Please avoid making threats or wishing for violent crimes against any individual

[pbrower2a]

Does that include Divine Retribution? There were some domestic terrorists busted for an anti-Muslim plot, and I suggested that it would be fitting if they found that Muhammad would be judging them.

[pbrower2a]

Out of academic interest, where does repeating the words of the current President of the United States fall on this scale? For example:

It's ironic. The Mossad, which can go practically anywhere and destroy any enemy of Israel, scrupulously avoids doing harm to women and children. So why doesn't the Mossad do such overkill? Probably because it doesn't need to. One act of revenge is enough; there is no need for a blood feud. Do evil to Israel and die. But be a widow or orphan of someone who did such, and that is the end of the enmity.   

[pbrower2a]

It's the lack of civility that degrades political life. Does anyone think that the racist catcalls against President Obama did any real good? Many failed to recognize what a good President we had and found satisfaction in resisting everything that he did. Now look what we have!

[pbrower2a]

Well, those who wanted Manuel Noriega to go to Hell are probably getting their wish.

[pbrower2a]

When Your President Incites Violence …

How do we handle heads-of-state who encourage crimes?

http://warisboring.com/when-your-president-incites-violence/


Seems relevant.

It only seems relevant because of your own twisted hatred of Donald Trump.  He's a guy you dislike intensely.  I get that.  Do we have to talk about Democratic operatives encouraging mentally shaky folks to react to them during Trump rallies?

Let's hope not. Don't do violence. Violence is one of the few things that fascists do extremely well. Fascists do violence far more effectively than people who have scruples.  

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So what's the pacifist part of turning the other cheek?

38 Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth:

39 But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.

— Matthew 5:38–5:39 KJV

Walk away. Try to avoid striking back. The sin is to escalate the violence. One act of violence is one too many. Most destructive fights begin over something that the participants forget about as the fighting gets to be a matter of survival.

This is how to stop a bar-room brawl that often culminates in one participant having a broken hand and the other a broken jaw. Was it worth it? Do you even remember the incident that escalated to a trip to a hospital ward?

I have run away from many fights in my time. Cowardice? No. Wisdom. Fists prove nothing except who is a better or more devious fighter. 

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Corporate lobbyists tell our elected officials what to do, Congress writes the laws, the President signs them, and the police enforce them with the threat of people going to prison or having to pay hurtful fines for non-compliance. That's the way things go in America, and if you don't like them there are nearly 200 sovereign states with different laws and much the same means of enforcement. If things go a certain way the Great Command in life will be to suffer with a smile and do as you are told with selfless disregard for anything except the 'wonderful people' whom God has appointed to lord it all over us. God help us if we should ever be expected to treat the inanimate possession of some member of the Master Class  more precious than something so trivial as our own children.

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Wise people recognize that in the absence of certain rules life gets precarious. Tahquamenon Falls is beautiful, and it is obviously tempting to get a closer closeup by going past a fence. But get too close to the edge and you will fall to your death into near-freezing water. Even if you got the image of a lifetime your camera might not survive, either.  

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I might stick to divine retribution. You know how that goes -- do horrible things to people and the God who judges you will be among those that you mistreated. Just imagine how nasty a discovery that a Nazi might have upon finding that God is Jewish. (subject for a story out of The Twilight Zone?) Or that Osama bin Laden found that God is an American.

We have three and a half years in which to outlast Donald Trump. That is less time now than is usually necessary to start and complete a bachelor's program at a 4-year college. That will be time enough for Americans to decide what they want as a successor. I hope that this will not be a liberal crook -- better a conservative  with a conscience than a left-wing demagogue as obnoxious as Trump.

If I were thirty years younger I would seek to spend the Trump Presidency in some other country. Think of a joke that the late Arte Johnson made as a mock-Russian

American: In our country we are free to criticize our President
Russian: In our country we are free to criticize your President.

If you don't care what goes on in Saudi Arabia and you find what Trump does is more cause for your concern, and you are a petroleum engineer, then you might want to apply for work at Aramco.

[pbrower2a]

I confess to rhetorically dancing on the grave... of Charles Manson. But that is understandable. There's nothing controversial about Charles Manson; he is evil personified.

