Push Button Morality

I had a dream the other night.  I dreamt that, while defending a cousin of mine from two large and scary men, I shot and killed them both.  In my dream, I felt horrible, even though I was cleared by everyone in authority.  When I woke up, I was still horrified that had pulled the trigger.  It still bothers me, three days later.
 
I don't know what that says about my morality.  I know I couldn't kill for money.  I know that I probably would kill to save family, friends, or innocents.  What I don't know is if I could live with those actions.
 
What is it called when you do something that you know is right, but it destroys you?

... In my case, Michael ... it was called, Falling in Love .......

Regarding Michael's dream...I'd have not the first problem with taking whatever steps necessary to stop anyone bent on harming family, friends or innocents, nor would I grieve for those who had chosen to attempt that harm.

Choices  produce  consequences,   but  only  machines,  lesser  mammals,  and  people  without  a  moral  dimension  do  not  run  into  Michael's  issues.   Keep  in  mind  that,  jmo,  in  the  dream   he  did  the  right  thing.   Nevertheless  two  human  beings   are  dead,  which  creates  a  lot  of  issues.  Good  for  Michael,  better  to  suffer,  than  to  numb  yourself  to  the   issues.  The  unexamined  life  is  not  worth  living.

Bert, I like your thinking. I'm not so kind. I probably should not write something like this without being fully awake but I'll give it a shot. First, no way would I pull the switch to send the train down another track; I can't make choices like that. But if someone came into our home, or attempted violence on my family, one of us is leaving in a body bag -- and I would prefer that it's not me. I've no idea how I'd feel afterward, since I've never had such an experience, but I'd leave that to afterward and deal with it then. Let's hope I would not find it acceptable to take anyone's life, but I'd bend every effort to doing it in such a situation.

The moral imperative and the healthcare system reminds me of a game of Clue where everyone is trying to figure out who killed the disenfranchised old lady or the poor immigrant child.   

The previews for the movie-"The Black Box"- look like some bad out takes from a rejected "LIFETIME" movie. Really,really bad.

PERDITAMARIE- very thoughtful post. Thanks for making me stop & think.

JALOPKIN- Stop- you're killing me...

I'm a bit disappointed with the manner in which the author of this article lighlty glosses over some very large philosophical topics. Whether you are Christian or not there are some very valuable insights on morality from the "worldly" view. In fact Kant argues the existense of God in his papers. However, his arguments for ethical morality were done in an athiest sense. This is good news for all of us and certainly worth reading. It is nice to know that moral ethics can exist in a world that does not believe in God. At least I found that comforting. Although, I grant that some things would naturally be different.  Kant's Catagorical Imperitave seems to be made fun of in this authors short and devoid comments. This is unfortunate. I find it hard to believe that this author could find fault with Kant's views when it pertains to any sort of social structure. In fact there have been fantastic arguments agains abortion in which Kant's Catagorical Imperitave arguments were used to strengthen the anti abortion stance. And to great success too.  Kant's Catagorical Imperitave states, in the most basic form, that "One should not do anything that they would wish others not do." So in other words - do as you would wish others to do. Do kill people unless you would wish them to kill you. ( also use to support capital punishment..) It's basically the golden rule... So now on to health care. I seem to have a problem with the author knocking Obam and his desire to reform healthcare in this country. Now, I have healthcare. I have no problem with the system, but I grant that that's probably because I can afford it. But under Kantian morality I realize that there are people that cannot afford healthcare in this county. This causes me to ask the question "What if I were one of those people? Would I then desire that the health care system be different or more accesible to me?"  The answer, at least for me, is a definitive yes. I find it hard to believe that anyone would answer otherwise. That doesn't mean that I agree with the way the fed is doing it, just that I do concede that something needs to be done to make it more accessible to all.  The author knocks some pretty influential philosophy, that also happens to be fairly sound, not perfect but definitely one of the better philosophies of modern times. And the author doesn't offer any supporting arguments for his own stance, just rhetoric.  And rhetoric is the wary verbose of the very politicians he's poking fun at..... Be careful what you take from this article...... One last question for you: If Kan't catagorical Imperitave can't answer the question about the railroad tracks then what would you argue God would want you to do in the same situation?  I would love to hear you answer that. Then maybe we can discuss healthcare.

Oh, come now, Shawn_mott -- not doing to others what you woudn't want them to do to you is a very different thing from the wording of the Golden Rule. I'd much rather follow the first than the second, since the first premise is reasonable and achievable, while the Golden Rule sounds good but is largely unworkable in a society peopled with . . . well . . . with people.    I kill people all the time (I write myrder mysteries), but would I kill someone in real life? Like "PerditaMarie" said in her thought-provoking post two hours ago, that lightning image is not one I think I could capture readily. I simply don't know the answer, and I hope never to be in a situation where such a decision would be required. I appreciate the essay that prompted these thoughts.

Hmm, ideally - and I know it's not one of the choices - I'd try to do something to stop the train altogether.  I'd most likely spend my last few moments before the "hit" trying to stopthe whole thing from happening.   But, I know that is not in the "rules".  If you switch the people to sheep, then yes, I'd save 20 sheep to kill 5.  I'd switch it in an instant.  Being people, I wouldn't switch it.  Being a Christian, I'd try to save everyone.  What if I switched it?  Maybe I'd save 20 mass murderers and vagrants to kill 5 truely good people.  I wouldn't be able to winnow through that in a few seconds.  What's better for the world? Duck and cover... 

perditmarie - thank you for your post.  
 
I haven't posted for so so long and this morning I woke to find Peterman's eye in my email.  What an incredibly heavy topic, but life is that.  Perdimarie are so right, in a flash - decisions such as those must be made in a minute. 
 
I've seen lives change for decisions they make in less than a minute.  Some are held up as heros, some go to jail, some feel incredible shameful or guilty or brave.  The outside world might not know how the event is being interpreted from the inside.  
  
All we can do is our best and learn to forgive ourselves.  They are called dilemmas for a reason - the answers arent' clear cut. 
 
Peditmarie - I wish you peace & sleep.

I tiptoe into today's topic very carefully.  I still vividly remember the last time I discussed heavy issues of morality on this forum and took the very controversial minority position that, when stuck with a mountain climber, cutting the rope that links you can sometimes be the MORE honorable and moral decision than refusing to do so.  Not one of the more cheerful days on The Eye.
 
Grassain's train problem is full of holes in many areas.  First of all, he contends that "you, and you alone, have aggressively caused the death of five individuals".  This is false.  You and you alone did not start the train running or steer it onto its current course.  You did not bind 20 people to one track, nor did you bind 5 people to the other.  To contend that the responsibility for the people's fate is entirely and exclusively yours is patently and transparently absurd.
 
But, letting that go:
 
My real disturbance is with the use of the word "aggressively".  I submit that the presence or absence of aggression in this scenario is irrelevant.  A conscious decision to have the train on a given course is made either way.  Remember the famous legal notion that silence denotes assent.  Or, more classically, remember Dante's description of the Frist Plane of Hell being populated by those who, in time of moral crisis when choices must be made, remained neutral.
 
To witness moral calamity and make no moral decision (to "take no side" as it were) is not morally neutral.  To refuse to help Jews during the Holocaust or to refuse to call the police when witnessing a robbery do not leave your hands clean because you did not "aggressively" aid and abet the crime in question.  To refrain is still to act.
 
So the question really set before us is:  Would you actively choose to switch the course of the train and effectively kill five people?  Or would you passively choose to refrain from switching the course of the train and effectively kill twenty people?
 

Daniel Zev, before I move on to today's topic... Thanks for your George Carlin clip yesterday ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EjmtSkl53h4  ).  Wow!  I had no clue he and I shared a common world view... (Problem: I now have to revise my self-image to see myself as George Carlin!)

Something cool, but not on topic...

www.LetsSayThanks.com

my morality is not yours . . . i'd love to make the decisions i think best for everyone, but i do not want you to make those decisions for me.  so, the majority rules . . . as it must.  you cannot save a man from himself.

I find it rather amusing that so many yuppies are involved in a moral debate of sorts.  Just  where do you stand on the abortion issue?  It is legal to kill unborn children, therefore it is the right thing to do so that no one is "punished" by an unwanted child.  Abortionists are pushing buttons for a million dollars all the time.   
Do we really believe the president's peddling of the Health Care Bill to be of economic and moral imperative?  As an elderly person who will be affected by health-care rationing and Medicare de-funding to the tune of 400 million dollars I can assure you I find the president to be disingenuous, to say the least.  Yup, throw me under the train and make way for the younger, more physically able.
I could go on with examples, but your politically correct staff won't print this anyway.

Well, since it involves throwing a switch, and knowing what I do (a little) about manual track switches, I would probably elect to derail the train by moving the switch to the middle, thereby not directing the train to the right or the left, but jamming the track somewhere in the middle. This might kill the engineer and possibly the brakeman if he were in the train cab at the time. But it is only a "might". Having the train run to the right or the left WOULD kill either five or twenty people.

I understand the morality that the question really poses, but enough folks have debated that and there is really no clear answer there. So I chose instead to treat this as a puzzle/dilemma and offer a surface solution.

Now I can get back to saving the world...

fortunately the question is theoretical.      soooo...  i suppose, the 20 "victims" could be "for hire " butterfly's...being financed by a "big sky" research group which just happens to sit atop the williston basin..........nah!....that'd mean the whole thing was about politic's, profit and power...
 
more coffee....
 
 

I would never follow the notion "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you".  After all, those others might have ticklish feet!

I annoy my friends no end when I tell them that 'should' doesn't exist. Neutrons exist. Photons exist. Coffee cups exist. Black widow spiders exist. 'Should' is something that only exists within individual human brains, making it the expression of patterns. And if they were to press, me, I would admit that patterns do exist (but they never go there....). Morality is a peculiarly human activity. If an insect eats its children, humans don't flinch; if a human eats a child, humans go bananas. (No, I'm not arguing about morality, I'm just pointing out a disjunct!)

I'm a pretty moral guy. In fact, I'm a very moral guy. But the things I consider immoral never seem to be the things that most folks think are immoral (and vice versa). I don't have a problem with 'cheating' on a MORAL level (as a health issue, I think it's insane, given STDs). I've, for the most part, been monogamous through my life, though I did (when much younger and stupider) hang out with 'swingers'. Yes, I've had an interesting life.

On the other hand, I think 'fighting for your country' is very immoral -- perhaps because I think of it as one bunch of surrogates threatened with prison or death killing another bunch of surrogates under duress -- all so the folks who ordered them into battle don't have the guts to stand in a field with dueling pistols to settle their differences mano-a-mano. (Yes, I'm a vet and thank goodness I wasn't directly in the supply chain of 500-lb bombs which eventually ended up killing moms and babies in Hanoi; I was off to the side watching, and -- hopefully -- using up tax dollars which otherwise would have helped finance more F-105s and F-4Cs and F-4Ds.)

I have a friend (a Polish-born professor who speaks seven languages and holds both a PhD and MD) who is conversant with Kant. I've never quite understood Kant, perhaps because I'm just not logical enough to master philosophy that is based on logic. I'm more instinctual.

On a practical level, I have a very modest ethical guideline to my personal behavior. (1) Don't hurt other folks except in self-defense. (2) When I look into the mirror every day I want to like the person who is looking back at me. (And screw everyone else's opinion of him!)

Yes, I'm an individualist. I don't throw a lot of my 'amoral' views regarding sexual morality in folks' faces, because it violates principle #1. It ruins their day when they know I don't agree with their strictures -- and who am I to ruin their day? And I generally don't bother trying to get other folks to see nationalism as evil, since I've never convinced anyone of that anyway. (I periodically violate this, and -- after months of futile efforts -- give up. My latest foray here was failing to convince a Jewish friend that Islam isn't inherently an evil religion and that not all Arabs are terrorist threats to 'us', whoever that is....)

The best policy is that I learned from my mom: "Love many; trust few; and always paddle your own canoe". Why best? Because.... just because.... And that's pretty much my overall view of morality: each person has his own, and I'm just 'passing through' with my own. And my job is to navigate the river. My personal choice is to try to leave more happiness than pain behind -- but that's mine. I can understand and accept the fact that some sincerely believe their moral role is to "Kill 'em all and let God sort them out!" It's just not my philosophy.....

As a Vietnam vet I too find the display of medals troubling...non the less.
As, i would think, the combat veterans on this post would agree, in combat, a fire fight, gun fight, or whatever one wishes to call it, there is NO 2nd place!. And that folks is where I draw my morality from.

The problem with debating these hypothetical questions is that real life is never so black and white.  There is always a right and wrong path, and the right path will never be in contradiction with absolute truth or principle.  Having said that, I believe the best manner to distinguish right from wrong in this situation is to apply the axiom that "the end never justifies the means".  

There is only one choice. The need the the many outway the needs of the few. Basic law of life.

OK...second cup of coffe.
 
The train question is way to simple...first "I" am not "aggressively responsible" for those deaths, whoever set in motion that little test to see if the good of the many outweighs the good of the few holds the responsibility.
 
