Earlier quoted context omitted.
I used to be highly political on Facebook. From my experience, people just don't care.
How do you be "highly political" on Facebook?
Talk about politics and seek out political discussions, same as anywhere else.
CIA rendition flights from rustic North Carolina called to account by citizens
131–140 of 182 posts
Re: CIA rendition flights from rustic North Carolina called to account by citizens
#132Earlier quoted context omitted.
Torture. Army's are trained to kill not Torture for very good reasons.
Are they though? Sure we say we don't torture people but given a realistic choice between taking someone alive and killing them don't we generally favor capture?
From a practical perspective, if surending means you get tortured then people are more likely to keep fighting which costs both sides significantly. On the other hand taking someone as a prisoner of war and treating them reasonably means denying the enemy soldiers at minimal cost.
This is especially true at the end of a war.
Re: CIA rendition flights from rustic North Carolina called to account by citizens
#133Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Have you ever actually gotten that to work? Have you personally ever changed a single persons mind? I know the question wasn't directed at me, and it's not with respect to the proposed Muslim ban, but I have changed the mind of some of the voters from this general background: specifically, would-be Roy Moore voters. I convinced a good handful of them not to vote for him[1]. And as far as I know, they stayed home. T…
I forgot where I read it, maybe on the Southern Poverty Law Center's site, but I could be wrong, but they were talking about a similar thing -- how to convince people to change their mind. The example was about how to change people's opinion in regard to transgender people. The idea was similar -- beating them on the head with 140-character sarcastic blurbs, showing stats and facts, insulting etc, just doesn't work.…
This is very similar to a famous study. Where door-to-door canvassing was shown to be very powerful to change people‘s mind. I believe it was California’s prop 8.
Unfortunately, that study turned out to be completely falsified.
But, in anotothef twist, the underlying hypothesis may indeed appear to have some merit—there are a few studies now underway.
(Sorry for not including links—on mobile right nowk
Re: CIA rendition flights from rustic North Carolina called to account by citizens
#134That's real optimistic of the Guardian but somehow I doubt there's all that much grass roots support against rendition flights. We live in an age where "Muslim ban" sounds like appropriate policy to about half the population. In Democracy the people get the government they deserve. Guess we really don't deserve human rights and habeus corpus.
Well, I'm a North Carolinian and I just heard about this group from the article. I plan to attend the next meeting on the 22nd.
Not all of us out here are hicks, especially when you get to the big cities. Look at the voting trends by county and you'll see that Wake goes blue every year.
Re: CIA rendition flights from rustic North Carolina called to account by citizens
#135Earlier quoted context omitted.
That’s a myth, if you’re looking for objective verifiable facts you can get some useful information. Also, if you have enough statistical data on torture methods, you can have a probability that a person doesn’t know something based on how long they’ve been actively tortured.
" ...probability that a person doesn’t know something based on how long they’ve been actively tortured. " I, actually, have nothing I can say to that. Are you listening to yourself?
Your honor, as our neural networks are the ones designing these torture programs, ethical considerations do not apply.
Re: CIA rendition flights from rustic North Carolina called to account by citizens
#136Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree. It looks to me that this is just the case of the CIA operating completely out of control. USA is not to blame, the president is not to blame, and the citizens are not to blame.
If no one is to blame for letting it happen, who do we expect to step up and attempt to address it?
CIA director at that time.
Re: CIA rendition flights from rustic North Carolina called to account by citizens
#137Earlier quoted context omitted.
Works. Proof: me. I've changed my mind on certain topics - esp drugs and to a certain degree AGW based on discussions. Protip: calling me a troll, paid shill, downvoting honest questions doesn't work on people like me. I do however listen to reasonable arguments and take pride in being able to change my mind.
From the perspective of someone who has been on both sides of the arguments regarding climate change how is it possible to be intelligent and not believe in climate change. I absolutely don't mean to imply you are stupid. I had a relative who was extremely intelligent, his career being aurospace engineer who didn't believe in cimate change and another a computer programmer who didn't believe in evolution. I don't thi…
Your examples are both about people being sceptical, but then you say:
>"I don't think I understand how people can believe nonsense [...]" //
Are these supposed to be related. Not believing in evolution doesn't mean you do believe in nonsense, for example.
Once you've been around the block a few times it's easy to get cynical about scientific claims. Too much scientism.
Re: CIA rendition flights from rustic North Carolina called to account by citizens
#138Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Obama administration basically stopped trying to capture people alive to interrogate them and instead just sent drone based missiles to just kill anyone suspected of terrorism. Not only that but after receiving a Nobel Peace Prize he proceeded to engage in drone warfare. Just in 2016 he dropped more then 20k bombs, in countries which we were not even at war with. Many in Africa. It was surprising how little flak he…
I think both of your statements can apply to any President. For instance, Trump has called for "fire and fury" against NK and "bombing the hell" out of our enemies. He's embraced torture as a mechanism for obtaining information and a cursory Google search shows that Gitmo conditions have gotten significantly worse over the past year. Frankly, this seems like a misdirected personal crusade of yours against Obama when…
> this seems like a misdirected personal crusade of yours against Obama
I took it more as him pointing out that while Trump, right or wrong, is crucified in the press on a daily basis Obama was able to successfully spin a benevolent image to the point that he was absolutely held to a different standard. All presidents have blood on their hands, but there is a certain irony in Obama being the first Nobel peace price winner to bomb another peace prize winner.
Re: CIA rendition flights from rustic North Carolina called to account by citizens
#139Which is worse: torture or killing? It seems that with all the attention that torture got, the Obama administration basically stopped trying to capture people alive to interrogate them and instead just sent drone based missiles to just kill anyone suspected of terrorism.
> Obama administration basically stopped trying to capture people alive to interrogate them and instead just sent drone based missiles to just kill anyone suspected of terrorism. Not only that but after receiving a Nobel Peace Prize he proceeded to engage in drone warfare. Just in 2016 he dropped more then 20k bombs, in countries which we were not even at war with. Many in Africa. It was surprising how little flak he…
"It was surprising how little flak he got for it."
Indeed. The very same democrats who mock Trump supporters for not denouncing him when he said "Grab them by the pussy" did not denounce Obama when he literally sent automated killer robots to kill people in foreign countries not even at war with the united states.
In a two party system, you ignore bad things and back your guy, because what is the alternative? Backing the other side? Just Look at all the obvious horrors they are willfully ignoring!
Re: CIA rendition flights from rustic North Carolina called to account by citizens
#140Which is worse: torture or killing? It seems that with all the attention that torture got, the Obama administration basically stopped trying to capture people alive to interrogate them and instead just sent drone based missiles to just kill anyone suspected of terrorism.
If we limit ourselves to those two options, I believe torture is worse. Or can be. There is no end to the horrors when you intentionally keep someone alive to make them suffer at your whim, vs. killing them in one fell swoop. Torture exposes the blackest parts of our humanity in a way that droning someone never could.
If you have the chance to save the life of a terrorist who is about to detonate a bomb, you should? If that terrorist tells you "my people have set other bombs just like this, your people will die horribly" do you choose to kill them, or torture then to potentially save the many others from death and mutilation? Or do you just say "oh, how naughty" and clean up the blood of the innocent people afterwards.
If we refuse to play at the terrorists game of death then their cause wins at the cost of billions of lives. Then they can continue to kill and maim over ever more nuanced positions.
In part the problem is that a (the, I suspect) major source of terrorists is adherents of Islam who follow Mohammed's example of murder, and his injunctions in the Koran, and hadith, to violently oppress. As long as that book exists to inspire the actions, and that man is treated as a model for others then we'll continue to have such problems.