Reparations paid to Guantanamo detainees...

[Channel72]

Just out of curiosity, how do we compare the amount of cowardice required to tolerate one thousand people being held by my nation in an internment camp... to the amount of cowardice required to tolerate one hundred thousand people being held in similar camps?

Does it take the same amount of cowardice? One one-hundredth as much cowardice? Is there some sort of square-law relationship so that it requires one-tenth the cowardice?

Because I'm curious to see what our threshold is for saying "you are a coward for tolerating this." Has anyone got a rigorous argument for what the threshold is, based on actual political philosophy rather than ill-defined sentiments?

It's likely too complicated to quantify via some sort of "units of cowardice per thousand victims" metric.

Also, I don't think cowardice is even the right word here. Cowardice occurs when fear lends more weight to self-preservation than following some moral directive. But - (and perhaps I'm speaking mostly for myself here) - I think the better word for what's going on in the USA is more like laziness or apathy. Americans aren't afraid of speaking out against Guantanamo - it's just that nobody really gives a shit because ... oh shit the Seahawks lost the Super Bowl and Law & Order is starting a new season on Hulu, and, I'm exhausted from working all night and, wait is Guantanamo Bay in Florida or like Mexico? And how come Muslims don't celebrate Thanksgiving??

[Soontir C'boath]

Also, as mentioned before, we have had polls where people are fine with such things as what the CIA did which frankly speaks even worse about us than any random accusation of cowardice given.

We can torture the shit out of people and you can call us out on that, but don't call us cowards!

[Channel72]

What's really sad hilarious to me is how, as a child, I remember learning about the Japanese-American internment camps ordered by Roosevelt, which our high school history teachers pretty much touted as the go-to example of government abuse and injustice which we should all learn from so as to prevent such transgressions from ever happening again. I remember thinking how crazy it seemed that the US government would ever do something so outrageous... but whatever, that was like in the 40s or something so it doesn't count...

That sort of shit would never happen today, OBVIOUSLY.

[Dark Hellion]

Since playing semantics games seems to be established as being okay within this thread I am going to join in:

You guys are seriously distorting the meaning of cowardice. The U.S. kicks other nations asses and then expects them to lick our balls and work our shaft for it. This is not cowardice; it takes some fucking serious stones to do this. It does mean that as a nation we are a bunch of evil fucking douchebags but cowards we are not.

Okay, that joke is out of the way but it is illustrative of the general issue. I don't have any problem with legitimate grievances against the U.S. because god knows there are plenty to be had; the problem I have is that these legitimate grievances are conflated with generic insults against the U.S. and then by inference against Americans as a whole.

And to repeat what Edi stated, the Americans of this board are not representative of the country as a whole. Members of this board of any other nation are and should be rightly offended when they are characterized overly broadly with their nation. This does not mean that such characterizations do not happen but if they do happen and those member are offended they should be given proper redress.

For a very simple example, I do no like Russia, I do not like it for the actions of Putin, the oligarchical nature it presents and the complicity of Russia in the production and distribution of child pornography. This does not mean I do not like Stas. I don't always agree with Stas but I think he is an interesting individual with a valid viewpoints based upon his individual experiences. If I made an overly general statement about Russians and Stas was offended I would feel obligated to apologize to Stas and amend my statement in such as way as to exclude him. And I am by extension of my own generalization an evil fucking douchebag.

While I don't approve of his methodology I think that Coffee did prove his point in a rhetorically effective way in this thread. Other posters were offended and did strike back vehemently at being lumped in with the worst of their country. And in some ways if Americans are supposed to grow a thicker skin, perhaps members of other nations should have to as well.

Also, I would like members of this board to actually address Anithyng's comments on the subject. Given he is not an American and his statements have been unjustly ignored I think this is very telling.

Frankly, I have far stronger opinions on this matter than I am expressing but I would rather be thoughtful, civil, and attempt to address this as a larger of issue of board culture than simply an expression of personal feelings. But I think the idea that dismissing the fact that multiple prominent board members have expressed displeasure with what has occurred in this thread is demeaning to the fact that these board members are intelligent contributors to the board as a whole. Many of these posters are people who's opinions are highly valued within other areas of the board and them being dismissed as simply being thin skinned Americans is basically a rehashing of what caused this problem in the first place.

