If everyone is a hypocrite, then calling someone that becomes useless. This is why that is not the way they are being used in real life. You need the plasticity. You need to reserve the term for those who break their own convictions (pun intended).
But to make it easier for you lets invent weak-hypocracy which we all continuosly do/get away with and differentiate it vs strong-hypocracy where people become upset.
1- Not everybody realises the fact that all people are hypocrites, hence the usefulness of the term. In addition, it can be used for accusations of hypocrisy in particular cases (such as now).
2- The trouble with your terms is that humans are inconsistent in what they get upset by. How about weak hypocrisy if it's very complicated why there is an inconsistency and strong hypocrisy if it should be obvious?
Nope, you did not establish that, you have only made such a claim which I'm arguing is flawed.
If someone acts consistently according to their well stated moral system people in general do not think they are strong-hypocrites. Nor that such acts are necessarily morally wrong. Especially when they do it to the point of breaking the law. This is the whole basis of Civil Disobediance.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_disobedience
So you have to contextualize otherwise your generalisations are simply wrong.
As I have said before, it is hypocritical because they are contradicting
themselves- their oath of office, namely. One should not appeal to people in general on the matter.
Finally, the main difference between those involved in civil disobedience and judges/police is that judges/police claim to be upholders of the law and (at least in the judicial case) have sworn oaths to that effect. In theory if not in practice, oaths are the strongest form of commitment a person can give.
Yes, but are you missing the irony of you saying that?
But lets look at the trope since it speaks to the human condition and why you are missing it.
Its because the law-enforcer has sworn to serve and protect and that the law sometimes gets in the way of that which creates the dilemma. So in the trope the purpose of the law-enforcer is not seen by people as upholding the principle of the law but the spirit of his occupation.
In the case of a judge, who has sworn to uphold the law not to serve and protect, that is clearly wrong. In both cases, this is clearly a repudiation (incidentally) of the doctrine of the Rule of Law and a restoration of something far closer (though not quite at, admittedly) to feudal ideas of sovereignty in which there are rulers who order around the populace for their own good rather than everybody obeying an abstract Law mutable only when it says so.
More importantly, most of the cases of policemen acting as vigilantes (besides being prone to Guantanamo Bay-esque corruption) are related to punishing people for "crimes", rather than protecting society from said people. They also undermine another idea of the Rule of Law- that people should know what they can be potentially punished for.
Did you miss the whole thing with 'if it swings back' and the 'sometimes good sometimes bad' comment?
But really this boils down to you having a very unrealistic use of the term hypocritical.
You chose a morally loaded example, rather than a morally neutral example. It's thus fair to assume without further clarification that there is an implicit moral argument. As for the term hypocritical, see earlier.
Do you really think that
"Most govs do not draw their legitimacy from any constitution, they draw it from power and by the inherent fact of being in control of the gov. " or "In most non-anglosphere democracies, when you come to a situation where the constitution hinders the gov, you simply change it."
only covers non-constitutional countries? If so you're going to be in for a suprise.
Please go read up on the concepts discussed in "The Law of Nations" published in 1758.
I am well aware of many such cases existing in practice- however such cases are hypocritical, because the government is contradicting itself. If you were to ask a government spokesman where their right to power came from, they would not justify it by reference to power itself but by having won the last general election- more importantly, as I have argued earlier their use of legal powers from the Constitution implies they don't (and just about EVERY government would deny if asked that they have the right to break the constitution).
You do realise that what I'd do personally has nothing to do with the topic at hand, right?
I'd use the arguments from the Nuremberg trials to show that crimes against humanity goes above and beyond what local laws was in effect at the time. I'd then try to see if I have political backing to get something more done like an extradiction to the Haag regardless.
Now I can do that because as a simple judge - there are instances above me to which the criminal can appeal. Giving the judicial and political systems in place time to grind and possibly come up with a better solution than I as a mere judge can provide.
