Why you shouldn't stop a rapist (according to the "No War on Iraq!" crowd)

[Skeptic]

The other day, I was walking down the street and saw a man raping a woman, just like Saddam Hussein raped his country and people for years.

I wanted to interfere, but then realized that would be a deeply immoral thing to do.

1). First of all, just like "Saddam is no threat to the United States", this man was no threat to me--he wasn't raping MY wife, after all. Since this is a good reason for the US to keep allowing Saddam to kill his people, it's good enough reason for me to let the rapist rape that other woman which I didn't know.

2). Second, I asked myself: "why JUST him?" Like the know-it-alls from the left, who consider it deeply immoral and discriminatory that Bush removed ONLY Saddam and not other despots, I realized that it would be totally unfair to the rapist for me to stop ONLY him, while other rapists still walk free. After all, unless I vow to stop all rapists, I shouldn't stop any of them. It's unfair, otherwise.

3). Looking deeper into my soul, I realized that my motives weren't pure. I was not only interested in stopping the rape--I was also thinking of the fame and celebrity I might recieve as a hero. You know, just like Bush was "interested in Iraq's oil" and was not solely and completely interested in the Iraqi's general well-being for completely altruistic reasons. Surely, it is totally hypocritial to stop a rapist (or to stop Saddam) if you derive some benefit from it yourself; so, like Bush shouldn't have invaded Iraq, I should be true to myself and not stop the rapist.

4). I then realized that (1) and (3) are contradictory: (1) claims that I should not stop a rape unless it DOES concern my personal benefit (just like Saddam should not be removed unless he is a direct threat to the US), while (3) claims that I should not stop a rape unless is DOES NOT concern me in any way (just like the fact that the US might benefit from removing Saddam with oil makes the attack "immoral"). But, being a good leftist, blatant logical conradictions did not bother me.

So, I kept on walking, being true to myself and confident in my moral superiority. Of course, a stupid man walking after me in the street DID try to stop the rapist, but I hit him over the head with my big "POLICE OUT OF THE RAPE BUSINESS" protest sign, just in time to stop the rapist from suffering agression. The rapist then bought me dinner as a thank-you gift (just like Saddam Hussein paid a lot of money to the "human shields" who came to support him before the war).

[Cain]

:rolleyes:

First, we're dealing with nation states and the complicated interactions between them, past and present.

The analogy, for instance, completely disregards the United States' history toward Iraq. We therefore supported a rapist during the 1980s out of self-interested reasons. We also actively supported other "rapists" (take your pick from Israel's on going occupation to Suharto to Latin America or go all the way back to Iran, which is relevant to our support of Saddam).

Here's the hamhanded pre-emptive reply:

Looking deeper into my soul, I realized that my motives weren't pure.

It's reasonable to assume a person's (or government's) motives will affect the consequences of her (or its) actions. You know, like only guarding the Ministry of Oil while all the other buildings, including hospitals and museums, get looted and destroyed.

Suppose a person is being raped and the heroic interventionist plans on stopping the crime by blinding firing his uzi, creating a good chance of killing both assailant and victim. The analogy is deceptive because stopping or preventing a rape often involves using violence against the attacker. A military invasion is, um, quite different.

A more accurate analogy would involve a tireless serial rapist. After aiding this violent criminal (perhaps restraining a victim), one decides to put an end to this rape business because it's no longer very thrilling. (See article posted earlier by Noam Chomsky on Washington's move to keep Saddam in power back in '91.)

[KelvinG]

A more apt analogy is the police invade your house without a search warrant. They find you have a dead body in your closet.
Yes, it's very good they found out that you are a killer.
What isn't good is how they went about it. But, do we just shrug our shoulders and say "Well, since they found a body, the fact they didn't have a search warrant is OK." Does this mean they don't need search warrants anymore because they might find something incriminating.

In my opinion, the reasons presented by the US to invade Iraq were deceptive and based on a number of lies.
Does that mean I'm not glad they found Saddam. Of course not. He's an evil man.

But it also means I don't have a particular high level of trust of the US and it's premptive attack policies. Unlike some folks on this forum, I'm not a dismissive slave-like robot who is programmed to accept everything that Bush and his cronies do without question.

Skeptic, if I suspected you were a rapist, should I go to the police and let them apprehend you legally, or should myself and an angry mob break into your house and dispense our own form of justice? After all, it would OK right, because you are a rapist. What's the point of having rules or protocol.

The end doesn't always justify the means.

[epepke]

Originally posted by Cain
The analogy, for instance, completely disregards the United States' history toward Iraq. We therefore supported a rapist during the 1980s out of self-interested reasons. We also actively supported other "rapists" (take your pick from Israel's on going occupation to Suharto to Latin America or go all the way back to Iran, which is relevant to our support of Saddam).

The trouble with that is that by any reasonable interpretation, having supported a rapist in the past provides even more reason to get rid of the rapist. This, also, we hear from the left every day--it's the US' mess, so the US needs to clean it up.

Furthermore, another thing we hear from the left constantly is how bad it is to support dictators and how the US instead should go after them. Be careful what you wish for; it might just come true.

[Regnad Kcin]

Originally posted by Skeptic
The other day, I was walking down the street and saw a man raping a woman, just like Saddam Hussein raped his country and people for years. Oh? "Just like," eh? Rolleyes indeed.

[fishbob]

Skeptic: The other day, I was walking down the street and saw a man raping a woman, just like Saddam Hussein raped his country and people for years.

You and I do not know why the US invaded Iraq, we may never know. We were told priro to the invasion that it was to prevent Saddam from using and distributing WMDs.

Bad analogy. Dumb analysis.

[shanek]

Originally posted by Skeptic
The other day, I was walking down the street and saw a man raping a woman, just like Saddam Hussein raped his country and people for years.

Drill this through your head right now:

PEOPLE ARE NOT NATIONS.

1). First of all, just like "Saddam is no threat to the United States", this man was no threat to me--he wasn't raping MY wife, after all. Since this is a good reason for the US to keep allowing Saddam to kill his people, it's good enough reason for me to let the rapist rape that other woman which I didn't know.

PEOPLE ARE NOT NATIONS. This is an individual who is in your country, your culture, even perhaps your own neighborhood. If someone lets him get away with rape this time, he may decide that he can get away with raping your wife later. The situation is very different with Iraq, because PEOPLE ARE NOT NATIONS.

Also, this situation is not in any way analagous to the current Iraq war. This would actually be closer to you saying, "I know Mr. X is a rapist, so I'm going to go ransack his home and drag him out of there by his feet." That's vigilantism, and it is NOT acceptable.

Your proper course of action is to defend the woman against the rapist, using only as much force as you need to in order to do so, then let the authorities handle it from there. That's so the guy can get his rights, a fair trial by jury, you know, the whole FREEDOM thing. The thing we're supposedly defending.

