1337m4n
Alphanumeric Anonymous Stick Man
- Joined
- May 10, 2007
- Messages
- 3,510
Long time Politics-subforum lurker, first time Politics-subforum poster I mean to say that I don't post here often.
I just had to ask some questions after seeing the umpteenth thread about the latest Zionist evil deed/Hamas terrorist attack. Quite an unusually frequent posting of what is essentially the exact same thread, wouldn't you say? Even the 9/11 CT subforum isn't this bad. Okay, sure, each thread STARTS with a different news item, but by the second page, they all look identical: post after post arguing with absolute certainty that one side started it and is more evil, while the other side is just trying to defend itself and is not as evil. And of course there are the inevitable pseudo-concessions of "now I'm not condoning [my side]'s actions, but..." before going on to state with absolute certainty that the other side started it and is more evil.
So essentially, all Israel/Palestine threads inevitably degrade into the same two issues:
1) Who started it?
2) Who is more evil?
My personal views on these issues are as follows:
1) Who gives a damn?
2) Who gives a damn?
The first one reminds me of all the fights I used to have with my siblings back when my age was in the single digits. We would always end up breaking something and then Mom would come yell at us. And of course, we would try to defend ourselves, with the defense that has come to be a tireless classic for children all over the world:
"He started it!"
"Nuh-uh, HE started it!"
And then Mom would respond with "I don't care who started it! Just clean up this mess!"
So I read on as people go further and further back in history in an effort to discover which side "started it"...and I'm tempted to say the same thing. Does it really matter which side "started it"? It's not as if definitive proof one way or the other (even by stretching reality to the point where such proof would even be possible to obtain) would cause the side that "started it" to suddenly go "Wow, we were wrong all this time", apologize, throw down their weapons, and surrender their land. Maybe in Dream-Land...but here in reality, in the present, Israel exists, Jews live there, Arabs live there, and neither is in any hurry to leave.
Look, whichever side you're on, you both want the same thing, right? You both want peace. You want peace, you need to deal with the here and now. Should Israel have been created? Should there be Jews in Palestine? What does it matter in the face of the facts that Israel WAS created and there ARE Jews in Palestine and we can't just make any of that go away? "I don't care who started it! Just clean up this mess!"
Now for the second issue: "Which side is more evil?" Because that's really what you're all asking, right? All these threads about the latest Israeli evil deed/Hamas evil deed don't seem to have any clear goal or objective in mind, other than to determine who is "worse". Who killed more people? Who caused more destruction? Who caused more homelessness? Who cares?
What do I mean. Well, suppose, for the sake of argument, that there was some sort of absolute, objective measure of Evilness. You could divide a group's total Evilness by its population, thus obtaining "Per Capita Evilness" or "PCE". There are three possible outcomes of such a measurement: Israel has a higher PCE than Palestine, Palestine has a higher PCE than Israel, or Israel and Palestine have equal PCE values. Now, I have hypothetical questions to ask of each an every one of you, depending on which hypothetical result we were to hypothetically obtain:
Outcome #1: You've proven that Israel is more evil than Palestine! Congratulations! Yay for you! ...So now what? Do you want some kinda medal?
Outcome #2: You've proven that Palestine is more evil than Israel! Congratulations! Yay for you! ...So now what? Do you want some kinda medal?
Outcome #3: What? You mean...Israel and Palestine are equally evil? Oh, well darn it all. I guess that means all this flame-warring was for nothing. Sucks to be you, eh?
Outcome #4: You decide to evade the point by poking holes in a hypothetical scenario that this poster freely admits could never actually happen.
Normally, when people argue fanatically in favor of something, they generally have some sort of goal in mind. But I can't think of anything that could possibly be accomplished by proving which side is more evil. To put it another way, if you presented the United Nations with the hypothetical PCE values of both Israel and Palestine, what exactly would you expect them to do with that information? Perhaps they could provide aid to the lesser of two evils? That's not exactly much of a peace plan. Maybe you do have some sort of goal in mind with all this bickering, but I certainly can't figure out what it is. From where I sit, this is all about as productive as two nerds flaming each other over who would win in a fight between Darth Vader and Spiderman. But I can't seem to find any threads about that.
