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 The release of classified information has long been awaited since the end of the Bush administration, and the descaling of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The release of CIA classified documents describing “interrogation” methods outside of the U.S. during this time has come to light today.  A senate committee tasked with the job has made a fraction of the records public: only 524 pages out of 6000.  The results are horrifyingly surprising, even for the Bush administration.   The level of injustice that occurred here is astronomical. Even though the administration was faced with the difficult challenge of 9/11, this did not give them the right to torture individuals with medieval practices. The United States’ justice system requires humane treatment of prisoners.  As their guards, they have absolutely no right to treat another human being like a sub species. The CIA’s sanctions are a stain on the justice system of the United States.  As one of the most modern countries in the world, how can we expect other countries not to carry out war crimes when we are committing them ourselves? 

I'm willing to bet that after 9/11, most Americans would have been in favor of varying degrees of torture in the interest of national security. Everyone in approval of these acts at the time were no doubt under the influence of fear and vengeance. They thought, at the time, that the public would be under this same influence. What was not taken into account was how the public would react around ten years later, or how far the CIA would take the torture.

(Reuters) - An Atlanta family was saved by its dog when the German Shepherd jumped up and took gunfire directed at their car during a road rage incident between the occupants of two other vehicles, police

We’ve discussed the traits of heroism almost every class session. We’ve tried to determine a profile of a hero. I believe one of the main criteria is that the person who is a hero takes a serious risk, usually risking their life. 

A dog in Atlanta died after an argument between two vehicles resulted in gunfire. The car the dog was riding in, with his family, was caught in the crossfire. The dog, Noah, leapt in front of one of the children in the car, protecting her from the gunfire. The wounded dog then jumped out of the vehicle and chased the car that was the source of the gunfire, until he could not go any further and died of his wounds during his chase. 

Many are proclaiming this dog as a hero, since he prevented the young girl from being shot, taking the bullets himself. It would fit into our criteria of a hero. The dog protected someone from major harm, only to be the one to actually suffer. 

But should Noah the dog actually be proclaimed a “hero”? 

We’ve all heard the stories of hero animals. Animals that save their families from fires, or those that save their owners from heart attacks or seizure episodes. What makes these episodes of heroism less important than those committed by humans? 

However, to be a hero, does one have to have the capacity to know what they are doing? Or does having a natural reaction to do something that may turn out as heroic qualify someone as a hero?

The woman and her husband, who was in a store at the time of the shooting, told police that Noah was “a highly trained canine as he saved the family by taking the bullets” and then chased the Taurus until he couldn’t go any further, according to the report.

They trained the dog to jump out of a car and maneuver itself into gunfire to save its family? Of course they’re not going to say that they have a well-behaved dog that just happened to take a bullet. I’m not one to speak ill of the dead, but what that’s what you have, a well-trained dog who happened to move himself in front of gunfire (which may or may not have hit the family, anyway) and gets itself shot. Even if they trained the dog specifically to jump out of its passenger seat (who puts the dog in the passenger seat, anyway) and take bullets, it’s not heroism because you cannot be trained to be a hero. Sure, the dog was probably acting on some instinct/training to protect the family, but from what the article says (it doesn’t really say much), the dog acted like a dog, not like a human who logically decides to put his/herself in harms way to protect others.

I don’t have a specific examples, but often when people do something seen as “heroic” such as saving someone from a burning building, they say “I didn’t even think about it” or “It was a natural reflex”. So, if there’s no logical decision behind an act, such as a split-second and it’s either fight or flight, does that change if a person is a hero or not? If there’s no thought process or evaluating the situation, does that change if an act is considered heroic?

So I mean there could easily be a difference between what the actor in the situation actually did and what they said they did regarding whether or not they had moral agency. One can’t be a hero by accident, so if someone trips down some steps and in doing so, somehow stops a bullet meant for someone else, I’m confident in saying that they’re a victim of an unfortunate happenstance, not a hero, since they didn’t make a decision to do that.

Where this gets kind of interesting is: what if our instinct is to protect someone at our loss in a certain circumstance. What comes to mind is that sort of paternal instinct where one is more likely to immediately default to saving a child, sometimes at their (the parent’s) expense [citation needed, but you probably know what I mean]. If a mother instinctively sacrifices herself for her daughter, without making a conscious decision and therefore exhibiting some form of moral agency, is it a heroic act? I suppose following my logic in this post and my previous one … if it’s not a conscious decision, there’s no moral agency, and therefore it cannot be a heroic act.

More interesting, however, is the question of whether this instinct can be present prior to learning or habituation. What I mean is can some people be genetically predisposed to act heroically instead of being a bystander? It is true that different people can be genetically predisposed to be more anxious, happy, etc. This does not mean that they will be 100% of the time, but coupled with the right environment, their chances of exhibiting the trait are far higher than a person without the disposition. So why not heroism? Conceivably some combination of predispositions such as bravery and altruism could lead someone, in the correct environment, to act heroically out of instinct.

