Ok, here’s what you’re missing. Statements of fact like “you’ll get what you want because you have sufficient firepower” do not replace morality. By the way, this distinction is one of the more important lessons of Jewish thought. Those are true statements, but have no moral import, nor should they be used in place of morality. “That’s wrong” does not mean “you don’t have the power to do that.” Suppose an intelligent murderer is able to carry out his murder of an innocent 2 year old and get away with it. It would follow on your claim that there’s nothing at all wrong with this plan - it works, there’s no one capable of stopping him, and so on. So would you say it’s not correct to say “he shouldn’t do that?”
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Emotions rule out logic. Life ends. Murder happens. What’s more important is to ask “Was it necessary?” “Did it help more than it hurt” “Whom did it hurt?” “Why was the mass murder executed?” “Was there a better way?” These are all logical questions that don’t require calculation proxies like emotions.
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Because the Jewish state will embody all the great things about Judaism such as our desire for democratic discussion, our tendency to be frugal, our cautious deliberate attitude towards business and life, our willingness to sacrifice status for functionality…I mean all those good things. And maybe we killed some people here and there, it happens man.
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You are much more knowledgeable than I am, but I also think that you…are so judgmental about violence. What did the Amalekites do to make the Jews so angry? Surely there was a reason for the action.
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I have no desire to take anything from you or your family, nor do I bear any malice towards you personally or anyone else on this forum. I’m just trying to show you that any human being can do whatever they want to do unless they feel they have some reason not to. And morality isn’t enough of a deterrent. We need laws. We need courts. And I think they’re better operated if operated by the state, which I see as a necessary albeit dangerous thing.
I would say that his actions indicate a desire to kill. He’ll probably do it again and as such it’s in our individual as well as collective interests to catch that man. It’s not about right and wrong, it’s about what works. Letting people go around murdering just doesn’t work. I would say he shouldn’t do that, not because I thought it was a moral issue, but because his actions basically separate him from a functioning society so he can no longer be allowed near me, my family or anyone I know. He would have to be put down. It’s obvious that morality isn’t necessary to see how murder isn’t in the interests of the group nor the individuals that make up the group. Yes?
I have witnessed J Bloom drop some transparently poor arguments and some absurdist philosophy but in the hopes that some ‘common sense plain speech’ on the substantive issues might at leastopen his mind to adopting reasonable attitudes I offer the following quotation for consideration.
If I’m not mistaken, the members of the military call each other ‘comrade’ - just like the commies do - and I don’t think it’s by chance.
Your positions wrt to war make you even more neoconish than bush chenney and all their friends. I’d bet they never believed their own lies, but you on the other hand are a true believer.
Jacob, morality wasn’t invented by organized religion. Many precepts of religion are mere reflections of a powerful sense of right and wrong that was written in our hearts long before the idea of a god was stamped in our brains.
This is something I wrote in response to another moral nihilist:
Let us say you witness a little girl being brutalized in a dark alley. Something within you would cry out that that is wrong. You wouldn’t deduce from premises that it is wrong. You would just feel it. An urge would well up inside you to do something about it, even if such action would considerably risk your life and limb. For example, you might feel a powerful urge to call for help, even though this might raise a small chance that the brutalizer would hear you and try to violently silence you. That urge is not rationally egoistic. Helping the little girl would not “serve you”; it would endanger you. Yet the urge to do so would be there, nonetheless.
That is morality.
What aspect of the brutalizer’s assault would engender such a potentially self-sacrificing urge? It is not that in a society in which such violence is done with impunity, you yourself or someone who benefits you might end up being harmed. It is a primary urge that cries out, without any argumentative grounding, “it is wrong for him to do that to her body.” That natural, internal moral imperative is what I call a property right: the inherent “ought” that lies with all of us regarding what, for example, a little girl can do with her body, and what other people can’t.
Were you to watch a sculptor, who saved up and bought his own materials, painstaking make a beautiful bust of an Olympian god over the course of several days, and then see another man come up, shove the sculptor aside, and run off with the bust, something inside you would say, “that was FUCKED up.” You would feel a strong desire to see the bust returned to the sculptor. In that urge is implied the notion that the sculptor was the bust’s rightful owner. Again, the property right resides within your psyche, as it would within most anyone who witnessed such an act.
