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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Purgatory: New blasts in London
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Pulsator Organorum Ineptus:
This country has had a largely unarmed police force for a very long time. But the terrorists won't make us change our way of life. No, of course not. ![[Votive]](graemlins/votive.gif)
Actually this country has always had an armed police force. What it hasn't had - and still doesn't - is ordinary police carrying weapons about their ordinary business. Every police station had had its firearmsarms, right back to the 19th century. But most police aren;t issued with them on most days. The ones with the guns tend to be specialists. They have guns for specific duties. There were some police I knew in Sussex in the 1970s and 80s who routinely carried guns because of their duties - I remember bumping into one bloke who used to be at school with me at Gatwick Airport at about 2am & having a chat with him. He had a rifle. After the bomb that failed to kill Margaret Thatcher in Brighton there were police with guns all over the place. And of course there always were armed police round Parliament and other supposed political targets.
quote:
Originally posted by HopPik:
I don't know where you're from Rain Dog, but if you're a Londoner, haven't you caught how, for all the bravado, this city is wobbling on the edge of a precipice?
That really doesn't fit in with what I see round here.
quote:
Because this isn't like the IRA in the 70's, with their coded warnings and very occasional bombings.
Not that occasional and very, very professional. Unlike this latest lot. This is in some ways like that - not so much the 1970s as the 1980s I think.
quote:
If this is the start of a sustained campaign which simply aims to kill as many of us as possible as frequently as possible, in a densely populated city like this life could very quickly become untenable.
Why? Cities have taken much worse thatn this anf carried on. We managed to get through the Germans dropping tens of thousands of tons of bombs on us. Their city life just but survived us dropping hundreds of thousands of tons on them. The London Borough I live in - about 1/30th of the population of the city lost around 2,000 civilians in 1939-45. What we did to Hamburg is utterly out of scale to anything that's going on here nowadays, but they got their city back and working in a few months. Modern cities are very robust.
OK, wartime is a poor comparison - but if there was a bombing that killed 50 people every fortnight it would put the murder rather in London up to about what Houston and Baltimore and Detroit got to at their worst a few years ago, and less than some cities in the world.
One of the scary thinbgs about modern life is that current business technology and industrial production are so resilient that they are very hard to knock out. The phone system in Beirut lasted 15 years of civil war. Once upon a time such low-intensity wars were self-limiting because the economy woudl fail. Nowadays they can drag on and drag everyone into poverty with them.
quote:
Originally posted by RobinGoodfellow:
quote:
my fear is that its a sort of "gentle reminder"... like, "we did it once, we can do it again, despite all your security".
The gentle reminder is that a secular, multi-cultural state is an absurd ideology - an invention of the human mind - completely out of sync with nature and doomed to an ugly violent end.
And we'll take that as a gentlre eminder that the vile racist BNP trolls haven;t quite given up on this website. Or did you think we wouldn't spot you? You need to learn to be more original and nor parrot fascist propaganda if you want to pose as a normal, decent British person. Anyway, the evil old soak John Tyndall has relived the world of his presence and is now having to try to defend Hitler to God, instead of the British people that he and his like are parasites on.
quote:
Originally posted by The Wanderer:
I'm not criticicizing the police, and I hope that more information will come out in due time, but all of this makes me very uneasy. Someone being shot dead by the police - for whatever reason - in Britain? I'm not used to things happening like that here.
On average somewhere between 30 and 50 people are killed by the police in Britain each year. The vast majority in car crashes (police motorcyclists are amongst the best-trained road-users anywhere... police car drivers on the other hand...) But I don't ermember a year going by without one or two shootings. This is nowhere near the most egregious of them - that is probably the shameful killing of James Ashley (Also in Sussex - maybe our local cops were just more into guns than most of them)
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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Justinian
Shipmate
# 5357
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by RobinGoodfellow:
I agree - and that is a devastating rebuttal to those of use who worship her. Monotheism exists only because people cannot face the terrifying reality of nature - which is that killing needs no justification other than that "I am stronger" - and dying needs no explanation other than that "I am weaker".
Believe me, I would love to put a happy face on nature. But nature is real. The fevered constructions of your mind - are like vapors.
I thought that such simplistic ideas of social darwinism had gone out before I was born. Which animal rules this planet? Is it the elephant? One of the largest animals and one of the toughest? No. Is it the cheetah? One of the fastest and one of the fiercest? No. Does it have formidable strength and natural weapons? No. It is man- a social and organising animal which changes the world to suit its needs. The naked ape is not directly stronger than most creatures (and any social animal does need more of a reason to kill).
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My real name consists of just four letters, but in billions of combinations.
Eudaimonaic Laughter - my blog.
Posts: 3926 | From: The Sea Coast of Bohemia | Registered: Dec 2003
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Matt Black
Shipmate
# 2210
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Posted
I heard today that the man who fled was from a country where there are many gangs, and since the police were plain clothes, he might not have known and got scared and ran. All the way around, it is a tragedy and very unfortunate. But, on the other hand, sometimes these things do happen in high stress situations and I also don't think the police were just out to kill someone for kicks.
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"Protestant and Reformed, according to the Tradition of the ancient Catholic Church" - + John Cosin (1594-1672)
Posts: 14304 | From: Hampshire, UK | Registered: Jan 2002
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Sioni Sais
Shipmate
# 5713
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Posted
Latest on BBC.
So the man who was shot shouldn't perhaps have been here. That is a red herring IMHO as on that basis the plod could shoot half the young Aussies, Saffies and New Zealanders over here on "working holiday visas".
My main concern is that not long after the bombings on July 7th we heard that the intelligence services had no information to lead them to believe that any attack was likely. With G8 and the celebration to mark of the end of the Second World War in the same week as the bombings you would have expected the security services to have made a special effort.
In response to the bombings what has there been? I haven't heard about an enquiry into the shortcomings of intelligence gathering (which was the main problem with 9/11) but a change to the rules of engagement (one engagement under new rules and one innocent man dead so far) which looks to me like a kneejerk response, altering something that wasn't broken and not by the look of it doing something about what looks like inadequate intelligence penetration into the groups that are likely to carry out such attacks.
[ 25. July 2005, 11:15: Message edited by: Sioni Sais ]
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"He isn't Doctor Who, he's The Doctor"
(Paul Sinha, BBC)
Posts: 24276 | From: Newport, Wales | Registered: Apr 2004
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Flying_Belgian
Shipmate
# 3385
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Posted
GreyFace:
Of course there need to be questions asked particularly about the intelligence aspects (why was a Brazilian plumber wrongly diagnosed as a terrorist) and some of the operational decisions (why was he allowed to board a bus but not a tube train).
