Walsingham

#1 There is a point there, but you cannot rightly justify violence at any time in my opinion. ~~~Violence does not need to be justified. It is axiomatic. As I will prove to all-comers at any time who present themselves to me with an ordinary pencil. There are, moreover, gradations of violence and making distinctions between types of violence is an essential part of mitigating the horrors of war. #2 & 3 Is democracy necessarily the best alternative to terrorism? As I said before, should we be so arrogant to believe that installing a democratic government in a foreign country will magically solve all of its problems? Did we escape despotism only to come to the realization that in 300 years, the basic principles haven't changed? The rich still rule, and frankly not every man in our country can grow up to be president. The days of Lincoln are gone, and we have been relegated to simply electing someone out of a pool of individuals. ~~~Absolutely, democracy is better than terrorism. Leaving aside your peculiar notions about the 'failures' you mention, they cannot compare with the inherent failures of any system based on pure force before reason. If you believe that life in the USA or another democracy is just as harsh as living in a dictatorship I would respectfully suggest you pull your head out of your ass and immediately emigrate to Zimbabwe or Myanmar. Democracy is about one thing pure and simple, and that is giving the common man some protection against being abused. #4 True, but do you consider Che and Mao to be terrorists? They were heads of state AND had a small military force which toppled a country's current regime. Do we begin to call the Iraqi insurgents revolutionaries if they topple our Iraqi puppet government? For example Che Guevara by any

The only bad thing I can recall about pre-school was that it lulled me into a false sense of goodwill regarding school. I was immensely privileged to attend a tiny village pre-school with a pair of kindhearted spinsters running it. Happy days.

You're right, it WAS a special mod, and the game was Planescape Torment.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LMxhc8WwGU...ted&search= Not funny, but bloody terrifying. I practically catapulted backwards off my chair reaching for an imaginary flamethrower.

Speaking of asslesss chaps (and who'dve thought that would ever happen?) did anyone else find that outfit weird in vampire the Masquerade - Bloodlines?

Candy coated electric eels.

Um... easy point, but it needs to be made. Are you seriously claiming moral equivalence between Stalin's Russia and Roosevelt's USA?

St. Jimmy, It is only vague when you try to attach a moral judgement to it. It is the moral question which causes the ambiguity, not the mechanical characteristics. Mechanical Definition Terrorism is the deliberate attack by weak, irregular, and (by inference) usually clandestine forces against poorly defended targets, with the express purpose of creating chaos that weakens the target entity. Fear and apprehension are a part of the equation, in that they contribute to the psychological weakening of the target. However, it is the total system effect on the target that is the object of its application. Moral Component The moral reprehensibility of terrorism is tied to, but still distinct from the above mechanical description for four reasons: 1. "Poorly defended targets" tends to slide into 'civilians', and nothing else. I personally find deliberate targeting of civilians reprehensible. Civilians do get killed by the regular military, but there is a difference in my mind between an air tasking order that has been triple reviewed to avoid civilian casualties, and deliberately crashing bombs into packed nightclubs or office buildings. 2. Weakness in military force can arise due to minority rule, such as in apartheid South Africa. However, where democracy exists such an argument cannot be used as an excuse for using resorting to violence. 3. More often, worldwide, weakness in military force is associated with the party concerned being weak in terms of popular support. 4. Due to point 3, and also for reasons of maintaining security as a clandestine grouping, terrorist organisations almost invariably kill many of their own community who oppose them. Point 1 is almost universally true of all terrorist organisations. The only exception I can think of would be the Weather Underground Organisation (aka The Weathermen) - and they were essentially just bored middle class kids. Points 2 and 3 apply to groups acting against governments susceptible to democratic pressure. Failing to oppose such groups is tantamount to abandoning the principles of democracy itself, and subordinating ourselves to despotism. Something which I was always told we have had to work bloody hard to escape from, and protect against. Point 4, combined with the necessity of obtaining large sums of money and equipment, has a tendency to provoke the organisation into a lifestyle of petty warlordism. Rapidly they cease to be the executors and heroes of the people and become another set of oppressors. For all the above reasons I believe it is wrong to sympathise in the smallest part with any organisation that uses terrorist methods. They are questionable at the outset, and almost inevitably slide into worse and worse outrages. Our responsibility is to render the use of terrorism as defunct as the use of poison gas by totally rejecting it.

Swords don't run out of ammunition.

I don't think I'd ever go there unless I had kids. Kids I hated.

LMAO. Good point, man. I also think maybe it would be good to have the gay gamers do a _little_ ass-kicking in arena games.

