An Answer for Bubba in return for a Question for Bubba

A question from Bubba:

Suppose that a child got a very serious cut on his arm, and the cut became infected with gangrene, a lethal infection if it goes untreated.

Suppose furthermore that antibiotic and anesthetic are unavailable, perhaps because the situation predates modern medicine or the family is marooned on an uninhabited island, Swiss Family Robinson style.

Suppose that, if the father doesn’t amputate the arm even without anesthetic, his child dies.

And suppose the child is too young to understand what death means but not too young to understand that getting his arm cut off is going to hurt. A LOT.

Finally, suppose that the father is a good father who has given his child every reason in the world to believe that he always has the kid’s best interests at heart, even enduring great hardship for his sake.

QUESTION 1: What is the father’s moral duty, to amputate without anesthetic, to let the child die, or to let this very young child decide whether he wants to live without an arm even if he doesn’t really understand the fatal alternative?

Amputate the arm, if the father knows well enough how to do this without making things worse. I would add the caveat that, if the child were old enough - a young man, for instance - then the decision about how to proceed should be the young adult's decision. But you stipulated a very young child, so that is my answer.

Easy enough. Do you need any further clarification or does that suffice?

Dan's question for Bubba:

You hold several opinions about what God wants us to do/how God wants us to behave. You hold the opinion, for instance, that God is opposed to gay folk marrying one another (or words to that affect) or that God supports Christians going to war to kill their nation's enemies. Clearly, this and all of your opinions about what God thinks are your human opinions, interpretations that you take from biblical teachings. As your human opinions, they are your subjective, unprovable opinions, they are not objective facts about what God does or doesn't want. Is this correct?

IF it's not correct... IF you think that your opinions about what God wants are objective facts that are provable, demonstrable, please provide the hard data to support that claim.

Since, in the real world, these are clearly subjective and unprovable opinions, this should be an easy question to answer, but you tell me.

Research Confirms: Peace Works

Impressive research, worth citing...

"Between 1900 and 2006, campaigns of nonviolent resistance against authoritarian regimes were twice as likely to succeed as violent movements. Nonviolent resistance also increased the chances that the overthrow of a dictatorship would lead to peace and democratic rule. This was true even in highly authoritarian and repressive countries, where one might expect nonviolent resistance to fail. Contrary to conventional wisdom, no social, economic, or political structures have systematically prevented nonviolent campaigns from emerging or succeeding.

From strikes and protests to sit-ins and boycotts, civil resistance remains the best strategy for social and political change in the face of oppression. Movements that opt for violence often unleash terrible destruction and bloodshed, in both the short and the long term, usually without realizing the goals they set out to achieve. Even though tumult and fear persist today from Cairo to Kiev, there are still many reasons to be cautiously optimistic about the promise of civil resistance in the years to come.

In the United States and Europe, policymakers often seem at a loss when confronted with the questions of whether to support civilians resisting authoritarian regimes using nonviolent protest and, if so, what form that support should take. Liberal interventionists cited a “responsibility to protect” civilians to justify NATO’s intervention in Libya and have also invoked that argument in advocating for similar action in Syria. But the promise of civil resistance suggests an alternative: a “responsibility to assist” nonviolent activists and civic groups well before confrontations between civilians and authoritarian regimes devolve into violent conflicts.

Civil resistance does not succeed because it melts the hearts of dictators and secret police. It succeeds because it is more likely than armed struggle to attract a larger and more diverse base of participants and impose unsustainable costs on a regime. No single civil resistance campaign is the same, but the ones that work all have three things in common: they enjoy mass participation, they produce regime defections, and they employ flexible tactics. Historically, the larger and more diverse the campaign, the more likely it was to succeed."

Read more...

http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/141540/erica-chenoweth-and-maria-j-stephan/drop-your-weapons

The Great Flood

Fiddle music rising over the hills
children laughing
dogs barking
friends playing and singing...

sorrows divided and
happiness multiplied
like loaves and bread

let the doubters haggle
and the believers settle down
into a chaotic mellowness

joy flooding the evening
raising us all to a blessed higher ground.

Safe Haven

Children seeking shelter and safety should never be considered or treated like criminals. We all need to be safe havens for children, especially those in dangerous places and situations.

Do we even need to have that discussion?