Indeed there are questions to be asked about how armed police engage terror suspects, whether better procedures can be put in place to avoid the kind of tragic misunderstandings that happened at Stockwell.
But this needs to take place in the context of London being targetted by suicide bombers. It's never possible to verify 100% in advance whether someone is a suicide bomber, and any hesistancy or delay in the process of challenging and disarming a suicide bomber would (if they were indeed a bomber) enable the terrorist to detonate their weapon.
We also need to remember the context of the shooting- it was not as if the police just randomly pulled the trigger on a regular member of the public as they walked down the street. The sitaution was that he was in a tube station, had ignoerd their instructions, had leapt over a ticket barrier and charged towards a train. From the point of view of the armed policemen who is told the guy is terrorist suspect, it's hard to think of what advice can be given other than to take the guy out.
I mean that in the most general sense- i.e. incapacitating the guy to the extent that he cannot let off a bomb. I think with current technlogy that its only really feasible to do by shooting the guy dead. If there are any lessons to be learned, its more general ones about procedure, to see if its possible to avoid "cornering" suspects in a position where their only line of escape is to a enclosed public space.
Posts: 984 | Registered: Oct 2002
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HopPik
Shipmate
# 8510
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
quote:
Originally posted by HopPik:
I don't know where you're from Rain Dog, but if you're a Londoner, haven't you caught how, for all the bravado, this city is wobbling on the edge of a precipice?
That really doesn't fit in with what I see round here.
quote:
Because this isn't like the IRA in the 70's, with their coded warnings and very occasional bombings.
Not that occasional and very, very professional. Unlike this latest lot. This is in some ways like that - not so much the 1970s as the 1980s I think.
quote:
If this is the start of a sustained campaign which simply aims to kill as many of us as possible as frequently as possible, in a densely populated city like this life could very quickly become untenable.
Why? Cities have taken much worse thatn this anf carried on. We managed to get through the Germans dropping tens of thousands of tons of bombs on us.
It's fair comment that I was a tad OTT there. Morning of the 21st I'd spent an age persuading our 13yr old that he couldn't avoid the tube for the rest of his life and even with bombers about it was no more dangerous than driving around town, this so that we could take a French exchange visitor who's with us at the moment to see the sights. We're just getting ready to go out when news comes through of the second wave of bombings, so from that point on I have a totally freaked son who never wants to ride the tube again and spend another age on the phone to Paris reassuring our visitor's parents that we won't let him get blown up.
So for "life" becoming untenable read "as we know it, Jim". And that's the "precipice" though the term was too emotive. What I have heard is a lot of people realising that if this goes on for any length of time, and one sober commentator was yesterday talking about a generation, we just won't be able to live our lives as we are used to, and want to. The IRA never achieved that, not even in Birmingham where I was living in the early 70's when they blew up three pubs in one evening, I don't remember the casualty figures but they must have been of the same order as 7/7.
What is the difference? Well firstly the threat was external, Ulster may be UK but I suspect most mainland Brits would be happy to push them off and let them drift across the Atlantic. These terrorists are domestic in every sense and virtually unidentifiable. Secondly, the IRA had an identifiable political objective. Islamist terrorists may cite some objectives, but the motivation seems much more a species of hatred that can only gain satisfaction with our deaths. And finally, the nature of the response - police never executed anyone on the tube during the IRA bombings - implies that the feeling I think a lot of us have that this is different and more threatening than anything in most of our lifetimes, has some reality.
But you're right, we'll cope with it. Just not in the kind of life we want to live.
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Never wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and supposedly the pig enjoys it. G.B. Shaw
Posts: 2084 | From: London | Registered: Sep 2004
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HairyOrangutan
Apprentice
# 5224
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
Latest on BBC.
So the man who was shot shouldn't perhaps have been here. That is a red herring IMHO as on that basis the plod could shoot half the young Aussies, Saffies and New Zealanders over here on "working holiday visas".
Not so much a red herring as an entirely predictable fact which is half the reason the police are at fault here.
Some people *do* have (what they think is) legitimate reason to fear the police. Whether it's an expired visa, an eighth of weed in their pocket, or a car stereo they've half-inched from down the road. (Not that I'm intending to equate the seriousness of any of these).
Any of these people might quite reasonably run away from approaching police. And unless you think that whatever minor wrong they might have done deserves the death penalty, then the police are going to have to remember this. Just because their suspect has something to hide, doesn't mean he's a suicide bomber.
(And I have especial sympathy for people with expired visas, in the current climate of Daily-Mail-inspired hatred, who might feel rather persecuted in the first place.)
Posts: 49 | From: Cambridge, UK | Registered: Nov 2003
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Flying_Belgian
Shipmate
# 3385
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Posted
HairyOrangUtan:
I don't advocate the death penalty for any offence, let alone the ones you mention.
If someone was shot simply for running away from the police with no reason to believe they were dangerous, this would be an outrage.
However, if a guy runs from armed police, directly into a tube station, leaping over a barrier and sprinting headlong for a train, then, given recent events, and the information available to the officers with the gun, then they have a right to take the action authorised by their superiors.
The way some people are talking, its as if the police suddenly pulled guns on some random punter walking down the street minding his own business. In this case, they told the guy to stop and he disobeyed them, and made a run for it towards a crowded public area, in the manner of the recent suicide attacks. I simply fail to see the point of having armed police on standby, if they aren't allowed to ever deploy their weapons. The threat of force has to be credible, and, in the context of the incident, if someone running towards a train having refused the orders to stop isn't grounds for deploying the weapons then I don't know what is.
Posts: 984 | Registered: Oct 2002
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scoticanus
Shipmate
# 5140
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Flying_Belgian:
if a guy runs from armed police, directly into a tube station, leaping over a barrier and sprinting headlong for a train, then, given recent events, and the information available to the officers with the gun, then they have a right to take the action authorised by their superiors.
The way some people are talking, its as if the police suddenly pulled guns on some random punter walking down the street minding his own business. In this case, they told the guy to stop and he disobeyed them, and made a run for it towards a crowded public area
But if they were in plain clothes, how was he to know that they were police officers?
Posts: 491 | From: Edinburgh, Scotland | Registered: Nov 2003
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GreyFace
Shipmate
# 4682
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Flying_Belgian:
in the context of the incident, if someone running towards a train having refused the orders to stop isn't grounds for deploying the weapons then I don't know what is.
What about having credible intelligence that the suspect had a bomb? Maybe actually had some links with militant Islamism?
