"Disaster of horrific proportions" in Myanmar

Cyclone Nargis has produced a major humanitarian catastrophe in Myanmar (a.k.a. Burma), with perhaps 13,000 dead and the nation's capital -- which suffered a direct hit from the storm -- plunged into a "primitive existence."

Dr. Jeff Masters has a detailed post on the cyclone and its impact.

Comments

[Andrew]

With any luck, maybe some of the junta was washed away as well.

Yeah. Hopefully the death of 13,000 people aided my pet political cause.

[Andrew]

Yeah, because wanting to see a brutal military dictatorship eventually come to an end counts as a "pet political cause". So after thousands of people starve to death in North Korea, if I make a comment that I wish Kim Jong Il was one of them, you're going to chastise me for hoping a tragedy "aided my pet political cause"?

[groan]

Good thing you're anonymous, because you're a major dumbass.

[David K.]

Agreed, Andrew may be evil and machiavellian, but he's not THAT evil and machiavellian.

[copndor]

I think I'd have to agree with anonymous on this one. The right reaction to mass death is sorrow for the dead, not hope that the mass death was expansive enough to have included some bad people (and there is no question that the military junta running Myanmar are among the worst). That's kind of a weird reaction.

[jlr]

Yesterday morning at breakfast, I read about the suppression of anti-junta dissent in Burma. Then I got into the car and heard about the storm. The first thought that came to my mind? "Well, at least the junta doesn't have to worry about being deposed now." Ugh.

Andrew, I agree wholeheartedly--if the people in Burma (or Myanmar, whatever you want to call the country) are lucky, the top leadership will be washed away.

[Angrier and Angrier]

Latest report: 22,000 dead, 41,000 missing. That's pretty f-d up.

[copndor]

With 22,000 people dead, I'm pretty sure that the political situation is the last thing that needs remedying.

[B. Minich]

With 22,000 dead, the political situation is going to be muddled at best, and riotous at worst. The scale of this amazes me.

The sad part is that the junta is reluctant to let anyone in to help.

(Chances are, by the way, that the junta was NOT in Rangoon, as they moved their capital into the mountains a few years ago if I remember correctly. Rangoon isn't technically where the decisions are made anymore, although it is still the population and cultural center of Burma.)

[Alasdair]

Andrew is actually wishing Good Fortune on the Burmese when he wishes the junta members removed ...

As far as I can tell, the junta are doing their darndest to prevent relief efforts from getting to certain areas in Burma ...

As folk have said, this is not a time for "pet political causes", and those who used their own pet political causes to try to attack Andrew in this case are projecting ...

[Andrew]

Gee copndor, have you covered yourself in ash and sackcloth these past few days? Maybe you lit a few candles in the grotto?

I must have missed the memo that explains how long we are to display sorrow and mourn the dead before we are allowed to move on to express other opinions. Was that instruction supposed to come from some religious leader, or the government? And here I thought that outrage was the appropriate response, given that the death count in Myanmar is almost assuredly a direct result of the junta failing to care to notify and evacuate the Burmese people from lowland areas prone to flooding.

I am not going to bother looking at old posts, but I hope for your sake that you waited at least a couple of weeks before criticizing FEMA and Bush for their response to Hurricane Katrina and the disaster in New Orleans. As it is, you're either hypocritical, a haughty moralist, or both.

[copndor]

I think that one ought to treat other people as ends in themselves and not as means to some other end, political or otherwise. No doubt I fall short of this all the time. But if everyone who falls short in moral discussion were excluded from it, I'm not sure who would be left.
This is also not about liberal and conservative. Treating people as ends applies to all of us. I'll be the first to point out that liberals fail to abide by this rule after every school shooting when they use the violence to promote arguments for gun control. The anti-war left fails to abide by this rule when they use war dead for political points.
Now, this isn't to say that Katrina, or school shootings, or the war shouldn't be issues of debate, but that when they are, it should be in terms of arguments from reasons, not arguments from emotion tied up in people's mourning over the dead.

[Andrew]

This discussion has nothing to do with ends and means, it has to do with the very real, deadly effect of nation-states idly standing by as dictatorships rule and oppress those who should be free. Tragedy is inevitable when good men refuse to act against tyranny, and those of us who wish the world would have done more to remove this military junta have every right to feel outraged at the fully predictable news this week of tens of thousands dead.

I feel absolutely no compunction about not mourning the death of the Burmese people. Is it a tragedy? Absolutely. But I have no personal connection, and as far as I am concerned, their deaths are simply reflective of a cause-and-effect relationship involving geography, a weather phenomenon, and evil political leadership. Since the first two are effectively beyond anyone's control, the natural response to the third is outrage.

