Bill O'Reilly sez you're unpatriotic if...

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Last Conformist
MichaeltheGreat:

Yes, by all means, let's all put on pimply lima delta pedant mode, and ignore the fact that military and civilian targets were inseparable in Japan, or that prolongation of the war over winter would have resulted in mass starvation and epidemics (due to critical shortage of medical supplies) that would have killed millions, or that many of the military leaders of Japan seriously considered complete ethnic and national suicide as a response to invasion.

I don't see what anything of that has to do with the question whether it was terrorism or not.

It depends on the definition the pimply pedants want to use for "terrorism." It's ok to cause millions of people to starve, if you don't do anything active, but bombing military targets (and there were plenty in Hiroshima) is "terrorism" if you happen to kill a bunch of civilians, or don't happen to like the method, whether or not there is any feasible way to minimize those casualties.

Terrorism would have been to drop the bomb over the densest population centerd remaining after the April firebombing of Tokyo. If you want an act of terrorism, pick that - the civilian casualties were entirely disproportionate to any military result, and the results of incendiary usage were well known.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Last Conformist
I did not think it needed mentioning that you can be a terrorist without being a freedom fighter, and vice versa.

I don't know if you can be a terrorist without being a freedom fighter, but you can certainly be a freedom fighter without being a terrorist.

[MrFun]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Bill O'Reilly sez you're unpatriotic if...

Originally posted by DinoDoc
I'll tell you if that's the case if and when I find it in this thread. Personally, I tend to believe that those who deliberately kill innocent civilians aren't particularly interested freedom and those who trample on human rights aren't the best people to try defending them. The choice of means indicates that they are forerunners of tyranny.

. . . . . and Reagan supported regimes in Central America that did just these things you find to be immoral.

[BeBMan]

Originally posted by Kidicious

I don't know if you can be a terrorist without being a freedom fighter, (...)

Whats the problem there?

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Sandman
is a gang of paramilitary thugs intimidating voters terrorism?

Yes

[Agathon]

Whenever people are asked to define terrorism, they always seem to call it 'trying to scare people so as to achieve some poltical goal'. I think that this is a silly definition; is a gang of paramilitary thugs intimidating voters terrorism?

It's a political word, and like all political words it attempts to pass itself off as what philosophers call a "thick ethical concept".

A thick ethical concept – like courage or justice – is a concept that contains both a normative element and a descriptive element: so courage is both a good thing and applies to certain acts. In contrast, a "thin ethical concept" – like goodness or rightness – is purely normative.

This is why people say that terrorism is by definition wrong: they understand it as a thick ethical concept.

Unfortunately, it is also a very confused concept since you cannot isolate the descriptive portion of the concept in such a way that it doesn't produce obvious counterexamples. But to the people that employ it this doesn't matter, because it functions as a political word. Political words are thick ethical concepts that people try to force into general usage so that they can define the terms of the debate and get their own way. The relation to reality is of secondary importance.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat


It depends on the definition the pimply pedants want to use for "terrorism." It's ok to cause millions of people to starve, if you don't do anything active, but bombing military targets (and there were plenty in Hiroshima) is "terrorism" if you happen to kill a bunch of civilians, or don't happen to like the method, whether or not there is any feasible way to minimize those casualties.

The difference is in the purpose of the act. The purpose of dropping the bombs on Japan was not to diminish Japan's military capabilities. We know this because Japan was already beaten.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by BeBro


Whats the problem there?

Speak clearly.

Please

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Agathon
Political words are thick ethical concepts that people try to force into general usage so that they can define the terms of the debate and get their own way. The relation to reality is of secondary importance.

Are democracy and freedom thick ethical concepts? They don't seem to apply to certain acts, but there is no doubt that these are political words.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Agathon
On any reasonable definition of terrorism – i.e. one that does not include "done by people we don't like" in the definition – the United States has been guilty of engaging in and supporting terrorism.

As has every country except maybe Andorra.

[GePap]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Bill O'Reilly sez you're unpatriotic if...

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat


Actually, nuke doctrine is/can be pretty discriminating. There's a reason we keep our land based missiles in the boonies, and not in the middle of major cities, and even the Godless Commies^TM did the same.

In the 50's, the Zel'dovich / Sakharov team and Wheeler / Colgate teams worked on arbitrarily powerful "superbombs," but that work fell aside for more accurate delivery systems and smaller warhead packages to allow for MIRVs. You could still target population centers, but the goal was to constantly counter the other guy's deterrent, seeking to make sure the other guy couldn't gain an advantage in a potential first strike.

Yes, I know about nuclear theory and the notion of winning a nuclear war- but the point is that even a full strike at just the other military capabilities would lead to millions killed- after all, while nuclear silos are off nowhere, airbases and the bases for nuke subs are still in cities and they need to be taken out as well, not only land silos. There is no way to make a nuke war that does not cost lots of lives.

It's not banned, but the popular acceptance of taking the war to the civilian means of production is now long since superseded. We don't have or need tens of thousands of aircraft and tanks and a million riflemen to do damage to the enemy, so disruption of manufacturing capability is meaningless. As far as Grozny goes, that's just one more act of global gutlessness. We don't want to piss off the Russkies, so we let them commit mass murder. No "law" would have any meaning if no party has any desire to apply or enforce it.

Well, yes, western powers don't need lots of bombs to destroy the enemy. Which is why then we get to criticize other for not having our toys and their accuracy.

At the same time, I don;t think the US or any of the powers capable of laying such a law down have any interest in such a law anyways, so I doubt such a law exists.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Agathon
Political words are thick ethical concepts that people try to force into general usage so that they can define the terms of the debate and get their own way. The relation to reality is of secondary importance.

The idea that terrorism is bad is more a matter of common sense rather than by definition. The reasonable person realizes that terrrorists make enemies fast, because of this.

[Ramo]

Yes, by all means, let's all put on pimply lima delta pedant mode, and ignore the fact that military and civilian targets were inseparable in Japan, or that prolongation of the war over winter would have resulted in mass starvation and epidemics (due to critical shortage of medical supplies) that would have killed millions, or that many of the military leaders of Japan seriously considered complete ethnic and national suicide as a response to invasion.

If ten times more people starve and die of disease due to prolonging a war, it's ok, because it's passive and we can all satisfy our neo-leftist limp dicked sense of "morals" rather than taking the only feasible action to immediately and decisively end the war.

I didn't address whether it was moral, merely whether it was an act of terrorism.

[Sava]

There's something wrong with people always making judgements about other people's "patriotism". I guess such people feel inferior and therefore need to label others as "unpatriotic" to make themselves feel better.

Discussions of patriotism are basically a big ad hominem and don't contribute anything to any intellectual debate.

[MosesPresley]

Nuking them was the humanitarian thing to do. Yeah right.