Happy Tiananmen Square Massacre Day

[ranskaldan]

Originally posted by GePap
"The moral fabric of society"? What moral fabric? You have rights given to you by the system. if you go beyond those rights you endanger the system. You do not, as an individual citizen, have the right to decide the life or death of fellow citizens. Only the state has that right, after it meets certain criteria of proof. What you think is moral or not is immterial, you either have the right to it or not. For you to terminate the life of another citizen is murder: why you think you did it may grant you some level of leniency, but you are still going beyond what you rights and resonsibilities are, and thus endanger the very system you claimt o be trying to uphold.

You as an individual do not have the authority to claim to act in the name of the system. For you to do so is a crime. And thus you will ahve to accept the penalties for your crime.

Which particular society are we talking about here, exactly? The Matrix?

[David Floyd]

GePap,

have rights given to you by the system.

Sorry, a system cannot give rights any more than it can take them away. Rights are natural.

You do not, as an individual citizen, have the right to decide the life or death of fellow citizens.

You do when they are trying to kill you or another - the right to self defense.

[mindseye]

And should every single Chinese street be continuously pumped with tear gas for the next six weeks?

Would that be better or worse than shooting civilians with AK-47s and running them down with tanks.

[GePap]

Originally posted by David Floyd
Sorry, a system cannot give rights any more than it can take them away. Rights are natural.

Sorry DF, they aren't, and I feel no inclination to get into it.

You do when they are trying to kill you or another - the right to self defense.

So you agree that you do not have the right o decide the life or death of another? becuse the right to self-defense is a different one. And you only kill in self-defense if necessary. To do beyond what is necessary for self-defense is itself a crime.

Which particular society are we talking about here, exactly? The Matrix?

Any society. You can;t just moe into someone else's property, even if you are poor and homelesss. Why? becuase that other person has the exclusive right to that land, and the right to decide who goes in and who doesn't. For you to break in is to trample on the rights they were given by the system.

You do not have the right to deicde that the life of 100 about to die form natural causes is greater than that of a healthy man. For you to assume that right goes well beyond those rights you have. Under yur scenerio, if you have the right to kill one individual to save another (the fact that it is plural is unimportant), then I could just as well claim the right of rep-emptive self-defense by killing you before you kill that one individual, "in order to preserve the moral fabric of society" as you claim. But I don;t have that right, and neither do you.

[loinburger]

Originally posted by ranskaldan
Quickness is often good, especially in a volatile situation.

So you're quite certain that the only reason the military was able to so effectively massacre the students was that the military was given a head start? In other words, if the demonstration turned violent, the military would have been caught with its pants down and the country would have been plunged into anarchy? What are you basing this conclusion off of?

And should every single Chinese street be continuously pumped with tear gas for the next six weeks?

So you're quite certain that it would have been necessary to pump every single Chinese street full of tear gas for the next six weeks if the students weren't massacred? What are you basing this conclusion off of?

Other nations have had demonstrations that haven't turned into riots, as well as riots that haven't turned into bloodbaths (let along revolutions). I guess I'm just confused as to why you're so certain that this particular demonstration was so different that deadly force was justified, much less necessary.

[loinburger]

Another thing to keep in mind is that having the military fire on civilians is far from being the safest means of breaking up a demonstration -- nothing puts a soldier's will to the test more than being ordered to kill fellow countrymen. If the demonstrators start the violence then the soldiers are fighting in self-defense, but historically the make-or-break situation for many revolutions comes at the point when the military is forced to take a side. Were I in the shoes of the Chinese leadership, then even if I had utter disregard for the lives of the demonstrators and/or even if I truly felt that the demonstrators were a clear and present danger to the State, then I'd still balk at ordering the military to fire on civilians -- I'm not sure if I'd put quite that much trust into the will of the soldiers. (Then again, maybe being in the shoes of the Chinese leadership would grant me mystical powers of foresight...)

[ranskaldan]

Originally posted by GePap


Any society. You can;t just moe into someone else's property, even if you are poor and homelesss. Why? becuase that other person has the exclusive right to that land, and the right to decide who goes in and who doesn't. For you to break in is to trample on the rights they were given by the system.

