-- Tom Vogt:
all along we've been talking about "evil". suddenly, in your two examples above, the word doesn't appear anymore.
James A. Donald:
The word murder does appear. Murder is defined as "wrongful killing.", hence is by definition a particular kind of evil. Indeed it is the archetypal example of evil, the type specimen of evil.
Tom Vogt:
Weird, a couple thousand years of history disagree with you. until the very recent past, pretty much everyone was sure that killing enemies, unbelievers or other people isn't "evil". probably isn't even "murder".
If you are confused about the difference between war and peace, you must be seriously confused about a lot of things.
ironically, you seem to agree somewhat that bombing a couple hectars of an "evil nation" isn't murder, either...
Those who claim to that killing people in warfare is no different from killing people in peace, are more likely to exterminate subjects during peacetime, than they are likely to refrain from killing enemies in wartime. Tom Vogt:
but the point is that the one point can be settled, the other not.
James A. Donald:
Surely the events of the twentieth century settled the matter decisively. Those who believe otherwise are monsters or fools, knaves or dupes. When people die as a result of their error, others should learn.
Tom Vogt:
nice, but old trick of passing judgement on someone in such a form that it also invalidates his (possibly different) judgement on you. but it's just cheap dialectics, not "truth".
remember that many more non-germans died in WW2 than germans. we really shouldn't use body-count as a measure of truth.
Remembering that both german and non german deaths were caused by germans, we should use body count as a measure of evil. James A. Donald:
Anyone who propagates false moral beliefs also propagates false emprical claims supporting those false moral beliefs -- hence for example the continual debates where Marxists claim that Marx's predictions are coming true. If there was an is ought gap, they would find it unnecessary to so tightly couple moral and factual claims.
Tom Vogt:
who decides what is wrong and right in moral beliefs?
Common sense. James A. Donald:
And evidence that they were wrong is that a great many of them died of that error, for nazis killed more nazis than they did commies, just as the commies killed more commies than they did nazis, something that anyone could have foreseen had he recognized that killing Jews was murder, that killing capitalists for being capitalists was murder.
Tom Vogt:
your point is? that the percentage of "friendly fire" defines what is right and what is wrong?
Friendly fire is an accident, an error. The murder of commies by commies and nazis by nazis was planned from the very beginning. --digsig James A. Donald 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG YivChPEwc3KGWpVxNl2s9XFXHcCSZAlwgBzWfY/U 4RvCdxlreJ2EC2bq0c1LTl+Q1HNKyDAe8UFcrF4O3