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Well, it’s starting to sound more like the man-who-claims-to-have-seen-an-alien-that-no-one-else-can-see, rather than arrogant I said literally that he labels decisions “bad” or “good” in most (traditional) religions. I can’t help that these religions carry out the wrong message (apparently). Also… I don’t believe heresay.

If the building were on fire, I’d know it in advance (why else would I jump). But the simple fact of jumping off a building can be labeled “bad” in advance. Just like walking barefeet through a puddle of water next to a wallsocket with sparks coming out.

Impossible. If god was absolute, we wouldn’t be having this discussion right now. God is just as relative as everything else. The simple fact that, to me, god is just an imaginary figure created in the minds of mankind proves that he is everything but absolute. I can’t prove that he doesn’t exist… but you can’t prove he does. That’s about as relative as it can get

Roel

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Oh, I have to disagree. No matter to what purpose the robots are created; we would be responsible for the mess they make, since we were the ones who created them in the first place. How can we NOT be responsible for that?

Well, according to traditional religions god is supposed to be omniscient. So no matter what variation he allows, he will still know the outcome. Imagine you standing by idly, while an innocent man is getting killed. In my eyes that’s exactly what god would be doing if he did exist.

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Hehe, she used to be the only one who made me think there WAS a god )

But that was in the time when I still woke up early to watch cartoons on Superchannel or Skychannel. Those were the days

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It really depends on the purpose of their existence. If they are set in a place of which they are given the opportunity to do as they choose, then if they mess it up, that is their responsibility.
We learn from our mistakes, and perhaps we want the robots to do the same. There may be a higher goal beyond the level from which they exist.

I do agree with you regarding the sentiments of God standing by while people are suffering. It is sort of like George Carlins question…“Can God make a rock so big He cant lift it”?
What He can do, and what He chooses to do are two different issues.

My daughter has started to learn how to ride a bike. I told her not to ride near the edge of the curb. I have told her many times not to do this, but she kept on doing so. One day she was doing this and sure enough she got too close and toppled over. She then learned first hand why she was not to ride close to the edge of the curb.

As her father was I responsible for her choosing to ride next to the edge?

I could have taken her bike away and keep her locked in her room. As distressed as I may be, in order for to grow, she needs to experience the world as it is. It hurts me to see her fall, but what she survives makes her stronger. She no longer rides close to the edge of the curb and listens a little more closely to my words of warning.

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I think that’s been asked once or twice before Carlin was born.

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You really need to see Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie. Not only does she turn evil (and, come on, aren’t the evil chicks always more attractive?), but there’s a blatant camera shot where she wakes up on the beach and her arse takes up about a full 2/3rds of the screen for about 30 seconds.

That and the Power Rangers are good cheesy fun.

And if you like cheese, you should really see Infested! starring our heroine (and Zach Galligan, remember him? The kid from Gremlins. Also Tom Paris from Star Trek: Voyager). It’s got to be going for one of the most ridiculously…ridiculous films I’ve evere seen, and I’m a fan of Troma films. I honestly cannot emphasise how bad (yet entertaining) this film is. Hmm…put it this way, the worst episode of The Power Rangers you’ve ever seen will look like Shakespeare himself rose from the dead specifically to script it in comparison. Oh, remember that song “Da Da Da” by Trio? It plays a major major role in the film. Really.

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I wonder how many of you ever been in circumstances in which you had to depend entirely upon yourself, would be interesting to hear your stories.

I have been an active participant in outdoor activites, and on one trip into the wilderness, we got caught in a severe storm, one that hit way before the season had even begun. Our goal was to make it up and over Kearsarge Pass, of which stands at about 12,000+ feet.

The storm began as a light sprinkeling of snow. As the day worn on, and we were making our way up the trail, the storm took a turn for the worse. It became a blizzard, the wind was howling as the rain, sleet and hail pounded us. In an instant we couldnt see but three or four feet in any direction.

We happened to be on a part of the trail that offered no protection from the elements. We had to keep going. Our face’s were frozen ( learned not to touch any facial hair when frozen, it does snap off fairly easily.) and our equipment was heavy. This was only the second day of a twenty day journey, so our packs were still loaded down with supplies.