You do not have the right to deicde that the life of 100 about to die form natural causes is greater than that of a healthy man. For you to assume that right goes well beyond those rights you have. Under yur scenerio, if you have the right to kill one individual to save another (the fact that it is plural is unimportant), then I could just as well claim the right of rep-emptive self-defense by killing you before you kill that one individual, "in order to preserve the moral fabric of society" as you claim. But I don;t have that right, and neither do you.

Then your point is totally different. You're essentially saying that society enforces some small-scale immorality (e.g. making trespassing an offense) in order to preserve its own integrity. After all, if all homeless people were allowed to camp out on private property, chaos would ensue.

Well then, sure, society preserves itself by codifying laws that may be immoral in some cases. Such as forbidding you to kill 1 person, even if it would save a hundred. But that hardly makes this moral.

[ranskaldan]

Originally posted by loinburger

So you're quite certain that the only reason the military was able to so effectively massacre the students was that the military was given a head start? In other words, if the demonstration turned violent, the military would have been caught with its pants down and the country would have been plunged into anarchy? What are you basing this conclusion off of?

Yes, society would likely have been plunged into anarchy. This is because once the peasants get started, nothing short of all out civil war would stop them. But that's what we're trying to prevent in the first place.

So you're quite certain that it would have been necessary to pump every single Chinese street full of tear gas for the next six weeks if the students weren't massacred? What are you basing this conclusion off of?

Off your idea that another way would be to pump streets full of tear gas. Well then, we would certainly like to cover all the places the students might pick the next morning.

Other nations have had demonstrations that haven't turned into riots, as well as riots that haven't turned into bloodbaths (let along revolutions). I guess I'm just confused as to why you're so certain that this particular demonstration was so different that deadly force was justified, much less necessary.

This is China we're talking about. The demographics are not encouraging and history isn't either.

Another thing to keep in mind is that having the military fire on civilians is far from being the safest means of breaking up a demonstration -- nothing puts a soldier's will to the test more than being ordered to kill fellow countrymen. If the demonstrators start the violence then the soldiers are fighting in self-defense, but historically the make-or-break situation for many revolutions comes at the point when the military is forced to take a side. Were I in the shoes of the Chinese leadership, then even if I had utter disregard for the lives of the demonstrators and/or even if I truly felt that the demonstrators were a clear and present danger to the State, then I'd still balk at ordering the military to fire on civilians -- I'm not sure if I'd put quite that much trust into the will of the soldiers. (Then again, maybe being in the shoes of the Chinese leadership would grant me mystical powers of foresight...)

That's a good point, actually.

[GePap]

Originally posted by ranskaldan


Then your point is totally different. You're essentially saying that society enforces some small-scale immorality (e.g. making trespassing an offense) in order to preserve its own integrity. After all, if all homeless people were allowed to camp out on private property, chaos would ensue.

Well then, sure, society preserves itself by codifying laws that may be immoral in some cases. Such as forbidding you to kill 1 person, even if it would save a hundred. But that hardly makes this moral.

If morals were absolute, then you could speak about "moral fabric" and similar trash. All society can try to do is maintain a certain amount of order and prosperity, but the mot important way to do so is to create laws, a way to change them without violence, and to enforce the current ones.

Lets bring in a new tact: what if troops ordered to crush the dmeonstrators had mutinied? (even those form the west?). What if the general population, appaled by the criminality of its leaders, had revolted outright? You say only brute, murderous force could lead to peace: not true. It could also have lead to greater chaos and everything you claim the leadershipo wanted to avoid.

[mindseye]

I in the shoes of the Chinese leadership, then even if I had utter disregard for the lives of the demonstrators and/or even if I truly felt that the demonstrators were a clear and present danger to the State, then I'd still balk at ordering the military to fire on civilians -- I'm not sure if I'd put quite that much trust into the will of the soldiers.

Well founded concern.

