Boycott JAPAN, ICELAND, NORWAY

redux

LizEstelle wrote:

It's the crass, infantile rude-noise-making-instead-of-argument tactics to which I was referring. This is almost always the first refuge of the incompetent argument-loser. From the moment it first became obvious, I began to lose interest in anything they were posting. Either the killing of whales for profit is a serious issue or it isn't.

Quite frankly, they have so clearly shown their true, wrecking colours via this that I have chosen to ignore them. They are simply not worth the bother.

No matter how passionately views are held, it doesn't warrant personal attacks.

I have Norwegian friends I've haven't discussed this with, and a couple I have, but it isn't exactly the sort of subject that naturally occurs in conversation with people you meet maybe three times in fifteen years, and I would not refuse to go out for a meal.

In the same way, they might be upset at the amount of acid rain in their environment, much of which is due to our power stations, but it doesn't make us enemies.

LizEstelle

redux wrote:

No matter how passionately views are held, it doesn't warrant personal attacks.

I have Norwegian friends I've haven't discussed this with, and a couple I have, but it isn't exactly the sort of subject that naturally occurs in conversation with people you meet maybe three times in fifteen years, and I would not refuse to go out for a meal.

In the same way, they might be upset at the amount of acid rain in their environment, much of which is due to our power stations, but it doesn't make us enemies.

Yes, and I'm perfectly happy for the Norwegians to boycott UK products for the reason you've given.

What exactly is your point..? That we should all go on tolerating each others' failings just because we daren't disturb 'friendships'..?

Sorry, no go.

jmarko

maow425 wrote:

Just out of curiosity - am I one of these people? Because I have resorted to what I would consider a bit of humour to lighten things up a bit. So I like to laugh. But I do resent it when someone decides to have a go at me claiming to make a stand but then criticising me fpr making perfectly good suggestions, like the one about our electric and gas. I have also yet to have a response from you on that issue. Because if you want to boycott something, shouldn't you do it wholeheartedly, and not just boycott those things you can live without. I don't know about anyone else, but I can certainly live without a Japanese car, and if I had to, I suppose I could live without Jarlsberg. These are easy things to boycott, and IMHO, one should not selectively boycott just those things one can do without anyway - that would be completely unethical, and not very effective.

Besides, can you really complain? It kept the thread up front, and you yourself said that it had generated a lot of interest...

I feel quite the same. I *know* that I am one of the people complained about but I have had my legitimate point that I raised right at the beginning of this completely ignored. All I got was LizEstelle's snide racist post aimed at my 'foreign' sounding name.

I am against whaling but I tell you this for free, having had my serious contribution rubbished due to my 'foreign-ness', I am much less inclined to do anything than I was before.

The idea that you can lump everyone in together, be they everyone in a particular country, as you first suggested, or all of us dimwitted foreigners is abhorrent to everything that I stand for. Either of those two things is exactly the same. It says that all people of a certain nationality or race should be vilified and treated worse. If one cannot see that people are individuals and treat them with the respect that is due to them, as individuals, then you will fall into something of a classic trap.

We foreigners, we Icelandic, we Norwegians, we Danes, we French, we Swedes, we British, we are individuals and we deserve to be treated like it. I do not want to be associated with some of the filth that are resident in the UK. I want to be judged by who I am and what I do and what I think. Not as a foreigner. Not as a national of some country. But for what I do, for who I am. And there are millions of people in all of the countries that we have mentioned in this thread who deserve the same. If you find a company that whales, owns whaling ships, profits from whaling, then tell us. Those people can be judged by what they do. Those of us that don't like the idea of whaling can boycott them.

Not every Brit is Ian Huntley, not every Austrian is Hitler, not every American goes on a rampage in a school, not every Belgian is a paedophile, not every Georgian is Stalin. Judge people as people. Even the ones with foreign sounding names. Actually, especially the ones with foreign sounding names because, in this country, we don't. We make the assumption that foreigners are up to something - so maybe it should be especially the ones with foreign sounding names.

jmarko

lisyloo

What exactly is your point..? That we should all go on tolerating each others' failings just because we daren't disturb 'friendships'..?

I guess this comes down to how personally responsible they are for their governments decisions.
For all we know they might be Greenpeace members and go out sabotaging whaling boats every weekend.

I don't feel personally responsible for every failing of the UK government although we all have some collective responsibility if we do nothing.

