Responsibility

[Adios]

Why would you have to shoot someone to feel like you've done something? Why not just get the guy distracted, then bop him on the head and make off with the tractor? That way, you haven't killed anyone, and now you have a tractor to fight back with.

This doesn't really work as well in metaphor form as I had hoped, but anyway.

Then you go to jail for assault and grand theft. Overall in the scenario you will not win. But you have to stand for something or you'll fall for everything.

The OP also places a burden of responsibility on the tractor operator. I agree with this.

Well I DON'T. I have this thing against overreacting against people who are just trying to do their job, see.

I have this thing about overreacting when someone is trying to flatten my house.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

But its not just the guy on the tractor. Its also the guy in the house who thought he would get a loan on a farm and make his dream come true, he willingly entered into a agreement, he is responsible for his actions. His neighbors are responsible for their choice of action or inaction when they see the tractor show up to knock the house down. There is a Machine, there is a Social System, Memetic Entities... but their existence doesn't remove responsibility or culpability from the individual. It simply provides a model that helps us understand 'Why' someone may choose to act like an asshole.

I think individuals are responsible for their choice to act. The act may be an order from on high, but the individual is capable of determining the rightness or wrongness of the act.

[tyrannosaurus vex]

....Or the farmer could just pay his mortgage in the first place, and he doesn't have to shoot anybody.

The fact is that if a bank is in such a position as to bulldoze your house, then it is because the house is not really yours. You are borrowing it, or renting it, or whatever, and it belongs to someone else who has a right to do whatever they want to with it. The farmer in this case seems to have overestimated his position.

It may be sad for him that he's about to lose everything, but society works on rules, and as much as I admire bending or breaking the rules to achieve a better system, shooting people is not going to help much, especially when it's just a lone farmer and he breaks a fundamental rule (Don't Kill People) over a pile of sticks that doesn't even belong to him.

I agree with Cram -- large superbiological creatures like Governments and Banks do not deal as equals with individuals. Individuals must form other organizations which then can deal as equals to Governments or Banks. By himself, an Individual, however noble and right, is simply not worth considering from the perspective of a large organization. No amount of flying lead is going to change that reality.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

Why would you have to shoot someone to feel like you've done something? Why not just get the guy distracted, then bop him on the head and make off with the tractor? That way, you haven't killed anyone, and now you have a tractor to fight back with.

This doesn't really work as well in metaphor form as I had hoped, but anyway.

Then you go to jail for assault and grand theft. Overall in the scenario you will not win. But you have to stand for something or you'll fall for everything.

The OP also places a burden of responsibility on the tractor operator. I agree with this.

Well I DON'T. I have this thing against overreacting against people who are just trying to do their job, see.

Sure, in this instance.. what if instead, the guy was there to carry off the brown people hiding in your attic? Where's the line between "that asshole wants to knock down my building" and "That asshole wants to recapture these folk and drag them back to their plantation owners"? Once that line is crossed, is it still just a guy doing his job? Would fighting him, maybe killing him be overreacting?

What if killing him meant you could get the escapees to a different safe location?

If you just give them up, do you bear any responsibility?

[Adios]

How did we get to the assumptions that the farmer was behind in payments or not the owner? Are you going to make me read Grapes of Wrath again?

[Freeky]

Why would you have to shoot someone to feel like you've done something? Why not just get the guy distracted, then bop him on the head and make off with the tractor? That way, you haven't killed anyone, and now you have a tractor to fight back with.

This doesn't really work as well in metaphor form as I had hoped, but anyway.

Then you go to jail for assault and grand theft. Overall in the scenario you will not win. But you have to stand for something or you'll fall for everything.

The OP also places a burden of responsibility on the tractor operator. I agree with this.

Well I DON'T. I have this thing against overreacting against people who are just trying to do their job, see.

Sure, in this instance.. what if instead, the guy was there to carry off the brown people hiding in your attic? Where's the line between "that asshole wants to knock down my building" and "That asshole wants to recapture these folk and drag them back to their plantation owners"? Once that line is crossed, is it still just a guy doing his job? Would fighting him, maybe killing him be overreacting?

What if killing him meant you could get the escapees to a different safe location?

If you just give them up, do you bear any responsibility?

There's a lot of things involved. I am a  straight up pacifist, you couldn't make me kill anyone. I would, however, defend to the best of my ability what I hold dear and important.

[Dysfunctional Cunt]

Whatever you do, in the end, no one really wins.  You may keep your home for a few more months.  You may get off on the murder charges, but then the guy's family will sue you in civil court and guess what.....

New driver to shoot?

The blame goes on us for allowing things to get this far.  For bailing out the banks when there are people out there starving and homeless.  It's one thing to fight for your family's lives and their home.  I think most people would do that.  But what will your family do when you are in jail or dead?

There is no happy medium and no win win situation. 

[tyrannosaurus vex]

How did we get to the assumptions that the farmer was behind in payments or not the owner? Are you going to make me read Grapes of Wrath again?

People's houses don't generally get bulldozed for no reason at all (except in Palestine). If there are no legal grounds for the bulldozing, then of course the bulldozer driver is culpable, as is everyone else. But that would be an aberration so the discussion in that case is more a novelty than a critique on the way society works as a rule.

[Adios]

Casy goes with Tom to the Joad property only to find it deserted. They meet up there with Muley (John Qualen) who is hiding out there. In a flashback, he describes how farmers all over the area were forced from their farms by the deed holders of the land, including a striking scene where a local boy (Irving Bacon), hired for the purpose, knocks down Muley's house with a Caterpillar tractor. Following this, Tom and Casy move on to find the Joad family at Tom's uncle John's place. His family is happy to see Tom and explain they have made plans to head for California in search of employment as their farm has been foreclosed by the bank.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Grapes_of_Wrath_%28film%29

This does change things.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

How did we get to the assumptions that the farmer was behind in payments or not the owner? Are you going to make me read Grapes of Wrath again?

