"Duh. I gave a rational basis and I stand by it."

Not IMHO... You stated your position that "people should not stand by while people do bad things"

Okay, fine, but how does this entail war? What is the ethical system on which you set your feet? What are your values and how do they correspond to reality and how do they result in an endorsement of military action?

Rationality is not just stating ad-hoc premises and showing the conclusion follows- while it is logic it is not reason or even good methodology for logic.

"I think you fall squarely in the look the other way unless it impacts me directly camp"

Okay, you like to make generalizations about my position that don't hold water, I have seen this around a lot. Less from you, but you do it often enough. Its a sad and pathetic way to carry on a discussion about anything. Oddly when I reply (see what is now page 2 of current events), you do not acknowledge my reply, even when I direct you to links and definitions.

My stance on what the right thing to do in WWII, GWI (yes, I suppoerted that war) and Kosovo/Serbia/Bosnia indicate that I am not in the 'do nothing' camp.

"but I think when the threat to us doesn't quite reach the they've already stuck a knife in us level the greater good angle can easily carry enough weight to cross the threshold"

Okay, so you are arguing that the self-defense justifications for this war fall-short, but that somehow we are acting in the greater good and this is the justification for this war?

Okay, fine, do you have an argument that supports your claim? Reasons why you say this is so (the moral justification)? Empirical facts? Or is this just your opinion. If it is your opinion, then how are you different from a terrorist in the sense that your actions and 'moral or ethical' beliefs do not correspond to and are not subordinate to reason?

Please, by all means, make a case. If you think I am just waiting to attack it- you are correct. If you can defend it against my attacks, then I'll buy it hook-line-and-sinker... We will have tested your reasoning together and I will have no choice but to accept you are right.

But, it seems instead, that you will likely come back with a mildly personal generalization or an unjustified blanket statement about by 'position'.

Davin L.

PS:
Einstein is said to have beaten his wife, even if this were true, should I discount general relativity? Turing was gay (which is offensive to many, but not to me), should I throw much of modern foundations of mathematics out the window? VonBraun was a true-blue Nazi, should I throw out all we have learned about ballistics and aerodynamics?

While the very nature of our discussion and likely the nature of our individual limitations means that neither of us have anything as valuable as those men had to say, the point of the comparison is that truth has nothing to do with the mouth that speaks it- even (gasp) moral truth. Many of the thinkers that have shaped our notions of morality, justice and ethics have been immoral, unjust and unethical creeps...