Tuesday, July 22, 2014

National Tragedies








Am I being too harsh on small sins here?

*Nobody asked me.  True.


james said...

Is gossip a small sin?

Assistant Village Idiot said...

It reached Commandment level.

Texan99 said...

Is there really something wrong with drawing a lesson from the apparent cause of a tragedy? People draw lessons that strike me as crazy, but I want better lessons, not no lessons at all.

Some tragedies, it's true, I can't conclude anything useful from. I can't get too worked up against Putin, for instance, concerning the Malaysia flight. I can object to his arming Ukrainian separatists, but not because it was bound to lead to collateral damage in the form of a commercial airliner. There's the general argument of "don't give whiskey and car keys to a teenager," but would the collateral damage in this case have been less likely if the cause of the Ukrainian separatists were more worthy, or if it seemed less likely that Putin was exploiting the situation to do another territorial grab?

Cause and effect deserve our respectful attention if we're going to make ethical judgments about human action. The purpose of the exercise isn't entirely about pointing fingers at enemies for political advantage; it's also about identifying courses of action that we might reach a consensus to avoid.

Anonymous said...

Can't find paladins that manipulate things as well if not better than the Emmanuels?

Kind of a bigger problem than you realize, if so.

Sam L. said...

You are not being too harsh; you have called too harsh by those who have sinned (because, of course, they are totally simon-pure in their hearts).