Gorgon

I'll take the hegemony of political correctness over the hegemony of totalitarian regimes any day, philosophically I think we should de mystify **** though.

For us the era of revolutions is long gone. In China they are still afraid of the ghost of it. A demonstration in the west doesn't bring with it any sense of a fundamental threat to the system.

National identity can be tied up with a show of multi ethnicity or multi nationalism, think England for instance. The fact that all is not well in the quaint province of Tibet can be overlooked.

There is a rather strange dynamic going on in this if you think about it. The Chinese reaction to western criticism reinforces its sense of national identity, while for the west the example of a totalitarian regime reinforces our conception of the value of democracy. Both are defined by their opposites and everybody wins.

That doesn't make any sense, even if they surrendered mistakenly based on the actual military realities, the Dalia Lama is just one man, you can't sum up a people's identity and claim to cultural uniqueness in one. Not that I think the pre invasion Tibet was some kind of utopia of peaceful monks, it was more akin to religious autocracy, even if it lacked the extreme repressive measures we usually associate with the term.

Pedophilia can be treated with chemical castration, but it doesn't arrest the psychological and sexual makeup of the individual, some pedophiles released under observation of continuing drug treatment re-offend anyway. Other than that there is psychotherapy but it is notoriously hard to document success. Are they 'crazy' or is it merely a question of sexual preference, I don't know, but we have to safeguard children in either case. All in all they constitute a much greater risk than criminals who have merely financial motives.

What do you think about this story of Hillary embellishing on her visit to Bosnia or some such place and claiming she came under sniper fire. How do you downplay that a presidential candidate shows symptoms of being a pathological liar ?

Criminality is just one part of the binary of criminality and legality which helps society distinguish 'right' from 'wrong'. That conception of right and wrong can be accompanied by an extreme ostracisation as in the leepers of the dark ages, where they are no longer though of as human, in that mode it becomes easier to accept the death penalty, since you no longer equate it as something that could possibly happen to yourself or to someone you would compare yourself with.

Thats the point, that one can be considered immoral and the other perfectly acceptable, and that the less extreme and final is the immoral punishment.

The provision against cruel and unusual punishment is rather odd, I mean wouldn't you rather take a whipping or be branded with iron than be killed.

Hooker, Graphics card - Hooker, Graphics card ... Tough call.

Well most experts agree that pedophiles have an extremely high rate of re-offending. I think any consideration of release has to take this into account. In most cases such an individual would pose a continual threat. I'm not sure if life without parole is always the right sentence, we could be on the edge of the age of consent, there could be special considerations. etc.

Mmm this is familiar, shove an image of some bastard who everyone can agree deserves everything he gets in our faces, and then turn it into a discussion of the death penalty. I don't think the death penalty is necessary. There are certain things we just should not do, not because there aren't people who deserve to die, but because these things demean society and lessen the value of human life.

And thus from your subjectivity god does not exist, only a hypothetical allowance for the fact that you might be wrong in that assumption. Which brings me back to my original statement that atheism is absolutist, well, maybe it isn't. You win.

No, no, no. An atheist is a person who does not believe in a god or gods, not one who says there is no god or gods. You are asking me to refute a stawman. It's a zero sum game isn't it. If an atheist doesn't believe in god then from his perspective god doesn't exist. God only exists for those who believe.

**** no - completely different. Explain. Ostensibly if there is no God then God doesn't exist, if you can do it without being snooty - if you can't then don't bother.

A good excuse is still just an excuse, not an explanation.

I though an agnostic was someone who admitted he couldn't figure it out, given that there is no real basis for proof for either contention.

Atheism does not say that "'god does not exist" - it is the belief that there is no god or gods Thats the same thing surely, forgetting for a moment that I forgot to put god in plural.

Atheism and religious belief are both absolutist ideologies. The statement that 'god does not exists' is just as uncompromising as 'god exists'. Education shouldn't waste time on either, and least of all the US right wing Christians who seem to constantly crave attention.

Redheads

It would be even nicer if Lucas let go of the reigns and let someone more talented have a go at it.

Thats because it's a good excuse, and imperialism isn't entirely dead yet either, although it's present incarnation can better be described as the negative effects of globalization and its transnational conglomerates exploiting local resources. Thats not at all unlike merchant companies operating under charter during the worst of imperialism, although they are no longer encouraged by nation states, but operate on their own, without the extremes of slavery and with the added element of caring about their own image.

I don't know about that, but you don't have to listen long to Mugabe to realize that he is himself a rather sad ironic victim of imperialism, making the experience of imperialism into a sort of theory of everything when talking about Africa. Theories that try to encompass too much are always wrong, it reminds me of fundamentalist readings of Marx, just like the means of production are not the tealeaves in which you can find an explanation for any eventuality, neither is imperialism, but it is a defining feature of modern African history.

That continent got the worst imperialism has to offer, and hasn't recovered. There is progress measured over centuries, but its slow going.