(A) highly presitigous group of retired PLA generals wrote an open letter to Deng XiaoPeng recalling the army's popular revolutionary traditions and reminding the paramount leader that: "The People's Army belongs to the People ... and cannot stand in opposition to the People." Indeed the first groups of young soldiers who entered the capital intuitively fraternized with the population they had been dispatched to control, and some welcomed student invitations to join together in singing revolutionary songs.

"Mao's China and After", Maurice Meisner

The later troops (from the 27th Army) were veterans from the recent struggle with Vietnam. They were drawn mainly from the western regions, so had much less sympathy with Beijingers. More importantly, Deng was certain that they would obey his orders to shoot to kill. It took two weeks to assemble the 200,000 troops used for the assault. It was very, very deliberate.

[mindseye]

Hey, Urban Ranger, where are you? I wanna hear your reaction after seeing photos of an event you claimed never happened!

[Mr. President]

I think he doesn't want to accidentally say anything that might blow back in his face.

Why exactly should I care what the Chinese government does and doesn't do in its own country? I fail to see how driving tanks through public squares in Beijing ever hurt America.

[Winston]

I'd like to see what he has to say as well.

[Saras]

Damn, I guess Lithuania should also have shut up and stayed with the USSR, because looky looky what a mess Russia is now

[Az]

EDIT: ok, ok, that troll was getting tiresome anyway.

[Winston]

Somebody is posting all over the place as usual, and still avoiding this thread like the plague.

[ranskaldan]

mindseye & loinburger:

All in all, I must say I agree with you now that the CCP leadership was callous and rash in ordering the massacre. Of course, we will never know if other methods would have worked [and I don't they think would] - but the point lies in that those were never tried.

There's still the point though of why dispersing the democratic movement in China was necessary in the first place - and that, if all else had failed, Tiananmen in some form (even tear gas) would still have been unavoidable. And that brings us to this:

DF & GePap:

If morals were absolute, then you could speak about "moral fabric" and similar trash. All society can try to do is maintain a certain amount of order and prosperity, but the mot important way to do so is to create laws, a way to change them without violence, and to enforce the current ones.

What kind of society is it exactly that condones sacrificing 100 lives so that one other person may live?

If the way a certain society works means that some people will be miserable (and this applies to any society, including capitalistic democracy) - are you simply going to say - No, making people miserable is immoral - and then take all of society down with it?

[GePap]

[QUOTE] Originally posted by ranskaldan
What kind of society is it exactly that condones sacrificing 100 lives so that one other person may live?
QUOTE]

Sacrifices? what a twisted moral sense. 100 peolple are sick: it is disease, it is nature deciding some pathogen got the better of them. If they die, their deaths are utterly amoral, natural, no different from the millions who die every year from other pathogens. The only moral choice that exist in your whole scenerio is whether society will give itself the ability to deny some individuals a choice, a life, simply for utalitarian purposes. You are not asking people to give up money (nearly a symbol of exchange, a toy we created), you are asking to take someones life.

The fact remains that any sane moral system would leave the choice solely to the one that has the ability to save through his sacrifice. He is not handing out death, nature is doing so. His choice is only of giving life. But you and the action you advocate, that is handing out death, and in that circumstance it is a right you do not have.

[ranskaldan]

Originally posted by GePap


Sacrifices? what a twisted moral sense. 100 peolple are sick: it is disease, it is nature deciding some pathogen got the better of them. If they die, their deaths are utterly amoral, natural, no different from the millions who die every year from other pathogens. The only moral choice that exist in your whole scenerio is whether society will give itself the ability to deny some individuals a choice, a life, simply for utalitarian purposes. You are not asking people to give up money (nearly a symbol of exchange, a toy we created), you are asking to take someones life.

Their deaths are NOT utterly natural, because you were able to prevent them. You have the full power to prevent this, and yet you allow them to die - how is that different from asking these 100 people in turn to take their own lives?

The fact remains that any sane moral system would leave the choice solely to the one that has the ability to save through his sacrifice. He is not handing out death, nature is doing so. His choice is only of giving life. But you and the action you advocate, that is handing out death, and in that circumstance it is a right you do not have.

You are handing out more life than death. That is the point of many political decisions, from fighting Nazi Germany to bombing Iraq. How is this wrong?

