>> ^darkrowan:

For all the goofieness of this vid it does bring up a good question: Who's replacing them? Could be, like The Who said, "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss"?


Seems to be, unlike popular uprisings in some other countries which have resulted in the overthrow of a dictator by the people, this has been paid gangs of thugs backed by NATO airstrikes dealing with Qadhafi and any local resistance. What seems most worrisome is the National Transitional Councils decision to give policy decision making authority out to corporations, for example:
Monetary policy is handled by the Central Bank of Benghazi
http://www.ntclibya.org/english/meeting-on-19-march-2011/

..and oil policy is handled by... The Libyan Oil Company.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-03-21/libyan-rebel-council-sets-up-oil-company-to-replace-qaddafi-s.html

Pretty much the same as if Bank of America were given full authority to handle all policy decisions for America's banking system, or if Exxon Mobil got to make all fossil fuel and environmental policy.

@VoodooV

"One day"? You definitely didn't watch the report, nor the interview.

Gender isn't just about sexuality btw, and gender identification happens a lot earlier than puberty. When did you know you were a boy (or girl)? Only at puberty?

As for if it should be covered by state healthcare insurance: of course it should (I wouldn't be surprised if it already was in the case of Kim).

edit: who should be doing the "decision making" about someone's body, that person or that person's parents? You talk as if it were a whim to get grs, and the parents got it for their kid like they would an ear-piercing.

>> ^hpqp:

@VoodooV
Did you watch the video? She knew who she was since very early childhood. I agree that gender reassignment surgery should definitely not be done on a whim, but such was not the case here, nor is it even possible, considering all the medical and legal procedures one must go through before getting it.


What part of "very early childhood" do you not understand? You don't just accept stuff like that because a kid tells you so. They're kids, the vast majority don't know shit, especially about sexuality.

Again, I'm not saying every kid is the same, I'm just saying its extremely dangerous to make such an expensive and permanent decision just because a kid one day says they don't like their gender.

And my question went unanswered. Do we subsidize gender-reassignment surgery for poor kids who are "really sure" they're not in the right gender if it's that traumatic? If not, then tough luck, guess only rich people get to be in the right gender.

Why are we accepting at face value what these kids say about their sexuality when they're not even hitting puberty? It's ridiculous. I'm not against the surgery, I'm just against these families that apparently let the kids do the decision making.

>> ^packo:
omnipotent means no limits in power...
by saying God is limited to LOGICAL possibilities, and can not do something LOGICALLY impossible is a LIMITATION
ALL POWERFUL means no LIMITATIONS
OMNIPOTENCE means yes, you could create a square circle and a circular square
throwing "logical" into this is APOLOGETIC at best, especially since its used to counter 1 thing, "could God create a rock big enough that even he couldn't lift it"
and the rest, again all APOLOGETIC and failed reasoning...
why would an omnipotent/omniscient (that means KNOWS everything, that includes everything past, present and future) care if people followed him? why could he not create everything, but NOT let it exist without any further intervention?
sounds like pride, which is a pretty petty emotion to dominate an all powerful all knowing beings decision making process
and if the best answer that can be given for that is "He works in mysterious ways", well then nothing has been "proven" has it?
nice animations though, content is trash


Having all power means being able to do everything which is *possible*. What you are saying is that there is nothing which is impossible, which is untrue. I can easily think of many things which are impossible for God. For instance, it would be impossible for God to remember a time He wasn't omnipotent. Does this mean He isn't omnipotent? No it doesn't.

In regards to Omniscience, it means to know everything that can be known. Could God create a scenerio in which absolute foreknowledge wasn't possible? Absolutely. If He couldn't He wouldn't be omnipotent. Having limited foreknowledge doesn't violate Omniscience, since He still knows everything that can be known.

