And They're Off! The Democratic Candidates for 2020

[milk]

I don't think it's normal, when someone commits a crime, to demolish the family's house.

EDIT: Nor frankly is it a sensible strategy, as it just creates a sense of grievance.

I have to agree with this. I don't understand the case for Israel is "within the norms of human rights," but I don't follow the issue hardly at all. I can't get myself to carry the ball for Israel just as I can't get interested in the boycott bunch. It's hard to see anything else for the region other than more of the same. 

[Muzio]

I don't think it's normal, when someone commits a crime, to demolish the family's house.

EDIT: Nor frankly is it a sensible strategy, as it just creates a sense of grievance.

It works well, I understand.  It is not unusual for parents to turn in a child who is planning to carry out a terrorist act.  The parents don't want to lose their home.

[Madiel]

It works well, I understand.  It is not unusual for parents to turn in a child who is planning to carry out a terrorist act.  The parents don't want to lose their home.

We have laws about being an accessory to a crime, which require proof. You can only turn someone in (whether they are your relative or not) if you know what they are planning.

Meanwhile, here in the real world, huge numbers of the people who went to join ISIS managed to completely hide their intentions from their innocent and shocked families.

Presumably, as a fan of guilt by association, you also think that that this notorious event in my own country's political history was fine and dandy.

[Madiel]

Maybe you'd like to demolish this man's house as well.

[drogulus]

It works well, I understand.  It is not unusual for parents to turn in a child who is planning to carry out a terrorist act.  The parents don't want to lose their home.

     One study in Israel said it had a temporary effect, another said it was counterproductive.

     Only some demolishing is done for reasons of national security. Many are for building code violations or houses built without permits it's impossible for Palestinians to get.

[Florestan]

Maybe you'd like to demolish this man's house as well.

You cannot compare Israel to Australia. The former lives under constant danger of terrorist attacks while in the latter such heinous acts have been few and far between. Moreover, it's not unfrequently that houses of dead or convicted terrorists are turned into shrines for their "martyrdom" and propaganda hubs for their deeds. Last but not least, the shock that the Australian schoolteacher felt on hearing his son joined iSIS is quite different from what some Palestinian parents feel about their sons' joining PFLP or Hamas, which is often pride and encouragement.

[Florestan]

Reality.
The BDS movement operates merely as a channel for Palestinian propaganda. To the best of my knowledge, BDSers have never challenged Palestinian terrorism and incitement of violence, never challenged Hamas's dictatorial rule over Gaza, never challenged the PA's suppression of rights in the areas it controls. They always seem to condone  or even outright apologize for those things.

I have provided a link which documents the numerous connections between NGOs supporting BDS and terrorist organizations such as PFLP and Hamas. There are literally dozens of individuals belonging to both the former and latter, many of whom had already been convicted, and served time in prison, more than once in more cases, for terrorism. Nobody seems interested in learning, let alone commenting upon, these facts. Audiatur et altera pars is dead and burried.

[milk]

I have provided a link which documents the numerous connections between NGOs supporting BDS and terrorist organizations such as PFLP and Hamas. There are literally dozens of individuals belonging to both the former and latter, many of whom had already been convicted, and served time in prison, more than once in more cases, for terrorism. Nobody seems interested in learning, let alone commenting upon, these facts. Audiatur et altera pars is dead and burried.

I'm sympathetic. And I think we live in an age in which everyone is outdoing themselves in woke-ness and hard left types like AOC will tell you you're a racist if you disagree on this issue. If one is on social media there will always be someone to call one the worst. I never thought I would turn into the crotchety uncle because I came up through left-wing milieux all the way, even up through my M.A. and my current job. My heart is still on the left but there's that faction that kind of leaves me shell-shocked. I had a "conversation" recently with a 3rd-wave feminist who nearly called me a rape apologist for AGREEING with Margaret Atwood about #metoo (heavens forbid I admit that I agree with a recent Don Jr tweet - I'm still having cognitive dissonance over that one). Anyway, sorry for my digressions.
I do understand why some of my friends support BDS though. I think many have basically good motives and Israel does a lot of bad stuff. As a NY Jew, I got kind pissed at Israelis with the way they treated Obama; Jews like my parents sent them tons of money over the decades to make their country and they were very disrespectful. Sometimes they act as if they're entitled to U.S. support. They are not; it is a privilege. On the other hand, 

