About 5yr. log retention

[Tom Vogt]

"James A. Donald" wrote:
>  > > > 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".
> 
> James A. Donald:
>  > > If you are  confused about the difference between war and peace,
>  > > you must be seriously confused about a lot of things.
> 
> Tom Vogt:
>  > the above holds true for both, peace and wartimes.
> 
> Baloney.  That is the "everyone else is doing it" excuse.  

not at all. it's the "who are you to believe you can pass judgement on
all of human history?" argument.



>  > 1.) those you call "evil" will often see things the other way
>  > around. how do you resolve this issue without circular reasoning?
>  > (i.e. without saying that their judgement doesn't count because
>  > they're "evil")
> 
> Evil people are likely to do hurtful things (bad things) to me unless I get
> them first.  Normal people will not do hurtful things to me unless I do bad
> things to them first.  Hence my use of nazis, commies, and murder as
> illustrations and examples of evil.  As I would point to the a particular
> piece of iron to define all iron, to define the category iron, in the same
> way I point to murder, nazis, and commies to define all evil, to define the
> category evil.

you forgot intend. otherwise, innocent bystanders who get hit will
always call the "good" guys who missed the target "evil" (according to
your definition), and rightly so.

but even with intend it doesn't work too well. your local police force
will gladly introduce you to the concept of doing hurtful things to you
without requiring you to do some to them first. all you have to do is,
say, speed on the highway and refuse to stop when they ask you to.

your definition works, I can't deny that, but only for extreme cases
such as the nazi regime. then again, the nazis *were* convinced that the
jews were not only doing bad things to them, but had been doing so for
hundreds of years (the "jew world conspiracy", zion, etc).
I'm afraid the nazis would have agreed to your definition just as well,
pointing out the necessity of eliminating the jew conspiracy, or the
whole world will suffer greatly.


what about the israel/rest-of-the-near-east problem? both sides call
themselves good and the other side evil. both sides have done and
received their fair share of killing. both sides are convinced that the
other will do hurtful things to them unless they get 'em first.
is one or both of them evil? your "definition" doesn't answer that
question. as I said, it works as a simplification for extreme cases,
much like the florida election system works fine unless it's a close
call.