411–420 of 434 posts
EU should put sanctions on top US leadership and many of the large US based corporations, especially in businesses like banking, media and technology.
oh, you think that EU is independent :) how old are you?
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There was an opportunity for Obama to have a much more effective and bipartisan presidency early on. It wouldn't have been a friendly relationship, but certainly a more effective government. He rammed Obamacare through Congress very early in his presidency and that pretty much removed his ability to do anything else in his first term.
There was good faith negotiation about the plan. It was very close to what the Republican plan was. The problem was that Mitch McConnell stated publicly that he was going to block everything that Obama did. The Republicans blocked stimulus funding. To claim that the failure of bipartisanship was Obama's is to ignore the facts as stated by the Republicans at the time.
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> Probably many are, but for a person crazy enough to do such a horrible act such threats would also likely not work (either "nothing to lose" or "don't care about anything anymore"). War isn't crazy, and participating in attacks on [your country] doesn't mean that one is irrational or doesn't care about anyone in the world. Just because you are willing to give your own life for a cause doesn't mean you have nothing…
> War isn't crazy Planting a dirt bomb in a civilian inhabited city is way beyond war ... 99.9% soldiers fighting in a war would not participate in anything similar to this... Even when a city is bombed to the ground, that generally happens well after beginning of a conflict and most people have been at least given one chance to run away or surrender... Most people who plan their lives well enough have a decent chanc…
It was absolutely monstrous, and designed to back up (mostly) false statements of Soviet, Vietnamese and US infiltration, and that certain nationalities sand ethnic groups were collectively working to sabotage the government. Torturers were trained with pseudoscience, such as claims that if you strangle a victim and their heart rate increases, they are lying.
The result was the Cambodian communist party splitting and joining with the Vietnamese to expunge Pol Pot, and the Cambodian Genocide. I don't know how exactly any of this 'worked'. It did the opposite of create a secure state and confessions were merely used as an excuse to justify the existing hatreds of the Khmer Rouge.
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Is it possible for you to construct a scenario where torture is morally acceptable? E.g. you have a virtual certainty that a dirty bomb is going to be detonated in NYC and will kill 1M+ and potentially irradiate the city for decades. Is torturing one person who you know with certainty knows the location of the bomb defensible? Basically, how many lives would you be willing to sacrifice to prevent the suffering of a s…
How come when someone posts a link about a heinous gang rape no one ever replies with 'Is it possible for you to construct scenario where rape is morally acceptable?' Riddle me that and you'll have answered your own question and hopefully had an epiphany along the way.
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> Is there something like a "definitive truth"? There is math, right? 2 > 1? > What if the person being killed would go on . . . Don't worry about it. If they would cure cancer, redux hitler, etc, they will even if not seen here. Flip your coin; accept the result; one's feelings afterward don't offend the multiverse. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Many-worlds_interpretation
> There is math, right? 2 > 1? Ahhhhh I see. No need for many wise people discussing implications of actions and values for hundreds of years. Just throw in 4 words, 2 numbers and 1 logical operator. Eureka: Philosophy is solved. > one's feelings afterward don't offend the multiverse. Your solution seems to be "religion" providing consolidation. I could absolve myself with the "Many worlds interpretation" into thinki…
Philosophy begins there, not ends https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pythagoras
> Being an adult made me realize that I have responsibilities. And that I need to accept that I need to take these serious.
Ok Atlas. Don’t close the thought without the realization you have limits, that your mind is finite. If you pick up the baby, is it made of tar? Are you Horton, or do you call up the child welfare authorities and release the baby to someone else’s care?
In a worldview of responsibility for consequences of one’s actions, from where do those actions come? Are they not the consequence of other actions from within or out? It action-consequence-responsibility a graph or a fabric of interrelations?
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That's why law is hard. Even the contrived situations occur.
No. There is no "difficult moral conundrum" about torture, nor slavery, nor rape, nor genocide. There are only people who inexplicably insist that a tortured non-sequitur is a pro-torture counterfactual.
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Perhaps using "American" (also) for South Americans is popular usage in (certain regions of) South America. You can't just declare that it's wrong just because it's not popular usage in Western culture (which is heavily influenced by the USA).
Indeed, in Latin America we call ourselves "americanos". It's even mentioned in the English language version of Wikipedia for the "American (word)" entry, under "Cultural reception" or something like that. It states "Hispanic Americans" challenge the notion that "American" should be exclusively used for people from the US. It also states the RAE (linguistics body from Spain) also challenges the English language commo…
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> How does that work exactly? Jeffrey Epstein. Do you think it was coincidence that he had power of attorney over Les Wexner, who was involved with the notorious Southern Air Transport? There are many other intelligence connections, for instance Maxwell and her father. The CIA is really the worst institution in the US government.
You speak as though Epstein and Maxwell were _American_ intelligence.
Also, Southern Air Transport was a CIA front company.