Re: Barack Obama Pits Space Explorers Against School Children

On 13 Dec, 20:01, Quadibloc <jsav...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Dec 13, 7:40 am, Ian Parker <ianpark...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On 12 Dec, 22:16, Quadibloc <jsav...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
But I'm very firmly convinced that the developed Western countries do,
in general, have a pretty good grip on what it means to be a society
where people aren't living in constant fear of being accused of
being... nonconformists.

A developed Western country instituted a régime which proceeded to
comit genocide. This is a matter of the record.

I'm talking about developed Western countries like the United States
and France and Britain. Not Nazi Germany, or even Russia. Nazi Germany
doesn't illustrate anything about the United States or Britain or
Canada that needs fixing.

If we follow sensible policies in the Middle East we will neither have
to fight a nuclear war or surrender.

There are many nice people in the Middle East, and we should be nice
to them. But being nice to people doesn't control their actions. Those
people who are not nice will do what they want, no matter how we try
to be nice to them. This is why we have police to catch criminals and
put them away.

Terrorism doesn't have a "cause" in the sense that it's *our* fault
that we did something bad to the Muslim world, and if we stop doing
it, terrorism will go away.

True, but the "cause" is a sense of resentment. I do not deny that
this is 100% the Arabs fault. See below for my comparison of Israel
and the Arab world. Blowing people up will not give you a world 10K
years old, it will not bridge the technology gap. It is a useless
protest in that respect. We must avcknowledge though that this is the
deep underlying cause. 10K years! There is a developed country in that
categaory. I sometimes wonder whether Bush is closer ideologically to
OBL than he is to Assad

There are people out there who will not settle for less than driving
Israel into the sea. They must be stopped so that they will never hurt
anyone again. As for the rest of the Islamic world, it can get with
the program.

Being nicer to another part of the world, trying to understand them
better, only happens when there is an utter and absolute absence of
violence against us from that part of the world. Once that is not the
case, the focus is on stopping the immediate violence completely. Even
if the process of doing so results in some unfairness to uninvolved
people in the area.

If the Islamic world can reassure *us* that they don't share the
mentality of the terrorists, and the terrorists are their enemies too,
then it will not be at risk of sharing the terrorists' fate. This is
how things work in the real world. Since America is the one with the
large defence establishment, people should be worried about getting
the Americans' backs up.

We would be able to see for example the steps that would have to be
taken to ensure secular development and a closing of the technology
gap with Israel.

Technology gaps are good when they mean a military power gap between
the untrustworthy and the peacful.

First, the Arab world has to prove it has no violent intentions
towards Israel. Then we will cautiously allow it access to more
technology.

Israel has already been on the receiving end of violence from the Arab
world. This is the fact you seem to be ignoring.

No I am not ignoring it. The problems of the Middle East will take a
lot of sorting out, talking about nuclear war does not help. Most of
the violence against Israel is done by sub national groups. It is no
longer a war of conventional armies. This fact underlines what I say
about the general nature of the Middle East. You either have Assad or
the Hama bretheren. A major part of the Middle East problem is giving
governments the means, economic, psycological and military to deal
with the Hama brothers and all other branches of AQ. When AQ is
firmaly under control then we can talk about the Golan Hweights, the
borders of Palestine and the status of Jerusalem. + the right of
return, which is really the right to live next to Weitzmann.

The tragedy of Iraq is that a "democratic" government was set up which
lacked those means.

To get that to happen, of course, it won't be called surrender. We'll
just give up some sovereignity to a World Government - a sort of
coalition government - but the plans will be in place to ensure the
police and army ministries are in the hands of the pro-dictatorship
faction. The way Russia ate Poland and Czechoslovakia and Hungary
after World War II.
We have to have a World Government. This last paragraph is one that
really frighens me. In the long term a World Government is essential.
Will it come about though one country writ large, or will it come
about though a common pooled sovreignity. If America tries to write
itself large a nuclear war really is in prospect. Is a space colony
going to be there to prevent World Government? If that is part of its
role I think we should all know about it. This is what I said. A
colony is the sword of Damocles.

I don't want the U.S. to conquer the world. But the only kind of World
Government I would consider tolerable is one where it results from a
coming together of democracies - with _no_ tyrannical governments like
those of North Korea, or Zimbabwe, or even, say, Libya as they are now
becoming part of it. And even with only democratic countries, very
careful thought will have to be taken to ensure it cannot be
subverted.

I would prefer the emphasis to be on human rights. Human rights and
democracy are not the same thing.

Also, once space *is* colonized, a planetary government will no longer
be a government over *all humans everywhere*, which reduces the danger
in case of failure.

Fundamentally if Los Angeles and New York were going to be nuked
America would back down. There is one other thing about a space
colony. It is not invulnerable.

No, not invulnerable, but I think that your average Third World
country or terrorist organization has no way of sending a WMD all the
way to Mars, for example. It's invulnerable to the people against whom
it needs to be invulnerable.

The average thirs world terrorist has in fact got quite limited
capabilities. If nucleasr war is involved the weapons will have been
supplies by a nation state.

If I was attacked by Amerca I would
make sure that any colonies were well and truly destroyed before I
even started on New York and LA. America after all only attacks small
countries that can't hit back.

The United States is not an aggressor. But it does not want to be
attacked. If there had never been any attacks on the United States
from the outside, on Israel from the outside, on South Korea and South
Vietnam from the outside, on Kuwait from the outside, what wars would
the United States have been fighting?

The United States very much IS an aggressor in terms of the United
Nations charter. A counties internao affairs are not a legitimate
causwe for war. Saying you do not like Saddam Hussein is pure
aggression, no two ways about it. What I mean by understanding the
Middle East is simply this. Saddam Hussein and the Baath party were
the glue that held the nation together. Brutal glue you might argue,
but glue none the less.

In Syria I got the distict impression that the same thing was probably
true there too. You have a régime that is certainly progressive. The
populatrion (Mslem) is very conservative. Little things. The main
thing is the level of scientific education. In Israel the Weizman
nInstitute is "World Class". The fountains in Damascus are dry, nobody
says - lets develop solar power and desalination. Both these things
seem to be the prerogatives of Israel. Somehow this drive is lacking.

Women do not drive cars even though it is legal. All in all without
Assad and Baath there is a real risk. If only the Rebublican party had
understood this we would have been saved all this.

There is also the lies associated with WMD. WMD was the SOLE legal
basis for war. We have gone into this ad nauseam. Lying puts a nasty
taste in ones mouth. It is adding insult to injury. As I have already
stated, this is more damaging than wacky posings about FTL and all
that.


- Ian Parker

.

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