[MD] S/O and Morality

[Arlo Bensinger]

[Platt]
If you are in Manhattan when an atomic bomb goes off, it's indeed 
"doomsday" for you and millions of other people.

[Arlo]
Well, now you're just proving my point. In your eagerness to argue, 
you are avoiding straight out what I say and repeating things I've 
already agreed to and answered. But let me try again.

You'd be hard-pressed to find a New Yorker who is unaware that an 
atomic detonation in NYC would result in their death and the death of 
tens of thousands. The issue is not whether this is a valid concern, 
but whether this fear is evoked by politicians to manipulate New 
Yorkers into believing that only them (Politician X or Party X) can 
save them from this happening. And, it is about proposing and 
discussing reasonable solutions to prevent this from happening, 
rather than the proposed "unless we enact MY policy, an atomic bomb 
will blow you to bits."

[Platt]
Agree. But it's legitimate to criticize a nominee for president who 
considers expressed threats from Islamic radicals empty rhetoric.

[Arlo]
Sure its legitimate, but when you start implying (or saying outright) 
that so-and-so politician wants to see you dead, or wants Americans 
to be killed, then you have crossed a line.

[Platt]
In some cases, only one thing will get the job done, like ending WW 
II in German sooner than otherwise by taking the bridge at Remagen.

[Arlo]
This is a good example. Had someone said, "in order to end this war 
in Germany, we have to take this bridge, if we do not take this 
bridge then America will be destroyed, and anyone against taking this 
bridge is a traitor who wants to see American soldiers dead", then 
this would be the same kind of low-quality, moronic dialogue we see 
all the time today. I am not aware of the exact strategics, but I 
would imagine that as helpful as taking the bridge was, had we not 
been able to do so, or perhaps focused our efforts elsewhere, our 
efforts may have been equally successful. And perhaps this was the 
BEST course of action, but again there is a difference between 
generals examining a strategy and coming up with a best solution and 
telling people that unless we do this one thing the war is lost and 
America will be destroyed.

[Arlo previously]
A third is in proposing that "YOU and ONLY YOU" want to prevent the 
event, e.g., "conservatives want the world  to be polluted" or 
"liberals want to see American soldiers killed".

[Platt]
That there are differences between the desires of conservatives and 
liberals is undeniable. There will always be individual exceptions to 
general descriptions.

[Arlo]
My point is not there are exceptions to these general descriptions, 
but that these general descriptions are (not only) wrong, but evoked 
to cast fear and garner power. There may, for example, be differences 
in solutions offered (not only inter-party but intra-party), and we 
can argue at length about which policy will work best to achieve a 
desired outcome, but to suggest that the "other party" wants to see 
dead American soldiers or toxic lakes is a level of moronicity I 
would hope we would not see here.

[Platt]
Adding to the debt may indeed result in the demise of the America as 
we know it although the timing is unpredictable.

[Arlo]
Describe what you mean when you say "the demise of America"? Do you 
mean that our nation will geographically fall apart and be replaced 
by other, smaller nations?

[Platt]
As for your solving of social problems intellectually, consider 
Pirsig's warning about current S/O intellect's lack of a moral sense.

[Arlo]
Yes, yes. "Kill em all like germs". We know that's your favorite 
quote. And again I have never suggested that "intellect" alone will 
solve all our social ills. But, I think applying social force, as in 
the case of a foreign invasion, has to be done only after 
intellectual reasoning has led us to believing that to be the best 
course of action. Additionally, we can not be blind to our part in 
the fostering of that which we are trying to eradicate. We can not be 
blind to the Henry Ford-Nazi connection, nor to the historical 
foundations laid out following WWI that helped create the ability for 
the rampant patriotic and racist policies of the Reich.

So, no, intellect alone won't solve all our potential problems, but 
neither will nationalistic blindness to our role in these events.