Jewish Politics

[SquirleyWurley]

I think it's hard to break sometimes for people to away from the notion that responsibility for something bad NECESSARILY equals punishment by society/religion or blame.

There's the responsibility of someone who did something horrible, that sort of responsibility in the sense of blame, guilt, punishment by society or by religious condemnation, etc.

Then there's responsibility in the sense that we want to be prudent, careful, cautious, thoughtful, prepared, aware, for our own sake, knowing that we can take responsibility and perhaps avoid certain situations, think a bit, know something about how to protect ourselves, etc.  We are responsible agents in that we can do the best we can with what we have.

[VLinvictus]

It was left wing banter in that you offered sympathies and excuses for seeking revenge against America.

You're an atheist. Shouldn't you be "left wing" since the "right wing" are Christians and hate you?

If America held you captive in Guantanamo, wouldn't you want revenge? I don't understand why anyone would not want to make one's captors pay for one's mistreatment.

[VLinvictus]

It appears to me that you are drawing an arbitrary line concerning the application of responsibility to the actors involved.  Why is it that the moral agent that caused or participated in the chain of causes is only responsible when no other moral agents are involved, but when another moral agent is introduced, then no responsibility is assumed for the participation?  That seems entirely arbitrary and reflective of a liberal bias.  Those who actively participate through a continuum of poor choices with others must also participate in the share of responsibility by virtue of the participation.  It makes no difference if the moral agent participates alone or with another as long as participation occurs.

1.) How is this a "liberal" bias? What does "liberal bias" mean?

2.) The arbitrary line is the rights of the individual. That is the line that separates justice from injustice, right from wrong. The rapist and the rapist alone chooses to violate the rights of his victim. No one forces his hand. No one controls him and makes him act against his well. The same goes for the thief and murderer. The offender must make the choice to transgress that arbitrary line that the social contract establishes around each individual. I don't understand why you don't see that.

Your conclusion doesn't follow from your premises.  You appear to assume that only the last choice made is the only one bearing responsibility based upon the principle of freedom.  However, what it fails to consider are the very forces that influence one's freedom to act.  Those forces, whether they be forces of attraction or lust, bear some responsibility as long as those forces were consciously and deliberately applied on the recipient.  Nobody is entirely free from forces exerted by others.  Tom pissed off Steve by talking disrespectfully about his mother.  Steve had the free choice to refrain from a verbal retaliation or to walk away, but this ignores the point that Steve would never have been in that situation unless Tom had forcibly put him there.  These influences cannot, nor should not be ignored when considering the proper application of personal responsibility.

I do not believe that one's emotion mitigates one's culpability. Human beings are supposed to be better than that. If one cannot control his emotions, one is to blame for that as well. In all of these scenarios, one person -- the offender -- chooses to violate the rights of another. Up until that point, no crime has being committed and no injustice done. I don't care whether you're motivated by anger or lust or hate (rape is actually a crime of hate and agrgession, not lust) or pure cold calculating reason -- when you choose to violate the rights of another person, when you choose to declare war on society itself by violating the social contract, you and you alone are to blame for your actions. You can't cry to teacher and say "He made me do it!" That's infantile nonsense. He who commits the crime bears the guilt of the crime.

And here is where we part company.  She may have the absolute freedom and right to verbally assault a stranger in a fit of road rage, but this doesn't alleviate her from all responsibility when he decides to slap her silly.

When he crosses the boundary and assaults her person, he has trangressed and he alone is responsible.

You see, the world works by a means of cause and effect.  By participating in the causal chain, we play a unique role in the way something results.  The more we participate, the greater the chances that we control the outcome.  The more we control the outcome, the more responsibility we bear concerning the outcome.

The outcome is the only thing that matters. No one has the right to violate the rights of another person. That is the fundamental law of society.

Hence, if I chose to break away from department protocol by administering oxygen to a patient regardless if she's holding a lit cigarette, and an explosion occurs injuring both of us, then I am partly responsible because I knew the risks before the administration.

Oxygen and fire are amoral natural phenomena. This is the same as bunging a toaster in the bathtub. Of course you're responsible.

Even if I warned her to put out her cigarette and she refused, I still share in the blame.  Is she responsible too?  If she knew the risks involved (since I warned her), then yes, she too is responsible.  We both consciously participated in the result, and therefore we both share in the responsibility.

This has nothing to do with the violation of rights. The patients rights nor yours are violated in this scenario.

[VLinvictus]

I think it's hard to break sometimes for people to away from the notion that responsibility for something bad NECESSARILY equals punishment by society/religion or blame.