[AniThyng]

Also, I would like members of this board to actually address Anithyng's comments on the subject. Given he is not an American and his statements have been unjustly ignored I think this is very telling.
.

I can tell you this much - the other aspect to this is what we are supposed to do when there are no representatives that represent truly everything you want to stand for, and what your moral priorities are. Look, the ruling party of my government is corrupt, is complicit in politically motivated imprisonments* and spams sedition charges on anyone who might be a serious political threat and brings the hammer down on anyone who dares to publicly question and "insult" Islam. Am I therefore now derelict in my moral duties if I merely stop at voting opposition when there's an election (and even then, I don't necessarily agree with them on various issues) and spend the rest of my time earning an honest living (ironically, with an american company) and on message boards? Do I have to preach at my friends and family to make them vote the right way? Go out on the streets and protest and risk being water cannonned and possibly arrested? Just straight up migrate as so many others have done?

*allegations float around that the mongolian woman murdered and detonated by C4 was connected to the sitting PM. I personally think this is unfounded, but a lot of people think there's something to it. Obviously, not being an intelligence officer I am limited to what I can gleam from the media. Am I therefore complicit in keeping said PM in power by not doing all I can to dig up the truth?

It's nice that the US makes it easy for you to make a moral choice by being so egrariously engaging in illegal acts, but somehow I get the feeling even then it's not so simple. Charging Bush for War Crimes? Seriously?

[Simon_Jester]

It's likely too complicated to quantify via some sort of "units of cowardice per thousand victims" metric.

Does this mean we can't draw the line at all?

Is tolerating one person being unjustly imprisoned a level of laziness and apathy comparable to tolerating ten? Is ten as bad as a thousand? At what level does it stop being a judgment against you (or your nation) if you decline to speak out against wrongs in your nation?

Because to be perfectly frank, if a person in any country decided to start condemning everything they perceive as wrong with the world, without using their own discretion to select priorities... they'd never be able to do anything else, including eat and sleep.

What is the level we expect, at a minimum, to cause people to rise up and resist an evil policy over? Beyond this level it is shameful to tolerate evil from one's government, below this level it's "just one of those things..." but where is the line to be drawn?

I grant that there may be situational cases, but in general we should be able to figure out where to draw the line. That, or we should stop being so arrogantly confident that we know where the line is and so quick to decide people have crossed it and made themselves worthy of condemnation.

[Soontir C'boath]

If we are really going down this path. I think we should clarify what cowardice means. Is it the American who opposes torture and lack of speedy and fair trial for Guantanomo detainees, but doesn't really do much or have voice support and find nothing happening? Or is it the Americans that give approval or even apathy of those tortured believing that those heretical crazy Moslims need to be put down like the rabid dogs that they are before more of them kill us? Simon seems to think of the former, but I am pretty sure Thanas' view sides on the latter.

[AniThyng]

Problem with the latter option is that it's an extremist exaggeration. One does not need to believe all Muslims are terrorists to believe terrorists should be tortured or merely detained without trial or so on, especially when trusted authorities sanction it.

[Soontir C'boath]

Problem with the latter option is that it's an extremist exaggeration. One does not need to believe all Muslims are terrorists to believe terrorists should be tortured or detained without trial or so on.

There is no issue when the point is that we are allowing torture and wrongful length of detainment at all for anyone. Muslims was just the relevant example in this case, especially when the overall sentimentality among Americans is hostile towards them. When we even refuse to let a mosque be put in place in lower Manhattan, it is pretty clear and dry on that front.

[AniThyng]

Problem with the latter option is that it's an extremist exaggeration. One does not need to believe all Muslims are terrorists to believe terrorists should be tortured or detained without trial or so on.

There is no issue when the point is that we are allowing torture and wrongful length of detainment at all for anyone. Muslims was just the relevant example in this case, especially when the overall sentimentality among Americans is hostile towards them. When we even refuse to let a mosque be put in place in lower Manhattan, it is pretty clear and dry on that front.

Point taken.


Being from a moderate Muslim state that throws up considerable state sanctioned barriers to Christians that make private sentiment against a mosque in Manhattan look like child's play makes me frustrated that America fails to live up to its ideals while the rest of the world uses American hypocrisy as a shield. Believe me, the patriot act being used to defend the existence of our own internal security act is just...yeah.

