"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." ~ H.L. Mencken
Following Orders is NOT Honorable
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"Hawk":
"...Don't let yourself be a tool..."
Probably the central piece of our anarchist/libertarian table. Hard to accomplish at times, but worth the effort when you look back.
You’ve been lied to
Your entire life
By people who have
Been lied to
Their entire lives
For the benefit
Of those who
Desire power
Over you
~Stefan Molyneux
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlHW1DFk-fY (Sorry to discover this video has been taken down)
Sam
I found the piece to be rather silly once you got into the text. I think most people in general probably grasped the true intent but the main dialogue was rather foolishly put togeather like much of my stuff. Let's face it. There are some orders you damned well better follow while others can be questioned or even refused. If your boss says shave or don't come in tomorrow what are you going to do? Yes, the author was not specific. If I refuse to obey the order to pay my taxes this year I must be willing to pay the consequences. Yes I have been contemplating the idea, I see on T.V. where people claim to owe the government thousands and hundreds of thousands of dollars and get away with paying a paltry some according to what they originally owed. Is it worth it to take the risk or should I follow the governments order.
Me thinks the fellow should consider his words before writing them down like me--would you agree?
You are right.Nobody can demand from you to take the risk of jobloss, confiscation
of your property, imprisonment, etc.
"Any idiot can manage to follow orders."
If you are given Orders while someone puts a gun against your head, you might be no martyr or hero,
but you are certainly no idiot if you choose to obey.
Its your very own decision which risk you want to take.
"It takes a real human to evaluate those orders, and decide if they should be followed or ignored."
Simple truth or not?
Taking high personal risks for not obeying wrong orders makes
a hero.
Made up Justifications(Honor & Co.-> instincts and emotions instead of reason and moral)
for following wrong orders makes an idiot.
Blind obedience makes a tool.
But since the wardens wont look your way most of the time, you have
many chances to do the right thing and be disobedient without sacrificing
yourself.
Non-desirable repl
We should remember what Hermann Goering said. "Of course everybody obeyed. Those who didn't are now two meters under."
When your bosses have flexible morality, you shouldn't expect to be treated fairly.
If you want to maintain your honor, stay as far away from sociopaths as you possibly can.
For some odd reason I stay away from people anyway. Too much of an influencing factor.
I guess no one can read that I didn't say anything about whether it is sometimes prudent to follow orders, I said it is never honorable. Don't be proud that you did what you were ordered to do to keep from getting shot or kidnapped by a thug.
I must admit, I was surprised by some of the comments as well, Kent.
Reading is a task, and in many cases that is exactly what we have been taught in school to read, rarely if ever to look more closely at the text, very little thinking; I remember memorizing a lot of poems though. We read and think we are learning something and discover months down the road we don't even remember what we read and some times we get focused on one word rather than the whole. I must have got caught up in one of those moments. When I went to school I think it was probably worse then than now I don't know.
In some form of correlation to your post Kent, Flag.blackened.net just got hammered by the FBI. I have a tendency to run my words onward like the great land race in the 1800. Me thinks I should temper my terms to be a bit more endering or I may wind up like Mr. Schiff (I think he is 72) it came from a reply post by Samarami. That was tragic.