2). Second, I asked myself: "why JUST him?" Like the know-it-alls from the left, who consider it deeply immoral and discriminatory that Bush removed ONLY Saddam and not other despots, I realized that it would be totally unfair to the rapist for me to stop ONLY him, while other rapists still walk free. After all, unless I vow to stop all rapists, I shouldn't stop any of them. It's unfair, otherwise.

Again, PEOPLE ARE NOT NATIONS. America is acting like a police force in this. What if the police just picked certain rapists that they were going to arrest and others they were going to ignore?

3). Looking deeper into my soul, I realized that my motives weren't pure. I was not only interested in stopping the rape--I was also thinking of the fame and celebrity I might recieve as a hero. You know, just like Bush was "interested in Iraq's oil" and was not solely and completely interested in the Iraqi's general well-being for completely altruistic reasons. Surely, it is totally hypocritial to stop a rapist (or to stop Saddam) if you derive some benefit from it yourself; so, like Bush shouldn't have invaded Iraq, I should be true to myself and not stop the rapist.

Need I say it again? PEOPLE ARE NOT NATIONS. You would be acting to defend the woman against the rapist. You wouldn't be mugging someone else and taking their money to go buy a gun to use against the rapist.

As usual, you are using sloppy thinking to lash out against those you irrationally hate.

[TillEulenspiegel]

You know I used to use the Socratic method of gently asking questions and pointing the other party into a self-contridicition, but with most people on even the best forums this approach is not only non functional but the final destination once reached by those genteel remonstrances is an unrecognized quantity ( I remember some quote about a monkey and a football ).

To compare a general war by one nation against another to a common criminal act is ( I'm sooo tempted to use expletives here) a non-sequitur. The two hold no relation . The germ of that type of example is an equivocation to introduce moral parallels which can only exist on some wild philosophical Disney ride.
The whole enterprise that these folks are involved in is an ex post fact rationalization of an act that was , ill conceived, ill timed and generally unsupported by the PRIMARY espoused motivations of the Bush administration. Those do not exist, there was no clear and present danger, there was no WMD that were shouted about by the White House, the goals and goalpost moved from day to day.

To say after the ( no sorry we still have body bags coming back from IRAQ) fact that there was a good and true moral motivation and justification for the war because of Saddam's behavior against his own people makes bile rise in my throat. Moral my *** How about the slaughter in the Balkans ( well heck pardner , we all know that Bill Clinton started that cuz of his "sexual problems"), how about the Tutsis and Hutu's in Rawanda? How bout the rest of Africa?????Starvation?Robert Mugabi? Don't wanna go there with your new found concern for poor starving , mistreated people , huh? North Korea ( woa, that humanitarian crisis ..too dangerous! ) Don't ever raise the pristine Moral Charector of the far right as a reasonable and followed course. That is the biggest pile of feces since Laurs Dern stuck her hand in the pile of "dino droppings" in Jurassic Park".

People espousing post war justifications must find a better handle then human concern......That brcik won't fly.

[bug_girl]

hey, here's an idea. maybe there are women on this forum that are rape survivors. maybe they are offended at the way you are casually throwing around that word. maybe seeing this is traumatizing for them.

maybe they think you are huge jerk for making this callous analogy.
just a thought.

[American]

Originally posted by bug_girl
hey, here's an idea. maybe there are women on this forum that are rape survivors. maybe they are offended at the way you are casually throwing around that word. maybe seeing this is traumatizing for them.

maybe they think you are huge jerk for making this callous analogy.
just a thought.



Hey- Maybe those women can kiss my big black ass if they don't like it. It's a political and philisophical analogy, and a very good one too, so they can get bent if it truly bothers them.

[The idea]

Originally posted by Skeptic
[...] just like Saddam Hussein raped his country [...] for years.

Although it is true that Saddam was found in a hole in Iraq, there is no evidence that said hole was actually Iraq's vagina.

[Kopji]

A more complete analogy might be that we fed, trained, supplied and supported the rapist for a while, and then only became upset when he started doing it in front of our family.

Can we carry over to the 'personal' analogy the unfortunate fact of collateral damage? For example, would it still be worth stopping the rapist if it involved killing both people, or several bystanders?

There is not really a way to 'carry over' the complexity of a war action, to personal actions.

I have to agree that this is an unworkable example.

[Zep]

Just a rant?

I think so, don't you?

[Pyrrho]

A request has been made to change the title of this thread. Sorry, no. While we recognize that some sets of words may make some people uncomfortable, the sets of words in this thread and in the title are completely within the rules.

[TillEulenspiegel]

A rant? Really? To Whom are you refering?

[Mr Manifesto]

Well, I wouldn't get too het up about another piece of dumb@$$ery from Septic. He's never been the swiftest poster on the forum. Witness (http://www.randi.org/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&threadid=32957)...

And "Mr. Manifesto" wonders why most people here don't seem to take his "political analysis" seriously.

Actually, "Mr. Manifesto", the 9/11 planes were not remote controlled. They were MIND controlled by the international jew-masonic-catholic-shape-shifting-lizards-aliens conspiracy.

OK, I lie. THAT story is of course just the cover story for the REAL conspirators, namely, the interstellar killer slugs from Deneb. You were never naive enough to believe the "low-salt" diet craze was REALLY intended to make people healthier, were you? It's all part of the plan to disarm us when... but I said too much already

Poor thing. He didn't realise I was joking, despite the subtle clue in the thread title. He also missed my comment,

Not that I'm saying it was remote-controlled...

Poor, poor, dense Septic. Someone please buy him a clue.

[Zep]

Originally posted by TillEulenspiegel
A rant? Really? To Whom are you refering? Skeptic's original post.

[crackmonkey]

It's a pretty apt analogy for a couple of reasons - Saddam, in fact, did use rape as a form of torture. He had squads of soldiers who systematically raped female prisoners.
So, Saddam and sons wer eliteral rapists in that they had ( and personally partook in) the act of rape, as well as figuratively raping their nation.
I also got quite a chuckle reading Shanek calling for utmost restraint and minimal use of force when dealing with a rapist. Oh, the irony...

[The Fool]

Folks I don't think there is much point waiting patiently for "skeptic" to get a clue. He finds some things beyond him. The first thing that is beyond "skeptics" comprehension is that crtitisizing an action is not supporting the target of the action. "Skeptic" has always had problems with this concept. If you were to critisize police if they started dragging speeding motorists from thier cars and shooting them in the head, you would be condoning, nay, you would be actively advocating speeding.....

"skeptic" likes to make up little analogies populated with hero's in white hats and savages in black hats, it helps him explain the simple little world he has constructed for himself.

[Skeptic]

hey, here's an idea. maybe there are women on this forum that are rape survivors. maybe they are offended at the way you are casually throwing around that word.