Then there are no details on the twenty or the five. Is it five children and twenty adults? Vice versa? What are their genders? How are they dressed? Why are they stuck on the tracks? There are a million ways people make split second decisions beyond numbers...or at least they should...
 
And Michael...I thinkthe word is "sacrifice."

I find it interesting that a person can selectively chose when to use categorically and when to use morally. So let me attempt for nothing more than conversation sake flip flop the perspective of an earlier point. Because honestly its all good here on the Eye. From a moral standpoint are not the subject of the bible (Christianity)and the subject of Kant's works basically a philosophy of mankind. Granted each uses a completely different approach to arrive at the same golden rule. So why categorize? Its all the same...all good when you choose to apply it that way. On Obamcare to throw the guilt trip moral question at people using such a flawed proposition from its practical application perspective is and subjecting the choice to some sense of morality when a better practical solution is out there. So to shift that discussion form moral category to the practical category, I find it interesting that some press and many backers of Obamacare version A or B take this "moral challenge' strategy to sell a bill of goods to the American people, which has its moral question within it.

I have a busy day and Peterman's email suckered me in and my first response without reading the article was a question on war not Obamacare. So here is my schpeil. War or no war, torture no or torture, jump on a grenade and be a hero for a few or go on to be a research scientist and discover a cure to save millions. I criticize no person for what ever their answer. From a moral perspective are we not all integral pieces of one huge puzzle called mankind on a multifaceted time continuum where dimensions and time are still mysterious to science? Well I don't know about you put if I were to draw a parallel to all the jigsaw puzzles in the garbage because of ONE missing piece...well you get my point. Words like categorical, moral and situations like war, or life death issues of health care (not expensive band aid maintenance for people making wrong lifestyle/health choices) can only be resolved with a full recognition of "One" and its full imperative to chop wood and carry water for the sake of yourself which happens to also be for mankind kind.

So I leave you with the song from John Lennon. Imagine all the people...if only we could live as One. There are lots of subtle messages in the that attached Lennon video, in case anything I said above is taken wrongly, the video should at least clear up my intensions.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-b7qaSxuZUg

Doc on words that souldn't be, by favorite  that shouldn't is trying.  You are either doing it or you are not.  Of course with so many people simply trying, I must be missing a screw.  Once again, its me.  uuuhhhmm  well back to work...a busy day

OK Michael one more. I also had a dream last night. I was doing a speaking engagement in India with a women. After the engagement as we were hurrying to the airport, she told me she had to stop off and deliver this baby. I hadn't noticed she was pregnant and she never brought it up. Well we stopped in the hospital and she quickly popped it out, akin to stopping in to Wallgreens to pick up a prescription, and off we were dashing to the airport. We were riding bikes to the airport down this forever sidewalk. She had the baby in a basket on the handlebars. The whole time, all I could do was think about catching that plane and the stop at the drug store set is back. The sidewalk ended and we were in sugar sand that rendered the prospect of getting to the airport on time even dimmer. I am sure it's because of my selfish thoughts. Then the dream ended. SO after work today, I have a big wood pile that needs some splitting. I'll be sorting that dream out and its moral questions and why I am such a terrible person. OK I am hitting enter and not reading it or anything else...gotta go.. 

I've read some of these post and the they moved me to think. Pushing a button to get money and kill a stranger is out of the question for me. I've been without money before and I'm without money now. As far as the train situation goes,inaction is just as bad as a faux pa. Who are we to judge anyone in that situation? We are not gods. People die everyday. Do we morn every death. Children die at birth or in the womb,adults die in their sleep. Look at it this way,maybe it was just fate for thes people to die be it the 20 or the five. We have to live with our decsions everyday. Whether it was to get a college education or take a job for immediate need of money. A decision like that can affect the family you support or their lives. Also look at in this light,we support life even in death. We die get buried, our casket rots,worms eat our bodies,it rains forcing the worms to the surface,birds eat the worms, the birds relieve themselves which makes plants grow animals eat the plants and grasses ect...... Look at it from that stand point.

I must say I don't find Grassian's example of a moral dilemma very satisfying.  It's more of a classic case of triage.  In this situation, there are a total of 25 people in jeopardy.  The choice, forced on the chooser by circumstances rather than by personal fault, is to let 5 die, or 20.  Not even a choice that would keep me awake nights, as failing to act would make me responsible for more deaths than would otherwise have occured.  Of course, there would be the nightmares associated with seeing the catastrophe.
 
If forced to consider who would live and who would die, I would factor in the relative value of the "human lives" involved.  While all men are "created equal", some go on to become monsters who threaten the safety of others, some become heroes who save others.  Most are somewhere in the vast grey zone in between.
 
I am leery of "moral imperatives".  For example, "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few" could have been twistedly applied to the Nazi treatment of gypsies, Jews, and homosexuals. 
 
Frankly, I would like to see a lot less morality and a lot more ethics, especially in politics.
 
 
 

So many newbies today. Welcome all!
 
In a case like todays I fear I'd be at a loss to choose and would just freeze up.
 
I wouldn't be able to make the decision quickly enough to throw the switch if that is what I finally thought was the right thing to do.
 
Thankfully the decisions I have to make are not that earth shattering and mostly only affect me.

I am very much enjoying people's thoughts on this topic. I have another question. If you are the actor, or the non-actor, with a spotlight on you and people watching, would this change how you would act? Say you were the person put in charge of the switch and whether you act or you don't act, everyone would know that you were the one responsible. Would you act differently than if you could secretly make the decision? I believe that some people act a certain way because they are being watched. Obama for sure. Are they moral, or are they behaving in a way that reflects ideas of morality, and are those the same?

Personally, if I were being watched I wouldn't do anything because it's easier to defend doing nothing than to defend an active move of throwing the switch. Someone could sue you for the death of someone of the 5, but if you did nothing it's harder to hold you responsible for the inaction. This brings us back to the idea of the longterm consequences of making a choice, not only to your conscience, but also to your life in general.

As far as the button for a million dollars goes, that's just stupid.
 
I'd go barefoot in the snow before I'd push that button.
 
Poor or poorer it's not a dilemma in my book.

As many have stated, I would not "push the button" and kill one so that I could have much.  I would do what I could to save the 20, because at the time I would not know it would kill the 5.  But alas, I must admit, I probably would not do it at the sacrifice of my own life, unless it was for a loved one.  I guess that is self-preservation on my part.

As for healthcare, of course I believe it would be best if ALL could have it.  But I am more of the school working on a system to help businesses enroll employees in affordable group policies, rather than having the government fund the system.  For one reason, if the government ran it, it would be a debacle, and there would be even more waste than there is now.  When I was traveling in the South Pacific, I was on a remote island, and ran into a group from Sweden.  I asked them, "Do you like socialized healthcare?"  Their unanimous response was "Yes, it is great, as long as you never get sick with anything serious.  If you have cancer, it can take 8 months to get tested and to get treatment.  That is why so many from Canada and Sweden come to the US for treatment."

Many hospitals in America already tend sick people who can not afford it.  My sister works for a city healthcare organization, and EVERY illegal immigrant receives 100% assistance when they come in, at NO charge.  They receive better care than my sister does with her insurance she pays for.  No wonder our system is imploding.  If the governemnt "took it over" we would see more of the same.  AND the fact that our "ranking politicians" would NOT be a part of that system, SCREAMS their hypocrisy, and speaks volumes of how good of care this system would really provide.  

Lots of interesting philosophy here today... but the only thing I can think is... Wouldn't someone who is "anti-Kant" be "Kan"?

I'll step aside now and let the moral wrangling continue.

There is a course taught at Harvard by Prof. Michael Sendel entitled "Justice - what's the right thing to do" that addresses these issues from the earliest observations by political theorists, philosphers, and in jurisprudence to just the topic that is addressed on this site today.  Check it out...it has its own website and one can view the class from the site.  

Thank you Doc Nolan for mentioning the shaky footing in using the word "should".  I, for one, recoginize that "should" always makes someone wrong....I just don't use that word.    And as for the question as to what to do.  It  would be something done in an instant and though I wouldn't kill anyone, I also wouldn't sit back and watch 20 people die if I could do anything to help it.  I would try to save as many living beings as I could and so based upon the description of the scenario, it looks like I'd choose to make the switch to save the 20 lives. Given more details, I might make a different choice...but alas...we only have these few. 

As for the train scenario: If we adhere rigidly to the setup, the only basis we have for valuing track A and track B is the number of lives -- 5 versus 20.  We can't know anything more about the individuals, which is probably just as well.  Also, the only choice we have is to throw the switch or not.  The idea that we are "not part of the equation" and can avoid moral taint by inaction is not tenable; we are part of the scenario whether we like it or not.  The only rational choice is to throw the switch and send the train down the track with 5 victims, knowing at least that we have chosen the lesser of two evils.

As for pushing the button for $1 million: I would not do it.  But did you know that US policy makers effectively do "push the button" for $6.9 million?  That's the 2008 "Value of a Statistical Life" (VSL) used by the Environmental Protection Agency in calculating the cost/benefit of environmental protection measures.  (The VSL made news last year when the EPA marked it down from previous years; apparently an American life ain't what it used to be.)  Actuaries have to deal with this all the time -- for e.g., weighing the certain costs of retooling against the probabilistic costs of settling injury/death lawsuits related to flawed product designs.

These issues become very interesting when we enter the realm of aggregate data and public policy.  In fact, that sort of thing made the news this week when the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force issued new guidelines on breast cancer screening.  They recommend that women delay and reduce screening on the logic that aggressive early screening does not ultimately reduce mortality, while it does drive up procedures and costs.  At the individual level, it is very hard to submit to this logic, and many groups are coming out against the new recommendations.

I would not throw the train switch. The loss of 20 to me right now means there will be 20 job openings that weren't available before.....
(Please someone get me out of the Christmas retail HELL ASAP)
 
There are 2 many variables to this for me to make that decision. It kind of reminds of the book "Tuck Everlasting" in either case what a choice to have to make....  
 

I think I would fall into panic mode and save the 20 people, under the circumstances described.  A considered reaction would depend on many things, but my immediate instinct would be to save as many as I could.

We, the people, allow that button to be pushed all the time. One sacrifice (or 100 or 1000) for millions of dollars is policy in our health industry, in pricing, in holding back research on women, ethnic groups, in denying quality care to those who can't pay.  How many wars have we fought for oil or spices or power, sacrifing a percentage of the population for the good of the mass-or the few?  It doesn't matter if it is or is not moral. It is reality.
 
We seem to have more problems with logic than we do with morality in this country. For 12 years we've fought a war against religious extremists who want to force archaic beliefs, lifestyles, thoughts and desires on the entire world. At the same time, we had allowed religious extremists who want to force archaic beliefs, lifestyles, etc., etc., on the entire world to rule our country.  We argue about the right or wrong of government sponsored insurance policies for the the millions of people who have no insurance. But we accept without question the fact that our congressmen, our policy makers, have all accepted billions from the health care industry that goes unregulated-all of them, McCain, Obama, Clinton, every congressman, every senator, to some degree.
 
We can debate the moral implications of murder. Would I kill to protect my family? Would I kill to protect my property? Most of us won't ever have to make that decision. We pay people to do it for us when we pay our taxes.  If a policeman, hired with my tax dollars, shoots a man who has a gun to my neighbor's head is it any more moral than if I had fired the shot? If I insist by my vote that an unwed teenager be denied an abortion and her child is shot in a gang war on the street 14 years later, am I less responsible than an abortionist for the child's murder?
 
We each have to walk our own path through life, make our own choices. The question is, do we have a right, under any conditions, to make life choices for others?  I would also try to derail the train. A woman who might have the cure for cancer might be among the 5, the 20 might be a group of pediphiles. Or vice versa.
 
Cute, Kristina. :-)

priori ~ (as defined above) ~ this train is sepia toned, the conductor will stop the train and pick up all 26 " victims " thus nullifying the dilemmas.....
 
 

I can imagine that the train is not occupied and derail it, distroy a train and save everyone. Now I have to go and find 100 new jobs to pay for the train and damage it caused to the land it distroyed.

Morality is subjective. It is based on what a particular culture values. That we would even entertain the question "would you kill a man for $1 million" is an indicator of how skewed our values are.

Do I think killing is wrong? Yes. Would I kill someone to save my own life? Probably. To save my children's life? ABSOLUTELY!!! For money? Absolutely not.

Do I think stealing is wrong? Yes. Would I steal to feed myself? Probably not, maybe. Would I steal to feed my kids? ABSOLUTELY!

The problem with the "good of the many..." as a catch all is there are always variables. What if the 20 are stuck on the tracks in a prison bus, convicted pedophiles, murders and rapists, and the 5 Doctors in an ambulance? Or the 20 octogenarians and the 5 are children?  Is the "many" always the 20? Or can "many" be defined as society at large? What if the 5 are officials on there way to negotiate and sign a peace treaty to end a war (the only ones who can complete this particular task), and the 20 new recruits being sent to fight in the war? What is the 20 are ordinary Joes with families and the 5 research scientists on the edge of curing cancer? Or...

Life is a series of decisions.

Personally my measure is: will it hurt someone else, and why am I doing it?

     "Thinking outside the box" is probably the only way you would have a chance to have this situation end with a non-tragic result.
 
