Can a democracy make the wrong choice


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Can a democracy make the wrong choice

  • Yes

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • No

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    0

Bold

-kenja sama
Retired
The usual rules
Here is another of my renowned intellectual discussion threads. Has always, any opinion is fair game has long has you support it with arguments. Normal forum rules also apply. This means stay respectful of others and don't use abusive language.

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Here is the question

A few months ago, there were general elections in Palestine. The Fatwa party, previously lead by Yaser Arafat and currently lead by Mahmoud Abbas, lost the election to the Hammas.

Some members of the Hammas have been known to be using violent terrorist actions against Israel (mainly bombs). One other thing is that the Hammas government dose not recognize the existence of Israel. In other words, they are not acknowledging that Israel has a right to the land they occupy.

This lead many countries, US, many members of the European Union and Canada to stop sending the money they were previously sending the Palestinian government. The rational was that they were afraid that the money would not be used to help the Palestinian people but to finance terrorist actions against Israel. The effect of such a decision is to completely paralyze the Palestinian government since it is heavily depending on that money.

In other words, what many countries are saying is that during those elections, the Palestinian people made the wrong choice and should have chosen someone else. It is also important to remember that those elections were fully democratic with no reported irregularities according to all local and international observers.

So here is the question, can another country take upon itself to tell someone else that they did not vote for the right people?


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Here is my opinion
The answer to the question is a definite no. Each country has sovereignty has recognized under the UN treaties. That sovereignty can only be ignored in cases where there are crimes against humanities or atrocities being committed by a countries government. It was far from the case here. So no one has any business telling the Palestinian people they did not choose correctly, except other Palestinians.

BUT, it would not be very wise to finance terrorist groups or even military actions. If a country wants to go to war, it should do so with its own money and not ask the international community to finance them!

But there were other solutions than simply with-holding the money until the Hammas recognized Israel and agreed to not take any military actions. For instance, the money could have been granted with conditions. Having observers going over to guaranty the money sent was being used for its purpose : helping the people rebuild and feed themselves.

By simply withholding the money, the message sent is that their democracy is not as good as westerns ones. Furthermore, it is creating a situation where people are suffering BECAUSE of a decision take in a far away places. So it is creating a condition that can only result in more trouble in the future.
 
Answer to the poll:
- Well, I think humans -no matter how “democratic” they can be- are able to make wrong decisions. Therefore, I voted yes.

Answer to the question:
(Can another country take upon itself to tell someone else that they did not vote for the right people?)
- NO! no country should interfere with other country’s business.
Why? Ehem! Well, as mothers always say: Don’t stick your nose in other’s people’s business -or bad things will happen- =P

Note: Also! Those BIG countries -which interfere with other countries’ business-, do not let anyone to get in the way of what they do. In my opinion ... That's totally ... Unfair!! =P
 
Answer to the poll:
- The question is not valid, It has no POV Anchor. How does one determine what is wrong? To one entity, the decision may be detrimental, to another entity, the decision may be benificial. You must have a Point Of View to determine the morality of something.

Answer to the question:
- Yes a counry can, ESPECIALLY if they have the military or political power to back it up. It happens all the time. However i do not beleive you are looking for such a literal answer. Morally? Again we enter the Point of View Argument. My POV? No i do not beleive it to be morally acceptable, unless it is merely a voicing of an opinion without military, or political cloak-and-dagger games.
 
Answer to the poll:
- Sometimes, they can make the wrong choices. Some of these choices may have involved bribary and/or measures that were unnecessary. If it's only a few group of people doing the democraty, then yes.

Answer to question:
- Sometimes, it is possible for countries to interfere with other things. However, if they do such, it would be nearly uneffective. Countries are more like people, one rules themselves, but are governed only aurthorized people, such as the U.S. and their president. No country should have influencial powers that may have worse outcomes. so No. Countries choose their leaders, and their choices have reasons, as an individial.
 
