In a message dated 7/11/99 9:15:12 AM Pacific Daylight Time,
DBuchanan@ClassicalRadio.org writes:
>
> Ken; If you think of it this way maybe it would be more palatable for
> you,.... The 1940's is a time when the whole world had gone insane.
> World war two represents a total collaspe of morality and civilization.
> The United States simply was not immune to that collapse. The allied
> powers had no magical protection and was quite involved in the same
> crazyness. Listing the atrocities of the enemy justifies nothing. It
> only confuses the issue by making it overly emotional. It whips up a
> blood-lust that makes mass murder seem less objectionable. I mean how
> irrational is your claim that "there were no innocent civilians"? This
> is a kind of demonization that takes rational debate off the table. Of
> course there were innocent civilians in Japan. By that kind of reasoning
> we ought to kill the family, friends and neighbors of all our convicted
> murderers, not just the guilty individual. I agree that fire-bombing an
> entire city has the same effect as an atomic bomb, but that only means
> that they are equally immoral. (And I doubt that morality has changed
> significantly in the last 50 years.)
Dear David
Sorry this is delayed...I haven't been reading my email. But I've been
following yours and Ken's little discussion and my own view is different from
both of yours. My own view is that when someone declares war on you, than
your fight becomes one of a defense of your reality. In a MOQ sense, you are
defending your organic, social and intellectual way of life. If someone is
threatening you organically, than the intellect has no say in it...it is kill
or be killed. Socially, the intellect can decide if it can "live with"
surrender as someone else suggested. But in a biological sense the MOQ says
it is moral to win the war over anything else...It's not just a social Vs
social here with the intellect supposedly deciding the most moral course.
It sort of goes over one of my favorite personal quotes and I can't even
recall exactly where it came from, but it comes from a MOQ kind of viewpoint
-- "A social institution's primary goal is to continue the social
institution's existence. Any other purpose is secondary." It's not perfect,
but it's a good rule to remember when thinking about social issues.
You both say something about the craziness of the world during W.W.II and it
still comes back to the above quote. Threaten the Biological and a static
latch in the Social level kicks in with 'kill or be killed.' There may be no
other morality in WESTERN!! Civilization (with Japan another example of
Western expansionism).
Xcto
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