     The exemplar situation has some other choices as far as what you could do, all depending on the specifics of the situation. Are the victims in other trains that are parked? Are they standing on or working on the track? Are the victims within eye or ear shot? Are they close enough to scream "get off the tracks!" Are you alone when you come across this situation? Are there others you can contact to tell them of the problem? Do you have a way to contact the driver on the oncoming train to tell him to brake?
 
     But if the apathy of most of the people I have dealt with in RL lately is typical, then the switch wouldn't be moved at all--choice by failing to make a choice. Then there is the "dithering syndrome" where a person is caught between two bad choices and is unable to choose between them because their brain is gibbering about the possible consequences--the ultimate situational anxiety situation and guaranteed to lead to a nervous breakdown (If I have the driver brake that is going to cause the train behind him to run into his load...if I leave the switch alone 20 people are going to die horribly...but if I throw the switch 5 people are going to die horribly...if I move the switch to the halfway point hte train will derail and kill the driver and ME!!!!! AAAAAAUUUUGGGGGHHHH!)
 
     The fact is, no matter what decision we make there are always consequences. Someone is always going to get the short end of the stick. Healthcare for everyone may be a moral imperative, but is there away to do it that makes it truly affordable to everyone? Some people think that it is fair that everyone pay the same equal premium for it...for example, $50.00 a month for a family of four. But what if that family of four has only one working member and they are making minimum wage for only 20 hours a week? That $50.00 a month premium is essentially as unaffordable as the $11,000.00 hospital bill for treatment of a heart attack that the healthcare plan is supposed to pay for. A $20.00 copay for a doctor's office visit when their kid wakes up with all the symptoms of H1N1 doesn't sound like a lot, but it can make the difference between having three meals a day that week or only two for the family.
 
     The key is to make the premiums and copays equitable.
 
     But there's the rub. What is equitable? Who decides that?
 
     How can low income folks believe that the wealthy politicians in Washington (and don't try to tell the poor that a senator's or representative's salary and benefits doesn't make them wealthy--there isn't one of them that has to decide whether to pay for medicine and medical care or to pay the electric bill or mortgage) understands what id affordable for them? Have any of the decision-makers in the Capitol's hallowed halls ever been one of them? Getting anywhere in federal politics takes money and if you don't have it you can't become one of them. So there's really no one making decisions on the healthcare issue who can actually internalize the realities for the people who so desperately need a working healthcare plan.
 
     I'm lucky enough to have a full-time job that pays more than minimum wage, but I still have to decide what to give up to pay the $50.00 copay so I can get my bad tooth looked at or the $75.00 to be checked at the emergency room when I've slipped and fallen on slick pavement at 11 o'clock at night and my ankle is swelling to the size of a watermelon. Back when I was only making minimum wage I had to live on packets of Ramen noodles for three meals a day for a month at a time to be able to pay my medical expenses because the only part of my budget that I could take the money from was from my food and transportation budget. That is the reality for far too many people.
 
     Even if they come up with a plan that makes healthcare readily available and affordable for people (without having to pay up front or filling out reams of paperwork or waiting two or three weeks before being able to see a provider), unless the problem of the lack of a living wage is dealt with, the problems aren't going to go away. Unless people can afford to eat healthy food they're going to continue eating fast food from the McDonalds $.99 value menu, or high fat, high sugar prepared foods, adding to the obesity/diabetes/heart health problems that increase the need for medical care and treatment.
 
     When it comes down to it, perhaps we don't need a national healthcare program as much as we need a national living wage program so people can afford to live a healthy lifestyle.
 
     Oh dear, another moral imperative...

BEBE:  How do you think I had the time to learn how to make Kulakofsky's Russian Dressing ??? 
 
 
Actually, I would have to know who the Five were, and who the Twenty were before I could even consider an answer .......

Who knew there were so many lurkers and that today would be the day they all show up? It's nice to see some new names.
 
 
DocNolan - as always, your thoughts are interesting and thought-provoking.  I often wish I lived near you so we could go to lunch!
 
As for the actual topic - I have to agree that one must throw the switch and kill the 5, not the 20.   

Kristina -old joke - Immanuel Kant, but Sammy Cahn.

"the Box" does not present a dilemma - just a basis for evaluating a person as devoid of any moral thought or emotion.

The train question, on the other hand, is clear in its presentation, but poses a question, as perditmarie describes, that arises often but is much more difficult to discern in the reality of the moment.

I took a Neighborhood Emergency Response Team (NERT) course, with many of my colleagues, to be prepared for a large earthquake or other disaster hitting San Francisco. One session was devoted to Triage- how to decide who gets attended. It was quite disturbing to many to balance between someone with severe injuries and obviously low survival rate against another with severe injuries but a high likelihood of surviving. I know those decisions are made every day by many people, often with little time to weigh the consequences.

Cactuspal, often it is not a matter of the right to decide, but the obligation to decide. In these cases, not acting is as much of a moral choice as deciding.

what i think is enough with what if!!!!!!!!!!
we can save lifes by doing THE RIGHT THING and taking the switch button away from the oh so SWEET insurance people!!!!!!!!
They are nuthing but a dreadful organisation of crooks !!!
this is like me going into a store and buy all the baby food and then stand in front of that store and sell it for much more to only the people i determine as worthy!
screw the rest right ????
How can we spend all this money on the war machine and mi8ssions to the moon !
when i am sick or see my neighbor whom has MS and need help i frankly dont give a hoot if there is water up there !!!!who has the right to tell me i cant go to the doctor??????
further more there will always be choices and what ONE WILL DO IN ANY SITUATION WILL ONLY TRULY BE SEEN WHEN IT ARRIVES !!! who has not thought what if ???? I have been in situations where i never thought i would react as i actually did!I hope that all that for phony reasons and selfishness working against doing the RIGHT thing will get what they deserve and give up their government healthcare and join the rest of us!!!!!!!!
OHH and god forbid illegals can buy helthcare!!!!!ITS SO MUCH CHEAPER IF THEY GO TO THE EMERGENCY ROOM ??????? While i am at it ! Why are Men who dont give Birth have ANY saying in the Abortion issue ??? This should be a  Womens ONLY issue! Who pays for that ??? We are !!!
all spelling optional! english is my second language !
Thanks for listening !

As a senior citizen who's experienced a lot of sturm und drang, my opinion is simply this: there are no hard and fast moral rules. Everything must be taken in context. However, if you eliminate the innate desisre for self-preservation, my decision would always be to do the least harm. My past history includes putting myself between others and perceived harm, which can be painful (and has been). But as to sitting with my finger on a button and choosing between five and twenty deaths, I would have to have a gun at my head, and then I really think I would refuse to choose either. I may be overrating my lack of fear of death, but I don't think I could do it.  Therefore, I will never make a good politician!

JALOPKIN ~ you are right how many of my Exes/ Enemies are in each train? is the Ex Hubby & the new ___ on one of them?  THAT TOTALLY changes the equation.
 
This also makes me think of the choice needed to be made in the film "Fail Safe". In all seriousness do you sacrafice a few you love for the good of the masses? or do you stay selfish? 

itsme, I travel a lot and while having been to Sweden a lot and aware of their healthcare system, I never asked then.  Since this invented by the minority priority came up in our country  I've asked your question of socialized countries where ever I go and get the exact same answer.  Till now I didn't have anything from Sweden.  Now I do.  Thx.  And am not surprised.  I also hear from those "experts" who say its out there that we are far behind leading nations, when I ask directly for the data that supports the position, What nations, what data I hear "its out there" and I find I am "talking to the hand"with an inference that I am a moron.  So it may be.  So let me ask another dumb question; Why do so many customers complain, but so many "experts" say its good, affordable, and morally right?  So far in the absense of the data that is "out there"what I come up with is you get what you pay for.  Chop wood carry water. 

I grew up with a lot of people that helped to "push the button."  My father was a nucleor engineer and many family friends were physicists that worked on the "Bomb."   It affected all who worked there.  Most, except for Teller, worked activily for the rest of their lives for a nucleor free world.  Unfortunately they weren't succesfull.
 
I always thought that education was the biggest tool for peace.  We would learn from others mistakes.  But, somehow human nature and greed take over.  Few  of our world leaders remember WW II, Vietnam and Korea.  I look at the mess the world is in and I am terrified some idiot will push the button.
 
I have had a recurring dream since i was a child with variations.  There is a misscle with a nucleor warhead about to hit.  I can't do anything about it and I can't get back to my family.  As a child it was back to my parents and an adult to my child.  It's a horrible dream.
 
As to healthcare, education and the economy.  The proportion of extreamily wealthy people in our country has grown incredibly.  There is barely a middle class.  We have to raise taxes and the wealthy need to lose their tax breaks.  The country is falling apart becuase everyone wants someone else to support it.
 
I had better go back to work.
 
Very sneaky Mr. P to post the eye on the regular list serve.  Welcome everyone.
 
 

Mr. P spell check please!!! missle.  I won't correct the rest of the typo's

Newnag...you said "..my lack of a fear of death."  I don't know your age but I am 76 and I've come to the same point -- I don't fear death. I wonder if this happens as we discover the fact that we are getting nearer to our time to die. But I also find that the death of ANYTHING or anybody else affects me. I can hardly kill an ant. When I was young I hunted and never thought a thing about killing animals. It's different now. My  answer to today's question about pushing the button is simply "no."

Sorry!! NewSnag !!  I typed it wrong. It was the keyboard's fault, not mine :)

     I couldn't push the button for money. But if pushing the button was the only way to save someone I dearly loved from a torturous death? Let's hope I never have to decide that! Whichever choice I made I'd be destroying myself.
 
     I suppose I'm what is considered a moral relativist...to a point. There are several issues that I'm permanantly in the "It's wrong, no way will I do it" camp. For example, I personally chose not to have an abortion when I found myself unexpectedly pregnant 26 years ago.
 
     However, while I abhor the idea of using abortion as retroactive birth control (after all there are so many forms of birth control out there and you can get it for free from Planned PArenthood) there are situations where I think it should be legally available--when a woman is pregnant from rape or incest, and especially in the case of a just pubescent child ending up pregnant from rape or incest, or when it it literally a matter of life or death for the woman carrying the child. Those are my opinions based on my personal morality. I am not going to force another woman to follow my morality. I will speak (and have spoken) to pregnant teenagers about all their options and the possible consequences of each. In my situation I chose to carry the baby to term and give him up for adoption. But I will not force another person to do the same as me. I do not have the right to infringe on their rights to make their own decisions.
 
     I prefer that the death penalty not be used and have sent letters and emails to my state assembly and signed petitions trying ot get Ohio to stop using the death penalty. But I know tht there are other people who feel differently. Their idea of what is right and wrong happens to be different on this issue. So be it.
 
     When I was in my Introduction to Paralegal Studies class in 1998 my final assignment was to read a fictional federal capital case (involving a cave in, trapped miners, the killing and eating of one of the miners by his fellows, and the deaths of 13 rescue workers during the extraction process) then write a decision as though I was a Supreme Court judge. Given the "laws" and the facts of the case that we were provided, I ended up denying the appeal of the defendant (much to the surprise of my instructor, an attorney who having listened to my vociferous debate against the death penalty during the class breaks over the term, was certain that I would decide that the appeal should be granted). I was able to set my own personal morality aside to deal with the assignment and deal with it from a strictly "what is legal and what is not" standpoint but it was incredibly difficult to do.
 
     Maybe that is what makes dealing with the issues of war, healthcare, capital punishment and abortion so difficult. People's personal values often can and do differ from what the "majority" has determined to be legal.
 
     I think I might dig out that assignment and see if 11 years have changed my mind about my decision...

Bravo and kudos to publically bring up a VERY deserving chat subject. I curtsey in respect
to you.
 
And just for the record, how on earth did they get this far on the Health Care plan?!?!
 
Keep the government out of our bodies, people!!!!  WHY would anyone want it any other way? Are you thinking it through to what it REALLY means to have the government control your health? Come ON, use your heads. Open your eyes! We need to be very very afraid here!
 
I can only shake my head in wonderment of how easily deceived so many have become.
 
LESS governement is the only answer, not THE answer.
 
Manage your own life: spiritual, financial and physical. Don't let the government take your breath away! If you give them the power, THEY get to decide who lives and dies.
 
Have any of you ever watched the movie LOGAN'S RUN from the 70s with Michael York? I used to think it was so far-fetched. Till now. We are honestly closer than we might realize if the Health Care plan goes into effect.
 
Human rights dicate our deserving of Sanctuary.
 
 
 
 

I know a very sweet gentleman, now (sadly) in the middle stages of Alzheimers who worked at Oak Ridge.  I've always assumed he worked on 'the bomb'.  (His work was 'classified' there and he would never talk about it; now I doubt he can remember ever working there....)

