Re Abuse: The Five Supremes, the MSM, and the Left’s Rampant Unreality, Absolutism, and Naiveté July 17, 2008
Posted by flipsidedon in Abuse of Prisoners, Ethics, Human Rights, Leftist idiocy, Military--U.S., Political Correctness, Reality & Evidence, Reason and Survival, Supreme Court--idiocy of, War on Terror, politics.add a comment
Remember on 9/11/01 the time period between the plane crashing into the 2nd tower and all passenger flights in the U.S. having been accounted for– including the identifying of United flight 93’s crash site? It was during that terrifying interim that President Bush gave the Air Force permission to shoot down any unaccounted for aircraft that was approaching Washington, D.C., without responding to warnings. If United flight 93’s passengers had not fought back that day and the flight had reached Washington, and our Air Force had shot it down, would the President be guilty of crimes against humanity for killng the 40 innocent passengers? If not, why not?
Especially in light of the mainstream media and the radical left’s constant denials that moral absolutes exist, it has been astounding for me to watch their absolutist moral judgments of America, the President, and our military related to alleged abuse of and denial of habeas corpus for captured terrorist combatants. It seems that absolutism is verboten except when it comes to the U.S. military and the security of the free world.
This is not only sheer intellectual and moral absurdity, but furthermore is the suicidal ranting of autovorous, self-masticating, Western elites living in a psychological Utopian Oz totally unrelated to the real world. Such a Never-Never Land fantasy (or delusion?) has nothing to do with morality, for morality essentially has to do with ethical dilemmas that face real people in real life struggles in the real world.
What Are The Moral Realities Of The Real World?
First, in the real world, choices must be made between good and evil.
For the sake of the secularists out there, let’s define “good” simply as “doing things that respect and preserve innocent persons’ rights to life, liberty, or property”; and let’s define “evil” simply as “doing things that rob innocent persons’ of those rights.”Second, in the real world, the use of physical force is amoral—the use of force is inherently neither moral nor immoral.
Rather, the morality of force depends on whether it is used to do good or to do evil. To use force to respect or preserve innocent persons’ rights is not only morally permissible, but in circumstances in which force is the only way to preserve innocent persons’ rights, force may be a moral necessity. On the other hand, to use force to do evil, to eviscerate an innocent person’s rights, is evil.Third, in the real world, because of the perversity of evil and evil-doers, reality is that there are times when there is no good option available for good people.
At times, the evil done by evil persons can limit the options available to good persons to only those that cause the loss of the rights to life, liberty, or property of some person(s).One example is that of Nazi officers in WW II who were separating people to be loaded either into cars for concentration camps or cars for the ovens; and they would make a Jewish, Polish, or other unfavored woman choose from among her children one who would live while the others would die. If a woman refused to make the choice, all the children would be killed before her eyes.
So, the mother with indescribable horror of soul, picked her child that she thought had the best chance of surviving the camps as the one who should live. She did so with wretched horror, knowing that the moral choice–when there was no good choice available–was to make the least evil choice available was to allow at least one of her children to have life rather than having all of them killed.
Another example is our soldiers in wars in Vietnam, Iraq, and elsewhere who are confronted with a child on whom terrorists have strapped a bomb and then have made the child approach the soldiers’ position where the terrorists will explode the bomb, killing the child, the troops, and any innocent civilians near the troops. So, do our soldiers shoot the child before she gets to their position?
A decent soldier (or a non-combatant facing this situation) has no good choice. All he has are horrific alternatives all of which lead to some innocent(s) dying. So, in the real world, as unimaginable and soul-wrenching as it is to all of us who are protected from such choices by our soldiers, the soldier must make a moral decision that the least evil thing be done—either that the innocent child must die or that the child plus a number of other innocents die (by his bullet, but not by his hand—it is the barbarian who created this evil situation specifically to use the decency of our soldiers as a psychological weapon against them.
The problem is most of us in our society cannot fathom this kind of evil, but it is a reality in the real world. There are real people who are so evil that they use the decency of good people as a weapon to defeat them, to defeat us. When they do so, all we as decent people can do is to choose the lesser evil. To refuse to choose is to make a choice.
This is why police exist and have weapons. This is why we have the second ammendment. This is why our Declaration of Independence was written. It is why we we have an armed military, fight wars, and have nuclear weapons. All these things acknowledge the reality that at times we can only choose the least evil alternative from among a number of evil options.
With this reality in mind, let’s return to our original questions about United Flight 93 on 9/11.
Imagine for a moment two alternative scenarios about that day.
Scenario 1
– What if a Special Forces or CIA officer had been on that flight and had been ordered by the President to kill the perpetrators and rescue the passengers? Would the President or the agent be tried for war crimes? If not, why not?Scenario 2
– What if a government agent had learned of the plot ahead of time, captured one of the perpetrators and learned of the plan, but the captive has refused to give the flight numbers? Would it be a war crime for the agent to abuse the captive or for the President to approve the agent doing so?For clarity concerning these questions, let’s use these three definitions of terms:
(1) harassment is engaging in acts (the sole purpose of which is to obtain information that would enable good people to stop a current or imminent attack against innocent civilians or combatants who are defending innocent civilians) that may cause the victim emotional or physical discomfort, but which cause the victim neither severe pain nor any physical injuries.
