'The War on Terror' is a sham

Byrnzie

Discuss...

Jeanie

I agree Byrnzie. End of discussion.

chopitdown

you cant defeat ideology...look what happened to nazi germany it fell yet there are still nazis. this is a tired exercise. we all get it...America now isn't any good.

catefrances

i too agree. it's unanimous. the executive council has spoken.

time for drinks you all.

Ahnimus

Dude. It was from the start, it was blatantly obvious. I watch science lectures all the time with great minds. Almost every lecture someone points out the absurd nature of the Bush administration. During the Beyond Belief conference put on by TSNTV.org, someone said something about Bush and Roger Bingham stepped in to say "We can't, this is going to be televised." fearing a law suit, I guess.

The war is total crap, it always was, most U.S. foreign military activity is crap. We've been trained to think that the world is really different than it was. We train even easier than monkeys do. Scientists complain that it takes longer to train a monkey than to train a human. What does that tell us?

Byrnzie

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=9718

Ahnimus

Byrnzie wrote:

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=9718

Chomsky sure is better at politics than he was at understanding language.

Perhaps that was his motivation for (1). I have a distaste for (2) since I find it hard to defend elementary moral principles. My discontent for (3) is in the aggression and legitimate resistance statement. I think there is a great deal of reciprocity involved with "terrorism".

When he talks about the principle of universality I think that's a pipe dream. It's not really how humans behave. This article for example, might be the opposite. Chomsky might be holding those in power to higher standards than he holds or would hold himself. It's difficult for anyone to say what they would do in their situation, and very easy to criticize those in the positions of power. I don't think this principle of universality is very universal. I think it's very uncommon, if it exists at all. So, I'm not sure this is an elementary moral principle, a more likely classification might be higher moral principle. Morality to me, seems much more complex than an innate fundamental gift. But that was Chomsky's failings in linguistics too, he emphasized an innate language module, which is contrary to fact.

I like Chomsky a lot, and our ends our the same, resolve the conflicts in the world. But I've become more suspect of his style, as not being all that valid. Maybe I'm just being defiantly analytical today.

Jeanie

chopitdown wrote:

you cant defeat ideology...look what happened to nazi germany it fell yet there are still nazis. this is a tired exercise. we all get it...America now isn't any good.

Well I don't agree that "America now isn't any good"

Like the rest of us, America is suffering an insufferable administration. But I've got no problem with Americans per se.

DriftingByTheStorm

Ahnimus wrote:

Chomsky sure is better at politics than he was at understanding language.

Perhaps that was his motivation for (1). I have a distaste for (2) since I find it hard to defend elementary moral principles. My discontent for (3) is in the aggression and legitimate resistance statement. I think there is a great deal of reciprocity involved with "terrorism".

When he talks about the principle of universality I think that's a pipe dream. It's not really how humans behave. This article for example, might be the opposite. Chomsky might be holding those in power to higher standards than he holds or would hold himself. It's difficult for anyone to say what they would do in their situation, and very easy to criticize those in the positions of power. I don't think this principle of universality is very universal. I think it's very uncommon, if it exists at all. So, I'm not sure this is an elementary moral principle, a more likely classification might be higher moral principle. Morality to me, seems much more complex than an innate fundamental gift. But that was Chomsky's failings in linguistics too, he emphasized an innate language module, which is contrary to fact.

I like Chomsky a lot, and our ends our the same, resolve the conflicts in the world. But I've become more suspect of his style, as not being all that valid. Maybe I'm just being defiantly analytical today.

some times you just make me drop my jaw and go, "Guh?"

Ahnimus

DriftingByTheStorm wrote:

some times you just make me drop my jaw and go, "Guh?"

lol, what do you mean by that?

Byrnzie

Ahnimus wrote:

Maybe I'm just being defiantly analytical today.

Classic line from Ahnimus.

