The Glade 4.0

Not exactly an argument I expect to hear from anyone right of center. What would you suggest? Limit personal ownership of weapons?

Did the rules of grammar all of a sudden change and we now stop reading a sentence before we reach a period? If so, I'll go back and edit for you.

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The Dude abides.

What he said. What the hell are you doing responding to sentence fragments, and pretending that "controlling citizens" in the sense of "prevent them from forming angry mobs and storing other country's embassies (especially over a movie)" is somehow the same as "control citizens in general for the sake of control"?

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

I understood perfectly what he said, but I responded to the first clause to draw attention the following question: "Where exactly would you draw the line?"

You're blaming the government for not reigning in the populace. Throughout the Arab spring, the lesson seemed to be that the populace IS capable of ousting the leadership of a country. These are govornments that have come to power through what were essentially a popular revolt. Opening fire on what could well be the same people that put them in power could well be the spark that lights another revolution. Its not like either country is terribly stable right now.

So the Governments that came to power on the wings of mob protest is now supposed to stop mob protests? How exactly were they supposed to do it?

Mob protests often turn violent, especially when religion is involved. But without making across the board rules about protests, weapon ownership, etc the barely-stable popular can't take broad preemptive actions to head off protests. They're forced to react AFTER it turns violent.

No, you didn't. You tried for a "gotcha" by altering the nature of the question

You're blaming the government for not reigning in the populace. Throughout the Arab spring, the lesson seemed to be that the populace IS capable of ousting the leadership of a country. These are govornments that have come to power through what were essentially a popular revolt. Opening fire on what could well be the same people that put them in power could well be the spark that lights another revolution. Its not like either country is terribly stable right now. [/quote]

So what? Who said anything about "opening fire"? If the government is so unstable that it can't execute the basic responsibility of maintaining civil order, then it's worthless anyhow, and there's likely to be another revolution. A government that demonstrates its willing to maintain basic order is a lot more likely to survive than one that shirks its responsibility due to fear of igniting another revolution.

That's their problem. Like I said, if they can't or won't, then we can do it for them. They may find that a lot less to their liking.



This is completely silly. No one said they had to prevent protests. What they have to do is stop protestors from storming other country's embassys, ransacking them, and killing their diplomats.

If they can't do that, then for all intents and purposes, the mob is the government, or is acting as one. The only reason we don't simply retaliate as we would if the government itself had attacked the embassy is that the mod isn't coherent; it isn't controlled (as far as we know) by anyone trying to replace the government.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

I say we just leave. No embassy, no support, nothing. Go away and let them take their frustrations out on whomever is within reach (which won't be us). Don't waste another dollar or minute there.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

This. Include Afghanistan, Iraq, Egypt, Syria, and any other place that's overtly hostile to the US.

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Holy shitsnacks!

Kill everyone, burn the whole damn place to the ground, and then walk away; not wasting another dollar or minute there. Shift our domestic policy towards the whole sale extraction of our own ample resources, and flood the market withering arab wealth and power. Failing the economic warfare; invasion, genocide, and colonization. Any resistance from China and we obsolve ourselves of our debt responsibilities to them.

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Ezekiel 23:19-20 

We only weaken ourselves and invite more attacks and lose opportunties to resolve situations without the use of resources as we get into more and more conflicts. Look at China - grabbing resources while spending none on mindless war waging.

Also a minority of people did this act, don't condemn the majority and spend our resources pointlessly or you will turn these people into our enemies as well:
http://imgur.com/a/tlCyI/noscript

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

They won't be our enemies if they are all dead.

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Ezekiel 23:19-20 

The argument that we will make more enemies waging war is stupid. This attack shows why; people are perfectly willing to attack us over being insulted by a movie. It is based on the idiotic presumption that we have an obligation to not make enemies of them, but they have none to avoid making enemies of us.

That said, genocide is a ridiculous solution.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Reports coming out late today indicate this had nothing to do with a movie that certain Islamics found offensive, rather this seems to be attacks on Americans due to the anniversary of 9/11. If that is the case the US needs to place pressure, at the least, on those governments allowing such operations on their soil.

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"If you haven't got anything nice to say about anybody, come sit next to me." - Alice R. Longworth

"Good? Bad? I'm the guy with the gun." - Ash Williams

Well, it's a sliding scale. TheRiov has a point, the more severe your response to such incidents, the more oppressive you force every other world government to become. Very violent responses empower authoritarian, repressive governments because these governments are the most effective in preventing such things from happening.

I know you just said that genocide is ridiculous, but as an extreme example, if we actually implemented Rynar's philosophy, every other government in the world would have to become a police state North Korea would envy as a matter of basic survival. Religiously-motivated killing can happen anywhere. Sure, it's a lot less likely in Western countries, but when one nutcase like Baruch Goldstein can trigger the extermination of your entire population, you can't let anyone have any free will.

How many billions in money we don't have are you willing to force everyone in America to pay for in order to achieve what you personally want done?

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

My druthers...

