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Tingkai
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To find the Northwest Passage
Aug 2001
time: 13:22
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C0ckney: Why do you think a UN army would be a threat to soverignty?
From my perspective, A UN army wouldn't threaten national soverignty because it is not a military threat to a functioning government. It would be designed instead to step in when there is a massive power vacuum, such as Somalia or Rwanda. Enough weapons to defend itself and to exert control.
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Felch
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Germantown, Maryland
Sep 2001
time: 00:22
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quote:
Originally posted by David Floyd
Oh, so now it's a case of the strong picking on the weak? Sorta like the schoolyard bully who takes your lunch money because he can?
We (meaning the US) shouldn't have been in Korea to begin with. It was none of our damn business, and 38,000 Americans paid the ultimate price for our meddling. |
Koreans are people, and as people they have certain inalienable rights. As free people, we ought to do what we can to expand freedom and defeat tyranny. North Korea sought to crush the (limited) freedoms of the South, and we fought to prevent that, and to liberate the North if at all possible.
Besides, Korea passes the ban on initiation of coercion test. North Korea invaded the South, and since they initiated the coercive act, they needed to be beaten to prevent them from profiting from their crime.
Libertarian doesn't mean selfish. It means valuing liberty, and opposing tyranny. By your standards Lafeyette was a warmonger who had no business involving himself in the internal affairs of the British Empire.
America is the schoolyard bully when we initiate coercion. When we respond to force or fraud with the same, we are simply serving our fellow lovers of freedom and liberty by defending those who can't defend themselves.
And don't give me any crap about how despotic South Korea was. That's not the issue. The issue is that a worse evil was trying to absorb them and oppress them even further. Besides, the limited freedoms of the RoK have developed into a democratic republic, while the North is still being ruled by a wanna-be Stalin.
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David Floyd
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The bottom of a large bottle of beer
Jan 1970
time: 05:22
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quote:
Libertarian doesn't mean selfish. It means valuing liberty, and opposing tyranny. |
Tyranny? You mean sorta like conscription? Sorta like forcing young Americans to go fight 6000 miles away in a land they don't care about in order to make a political statement for the US government? Don't talk to me about tyranny - an example of people fighting a war in a non-coercive fashion would be something like the Abraham Lincoln Brigade in the Spanish Civil War. The US government didn't declare war and force anyone to die, but thousands of Americans volunteered to go fight for what they thought was right.
More later, I'm late for work.
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Q Cubed
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t3h y3ll0w p3ril
Apr 1999
time: 23:22
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quote:
Oh, so now it's a case of the strong picking on the weak? Sorta like the schoolyard bully who takes your lunch money because he can? |
no, not quite. we could have done it to stop the chinese advance and won korea completely for democracy.
quote:
We (meaning the US) shouldn't have been in Korea to begin with. It was none of our damn business, and 38,000 Americans paid the ultimate price for our meddling. |
and if you hadn't been there, over 60 million koreans would be suffering, and maybe a half to two thirds of those would be starving.
over two three million probably would have paid the ultimate price already.
i say again, df:
quote:
maybe you're fine with the idea that if all of korea became stalinist under kim il sung, but i'm not.
without macarthur, all of korea would be a starving hellhole, part of bush's stupid "axis of evil". without him, all of korea would be bankrupt, its economy frozen. without him, i'd be stuck in a third-rate pos country. |
quote:
So? That doesn't justify forcing hundreds of thousands of Americans to go to Korea against their will - ie the draft - and being directly responsible for the deaths of 38,000 of them.
I'm sorry people would have died if we weren't there. But you know what? Life's a *****, it tends to be unpleasant. |
i take it you're quite the isolationist?
right, maybe we had no business in korea. we also, then, didn't really have any business in ww1, in iraq, in vietnam, in bosnia, in somalia, in panama, in haiti...
then again, you probably do think that, don't you?
yes, by modern standards, the draft was wrong. yes, it probably wasn't a good idea in the first place. but to apply modern morality, modern beliefs, and modern standards to something that happened in the past opens up a pandora's box of what could have and what should have been.
on the whole, i prefer to think of the american sacrifice as honorable and heroic. 38 thousand deaths helped prevent the despotic mental, social, and physical murder of 44 million under a stalinist state.
