BluffTHIS!
censor stultorum
Reged: 11/22/04
Posts: 10311
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I just want to add that if some here think that because of the potentially inflammatory nature of attacking the beliefs and actions of a particular group of people who happen to belong to the same race or culture, that a poster should define terms better, then I'm OK with that as long as we can have a predefined such list for the sake of brevity.
For example, if I or Felix say "Arabs", we are referring to any and all Arabs who either a) commit terrorist actions, b) support and/or aid such perpetrators, c) sit idly by while there fellows do such.
Now personally that is why I use the term "extremist moslems" and others use "islamofascists". So if you want to say such clearer but still concise terms should be used instead of generic terms like "Arabs", I am OK with that *as long as* YOU don't get to define for ME the conditions of asserting someone is a member of such a class.
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BluffTHIS!
censor stultorum
Reged: 11/22/04
Posts: 10311
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Quote:
Quote:
andy,
Notice that you are implicitly articulating a principle here which is that the morally superior victor in a war (if one is) cannot as a price/punishment/result of winning such a war, force the vanquished to leave a certain territory that has been captured. Such a forced depopulation is not "ethnic cleansing" since that implies killing them (genocide). So I think you have to justify that principle.
Ethnic cleansing is EXACTLY what Felix was advocating. I think you just don't understand what the term means, as it is much broader than genocide.
I don't think andy really needs to justify his opposition to ethnic cleansing either, as mass deportation is a textbook example of crimes against humanity.
And andy is of course right that Felix's post is thoroughly shameful and appalling.
It is nonetheless obvious that "ethnic cleansing" has the connotation of genocide. And precisely because of its emotionally charged nature it shouldn't be casually used when referring to "mass deportation" when such doesn't involve killing or virtual killing (deportation to a desert without supplies e.g.).
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bobman0330
Carpal \'Tunnel
Reged: 08/27/04
Posts: 5061
Loc: Billion-dollar CIA Art
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Quote:
It is nonetheless obvious that "ethnic cleansing" has the connotation of genocide. And precisely because of its emotionally charged nature it shouldn't be casually used when referring to "mass deportation" when such doesn't involve killing or virtual killing (deportation to a desert without supplies e.g.).
The mind boggles. Ethnic cleansing has the connotation of genocide because the people who do it are almost (100%?) invariably racist monsters who don't give a [censored] about the lives of the people they are deporting, and thus end up committing genocide or something close to it.
Even more mind-boggling is the fact that ethnic cleansing is itself a sanitized code word for crimes against humanity or genocide, as the case may be. And now that people have caught on and understand what's really being said, you want to substitute ANOTHER euphemism, "mass deportation."
And then, in a masterstroke of boggling, you complain that people are "casually" using the 100% accurate term "ethnic cleansing" when Felix was talking about the "mere" mass deportation of Israeli Arab citizens. "It's not like we're going to kill them, just render them stateless, take them away from their ancestral homes, and dump them somewhere where they'll maybe find a new life. Oh, yeah, and the IDF will be conducting occasional punitive raids against their new homes."
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BluffTHIS!
censor stultorum
Reged: 11/22/04
Posts: 10311
Loc: I can hold my breath longer th...
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Even more mind-boggling is the fact that ethnic cleansing is itself a sanitized code word for crimes against humanity
You are predefining mass exportation which doesn't involve killing as a crime against humanity. The fact that treaties call it so doesn't make it so. And you ignore the issue of whether those inhabitants can lose their rights to live in a certain area by virtue of being the defeated aggressor in a war.
This is the same old [censored] we always see where Israel is not permitted by the Arab terrorist apologists to impose permanent punishments/sanctions on them and where instead you assert it must go back to the status quo. Sweet deal isn't it? You try to rob a bank and get released and get to try again the next day. Obviously this is taking it to a logical extreme, but it illustrates the principle.
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andyfox
2+2 urban legend
Reged: 09/03/02
Posts: 17636
Loc: La-la land, where else?
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I'm not whining, I'm pointing out that that post was a disgrace because the poster advocated ethnic cleansing and called Arabs lying scumbags.
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andyfox
2+2 urban legend
Reged: 09/03/02
Posts: 17636
Loc: La-la land, where else?
