So, just to be clear, I'm not arguing from any religious viewpoint, my point is that a) our military is fighting ISIS, and b) anybody who funds ISIS, either directly or indirectly is going to have to do so serious explaining &/or soul-searching, since ISIS is trying to kill them (and any others that we support). *Disclaimer - I find the govt. of Syria to be just about as bad as a criminal organization, I wish we would have done more earlier, like the things Sen. McCain was advocating for, but we can't go back in time and change that now.
I'm not putting any words into anybody's mouth, I just found that the arguments put forward to show this was a "complex moral issue" were basically straw-man arguments set up so as to easily be knocked aside to support the answer to basically the wrong question. The wrong question is "Do I like Mr. Hobby Lobby/agree with his previous positions" vs. "Is what Mr. Hobby Lobby did wrong?" (Others on the opposite side may also be answering the wrong question, i.e., "Do I *not* like Mr. Hobby Lobby/do I *disagree* with his previous positions").
The real questions should be, is what he did legal or not? And did his actions have any impact, foreseen or unforeseen? And, in what context did his actions take place in, did his actions have an impact on others, positive or negative?
Basically, what he did was wrong both legally -- we already know that. But according to what has been said, all the legal and ethical stuff can be ignored if there is some moral issue he can claim to excuse his actions.
Re: the moral arguments for his actions being ok was "all museums have looted stuff," I think our collective Mom's have already weighed in on this one: two wrongs don't make a right.
Re: the moral argument that this is basically a "victimless crime," i.e., he just paid some people to send it to him this stuff, no harm no foul...this is just like the drug users arguing that their buying and using drugs doesn't impact anybody, when they are just ignoring all the effects their demand for drugs has all the way up and down the supply chain (and the surrounding communities) until it gets to them. As was pointed out earlier, this is really a demand problem; nobody would supply it if there wasn't a demand.
Re: somehow this is all ok, if he can pull a rabbit out of a hat and find something of biblical significance, I don't buy that...I don't think the end justifies the means, esp. with other issues in the context of the whole situation...that ISIS is methodically killing and looting to support their war efforts, and methodically destroying larger items that can't easily be sold, just to drive up the value of the stuff they can sell. (I'm guessing that what he bought will turn out to be misc. "crap", like warehouse inventories and other stuff, people in this area routinely wrote stuff down, for a good book read "History Begins at Sumer" by Kramer).
If you want to read some interesting background info that has helped form the basis of my opinion, here you go:
1. ISIS beheaded the chief archeologist of Palmyra, because he wouldn't disclose sites where artifacts were that could be looted and sold. The articles describe how looting artifacts is a significant source of income, and how much of what could be transported was already removed before ISIS came, which was why they had to interrogate this man, in order to find more:
--> for the left-wing TRF-ers
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/20/...lmyra-syria-antiquities-scholar-beheaded.html
--> for the right-wing TRF-ers
https://www.foxnews.com/world/2015/...ads-82-year-old-archaeologist-in-palmyra.html
2. Since 1970, exporting cultural artifacts with out permission is a crime (sure, a lot of museums have stuff from hundreds of years ago that some might claim was "looted" (the museums might argue back that, since they may have purchased it from the lawful government ruling at the time, it was legal at that time), but since 1970 taking artifacts out of a country has been illegal)
https://portal.unesco.org/en/ev.php-URL_ID=13039&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html
3. Interesting perspectives from Archeology magazine and other archeologists about looting, based on a 2003 case involving Egyptian antiquities
https://archive.archaeology.org/online/features/schultz/intllaw.html
https://www.cemml.colostate.edu/cultural/09476/pdf/US-v-Schultz-analysis.pdf
4. Off topic, an interesting tech solution to the looting problem:
https://itsartlaw.com/tag/national-stolen-property-act/
Ok, this is already too long...