Archive through September 20, 2002
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TV ClubHouse: Archive: Iraq will allow full weapons inspection!!!!! (ARCHIVE): Archive through September 20, 2002

Azriel

Thursday, September 19, 2002 - 07:39 am EditMoveDeleteIP
Now.. on the sheep part... I stated it last week.. and I'll state it again... in this world there are leaders, free thinkers, and sheep (blind followers)... Not there is anything wrong with that... the world needs a healthy supply of all three...

I strongly disagree with this statement. Just because you choose to follow a person it does not mean that you 'blindly' follow them.

I think that is the biggest problem in this whole discussion. It seems that the people that disagree with Bush's actions seem to believe that we, who support Bush, have not even used our own brains to analyze the situation and therefore, we are sheep following him.

Perhaps, our 'free thinking' led us to a different conclusion than you? Perhaps, when we analyzed the situation we came up with the same conclusion that Bush came up with and therefore, we chose to follow and support him.

Adven

Thursday, September 19, 2002 - 07:43 am EditMoveDeleteIP
Before we get overwhelmed diving into a sea of semantics (the water's cold and I didn't bring my suit), it seems abundantly clear to me if we look at the history of any culture, society or religion, their are plenty of examnples of cruelty, injustice and inhumanity that should keep all of us from feeling too smug or self-important. That being said, I think Western democracies have strived, imperfectly, to develop a system of ethics and morality based on individual freedoms balanced against the collective interests of the state better than most. I also think they have, for the most part, used their political, economic and military power judiciously and humanely. I don't feel smug or self-important about this since my role was relatively minor: I refrained from smacking someone with a frying pan once when I felt I was justified and helped an old lady across the road -although I did get a little impatient with how slow she was walking.

Nimtu

Thursday, September 19, 2002 - 07:48 am EditMoveDeleteIP
Ahh, Adven - the voice of reason! Thanks for the laugh about the frying pan. What a great post!

Twiggyish

Thursday, September 19, 2002 - 07:50 am EditMoveDeleteIP
Yes, I'd like to clear something up, too. I wasn't upset, either. A bit peeved at being called a mindless sheep, but NOT upset.

Nimtu, Az and Adven.. excellent points.

I'd put a pair of those red lips clipart next to Adven, but I don't want to make him blush.

Adven

Thursday, September 19, 2002 - 08:10 am EditMoveDeleteIP
Thanks, Twig - although when it comes to red lips I can tolerate a substantial amount of blushing.

Gentoo

Thursday, September 19, 2002 - 03:42 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
I find the hostility evoked by my post unfortunate, but I suppose I shouldn't be suprised by it.

Believe it or not, and I doubt that you will, it was not meant as an attack. We simply seem to come from such opposite perspectives that you took it as one. By the very nature of what I posted, no matter how I posted it, I would expect some people to take it as an attack. People are predisposed to. It opposes and cuts into the very foundation of the base of their lives (their faith in God, etc).

When I say bible thumpers, I mean bible thumpers. If you are a bible thumper and are offended by the term that's your problem and not mine. Did I say that all christians are bible thumpers? No, I did not.

Bible Thumpers are just as the name sounds, people who go thumping others with bibles. People who speak of fire and brimstone and scream bloody hell at anybody who will listen to them, telling them that they are going to hell if they don't conform.

Now, had I said Christian instead of Bible THumper, wouldn't that be more offensive? It should be. Because I then went on to speak about blind faith and obedience to the point of driving planes into buildings. I can't see the typical christian doing such a thing. A bible thumper or a sheeple, I could see doing it, if they believed their God to command it.

Sheeple also means exactly as the name sounds, Sheep-people. Sheeple are people who rarely or never think for themselves. Nowhere did I say that all followers are sheeple. That was the assumption made by some readers. Some choose to follow others thinking entirely for themselves, following because they think it will better their position.