Pull all of our diplomatic personnel out of Egypt and Libya.
Kick all of their diplomatic personnel out of the US.
Immediately cease and desist any and all foreign aid to Egypt and Libya.

Rinse and repeat for every other country that decides to attack US sovereign soil.

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"Said I never had much use for one, never said I didn't know how to use one!"~ Matthew Quigley

"nothing like a little meow in bed at night" ~ Bruskey

"I gotta float my stick same as you" Hondo Lane

"Fill your hand you son of a *****!"

When attacked on our own soil, cost isn't the primary issue, retaliation and deterence is.

Additionally, I don't advocate this in a vacuum. I also want all other military occupations ended, all foriegn bases closed, and all foriegn aid suspended.

One of the few legitimate roles of government is making war in defense of our own soil. When we are attcked I favor total war and annihilation as our defacto response.

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Ezekiel 23:19-20 

What's your theory of justice for deliberately targeting and killing innocent people as a means of punishing and/or deterring the bad guys? Or is justice not even a consideration for you?

Justice is for crime, not for war. War is about winning quickly, brutally, and decisively such that the outcome acts as a deterent to all other nations and their people who might otherwise consider attacking America.

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Ezekiel 23:19-20 

There has never been a protracted war from which a country has benefited.
Sun Tzu

Colin Powell also believes in this theory.

Whether it's applicable to these attacks? Not so sure.

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

I'm also not sure how that really applies, as you can win quickly and decisively without resorting to exterminating the civilian population. In fact, doing that just drags the war out because you're wasting perfectly good bombs on pointless targets.

Still, you ever wonder why so many people hate America? Maybe it's because a lot of Americans apparently seem to think that all noncitizens are subhuman cockroaches that are free to be exterminated whenever there's profit to be had or a point to be made. It's especially repulsive to me because I probably wouldn't exist if certain people in power had had this philosophy.

I'm not interested in rounding anyone up and gasing them, or putting the population in front of a firing squad, I'm simply stating that burdensome rules of engagement in a hostile war zone are absurd. If it's in your way, and you perceive it to be dangerous, shoot it, and don't take prisoners.


Shut the **** up and take your garbage *** strawman somewhere else. No one here has said anyone is subhuman, or advocated killing anyone for profit or to "make a (generic) point". War is to be reserved for exactly one very specific circumstance: In open retaliation to an invasion or attack on America.

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Ezekiel 23:19-20 

You're the one who brought up genocide, not me. Genocide implies more than eliminating "burdensome rules of engagement in a hostile war zone."



Well, you advocated "making an example" of people who are totally innocent. I'm not sure how you could consider them as anything else but subhuman. as their lives don't seem to matter much. You could make a case for attacking them if their government sponsored such an attack, as they're responsible for their own government, but in this case that didn't happen either.

My issue is that you seem to value "responding appropriately" and "setting an example" over any kind of human cost, as long as that human cost isn't American. This is a bit of a tangent, but tell me something: In 1962 during the Cuban crisis, do you think we should have gone to war with the USSR? Remember that at this point in history their ICBMs were vulnerable and barely functional, they had almost no ability to attack us while we could have utterly destroyed them, and Kennedy knew it. Of course, Europe would have been utterly annihilated by the thousands of weapons they had that could reach Europe. We'd have annihilated China too, as they hadn't split yet. So we can go to war and "win," despite the fact that it would result in literally billions dead, or we can do what Kennedy did, offer a token concession so they can save face and withdraw without resorting to war.

No you don't. Most world governments don't have mobs attacking embassies at all. A government does not need to become terribly repressive in order to maintain civil order, either; it is not in any way related to the severity of response.



No they aren't. These things are least likely to happen in stable, economically successful, free western deomcracies and republics. Authoritarian repressive governments are more likely to produce angry mobs that will direct their anger at an outside opponent. Partly because they're ill-informed, and partly becuase they know a crackdown will be forthcoming from the dictator but probably not from the western country making the offending movie.



More likely, every other country in the world would go running to China, Russia, France, and the UK for protection, and those 4 would think we'd gone collectively mad and start building their own strategic aresnals against us lest we decide to obliterate them over some relatively minor (in terms of actual damage done) incident.

Where the hell do you get these ideas from? Do you just go on pure intuition?

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Justice should not be a consideration in determining an appropriate response. Morality might be, but that's because morality is a strategic issue; the morality of your actions as perceived by everyone else will affect their responses to your response.

One of the great fictions of the last 70 years or so is the idea that there are 'legal' and 'illegal' wars, and that international courts, tribunals, and law, really exist and have power, and that there is any obligation whatsoever to them - by any nation. There isn't. International relations are not justiceable questions; they're political questions. Even internally, while we have a Constitutional obligation to abide by treaties, the entrance into and exit from treaties is a political and strategic question. So is the use of military force and engagement in war. The courts may not intervene, and they themselves have so ruled.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

This is what I don't understand. Watching the news today I heard that 'a host country is responsible for the security of an embassy.'

I don't get that. I don't get it at all. Isn't this something that the Marines used to handle? DE?

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Raell Kromwell