Government employees are not innocent...

reply to post by MasterJedi


Okay - run away then. Don't fess up to your own statements of justifiable violence against innocent people.

I'll close with this last reminder:

What goes around comes around. Plotting to kill innocent people may very well come full circle and bite you in the rear end.


[edit on 21-2-2010 by Snarf]

reply to post by MasterJedi


I think his real fear is that the looting spree by our government may soon be coming to an end.

Perhaps he is a beneficiary of the looting himself.

I have to question where government gets the right to loot me of my labor, and how this looting is somehow moral.

The founding fathers established the republic to protect the natural rights of the citizenry from those who would do us harm.

The federal government is no longer protecting my natural rights, it is violating them and acting completely outside of its constitutional limitations.

It absconds with my labor at gun point, then hands my labor to its crony partners in crime.

The violence done by government against the citizenry is a thousand fold the violence Stack directed against the government.

Stack's actions were wrong, as violence begets violence, however I don't see them as being against natural law any more than when our founding fathers threw off the yoke of the British crown.

If I may:

when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

The founders go on to list the long train of abuses, some of which may be familiar:

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

Well gosh golly gee, that sounds a lot like our federal government.

reply to post by Snarf


I like your coy attempts at the end of each of your posts to throw in some sly sarcasm and possibly wit. Which both fail.

Love the claim also....for me to get off my pedestal and then you instantly turn around and throw out that a statement that attempts at proclaiming superiority via an internet forum. Classic.

I have read and have placed what is called critical thought into what I wrote. I applied what was said and how you responded.

You wish to only apply your rules to how you see them fit your world. I just showed you how your logic in the situation was wrong and you changed the playing field.

By making some claim that that is today's world. Really? So only in today's world does it apply or has man, for thousands of years exhibited a fight or flight response when threatened and/or their rights have been encroached?

I will just gander that you will dodge most of this post and focus solely upon a minute portion of it.

reply to post by ownbestenemy

I have read and have placed what is called critical thought into what I wrote. I applied what was said and how you responded.

Ahhh - i love it when people try to pat themselves on the back.

You make a claim against me which wasn't true, and you would have seen it wasn't true had you read the entire transcript.

You shot first, aimed later. Thats neither rational or witty.

I used his own rules against him to show him how fallible his make-believe world is and how little thought he's given to his fantasy land.

All of which does nothing more than prove why government *IS* essential in our lives. Just because you're unhappy with your government, doesn't mean you should justify, condone, and plot killing innocent people.

reply to post by mnemeth1


Excellently stated, I wish I could flag your replies.

Yeah, I'd bet he does receive our money in some fashion as well... But hopefully we can find the few who truly understand what governments role should be and put them in office. Unfortunately they have a huge amount of work to accomplish just in undoing the wrongs currently in place.

reply to post by MasterJedi


Ah... feels good to post again.



I can relate to you on a certain level. To be willingly part of the government is to be part of the corruption. However, I also must decry that many of the "common man" who have never worked for the government are blind to its corruption.

I remember when I first got out of college and my parents tried relentlessly to take a government job. They just didn't understand the reasoning behind my complete denial of "good pay and benefits".

At the same time, nowadays, the human soul is cheap. Even with the corruption there are those that will willingly give up their core values for a little bit of pocket change. It is their fault to start, but it stems back to the government body that they should even think that way. I believe that if you've worked for the government long enough, you are aware of the corruption within, and you willingly to continue to do so - you are guilty. However, believe it or not, there are some out there that honestly do not know about it or refuse to believe it.

Tis the veil of the government machine.

Originally posted by MasterJedi
reply to post by mnemeth1

 

Excellently stated, I wish I could flag your replies.

Yeah, I'd bet he does receive our money in some fashion as well... But hopefully we can find the few who truly understand what governments role should be and put them in office. Unfortunately they have a huge amount of work to accomplish just in undoing the wrongs currently in place.

I think you got your name wrong, Sith

cannot imagine Yoda pumping your garlic,



Government is NEVER going to get better until the lobby is kicked out, never.

