While We Wait: Writer's Block & Other Lame Excuses

[Luckymoose]

Where's the war with North Korea over all of its actively ongoing genocide?

They'll forget about ISIS in a few months, too.

 

[ChiefDesigner]

How are any of the cites relevant?

ISIL is special because we have the power to prevent it. We do not have the power to intervene in any of the other instances you mentioned, because the utilitarian cost of intervention is too high; other states would object, and our freedom of action as a result is constrained.

Here, that is not the case.

That's as simple as it gets.

 

[Perfectionist]

Yes, ISIS isn't attempting to unlock the seventh seal and release a horde of demons into the world, but it's hard to imagine things getting much worse.

It really isn't. ISIS, for all its many faults, keeps society running, more or less. They keep the lights on, they keep the bakeries stocked, they keep the water running, they maintain civil order (through exceptionally brutal means, but still). Successful "humanitarian intervention" without a follow-up strategy - and note that you've both declared the only possible allies in establishing government to be unacceptable and said that we shouldn't have a follow-up strategy - means that all falls apart and the Iraqi and Syrian people get to experience libertarian utopia firsthand. Know how I know? Cause the same damned thing just happened in Libya, and I've got this weird habit where I try to learn from past experience.

 

[Symphony D.]

ISIL is special because we have the power to prevent it. We do not have the power to intervene in any of the other instances you mentioned, because the utilitarian cost of intervention is too high; other states would object, and our freedom of action as a result is constrained.

So genocide is only stopped when it's easy and is therefore not actually the worst thing ever and ISIS actually isn't special at all other than happening to exist in a permissive air environment we've recently operated in. Got it. You pass the reality check test.

 

[ChiefDesigner]

So genocide is only stopped when it's easy and is therefore not actually the worst thing ever and ISIS actually isn't special at all other than happening to exist in a permissive air environment we've recently operated in. Got it. You pass the reality check test.

No, genocide is pretty much the worst thing ever. That said, Western publics are only willing to stop it when it's easy, and it's pretty damn easy here.

 

[Luckymoose]

No, genocide is pretty much the worst thing ever. That said, Western publics are only willing to stop it when it's easy, and it's pretty damn easy here.

It isn't easy. Plenty of western people don't think this is any of their concern, in fact.

 

[Lord of Elves]

It isn't easy. Plenty of western people don't think this is any of their concern, in fact.

It's not our place to stop brown people from killing each other. That's like, what they do for fun, right?

 

[Symphony D.]

No, genocide is pretty much the worst thing ever.

You can define genocide down to a few targeted killings given:

Genocide is defined in Article 2 of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (1948) as "any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; [and] forcibly transferring children of the group to another group."

In fact cyberbullying with documented deleterious mental consequences counts as genocide for the purposes of this definition, depending on the intentionality.

I'm pretty sure the thermonuclear-induced extinction of Humanity and/or ecocide of Earth is in fact the worst thing ever that's been within our capabilities, and I'm fairly certain ISIS isn't working toward either goal, at least no moreso than anyone else is.

 

[Azale]

It's not our place to stop brown people from killing each other. That's like, what they do for fun, right?

When you say stuff like this, I don't know what exactly you're arguing, who you're arguing against, and how much of it is just for +1 postcount

 

[Lord of Elves]

When you say stuff like this, I don't know what exactly you're arguing, who you're arguing against, and how much of it is just for +1 postcount

My point is that statements like "It's not any of our concern," make it sound like war and mass murder is something that just happens to other people in strange, far off places, and isn't our problem. We only care when bad stuff happens to English-speaking white-skinned people who we can sympathize with. Call me when it's a human interest story that will get clicks on Buzzfeed.

Until then, it's just bad things happening to strange people with strange names in a country that I can't point to on a map, and who cares about that? It could never happen here, to us, to me. Did I mention that the white, English-speaking god loves America the most?

Not that we're prejudiced or anything. Maybe you're prejudiced, for forcing your not-dying on those foreigners. Maybe they want to get killed by that dictator, it could be one of those strange traditions like female circumcision or body scarring!

Alright, I'll get off the soapbox.

 

[Symphony D.]

My point is that statements like "It's not any of our concern," make it sound like war and mass murder is something that just happens to other people in strange, far off places, and isn't our problem.

As the parallel discussion I've been having proves, this is the common perception. Genocide only matters when it's in the news. Genocide is happening all the time and has been happening all the time since the dawn of time. I brought up several instances in the past dozen posts and I've had them dismissed with "Doesn't matter, consequences of acting are too high."

You can't claim something offends you and is awful and terrible when you A. Don't pay attention to most of the time it happens and B. Won't do anything about it when you feel the negative consequences are too high to pay. You have internalized it as a common thing that just happens to other people when that's how you rationalize and excuse inaction in the vast majority of instances.

 

[Lord of Elves]

Except in a number of cases it is both within our ability and our interest to stop genocide or at least frustrate it, and for a number of reasons, we don't. I blame my political opponents.

 

[Amon Savag]

I could say lots of stuff to rebut this, but read some Ha Joon-Chang or Karl Polanyi and see if you're convinced otherwise. No reputable economic historian (that I know of!) agrees that there was ever a naturally existing "free market" as you mean it, and typically the exact opposite is implied (that it requires gross amounts of state intervention to construct the necessary conditions for the commoditization of land/labor/money).