I hardly think using the "rape" metaphor to describe what Saddam Hussein did to Iraq (to say nothing of other countries) is "causally thrown around". I think it is a appropriate metaphor.

maybe seeing this is traumatizing for them.

Maybe seeing thousands of Iraqi women raped and tortured by Saddam's secret police--which would still be at it if it wasn't for the "imperialist agressors" Bush and Blair--should be more traumatising than my use of the rape analogy metaphorically.

[svero]

The key problem with your analogy as I see it has nothing to do with the fact that Iraq is a nation and not a person or that the US supported Iraq in the past. The key problem is that the US didn't invade iraq to help the people and save them from the brutal dictator. If Saddam was removed and if the consequences of his removal in this particular scenario (ie the way he was removed) happen to be good in the long run for the Iraqi people then it will be a coincidence. Nothing more nothing less. When the US tells us its for the good of the Iraqi people and they want to foster democracy that's called propaganda. Look it up.

A better analogy would be where a man stops a rape by doing something entirely selfish and not motivated by the crime whatsoever. Where the rape is stopped purely coincidentally as a consequence of the man's selfish act and in fact the way the man stopped it had obvious completely unpredictable consequences and might just lead to far more rapes down the road, but he doesn't give a s**t because he got what he wanted.

[American]

Originally posted by svero
The key problem with your analogy as I see it has nothing to do with the fact that Iraq is a nation and not a person or that the US supported Iraq in the past. The key problem is that the US didn't invade iraq to help the people and save them from the brutal dictator. If Saddam was removed and if the consequences of his removal in this particular scenario (ie the way he was removed) happen to be good in the long run for the Iraqi people then it will be a coincidence. Nothing more nothing less. When the US tells us its for the good of the Iraqi people and they want to foster democracy that's called propaganda. Look it up.

A better analogy would be where a man stops a rape by doing something entirely selfish and not motivated by the crime whatsoever. Where the rape is stopped purely coincidentally as a consequence of the man's selfish act and in fact the way the man stopped it had obvious completely unpredictable consequences and might just lead to far more rapes down the road, but he doesn't give a s**t because he got what he wanted.


Big. Black. Ass.

[Zep]

Originally posted by American



Big. Black. Ass. Just about up to the standard, quality and style of debate we have come to expect from you...again.

[rdaneel]

Today I was walking through the forum and I saw a mob of skeptics incinerating a strawman. "Those things sure don't last long in this town" I thought to myself as I walked on.

[KelvinG]

Originally posted by American




Hey- Maybe those women can kiss my big black ass if they don't like it. It's a political and philisophical analogy, and a very good one too, so they can get bent if it truly bothers them.

Oh American. You'd done so well recently hiding your misogyny.

[American]

Originally posted by KelvinG

Oh American. You'd done so well recently hiding your misogyny.


See above.

[NullPointerException]

Considering that Saddam on numerous occasions would order rapes I don't find this analogy entirely inappropriate. Also, the reasoning regarding the arguements is not invalidated by the analogy because he was using it as an example not a logical connector. I don't think anyone who is against the war has read or generated a three thousand page assessment of the consequences of the occupation.

[Dorian Gray]

- There is one set of laws concerning rape that has been basically the same since its inception, not a maze-like set of mystical regulations that are a couple of years old and contain unclear language.

- There is one clear force that is in charge and has jurisdiction, not a conglomerate of many different forces and governments.

- There was one person to check with to verify the rape - if she says she is being raped, she is. There are not millions of people to check with to determine whether they feel they are being raped, nor is there an organization that must approve your action to halt the rape.

- The rapist was ostensibly not given tacit approval for his rape in a different decade, and was not given support and backing for it by anyone, and did not shake hands with the chief of police at an earlier time.

- The harm you would be stopping if you stopped a rape would far outweigh any recognition you got. Furthermore, you would automatically get more recognition than the rape victim because of the current code amongst journalists of not revealing names of rape victims, and now that I mention it, you might not get any recognition anyway if she didn't report it. (However, the oil Bush gets far outweighs the WMDs he didn't find, because millions of barrels of oil weigh more than nothing.)

- If I am you, Skeptic, I would determine the likelihood of a person being a rapist, and if they showed signs, even if the data were flawed, false, or fabricated, I would lock the person up or shoot him as a "preemptive strike". Furthermore, I would be investigating the potential rapist in the first place because someone unconnected to the potential rapist set my gazebo on fire.

- Note to American
That entire analogy posted by Skeptic is like the wind. It blows.

- One more note to American
If analogies using rape are acceptable, how about this one: If your ass is actually black, you are a black man who is hiding behind a white avatar. So you are essentially a traitor to your race, Uncle Tom. Have a nice day, and remember, no one can kiss your big black ass when your head is up it.

Now that's a good philosophical analogy for debate, huh.

[a_unique_person]

Another strawman. You must be going to run out of them one day.

[a_unique_person]

Originally posted by rdaneel
Today I was walking through the forum and I saw a mob of skeptics incinerating a strawman. "Those things sure don't last long in this town" I thought to myself as I walked on.

lol

[Earthborn]

Skeptic, what a wonderfull analogy! It is so obvious how the leftists are wrong and what the correct course of action is: clusterbomb this woman's children until the rapist is scared off.

Those leftists who think that's the wrong course of action apperently don't want to do anything to stop this criminal. :hit:PEOPLE ARE NOT NATIONS.When Shanek is right, he's right...

[jj]

Calls himself "skeptic"!
The straw men that he burns up?
Imaginative!

Self-proclaimed "skeptic"
Should know about straw man tricks.
Unforgivable!

[svero]

Originally posted by Zep
Just about up to the standard, quality and style of debate we have come to expect from you...again.

American never looks to see who's right and wrong. Just who's right and left.

[VicDaring]

Originally posted by The idea

Although it is true that Saddam was found in a hole in Iraq, there is no evidence that said hole was actually Iraq's vagina.

Ahhhhahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!!!!!!!:D

Top of the line comedy in a lame strawman thread. Nice.

[Crossbow]

Originally posted by Skeptic
The other day, I was walking down the street and saw a man raping a woman, just like Saddam Hussein raped his country and people for years.

...

So, I kept on walking, being true to myself and confident in my moral superiority. Of course, a stupid man walking after me in the street DID try to stop the rapist, but I hit him over the head with my big "POLICE OUT OF THE RAPE BUSINESS" protest sign, just in time to stop the rapist from suffering agression. The rapist then bought me dinner as a thank-you gift (just like Saddam Hussein paid a lot of money to the "human shields" who came to support him before the war).

While I think that reducing the issue of the recent war down to an analogy of stopping a rape is so overly simplistic that it makes the truth of the issue more difficult to see, I will try all the same.

Assuming that the analogy is valid, then it means the USA has let many other rapists go (Iran, Syria), or in some cases even supported other rapists (Pakistan, Turkey, Saudi Arabia) in order to get the one they have focused on.

