Outrider

I just don't see the alternative. I agree that some situations can be murky even for impartial observers. But in the Korean War situation I gave it seems pretty plain to me. Your choices are kill innocent children or give ground and power to those who have no problem killing innocents or otherwise using them in any way that pops into their head. Which is the moral choice? Is the world a better place with a divided Korea or would it be better if Kim had control over more people? I can research it myself. I just thought you might have some online sources on hand. What is the alternative to the "just war" paradigm? Veterans did join the antiwar movement but I seriously doubt they ever questioned the morality of those doing the fighting except in the case of war crimes. Many times this is true but not always. When Japan bombed Pearl Harbor what choice did the U.S. have? Agree. Wholeheartedly. Agree. I mostly agree but I do think our leaders had good intentions when we first got involved in Vietnam. But decisions were made, for political reasons, knowing more human suffering would result.

Sorry for the very late reply to a well thought out post. 1) Thanks for clarifying and I do agree. 2) First soldiers are not authorized to do just anything they feel justified in doing. Although prosecutions are few and far between there have been some cases where charges have been leveled against rank and file soldiers. Second you seem to be suggesting that soldiers commit acts of terror and violence against civilians because they feel they are fighting a moral war. I have always thought they do these things because they are put in a hellish situation. The North Koreans marched children in front of their assaults to force the Americans to shoot them first. You go through that a few times and all kinds of lines can get really blurry. I think this also explains the paucity of convictions for soldiers obviously guilty of war crimes. It is simply not fair what we ask them to do. But there are situations were I see no alternative. Do you know of any studies done of why soldiers commit war crimes. 3) Can you point me to any literature on this? I agree it is quite a conundrum. But didn't we try this with Vietnam already? Didn't we tell them how gulity they were when they returned home? Remember that most of these men were drafted. They got to choose between baby killer or deserter of ones country. No really not fair at all. 4) I agree with all this and in particular your last sentence. It is dangerous ground for a soldier to think he has the moral high ground and thats not the way I was trained. I was taught to leave the morality up to others. I was simply there to do a job. The very best soldiers do the job with extreme regret confident that those who's job it is to decide these things were sure there was no alternative. This describes the vast majority of our fighting men and women of today. You will never see these on the front page of your newspaper. That is reserved for those who crack or are using the situation to engage in dark desires they already had. I agree the only way a war could be considered moral is if it was conducted out of absolute necessity. I think it does happen that way some times. I think we both know it when we see it. I respect your opinion beecee but I just can't agree with this. I don't see morality as something that can be put on hold. When you get to the point of where violence is the only means of protecting yourself or others then violence becomes moral. IMO

True that. But there is some back history to suggest that "It's all about the benjamins" was meant to be anti-Semitic. Zap she has made blatantly anti-Semitic comments in the past. So much so that Jewish leaders met with her before she took office in hopes of educating her. I hope you will read the article below. https://www-twincities-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/www.twincities.com/2019/02/12/mn-jewish-leaders-talked-with-ilhan-omar-about-anti-semitism-last-year-why-they-remain-frustrated/amp/?usqp=mq331AQCCAE%3D&amp_js_v=0.1#referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&amp_tf=From %1%24s&ampshare=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.twincities.com%2F2019%2F02%2F12%2Fmn-jewish-leaders-talked-with-ilhan-omar-about-anti-semitism-last-year-why-they-remain-frustrated%2F Back to Ten oz original question "should she be punished"? I agree with J. C. Not legally but yes politically. It has been explained to her why these types of comments are hurtful for some people but she continues to make them. Good for her to apologize but she should still pay a price.

That was my original point so we agree it seems on that at least. But it's not only on the left. From Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck to SNL I think many Americans get their political commentary from the worst places. I know RL and GB are not comedians but to me they act more like comics than pundits.

Nothing. And thats to our shame IMO. If you are attacked and the only way you can see to defend yourself is to harm the attacker what will you do? It's not a particularly complicated question in my mind but YMMV. As for your last post you seem to be saying torture is an old joke but I somehow doubt that is the case.

How they treat their own, their neighbors and the rest of the world. As our cultural views evolve even how they treat the environment. Obviously you understand it's not always simple but that doesn't mean it's particularly difficult either. No. Just for clarity I am a lifelong U.S. citizen. Very proud of my nation is some ways and ashamed of it in others both historically and currently. Dropping the one on Hiroshima maybe just maybe for the time was moral. Fair chance I would have never met my mom's dad if it hadn't been dropped. Dropping the one on Nagasaki was decidedly immoral. No. But they are (in my eyes) justified in killing enough to repel the attackers. I would have to look at specific cases to respond to that. We have seen many times "freedom fighters" turn into ruthless dictators after the coup. On their overall actions and on a case by case situation. For example even though we went to Kuwait for all the wrong reasons I still supported the action and considered it moral. I don't have a problem with us being the world police although I often have a problem with how we execute. I don't actually understand where you are going with "if we remove the morality of actions away from the individual," so sorry if that didn't answer your question. Not particularly and we do. Just answer Raider's questions please in the spirit they were asked. And I have no intention of clicking on your link to find out what you are on about. You can explain yourself or not.

No I mean will you counterattack if you think that gives you best chance of not dying. For me immoral and evil just mean to do wrong to your fellow human beings for no just cause. In my scenario above you would IMO have just cause. A sovereign country defending its borders would also have just cause. Hence they would still be morally right in my eyes. No war is not synonymous with evil or immoral.