I always marvelled at the officers who served in missile silos in the midwest when I was in the Air Force.... Their job was to kill millions by 'pressing a button' (actually turning and couple of keys and entering a code, but you get the idea...) And all this AFTER there was effectively no reason to do so.  Why do I say that?  Because most Americans and their cities would be radioactive gas and dust by the time the missiles they were to launch hit Svedlovsk, Moscow, Stalingrad, Odessa, etc, etc.  Essentially by launching 'our' missiles 'we' would double the death toll.  (Actually it would more than do so, since every other nation in the world would suffer starvation, plagues, etc... but again you 'get my drift'.)   I often wonder if any 'patriotic American officer' would refuse to launch, thereby proving he'd been accepting money with no intention of actually doing his job when push came to crunch.  I wonder what the morality of refusing to kill people is when there are no longer any people alive who care... and if any survivors did ever meet the launch officers, what would any conversation consist of?????  Again, I'm thrown back to re-reading (once again) Slaughterhouse 5 and Cat's Cradle..... 

I've always found it a bit odd that most of us live shoulder to shoulder with moral issues and never quite grasp that they are micrometers away from our lives.... 

Doing the "right" thing.  As someone who is left-handed, I take offense to that - I make that statement with tongue-in-cheek, however I do believe it is somewhat valid.  What is the "right" thing?  The right thing to me is completely different than the right thing to a gangbanger.  Could I shoot and kill a random person and not feel terrible? No.  Could a gangbanger?  We see it every day on the news. 
 
Would I throw the switch on the train tracks? I honestly can't say what I would do in that situation.  Would I be able to pull the trigger on a gun if my children, family or I were threatened?  I want to say that I would, but again, I really don't know.  I sit here at my desk on an absolutely gorgeous November day in San Francisco and contemplate these scenarios with a calm (yet caffeinated) mind, my heart beating at a steady pace, thinking logically and rationally.  I know that the thoughts I have now about these issues probably do not accurately depict what I would actually do when put in a "moral" situation.  Would I push the button on the black box?  Nope.  I can say that with certainty.  As a mother, no amount of money is worth someone's child, regardless of age - everyone is someone's child.  Well, that's my $0.04 for today.  I'm a newbie - so good morning to everyone out there in Peterman-land. 

I got my MPA with a bunch of "missiliers" from the nearby silo squadrons. They had the BEST MISSION MOTTOS:

"Don't run. You'll just die tired."

"Thirty minutes or less, or the next one's free."

Regarding moral quandaries... Henry Kissinger famously refused to answer hypothetical questions. I think that's the first and best rule for addressing morally sticky issues; don't tell me what you would do, rather tell me what you have already done. Especially when the so-called moral issue is Kobayashi Maru style unwinnable, hypothetical scenario. Moral masturbation is unhelpful.

Thanks, Dancingkatz, for pointing out the oft-forgotten (though obvious) point that legal and moral are two unrelated dimensions....  I read a fascinating volume (not here at work and I can't remember the title) that details the lengths to which Germany went during 1933-1939 to make sure every action against Jews, homosexuals, Gypsies, etc, etc, was done strictly according to the law.  And every law, regulation, statute, and so on was ratified in complete accord with legal procedures.  The oppression, disenfranchisement, impoverishment, dispossession, and eventually imprisonment of minorities was all done strictly according to the law.  For those who insist that we all need to 'follow the law', the Third Reich is an interesting place to see where that road can lead......

It's just very much disturbing to see the inanity of the comments against health system reform in the guise of a thoughtful philosophical question about the ideas of a great thinker.  How ironic.  To the person worried about cuts to their Medicare program while 16 percent of Americans have no reliable means of getting even the most basic care, you've already pushed the button, baby. To the commentator worried about government putting hands in bodies, that presumes you have no problems with a large corporation doing so.  At least until you are 65 when it will be ok to have the government do it since no corporation will give you insurance then.  Last time I looked, I can petition government.  I don't have much sway in petitioning a large health care corporation, as too many people to count can attest when appealing denial of claims from large corporations.  The reality of the current health system proposals in the House and Senate is that they are the last hope of a corporate health care system.  It's an industry with a bleak future of fewer fewer employers willing and able to foot the bill for a system that was accidentally put together from the beginning, leaving more and more American and their health care providers with the ability to get or provide care.  That will only grow.  Like other industries where the government sets rules that help the market function -- the auto and home insurance markets being the primary success model -- the current proposals will save the asses of heatlh insurers, keeping that evil government that provides pretty decent Medicare coverage at half the overhead costs out of our bodies until we're 65 and we can breathe easier.  To oppose the current proposals is to be pushing the button on yourself and your fellow Americans so more and more of us can spend what we've saved down to the point where we can all qualify for Medicaid, another government program with hands in people's bodies.  How Communist can you get?      

welcome jdlinteo;  Glad to hear there is someone else in the neighborhood.  It is pretty today, isn't it!

I would leave healthcare out of the equation. In many countries there is healthcare for all without a bloody coup to institute it. So a few pocket books will bleed. Strangely I don't feel guilty about it at all. 

I would totally do it if I could pick the 5 people that would die and the 20 people that would live.  But seriously, what average person is ever going to be put in this situation?!?!  And how do you know so much about the inner workings of train tracks and how to divert locomotives? 
 
If you were really that short on time, why don't you just yell "Get the Hell off the tracks if you want to live!" 

Wow I love a topic that brings both DPR and Isles out of the woodwork!
 
Completely OT, but do run on paragraphs make anyone else lose interest in what is being said?  I see more than 8 or 9 lines in a paragraph post and my eyes glaze over.

I enlisted in the US Navy in 1957.  One of the intake questions was the one about the train, the train switch and the decision as to how many people I would willingly kill - and there was no hesitation allowed.  No time in this scenerio to ask, "Well, who would I be killing?  Stephen Hawking, Al Gore, me....  I said kill 5, to save 20.   Whoopee I was put on the fast track to officer-dom.  Remember, 1957.  Fortunately for me I washed out of boot camp.  85 days, 125 demerits.  Doubt it that is a record, but must be in the top 10%.  Did I mention that I am a woman.  Again, remember 1957. My contribution is this.  Tests including such questions weed out officers that would hesitate.  Good.  They also weed out officers that would think.  Not good.  Back to the Socratic question, "How do we determine the right thing, or the right testing for people that will be responsible for other peoples lives and deaths?" Later, Challis
      

My two cents on health care....the entire system needs to be broken down and reinvented.  No sense my trying to describe it......try reading this article in The Atlantic online.  I've posted this before and am doing so again because it's a very well thought out article. 
www.theatlantic.com/doc/200909/health-care
 
 
As far as government sticking its hands in your body......I would much rather have a government bureaucrat interpret coverage rules than a corporate bureaucrat do so.  As was stated above, as a consumer I would have far better luck appealing government than a corporation.  In addition, government employees rarely, if ever, receive bonus pay for either stellar performance or output while this practice is common in the corporate world. Can't anyone foresee being denied benefits so that some guy or gal can earn that bonus and buy a new car???
 
Please check out the Bill Moyers interview with a retired insurance executive who now works on the side of the uninsured.  The insurance industry's grip on American really frightens me.  www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/07102009/profile.html
 

jalopkin!  that was funny!  And probably the most honest of all, especially of the philosophical meanderings before or after...
 
funny
funny
!!

     Doc, if you can locate the title and author of that book when you get home and post it, I'd appreciate it.
 
     A couple of weeks ago I mentioned that one of the reasons I didn't want to become a lawyer was that my mind didn't function in a way that would let me do it well. The other reason (probably the real reason) is that within weeks of working for the law firm I saw that the law clerks and first year associates were having to work on cases defending people who did things the attorney was morally opposed to. There's no way I could handle that. It was one reason why I gravitated towards the estate planning/probate field when I selected my internships and applied for jobs upon graduation from the community college. Yes, I could have made a good living financially (at least once my law school loans were paid off) but I would be bankrupting myself morally. It was hard enough setting my moral beliefs aside to do that final assignment for class; there was no way I could do it constantly.
 
     I don't mean to say that those here who are attorneys are morally bankrupt, just that I wasn't willing to live my life having to defend people or corporations who had done things that I considered wrong. Everyone has to do what they feel most comfortable with in regards to this kind of thing.
 

Nachista, I've noticed that if I post when using the Firefox web browser, I lose my carriage returns and everything runs together. So I'm now trying to make sure I use Internet Explorer or Safri when I post my responses.

My husband and I pay $37,000 annually for private health care.  We are privately insured because we are privately employed, so to speak.  We own a company, we pay for our insurance.
 
We're in good health.  Not "for our age" which is 60, but better than most 10 years younger at least.
 
Nonetheless:  $3,100/month or $37,000/year for health insurance.  And it doesn't cover preventive exams or those "oscopys" that will tell you you've got something before it kills you. 
 
Clearly, the insurance companies would rather us dead and off their books than alive and getting treatment.  So they up the rates, not due to age, but due to...whatever.
 
I don't know if that's a moral or ethical dilema, I don't care.  And I think this is not the time to "leave health care" out of it.  To all these new (ahem) people here, we do go off topic every day, and this is one of those instances of "off."
 
Can you afford $37,000/year to pay for private health insurance?  It's just around the corner, nobody's getting any younger, after 40 they consider you as being on that slippery slope down down down to the grave -- and you could be the next, paying as much as I do,
 
I said I don't know if health care is a moral imperative or not, but for the sake of my checkbook now and in the future, I'm going to say it is, and say this country does need health care for all, because paying $37,000 out of pocket is just too much for most, and impossible for more than a few.
 
I have little hope though because our government even at its best fails miserably in the area of ethics and morality, both in legislation and personal behavior.
 
Must go now.
I'm on my way to sell my soul so I can pay that insurance premium that's sitting in my left hand desk drawer.
 
 

I would take the narrow, steel beam that was laying on the ground push the relay switch and wedge the beam between rails as track A switched over to track B at a 30 degree parallel angle to the rails.  This would cause the train to partially derail allowing the 5 people outside the train to be missed entirely and the 20 people inside to walk away with minor injuries.

The person at the greatest risk in my scenario would be the person who was asked to make the decision in the first place as to who would live and who would die. Yet, not at risk based on how they could live with themselves after they chose which group of innocent people would die. No. It goes from an emotional issue of how the decider would feel in the future to an actual physical issue of whether or not there would be a future for the decider at all.

As the person wedging the narrow beam of steel between the rails to offset the deaths of innocent people, I actually without realizing it would place myself in the greatest likelihood of being the one who would die.  A "reaction to the situation" just happens as it truly does for most people, it's so much easier to choose myself to suffer the consequence of my death than to suffer the moral consequences of knowing I didn't do everything possible to stop the deaths of 25 people who didn't get my chance in deciding their own fate.

As for healthcare... It's just like the narrow beam of steel, there was an option out there that not many people knew existed. All it takes is imagination, and knowingness that there is always a 3rd option, always. After all, as my story ends, I walked away with 25 new friends and lifetime free metrocard and just as important as the first, being able to live with myself the consequences of my choice.  

To me, the biggest moral question we face is the lack of access to medical and dental care in this country!  MANY people have to choose between basic living expenses (food, utilities, housing) or medical insurance.  Without insurance, most of us cannot afford to see a doctor or pay for the inevitable tests and prescriptions that result.In fact - it may well be that the medical community profits by getting the population strung out on the pills they pass out so freely without regard to the actual NEED for them...  Anti depressants, for instance.IF the doctors were doing right by their patients, they would rise up and protest the garbage diets pushed on us by the corporate food industry, which would likely help the numerous diabetics and pre-diabetics, any number of nervous, hyper kids, obese people of all ages...It is immoral the way the corporate government allows carcinogenic ingredients in the public trough!  Twice that that the medical community does not protest...

I can't believe that the Bag o' Cash anti-spam question for today did not accept my antonym for "bad". Everybody knows the opposite of "bad" is "Pittsburgh rare".

PARK4, The amount you pay for health insurance each year is more than my annual gross salary, which is really scary.

Park, you raise a good point. Our health insurance for my Wee Heathen Horde is a comparatively paltry $6000 a year through my long-suffering wife's employer. But our coverage is rather paltry, too, and I hope I never have to test it. Some days we wonder why we should really pay the health insurance at all. None of us have ever caught sick or been to a doctor for anything other than a sprained back in almost 20 years (plus 15 kid years). The sprained back was mine.

What I DO make sure I keep paid-up on, in a rather darkling mood sort of a way, is my life insurance. I bought my policies back in the day when it was a lot cheaper to roll the dice on my inevitable death. If my health insurance proved to be a dud, then my back-up plan would be a sensible ending - not to open the hospice/euthanasia/death panels can of worms... Ha. I said DEATH PANELS. I crack myself up. DEATH PANELS!!! Wait, Halloween was weeks ago...

PARK4:  Even I can laugh about it all now, but it is too pathetically True to have been funny at the time ....... And, one would think that I should have learned SOMEthing the FIRST time, rather than making the same bad decision a second and third time ... In my own defense, I have to say that, my decisions were based upon all the Morally and Correct-Value Driven things ... but I made the mistake of believing that someone else was capable of putting as much into a commitment as I was ... It seems that as much as women piss and moan about Commitment, it really scares the crap out of some of them ... and I seem to be a magnet for that type ... It seems to be easier for them to Divorce and let the world assume the man to be an ogre, than to face the fact that THEY just can't measure up to their own, supposed Standards ... and/or ... that once they have finally gotten what they want, or what they THINK they want, they don't know how to handle it, and they have no more built-in excuses for Failure ... 
 
