Which is more important: Principles or People?

[kiahzero]

Binary Poll - Choose One:

Principles - Principles are more important. We must stand up for our principles, even if people get hurt to do so.

People - People are more important. We must try to minimize the hurting of people, even if we have to sacrifice principles to do so.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

1. Better question

If you cling to your principles and people get harmed, then given the result, what was your true principle?

[Mairead]

2. Right on, NSMA!

A similar issue comes up in the question of whether short- or long-term effects should be preferred.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

6. One main problem with this question when applying it to politics

is that the question (in this forum anyway) proposes FALSELY that your principles are dependent upon a single individual. Nobody tols the public to fall asleep and consume throughout the 80's and 90's.

That's the trap. Principles only exist in thought and deed for the time they are bieng exercised

[IndianaGreen]

3. Compromise on principle always ends up hurting or killing people!

IWR, PATRIOT, NAFTA, NCLB, Medicare "reform," etc.

[AntiCoup2K4]

5. So far, IG has the most logical response in the thread.

The obvious intention of the poll is to sell acceptance of the sellout Kerry as better than the tyrranical bastard Bush. And while on the surface that may seem practical, it becomes less so when you consider that Kerry voted to enable most of the tyrannical things Bush has done. And even more the case when you realize that Kerry and Bush are backed by the exact same bunch of criminals.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

8. So Bush would not have done these tyrannical things but for Kerry

by that extension...Senator Byrd had principles. Did it matter in the long run?

I'd say the matter rests as much with the voting public and with the fact that we live in a society where one CANNOT POSSIBLY live up to their principles without harming others.

We post on computers and talk on cell phones. Computers and cell phones contain coltan. 2 million Africans have died in the deadly quest for coltan and other minerals. Where are the principles?

Anyone STOP using petrol products since the advent of the Iraq war?

John Edwards is for eliminating NAFTA. John Edwards is PRO DEATH penalty. What was that about people being harmed?

[AntiCoup2K4]

20. Edwards isn't my first choice either.

Byrd would be on the list if he were 20 years younger, as he's one of the few in Congress who stood up to Junior and his fascism. A lot of so called Democrats voted for this bullshit, and they are equally guilty of enabling Bush. But most of them aren't running for President. What makes Kerry worse than Edwards is that, in addition to his Bush enabling voting record, he also has direct ties to the criminals backing Bush.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

22. But Byrd made racist statements in the past when it meant LIVES

so let's try to apply our sanctimonium equitably.

(and I am not saying that to discredit his passionate oratory last year, just trying to FLUSH OUT this principle thing for those with a short legislative memory)

[kiahzero]

25. I thought he was in the Klan at one point...

or was that just FR hyperbole? I've honestly never been sure.

[AntiCoup2K4]

47. That was decades ago, not months ago

I don't excuse Byrd wearing a bedsheet in the 1930's or whenever it was, but that was a long time ago, and there were a lot of people in the South doing a lot of stupid things at that time. Hell, I was even willing to forgive Clark for voting for Reagan and that was only two decades ago. Votes for the war, the Patriot act and other parts of the Bush agenda, that's not ancient history. It's right now, and people are still dying daily because of it.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

7. The application of principles where one picks and chooses

who to hold to them will always lead to a biased conclusion.

[Iverson]

19. agreed, and this

Principles that are worth a damn have people in mind. To separate them only serves to rationalize the absence of principle, as if that necessarily was some benefit to people.

In our political landscape, the absence of principles also includes a mentality that people are incidental. It's like wanting to win an election completely decontexualized from what winning might mean.

[kiahzero]

23. Maybe I wasn't clear enough

Of course good principles have people in mind. Here's the situation where you have to choose:

Support your principle, in a situation where supporting it might end up hurting more people in the short term, or maybe even in the long term.

OR

Try and minimize the harm inflicted upon people in the short term, and possibly the long term as well, even if it contrasts with your principles.

