EVIL

[Funk, E.]

There were also alot of humorous side notes too... okay, you didn't think it was funny. Fine. My bad, I apologize

[Funk, E.]

It's funny everyone's all prickly about Greogie boy and not my Nixon slight... I guess my only crime is not waiting till he's dead to make fun of him...

[J.R.]

Well, Nixon is reviled so much that it's accepted. And I don't think that Bush, among his percieved crimes, is responsible for as many deaths as the Vietnam war.

If you're going after Bush be fair and include Clinton. His unbelievably corrupt record in Arkansas, Waco, Juanita Broderick, and the half-assed excursions into Somalia and Bosnia. The events depicted in Black Hawk Down were the biggest firefight involving American soldiers since Vietnam, an open act of war, the troops were pulled out two weeks later, and guess what? People are still starving over there. I guess that's what happens when the Commander In Chief never served in the military.

[Fearless Freep]

There were also alot of humorous side notes too... okay, you didn't think it was funny. Fine. My bad, I apologize

OK, I may have overreacted.  My apology as well.

[wheresthecarrot]

See, I don't think clinton was evil, just dumb.....Bush.....selfish and greedy.....he went after money, which many people say is the root of all evil.....yeah, clinton did corrupt things, like watergate for personal gain, but he also didnt do things like open up a bunch of protected land for oil drilling.....i dont think he's evil really, just stupid and pathetic, but in a way that seems much more threatening than clinton's idiocy

On a side not, if we're going to get into botched military operations, then i guess JFK who everyone thinks was a cool guy, is evil too.

I know its just for fun, but evil's a strong word....i think we need to really think about who we attatch it to, aside from humorous side notes everyone knows are silly, but if its what you really believe then that's cool

[Chadzilla]

wheresthecarrot wrote:
>
> I know its just for fun, but evil's a strong word....i think
> we need to really think about who we attatch it to, aside
> from humorous side notes everyone knows are silly, but if its
> what you really believe then that's cool
>

What he said.
Couldn't have said it better myself.

In the prestigious intellectual publication that is the Sunday Parade section of your newspaper, crime writer/childrens rights attorney Andrew Vachss addressed True Evil as opposed to just dubbing immoral or greedy (or something you just don't agree with) behavior as Evil.  The proof in the pudding in his argument is that truly evil people destroy or hurt and maim not to further a cause or too strengthen their power base, they do so simply because it is what they enjoy doing and THAT is evil.  Example - a mother rents her child out to pornographers - a pretty vile act - but does she do it to make money to survive or does she do it because she LIKES subjecting her child to that torture.  The if it is yes to the former, she is not evil, simply immoral, if the answer is the second, then yes, she is evil.

That being said, let me enflame many by saying that I don't think of either OBL or Saddam as being Truly Evil, just dangerous and immoral.

[Fearless Freep]

For what it's worth, I don't really believe in Evil.   I think Evil is just something invented to call "something I think is really, really, wrong", but in a way that bypasses personalities.  This is a religious perspective, but I think 'evil' allows you to classify something as wrong without involving God or Satan or any other religious accountabilities.  "Evil" is kinda like "Satan without a face" because if you can say something is evil in it's own right, without it being in relationship to a moral authority that defines right and wrong, then you don't really have to face the personal responsibilities that it would entail.

Evil is "Sin" with the ultimate object, and to lesser degree, the origin, of sin removed. Sin entails a moral authority and as soon as you invoke that, it comes back to bite you.  So you can say "evil" and it's safe because there needn't be a personality behind it

But it's hard to talk abuot Evil without getting metaphysical

[Dano]

Chadzilla:  The proof in the pudding in his argument is that truly evil people destroy or hurt and maim not to further a cause or too strengthen their power base, they do so simply because it is what they enjoy doing and THAT is evil.
*****  Nope, I don't buy that.  Stalin didn't murder millions and millions of people because he just liked it.  He did it to neutralize his enemies, intimidate potential enemies, and manipulate the size of his population so his bizarre economic ideas would work.  That doesn't make him not evil.  Mao caused the most deadly famine in human history (30+ million; starving people actually defoliated hundreds of square miles of China by eating grass and trees) to make his own twisted economic ideas work.  There were reasons behind it and it was evil.

Even Hitler's strange motives to waste manpower, resources, and transportation assets (not to mention alienating potential allies like Ukraine) with his Final Solution and mass murder of civilians in the USSR can be twisted into some logical "reasons" if you look at it from merely the standpoint of "furthering a cause."

Evil is no doubt an overused word thrown around a lot in polemics and also jokingly, but to say that evil only exists for evil's own sake is to cast too narrow a definition, I think.

[Funk, E.]

Wow! bad humor turns into philosophical debate... film at 11 ;-)

[wheresthecarrot]

>
> What he said.
> Couldn't have said it better myself.

It's not really important....but "he" is actually a "she"

; )

[AndyC]

Funk, E. wrote:
>
> Wow! bad humor turns into philosophical debate... film at 11
> ;-)

It's beginning to happen with almost disturbing regularity.

[Funk, E.]

Well that starts a whole new debate. Why do bright people like dumb movies? ;-)

Do want to thank everyone especially Fearless and J.R. for keeping a level head. I admire and appreciate a heated debate that doesn't turn into immature name calling.  It's nice to be on a message board were everything doesn't turn into a flame war. I do appreciate and respect that.