My premise is your premise - if it is irrational, by definition, to violate the principle of self-preservation, then every American soldier who has ever thrown himself on a grenade to save his fellow soldiers, or died at all in combat rather than avoiding it in the first place, is, by your definition, irrational. By your logic, Bill Clinton is far more rational in having avoided the draft than someone like Bob Dole was for having served in combat - Dole "irrationally" risked violating the principle of self-preservation by joining the Army, whereas Clinton "rationally" minimized the risk to his own life by hanging out at Oxford and smoking lots of grass.
Needless to say, I reject this line of reasoning.
...you still refuse to accept what is uniformly meant by "rational" in this context, i.e., ratiocinative, logical, not 'soundness of mind.'
Au contraire, that is exactly what I mean by rational. They perform cost-benefit analyses in determining their methods of achieving their goals, just as we do. They tailor their tactics according to their estimates of success, just as we do - they eschew tactics that they estimate will fail, and prefer tactics that they believe will succeed. They are perfectly rational actors, in every sense of the word.
2- Regarding self-preservation, you continue to ignore -- or fail to comprehend -- the distinction I make between extraneous and fundamental.
3- My argument with you is a semantic one… and you fail even to see this… As I said, you are arguing with yourself.
4- It is pointless for us to restate our positions ad nauseam.
Someone, I forget who, once noted that it is impossible to defeat an ignorant man in argument. Suggestion: Why not invoke that thesis? If you do so, you will be able to exit this thread with your ego intact….