Freethought & Rationalism Archive

acronos · 07-07-2003, 01:30 PM

I consider myself center because several of the tests such as the one at:
http://www.politicalcompass.org/
place me dead center on the left-right line and about 1/4 into the libertarian side on the Authoritarian-Libertarian line.

This isn't the only test that has shown this.

RLV · 07-07-2003, 03:05 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by acronos
I consider myself center because several of the tests such as the one at:
http://www.politicalcompass.org/
place me dead center on the left-right line and about 1/4 into the libertarian side on the Authoritarian-Libertarian line.

This isn't the only test that has shown this.

Letting aside the question of the accuracy of that test and of your replies to it, this would only move the quetion of the spectrum to whoever made that test.

Mind you, if that tests places in the center, for instance, a moderate Republican, it would be placing in the far left most of Europe.

Besides that, on what grounds do you consider you and GD the only centrist here? Because you are the only ones defending the invasion of Iraq? Is this what makes somebody a centrist, according to that test?

RLV

RLV · 07-07-2003, 03:35 PM

I went to look a bit at that test. I had already taken it some time ago. I don't remember the results. To the lef ot Dubya in all accounts, that's for sure.

Anyway, I found there an interesting quotation:

"To occupy Iraq would instantly shatter our coalition, turning the whole Arab world against us and make a broken tyrant into a latter-day hero ... assigning young soldiers to a fruitless hunt for a securely entrenched dictator and condemning them to fight in what would be an un-winnable urban guerilla war. It could only plunge that part of the world into even greater instability."

George Bush Snr, in A World Transformed, 1998

Pity he didn't teach his son well enough.

RLV

David M. Payne · 07-07-2003, 06:51 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by RED DAVE
If Bush isn't the worst person on Earth, who is?

For starters the socialist Baath parties Saddam Hussein and sons have been involved in mass murder, torture and rape, and other heinous acts that even you can't pin on Bush. In North Korea we have one of the most repressive communist monarchies ever seen under the leadership of KIM Chong-il, who inherited power from his father after his death. There are death camps, mass starvation and other ills in this workers paradise, aren�t there RD? There are more of course, but these shining examples of socialism in action should do for a rational comparisons of who is really bad, as in evil, and who is just bad in some areas, as in Bush.

I am not questioning your sincerity, David. But I believe that in aligning yourself in any way with Bush, you are sterilizing yourself politically. The reason the right has to shut up on this board lately is that it was proven totally wrong in the case of Bush and the war.

Now, with your personal support for Bush's invasion of Iraq and the slaughter of thousands of Iraqis and the destabilization of their country (and a possible triumph of Islamic fundamentalism), you have placed yourself, by your "objectivity," in Bush's camp.

If you hate Bush, you have to oppose everything he does. How else do you build opposition? Can you build a political movement that says: well, we support Bush's slaughter of Iraqi civilians because he got rid of Saddam Hussein, but we oppose his tax cuts? Doesn't work.

You are welcome to believe anything you want RD, but your beliefs don't translate into me having to fit the mold you have cast here. This is the problem with those who follow any kind of authoritarian regimes, be they religious or secular. Everything is cast as black and white, there are no shades of gray, which is the reality in most of the real world. I know I've been out there and seen it in person.

The deposing of Hussein was strictly an afterthought, as was the issue of weapons of mass destruction. The Bushies let Hussein alone until well after 9/11, when their strategy of wiping out Al-Quaeda wasn't working, so they needed an obvious target. First came Hussein's links to terrorism. Never proven. Then came the weapons of mass destruction. No threat to the US of the region and never found. Then came the "liberation" of Iraq. hasn't happened. Hussein is gone, but, now, the country is gripped by chaos and the growing strength of the Islamic Right, which Hussein kept in check.

Do you really want to ally yourself with this?

Iraqi Body Count

Saddam routinely killed more a month than we have killed in any month. I'm sorry that some innocent people died in the war, but as a Vietnam vet I know that that happens in war. That�s why they say war is hell RD. Here is a quote on just how many people died under Saddam. Do you really want to ally yourself with this? (I wonder if you will accept me painting you as a supporter of Saddam, the same way you tried to paint me as a supporter of Bush?)
From WAIS at Stanford university we have this "�Tom Grey answers David Crow's request the empirical basis for his statement on the number of dead under Saddam Hussein. "See deaths under Saddam. Here is an excerpt:":Along with other human rights organizations, The Documental Centre for Human Rights in Iraq has compiled documentation on over 600,000 civilian executions in Iraq. Human Rights Watch reports that in one operation alone, the Anfal, Saddam killed 100,000 Kurdish Iraqis. Another 500,000 are estimated to have died in Saddam's needless war with Iran. Coldly taken as a daily average for the 24 years of Saddam's reign, these numbers give us a horrifying picture of between 70 and 125 civilian deaths per day for every one of Saddam's 8,000-odd days in power�"

Hum, 6052 to 7703 died so far under us, (most of them combatants BTW RD), according to your web site at the time of this post, and 70 a day under Saddam. I'll use the low side, the high side is much worse, isn't it RD? Do the math RD and then come back and tell me just how bad Bush and his war is for the average Iraqi.

