No no. I love to hear the points you make. The bit about brotherhood was… touching ? Touchy-feely ? Or something.
Yes, that’s an amazingly clever assertion. I think you said you went to school no ? That’s where you learn the art of sound reasoning I suppose ? I wish I could go to school …
You also got your crystal ball there right ?
Just pointing out some of the themes that are present in such movies. My bad.
I just didn’t realize it made me some sort of immoral statist war mongering monster if I enjoy fictionalized drama and such things, but according to the book of Juan, I guess I am…
Why was the US the only country that had to have a civil war where 600,000+ people died to get rid of slavery? You didn’t have to do that in the rest of the world. You’re also holding up the “representative” government as a good thing- but a place where the 51% majority can do whatever they want to the 49% minority isn’t so great. We also didn’t get our civil liberties through war, we always lose them during war times.
Your examples are faulty.
I don’t think it makes you those things.
And here I thought the 13th Amendment was passed rather peacefully. Was there bloodshed in Congress?
Not that I think representative government is a good thing at all, but anyways, I’d say it has its roots in the signing of the Magna Carta, which was the result of an unpopular king losing a war and being forced by his barons to give up some of his power.
Which war was that?
Could you please explain how those examples are supposed to help your argument?
Sure, why not? If in my profession, and pays sufficiently.
I’m sorry, but if I’m dealing with someone who can’t see that absent the Civil War slavery would still exist, then I am obviously wasting my time.
you are wasting your time.
Wrong. It was through an amendment to the Constitution.
Wrong, we do not have representative government.
Wrong, we still do not have civil liberties.
Sir Pessimist here needs a hug!
False. Slavery could have ended like it did in many other countrues, like England.
Lincoln’s little war did nothing to end slavery - or did you not learn about the “border states” in school? We wouldn’t have West Virginia without that little spat, but slavery was on borrowed time; I’ll even go so far as to say that a successful revolution by the CSA would’ve spared us the racial tensions that resulted from Radical “Reconstruction”.
Back to the OP.
I guess the question boils down to how far do you have to remove yourself from directly enabling the state to not be/feel culpable for state violence. If you want to play “six degrees to Kevin Bacon” or reductio ad absurdum then pretty much any industry will be enabling the state. Clearly, working for a weapon’s manufacturer or other exclusive clients of the military industrial complex would be wrong (imo), but beyond that it’s hard to say. Would PC, CAD software or office supplies manufacturer’s who sell products to these companies also be enabler’s or accomplices in state tyrrany? I don’t think so.
An enginner would have a hard time to refuse such job, since military stuff involves the most extreme tech that no geek can resist, it’s like an artist refusing to do some big artwork in the vatican during the middle age.
Nah. It’d be more like an artist refusing to do a portrait of Hitler.
Yeah. You would pretty much have to take it into account before choosing your major.
Although not only engineers work for such firms.
Good post.
Of course, the first post was talking about custom parts, made to spec for military R&D firms. Not merely selling them office supplies or software which are made for any random buyer in the market.
I need to reconsider that, its nothing like it. Painting a picture of Hitler doesn’t facilitate any crime. It’d be more like sending him a train car of poison gas.
The way I look at it is that certain industries have lots of government applications (like the aerospace and other such industries). Many of these firms also do things in the civilian sector (like Boeing or the company I work for, for instance). Now, there is obviously a large incentive for these companies to bid for government contracts because they make up a significant portion of business. If these companies decided not to take on any government contracts, many would quickly find themselves purged from the industry by people who DO take them on.
Does it suck? Yes. But they often have little choice when it comes to survival when a significant amount of the market is government work and all the competition is getting tons of stolen loot from the state and thus having more available capital and resources at their disposal.
Now, if the state were to not exist, and their would be a genuinely free market, this wouldn’t be an issue, obviously, because firms would be competing solely with one another in the private market instead of both the private AND the government market.
Well, if the companies in question belonged to Bruce Wayne or Tony Stark… I think I’d be very tempted [;)]