Mal and his people are just low-life thieves...
POSTED BY: chrisisall
UPDATED: Tuesday, January 24, 2006 14:32
VIEWED: 39973
PAGE 12 of 17
You live in a very black and white world.
If the Alliance as a whole and Blue Sun are corrupt and unjust, that still doesn't make every Alliance soldier evil to the core.
Human beings = shades of grey.
The point I was making is that we've seen the alliance soldiers and officers face to face and what we see is callous disregard for human life. No, every soldier is not evil to the core. But they are unwilling to excersize even the smallest bit of compassion towards the people that they forced to "unify" with them. These people simply don't matter. Settlers in peril on backwater worlds, people dying in front of their eyes from easily treatable causes, these people are irrelevant to the Alliance soldiers and officers. That's been made very, very clear in the series.
Were the doctors and nurses of whites-only hospitals in the segregated south evil to the core? No. Did they allow black babies, children, women and men to die on their doorsteps because they were the wrong color? Yes. I personally knew a woman who's sister bled to death on the steps of a whites-only hospital. That doesn't make the people evil, but it does make them complicit in evil.
The Alliance governmental system is corrupt and evil. Not necesarily the essence of true evil like The Emporer/Darth Vader/Lord Voldemort. But evil in the sense of: "tending to cause great harm; the quality of being morally wrong in principle or practice."
Those who perpetuate the evil system whether they are fry cooks or Operatives are responsible for their part. They themselves are products of said evil system and view the innocent people in the margins with contempt or indifference. Their mothers, spouses and children love them and think they're nice people. This juxtapostion I do not refute, but I will continue to insist that the Alliance soldiers and officers we have seen are willing accomplices in acts that are "morally bad, intrinsically corrupt, wantonly destructive, inhumane, selfish, or wicked." (quotes are from Google Web Definitions: evil.)
You really really really need to read the rest of the thread before you start posting.
I really really really did read the entire thread from first post to last before I chimed in.
Right and wrong do not change relative to your situation. Justice is not the same thing as morality. Killing a man with his hands in the air in surrender is never the right thing to do, even if it is the just and smart thing to do.
You missed my point entirely. Your presentation of what is right and wrong do not apply to Mal. Mal is trying to survive. He's trying to make a place where he can survive--survival for his own heart, mind, soul, and body, survival for his crew, which he considers extensions of himself, and survival for his ship. He is in a place most of us will never know, and many cannot truly grasp or empathize with. When you are living on the edge of space, fighting for your survial everyday, the concepts of absolute rights and wrongs have no meaning.
Mal kills, and kills often. Killing is wrong. Unless it's for survival/self defense. Or unless you're a soldier in a legally engaged war, following legal orders. Or unless you're a government who's condemned someone to death after a fair trial. Or...the list goes on and on for what are justifiable homicides. By Mal's personal rules, which is almost all he left, shooting that soldier was the the only course of action open to him. He has never killed anyone unless it was kill or be killed. Even Crow falls into that category.
You have to make a complete paradigm shift in order to understand what 'verse Mal and his crew are dealing with. When you're on the frontier, fighting for your life and for your very soul, things are different then when you're on a core planet with plenty of food and shelter. Of course what he did wasn't "right". He knows that. But is was necessary, in his judgement, for his continued existance.
"Someone tries to kill you, you try to kill 'em right back....You got the right
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If I'm reading your post right you're saying that America is evil.
More insane ramblings by the people who brought you beeeer milkshakes!
The statistics on sanity are that one out of every four persons is suffering from some sort of mental illness. Think of your three best friends -- if they're okay, then it's you.
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Ok, I know I'll take heat for this but I don't care.
If Mal and his crew are just low life thieves then George W. Bush is one of the most honest and articulate men that has ever served in the White House, truly dedicated to preserving and protecting our Constitutional rights and Donald Rumsfeld is a genius in military planning.