[Madiel]

You cannot compare Israel to Australia. The former lives under constant danger of terrorist attacks while in the latter such heinous acts have been few and far between. Moreover, it's not unfrequently that houses of dead or convicted terrorists are turned into shrines for their "martyrdom" and propaganda hubs for their deeds. Last but not least, the shock that the Australian schoolteacher felt on hearing his son joined iSIS is quite different from what some Palestinian parents feel about their sons' joining PFLP or Hamas, which is often pride and encouragement.

If the claim is about operating within human rights norms, then yes I absolutely can compare Israel to Australia. Because one of the fundamental points of human rights is that they are universal.

So if you're going to say that it's compatible with human rights to destroy the property of a person who has not committed a crime because someone else in their family committed a crime, you are saying that that is compatible with human rights everywhere in the world. Israel, Australia, Romania, USA. Doesn't matter. That's the whole point of human rights, and that's the whole reason why a system of human rights was even set up in the first place. The entire REASON for that system was that people could not constantly say "oh, but in these circumstances it's justified".

So choose. Either you accept that the demolition of houses of family members is acceptable as a matter of principle, or you don't. If you think it's acceptable as a matter of principle, THEN you can get into why it's only done to brown people in far away places instead of nice white schoolteachers, and why they can't think of any other less drastic measure to deal with shrines like... oh I don't know, banning/demolishing actual shrines instead of existing living quarters.

Because if there's one thing that characterises the state of Israel, it's a kind of PTSD-induced desire to crack every threatening walnut with a sledgehammer. The conversation is always about the existence of the threat (which is real), and never about whether the response is in proportion or even effective.

Mind you, other parts of the world are trying to head down the same path.

And you really don't impress me in the slightest using the behaviour of "some Palestinian parents" as a justification for putting the homes of ALL such parents at risk. You just show me that either you're not paying attention or you want to evade the point by using a generalisation of "some". Are you really not able to grasp that I'm specifically talking about families who haven't done anything wrong, who've never been charged with anything never mind convicted? The whole point of this discussion is that the house is not flattened because of what the parents have done. It's not based on any kind of assessment of their individual culpability.

So let's try that again, recognising that the shock that the Australian schoolteacher felt on hearing his son joined iSIS is exactly the same as what some Palestinian parents feel about their sons' joining PFLP or Hamas, and then you can tell me whether those Palestinian parents ought to lose their house because you can talk about them as generalisations, as if they also live in some kind of collective abstract notional dwelling.

I'm sure some Mexicans are drug dealers, and some are gang members. I'm sure some Muslims are dangerous. I'm sure some men are rapists. I'm sure some Romanians miss the Communist days. I know that some gay men have HIV.

[milk]

If the claim is about operating within human rights norms, then yes I absolutely can compare Israel to Australia. Because one of the fundamental points of human rights is that they are universal.

So if you're going to say that it's compatible with human rights to destroy the property of a person who has not committed a crime because someone else in their family committed a crime, you are saying that that is compatible with human rights everywhere in the world. Israel, Australia, Romania, USA. Doesn't matter. That's the whole point of human rights, and that's the whole reason why a system of human rights was even set up in the first place. The entire REASON for that system was that people could not constantly say "oh, but in these circumstances it's justified".

So choose. Either you accept that the demolition of houses of family members is acceptable as a matter of principle, or you don't. If you think it's acceptable as a matter of principle, THEN you can get into why it's only done to brown people in far away places instead of nice white schoolteachers, and why they can't think of any other less drastic measure to deal with shrines like... oh I don't know, banning/demolishing actual shrines instead of existing living quarters.

