But it should do it morally and in the right way. However if you are killing much more civilians than terrorist (500 vs 30), and destroying a lot more infrastructure not necessarilly the terrorists then it definitely is not the right and moral way.
This is echoed by Pope Benedict XVI who as the protector of our souls from evil, calls for ceasefire and Peace.
The individual right to self-defense finds its justification in nature. Every animal, every organism, has God given defense mechanisms for protecting life, liberty and property. Can you say that man is the only organism on earth who has no right to self-defense?
Justification of national wars has been covered by the Scholastics. The Summa Theologica discusses the concept of just war:
First, the authority of the sovereign by whose command the war is to be waged…
Secondly, a just cause is required, namely that those who are attacked, should be attacked because they deserve it on account of some fault.â€â€¦
Thirdly, it is necessary that the belligerents should have a rightful intention, so that they intend the advancement of good, or the avoidance of evil.
In conclusion, the ribbon-clerks will never want to protect our children against the pirates and brigands who invade our village are kill our women and children. Yet, from the time, of Sargon when brigands and pirates have invaded villages, there have been those who built stockades and fought the evil that has always existed in our world. They fought the evil not because they believed that they could end evil forever. They fought the evil to protect their lives, liberty and property. Or, simply put, they fought to kill those who would harm their wives and children. They fought the evil because group defense of individual rights to life, liberty and property is sanctioned by the order of the world around us: sanctioned by the Creator Herself if you will.
There can be no doubt that the moral thing is for people to not kill each other.
This blanket statement does not stand up to scrutiny. If someone is trying to kill you, you have the moral obligation to defend yourself and if the only way to stop him is by killing then you are perfectly justified. Killing on it's own is morally neutral.
I do not draw my morality from the Bible, but even there it is only murder that is prohibited while there were plenty of just wars where Israelites (heh history repeats) killed their enemies with God's assistance.
It is not moral to kill someone without a good reason. When we were attacked on 9/11 it was clear that we had to kill the people in the organization behind it so we went to war again Al Qaeda and other allied terrorist organization. That is moral. How can you claim otherwise?
If you have a hostile group trying to kill your citizens, the only moral action is to defend your people by actively trying to destroy that group.
If you can provide other ways of dealing with murderous aggression than killing the aggressors then please share them with us.
"To discuss evil in a manner implying neutrality, is to sanction it." AR
If you have a hostile group trying to kill your citizens, the only moral action is to defend your people by actively trying to destroy that group.
Ender, doesn't this seem a bit simplistic? Besides the question of the morality, don't we also have to determine what is the most effective course of action?
Case in point- we were told we had to attack Iraq because they threatened the U.S. We later found out this assertion was incorrect and based on lies, but we also found out that the policy was not effective either. Far from destroying islamic radicals we have increased terrorist recruiting and killed 50,000+ civilians, while depleting our treasury, alienating our allies, and stretching our armed forces too thin in Iraq so that we are unable to respond adequately to threats in North Korea, Iran, and Afghanistan.
to defend yourself. When you are under attack, your main concerns are to stop the attack and to kick the attackers' asses.
But what Israel needs to be is a whole lot smarter. It does Israel no good to kill a few hundred Hezbollah fighters and blow up a lot of rocket launchers if, in the process, they kill a lot of civilians and drive thousands of new recruits to Hezbollah.
Forget for a moment about who is right and what is moral. Is Israel's course of action going to make Israel safer in the long run?
Is wiping out Hezbollah a realistic goal? If not, then what Israel is doing is just setting the table for the next conflict a few years from now.
Hezbollah is not going anywhere. Israel occupied parts of Lebanon for 18 years and had a proxy army of Lebanese Christian to help them and they were still unable to wipe out Hezbollah.
There are three ways to wipe out Hezbollah:
1. Negotiate a treaty between Israel and Syria.
2. Build up the strength and legitimacy of the Lebanese government and army.
3. Cut a deal with Iran. Everyone has their price.
I do not draw my morality from the Bible, but even there it is only murder that is prohibited while there were plenty of just wars where Israelites (heh history repeats) killed their enemies with God's assistance.
That's the Old Testament, where God's wrath is delivered early and often. In fact, what Joshua did to the inhabitants of Jericho after capturing the city would be considered a heinous war crime today.
You won't find a justification for killing in the Gospels.