There, I've said it. I expect to catch some flack for that for those people here that call themselves Browncoats but are really just poser purplebellies so if I've offended you then all I can say is.....bite me! see ya in 2008 when the tables finally turn.
Jaytee
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Quote:
Originally posted by XieAining:
To those of you who think Mal shooting an Alliance soldier who's throwing up his arms in surrender is just plain wrong, you really really really need to rewatch the series with particular attention to what the Alliance military says and does. You really really really need to get a grip on what the Alliance and Blue Sun are.
Listen to what the commanding officer says in Train Job. Critical medicine has been stolen. The officer says to mark it as delivered. Orders the attachment of soldiers on. Sends no help to the townsfolk to retrieve the meds. They're on their own.
Watch Safe again and realize that the Alliance officer would have refused medical assistance to Book, thus condemning him to death, had Book not had an ident card that the officer deemed worthy.
The Alliance is an unholy entity. Blue Sun is a corporation that owns just about every damn thing, and is, in most respects, the government. You're looking at a facist government/corporate monopoly that is only interested in its own survival and amassing more power and wealth.
Mal has lived his whole life suffering the indignities, horrors, and injustices of a brutal, oppressive regime. He fought for independence from it and was betrayed by his own commanders in the end, left to watch damn near everyone under his command die AFTER a cease fire, waiting for the med ships that didn't come until the Alliance and the Browncoats worked out a surrender.
Mal has no alligance, nor should he, to the Alliance code of justice. The Alliance code of justice is warped, slanted towards the "haves" and the "have-mores". It seeks to empower the rich and disenfranchise the poor. Why the hell do you think they were trying to rebell? Because they didn't want to pay their taxes? NO! Because the Alliance is evil and indifferent by turns to the beleaugered people on the outer rim planets and these folks had had about enough of being abandoned when they needed help, and being interefered with in the most high handed way imaginable when it suited the Alliance.
He tried to win his independence from the Alliance and lost. So he simply declared his own personal independence and tries to stay as far away from the Alliance as possible. Unfortunately, circumstances keep drawing him and the Alliance face to face.
You cannot judge Mal's actions by your own standards that were forged by living in a prosperous country governed by the rule of law, with democratically elected officals, states rights, and advocacy groups for the disenfranshised. You live in a paradise that Mal couldn't even concieve.
Honestly, seriously, rewatch the episodes and pay attention to what the Alliance is.
That being said, there's another layer.
Inara: I just want to know who I'm dealing with. I've seen too many versions of you to be sure.
Mal: I start fighting a war, I guarantee you'll see something new.
Mal is no longer a civilian when he lands on Haven and sees what the Operative has set in motion. He's now at war.
If on the beaches of Normandy in the heat of battle, a German solider stumbled out of a bunker with arms raised, after having spent the last three hours shredding the Allied soldiers to bits, do you honestly think any of the Allied soldiers would have stopped, accepted his surrender, and marched him off to a prisoner of war camp? Every last man on that beach would have picked him off--shot, stabbed, or stomped him to death. Because it's war. And unlike our "civilized" wars, in the future Mal lives in, there are no humane Rules of Engagement. Honest to Pete, the Allied solider was, to Mal, an enemy combatant. Maybe not by our rules, maybe not by your priviledged standards, but he was an enemy combatant to a man who's had to live with a regime that's heaped upon him and his nothing but sorrow and pain his whole life. To a man who's fought against this sort of hideous behavior in one war already and finds himself in another war with an Operative of the Alliance and the men at his command, it's a noNOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
We wonder sometimes if Mal is happy w/ his choices. When he asks River in the BDM "Do your understand your part in all of this?" & she looks at him & asks "Do you?" Mal answers "This is what I do darlin'." then more quietly & to himself "It's what I do." I am sure everyone saw the look on Mal's face, a mix of pain, resignation, perhaps even fatigue. Is he really happy? He looks like a man with a great many burdens to bear. As he tells Simon jobs are harder to come by, even legit ones, since Simon & River are onboard Serenity.