Wikipedia has her listed as a "social commentator". Whatever that is. I guess I just think of her as a comic because the few times I've listened to her speak I couldn't take her seriously. FWIW I didn't find it all that humorous either. Perhaps I shouldn't have commented at all because its been years since I gave Bill or Ann any of my time. Ok maybe your right. I withdraw my claim that BM is a political hack. But I still think that AC and BM say many things just for shock value and I think its a shame when people shape their political values around these kinds of things.

Immoral.

Yep my brother in law told me a couple years ago. It is a useful feature. My 2005 Chevy Colorado has one.

So it is immoral to overthrow an evil regime? Will you attempt do defend yourself if attacked? If your answers are yes and no we just disagree.

Thanks for the answers Strange. I gain new insights in the strangest of threads. But isn't this still up in the air? I suspect that time isn't quantitized but I was under the impression that the scientific consensus at the moment is we just don't know. BTW the third quote in your response isn't mine. I don't have the prerequisites to be making assertions on this subject.

Not really. They are both hacks for their perspective "sides". Or more to the point they are comedians saying whatever they think "sells" at the moment. I think it would be a mistake to let your political views to be shaped by a comedian. Any comedian.

But can we say all war is the result of an immoral action? I think yes we can. This does not mean all parties are behaving immorally.

Alright I couldn't get it down to two lines. But I think this is Argo's hypothesis. That's as short as I could as I could make it. So my questions are directed not only towards Argo but all the thread participants. 1. Would it be better to say space-time overlays the other 3 spatial dimensions? 2. Assuming Argo's hypothesis is correct would it really change anything? Argo Could you please provide a peer reviewed paper claiming that "time flows" or drop your claim that the scientific community maintains that it does? Or better yet focus on supporting your idea!

Another successful landing. Go NASA! https://mars.nasa.gov/news/8392/nasa-insight-lander-arrives-on-martian-surface/?site=insight

That was awesome! Thank you.

While worded poorly I think this mostly correct. This is what you need to cite or better yet retract because its just wrong. AFAIK the only thing that alters a gravitational field is more or less mass. Also why do you spell gravitational like this "gravit." This is also wrong. It is simple aerodynamics which is why we can and do ignore any gravitational effects. Your not wrong that particles in the air have a gravitational attraction its just that its so small that we can ignore it. Cross posted with Strange.

Thanks beecee for bringing this to my attention and also for all the other science news you post. I don't think it was just "sensationalist media propaganda" although there was an element of that in the story. I think Strange (above) got it about right. I think it is safe to assume for now that gravitational waves have been detected. After all the visual confirmation was the smoking gun IMO. Also I have a lot of respect for David Shoemaker who is on the team. Meanwhile people are out doing science with these results. https://ras.ac.uk/news-and-press/research-highlights/gravitational-waves-merged-hyper-massive-neutron-star Also the next wave of observations is on its way! https://www.ligo.caltech.edu/page/observatory-status Wish we could get interesting stuff like this to go on for 10 pages.

Thanks Strange. That was fun. I missed 6, 7, 9 and 11. I just guessed on the plank length question and got lucky. So I probably don't deserve my 11 score but will take it. https://insidetheperimeter.ca/physics-quiz/ 12/15 on this one.

One thing I haven't really seen discussed here is my belief that certain jokes shouldn't be told because it normalises certain behaviors that most of us find aberrant. Such as racial, rape and pedophile jokes. In fact I just noticed a pedophile joke in the The official jokes section thread. I think the wrong joke told at the right time could convince a racist that he's more the norm than he thought he was yesterday. Or convince a man thats having urges he hasn't acted on that hey everybody's doing it. Just something to think about.

Without a doubt! My daughter was in the third grade when she came home one day and told me that joke. We still laugh about it now. Some time later she came home and told me this one. Q. How do you make a tissue dance? A. Put a little boogie in it.

So here is some interesting reading I found regarding the OP today. The first is a transcript of a NPR debate on the pros and cons of thorium reactors between science writer Richard Martin (pro) and electrical and nuclear engineer Dr. Ajun Makhijani (con). It is rather lengthy but it helped me understand why some are leery of this technology. https://www.npr.org/2012/05/04/152026805/is-thorium-a-magic-bullet-for-our-energy-problems The second is a list of pros and cons of thorium reactors. https://vittana.org/16-big-thorium-reactor-pros-and-cons# From the second link: Any chance the above is accurate? Also Dr. Arjun addressed the problem below in the first (NPR) link but the quote is from the second link. It seems it could be a deal breaker if I understand correctly.

Ok we are on the same page here. Good deal! We need to promptly decide which illegals deserve amnesty (most of them) and then revamp the whole system. Not gonna happen but needs to. Did you know this was state law? I didn't. Maybe its not as big a problem as you think. http://www.ncsl.org/research/elections-and-campaigns/felon-voting-rights.aspx So you just have a beef with 12 states. Also voting rights are not all felons stand to loose. For one employers may discriminate if they wish. https://thelawdictionary.org/article/what-rights-do-convicted-felons-lose/ *This may be enforced by the country the felon wishes to visit. No I did not know that and yes I am against it.

Again I see these as problems that need to be fixed. I don't see how giving felons and non citizens the right to vote fixes them.