Hiroshima, August 6, 1945

[Relic]

Your implication was clear, your point of argument was "but they were bad too!". You then tried using quotes from other posters to bolster your position.

It was a fallacious argument to begin with, then you attempted to misquote others to support it.

As for "brutal aggression by Western powers since WWII", THIS DISCUSSION WAS ABOUT THE USE OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS TO END WWII. What the Sam Hell does what happened AFTERWARD have to do with it?

Gard, I'm of the belief that there are some here who just want us to simply accept and admit that we are truly evil and the rest of the world including some of the most brutal, ruthless regimes that ever existed weren't so bad at all, just misunderstood. Well, yeah except for us, we're perfectly understood to be evil. We're the baddies as they say. oh well..

Now let me add one of these:

 

[Gard]

Gard, I'm of the belief that there are some here who just want us to simply accept and admit that we are truly evil and the rest of the world including some of the most brutal, ruthless regimes that ever existed weren't so bad at all, just misunderstood. Well, yeah except for us, we're perfectly understood to be evil. We're the baddies as they say. oh well..

Now let me add one of these:

Oh, it's OK man, I enjoy tilting at windmills....

Sincerely
Don Quixote

 

[Jim Campbell]

Gard, I'm of the belief that there are some here who just want us to simply accept and admit that we are truly evil and the rest of the world including some of the most brutal, ruthless regimes that ever existed weren't so bad at all, just misunderstood. Well, yeah except for us, we're perfectly understood to be evil. We're the baddies as they say. oh well..

Now let me add one of these:

i have heard that uncle joe was an unhappy child,and saddam was bottle fed

 

[tycobb73]

Let me guess, your professor was a "child of the 60's", right?



Violence, no matter writ large or small, is an evil thing.

However, NOT using force at certain times is a far more evil thing. The use of the weapons at Hiroshima and Nagasaki were absolutely the correct course of action, at the time, based on the facts that were available to those making the decisions at the time. Bottom line, the unnecessary loss of one more US life at that time was unsupportable.

Your professor was flat wrong, sorry. Those "experts" were wrong. The fact that you mention Hitler in your argument is evidence that you didn't pay close attention in your class.


As for BASSIST's university teachings of revisionist history, poppycock. The war was far from over at that point, and anyone that doesn't understand the situation is living in fantasy land. As for the revisionist reasons for Japan's aggression, that is myopic as it gets. Japan had been running roughshod over southeast Asia, China, and Korea for decades, they were just attempting to extend their hegemony further east.

This was in 2000 and he seemed to be between 30 and 40 years of age, so yes I guess he was born in the 60s.

 

[12bass]

Your implication was clear, your point of argument was "but they were bad too!". You then tried using quotes from other posters to bolster your position.

It was a fallacious argument to begin with, then you attempted to misquote others to support it.

Where did I misquote anyone?

And please explain, in detail, how anything I've stated is fallacious. As for interpreting "implications", I cannot accept responsibility if others might have misread what I've written.

As for "brutal aggression by Western powers since WWII", THIS DISCUSSION WAS ABOUT THE USE OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS TO END WWII. What the Sam Hell does what happened AFTERWARD have to do with it?

Although out of the scope of this discussion, it speaks to inconsistent standards. If empire building was bad Japan when was doing it, then surely it must be bad if other nations have done it too.

To restate what I said earlier:

It is not uncommon for some to frame history in black and white (or good and evil) terms, when reality was more likely shades of gray. Further, criticism of the actions of one party does not equate to the endorsement of the actions of another. So, to suggest that the American use of nuclear weapons was questionable does not imply that the Japanese were not also culpable for many misdeeds

 

[mike_v_s]

I wish I had some more time. I'm at work, but I'll be back later this evening to dismantle a post or two. If the use of personal pronouns is going to cause anyone distress, go ahead and put me on 'ignore' now.

Mike

 

[DizzyExiled]

I personally blame "Little Boy" and "Fat Man" for the insanely screwed up porn that comes out of Japan.

 

[12bass]

If the use of personal pronouns is going to cause anyone distress, go ahead and put me on 'ignore' now.

As I explained earlier, it is how they are used, not that they are used. I have no problem if people are specifically addressing my points. But when the words 'you' and 'your' are over used they tend to make the discussion too personal and accusatory.

The gist of what I was saying is that it is best to address the content, and not the individual. Disagree with the point, not the person. On that note, I've tried not to single anyone out in my own posts.

 

[aborgman]

The US was indeed taking control of vast areas of the Pacific, but can you show me where they did it by brute force and annihilation? Where they used torture, rape, rampant murder (beheading non-combatants in the street for fun!), and various other versions of brutality on civilian populations?

Ummm... most of the US pacific territories were ceded to the US by Spain at the end of the Spanish-American war.

Many of them were "pacified" (specifically the Phillipines) by brute force and annihilation - see the short lived "Phillipine-American War".

Somewhere approaching 300,000 killed, mostly civilians - using torture and concentration camps.

 

[Philbiker]

The US was indeed taking control of vast areas of the Pacific, but can you show me where they did it by brute force and annihilation? Where they used torture, rape, rampant murder (beheading non-combatants in the street for fun!), and various other versions of brutality on civilian populations?

Phillipines. One of our darker hours.

Neither side is lillly-white, but there are definitely different shades of color from slightly brown/amber to black as a coal mine with the lights out.

I think it's pretty clear who was a bit brown and who was in the dark coal mine at the time, isn't it?

