Because I don’t have a fixed IP address (although it will stay the same for long periods - thanks to DHCP), I was able to release my IP address, wait for a while, and get a new one from my DSL provider (without having to call or any other bullcrap…)

This was 6-months ago or so, and I don’t know what evil changes Marc has done since then.

(If I remember correctly, Marc said he’s in university IT - pure evil! ‘Course I’m in university IT too, so I can say that…

I wish more people understood the implications when they say “the end justifies the means”, is all. It’s not a phrase that, in this day and age, rings any alarm bells. We live in a society which condones torture of people who are merely suspected of being connected in some way to terrorists, as long as the particular method of torture is not officially labeled as such by our Inquisitor-in Chief Commander-in-Chief. You don’t even need to bother resorting to “24″ style thought experiments in which the suspect is a notorious terrorist who is the only person who knows the stop code for the nuke that’s set to blow up the eastern seaboard in 10 minutes to get people to state their eagerness for torture to be an option.

So you can forget about it when it comes to war in a far-away place which doesn’t seem real like Iraq. I mean, I live in Tokyo– it’s not like I’m in the middle of Texas or anything– and even here I can’t seem to avoid arguments with people who think that going to war with Iraq was justified because the goal was to make the world a better place.

So I would contend that “The end justifies the means” is not really a discredited position for the public at large. We’re just going to have to work that little bit harder to educate Americans that Machiavelli was just an evil prick, and not a Founding Father.

Well, like I said at the end, “we don’t know what’s going to happen in Iraq, whether or not we stick around. Even if Republicans think they’re pursuing just ends, they can’t guarantee those result will come to be. That’s why we can only worry about the morality of our actions, not their odds of bringing prosperity.”

And again, if you stand against that philosophy, then you stand against one of the primary driving ideological forces behind our Constitution. Given how many of their Machiavellian mistakes are done in the name of the flag, that has to count for something.

There is the crux of the matter. Do the ends justify the means? Don’t you have to break a few eggs to make an omelette? You treat the question as though the answer is self-evident. Maybe that’s your inner philosophy major shining through…

I have the feeling that if you ask most people this simple question, divorced from any context, they will answer, “Yes, sometimes at least.” They haven’t thought it through enough. It’s a good avenue of approach though, and one which might have a chance to change some minds. After all, war isn’t an omelette, and we’re not breaking eggs by dropping bombs. Well maybe sometimes, if they’re eggs owned by Iraqis, but I have the feeling those eggs don’t end up delightfully fluffy in a pan with sauteed onions and peppers.

Nobody thinks of themselves as a bad person. That’s why doing whatever you have to do to protect yourself always seems like such a justifiable motive. I guess that’s why wingnuts feel just fine about all the blood on their hands.

I love how your tone manages to encompass compassion and disgust at the same time. That takes very special skills.

Good or bad, we got Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines as a result of that. That really kicked the US’s imperialism into high gear…

All we’re likely get from AfghanIragIranistan is a really bad hangover and a summons to appear before the judge on multiple felony counts…

But at least Commander Codpiece looked good in that flight suit on the USS Abraham Lincoln…