Who's worth more ? A murderer or a "normal" person ?

[m1237123]

I look at it this way: There's a big difference between killing and murder. To kill in war is one thing (I'm not speaking of any particular instance, not presently nor historically) but murder is certainly another. I think the best way to approach the idea of weighing someone's life is to first determine which action a person has done.

[dohupa]

Well, even in war killing is not justified in my book. Youngsters were sent to Vietnam for all the wrong reasons; same thing when Adolf Hitler recruited all the youths to defend Berlin right when the Russians were marching in.

Killing is killing; I understand there is a whole industry surrounding the military and all the jobs at stake and so on and so forth - we know all that already. Still, it's immoral - I don't differentiate the act personally between a bank robbery that goes wrong and acts of war.

[chupachups]

Originally Posted by dohupa

Well, even in war killing is not justified in my book. Youngsters were sent to Vietnam for all the wrong reasons; same thing when Adolf Hitler recruited all the youths to defend Berlin right when the Russians were marching in.

Killing is killing; I understand there is a whole industry surrounding the military and all the jobs at stake and so on and so forth - we know all that already. Still, it's immoral - I don't differentiate the act personally between a bank robbery that goes wrong and acts of war.

in war, there is an aggressor and a defender, this is even before we get onto the topic of whether a war is justified or legal

are you saying that killing to defend yourself, your family, your country is wrong ? what should the warsaw jews have done then when the ss men came to drag them to the cattle cars ?

its nice to have the luxury of being able to exercise highly developed morals, and call all killing immoral, including those that kill to defend you and your rights and freedoms, but what would have happened to the UK in 1940, when the nazis were threatening to invade if they had not been opposed by those that killed to defend our rights and prevent the nazis from imposing their own morals on the inhabitants of this land - should these people feel guilty for the rest of their lives ?

[chupachups]

Originally Posted by dohupa

Well, even in war killing is not justified in my book. Youngsters were sent to Vietnam for all the wrong reasons; same thing when Adolf Hitler recruited all the youths to defend Berlin right when the Russians were marching in.

following on from my previous post...

the US were the aggressors in vietnam, should have the communist vietnamese done nothing and allowed the US to take over without a struggle ?

should the russians not have fought nazi germany to a standstill on the eastern front, and not pushed them back to berlin ?

clearly, fighting for the wrong side is immoral in these examples, but are we convinced all killing is immoral ?

[billybunter]

This is one big can of worms that I won't open.

[dohupa]

Originally Posted by chupachups

are you saying that killing to defend yourself, your family, your country is wrong ? what should the warsaw jews have done then when the ss men came to drag them to the cattle cars ?

I'm saying that killing is wrong plain simple; one of the reasons I don't like getting in debates is cause there is no end to these discussions and sooner or later such threads end in a bad way.

Hope you appreciate my decision not to drag this any further, sorry.

[Mal Hombre]

Originally Posted by chupachups

following on from my previous post...

the US were the aggressors in vietnam, should have the communist vietnamese done nothing and allowed the US to take over without a struggle ?



clearly, fighting for the wrong side is immoral in these examples, but are we convinced all killing is immoral ?

I think you'll find the North Vietnamese were the agressors,they invaded the South.

[chupachups]

Originally Posted by Mal Hombre

I think you'll find the North Vietnamese were the agressors,they invaded the South.

I think you will find you are mistaken

Ho Chi Min as a vietnamese nationalist in his fight to rid the whole of vietnam of the french colonialists actually asked the US for help to unify the whole of vietnam. The south was still ruled by the french under an arrangement forced on the vietnamese after WW2

Sadly for vietnam, after the korean war, the US was very wary of communism and US policy was to prevent its spread "the dominos will fall no more". So instead of helping the vietnamese, the US helped the french

Unfortunately after the major defeat of the french at dien bien phu, the french decided to withdraw from vietnam, which prompted the US to take a more involved role in propping up the south vietnamese puppet regime

Unfortunately for the US, the puppet regime didn't fare well against the communists, so the "gulf of tonkin" incident was fabricated by the US to allow direct US military involvement

All this is fact and is well documented, check out wiki

[billybunter]

I'm for peace. And i'm from a place that has seen 1000s of pointless murders. As human
beings we know it is wrong to kill.

[dohupa]

Originally Posted by brianwp

Yes. ......If I caught someone stealing something and he tried to run, I wouldn't shoot. But if I felt my own life was in danger, I would. Wouldn't you? It's easy to make moral judgements while you're sitting at the computer snug and safe. But if you woke up late tonight with a man standing over your bed with a ten inch butcher knife in his hand, you might make a quick moral adjustment.

Legally, in the US, you generally have to prove deadly force was threatened. (Of course the laws vary by state) But you are usually allowed by the law to defend yourself. Morally, or at least in Chrisianity, yes, the old testament says thou shalt not kill. Then again it also says a tooth for a tooth. .....

I hear you Brian. Never meant to sound like a smart ass or something; I honestly wanted to know. US is a lot different in so many ways, so one may argue that possessing a gun is justifiable. There's also a big industry in there it seems and thus a lot of controversy around this discussion anyway.

Mind you, I'm not religious or anything.