Posts: 5748 | From: North East England | Registered: Jul 2003
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by HopPik:
What is the difference? Well firstly the threat was external, Ulster may be UK but I suspect most mainland Brits would be happy to push them off and let them drift across the Atlantic. These terrorists are domestic in every sense and virtually unidentifiable.
But the IRA - and the UDA and so on - are entirely unidentifiable amongst other British and Irish people because they are us. Maybe these present attackers can blend in with the minority but they can blend in to to majority.
In my normal daily life I could bump into people who supported the IRA (at least rhetorically) who would argue in their favour, who would raise money for them. I still do now and again. Entirely an internal threat.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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HairyOrangutan
Apprentice
# 5224
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Flying_Belgian:
The threat of force has to be credible, and, in the context of the incident, if someone running towards a train having refused the orders to stop isn't grounds for deploying the weapons then I don't know what is. [/QB]
I don't think I'm arguing against that. I think once it had got to the stage of the suspect leaping barriers and running towards a crowded train, then the police had little choice than to do what they did.
My complaint is rather that I'm not convinced the police did as much as they should have done to avoid getting into that situation in the first place.
Given that there are large numbers of people around who may run away from the police (hell, if a bunch of plainclothes people start waving guns at me while screaming, I'd have been tempted to run), then they should make damn well sure they go out of their way to not scare people into running. If they do end up making them run, they should make damn well sure they don't have the opportunity to run straight into a crowd (after all, if it had happened in the middle of Hyde Park with no one around, then there might have been no necessity to shoot him; suicide bomber or not.)
What if he had been a suicide bomber? They should have stopped him well before the station if they thought that was a possibility.
From the accounts of what happened so far, it seems not unreasonable to me to believe that the police had ample opportunity to avoid the tragic outcome that did occur. And it's that that they should be criticized for. Not for split-second decisions in the middle of the tube station.
(Of course, as always, I was not there, I am not a trained armed police officer etc. etc. But I don't think that means I can't have an opinion.)
Posts: 49 | From: Cambridge, UK | Registered: Nov 2003
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Rat
Ship's Rat
# 3373
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
In my normal daily life I could bump into people who supported the IRA (at least rhetorically) who would argue in their favour, who would raise money for them. I still do now and again. Entirely an internal threat.
I was related to someone (I think I can say this now as he is dead) who it later emerged was involved in gun running to the unionist paramilitaries during the 70s. How closely involved depends on who you talk to, but I'm pretty sure through him we probably met people socially who were far more deeply 'involved'.
Personally I didn't like him or his friends, but they didn't have horns, or scaly tails, or even speak with Irish accents. You'd have drunk with them down the pub with no problems, so long as you kept off one or two touchy subjects. A good hail-fellow-well-met bunch of blokes. You don't get much more of an internal threat than that.
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It's a matter of food and available blood. If motherhood is sacred, put your money where your mouth is. Only then can you expect the coming down to the wrecked & shimmering earth of that miracle you sing about. [Margaret Atwood]
Posts: 5285 | From: A dour region for dour folk | Registered: Oct 2002
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HopPik
Shipmate
# 8510
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by HairyOrangutan:
What if he had been a suicide bomber? They should have stopped him well before the station if they thought that was a possibility.
From the accounts of what happened so far, it seems not unreasonable to me to believe that the police had ample opportunity to avoid the tragic outcome that did occur. And it's that that they should be criticized for. Not for split-second decisions in the middle of the tube station.
(Of course, as always, I was not there, I am not a trained armed police officer etc. etc. But I don't think that means I can't have an opinion.)
No it doesn't mean that, but let me venture an alternative opinion. Police see someone leaving a suspect address and, for whatever reasons, suspect he is on a suicide mission. Do these people act alone? No, they usually work in a team whose members they meet up with. There might be others heading for a rendezvous, each of them set to kill any number of innocent people. So... follow him... until, getting off a bus and heading for a tube station, it's too much of a risk not to challenge him.
Just speculation. And that's really all our thoughts can be which is why, for myself, I find it quite offensive to be picking over the details of police actions from the comfort of my computer chair - those officers had to tackle a man who they believed might blow them all to pieces any second. The police are trying to defend a city of 8 million against a brand of terrorism which is different in kind to anything we have experienced. They have a lot to learn about what's happening and in the process some innocent people will get caught in the crossfire but for the time being, I think we need to let them get on with it. As my parents' generation used to say 60-plus years ago, there's a war on.
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Never wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and supposedly the pig enjoys it. G.B. Shaw
Posts: 2084 | From: London | Registered: Sep 2004
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HairyOrangutan
Apprentice
# 5224
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by HopPik:
They have a lot to learn about what's happening and in the process some innocent people will get caught in the crossfire but for the time being, I think we need to let them get on with it.
See, that's where we differ. I think we need to make sure that we keep a very close eye on them, make sure we keep informed of what's going on, what decisions are being made, and what the results of those decisions are.
The last thing we should be doing now is "letting them get on with it".
quote:
As my parents' generation used to say 60-plus years ago, there's a war on.
Maybe it's a generational difference. The first thing that springs to my mind is the fate of the Birmingham Six and the Guildford Four.
Posts: 49 | From: Cambridge, UK | Registered: Nov 2003
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Catrine
Shipmate
# 9811
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Rat:
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
In my normal daily life I could bump into people who supported the IRA (at least rhetorically) who would argue in their favour, who would raise money for them. I still do now and again. Entirely an internal threat.
I was related to someone (I think I can say this now as he is dead) who it later emerged was involved in gun running to the unionist paramilitaries during the 70s. How closely involved depends on who you talk to, but I'm pretty sure through him we probably met people socially who were far more deeply 'involved'.
Personally I didn't like him or his friends, but they didn't have horns, or scaly tails, or even speak with Irish accents. You'd have drunk with them down the pub with no problems, so long as you kept off one or two touchy subjects. A good hail-fellow-well-met bunch of blokes. You don't get much more of an internal threat than that.
Couldn't agree more. These people acted as normal members of the community, and would have been extremely civil to you, however, i don't understand how they could support the organisations whether loyalist or republican and sit and have a conversation with me. I am a regular member of the public and the guns, explosives, terrorists that they are ferrying around or believing that has a place in society could quite easily kill or hurt me or you.
Whilst I'm not expecting that the victims of the 30 year campaign in NI/UK were all saints, many were not actively involved in one side or the other but just bystanders. Similar with these bombings in London, no victim Im sure was perfect, but they all had equal rights to live which were cruelly snatched from them by people who considered their ideas to be more relevant than the right to use public transport without being killed or injured.
I guess what I am saying is, there is no cause worth killing for, I don't know how people who kill in the name of a united ireland or remaining part of britain or destroying the western civilisation can live with themselves.