Morally speaking, withholding the money is wrong because I do think it sends the message that their democracy isn't as good as ours. And I'm just guessing here, but didn't the West install democracy in their country? Democracy is what the people vote for, and since you gave them democracy, then you should just accept what they want. And while on one hand, doing so until they recognize Israel is a good cause ... I can understand why they wouldn't want to recognize the country. It would be like if the world decided that Canada's natives deserve their own country, so let's smack it right in southern Ontario and force everyone to recognize them. Wouldn't go over so well with the thousands of people living in southern Ontario, would it?

Of course, that's not to say either side is right or wrong. The world needs to learn how to respect Palestine's position, while be able to help the poor people there who probably don't care about any of this, anyway (they just want food, shelter, and someone to protect their rights and property)
 
1) a demoncracy can be 'wrong,' but as it has been stated, it's really up to your POV.

2) so, if the the majority of the citizens voted for someone we know to be hostile to our allies, we are really under NO oblilgation to aid the enemy of our ally.
 
There are flaws withing any type of government, whether it's autocracy or democracy, there will always be a group of people who will not be happy or satisfied with the government.


We, as foreigners have no, whatsoever right, to tell a people living a certain country, who, have gone through so much hardship and conflicts, what is right and what is wrong. Unless, unless unless UNLESS there are conflicts such as ethnic cleansing happening within the country (Serbia? Germany back in WWII? ) It is only then, when internationally accepted organizations WHO BRING peace such as UN have the right to interfere with the government's actions.

The provious types of governments, obivously held no whatsoever power against Israel. Israel for the last few years was able to attack, slaughter, destroy and take new lands and nobody has ever tried to stop them. If Palestinian have decided to choose a group, like Haamas to rule the country. So be it, maybe, if they govern that country, Palestinian will achieve peace.

Making milions of people to suffer because they live and believe in such government is against humanity. There was once when people pittied Jews for what happened in WWII. Yes, they, once upon a time were slaughtered by Nazi's, but they do not have any right to kill other humans, such as Palestinians, just because they feel 'insecure.' Pardon my language, buy insecurity my ass. Israel holds nuclear bombs and nobody has ever tried to stop them from producing more OR check and see what they're up to.

What I don't understand is, how is throughing rocks when you're being shot with m1/car15/g36/g3/ is "terrorizing" ??

Yeah, there are some people who "suicide bomb" and kill... what? 20 people? Who, again, we're not aware if they're Israeli or Palestini. But, using choppers, airplanes and tanks to get revenge isn't right either. I mean, what I see is like this:

Someone explodes a bomb and people die = 20-40's ppl die, 100's wound

15 Choppers with 3 airplanes bombar a city = 100's die and 1000's wound

but it doesn't stop there, they have to drag in tanks, arti and soldiers into the city too...

how many more that way? only god knows.

I've heard this many times, "...Eye for eye, man for man..." but how accurate is this "man for man" part of the avenger's motto? Uhh... Not that accurate.


Palestini's protest
they are being fired upon
in reaction they through rocks
chopper comes in and throughs some rockets at them
someone yells out loud "zomg h4x0r imma bomb you"
next thing you know is a city is being invaded by military forces...





The protest part reminds me of the old communist Chinese. Good ol' cold war days.



Now, if there was anyone who should interfere and stop this nonsense, it should be UN. They should stop and disarm both sides and control their boarders. Heck, while they're at it, they should also redraw the boarders so it'd be "fair" for BOTH sides.



@ Bold, the government would, most likely not spend any money on military equipment, if they do, people would not vote for them in the next election. And that would be more than a reason to spend money on the economy rather than military. Having said that, they will not spend any less money on defence programs/projects.
 
QUOTE (mamori @ Jun 23 2006, 01:32 PM) 2) so, if the the majority of the citizens voted for someone we know to be hostile to our allies, we are really under NO oblilgation to aid the enemy of our ally.
By "our" ally, I assume you mean US's ally, in other words Israel.

