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Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
Of course I am. In law school we called them "hypotheticals." Like your ticking-time bomb situation.
Look, I no longer care about this question you're ducking here. My point was that you like to ascribe the worst motives to people who disagree with you, and you have helped me make it.
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Don’t you agree that hypotheticals only are relevant to certain discussions?
You said that I lacked values when I said that sometimes it was moral to torture someone. In other words, a person that says torture is moral in any circumstance lacks values. That is an absolute. When you use an absolute that makes hypotheticals (even impractical or rare hypotheticals) appropriate to test that absolute. If you use the terms the majority or most, then extreme hypotheticals are not appropriate. You were not reserving your sweeping absolute for only practical situations. So to see if you really meant what you said, I asked you if it was moral for someone to torture someone in the ticking time bomb situation, because you had used a sweeping absolute. If you really meant what you said, then you should have immediately said torture is immoral in that situation.
In the current situation, you asked how I can tell what someone’s motives are when they say we should pull out. I pointed out what I thought was painfully obvious in that we are talking about pundits and politicians here, and generally pundits and politicians give the reasoning behind their stances. In addition, they talk a lot (as that is there job) and so you can also determine their motivations from other things they have said. You asked what if two politicians or pundits said exactly the same thing, how you would know the difference in their motivations. Although I said the chances of that of happening are almost impossible (making your hypothetical not relevant as we were talking about real world situations and not absolutes) I STILL ANSWERED IT. I said that if two people said the same thing and they did not explain their reasoning, then you could not know what their motives are. So even though I did not think your extreme hypothetical was not relevant to the situation (as we were not discussing absolutes), I STILL ANSWERED IT.
How can you possibly interpret my response as ducking the question?
I showed you the courtesy of answering your question, something you have continually refused to do with my question about morality in the ticking time bomb case.
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Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
I can't believe you don't follow this:- "I think that if you find yourself in a situation in which you are convinced that you should use torture to avert a greater harm, you should do so, and then confess to the torture and turn yourself in to the authorities."
Maybe the emphasis will help.
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You can’t believe that I don’t follow this?!?!? Either you are unbelievably stupid or a total Jerk. You are basically saying “asked and answered” here. I asked whether or not torturing the terrorist in this case is MORAL. Not whether it was the lesser of two evils or whether one should or should not do it. Can you really not see the difference? How can you possibly argue that the above statement is an answer to the question of whether it is MORAL? Do you remember the discussion about IMMORAL IMPERATIVES? Taxwonk and Sam both argued that there was such a thing as an immoral imperative. You did not disagree with them. So if it is even remotely possible that there is such a thing as an immoral imperative, then how could your response be considered an answer to the question? Can’t you see that? Maybe this answer wouldn’t be so painfully stupid (but still pretty stupid), if we hadn’t already discussed moral imperatives, but we did.
Quote:
Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
I don't take Dennis Kucinich or Cindy Sheehan seriously. I'm surprised to hear that you do.
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I don’t. What in my post do you think indicates that I do? Again, you are not paying attention to what you are saying. You said: “What I didn't think I needed to say -- but I see that this omission confused you, and for that I apologize -- is that because EVERYONE agrees that success is important”. Please pay special attention to the word “everyone”. You thought that is was so obvious that ALL pundits and politicians consider it important that we succeed that you didn’t even think you needed to say it. You did not limit it to serious people (whatever that means) or people I take seriously.
A point you don’t seem to get, is that if you make a sweeping statement (an absolute) one exception shows that your statement is fallacious. You said that anyone who argues that torture is ever moral lacks values. Agreeing that the ticking time bomb situation presents a MORAL imperative either refutes your assertion or demonstrates that you lack values by your own definition. In this case you said “everyone”. You did not make any exceptions. And even though I could have thrown out anyone to refute your assertion, I threw out a member of congress that is running for president of the United States. If you throw out the terms most or majority then one exception does not dispute the underlying claim, but that is not what you did in this case.
Can you see that?
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Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
I'm not familiar with Charles Rangel's position. That said, I doubt very much that they think that our Iraq policy is unimportant.
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You have no respect for language, and that is what makes discussing things with you so difficult and often pointless. The point is NOT whether they think the Iraq policy is important or unimportant; the point is whether or not they appreciate how important is that we succeed. There is a massive difference there. Can’t you see it?
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Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
Setting aside a few folks on the fringe, just about everyone thinks that Iraq policy is important. Which is why it's so irritating when conservatives go on and on and on about how important it is, as if many people disagree, in order to avoid a discussion of how to get the best outcome.
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Please seem comments below.
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Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
Cite, please. And Caldicott is a foreigner -- stick to Americans.
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Among other things, she said it directly to my face two weeks ago. Unfortunately for me, because of certain relationships in my family, I am forced to spend some time with the idiot. Any time is too much time. But if you agree with me that Dr. Caldecott is a complete moron, and no one should ever listen to anything she has to say, I will agree that what she says in context here has absolutely no relevance. In other words, when you use the term “everyone” I will assume you mean people with an IQ above four, and she clearly does not fall in that category.
Quote:
Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
The problem here is the definition of "success." Staying in Iraq is counter-productive in all sorts of ways -- e.g., the drain on our military and the harm to our international standing hurt us in the larger war on terror. But he and many others also think that our open-ended commitment to stay gives the Iraqi government a crutch, and prevents it from getting its act together.
When you kick the crutch away, do they stand up, or do they fall? That's the question.
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The problem here is not the definition of success, that “problem’ was dealt with; the problem is your inability to follow a logical train of thought. It was obvious to me earlier (but unfortunately not for you) that we needed an agreed upon definition of success or the subsequent discussion would be pointless. I made clear that I thought that success in Iraq means leaving a stable democracy in Iraq. To reiterate what I already said, leaving a stable democracy in Iraq would be an almost priceless accomplishment for the people of Iraq, the people of the United States and the people of the Middle East. As I said, before, accomplishing that goal would be worth spending ten times the lives and money we have already put into the operation. We discussed Iran in relation to this, but in the end my definition was left as the definition. If that was not the case, and the definition of success was undefined, entering into the subsequent discussion was pointless. That is why I went to such great pains to establish the definition. I assumed you understood this; I won’t make such an assumption again. If you remember what I said, that if there was any chance of success in Iraq and our continued presence there would make it more likely than not that we would succeed, there is no question we should stay.
Under the definition of success we are using, you claimed everyone (and that includes Murtha) wants us to succeed. Clearly under the definition we were using that is wrong. You are now realizing this, so now you want to put into question the definition of success.
The only people I think who should be taken seriously are people that agree with that position. When John Murtha talks about the money that we have spent, and live that are lost and says that there is no way this is worth it, he makes it clear he does appreciate the value of success (as I just defined it) and the cost of losing.