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by Winston
Somebody is posting all over the place as usual, and still avoiding this thread like the plague.

Where is he? I know for a fact that he has posted today.

[DaShi]

I think he's taking my advice. Good for him!

[GePap]

Originally posted by ranskaldan
Their deaths are NOT utterly natural, because you were able to prevent them. You have the full power to prevent this, and yet you allow them to die - how is that different from asking these 100 people in turn to take their own lives?

You are not in full power to prevent it, another person is. That is the point. And yes, their deaths are natural: natural does not mean inevitable. A athogen got the better of their systems, it happens all the time, that is what pathogens do. They had no say in the matter, there is no moral agency at all. That is the vast difference.

You are handing out more life than death. That is the point of many political decisions, from fighting Nazi Germany to bombing Iraq. How is this wrong?

The difference is that disease has no moral agency. Your example is really a choice between 100 deaths from disease vs. one death from murder. One is tragic, the other criminal. Again, the power lies within the one individual who for some reason can, by his act, save them. By you killing him, you usepr his rights, his powers, in a way you have no right to do.

[ranskaldan]

Originally posted by GePap


You are not in full power to prevent it, another person is. That is the point. And yes, their deaths are natural: natural does not mean inevitable. A athogen got the better of their systems, it happens all the time, that is what pathogens do. They had no say in the matter, there is no moral agency at all. That is the vast difference.

The difference is that disease has no moral agency. Your example is really a choice between 100 deaths from disease vs. one death from murder. One is tragic, the other criminal. Again, the power lies within the one individual who for some reason can, by his act, save them. By you killing him, you usepr his rights, his powers, in a way you have no right to do.

If you want to talk about the right to live - then yes, that one person has the right to live, and those one hundred people also have the right to live. In this case the rights of one hundred are greater than the right of one.

What is the original cause of death is irrelevant. The disease may know no morals, but you, as a bystanding human being, do. And since you also have the ability to change the situation, whatever happens in the end becomes your responsibility.

Besides, whether or not the decision to kill him is criminal is irrelevant to whether it is immoral.

[By your logic, the use of a nuke to end WW2 is therefore utterly wrong - even though it prevented the deaths of possibly millions more soldiers. ???]

[Ecthy]

Deng

[GePap]

Originally posted by ranskaldan
What is the original cause of death is irrelevant. The disease may know no morals, but you, as a bystanding human being, do. And since you also have the ability to change the situation, whatever happens in the end becomes your responsibility.

Your argument knows no bounds. In theory, if I know you want to kill someone to save 100, i can kill you pre-emptively, because I know you are about to commit a crime, and by your moral notion, I have the responsibility to stop it. And so forth till the end of time. As I said before, if you care so much, then suck it up when they try you rightfully for murder.

[By your logic, the use of a nuke to end WW2 is therefore utterly wrong - even though it prevented the deaths of possibly millions more soldiers. ???]

I do think the boming of Hiroshima was of questionable morality, specially since now one knows if an invasion of Japan would have been necessary at all. And what if a few nukes had not been enough? What if the Japanese hard liners had taken oevr and said fight to the death? How many cities would you have nuked? As many up to the point you would have killed the same number of Japanese civilians as the number of soldiers who might have died in a theoretical invasion, save one?
Given, of course, tha bombing of cities was "acceptable" in WW2, i find hiroshima only slightly more immoral than the many other mass bombing of cities by all warring parties.

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by DaShi
I think he's taking my advice. Good for him!

You mean the advice to suck your ****?

[Boris Godunov]

This thread has proven astonishing, I must say...

I don't see why Fez would hate Hitler, because sure, he murdered a few million, but he did bring economic prosperity to his country (until the prosperity got bombed out of it). But its economics that count, right?

And UR... Maybe you should think about who has a greater interest in foisting propoganda--the media of pretty much the entire world, or the CCP.

[ranskaldan]

Originally posted by GePap


Your argument knows no bounds. In theory, if I know you want to kill someone to save 100, i can kill you pre-emptively, because I know you are about to commit a crime, and by your moral notion, I have the responsibility to stop it. And so forth till the end of time. As I said before, if you care so much, then suck it up when they try you rightfully for murder.

