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America being ridiculous...again

bobbyburns said:
what the marquis is saying is that war is ok sometimes. it's necessary to thwart and dismantle dictatorships. in certain parts of the world it has brought about peace. I don't agree with that, but, then, I'm not a big boy.
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I still can't get my head around the idea that the opposite of peace is not war but oppression. I can see that oppression can lead to war, and that such a war may be justified. Necessary, even. I'm not a dedicated pacifist. I just have trouble discarding the assumption that war is the opposite of peace. A semantic debate, I guess, but semantics has its place in debate. It has to do with the meanings of words; and without clear meanings words would be pretty useless things. I am taking it that the marquis seriously meant what he/she said, and was not just putting in a throw-away line to demonstrate cleverness.

Someone above claimed that humans need war. A natural need, built into us. What a depressing thought. Especially now that the world has enough weapons of mass destruction to destroy itself three times over.
 
Sun-SSS said:
I still can't get my head around the idea that the opposite of peace is not war but oppression. I can see that oppression can lead to war, and that such a war may be justified. Necessary, even. I'm not a dedicated pacifist. I just have trouble discarding the assumption that war is the opposite of peace. A semantic debate, I guess, but semantics has its place in debate. It has to do with the meanings of words; and without clear meanings words would be pretty useless things. I am taking it that the marquis seriously meant what he/she said, and was not just putting in a throw-away line to demonstrate cleverness.
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I hope you don't mind me jumping in... I'm not familiar with this quote, but from what I gather, the expression assumes all existence can be lumped into two states, peace and oppression. Peace and oppression have no overlapping areas, so one would be the complement (or opposite) of the other. War would be another state, but war would be a sub-state of oppression. If you've ever had any set theory, you can think of Venn diagrams. It's one way of looking at it. Basically, you don't have to be at war to not be at peace. Please let me know if I've helped or only made the situation worse.

Sun-SSS said:
Someone above claimed that humans need war. A natural need, built into us. What a depressing thought. Especially now that the world has enough weapons of mass destruction to destroy itself three times over.
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Well, we NEED conflict. It's just where the conflict is directed. During war, it's directed toward an enemy. During peace, we fight amongst ourselves. Have you ever noticed how someone who had everything growing up acts? (Please note that what you are about to read is a stereotype, but one that everyone has witnessed.) A lot of the time, they will create a conflict by being a drama queen or being extremely deviant. Why? It's just in us. If everything's going good in your life, what do you do? Talk about the neighbors. Talk about your family.

See, a lot of the people complaining about not having enough freedom may not be considering what ultimate freedom would be like. No government would be chaos. You wouldn't be able to kill your food and eat it comfortably because you'd be worried about the tribe next door coming over to steal it. ...you could go on forever. I'll stop though.

However, as in the 10th ammendment to that great and disputed document, the Constitution of the United States of America says, whatever powers are not delegated to the government are delegated by default to the people. In other words, the government is only as strong as you make it. The government's intervention into your life is only as strong as you allow it to be. So, every time your congressman/representative votes for a new bill to provide any form of support to the people or to prevent people from making their own choices, we set a precedent that "it's the government's responsibility." "Hey, the government should provide a little food... more food, ...all food. Then they should provide homes too... and health care... and... and..." And we can't provide for ourselves. Finally, the government is in control, and we might as well have a tyrant instead of a democracy.

Sorry for the doom and gloom outlook. I'm actually a happy person. ;) Just do me a favor, if you're a US citizen. Check out the Libertarian Party.

http://www.lp.org/
 
Any smallish, skinny grade-school kid can explain the need for war. Bullies will push you and beat you and steal your lunch money until you break their nose. Period. If you say, "I'd rather not fight you," other usually decent kids will begin to pick on you too. Soon you're everyones favorite whipping boy. No amount of notes from Mom or trips to the principals office will stop it. Bullies understand picking on other kids and broken noses. Taking the long view gets your ass whipped every day. See? Its simple.

I don't think war and conflict is a need, but its better than living in a hole because you're someone is going to kill you for being something/one/nationality/etc. Call it pride if you wish but most of the time its simply survival.
 
