Start a Fight, Then When Your Victim Fights Back, You Can “Defend” Yourself? No.
I have observed some confusion on an issue, and I am presenting an assertion that I challenge you to provide a good response. When I say “good” I mean logical, intellectually consistent, and in accordance with premises already agreed upon. The issue we are addressing is the popular issue of, “defending a brother in arms when he is under attack.” This perspective was popularized in a recent government sniper movie.
The (mis)reasoning goes as follows:
“My brother in arms was in these other folks place planning on killing these folks, and all of a sudden, one of them tried to kill my brother in arms. I killed those other folks, and was in the moral right because I was defending my brother in arms, and defending one’s brother in arms is always honorable.”
OK, those of you that are Mensa members are nodding and seeing where I am going with this. IT gurus, engineers and attorneys are also saying, “Wait, that is flawed self defense logic.” What is immediately obvious as an necessary precursor to the argument in order to make it moral? Yes, that the killer and his brother in arms were morally justified to kill those other people.
The dim-witted and intellectually lazy among us might quickly assert that if the parent organization for whom the killer and his brother in arms are agents is, “a glorious, just, awesome, holy, super-cool and indisputably right organization” any actions taken by the agents of the rulers of that organization are glorious, just, awesome, holy, super-cool and indisputably right. For a Crip, this would be the Crip organization. For the Blood, Merican, Islamic or other group, it would be their respective organizations and their agents.
This assertion is not logical and it is not valid. I will suspend my opinion on whether I support the Crips, Merica, Bloods, the Gambino Family, Islam-folk or any other group. Let’s keep this open-minded contemplation pure and unbiased, with logic as our guide. We are searching for flawed self defense logic, not trying to prove our preferences right.
Yes, I have some examples that we may use. Two guys, who have fought together in many battles before, trust each other, respect each other and love each other as brothers walk into a room. Brother A points a gun and yells, “Hands up bitches” and when one of the people in the room does not put their hands up and instead grabs a gun and aims it at Brother A to defend himself, Brother B shoots the person defending their room.
So, my question is, “Was Brother B’s action morally acceptable, honorable, heroic, unacceptable or evil?” If your answer was, “heroic” I will ignore you. Your day-room time will soon be over and the orderly will return you to your safe room before my response is complete. For the rest of you, those that are not insanely brainwashed, what was your response?
This brings to light a challenge with having too much bureaucracy in areas in which force is initiated. Consider a man, let’s call him LaVoy. LaVoy becomes an “enemy to a group, and then this bureaucratic group sends their agents to initiate force against LaVoy. Let’s call one of these agents Bill. Bill can, in honesty say that his orders, which he is responsible for following without asking “why” are to stop LaVoy’s car with a spike strip, grab LeVoy physically, and take him to a room that will serve as a cage. Bill is not permitted or expected to personally research LaVoy and the situation that led to these orders.
Bill is “just doing his job.” Bill follows the orders, and when his opponent gets out of his car, Bill begins shouting orders to LaVoy. LaVoy likely also shouted orders at Bill. If Bill sees LaVoy reach for his knife or gun, Bill will likely, in “protection of his own life” shoot LaVoy. Following is a comment about a similar event that I saw on social media from a police officer friend that, while in the professional roll of Bill, seems to agree 98% with Lavoy:
What if I told you that one or both of the men were wearing costumes and/or had fancy titles? What if Bill was a Sharia or FBI law enforcement officer? What if LaVoy was a city police officer and Bill was a gang member? Of course, if you are a member of the community protected by the gang, you would likely think Bill was in the right.
Article in progress… more coming….
