[Spiderman Fanboy] 15 and it shows

[Crazedwraith]

SF, your post quoting me does not address my points in the slightest. Instead it appears to be a copy and paste of an older post. I'm not even going to try to address it until you actually respond to my points.

Oh and the evidence Stark's 'this is a chatbot' theory continues to gain weight.

[Stark]

Guys, because the Empire was evil but also included things like bus stops and sewage systems, it's not ALL bad. Indeed on balance it might be more good than bad! That's how it works, right?

I mean bad governments never provide essential services or have any practical or successful policies. They must be entirely evil top to bottom, or they wouldn't be evil. Having defined evil thus, the empire was not evil.

I love intense debates! Lets discuss this argument.

[Batman]

I'm sorry, did this sorry excuse for a person (assuming he/she/it even is one, though I think his/her/its responses are a little too complex for a spambot) just argue that Star Wars isn't about good vs evil?

[Spiderman Fanboy]

SF, your post quoting me does not address my points in the slightest. Instead it appears to be a copy and paste of an older post. I'm not even going to try to address it until you actually respond to my points.

Oh and the evidence Stark's 'this is a chatbot' theory continues to gain weight.

OK, fine, I'll reply to your points. But just pick the points that you want me to respond to and I'll do just that.

[Stark]

You mean like when I challenged you to defend a single argument made in your huge cut and paste job?

[Batman]

I'll go off on a limb and assume that since he raised all of them, he wants you to respond to all of them?

[Spiderman Fanboy]

You mean like when I challenged you to defend a single argument made in your huge cut and paste job?

Because the cutting and pasting helped me to support my opinion. I didn't feel like taking the time to write it and put it into words. What I meant, was this. The Empire had a lot of public support, as evident by the cherring crowds in ROTS. They were willing to have their democracy and their political freedoms taken away to get rid of the corrupt Old Republic. Democracy shouldnt be forced upon people. Just like how many liberals argue that the war in Iraq was an unjust war.

[Stark]

I thought you loved debates? How can you debate if you 'don't feel' like putting an argument into your own words?

It's because you can't, isn't it? I'm sorry.

Edit - oh shit I got suckered by the chatbot again! This is pretty sophisticated in that it can repeat and rephrase things so well, but it can't follow context so nothing it says makes any sense with respect to what it's replying to.

[Connor MacLeod]

You know when someone engages in a pages long debate and then says 'I can't be bothered to write something cuz its too much and would take too long' I get the impression the real reason is 'I can't be bothered to do more than make broad, simple generalizations I can keep repeating over and over again, rather than one single, detailed, coherent argument.' In other words its just outright laziness.

[Spiderman Fanboy]

I thought you loved debates? How can you debate if you 'don't feel' like putting an argument into your own words?

It's because you can't, isn't it? I'm sorry.

Edit - oh shit I got suckered by the chatbot again! This is pretty sophisticated in that it can repeat and rephrase things so well, but it can't follow context so nothing it says makes any sense with respect to what it's replying to.

Now, can you please and politley respond to my previous post. I'm not a chatbot/a spambot, despite that being one of my former twitter usernames. Many times, people don't want democracy, and they're willing to give up their rights and freedoms. Democracy shouldnt be forced upon them. I don't need to discuss George w. bush and the war in iraq again, do I???

MAYBE!!!

[DaveJB]

Just to address the whole "The Empire only committed atrocities because those mean ol' Rebels forced them to" argument, the first major atrocity committed under Palpatine's watch was the destruction of all life on Caamas, a planet with a population almost as big as Alderaan's. And that took place only about six months after Revenge of the Sith, and was not provoked in any way whatsoever. As for the founding of the Rebel Alliance? That happened a year later, right after the slight matter of Tarkin landing his spaceship on a couple of thousand protesters.

[Stark]

No, fuck off. You are flat out ignoring everything everyone is saying in order to repost nonsense from somewhere else and then claim you can't be bothered actually stating any of it in your own words. When challenged you refuse to even discuss a single point of a multi-page argument. You constantly insist people respond to your 'previous post' like you're on a talk show.

So no, I'm not going to engage you on a point that is only tangential to the argument you've made that is stupid. I want you to engage with your own points which support this argument and demonstrate you actually understand them or that they make any fucking sense, and stop moving the goalposts and insisting people only respond to your 'previous' post while not responding to any of anyone's posts.

Man, I feel stupid for even writing this. Odds on me being quoted and his reply including the phrase 'respond to my previous post'?

EDIT - Dave, what does the EU say about the point at which the 'rebel alliance' became military or started terrorist operations? How long was it just a bunch of protesting students and opposition politicians?

[Crazedwraith]

SF, your post quoting me does not address my points in the slightest. Instead it appears to be a copy and paste of an older post. I'm not even going to try to address it until you actually respond to my points.

