What Separates The U.S. From The Terrorist Nations Of The World?

This question will be construed by many to be unpatriotic, un-American, and simply uncalled for. Many will scoff at the idea that such a question should even be addressed, but I believe it is one that we should ponder. Why? Because we are currently attacking another nation for carrying out acts of mass destruction that pale in comparison to what we ourselves have done.

Before I'm tarred, feathered, and ridden out of town on a rail, let me just say that I support the idea of a legitimate, just, and, yes, even moral war. I believe such a war can and should be declared when the security of the citizens of the United States is directly at risk. After all, the primary job of the federal government, contrary to the modern teachings of liberal and neo-conservative collectivists, is to provide for the common defense of the nation. If the security, liberty, and lives of its citizens are threatened, the government has a sworn duty to eliminate that threat.

Unfortunately, most of the conflicts we have seen in the last century were the result of the federal government ignoring its obligation to the immediate defense of our own nation in order to pursue more global concerns. Can anyone make the case that the conflicts we saw in places like Korea, Vietnam, Panama, Iraq, Haiti, Somalia, and Bosnia had anything to do with protecting the freedom of American citizens?

Now, the same people who were so quick to send soldiers off to kill and die for democracy overseas while ignoring the government's assaults on our liberty here at home are calling for unity in battling yet another foreign enemy. Perhaps our current predicament calls for some serious self-examination.

In our nationalistic frenzy we have been so intent on rooting out evil overseas that we have failed to notice the sins of our own nation. Again, I ask, what separates the U.S. from the terrorist nations of the world?

Many would say that we have a much greater respect for life and would never consider unleashing the kinds of atrocities we saw on September 11. Attacking innocent civilians with such cold-blooded calculation is beyond our comprehension. This kind of thinking lends credence to the old adage "ignorance is bliss."

During the last "just" war, World War II, the U.S. made it standard military procedure to specifically target civilians. German cities like Hamburg and Dresden were subjected to some of the most intense bombing raids in history. Even Japanese non-combatants in Tokyo could not escape the relentless firebombing. This policy of attacking civilian targets culminated in President Truman's order to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The result of these kinds of attacks throughout the war was a civilian death toll that climbed into the hundreds of thousands. Our government deliberately utilized this kind of warfare in order to strike terror in the hearts of foreign civilians. Sound familiar?

Needless to say, we do not have to look outside our borders for examples of the very evil we claim to loathe. Case in point, abortion. Since the unconstitutional Roe v. Wade decision was handed down by the Supreme Court in 1973, we have witnessed the government-sanctioned murder of over 40 million innocent children. This is an accomplishment that even the worst terrorist nations cannot claim. Why have we failed to unite against this particular evil?

It is understandable that Americans continue to feel outraged by the attacks of September 11. The media guaranteed that all of us had a front row seat to the grim scenes of death and destruction. We could not escape the gruesome images of commercial airliners slamming into skyscrapers, people hurling themselves out of windows to avoid being burned alive, or a million tons of steel and concrete raining down upon victims and rescuers.

Think of the collective outrage that would ensue if we were granted the same kind access to the carnage inside an abortion clinic. Imagine if we were to catch a glimpse of the bloody, twisted heaps of mangled limbs, see babies survive an abortion long enough to be tossed out alive with the rest of the medical waste, or hear the screams of mothers realizing, too late, the devastating consequences of their actions.

Are all these innocent lives worth it? Should we applaud the deliberate killing of over 200,000 Japanese civilians by our atomic bombs because it ended World War II a few weeks ahead of schedule? Are we to just accept the murder of 1.5 million children every year because of our distorted view of individual liberty and personal choice? Do we continue to tolerate the actions of a government that believes it has more important things to do than protect the rights of the innocent?

Foreign civilians, unborn children, national integrity— evidently, these are the sacrifices with which we are willing to live. Such a thing is to be expected when a society adopts an "end justifies the means" philosophy. In doing so, we have only succeeded in demonstrating that we are just as capable as any terrorist nation of committing acts of senseless violence with little or no regard for the sanctity of human life.

So, just what exactly is it that separates the United States from the terrorist nations of the world? Maybe the answer is more elusive than we care to admit.

This is another example of this author's intellectual swindle - that you fell for.
LOL. I agree with the author, you disagree with the author. I say so in English, while you, unable to simply disagree, go through this big "logic" charade, and try to convince us that you're an intellectual. You're a joke.

Little do you know how little you know.

AndrewJackson is right on the money.

What you fail to understand is that his post is not based on the fact that he "disagrees" with the author. It's based on the fact that the author fails to logically support his own conclusion.

You are clearly extremely unfamiliar with the rigorous meaning of the word "logic" (as opposed to its more fuzzy popular definition of "seems reasonable to me").

log-ic (loj'ik) n.
1. the science that investigates the principles governing correct or reliable inference.
2. SYMBOLIC LOGIC.

There is an objective, quantifiable difference between a logical argument (in the sense of deductive reasoning) and mere rhetoric. The essay that started this thread was full of the latter and very little of the former. It's the difference between what lawyers do and what mathematicians do. One is designed to be persuasive propaganda, the other is designed to actually prove a conclusion.

And it has nothing to do with whether you "agree" with the conclusion or not. If someone said, "Circles are round, 8 is larger than 6, therefore 1+1=2", people could "agree" with its claims, but it would still be an utter failure of logic -- the conclusion, whether true or not, did not actually logically follow from the "evidence" given to support it. It would be a ludicrous thing to offer as a mathematical proof (math proofs are just a special type of logical argument).

