A thought-experiment about the killing of the abortionist
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I just feel depressed or angry all the time, and his idiocy pushes me over the edge.
Ravel H. Joyce wrote:
I just feel depressed or angry all the time, and his idiocy pushes me over the edge.
Get a job with the post office!
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Ravel H. Joyce wrote:
I just feel depressed or angry all the time, and his idiocy pushes me over the edge.
Get a job with the post office!
73Zeppelin wrote:
Get a job with the post office!
Haha, that'd be awesome! Except that I don't think I could shoot other people.
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Because he's an armchair warrior coward. He prefers others take action in the name of his principles rather than himself. This is also the reason why he can't formulate his own independent ideas and must resort to plagiarising them from others.
She has principles? Who knew?
Panic, Chaos, Destruction. My work here is done.
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If the state declares the sacrifice to be legal and declares the father's act to be illegal, then the state must punish him. If the state declares the abortions to be legal and declares the anti-abortionist's act to be illegal, then the state must punish the anti-abortionist. The father and the anti-abortionist may be considered to have acted justly, but 'justice' is irrelevant. It was illegal of Antigone to defy Creon. The 'wrongness' of her act is up to each individual to determine.
Bob Emmett
Bob Emmett wrote:
It was illegal of Antigone to defy Creon. The 'wrongness' of her act is up to each individual to determine.
You have hit the nail on the head. I was thinking of a slightly less classical allusion - Billy Budd. (Do you read Melville on your side of the Pond?) The difference between justice and the law can be immense, and I am not sure that the law can ever approach justice. Billy acts justly, not only by his own lights but by those of his Captain - nonetheless, Captain Vere rules Billy must be executed according to the law because the law is all we have. If someone is prepared to break the law to administer justice, we can sympathise - I do sympathise and I cannot find it in my heart to think that the world is worse off because of the death of the doctor - but we cannot tear down the rule of law and substitute a rule of opinion - That is mobocracy.
Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface Both democrats and republicans are playing for the same team and it's not us. - Chris Austin
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Because he's an armchair warrior coward. He prefers others take action in the name of his principles rather than himself. This is also the reason why he can't formulate his own independent ideas and must resort to plagiarising them from others.
73Zeppelin wrote:
Because he's an unspeakably gutless, yellow-bellied, pseudo-intellectual, out-of-work armchair warrior coward who learned at an early age to hide from those who would confront him and has been cowering in sewers or their equivalent all his life.
FTFY ;)
Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface Both democrats and republicans are playing for the same team and it's not us. - Chris Austin
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Let us suppose that there is a chain of private schools; quite exclusive in their enrollment policies, but also quite inexpensive in their tuition; and of which everyone in the nation realizes that by any objective standard they deliver an exceptional education. Naturally, we will see at once that everyone will be clamoring to get their children into one of these schools. Now, let us further suppose that after some number of years it comes to light that the *reason* these schools are so exclusive in their enrollment policies is that they're carefully pre-screening the parents before revealing to them a certain heretofore secret policy of the schools: that each year at each individual school, one incoming student is chosen to be a human sacrifice. As in, ritually killed; dead. Thus, at least one parent of all the students enrolled in these schools was aware of this and had agreed to it beforehand. Then, let us further suppose that after this horrific news becomes public knowledge, it is learned that it's all quite legal. How this enormity became legal doesn't matter to this thought-experiment; what matters is that it is legal by the laws of the land -- and that the politicians and other elites (and those who like to imagine they themselves are among the elite) have no intention of changing that. So, since we are a "nation of laws, and not of men" (never mind that that hasn't actually been true for many years), and since (as Robert P. George asserts on NRO[^]) "[n]o private individual [has] the right to execute judgment against" the staff of these schools, then ... what? Well, if Mr George[^], and Miss Lopez[^], and all the other hand-wringers are correct in their reasoning and assertions, then we must all stand by and allow these yearly human sacrifices, these "legal" murders, to contin
The issue is not the morallity of the person who is killed (the "victim" in this particular unique event), but the morallity of the individual who, with no authority granted by the victim, and in violation of the legal code he expects to be protected by, appoints himself both judge and executioner. It would be moral, and propper to oppose and change the legal system (however arduous the task), then prosecute the "baby killer". It is not moral for a single individual to appoint themselves judge, jury and executioner, then carry out his private judgement with no due process. This does not argue that the Abortion Doctor is moral and his killer not, but only that the killer is not moral and is subject to the prevailing legal rule. In a perfect world, the abortionist would be in violation of the law, and be prosecuted appropriately; even then, a single killer who executed him ouside of the legal system (say while he was imprrisoned awaiting trial) would be guilty of murder, and deserving of punishment. Either one believes in the rule of law or one does not. If you choose to be in the camp of those who choose to believe the latter, then you choose anarchy.