Because if there's one thing that characterises the state of Israel, it's a kind of PTSD-induced desire to crack every threatening walnut with a sledgehammer. The conversation is always about the existence of the threat (which is real), and never about whether the response is in proportion or even effective.

Mind you, other parts of the world are trying to head down the same path.

And you really don't impress me in the slightest using the behaviour of "some Palestinian parents" as a justification for putting the homes of ALL such parents at risk. You just show me that either you're not paying attention or you want to evade the point by using a generalisation of "some". Are you really not able to grasp that I'm specifically talking about families who haven't done anything wrong, who've never been charged with anything never mind convicted? The whole point of this discussion is that the house is not flattened because of what the parents have done. It's not based on any kind of assessment of their individual culpability.

So let's try that again, recognising that the shock that the Australian schoolteacher felt on hearing his son joined iSIS is exactly the same as what some Palestinian parents feel about their sons' joining PFLP or Hamas, and then you can tell me whether those Palestinian parents ought to lose their house because you can talk about them as generalisations, as if they also live in some kind of collective abstract notional dwelling.

I'm sure some Mexicans are drug dealers, and some are gang members. I'm sure some Muslims are dangerous. I'm sure some men are rapists. I'm sure some Romanians miss the Communist days. I know that some gay men have HIV.

Even if someone in the house DID agree with the guilty party's behavior I don't see knocking down the family home as right or smart policy.

[Madiel]

Even if someone in the house DID agree with the guilty party's behavior I don't see knocking down the family home as right or smart policy.

Agreed. Because the right to have an opinion is actually one of the recognised human rights. We don't punish people simply for what they think of another person's actions, and I shudder to think what could happen to the political process if we did.

We have laws about being an accessory to a crime when someone was actually involved in a meaningful way.

[Florestan]

if you're going to say that it's compatible with human rights to destroy the property of a person who has not committed a crime because someone else in their family committed a crime

I'm not going to say nor did I actually say that, because it's clearly incompatible with human rights. It's another poster, not I, who said Israel operates within the norms of human rights.

What I said, though, and I maintain, is that Israel is not your normal state living in normal conditions. It's a state that ever since its foundation has been hated and reviled by any and all of his neighbours (and by a good portion of the international community), has been under constant threat of war and under constant threat of terrorist attacks. Their civilian citizens have been constantly killed and maimed by terrorist orrganizations which do not recognize Israel's right to exist as a state at all and which regularly reiterate their intention to destroy it. In these conditions it's understandable (for me, at least) they (Israel, I mean) developed a "besieged city" mentality (which in their case is actually a daily reality) and try hard to protect their very existence and the lives of their citizens, sometimes (probably most of the times) at the cost of violating the rights of their enemies, real or perceived. It's understandable (for me, at least) that their national security trumps any human rights considerations. And while clearly violating human rights, I don't think Israel's record is worse than China's, Iran's or Saudi Arabia's (which can't even claim such a special status as Israel: they tramp under foot the human rights of their citizens without any real or potential threat from the latter) --- yet I've never heard a BDS organization ever calling for the boycott of those countries.

[Madiel]

I have no intention of getting involved in the whole BDS discussion.

[Florestan]

I have no intention of getting involved in the whole BDS discussion.

Given that BDS is the current discussion, you have already got yourself involved in it --- but I have no problem with your calling it quits.

[milk]

I'm not going to say nor did I actually say that, because it's clearly incompatible with human rights. It's another poster, not I, who said Israel operates within the norms of human rights.

