After a disaster, when *citizens* are looting, maybe even taking *your* stuff, they are not "bad guys" and not citizens?

But can't they, in fact, be *citizens*?


You are correct, my mistake, please accept my apology.

Sure, they are citizens, and we should all be equally armed.
There is no such thing as a bad person.
After a disaster, if someone tries looting my food or survival gear... they are not a person for long.

:eyebrow: You think you can back that up? Anyway the cops need to have superior firepower because otherwise they can't do their job if things get nasty, which is controlling the unruly elements of society. You say the cops should have the power to enforce the laws in a crisis situation, yet you make veiled threats about killing anyone who robs you, you have your issues crossed.

You cannot prove a made-up concept. I do not believe in evil or "bad people".
Of course there can be no proof and you know it. It is my only faith, the basic good at the heart of all things with a soul. I don't care if you share the same belief.
Those who do not just want to feel better than others.
We are all capable of the same things, there is a Gandhi and a Stalin in all of us.

Ok, then you're splitting hairs between 'bad people' and 'people who do bad things'. You are what you do. you can't judge people based on assumptions, I agree, but everyone is judged on their actions. If you do bad things then you are a bad person, do good things and you are a good person. It really doesn't matter how you define good and bad either.

So... you have NEVER lied or EVER taken ANYTHING that was not yours? Whew!
At least there is one good person out there who has only done good things and not one bad thing to make them a bad person, because that is what makes them a bad person... the rest of us are scum.

Neil Gaiman's character Death had a good quote along those lines - "Nobody's creepy from the inside. Some of them are sad, and some of them hurt, and some of them think they're the only real thing in the whole world. But they're not creepy."

Relative moral categories cannot be said to exist in the same way as that which can be concretely and universally defined.

I never said you had to have never done anything wrong to be considered a 'good person', I mearly said that a person is defined by their actions. We do seem to be obsessed over the concept of being a good person though. Why are we so afraid of being honestly judged by what we do?

I have no problem with assigning my ethical stature with my actions... but no human is capable of looking at a whole human, all that they have done or not done and making such a simplistic claim as bad or good.

When you make a judgement about someone you always have to decide what parts are relevent to your decision. A man can be both a loving father and a theif, to his children he may be a good person, to those he robs a bad one. Both are correct but neither of the two cases overlap. His good conduct to his children has nothing to do with his victims and so they are right to press charges against him as a criminal. Likewise his children can be understood for caring deeply about him.
What I'm trying to say is that you don't have to take the entire person into account, it's impossible. You can only judge based on what you know of them and what parts of them are relevant to you.

I do.
I do not judge and don't think one can.
My belief system, as I have said, is based on compassion and that we are all, at heart, good.
That is the only faith I have and all that is required in Buddhism.
Those who do harm are doing so because they are in pain and sharing it because they know no other way to express that pain.
Though sometimes they must be dealt with harshly, it must always be done with love and compassion...
In other words as "I would have them treat me".

And I'm saying that I don't give a damn about what they are at heart, nor do I have any way of determining just what the heck 'good at heart' actually quantifies. It's all well and good to pine about how everyone is really good, and how people who do bad things are just twisted by society into doing things, while you're sitting around a campfire toking. I don't feel I have that luxury nor the will to ignore what I planly see in favor of something I can never really know exists and doesn't have real-world application anyway.

I never said shit about society, you assume much. I never suggested ignoring anything, you are putting words into my mouth.
It is a matter of how and why the actions that are taken are taken, as well as what actions.
Funny, you have a VERY different view of me than those in the "gun threads".