| |
In lugnet.off-topic.debate, John Neal wrote:
| |
In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Dave Schuler wrote:
| |
Although it’s unlikely that LEGO intended the set as a commentary on Abu
Ghraib,
|
You think?
|
Well, I’m willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.
| |
| |
their choice to foreground an institutionalized torture chamber
speaks of a curious lack of sensitivity on the subject. Given TLG’s
long-standing policy of non-violent toys (a policy quickly abandoned when it
threatened their profits, of course), you’d think that they’d be more
conscious of how their portrayals of violence are likely to be interpreted.
|
I think that there is a definite line WRT to reality and fantasy. The
holocaust sets were offensive because they portrayed reality; these Spiderman
sets deal in the realm of fantasy and make-believe, and so they shouldn’t be
judged by the same metric IMO.
|
Hey, you poser--we’re talking about Batman sets here. Keep your escapist
fantasy characters sorted out, will you? Of course, if you’re looking to talk
about the current Spider-man license, I happily invite you to visit
The Bloks Forum where we can discuss this and
other Mega Bloks topics at greater length!
Anyway, you’re correct that fantasy and reality are very different, but it’s
still entirely appropriate to comment on the implications of one in the context
of the other, especially when fantasy resonates strongly with a portion of
reality that carries a strong emotional context.
| |
| |
| |
If LEGO had released a US military base and there were a torture chamber in
it, I’d think there was a big problem.
|
|
Yes, because of the breach of the reality/fantasy line.
|
What if it were a fictional US Military set in, say, the year 2050?
| |
| |
Why include the torture chamber at all? They didn’t include the reception
desk, the bathroom, or the parking lot, after all. Their choice to include
the chamber makes it fair game for discussion.
|
Because the overarching theme of these works is the struggle of good verses
evil, Dave! Providing children a means to vanquish evil and see good prevail
in their play is a valuable component in creative play IMO.
|
Fair enough, but which side is being portrayed as good and which side as evil?
The strapped-down supervillain or his torturers?
Dave!
|
|
| |
In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Dave Schuler wrote:
| |
In lugnet.off-topic.debate, John Neal wrote:
| |
In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Dave Schuler wrote:
| |
Although it’s unlikely that LEGO intended the set as a commentary on Abu
Ghraib,
|
You think?
|
Well, I’m willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.
|
All you do is give, Dave!
| |
| |
| |
their choice to foreground an institutionalized torture chamber
speaks of a curious lack of sensitivity on the subject. Given TLG’s
long-standing policy of non-violent toys (a policy quickly abandoned when
it threatened their profits, of course), you’d think that they’d be more
conscious of how their portrayals of violence are likely to be interpreted.
|
I think that there is a definite line WRT to reality and fantasy. The
holocaust sets were offensive because they portrayed reality; these
Spiderman sets deal in the realm of fantasy and make-believe, and so they
shouldn’t be judged by the same metric IMO.
|
Hey, you poser--we’re talking about Batman sets here. Keep your escapist
fantasy characters sorted out, will you? Of course, if you’re looking to
talk about the current Spider-man license, I happily invite you to visit
The Bloks Forum where we can discuss this
and other Mega Bloks topics at greater length!
|
Oops! Mea culpa, but a rather funny blooper there, nonetheless:-) I’ll bet you
are only too happy to invite me into your little den of iniquity, Dave! :-)
| |
Anyway, you’re correct that fantasy and reality are very different, but it’s
still entirely appropriate to comment on the implications of one in the
context of the other, especially when fantasy resonates strongly with a
portion of reality that carries a strong emotional context.
|
I agree, and I think that fantasy provides a perfect outlet to express strong
emotional content that would be inhibited by a direct nexus to reality. That
way, the essence of the struggle between good and evil can be distilled and
investigated, without all of the political blah blah hindering it.
Further, I fully acknowledge that writers in the past have taken cover in
fantasy by creating strong narratives that are pointedly derivative of reality
as a form of social commentary, but I really don’t see this to be the case here.
Just your average bad guy doing his thing, with the above-average good guy
trying to stop him.
| |
| |
| |
| |
If LEGO had released a US military base and there were a torture chamber
in it, I’d think there was a big problem.
|
|
Yes, because of the breach of the reality/fantasy line.
|
What if it were a fictional US Military set in, say, the year 2050?
|
Nope, because the US is a reality. It would have to be something along the
lines of NWO thinking, or something to that effect.
| |
| |
| |
Why include the torture chamber at all? They didn’t include the reception
desk, the bathroom, or the parking lot, after all. Their choice to include
the chamber makes it fair game for discussion.
|
Because the overarching theme of these works is the struggle of good verses
evil, Dave! Providing children a means to vanquish evil and see good
prevail in their play is a valuable component in creative play IMO.
|
Fair enough, but which side is being portrayed as good and which side as
evil? The strapped-down supervillain or his torturers?
|
Well, I’m not too familiar with the story line here, so I can’t really say. If
a bad guy is torturing a bad guy, well, while I can’t condone that type of
behavior, I can’t really sympathize with the victim, either. For the good/evil
struggle thing to work, it is the innocent who must suffer. When the evil
suffer, it is plain ol’ comeuppance:-)
JOHN
|
|
| |
In lugnet.off-topic.debate, John Neal wrote:
| |
All you do is give, Dave!
|
My generosity and my humility are the two attributes of which I’m most proud.
| |
| |
which side is being portrayed as good and which side as
evil? The strapped-down supervillain or his torturers?
|
Well, I’m not too familiar with the story line here, so I can’t really say.
If a bad guy is torturing a bad guy, well, while I can’t condone that type of
behavior, I can’t really sympathize with the victim, either.
|
But you can hate the crime without loving the victim, can’t you?
| |
For the good/evil struggle thing to work, it is the innocent who must
suffer.
|
Ah! But that’s the difference between melodrama and drama. The more
sophistimacated challenge is for the reader/viewer to be made to sympathize with
a villain rather than always rooting for the innocent victim.
| |
When the evil suffer, it is plain ol’ comeuppance:-)
|
That’s a little too Deuteronomy for my tastes! IMO once the guy is strapped
down (or otherwise rendered harmless) then his jailer has no business or right
to inflict further harm upon him. We’ve had this discussion before, of course,
and I’m sure we’ll have it again and again. But in brief, it’s not a question
of “innocence” in any absolute sense; the torturer is the villian and the
recipient of the torture is the victim who deserves our protection.
All of this is beyond the scope of Richie’s initial question, I think, but it
makes for interesting discussion regardless.
Dave!
|
|
| |
In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Dave Schuler wrote:
| |
In lugnet.off-topic.debate, John Neal wrote:
| |
All you do is give, Dave!
|
My generosity and my humility are the two attributes of which I’m most proud.
|
Not to mention your eloquent gift of good grammar and tongue-in-cheekiness.
| |
| |
| |
which side is being portrayed as good and which side as
evil? The strapped-down supervillain or his torturers?
|
Well, I’m not too familiar with the story line here, so I can’t really say.
If a bad guy is torturing a bad guy, well, while I can’t condone that type
of behavior, I can’t really sympathize with the victim, either.
|
But you can hate the crime without loving the victim, can’t you?
|
Well, yeah, that’s basically what I meant.
| |
| |
For the good/evil struggle thing to work, it is the innocent who must
suffer.
|
Ah! But that’s the difference between melodrama and drama. The more
sophistimacated challenge is for the reader/viewer to be made to sympathize
with a villain rather than always rooting for the innocent victim.
|
And that, my friend, may be one of those “nutshell” differences between a
liberal and a conservative. Assuming you are serious with your assertion
(sophistimacated?), I challenge your notion that the concept of sympathizing
with the villian is a more sophisticated rendition of drama. I will never
understand the left’s fascination with evil, as if it can be analyzed and
understood. Dwelling in evil doesn’t provide insight or understanding, but it
does taint and corrupt those who choose to get too close to it. You lie down
with dogs, you wake up with fleas.
In the final attempts to analyze evil, where does it get one? At best, genuine
sympathy for the evildoer, and what good can come from that? Tolerance?
Great. Let’s learn to tolerate evildoers. My suspicion is that the purpose of
such endeavors is to discover how stinky someone else’s laundry is, so as to
feel good about the fetor of their own. Good old relative moralism!
| |
| |
When the evil suffer, it is plain ol’ comeuppance:-)
|
That’s a little too Deuteronomy for my tastes!
|
A new sound byte I just made up: Run away from the gray!
| |
IMO once the guy is strapped
down (or otherwise rendered harmless) then his jailer has no business or
right to inflict further harm upon him. We’ve had this discussion before, of
course, and I’m sure we’ll have it again and again. But in brief, it’s not a
question of “innocence” in any absolute sense; the torturer is the villian
and the recipient of the torture is the victim who deserves our protection.
|
What would you say is the reason the victim deserves our protection?
| |
All of this is beyond the scope of Richie’s initial question, I think, but it
makes for interesting discussion regardless.
|
Yes and yup.
JOHN
|
|
| |
In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Dave Schuler wrote:
| |
All of this is beyond the scope of Richie’s initial question, I think, but it
makes for interesting discussion regardless.
|
Just a point of order, Dave: I didn’t include a question in my initial post.