I'm really starting to get sick of all these crybabies who can't do anything but complain, or at the worst commit acts of violence, because "waaah, boooohoooo, the big bad government takes too much of my money!"


Guess what, they're called taxes for a reason. I never hear single mothers who barely makes enough to be over the poverty line complaining about how much the government takes from them, you know why? because of most of them are THANKFUL for the assistance they get from the government, whether it be the public schools, paved roads, other infrastructure, police, firefighters with modern equipment, enrichment programs to better our communities, etc. I'm sick of a bunch of rich white d-bags who can't do anything at all except cry about having more money than the entire rest of the world.

If you don't want to pay your taxes, don't, go rot in jail for being a real criminal. Because that's what you are if you think that somehow, by being an american it relieves you of your duties to the rest of your country. Just pay your taxes and be a decent human being rather than whine and complain as you fly around in your private planes and drive your corvettes, and all the other useless #%%$ you buy because you already have too much money even if the government does tax you.

reply to post by buttking


You act as if government is the only mechanism that can prevent impoverished mothers from starving.

I reject your argument.

Is it moral to put a gun to a citizens head, take his money, along with a cut for yourself, then hand the remainder to a starving mother?



[edit on 21-2-2010 by mnemeth1]

reply to post by MasterJedi


are you a man? does the fact men have done horrible violent crimes to women FOR THOUSANDS OF YEARS, stick to you like glue? shall we ladies hold you responsible because someone else with family jewels was a murderer? should we hold you accountable, since you're a guy and all? i know YOU DIDN'T MURDER ANYONE, but i ask, so? you're still a guy aren't ya? you still support other men doncha? (for the record, i'm not a feminist. i'm just trying to give this idea of eye for an eye, a bit o' good old fashioined, long time in coming, paddling.)

Originally posted by MasterJedi
Therefore if you should be hurt/killed in the line of fire, you are no "innocent" fodder, but rather a knowing and accepted member of an occupying dictatorship.

Rest assured in the knowledge that you share this opinion with Stack, the man who left his wife and child homeless by burning down their home and then crashed his plane into an occupied building. What a hero!

Hey, you might enjoy the new Video Game in honor of Joe Stack.

Play Here

reply to post by mnemeth1

Is it moral to put a gun to a citizens head, take his money, along with a cut for yourself, then hand the remainder to a starving mother?

If you don't like it - leave. I will honestly pay for your ticket out of the country - all you have to do is sign legal papers renouncing, forever, your US citizenship.

And after that, i wish you the very best of luck in finding a place to live that doesn't tax you.

I know of a few places that don't have established forms of government...perhaps Somalia would be a nice place to lay your head? There, the LITERALLY put a gun to your head and take your money

Maybe after you have had some real world experience, you can see the world for what it really is, and not for what you seen in a movie.

[edit on 21-2-2010 by Snarf]

[edit on 21-2-2010 by Snarf]

reply to post by Snarf


Its not a matter of me liking it or not, its a matter of morality.

Obviously such action is amoral.

There are certainly people at fault for the current situation, and are likely benefiting from it in some nature. Whether this be economic, political, or some hidden agenda by some shadow government, anyone who denies the simple, obvious fact that people are manipulating the current events and are knowingly harming people....well I would take a gander at the maxim of ATS, being deny ignorance. Because you're surely being knowingly ignorant if you can ignore this simple fact.

The question is though, how far does the blame go? Who can we hold morally responsible for what is going on?

When it comes to Ethics, which is the philosophical STUDY of morality, there is an aspect that can not be ignored, being intention. Do all government officials know what is going on, do they intentionally harm people? I don't think they all do. In fact, very few do I would argue. The knowledge of what is going on likely trickles down from the top, and at the base I doubt those individuals have any real understanding of what is going on.

So to say that every government official is as guilty as those conspiring and intentionally causing our current situation is faulty reasoning. And to wish harm on them, unjust and immoral. Some are woefully ignorant and while their actions may be harming people, they likely aren't intentionally doing it. They're just doing their jobs, and their understanding of events is so manipulated and shallow that to blame them for what is happening is akin to blaming every German for the holocaust, it just isn't fair.