We got seperated in the storm, since we had been about 10 feet apart on the trail, and the visibility had suddenly dropped without warning. I felt totally alone, the reality of the situation was that indeed I was alone. Nobody was going to save my ass at this point, everyone else had their own survival to worry about at that moment. It was nothing but white in front of me, to the left, right and behind. The sound of the driving rain, sleet and snow thundered in my ears.

I kept on going, feeling the trail with my feet, and using the rocks on the side of the trail when possible. It was slow and painstaking to keep moving, but it had to be done.

Eventually, I did reach the pass and found a group of rocks to slip within, and used a parka to build a makeshift roof. The storm subsided later in the afternoon, and coming out of the shelter I had been using, I saw my friends had also all made it to the pass. They too had found shelter among the rocks.

We stood at the “edge of the World” , looking down from whence we had come, we could not but help to raise our hands to the sky and yell…" YEAH!!! Whew!!! Thank-You, God!"

A risk, yes, but the strength realized and what we learned about ourselves was invaluable.

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If that line of reasoning were not so dangerous, I would call it just plain silly. By the same line of reasoning you would say that “because we have taken away a murderer’s weapons, that he is then no longer a murderer.” Moreover, he was still a threat to the outside world, and by his own admission no less. Prior to the build-up to war, he and his government admitted to financial support for suicide bombers in Palestinian territories. All he did was resort to different weapons. Indeed, one can easily imagine that the explosives that rock Baghdad today were also financed by him and his gang of thugs.

You’re doing it again. Let’s review…Your point was this:

I then provided evidence to refute this point with the simple fact that the Saudis thought he was enough of a threat to willingly invite the US forces on their soil:

I am not going to respond to your attempt to change the point. My point stands. The Saudis clearly thought he was a threat, and by sharing a large border with him, this is enough evidence to refute your generalized statement.

Now this is REALLY interesting. The CIA is to be chastised for “bad intelligence and investigations” for the WMD fiasco…and I seem to recall you jumping on that bandwagon in a discussion quite awhile back when Siegmund was still with us. And yet now you see fit to quote the CIA as if their intel is solid and believeable. Which is it? Or do you just pick and choose what CIA intel you believe in order to support your larger beliefs?

Oh yes, such as propaganda news footage of digging up mass graves (and why is 5000 killed in mass graves any less atrocious than 400,000? The NYC WTC on 9/11 was “only” about 2000. Murder is murder, my friend). And how about that “propaganda” of his destruction of the “Marsh Arabs” living domain and ecosystem? Yes, National Geographic must be a propaganda arm of the US Government for producing specials on this tragedy. The following is from ( http://www.carnegiecouncil.org/viewMedia.php/prmTemplateID/8/prmID/4458 )

"The world has known for some time that, over the past three decades, Saddam Hussein systematically violated the rights of the Iraqi people. Much less attention is paid to the concomitant destruction of the environment and natural resources, most notably in the southern marshlands, and its consequences for the region’s half-million inhabitants. "

“Its not about you dying for your country..it about getting the other poor bastard
to die for his country” - General George S. Patton

“The enemy of my enemy is my friend” - Attribution unknown

World powers have used despots to achieve their goals down through time. This is nothing new, and if you think it is going to stop, you are naive. The French did it, the British did it, the Russians did it. Does that make it “right”? Who is to decide? Is there ever any real chance of this practice stopping? Not as long as there are despots who are willing to be puppets for the sake of power. Firearm companies are not complicit in murders just because they produce the weapons that a criminal uses.

So now you’re a legal expert, eh? I do believe UN Security Council resolutions are binding on member states…in other words, international law. So are you saying we are just going to sit back and allow Saddam (and others) to continually violate law and do nothing? As far as I can tell, all that this accomplished was to allow both Saddam and some as yet unnamed/unindicted members of the UN to become richer. Where were all the people quoting law in these cases? Moreover, where was the international will to enforce those laws? Yet now you wish to blame the US (and appear to want to enforce other laws) when we took action? That is bizzare. Perhaps the next time you can encourage other countries to be willing to enforce binding resolutions so that it never comes to this?

