Me too!
So, there is common ground and the potential of peace for all! Yayyyy!
You insult me by assuming you could ‘jump all over my concept and shoot it down’…
So - already you have all resigned yourselves to useless action that will only continue the cycle… Mentally you are gearing yourselves up to kill. Funny isn’t it 
- you are all frequent posters on a dedicated philosophy site - wether or not you count yourselves philosophers per-se - you at least must care about the truth and dispelling the murk that fogs the true state of matters. And yet - here you all are, happily creating metaphors, using derogatory group nouns and euphemisms - why…? To cloud/make palatable the reality of the course of action you are about to undertake/condone - killing people.
Johnny Jihad - gooks, spooks, “kill a commie for mommie”, “I’ll kill a hun for dear ol’ Mum” - need I go on…? beat the wife… missile owners… They’re all the same ([size=75]just kidding[/size]) so all equally guilty, so all equally deserving of death. ([size=75]Not kidding[/size])
Surgical Precision - this one is so nice… on the one hand it makes you into a surgeon, a doctor, a, hah, healer, the exact opposite of what you really are - a butcher, a killer, a maimer of innocents, slaughterer of children - just like those you wish to destroy. - and on the other hand - it makes your target into a disease, an abberation of the body of the Earth - something to be calmly cut out, destroyed. Human…? of course not. “I am a good man - I do not kill humans, oh no - I only can kill what I delude myself into perceiving as none-human…”
Go on - kid yourselves you will be able to take out a single terrorist dwelling in a crowded village with a laser-guided bomb every single time. Kid yourselves that the muslim-world as a whole will calmly applaud your… restraint.
“Aren’t those Western folks nice darling…? They bomb us so exactly - why, yesterday’s bomb barely woke the baby… And well, we never did like our neighbors much now did we…”
One good martyr spawns the next generation of terrorists, and just like startrek - the new generation is leaner, meaner, and has better guns…
cancer - chemotherapy - this at least is more honest - whilst still dehumanizing the enemy as a killer disease, and praising yourself as the good and pure flesh they have infected, it at least acknowledges that the death of innocents will be involved. But all the more chilling for that, the surgical precision euphemizer deludes himself that only the guilty will be punished, the chemotherapy recommender however - knows innocents will be murdered (killed you say - no - murdered - accept it) and does not flinch.
Such a common reaction during times of conflict is it not. Killing people is wrong - this is one of the deepest laws of humanity. To overcome it you must dehumanize your enemy, just as they do you. If intellectuals do this without qualm or with even mirth, at their clever euphemizing - what hope can we have for the ‘followers’ of both camps…? They follow - that is their modus operandi - and suddenly all spades become entrenchment tools, and all muslims become whirling dervishes once more. Inhuman, suddenly viable targets, killable with a clean conscious.
Well done guys. You Rock.
- yes, it is easier to kill something, than to adapt yourself to it, or allow it the time to adapt itself to you… We don’t like to change or suffer threats, if something blocks the path of least resistance… blow it out of the way. Always the first choice.
The society/leadership construct we have is better, this must be accepted. We are the most powerful nations on Earth. Why are we still reacting like frightened schoolgirls… We can always win. At any time. That’s a given. We do not only have two cheeks, but a multitude to turn toward our aggressors. This is the power of metaphor - it creates the artificial blacks and whites which we instinctively love.
We are at a turning point in history, and we still have the luxury of choice, do you think the innocents who died in the trains, and on the bus, and in the towers - wish to be used as an excuse to start or continue a war that may engulf the whole of humanity…? Do you think the innocents who will be killed in the future by terrorism if we do decide to turn yet another of our cheeks will wish it either…?
When does it stop you ask…? When the aggressors and those that back them become too embarrassed to raise their fists against us.
Those that take revenge, however righteously tempting, and visit it willingly upon the innocent, however dubious that innocence may be, to achieve such revenge - become only that which they are revenging themselves upon. You know this… Don’t you…?
I blame you for all of my transgressions in this thread. Your poor organizational skills lead to frivolity.
1.The society/leadership construct we have is better, this must be accepted. We are the most powerful nations on Earth. Why are we still reacting like frightened schoolgirls… We can always win. At any time. That’s a given. We do not only have two cheeks, but a multitude to turn toward our aggressors. This is the power of metaphor - it creates the artificial blacks and whites which we instinctively love.
