Ticomaya wrote:
Your paying $1.30/gallon for gasoline?
If this war was all about oil then I would be!
Baldimo wrote:Ticomaya wrote:
Your paying $1.30/gallon for gasoline?
If this war was all about oil then I would be!
Just where is all this oil were supposed to be plundering?
First of all, it's THEIR oil. Just because we need it, doesn't give us the right to invade them to get it.
Fourth, North Korea is still a threat to our security, if not to our dependence on oil. They have a lunatic in charge of their government. They have nukes. We didn't invade them, and I completely agree with your stated reason: no oil. Of course, we were never told that the invasion of Iraq was for oil, we were told it was Saddam had WMDs and posed an imminent threat to our national security, as well as that he was responsible for 911. Would Americans have supported this war if they had been told the truth?
Baldimo: I have to think you are deliberately refusing to understand my comments re diplomacy. Of course we cannot talk with or reason with extremist terrorists. Which is why we need to build alliances with non-terrorists to work together against actual terrorists. And I'm thinking that "talking" would be a way to build those alliances?
We are safer as a strong, respected leader than we will ever be as an arrogant bully.
Ticomaya wrote:Baldimo wrote:Ticomaya wrote:
Your paying $1.30/gallon for gasoline?
If this war was all about oil then I would be!
Just where is all this oil were supposed to be plundering?
That was my point. If it were all about oil then we would have people guarding every inch of the pipelines so that they couldn't interfere with our treasure. After all to the winner goes the spoiles.
We DID invade Iraq for oil, and for revenge. You may be spending a lot on gas, but Halliburton stands to profit niicely from the war.
huh? Did I say we should invade NK? No, I was pointing out that if Bush was invading a country for national security reasons, as he said he was with Iraq, NK, unlike Iraq, posed a real threat.
They weren't strong ties? So why, then, after 911, when we were looking for the people who caused that tragedy, did we go to Iraq at all? (yeah, I know, for oil. We really are going in circles here.)
After we told them we were going in anyway. You see, they and many other nations, did not believe Bush's lie re WMDs, and what do you know, they were right.
And our OWN friend, too. The one we had been buddy buddy with when we worked together against Iran. The one Rumsfeld if often seen with in the "hand-shaking all-smiles photo.
The family analogy is, indeed, apt.
Especially when you note that some people see their nation as their family and some see humanity on the whole as their family you will better understand the differences between their positions.
The further one attempts to expand the circle of one's family the more disfunctional the family becomes.
Until there is a threat to the entire family of man, there will be no family of man.
Finn d'Abuzz wrote:
The further one attempts to expand the circle of one's family the more disfunctional the family becomes.
- Upon what evidence do you base this claim?
- What are your definitions for "dysfunctional" in the context of geopolitics?
- ..and how would that be worse than "fractious"?
Quote:
Until there is a threat to the entire family of man, there will be no family of man.
- Upon what evidence do you base this claim?
- What basis do you have for declaring the nature of social circles and structures being exclusively based on external threat?
- There already are many such creatures as "threat to the entire family of man".
Sounds like two "gut feeling facts".
These are beliefs formulated through 50 years of experience, observation, and study. You might prefer that I had prefaced them with "In my opinion," but, frankly, I really don't care.
The more members you include in your family the more interests there are to serve and the greater the likelihood of cross interests, competition and friction - disfunction.
Geopolitical disfunction is no different than familial disfunction, the failure to operate as a cohesive group, cooperating to meet the needs of the individual and the the whole.
Lions in a pride can be fractious and yet the pride remains functional.
The originating purpose of a family is to offer its members protection from threat.
You are correct that there are actual threats to the family of man. I should have written that there will be no family of man until there is a threat which is recognized by the entire family of man and feared in roughly equal measure throughout the family.
There wasn't likely to have been much debate among a family of Cro-magnons that a Cave Bear advancing on their encampment presented a real threat to all. This is certainly not the case with environmental degradation, or infectious diseases concentrated within one or two continents. Nuclear proliferation is a threat to the entire family of man, but not truly perceived as such by the individual members of the family.
The notion that one is a member of a "family of man" is a romantic one.
Yes we are genetically one family, but as the vast majority of us, worldwide, understand the concept we are hardly a family.
Perhaps one day we will find ourselves as the family of man without the motivating factor of a global threat. I hope this will come to pass, but I don't believe it will happen in my lifetime.
Now Craven, do you have an opinion on the matter or are you merely playing Socrates?
Finn d'Abuzz wrote:These are beliefs formulated through 50 years of experience, observation, and study. You might prefer that I had prefaced them with "In my opinion," but, frankly, I really don't care.
"In my opinion" isn't what I am after. I wanted to know the basis for your claim/opinion.
"50 years of experience, observation, and study" isn't specific, but you expound so I'll go with that.
Quote:The more members you include in your family the more interests there are to serve and the greater the likelihood of cross interests, competition and friction - disfunction.
Ultimately, the inclusion of said interests is not a choice. They exist and will continue to exist. As will "cross interests, competition and friction".
Whether their existence constitutes "disfunction" is subjective, but since this has always existed it seems to be an irrelevant distinction.