To kill 1 Hezbollah you need to kill 10 civilians. Is that justified? Is that a moral way to defend yourself?
As of Friday an Associated Press count showed at least 567 Lebanese had been killed, including 489 civilians confirmed dead by the Health Ministry, 28 Lebanese soldiers and at least 50 Hezbollah guerrillas. The Lebanese government's Higher Relief Council put the death toll at 907.
In Israel, 75 Israelis have been killed since the fighting erupted July 12 _ 45 soldiers and 30 civilians. More than 300,000 Israelis have fled their homes in the north, Israeli officials said.
5 million civilian deaths on the other side to fully defend yourself in order to save your citizens lives, then it's moral and worth it. This bs proportionality has no basis in reality or logic. US nuked Japan to save our military lives and we never thought of this proportionality before. Sounds like a ridiculous liberal invention.
"To discuss evil in a manner implying neutrality, is to sanction it." AR
Maybe there is a difference with the brains of liberals and Republicans. Stephen Colbert said Republicans think with their gut. While liberals are more academic.
The book by Laura Schlesinger--Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus can hold true for Republicans and Democrats. They just have different world view and philosophy and no matter what you say wont convince the other.
Perhaps, even a classroom of first graders--maybe one can identify who will turn out to be Democrats and who will turn out to be Republicans.
Hillary Clinton in her biography said, she was a Republican in College--then they had a debate where they switch sides and she was to take the Democrats side. From then on she converted.
1. Gospels don't address war fighting. Jesus fulfills Old Testament which doesn't mean that everything in the Old Testament is wiped out as if what God did then was "immoral" or "wrong".
2. I couldn't care less about Christian or any other religious justification of anything because I do not believe in God. So for me it's just an exercise in theory. But the Christian theory (until the later more pacifist/leftist contemporary mainline christian denominations pretty much picked whatever they wished from the Bible - including rejecting Old Testament completely which is bogus) always included explanation of just war and other things derived from the Bible. Just because Jesus did not address it, doesn't mean it is discarded. Sorry, but that's revisionist Christianity bs. I say that as someone formerly from a conservative christian church (non-catholic) with ok knowledge of Christian theology.
"To discuss evil in a manner implying neutrality, is to sanction it." AR
we do have to determine what is the most effective course of action is. And sometimes, especially in the case of terrorist organizations, the best course of action is to try to wipe them out by all means necessary.
Far from destroying islamic radicals we have increased terrorist recruiting and killed 50,000+ civilians, while depleting our treasury, alienating our allies, and stretching our armed forces too thin in Iraq so that we are unable to respond adequately to threats in North Korea, Iran, and Afghanistan.
Aside from increasing terrorist recruiting which really does not mean much to me, the rest of your points I reject as false. To attribute insurgent murders of civilians to US is highly offensive to me as a member of the military. There are a lot of lies floating around out there about our military capabilities as well, and we could wipe out 5 north koreas and irans while still "bogged down" in Iraq.
"To discuss evil in a manner implying neutrality, is to sanction it." AR
Do you think no one died during shock and awe, did the murders at Haditha not happen? There are civilians casualties when you fight a war in cities. It is difficult to argue with some one that defines all inconvenient facts as "a lot of lies". Can you provide some documentation that we can fight 5 North Koreas and Iran's? I think fighting one North Korea would be bad enough.
however, escalation is not a part of that... I can defend myself from a robber, and I can defend myself from his brother, and still, I cannot go attack his family, then his neighborhood.
If one is attacked by a force which represents and is supported by a nation, then one can fight back broadly, and in such cases the question of the proportion of the forces is important.
... define themselves... my point is that to do that is to say it's more moral for people to be killing each other than not.
Very rarely is that said, what people do is jump to a self defense frame, frames of survival, but if you hit me and I hit your brother, and he hits me, and then I hit someone walking down the street that looks like you... along the way the self defense framing falls away.
All protracted conflicts go down that road, in my experience, and since we know that "not killing" is more moral than "killing"... cease fire is more moral.
Those not of that "we" must claim, I think, that "killing is more moral than not killing"... who steps up and claims that?
there is a moral obligation to defend yoursel and if there are others involved (family, friends, your country) then there is a moral obligation to defend them. My idea of defense is a strong offense, and my idea of winning is the way my namesake finished conflicts :)
"To discuss evil in a manner implying neutrality, is to sanction it." AR
Hopefully our country is less barbaric in it's methods of winning wars today.
