You’re gonna regret asking. http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=366587&page=2
Start at post 76; follow through 77, 78, 122 (here I acknowledge that his wasn’t a slippery slope argument, just an idiotic analogy), 129 (where he misses that), 159, 161, 165 (where he still misses it), 166, 167 (where he admits that I know what a slippery slope argument is, but somehow takes credit for my knowledge), 168, 169 (where he backtracks), and 170, where I finally recognized that I was dealing with a dumbshit.
“Just as bad”? That only works if signing up for the military is morally neutral. If signing up for the military is a morally positive act, similar to donating food to Katrina victims, then stopping people from doing so is worse than requiring people to do so. If signing up for the military is a morally negative act, similar to defrauding little old ladies of their life savings, then stopping people from doing so is better than requiring people to do so.
The question is, which is it? The protestors clearly think it’s morally negative.
I’d agree with you, except that I don’t think that any of the students directly involved will be punished at all.
And I don’t find that acceptable. Not one little bit.
People talk about a culture that permits people to commit acts of violence and intimidation. Here is a prime example of one. And if the specific acts of intimidation can’t or won’t be punished, then the overall permissive culture there ought to be addressed.
Again, taxpayers in the rest of the country have a right to ask if UC Santa Cruz really needs that 80 million dollars. Is this overly punitive? Perhaps. Would it punish people who had no part in a protest? Sure.
But the acts of those students were similarly punitive, and similarly punished people who had no part in the protest. And unless those acts are punished appropriately, we really ought to question how committed the administration of UCSC is to following the law here.
Oh, I see LHoD has already supplied the link. Here it is again for the hell of it. It started out okay then turned into a mess, partially because of his refusal to learn what a slippery slope is, but unrelated to that, more due to my misreading something which I argued about for pages until clairobsur helped me see the error of my ways.
Don’t miss me eating crow in post 156.
And how LHod ran away at the end when the discussion finally got more substantive.
My apologies for the OP for this distraction. I won’t mention it again.
I partially agree. You’re right in that the morality of joining the military itself is important, but not when you bring up the opinions of the forcers. In both cases, the forcers though they were in the right, and while that’s better morally speaking than if they thought they were forcing the students to do something wrong, it does make them equal.
Yes. And they are entitled to their opinion. But for them to act on it and interfere with the actions of others, they need more than their opinion.
There’s a difference in the acts you describe above. Helping Katrina victims: morally positive. Okay. Defrauding little old ladies: morally negative. Okay again. It would be hard to find anyone who disagreed with those opinions. Society as a whole would be on the same page.
As far as the military, I will admit that there is a range of opinion. Even with the war in Iraq aside, there are people (few) who think that the military is a bad thing. But it is a far more extreme position to take that the military is bad than defrauding old ladies is bad. As I said, while they, even if they are a small minority, are entitled to their opinion and have the right to express it, they do not have the right to shut up those who disagree with them.
Initimidation, especially that as exhibited by a mob, is thuggery plain and simple.
No, but I am saying it’s an important factor. Say if an action was objectively good; a person who believed it was actually bad, and forced another do commit that action, is more morally wrong than a person who thinks that action is good, and forces someone to do it. Same for if that action is actually bad; the person who believes it is bad and forces another to do it is more wrong than one who mistakenly believes it’s right and forces another.
That establishes the outside limits. But what we’re discussing here is someone who believes that joining the military is bad. How should they evaluate these two situations?
Person A forbids someone from joining the military, correctly* believing it’s a bad thing;
Person B forces someone to join the military, incorrectly* believing it’s a good thing.
The asterisked adverbs are, of course, according to the moral compass of the evaluator. I maintain that the evaluator in this situation should see person A as acting more appropriately. Reverse the adverbs, and they should see person B as acting more appropriately.
Note that this is not always broadly applicable–in many cases, freedom of choice is the greatest good.
Definetly. Which is why, of course, the protestors were in the wrong to stop people from seeking recruitment/recruiters to talk to students, as they took it upon themselves to curtail other people’s freedom of choice.
I’m not sure. Freedom of choice is not necessarily the greatest good when it’s a matter of life and death, or when there’s further coercion happening down the line. Military recruitment qualifies for both exceptions, I think.
When I was in college, in the late '60s early '70s, Dow Chemical sure did have to contend with protesters.
I believe the SC decision on the Solomon Amendment case specifically did not rule out protests. If the Administration had provided no security at all, you might have a point, but I do not believe the lack of head bashing counts as lack of access. Not that it even got to that point, since the recruiters did the wise thing and left.
Maybe you think the Administration should have brought in the Ohio National Guard just to teach those kids a lesson.
I strenuously disagree that UCSC’s federal funding ought to be called into question for this incident, but I think it’s unfair to insinuate that Mr. Moto wants students to be killed over it, or to compare this situation in any fashion to the Nazis. He’s specifically called for the students involved to be punished; while I think references to the sedition laws are far overblown, they’re not calls for anyone to suffer injury, much less death.
If this was a job fair, I think it was very unlikely that anyone would sign up right there - even if UCSC was a right wing school. As mentioned, Santa Cruz is a small place, and anyone who wished to sign up could. The protest probably gave the military a lot more pr (for those who might be interested) than if everything went quietly.
