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Azarkon
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Posts posted by Azarkon
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A) is debateable. If they pay for it, sure. But if they don't? If they have no contact whatsoever with the original producers, as is often the case? Where does the encouragement come from?
B) is true and gets into the whole issue of informed consent, which children, presumably, don't have. However, the blame there rests with the person who releases the photo, not the person who sees the photo. Do people get in trouble for looking at celebrity nudes taken without their consent? Somehow, I doubt it.
Besides, I think you would be hard-pressed to argue that it's the legal aspects which (invasion of privacy, informed consent, etc.) determine people's reactions, in this case. I do, in fact, think that people will have just as adverse of a reaction against pretend play and maybe even drawings, at least in the West. Other cultures are actually pretty different, in this respect.
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I never quite understood the murderous rage against non-performing pedophiles. There are worse deviancies in the world than masturbating to naked kids. But this board is, perhaps, not the best place to discuss something like this.
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Canada? US searches laptops at the border.
I see... I guess I presumed that it was Canada because I heard they had stricter laws regarding digital pornography.
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I'm more surprised he actually got busted for having child porn that he did not share... So Canada does random "we're going to go into your computer and see what you have on your HD" searches now? Cause it sounds like that he cooperated with the authorities after they decided to search through his HD (perhaps because he thought doing so might save his skin in case they discovered the files on their own). Isn't that an invasion of privacy?
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Well, if Anthony confirmed it over at the Codex, then I guess celebration is in order?
Hope it's as good as MoTB
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There is no indication that "expansion pack 2" is anything more than MoW, so I'm going to wait for an official confirmation (or denial).
I'm going to wait for YOUR FACE.
You'll be waiting for a long time
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There is no indication that "expansion pack 2" is anything more than MoW, so I'm going to wait for an official confirmation (or denial).
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But Sand, that'll give them time to build up. They might beat us, then. Why should we wait? Didn't you say that waiting makes the enemy stronger? Surely we don't want that?
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Yes, I know, Sand. China's out to get us. We should nuke them first, and ask questions later. I mean, we certainly don't want to hesitate, because before you know it, they'll be nuking us while we're still wondering about the moral implications of our actions. Can't let thinking get in the way of action.
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That's fair, Sand. I didn't seek to convince you, and as alanschu put it earlier, it's probably pointless to try since you've never budged on anything over the forums. But my post wasn't directed towards you. It was directed towards those who are willing to consider the other side - to understand, perhaps, that international politics isn't as simple as black and white.
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Some do. Others don't. Taiwan just recently ousted Chen Shui-bian's pro-independence party in favor of the pro-unification KMT. As for Tibet, information is scarce but I'm sure that many ethnic Tibetans would like to be independent... Just as many ethnic <insert whatever> here would like to be independent of the nations under which they're listed. Does that change anything? The US didn't give independence to any of the people we absorbed and it's, once again, unreasonable to assume that other nations would do anything of the sort. In either case, forcing China on the issue is unlikely to make a difference, because Beijing would see through the hypocrisy and, based on the fact that we're trying to fragment their nation, cast us as a permanent threat with which there can be no compromise. Is that going to help the Tibetans and the Taiwanese, Sand? I doubt it.
In the mean time, you might want to look at the example of Hong Kong as a case when people thought that returning to the Chinese polity would've meant massive oppression and the end of the world. Today, Hong Kong is doing just fine with its own system, and many of those who fled the island in fear of the Communists are now returning. If Taiwan were to return to China under the supervision of the UN, I don't think things would be very different. In fact, it'd likely resolve much of the tension in East Asia, which would be better for all involved.
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To be perfectly fair, Sand, China considers Tibet and Taiwan its own territory. Now, we can debate whether that is actually the case, but if you're going to base your gauge of a country's likelihood to threaten the US by how it treats its separatist problems, then you have to throw almost every country in the world into your "threat list," because almost everyone's got separatists and ethnic nationalists of their own that they either actively suppress or sweep under the carpet. Look at the Maoists in India, for instance, the IRA in the UK, or even the Hawaiian sovereignty movement in the US.
