6 ms·

Why are western nations retreating from any semblance of the moral high ground?

by hdfbdtbcdg 7y ago

moose462 7y ago
It's our moral high ground that stops us from killing the terrorist or letting him starve himself to death.
- user982 7y ago
  It's your moral high ground that keeps him alive so you can torture him by forcing ground food into his rectum using the largest, most painful, and most damaging tubes available as a form of "total behavior control" (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2014/dec/09/cia-report-rectal-feeding-detainees https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2014/dec/09/cia-report-r...).
- jdietrich 7y ago
  That's an extremely low bar, particularly when you consider the detention conditions of Anders Breivik. Norway imprisoned Breivik in the most comfortable conditions possible; in doing so, they neutered his message. They showed that he was weak and they were strong. They took someone who could have been a far-right martyr and turned him into a pathetic figure, slowly fading into irrelevance in a gilded cage. That's what real power looks like - no fear, no anger, no hatred, just the calm machinations of a compassionate state. By choosing not to retaliate, the Norwegian government demonstrated the futility of Breivik's actions with perfect clarity. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-35813470 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-35813470
  - qualitator 7y ago
    compassionate I think you mean dispassionate. By your own words, there is a calculated effect, decoupled from the emotional aspects of radical events. Additionally, it might just be that there is no rehabilitation in the cards, and only stalemate in the equation between the two players.
- pmoriarty 7y ago
  "It's our moral high ground that stops us from killing the terrorist or letting him starve himself to death." The US kills alleged terrorists (or allegedly suspected terrorists) all the time via drone bombings and various other military actions, and has also killed them in captivity -- all this usually without any kind of trial. As for keeping them from starving to death, the prisoners seem to prefer to die of starvation rather than be tortured in prison for the rest of their lives. In this case, letting them die may be less cruel than forcing them to live. Not to mention that force feeding is itself a form of torture. There is no moral high ground here.
- ilikehurdles 7y ago
  The prisoners want to starve themselves to death because they are being tortured indefinitely by "moral high ground" people.
- PhasmaFelis 7y ago
  Force-feeding hunger strikers is the opposite of "moral high ground." If you're a jailer, and a prisoner dies in your care, then there may be questions asked, there may be accountability. You don't want that. As long as you can keep them more or less alive, it's a lot easier to piously claim the moral high ground while doing basically whatever you want to them. It's propaganda. It's not done because we value their lives, but specifically because we don't.
Nasrudith 7y ago
Because they were used to eating their cake and having it too and they chose to keep acting evil when transparency made them unable to hide as well.
x86_64Ubuntu 7y ago
We aren't retreating from anything, it's just that in this political climate it's hard to continue to scream about moral high ground when the reality always seems to come crashing through.
mikeash 7y ago
It’s just exposure and acceptance (or lack thereof). Fifty years ago we (the US) were carpet bombing neutral countries as part of a bloody war to prop up a brutal dictatorship. Around the same time, we were shooting protestors and systematically shutting minorities out of civic involvement. A couple of decades before that, we put a hundred thousand innocent civilians in concentration camps because of their ancestry. Less than a century before that, “the land of the free” had laws allowing people to buy and sell other people. And slavery was never really ended: the 13th Amendment has a big fat exception for prisoners, which we’ve taken advantage of ever since. What’s different now is that we find out what’s happening more quickly and in a way that makes more people take notice.
- mirimir 7y ago
  I don't know about "western nations" generally, but "American exceptionalism" is well known. And about TFA, millions of prisoners, mostly male and mostly black, suffer in arguably worse conditions. Especially, I gather from a recently posted article, prisoners in county jails.
Ill_ban_myself 7y ago
Why is western news media intentionally muddying the waters of public perception by comparing an American blacksite to everything in a sensationalist manner? Let's save, "Nazi" and "Guantanamo" for the men who did the deeds.
ionised 7y ago
$$$$

Why are western nations retreating from any semblance of the moral high ground?

moose462 7y ago

It's our moral high ground that stops us from killing the terrorist or letting him starve himself to death.

user982 7y ago
It's your moral high ground that keeps him alive so you can torture him by forcing ground food into his rectum using the largest, most painful, and most damaging tubes available as a form of "total behavior control" (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2014/dec/09/cia-report-rectal-feeding-detainees https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2014/dec/09/cia-report-r...).
jdietrich 7y ago
That's an extremely low bar, particularly when you consider the detention conditions of Anders Breivik. Norway imprisoned Breivik in the most comfortable conditions possible; in doing so, they neutered his message. They showed that he was weak and they were strong. They took someone who could have been a far-right martyr and turned him into a pathetic figure, slowly fading into irrelevance in a gilded cage. That's what real power looks like - no fear, no anger, no hatred, just the calm machinations of a compassionate state. By choosing not to retaliate, the Norwegian government demonstrated the futility of Breivik's actions with perfect clarity. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-35813470 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-35813470
- qualitator 7y ago
  compassionate I think you mean dispassionate. By your own words, there is a calculated effect, decoupled from the emotional aspects of radical events. Additionally, it might just be that there is no rehabilitation in the cards, and only stalemate in the equation between the two players.
pmoriarty 7y ago
"It's our moral high ground that stops us from killing the terrorist or letting him starve himself to death." The US kills alleged terrorists (or allegedly suspected terrorists) all the time via drone bombings and various other military actions, and has also killed them in captivity -- all this usually without any kind of trial. As for keeping them from starving to death, the prisoners seem to prefer to die of starvation rather than be tortured in prison for the rest of their lives. In this case, letting them die may be less cruel than forcing them to live. Not to mention that force feeding is itself a form of torture. There is no moral high ground here.
ilikehurdles 7y ago
The prisoners want to starve themselves to death because they are being tortured indefinitely by "moral high ground" people.
PhasmaFelis 7y ago
Force-feeding hunger strikers is the opposite of "moral high ground." If you're a jailer, and a prisoner dies in your care, then there may be questions asked, there may be accountability. You don't want that. As long as you can keep them more or less alive, it's a lot easier to piously claim the moral high ground while doing basically whatever you want to them. It's propaganda. It's not done because we value their lives, but specifically because we don't.

Nasrudith 7y ago

Because they were used to eating their cake and having it too and they chose to keep acting evil when transparency made them unable to hide as well.

x86_64Ubuntu 7y ago

We aren't retreating from anything, it's just that in this political climate it's hard to continue to scream about moral high ground when the reality always seems to come crashing through.

mikeash 7y ago

It’s just exposure and acceptance (or lack thereof). Fifty years ago we (the US) were carpet bombing neutral countries as part of a bloody war to prop up a brutal dictatorship. Around the same time, we were shooting protestors and systematically shutting minorities out of civic involvement. A couple of decades before that, we put a hundred thousand innocent civilians in concentration camps because of their ancestry. Less than a century before that, “the land of the free” had laws allowing people to buy and sell other people. And slavery was never really ended: the 13th Amendment has a big fat exception for prisoners, which we’ve taken advantage of ever since. What’s different now is that we find out what’s happening more quickly and in a way that makes more people take notice.

mirimir 7y ago
I don't know about "western nations" generally, but "American exceptionalism" is well known. And about TFA, millions of prisoners, mostly male and mostly black, suffer in arguably worse conditions. Especially, I gather from a recently posted article, prisoners in county jails.

Ill_ban_myself 7y ago

Why is western news media intentionally muddying the waters of public perception by comparing an American blacksite to everything in a sensationalist manner? Let's save, "Nazi" and "Guantanamo" for the men who did the deeds.

ionised 7y ago

$$$$