The Glade 4.0

Seems rather odd that this one thread is enough for people to start equating Farther to Monte.

I don't see the semblance when you consider positions across multiple threads, posting type and language use. He might be a bit bleeding heart in this particular topic, but others he has taken a much more moderate to conservative position, iirc.

It's not the position by itself, it's also the tactics.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Good luck legislating human decency or compassion.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

He's not arguing tht. He's arguing that the firefighters should have put it out of their own accord out of human decency.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

By robbing the township of the resources it uses to protect those it is actually responsible for? There is no human decency in that act.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

The fact that multiple logical and compelling reasons to refuse to assist someone that hasn't arraigned for protection were dismissed as a "shotgun approach" and the "humanity aspect" of the situation achieved paramount importance (in spite of the fact that it ignored exactly those consequences to those that had arraigned for protection) is what suggested to me that I've heard this argument before.

Who does "Don't obfuscate the situation with facts... there are FEELINGS involved!" bring to mind?

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In time, this too shall pass.

That's the counterargument everyone has been making for most of the thread. However, that still does not mean he's arguing you should legislate compassion in any way.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Sure it does. It means that he is arguing you should legislate compassion as he views it - not as other people view it.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

No, it does not. Arguing that people should voluntarily do something as a compassionate act does not mean you are arguing that they should be legally required to do it.

If your argument is that by fighting the fire the firefighters would be legislating compassion, I'll point out that firefighters do not create legislation. You could call it misuse of public property, in which case the town could take legal action against... volunteer firefighters, who could easily all quit. That would be exceedingly foolish to do.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

They wouldn't rob the town of much by putting the fire out. Remember, they responded to the fire and brought all their equipment. I'm guessing they "primed" it and had it ready to go too. The only thing they didn't do was pump the water. Actually, they did that too, because they had to put out a fire on his neighbor's property when his fire spread. I'd guess they saved less than 10% of what the total cost of putting out the fire would have been by not putting it out.

They didn't put it out because they didn't want other people to not pay and expect to have their fires put out. That's pretty much the beginning and end of it.

I think that was his point.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Robbing someone of $100 or $1000 or $10,000 is still robbing them.

The beginning and end of the matter occurs when folks arrange for protection and their property becomes the responsibility of that fire department.

The district can't commit resources to folks who haven't arranged for them when those resources are needed to maintain their duty to those who rely on them. "Human decency" can't be achieved by ignoring one's responsibility.

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In time, this too shall pass.

http://www.kpxq1360.com/news/commentary/11640180/

More fun with necro-posts.

I lost all interest in that article as soon as I saw that it tried to equate being godless to not helping the guy.

/shrug

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Darksiege
Traveller, Calé, Whisperer
Lead me not into temptation; for I know a shortcut

Same here. The judgementalism in that article is disgusting.

The author seems unaware that firefighters are not acting as individuals, but as agents of "Caeser". An individual firefighter does not go decide to fight a blaze by himself. He must follow the orders of his chief. As such he is an agent of "Caeser" and the author seems to have forgotten that Jesus said to give to Caeser what is Caesers.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Interesting. So Christians believe Jesus would have stood there and watched the man's house burn down. I didn't know that, and if he would do such a thing, he isn't anyone I'd want to be a follower of.

Jesus Himself could simply command the flames to die.

Followers of Jesus would not, of themselves, want to see anyone's home burn down. However, Jesus also commanded obedience to the civil authorities, and he did not approve of stealing. Misappropriation of publicly-owned firefighting equipment would be a form of stealing, and the civil authorities would be the town that established this policy.

There might be something to be said for this angle if it were the first time this had happened, but it was not. This was the second time it had happened and the man was trying to take advantage of his neighbors. He clearly did not follow the command to love his neighbor as himself, feeling he was entitled to wait until he needed the services to pay for them unlike everyone else.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

That can be said of non-Christians, too. Apparently, there are non-Christians who are more compassionate toward people who make mistakes than some Christians are. Again, not something I'd want to be a part of.

I just don't understand the mentality of people who honestly seem to believe they can wish, hope, and feel their way through life.

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Ezekiel 23:19-20 

So what? No one said it could not.



You wouldn't want to be a Christian because SOME non-christians are more compassionate than SOME non-christians?

Nice double standard. I guess I'm glad I'm not a non Christian because some Christians are more compassionate than some non Christians.

It has been repeatedly explained that this guy did not "make a mistake" he did this before, and knew perfectly well what he was doing. it was entirely intentional

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

To say nothing of the sort of person who chooses not to follow a particualr belief but then attempts to cherry-pick tenets of that belief in order to use it as a bludgeon against those who do.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

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Ezekiel 23:19-20 

You can say that about the opponents of most religions DE, and you can say it about those that follow other religions and those that follow none.

We're a contentious species, we like to argue. We wouldn't be posting here if we didn't. Of course most of us prefer to argue in rational terms, but others don't.

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The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself. B. Franklin

"A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone." -- Tyrion Lannister, A Game of Thrones

It's not a double standard. It's a recognition that Christians claim to be followers of Jesus, yet they're all over the spectrum of what he expects of them as his followers. When you all are in agreement as to what he expects, then maybe people like me will listen to what you have to say on the subject.

Rynar, you don't really have control over your own life, nearly as much as you apparently think. You cannot control whether you get cancer, at best you can reduce the risks. You cannot control whether some guy runs a light and puts you in a wheelchair. To some degree, all of life is wishing, hoping, and feeling. I'd rather know one man who's willing to help in spite of my failures, than know ten men who would stand there and let my house burn down because they judged that I did not deserve the help. The ten can go take a hike, and they have nothing to say to me that I'll pay attention to.

Which is precisely why your house would have burned down in the first place. You should have listened to the ten men who said, "if you do not pay the fee for fire protection, we will not extinguish your fires".

As to the bit about having control over my own life? I have as much control over my own life as any man, and refuse to allow limitations of the basic human condition to be an excuse to vacate the things I do have control over.

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Ezekiel 23:19-20