So Joan Peterson of the Joyce Foundation and the Brady Campaign linked this article by Time. Go read the whole thing as its interesting. But the overall message is studies show that if a person is given a choice to kill a person to save 5 others they would choose to do that.
It ties well into the gun debate because that is a potential situation when you keep and bear arms. You might be in a situation where somebody or many somebodies could be killed unless you kill the aggressor.
I would go a step further, I see nothing morally wrong with shooting a person committing a violent crime that risks an innocent life. Its something I’d rather NOT do, but if the choice is shoot somebody doing something horrible and morally wrong or allow them to seriously harm or kill another person (we won’t even factor in multiple people) I would question anybody who would make any choice but to kill the aggressor.
And of course there’s factoring in, say somebody willing to rob you with deadly force. They may kill you even if you comply, and do you think this will be their last armed robbery?
So even a single-victim event could still spare the lives of many more people down the road.
And now to the messenger, Ms. Joan Peterson, who would like to make sure we don’t have that choice and the innocent people die.
These are not good people.
I find that standing there and letting evil roam free while doing nothing when it is within your power to stop it morally abject.
If you have the means and ability to protect innocent life and you do nothing you are no better than the individual who has made the decision to harm.*
*note I am not saying one should go looking for trouble, or that one should go running towards it just because they hear it. That if you find yourself in the same room as evil and are able to see it without question with your own eyes, the time for you to act is now.
In the trolley test (in the link), the potential victims are blameless and that is why 90% of the study subjects chose to take the unsavory step to kill one to save five. Basically choosing the lesser of two evils.
When Weerd injects the component of aggression against innocents into the scenario, the moral choice is clear. The aggressor must be stopped, even if it requires lethal force.
However, since Joan Peterson cannot clearly see the moral imperative here, it might make me hesitate before saving her bacon in a life-threatening situation. She must really want to be a martyr or she is blinded by her incorrect conviction, if she cannot see that stopping evil is a requirement for a moral civilization.
I would argue from Joan’s angle she is naturally AMORAL. She blames guns and absolves the people who do horrible things. She talks about how her sister was shot, but never about the man who shot her…nor the warning signs that were VERY clearly documented over the years that would have lead any reasonable person to see the potential for danger with him.
Also as a “Bleeding Heart Liberal” you often see people shedding tears for bad people suffering because of their poor life choices….but never once give so much as a thought to those who make good life choices and aren’t suffering the same fate.
She has become increasingly nonsensical and strident. And fewer and fewer people are commenting.
Today she’s complaining about purse designs that include guns and then in the same article mentions those four crazy coots that wanted to attack the gov’t.
She’s trying to throw up enough mud to see if ANY, ANY at all will stick…..
“throw up enough mud to see if ANY, ANY at all will stick…..” I think that description of that desperate act doesn’t describe her at all. She is simply THRASHING in the mud and has lost all interest in if the mud is sticky or not.
But I agree it used to be she’d write a well-framed blog post and even keep her cool in the comments, and occasionally would do something crazy. I remember suspecting she might occasionally imbibe in alcohol or something similar and review her blog comments. Now her posts make no sense, nor do her ramblings in the comment section.
Don’t know it this is a deterioration in her mental state or just her ability to cover the lunatic when she runs the blog.