Oh yes, a bad idea that originated in British Common Law, based on the belief that “the King can do no wrong, for his powers flow from God.” The US came up with a wild little notion that the power to govern is bestowed by the people. If you wish to use this excuse, for which there is plenty of precedent for denying protection of sovereign immunity, then you might as well also claim that, since Hitler was in power in Germany, his edict to exterminate Jews was law, and that he cannot be held accountable. This is yet more dangerous thought. And even though the founding fathers of the US also adopted this “shield”, that does not mean it is right, much less even logical.

You seem to be under the mistaken belief that his trial is in an international court. As noted above, Iraq is now in a situation where the power will flow from the people. If you have not heard the “propaganda” of the polls of Iraqis on Saddam’s trial proceedings, I think you will find that the average Iraqi (who does not support Saddam) thinks we are being TOO civil. Many of the people of Iraq would rather just see him publicly executed…especially those whose family members were victims of his despotic rule.

I insinuated the answer to this in my last post…and you conveniently ignored it. So I will try again:

You really ought to read a bit more of the conservative analyses that have been out in the public domain since before the Iraq invasion… because virtually all of them discussed this connection. And now that Arafat has lost his biggest benefactor in Saddam, the sham of Palestinian politics is now unraveling. Let’s see how many of the Arab states rally around Arafat.

And as for Kim Jong Il… he is not out of the woods, nor out of the target line of sight. Different “bad guys” require different tactics.

RMT

209

Whoa, talking about George Carlins. To tell you the truth, before today I had never heard of this guy, but just 5 minutes ago I was reading this: “Bullshit Hate Mail.” and now you mention his name in a post. That’s quite a coincedence, don’t you think?

You make something. That something causes trouble. You’re responsible. I don’t see it any other way. No matter what purpose, you made the damn thing… now you make it stop

Yes, we might want them to learn, but we don’t want them to turn the world into a mess.
So IF we had the power, we’d stop them… right?

He can make people stop suffering at will (since he’s omnipotent), yet he won’t because he wants to learn things to people who are on the edge of dying of starvation? Wow, what a guy. )

Yes. Of course you can’t force her to make a different choice. But if something is about to go terribly wrong, I assume you take measures? For instance, if it was likely for her to be hit by a car if she rides to close to the edge of the curb, would you still have her learn it the hard way? I don’t think so; you’d keep her from riding close to the edge by almost any means possible.

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With this kind of logic, I feel I once again have to bring up the parent scenario to exhibit how this kind of logic PERMITS one to sherk responsibility.

Parents conceived and birthed Hitler. Hilter caused trouble. Hitler’s parents are responsible, and therefore Hitler himself is not to blame.

Is that how I see your logic? )

And to also refer to the concept of “guns don’t kill people, people kill people”, your logic would also mean that murderers are not really responsible for killing. All the blame must belong to the manufacturer of the gun… or that table knife. Gee, I remember just reading about a story where a woman pounded a man to death with her IPOD because he erased music she had illegally downloaded. I guess that makes Apple responsible for that man’s death!?

RMT

211

I guess that’s the next best thing after Cameron Diaz, Lucy Liu and Drew Barrymore starring in one movie. )

Roel

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And what have you done to solve this problem?

I do share your sentiments, and I wish God would put an end to suffering,…but I only can do what I is in my power to do. But, I am not God, and I will use the opportunity to make myself stronger and learn as much as I can regardless of circumstances and how rotten they may be at any given moment.

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Correction Rainman and I’m watching out for yes on this say Roel?

Hitler’s father, beat Adolph Hitler severely, when he was a child.

It was said that he had received horrible beatings and at one day in the future, he purposely poisoned his father, with a mixture of arsenic and strychnine.

When Hitler gained power, he did so with the help of the Black Shirts, in Germany by dehumanizing other political parities.

However it was the key people surrounding Hitler’s, office, that were his final led into the maelstrom of a bad political office.

For example, look at the photographs of Joseph Goebbels as taken by the Life Magazine photographer, when being allowed to meet with some ministers of the Hitler cabinet?