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Let us suppose that there is a chain of private schools; quite exclusive in their enrollment policies, but also quite inexpensive in their tuition; and of which everyone in the nation realizes that by any objective standard they deliver an exceptional education. Naturally, we will see at once that everyone will be clamoring to get their children into one of these schools. Now, let us further suppose that after some number of years it comes to light that the *reason* these schools are so exclusive in their enrollment policies is that they're carefully pre-screening the parents before revealing to them a certain heretofore secret policy of the schools: that each year at each individual school, one incoming student is chosen to be a human sacrifice. As in, ritually killed; dead. Thus, at least one parent of all the students enrolled in these schools was aware of this and had agreed to it beforehand. Then, let us further suppose that after this horrific news becomes public knowledge, it is learned that it's all quite legal. How this enormity became legal doesn't matter to this thought-experiment; what matters is that it is legal by the laws of the land -- and that the politicians and other elites (and those who like to imagine they themselves are among the elite) have no intention of changing that. So, since we are a "nation of laws, and not of men" (never mind that that hasn't actually been true for many years), and since (as Robert P. George asserts on NRO[^]) "[n]o private individual [has] the right to execute judgment against" the staff of these schools, then ... what? Well, if Mr George[^], and Miss Lopez[^], and all the other hand-wringers are correct in their reasoning and assertions, then we must all stand by and allow these yearly human sacrifices, these "legal" murders, to contin
Ilíon wrote:
So, Gentle Reader, does the reasoning really work? If you reject this reasoning as applied to these hypothetical schools, how is it that you accept it as applied to the mass-murder going on daily in our nation? Where is the difference? What am I missing?
If mass murder is taking place and the legal authorities are so morally corrupt as to not attempt to stop it, then there is indeed potentially a case for murdering the murderers. Before doing so, however, you might pause to consider two things. 1. Is what you call "murder" really murder? I won't waste time attempting to argue this with you, but will observe, as a matter of interest, that there is no Biblical statement that abortion is murder. 2. There are people who would consider that the waging of aggressive war is murder and that George Bush is morally responsible for the murder of many thousands of people. They would think that many others share that responsibility. Should those who think that way have attempted to assassinate Bush and other Republican leaders? Should they have attempted to sabotage US military efforts? Democracy is a valuable thing. Punishment by law rather than by vigilantes is a valuable thing. Tempting though it may be to resort to illegal extreme measures when democracy and the law produce outcomes that you think morally repugnant, such temptation should generally be resisted. One reason is that the illegal measures may not work, e.g., murdered abortionists may simply be replaced by new ones and George Bush by Dick Cheney. A second and more important reason is that if the culture comes to accept that vigilanteism is OK, then it won't only be people you agree with who choose to exercise it and something very precious --- the commitment to resolve issues by peaceful, lawful means --- will have been lost.
John Carson
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73Zeppelin wrote:
Because he's an unspeakably gutless, yellow-bellied, pseudo-intellectual, out-of-work armchair warrior coward who learned at an early age to hide from those who would confront him and has been cowering in sewers or their equivalent all his life.
