Talk:Michael Ignatieff
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Discussion Archives
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Neutralizer, Ottawaman, Canuckster et al
The person behind the Neutralizer, Ottawaman, Canuckster, BarbWatts, Methodology, etc accounts and Bell Sympatico dynamic IPs has been community banned. They have promised they will not edit WP again, but if they do, all their edits can be reverted and such reversions are exempt from 3RR. Sockpuppets are listed at Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets/Ottawaman and Category:Wikipedia sockpuppets of Neutralizer. Sarah Ewart 01:43, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
Iggy loses in spite of his followers
in spite of his followers lying about Iggy, he still lost.
142.150.48.149 01:13, 1 February 2007 (UTC)Dr. Research
Religion
I notice that the religion part of the infobox has been of the recent activity here. Checking the link, what I saw was from sufficient in my opinion. Valpy's "I think he sometimes goes to a service" is far from evidence that is needed here. It might be the best we've got but we shouldn't just put in the best that we know when we don't know very much. So, does somebody have a better source on his religion? If not, it should be removed from the infobox. --JGGardiner 08:27, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
Deletion of Australian Broadcast Corp. Info
Why is this radio interview and also Ignatieff's important comment to the Toronto Star about "not losing sleep" (over Qana)being deleted[1]? 65.95.148.35 12:14, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
Protection
It seems that by trying to include the ABC interview,which seems to be quite relevant to the torture debate, a retired editor named Strothra decided to come out of retirement to delete without comment my hard work and then proceed to ask for protection. I don't wish to be involved in any silly arguments so I'll edit on other articles if that will help resolve the so-called "dispute" and get the protection lifted. 70.48.205.126 20:42, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
- You are violating an indefinite block - no comment is needed to remove your edits. Per blocking policy, all of your edits are vandalism.[2] --Strothra 21:05, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
- No offense but maybe you are confused; I see you are accusing this editor [3] as well even though he is in a completely different ___location. 70.48.205.78 02:05, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
Recent comments archived
I have returned the recent talk page comments below which Strothra archived prematurely while older comments were left here.Perhaps these comments should be repositioned? 70.48.205.78 02:05, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
Reviewing these edits, it seems the monitors of this area are using it as their personal vendetta, striking out opposition etc, and abusing their priveleges as administrators with frivilous warnings and attacks. Shame.
-Eddie
Neutrality Nonesense
I have been informed that I broke neutrality in mentioning that Michael Ignatieff has repeatedly and explicitly stated his opposition to all forms of torture. This is pretty shocking, considering despite repeated criticisms, the Wikipedia Ignatieff page has been the most flagrant example of failed neutrality in this whole operation (only cleaned up after his leadership run completed, interestingly). That a man who built a career over several decades is allowed to be represented in terms of a few select political incidents over a period of months is one thing. It has escaped your careful standards nevertheless. But to suggest that at the very least there is not a clear debate between ONE paragraph in "The Lesser Evil" and the entire article in Prospect Magazine, as well as the famous CSPAN interview in which he states his opposition to coercive interrogation, is pathetic. Frankly I am shocked to see someone have the gall to suggest that allowing the previous privileging of one paragraph in such a way is somehow neutral. I did not professionally cite indeed, because I knew it would not stay up nor do I consider it worth my time, as this incident has proved some wikipedia monitor will surely notice. So the error you found was say "quality standards" or whatnot. But get it right. My facts are correct, and that political operatives have been able to co-opt this page for so long is really cause for you to be ashamed.
"Joshuapaquin" should thus keep his opinions to himself. But perhaps this is what happens when you have college kids editing a supposed "dictionary." Really this proves that Wikipedia is certainly an entertaining website (as you know from monitoring of personal IPs, I read it often) but nothing more.
