Random Thoughts (Political Edition)

Sometimes it's difficult to tell trolling and armchairing apart from real idiocy. ;)
 
jetsetter said:
Yes, so? As long as they are not torturing Americans I feel they should have free reign in such matters. War is a nasty business, if instead of killing the CIA feels the need to torture then so be it.
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Um...wow. War IS a nasty business, and well.....

Gonna stay out of this one will the dust all settles down. :p
 
You do realize we have killed thousands in our recent conflicts, right? Is death more or less morally reprehensible than torture?
 
Death in combat is one thing. Combat is about killing the other guy, and it's always been. More to the point, you kill them because they are at that very moment trying to kill you. Or they will kill you if you don't kill them. In moral terms, man on man, it's a matter of self defense.

Torture is a vial way of inflicting pain, physically or psycologicly, to either punish or extract information. Torture is barbaric, it is and should be illegal, and it's wholly unacceptable as a rule.

Would I torture someone if I knew or strongly believed they knew where a nuclear bomb was, and it was about to go off? Probably. But that's one thing, that's on the ground. Officially condoning it will not do, it will not do at all.
 
calvinhobbes said:
Sometimes it's difficult to tell trolling and armchairing apart from real idiocy. ;)
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Why? He can be all at the same time, can't he?

Is there a name for it? And if yes, where do they keep such people?
 
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There is. Neo-conservatism. Quite common.
 
I believe a better name would be "neo-reactionism". But something is missing: The pejorative view on everything un-American needs to be addressed in the term, too.

How about "neo-reactionist chauvinism"? Or in short NRC. Is that abreviation already reserved for something else? Otherwise I'd like to have the copyright :D
 
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Oh the irony. Heck, I think neo-con is ironic.

I suppose he's like James May about the Nurburgring. Only that he does it to get oil.
 
nomix said:
There is. Neo-conservatism. Quite common.
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I adhere to Realpolitik. That alone explains most of my beliefs.

Some of my heroes include Cardinal Richelieu, Otto von Bismarck, Camillo Benso - conte di Cavour, and others. None were perfect men, some were quite brutal, but all were great. They had singular visions and the ability to see them through.
 
You forgot Hitler,.... or is that the one you don't publicly acknowledge?
 
GRtak said:
You forgot Hitler,.... or is that the one you don't publicly acknowledge?
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Really? Sigh. I suggest you read up on the men I listed. Hitler was ultimately a delusional fool. The men I listed were neither.
 
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I'd be interested in why you have listed those men. For example what in particular do you see in Bismarck, that makes him your "hero"? As far as I know, he didn't promote torturing and killing, in contrast to Richelieu.

Also none of those people could be considered fans of democracy. On the contrary. Does that mean, you are actually preferring absolutism over democracy? It certainly seems that way.

Wouldn't that make you... umm... un-American?

By the way: You probably know, that despite Bensos achievements Italy is until today still the most internally divided country in Europe, right? If the Northern Italians could get rid of the south, they wouldn't hesitate for a second.

Those men may have achieved one thing, though: They change the political (and sometimes geographical) landscape of Europe. But the price was high. With the war of 1870/71 and the following humiliation of the French Bismarck lay the ground for WW I and its disastrous outcome, without which WW II never happened in the first place.

Nobody can say for sure, if those men did really achieve something in the development of our world or if they didn't slow down the social, economic and humanistic progress. in the end. I for one tend to think so.

My "personal heroes" are a little bit more contemporary: Willy Brandt, Dalai Lama, Nelson Mandela, Michael Gorbatchov (even though he actually didn't intend to do what he did), because they helped (or are still helping) in making this world actually a better place, than it would have been without them.
 
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Bismark was a master statesman. He unified Germany and reorganized central Europe in what was one of the greatest diplomatic and political achievements in the last two centuries at least. The fact that he has not particularly democratic does not factor into my admiration of him. Richelieu transformed France from a fragmented medieval kingdom into a powerful centralized state, thus setting the stage for the French nation that would eventually emerge. Cavour was the driving force behind the unification of Italy, another masterful statesman who, if he had the resources of Bismark, would be as famous today.
 
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That is all true but also very superficial. But I think we have established, that you have a thing for strong leader persons, who can act freely without the petty control of a parliamant or senate.

You would have loved to live in the Germany of 1933 -- at least until the horror broke out.
 
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Was the horror not incremental? Like a Frog slowly being boiled? In 1933 the water started warming in 1933, but by 1945 the water was boiling.

As imperfect as the currents democratic systems are I would hate a dictator or even a strong man a la Putin.

jetsetter said:
Bismark was a master statesman. He unified Germany and reorganized central Europe in what was one of the greatest diplomatic and political achievements in the last two centuries at least. The fact that he has not particularly democratic does not factor into my admiration of him. Richelieu transformed France from a fragmented medieval kingdom into a powerful centralized state, thus setting the stage for the French nation that would eventually emerge. Cavour was the driving force behind the unification of Italy, another masterful statesman who, if he had the resources of Bismark, would be as famous today.
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Another power hungry despot is Napoleon, nice guy - not.
 
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Well, Hitler reached the peak of his popularity in 1938, so actually the real horror for the Germans didn't start until the war broke out. But the anti-democratic forces, that heaved him into office at the begin of the decade in the first place, had a very similar mindset as jetsetter here.

Only they made the mistake of believing they could control him.
 
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Given that he (Adolph Hitler) was a complete nutter, he was damn clever, burning down the Reichstag, Crystal Nacht and Night of the long knives. These were alll smart moves, plus the personal oath of alegience from the army. ...

He used the forces that thought that they could control him rather than the other way around.
 
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jetsetter said:
I adhere to Realpolitik. That alone explains most of my beliefs.

Some of my heroes include Cardinal Richelieu, Otto von Bismarck, Camillo Benso - conte di Cavour, and others. None were perfect men, some were quite brutal, but all were great. They had singular visions and the ability to see them through.
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I don't adhere to Realpolitik. However, I am a believer in Realpolitik, as part of my own political philosophy. With regards to Bismarck, he's a mixed thing to me. On one side, he managed to unite Germany, no small feat in itself although helped by Napoleon III. But he had something that a lot of modern fans of Realpolitik don't have. A understanding that you had to give and take, and he understood international politics.

There were different approaches to the growing labour movement around the World. In the US, Pinkerton agents shot them. But Otto von did something quite clever. He introduced a lot of social reforms. Which stemmed the revolutionary tendencies in Germany for another 30 years. You see the same with the Liberals in the UK, btw.

The problem with Bismarck was that he didn't view war with any aparant moral. War was not something to be feared. And that mentality stuck, and you saw it in 1914.

MacGuffin said:
Well, Hitler reached the peak of his popularity in 1938, so actually the real horror for the Germans didn't start until the war broke out. But the anti-democratic forces, that heaved him into office at the begin of the decade in the first place, had a very similar mindset as jetsetter here.

Only they made the mistake of believing they could control him.
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Well, I think you're being a little hard there, but there are those who believe the need for a strong man after Willy got rid of Bismarck might have been a factor in making Hitler appealing. But that's a very complex question.
 
Hitler found a scape goat for the loss (I will not use the term defeat because the problem was that the army felt that it had not been defeated) of WWI - Jewish people in general and Bankers in particular.
 
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