Cheers
Richie Dulin
|
|
| |
In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Richie Dulin wrote:
| |
In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Dave Schuler wrote:
| |
All of this is beyond the scope of Richie’s initial question, I think, but
it makes for interesting discussion regardless.
|
Just a point of order, Dave: I didn’t include a question in my initial post.
|
But you brought their judgment into question. Semantics here, IMO
JOHN
|
|
| |
In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Richie Dulin wrote:
| |
In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Dave Schuler wrote:
| |
All of this is beyond the scope of Richie’s initial question, I think, but
it makes for interesting discussion regardless.
|
Just a point of order, Dave: I didn’t include a question in my initial post.
|
You keep out of this. I’ll decide what you did and didn’t say!
;)
Dave!
|
|
| |
In lugnet.off-topic.debate, John Neal wrote:
| |
In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Richie Dulin wrote:
| |
In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Dave Schuler wrote:
| |
All of this is beyond the scope of Richie’s initial question, I think, but
it makes for interesting discussion regardless.
|
Just a point of order, Dave: I didn’t include a question in my initial post.
|
But you brought their judgment into question. Semantics here, IMO
JOHN
|
And god forbid that anyone gets accused of being anti-Semantic.
a
|
|
| |
In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Allister McLaren wrote:
| |
And god forbid that anyone gets accused of being anti-Semantic.
|
Well, it looks like the same antics to me.
|
|
| |
In lugnet.off-topic.debate, John Neal wrote:
| |
In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Richie Dulin wrote:
| |
In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Dave Schuler wrote:
| |
All of this is beyond the scope of Richie’s initial question, I think, but
it makes for interesting discussion regardless.
|
Just a point of order, Dave: I didn’t include a question in my initial post.
|
But you brought their judgment into question. Semantics here, IMO
JOHN
|
Right.
Semantics, that must be it.
Even so, even if that was what Dave was meaning, it would be nice for him to
have the used the phrase “Richie’s comment” or “Richie’s post”. It would save
you the hassle of having to explain this stuff to me, if nothing else.
Thanks.
Richie Dulin
|
|
| |
In lugnet.off-topic.debate, John Neal wrote:
| |
| |
| |
For the good/evil struggle thing to work, it is the innocent who must
suffer.
|
Ah! But that’s the difference between melodrama and drama. The more
sophistimacated challenge is for the reader/viewer to be made to sympathize
with a villain rather than always rooting for the innocent victim.
|
And that, my friend, may be one of those “nutshell” differences between a
liberal and a conservative. Assuming you are serious with your assertion
(sophistimacated?), I challenge your notion that the concept of sympathizing
with the villian is a more sophisticated rendition of drama. I will never
understand the left’s fascination with evil, as if it can be analyzed and
understood. Dwelling in evil doesn’t provide insight or understanding, but
it does taint and corrupt those who choose to get too close to it. You lie
down with dogs, you wake up with fleas.
|
First off, “sophistimacated” was just a means of letting out some air so that I
don’t start taking myself too seriously.
Let me disclaim that it in this passage I’m speaking specifically of fiction
rather than reality.
The reason it’s more sophisticated (which, in this context, implies only
complexity rather than an objectively “better” or “worse” aesthetic sensibility)
because it requires the viewer to make achieve more complicated degree of
pathos. Sympathizing with an innocent victim is sort of easy because we’re
culturally programmed to do so (“women and children first,” etc.) In western
culture, at least, it’s basically the default position. To sympathize with the
innocent victim, the viewer need do (practically) nothing other than to watch
and react. But to sympathize with a villain, the viewer has to be drawn out of
his default mode and given a reason to sympathize.
I may have portrayed it simply as a matter of choosing to sympathize with the
villain rather than the victim, but that’s not really the idea. Instead, the
drama must be framed in such a way that one’s sympathy for a villain is
justified by the circumstances.
I’m also not talking about feeling sympathy for a villain who’s being held
accountable for his villainy; I don’t feel bad for the murderer who’s
incarcerated for life, for example.
| |
In the final attempts to analyze evil, where does it get one? At best,
genuine sympathy for the evildoer, and what good can come from that?
Tolerance? Great. Let’s learn to tolerate evildoers. My suspicion is that
the purpose of such endeavors is to discover how stinky someone else’s
laundry is, so as to feel good about the fetor of their own. Good old
relative moralism!
|
I prefer the term “moral relativism,” if you please!
It should be reiterated that I don’t believe in “evil” as an actual, absolute
thing, so the most I can say is that, when possible, it improves one’s
understanding to study those behaviors in others that are so abhorrent to me
that I would characterize them as “evil,” but I don’t thereby presume to have
any ability to diagnose “evil” in an absolute sense.
And the value of studying such a person is that I might gain an understanding of
what drives him to act as he does. That’s more complicated than speechifying
and sloganizing about the “axis of evil” and “evildoers who want to kill life”
and so on, but ultimately I think that it would be more useful in fostering
peace than would firebombing a city full of civilians, for example.
| |
| |
IMO once the guy is strapped
down (or otherwise rendered harmless) then his jailer has no business or
right to inflict further harm upon him. We’ve had this discussion before,
of course, and I’m sure we’ll have it again and again. But in brief, it’s
not a question of “innocence” in any absolute sense; the torturer is the
villian and the recipient of the torture is the victim who deserves our
protection.
|
What would you say is the reason the victim deserves our protection?
|
Why would he not? That is, why would he deserve torture? By what absolute
measure can we say “his evil act justifies these electrodes placed on his
genitals,” I wonder?
Dave!
|
|
| |
In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Dave Schuler wrote:
| |
Ah! But that’s the difference between melodrama and drama.
|
I thought the difference between melodrama and drama was the cheesy music.
That’s what one of my theatre profs told me, at least...
|
|
| |
In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Dave Schuler wrote:
| |
In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Richie Dulin wrote:
| |
In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Dave Schuler wrote:
| |
All of this is beyond the scope of Richie’s initial question, I think, but
it makes for interesting discussion regardless.
|
Just a point of order, Dave: I didn’t include a question in my initial post.
|
You keep out of this. I’ll decide what you did and didn’t say!
;)
|
Fair enough.
Actually, I find it a lot more convincing as points of view go than the
semantics one. ;)
Cheers
Richie Dulin
|
|
| |
In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Dave Schuler wrote:
| |
In lugnet.off-topic.debate, John Neal wrote:
| |
| |
| |
For the good/evil struggle thing to work, it is the innocent who must
suffer.
|
Ah! But that’s the difference between melodrama and drama. The more
sophistimacated challenge is for the reader/viewer to be made to sympathize
with a villain rather than always rooting for the innocent victim.
|
And that, my friend, may be one of those “nutshell” differences between a
liberal and a conservative. Assuming you are serious with your assertion
(sophistimacated?), I challenge your notion that the concept of sympathizing
with the villian is a more sophisticated rendition of drama. I will never
understand the left’s fascination with evil, as if it can be analyzed and
understood. Dwelling in evil doesn’t provide insight or understanding, but
it does taint and corrupt those who choose to get too close to it. You lie
down with dogs, you wake up with fleas.
|
First off, “sophistimacated” was just a means of letting out some air so that
I don’t start taking myself too seriously.
|
Just making sure. Got that one from Duffy, did ya, Dave!?
| |
Let me disclaim that it in this passage I’m speaking specifically of fiction
rather than reality.
The reason it’s more sophisticated (which, in this context, implies only
complexity rather than an objectively “better” or “worse” aesthetic
sensibility) because it requires the viewer to make achieve more complicated
degree of pathos. Sympathizing with an innocent victim is sort of easy
because we’re culturally programmed to do so (“women and children first,”
etc.) In western culture, at least, it’s basically the default position.
|
Hold on right there! I wonder why that is the case! And I certainly don’t
believe it is by Cawinkydink. And if it is so easy, than why would it be
restricted to our culture? I believe we worked hard for that to be our
“default position”-- it is a product of the Enlightenment.
| |
To
sympathize with the innocent victim, the viewer need do (practically) nothing
other than to watch and react. But to sympathize with a villain, the viewer
has to be drawn out of his default mode and given a reason to sympathize.
I may have portrayed it simply as a matter of choosing to sympathize with
the villain rather than the victim, but that’s not really the idea. Instead,
the drama must be framed in such a way that one’s sympathy for a villain is
justified by the circumstances.
|
I guess what I’m saying is that these types of forays outside of the default, as
you put it, lead to, in my mind, to dark places. I know that you qualified your
statement by restricting your comments to the realm of fiction, but I believe
the ideas here transcend fiction and reality. And these ideas-- are they
influencing culture, or are they reflecting culture? Both, probably, but the
question is, in which order? When one starts to look for justice where it
doesn’t belong, I believe outcomes like suicide bombers murdering innocent women
and children start making sense.
| |
I’m also not talking about feeling sympathy for a villain who’s being held
accountable for his villainy; I don’t feel bad for the murderer who’s
incarcerated for life, for example.
|
This implies that one is innocent until proven guilty in a court of law, which,
given the poor state of our justice system, is little comfort in my mind. The
beauty of fiction is that villians can be made to pay for their evil deeds at
any time by God (or Chance, if you prefer), which is more satisfying, because
the justice is from beyond the failings of man and his weak attempts and
understanding of justice.
| |
| |
In the final attempts to analyze evil, where does it get one? At best,
genuine sympathy for the evildoer, and what good can come from that?
