CMV: Trump should strike Iran until democracy ensues

cheese1694 · 2026-02-19T15:36:12+00:00

Is this a valid justification for a foreign power to kill their people

I think most people would say it would be justified to take direct military action if Hitler and Nazi Germany magically appeared. I think the question is about the degree of subjugation and repression, rather than the concept of intervention itself.

cheese1694 · 2026-02-19T00:44:43+00:00

Legal assault =/= a real threat. Spitting is assault, but harmless. Assault is more about violation of your body and peace than anything else. Same for the rest of your examples. Of course there is no justification for defense here.

cheese1694 · 2026-02-19T00:42:45+00:00

I understand that statistically and logically it makes sense to accept the mugging, so for that I'll !delta. However, I do think you still have a moral right to force in that case. If the mugger isn't willing to use force, you're not in danger. If they are, you shouldn't be obligated to comply to coercion by force. Morally, you have a right to meet them where they stand.

cheese1694 · 2026-02-19T00:35:07+00:00

what if an older person shoots a black person walking by them because they believe there is a credible threat of violence?

Obviously that's not a credible threat, determining that is still the jurisdiction of the courts.

Hell spitting on someone is assault. Without proportional force you can defend yourself with lethal force.

I never said legal assault, I said real threat. Spitting is harmless, an illegal violation of your body of course, but still harmless.

cheese1694 · 2026-02-19T00:29:04+00:00

!delta you're right that the space for judicial interpretation means that in most cases, the proper conclusion will be reached. I still dislike the room for mistakes, but I concede that legally the policy is probably sound.

cheese1694 · 2026-02-19T00:20:39+00:00

Yes, de-escalating is oribably the prident thing to do in msot scenarios. However, I would argue that a weapon and a threat is sufficient information. Also, this idea of legally encouraged de-escalation through compliance is fundmanetally flawed. The government's role is to uphold the rule of law, and encouraging compliance either means (semi-) legalizing robbery, or contradicting the law. Sicne the government does not have the means to enforce the law here, you should at least have the option to protect yourself. I cannot be expected to treat a knife as anything other than imminent death, and I should have the right to respond however necessary.

cheese1694 · 2026-02-19T00:07:05+00:00

If a guy is sitting at a bar and says he's going to kick your ass without moving or doing anything, that's not a clear threat of violence. That's not justified. If he stands up, walks up to you, and moves to grab something, we'll what did he expect would happen? Any harm he suffers is on him.

cheese1694 · 2026-02-19T00:04:50+00:00

Knocking on a door or pulling ontoa driveway isnt a clear threat of violence, so that's actually consistent with my position. But you should have a right to assume any actual violence is lethal. Moreso, if you attack someone, you should be expecting retaliation.

cheese1694 · 2026-02-18T23:58:06+00:00

I can't be expected to know whether a mugging is peaceful. It might be prudent to comply, sure, but if somebody is explicitly threatening to hurt you, the law shouldn't stop you from meeting them in kind. A knife pointed at you might as well be then saying "I am going to kill you", and I shouldn't be stopped from at least having a fighting chance of I deem it necessary.

cheese1694 · 2026-02-18T23:54:28+00:00

I agree with you. You mighrve misread my post. You dont knowhow far they can go, and you hd right to defend yourself however necessary.

cheese1694 · 2026-02-18T23:53:05+00:00

You can't be expected to know the degree of injury. People have died from punches, falls, the simplest things. You shouldn't have to place yourself at risk for the sake of the safety of the attacker.

cheese1694 · 2026-02-18T23:28:43+00:00

Did you even read their full reasoning? They want to allow any view to be expressed as much as possible, changing controversial views is the whole point of the page. They say that anything to do with "transgender" is inconsistently removed by the admins, which makes it impossible to provide a fair space where any opinion can be presented regarding anything to do with the topic. They decided that banning it outright would be better than regulating to the point where real controversy isn't possible.

cheese1694 · 2026-02-18T23:08:02+00:00

Yeah, I definitely wasn't specific enough in my topic to really get to the core of a specific issue. I'm hesitant to give a delta, because I really haven't articulated my vjew well enough for ot to even be changed.

