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From: renner@uiucdcs.UUCP (renner )
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Starvation: The Rebuttal - (nf)
Message-ID: <5438@uiucdcs.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 7-Feb-84 03:29:45 EST
Article-I.D.: uiucdcs.5438
Posted: Tue Feb  7 03:29:45 1984
Date-Received: Thu, 9-Feb-84 14:15:49 EST
Lines: 31

#R:ihuxl:-87600:uiucdcs:29200085:000:1434
uiucdcs!renner    Feb  6 23:49:00 1984

>  [These arguments] assert that we will soon exhaust our surplus and then
>  we will all starve together.  In short, we must do evil today to avoid
>  greater evil tomorrow. ...most of the people whom we rightly regard as 
>  the great moral abominations of our time used this type of reasoning to
>  justify their actions.  

I don't buy this part of Polli's argument.  If we assume the premise (and it
is an assumption; I don't believe it), then there are two outcomes.  Either
some starve now and some survive, or all starve later.  Surely the first
outcome is better.  Would he really have everyone die?  Why?

Imagine two men drowning in the ocean.  They have one life preserver; only
one man can use it.  One man must drown.  Must both men drown?  Is it murder
for either man to use the life preserver?  Why? 

I still don't buy the references to Stalin and the planned starvation in
Ukraine, either.  Stalin took food by force from those who produced it.
He didn't "refuse to provide it."  He stole it.  This is murder on a
grand scale, but it is not relevant to our topic.

Oh yes.  When Polli posts his "tutorial on morality and ethics", I hope
he will explain why it is acceptable to use "innumerable cheap shots
and degrading insults" in order to attract attention to a topic that
interests him.  Without, of course, reference to any of this "the ends
justify the means" stuff.

Scott Renner
{ihnp4,pur-ee}!uiucdcs!renner