With people of controversy, such is disgusting. I called people on that when they celebrated the death of Margaret Thatcher, whom some people consider evil for her ideology. I'll save the dancing on graves (rhetorical, that is) for mass killers, serial killers, mobsters, drug kingpins, and tyrants. I think you could understand people celebrating any death of the Green River killer or the BTK killer. Being on the wrong side of a partisan divide is not good for any grave-dancing. 

Probably the worst living murderer, and in view of the ability of a brutalized state to do mass killing, is Haile Mengistu, former dictator of Ethiopia.         

[pbrower2a]

Should joking that someone you're debating should be eaten be a bannable offense?

...not if you refer to oral sex. Just don't be explicit.

Otherwise, suggesting that someone be cast to crocodiles, alligators, a reticulated python, Komodo dragons, bears, Big Cats, sharks, or a pack of starving dogs should be an offense suitable for banning.

OK, I would leave room for al-Baghdadi (leader of ISIS/Daesh) or Assad.

[pbrower2a]

Should joking that someone you're debating should be eaten be a bannable offense?

...not if you refer to oral sex. Just don't be explicit.

Otherwise, suggesting that someone be cast to crocodiles, alligators, a reticulated python, Komodo dragons, bears, Big Cats, sharks, or a pack of starving dogs should be an offense suitable for banning.

OK, I would leave room for al-Baghdadi (leader of ISIS/Daesh) or Assad.

Summary extra-judicial execution is no answer for purveyors of evil like al_Baghdadi or Bin Laden. They should be put on trial, subject to the full weight of the law, and left in prison for the rest of their lives  and get to watch as a the world leaves them and their toxic ideologies on the garbage heap of history.

I assume that such horrible people would be subjected to the formalities of due process, including the right to a spirited defense. That's not to say that a fair trial would save someone like al-Baghdadi.

I once suggested that hanging was too gentle a punishment for Ernst Kaltenbrunner, Nazi war criminal (and traitor to Austria for his role in the Anschluss) who was the highest-ranking survivor to have responsibility for (and culpability in) the administration of the Nazi concentration camps and extermination camps. I suggested that burning at the stake would have been more appropriate in his case.

If you believe in Hell, then you likely believe that he is getting torture beyond human capacity for imagination -- at least if you know about him. Dante had his limits. 

[pbrower2a]

Seems with a crime family running the country this whole concept is passe, no?

It is all the more important with the gang of questionable characters we have 'leading' our country.

Due process of law was adequate against the Nazis, the thug rulers of imperialist Japan, the leadership of the Hungarian Arrow Cross Party, the Khmer Rouge, and Satan Hussein's clique. Due process exposes the monstrous crimes and leaves little question of culpability of perpetrators.

Obviously we cannot compare Donald Trump to the likes of people who loosed half-starved dogs upon live prisoners, cast live children into the raging furnaces of crematoria, or ordered the use of Sarin gas upon helpless villagers. Summary execution or show trials leave too many questions unanswered. Even the Soviet Union set Anglo-American standards for trials of Nazi war criminals that they caught. We all have questions about most Soviet trials of political offenders, but not those Soviet trials of Nazi war criminals. If you are discussing Poland -- Poland quickly resurrected its old judiciary before the Commies fully consolidated power, and the old standards of Polish law were capable of damning the Nazis.

I'm not going to make any unfounded accusations of criminality by the Trump administration. It is best that the legal process do so should there be a solid foundation for such. 

[pbrower2a]

But it's ok to cheer to high heaven when someone dies......lol.

If it is someone incontrovertibly evil, like Charles Manson or Osama bin Laden... fine. With someone simply controversial such as Margaret Thatcher I have a problem. So it will be when the Grim Reaper takes Rush Limbaugh.

[pbrower2a]

But it's ok to cheer to high heaven when someone dies......lol.

If it is someone incontrovertibly evil, like Charles Manson or Osama bin Laden... fine. With someone simply controversial such as Margaret Thatcher I have a problem. So it will be when the Grim Reaper takes Rush Limbaugh.