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I think that's definitely an arguable point. The article certainly stresses the fact that, right now, the Chinese do not pose a significant threat to us unless we invade, because their power projection capabilities are rather limited. But, as you say, they have all the prerequisites of being a military superpower - they're just not quite there, yet. In this respect, I think we have to accept the fact that China will become a major military power, and to look at this not from the perspective of an inevitable clash that fundamentally threatens American security (in which case the best strategy would be to, as some hawks suggest, preemptively bomb them back to the stone age), but from the more balanced principle that China has to militarize in response to its feelings of insecurity over US dominance and that this process does not necessarily have to result in war if we can adopt a position of mutual advantage. By reducing our threat to them, we can also reduce their threat to us. This is not the same as saying we should de-militarize (because, as I stated earlier, those who want peace must always prepare for war) or appease, but that there are decisions we can make that would provide assurances to the Chinese leadership regarding our intentions, which would then reduce their need to militarize against us, and in turn reduce their overall threat to us.
Through the course of history, there have indeed been enemies between whom there can be no rapprochement, in which war is inevitable. However, it seems to me that in most cases, wars occur only for the lack of trying in preventing them. To understand the wants and fears of the other is the first step towards diplomacy. It is easy to label another nation as "evil" due to their unsavory activities and our own culture of fear, but when you get down to it, nearly every major country can be construed as a threat, especially the US. In which case, there are only two ways by which peace can exist: either one nation, through force of arms, pacifies every other nation and prevents them from ever developing their own militaries (which essentially establishes a superior-subordinate relationship that can easily lead to exploitation), or nations learn to reduce their threat level towards one another. The key point of my post was to show how much of a threat the US must necessarily pose to everyone else on the globe by virtue of our military superiority and power projection capabilities, which I think is a fact that most Amreicans do not even think of when they consider international relations and, in particular, the question of why other countries are always gearing up for war.
After all, why do we?
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Can we have some arguments that support claims that the West should de-militarise in the face of China and co? So far it's been "China is just misunderstood.", but I'm seriously hoping that people don't actually believe that.
I don't think any claims have been made to the effect. In truth, the thread probably veered off a bit more in the prescriptive direction than I intended. I am not so interested in saying what the US should do, as I am interested in explaining an aspect of modern international relations that I think undermines much of what certain politicians and think tanks in the US claim that they are trying to achieve. In short, I am suggesting that the idea that you can pacify the world through force is a politically flawed concept - because just as Americans refuse to have their guns taken away (because they don't trust the government), other countries will refuse to persist in a state of permanent military insecurity (because they don't trust the US). It is not unreasonable that other countries continue to militarize; they'd be foolish not to, and we are misguided in thinking that this means they must be ruled by belligerent regimes that seek to destabilize the world order.
The truth is that even if they are ruled by completely benevolent regimes seeking only to mind their own businesses, US military lopsidedness and our history of interventionism will still conjure the spectre of fear in all but the most naive and "buddy-buddy" of governments. It is not so much that the US is seen as a ruthless expansionist aggressor (except by, perhaps, a few rogue regimes), but that the potential is there for the US to do enormous asymmetrical damage and there are no checks or balances in place - at the international level - that prevent us from doing so. Yes, Europe protests, but their protests have never stopped us. The truth is as stated in the article - we can annihilate any country in the world and have more than enough weapons to hold the rest of the world at bay. There are no balancing repercussions in place that would ensure the MAD that previously brought rival governments some degree of security; the modern American arsenal is possessed of no-retaliation first-strike capabilities.
When the biggest guy on the block is sporting a set of bazookas, you will undoubtedly feel threatened and the need to possess counter-weapons of your own. This, I think, will be the defining trait of the 21st century. US military hegemony has brought an era of uneasy peace to the international scene, but it cannot last (some would say it never existed), because while having the US as the sole possessor of peerless military power is almost certainly better for stability than having multiple powers with equal militaries (which got us into the World Wars, as you will recall), the latter is the only state of the world that would satisfy people's psychological need for security. Roughly speaking, as our comparative technological advantage erodes, and our moral image falters, people in other parts of the world will increasingly realize that they no longer desire to be at the mercy of our military power, particularly as it is guided by leaders who, to the rest of the world, appear to be trigger-happy maniacs. And so we return to the age-old paradox: if you want peace, prepare for war.
