From: Jim Fehlinger (fehlinger@home.com)
Date: Fri Apr 06 2001 - 05:35:35 MDT
"Eliezer S. Yudkowsky" wrote:
>
> Spike Jones wrote:
> >
> > ... The way I understood the constitution, the Bill of Rights
> > cannot be abrogated, now or in the future, thus the name Rights.
> > Those who serve in the military take an oath to defend not the
> > government, but to defend the constitution...
>
> I don't believe the military is trained to believe it has the
> responsibility of deciding when the Constitution has been violated...
> - which is the way things should be, if you ask me....
Well, that's the way things are in **any** hierarchical organization
(which, among humans, means pretty much any organization, period), isn't it?
Whatever meta-rules the organization itself pays lip service to, the
everyday job of its members is to do what the boss wants, right up
the chain of command to the top.
Of course, that doesn't let anybody off the hook if there's ex-post-facto
punishment being meted out by a higher authority -- a war-crimes trial,
or the criminal investigation of a business organization. That's the
sort of situation that makes great fictional entertainment, but that
would be among anybody's worst nightmares to be involved in personally.
RIPLEY: Just tell me how you can leave that kind of decision to him.
DALLAS: Look, I just run the ship! Anything that has to do with the
Science Division, Ash has the final word.
RIPLEY: How does that happen?
DALLAS: It happens, my dear, because that's what the Company **wants**
to happen.
RIPLEY: Since when is that standard procedure?
DALLAS: Standard procedure is to **do** what the hell they tell you to do.
...
RIPLEY: I don"t trust him.
DALLAS: I don't trust **anybody**.
Cheers.
Jim F.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sat Nov 02 2002 - 08:06:51 MST