posted
Oh, yes. Let's compare current events in one country to events a few centuries back in another. Wonderful logic there, Mucus.
Did it ever occur to you that there may not be that many contractors in the area? And even if there were, perhaps you haven't heard of something called "competition". You got your good contracters and your bad contracters. New one shows up and is a good contracter. He takes work away from the bad contracters. The patrons are helped in that they get better service. The bad contracters have the choice of either becoming better contracters, or quitting the business because they can't find work. The consumer is helped either way, and the workers can go find work at the good contracter (assuming they weren't the problem to begin with). The market works, but liberals never seem to take everything into account.
I'd say that the thousands of Cubans trying to escape Cuba want to be rid of Castro. And there's no reason to assume he'd be replaced by another brutal dictator.
------------------ "To disarm the people [is] the best and most effectual way to enslave them." - George Mason, American Statesman and Author of the Virginia Declaration of Rights (1776)
posted
First of all, irony does not necessarily have anything to do with logic. All it is afterall, is an observation, a humourous one at that if you take an objective viewpoint.
Second, I think First, or maybe Jeff....ah some guy brought up this point.
"If you don't learn from history, you repeat your mistakes" (paraphrased)
About the contractors...hey hold your horses. You asked a question "Who is harmed", I answered "the other contractors", you agreed. I wasn't making any value judgements, I was just answering your question. No need to get all poofed up about your little cute "market capitalism".
btw: If thousands are trying to escape, that implies the other 10 million or so are indifferent or better. This may strike you as a surprise, but not everybody in this world wants to go to America.
------------------ 1957: The space age begins when the first artificial satellite, Sputnik 1, is placed in orbit by the Soviet Union on October 4. Our German rocket scientists get very annoyed with their German rocket scientists. � Outpost
posted
It does not imply that nesecarily. It's far more likely that they simply can't get away, considering the huge risk from sharks, dehydration, Castro's thugs, and what have you for coming over. Cuba is a hell-hole. The only reasons anyone would want to stay of their own accord would be that it was home and that they were brainwashed as children.
Your point about the opium wars is meaningless to this debate. China's slaughter of civilians was inhuman. What Brittain did a few centuries back is irrelevant.
------------------ "To disarm the people [is] the best and most effectual way to enslave them." - George Mason, American Statesman and Author of the Virginia Declaration of Rights (1776)
posted
The mention of the OW is not meaningless in the spirit of this debate. To point a fact it lies at the very heart of it.
The seminal argument here is national memory. The OW shaped China's attitude toward the West greatly. The major western powers bringing opium into China, basicly telling China it had no real choice in the running of its government is a very close parallel to the American treatment of Cuba prior to, and during the rule of Batista. Much like China there was a real need for reform in Cuba and along came Castro to take advantage of the situation.
So, what this is about is the perceived slight the US received when Cuba decided it wanted to run its own country.
Not in our hemisphere ya don't!!
------------------ Oh, fiddle faddle, everyone knows that our mutants have flippers. Oops, I've said too much..... ~C. Montgomery Burns
posted
I'm wouldn't be insulted if Cuba decided to run itself, assuming that were the case. If Castro were a benign despot, I'd have little problem with trading with him. But when he wantonly kills his own citizens, then he becomes the lowest form of life I can imagine, and should be cut off from the civilized world until he dies. 'Course, it'd be better if we could somehow remove him without killing anyone, just like with Sadaam, but the chances of that are minimal. Castro is the problem, not Cuba itself.
------------------ "To disarm the people [is] the best and most effectual way to enslave them." - George Mason, American Statesman and Author of the Virginia Declaration of Rights (1776)
no we shouldn't cause Cuba and Castro is bad and killed people...
considering some of the things that went on before, no, Castro isn't all that bad...
well, Castro is still a comunist bastard...
bastard he may be, but we trade with the Chinese communists bastards (who kill their own people, Tiananmen Square ring a bell?) and the only reason we don't trade with Cuba is that Castro took our playground away...
So, you can take your little fallacy sniping and stick it up your ass.
Stop being so pompous. Either make an argument or move on.
------------------ Oh, fiddle faddle, everyone knows that our mutants have flippers. Oops, I've said too much..... ~C. Montgomery Burns
[This message has been edited by Jay (edited July 27, 2000).]
posted
You know, what you're saying is quite remarkable Omega. You claim that Castro has single-handedly brainwashed 11 million people with no support whatsoever. Not one single like-minded individual on the whole island giving him support.
Uh-huh. Right.
A more realistic view is that if he dies, his supporters will simply find a replacement. The only thing remarkable about Castro is that American propaganda has labelled him as anything from child-killer to the anti-Christ.
Its so much easier to hate someone you can dehumanize with propaganda isn't it? Its so much easier to live life when you can find a convenient scape-goat for the world's problems, isn't it?
By the way, history is very relevant. Or perhaps you're saying that your own forum signature is irrelevant as well, since it also refers to something centuries back? Interesting...
------------------ 1957: The space age begins when the first artificial satellite, Sputnik 1, is placed in orbit by the Soviet Union on October 4. Our German rocket scientists get very annoyed with their German rocket scientists. � Outpost
posted
Actually, from what I've seen the argument is a bit closer to this:
Viewpoint A: We should trade with Cuba.
Viewpoint B: No, we shouldn't. Trading won't improve their system of government, in fact, trading now would likely be used solely as propaganda fodder and to enrich the coffers of the Dictator and his minions, just as it is in other dictatorships such as Iraq. And by the way, we shouldn't be trading with China, either.
Viewpoint A: WAAAAH! You heartless, fascist, totalitarian imperialist hypocrite bastards!
Viewpoint B: Oh, grow up.
