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Yeshmiel wrote:I trained men at Camp Pendleton in the mid 90s as a rifle instructor. I had the heavy responsibility of training men to be able to handle themselves in combat, so I understand the seriousness of this as anyone.

I never said otherwise. I said you are losing the argument by approaching the issue of self-defense in a non-principled way.

Yeshmiel wrote:And about the latter part of your statement, there is a very small group of people over there threatening my life and the way I live it. . . . Those who have engaged have been convinced by peer pressure, propaganda, pathos driven media coverage of the atrocities of all Americans as our media has of the middle eastern world.

Sigh. I was going to apologize for wording my previous post in a matter that implied that I thought you didn't understood the seriousness of the issue but I can't after such paragraph.

That is exactly why I said you lose the argument with them. How could we possible have the moral ground to do what we did to Japan, if you are going over the numbers of those who REALLY want to kill you, versus how many would only do it out of peer pressure?

Let's say one agrees that if it is <1% of population that REALLY wants to kill you, then full out attack to defend yourself is not morally allowed. Why 1%? What if it is a larger number? Why not .01%?

You can't approach the issue of defending your nation by a number's game. It is either all out self-defense or it is just a meaningless slaughter of our citizens, which includes soldiers.

I say that putting even _one_ US soldier, aka US citizen, into a potential threat (as quoted above) to save X lives of enemy's soldiers/civilians in the enemy's country is an immoral action.

Otherwise, what is the accepted ratio? And this question is real. Today people actually ponder on that, both in military and among civilians. (I heard from various sources that the books that soldiers have to study while in training explicitly call out that you must put your life on the line for enemy's civilians.)

Yeshmiel wrote:I find that dialogue best serves me, and I learn more, when I enter it willing to validate the other as drawing from a pool of one perspective means I don't see the other and lose a chance to learn something new.

Excuse me, but this is bizarre. Should we have had a dialog with Nazis, too?

Oleksander said :

(You can approach the issue of defending your nation by a number's game. It is either all out self-defense or it is just a meaningless slaughter of our citizens, which includes soldiers.

I say that putting even _one_ US soldier, aka US citizen, into a potential threat (as quoted above) to save X lives of enemy's soldiers/civilians in the enemy's country is an immoral action. )

That is the problem, we aren't defending our nation and have only done so once against a foreign entity (The British during our countries inception) and once against splintered halves ourselves. We are on the offensive, on their soil, in their land.
This is where people get it wrong. You want to deal with the people that come over here and attack us, or attack embassies or hotels etc etc that's one thing but you go into some other country/continent and start a conflict and then can't figure out why you can't win? We are at war with religious and political zealots in the middle east, not middle easterners as a whole and it would be political suicide to start a war in an area because some persons from there killed some of us. We are doing the same thing as they are, we just have more money, more power, more savvy in the field then they do. They send a portion of their resources to attack us and we send a portion of our resources to attack them we just have more. There is a very large number of people in this country opposed to the war but we are still waging it. Just as they have people not wanting a war.

More importantly you can't attack another country diplomatically, even if it is to preemptively stop an attack against you. You have to decide to go all in and do what needs to be done or deal with the small hot spots that come up as needed. You cannot have your cake and eat it too.Wars are not about politics and when they are (as is the case with this one) they will always lose.

And yes, we have studied the Nazis to great lengths. To use a way over used quote, "Know thine enemy." I don't close my mind off to any resource or possibility, to do so is, in my mind, counter indicated to true objectivism, as I wish to better myself in all ways possible, even if it means understanding the Nazis( and no I don't condone anything any extremist ever does because extremism is born of emotion (attack/defense leaves little to no room for reason).

Yeshmiel wrote:You want to deal with the people that come over here and attack us, or attack embassies or hotels etc etc that's one thing but you go into some other country/continent and start a conflict and then can't figure out why you can't win? We are at war with religious and political zealots in the middle east, not middle easterners as a whole and it would be political suicide to start a war in an area because some persons from there killed some of us.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92myDzAFgU4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OIUieD2 ... re=related

etc, etc, etc.

Jesus, so Iran never wrote a constitution that explicitly called out a complete Sharia law take over the entire world, stole Oil property of US and UK companies, held hostages in 70s, etc, etc.?

We are doing the same thing as they are, we just have more money, more power, more savvy in the field then they do.

What?


You are missing way too many facts for this discussion.

[Bah, I edited your post by mistake instead of replying. My fault.]


Let me tackle just these 2 things:

If we wouldn't have gotten involved in so many personal issues (getting our hands into the oil industry there and . . .

So property rights of US and UK citizens mean nothing and any government may at any time nationalize US property that was developed under the contract that was already signed by Iranian gov at the time?

. . . supporting their enemies i.e. developing Israel in such a religious hot spot)

Are you saying that Israel has no right to exist on the land they developed but savages around them who lived in the mud until they stole US oil in 70s _do_ have the right to destroy Israel b/c they have religion on their side?

Well I served my country so that we could all live in a country that we can, as individuals, have the liberties we do. It appears to me that you have a very solid stance on your ideals and so do I. I understand your position and appreciate it. I entered into this dialogue hoping to learn a little more about one of the few people I count as a friend in a corp full of very self contained people and instead of nurturing our friendship this is creating a divide. I am not going to allow differences in our view points on this to do the opposite of what I had intended to do. I apologize if at any point I minimized you or your stance, as that is not what I meant to do. I started discussion in here as a friend sharing his ideals with another friend and if it came across as anything different I regret that.

Here is a video with awesome Yaron Brook talking about recent McChrystal business and how wars should be fought. He is one of the contributors to the book as well.

http://pjtv.com/v/3810

Did anybody else hear about US giving out tax money to Sunis in Iraq, so that they don't shoot at us there? lol

Here is another audio response by Leonard Peikoff who gives a lengthy answer to the following question:

What do you think of the plan for a mosque in New York City near Ground Zero? Isn’t it private property and therefore protected by individual rights?

http://media.blubrry.com/peikoff/www.pe ... A_01.L.mp3

His complete sums up the whole point of the book and my arguments above. Just adding for a collection to this thread.

SPOILER: the answer is "NO, property rights don't apply there."