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And politics. It's happening right now. There is currently a bit of a debate in Canada as to whether we should be joining the US and its allies in fighting the
by tjradcliffe 12y ago
And politics. It's happening right now.
There is currently a bit of a debate in Canada as to whether we should be joining the US and its allies in fighting the Islamic State, and all three of these are being heavily deployed by those in favour:
1) we must act now!
2) experts agree!
3) every decent person agrees IS must be stopped!
There hasn't been any deployment of physically attractive accomplices, although I guess that's pretty much what the Liberal's use of Justin Trudeau in opposition amounts to.
The difficulty is that none of these are actual arguments in favour of the proposed strategy. I am generally opposed to military intervention--because it rarely works and it kills people and costs enormous amounts of money and rarely works--but can see there may be a case to be made here. Unfortunately, by using what are widely recognized as scammer's tactics, the government has alienated itself from any evidence-based support (this would not be a first, for this government nor any of its predecessors.)
It would be lovely to see the actual merits of the mission debated, but it is clear that both the opposition and the government are interested only in deploying scammer's tactics in support of their favoured side.
- SilasX 12y agoSame exact thing happened with the '08 bailouts in the US, which Americans were strongly against. There must be some general mechanism by which the most powerful influencers get their act together when they need to. And now I'm sounding uncomfortably similar to conspiracy theorists ...
- 001sky 12y agoGood analysis. The corralary to all this seems to be politically correctness: make the debate appear decided and inarguable before an actual conversation is held. This pre-emptive form of poisoning the well so to speak has proven highly effective when (1), (2), and (3) conclude the topic cannot be opposed by "any reasonable man of [faith/science/progressive values etc].
- ams6110 12y agoSounds like climate change advocacy too.
- Terr_ 12y agoToo much emphasis on number-crunching and bespectacled professors. Needs more think-of-the-children.
- agumonkey 12y agojon stewart trying to summarize all of these http://thedailyshow.cc.com/videos/ysfr9u/a-million-ways-to-die-in-the-u-s- http://thedailyshow.cc.com/videos/ysfr9u/a-million-ways-to-d...
- jqm 12y agoIndeed. The rush to war again and again appears to be a very good example of scams in motion. Rather than focusing on emotional issues (which of course is what we are supposed to be focusing on), view the economics of the situation, and decide who gains from certain actions on the part of the US military. I'm not saying ISIS isn't bad. But they don't benefit from antagonizing the west into bombing the bejeus out of Iraq and Syria, then re-occupying the Mideast with troops. So who would benefit from that? Most likely, there's your terrorists in my opinion. They probably wear suits and stay in very nice hotels.