In my opinion, this is not a very logical approach to the problem of reducing the crime of rape.

[Tmy]

The analogy needs tweaking. Somthing like. "I see a women being raped, I dont mind rape, usually I just look the other way when my buddies do it. But I kinda think this chick is hot. If I stop the rapists, I can then bang the chick myself. And to top it off everyone will think Im a hero!"


side note: Isnt banning rape analogys kinda paternalistic??? We have murder analogys all day long and no one stops to say "Gee maybe somone has been the victim of an attempted murder or knows a murder victim, we shouldn't say such things." Why, canuse we cant and shouldnt babyproof the world.

But Rape!! cant have that. These poor little girls cant handle the mere mention of the word! We must protect our fragile women!

[TillEulenspiegel]

Originally posted by Zep
Skeptic's original post.

I'm sorry if I disagree with You Zep , but I see no real allegory there (only an attempt at preaching thru bad story )and in keeping with that posters past pronouncements , I believe he was serious. The attempt to defend or clarify his position is pretty self explanatory as well. I see the attempt to use language that inflames the issue with ( undue and non-applicable ) emotional content to be disengenious and sophomoric. I believe that my examples hold more substance as parallels then a hideous crime against an individual. Morality can be a convient prop of a scoundrel ( not the poster , but others )

I was sad because I had no shoes, but then I met a man who had no brain

[NullPointerException]

Oh wow, a few of you know what a strawman is... so whos arguement was he misrepresenting? How was he misrepresenting it? In what fundamental ways did his misrepresentation act to negate his rebuttal's validity and or truthfulness?

[epepke]

Originally posted by Kopji
I have to agree that this is an unworkable example.

Probably so. It doubtless has many flaws, and you pointed out some good ones.

However, the value of such examples is the discussion that ensues. Lots of people seem to be great at pointing out the splinters in others' eyes when their eyes are full of trees. So, for example, we have Dorian Gray, for the purpose largely of enumerating technicalities, effectively denying the existence of the past forty years of feminism (rape laws have been the subject of extreme contention, and most have been dramatically changed) and the whole politics of sports teams and juvenile "justice" (certain kinds of males are effectively encouraged to rape by authority figures).

With respect to Iraq, there were and are no clean, moral options. The left, however, rather than grit their teeth and face the fact have elected to adopt an inconsistent, ad hoc set of arguments. This saddens me, as I actually like the left. I think that a healthy, rational left has played and should continue to play an important role in American politics. Many of the really good reforms in this country were pushed by leftists. But nowadays, they seem more interested in being aloof and covering their posteriors than in actually being a force. Maybe postmodern "thought" has something to do with it, or maybe it's the memory-loss that comes from too many bong hits. I don't know, but it saddens me.

For example, we often see people saying, "Just because I opposed the war doesn't mean I support Saddam." Well, whoop-de-doo for you! It's probably true, but it has no value other than vanity and smugness. It's the ethical equivalent of refusing to vote just so that you can't be blamed for the outcome.

Logically, anyone opposed to the war should be concerned as to how their arguments come across, but for the most part, they aren't. They've gone into a mindset where a decade ago they covered up their "No Blood for Oil" bumper stickers with "What About the Kurds?" ones as soon as they became fashionable or put "Save the Whales: Boycott Japanese Goods" bumper stickers on their Toyotas. (These are actual, real examples that I personally saw.)

So, for instance, around the time of the first Gulf War, there was a big swell of opinion on the left in favor of economic sanctions on Iraq, followed almost immediately by a decade of saying that sanctions killed 5000 Iraqi babies a month, and besides, the whole sanctions thing was the idea of the fascists and no leftist wanted them. Then, all of a sudden, when an invasion seemed imminent, it was all about the International Community. Never mind the 5000 dead Iraqi babies a month; they instantly became ideologically irrelevant. Besides, those numbers were all invented by the neocons anyway, and no leftist ever believed them. France, Germany, and Russia didn't want war, and they've always been the Peace Experts™. And any economic ties to Iraq were irrelevant because they're just swell Europeans and all, while the Bush War is all about Halburton.

For all their love of 1984 metaphors, leftists currently take the cake in being able to convince themselves that we have always been at war with Eastasia.

[epepke]

Originally posted by Tmy
side note: Isnt banning rape analogys kinda paternalistic??? We have murder analogys all day long and no one stops to say "Gee maybe somone has been the victim of an attempted murder or knows a murder victim, we shouldn't say such things." Why, canuse we cant and shouldnt babyproof the world.

But Rape!! cant have that. These poor little girls cant handle the mere mention of the word! We must protect our fragile women!

:con2: Bug Girls is a 1980's-style feminist, which still survives in academia. The only thing worse than inequality of the sexes is equality of the sexes. Under the old rules, she would have been coddled. But the rules have been changed at the insistence of feminists, and fair's fair.

[Zep]

Originally posted by TillEulenspiegel


I'm sorry if I disagree with You Zep , but I see no real allegory there (only an attempt at preaching thru bad story )and in keeping with that posters past pronouncements , I believe he was serious. The attempt to defend or clarify his position is pretty self explanatory as well. I see the attempt to use language that inflames the issue with ( undue and non-applicable ) emotional content to be disengenious and sophomoric. I believe that my examples hold more substance as parallels then a hideous crime against an individual. Morality can be a convient prop of a scoundrel ( not the poster , but others )

I was sad because I had no shoes, but then I met a man who had no brain It would be a dull and uninteresting world if we all thought the same thing. Disagree to your heart's content! But I'm more pleased that you are rational about it compared to Skeptic.

And alas, even on the second and third reads, I can still find little in it beyond rant, the obvious very badly constructed strawman, and a weak (nay, helpless) analogy. So it isn't even a decent "provocation with a view to engaging debate".

[TillEulenspiegel]

Originally posted by epepke


quoted post pruned for salient content.

"With respect to Iraq, there were and are no clean, moral options. The left, however, rather than grit their teeth and face the fact have elected to adopt an inconsistent, ad hoc set of arguments. This saddens me, as I actually like the left. I think that a healthy, rational left has played and should continue to play an important role in American politics. Many of the really good reforms in this country were pushed by leftists. But nowadays, they seem more interested in being aloof and covering their posteriors than in actually being a force. Maybe postmodern "thought" has something to do with it, or maybe it's the memory-loss that comes from too many bong hits. I don't know, but it saddens me."

Ad Hoc........ where You see a lacking of the left with thier tendancy to adopt abstract sentiment in responce to the Iraq debacle , I see a rather larger problem in regards to Bush and companys' "Reason De'Jour" for the war, the mobile goalpost and it's ( and its supporters ) attempt to post war justification Start reading newspapers in Sept-Oct. /02 through 4/03 and see how that is demonstraited.

