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| are the "bad guys" ever wrong ? | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Nov 25 2003, 09:24 PM (379 Views) | |
| nztrekkie | Nov 25 2003, 09:24 PM Post #1 |
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Lieutenant
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I was just thinking the other day about the "good guys" / "bad guys" scenarios that I could recall. They are not all necessarily the same type of conflict,and I don't want to debate each and every example, however they do have a sort of "David / Goliath" quality.....and at the early stages of each conflict, there were clearly good guys (the powerful ones, who were civilised and proper and doing the oppressing) and bad guys (the weak ones who went around blowing things and people up and generally being angry at the good guys for whatever reason)....here's a short list - with "bad guys" first...... ANC / South Africa Timorese / Indonesia Irish / UK Vietcong / Vietnam Mujahadeen / Afghanistan Palestinians / Israel Indians / India (UK) American colonists / America Just looking over the list, the bad guys are all either fighting against invaders of their country or are fighting for independence from their overlords. Of these 8 examples, 6 have clearly achieved their goals, and are recognised as having "right" on their side by doing so. The remaining 2 have partial autonomy (Irish and Palestinians) and will no doubt one day achieve full independence / freedom. My question is....have the bad guys actually ever been wrong ? Although no one condones violence and killing, many of these freedom fighters have at one time or other been called "terrorists", "insurgents", "guerillas" etc and they have killed. But nearly all of these groups have achieved their goals and have been bought into the international community after having done so. So, why don't we just give them what they want in the first place ? History seems to indicate they'll get it anyway and that they usually were right in the first place. Comments ? |
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| Dandandat | Nov 25 2003, 09:30 PM Post #2 |
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Time to put something here
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these aren’t the only conflicts of the world couldn’t one just as easy make another list, where the "good guys" won, and they where right for winning? in what war where the American colonists fighting America? |
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| Swidden | Nov 25 2003, 09:59 PM Post #3 |
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Adm. Gadfly-at-large; Provisional wRench-fly at large
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^^^ Sure Dan, we're our own tyrant. Couldn't you tell? |
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| nztrekkie | Nov 25 2003, 10:43 PM Post #4 |
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Lieutenant
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I never said they were the only ones. I was inviting people to note other examples; can you give some "good guys won" and were right examples, along the same David/Goliath train ? I am sure there are some but just couldn't think of any quickly. |
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| Admiralbill_gomec | Nov 25 2003, 11:34 PM Post #5 |
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UberAdmiral
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Then why waste the bandwidth with this post? |
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| Hoss | Nov 26 2003, 08:19 AM Post #6 |
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Don't make me use my bare hands on you.
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Are you comparing Usama Bin Laden and Al Quaida to George Washington and the Americans? I think that the primary distinction between terrorists and revolutionaries is that the terrorists are interested in killing anybody (babies, old men, pregnant women, anyone) to terrorize people and revolutionaries would attack the regime. Terrorists blow up schools full of children, shopping centers, synagogs and places of commerce. The revolutionaries would do things like lay for the ruling army and ambush them or blow up a military base. Quite a difference if you ask me. The revolutionaries may be able to claim the moral high ground, but the terrorists are just evil murderers. I know that you're smarter than this, perhaps you wish to start an arguement? |
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| Wichita | Nov 26 2003, 08:55 AM Post #7 |
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The Adminstrator wRench
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Truthfully, I am not getting your point either. It's not that I am offended one way or the other - I simply don't understand what you are trying to say. |
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| Minuet | Nov 26 2003, 09:06 AM Post #8 |
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Fleet Admiral Assistant wRench, Chief Supper Officer
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That is exactly the way I felt when I read this post last night. Nz, are you trying to say the "bad guys" are really the good guys and vice versa. If so you are taking a very simplistic view of the world. Some of your "good guys" are bad, but others are actually good. And some of the conflicts are muddied by the fact that both sides are partly right but unable to come to an agreement that is fair (Israel, Palestine for example) Funny how you are always coming down on the Americans for thier simplistic view of the world, but you are the one who seems to have come up with the cowboys and indians view of these major world conflicts. |
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| Cool Vulcan | Nov 26 2003, 09:10 AM Post #9 |
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Captain
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Dan last I looked colonists fought for America and it was called the Revlution. Unless he means our civil war when the country was devided. |
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| nztrekkie | Nov 26 2003, 03:08 PM Post #10 |
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Lieutenant
