I have to agree, there have been a number of recent knee-jerk responses in the name of moderation, some of it appears to be very heavy handed.... you're not helping this community by swinging the ban-hammer. If anything, this is making BT look like a place that doesn't respect free speech or allows anyone to have or share their opinions.
I'd put it differently. In this sub-forum you need to give people time to argue against what may be objectionable views, but there is still a need to moderate when it gets too heated and repetitive.
Then you haven't been paying attention https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War#Iraqi_civilian_casualties https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_casualties_in_the_war_in_Afghanistan_(2001–2014) Don't be facetious. While I'm not claiming that the middle east is entirely innocent, it's plain to see that we bomb their countries multiple times per day - It's frankly naive not to consider our own culpability when that same conflict comes to our shores.
I think there's a line where "objectionable" doesn't quite cut it... Might just be me, but "nuke them all" crosses that line.
But isn't that a knee jerk remark to a terrible situation? Haven't we all said done this at some point in our life? I've said some questionable things about a horrible situation I was in a while ago, stuff I'd clearly have regretted if I actually had the power to do so. Personally I think the remark was pointless in what have been a friendly heated discussion, maybe a warning. As for the ban for the defensive response, completely disagree and clearly a knee jerk reaction (see above comment) Anyway, I don't like see the BT family falling out, lets all go the pub and raise a drink in memory of those who are suffering (my colleagues cousin is missing still)
Horrible horrible situation. And to top it off we lost Roger Moore today too, just a sad day all round. There's a just giving page to support the families involved if you've a couple of quid spare. https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfun...mpaign=post-pledge-desktop&utm_term=VkZEDJbnb
Obviously it strengthens the argument for this kind of thing now: https://www.bit-tech.net/news/bits/2017/05/22/tory-party-control-internet/1 Also what's with this - who posts fake 'missing' images....and why?? http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-trending-40010376
Politicians will certainly see it that way as will significant parts of the population, unfortunately it wouldn't help as that kind of thing isn't effective. Zero tolerance towards religious kangaroo courts, very close monitoring of faith based schools, reversing cuts to the police etc would be more effective.
Well, this is going well... I'm sure that the families of those dead civilians notice the difference. Yeah, because that worked so well with Afghanistan and Iraq. Well that's how they are seeing it, and if you read your history going back well to the days of Empire, I'd say they have a point. Of course they often treat each other just as bad, but that doesn't exonerate the West, does it? See? We agree on some things. The great thing about freedom of speech is that it allows stupid and bad ideas to be exposed to the light of reason. When people say stupid/bad things on these forums, they will get challenged on it. As long as that happens in a civil fashion, that's free speech at work. If it gets nasty, the ban hammer is called for.
Add to that POSSIBLY the banning of money to religious organisations from foreign countries maybe targeted at Saudi, Qatar... You know the ones who fund all the salafists. Separation of Islamic ideology from general prison population. Possible expulsion of foreign born imams. Banning of consangiounous (cousin/uncle etc)marriage. Cracking Down on the fgm, forced marriage etc. Thats off the top of my head, all better than collecting huge amounts of data on all citizens with no profiling.
Glib line used before to avoid taking on this issue that there is a moral difference between the two actions. You could have said that to equate both sides in WW2 (and don't pull Godwin's, I 'm not comparing anyone to the Hiltler). We've agreed before on matters in "Serious"
That wasn't meant to be funny, it was genuine sarcasm. The middle east has been a mess since the fall of the Ottoman Empire, sure the western countries did not help by messing with the left over but to blame us for everything is plain arrogance.
It doesn't exonerate us, however, they'd have a stronger case if they were not killing their own people. I've watched enough atrocities on liveleak to know that these guys (ISIS) do not give the slightest f*** about freedom for their people or building a better middle east for future generations. The only freedom they want is the freedom to kill, rape & destroy.
That people died in that war does not equate in any way to western foreign policy being to enslave anyone and kill the rest. Exactly who has been enslaved for a start, and what ethnic, religious or social group have the West attempted to genocide? Take down the hype level and make your point.
I never said anything about the West attempting to enslave or commit genocide... However ISIS has been relentlessly targeting minorities such as Yazidis, Turkmens, Kurds, Shabaks and others. They kill men and women become sex slaves.
Oh and these f*ckos coming back from their rape and torture jaunts in Syria and Iraq can get tried for high treason and rot somewhere for the rest of their lives. Ideally capture British born international terrorists over there, rather than give them martyrdom give them a cage.
I disagree. Let's unpack this. Morality is a social construct, concerning itself with conduct in a social context, i.e. affecting other beings. You cannot be (im)moral towards inanimate objects, or commit an (im)moral act if you're the only person on an uninhabited island. Another being has to be affected by your actions. From this follows that central to the morality of your actions are the consequences it has for others. Now you say that accidentally killing civilians in an attempt to kill terrorists is less bad than deliberately killing civilians, but there are two problems with that. First is that you argue that intentions matter. However intentions are internal to the person and have in themselves no social impact --intentions in themselves do not affect others; it is the actions that do. Intentions in themselves are mere ideas. When you argue that intentions have a moral weight, you are basically arguing that ideas have a moral weight, and you get into the domain of thought crime (and given how sloppily and emotively most people think... well, let's not go there). Moreover attributing some responsibility to the intention --which does not in itself have any impact on other beings-- takes away some responsibility from the action --which does very much have an impact on other beings. The danger is that you worry less about the very real consequences of your actions, than your intentions behind them, and that is a very egocentric and potentially dangerous thing to do. Basically, when you kill innocent civilians, you did a Bad Thing. It doesn't matter whether you meant to; whether you did it with the best of intentions; whether you did it out of hurt or grief. The result is the same. This is why we have the Hippocratic oath: First, do no harm. All doctors mean well, but intentions mean jack. What matters is that you don't actually harm the patient. Second, when you are saying that the killing of innocent civilians in an attempt to bomb terrorists is different from killing innocent civilians in a deliberate act to harm them, you are basically saying that there are different kinds of innocent civilian deaths, and therefore by implication, different kinds of innocent civilians. You get into categorical group-think: the deaths of one group is less unacceptable than the deaths of the other group. From there you easily slip into in-group (the same as us, and hence entitled to be treated according to the same rules) and out-group (different from us, and hence not entitled to be treated according to the same rules) dynamics (a.k.a. nationalism). That this thinking is fallacious is revealed when you consider the consequences from the point of view of the civilians and their families: dead is dead, grief is grief, anger is anger. When we start losing that perspective: that all civilians --all people, all lives-- are equal, and that therefore they are likely to experience things in similar ways and react to it in similar ways, we are playing into the philosophy of those we abhor.