It is the very scale of this "no limits" attack on Japan that has brought a sense of caution when it comes to nuclear force, with the realization of the sheer power of not only destroying the enemy, but the rest of the world to boot. No all out nuclear war please.
From what I read, you are quite a libertarian (small "l").
How can you jibe your stated atheism with a party in which 95% of the membership is Christian, and 30-40% of the party is evangelical and considers itself "born-again"?
I'm an atheist also... and a Democrat... and the main reason I am not a Republican is because I can't bring myself to associate with such a large block of Christianity's version of the Taliban.
Fundamentalist religion is the biggest bane to a peaceful modern world.... regardless of the religion.
An atheist aligning himself with the GOP is really hard to fathom.
We have a bible-thumping evangelical in the White House right now.... a member of a movement that believes, in overwhelming numbers, that we are "in the final days". Can you not see the danger there?
I'm just trying to figure you out.... you're a rare beast indeed.
Welcome to SC. Here, read this link to another comment where I talk a little bit about my beliefs. It's in a good diary too so read that as well.
First of all I am an agnostic (minor distinction but I allow for the possibility of a higher being and would consider evidence for such :), plus atheists on the left have been incredibly hostile to religious people and I prefer to disassociate myself from that).
Both major parties are mostly Christian. That's what happens when over 80% of the country is of that religion. It's not a negative to me. GOP is a coalition party with several disparate groups. There are many others like me (and not necessarily atheist/agnostic but with a similar emphasis on different issues from the Religious Right).
As someone from Free Republic wrote (found it in a dkos diary here):
Here we have the big schisms between the Creationists and the Conservative Elvolutionists. We have battles between pro immigration and anti-immigration. Libertarian, Republican, and Randians.
and
I think Freerepublic clearly has a lot of different views expressed here. We've Libertarians, paleo-conservatives, neo-conservatives, main stream Republicans, the Christian Right, and liberal Republicans.
I agree with GOP about 80-90% of the time so why would I want to be on the other side that has nothing to offer me in terms of ideological agreement? GOP is the vessel that different groups use to achieve their agenda, same as the Democratic party. We have an alliance and a big tent. It covers me just fine.
"To discuss evil in a manner implying neutrality, is to sanction it." AR
It is these comments that I abhor. Of course there is a justified limit. I can't count how many different examples there are to illustrate this, but let's take the police confronting an armed criminal. If the criminal is armed with fists, the police are not allowed to shoot him/her. If armed with a knife, the judgement becomes a little more gray, but still shooting right away is not the appropriate response. Criminal with a gun; yes, after sufficient requests to drop it. I forget the term, but as the situation escalates, so does the appropriate response. A simpler example is are we justified in exterminating the bear species because of the potential threat/actual attacks to humans? This seems simple-minded. You must evaluate when the danger ends (when the defense is adequate) and not just have the best-defense-is-a-good-offense mentality.
There are points when countries and people overreact. Creating the appropriate marker for these points makes for less conflict (i.e. grudges, terrorists) in the future. Are 500+ civilian deaths worth the ransom of 2 or 3 kidnapped soldiers? I personally do not think so. There are other options available.
My father was alive then, home on furlough, two days away from being shipped to the Pacific theater. Had the bomb not dropped, me and my siblings might not be here today.
"The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire." --R. Heinlein
You and I just don't see fundamentalist religion in the same light.
Sit and talk to an evangelical for an hour or two. I mean the real "Left Behind" people. The rapture-ists.
What the wackos believe is of no consequence to me... until they hold the seats of power.
And in this country... they now do.
These people WANT World War III in the Middle East... no because of any loyalty to Israel... but because they WANT to live in the end times and WANT to see the Book of Revelation play out.
And when they hold the seats of power, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. They can actively MAKE it happen.
When George Bush was asked in 2000 during a debate to name his favorite philosopher... and his answer was "Jesus Christ"... all thinking, reasoning Republican should have run as fast as they could from this guy - not embraced him.
20 years from now, if we save the world from these fanatics (on BOTH sides), you'll look back at your support of George Bush with shame.