Competing interests within the body of man certainly have always existed and will, likely, always exist, but the question is what their impact is upon a family unit. The inclusion of these interests in the body of man is not a choice. The inclusion of these interests in one's family circle is, very much a choice. Since my comment was that the further one attempts to enlarge the circle of one's family, the more dysfunctional the family becomes, a choice is most certainly contemplated, and can't be dismissed with a rhetorical shrug.
Quote:Geopolitical disfunction is no different than familial disfunction, the failure to operate as a cohesive group, cooperating to meet the needs of the individual and the the whole.
Geopolitical disfunction is different from familial disfunction.
Familial disfunction is remedied by avoidance that is not affordable on the geopolitical scale. It is the difference between necessity and luxury.
After all, this isn't about whether one attends a family dinner or not.
I have to question your understanding of familial dysfunction if you believe it can be remedied by avoidance. Your analogy about attendance at a family dinners suggest, at best, a superficial understanding of a dysfunctional family. (Congratulations on your ignorance by the way).
Quote:Lions in a pride can be fractious and yet the pride remains functional.
As can geopolitical structures.
Not worldwide.
Quote:The originating purpose of a family is to offer its members protection from threat.
I have no idea how you purport to know the origins of the familial structure, and am more interested in that than the explanation of it's purpose.
I purport to know the origins of the familial structure through my reading on the subject and my own analysis. I again refer you to my reaction to your preference for a prefacing "In my opinion." I daresay that no one on earth can actually know the origins of the familial structure, and yet, curiously, in my reading on the subject, I never seem to run across authors who begin with "In my opinion..."
Generally, I enjoy discourse with you Craven but I am not about to submit myself to a test administered by a self-appointed sage. To assuage your seemingly compulsive requirements for footnotes, let me make this stipulation: The majority of my statements on A2K represent my opinions, and when I feel the need to cite sources, I will.
Quote:You are correct that there are actual threats to the family of man. I should have written that there will be no family of man until there is a threat which is recognized by the entire family of man and feared in roughly equal measure throughout the family.
This is like claiming that there can be no such thing as relatives unless they are aware of their mutual existence.
No it is not. My contention is that the family unit has formed as a response to threats. It is also my contention that a global family unit will not form unless it is in response to a threat. It follows therefore, that if the potential members of the global family unit do not all perceive a common threat, there will be no motivating factor to form a global family unit, even though a true common threat may actually exist.
You are using a subset of the definition of "family" and seem to have appended the criteria that it be cohesive and functional.
No, I am using a definition of "family" that apparently doesn't conform to your own. I have not, at all, contended that a group be cohesive and functional to meet the definition of family. What I have contended is that a family need be cohesive and functional if it is not to be described as "dysfunctional." A family may exist whether it is functional or dysfunctional.
Alternately, said family can exist and not yet function cohesively.
Yes.
Quote:There wasn't likely to have been much debate among a family of Cro-magnons that a Cave Bear advancing on their encampment presented a real threat to all. This is certainly not the case with environmental degradation, or infectious diseases concentrated within one or two continents. Nuclear proliferation is a threat to the entire family of man, but not truly perceived as such by the individual members of the family.
This speaks to awareness of existential threat and not its existence.
Of course it does, but if a family will only form around a commonly perceived threat, the actuality of a given threat is immaterial to the formation of a family unit. Family units will form in response to a perceived threat that doesn't actually exist; they will not form in response to an actual threat that is not perceived.
Quote:The notion that one is a member of a "family of man" is a romantic one.
It is a practical one as well.
How is it practical? What practicality is actually achieved by conceiving of a family of man that cannot be achieved by conceiving of a family of Americans or a family of Floridians or a family of miamians ...
Quote:Yes we are genetically one family, but as the vast majority of us, worldwide, understand the concept we are hardly a family.
What is and what is understood are not necessarily the same.
No, but if "family of man" is to have any meaning beyond a common gene pool then its members must be able to relate it to their experience with far more narrow families.
Quote:Perhaps one day we will find ourselves as the family of man without the motivating factor of a global threat. I hope this will come to pass, but I don't believe it will happen in my lifetime.
Again, this is a definition that has additional criteria to mine.
I speak of antiquated attitudes. Recognition that geopolitical and economic evolution creates contagion that necessitates the understanding of mutually shared threats and benefits as well as the elevation in importance of shared interests.
That is all well and good Craven, but these attitudes are hardly antiquated unless there is, at least, a building wave of new ones. I don't believe there is. It may be pleasant to think there is, but where is the evidence that this change is upon us?
I speak of the difference between attitudes of nation versus world and nation among world.
Your speaking of it doesn't make it so. I have to assume that you have examples in mind of the world moving in this direction, if not having actually arrived.
Quote:Now Craven, do you have an opinion on the matter or are you merely playing Socrates?
Yes, I have an opinion.
I think seeing nations as family versus the world is an outdated concept that fails to understand geopolitical evolution. More realistic would be immediate family and extended family and the realization that due to contagion many of the interests of the extended family are interests of your own.
What geopolitical evolution is that?
