[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
Still, I am surprised by the cavalier attitude of your statements.
Simple example:
A Gang of 5 hoodlums takes a Metro Bus hostage, with 50 riders on board.
They demand $100 million in ransom, and will kill one hostage every hour
for the next 48 hours until they are paid.
The local SWAT team storms the Bus, and kills two of the captors.
IMHO, the captor killing an individual is evil, and the member of the
SWAT team killing the captor is morally justified.
Thus, your opinions, as stated above, in my mind, are patently false.
In fact, those who are morally superior are justified in doing things
that others are not justified in doing, and are not hypocritical.
JDG
Intruiging, "cavalier attitude"... be careful when pointing fingers lest you
notice 3 fingers pointing back on your own hand. The situations are not the
same. A person or group of persons killing innocent bystanders, and
threatens the lives of those attempting to diffuse the situation is not the
same as a person who is attempting to diffuse the situation, and, in the
course of attempting to diffuse the situation, and after non-violent means
have been exhausted, end up killing some of the captors. Their intent in the
action was not to kill the captors, but to diffuse the situation. Police
cannot use lethal force unless there is an immediate threat to life, so it
was in the deffence of themselves and others that they killed the captors,
who posed a direct threat the those SWAT team members and others. Not
equivalent at all. That's like saying someone who kills someone without
reason is the same as killing someone in self deffence. In one, the intent
of the act is to deprive one of life, in the other, the intent is merely to
prevent another from depriving them of life.
If you want to argue that the US spies only in self-defence (which is likely
untrue), what's to say that these other countries aren't spying on us aren't
themselves acting in self deffence? If there is a justification for us
spying that makes spying OK, then, when that same justification applies to
another country spying on us, it is then OK for them to spy on us. Period.
I find individuals who consider themselves morally superior to people who do
not share the same beliefs typically are morally *inferior*. Hitler and the
German army of the third riche thought they were "morally superior" to the
people they persecuted, tortured, and killed. They also thought that because
they were superior, it gave them the right to do what they did. Thinking
oneself to be morally superior to all others is an arrogant and dangerous
attitude to have. It was also the Catholic Church's justification for the
Inquisition and the Crusades (and now *you* use it as an arguement to justify
our spying on other nations when them spying on us is "wrong"). Unless you
think that Germany or the Church were right to do such things, then I think
you should rethink your attitude of "moral superiority".
Michael Harney
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