Neither of these guys really talk about the things that I am talking about. Their scope of interest is in statist economies and don't take into account the black and grey markets. How would these countries have done during the same period of time without statist intervention? Who knows? Not these guys. To their credit, they don't even touch on this sort of thing and don't pretend to know the answers.

And there are naturally existing free markets all over the world as we sit here and type. Any time you buy something from a friend in cash you have established a voluntary market, free of coercion. The commoditization of land and labor would happen naturally. Money maybe not, but that would be fine. We should be free to trade in whatever material we see fit.

In a free market most of my trade would be in selfies.

 

[Symphony D.]

Except in a number of cases it is both within our ability and our interest to stop genocide or at least frustrate it, and for a number of reasons, we don't. I blame my political opponents.

There was this one time in Cambodia where everyone went "Welp."

You may recall this time when Obama actually did an unusual thing for a post-9/11 President and obeyed the Constitution and said "Hey, Congress has to authorize action in Syria because none of this stuff is covered under the remits for action I have" and some of them muttered "No, no, it totally is," when it wasn't and the rest said "lol no" and people went "Hell no, we won't go!" and so the collective response was "Welp." Then everybody forgot about it by 2 weeks later.

The dirty little secret is Americans (and other nationalities too!) really don't care, but when called on it will desperately pretend they really do so as not to sound like the heartless automatons that they really are. On the other hand, actually caring would destroy Humanity in about 5 weeks flat or less, so, real Catch-22.

 

[Kozmos]

Its true I can order a woman from Russia or Malaysia right now. Thanks free market!

 

[Crezth]

The free market requires no creation. It exists naturally. This NES forum for example, is a free market of ideas. Intervention would destroy the freedom.

Start reading, kid.

 

[Thlayli]

I mean, the irony of this 1940 Republican rationale for doing nothing to help Britain and France blunt the German offensive being redeployed here is pretty fun, but it didn't stop us from having to make massive and tragic sacrifices to ultimately reshape the world order in a way that was beneficial to us and the Western world.

Though, this poses an interesting historical point. Absent Pearl Harbor, would you have done anything to intervene America in WWII? If you're being ideologically consistent, your answer is no.

I mean, it's not like a Nazi-Japanese Eurasia, ignoring Pearl Harbor, explicitly did anything to harm OUR interests as Americans, because nothing that happens outside of our borders remotely affects us at all or has the potential to in the future. If they want to genocide a few irrelevant religions or impose some silly ideologies, what's the harm?

Yes, Symphony D. would have let the Holocaust happen. Having established that we can all go on with our day.

 

[Luckymoose]

Though, this poses an interesting historical point. Absent Pearl Harbor, would you have done anything to intervene America in WWII? If you're being ideologically consistent, your answer is no.

Yes, cause Pearl Harbor was just an excuse, not the only reason.

 

[Symphony D.]

Yes, Symphony D. would have let the Holocaust happen. Having established that we can all go on with our day.

Protip: WWII wasn't fought to prevent the Holocaust and by-and-large reports of it were discounted until literally the moment Allied forces walked into the death camps.

Pro-Protip: FDR didn't declare war on Nazi Germany; Adolf Hitler declared war on America. I guess he would've let the Holocaust happen too.

Pro-Pro-Protip: You're bad at arguing and smearing people and history.

You have two (2) consistent options: admit you don't actually really care about genocide (3Pro-Protip: you don't) and are arguing for further intervention in Iraq for ulterior motives (4Pro-Protip: you already stated this when you advocated for "[eliminating] all of these anti-American entities in the Middle East and lay the stages for a comprehensive series of plebiscites under some international authority" with the knowledge that would involve de facto American occupation of the whole region forever) with the acknowledgement that you're doing so because it's an easy way to substantiate your supposed morality or oppose all genocide everywhere equally consequences be damned in which case I call upon you to announce your support for immediate war with the PRC, DPRK, Burma, Russia... ad nauseum.

You won't pick one because just like every other time I've called you on being full of crap, you're going to slink off. Go ahead and do so.

 

[Thlayli]

I just don't have an endless well of time for internet forum debating. But with that said, I'll restate my opinion on genocide.

We have a duty to stop it, where we can, when we can. Especially ongoing or imminent genocide, as defined by mass killings. We can't go to war with nuclear armed powers to save Tibet from Sinification right now. But if China was rounding up the Tibetans and gassing them by the thousands every day, then yes, we would be obliged to do something military, especially if all other options were exhausted.

This doctrine is referred to as "responsibility to protect" (R2P) and has been espoused by many members of the Obama Administration. It's not a particularly controversial one to hold.

Yes, we get it, you'd let ISIS massacre the Yazidi because there's a tangential possibility that an American pilot might get killed. You'd sit there and feel smug and secure as women and children are butchered.

That's your call, it's not mine. It will never be mine.

And you know what? If Israel declared a desire to wipe out the Palestinians as an ethnic identity, and was actively preparing and/or attempting to do so via mass killing, I'd support military action against them. Which is why I support military action against Hamas, for its publicly stated desires to do so to Israel, desires it has never explicitly abandoned.