Mmmh I don't think there is ever a way to decide who is "incontrovertibly evil" objectively. I mean, in theory we can all agree about Osama Bin Laden being more evil than Thatcher or Limbaugh and I certainly think so, but...

To this point, let me refer a story from an old article called "I Can Tolerate Anything Except The Outgroup" on the now closed blog SlateStarCodex (I'm recovering it from a podcast version):

The worst reaction I have ever gotten to a blog post was when I wrote about the death of Osama Bin Laden. I've written all sorts of stuff about race and gender and politics and whatever, but that was the worst.

I didn't come out and say I was happy he was dead, but some people interpreted it that way, and there followed a bunch of messages about how could I possibly be happy at the death of another human being, even if he was a bad person.

One commenter came out and said "I'm surprised by your reaction. As far as people I casually stalk on the Internet, you are the first out of the intelligent, reasoned and thoughtful group to be happy about this development and not to be, say, disgusted at the reactions of the other 90% or so". This commenter was right: out of the "intelligent, reasoned and thoughtful" people I knew, the overwhelming reaction was disgust that other people could be happy about his death.

I hastily backtracked and said I wasn't happy per se, just relieved that all of that was finally behind us.

And I genuinely believed that day that I found some unexpected good in people. That everyone I knew was so humane and compassionate that they could not rejoice the death even of someone who hated them and what they stood for.

Then, a few years later, Margaret Thatcher died, and on my Facebook wall, made of the same "intelligent, reasoned and thoughtful" people, the most common response was... to quote some portion of the song "Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead". From this exact group of people no expression of disgust or anything. I gently pointed this out and got a bunch of "so what?".
Then was when something clicked in my mind. [...] That when you're part of the Blue Tribe you're outgroup is not, say, Al-Qaeda, but the Red Tribe.

We all have our ideas of who is manifest evil. Eternal damnation is a severe consequence of some very bad misconduct. I could imagine that if Dante were writing his Inferno today he might have supplied a special bolgia for Nazis, the most egregious sinners of all times. I can imagine their souls being ripped by dogs... dogs might not be as efficient as lions, bears, or crocodiles, which makes a dog attack one of the most fearsome demises possible. Nazi guards at concentration camps came up with that horror.

I cheered the death of Osama bin Laden by singing the Battle Hymn of the Republic... and I contemplated what other powers would have done had it been their commandeered jetliners and their building. In such a case I would have cheered the People's Republic of China had it not done undue 'collateral damage'.

We all recognize some people as quite nasty. Some are simply offensive; some are incontrovertibly horrible. There's a huge difference between Margaret Thatcher and  Irma Grese (the latter a Nazi camp guard who had her dog attack and kill live inmates, for which she was duly hanged).

[pbrower2a]

Pretty sad The President of The United Sates could not meet basic requirements for posting on this message-board.

The same ethical standards as rightly apply to the rich and powerful as to the poor and helpless. I think of no major religion that suggests otherwise. Ideologies? Sure. Plutocratic ideologies assert that the rich and powerful have some inherent right to lord it over the rest of Humanity and can set harsh rules for the powerless and soft rules for themselves. Obviously prisons operate on that principle, but good reason exists for people to have a distinction between a normal life and imprisonment.

Potty-mouths are vile no matter how many assets the mouth has behind it.

Obviously I expect some occasional lapses, and we must excuse people with such conditions as Tourette's syndrome. This said, we have cause to not put vileness in the spotlight unless to use the light to disinfect it or to expose the vileness as a threat.

[pbrower2a]

Can I wish I were dead?

PS: Where are the emojis???

Did I just sign up at a forum with no emojis???



PPS: The emojis just showed up - when I hit reply!

In such a case I would encourage you to get help from the mental health system.

[pbrower2a]

This is my take on this matter, that I wrote earlier today about Covidiots, but it can be used for this as well:

I've been thinking about this (kind of like Spicolli in Fast Times at Ridgemont High.)

In an ideal (natural) world (meaning viruses would still exist) people would not act like this, so nobody would have to think such things. However, not only is human behavior far from ideal, but the options to address human behavior that causes negative externalities is limited, so is far from ideal as well.

