"Think Of The Children" - boop boop a doop

[Getting tard comed]

So let me get this straight.

You believe that in these conflicts and ideas, that certain sides believed themselves to be morally superior, and people fought and died in the name of their respective causes, that they believed to be morally superior, but that the conflict wasn't about morality?

Makes no sense. You're grasping at straws. And yes, go read the Leviathan, Hobbes literally claims that the Sovereign is infallible because he is ordained by God to rule.

Yes, because judging historical events retroactively is dumb, and believing an ad hoc justification for events in history is just as dumb. Hobbes was not the first to believe or suggest in Divine Right of kings. The concept of Divine Right is one arguing for authority basing it on God transferring said authority to an individual or family.

And yes, just as today we have rioters in america who believe they are morally justified in destroying shit due to an arrest gone badly the people behind the rioters, actually pushing for the ideas behind what the rioters are saying don't care about the morality of it. Morality is a tool they are using.

The 30 year had way more to do with church property in countries no where near Italy than it did the Pope moral justification of being correct. No matter what MLK did there is no war if the King and princes in Germany(and England) didn't gain anything out of it to warrant going to war. Same with all the other conflicts you mentioned. Morality is a tool for other ends, not the cause in all the situations you mentioned and in most situations in general.

 

[A Cardboard Box]

Yes, because judging historical events retroactively is dumb, and believing an ad hoc justification for events in history is just as dumb. Hobbes was not the first to believe or suggest in Divine Right of kings. The concept of Divine Right is one arguing for authority basing it on God transferring said authority to an individual or family.

And yes, just as today we have rioters in america who believe they are morally justified in destroying shit due to an arrest gone badly the people behind the rioters, actually pushing for the ideas behind what the rioters are saying don't care about the morality of it. Morality is a tool they are using.

The 30 year had way more to do with church property in countries no where near Italy than it did the Pope moral justification of being correct. No matter what MLK did there is no war if the King and princes in Germany(and England) didn't gain anything out of it to warrant going to war. Same with all the other conflicts you mentioned. Morality is a tool for other ends, not the cause in all the situations you mentioned and in most situations in general.

Holy shit. Are you familiar with the Chivalric Code? How about the Inquisition? For a thousand years Euros killed each other in the name of morality.

The 30 Years War was even nominally over the moral superiority of the Catholic Church over the Protestants, who they considered to be heretics. That was LITERALLY their causus belli.

Your assertion that our current social upheaval is totally novel and unique is asinine. Shit, we're basically living through the Revolutions of 1848, there's significant parallels between then and now. We aren't special and nothing is new under the sun.

Edit: Read the initial argument that was even presented. This was never about some dude on high pulling strings, this was about why people in the street are fighting. Most of the people that fight for a cause legitimately believe in it. Most Catholics in the 30YW believed they were doing God's work, etc.

 

[The Pink Panther]

Again, wrong. "We are the Sons of Crusaders and we will not recoil from the Sons of Voltaire!"

That quote was about not selling out old school autocratic, catholic influence to democrats.

Moreover look at the Inquisition. Thousands were burnt, broken, butchered, and murdered by the Inquisition because "be moral or else."

It is the same shit, it has always been the same shit. There is nothing new under the sun.

Not even trying to be a dick, I highly recommend becoming well versed in at least Western history before you try taking up this argument.

But it is different compared to today, right?

Like you realize a lot of that was about conquest rather than globalization, right?

 

[A Cardboard Box]

But it is different compared to today, right?

Like you realize a lot of that was about conquest rather than globalization, right?

Just because the barometer changes doesn't mean it's a new phenomenon. Replace "globalists" with "communists" and "nationalists" with "capitalists" and we're back to the 60s. In fact the 60s are pretty on point for all of this. Look at the Long Hot Summer of 1967, there's your riots. The Weather Underground is your Antifa, Black Lives Matter is your Malcom X types. There's absolutely none of this that's novel, at all.

Edit: Moreover the conflict between the Inquisition and heretics was not about conquest, nor the French Old Guard vs the Democrats. Those were both internal conflicts about the direction of the future, just like now.

 

[Getting tard comed]

Holy shit. Are you familiar with the Chivalric Code? How about the Inquisition? For a thousand years Euros killed each other in the name of morality.

The 30 Years War was even nominally over the moral superiority of the Catholic Church over the Protestants, who they considered to be heretics. That was LITERALLY their causus belli.

Your assertion that our current social upheaval is totally novel and unique is asinine. Shit, we're basically living through the Revolutions of 1848, there's significant parallels between then and now. We aren't special and nothing is new under the sun.