RED DAVE

David

Have you heard the one that goes like this BTW? I found this quote over on the GOTG web site by Francois Tremblay;

"How do you tell a communist? Well, it's someone who reads Marx and Lenin. And how do you tell an anti-Communist? It's someone who understands Marx and Lenin."

I love the web, I do believe it's going to help humanity escape the bonds that secular and religious zealots try and bind us with.

David M. Payne · 07-07-2003, 08:55 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by RLV
Correction: I'm a centrist, well placed in the middle. You are far to the right.

RLV

Really? Why don't you do a google search on the home page on my name here on the Sec-Web, and then get back with me after you've done a little reading of my stories and essays. They pretty clearly show my positions on a few things. You might have to read between the lines somewhat though, and I think you're up to that task. (I'd post a list of links to all of my work published here for you, but that seems to offend some who think I'd just be blowing my own horn.

)

The far right and religion go hand in hand just about everywhere, and I oppose both, just as I oppose the far left. You can't tell me what my political position is just because I support the removal of Saddam. If I earned nothing else in Vietnam, I earned the right to my own opinions, and the right to state my own position. You don't have the right to pigeonhole me based on one position that you oppose RLV, that�s very egocentric of you. I'm just as much in the middle as anyone here is, including you.

David M. Payne

RLV · 07-08-2003, 04:50 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by David M. Payne
[...]

Please, note the smiley in my original post.

As I explained in a later post (replying to you, precisely), I was not really arguing that I was really in the center. I was arguing against your (and acronos') assumption that it is you two who are in the center, and the rest of us are 'a sea of far left liberals'.

This is most striking when the issue in discussion, Iraq's invasion, doesn't fit very well with the usual distinctions left-right on social or economical issues. As it is exposed by the fact that you, who claim not to be (and I have no reason to doubt it) a rightist, are actually defending some of the positions that the far right defends.

IOW, let's not start claims of "I'm the only centrist, you are all far-(right/left) extremists", because it's a game that anybody can play and nobody wins.

BTW, it could very well be that you are far to the right of my position, couldn't you? And since I'm in the center, because I say so, then...

RLV

David M. Payne · 07-08-2003, 08:00 PM

RLV, lets not go round and round on who is in the center, I think it's a waste of time. That isn't what this thread is about anyway. Clutch was looking for a retraction because no weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq. Yet. They may find some, they may not, I don't know, and no one here knows the answer to that question. Yet. We will know the answer some day.

But when you get to the point where RED DAVE did painting Bush as the worst of the worst this thread is getting pretty far off course. I'm still waiting for his reply to my post, though I think it will be hard to say that Bush is worse than the two examples I gave esp. this last point;

Saddam routinely killed more a month than we have killed in any month. I'm sorry that some innocent people died in the war, but as a Vietnam vet I know that that happens in war. That�s why they say war is hell RD. Here is a quote on just how many people died under Saddam. Do you really want to ally yourself with this? (I wonder if you will accept me painting you as a supporter of Saddam, the same way you tried to paint me as a supporter of Bush?)
From WAIS at Stanford university we have this "�Tom Grey answers David Crow's request the empirical basis for his statement on the number of dead under Saddam Hussein. "See deaths under Saddam. Here is an excerpt:": Along with other human rights organizations, The Documental Centre for Human Rights in Iraq has compiled documentation on over 600,000 civilian executions in Iraq. Human Rights Watch reports that in one operation alone, the Anfal, Saddam killed 100,000 Kurdish Iraqis. Another 500,000 are estimated to have died in Saddam's needless war with Iran. Coldly taken as a daily average for the 24 years of Saddam's reign, these numbers give us a horrifying picture of between 70 and 125 civilian deaths per day for every one of Saddam's 8,000-odd days in power�"

Hum, 6052 to 7703 died so far under us, (most of them combatants BTW RD), according to your web site at the time of this post, and 70 a day under Saddam. I'll use the low side, the high side is much worse, isn't it RD? Do the math RD and then come back and tell me just how bad Bush and his war is for the average Iraqi.

David

David M. Payne · 07-09-2003, 09:17 PM

RED DAVE, I can't hear you.