I will go on that assumtion and simply comment that the concept is flawed since the US are the one's who are responsible for the mess and violence over there. It was a US lead action that created Israel by proclamation after Worl War 2. So the US are responsible for all the people they forced out of their home. There is a moral obligation to clean up and solve the problems that someone creates. Even if that solution takes many dozen years.

And this by no means cover the European and Canadian positions. None of those countries consider Israel more of an ally than Palestine. So we are back at the first place. Like Chisai said, we send the message that their democraty is less godd than ours. Further more, add to that the coments by an Israelian minister (I forgot which one) Israel might consider organizing assasination of any Hammas goverment person having had in the past any connections to a terrorist groups.

How exactly are those people suppose to react? If you back someone in a corner and threaten him, it won't take long before someone decides to bite back.

Finally, the palestinian goverment necer said they would engage in violent acts againts Israel. They simply said they would not make promises that they would NEVER do anything against Israel. There is a big difference between sayning you will do something and not saying you won't do it.

For instance, right now, it is VERY doubtfull the US has the military capabilities to act against North Korea (mainly because of its engagement in Iraq). But they will never say it like that. It would be political suicide. They only say they are open to dialog. This case is the same. The people voted for a group who they thougth would defend their cause has best has they could. Making declaration that you are bowing down to someone who is not very much liked by your voters is not exactly a good way to do politics.

I hope this is clear. I wrote it fast because I am in a hurry and there are some rather complex issues involved. So I hope it is clear for everyone.
 
Answer to poll: I'll complicate it a bit to emphasize the point. What is democracy? Deciding what to do with a majority vote. Who votes? Majority of population, except illegal immigrants and simply new immigrants. And so the majority of the population votes...maybe not in America, but for the most part. Here's the kicker. How smart is that majority of population? By and large not very, because the people either follow the leaders in the community who have their own agendas or trust whatever the electees say. That cuts down Democracy's ideas a bit, right? when you follow what someone else does or don't use your brain to analyze what those sleezy bastards are planning or even bother to see who the hell they are. >.< As the saying goes: "Never underestimate the power of a stupid horde of people." (I think) And so my answer, yes, the democracy CAN make mistakes...look at the Bush family and what they got America in, 'specially with Osama and his gang, seem like a good idea at a time to give some terrorists some weapons and specialty training. Not so much now.

Answer to question: Yes, it is quite possible for a country to tell another country what's right and what's wrong. There is simply always a way. For America for instance, it can tell Palestine that we are more experienced with Democracy and that they made a politically poor choice with the Hammas, not necessarily in an inner-country sense, but more of a world-wide sense with them having bad reputation and all. And America will never abandon its child, Israel, because then its whole democratizing campaing for the middle east with go to hell. They will be branded cowards and oathbreakers on the world-wide scale. Those Israeli nukes might find their target, if not they'll just hate US's ass and all the other country's there will see that if they accept the democracy that there is always going to be the probability that US will pull out as soon as it whiffs a hint of trouble. That was too literral I suppose, on a more abstract scale there SHOULDN'T be a way for a country to tell another what to do as long as it doesn't bother other countrie. It should be the people's choice as to whether to obey its government or not or to choose a new or to the select the people it wants ruling them. But that's just nice thinking. That's what makes world politics so intresting. There is always gambles that the countries will take, there is always leaders who have things they don't tell the public, get elected and do, with their own agendas and goals for which they wish to be remembered. Why else do you think people aspire to be president? To serve the people? hardly. I seem to have forgotten the other things I wished to say so I'll end this here.
 
QUOTE "US are the one's who are responsible for the mess and violence over there. It was a US lead action that created Israel by proclamation after Worl War 2."


I have to disagree there. The problems in that ara has been there for a long time and it wasn't the fault of the US as much as the British, who as one of my teachers once said, "decided to draw lines in the map to create a country".

As to your question, I believe there is no middle ground. Also if the Palestinian government do decide to recognizw Israel, there is a good possibility that money will start to flow again.