This is similar to the tsunami disaster of a few years back, except little of that disaster could be strongly attributed to the actions (or inactions) of malevolent tyrants. Thus, my reaction at the time was one of pensiveness and generic melancholy -- but definitely not sorrow.

Either way, I refuse to feign sorrow that does not authentically arise from within me on its own, and it is a fallacy to argue that one's actions or thoughts must be emotionally driven to be moral. If I felt sorrowful at every tragedy that occurs in this world, I'd be paralyzed and left with no time to express or feel any other emotion. I also refuse to be browbeaten by high-horse Pharisees who wish to chastise me for not publicly displaying and avowing my sorrow -- real or feigned.

So back to my original point, copndor: Shove it up your ass.

[copndor]

How does one respond to an argument whose conclusion is "Shove it up your ass" except by feeling sorry for the person who made the argument?

[Andrew]

My preference would've been for you to follow my direction and actually shove your head back up from whence it apparently came, however in general I prefer your sympathy to your Pharisaic moral condescension.

[copndor]

You've showed your true colors already. You don't care about anyone's suffering with to which you don't have "personal connection." Nonetheless, you feel free to make political points at their behalf. And you don't think that this is any character flaw.
Is it any wonder then that rather than giving actual arguments, you call names? Probably not.

[copndor]

"those of us who wish the world would have done more to remove this military junta have every right to feel outraged at the fully predictable news this week of tens of thousands dead."

[copndor]

Are you even aware that these people died from a storm?

[David K.]

Good lord, I feel so dirty for saying this, but I'll say it anyway. There is nothing wrong with what Andrew said.

Damn, i think i need to go wash my hands or something for typing that ;-)

But seriously, the argument that because he expressed a wish that the Junta leaders might have been killed in the Typhoon doesn't mean he's glad it happened or that it hurt other people. It's a "man that sucks, but maybe there will be atleast SOME good that came out of a crappy situation" type of thought.

Its like watching the opposing teams quarterback get injured and thinking to yourself "maybe we can win the game now". You're not glad he was hurt, you weren't hoping he was hurt (well most people aren't, if you are you are an asshole) but since you can't change the situation, whats wrong with thinking about what happens next?

Seriously, there are lots of things Andrew has said that I can think make him worthy of being criticized and called evil and such, but this really isn't one of them, and you are reading WAAAY too much into it copndor.

[copndor]

I'm not as sure as you are, David K., that a quarterback injury as a fair analogy to 50,000 deaths.

[copndor]

"the argument that because he expressed a wish that the Junta leaders might have been killed in the Typhoon doesn't mean he's glad it happened or that it hurt other people."

This is not the argument that I'm making, David K. I certainly doubt that Andrew is happy that the typhoon happened. What I'm objecting to is the use of mass death for political purpose. Andrew said, "with any luck, maybe some of the junta was washed away as well." This is no different for folks on the anti-war left, who are not happy that soldiers die, yet use them to make political points.
The point is that deaths should not be treated as avenues to make political points.

[David K.]

How is wishing that a few bastards got killed trying to make a political point?

[Andrew]

You've showed your true colors already. You don't care about anyone's suffering with to which you don't have "personal connection."

The fact that I don't feel sorrow over these deaths does not mean I "don't care". My caring just sparks a different emotion than your caring does. Obviously if I didn't care about the deaths, I wouldn't be so outraged by them. Dumbass.

Nonetheless, you feel free to make political points at their behalf.

Expressing a hope that the evil men were washed away with the innocent is not expressing a political point, moron, it's a yearning for justice.

And you don't think that this is any character flaw.

You've misdiagnosed my character flaw(s). My character flaw that is evident in this thread is that I don't patiently suffer fools, moralistic assholes, and idiotic arguments.

[copndor]

You don't know how to engage in an argument. I'm done with you.

[copndor]

It's like playing basketball with someone who doesn't want to play the game.

[Andrew]

I'd rather get an idiot to shut up than defeat him in a debate.

[copndor]

You've done neither.

[Andrew]

That's because some fools have diarrhea of the mouth, such as yourself. In cases like this, there is no positive outcome, to the regret of all.

[copndor]

You're basically admitting that you're unwilling and unable to engage in an argument. You don't give reasons for this. Then you say that the reason why you don't give reasons is because I'm an "idiot," which, I'll point out, is still not a reason. It's just name-calling. You're clearly not up to par at making actual arguments. You demonstrate this after every attempted argument by punctuating it with some name-calling since the argument itself holds little weight.

[kcatnd]

?!

[kcatnd]

The "?!" was directed at Alasdair and Andrew.

[Alasdair]

Can you be a tad more explicit, kcatnd ?