Proportionality of Force
Proportionality of force is a protocol that regulates the use of force by police officers, security guards, etc. It's basic principle is that the level of force used must be the minimum required to get the job done. In contrast, military protocol is that the amount of force used should be the maximum possible, so that it is completely overwhelming to the enemy.
Each protocol implies a certain relationship between those that apply the force and those that are subject to it. Proportionality of force applies between people who are basically on the same side, who have a lot of shared interests. Military protocol applies between blood enemies. One of the elements of military protocol is that the life of an enemy has absolutely no value. Military protocol cannot be applied unless the enemy is completely dehumanised.
The US has consistently operated under military protocols in Iraq, most spectacularly in the most recent Fallujah invasion. The force used was indeed overwhelming, the city has been completely destroyed, and it is my expectation that the city will not be a viable place to live until some time after the US departs Iraq.
The immediate military objectives of the attack were accomplished, and from that point of view the operation was a success. The strategic consequences of the battle have yet to be revealed, however, I believe the broad outcome will be quite predictable.
One of the elements of the official, publicly stated US policy in Iraq is the creation of a relationship of partnership between Americans and Iraqis. The unique characteristic of this element, the one thing that separates it from all other official statements of policy, is that it is sincere and it is backed up by efforts on the ground.
The talk of democracy and reconstruction is as cynical as the demonisation of the erstwhile ally Saddam, but the talk of "hearts and minds" is not. There is no way for the US to get out of Iraq unless the Iraqis come to believe that they can cooperate with the Americans. Cooperation can only occur between human beings. It cannot occur between humans and sub-humans. It is the way our minds work and nothing can change this.
Military protocol has been applied in Iraq by the US and it's allies since 1991. It has been applied to relatively small sections of the population for relatively short periods of time. During the ongoing Fallujah operation it has been applied to 300,000 people, for nearly a month. There is no indication of when it is going to end. This is a significant change.
I don't think the military situation in Iraq is going to change significantly as a result of this. Actually, I don't think that many noticable changes will occur. What I think is going to happen is that the US is going to get trapped in military protocol, and it is never going to leave it. The insurgents are not a military force, and cannot be defeated by miltary means. The insurgency is a positive feedback loop, in short, a social problem. The application of military force only feeds a cycle that is very much like the cycle of addiction, every time you use it the problem gets bigger, and the "solution" becomes less effective.
I think that the only way the US can win the war in Iraq is by abandoning military protocol and adopting proportionality of force. I think they are going to lose.
James
A Gen-X View of the Universe.
"The Issue Isn't Pussy, It's Monkey" - from The Right Stuff
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2004/12/09
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12 comments:
While the 'PProportionality Rationale' you present is internally consistent, it doesn't match known modern policing protocol or military.
Swat teams, by way of counter example, and including Swat copies, are in policy terms, overkill. A swat Team is a team that will have 30 special force operatives armed with artillery aimed at a lone hostage taker.
I have worked for a bank. I can assure you that if an alarm goes off, all available police and support will be on the scene, even if the hold up involves a lone man with a pretend weapon.
I know that military intervention, described by some as 'peacekeeping' does not tolerate overkill. By way of example, Black Hawk Down showed why the US service men died under fire when more artillery could have been brought to bear upon perceived enemy.
But if you want to say that I am just stupid and biased and don't know what I am talking about, feel free. I am not writing this to disagree with you, I am writing this to challenge you to examine some of the assumptions you have made.
You couldn't resist sticking a barb in, could you. I guess you don't want to risk the chance of an actual discussion taking place. Well, you get what you deserve. Feel free to nail yourself to a cross whenever and as often as you want; it will never make me bleed.
Police use the minimum force necessary. If a swat team of 30 guys is the minimum, then that's what they'll use. Regardless, they won't shoot anyone unless the life of an innocent is immediately threatened (at least, they are not supposed to. There have been exceptions). Indeed, they will do everything they can to resolve the situation without loss of life. Preservation of life is in fact their highest priority. The preservation of the life of the opponent may take a lower priority than that of law abiding citizens and police officers, but it still has a value.
