I don't follow your hypothetical. Jack, the aggressive tailgater, surely knew somewhere inside that being an aggressive driver might be dangerous.
Dropping bombs, on the other hand, is a wee bit more settled in its violence. Anyone near WILL get hurt. While we may try at times to limit collateral damage, its a cost benefit analysis. Which is why Narby's thought process makes more sense than this hypothetical.
A more analogous hypothetical: I detonate a bomb in front of my neighbor's house as an April Fools joke . . . thinking it would be a good laugh. Only, instead of leaving an M80, I park a UHaul full of explosives. Intent to kill? Maybe not. If I was rational would I have known someone might be killed? Yes.
That's a nice contortion of logic to get fanatically worked up over TS but not be concerned with the plight of the Iraqi children who had their bodies torn apart by shrapnel ripping through their houses. After all, TS may have wanted to die. Those Iraqi kids? I'm fairly certain they would have wanted to see their country's bright tomorrow. None of them had 10 years of legal battles or oodles of medical evaluations to determine their futures.
If this all works out like I expect it to, TS is much happier today than she was on Tuesday. Those Iraqi kids, well, that depends. The way some of you see it, they were condemned to Hell.
Was TS intentionally "killed?" This has been one of my biggest misunderstandings all along. If her parents had agreed with Michael from the beginning . . . wouldn't the act still been intentionally "killing" her by your definition? (But presumably none of you would have thought twice about it.) Since you must answer yes, what if TS left a notarized document saying she would want to be let go under these circumstances . . . wouldn't the act of pulling the plug or tube still be "killing?"
If letting someone starve is "killing" them, how do you justify your inaction when tens of thousands starve around the world daily? (You know its happening and intend to do nothing about it. Ergo, intent to kill?)
Why draw the line at starvation? What about denying anyone the latest and greatest in medical care? After all, when was the last time you opened your pocketbook so that homeless penniless Bob could have quadruple bypass surgery and take the latest designer medications so as to keep him alive on a respirator? Denying that care to him surely means he dies. From your logic, your inaction "killed" him. Moreover, you've "killed" not only Bob, but also Juan Pedro, Francoise, Elizabeta, Mungofa, Patel, Ming Do, and Kazuhira.
Why starvation and medical care? Why not lifestyle issues? We know that pollution limits people's health. Fast food. Someone is making money off of that stuff and it is surely shortening people's natural lives. Does that constitute killing in your book? That SUV you drive is intentionally spitting out pollution and that oil is leading to warfare. Both are very much shortening people's lives.
I could go on forever . . . this was ONE woman who's case was evaluated for over a decade by doctors and lawyers. My God is merciful. In my view of things, He never was big on us telling him who was and who wasn't righteous. I expect He may not too happy that some of his pharisees don't want to trouble themselves over some Samaritan children dying but rather want to condemn the bloke down the road who let go of a loved one He had been calling home for some time.
I'm not sure what you intend to accomplish with that exercise in hair-splitting, other than perhaps to try to confuse the issue.
If a person is in your care, and you force them to starve, you've killed them. A person who is not in your care that starves may be a tragedy but unless you've caused it by force, it's not your fault. It is absolutely wrong to say Terri Schiavo died due to "inaction". She died due to the enforcement of a court order that no one was permitted to give her any food or water in any way. If one is to accept that the court order was legal, then it would have been against the law to feed her. Who else starves to death because the law forbids them to eat?
It's unfortunate that some innocents are killed by U.S. bombs, but it's long been established that those who are truly responsible are the terrorists who hide among innocents and use them as shields. If the presence of innocents were sufficient cause to deny our rightful duty of self-defense, then the first hostage-taker to come along would rule the world.
Thus this kind of twisted blame-assignation turns right and wrong on its head, and serves to absolve the truly evil of all responsibility, all the while decrying every imperfection of the good.
One cannot be held responsible to correct all the evils in the world simply because they desire to correct one of them. If we were to follow your logic to its ultimate conclusion, there would be but one choice in life: whether to dedicate one's entire life to feeding others, or to reject any selfless good at all in the name of serving one's own interests only.
I'm not sure exactly how I got pinged here, but who's "not concerned with" that? Nice straw man.
None of them had 10 years of legal battles or oodles of medical evaluations to determine their futures.
"oodles" of medical evaluations ain't exactly an accurate characterization. Show me her PET? MRI?
The length or number of legal battles is rather irrelevant when they were all rubber-stamping the first judge's decision, because that's all that was within their power to do.