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So if I posted "Jews are lying sacks of crap," and suggesteed they be "dumped" somewhere, we could write that off to just some "unpleasant reality" because I could list dozens of them that Israeli leaders have made over the years? I could also list hundreds of lies that our leaders have made; would it be OK for me to post "Americans are lying sacks of crap"?
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andyfox
2+2 urban legend
Reged: 09/03/02
Posts: 17636
Loc: La-la land, where else?
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He said Arabs are lying sacks of crap. Then he said that Israel should be ethnically cleansed of them.
2+2=4.
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andyfox
2+2 urban legend
Reged: 09/03/02
Posts: 17636
Loc: La-la land, where else?
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From Wikipedia:
Ethnic cleansing refers to various policies or practices aimed at the displacement of an ethnic group from a particular territory in order to create a supposedly ethnically "pure" society. At one end it is virtually indistinguishable from forced emigration and population exchange while at the other it merges with deportation and genocide. At the most general level, however, ethnic cleansing can be understood as the expulsion of an "undesirable" population from a given territory due to religious or ethnic discrimination, political, strategic or ideological considerations, or a combination of these.
I'm not implicitly articulating anything here. I'm saying the post in question was a disgrace because it called Arabs lying sacks of crap and because it advocates the transfer (or, as he put it, the "dumping" of the native Palestinians who still reside in Israel.
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andyfox
2+2 urban legend
Reged: 09/03/02
Posts: 17636
Loc: La-la land, where else?
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Not when later on in the same post he advocates the "dumping" of all the Arabs in Israel.
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BluffTHIS!
censor stultorum
Reged: 11/22/04
Posts: 10311
Loc: I can hold my breath longer th...
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Quote:
So if I posted "Jews are lying sacks of crap," and suggesteed they be "dumped" somewhere, we could write that off to just some "unpleasant reality" because I could list dozens of them that Israeli leaders have made over the years? I could also list hundreds of lies that our leaders have made; would it be OK for me to post "Americans are lying sacks of crap"?
andy,
Let's note there are two separate and totally distinct issues here: 1) whether it is OK to make such a statement in some/any situations, and 2) how you might use such an assertion. #1 does NOT depend on #2 *unless* one is making a demonstrably false assertion that is far from the actual truth (yelling fire when there is no fire).
So regarding #1, the question is simply is it true? And since most assertions can vary in scope, the truth test has to be applied to that scope. So to use your hypo let's see the subcases:
a) all americans are lying POS
b) most americans are lying POS
c) some americans, but still a significant percentage, are lying POS
d) a very few or no americans are lying POS.
So there is a scale here and it is upon he who makes a specific assertion to provide reasonable proof/evidence of same, even if everyone wouldn't agree about the weight of such evidence and thus which of the possible conclusions above are true.
Now if someone makes an assertion that is both demonstrably false, and also needlessly inflammatory in the specific context being discussed, then that poster has done wrong. How wrong depends on how far away the assertion is from the actual truth, as in asserting a) above when d) is the truth, and how inflammatory an assertion is *if* it is false or possibly needless in the context.
To illustrate further, you can read this post in an old ATF thread on this forum and the assertion I asked iron about. I would say as I did there that I can prove that assertion. However it is certainly inflammatory regarding Islam. So the question then is do I need to make such an assertion in a specific context as with the thread we are discussing here and moslem/arab extremists in general. The answer I would say is no. However if we were discussing the truth/falsity of the Islamic religion, then I would say yes it is right to make that assertion despite its inflammatory nature.
So the standard I have articulated here is:
1) Is an assertion true?
2) If a true assertion is inflammatory is it necessary to make it in the context of the current debate?
If an assertion is both demonstrably false and far from the truth (i.e. 2 when the truth is 10 and not 8 when it is 10), *and* the assertion is also inflammatory, then a thread or poster should be moderated. Same also if it is both true and *needlessly* inflammatory.
Now notice how I haven't discussed the use to which an assertion which is both true and inflammatory might be put. That's because such a use has to be judged on its own merits and again such uses to which unreasonable persons might make of an inflammatory truth has NO bearing on whether such a truth should be spoken.
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