Your scenerio is a false dichotomy. You assume pride is the only reason God created people to know Him, or that it would be better for beings to be left alone. In no discernable way could it better for beings not to know who their Creator is. What you are advocating is ignorance as being superior to knowledge, which I am sure is not something you could support.

omnipotent means no limits in power...
by saying God is limited to LOGICAL possibilities, and can not do something LOGICALLY impossible is a LIMITATION

ALL POWERFUL means no LIMITATIONS

OMNIPOTENCE means yes, you could create a square circle and a circular square

throwing "logical" into this is APOLOGETIC at best, especially since its used to counter 1 thing, "could God create a rock big enough that even he couldn't lift it"

and the rest, again all APOLOGETIC and failed reasoning...

why would an omnipotent/omniscient (that means KNOWS everything, that includes everything past, present and future) care if people followed him? why could he not create everything, but NOT let it exist without any further intervention?

sounds like pride, which is a pretty petty emotion to dominate an all powerful all knowing beings decision making process

and if the best answer that can be given for that is "He works in mysterious ways", well then nothing has been "proven" has it?

nice animations though, content is trash

I won't deny the other two examples. I said already Obama isn't a hardcore progressive. I wouldn't even label him on a scale as progressive. Those are examples of where he isn't. If that's the indictment, no one is disagreeing with you.

Dude, how are you not getting this. Obama hasn't justified a single policy with Christianity. This guy sited directly his warped Christian beliefs in his manifesto. It's pretty clear as day the difference. Obama refutes the notion of the US as a "Christian Nation", etc. He's ridiculed by the Religious Right in fact for this. Isn't this pretty obvious?

Yes, it is accepted as collateral damage. Thank you for making my point. Were the attacks launched with the purpose of killing these civilians? NO! Was it the intention of Osama bin Laden to kill as many civilians as possible in the 9/11 attacks on purpose? YES! THAT is the difference. If Obama could conduct these attacks without killing innocent civilians, he'd do it in a heartbeat. If bin Laden could have killed 1 million American civilians instead of the number he did, he'd do it in a heartbeat. That's the difference. You're assuming that because civilian deaths occur, that how many people are killed in collateral damage never influences decision making. That's simply not true. You'll rarely ever achieve objectives without accepting some collateral damage, unfortunately. This is unfortunately part of being the President.

So we're gonna terrorize the population of Libya why exactly?! What would that possibly achieve in and of itself? That's utterly ridiculous.

It's against international law how exactly to be intervening in Libya? It was approved by the UN Security Council. Are you speaking to military strategy? So you're saying we should just put ground troops in there and go door to door, which will cause even higher casualties and more terrorizing of the civilian population? I don't pretend to know all the difficulties the military is facing when coming up with the best plan to achieve objectives.

It's silly to believe part of why we're in Libya is to help establish a democratic gov't there? Look, I was a big critic of the second Iraq war, but I don't doubt for a second part of why the Bush administration wanted to go in was to establish democracy in the region. It was a stated goal. You can call it silly all you want, but it is even within the US's self interests to have as Libya be a democracy. Why wouldn't we want them to be democratic?!

It is progressive to intervene in a country to help protect human rights. Schools of geopolitical realism would have determined intervening in Libya to not benefit the US enough to justify involvement. Again, I'm not suggesting the entire reason we went in was to help the Libyan people. There are many reasons why. But one of them was to help the Libyan people. I fully accept there were geopolitical calculations as well. All of those things have to contribute to the decision making.

Was it progressive to partner with Stalin to defeat Hitler? If no, then FDR wasn't a progressive?! We did it because Hitler was a bigger threat than Stalin at the time. Once Hitler was out of the equation, we became enemies of Stalin. To think you can just make international policy based exclusively on progressive ideas is fantasy.

On this site, I've defended progressivism when under attack from people who think progressivism is Communist, doesn't work, blah blah blah. Progressivism, like other ideologies, provides a lot of answers and ideas to solving problems, but it is also imperfect, just like every other ideology.

So Obama isn't progressive in the slightest?

Are the following progressive in nature?

