Sorry, I don’t lump you in with those people.
I don’t know if they make protesters the way they used to, but I went to school with a bunch of chicken-shit radicals who would have loved to get a lump on the head for the cause. It would have done wonders for their sex life. 
So let’ s see…
“Bad” military wants to recruit - “noble” students intimidate prospective “enlistees”.
Students say this is good.
“Bad” abortion doctors want to do their job - “noble” pro-lifers intimidate prospective “abortees”.
Students say this is bad.
I smell hypocrites on the UCSC campus.
Seems like freedom to protest is only for those who agree with their agenda.
PS. I am pro-choice and believe the military has all the right in the world to recruit on campuses.
Ah, ok. I apologise for thinking you did find that acceptable.
I disagree. When you prevent someone from being recruited (or seeking recruitment), then you’re taking that decision out of their hands. If someone wants to join the military, chances are their opinion is going to be “killing is bad, but necessary in some circumstances” (or of course, “killing isn’t bad at all”, a minority view). So when you’re not allowing them to make that decision for themselves, you’re valuing your own opinion above theirs; you’re disregarding their ability to make rational choices (or placing your decision-making as superior to theirs). I think you can see what this attitude leads to.
Fair enough. If I agreed with your prior reasoning, this would likely be my sticking point, too.
Damn. Helpful mods?
The problem is that when you join the military, you’re agreeing to (if so ordered) kill other people–which really takes the choice out of their hands. If someone’s going to have a choice denied to them, the reasoning would go, better to deny them the single choice of joining the military than to have someone else’s opportunities denied forever.
In other words, someone’s gonna be coerced here; which is the lesser of two evils?
Daniel
Eh, I don’t think anyone is characterizing the students’ actions as “noble” or the recruiters as “evil.” The recruiters want to recruit on campus. That’s their job, and they’re allowed to do it, thanks to some strong arming by the federal government. The students disagree with their being there and protested. They shouldn’t have blocked access for people who wanted to hear what the recruiters had to say, but aside from that, this protest wasn’t really all that unremarkable from any other. It doesn’t matter if their cause is “just and noble,” all that matters is they be allowed to assemble peaceably and voice their dissent.
Sorry, LHoD, but I don’t understand your post. Surely agreeing to join the army in the first place* is * agreeing to kill other people? It’s not like it’s an additional agreement that must be made; you sign up, you’re expected to follow orders, and those orders likely will include killing people. It’s not a choice being taken away, the choice in the *first place * is to submit to following orders for however many years.
This is probably not going to help, but I just talked to my son. He is a student at UCSC and former military (kinda, whole 'nother story). He told me that what the protests were supposed to be about (until crashed by general “war is bad” protesters) was the fact that the military is a discriminatory employer. UCSC has a non-discrimination policy for age, gender and sexual orientation. What the organizers of the protest were apparently objecting to was the military forcing people to lie about their sexual orientation or be banned from employment by the military. The policy for any other employer who recruits at UCSC is that they must not discriminate. The students wanted that policy respected.
My son’s take is that they should leave recruiters alone 'cause if they don’t get enough volunteers they’ll start the draft but he thought they had a point about the discrimination thing.
Dude, did you just apologize to yourself?
Wow. From expressing a desire to assault people with a rifle stock to apologizing to yourself, all in one thread.
And some folks think that hanging out here can’t make better people of us all.
I’m not talking about taking the choice away for the recruit; I’m talking about taking the choice away for the person whom the recruit is ordered to kill.
Daniel
Ah, I see. Sorry, I got entirely the wrong end of the stick.
I don’t see it as an either-or situation, though. Can you honestly say without that recruit, that or other people will not be killed? By the same logic you’re using, I could say that it would take away the choice from another recruit who is killed by the person the initial recruit could have killed (Apologies as that’s badly put).
Oops. Make that: “My apologies to the participants for this distraction. I won’t mention it again.”
I’m not trying to be snarky, but I really am not sure what that’s supposed to say; could you repost it?
