The Way I Figure It

[Cyber Wolf]

"A little better" basically means "not Bush."

[Trilby]

I am going (against all better, higher-functioning, judgment) to play stick-poke with all-you-all ("all you all" is a Southern expression--ask anyone)---Look. I recall the march of the Nazi's only through my boyfriend, I've no first hand experience, but doesn't evil need to be confronted? No matter what? Hitler himself was amazed that he was not challenged when he took over the Rhineland. What to do?

[Cyber Wolf]

Originally Posted by Brianna

... but doesn't evil need to be confronted? No matter what?

Sure, but the catch is if you try to confront this evil, you're corraled in a Free Speech Zone far enough away from the evil so it won't notice you, or in more extreme cases, you get teargassed, nightsticked or shot at with non-lethal-but-still-capable-of-inflicting-serious-injury bullets.

[Troubleshooter]

Originally Posted by lookout123

its from the ecological footprint link. i am single handedly destroying the world... although it looks like troubleshooter is doing his part too.

One does try.

Originally Posted by Troubleshooter

One does try.

Well, try harder! I noticed the world was still here when I woke up this morning, and I can't tell you how deeply disappointed I was!

[Troubleshooter]

Originally Posted by marichiko

Well, try harder! I noticed the world was still here when I woke up this morning, and I can't tell you how deeply disappointed I was!

How about next Monday I start driving around the campus a half dozen times, roughly three miles each lap, before I go looking for a parking space. That should up my fuel waste ratio.

Oh, and I could rent the property next to me and just not live in it and that should double my local land waste ratio.

And the clincher; meat with every meal, Hobbit style.

[Undertoad]

The Ds have resurrected the draft point and hard, when W clearly and pointedly answered the question in the second debate... even semantically to your liking, HM.

No excuse for this kind of behavior but we notice it on both sides

[tw]

Originally Posted by Brianna

Look. I recall the march of the Nazi's only through my boyfriend, I've no first hand experience, but doesn't evil need to be confronted? No matter what? Hitler himself was amazed that he was not challenged when he took over the Rhineland. What to do?

First, the idea of 'good' and 'evil' exists in fictions such as Star Wars and with those who are the victor (therefore rewrite history for 3rd grade children). Who was good and evil during the Crusades? Who was the good and evil in Vietnam?

Was a pre-WWII Hitler evil? Perspective must be from that time; what was known then and not from what is preached today.

In reality, there are many opinions. Some are so extremist as to not be logically acceptable. But there is no evil. There are those who would pervert the fundamentals on which we live - ie they advocate that religious principles must be imposed on all others and that government should provide financial assistance to religious programs. If evil exists, then this religious extremism (ie Israel's Likud or Muslim Brotherhood) is classic evil in god's eye. If evil exists, it most often exists in perverted religions - the most common reason for the most deadly wars.

Return to the Rhineland (I assume you are talking about Czechoslovakia?). Who is suppose to confront 'evil'. The 'confronters must be defined before 'evil' can be defined. Therein lies the real problem. Those whose job it is to confront Hitler simply chose to pretend he did not do what he did. So where, back then, did evil exist? Those to confront evil did not exist, therefore evil did not exist. (Again you must use the prespective of those times to define evil).

WWII is a example of how powers are suppose to respond to aggression and fundamental violations of international order. First the local powers must do the job. If they fail, the region must take on responsibility. IOW many reasons for US wealth, power, scientific advancement, world leadership, etc is that we stayed out of the local problems until they became large enough to even involve us (we must wait for 'smoking gun' reasons). As a result, those problems costs America the least and left America with the most. It resulted in a more stable international community. It is a concept best described as 'containment'. A policy that works quite well all through history. The antynom of containment is pre-emption that creates things like a 30 Years War and a WWIII that started in Cuba).

So what does that mean we should be doing? Sticking our head into the sand like as ostrich? Obviously not. First we should do as we have been doing - ie. OAS (Organization of American States). It means we should be encouraging the world to do as Clinton was. Local powers must responsiblity for their own local problems. In Africa, we now have:

from The Economist of 11 Mar 2004
28 countries had ratified a protocol bringing an African Security Council into existence. This month foreign ministers meeting in Ethiopia will elect its 15 members for terms of three to five years. By next year the council may have an army to command. Leaders of the African Union agreed last weekend to form five brigades of soldiers, policemen and military observers, 15,000 people in all, to be led by South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya and Egypt. There will be one brigade in each of five regions of the continent. Luckily, a barmy idea by Libya's President Muammar Qaddafi to scrap all national armies and form a single pan-African one was rejected.

This is not all. Five eminent Africans will form a “council of the wise” which is supposed to help prevent and resolve conflicts. A military committee will plan operations, just as military advisers help the UN's peacekeeping department. An “early-warning system” is supposed to tell officials when a war is looming. Malawi's President Bakili Muluzi suggests that a first test could be tackling the Lord's Resistance Army, a vicious Ugandan rebel group.