Ending "don't ask, don't tell."
Advocating raising taxes on the rich
Increasing availability of Medicaid
Preventing health insurance companies denying based on pre-existing conditions

He's a moderate. Yes, I fully accept you could give a big long list of things that aren't progressive he's done, too. He's a moderate, who leans left. That's why I get really irritated when QM and WP call him a socialist or communist because it's simply not true.

@dannym3141

Can't quote that behemoth without trying to figure out all the embedded coding to only pick your newest stuff.

Anyway, I just wanted to address the last line of it. I have no first hand knowledge of Amsterdam, but according to their wiki they limit their coffeehouse (weed, food, coffee/drink, no alcohol) to only selling small quantities of weed and other rules:

In the Netherlands, the selling of cannabis is "illegal, but not punishable", so the law is not enforced in establishments following these nationwide rules taken from the wiki page:

no advertising
no hard drug sales on the premises
no sales to anyone under the age of 18
no sales transactions exceeding 5 grams
no public disturbances

For some offenses, a business may be forced to close for three to six months, for others, completely; all this is detailed in official policies.

-------------------------------

So it's not as if they allow anyone, anywhere, anytime to do whatever they wish....it's controlled to some degree. They also have closed shops due to proximity to schools and I believe I've read articles where they want to close access to coffeeshops to tourists. So......I can only assume the mindset of many tourists toward drug use is a nuisance at a minimum. And there will be those who argue is anti-drug mindset, etc.

And it might be a little bit of a lot of things, but I think it speaks to a failure in education namely the complete lack of when approaching a lot of "un-approved" topics. Where you end up with polar opposite opinions, 1) no one should do it ever, 2) everyone should do it, as much as possible. It applies mostly to drugs, alcohol, tobacco, and sex in the US. It evens out a little in people (and if it doesn't it usually goes really bad) when they get past college-age when it comes to alcohol, tobacco and sex, but drugs seem to stick with them whether it be to the forbidden nature of it or addiction.

I guess with sex, unless you end up with something incurable you can recover (even a pregnancy). Tobacco you can quit, but it does have consequences for some who are genetically unlucky. Alcohol, liver issues but worse are drunk driving and just overall bad decision making that could lead to a record.

And then drugs, illegal or prescription, sometimes people become too reliant on them...especially if they affect pain and mood...and they often even get intertwined where the brain associates lack of mood suppressors/enhancers as pain. Personally I don't see why many people would risk using their drug of choice regularly if it means potentially losing their job when a drug test comes around or other consequences...and that's where I see it as an addiction when they want the job and the drug but at some point they will conflict and unwillingness to change one to keep the other.

Anyway, it's one of those things where you could go back and forth on it all day long. But in the end I think it boils down to how much other people's choices affect others. If using whatever doesn't have a noticeable impact on others then fine. But you run the spectrum of smoking in restaurants to drunk driving as to how much of an impact is noticeable. And on that, I am done posting about this as it's guaranteed to turn into some sort of political/religion discussion.

@Psychologic

I actually don't see the world as "libertarian" by nature. I actually see the world as more like the world of the lion, where the rule of might is the order of the day. You aren't free unless you have power of tooth and claw to demand your freedom. Rational existences based on social orders apart from strength is unique and rare, even in man. Even democracy employees the strong man position where many > few in terms of decision making.

Perhaps that is the best we can hope for in our current animal state. However, I see the entire system of laws as flawed. Laws don't (rarely) stop crime, they just establish was is a crime and a punishment. A time is coming where a single person can destroy the entire world. A day where technology and information advance and disseminate at rates that will make the laymen capable of great harm. No amount of law will offer protection. If we want to survive our rational infancy, we have to individually seek to eliminate the need for laws all together. One has to be able to have to power to destroy the universe and decide not to, freely. Freedom is the only answer to the end game of humanity. I don't think you can get there by bridging the gap with authoritarian structures. Rationality might actually be inferior to animal carnage. It might loose. Rationality might be fighting a battle it can't win. We could, point in fact, already be doomed. That a being both carnal and rational, can and will only lead to its own destruction.

