Where I got to with the Christian religion was that God doesn’t intercede in events on earth except insofar as those that people open to the word of God can form some sort of relationship with him which provides a number of positive things (deliberately vague as it depends very much on one person to the next).

Such a stance means that, to take Chessfan’s example, the US gained independence not through divine intervention but just because they did.

Such a stance also puts one, I think, in a position where you can label things as being ‘good’ and ‘evil’. Such definitions will be broadly based on some interpretation of the Bible, but will still invariably differ from one person to the next, and no doubt will also be impacted by the background of the believer too.

A case in point – terrorism is now broadly seen as ‘evil’ as far as I can ascertain within the US and certainly by the government, and the support of which constitutes some form of an act of war on those terrorised. This I believe marks quite a significant shift from a few years ago where to my knowledge the US administration (at least) passively supported terrorism, by allowing a significant value of the funding for the IRA to originate in the US, and there was active support among elements of the US population.

Without placing a value judgement on this, the direct consequences of such funding was to put the IRA in a better position to wage its war through terrorist activities on the British government and its people, ultimately involving the death of civilians. To the extent that those allowing the funding of this terrorism didn’t consider their actions ‘evil’ (I assume), but acceptable based on some logic around UK not being justified in being in Northern Ireland.

If terrorism (and the consequent loss of ‘innocent lives’) in one context is deemed as being acceptable, based on certain value judgements around the relative merits of a particular conflict, then I don’t see how you can logically condemn its use in another context as being ‘evil’. Rather, you need to rely on other arguments, most logically that the conflict that is being entered into is inherently unjust.

Moreover, to the extent that most people condemn the use of terrorism on the basis that it involves attack on civilians (why civilians considered to be more important than conscripted soldiers who may have no desire to be at war, is another question), this also raises questions as to the acceptability of various tactics used in current and previous conflicts which impact on civilians.

As a point of clarification I should add that I condemn the use of terrorism and the use of armed force more generally without very convincing and difficult arguments to justify them– but neither terrorism nor military action are in all cases necessarily evil.

If you remember that we're talking about a guy who doesn't believe in the moon landing either, then I don't think he's trying to be offensive.

I think the idea of questioning al Qaeda's guilt over an an attack that they've already taken credit for has to be considered laughable just for the sheer absurdity value.

Akelsborg
The source page wouldn't load. So I haven't been able to get the full scoop on this. Moreover 16,000 people seems to be an extremely small sample as does limitting it to 17 countries. What countries were they?

Does international include the US?

If this was a sensible poll at all, this is just more evidence supporting why international governing bodies should have no clout.

Yeah, I don't think I'd be any good either. In fact, I don't think many of us would. You have to have the skill of telling people whatever they want to hear without regard to truth. It's kind of like an actor, except you know that what they're doing is fiction. Even when a standup comic tells funny stories about his family, I understand that the stories might be exaggerated or made up completely. The point is to get laughs. Politics is often mislabeled fiction.


Yeah that's true, but it's not all their fault. They do it because it works and it works because ordinary people are motivated by it. I remember how brutally frank Hillary was after losing Iowa to Obama, and her campaign explained that they weren't launching attack ads before New Hampshire, because it took time for those to work and they only had three days.

The thing is, politics is COMPLICATED. Even a single issue, like abortion, is immensely complicated, which is why they have to dumb it down to Pro Life/Pro Choice. And voting means weighing dozens of really complicated issues, never finding a candidate who agrees with you on all of them, and having to weigh which ones are the most important.

Not only that, you have to find out what people think on all these issues, when the press never seems to report it in a way that's easy to find. I've found myself very embarrassed in city elections, trying to choose between two candidates I've never so much as heard of before. At times, I've literally taken a coin out of my pocket and flipped it in the voting booth, to avoid any pretense that I had the slightest idea what I was doing.

But most people wouldn't be comfortable with that. They want to at least pretend they know what they're doing. That's why there's a certain appeal in convincing yourself "Just vote for this party (or that party), and you're guaranteed to never go wrong." That way you can feel like you're making an intelligent choice. (If only life really were that simple.)


Yeah, I think that's true. Which is odd, because nowadays, what with voter guides and the internet, there is a lot more information out there for the average person to find.


