I'd like to express my sincere appreciation to "xpressive1515" for a beautiful illustration of the problems I've been addressing in my last two posts. When I said that many Americans, conservatives and liberals alike, are incapable of critical thinking, and that most conservatives are "inexcusably myopic" in their views on the sanctity of life, I didn't expect to have my statements underscored by such a pointed object lesson.
This individual disliked my assessment of the moral questions raised by the killing of non-combatants in war. They began charitably enough, noting that I am a product of the "extremely liberal" northeast. Unfortunately, I can claim no such excuse for the unconventional opinions expressed here. I am actually the product, by the grace of God, of a west coast navy pilot with excellent critical thinking skills and a southern preacher's daughter with a passion for history. They conspired to instill in us a love of learning, and encouraged us to study God's word and grapple with the difficult questions raised by our studies rather than simply trying to clone themselves. My grandfather was the only member of his gun crew to survive Okinawa. I have ancestors who fought in WWI, both sides of the War Between the States, the War of 1812, the Revolutionary War, and the French and Indian War. I am married to the granddaughter of, not one, but two navy captains. I live in an extremely conservative area, one of the heaviest Republican concentrations in the country. I am actually a Republican myself. In short, the explanation offered for my inability to reconcile the concept of justice with the killing of civilians is insufficient. I must accept full responsibility for my opinions.
The aforementioned charity, besides being misplaced, was remarkably short-lived. This individual began by taking issue with the concept of "innocent civilians," stating a biblical principle dealing with man's relationship to God and arrogating that principle to the question of man to man relationships. They further developed this fallacy by stating that "justice sometimes requires the killing of one's enemies to right wrongs" and invoking the bombing of Hiroshima, Hanoi and Iraqi and Afghan villages as examples. No attempt was made to demonstrate the assertion, so naturally, I asked what connection, if any, existed. Specifically, I inquired as to "the connection between justice as you understand it and the preventable deaths of non-combatants who have no control over the political, strategic or tactical actions of their nation's military?"
At this point, our xpressive friend had four options: (1) - attempt to demonstrate the justice of the actions in question; (2) - revise the history of the actions themselves (a common technique known as lying); (3) - try to redefine the concept of justice to reconcile the two; or (4) - ignore the question altogether. Quite honestly, I expected the first - or at the very least I hoped for it.
Instead, our friend offered an eight point rebuttal that consisted of transparent fallacies and other minor irrelevancies, none of which brought any new or old information to bear on the question. As an explanation or defense of the author's opinion it is unworthy of attention, but taken as an example of a decrepit state of mind that is all too common, it may be worth a cursory examination.
Passing over the first item for lack of words with which to answer it, we come to a sarcastic expression of regret that our military was not informed of the injustice of wiping out two entire Japanese cities to avoid the necessity of an invasion. Actually there were Americans who spoke out against our adoption of the Nazi method of air warfare at the time. The military leaders who made that decision justified it on strategic grounds, for the obvious reason that it could be justified on no other. I personally reject the notion that the only options were a wholesale slaughter of civilians or a long and bloody invasion. The bomb could have been used against the Japanese fleet or against land based military assets. Negotiations could have been opened with the Japanese with a real likelihood of success, considering the fact that their backs were to the wall. Since neither of these alternative steps were taken, we will never know whether our choices were really as limited as indicated. Regardless, bombing non-combatants to bring one's enemies to the table is morally indistinguishable from killing a murderer's family members to help bring him to justice.
The third item misquotes my assertion that Vietnam posed no credible threat to Americans, presumably because our friend was unable to dispute the actual statement. It is much easier to make one's opponent say what one wishes he had said and then attack the straw man than to go to the trouble of inventing historical details out of thin air. Items four and six allege similarities between my position and those of Carter and Obama, more evidence that the author didn't bother to read my previous posts to understand the perspective that so grated on his nerves.
Item five bothered me, I confess. The invocation of "the spirit of '76" brings the methodical revision of our history into sharp focus. The spirit of '76 was a passion for freedom and a grim determination to protect one's liberties, family, neighbors and homeland at all costs. Professional soldiers invading a foreign nation unprovoked have nothing in common with those farmers and tradesmen who stood together on their own soil to defend their homes and repel an invader.