There was never a more menacing man, that one could have imagined and this quality shows, right through within this photograph.

Look up the Black Forest Vampire eradiation program, which is hard to find on the web.

Hitler’s cabinet was so very confident that this eradiation program would go all as planned, till they lost two thirds of their SS Paratroop detachment, trying to fight the real vamps on their territory in the Black Forest?

This was the only time I had read that the vampires were less evil than the people trying to kill them.

The Hitler regime, due to the people who surrounded Hitler, were meant to doom, by their very natures.

It was environment surrounding Hitler, not so much Hitler’s own individual actions, even though these actions had been flavored badly from his childhood.

This is why Adolph Hitler was nuts, it was because of his family environment being so cruel.

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Nothing significant. But then again, I’m not omnipotent, am I?

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I agree with that. It is amazing though that there were some very talented people that would have had an effect on the entire war had they been given free reign. Rommel as an one example. And he believed as you, thus tried to blow up Hitler.
I think we all are lucky Hitler was as insane as he was, had he kept his true intentions under wraps until a later date, it could have been much worse. His good side using his bad side to destroy himself?
The one point I will give to Hitler, he was a very powerful speaker. My dad has told me that even though he couldnt understand German, he and family used to get goosebumps listening to him on the radio.

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You dont need to be omnipotent to help people, Roel.

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No, by that same line of reasoning I would say “because we have incarcerated a murderer and he doesn’t have the means to murder anybody, then he no longer has the ability to murder anybody”.

Okay, that’s a fair point. What it doesn’t explain, though, is why Saddam was therefore a more pressing concern than the Palastenians themselves. You will also note that I didn’t say that he was no threat to the outside world, I said that he didn’t bear comparison to Hitler in that regard.

One can easily imagine many things. This is why I try to base my opinions on known facts.

Oh grow up, will you? Your assertation is that he was a threat to the outside world because there were US troops in Saudi Arabia. My assertation is that those troops were doing their job and containing Saddam, making Saudi Arabia safer. This is not even slightly changing the point, it’s answering it.

Are you contending that those troops didn’t make Saudi Arabia safer? Are you contending that even with those troops there Saddam posed a significant threat to Saudi Arabia? If you aren’t, then you must conceed that they were doing a good job of containing him.

Yes. In fact, I’ve just been vindicated in this view by the Seneate, have I not?

Actually, I pick and choose the intel I believe by what I find credible and to be backed up. The fact that the evidence points to Iran having killed the Kurds was the impetus behind the US deciding to step up how many chemical weapons they sold to Saddam, so that he could match them in number. This, along with the full findings of the investigations, have been in the public domain for years.

It’s not. I said as much.

Now, that’s changing the point.

Well, with regards to my morality, I decide. I never said it was going to stop. But, I think that who comes off looking the worst in the Iran-Iraq war is pretty obvious.

Let’s see, you have Iraq who invade Iran to try to take over the country. You have Iran (and let us not believe for one second that the Ayatollah Khomeini was a nice man, either) who push back, and then make incursions in to Iraq. And then you have the US who tries to prolong the war because they’re making a tidy profit by selling chemical and conventional weapons to both sides. It’s hard to see the moral highground, there. It’s definately hypocritical to endorse the US’s behaviour while condemning Saddams in the same situation.

Yup. Which is why the US acting against the UN’s wishes not only violated international law, but very specifically violated resolution 1441.

There were more than two options: allow Saddam to do what he wants or invade and depose him from his throne.

“Action” does not equal “the correct action”. Are you assuming that I have never spoken out about unfair and/or unupheld sanctions before now?

“Right”? That’s highly subjective. “Logical”? Since when has law been logical? “Legal”? Yes, I’m afraid so. If you want to be able to operate contrary to a law, then you have to get that law changed before you can legally do so.

And, as I noted, Saddam has a very valid case for saying that the court has no legitimacy. The only way the court can have legitimacy is if the rest of the world allows it to.

As it is, what is happening appears to be more and more “victor’s justice”, rather than any proceedings based in law. Sure, they can decapitate Saddam if they want to. But that won’t exactly appease those who accuse the Iraqi government of merely being American puppets, and it won’t convince anyone that the court had legitimacy.

