Consider the moral difference between using human shields and being deterred by them. . . . The Muslims are acting on the assumption—the knowledge, in fact—that the infidels with whom they fight, the very people whom their religion does nothing but vilify, will be deterred by their use of Muslim human shields. They consider the Jews the spawn of apes and pigs—and yet they rely on the fact that they don’t want to kill Muslim noncombatants.Hamas is not just a rogue terrorist organization. It was elected.
Moral non-relativism
From Sam Harris via Bookworm Room:
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10 comments:
Isn't Democracy great.
This is a subject all too familiar to me.
So I just read through the essay again, and read through all the comments, with the new lens of nearly a decade of history past. And frankly, you kept your head far better than I could. You were (and are), of course, correct. But outside of one and perhaps a second commenter who disagreed with you, most were flatly insulting, dismissive, and altogether all too willing to call your character, parentage, mental health, and good nature into disrepute. And almost none of them had bothered to examine the point you raised, instead relying on a sound bite (mis)understanding of the essay.
I do not fault them for not agreeing, I do fault them for being lazy.
How many peaceniks would let a madman come into their homes and kill their children without resisting? It's awfully easy to counsel patience for other people whose homes are being invaded by madmen, from the point of view of comfortable, safe America. No rockets are landing on the President's 14th tee.
If a ship were sailing towards New York harbor with a nuclear weapon on board, manned by jihadists with their children strapped to the masts, would we sink it or let it dock and ignite? If we do the latter, what do we say to the children incinerated in New York apartments? Would we evacuate, so as to avoid bloodshed?
"But outside of one and perhaps a second commenter who disagreed with you, most were flatly insulting, dismissive, and altogether all too willing to call your character, parentage, mental health, and good nature into disrepute"
Good thing most of Blackfive's regulars, who didn't get there via a link bridge from lalaland, took a different stance.
Although it made little difference in the end, since the policy makers were going to do their own thing.
"Grimmy said...
The issue we still dance around with regularity is...
The active and overt 5th column we have working out in the open here in our own lands.
How are we to ever delude ourselves into believing we can win this fight when we cant even wrap our heads around the concept that there's a big difference between dissent and disloyalty?
The real question is, not can we win against a foreign enemy but instead it is, will we survive the rot that has nearly reached the very core of our culture?
We obsess with angst over the idea of having to kill the foreign born enemy. How do we handle coming to terms with having to kill people born amongst us?
August 11, 2006 at 12:42 AM"
A very astute and prophetic comment at the Blackfive archive.
Things like that got me thinking in several new directions, at the time.
This document is not flowery Arabic hyperbole that can be safely ignored: it is a real, living document that is being followed in the same manner as we follow our Constitution.
....somewhere between "selectively" and "not at all"?
....somewhere between "selectively" and "not at all"?
Hah!
I do not fault them for not agreeing, I do fault them for being lazy.
I don't fault them at all. They came into the discussion unprepared. In a way that is really not their fault: a thousand years of philosophy had never been conveyed to them, never explained, never even introduced. What seemed worthy of being taken as an assumption to me -- and the military readership of B5 generally -- was completely alien to them.
Under those circumstances, of course only a few could get outside their ordinary understanding and consider it. It's not an easy point. It is, in fact, one of the hardest things I know how to frame for consideration.
I have a rule of thumb. If I can not adequately work my way around why someone might believe something a certain way (i.e. Obamacare is a good idea, Hamas' view on Israel, Marxism, etc) then I am not fit to pass judgement on the motivations of those who hold those opinions. I can still disagree with them, but I can't say "they're crazy" or "what they believe makes no sense". Much like the gate in the middle of the road, I cannot in good conscious remove it without understanding why it was put there in the first place. So too can I not sweep aside someone else's position unless I understand why they might hold it.
These people condemned you as a barbarian, rapist, baby killer, and worse, based upon the fact that they were too intellectually lazy to bother trying to work out why you might believe as you do.
Now, let me be clear. I am not saying I need to agree with someone before I condemn their opinion. But I do need to at least work out the logic underlying the position. Ideally, I can work it out to the point where I can articulate it to the satisfaction of someone who holds that belief. Only then can I really grasp why I believe they're wrong. Otherwise, I'm doing nothing more than attacking a position they may not even hold.
For example, if you ask 99% of pro-choice (or pro-abortion if you prefer) people why they support abortion, they most likely will argue about their belief that a woman has a complete and unalienable right to her body, and should not be forced by outside forces to bring a baby to term if she doesn't want to (some caveat this in terms of rape or incest, others hold it to be absolute, it varies). But if you ask them why their opponents are against it, most will fall back on "they want to control women's bodies." Which is laughable to those who hold pro-life (or anti-abortion if you prefer) opinions. They're attacking a position that {nearly} no one is occupying.
The same people that want choice for women under the LEft's propaganda, are the ones crying on FaceB to get a woman out of Africa, because she's hunting down too many lions there.
They think it's her choice to be dragged back in the kitchen, whether she likes it or not.
Zombies attack whatever the Leftist puppet masters and necros command them to attack. It's not an individual choice, because if it was an individual choice, then that's nice too, as it would fall under aiding evil.
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