To me, it's that sort of thing, in addition to most of his actions, that says "yes, Mal is a moral man. Mal is a good guy." He does things he doesn't like in order to keep himself and his crew flying, but he is a deeply good character.
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Its my understanding that Josh came up the consept of Firefly after reading "The Killer Angels". Being an American and a Civil War Reenactor I have seen the word "Rebel" used in several messages. A lot of people in the North and South wanted to get on with their lives after the War between the States. In my opinion the Alliance is like the Northern States after the War. Many high government officals wanted to punish the South for starting it in the first place. The South was desimated during the war and even today 150 years later we have a lot less railroad tracks. The Southern people had to endure many hardships after the war and did what they had to, to survive. After a time they came up with a nasty club called the Klu Klux Klann a very bad thing.
Mal reminds me of a unreconstructed Rebel a person who never really surrendered but just quit fighting after the independance gave up. He would be the first to say the war is long over.
By the way I fight for the Union in the 75 Ohio Vol Inf as my Great,Great Uncle fought with the 2nd Tenn U.S. a union inf unit.
I guess morality depends on which side you fought for. As far as Iraq, only history will tell if We were right or wrong about that. Do you realize the U.S. still has bases in Germany, Italy and Japan. I spent 20 years as a U.S. Submarine Sailor and had the order came down I would have launched the weapon, Nuke or Conventional without hesitation.
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Quote:
Originally posted by citizen:
If an attack helicopter is shot down after attacking a village in Iraq, one that the crew believed was a terroist camp, does the pilot deserve to be summerially executed? Not asking what would happen, just whether the pilot would deserve it.
The question here isn't whether he deserved it, but whether he should expect it. Consider:
1. Under the usages of war, no one is required to accept an enemy's surrender. It's generally considered a wise thing to do, when feasible, as it offers your opponent an option other than fighting to the death, but it is not required.
(Specifically, if accepting an enemy's surrender would place your command at risk, you are not to do it. That's standard doctrine.)
2. That pilot either knew he was flying an illegal mission under unlawful orders, or he thought it was a legal mission -- in which case, the rules of warfare apply. In other words, he knew, going in, that if grounded, he should expect death.
Moving out of the hypothetical modern-day, and back to the movie, Mal was operating under the condition of war--an illegal war declared against Mal and anyone who'd ever offered him a huddling place, however tenuous the connection, by the Parliment, through their designated Operative.
That Alliance pilot was a member of enemy armed forces. Mal was not only within his rights to to kill him, but, as taking him prisoner would have increased the risk to his command, (he's had enemies escape from his makeshift hoosgow before, and had his ship endangered by loose cannons aboard ship), he was arguably obligated to.
"She's tore up plenty. But she'll fly true." -- Zoë Washburn
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Jaytee:
Quote:
Originally posted by Jaytee:
There, I've said it. I expect to catch some flack for that for those people here that call themselves Browncoats but are really just poser purplebellies so if I've offended you then all I can say is.....bite me! see ya in 2008 when the tables finally turn.
Not only do your assertions not follow, in fact they’re nonsensical, but:
I’m sorry some disagree with you, and don’t fall into what your narrow view of what a ‘good’ Browncoat should be, I guess them, and I suppose myself, should all roll over so you can live in YOUR perfect fandom.
Did YOU not learn anything from the series or the movie? And you call YOURSELF a ‘good’ Browncoat
.Rocketjock:
Quote:
Originally posted by RocketJock:
The question here isn't whether he deserved it, but whether he should expect it.
No the question is whether he deserved it, since many people here are throwing out the moral relativism of “it was okay to kill him because he deserved it”.
Quote:
1. Under the usages of war, no one is required to accept an enemy's surrender. It's generally considered a wise thing to do, when feasible, as it offers your opponent an option other than fighting to the death, but it is not required.
(Specifically, if accepting an enemy's surrender would place your command at risk, you are not to do it. That's standard doctrine.)
