[Gecko of Doom]

Originally Posted by legendary_chin

haha. forgive me, I guess I was lying.

My point is not that you were lying. That was sarcasm used to make the point that you're being inconsistent with your arguments.

Originally Posted by legendary_chin

I dont see how that proves that we killed more than anyone...

No, that one statistic alone doesn't. His (valid) point is that it is possible to find out whether the U.S. has killed more people than a given country.

[bobthecockroach]

I'm not trying to show that we've killed more than anyone else. Again, it could be researched, but I don't have the time or the inclination to research it.

I'm still awaiting an explanation of how creating a 1500 degree firestorm which sucked in thousands of residents of Dresden, mostly civilians, was for the greater good.

[bobthecockroach]

Originally Posted by legendary_chin

still doesnt prove anything, no research can prove it.

You truly have no concept of research. Research could EASILY produce a statistic of the approximate number of civilians killed by each modern nation-state.

[legendary_chin]

no it could not be researched because there is no research that lists every single innocent person that has been killed...

[Gecko of Doom]

Originally Posted by legendary_chin

no it could not be researched because there is no research that lists every single innocent person that has been killed...

Hence the word "approximate." Very rarely will you get research that documents every last possible little detail.

You don't need to have a list of every single innocent person killed to be able to tell who has killed more.

Did Hitler kill more people than, say, your garden-variety serial killer? By your logic, we can never know, since we don't have a list of every single person Hitler killed.

[bobthecockroach]

Well, one of us has already admitted to lying in this discussion, and it wasn't me, so... I think if I want to avoid lies, I should avoid conversation with you, so I'm done here.

[Gecko of Doom]

Originally Posted by legendary_chin

haha, thats funny, like I said you can go read your little scientific books. but even if you were to look up who has killed more, how do you know all the research you made was truth?? it could easily be a lie.

Yeah, why do we bother with all this stupid "education" stuff anyway? Everything kids learn in school could easily be a lie. They don't even need to learn to read, because pretty much any book, magazine, or newspaper they could get their hands on could easily be a lie. We should all just go around not listening to anybody and living lives based on our own unfounded opinions, because anything anyone else says could easily be a lie.

[JerryLove]

Did everyone just joing the hacking at chin's straw-man or had there actually been a claim that the US had caused the greatest number of civillian deaths?

Off the top of my head, I think that record may go to China (Mao in particular); but we'd have to set scopes and criteria to tell.

That said, America has certainly killed millions (depending on how far back we track and how loose we are with causality).

[Gecko of Doom]

Originally Posted by JerryLove

Did everyone just joing the hacking at chin's straw-man or had there actually been a claim that the US had caused the greatest number of civillian deaths?

Originally Posted by bobthecockroach

The United States has certainly killed more civilians than any "terrorist" country. Probably the only countries to have killed more civilians are Germany and Russia (Hitler/Holocaust in Germany and political killings in Russia), yet hardly anyone is mad at them.

I think that's the closest it's come. That said, the last couple pages have just been us hacking at chin's various straw men.

[adamwagg]

I split this from the gay bomb thread and deleted a fair number of posts which were either off topic, too sarcastic or annoying. I;ve defined the topic as how the number of innocent civilians (or anyone) killed by the US relates to the war on terror.

So to get back on track I'll ask a couple of questions.

Should the number of innocent civililans the US has killed relate to how they have use the 'high moral ground' in the war on terror?

Has the US's response to 9/11 been consistent with how other countries respond to the US's killing of innocent civilians?

In regards to the 'at war' argument - I'm pretty sure these terrorists have considered themselves to be 'at war' with the US for quite a while - it's only under our definition of war (i.e. when we say its a war) that they aren't.

These points/questions aren't necessarily my view and I dont entirely/at all agree with them but just putting them out there for discussion.

I'll keep an eye on this thread - and pointless side arguements - or poor straw mans (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strawman - read it if you don't know what they are) will be deleted. If there is no more useful discussion I'll close the thread.

[bobthecockroach]

As far as height of moral ground goes, the United States is sitting on the shore of the Dead Sea.

[Grasshopper359]

Originally Posted by bobthecockroach

I'm still awaiting an explanation of how creating a 1500 degree firestorm which sucked in thousands of residents of Dresden, mostly civilians, was for the greater good.

Good thing you didn't decide to hold your breath, because I don't think it's forthcoming.

Originally Posted by adamwagg

If there is no more useful discussion I'll close the thread.

You know, I think it's at that point. I seriously doubt that there's going to be any more real discussion going on here.