Much like I look back at my support for Carter now.
we definitely do not see that segment of our population in the same light. You are seriously overestimating the amount of people who strongly believe in the Revelations theory of Rapture and the rest. I do not think Bush is one of them.
Most Christians support Israel because it is our ally and the only friend in the Middle East. Israel is the vanguard of the Western Civilization in the middle of stone age regimes of crazed fanatics. That is the reason most Americans support Israel. The support has very little to do with the End Time stuff - to be sure there are some who support Israel more because of it but they are a tiny minority - who I've actually had close relations with unlike probably you.
Personal belief in Jesus Christ as expressed by George Bush is really not offensive to me.
I am glad you realized the truth about Jimmy Carter at least :)
"To discuss evil in a manner implying neutrality, is to sanction it." AR
The conduct of war against an enemy who would kill you all, is an entirely different matter from confronting an individual who steals a loaf of bread.
Puting the face of Jean valjean on the Salafi terrorists will keep you from having to defend your children. I just hope it doesn't keep sane people from defending your children.
I don’t think we are on the same page here. I’m not trying to equate hezbollah or any terrorist organization to the common criminal (especially one who is a protagonist-- Jean Val jean). I know that this scenario plays into your fantasy of liberals defending the terrorists against evil America, but you are merely putting words into my mouth as an easy straw man.
What I am saying is that there is an appropriate response to every action. Action, then reaction. I do not think Ender is saying there is a limit to an appropriate reaction. What he says is that any course of reaction is justified including major offensives.
I am saying that is not true. We can’t (morally) drop a nuclear bomb on a country simply because they kill a soldier or a civilian (although I know this is the predominant neocon goal of the moment). This situation is what we might call an overreaction, but it is justified (wrongly) in Ender’s frame of reference. My policeman/criminal example is to show that there are moral limits to the use of action and reaction. It is not an attempt to equate the acting parties (Israel/Hezbollah to police/criminal or human/bear). It is an example to show a philosophical argument in a practical/pragmatic situation.
There are appropriate limits to a response in every situation where humans contact, violently or otherwise.
Comments :
A War that is purely defensive
would perhaps be a "moral" war. Purely defensive wars are extremely rare. Thanks Pyrrho for sharing these thoughts.
Israel have a right to defend itself
But it should do it morally and in the right way. However if you are killing much more civilians than terrorist (500 vs 30), and destroying a lot more infrastructure not necessarilly the terrorists then it definitely is not the right and moral way.
This is echoed by Pope Benedict XVI who as the protector of our souls from evil, calls for ceasefire and Peace.
we know that cease fire is the most moral choice
Define "We".
The individual right to self-defense finds its justification in nature. Every animal, every organism, has God given defense mechanisms for protecting life, liberty and property. Can you say that man is the only organism on earth who has no right to self-defense?
Justification of national wars has been covered by the Scholastics. The Summa Theologica discusses the concept of just war:
First, the authority of the sovereign by whose command the war is to be waged…
Secondly, a just cause is required, namely that those who are attacked, should be attacked because they deserve it on account of some fault.â€â€¦
Thirdly, it is necessary that the belligerents should have a rightful intention, so that they intend the advancement of good, or the avoidance of evil.
In conclusion, the ribbon-clerks will never want to protect our children against the pirates and brigands who invade our village are kill our women and children. Yet, from the time, of Sargon when brigands and pirates have invaded villages, there have been those who built stockades and fought the evil that has always existed in our world. They fought the evil not because they believed that they could end evil forever. They fought the evil to protect their lives, liberty and property. Or, simply put, they fought to kill those who would harm their wives and children. They fought the evil because group defense of individual rights to life, liberty and property is sanctioned by the order of the world around us: sanctioned by the Creator Herself if you will.
I don't see this
This blanket statement does not stand up to scrutiny. If someone is trying to kill you, you have the moral obligation to defend yourself and if the only way to stop him is by killing then you are perfectly justified. Killing on it's own is morally neutral.
I do not draw my morality from the Bible, but even there it is only murder that is prohibited while there were plenty of just wars where Israelites (heh history repeats) killed their enemies with God's assistance.
It is not moral to kill someone without a good reason. When we were attacked on 9/11 it was clear that we had to kill the people in the organization behind it so we went to war again Al Qaeda and other allied terrorist organization. That is moral. How can you claim otherwise?