Under normal military rules of engagement, the life of an opponent has no value, and it is to be ended as swiftly as possible. It doesn't matter if they pose a threat or not. It doesn't matter if it serves no military purpose. The only commandmant is kill, kill, kill. Soldiers love to talk about this kind of thing, I'll post a link the next time I come across somthing relevant. The announcements of the arrival of a kinder, gentler form of war have yet to be substantiated.
If the US witheld firepower in Mogadishu, then they were adopting police protocol to some degree. The massive numbers of civilian casualties would tend to indicate that they didn't move too far from conventional rules of engagement. The war in Iraq is not being fought in this manner. Certainly the latest invasion of Fallujah was not fought in this manner.
Interesting, topical post James.
Just some quick thoughts. Not particularly trying to prove a point. 'Proportionality of force' is one of the 11 hard-learned lessone that Robert McNamara mentioned in 'Fog of War'.
If one were dealing with an enemy of firepoer x, is three times X the appropriate, proportionate force or not, becomes a mechanical issue. I don't presume to have clean answers except to say that by rule of thumb in the history of warfare, three times defending force is considered appropriate for a siege and if a general can't make do with that, he's incompetent.
Now, in the case of Fallujah, the US clearly brought to bear a sizable force in 35,000 Marines(that's the report I read as the recent campaign began) but I have to say that Fallujah was more like Chris' 'whup' than 'warfare. So I think it still stands that the US is engaging with excessive force allocation; which stands in stark contrast to the 11,000 troops stationed in Afghanistan.
As for SWAT team numbers and what they represent, I have no comment. :)
Hi Art,
What is Chris' "Whup"? And regarding McNamara's comments, did he mean that you shouldn't use more than 3 times as many troops as the enemy? Or that you shouldn't use less than 3 times as many?
McNamara first.
McNamara doesn't specify a number. What he says is you shouldn't use excessive force even if you are in a positionof power. Which is okay as a bland remark, but being a stat-head I figured it was pertinent to bring up the issue of what exactly is 'proportional'.
Now, the number. I brought up the number x3 because x3 was the bench mark used by medieval samurai warriors in Japan as well as Chinese Generals going back donkey's years. If you had more, great, but sieges take 3 times the defending force numbers is 'conventional wisdom'. If one can do it with less, then you're a great general and if one can't do it with say, x5, you'e probably not a very good general.
I don't know how they arrived at that figure. As late as 1905 Russians who excelled at Siege engineering and defending positions bench-marked sieges at x3; theyknew it was harder for most countries to muster x3 against their sort of numbers.
Since the 1991 Gulf War, Chris has been proposing a new description for disproportionate force resulting in lop-sided results, which he calls 'whup' as opposed to 'war'. As in 'whup- ass' as Will Smith famously announces in 'Independence Day' (a film totally obsessed with anal sex as a subtext, I might add).
It is also known as thre 'Bush Doctrine' (after George Senior) whereby America will commit to war around the Globe but as long as they go in as excessive favourites. The 'Bush Doctrine' has been credited to Collin Powell who devised it as a result of his Vietnam War experiences; which is ironic because his predecessor Robert S. McNamara who had to run the Vietnam War, drew the opposite conclusion.
I hope that helps.
Figures of Defence
===============
The so called Bush Doctorine was described prior to the Afghan conflict as "Shock annd Awe." It didn't apply to the previous gulf war, where the Iraqi force of almost a million men faced the smaller but better equipped coalition of arabic and western forces. Even so, Gorbachev objected to the conflict but allowed it to proceed against his better judgement (taken from a 2002 statement of Mr Gorbachev).
The x3 figure is in many writings, but applied inconsistently. Medieval (15th century Pastons) writings detail a force of five holding a house against a force of seventy five.
The European state that existed in Jerusalem for 150 years after the last crusade defended against the entire muslim world with fewer than one hundred knights. They lost when they left their defences at the behest of the king answering a ransom demand for his kidnapped daughter.
Germany had more than the three million men required to evict the allies at Normandy.
Nelson almost took Nicaragua with a force of thirty at the age of twenty.
The battle of Trafalgar was won by a smaller force.
Alexander the Great's defeated the Persians with a smaller force.
Marathon was fammous for the same reason.
More people were killed in Rwanda than were killers.
Arabs outnumber Israelis.
Spacefreaks outnumber Weasel.