I just had to ask some questions after seeing the umpteenth thread about the latest Zionist evil deed/Hamas terrorist attack. Quite an unusually frequent posting of what is essentially the exact same thread, wouldn't you say? Even the 9/11 CT subforum isn't this bad. Okay, sure, each thread STARTS with a different news item, but by the second page, they all look identical: post after post arguing with absolute certainty that one side started it and is more evil, while the other side is just trying to defend itself and is not as evil. And of course there are the inevitable pseudo-concessions of "now I'm not condoning [my side]'s actions, but..." before going on to state with absolute certainty that the other side started it and is more evil.
So essentially, all Israel/Palestine threads inevitably degrade into the same two issues:
1) Who started it?
2) Who is more evil?
My personal views on these issues are as follows:
1) Who gives a damn?
2) Who gives a damn?
The first one reminds me of all the fights I used to have with my siblings back when my age was in the single digits. We would always end up breaking something and then Mom would come yell at us. And of course, we would try to defend ourselves, with the defense that has come to be a tireless classic for children all over the world:
"He started it!"
"Nuh-uh, HE started it!"
And then Mom would respond with "I don't care who started it! Just clean up this mess!"
So I read on as people go further and further back in history in an effort to discover which side "started it"...and I'm tempted to say the same thing. Does it really matter which side "started it"? It's not as if definitive proof one way or the other (even by stretching reality to the point where such proof would even be possible to obtain) would cause the side that "started it" to suddenly go "Wow, we were wrong all this time", apologize, throw down their weapons, and surrender their land. Maybe in Dream-Land...but here in reality, in the present, Israel exists, Jews live there, Arabs live there, and neither is in any hurry to leave.
Look, whichever side you're on, you both want the same thing, right? You both want peace. You want peace, you need to deal with the here and now. Should Israel have been created? Should there be Jews in Palestine? What does it matter in the face of the facts that Israel WAS created and there ARE Jews in Palestine and we can't just make any of that go away? "I don't care who started it! Just clean up this mess!"
Now for the second issue: "Which side is more evil?" Because that's really what you're all asking, right? All these threads about the latest Israeli evil deed/Hamas evil deed don't seem to have any clear goal or objective in mind, other than to determine who is "worse". Who killed more people? Who caused more destruction? Who caused more homelessness? Who cares?
What do I mean. Well, suppose, for the sake of argument, that there was some sort of absolute, objective measure of Evilness. You could divide a group's total Evilness by its population, thus obtaining "Per Capita Evilness" or "PCE". There are three possible outcomes of such a measurement: Israel has a higher PCE than Palestine, Palestine has a higher PCE than Israel, or Israel and Palestine have equal PCE values. Now, I have hypothetical questions to ask of each an every one of you, depending on which hypothetical result we were to hypothetically obtain:
Outcome #1: You've proven that Israel is more evil than Palestine! Congratulations! Yay for you! ...So now what? Do you want some kinda medal?
Outcome #2: You've proven that Palestine is more evil than Israel! Congratulations! Yay for you! ...So now what? Do you want some kinda medal?
Outcome #3: What? You mean...Israel and Palestine are equally evil? Oh, well darn it all. I guess that means all this flame-warring was for nothing. Sucks to be you, eh?
Outcome #4: You decide to evade the point by poking holes in a hypothetical scenario that this poster freely admits could never actually happen.
Normally, when people argue fanatically in favor of something, they generally have some sort of goal in mind. But I can't think of anything that could possibly be accomplished by proving which side is more evil. To put it another way, if you presented the United Nations with the hypothetical PCE values of both Israel and Palestine, what exactly would you expect them to do with that information? Perhaps they could provide aid to the lesser of two evils? That's not exactly much of a peace plan. Maybe you do have some sort of goal in mind with all this bickering, but I certainly can't figure out what it is. From where I sit, this is all about as productive as two nerds flaming each other over who would win in a fight between Darth Vader and Spiderman. But I can't seem to find any threads about that.
