errata x2

I don't mean to assert that the issue is a clear one. But as my friends know, I've been big on this subjectivity of aesthetics and morality thing, that it's epistemologically unhelpful to discuss ethics (or anything for that matter) in broad, formal, objective terms. Ya, sure, one could assert that I'm doing that now. But whatever.

My point being that, if my neighbor is being hacked to bits and his family is next, and I have a gun i.e. the means to stop that massacre, it really is a good thing to stop the massacre, damn the consequences.

And this is why I supported the war in Iraq. Not because Sadaam possesed WMD or anything like that, but because he was a terrible man who killed millions of his own citizens, citizens who, as their leader, he had a responsibility to protect and serve. To me, and I know it's simplistic, that's all the justification we needed.

And I know in Iraq it is, and will continue to be, a dang sticky situation trying to mop up the mess and restore some sense of civil order. But dang, it just seems to moral stronger, more "moxy" position to do something, instead of doing nothing at all.

Some might respond though with an argument that if we think we should act in Iraq, then we should act in North Korea or any of the hundreds of other places across the globe will people are slaughtered wholesale. Well, I guess my answer is yes, if we can, we should something. It's better than sitting on our fat, rich, ivory towers. Ya, I'm being preachy now, but I have friends and friends of friends, and family of friends who've been killed in a country like Pakistan simply because they were Christians. No other reason than that. 30,000 rioting Muslims marched in and gunned down an entire village.

I dunno, I guess I just wonder what it would be like if the the US put out a notice to the entire world that we would protect the lives of innocents, where we could, when we could. It seems honorable to me.

I probably off somewhere and being quite narrowminded. Hopefully some of my more foreign policy savvy friends will chime in on this discussion and let me know what they think.

Oh, and I miss April. This dang not seeing her for 9 1/2 hours thing absolutely stinks.

I read today that Soprano's was confirmed for a 6th season. This 6th season is only going to be 10 seasons, (unlike the usual three), It won't start until Fall 2004. This 6th season will put Sopranos over the 75 episode mark which incidentally makes it elligible for syndication.

In reference to your comments about saving innocent people from slaughter-

Have you ever read an issue of Voice Of The Martyrs? A good tool to learn/remember who a lot of the innocents truly are.

Bill,

I have read Voice Of The Martyrs. My church back in California subscribed to it/supported it.

You know, Josiah, I don't think that your vaunted foundation in subjectivity is something you can "whatever" your way out of. If you want to have the right to make prescriptions about what we ought to be doing, you're going to have to find the balls to acknowledge a framework that gives you that right. Because I don't think you do, or at least, you haven't shown that you do. You've certainly shown why your position is attractive, but I think that's all you've done.

Hey Sweetie,

I wasn't trying to "whatever" my way out of a foundation, I was "whatevering" the fact that either way, I'm stuck in some kinda infinite regress problem, that even arguing against some kinda objective formal system always at least LOOKS like your supplanting it with another. It's just a problem I don't know how to get out of, forgive me for having a little humility on that point.

So, like you said, all I'm trying to do is show why my position is attractive, you know, all that rhetoric junk you accuse me of. I don't have a conclusive argument for my position, but it still makes sense and "feels" right to me.