Chris' Whup was not 'whip ass.' Whup is not the concept of gentleman's war. Whup is whatever it takes. Whup is a lone man killing six by blowing himself up adjacent to the six. Whup is killing school children to prove a point. Whup is taking poison to win an election.
Whup is so terrifying, that an ordered society must oppose it.
Does McNamara say why he thinks excessive force should not be used?
Regarding poison and elections, I think it's clear that Yushchenko' illness is great publicity for his side. I think the only thing we can take for granted is that the full story has yet to be told.
McNamara sort of says, it was bad that they did it in Vietnam. McNamara doesn't say specifically why except that he intimates that it's not worth it on a rational cost basis as well as humanitatiran reasons.
Check out the doco 'Fog of War'. It is one heck of a thought-provoking film.
Maybe David Brew remembers something else.
Ideally, I should score it on DVD and show friends. :)
But once again, it does seem clear the issue or proportionality/'whup' is important and largely un-addressed by the medai.
Also, just a footnote, the Panama incident and the arrest of Manuel Noriega was the first test case for The Bush Doctrine. Gulf War I was a wider application of the Doctrine, which continues to inform US troop allocation policy to date. However, Afghanistan stands as the 'exception to the rule' which is hard to fathom why seeing that Al Qaeda operated out of Afghanistan with Taliban support. You'd think they'd be more through there, rather than bloody Iraq.
I tried to formalise some of my beliefs about politics a few years ago. I had been training for a leadership position with the Dept. of Ed. And I had to be able to sensibly position my beliefs so as not to appear outrageous. I also wanted to not appear hostile to mainstream beliefs, which I often describe as ‘token leftism.’
I was given a lift home from the country estate where a weekend had been spent with a group discussing the meaning of team, leadership, team leadership and so on. The driver was the training officer with responsibility for the region that covered my school, vis, more senior than a Principal.
She told me that she and her academic husband had come from England many years ago, fleeing Thatcher’s England with mine disputes and Educational change. She shared with me some of her concerns about the right wing; Military industrial complex, Murder squads, Clandestine government activity, betrayal and so on. It was not in my interests to be directly oppositional to her. She had many beliefs as my friends. However, I did have a different viewpoint, and asked, under the umbrella of sharing values rather than making attacks, if I could describe some of these.
Pox on All Your Houses
The great argument stretches back thousands of years in the west. There was a position taken by Plato on issues that opposed the style of his students, including Aristotle. Plato wrote in dialogue, Aristotle by declaration. The different styles of expression were studied. In the modern world, no one knows which side of the great divide they stand. Elements of each side of the divide remain, but whether they remain as objects that were part of the original argument, or counters to the objects of the original argument is not known.
The two sides skirmish often over issues. The skirmish line is rarely clean. Should one go to war? How would war be fought? In the first gulf war, Democrats and republicans agreed that a war was to be fought, the question remained of ‘how?’ Republicans were in office and made decisions, Democrats opposed those decisions. The expression of argument did not need to be so expressed. Democrats might have agreed with Republicans over the prosecution of the war, but disagreed as to the resolution of the war.
The Weasel has argued that Republicans were working on policy and Democrats arguing on form. Even the Style over Substance debate lies within the great argument.
An expression of the argument occurs when one side is unyielding for some reason. Hence, although it is acknowledged that no good will come from maintaining the opposition on some issue, it gets maintained. This results in a lose-lose situation for the arguers.
An example of the lose-lose for Democrats comes from WW2. Douglas MacArthur was responsible for security in the Pacific basin. MacArthur was a Republican, the incumbent Ppresident, Roosevelt was Democrat. Roosevelt starved MacArthur of essential supplies, and then established a separate command with a more amenable commander.
Such is politics. Many have expressed the comment to the Weasel that all sides of politics subscribe to the lose-lose death grip. However, The Weasel does not see that comment as being true.
Counterexample comes from the Civil War. In resolution, Confederate President Davis and General Lee were allowed to live out their lives in comfort, despite having been part of atrocities committed against the winning side. Because Lee was allowed to live and prosper, a descendant of his wrote one of the great works of fiction of the twentieth century. The book was on the issue of social justice, called ‘To Kill a Mocking Bird.’
