Charlottesville: Race and Terror – VICE News

[aujeff11 6,243]

1 minute ago, homersapien said:

Maybe you are the one who's flustered.  I didn't say that, Ben did.

(But I do agree with him)

I didn't intentionally manipulate it. I don't know what happened. I figure y'all three know who said what, though. 

[homersapien 11,386]

6 minutes ago, aujeff11 said:

I could've considered an ally to have moral high ground for all you know. If you want to assume that I was equivocating the US to Nazis, go for it. You will fit right in with Homer and BigBen.

You openly accused me of equivocating USA to Nazi Germany even though I never implied it and then you call me a weasel.Shocking.

More weaseling.

I "openly accuse" you of saying the US did not have the moral position in WWII.  But that's not disputed. It's documented.

So, are you now trying to suggest that atomic weapons are the key determinor of morality in WWII?

[DKW 86 7,426]

15 hours ago, homersapien said:

OK, you tell me.

 

Well, on the surface, and maybe I am a Free Speech Fetishist here, but anyone willing to use violence to limit another's Free Speech I "personally " call Alt-Left. The very definition and core of Classical Liberalism is Free Speech, even disgusting, vile, racist speech still should be heard. That is the lesson from Gandhi and King. Let those who want to repress others be heard and then let the audience widely condemn them. Violence is the way of the Fascisti. They resort to violence because it im-passions their followers. Peaceful Protests keeps the Audience loving the Protesters. Violence in and of itself is terrifying AND Counter Productive. Recently the psycho Bannon made a comment about Antifa etc to the American Spectator. Bannon said "We talk about pocket book issues, the Democrats talk about Identity Politics. They tie themselves to the violence of Antifa...We are going to continue to kill them at the polls." I am paraphrasing but it was an interview on NPR this AM. Cant find a link to it yet.violence from the Left is about Berkeley, etc long before Charlottesville. While the thinking of the Left is not anywhere as extreme as the self identified Alt-Right I think that people that commit violence in the name of Politics are long run losers whether they are Communists, Nazis, Fascists, etc. Violence is not anything to be associated with in the minds of voters who only want sane pleasant places to raise their kids.

[aujeff11 6,243]

Just now, homersapien said:

More weaseling.

 

You speak of things like you know for certain, but you don't, and that only makes you look like a jackass.

[homersapien 11,386]

8 minutes ago, aujeff11 said:

Yep.

If I am sparring with you and you don't tap, am I the bad guy for breaking your arm?

That's weaseling. Plus it make no sense.  You'll need to explain the metaphor.

But here's a question:  If one has the option of using atomic weapons and save literally millions of more lives than any other option, why isn't  that the moral choice?   What makes forced starvation more moral? 

(Bet you won't give a direct answer.)

[aujeff11 6,243]

4 minutes ago, DKW 86 said:

So, are you now trying to suggest that atomic weapons are the key determinor of morality in WWII?

 Nope. Talking about weaseling.

[aujeff11 6,243]

3 minutes ago, homersapien said:

That's weaseling.

But here's a question:  If one has the option of using atomic weapons and save literally millions of more lives than any other option, why is that the moral choice.   What makes forced starvation more moral? 

(Bet you won't give a direct answer.)

Forced startvation is just an available alternative to nuking countries into parking lots.

[homersapien 11,386]

18 minutes ago, aujeff11 said:

You speak of things like you know for certain, but you don't, and that only makes you look like a jackass.

Well, I am a jackass.  Ask most anyone on this forum.

But that has nothing to do with the quality of my arguments vs. yours.

And the only thing I know for certain is that I know a hell of a lot more about WWII that you do and I can make a superior logical case who enjoyed the moral position in that war than you can.  

That doesn't necessarily mean I am smarter than you, but I am 38 years older than you, which makes me much, much wiser.

[AUDub 11,153]

11 minutes ago, homersapien said:

True confession:  

When I was about Jeff's age I used to make similar arguments about our use of atomic weapons on Japan.   As I became older and more informed over the years, I changed my mind.

If I place myself in Truman's shoes at the time, I am unable to find fault with the decision. Even in the waning days of the war, our boys were dying by the thousands. The populace of Japan's neighbors continued to suffer their atrocities. We laid out the rules in Potsdam, and could accept nothing less.

And we can't really complain in hindsight. We occupied their country, and rather than enslave, murder and rape them like they would have done to us, we educated their populace, democratized their government, brought about reforms that helped turn them into one of the largest economies in the world and made friends with them, turning them into one of our staunchest allies. We protected them from the scourge of Stalin's own aggressive expansion of the Russian bloc. We were gracious in victory. More gracious than they deserved, but it was to our benefit and theirs. 

11 minutes ago, homersapien said:

But even then I would never have suggested the Japanese and the Germans shared moral responsibility, which is absurd.  

I keep thinking I'm dreaming. It's just so absurd. Our behavior is morally equivalent? Laughable on its face. All three Axis powes launched undeclared aggressive wars of conquest against dozens of their neighbors, which included genocide and slavery. We used some shameful tactics to put them down. Maybe that doesn't make us the good guys, but it certainly doesn't put us on their level. 

[AUbritt 611]

18 minutes ago, aujeff11 said:

I could've considered an ally to have moral high ground for all you know. If you want to assume that I was equivocating the US to Nazis, go for it. You will fit right in with Homer and BigBen.

I see the ad hominem, but I have no idea what you mean by suggesting that I was accusing you of "equivocating the US to Nazis."

Maybe you meant that I was suggesting that you held the US and Nazi Germany to be morally equivalent.

If you recall, this was the question I asked you: Do you seriously hold that Nazi Germany and the US were morally equivalent?

What prompted my question was your claim that the US didn't hold the high moral ground in WWII (which I already linked to).

