Thursday, July 07, 2005

Patriots at work in London...

From CNN,
Blair blames Islamic terrorists An intense police hunt is under way in Britain for terrorists behind a string of bombings on London's transport system that killed at least 37 people and wounded 700 early today. Investigators have not yet said whether they believe the bombers left explosives on three trains and a bus or mounted suicide attacks.
Considering Brian Williams' comparison of American Patriots to Islamic Terrorists, and judging by some of the comments my post on the matter has received, would it be fair to submit the following CNN rewrite?
Blair blames Islamic Freedom Fighters An intense police hunt is under way in Britain for the patriots behind a string of bombings on London's transport system that killed at least 37 infidels and wounded 700 early today. Investigators have not yet said whether they believe the fighters of freedom left explosives on three trains and a bus or mounted suicide attacks.
After all, surely someone must think of the incident in those terms and shouldn't we be, at the very least, more tolerant of other moral views? There are many problems with the moral relativist's point of view. Keep in mind that I have never disputed the fact that someone, somewhere, may see (or may yet see) these malevolent terrorists as freedom fighters. What I've been saying is such a person is flat-out wrong. The issue is not, and has never been, how the opposing side views the matter. Such a position leaves one in the self-defeating realm of moral relativism in which no particular viewpoint can be considered true. This is patently absurd. It's not a matter of "the one who wins get to write the history" as if we can never really trust whatever history we've been handed. While I'll be the first to acknowledge the inherent tendency of man to bring his bias to the table, I would much more readily trust the historical accounts written by men of honor than by men of dishonor. One need only look to our recent past for examples: the reality of the horror of the Civil War (and its causes); the journals of Lewis & Clark; racial segregation in the military during WWII; the wanton disregard for the environment during California's Gold Rush; etc., etc., etc. Intentionally dismembering innocent men, women, and children, through coordinated bomb attacks, is morally wrong. And it doesn't matter that someone may consider it otherwise.

2 comments:

Rusty said...

There you go again Paul, coming perilously close to equating the normal actions of terrorists with the abnormal actions of military personnel. They are not the same. Period.

The Mai Lai (sp?) massacre in Vietnam was understood to be especially heinous because it was an action counter to what we expect of our military... if it had been perpetrated by an Al Qaeda group there would have been virtually no surprise (albeit horror) at the action.

Rusty said...

If you mean to say that immoral acts are immoral regardless of who commits them, then I agree with you.

If you mean to say that our military is on par with sadistically evil regimes, such as the Nazis, then I disagree with you.