Patting the wrists, rolling the eyes.

[Spanky]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
So I guess the invasion of Iraq did spur Arab democracy movements.

So we now have changed from - it is absurd, naive and ridiculous to think that Democracy is spreading in the middle east. Now that argument has changed to yes- there is a Arab spring - but the elections in Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine had nothing to do with it.

[taxwonk]

Originally posted by Bad_Rich_Chic
My question was less about subject matter and more about representational style. The the face of the Virgin (or Jesus, or Elvis) on a cheese sandwich is rarely realistic in a traditional sense, and, perhaps, people were not predisposed to see such things until the impressionists introduced their visual vocabulary into general public awareness.

Sort of a "no one had Freudian dreams until they started reading Freud" thing.

eta I'll stop now, I promise.

When you get all cultural and semiotic on me like this, it makes me so want to do you.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Spanky
So we now have changed from - it is absurd, naive and ridiculous to think that Democracy is spreading in the middle east. Now that argument has changed to yes- there is a Arab spring - but the elections in Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine had nothing to do with it.

It's still unclear to me that democracy is "spreading" in the Middle East any more than it has been for a while. If you've never looked in the barn, and then you look and there are cows there, one possible explanation is that the cows just arrived in the barn. Another is that they were there all along, and you never noticed.

[bilmore]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
It's still unclear to me that democracy is "spreading" in the Middle East any more than it has been for a while. If you've never looked in the barn, and then you look and there are cows there, one possible explanation is that the cows just arrived in the barn. Another is that they were there all along, and you never noticed.

Interesting progression:

1. The war will not bring elections.
2. The elections will be a farce.
3. The war and the elections will have no effect on anyone else.
4. Everyone else was already democratic. (Or, they had cows. I'm not sure which.)

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by bilmore
Interesting progression:

1. The war will not bring elections.
2. The elections will be a farce.
3. The war and the elections will have no effect on anyone else.
4. Everyone else was already democratic. (Or, they had cows. I'm not sure which.)

Who said "the war will not bring elections"? Who said they'd be a farce? Establishing a democracy takes a lot more than holding some elections. Back when Clinton was President, Republicans intuitively got this, but they've suspended their disbelief for the last few years.

The CSM article I quoted suggests that the war has had an effect on others. Just not quite the one we'd like. Republicans can ignore the way we prop up dictators across the Middle East, but -- oddly enough -- some Arabs notice it. And it turns out that the model of installing a democracy by having the United States invade and capture your dictator and then hold elections for you is not as readily transferable to other countries -- how odd.

"Everyone else was already democratic." Yes, that's about the level of sophistication about the Middle East that lies behind today's conservative thinking.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally posted by Bad_Rich_Chic
My question was less about subject matter and more about representational style. The the face of the Virgin (or Jesus, or Elvis) on a cheese sandwich is rarely realistic in a traditional sense, and, perhaps, people were not predisposed to see such things until the impressionists introduced their visual vocabulary into general public awareness.

Sort of a "no one had Freudian dreams until they started reading Freud" thing.

eta I'll stop now, I promise.

I don't buy this. People were seeing appearances of the Virgin in all sorts of place long before a cheese sandwich. The impressionists were also far from the first non-representational painters (if you can call them that, since their work is still far from abstract). Indeed, it is only as a reaction to fifty years of hyper-realism in the French Academe that the early impressionists make sense as not being themselves a representational school. Many of Monet's brush techniques would have been at home in the Netherlands in the 17th century.


(ETA: Wonk is right, though, I love it when you get Semiotic on us. Better than SI.)

[Replaced_Texan]

Nothing to see, move on...

I hate motherfucking asshole Tom DeLay

Move along, move along. Nothing to see. Keep on scrolling.

[sgtclub]

Originally posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy
I don't understand why you are limiting this to those who were actively seeking to take a life -- it is pretty clear that we have resisted putting in place any kind of process that makes that determination of guilt prior to the act of torture. The torture being done is done based on the military suspicion, and guilt is part of what they are trying to ascertain by torture.

Even if we assume they are guilty of something, do you still see no difference between torture in captivity versus wounding or killing someone in the heat of battle? Can you discern absolutely no difference between the two you see as material to a discussion of morality?

I'm not referring to the situtation in Iraq and elsewhere per say.

Any difference is one of intent, not one of action. That being the case, I think the "good" to come from that intent needs to be factored in the equation. We all may agree that that torture should be prohibited in nearly all cases, but I think that is a different question than the morality of the action.

[sgtclub]

Originally posted by Gattigap
Beyond the other issues of the captive being, you know, captive, unarmed, and in our control, please explain to me why your second category doesn't appear to have the "is actively seeking" requirement.

If this person is defined only by "wanting" to kill me or someone else, I really don't follow your description.

oversight

[sgtclub]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
Relevant to what? I can't figure out what you're defending any more.

The use of force is justified in self-defense. When you have someone in custody, they are not threatening you anymore. Someone else might be, but not them. Rationalizing that it's OK to use force on them in order to forestall a threat posed by someone else is treating them as a member of a group rather than an individual, something that libertarians and conservatives are bothered by, apparently, only when it means that blacks are getting highway construction contracts.

I'm defending the proposition that torture is not always morally wrong.

Force is also justified outside of the self-defence context.

ETA: Nice attempt to try to call me a hypocrit, but your point is laughable.

[bilmore]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
"Everyone else was already democratic." Yes, that's about the level of sophistication about the Middle East that lies behind today's conservative thinking.

It takes guts to say this to me following your little cow homily.

[Sidd Finch]

Originally posted by Spanky
So we now have changed from - it is absurd, naive and ridiculous to think that Democracy is spreading in the middle east. Now that argument has changed to yes- there is a Arab spring - but the elections in Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine had nothing to do with it.

Serious question -- not intended to be a vote on one side or the other of this debate:

Do you think that Palestine would have had elections but for Arafat's death? And if he had died five years ago, would there have been an election to replace him? If not, what?


I will note that, while I certainly supported the war in Afghanistan it's very hard to say that the county is functioning very well as a democracy -- our attention has been drawn elsewhere, among other things -- and a lot harder to say that it's part of the "Arab spring." (Cue Hank to point out "different towels.")

[Shape Shifter]

Originally posted by bilmore
It takes guts to say this to me following your little cow homily.

You have your bees. Let Ty have his cows.

eta: When did you convert?

[ltl/fb]

if you are elected to Congress, do you automatically get a security clearance (not necessarily top secret or super-duper-extra top secret, but a lower-level one)? Or just if you are on a relevant committee? Or can someone be denied a set on a committee or whatever because they didn't clear or pass or whatever it's called?

[Sexual Harassment Panda]

the pope has received last rites.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/europe...pe1/index.html