How Would You Amend the Constitution of the United States?

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LKL
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20 Jun 2010, 12:58 am

It's been a long time, but IIrc the Romans built roads and baths and brought the benefits of civilization to conquered lands as well as armies. And weren't the conquered people eligible for citizenship after a couple of decades?

Then there's the theory that imperialism is what ended the empire when Rome overreached itself.

techstepgenr8tion
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20 Jun 2010, 1:39 am

LKL wrote:

The problem comes in when the laziest and most useless part of an empire is the original society that founded it. It seems much harder for great powers to survive prosperity than survive hardship.

iamnotaparakeet
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20 Jun 2010, 2:09 am

techstepgenr8tion wrote:

LKL wrote:

The problem comes in when the laziest and most useless part of an empire is the original society that founded it. It seems much harder for great powers to survive prosperity than survive hardship.

Yeah, that seems to happen. It's probably due to people thinking "this is the way it has always been and always going to be", and thus doing nothing more than living for themselves inconsiderate of all else.

Dox47
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20 Jun 2010, 3:56 am

Orwell wrote:

Dox, you accused me of cognitive dissonance. Drop the euphemistic BS. Do not refer to killing as "his job."

You're projecting your own values onto me, I don't find anything inherently evil in killing, it should be avoided whenever possible but that is not always an option. I accept that when it needs to be done that someone is going to have to do it, and that the experience will change them, usually not for the better. I pay them respect because they shoulder that burden so that I don't have to, I have other ways to contribute but I don't allow anything I may do to get in the way of my debt to them. What I'm referring to about you is that you dislike members of the military and make sweeping generalizations about them based on your personal experience, a practice you avoid on other topics but do consistently when soldiers are brought up. I think that you formed this opinion fairly young, and because you wish to preserve it you ignore or dismiss evidence that runs counter to it, hence my charge of cognitive dissonance. You've met some soldiers that were jerks, no one's disputing that, but to use that small experience as evidence to make sweeping generalizations about a whole class of people is wrong, and I know you know it.

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ruveyn
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20 Jun 2010, 4:10 am

Orwell wrote:

iamnotaparakeet wrote:

Are you speaking based on modern wars or on historical wars? Wars in the past had soldiers plundering the enemies, and that is about as productive as mining except the products are already finished.

War is destructive. Even the "plundering" you propose diminishes the total wealth, and only slightly enriches the plunderers at fatal expense to the plundered. It is not Pareto efficient, or even Kaldor-Hicks efficient. Not even close.

That is true. War is destructive. But sometimes fighting a defensive war is the only way to survive.

ruveyn

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20 Jun 2010, 8:02 am

Dox47 wrote:

I don't find anything inherently evil in killing,

Do you understand my "psychopath" charge now?

Quote:

What I'm referring to about you is that you dislike members of the military and make sweeping generalizations about them based on your personal experience, a practice you avoid on other topics but do consistently when soldiers are brought up. I think that you formed this opinion fairly young, and because you wish to preserve it you ignore or dismiss evidence that runs counter to it, hence my charge of cognitive dissonance. You've met some soldiers that were jerks, no one's disputing that, but to use that small experience as evidence to make sweeping generalizations about a whole class of people is wrong, and I know you know it.

No, I don't personally dislike servicemen by default. I dislike the whole structure and institution to which they belong, and oftentimes I dislike the conditions that brought them into military duty. As an example: I grew up in a relatively affluent suburban area, where few or none of my peers chose military service because we all had better prospects at various universities. The school district neighboring mine was much poorer. If you were to visit their high school, you would find every wall covered in various Army, Navy, or Marine Corps posters. The entire building was basically a giant military recruitment center. Those young men and women were denied decent educational opportunities, leaving them as easy pickings for recruiters who wanted warm bodies to catch bullets with.

As far as meeting soldiers who were jerks, sure, I have, and plenty who were rather dull-witted. But that doesn't do much to set them apart from most other segments of society. I don't have any particular problem with soldiers in general, and I know that people join the military for several different reasons. My objections are more to the nature of military itself and to the institutions we have set up to man our army through less-than-honest means. I also object to demands that the military needs to be worshiped, which is a problem in our culture outside of the military itself.

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MissConstrue
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20 Jun 2010, 8:07 am

Send our rich ass government and lobbyists to the guillotine. :evil:

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skafather84
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20 Jun 2010, 1:28 pm

Orwell wrote:

Dox, you accused me of cognitive dissonance. Drop the euphemistic BS. Do not refer to killing as "his job."

The soldier is paid to do it...certainly sounds like a job.

And also, not all are psychopaths/anti-social. That's a large reason for why people have PTSD...because they can't handle the killings and the massive stress of such scenes and performing such actions. And thanks to our lovely corrupt heads of military, we don't have an accurate number of how many people are actually disturbed by such jobs. They do their best to convolute, deny, and reflect any blame for such mental illnesses that result from their jobs.

