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Frazzled wrote:
Some guy walks up and shoots your mom. Can you justify kicking him when he's down now? If you can't you're lying, to us or to yourself.

There's a difference between not being able to understand why something happens, and not being able to justify the fact that something happened. You're showing the former right now, and Sebster showed the latter earlier.

I disagree. Understanding and justification are two facets of the same gemstone.

I disagree. Understanding and justification are two facets of the same gemstone.

Frazzled wrote:I disagree. Understanding and justification are two facets of the same gemstone.

In the sense that you have to understand something to truly justify it, you are correct.

However, justification does not arise organically from understanding. When you discuss understanding with respect to an action you're only dealing in an evaluation of motive, with no necessary comment on the worth of that motive. Justification includes an implicit valuation. In short, when you understand something you are describing the way things are. When you justify something you are describing the way things should be.

I understand why soldiers would lose their cool when taking prisoners, however I wouldn't be able to justify it. What I can do is justify the measured application of force in situations where hostile captives are being taken, but that isn't quite the same as an emotionally motivated rough-up.

dogma wrote:

Frazzled wrote:I disagree. Understanding and justification are two facets of the same gemstone.

In the sense that you have to understand something to truly justify it, you are correct.

However, justification does not arise organically from understanding. When you discuss understanding with respect to an action you're only dealing in an evaluation of motive, with no necessary comment on the worth of that motive. Justification includes an implicit valuation. In short, when you understand something you are describing the way things are. When you justify something you are describing the way things should be.

I understand why soldiers would lose their cool when taking prisoners, however I wouldn't be able to justify it. What I can do is justify the measured application of force in situations where hostile captives are being taken, but that isn't quite the same as an emotionally motivated rough-up.

Same difference I don't get the point. I understand something and I can justify them doing it.

The point is that understanding and justification are different things. To use your example from earlier: I could understand why someone would beat the person who killed their mother, however I wouldn't be able to justify the action. The beating accomplishes nothing in a world where the state is meant to hold the monopoly on the legitimate use of force. Therefore, simply saying that you can't justify beating the assailant is not necessarily lying. However, it would most likely be a lie to claim that you were unable to understand why such an action would be taken, given that its commonly assumed that people love their mothers.

I can understand. I can also justify it. Hows that?

You seem to believe that the world should be a very violent place.

He is Texan.

Meh, my point simply was, i dont like high horses.

Should soldiers give people a bit of a kicking who have shot at or mortared or bombed them once they are safely captured?

No.. its unnecessary and unproffesional.

Do the great majority of the general public really give that much of a gak? No.

Would i be more than happy, nay, entirely expecting a good kicking if i shot at a Taliban patrol and they took me alive? Damn Straight. They tend to lop peoples heads off, so i think our soldiers show suprising restraint frankly.

dogma wrote:You seem to believe that the world should be a very violent place.

Should be? I have eyes. That is how the world is. There's no justice, just us.

Frazzled wrote:
Should be? I have eyes. That is how the world is. There's no justice, just us.

I agree, the world is violent. However, the actual nature of something doesn't have any necessary bearing on what we believe it should be like, though it does affect the feasibility of realizing any given change. You can't get an ought, from an is.

However, you now seem to believe that we can't justify anything, which seem odd because justice is a human concept. If we exist, it does as well; at least as a governor of relations between individuals.


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mattyrm wrote:Meh, my point simply was, i dont like high horses.

Should soldiers give people a bit of a kicking who have shot at or mortared or bombed them once they are safely captured?

No.. its unnecessary and unproffesional.

I agree. Something which is unnecessary, and unprofessional is also unjust to the extent that justice demands professionalism and necessity.

I don't thing that claiming an action to be unjust is necessarily self-inflationary. I make unjust choices fairly frequently, generally because doing so is more advantageous to me, that doesn't mean the choices cease to be unjust. It simply means that some combination of emotion and ignorance compelled me to make the choice, and that I should be reprimanded or punished for making it.