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leftover_crack
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Well depends macaruther was an ass to some (his own soldiers) and a hero to others...(The Japanese people)
A Fascist to some (hollywood) a great general to others (washington)
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David Floyd
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The bottom of a large bottle of beer
Jan 1970
time: 05:22
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Q,
quote:
no, not quite. we could have done it to stop the chinese advance and won korea completely for democracy. |
Korea? Democracy? Really now. If it's anything like the democracy South Korea had, that's certainly nothing to fight for.
quote:
and if you hadn't been there, over 60 million koreans would be suffering, and maybe a half to two thirds of those would be starving.
over two three million probably would have paid the ultimate price already. |
Maybe so. But it is NEVER America's place to interfere in the internal affairs of another nation. That's all the Korean War was, really - a civil war, after we set up an arbitrary division of a country that didn't want to be divided.
Further, I'm sure that reasoning makes the families of those 38,000 killed feel a whole lot better, huh? "Gee, my two sons died 6000 miles away from multiple gut wounds, but it's all OK because at least Korea is (semi) free." Right?
quote:
right, maybe we had no business in korea. we also, then, didn't really have any business in ww1, in iraq, in vietnam, in bosnia, in somalia, in panama, in haiti... |
You're certainly correct, and you can add the CSA, Cuba, Nicaragua, WW2, Kuwait, Grenada, and Kosovo in there as well, and that'll do until I think of more.
quote:
yes, by modern standards, the draft was wrong. yes, it probably wasn't a good idea in the first place. but to apply modern morality, modern beliefs, and modern standards to something that happened in the past opens up a pandora's box of what could have and what should have been. |
Isn't that entirely the point? And besides, if you believe that there are absolute rights and wrongs, as I do, then applying "modern morality" to the past isn't a problem in this case, because conscription was just as wrong then as it is now.
quote:
38 thousand deaths helped prevent the despotic mental, social, and physical murder of 44 million under a stalinist state. |
Isn't that nice. I wouldn't have a problem with it, if every American who fought in Korea was a volunteer and the US was not officially in the fight, along the lines of the Spanish Civil War, for example. That way people at home wouldn't have to support killing through taxes, either.
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GeneralTacticus
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of Melbourne, Australia
Dec 2001
time: 15:22
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quote:
Maybe so. But it is NEVER America's place to interfere in the internal affairs of another nation. That's all the Korean War was, really - a civil war, after we set up an arbitrary division of a country that didn't want to be divided. |
Would you have supported someone else intervening in the US if another country invaded and set up Texas as their own puppet state? That is exactly what the Soviets did in North Korea.
quote:
Isn't that entirely the point? And besides, if you believe that there are absolute rights and wrongs, as I do, then applying "modern morality" to the past isn't a problem in this case, because conscription was just as wrong then as it is now. |
What if you don't believe in absolute rights and wrongs? Why do you?
quote:
Further, I'm sure that reasoning makes the families of those 38,000 killed feel a whole lot better, huh? "Gee, my two sons died 6000 miles away from multiple gut wounds, but it's all OK because at least Korea is (semi) free." Right? |
Hey, if we used your reasoning, I'm sure the Korean people would feel a whole lot better about being under a Stlainist government - "Hey, my brother just got shot for complaining about the price of bread,and I can't afford to buy food, and I'm not allowed to say anything about it, but that's all right, because it meant 38 000 Americans could stay home and the US could save a few billion dollars."
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David Floyd
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The bottom of a large bottle of beer
Jan 1970
time: 05:22
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quote:
Would you have supported someone else intervening in the US if another country invaded and set up Texas as their own puppet state? That is exactly what the Soviets did in North Korea. |
And, I remind you, what the US did with South Korea.