Oh and the evidence Stark's 'this is a chatbot' theory continues to gain weight.

OK, fine, I'll reply to your points. But just pick the points that you want me to respond to and I'll do just that.

Do I need to just quote my last post for you again?

Ok, Put Simply:

1)You admit that the Imperial Government commits atrocities against its own people. How then can it be called a good government?

2) You claim that the Imperial Government had popular support through out its populace. However in Return of The Jedi we see wide spread celebration at the death of the Emperor and thus the end of Imperial Government, so this statement would not seem to be correct. What evidence do you have to claim wide spread pro-imperial sentiment? (bearing in mind, the Rebel's limited resources does not prove this. As in Luke's words. we know many people not actively seeking the Empire's destruction still hate it)

Please answer concisely and in your own words.

[Spiderman Fanboy]

Just to address the whole "The Empire only committed atrocities because those mean ol' Rebels forced them to" argument, the first major atrocity committed under Palpatine's watch was the destruction of all life on Caamas, a planet with a population almost as big as Alderaan's. And that took place only about six months after Revenge of the Sith, and was not provoked in any way whatsoever. As for the founding of the Rebel Alliance? That happened a year later, right after the slight matter of Tarkin landing his spaceship on a couple of thousand protesters.

The deaths of alderaan and owen and beru lars never would have happened if there was no rebellion.

As for Alderaan's destruction, maybe, maybe not.

The founding of the rebel alliance happened a few years before a new hope. Not a year and a half after ROTS.

The Caamasi were pro republic people. Now, even though the Caamasi may have been law abiding citizens, Palpatine killed them all just for having an opinion against the empire. Did the Caamasi obey the Empire or not? If not, Palpatine was just a super paranoid Stalinistic leader.

[lPeregrine]

(bearing in mind, the Rebel's limited resources does not prove this. As in Luke's words. we know many people not actively seeking the Empire's destruction still hate it)

And let's not forget the tiny little detail of the Empire's habit of massacring anyone who might be possibly be connected with the rebellion (or just complaining too much about the Empire's decisions). It's not really that hard to figure out how fear of having your family murdered might keep most people from openly supporting the rebellion.

[lPeregrine]

The deaths of alderaan and owen and beru lars never would have happened if there was no rebellion.

But officer, I had to beat her to death, she wouldn't respect my authority!

And even if this one particular murder wouldn't have happened the Empire had a clear policy of murdering anyone who might possibly not have 100% loyalty and obedience.

[Connor MacLeod]

The rebels became an actual coherent faction (the Alliance to Restore the Republic) with the signing of the Corellian treaty, IIRC. Before that you just had a bunch of separate factions of varying sizes who acted in different ways (some were peaceful, some were militant, and some were outright terrorist.) and after you had the Alliance formalizing shit (ruling out certain kinds of activity, although the limited control and communications they had meant they could not completely eliminate the terrorist aspects IIRC.)

Mind you, the idea that the 'Rebels' would justify any sort of Death Star scale atrocities (nevermind BDZ) is pretty absurd, given that I am hard pressed to remember the Alliance actually executing any genocide/planet kililng events themselves. Maybe individual factions within it did, but the Alliance itself would not condone such an action. Especially after Alderaan, as it gave them immense moral authority.

Cue argument over Endor now.

[Stark]

Repeating shit he said on page 1 doesn't count as actually defending an argument. Does he understand how a debate works? Does he think repeating 'xyz would never have happened without the rebellion daring to take a stand against violence, racism and oppression' is an argument?

[Spiderman Fanboy]

SF, your post quoting me does not address my points in the slightest. Instead it appears to be a copy and paste of an older post. I'm not even going to try to address it until you actually respond to my points.

Oh and the evidence Stark's 'this is a chatbot' theory continues to gain weight.

OK, fine, I'll reply to your points. But just pick the points that you want me to respond to and I'll do just that.

Do I need to just quote my last post for you again?

Ok, Put Simply:

1)You admit that the Imperial Government commits atrocities against its own people. How then can it be called a good government?

2) You claim that the Imperial Government had popular support through out its populace. However in Return of The Jedi we see wide spread celebration at the death of the Emperor and thus the end of Imperial Government, so this statement would not seem to be correct. What evidence do you have to claim wide spread pro-imperial sentiment? (bearing in mind, the Rebel's limited resources does not prove this. As in Luke's words. we know many people not actively seeking the Empire's destruction still hate it)

Please answer concisely and in your own words.

1-Even the US government has commited many atrocities throughout its history. Every government has done some. I'm not justyfying the Imperial atrocities at all. I'm not even justfying any American atrocities or Allied atrocities during WW2. Just because a nation commits some atrocities, that doesn't make them evil overall. Not nessecarily.