Having slept on it, I agree with Pop. There are tonnes of fantastic images out there if you are looking to be moved. I have one which I think GDM will approve of. NGOs trying to bring sense to the mass graves in Iraq are forced to give some graves nothing but a number. Estimates of how many of people were killed during the giddy years of peace before we invaded in our 'genocidal' action are between 200,000-300,000.

*forum makes rude gestures at krookie*

Sure, and when we're armpit deep in morlocks, I'll know who to blame. YOU!

*coughs politely* I was actually attempting a takeoff of my great hero - Columbo. *image edited out due to overtraffic or something. Due to goblins, that sounds better.* My restricting my points was simply to ease the pressure you are under, tackling multiple questions. Speaking of which, what do you think of my point that simply because an act involves terror does not make it terrorism. To use a purely military analogy, just because the French army had tanks in 1940 does not mean that they were conducting blitzkrieg.

I would never do a thing like that... Believe it or not you were not the one I was worried about. Oi!

Couple of points: 1. Given the British insistence in the RAF on 'strategic' bombing of civilian centres, coupled with Churchill's evident enthusiasm at Yalta for possession of the bomb, I think it is obvious that we would certainly have used it on Germany at any point in the war after 1942. 2. Gorth makes a really good point, which is that in 1945 the greatest threat to the Allies was within the alliance in the form of Soviet Russia, and 'Uncle' Joe Stalin. Detonating the bombs may have been one of the few things which prevented the 10 million Soviet troops in Eastern Europe during 1945 steaming westwards, linking up with Communist guerillas all the way. 3. I am sometimes aggravated by the sanctimonious tone taken by some members when discussing the malfeasances of governments. Government is invariably a matter a choosing between evils, while hamstrung by a dearth of money, time, information, or other resources. If a member believes they have the capacity to do better then I invite them to do so for the good of all mankind. 4. Even given the above I join with a great many in mourning the dead of the two cities. Their deaths being just part of the great tragedy of World War 2. A life taken is a life taken, whether it be through starvation and disease in the seige of Leningrad, drowning at Dunkirk, in a forced labour camp in the Phillipines, or the flash of a thousand suns.

I am quite certain that I must have known far more gay people than I think, simply because so few were able to come out when I was younger. This also had a negative impact on my attitudes for a long while since I had no way of knowing gay people are just people like anyone else at the level of the foundations.

Gorgon wins this thread! I'll have that image in my head all day today. I can see a couple of teenagers running away with that thing under their arms. Or worse, the soldier comes to get it and finds it on blocks, gun, treads, and cameras missing. Too funny. I second.

The UK can be very strange. In many areas, and certainly where the law is concerned being gay is A-OK. However, in less 'enlightened' circles, such as housing estates, the Armed Forces, public schools, etc it's still taboo, and used as an excuse to get violent. Some of you may recall a few years ago my complaining about gay showboating. You know, why get so ggressively in my face about it? Why can't all gays be normal. but then after a bit of discussion I realised I was being daft. Coming out of the closet requires a lot of guts, and having done it there is a tendency to revel in the freedom. It's like when you first openly admit that you quite enjoy watching ST Voyager. The next thing you know you're dressing up as Mal from Firefly.

I personally find it most disturbing. One of the principle components of human civilisation is the appication of force by the state. And one of the principle features of the historical use of force is the involvement of humans. If robots are to be used to apply force then I believe the consequences could be terrifying. For starters, if there is no-longer any such thing as female Army officers who am I going to date?

How imaginative

As usual in this area, I'm inclined to agree with Pop. I don't believe that career criminals are deterred by any amount of lashings. I believe that it would be much more sensible to have a unit of the police and judiciary whose job it was to do in-depth studies of such persons and closely monitor tehir behaviour, ultimately having the power to recommend incarceration for lengthy periods for the protection of society. I don't know why I mentioned the immigrant issue. Perhaps because this can be pathological, and the sad fact is that many young male immigrants have come to us as th perpetrators of crimes in their countries of origin.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england...don/6929285.stm For some years now the thought has been fermenting in me that two very distinct types of person appear before the criminal justice system. Some persons, even murderers and other serious offenders, commit one crime, or perhaps two or three lesser ones. There are other persons, however, usually well known to the police, who commit many crimes, and clusters of crimes, like the gentlemen shown above. My principle reaction is that we over-punish and incarcerate the former, and do far too little too late to the latter. Which, naturallly, poses a problem to the notion of a single justice system for all.

The British Army entry requirement is 1.5 miles in 10.5 minutes.