This does not say that they do not have a responsibility, but this responsibility they have isn't attributed to their position but rather the nature of what they are; American citizens. EVERY American citizen can be held accountable for allowing this to happen. We're responsible in allowing those manipulating these events, because we had the power to stop it. And we still do. Because we are the people. We are the vast majority, we're the little bolts and cogs and belts that keep this system turning, and we've neglected proper maintenance and security of a very fragile, important system.

EVERYONE is responsible for this in different capacities. You, me, that guy over, this person right here, and hell, some guy I'm pointing at 3000 miles away. We're all responsible on different levels. We allowed this to happen. We allowed the problems to arise, we allowed people to manipulate us, it's our fault. Sure, a lot of information doesn't reach the majority of people, but as a citizen of this nation it's our responsibility to somehow reach this information. Yeah, the talking heads and politicians bend our wills in certain ways but part of fixing the problem is denying them the ability to do so. And we can only do so by grabbing the horns of the beast with our own hands.

We need to stop placing blame on a specific group of people, and accept the fact that we are all responsible in varying degrees. Should we be punished? Hell no, it wasn't completely our fault and wasn't part of our intentions. The only people who should be punished are those who are intentionally causing this.

Considering the Joe Stacks incident as an actual event and not an orchestrated one, we need to apply this incident from a higher view point and compare it to our current situation. Did innocent people deserve to die? No. But I think it is unavoidable. The powers that be have powerful tools in their disposal that allow them to control the masses and the fact of the matter is, people need to wake up. I believe this to be the true intentions of Joe Stacks. I don't think he wanted to kill people. I don't think he put all his blame on the lowest levels of government officials. I think what he tried to do was wack the collective skull of the American masses still day dreaming and bring them back to reality. He did so in what can be considered an utterly immoral act, but the fact of the matter is that it was bound to happen. Too many people are being manipulated, and too many people are being harmed to allow this to go on, and that is why this happened. No one wants to take responsibility when in reality we're all responsible. And we need to recognize this responsibility to truly fix anything.

Is Joe Stacks a hero? Absolutely not. Is the man a monster? I don't think so. He did something very bad but his intentions, in my mind, were good. I'm a pacifist, and if all problems, all issues could be resolved peacefully well, I doubt human history would have taken the course it had. Sometimes, due to certain situations and actions already in place, you need to do something really bad in the short term to get something good done in the long term. You know, ends justifies the means, you need to break a few eggs to make an omelet.

We've been pacified, we've been drugged loopy into blindly accepting everything that goes on. This is completely against the responsibility of an American citizen, hell this is completely against the responsibility of a human being, in my opinion. Something needs to be done, and one step we can take to getting something done right is to look at Joe Stacks and what he did. We shouldn't label the guy a monster, we shouldn't just brush this off as a pissed off white guy going to some extremes to get something done, we as a society need to observe this event and ask ourselves, from as objectively as we can; Why? And how can we avoid this in the future. We can beef up security with private planes, overly regulate the internet, and spy on one another to stop this from happening, but wouldn't it be better to follow the action back to the cause, and to fix the cause? Shouldn't we reexamine, each and every one of us, the actions of our "leaders", scrutinize on our current system, and choose to repair the problems?

We are all responsible for this. We are all responsible for the actions of one another, for the actions of our leaders, and our actions as a collective. We're all to blame for what happened with Joe Stacks, and if we don't remember this responsibility we have than I don't believe Joe Stacks will be the only one that does this. I honestly fear that more peoples lives will be lost in the future, and as the talking heads and herders tend to the masses, we the people need to come to the realization I presented here to truly fix anything.

reply to post by SpectreDC


i ask the same question to you then: why do men kill women? surely we could FIX it. what do you propose? in the meantime, we should applaud women who kill men because it's getting a point across? hello earth to person who is clearly living in eye for an eye territory somewhere in your mind, that whole karmic cycle thing can take a flying leap.

when you have a problem, you address the problem causer. not his employees, the guy who mows his yard, the dude who makes the parts that open his garage door, or the nurse who resuscitated him. for this reason, we only put the shooter in jail, not the shooter and the gun shop owner, gas station owner and janitor.

reply to post by undo


No, there is no fix for why men kill women.