>> ^GeeSussFreeK:

I am a little confuzled about calling @Skeeve and my conversation both true and a non sequitur. I guess because I am addressing a more theoretical, man kind building question and you a more practical one. Your talking about the more practical, of making things work now, I am talking more about how I want things to work, for always. A the difference between the tangible and the ideal I guess.

It seems you weren't all that confused, that's exactly what I was getting at.

>> ^GeeSussFreeK:

I have been considering the statement "the needs of the many..." for the course of a few weeks now.

...

I find that the statement of "the needs of the many..." very closely relates to the Democratic position.


I think the "the needs of the many..." quote is a pretty crude statement of the type of moral reasoning you find on the left. The more refined version can be found described in John Stuart Mill's Utilitarianism, but if you want a brief synopsis of the philosophy, try this.

I would also say most modern liberals tend more towards a Rawlsian political philosophy.

>> ^GeeSussFreeK:
When your tribe is 20 people, and the fate of your people all hang in the balance of routine decisions, evolutionary speaking, to survive, it is easier to remove the rational component of this choice. The rational implications of every choice you make determining the fate of your entire race is a burden that doesn't aid in decision making. It is much "better" to program in an emotional response and have that being post-rationalize later, intelligence is actually more of a burden than a tool in this area. This way, we remove the impotence one might face in the light of such a larger than life issue, and set in that mind a continuing sequence of emotional ties to the event through post-rationalizations.

I totally agree. I tend to think of a lot of what humans use rationality for is to rationalize decisions they really made at a gut/emotional level.

>> ^GeeSussFreeK:
I think the reason Democracy works so well, given this situation, is it very closely mimics the "rules of the jungle." By that, I mean force. Democracy is an interesting formalization of the rules of the jungle. Instead of the force being a stick or a knife, it is a vote.

This, on the other hand, I think is totally false. Democracy is a tool to try to tie large, diverse groups into a single tribe by getting rid of the "tribal leader makes the decisions for the tribe" aspect of tribal society. The reason we want to do that is that even though we're no longer just a pack of 20 trying to deal with tigers in a jungle, we are still facing all sorts of threats from the outside world (e.g. disease, natural disaster, food scarcity, water scarcity, etc.), as well as threats generated by our inability to cohesively work as a unified tribe (war, pollution, persecution, extreme resource inequality), and that we should all be united in dealing with that common cause.

The "rules of the jungle" is more something you see in markets. The idea in most right-wing philosophy is to keep the idea that tribes should stay entirely hierarchical, and that no tribe should feel fundamentally obligated to any other tribe. Strong tribes should be allowed to amass resources they take from weaker tribes, and weaker tribes get killed off. Theoretically there's some method for preventing these inter-tribe conflicts from being violent, but nobody's worked out a way to do that other than creating a state who will use sticks and knives (and guns and nukes) to make people play by the rules of the market by force.

The evolutionary component of markets is really the key to what its proponents like -- evolution brings us forward progress, after all. The position over here on the left is that morally speaking, evolution is cruel. People like me see the benefits of markets, and the moral downsides, and want to try to find a way to make markets less cruel. People much further to my left are moral absolutists who want them destroyed because they're inhumane.

>> ^GeeSussFreeK:
The course of discovery seems to be without end for man. It seems inevitable, that in time, each human will have access to such a level of technology that any one person could end all life on the planet with little to no effort. Our only current solutions for it are that of liberty, which would only take one crazy person to end it all, or regulations, of which would have to be of the most extreme kind to protect against knowledge that is easy to acquire and use. It seems that the current rules that bind this planet along with mans advancement in technology have set us on a collision course with a cruel destiny. While not a certainty, I do believe it is certain that the tools of Democratic force will not save us from our own self imposed destruction.

I think the way to deal with it is to realize that the choice between "regulations on world-destroying weapons" and "liberty demands that crazy people have the right to own world-destroying weapons" is actually a really, really easy choice, since one of them ends with no one left alive on Earth...

Will "democracy" protect us from being stupid about that choice? No.

But if humanity is ever going to make it through its technological adolescence, we're going to have to set aside these childish notions that "liberty" only exists if you can completely disavow any sense of obligation to the rest of humanity.