Yes, I'm familiar with all of those, you dont seem to be. You are believing statements written by people who have a vested interest in the outcome of events they are covering which is dumb. And I'm not the one who is looking at the current social upheaval and thinking it's new. I'm saying it's always been this way and morality is simply another weapon. You are making a claim that the previous conflicts are different from today's in that they were moral.

Morality can be used as a justification for anything, which is why it was and is used. I'm not sure why you believe it today with hindsight.

Americas civil war wasn't started or fought over slavery. It is remembered as being fought over slavery. Do you believe it was? If so you have to ignore all the writings that said it wasn't about slavery until it magically was. The Union didn't demand the states apart of it free their slaves. The Emancipation Proclamation didn't do anything seeing as it freed slaves not apart of the Union and technically apart of either a rival country or states in direct insurrection depending on your POV.

The Spanish Inquisition(yes I know the Inquisition was more than just the Spanish one) was implemented after the Spaniards too back their country from the Moors(whom a certain group of people let in) which took then 300-400 odd years. That wasn't for morality, that was for defense no matter what was said.

Your view of history is naive if you believe the summerization of historians and dont factor in the individual people's wants, needs, faults, and foibles involved in the situations. People today have multiple reasons to claim the moral high ground, and write and say one thing to justify their actions and those actions are very rarely moral. There is no reason to assume that is a recent development and any in depth reading or research into the events will show you the "moral justification" was just that, a justification without the morality being there in the first place.

 

[A Cardboard Box]

Yes, I'm familiar with all of those, you dont seem to be. You are believing statements written by people who have a vested interest in the outcome of events they are covering which is dumb. And I'm not the one who is looking at the current social upheaval and thinking it's new. I'm saying it's always been this way and morality is simply another weapon. You are making a claim that the previous conflicts are different from today's in that they were moral.

Morality can be used as a justification for anything, which is why it was and is used. I'm not sure why you believe it today with hindsight.

Americas civil war wasn't started or fought over slavery. It is remembered as being fought over slavery. Do you believe it was? If so you have to ignore all the writings that said it wasn't about slavery until it magically was. The Union didn't demand the states apart of it free their slaves. The Emancipation Proclamation didn't do anything seeing as it freed slaves not apart of the Union and technically apart of either a rival country or states in direct insurrection depending on your POV.

The Spanish Inquisition(yes I know the Inquisition was more than just the Spanish one) was implemented after the Spaniards too back their country from the Moors(whom a certain group of people let in) which took then 300-400 odd years. That wasn't for morality, that was for defense no matter what was said.

Your view of history is naive if you believe the summerization of historians and dont factor in the individual people's wants, needs, faults, and foibles involved in the situations. People today have multiple reasons to claim the moral high ground, and write and say one thing to justify their actions and those actions are very rarely moral. There is no reason to assume that is a recent development and any in depth reading or research into the events will show you the "moral justification" was just that, a justification without the morality being there in the first place.

My entire point is that this period in history is totally non-unique. You're reading into something that isn't there. You're responding to an argument that wasn't made. You're making arguments with absolutely NO EVIDENCE. You keep saying "you're wrong you're wrong" and you've yet to actually make a point using historical evidence, or you just make baseless claims.

Slavery absolutely had a huge part in the Civil War, considering that the CSA explicitly had slavery in their constitutions. Bloody Kansas, the Missouri Compromise, Harper's Ferry, they all had to do with slavery. Every single violent act leading up to Fort Sumpter was because of slavery. The only other cause of action remotely close to slavery was industrial tariffs. So no, slavery wasn't the only reason but it was most of it, comically so.

The Spanish Inquisition was formed to maintain catholic orthodoxy, mostly in regards to new converts. Even more than that, however, it was formed to be separate from Papal authority. Also nobody "let" the Moors in, they were there basically forever, and then there was a war in which the Catholics got smashed, and then there was the Reconquista. You're trying to do the thing where you equate the Moors taking over Spain to letting illegals into the US or Arabs into the EU, and they aren't comparable, at all.

Read "On the Origins of War: And the Preservation of Peace"

 

[The Sauce Boss]

This isn't anything new. When WW2 was beginning, the majority of Americans did NOT want to go to war and wanted to mind their own business. Unfortunately at the time the US had a president who was in bed with the UK and Russia, so the "evil germans attacking the poor people/jews in Europe" narrative was created.

If you hear anyone say they care about people in other countries, you must always question their motives behind it. Anyone that says migrants are a positive thing are talking out of their ass. There has been more than enough proof that they cause more harm than good for any country.