Tolerance? Great. Let’s learn to tolerate evildoers. My suspicion is that
the purpose of such endeavors is to discover how stinky someone else’s
laundry is, so as to feel good about the fetor of their own. Good old
relative moralism!
|
I prefer the term “moral relativism,” if you please!
|
Culpa Mea!
| |
It should be reiterated that I don’t believe in “evil” as an actual, absolute
thing,
|
Nor do I, BTW.
| |
so the most I can say is that, when possible, it improves one’s
understanding to study those behaviors in others that are so abhorrent to me
that I would characterize them as “evil,” but I don’t thereby presume to have
any ability to diagnose “evil” in an absolute sense.
And the value of studying such a person is that I might gain an understanding
of what drives him to act as he does.
|
Again, I ask, to what end? We already know what they are doing/did was not
good; what else can be gained, especially in a free society where people are
free to act badly? I believe the ultimate goal is to reduce accountability to
zero. No one can be held responsible for their actions, because who are we to
judge? (Moral relativism) It is the incidious and inevitable outcome of
Political Correctness.
| |
That’s more complicated than
speechifying and sloganizing about the “axis of evil” and “evildoers who want
to kill life” and so on, but ultimately I think that it would be more useful
in fostering peace than would firebombing a city full of civilians, for
example.
|
Okay, forget the word “evil”. I’ll bet, however, that you would still object to
the substitute “bad”, or even “not good”. Because within your liberal, PC
mentality is the abhorrence to judge, whether it be the actions of persons or
cultures.
| |
| |
| |
IMO once the guy is strapped
down (or otherwise rendered harmless) then his jailer has no business or
right to inflict further harm upon him. We’ve had this discussion before,
of course, and I’m sure we’ll have it again and again. But in brief, it’s
not a question of “innocence” in any absolute sense; the torturer is the
villian and the recipient of the torture is the victim who deserves our
protection.
|
What would you say is the reason the victim deserves our protection?
|
Why would he not?
|
Because he is not innocent.
| |
That is, why would he deserve torture?
|
Because he reaps what he sowed.
| |
By what absolute
measure can we say “his evil act justifies these electrodes placed on his
genitals,” I wonder?
|
Okay, now that brings up a sticking point. Though the bad guy deserves bad
things to happen to him, there still is no justification for those bad things to
be initiated by people. Only God (or Chance) can, er, execute perfect justice
so that the bad guy gets just what he deserves.
So, of course, I don’t condone the torture of bad people, even though I might
believe that they deserve it. Torture is bad, so in my mind, the torturer might
as well be strapped to the table next, with another torturer waiting on deck,
with the whole thing blossoming into scene reminiscent of a MP sketch.
JOHN
|
|
| |
In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Dave Schuler wrote:
| |
In lugnet.off-topic.debate, John Neal wrote:
| |
| |
| |
For the good/evil struggle thing to work, it is the innocent who must
suffer.
|
Ah! But that’s the difference between melodrama and drama. The more
sophistimacated challenge is for the reader/viewer to be made to sympathize
with a villain rather than always rooting for the innocent victim.
|
And that, my friend, may be one of those “nutshell” differences between a
liberal and a conservative. Assuming you are serious with your assertion
(sophistimacated?), I challenge your notion that the concept of sympathizing
with the villian is a more sophisticated rendition of drama. I will never
understand the left’s fascination with evil, as if it can be analyzed and
understood. Dwelling in evil doesn’t provide insight or understanding, but
it does taint and corrupt those who choose to get too close to it. You lie
down with dogs, you wake up with fleas.
|
First off, “sophistimacated” was just a means of letting out some air so that
I don’t start taking myself too seriously.
Let me disclaim that it in this passage I’m speaking specifically of fiction
rather than reality.
The reason it’s more sophisticated (which, in this context, implies only
complexity rather than an objectively “better” or “worse” aesthetic
sensibility) because it requires the viewer to make achieve more complicated
degree of pathos. Sympathizing with an innocent victim is sort of easy
because we’re culturally programmed to do so (“women and children first,”
etc.) In western culture, at least, it’s basically the default position. To
sympathize with the innocent victim, the viewer need do (practically) nothing
other than to watch and react. But to sympathize with a villain, the viewer
has to be drawn out of his default mode and given a reason to sympathize.
I may have portrayed it simply as a matter of choosing to sympathize with
the villain rather than the victim, but that’s not really the idea. Instead,
the drama must be framed in such a way that one’s sympathy for a villain is
justified by the circumstances.
I’m also not talking about feeling sympathy for a villain who’s being held
accountable for his villainy; I don’t feel bad for the murderer who’s
incarcerated for life, for example.
|
And if I may intrude into this here, we have had some wonderful fiction on the
telly lately in which what is considered to be ‘the bad guy’ in the ‘tv show
universe’ is the person we most relate to.
Loads of examples, but starting off with ‘Captain Mal’ in ‘Firefly’--he’s a
smuggler a la Han Solo (another fine example)--they’re not villians, to be sure,
but, in their universe, they break the laws to succeed.
And yet here we are, the viewing audience--we don’t like the Alliance in Firefly
and we dont’ like ‘The Empire’ in Star Wars.
Furthermore, going with Firefly, we have the movie ‘Serenity’, in which ‘The
Operative’ *admits* he’s the monster (as, he states, is Cap. Mal) and, due to
his own ‘monsterhood’, is unable to live in the ‘sinless world’ that he’s
endeavouring to help create by his actions in silencing River. Yet, by the end
of the movie (if Joss did his job properly), we feel sympathy for both Capt.
Mal, but especially The Operative, because it was his base axioms that he
believed in (Alliance = good, sinless) that were faulty, and when he found that
out he was left with nothing.
I’m with Dave on this one--there’s more to humanity than attributing people or
events to ‘evil’ and ‘good’--this isn’t some ‘30’s movie where the guy with the
handlebar mustache ties the woman to the railroad tracks, but hte guy with the
white hat comes riding in to ‘save the day’.
Bringing it back to reality, there was a guy and his wife right here in the
province in which I live (and I’ll never mention his name on the ‘net ‘cause
I’ll never add to the ‘infamousness’ of the jackass) who took it upon themselves
to kidnap a few teenage girls, and what usually happens in these instances
happened.
We could say that this guy was ‘pure evil’--and, left up to me, if he and I
happened to find ourselves in the same room, only one of us would come out alive
(at least, that’s how I *feel*, but finding myself in that situation, would I be
able to take another life? I dunno), but this guy had a mom and dad--they knew
him as a ‘cute kid’. He had friends and family who remembered someone different
than what he became.
Crossing between reality and fiction, I’ve never been able to reconcile this--I
saw Star Wars when I was 10. Darth was tall, black and evil--he kills people by
crushing their necks and he blows up planets. And then in ‘Return of the Jedi’,
I’m suppose to feel sympathy for him ‘cause he saves his kid and, in the process
dies himself? Futhermore, what are we to think of regarding ‘cute little
Anakin’ in Episode 1 of Star Wars? Here he’s all cute and worried about mommy
and the like, when we, the viewers, *know* he’s going to grow up and become
Darth Vader--killer of people and planets.
And then this brings up the wonderful time travel morality question that we’ve
all heard--if you could go back to 1900 and found little adolph playing in the
street... He hasn’t done anything yet!
Which I think then brings it back to Dave’s point--in this LEGO set, the ‘bad
guy’ is strapped on a table--he can’t *do* anything--he’s rendered
incapacitated. Do not our ‘moral’ intentions then have to turn to protecting
those who *cannot* protect themselves? Protect the guy from torture??
I think we’ve talked about this before, and I’ll remember that I’m mostly
speaking to a crowd that loves to misinterpret the 2nd ammendment--every so
often we’ll see the news in which ‘home owner shoots and kills robbers’. Some
cases, as previously discussed, the robbers were either incapacitated in some
way or were ‘fleeing the premesis’--no threat of harm to the home owner or
others, yet the shot is still fired and the guy is still dead.
Here I don’t have a problem with where the evil is. Was a crime committed?
yes--the robbers shouldn’t have been there in the first place. However, that
does not make the crooks ‘pure evil’ nor does it justify ‘death by shooting’ if
they are incapacitated or in the process of fleeing the scene. The owner,
taking that shot, has now become the guy standing before the criminal strapped
to the table.
I think that the world is full of ‘grey’--there is no black and white. It
really is one of the fundamental tennants I learned from the Christian
University I attended a long time ago (which I’ve adapted for my personal
use)--*if* the world is sinful, *then* everything and everyone is--there’s no
getting around it. If one says we live in a fallen world, then we’re all
fallen--there are no ‘perfectly good’ people and no ‘perfectly evil’ people.
