Re: OT Hatred (was Re: New Ada compiler for .NET)

[John English <je@brighton.ac.uk>]

Hyman Rosen wrote:
> 
> John English wrote:
> 
> > execution without trial of some people in a jeep in Yemen
> 
> Certainly. That's pretty much the definition of war.

Sorry, remind me which country the US has declared war against?

> > and hundreds more are locked up in Cuba with neither trial,
>  > access to a lawyer or even the protection of the Geneva Convention.
> 
> Sure. More war stuff. I believe they're occasionally visited by
> the Red Cross, and are able to mail letters out.

I thought "war stuff" meant "Geneva Convention" stuff...

> > It seems to believe that it can imprison foreign nationals without trial
> 
> We can. We have.

The Nazis believed it could gas Jews -- and did so. It
doesn't make it right, as they found out at Nuremburg.

> > tear up international treaties
> 
> If we can enter into them, I don't see why we can't exit them.

You have some very strange ideas. Signing a treaty is like
signing a contract -- you are entering into a binding
obligation. If treaties weren't binding, there would be no
poinr in negotiating them. However, it would be nicer if
I lived on your planet -- I could just abrogate my credit
card contract ("I entered it, so I can exit it") and refuse
to pay.

> > and impose "regime change" on foreign states
>  > (even if democratically elected, as in Chile)
> 
> I assume we did it in Chile to fight Communism.
> That's not an unreasonable thing to do, since that
> was the great evil of its day.

You may well disagree with it as a political system, but if
the citizens of another country vote for a different political
system from your own, that's surely up to them. To believe that
the US has an absolute right to veto the result of elections held
in foreign countries smacks of dictatorship rather than democracy...
but I'm beginning to realise that you feel OK about that, as long
as you're on the side of the dictators rather than being one of the
dictatees; and that's exactly the sort of double standard I was
talking about earlier.

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