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I agree the maths is a little biased, but I was trying to point out how even with only three parties the represenation of your peoples choice can get really, really low.

If you bomb the crap out of them you're going to kill more people who didn't want that government in than those that did.

That was my point.

Nevermind the fact that government isn't representational of the population in the first place, but thats taking this way off-topic so i apologise.

Violence is bad kids. Don't do it.

Oh, and I'm sure if you took a shot to the gut (from what I hear one of the most painful wounds you can sustain and remain conscious) you won't be running about for very long.

There is a very good reason why armour plates cover the abdomen and NOT the chest (at least in the vests I've seen).

Gut shots are almost always fatal, they are slow and they are excrutiatingly painful. Assuming the little I know about it is accurate at least; I'd rather not find out first or second hand.

Ultimatum479 wrote:BwS, I didn't see that, if you were referring to a post in this forum.

No, I was referring to the fact that I seem to have been arguing a lot of incorrect things lately.

Well, actually, I was also referring to the other time I said "My brain is melting", too.

Hey now, you get plenty of warning, you get leaflet drops. If you don't want to be nuked, surrender, if you don't want to be in a war, vote, if you simply do not want to die, leave. This shouldn't be asking for too much... However if you're a fanatic who does want war or a Taliban who doesn't care about being killed anyway, then you'd probably stay and die, but then thats the point, those adults would be the ones getting killed. If you're innocent, you have more than enough presence of mind to leave or stop what is happening. But what choice does a child have? He hasn't even lived life yet, much less be in any wrong, there would be no reason for him to die, it would be a full tragedy. And it would be even worse if you don't believe there's a light at the end of the tunnel, then you are only living here for the quick experience of life, therefore it would be a much sadder thing for a 10 year old to die who hasn't had a shot at living rather than a middle-aged man.

Killing both men and children equally is how wars like Vietnam happen, not even your side will support it. And if you go around acting like a police force and showing no force whatsoever you end up with Iraq, making something easily fixable take many useless years and cost many useless lives. And it doesn't have to be nukes and firebombing when you have a 3 party split and only one wants war, Italy as a majority did not want a war in WW2 so they switched sides and surrendered, that is perfectly acceptable. If they were not going to face consequences of being targeted however, there would be no incentive to quit and they could all let the fanatics keep fighting, with guerrilla tactics and everything because they wouldn't care.

Zantalos wrote:Hey now, you get plenty of warning, you get leaflet drops. If you don't want to be nuked, surrender, if you don't want to be in a war, vote, if you simply do not want to die, leave. This shouldn't be asking for too much... However if you're a fanatic who does want war or a Taliban who doesn't care about being killed anyway, then you'd probably stay and die, but then thats the point, those adults would be the ones getting killed. If you're innocent, you have more than enough presence of mind to leave or stop what is happening. But what choice does a child have? He hasn't even lived life yet, much less be in any wrong, there would be no reason for him to die, it would be a full tragedy. And it would be even worse if you don't believe there's a light at the end of the tunnel, then you are only living here for the quick experience of life, therefore it would be a much sadder thing for a 10 year old to die who hasn't had a shot at living rather than a middle-aged man.

What kind of twisted reality are you living in? Do you understand how voting works? You don't just turn up and say "Actually, I'd like to change who's in charge.".

The only thing that changes a governent mid-term is the threat or realisation of political scandal or mass rebellion. Scandal doesn't cut it in times of war and who wants to attack their own government with the threat of war hovering over the nation?

You've got your nice middle-class house, steady job, wife & kids. Little billy got an A on his homework. And now there are pamphlets falling from the sky telling you to surrender or die.

Of course! Lets go risk our lives attacking our OWN centre of government! It makes so much sense!

Frankly Zantalos, your views on war are disturbing and your understanding of government leaves much to be desired.

Are you American? If so then I have a simple comparision. Why didn't you and the rest of the voting public rebel in outrage when George Bush "won" his initial election? He blatently cheated the vote and Al Gore won fair and sqaure.

If EVER there was a reason for mass revolt this would be it. And yet noone seemed to bat an eyelid. What a fucking surprise!

Zantalos wrote:If you don't want to be nuked, surrender, if you don't want to be in a war, vote, if you simply do not want to die, leave. This shouldn't be asking for too much... However if you're a fanatic who does want war or a Taliban who doesn't care about being killed anyway, then you'd probably stay and die, but then thats the point, those adults would be the ones getting killed. If you're innocent, you have more than enough presence of mind to leave or stop what is happening.

...And that's under what form of government? Mass dictatorship? Every individual person has complete power over their country's government? In a dictatorship/monarchy, no one has that sort of power aside from one person; in a democracy, that power is shared among the masses. There is no form of government in which a single ordinary citizen who doesn't "want to be in a war [can] vote" and immediately, magically, "stop what's happening", as you say. And leaving is hardly an easy option when your country is being invaded and all transportation in and out of it is blocked, which usually happens in wars.

So if your reasoning is, as it appears to be, that children cannot vote to save themselves while adults can, then it's horribly flawed. One single adult has about as much voting power as one single child in a country of any decent size (we're not talking about Andorra here): virtually none.

Zantalos wrote:And it would be even worse if you don't believe there's a light at the end of the tunnel, then you are only living here for the quick experience of life, therefore it would be a much sadder thing for a 10 year old to die who hasn't had a shot at living rather than a middle-aged man.

