General Politics Discussion [ARCHIVED] • Page 577

There's an inherent privilege to pacifism.

 

The extreme right embracing Wikileaks with open arms and big big kisses is maybe the weirdest part of this entire election.

 

Says the dude that didn't pay federal income tax

 

It's kind of illuminating watching liberals offer the exact same utilitarian justifications that were offered by the defenders of the Bush administration's torture policies. Is torture worse than murder to you? But regardless, this is simply a gross simplification that ignores a variety of variables and consequences, but even if we assumed these numbers were truly believed there still exists the problem of the complete lack of transparency. Who are being targeted as terrorists? What evidence do they have that they were terrorists? Do those accused of terrorism have a chance to prove their innocence? Or even notice that they are considered a terrorist? What we know from the DOJ white paper that leaked a couple years ago is that the standards in place are frighteningly ambiguous and broad. From the article posted earlier in this thread:

But some State Department officials have complained to the White House that the criteria used by the C.I.A. for identifying a terrorist “signature” were too lax. The joke was that when the C.I.A. sees “three guys doing jumping jacks,” the agency thinks it is a terrorist training camp, said one senior official. Men loading a truck with fertilizer could be bombmakers — but they might also be farmers, skeptics argued.

Allowing the President to decide to execute individual people, let alone fellow American citizens, without any sort of due process and neutral decision maker should scare the shit out of you.

 

torture is proven to be ineffective and provides unreliable information. There is not any actual benefit to be gained from it. if we have to kill or hurt people in order to stop others from being killed or hurt, it should only be done with serious thought and consideration for other alternatives. When it comes to torture, the costs clearly outweigh the benefits because the costs are "you've subjected a person to unimaginable pain" and the benefits are "you get some useless information".

I never said Obama and the US have always been right in their use of deadly force. I never said the president should have unilateral authority to kill people. I never said there should be no due process. I just said saying "killing is not okay" doesn't work.

 

I don't think the privilege of pacifism really applies when we're talking about violence by state actors, especially that in service of imperialism

 

In some cases it doesn't. In some it does. Any absolute statement in regard to nonviolence comes with a variety of inherent privileges that should be checked at the start of the conversation. I'm just cribbing Slavoj Zizek now though.

 

Who is advocating pacifism?

 

Me. With immense privilege and often: Me.

 

I mean. Yeah. I agree. I think violence is good sometimes, like against cops or corps or the state. I feel fairly comfortable categorically condemning the murder of civilians halfway across the world though.

 

Like to be real, no it hasn't. You can't study torture because it's done in secret. We only really have anecdotal evidence. The only thing we can study that is somewhat analogous is false confessions in the criminal justice system, and that certainly shows that torture or coercion can lead to false confessions. At what rate though? Pretty much impossible to know.

Moral opposition to torture shouldn't be premised on utilitarian grounds, just as opposition to the death penalty shouldn't be based on economic concerns. Also drone strikes costs are "kill innocent people and justifiably radicalize the population" for the benefits of "you killed people that are maybe terrorists who maybe might kill people in the future, or they are farmers, or just like doing jumping jacks."

You were originally defending Obama, then were asked when killing would be a permissible option and said what I quoted. My point is that even a utilitarian defense of Obama's drone strikes is rife with issues.

 

Obviously, there are risks that complicate the math. That's part of why its such a hard challenge. Maybe they aren't actually terrorists. Maybe something will happen with the targeting systems. Maybe a million other things could go wrong. But you can still have situations where the risk of harm from inaction vastly exceeds the risk of harm from taking action and simply refusing to ever take action is not the right choice to make.

Also I did not defend Obama. I said critiquing him was easy. He's making very tough calls that I'm glad I don't have to make, and while the fact that they are tough certainly doesn't absolve him from any criticisms, those criticisms need to be more nuanced than "killing is not okay"

 

I think it is interesting that liberals find it acceptable to kill people, but the moment someone advocates killing police officers - a force which objectively terrorizes communities - they are told that it isn't a good option or violence solves nothing or it will only makes things worse. It demonstrates, to me, their acceptance of state violence, as opposed to violence based on the challenging of that power.

 

“It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.”

I'm sorry I probably should have said "murder" with the clarification that murder is unjustified killing. What justification do we have bombing people halfway across the world and then claiming we're actually saving people? That should just be assumed now, when more civilians are killed than targets? If Bush does this he's a war criminal. Obama does it and thank god someone else is making those decisions or criticizing bombing civilians comes from a place of privilege. Imagine the privilege of those war torn communities hit by drone strikes. I'm not a pacifist. People being murdered should fight back. Privilege is more applicable to people criticizing hamas for using violence against their oppressors. Privilege is murdering thousands of civilians overseas and throwing countries into turmoil and having liberals or nationalists come to your defense at every criticism.

 

Planet at its hottest in 115,000 years thanks to climate change, experts say

 

Okie dokie.

 

just further proof that we desperately need ranked voting

 

Going to a Sanders rally today. Never actually got to see him in person when he was campaigning, so I figured why not -- even though the message will be different this time.

 

I went to one of his rallies, and the vibe was SO cool. I was a little disappointed in his stump, but I should have seen it coming (in that it was exactly the same as all his other speeches). I am still so bummed he isn't our candidate, he would have buried Trump.

 

I want to go to this rally, but I got work downtown until 3:30pm, and then got class at the Humphrey building at 4. I got to see him rally in Minneapolis in May 2015 though, right as he was just beginning his campaigning, so that was cool to see

 

I'm so angry with the state of our politics atm (well I hated it anyway but post brexit it's got a lot worse). The conservatives don't even pretend hide their disdain for the public anymore since labour have given them a bye for a while with all their in house fighting. Did you see this chain of tweets:

 

Lawd....if Sanders was the candidate he most likely gets a huge wave of Dems elected with him. DNC screwed up bad by not being more supportive of him.

I remember saying "I wish he'd run for president" like 5 years ago and both never expecting it to happen, and assuming he'd have no shot if he did run. But add enthusiastic young people to the Dem base and it's pretty clear he would have crushed it. Clinton would be miles ahead of Trump right now if all the young people going to Gary Johnson were going to her.