"'Ow do you know 'e's a pirate?" "'E LOOKS like one!"

[unixronin]

Since the end of August, Gortney said, there have been 50 instances where coalition ships have disrupted potential pirate attacks, throwing guns overboard and sinking small skiffs.  But in many instances they had to release the people on the ships because of the legal hurdles.

I put it to you that there is a simple solution to this:

"If we find you loitering with apparent intent in the shipping lanes, in a small boat with weapons, we will presumptively assume that you are a pirate.  Game over."

Comments

[cipherpunk.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately, neither the political leadership of the US or Europe has the stomach for this kind of solution. Most Americans and Europeans live in a relatively crime-free and peaceful world. It has fostered a dangerous complacency in that people mistake their incredible good fortune for "the way the world works" as opposed to the amazing stretch of luck that it is.

Personally, I'm of the belief that any Taliban captured after participating in hostilities against American troops ought be shot twice in the head and buried in a shallow grave. If they're not going to play by Geneva, then we don't have to play by Geneva: in fact, that's what Geneva itself says. But I can count, just barely needing both hands, the number of friends I have who understand that what I am proposing is not a war crime. They have been so intoxicated, so narcotized by their good fortune that they cannot imagine a world in which the presence of that good fortune is no longer an underlying axiom.

Piracy is a great example of this. The instant you enter the sea you enter the food chain, and for perhaps the first time in your life you're not at the top. You're days from civilization and can afford no mistakes: even small things going wrong have an alarming potential to kill you. Now introduce pirates into that environment.

In The Dark Knight, the Joker promises Batman, "You'll see, I'll show you, that when the chips are down, these, uh, civilized people,, uh... they'll eat each other."

I agree with the Joker. And I think the greatest failing of modernity is in how, rather than confront the possibility (probability, certainty) of the chips one day coming down and preparing psychologically for that, we continue to pretend that our good fortune will continue unabated.

It's the old parable of the Ant and the Grasshopper, and I am getting pretty fucking tired of all the grasshoppers.

But then again, I know you are, too.

[databeast.livejournal.com]

excellently put.As someone's who's been nearly blown up (I exaggerate of course, they mostly always gave warnings) by the IRA on two occasions now (once by a matter of 30 minutes difference in travel times, the other by putting off my usual saturday plans for the first time in weeks), my first reaction to the cooldown/acceptance of the reality of Tuesday, 9/11/01, watching everyone around me adjust to their 'everythings changed' world, was to think to myself..

"...now they know what It's like to live outside the US..."

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

I can understand most people's first reaction being shock.

What I can't understand is the people whose second reaction was fear. Mine was fury.

I submit that one of the binary divisions by which people can be classified is the ones who say "ZOMG we're all gonna DIE!" vs. the ones who say "Fuckers. ... Pass the ammunition."