As for the question of weather one government has the right to do this - no but this is not a perfect world. The strong makes the rules and the weak follow.
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QUOTE How smart is that majority of population? By and large not very, because the people either follow the leaders in the community who have their own agendas or trust whatever the electees say.
first of all, there's a 3rd option, which is really frequent: if you're unhappy with your current government, you vote in someone else. that's one of the perks in democracy -- you have the chance to change who represents you so often that at some point the choice will be a good one!

on the other hand, who are we to say the palestinians are dumb? are they politically dumber than the rest of the world? do we know better than themselves what's best for them??


QUOTE Answer to question: Yes, it is quite possible for a country to tell another country what's right and what's wrong. There is simply always a way. For America for instance, it can tell Palestine that we are more experienced with Democracy
if america's that much experienced with democracy, why do they keep an outdated election system that allows a man to be president without having the most votes? why did they allow a man to be president even though it's highly likely that there was fraud in florida? i will not accept democracy recommendations from the US, thank you. I trust Portugal's model of democracy much better (and i can post a few reasons for that, if you're interested)..

and i'll quote you with one slight change:

QUOTE they made a politically poor choice with George W Bush, not necessarily in an inner-country sense, but more of a world-wide sense with them having bad reputation and all.

my opinion is quite similar to bold's and noob's.
 
What I want to say is some time democracy is not suitable for some other country especially if they have so many problems example like Iraq… democracy kill their civilian everyday… I’m not supporting that saddam.. but before that I can see their people in my TV channel do everything, their child go to school, shopping, working… but now only bomb explode everywhere and that country become terrorist habitat… even US cannot handle it any more…
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QUOTE (99FoxDemon @ Jun 24 2006, 10:08 AM)What I want to say is some time democracy is not suitable for some other country especially if they have so many problems example like Iraq… democracy kill their civilian everyday… I’m not supporting that saddam.. but before that I can see their people in my TV channel do everything, their child go to school, shopping, working… but now only bomb explode everywhere and that country become terrorist habitat… even US cannot handle it any more…
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What you said is absolutely true. Democratic country cannot force democraty on a country not used to it. Because if it is not the people's choice, they are probably not ready for it and there will be many people trying to take advantage of the new regime and lots of other trouble.

But in the current case, we are not talking about Iraq. Iraq was not a democratic country, it was a totalarian regime with a single leader. Palestine is EXTREMELY far from that. Palestine has been a democraty for a long time and the election and voting system is a part of their culture has much as it is part of most european or north american countries. All of their leaders were elected. If I am not mistaking, all their leaders were lected since Israel was created, so in other words, since Palestine was also created.


QUOTE (*Dr.Stupid*)Here's the kicker. How smart is that majority of population? By and large not very, because the people either follow the leaders in the community who have their own agendas or trust whatever the electees say. I am nearly ashame to admit it, but you are partly right. There are a few people I know that whenever they open their mouth, the only thing that goes througth my mind is "and those people can vote!".

But democraty is still the best system we got so far. Because you can't simply dismiss people's vote because they do not show a basic understanding of what they are doing. Because once you start doing that, who set the standards? Who decides who is fit to vote or not? I am sure you see the problem.

So the best solution is that all citizens, in other words, the people living there, paying taxes and who's children will also live there, have a right to vote. New immigrants are usally not asked to vote in the first few years, because the idea is to give them time to understand the political system.


QUOTE (Neutrality)I have to disagree there. The problems in that ara has been there for a long time and it wasn't the fault of the US as much as the British, who as one of my teachers once said, "decided to draw lines in the map to create a country". I never said it was solely the US's fault! Such a thing cannot be a sigle countries fault. The british also played a MAJOR role in the creation of Israel. But it would never have happend without the US and what they did at the UN councel to create the country and later by arming Israel.

The point was that the US have a responsability. Not that they have the sole responsability!
 
