Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: J. C. Dithers who wrote (46722)	1/24/2008 11:28:48 PM
From: epicure	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 541990

You are confusing a desire not to mislabel with saying something "good". You can, of course, conflate the two issues, but I do think you are mixing two unrelated topics. I'm not sure why you'd want to do that, but it does seem to me the two issues are separable. If you say Hitler conquered Poland, you aren't "saying something good" about Hitler. He did conquer Poland. Conquering is "good" when we do it, but we don't like it very much when folks like Hitler go around doing it. In that sense it's very much like the word brave. I can't believe you'd read Maher and think he was (or wanted) to say something "good" about the perpetrators. What would be Maher's motivation? He clearly was just concentrating on the meaning of the words. If you look at the meaning, folks who disregard the perils of death and danger (while still being able to comprehend such dangers) are clearly brave. Killers who face the electric chair with aplomb have been described as brave, for example, and if they are, you can see how other negative people might be also.

To: J. C. Dithers who wrote (46722)	1/24/2008 11:39:56 PM
From: Cogito	Respond to of 541990

>>The event was so horrendous and cruel that it seems utterly unseemly to make a pedantic effort to find something good to say about the perpetrators. Even now.<< JCD - Maher's point was not to say something good about the perpetrators, but to respond to the demagoguery that we were hearing from our own leaders at the time. I think that there was a point in responding to that. - Allen

To: J. C. Dithers who wrote (46722)	1/25/2008 6:16:27 AM
From: NAG1	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 541990

JC, My take on this was that he was just saying they weren't cowards and that maybe our way of responding by sending out missiles from afar without risk to our own life or limbs causing death and destruction to innocents is not a very brave reaction. It may be a justified response in our own eyes but if you want to know how the rest of the world view us, sometimes you need to take a look at different perspectives. Actually, the thing that I find stupid and insensitive are those that talk about how bad 9/11 was and then go out and buy an suv that gets 10 miles per gallon. Or how about the american car company that makes and sells that car. Or how about the government that for years subsidized that car. That car that uses the gas that pays the terrorist governments that fund the terrorism with the oil money that we pay. I went out and bought a honda civic hybrid in 2004 and I get 35-50 miles per gallon(I replaced a car that was getting 30 miles per gallon). And at the time I bought the car, the government was phasing out the tax credits for these cars. No bravery on the part of our elected officials. In fact, i would say that they have been cowards for refusing to tackle this problem until the issues of global warming are smacking them in their faces. Neal