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The nature of the government matters. The US is a representative democracy that has rule of law. This is not denying the bad behavior of intelligence agencies

The nature of the government matters. The US is a representative democracy that has rule of law. This is not denying the bad behavior of intelligence agencies in the past. Supporting the ideals of the west (representative democracy, independent court system, individual (minority/women's) rights, freedom of the press, freedom of speech, etc.) require organizations like this to exist. This doesn't mean they shouldn't be held to a high standard (they should), but that good people should work with them and that it's critical good people do so the standard is high. The UAE is a religious dictatorship with pretty much none of these things, supporting their intelligence agencies (particularly when they're targeting political activists that they deem a threat) is worse and not morally equivalent. This is likely why they painted it as entirely for defense against terrorism to most of the contractors. I find it pretty disturbing that this person, knowing about the offensive targeting (particularly of political activists), only finds this morally concerning when it involves the surveillance of Americans.

skh 8y ago
The nature of the government matters. The style of government matters not to me when it comes to moral culpability. Catholic priests murdered in Central America with the approval of the U.S. government did not care that we have a representative government. Since it doesn't matter to the victims of our torture, murdering, raping, and pillaging it doesn't seem germane to me. Indeed, that we are a representative democracy only causes me to be depressed further as the blame partly resides with me and my fellow countrymen since we elected the leaders of these monsters. In the UAE at least the average citizen has less culpability since they have no say in their government.
- fossuser 8y ago
  Those things are still terrible and wrong (we're in agreement about that). The difference in our argument is that I think it's important for good people to be involved in their government in order to support these western ideals and work to do the right thing. It may be morally pure to just avoid the complex issues, but other than feeling good and maybe virtue signaling it doesn't actually help. Given the true need for security and organizations like this I think it's important for good people to be involved in this work. We have agency and a responsibility to make things better. I think this argument changes when the foundational core is different (religious dictatorship) because the high level goals are not the same - you're immediately operating under a bad moral starting point when the law itself is bad and the government is not a representative democracy. Your original point was: > "If a person is comfortable working for an American intelligence agency and you are comfortable with people who do then I don't see how this situation is any worse." I'm arguing it's both a lot worse and that there are good reasons for a moral person to work with western intelligence agencies.
  - vikiomega9 8y ago
    > The difference in our argument is that I think it's important for good people to be involved in their government in order to support these western ideals and work to do the right thing. In principle maybe, but not under the what's being played out in the US. Given you have these principles I should put more faith in you and hope that you don't murder me when it's convenient? An intelligence agency is not the government and vice-versa. It only reflects the people's mandate in just its core function, intelligence among other things.
  - skh 8y ago
    From my perspective too many Americans believe the mantra, “We are good and they are bad.”. We had a President that said those who are not with us are against us. We leaders say that we are exceptional, we are a moral government and that believes in freedom and human rights. But the actions of our government suggest that we are not moral and are not in a position to denounce other nations without being profoundly hypocritical. Too many Americans believe we are altruistic and don’t know about or care about our past and present evil deeds. The high level goals of the U.S. are to maintain hegemonic dominance and our government appears to be willing to engage in all sorts of immoral deeds to accomplish this goal. It’s not virtue signaling to point out the American government is untrustworthy, engages in illegal behavior, tortures, murders, rapes, and pillages and that I personally don’t see how working for American intelligence agencies is not significantly more moral than working for UAE agencies. It’s how I see things.
