Obviously what we want is a lot more guns

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henry quirk
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Post by henry quirk »

Exactly...any elected or appointed person who draws his salary from the taxpayers is an employee...as such, he best stay within the confines of his job description and he best mess with his employers as little as possible.

Fundamentally, in the American system, all these employees are supposed to be resource managers, not behavioral directors or financial planners or moral arbiters.
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Post by Belinda »

henry quirk wrote: Tue Oct 10, 2017 8:17 pm Exactly...any elected or appointed person who draws his salary from the taxpayers is an employee...as such, he best stay within the confines of his job description and he best mess with his employers as little as possible.

Fundamentally, in the American system, all these employees are supposed to be resource managers, not behavioral directors or financial planners or moral arbiters.
I am surprised that they aren't supposed to be moral arbiters. What about President Roosevelt? He was a very moral person.
If politicians are not moral arbiters then they are cynical employees of the taxpayers ;cynical employees who care for nothing but their own careers. I cannot think of any public servant who the public expect not to be a moral arbitrator. We even try to rehabilitate criminals to be moral arbitrators within their own very limited spheres of influence.

True, there are occasions when the employee is required by his employer to act against his conscience. Do we want a politician without a conscience, who will blithely do whatever the employer(taxpayer) tells him to do?

There is nothing special about being a moral arbitrator. It is what every responsible adult does.
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henry quirk
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Post by henry quirk »

Ah, but the employees (the elected or appointed) don't operate at the whim of the employers (or from self-whim)...each has a specific set of tasks to attend to (as laid out in in the federal and state constitutions (you may think of these documents as meta-moral foundations, if you like, since the morality embodied in each can be summed as 'mind your own goddamned business and keep your friggin' hands to yourself'...everything about the federal and each state constitution is about the narrow, neccessary exercise of power by few and the broad exercise of of personal power by each and everyone)...the American system has failed to the extent it has strayed from the notion of mostly small, mostly neutral governance.

#

"There is nothing special about being a moral arbitrator. It is what every responsible adult does."

There's a great deal 'special' about it, which is why one should primary exercise such arbitration on one's self and sparingly on one's fellows.
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henry quirk
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Post by henry quirk »

Oh yeah...forgot to ask: what made Roosevelt so moral? That is: in his role as president what did he do that was 'moral'?
Belinda
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Re: Obviously what we want is a lot more guns

Post by Belinda »

Henry Quirk wrote:
'mind your own goddamned business and keep your friggin' hands to yourself'
This is the attitude that I had towards a man I engaged to lay concrete slabs in my garden. I wanted them laid in a special way that I like. This man, a skilled slab layer insisted that his way was the right way. I was paying the man and I wanted it done my way for my own reasons. I did not employ him.

I was right to insist on what I wanted as the employer whether or not my idea was efficient. He was right to insist that there is one correct way to lay slabs. There was no problem because the difference of opinion was about effectiveness not morality. The man should have done as I asked if he wanted to earn the money.

On the other hand, if the doctor refuses to endorse that I am incapable of work when he knows I am capable that doctor exercises her moral conscience and is in the right to refuse .

I don't believe that a rule book covers all eventualities. A public service worker has to initiate procedures some of the time. Even a practical worker such as a garbage collector has to have some initiative i.e. common sense. He may also have to use moral initiative. So far there are no automata who are politicians.There are not even automatic garbage collectors.

If you are in difficulties and need the help of a stranger you don't need or want "mind your own goddamned business and keep your friggin' hands to yourself".
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Re: Obviously what we want is a lot more guns

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Belinda wrote: Tue Oct 10, 2017 6:47 pm Random killings are even more evil when they are permitted by an institution. The lone killer might have been a psychopath. An institution such as the police, or some religion ,or some government, randomly killing people is not the work of some lone sicko but is evidence of institutionalised evil.
Therefore we must convict and sentence all evil to serve time in jail, and lock them up and throw away the key, until they rot so long behind bars that they get REALLY institutionalized.

You know, get to be so that evil can't ever pee again without first asking permission to go to the bathroom, and evil will NEVER pick up a bar of soap dropped on the floor, and evil can't even imagine living "outside" ever again, he is so comfy in there, you know, with all those rules to make his mind go comfy, numb and lazy, because there are no decisions to be made and such like.

Not very much unlike VegetarianTaxidermy here, who has picked up so many bars of soap that he's become one twitching nervous twist of a sorry sight. Can you imagine what it must be to be inside his skull?? Yikes!! I mean, inside his head of cabbage.
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henry quirk wrote: Tue Oct 10, 2017 8:17 pm ...employees are supposed to be resource managers, not behavioral directors or financial planners or moral arbiters.
I read, by mistake, the above as Arbeiters, you know, the German word for worker. Thence, I had some other corollaries... Arse-biters. Etc.
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Re: Obviously what we want is a lot more guns

Post by -1- »

I like the idea of working for the government as a moral arse-biter. Wow. I can hardly wait to see the job description.

