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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Neocon who wrote (134587)	5/27/2004 1:27:00 PM
From: Dr. Id	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Moral outrage is a perfectly legitimate reason to kill people: it expresses a cosmic sense of justice, that some things are so intolerable, one cannot wait to visit retribution. Ordinarily we distrust acting in hot blood, because we wish reason to supervene and establish with greater precision what is just. Even so, we punish people because they deserve it, and the more they deserve it, the more urgently do we want to punish them......... I disagree with this kind of extremism. I'd rather we just voted him out of office in November.

To: Neocon who wrote (134587)	5/27/2004 1:27:14 PM
From: cnyndwllr	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Moral outrage is a perfectly legitimate reason to kill people: it expresses a cosmic sense of justice, that some things are so intolerable, one cannot wait to visit retribution. Ordinarily we distrust acting in hot blood, because we wish reason to supervene and establish with greater precision what is just. Even so, we punish people because they deserve it, and the more they deserve it, the more urgently do we want to punish them......... Do you really want to travel down that slippery slope and say that we can ignore the rule of law and substitute moral outrage [as] a perfectly legitimate reason to kill people? I hate to bring moral relativism into the conversatation but when you use "moral" then you must know that the standards differ all over the world. If your wife, for instance, failed to cover her face in a devoutly Muslim community and the men became outraged and stoned her to death, would that be "perfectly legitimate?" Would you say, "too bad but the killing was justified based on [their] 'moral outrage' defense?" I doubt it. I think you mean that you think it's ok to kill people without following the rule of law whenever YOU feel morally outraged. You and Bush have a lot in common.

To: Neocon who wrote (134587)	5/27/2004 2:13:33 PM
From: Jacob Snyder	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

re: Moral outrage is a perfectly legitimate reason to kill people... What didn't you understand about Thou Shalt Not Kill? Humans are so clever, so easily lured into rationalizations, exceptions, excuses, wishful thinking, self-congratulatory mythology. Humanitarian conquest. The Just War Doctrine. The Preventive War Doctrine. The White Man's Burden. So, any useful morality, has to be very, very simple. So simple, a 5-year-old can understand it. So simple, no amount of hair-splitting legalisms can do an end-around. So simple, it can stand in the howling tornado of our rage and humiliation, when we are scared and hurt. Our chimpanzee brain (or perhaps it's the lizard brain) will be constantly urging us to solve problems by killing the Others (not of our tribe), and by beating into submission any opposition (within the tribe). We are hard-wired, for Tribalism and Dominance Heirarchies. The behaviorists and ecologists have found the empirical proof of Original Sin. Any loophole in our Good Rules, will be creatively stretched, till you can drive a battleship through it. Any useful morality must have no loopholes. Thou Shalt Not Kill. It's very, very simple. Do you accept that rule, as the basis of morality, the First Rule governing conduct? Do you worship Jesus or Kali?