2- At the end of ROTJ, the population of Coruscant, the Imperial population, was cheering, and they tore down the Emperor's statue. How do you know that some of them weren't just happy that the war was over, or maybe some of those guys were just rebels cheering too? Maybe only a fraction of them were sincerely happy that the Empire was gone.

Either way, what reason would Coruscant's citizens have to hate the Empire? High taxes? Lolz! Space Obama! Vote Palpatine in 3012!!!!

[Connor MacLeod]

Repeating shit he said on page 1 doesn't count as actually defending an argument. Does he understand how a debate works? Does he think repeating 'xyz would never have happened without the rebellion daring to take a stand against violence, racism and oppression' is an argument?

Engaging in a debate would actually rquire him posting a coherent argument and actually finding proof (rather than opinions) to back up his claims. But asking that would be asking too much of his time. As opposed to demanding people disprove his speculation.

Funny enough, his definition of 'politeness', which encompasses people using bad language against him, does not apparently include wasting other people's time or forcing them to do more work than he does. Totally not a double standard, right?

[DaveJB]

The deaths of alderaan and owen and beru lars never would have happened if there was no rebellion.

Or, you know, they could have just imprisoned them until they were sure they had no connection to the Rebels. It would be a gross violation of their rights, admittedly, but it wouldn't be an atrocity. And you ignored the point that none of them had committed any crime.

As for Alderaan's destruction, maybe, maybe not.

Some heavily populated planet would have been destroyed sooner or later, just so that the Empire could prove it had the capability and willingness to destroy such worlds. And considering Bail Organa had been a vocal critic of Palpatine from early on, I wouldn't rate Alderaan's survival chances.

The Caamasi were pro republic people. Now, even though the Caamasi may have been law abiding citizens, Palpatine killed them all just for having an opinion against the empire. Did the Caamasi obey the Empire or not? If not, Palpatine was just a super paranoid Stalinistic leader.

Even if they did disobey the Empire, how does that justify genocide?

[Batman]

Is this guy for real? Yeah, I mean why would a populace cheer over the takedown of a mass-murdering to the extent of blowing up entire planets just to make a point ruthless tyrant? Yeah, I think that qualifies as a reason to hate the Empire, even if the planet blown up was not yours.

[Crazedwraith]

1-Even the US government has commited many atrocities throughout its history. Every government has done some. I'm not justyfying the Imperial atrocities at all. I'm not even justfying any American atrocities or Allied atrocities during WW2. Just because a nation commits some atrocities, that doesn't make them evil overall. Not nessecarily.

Why are you assuming I hold the US up a paragon of good?

While in principle yes, atrocities can be committed without a nation being evil overall. They generally have to be committed with some justification for it being in the greater good. Such as WWII strategic bombing. And the government also has to have some good points to counteract the fact it commit atrocities. At no point in any of films are any good points of the empire brought to light. We seem them going from trampling over people's rights, to murder without trial, to mass murder in the first film and then more trampling all over people's rights in the second (Lando) and then building more weapons for mass murder in the third film again. Never do we see any good points the empire has.

2- At the end of ROTJ, the population of Coruscant, the Imperial population, was cheering, and they tore down the Emperor's statue. How do you know that some of them weren't just happy that the war was over, or maybe some of those guys were just rebels cheering too? Maybe only a fraction of them were sincerely happy that the Empire was gone.

More than just Coruscant. We see Tatooine, Bespin and even Naboo as well in most recent versions. The clear implication of the scene is of general rejoicing across the galaxy.

Either way, what reason would Coruscant's citizens have to hate the Empire? High taxes? Lolz! Space Obama! Vote Palpatine in 3012!!!!

The aforementioned trampling over rights, execution for disloyalty real or imagined and the real possibility of their planet being blown ti bits. Take your pick.

[Stark]

1-Even the US government has commited many atrocities throughout its history. Every government has done some. I'm not justyfying the Imperial atrocities at all. I'm not even justfying any American atrocities or Allied atrocities during WW2. Just because a nation commits some atrocities, that doesn't make them evil overall. Not nessecarily.

Do you think this means anything? Specifically, do you think saying 'A does not always mean B' is groundshaking? Relevant? Do you think it supports your argument?

To help you, in order to make this statement meaningful you should explain how A does not mean B IN THIS INSTANCE. Your other examples are totally irrelevant.... unless your actual intent is to trick people into throwing out all of the Empire's evil acts as evidence toward the conclusion that the Empire might be evil for doing them.

[DaveJB]

Okay, let's flip this argument on its head. Spiderman Fanboy, why do you think the Empire is good? I mean, if they're doing something that outweighs the destruction of entire planets and the mass-murder of dissenters, perhaps you'd like to explain it to us?