If you are an American taxpayer, you can withdraw your support by giving away to charity all of your income above your personal tax allowance.
If a Drone Strike Hit an American Wedding We'd Ground Our Fleet
241–250 of 361 posts
Re: If a Drone Strike Hit an American Wedding We'd Ground Our Fleet
#242Earlier quoted context omitted.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. You have made these accusations without any evidence. Be responsible and ethical and show us something real, if you have it. (note: I am not taking sides.)
> Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. For how many years were people dismissed as nutjobs and "conspiracy theorists" when they talked about NSA spying? Now we know it was all true. Would you like to make a bet as to whether or not the US military-industrial complex acts in its own self-interest when comes to the "War on Terror"? When it comes down to it, there is nothing particularly "extraordinary"…
>For how many years were people dismissed as nutjobs and "conspiracy theorists" when they talked about NSA spying? Now we know it was all true.
Just because it is true, doesn't mean those people aren't nutjobs or conspiracy theorists.
Re: If a Drone Strike Hit an American Wedding We'd Ground Our Fleet
#243Earlier quoted context omitted.
Look at it this way: it makes killing people with targeted missiles that much cheaper, which means they will want to do more of it, not just to "important targets", but to "associated targets", too. It's basically the NSA equivalent of mass spying. If spying becomes so cheap that they can just do it to everyone, then they're thinking "why not"? Same with drone striking. If it ends up costing them only like $10,000 pe…
> it makes killing people with targeted missiles that much cheaper Killing people is already really cheap. What's not cheap is deciding _not_ to kill them on the battlefield, given incomplete information. Drones are helping with information and making _not_ killing people cheaper.
I highly doubt deploying soldiers on the battlefield is by any means cheap.
Re: If a Drone Strike Hit an American Wedding We'd Ground Our Fleet
#244A great book to read on the decline of violence in the world: The Better Angels of our Nature: Why Violence has Declined by Steven Pinker. The Hacker News community should like it as it focuses on the stats and facts rather than anecdotal stories the media slings. The main thesis: Violence (in nearly every form) has been on a precipitous decline in the modern era. War deaths (and civilian causalities) are at all time…
Now would you say there would be more or less violence if the US stopped killing people on foreign soil?
Re: If a Drone Strike Hit an American Wedding We'd Ground Our Fleet
#245Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes. Have you forgotten that we are supposed to be the good guys?
We (speaking as a US citizen) are not the good guys any more than we're the bad guys, we're just guys doing our best to protect the interests of the country as a whole. Just as one day the Japanese were the bad guys and are now one of our closest ally's, morality and the high ground change as time and circumstances change.
They're not the bad guys anymore because they're not bombing and invading countries. They're good guys because they're peaceful with us and supply us with goods and services.
The morals of bombings and war didn't change. Their behavior changed. So yes, we could be the "good guys" if we stopped spying and shooting at every foreign nation. We could be the "good guys" if we stopped spying on every citizen, and stopped creating a domestic military force out of municipal police.
Re: If a Drone Strike Hit an American Wedding We'd Ground Our Fleet
#246I seem to recall that the Obama Administration was going to restore America's image with the rest of the world -- the image that was presumably destroyed by W.
Yeah, that actually happened though;
http://m.static.newsvine.com/servista/imagesizer?file=joemyx...
Re: If a Drone Strike Hit an American Wedding We'd Ground Our Fleet
#247Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is profitable. If terrorists disappeared tomorrow. Let's say we use our surgical strike weapons to target every cell every member, and in one hour they are gone. What would happen? Billions of dollars disappear from the pockets of everyone in the chain. Military contractors, drone maintenance, promotions, bonuses, career advancements, no more completed missions, medals, no job to go to. So the direct financial and…
I will continue to refuse to believe American military personnel choose to strike otherwise-collateral civilian targets. You're talking about moral humans, here. Our soldiers/airmen/marines/sailors are not soulless automatons, nor are officers that develop strategy and provide direction. Nor would I consider their pay to be either incentive or motivation.
What does your first sentence mean? Otherwise-collateral civilian targets? Let's say for arguments sake that no civilians were intentionally targeted. Why is it ok to kill civilians at all? And what civilian death rate is acceptable to you?
Re: If a Drone Strike Hit an American Wedding We'd Ground Our Fleet
#248Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's a simple economic analysis. People tend (this word is important) to follow their incentives. If a person on welfare faces a high effective marginal tax when they start working (due to paying taxes plus losing benefits) they will not start working. If a CEO is compensated exclusively based on short-term share price, they will ramp up the share price even if they have to hurt the company to do it. We have seen mou…
Arguments like this are logically wrong. I am glad you are not a judge in real life (hint: why is racial profiling wrong?)
Yes, the argument is logically wrong... but logic is not the only mental resource we have to make sense of the world. By example, if we agreed that the truth can only be called "truth" if it is derived by "logic", there would be no scientific method, and we would still be killing each other with swords because there is no logical way to figure out, let alone unmanned flying devices, but any sort of flying machine heavier than air. Instead, you would be arguing that it is "illogical" for a simple peasant to be able to kill a noble knight that has been training in the art of war for his whole life... so those damned crossbow mercenaries are cheating and ought not to exist.
And for the example you offer, judges' very job description require them to narrow down on a case by case basis, and to make a decision based on the evidence available, beyond reasonable doubt. The ethical principle that requires this to be so is that the asymmetry of power between the individual and the State is so big that it is most fair for the whole process to start with a bias in favor of the individual.
Other situations require a different kind of analysis. And the consequence to apply this level of precision to political analysis is that no analysis (and no criticism to the de-facto policies that are guarantied to emerge anyways in this vacum of knowledge) is ever possible.
Re: If a Drone Strike Hit an American Wedding We'd Ground Our Fleet
#249Earlier quoted context omitted.
Blowing up a wedding is not extraordinary? 'Not taking sides' doesn't cut it - you're either doing your bit to end drone strikes like these, or you are morally bankrupt. There is no fence sitting when civilians are being blown up.
Civilians are blown up in every war, drones did not create this problem, and eliminating UAVs will not end it. If you want people to be "doing your bit to end drone strikes", you should consider that the probable counter-factual is not an end to non-combatant (civilian) deaths; civilian mortality may increase, decrease, or stay the same, depending on what tactics are chosen to replace drones.
What war are you talking about?
What is the objective? What would have to happen for this 'war' to end?
Re: If a Drone Strike Hit an American Wedding We'd Ground Our Fleet
#250I don't see why the author thinks we would ground our fleet. Police routinely and deliberately kill innocent people in the US, and we don't "ground our police force."