Philosophy Now Forum

bobevenson wrote:The U.S. has not drafted anybody in more years than you or your countrymen can count.

artisticsolution wrote:Hi Bob,

I have 2 sons who were required to sign up for the draft when they reached the age of 18.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscripti ... ted_States

I consider that an 'active' draft. If the government needs them...they will go to war ( well, in theory anyway...as in.... it would be over my dead body.)

John wrote:

bobevenson wrote:The U.S. has not drafted anybody in more years than you or your countrymen can count.

So tell us oh wise one: who ended the draft first, the USA or the UK?

bobevenson wrote:

John wrote:

bobevenson wrote:The U.S. has not drafted anybody in more years than you or your countrymen can count.

So tell us oh wise one: who ended the draft first, the USA or the UK?

All I know is that the U.S. has bailed out the UK since we booted your butts out of this country in 1776.

John wrote:You don't half like avoiding questions when the answer doesn't suit you.

Arising_uk wrote:Not that I agree any more with the way tax is raised. But it was not 95% per se, it was 95% on everything over £20,000/annum. Given that the average nominal earnings in the mid '70s were about £2000/annum they were hardly being poverty stricken. Still, that didn't stop their accountants and companies recommending that they move abroad and become tax-exiles, as did other such 'luminaries' as Michael Caine, David Bowie, Sean Connery, Mick Jagger, etc. Unfortunately many came back when Thatcher came to power.

What all this has got to do with helmet laws only the boob knows.

tbieter wrote:"Brittany Larson wanted to feel the wind in her long hair as she rode her motorcycle rather than stuffing it under a helmet.

Now her mother is preparing to bury her 22-year-old daughter, who suffered extensive head injuries Wednesday when she hit road debris and was thrown into the path of a SUV on Interstate 694 in Ramsey County. Once she says her final goodbye, Inge Black pledged Thursday, she will push lawmakers to mandate helmets for motorcyclists.

"I am on a rampage about this. We need to pass a mandatory helmet law. She would've had to wear one," said Black, who added that she had sparred with her daughter about getting a helmet.

Black said the two of them fought Tuesday over wearing a helmet and had shopped unsuccessfully for one that fit. Black had even offered to drive her daughter to work on the day of the crash, but Larson said, "'Oh, no, I'm going to ride my motorcycle.'"
http://www.startribune.com/local/east/157789085.html

Her death is not a tragedy in the sense of the word highlighted below. An intelligent rational adult, she surely engaged in a (primitive) risk analysis. Or she just decided to gamble with her life. Either way in freedom she made a rational choice not to wear a helmet.
I, a stranger, would not be justified in mourning her death and calling the event a tragedy.
I see that you can only account for "you" as a 'stranger,' as such, justification, assuming it's what's important here, comes from a particular individual perspective, as in:
"the event," as colored by any continuously variable quantity of the fear of death; attributed ignorance; attributed importance of life; what houses, and the importance of, freedom, ETC, ETC.

What is distressing, in any particular event, that would lend to being labeled a tragedy, is to be found in any particular individuals perspective, as surely any events multifaceted-ness, is defined by the particular observer in question.

As to freedom, as Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young sang on 4 Way Street: "Find the cost of freedom, buried in the ground, Mother Earth will swallow you, lay your body down."

___________________
trag·e·dy (trj-d)
n. pl. trag·e·dies
1.
a. A drama or literary work in which the main character is brought to ruin or suffers extreme sorrow, especially as a consequence of a tragic flaw, moral weakness, or inability to cope with unfavorable circumstances.
b. The genre made up of such works.
c. The art or theory of writing or producing these works.
2. A play, film, television program, or other narrative work that portrays or depicts calamitous events and has an unhappy but meaningful ending.
3. A disastrous event, especially one involving distressing loss or injury to life: an expedition that ended in tragedy, with all hands lost at sea.
4. A tragic aspect or element.
[Middle English tragedie, from Old French, from Latin tragoedia, from Greek tragidi : tragos, goat + aoid, id, song; see wed-2 in Indo-European roots.

bobevenson wrote:What does that have to do with a 95% British tax rate?

Arising_uk wrote:

bobevenson wrote:What does that have to do with a 95% British tax rate?

Its on-topic boob. As usual you have lost the plot.

bobevenson wrote:

Arising_uk wrote:Not that I agree any more with the way tax is raised. But it was not 95% per se, it was 95% on everything over £20,000/annum. Given that the average nominal earnings in the mid '70s were about £2000/annum they were hardly being poverty stricken. Still, that didn't stop their accountants and companies recommending that they move abroad and become tax-exiles, as did other such 'luminaries' as Michael Caine, David Bowie, Sean Connery, Mick Jagger, etc. Unfortunately many came back when Thatcher came to power.

What all this has got to do with helmet laws only the boob knows.

Thank you for setting John straight.

bobevenson wrote:Why don't those motherfucking socialist politicians make 100% of the people wear helmets no matter what the fuck they're doing, and call it a day???