Posts: 2614 | From: Midlands | Registered: Jul 2005
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Dave the Bass
Shipmate
# 155
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Flying_Belgian:
However, if a guy runs from armed police, directly into a tube station, leaping over a barrier and sprinting headlong for a train, then, given recent events, and the information available to the officers with the gun, then they have a right to take the action authorised by their superiors.
The question is not whether the police needed to take action to stop the guy - they did this by two of them pinning him to the floor of the tube train. It was only after this that one of the police emptied his gun into the suspect's head, and the question is whether he posed a threat while being held on the floor. It is this circumstance that makes the whole incident sound more like a summary execution than an attempt to apprehend a suspect.
Posts: 2162 | From: In a forest | Registered: May 2001
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Flying_Belgian
Shipmate
# 3385
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Posted
"A summary execution"? If you have any evidence to back up the claim that this was a deliberate cold blooded murder then lets hear it.
Standard practice for dealing with potential suicide bombers is that in the last resort, if they cannot be isolated and all other humans evacuated, and if there are no other means to disable them that you have to take their life, otherwise the bomb can still be exploded.
Your explanation makes it sound as if the policemen had callously decided to throw the best practice manual out of the window. This is manifestly not the case.
Posts: 984 | Registered: Oct 2002
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Callan
Shipmate
# 525
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Posted
Originally posted by Robin Goodfellow:
quote:
Well right, but you bias your response by using the term "political." Political organizations are unnatural - but organization itself is not. All animals organize themselves - and they do it without any culture. By and large they organize themselves acording to Darwinian principles designed to ensure their group survival. The impetus for that organization is in their nature. My claim is that humans have the same innate Darwinian nature.
Aristotle observed that man is a "political animal". Human beings are innately social. The organisation of human beings is what politics is. That is why we have monarchies, and aristocracies and oligarchies and timarchies and polities and democracies. They are all attempts to solve the problem: "what is the best form of social organisation". They are all, therefore, inherently political. The idea that one can have a form of social organisation which is based not on politics, in the broad sense of the word, but which is merely natural is not borne out by any society which has got beyond the hunter gatherer phase into an agrarian society and, frankly, I'm not sanguine about hunter-gatherers who can be a pretty diverse lot.
quote:
The Neanderthals who were suspicious of outsiders tended to survive and have children - those who lacked that suspicion tended to die young.
As we are not Neanderthals and our social arrangements, I imagine, bear scant relationship to theirs this seems somewhat irrelevant to the point at hand.
quote:
I think you are wrong about multiculturalism as a positive force. I think it is hubris thinking that what God made separate - you can mold into one. And even worse - to decide for yourself that such a thing - if you could do it - is good.
Which God are we talking about? The God revealed in Scripture and Tradition who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit calls all human beings into communion with Him and with one another. The Church is the greatest multi-cultural organisation in history. As a Christian I am united with people of every race and nation.
If by "God" you are referring to Wotan then that is a separate issue. But you would be hard pushed to suggest, based on the New Testament, that God is particularly concerned to keep cultures separate from one another.
quote:
Yes but these multicultural empires were not entered into voluntairily by the peoples they subdued - they were held together by the power of the gun [Tito's Yugoslavia and Stalin's Soviet Union are more recent examples].
The empires you cite never tried to supplant the indiginous population, culture, and faith with something else. They existed primarily to exploit the wealth and labor of those peoples.
Are only social arrangements entered into voluntarily by the governed "natural" then? This would mean that few forms of social organisation have ever been natural. Which makes the category natural pretty redundant for discussing social organisation.
quote:
The Bolshevik revolution however did declare the Orthodox faith to be its enemy. So does the modern secular democracy. You cannot have separate religions - particularly separate monotheisms - living together unless deep down - the believers in those religions put the secular democracy above their god. Gort never understood this - but that Islam refuses to do this means they cannot be dominated by secular democracy. Either we will live separately - or we will live in a Muslim nation under Islamic law.
On the contrary, one does not have to put one's loyalty to democracy above God. One merely has to accept that the civil power has a licit sphere in which it may operate. I can think of all kinds of circumstances in which my religion might oblige me to disobey the state but in most instances it tells me that the state has its own function for the common good.
Now clearly the Islamic world has a different take on this, but most Muslims in the UK are content with the democratic and constitutional arrangements here and are not minded to overthrow them in order to institute Sharia Law. Globally the majority of victims of Islamic fundamentalism are Muslims who, therefore, have no love for that species of Islam. Islam is not a monolithic bloc. There is no Islamic Pope who defines exactly what Islam is. It is a religion based on the interpretation of the Quran. There are a number of different forms of Islam and different schools of jurisprudence and thought within Islam. Many of them believe that some accomodation towards the concepts of constitutional government and human rights is both desirable and necessary and we should be strenghtening those forces and undermining those elements hostile to us, not indulging in paranoia about a monolithic bloc "Islam" out to destroy us.
quote:
Secular democracy sees real faith as its enemy - and it is right to do that - Christ is an enemy of the state - all states. Man cannot serve two masters.
So how do you reconcile that with St Paul's fairly clear teaching in Romans that the civil power wields the civil sword by God's ordinance.
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How easy it would be to live in England, if only one did not love her. - G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 9757 | From: Citizen of the World | Registered: Jun 2001
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Beenster
Shipmate
# 242
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Posted
quote:
It is this circumstance that makes the whole incident sound more like a summary execution than an attempt to apprehend a suspect.
It was a split second decision. It was a "do we shoot the suspect or do we risk dozens of people being killed / maimed" kind of decision.
I strongly doubt that the police were out to kill randomly - this killing will have set the hunt for suspects back badly, plus there will be additional fears in the future for the police (or SAS) of maybe not shooting a legitimate target - incase they are innocent.
I am so thankful I have a job where my errors do not cause loss of life.
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Mark Wuntoo
Shipmate
# 5673
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Posted
As I understand it the guy left his home, made a bus journey, got off at the tube - next thing he was running into the tube.
Where were the police whilst he was on the bus?
Could they (did they, and if not, why not) have got ahead of the bus ready to meet him (meanwhile alerting the bus authorities, perhaps)?
Why did they let him get near the tube? Surely they could and should have been in front of him, thus able to surround him, isolate him, whatever, and deal with the matter without shooting him?
There surely were not just four officers involved?
Of course, we don't know. This is why we need a very speedy investigation and full public account of what happened and why - let all the other Police Complaints Authority's enquiries wait. This is URGENT.
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Blessed are the cracked for they let in the light.
