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Message: <blockquote data-quote="SHARK" data-source="post: 107006" data-attributes="member: 1131">Greetings!That's quite right, Axiomatic!<img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> It makes me wonder, though. Some people scream that the code is everything, and that if the paladin doesn't abide by the code, then he shouldn't be allowed to remain a paladin. You know the drill. Now, as a US Marine, I'm quite familiar with what *codes* are about, and also how essential they are for teaching lessons, inspiration, discipline, and building in esprit de corps, individual pride, and so on, but--having said that, there is the *higher purpose* of getting the job done, that must be kept in focus. If you aren't getting the job done, for example, you're dead. or if you are alive,--your failure to get the job done, while somehow allowing you to escape death, will surely cause others to die from your failure. Thus, the code is important, but getting the job done is more so. And, as you mentioned, admitting thusly is not the same as saying, "well, screw it. The ends justifies the means." No, to the contrary, it simply means that sometimes, in order to get the job done, one must proceed as follows:Adhere in all ways possible to the code in pursuit of accomplishing the mission; However, where one finds that the success of the mission, or the lives one is entrusted with, are thereby jeapardised in rigid adherence to the code, the mission and those lives must take precedence. Though faithful, one must remain mentally flexible at all times in order to be successful on the modern battlefield.It always grinds me when people insist on rigid obedience to the code, even when the mission fails, or when others die. What good then, is the damn code? Does the code serve the purpose, or does the purpose serve the code?Now, the code isn't a purpose, in and of itself. The code is a *response* to a reality, or a purpose. If the code doesn't facilitate victory, then there's something wrong with the code. But yet, we have people that argue such all the time, huh? And it's like, wait a minute. The paladin is serving his god, his kingdom, his community. There isn't some intrinsic virtue in being honest, if that honesty gets *me* killed. Thanks very much, but LIE YOU IDIOT!<img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> I mean, it's fine to some extent, I suppose, if the paladin wants to remain rigidly honest to the code, and be hung anyways. But when the mission is at stake, or other lives hang in the balance, what virtue is there in being so stupidly honest? As the victims are horribly raped and tortured, I'm sure they'll be grateful that the paladin was "faithful to his code" right?<img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />Semper Fidelis,SHARK</blockquote>

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