Comic for Friday, Nov 19, 2021

[mlooney 3,417]

Here is.
Arthur expressed exactly why I though he would say about  him being  a monster.  Right down to the lack of proper accountability.

[ijuin 572]

He who fights monsters becomes a monster himself, and all that.

Arthur is accountable to the Director of the FBI, and thus supposedly to the President of the USA, but the President may be kept out of the loop about much of the goings-on, like how in the movie “Independence Day”, the President was kept unaware of the study of the alien scout spacecraft at Area 51.

[Illjwamh 98]

Captain Malcolm Reynolds : So me and mine gotta lay down and die... so you can live in your better world?

The Operative: I'm not going to live there. There's no place for me there... any more than there is for you. Malcolm... I'm a monster. What I do is evil; I have no illusions about it, but it must be done.

[Pharaoh RutinTutin 1,586]

If you are doing bad things for selfish purposes, it is clearly your own crime or sin

If you are doing bad things because someone you respect tells you it is necessary for a greater good, it is . . . 

[Darth Fluffy 302]

1 hour ago, Illjwamh said:

Captain Malcolm Reynolds : So me and mine gotta lay down and die... so you can live in your better world?

The Operative: I'm not going to live there. There's no place for me there... any more than there is for you. Malcolm... I'm a monster. What I do is evil; I have no illusions about it, but it must be done.

 

11 minutes ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

If you are doing bad things for selfish purposes, it is clearly your own crime or sin

If you are doing bad things because someone you respect tells you it is necessary for a greater good, it is . . . 

 

There is a broad gray area in between selfless and evil. Many police, in many nations function on that level. Many bureaucrats as well. When you toss in the possibilities that delusional thinking adds, well damn, it's difficult to apply the yard stick. Circle around to why religion is widely disliked; religion justifies nominally evil acts and colors them as 'God's will'.

 

[ijuin 572]

There’s also the question of whether the person telling you that it is “for the Greater Good” is being hypocritical. If they are (i.e. “the greater good” is actually the good of themselves and/or their chosen few), then it definitely falls on the evil side, and the person who follows them is a tool if they themselves are not among that chosen few.

[Don Edwards 548]

3 hours ago, ijuin said:

There’s also the question of whether the person telling you that it is “for the Greater Good” is being hypocritical. If they are (i.e. “the greater good” is actually the good of themselves and/or their chosen few), then it definitely falls on the evil side, and the person who follows them is a tool if they themselves are not among that chosen few.

This is why there is such thing as an illegal order, and if you're in the military it's illegal to follow an illegal order.

(When I was a kid I knew a guy who had, back during WWII, ordered a general arrested - while wearing corporal's stripes himself. The general had persisted in giving an illegal order even after the corporal pointed out that it was illegal. The order in question was to take a work detail of POWs to the general's home and have them build a barbecue pit,which is hardly the depths of depravity and evil. The general ended up getting a wrist-slap and transferred elsewhere; nothing officially happened to the corporal, but I suspect he got a few attaboys.)

[ijuin 572]

Yes, in theory you are supposed to not obey a direct order, but in practice you may be in a battlefield situation where your commander orders you to kill some innocents and will not hesitate to have YOU shot if you refuse. In situations where you have no communication with the higher-ups, a corrupt Captain can have you forcibly silenced.

[Illjwamh 98]

On 11/19/2021 at 10:15 AM, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

If you are doing bad things for selfish purposes, it is clearly your own crime or sin

If you are doing bad things because someone you respect tells you it is necessary for a greater good, it is . . . 

..."just following orders"?

[mlooney 3,417]

26 minutes ago, Illjwamh said:

On 11/19/2021 at 0:15 PM, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

If you are doing bad things because someone you respect tells you it is necessary for a greater good, it is . . . 

..."just following orders"?

It does depend on what the bad things are.  Hiding the existence of magic and/or aliens is hardly a crime against humanity.

And any more down this path probably needs to be in politics.

[ijuin 572]

Hiding the existence of things which are not inherently threatening probably falls under “National Security Secrets”, just as how military capabilities are kept under wraps. The average Joe does not really need to be told that the USSR has exactly seventeen nuclear warheads targeted within kill range of his workplace.

[mlooney 3,417]

1 hour ago, ijuin said:

Hiding the existence of things which are not inherently threatening probably falls under “National Security Secrets”, just as how military capabilities are kept under wraps. The average Joe does not really need to be told that the USSR has exactly seventeen nuclear warheads targeted within kill range of his workplace.

In many cases it's not the knowledge in particular that need to be kept secret it's how we found out that knowledge.  Did we get it from open source material (i.e new reports), from satellites, or do we have a spy on the ground?  Could be very important to keep the other guy from knowing this,

 

[Darth Fluffy 302]

23 hours ago, Don Edwards said:

This is why there is such thing as an illegal order, and if you're in the military it's illegal to follow an illegal order.

(When I was a kid I knew a guy who had, back during WWII, ordered a general arrested - while wearing corporal's stripes himself. The general had persisted in giving an illegal order even after the corporal pointed out that it was illegal. The order in question was to take a work detail of POWs to the general's home and have them build a barbecue pit,which is hardly the depths of depravity and evil. The general ended up getting a wrist-slap and transferred elsewhere; nothing officially happened to the corporal, but I suspect he got a few attaboys.)

 

22 hours ago, ijuin said:

Yes, in theory you are supposed to not obey a direct order, but in practice you may be in a battlefield situation where your commander orders you to kill some innocents and will not hesitate to have YOU shot if you refuse. In situations where you have no communication with the higher-ups, a corrupt Captain can have you forcibly silenced.

 

My experience in the military says that higher ups are rarely held accountable. I like your narrative, Don, but suspect the corporal would have been more damaged by the incident than the General was; as you say, he got a wrist slap. I'm more in the "Be cautious, what Inuin says is true." camp.

If I were placed in this situation (not hypothetical, actually), I would look for a related issue that might impact on the request and raise it as a concern, force the source to rethink their position. Not perfect, but it is an option.