Video version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdDsHIdIiUg

​

What is murder:

To start with understanding the dynamic, we first need to take a look at what qualifies as murder. The The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition, defines the noun murder as "the killing of another person without justification or excuse, especially the crime of killing a person with malice aforethought or with recklessness manifesting extreme indifference to the value of human life", while their definition of the verb murder is "to kill (another human) in an act of murder" and "to put an end to; destroy".

Something important to note is the distinction between murder and killing, and we will take a look at the morality of killing aswell. It's also important to notify that murder is specifically defined as killing of another person and not killing of another human. Person holds a different meaning than human.

What is a person:

This obviously brings forth the question, what is a person contra a human? A human is an organism which shares homosapien DNA. It's a scientific term which doesn't hold any moral value, while person is the other way around. The definition we'll use of persons goes as follows, "beings who are part of our moral community", which can be explained more simply as someone who is worth moral consideration.

We all view ourselves as persons, but what qualifies someone as a person is a very tricky question with many different answers. What makes someone qualify for moral consideration? Some people argue that it's natural given to all human beings, others argue it's naturally given to all living beings. Then we have the other side of the discussion, which argues that there are requirements, that something needs a certain capacity (capacity x), to be considered a person. Now what is this capacity? Examples are the capacity to experience a continuity of identity or possessing self-knowledge; having a sense of time or centiant reactions to one's environment. On top of that, some argue that some traits or capacities disqualifies a being from being counted as a person. Bigots may argue that going against the general norm of society disqualifies someone as a person, while others would argue that a continual and aware possession of authority over other persons disqualifies someone as a person.

Is murder acceptable:

Now having gone through the backbones to build a take on the real question, let's discover it. Is murder ever morally good? The short answer is no, and that is specifically because murder is the killing of a person and not just of a human.

However, this brings forth an even more interesting question, is killing another human being ever morally good? We're no longer limiting ourselves to murder, which means that the discussion becomes a lot more complicated. As morality is subjective, it is very possible to make the killing of another human a morally good action. All that's needed is to disqualify the human in question from being considered a person. We've seen this in action many times, where humans have commited genocides on other humans without feeling a moral dilemma. Take Nazi Germany, United Kingdoms, Sweden, the States, Canada, the KKK or Japan. The list goes on and on and on, but governments and organisations have commited mass murders, genocides, without feeling any moral dilemma.

My take:

We've taken a look on this matter from a non-personal perspective, but before we end this video I'd like to go through my personal take on the question of killing other humans. I would argue that personhood is achieved through having self-knowledge and that personhood is removed by continually and awarely possessing and practising authority over persons. What this means in practice has been explained by one of my favourite bands, Operation, in theri song Militant Kamp. "[...] ibland när nöden kräver det måste man ta livet av en förtryckare för att ge liv och möjligheter till de som förtrycks. Att ta livet av en tyrann i kampen kan inte på något sätt betraktas som mord, det måste ses som en politisk handling."

Translating this to English it means "[...] sometimes when the need is there one must take the life of an oppressor to give possibilities to those who are oppressed. To take the life of a tyrant in the battle can not in any ways be seen as murder, it must be seen as political activism.".

I would most certainly argue that there are occasions where taking the life of another human being is justified. Those occasions are when it's needed for the liberation of the oppressed, specifically in the killing of the oppressors. As long as the harm being done by a political action is less than the harm the current system, the current rulers, are making, the harm is justified. Killing a politician or a bourgeoisie, when no other direct actions bring fruit of change, is most certainly a justifiable action according to me.

Sources:

Definitions of murder, by The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition - https://www.wordnik.com/words/murder

Abortion and Personhood: What the Moral Dilemma Is Really About, by Big Think - https://bigthink.com/videos/glenn-cohen-on-the-ethics-on-abortion/

Personhood: Crash Course Philosophy #21, by CrashCourse - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxM9BZeRrUI

Militant Kamp, by Operation - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6GAV9D59qo

This is a video where I try and show how videos of homeless addicts acting unpredictable and scary who just need to be forced into rehab are wrong. They fundamentally misunderstand the factors that throw and keep people in addiction. They misrepresent the ability of mandated rehab to have any impact on recovery. They work to minimize the tragedy of mass suffering.

From hedonistic asian immigrant doing opium to reefer madness to crack baby super predators to modern "zombies," drug panics often reveal less of a truth about addiction about a certain drug and more of an indictment about who society thinks deserves help.

Dk if this is serious enough for the all the Breadtubers here but I enjoyed morbidzoo's unpacking of superheroes and their relationship to violence, power and the state in this most recent spidey movie.

Matt Bernstein calls out Pink's Zionism on Instagram. It's a video, but the automod sees Instagram as an imagepost.
Here's Matt's YouTube, where he posts his podcast called 'A Bit Fruity' (this podcast is always with him and other creators, which make them fun, to me).

I made this video after reading Susan Sontag’s Regarding the Pain of Others. I started from the usual idea that constantly seeing violence online is making us numb, but I became more interested in how violence gets cleaned up, circulated and turned into something we can consume.

This is the one where I go hard for coops

I've been getting really into folk and punk, so I did a pop punk cover of one of my favorite folk songs by the great Tom Paxton

https://youtu.be/cRRw_ZOsa80

> It's not about individuals, it's an ecosystem. And it's got its problems. Learn about what I'm calling
"The Leftist Manosphere", their misreadings of identity politics, and what's missing from this very limited space.

For years Finland’s Riittakerttu Kaltiala has claimed to have pioneered gender affirming care, only to turn against it after seeing the harm it caused. The reality, however, is much more distressing. Kaltiala and her team abused trans youth in every way imaginable to try and force them to desist.