Originally posted by Joe Dizzy
This "choice" I'd say is as relevant as flipping a coin. It really doesn't matter why I choose option A over option B or vice versa.
If this is all you can choose, you might just as well flip a coin. The "human factor" is reduced to a simple yes/no, black/white, Pepsi/Coca-Cola question. If your options are that limited, you are not really freely choosing anything, but merely acting as a "flipped coin".
What a safe, quiet life you must lead. Never having to make hard choices or worry about your moral structure being impinged on. Some of us don't get that luxury; I've personally had to stop three different assaults -- one a sexual battery -- because their were not cops around and it was my responsibility. I had my gun. I never had to use it because the other guy realized I was fully prepared to use it in the defense of the victim.
Your "shades of gray" argument is the usual crap people use because they don't want to take responsibility for themselves and are too timid to step up when needed by others. The safe, comfortable vision of yourself as "civilized man" wouldn't survive contact with the real world. There are shades of gray, sure -- but the instant that you allow yourself to be paralysed into inaction at a critical moment by indecision because you're too busy looking at "all the elements of the picture" -- or are just plain scared to take the responsibility -- someone might die or be tragically injured.
This makes you, to my mind, a coward.
Before anyone wants to jump all over me for an ad hominem argument, don't get in a twist over the label; it's actually not meant as an attack. You are in good company -- there are many honourable men that were afraid to take action, as well. It's a normal survival trait to avoid conflict or danger. I have friends who think the same way you do; doesn't make them any less decent people, or that I like them any less. But you know they won't be there when you need them.
(I'm surprised the thread hasn't been closed down. People are actually discussing things without the nerf padding.)
"War is an ugly thing but not the ugliest of things; the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feelings which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."
John Stuart Mill