Posts: 1950 | From: Somewhere else. | Registered: Mar 2004
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The Scrumpmeister
Ship’s Taverner
# 5638
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mark Wuntoo:
Could they (did they, and if not, why not) have got ahead of the bus ready to meet him (meanwhile alerting the bus authorities, perhaps)?
Yes, why didn't they use their powers of telepathy to predict where he was going to get off the bus?
[damn work keyboard]
[ 25. July 2005, 15:38: Message edited by: Back-to-Front ]
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If Christ is not fully human, humankind is not fully saved. - St John of Saint-Denis
Posts: 14741 | From: Greater Manchester, UK | Registered: Mar 2004
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Nicolemr
Shipmate
# 28
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Posted
dear mr goodfellow, allow mer to tell you about my day yesterday.
i live in new york city, queens to be precise. my family (of mixed english, irish, scots, welsh, bavarian, prussian, danish, dutch french, polish-jew, and native american extraction) went to our local park for a picnic. as we came in we passed the large group of black, probably jamaican, cricket players, and settled down on our traditional red-checked picnic cloth. in front of us, somewhat down the slope, were a small asian family, teaching their young son how to ride a bike. alas, the bagpiper who practices in the park some times did not show up, but at 6 we had a concert of traditional irish music, starting out with a flag ceremony and the national anthem lead by a local girl scout troup. a part of the audience were a large group of, i think pakistani girls and women, twenty to thirty of all ages, who had set out a cloth, and were sitting around with their coffee maker, in traditional dress, very brightly colored and cheerful gauzy things. a few wore head scarves. after the concert, my daughter flew her radio controlled plane with her half korean, half italian best friend. a lovely day was had by all, as far as i can see, with no bloodshed, fights, or sectarian violence.
multiculturalism rocks. ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
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On pilgrimage in the endless realms of Cyberia, currently traveling by ship. Now with live journal!
Posts: 11803 | From: New York City "The City Carries On" | Registered: May 2001
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HopPik
Shipmate
# 8510
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Posted
It seems to me that what we have on this thread is occupiers of two different worlds.
Some live in the world of three weeks ago, where police weren't meant to shoot people without a clear and provable threat of danger, where they identified themselves with warrant cards before they arrested anyone, where nobody of goodwill and good intent should have had anything to fear from them. It wasn't perfect (ask an Irishman with a chair leg) but that is the world I wish I still lived in.
Others, me included, live in the post 7/7 world where there are at least four, very likely more, scarily perhaps many more potential suicide bombers at large in this city with access to explosives and intent on killing as many of us as they can and the police, with limited information or experience of this kind of threat, are doing their level best to protect us.
To each group, the other seems quite unreal, as seem to me suggestions that once a suicide bomber is pinned down he is no threat, or that police should positively identify themselves before challenging someone (so when the suspect is jumping over a tube barrier and bolting down an escelator they presumably wave their warrant cards at him and shout "Halt in the name of the law"?)
When I quoted my parents' generation, "there's a war on", I was making the point that there are crises when normal considerations have to be put on hold. It can only be, as I said, for the time being. I just think this is one of those times.
As for it being a generational thing, as I've said earlier, I was in Birmingham at the time of the pub bombings... and cheered when those wrongfully convicted were released. So I guess I straddle that divide at least. But there's a difference between a calculated fitting up, and an innocent death when police have to make split-second decisions with many lives at stake.
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Never wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and supposedly the pig enjoys it. G.B. Shaw
Posts: 2084 | From: London | Registered: Sep 2004
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Sioni Sais
Shipmate
# 5713
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Back-to-Front:
quote:
Originally posted by Mark Wuntoo:
Could they (did they, and if not, why not) have got ahead of the bus ready to meet him (meanwhile alerting the bus authorities, perhaps)?
Yes, why didn't they use their powers of telepathy to predict where he was going to get off the bus?
[damn work keyboard]
It's likely that there were police at Brixton and Stockwell underground stations (and others). If they had any reason to follow this one man they would have known his route. I would rather we stepped up intelligence gathering than give the police carte blanche to get their retaliation in first. The latter may get a few quick results and show how determined we are but I believe the former is the key to defeating terrorism.
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"He isn't Doctor Who, he's The Doctor"
(Paul Sinha, BBC)
Posts: 24276 | From: Newport, Wales | Registered: Apr 2004
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Papio
Ship's baboon
# 4201
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Posted
quote:
Originally Posted by Rat
Who knows what his reasons were for running?
No-one. But given that he probably did not know that his pursuers where police, and that all the police seem to have had to say is that he "looked like a terrorist" and that his death was "regrettable", I know whom my sympathy rests with.
quote:
Originally posted by RobinGoodFellow
One doesn't need morality to get people to act in the interest of their neighbors - simple humanity will do. But the lowest depths of hell is for those who sell their childrens inheritance on the promises of some "christian" preacher or capitalist or anti-western bigot telling us we are doing Good.
Nice to see that you don't rant, Goodfellow.
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Infinite Penguins.
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Posts: 12176 | From: a zoo in England. | Registered: Mar 2003
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RuthW
liberal "peace first" hankie squeezer
# 13
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by RobinGoodfellow:
quote:
Originally posted by RuthW:
The problem with your approval of the Neanderthals' suspicion of outsiders, Robingoodfellow, is that the Neanderthals' choices don't exactly constitute a moral standard, whereas Christianity encourages us to extend hospitality to the strangers who come among us (Matthew 25, I believe).
Correct. Nature is not moral. Morality is a virus contracted by civilizations in their last stages when men listen to their heads rather than the trees.
But I don't think that's what you mean - I hope not. Because you seem decent enough to be misled but not malevolent enough to mislead.
First, I could do without the personal comments. Confine yourself to remarking upon what I have said, or you will find yourself on the very unpleasant end of a calling to Hell.
quote:
2,000 years ago in Palestine - the hospitality one extended to someone on the road was personal and human - not political. Today it is invoked by those who hate western civilization to sell a political, capitalist, and secular agenda to the gentiles. Feeding a traveler and opening the borders to a culturally and environmentally hostile nation are entirely different things.
The personal is political. And before you go off on feminists, I refer you to the parable of the Good Samaritan.
quote:
When nature appears to be moral it is a tribal, personal, and pragmatic response which provides for the survival of the group. The only morality in nature is that which derives from a bio-social response to tribal self-interest.
I'm still waiting for your answer to Dave W.'s question of how you decide what is "natural" and what is "unnatural." You appear to be making a lot of assumptions about what these things are, and I rather doubt that these assumptions will stand up to close inspection.
