What I am trying to say is that the nub is whether A is connected to B. A gun shop owner selling a gun (A) is OK as long as he has no reason to believe that the customer will use it for murder. But if the customer is a known fellon with a track record of shooting people, and the gun shop owner knows this, then A becomes firmly connected to B. He does A knowing that it will result in B, hence A becomes immoral. Probably, except you have to wait until the axe murderer actually strikes. Of course, you cannot sell him the axe to facilitate that. Connectednes of A to B. A gun shop owner who sells a gun to a customer for home defense is not immoral. If the customer later decides to shoot some innocent party, the gun shop owner's act is still not immoral --he had no way of knowing that the customer would at some point in the future do this (unless he knew that the customer was psychologically highly unstable, in which case his act becomes immoral because he knew it was likely to happen). There is no way that a farmer can predict whether the bread baked from his grain will be eaten by a murderer, nor would he be able to do much about it. Moreover, there is no enabling act; a hungry murderer is still able to murder (he just feels more cranky while doing it). Again, connectedness of A to B. My selling my computer for charity is unlikely to save anyone's life. However if making a financial sacrifice will directly save a person right there (let's say the NHS has had its reforms, and we need to pony up for life saving treatment STAT!), you and I both would reach for our wallet. Like most of my colleague clinicians I do a lot of unpaid overtime. We're sort of donating to charity every day. How many people could our few quid provide clean drinking water for? It's not as simple as that; there is a lot of **** between A and B. But I do buy the Big Issue. Let me put it this way: it is not OK to sell weapons when you know that the person is very likely to use them to harm others. Providing them with weapons enables them to harm others. A and B are very closely linked. The morality of our action depends on how much our act will knowingly enable them to do harm. Well, I was thinking about the New Testament to be honest, not the Old Testament which was written well before Jesus came along. But it illustrates nicely what you get when you decouple the concepts of morality from doing good or doing bad.
So ignorance excuses immorality? I don't think that idea is compatable with any sort of firm moral basis. Surely enabling murder either is or isn't immoral, and that's not dependant on whether you happen to know the person is inclined to murder. But even disregarding that point, what if the person has no track record of murdering (as with most murderers), but does it anyway? Are you then guilty of immorality? You never know that A will result in B, that is the problem of induction, and it is only amplified when dealing with human kind. Similarly you never know that A will not lead to B, which is my real problem here. You can never know your action won't enable someone to kill. I agree you have to wait until he strikes, but I disagree that you can not sell him the axe. Right, but again you're introducing one of two problems. That either morality is dependant upon knowledge of a person, or that moral luck exists, and neither is acceptable to me. The idea that an ignorant person can avoid a lot of immorality simply by maintaining their ignorance, to me, seems counter to a good sense of morality. Similarly moral luck is obviously obnoxious. In the United Kingdom we produce approximately 60% of our own food. If you farm for 40-50 years of your life, you will pretty much feed, on average, half the country for a day. That means you feed people who will commit crime. You don't know which ones will commit crime, but statistically speaking, British farmers are enabling criminals to have the strength to commit their crimes. A hungry murderer is still able to murder on day 1, but not on day 100. It is an enabling act just as much as selling a weapon to a murderer is, in that it allows the murderer to commit their action in a way which would otherwise be more difficult without the enabler's assistance. It is morally equivalent, if not equal in moral force. You can not escape the fact that as a society we enable murderers (as well as home defenders, and a variety of other wonderful things). We do not murder people though. We are not all immoral. Right, but the point I'm making is that if you would sell your computer and give that money to charity, you'd probably be able to save a few dozen lives for a year or two, if not more. You knowingly let people die because you'd rather have your computer than save a bunch of people you don't know. I don't call that immoral, I do it too. Hell, virtually every person above the worldwide average income does this to some extent or another. But you're calling that immoral, and that's a problem for you. You allow people to die because you like your computer. That is no better than selling someone a gun and them murdering some innocent with it, but I say both are OK, you say both are wrong. Oh I know, I don't doubt your goodness Nexxo, you doubt your own goodness without realising it. Doesn't matter. You're saying that letting someone die when you could save them is immoral, I'm saying that your few quid (and I bet if you sold most of the stuff you don't need to survive you'd get a good few quid) would provide clean water for as long as it would before it ran out, but at least you wouldn't be letting them die when you could otherwise save them, which you are now. That's OK though, because you are not born a slave, you are not born with the responsibility to save everyone who needs it, and it is not immoral to let people die. It just makes you a nice guy if sometimes you give some of what you have to others who need it more. You never know. Simple as that. Not to mention that morality requires absolutes with strict borders. You say A and B are closely linked, I ask, how closely linked do they have to be for an act to be immoral? My system is very clear cut. You break it, you bought it. You held the door open of the guy who broke it all, you're in the clear. You're saying that if I have a certain amount of knowledge about the douchebag who's going to break everything, then I'm in the wrong for holding the door open for him. You always think about the New Testament, if I didn't know you better I'd accuse you of being a massive hippie. The old testament's where it's at. If there was a god out there, I'd want him to be the type that fireballs cities just because he doesn't like which hole they stick their penises in, and bans eating entire branches of creature simply for the hell of it. edit: Also, if you ask me, the legal systems of most western countries are far better examples of what happens when you decouple the concepts of morality from doing good or doing bad. The law has gone so far off course in most western countries that I've had to come to the conclusion that I no longer care about it, will accept the consequences of ignoring it entirely, and now just follow my own personal morality.