Those Iraqi kids, well, that depends. The way some of you see it, they were condemned to Hell.
What the hell are you talking about? Who holds this point of view you ascribe to "some of you", exactly?
Was TS intentionally "killed?"
Yes.
This has been one of my biggest misunderstandings all along. If her parents had agreed with Michael from the beginning . . . wouldn't the act still been intentionally "killing" her by your definition?
Yes.
But presumably none of you would have thought twice about it.
Think again.
Since you must answer yes, what if TS left a notarized document saying she would want to be let go under these circumstances . . . wouldn't the act of pulling the plug or tube still be "killing?"
Yes.
By the way there was no "plug or tube". Just tube.
If letting someone starve is "killing" them, how do you justify your inaction when tens of thousands starve around the world daily?
I don't.
Now, explain how this makes it ok to kill Terri Schiavo.
You know its happening and intend to do nothing about it. Ergo, intent to kill?
Um. Sorry, you're making a bizarre error here.
Michael Schiavo intentionally withheld food from Terri Schiavo. Nobody is going to Africa to where those starving people are and taking food away from them. Again, if we are at fault it is our inaction to alleviate their starvation. But we aren't intentionally causing that starvation when inaction on our part would otherwise allow them to eat.
Michael Schiavo did.
Why draw the line at starvation? What about denying anyone the latest and greatest in medical care?
Because feeding a person such as Terri Schiavo would have been mindbogglingly cheap and effortless and "the latest and greatest in medical care" cannot as a practical matter be given to everyone?
Because your apples-oranges analogies are testing my patience?
Nobody was asking that Terri Schiavo be flown to Vienna to have a team of 150 world class surgeons and doctors devoted to her case 24 hours a day for the rest of her life. We were talking about putting freaking FOOD into her STOMACH for crying out loud. Can you please come back to reality with the rest of us?
After all, when was the last time you opened your pocketbook so that homeless penniless Bob could have quadruple bypass surgery and take the latest designer medications so as to keep him alive on a respirator?
When was the last time you made an argument that didn't rely on dishonest misdirection and subject-changing like this?
Terri Schiavo JUST NEEDED TO BE FED to stay alive, like the rest of us! The ONLY reason she died is because Michael Schiavo intentionally took sustenance away from her and forbade other people from giving her any!
Denying that care to him surely means he dies. From your logic, your inaction "killed" him.
No, what would constitute me killing the homeless penniless Bob would be if I locked him in a room, gave him no sustenance, and prevented all other people from giving him sustenance.
Why starvation and medical care? Why not lifestyle issues?
Why these idiotic questions?
Do you not understand that Terri Schiavo was intentionally starved/dehydrated to make her dead? If you can't grasp that simple fact, you are hopelessly dense. If you can but won't grasp that simple fact, you are intellectually dishonest. Which is it?
We know that pollution limits people's health. Fast food. Someone is making money off of that stuff and it is surely shortening people's natural lives. Does that constitute killing in your book? That SUV you drive is intentionally spitting out pollution and that oil is leading to warfare. Both are very much shortening people's lives.
Are you proud of your sophistries?
Sustenance was intentionally, deliberately withheld from Terri Schiavo in order to make her die.
I could go on forever . . .
I'll bet you could. Please don't. Instead, grow up and stop building argument sandcastles in the sky for you to admire. Face the reality that the woman was intentionally killed, no scare-quotes.
...the bloke down the road who let go of a loved one He had been calling home for some time.
God had been calling Terri Schiavo home for some time, huh? Tell me, do you have a direct pipeline to God where he tells you these wishes of his?
Or by "God" do you mean "Michael Schiavo"? It was his conscious, deliberate act of will - and nothing else - that caused Terri Schiavo to die. Admit it and deal with it or prove yourself hopelessly unserious.
A distinction here. Terri's parents were both capable and willing to feed her. So it wasn't that the state merely let her starve by inaction, the state actively forced willing bystanders to feed not her.
Good greif, You are now furhter down the same fallacious road. Would the state bar Mother Terrisa from paying to have penniless Bob undergo surgery?
I must apologize for my impertinence, but you seem to have gone quite a long way down a demostratably fallacious road. Again, Terri's parents have volunteered to support her life. The state was not asked to do so. Moreover the state forced the parents not to do so.
Well certainly He already knows better then we do. But might I humbly suggest He would appreciate it if we tried to discern the difference between righteous and unrighteous behavior a little harder.