Re: protecting deb

J. Michael New (MICHAEL.NEW@NRC.CA)
Fri, 22 Mar 1996 15:47:20 -0500

jp may reveals:
>
> >In Canada, as many of you know, we don't do the 'capital punishment'
> >thing. It is an alien concept to me, and thus, when they were showing
> >a picture of these two men on the TV and said "These guys may very
> >well be executed by the state" it shook my world. Holy geez.
> >
>
> Deb, all I can say is this. A sort of action philosophy comment.
>
> If someone killed you (Deb), I would kill them.
>
> Shoot em from short range, gouge their windpipe with an Emerson CQC, or
> whatever. I would carry out the act.
>
> That's life. It's a natural, built in response. It's no more
> over-exciting, debateable, or less-obvious than going to the toilet, eating
> meat, having sexual intercourse, growing hair, talking too much in a group
> to project your personality or monkeys grooming. There isn't even any hate
> or passion involved. If someon is a .. defective unit .. if someone is so
> 'defective' as to 'kill'Deb' or 'kill brother', ordinary humans naturally
> try to extinguish them.
>
> I suppose the whole capital punishment thing is a sort of perverted social,
> um, implementation of this natural quick-moment reaction.
>
>
> I am curious as to how you feel .. no, what you would do .. if someone
> killed 'me' so to speak, or say your sister, auntie, whatever.
>
>
>
>
>
> >I'm
> >fully aware of the philosophical reasoning behind the "right to bear
> >arms" (I don't necessarily agree with it, but I understand it.)
>
> I think it's all got to do with fear of death.
>
> You have two choices in life ..

I have a lot more than two choices.

> (1) a possibly short, brutal, life full of adversity, challenge, forces
> acting against you, unperdictability .. and unboudned internal freedom ..
> or

And lots of pain and anguish. Being beaten up, shot at, put in jail,
chased, etc. Sounds like freedom to you?

> (2) safety and long life accompanied by constant fear of death / pain /
> rejection by the girl in the coffee shop etc.

If you're safe, why the fear? I don't think people like me who live
relatively safe lives worry too much about death or pain. If we worry
at all, we worry about our jobs, our future. But it's not fear.
And freedom to continue to make choices is still there. Whether to quit,
to do something else; even to choose your (1) if we so desire.

> Why is Braveheart such a good movie ? Obviously, only a handful of people
> have to make the above choice in a LITERAL "life or death" sense. But we
> ALL, constantly have to choose between those two paths. Whether it's how
> you react to trying to talk to someone of the opposite sex, how you deal
> with your parents as you leave adolesence, what sort of job or career you
> choose, and so on.

If we are constantly choosing paths, then there must be a whole
range paths, not just two. Each time we made a choice, there is the other
direction we did not go. Thus, if we made 1000 choices, there are 1000
paths we did not choose.

Mike
----------------------------- _/ /\/\ /\/ ----------------------------
J. Michael New Michael.New@NRC.Ca
Integrated Manufacturing Technologies Institute (613)991-4371
National Research Council of Canada home: (613)230-7783
"Star Trek transporter: the ultimate Cut and Paste"
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