FTFY ;)
Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface Both democrats and republicans are playing for the same team and it's not us. - Chris Austin
Stop sitting on the fence and tell us what you really think...
Panic, Chaos, Destruction. My work here is done.
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Ilíon wrote:
So, Gentle Reader, does the reasoning really work? If you reject this reasoning as applied to these hypothetical schools, how is it that you accept it as applied to the mass-murder going on daily in our nation? Where is the difference? What am I missing?
If mass murder is taking place and the legal authorities are so morally corrupt as to not attempt to stop it, then there is indeed potentially a case for murdering the murderers. Before doing so, however, you might pause to consider two things. 1. Is what you call "murder" really murder? I won't waste time attempting to argue this with you, but will observe, as a matter of interest, that there is no Biblical statement that abortion is murder. 2. There are people who would consider that the waging of aggressive war is murder and that George Bush is morally responsible for the murder of many thousands of people. They would think that many others share that responsibility. Should those who think that way have attempted to assassinate Bush and other Republican leaders? Should they have attempted to sabotage US military efforts? Democracy is a valuable thing. Punishment by law rather than by vigilantes is a valuable thing. Tempting though it may be to resort to illegal extreme measures when democracy and the law produce outcomes that you think morally repugnant, such temptation should generally be resisted. One reason is that the illegal measures may not work, e.g., murdered abortionists may simply be replaced by new ones and George Bush by Dick Cheney. A second and more important reason is that if the culture comes to accept that vigilanteism is OK, then it won't only be people you agree with who choose to exercise it and something very precious --- the commitment to resolve issues by peaceful, lawful means --- will have been lost.
John Carson
How long before Tracey comes back with his classic:
John Carson wrote:
[nothing]
When she should observe it's nothing she understands. You are trying to use rational argument with an irrational being. Give it up and enjoy the game.
Panic, Chaos, Destruction. My work here is done.
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Let us suppose that there is a chain of private schools; quite exclusive in their enrollment policies, but also quite inexpensive in their tuition; and of which everyone in the nation realizes that by any objective standard they deliver an exceptional education. Naturally, we will see at once that everyone will be clamoring to get their children into one of these schools. Now, let us further suppose that after some number of years it comes to light that the *reason* these schools are so exclusive in their enrollment policies is that they're carefully pre-screening the parents before revealing to them a certain heretofore secret policy of the schools: that each year at each individual school, one incoming student is chosen to be a human sacrifice. As in, ritually killed; dead. Thus, at least one parent of all the students enrolled in these schools was aware of this and had agreed to it beforehand. Then, let us further suppose that after this horrific news becomes public knowledge, it is learned that it's all quite legal. How this enormity became legal doesn't matter to this thought-experiment; what matters is that it is legal by the laws of the land -- and that the politicians and other elites (and those who like to imagine they themselves are among the elite) have no intention of changing that. So, since we are a "nation of laws, and not of men" (never mind that that hasn't actually been true for many years), and since (as Robert P. George asserts on NRO[^]) "[n]o private individual [has] the right to execute judgment against" the staff of these schools, then ... what? Well, if Mr George[^], and Miss Lopez[^], and all the other hand-wringers are correct in their reasoning and assertions, then we must all stand by and allow these yearly human sacrifices, these "legal" murders, to contin
Washington Post[^] Many in the "pro-life" anti-abortion movement seem to me to only be pro-life in the case of abortion -- unlike those who hold an ethic of life across a range of moral issues, not only abortion but also war and the death penalty, This makes "pro-life" in regard to abortion not only an inconsistent ethic, but an unstable one.
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Stop sitting on the fence and tell us what you really think...
Panic, Chaos, Destruction. My work here is done.
williamnw wrote:
Stop sitting on the fence and tell us what you really think...
:laugh: Actually, when I stop from pulling his whiskers just to see him writhe, I feel a little sorry for him. I figure we are the closest thing he has to friends. Can you imagine that?
Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface Both democrats and republicans are playing for the same team and it's not us. - Chris Austin
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williamnw wrote:
Stop sitting on the fence and tell us what you really think...