An argument is either logically valid or it is not. That is, it either supports its claims and uses them to climb a ladder where each rung is a necessary consequence of what came before, leading to a firm conclusion, or it is merely an exercise in mouthing a free-floating opinion.

AJ correctly points out several places where the article attempts to pretend to be logically arguing something (i.e. giving the reader the impression that it is making a logical case for something), when in fact the author is pulling a shell game, a sleight of hand, wherein the desired conclusion was pulled out of his back pocket by his right hand while his left hand was distracting their attention with something else.

There is a name for these types of charades masquerading as actual logic, and that name is "fallacy". A fallacy is a rhetorical device that looks at first glance as if it is making an unarguable point of logic, but in fact doesn't prove anything at all.

Two classic examples are the argument from authority, and the argument ad hominem. Argument from authority is of the form, "so-and-so says so, and he's the top guy in field X". This is a fallacy because even though it can sometimes be persuasive, the fact that so-and-so says so doesn't actually *prove* squat -- the guy might be mistaken. In a logical discussion you can't substitute a simple declaration for an actual demonstration that the point is a valid one.

Argument ad hominem is the flip side -- arguing that a point must be false because the source is allegedly an idiot, or unsavory, or a commie, or whatever. Again, this can be persuasive (we should always double-check the pronouncements of idiots et al), but it's not a valid logical disproof -- insulting the source in no way actually demonstrates the falsity of the information, it just *pretends* to.

There are dozens of types of logical fallacies, many of them far more subtle than the above. But they all boil down to, "you sound like you're saying something persuasive, but the form of your presentation is actually insufficient to logically prove the point you are trying to make -- you're making a logical leap without building an actual bridge over the gap first." It's the difference between making an argument that is actually sound, and one that merely sounds good.

Pointing out logical holes in an argument, as AJ has done quite well, isn't a matter of agreeing or disagreeing with it, or even disproving the conclusion -- it's a matter of pointing out the places where the author has dishonestly jumped from one point to another without actually filling in the gaps between them. "There are holes in that argument" is a common phrase, the meaning of which is to point out that the author has attempted to go from A to E without showing that B, C, and D are present and accounted for.

Logicians can dismantle a flawed argument without any personal opinion on the matter being argued. All that is necessary is to check whether the author has logically supported each of his points in a non-fallacious manner, or whether he has simply pulled them out of a hat after waving his hands about for a few minutes.

The difference between a logical argument and a fallacious one is like the difference between night and day, like the difference between a valid mathematical proof and a flawed one. The principles are actually pretty simple and straightforward.

The problem is that many people haven't the slightest training in the science of logic (it's a branch of mathematics), and thus wouldn't recognize it if it bit them in the ass. AJ rightly points out several gaping holes in the author's attempt to work from point A to point E in his argument (i.e., he correctly points out failures of logic in the piece), only to be blasted by several people who don't even grasp the nature of what he has done.

"That's just your opinion", they snarl, as irrelevantly and incorrectly as if they had denounced as "opinion" a math professor's refusal to accept their flawed geometry proofs.

A given argument can be far more than just a strident statement of the author's beliefs. It can be an edifice built as firmly and sturdily as a suspension bridge, it can be a walkway so solidly constructed that any man can walk its length and test the strength of every paving stone and find it good. Unfortunately, because of a widespread lack of training in the straightforward field of logic, there are many who can neither think nor argue logically, nor properly analyze the arguments of another.

The author's conclusions may or may not be correct, but the point is that he has failed to actually make a solid case for them, he has simply pretended to. Maybe you like what he has to say, but don't mistake that for the proposition that he has actually proven his position.

Bonus question: what is the difference between my actions and those of the US government when it bombs Afghani peasants?

Are you really this naive?

1. We are not "bombing Afghani peasants". Not on purpose, anyway, although mistakes are sometimes made, and our actual targets sometimes position themselves among the "peasants". We are not "firing at random" as in your specious example. Strike one.

2. We are bombing the Taliban. They are not merely bystanders in a "crowded room", as in your specious example. Strike two. They have actively supported, protected, and aided Al Qaeda. In many respects, they are the same organization.

3. Worse, the Taliban are the rulers of Afghanistan. They are the government and police of that country. They are the ones who are (or at least should be) responsible for apprehending and extraditing the mass murderers in their midst. Instead, they have flatly refused to apprehend him, and have aided and abbetted him. We gave them several weeks to straighten up and fulfill their duties as a civilized government. They refused. We had no choice but to treat them as part of the same gang of murderers as those whom they shield -- because they are. This is vastly different than your specious example of holding a random room of people hostage and randomly shooting them in search of a killer.

Strike three, you're out. Way, way, WAY out.

If you want a better analogy than your incredibly laughable "shoot up a crowded room at random" example, consider any of several Western movies set back in the days before there was an effective state or federal level law enforcement presence in the frontier, and one town's rogue sheriff was actually a member of the gang of thugs that terrorized the town's population, and the surrounding territories. The sheriff of a nearby victimized town gathers a posse of concerned citizens and goes to the offending town, telling the sheriff that he needs to arrest the gang. He refuses, and actually interferes with their apprehension. There's nothing left to do but abjectly surrender to the lawless, or have a shoot-out of the good guys versus the bad guys.

And anyone who asked, "What separates the posse from the gang of murdering thugs" would be a f***ing idiot.

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