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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: tejek who wrote (134562)	3/14/2001 1:22:28 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1589396

I see...the above is the mature, selfless view of life. I guess I was wrong or confused or both. It seems that you have a problem accepting philosophical ideas that differ from your own as mature. If I take your money it is wrong. It is wrong even if you are rich. It is wrong even if I give you goods or services in exchange (if you have no choice in the matter, if you really agreed it would not be stealing). It is wrong even if I use the money for charity or some other good cause. The government doing the same thing is also wrong. Even though it is wrong in some cases there may be some justification for it. If this theft or extortion results in an enormous practical good it would be understandable and perhaps justified if I do go ahead and steal from you, but it still would not be a good thing that I should be proud of. More generally what do you think about the idea of justified/necessary evil? If something horribly bad will happen if you don't do something you see as evil would you do it? How would you feel about it? Is the evil act still evil if you feel you have to do it? Also do you think an action can be evil if an individual or private organization does it but not evil if it is performed by the government? If yes, what types of actions would you this apply to? Why is it not evil for the government to do these things but evil for non government actors? Would you apply this to non democratic governments as well? What about unpopular non democratic governments or what about tyrannies. (I'm using the classic definition of tyranny here, not an oppressive government as much as one that takes power without justification by tradition or law) Tim