Science Forums 2

[Kriminal99]

Fair mindedness or war, take your pick

The first step is to determine what is is meant by fair minded.

Let us say that our president is not fair-minded, and neither is the president of the nearby nation. Soon the world runs out of oil, and in a body of water between these 2 nations lies a new source. What happens with 2 ignorant and selfish leaders? War of course. Lots of people die. This is the opposite of "fair mindedness". Very simple.

It is best to look at it like there are only 2 basic states of interaction between any 2 capable people or groups of people. Either they are fighting, or they are not and they listen to each other's viewpoint's and honestly try to understand them and come to an agreement in hopes of fighting. No matter what the situation is, noone really wins fighting rather it just makes everyone miserable. Casualties or blows are taken on both sides.

Lesser forms of war only breed lesser forms of misery on all sides

Hiding behind laws or peace agreements, and then fighting using tactics that don't directly violate the laws or peace treaties is just as bad. It still makes both sides miserable, and the person who loses is always going to want to escalate to more direct means of fighting and cast aside the laws or agreements. And morally speaking, there is nothing wrong with them doing so (assuming the weren't the ones who started the fighting)

Fairness is about maintaining this agreement against fighting of any kind. When you both make an honest effort to come to an agreement there is no need to fight. When you so much as raise your voice over your opponent in a debate you have used force to try and get your way. If you are going to use force to try and get your way, then your opponent is going to use force. You can't agree that it is ok to use force, but then limit it to only certain kinds of force. If the person cared little enough about their own viewpoint to agree to that, they wouldn't be fighting with you to begin with.

What some intellectuals do not understand

So to provide an image for you that might help you understand this line of thinking, imagine someone like Bill O'reily. Now lets say I go on his show and we get into an argument. The whole debate he yells over me, uses unconnected metaphors, rolls his eyes and waggles his little fingers. At the end of the debate, I am in the middle of giving a really strong argument and he disconnects my mic and says my claims are rediculous. So I pull out a magnum and blow his brains out. Have I done something wrong? I say no, it was defense of my beliefs.

Many weasly and immature intellectuals do not agree or understand with this line of reasoning. They might react to such behavior as though it were totally unjustified and try to convince others that their opponent is a criminal or crazy regardless of how many "strictly legal" yet immoral acts they commited against the person. Their lack of understanding basically amounts to a naive fear of death. That is, they could be of the mindset to totally destroy their opponents life, and yet would not kill that person and expect that person to not kill them either just because death itself is some horrible thing that is a million times worse than anything that could happen to you in life. But for many people, if you have nothing to loose then death is meaningless therefore they readily would kill someone who ruined their life.

And for others, their beleifs are always worth more than their life. Therefore they feel totally justified in killing someone who uses force to squelch their beliefs, because they know they are ready to die for those beliefs. This is obviously the case with Islamic terrorists. We go on and on about the war on terror, but to be perfectly honest about it, if someone really wants to kill you so bad that they are willing to give their own life to do it, there is no way to stop them is there? If you need a reason to always be fairminded, then you need not look any further than this.