[Simon_Jester]

Being from a moderate Muslim state that throws up considerable state sanctioned barriers to Christians that make private sentiment against a mosque in Manhattan look like child's play makes me frustrated that America fails to live up to its ideals while the rest of the world uses American hypocrisy as a shield. Believe me, the patriot act being used to defend the existence of our own internal security act is just...yeah.

This is something that most of the Americans I sympathize with have been banging our heads against in frustration about for the last thirteen years, yes...

Problem with the latter option is that it's an extremist exaggeration. One does not need to believe all Muslims are terrorists to believe terrorists should be tortured or detained without trial or so on.

There is no issue when the point is that we are allowing torture and wrongful length of detainment at all for anyone.

Er... I don't understand this sentence. Would you mind unpacking what you mean by "there is no issue?"

Muslims was just the relevant example in this case, especially when the overall sentimentality among Americans is hostile towards them. When we even refuse to let a mosque be put in place in lower Manhattan, it is pretty clear and dry on that front.

While my own opinion is that the mosque should have been allowed to be completed on the site, I must point out that it was not a mosque "in lower Manhattan;" it was "six hundred feet from the site of the World Trade Center." And that the mosque in question was to be a thirteen story building.

Out of curiosity, how would you feel about building a thirteen story megachurch 600 feet from the site of an abortion clinic bombing? What if the bombing had somehow* managed to kill three thousand people?

If survivors of the families of the victims of the bombing start to call in and claim that the construction of the megachurch is "insensitive," I assume you would call them cowardly and anti-Christian, yes? Because I'm quite sure you are a consistent person.
_____________________

*Implausible in itself, but try to imagine it...

[Soontir C'boath]

Problem with the latter option is that it's an extremist exaggeration. One does not need to believe all Muslims are terrorists to believe terrorists should be tortured or detained without trial or so on.

There is no issue when the point is that we are allowing torture and wrongful length of detainment at all for anyone.

Er... I don't understand this sentence. Would you mind unpacking what you mean by "there is no issue?"

You can read the next sentences after it.

Muslims was just the relevant example in this case, especially when the overall sentimentality among Americans is hostile towards them. When we even refuse to let a mosque be put in place in lower Manhattan, it is pretty clear and dry on that front.

While my own opinion is that the mosque should have been allowed to be completed on the site, I must point out that it was not a mosque "in lower Manhattan;" it was "six hundred feet from the site of the World Trade Center." And that the mosque in question was to be a thirteen story building.

Out of curiosity, how would you feel about building a thirteen story megachurch 600 feet from the site of an abortion clinic bombing? What if the bombing had somehow* managed to kill three thousand people?

If survivors of the families of the victims of the bombing start to call in and claim that the construction of the megachurch is "insensitive," I assume you would call them cowardly and anti-Christian, yes? Because I'm quite sure you are a consistent person.
_____________________

*Implausible in itself, but try to imagine it...

Yes I would be fine with it, because it was not normal church going Christians who bombed the abortion clinics, but those who took it to the extreme. Just as those who committed the acts during 9/11. You are still blaming the group as a whole on the part of the few.

[Flagg]

Being from a moderate Muslim state that throws up considerable state sanctioned barriers to Christians that make private sentiment against a mosque in Manhattan look like child's play makes me frustrated that America fails to live up to its ideals while the rest of the world uses American hypocrisy as a shield. Believe me, the patriot act being used to defend the existence of our own internal security act is just...yeah.

This is something that most of the Americans I sympathize with have been banging our heads against in frustration about for the last thirteen years, yes...

Problem with the latter option is that it's an extremist exaggeration. One does not need to believe all Muslims are terrorists to believe terrorists should be tortured or detained without trial or so on.

There is no issue when the point is that we are allowing torture and wrongful length of detainment at all for anyone.

Er... I don't understand this sentence. Would you mind unpacking what you mean by "there is no issue?"

Muslims was just the relevant example in this case, especially when the overall sentimentality among Americans is hostile towards them. When we even refuse to let a mosque be put in place in lower Manhattan, it is pretty clear and dry on that front.