At the time, yes. Thankfully the USA had left its most brutal episodes behind it at the time.

 

[Philbiker]

I personally blame "Little Boy" and "Fat Man" for the insanely screwed up porn that comes out of Japan.

I LOLed.

 

[warnergt]

The US used the atom bomb on Japan, not to win the war, but to show the USSR what they were capable of. It was completely unnecessary to drop those bombs as the war was all but over when they were dropped. It was done for political reasons. Thats what I learned in University anyway.

Go back to your university and get your money back.

The Japanese never offered to surrender until after both atom bombs were dropped. They did unofficially offer "peace" talks. "Peace" would have meant they'd stop fighting the United States (for who knows how long?), but they still would keep China, Vietnam and other parts of east Asia enslaved and subject to regular dictatorial abuse.

What Japan's conditional and unofficial suggestions amounted to was a plea for a breather. Let them go for a while, let them rebuild, let them have most of the land they had captured and the people they had enslaved, and just trust that they'd never come back to hit us.

We trusted the Japanese dictatorship in 1941. Didn't work.

 

[mike_v_s]

As I explained earlier, it is how they are used, not that they are used. I have no problem if people are specifically addressing my points. But when the words 'you' and 'your' are over used they tend to make the discussion too personal and accusatory.

I'm talking to you, about you. Going out of my way to mask that fact wouldn't make any sense.

The gist of what I was saying is that it is best to address the content, and not the individual. Disagree with the point, not the person. On that note, I've tried not to single anyone out in my own posts.

Perhaps you've been misreading my posts. I haven't really addressed your position on the bombing in any detail whatsoever. I've addressed your opinion of your position and the postion of others on this board. It was your opinion. I'm not sure why you would want to distance yourself from what you said to the point of asking me to rephrase my argument. No one else made those statements. Why should I pretend that your belief that you are more impervious to bias/propaganda than others in this discussion and that you've arrived at your conclusion in a more unquestionable fashion are statements that were just dropped into the discussion? You made them.

I guess I could argue that it makes very little sense to place one's opinion above others based on the avenue one takes to get that opinion without having any idea how the others arrived at their opinion. I suppose I could also say that belief is, ironically, a bias in and of itself that may well have led to a filter of information during the gathering process. I could continue wondering why anyone with that particular stance wouldn't at least put in some kind of effort to find out how someone they disagreed with arrived at their conclusion before dismissing it as being tainted by more bias that they themselves were capable of being influenced by. I could abiguously argue a few things, but the bottom line is that only one person in this thread asserted any of that, and I'd need a personal pronoun to identify them.

As for your actual position on the bombing? Not that big of a deal. You've claimed it's just one of "doubt", but your position can be pretty cleanly assembled by cutting and pasting your posts in this thread, probably minus a detail or two. I suspect that position would follow a pattern of opinion with respect to other historical and current events. Given the time, it could probably be assembled using your posting history (as could mine)...revealing the personal biases that we all have, even if we don't want them.

mike

 

[sloasdaylight]

mike

Capitalization. Tsk Tsk

 

[mike_v_s]

Capitalization. Tsk Tsk

AWWWW, C'MON. SURELY THERE ARE MORE GRAMMATICAL ERRORS THAN THAT.

MIKE

 

[Horny Toad]

AWWWW, C'MON. SURELY THERE ARE MORE GRAMMATICAL ERRORS THAN THAT.

MIKE

Whoa. For a split second there I thought you might be going for the Big Font.

 

[12bass]

I'm talking to you, about you. Going out of my way to mask that fact wouldn't make any sense....

Been up almost 24 hours... so cannot respond coherently.... but plan to do so at a later point.

One point however, is that I'm not sure why when I bring up something like group bias that the conversation moves from the discussion of the merits of the claim of group bias, whether or not it is a valid concern or not, and then suddenly turns to focus instead on a discussion of my bias. That's the personally directed move that I'm uncomfortable with.

Don't agree that group bias affects how people view Hiroshima? Then, by all means, let's see your points refuting that claim. I'd really rather not have things turn to "but you're not unbiased 1111!", as that only makes things personal. Also, it is an ad hominem argument, which is a fallacy. Whether or not I'm unbiased has absolutely no bearing on whether or not group bias affects people's perspectives on Hiroshima. If the claim is true, then it is true regardless of anything to do with me.

 

[Noseferatu]

I think at the end of the day, the bottom line is that it was split 50/50 between political and moral implications. Period. Anyone who doesn't see that is nuts.



BTW, if we really wanted to get into a war, or "stick it" to other nations, Fat Man and Little Boy were NOTHING compared to what exsits today. We could literally crack the earth in half if we wanted to, and that seriously frightens me, personally.

 

[Schlyder]

12bass - Your pretentious presumption that those that do not agree with your beliefs, follow the lead of some other "group bias" is preposterous.
The claim could be made that you follow the same "group bias" in the position you happen to believe.
And if we are to follow your logic.. if we go along with your position, then I guess that would be group bias as well.

 

[12bass]

12bass - Your pretentious presumption that those that do not agree with your beliefs, follow the lead of some other "group bias" is preposterous.
The claim could be made that you follow the same "group bias" in the position you happen to believe.
And if we are to follow your logic.. if we go along with your position, then I guess that would be group bias as well.

Insults aside, I'm not even sure if this shows an understanding of what group bias is or how/why it might be a factor. How about situated knowledge? Familiar with that?