"For example, we often see people saying, "Just because I opposed the war doesn't mean I support Saddam." Well, whoop-de-doo for you! It's probably true, but it has no value other than vanity and smugness. It's the ethical equivalent of refusing to vote just so that you can't be blamed for the outcome. "

I partially agree with you here, some of my best friends are black.

"Logically, anyone opposed to the war should be concerned as to how their arguments come across, but for the most part, they aren't. They've gone into a mindset where a decade ago they covered up their "No Blood for Oil" bumper stickers with "What About the Kurds?" ones as soon as they became fashionable or put "Save the Whales: Boycott Japanese Goods" bumper stickers on their Toyotas. (These are actual, real examples that I personally saw.) "

This is anecdotal and emotional and requires no comment

"So, for instance, around the time of the first Gulf War, there was a big swell of opinion on the left in favor of economic sanctions on Iraq, followed almost immediately by a decade of saying that sanctions killed 5000 Iraqi babies a month, and besides, the whole sanctions thing was the idea of the fascists and no leftist wanted them. Then, all of a sudden, when an invasion seemed imminent, it was all about the International Community. Never mind the 5000 dead Iraqi babies a month; they instantly became ideologically irrelevant. Besides, those numbers were all invented by the neocons anyway, and no leftist ever believed them. France, Germany, and Russia didn't want war, and they've always been the Peace Experts™. And any economic ties to Iraq were irrelevant because they're just swell Europeans and all, while the Bush War is all about Halburton."

Pardon me but instead of posting opinion with a broad brush please provid credible numerical evidence, The idea of inclusion of the world community was a main thrust of Pres.Bush I and his cabinet and not some leftist conspericy. The vote in congress was a rather different forum at the time as well. The support for the war at that time altho not unamious was a majority amongst the American people. The inclusion of other counrties in the first war is again an opinion, actually a haraunge in light the actions of those named nations in light of thier responce to George II.

The American centrist moderates and left have been ducking a difinitive position ever since Newt and Pat Robertson/Jerry Falwell became gardians of the Temple Republic ( pun intended) have failed at least the %50 that represent thier views and prahaps a larger segment. There have been some who fall because thier views are concrete and that is what we should do but few have the stones. When clowns rule the airwaves and fool people into thinking that horsesh*t is ice cream and those people absorb the script in toto and parrot it back without understanding it's meaning are we really better off?

"For all their love of 1984 metaphors, leftists currently take the cake in being able to convince themselves that we have always been at war with Eastasia. "

Prosaic but wide of the mark.
sides its Eurasia.

BTW what is a Leftist? Are they like " slghtly pregnent or more a Tblsp. of rum in a pound cake?

[bug_girl]

Originally posted by epepke
Bug Girls is a 1980's-style feminist, which still survives in academia. The only thing worse than inequality of the sexes is equality of the sexes. Under the old rules, she would have been coddled. But the rules have been changed at the insistence of feminists, and fair's fair.

??????whaa?????
you don't know jack about me buddy. first, i'm not afraid of the "F" word. go right ahead and call me a feminazi if you want. i have no idea what an 80's style feminist is, although i do think i date back farther than that :)

i relayed a request from a rape survivor who, like me, thought this analogy was disgusting. A request to change the name of the thread so the word "rape" was omitted seemed reasonable. That way we didn't have to keep seeing the word rape in the list of active threads everytime we log in. And, as has already been pointed out, the analogy is bogus. there has been no attempt to block or delete this (imho) complete waste of perfectly good electrons.

You guys are really doing a good job of making women comfortable in this forum. especially the alternate rape scenarios that some posters seem to have thought up.
You boys are really, really creepy.

[Pyrrho]

Originally posted by bug_girl
i relayed a request from a rape survivor who, like me, thought this analogy was disgusting. A request to change the name of the thread so the word "rape" was omitted seemed reasonable. That way we didn't have to keep seeing the word rape in the list of active threads everytime we log in. And, as has already been pointed out, the analogy is bogus. there has been no attempt to block or delete this (imho) complete waste of perfectly good electrons.

Once again, while it is unfortunate that certain choices of words is bound to upset some people, in this case the usage is within the established rules of this Forum, and will not be changed.

[TillEulenspiegel]

Bg , Please don't include me in that assement . I have a mother, sister, a little girl and a niece. I find nothing amusing about the metephor.

[epepke]

Originally posted by TillEulenspiegel
Originally posted by epepke


quoted post pruned for salient content.

"With respect to Iraq, there were and are no clean, moral options. The left, however, rather than grit their teeth and face the fact have elected to adopt an inconsistent, ad hoc set of arguments. This saddens me, as I actually like the left. I think that a healthy, rational left has played and should continue to play an important role in American politics. Many of the really good reforms in this country were pushed by leftists. But nowadays, they seem more interested in being aloof and covering their posteriors than in actually being a force. Maybe postmodern "thought" has something to do with it, or maybe it's the memory-loss that comes from too many bong hits. I don't know, but it saddens me."

Ad Hoc........ where You see a lacking of the left with thier tendancy to adopt abstract sentiment in responce to the Iraq debacle , I see a rather larger problem in regards to Bush and companys' "Reason De'Jour" for the war, the mobile goalpost and it's ( and its supporters ) attempt to post war justification Start reading newspapers in Sept-Oct. /02 through 4/03 and see how that is demonstraited.

I will not question this. I do not deny that it is unquestionably true. However, so bleeping what? Is this the leftist cry? "Vote for us! We aren't necessarily more stupid."

"Logically, anyone opposed to the war should be concerned as to how their arguments come across, but for the most part, they aren't. They've gone into a mindset where a decade ago they covered up their "No Blood for Oil" bumper stickers with "What About the Kurds?" ones as soon as they became fashionable or put "Save the Whales: Boycott Japanese Goods" bumper stickers on their Toyotas. (These are actual, real examples that I personally saw.) "

This is anecdotal and emotional and requires no comment

Of course not. Anecdotes and emotions play no part in elections whatsoever. it's better and much more fun to ignore them and be haughty.

Pardon me but instead of posting opinion with a broad brush please provid credible numerical evidence, The idea of inclusion of the world community was a main thrust of Pres.Bush I and his cabinet and not some leftist conspericy.


This is true. But Bush Sr. is not in power now.

The American centrist moderates and left have been ducking a difinitive position ever since Newt and Pat Robertson/Jerry Falwell became gardians of the Temple Republic ( pun intended) have failed at least the %50 that represent thier views and prahaps a larger segment. There have been some who fall because thier views are concrete and that is what we should do but few have the stones. When clowns rule the airwaves and fool people into thinking that horsesh*t is ice cream and those people absorb the script in toto and parrot it back without understanding it's meaning are we really better off?

Musta been God who appropriated the airwaves. Divine retribution, perhaps. Otherwise, what's to stop people?

Prosaic but wide of the mark.
sides its Eurasia.

