From: Hal Finney (hal@finney.org)
Date: Mon Jun 16 2003 - 11:40:14 MDT
Harvey wrote:
> Thanks! But it's not just me. Amara, Damiaen, Eliezer, Emlyn, Hubert,
> James, Jeff, Mez, Olga, Samantha and I have all been recently accused of
> somehow supporting the enemy. These baseless personal attacks seem to be a
> widespread problem.
> [...]
> These are our friends being accused of war crimes. This is excessive. What
> is going on here?
It's important when dealing with emotional issues to stick to the facts.
We all agree that making false accusations is wrong.
I have examined the list archives for the past year closely, searching
for the phrase "war crime" or "war crimes". Not once did I find anyone
use that term to apply to a contributor to this list. No one on this
mailing list has been accused of war crimes!
The only discussion of war crimes has been in the context of actions
on the part of the governments of the United States and its allies and
its enemies, in the first and second Gulf Wars and in World War II.
There has been debate about whether the U.S. actions in Iraq were war
crimes, whether Saddam and his generals commited war crimes, whether
the bombings of Dresden and Hiroshima were war crimes, etc.
The first mention of war crimes outside this context was by Harvey himself:
> The world isn't binary! These faulty deductions are wasting a lot of time
> and driving a lot of people away with baseless accusations. A lack of
> complaint does not prove support. Pointing out flaws in one side does not
> mean someone is on the other side. Disliking our current President is not a
> war crime. We have enough differences of opinion. We don't need to project
> further ones where they do not really exist.
Harvey has gone from saying that "disliking our current President is
not a war crime" to the claim that "our friends [are] being accused of
war crimes". I believe that he has remembered the dialog incorrectly
and has put his own words into the mouths of others.
I would encourage everyone to try not to overstate and inflame the
situation. If you want to make a complaint about excessive rhetoric,
quote the words in question rather than trying to paraphrase them or
offering a general characterization of the tone. The latter practices
are far more fraught with error than most people realize.
Hal
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