People's houses don't generally get bulldozed for no reason at all (except in Palestine). If there are no legal grounds for the bulldozing, then of course the bulldozer driver is culpable, as is everyone else. But that would be an aberration so the discussion in that case is more a novelty than a critique on the way society works as a rule.

Or Imminent Domain ala Arthur Dent's home (and planet Earth) in Hitchhiker's Guide.

[Cramulus]

Why would you have to shoot someone to feel like you've done something? Why not just get the guy distracted, then bop him on the head and make off with the tractor? That way, you haven't killed anyone, and now you have a tractor to fight back with.

This doesn't really work as well in metaphor form as I had hoped, but anyway.

Then you go to jail for assault and grand theft. Overall in the scenario you will not win. But you have to stand for something or you'll fall for everything.

The OP also places a burden of responsibility on the tractor operator. I agree with this.

Well I DON'T. I have this thing against overreacting against people who are just trying to do their job, see.

Sure, in this instance.. what if instead, the guy was there to carry off the brown people hiding in your attic? Where's the line between "that asshole wants to knock down my building" and "That asshole wants to recapture these folk and drag them back to their plantation owners"? Once that line is crossed, is it still just a guy doing his job? Would fighting him, maybe killing him be overreacting?

What if killing him meant you could get the escapees to a different safe location?

If you just give them up, do you bear any responsibility?

Great caesar's post!

You're right, there is an element of muckiness when the system gets to a certain level of fucked up. While I do think it's wrong to shoot the tractor driver, or for pro-lifers to assassinate doctors who perform abortions, I don't think it's wrong to shoot the nazis who are trying to exterminate your and your neighbors. So what's the difference between those two cases?

[Adios]

Now having the data concerning why, I would pack and move. Even if it was the depression and the houses would be empty and fall down.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

Why would you have to shoot someone to feel like you've done something? Why not just get the guy distracted, then bop him on the head and make off with the tractor? That way, you haven't killed anyone, and now you have a tractor to fight back with.

This doesn't really work as well in metaphor form as I had hoped, but anyway.

Then you go to jail for assault and grand theft. Overall in the scenario you will not win. But you have to stand for something or you'll fall for everything.

The OP also places a burden of responsibility on the tractor operator. I agree with this.

Well I DON'T. I have this thing against overreacting against people who are just trying to do their job, see.

Sure, in this instance.. what if instead, the guy was there to carry off the brown people hiding in your attic? Where's the line between "that asshole wants to knock down my building" and "That asshole wants to recapture these folk and drag them back to their plantation owners"? Once that line is crossed, is it still just a guy doing his job? Would fighting him, maybe killing him be overreacting?

What if killing him meant you could get the escapees to a different safe location?

If you just give them up, do you bear any responsibility?

Great caesar's post!

You're right, there is an element of muckiness when the system gets to a certain level of fucked up. While I do think it's wrong to shoot the tractor driver, or for pro-lifers to assassinate doctors who perform abortions, I don't think it's wrong to shoot the nazis who are trying to exterminate your and your neighbors.

Well I went for Abolition instead of Nazis just to escape Godwin

So what's the difference between those two cases?

I personally don't have an attachment to stuff like houses so I probably wouldn't risk death/jail over it. In an instance where humans are being harmed, though, I probably would act. Individual choice, based on my ethics, created by the social/memetic entities I've interacted with say "Stuff == not that important... humans==important". Some other person though, maybe raised with different social entities(like Family), might well think that house is pretty damned important ("My great-great-great grandfather built this house and its been part of my family for 200 years...)

[Adios]

Rat, excellent points. I am sure uncounted numbers have died trying to help other people. Many in the Underground Railroad, using your example. And, yes, many in Nazi Germany.

It is a purpose worth dying over indeed.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

It the number one thing I like about the so called "Rational Anarchist"* philosophy espoused in the book The Moon is a Harsh Mistress:

"A rational anarchist believes that concepts such as 'state' and 'society' and 'government' have no existence save as physically exemplified in the acts of self-responsible individuals. He believes that it is impossible to shift blame, share blame, distribute blame . . . as blame, guilt, responsibility are matters taking place inside human beings singly and nowhere else.  But being rational, he knows that not all individuals hold his evaluations, so he tries to live perfectly in an imperfect world . . . aware that his effort will be less than perfect yet undismayed by self-knowledge of self-failure."

Mannie: "Hear, hear!" I said. "'Less than perfect.' What I've been aiming for all my life."

"You've achieved it," said Wyoh. "Professor, your words sound good but there is something slippery about them. Too much power in the hands of individuals—surely you would not want . . well, H-missiles for example—to be controlled by one irresponsible person?"
Prof: "My point is that one person is responsible. Always. If H-bombs exist—and they do—some man controls them. In terms of morals there is no such thing as a 'state.' Just men. Individuals. Each responsible for his own acts."

It does seem that corporations, governments etc use the fictional entity to cover their actions...

"I'm not responsible for waterboarding them rag-heads, I was just followin' orders."
"My legal counsel said that the Geneva Conventions don't apply... I took his advice, I'm not responsible"
"We The Corporation regret that you have lost all of your retirement, However, we are now in bankrupcy and can't help you... excuse me while I go hang out on my yacht."



* I am aware that I may get shat on for using the A word on PD.com