Will: Why shouldn't I work for the N.S.A.? That's a tough one, but I'll give it a shot. Say I'm working at N.S.A. Somebody puts a code on my desk, something nobody else can break. So I take a shot at it and maybe I break it. And I'm real happy with myself, 'cause I did my job well. But maybe that code was the location of some rebel army in North Africa or the Middle East. Once they have that location, they bomb the village where the rebels were hiding and fifteen hundred people I never had a problem with get killed. Now the politicians are sayin', "Send in the marines to secure the area" 'cause they don't give a shit. It won't be their kid over there, gettin' shot. Just like it wasn't them when their number was called, 'cause they were pullin' a tour in the National Guard. It'll be some guy from Southie takin' shrapnel in the ass. And he comes home to find that the plant he used to work at got exported to the country he just got back from. And the guy who put the shrapnel in his ass got his old job, 'cause he'll work for fifteen cents a day and no bathroom breaks. Meanwhile my buddy from Southie realizes the only reason he was over there was so we could install a government that would sell us oil at a good price. And of course the oil companies used the skirmish to scare up oil prices so they could turn a quick buck. A cute little ancillary benefit for them but it ain't helping my buddy at two-fifty a gallon. And naturally they're takin' their sweet time bringin' the oil back, and maybe even took the liberty of hiring an alcoholic skipper who likes to drink martinis and play slalom with the icebergs, and it ain't too long 'til he hits one, spills the oil and kills all the sea life in the North Atlantic. So my buddy's out of work and he can't afford to drive, so he's got to walk to the job interviews, which sucks 'cause the shrapnel in his ass is givin' him chronic hemorrhoids. And meanwhile he's starvin' 'cause every time he tries to get a bite to eat the only blue plate special they're servin' is North Atlantic scrod with Quaker State. So what do I think? I'm holdin' out for somethin' better. Why not just shoot my buddy, take his job and give it to his sworn enemy, hike up gas prices, bomb a village, club a baby seal, hit the hash pipe and join the National Guard? I could be elected president.
Saturday, December 16, 2006
Nutshell
Nice. From Sisyphus Shrugged:
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5 comments:
beautifully concise. I am often tempted myself to just "club a baby seal, hit the hash pipe and join the national Gaurd".
No baby seals in my neck of the woods, and I'm too old for the Guard. But I'm tempted....
I sit down to breakfast one morning and decide to put a little sugar in my coffee. Now I shouldn't prolley have sugar or coffee but I'm weak that way. Lots of other folks like sugar too and so we import it from the Carribean but the Sugar Beet farmers here think all that cheap sugar is unfair to them and demand a tariff cuz their senator is the chair of the some agriculture committee.
The market collapse and all those workers that used to cut sugar cane turn to smuggluing drugs and people into Miami.
Young American toursists start disappearing from Night Clubs on smaller islands only to turn up, missing assaulted or dead.
Some of the small island countries overthrow their constabulary governments and the Marines get sent in. One or two are successful in tossing out the previous thugs and establish a worker's paradise were everyone starves but their teeth are especially well-preserved cuz the sugar cane was destroyed in the war.
Meanwhile terrorist use the smuggling systems set up by desperate farmers and drug and people trafficers to infiltrate the continental U.S.
I drive to work and some asshole blows up the building before I get to the front of the line at Starbuck's.
All my friends are dead and the company I work for no longer exists. My Marine cousin gets shot riding shotgun on an AID turck and his lil sister is raped to death on spring break on a secure island and buried in the beach.
I decide to switch to artificial sweetner but it gives me brain cancer. I consider switching to tea but miss the sugar and decide to smoke weed instead. On a beer and munchies run, I run over a small child but am so high I keep driving slowly down the street.
Unable to respond quickly to the officer who knocks on my window, I stumble out of the car against his explicit orders I raise my light to relight the joint which has gone out and the officer shoots me in the leg.
At the hospital, a clot break loose and goes to my heart and I have a heart attack. The nurse brings me sugar-free jello.
She has no idea where jello comes from so I....
Nice, anon. But I would continue to point out the difference between individual responsibility and behavior that affects oneself versus individual action that harms others, even if indirectly. Even if we're entirely implicated in a global economy through which we can trace all sorts of causal chains, this doesn't absolve us of moral responsibility. In fact, it might say that we've created a system that generates ethical problems. There's no cosmic law that says the system has to be this way rather than another.
One of my points is there is very little behavior that doesn't affect others except stargazing (as opposed to tanning), navel gazing (as opposed to navel piercing), and perhaps private and shall we say unaccompanied sexual activity. ;)
Pretty much every thing else affects the world at large to a greater or lesser degree and is therefore a moral or at the very least an ethical choice.
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