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Lunabell

(6,089 posts)
Tue Mar 19, 2024, 02:31 AM Mar 19

Oh, this is a good read about "protest voting" or not voting because, you know, Biden's not their perfect candidate. [View all]

From 2020, but absolutely tells it like it is.

Short walks down long piers.

As you jog down the pier, early in the morning, you see someone in the water, flailing to stay afloat. They’re drowning and there’s nobody around but you. Fortunately, there’s a floatation device—aptly called a lifesaver—nearby, attached to a rope on a reel. All you have to do is trigger the control to lower it into the water and rescue them.

Do you pull the lever to save them or do you walk away?

Many pages have been filled by philosophers debating scenarios akin to this one, but sophisticated analysis is wasted on so simple a case. It’s open and shut. Whether they arrive at the obvious conclusion through tedious reasoning from first principles about deontology, virtues, the veil of ignorance, utilitarianism, or some other idea, no system of ethics deserving of the name will contradict what common sense and empathy make plain: You have a moral obligation to save the person who’s drowning.

There are people who would deny this. Some are simply evil; there’s not much to say about them. Others are evil in more complicated ways, such as by insisting that you can never have a positive obligation to do anything without explicit prior agreement. This is nonsense in general, but it’s bigger nonsense in specific because we’re not saying you should risk your life by jumping in the water; all you have to do is pull a lever. How hard is that?

It is literally the least you could do as a decent human being.

But other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?

Fact: Donald Trump is an incompetent, bigoted, corrupt traitor.

There are actually people who would deny this. Perhaps they don’t consider his mishandling of COVID-19 to be gross incompetence. Perhaps they don’t recognize the bigotry of calling Mexicans rapists. Perhaps they don’t see the corruption in funneling taxpayer money into his golf courses. Perhaps they don’t acknowledge the treason in seeking foreign aid to win re-election. Perhaps they’re oblivious to all the many examples of these failings, not to mention others.

https://truth-sandwich.com/2020/08/10/the-impotence-of-being-earnest/
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