It was open to you to answer the question one way or the other. 

So, you have not only failed to provide strong arguments, but also refused to answer simple questions. A 'yes' or 'no' would do in this case.

[homersapien 11,386]

13 minutes ago, DKW 86 said:

Well, on the surface, and maybe I am a Free Speech Fetishist here, but anyone willing to use violence to limit another's Free Speech I "personally " call Alt-Left. The very definition and core of Classical Liberalism is Free Speech, even disgusting, vile, racist speech still should be heard. That is the lesson from Gandhi and King. Let those who want to repress others be heard and then let the audience widely condemn them. Violence is the way of the Fascisti. They resort to violence because it im-passions their followers. Peaceful Protests keeps the Audience loving the Protesters. Violence in and of itself is terrifying AND Counter Productive. Recently the psycho Bannon made a comment about Antifa etc to the American Spectator. Bannon said "We talk about pocket book issues, the Democrats talk about Identity Politics. They tie themselves to the violence of Antifa...We are going to continue to kill them at the polls." I am paraphrasing but it was an interview on NPR this AM. Cant find a link to it yet.violence from the Left is about Berkeley, etc long before Charlottesville. While the thinking of the Left is not anywhere as extreme as the self identified Alt-Right I think that people that commit violence in the name of Politics are long run losers whether they are Communists, Nazis, Fascists, etc. Violence is not anything to be associated with in the minds of voters who only want sane pleasant places to raise their kids.

So, bottom line, "alt left" as a self-identifying entity doesn't exist.  It's a term of your own devising.

So accordingly, using the term "alt left" in a discussion is somewhat misleading and presumptous to the reader.  (Which is why I asked who exactly it referred to.) 

Incidently, I don't disagree with anything you wrote substantively.

[AUDub 11,153]

24 minutes ago, aujeff11 said:

Wrong. The war could've been extended and we could've let starvation play out. The greatest evil is being the only country to ever use nukes. 

Special pleading again. What makes it more evil? The death toll? We killed more with conventional bombing. Starving their populace? Would have killed millions. Fighting them? Would have killed millions of them and several hundred thousand of us. Enough people died every few days ro equal the number the bomb killed. Were those people any less dead? 

They're bigger? Who cares. We dropped enough conventional weaponry to dwarf their yield. Why is that not more evil? 

24 minutes ago, aujeff11 said:

And you are flustered. 

I am disgusted. 

[homersapien 11,386]

13 minutes ago, aujeff11 said:

Forced startvation is just an available alternative to nuking countries into parking lots.

Yes it is.

Now which choice kills the most people?

[aujeff11 6,243]

8 minutes ago, homersapien said:

But that has nothing to do with the quality of my argument's vs. yours.

Parroting "more weasling" over and over isn't much of an argument at all

 

9 minutes ago, homersapien said:

And the only thing I know for certain is that I know a hell of a lot more about WWII that you do and can make a superior logical case who enjoyed the moral position is that war.

Well then don't you know as much as you claim to know. It's not even about "what you know" either.

[homersapien 11,386]

17 minutes ago, aujeff11 said:

 Nope. Talking about weaseling.

That's an excellent example of weaseling out of a substantive response.

[aujeff11 6,243]

8 minutes ago, AUbritt said:

If you recall, this was the question I asked you: Do you seriously hold that Nazi Germany and the US were morally equivalent?

 

And this question was seriously unwarranted because I never gave such an impression. 

 

[aujeff11 6,243]

1 minute ago, homersapien said:

That's an excellent example of weaseling out of a substantive response.

Thanks for proving my point.

[AUDub 11,153]

1 minute ago, aujeff11 said:

And this question was seriously unwarranted because I never gave such an impression. 

You outright said we did not have the moral high ground in WW2. 

[homersapien 11,386]

1 minute ago, aujeff11 said:

Parroting "more weasling" over and over isn't much of an argument at all

Correct.  It's not an argument at all.  It's not intended as an argument.

It's a description of what you are doing.  You are being deliberately evasive because you are at a loss for a credible response.

[homersapien 11,386]

4 minutes ago, aujeff11 said:

And this question was seriously unwarranted because I never gave such an impression. 

 

Now you are moving beyond weaseling to outright lying.

You did say American did not hold a moral advantage in WWII.  That certainly implies the Japanese and/or Nazis participated on at least a basis of moral equivalency.

[AUDub 11,153]

1 minute ago, homersapien said:

Correct.  It's not an argument at all.  It's not intended as an argument.

It's a description of what you are doing.  You are being deliberately evasive because you are at a loss for a credible response.

Well, it's a tried and true tactic when one has boxed themselves in. 

[AUbritt 611]

3 minutes ago, aujeff11 said:

And this question was seriously unwarranted because I never gave such an impression. 

 

I already told you what made me ask it. I quoted your post in which you claimed that the US did not enjoy the high moral ground in WWII. That warrants the question.

I note that you have still failed to answer it.

If you refuse to answer questions, I don't see how it''s possible to have a rational conversation with you.

[homersapien 11,386]

4 minutes ago, aujeff11 said:

Thanks for proving my point.

And the examples keep on coming.

[homersapien 11,386]

3 minutes ago, Bigbens42 said:

Well, it's a tried and true tactic when one has boxed themselves in. 

Yeah, which is understandable.

But what's more fascinating is the transparency and lameness of it.  It's as if they think denying it makes it invisible.  

[homersapien 11,386]

10 minutes ago, aujeff11 said:

Well then don't you know as much as you claim to know. It's not even about "what you know" either.

Probably not, but the important thing relative to this "debate" is how much more I know than you.

That and the logical skill used to apply that knowledge to an argument.

You are lacking on both counts.