Even what’s-his-name from Ontario could speak a good line--he managed to
convince someone to marry him and he was a pretty good talker. And, as stated,
he did have friends and family who wondered what became of that ‘cute kid’ they
remembered.
Yes there are degrees and yes people should be held accountable for their
actions. In the process of holding people accountable, we must be careful to
not become that which we’re fighting against. I think Neitzche said something
like that.
| |
| |
In the final attempts to analyze evil, where does it get one? At best,
genuine sympathy for the evildoer, and what good can come from that?
Tolerance? Great. Let’s learn to tolerate evildoers. My suspicion is that
the purpose of such endeavors is to discover how stinky someone else’s
laundry is, so as to feel good about the fetor of their own. Good old
relative moralism!
|
I prefer the term “moral relativism,” if you please!
It should be reiterated that I don’t believe in “evil” as an actual, absolute
thing, so the most I can say is that, when possible, it improves one’s
understanding to study those behaviors in others that are so abhorrent to me
that I would characterize them as “evil,” but I don’t thereby presume to have
any ability to diagnose “evil” in an absolute sense.
And the value of studying such a person is that I might gain an understanding
of what drives him to act as he does. That’s more complicated than
speechifying and sloganizing about the “axis of evil” and “evildoers who want
to kill life” and so on, but ultimately I think that it would be more useful
in fostering peace than would firebombing a city full of civilians, for
example.
| |
| |
IMO once the guy is strapped
down (or otherwise rendered harmless) then his jailer has no business or
right to inflict further harm upon him. We’ve had this discussion before,
of course, and I’m sure we’ll have it again and again. But in brief, it’s
not a question of “innocence” in any absolute sense; the torturer is the
villian and the recipient of the torture is the victim who deserves our
protection.
|
What would you say is the reason the victim deserves our protection?
|
Why would he not? That is, why would he deserve torture? By what absolute
measure can we say “his evil act justifies these electrodes placed on his
genitals,” I wonder?
Dave!
|
|
|
| |
In lugnet.off-topic.debate, John Neal wrote:
SNIPPY
| |
I guess what I’m saying is that these types of forays outside of the default,
as you put it, lead to, in my mind, to dark places. I know that you
qualified your statement by restricting your comments to the realm of
fiction, but I believe the ideas here transcend fiction and reality. And
these ideas-- are they influencing culture, or are they reflecting culture?
Both, probably, but the question is, in which order? When one starts to look
for justice where it doesn’t belong, I believe outcomes like suicide
bombers murdering innocent women and children start making sense.
|
Hey , what about the innocent men and the guilty women and children? (I had a
strange cultural default twinge there as I typed ‘children’)
SNIPPY
Tim
|
|
| |
In lugnet.off-topic.debate, David Koudys wrote:
| |
And if I may intrude into this here, we have had some wonderful fiction on
the telly lately in which what is considered to be ‘the bad guy’ in the ‘tv
show universe’ is the person we most relate to.
|
Generally speaking, this is the idea to which I object. Identifying with bad
guys is bad.
| |
Loads of examples, but starting off with ‘Captain Mal’ in ‘Firefly’--he’s a
smuggler a la Han Solo (another fine example)--they’re not villians, to be
sure, but, in their universe, they break the laws to succeed.
And yet here we are, the viewing audience--we don’t like the Alliance in
Firefly and we dont’ like ‘The Empire’ in Star Wars.
|
Is Han really bad? Sure, he undermines the laws of an evil empire, but does
that make him “bad”? Shouldn’t we resist evil (bad)?
| |
Furthermore, going with Firefly, we have the movie ‘Serenity’, in which ‘The
Operative’ *admits* he’s the monster (as, he states, is Cap. Mal) and, due to
his own ‘monsterhood’, is unable to live in the ‘sinless world’ that he’s
endeavouring to help create by his actions in silencing River. Yet, by the
end of the movie (if Joss did his job properly), we feel sympathy for both
Capt. Mal, but especially The Operative, because it was his base axioms that
he believed in (Alliance = good, sinless) that were faulty, and when he found
that out he was left with nothing.
|
I can’t comment on that, since I’ve never seen “Serenity” nor “Firefly”.
| |
I’m with Dave on this one--there’s more to humanity than attributing people
or events to ‘evil’ and ‘good’--this isn’t some ‘30’s movie where the guy
with the handlebar mustache ties the woman to the railroad tracks, but hte
guy with the white hat comes riding in to ‘save the day’.
|
But what I’m talking about is judging actions. You just don’t become bad, you
do bad things which in turn make you a bad person.
| |
Bringing it back to reality, there was a guy and his wife right here in the
province in which I live (and I’ll never mention his name on the ‘net ‘cause
I’ll never add to the ‘infamousness’ of the jackass) who took it upon
themselves to kidnap a few teenage girls, and what usually happens in these
instances happened.
We could say that this guy was ‘pure evil’--and, left up to me, if he and I
happened to find ourselves in the same room, only one of us would come out
alive (at least, that’s how I *feel*, but finding myself in that situation,
would I be able to take another life? I dunno), but this guy had a mom and
dad--they knew him as a ‘cute kid’. He had friends and family who remembered
someone different than what he became.
|
Right. He was a cute kid, because he hadn’t done anything bad yet.
| |
Crossing between reality and fiction, I’ve never been able to reconcile
this--I saw Star Wars when I was 10. Darth was tall, black and evil--he
kills people by crushing their necks and he blows up planets. And then in
‘Return of the Jedi’, I’m suppose to feel sympathy for him ‘cause he saves
his kid and, in the process dies himself? Futhermore, what are we to think
of regarding ‘cute little Anakin’ in Episode 1 of Star Wars? Here he’s all
cute and worried about mommy and the like, when we, the viewers, *know* he’s
going to grow up and become Darth Vader--killer of people and planets.
|
This is precisely the crap that the liberal minds likes to project-- confusing
the lines between good and evil to the point where the two are barely
distinguishable.
| |
And then this brings up the wonderful time travel morality question that
we’ve all heard--if you could go back to 1900 and found little adolph playing
in the street... He hasn’t done anything yet!
|
Which brings us to the second wonderful time travel question-- is it possible to
alter the future (which has already occured, BTW)
| |
Which I think then brings it back to Dave’s point--in this LEGO set, the ‘bad
guy’ is strapped on a table--he can’t *do* anything--he’s rendered
incapacitated.
|
So what?
| |
Do not our ‘moral’ intentions then have to turn to protecting
those who *cannot* protect themselves? Protect the guy from torture??
|
So you are saying that I should rescue him so that I can bring him to justice
using our judical system? Why am I compelled to defend the evil? Are there not
anymore good people left to defend?
| |
I think we’ve talked about this before, and I’ll remember that I’m mostly
speaking to a crowd that loves to misinterpret the 2nd ammendment--every so
often we’ll see the news in which ‘home owner shoots and kills robbers’.
Some cases, as previously discussed, the robbers were either incapacitated in
some way or were ‘fleeing the premesis’--no threat of harm to the home owner
or others, yet the shot is still fired and the guy is still dead.
|
No threat, until the scum decide to do it all again the next day.
| |
Here I don’t have a problem with where the evil is. Was a crime committed?
yes--the robbers shouldn’t have been there in the first place. However, that
does not make the crooks ‘pure evil’ nor does it justify ‘death by shooting’
if they are incapacitated or in the process of fleeing the scene. The owner,
taking that shot, has now become the guy standing before the criminal
strapped to the table.
|
Maybe. But you have to consider the possibility that there is a good chance
that these criminals will strike again, with a less than favorable outcome for
the innocent.
| |
I think that the world is full of ‘grey’--there is no black and white. It
really is one of the fundamental tennants I learned from the Christian
University I attended a long time ago (which I’ve adapted for my personal
use)--*if* the world is sinful, *then* everything and everyone is--there’s no
getting around it. If one says we live in a fallen world, then we’re all
fallen--there are no ‘perfectly good’ people and no ‘perfectly evil’ people.
|
Of course the world is gray and nobody’s perfect; but that doesn’t mean our
standards should be gray. We should always be striving for white, which, in
part, means eschewing black. We cannot cross a divide while still keeping a
foot on both sides.
I am questioning those whose intent isn’t to strive for good, but to explore
and dwell in black. These are the people who make the world worse for everyone
else. Good people are respectful, kind, and have genuine regard for others.
Bad people don’t; they are basically selfish. And I’d go so far as to say that
good people are happy people, and selfish people aren’t. That may seem
simplistic, but not everything is rocket science:-)
| |
Even what’s-his-name from Ontario could speak a good line--he managed to
convince someone to marry him and he was a pretty good talker. And, as
stated, he did have friends and family who wondered what became of that ‘cute
kid’ they remembered.
Yes there are degrees and yes people should be held accountable for their
actions. In the process of holding people accountable, we must be careful to
not become that which we’re fighting against. I think Neitzche said
something like that.
|
Yes, we need to choose our battles wisely.
Neitzsche: God is dead.
God: Neitzsche is dead.