David

Farren · 07-09-2003, 09:59 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by David M. Payne
RLV, lets not go round and round on who is in the center, I think it's a waste of time. That isn't what this thread is about anyway. Clutch was looking for a retraction because no weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq. Yet. They may find some, they may not, I don't know, and no one here knows the answer to that question. Yet. We will know the answer some day.

But when you get to the point where RED DAVE did painting Bush as the worst of the worst this thread is getting pretty far off course. I'm still waiting for his reply to my post, though I think it will be hard to say that Bush is worse than the two examples I gave esp. this last point;

Saddam routinely killed more a month than we have killed in any month. I'm sorry that some innocent people died in the war, but as a Vietnam vet I know that that happens in war. That�s why they say war is hell RD. Here is a quote on just how many people died under Saddam. Do you really want to ally yourself with this? (I wonder if you will accept me painting you as a supporter of Saddam, the same way you tried to paint me as a supporter of Bush?)
From WAIS at Stanford university we have this "�Tom Grey answers David Crow's request the empirical basis for his statement on the number of dead under Saddam Hussein. "See deaths under Saddam. Here is an excerpt:": Along with other human rights organizations, The Documental Centre for Human Rights in Iraq has compiled documentation on over 600,000 civilian executions in Iraq. Human Rights Watch reports that in one operation alone, the Anfal, Saddam killed 100,000 Kurdish Iraqis. Another 500,000 are estimated to have died in Saddam's needless war with Iran. Coldly taken as a daily average for the 24 years of Saddam's reign, these numbers give us a horrifying picture of between 70 and 125 civilian deaths per day for every one of Saddam's 8,000-odd days in power�"

Hum, 6052 to 7703 died so far under us, (most of them combatants BTW RD), according to your web site at the time of this post, and 70 a day under Saddam. I'll use the low side, the high side is much worse, isn't it RD? Do the math RD and then come back and tell me just how bad Bush and his war is for the average Iraqi.

David

David,

People who justify the war on the grounds that Saddam and his Baathists were evil, period, seem to think that timing, consensus, International Law, motive, realpolitik and aftermath are meaningless concepts which have no impact on the world. The post above once again exposes this narrowly focussed way of thinking.

I've been through this before at length on several other threads, so I'll first refer you to this one

International Law, Iraq, Israel, the US

so I don't have to cover too much ground again.

The US violated international law. You might see this as trivia but its not.

The US is the single biggest impediment to a common standard for war crimes, while most of Western Europe is ready to move forward. Reagan pulled the US out of the ICJ after they legitimately fined the US for military action against an elect government (Nicaragua).

Bush refused to put the Clinton-endorsed ICC treaty before congress for US ratification because he didn't want the US military to be forced to comply with international standards for judging war crimes. Do you realise how horrific this attitude is? How much distrust and loathing this alone sows among foreign observers?

Just in case you think this is all airy fairy theory, stop and think about what International law is. Its the commitment by governments to abide by the treaties they have signed. Among these treaties are the committment to human rights practices, nuclear non-proliferation, environmental protection. Do you want to see nations start treating these commitments like they're not worth the paper they're written on? I don't.

Like it or not, the US and the UK had an obligation to make a case and provide sufficient evidence. They signed the f^&^&ing UN charter and made a commitment to abide by it.

And that's just one of the issues. A responsible government, before engaging in a so-called war of liberation, would have a clear understanding of the challenges of the aftermath. GW's administration clearly did not. Afghanistan's going to hell in a handbasket all over again and Iraq very possibly faces a future of fundamentalism. An action is not made right by spouting high minded principles about the sheriff and the friggin bad guy. Its made right by having a positive outcome.

The US/UK campaign was ill-thought out and there's no evidence that it will have a positive outcome. In fact a recent history of US interventions indicates there's a fair chance that it won't have a positive outcome.

The US, specifically, is guilty of gross hypocrisy. The state department has wielded International law like a big stick for the last twenty years when it comes to squeezing payments to US companies out of poverty stricken African countries for debts incurred by deposed tyrants who also robbed their people blind. But when the US installs an administration in Iraq, whats the first thing they do? Violate international law again by cancelling a legitimate contract signed under the Oil for food programme with Russia's LukOil?

Do you have any idea how this looks to the rest of the world? Halliburton's contracts getting extended from reconstruction to actual production of oil? No alterior motives? Bullshit, bullshit and more Bullshit.

And all the time that the US is stomping all over the middle east, leaving a trail of broken china that will take years to peace together again, the miltary is sucking R67 billion out of a country with one of its worst government deficits in history and US doves can only watch in astonishment while war-supporters help the country go to hell in a handbasket. Supporting this war (and continued occupation without UN control), makes no sense at all.

