The Awesome Obama Thread II

I think this single sentence answers most of what I would want to know.The only remaining question I would have then is "why doesn't morality figure highly into your position?" If moral considerations lack the power to move you, then what does move you? If your desire to protect American lives (as opposed to exclusively your own) is not based on moral considerations, what then is it based on?

Reality.

This may surprise you, but that response was not particularly illuminating. Could you perhaps elaborate?

Yes that does surprise me.Reality is finding the better solution in a given set of circumstances. It's nice to work towards an ideal but reality says that evolves, often glacially slowly.

I'm still not understanding, jar. I'm not seeing a motivating factor or general outlook that results in valuing American life outside of moral concerns.You seem to be trying to tell me that I'm an idealist and you're just pragmatic. But that's obvious (at least that you believe so) and isn't at all what I'm asking you. I'm asking, if moral considerations do not move you, what considerations do move you? What gives a human life value to you if not moral considerations?I understand that the most ethical solution is often not practical due to political or other realities. But you have a position you've taken considering that. What drives that position?

I'm not trying to tell you anything.My personal experience give life value.The only important morality is MY personal morality and as I have said, sometimes the right thing to do may well be immoral.

You're typing words, which means you're certainly trying to convey some meaning. It just seems like we're having different conversations. Do you mean that you value individuals you've had direct experience with, and don;t value perfect strangers you'll never meet? Do your aggregate life experiences grant you a sense of empathy for other human beings who feel the same things you've felt and so you value them all equally, counter to what you've stated in recent replies? Or does that sentence mean something else? My main question in the last few posts has essencially been how you determine the "right thing." If the "right thing" is not determined by what is moral, than how is the "right thing" determined for jar?

First, it is none of your business how I develop my morality.Yes, of course I value actual experience over abstract experience.Yes, I can have empathy for general and even abstract concepts.But I really don't see what any of that has to do with the thread?

But Im not asking about your morality. Youve explicitly stated that moral considerations lack the power to move you, that you are instead moved by "reality." You've explicitly stated that the "right thing" is sometimes not the "moral thing." If the "right thing" is not determined by morality, then what determines the "right thing?" ...which wasn't actually what I asked at all, of course. It wasn't even a "yes or no" question - I gave three mutually exclusive options, one of which was "if not those, then what did you mean?"If you don;t want to answer, you don;t have to respond at all. Well, that's...good...I guess? It doesn't address any of my questions, but it's good that you can have empathy. Is perhaps empathy what defines the "right thing" for jar? That would confuse me further as I tie empathy very closely to morality and you've said that morality does not determine the "right thing," but perhaps you and I think differently in that regard as well. It has to do with understanding your argument in favor of supporting drone attacks as carried out by the Obama administration. You believe the drone attacks are simultaneously the "right thing" yet not the moral thing. You value American lives more strongly than Afghani lives (though you still have not given the ratio of their value), and your only clarification to that thus far has been the word "reality" and the sentence "I am American."My argument against the drone attacks rests solely on moral considerations, but you've said those do not move you. So, in order to try to understand your position, I've been trying to determine how you determine the "right thing" when it's not the "moral thing."I thought the line of conversation was fairly clear - perhaps you'd like me to clarify something?

Nope, nothing I can see that needs clarification.I have already said that reality determines what is right to do and that depends on the particular circumstances of every instance.There simply is no universal answer.

..."Reality" is not a set of guidelines. Reality denotes the circumstances in which we find ourselves, and allows for a set of potential actions that carry varying outcomes.What I'm asking, jar, is given reality, in any give circumstance, what guidelines do you use to determine "the right thing," since you've already stated that it's not morality?In fact, let's add some specificity - given the reality of the situation in Afghanistan, what is your reasoning for believing that drone attacks constitute the "right thing?"If I were jar, and I were presented with a few different versions of reality, how would I determine which versions of reality resulted in drone attacks being the "right thing" and which did not?As an example, I use moral considerations to determine whether an action is acceptable. Moral considerations, to me, include a consolidation of expected outcomes and their relative success and failure in achieving the general goal of reducing human suffering, promoting justice being one of the means by which net suffering can be lowered. So to me, if I want to determine the "right thing," I weight the options from the perspective of how many lives can be saved or lost, how much suffering can be prevented or relieved, and the probability of each outcome given each action or inaction. Through these considerations I think that the drone attacks result in a net loss of human life and an increase in human suffering as compared to attempting even difficult arrests or, indeed, even doing nothing at all and attacking the problem of terrorism as it arrives on our shores in later planning and preparation stages through standard police action, in the same way that we caught the "shoe bomber," and the recent individual who wanted to blow up the Capitol building.My determination of the most moral action (and therefore the "right thing") includes probable results in reality, meaning that I'm highly unlikely to suggest that everyone just buy a Care Bear and sing songs as a solution to the problem of terrorism, but will instead suggest taking courses of action that actually reduce the threat of terrorism without correspondingly higher costs in human suffering or lives elsewhere (or stopping actions that have a net increase in suffering or lives lost when compared to the activities they intend to reduce). For instance, I would suggest stopping the policy of extraordinary rendition, stopping the use of torture even including stress positions, sleep deprivation, and of course waterboarding...and stopping drone attacks, just to name a few.Given my explanation of how I determine the "right thing," could you share how you determine the "right thing?"

huh?I think I have but I'll gladly try yet again.Using a drone in Afghanistan or Pakistan prevents threat to a pilot or soldiers/police on the ground trying to make an arrest.

