Libertarians, My Libertarians!
Cruel to be kind means that I love you . Because, while I think you are mistaken, your hearts are in the right place -- yes, even you, Silas -- unlike some people . This Breitbart fellow (discussed in the link above), by all appearances, deliberately doctored a video of Shirley Sherrod to make her remarks appear virulently racist, when they had, in fact, the opposite import. I heard that at a recent Austrian conference, some folks were talking about "Callahan's conservative turn." While that description is not entirely inaccurate, I must say that a lot of these people who today call themselves conservative give me the heebie-jeebies.
I've always (well, usually) been concerned re the position that obeying orders is no excuse for war crimes. What about self defense? If I kill someone only because otherwise he (or more likely, she) would have certainly killed me, I get off. OK, maybe if we're talking about me vs. 1000 of them, it's different. Any thoughts?
ReplyDeleteSelf-defense applies to killing the person who was going to kill you. It doesn't legally permit you to shoot A because otherwise B was going to shoot you!
ReplyDeleteInteresting--never thought of it that way.
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