When we are so mentally deficient as to declare the world in terms of good and evil, then we get a President that does not even read his own memos; who waits for others to tell him what to decide. There is not 'good' and 'evil'. That is for religious extremists where anything contrary to their religious beliefs is evil. We have a world more complex - that means one now worships better 'bibles' - such as the Fundamental Declaration of Human Rights.

[Trilby]

You know what? There is such a thing as evil. Hitler's Germany was evil, what is going on in Darfur is evil--genocide is evil--I don't care what perspective you look at it from. The wholesale slaughter of human beings simply because they exsist and muck up your world view is evil. You are frightening.

TW's posts remind me of the conclusions in regard to the nature of evil made by Hannah Arendt:

"I mean that evil is not radical, going to the roots (radix), that is has no depth, and that for this very reason it is so terribly difficult to think about it, since thinking, by definition, wants to reach the roots. Evil is a surface phenomenon, and instead of being radical, it is merely extreme. We resist evil by not being swept away by the surface of things, by stopping ourselves and beginning to think, that is, by reaching another dimension than the horizon of everyday life. In other words, the more superficial someone is, the more likely will he be to yield to evil. An indication of such superficiality is the use of clichés, and Eichmann, ...was a perfect example."

[tw]

Originally Posted by Brianna

You know what? There is such a thing as evil. Hitler's Germany was evil, what is going on in Darfur is evil--genocide is evil--I don't care what perspective you look at it from. The wholesale slaughter of human beings simply because they exsist and muck up your world view is evil. You are frightening.

Either one is good or is evil? There is no other condition? Everything is judged in 'black and white' - also called extremism. 'Black and white' is how we teach primary school children who do not yet have the mental capacity to understand an adult world. In a real world, only those with child mentalities still see everything in terms of 'black and white' - 'good and evil'. Even adult Boston fans don't view the Yankees in such extremes. Unfortunately, those extremists are the same people who would also invade other nations for no legal or logical reason. It was called the Crusades. It was called the 30 Years War. Those who react to the world with a 'black and white' simplicity would then meet the definition of evil.

When asked how to identify good Christians from the bad Christians, the general said, "Kill then all. God will know his own." What happens when everything is viewed only in terms of 'good and evil'? Those who view the world with such simplistic judgements are frightening. It was called the Spanish Inquisition. Nobody expected the Spanish Inquistion until everything was suddenly and only about 'good and evil'. Simplistic thinking is how George Jr will get relected: claiming everything only in the simplistic terms he understands - 'good and evil'.

Yes it is a rather serious problem. An easy mistake to make. Those who judge only in simple terms - 'good verse evil' - may be doomed to become evil. Explains why children make poor judges and leaders.

[Cyber Wolf]

Originally Posted by tw

(most recent post with lots of words)

That would explain what's going on in Bush's head, I suppose.

[Trilby]

tw--you are clearly not reading my words. I did not say that their were two choices, 'good' or 'evil'. I said evil does exsist. I did not say to the exclusion of one only other option, and that being 'good'. I believe YOUR ideas are black/white, it is YOU who divide people into 'good' or 'evil', not I. You need to take a step back and contemplate what someone posts before going off on a rant that doesn't even address the posted issue. If you cannot see where Hitler was evil, where the situation in Darfur is evil, if you think it is all a matter of perspective I disagree. You think I am a Bush fan? You hurt your own cause by being so very black and white in your own thinking.

I must say that Brianna is right when she states that nowhere did she say one is either good or evil. She said evil must be confronted. You take issue with this statement, TW, because of the atrocities which have occurred in the name of confronting a supposed "evil." Am I correct in this understanding?

I know that evil DOES exist. I also realize that each side believes that it is on the side of the angels even as its members go about commiting unspeakable acts. Arendt called this this the "banality of evil." She came to her conclusions when she witnessed the trial of Eichman in Neurenberg. Eichman appeared as a person of small intellect, given to answering his questioners with cliche's and party propaganda. Arendt felt that people who think deeply about issues, who do not accept the party line - whether it be religous dogma or political idealogy - will not commit evil acts. Her belief was that any intelligent person will realize that by harming others, one ultimately harms oneself.

I think our current world situation is a beautiful example of the banality of evil in action. George Jr. is hardly an intellectual giant, in case no one has noticed. He buys into the dogma of the religous right and mouths its cliche's at every turn. Thus, we have the current conflict in Iraq. Were Junior to brought up before the judges at Nuremberg, I suspect that he would come off much as Eichman did. The same would be true of Saddam, of Bin Laden, of Pol Pot - the list goes on and on.

I agree with Brianna that evil must be confronted. It is the MANNER in which it is confronted that is crucial. There lies the crux of the problem.

[Trilby]

Exactly what I meant, Mari. Thanks for putting it so eloquently.