Meanwhile, you are speaking of terrorist murder victims as “cheeks†that have been slapped. Actually, the are people that have been squashed, burned, blown apart, and vaporized by insane religious fanatics. The sting on a cheek goes away in time and that’s not the same.
of course… and the “lord” remains mute…
vengance is ours.
but your post inspired a recollection:
"Generals gathered in their masses
Just like witches at black masses
Evil minds that plot destruction
Sorcerers of death’s construction
In the fields the bodies burning
As the war machine keeps turning
Death and hatred to mankind
Poisoning their brainwashed minds
Oh Lord yeah!
Politicians hide themselves away
They only started the war
Why don’t the go out to fight?
They leave that up to the poor
Time will tell on their power minds
Making war just for fun
Treating people just like pawns in chess
Wait till their Judgement Day comes
Now in darkness world stops turning
Ashes where the bodies burning
No more War Pigs have the power
Hand of God has struck the hour
Day of Judgement, God is calling
On their knees the War Pigs crawling
Begging mercy for their sins
Satan laughing spreads his wings
Oh Lord yeah! -Black Sabbath
but the “generals” are only on one side…
-Imp
no, we do not… all it takes is one dirty bomb, one chemical gas attack, one city attacked with 10 gas stations across town each simultaneously set ablaze… the sleeping giant still snores…
This is the honest truth.
When it wakes up there will be a shit storm.
Despite the prodigious girth of your post count you still learn nothing Adlerian…
So you admit you transgress, and by default of clause two - are frivolous. Then you blame me for it… Did I put a gun to your head…? 
as I told Scythe they are A: Sane in their context and B) the religious angle does not define them - when will you stop underestimating them…? Underestimation leads to complacencey - the kind of complacencey that led to the twin towers.
And did we not burn, blow apart, and vaporize quite a lot of Baghdad…? You are right - a slap on the cheek is a poor representation of the murdered innocents, but have you ever spared a thought for, or become outraged about the innocents we have murdered in turn…? No, or at least not to the same extent… Why…? If you prick them - do they not bleed…?
Yes, getting silly and not paying enough attention to your topic. As I said, it’s all your fault somehow.
[size=75][Throws hands up in disbelief][/size]
I of course stick to my core position of anti-Islamic principles and preemptive nuclear attack.
Has the equilibrium returned?
The following post is brought to you in the best Impish style…
Boy - that took me only a few minutes… MacDonalds philosophy at its best - I see why you find it so addictive dear Imp…
Of course you do Adlerian, I would expect nothing less from you, or more.
And whilst you stick to your guns - they will stick to theirs…
When does it stop…? Is there no better way…?
[size=75]Anyway - bedtime - let frivolity commence… 
[/size]
Yes, when dead fingers can no longer pull triggers. Don’t like it, but that’s the answer.
-Imp
When I say “surgical precision” I don’t mean “killing” i mean capturing. or as imp so aptly puts it “using a fly swatter instead of a mallet.”.
I know it’s killing, but they are so deeply programmed that some level of violence maybe the only answer. I certainly don’t agree with the level the US has helped escalate it too.
This is the key to the whole thing. I wonder if even Ghandi himself would have been able to restrain his revenge if it had been his child hacked to death by a Muslim mob…
Don’t know if any of you have read the “Dune” series of books by Frank Herbert… Anyway - in it is the Gom-Jabbar: a device testing the initiate’s ability to overcome his animal nature with rational (none)action. It consists of a box causing horrific pain via nerve induction, into which a hand is placed, if the initiate reacts - he is killed via poison needle.
But compared to what we face today - the box and the Gom-Jabbar is childsplay.
[size=75](Why is it that to explain anything I/we always seem to have to resort to storytelling and allegory…? Isn’t plain English ever going to be enough…?)[/size]
Strangely enough for a fairly devout fence-sitter - I find myself having to resort to that most universal of storybooks… The bible.
We again face the choice of Abraham. To get beyond the cycle of violence, we must put down our revenge. Our children once more will be placed upon the sacrificial altar, but this time the knife will not be in our hands. It will be in those of our enemies. And this time, no-one, not us, not them, not God - will stay the blow.
