The death sentence which was recently "handed down" by the Saudi Arabian government against a Lebanese TV psychic is barbaric, but it is no more barbaric than the acts of any other government. No government that has ever existed can be trusted with the power of life and death. They all inevitably use that power unethically.
I think science shows pretty clearly that psychics have no real "powers". Many people would disagree with me vehemently. That's fine. I am free to ignore or ridicule psychics and their followers regardless of any government's edicts. And others are free to order their lives by the psychic's advice. I don't know if this particular psychic has defrauded anyone intentionally or not, but even if he has that doesn't deserve death-by-state. If you go around executing everyone who believes in imaginary things, or who profits from that belief in others, that would be quite a massacre. Let people defend themselves and their own property from fraud; don't hand over that authority to anyone else- especially not to those known to always abuse it.
Yet, there are always people ready to applaud government goons handing out death and destruction, as long as it targets someone else. The people who turn out to watch the executions for entertainment are reprehensible excuses for "humanity", but are no more reprehensible than those who wave flags, pledge allegiance, and celebrate the invasion and occupation of other countries by the military force of their choice. It isn't even as if this is the "other side of the coin", it is completely indistinguishable.
Face it; those who cheer the executioner are no different than those who cheer or defend the police, the military, or any government agency. Support of government can't be justified.
Imagine looking down on all the government maneuvers here on Earth through an unimaginably advanced telescope on some other planet. If you were to arbitrarily distinguish between governmental aggression and mass aggression of any other sort, you would see that government is the same everywhere; and it is inexcusable in whatever form it is being imposed.
Comments
Naked aggression--of which murder is but the most obvious example--is one of the only three things that governments have EVER done well. (The other two, of course, are fraud and theft.) What is government--whatever its form--other than an arbitrary, artificial mechanism to decide who gets to force whom to do what at the point of a gun?
I cannot fathom the leap that one must make to suspend every piece of historical evidence for this, and instead conclude that somehow, some way, this time, it'll work because a super-swell guy is in charge. That forcing peaceable people by prior restraint will somehow accomplish, now, what it has never before accomplished, and (at the same time) will somehow manage NOT to degenerate into the horror that it has always become.
For crying out loud, Russian Roulette would have better odds. Russian Roulette with a derringer. A SINGLE-BARREL derringer.
Seriously: W T F (censorship rules, dunnit?) is the appeal? I simply don't get it.
The appeal, Kevin, is that violence is very profitable.
What may take a man years to earn can be stolen in a minute.
The only break upon the evil man is the threat to his own life by the man protecting his property.
Thus, if evil men can legitimize their theft and make the earning man believe he is wrong to deny the thieves, so much safer the theft.
Thus, almost all the communication by the evil men is to brainwash the masses that they are legitimate in their taking.
Years, decades, centuries, millenniums of repetition of a lie is powerful upon the simple, distracted minds of most men - men who are too busy earning a living to provide for their family to actually concentrate and resist such brainwashing.
Alas... so true. And all those who stand meekly by while their neighbors - and even themselves - are harmed... because they are "law abiding." Sadly, they don't understand the most basic law of all. Non-aggression.
Or that watching a rape, without trying to stop it, is the same as participating.
I wonder if you raving nut libertarians ever consider the irony that the internet was initially created by the government and without it you couldn't even find each other to validate your nutty ravings about how everything the government does is eeeeevil?
The internet was not created by government. It was an experiment in the Bell Labs.
After DARPA did a followup experiment, they released it to the public market. The internet YOU talk about came out of that.
Acerbic- Are you saying the internet couldn't exist without government? Because that is just wrong. It would have happened eventually one way or another. Computer evolution is, and always has been, a genie out of its bottle. "You can't stop the signal." There are many times that evil, through its actions, produces good unintended consequences. That is still not justification to support evil on the off-chance something good might come of it.
Got something to say?
Examiner.com is looking for writers, photographers, and videographers to join the fastest growing group of local insiders. If you are interested in growing your online rep apply to be an Examiner today!