Is it ok to kill children?
- Thread starter guerilla
- Start date
He's absolutely right. Self defense and eye for eye mentality isn't at all the same thing.
But what if the reason the people don't want to lay down their guns is because we're killing their children or family members? It recruits more support for them when we do fuck their shit up. And FFS we outsource the occupation to unregulated goons (contractors and illegal aliens who get citizenship for serving in military) who represent US to the natives of those countries.
30+ years ago Afghanistan people loved the US. We've done a lot of stupid shit in the area to turn them against us.
Holding these two viewpoints you will inevitably contradict yourself. I understand your viewpoint of this being a boring topic. It does seem to be pretty cut and dry at a first glance. Especially when drunk playing mech warrior ;-).
You have stated two things though that will inevitably contradict each other and forever cause circumstantial arguments. Situations just like the OP where a group of people believe (or at least portray) they are acting in self defense while killing thousands of people.
1. Killing is bad
2. Killing is ok under X circumstance. X circumstance deemed by you.
I believe this is an interesting topic because protecting self interests is at the start of every conflict. You want to stop the OP, you will need to address this.
Took it as being disinterested as it was just a pretty poor response. Rather than believing that's what you actually thought, I figured it was more because you were disinterested.
I'm not sure that's the case. Haven't people been banding together to overcome and kill others for practically all of time?
How did we get to using and implementing "government" if it's such an illogical solution. Real people came to this solution for real reasons they felt were important. It's not helpful to dehumanize them, try and understand.
Lets take it from the ground up with an anarchist view.
I am having a problem protecting my property and my family from roaming bandits who steal and harass. In order to help protect myself I hire a 24/7 security guard. My neighbors like the idea and decide they want one as well. As more and more people get their own security, a local business man capitalizes on the demand and creates a company offering this security. Our town is prosperous because of a large gold mine. A neighboring town has decided they want rights to mine the gold as well and after we told them no, they have decided to use force. One such attack killed 20 people in our town. Because of this we have banded together to beef up our security and setup defense systems, but quite a few of the people in our town are arguing if we don't make a preemptive attack and neutralize this threat, more of our people will be killed.
No doubt thousands of innocents would be killed if we attacked. We know if we do not, it is likely we will lose our own.
As long as you define a self and decide it must be protected at any means necessary. You will have others doing the same for a wide range of reasons they deem as protecting the self.
It's understandable you would want to protect your daughter with any means necessary. How about your first cousin? Second cousin? Third cousin? Bob you just met today at work? Children in Syria who are being slaughtered?
You are drawing a circle around beings and saying this is what matters to ME, it's ok if I kill in order to protect these people because they are important to ME.
Are you not just pissing lines in the sand like everyone else?
You think the only way your kid is going to get beat up is going to a public school?
How about telling that to you daughter after you find out she is alive after being chained up to a radiator in some mexican dude's house for 20 years and every day getting raped and abused.
I'm sure you will still keep that "peaceful" attitude if this happens.
If it had a definitive answer this would be a much shorter thread.
Then why ask the question?
In all seriousness, all you can gain from this is a subjective response, as has been displayed eloquently in the posts above.
You could ask me, as a father, if it's ok to kill children. Personally, i dont think it is, but i'm completely aware of the millions of years of genetic necessity that ensure a bond between parent and child.... which is a prerequesite to the advancement of any species. I love my daughter, but i'm not oblivious to the biological processes that make that feeling of 'love' happen.
Of course, the answer may be different if you asked a serial child murderer, someone who kills children because they want to, for the the thrill..... And thats comparable to the collateral damage that happens within a war. They know kids will be killed, yet they do it anyway for their own gain.
In my mind that makes the generals who make the orders no better than the child killers...... They'd disagree though, and likely have a response similar to Jon's above. Again, Morals can be thrown to the side if there's a perceivable gain.
The real question is who is right?....
Righteousness only exists if theres a controller of what is moral and what is not - as much as i hate to bring this back to "a god", i dont think such a controller exists, therefore i doubt we'll ever get an answer to your question.
It's a very interesting question though, i think the lack of answers explains more about us as humans than the presence of one, so i retract my "why ask the question" statement.
That's a pretty sweet ride. I have always been partial to LLs and K2s. PPCs are wildly overrated.
Tell us more about your childhood mate.
Why should people discuss anything subjective (note: all values held by humans are subjective)?
No, what we can gain from a dialog is a sharing of ideas and opinions, and maybe some better ideas and opinions will result.
Fair enough.
There are a group of people that are arguing that it’s acceptable to kill anyone as long as they are the "enemy".
But the question is loaded, let's rephrase it slightly, is it ok for the police in America to storm a house of a suspected serial killer and shoot dead every one inside?
It's a rhetorical question, the answer would always be no.
This is why the question guerilla asked is loaded, people generally don't care that some brown skinned woman and her child were shot dead by US soldiers.
But here's a video for those of you that haven't already seen it.
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=is9sxRfU-ik]Wikileaks leaked video of Civilians killed in Baghdad - Full video - YouTube[/ame]
Watch it all. Now is that acceptable collateral damage?
Yes? Again rhetorical question, but now reverse it and make the people in the car an American family and the Apache helicopter is opperated by the Saudi Arabians.
Still ok? Didn’t think so.
But the question is loaded, it’s not "is it ok to kill children" the question is "it's is ok to kill children my government has told me want to kill me and hates my freedoms, and is somehow related to 9/11. 9/11!!!!!!"
But the question is loaded, let's rephrase it slightly, is it ok for the police in America to storm a house of a suspected serial killer and shoot dead every one inside?
It's a rhetorical question, the answer would always be no.
This is why the question guerilla asked is loaded, people generally don't care that some brown skinned woman and her child were shot dead by US soldiers.
But here's a video for those of you that haven't already seen it.
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=is9sxRfU-ik]Wikileaks leaked video of Civilians killed in Baghdad - Full video - YouTube[/ame]
Watch it all. Now is that acceptable collateral damage?
Yes? Again rhetorical question, but now reverse it and make the people in the car an American family and the Apache helicopter is opperated by the Saudi Arabians.
Still ok? Didn’t think so.
But the question is loaded, it’s not "is it ok to kill children" the question is "it's is ok to kill children my government has told me want to kill me and hates my freedoms, and is somehow related to 9/11. 9/11!!!!!!"
It wasn't disinterested, you just didn't bother to consider what I was saying.
I will almost never (hedging in case I did it once) post something insincere in a thread about ideas, particularly one I started.
That said, your first instinct was probably correct. No sense you and I conversing. We're too far apart and I don't have the energy or desire to close the gap.
I am so sick of this "brown skinned" BS - I see no reason to attribute color of skin to any of these arguments. Do you really think any of this has to do with the color of someones skin?
Maybe all of you that say this have a reason for repeating the same phrase over and over, is there thought behind it?
I am open to correction.
Well I wasn't particularly thinking of the color of some ones skin as a reason to kill them in my argument, more the fact that if one can find a difference, an oddity, some reason that they are "not like us" it makes it easier to dehumanize them.
Color of their skin, their religion, their culture, their clothing, anything to dehumanize and make the wanton death and destruct rained down on them acceptable for our side.
Why so angry? That's just the world we live in. Nothing any of us can do about it. Like it or not, there's alot of really stupid people out there who have no problem saying shit like, "we should just nuke all them sand niggers". Not our fault that's the reality of the world we live in.
Then the mainstream media doesn't exactly help any. Some 13 year old white girl gets kidnapped in California, and it's headline news for months. A few dozen Iraqi kids get murdered, just throw up a quick story which will pass in a day.