Intergalactic Summit

'Freedom' is said in many ways. If we don't distinguish them properly and speak of one freedom like it's the same as another, then we confound them falsely and make a category mistake. The difference than between what the Scriptures and what the Minmatar religions talk about is not in what freedom is, but in what freedom they talk about.

The Amarr religion doesn't see freedom as privilege, either: The freedom it speaks about is a potential that humans need to realize. While Amarr recognizes that there is a freedom from external interference and that there is a freedom that consists in having the power and resources to fulfill and go through with ones choices and a diversity of other freedoms. But beyond these freedoms there is a freedom from internal constraints of base instincts and appetites.

He who is determined merely by his urges can be free from external constraints, but should he be so? The Amarr religion tells us that man should only be free from external constraints, if he has some fundamental measure of control over his evil urges, and should otherwise be controlled by means external to him.

The Amarr religion tells us furthermore that the most praiseworthy freedom is that which consists in realizing our potential of moral autonomy, to free ourselves from our inner urges and thus make us also free from external circumstances in our pursuit to live righteous and act according to goodness.

It is in this divine spark, the potential to moral autonomy, that we are are called to realize by God, that the divine rests within us. And it is our responsibility to let this spark inflame our hearts and prepare ourselves to burn with this flame so that we can illuminate this world of darkness and reconcile with God, who became man and who upheld humankind until we broke away from him by our own doing, and thus be truly free through Him and prosper within Him, realizing that we are all one in Him.

Freedom, understood to mean moral autonomy, is therefore not a privilege, but the requirement to receive the gift and privilege of reconciliation.

Θεός Σωτήρ Ψυχῇ

- N. Mithra

Why destroy when you can repurpose? Educating others as to what is best is by far a a better course of action than destroying them. Such an endeavor will seem difficult, or impossible, at times. However, it is a never ending struggle where progress is measured in the longterm. Violence is the exact opposite: it is easy and impulsive; though it rarely results in positive change.

Repurpose? Maybe. Reprocess - more likely.
Educating can be feasible, but not if the subjects under discussion are gallenteans. Just look at peoples like Ixiris, they are unable to learn anything. It is better to simply reprocess them and use their biological material for more useful applications.

I live for the State and for citizens of the State.

Ah, Rodj. How refreshing to hear that kind of knee-jerk racism from somebody who ISN'T Diana Kim for a change.

Of course, the fact that she used to be a welcome change from you just goes to show that "refreshing" is a relative term. After extended proximity to a fedo, even burning rubber becomes an enticing alternative - neither, however, is actually a pleasant aroma.

Lest you think I'm just being a smart-ass, I'd like to point out that, while accurate, the statement "many free Minmatar are downright nasty" remains equally true when you remove the word "free" and indeed when you substitute any other ethnicity... which means that the statement can more efficiently be rendered as "many people are downright nasty". There's not really a need to specify "free Minmatar" there because the last time I checked, free Minmatar were people, and thus included within the statement

As are you, Rodj - thank you for demonstrating it in action.

Why not? What motive other than racism is there for needlessly singling out "free Minmatar" in that statement? Especially when the ethnically-neutral version is so self-evident as to scarcely be worth saying in the first place?

How can you read that as anything other than a needless, apropos stab at the Minmatar for no good reason?

I'm sorry, I'm not very good with this sort of logic, but, well. I had thought that assigning a negative universal of human nature to a specific racial group was a functional definition of racism? Maybe I should just stay in my lab.

Oh yeah, Rodj is uncannily good at pushing the boundaries of people's opinions on Amarrians.

... downward.

You're all so serious.

I long ago stopped believing that Mr Blake said anything on the IGS except for the purposes of dark humour. I certainly laughed. He's probably getting a wry smile as well from watching you all tie yourselves up in logical and moralistic knots over a snarky comment.

Only if you assign it specifically to a specific racial group, that is saying that group a shows a greater frequency in displaying said negative trait than group b for example and you claim (implicitly) that this difference in frequency is causally linked to the race, that is if you say that group a is nastier than group b, because of the races of groups a and b.

To be racist the statement would need to be something like this: "Minmatar are worth less than other races, because many free Minmatar are downright nasty, in difference to free members of more valuable races." I put emphasis on what Mr. Hakatain added apparently in his head to the statement of the Admiral and which he, by the way, accepts as true.

Absence of a qualification that makes a statement explicitly non-racist of the type "the statement "many free Minmatar are downright nasty" remains equally true when you [...] substitute any other ethnicity..." doesn't mean that the statemant automatically qualifies as racist.

Tl;dr: Not 'assigning a negative universal of human nature to a specific racial group' is a functional definition of racism, but 'assigning a negative universal of human nature specifically to a specific racial group'.