Every bit of this goes directly to Attitude, and what kind of person it is, that may have they ominous task of deciding whether or not to push that Button .......
 
I shall reiterate, that you Villagers are all too intelligent for me to have to point out that, there ARE exceptions to every thing ... so, don't give me any crap about Generalities ...

AveryMilieu: Maybe people wouldn't need so many anti-depressants and psychotropic drugs if they weren't in a constant state of situational anxiety from having to choose between paying for medidcal insurance/medical care and feeding themselves or paying rent. Also, as I stated in one of my earlier posts, it is very expensive to eat healthy and a large proportion of the population doesn't make enough to afford to eat healthy (have you noticed that the group of people with the highest rate of morbid obesity is the poor? Of course, you're going to gain weight if the only thing you can afford to buy is from the fat heavy $0.99 menu at the local fast food place).
 
I am lucky enough to live in a place where I can and do grow my own vegetables and I know how to can and otherwise preserve my harvest but not everyone has that option available to them.
 
All the problems of getting a living wage, getting effective medical care, making the necessities for a healthy life, etc. are all intertwined. I'm afraid that a massive overhaul of our society will be required to make the necessary changes. Unfortunately, people in general don't like change--even if it means it will improve their lot.

Isles, every time I enter that contest I either draw a complete blank on the really easy math questions, or have the urge to enter something other than the prompted answers.  When they ask "What is the opposite of bad" I always want to put in "boring".

Kant recognized, as in so many things, that the categorical imperative had relatively limited applications.  Of course, for Kant, the only thing we could know is the phenomenal--those aspects fo the world which come to us through our senses.  The noumenal--the world of concrete things--could only be theorized.  The categorical imperative is a mind-game by which you extrapolate your actions from the personal to the universal, and judge their suitability based on the outcome "if everybody did it."  That's why Hegel had to "improve" on Kant by positing the sensis communis, or community sensibility, which has us "naturally" doing what is good for our fellow man.  So by Kantian standards, the question as posed can not possibly operate a moral context--extrapolated to universality, everybody dies either way.  By extension, you also can't have a moral war, in spite of the rhetoric of the last administration.  All war is an exercise in the deployment of power; it is either effective--the opponent backs off--or ineffective.  The Japanese backed off.  The North Koreans didn't.  (I'm married to a veteran wounded in Iraq, by the way, in case you are wondering by what authority I philosophize.)  There's also nothing either moral or imperative about a health-care plan.  It might possibly fall under the aegis of the Hegelian sensis communis as a logical outcome, but only if you choose to identify your communis very, very broadly as the entire population, legal and otherwise, of the United States.  It would also have to be electively supported to be a valid outcome of the sensis, something no state-mandated, tax-funded system can be.

nachista!
 
that's why you're so good at being an "Eye."
 
i know just what you mean...I've written smart arse answers, just because, too.  I can't seem to stop myself.
 
1 + 1 = Indira Gandhi.
 
...stuff like that, and worse.
 
 
 
 

Although now that I think about it, if you wanted to make an philosophical argument validating a healthcare plan, our democracy's life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness might work if you can successfully argue healthcare as a metonym for life.

Park4: you pay more for insurance than I make a year...
 
And as for the notion of keeping goverment off/away from my body...it is already there:  seatbelt laws, helmet laws, which drugs are ok to ingest, suicide laws, in some states how I can have sex...
 
And I'm with Shandonista, I'd rather deal with the government employee than the CSR who is bucking for a bonus.

What up, Eyesters! Thanks for the email, Peterman gang. Quite a lively chat here today.

I suppose I should say something other than, Hi, so I have to say don't believe in absolute 'right' and 'wrongs.'

I think the biggest thing I've learned from jumping into entrepreneurial waters is that no matter which direction you choose, people will criticize. At first that's terrifying; then it's liberating.

I was reading the history of Detroit yesterday. Specifically the time when the fur trade failed and they made the switch (ironically, a train switch) to mining ore and building rails. They even dug up the streets to mine the salt underneath. Scrappy effing people.

As soon as you realize that there's no absolute right or wrong, but rather a best, and that every decision ends one path and begins a new one, you throw switches a lot faster and you look back less often. Hell, you even get really familiar with the means to disconnect cars from your engine when the coal is scarce.

I think saying, "But by doing so, you, and you alone, have aggressively caused the death of five individuals" is a bit incomplete, right?

I mean, if you're standing by the switch, in truth, because you HAVE an option, doing nothing is still an active decision to end the lives of twenty people.

Or what about the dude who can't make up his mind and runs the train into the median, taking everyone on board down with his Kantian mumbling.

I could go on . . . .

Kristina,

"Kan!" Brilliant.

So thin is the veneer between civilization and barbarism, and so little does the essay tell me about the context, out of which an action has no -- or diverse -- meanings, I cannot make an informed judgment. Siting down with a bottle and wine and several of you, we might clarify the cloudiness we're given, and produce ideas, but we exist, here on The Eye, in a veritable vacuum, in ether, so even we are obscured.

oh dear: p 3, of course that's "bottle of wine," though "bottle and wine" has fascinating possibilities.

Holy Freaking Crap!!! The prodigal has returned!  Good to see you Missive.

Ok on the medal, I'm with the combat vets above, it is a little disturbing. I'm a decently decorated Iraq war vet and don't really like that.  On morality, it's pretty easy for me to define. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. So basically what I am saying is this. It is moral to defend yourself, even in premptive action. It is moral to defend your family against any and all harm with any means necessary.  Some of you are thinking, how does this apply to the situation at hand. It really still leaves you with a hard question. Do I let 20 or 5 die? Te question is even more complicated for me, do i let 21 or 6 die, because i will be on those tracks doing everything I can to get as many of those people off those tracks before the train hits them. But that's just me. I think this is a personal morality choice, but no matter what you do, you will suffer the "What if's" the rest of your life. Take it from a soldier battling PTSD ,and reliving all my choices as a medic in Iraq, every night; it's true.

Pretty easy moral dilemma. 20 lives versus 5. You should pull the switch to save the 20 although 5 will lose their lives.

New case: same train, same numbers, but the 5 are random Americans and the 20 are Guantanamo detainees.

Answer: In that case, don't pull the switch, let the train do its job.

Nachista, WA ZUP?! (patting chair next to mine) SIT and tell me EVERYTHING.

Someone please clarify this issue with the medals.  For me.  It seems to be something that bothers most of the new folk quite a bit.  Please explain why they are bothersome to this ignorant civilian...
 
many thanks.

After seeing awards given to soldiers who never see the face of war and seeing privates who bled into the dirt denied the awards "because they were just doing thier job", I hate to see medals on anyone that did not do the service to earn them, and unfortunately the Medals here are close enough in appearance to bring thoughts of our uniforms and those awards... It's just wat we feel is a bad design choice. I don't mind some kind of "award" for the stuff they give the medals for, just not military medals.

Isles, MissIve, and I have all been away and were brought back by heavy issues of morality.  That probably says something but I'm not going there right now.  Just a big hug to everyone (especially Nachista who is so sweet and happy to see us).
 
Kristina is quite right:  It is well known that Kublai Khan but Immanuel Kant.

"Would you push a button for a million dollars if it killed a stranger?"

No.

*The question isn't interesting to me, because money is not something I worry about. You could go ahead and push the button for the money, but be aware that the next person who gets the button may be a stranger to you or those you love...and you or one of them could be the next victim.

"With no time to decide, would you choose to save 20 lives by sacrificing five?"

No.

*Take the course of inaction and let the train kill 20 humans. The earth is overpopulated and you would be doing Mother Nature a service.

Whether I can or Kant, I -will- switch to the five victims, because I don't know anything about train track switches (unless the people here are right).  Then I will be extremely unhappy with myself on this topic the rest of my life.  In my opinion, morals come from religion and ethics are inherent.  It's not really that hard to do the right thing.  We meet with choices our whole lives long.  If we choose to do the right thing, we are happier than if we don't.  I firmly believe killing changes people to the bad.  Thus, I don't believe in war, and thus, we can afford healthcare.

I just had another thought on this issue, and it one that is often raised elsewhere. Does it make any sense that we will sacrifice 100 men to rescue 1? No, but we do it because of morals. It is moral to make the choice to rescue that man, it is not moral that he is held captive. I would happily be one of the hundred men to save the one, though I would not want the guild of those that dies to rescue me if I was the one. Morals are difficult to follow and we won't always succeed, but God made them how they are to set his followers apart. I'm not saying that people who don't believe in him are immoral, only that his followers are moral. 

New people if you click on the little medal next to your screen name it will bring up a page explaining what they all mean.
 
I'm a veteran and I don't have a problem with using the images of make-believe medals to notate firsts (posting, photo/video upload, having your response picked by our esteemed host for the Honor Roll) on the site.
 
But then again, I only ever got unit and longevity awards, and my Air Force Achievement medal came to me in the mail (the box totally beaten up and the collar pin/tie tac missing) three months after I was medicaled out.  

Todays topic reminded me of a clip I saw recently:
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhkpxpjHIRg

Hey, Y'all, I am going to let someone else run the train, but I just want to say this: Anybody who is offended by JP's use of medals ( which I have always taken to be mildly ironic and self-mocking) will have also to complain about the Olympics, the Kennedy Center, and almost every seventh grade teacher in the country. The medals are simply a way of denoting who has been at this a while and who hasn't. They mean nothing more and they certainly can't seriously be interpreted as commenting upon or otherwise lessening any other decorations, military, diplomatic, or heraldic.  Honi soit qui mal y pense, if you know what I mean. But welcome, newcomers, just the same. 

..but these are not depictions of military medals.  All medals are similar in appearance, by definition.
Similar is not 'the same.'
The Peterman medals are tied into the entire Peterman "concept" and are given for website commentary, as you know, and not for anything remotely connected to military awards.
 
Their purpose is benign, as is their existence.  They are not intended to cause angst on any front.
 
And not likely to disappear, either.
 
  

I would like to add my greetings to all the new folks today. 
 
Please don't let the medals bother you.  Think of them more as elementary school track meet ribbons for participation.

Thank you Willie, and I do understand and even agree. They are fine, just have a little chord that dislikes the style. The other medals you mentioned are not styled after military medals..these are.  But hey, can't get worked up about inconsequentials like this when we've got to figure out how to save 25 people. I think we should switch the train right after it crosses the switch, then we'll derail it and save em...but how many are on the train that wil die?!?!?

"Morals are difficult to follow and we won't always succeed, but God made them how they are to set his followers apart. I'm not saying that people who don't believe in him are immoral, only that his followers are moral." 

What are you saying here, Deadfield?   

Missive would love to sit and have a cuppa and chat but I am feeling ill so I'm leaving work today so I can hit the intstacare service and wait in an uncomfortable chair for a couple hours so they can tell me I have bronchitis and to take it easy and drink lots of fluids.  *sigh*  The joys of the winter season are upon us...at least this will get me out of serving food at our office open house tomorrow, no one wants to take food off a tray being held by someone coughing up a lung.

An addendum to my previous post. During the years I was on active duty (1982 to 1994), I saw far too many commendation and achievement medals awarded to airmen who did nothing but do their assigned 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. shift but were lucky enough to have a supervisor who could do good write-ups turning doing nothing special into doing something extraordinary. A lot of these same people were ones I saw acting unprofessionally but still got all 9s on their annual performance reports. The whole system was highly inflated and if you were going the extra mile but had a supervisor who couldn't do a "super write-up" or who didn't inflate the scores on the APR then you ended up being penalized.
 
Even so I ended up with a 3-row bar of "fruit salad" just because I was in service for 12 years and managed to not get in trouble, and was a member of a unit that got a an "execellent" rating from the IG inspection team while I was assigned to it. Oh, and let's not forget the one for making it through the six weeks of basic training...
 
Under these circumstances I have real problems with the awarding of medals except when the awardee is actually actually in combat or hostile situations. Peacetime medals don't mean squat IMO...

On the mention of medals.  I referred Sir Boyscout and being a Marine he is really up tight about these kinds of things.  He was fine with it because they aren't referring to or depicting any sort of military service.  He said he views them in the same light as track medals or Boy scout badges.  I've been thinking the same thing all day.
 
Bye all, I'm off to the doctor's office and then home to wrap up in the down comforter and sleep for 12 hours.

Deadfield, I dub thee Minefield, for having just stumbled into one in spectacular fashion. Well done, Sir/Madam!

As a teacher, I have been agonizing over this for many years. In America there are no more ethics, civics or morality components to the curiculla in our public (and most private) schools. The church, which was heretofore the place where this sort of education took place, has disintegrated into amoral and political messes, and attendance is way off.
Starting with what we can all agree on (ie, killing someone is wrong, stealing from someone is wrong, intentionally hurting others is wrong), we need to introduce children to the concept of morality beginning at a young age, and gradually
bring them to the point where they can use their critical thinking skills to make moral choices. I believe our "I'm OK, who gives a damn about you" society has developed because of a lack of moral and ethical instruction.

