Liberty Dollar office raided

[ElliotR]

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Do you people even get the POINT OF ANALOGIES?

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To paint a caricature of a situation that exemplifies all the good sides of your point while discreetly setting aside all the other points which would be hard to debate, so you can win at teh interweb. Duh.


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I would just like to say that all those who participated in this raid are doing their job, and they deserve . . . their paychecks in federal reserve notes.

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Beat me to it.

The agents were doing their jobs. When you're in law enforcement, and a search warrant lands on your desk, you have two choices; serve it or lose your job because of insubordination.

I'm guessing if you went through everything these men and women went through to obtain positions as federal agents, you'd choose the former.

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Just like the Nazi's, the Third Reich, the doctors skinning live babiest to experiment and whatnot, making lampshades out of human skin, or the people marching hunrdreds into gas chambers telling them it was to take a shower, etc, etc.

It was their job and they deserved to get paid for it by the government that they were legitimately emplloyed by, do I understand your arugument correctly. How dare anyone question any of the actions of people who did any of the above. THEY WERE DOING THEIR JOB AND DESERVED TO GET PAID!!!!

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Is is one of life's little pleasures that these posts are adjacent to each other.

[Copernicus]

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I would just like to say that all those who participated in this raid are doing their job, and they deserve . . . their paychecks in federal reserve notes.

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Beat me to it.

The agents were doing their jobs. When you're in law enforcement, and a search warrant lands on your desk, you have two choices; serve it or lose your job because of insubordination.

I'm guessing if you went through everything these men and women went through to obtain positions as federal agents, you'd choose the former.

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Just like the Nazi's, the Third Reich, the doctors skinning live babiest to experiment and whatnot, making lampshades out of human skin, or the people marching hunrdreds into gas chambers telling them it was to take a shower, etc, etc.

It was their job and they deserved to get paid for it by the government that they were legitimately emplloyed by, do I understand your arugument correctly. How dare anyone question any of the actions of people who did any of the above. THEY WERE DOING THEIR JOB AND DESERVED TO GET PAID!!!!

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Drawing moral equivalence between death camp guards and raiding an illegal enterprise is too absurd for you even. at least i thought it was.

[vhawk01]

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Do you people even get the POINT OF ANALOGIES?

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To paint a caricature of a situation that exemplifies all the good sides of your point while discreetly setting aside all the other points which would be hard to debate, so you can win at teh interweb. Duh.

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No, thats the strategy used to reject analogies. I'm still waiting for a single person to explain why it matters in the least that what the Nazis did was worse than what these guys did.

Honestly, this is bothering me. The point of all this is that the general principle "It is ok to do things you know are wrong as long as it is your job to do them" is atrocious and wrong. There are plenty of examples of this, some very extreme, some less extreme. Nazi soldiers, extreme. These cops, less extreme. But so what? The extremity of the situation doesnt matter. Its still wrong. The reason people use extreme examples is to show you what can happen when you make a habit out of condoning behavior because "I was just doing my job." Are the people laughing at this analogy implicitly disagreeing with the conclusion or are they just trying to score cheap points?

[vhawk01]

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I would just like to say that all those who participated in this raid are doing their job, and they deserve . . . their paychecks in federal reserve notes.

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Beat me to it.

The agents were doing their jobs. When you're in law enforcement, and a search warrant lands on your desk, you have two choices; serve it or lose your job because of insubordination.

I'm guessing if you went through everything these men and women went through to obtain positions as federal agents, you'd choose the former.

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Just like the Nazi's, the Third Reich, the doctors skinning live babiest to experiment and whatnot, making lampshades out of human skin, or the people marching hunrdreds into gas chambers telling them it was to take a shower, etc, etc.

It was their job and they deserved to get paid for it by the government that they were legitimately emplloyed by, do I understand your arugument correctly. How dare anyone question any of the actions of people who did any of the above. THEY WERE DOING THEIR JOB AND DESERVED TO GET PAID!!!!

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Drawing moral equivalence between death camp guards and raiding an illegal enterprise is too absurd for you even. at least i thought it was.

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Yay, another one.

So I take it from this that your position is that there are ZERO comparisons to be drawn between these agents and Nazi soldiers? Well, thats obviously absurd. They were both human beings. MANY comparisons can be made. Sorry if that offends your lazy, narrow perception.

Do you agree or disagree with the idea that it is acceptable to do things you think are wrong as long as it is "your job?"

[tame_deuces]

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Do you people even get the POINT OF ANALOGIES?

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To paint a caricature of a situation that exemplifies all the good sides of your point while discreetly setting aside all the other points which would be hard to debate, so you can win at teh interweb. Duh.

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No, thats the strategy used to reject analogies. I'm still waiting for a single person to explain why it matters in the least that what the Nazis did was worse than what these guys did.