Not everyone in the UK agrees with our government and some actively protest.
It's almost certainly the same in Norway, so I don't see how they can be automatically be assumed to have personal failings when we know nothing of their views and what they have personally done about it.

LizEstelle

maow425 wrote:

Just out of curiosity - am I one of these people? Because I have resorted to what I would consider a bit of humour to lighten things up a bit. So I like to laugh. But I do resent it when someone decides to have a go at me claiming to make a stand but then criticising me fpr making perfectly good suggestions, like the one about our electric and gas. I have also yet to have a response from you on that issue. Because if you want to boycott something, shouldn't you do it wholeheartedly, and not just boycott those things you can live without. I don't know about anyone else, but I can certainly live without a Japanese car, and if I had to, I suppose I could live without Jarlsberg. These are easy things to boycott, and IMHO, one should not selectively boycott just those things one can do without anyway - that would be completely unethical, and not very effective.

I beg to differ, they are very relevant, as they are part of what you are trying to boycott.

Besides, can you really complain? It kept the thread up front, and you yourself said that it had generated a lot of interest...

You at least, while sinking occasionally to their level (which does you no credit at all) have tried intermittently to argue your corner.

Sadly, none of the apologistic arguments works. Ok... Norway supplies us with gas and oil. So what? I'm already a moneysaver, trying to use less fuel on all fronts, so this fits nicely in with my strategy. Two birds with one stone. Ok...Norway has a better record on renewables. So what? In what way is this relevant to the issue of slaughtering whales? AND, I might add, getting hydro-electricity rates up is not such a feather in the cap actually when you have a large country stuffed with gushing rivers falling down 3000 metre mountains and a miniscule population not raising a howl over planning permissions.

Sorry, the best that I COULD say for what you've advanced is that, in totality, it amounts to yet more of the 'it's too difficult to target' or 'well, WE're also doing something bad' type stuff. This just doesn't stack up against the moral imperative here. I'm getting fairly tired of pointing this out.

You'll have to do better and, quite frankly, I can't see how that's possible. In a sense, your mistake was opting, in the first place, to defend the indefensible. Keep on trying by all means but so far you haven't come remotely close.

redux

LizEstelle wrote:

What exactly is your point..? That we should all go on tolerating each others' failings just because we daren't disturb 'friendships'..?

Sorry, no go.

No, what is your point, because at the moment you are assuming you object to unknown people's opinions and actions before you've heard any detail of what those might actually be.

Someone has already pointed out that people there may well be objecting to whaling; another your assumption that an opinion is less worthwhile when held by a foreigner from those parts.

This pre-assumed antagonism is not a method of convincing people to support you, that what you are saying is balanced.

LizEstelle

redux wrote:

No, what is your point, because at the moment you are assuming you object to unknown people's opinions and actions before you've heard any detail of what those might actually be.

Someone has already pointed out that people there may well be objecting to whaling; another your assumption that an opinion is less worthwhile when held by a foreigner from those parts.

This pre-assumed antagonism is not a method of convincing people to support you, that what you are saying is balanced.

Your post is incomprehensible.

I am a foreigner myself and at no time have I suggested that anyone's opinions are devalued because of country of origin... unless they HAPPEN to come from the countries about which I'm complaining which, I believe, would be a reasonable matter to point out.

If it is true that 'people there may well be objecting to whaling', is that a reason for ME to sit on my hands and do nothing..?

Whatever 'pre-assumed' (an assumption is almost always 'pre'!) antagonism is, I have not been engaging in it. I have simply been pointing out:

1. The fallacies in various posters' arguments

and

2. The playground noises and diversionary tactics used by certain people who have found it hard to keep up their end of the debate.

gerretl

scope wrote:

If the OP wants a just cause to support she should boycott Israel.

We should care more about other human beings, than worry about a few fish.

Whales are not fish, they are mammals, despite the line in 'It Ain't Necessarily So', namely
"Jonah he lived in a whale
Jonah he lived in a whale
He made his home in
A fishes abdomen
Jonah he lived in a whale."
Mind you that song should be boycotted for crimes against rhyming.

nearlyrich

I'm still waiting for a response to my first post on this thread..........................

tr3mor

LizEstelle wrote:

'Questioning' I have no problem with at all.

It's the crass, infantile rude-noise-making-instead-of-argument tactics to which I was referring.

Is this some kind of ironic and almost recursive argument?

It is you that is being rude by not answering any of our questions, justifying your lack of answers with insults.