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18-year-old U.S. Solider is alleged hitman for Mexican cartel
Reckless
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http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/08/11/texas.soldier.arrested/index.html
In summary, 18-year-old kid from Texas joins the Army, learns how to operate a variety of weapons, and is taught to disregard the negative emotions associated with taking a human life in boot camp. He then goes and markets the skills he's learned in the Army, and is subsequently arrested because killing is bad again once you're not wearing green fatigues and shooting at "insurgents."
If you can't tell, this story strikes a nerve with me. Is it fair to prosecute this kid to the fullest extent of the law given the fact that he was, essentially, a trained killer? If he was your basic grunt, he wasn't going to have a lot of marketable skills coming out of Basic. Philosophically speaking, is it right to train somebody to be a killer and little else, then punish them when they choose to exercise that training? Or am I a huge jerk for seeing this the way I do?
CNN wrote:Pfc. Michael Jackson Apodaca, 18, was one of three men arrested Monday in connection with the shooting death of the mid-level drug cartel member who also worked as an informant for the United States, according to a complaint affidavit.
In summary, 18-year-old kid from Texas joins the Army, learns how to operate a variety of weapons, and is taught to disregard the negative emotions associated with taking a human life in boot camp. He then goes and markets the skills he's learned in the Army, and is subsequently arrested because killing is bad again once you're not wearing green fatigues and shooting at "insurgents."
If you can't tell, this story strikes a nerve with me. Is it fair to prosecute this kid to the fullest extent of the law given the fact that he was, essentially, a trained killer? If he was your basic grunt, he wasn't going to have a lot of marketable skills coming out of Basic. Philosophically speaking, is it right to train somebody to be a killer and little else, then punish them when they choose to exercise that training? Or am I a huge jerk for seeing this the way I do?
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Yes, it's okay the prosecute the fuck out of him.
EDIT: I mean he's basically a hitman. I have no problem prosecuting hitmen. None.
Couple things.
1) "Is it right" depends upon the definition for what is "right". And if the above situation is defined to be "right" then it is "right".
2) There is a quesiton of whether a person is trained to indiscriminately kill everything, ever, or if the skills are taught for use in a military context. Perhaps if the training is to "kill enemy combatants" and they "kill civilians" then a problem could be found.
3) It can depend upon what we mean by "train". There might be a question involving whether teaching a skillset inherently allows for the use of that skillset. I can say "This is how you kill someone. Now, do not ever kill anyone." and those two sentences are not contradictory.
4) The way you worded your post makes it sound as if we are discussing human beings as machines which can be programmed for tasks. Your description sounds like "We made a machine that kills things. It kills things. Now we are saying the machine is faulty." I do not think you really want to pursue that line of reasoning. Mostly because most legal systems are based upon a notion of free will wherein a person "could have chosen otherwise". If we're removing free will from the equation and, rather, human beings are machines that do what they are programmed to do then we've fucked over the legal system...unless we want to be Calvinists.
Woot!
there is no basic human instinct to not take the life of another. there is a taught social contract saying such.
That doesn't change the fact that this guy should get the fullest extent, though.
that's why we call it the struggle, you're supposed to sweat
There's no such thing as a basic human instinct not to take the life of another. I would actually argue the opposite.
The only thing that keeps me from murdering the person next to me for singing to herself is the consequences our society places on such an action.
He's not even in the infantry. He works in an Air Defense Artillery Brigade.
Also he's still in the Army. He's wearing ACU's in his mugshot and we went to basic less than a year ago.
I like this point quite a bit. However, isn't a large portion of military training about removing a trainee's free will?
Please everybody, keep in mind I'm playing Devil's Advocate here because it's a topic I'd really like to discuss and explore alternative viewpoints on. In the case of this post I don't actually believe that all soldiers are void of their natural free will, I'm just sparking a line of conversation. This PSA has been brought you by the Reckless is not actually a Total Asshole Committee.
If we suppose free will it cannot be removed. We can teach free agents to direct themselves to act in a particular manner. But that is different than programming them to act in a particular manner.
Said another way, one can teach player A "Do X in situation Y." but player A retains the ability to not do it.
If we're arguing that player A loses the ability to not do X in situation Y then we're engaged in a very odd discussion.
What?! You'd seriously murder her if you knew you wouldn't get caught?
https://twitter.com/Hooraydiation
It has to do more with punishment than simply being caught.
Do you really think the only thing stopping you from murdering another person is what society would think of you and do with you afterward? Because, to me, that's an incredibly frightening notion.
no.
military training is situation reflex training. much like elementary school teaches you how to sit quiet in a classroom or dancing class teaches you how to dance without thinking about it.
Being frightening does not make it false.
I'm mostly positive that "fear of punishment" is why people do not do a great many things.
But you avoid punishment if you don't get caught.
https://twitter.com/Hooraydiation
you and them should be locked up for the safety of the rest of us
Sure. I'm simply stipulating that it is fear of "punishment" not fear of being "caught". If one could be caught and not punished then being caught would not be feared.
I really shouldn't have used "me" as an example, since now I come off as a psycopath.
But yes. I do believe a very large factor that stops people from commiting any crime is the fear of punishment. It's basically the social contract.
And then there's the whole "othering" process we tend to engage in as a means of justifying mistreatment of others. If we were truly okay with doing bad things to other people, then why would we need all that cognitive dissonance?
The rest of us who do not kill people as a result of fear of punishment.
I've seen some religious people use this as an argument - "if God didn't exist to threaten me with Hell I might as well go out and rob a bank and shoot everyone in it!"
They don't really mean it. I hope. Because if they do, they're pretty scary people and I don't want to be in the vicinity should they lose their faith one day.
https://twitter.com/Hooraydiation
Not "easier". But "as easy"? Sure.
Actually I'm pretty sure I wouldn't kill people because of, you know, empathy.
Most people who aren't sociopaths have it.
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I agree with you in principle, but consider that in the Military, they give you more pay and nice bits of metal for killing lots of folk. So not only is the risk of punishment nil, but in this situation there is a promise of reward.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
But "as easy" means that people who have a personal problem with personally killing animals also have a personal problem with killing people.
Unless you think that the average person would be able to kill animals just for the hell of it, as nascent serial killers often do, that would mean that there is in fact an inborn reluctance to kill other people that exists independent of the rules that discourage that behavior further.
https://twitter.com/Hooraydiation
Most (if not all) awards in the military are for saving lives not taking them.
If you have something and I don't and I need it, the rational thing to do is for me to take it from you. But as a society we have this silly notion of "property rights", and associated legislation to protect this with threats of punishment.
There are plenty of people who, given the option, would just walk out of the store with their groceries if they were assured they could get away with it. It's really the rational thing to do - it leaves them with more money to spend on things they can't get away with carrying out of the stores.
Well, organizations like Blackwater aside, it's not a direct relationship per se, but you get my general point. I don't see the dead folk as a "side effect," and while saving lives on your side is always great, that can come at the cost of human lives on the other side.
ITT Echo declares a functioning society to be an irrational construct.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
If we understand empathy as "putting one's self in another's place" and we understand death as a kind of punishment then empathy would also be fear of punishment.
"I do not kill them because I do not want to be killed." That kind of thing.
No, in fact I don't.
Soldiers don't get rewarded based on kill count. Period.
And former soldiers reintegrate into society on a daily basis without any resulting cartel related deaths.
This guy used the skills he'd gained to do bad things. This is not the military's fault.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.