South Park creators given signed photo of Saddam Hussein

[innerSpaceman]

No, we should not revel in it. But we should accept it. That's right, accept it.


And I am not exactly reveling in the Saddam/South Park situation. I'm not applauding. But I am laughing. It's irony and it's funny.

[Betty]

Frankly, I'm not opposed to people being dicks to people that have been convicted of doing Very Bad Things.

If someone killed your mother or your son or daughter and was convicted and put in prison for it, how sad are you that the guard is a dick to that person? Be honest, doesn't it make you a little happy to know that the guy isn't having a great time there? Or is all that matter is that he's in jail and you prefer that everyone there is as nice as they can be to them?

[Alex]

Yes, and that is why they don't let the families of the crime victims serve as guards for prisoners.

Just because a desire towards an action is understandable doesn't mean it should be condoned.

Like I said, I'm not sad at all if Hussein was unhappy. And in the annals of attempts by prison guards to humiliate their prisoners showing a movie over and over is hardly that egregious.

I still don't find it amusing. It is, after all, essentially the same feeling that humiliation of prisoners was ok because it was cathartic that lead to creating a naked prisoner pyramid. There is hardly a history suggesting that prison guards can be trusted to stop at "playful vaguely amusing and ironic humiliation."

And of course, there is the idea that even in the face of provocation there is dignity in being the better person.

[BarTopDancer]

Originally Posted by Betty

Frankly, I'm not opposed to people being dicks to people that have been convicted of doing Very Bad Things.

If someone killed your mother or your son or daughter and was convicted and put in prison for it, how sad are you that the guard is a dick to that person? Be honest, doesn't it make you a little happy to know that the guy isn't having a great time there? Or is all that matter is that he's in jail and you prefer that everyone there is as nice as they can be to them?

The Stanford Prison Experiment is a great study.

A friend of mine was shot and killed when we were in high school. I still prefer jailhouse justice take care of him then the prison guards being dicks just because they can.

What's that saying? Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

[innerSpaceman]

Yes, it's an absolute. So why are we even surprised that soldiers are dicks? Prison guards sadists? What kind of people do you suppose seek out these jobs?

It's bad enough that, yes, the positions themselves will tend to corrupt even a "normal" person ... but these are voluntary positions sought out by people with proclivities toward violence, domination and control.

[Ghoulish Delight]

The inevitability of it doesn't change the fact that if I think it's wrong I'm going to react to it as if it's wrong.

People are going to murder each other, no matter how hard we try to stop it, so maybe we should just laugh about murder and have movie makers talk about how great it is that the latest headline murderer made their victim watch their movie while they killed them. I mean, why are we surprised that murderers murder people?

[Strangler Lewis]

Originally Posted by Betty

Frankly, I'm not opposed to people being dicks to people that have been convicted of doing Very Bad Things.

If someone killed your mother or your son or daughter and was convicted and put in prison for it, how sad are you that the guard is a dick to that person? Be honest, doesn't it make you a little happy to know that the guy isn't having a great time there? Or is all that matter is that he's in jail and you prefer that everyone there is as nice as they can be to them?

In this context, that's an excuse for the taunting behavior by the Iraqis who executed Saddam, not by our troops.

[innerSpaceman]

That's not what I meant, Greg. Though, I didn't explain myself fully.

Murderers are the perfect example. They exist, they will always exist. I believe good people should react strongly against murder, and should work against it to the greatest extent possible ... while realizing no amount of work will ever bring an end to it.


Because ending it is not what's important. What's important ... and this is just my particular philosophy - is who we each choose to be in reaction to it. We may never rid the world of murder, but we are living up to our own ideals if we fight against it ... and of course, if our ideals say murder is a bad thing. The ideals of murderers may not say so. And neither one of us is intrinsically right or wrong. Those are human values assigned by man, and which don't exist in nature. Still ... allowing for human concepts of good and evil, I believe the best we can do is fight the "good" fight, though there can never be a victory lest good cease to exist.

Because for anything to exist - so must its opposite. Just as there can be no such thing as Up without a thing known as Down, there can be no 'good' without 'evil.' Murderers must exist so that people who don't murder can also exist.


That is the kind of acceptance I mean. Not that any particular instance of prison guard abuse shouldn't be railed against and battled, but that the phenonomen and the people who fill that necessary role must be accepted ... if we also want compassionate and professional prison guards to exist.


Since I strive to find a balance between supporting my values in the world -and- accepting the imperatives of the universe, I take everything on a case-by-case basis. Abu-Ghraib tends to find me more railing-against, and Saddam forced to watch South Park tends to find me more accepting.

Both are "bad" in my value system. Both are necessary for their opposites to even exist. Since I am pleased to be a person who (I hope) would not seek to torture or humiliate prisoners under my watch, in some sense I am thankful for those that do. They fill a necessary niche in the world. And I am free to be their opposite.

It's an arrangement I rather like.


And I still get rather tickled about this particular bad act.

[Ghoulish Delight]

Originally Posted by innerSpaceman

Because for anything to exist - so must its opposite. Just as there can be no such thing as Up without a thing known as Down, there can be no 'good' without 'evil.' Murderers must exist so that people who don't murder can also exist.

And you lose me here. Murderers exist. People who don't murder exist. I do not believe one gives rise to the other, nor do I believe they are cosmically linked by any sort of yin-yang requirement of the world. They are independent, rising from simple statistics.

Both are "bad" in my value system. Both are necessary for their opposites to even exist. Since I am pleased to be a person who (I hope) would not seek to torture or humiliate prisoners under my watch, in some sense I am thankful for those that do. They fill a necessary niche in the world. And I am free to be their opposite.

Which is based on a belief in something for which I have no evidence and therefore cannot agree with.

As with Alex, I have no sympathy for Saddam in the situation, nor do I consider the act particularly heinous on a relative scale. And, were Matt and Trey to have thought of it and put it in an episode of South Park as a theoretical situation, I would have laughed at it. But faced with the reality of an individual who chooses to act like that, I don't find it amusing, I find it cowardly and pathetic.

If one of those soldiers happened to be sitting next to me in a bar and told me how he'd sat and laughed at Saddam while showing him the movie just to rub it in Saddam's face, I would have thought, "Wow, this guy is a fvking prick, I want nothing to do with him."

[LSPoorEeyorick]

Originally Posted by Ghoulish Delight

As with Alex, I have no sympathy for Saddam in the situation, nor do I consider the act particularly heinous on a relative scale. And, were Matt and Trey to have thought of it and put it in an episode of South Park as a theoretical situation, I would have laughed at it. But faced with the reality of an individual who chooses to act like that, I don't find it amusing, I find it cowardly and pathetic.

And again, I post in this thread with nothing to say but "I agree." On all counts. Is it the worst thing ever? Of course not. Is it dickish and lame? In the context of a real-life situation, yes.