(2) Abuse is engaging in activities (the sole purpose of which is to obtain information that would enable good people to stop a current or imminent attack against innocent civilians or combatants who are defending innocent civilians), which activities result in the victim receiving only temporary pain (the painful activity ends at least as soon as the immediate threat has concluded AND the pain does not endure beyond 15 minutes after the cessation of the activity) and/or only superficial injuries.
(3) torture is to engage in activities that cause prolonged pain or injuries that persist significantly beyond the conclusion of the known imminent threat OR a pattern of repeated abusive activities occurring over an extended period of time unrelated to any known, specific threat.
Based on these definitions, in Scenario 2, would it be a war crime for the agent to engage in harassment or abuse (but not torture) to gain the information required to save the lives of 40 innocent passengers? Whether or not it is a crime, should the agent do so anyway?
Scenario 3
– Suppose it is not just passengers on Flight 93 that are threatened, but a large cruise ship with hundreds of passengers controlled by terrorists and a large dirty bomb or nuclear weapon on board. The agent has learned from the captive terrorist that the ship is going to enter New York City’s harbor and then detonate the bomb. Would it be moral for our agent to harass and abuse (not torture) one or more captives in order to discover what ship will carry the terrorists into the port of our greatest city and annihilate so many innocents that it would make 9/11 seem trivial in comparison? If it is moral for the agent to do so (or even monstrously immoral to refuse to do so), should it be a crime? And if so, why would it not be a crime to shoot down a flight with 40 innocents on board as the lesser evil, but it would be a crime to torture rather than kill the evil perpetrators?Scenario 4
– This is the same as scenario 3, with two exceptions. First, you are the agent involved. Second, your wife, children, entire extended family, and most of your friends live in the New York City area. You know that if you don’t get the necessary information in the next 24 hours, many of them will die immediately—along with 100’s of thousands of others—with several times as many dying slow, excruciatingly painful deaths.What would you do? What is moral for you to do? If you do that, should you be a criminal under federal or international law? Should you be a hero whose action saved millions of lives and yet, for the same decision, be legally charged for horrific crimes against humanity?
If your answers concerning the morality of the decision differ from your answers about what the laws should be related to this decision, then you are in the curious position of saying that those who risk their lives to protect the rest of us and who face the psychological burden of making such horrific choices should have the additional burden placed upon them of having to choose between doing what is right and humane or doing the the thing that keeps them out of criminal trouble. I ask you, “Is it just possibly immoral for us to put those who lay down their lives in order to do good, i.e., to fight to protect the lives, liberty, and property of innocents from evil aggressors, in the position of having to make such an untenable choice?”
I believe such unrealistic condemnation of all harassment and abuse as being war crimes is not merely incredibly naive, but is delusional to the point of psychosis, is despicably evil, and most importantly, is flagrantly dangerous for free peoples when we are at war for our survival against monstrously barbarous totalitarian fascists. Rather than attacking and interrogating our soldiers and security forces, we the people need to begin interrogating our politicians, prosecutors, judges who take these positions and annulling the powers that we the people bestowed upon them for the principle purpose of protecting our rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
don – 7/17/08
In your marriage, if the joy is gone–if the fire has died–can it be rekindled? July 17, 2008
Posted by flipsidedon in Bonds, Building, Love, Marriage, Revitalizing, Romance, Saving.1 comment so far
I am amazed at the prevalence of the common wisdom that is virtually universally accepted that once the thrill is gone only to be replaced by boredom, once the sense of burning love is gone to be replaced by a sense of obligation, then the joy in a relationship has died forever and cannot possibly be restored.
And the logical conclusion that follows this belief is that marriage is a trap made based on an unrealistic hope that love will last and grow.One of the major problems with this theory, which has been held by the cynical for eons, is that it casts human beings as helpless victims of fate, happenstance, or cosmic emotional accidents that destine us to just sitting around and hoping against hope that the love of our life, soul-mate, happens along
and that our love somehow lasts long enough for us not to be cast back out again upon our isolated emotional island powerlessly waiting for a more true soul-mate to happen by and rescue us.
No wonder so much cynicism exists.
Of course, what this cynicism legitimizes is the decision to make no lasting commitment to a sole person, but rather to go through a series of hot-then-cold sexual/romantic relationships as one journeys through life. I believe this liberation from commitment in sexual relationships was actually the intent of many in the 60’s and 70’s who fomented the sexual revolution and its claim that monogamy is not a realistic option for most human beings and that alternatives to the traditional family units of man, wife, and children are better suited to reality and to man’s polygamous nature. But that is a story for another time.
Reality is that you do have control over the persistence of romantic love in your marriage, and you as a couple can cause that sense of love to grow rather than to diminish over time.
No, you can’t make yourself or your mate feel “love” again just by wishing it or wanting it; and, no, you can’t directly control it.The key is to understand that, as with all emotions, love is not directly controlled, but is a by-product of other things.