While my own opinion is that the mosque should have been allowed to be completed on the site, I must point out that it was not a mosque "in lower Manhattan;" it was "six hundred feet from the site of the World Trade Center." And that the mosque in question was to be a thirteen story building.

Out of curiosity, how would you feel about building a thirteen story megachurch 600 feet from the site of an abortion clinic bombing? What if the bombing had somehow* managed to kill three thousand people?

If survivors of the families of the victims of the bombing start to call in and claim that the construction of the megachurch is "insensitive," I assume you would call them cowardly and anti-Christian, yes? Because I'm quite sure you are a consistent person.
_____________________

*Implausible in itself, but try to imagine it...

Umm, are you saying that because the people in question have been traumatized their bigotry is legitimized somehow?

Anyway it wasn't a Mosque, it was a community center providing a myriad of different activities, that had a Mosque in it. Just like how the WTC had a Mosque in it.

[Soontir C'boath]

Either way, it was met with considerable ire that even Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid spoke against it.

[Channel72]

It's likely too complicated to quantify via some sort of "units of cowardice per thousand victims" metric.

Does this mean we can't draw the line at all?

Is tolerating one person being unjustly imprisoned a level of laziness and apathy comparable to tolerating ten? Is ten as bad as a thousand? At what level does it stop being a judgment against you (or your nation) if you decline to speak out against wrongs in your nation?

Because to be perfectly frank, if a person in any country decided to start condemning everything they perceive as wrong with the world, without using their own discretion to select priorities... they'd never be able to do anything else, including eat and sleep.

What is the level we expect, at a minimum, to cause people to rise up and resist an evil policy over? Beyond this level it is shameful to tolerate evil from one's government, below this level it's "just one of those things..." but where is the line to be drawn?

I grant that there may be situational cases, but in general we should be able to figure out where to draw the line. That, or we should stop being so arrogantly confident that we know where the line is and so quick to decide people have crossed it and made themselves worthy of condemnation.

Obviously that's difficult to answer, and highly subjective. One would think that something like state-sanctioned genocide, at least, would tend towards "shameful to tolerate". Fortunately, we're not quite there yet.

But that's really not the point. The point is that framing the situation as one where Americans are just too cowardly to speak out about this is not even accurate. The reality is that most Americans either don't care or outright approve of the US internment programs.

And of course, many among the minority of Americans who do care, and don't approve are speaking out in whatever way they can, i.e. via blogs, twitter, campaigning, etc. (They are mostly pissing into the wind, unfortunately - but they're not cowards.)

The relatively small percentage of "cowardly" Americans I guess are those like me, who don't approve and also don't do shit about it. But you know I got bills to pay, or whatever... grumble grumble.

[Flagg]

Either way, it was met with considerable ire that even Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid spoke against it.

Oh I remember. It was fucking ridiculous and still is.

[Channel72]

Okay, that joke is out of the way but it is illustrative of the general issue. I don't have any problem with legitimate grievances against the U.S. because god knows there are plenty to be had; the problem I have is that these legitimate grievances are conflated with generic insults against the U.S. and then by inference against Americans as a whole.

Who cares. Unlike Marty McFly, you really don't need to go totally apeshit when some anonymous guy calls you a coward due to shit your government does that you have zero control over.

[Simon_Jester]

You can read the next sentences after it.

Ah. Sorry, I had thought the first sentence conveyed a meaning separate from the ones after it, or was making a specific logical true/false claim about something I said. So when I couldn't parse it as a matter of grammar, I asked for clarification.

No worries, now your meaning is clear.

Yes I would be fine with it, because it was not normal church going Christians who bombed the abortion clinics, but those who took it to the extreme. Just as those who committed the acts during 9/11. You are still blaming the group as a whole on the part of the few.

Uh, who is 'you?'

More generally, okay, great! You're being consistent! Good!

If radical fundamentalist Christians launch a terrorist attack that kills three thousand people, and then other Christians come along and propose to replace one of the buildings damaged in the attack with a thirteen-story megachurch and community center, and people oppose this by calling it 'insensitive' or saying that it will overshadow the memorial(s) at Ground Zero for the attack...

You would call those opponents of the megachurch anti-Christian and, presumably, cowardly.