Here's an example with no relation to politics:
You've committed a crime for which you are remorseful. You understand that you should be imprisoned. However, you have a skill the government needs to help protect citizens, and hence needs to break you out of prison (think covert ops, or something).

Do you:
Advance your principle: Stay in prison, because that's where you belong.
Sacrifice your principle: Leave prison, because you need to help your fellow man.

[Iverson]

26. context is everything

Except in an intro. philosophy course, the distiction is rarely as neat as you propose. See: prisoner's dilemma.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

24. Again....it's sweet that we can all point the principle finger elsewhere

but hitting others over the head with prinicples while posting on a computer more likely than not containing parts and minerals obtained from multi-national corporations and driving cars with OIL in the engine sort of turns the fucking fickle finger of principles right back in on us...unless your automobile runs on PRINCIPLES!

[Iverson]

28. non-sequitur

Surely you aren't proposing that discussants stop advocating principles on the basis that their computer use reveals some imperfections in their ideals. That would be called "not drawing the line" or "in for a dime, in for a dollar."

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

31. Actually the only non sequitur is on your part

Surely you aren't suggesting that we hold others to a higher threshhold than ourselves...the only person whose principles we can truly do anything about?

[Iverson]

34. Oh good grief.

I am not sure whence comes this desire for a pointless fight. I stand by my statements about context and decontextualization because they're good ones. I continue to find your proposed blanket disqualification based on computer use flimsy.
If you don't want exchange but just to be aggressive instead, go right ahead. I'm not playing that, though.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

36. Come on Iverson. It's a simple proposition

and NOT one intended to solely be argumentive.

Are principles really principles at all if I hold ONE person to them but not myself? Or are they simply a TOOL with which to TAR another while holding myself to a lesser standard?

I know for a FACT that I attended NUMEROUS peace rallies in Los Angeles with the streets lined for MILES with SUV's. Were they NOT contributory in the matter? Was the principle use all the oil and then there will be no more oil wars?

[Mairead]

44. Sometimes not. Sometimes there's a clash of principles

Your car's brakes go out. You have a choice of running over your child or someone who's evidently another child's mother. What do you do, presuming you can somehow make a principled choice in the time?

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

48. Hit em both?

Sorry, couldn't help it..but principles can lead to accidents..and accidents can be a great time to evaluate principles.

[Mairead]

50. *snork* isn't that a refusal to decide? :->

Agreed again: not getting what you thought you'd get should prompt a searching re-examination of your decision-making system.

[Protagoras]

4. I couldn't say it better NSMA

Wish I could :D

I often wonder where we might be on National Healthcare if Clinton had taken a slightly more measured response to it, and waited a little longer before advancing it. As it is, his push for it actually set the process back. If we proposed smaller, more incrimental steps we still might not have Universal healthcare but we might be closer.

I also see a lot of people use the principled approach to justify punishing their children...Spare the rod and spoil the child...never realizing that their adherence to the words is often achieving exactly the opposite of their goals.

Seems to me that if you are serious about holding a principle then part of that should necessitate an effecitive strategy for achieving it. You want Peace on Earth? Great! Now...how do you get it? It's that second step that always seems to be missing...just demand it and somehow it's magically going to happen? Nah...guess we better have a real plan in place that has a chance of success. Otherwise we aren't working for our principles...we are just giving them lipservice.

If it's important enough to work for, it's vital that you also work smart for it.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

10. Principles are not linear

Everything does not follow a principle. They are either all present or all absent. Principles don't exist for the duration of a decision but in the past and future of that decision.

I try not to demand more principles from others than I am willing to bring forth in my everyday life.

OTherwise they aren't a principle at all but another manipulative tool to hit others over the head with.

[Protagoras]

16. I should have articulated it better.

I'm in agreement with you NSMA.

[Piperay]

54. GREAT response

NSMA and dead on. :thumbsup:

[bowens43]

9. Invalid poll IMO

and just another loyalty oath.