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The point I was throwing up for discussion was, has there ever been any group of terrorists/revolutionaries/agitators or whatever you want to call them, in recent times, who, in the end, DIDN'T get what they wanted ? In other words, they were right all along (?). To spell it out further......take the Palestinians for example. When I grew up, the images and comments I saw on TV, the things my parents told me etc all seemed to me to suport the Israelis and cast the Arabs as the aggressors, the terrorists, the bad guys etc.... Now I know more of that particular situation, my opinion has changed 180 degrees and I now consider the Palestinians have had the moral high ground the whole time - they WERE right all along. This too, I believe is the way the whole world is moving or has moved, now that people learn what has actually happened there. And if it were not for all the killing and conflict, the Palestinians would quite possibly have nothing at all today. Because if you give usurpers and inch , they take a mile. The world would have been quite happy to let the Palestinian people just fade away - but they never gave up, they have lost far more lives than the Israelis and, in the end, they will get their country, becuase it was right thing all along. (even if it ends up being a fraction of what they started with). No one wants to take the lives of others (generally or hopefully) but, in the end, is it So, just like Nelson Mandela in South Africa, who followed non violent policies for years until he realised it was getting his people no where very quickly, he then added violence to his arsenal. Again, everyone now sees that country being run as it should have been decades earlier. Mr Mandela had the moral high ground there too, even though he resorted to violence. Again, if the ANC did not add violence to their tactics, the black people of Sth Africa would probably STILL be goverened by the tiny white minority and still be barred from using the same facilities as the whites and still be an oppressed majority. So, my query was, and an invitation to the supposedly learned people here, when has there ever been an active (even violent) minority fighting for a cause, who, in the end, were not shown to have had the moral high ground all along, once the facts were known ? Dan or anyone else - you've had a couple of days now, have you got some examples of the alternative list, where a minority were defeated by a majority and most people thought that that was the approapriate result ? |
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| Minuet | Nov 26 2003, 03:42 PM Post #11 |
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Fleet Admiral Assistant wRench, Chief Supper Officer
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And I suppose you feel more educated then the "supposedly educated" people here. How arrogant can you get? And here is one for you. You used the example of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. You are casting the Israelis as right and Palestinians as wrong, in the eyes of the world, but not of course your own. Well what do you think of the conflict that gave birth to the State of Israel. Was it right or wrong. By your definition it was "wrong" in the eyes of the world, but "right" morally. Of course this contradicts with the current situation. Amazing how the world can change in 50 years. Can you admit that creating the State of Israel was morally the right thing to do? Don't get me wrong, I actually do believe that there should be a Palestinian state, but I believe the so called leaders of the Palestinians have fouled things up royally and made it much tougher to get what they want. The first thing they need to realize is that morally, Israel has as much right to exist as Palestine does. And remember, both countries are really being created out of a piece of land that was not a "country" for many hundreds of years. |
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| Wichita | Nov 26 2003, 03:45 PM Post #12 |
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The Adminstrator wRench
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Well, even in this post, you ask two different questions which were somewhat mutually exclusive.
Despite that, my answer to both would be "too numerous to mention". A group, of the kind that you are discussing could have as little as one single member. If not successful, then how would anyone know of their existence.
Interesting choice of an example. Given that the Palestinians could have had their own country in 1948 but choose not to because they would have had to recognize Israel's right to exist, I find it a strange choice. How could any group that denied their own people a homeland for over 45 years be considered to be "right"? How could any group that demand the extermination of others have the "moral high ground"? |
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| Hoss | Nov 26 2003, 03:48 PM Post #13 |
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Don't make me use my bare hands on you.
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The South Vietnamese (the ones we supported) did not get what they wanted, the communists eventually overran the South and Vietnam is communist to this day. The Koumentang (Nationalist Chinese) eventually lost all of China (except Taiwan) to the Maoists. The American Indians, you'd probably consider them the good guys. The Confederacy in mid-19th century USA were eventually conquered by the Union. The victors get more well noted in the history books. Nelson Mandela's ANC violence and murder was primarily directed at the Zulu (the other black group in South Africa). He didn't want the competition. Revisionist have tried to turn it into some sort of heroic struggle against the big mean whities, but it wasn't that noble. It was Soviet sponcered communist insurgency in South Africa, it wasn't about black oppression. Zulus were regularly tortured and murdered in the most terrible way in public by the ANC. No hero, just a thug in league with Idi Amin. |
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| nztrekkie | Nov 26 2003, 04:51 PM Post #14 |
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Lieutenant
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Well, at last some examples to mull over. thanks. BTW - I would have thought the American Indians example would have been fairly clear in favour of my argument. Just as in my country, the displacement of indigenous peoples by colonising powers was done in good and bad ways, alot of it bad. Would not most American's think today that there are wrongs to be righted in this area too, just as there are in other parts of the world ? Canada has already given back large tracts of land to native tribes hasn't it, just as we have done in NZ ? Again, if it were not for the agitating activities of a few "extremists" over time in NZ, this issue may have simply faded away,and the settlement sslowly being enacted here might never have happened. |
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| Hoss | Nov 26 2003, 05:41 PM Post #15 |
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Don't make me use my bare hands on you.
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The past is the past. What can be done? To whom would we give the land? What land? How do they have claim to it? We aren't just dealing with one all-ecompassing indian nation here, but thousands of separate tribes, many of whom no longer exist others that have been displaced. Many of the tribes were nomadic. We already have large reservations in the USA. We have special taxation priveledges. We have government give away programs. Do we find out who the land belonged to before tribe A pushed tribe B off of it and before that. It wasn't pretty in every instance, but the fact is that today this country belongs to the USA and there isn't anything that can be done to change the past. And in the past (before European colonization) this country didn't belong to anyone in particular, but there were countless tribes here and there from time to time over the course of thousands of years. Who is to say what belongs to who? In answer to the question: the US government (with its military) says that the land with it its current borders belong to the US. That is reality and it is several orders of magnitude more complicated than New Zealand and the Maori. |
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