Democrats never stopped fighting the civil war. Claims were made and organizations were born and grew out of those claims. One such organization was the Ku Klux Klan.
The importance of the description of the rivals is not to secure the partisan place in the argument. In fact, the Weasel argues the necessary existence of each. The Weasel disputes the partisan adherence that many have to one. There are many shortcomings to the reductionist view encompassed by embracing the opposition to one part of the great Argument.
==================
But the criticism of my stance is often wide of the mark and very personal.
Consider
“Don't you get it? Do I have to spell it out even more? The Idiot who propses a bandaid is AS culpable as the Idiot who rejects consideration. Time is running out. haven't you been reading this blog?
Or did you miss that argument because you're so blinkered in your love and slavish devotion to John Howard and George W. Bush?”
Spacefreaks
The above comment I consider to be wide of the mark because my praise for Howard and Bush has been in the context of criticism for their political opponents. I would like a reason to accept a policy put forward by the opponents of Howard or Bush (and they do seem to share opponents). As for love and slavish devotion, in political terms, I haven’t the foggiest notion what they mean, except I understand that they feel that I am unyielding in support of one over the other. I haven’t found a reason to support the heroes of the Spacefreaks from such argument.
Consider what Spacefreaks added
“In the mean time you say, "Oh but you didn't answer to my argument" - you don't HAVE what most sane, sentient people consider to be an argument; What you have is the tired old rhetoric of the Right which, believe me, is boring as batshit and less useful than the same.
Seriously Mr. Weasel, our advice is: Get over it.
Stop being part of the problem. Use your considerable number of grey-matter brain cells as to how you can change things for the better instead of lazily joining the chorus line of the bankrupt idealogues. It's really unbecoming of your intellect.”
The left/right description of politics is one way of describing it. It places Bush and Howard on the same ‘side’ of many issues. Many seem to agree that the division is plausible. Being bored by the division I understand to be an artifice of argument. I don’t see what it is that Spacefreaks want me to recant.
An anonymous posting got this from Spacefreaks
“And Mr. Anonymous, your courage and conviction to stand by your remarks is clearly south of the Mendoza line.
At this rate I'll clearly outlive you yet, you gormless piece of shit.”
I actually understood that the South had courage and conviction during the Civil War. Again, it is unclear what it is that Spacefreaks are trying to say. The following should give an idea.
“200 Years
As Poofter's Froth Wyoming goes to the polls to decide which puppet of the Military Industry Complex will get to show off his peacock suit, we should consider that civilisation as we know it, specifically that which guzzles oil and spurts out Carbon Dioxide into the atmosphere at an accelerating rate, has got a sunset clause. Put bluntly, this isn't going to last forever because either we're going to give out or the Earth is going to give out, or both are going to give out.”
So what we have reduced the argument to is the same as I described under “Pox on all your houses.” Except I understand that the Spacefreaks are supporting the stylists over the substance. The stylists have given Spacefreaks unwanted solutions, so Spacefreaks, rather than consider the alternative argument of the great dialogue, have embraced more clammily the grip of the stylists.
“Both parties ARE as bad as each other Mr Weasle. The difference is... you have picked one.
Good luck with that. Art & I have seen what your much loved right & the not so loved (around here) left do & are looking for a new way - not a tired old way that has already committed itself to this planets destruction.
You can stay here with John & W if you want though. Better you than me.”
=====================
“Just to clarify that. It is clear that CW is definitely misconstruing what is said, seemingly sytematically, in an apparent attempt to pick a fight (oddly on ground he himself choses which does not interest anyone else in the first place). There is NO doubt about this misconstruction, only the reason for it.
If this is accidental it is, by definition, stupid - which I do not wish to believe. If this is deliberate then this must be considered disingenuous which I hope is not the case. The only remaining possibility is carelessness. Tell us this is the case please?”
?????? Pot. Kettle. Black.
“Rabid raving as it was I'm sorry to say I endorse 98% of Arts rebutal DDB. You really do sink to ad hominem & outright lies and misrepresentation way too often & I refuse to act as your foil. Therefor do not expect futher responses from me.
You are many things, both good & bad, about which I could "get personal" (but haven't). I beg of you to stop trying to to convince me to add 'stupid' or 'disingenuous' to the list. PLEASE permit me to leave those off as I currently do. At least for the sake of friendship, if not for curtesy or honesty.”
