Since they are whaling illegally in Australia's protected sanctuary section of Antarctica, if the Japanese add military or military weapons to the mix, there will be an international incident. It will be an act of war.

I would think ramming someone else's ship is an act of war. OR at the very least a form of aggression that should allow them to defend themselves. The vegan pussies video taped themselves ramming the Jap ship, producing evidence to show that they were at fault :upsidedow and then they all gay hi 5'ed each other after wards (some shit their panties).

If some one rammed my ship and tried to sink me, I would think it would be ok for me to shot a missile at them if they ever got on a collision course with me again.

omfg, now the master twat says on the commercials, "are you ready to die for the whales"... vegan pussy please, the only way those people are going to die is if you ram another ship and puncture a hole in your own hull and sink.

vegan pussy drama / attention whores.

So Amp you have an issue with the hired and trained police tasering a murderer but fully support a group of non-appointed people that run around the world attacking private fishing vessels?

Interesting.

1. I have a problem with the "trained" police executing people without a trial.
2. They are not private fishing vessels. Even the Japanese will tell you that they are "research" ships, which is a load of shit.
3. No one else will enforce the international ban on whaling, so Paul Watson created Sea Shepard and decided to do it himself. Where are your "trained police"? Why aren't the duly appointed law enforcers shutting down Japan's illegal whaling? Why isn't the Australian government enforcing their own sanctuary?

Some facts:

The Sea Shepard crew are non-violent. The Japanese whalers have deliberately sunk one boat already, and kidnapped three people. One of them they (the Japanese) attempted to throw overboard which, in the Antarctic, is murder. Then they were beaten and lashed to the side of the ship. They're harvesting whales by the thousands to serve on dinner plates in Japanese restaurants. This is illegal. You support the police but you do not support the law? That's ass backwards in my books.

Still think they are peaceful fishing vessels?

Q: What do you call a "sanctuary" without enforcement?
A: Open space for poachers.

Allow me to over simplify this:

You & your girl go to a nice expensive reserved restaurant for a special dinner.
Then in comes a 6 year old's birthday entourage of 40 kids all screaming and throwing things.
Then everyone around you starts smoking, and one dude literally just takes your steak right off your plate then lays a greasy kiss on your woman.

You are furious and attempt to complain to the management, but the owner says, "Well, yeah but we're not going to do anything about it. Sorry." So you call the police, and they tell you, "yeah, but we have other things to do. Sorry."

One guy in the entire restaurant decides to stand up for you & your girl, but everyone else in there just laughs and calls him a dirty hippie.

Nice? Wait for it....

As you begin to leave and just as you're about to open the door, someone fires a harpoon cannon and impales you, drags you into the back, carves you up and packs your pieces in a box bound for Japan.

It's not as simple as you make it to be from a legal stand point. I'm fairly certain you're just trolling GFY these days though and I'm not going to bother.

I know, but I didn't think the finer points of an already bizarre international moratorium really would have added anything but confusion and stray deviant sub-discussions. I never intended this thread to be a full blown "like it or hate it" discussion. At the time I was merely excited that the new season was about to begin. :)

As for the "trolling" part... well, I don't know what you consider trolling. Mostly I've just been sharpening up my writing and debating skills. GFY is a great place to do that because it always has such a wide array of topics and the member mentality is usually more real-worldly, if that makes sense, versus say the people that make comments to the CNN site through Facebook. And because I do truly enjoy a good heated discussion about most anything. I like to think I do a better job at it now compared to being shitfaced drunk and getting emotional or pissed off about the topic and losing control of the discussion.

So... I don't know, you tell me. Is that "trolling"? If it is, then okay, I'm a troll. What of it?

The main difference is that the oceans are mostly public property. property is a poor word. Its not even property. Just an open,common zone.

An abortion clinic is on private property. The abortion argument is much more complex than that so lets focus on the whaling.

If you are fishing/hunting in the open seas, it means you are taking fish which "belongs" to the public (everyone) and keeping it for yourself. I have mixed feelings about these anti-whaling guys .... but from an ethics point of view, I cant condemn them.

The Japanese whalers claim they have the right to capture and keep the whales for their private use. the anti-whalers claim they have the right to keep these whales in the ocean and stop anyone who tries to take "their" whales.

2 opposing agendas in a public zone ..... means anything goes.

The way I see it .... the Japanese boats have no more to "steal" or "claim" whales from the water than the other boat has right to claim it for themselves and stop other people from killing and taking "their" whales out of the water.

Since the Japanese want to kill the whales for personal gain and the other guys want to leave the whales in the water, I tend to side with the anti-whalers. Why should I feel sorry for whalers who take "public food/animals" and sell it and keep the profits for themselves? In a way, they are stealing from the rest of us.

Here's is an analogy to spur some thoughts on this subject.