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:Perhaps you'd prefer they open fire on the crowd?

In what world are the only options available 'kick a captive man lying on the ground' and 'open fire on civilians'? Are we just playing incoherent hypotheticals and no-one told me?

Ooh, I've got one! If you had to have sex with one of them, would you rather it be with Courtney Love or Hagrid from the Harry Potter series?


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Frazzled wrote:Some guy walks up and shoots your mom. Can you justify kicking him when he's down now? If you can't you're lying, to us or to yourself.

Umm, what? Which soldier's Mum got shot? Why are we judging the conduct of professional soldiers by the standards of vengeance of people who's Mum just got shot?




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mattyrm wrote:I dont think any soldier should beat a prisoner, its unprofessional, but i understand how things can get heated. To sit in your chair and make such black and white condemnations of people is just ridiculous to me.

Where I come from there's a few really basic rules. Don't cross a picket line, always buy your round and don't kick a man when he's on the ground.

Your brother getting shot in the face next to you might make you behave a tad "hot headed".

I can understand a soldier acting in the heat of the moment. I understand that a soldier with an excellent record who does something wrong in a single second shouldn't necessarily be drummed out of the service.

But that does not mean what was done was alright.

And for the record, Piers Morgan was a monumental witch, and yes the photos were faked.

To clarify, Piers Morgan was a jackhole before that, and it was a low act even for him.


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mattyrm wrote:Would i be more than happy, nay, entirely expecting a good kicking if i shot at a Taliban patrol and they took me alive? Damn Straight. They tend to lop peoples heads off, so i think our soldiers show suprising restraint frankly.

Thing is, they're the bad guys. To the extent that we don't want to be bad guys, is the extent to which we hold ourselves to a higher standard.


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dogma wrote:There's a difference between not being able to understand why something happens, and not being able to justify the fact that something happened. You're showing the former right now, and Sebster showed the latter earlier.

I understand why it might happen, but of course I don't think it's ever justified. I didn't realise until now that someone might try to justify the act afterwards.

Forget that higher standard nonsense. Scratch the surface and 99.9% of humanity are animal predators who don't have the natural inhibitions God put into real predators to keep the race alive. For a large portion of humanity you don't have to scratch the surface.

Second guessing, armchair quarterbacking, all that is nonsense by people safe and secure trying to feel superior to people who are actually in the situation. Until you are in a persons' shoes STFU.

I agree Frazzled, although not on the God part* because I don't really follow religion, but thats a completely different thread that will devolve into a flame war (one I won't be participating in because I think they're a waste of time and idiotic) later.

But, I digress, an opinion forged after the event will difer significantly from one forged during the event. Fight or flight comes into play, some will want to bash heads, others will want to hide in the courner crying hoping that they seem too pathetic to kill. But, you won't really know what was the right one until after it is finished. Moral obligations are useless when it happens because they just get in the way of the fight or flight mechanism. Which is supposed to react almost instantly.


*I am not against the idea of religion itself, simply that its a set of realisations one has to come across through life. You pretty much have a choice of taking the preset ones that have been in existance for many years or coming to your own throughout life. Faith is a good thing in this world as it gives us hope when it is needed the most, but I'm not after false hope.

J.Black wrote:It's because they're journalists not reporters. Journalists are there to provide opinion on facts; not to cover the news accurately, but to make big heaping sums of money for their bosses to spank over.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ok, former journalism student here (one year at Northwestern). Lets set this all straight (or as straight as I can).

Journalist and reporter can be used interchangeably (though the defenition can change somewhat over geography and time). A journalist is not supposed to provide opinion, at least not when they are conducting their main job. Most newspapers instead include an editorial section for this purpose.

You guys have already touched on the majour problem that "a society gets the journalism it deserves." It is not competitive to do the job properly anymore. Anybody who disagrees with this need look no further than Fox "News." Even the most die-hard republican should be able to tell that it horribly violates every rule of proper journalism and intellectual discourse. Yet it is the most popular news channel in America.