And then, the coup de grace! I am a suspected North Korean who may have received assistance with voting from ACORN. How will I ever hold up my head again in cyberspace after that brilliant rebuttal?
Actually, the mere fact that xpressive1515 hit "submit" on that comment should be enough to shame him or her into hiding for a while. While I don't expect that to occur, I hope this display of foolishness will serve to prompt more thoughtful consideration of the fundamental question here by those who possess the requisite cognitive skills. I have many good friends who disagree with me, and all of them could have done a better job of defending their position. But none of them are able to address the real reason that conservatism is dying. Until Americans begin to associate conservatives with intellectual honesty and consistency again, they will not recognize true conservative thought as superior to liberal emotionalism, because what passes for conservative thought today is mostly parrotted, euphemistic party-speak.
18 comments:
"Arguements Against Idiots"
Pat, after further review of your comments I have a couple more of my own to add. First of all you made mention that your grandfather was the last surviving member of his gun crew on Okinawa. The shame you must feel at being the offspring of one who has killed more unborn children than Obama. I, however, salute him for performing what must have been unspeakably horrifying duty. I'll wager he didn't spend the rest of his days carrying a load of false guilt about it either (assuming he never sat under your teachings). Secondly, you say your father was a Navy pilot who has excellent critical thinking skills. You seem to value critical thinking very highly, as you ought, yet confuse critical thinking with the RIGHT to criticize. Your father will tell you that as a pilot at no time was he free to exercise his thinking skills in regard to executing orders. Those were set by superior officers and not open to suggestion or improvement by the men in the field. You seem to couple crical thinking with rebellion against authority, call it libertarian-ism (which it doubtlessly is that poison), and pat yourself on the back for having the courage to speak truths which, in your mind, our forefathers were either too cowardly or too stupid to utter! Wise up, cowboy. The reason that no leader ever spoke like you is because you aren't offering leadership at all. No one in our history has ever advocated Nazi bombing tactics. I will give you one million dollars for each V-1 and V-2 rocket site America ever operated. Furthermore no one ever gleefully anticipated the killing of civilians during bomb missions. Contrarily, every precaution has always been taken to avoid it when at all possible (it is not ever completely possible and this is and was understood by everyone involved). Before the first Atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima the Army dropped loads of pamphlets warning the citizenry to flee (Hiroshima was a military complex). Third, the declaration that it would be wrong to kill a murderer's family in executing justice flies in the face of Old Testament practices which were spoken out of GOD's mouth. I'll let you straighten Him out on that one. There is no guarantee that God is a dispensationalist, so let me just say that because we happen to disagree with that particular mode of justice in the 21st century doesn't and can't redefine the morality of it. We're not as powerful and wise as all that, you know.
Where in the Old Testament was it part of God's law to kill the family of a murderer? The only examples I can recall were direct judgments by the hand of God, without human intervention, to destroy the offspring of evil men. Nowhere do I see that authority being placed in human hands.
GOD often instructed the children of Israel to kill not only all the human inhabitants of the land, but all their animals as well. In my opinion this is a needless sidetrack away from the issues of today and I personally do not now wish to explore or diverge into that debate some 4000 years later. If it please the court, your honor, you may consider the comments I have made about that withdrawn for our purposes here.
Lets see ... this may be unwarranted, but I'm assuming that the issue in your mind is still the original issue you challenged me on, namely, whether justice necessitates, or is consistent with, the intentional targeting of noncombatants in wartime. If that assumption is correct, professor X, all of your subsequent comments have been needless sidetracks and should be withdrawn for purposes of this discussion. They are, however, useful in determining the tendency of your mind to wander when confronted with unconfortable facts. I will bother to mention that neither my grandfather nor my father ever targeted civilians, and neither would have done so even if ordered to. This issue was addressed in the aftermath of the My Lai massacre, when the military reiterated its official position that noncombatants are not legitimate targets and that orders to target them should be disobeyed and reported up the chain of command. Even today it is considered unacceptable for ground combat forces to directly kill unarmed civilians. The hypocrisy of this position lies in the fact that killing civilians indirectly, through air warfare and other more sterile means, is not only permitted but sometimes positively ordered.