Prolixic said:
Any smallish, skinny grade-school kid can explain the need for war. Bullies will push you and beat you and steal your lunch money until you break their nose. Period. If you say, "I'd rather not fight you," other usually decent kids will begin to pick on you too. Soon you're everyones favorite whipping boy. No amount of notes from Mom or trips to the principals office will stop it. Bullies understand picking on other kids and broken noses. Taking the long view gets your ass whipped every day. See? Its simple.

I don't think war and conflict is a need, but its better than living in a hole because you're someone is going to kill you for being something/one/nationality/etc. Call it pride if you wish but most of the time its simply survival.
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Most people reach a state of permanent detante, sometimes bordering on Cold War, pretty quickly.
 
Conflict is the reason things get done. If there were no conflict, no one would ever invent anything. Sometimes it may only be internal conflict. Sometimes its war.

So, back to the beginning of the thread, there's currently a conflict between individual rights and the right of the government to intervene in public TV. The government only has the right to intervene if we give it to them, and right now, people get upset at the thought of violence and sex on TV. In psychology class, I learned that viewing sexually explicit material does have mental affects, but the affect of viewing violent material is worse. That's the reason people come back from war with Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome.

I think everyone should see Saving Private once just so that they can appreciate what everyday men had to go through to keep the world free of Nazi domination, but I may be in the minority. If the FCC gets enough complaints, they see it as signal that they have the go-ahead from the public.
 
I saw that commercial for squagels on t.v. a long time ago, and I vowed that I'm going to retain that image everytime some person says I need to appreciate what everyday men had to go through to keep the world free.
 
RitalinKid said:
I think everyone should see Saving Private once just so that they can appreciate what everyday men had to go through to keep the world free of Nazi domination, but I may be in the minority. If the FCC gets enough complaints, they see it as signal that they have the go-ahead from the public.
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OK. I like Saving Private Ryan and I'll probably watch it again with my kids someday. Its a reasonably accurate representation of some of the things that happened during WWII. Same movies like Schindlers List and (debatably) Pearl Harbor and even The Sands of Iwo Jima or whatever. After reading the article that started this thread it seems to me that the problem was that they wanted to show the thing during prime time a traditional family time--for reasons which escape me many people think staring slack jawed at the tube is a bonding experience. If they'd delayed it until the kids were in bed we wouldn't be having this discussion.
 
Prolixic, that's a better point. TV time is not bonding time. How much time do people spend, rather, waste in front of the TV? Eyes bulging, flipping, flipping. 420 channels and nothing's on. I'm a person that really gets sucked into the television. I can't have the TV on if I'm trying to tie my shoes or else my shoes won't get put on. I think that aspect of me is somehow related to the fact that I, along with a whole generation, was raised on TV.

I sometimes feel the same way about the internet too. It's 12:40 am, and I have to be up for work at 6:00 am. I didn't even get off today until 10:30 pm! And I'm here writing messages. Sorry for babbling on the boards. The main question is this: why is entertainment the center of our lives? Okay, that may be way off topic... but I'm gonna go with it. I'm sure its all relevant somehow.
 
Prolixic, Ritalin, I'm with you guys. I don't see watching tv as "doing" something. It is just sitting there, staring at a box. I know what my kids watch on tv, but don't often watch with them as quality family time. If I want to do something with my kids, I do something, like bake cookies, or go for a bike ride. Even reading is actually doing something, not a whole lot of difference in activity level than watching tv, but certainly more participatory!
 
They should show Saving Private Ryan in prime time. Everybody should see that move in it's entirety with all the violence that it depicts, that we should never forget that war is ugly and the price of freedoms high.
 
Rogue said:
Actually that's what I think => The USA is less free than for example countries in Europe! In the USA books are banned form (school) libraries (including The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Catcher in the Rye, Go Ask Alice or Flowers for Algernon), evolution isn't taught in some schools (that's pretty fundamentalistic) and most of all the media is censored (pictures of the coffins of fallen soldiers weren't shown because your president didn't want to). You wouldn't get throught with that in my country.
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You have much to learn about American, my friend. Sure, a few books are banned in our public schools, and some people over react to something as trivial as J Jackson's breast. Still, the freedoms we enjoy are second to none.
 
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