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I think your concern about lack of due process should be more focused on the tens to hundreds of thousands of civilian bystanders the US has killed since 2001.

by beeboop 11y ago

I think your concern about lack of due process should be more focused on the tens to hundreds of thousands of civilian bystanders the US has killed since 2001. We are killing dozens of women and children overseas every week and chalk them up as collateral damage.

newjersey 11y ago
I am honestly not worried about collateral damage. If someone is shooting at you, you shoot right back at them regardless of whether they are standing behind a hundred babies. That is not a problem. When we talk about collateral damage in case of unprovoked attacks, we are minimizing the issue. If we are not willing to risk our soldiers to capture people who are not firing at us, then we should not try to capture or kill those people. I think it is pretty simple. If they are worth killing with a drone, they are worth sacrificing the lives of our soldiers in an attempt to catch them dead or alive. Whether there is any collateral damage is not the issue.
- beeboop 11y ago
  > If someone is shooting at you, you shoot right back at them regardless of whether they are standing behind a hundred babies. That is not a problem. You very well might be a sociopath.
  - newjersey 11y ago
    I am not a very smart person so I looked up the definition of sociopath. > Hare also provides his own definitions: he describes psychopathy as not having a sense of empathy or morality, but sociopathy as only differing in sense of right and wrong from the average person. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychopathy#Sociopathy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychopathy#Sociopathy Well, I might be a sociopath. Don't get me wrong. I think babies are very cute and would go out of my way to save an infant's life. However, I cannot command others to imperil their own lives to maybe not kill an infant. Not to derail the topic too much but it bothers me that people think the collateral deaths of "innocent women and children" in an extrajudicial drone strike are worse than the death of the target. The collateral damage would not have happened if we didn't shoot in the first place. I am not saying we should be isolationist or even that we should not exercise restraint in use of force (even in self defense), far from it. I am just asking that we approach the topic as rationally as we can. Now, we should be clear as to why we try to save infants and small children first in an emergency. Here is the article that made me think about this http://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2015/01/children-are-special-but-not-particularly-important.html http://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2015/01/children-ar... but it makes sense what I read a while back. It is not because they are more important (far from it, society has much more invested in growing up a working adult) but because the infants and children are more vulnerable. It made a world of sense when I thought about it this way. When it comes to a fire, I can see how a healthy adult can survive longer suffocating in a smokey room as opposed to an infant. I think a trained fireman or a nurse can do triage pretty will without someone screaming in their face "why won't you attend to my baby first?" In most situations, we would probably care for infants and young children before anyone else. However, like with everything in life, we should think about why and not just what. A person who has killed millions of people has the same right life as a newly born infant and we shouldn't try to sidestep difficult questions and scream "why won't you think of the children" just looking for an emotional response.

by beeboop 11y ago

newjersey 11y ago

I am honestly not worried about collateral damage. If someone is shooting at you, you shoot right back at them regardless of whether they are standing behind a hundred babies. That is not a problem. When we talk about collateral damage in case of unprovoked attacks, we are minimizing the issue. If we are not willing to risk our soldiers to capture people who are not firing at us, then we should not try to capture or kill those people. I think it is pretty simple. If they are worth killing with a drone, they are worth sacrificing the lives of our soldiers in an attempt to catch them dead or alive. Whether there is any collateral damage is not the issue.

beeboop 11y ago
> If someone is shooting at you, you shoot right back at them regardless of whether they are standing behind a hundred babies. That is not a problem. You very well might be a sociopath.
- newjersey 11y ago
  I am not a very smart person so I looked up the definition of sociopath. > Hare also provides his own definitions: he describes psychopathy as not having a sense of empathy or morality, but sociopathy as only differing in sense of right and wrong from the average person. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychopathy#Sociopathy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychopathy#Sociopathy Well, I might be a sociopath. Don't get me wrong. I think babies are very cute and would go out of my way to save an infant's life. However, I cannot command others to imperil their own lives to maybe not kill an infant. Not to derail the topic too much but it bothers me that people think the collateral deaths of "innocent women and children" in an extrajudicial drone strike are worse than the death of the target. The collateral damage would not have happened if we didn't shoot in the first place. I am not saying we should be isolationist or even that we should not exercise restraint in use of force (even in self defense), far from it. I am just asking that we approach the topic as rationally as we can. Now, we should be clear as to why we try to save infants and small children first in an emergency. Here is the article that made me think about this http://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2015/01/children-are-special-but-not-particularly-important.html http://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2015/01/children-ar... but it makes sense what I read a while back. It is not because they are more important (far from it, society has much more invested in growing up a working adult) but because the infants and children are more vulnerable. It made a world of sense when I thought about it this way. When it comes to a fire, I can see how a healthy adult can survive longer suffocating in a smokey room as opposed to an infant. I think a trained fireman or a nurse can do triage pretty will without someone screaming in their face "why won't you attend to my baby first?" In most situations, we would probably care for infants and young children before anyone else. However, like with everything in life, we should think about why and not just what. A person who has killed millions of people has the same right life as a newly born infant and we shouldn't try to sidestep difficult questions and scream "why won't you think of the children" just looking for an emotional response.