A thought-experiment about the killing of the abortionist
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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
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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[^].
73Zeppelin wrote:
Firstly, my intention wasn't to offend. I am fascinated by Moby Dick.
Far from being offended, I was delighted to be asked to think. Too much of what we talk about in here turns into pissing contests. However, in the same vein, if i said something that made you think i was offended, I apoligise.
73Zeppelin wrote:
Did you ever read any of Melville's personal correspondence to authors like Hawthorne?
Nope. I wasn't even aware of them. Thanks!
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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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
Computafreak wrote:
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
Thank them for their gift, what else? You have been adopted into the pride, no greater honor will come to you in this lifetime.
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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Computafreak wrote:
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
Thank them for their gift, what else? You have been adopted into the pride, no greater honor will come to you in this lifetime.
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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So there's no way to stop it from happening, apart from leaving dead humans where I see them the most?
Between the idea And the reality Between the motion And the act Falls the Shadow
Computafreak wrote:
So there's no way to stop it from happening, apart from leaving dead humans where I see them the most?
Keep them indoors, they'll live longer that way, too. But you are dealing with two instincts that have kept felines surviving for a long, long time: hunt the prey; feed those who are too small, or too dumb to hunt for themselves. I'll leave it to you to decide which they think you are. ;)
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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Computafreak wrote:
So there's no way to stop it from happening, apart from leaving dead humans where I see them the most?
Keep them indoors, they'll live longer that way, too. But you are dealing with two instincts that have kept felines surviving for a long, long time: hunt the prey; feed those who are too small, or too dumb to hunt for themselves. I'll leave it to you to decide which they think you are. ;)
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
:laugh: They don't like being kept indoors; they try to escape. Unless the cat flap is open, in which case they lounge around on every bed in the house apart from mine and shed. Not a good thing when my 6th form demands a suit as a dress code
Between the idea And the reality Between the motion And the act Falls the Shadow
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:laugh: They don't like being kept indoors; they try to escape. Unless the cat flap is open, in which case they lounge around on every bed in the house apart from mine and shed. Not a good thing when my 6th form demands a suit as a dress code
Between the idea And the reality Between the motion And the act Falls the Shadow
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73Zeppelin wrote:
Firstly, my intention wasn't to offend. I am fascinated by Moby Dick.
Far from being offended, I was delighted to be asked to think. Too much of what we talk about in here turns into pissing contests. However, in the same vein, if i said something that made you think i was offended, I apoligise.
73Zeppelin wrote:
Did you ever read any of Melville's personal correspondence to authors like Hawthorne?
Nope. I wasn't even aware of them. Thanks!
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:
Far from being offended, I was delighted to be asked to think. Too much of what we talk about in here turns into pissing contests. However, in the same vein, if i said something that made you think i was offended, I apoligise.
Just making sure I came off the way I wanted to. Also, in a first reading of your post I missed the part about the cats. How many do you have? I've got four.
Oakman wrote:
Nope. I wasn't even aware of them. Thanks!
I have an annotated copy of Moby Dick - in the back is ample commentary, analysis and reprints of Melville's letters to numerous others (Hawthorne included). They provide insight into his mindset and reasons for writing Moby Dick. I found them fascinating; like the story behind the story.