Regarding the question about the train, it is already heading for the 20 people & I will not have a hand in their death, BUT (and yes, it is the big but referred to by Pee Wee Herman) I would be the direct cause of the death of the 5. I would be their murderer because of my decision. Either outcome would be full of sadness whether it be the death of 20 or 5.

I hit "send" too soon. Make that "military medals" in the last paragraph.
 
Actually the Eye's medal for being on the Honor Roll looks a lot like one of my volksmarching medals from when I was stationed in Europe (I have a bunch of them because volksmarching was great exercise and a good way to meet some really nice people as well as seeing the country). And one of my fencing medals (the second place I got for a prep-novice tournament in women's foil) looks like the 300+ posts medal.

dharmasurfer: I agree with a lot of what you posted, but I also have to add that with what my teacher friends refer to as "No Child Gets Ahead" there is no longer time in the school day to teach kids how to think critically or get into ethics because they have to "teach the test" so that the largest number of students score well thus keeping federal dollars (and in some cases state) dollars coming into the school system.
 
I had civics and ethics classes through my K-12 years and as part of my military training. But my nieces and nephews only are getting the latter through their church and my 20-year-old niece had no idea that we had a state assembly that we had to elect representives to when she voted for the first time 2 years ago.

I was having a particularly interesting conversation about morals just the other day. My interlocutor and m'self concluded that the revealed religions do a great disservice where the matter of "Doing the right thing" comes up, since the definition of "right" lays with an Invisible Sky God - and more often, tragically, with the ISG's all-too-flawed interpreters here in Earth.

On the other hand, the so-called "Heathen" faiths as they have been reconstructed and/or reclaimed over the last century put their emphasis on inter-PERSONAL ethics. Rather than pleasing their own Visible/Invisible Gods, modern Heathens are much more interested in taking very good care of each other. See here: http://www.haxton.org/nineasa.htm & here: http://cauldronborn.blogspot.com/2009/07/pagans-of-principle-path-of-heathen.html

In the context of inter-personal ethics, the button pushing manslaughter of today's topic is - while still hypothetical and therefore silly - rife with a much more substantial sense of gravitas. I.e., what if the 20 and the 5 were your kinsmen? Then what? Like DPR and the Rope Cut/No Cut argument, treating everybody on Earth as if they were your familial responsibility really ups the stakes.

If it were sensible or even moral to use an ethical shorthand for who gets to be in the club of those who are ethical and/or moral, well, I suppose we should be doing it. But my general inclination is to include just about everybody in the group of "My Responsibility". I certainly don't need to decide who is moral and who isn't.

raibreth: Yes, intent is what makes the difference between an act being manslaughter versus murder. The 20 people are slated for death by fate; one might want to do something to prevent it but if the only action you can take to spare them is to knowingly kill 5 other people, then using a legal viewpoint you've caused those 5 deaths intentionally and must face the legal consequences of committing murder. If you throw the switch not knowing those 5 people are trapped on the other track, then you'd likely be facing charges of negligent homicide instead since if you can't see them and don't know they are there your action of throwing the switch was a reasonable and very human response tothe situation.
 
As what each person sees as being morally correct varies according to their beliefs (not necessarily religious beliefs BTW) then I can't say that your not throwing the switch to the other track is moral or not. Everyone has to live with the consequences--legal, psychological, physical and moral--of their decisions.

The healthcare debate poses a special moral dilemma to the voiceless and disenfranchised.  With no one to fight for them they are the casualties of the healthcare wars.  The unborn child and the elderly suffering dementia or the affects of a stroke have more in common than meets the eye.  Being an advocate of the disenfranchised has turned me into a moving target dodging the slings and arrows of outrageous politicians and those wealthy enough to afford proper healthcare.   
Just because abortion is legal and the death penality is not in every state does not mean that these are not serious moral issues.  I'm not sorry if I've pushed anyone's buttons here.  I have very storng opinions on how the indigent and elderly are treated under the new libral, political correct version of the Hippocratic Oath that is popular today.   

Not to be offensive, but when issues like nuclear war, famine, and so on threaten, isn't it a bit silly to be worrying about medals?  (Sort of like dusting a speck of dust off a deck chair on the Titanic, isn't it?)  Be that as it may, I'm glad physicians treat sick folks even if they are NOT covered with insurance just because.... I like guys and ladies like that.  (You don't want to know what I think of insurance company bureaucrats that 'get between doctors and their patients...').  I personally find it very comforting that I'm only responsible for my own actions, and I pity folks who feel 'collective responsibilty' for the actions of various and sundry groups who sell the concept of 'we', and 'us'.  Frankly, I feel not a twinge of guilt because a bureaucrat or a soldier or a politician who says he/she is acting for 'us' does something I consider immoral.  That's between them and their victims (for whom I feel sorry, a very ineffectual emotion...).  Much like a hiker who observes a mountain lion attack and eat a newborn lamb, I don't like the sight, but.... after the furry little lamb is dead, it's all a simple matter of accounting (much like counting the dead after the Second Battle of the Somme).  Morality is an issue when I MYSELF have to make a decision and then face myself in the mirror the next morning.  And to round out this post, I don't think it matters a tinker's dang that I too was given medals I didn't think I deserve.  They stuck 'em on me, and I was just the chest on which somebody decided to put /em.  I was/am just a passerby. 

The whole question of whether to kill five or twenty people seems unnecessary to me. That question couldn't possibly be answered unless one was in that situation facing that decision. And I would still have to face the consequences no matter what decision I made.
On a different note, it's sort of what Hamlet went through, isn't it? After the ghost of his father told him what his uncle had done, he knew he'd end up killing his uncle, but he had to strip away all good memories and thoughts of him to do it. Which destroyed his sanity.

I don't agree that you'd cause the death of those five individuals. Assuming there's no easy answer (everyone's stuck on the tracks so they can't move), you have to put some of the blame on whoever trapped the people on the tracks in the first place. As well as the railroad engineers who didn't put on good enough brakes, and so forth.

And while I'm at it, Kant didn't say morality was definite and we'd know what to do in any situation; what he said was that any principle that was not categorical (in our words, that could not be universalized) was not a moral principle. That didn't mean it was necessarily immortal, just amoral.

 
I'm against war and I'm hoping that I'll never have to plead self-defense.  I'm against euthanasia and abortion.  When I say these things single men usually accuse me of being some  sort of extreme religious fanatic.
 
I'm against euthanasia because I don't believe anyone has the right to take the life of someone who can't defend himself.
 
I work with kids, so being against abortion should be obvious.  A baby boom equals job security in my book.
    
I'm also against human trafficing and people who endanger the welfare of children.  If you are talking about  one pedaphile facing the firing squad to save 100 kids then don't expect me to petition for gun control or freedom of expression.

And if a child is the pedophile?

The ultimate responsibility for the situation is with he/she/them that caused the runaway of the trainload of people. If one must make a decison without time to reflect, one may choose to make the best of a bad situation & such is not 'immoral'. It is that type of decision that can result in one being a hero.  Nevertheless, each must later face any consequences.Of course, in real life, I am always telling my 'soft-hearted' adult daughter to cease trying to 'save' anyone & everyone without considering what the consequences of her actions will be to herself! 

For another resourse on Kant and all the rest, try Justice with Michael Sandel. He's a Harvard professor and his class can be found on www.justiceharvard.org. You can watch his class through utube. They also discuss the train cunundrum among others.

As a student who is going to be a doctor, I must say that the Hypocratic Oath befalls upon me to save most as I can, switching the rails and checking for survivors in the aftermath. 

Steve70,
 
As a fellow Vietnam Vet I also have mixed feelings about displaying my medals and ribbons. The ribbons hang on my old uniform jacket which hangs in a closet out of sight. The medals are in the proverbial cigar box (a good Cuban one by the way!)
 
You're right about first and second place in a firefight. There's no prize for second place, unless you consider the absurdity of awarding the dead a posthumous medal.
 
Doc Nolan and Bert,
 
At what point do we stop "examining" life and act?  Maybe when we take responsibility for our actions and thoughts and try to do what is right.....which is more about ethics then morality. In some ways, life is an on-going examination. The final test is when we're dead and those who survive decide on the meaning of our life.
 
 

I just wonder if any one thinks  that making someone that wants an abortion to give birth is doing the baby a favor?
IF  one   did  not want it in the first place what do people think one cares about the baby after polititians make one  have it? I have seen to many neglected and abused children in my lifetime.....
and the people dying because  they cant get healthcare were babies once too!Who cares about them ??
Surely not the insurance bandits ...
through inaction and not wanting to get involved we make choices every day which we will carry with us til judgement day....

I like themoral dilemna and sometimes ambiguiyty of either-or scenarios, such as the decision to save five or twenty.
 
One either-or is about a group of people on a deserted island, help is on the way but not in time to save everyone from starvation. Do you kill the weakest of the group to feed the strongest, or do you kill the strongest to save the weakest?
 
I suppose the same arguement could be made for saving the most intelligent by killing and eating the less intelligent and vice versa.
 
Of course, The Lord of the Flies may have answered the moral question for us.
 
Life is not always about win-win, sometimes its about the zero-sum game. Sometimes you have no choice but to win and the other has to lose......hence a few ribbons and medals no one will ever see.

Sorry for the mispelling of  any words above!

Pour a glass of wine, eat a corndog or two & push the button. Take a nap, read the NY Sunday Times, have a cup of tea & push the button. Have a facial, walk the dogs, slow boil some eggs & push the button.
 
The angst of the button... is not nearly as funny as the posts of Miss PARK & Senor JALOPKIN today.
 
You can even give the "button" an erotic twist- sing "You can Push My Button" to the tune of the disco song- "Ring My Bell".... it'a all good...
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Holy  Ravioli!!!   This  is  post  number  130,  and   the  evening  is  young.....which  is  a  good  thing,  separate  &  apart  from  content,  since  at  least  people  are  interested  in  moral  judgments,  and  willing  to  commit  on  the  net,  risking  rejection  {albeit  anonymously}.  
I'm  The  Road  Warrior  tonight  through  Friday  night,  presenting  at  a  seminar  for  criminal  defense  lawyers  regarding  clients  indicted  so  as  to  be  death  penalty  eligible,  if  convicted  as  charged  in  a  bifurcated  trial  at  both  the  merits  phase  and  the  penalty  phase.  How  ironic.....    Not  that  many  "true  believers"  here,   meaning  that  most  believe  in  at  least  limited  applicability  of  the  penalty.    I  will  take  some  notes,  perhaps  even  quote  some  of  you  tomorrow,  as  I  attempt  to  keep   people  awake.   DancingKatz,  nice  post,  glad  you  are  willing  to  get  proactive  with  government  officials.   By  the  way,  DK,  I  am  going  to  miss  an  interesting  Los  Lobos  concert  tomorrow  night  in  your  fair  city  of  Dayton  thanks  to  this  commitment,  so  I  guess  the  Salsa  dancing  theme  will  never  benefit  MY  dancing  feet.   Glad  so  many  new  virtual  faces  are  here  today,  perhaps  Peterman's  marketing  email  was  the  trick.   Back  later,  I  really  really  need  a  hot  shower...............and  perhaps  a  premium  vodka  martini,  with  a  pair  of  stuffed  olives.  Gotta  get  my  different  food  groups  in...lol

That would be it's w/ that crazy s...

Somebody said in a few posts ago that the Church used to be the place were morality was taught and that it is not taught in schools whatsoever. This is true. I was one of those kids that grew up in the church. As an adult now, I have found some serious flaws with the method in which the "Church" teaches it's "morals".  Kids are taught or instructed a bunch of stuff at an early age, beginning in Sunday School. It's more of a programming. Never once did I have anyone in my church challange me to think about what I was being taught. When I went to college I was told "Be careful, that's a liberal school, they will try to corrupt your morals."  See, the "church" likes to lambaste anyone that falls out of the rigid structure of does and don'ts - you're being immoral and need to be corrected or fixed. Like those churches that claim they can cure homosexuality... It's ridiculousness to an order or insanity, if that makes any sense.  So once I started to read this stuff for myself and question it I came to a few pivital realizations. When asked what must be done to get into Heaven Christ replies "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and love your neighbor as yourself, in doing these you fulfill all the law and the prophets."  What I found so eye opening is not what Christ said, but what he didn't say. He never put specifics on who your neighbor would or should be... He never said, love your neighbor as long as he's not gay, etc... If He thought that was important I'm sure he would have told us.  Strangely enough, I've come to believe that if Christ were living in USA, he would most likely be a Democrat.  Remember what he said about taxes "Render unto Ceasar what is Ceasars and unto God what is Gods"  I could go on and on.... My point is this, yea morality in this country has changed, and it should. The Church way hasn't cut it. Too much hatred and segregation spewed from the pulpit. It disgusting..  

I am new to this forum and appreciate an intelligent and thoughtful debate on a very important set of ideas. I think the best way I could contribute would be to propose a moral decision which I could only discuss in the veil of anonymity which is afforded me here. I am currently finishing my second Post-Doctorate, work as an associate undergrad professor and have been married a little over two years. I have two step-sons, 12 and 16. As it happens where my sons have grown up and still live has the single worst school system I have ever seen, they do not even have enough textbooks for all the students in the classes and ARE NOT ALLOWED TO BRING THEM HOME. Their education has been absolutely abhorrent and I do everything possible to subsidize their studies and help them catch up, but unfortunately a lot of the damage has already been done.
 