Honestly, this is bothering me. The point of all this is that the general principle "It is ok to do things you know are wrong as long as it is your job to do them" is atrocious and wrong. There are plenty of examples of this, some very extreme, some less extreme. Nazi soldiers, extreme. These cops, less extreme. But so what? The extremity of the situation doesnt matter. Its still wrong. The reason people use extreme examples is to show you what can happen when you make a habit out of condoning behavior because "I was just doing my job." Are the people laughing at this analogy implicitly disagreeing with the conclusion or are they just trying to score cheap points?

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Because real life isn't maths. There is no decree that says your sympathies have to be based on axiomatic thinking where a base principle must be inviolable during your entire thinking process to avoid logical fallacy and be proven false.

Debating with this B/W view on human outlook and claiming logical fallacies based on it is ignorant.

[NasEscobar]

"Drawing moral equivalence between death camp guards and raiding an illegal enterprise is too absurd for you even. at least i thought it was."
Your error is that no one's claiming moral equivalence. THEY ARE THE SAME IN THAT BOTH GROUPS EXCUSE WAS "I'M JUST DOING MY JOB". The excuse cannot logically be valid for some but not others.

[bkholdem]

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"Drawing moral equivalence between death camp guards and raiding an illegal enterprise is too absurd for you even. at least i thought it was."
Your error is that no one's claiming moral equivalence. THEY ARE THE SAME IN THAT BOTH GROUPS EXCUSE WAS "I'M JUST DOING MY JOB". The excuse cannot logically be valid for some but not others.

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I'm glad someone takes the time to quote copernicus' replies to my posts because even though I have him on ignore I enjoy reading the responses to his responses to my posts.

And as far as NasEscobar says: Ditto, that is the point.

[VarlosZ]

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Your error is that no one's claiming moral equivalence. THEY ARE THE SAME IN THAT BOTH GROUPS EXCUSE WAS "I'M JUST DOING MY JOB". The excuse cannot logically be valid for some but not others.

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Sure it can. There are degrees of supposed immorality, just as there are degrees of probability and consensus regarding whether and to what degree a given order is immoral. If an agent believes that his presence in law enforcement does good, he can be justified in obeying a potentially (and/or marginally) unjust order that would be carried out with or without him. To say nothing of the fact that the order may not seem remotely immoral to him: "These guys are laundering money, we have to seize their stuff for evidence." "Ok."

No doubt many of you will reply that his presence in law enforcement is inherently wrong, so he can't be doing enough good to counterbalance his enforcement of an allegedly unjust, coercive order. Ok, whatever, but say that, not "ZOMG YOU'RE EXCUSE IS NO DIFFERENT THAN HITLER!!!" That's both wrong and very, very rude.

[NasEscobar]

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Your error is that no one's claiming moral equivalence. THEY ARE THE SAME IN THAT BOTH GROUPS EXCUSE WAS "I'M JUST DOING MY JOB". The excuse cannot logically be valid for some but not others.

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Sure it can. There are degrees of supposed immorality, just as there are degrees of probability and consensus regarding whether and to what degree a given order is immoral. If an agent believes that his presence in law enforcement does good, he can be justified in obeying a potentially (and/or marginally) unjust order that would be carried out with or without him.

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Then the excuse is that the ends justify the means, not "just doing my job".
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To say nothing of the fact that the order may not seem remotely immoral to him: "These guys are laundering money, we have to seize their stuff for evidence." "Ok."

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I agree with you here. If this was motivated by people up high in the government that don't want people using alternative currencies, I really doubt the actual people that raided the place knew that, they were just told they laundered money and to raid them. And of course if the charges are correct (or reasonably believed to be correct) then there also isn't an ethical problem imo.
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but say that, not "ZOMG YOU'RE EXCUSE IS NO DIFFERENT THAN HITLER!!!" That's both wrong and very, very rude.

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I'm not trying to be rude or slime anyone by associating an action with Hitler (or a hitman, which was the example I used). My point was just to point out the faulty logic that the "Just doing my job" argument employs by using an anology.

[VarlosZ]

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Then the excuse is that the ends justify the means, not "just doing my job".

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Sometimes that's a perfectly good justification. Any morality which fails to take consequences into account seems crazy.

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but say that, not "ZOMG YOU'RE EXCUSE IS NO DIFFERENT THAN HITLER!!!" That's both wrong and very, very rude.

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I'm not trying to be rude or slime anyone by associating an action with Hitler (or a hitman, which was the example I used). My point was just to point out the faulty logic that the "Just doing my job" argument employs by using an anology.

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Fair enough, and I agree that it's worth pointing that "just doing my job" is a dubious rationale for committing immoral acts. Sometimes, however, the circumstances involved in being a subordinate who merely carries out orders do make "JDMJ" a reasonable explanation (such as if the order's morality is merely in doubt, or if it's judged to be a very minor sin).

I think it is a good excuse in this case. Others can reasonably disagree, but the thing about the Nazi analogy is this: just because an excuse can and has been used in a terrible, stupid way doesn't mean it can never be a valid justification.

Given that, comparing people to Nazis is a pointless red herring: yes, the excuse has been abused in the past, but no, that doesn't tell us anything about whether it's being abused right now. It just raises tempers.