Sweden truck attack

[DistrictDeacon]

I like jhmd's position that the US is the world's moral police, but only when it's in our interest.

Very similar moral flexibility that most Christians seem to have.

 

[MysteryMen]

I like jhmd's position that the US is the world's moral police, but only when it's in our interest.

Very similar moral flexibility that most Christians seem to have.

Yeah. It's hard to use morality as the justification if you're not going to apply it consistently across all countries. It really indicates that morality is not the real motivation.

 

[tintinisahottie]

The Syrian on CNN interview needs to be played every single time a liberal throws out mystery's third bullet point

 

[ImTheCaptain]

Other nations are free to do as they wish and face the consequences. I guess someone forgot to tell Russia about the Charter.

Bunch of Woodrow Wilsons

 

[PhDeac]

The Syrian on CNN interview needs to be played every single time a liberal throws out mystery's third bullet point

The one where a Syrian says he doesn't want to be a refugee? That's a revelation to you? Geez.

 

[jhmd2000]

I like jhmd's position that the US is the world's moral police, but only when it's in our interest.

Very similar moral flexibility that most Christians seem to have.

I think we should act morally and in our own interest. You got me.

 

[Biggus Deacus]

Other nations are free to do as they wish and face the consequences. I guess someone forgot to tell Russia about the Charter.

Bunch of Woodrow Wilsons

Are you suggesting we create something that can actually raise a military?

 

[ImTheCaptain]

I don't understand the question. A more powerful UN?

 

[Biggus Deacus]

Just a League of Nations gag with Wilson and an indictment of international organizations that actually exist without any ability to enforce anything. Maybe a touch of winning the peace prize without executing affairs to that effect. All that bothers me.

 

[ImTheCaptain]

In believe the UN is important. But it's like a US government in a world of The Avengers

 

[Strickland33]

I think we should act morally and in our own interest. You got me.

Morally according to what compass, jhmd?

I'm not sure relativism (or interest, however defined, since interest is not a temporally or ideologically stable concept) is a very good look, but to each their own

 

[ImTheCaptain]

Can you argue the US or The West has ever acted non-relativistically?

 

[Strickland33]

Can you argue the US or The West has ever acted non-relativistically?

No, but I'm also not trying to argue that acting morality, ambiguously defined, and acting in one's own interest, ambiguously defined, is possible.

 

[Biggus Deacus]

In believe the UN is important. But it's like a US government in a world of The Avengers

I'm split here. Either it should be (it's not currently,) or it should be gone. Why should the rest of the world tell any country how to operate? Like Sweden has the same interests, needs and desires of countries in Africa or the Middle East. The UN seems to do nothing but lecture governments.

All the American UN guys I hear seem very bright, but more from a political positioning side and not a nation-building side. When that flips, I'll care.

 

[MysteryMen]

The Syrian on CNN interview needs to be played every single time a liberal throws out mystery's third bullet point

Is this the bit about how they'd rather stay in their country? Sure. I'm sure some people would. Completely irrelevant to the question of whether we should close the borders to people who do want to come here.

 

[MysteryMen]

I think we should act morally and in our own interest. You got me.

This isn't much of a rule. Presumably we're never going to act immorally. So the rule is just that we will act when it's in our own interest. Morality has nothing to do with it.

 

[MysteryMen]

I'm split here. Either it should be (it's not currently,) or it should be gone. Why should the rest of the world tell any country how to operate? Like Sweden has the same interests, needs and desires of countries in Africa or the Middle East. The UN seems to do nothing but lecture governments.

All the American UN guys I hear seem very bright, but more from a political positioning side and not a nation-building side. When that flips, I'll care.

Like this is all fine and dandy if we're talking about the way the world should be, but completely irrelevant because we signed on to the UN charter and still remain bound by the UN rules. Funny to see the same people who would be making Scalia-esque textualist and originalist arguments in the domestic law context be happy to throw out binding international law when they think it would lead to their desired result.

 

[jhmd2000]

This isn't much of a rule. Presumably we're never going to act immorally. So the rule is just that we will act when it's in our own interest. Morality has nothing to do with it.

I don't think you and I disagree. Rather than quibble over the word choice, I will stand on the idea that it is in our interest to curtail the use and proliferation of wmd. In addition, it is the moral thing to do to protect in innocent life. In the Venn overlap, we should consider action.

 

[MysteryMen]

I don't think you and I disagree. Rather than quibble over the word choice, I will stand on the idea that it is in our interest to curtail the use and proliferation of wmd. In addition, it is the moral thing to do to protect in innocent life. In the Venn overlap, we should consider action.

Maybe. I wasn't really talking about whether we should consider action. I was talking about whether we're justified in droning civilians to achieve whatever goal we're apparently pursuing. Hard for me to see a case that it's proportional.

And regardless, we signed and ratified a document (the UN charter) that bars us from taking military action just because "it's in our interest." Kind of the whole point of the UN was to prevent countries from taking military actions for things they thought were in their interest.

 

[Biggus Deacus]

This isn't much of a rule. Presumably we're never going to act immorally. So the rule is just that we will act when it's in our own interest. Morality has nothing to do with it.

I'm not saying we act immorally all the time, but to say there's a presumption is wrong. We act immorally when it appears that such measures are required. There are people alive today that were in Japanese internment camps. I think there are still some holocaust survivors. I know you probably don't want to go there, but you need to. The Civil Rights Act happened, but I think Louis CK had the joke about how we were 2 80-year-olds away from slavery. Humans are not born with a moral compass that makes us not exploit other humans, think about the industrializing nations of the world. Or, look at Xerxes and Darius, or other Persian leaders if you need more proof. They're not growing John Brown's these days in a test tube.

One of few cases where I'll say we're never getting to that presumption in the next 50 years.