My elder boy has been in Navy ROTC for years, long before I came into his life. It has provided him the only real discipline and structure he has ever known outside the home. He plans  to go into after graduation and thus lies my own categorical imperitave.
 
I when I was in high school received appoinment to Annapolis, in fact the acceptance letter was received less a week after Saddam Hussein had invaded Kuwait in December of 1990. I found myself unnerved and scared. All of the sudden the possibility of going off to war was real for the first time in my life, until then I was simply choosing a college and at the same time following in my Grandfather and especially my Uncle's (USAF Retired Lt. Col.) footsteps. Ultimately I chose to decline my appointment, not because I did not want to serve my country but rather because I believed that the war(s) being fought were not in any way worth sacrificing my or any other American lives. I still believe that. I come from a military family and this was a big deal, but every member of my family supported me and never ever tried to convince me to go, only to follow my conscience. I ended up becoming an educator and have chosen again and again to advance my knowledge rather than high paying positions.
 
While my rather new family lives well we are by no means wealthy and I find myself unable to rip my boys out of the God-Awful schools they are in and either move somewhere where they could go to good Private or Public Schools or send them off to Academy. We like just about everyone else nowadays simply cannot afford it. My step-son is almost a clinical candidate for becoming a soldier: aggresive, ignorant, uneducated, does not know how to ask the difficult questions, and is very angry. I am diametrically opposed to the wars being fought in Iraq and Afghanistan, but at the same time I also realize I as a citizen of the United States of America have the same responsibilties and obligations to sacrifice as all the great generations of Americans whom have come before me. I don't want my step-son to give his life half a world away for what I would consider the Greed of Money and Power which he does not begin to understand, but at the same time what are our real obligations as Americans?
 
What is my role here, and to what or whom is my ultimate responsibilty, my self, my step-son's wishes, or my country?

ExPat,
 
We don't "stop examining life and act."  Examination IS an action just as surely as deliberate refraining from flipping the switch is an action.

I think the only way to really know what you would do is by experience.  About 20 years ago I had an intruder in my home.  We didn't have much money and nothing much worth stealing.  My daughter was 12 years old.  It was the middle of the night and she happened to be sleeping with me that night because it was cold.  I won't go into the whole detail of what occured but to say my daughter was terrified as the man tried to enter my bedroom.  As she clung to me  said she was so scared she couldn't move.  I knew he was there to hurt us and possibly rape my daughter.  I just knew in an instant I could not live with myself for the rest of my life knowing I could have prevented what was going to happen to her.  I threatened him with a loaded .357  He left and then we got in the car and went to a friend's home.  I know if this intruder had entered my bedroom I was going to shoot him. My only concern was how was I going to get my daugher passed his dead body without traumatizing her more than she already was.  My reasoning was that all he had to do was leave.  Just leave OUR Home and he wouldn't get hurt.  He didn't mind at all what he was planning to do to us, but when it came to possibly getting hurt himself, he did mind.
 
As far as the switch on track.  I am not sure I would have thought of turning the switch.  In the movie "Master and Commander" with Russell Crowe, they talk about the lesser of two evils.  My Father was in WWII as a captain on a Liberty ship.  From his letters we found in my Grandmother's attic after he died in 1996, he believed he was protecting his children and unborn children from the evils of the world.  He  fought them to save us, to protect us so we didn't have to experience the terrors of war.  I am sure he didn't want to kill anyone (I believe he had one gun on board) because he was not that type of man.  I imagine he thought it was the lesser of two evils. 

Shawn-mott: I agree, couldn't agree more, about the pulpit banging.  The bangers do it to instill fear in the flock, because if the flock isn't fearful, they might stray.  And what a sad sad day that would be.  Especially for the church coffers.
 
 
Now, about christ being a democrat.  I hope he'd have the good sense to be the independent guy I think he was, and eschew political parties altogether. 
 
That's what I hope, anyhow.
 
Although I have absolutely no inside information.

I THINK, Aussie, that they actuially discuss the lesser of two WEEVILS... I have thought about this train thing and I will say this now:                                  I would lift up the rails with my hands, causing the train to slow and eventually stop, saving everyone. Why not? I am never going to be in the situation described. To imagine that I would be is to imagine something that is not going to happen. Once we have crossed that line, why can't I imagine TWO things?

Quod erat demonstrandum, btw:      http://cgi.ebay.com/WONDERFUL-SCHOOL-OF-SAVIOR-PRIZE-OF-2ND-CLASS-MEDAL_W0QQitemZ350281053361QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item518e60b4b1

Willie:
 
You sound just like my late mother. 
 
Who I loved very much, but who could be extraordinarily annoying when faced with a philosophical "what if." 
 
She's shrug and say why should I think about that?  It's never going to happen.
 
And then she'd bring up "that nice Wayne Newton in Las Vegas" and how she'd really love to go out there to see him.
 
 
 

Wow.
 
Do suppose he's got more of those savior medals, or is this a one of a kind opportunity?

So, Park, did you take her to see Wayne Newton, or did you remind her that was an impossibility, too?

William, Missy, TwinkieBoy, racingyogagirl, so glad to see you! I'd like to credit my Mojo Recall Incantation of a few days ago, but perhaps the power of the Great Magnet should not be entirely overlooked in his electronic attraction.
Isles beat me to Kobayashi Maru, and I'm not a bit surprised. I will polish your claymore, good my lord *wink*...
A significant passenger on that vessel would be Schrodinger's Cat.
 
Anyone who thinks the government would do a worse job than corporations in managing healthcare is truly not paying attention. We have a literal world of examples to the contrary.
Good thing that ol' debbil gubmint doesn't run important stuff like the military, the interstate highway system, postal services, FEMA, and NASA-all of which have changed so many lives for the better and made astounding things happen despite their occasional monumental screwups. When the government manages universal healthcare for all Americans, which it inevitably will, there will be monumental screwups, and pessimists will piss and moan as they have always done.
And we will make it better, in fits and starts. The operative word is START. Our 'leaders' have dithered for decades while the system failed, and we are very close to a point where citizens may to have to find a way to circumvent Congressional obstructionism and just do it ourselves.
Referendum, anyone?
We have to suck it up and DO SOMETHING, stop whining and trembling and getting hysterical that you might lose your crappy current coverage and have to accept a try at a better system.
Everything is changing, like it or not. Let's be bold and make a start... 
 
Welcome noobs.

TMD:   Really  nice  post,  my  virtual  friend......clear,  concise,  accurate.  
 
Park4:   I  just  wanted  to  add  one  smidgen  to  your  comment  regarding  medals.   The  real  heroes  in  military  situations,  almost  across  the  board,  don't  want  to  comment  on  the  actions  underlying  their  awards.  It  was  simply  a  situation  where  the  man  or  woman  did  their  job.  
 
Peterman's  awards  either  merely  mark  frequency  of  posting,  or  fluency  in  a  particular  subject  matter  area.    But  if  I  were  ever  to  attain  a  hundred  "best"  awards,   I  would  defer  to  a  19  year  old  buck  private  in  Afghanistan,  just  for  being  there...THAT  is  difficult,  THAT  leaves  emotional  scars.   LZ  "landing  zone"  Larry  in  my  office  is  a  true   hero.....he  was  a  Med  Evac  helecopter  pilot  in  Vietnam,  anecdotal  evidence  confirms  that  he  could  put  his  machine  down  in  the  center  of  a  postage  stamp,  with  room  to  spare  on  the  entire  perimeter.   Talk  about  moral  quagmires,  spending  7  days  a  week  16  hours  a  day  carrying  what  was  left  of  a  soldier  out  of  a  hot  zone  had  to  be  worse  than  hell.  Especially  when  we  as  Americans  later  found  out  that  much  of  our  decision-making  was  less  than  honorable,  far  from  accurate.  >>>OK,  stick  a  fork  in  me,  I'm  done<< <
 
 
 

When I was a little girl my parents would go to Starlite Musicals in Indiana every summer w/ my grandparents. You could go backstage then & they saw Wayne - I have a program signed- 'To Adele with all my love, Wayne Newton." I need to get it framed.
 
Park- your mom sounded wonderful- you seem to have inherited her sense of humour!

No, Willie, we didn't go to Vegas.  She didn't see Wayne.  But it wasn't an impossibility, it was just a horrible idea.
 
I asked her if she couldn't come up with someone anyone else she'd like to see, and she said "Dean Martin."  Funny lady.
 
We wound up going to the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, and she enjoyed it.  Better than Newton could have been, she said.  But not as good as Dean used to be.
 
I miss her, philosophical poop that she was, I miss her lots.
 
 

bert:  I think I said these "medals" are for comments on a website.
 
What is your smidgen?  I'm not getting it...no way did I compare these to military medals.
 
Am I missing the point of your smidgen?

Park4,  I  got  here  late  2day,  so  what  I  said   was  not  responsive  to  your  earlier  pots....just  something  I  wanted   to  put  out  there.  Please  grade  me  on  the  curve.

earlier  POSTS.....need  dark  roast,  ASAP

earlier POTS.
 
lol bert.
 
Freudian slip?
 
 
jest jokin'

Park4 ~ I'm only in my 30"s & agree with your moms opinion.
 
I also agree with your statements about Jesus & political parties.
 

Time to make you all jealous:
 
Tonight's simple dinner was family raised burgers with stilton cheese mixed with the meat, served on organic whole-wheat bread.
 
Simple pleasures, zero guilt, and not one person died from me pushing the on-button on the stove.

Park4:   R  U  implying  I'm  a  DOPE????  lol
 
Aussie5:  Nice  Post,  Mate.  Been  there,   done  that,  bought  the  t-shirt.   When  my  daughter  was  added  to  the  mix,   I  know  I  would  have  popped  the  intruder  in 
a  New  York  second,   and  slept  like  a  baby  afterwards.    NOBODY  messes  with  my 
angel.   Only  thing  that  kept  this  guy  in  one  piece  was  knowing  that  my  daughter  would  see  a  side  of  her  dad  that  was  better  left  under  the  radar. 
 
Park4:   I'm  putting  on  my  Lucky  brand  jeans,  and  heading  downstairs  to  have  a  nightcap,  and  surveil  the  poor  lads  &  lassies  that,  god  help  them,  will  be  my  prisoner  for  hours  at  a  time  for  the  next  2 days.  So  does  wearing  "Lucky"  jeans  mean  that  I  just  might   get  lucky??? 

Michael:   Your  next  book  could  be  about  the  characters  that  frequent  this  website,  but  nobody  would  ever  believe  it  happened  to  be  TRUE.

ExPat: RE: Lord of
the Flies. Am I the only one here who was forced to it in their freshman year
of high school? I hated the book. I was young and naive and didn't want to
believe that people could act that way. Alas, I grew up and discovered that
yes, people really do act that way, most metaphorically...but sadly, some
literally. :(

Bert: Good luck
on keeping everyone awake. I wanted to go to the Los Lobos concert but have a
family obligation preventing it (my youngest niece is turning 12 years old the
night of the concert). Have a good trip and come home safely.

Olivia: As usual,
dear lady, you hit the nail on the head. I wish I could manage to say things as
directly and compactly as you do. You have a talent for finding the words that
distill the essence of an idea without taking thousands of words to do so.
Maybe if I keep posting and reading here your ability will rub off on me and
I'll get my thousands of words cut down to a couple hundred.

PARK4: I can go
along with your idea of Jesus being a political independent.

Shawn_Mott:
I know there's a lot of pulpit banging with the intent of controlling the way
people think and act but I personally can't blanket condemn all churches. I
think a lot of the stuff that gets thrown around as coming from "The
Church" is less about the church itself but rather theagenda of the
particular preacher.

ValiPA: I would
never force any woman to not get an abortion if she didn't want to raise the
child. But I would suggest that she look at giving the baby up for adoption as
there are many women who want children and can't have them. When I offer
information on abortion and its alternatives to the teenagers that I have
counseled it is to provide them with the fullest information on all available
choices when they are in a frightening and stressful situation. It's hard
enough to make the decision that is best for you when under stress. It is even
harder to do so when you are making a decision with only biased or incomplete
information while under such stress. I won't stop someone from walking into an
abortion clinic nor will I stop someone picketing said clinic. However, I will
do my damnedest to stop anyone from forcing another person to do something they
don't want to even if I don't necessarily agree with their choice.