Yeah, I like Obama, but he is coming across somewhat weak, and seems to be quickly devolving into the standard Us vs. Them politics that he was originally promising to rise above. I think he has an enormously difficult time saying no to his friends. I think he's a good guy, but I'm not sure how good a leader he is.


Yeah, I think that's true. There's a definite drought of Long term planning. Why weren't we working on alternative energy sources 30 years ago?


Yeah, I've been dismayed at how generic Obama's "change" mantra is. The idea that change is inherently good is almost insulting. But every campaign has a "For Dummies" version of itself. Obama's "For Dummies" message was "Change", Hillary's was "Experience". They boiled it down to one word each to try to make sure they went over nobody's head. But the "For Dummies" version isn't all they've got.


I think one solution might be to give them even shorter terms, via term limits for the House and Senate. If you're going to be a career politician, then everything you do will be geared towards pleasing the crowd now and getting yourself re-elected. I think that if they only had so much time and that's it, that they'd be more concerned with the longer term.

Spud I think you raise some interesting issues. I agree that the US view toward terrorism changed after 9/11.

Right now the view in the US is that terrorism against civilians is *always* wrong/evil/immoral/unethical (you can choose the word that suits) One way to show that this view is mistaken - would be to give a hypothetical where terrorism against civilians would be warranted. Can you think of such a hypothetical?

When we fight wars, civilians are often injured and killed. However the intent should never be to simply kill civillians and cause terror it should be to remove the threat.

How about the bombings of Hirosima, Nagasaki, Dresden and Tokyo? Those happened before this supposed change in the US view toward terrorism. But I am talking about the CURRENT attitude toward those (real) events. It appears to me most Americans would still think those terrorist attacks on civilians were justified.

RB

Both Hiroshima and Nagasaki were military targets.

But if we ignore that fact for the sake of argument, I think that situations you point out where there is all out war and countries are fighting to exist is about as close we can get to justifying the use of terror. Would Truman be justified to refuse to use the bombs which would have resulted in many more lives lost in order to end the war? To the exent the bombs were used to terrorize Japan this is, I believe about the closest situation we can come to justifying the use of terror.

I think generally americans do not consider those attacks terrorist attacks because war was declared between the two countries. However I would say that is not a valid distinction. IMO *IF* the intent was to terrorize by killing civilians then its terrorism.

I’ll try, but please bear in mind my bias remains firmly against terrorism.

Suppose that a minority in a country were to be subjugated to a similar program of ethnic cleansing that has happened to the Jews, in Rwanda, or within the Balkans – the aims of which was the extermination of that minority. Suppose also that this country was not one in which the western powers were interested in intervening, so the minority was on its own.

If the minority is not in a position to run away, most people would concur that they at least had the moral right to defend themselves.

To the extent that a pitched battle would in all probability help the state’s aim of extermination the only sensible alternative is to wage some sort of guerrilla war, and if this included the bombing of senior parties of the government’s families etc to bring them to the negotiation table I suspect most people would accept this.

Other examples which people might find acceptable would have been the Kurds in northern Iraq following the gassings performing terrorist acts in the early 90s.

Or to pick up on one of Ed’s hypothetical WW2 arguments for some post above, had Germany invaded England, the English engaging in terrorist acts on the German occupiers and any English sympathisers.

I agree that this is a difficult area to argue, and that I think there ways in which you can pick holes in these arguments – but as I say I generally condemn terrorism but if you are against the wall you will generally come out fighting, and not really care about other peoples views.

nfm, if we are to believe both Hiroshima and Nagasaki were "military targets", chances are the 9/11 hijackers viewed WTC towers as "military targets".

I also don't think the fact there is a declared war between countries makes for a valid distinction, btw.

And yes, I also think americans do not consider those attacks terrorist attacks, but that just goes to show you one can always rationalize the killing of civilians if one wants. So, even if everyone agreed terrorism was "bad", people would still find a way to redefine things so that the attacks they do support will somehow be qualified as something other than "terrorism". It is about the "one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter" sort of a thing. That is why I have little doubt many Americans will strain at a 9/11 gnat and swallow the Hiroshima camel.