I am interested to know how re-writing the exact same thing as I but adding the citation (which of course you were unable to find without me pointing you toward it) is somehow more neutral? Should I have mentioned that he also has been credited with supporting torture, despite it already being written directly above what I wrote? Nor is the incredibly off base wording that the "lesser evils" in the book's title refers to use of torture. Rather, Ignatieff clearly states that war itself, that violence (including situations such as WWII) include a lesser evil element. But of course you are not political scholars obviously. Know what you are speaking about before wasting my time.
I am assuming this is the talk page and thus an appropriate forum for this. I could care less though, I won't be editing any more since it appears to be a waste of time. But please, try and take this sad volunteer job more seriously in the future. Sadly, however, despite chiding me my edit seriously advanced the cause of neutrality on this webpage.
- A couple points. First, I actually agree with you that Ignatieff does not support torture. He's said so many times. But you should also know that Joshua, and i as well, were among the wiki editors of this article that fought tooth and nail for balance. If you check the edit history, you'll see that this thing was a mess; there was a disgruntled editor who kept returning to the article, hurling accusations of bias, etc. In actuality, I agree that the section on Lesser Evil reads as if Ignatieff thinks torture is necessary to fight terrorism, but in the actual article he is simply offering this as a point-counter-point discussion. He writes in a very winding, dialectic fashion, which easily lends itself to being quoted out of context. But believe me, this section, and the article overall, in much better shape than before, and this was only done with the help of wiki administrators who protected the article and consistent editors like Joshua, who are pretty balanced in their contributions. Second, if you think the section on Lesser Evil can be improved, why don't you write an alternative version here, and if it looks good to the few others around, you can add it in. Finally, it would be really helpful if you created an account on here, rather than editing with anonymous ip. That way everyone can be sure who is who, in the course of discussing future edits. Thanks! -Finnegans wake 11:58, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
- Actually, the interview he gave to the Australian Broadcastin Company [4] (which was recently deleted as a source) shows in his own words that so called lesser forms of torture are acceptable and,further,he even uses the term "torture" in describing them;e.g.;
"I think you can distinguish between torture and coercive interrogation. I think there are forms of coercive interrogation that stop short of the torture standard. As a matter of analytic clarity, I think it’s a mistake for the Human Rights community to say anything beyond name, rank and serial number, that’s coercive, equates to torture. We do ourselves, in making these arguments, no good in obliterating the distinction between courses of interrogation and torture. There are forms of repetitive, recursive interrogation techniques that do not involve physical violence, but involve psychological stress that do not involve the kinds of line that cause, it seems to me, unjustifiable psychological stress... there may be ways of putting people through severe recursive, non-physical, harassing interrogating that stops short of torture, stops short of this kind of lasting psychological abuse that we simply may need to use if we’re dealing with a high level suspect, such as the leader of the people running the beheading videos in Iraq. I can’t find myself siding with those who simply take an absolutist moral perfectionist human rights stand on this. I think it’s a problem of finding a small category of coercive interrogation techniques that will get us intelligence results without dishonouring the United States, and shaming the operators.The reality is that torture does work, that’s the problem. It works if you’re objective is timely information. The right way to deal with this is not to permit physical methods, but to allow a mitigation excuse. If it’s time sensitive. If you have to get it now in order to protect troops or protect civilians, applying physical methods may work. That’s the problem with it. The human rights argument that it doesn’t work, it’s unnecessary, it seems to me an evasion of the real problem which is sometimes it does, if you need timely, urgent, actionable intelligence to protect other people. And there you are in what seems to me a classic lesser evil case. You can in good faith, seek to protect another human being, or a group of human beings, and to do so you have to abuse the human rights of another person. "
- Only after being called up on the matter by students at UO did he start using an unconventional definition for the word "torture" which does not include things like sensory deprivation and other forms of coercive interragation. He has adopted a position similar to Clinton's in the sense that if "sex" doesn't include oral sex then Clinton was able to say "I did not have sex with that woman". Ignatieff has apparently decided that numerous types of psychological and physical abuse no longer fits his personal definition of torture so now he can loudly proclaim he is against "torture" and wants a ban on all "torture". 70.48.205.126 19:24, 14 July 2007 (UTC)