And you thought Hobby Lobby was extreme.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. 

What a problem. This event - the firing of this teacher for undergoing in vitro fertilization - lies at the intersection of religion, law, and workers’ rights - a maelstrom of confusion. I mean where does one even begin? By what right do they fire her for disobeying their religion? What about all of the other people that don’t follow the religion to the letter that are still being employed? Surely not every employee follows the Catholic religious tradition to the letter. Following the Church’s argument, should they not also be fired?

Then comes the legal argument. Those arguing for the Church/school argue that this teacher signed a contract of employment and agreed to follow the rules and blah blah blah. I’ll return to my first argument. Then why don’t they fire anyone else for not following Catholic teachings 100%? Shouldn’t everyone be protected from being fired by their employer for these circumstances? Imagine if a Muslim fired a Christian for not observing Islamic law/tradition? These people would be outraged. That’s not to mention that I am unable to find the limit of religious expression. This leads me to believe that the government can interfere when “a religious practice poses a threat to the health, safety, or Welfare of the public.” Well allowing religious organizations or people to fire someone else for not believing in their religion constitutes, what I would say, a flagrant threat to the public welfare.

And this is all ignoring the fact that the Church claims that they are immune from appearing in a court of law. The ACLU lawyer mentioned in the article says that such a claim is unlike any other cases. If the Church claims they are immune from appearing in court, can any organization claim such a thing? Ah I see now, this is how all of those bankers got away with zero justice after the financial collapse. One can merely claim that they don’t have to appear in court. What? No.

The question here, for me, is: at what point does “free exercise thereof” stop? Here’s my claim: if one’s religion affects any other non-consenting party, your freedom of exercise stops. Your religion cannot dictate to me what I do with my life. Think of religion as an optional set of rules to which one must willingly choose to belong. I have no choice in following local, state, and federal law. No one does. I, however, do have a choice in following religious law. And free exercise of religion stops when you try to force someone into unwillingly following those laws.

The problem here is, of course, that the teacher did willingly sign the contract to be employed at this school. This is a problem for which I can’t really find a solution. The history of education in the Western world is invariably intertwined with religion. Universities began as religious schools. For centuries no or few secular schools existed. And many great schools are religious. Georgetown is a catholic university, and known as a great school. There’s little we can do to separate religion from education in our history and our society, but I think I’m justified in saying that those employed by religious universities, schools, etc. need protection from their employers.

In the case of the teacher unfortunately, I would argue that while it’s definitely not morally correct to fire someone for something so trivial as not conforming to religious practice, the greater injustice would be against the Church if we disallowed them from firing the teacher.  If a private school, business, or corporate entity expects adherence to certain requirements, then the fault ultimately lies in the employed.  I agree though, that they better vet every single employee to ensure that everyone is complying by set standards, or this quickly becomes a case of discrimination rather than religious adherence.   

Gang members have confessed to killing the 43 missing students and dumping their charred remains in a landfill

"Several years after completing my 16-month sentence for drug dealing, I indebted myself considerably to obtain a master’s degree in the humanities (with honors). Despite the fact that my offenses had occurred over a decade ago, I found that paying jobs in public high schools and community colleges were legally barred to me by the State of California. (I now teach as a volunteer at halfway houses.)

There’s a larger issue here however.  Whether hindering an individual’s pursuit of the good life is ever just.  Correcting the process whereby a person becomes a felon is primary.  Assuming conviction was correct, however, I think these limits are justified.  In such a perfect justice system, felons are people who violate imperative social convention.  The situation is not so much that “they’ve been set up for failure,” as much as their chances for success have been limited.  This is because they’ve shown tendencies to limit other person’s pursuit of the good life - it’s a greater good type of consideration. 

A high school homecoming prince in Washington state calmly opened fire in the school cafeteria at lunchtime, killing one person and injuring four others - including two of his relatives - before shooting himself to death, police and witnesses said.

Another school shooting happened in the cafeteria at Marysville-Pilchuck High School. 14 year old Jaylen Fryberg, killed one person and injured four other people, including two of his relatives and himself.

No normal person does this. The article states that he was methodical, calculating. Most murders aren’t like this; most murders are acts of passion. This kid, in my opinion, had clear mental health issues. The article also mentions that he got in an argument the day before over racial slurs. While controlling his access to weapons was obviously needed, also needed was proper assessment and care for mental health concerns in this country.

However, as dalergang24 said in one of his posts:

They were described as popular and this made me wonder why the media and people place labels such as these on people, as if being popular makes you unable to commit such a crime or being quiet automatically qualifies you to be capable of such a crime.