Who's "moral laws" exactly? Mine? Yours? Someone elses? You see the problem here? What you consider to be against a "moral law" might be perfectly fine with someone else's "moral law". This isn't rocket science, everyone has a different view of what is moral and what is not. if everyone feels they are justified in any action to enforce their own moral views, then society can not exist. If something is amoral, then there are ways of fighting within the system to change it.
Who's "moral laws" exactly? Mine? Yours? Someone elses? You see the problem here? What you consider to be against a "moral law" might be perfectly fine with someone else's "moral law". This isn't rocket science, everyone has a different view of what is moral and what is not. if everyone feels they are justified in any action to enforce their own moral views, then society can not exist. If something is amoral, then there are ways of fighting within the system to change it.
Yeah, that worked swimmingly with race relations. Women's votes only took 130 years too.
I'm sure the slaves killed during the repeated Congressional sessions didn't mind at all being thrown under the wheels of bureaucracy.
Change MAY occur eventually through the system. Change occurs rapidly through violence. More importantly, EVERY life has a right to defend itself, or to be defended, using absolutely ANY means necessary.
jonks
Lifer
- Feb 7, 2005
- 13,918
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Don't change the hypothetical, and don't soften the words "torture and kill" into "okay to capture". If you feel it's ok for the US gov't to threaten to torture to death innocent people (and then follow through) as blackmail against the countries we are opposing then you don't understand American ideals.
Clearly you also don't accept the maxim "better 10 guilty men go free than one innocent man be imprisoned", right? You'd rather that innocent pay the ultimate price as a sacrifice for the greater good of society? That isn't how we work here, when things are working here.
Innocent is subjective.
"All that is required for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing." - Usually attributed to Edmund Burke
"If you don't stand in opposition to a problem, then you're a part of that problem." - Me
jonks
Lifer
- Feb 7, 2005
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no, i'm saying attack the oppressors, but don't torch a school full of the oppressors's toddlers just because you know it would piss off or demoralize the oppressors. Once you go down that road you can justify doing anything to anyone in the name of fighting oppression, or promoting democracy...
Ok, totally in agreement there. I'd say under 12 is pretty much truly innocent regardless, and should never be targeted. Furthermore attacks to demoralize are useless...they usually have the opposite effect. Attack to destroy, not to convince.
n yusef
Platinum Member
- Feb 20, 2005
- 2,158
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That is incorrect. First, I changed your analogy to only involve adults. Second, I accepted it on the condition that the plot led to success. The analogy was to John Brown's murder of civilians in his raid of Harper's Ferry, which was successful in forcing the start of the civil war, which ended slavery.
You asked me if the ends can justify the means. I said yes. You can't use that agreement to to quote me as saying that the means would be justified regardless of the ends.
I think what people are missing here is that what John Brown did had little overall impact on ending slavery. It took an all out secession by many states and a civil war to bring about the end of slavery.
Vic said it..."One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter."
And how often is such action actually largely responsible for bringing about great change? The greatest we've seen in the last 100 years besides wars has been from peaceful civil resistance/protests. All we see from bombings of innocent people is crap like we see in the ME. What change is it bringing there?
Vic said it..."One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter."
And how often is such action actually largely responsible for bringing about great change? The greatest we've seen in the last 100 years besides wars has been from peaceful civil resistance/protests. All we see from bombings of innocent people is crap like we see in the ME. What change is it bringing there?
That's misrepresenting things. There was a lot of violence going on during the civil rights movement, though more of it against blacks than by them. But the point is, that violence led the fed to realize that stronger action was required...if for no other reason than to curtail the violence.
It was the same in some ways with unionization. While the workers were not frequently directly violent (though more so than blacks), the INCREDIBLE violence committed by the government and corporations was enough to force reconciliation.
I'm all for peaceful demonstrations, and hold a great respect for true pacifists. However, those are things to do in between keeping people people alive and freeing slaves by any force necessary.
As for John Brown, the act didn't end anything, but it showed that people were ready and willing for violence if necessary...and that the government couldn't keep to the sidelines and be left out of it. It scared the SHIT out of the slave holders, causing them to overreact, and bringing about the things that did end it.
Yes there was lots of violence going on during the civil rights movement but as you already point out, a lot of it (really most of it) was against blacks and not by them. You mention it again in the unionization analogy. John Brown's violence was the other way around...
I wasn't speaking for slavery only, but in general.
You and n yusef aren't disagreeing with me here...all John Brown's raid did was help lead the country towards civil war...but it didn't end slavery. It wasn't the act that caused people to believe slavery was bad...as you say it just scared the slaveholders and much of the south into organization themselves.
Yup, which forced the norths hand and thus brought change. Without something to force people into action, things just stall out. It's called social inertia. Revolution, however ugly it may be, is the force which overcomes social inertia.
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