Subject:
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Re: Are we doing the right thing?
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Wed, 5 Sep 2001 15:15:30 GMT
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Viewed:
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963 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, James Simpson writes:
> > I disagree. Any people should use whatever methods they have at their • disposal
> > to secure a fair measure of life. To do less is to accept slavery. If their
> > only recourse is terrorism, then their neighbors damn well need to help solve
> > their problems (or snuff them).
>
> Chris:
>
> With all due respect, I take personal moral umbrage with this statement. You
> and I have already well-established that our world-views diverge just about as
> much as any two humans' world-views can, but, I think that this idea is still
> well worth debating.
OK.
> This is about principles and consistency:
But I believe that principles are inconsistent at their heart.
> Resorting to the destruction and
> murder of innocent non-combatants is butchery and moral wretchedness of the
> grossest sort
If you, your children and the bus driver are trapped under an avalanche and
your children are starving, do you kill and serve the driver to avoid watching
your children die of starvation? In answering this hypothetical, I do.
Morality is a fanciful phantom when your life is on the line. Duty to my
children is greater by far than duty to humanity.
I'm guessing that once again, you will disagree with me. Is that so?
> Striving for a fair measure of life is reasonable and just; striving for a • fair
> measure of life by murdering innocents is to become as bad or worse than those
> who have wronged you.
How do you know that? Which people have done what to you? How can you say
that killing them is worse than what they did or would do? Who is innocent?
> Fighting against slavery by becoming a butcher, a moral coward, and a filthy
> devil may free one from slavery of the body, but in so doing it destroys that
> person's conscience and moral sensibilities.
I agree, and even think that this is a big problem (maybe the main problem)
with allowing other parts of the world to degenerate that way. There must be
whole nations of savages (people who were willing to commit attrocities or one
kind or another). How do we trust them to get their nation back on the track
to civilization? On the other hand, I'd rather be a free devil than a slave.
> The moral high ground, the morally praise-worthy struggle
> is one that does not victimize non-combatants and/or the
> innocent, but which instead allows human decency to thrive.
What makes someone a non-combatant? If you're a black share-cropper in 1920's
Alabama and the local stores charge you and extra 50% "black tax" then are
those people combatants? Are they to be spared merely because they haven't (at
least right at this moment) taken up arms in order to murder you?
> I personally...completely and utterly reject your
> statement. Humanity is better than that - and if we're not, we should be, and
> indeed we *must* be.
Must be for what? I agree that that would be nice, and is even worth striving
for, but not at the cost of subjugation.
> I hope to become a slave myself before I stoop so low as
> to murder the innocent for the sake of my own personal liberties.
Ah, but in your current relative comfort, you may define "the innocent"
differently than you would as a slave.
> This does not mean that I am a pacifist; on the contrary,
> some things are worth fighting for, and fighting for very hard.
But only you can decide what those are.
> Liberty and freedom of the oppressed is one of them. Kill the enemy
> soldier who would enslave your people. Kill him on the battlefield
> where armed and equal men meet.
Equal? No army has ever set out to fight under equal conditions. That would
be foolish. Better to send snipers to their rear and execute their officers to
bring fear and chaos to their lines. Then you can properly...butcher...them.
And if killing them all isn't actually a _good_ thing, then maybe that war
shouldn't be fought.
> But even in that, do not
> cross the line of moral corruption - do not torture him,
Agreed. I almost can't think of a valid reason to torture a captive. We might
develop hypotheticals in which the suffering of many could be relieved by the
torture of a few, and in those cases, I might advocate torture. But I'm not
sure such situations really exist, and even if they did, that I'd go along with
it. Too many variables.
> and allow him his life if he throws down his arms and begs you
> for it.
If it is a nicety that you can afford, then it is the right thing to do.
> Chris, God help us all if your just measure of life is threatened.
A) I'm not the only one. B) None of us have real justice. But it takes
serious injustice to get the hackles raise to the point of violence.
Chris
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Message has 2 Replies:
 | | Re: Are we doing the right thing?
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| In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Christopher L. Weeks writes (...) Some would assert that morality is only realized when one's life is on the line. Anyone can be moral while sitting comfortably in an air conditioned apartment; ie, when nothing's at (...) (23 years ago, 5-Sep-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
| | | Re: Are we doing the right thing?
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| (...) The presence of gray areas in any moral calculus, i.e., moral conundrums, does not negate moral principles. In some circumstances we do not know what the right thing to do is, but in all circumstances we can determine what is definitely not (...) (23 years ago, 5-Sep-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: Are we doing the right thing?
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| (...) Chris: With all due respect, I take personal moral umbrage with this statement. You and I have already well-established that our world-views diverge just about as much as any two humans' world-views can, but, I think that this idea is still (...) (23 years ago, 4-Sep-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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