It didn't address the fact that you said the two topics weren't related when in fact they obviously are?

leben - to live
lieben - to love

The needed loving space too, dammit!

Buff, I don't like playing the quote game for too long, so I'll again try to address your points, while also stating ways in which the holocaust and Indian removal are and are not comparable.

I absolutely agree that Germany had nothing to gain by killing the Jews. I've argued that they could have at least held out at least an additional year or two were their attention not divided on rounding up Jews, not to mention having the services of Jewish scientists. However, you then state that "Americans had everything to gain from moving the Indians." Germany obviously felt like they had everything to gain as well, even if that was stemming from a racial ideology that was rooted in paranoia. That was certainly flawed reasoning. On the issue of America, I would bet that an argument could effectively be made that Americans could have reaped all the gains and benefits of westward expansion without removing (really a code word for eradicating) the natives.

George Washington originally favored a policy of cooperation with the Indians, as opposed to any aggressive action. Why? He realized that both time and demographics were on the Americans side. Westward expansion could not be stopped. (The Federal gov't even attempted to stop it a few times, however it was simply impossible to do.) Washington knew that as more and more people moved west, lands for Indians would become smaller and smaller. So they would either have to move further west, or they would have to gradually change their lifestyle to one that didn't require so much land. Now, this policy morphed into what John Jay believed should happen, and was made official in 1790, the Treaty of New York. Honestly, this policy still involves forcing natives from their lands and taking what had been theirs for centuries. However, it wasn't blatantly coercive, and it did not ever involve something as horrendous as the Trail of Tears, or other patently disgraceful acts Americans engaged in against the natives in the mid nineteenth century. There would have been conflict, sure, but it would have been on a smaller scale, and would have only involved those Americans who knowingly and willingly took the risks involved with settling the frontier. Let's not act like Indians were riding into New York City attacking women and children.

I hope that addresses your first point. All of this of course, is to say nothing of the notion that just because somebody can benefit from eliminating another group that they are somehow more justified to do so. Take the example of two bullies. One walks up to a random boy, punches him and walks away. The second punches a random boy, and then reaches in his pocket and takes his money. The first bully didn't benefit from his actions; the second did. Was either one more or less justified than the other.

On your second point, I think you make a mistake in overstating the importance of the Final Solution in the overall scheme of Nazi aspirations. It was major for sure, but I think that we are often led to believe that it was almost the sole determinant in most Nazi actions, or that the hatred of Jews was the underlying reason for everything the Nazis wanted to accomplish. And as Bart has said, the Germans wanted space just like Americans wanted space. Indians were in America's way, so they were eliminated. The vast majority of victims of the holocaust were Jews who lived to the east of Germany, in either the areas they coveted for living space, or the areas they sought for labor by other racially deficient groups. The search for space and the extermination camps are very much linked. And again, I don't think the reasons why each group killed the other really matters. The end result was the same for the victims, right?

I don't have much more to say about the others, which brings us to:



Okay. Magnitude? Very different, yes. Although if we were to break it down to percentage of respective populations we might find that Indian removal was at least as notable in magnitude as the holocaust. Intention? I've addressed that above. Both wanted empires. Both were racist against the other. The Americans may have more directly benefited by their actions, however, as I've said I do not believe that matters even one little bit. Both intentions were to get rid of a group who they believed were in their way, preventing them from achieving their destiny. Method? Absolutely, could scarcely be more different. Agreed. Again, I don't know how much that matters. Was the Armenian genocide not genocide because the victims weren't put into gas chambers? Was Rwanda in 1994 not genocide because it was largely citizens killing other citizens? Result? I have to wholeheartedly disagree. Both groups were largely desolated, with one (Native Americans) being nearly completely wiped out. And on your final statement, I must disagree again. Perhaps we remember the holocaust because the victims were often educated, and we have heard the stories of the survivors so many times that their voices could not be ignored. I will give you that if we were rating each act on a scale of "evil" they probably would not be close, as the holocaust does dwarf Indian removal. But on your scale of cultural/racial mistreatment, how are the two not close? Both attacked and largely killed a group based on race and culture. I don't see how that is disputable.

And here I figured that after not coming here for three days there would have been at least one reply to the book I wrote.

Next one is coming in a few minutes.

18. Which of the following best describes how you feel about the use of torture?
A. Torture should never be used, under any case, ever. 44.2%
B. The use of torture should be limited to a “ticking bomb” scenario in which it is vital to quickly extract information from a person. 52.9%
C. The United States has not been guilty of torturing prisoners, so this “issue” is one that has been fabricated and promulgated by the media and persons with an agenda.
D. It is acceptable to torture a prisoner whenever there is reasonable doubt that he/she is withholding important information. 3.9%
On a scale of 1-5, this issue is rated as a 3.43 for importance.

Male (3.30)
A. 41.9%
B. 53.5%
C.
D. 4.6%

Female (4.13)
A. 55.6%
B. 44.4%
C.
D.