Thus, how you can control, increase, or renew this feeling is by controlling those other things that result in that exciting, romantic, sensual feeling. And what are those things?The feeling of romantic love results from “bonds”.
What are bonds? Bonds are the myriad of things that make it beneficial or pleasurable for two people to be together. They are an extremely diverse myriad of things; e.g., being proud to be seen with the other person because of how he or she acts, to have interests and activities that you enjoy in common, to have common values and shared goals for the future, to be able to communicate and be understood by one another, to have similar senses of humor, to have complementary styles of behavior, to have personality styles that are mutually enjoyable, to feel valued and admired by one another, ad infinitum.If both of you are willing to do a bond evaluation, and then to work at rebuilding frayed and worn bonds, and to build new bonds, your love can be revived and grow.
I have had couples repeatedly come to consult with me as a last ditch effort before getting a divorce. And both the husband and wife would declare that their love had been destroyed, and they saw no possibility of it being recuperated. And in each instance, I would ask them, “Yes, but even if you can’t see it occurring under any circumstance, do you care enough about marriage and the vows you made to try?” because this is the primary issue.
Of course, many at this point were not willing to try. Even though they may have said that they were willing, all they really wanted was to make their mate try, but they were not willing themselves to try.
However, I have repeatedly seen two people, as skeptical as they were, begin to try to do a bond inventory and to work to build up bonds in areas in which their relationship was week, only to discover in a matter of months that they were intensely in love with one another once again.
One couple even began to get angry at me when I tried to point out areas that each one of them still had work to do, declaring their anger at me for “attacking” their mate whom they a few months earlier had been desperate to divorce.This takes work. And it works!
Think of how much work you did to win the love of your mate. You sacrificed time for them, changed schedules for them, complemented and praised them, eagerly listened to them and told them about your hopes, dreams, and plans, spent time hunting for gifts that would please them and taking them places you wanted to share with them, etc. And none of this felt like a sacrifice. You chose to do it, you wanted to do it, even when it was inconvenient or when you were tired.
When is the last time you told your mate how and why you appreciate or value him/her? When is the last time you told your mate how you love them more than any other man/woman. When is the last time you spent an entire evening just talking with your wife about your innermost dreams, your goals, and your future together.
When is the last time that you made it clear to your wife that you love him or her deeply? When is the last time you told your husband how much and why you respect him as the best man and husband in the world and for the skills that he possesses? How often are the two of you sharing an evening or day alone together doing some activity that you mutually enjoy? How often are you laughing together, telling each other jokes, playfully teasing one another? Well, obviously, I could go on and on.
The question is, “Have you continued to do these things that build closeness, togetherness, a sense of being bound together in this struggle called life?”
Most of you will have to say, “No!” No wonder the sense of love is not as strong.Start changing things this week! I promise–this can and will work if you both are willing to honestly try.
Start by doing a bond inventory together and individually. Identify the bonds that have atrophied through disuse, and identify the bonds that have never been grown. And come up with a plan together and individually to rebuild the bonds. Work on those things, and wait. Don’t try to make yourself feel love. Just build bonds and see what happens. Don’t try to make the feelings be there. Just nourish your heart with the nourishment, hydration, and sunlight of bonds, and the flower of love will bloom and grow.
Related Questions For Future entries:
What should a bond inventory include?
Are some kinds of bonds more important than others?
If such things as bonds exist, are there such things as anti-bonds that destroy the feeling of love?
What to do when your mate refuses to help rebuild and invigorate bonds?
What about love-at-first-sight and infatuation? How do you explain these phenomenon at times before any bonds could have been built?
don–7/17/08
Trust in Horses? by Bryan Shelley July 15, 2008
Posted by bshelley in campaign, politics.add a comment
Today’s Verse: Psalm 33:17 A horse is a false hope for victory; Nor does it deliver anyone by its great strength. NASB
Well, you might be wondering if I am about to go off on horse racing or para mutual betting or something. Hmm, maybe another day. It is tempting indeed. My wife mentioned this morning in response to all the political news flowing in this year that we need to remember to be praying for the election and our country. We are no doubt in some difficult times right now. The economy is stalling, the housing market is tanking, banks are starting to fold and congress argues over what color to paint the fire hydrants in Washington DC or some other worthy pursuit. We can and should write our representatives and offer up some advice from the real world requesting they redirect their attention to something a bit more helpful than additional taxes. But, for us who are in Christ, our hope and assurance is in God who promises to provide for His children. We are not one under congress or one under the President, but rather, one under God. Mere men will let us down. They pursue their own selfish and political agendas. To place our trust in a candidate is wishful thinking. Not that we don’t need to carefully consider the options for representation in the light of God’s standards and make godly choices at the voting booth, but our trust and faith need be in almighty God. He is our rock in the stormy seas. He is a light in the darkness of a fallen world. Now is a time when others are scrambling crying out, “The sky is falling, the sky is falling,” that we can put forth a powerful testimony of faith that God will carry the day regardless. We can show that we have an unshakable demeanor that in Him we will emerge victorious, delivered by His great strength. Yes, pray for our country and pray for our leaders, but know that victory is in God’s hands. In God we trust.