But no, I would not support another country forcing its citizens to die under any circumstances.
quote:
What if you don't believe in absolute rights and wrongs? Why do you? |
Because I believe in natural rights. And I'll elaborate later, I'm too freakin tired right now 
quote:
Hey, if we used your reasoning, I'm sure the Korean people would feel a whole lot better about being under a Stlainist government - "Hey, my brother just got shot for complaining about the price of bread,and I can't afford to buy food, and I'm not allowed to say anything about it, but that's all right, because it meant 38 000 Americans could stay home and the US could save a few billion dollars." |
Not my problem.
In any case, committing a wrong (conscription) in order to right another (perceived) wrong (in this case, unified Stalinist Korea) is not OK because the ends can't justify the means. Further, the US government had no right or authority to violate the natural rights of American citizens (or anyone else, for that matter).
I would feel bad if Korea had been unified into a Stalinist state. I really would have. But me feeling bad about something is not enough for me to support violating someone's rights.
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GeneralTacticus
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of Melbourne, Australia
Dec 2001
time: 15:22
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quote:
And, I remind you, what the US did with South Korea.
But no, I would not support another country forcing its citizens to die under any circumstances. |
The government of SK was not set up by the US. Supported, yes. Created, no. It was elected (ironically enough, largely due to the communists).
quote:
Not my problem.
In any case, committing a wrong (conscription) in order to right another (perceived) wrong (in this case, unified Stalinist Korea) is not OK because the ends can't justify the means. Further, the US government had no right or authority to violate the natural rights of American citizens (or anyone else, for that matter).
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Why do you consider American lives intrinsically more valuable than others? Koreans are people too.
quote:
I would feel bad if Korea had been unified into a Stalinist state. I really would have. But me feeling bad about something is not enough for me to support violating someone's rights. |
Would you have supported the Korean War if conscription had not been in place at the time?
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Q Cubed
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t3h y3ll0w p3ril
Apr 1999
time: 23:22
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quote:
Korea? Democracy? Really now. If it's anything like the democracy South Korea had, that's certainly nothing to fight for. |
spoken like a person who has absolutely no idea what exactly korean democracy is like.
so you hear about the dictators.
they weren't democratically elected.
rhee syngman? voted in. thrown out.
park chung hee? coup d'etat.
chun doo hwan? coup d'etat.
roh tae woo? semi-peaceful handoff, no real elections.
kim young sam? first democratic election. bit of corruption, but completely free of any vote fixing.
kim dae jung? second free democratic election. no judges involved, either.
it takes time to develop a functional democracy, especially in a nation rising out of the ashes of a bitter occupation and then a brutal war.
i'm not saying south korean democracy has had a pure history. but seriously, you saying that you have no real problem with a unified korean stalinist state offends me-- because you're pretty much saying that you don't care if 44 million (and more, actually) people end up in a society where their rights are violated in worse means than being sent on a draft.
americans got drafted, and fought.
were all koreans under the stalinist state: all would be drafted, or forced into some labor. none would have food right now--some would have to resort to cannibalism, others grass and dirt. none would be safe in a police state where people disappear for no reason at all.
their rights would be violated in a hundred worse ways than how the americans got theirs "violated". i'm not saying i like the draft. i'm just saying what america did in korea was a good. it's a pity that it had to be done in such a manner, but it was good.
the rights of 44 million here were at stake. unfortunately, sacrifices had to be made.
yes, i know the families of those 38000 suffered.
38000*3 is still not equal to 44 million skoreans + 22 million nkoreans + however many korean diaspora that would have been forced to stay. i'll be generous and say that approaches 80 million.
was it tragic that 38k americans lost their lives? was it tragic that the vast majority of them were drafted and paid the ultimate price? yes. did they do it for a good reason? yes.
ah, well. i guess to you it would be better if i were starving under a stalinist state.