Now, I realize that my opinion isn't shared by many. And I realize that my opinions may be provocotive and even anger some of you. What I post may make you feel uncomfortable. That doesn't make me wrong. Nor am I necesarily correct. My opinion is just that, my opinion.

Its easier to call me evil (See, I could work in the topic somehow) and condacending and rude and debate over the finer semantic points of what I say, than to actually read and digest my post.

Frankly, if people here decide that I'm posting about them, calling them mindless sheep etc, that isn't my problem. It's theirs.

Karuuna

Thursday, September 19, 2002 - 03:52 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
Gentoo - as bright as you are, I'm sure you realize that communication has two parts - the delivery and the reception.

Perhaps you might want to examine the idea that if so many people got the same wrong message from your post, that something was amiss with the delivery.

I'm just sayin....

Weinermr

Thursday, September 19, 2002 - 03:52 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
Someone told me I should resent being called a sheeple so I will.

Car54

Thursday, September 19, 2002 - 03:55 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
Baaaaaaaa

Gentoo

Thursday, September 19, 2002 - 04:54 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
Karuuna, not ecverybody took it that way. And its inevitable that SOME people will take it the wrong way no matter how it is phrased, because they find the very ideas themselves offensive.

I see no need to phrase things with roses and flowers just to avoid them reading in and offending themselves. The roses and flowers would make the post impossible to read, or change the meaning into something more acceptable to those readers. It would wreck the message for the other readers.

I meant exactly what I said. Maybe I'm just "evil"?
BTW, I don't support the WTC Terrorists any more than I support witch burnings.

Magikearth

Thursday, September 19, 2002 - 04:55 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
Faery,I'm sorry if you felt I was going after you and targeting you,but you did say that you RESPECTED the terrorists' beliefs,and I just disagreed with you and expressed my opinion,that's all.I don't think this thread is for me, I can tell ya that! I'm too narrow-minded!

Karuuna

Thursday, September 19, 2002 - 07:38 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
Gentoo - I said nothing about roses and flowers, tho they sure would look nice in here.

However, I always wonder about the true motivation of people who phrase things in ways that are *sure* to offend most of the audience. Seems to me that their intent is to offend, rather than to inform. After all, if one truly wants to inform, one would want to phrase their opinion in such a way that most people could hear it.

Of course, that's just my opinion, whether you can hear it or not.

Faerygdds

Thursday, September 19, 2002 - 08:17 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
Well.. I wasn't able to check back today.. I was busy talking to clinicians and such...

Nimtu -- I will respond to you first because your post is freshest in my mind and it's on the page I'm posting on.

I can completely respect the terrorists point of view and just not agree with it. Which IS the case.

And I am very glad that you are empathic also... it helps to know that you too can drive people nuts with this insane curse to always argue the other side whether you support it or not...

To everyone else... Gentoo has re-emerged to discuss his/her own post... so I will now step out of that conversation. Just know this abotu me... I don't stereotype anyone.. we are all individuals... and no... I don't think that all people who support Bush are blindly following. I respect everyone's opinion as long as they can argue their point without using personal attacks... That's why I love this board SO much... we can all disagree, but still be respectful of the other posters... that being said...

It's been a LONG LONG day full of trials and tribulations.. and I'm going to bed now...

Night!