Sacrificing principle is NEVER better for the people.

[kiahzero]

11. Proof by counterexample

You have a principle against murder. You have an opportunity to kill Hitler before he leads Germany to kill 6 million Jews, and start WWII. Do you kill him?

I'd say that sacrificing principles in that case saves millions of people.

[Protagoras]

15. But allowing your actions in support of your principle

to defeate the principle seems oxymoronic.

Are we talking about sacrificing an absolute position because we assume there is only 1 way to be true to it? Or have we simply poorly articulated our principle so that we are failing to see there are better ways to support it? Are we even clear on what our true intent is?

If I say I am against War does that mean I stand back and allow others to wage it and simply refrain from participating in it myself? Or do I say "War should be prevented" and then spend my time activelly trying to effectively convince others from engaging in it? Is there more than one way to convince others? Are there more and less effective ways to do so?

What does the principle require us to do? If it requires nothing of us, then what does it mean? If it does require something of us, then it may be more involved than most of what I've seen lately touted as "principles".

[kiahzero]

18. Here's a trivial analogy

I hate cheese. I go on TV, and talk about how, once I'm in power, there will be no more cheese. Someone responds, and says that people should eat all the cheese they want, and how when he's in power, there'll be enough cheese for all.

So, in comes a third person, and he says, "Well, there are some downsides to cheese. For one thing, that neon yellow color doesn't exist in nature. So we'll get rid of that "Pasteurized Processed Cheese Food" business. And a few of these cheeses stink to hell, so we'll get rid of those, too."

The third guy and the second guy are in a dead-heat in the "Why are we voting over cheese?" election. Do I tell my small band of supporters to vote for me, when I probably don't have the support I need to win, or do I tell them to vote for the third guy, since he'll at least get us closer to our goal of complete cheeselimination?

[RandomKoolzip]

12. I don't believe this is a black-and-white choice...

I bet there's some kind of anti-Kerry subtext to it, though.

Anyways, this question reminds me of the time I got into a discussion with a Libertarian/ Ayn Randian friend who asked me: Is there good and evil? And he got pissed at me because I knew that there was some underlying subtext to why he was asking me this: He wanted to draw me out and attack my "liberal" points of view.

In a court of law, this would be called a "leading question."

[kiahzero]

13. Not anti-Kerry at all

This poll is in response to observations I have made.

Some suggest (mainly anti-ABBers) that principles are what we need to stand up for in this election, and if we lose, we lose. Others (mainly ABBers) suggest that we need to make the best of the choices we have, and if we have to sacrifice principles, so be it.

I wanted to see where people were on these two options.

[RandomKoolzip]

14. My paranoia is showing again...

Sorry.

Well, in that case, yes, I agree with the people people. Show me one person who has NEVER flip-flopped on anything, and I'll show you a robot.

[Crunchy Frog]

32. That's why I really wanted

GrovelBot to be the nominee.:( There would have been no sacrificing of principles in voting for him.

Well, I guess we're just stuck with the lesser of two evils once again.x( But I guess I'll just have to settle for Kerry (or Edwards).

[Mairead]

45. I don't know that you framed it very well, then

because people don't seem to come into the ABB argument, as far as I can tell. There's a sort of unexamined assertion that we'd be better off all voting ABB in lockstep, but nobody has supported it with anything more than invective and appeals to self-evident truths that, to me, look anything but self-evident.

[morgan2]

17. if you stick to the "people" choice

you end up being bullied and harassed. If you take a people first approach, you will have to give up to all the demands made by someone who took a hostage. I could take a single hostage and demand a billion dollars or else I kill him. You have to have to stick to principles in many cases, although the ultimate goal of principles is to create the best world for people.

[mgarretson]

21. Civil Rights as an example...

People were hurt when Rosa Parks refused to sit in the back of the bus... People were hurt when Martin Luther King, Jr. led the march on Birmingham... Should they have sacrificed their beliefs knowing that people were going to be harmed in service of them?