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David Floyd
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The bottom of a large bottle of beer
Jan 1970
time: 05:22
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GT,
quote:
The government of SK was not set up by the US. Supported, yes. Created, no. It was elected (ironically enough, largely due to the communists). |
Oh, OK, so the US *DIDN'T* have an inordinate amount of influence in Korea following WW2?
quote:
Why do you consider American lives intrinsically more valuable than others? Koreans are people too. |
Don't put words in my mouth.
quote:
Would you have supported the Korean War if conscription had not been in place at the time? |
No, because Americans were still being forced to pay for it. Further, people who volunteered for the military beforehand did not volunteer to go fight another overseas war, they volunteered to defend the US. Those are two wildly different things.
Q,
quote:
it takes time to develop a functional democracy, especially in a nation rising out of the ashes of a bitter occupation and then a brutal war. |
The point I was making is that, until recently, South Korean leaders have basically been dictators who violate the rights of South Koreans in any number of ways, such as killing protesters.
quote:
but seriously, you saying that you have no real problem with a unified korean stalinist state offends me-- because you're pretty much saying that you don't care if 44 million (and more, actually) people end up in a society where their rights are violated in worse means than being sent on a draft. |
I never said I had no problem with it. I have a problem when anyone's rights are being violated. But violating my rights in order to help someone else is never, ever OK.
Oh, and I'm curious how you think someone's rights can be violated in worse ways than conscription? Conscription involves both slavery and sending you to both kill and die. What's worse than that?
quote:
americans got drafted, and fought. |
Unfortunately. The draftees should have refused, en masse, to go overseas, and hopefully taken up arms against the politicians and military brass who were pushing the war on them.
quote:
were all koreans under the stalinist state: all would be drafted, or forced into some labor. none would have food right now--some would have to resort to cannibalism, others grass and dirt. none would be safe in a police state where people disappear for no reason at all. |
None of which justifies forcing Americans into virtual slavery, and sending them to their deaths.
quote:
i'm just saying what america did in korea was a good. |
Wrong. The ends never justify the means, and what the US did in Korea was by definition bad, because it was accomplished through conscription and taking the money of Americans to funnel it into the "defense" industry.
quote:
the rights of 44 million here were at stake. unfortunately, sacrifices had to be made. |
Yes, but not by Americans, whom were not concerned with a civil war thousands of miles away. Sacrifices, perhaps, by the people whom it affected - the South Koreans - but not by people whom it had absolutely nothing to do with, unless these people volunteered of their own free will knowing specifically what they were volunteering for, and as long as this was not funded by US tax dollars.
quote:
yes, i know the families of those 38000 suffered.
38000*3 is still not equal to 44 million skoreans + 22 million nkoreans + however many korean diaspora that would have been forced to stay. i'll be generous and say that approaches 80 million.
was it tragic that 38k americans lost their lives? was it tragic that the vast majority of them were drafted and paid the ultimate price? yes. did they do it for a good reason? yes. |
So forcing millions of Americans into slavery, sending 38,000 of them to die - which I consider to be murder - and taxing the rest blind is OK, and killing over a million North Koreans and Chinese - which is also murder, because this was not valid self defense and totally unjustified - because it achieved the political ends of the government? I'm sorry, but that is absolutely unacceptable. Slavery is never OK, nor is murder, nor is theft.
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Ned
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of Aptos, CA
Oct 1999
time: 21:22
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David, The GA authorized UN supervised elections for "Korea" in 1947-8, IIRC. The USSR said the UN had no jurisdiction and refused to cooperate. Elections were held only in the South. In the North, the USSR set up a puppet communist state that declared themselves the sole government of Korea. In 1949, both the US and the USSR pulled out of Korea.
In early 1950, we had a lot of intelligence that NK was going to attack. But the local commander discounted it, and the information did not reach the higher-ups in the US. In a post-1950 congressional review on the intelligence failure, the congress recommended that getting warnings of this nature to higher admin officials was required. In other words, what happened in 1950 was the same thing that happened in 1941 and 2001. We had enough info to know about the attack, but lower level intelligence bureaucrats discounted it.
