h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

You are the one calling war a form of murder. You can't make distinctions like that without looking at other definitions.

"A mother protecting her baby from a killer and rapist- is that not justifiable? "

in English law that wouldn't be defined as murder.

"Murder" requires premeditation. That's why the US legal system invented "Homicide".

Yup. For us if you;re a) provoked b) defending yourself or c) not premeditated then it's not murder.

Egon
(part-time legal clerk)

Interesting, thank you. What about assisted suicide?

erm, not too sure about that, never had to deal with one, sorry. I'll make attempts to find out though, because I remember there was a woman whose husbnd went off to Holland to have it done, and she was being threatened with being charged with something, but I can't remember what. I'll see what I can find out.

Well, in any case I believe murder by any other name is not necessarily murder. I don't believe that war sanitised killing by not calling it murder, since in the rules of war murder is described.

When there is a tragedy (Dunblane for example) certain songs or films are banned for a period. This is so as not to offend people.

It's the same with these videos, people have relatives fighting in the Gulf, some refugees from the Iraqi dictatorship have families over there. You can see why videos containing soldiers being shot or buildings exploding might upset people or be seen as tasteless.

Yes, it's censorship. But like most people, I think censorship is often acceptable (those of you who are "anti-censorship" might want to ponder whether you would accept child pornography or violently racist/homophobic material being freely published). In this case, I think we should be a little more understanding.

Zagreb - hi! I think an important difference is the premeditatedness and the intentionality of this war... In Dunblane, that was a case of one isolated very nutty nutcase 'going postal' as the Americans say - but this war is thought out by the hard, clever and power-hungry amonst us. People have relatives fighting, sure, but those relatives *chose* to go, presumably because they thought it was right to fight a war, or were indifferent as to the strong possibility.
You yourself have often said that the Iraqi refugees you refer wanted a war, and now I feel it would serve them best to *see* what it was they wanted - to get what they asked for! If that's harsh, sorry, but it's how I feel!

Zagreb - hi! I think an important difference is the premeditatedness and the intentionality of this war... In Dunblane, that was a case of one isolated very nutty nutcase 'going postal' as the Americans say - but this war is thought out by the hard, clever and power-hungry amonst us. People have relatives fighting, sure, but those relatives *chose* to go, presumably because they thought it was right to fight a war, or were indifferent as to the strong possibility.
You yourself have often said that the Iraqi refugees you refer wanted a war, and now I feel it would serve them best to *see* what it was they wanted - to get what they asked for! If that's harsh, sorry, but it's how I feel!

If people in a state of personal distress may be upset by certain kinds of media of rather predictable content, they should simply avoid watching them. If someone in my family had just been butchered in a little house in the woods, I'd probably avoid watching the Evil Dead for a while, but I wouldn't object to it being broadcast for other people to watch. If people can't separate entertainment from real life, they should stick to real life for a while. Or maybe for ever.

Taking the Dunblane example, while some people may choose to care strongly about that event, others would take the view that they had no more personal knowledge of the victims than they did of the numerous anonymous people dying in road accidents because someone else wanted to get home a few minutes earlier.

Someone taking a *realistic* view of the amount of death and suffering in the world may validly rate all events that don't involve those they know personally as being of similar importance, however much media coverage they get.
Personally, I see that as being healthy rather than insensitive, and it seems unfair for my viewing pleasure to be dictated by an assumption about what may offend another part of the population.

Of course, the irony is that if members of the armed forces were a tiny fraction as sensitive as the rest of us are supposed to be, they'd never bring themselves to waste anybody.

>>Of course, the irony is that if members of the armed forces were a tiny fraction as sensitive as the rest of us are supposed to be, they'd never bring themselves to waste anybody.<<
Exactly! The people like Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon, in WW1, are rarities - and even they had to experience the hell of combat before they *realised*. They freaked out got PTSD (what we then called
'Shell shock') and we have their poetry. Ironic. Some people might want to ban some of the more graphic Wilfred Owen poems!

Della,

Yes, I understand that the troops are volunteers and that many Iraqis welcome the war. The point is, it is still a war and whilst many people (myself included) think it is preferable to the slow-war and starvation of the Iraqis that has predated it, it is still not pleasant. Music videos are like computer games in that they treat war as an exciting series of explosions and soldiers as automatons to be shot down for fun. In the current circumstances, it is easy to see why some people may be offended by this.

I understand that about music videos, but I think that people who say 'ooh, it upsets me' are just being precious. For the same reason I think televising executions should be done - saying to some people - you wanted it, then *see* - face it!
You know what I think of your argument about the sanctions! They too, were imposed by the Asses of Evil (W, if you want to know) and it's a piece of sophistry to say the least, to argue that a w*r is *good* because the sanctions are bad.
If I bailed you up in yr house, then proposed coming in and killing you - because the alternative was myimprisoning you by surrounding yr house with Rottweilers - would you accept that? Would you heck as like!

Excuse me, are these people fighting back or not? This is not a war, it is an invasion. Media exclusion is nothing more than propoganda.

From one 'unrealistic' perspective, war *is* just a series of entertaining explosions. The vast majority of people who play computer games are thankfully able to distinguish between reality and escapism, and the ones who aren't shouldn't be playing anyway.

If we're actually going to worry about other people's feelings, what about all the people who have Iraqi relatives who see yet another news clip of a huge bomb going off and think "S**t - my cousin might have been in that building". At what point does it become bad taste to replay clips of people *we* pay for killing foreigners. Is there some kind of allowable kill ratio before it becomes bad taste?

"Music videos are like computer games in that they treat war as an exciting series of explosions and soldiers as automatons to be shot down for fun."

Can you please elaborate on that? I count myself as an artist/writer, and I certainly don't take that view of the symbolism I use : which is not dissimilar to some music videos that I have seen.

>>Shit - my cousin might have been in that building". At what point does it become bad taste to replay clips of people *we* pay for killing foreigners. Is there some kind of allowable kill ratio before it becomes bad taste?<<
Excellent point, clzoomer. I knew a lot of Iranian and Iraqi people here in NZ (I've lost touch with some of them) and during the unpleasantness in Kosovo, a woman working in our local supermarket, was the mother of a child in my son's school class - and they were from there. I couldn't look the Middle Eastern people in the eye, and I still can't, when I see some around Unitec and Jim's school.

Asses of Evil

Just saw that.