QUOTE I’m not supporting that saddam.. but before that I can see their people in my TV channel do everything, their child go to school, shopping, working… but now only bomb explode everywhere and that country become terrorist habitat… even US cannot handle it any more…
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yes, that is what you see, but think about this: how much of what you see is truth? I'd say about all of it, but that's not the issue. The news only concentrates on sensationalist issues, such as a drowned puppy or another stupid thing that a politician did. How often do you see news show you average daily lives of people here or anywhere else? Almost absolutely never, yes? It's just simply the way news work now, they only show you what draws the most attention and in that they promote people's fear because most of those things are apparently murders, robberies and rapes. That in turn makes people more dependent on the government to chase the bad guys away and so on. I hope you see my point. It's like the plane crash thing. Poeple don't want to fly after a jet crashes, yet no one tells you that it's a 1 in over a 1000000 occurence.


QUOTE first of all, there's a 3rd option, which is really frequent: if you're unhappy with your current government, you vote in someone else. that's one of the perks in democracy -- you have the chance to change who represents you so often that at some point the choice will be a good one!
Yes, but if you always simply go against what there is now then how will you know when you made the right choice. For example if you vote against the party that was in power last, even though there is a new candidate who in the end would have been better then the other party's candidate, what good will that do? The whole thisng is not to whether follow a pattern or do 1 thing over and over it's to judge every candidate on your own with your own sense and decide which you think is better.


QUOTE on the other hand, who are we to say the palestinians are dumb? are they politically dumber than the rest of the world? do we know better than themselves what's best for them??
That's simple, because people all over the world are the same. Different places different faces, but on the inside they are all the same. They have things they fear and want, which are the same as the things here. And they don't have to be dumber then the world, they simply have to be AS dumb as the rest of the world. And in retrospect we might know what's better for them, to elect someone besides Hammas and get food and homes, no? But then again, somewhere farther down the path it might turn out better for them to have elected Hammas, I mean who knows, politics is a poor science, really can't predict shit.


QUOTE if america's that much experienced with democracy, why do they keep an outdated election system that allows a man to be president without having the most votes? why did they allow a man to be president even though it's highly likely that there was fraud in florida? i will not accept democracy recommendations from the US, thank you. I trust Portugal's model of democracy much better (and i can post a few reasons for that, if you're interested)..
I didn't say it was more experienced, I simply said that America could say it was to make any kind of point to its case. It could also say that it wouldn't give them any more money, like it did, that works too. I say they elected him, even with fraud because, well, Americans are a bunch of pansies, not to say all of them are, but still a whole load of them are. They are afraid to stand up against the system and for what they believe in because they have too much they want to keep, like their possessions, loved ones and lives. And besides even if the fraud in Florida wasn't there, him breaking the law and then admitting to breaking it and then saying he'll KEEP breaking it is a whole another issue in itself (for those who don't know, he issued orders to tap people's phone conversations and surveillance them without counrt warrants, like he was supposed to.) I won't accept US's democracy either, because the last of their leaders have led this country into almost a trillion dollar deficit, the figure is somewhere in 800 billion right now i believe, if not correct me, and failed with foreign relations miserably (Bush sr and jr) I just hope Jeff Bush from Florida doesn't come to power just for the sake of family. I don't know much about Portuguese democracy, so i'd appreciate a couple examples.


QUOTE But democraty is still the best system we got so far. Because you can't simply dismiss people's vote because they do not show a basic understanding of what they are doing. Because once you start doing that, who set the standards? Who decides who is fit to vote or not? I am sure you see the problem.
yeah, i do see the issue and perhaps that's going to be the issue that the next generation is going to resolve. All I can think of currently is if all the citizen's voting power was determined by how much taxes they pay. That way the rich will want to vote to get their party and the poor would rally to outweigh the rich for their party. Opposition would create more eagerness at least to vote. But that could be problematic, if one side got a permanent upper hand, the other would suffer under the toher's monopoly of party, even though it would probably break the rich people's hold on the current government. I don't know the solution at this time. Maybe someone else has ideas.
 