[ 25. July 2005, 15:57: Message edited by: Callan ]
Posts: 24453 | From: La La Land | Registered: Apr 2001
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Nicolemr
Shipmate
# 28
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Posted
its quite simple. whats "natural" is sitting naked in trees eating raw food, with no tools beyond maybe a stick to pry termites out of their mound.
not my cup of tea, thank you.
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On pilgrimage in the endless realms of Cyberia, currently traveling by ship. Now with live journal!
Posts: 11803 | From: New York City "The City Carries On" | Registered: May 2001
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Papio
Ship's baboon
# 4201
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Posted
Fascism has always had a pro-nature strain, unfortunately.
As ken said, all this stuff about "nature" and how awful liberalism is and how multicultralism is the spawn of Belial is really just a re-statement of a certain brand of far-right ideaology, so far as I can see. At least, it is indeed that in the form it presents itself on here...
Cuts no ice with me at all.
And I'm afraid that the idea that "everything" is completely different post 7/7 does indeed seem "unreal" to me, HopPik. I'm not sure what else I can add to that observation, however.
[ 25. July 2005, 16:07: Message edited by: Papio. ]
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Infinite Penguins.
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Posts: 12176 | From: a zoo in England. | Registered: Mar 2003
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Mark Wuntoo
Shipmate
# 5673
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Posted
Back-to-Front, you missed it.
Sioni Sais, you got it.
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Blessed are the cracked for they let in the light.
Posts: 1950 | From: Somewhere else. | Registered: Mar 2004
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scoticanus
Shipmate
# 5140
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by HopPik:
To each group, the other seems quite unreal, as seem to me suggestions that once a suicide bomber is pinned down he is no threat, or that police should positively identify themselves before challenging someone (so when the suspect is jumping over a tube barrier and bolting down an escelator they presumably wave their warrant cards at him and shout "Halt in the name of the law"?)
HopPik, I agree with much of what you say and found this a helpful and perceptive post, but I also know that if a group of men in ordinary clothes started chasing me and yelling at me in a tube station, or anywhere else, I would run as fast as I possibly could, jump any barriers, etc, to get away from them. How on earth could I possibly know that they were police officers and not thugs or muggers?
Posts: 491 | From: Edinburgh, Scotland | Registered: Nov 2003
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by HopPik:
It seems to me that what we have on this thread is occupiers of two different worlds.
Some live in the world of three weeks ago, where police weren't meant to shoot people without a clear and provable threat of danger, where they identified themselves with warrant cards before they arrested anyone, where nobody of goodwill and good intent should have had anything to fear from them.
I think I see the difference. I always thought that the main, not the only, function of the police was to excercise social control in order to perpetuate the state. Not the only function - even the KGB sometimes used to catch real criminals and actually defend people against them. And I always thought the police and other organs of the state were capable both or incompetant and random violence (anyone remember the battle of the beanfield?) and of competant, effective, but illegal violence.
And I always thought there were nasty people out there who wouls glady kill us all - or not care if they did.
So this new world you have discovered isn't a shock because its the one some of us have always lived in. A shock our culture went through in 1914 and 1915 when we realised we were no better than previous generations, that we could descend to ruthless and bloody mass murder.
quote:
When I quoted my parents' generation, "there's a war on", I was making the point that there are crises when normal considerations have to be put on hold. It can only be, as I said, for the time being. I just think this is one of those times.
Not yet it isn't. There isn't a war on. This is nothing compared with the world wars, and its absurd to talk as if it was. We aren't there yet. Maybe we never will be.
Its not particularly a big deal compared to what went on in Serbia and Croatia and Bosnia ten years ago, or a dozen countries in Africa.
It's not even anthing very significant compared to 9/11 - I find the egregious attempt to recruit the emotions of that disaster by such nonsense as "7/7" rather unpleasant.
Things are nasty enough without exagerrating how nasty they are. This isn't the worst thing to happen here in modern history. Not even in our lifetimes. We don't need apocalyptic to deal with this.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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Papio
Ship's baboon
# 4201
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
quote:
Originally posted by HopPik:
It seems to me that what we have on this thread is occupiers of two different worlds.
Some live in the world of three weeks ago, where police weren't meant to shoot people without a clear and provable threat of danger, where they identified themselves with warrant cards before they arrested anyone, where nobody of goodwill and good intent should have had anything to fear from them.
I think I see the difference. I always thought that the main, not the only, function of the police was to excercise social control in order to perpetuate the state. Not the only function - even the KGB sometimes used to catch real criminals and actually defend people against them. And I always thought the police and other organs of the state were capable both or incompetant and random violence (anyone remember the battle of the beanfield?) and of competant, effective, but illegal violence.
And I always thought there were nasty people out there who wouls glady kill us all - or not care if they did.
So this new world you have discovered isn't a shock because its the one some of us have always lived in. A shock our culture went through in 1914 and 1915 when we realised we were no better than previous generations, that we could descend to ruthless and bloody mass murder.
Yes, ken, I remember the Battle of the Beanfield...
I have a friend who was there at the time and was not a member of the police...
See, this is the thing HopPik. The reason that I see that claim that everything has changed as unreal is that nothing has changed. There are bombs in London, some people are exploiting that to their own advantage, some (and I stress some) of the police are corrupt and/or incompetant.
What's new?
Answer: not much.
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Infinite Penguins.
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Posts: 12176 | From: a zoo in England. | Registered: Mar 2003
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HairyOrangutan
Apprentice
# 5224
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Posted
I just wrote a long reply, looked down and found Ken had said everything I was about to.
This is not a new thing. It's always been the case that suicide bombers could kill lots of people. That's the nature of the modern world.
It's also the case that there is nothing we can do about it. Really, absolutely nothing. If someone wants to kill themselves and take a hundred people with them, they will. They'll go to Trafalgar square in the middle of a sunny day, or they'll stand in the queue outside Madame Tussauds, or the middle of Leicester Square on a Friday night.
So either we can deal with this as a fact of life, and go on living our lives anyway, or we can descend into panic and construct a neo-fascist police state where innocent people being shot to death is an unfortunate necessity.
I know which I prefer. (and, incidentally, I know which I think will be more effective at preventing future events of this nature, but that's another argument.)
Posts: 49 | From: Cambridge, UK | Registered: Nov 2003
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HopPik
Shipmate
# 8510
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Papio.:
And I'm afraid that the idea that "everything" is completely different post 7/7 does indeed seem "unreal" to me, HopPik. I'm not sure what else I can add to that observation, however.
I've not said "everything" at all - just certain things connected with public safety. However "everything" might well be different if we don't allow the police to deal with that.