    - fossuser 8y ago
      I'd argue the actions suggest complexity with both a lot of good and bad which the history of any large group of people is going to have - it isn't binary. The government is also not one entity acting in unison, it's a lot of people with different goals trying to do different things. That said, the core goals and ideas that countries stand for are vastly different between western representative democracies like the US, UK and religious theocracies like the UAE, KSA (or kleptocratic governments like Russia). I think this is an important difference. The pragmatic approach is given the need for intelligence organizations to exist it's important for good people to work there and try to do the right thing. Opting out and implying that any moral person would have to act similarly leads to a government of the worst people and it kind of abandons the principle goals of representative democracy. It's not the pointing out of bad behavior that's virtue signaling, it's the side stepping of the difficulty of the issue - how do you actually solve these kinds of complex problems?
happy_man 8y ago
"The US is a representative democracy that has rule of law" The above statement holds, whoever it never stopped the support (material, logistical, etc) of murdereos regimes all over the world. Look, I'm not an idealist, I understand that the US is a power hegemon and as such it will always impose its will on smaller countries, same as the UK or France did in the past. What irritates me is that its citizens are convinced that they are "the good guys", when evidence against that is so overwhelming. At least the UK was clear in its intentions "we are building/defending the British Empire"
- tenpies 8y ago
  > What irritates me is that its citizens are convinced that they are "the good guys" It will be interesting to see how well this ages. Looking at past iterations of global power(s), this era seems like one of the best. Sure, the US has done some evil, but it at least pretends to follow the law most of the time. It may have started some wars and interfered where it shouldn't, but nowhere to the degree of past global powers. At the end of the day, the US never interferes with religious freedom, accepts homosexuality, and tends to treat men and women as equal. That has literally never happened before in the history of world powers.
  - monocasa 8y ago
    I'm pretty sure the Persian empire did all those things.
    - int_19h 8y ago
      Treat men and women as equals?
      - dannycastonguay 8y ago
        "In general, we can say that Persian women enjoyed power, influence, and economic opportunities. They were involved in the military and owned businesses, and held the same jobs as men. Some women never married or had children, but this wasn't seen as a problem. However, Ancient Persian society was still patriarchal, and for the most part, men held higher positions than women. One of the reasons that Ancient Persians held women in high regard might have been their religion. Zoroastrianism was the dominant religion, and its ideology stressed that men and women were equals. Naturally, this would shape the worldview of Ancient Persians, and we can say that overall women were seen as important figures in society." https://study.com/academy/lesson/women-in-ancient-persia-royalty-privileges-tradition.html https://study.com/academy/lesson/women-in-ancient-persia-roy... Funny fun fact about Zoroastrianism: "British musician Freddie Mercury, lead singer for the rock band Queen, was of Parsi descent. Mercury, born Farrokh Bulsara, practiced Zoroastrianism."
house_atr 8y ago
So basically the US can get away with it because their form of government is cogent to your sensibilities. Don't think that's how morals work. The US is the most violent and flagrant abuser of human rights.
PurpleBoxDragon 8y ago
>This is not denying the bad behavior of intelligence agencies in the past. But to say it is okay for someone to work for those agencies is to deny their bad behavior in the past. There has been no change to those agencies except they are better at covering up their current day bad behavior, so to say it is at all moral to support them is only possible if you find that their past behaviors weren't really bad.