Adven

Friday, September 20, 2002 - 06:57 am EditMoveDeleteIP
Gentoo, I've re-read your posts in an attempt to give you the benefit of the doubt, and if I were you, I'd be thankful that many contributors to this thread are, if what you assert is true, merely attacking you and not digesting your post. I've fully digested it and find your reasoning, what little of it that exists amid the attempts to bait and condescend, flawed and unoriginal.
Let's take a look:
1. You suggest your posts weren't meant as an attack. Sorry, that's exactly what you intended - although you did it poorly. You suggest people who strive to behave morally are only doing so out of selfishness and a desire to look good to others. Although you may be speaking for yourself in this regard, history is full of great men and women whose motivation was clearly altruistic. I don't think the shocking number of fire fighters and police personnel who died at the WTC were motivated by selfishness or because they thought they'd look good on TV.
2. You suggest that people who behave morally do so out of a desire to maintain social harmony - true, if only one small part of a very complex equation - but preface this comment with the suggestion that this often makes us feel smug and self-important. I'm not sure where you got this curious notion from, other than off the top of your head, but there is nothing to support such a broad assertion. After all, if people were acting morally out of smugness, we could hardly call that moral behaviour, could we? Ironically, the smugness and misplaced sense of self-importance you detect in those mindless "bible thumpers" and "sheeple" you feel vaguely superior to, are all too evident in your own writing.
3. You then close your first post by suggesting that if obedience to one's God is good, then, by extension, the destruction of the WTC was good - effectively lumping those bible thumpers and sheeple of yours into the same category as zealots who slit the throats of passengers and then fly planes into skyscrapers. Of course they thought it was good. They wouldn't have done it, otherwise. What's your point?
4. At the start of your second post you feign mystification that your opinions would be met with hostility, somehow ignoring the fact that your own language is both blatantly and latently hostile. You then go on to infer that any hostility toward you comes from your cutting into the "foundation" of our lives, the underlying assumption being that we find your views threatening to our own belief systems. Although you flatter yourself in this regard, I hope you won't be disappointed if I suggest that you are many things, but "threatening" isn't one of them. Keep trying, though.
5. You then suggest it is easier to call you "evil" than listen to the message behind your words. Personally, my first inclination was to call you "inane" rather than listen to the message behind your words.
6. In your last post, you suggest you see no need to soften your language because it would "wreck" your message. Although I don't consider this to necessarily be a bad thing, having never seen anyone's post get wrecked before, I'd suggest you stick with the provocative language since it's all you've got.
7. You finish with yet another reference to yourself as "evil", somehow leading me to believe that you'd find it pretty cool if we did see you in those terms. If this is important to you, maybe we can come up with a catchy nickname for you that incorporates the word, like "The Evil Avenger" or "Dr. Evil" or even "Evil Kneivel".

Normally, I like to go with the prevailing attitude that you should attack the message and not the messenger, but, in your case, I found it virtually impossible to do since the messenger is the message and decided to do both. If I've offended you, allow me to write off your hostility as just me theatening the very foundations of your belief systems.

Margie

Friday, September 20, 2002 - 07:51 am EditMoveDeleteIP
Am I the only one who sees the irony in the fact that people are getting so worked up about a post on an internet message board they completely drop the subject of the U.S.'s imminent attack on Iraq?

The Bush administration is saying that Iraq may already have or be developing nuclear weapons that it intends to use on the U.S. or her allies. Iraq says it isn't and doesn't. The Bush administration says it wants to attack Iraq and install a new government no matter what the world thinks. Iraq says bring in the inspectors. Bush administration says nope, no weapons inspectors, we're going to attack. The U.N. starts the process of sending inspectors into Iraq and the Bush administration is trying to block the U.N.'s moves.

Many people are going to die here and we're all freaking out about whether or not Gentoo meant to insult anyone? If we spent half the amount of time dissecting the issues that we have spent dissecting Gentoo's post we'd all be extremely well informed.

Twiggyish

Friday, September 20, 2002 - 08:04 am EditMoveDeleteIP
No, it's not ironic. Margie, if we met in real life, I doubt if we would stay exactly on any subject. (Human nature)

Adven, kudos to your post. I found it very logical and precise.

Hillbilly

Friday, September 20, 2002 - 08:13 am EditMoveDeleteIP
Okay...Margie...let me put it bluntly.

Iraq is LYING!

They do have weapons of mass destruction.
The inspections are not UNCONDITIONAL.

We have their own scientists who have defected recently saying that they DO have these weapons and are extremely close to having a nuclear missile.

Iraq has already put conditions on the inspections: no mosques, no schools, no palaces, no hospitals.