This is flagrantly false. Have you not heard of the Geneva Convention?
Quote:
Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War
Article 3
In the case of armed conflict not of an international character occurring in the territory of one of the High Contracting Parties, each party to the conflict shall be bound to apply, as a minimum, the following provisions:
1. Persons taking no active part in the hostilities, including members of armed forces who have laid down their arms and those placed hors de combat by sickness, wounds, detention, or any other cause, shall in all circumstances be treated humanely, without any adverse distinction founded on race, colour, religion or faith, sex, birth or wealth, or any other similar criteria.
To this end the following acts are and shall remain prohibited at any time and in any place whatsoever with respect to the above-mentioned persons:
(a) Violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture;
(b) Taking of hostages;
(c) Outrages upon personal dignity, in particular, humiliating and degrading treatment;
(d) The passing of sentences and the carrying out of executions without previous judgment pronounced by a regularly constituted court affording all the judicial guarantees which are recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples.
…
Article 4
A. Prisoners of war, in the sense of the present Convention, are persons belonging to one of the following categories, who have fallen into the power of the enemy:
1. Members of the armed forces of a Party to the conflict as well as members of militias or volunteer corps forming part of such armed forces.
Please note the fact that under the Geneva convention a member of the armed forces who is under the power of an adversary (just like the Alliance officer) is a prisoner of war, and that it is forbidden to murder a POW.
Quote:
2. That pilot either knew he was flying an illegal mission under unlawful orders, or he thought it was a legal mission -- in which case, the rules of warfare apply. In other words, he knew, going in, that if grounded, he should expect death.
Both covered by the Geneva Convention. Breaking the rules of the convention does not mean that a combatant is automatically unprotected, and the rules of warfare blatantly forbid it.
Quote:
That Alliance pilot was a member of enemy armed forces. Mal was not only within his rights to to kill him, but, as taking him prisoner would have increased the risk to his command, (he's had enemies escape from his makeshift hNOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
As far as governments go they can only go as far as people let them.
Freedom has a cost,everyone knows this,some just dont wanna pay it.{or they wanna bum freedom from others}
The cost may differ according to the stances.
Power hungry people only want one thing POWER.
Freedom Hungry people only want FREEDOM.
Hungry people want FOOD.
Each of these has its own price.Some times the price is the same but has taxes added.
If I were living under a oppressive government I would find a way to live if I WANTED to live.
I would do what I needed,to get what I needed.
I feel I need to say this...Power hungry people fear an armed People.They also fear any person of free will.
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Saying that God authored confusion by creating Lucifer is like saying my sniper rifle goes out all by itself and shoots people 2 miles away so I dont get into trouble.
Ridin the Ocean's boring when there aint no waves
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Quote:Here's my real problem: 'Rules of war'?
Originally posted by citizen:
Not by any recognised rules of war.
Baby, when the lead (or plasma beams) start flyin', there ain't no rules. No commanders, no orders.
There's survival. Anything threatens that, you say bye to it and accept whatever legal repercussions you may face, if you live.
Geneva Convention...peeps signed papers is all. Don't apply in the heat of real life and death.
The whole world's awash in a sea of RULES that don't mean a damned thing when the one(s) in power say 'not in this case' or 'doesn't apply to him'. We're all in this big game of chess, where the castle can move diagonally, 'cause one of the 'players' says so.
Citizen, please.
Is America an evil empire?
Any business gets too big is just full of corruption.
But we can make new rules making certain corruption legal.
Britan and Canada, join us. You don't know the power of the corporate side!
Sorry for sounding snarky, it's not usually my way, but when it comes to talking on civilization (seizing power in a well-educated and faux-polite manner), I get all on the edge.
And yeah, if I went down in Iraq, not in a gunship but even in a passenger jet, and I survived the landing I would expect to be killed for the 'side' I'm recognized as being on.
Rant-like Chrisisall
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