Who Are the Real Heroes?

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
And it was wrong for the British to engage in a crushing blockade of Germany.

I refuse to take any moral argument you make seriously, considering you stated your morality is dictated by the law. Although unless the blockade was illegal, I'm not sure why'd you feel this way.

Nevertheless, since in a parallel universe it may be morally right to blockade, you can't make such a claim.

Germany fought back the only way it knew how.. Britain was killing civilians who starved in Germany, so Germany decided to let the British taste their own medicine.

I see. So I take it you object to the sanctions the U.S. has imposed on Iraq? There is, after all, little difference. However, if Saddam is ultimately responsible for the deaths of his people by allowing the sanctions to continue, I'd say Germany was responsible for those who starved by not submitting to the British.

At any rate, that doesn't change the fact that Germany deliberately targeted a passenger luxury liner. They had no proof it bore anything other than innocent civilians. The British did not make it a rule to deliberately target civilians.

Two wrongs don't make a right is a basic tenet of morality (in this universe, anyway).

[Imran Siddiqui]

Oh, so you use history books as your moral compass?

They represent the morality of the people in power. The US is GOOD because we won. If we'd lost (say in 1781), then this whole 'democracy' thing would have been disparaged for decades as being weak and powerless.

The winners write history and influence EVERYTHING.

No it wasn't - the British won, remember?

Which is why people consider that what the British did is no problem. While the Germans were pigs. If the Germans won, it'd be totally opposite.

Sure you do. The Germans lost

... which is why they are seen as the bad ones. The point is that they are no better nor worse than who they fought, but because they lost they are 'bad'.

(David not getting the point.... *gasp* )

[Ozz]

Originally posted by Switch
That's a rather large generalization. Are you saying that if anyone is mentioned in a history book for a heroic act, they are thusly unheroic?

What is Heroic? An act of courage and self-sacrifice?

Yes, it is a generalization, I don't think Churchill or Gandhi and the "leaders" are heros, they were both couragous but ambitous, and well rewarded and worked with this in mind.

You can find heroes in the history books like the St. Narazine Raid, but those heros aren't household words,
though they won Victoria Crosses.

[Japher]

If someone's trying to make you fight, I don't think that the nature of the war is relevant

I agree, but not with everything David is saying. Yet, that is merely opinion, to which he is entitled to.

My opinion? - Banana's of course, since the poll doesn't accuratly illustrate everything that comes with those two choices.

I think that to be a hero (for either side of the battle) one must have ideals, live by those ideals, be willing to die for the ideals, and do something great to reflect this.

Ghandi had his beliefs and was willing to starve himself in order to illustrate his point, and he could very well of died because of it. Is he a hero? Yes - to those who followed him.

Suicide Bombers have beliefs and do die for it. Are they heroes? No. They are martyrs. To those who follow those ideals.

If this discussion is a sagway from what Rosie Perez said at the demonstrations in NY last weekend (that everyone there protesting with her against war are heroes) I say no. I say no, because I think that sometimes force is required in order to ensure security. To me the heroes are all those men that are moving to "protect" that which they love, the USA. Not those who are staying at home and denouncing those that are actually taking a stance on what they believe. Unlike those that are going off to fight, the protestors are not willing to die for their beliefs.

Does this make all protestors anti-heroes? No, some are putting themselves in harms way to make their point.

Does this make all soldiers heroes? No, some are just blood thirsty morons who wouldn't mind attacking Canada just because.

Do you disagree that to be a hero one must risk the chance of becoming a martyr? That is how I see it. If in not fighting you risk this chance (as with Ghandi, Mother Teresa, ???) then yes you are hero. Yet if you chose not to fight because you are merely a coward than no, you will never be a hero, just a coward.

Good movie on this: The Four Feathers

[Wernazuma III]

It depends obviously on the specific situation of a war to evaluate whether it's more moral to fight or not to fight.
And of course, we will all here disagree in which war which of the two possibilities would have been more moral.
Yet generally, I consider it a very brave thing to refuse taking up weapons, when your ethics tell you, even if that means being hunted, trialed and/or shot.
It's generally more easy not to ask oneself about the real reasons for a war, readily accept the bogeyman the society gives you or not refusing to take up the gun out of cowardice.

Back to WWII. In the whole war, those Germans who deserted or who actively refused to fight (and got shot or died in the KZ for their conviction) were AT LEAST as brave as allied soldiers...