I do not care about what personal thoughts or feelings an individual may have about his or her "responsibility." That's his or her responsibility. That doesn't change the fact that the person who commits a crime -- and that person alone -- bears the guilt of the crime and is deserving of punishment.

It's stupid to leave your house unlocked. It's imprudent to thus invite theft. However, that does not excuse the thief nor does it mean that you deserve to have your property stolen because of your foolishness. No one has the right to steal but everyone has the right to their property. The thief violates the rights of his victim and he alone bears the guilt and responsibility for the crime.

Then there's responsibility in the sense that we want to be prudent, careful, cautious, thoughtful, prepared, aware, for our own sake, knowing that we can take responsibility and perhaps avoid certain situations, think a bit, know something about how to protect ourselves, etc.  We are responsible agents in that we can do the best we can with what we have.

That's all well and good, but it has nothing to do with rights and justice.

[SquirleyWurley]

It was left wing banter in that you offered sympathies and excuses for seeking revenge against America.

You're an atheist. Shouldn't you be "left wing" since the "right wing" are Christians and hate you?

I identify as a thinking human being, and I generally dislike political rhetoric of all kinds.  As a thinking being, I've found that I will tend to disagree with any party line sooner or later, any movement on its rhetoric and methods and positions, in some area or other.

I'm against torture, period, for reasons which transcend any political identifications and labels people may have.

I'm generally careful about the idea of anyone or group having great power, and using one's power to kill is a very serious matter, I'd prefer that to be an individual matter of self-defense, legitimate police actions, or national self defense, and anything else raises warning flags, governments can really get ugly with the death penalty, so I think life imprisonment seems to be a more prudent option for the worst offenders, although frankly I think a swift death for sadistic people is quite ideal and I wish it happened more often.  Those might be said to be conservative reasons for being wary of the death penalty, opposing the death penalty, etc., but they could be termed liberal reasons also, and I don't care how it gets labeled, except that the label does not convey what I think and how I feel and my argument at all.

I do not sympathize with someone who uses terrorist tactics to exact some sort of revenge against America on behalf of Islamofascists, despotic Monarchs, terrorists, etc.

I can sympathize with being traumatized and confused, but I cannot sympathize with the targeting of innocents, and at any rate the US is far more civil than any Arab country to its dissidents and criminals.

When someone has been unjustly treated by the US government or its agents, I sympathize with the anger that desires justice.  That sympathy can't be extended indefinitely and it is certainly conditional, but that sort of sympathy does exist.

If America held you captive in Guantanamo, wouldn't you want revenge? I don't understand why anyone would not want to make one's captors pay for one's mistreatment.

HOW?  If someone tortured me I'd want to kill them personally, and I'd want to target them personally, I wouldn't want to blow up some bus taking out other innocent and non-involved people from my own and other countries, as if that got my point across.

[SquirleyWurley]

I do not care about what personal thoughts or feelings an individual may have about his or her "responsibility." That's his or her responsibility. That doesn't change the fact that the person who commits a crime -- and that person alone -- bears the guilt of the crime and is deserving of punishment.

Don't we all agree about that last part?

Others were simply mentioning that prudence is important, and one may be more or less responsible or reckless, given an understanding of the situation, the odds, one may have a more or less accurate and adequate understanding of the risks, etc.

It's stupid to leave your house unlocked. It's imprudent to thus invite theft. However, that does not excuse the thief nor does it mean that you deserve to have your property stolen because of your foolishness.

I think we all agree on this.

[VLinvictus]

I think we all agree on this.

Then why have we been arguing? 

I reject the notion that a person can "deserve" to be the victim of a crime due to carelessness or imprudence or a simple mistake and that the "responsibility" of the victim in any way diminishes the guilt of the violator or the right of the victim to have his or her rights protected and to receive redress for his or her wrongs. Talk about laying "responsibility" on the victim of a crime appears to argue for those points. It is not for anyone else to judge whether or not another person is being "responsible." The victim of a crime is a victim and the one who violates the rights of another -- regardless of how he or she came to that decision -- is a criminal and bears 100% of the guilt and blame.

[VLinvictus]

HOW?  If someone tortured me I'd want to kill them personally, and I'd want to target them personally, I wouldn't want to blow up some bus taking out other innocent and non-involved people from my own and other countries, as if that got my point across.

I don't understand how I -- who hate all terrorists and want to see them exterminated from the earth -- got cast in the role of defending a terrorist.