As long as you're sure of that. Definitely. It's always been Eurasia. Not Eastasia. No, can't be.

[epepke]

Originally posted by bug_girl
you don't know jack about me buddy.

Is this an admission that what you have written is a misrepresentation? If not, then what?

first, i'm not afraid of the "F" word. go right ahead and call me a feminazi if you want.

Nah, that's a Rush "complete idiot" Limbaugh word, and besides, it doesn't mean anything. I seriously studied feminism; I'll stick to that.

i relayed a request from a rape survivor who, like me, thought this analogy was disgusting.

Of course it is!

That doesn't mean that, in a fair world on a website in a country with a First Amendment, you get to be protected from it.

Again, according to the old rules you would have been coddled. But the rules have changed, and fair's fair.

You guys are really doing a good job of making women comfortable in this forum. especially the alternate rape scenarios that some posters seem to have thought up.
You boys are really, really creepy.

We're just not chivalric and deferential enough for your tastes.

[bug_girl]

Originally posted by epepke
Is this an admission that what you have written is a misrepresentation? If not, then what?
that means that you are making claims about what i believe without actually knowing anything about me.

That doesn't mean that, in a fair world on a website in a country with a First Amendment, you get to be protected from it.
I asked for polite consideration of someone's feelings--someone who had been through a horrible trauma. I asked for the change of ONE word in the title. NOT for the removal of the discussion. I'm not sure why Pyrrho posted a second time.

Again, according to the old rules you would have been coddled. But the rules have changed, and fair's fair.We're just not chivalric and deferential enough for your tastes.
????this just makes no sense. you are clearly working on your own agenda here, and i'm not going to participate.
Til, why not start a new thread with a new title, and take your argument there? let this one die.

[American]

Originally posted by bug_girl

i relayed a request from a rape survivor who, like me, thought this analogy was disgusting. A request to change the name of the thread so the word "rape" was omitted seemed reasonable. That way we didn't have to keep seeing the word rape in the list of active threads everytime we log in. And, as has already been pointed out, the analogy is bogus. there has been no attempt to block or delete this (imho) complete waste of perfectly good electrons.


By any chance did you relay my request?

[epepke]

Originally posted by bug_girl

that means that you are making claims about what i believe without actually knowing anything about me.

:con2: All I know about you is what you have written. This is either from a real person, or else it's from some Perl or other script or a sock puppet. In neither case do I cosnider it unconscionable to form an opinion.

I asked for polite consideration of someone's feelings--someone who had been through a horrible trauma. I asked for the change of ONE word in the title. NOT for the removal of the discussion.

:con2: I didn't title the thread, nor do I have power to change the title, so I can't see what this has to do with me.

I'm not sure why Pyrrho posted a second time.

I'm not inside his brain, so I don't know either.

????this just makes no sense. you are clearly working on your own agenda here, and i'm not going to participate.

My agend is pointing out what I perceive to be fatuities. There is no obligation that you participate.

[Dorian Gray]

(rape laws have been the subject of extreme contention, and most have been dramatically changed) Sure. In what way have they been changed, though? Have they been made stronger?

It's the ethical equivalent of refusing to vote just so that you can't be blamed for the outcome. Wrong. Refusing to comment on the war is the ethical equivalent of refusing to vote.

And you have conveniently ignored my analogy using the gazebo, I have noticed. Do you use the Martha Stewart defense for the war in Iraq? You know, "Capturing Saddam Hussein is a good thing."

[fishbob]

My agend is pointing out what I perceive to be fatuities. There is no obligation that you participate. I futily flogged a fatuity once. No, wait. What I was going to say was I fatuitooted the fatuitoey. Oops, isn't that a gland in your head or something? Never mind.

Fatuity - something fatuous, eg an inappropriate remark, a stupid action. Really never mind.

[epepke]

Originally posted by Dorian Gray
Sure. In what way have they been changed, though? Have they been made stronger?

Yes.

And you have conveniently ignored my analogy using the gazebo, I have noticed.

Since you ask so nicely, the basic problem with the gazebo analogy is that Bush made his intention to have military action against Iraq clear even before he ascended to the Presidency.

Do you use the Martha Stewart defense for the war in Iraq? You know, "Capturing Saddam Hussein is a good thing."

The part where I wrote that I actually liked the left and wished they could make some better arguments never really penetrated and affected any actual neural tissue, did it?

I'll make it simple for you. Try to pay attention. I did not support the war. I do not defend or justify the war.

However, nor do I believe that not supporting the war requires me to pretend as if the fatuities and illogic that I hear every single day from the left are perfectly hunky dory and just the finest possible way to do politics or, like, you know, convince anybody about anything whatsoever.

Likewise, I hope that Bush is defeated in the next election by the biggest landslide in history. This does not compel me to believe that the majority those who are opposed to Bush are competent, rational, or in fact in any important way distinguishable from crack babies with no motor skills, hardly capable of providing a reasonable alternative, let alone agreeing upon one.

Nevertheless, I will probably vote for whatever inane buffoon seems to me to have the best chance of defeating Bush.

I shouldn't have to say this, but I have to, because of the indredibly supercilious and sanctimonious vapidities of most of the people in the "I Don't Like Bush" club.

Understood? Versteht? Capisce? Entiende?

[NullPointerException]

I'd still like to see some evidence instead of opinion throwing and assertions that this is an inappropriate analogy. Is this a false analogy? yes, there is no such thing as a true analogy that isn't, cake is like cake, which would be the only true analogy. I think some of you guys toke intro to discrete and failed to understand that just because something is illogical doesn't mean that it is also false.

[Troll]

Defense of a rapist? Analogy not that far off

Defense of rape? Never happened

Condemning the thread for mentioning rape? That is bull at best.

The crime of rape was not belittled. If you think it was then you need better counseling than you previously had.

Is a rapist not a monster, in your eyes? Is Saddam not the same sort of monster or maybe even a worse monster?

did not Saddam order rape?

Being a victim of something doesn't give you a free pass to never want to see said crime mentioned.

I've been shot, stabbed, beaten, had bombs sent my way, cheated on by several girlfriends and a former wife, had the IRS cock up my return and audit me. Now go back through my posts and see where I use that as an excuse to prevent someone from using any of that as an analogy. Victims do exist and must be treated as such with sensativity. But some just play the part for far too long and for the wrong reasons.

Part of being a victim is recovering. Move on to the next stage. I have

[NullPointerException]

The point of this thread, and it was a very simple one, and was picked up by Troll... is that Liberals are defending the sovereign rights of a man, not a nation, who ordered or was cognizant of the rape of women and children, abuse of basic human rights and religious beliefs, and brutal torture and execution of his own citizens. No one has given a good reason for Saddam to still be in power or argued against this premise.