Watch-dog of society?
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Re: Obviously what we want is a lot more guns

Post by Walker »

Arising_uk wrote: Tue Oct 10, 2017 2:51 pm
Walker wrote:...
Why did the murderer take so many guns up to the suite?
Well apart from being a gun-nut I guess it'd be quicker than having to reload.
He had more at home.

He had as many guns as an arms dealer.

He had a lot of money, too.
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Re: Obviously what we want is a lot more guns

Post by Arising_uk »

Walker wrote:He had more at home. ...
19 apparently, which just reinforces the idea he was a gun-nut.
He had as many guns as an arms dealer.
I thought 'arms dealers' were just middle-men?
He had a lot of money, too.
So?

But you asked why he took so many and the answer appears obvious, you don't have to reload.
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henry quirk
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Post by henry quirk »

"if the doctor refuses to endorse that I am incapable of work when he knows I am capable that doctor exercises her moral conscience and is in the right to refuse."

That's one (accurate) way to frame it...me, I say the Doc is operating out of self-interest...he refuses to assist you in defrauding (presumably) taxpayers cuz -- if caught -- he'll lose his profession, go to jail, etc. Not exactly morality in operation, I guess, but close enough.

I, for example, don't rip off my customers (even though my work is unregulated and unsupervised and it would be easy to take each and every one to the cleaners)...I play fair and honest with my customers cuz I'm pragmatic: it's just easier all the way around, nuthin' nasty can bite me on the ass (hey, -1- !) down the road, fairly treated folks tend to think kindly of you and are more inclined to be repeat business than shafted folks, etc....again, not exactly morality in operation, but close enough.

So, yeah, I see your point.

But, you gotta remember: most employees (and regulated folks like the Doc) have a great deal of their on-the-job morality decided for them, the codification of that predetermined morality being 'policy and procedure'...this applies to all elected and appointed folks too. And in the case of American governance, policy and procedure is the federal and state constitutions which are all about restricting governance so that 'it' serves individuals instead of individuals serving 'it'.

Absolutely, no rule book can cover every circumstance, which why clever crafters of such things allow for extraordinary powers in extraordinary circumstances. The danger is when equally clever (mercenary) folks work to frame every circumstance as 'extraordinary'...restrictions drop away, power expands, a tiny number wield power over many and -- ta da! -- you got America as she is, today.

As I say: the American system has failed to the extent it has strayed from the notion of mostly small, mostly neutral governance.
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Re: Obviously what we want is a lot more guns

Post by Belinda »

Henry Quirk, I can see that you are able to see the warts which a more sentimental observer misses. I agree, if that is indeed your contention, that people need governance. Not all that motivates each person is altruistic.

However people, probably most people, have a social conscience and also feel sympathetic.The doctor whose motive I sympathetically described as altruistic in the sense of public-spirited becomes in extremes of overwork too tired to do more than to try not to break the law.

Trying not to break the law, if is is the only deterrent to immoral or criminal behaviour, has been identified by Piaget the famous child psychologist as an early stage in moral development. An adult whose moral development is permanently stuck at that stage has a learning difficulty.
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Re: Obviously what we want is a lot more guns

Post by vegetariantaxidermy »

-1- wrote: Wed Oct 11, 2017 9:55 am

Not very much unlike VegetarianTaxidermy here, who has picked up so many bars of soap that he's become one twitching nervous twist of a sorry sight. Can you imagine what it must be to be inside his skull?? Yikes!! I mean, inside his head of cabbage.
As opposed to 'inside your skull', which would appear to be mostly filled with pornography (despite the 'fantastic sex life' and intimate 'tet de tets' (sic) ), where a 'vegetarian' and a 'vegetable' are the same thing, and the opinion of white-supremacist nut-jobs are respected and indulged. At least I don't write long thread starters about my lack of.. ahem...prowess 8)
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Re: Obviously what we want is a lot more guns

Post by Walker »

Belinda wrote: Tue Oct 10, 2017 1:38 pm Walker wrote:
Folks have the right to bear arms,
You are really a Folksy person at heart.
I suppose. The tragedy is the low target of Hobbes' brilliance, no sarcasm intended.
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Re: Obviously what we want is a lot more guns

Post by Walker »

Dontaskme wrote: Tue Oct 10, 2017 6:40 pm
Walker wrote: Tue Oct 10, 2017 5:38 pm
DAM wrote:...
So, you see no difference between words and action?

President Trump was merely putting the fat kid in his place by talking his lingo.

It's called, exercising power.
Supposing the uniformed people do attack and annihilate North Korea off the face of the earth.

What's the difference between civilian clothed people killing the innocent and uniformed people killing the innocent?

If it's okay to call civilian killings an act of pure evil - would that make uniformed people killing an act of pure evil too?



.
Power is impartial, self-regulating, and manifests form according to conditions.
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