It may seem like I'm taking a side on this, but I'm not... I just wanted to use an example to say that it's not ALWAYS a bad thing to pursue principles over people... but someone could just as easily say that "The Ends Justify the Means" has harmed many a person...

Interesting topic and one that's definately not Black and White... I don't expect a hard and fast answer but I appreciate the fact that DU lets us talk about it. :)

-Mike

[sangha]

33. You dishonor MLK's legacy by singling out one incident

to justify a policy that MLK REJECTED

Less than a year before Rosa Parks was arrested, another young black lady had been arrested for the very same thing. MLK found out about but decided not to protest the arrest because the woman had been arrested previously, and he didn't want his protest based on a woman who had a record. He was afraid that her record would become the focus of the debate and not the issue of discrimination. He was also concerned about a white backlash.

I think it's disgraceful to take one incident from MLK's life, strip it of context, and then use it to mislead people into thinking MLK opposed compromise when MLK's entire philosophy revolved around compromise.

[mgarretson]

37. I apologize if my example doesn't work...

I, by no means, meant to dishonor his legacy, and apologize if I did so... I was only trying to say that I don't think it's a cut and dry issue. People can get hurt in the pursuit of an ideal, but that doesn't necessarily its not worth pursuing the ideal... The loss of innocent life is, however, most assuredly regretfull.

And I do think that ideologies have too often been pursued that hurt people more than they help, but if the cause is just and people peacefully advocate it I don't think that it's always a bad thing.

Again, I apologize for any offense I may have caused... I was just trying to point out the grayness I see around the issue.

Respectfully,

[sangha]

39. No, it's not a cut and dried issue

which is why a take offense at taking one incident and using it to portray the issue simplistically.

People can get hurt in the pursuit of an ideal, but that doesn't necessarily its not worth pursuing the ideal...

True, but sometimes an action is taken in pursuit of a principle even though the action does nothing for the people it's supposed to help. In those cases "we were standing on principle" just doesn't cut it.

MLK had principles but that didn't mean he was unwilling to compromise or to consider the consequences of his potential actions to see if the *results* were consistent with the principles, and not whether the *actions alone* were consistent with the principles.

[kiahzero]

40. Amazingly well-put (n/t)

[Mairead]

46. I can't imagine why you think that illustrates compromise

If anything, Martin's turning down the first incident was a clear case of his adhering to principle: namely that waiting indefinitely is better than trying to work with a case where the opposition could muddy the water.

[JHBowden]

27. People are more important.

One can have principles, but if they don't add towards human flourishing, there really is no point to them.

[WillyBrandt]

29. The answer is yes: Nader's an asshole

[Iverson]

30. You're in a comfortable majority.

Have a bipartisan day.

[Crunchy Frog]

35. Good answer Willy!

:toast:

[Armand]

38. People are more important than principles.

[arewethereyet]

52. what people would respect you if you had no honor ?

and if there are any, would you want their respect ?

[arewethereyet]

41. principles always

if your principles are any good then these two do not conflict

[kiahzero]

42. Really?

You must live in a far better world than I, where you can get your way all the time.

[arewethereyet]

43. what do principles have to do with getting ones way ?

principles are the guides on how you live your life.

[myopic4141]

49. Shouldn't

principles be such that people are better off? If adherence to principle hurts someone, isn't there an inherent problem with the principle? Principles should be about advancing humanity, not destroying it.

[GoBlue]

51. Not mutually exclusive

Should I be dishonest, because being honest might hurt someone? Really, not many folks here seem to know the difference between 'hurt' and 'harm'. Surgery hurts but not to have surgery usually causes harm.

Almost always, sacrificing principle causes far more harm to far more people than the alternative.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

53. They're both the same, in my book.

But there's more than one way to reach 'em.