[Troll]

Originally posted by NullPointerException
The point of this thread, and it was a very simple one, and was picked up by Troll... is that Liberals are defending the sovereign rights of a man, not a nation, who ordered or was cognizant of the rape of women and children, abuse of basic human rights and religious beliefs, and brutal torture and execution of his own citizens. No one has given a good reason for Saddam to still be in power or argued against this premise.

well that was the point as viewed by free thinkers, yes.;)

[Darat]

Originally posted by bug_girl


...snip...

You guys are really doing a good job of making women comfortable in this forum. especially the alternate rape scenarios that some posters seem to have thought up.
You boys are really, really creepy.

I find the subject line of this thread disgusting and inappropriate and "Skeptic" analogy disgusting and inappropriate. It lessens the horror of any war and lessons the horror of rape and doesn't even forward his (assumed) objectives.

But I just want to point out an error that you and several other posters have repeatedly made and that is that rape is not just a crime that is committed against women. Many men are raped every year.

Rape is not a "feminist" issue in any sense - it is one of the vile, violent crimes that are committed against people all too often.

[NullPointerException]

Darat, explain yourself or your words are meaningless. Why is it disgusting? Why is it inappropriate? In what sense is it inappropriate? How does this reflect on it's accuracy, what did your post have to do with the topic? What was the point of putting the word skeptic in quotes? What is the point of seperating the two different items that you found disgusting and inappropriate? Why is your avatar a dog when you are obviously a human? If you are not human, and you are posting, why havn't you tried to claim the million?

[Cleon]

Null, I don't think you can expect a rational answer--and I say this meaning no disrespect to darat or others who've expressed their objections to the title.

Some things generate an emotional response that you can't logically rationalize. Especially something outrageous like rape, which many people have very personal, and very emotional, experiences with. To someone who's been affected by rape (whether experiencing it themselves or being close to someone who has), using rape to make a political point may seem like it trivializes or belittles the crime of rape. Doubly so in an article as callous as the one above.

Another example of this is the Holocaust. There's an anti-abortion outfit, called the "Genocide Awareness Project" if memory serves, that goes around to college campuses with huge banners depicting photos of aborted fetuses, Holocaust victims, and lynchings. When they show up, the local papers--almost predictably--interview representatives from Jewish and Black campus groups, who are invariably outraged. From their standpoint, these people are using something deeply personal and tragic to them to promote an agenda. (If you're interested, one year while I was at Penn State these folks showed up and demonstrated while Elie Wiesel was speaking--article here (http://www.collegian.psu.edu/archive/1998/04/04-01-98tdc/04-01-98d01-012.asp).)

It's not a logical thing, it's not a rational thing, it's an emotional thing that I can empathize with even if I don't always agree with it.

[a_unique_person]

Originally posted by NullPointerException
The point of this thread, and it was a very simple one, and was picked up by Troll... is that Liberals are defending the sovereign rights of a man, not a nation, who ordered or was cognizant of the rape of women and children, abuse of basic human rights and religious beliefs, and brutal torture and execution of his own citizens. No one has given a good reason for Saddam to still be in power or argued against this premise.

Maybe, rather than second guessing Skeptic, he could couch his arugments in more rational terms and we could debate that.

[plindboe]

That's about the most inane overly simplistic analogy I have ever read. But let me play along with the rape analogy, inserting all those details you forgot.

You are walking down the street, with a group of friends, and you see 50 pairs of people, each a rapist and a victim. You notice that one of the rapists, a former friend whose rapes you used to tolerate in the past, have a big wallet. So you tell your friends that he is a big threat to them and have weapons hidden on his body, at that time not really focusing on the victim of the rape. They then go over to the rapist and do a body search, but can't find any weapons at all, after which you charge the couple and kicks the woman in the head, incapacitate the rapist and steal his wallet. When the rapist in unconscious you search his entire body but can't find the weapons that you have guarenteed to your friends that he had. You then claim, that all along it was about saving the woman from being raped.

Did I miss anything?

[NullPointerException]

Actually it would be more like:

You see a man raping another man int he street and three people that happen to know the rapist are sitting nearby. You move to stop the rapist but everyone boos you and your arch enemy moves to support the rapist who is very rich and influential with his three friends. You ask the three friends to step in and help but they are all arabs and you are white so they don't trust you. You move to help the man again but are thoroughly rebuffed as the three arabs move to block your passage into the area around the rapist. A few minutes later another rapist appears and begins fighting with the first one. At this point the best thing you can hope for is casualities so you tell the first rapist that the second one has a bad knee and thus the first rapist wins the fight.

Later that day, you come back with your gang, public opinion, and kill the rapist. Unfortunately the ones he had raped had been killed or fled the area and the only people around thought the rapist was really cool.

[a_unique_person]

Actually, I think it is more like this. A Priest, a Rabbi and a Minister all walk into a bar, and the barman says, "What is this, a joke?"

[Darat]

Originally posted by NullPointerException
Darat, explain yourself or your words are meaningless.


I would disagree with your opinion; I believe my statements were and are meaningful as posted. However I am happy to answer your questions.

Originally posted by NullPointerException
Why is it disgusting? Why is it inappropriate? In what sense is it inappropriate?


Disgusting: war and rape are disgusting, to trivialise either of them, as I believe “Skeptic” did in his very poor analogy is (in my opinion) even more disgusting.

Inappropriate: because of the horror that both war and rape should instil in any rational person I believe it is inappropriate to use either of the subjects in this manner, it trivialises both for no discernable beneficial manner.

Originally posted by NullPointerException
How does this reflect on it's accuracy, what did your post have to do with the topic?


In my original post I stated:

It lessens the horror of any war and lessons the horror of rape and doesn't even forward his (assumed) objectives.

That sums up my opinion and addresses the original post.


Originally posted by NullPointerException

What was the point of putting the word skeptic in quotes?


To try to make sure no one confused my comments about a poster called “Skeptic” and his post with the general descriptor of skeptic.

Originally posted by NullPointerException

What is the point of seperating the two different items that you found disgusting and inappropriate?


Because “Skeptic” attempted to mix them whilst I believe they are very distinct and separate and cannot be treated as similar.

Originally posted by NullPointerException

Why is your avatar a dog when you are obviously a human?
…snip…


It is a picture with some personal value and I like it.

[Dorian Gray]

The part where I wrote that I actually liked the left and wished they could make some better arguments never really penetrated and affected any actual neural tissue, did it?

I'll make it simple for you. Try to pay attention. I did not support the war. I do not defend or justify the war.

However, nor do I believe that not supporting the war requires me to pretend as if the fatuities and illogic that I hear every single day from the left are perfectly hunky dory and just the finest possible way to do politics or, like, you know, convince anybody about anything whatsoever.

