[RD] Daily Graphs and Charts

[Browd]

The longer term downward trend in self-identification as descended from specific European origins probably is correctly explained by generational remoteness from those origins -- as each generation passes, family memories/stories are lost and there is more mixing and dilution of particular origins (speaking as one English-Irish-Scottish-French-German-Luxumburger-American).

A potential explanation for the slight rise between 2000 and 2010 in self-identification of specific European origins is the rise in popularity of genealogy, coupled with the vastly increased internet availability of genealogical records. Many American have only recently re-learned about the origins of many of their ancestors.

 

[Cutlass]

 

[madviking]

yay morality

 

[dutchfire]

Does it have stats on non-white religious people?

 

[Borachio]

What the hell is going on with English-Americans ???:

Never mind the English-Americans. What about the German-Americans????!!!

 

[JohannaK]

Damn untermensch.

 

[warpus]

That's pretty depressing that the citizens of America are for the most part pro-torture.

Why did we even bother with Geneva?

 

[Monsterzuma]

justified instance of torture =/= pro-torture.

 

[Tee Kay]

That's like saying "justified instance of rape"

 

[CavLancer]

Or "Justified instance of hauling a woman into the football stadium and blowing her head off." Or "Justified instance of dropping a building on top of a day care."

The question is, if I get the guy that blows women's head's off at midfield and shove stuff under his finger nails until he tells me where this enemy plans on dropping another building on another day care thereby saving those children from an early death, does torture then become justified? No? Okay, now your kid is in the daycare...

 

[Arwon]

Has anything of this nature *ever* happened

 

[Tee Kay]

Has anything of this nature *ever* happened

See, I hear stuff about this being an imperfect world and we can't afford to treat bad people like people, but the justifications for that assume that we can get an unrealistic level of specificity.

As in: we torture guy, get information, save children, with the assumption that we are always going to torture the right guy, get the right information, and there won't be any other consequences from those actions except for puppies and rainbows for all the good guys, among other things increased risks to our security as a result of the erosion of the standards of civility.

This being an imperfect world, we have to ask, what level of risk is acceptable?

 

[Borachio]

Same argument with capital punishment, really.

Here's the question Mr Lancer should answer: would you be willing to torture one person if that would guarantee paradise on earth forever more? Yes? Then supposing that person was a child of yours? Is your answer the same?

 

[warpus]

The thing is that torture almost never works. So the line we should be drawing is clear.. and we did in fact draw such a line, but then the Americans have to come along and muck it all up again.. Thanks a lot Obama.

 

[CavLancer]

I'm just asking questions, each of us may draw the conclusions we draw, or choose to think about vanilla. I do understand both sides of this and am old enough and retired enough to leave such hard choices to the young, and instead dwell on the flavorful benefits of a nice vanilla shake.

Taillesskangaru nailed the problem. If a government can pick up a guy and torture him because they think he's guilty of at least knowing about an evolving heinous crime, where is democracy? Where are the rights of the individual and what of the lives of the children in that day care should they dig themselves out of the rubble of the building? Is a life in ignorance of the actions of government truly democracy simply because the odds are that an individual will never suffer torture? It is on this basis that torture occurs: That I'm not going to be the one with stuff under my fingernails. Torture being the antithesis of freedom, and could be called representative of the reasons our forefathers fought a revolution.

We have to defend ourselves however, and what defense is there from terrorism if not information?

What about torture vs nuclear terrorism?

At what point does the crime warrant this offensive defense?



Mmmm, vanilla.

 

[warpus]

Taillesskangaru nailed the problem. If a government can pick up a guy and torture him because they think he's guilty of at least knowing about an evolving heinous crime, where is democracy?

This has nothing to do with democracy. Democracy doesn't protect you from such things. Democracy just means you get to vote for the dudes in charge.

 

[CavLancer]

To me democracy and freedom are one. Only the rights of the individual from all the choices in life right on up to picking who leads are freedom. Freedom is why our soldiers are supposed to be going into battle.

Things change. It was easier when the enemy was the Soviet Union. There's a bunch of bad guys not afraid of a stand up fight.

 

[warpus]

To me democracy and freedom are one.

Yeah but like, democracy means a very specific thing - a system of government in which you get to vote for candidates.

The freedom part of it comes from liberalism, not the concept of democracy itself.

 

[CavLancer]

Yeah but like, lets not be pedantic. I'm not telling you what it means warpus, I'm telling you what it means to me.

 

[warpus]

No problem, it just seems to me that a lot of people seem to think that democracy automatically means that they have certain freedoms - freedom of movement, religion, speech, etc.

But that's not true at all. Those things aren't inherent to democracies at all - but they are inherent to liberal democracies.

Granted, now that I think about it, a lot of people do mean "liberal democracy" when they say "democracy", so nevermind.