:-)
JOHN
|
|
| |
--snip--
| |
| |
Crossing between reality and fiction, I’ve never been able to reconcile
this--I saw Star Wars when I was 10. Darth was tall, black and evil--he
kills people by crushing their necks and he blows up planets. And then in
‘Return of the Jedi’, I’m suppose to feel sympathy for him ‘cause he saves
his kid and, in the process dies himself? Futhermore, what are we to think
of regarding ‘cute little Anakin’ in Episode 1 of Star Wars? Here he’s all
cute and worried about mommy and the like, when we, the viewers, *know* he’s
going to grow up and become Darth Vader--killer of people and planets.
|
This is precisely the crap that the liberal minds likes to project--
confusing the lines between good and evil to the point where the two are
barely distinguishable.
|
No, that’s just reality. It’s just that liberal minds take a bit more effort to
take it into consideration.
| |
Maybe. But you have to consider the possibility that there is a good chance
that these criminals will strike again, with a less than favorable outcome
for the innocent.
|
Does that mean you support Court by vigilante and death penalty for thievery? Do
you really think it’s up to the homeowner to decide that the person stealing
their tv is going to come back and do it again, next time using violence, and
should be killed to prevent that from happening? Sounds like presentience to me
which is beyond the mortal ken.
In my books if you kill someone who is not directly threatening someone else you
are a murderer and you are ‘evil’. I don’t care if that person has just stolen
your tv or not. Even the rather bloodthirsty Old Testament said an ‘eye for an
eye’ rather than ‘a life for a stereo’.
| |
Of course the world is gray and nobody’s perfect; but that doesn’t mean our
standards should be gray. We should always be striving for white, which,
in part, means eschewing black. We cannot cross a divide while still keeping
a foot on both sides.
I am questioning those whose intent isn’t to strive for good, but to
explore and dwell in black. These are the people who make the world worse
for everyone else. Good people are respectful, kind, and have genuine regard
for others. Bad people don’t; they are basically selfish. And I’d go so far
as to say that good people are happy people, and selfish people aren’t. That
may seem simplistic, but not everything is rocket science:-)
|
How do you deal with people who are good, respectful, kind and have a genuine
regard for others but do thinks which you consider to be immoral? What about
those who do what a lot of people consider immoral, what about those who do what
a lot of people think is moral and a larger number of people thinks is immoral?
| |
| |
Even what’s-his-name from Ontario could speak a good line--he managed to
convince someone to marry him and he was a pretty good talker. And, as
stated, he did have friends and family who wondered what became of that
‘cute kid’ they remembered.
Yes there are degrees and yes people should be held accountable for their
actions. In the process of holding people accountable, we must be careful
to not become that which we’re fighting against. I think Neitzche said
something like that.
|
Yes, we need to choose our battles wisely.
Neitzsche: God is dead.
God: Neitzsche is dead.
:-)
JOHN
|
|
|
| |
In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Timothy Gould wrote:
| |
--snip--
| |
| |
Crossing between reality and fiction, I’ve never been able to reconcile
this--I saw Star Wars when I was 10. Darth was tall, black and evil--he
kills people by crushing their necks and he blows up planets. And then in
‘Return of the Jedi’, I’m suppose to feel sympathy for him ‘cause he saves
his kid and, in the process dies himself? Futhermore, what are we to think
of regarding ‘cute little Anakin’ in Episode 1 of Star Wars? Here he’s all
cute and worried about mommy and the like, when we, the viewers, *know*
he’s going to grow up and become Darth Vader--killer of people and planets.
|
This is precisely the crap that the liberal minds likes to project--
confusing the lines between good and evil to the point where the two are
barely distinguishable.
|
No, that’s just reality. It’s just that liberal minds take a bit more effort
to take it into consideration.
| |
Maybe. But you have to consider the possibility that there is a good chance
that these criminals will strike again, with a less than favorable outcome
for the innocent.
|
Does that mean you support Court by vigilante and death penalty for thievery?
|
Okay, I take it now that we have dispensed fantasy and are now dealing with real
life situations. Vigilantism isn’t ideal, because there isn’t a standard--
that, of course, is the beauty of Law. The problem comes when the law fails to
bring about justice. Put it this way: I am more sympathetic to a murderer who
kills in cold blood the murderer of his young daughter who has gotten off in a
court of law on some technicality.
As for theives: no death penalty; the cutting off of their hands will suffice;-)
| |
Do you really think it’s up to the homeowner to decide that the person
stealing their tv is going to come back and do it again, next time using
violence, and should be killed to prevent that from happening? Sounds like
presentience to me which is beyond the mortal ken.
In my books if you kill someone who is not directly threatening someone else
you are a murderer and you are ‘evil’. I don’t care if that person has just
stolen your tv or not. Even the rather bloodthirsty Old Testament said an
‘eye for an eye’ rather than ‘a life for a stereo’.
|
I wouldn’t advocate the intentional attempt to kill a fleeing thief. How do
you feel about shootinging with the intent to wound? Guns are all we really
have now to stop thieves, and they are crude and don’t do what we necessarily
what them to do, but I’m sure that soon we will have weapons which will be able
to incapacitate without lethal force. I believe a citizen has every right to
zap a fleeing thief.
| |
| |
Of course the world is gray and nobody’s perfect; but that doesn’t mean our
standards should be gray. We should always be striving for white, which,
in part, means eschewing black. We cannot cross a divide while still
keeping a foot on both sides.
I am questioning those whose intent isn’t to strive for good, but to
explore and dwell in black. These are the people who make the world worse
for everyone else. Good people are respectful, kind, and have genuine
regard for others. Bad people don’t; they are basically selfish. And I’d go
so far as to say that good people are happy people, and selfish people
aren’t. That may seem simplistic, but not everything is rocket science:-)
|
How do you deal with people who are good, respectful, kind and have a genuine
regard for others but do thinks which you consider to be immoral?
|
They can think whatever they want! I don’t care.
| |
What about
those who do what a lot of people consider immoral, what about those who do
what a lot of people think is moral and a larger number of people thinks is
immoral?
|
If those actions infringe on the rights of others, then they should be stopped.
It doesn’t matter how many people believe anything. If freedoms are abridged,
then that is when action needs to occur (and what governments are for).
JOHN
|
|
| |
In lugnet.off-topic.debate, John Neal wrote:
| |
In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Dave Schuler wrote:
| |
The reason it’s more sophisticated (which, in this context, implies only
complexity rather than an objectively “better” or “worse” aesthetic
sensibility) because it requires the viewer to make achieve more complicated
degree of pathos. Sympathizing with an innocent victim is sort of easy
because we’re culturally programmed to do so (“women and children first,”
etc.) In western culture, at least, it’s basically the default position.
|
Hold on right there! I wonder why that is the case! And I certainly don’t
believe it is by Cawinkydink. And if it is so easy, than why would it be
restricted to our culture? I believe we worked hard for that to be our
“default position”-- it is a product of the Enlightenment.
|
It is, as Dave suggested, an entirely cultural notion. Look to untamed nature
to see the natural “might makes right” position, where the strongest (whether it
be physically, or in terms of mental cunning) survive by killing, maiming, or
simply driving off the weaker. If you want a really excellent read on how the
entire world came to arrive in its current state (why Europeans conquered much
of the world but failed in central Africa, why China formed a rather sizable
empire that stopped expanding altogether, how some of the earliest adopters of
technology ended up living in one of the most primitive cultures in the world,
and why it all had to do with simple geography), read “Guns, Germs, and Steel”
by Jared Diamond. One of the things he mentions is that when he first began
exploring the mountains of New Zealand (one of the few places where you can find
indigenous peoples who have not been introduced to modern technology in any
way), he discovered that absent of any cultural stigmas to prevent this from
happening, when two people who didn’t know anything about each other would meet,
they would introduce themselves and try to find a common bond through lineage.
Failing to do that meant that one or both of them would not walk away from the
encounter. Find a familial tie, and everything was peachy-keen with them,
because you don’t kill your relatives. Just everyone else.
|
|
| |
In lugnet.off-topic.debate, David Koudys wrote:
| |
Crossing between reality and fiction, I’ve never been able to reconcile
this--I saw Star Wars when I was 10. Darth was tall, black and evil--he
kills people by crushing their necks and he blows up planets. And then in
‘Return of the Jedi’, I’m suppose to feel sympathy for him ‘cause he saves
his kid and, in the process dies himself?
|
You’re supposed to feel sympathy for Darth Vader because right before he redeems
himself, we see Luke on the verge of making the same monumental mistake that his
father made before him. Of all six movies, that is easily my favorite scene,
because everything comes together so powerfully, especially with the Emperor’s
theme being hummed the way it is (and if you ever want to send a shiver down
your spine, listen really closely to the song that the Gungan band is playing
during the parade at the end of Ep1). Anyways, Luke is ostensibly the last hope
of the Rebellion (in spite of the fact that the whole base is on the verge of
being blown up, Emperor and all), and yet he’s presented with the classic
Catch-22. He can’t kill the Emperor without falling from grace like his father
before him, and potentially becoming a worse monster than either of the
then-current Sith Lords. He can’t not kill him either because he’s the last
Jedi, and he knows that’s what he has to do. Plus, not killing the Emperor
pretty much means he’s not going to leave that room alive. Cue father, stage
left. Vader is the only character in the entire mythos who holds within his
mechanical hand the power to change Luke’s fate, since the Emperor obviously has
no interest in doing so, but in his weakened state it’s highly unlikely that he
can save his son’s life without sacrificing his own (one could argue different
scenarios where he might pull it off, but I think it was a necessary part of his
redemption that he pay the ultimate price for his past sins).
