[extropy-chat] Re: Meta: Too far

[Samantha Atkins]

On Jun 30, 2005, at 6:08 PM, The Avantguardian wrote:

>
>
> --- Samantha Atkins <sjatkins at mac.com> wrote:
>
>
>> You are a fool.
>>
>
>     Maybe but only because so many people are trying
> so hard to fool me about this Iraq thing. More so than
> many on this list, when it comes right down to it, I
> consider myself to be a liberal and have been called a
> "watermelon" for it.

I tend to eschew most political labels.  I am libertarian but I don't  
believe that party or set of ideas has all the answers either.


> I have either voted green or
> democrat except in the case of Schwarzeneggar. I am
> what you could call a big-stick pacifist. I believe in
> having in having the biggest stick on the block so
> that I CAN love my neighbors.

Hmm.  I am not sure that is the way to loving your neighbors although  
it does deal with the fear that is in the way.

> I had protested the war
> constantly up until the point that judged it to be too
> late to do any good.

But that still leaves you in opposition to the war just less actively  
or vocally so, no?

> Now that I see elections
> happening and infra-structure starting to be rebuilt
> there and land mines being cleared so that children
> don't step on them, I understand what we are doing
> there CURRENTLY to be more humanitarian aid than
> empire building.

Well I seem to recall that before we went in we said that we would  
not target infrastructure this time.  Yet we did.  So I see that as  
long overdue cleaning u a mess we had no need to make.   In the  
process we will probably pay Halliburton billions more than the job  
need really take.

> Not so much because I believe that
> the war was justified, but because that is what is
> happening.

I don't see how beginning to clean up our mess and attempting to  
force democracy in a country it is not clear is ready for it are  
sufficient to justify our continuing presence and all the ill  
thereof.   Neither of those actually require that continuation.   A  
true temporary international peace keeping force and reparations to  
the Iraqis to rebuild the infrastructure using contractors of their  
choice seems to me more just and to have far fewer negative  
consequences.

> Even if the end doesn't justify the means,
> the means have come and gone and all we have left are
> lemons. To stay, break the will of the bloodthirsty
> Baathists and Jihadists, rebuild Iraq, and prevent an
> insane four-way civil war, is the best way to make
> lemonade with the lemons we have been given.

People get rather irrational when their country is invaded, mauled,  
and occupied.  I honestly don't see how to calm the tensions  down by  
our continued presence.

>

>> I have no such hatred.  I am no longer sorry I
>> called you a fool.
>> You have now earned it if you take my legitimate
>> concerns to be
>> irrational hatred.
>>
>
> Recognize this?
>
> "If I was Iraqi I would almost certainly be in the
> resistance and
> consider those cops turncoats to their own people."
>

On the grounds of defense of my home against those I would most  
likely see as aggressors and destroyers of my life and well being, I  
would not be surprised to feel this way.   I said it also to attempt  
to jar readers into a different perspective.  I see too much that  
looks like an insufficiently examined assumption that American  
culture is so clearly *the answer* that all reasonable Iraqis would  
see the invasion and occupation as truly a good and wonderful thing  
and that all others, especially those who oppose by force, simply  
deserve to die.    I was also reacting against the implication that  
those who do not support what we are doing in Iraq are not patriotic  
or hate America.  I love America - the America of the ideals of  
freedom and equal treatment under the law, rational law not the  
monstrosity of today.  I love the heart of America.  I do not love  
and I oppose the great rot at the heart of the country today.   I  
could not love the former without opposing the latter and its  
manifestations.

> You sound like you are saying that if you had to
> choose sides, you would choose the side of muderous
> Baathists over Americans.

If I was Iraqi I am pretty sure I would choose defending my home over  
invasion and occupation on completely bogus grounds.  Is that so  
surprising?


Many people in Iraq see us as murderous barbarian invaders.  That was  
the lesson of the lack of endless adulation and continuing  
opposition.  Claiming the other side in a conflict is effectively  
pure evil is a commonplace bit of psychological self-justification.


> That means that you would be
> willing to shoot Americans that at the very least
> think they are risking their lives for YOU.

Do they?  I don't think most of the soldiers think any such thing.   
And whether they do or do not they are still invaders.  I would want  
them to simply go away rather than to kill them.  But if I was Iraqi  
I would likely do what was in my power to get the Americans to leave.

> Moreover
> in the very same sentence you insinuate that you would
> shoot your own Iraqi people, including cops, that
> tried keep you from doing it. Why would you be so
> willing to make war on America, if you don't hate it?

I would be fighting for self-determination and freedom from  
occupation.  I might find other less violent ways to work to the same  
end but I certainly would not see the Americans as god hearted  
liberators who only were there for my welfare.  I would likely see  
those of my countrymen who helped them and fostered the notion that  
continued occupation was OK as treasonous collaborators.

>
>>
>> Welcome to my kill file fool.
>>
>
> To be fair, I wrote my reply BEFORE I read your
> apology.  I have never resorted to calling you names
> or even labelling you. Considering you are supposed to
> be a list moderator,

I haven't been a list moderator for some time now.   I still am sorry  
that I called you a fool.  But I am deeply offended when someone says  
I hate America just because I am strongly opposed to the action of  
the current creatures in power.

> it is somewhat strange that you
> would resort so quickly to ad hominem not only against
> me but against others.

I do apologize for that.  My temper sometimes gets the best of me.   
Of late it gets away from me more easily.  I am told that that  
happens as part of the grieving process.  But that is no excuse for  
simply slamming into people.  That is not how I want to be.  I am sorry.

- samantha