@NetRunner

I am a little confuzled about calling @Skeeve and my conversation both true and a non sequitur. I guess because I am addressing a more theoretical, man kind building question and you a more practical one. Your talking about the more practical, of making things work now, I am talking more about how I want things to work, for always. A the difference between the tangible and the ideal I guess.

The examples you pose are actually the exact ones I was thinking of when I think of the brutality of democratic things, at times. I have been considering the statement "the needs of the many..." for the course of a few weeks now. Forgive me, about to go on a tangent, but I want a trial by fire to so speak if you have the time. This will be a wall of text for the uninterested.

When I was first exposed to this phrase/idea, it was from Spock. And from then on, I always took it as the rational position one has to take to help the whole at the cost of the one. It was a profound idea in my youth. It had such a charity to it. It seemed to speak to the core of what is good. Everything that is good about man was contained in that one simple phrase. The devil is in the details, though, so I decided recently to examine my long held Vulcan heritage.

Over the past couple of years, since my fall from Grace, I have been increasingly interested in the role of evolution in the social development of our species. We have a lot in common with our animal kin, especially the social nature of mammalia. The role of emotions and intuitive social orders with post rationalized rule set changes are the order of our creed. For an animal that has a very long gestation period, few offspring per litter, and long maturation periods, certain social orders HAD to be developed or we wouldn't survive. Many of our longest held evolutionary advances aren't because they are "good" morally, but are good for survival when being chased by tigers. In that, I think the democratic pricible is actually as old as social creatures, and even more basic, as force.

I think the reason Spock's words stung so true in my heart of hearts is it spoke to millions of years of culture beyond my ability to fully comprehend. It spoke past my reason to the core of my being. Now, when I examine the phrase "the needs of the many..." and take into light the core being, I find a much different sentence. Let me tell you what I found that I didn't expect.

I find that the statement of "the needs of the many..." very closely relates to the Democratic position. When your tribe is 20 people, and the fate of your people all hang in the balance of routine decisions, evolutionary speaking, to survive, it is easier to remove the rational component of this choice. The rational implications of every choice you make determining the fate of your entire race is a burden that doesn't aid in decision making. It is much "better" to program in an emotional response and have that being post-rationalize later, intelligence is actually more of a burden than a tool in this area. This way, we remove the impotence one might face in the light of such a larger than life issue, and set in that mind a continuing sequence of emotional ties to the event through post-rationalizations.

I think the reason Democracy works so well, given this situation, is it very closely mimics the "rules of the jungle." By that, I mean force. Democracy is an interesting formalization of the rules of the jungle. Instead of the force being a stick or a knife, it is a vote. We might not consider our vote a weapon, but essentially, when you boil it down it is our most trusted language. So much so, that every animal we face understands it. We have subjugated nearly every animal on this planet via force, and now try our hands at the very planet itself. All the while, we never asked ourselves the question, is using force right?

When being chased by a tiger, you can't ask that question. Even more so, it is the application of force that seems to drive the evolution on this planet forward. However, it only advances the flags in the due course of force. Any being that comes after HAS to play by these rules or be defeated before it can flourish. But is this the way it HAS to be? Does humanity find itself on the precipice of being able to change the entire course of evolution on the planet? Perhaps so. Slowly, we have taken the cunning, and brutal wolfs of the winter lands to being the noblest of companions. And cats, wait, never mind, fuck cats.

Humans might soon, within perhaps our children's, children's lifetime, find themselves in the unique position to change the rules of the game, for good. Weather or not we want to will be the only question. So the question is, why? What is so wrong with Democracy and the underlying shreds of managed force something to be concerned about? Let me bring on my final point.

The course of discovery seems to be without end for man. It seems inevitable, that in time, each human will have access to such a level of technology that any one person could end all life on the planet with little to no effort. Our only current solutions for it are that of liberty, which would only take one crazy person to end it all, or regulations, of which would have to be of the most extreme kind to protect against knowledge that is easy to acquire and use. It seems that the current rules that bind this planet along with mans advancement in technology have set us on a collision course with a cruel destiny. While not a certainty, I do believe it is certain that the tools of Democratic force will not save us from our own self imposed destruction.