I decline the honor of being considered courageous for saying anything you've read here, but I challenge you to name the "forefathers" who were unwilling to say what I've said. It is my impression, based on your performance here, that you have not the slightest grasp of American history, except maybe a few names, dates and events. If I am wrong, your successfully answering this question will serve to correct that impression.
To clarify where this discussion stands, you now have two direct questions to answer. The first I referenced at the beginning of this reply, and the second was just posed. Since this is my blog, any posts from you that do not attempt to answer one of these two questions will be deleted. If your purpose here is to demonstrate that I am wrong in writing what I've written, you will at least attempt to answer the first question, and I promise not to delete any comment that actually addresses that question. If, however, your purpose is to entertain yourself with your own opinions, you can easily start your own blog, or better yet, stand in front of a mirror and spout Hannitisms to your heart's content. Just check the expiration date on the can first.
Well, let's contrast two forefathers. I stand with Harry Truman who said, "The decision to use the atomic bomb was no big deal. It was just another weapon in the arsenal of righteousness." You stand with John Lennon who begged, "Give peace a chance." Your can of baloney expired in December of 1981, when President Reagan's (Ray-Gun) star was shining and Lennon lay dead in the street, while my cornocopia of Hope, Peace and Prosperity will never grow old.
Patrick, I know your generation can't realize this, but real peace is the peace of the victor not the peace of consensus. Real victory sometimes requires killing more than just soldiers if the civilian population is contributing to the prolonging of the war. Ever heard of General Sherman?
I really would not consider Harry Truman a forefather, and I disagree totally with that quote from him. It looks like this is more of a moral issue for Xpressive than a political one, and I have to say I completely disagree with his moral stance on the subject.
You are right, there were times when God directly ordered the children of Israel to perpetrate total annihilation. But the leaders of Israel were not the ones who made those decisions. The day I believe that God speaks directly to the President, or to the generals of our military, will be the day I support their decisions to murder civilians.
In other words, probably never.
P.S. - (They really should put an edit button in here) I have heard a great deal about General Sherman, and I think he was wrong. Useful, but wrong. JMO.
I don't think of either Truman or Lennon as "forefathers," but that's a rather subjective judgment so I won't dispute it. Sherman is an interesting character, but he wasn't a Christian and didn't claim to be, so his opinion isn't relevant from a moral standpoint. Your difficulties seem to arise from an inability to separate morality from expediency.
Real peace is neither the peace of the victor nor the peace of consensus, it is the peace of God and it comes only by Jesus Christ, never by human force. Your position mimics the Soviet mantra that "peace is the absence of resistance." Neither Truman's nor Lennon's idea of peace ever stood a chance, then or now.
You managed to answer the second question. How about answering the first one? What is your definition of justice, and what is the connection between your idea of justice and the intentional killing of noncombatants who have no control over their leaders' decisions?
Good answers, and you are both excellent writers, by the way. Now, let me clarify my position on war and what it is. Joseph Stalin said that when one man dies it is a tragedy, but when 10,000 die it is a statistic. He was refering, of course, to the slaughter of the Poles both during and at the war's (WWII) end. I am not advocating for the likes of him, but I will use him to illustrate the mindset of a leader during the course of a long and protracted war. Didn't the singers in Israel extoll David for killing ten thousands more of their enemies than King saul? Surely, we don't question their morality. If this seems like a digression it is not. You are questioning the use of the A-bomb on moral grounds, presumably because it kills many people quickly and "indiscriminately." As an aside to an earlier comment of yours, let me assure you that if your grandfather manned a large gun at Okinawa he also shot indiscriminately at a set of coordinates never knowing the intended victims of his shells many miles distant and, if it is as you say, he was indeed the last survivor of his buddies, would have gleefully destroyed entire Japanese villages (or dropped an atomic bomb on them himself) AT THE TIME.