No, the question is why was Saddam more pressing than every other dictator in the world at that point? So pressing, in fact, that the US couldn’t wait one more month while the weapons inspectors did their job. Remember that? It was of so much importance that it simply couldn’t wait at all.

the question was (and still is)…why? What’s the reasoning? And if you don’t want to say Jong-Il, why not, say, Ghadaffi? Not only was there far more reliable evidence that he had and was trying to develop WMDs (including nukes), but it has since been publicly confirmed by the man himself. Of course, privately, he has said as much to the US and UK governments for more than 12 years.

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Well, if that’s the way you want to word it, OK. Unfortunately, this was not true prior to the invasion: Saddam was not incarcerated, he was still ordering killings. For all the hoopla about the psychological torture in Abu Ghraib by some US troops, let us not forget that Saddam was carrying out physical torture and murder in that same place. Where was the world’s outrage over this? Thanks to the Coalition, the murder IS now incarcerated. Thanks for helping me make that point.

This is what I was referring to as the “real” reason for the invasion that was politically incorrect. Israel could not remove Arafat, and neither could the US, as much as anyone with half a brain can see that he IS the problem. Since Arafat refused to crack down on homicide bombings (as they were orchestrated by his own Fatah party), then getting rid of sponsors of that terrorism is the next best thing. As people were always criticizing the US for not “doing something” about the Middle East cesspool, the decision was made to do something by eliminating Saddam. He was an extremely convenient target, not only to push Arafat’s group of thugs to the point we see them now, but also to send a crystal clear message to the Arab world that the world’s superpower does, indeed, have the will to use its power of hegemony. I would hope that you would agree that the “power elite” in Iran are not terribly comfortable right now…a good thing.

Well, I do agree that you said that. But did it ever occur to you that one (of many) reasons that he didn’t compare to Hitler in terms of sheer scope was precisely because he was not permitted to go as far as Hitler? And… are you implying that if we had simply limited Hitler to his German borders that his extermination of German Jews would have been acceptable behavior? Who is to say that if continued pacifism of Saddam were allowed that he would NOT, again, seek to attack another country? Given his track record of Iran and Kuwait, I think you would agree that (statistically speaking) he was more likely to try again than to not.

Why do you think it is not acting “grown up” when I call you on changing my words, as we can clearly see in this quote? These words are yours, and they bear no resemblance to my assertation, which is: The fact that Saddam was a threat to the outside world is what precipitated the invitation of US troops into the Saudi Kingdom. I believe I have made this point twice, and yet you still seemed to twist it with your words above. Cause-effect: Saddam’s threat was the cause, US troops entering SA was the effect.

It is an attempt to change the point, because in your assertation it is implicit that Saddam was a threat to the outside world. You are just not admitting it overtly. The fact that US forces were protecting Saudi Arabia in no way alters the fact that Saddam was a threat… it only made him think twice about starting any trouble with the Saudis. And one could extend this thought to propose that this is why he turned his attention to the Palestinians…to threaten Israel. I am sure you are aware that Israel has seen Saddam as a threat well before he invaded Kuwait.

Political gamesmanship. Look, I am not even arguing that the WMD ploy wasn’t weak. But politically speaking, it was the only viable ploy that could leverage Saddam’s disregard for the UN resolutions. The end result is the problem is gone, and while they will never admit it publicly, there is more than one nation in the region that is happy (and more secure) now that he is gone. And as a result we are seeing the Israel/Palestinian situation moving away from stalemate. That’s called “two birds with one stone”.

You were the one bringing up “propaganda”, as if to imply that Saddam was a little angel. You simply chose to focus on the Kurds, and I was just pointing to other evidence of Saddam’s genocidal tendencies. Destroying an entire culture’s home and the environment from which they achieve subsistence is certainly genocidal. Clearly a valid comparision to Hitler, no?

All this proves is that (a) The UN does not possess the ability to enforce its “laws”, and (b) it does not possess the will to use it. As these are the two main ingredients for a hegemon, this should expose the inability of the UN to be a truly influential body in world affairs. Maybe you’d like to propose an effort in the UK to offer the UN property in your country, as I am sick of them squatting on US soil.