It's not an objective moral principle, but I suspect you would care that such an argument leads to inherent chaos- it becomes impossible for a person to know what they could potentially be punished for, as both judicial opinions and societal morality are fickle and change with circumstances- much less so if the Rule of Law was actually upheld. (Incidentally, there is an easy argument for Allied hypocrisy in the event)
Let's assume for the sake of argument that the country where this happened was one where the local dictator withdrew from the United Nations and had not signed up to any treaties on the matter (hence completely legal). Unless you're appealing to God or some idea of Human Rights, where would this idea of a 'higher law' come from? You are clearly making it up for pragmatic purposes.
Acting as a judge, even on a lower level, implies a claim you are upholding the law, making you, if not better, than more legitimate than vigilantes who simply enforce what they see as right (not true in this case). This is true whether appeal exists or not. If the dictator has withdrawn from the United Nations, then he has (temporarily at least) overthrown U.N sovereignty (to the extent it existed to begin with) in the region. He is thus a true sovereign, and legally had pure right to do what he did.
If I were a journalist(factoring for journalistic sensationalism to get my point across), I would accuse you of undermining the Rule of Law and contributing to a world of retrospective legislation where people could be convicted on the government's arbitrary whim. Exaggerated to be sure, but fair enough under the circumstances to justify me saying it.
That's not what getting off on a technicality means.
Then what do you say it means?
Nope, again the false black n white dilemma. Example, as a soldier you have usually sworn an oath implicitly or explicitly to follow orders thinking that you will do so. However you can still find youself getting an order that goes against your consistent morality. Like a military coup. Hence you could act morally by not upholding the oath since doing so would violate the spirit of that contract ie defending your country.
My argument's been made for me here about American soldiers, but I'll deal with other cases (not implicit oaths for reasons that should be obvious). The people who make false statesments despite the UCMJ despite it's jurisdiction are hypocrites.
As for the remaining cases, the superiors are bound to serve the government of the day, which is in effect their military superior (Parliament in Australia or Britain, I would think). If a general gives an order to a major who then gives contradictory orders to his privates, the privates (if they know all this) are justified in following the general's orders.
Perhaps you should educate yourself, like I and others have been saying all along.
You'll have to be more specific- I only have a certain amount of time to spend on these arguments, and I don't have enough time left to look through your material.
What? Can you please explain the connection between those two clauses? There doesn't appear to be one, at all.
Because when individuals disagree (which happens in practically every case if not every case in a democracy), the most purely democratic method is majority vote. Anything else is an abrogation of such- perhaps by a Law instituted by the People themselves (in theory), but still a law The People have agreed to submit to.
If the ratio for amending the Constitution was going to be majority consent, the makers of any Constitution could easily have made it so. They wanted limits.
Was he right about everything he wrote? No. For one, he nowhere included women in his statements than men were equal.
That's why I said his treatises were a good place to start.
What's your philosophical argument to justify men and women being treated as equals, anyway?
A certain argument was made during the French Revolution asking if either the citizen or the minister of the state really believes people are born free and equal. The citizen sees massive hierarchies around him and is taught unconditional obedience in school and to officers of the law. The minister sees people around the world born into slavery with tribes demanding rights over them. (Such as the ones where women had to marry whom they were told or die) Both see natural disparities in ability starting from birth.
It was a Lockean claim that people were born free and equal as well, and his version of it falls apart.
I think this line is a pretty accurate summation of Carinthium's character, at least so far as I can tell from the two SLAM threads he is currently involved with. All of his arguments seem to be based off of the first paragraph of a Wikipedia entry on a subject, as opposed to any actual thorough understanding of the issues. His comments on Locke and constitutional law in this thread, as well as morality in the other thread, seem to support this. The fact that he seems uncomfortable even addressing DW without having a single word description of his beliefs also seems indicative of this mindset.
Carinthium: I don't mean this as a flame-bait, so please don't take this personally. But as several people in this thread have already said, you should read up in detail on a subject before trying to construct complex theoretical arguments based on that subject. That is not to say you should never discuss subjects you don't entirely understand, as discussion is a great way to learn more about something. But the way your arguments in this thread are structured the only outcome is going to be Edi, Terraltha, and whoever else actually knows what they are talking about slamming their head and calling you stupid.
It was just for clarification- I wanted to know what his morals were based on, and as I don't read minds (actually most fictional mind-readers couldn't at this distance anyway) I couldn't unless he told me. I'll consider your views when I have the time if I actually lose.