Many of us are getting ready to move off the stage in one, or two, or three decades.... The play is still to be written for the acts after those.  (I wonder when the play ends....)  .... I think we sometimes forget that the folks in their teens, 20s, and 30s have taken over from the 'older generation' for centuries (actually for eons!) and the world's not noticebly worse than it was in 1000 B.C. or 10 A.D. or 1100 A.D. -- in fact a lot of those 'youngsters' have made this place a lot more enjoyable!  (Like that musician guy, uhhh... oh, yeah, Mozart!  And then there was that actor who started writing plays: Shakespeare....).  When we all grouse about how the world is going to the dogs, I think of my grandfather saying the same thing (and after him, his son-in-law, my late father....).  It's sometimes nice to look in the mirror and say to that guy, 'Hey, dude, the world was here before you got here, and it will do whatever it will do after you leave here.  Let it go!  Pass on what you've learned if anyone cares, and assume that the next folks will do just about as good a job as we did.  (And the less said about our screwups, the better!).  Heh, heh, heh......

lecoeurdevie: welcome and I hope you continue posting. I applaud your courage in making a decision that was right for you despite the family tradition of military service. I also sympathise your frustration with bed school systems and the inability to get out of them.I see the results of such systems everyday when dealing with the freshmen who come into the university's math department not only unable to do basic beginning high school algebra but also incapable of taking responsibility for their actions (not showing up for class or tests then being angry that the teacher didn't give them an "A" they didn't earn) and being unable to control their emotions, behaviour and language. I have campus security on speed dial and have unfortunately had to use it a few times each year to deal with agressive students who aren't pleased that I told them that they missed thedeadline for making up the final they missed because they couldn't be bothered to read the announcements given to them by their instructors (and which are posted everywhere on campus as well as teh university and departmental websites). And these are the kids who are lucky enough to have the money to go on the tertiary education. *shakes head* Again, all this is just symptomatic of the intertwined problems of the lack of jobs providing a living wage, affordable medical care (I include psychological care as well as physical care  in this) , the glorification of violence and greed, the "get something for doing nothing"entitlement culture.

Julia  Masi:   Sounds  to  me  that  you're  hanging  with  the  wrong  men,  girl.   Don't  let  others  define  who  you  are,  ESPECIALLY  the  "others"  that  you  cite  as  examples.  Many  men  are  a  world-class  embarrassment  2  me,  jmo.  

I just looked over my postings for today and cringe at the typos. I guess its time to go see that nuerologist about the delay in my left hand fingers.:( I hope folks were able to make sense out of what I was trying to express despite them.

BERT ~ as Jonny so famously says in Gilda ~ "I Make my Own Luck" ...  If you need the Jeans to help do so like he needed the loaded dice, then the answer to your ? is yes...  

Lecoeurdevie:  It is really hard to be a step-parent..I know.  You are trying to do all the right things but,  you are starting with children that havae a lot of baggage...any step parent does.  The best you can do is love them, try to guide them but, all children are their own persons and we can't control their lives as they grow.  We can only guide them and it is hard as hell.  We have to let them make bad coices and good ones.
 
All of our roles are to be true to ourselves out children and our country...though we all go about it differently as you can tell from all these posts.

Perhaps one of the 20 was also the murderer of a loved one, while one of the 5 was to cure another loved one's life threatening cancer. Seems there is always a little more to a situation than first appears. And the more WE stand to lose, the more qualified we feel to react on the behalf of others.

RINGS- how is bookselling going? Have you had the urge to push the button yet? Seriously- are people polite or rude? Inquiring minds want to know!
Ha! I stayed on topic- I used the button word!

 
I don't know who or how but someone has done something right in getting all of these new people here. You get a medal.

Now, put the current pictures back and all will be forgiven.

There's a reason that discussions like this leave me groping for the effen remote: Our dad by nature and by virtue of training for what he did instead of going to war, was everybody's idea of the perfect guy under fire.

When our mom suffered a massive stroke, he could not make himself understood and would not relinquish the phone. I ran across the street, broke the glass on the emergency box and the woman who answered said: "Thank God."

The point being, it isn't really knowable what we would do in extreme situations. You don't know, he didn't, I don't. It was too late anyway.

I don't know about you but our lives are sufficiently endowed with realness that Kant's hypotheticals and that goofy summer camp money button game are taken around here for what they are...


rings,
I had to make myself not think about your early post to avoid laughing during a CTscan.

Michael, may I suggest that you look at each of your dream characters as parts of yourself? 

If this was my dream, I would ask myself, "What portion of me have I decided to defend?  (cousin) What looming, scary parts of myself have I decided to do away with?  (the two men)  What have I recently faced and conquered?  (killed) "  I would also conclude that my higher self, (authority) approved (cleared me), even though I was horrified that I finally had to let something, someone or some traits, attitudes, etc.,  go from my life. (pulled the trigger)

Once again, if this was my dream, I would be pleased with myself having mae the right decision because I was "cleared by everyone in authority", (my conscience).  Hope these ideas helped you to understand your dream better.    

  
Michael,

"Two large and scary men." That could have been Cheney and Rumsfeld or Albert Gore and Janet Reno for all that.

What were they threatening to do? It would be useful to know.

What a day. Got a nice offer to have my claidheamh mòr polished, so I figure I should be looking to help a fellow barbarian oil her scabbard. Reciprocity.

Got the kids watching Charlie Brown's Thanksgiving, while I sample the middle strata of the brandy bottle. Charlie Brown never loses his ability to draw the children in.

Kill someone for a million bucks?
 
Make love to someone for a million bucks?
 
Polar opposites. Yes. And at the same time aren't they aligned?
 
I have not heard of killing someone for a million bucks, nor making love to someone for a million bucks, except in the movies. I'd bet good money most of us haven't been exposed to such situations except on the big screen.
 
Maybe, just maybe, we are truly evolving.
 
And all these weird situations are left to Hollywood film.
 
IN particular...Hollywood fiction...

FrancescaB: Interesting.  I may have to go over what has been going on in my life for the last little while.
 
Stoney: They looked more like two goons sent over from Central Casting.  They were threatening to hurt my cousin, and I couldn't let them do that.

I agree with cuukoo1.  Besides, why else would there be a cow catcher mounted to the front of thesepia train.    But seriously....... All things being equal (which they never have been nor will they ever be) and having all of the information that is required to make the best possible decision (which is as rare an event as lips on a chicken) and then toss a handful of "what-if" scenarios against the wall like spaghetti so you can evaluate and assign risk/reward attributes (which you will never have sufficient time to do) to see which plan sticks...why then you just may have a chance to take the action that yields the best possible outcome (or least worse).... but only if you can entirely remove your feelings from the process so that you can be totally objective......... No problem...... next question? 

Thank you for the kind words dk and kim,, most of my classes I teach are very large lectures under the flag of a senior prof, so most of the experience I have with the students is after the lectures and in office time and the students whom I spend time with are the ones who are motivated to succeed and involve themselves in the curriculum. My personal method has evolved to one where I make myself as available as I can to those who need me and not to those who don't. I simply can't waste time banging my head against a perverbial wall. If students want to fail, then they will and that is their choice. As far as my step-son goes, the only responsible thing I can do is try as best I can to the reality of what he wants to enter into. We watch a lot of documentaries about all aspects of the military and modern wars, some of them are quite excellent and I try to expose him to as many people as I can. There is no false pretense that I could keep him from doing what he is going to do, I just try to do what I do... educate. More than anything this is a case of me having tocome to terms with my own guilt that these two boys have not had many of the opportunities that I had and not being able to do very much about it.

 
Michael,

There is not knowing what to do; knowing and doing nothing and knowing and doing it. For one reason or another, they all scare the hell out of everybody and should.

  
Peter Lake,

Eddie Dane: How'd you get the fat lip?
Tom Reagan: Old war wound. Acts up around morons.

It was on tonight... saved the day.

     When seeing the ads for the push button movie, several thoughts occurred, not necessarily in this order. What is a million dollars any more today? The movie makers should have uped the ante. This movie premise is so juvenile that the target audience must be the teen group. If someone were to come to my home with his portable easy button and make such an offer, I'd make every effort to smack him up the side of his head with one of the cast iron skillets hanging from a beam in our kitchen, hog tie him, take a sledge hammer to his easy button (taking care to destroy the device without pushing the button), and phone the authorities who don't appear to be too concerned with what goes on here at the lastoutpost. Don't know why these movie ads stuck in my mind but they did and obviously they hit the chords of a few others as well. Have been reading these posts for some time now. This subject prompted my participation.
     Michael, your dreams remind me of those of another Michael's - the husband. Must be smething in the name.
      I think the medals are a bit curious. Also more curious is the current view of one of my cats attempting to make a bed on the dishtowel covered clean dishes in the drainer. Another moral dilemma? No. I shall not beat her. The spray bottle from the ironing board works splendidly. 

Stoney - "who you gonna believe"..... Watched"The Usual Suspects" last night and "Miller's" tonight. They would make the perfect twilight double-header. Be very well and please pass on my best wishes to the grand lady.

peace out all...... and welcome to all the new folks. Hope to see ya around the neighborhood.

 What is so sad to me is that people have to ask or read what other people think to make up there minds.
 What it all comes down to is people die every day for what seems like no reason at all and that is good it saves us from having to make the choice. Lots of people have to die every day if they didn't we would run out of room and food for everyone ! We would all die then yes it my be sad to lose someone and it hurts for awhile but you get over it and move on.
 O, for all those who think I don't know about the pain . I just lost my mom 6 mouths ago to cancer or the the treatment .
  Death is easy and a step forward if you believe in any kind of God so dont ask if something is moral or not just do what you think is right and dont hurt other people in the prosess .

lecoeurdevie:  The nice thing about this "place" is you will have a lot of support.  I have been a step mom and a parent of my birth child but,his father disappeared,,, so I am a single mom too. the kid is 27..so...  once a mom be it step or pain always a mom or a dad.

So many posts, so little time. Great thoughts here today.
I'm a vet and I really like the medals. I think they're cool.
This is not your ordinary forum. It has class, with classy people, and classy medals.
The discussion topic opener is always well written with humor and class. And the photo is always top-class.
Wishing you all a classy day.

All the Ladies shone brilliantly this day, and the Gentlemen as well ....... I hope Peterman is keeping all this stuff, because it would be a terrible shame to lose such Genius into CyberSpace ... The "Old Timers" among the Village have acquitted themselves admirably with their Positions, and their handling of the Questions proffered by the Newcomers, and some of the ANSWERS from them as well ....... An exciting and worthwhile exchange of ideas, with 99.9% of the Contributions being Gilt with Reason ....... So very much could be Taught from all that is said here ... So much could be learned from all that is said here ...
 
A Tip of my hat to The Sage of Peterman Place ....... who else woul;d even have considered the Cowcatcher .......

Dancingkatz,
 
I also read Lord of the Flies in high school but I wasn't forced.  It was part of an elective literature class that I took my junior year.  However, like you, I hated it.  To this day, it is my single least favorite novel I have ever read (followed closely by Camus' The Stranger).

People are not machines and living is not a purely mechanical process. The humanity "button" is not made of cold, unfeeling metal. We are not robots. Nature built in our capacity to feel. We need our emotions, passions, and instincts; as we need our pyschic pain, doubts and fears. It forces us to pay attention! It pushes us to remember that nothing in the Universe is perfect, and that includes us!

No one can predict how they, or anyone else, will react to any situation until they are actually experiencing it - it's all conjecture...and we can do that until the cows, caught by that cow-catcher, come home.

The best we can do is just that - our best - and try not to chastise ourselves, or others, when those inevitable slips are made! Life is messy, unavoidable cow chips are falling everywhere, and the uncertainty is precisely what it means to be human.

KINDLEE:  Well Put !!!

This was good..and fun.  We should do it more often. 
thank you to all participants, new and the regulars.
 
 
About Lord of the Flies -- I too read it in high school and loathed it, I think even these many years later the worst dreams I dream have their basis in that book.  I hear the word "piggy" used in any sense, and I have to stop and swallow hard.
 
The only other book I read back then that still makes my gut tighten and my shoulders straighten and, I'm sure, my pupils dilate, is Conrad's  Heart of Darkness.
 
One of my personal versions of Hell is being stranded in some isolated desolate place with nothing within my reach to pass the time but those two books.

Park,
 
Interesting.  I confess I do like Heart of Darkness though I certainly see why others may not.  It is not a pleasant read by any stretch but I don't feel that Conrad holds me (and you, and himself, and other readers) in a state of utter moral contempt the way Golding does.
 
In both cases, I think there is a rare instance of the movie being better than the book.  Apocalypse Now is, of course, a much looser adaptation but the fundamentals of plot and, more importantly, theme are present and enhanced.  As for The Lord of the Flies (and I refer to the 1963 Peter Brook version rather than the American remake which I have never seen), the movie actually benefits from the loss of theme.  By stripping away Golding's philosophy, the movie works as a much simpler and purer primal adventure tale.  The sort of thing that usually makes a movie fall short of its literary source material was, in this case, its saving grace.

I'm glad that there is no spellcheck. You wrote it, you proofread it. Spellcheck has made us all lazy. It also helps to know that even the most wonderfully literate among us, I mean the true geniuses around here, misspell things once in awhile. It makes them more human.

I dont believe there would be even a thought about not shooting, my family comes before all, except God. Yes, I would probably feel some sort of discomfort because I took another mans life, but it would have nothing to do with morality. It is not my right to take someones life, as it not that mans right to take someone else's life (in this case my family). He has made a conscience decision to say he is god like and can choose if someone else lives or dies....that is immoral. In a situation like the one described there is no time to think of morality or immorality, you do what your mind and heart tell you, and that is save your loved one. I would however ask forgiveness from God as He is ultimately the only who will judge me at the end.