Civility is a set of rules that people use to govern their relationships with one another. I'm civil to you and you to me, thus our lives are made safer and more secure. Civility and morality can not stand if only one party lives by them. You smile at me, I'll smile back. You shake my hand, I'll shake yours. You give me a helping hand, I'll give you one. You pull a knife on me, I'll blow your head off.
For me, morality is not some divinely inspired code, but merely a tool for creating a livable society. As for what we're fighting for, it's the right to live by the values we choose to and not the ones the Islamists want us to. If that means mowing them down like weeds to insure our freedom, then so be it.
Robert, think of war as martial law. In normal times the laws of the land apply, and everyone goes about their business. But in times of crisis, such as riots and civil disturbance, those laws are suspended and tougher measures are put into place. You don't send in police to arrest hundreds of looters, instead curfews are put into place and shoot to kill orders are put into effect. The same applies to the barbarians we are now facing.
Flame » in reply to Is that all it is to you, Lee, just a bunch of rules?
That's about it.
The whole thread (78 posts)
- Reactions
- Moral equivalency
- "Civilization won't stand long when when the self-proclaimed good guys use war as an excuse to take a holiday from civilization"
- And our side won't last long when we're the only ones using a rule book.
- "The soft nihilism of low expectations"
- Smoothly done, Robert...
- One for the road...
- We *should* know better.
- "the people in the marches have a deep and abiding hostility to the West and its values."
- The right-wing reaction to the story was faster.
- re: Nations
- Revisionist history of the highest order.
- Heh, heh. Phony point.
- Moral equivalency