While I have still not made all my points, like why I also think the democratic position is actually bad (perhaps even morally bad); in spite of that, I do suppose that it is insufficient to manage our path. It isn't that I want it to be wrong, it is that we truly need something else if we intend to survive past an infant species. If we lose the game, the cycle of force will most likely continue on without us, spawning forth new entities of force. But if we win, we will rewrite the rules for all existence on the planet. No longer bound to rules that keep up from being eaten by tigers, but by rules that extend us to the furthest reaches of our dreams.

I think it will all start by eating all the cats, because anything that will bite you in your sleep isn't fit in this new world. And I yield my time back to an audience that is most likely not interested in my thought processes that go to solving less than practical problems. I will only continue on request as to not come off as pedantic, well, more so.


edit, grammar

While user input is a major factor in our decision-making, we always have to take into account other considerations. In this case, we'll not be adding the proposed invocation because, among a variety of reasons, it's precisely why *isdupe was created.

>> ^hpqp:

Cosmetic/aesthetic (non-medical) procedures that modify a person's body should be that person's informed decision/choice, and no one else's. How hard is it to grasp such a simple ethical concept?


It's not a simple ethical concept at all because it is not simply a modification to a person's body. From the Wiki Bioethics of Circumcision Page:

The practice of medicine has long respected an adult's right to self-determination in health care decision-making. This principle has been operationalized through the doctrine of informed consent. The process of informed consent obligates the physician to explain any procedure or treatment and to enumerate the risks, benefits, and alternatives for the patient to make an informed choice. For infants and young children who lack the capacity to decide for themselves, a surrogate, generally a parent, must make such choices.

– American Academy of Pediatrics: Circumcision Policy Statement

Parents have a right to make decisions for their children that they believe will improve their children's future. They're not just doing it because they think it looks nice. Here are the issues that most parents consider:

1) They belong to a group where this is the norm and they want their child to fit in socially. By doing it while the child is still a baby they ensure that the child will have no recollection of the procedure. Furthermore, the child is obviously not sexually active yet. Delaying the procedure until age of consent (which I assume you define as sometime after puberty) guarantees that the person will have to abstain from sexual actions while healing takes place and that they'll have full memories of both the procedure and the subsequent recovery pain.

2) Circumcision will guarantee that the child does not ever have to deal with an infected foreskin. Although proper cleaning can help prevent such an infection in non-circumcised males, only circumcision guarantees (100%) the child will never have to deal with it. The medical research waffles a lot on the reduction of penile cancer and AIDS transmission rates, but the medical consensus is still that circumcision may help in both of these areas.

Given these two facts--and the lack of any conclusive evidence that the procedure is harmful--I see no reason to deny parent's the right to choose to have the practice done on their own child. If they think it will benefit their child, then they should feel free to do so.

Does that answer your question?

>> ^kymbos:

Yellow card? Don't they have a 'kicking in danger' rule in soccer? Man, he'd get at least 3 weeks suspension in my code.


It's called "Dangerous Play" and it's punished by an indirect free kick. But this was more than dangerous play because there was obvious contact and it was reckless. There's are argument to be made for a red card as in the player might have not cared if he had hurt the other player. The problem is we are only seeing a snippet of the game, and based on the incidents before this one would color the referees judgement quite considerably. Judging by the reactions of the players it wasn't necessarily a contentious game, so I'm leaning towards just calling a foul, the player looks to be legitimately trying to simply clear the ball out of harms way, he messed up he didn't try to hurt someone.

Again there's several ways to look at this...just a clip from a game does not tell us the whole story and the referee would use the experience of that game and the reactions of the players in his decision making process.

