes my nose? I fear that there are situations like that in the world today. Case in point: How many of the gay marriage threads went to 7, 8 or 9 pages? How many freedom of religion threads went past the 5 page mark. And what percentage of other threads between AoDA and AoLS went that long? There comes a point where giving one group rights will piss off other groups. The closer your fist comes to my nose, the more likely I am to believe that it was sent there on purpose...

But perhaps the law ought to keep a real close eye on public actions of the Klan, and showing ZERO tolerance for illegal actions that they take while they spout their bull****...

 

@Gnarff:

Yeah, from KKK to insert_minority_insert_claim, everyone should be held responsible for illegal acts taking place during demonstrations. This means that thugs who beat up gays during demonstrations should be prosecuted and so should be gays who commit indecent exposure, throw condoms around etc. I just believe that equal should be equal. If calling a gay person a fag is to be a crime, it should be a crime when gay activists call Catholic priests black vermin. If I am not to call people fags, I don't want bigots and homophobes in my direction. We don't need any overblown tolerance for that. Basic politeness should be enough.

Special rights, compensations, special protection... that stuff won't bring equality about. It just tips the scale of inequality in the other direction. Besides, if you give a minority group special favour, you won't make it welcome by the majority with open arms. Contrary even, it will only make the group resented by the majority deprived of such privileges. This new envious resentment will couple up with old prejudice and even contempt. If contempt is coupled up with envy, you have a Nazi explosion just waiting for the sparkle.

[ September 30, 2005, 15:22: Message edited by: chevalier ]

 

I'm with Chev.

To build on it a little bit, forced tolerance causes problems because it is giving people perceived special protections. Why is it illegal to call a co-worker a fag, but you can call a short person "shorty"? It is because the gay person has a better lobby.

 

Hit the nail.
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Incompetence, for not being able to control all the bad actions committed by their - goverment - underlings.
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Assumptions, that is what it is. We can not reach conclusion on those.
But still, I repeat. Even if some high ranking officials were conivent, that means there are rotten apples in the US goverment, not that the US, as a Nation, allows such crimes to be committed. Cuba is different. It is the norm, not the deviation.

You joking? These commie dictator criminals preach to their whole world their countries are based upon equality, and as such, they are bastions of morality against "capitalist corrupt regimes" such as the US.
Regardless, it is easy to point out how these regimes are much worse. Do you see people flooding out of the US to go to Cuba, or North Korea? Do we see people risking their lives to flee Cuba to the US?

[ October 01, 2005, 18:45: Message edited by: Svyatoslav ]