No law will ever prevent that.

Only removing laws will prevent that.

When women are armed with the power of a gun, they represent a clear danger to the largest attacker.

Originally posted by MasterJedi

I refer back to my example of working for a company that steals from its patrons... At least in that case the patrons have a choice of establishments. Whereas we have no choice in whether we pay the government.

You always have a choice in whether you pay the government! You pay them because you don't like the alternative of going to jail if you don't. Just as these employees you rant on have a choice to work for them - they don't like the alternative of working at a lower paying job. You are making your choice to pay the government - these employees are making their choice to work for the government. Same thing. Why do you think YOUR choice is better than THEIR choice?

Originally posted by undo
reply to post by SpectreDC

 

i ask the same question to you then: why do men kill women? surely we could FIX it. what do you propose? in the meantime, we should applaud women who kill men because it's getting a point across? hello earth to person who is clearly living in eye for an eye territory somewhere in your mind, that whole karmic cycle thing can take a flying leap.

when you have a problem, you address the problem causer. not his employees, the guy who mows his yard, the dude who makes the parts that open his garage door, or the nurse who resuscitated him. for this reason, we only put the shooter in jail, not the shooter and the gun shop owner, gas station owner and janitor.

Wonderful straw man. I'll rate it a 6/10. The problem with your fallacious argument you attempt to pass off as legitimate is that the scope of what you present is so much smaller and relative to those directly involved that you can't even compare them.

When you don't want to misrepresent my argument, and you choose to be fair, I'll respond again. And being fair isn't refuting my refutation of your argument based on the grounds that I'm not giving enough details as to why your position is a straw man; my post is right there above and all it takes is actually reading what was written and replying to the argument presented rather than twisting it into a more general, less complicated case.

I say this because you appear to have a trend of doing so and you tend to have a trend of denying any accusations of a fallacious argument, so I'm not going to fall into a little trap set up by you trying to divert the legitimacy of my argument into petty, misrepresented refutations.

Try again.

Originally posted by Iamonlyhuman




You always have a choice in whether you pay the government! You pay them because you don't like the alternative of going to jail if you don't.

Please tell me you're being sarcastic or satirical. Because if this is really your argument....where is the ignore button at again?

Originally posted by mnemeth1
reply to post by buttking

 

You act as if government is the only mechanism that can prevent impoverished mothers from starving.

I reject your argument.

Is it moral to put a gun to a citizens head, take his money, along with a cut for yourself, then hand the remainder to a starving mother?



[edit on 21-2-2010 by mnemeth1]

I don't act as if government is the only mechanism, it just happens to be the only mechanism that actually works on the scale of _hundreds__of__millions__of__people_. Please, prove me otherwise. Oh, what's that? You can't!? Gee, what a surprise.

Reject my argument all you want, it doesn't make you right in any way. All it does is prove that A) You're just another armchair political engineer who thinks they have all the answers, and yet, here you are. Rather than going out and making a difference you're sitting here on an internet message board complaining. B) You're so full of the rhetoric that has been pumped into you from other people who also don't have the slightest clue of what they're talking about that it's honestly a wonder to me that you can even post this drivel without directly quoting one of the millions of "waaaah taxes" people who have already said this nonsense a million times before. Which brings us to our next point:

Is it moral to oversimplify, exaggerate, and completely misrepresent the role of the government in taking taxes to (ostensibly) support your own asinine point of view? I'd say no. No worries though, anyone with half a brain can see through this shoddy logic and see that deep down, you and the other people who don't "get" why we have government, are really just uneducated zombies, spitting out recycled rhetoric that never has and never will make any sense to people who didn't sleep their way through high school.