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David Floyd
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The bottom of a large bottle of beer
Jan 1970
time: 05:22
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I understand all that Ned, but realistically speaking, North Korea was a Soviet puppet, and South Korea an American one.
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GeneralTacticus
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of Melbourne, Australia
Dec 2001
time: 15:22
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quote:
Oh, OK, so the US *DIDN'T* have an inordinate amount of influence in Korea following WW2? |
Of course they had a lot of influence, much as they did in post-war Europe (only more so).
quote:
Don't put words in my mouth. |
You were saying basically that it wasn't worth the sacrifice of 38000 American lives to save millions of Koreans from stalinism.
quote:
Oh, and I'm curious how you think someone's rights can be violated in worse ways than conscription? Conscription involves both slavery and sending you to both kill and die. What's worse than that? |
Maybe REAL slavery, torture, and murder?
quote:
So forcing millions of Americans into slavery, sending 38,000 of them to die - which I consider to be murder - and taxing the rest blind is OK, and killing over a million North Koreans and Chinese - which is also murder, because this was not valid self defense and totally unjustified - because it achieved the political ends of the government? I'm sorry, but that is absolutely unacceptable. Slavery is never OK, nor is murder, nor is theft. |
Actually it was self-defense; they attacked first.
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Q Cubed
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t3h y3ll0w p3ril
Apr 1999
time: 23:22
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quote:
The point I was making is that, until recently, South Korean leaders have basically been dictators who violate the rights of South Koreans in any number of ways, such as killing protesters. |
of course. i never said anything different. it's a pity, really, but what did you expect? a completely transparent, honest, and fully democratic nation in a region that was, until half a generation ago, still considered third-world, still was recovering from a brutal war that left millions dead, and destroyed the infrastructure of the entire southern half?
if only things worked as well in real life as they do on paper.
quote:
Oh, and I'm curious how you think someone's rights can be violated in worse ways than conscription? Conscription involves both slavery and sending you to both kill and die. What's worse than that? |
stalinism, at least how the north koreans practice it, involves virtual slavery in the form of working for the party state. it involves not having enough to eat. it involves be randomly selected to be murdered by the state because of some informant saying you didn't bow deeply enough to the portrait of the dear leader. it involves being forced to a) pretend to hate the democratic south (who are often relatives), and b) not given the chance to even say anything remotely to the contrary or you get shot.
at least the soldiers had something to eat other than people, grass, and dirt, and could ***** about the cold korean winters.
quote:
So forcing millions of Americans into slavery, sending 38,000 of them to die - which I consider to be murder - and taxing the rest blind is OK, and killing over a million North Koreans and Chinese - which is also murder, because this was not valid self defense and totally unjustified - because it achieved the political ends of the government? I'm sorry, but that is absolutely unacceptable. Slavery is never OK, nor is murder, nor is theft. |
millions of americans into slavery? who, pray tell, other than the soldiers, were consigned into this slavery?
lest you forget, over 4 million south koreans were murdered in a political game that you western bastards created out of your blind and fvcked up notion of conflicting ideologies.
you created the mess. when you came in to try to clean it up, honestly, i think you did a half-as$ed job. the fact that you came at all, and lost 38000 of your own children, however, proves to me, at least, that you weren't all the completely selfish bastards that you made yourselves out to be in the beginning.
you can say that you americans shouldn't have been there. if you really mean that, you best well admit that you american shouldn't have even sent that jackas$ into japan to "modernize" it with trade.
maybe i'm taking this a bit too personally, df. but seriously, when you say that americans shouldn't have been there to help defend the south, how else am i supposed to take it?
it's tragic that the entire damn thing happened in the first place, but the fact of the matter was that it did. i'm thankful of it, because otherwise, my life would be one of starvation, of uncertainty, of random disappearances, of brainwashing, of bondage to the party. if i tried to get more food, i would be shot for not believing in the dear leader. if i tried to escape/defect, i would be shot for being a traitor. if i tried to find more work, i would be shot for being capitalist. if i tried to move, i would be shot for no good reason at all. that's provided i didn't die already from starvation, or from disease, and provided that my grandfather and my entire mother's side of the family would have survived the purges in the first place.
so you see why i think that conscription is just slightly less abusive than stalinism.