>> ^bcglorf:

It's more selective than that.
The US and it's allies try to prevent any government from holding power if that government opposes US interests.
Wait.
All nations try to prevent any government from holding power if that government opposes their interests.
Chomsky's rallying cry for moral equivalency in assessing the hypocrisy of American foreign policy is drowned out by his abject failure to rally cries for the equivalent moral failures of any other nation at all.
Point in fact, Gadhafi starts murdering his own people and when the UN asks for help to stop it and America steps up, America is the bad guy, and apologies are made for Gadhafi...
Moral equivalence would seem to place Gadhafi and his government at much greater fault and failure. But instead Chomsky comes out swinging the biggest axe at America for backing the UN resolution to stop Gadhafi.

It's really terribly sad to see what Chomsky has come to these days.


You've never actually read Chomsky have you? Because if you had you would've heard him say time and time again that he is an American...so his job is to talk about America because all other American commentators are really good at assessing other nations crimes but not Americas. It's literally in almost every book he writes...he does an astounding amount of research and work and you want this 80+ year old man to do more?

Sorry but I agree with Chomsky...as Americans we have to look in the mirror FIRST. We have to assess our decisions and decision making capabilities because that's what We have control over more than anything else.

Seriously READ some Chomsky sometimes he does no good adding his voice to the obvious things other countries do wrong because we see those clearly. America is his subject and he's well versed in it's foreign policy...much more so than you.

You may be right, it does seem like every time "we" get involved it turns to shit faster - it could be that it's shit already and the media exposure makes it apparent to us. I dunno. I'm not a politician, general or intelligence officer, I can only work on the evidence in front of me.

It's basically one big shit storm either way.
>> ^radx:

Well, we are sitting and watching as civilians are butchered, aren't we? Jemen and Bahrain are right nextdoor, but those dictatorships are still backed up. Not to mention the Saudis, who sent troops to gun down the protest in Bahrain.
And who are "the people" in Lybia? I still haven't heard any clear information about the rebels in Libya. From where I'm standing, it still looks very much like a fight between different clans, a civil war. Egypt in particular can't be compared, almost the entire people were rebelling against Mubarak. That's clearly not the case in Libya.
We know jack shit about the domestic context of all the non-Gaddafi actors on the ground, so the kind of intervention currently taking place, an external intervention for mixed motivations, is likely to backfire. Mixed motivations, because I don't believe for a second that oil and particularly the refugee issue are not taken into account in any decision making process.
I'm not saying the UN resolution is right or wrong, I'm simply saying it's a fucking hypocrisy to start a "humanitarian intervention" while supporting the same behaviour next door. Not that I believe in any reasonable chance of success of such an intervention by NATO powers without strong support from at least Turkey and the Arab nations anyway. The Arab League already condemned the airstrikes, so their support is not as strong as it was claimed to be. And why would it, both the Arab League and the CCASG consist of oppressive regimes themselves. If the Arab nations were serious about ending Gaddafi's rule over his people, they would have to take the lead on this one. The track record of NATO/EU intervention is one catastrophe after another, so it has to be them.
There is an obligation to help the civilians currently being slaughtered, but the current plan appears to have risks for the Libyan people outweighing the humanitarian benefit. The best use of the UNSC Resolution seems to use it as little as possible. Any form of escalation will only make things worse. It's up to the opposition now to demonstrate that they have the backing of the people, then their political and popular weight could cause the regime to implode.
Still, it just feels like Kosovo all over again, UÇK and everything, but worse.
>> ^gwiz665:
The people are trying to stand up to him, and he's committing outright genocide. Of course, we must do what we can to help the people liberate themselves. Unlike Iraq, this is not just for the hell of it - we are helping the people free themselves, when they do not have the strength themselves, as opposed to Egypt, Tunesia and so on.
If we sit and watch as the civilians are butchered, we are no better (or at least very little better) than the butchers ourselves.

Sarkozy might have reasons of his own, domestic ones. And let's not forget that just last year, France backed Morocco against the civil uprise in Western Sahara by blocking the UN.
>> ^GeeSussFreeK:
even though I think it is France (lol?) leading the charge on this one.