And as I said before, the criminality of an action doesn't necessarily mean it's immoral. Society enforces a lot of immorality in order to survive. And as I also have said, this act wouldn't even be criminal if it's tried before a reasonable jury.

The rights of individual should not extend to jeopardize those of others, and certainly not to the rest of society. This is why we don't allow people to own nukes. And in the same way, the right of life of 1 person does NOT extend to jeopardize the right of life of 100 people.

And as for your counter-example - killing me and preventing me from doing what I'm about to do would also be immoral, since you're causing the deaths of 101 people in order to save 1 person.

I do think the boming of Hiroshima was of questionable morality, specially since now one knows if an invasion of Japan would have been necessary at all. And what if a few nukes had not been enough? What if the Japanese hard liners had taken oevr and said fight to the death? How many cities would you have nuked? As many up to the point you would have killed the same number of Japanese civilians as the number of soldiers who might have died in a theoretical invasion, save one?
Given, of course, tha bombing of cities was "acceptable" in WW2, i find hiroshima only slightly more immoral than the many other mass bombing of cities by all warring parties.

The actual situation in WW2 was of course very complex. Personally I think that a demonstration detonation in a forested area of Japan would have worked equally well.

However, assuming if the detonation in the forest had failed to convince anyone, then the Americans should definitely have gone ahead and nuked a Japanese city. The casualties from the explosion was far less than the number that would likely have died from a long, drawn out campaign.

[You can of course argue that we can't be sure about what would have happened - but we can't be sure about anything in the future. How do you suppose we're going to make any decisions at all unless we consider the most likely outcomes of each decision?]

[Mao]

Just out of curiousity, there's been much talk about students in this thread (I haven't read the entire thread I admit), but has anyone expressed any sympathy towards the soldiers? I have sympathy for both the troops and students, but none for the PLA brass and the ringleaders of the students (some of them anyway), they's dispicible (sp?) at least to me...and I should know, living a block away from the Square and all...

[GePap]

Originally posted by ranskaldan
And as I said before, the criminality of an action doesn't necessarily mean it's immoral. Society enforces a lot of immorality in order to survive. And as I also have said, this act wouldn't even be criminal if it's tried before a reasonable jury.

The rights of individual should not extend to jeopardize those of others, and certainly not to the rest of society. This is why we don't allow people to own nukes. And in the same way, the right of life of 1 person does NOT extend to jeopardize the right of life of 100 people.

You keep talkig about jeaporising the lives of 100 people: no one is doing such a thing. Those 100 people have a disease and will die of it. Only one man had the ability to save them (the man who alone can lead to the cure), and thus, as i have been saying all along, only he can chose whether by his own sacrfice, the 100 people will die. This is the last time I will say it, but you have no moral claim to be a "savior". You are not the keeper of those 100 people. If they die, it is a tragic but natural event. If the man sacrifices himself, then he is a hero. But if you act like you claim you have the ability to, then you are a murderer. This is a point of moral agency. You have constructed a scenerio in which only one individual has the power to save, AND IT IS NOT YOU! You do not have the right to decide for the one person who does have the power what he should do. Even morally, all you can do is try to convince the one man with power, to be a supplicant and ask for his sacrifice. But you have NO MORAL AUTHORITY to kill him, PERIOD. In the excersise you have constructed, only one man has moral agency, and is thus his choice. You can show us no evidence whatsovere that the death of the 100 will be worse for society as a whole than the death of that one, becuase yo can not show us that in the end, any of those 100 will contrbute anymore to society as a whole (a huge mass of humanity millions and billiomns strong) than that one man. And since you can not show us at all, nor even correctly specualte the plus of minuses fo society of the act you advocate, you can not call upon yourself the mantle of the defendor of the common good.

So in short: in the example you have given us, only one individual has the moral agency to decide the outcme, and that indivisual is the one who through the use of his body could save them. Only that one individal can, both legally and morally, make the decision. You have no right, moral nor legal, to userp his choice.