[SquirleyWurley]

I think we agree on the responsibility thing.

Re: terrorists.  Wasn't the subject that guy from Gitmo who was eventually released and then blew up a bus or something?  You were talking about how maybe he was so mistreated and felt so angry about the injustice that he had his reasons to blow things up.  You were then charged with liberal claptrap or whatnot, and I called it left-wing nonsense.  The point of contention was that someone who may have been mistreated feels anger at injustice, but we disagreed as to how far we would sympathize with that, given the actions that were taken later on.

[VLinvictus]

Re: terrorists.  Wasn't the subject that guy from Gitmo who was eventually released and then blew up a bus or something?  You were talking about how maybe he was so mistreated and felt so angry about the injustice that he had his reasons to blow things up.  You were then charged with liberal claptrap or whatnot, and I called it left-wing nonsense.  The point of contention was that someone who may have been mistreated feels anger at injustice, but we disagreed as to how far we would sympathize with that, given the actions that were taken later on.

I was falsely accused of suggesting that his experienced justifies his actions; my only statement was that it explains it if and only if he was not actually guilty of being an "enemy combattant" when he was captured..

If he was actually an "enemey combattant," then we need to know what process led to his release. If he was an "enemy combattant" to begin with, then it should come as no surprise that he would be an enemy combattant afterward.

edited to remove psychotic nihilistic misanthropic rant

[SquirleyWurley]

I was falsely accused of suggesting that his experienced justifies his actions; my only statement was that it explains it if and only if he was not actually guilty of being an "enemy combattant" when he was captured..

Ok, there is a difference between justifying and explaining.

[Atropos]

No offense, but how did this thread get here from "Jewish politics?" 

I supported Hillary, but now I'll vote for Obama. I respect McCain -- it's nice to have two candidates for once both of whom I neither fear nor loathe -- but I am disquieted by McCain's foreign policy and health care opinions and I worry about the further rightward tilting of the Supreme Court. 4 more-or-less liberals and 4 conservatives with one swing vote makes for close decisions, but its better than one ideology running the whole show.

[metis]

I supported Hillary, but now I'll vote for Obama. I respect McCain -- it's nice to have two candidates for once both of whom I neither fear nor loathe -- but I am disquieted by McCain's foreign policy and health care opinions and I worry about the further rightward tilting of the Supreme Court. 4 more-or-less liberals and 4 conservatives with one swing vote makes for close decisions, but its better than one ideology running the whole show.

Ditto and nicely said.

Shalom,
Vern

[Acumen]

I supported Hillary, but now I'll vote for Obama. I respect McCain -- it's nice to have two candidates for once both of whom I neither fear nor loathe -- but I am disquieted by McCain's foreign policy and health care opinions and I worry about the further rightward tilting of the Supreme Court. 4 more-or-less liberals and 4 conservatives with one swing vote makes for close decisions, but its better than one ideology running the whole show.

Why are you disquieted by McCain's foreign policy and health care positions?  McCain's foreign policy decision not to withdraw from Iraq based upon an unalterable, fixed timetable has been demonstrated to be the most prudent choice fitting for a wise Commander-in-Chief.  Our situation in Iraq has improved dramatically in the past year, and it appears that ground conditions will allow our troops to come home much sooner than we expected.  Not only does it appear that the war is ending the way we desire, but that we will have one more ally in the middle east and more strategically located military bases to secure our national interests.  Not too shabby.

What in particular do you not like about his health care proposal?

[Faithfulee]

O'Reilly can be pretty entertaining.  I have been known, though, to listen to conservative talk radio on long drives because it pisses me off enough to keep me awake.  But the worst is Glenn Beck, who I have personally deemed The Single Most Annoying Person on TV. 

Note:  I consider that title nonbinding, and reserve the right to change it without notice upon being more annoyed by someone else.  But there you have it.

I don't know how this got from Jewish politics to talk shows, but I put my money on Rush Limbaugh.

He doesn't ridicule Jews or Christians but he sure does a great job on Liberals and Democrats.

I hope he spends some time on why Jews should be fearful of Obama.  Obama is courting the support of Muslims.  He isn't doing too well,  but Muslims believe that his mealy mouth attack on our success in Iraq and Obama's willingness to have surrender a year ago, is far better for Muslims than McCain's determination to win in Iraq and continue the struggle against Islamic imperialism wherever on earth it might appear.

[Acumen]

Last time I checked, Israel favors McCain to Obama - at least that's what the Jerusalem Post was saying. 

Just saying.