Since journalists are people, and people have opinions, it has always been an internal struggle to stay credible. However, there are and have been people who understand the necessity of journalism and are able to rise above their personal feelings in order to report the honest and dirty truth. However, there aren't a great many of these. Its like doctors: We need far more of them than we have people who are really capable of doing the job right.

On top of the general fact that journalists are imperfect (like all people), we have the fact that they are, as has been mentioned, being overworked. Journlaism is a high-stress job, and asking somebody who is doing one good fact-checked story a day to throw on another one will necesarily produce much worse results. Further, less journalists means less productive inter-publication warfare. If any of you have seen Shattered Glass you'll know what I mean: While news organisations cannot be attacked by law (which is unpleasent, but on the whole necessary for more general reasons of government control), they are always beholden to both their readers and other publications that want nothing more than to discredit them. With less journalists their is a reduced ability to watch other publications.

Honestly, journalism is a noble proffession. It is simply being conducted by people who only would have done an acceptable job under normal circumstances, and who now are doing far more work than they can handle. Then you factor in the large media networks and the low income of internet publishing...its amazing anything gets written at all.

However, YOU can help fix the problem. Find specific journalists and publications that do good work and read them, pay for them, write them letters, tell others about them, quote them...do whatever you can to support them. Yes, it is work, but its alot less work than trying to do all of the things that good journalists do for us.

Lecture over, let the flaming commence.

If J. Black had said "columnist/talking head" instead of "journalist," his post would have been more accurate. As is, yes, journalist and reporter are interchangeable terms.

I've always thought that reporters are like lawyers...everyone bashes them until they need one (as in "people need to know about this").

Y'know, it's always seemed a little backwards to me that so many Republicans hate the media when in fact a free and critical media dovetails neatly into the old Republican notion of keeping the government out of people's business. Then again, it seems like the old-school conservatives have mostly faded into the background in the party. Which is too bad.

gorgon wrote:If J. Black had said "columnist/talking head" instead of "journalist," his post would have been more accurate. As is, yes, journalist and reporter are interchangeable terms.

I've always thought that reporters are like lawyers...everyone bashes them until they need one (as in "people need to know about this").

Y'know, it's always seemed a little backwards to me that so many Republicans hate the media when in fact a free and critical media dovetails neatly into the old Republican notion of keeping the government out of people's business. Then again, it seems like the old-school conservatives have mostly faded into the background in the party. Which is too bad.

Republicans don't hate the media. Republicans hate the biased media.
Its human nature. Fanatics on both sides hate the other side because its not for them. Obama doesn't have a lot of love for Fox. Nixon would, wel he didn't like the Big three for their perceived bias.

gorgon wrote:
Y'know, it's always seemed a little backwards to me that so many Republicans hate the media when in fact a free and critical media dovetails neatly into the old Republican notion of keeping the government out of people's business. Then again, it seems like the old-school conservatives have mostly faded into the background in the party. Which is too bad.

It ocurred to me recently that the whole republican "anti- big government" notion is donkey-bollocks. The stereotypical republican (and we should acknowledge that this is a stereotype) is anti-abortion, anti-gay marriage, and anti-union. ALL of these positions invovle heavy government involvement. They simply want different government involvement. This is not in itself a bad thing, but it is yet another unnesssecary layer of difficulty in figuring out what the hell is going on these days. It is very difficult to figure out what one is supposed to be arguing about when people hold such internally inconsistent opinions.

Oh good for a minute there I thought we were going to avoid stereotypes and fallacies about differing parties. Good to see thats been cleared up.

Frazzled wrote:Republicans don't hate the media. Republicans hate the biased media.
Its human nature. Fanatics on both sides hate the other side because its not for them. Obama doesn't have a lot of love for Fox. Nixon would, wel he didn't like the Big three for their perceived bias.

Come now, fox goes far beyond biased media. It is a massive spin factory, plain and simple. I mean, have you ever Watched The o'reilly factor? I'll acknowledge that my views are left-leaning (roughly libertarian socialst), but Fox offends every single journalistic bone in my body, which is most of them.