QUOTE (*Dr.Stupid* @ Jun 24 2006, 12:49 PM)yeah, i do see the issue and perhaps that's going to be the issue that the next generation is going to resolve. All I can think of currently is if all the citizen's voting power was determined by how much taxes they pay. That way the rich will want to vote to get their party and the poor would rally to outweigh the rich for their party. Opposition would create more eagerness at least to vote. First of all, you fall into the common patern that political affiliation are determined by the amount of money you own. That is not accurate at all. At least depending on the country and political system. You must also keep in mind that it is easy to talk about "the rich". But who is in that category?

The concept of richness is really relative. For instance, are all engineers rich? Compared to the guy flipping burgers, definatly. Compared to a large companies CEO, definatly not.


QUOTE All I can think of currently is if all the citizen's voting power was determined by how much taxes they pay. The idea of having people votes be equal to the persons contribution to sociaty is actually a very good one. But it is not limited to taxes. Some people are extremely dedicated and are a big help to their sociaty but don't make a lot of money. The problem is how do you quantify, lets say, the time spent helping organized a clean up group in the neighborhood?

Another problem is how do you count for people preparing to serve sociaty? For example, people studying to become doctors, engineers, nurses, etc. Once they finish their studies, they will be productive members of sociaty and be able to pay a good deal of taxes. But during the time they are investing to get the training and certifications, they are not paying taxes (if they do, it is very little). How do you take into account someone investing for the sociaties future?
 
I see, and i agree that the money thing would be a long shot because of all the manipulation that can be done with it. But then again, America does run on money. Political parties to the major extent are determined by the amount of funding they have *cough*republicans*cough* they have the backing of the rich because they make policies that benefit them...corporate tax cuts, tax cuts for the rich (not like they don't do tax evasion either) by rich i mean CEO's and people with generally more than a million's income a year.
However that does give me another idea. It can be both money and time-based. For example: voting power can be determined by the amount of labour and its worth to society...let me restate. hmmm. time would equal money and money would equall time, so if a rich man donates to a charity it transfers into voting power, similarly, if a poor person spends time doing community work, it can be added to their voting power as well. Students and future helpers can be given voting power for the amount of time they have ALREADY studied or something to the liking. It's still vague in my mind, so i won't force, maybe more suggestions, Bold?
 
QUOTE I don't know much about Portuguese democracy, so i'd appreciate a couple examples.
first of all, our political power is split in 2 elements, elected in different elections: one is the government (and parliament), and the other is the president.

the government is responsible for "managing the country" and they have the power to create new laws. However, all laws that the government plans to implement must be approved by the President. The President himself can't create laws, so there's a balance between these parts.

When there are serious issues and the government is thought to be handling them incorrectly, the President usuallly acts like a moderator between all political parties (we have 5 important ones) and the government, and tries to make them take good care of things. On extreme cases, if the government is being too incompetent, the President can terminate the current government and call for new elections. This has happened recently (2 or 3 years ago), so it's a power that really can be used if necessary. Other than that, the President represents the country internacionally, sorta' like kings do on other countries..

So we have 2 independent powers that must work together to make decisions. Right now the government and the president are from different political parties (even though the president is considered to be as independent as possible), which is even better! And that's how our system works
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QUOTE And in retrospect we might know what's better for them, to elect someone besides Hammas and get food and homes, no?
did the fawta (or however you spell it) get them food and homes? no. that's why they looked for a change. they were going nowhere with their government, they were still being oppressed, they were still being frequently attacked by israel.. the moderate way wasn't working for them. So they voted for a change.

Who are we to say "moderate is best", when they're killed by tanks, israel builds a wall to separate themselves from palestine, among other things? when moderation doesn't work for me, i don't stick to it, i look for alternatives, even if i don't like them..
 
I realize that the focus of this thread has changed since it began. However, I only wish to speak about the Palistine issue.