“"Wow! I'm glad that we agree and you didn't get personal."
Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit.
"I mean your assertion that I blather isn't personal. Your assertion that I don't make sence isn't personal. Your claim to be working in the interests of humanity, ergo I am not is not personal. Your assertion that my claim of a right/left divide is unique, not holistic and therefore not applicable to you, isn't personal."
No, they are not personal. They are descriptions of how our opinions differ; not personal. Unlike asseritons that we support Mohammed Mahatir, for instance, which is of course bearing false witness on your part.
Or more to the point, a blatant lie.
But as for this stuff, personal it ain't.
Personl is if we started describing you in ways that would be genuinely below the belt.
"It is just as well that you are beyond description by such a weak and petty device. I once dreamt that I could defy gravity, so I can relate."
What ever rhetorical device this may be, it is best you don't repeat this in public too often as it helps establish the case you are mentally unsound. :)
"You might try to call me to reason with me. I suspect you would only do that on a party line so that you can have others support you when your list of my shortcomings begins to end and you find yourself in need of possibly examining your own statements."
What party line?
The Space freaks Party line? You've got to be kidding me.
"I'm sorry you haven't seen my postings that give an interpretation of current events that go beyond the left's Bush is evil, Howard is stupid, Americans are stupid, Australians are stupid, Latham and Kerry are misunderstood."
If we said, 'Your interpretations are largely delusional and fantasy based. We wish you woud re-direct tyour so-called analysis to the sewers from whence they come. Your mental processes strongly resembles somebody with degenerative brain disease, and
your prose style has all the penache of advanced AIDS...'
...that would be personal.
However, that's not what we wrote.
Hoenstly, we just want you you to stop using us as your straw man.
It's not correct, respectful or even polite; and we dogive you more credit and respect than to do it back to you, so really, it sucks that you keep doing it.
"The right have consistantly focused on the ''War on Terror"
The right make the claim that terrorists cannot be seen to win anywhere.
The right claim that it is wrong to kill noncombatants.
The leadership of the right is aware of the shortcomings of a war machine, and would like an effective alternative, but don't see one.
The moderate right would like to work bilaterally with left power groups to end systematised terrorism."
You know, this IS Blather.
The 'War on Terror' is like a 'War on Hunger' or 'War on Anxiety'. What we have is a War in Afghanistan which needs proper attention and a War on Iraq which we think was ill-advised given the timing.
Clearly 'War On Terror' a crappy rhetorical device that is used to justify military expenditure to bail out Dick Cheney's old mates at Haliburtons.
As for claims that terrorists can't be seen to win, well, db agrees with you. I question the wisdom of it on a historic basis and your knee-jerk response is that I'm a leftist. Well if you can't be bothered to think about the question and just like throwing around slogans and names, you don't deserve the protection of freedom of speech.
"The left see the right as being as much a threat to 'left security' (different to personal security) as state sponsored terrorism."
That may be true in your eyes. To be honest I wouldn't know what the Left make of it other than that the War is fronted by Zealots for American Imperialsm. Do I agree with that view? Somewhat yes, but you don't get a strong commitment out of me for having said that.
All else is inference you're trying to draw from the wrong place.
"The left are comfortable with a destabilised world if that is what it takes to get power again."
No. The Left are uncomfortable with a world made more unstable by hostile posturing by the current incumbents. They werne't at the wheels when Sep 11 went down. You can't blame the Left for having let the world down in its moment of crisis. Sorry.
This is the Conservative's bed of roses; they ought to lie in it happily, which I think George W. Bush and Dick Cheney do; so I can't complain about that.
"Art pretends to not know what wedge politics are? well Wedge politics refers to an easy demarcation line that separates party ideologies so that voters are asked to make a decision about said policy. The best ones are no brainers. The ALP once had a referendum, about '85, asking if Australians wanted free and fair elections. Australia voted a resounding 'No!'
That was an effective wedge issue because Australians rejected it, which the ALP did not care about, but saw the ALP as trying to be responsible, which it wasn't."
You know, my feigned ignorance was rhetorical.
