An amoral president

In church not long ago we had a discussion on morality and legality. Morality is something which comes from inside a person, based on the goodness (or badness) of their own character. Legality is imposed from the outside. What I took from the discussion is that if legality is your standard for what is moral, it is an admission that you have no morals at all.

In light of that epiphany, this interview was scary.

Matt Lauer: "Why is waterboarding legal, in your opinion?"

President Bush: "Because the lawyer said it was legal, said it did not fall within the Anti-Torture Act. I’m not a lawyer. And—but you got to trust the judgment of people around you. And I do."

No internal questioning about whether it is right at all. Complete amorality.

PTSD

From an interview on the film Wartorn 1861-2010.

The premier of this film was at the Pentagon. And there was a panel afterwards ... it’s a very interesting panel discussion, and it featured a Medal of Honor winner. And he looked at all the generals, and he says, "OK, some people say it’s ten percent post-traumatic stress. One of the generals says it’s 30 percent. You know, you know, and I know it’s 100 percent." Anybody who engages in warfare is scarred forever.
(Jon Alpert, co-director of Wartorn 1861-2010.)

I have nothing to add.

Stewardship economics

In Capitalism, business owners have the sovereign power of a king, and no one to give accounting to.

In Socialism, you must account for what you do, but you have no power.

If you had sovereign power, and you gave a account for the justice of what you did with that power, that would be stewardship.