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just_ben
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20 Jun 2010, 5:33 pm

[quote="Orwell"] I (generally speaking) oppose putting our soldiers in harm's way. So tell me, who "hates" our soldiers? One who wishes to avoid war, or one who is fine with leaving our troops in a hostile land for a decade to fight a hopeless battle against guerrillas?

Soldiers aren't that politically minded. They're gonna get awful bored without a war to fight, and do you seriously want to turn 10,000 bored marines on an unsuspecting public? It's all well and good spreading anti-war ideology, but ultimately, war is how it is. People fight wars because they're savages. We all are. What exactly stops you from slugging people in the face when they really offend you? Come on, Orwell. The vote for peace is all well and good, but you aren't doing soldiers any justice by denying them their 'work', so to speak.

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danieltaiwan
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20 Jun 2010, 9:24 pm

One Word. Decentralization.

danieltaiwan
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20 Jun 2010, 9:26 pm

War may be only productive for the conquering party.

Dox47
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20 Jun 2010, 10:49 pm

Orwell wrote:

Dox47 wrote:

I don't find anything inherently evil in killing,

Do you understand my "psychopath" charge now?

Do you believe in the legal concepts of self defense and/or justifiable homicide? More importantly, do you think believing in them is a minority opinion? Because to hold those beliefs is to believe that killing is not inherently wrong, but that the morality of the action is contextual. So are the majority of people psychopaths, or are you going to revise your statement?

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visagrunt
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21 Jun 2010, 3:41 pm

Dox47 wrote:

I disagree. Justifiability is a legal state, which is distinct from a moral or ethical state, and should not be used interchangably.

Justifications for homicide (such as self-defence) are exceptions to the general rule that homicide is malum in se. A person who kills in self-defence is not criminally liable for that action, but the concept of something being "inherently wrong," goes beyond the principle of legal liability into the territory of moral and ethical assessment. I suggest that it is incorrect to rely upon legal determinism to approach questions of morality and ethics.

Consider a person acquitted of murder because of the exclusion of evidence due to unreasonable search and seizure and a person acquitted of murder because of self defence. The two of them are in precisely the same legal position, and both are blameless at law. But clearly from an ethical and moral position, we view them differently. I suggest it is not because the person who acted in self-defence acted justifiably, but rather than the person's action was morally and ethically privileged--which is a different status.

All that being said, this is all a far cry from psychopathy.

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21 Jun 2010, 4:13 pm

just_ben wrote:

Soldiers aren't that politically minded. They're gonna get awful bored without a war to fight, and do you seriously want to turn 10,000 bored marines on an unsuspecting public? It's all well and good spreading anti-war ideology, but ultimately, war is how it is. People fight wars because they're savages. We all are. What exactly stops you from slugging people in the face when they really offend you? Come on, Orwell. The vote for peace is all well and good, but you aren't doing soldiers any justice by denying them their 'work', so to speak.

This post is so idiotic I hardly even know where to begin.

1) Most soldiers do not want to spend their time fighting wars. They don't want to leave their families behind, perhaps never to see them again, or to live in harsh conditions in hostile territory where they could very well die a horrible death at any point. Very few soldiers are actually happy to ship out to fight a war, and those few who are thrilled to fight are the psychotic nutbags who should never be allowed near a gun or sharp objects.
2) Are you claiming we need to fight wars just to keep our soldiers occupied? The military still employs people during times of peace by maintaining a standing army, and besides that there is no reason why servicemen can't have a peacetime occupation to keep them from getting "bored" as you suggest they would.
3) War does not have to be how it is. Humans have gotten less warlike over our history, and if that trend continues then we can one day cease to fight.
4) You can speak for yourself. I am not a savage.

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Orwell
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21 Jun 2010, 4:16 pm

skafather84 wrote:

And also, not all are psychopaths/anti-social. That's a large reason for why people have PTSD...because they can't handle the killings and the massive stress of such scenes and performing such actions. And thanks to our lovely corrupt heads of military, we don't have an accurate number of how many people are actually disturbed by such jobs. They do their best to convolute, deny, and reflect any blame for such mental illnesses that result from their jobs.

We were talking about people who were able to do so in a "calm, collected manner." You are correct; many soldiers suffer emotional distress because of what they have been forced to see and do, and that is a perfectly normal, healthy response to what they've endured. Those who are unaffected by killing another human being are psychopaths.

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Orwell
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21 Jun 2010, 4:22 pm

Dox47 wrote:

Orwell wrote:

Dox47 wrote:

I don't find anything inherently evil in killing,

Do you understand my "psychopath" charge now?

See visagrunt's comments about the distinction between legality and morality.

But yes, killing is wrong. Killing in self-defence, depending on the situation, might be justifiable because you are committing one wrong to prevent another (greater) wrong, but that doesn't change the fact that it is still wrong. Depending on whether you subscribe to consequentialist or deontological ethics, you may or may not support that trade-off.

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