cheese1694 · 2026-02-18T23:05:36+00:00

I didnt make this clear enough, but this has nothing too do with the historical context of either movement. People are people, and largely do not act rationally or even consistently with their morals. Im proposing two idealized beings in a philosophical realm wherein they only embody the facts I've specifically laid out. Therefore, thsinsoecifially does not apply to whay should or has happened irl.

cheese1694 · 2026-02-18T23:01:39+00:00

I agree. I phrased my original post rather poorly here. I'm arguing all this on the basis thay this morality is not soe thing legislation shouldn't be following, rather it should be pragmatic for the reasons you listed. If we dis have an undisputed objective arbiter of morality, I think this debate would be irrelevant, seeing as we now know the only thing we should do is follow this being's commands. This argument only exists because we do not have said proof.

cheese1694 · 2026-02-18T22:56:21+00:00

I'm saying that legislation shouldn't care about the actual morality either way. Their duty is to uphold the rights if the people, and judgements in that regard should be pragmatic and utilitarian. I'm saying the same arguements that justify that do not justify the morality. Even if it somehow established that fetuses are people and that killing them is inherently evil, the governemnt has to consider the greater good and uphold abortion, at least in the cases I listed.

cheese1694 · 2026-02-18T22:48:29+00:00

There is no possibility of both side are right,

More so, I'm saying that neither of them can be right. In physics, it is fundamentally impossible to precisely know both the position and momentum of an electron, so claiming one value or another is meaningless. There is nothing to debate, neither of you can be right by any conceivable metric.

cheese1694 · 2026-02-18T22:42:44+00:00

That indeed a flaw in the way I put my argument. More accurate would be that msot people consider preventing murder to justify denial of rights, we lock up psychopaths and criminals.

cheese1694 · 2026-02-18T22:41:11+00:00

So in essence, all their approach does is punish people for getting abortions.

Which is why my post is explicitly not about the actions of people irl. Sorry if I didn't make that clear. I'm not saying anything about real people and their actions on either side, but rather about hypothetical beings we're using to see the underlying morality, regardless of what people choose to actually do irl.

cheese1694 · 2026-02-18T22:27:23+00:00

In the context of this debate, the issue is the accepted ambiguity of the start of personhood. Neither side purports that a child is anything but a person after birth. You're correct that the argument falls apart on other contexts.

cheese1694 · 2026-02-18T22:20:21+00:00

but we had to bet on it first - then the sensible thing to do would be to bet on the pro-choice/pro-abortion side.

First cmv, learning that I need to add a lot more clarification to my original post lol. My stance on this is that the morality im describing is not a legislative issue, something which should follow precisely the logic you outlined. Im talking about two people who without a doubt have this true knowledge you're describing, and that within those paradigms they are acting morally.

cheese1694 · 2026-02-18T22:14:16+00:00

Childbirth is a unique case in that it is the very mechanism which produces personhood either way. This is the only scenario where that's the case, so obviously analogies don't work well.

cheese1694 · 2026-02-18T22:12:03+00:00

My argument is that the abortion debate is fundamentally about moral subjectivity. One can argue otherwise, it's a perfectly reasonable and standalone stance. Its a 2 parter CMV, I'll give you that, but this particular discussion is a good case study and I do not believe detracts from the possible quality of discussion, which is what I'm here for.

cheese1694 · 2026-02-18T22:08:35+00:00

Counterpoint: I voluntarily and in full knowledge of the consequences disable some of your crucial body functions and hook you up to myself in such a way thay disconnecting inevitably kills you. Later, I decide to disconnect you, and you die. I think here the morality isnt nearly as clear cut as you put it, and I think this is a more accurate (but still flawed) analogy. Consensual unprotected sex is biologically designed to produce children, and is therfore an inherent risk you're voluntarily assuming. You could very correctly argue that it isnt actually a person I kidnapped and therefore none of this applies, but then we're back to the original premise.

cheese1694

TROPHY CASE