Got ten minutes?
What do you think?
About The Author
BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
19 Comments
I believe that until we start calling them what they are – mercenaries – they will continue to do whatever they feel is right and just…
What do I think? You mean without checking with you first?
Yeah. I’m livid, too. However, that emotion “comes from” the same place within me where I also find sentiments which you’ve described mockingly as being part of “an odd malady of too many liberals” when they concern other moral faults, those, not approved here by you for our outrage.
So, really, I don’t know, I guess if I didn’t have such an accute case of my malady, I’d be conflicted over this. It seems to me that what we have here is a potential case for moral outrage which happens, fortunately for the victims in this instance, to fall into the area which you’re able to view as suitable and, therefore, convenient.
As such, my enthusiasm in seconding your invitation to outrage is a bit dampened by the arbitrary nature of the applications.
According to what I’ve seen of your moral reasoning, it really all (simply must) depend on one’s point of view. If it happens to be that of the young woman who has fought for years to have her day in court, then, yes, this is a case worthy of our feelings of outrage. If, on the other hand, we happen to be in a position where KBR, the contractor in this case, is in some way very important to us, our needs, our interests, our agenda, then the occasion to feel moral outrage over this case would not (that is, should not) arise, since in that case we’d be out of sync with where our interests lie—for you, the decisive criterion on which such matters ought to be determined by “healthy” partisans.
Me? I suffer a bad case. It’s been a life-long affliction, this conscience of mine.
In your calculus, Polanski gets extradited because facts are facts and there’s nothing else to take into account. On the other hand, “First, I’d offer to include an opt-out provision for the states….
Once the bill goes to the Conference Committee, I’d remove the opt-out provision and dare the ‘centrists’ to vote against it” is just saavy political manoeuvering. Whereas, in this case, again, we’re back to applying right-and-wrong the way Mom and Dad, if they weren’t heartless Neo-cons, would have taught us.
“What do you think?”, you ask?
There you have it. That’s what I think. Morals conveniently applied. Winners and losers sorted according to how the chips fall for you and those you approve.
In this case, wow!, give yourself the satisfaction of a warm glow of righteousness, a pat on the back and a gold-star.
well done! playing with the words. morals conviently applied. what a piece of work. the “n…..s” that worlked the cotton fields filled a need. thus- “F” the “morals” conviently applied. they were expebndable pieces of non- humans. screw their needs. we needed the cotton!
get you head out of your gaming ass. the woman was drugged, raped and (ooops- Gang raped”. I wish……..
oh screw it. stop the word games. that time is past.
When we encounter such reasoning from people who eat while billions starve and who live on land stolen at gunpoint and so on, what can we say? Nobody is pure. Everyone buys into some tradeoff. We all have bartered morality for expediency.
“When we encounter such reasoning from people who eat while billions starve and who live on land stolen at gunpoint and so on, what can we say?”
Am I to understand that this person who reasons thus and “eat[s] while billions starve and who live on land stolen at gunpoint and so on,” refers to me…?
If so, then, to answer your question, …”what can we say?” I reply, apparently you show by this comment of yours that you don’t know what to say and, being at a loss for something valid you retreat into rhetorical escapes which appeal to vacant rooms and vacant minds with “what can we say?” In such a situation, I prefer not to give you what you cannot come up with for yourself : the supposedly respectable reply to my comments.
“Nobody is pure. Everyone buys into some tradeoff. We all have bartered morality for expediency.”
Yes. And yet, even so, the question you duck remains: why, with all of that admitted, do your observations constitute in any way valid grounds to keep on committing those wrongs and faults in any particular casewhen we don’t have to?
The issue, despite our irrevocable impurity and the “trade-offs” we’ve “bought into”, and despite our having at some point—what? “bartered morality for ‘expediency’ “!?! No, you’re so ashamed of the position for which you’re trying to make excuses that you can’t even state things as they clearly are:
We don’t “barter” “morality” (as though in exchange) for “expediency”. No. We dismiss morality, we dispense with it, we violate it. And this violation is not “by agreement” with some supposed etherial authority who stands the part of the other in this wildly imagined “bargain” of yours—or, indeed, please tell us with whom we “barter” “morality” unless it is ourselves, our consciences. And, in such a case, what, please, do you render to your conscience in return for its dispensation? This is really supremely facile of you. We “have a little conversation with ourselves, with our consciences taking one side of the Q & A, in which we ask, “Say, I must in this case ask to barter away certain moral qualms. What say you, ‘conscience’ ‘o mine?, Deal?’ And, then what? Does your conscience “drive a hard bargain” in the barter or, like a “good Democrat” or a “good Republican” office-holder, promptly issue a “bartered” deal?: “Gee, Okay. You’re excused. This time.”
No, at best, we make no “barter” at all. We simply set morality aside for expediency’s sake. If your thinking wasn’t so confused on this central point, what you’re suggesting would appear just as disgraceful and bankrupt as in fact it is.
But, yes, we have all violated morality for the sake of expediency. Again, you ignore the issue with that sop and simply pass over any consideration of why we ought do go on doing this continually and when the excuses for it have long been exhausted.
“When we encounter such reasoning from people…” you reply with this rot?
I live in a single room. If there’s a rightful proprietor from whom I’ve usurped it, it is his or hers for the asking.
Billions (ocntinue to) starve. That’s true. And one of the most important reasons that they do is that in nations such as the U.S., instead of dealing forthrightly with that fact, people like you offer easy dispensations from what otherwise deserve none.