Now, on to the justification of killing non-combatants. When two nations are at war is it merely the leaders and their armies who are at odds or is the whole of the people? I can assure you that once the sons of a nation begin to die it should be at once become a national affair. (In our case today, the backbone of the people is so weakened that the nation cries out, not for vengeance, but for retreat, merely to save lives!) So, in our non-post-modern model the civilians lay aside their private ambitions and convert their factories to making weapons of war, ration their own stores of food and gasoline to supply the armies and, in short, become as involved in the war as they can be without proceeding to the front lines themselves. So is it wrong to war against the civilians so engaged? Hardly, if you entertain the slightest hopes for victory. Our own soldiers in Viet Nam encountered small children carrying hand grenades and bombs to be used against them. Civilians now drive suicide bombs into their midst or use themselves as human bombs by strapping explosives to their body and boarding crowded buses (why am I having to tell you this???). So, President Patrick, I ask you what your orders shall be for the conduct of the war in Iraq.
May I ask you if you believe that soldiers have a say so in the decisions of their leaders, and if not, should they be required to die?
Now, FreedomFirst, I ask you why you do not believe that God still speaks to men? In the times of Washington and Jefferson our Declaration of Independence and Constitution were both thought to be "God Breathed" documents well after the time of the completion of Scripture. I have no problem believing that God still uses the United States to punish His enemies and that His desires must be communicated through the office of president. One more thing to you. The act of taking human lives during war is not equal to murder and the two terms are not interchangeable.
I agree that the two terms are not ALWAYS interchangeable, as it is impossible to conduct a war without some civilian casualty. But when civilians are targeted, I feel perfectly justified in calling that murder.
I do believe that God still occasionally speaks to individuals, but I most certainly do not believe that he speaks to the sort of wretched cretins running this country at the moment. They meet nearly, if not actually, all of the criteria given in Proverbs for the seven things God hates. So no, I am quite certain He is not speaking to them. Using them, yes. But as I pointed out on the previous post, He used Judas also. That did not remove the guilt that fell on Judas' shoulders. You seem to view the President in much the same way that Romanists view the Pope. Why? I do not believe that any human being alive today can claim to be the direct voice of God in political affairs. And if any could, it would not be George Bush.
Also, my view on this war in Iraq is not that we need to retreat in order to save lives, but that we need to cease and desist from doing wrong. Our leaders put us in this war under false pretenses, we have done many wrong and unrighteous things in the pursuit of victory, and it is my firm belief that we are in the wrong both by invading that country, and by remaining there. You cannot achieve a just victory by unjust means. The tree bears fruit according to how it grows.
This does NOT reflect on our soldiers, whose duty it is to carry out their orders so far as their consciences allow. But I fear there are many hardened and smothered consciences in our military today, and they will have to answer before God for their actions. It is those giving the orders who must answer to us, the people. And so far I have heard no answers that justify their actions.
Your Stalin quote is an excellent example of the mindset of many leaders during wartime, but I hardly understand how that strengthens your moral argument. I questioned our specific use of the A-bomb, not because it killed many people indiscriminately, but because it was used with the intention of killing many noncombatant civilians. Killing enemies is what war is all about, which is why true Christians have always believed that war should be strictly defensive in nature and only a last resort, not the option of choice.
Regarding your specific "justification of killing noncombatants" - you pose an interesting argument while continuing to skirt the uncomfortable moral question. For a christian, the first question to ask about any war is whether it is a just war. You argue that "when the sons of a nation begin to die it should ... at once become a national affair." In your ideal, "the civilians lay aside their private ambitions and convert their factories to making weapons of war, ration their own stores of food and gasoline to supply the armies and, in short, become as involved in the war as they can be without proceeding to the front lines themselves." Sounds wonderfully patriotic, in a Nazi or Soviet kind of way. For the christian, true patriotism is caring enough to do all in one's power to bring God's blessing on one's nation. Cheerfully participating in aggressive war doesn't do that.