Many of us have mocked loudmouth anti-vaxxers and COVID-19 deniers for getting COVID-19 and dying of it. I have no qualms about after-the-fact mockery of the stupid. I think of a fellow who was doing everything wrong... losing control of his car and being thrown out of it because he was watching pornographic video on a hand-held device even as he was going onto a freeway off-ramp. Of course he was killed. If he had instead been watching a Billy Graham Crusade (which obviously isn't so distracting) it would be mere pathos. But here we have stupidity that shouts "Don't do this!" Pornography is distracting in the extreme. I can't imagine worse.

Oh, by the way -- his pants were down. 
 

Sometimes it is simply the case that people need to die from their own stupidity or selfishness to either act as a warning for other people or to simply rid the world of those people.

That is the rationale behind the death penalty. Armed robbers who kill someone have put another person's life below some often-small amount of money in a till. As far as that goes, every armed robbery is a potential murder, and the Michigan criminal code treats armed robberies that do not result in death as severely as attempted first-degree murder.

Reality can be very dark as well, especially when dealing with cold equations.

Scientific reality often appears in cold, seemingly-lifeless equations.  Maxwell's equations about electricity (no, I do not understand them( are about as bloodless material as I can imagine.

[pbrower2a]

How about posters spreading misinformation about a pandemic, like that masks don't work?

Show me proof that masks work.

I don't care what the CDC says.  The CDC says Obama's party and BLM demonstrations/riots aren't superspreader events, but Sturgis is.  So show me studies that verify the efficacy of masks.  Statements by Dr. Fauci aren't studies.

Wise people accept statistical evidence. Does the abuse of children result in a higher likelihood of children becoming criminals? The correlation is so strong that one cannot deny it.

Does smoking contribute to early death from lung cancer and heart disease? The statistical evidence so suggests.

Does unprotected sex with complete strangers contribute to the spreading of HIV? We all saw the story. 

If I must choose between the well-contemplated statements of people well trained (by well-established criteria) in medical science about vaccines, masks, and social distancing and ideological hacks I will go with the people well trained in medicine who recognize both the difficulty of what they call for and the means of spreading a lethal disease. So it was with AIDS and so it is with COVID-19. The ideological criticism of the medical story about AIDS came at the time from the Left; the ideological criticism of the medical story about COVID-19 came from the Right. I may be old to remember both, but I'd say that I am fair. Using a condom during sex not for pregnancy and wearing a mask when the SARS-2 virus was or is running amok were good ideas at their appointed times.

Oh, by the way -- I do not smoke.

   

[pbrower2a]

How about posters spreading misinformation about a pandemic, like that masks don't work?

Show me proof that masks work.

I don't care what the CDC says.  The CDC says Obama's party and BLM demonstrations/riots aren't superspreader events, but Sturgis is.  So show me studies that verify the efficacy of masks.  Statements by Dr. Fauci aren't studies.

Wise people accept statistical evidence. Does the abuse of children result in a higher likelihood of children becoming criminals? The correlation is so strong that one cannot deny it.

Does smoking contribute to early death from lung cancer and heart disease? The statistical evidence so suggests.

Does unprotected sex with complete strangers contribute to the spreading of HIV? We all saw the story. 

If I must choose between the well-contemplated statements of people well trained (by well-established criteria) in medical science about vaccines, masks, and social distancing and ideological hacks I will go with the people well trained in medicine who recognize both the difficulty of what they call for and the means of spreading a lethal disease. So it was with AIDS and so it is with COVID-19. The ideological criticism of the medical story about AIDS came at the time from the Left; the ideological criticism of the medical story about COVID-19 came from the Right. I may be old to remember both, but I'd say that I am fair. Using a condom during sex not for pregnancy and wearing a mask when the SARS-2 virus was or is running amok were good ideas at their appointed times.

Oh, by the way -- I do not smoke.

   

Show me the statistical evidence.

Statistical evidence for what? That unprotected sex spread HIV? That SARS-2 is communicable by breathing air from infected people? That smoking contributes to untimely death from cancer and heart disease?