The knife will come down. Our children will die, screaming in our arms, their helpless and fading eyes locked upon our own. A knife will appear in our hands. Another altar will appear - now the terrorist will be stretched out, chest bared. We will approach, and as we ready the knife to strike - we will see the child of the terrorist - watching from a few paces away. In the dust at his feet will lie yet another knife, only waiting for the child to claim it.
Can we stay our hands…?
We are being crucified, nails in our limbs and spears in our sides. Our enemies are just a few feet away. So weak. So mortal. At any time, just as (if you believe the myth) Jesus could have done, we could wrench ourselves from the crucifix that they so cruelly torment us with - step down and lay waste to their world with the lightning of our righteous anger… So easy to do. Armageddon at the press of a button.
Can we stay our hands…?
We are fast approaching a crisis-point in our social evolution, a necessary and enforced shedding of our animal instincts. The planet is getting too crowded to allow anything that causes disruption/friction between people(s) to be endured. If not religion, then race, if not race, then sex, if not sex, then culture… These things are beyond our individual control. But our individual reactions to the sources of these givens is within our control - if just barely.
However painful, we must break the cycle of revenge.
They kill your kind - Take no revenge.
They kill your family - Take no revenge.
They kill your child - Take no revenge.
We must forgive those that spawned them, including ourselves, force our arms to stay open in welcome, and step within the circle of their own without suspicion, lead by example.
We may defend, outsmart, prevent events on our own soil, attempt to capture, have them fairly tried by their own, have them punished by their own… if possible.
But not pick the knife up from out of the dust… But not kill premeditatively - Take no revenge.
Impossible…? Very probably. Inhuman…? No - More than human. Our continued existance and moral advancement as a species hinges on this.
Or we can continue the cycle, until one day, however far away or close in the future - one of our children, or one of theirs, will hold the whole of our little world in the palm of his hand, shout aloud his name for God…
…and press the button.
and the spice flow stops…
-Imp
An ethical question for you Imp…
You’re in your living room, cleaning your gun. On a whim, you load it too.
You walk into your bedroom. And see me there by the open window. I have a knee on your child’s small chest, a knife to his throat. I slit your child’s throat right back to the spine, and laugh in your face.
You raise your gun.
Then you see I hold a flask of a disease, so deadly, so instantaneously infectous that a whole world of death lies within. I hold it ready to drop from my dead fingers, to the winds.
Will you shoot…?
there are a couple of problems with your senario…
(1) it assumes the time to think rationally through these actions…
(2) you have a knee on the chest of my child with a knife to his throat in one hand and a flask in the other…
think about your body position… child on the ground, your one hand cutting his throat, you other hand is where? think balance… the flask isn’t that far from the ground, dropping it from your dead fingers will not make it fall far enough to shatter. bang.
(3) have you ever thought that one who has their child murdered before them has such pain that they feel life itself is no longer worth living? and if they feel their life is no longer worth living, why do you think they would give a rat’s ass about anything else?
-Imp
Quibbler - can you even take the chance…?
I shouldn’t of bothered asking such a question, I would shoot also - as has been demonstrated before - I suck at ethical questions…
Let us stop arguing for a moment.
Do you agree that:
a) The only way out of this mess is for, ideally, both sides to stop contributing to the violence. Stop committing, however we/they wish to justify, rationalize or dress up in politically/religiously palatable terms, what amounts to acts of revenge…? Even, hah - to bend the language, acts of pre-emptive revenge…?
b) That the logical/extrapolated end of the cycle - taking into account technological advances in weaponry - is the end of the human race…?
c) As individuals, we do not have the strength to overcome our vengeful instincts, perhaps even given time for rational reflection…?
d) That as the most powerful/socially-developed force in the current equation, the onus is on us to act (or rather not act) first…?
e) A society of people is only as good as it’s lowest , most base, most irrational member…?
Arguements to be continued… after your answers…
Tab, You’ve written the most insightful post I’ve ever read in this forum. Thank you. You have hit the touchstone. It isn’t whether we can be human, as Imp suggests, but can we be more than human? Is it possible to rise above ourselves in the most terrible situations imaginable? If we can’t, then Imp has it hands down, but if we can…
Tab, you need to be careful. A couple more posts like this and we’re going to start taking you seriously.
JT