So you better be careful who you sell those weapons to, no? Who said that ignorance excuses immorality? I am just saying that if you know (or could reasonably have known) that your act will enable a crime, you are complicit in an immoral act. No, morality is dependent on your knowledge of the likely consequences of an action. The ignorant person prefers to avoid the issue by staying ignorant? Okelydokely. But ignorant people cannot act responsibly, and therefore get their freedom to act curtailed. If you cannot make informed decisions about actions which may harm others, you do not get to make them at all. No, because of the remoteness between A and C. (Let A = A for Action, and B = C for Consequence if that helps the discussion). The greater the distance between your action and some consequence, the harder it is to reasonably know or predict how your action will pan out. You cannot be responsible for the Butterfly Effect. Probably? There is no way of knowing whether my selling my PC and donating the money to charity will touch these lives at all (the way charities work, it probably won't, but that's another story). My point is that in that scenario there is a very immediate connection between A and C. Basically, yes. Admittedly, it makes for a better book. And a better movie. No argument there...
So the French have dropped weapons to the Libyan rebels, will be interesting to see if more arms are dropped as it could provide the means to end the conflict sooner.
No, it will become longer and bloodier. This is another one of those: "But Saddam Khadaffi is a dictator. Surely his countrymen will be glad of an opportunity to get rid of him and embrace Western-style democracy?" reasoning errors. Of course the utter ****-for-brains morons who think this totally forget that if a dictator manages to stay in power all these years, he must have a fairly large number of people supporting him, mustn't he? Moreover, ordinary people may decide that he is a *******, but he is their *******. Who the hell are we again? Oh yeah, we're those money-obsessed heathens after their oil. Welcome to Iraq Mk. 2: expect another ten years of bloodshed. If this is democracy at work, how come I don't remember voting for it?
Actually no, Nexxo. You don't need many supporters, just a critical number of people at ideal positions. Do you really think that for example whole Czechoslovakia was full of communists ? In reality it was single digit number of the real "hardcore communists". But when you have the people at top levels of army, if you have a KGB style secret police, if you have a brutal police force, then there aren't many who will risk creating a revolution. So yes, small number of people can create enough fear to stay in power.
Sure, it's not a great solution but I see these things as the lesser of two evils. The only other things that are going to happen are another few decades of tyranny, a coup d'etat thus reverting back to the preious possibility or in the worst case scenario the government is taken over by extremists. All anyone wants is to live peacefully but that just isn't an option, it's easy to get suckered into thinking we're messing these places up but the reality is that these places were just as bad in the first place. I don't think going to war is justifiable but I can't even comprehend the means to justify all the poverty in this world why we sit by in absolute leisure so I'm prepared to sacrifice any absolute morals that have if I think it wil help someone. This couldn't be any less true. Look at the taliban, they rule over afghanistan with a fist of iron but are a tiny subset of the populace. You can control people very effectively if you have the right mechanisms in place. Simple, you were out-voted.
What I don't fully understand is how we went in with a mandate from the UN to protect civilians yet the UN is now able to ignore Syria? Surely Syria is now killing civilians so now we should go bomb the Syrians as well as the precedent has been set with Libya? I personally think that we shouldn't have gone into Libya and we should have "left them to it". The west should stop meddling in the affairs of the middle east so much in general which would reduce the 'ammunition' that Islamic extremists use to indoctrinate people with and generally help with reducing the religious tension that is brewing between Islam and Christianity. If you look back it wasn't that long ago that the Europeans were killing and oppressing there own people and committing genocide themselves BUT through time that has changed. You can't force in a a few months a whole country/region to change its ways, they must do it themselves over time. I must say as well that arming the rebels is rather daft. Afghanistan anyone?