So let’s take this line of reasoning a little further: What were these options you refer to (and I am talking ones that would be effective, not passing more useless resolutions)? Beyond this, who was going to implement these options? And the BIG question (since the US usually foots the bill for most dirty work in the world) who was going to PAY for those options to be executed?

I never said it was…and by “correct” you are again referring to “right” or “wrong”, and we all know that is subjective. However, it is quite clear to me that INaction is certainly not “correct” in that it does not solve the problem. Let’s not forget that it was European INaction that caused two wars to get out of hand.

And this is where you ignore the concept of sovereign democracy, where legitimacy is bestowed by the governed. The world has no say, the people of Iraq have the say in this case. I think you’d be hard-pressed to find a majority of people in Iraq that do not think the court is legitimate in its prosecution of Saddam. Would you tell me that “the world” can bestow or deny legitimacy of a US court?

  1. I explained why above (Two birds with one stone…actually, THREE birds when you consider that we sent a powerful message to the terrorists on the Arab street, and their governmental sponsors).
  2. Not sure if you have ever studied military operations, but I have as part of what I do for some of my work. There are MANY factors that enter into the timetables for military operations tempos. In this case, it was quite clear that Saddam was stalling, because he knew we did not wish to prosecute the bulk of that war in the heat & sandstorms of the desert summer. George Bush was actually extolling nothing more than good military planning when he used the words “…at a time and place of our choosing.”
  3. As much as some in the world do not like it, we are the world’s police force. That means we set the timetable for military ops. The same was true in your country’s history when they were the world power. That’s just the way it is. At this point, the only people in the world who have to worry are those who terrorize and those who support terrorists.

RMT

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So mind telling me what creature is this? The missing link?

Not quite like the ape to human transformation to me. Dogs breeding and forming a new type is correct. But Humans and apes? You want evidence or websites? Why it’s on CNN itself
CNN evidence

So tell me, how did your parents in their lives would ever know they would conceive a child, let alone you? I don’t see how it affects free will.

You are right. Perhaps we are all right and wrong in some ways.

Beats me. Did the chicken or the egg come first? Beats me too.

I don’t see how responsible with it, since anyway men has written stories and made movies on the possibly catastrophic development of A.I. Ultimately, if A.I does have a conscience is it our fault? Since anyway, everybody is going ahead with it.

There is something very interesting I read yesterday evening. It was a comic issue of the Avengers. Thor, supposedly declares the son of Odin, also a God decided to help mankind solve its problems. His presence here puzzled many and soon enough he even stepped up to the UN, telling them he can give free food and energy, he can solve all problems. Sure enough, there was rain where there was drought, people had food and free energy. Legions of people prayed to Thor, forming cults in a matter of hours. However, the UN thought he was disrupting the world’s economy, they said he was turning their way of lives upside down. Not only that, in a tyrannic country, a dictator stole the people’s free supply of food and, making you use of this chance to kill them and eliminating everyone who prayed to Thor. In other parts of the world, where trees were being cut down, they were chased away by Thor’s comrades for destroying the flora and fauna and those men grumbled, where’s our money going to come from then? I was puzzled then, if someone came to provide you for everything and could solve your problems and IS a GOD. But why are humans still unsatisfied? He is a God, he solved all problems of men, but nevertheless many rebelled. The world was turned upside down. Wall Street was closed, the stock market closed! Why? Thor, angry, he came upon the rebel soldiers killing them for destroying his people and insulting him. Captain America came of course to stop him. He then said, ‘THOR, by doing this, you are only giving them an excuse for war!’ True enough, the world was already in much turmoil, confusion and chaos as soon as he came unexpectedly. Thor, defeated by those words and by the ungrateful humans, left as soon as he came. Now, if God came and revealed himself and solved all our problems. Would we react in this way? This is a very good example on why God may choose not to reveal himself at all.

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I know. I help people all the time. But I can’t help an entire country, or continent. God supposedly has that power, but he chooses to let these people suffer.