As if this and the dunking head in the toilet isn’t assault and a move perpetrated by shitbags. Why downgrade either just to make a point?
And the idea that waterboarding has utility or is some type of calculation is nonsense. It’s all just simulated drowning to terrorize people. They never show the public what they really do; the people who “really” waterboard could really be doing any thing they want. It has no good other than to get what the bullies want; whether it is lies for the sake of ending bodily damage or pants full of piss.
I think it is a symbol of Bush. But it’s also a symbol of a wider circle than just Bush. Namely that people think violence is a proper way to accomplish goals. Hey wait minute… the state and this ideology in general.
Probably most likely it’s people of the same mentality that voted for Bush and Obama. I dunno why people think voters/politicians are sadists one quadrennial cycle and then enlightened humanitarians the next. The torture will keep on keeping on.
I never said that it, the actual action of “water-boarding”, has any “utility”.
I see no reason to try to defend my use of the word “calculate”. It is sufficient just to say that you apparently define the word differently than I do. If, though, you want to still pursue this line of inquiry, you should first define the word and then explain why it does not apply.
I have to agree with I. Ryan here, insofar as the headline is entirely sensationalist. I don’t condone what the soldier did, but the image raised by the headline is entirely something else.
And, I. Ryan, the wordplay happening here is a good example of the point I mean to raise in the Speech and Thought thread. See how Nielsio was able to say that it was indeed premeditated, calculated, etc., even though you clearly had something subtly different in mind with all those words? In non-formalized situations, words are slippery as all get go, which is why I think their prominent role in thought - at least the one that deserves the most attention - is their propensity to distort, confine, and simplisticize (is that a word?), as can be seen here. What I am talking about is hard to get at, so maybe I will have to point it out more in other threads rather than trying to theorize on it directly. I’ve already slightly overstated my case in that other thread, just because it’s a subtle thing I’m trying to explain. Hope you’ll bear with me.
If you commit violent acts, you reveal that you believe that they are “a proper way to accomplish goals”.
So, now, whenever a person commits a violent act, you will say that they are a symbol not only of “Dick Cheney’s America” but also of violent people in general. So violent people are a symbol of violent people. What a revelation.
Well, the violence of the state is hidden. The gun is always hidden and put behind concepts: for instance, this person is called a former helicopter pilot and not what he really is: accomplice to murder for our state’s trained killers. This person is a symbol of the real meaning of statism, because his violence against the innocent is now out in the open.
You can’t just say violent people, because some violence is considered uncontroversial. While most is cheered on by the media. Consider the fact of how much violence is used in the name of teaching “ABCs” (whether there is proof that schools do teach this well or not). By using the violent state to steal money and force children into schools against their wills; and even punish them severely for not obeying the school. Which is fear and coercion unto itself. As I, Ryan said… some young people are being water-tortured by other students in toilets.
So yes, I think it is meaningful to say he is a symbol of an ideology. The “uncontroversial” violence is rarely an ideology and needs not be discussed. Those people know they are wrong. Soldiers do not admit they are wrong and few say they are wrong. And so they form ends-means justifications and post hoc bullshit excuses if what they do is stupid. Just as in this situation.
The father in this case works as a mercenary who travels to foreign places to suppress civilians and kill them if they put up an armed resistance. Many hundreds of thousands of people have died, millions have fled, and the place is in complete ruin.
One of the techniques used to punish those who put up armed resistance against foreign oppression is drowning-based torture.
Can you tell me how you decided that what happened is not a symbol of the current culture of empire?
No, it was quite the opposite, you were “just nitpicking”, not me. My analogy was only analogous to a certain extent, like any other analogy. But you tried to push it further, past its intended extent, to try to invalidate it.
I think it was Confucius who said that the first step toward truth is to call things what they are.
In that case, let’s never call anything “waterboarding” or words given to us to describe the official violence proscribed by bureaucrats. This seems to try and put the issue to rest by separating types of assault and coercion. And perhaps work its way into legal jargon and thus legal justification. The same way “emperors” separate themselves from "pirates, as Augustine once said.
We must call it always torture and terrorism. I say the article is not going too far by this equivocation. It is not going far enough, because it makes the wrong equivocation.
Water-boarding is to what happened in this story, as scalping is to stabbing someone on the head. They aren’t identical, but are wrong for the same reasons.
Pretty much. The real significance of “water-boarding” is that it is a sanitised word for torture. It really denotes the acceptable sort of torture done by our side. Since it is done by our side, it follows it can not be torture - it is merely water-boarding.
I did not design it to do that, so that it failed to do that does not bother me. I only wanted to show that I generally try to “call things what they are”, whatever the circumstances.
Much attention surrounds the “water-boarding” that the government of the United States performs. So to call this act “water-boarding” is to attempt to arouse disproportionate interest in the story.
Look up the work of Zimbardo. It’s a psychological issue that comes with obeying authority blindly.
And the scary thing is, he’s proven it can happen to literally anyone. I think he said 90% of the population can be told to commit an atrocity and do it, like torture for example.