American (3.26)
A. 41.0%
B. 53.8%
C.
D. 5.2%

Non-American (3.83)
A. 53.8%
B. 46.2%
C.
D.

i said b, at least in theory.

A all the way.

For those of you who are worried about the scenario that might have made you vote B, I like to retort with a great line written by the brilliant Quentin Tarantino:

"If you fucking beat this prick long enough. he'll tell you who started the goddamn Chicago Fire. Now that don't necessarily make it fucking so! C'mon man, think!"

19. Which of the following most closely describes your feelings about the Patriot Act (or similar legislation in another country)?
A. I have no problem with it; if you aren’t guilty of anything, you have nothing to worry about. 3.8%
B. The Patriot Act is clear violation of the 4th Amendment, which protects citizens against illegal search and seizure. 84.6%
C. The Patriot Act creates a slippery slope, however in a global war on terror; I am willing to forego some of my rights for the greater good and protection of the nation. 11.6%
On a scale of 1-5, this issue was rated 4.26 for importance.

Male (4.24)
A. 4.7%
B. 86.0%
C. 9.3%

Female (4.38)
A.
B. 77.8%
C. 22.2%

American (4.26)
A. 5.1%
B. 84.6%
C. 10.3%

Non-American (4.27)
A.
B. 84.6%
C. 15.4%

Are we not spending much time on #18? I was hoping for some of the B voters to respond.

On this one, in my ballot I said the following:


That was really the whole problem with the Patriot Act as far as I saw it. I don't have any problem with wider or expedited surveillance, as long as a judge signs off on it somehow.

I put B on #18, but I barely chose that over A. The way I see it, if there's someone you know knows something and there are many lives at stake, why shouldn't torture be an option? Obviously it's pretty important to make sure someone is absolutely proven to be involved with whatever attack it is you're trying to prevent, but from a purely philosophical standpoint, why shouldn't you torture one guilty person in order to save hundreds or even thousands of innocent people?

I'm not sure what I put, but this is my basic reasoning as well. The problem is from the practical standpoint of how do you determine if you truly know someone knows something. It becomes a very, very slippery slope. So I'd probably put A. And if torture ever did occur, it should never be part of an official policy; it should be done as an absolute worst case, last ditch effort, and be done only to a person KNOWN to have information.

You pretty much answered it how I was going to, but anyway, here are the problems with that line of thought:
--How do you know the person knows what you want?
--How can you conclusively verify that if the person tells you that information that will absolutely stop the attack at hand?
--How can you be assured that the person's not giving you false information just to stop the torture?
--Once you torture someone, isn't it pretty much assured that they will be a foe to you from there on out?

I agree with all 4 of those problems, hence why I'd answer A.

But I did make the exception as an unofficial technique used only under great distress. Let me preface this by saying I don't think that the "24" world is a realistic one. And the 4 issues you raised, and probably many more, are still problems in that scenario. The only reason such an instance would be at all different is that an attack WILL happen if no action is taken, so even if the action taken doesn't work, at least you tried. But how exactly you are able to KNOW that there is an attack, and also know it is immediately imminent, and also KNOW that somebody you have in custody knows enough details about it to help you prevent it....I just don't know if that is at all a realistic thing to believe in.

You don't. It doesn't matter. No matter who you are questioning, in what way or for what reason, you can never be sure they know what you want. This doesn't make torture any less viable than other means of questioning.


See above. You can't. You get information and you treat it as any other information: something that may be true but is not necessarily true.


Again, you can't, see above.


I don't see the issue here. Isn't this true with any form of punishment?



Torture is a lot like the death penalty, to me. I am ok with them ethically speaking. Practically, I don't like the way the government handles either. In the case of torture, I don't think it should be an official policy, but if you are someone working in some kind of investigative capacity and hundreds or thousands of lives are on the line, torture is morally justified if you think it will help save those lives. I don't believe we are capable of implementing this as an actual policy in this day and age, simply because government can't be trusted presently.

I don't think I disagree with much here. The only two nitpicks I would make would be as follows:
--You say gov't can't be trusted presently--I'm not sure if it can ever be trusted.
--I don't think there will ever be a situation where you can definitely prove that torturing person X prevented event Y from happening.

i wanted to post this as well

although i am fairly pro-government on many issues like education, health care, etc, i don't believe them to be completely altruistic; but that's not because they're government, it's because they're human.

By presently I don't mean this year or this term, I am talking about long-term. Maybe when we are a much more civilized people we will be able to trust our government, perhaps a couple hundred years from now. I wouldn't rule it out, though I wouldn't say I'm optimistic either.

What I'm getting at is I don't think our government is advanced enough to deal with serious ethical issues.

you could replace torturing a person with almost anything else and it would be the same way. it's extremely hard to correctly predict outcomes. people lose a lot of money -- and lives -- doing it. what it's more about is odds, chances, etc, i would suppose.

Nice to see everybody pretty much agree on something for once.