If you have a hostile group trying to kill your citizens, the only moral action is to defend your people by actively trying to destroy that group.
If you can provide other ways of dealing with murderous aggression than killing the aggressors then please share them with us.
"To discuss evil in a manner implying neutrality, is to sanction it." AR
Then we should have nuked Russia before
If that is what you are trying to say.
Simplistic
Ender, doesn't this seem a bit simplistic? Besides the question of the morality, don't we also have to determine what is the most effective course of action?
Case in point- we were told we had to attack Iraq because they threatened the U.S. We later found out this assertion was incorrect and based on lies, but we also found out that the policy was not effective either. Far from destroying islamic radicals we have increased terrorist recruiting and killed 50,000+ civilians, while depleting our treasury, alienating our allies, and stretching our armed forces too thin in Iraq so that we are unable to respond adequately to threats in North Korea, Iran, and Afghanistan.
I don't know that there's a "right" way
to defend yourself. When you are under attack, your main concerns are to stop the attack and to kick the attackers' asses.
But what Israel needs to be is a whole lot smarter. It does Israel no good to kill a few hundred Hezbollah fighters and blow up a lot of rocket launchers if, in the process, they kill a lot of civilians and drive thousands of new recruits to Hezbollah.
Forget for a moment about who is right and what is moral. Is Israel's course of action going to make Israel safer in the long run?
Is wiping out Hezbollah a realistic goal? If not, then what Israel is doing is just setting the table for the next conflict a few years from now.
Hezbollah is not going anywhere. Israel occupied parts of Lebanon for 18 years and had a proxy army of Lebanese Christian to help them and they were still unable to wipe out Hezbollah.
There are three ways to wipe out Hezbollah:
1. Negotiate a treaty between Israel and Syria.
2. Build up the strength and legitimacy of the Lebanese government and army.
3. Cut a deal with Iran. Everyone has their price.
qui tacet consentire
The Bible
That's the Old Testament, where God's wrath is delivered early and often. In fact, what Joshua did to the inhabitants of Jericho after capturing the city would be considered a heinous war crime today.
You won't find a justification for killing in the Gospels.
qui tacet consentire
567 civilians and 50 Hezbollah killed-- 1:10
To kill 1 Hezbollah you need to kill 10 civilians. Is that justified? Is that a moral way to defend yourself?
http://www.mwcsun.co...
if it takes
5 million civilian deaths on the other side to fully defend yourself in order to save your citizens lives, then it's moral and worth it. This bs proportionality has no basis in reality or logic. US nuked Japan to save our military lives and we never thought of this proportionality before. Sounds like a ridiculous liberal invention.
"To discuss evil in a manner implying neutrality, is to sanction it." AR
to make it clearer
there are no limits to a justified response to save your own people.
"To discuss evil in a manner implying neutrality, is to sanction it." AR
I think Stephen Colbert is right
Maybe there is a difference with the brains of liberals and Republicans. Stephen Colbert said Republicans think with their gut. While liberals are more academic.
The book by Laura Schlesinger--Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus can hold true for Republicans and Democrats. They just have different world view and philosophy and no matter what you say wont convince the other.
Perhaps, even a classroom of first graders--maybe one can identify who will turn out to be Democrats and who will turn out to be Republicans.
Hillary Clinton in her biography said, she was a Republican in College--then they had a debate where they switch sides and she was to take the Democrats side. From then on she converted.
Perhaps this is one good exercise.
two points
1. Gospels don't address war fighting. Jesus fulfills Old Testament which doesn't mean that everything in the Old Testament is wiped out as if what God did then was "immoral" or "wrong".
2. I couldn't care less about Christian or any other religious justification of anything because I do not believe in God. So for me it's just an exercise in theory. But the Christian theory (until the later more pacifist/leftist contemporary mainline christian denominations pretty much picked whatever they wished from the Bible - including rejecting Old Testament completely which is bogus) always included explanation of just war and other things derived from the Bible. Just because Jesus did not address it, doesn't mean it is discarded. Sorry, but that's revisionist Christianity bs. I say that as someone formerly from a conservative christian church (non-catholic) with ok knowledge of Christian theology.
"To discuss evil in a manner implying neutrality, is to sanction it." AR
yeah
we do have to determine what is the most effective course of action is. And sometimes, especially in the case of terrorist organizations, the best course of action is to try to wipe them out by all means necessary.