For example, during the first term of Bush's presidency Glen Beck did a count down to the next election. He would often say "Only XXX days until America re-elects George Bush as president." Unless you are implying that Fox can see into the future that violates any standard of ethical reporting.

Deary me I hate Fox.

Frazzled wrote:Oh good for a minute there I thought we were going to avoid stereotypes and fallacies about differing parties. Good to see thats been cleared up.

Frazzled wrote:Forget that higher standard nonsense. Scratch the surface and 99.9% of humanity are animal predators who don't have the natural inhibitions God put into real predators to keep the race alive. For a large portion of humanity you don't have to scratch the surface.

Second guessing, armchair quarterbacking, all that is nonsense by people safe and secure trying to feel superior to people who are actually in the situation. Until you are in a persons' shoes STFU.

You failed in that attempt a long time ago. Really, I think that if you're going to tell people to shut up, you really shouldn't post anything at all; especially if you're here to moderate the proceedings.

Frazzled, you seem to be implying that in order to talk about something you need to be directly involved in it, yet it is the people who are involved ina situation who are least able to objectively deal with it. That is one reason WHY a free press is so important: to hold people accountable in a way that even "good" people cannot do themselves.

This is a complicated issue though, and a paragrpah could not possibly cover all of the exceptions and subtleties of it. As a general rule, people must be encouraged to discuss anything, so long as they know apporximately what their level of knowledge is, are willing to change their opinion and make an honest attempt to understand and process what is said.

Blah blah blah

The only one here discussing self-superiority, and higher ideals is you. No one else has said anything about such things. You're drawing that assumption because you associate any discussion of morality to be non-inclusive of those speaking. That's an extremely poor assumption.

Its also worth noting that the first person we know to have discussed these (justice, the good, etc.) ideas was a soldier.

blah blah blah...blah blah.

That is surprisingly childish behaviour from Frazzled. Did Ghengis Connie find out his password?

Anung Un Rama wrote:That is surprisingly childish behaviour from Frazzled. Did Ghengis Connie find out his password?

No her compositions are erudite and award winning ( ). I'm the one who plays with fingerpaints. Plus i don't feel like getting into a shouting match, on an internet board, on a Friday afternoon. Not when I am wearing my Chavez crimson red shirt. Workers of the world unite!





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nintendoeats wrote:Frazzled, you seem to be implying that in order to talk about something you need to be directly involved in it, yet it is the people who are involved ina situation who are least able to objectively deal with it. That is one reason WHY a free press is so important: to hold people accountable in a way that even "good" people cannot do themselves.

This is a complicated issue though, and a paragrpah could not possibly cover all of the exceptions and subtleties of it. As a general rule, people must be encouraged to discuss anything, so long as they know apporximately what their level of knowledge is, are willing to change their opinion and make an honest attempt to understand and process what is said.

I'm sorry, I was not blah blahing in your direction.
I'm saying that unless I have been in their shoes, my credibility to judge is lessened.

Now back OT, I don't believe media holds people accountable, nor is it free, nor is it particularly educated. Free press referred to the ability to print speech that you chose to do, but thats an aside as well.

If only you were wearing a redshirt
...
(laugh, its funny)

nintendoeats wrote:Come now, fox goes far beyond biased media. It is a massive spin factory, plain and simple. I mean, have you ever Watched The o'reilly factor? I'll acknowledge that my views are left-leaning (roughly libertarian socialst), but Fox offends every single journalistic bone in my body, which is most of them.

For example, during the first term of Bush's presidency Glen Beck did a count down to the next election. He would often say "Only XXX days until America re-elects George Bush as president." Unless you are implying that Fox can see into the future that violates any standard of ethical reporting.

Deary me I hate Fox.

If you can't grasp that O'Reilly and Beck are op-ed pieces and not actual news reporting I don't think you stayed in journalism school quite long enough.