:laugh: Actually, when I stop from pulling his whiskers just to see him writhe, I feel a little sorry for him. I figure we are the closest thing he has to friends. Can you imagine that?
Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface Both democrats and republicans are playing for the same team and it's not us. - Chris Austin
Like the awkward kid at school. You weren't exactly friends, but you stopped him being picked on as that was your privilage.
Panic, Chaos, Destruction. My work here is done.
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Bob Emmett wrote:
It was illegal of Antigone to defy Creon. The 'wrongness' of her act is up to each individual to determine.
You have hit the nail on the head. I was thinking of a slightly less classical allusion - Billy Budd. (Do you read Melville on your side of the Pond?) The difference between justice and the law can be immense, and I am not sure that the law can ever approach justice. Billy acts justly, not only by his own lights but by those of his Captain - nonetheless, Captain Vere rules Billy must be executed according to the law because the law is all we have. If someone is prepared to break the law to administer justice, we can sympathise - I do sympathise and I cannot find it in my heart to think that the world is worse off because of the death of the doctor - but we cannot tear down the rule of law and substitute a rule of opinion - That is mobocracy.
Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface Both democrats and republicans are playing for the same team and it's not us. - Chris Austin
Oakman wrote:
Billy Budd
A good choice.
Oakman wrote:
Do you read Melville on your side of the Pond?
He appears in the reading lists for English exams, from time to time. I read Moby Dick when I in my teens - for pleasure, not exams - and have heard adaptations of his stories for radio. Last one was "Bartleby the Scrivener".
Bob Emmett
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Oakman wrote:
Billy Budd
A good choice.
Oakman wrote:
Do you read Melville on your side of the Pond?
He appears in the reading lists for English exams, from time to time. I read Moby Dick when I in my teens - for pleasure, not exams - and have heard adaptations of his stories for radio. Last one was "Bartleby the Scrivener".
Bob Emmett
Bob Emmett wrote:
I read Moby Dick when I in my teens
I first read Moby Dick in the 5th grade - as an adventure story, so I skipped over that silly old chapter on the color "white." I even gave a book report on it. Luckily, I was prevailed up on to re-read it while I was in the service. The second time through, I got it.
Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface Both democrats and republicans are playing for the same team and it's not us. - Chris Austin
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Washington Post[^] Many in the "pro-life" anti-abortion movement seem to me to only be pro-life in the case of abortion -- unlike those who hold an ethic of life across a range of moral issues, not only abortion but also war and the death penalty, This makes "pro-life" in regard to abortion not only an inconsistent ethic, but an unstable one.
73Zeppelin wrote:
Many in the "pro-life" anti-abortion movement seem to me to only be pro-life in the case of abortion -- unlike those who hold an ethic of life across a range of moral issues, not only abortion but also war and the death penalty, This makes "pro-life" in regard to abortion not only an inconsistent ethic, but an unstable one.
I'd have to disagree, John. In war and in the case of the death penalty the life that is extinguished has given cause for what happened to it, and has had warning that it could happen. A viable fetus is truly the most innocent of the innocent. Late-term abortion is the ultimate form of child-abuse, and the only one condoned by society.
Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface Both democrats and republicans are playing for the same team and it's not us. - Chris Austin
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Bob Emmett wrote:
I read Moby Dick when I in my teens
I first read Moby Dick in the 5th grade - as an adventure story, so I skipped over that silly old chapter on the color "white." I even gave a book report on it. Luckily, I was prevailed up on to re-read it while I was in the service. The second time through, I got it.
Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface Both democrats and republicans are playing for the same team and it's not us. - Chris Austin
Similar experience with Wuthering Heights. An 11th birthday present (in a job lot along with Last of the Mohicans, Mr. Midshipman Easy, and others now forgotten). I finally managed to read WH all through (with limited understanding, admittedly) just after my 13th birthday, after several false starts.