What I said, though, and I maintain, is that Israel is not your normal state living in normal conditions. It's a state that ever since its foundation has been hated and reviled by any and all of his neighbours (and by a good portion of the international community), has been under constant threat of war and under constant threat of terrorist attacks. Their civilian citizens have been constantly killed and maimed by terrorist orrganizations which do not recognize Israel's right to exist as a state at all and which regularly reiterate their intention to destroy it. In these conditions it's understandable (for me, at least) they (Israel, I mean) developed a "besieged city" mentality (which in their case is actually a daily reality) and try hard to protect their very existence and the lives of their citizens, sometimes (probably most of the times) at the cost of violating the rights of their enemies, real or perceived. It's understandable (for me, at least) that their national security trumps any human rights considerations. And while clearly violating human rights, I don't think Israel's record is worse than China's, Iran's or Saudi Arabia's (which can't even claim such a special status as Israel: they tramp under foot the human rights of their citizens without any real or potential threat from the latter) --- yet I've never heard a BDS organization ever calling for the boycott of those countries.

I wish I was comfortable with that kind of argument because from childhood we had a kind of affinity with Israel - growing up in Jewish America. But, I always wanted, at that time, it to be better than those other places. I don't care much now and would never visit that part of the world. It's a mess on all sides. I've wondered why, at times, that people I know are obsessed with Israel. At times it's bled over into obsession with Jews and, at best, tone deafness as they should realize that we are not there (I live in Japan). Yet, I can't really say that Brian Eno or Roger Waters are doing something bad by focusing on that issue, if that's what they care about. It's not necessarily wrong - if that particular injustice is in their hearts. People grow up in Israel; so they don't want to die or give up their country. Other people were kicked out and that memory lives on in their families. It's a terrible shame that human beings are the way they are. I admire people who can take up these kinds of problems and I used to be more interested in that kind of work. Good luck to them. I'll throw my two cents in on the internet but, other than that, leave me out of it. 
I do sympathize with you a bit now as we see Saudia Arabia defended by woke-sters while Israel is the greatest threat to Earthlings. Some of my old college friends on Facebook (Tulsi Gabbard fans - thread duty!) even defend China and call HK students CIA stooges. Go figure.   

[Florestan]

from childhood we had a kind of affinity with Israel - growing up in Jewish America.

I am not Jewish. My maternal grandmother's brother-in-law was, and his son lives in Tel Aviv with his family.

But, I always wanted, at that time, it to be better than those other places. I don't care much now and would never visit that part of the world. It's a mess on all sides.

I wouldn't mind visiting Israel, I just had no opportunity for the time being.

And I tell you honestly: were I forced at the point of a gun to take my permanent residence in a Middle Eastern country of my choice, it would be Israel hands down.

I do sympathize with you a bit now as we see Saudia Arabia defended by woke-sters while Israel is the greatest threat to Earthlings. Some of my old college friends on Facebook (Tulsi Gabbard fans - thread duty!) even defend China and call HK students CIA stooges. Go figure.   

I'm not surprised in the least.

[milk]

I am not Jewish. My maternal grandmother's brother-in-law was, and his son lives in Tel Aviv with his family.

I wouldn't mind visiting Israel, I just had no opportunity for the time being.

And I tell you honestly: were I forced at the point of a gun to take my permanent residence in a Middle Eastern country of my choice, it would be Israel hands down.

I'm not surprised in the least.

Yeah, I meant "we" in the sense of how the community of NY Jews felt. My grandparents and parents, who have virtually no political interests and were not particularly religious, bought Israel bonds and stuff. Like a lot of Jewish kids, we were offered a summer on a kibbutz instead of a bar mitzvah party (I took the party - I had no interest in waking up at 4am to plant potatoes in a desert).
If I had to live over there, I think I'd have no choice but Israel. Can't imagine that!

[Florestan]

Yeah, I meant "we" in the sense of how the community of NY Jews felt.

I got it alright. I specified that I am not Jewish lest I be accused of in-built bias.

[drogulus]

     To be progressive is to shoulder more responsibility for values construction, it's not an escape clause when you extinguish values absolutism.

     You are the caretaker. It isn't even possible for you to not be the caretaker.

     

[drogulus]

     Values universalism allows people to transcend absolutist claims. That's why we have such ideas.

     What things are is what they do.