Truth is most of what I've said on this thread comes from my irritation/anger at armchair moralists passing judgement on police officers who had to deal with a situation where from what they had seen, they and everyone around could have been blown to pieces at any moment. Did they shoot that man for the fun of it? Do policemen who carry arms not care about protecting the innocent?
I think any more I say on the subject would be more appropriate to hell, and there's been enough of that IRL recently. So I'm out of this.
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Never wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and supposedly the pig enjoys it. G.B. Shaw
Posts: 2084 | From: London | Registered: Sep 2004
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Dave the Bass
Shipmate
# 155
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Flying_Belgian:
"A summary execution"? If you have any evidence to back up the claim that this was a deliberate cold blooded murder then lets hear it.
I don't, which is why I never made such a claim.
This is what I said, referring to the actual shooting itself rather than the surrounding details:
quote:
It is this circumstance that makes the whole incident sound more like a summary execution than an attempt to apprehend a suspect.
quote:
Your explanation makes it sound as if the policemen had callously decided to throw the best practice manual out of the window. This is manifestly not the case.
No, but I do think that the man who pulled the trigger allowed the intensity of the situation to overrule his training. The best practice manual went out of the window, but as a result of panic and "red mist" rather than from a callous disregard of justice.
Posts: 2162 | From: In a forest | Registered: May 2001
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HopPik
Shipmate
# 8510
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dave the Bass:
No, but I do think that the man who pulled the trigger allowed the intensity of the situation to overrule his training.
Gosh I just get pulled back to this. D the B, can you not see the arrogance, presumption of a statement like that? What do you know of that officer's training, of his state of mind at the time? What do you know of what he thought he was doing? Have you ever been in a position where you have to do your duty in a state of danger? The only time I came near to that, and it's paltry in comparison, was as a teacher when I had to help clear kids out of a burning school building. Standing at a junction of corridors, propelling them in the right direction with the fire roaring and cracking in the roofspace above my head. When I walked round the next day, the place I'd been standing was a mass of debris that had fallen through, I don't know how long after I left. But in that kind of situation you're in professional mode, doing your job as well you can and I'm sure that's exactly how those police were.
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Never wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and supposedly the pig enjoys it. G.B. Shaw
Posts: 2084 | From: London | Registered: Sep 2004
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lapsed heathen
Hurler on the ditch
# 4403
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Posted
quote:
No, but I do think that the man who pulled the trigger allowed the intensity of the situation to overrule his training. The best practice manual went out of the window,
I dunno Dave, police have earpieces and someone gave an order to shoot, if it was a red mist situation the disinformation would not have been so quick. No, something went wrong, my guess is the intel was rubbish or exaggerated or misheard.
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"We are the Easter people and our song is Alleluia"
Posts: 1361 | From: Marble county | Registered: Apr 2003
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RuthW
liberal "peace first" hankie squeezer
# 13
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Posted
Or the intel was good and everyone followed the manual to the letter and this happened anyway. Because things like this happen.
Posts: 24453 | From: La La Land | Registered: Apr 2001
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RobinGoodfellow
Apprentice
# 9236
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Callan:
[QUOTE]
Aristotle observed that man is a "political animal". Human beings are innately social.
OK - the political is natural - everything is natural since everything occurs in nature. Fine.
I would like to point out that on more than one occasion God has decided to throw down political organizations He didn't like. Do you really think He can be argued with?
quote:
"what is the best form of social organisation".
Just my opinion - but if you have to force your form of political organization on other societies with bombs, guns, and propaganda - you are working against nature.
quote:
They are all, therefore, inherently political. The idea that one can have a form of social organisation which is based not on politics, in the broad sense of the word, but which is merely natural is not borne out by any society which has got beyond the hunter gatherer phase into an agrarian society and, frankly, I'm not sanguine about hunter-gatherers who can be a pretty diverse lot.
So I take it you like the empire-builders form of society?
Could you at least concede that not everyone equates capitalism with heaven - and those who do not, should be expected to fight back.
quote:
As we are not Neanderthals and our social arrangements, I imagine, bear scant relationship to theirs this seems somewhat irrelevant to the point at hand.
But we are a part of nature.
quote:
Which God are we talking about? The God revealed in Scripture and Tradition who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit calls all human beings into communion with Him and with one another. The Church is the greatest multi-cultural organisation in history. As a Christian I am united with people of every race and nation.
It is indeed - we agree there. So, if it is Christianity that is under attack here - should it be defended in the name of multiculturalism - or abandoned in the name of multiculturalism?
I wait in vain for those of you who call yourselves Christian to defend your faith. What's wrong? Why are your churches empty?
quote:
If by "God" you are referring to Wotan then that is a separate issue.
I'm not. I just think nature is stronger than man. I don't have a problem with God or gods - but morality is dangerous - because "whose morality?" is a very good question in a multicultural society.
quote:
But you would be hard pushed to suggest, based on the New Testament, that God is particularly concerned to keep cultures separate from one another.
In Genesis I see an example of God's deliberate separation of peoples.
He was right you know. When we get together we do think we are better than He. We think we know a better way to organize the world.
quote:
Are only social arrangements entered into voluntarily by the governed "natural" then? This would mean that few forms of social organisation have ever been natural.
No - this is important!! I believe that traditional societies are entered into voluntarily - by all - even those whom you would judge as having inferior status in such a society.
I have no problem with giving people the right to opt out. It is my opponents who have a problem with giving people the right to opt in.
quote:
So how do you reconcile that with St Paul's fairly clear teaching in Romans that the civil power wields the civil sword by God's ordinance.
OK - so all civil authority should be followed. Right?
Look let's get back to the point. The London bombings were an attack on you - not me. Defend yourself - or die. My weakness is that I care. I need to get over that.
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The People of the Hills have all left...little people, pishogues, leprechauns, night-riders, pixies, nixies, gnomes, and the rest—gone, all gone! I came into England with Oak, Ash, and Thorn, and when Oak, Ash, and Thorn are gone I shall go too.’
Posts: 44 | From: Pennsylvania, USA | Registered: Mar 2005
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John Holding
Coffee and Cognac
# 158
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Posted
Robin
God didn't tell black cats not to mix with white cats -- or even Manx not to mix with Burmese. And that is the proper parallel to -- well, not ENglish, because that's already a mongrel and therefore a contrary-to-God kind of thing as I understand your position -- let's say, arab and chinese mix. Black and white cats, you see, like arab and chinese, are all variants descended from the same original source.
If you want to talk about what God has forbidden (though I would personally not impute to God some of the things you seem to be happy to) I suppose you could look at dogs and cats mixing. On one level that's impossible, no matter how hard they try. But no-one's talking about humans mixing with -- goats? On another it's perfectly possible, since cats and dogs can co-exist perfectly happily in the same house, doing their catly and doggy things without in any way harming each other.