Just as when radical fundamentalist Muslims launch a terrorist attack that kills three thousand people, and then other Muslims come along and propose to replace one of the buildings damaged in the attack with a thirteen-story mosque and community center, and people oppose this by calling it 'insensitive' or saying that it will overshadow the memorial(s) at Ground Zero for the attack...

You would call those opponents of the megachurch anti-Muslim and, it appears, cowardly.

As long as you are consistent, I don't have a problem with this.

My problem is that, in a hypothetical parallel universe where Christian fundies had launched a mass-casualty terrorist attack, I can't shake the feeling that in the parallel universe, there'd be this horrified N&P thread about malevolent Christians wanting to wave their religion in front of everyone by building this 150-foot megachurch within 600 feet of the site of the terrorist attacks. YOU, of course, would be calling people out in this thread for being biased and anti-Christian and cowardly, which is good.

While my own opinion is that the mosque should have been allowed to be completed on the site, I must point out that it was not a mosque "in lower Manhattan;" it was "six hundred feet from the site of the World Trade Center." And that the mosque in question was to be a thirteen story building.

Out of curiosity, how would you feel about building a thirteen story megachurch 600 feet from the site of an abortion clinic bombing? What if the bombing had somehow* managed to kill three thousand people?

If survivors of the families of the victims of the bombing start to call in and claim that the construction of the megachurch is "insensitive," I assume you would call them cowardly and anti-Christian, yes? Because I'm quite sure you are a consistent person.
_____________________

*Implausible in itself, but try to imagine it...

Umm, are you saying that because the people in question have been traumatized their bigotry is legitimized somehow?

No, I'm saying that you should treat one group of traumatized bigots the same as any other group of traumatized bigots. If you would treat traumatized people who are bigoted against Christians the same way you treat the same way you'd treat traumatized people who are bigoted against Muslims, at least you're being fair and consistent.

If people are turned against an entire religion by a terrorist attack, and start trying to block that religion from creating places of worship near the site of the terrorist attack, either that is never wrong or always wrong.

I'm just glad that you assure me (or would assure me, presumably) that you think it is always wrong, and that no amount of narrative framing could persuade you to become an opponent of the hypothetical Ground Zero Megachurch. Which would be built near the site of a mass casualty terrorist attack caused when an abortion clinic bombing 'got out of hand' or whatever.

It's good to know you wouldn't be agreeing with the opponents of building that giant church.

Anyway it wasn't a Mosque, it was a community center providing a myriad of different activities, that had a Mosque in it. Just like how the WTC had a Mosque in it.

Does this matter? Don't the Muslims of New York have a right to put up a thirteen-story mosque within 600 feet of Ground Zero? I think they do. The fact that it's actually, say, ten stories of community center on top of three stories of mosque or whatever is irrelevant.

Okay, that joke is out of the way but it is illustrative of the general issue. I don't have any problem with legitimate grievances against the U.S. because god knows there are plenty to be had; the problem I have is that these legitimate grievances are conflated with generic insults against the U.S. and then by inference against Americans as a whole.

Who cares. Unlike Marty McFly, you really don't need to go totally apeshit when some anonymous guy calls you a coward due to shit your government does that you have zero control over.

On the other hand, I also don't have to like it or accept it or meekly submit to being insulted over it.

[Soontir C'boath]

I am not entirely sure what your position is. If for example the IRA and their Catholic leanings bombed some place and then a Protestant group of people want to build a church nearby a decade later, should it actually be an issue and they should still be treated as one entity?

[Soontir C'boath]

If you are trying to make a similarity between the actions of a few in 9/11 and the political climate Edi, Channel, and I have pointed out, it would not work. Those who committed the actions during 9/11 did not speak for all Muslims around the world, however we do speak for our country as a people that hold the power in electing our officials and have exercised that by keeping them in office.

[Flagg]

If you are trying to make a similarity between the actions of a few in 9/11 and the political climate Edi, Channel, and I have pointed out, it would not work. Those who committed the actions during 9/11 did not speak for all Muslims around the world, however we do speak for our country as a people that hold the power in electing our officials and have exercised that by keeping them in office.

But Christian Megachurch! Blah Blah Blah "I'm Simple Simon cause my mother fucked the Pieman with an IQ of 42!"