In my opinion, a country has a right to express its opinions about what is right and what is wrong. Where the problem occurs is when they punish someone based on that belief. In this case, the US is pulling funding that they are giving out of charity, so I don't think that this counts as a punishment. Refusing to help someone is not the same as hurting someone. Also, charity is not an obligation.

That being said, the US should be willing to negotiate restoring funding, and in return Palistine had better be willing to do some meticulous bookkeeping.
 
QUOTE (noob @ Jun 23 2006, 01:45 PM)

Someone explodes a bomb and people die = 20-40's ppl die, 100's wound

chopper comes in and throughs some rockets at them
someone yells out loud "zomg h4x0r imma bomb you"
next thing you know is a city is being invaded by military forces...


I beg to differ - If we just bombed the shit out of people, and infliced massive civilan casultys like you seem to think we do, i would not se sitting in Afganistsan tying this reply to you. I would be back with my wife and daughter.

You see, our policy is surgical strikes, Fast, move in move out and clean up after. No civilan casualties. This is costing us a continual slow loss of personell, who are my friends and colleages.

And pont of fact - Choppers cannot mount bombs, therfore they cannot bomb.
 
QUOTE (sk7 @ Jun 24 2006, 07:36 PM)In my opinion, a country has a right to express its opinions about what is right and what is wrong. Where the problem occurs is when they punish someone based on that belief. Everyone is entitled to opinions. But there is a way to argue with somone. If I were to call you a moron and and tell you that you don't know what you are talking about and should remian silent. You would probably feel ofended and you would be right. You would also like it better if I had stayed polite.

The container of the message is has important has the message itself.


QUOTE (sk7 @ Jun 24 2006, 07:36 PM)In this case, the US is pulling funding that they are giving out of charity, so I don't think that this counts as a punishment. Not charity. That money is humanitarian aid. It is radically different than charity. Humanitarian aid is a form of international transfer that are protected under UN agreements and regognized by most countries. Humanitarian aid is also something organized at the level of organizations.

Charity is something involving individuals and your local environment. When you give money to the homeless shelter of your neighboorhood, it i charity. When the goverment sends an un-employed person a social security check, it is a social transfer. When the red cross goes in after a disaster to help people, it is humanitarian aids. Don't mix them, since the rules that apply to them are different.


QUOTE (sk7 @ Jun 24 2006, 07:36 PM) Refusing to help someone is not the same as hurting someone. Also, charity is not an obligation. In the general case, I agree. There are no obligations to help someone in need unless the life of the person is in danger (You are legally obligated to do what you can to help save the life of someoneyou meet). But at an international level, no such rules exists (other than your concience).

But if someone has a responsibility to creating a situation, deciding to witholding promised help, is rather hard to justify, ethicly speaking.

Furthermore, we are not talking about future help not planned for. We are talking about help that was promised and that those people were counting on.

An everyday life example would be if you get a job and you are told you will be paid 20$ an hour. If when you receive your pay, it was only 10$ an hour, you can have big trouble because you spent while counting on that money to come in. When it does not, you are in even bigger trouble than if you knew from the start that you would be paid 10$ an hour.


QUOTE (Anime-Addict) I beg to differ - If we just bombed the shit out of people, and infliced massive civilan casultys like you seem to think we do, i would not se sitting in Afganistsan tying this reply to you. I would be back with my wife and daughter. I belive noob was refering to Israel policy of using military choppers and planes to "surgicly" take out terrorist living in densely populated areas.

As for Afganistan, I would harly call any soldier there a killer! Actually, the sad truth is that soldiers are always the one taking the blame for mis-steps and accidents when the responsibility belongs to the person who sent them there. Because accidents are bound to happend (on both sides, civialian and military). There are some nasty people out there and its hard to identify them!

But I think we are drifting from the main topic. Soldier are not responsible for an accident unless it was clearly a deliberate act (hence not an accident!!). The more questionnable part is why none of the people in charge (who are usally sitting very FAR from any bullets or explosives) thought of the reactions of the local people when the inevitable accident happend?
 
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