John
Posts: 5929 | From: Ottawa, Canada | Registered: May 2001
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Dave the Bass
Shipmate
# 155
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by HopPik:
quote:
Originally posted by Dave the Bass:
No, but I do think that the man who pulled the trigger allowed the intensity of the situation to overrule his training.
Gosh I just get pulled back to this. D the B, can you not see the arrogance, presumption of a statement like that? What do you know of that officer's training, of his state of mind at the time? What do you know of what he thought he was doing?
I don't know anything of his state of mind. Like the rest of us I'm trying to make sense of an awful situation. But I'm sure that the inquiry into this incident will look very carefully at what the officer was thinking, and comparing his reaction to the situation to the training he has received.
quote:
Have you ever been in a position where you have to do your duty in a state of danger? The only time I came near to that, and it's paltry in comparison, was as a teacher when I had to help clear kids out of a burning school building. Standing at a junction of corridors, propelling them in the right direction with the fire roaring and cracking in the roofspace above my head. When I walked round the next day, the place I'd been standing was a mass of debris that had fallen through, I don't know how long after I left. But in that kind of situation you're in professional mode, doing your job as well you can and I'm sure that's exactly how those police were.
You clearly acted with great courage and professionalism, and I'm sure that most police do the same most of the time. But to take a different example, police drivers are given lots of training before they are allowed to engage in high-speed chases, and this emphasises the need to remain calm, to consider the safety of other people, and to balance the risks of an accident against the benefit of catching the particular suspect. Even so, there have been plenty of cases where adrenalin has kicked in and the training is forgotten, sometimes with tragic results.
Firearms training must involve the same questions, but with even more urgency, and only those officers able to remain calm under this sort of pressure will be allowed to carry guns. Even so, it's impossible to be sure how anyone will react in a given situation, and I think that this may be one situation in which the pressure was so great that one officer made a mistake which he will regret for the rest of his life. The alternative explanation is that this man came up to a suspect being pinned to the floor by two colleagues, and calmly and professionally, in accordance with his training, fired eight bullets into him. Personally, I find that a more chilling proposition.
Posts: 2162 | From: In a forest | Registered: May 2001
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Rain Dog
Shipmate
# 4085
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by HopPik:
Did they shoot that man for the fun of it? Do policemen who carry arms not care about protecting the innocent?
You're going OTT again here - of course they should (hopefully) care about protecting the innocent but one of these innocents is dead with 7 bullets in his head and another somewhere else. Now in this case they have failed in the most ignomious fashion and may have let their professional judgment slip to that of intense paranoia (that seems to have gripped quite a few people since 7/7). The French "human bomb" hostage taker was armed and rigged with explosives - the French police only shot him twice in the head. This time we get 8 bullets for someone they had no concrete proof to be a bomber. Seems a little like something has gone wrong.
I'm no specialist but given that the man was immobilised on the ground (according to most reports) couldn't the butt of the gun have been used to knock the guy unconscious?
[ 25. July 2005, 23:52: Message edited by: Rain Dog ]
Posts: 620 | Registered: Feb 2003
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HopPik
Shipmate
# 8510
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Rain Dog:
quote:
Originally posted by HopPik:
Did they shoot that man for the fun of it? Do policemen who carry arms not care about protecting the innocent?
You're going OTT again here - of course they should (hopefully) care about protecting the innocent but one of these innocents is dead with 7 bullets in his head and another somewhere else.
Yes we know that - the question is what else could have been done. And I have to tell you, I find it uniquely offensive to be comparing the numbers of bullets the British and French think necessary to kill a terrorist.
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Never wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and supposedly the pig enjoys it. G.B. Shaw
Posts: 2084 | From: London | Registered: Sep 2004
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by HopPik:
Yes we know that - the question is what else could have been done. And I have to tell you, I find it uniquely offensive to be comparing the numbers of bullets the British and French think necessary to kill a terrorist.
Please, a suspected terrorist.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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HopPik
Shipmate
# 8510
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Posted
I also feel that to use the term "ignominious" about police conduct in any respect over the last couple of weeks is fairly... ignominious? Misuse of the term perhaps but you get my drift.
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Never wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and supposedly the pig enjoys it. G.B. Shaw
Posts: 2084 | From: London | Registered: Sep 2004
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HopPik
Shipmate
# 8510
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by HopPik:
Yes we know that - the question is what else could have been done. And I have to tell you, I find it uniquely offensive to be comparing the numbers of bullets the British and French think necessary to kill a terrorist.
Please, a suspected terrorist.
Quite right mouse, I stand corrected - I was thinking in general terms there, not about this particular case.
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Never wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and supposedly the pig enjoys it. G.B. Shaw
Posts: 2084 | From: London | Registered: Sep 2004
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
Fair enough.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Dave W.
Shipmate
# 8765
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by RobinGoodfellow:
quote:
Originally posted by Callan:
Are only social arrangements entered into voluntarily by the governed "natural" then? This would mean that few forms of social organisation have ever been natural.
No - this is important!! I believe that traditional societies are entered into voluntarily - by all - even those whom you would judge as having inferior status in such a society.
I have no problem with giving people the right to opt out. It is my opponents who have a problem with giving people the right to opt in.
In a previous post, I asked how you draw the distinction between "natural behavior" and "unnatural behavior". It seems the terminology has shifted, but I think my question still applies: what's the distinction you're drawing between "traditional societies" and "nontraditional societies"?
Is the supposed voluntary association described above the defining characteristic? Are there others? Can you provide some examples of these societies, please?
Posts: 2059 | From: the hub of the solar system | Registered: Nov 2004
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RuthW
liberal "peace first" hankie squeezer
# 13
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by HopPik:
When I quoted my parents' generation, "there's a war on", I was making the point that there are crises when normal considerations have to be put on hold. It can only be, as I said, for the time being. I just think this is one of those times.
I don't know what kind of rhetoric you're getting there in the UK, but we get a lot of rhetoric about the "war on terrorism" here in the US. When I hear people talking about there being a war on, even if they only mean it metaphorically, I feel like the Bush administration has won a round in the battle of the rhetoric.
Of course, the whole point of the war on terrorism is to right it over there so we don't have to fight over here. So much for that, eh? If Londoners aren't safe from terrorism, I have a hard time thinking Angelenos are.
Your reasoning, HopPik, is the reasoning used to deprive Japanese Americans of their rights as citizens during World War II. Their property was confiscated and they were interned in camps for the duration of the war. Except, of course, for the ones in the armed forces.
Posts: 24453 | From: La La Land | Registered: Apr 2001
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