Aside from increasing terrorist recruiting which really does not mean much to me, the rest of your points I reject as false. To attribute insurgent murders of civilians to US is highly offensive to me as a member of the military. There are a lot of lies floating around out there about our military capabilities as well, and we could wipe out 5 north koreas and irans while still "bogged down" in Iraq.
"To discuss evil in a manner implying neutrality, is to sanction it." AR
The truth is your friend
Do you think no one died during shock and awe, did the murders at Haditha not happen? There are civilians casualties when you fight a war in cities. It is difficult to argue with some one that defines all inconvenient facts as "a lot of lies". Can you provide some documentation that we can fight 5 North Koreas and Iran's? I think fighting one North Korea would be bad enough.
We are hardly winning 1 Iraq and 1 Afghanistan
last I checked
.
We are all mediators, translators. - Derrida
http://signicide.blogspot.com/
everyone has a right to defend themselves
including Israel.
however, escalation is not a part of that... I can defend myself from a robber, and I can defend myself from his brother, and still, I cannot go attack his family, then his neighborhood.
If one is attacked by a force which represents and is supported by a nation, then one can fight back broadly, and in such cases the question of the proportion of the forces is important.
I'll let those that are not part of that "we"...
... define themselves... my point is that to do that is to say it's more moral for people to be killing each other than not.
Very rarely is that said, what people do is jump to a self defense frame, frames of survival, but if you hit me and I hit your brother, and he hits me, and then I hit someone walking down the street that looks like you... along the way the self defense framing falls away.
All protracted conflicts go down that road, in my experience, and since we know that "not killing" is more moral than "killing"... cease fire is more moral.
Those not of that "we" must claim, I think, that "killing is more moral than not killing"... who steps up and claims that?
a moral OBLIGATION?
to defend yourself?
I'm interested also in what is effective
I like the example above, a hot war with the USSR would not have served us as well as the relatively diplomatic cold war was.
of course
there is a moral obligation to defend yoursel and if there are others involved (family, friends, your country) then there is a moral obligation to defend them. My idea of defense is a strong offense, and my idea of winning is the way my namesake finished conflicts :)
"To discuss evil in a manner implying neutrality, is to sanction it." AR
Thank God I wasn't alive them
I would have been hysterical.
Hopefully our country is less barbaric in it's methods of winning wars today.
It is the very scale of this "no limits" attack on Japan that has brought a sense of caution when it comes to nuclear force, with the realization of the sheer power of not only destroying the enemy, but the rest of the world to boot. No all out nuclear war please.
I'm only half stupid
Ender... I'm new, and I seek to understand you...
...
From what I read, you are quite a libertarian (small "l").
How can you jibe your stated atheism with a party in which 95% of the membership is Christian, and 30-40% of the party is evangelical and considers itself "born-again"?
I'm an atheist also... and a Democrat... and the main reason I am not a Republican is because I can't bring myself to associate with such a large block of Christianity's version of the Taliban.
Fundamentalist religion is the biggest bane to a peaceful modern world.... regardless of the religion.
An atheist aligning himself with the GOP is really hard to fathom.
We have a bible-thumping evangelical in the White House right now.... a member of a movement that believes, in overwhelming numbers, that we are "in the final days". Can you not see the danger there?
I'm just trying to figure you out.... you're a rare beast indeed.
I survived the Bush Administration
heya Prime Mover
Welcome to SC. Here, read this link
to another comment where I talk a little bit about my beliefs. It's in a good diary too so read that as well.
First of all I am an agnostic (minor distinction but I allow for the possibility of a higher being and would consider evidence for such :), plus atheists on the left have been incredibly hostile to religious people and I prefer to disassociate myself from that).
Both major parties are mostly Christian. That's what happens when over 80% of the country is of that religion. It's not a negative to me. GOP is a coalition party with several disparate groups. There are many others like me (and not necessarily atheist/agnostic but with a similar emphasis on different issues from the Religious Right).
As someone from Free Republic wrote (found it in a dkos diary here
):
and
I agree with GOP about 80-90% of the time so why would I want to be on the other side that has nothing to offer me in terms of ideological agreement? GOP is the vessel that different groups use to achieve their agenda, same as the Democratic party. We have an alliance and a big tent. It covers me just fine.