Daniel
Sure. I realised myself it was very badly put, but I couldn’t think of an easier way off the top of my head. Hmm…
Ok, how about this. The first guy is Person A. Under your argument, A is recruited, follows orders and kills Person B, an enemy, thereby forcibly taking away B’s freedom of choice. This makes sense.
But can you honestly say that without A, no other recruit, like Person C, will shoot and kill B? Or, because A isn’t there, that B might kill C?
That’s what I meant by it not being an either-or situation. A being there or not doesn’t have a significant effect on whether a person will be killed.
What would these people want if they were given complete control of the military?
The follow-through on thinking seems to be a little lacking here (and with most protests of this type). Real goals and action points seem to be absent other than just general thuggery.
Shagnasty; so you’re saying they have foolish goals but no plans to reach them? Sounds good to me.
Although I think your extreme view of these people is pretty off. Now, i’ve no doubt there are people who think that, but i’d certainly say they aren’t a minority.
First off, if I’m guaranteed that person B is a combatant, then I’ve got a lot less problem with the whole situation: anyone who chooses to join an army doesn’t worry me nearly as much when they die by the sword. It’s still upsetting, but it’s not a travesty.
Unfortunately, a lot of noncombatant Bs get killed under our current setup. That really concerns me.
Second, even if C (another recruit) gets killed by B, remember that you said that recruits made their choice when they signed up. I somewhat agree with that. If C doesn’t want to face that choice, he shouldn’t sign up.
I strongly disagree with this idea. When someone is killed in a war, they’re almost always killed by another person. Hypotheticals are difficult, but there’s a very good chance that, had the killer not been there, the killee would still be alive.
This sort of thinking–that a person needn’t worry about the consequences of their actions, because if they don’t do the bad thing, someone else will–is extremely dangerous, and I don’t think you’ll find any ethical philosophers that support it.
Daniel
First off, they aren’t preventing anyone from recruiting. The recruiting offices in town are rather prominent and everyone passes by them quite often. These offices don’t get any special amount of protest attention. Plus all graduates receive TONS of recruitment mail spam after they graduate. They may have prevented them from recruiting at this one specific event, but I doubt that would have any effect on the actual number of recruits.
Secondly, UCSC isn’t set up to handle volatile situations like this. It’s a small town. The campus police spend their time breaking up the occasional kegger in the woods. I doubt the entire SC police department even has riot gear. Usually the administration’s (who get six figure salaries from the government and aren’t anywhere near aligned with the student body) attitude towards controversial events on campus is to not permit them. Even controversial academic senate votes are held in the summer when students can’t protest (which is another reason why student’s didn’t seek more officially approved means of getting their message across- they have very little power within the system and are usually just told “no”). But thanks to federal law, the campus didn’t have the discretion to not allow the military at this event. All the could have done was closed down the entire event and deprived a lot of students of a opportunities.
So they did the best they could- hoped for rain and mustered up whatever security they could.
Okay. Let’s concede for a moment that you’re right here.
If those students are so out of hand that they can’t be constrained by campus security, then they have no business on campus in the first place.
For the sake of the rest of the student body, they ought to be expelled.
Ok, but see my objection to your point about C.
It concerns me, too. But that’s a matter to do with military and political policy, not individual soldiers.
Yes, I know. My point was that someone is going to lose their freedom of choice regardless, but I was under the impression you were talking about the person A killed as an enemy combatant, not a noncombatant.
I disagree. Yes, people are almost always killed by another person, but my point is there is someone to take that place. With A not there, C will instead be that G.I, helicopter pilot, armoured car gunner. It’s not as if there’s simply no person there; that role is filled by another. An different individual, certainly, who is likely to react in different ways to situations - but not so different that they won’t follow the same orders.
Lucky for me that I don’t think that, then. At what point have I said you needn’t worry about the consequences of your actions? I think you’re assuming facts not in evidence. Regardless of whether a person would be killed by another “in another life”, or if you weren’t there, you still accept the legal and moral responsibilities of what you’ve done. You had the choice, you made a decision, you live with the consequences.