[MD] atomic bomb and torture

[Arlo Bensinger]

[Platt]
There's a curious reluctance on the part of many posters here to admit that 
Pirsig justifies killing people under certain circumstances "before those 
biological patterns destroy civilization itself." (Lila, 24)."

[Arlo]
Although a nice "soundbite", it fails to capture the depth of Pirsig's 
message, which includes the important constraint that "killing people" is 
only justifiable when the "threat" is immediate and actual. "Preemptive 
killing", such as bombing Harlem because it houses potential "biological 
threats", is outside the "morality" of MOQ-supported killing. Remember that 
even the criminal, the biological threat, is not justifiablely killed once 
the threat to society is contained.

Second, and relatedly, the MOQ does not justifiy the killing of "others" to 
stop the biological threat, it only justifies the killing of the threat 
itself. How many people killed at Hiroshima and Nagasaki represented 
individual, biological and immediate threats to American social patterns? 
Maybe some, but certainly not most. Although civilian, non-combatant, 
casualties are a sad, and likely unpreventable consequence of war, the 
immorality of their deaths should be always foregrounded. With a weapon 
such as a nuclear bomb, the murder of these non-threats is of such a great 
extent that one can hardly see it in any way other than the willful killing 
of innocents. This is what made the 9/11 tragedy so, well, tragic. It 
sought to achieve military goals through the destruction of civilian 
innocents. Our napalming... sorry, "Mark V firebombing"... civilian streets 
in retaliation is hardly "more moral".

Finally, society has no moral right to defend itself from intellectual 
threats. If an idea destroys a society, so be it. I realize the great 
impetus among the state-apologist right is to redefine every action 
undertaken by the U.S. as morally-justified actions against solely 
biological threats, but given that the world still functions in an SOM 
mindset, I wouldn't be so sure that ANY ONE COUNTRY can claim such absolute 
practice of moral judgement. Sometimes, yes. Sometimes, no. Until we are 
able to face that, and stop waving our Holier-Than-Thou Moral Dicks in the 
wind, there will be other nuclear mass destructions of human beings. And 
the kangaroos will keep laughing....

Arlo