[ExI] rights, liberty, control

[Mike Dougherty]

On Thu, Dec 13, 2012 at 7:07 PM, John Grigg <possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Ben, well said....  Magneto is a cold-blooded killer when necessary to get
> his way (who cares little for "flat scans"), while the Professor is a man of
> conscience and integrity.  In the comics they did repeatedly say that
> Charles Xavier might very well end up a martyr for his cause, which was a
> noble but perhaps ultimately doomed one....  On the other hand, Magneto's
> path would have lead to a horrific race war, leading to a global apocalypse!

Of course the comic/movie world must have a wide gulf between good and
evil so American audiences know which is going to win.  There may be
some intentional irony in the doomed plan of Magneto's Nazi-controlled
childhood and his later belief in mutant eugenics.  Magneto's
extremism was of course not sustainable.  I never felt like Dr.X's
mildism (non-extremism) was also not sustainable.  I assumed these
exaggerated opposites are meant to be consumed like sweet and sour to
create a flavor profile that's actually palatable.

What of Dr.X's treatment of Jean Grey?  Was he within his/our rights
to restrain her nature?  Is it a question of her civil liberties or of
our collective liberties?  If we exerted chemical mind control over
another human is it a different story?

I heard an article on NPR about torture and its use on prisoners.  I
wondered what the legal rules are regarding how a person's human
rights are violated by the definition of torture compared to the
state's right to capital punishment for criminal activity.  What are
the rights of a corpse that was once a fairly treated prisoner who was
found guilty of crimes warranting capital punishment?  Might there
soon be a loophole where torture is a pointless violation of
moral/ethical code (historically done for the purpose of extracting
information) while sanctioned murder is an expedient means to extract
chemical states from the deceased?  Why bother asking for information
from an unwilling conversationist prisoner when we might literally
read a corpse's mind?

For the record, I'm not a sociopath.  I know... that's what a
sociopath would say.  If this is a distasteful series of turns on the
logical unfolding of the issues of personal freedom, natural law,
torture, information/identity extraction, and possibly corpses' rights
- then I will concede it isn't exactly "polite" conversation.
However, the future will eventually force this kind of discussion to
be had by those who make laws and accept or reject such loopholes.

(Ben, John - I changed the subject line again because... "No, I do not
want to associate [former title] with these ideas")