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David Floyd
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The bottom of a large bottle of beer
Jan 1970
time: 05:22
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quote:
stalinism, at least how the north koreans practice it, involves virtual slavery in the form of working for the party state. it involves not having enough to eat. it involves be randomly selected to be murdered by the state because of some informant saying you didn't bow deeply enough to the portrait of the dear leader. it involves being forced to a) pretend to hate the democratic south (who are often relatives), and b) not given the chance to even say anything remotely to the contrary or you get shot.
at least the soldiers had something to eat other than people, grass, and dirt, and could ***** about the cold korean winters. |
So, basically what you are saying is that the slavery conditions for American draftees were only slightly better than the conditions for North Koreans. Gee, I feel ever so much better now 
quote:
millions of americans into slavery? who, pray tell, other than the soldiers, were consigned into this slavery? |
However many million men the US drafted during the Korean War, of course. And I wouldn't call these men soldiers, either. I'd call them civilians who were forcibly enslaved and made to go shoot at people.
quote:
lest you forget, over 4 million south koreans were murdered in a political game that you western bastards created out of your blind and fvcked up notion of conflicting ideologies. |
Oh, I quite agree. The US is almost never the innocent party when it comes to international affairs.
quote:
you created the mess. when you came in to try to clean it up, honestly, i think you did a half-as$ed job. |
I guess the US body count wasn't high enough for you? What's the magic number? 100,000? 1,000,000?
quote:
the fact that you came at all, and lost 38000 of your own children, however, proves to me, at least, that you weren't all the completely selfish bastards that you made yourselves out to be in the beginning. |
What it shows is that the US government is awfully generous with the lives of others, and has absolutely no problem enslaving millions of people.
quote:
you can say that you americans shouldn't have been there. if you really mean that, you best well admit that you american shouldn't have even sent that jackas$ into japan to "modernize" it with trade. |
100% free trade is very important, but it should never have been forced on Japan, no.
quote:
when you say that americans shouldn't have been there to help defend the south, how else am i supposed to take it? |
I don't know, and frankly don't care - Americans should not have been forced to go kill and die for a political end. Period. Not ever. Take that however you want.
quote:
it's tragic that the entire damn thing happened in the first place, but the fact of the matter was that it did. i'm thankful of it, because otherwise, my life would be one of starvation, of uncertainty, of random disappearances, of brainwashing, of bondage to the party. if i tried to get more food, i would be shot for not believing in the dear leader. if i tried to escape/defect, i would be shot for being a traitor. if i tried to find more work, i would be shot for being capitalist. if i tried to move, i would be shot for no good reason at all. that's provided i didn't die already from starvation, or from disease, and provided that my grandfather and my entire mother's side of the family would have survived the purges in the first place. |
Yes, that would certainly be tragic.
But no more tragic than forcing Americans to go kill and die in a foreign country in a civil war that doesn't concern them in any way, shape, or form.
quote:
so you see why i think that conscription is just slightly less abusive than stalinism. |
Maybe I'm just dense, but frankly no, I don't.
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David Floyd
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The bottom of a large bottle of beer
Jan 1970
time: 05:22
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quote:
Try serving as a conscripted soldier and then try living in a Stalinist state, and then maybe you will understand the difference. |
Both of those rank rather low on my list of things to do. To me there is no difference except in degree between the two - Stalinism is *probably* a more brutal form of slavery than conscription, but I fail to see how that justifies using conscription to defeat Stalinism. The phrase "We had to burn the village in order to save it" comes to mind.
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13-09-2002 20:49
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