Faerygdds

Friday, September 20, 2002 - 09:00 am EditMoveDeleteIP
You know... I said last week or the week before that this would be the course... if Iraq caved, Bush would say no... he's lying... IF the inspectors do get in and find nothing, then they must be hiding them...

So... let me go back to the question I posed LAST week..

How do you prove you are not doing something IF you are not doing it???

Twiggyish

Friday, September 20, 2002 - 09:06 am EditMoveDeleteIP
Poor Saddam, everyone thinks he's up to something. We all know he's a peace loving, sweet kind of guy. *sort of your boy next door*


***Disclaimer***** tongue planted in cheek

Fluff

Friday, September 20, 2002 - 09:07 am EditMoveDeleteIP
I don't know.

LOL!

Somebody will find out sooner or later.

Nimtu

Friday, September 20, 2002 - 09:32 am EditMoveDeleteIP
Wonderful post Adven!! To Faery's question..try to see if from the other side. Do you really believe that if the U.S. were trying to hide something and the U.N. sent in inspectors who were not allowed to search churches, schools, hospitals etc. that it would not be possible to hide the goods? Come on...go with what facts are available and the history of Saddam...it's not exactly like we are talking about England or France here...a reasonable person would assume that a man who espouses hatred, has committed aggressive acts, and has kept inspectors out until now is in fact hiding something. If he is innocent then he can prove it by fully cooperating with the inspections.

Margie

Friday, September 20, 2002 - 10:09 am EditMoveDeleteIP
Hillbilly and Nimtu,

Where did you hear that Iraq would not allow inspections of Palaces, mosques, schools and hospitals?

I checked the news sites and found nothing that said that. Did I miss something?

If the inspectors can get in there and are not impeded from doing their job, there is absolutely no reason why we should invade. A kill first and let God sort them out attitude is barbaric.

Twiggy, I hate to have to say this over and over again, but NO ONE has said that Hussein is a sweetheart. He's a bad guy and we all agree on that. The questions that remain are does he provide a serious and credible threat to the United States and it's allies and, if that threat exists, how do we go about dealing with it?

Nimtu, The United States does have biological and chemical weapons. We ARE inspected and we DO place restrictions on where they can inspect. It's a very well known fact, but we don't abide by the rules we help to create. Now before you think I'm hurling accusations at the Bush administration, this has been going on for years. It pre-dates the Bush administration.

And since the last time I checked, this is still the United States. We don't go around invading countries and killing their leaders on a hunch. We use reason, diplomacy, intelligence and every resource at our means before we take the final, drastic step of war. When did that change? When Bush Jr. took office.

Twiggyish

Friday, September 20, 2002 - 10:25 am EditMoveDeleteIP
Margie, I didn't say YOU thought he was a sweetheart.

In regards to your last paragraph:
I do believe that is why Bush has gone before the UN and other world leaders.

Margie

Friday, September 20, 2002 - 10:46 am EditMoveDeleteIP
Twiggy, Then who thinks Hussein's a sweetheart?

Bush went in front of the UN to tell them like it or not, he's invading Iraq and killing their leader. He wants war. That is what he has been saying, that is what all of his people are saying. We are going to war with Iraq. We are going to invade their country and kill their leader.

My last paragraph, if I had related it to Bush, would have been oxymoronic. Bush seems incapable of diplomacy and thinking in the long term.

Faerygdds

Friday, September 20, 2002 - 11:04 am EditMoveDeleteIP
All I'm saying is that regardless of all our suppositions and hunches.... regardless if they are based on past evidence, fact, or social opinion... it will IMPOSSIBLE for Saddam, IF he is telling the truth... (you people can read the word IF, right? I ask becaus I keep saying "IF" and you all keep posting as though I am stating facts) to prove it.

I don't know... maybe my problem is that I was raised in a society where our judicial system states that a person is innocent until PROVEN guilty. Maybe that's why I have such a hard time with the US's stance that Saddam must PROVE his innocence... because where *I* was brought up... the purden of proof has always been on the prosecuting or accusing side, NOT the defending side...