Likewise, I hope that Bush is defeated in the next election by the biggest landslide in history. This does not compel me to believe that the majority those who are opposed to Bush are competent, rational, or in fact in any important way distinguishable from crack babies with no motor skills, hardly capable of providing a reasonable alternative, let alone agreeing upon one.
Pardon me, but you sounded like a conservative, and many conservatives tend to make sweeping generalizations about the left, such as the ones you made which I have conveniently emboldened for clarity. Of course, since you made sweeping generalizations about the left, I assumed you made them about the right as well, and that is why I believed you to be pro war, and pro analogy as well. Forgive my misunderstanding.

Liberals are defending the sovereign rights of a man, not a nation, who ordered or was cognizant of the rape of women and children, abuse of basic human rights and religious beliefs, and brutal torture and execution of his own citizens. You shouldn't make generalizations. Not to mention you seem to be arguing that the leader of the nation is not the nation, which has some flaws of its own. For example, shouldn't there be a Bush = murderer analogy around somewhere? He ordered the murder of citizens of a sovereign nation, etc. (you see where I am going with this, I am sure)

Also, if being cognizant of the rape of women and children, abuse of basic human rights and religious beliefs, and brutal torture and execution of people is somehow a crime, I guess I am guilty too. I read the papers and go online, after all.

All I am saying is that the analogy is seriously flawed, if for no other reason than being too simplistic. You'd need someone ordering the rapist to rape, a politically or religiously motivated agenda for the rape, bystanders who were aware of the rape but did nothing, etc., etc., for it to even be close or valid.

[Darat]

Originally posted by Darat

...snip...



Disgusting: war and rape are disgusting, to trivialise either of them, as I believe “Skeptic” did in his very poor analogy is (in my opinion) even more disgusting.

...snip...

I need to apologise to "Skeptic" for the above comment.

Of course no discussion of war or rape can ever be as disgusting as the actual act of war or rape and therefore it was just downright silly to say "even more disgusting". That was hyperbole.

What I was trying to convey is that using subjects that are inherently disgusting to make a point can be disgusting (granted to a lesser degree) in its own right.

[jj]

Humanity talks.
Bad taste abounds in this talk.
Let's all grow up now!

"American" speaks.
The country weeps at his nick.
What a nasty creep.

[Skeptic]

Well, I've read the replies to my post, and I have to say that I am flabbergasted by the suggesting that I am "encouraging" rape, let alone supporting it.

At the risk of re-stating the obvious:

1). First of all, my example was an HYPOTHETICAL ANALOGY, not an actual event. The idea behind the analogy is to make a reductio ad absurdum of several left-wing claims about why the war in Iraq was wrong. What makes it absurdum is the result: namely, that the logical conclusion from these left-wing claims is that rapists should not be stopped.

In other words--to repeat myself--the WHOLE POINT of the analogy is that such behavior would be patently absurd! Far from recommending people SHOULD behave this way, the whole point is that behaving this way is insane! How this is "support" of rape (or of not stopping it) in any way, is beyond me.

2). The claim that I shouldn't have used rape, but some other crime, since a woman who was a victim of rape was shocked by the mere fact that I mentioned the word "rape":

My reply is that this is absurd. According to this logic, it would be "wrong" to compare Saddam's actions to ANY crime at all: if I used burglary, I would be being "insensitive" to burglary victims. If I used murder, I would be "insensitive" to relatives of murder victims, and so on. Heck, it would be wrong to EVER mention ANYTHING bad that occured, since survivors of the bad event would call me to account for being "insensitive".

For this reason, I refuse to "just change one word": if I cannot used the rape analogy, I could not use any other crime as an analogy, either, and would have to write some completely bloodless, pseudo-PC nonsense like "suppose I saw a man in the street committing an unspecified crime...".

(Come to think of it, that, too, would be insulting to victims of crime in general; poerhaps "committing a nasty thing which you shouldn't do" is "inoffensive" enough, but nothing more specific would do. )

4). The "inappropriateness" of using rape as a metaphor for Saddam's actions: First, there seems to be a confusion here between an ANALOGY and a METAPHOR. What I was talking about was using rape as an analogy, and analogies need not be proportional to the actual event. For example, if I say it is wrong to steal one dollar by saying "by analogy, if it is OK to steal one dollar, why not a million?", I am not saying that stealing one dollar is as bad as stealing a million dollars, but that in certain respects it is the same (namely, in both being stealing).

But let's leave that aside. Let's say that I WAS using a metaphor here, and claiming that Saddam's actions did to Iraq are equivalent to a rapist's actions to his victim. Is this inappropriate? I say not. I say that, if anything, describing Saddam's actions as a "rape" of Iraq is probably the most appropriate metaphor I could think of--for rather obvious reasons.

It WOULD be denigrating to rape victims if I claimed (say) that Dean is "raping" the democratic party when trying to say that he took control of it, or that Bush is "raping" America to mean that I don't like his policies. But certainly Saddam's brutal rule of Iraq IS comparable to rape in many obvious ways?

So, I'm sorry, but I refuse to accept that my use of the "rape" analogy--or metaphor--was inappropriate.

[epepke]

Originally posted by Dorian Gray
Pardon me, but you sounded like a conservative, and many conservatives tend to make sweeping generalizations about the left, such as the ones you made which I have conveniently emboldened for clarity. Of course, since you made sweeping generalizations about the left, I assumed you made them about the right as well, and that is why I believed you to be pro war, and pro analogy as well. Forgive my misunderstanding.

I forgive you, but I do have to point out that the tacit assumption that anyone who comes down on the illogic of the left must necessarily be a right-winger dramatically supports what I am saying.

You shouldn't make generalizations.

I don't see why not. The election of the President of the United States is the great mother of all generalizations. Like it or not, the generalizations will happen in all the newspapers and the airwaves. I, personally, do not want to suffer another four years of Shrub. Given this, it is desirable to me that opponents manipulate the generalization that will inevitably happen. It is therefore desirable to me that opponents of Shrub actually put down the bong for a few minutes and switch their brains on.

I do not have much actual power to make this happen, so I vent my frustration upon this forum.

"You shouldn't generalize" is just peachy keen when you're sitting in your living room talking with a neighbor. It doesn't quite work so hot when you're dealing with a hundred million voters and an electoral college. This is so obvious that I feel self-conscious writing it, but it apparently needs to be written.

Not to mention you seem to be arguing that the leader of the nation is not the nation, which has some flaws of its own. For example, shouldn't there be a Bush = murderer analogy around somewhere? He ordered the murder of citizens of a sovereign nation, etc. (you see where I am going with this, I am sure)

I think so, but it has little to do with what I am saying.

All I am saying is that the analogy is seriously flawed, if for no other reason than being too simplistic.

And what I'm saying, and I clearly stated it, was that the value of these discussions is in the responses and how they elucidate viewpoints.

[Martin]

Originally posted by plindboe
Did I miss anything?The bit where you tell the rapist that he can go on raping to his heart's content if he hands over the weapons? That part often gets overlooked.