Byrnzie

Ahnimus wrote:

Chomsky sure is better at politics than he was at understanding language.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noam_Chomsky
'Chomsky is credited with the creation of the theory of generative grammar, considered to be one of the most significant contributions to the field of linguistics made in the 20th century. He also helped spark the cognitive revolution in psychology through his review of B. F. Skinner's Verbal Behavior, in which he challenged the behaviorist approach to the study of behavior and language dominant in the 1950s. His naturalistic approach to the study of language has also affected the philosophy of language and mind (see Harman and Fodor). He is also credited with the establishment of the Chomsky hierarchy, a classification of formal languages in terms of their generative power. According to the Arts and Humanities Citation Index in 1992, Chomsky was cited as a source more often than any other living scholar during the 1980–1992 time period, and was the eighth-most cited scholar in any time period.'

Ahnimus wrote:

Perhaps that was his motivation for (1). I have a distaste for (2) since I find it hard to defend elementary moral principles. My discontent for (3) is in the aggression and legitimate resistance statement. I think there is a great deal of reciprocity involved with "terrorism".

When he talks about the principle of universality I think that's a pipe dream. It's not really how humans behave. This article for example, might be the opposite. Chomsky might be holding those in power to higher standards than he holds or would hold himself. It's difficult for anyone to say what they would do in their situation, and very easy to criticize those in the positions of power. I don't think this principle of universality is very universal. I think it's very uncommon, if it exists at all. So, I'm not sure this is an elementary moral principle, a more likely classification might be higher moral principle. Morality to me, seems much more complex than an innate fundamental gift. But that was Chomsky's failings in linguistics too, he emphasized an innate language module, which is contrary to fact.

I like Chomsky a lot, and our ends our the same, resolve the conflicts in the world. But I've become more suspect of his style, as not being all that valid. Maybe I'm just being defiantly analytical today.

Regarding elementary moral principles, he simply states this: 'The most elementary is a virtual truism: decent people apply to themselves the same standards that they apply to others, if not more stringent ones.'
And he goes on to say that in the present world climate, and especially with regard to the 'War on terror'; '...the principle of universality is rejected, for the most part tacitly, though sometimes explicitly. Those are very sweeping statements. I purposely put them in a stark form to invite you to challenge them, and I hope you do. You will find, I think, that although the statements are somewhat overdrawn – purposely -- they nevertheless are uncomfortably close to accurate, and in fact very fully documented. But try for yourselves and see.'

Byrnzie

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=9718
'Terrorism directed or supported by the most powerful states continues to the present, often in shocking ways. These facts offer one useful suggestion as to how to mitigate the plague spread by “depraved opponents of civilization itself” in “a return to barbarism in the modern age”: Stop participating in terror and supporting it. That would certainly contribute to the proclaimed objections. But that suggestion too is off the agenda, for the usual reasons. When it is occasionally voiced, the reaction is reflexive: a tantrum about how those who make this rather conservative proposal are blaming everything on the US.'

Jlew! Are you listening?

Pearler

Oh, 'hip hip hooray!' another cut and paste orgy by uncle Byrnzie.

You are starting to sound obsessed man. Seek professional advice.

Byrnzie

Pearler wrote:

Oh, 'hip hip hooray!' another cut and paste orgy by uncle Byrnzie.

You are starting to sound obsessed man. Seek professional advice.

So you've nothing intelligent, or interesting to say.
Great.
Bye!

Pearler

I spose thats exactly what your thinking about mammasan too Byrnzie.

Byrnzie

Pearler wrote:

I spose thats exactly what your thinking about mammasan too Byrnzie.

Que? You've lost me.

catefrances

oh great. i always enjoy a pissing contest. :rolleyes:

Byrnzie

catefrances wrote:

oh great. i always enjoy a pissing contest. :rolleyes:

Pissing contests are the usual refuge of people with nothing to say.

Pearler

yeh great idea cate, you can stand right here next to me and piss too if you like.

But no looking at each others willy.

catefrances

Pearler wrote:

yeh great idea cate, you can stand right here next to me and piss too if you like.

But no looking at each others willy.

why would i even bother? i am more than capable of formulating my thoughts and articulating them with no problem.