Oh, and "Castro's death squads are okay because Batista's death squads were worse" Is STILL a BASIC logical fallacy, and you KNOW it, and there's not a damned thing you can do about it, because you said it out loud where everybody could hear you. So stick that up YOUR ass. Sideways.
------------------ "Nobody knows this, but I'm scared all the time... of what I might do, if I ever let go." -- Michael Garibaldi
[This message has been edited by First of Two (edited July 27, 2000).]
posted
Dittos, Fo2. I would have said almost exactly that (although a little more tactful, but that's my failing. ), had you not beaten me to it. Bravo.
Mucus:
I never said history was irrelevant. I said that the Opium Wars were irrelevant, because they have absolutely nothing to do with this discussion. Pay attention before you attack someone's positions, lest you make yourself look the fool.
I never claimed that Castro brainwashed everyone. Quite a few, yes, but probably not even a majority. The reason there are still people IN Cuba is because they figure that it's a little better to stay there than to risk their lives traveling shark (and Castro thug) infested waters the seventy miles to Florida in flimsy boats (at best). But the fact that thousands have come, and many more have tried, shows that it's not much better. Let Castro allow free emigration and see what happens (assuming no immigration quotas on our end).
I'm not dehumanizing anyone. Castro did that to himself when he slaughtered the eighty innocent men, women, and children on the boat he destroyed trying to escape. The reason he has been labeled a child-killer is that THAT IS WHAT HE IS!
------------------ "To disarm the people [is] the best and most effectual way to enslave them." - George Mason, American Statesman and Author of the Virginia Declaration of Rights (1776)
quote:Castro's death squads are okay because Batista's death squads were worse
Now, I just went back and re-read all of my posts in this thread looking for that quote. Funny, it doesn't seem to be there. So, not that I'm taking any logical leaps here, but at least I'm not playing with what people say and mangling the truth.
Now, as to you logical arguments, let's deal with those shall we?
Omega said:
quote:If Castro were a benign despot, I'd have little problem with trading with him. But when he wantonly kills his own citizens, then he becomes the lowest form of life I can imagine, and should be cut off from the civilized world until he dies.
Now, that sort of statement when dealing with the presnt issues regarding Cuba is specious. The very fact that we traded with Cuba when Batistia was around and killing Cuban citizens makes it so. Only Batistia played ball with the US and pretty much let US business do whatever the hell they wanted to do.
Simple isn't it. Not too nuanced for ya?
Nowhere in that particular argument does it say that what Castro does regarding hurting the citizens who live in Cuba is right. Nor does it say what Batistia did was right. What it does argue for is some sort of constancy.
You can't say Dictator A is an ass, but let's us do what we want whilst he kills people. Then turn around and say that Dictator B is an ass, but we won't do anything with him because he won't play ball with us whilst he kills people.
Moreover, anyone that says we shouldn't trade with Cuba simply because it is a communist state is being more than a little disingenuous. Anyone that overlooks the fact that the government of the United States was more than a little pissed off because Castro took our island away needs to do a bit more thinking.
And let's talk about China for a second. It's those dynamic wealth producing American business owners that want to trade with China, and the right wing seems to love those guys...so, how does one justify that? I've yet to hear anything from anyone here that even marginally atempts to do so.
So, First, you can stick it anywhere you want to. In fact you can put butter on it. If you want to argue any given topic let's do so but don't come at me with that bombastic attitide...I've seen plenty of it in seminars before.
------------------ Oh, fiddle faddle, everyone knows that our mutants have flippers. Oops, I've said too much..... ~C. Montgomery Burns
posted
Jay, did it ever occur to you that we were wrong to trade with Batista, too? You seem to think that I agree with every foreign policy decision ever made by the US to date, and therefore I'm being contradictory by saying we shouldn't trade with Cuba. No person with a shred of sense could expect a country's foreign policy to remain consistant when what they did before was plainly wrong. I never said I thought we should have traded with Batista. If you'd bothered to ask, I'd have told you that I thought we shouldn't have. I give you the same advice I gave Mucus: pay attention to someone's positions before you try to attack them. You look like a moron when you don't.
As for why some want trade with China, I'm not here to justify the positions of others. I think all countries who commit grevious human rights violations should be cut off from the rest of the world for a couple decades. This includes Cuba and China. Period.
As for your argument with First: he said that you apparently believe that "Castro's death squads are okay because Batista's death squads were worse." I'd say he has a pretty good reason to believe that, considering that you said, "considering some of the things that went on before, no, Castro isn't all that bad..." How bad Castro is relative to Batista is irrelevant. He's still a monster. Yet another problem with liberals. They're stuck in the past.
------------------ "To disarm the people [is] the best and most effectual way to enslave them." - George Mason, American Statesman and Author of the Virginia Declaration of Rights (1776)
posted
nothing to see here...move along please...... ------------------ Oh, fiddle faddle, everyone knows that our mutants have flippers. Oops, I've said too much..... ~C. Montgomery Burns
[This message has been edited by Jay (edited July 28, 2000).]
posted
I'm a historian, I'm stuck in the past. My arguments regarding Cuba are not however.
As for the rest, one can only bang ones head against a wall of idiots for so long. Those who twist, squirm and skirt the fringes of arguments. Those who, for reasons one can't understand, miss substance and nuance and brush away valid points in favor of arguing in circles.
There comes a time to say forget it and move on.
Forget it...
------------------ Oh, fiddle faddle, everyone knows that our mutants have flippers. Oops, I've said too much..... ~C. Montgomery Burns
[This message has been edited by Jay (edited July 28, 2000).]
[This message has been edited by Jay (edited July 28, 2000).]
), had you not beaten me to it. Bravo.
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