I was discussing the current WTC situation with my girlfriend and I found myself on the side of serious retaliation, while she was more concerned with not killing innocent people. I understand her side, but I am more in favor of making sure this will not happen again to anyone I know, and I feel the best way to discourage it from happening is to really punish the people and countries involved.
I said, “I would kill an innocent person that I didn’t know before I would let them put one bullet in a six chamber gun and aim it at your head and pull the trigger”. There is a chance that the bullet won’t be in the chamber and the person I killed lost their life for nothing, but I am not willing to take that chance when a person I love could be dead. Now, take our current situation. If we don’t do something to ensure that the terrorists will stop, we are giving them a chance to kill more people that we love.
So I guess my question is to the people that are against bombing. Do you value the lives of people thousands of miles away as much as the people that you love here in this country? For me the answer is NO.
I think the sentiment of the Bill of Rights was
It is better for a guilty person to walk free than for one innocent person to be in jail.
I think the same thing goes for innocent lives on the other side of the world, regardless of thier belief system.
The better question is how much of your personal freedom are you willing to give up to ensure that this won’t happen again.
I don’t recall the name of the sociological theory that describes the behavior. A person’s level of interest and caring works in circles of influence. There’s yourself, your immediate family, your clan, your compatriots, your country. For some of us, it’s a bit out of order. It’s only natural for people to care more about those close to them than those far away.
-John Donne
Not far from the terrorist camp where this originated, I imagine that there lives a woman. She has no connection to the terrorists, but the hut and small patch of land she owns are all she has, and they happen to be in the blast radius of that camp.
Somebody loves her, too.
And you know what? I respect the fact that the person who loves her would try to kill me in order to protect her. He’d be perfectly within his rights.
Don’t you understand? It’s better to hard-hearted and alive than compassionate and dead. Life - isn’t - fair.
Allesan has a good point…that woman in that camp has people who would eagerly kill people to save her, and I think that is somewhat normal, if not always desirable on a moral level.
I think that prior to Tuesday I would have agreed with the “don’t bomb” mentality, but I think Tuesday was a real wake-up call for me. We have seriously hobbled ourselves with our philosophy of avoiding all risks of collateral damage. Now I do think we should avoid killing civilians on purpose, and do what we can to protect the lives of Afghan civilians (or wherever a retaliatory strike might be). But at the same time I think our response does need to be firm and decisive
It is an unfortunate aspect of reality that in war civilians die. We did not ask for war, but it was declared against us by an enemy who is too cowardly to show his/her face. Trying to pretend that we are not at war is not going to make it go away…we have already been down that road and it has led to perhaps 5000 American deaths. It is time for us to acknowledge the reality of this situation, and deal with it in away that avoids needless brutality, but effectively protects the well-being of Americans first.
I disagree. But that’s me, and I don’t criticize anyone who does not share that view.
Andros - writing that sentence caused me great pain; I wish we lived in a perfect world so that I could share your belief. However, I have never been convinced that willing the world to be perfect can in fact make it so.
First you survive. Then you make the world a better place.
The reason for being compassionate is not to make a “perfect world”; it is to be as perfect as one can.
True; but what good is that if you - and others like you - are dead?
Face it: the innocent will always die. Always.
I fail to see your logic. If, in surviving, you contribute to making the world a worse place, your subsequent effort will be undone bofore it’s begun. It will also be hypocritical, moot, and possibly ineffective.
If civilian casualties are acceptable, then what is your problem with the destruction of the World Trade Center? You imply that the attackers declared war; if this is the case, then they must have had a reason. That reasoning, like your own, led them to believe that their goal justified the death of a number of civilians.
A plausible statement: Since civilians of our people were attacked, we are outraged, and justified in returning fire. This enemy poses a threat to our way of life and our everyday citizens. They must be defeated.
Now, this seems to be a popular viewpoint n this thread. It’s agreed that this is a justifiable statement for the American people. However, should the U.S. attack someone and injure or kill civilians, the attacked will have the same point of view.
Go ahead. Read that ‘plausible statement’ again. Can’t you just imagine similar words coming out of the mouth of some fundamentalist fanatic?
Are you tellng me that you’ve awoken to the need for violence? For vengeance? For hatred? To the need to cast off the handicap of our own morality?
A man tells his son to go kill an old acquaintance. The dutiful son obeys, but is killed in the process. The father lives in an apartment building. It’s one of those rather run down places… filled with the kind of people your mother told yu to stay away from. Since the father has barricaded himself redundantly, the police conclude their only choice is to blow up the apartment. If some of the neighbors are killed, so be it. They weren’t real desirable characters, anyway.
I am concerned. Please, do not take this as a personal attack. There is nothing I want to do less than to hurt or offend you. But I am concerned that a great many people may be wiling to turn to hate, to violence, to destruction in response to recent events.
Untrue. Because if you’re the one who survives, you can pick up the pieces and rebuild the world into something better than before. If the people trying to hurt you are the survivors, then they won’t - because if they would, why would they try to hurt you in the first place?
Ahh, but the police had sworn to protect those neighbours, hadn’t they? Under the law, they were responsible for their lives.
Oh. So since the civilians that will be killed aren’t Americans, we don’t need to care whether they die or not. We didn’t swear to protect them, because they’re not U.S. citizens. I guess they can die, then. They’re not special enough to care about; they’re not American enough.
Simple. You abandon your morals to survive. You’re no longer one of the good guys. Morality can’t be turned on and off like that. And the damage you do in killing ‘them’ so you can live cannot be repaired.
It’s a matter of entropy. You cannot use evil to achieve good. You cannot end violence with violence.
And you’re brave new world is built on a foundation of hate. “We hated them. So we killed them. Now the world is better because only We are here.”
And you know what? Both sides can believe the above statement, in respect of themselves, independantly!
Anyway, your reasoning needs to be certain. Have you considered this problem from all sides? These people may have a very good reason for hating Americans.
Everywhere there is violence, people believe they have a rock-solid reason for it. Northern Ireland. The middle east. A variety of civil wars, including the American. The October crisis.
Just like everyone who ever fought on either side of the above conflicts, you’re certain that you’re so right that you can justify killing anyone. Terrorists, their neighbors, their opponents who live up the street.
Well, I’m convinced. If only we could all adopt that point of view. Why, If I came up with a good reason, I could kill anyone I want… as long as they’re not from my own nation-state.