If you don't liike my rhetoric, then sue me. I don't like yours either. Yours is ugly, pernicious, fascist and evil. So why don't you take your rehtiroc and stick it where the sun doesn't shine. Or do us a favour and keep posting on your blog, but stop coming here to pollute our fragile little lefty minds with this obnoxious, poisonous, misanthropic garbage that passes for political commentary for you.
"I am sure if you asked Bush what kept him awake at night, gay marriages or 29 murdered Iraqi policeman he would answer correctly."
Well good for him.
Psychokillers and serial Killers sleep well at night too. What does this prove?
"The attack on Bush, which you endorse, is based on the claim that he is a radical Christian. But no evidence supports that. A false rumour spread recently was that Bush was schitzophrenic and heard voices. Many of my friends endorsed this falsity. The same has been said about Howard."
Well, just because you disagree with Bush doesn't make it an attack on Bush. Your blatant attempts to shout down our considered dissent is fascist.
You give lip service to freedoms of speech; you use it as cloak for your character assasinations on your blog, but when we call you on it, you go, 'Oh on, that's an ATTCAK on Bush you Left Wing Bastards!'.
Last I checked, it's a friggin' democracy, much to your chagrin, obviously.
"Years ago you said Howard was wrong to involve himself in Cambodia. You said the same about Timor. You said the same in Afghanistan and about Iraq. Do you really believe that Howard isn't being consistant? If Howard has been consistent, do you really think it wrong to have moved on Timor and Cambodia?"
Who said this?
"In your world, is it right that Africa be left behind, as Hawke did with Zimbabwe, Gough with Timor and Vietnam and Keating with Somalia and the Balkans? And do you not see it as petty to question my Geography?"
Again, who said this?
Who wrote this?
"Would the world be a better place if Reagan caved into the Soviets, or Bush sr and Helmut Kohl to the East Germans. Or if MMacArthur gave up the Korean penisula, as Truman asked."
The world might be a better place if Bush had notleapt into Iraq on flimsy evidence while Afghanistan was unfinished business. The World would have been a better place if they had made a serious attempt to wipe out the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan.
These are pretty legit objections that aren't necessarily from 'the Left'. Walter Cronkite has voiced this. Richard A. Clarke has voiced this.
"The truth is almost everyone wants the world to be a better place. There is vehement disagreemnt as to how that will happen. Those that choose community efforts are left with this right/left divide. The others are mere terrorists.
Well that's a false dichtomy if I ever saw one.
The Left/Right divide is NOT the thing which stands in the way of terrorists at all. That's eminently bullshit, and you do yourself no favours by being so didactic about something that simply is not true.
"Where do you stand?"
I take this to mean a rhetorical device trying to implicate us as supporters of terrorists.
This is the kind of posturing from you we object to strongly.
We don't support the Left.
We don't support Terrorists.
We don't donate money to them, we don't lend material support, we don't clap hands when they succeed. Is that good enough?
I like them about as much as I like the Red Sox maybe less; and that's coming from a Lifetime Yankee fan.
The thing is, I keep saying this but you keep painting us as Leftists supporting Al Qaeda and Iraqi terrorists.
How thick ARE you, exactly?
"Your rhetoric places you squarely in a left camp."
Only if you stand about 10 metres to the right of Joseph Goebbels, which, clearly you do, next to Adolf and Franco and Benito and Pinochet and all those happy murderous beasts.I mean when have you denounced them? I didn't see it. Clearly you must like the fascists for they certainly aren't commies.
In fact, right now, Mr. Conservaitve Weasel, we urge you to stop supporting Burma's military regime as you clearly do.
Think about Communist China; they don't like Terrorists either. They're cracking down on Tibet and Falun Gong hard. Clearly not all on the Left support terrorism.
In fact Socialist Goevrnements in France and Germany don't support terrorism either.
Now that I think aboutit neither does Blair's Labor England.
Clearly, you are just WRONG.
"If you wish to be effective, and your an individual, it is probably best that you don't argue a party line."
We don't argue a party line. In case you haven't nocited, between you and me, you're the one parroting the extreme right's party line.
We're doing our damnedest to get away from Party lines of the Left and Right and every time you just drag us back into the intellectually bankrupt world of Left/Right politics from the Cold War. Haven't we told you this before? You are predictable as a B-Movie and Shit-boring when you do this. Absolutely Grass-grow-watching-Boring.