And finally, you’re supposed to feel sympathy for Vader because deep down, you
know he is fully aware that this simple act of rebellion doesn’t begin to even
make a dent in the monument of evil he’s erected during his life as a Sith
Lord...and yet there’s nothing he could have possibly done beyond what he ended
up doing. It’s like intending to set up a terrorist bombing, having a sudden
change of heart, sacrificing yourself at the last moment to save have of the
intended victims, and dying knowing full well that because of your past mistakes
you would be completely powerless to save the rest, and you would be reviled for
killing them. Likely noone of consequence will ever give you credit for at
least trying to rectify your mistakes, possibly not even some of the very people
you saved, especially if they friends or family of those who ended up dying
anyways.
| |
Futhermore, what are we to think of regarding ‘cute little Anakin’ in
Episode 1 of Star Wars? Here he’s all cute and worried about mommy and the
like, when we, the viewers, *know* he’s going to grow up and become Darth
Vader--killer of people and planets.
|
That’s one of the more philosophical moments that gets overlooked in the storm
of criticism that surrounds Ep1. Yes, Anakin was a cheerful happy child. And
yet one chance encounter was pretty much all that was required to set him up to
become one of the worst villains in the history of Star Wars. It didn’t turn
him evil in and of itself, but it placed the pieces on the chess board of his
life, and the next two movies show how that game plays out. Ep3 may have by far
the darkest overtones, but in terms of undertones it doesn’t even come close to
Ep1 and how we can see the inevitable monster hanging over one of the most
innocent characters in the entire series. You can’t look at that little boy and
not think to yourself in some back corner of your mind that this is the kid who
will grow up to help destroy the Republic, nearly wipe out the Jedi order, blow
up planets, strike terror into the hearts of anyone he meets, and choke the life
out of anyone who even remotely ticks him off. Hopefully, however, you can also
see within that same boy the compassionate Vader who betrays his master to help
save the galaxy, rather than to simply wrest control from him as he’d planned
one year earlier.
|
|
| |
--snip--
| |
| |
Does that mean you support Court by vigilante and death penalty for
thievery?
|
Okay, I take it now that we have dispensed fantasy and are now dealing with
real life situations. Vigilantism isn’t ideal, because there isn’t a
standard-- that, of course, is the beauty of Law. The problem comes when the
law fails to bring about justice. Put it this way: I am more sympathetic to
a murderer who kills in cold blood the murderer of his young daughter who has
gotten off in a court of law on some technicality.
|
I’d be more sympathetic too, but they’re still a murderer. What about someone
who has been abused by a partner for many years and lacks the capacity to
escape. If they kill that partner in cold blood they are a murderer but I’m
pretty sympathetic to their plight. Liberal thinking allows them to get off in
Court on occassions whereas Conservative thinking would send them to the chair.
| |
As for theives: no death penalty; the cutting off of their hands will
suffice;-)
| |
Do you really think it’s up to the homeowner to decide that the person
stealing their tv is going to come back and do it again, next time using
violence, and should be killed to prevent that from happening? Sounds like
presentience to me which is beyond the mortal ken.
In my books if you kill someone who is not directly threatening someone else
you are a murderer and you are ‘evil’. I don’t care if that person has just
stolen your tv or not. Even the rather bloodthirsty Old Testament said an
‘eye for an eye’ rather than ‘a life for a stereo’.
|
I wouldn’t advocate the intentional attempt to kill a fleeing thief.
|
If you shoot at someone and they die you are at best a manslaughterer and at
worst a murderer. The likely effect of shooting at someone is that they will be
seriously injured. That’s immoral in my books.
Incidentally I apply the same rule to people who drive dangerously and kill
someone but society as a whole doesn’t punish that sort of offense anywhere near
as heavily as I think it should. What do you think about the guy who kills a
young child because he was speeding ‘just’ 10mph above the speed limit? I call
him a manslaughterer.
| |
How do you feel about shootinging with the intent to wound?
|
I have minimal problem with that provided it’s reasonable force.
| |
Guns are all we
really have now to stop thieves, and they are crude and don’t do what we
necessarily what them to do, but I’m sure that soon we will have weapons
which will be able to incapacitate without lethal force. I believe a citizen
has every right to zap a fleeing thief.
|
Zapping is fine by me. So long as you’re not permanently maiming someone for a
property crime I’m happy enough to have them hurt a bit.
--snip--
| |
| |
How do you deal with people who are good, respectful, kind and have a
genuine regard for others but do thinks which you consider to be immoral?
|
They can think whatever they want! I don’t care.
|
Damn typos.
| |
| |
What about
those who do what a lot of people consider immoral, what about those who do
what a lot of people think is moral and a larger number of people thinks is
immoral?
|
If those actions infringe on the rights of others, then they should be
stopped. It doesn’t matter how many people believe anything. If freedoms are
abridged, then that is when action needs to occur (and what governments are
for).
JOHN
|
But not all illegal/’immoral’ things infringe anyone else’s rights. Some
examples of activities that don’t harm anyone and yet are banned are narcotics
use, bigamy and assisted suicide. Does that mean society at large through the
goverment is behaving immorally by banning them?
Tim
|
|
| |
In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Timothy Gould wrote:
| |
--snip--
| |
| |
Does that mean you support Court by vigilante and death penalty for
thievery?
|
Okay, I take it now that we have dispensed fantasy and are now dealing with
real life situations. Vigilantism isn’t ideal, because there isn’t a
standard-- that, of course, is the beauty of Law. The problem comes when
the law fails to bring about justice. Put it this way: I am more
sympathetic to a murderer who kills in cold blood the murderer of his young
daughter who has gotten off in a court of law on some technicality.
|
I’d be more sympathetic too, but they’re still a murderer.
|
Agreed. There are still consequences for actions.
| |
What about someone
who has been abused by a partner for many years and lacks the capacity to
escape. If they kill that partner in cold blood they are a murderer but I’m
pretty sympathetic to their plight. Liberal thinking allows them to get off
in Court on occassions whereas Conservative thinking would send them to the
chair.
|
Hmmm. Very broadly speaking, perhaps. But there are plenty of Conservatives
who could easily sympathize with the killer in your example.
| |
| |
As for theives: no death penalty; the cutting off of their hands will
suffice;-)
| |
Do you really think it’s up to the homeowner to decide that the person
stealing their tv is going to come back and do it again, next time using
violence, and should be killed to prevent that from happening? Sounds like
presentience to me which is beyond the mortal ken.
In my books if you kill someone who is not directly threatening someone
else you are a murderer and you are ‘evil’. I don’t care if that person has
just stolen your tv or not. Even the rather bloodthirsty Old Testament said
an ‘eye for an eye’ rather than ‘a life for a stereo’.
|
I wouldn’t advocate the intentional attempt to kill a fleeing thief.
|
If you shoot at someone and they die you are at best a manslaughterer and at
worst a murderer. The likely effect of shooting at someone is that they will
be seriously injured. That’s immoral in my books.
|
Well, you are certainly taking a risk by shooting someone to merely injure them.
The law would assume that you are trying to kill them AFAIK. Now, I assume your
statement here is still talking about a fleeing thief, and not an intruder in
your home where you feel your family’s safety is in jeopardy, nes pas?
| |
Incidentally I apply the same rule to people who drive dangerously and kill
someone but society as a whole doesn’t punish that sort of offense anywhere
near as heavily as I think it should. What do you think about the guy who
kills a young child because he was speeding ‘just’ 10mph above the speed
limit? I call him a manslaughterer.
|
I concur.
| |
| |
How do you feel about shootinging with the intent to wound?
|
I have minimal problem with that provided it’s reasonable force.
| |
Guns are all we
really have now to stop thieves, and they are crude and don’t do what we
necessarily what them to do, but I’m sure that soon we will have weapons
which will be able to incapacitate without lethal force. I believe a
citizen has every right to zap a fleeing thief.
|
Zapping is fine by me. So long as you’re not permanently maiming someone for
a property crime I’m happy enough to have them hurt a bit.
|
I think we are pretty close in POV on this issue, Tim.
| |
--snip--
| |
| |
How do you deal with people who are good, respectful, kind and have a
genuine regard for others but do thinks which you consider to be immoral?
|
They can think whatever they want! I don’t care.
|
Damn typos.
|
No, I wasn’t commenting on your typo. I really meant it. People can think
whatever they want. I’m concerned about what they do.
| |
| |
| |
What about
those who do what a lot of people consider immoral, what about those who do
what a lot of people think is moral and a larger number of people thinks is
immoral?
|
If those actions infringe on the rights of others, then they should be
stopped. It doesn’t matter how many people believe anything. If freedoms
are abridged, then that is when action needs to occur (and what governments
are for).