Well, yes. That reason is that those are completely other countries, so we can't engage in law enforcement there - they're not subject to our laws. Since when is killing someone on a battlefield a "summary execution"? Is it a "summary execution" every time one soldier shoots another? Was the Civil War the "summary execution" of 250,000 Americans?You've mistaken the concept of "due process." Due process for the treatment of a criminal in police custody is a trial by jury, etc. The process due a soldier taking up arms against the United States is that the military determines that he's a threat on the battlefield, and neutralizes him.I'm sorry if that's shocking to you, or that it seems unfair, but it's always worked like that. It's not a new thing; that's built into our Constitution. Your argument for legal trials each and every time the United States kills someone is not an argument against Obama or Bush; your gripe is with the very concept of a state army.Armies shoot and bomb people. Now, the question is whether the Army can shoot and bomb people in other countries without a de facto state of war existing as a result, but those very nations themselves seem to have determined that there's a certain level of US military involvement within their borders - particularly within their lawless hinterlands - that does not constitute a declaration of war against their country by the US. I don't believe anyone has the right to shoot at (or plan to shoot at) soldiers, or anybody else, without expecting to be shot back at. Not even a US passport is a magic anti-bullet shield, and the Army doesn't ask permission of its targets to attack. Nor should it. Again, your gripe is with the very notion of warfare. I agree that warfare is bad, and an outrage; the point of warfare is that you only engage in it when the alternative is worse. Was that standard met in our current wars? Probably not. Well, it doesn't. It means those processes that are due someone. The Constitution spells out certain processes for some, and other processes for others. Soldiers on the battlefield are due the process of being identified as targets by the commanders of the military. They're not due a trial by jury of their peers, particularly since they're not under the jurisdiction of our laws. For that matter, their conduct - say, taking up arms to defend their territory - may not be illegal. What are you supposed to do then? I support them because they're effective, they expose US servicemen and women to the lowest level of risk, and they produce less casualties than committing troops to an invasion. Of course, the better alternative is to not engage in warfare in the first place. But that has nothing to do with drones.Edited by crashfrog, : No reason given.

Rahvin, thanks for yesterday's replies. These are the reasons why I believe invading Afghanistan was wrong.1. 16 of the 19 9/11 highjackers were Saudis. ALSO, Al Qaeda was a terrorist group, based in . . . Saudi Arabia. If invading Afghanistan was correct, then why hadn't Bush Jr. or you ever suggested we invade Saudi Arabia? Not a rhetorical question, please answer.2. Yes, I understand Osama bin Laden was in Afghanistan. But as Bush Jr. said (below), Bin Laden wasn't important. Before the american invasion, the Afghan Taliban government asked Bush Jr. for evidence that Osama was involved in 9/11 BEFORE they would give Osama up. Since the Taliban government wasn't keen on protecting Al-Queda members in exchange for an assault on their country, that was probably a legitimate request. It would have alleviated drone strikes, invasions, death and destruction. But, remember, like in Iraq, the american government NEEDED an excuse to invade Afghanistan to gain hegemony for the energy resources, so the Bush Jr. administration didn't even followup on the Afghan government's request. That moment was extremely instructive to how little "terrorism" really meant to Bush/Cheney (outside of its fear factor to the american people):

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bush jr regarding bin laden, March 2002:

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Who knows if he's hiding in some cave or not. We haven't heard from him in a long time. The idea of focusing on one person really indicates to me people don't understand the scope of the mission. Terror is bigger than one person. He's just a person who's been marginalized.... I don't know where he is. I really just don't spend that much time on him, to be honest with you.

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Error 404 (Not Found)!!13. With Bush/Cheney at the helm, did anybody seriously think the invasion of Afghanistan was gonna turn out good? I mean, really? Not a rhetorical question.4. The proofs in the pudding. Afghanistan HAS turned out to be a clusterf**k. Big surprise eh? Tens of thousands dead, massive tax money squandered, and the cause of an INCREASE in hatred/terrorist risks in the world. The invasion of Afghanistan was really, really, really bad and WRONG.5. As a SENATOR, Obama voted FOR funding the Aghani war EVERY time. As president, Obama has not only extended the money and time duration in Afghanistan, but also has enlarged military forces there. The result, constant drones buzzing in the air and random night time raids into family's homes. For one moment, put yourself in an Afghanis place: Can you imagine every waking moment watching the sky, waiting for a drone missile to deliberately or accidentally target you or a family member or friend. And even if the missile targets a stranger, suppose the "collateral damage" is your child or parent? And then at night, random night raids. Can you imagine your every sleeping moment waiting for your front door to be kicked in and your family assaulted, deliberately or accidentally? I imagine this as hell. Can you imagine it as anything different? Not a rhetorical question.These are the reasons/evidence why I believe invading Aghanistan was wrong.

Whoops, my apologies. Errr, perhaps I am misunderstanding you, but Obama wasn't in office yet to vote on the AUMF. There are some thoughts from Obama that he MIGHT have voted for the AUMF:

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In July of `04, Barack Obama, "I'm not privy to Senate intelligence reports. What would I have done? I don't know," in terms of how you would have voted on the war. And then this: "There's not much of a difference between my position on Iraq and George Bush's position at this stage." That was July of `04. And this: "I think" there's "some room for disagreement in that initial decision to vote for authorization of the war."

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and:

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SEN. OBAMA: Now, Tim, that first quote was made... when we had a nominee for the presidency and a vice president, both of whom had voted for the war. And so it, it probably was the wrong time for me to be making a strong case against our party's nominees' decisions when it came to Iraq.

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My "badgering" of Jar is because he writes ridiculous things like the following (Yeah, yeah, I should just ignore him):