I believe in religious freedom, Simon apparently, does not. Or thinks it's conditional. Or whatever obtuse nonsense he wants to spew out.

The fact is the Muslim Community Center falsely identified as a Mosque by it's ignorant critics will be serving American Muslims for decades after the survivors of 9/11 are long dead, wherever it's built.

[Simon_Jester]

I am not entirely sure what your position is. If for example the IRA and their Catholic leanings bombed some place and then a Protestant group of people want to build a church nearby a decade later, should it actually be an issue and they should still be treated as one entity?

My position is that the group that wished to build the Park 51 mosque had every right to do so, and that the complaints and objections were ill-founded.

However, I am also glad that you are consistent in saying that ANY religious group would be entitled to build a religious center close to a mass casualty terrorist attack committed by their (far more radical and violent) co-religionists.

And, presumably, that you would condemn anyone who opposed the construction of such a center as unworthy and cowardly. Regardless of which religion is building it.

Now, all this is in accordance with what I said in my last post, but I'm happy to clarify my point since you asked in a reasonable and forthright manner.

If you are trying to make a similarity between the actions of a few in 9/11 and the political climate Edi, Channel, and I have pointed out, it would not work. Those who committed the actions during 9/11 did not speak for all Muslims around the world, however we do speak for our country as a people that hold the power in electing our officials and have exercised that by keeping them in office.

But Christian Megachurch! Blah Blah Blah "I'm Simple Simon cause my mother fucked the Pieman with an IQ of 42!"

I believe in religious freedom, Simon apparently, does not. Or thinks it's conditional. Or whatever obtuse nonsense he wants to spew out.

The fact is the Muslim Community Center falsely identified as a Mosque by it's ignorant critics will be serving American Muslims for decades after the survivors of 9/11 are long dead, wherever it's built.

Flagg, on the other hand, is too illiterate to actually read what I say my opinions are, and prefers to fill in the blanks with strawmen.

He has failed the Turing Test, and I have no interest in explaining myself to him further.

If you are trying to make a similarity between the actions of a few in 9/11 and the political climate Edi, Channel, and I have pointed out, it would not work. Those who committed the actions during 9/11 did not speak for all Muslims around the world, however we do speak for our country as a people that hold the power in electing our officials and have exercised that by keeping them in office.

I don't think you understand me.

If you want to talk about the Park 51 mosque, well, I've said my position on that already. There is nothing more to add and I don't see why it would need clarification.

If you want to loop back to the general topic of American political attitudes, fine.

On that subject, again, I reject the idea of full collective responsibility for the actions of elected officials, simply because if we carry that idea to its logical conclusion we end up with repugnant ideas (like the Morgenthau Plan for Germany really being what the German people deserved).

Partial collective responsibility, sure, especially in the sense that a nation is financially liable for the actions of its government, and in practice must accept the direct policy consequences of that government.

But moral responsibility, in the sense of "you deserve to be punished for your leaders' war crimes because you didn't oppose them hard enough" is another matter.

[Soontir C'boath]

But moral responsibility, in the sense of "you deserve to be punished for your leaders' war crimes because you didn't oppose them hard enough" is another matter.

Except as mentioned before, polls have gleaned that a majority of people either agree or are apathetic about the situation of detainment and torture. So how can we only blame the elected when their constituents want it and therefore adhere to their wishes?

[Soontir C'boath]

Can we for example blame Obama for failing to keep his campaign promise to close Guantanamo when the people themselves want it kept opened and has clearly not suffered any political consequences as he has been re-elected?

[AniThyng]

Can we for example blame Obama for failing to keep his campaign promise to close Guantanamo when the people themselves want it kept opened and has clearly not suffered any political consequences as he has been re-elected?

But can you truly tie one single issue to his re-election? So much of representative democracy is about voting for the least objectionable candidate that it in my view makes it difficult to attribute any one singular issue. I can see that one can say that people who do not attend primaries or actively join political campaigns deserve to be called cowards when they have failed to meaningfully do all they can to oppose/support a particular moral issue but then we must now ask ourselves if ending torture is a key issue and why the only countries that regularly censure the US are basically hypocrites. ( China, Russia ) and other western nations pay at best lip service to censoring their ally.