JOHN
|
But not all illegal/’immoral’ things infringe anyone else’s rights. Some
examples of activities that don’t harm anyone and yet are banned are
narcotics use,
|
Disagree. Junkies are a terrible burden on society, not to mention the
destruction they reak in the lives of their families. I understand that some
people are able to use drugs recreationally, but the vast majority of drug users
completely lose control and become addicts, and they all but render that point
mute.
I would argue against bigamy for legal reasons, not moral ones. It is a clear
violation of the marriage contract. As for polygamy; I’m not against the
concept per se, I just don’t think it is a good idea for my society.
This is bad. If people wants to kill themselves, they should knock themselves
out. Assisting them is not noble and compassionate IMO.
| |
Does that mean society at large
through the goverment is behaving immorally by banning them?
|
Societal constructs are the result of the sensibilities of its citizens. In our
society, we ban polygamy. Other countries allow it. Fine. Since we are a free
society, one can either leave the country, or work to change the society to
one’s own liking.
JOHN
|
|
| |
--snip--
| |
| |
What about someone
who has been abused by a partner for many years and lacks the capacity to
escape. If they kill that partner in cold blood they are a murderer but I’m
pretty sympathetic to their plight. Liberal thinking allows them to get off
in Court on occassions whereas Conservative thinking would send them to the
chair.
|
Hmmm. Very broadly speaking, perhaps. But there are plenty of Conservatives
who could easily sympathize with the killer in your example.
|
Yes I don’t doubt it but I think that the basic Conservative position (as
opposed to the position of Conservatives) is against it. It becomes an
‘exception to the rule’ rather than part of a grey spread.
| |
| |
| |
As for theives: no death penalty; the cutting off of their hands will
suffice;-)
| |
Do you really think it’s up to the homeowner to decide that the person
stealing their tv is going to come back and do it again, next time using
violence, and should be killed to prevent that from happening? Sounds like
presentience to me which is beyond the mortal ken.
In my books if you kill someone who is not directly threatening someone
else you are a murderer and you are ‘evil’. I don’t care if that person
has just stolen your tv or not. Even the rather bloodthirsty Old Testament
said an ‘eye for an eye’ rather than ‘a life for a stereo’.
|
I wouldn’t advocate the intentional attempt to kill a fleeing thief.
|
If you shoot at someone and they die you are at best a manslaughterer and at
worst a murderer. The likely effect of shooting at someone is that they will
be seriously injured. That’s immoral in my books.
|
Well, you are certainly taking a risk by shooting someone to merely injure
them. The law would assume that you are trying to kill them AFAIK. Now, I
assume your statement here is still talking about a fleeing thief, and not an
intruder in your home where you feel your family’s safety is in jeopardy, nes
pas?
|
Yes. I’m still talking about the thief rather than the extremely rare attacker.
| |
| |
| |
| |
How do you deal with people who are good, respectful, kind and have a
genuine regard for others but do thinks which you consider to be immoral?
|
They can think whatever they want! I don’t care.
|
Damn typos.
|
No, I wasn’t commenting on your typo. I really meant it. People can think
whatever they want. I’m concerned about what they do.
|
On that I think I share your view although I’m probably more accepting of
mitigating circumstances when they can drastically alter a person’s thinking.
| |
| |
But not all illegal/’immoral’ things infringe anyone else’s rights. Some
examples of activities that don’t harm anyone and yet are banned are
narcotics use,
|
Disagree. Junkies are a terrible burden on society, not to mention the
destruction they reak in the lives of their families. I understand that some
people are able to use drugs recreationally, but the vast majority of drug
users completely lose control and become addicts, and they all but render
that point mute.
|
The vast majority of illegal narcotics users don’t cause much harm to society
(and certainly no more than users of legal narcotics such as alcohol). Heroin
and crack cocaine (being the two with the really, really high danger levels)
account for a very small portion of total illegal narcotics use. On the whole it
seems to be a combination of political inertia and misinformation that keep any
sort of change from happening rather than good evidence.
| |
I would argue against bigamy for legal reasons, not moral ones. It is a
clear violation of the marriage contract. As for polygamy; I’m not against
the concept per se, I just don’t think it is a good idea for my society.
|
But the legal contract is there to reinforce a social more rather than for any
harm reduction so its restriction is thus an arbitrart Governmental restriction
on people’s rights.
| |
This is bad. If people wants to kill themselves, they should knock
themselves out. Assisting them is not noble and compassionate IMO.
|
The people most in need of assisted suicide are unable to do so themselves which
is why they need assistance. The Governement is restricting their right to kill
themselves.
It seems to me that it’s an immoral society which won’t let a terminally ill
elderly person whose life is spent in great pain to end that pain at the expense
of a few months life.
| |
| |
Does that mean society at large
through the goverment is behaving immorally by banning them?
|
Societal constructs are the result of the sensibilities of its citizens. In
our society, we ban polygamy. Other countries allow it. Fine. Since we are
a free society, one can either leave the country, or work to change the
society to one’s own liking.
JOHN
|
As I’m sure you know movement of people is not really much of an option in the
current world climate so I don’t consider that a vaild option (if people could
move as freely as money I would but they can’t). Yes they can work to change the
system but I’m not questioning whether or not the system should be changed, but
whether the current system is moral.
Tim
|
|
| |
In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Timothy Gould wrote:
| |
The vast majority of illegal narcotics users don’t cause much harm to society
(and certainly no more than users of legal narcotics such as alcohol). Heroin
and crack cocaine (being the two with the really, really high danger levels)
account for a very small portion of total illegal narcotics use. On the whole
it seems to be a combination of political inertia and misinformation that
keep any sort of change from happening rather than good evidence.
|
I’d say that depends on the society. In the US there is a problem with people
mugging Oxycontin(sp?)-dependant people for their prescriptions and mainlining
it. It is perhaps more expensive than heroin, and anyone who actually needs it
to control crippling pain is automatically at risk for extreme violence.
Oh, and cocaine is a stimulant, not a narcotic, and alcohol is a depressant.
| |
The people most in need of assisted suicide are unable to do so themselves
which is why they need assistance. The Governement is restricting their right
to kill themselves.
|
You’re assuming that suicide is legal to begin with. In many parts of the US,
it is patently illegal to take any life, even your own. In days of old, it was
even a capital offense in some areas. Yes, that means that if you try to kill
yourself, fail, and change your mind about any further attempts...the legal
system could effectively force it on you if/when they ever found out. Makes no
sense at all, which is why most, if not all, of these states have struck that
punishment from the books (though not necessarily the illegality of the act
itself).
|
|
| |
In lugnet.off-topic.debate, David Laswell wrote:
| |
In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Timothy Gould wrote:
| |
The vast majority of illegal narcotics users don’t cause much harm to
society (and certainly no more than users of legal narcotics such as
alcohol). Heroin and crack cocaine (being the two with the really, really
high danger levels) account for a very small portion of total illegal
narcotics use. On the whole it seems to be a combination of political
inertia and misinformation that keep any sort of change from happening
rather than good evidence.
|
I’d say that depends on the society. In the US there is a problem with
people mugging Oxycontin(sp?)-dependant people for their prescriptions and
mainlining it. It is perhaps more expensive than heroin, and anyone who
actually needs it to control crippling pain is automatically at risk for
extreme violence.
|
I dug up some statistics (page
288- of the PDF) and it would appear that in the US just under one third of drug
users are using something other than marijuana. So when talking about high-risk
people (those whose actions are a danger to someone other than themself) we’re
looking at a fraction of a third, which is a small portion. In most other
developed countries I’ve seen statistics for the percentage of drug users using
something other than marijuana is even lower.
And to anticipate any arguments that marijuana is harmful (I have no doubts that
it is) I did say ‘no more than users of legal narcotics’. Yes marijuana has its
problems but I’m yet to see anything from a reputable source suggestion they’re
in any way worse than those associated with tobacco or alcohol.
I should also note that crime associated with drug use is not neccessarily a
result of the drug use so much as a result of its illegal nature. If one could
get a recreational prescription to Oxycontin one wouldn’t need to mug anyone. It
also strikes me as a very inefficient way of an addict to get a hold of their
drugs. Robbing a pharmacy would have much better yields. Are you sure it’s
really that common or is it just overreported because of the unpleasantess?
That means that most governments are making it illegal for people to use
something they enjoy for no good reason. Furthermore by making things illegal
(as opposed to hard to get, for example) they are helping to increase robbery
and property crime. Is this the action of a moral government and/or legal
system?
| |
Oh, and cocaine is a stimulant, not a narcotic, and alcohol is a depressant.
|
Yes. I double checked and sure enough you are right. The wikipedia article does
state, however, that ‘illegal narcotic’ is commonly used by paypersons to refer
to illegal drugs in general, including by law enforcement.
| |
| |
The people most in need of assisted suicide are unable to do so themselves
which is why they need assistance. The Governement is restricting their
right to kill themselves.
|
You’re assuming that suicide is legal to begin with. In many parts of the
US, it is patently illegal to take any life, even your own. In days of old,
it was even a capital offense in some areas. Yes, that means that if you try
to kill yourself, fail, and change your mind about any further attempts...the
legal system could effectively force it on you if/when they ever found out.