Globalism has risen and receded in the past. It's dominance is not inevitable and it certainly isn't necessary to the continued survival of man or geopolitics.
That an increasingly global economy increasingly intertwines the interests of nation states doesn't make a family of man inevitable. Whether one focuses on threat, as I do, or interests as, perhaps you do, it is not enough that these threats and interests actually exist. They must be realized by the would be family members. Perhaps there is a family of nation states forming, but that is something quite different from a family of man.
As to whether nations can work together cohesively that is a separate issue to the way one evaluates geopolitical evolution except in that people who continue to subscribe to the "versus" view are an impediment to said cohesion.
That is the issue of whether or not a family of nations is functional or dysfunctional. It will only be a family if the members clearly wishes to organize to respond to recognized common threats
However, it is not a small difference that separates a family of nations and the family of man.
Ultimately, our differences seem to merely center on what constitutes family with you having added the non-existent prerequisite of cohesion.
I am not sure that we are as close to one another's position as this comment suggests, but I am sure that I have not added cohesion to my definition of family.
Generally, I enjoy discourse with you Craven but I am not about to submit myself to a test administered by a self-appointed sage.
To assuage your seemingly compulsive requirements for footnotes, let me make this stipulation: The majority of my statements on A2K represent my opinions, and when I feel the need to cite sources, I will.
The originating purpose of a family is to offer its members protection from threat.
I purport to know the origins of the familial structure through my reading on the subject and my own analysis.
I daresay that no one on earth can actually know the origins of the familial structure
I have to question your understanding of familial dysfunction if you believe it can be remedied by avoidance. Your analogy about attendance at a family dinners suggest, at best, a superficial understanding of a dysfunctional family. (Congratulations on your ignorance by the way).
The family analogy is, indeed, apt.
Especially when you note that some people see their nation as their family and some see humanity on the whole as their family you will better understand the differences between their positions.
I am using a definition of "family" that apparently doesn't conform to your own. I have not, at all, contended that a group be cohesive and functional to meet the definition of family. What I have contended is that a family need be cohesive and functional if it is not to be described as "dysfunctional." A family may exist whether it is functional or dysfunctional.
Craven de Kere wrote:Alternately, said family can exist and not yet function cohesively.
Yes.
...if a family will only form around a commonly perceived threat, the actuality of a given threat is immaterial to the formation of a family unit. Family units will form in response to a perceived threat that doesn't actually exist; they will not form in response to an actual threat that is not perceived
How is it practical? What practicality is actually achieved by conceiving of a family of man that cannot be achieved by conceiving of a family of Americans or a family of Floridians or a family of miamians ...
That is all well and good Craven, but these attitudes are hardly antiquated unless there is, at least, a building wave of new ones. I don't believe there is. It may be pleasant to think there is, but where is the evidence that this change is upon us?
Craven de Kere wrote:I speak of the difference between attitudes of nation versus world and nation among world.
Your speaking of it doesn't make it so. I have to assume that you have examples in mind of the world moving in this direction, if not having actually arrived.
What geopolitical evolution is that?
Globalism has risen and receded in the past. It's dominance is not inevitable and it certainly isn't necessary to the continued survival of man or geopolitics.
That an increasingly global economy increasingly intertwines the interests of nation states doesn't make a family of man inevitable. Whether one focuses on threat, as I do, or interests as, perhaps you do, it is not enough that these threats and interests actually exist. They must be realized by the would be family members. Perhaps there is a family of nation states forming, but that is something quite different from a family of man.
Craven de Kere wrote:As to whether nations can work together cohesively that is a separate issue to the way one evaluates geopolitical evolution except in that people who continue to subscribe to the "versus" view are an impediment to said cohesion.
That is the issue of whether or not a family of nations is functional or dysfunctional. It will only be a family if the members clearly wishes to organize to respond to recognized common threats
However, it is not a small difference that separates a family of nations and the family of man.
[Until there is a threat to the entire family of man, there will be no family of man.
whew, not a good sign. seems only one side wishes to have legitimacy. That could pose some transition adjida.
I think that, on the time of the Bush selection, most of us were willing to allow a honeymoon. Even at the start of the Iraq war, most of us were supporters , based on data that we believed was true.
I became doubtful when , working in the DOE field, we saw no evidence of atmospheric borne isotopes that are coincident with creating red boy or yellow cake, no isotopes from UF6, and no isotopes from enrichment. It turned out that intelligence analysts were keeping their mouths shut about all the WMD stuff, but the administration was cooking their data. NOW, many intel analysts are coming forward.
AND, as a result, many of us former dull witted followers are now unforgiving Bush critics.
The entire cabinet and the president lied and they must be made accountable. Losing the election is only a start.
Finn d'Abuzz wrote:[Until there is a threat to the entire family of man, there will be no family of man.
So there is none yet? I thought your litany was that the current terror threat met that definition and that's why it trumped every other issue?
Finn d'Abuzz wrote:[Until there is a threat to the entire family of man, there will be no family of man.
So there is none yet? I thought your litany was that the current terror threat met that definition and that's why it trumped every other issue?