SIDE NOTE: Now obviously these moral urges would not be as strong, if existent at all, within the brutalizer and the thief. They either ignore or sufficiently quiet those moral urges (in which case they are immoral, compared to the general tendency of mankind), are overwhelmed by countervailing passions (in which case they are disturbed, compared to the general tendency of mankind), or are pathologically devoid of empathy (in which case they are amoral and psychotic, compared to the general tendency of mankind).
All such instances (and any honest reflection on what one’s own feelings would be in such situations) offer a surfeit of evidence of a moral code written in our nature. And like I’ve written elsewhere…
This natural moral code is only shoved aside when we enter conditions of extremity (aka "lifeboat situations), in which circumstances have forced the human community to devolve into a war of all against all. In those cases, we instinctively cast aside our communal moral feelings for the sake of extreme short-term selfishness. We morally allow ourselves “necessary evils”.
The state has deceived the bulk of humanity into believing that society is inherently in perpetual extremity (an ever-present “lifeboat situation”), and that its own acts of murder, plunder, and enslavement are necessary evils. This is a lie. Society does not require for its survival, or even for its flowering, that certain men be above natural morality. Far from it; the murderers, plunderers, enslavers, and liars who comprise the state are simply parasites who cripple society and threaten to destroy it
A man doesn’t need to understand the politics of war to know that murder is wrong; neither need he understand how markets work to know that stealing is wrong. If it weren’t for state propaganda, there would be no need for libertarian intellectualism. Unfortunately the state, through its false economics and false political philosophy, has convinced mankind that the world is in a constant state of extremity, such that, without some men being given the power to murder, steal, and enslave with impunity, civilization will descend into chaos. False theory can only be fought effectively with true theory. The role of a libertarian intellectual therefore is not to weave intricate theories to justify justice itself (there is no need for that); rather it is to UNWEAVE the tangled fabric of state lies. That is why we need economics and political philosophy: to show exactly how the state’s purported necessary evils are simply evils, and thereby reveal to people their inner libertarian.
I believe in self defense. The Israeli military retaliates for Hamas and Hezbollah aggression. These organizations target civilians and use civilians as human shields. The idea that the Palestinians are defending themselves is an utter lie and propaganda. They are doing no such thing. How is firing rocks into civilian areas and killing civilians “defensive”?
So you approve of suicide bombers and rockets fired into civilian areas out of religious hatred?
What are you talking about? Do you have any remote idea how many rockets have been fired into Israel over the years? Try over 8000. The people in Gaza choose to live the way they do, Israel is more then willing to live peacefully and engage in economic activity with them.
Total lie. This sort of propaganda is what I am talking about.
Uh oh.
But in your mind Poptech retaliation is self-defense ? Doubleplusgood !!
And anti-semitism. They are brainwashed to believe in all sorts of anti-Jewish propaganda.
No they are not. They choose to engage in their behavior and oppress themselves. Israel doe not and never has intentionally targeted civilians. That is what makes them (Hamas) evil.
If you neighbor was launching rockets into your back yard and killing your children what would you do?
Don’t use silly appeals to emotion with me.
Silly appeals to emotion? So launching rockets into civilian areas is silly and emotional? Or are the innocent people who died from the attacks silly and emotional?
Now answer the question.
I think there is a difference between self-defence and indiscriminating arresting the innocent in the hope they are guilty.
So you have avoided the question and changed the argument, typical. Arresting someone who’s house is full of rocket making equipment but screams he is innocent does not make him so.
When you learn the basic meaning of words like self-defense, I might answer your question, if I feel like it..
Well you assume that the Israel conflict is so clearly deduced as someone next door, a known person under your example, shooting rockets into another’s property. Strange how you supposedly respect the rights of property in this statement yet want to arrest people just because they have a certain style weapon in their house. Your biases are clear on who you favor to win a ridiculous war so why even try to continue rational debate with you?
respond to the neighbour but not to other people who are innocent neighbours.
So is self defense letting rockets rain down on your property?
I made no such claim as I previously explained in my first few posts the main conflict is one based on property rights, the rocket issue is separate but people try to tie them together.
Please explain how you would stop someone from shooting rockets onto your property.
Yes please cease all debate because you cannot answer simple questions and then declare the other person “irrational”.