Makes no sense at all, which is why most, if not all, of these states have
struck that punishment from the books (though not necessarily the illegality
of the act itself).
|
Well that takes immorality of law to a whole new level. I’d heard rumours about
that sort of law in the US but was never sure if it was an urban myth or not.
Tim
|
|
| |
In lugnet.off-topic.debate, John Neal wrote:
| |
This is bad. If people wants to kill themselves, they should knock
themselves out. Assisting them is not noble and compassionate IMO.
|
I don’t know that it’s as simple as a black-and-white declaration. If someone
is at full mental faculty but is physically incapacitated by constant agony with
no hope of relief, how is it noble and compassionate to force that person to
continue to suffer until the reaper shows up?
It’s considered humane to euthanize a wounded and suffering animal with no hope
of recovery, yet it’s murder to assist a wounded and suffering person in the
same way?
I’m not sure I can reconcile that, to be honest.
Dave!
|
|
| |
In lugnet.off-topic.debate, David Laswell wrote:
| |
In many parts of the
US, it is patently illegal to take any life, even your own. In days of old,
it was even a capital offense in some areas. Yes, that means that if you try
to kill yourself, fail, and change your mind about any further attempts...the
legal system could effectively force it on you if/when they ever found out.
|
You’re correct, but that’s kind of a dumb law. There’s a ton of things that you
can do to yourself that you can’t do to others without consent, among which
tattooing and masturbation are perhaps two of the most obvious examples. Why
suicide should be afforded this mystical “thou shalt not” status makes no sense
to me, assuming that the individual is of sound mental capacity, of course.
Dave!
|
|
| |
In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Dave Schuler wrote:
| |
In lugnet.off-topic.debate, John Neal wrote:
| |
This is bad. If people wants to kill themselves, they should knock
themselves out. Assisting them is not noble and compassionate IMO.
|
I don’t know that it’s as simple as a black-and-white declaration. If
someone is at full mental faculty but is physically incapacitated by constant
agony with no hope of relief, how is it noble and compassionate to force that
person to continue to suffer until the reaper shows up?
|
It’s not in that situation, either. It is noble and compassionate to try and
comfort and help provide meaning to one in pain and agony.
Further, not helping someone kill themselves can hardly be characterized as
“forcing” them to live, Dave! Blame the person’s mother!
| |
It’s considered humane to euthanize a wounded and suffering animal with no
hope of recovery, yet it’s murder to assist a wounded and suffering person in
the same way?
I’m not sure I can reconcile that, to be honest.
|
For the simple reason that we are NOT animals! We are humans. That is a HUGE
distinction. I know that there are those who believe that we are simply
another animal on this mother earth, and this is where that kind of thinking
leads one. It is specious that we share 80%+ of our DNA with pond scum, Dave!
I AM NOT AN ANIMAL!
JOHN
|
|
| |
In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Dave Schuler wrote:
| |
You’re correct, but that’s kind of a dumb law. There’s a ton of things that
you can do to yourself that you can’t do to others without consent, among
which tattooing and masturbation are perhaps two of the most obvious
examples. Why suicide should be afforded this mystical “thou shalt not”
status makes no sense to me, assuming that the individual is of sound mental
capacity, of course.
|
The Judeo-Christian heritage of the United States government says that it’s
wrong to kill anyone, therefore it should be illegal. That does, of course,
lead to the obvious question of why they thought it should be a capital crime.
I mean, as I understand it, murder in every US State is charged on behalf of the
People, whereas attempted murder is charged on behalf of the intended victim.
If you were the intended victim, this, as I understand it, gives you the right
to decline to press charges (once you chose to go ahead with them, you may or
may not be able to drop the charges). As an attempted suicide, you apparently
did not get the right to decline on behalf of the intended victim (yourself), or
pretty much the only people who would go ahead with trial would be the few who
really did still want to commit suicide, but realized that they wouldn’t be able
to bring themselves to go through with it (in which case, the capital punishment
gives them an easy out).
It’s certainly one of the more insane stupid laws that have been on the books in
the US, but there are a lot of other more mundane ones that simply baffle the
mind. I recall there being one city in the southwestern states where there’s a
$100 fine for detonating a nuclear device within the city limits. There are
other places where you are still required to fire a shotgun in the air once
every mile if you’re driving a car (so as to warn horse-owners that you’re
coming in one of those infernal contraptions that will scare the bejeezus out of
their horses)...but you’re far more likely to get prosecuted for public
endangerment and creating a public nuisance if you do than for disobeying a
valid law on the books.
|
|
| |
In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Timothy Gould wrote:
| |
I dug up some statistics (page
288- of the PDF) and it would appear that in the US just under one third of
drug users are using something other than marijuana. So when talking about
high-risk people (those whose actions are a danger to someone other than
themself) we’re looking at a fraction of a third, which is a small portion.
In most other developed countries I’ve seen statistics for the percentage of
drug users using something other than marijuana is even lower.
|
Yeah, but if the percentage of people who posed an immediate risk to people
other than themselves was significantly higher, there would be more political
capital to do something about it. Once the public perceives a lack of risk to
themselves, they are less thrilled about spending lots of money to combat a
situation that they see as “mostly resolved”.
| |
And to anticipate any arguments that marijuana is harmful (I have no doubts
that it is) I did say ‘no more than users of legal narcotics’. Yes marijuana
has its problems but I’m yet to see anything from a reputable source
suggestion they’re in any way worse than those associated with tobacco or
alcohol.
|
The only hard statistic I’ve seen so far is that one joint = one beer in terms
of how impaired it makes you as a driver. I would have figured it’d be higher
than that, as most people that I’ve witnessed don’t show any signs of impairment
from a single beer.
| |
I should also note that crime associated with drug use is not neccessarily a
result of the drug use so much as a result of its illegal nature. If one
could get a recreational prescription to Oxycontin one wouldn’t need to mug
anyone. It also strikes me as a very inefficient way of an addict to get a
hold of their drugs. Robbing a pharmacy would have much better yields. Are
you sure it’s really that common or is it just overreported because of the
unpleasantess?
|
Oxycontin is a known high-risk drug, so pharmacies probably take extra measures
to ensure that it does not get stolen from them (including, I would assume, not
storing it in quantity, but probably just getting in enough to fill known
upcoming prescriptions), though I’m sure it still happens. This drives the
street price up (IIRC, the expose I watched on it suggested that a single pill
can fetch $600-1000 each). The people who mug prescription users for the
pills aren’t doing it so much for personal use as they are to harvest a supply
to sell on the black market. One individual they cited has her husband drive in
a separate car behind her, idling in the parking lot while she goes in to get
her prescription, and waiting with cel phone ready in case anyone does anything
when she’s returning to her car. Then he follows her home to make sure she’s
not being tailed by anyone. All this just to get her a legal supply of pills
that prevent her from being in excruciating pain.
The thing is, Oxycontin use is very rare, and once you’ve been mugged once for
it, I’m sure there’s plenty of incentive to adjust your routine to prevent a
second occurance. I have personally only met one person who positively
identified him/herself as a prescription user, and have never heard of any
muggings through regular news channels.
| |
That means that most governments are making it illegal for people to use
something they enjoy for no good reason. Furthermore by making things illegal
(as opposed to hard to get, for example) they are helping to increase robbery
and property crime. Is this the action of a moral government and/or legal
system?
|
“No good reason” is highly debatable. As far as I know, marijuana use has a low
incidence of related crimes (it’s in plentiful supply, many people grow their
own crop for personal use, it’s not horribly expensive, and it has low enough
withdrawal symptoms that users aren’t constantly chasing after the next hit).
Stuff like Oxycontin is an exponential-use drug. The more you use it, the more
you need to use it, and withdrawal is reportedly bad to experience (there’s a
Texan clinic that avoids that problem by inducing a coma until the drug has
cleared out of your system, since it’s a physical addiction and the cravings
will mostly go away once you’re clean). Therefore, even if it were legal and in
plentiful supply, you’d eventually have people who couldn’t go to work because
they wouldn’t be able to wait more than a couple of hours before taking another
massive hit. Also, all you have to do is ask your local ER about drug overdose
cases to see “good reason”. Marijuana is supposed to be no worse than alcohol,
but one is illegal and the other isn’t. I suspect part of that is the fact that
marijuana use was more contained when it was outlawed, whereas we have
Prohibition to show how well it worked for alcohol. And tobacco was a staple
industry of early America, which makes it that much harder to illegalize (though
some inroads have been made by way of making it illegal in restaurants, bars,
and public buildings in most States). Between those three, it’s probably
difficult, but not impossible, to overdose. Once you get beyond them,
however...
| |
Yes. I double checked and sure enough you are right. The wikipedia article
does state, however, that ‘illegal narcotic’ is commonly used by paypersons
to refer to illegal drugs in general, including by law enforcement.
|
Yes, which is why many law enforcement agencies will have a “narcotics”
devision. And this is why the medical profession prefers the less easily
confused term “opiates”, since all true narcotics are apparently opium
derivatives or produce similar results.
|
|
| |
In lugnet.off-topic.debate, John Neal wrote:
Vegetable? Mineral?
;-)
Tim
|
|
|
