Stretching Things

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I understand the urge to relate historical episodes to current events. But isn't calling the fight against the Barbary Pirates America's First War on Terror pushing the urge ludicrously far? Terrorists blow up symbolically important targets to try to change a government's policies. Pirates steal stuff from ships. Piracy is bad, and terrorism is bad, but that doesn't mean that they are the same thing!

Comments

  1. Anonymous12:36 PM

    Piracy is bad? Why?

    ReplyDelete
  2. gcallah12:42 PM

    How is one to respond to comments like the above?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous2:48 PM

    Well you've already repudiated trespassing as a crime, so I'm trying to figure out how you're picking and choosing what's bad and what's not. You're not using any standard anyone I know of has ever heard of, because that would constitute circular reasoning and question-begging. You're not just arbitrarily picking and choosing, because that would be non-scholarly.

    Maybe you're using Socrates' "Right Opinion".

    ReplyDelete
  4. gcallah3:49 PM

    "Well you've already repudiated trespassing as a crime, so I'm trying to figure out how you're picking and choosing what's bad and what's not."

    And just when did I do this repudiating?

    "You're not using any standard anyone I know of has ever heard of, because that would constitute circular reasoning and question-begging."

    Well, I suppose it is easier to deal with my remarks if you just make up your own version of them. But it's not very polite, is it?

    ReplyDelete
  5. TokyoTom4:24 AM

    Just a shallow effort to market to idiot neocons....

    ReplyDelete
  6. gcallah10:43 PM

    OK, ikilled007, you claim I said trespassing is no crime, and when I ask you where, you just disappear?

    ReplyDelete

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