Article. The west's blurred vision

[EmperorChrostas the Cruel]

you two, Dahak, and Edi, fail to grasp, is not that I think it is right to settle all disputes with force, but that it merely IS done this way on EARTH.

People get together, in a village, and form a milita, to protect themselves from outsiders, and insiders. The dedicated fighters, are usualy better at mayhem and killing than the amatures. The whole village is fighting, even if the combat is only done by the wariors.

My point.
When a large group of people get together, to form this group, they are combining their individual brute forces, to form one giant brute force, to use brute force, to protect these very same people FROM brute force.?

You also COMPLETELY ignoring my point about contracts, and agreements being WORTHLESS with no mechanism for enFORCEment.

Note to the thick, sometimes that which enFORCEs the contract is the HONOR (or moral code, world view, empathy whatever)) of the signators. Honorable people can't live with themselves, when they cheat, lie, steal, and murder.
For those who have no honor, brute force is THE ONLY way to deal with them. THAT'S what I am saying.

No honor,use force.

[Colonel Olrik]

you two, Dahak, and Edi, fail to grasp, is not that I think it is right to settle all disputes with force, but that it merely IS done this way on EARTH.

People get together, in a village, and form a milita, to protect themselves from outsiders, and insiders. The dedicated fighters, are usualy better at mayhem and killing than the amatures. The whole village is fighting, even if the combat is only done by the wariors.

I've lived in a village, I live in a big city. Nowhere I say any sign of army or militia, or combats made by warriors. Are you sure you're in the right century, or not in a remote location in Africa?

BTW, I don't lock my door at night.

My point.
When a large group of people get together, to form this group, they are combining their individual brute forces, to form one giant brute force, to use brute force, to protect these very same people FROM brute force.?

You also COMPLETELY ignoring my point about contracts, and agreements being WORTHLESS with no mechanism for enFORCEment.

Your word games with "enforcement" make you sound really witty. Unfortunately, there's no translation of that word into portuguese, so the joke is not an universal "truth". In a direct translation, we say "imposing".

Note to the thick, sometimes that which enFORCEs the contract is the HONOR (or moral code, world view, empathy whatever)) of the signators. Honorable people can't live with themselves, when they cheat, lie, steal, and murder.
For those who have no honor, brute force is THE ONLY way to deal with them. THAT'S what I am saying.

No honor,use force.

Or call the police and have the fucker arrested, without permanently damaging him. Then sue his ass.

You fail to understand that we are strong enough to not fear invasions, or any one messing with us. We are also rich enough, and have enough resources, to not care with having the means to impose our will in the other side of the world.

[Darth Wong]

This is the classic ideological clash between civilization and savagery. The militarist believes that society is irredeemably savage, and that savagery can only be met with even greater savagery, so that you come out on top. The idealist believes that society can achieve a state of enlightened humanism, so that disputes are settled through social constructs such as law and diplomacy rather than naked force. Both have good points to make, and both think the other is stupid.

The militarist believes that idealists are ignorant, tree-hugging morons who deserve to die and WOULD die except for the noble militarists who keep them safe and protect them in this evil world: protection for which they should be forever grateful but aren't, thus making them stupid ingrates. As proof, the militarist uses widespread examples of savagery in the world.

The idealist believes that the militarist is a hopelessly immoral person who callously regards human life as variables in the equation of "realpolitik" and who, if left unchecked, would reduce the world on both a small scale and international scale to a festering cesspool of simmering hatreds, paranoias, and uneasy standoffs. Indeed, as far as the idealist can tell, the militarist thinks such a situation would be IDEAL, because most of the militarist's dialogue revolves around concepts like "deterrent" and "suppression". The idealist claims out that militarism can be used as a last-resort defensive measure, and should NOT be used to replace diplomacy, which is what he perceives the militarist to be doing. Hence, he perceives the militarist as a savage, intent on regressing human society to the status of animals in which the strongest survive and the weak are destroyed.

[EmperorChrostas the Cruel]

Well said, Lord Wong!

Laws, treaties, courts, are all necesarry adjucts to the army and police.
BUT, there will always be armies and police BEFORE courts, laws, and treaties. They are a prerquisite of civil society. However, they, (Laws,ect...) ARE needed to keep everything from devolving into kingdoms, or gangster-anarchy.
Call them police, army, militia, constables, proctors, whatever, they still do the same thing.
To the extent of which they become UNUSED, is the measure of civility.

I sometimes let this slide by, as the notion that brute force isn't ever needed, (but NOT desired) strikes we as ludicrous. On a personal note, I have MANY friends in the US army. I feel it in my guts, that at least one of my buddies is going to buy it this time. Would that I, could take their place.

Just ask Perinquus, does he LIKE that his job is needed?(Policeman)

One point you failed to mention, of us warriors, (the best of us that is, I know people that LIKE killing people ) is that we DON'T want to HAVE to do our job. We long for the day when we are NOT needed, in the real world.(Not fantasy land)

Do you know just how much WASTED time and money goes into being on "hot standby" mode? Of couse you do. We spent the money on the cold war, that should have finaced space staions, and moonbase Alpha.

[Arthur_Tuxedo]

The West's blurred vision

Paul Kelly
March 08, 2003

[snip]Enter Iraq.

What is the Chirac-Schroder objective? They have split the alliance, alienated Bush and threatened the utility of the UN to save Saddam Hussein and let him keep his weapons. Where is the logic? It lies in their assertion of a European moral and strategic position. They have the ability to discredit the US attack, provoke global protests against Bush, increase their own popularity and even destroy pro-Bush leaders such as Blair.

Yet there is a bigger message at the heart of their aims: they will have denied moral legitimacy to the US attack – and this act of pre-emption desperately needs such legitimacy. They will have shown the US that Europe's soft power of rules and process and regulations is a weapon against the US's hard power, a more potent weapon that Kagan grasps.

They will also send a strategic message. Within the Harries framework it is that Europe no longer feels threatened. The US may be at war after September 11, but Europe is not. And because Europe feels no threat, it has far less strategic need to maintain the Western alliance when the US adopts a new brand of military assertion.

[snip]

I find it rather funny that this guy attributes anti-US, anti-war and anti-Bush opinion to some EU political conspiracy rather than the more obvious hypothesis: That Bush is a fucking bumbling arrogant idiot fundie asshole and people hate him and what he's doing on his own merits.

[Edi]

Chrostas, did you fail to notice that I was actually agreeing with most of your points and disagreeing only with some details? I never denied that having the capacity to use force is necessary, but I also said that it is not always necessary to use force to solve a dispute.

The world, or at least those parts of the world we live in, are not as savage as you paint it to be, so we can afford (to try) to take a more civilized approach before using brute force, while some other people elsewhere perhaps can't. Looking for a less violent solution first does not make us by default more gullible and certainly does not mean that we will refrain from using force and harshly if pushed. I am one of these types myself, I'll try the soft approach first, and if I get shoved around in response, all the stops come off. I'm reluctant to use force, but when I do use it, I do so with utter ruthlessness.

Edi