You people really don’t want to relive the '60s. I assure you that having heads cracked would not have made the recruiters job easier the next time. If that had happened, want to bet on the size of the next protest? The cops, recruiters and the administration did the right thing, and I bet the protesters were disappointed.
I would agree that the military involves both of those (of course, the second is a matter of opinion). I don’t agree that therefore forcing other to not take part is acceptable.
To resort to actual physical force (meaning forced non-recruiting, not attacks) suggests that the students did not believe that they could stop recruitment by other means; using arguments and relevant information. I’m sure you’d agree that if the students were certain in their ability to convert others to their cause via words, they’d do that rather than physical resistance.
So if the students believed they had to use force, there are two possibilities; that they thought they had good arguments, but knew (or had reason to believe) the recruiters would lie and distort the truth in order to recruit; or that they thought that had poor arguments. If they had poor arguments, it logically follows then that the immorality of joining the Army is not clear-cut.
So then we have the recruiters lying and distorting. I for one wouldn’t be surprised by this behaviour, but again, that’s a matter of opinion. I would suggest that if the students had good reason to suspect the recruiters would do this, that they should do several things; first, protest the recruitment. Second, video the recruitment and talks given by the recruiters, and ask them questions (politely) to which they’d expect a lie or distortion for an answer. Third, go through the tape and look for distortions of the truth; if they don’t find any, then the recruiters have made a good case, again suggesting the immorality of the Army is not clear-cut. If they do find some, send the tape, along with their notes on the lies, to the press, to “get the story out”, and to other universities, so that other students can benefit from learning what lies/distortions are commonly told.
That way, they have not committed any immorality themselves, bolstering their position. They’d have evidence of any misleading statements by recruiters, making the Army look bad. Students in other universities would have a good source of what lies are told in recruitment, which thanks to free speech can be played on TV near a recruitment booth, if necessary. A propaganda win.
So even I can come up with a way of stopping recruitment, which also has the benefits of above. Arguably (you’ll probably disagree) it’s superior to forcing others not to sign up. And freedom of choice is preserved. Thus, I think freedom of choice is still the “greatest good” in this situation.
Ah, thanks for the info. I thought people would be able to just sign up there and then. And I agree about the PR.
What group of people am I in?
I agree with all that, except I think only some of the protesters were disappointed. There’s a fine line between sticking it to the man and waking up with a lump the size of a orange on your head.
Listen, do I want these students to face jail time? Not necessarily, though they certainly deserve a fine or some probation. They might even deserve a reconsideration of their status as UC Santa Cruz students, if they won’t contribute to a campus of openness and tolerance of opposing viewpoints.
That’s what they deserve, surely, especially since in the broader sense they’re guilty of far greater things.
I fear, though, that the little darlings won’t be punished at all, like I said above. And I don’t really like that outcome.
I don’t think the part about later coercion is acceptable: the military in Iraq isn’t sitting down with insurgents and debating issues politely. Whether their coercion is justified or not, the military is one gigantic coercive organization.
Sure–but the military’s actions in Iraq suggest exactly the same thing, that the soldiers don’t think they can stop insurgent actions by other means.
I’m not trying to equate the students with soldiers; I’m just trying to demonstrate that in some cases–specifically, cases in which people might die if someone chooses poorly–it’s appropriate to force someone to make the “correct” choice. If you accept the idea that joining the military is a morally negative act, then it’s probably because you believe joining the military involves engaging in unnecessary killing; at that point, preventing someone from making that choice is the lesser evil, compared to allowing them to make that choice.
Of course, trying and failing to prevent someone from making that choice, or preventing them through means that have other, worse consequences, makes the situation even worse. That’s why I think these protestors were wrong.
Yeah, the fact that it’s a job fair for what I presume to be prospective college graduates is a whole different animal in terms of military recruiting. When I was in school, the military was at the job fair; they sat at a table/booth just like any other company. These are prospective college graduates; the recruiters are presumably looking for officer candidates. They want people who would have the attitude and ability to make good officers, and they treat people like that fairly professionally. That’s way different from the bottom-feedsing recruiters that go around dangling cash and empty promises in trailer parks, just looking for some front line cannon fodder to fill their quotas.
Like I basically said upthread; the military is just doing its job and doing it well. If someone has a beef with the Iraq war (I certainly have issues with it), take it up with the jerks in the Executive Branch; they’re the ones who got us into this crap.
The Guard did not go into Kent State intending to shoot anyone. They did represent a show of force, just as our friends wanted in UCSC. Shows of force often have unintended consequences.
I’ve been in a riot, where the police response got totally out of hand. It spilled onto our campus though our students had nothing to do with it, and the protesters were long gone when the police tear gassed the girl’s dorm. It is reckless, and oh so Bush-like, to want to show them hippies a lesson.
It’s encouraging to realize that the UCSC administration, the cops, and the military recruiters did not over-react. Like I said above, doing what Magellan and Moto want would be the biggest gift possible to the protesters.
35 years ago, being young and stupid, I was actually pro-War - but I found that tear gas does not check political affiliation.