[orange]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
At any rate, that doesn't change the fact that Germany deliberately targeted a passenger luxury liner. They had no proof it bore anything other than innocent civilians. The British did not make it a rule to deliberately target civilians.

This is nonsense. I certainly don't feel that Germany was an innocent nation in World War I, but to say that they simply went out looking for passanger ships to scuttle is folly. German Uboats attempted to stop 'passanger' ships suspected of carrying munitions in the past, and when they did they risked being rammed or fired upon. Germany made it clear that they would not tolerate this. They may not have had a lot of evidence that the ship was carrying munitions, but it is relatively clear that there were indeed munitions on the Lusitania.

The Lusitania, like many other merchant ships, had also been designated to become an armed merchant cruiser in the event of war, and this was not secret. So when other ships became armed merchant ships, it is easy to see why Germany would be prompted to sink a similar ship before risking itself by surfacing, even though the Lusitania itself remained a merchant ship.

[Wernazuma III]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
They represent the morality of the people in power. The US is GOOD because we won. If we'd lost (say in 1781), then this whole 'democracy' thing would have been disparaged for decades as being weak and powerless.

We all know that winners generally are very successful in portraying their cause as "good" and in making people really believe in it. Yet it is somehow disappointing to see that you're obviously such a cynic that you suggest that this is no problem.
Are you suggesting that it's always "bad" not to evaluate critically but rather one should make "Moooo" with the herd because those in power want it that way?

Winners write history, that's true. But only if you accept total moral relativity you can be fine with it.

[David Floyd]

MrFun,

The Confederacy had no constitutional perogative to secede from the Union.

Sure they did. 10th Amendment.

The Confederacy seceded because they mistakenly believed Lincoln would abolish slavery.

Actually, you might make that argument for some states, but certainly not for Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas.

As for Great Britain's blockade, you are correct -- in fact, wasn't there a famine in parts of Germany as the result of this blockade??

In this aspect Germany believed she was justified in fighting this blockade with submarines. But to say that this should not have concerned the United States and all other nations who prospered through trade, doesn't make sense.

Well, if the US was gonna go to war with Germany because of trade issues, it would have made as much sense to go to war with Britain.

And back to World War II -- the Nazi regime was bent on conquering the European continent. This most definitely went against the interests of the United States.

So what? Again, the draft made any participation immoral. And even without the draft, forcing people to pay for the war who didn't necessarily agree would have made it immoral.

So are you saying that libertarians believe that alliances are immoral? If that is what you believe, that does not make any sense to me.

I can't speak for all Libertarians, but I believe that any sort of military alliance is wrong.

Boris,

The British did not make it a rule to deliberately target civilians.

Then who exactly do you think the blockade targeted?

Imran,

The winners write history and influence EVERYTHING.

Absolutely. But this has absolutely no bearing on right and wrong.

[MrFun]

Originally posted by David Floyd
MrFun,

Sure they did. 10th Amendment.

Actually, you might make that argument for some states, but certainly not for Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas.

Well, if the US was gonna go to war with Germany because of trade issues, it would have made as much sense to go to war with Britain.

So what? Again, the draft made any participation immoral. And even without the draft, forcing people to pay for the war who didn't necessarily agree would have made it immoral.

I can't speak for all Libertarians, but I believe that any sort of military alliance is wrong.

I went back to re-read the 10th Amendment. Just because the states have powers given to them that were not reserved for the federal government does not mean that the federal government would provide for its own destruction.

Is there any government that would be so set against its own interests as to provide for its own self-destruction?

As for during the two World Wars -- there were people who were legally exempted from serving in the war if they proved to be morally significant. IIRC

As for going to war against Great Britain over trade issues. Germany was the agressor, so the United States decided to ally itself with the defender -- Great Britain, in spite of Great Britain's strangling blockade on Germany.

[David Floyd]

I went back to re-read the 10th Amendment. Just because the states have powers given to them that were not reserved for the federal government does not mean that the federal government would provide for its own destruction.

Secession does not mean destruction.

In any case, the Founders were certainly wary of federal, centralized power, and if enough people within a state decided the federal government no longer represented their interests, the state would be able to secede. What exactly do you think the 13 colonies did, in the American Revolution? They decided that the British no longer represented their interests, and that they'd be better off on their own. Explain to me, then, why the same people who engineered this would oppose the same action in the future.

As for during the two World Wars -- there were people who were legally exempted from serving in the war if they proved to be morally significant.

That's not really relevant. These exemptions imply that the federal government has a draft power to begin with, which it does not, and even if it did, such a power would be immoral.