The thing is, you get hot under the collar and start calling us names and attributing causes we don't support to us and and you expect us to take you seriously? Get a grip, man.
Read things for what they say they are first. Then, infer whatever you like, but if we haven't implied it, you can't claim the inference you drew is what we are about. It don't work like that.
Be a little more honest about how you read things.
"If you don't know what a party line is because you are ignorant, bbaby, I can't help you."
No if I were ignorant like you clearly are.
But what party line exactly do you think I toe?
- The ALP? Spare me.
- The Democrats? Enough with your insults.
- The Greens? P'uhlease.
- One Nation? You must be kidding.
- The Nationals? Uhh, no.
- The Christian Coalition/Family valuesmob? Fuck no.
- The Liberals? Not like you.
- The Commusist? I don't think so... but do you seriously think I'm a commie?
- The Socialists? I'm busy running from those morons who try to sell you their papers on street corners.
- The US Democrats? Uh, no, it's on record this blog doesn't like John Kerry.
Which Party Line are you talking about?
You OTOH can be pinned to aggressively pimping for John Howard and Conservatives and Bush and God-fearing-nut-bar Christians, as all of this is on record on our blog.
So who's toe-ing the party line?
Clearly we can't help you from yourself either.
Feel free to keep being a miserable world-hating misanthorpe. We're moving on, thank you very much.”
============
The arguments I have presented above are arguments. They can be argued or ignored. I don’t think I have merited the attacks that have been made. A friend of the Spacefreaks claims that email and the WEB are the real damagers here. However, the arguments I have made are no different to the ones that my friends ignored twenty years ago, except a little more sophisticated. OTOH their attacks are no different.
If I am called to give up my work on the internet, or stay with those I have called friend, I have made my choice. I have to live with myself every day. Those friends have not taken the time to be with me one day in ten years.
One of the first things I did when I was exposed to the internet (which was 1996) was get quite heavily involved in a number of discussion groups. After 4 or 5 years I gained enough experience to realise that the experience wasn't going to get any better, and I have quit them all.
The fact is that open membership unmoderated discussion groups inevitably come to be dominated by assholes, people who win arguments by hurting others' feelings. Very little discussion takes place in such groups, and the traffic is largely the product of a chain reaction of wounded egos.
All this led me to realise one basic truth about human relationships. When you engage in an interaction with someone, if you do not have an attitude of unconditional acceptance towards them, you will inevitably try to change them. Trying to change someone can be an act of guile, or an act of force, but it will always be perceived by the subject as an act of aggression.
Knowing this is only of limited benefit, and I still haven't learned very much about cultivating an attitude of unconditional acceptance. But it explains a lot. It certainly explains everything that happens on the Spacefreaks Weblog. The conflict will only end end when we all stop trying to change each other. When that is going to happen (if it ever happens) I don't know. I have no solutions.
We all have serious decisions to make, but they must be made with a full appreciation of the realities of the situation, and the consequences. DDB, all ideas are not equal, and your ideas may well be better than ours, but you cannot prove it and also maintain civil relations. You cannot have your cake and eat it, and you will have to choose which you value more.
You wrote "I don’t think I have merited the attacks that have been made". This implies the concept of some sort of code of behaviour that has been violated by others. I don't think that it would be possible to construct such a code without placing yourself in violation of it. I don't think that your behaviour has been all that different from that of anyone else.
It's clear to me that all humans have a cognitive deficiency when it comes to reading comprehension (I'm pretty sure that this has been documented scientifically, although I can't cite any studies). With this group of friends, email and blog discussions that result in hurt feelings are the norm and not the exception. I'm sure I'm not the only one who has noticed this.
I urge you to try to discuss these things face to face. I do not believe that text is a suitable medium for this sort of discussion.
This post is too long. Sorry.
Ah. The 'petulant frenzy'.
Cry me a river, cry me an entire bloody ocean, but I still think Mr Weasel's construct of history and politics and this so-called Great Argument (of which he is always magically on the good side with substance while we on this blog are always invariably slave to what he calls the stylists of the Left) is a load of codswollop.
Has anybody heard the sound of the world's smallest violin? For whom they weep I know not, yet I hear it bringeth tears to crocodiles.
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