skh 8y ago

The nature of the government matters. The style of government matters not to me when it comes to moral culpability. Catholic priests murdered in Central America with the approval of the U.S. government did not care that we have a representative government. Since it doesn't matter to the victims of our torture, murdering, raping, and pillaging it doesn't seem germane to me. Indeed, that we are a representative democracy only causes me to be depressed further as the blame partly resides with me and my fellow countrymen since we elected the leaders of these monsters. In the UAE at least the average citizen has less culpability since they have no say in their government.

fossuser 8y ago
Those things are still terrible and wrong (we're in agreement about that). The difference in our argument is that I think it's important for good people to be involved in their government in order to support these western ideals and work to do the right thing. It may be morally pure to just avoid the complex issues, but other than feeling good and maybe virtue signaling it doesn't actually help. Given the true need for security and organizations like this I think it's important for good people to be involved in this work. We have agency and a responsibility to make things better. I think this argument changes when the foundational core is different (religious dictatorship) because the high level goals are not the same - you're immediately operating under a bad moral starting point when the law itself is bad and the government is not a representative democracy. Your original point was: > "If a person is comfortable working for an American intelligence agency and you are comfortable with people who do then I don't see how this situation is any worse." I'm arguing it's both a lot worse and that there are good reasons for a moral person to work with western intelligence agencies.
- vikiomega9 8y ago
  > The difference in our argument is that I think it's important for good people to be involved in their government in order to support these western ideals and work to do the right thing. In principle maybe, but not under the what's being played out in the US. Given you have these principles I should put more faith in you and hope that you don't murder me when it's convenient? An intelligence agency is not the government and vice-versa. It only reflects the people's mandate in just its core function, intelligence among other things.
- skh 8y ago
  From my perspective too many Americans believe the mantra, “We are good and they are bad.”. We had a President that said those who are not with us are against us. We leaders say that we are exceptional, we are a moral government and that believes in freedom and human rights. But the actions of our government suggest that we are not moral and are not in a position to denounce other nations without being profoundly hypocritical. Too many Americans believe we are altruistic and don’t know about or care about our past and present evil deeds. The high level goals of the U.S. are to maintain hegemonic dominance and our government appears to be willing to engage in all sorts of immoral deeds to accomplish this goal. It’s not virtue signaling to point out the American government is untrustworthy, engages in illegal behavior, tortures, murders, rapes, and pillages and that I personally don’t see how working for American intelligence agencies is not significantly more moral than working for UAE agencies. It’s how I see things.
  - fossuser 8y ago
    I'd argue the actions suggest complexity with both a lot of good and bad which the history of any large group of people is going to have - it isn't binary. The government is also not one entity acting in unison, it's a lot of people with different goals trying to do different things. That said, the core goals and ideas that countries stand for are vastly different between western representative democracies like the US, UK and religious theocracies like the UAE, KSA (or kleptocratic governments like Russia). I think this is an important difference. The pragmatic approach is given the need for intelligence organizations to exist it's important for good people to work there and try to do the right thing. Opting out and implying that any moral person would have to act similarly leads to a government of the worst people and it kind of abandons the principle goals of representative democracy. It's not the pointing out of bad behavior that's virtue signaling, it's the side stepping of the difficulty of the issue - how do you actually solve these kinds of complex problems?

happy_man 8y ago

"The US is a representative democracy that has rule of law" The above statement holds, whoever it never stopped the support (material, logistical, etc) of murdereos regimes all over the world. Look, I'm not an idealist, I understand that the US is a power hegemon and as such it will always impose its will on smaller countries, same as the UK or France did in the past. What irritates me is that its citizens are convinced that they are "the good guys", when evidence against that is so overwhelming. At least the UK was clear in its intentions "we are building/defending the British Empire"

tenpies 8y ago
> What irritates me is that its citizens are convinced that they are "the good guys" It will be interesting to see how well this ages. Looking at past iterations of global power(s), this era seems like one of the best. Sure, the US has done some evil, but it at least pretends to follow the law most of the time. It may have started some wars and interfered where it shouldn't, but nowhere to the degree of past global powers. At the end of the day, the US never interferes with religious freedom, accepts homosexuality, and tends to treat men and women as equal. That has literally never happened before in the history of world powers.
- monocasa 8y ago
  I'm pretty sure the Persian empire did all those things.
  - int_19h 8y ago
    Treat men and women as equals?
    - dannycastonguay 8y ago
      "In general, we can say that Persian women enjoyed power, influence, and economic opportunities. They were involved in the military and owned businesses, and held the same jobs as men. Some women never married or had children, but this wasn't seen as a problem. However, Ancient Persian society was still patriarchal, and for the most part, men held higher positions than women. One of the reasons that Ancient Persians held women in high regard might have been their religion. Zoroastrianism was the dominant religion, and its ideology stressed that men and women were equals. Naturally, this would shape the worldview of Ancient Persians, and we can say that overall women were seen as important figures in society." https://study.com/academy/lesson/women-in-ancient-persia-royalty-privileges-tradition.html https://study.com/academy/lesson/women-in-ancient-persia-roy... Funny fun fact about Zoroastrianism: "British musician Freddie Mercury, lead singer for the rock band Queen, was of Parsi descent. Mercury, born Farrokh Bulsara, practiced Zoroastrianism."

house_atr 8y ago

So basically the US can get away with it because their form of government is cogent to your sensibilities. Don't think that's how morals work. The US is the most violent and flagrant abuser of human rights.

PurpleBoxDragon 8y ago

>This is not denying the bad behavior of intelligence agencies in the past. But to say it is okay for someone to work for those agencies is to deny their bad behavior in the past. There has been no change to those agencies except they are better at covering up their current day bad behavior, so to say it is at all moral to support them is only possible if you find that their past behaviors weren't really bad.