Okay, just gonna say this first. There is nothing wrong with LEGAL migration, and in some cases, it's genuinely necessary. Many of our greatest American scientific advancements were made by residents of our country whose families or they themselves went through the proper legal channels to migrate to this country. Unchecked, however, migration leads to racial/ethnic clash and a destabilization of the job market, so it's something that needs to be monitored.

Another term for this is "Virtue Signaling". These people like to re-assure themselves that they are a good person by following what's "in", and right now "Black Lives Matter" is what's currently "in". Everyone has met at least one person that spews out "I can't be racist, I know plenty of black people that I am also friends with", well now times that by 100, and that's the majority of the country right now.


And now, you have a world where the word "Nationalism" is a dirty word because when people think that, they automatically link it to Nazis. There's absolutely nothing wrong with putting your country first before anything else, but the people in power have been fucking things up for quite some time and pushing a narrative that's the total opposite, partially for personal gain.


That, and between mainstream media and almost every university/college teaching nothing but communist/marxist ways, people have been brainwashed to think one way, and what you are witnessing is the result of those teachings and brainwashing in effect.

Much like all things, Nationalism is a force that is good in moderation. The simple fact is that in the current balance of the world, the man with the biggest dick is also the man with the biggest target on his back. Look at how everyone in the West is slowly but surely turning on China. Look how everyone in the third world and some of Europe is slowly turning on the US. Look at how Russia is viewed as a Snidely Whiplash Saturday-morning cartoon villain by the Eurosphere. While national pride is good for the long-term health of the nation-state, unchecked nationalism leads to the same form of national hubris that has destroyed empires and kingdoms for centuries. The simple fact of the matter is that in the 21st century, one can no longer afford to be strictly isolationist without devolving into a 'hermit kingdom' with little influence on the global stage. One must balance the forces of nationalism and globalism even-handedly and towards the goals of said nation. Post-Soviet Russia has mastered this- despite souring opinion on Russia, you'll be hard-pressed to find a Russian who isn't proud to be a Russian, regardless of whether they like Putin or despise him. Russians view themselves as a strong, hardy, and traditionalist people, even among their more left-leaning wing. Poland has a similar situation, and while I don't agree with most Polish politics recently, they manage to maintain a fiercely independent Polish identity while being a respected member of the global body politic.

Politics is the balancing plate trick, but with nukes, armies, and economies for plates, and putting too much weight on any one limb might send the whole thing toppling.

 

[Getting tard comed]

It's literally always been this way, though. Going back to the Catholic Church vs royal sovereignty, the Catholics claimed they were ordained by God Himself, therefore were morally superior to the worldly sovereigns. Hobbes claimed the sovereign had absolute authority over the people because he was given Divine Right, and therefore was morally infallible. The 30
Years War between the Catholics and the Protestants was a war over moral superiority. The 1910s were Democracy vs Autocracy. The 30s and 40s were Democracy vs Fascism, the 50s-90s were Democracy vs Communism.

It has ALWAYS been a question of morality. The only thing that changes is the barometers.

My entire point is that this period in history is totally non-unique. You're reading into something that isn't there. You're responding to an argument that wasn't made. You're making arguments with absolutely NO EVIDENCE. You keep saying "you're wrong you're wrong" and you've yet to actually make a point using historical evidence, or you just make baseless claims.

Slavery absolutely had a huge part in the Civil War, considering that the CSA explicitly had slavery in their constitutions. Bloody Kansas, the Missouri Compromise, Harper's Ferry, they all had to do with slavery. Every single violent act leading up to Fort Sumpter was because of slavery. The only other cause of action remotely close to slavery was industrial tariffs. So no, slavery wasn't the only reason but it was most of it, comically so.

The Spanish Inquisition was formed to maintain catholic orthodoxy, mostly in regards to new converts. Even more than that, however, it was formed to be separate from Papal authority. Also nobody "let" the Moors in, they were there basically forever, and then there was a war in which the Catholics got smashed, and then there was the Reconquista. You're trying to do the thing where you equate the Moors taking over Spain to letting illegals into the US or Arabs into the EU, and they aren't comparable, at all.

Read "On the Origins of War: And the Preservation of Peace"

I'm responding to the argument you made in the above quote where you assert it has always been morale. My point is that it has never been morale. I've given you multiple scenarios that serve as evidence for my point and explain why your assertion that those conflicts were moral are incorrect.

I am making nor was I going to make any connection to the Moors and current American immigration issues, and I suggest you research the Moorish invasion of Spain as well as the Reconquista.(Though I have to admit that's a good connection I hadn't considered. Weird flex, but good on you)

The civil war wasn't fought because of slavery. If you believe that, more power to you. Any competent historian will tell you that.