I don't think arming rebels will bring about the same kind of problems Afghanistan brought us. Libyans are actually really nice people and not a backwards population like afghans. I'm really bored of our country trying to be something we're not. Something struck a cord with me during Question Time last night, and that is that we are a tiny population trying to act tough. We really need to take a step back and stop investing in sorting out the worlds issues. We should be a back-seater as it were. War, over hundreds of years has destroyed our countries wealth. That and bankers ... and Labour ... and Conservatives ... and ... etc.
That is a myth. A dictator gets into power by promising the masses what they want, developing a cult of personality to meet their psychological attachment needs. Then he stays in power by absolutely ruthless oppression. The only way to oppress a large population is to keep them in fear of the dictator and distrust of each other. So you need an army willing to go out and suppress people (the tide always turns for a dictator when his at abandons him), and a big secret police apparatus to fuel the mutual distrust. Its purpose is not to spy on people as much as to make people spy on each other and believe that their own neighbour could be spying on them in turn. It is a clever combination of recruitment into evil (why do you think gang initiations involve an act of brutality? Or child soldiers are forced to kill their own family? It is the point of no return; a statement that Now, You Belong To Us only) and divide-and-rule. In Eastern Germany, practically half of the population was thus recruited to spy on the other half. And they did so. All dictatorships are hallmarked by a huge, preferably lumbering and inert bureaucracy. The idea is to give the impression of a sprawling, pervasive government machine that is impervious and everywhere, and that nothing will ever change. Resistance is futile. You also need a decent-size minority of civilians (preferably a specific sociocultural or ethnic group, and preferably your own, so you have an in-group tribal dynamic ready-made) who are loyal to your political movement. Saddam had his Ba'ath party; Mao had his Cultural Revolution. Khadafi has his own ethic group who support him too. You make sure that you have a galvanising (pseudo-)ideology. Mao had his Red Book, Khadafi has his Green Book. The idea is that dissenters are made to believe that they are in the minority, and in the wrong. So yes, it takes a large number of people. Dictators need their support to get into power, and then they need political allies and generals, and minority popular support rallied around tribal loyalties and an ideology to stay in power. Political allies need their own subordinates (again, the same rules of tribal loyalty apply: nepotism is rife) and generals need an army (which is a tribe with unifying ideology all of its own). It is quite a tour de force to become a dictator. Right time, right place, right people. It is much like democratic politics, actually. The best dictators make it look as if there is almost no difference at all. Yeah, right...
Sorry, got a bit fluffy as it was an early morning post, I meant in comparison to the likes of the afghans.
Nexxo - Your a coward. Its because of men like you that the genocide in Rwanda happened. Its because of people like you that human beings were shovelled into ovens. You sit there and spout rhetorical nonsense while innocent people die in their thousands. Do you really know what would be happening in Libya if NATO had not displayed the courage that you so obviously do not have? People murdered in their thousands. Men, women, children, tortured and butchered on a huge scale. Just because they took a chance to fight for their freedom. You are a disgusting example of the apathy that is chronic on this planet. That is easier to look away and pretend things aren't happening. That people aren't being killed. That people aren't dying. It isn't often that the great powers stand strong and do something that is right. Most of the time they look the other way and pretend that nothing is happening. But in this rare case, they are standing strong. They are fighting for something. In Libya, many men stand on the front line, ready to lay down their lives in the cause of freedom. Many will die before the war ends. Many will end their lives on the front. But they are fighting for something real and tangible. The right to freedom. It would be the easiest thing in the world to shy away. But we aren't. We are going to fight, and we will keep fighting, until Libya is free. Screw you and your cowardice. You would rather hide in the shadows than stand tall and be counted. History will count you as apologists that would rather talk than fight for a cause.
It was also a major cause of our wealth, power and influence. Invading/defeating other countries is something we have historically been rather good at.
