ebrown_p wrote:My main beef with both the US Conservatives and the terrorists is that they justify violence and torture. I only mentioned the social issues because okie brought it up (and I thought it ironic), but they are a side issue to this conversation.
The problem with conservatives and terrorists is that they always come up with excuses about why their use of violence and torture is necessary and justified even as the condemn the other guys use of the same.
Liberals think that violence should only be used as a last resort and that torture should never be used. We believe that you should use diplomacy first... even with people that the conservatives are classifying as "enemy" is the hope of finding a solution that doesn't involve the deaths of civilians.
Of course this doesn't mean accepting terrorism or torture or helicopters firing in civilian areas for that matter. It does mean talking to people in the region who may hold to the other perspective (in this case that society in the Middle East should be Islamic) but haven't turned to terrorism.
The conservatives in the US refuse to let the moderates talk to the moderates in the Middle East because every time we try, they accuse us of helping the "enemy". The conservatives in the Islamic world refuse to let the Islamic moderates talk to use for the same reason.
I am primarily against the barbaric cycle of violence that the conservatives (both the "terrorists" and the US coservatives") continue to use each other to justify.
You keep saying this tripe and I think you believe it.
Terrorists torture people to instill terror in others. The US does not torture anyone, but reserves the right to under dire circumstances to use methods that could qualify as torture under international law. Not the same techniques the terrorists use though. Drilling random holes with drills, using cigarettes to burn them, cutting off digits and appendages, poking out eyeballs, etc. Instead we use stress positions and create mental stress with loud music. Yet, in your mind, these are somehow equivalent.
Terrorists use car bombs and suicide bombers to target and kill as many civilians and innocent people as possible. The us uses smart bombs and tries as hard as possible to keep collateral damage to a minimum. Yet, to you , there is no difference.
We use violence to stop terrorists and enemies of freedom from killing people. They use violence as a tool to make people bow to their political whims. Yet, to you, there is no difference.