So now what do you have to say for yourself?
Well, for actual human beings like the tomato pickers of Florida or people living near the proposed mountaintop mines of WVa, the rise to power of the compromise and compromised Obama administration has translated into actual tangible reversal of injustice.
Can I object, please, to this line of argument.
First of all, you do not know Proxy’s circumstances, and what s/he may or may not have endured.
Secondly, applying the logic that someone else may have endured more does not invalidate his/her argument
Thirdly, most religious, moral and philosophical systems do try to define right and wrong, more or less absolutely, independently of the immediate circumstances, and whether or not it is in or immediate interest to do something or not.
Fourthly, the fact that wrongs may have been committed in the past does not justify committing more now.
Fifthly, good law and democracy, the carrying out of contracts etc., depends on people discharging obligations even if it subsequently is not in their self-interest to do so.
Proxy appears (to me at any rate( to be making the case that double crossing people is what we criticise Republicans for, and that we lose the high moral ground and political initiative if we end up doing just as they did – even in the service of different and better goals. It is the classic means/ends moral dilemma which has occupied political and moral philosophers for millenia, and is not an issue, I suggest we can definitively resolve in the course of one blog thread.
I happen to believe Booman’s choice of words was unfortunate and has led to some misunderstanding. It is not a subterfuge, in my book, to ask Democratic Senators to vote on one Health Care package in the initial Senate vote knowing full well that when than package is reconciled with the House Bill, a significantly different package will emerge. It will then be up to Senators to decide whether they can still support the reconciled proposals and vote on that basis. Some may vote for one and not the other for all sorts of domestic, personal, electoral, demagogic, fund-raising and principled reasons. Either way they have to take responsibility for and be accountable for their vote.
What Booman is advocating is that those various and nefarious motives be taken into account in devising a political strategy to maximise the chances of a good package passing. That’s how politics works. People represent various interests and you have to get enough of them on board so that the public interest is best served. Yes pol;itics can be a messy series of compromises between competing interests.
However the way those interests are resolved doesn’t have to be by the gun, bribery, corruption or subterfuge. It can be quite a rational process of addressing sufficient interests to get the majorities you need. In any negotiation you don’t always get what you want and you often end up paying more than you wanted. But let us not confuse negotiating skills with bribery and corruption. The two are qualitatively different and if you cross the line you are in a different country altogether.
However the way those interests are resolved doesn’t have to be by the gun, bribery, corruption or subterfuge.
The use of National Guard troops to defend black kids in Little Rock (by the gun), the tradeoff of votes on stimulus bill for fat government contracts (bribes), the purchase of visas for victims of political persecution from corrupt state officials, and outright deception used to get the Civil Rights bill passed all seem to me to be profoundly moral activities.
Lets keep this in context. We are talking about a senate vote on a health care package. There are a number of key players which represent the interests of big pharma, medical professionals, insurance companies, health care providers, and health care consumers – bith the currently insured (the majority) and the uninsured (the poorer and much less powerful minority).
The object of the exercise is to screw the health insurance companies who add little value but screw almost everybody else. So you build a coalition of interests against them. All the insiders know what you are doing because that is how the game works.
In a couple of years time you decide its time to reduce the costs by reducing the cost of drugs. So you build a coalition against big pharma….
In other words you have an overall strategic plan, with priorities, and a clear vision of who the players are and where their interests lie and build coalitions accordingly. There are pay-offs. Obama probably gave big pharma far more than he wanted to on this occasion, and it may come back to haunt him. On the other hand he may have a plan for how do deal with them later.
All of this has to do with political power and influence, jobs, profits, and re-election – and the democratic part of the system, where it is not completely dysfunctional, is supposed to ensure that the little guy gets a seat somewhere at the table.
But when corporations have more rights than people, what do you expect? When people have been duped to act against their own best interests what do you expect? When individual interests take precedence over the common good what do you expect?
i agree with this.
this is why their contracts should be ended IMMEDIATELY.
Or don’t use contractors in the first place. If you need a truck driver in a war zone, train a private to drive the truck; if you need a large quantity cook on a military base, train a private to cook; etc. Then you wouldn’t have any dead weight (i.e non-fighters) around when things heat up and soldiering is needed and the grunts might end up with some useful skills when they muster out.
that is exactly what should be done. then, maybe there would be a hell of alot less wars thatwe are involved in. but- since war results in profit, do you think that that will ever be the case?wkat was it that someone said? the military industrial complex!!!!!
It goes back a little bit more than Ike. A little background on Major General Butler is worthwhile.
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“I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.”
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."Mr. Di Parnardo is a cooperate stooge. I am glad to see a Senator use the “yes” and “no” questions as it stops the witness “BS” statement.
With result like this all binding arbitration should be eliminated…
http://www.citizen.org/pressroom/release.cfm?ID=2519
What I want to see is KBR announce that past binding arbitration is no longer valid then go to court to answer for what they did. I think Al Franken is the best senator since Paul Wellstone.
we should never contract out our wars or our government.
To contract out, it’s fine if it for a bunch of cooks and people to do mess.
But, nothing more. From installing showers to playing army, these people are bad news.
I think this is one of the rare moments where I can — if I ignore everything else going on — actually believe in democracy. The problem is that we’ve only got one Al Franken, and I don’t see any plausible path to having the majority of our legislatures filled by people like him.
That said, Sen. Franken encourages me to wait and see.