Imagine if Japan (or any other country) built a magical machine which collects sea water and stores or vaporizes it. Imagine if the sea levels severely dropped because of this machine.

Would you think, oh well, let the Japanese do what they want with the oceans?

Or would you propose making a treaty with Japan (and other countries) to outlaw depletion of the seas?

The seas are common zones (not private property). I cant image how it could be fair that Japan (or any single country) could claim the right to ownership of all the water and creatures in the seas.

Whaling (and fishing) are forms of capturing and "owning" the creatures in the seas. Why should any single person, business,government have the unlimited right to as many whales or fish as they want to catch?

I love this show, it's a complete trainwreck, first I LOVE whales but it never fails about 10 minutes into any episode I'm laughing at those hippies and hoping one of those jap ships sinks them.

i've never watched the show, so i tuned in and watched the last 30 minutes of aftermath and the episode with the 2 new ships.

not sure what to think, while i am unsure of the whalers breaking any laws (the main sea sheperd guy did say the whalers have permits to hunt whales, i don't necc. think it is ok.

but i don't think 2 wrongs make a right.

but i am kinda in agreement with civmatt, the show is a trainwreck and it's hard not to look away!

God damn I watched more of these. Hadn't watched them at all until this post. It's pretty damned hillarious how they're just rank amateurs. Every episode they're either getting lost, can't use radios, somebody getting hurt, almost drowning crew members. It's just a big shit show and sooner or later they'll probably have a huge loss of life.

I think those volunteers are aware and prepared for that possibility before they leave port. They understand they could die. Same as our military does.

no shit eh.

i thought it was weird that both new ships crapped out prior to even getting in the game.

bad idea to go fucking with the jap whaling fleet in the southern ocean with some shitty vessels, they are asking for a catastrophe.

Sure except the Navy doesn't take people that have no sea experience and drop them in ancient vessels in Antartica with no training and questionable leadership. The number of rookie mistakes these idiots make is fucking astounding. "Captain" Paul would have lost command of his ship if it were a Navy vessel and a long time ago too. It's absolutely ridiculous. The First Mate can't even set a course by heading, he has to be told port or starboard. :1orglaugh

There's a difference between being ready to die for a cause and volunteering to die for a cause. These idiots are volunteering.

I'll give you that one WC, but it's not the Navy and they aren't military sailors. If it was the Navy, they wouldn't be wasting time trying to explain the law to the Japanese, they would just board them or sink them.

You have to understand that I am not pro whaling. I don't think they Japanese should be hunting them it's not like they need the meat to survive like perhaps Inuit people. So don't get me wrong, I don't support the Japanese effort.

Unfortunately the law is more or less on the Japanese side. They are allowed to take a quota of over 900 whales each year in the name of research. The same law mandates that no part of the whales used in research may be wasted. We can "know" all we like that the primary concern is not research, but just like user uploads under 2257 or any other law it comes down to what you can PROOVE. The Japanese are slipping by on a technicallity under the UN agreement. You'll note the UN isn't calling what the Japanese do illegal.

As for the protected sancutary area, I believe that is a declaration by the Australian goverment and not the UN. I don't think the Japanese or any other country are bound by law to respect it. Again I don't agree with it, but if we're going by the rule of law here then it is what it is.

It's not the IDEA of what Sea Shepherd does that I find laughable it's the execution. Even Greenpeace thinks they're reckless, and coming from an organization like Greenpeace that's saying something.

I completely agree. Their execution needs much improvement if they plan on making a difference at all. But the Greenpeace stuff is stickier than that. Paul Watson was with Greenpeace in the 70's. He left and formed Sea Shepard because he (says) he thought they were too inept. All talk, no action. He wanted to take action. So there are possibly some underlying things going on there between Watson & Greenpeace.

i also noticed the captain taking credit for the fleet falling 300+ whales short of quota, is that a fair conclusion to make? without watching the entire season, it's hard for me to know if they were responsible for that or not.

Well, that's what they claim. They said that by harassing the whalers and preventing the harpoon ships from transferring their kills to the factory ship for packaging, that they kept the Japanese from filling out the quota.

I doubt the Japanese will deny it. It would just make them look bad.

i see.

i will say this, i'd tune in again. while the editing and such does go overboard (yuk yuk) with the fake drama- like the radio silence from the inflatable, i'd be up for seeing wtf happens to that wave cutter boat when it does get in the action and can those ragamuffin mechanics get that lump of shit bob barker out of port!

:1orglaugh:1orglaugh:1orglaugh

Oh you don't know what happened with those boats yet? It's funny. :1orglaugh

no!
so nobody spoil it for me! :1orglaugh:1orglaugh:1orglaugh

The Japanese certainly don't mess around this season. Pretty offensive right from the start.

What I don't understand is why the guys never check their radios before they leave the ship?