Why I Despise Bush's Presidency.....Rant...

[Felix_Nietzsche]

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Where does this conception of human nature come from?

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Because it works...
It takes a correctly pessamistic view on human nature and you apply a correct and violent response towards those that commit transgressions against you. Such thinking led to Pax Romana....the Roman Peace. When Rome strayed from these principles, Alaric and the Goths betrayed Rome and sacked her. Which was the stake in the heart that mortally wounded the Roman Empire. Machiavelli wrote as much in his book "The Prince". Reagan pacified the Iranians after he sank half their fleet in one day. Properly applied gunboat diplomacy works while appeasement and the ignoring of transgressions leads to more violence.... If I had more time I would pull a quote from an ancient Roman statesman that said the same thing. And if you have read any history, the Romans had a pretty good run... The USA does not come even close to filling the jock-strap of the Roman Empire.... Or the Britsh Empire...

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Since the inception of nationalism, when has it ever been the case that you can bomb/shoot members of a foreign culture and they would respond by rolling over and staying submissive?

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Yes...many times throughour history.
Besides the Roman Empire, the British applied the concept of the steel fist inside the velvet glove. quite well which resulted in the empire where the sun never sets. This is seeing human nature as it really is. Not some utopian nonsense written on a poker forum...

As for the rock throwing Iraqis, you shoot a few rock throwers and they stop. This actually happened at a prison in Iraq. The prisoners learned the American guards were not allowed to use deadly force if they threw rocks at the American guards. So they threw rocks. The warden changed the policy where the guards could shoot to kill. The prisoners stopped throwing rocks. A respected threat of violence, causes violence to decrease. Gee.....funny how this keeps working. You are like the poker player that says you a winning player but you have been on a bad variance for the last 5 years. Could it be that you are ignoring the mathematical laws of poker??? Hmmmmmm.....

Just as you ignore the laws of human nature...

[VarlosZ]

Felix, you gave exactly one example that fit my criteria ("since the exception of nationalism. . ."), and it was a bad one. Iran couldn't do anything in retaliation -- they were already fighting a war and were horribly outclassed militarily -- except, say, give support to terrorists and develop nuclear weapons so it won't happen again.

Stop and think for a moment about what's on the other side of the ledger. Did Pearl Harbor shock us into letting Japan have free reign in the Pacific, or did it ensure that we'd settle for nothing short of unconditional surrender? After 9/11 did we consider even for a split second pulling out of Muslim countries and abandoning Israel as an ally, or did we conquer two Islamic countries -- whose occupations have no end in sight -- in operations which have probably resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Muslims? And how is Israel doing with it's decades-long conflict? Am I correct in my assumption that you think that they'd be safer of they killed a lot more Muslims?

There are countless more examples. You may (or may not) be able to find one or two valid counter-examples but, the vast majority of the time, "teaching them a [violent] lesson" mostly teaches them that it's time to make more bullets.

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As for the rock throwing Iraqis, you shoot a few rock throwers and they stop. This actually happened at a prison in Iraq. The prisoners learned the American guards were not allowed to use deadly force if they threw rocks at the American guards. So they threw rocks. The warden changed the policy where the guards could shoot to kill. The prisoners stopped throwing rocks. A respected threat of violence, causes violence to decrease.

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First of all (assuming your story is accurate), that's a prison, which is entirely different in this regard from pretty much anyplace else. Second, it may well be that shooting rock-throwers causes rock-throwing to decrease. OTOH, it will probably lead to more severe and longer-lasting violence of other sorts, ultimately.

[NasEscobar]

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It takes a correctly pessamistic view on human nature and you apply a correct and violent response towards those that commit transgressions against you.

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Yeah all those one million Iraqi civilians who have died from this war all had it coming.