That's the only argument you made which is in any way logical, but I'd have to argue against that one as well, based on the fact that it's context-dependent. Many people live lives which most would say are not worth living, and the only reasons they don't simply commit suicide are either that they feel a sense of duty to their families and keep on living to help support them, or that they hope their lives will eventually improve and become worth living. Often the latter never happens. It can be argued that it would be better for the 10-year-old to die than have to suffer through twenty more years of life. Death isn't always a sad thing if life is even worse.

(Emphasis added) Zantalos wrote:And it doesn't have to be nukes and firebombing when you have a 3 party split and only one wants war, Italy as a majority did not want a war in WW2 so they switched sides and surrendered, that is perfectly acceptable.

Oh, so now you realized it takes a majority (or at least a plurality) to get something like that done. Exactly. Thus you contradict your earlier ideas that individual adults had some incredible policy-changing powers which individual children lacked.

Gagrin I'm not going to use a theoretical example of a nice middle aged family one day saying let's over throw the government because, out of the blue, pamphlets are falling from the sky and nukes are going to blow up my house. No, I'm not saying that. I'm not trying to make up random examples like these to prove my point, I'm using real events that did happen, that did work and that didn't work, what actually happened in history (Japan was nuked, war ended, civilians were killed, hundreds of thousands of soldiers from both sides were lost during this war. This was not one day some pamphlets fell from the sky, this was years of war. The enemy was right at their doorstep, the kids were being taught in math class "if I have 100 American planes and you shoot down 75, how many do you have left?") . What are you talking about with George Bush being re-elected and people rioting to bring him down, what did I say to make you think I believe that? Has that ever happened in history? Do you seriously think America is crying in tears, do you actually believe that that is an actual issue here? People will not mass riot because George Bush got re-elected, civilian lives are not at stake and quite frankly, Al Gore is not a hero, most people do not think he was cheated out of the election, nobody cares. Is this a surprise? No it isn't.

And I'm sure some guy in Italy during WW2 had everything you said, a steady job, lived in a middle class house, wife and kids, had a son who got an A on his homework.. was being invaded by Britain and the US and was told to surrender, and so surrendered. Does it not make sense that people would *gasp* choose to surrender rather than stick to their own center of government and die? What, if you were living in a country being invaded by the US, were losing, and you did not like your government, you would not turn against them? This has happened, does this not make any sense to you?

I'm not even going to bother reading Ultimatum's post.

Zantalos wrote: I'm not even going to bother reading Ultimatum's post.

Zantalos wrote:I'm not even going to bother reading Ultimatum's post.

Now THATS a good idea...

Now... What to Politics have to do with Violence in games?
can we PLEASE stay on topic for at least 50 posts!!!

It'd be strange if we had to split a split topic.

ChazFox wrote:It'd be strange if we had to split a split topic.

that'd be awesome

I suppose its all off the point which was originally that killing kids is considered worse than adults.

I don't see what that has to do with war Zantalos, but I see that you were just using that to try and illustrate a point.

The point i was making is that generally people consider their own government right and have too much to risk even if they don't think that.

And you should read Ultimatiums post - he explains himself much better than I have (I'm afraid I got a bit too angry and was a bit too tired) and clearly illustrates what I was poorly attempting to convey.

Its a shame that you won't even listen to the other arguement when they go to such effort to listen and explain their own point of view.

Edit:
I'm not talking about Bush being re-elected. I'm talking about the original election - which he did not win. Frankly I'm disgusted that a government that cheats its way into power has the gall to go knocking on the doors of its middle eastern neighbours with bombs just because it wants to kill something.

Your country has a dangerous amount of power and not enough people stopping it from getting thrown about.

GaGrin wrote:And you should read Ultimatiums post - he explains himself much better than I have (I'm afraid I got a bit too angry and was a bit too tired) and clearly illustrates what I was poorly attempting to convey.

Meh. Those two qualifiers fit my post too, so if they didn't understand your perfectly coherent post, they won't get mine either. Thus, it hardly matters that they refuse to read it.

GaGrin wrote:Your country has a dangerous amount of power and not enough people stopping it from getting thrown about.

So what's your country again? Been looking through your old posts and couldn't find it.

The Kingdom of Queen Liz

(Thats Britain folks...)

And yeh, we're just as screwed up (a monarchy with a democractic government? Make up your mind!).

*sigh* Poor old Tony. I'm sure he started with good intentions, but damn has it fallen off the rails

Ultimatum479 wrote:

GaGrin wrote:And you should read Ultimatiums post - he explains himself much better than I have (I'm afraid I got a bit too angry and was a bit too tired) and clearly illustrates what I was poorly attempting to convey.

Meh. Those two qualifiers fit my post too, so if they didn't understand your perfectly coherent post, they won't get mine either. Thus, it hardly matters that they refuse to read it.

I sometimes have trouble reading really long posts on this board. Maybe its the colors or something, but I'll try and read a whole section and it all starts blending together, so something that is probably coherent turns into:
"Andthereasonthatthepeoplearefrgrbfegblethtoongtaloongathfrgrblagpresident gas prices inthe wolfire bushcannonbadger...rabbit meat ina wolf-stew with carrots inbouncingflyingcheeseelephantburger fries withthat?"

...Plus, I'm reading most of these threads at 2:00 AM, that could be another problem.

Oh. I never sleep, so that's no big deal for me.

Meh. I'm not in Britain, but from what I've seen Blair's been a'right domestically. It's his blind support of everything Bush does which makes his popularity dive. Or is there something he's doing behind the scenes which we foreigners don't notice?