But let's assume that we were engaged in a just war against an enemy nation that was motivated and mobilized in just the way you describe. We would be justified to target those civilians who are engaged in hostilities, or those directly supporting the war, such as factory workers or train crews. None of the instances I've objected to meet those criteria. Your argument fails to support your original assertions that "there are no innocent civilians" and that justice, which "sometimes requires the killing of one's enemies to right wrongs" permits the slaughter of the women and children of an enemy nation. On an individual level, one cannot plead self defense for intentionally harming others close to their attacker. I may not use a hand grenade to stop a school shooting. What is different about war that the same standard ought not apply?
On your last question to me, from a discipline perspective soldiers should not question the decisions of their leaders. But from a moral perspective every individual is responsible for his own actions. The Almighty Creator will not excuse one who recklessly took the lives of his fellow creatures on the grounds that he was following orders. Each one has to decide for himself whether to cross the line of right vs. wrong at a leader's command. I've made that decision already, and I am not afraid to answer for it. You have to answer for your own decision, not me. But I would be negligent if I didn't point out to you and everyone I can the potential impact of that decision on your eternal destiny.
Have the guns fallen silent at Aberdeen? How about a new philosophical question: should a Christian who is fundamentally and solidly opposed to homosexuality (believes it to be a sin) continue to show allegiance and obedience to his government once an open homosexual is seated in the executive cabinet? How far may he reasonably carry resistance before he becomes guilty of the sin of insubordination, or must he carry it out to death if need be? As you know this is no longer a hypothetical question...
Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures - or the Constitution either, for that matter. Your not-so "philosophical" question is based on faulty assumptions: first, that Christians owe allegiance or obedience to the President, which they do not: second, that the current President-elect is a sodomite, which I currently have no reason to believe; and thirdly, that Christians ought to "resist" lawful authority if it rests with a sodomite, which is unbiblical.
To see how silly that question is just substitute a sin that happens to be more popular among political leaders for "homosexuality." Observe:
"should a Christian who is fundamentally and solidly opposed to [lying] (believes it to be a sin) continue to show allegiance and obedience to his government once a [ typical politician] is seated in the executive cabinet?"
You might also substitute pride, oath-breaking, adultery, theivery, blasphemy (like Bush saying christians and muslims worship the same god), murder (of women and children during reckless military operations), oppression of the poor (like the modern welfare system) or many other sins regarding which the christian right is (for the most part) strangely silent.
I thank you for misinterpreting this new question and for bristling at what was intended as a friendly question. I can't help but notice that not only are you now arguing the exact opposite side of resistance you also lack knowledge of current events. Obama HAS appointed an open and proud homosexual to a cabinet post. Now, the question, sir: Can you as a Christian continue to send your tax money to that form of government? It's not that hard to comprehend the question if you will concentrate. Once more,can a Christian, without risking condemnation to his own soul, send the resources God has blessed him with to Washington to be consumed by the very people God condemns once they are seated in government for the sole purpose of furthering the lifestyle? Yes or no?
My apologies, I misunderstood your reference to the executive cabinet as referring to Obama himself. However, I'm curious what you think has changed by this latest appointment? Bush appointed an open sodomite to the position of ambassador, not to mention a fanatical muslim as well. What is the difference?
Your claim that I am arguing the "exact opposite side of resistance" is more evidence that you still have no clue where I'm coming from. But - you asked a yes or no question and I'll answer it. If such a contribution were voluntary and indeed for the intended purpose of furthering that lifestyle, no. However, since taxes are taken, not given, the answer is yes. We're not responsible for the use a thief makes of stolen property.
I still wonder what basis you have to treat sodomy as different than other sins, or to claim that the presence of a sodomite in a position of power changes the nature of a christian's responsibility/relationship to their government?
Remember, brother, this was a question for you, not for me! Ha! I just wanted your opinion. I am merely an irrelevent and anonymous presence in cyberspace:)
At the beginning of this thread, I may have wondered if this was a Proverbs 26:4 or 26:5 conversation. I think in the end X-man cleared it up for everyone.
What can I say after that? lol
Thanks, Billy.
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