That, it seems to me, is set to become the modus operandi of the new millenium.
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Certainly. But so is the view that other forms of government are inherently evil and therefore threatening to the American way of life. If the Chinese are indeed a threat to American security, they have not yet acted directly on that threat. On the other hand, we have acted on our threat to Beijing many times, and directly. If we were to enter into a contest of "who started it," I think the Chinese would win handidly, Sand. And it's in that context wherein my question makes sense.
Don't get me wrong - the world doesn't operate on the principle of sympathy. But mutual advantage, now - that's something nations can stand by, and a critical step to achieving mutual advantage is to understand what the other side want from you, and what they fear from you, because those are the two fundamental questions between groups of people.
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By casting others as threats, you necessarily make yourself a threat to them. Mutual threat, which leads to war, then becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. On the other hand, if you do not threaten them, would they threaten you? Which came first - the chicken or the egg?
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And that's the sort of thinking that, ultimately, leads the world into fearing us, and which perpetuates the cycle of violence. Think about it, Sand - if the US presented itself as an existential threat to China (or Russia, or Iran, or w/e) by cutting off all relations, do you really think they would respond by becoming democratic? History has proven the opposite - in times of fear and isolation, people gravitate towards dictatorship, fascism, and tyranny, because those are the forces that guarantee security (at the price of freedom). That is not to say, and I think many economists make this mistake, that doing the opposite (befriending China & giving it FTN status) will produce democracy. But positioning yourself as a threat certainly worsens the situation unless you're willing to act on your threat, to overthrow the government by military intervention and then to occupy, rebuild, and reshape the country under your rule. Since the US is not prepared to do that for the vast majority of the world, would you not agree that threatening to do so can only encourage the sort of paranoid thinking that leads countries and peoples in the direction of authoritarianism? Aren't we working against our own interests, in that case?
Something to think about.
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How is repressing democracy a threat to the US, unless the goal of the US was to impose democracy on the rest of the world?
Do you see the way this argument flows? If China is a threat for being a dictatorship, then the US is certainly a threat for every dictatorship in the world. That being the case, the authoritarian world must necessarily unite against the US. There are no ifs or buts, in that case - the two cannot coexist. Thus, we sew the seeds of our own apocalypse.
But is a democratic nation, then, not a threat to the US - and therefore does not feel threatened in turn? I think quite a few countries in the world would argue against that. Starting with Russia.
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It's not America I'm concerned with; it is China and Indonesia.
Those are Australia's two biggest threats, and the reason I think Australia and America should continue to maintain a strong defence force and alliance.
When I say 'threat' I don't mean they are actively planning to invade Australia, but it certainly isn't a stretch that they'd attempt it if they saw it profitable (which it is), given their recent record.
I see China as the biggest threat against the United States. Not just militarily but also economically. The United States should not owe any country any form of debt, especially to a regime that cares little about human rights and freedoms that the Chinese Government does.It is precisely opinions like these that reinforce, I think, what I said with regards to why the rest of the world feels the need to defend against the US. Yes, you fear them, but how much do they fear you? After all, China is about as much of a military threat as a man with a harpoon (if you read the article) trying to up against an Aegis battlecruiser. Yet, our political opinion is that they are a major threat that we should "probably" act preemptively against. Now imagine that you're Chinese (or in particular, a part of the Chinese political elite). What do you think your country should do, given American hints at belligerence?
I wouldn't be surprised if you supported someone who pledged to defend China against the "imperial threat" of the US, to ensure that China is never again threatened by any foreign power. That's how Mao took power, and how wars begin.
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I should also commend Tigraines on a well-thought out post that captures much of what I wanted to say. I should add, though, that world opinion is not necessarily mass opinion. Most people in the world, I think, have positive impressions of Americans, or at least America. But their governments - that is to say, their political elite - must necessarily fear us, because we have demonstrated that we are perfectly willing to intervene and undermine their interests. The Orange Revolution, for example, ingrained a deep distrust into the heart of a Moscow thawing from the Cold War, that has now empowered Putin and his supporters into forming an anti-US league. Our pledge to defend Taiwan and encirclement (with Japan, S. Korea, and Australia) of mainland China (along with a long history of tensions) did something similar to Beijing. The fact that we overthrew a popularly elected government in Iran no doubt left scars, there, and the War against Terrorism has only further cemented the Muslim community against us.