Farren · 07-09-2003, 10:28 PM

p.s. I've only dealt with the tip of the iceberg of reasons why the war was a bloody stupid and ill thought out endeavour.

I think a lot of the pro war crowd think the anti-war left is just arguing the point because Bush did it, or some other knee jerk reaction.

But if you actually considered the mountain of issues that was raised before, during and after the war by a good percentage of the world's population, you might realise that ideology is the least of everyone's concerns.

Or do you want to live in a world where we no longer challenge monstrous lies from our leaders, violations of international law and blundering, ill considered military adventures where more careful appraisal and response could yield a vastly better future?

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07-07-2003, 01:30 PM	#71
acronos Regular Member Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Georgia Posts: 216	I consider myself center because several of the tests such as the one at: http://www.politicalcompass.org/ place me dead center on the left-right line and about 1/4 into the libertarian side on the Authoritarian-Libertarian line. This isn't the only test that has shown this.

07-07-2003, 03:35 PM	#73
RLV Regular Member Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: Barcelona Posts: 300	I went to look a bit at that test. I had already taken it some time ago. I don't remember the results. To the lef ot Dubya in all accounts, that's for sure. Anyway, I found there an interesting quotation: "To occupy Iraq would instantly shatter our coalition, turning the whole Arab world against us and make a broken tyrant into a latter-day hero ... assigning young soldiers to a fruitless hunt for a securely entrenched dictator and condemning them to fight in what would be an un-winnable urban guerilla war. It could only plunge that part of the world into even greater instability." George Bush Snr, in A World Transformed, 1998 Pity he didn't teach his son well enough. RLV

07-08-2003, 08:00 PM	#77
David M. Payne Veteran Member Join Date: Oct 2000 Location: The land of chain smoking, bible thumping, holy ro Posts: 1,248	RLV, lets not go round and round on who is in the center, I think it's a waste of time. That isn't what this thread is about anyway. Clutch was looking for a retraction because no weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq. Yet. They may find some, they may not, I don't know, and no one here knows the answer to that question. Yet. We will know the answer some day. But when you get to the point where RED DAVE did painting Bush as the worst of the worst this thread is getting pretty far off course. I'm still waiting for his reply to my post, though I think it will be hard to say that Bush is worse than the two examples I gave esp. this last point; Saddam routinely killed more a month than we have killed in any month. I'm sorry that some innocent people died in the war, but as a Vietnam vet I know that that happens in war. That�s why they say war is hell RD. Here is a quote on just how many people died under Saddam. Do you really want to ally yourself with this? (I wonder if you will accept me painting you as a supporter of Saddam, the same way you tried to paint me as a supporter of Bush?) From WAIS at Stanford university we have this "�Tom Grey answers David Crow's request the empirical basis for his statement on the number of dead under Saddam Hussein. "See deaths under Saddam. Here is an excerpt:": Along with other human rights organizations, The Documental Centre for Human Rights in Iraq has compiled documentation on over 600,000 civilian executions in Iraq. Human Rights Watch reports that in one operation alone, the Anfal, Saddam killed 100,000 Kurdish Iraqis. Another 500,000 are estimated to have died in Saddam's needless war with Iran. Coldly taken as a daily average for the 24 years of Saddam's reign, these numbers give us a horrifying picture of between 70 and 125 civilian deaths per day for every one of Saddam's 8,000-odd days in power�" Hum, 6052 to 7703 died so far under us, (most of them combatants BTW RD), according to your web site at the time of this post, and 70 a day under Saddam. I'll use the low side, the high side is much worse, isn't it RD? Do the math RD and then come back and tell me just how bad Bush and his war is for the average Iraqi. David

07-09-2003, 09:17 PM	#78
David M. Payne Veteran Member Join Date: Oct 2000 Location: The land of chain smoking, bible thumping, holy ro Posts: 1,248	RED DAVE, I can't hear you. David

07-09-2003, 10:28 PM	#80
Farren Veteran Member Join Date: Nov 2001 Location: South Africa Posts: 2,194	p.s. I've only dealt with the tip of the iceberg of reasons why the war was a bloody stupid and ill thought out endeavour. I think a lot of the pro war crowd think the anti-war left is just arguing the point because Bush did it, or some other knee jerk reaction. But if you actually considered the mountain of issues that was raised before, during and after the war by a good percentage of the world's population, you might realise that ideology is the least of everyone's concerns. Or do you want to live in a world where we no longer challenge monstrous lies from our leaders, violations of international law and blundering, ill considered military adventures where more careful appraisal and response could yield a vastly better future?

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