Bob Emmett
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Bob Emmett wrote:
I read Moby Dick when I in my teens
I first read Moby Dick in the 5th grade - as an adventure story, so I skipped over that silly old chapter on the color "white." I even gave a book report on it. Luckily, I was prevailed up on to re-read it while I was in the service. The second time through, I got it.
Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface Both democrats and republicans are playing for the same team and it's not us. - Chris Austin
Oakman wrote:
I first read Moby Dick in the 5th grade - as an adventure story, so I skipped over that silly old chapter on the color "white." I even gave a book report on it. Luckily, I was prevailed up on to re-read it while I was in the service. The second time through, I got it.
Do you really get it? I think Moby Dick is a little like quantum mechanics: if you think you understand it, you don't really understand it at all. Chapter 42 is, however, arguably one of the most important chapters in the book.
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Oakman wrote:
I first read Moby Dick in the 5th grade - as an adventure story, so I skipped over that silly old chapter on the color "white." I even gave a book report on it. Luckily, I was prevailed up on to re-read it while I was in the service. The second time through, I got it.
Do you really get it? I think Moby Dick is a little like quantum mechanics: if you think you understand it, you don't really understand it at all. Chapter 42 is, however, arguably one of the most important chapters in the book.
73Zeppelin wrote:
you think you understand it, you don't really understand it at all.
I understand quantum mechanics perfectly: "And the earth was without form, and void."
73Zeppelin wrote:
if you think you understand it, you don't really understand it at all.
I think that great works of art permit us see things in them that the creator never put there, but that we, as co-creators of the experience have added. In that sense, at least, I can claim I "got it" for that time and place in my life. It does not mean that I would get it in the same way the next time I read it, or that I might, if I was lucky, glean things from it that Melville did intend for me to see that I missed. Unfortunately I don't have much time for reading this days, though I do try for 1/2 hour uninterupted each night. Not easy to do, when you live with cats.
Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface Both democrats and republicans are playing for the same team and it's not us. - Chris Austin
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73Zeppelin wrote:
you think you understand it, you don't really understand it at all.
I understand quantum mechanics perfectly: "And the earth was without form, and void."
73Zeppelin wrote:
if you think you understand it, you don't really understand it at all.
I think that great works of art permit us see things in them that the creator never put there, but that we, as co-creators of the experience have added. In that sense, at least, I can claim I "got it" for that time and place in my life. It does not mean that I would get it in the same way the next time I read it, or that I might, if I was lucky, glean things from it that Melville did intend for me to see that I missed. Unfortunately I don't have much time for reading this days, though I do try for 1/2 hour uninterupted each night. Not easy to do, when you live with cats.
Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface Both democrats and republicans are playing for the same team and it's not us. - Chris Austin
Oakman wrote:
I think that great works of art permit us see things in them that the creator never put there, but that we, as co-creators of the experience have added.
Firstly, my intention wasn't to offend. I am fascinated by Moby Dick. Did you ever read any of Melville's personal correspondence to authors like Hawthorne? Link[^].
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73Zeppelin wrote:
you think you understand it, you don't really understand it at all.
I understand quantum mechanics perfectly: "And the earth was without form, and void."
73Zeppelin wrote:
if you think you understand it, you don't really understand it at all.
I think that great works of art permit us see things in them that the creator never put there, but that we, as co-creators of the experience have added. In that sense, at least, I can claim I "got it" for that time and place in my life. It does not mean that I would get it in the same way the next time I read it, or that I might, if I was lucky, glean things from it that Melville did intend for me to see that I missed. Unfortunately I don't have much time for reading this days, though I do try for 1/2 hour uninterupted each night. Not easy to do, when you live with cats.
Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface Both democrats and republicans are playing for the same team and it's not us. - Chris Austin
Oakman wrote:
Not easy to do, when you live with cats.
What do you do when they leave sacrifices? My family's cats have taken to leaving a dead mouse or frog in front of my computer table for me to find in the morning
Between the idea And the reality Between the motion And the act Falls the Shadow