As for going to war against Great Britain over trade issues. Germany was the agressor, so the United States decided to ally itself with the defender -- Great Britain, in spite of Great Britain's strangling blockade on Germany.

How was Germany the aggressor? You certainly aren't holding Germany solely responsible for WW1, are you? France and Russia certainly bear responsibility as well, for mobilizing against Germany (before Germany had mobilized), as well as, in Russia's case, telling the Serbs they would back them no matter what. Britain bears a large degree of responsibility for entering the war when no one declared war on her - in that sense, Britain was the aggressor.

[Boris Godunov]

Orange:

I suggest reading David Ramsay's Lusitania: Saga & Myth. It is an excellent and quite objective look at the disaster, one that wades through the propaganda on all sides.

The Lusitania had not been fitted with guns at the point of its sinking, so stipulating that it was perhaps slated to be so at some point is silly as a justification for sinking it. And there isn't any evidence she was carrying munitions, contrary to conspiracy theorists and (baseless) assertions by the German government. The chief "evidence" given for her carrying munitions has been the size of the explosion. However, recent and extensive exploration of the wreck conducted by, among others, Bob Ballard has found not a single sign of munitions. What they did find was evidence the explosion was caused by the ignition of coal dust in a near-empty coal bunker. This certainly is more plausible than asserting that, for some odd reason, the Lusitania was carrying munitions in her coal bunkers/boiler rooms instead of her cargo holds.

DF:

The blockade targeted German supplies for waging war. I'm not going to say I find the blockade particularly honorable, but it is accepted as part of a war to cut off the means of your enemy to wage war. That is why we bombed German railroads to oblivion in WWII, after all.

MrFun: Saying that Germany was the aggressor against Britain is odd, since Britain declared war on Germany. Now one would say that wouldn't have happened had Germany not marched into Belgium, but that wouldn't have happened had France kept its snotty little nose out of what was up until that point a regional conflict in Eastern Europe and not aggressively declared war on Germany.

[David Floyd]

The blockade targeted German supplies for waging war.

I can accept that, but the British knew damn well that the German soldiers would be first in line to receive food, so in effect, the blockade would serve to starve civilians.

By the way, your info about the Lusitania still doesn't explain why Wilson suppressed German warnings. That act was extremely immoral.

[MrFun]

David and Boris:

World War I erupted as a result of blundering and miscommunication between several countries, two of which were Germany and Austria-Hungary. I'm referring to the unfolding events after the assassination in Sarajevo.

Great Britain was binded to defend Belgium's neutrality against any invaders. That is where their official position stood, and Imperial Germany knew and also promised in the past, to respect Belgium's neutrality status. Yet, with this knowledge, Germany went ahead to use Belgium as a route to northern France.

[David Floyd]

Great Britain was binded to defend Belgium's neutrality against any invaders. That is where their official position stood, and Imperial Germany knew and also promised in the past, to respect Belgium's neutrality status. Yet, with this knowledge, Germany went ahead to use Belgium as a route to northern France.

And this only goes to show why military alliances and treaties are wrong - they drew Great Britain into a war it had no business fighting. The guarantee to Belgium was wrong, so hence British involvement was wrong.

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by David Floyd
I can accept that, but the British knew damn well that the German soldiers would be first in line to receive food, so in effect, the blockade would serve to starve civilians.

If the German government chose to feed the soldiers instead of the civilians, that is hardly Britain's problem. If Germany had fed the civilians instead, then the German army would have been defeated faster, the war would end sooner and less Britons (and, probably, Germans) would die. I wager that is the outcome Britain would have liked to see.

By the way, your info about the Lusitania still doesn't explain why Wilson suppressed German warnings. That act was extremely immoral.

That was irrelevant to my argument, so why would I mention it? As I said, I don't care how many warnings Germany gave--sinking an unarmed passenger liner is extremely immoral.

I would agree Wilson should not have suppressed the warnings. But warnings did make it into the NYTimes (I have a book which reprints the actual ads. My my, the German embassy was cheap...not even springing for full-page ads! They are teeny-tiny...).

However, I have a sneaking suspicion the British admiralty, perhaps with Wilson's knowledge, deliberately allowed the Lusitania to be sunk to incite American rage. I can see little other explanation for the facts that her escorts suddenly vanished and that she was allowed to sail blindly into waters where 2 merchant ships had been sunk only the day before. If this is true, there would be little sense for there to be any munitions on her, would there?