We can agree to disagree. We look at history and human nature differently.

 

[The Sauce Boss]

I'm responding to the argument you made in the above quote where you assert it has always been morale. My point is that it has never been morale. I've given you multiple scenarios that serve as evidence for my point and explain why your assertion that those conflicts were moral are incorrect.

I am making nor was I going to make any connection to the Moors and current American immigration issues, and I suggest you research the Moorish invasion of Spain as well as the Reconquista.(Though I have to admit that's a good connection I hadn't considered. Weird flex, but good on you)

The civil war wasn't fought because of slavery. If you believe that, more power to you. Any competent historian will tell you that.

We can agree to disagree. We look at history and human nature differently.

As someone born and raised in the Deep South, there is a caveat to this. While slavery was not the only reason that the Confederate States formed, it was arguably the largest unifying reason. The war itself, however, was an entirely punitive action due to the Confederates occupying forts and attacking Fort Sumter.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

Trying to use a group you don't actually give a shit about as a reason to support a political platform is old as politics. The only thing difference today from 20 years ago is that if back then the used group was at least somewhat reasonable (children, miniorities, the poor), now it's groups that deserve only spite (trannies, illegal immigrants, thugs, rich socialites).

 

[Spunt]

People ITT really need to learn some moral and political philosophy holy shit.

All politics comes from morality. All moral codes create political systems. The problem is that OP doesn't understand the definition of either concept.

Altruism =/= Morality. Morality, or ethics, is the study of what is right and wrong, and what those words mean. Political theory is the act of applying those ideas to how human beings should behave on a mass level and how resources should be allocated. Never in history has the study of morality been limited to altruism. Definitions of what is right or wrong have been much wider, and from a much wider variety of ideas than OP seems to understand.

Saying that moral authority is acquired by divine mandate is a perfectly coherent moral philosophy, and was the dominant political philosophy in Europe and the Middle East from the Dark Ages right through to the end of the Middle Ages (so about 500AD-1700AD). You will notice that the formation of nation states only really started around the time that other ideas took hold (again I'm talking about Europe here, the rest of the world was often very different). The Divine Mandate was the moral basis of the Christian Feudal system and the Muslim Iqta system amongst many others - God said the King/Sheikh was in charge, so that is right. God also said go to the Holy Land and kill people, so that was the right thing to do. Of course "God" usually meant "The Pope", "The Grand Mufti" or "The priest that is currently raping you", but that wasn't the official line.

"Might makes right" is a moral philosophy. "I must act in the interest of my tribe because I want to stay alive and not be murdered by those bastards over there" is also a moral philosophy, and the dominant one in pre-Feudal societies. There are plenty of non-altruistic moral philosophies out there. Ayn Rand, Robert Nozick, Nietzche, all put the self first in different ways. Collectivism doesn't equal morality, neither does individualism.

All political ideologies (remember, a political ideology can be summed up as "who gets what, when, how and why") are driven by moral codes. Whether it's egalitarian ethics driving socialism, or "Ug biggest caveman, Ug should be in charge" driving the power structure of a simple tribe, all political systems are based on their creators' views of what is right or wrong. That has never changed. All rulers or would-be rulers think that their way of doing things is right, even if that way of doing things involves murdering everyone who isn't them. Saturday morning cartoons have told a generation that villains just cackle and do things "for the cause of evil". Nobody does that. Nobody believes that they're evil. History's greatest mass-murderers, Atilla, Genghis Khan, Pol Pot, Hitler, Stalin, Mao, all thought that what they were doing was right and necessary. That has never changed and never will, it's just the definition of what that "right" involves that changes.

 

[nanny911]

Responding to the original point: what many think of altruism isn't true altruism. Me giving my brother half my food so he doesn't go hungry for a few hours is altruism (yes you can debate the back-scratching mentality). What are seeing today is authoritarianism wearing altruism's rotten severed face. Just look at a thread where mask laws come up. Although I think some people make good points about mandatory mask laws, those points and the science behind those points is always secondary to the true goal: their feeling of personal security. The N95 mask makes them feel safe-and it may make them safe-but they want you to wear a defective placebo mask just they continue to feel safe, knowing full well that they don't work! Then there's the appeal to emotion, asking you to think of the children and granny when the truth is, they don't give a fuck about them, they give a fuck about themselves. They use "altruism" to manipulate you into doing their bidding. They use it because they think they'll get something out of it. And of course even without the pandemic we see that, democrats give out welfare programs "to help the poor" when what they really want is votes to maintain the plutocracy.

So no, I disagree with the idea that altruism is a bad thing, as long as you're truly altruistic.