You are being naive. Do you really think we are there for freedom and democracy? Or are we perhaps there for the oil? Khadafi has been a ******* (and I mean, a right *******; you have no idea. I once met an oil engineer who met him personally who said that you don't quite get the flavour until you look in his sheer-crazed-evil eyes) since the 1970's. He was suspected of being involved in Lockerbie. But last year we were doing oil deals with him, the money he had to pay in compensation for Lockerbie finding neatly its way back to him in the form of oil business advances (and strangely coming to exactly the same amount). Saddam Hussein? Levered into power by the CIA in 1970's; supported with Western money and weapons (including WMD) for two decades as he murdered his way to the top. Rumsfeld shook hands with him once. We only intervened when he outlived his usefulness. Our 'intervention' has since caused the deaths of twice the number of civilians that he killed --at conservative estimate, through practices that made Bradley Manning's mind snap. There is also the small matter of two million homeless refugees, and of course Iraq is now home to various terrorist factions. Iran? We overthrew a democratically elected government in 1953 and installed the Shah. His regime is still considered by Amnesty International as one of the most brutal in the world. The CIA sent instructive videos to his Secret Police with choice titles as: "How to torture female interrogation subjects". The subsequent revolution and the fundamentalist regime we have to deal with now is a direct result of this intervention. Afghanistan? We sponsored fundamentalist madrassi in Pakistan and Afghanistan to raise the next generation of freedom fighter to take up Jihad against the evil Soviet occupiers. We trained and equiped the Mujahedeen. Why, in 1996 the Taliban were still good friends, esteemed guests of the State of Texas when we were talking gas pipelines with them and promising them big money. Fundamentalists? Hey, it's their religion. Autocratic rule? No problem. Oppression of women? Not our business. At least someone is going to keep some order in that place, so our pipelines are safe... There is a long list of our noble interventions, in the Middle East, in South America (e.g. Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala), in Africa, in East Timor and Indonesia, that installed dictators, and/or supported them in their genocidal ambitions, stoked the flames of civil war by supplying factions with money and weapons (occasionally both sides), and caused the deaths of millions. Similarly there are plenty of countries suffering under the rule of tyrants where we offer nothing but some empty political platitudes. Tibet. Burma. Darfur. Zimbabwe. No oil, see? But BAE always manages to sell some weapons to dictatorships that shouldn't have any. It's good for our economy. Even where our intentions have been pure (Yugoslavia), it has been difficult not to get our actions hijacked by evil opportunists. In 1999, after the Serbs start 'ethnic cleansing' Albanians in Kosovo, the US and NATO launched 70 days of air strikes against Serbia. Thousands of Serbs were killed. The ethnic Albanian KLA guerrilla army, a drug-dealing group of thugs who were first accused of ethnic cleansing Serbs by The New York Times back in 1982, started an open season on Serbs living in Kosovo. Think of the civilians? Funny you should mention that. On 7th May 1999 I was standing on Mars (well, virtually: in Active Worlds). The avatar I was talking to belonged to another computer geek like you and me. He was a young Serb, at that very moment sitting in his appartment in Niš as it was being subjected to NATO Cluster bombing that, incidentally, resulted in many civilian casualties (but no military losses). He could hear the explosions outside. What do you say at a moment like that? "Sorry we're bombing you..." I managed lamely. He was remarkably cool about it, considering that his take on the Bosnian-Serb conflict (which he related to me) was very different from what the news had told me. His story was complex, messy, and it went back centuries. I logged off having learned a few lessons that night. 1. War is always a lot more complicated than the politicians make out; and 2. It is always real people who die; people very much like yourself. Even those on "the other side". Those who forget the past are forced to relive it. Pity it's the foreigners abroad who have to die for it. You want to give weapons to Libyan rebels? Go ahead. Let's see who actually ends up with them once Khadafi is gone and the dust settles. I mean, when we supplied the Mujahedeen in Afghanistan that worked out pretty well, right? Right? You are angry with me because you feel powerless at the human suffering you see in the world, and you want to let rip at someone. Your frustration is understandable. Your anger is misdirected. Calling me a coward may make you feel good for a few minutes, but after you calm down you will feel a little bit worse. Similarly it may feel right to dispense some military violence to some dictator who deperately deserves it, but it won't do anything to solve the complex political and economical problems that we helped create and sustain there for several decades, without any regard for innocent citizens, all for our own selfish greed. We will just change a regime again, and then we will do business the same old way we've always done it, again. Rinse, repeat: same as it ever was. If we want lasting, meaningful, life-saving change, we have to be the change we want to see in the world.
Saw this cracking video on youtube. Heavy fighting round Misrata! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9BKjf3b6frE
Interesting video, more progess westwards again by the rebels though it needs to be indepently confirmed.
