Street named for Libertarian who died in 9/11 WTC attack
From The LP.org webpage:
Over 100 people attended the ceremony at which Franklin Avenue was designated as John W. Perry Avenue in honor of the officer, a member of the Libertarian Party who grew up on the street, who attended local schools -- and who gave his life to help preserve the lives of others in the WTC.This is what courage is. Courage is saving lives even when you know that doing so will mean certain death for yourself. Courage isn't napalming defenseless civilians or dropping bombs on people from thousands of feet above.According to police reports, Perry was at police headquarters in Manhattan on Sept. 11 to fill out his retirement papers. An attorney who graduated from the NYU School of Law, he intended to join a local law firm and was expected to run for office as a Libertarian.
But when the call for emergency assistance came, Perry left his paperwork behind at police headquarters and went to the twin towers. When the south tower collapsed, he was inside, guiding people to safety, according to police officers who survived. He had been told to evacuate, but refused to leave the building as long as there were people inside who he could help.
Comments (14)
Setting the groups survival as a higher priority
over ones own survival.
Life and death situations reveal the instilled values of childhood.
Published: October 2, 2004 2:06 AM
since you're throwing in political points in what otherwise was a nice memorial and tribute to individual sacrifice, courage also is acting first to kill those who would kill you and your friends, even though you might be hounded out of office for it by those who can't see past their nose.
Published: October 2, 2004 12:25 PM
Ok, check. Sending other people off to do your killing and dying for you, while you sit in a nicely pampered office at tax-payer expense, is "courage". Stealing from the taxpayers by taking out government loans (which require higher future taxes) and inflating the money-supply enormously is "courage". Backending the costs of war -- hiding them -- instead of just presenting them upfront in terms of proposed (enormous) tax-increases: that's courage. Supporting every program imaginable to depersonalize war and physically remove soldiers as far as possible from the reality of what they're doing -- some even want now for fighter planes to be piloted remotely -- so that soldier's are less likely to question immoral orders: that's courage.
Here's a thought: how about the politicians who want wars actually go and fight in, and use their own fortunes -- most likely the result of looting from taxpayers -- to finance it, leaving the rest of us alone.
Published: October 2, 2004 1:37 PM
Yes, in my perspective true courage the preservation of life and life is the highest value. Death and distruction is the lowest value. Life produces more life. Death and distruction produces only more death and distruction. And if taken to its conclusion produces extinction.
Published: October 2, 2004 5:10 PM
Hey Mike, your neighbours are looking at you and your family funny. I say you go and teach 'em a lesson (or better yet, send someone else to do it).
Published: October 2, 2004 6:13 PM
Courage is an individual trait, not a group trait. Neither is it accidental, courage happens when someone deliberately chooses to do something hard when they could have taken it easy.
It takes no courage to order others into harms way. So ordering while reserving total safety to ones self, hiding behind bunkers, guards and bombs, seems the opposite of courage.
Published: October 2, 2004 6:56 PM
"Death and distruction produces only more death and distruction."
Death and destruction are both value-neutral concepts. We all die, and sometimes in life one must destroy (e.g. a pathogen, an obstacle to creation, and in the worst case, a person.)
Sacrificing oneself for the sake of others is, at times, a noble and righteous thing. To claim that sacrifice by one for many is always, without exception, a good thing, implies that any person at any time can and should be sacrificed if it benifits more than one other person. When this has become accepted doctrine, what is it you are sacrificing for? Your fellow lemmings? At that point, maybe you might as well, since there isn't much to live for.
From what I have heard about him, it sounds as if John Perry was an honorable and admirable man and I believe that he has been rewarded for his efforts to help his fellow man.
Published: October 2, 2004 8:00 PM
To say that something is virtuous and should be done is not the same as to say that it is acceptable to use coercive violence to force to do it.
Published: October 2, 2004 8:15 PM
Death and distruction for ones own survival as a last resort option is not an act of courage. It is part of the survival instinct system in living organisms.
When fear of death and distruction is systematicly instilled in the group to motivate
the group to produce death and distruction by members of its own group for certain members own gain, it is called cowardice and treachery and if taken to its conclusion will produce extinction.
Burn you motherfuckers burn) is not the language of courageous heros but the language of pathetic
psychopaths.
Milions of human beings clashing against each other in a life and death struggle is completly absurd. Hundreds of thousands is no less absurd.
10s of thousands is no less absurd.
And to send the next generation to do such is not just absurd it is pys. illness.
Published: October 3, 2004 4:27 AM
Losing your life helps nobody. I believe John W. Perry thought he could help people in 9/11 without losing his life. But he had it wrong. And he dies. And that's no excuse, he took a big risk. There is nothing courageous about that.
Published: October 3, 2004 8:24 PM
Rolf-
My survival instinct must be off, as there are maybe ten people out of an estimated six billion that I would give my life for.
Beyond those two sentences, what is the point you were trying to make?
Published: October 3, 2004 10:23 PM
I point is in reference to you is that you are
a Fox news junkie.
Published: October 4, 2004 2:02 AM
"Far right facist" is a contradiction in terms, usually employed by far-leftists who have no concept of what either term means.
Published: October 5, 2004 2:35 PM
Hmmm. Looks like the comment I was responding to got removed.
(Shrug) just as well.
Published: October 5, 2004 2:38 PM