All of these nations have reasons, and good reasons, to fear us. And it's not just the abstract fear that Europeans or Canadians or the rest of the West feels, sometimes, about not being in control of world affairs. It is a tangible, real, and existential fear far greater than anything we feel towards the Islamists, who, I think, we still basically aren't taking seriously (because, understandably, the thought that a handful of extremists could take down the US is a bit ludicrous, even with the scare mongering). And until we understand - and recognize - that fear, I don't think we're prepared to deal with it. It being, of course, why countries do what they do, aside from the rather ignorant and dehumanizing notion that "they're evil."
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In this respect, I think Tigraines is right to fear that this argument would fall back to the standard "but America will never be fascist, that's ridiculous! We have checks and balances! We have democracy!", which is of course the standard, easy way to think about all this, and something that I want to avoid. Thus, I'm going to preempt it by making sure everyone understands what I mean.
It's not:
America is the greatest threat to the modern world. We're the next Nazi Germany. GWB = Hitler 2.0!"
But:
America's military supremacy scares the crap out of everyone else, and our recent actions do not serve to placate their fears. It's only natural, then, that the world would re-militarize - because nobody would want their lives to be in our hands.
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I was hesitant to come in and post but I think we can all agree that America becoming the next Nazi Germany is pretty laughable. The statements in op are horribly misguided and skewed. America would never attack someone like China because we are just itching for them to open the flood gates of democracy so we can invade with our businesses of mass profitability. While wars are highly profitable to a lot of people we can't constantly be in them becuase it puts a lot of strain on our economy and socio political system so another war, unless openly provoked, is highly unlikely while we finish up in Afghanistan and Iraq. It's not so much that we want to control the world, thats stupid, we just want to make as much money as possible. It's as simple as that and as much as you think you're righteous words about these poor oppressed people around the world are true, they want the exact same thing. You say whats to stop America from rising up and militarizing to control the world but whats to stop any other country? I mean Germany is a small country and after World War 1 they were absolutely and thoroughly destroyed yet they came back to be one of the biggest powerhouses in the world. It's clear that any country with the might and will can do that, you only choose America becuase of some sick delusion.
Fighting the entire world through military conflict isn't profitable, it's much easier through diplomacy and business. Not much more than that.
I should chime in and say that my post is not that America "will become the next Nazi Germany," and if you read my post as that, then you've missed the point.
The point is not about America, per say, but about the fear that America must certainly generate in everyone else. Once again I point out the analogy of the alcoholic gun collector living next door - it might be that he's totally harmless, but I'd probably think twice before deciding that I'm going to be "gun-free," especially if I think he doesn't think straight, sometimes.
America, to the rest of the world, is like the alcoholic gun collector. We tout enough firepower to blow up every country in the world, and more importantly, first strike capability against all the nuclear-wielding nations. So, essentially, we can decide tomorrow that we don't like the Russians, or the Chinese, or the Europeans anymore, and blow them all to hell. They wouldn't be able to do a thing about it, because we have the ability to preemptively destroy their entire defensive array. Why would we do it? I don't know - we certainly wouldn't do it now. But in history, nothing is certain; nobody in 19th century Europe thought that their civilization would collapse under two World Wars, either.
And that's just the big nations. A small nation like North Korea wouldn't stand a chance. Yes, we're not very good at occupation, but that doesn't mean a thing to the leaders, who're going to be the first to go in any invasion (ie Saddam in Iraq). I mean, if it's not like we haven't overthrown a dozen governments in the past, elected and otherwise.
So, in essence, the post was an attempt to look at the world from other people's eyes, particularly those parts of the world that do not really "trust" us, for whatever reason (be it colonialism, Cold War interventionism, or w/e). It's from that perspective that you really begin to understand and - yes, sympathize - with nations developing their militaries and nuclear arsenals. They're only doing what's rational, given the threat that the US could potentially pose.