"To discuss evil in a manner implying neutrality, is to sanction it." AR
Scary Thought
It is these comments that I abhor. Of course there is a justified limit. I can't count how many different examples there are to illustrate this, but let's take the police confronting an armed criminal. If the criminal is armed with fists, the police are not allowed to shoot him/her. If armed with a knife, the judgement becomes a little more gray, but still shooting right away is not the appropriate response. Criminal with a gun; yes, after sufficient requests to drop it. I forget the term, but as the situation escalates, so does the appropriate response. A simpler example is are we justified in exterminating the bear species because of the potential threat/actual attacks to humans? This seems simple-minded. You must evaluate when the danger ends (when the defense is adequate) and not just have the best-defense-is-a-good-offense mentality.
There are points when countries and people overreact. Creating the appropriate marker for these points makes for less conflict (i.e. grudges, terrorists) in the future. Are 500+ civilian deaths worth the ransom of 2 or 3 kidnapped soldiers? I personally do not think so. There are other options available.
We are all mediators, translators. - Derrida
http://signicide.blogspot.com/
You might have seen things differently
My father was alive then, home on furlough, two days away from being shipped to the Pacific theater. Had the bomb not dropped, me and my siblings might not be here today.
"The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire." --R. Heinlein
Ok... fair enough
You and I just don't see fundamentalist religion in the same light.
Sit and talk to an evangelical for an hour or two. I mean the real "Left Behind" people. The rapture-ists.
What the wackos believe is of no consequence to me... until they hold the seats of power.
And in this country... they now do.
These people WANT World War III in the Middle East... no because of any loyalty to Israel... but because they WANT to live in the end times and WANT to see the Book of Revelation play out.
And when they hold the seats of power, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. They can actively MAKE it happen.
When George Bush was asked in 2000 during a debate to name his favorite philosopher... and his answer was "Jesus Christ"... all thinking, reasoning Republican should have run as fast as they could from this guy - not embraced him.
20 years from now, if we save the world from these fanatics (on BOTH sides), you'll look back at your support of George Bush with shame.
Much like I look back at my support for Carter now.
I survived the Bush Administration
yeah
we definitely do not see that segment of our population in the same light. You are seriously overestimating the amount of people who strongly believe in the Revelations theory of Rapture and the rest. I do not think Bush is one of them.
Most Christians support Israel because it is our ally and the only friend in the Middle East. Israel is the vanguard of the Western Civilization in the middle of stone age regimes of crazed fanatics. That is the reason most Americans support Israel. The support has very little to do with the End Time stuff - to be sure there are some who support Israel more because of it but they are a tiny minority - who I've actually had close relations with unlike probably you.
Personal belief in Jesus Christ as expressed by George Bush is really not offensive to me.
I am glad you realized the truth about Jimmy Carter at least :)
"To discuss evil in a manner implying neutrality, is to sanction it." AR
Specter
Re: Limits of force
The conduct of war against an enemy who would kill you all, is an entirely different matter from confronting an individual who steals a loaf of bread.
Puting the face of Jean valjean on the Salafi terrorists will keep you from having to defend your children. I just hope it doesn't keep sane people from defending your children.
Misunderstanding
I don’t think we are on the same page here. I’m not trying to equate hezbollah or any terrorist organization to the common criminal (especially one who is a protagonist-- Jean Val jean). I know that this scenario plays into your fantasy of liberals defending the terrorists against evil America, but you are merely putting words into my mouth as an easy straw man.
What I am saying is that there is an appropriate response to every action. Action, then reaction. I do not think Ender is saying there is a limit to an appropriate reaction. What he says is that any course of reaction is justified including major offensives.
I am saying that is not true. We can’t (morally) drop a nuclear bomb on a country simply because they kill a soldier or a civilian (although I know this is the predominant neocon goal of the moment). This situation is what we might call an overreaction, but it is justified (wrongly) in Ender’s frame of reference. My policeman/criminal example is to show that there are moral limits to the use of action and reaction. It is not an attempt to equate the acting parties (Israel/Hezbollah to police/criminal or human/bear). It is an example to show a philosophical argument in a practical/pragmatic situation.
There are appropriate limits to a response in every situation where humans contact, violently or otherwise.
We are all mediators, translators. - Derrida
http://signicide.blogspot.com/