But keep the thoughts coming, everyone.
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I suggest you read the article. While it doesn't talk about Russia, it does talk about how China is more or less a paper tiger when it comes to military conflict.
As for your comment, I think it's not so much that everybody fears America, but that everybody has a reason to fear America. Choosing to not act on that feeling is a sign of good faith, but basing your national defense on good faith is probably not the best of ideas.
Anyways, I think it's quite telling that the only military enemy we have today is one that does not fear death.
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http://atimes.com/atimes/China/JB12Ad01.html (the article deals with US vs. China, but it's not that particular comparison that I want to focus on)
Think about it from the perspective of someone living in another country, one perhaps not on the best of terms with the US. The US has enough nuclear weapons - and conventional weapons, for that matter - to destroy any country or set of countries in the world. The only thing holding back the US is American democracy, which in recent years have produced such great presidents as George W. Bush and candidates like John McCain. Now, the Americans don't seem like a serious people (at least not from our popular culture), and they don't seem like they want to take over the world - but are you really going to risk your life, and potentially the life of your people on the notion that Americans, ignorant and content as they currently are, will never fall under the sway of someone who did have ambition? What's to prevent, in other words, an American Adolf Hitler, who might ride in on the coattails of an economic depression?
It only takes one mistake of the US political system to send the entire world spiraling into chaos. It only takes one real threat to the untested, pampered, and sheltered Americans for a demagogue to rally the masses. There would be no shortage of scapegoats - the Pentagon invents them as a matter of course, to justify our inflated military spendings - and while the Americans are horrible at occupation, there is no reason why they must occupy. The Americans have been known to shoot first and ask questions later, after all. They don't seem like people you can reason with, once the fighting's started.
So, what would you do, rationally, in this situation? Well, in the short term, you know that you must pamper the Americans. Ally with them. Lower their sense of distrust, their reason to fear you. But in the long term? You don't want to sacrifice yourself for the Americans forever, and no amount of pampering will appease a truly belligerent leader, anyhow. In the long term you have no choice but to try and equal the Americans - for as long as they have an overwhelming military advantage, to the point where they can destroy you without you being able to touch them, you can never sleep easy. It's like living next doors to an alcoholic gun collector in Detroit. He might bid you good morning everyday and invite you to his house, but those nights when he holds them NRA parties... You're never quite sure whether those loud noises you hear are from his boom box or ... Or something else.
I believe that Americans are better than most when it comes to internalizing what we fear. Our political culture is based, in some sense, on threat politics, so we're quite familiar with it. So, I surmise, it should not be difficult to understand what fear does to a people. The fear of Islamic terrorists, however small of a threat they are to us, sent us into two wars in the Middle-East. We continuously play up the notion of a worldwide Islamic Revolution, wherein Islam would conquer all of Europe and send the world back to the twelth century. We belabor ceaselessly the point that the "liberal West" is "blind" to the threat of foreign immigrants, and that it will be too late before we have the guts to respond - another apocalyptic war, we tell ourselves, is inevitable. Such an active doomsday imagination we have, such a negative notion of other people... That it almost begs the question,
How would we act, if we were in their shoes? If Islam, or China, or Russia, were in control of the world, and not us? What if they had the power to annihilate us without us being able to do a thing about it, and the only thing we could do is hope that they will not, despite the fact that their politicians and media sources are continuously playing up the "threat" that we pose?
Such a scenario, I argue, is inconceivable to the modern American mind. We do not know fear as the rest of the world knows it. Thus, we do not understand why they would ever feel the need to militarize. In the eternal words of Donald Rumsfeld, "Since no nation threatens China, one must wonder: Why this growing investment [in the military]?" I can just imagine what the Chinese equivalent to the Secretary of Defense must have thought when he heard those words: "Indeed, what do we have to fear, but fear itself?"
North Illinois University Shooting
in Way Off-Topic
Posted · Edited by Azarkon
I think what frightens people about this whole ordeal is the "where next?" principle. With university shooting becoming such a common occurence in the US, it's no longer about if, but when and where. It's also the fact that universities are supposed to be safe havens, not places where you should have to worry about defending yourself against homicidal maniacs.