On the subject of Jews....
 

You and Triumph, two comic classics. I salute you, Schmeckelleh.

Differing Concepts of Justice and Freedom
 

Cut the crap back at you. If you are saying that Moveon or Cindy Sheehan are not expressing pacificist ideals then you are high. How many Moveon rallies have you been to? Have you listened to the full breadth of their message?

FTR, I have essentially been to tens of their rallies and in fact was at one last week. I stand by my statement, they are pacificists. And what is wrong with America and the American left.

On the subject of Jews....
 

Hmmmm. Okay. NTTAWWT. I can't even tell you if Jesse Jackson is cut or not and I was naked with enough times to count as much. I maintained eye contact. It seemed more polite. And intimately sincere, sts.

Differing Concepts of Justice and Freedom
 

Is an inauthentic pacifist still a pacifist?

Differing Concepts of Justice and Freedom
 

And you said you didn't know why I started this with Penske.

A Question of Divine Inspiration
 

Sure it does. It is a simplistic and wishful posture to think Jesus pronounced a morally relatavistic standard where anything goes. Anything goes prior to accepting Christ, after that you have to live up to certain standard of babyjesian morality. I don't have to be a devout Catholic to know that all dogs do not go to heavan. Are you claiming the opposite?

Differing Concepts of Justice and Freedom
 

The PoPD is a powerful and insidious cult, learned at the knees of the Clintons and their demonic minions.

Differing Concepts of Justice and Freedom
 

I think part of the problem here is that you are reading the definition too broadly. The fallacy you are hung up on is that if one is a relativist, then one can never hold any opinion on anything. That is reductio ad absurdum.

I can believe that the decision whether or not it is right to take a life depends upon the facts and circumstances of the life being taken versus the general good accomplished or protected thereby, and still believe that genocide is an absolute evil and those who practice it are absolutely wrong.

Differing Concepts of Justice and Freedom
 

And again I say that if you are saying economic considerations are justified to allow abortion then it should be no different with a 4 year old.

The difference between you and your waitress is that she has and had a choice to get a job or jobs that provide health insurance so whether or not she gets appropriate care ends up being within her realm of responsibility. If not, there is the social safety net, but in a capalist society that is likely to be less than the top end of private care. It is better than nothing. But again it is an equation she takes part in. Allowing children to be murdered because there parents made a bad decision in sexxing and can't afford is purely a third party equation. And that is murder.

Differing Concepts of Justice and Freedom
 

I accept your definition, and now you are changing it. Are you admitting that if the prior definition of moral relativism is correct then you are not a moral relativist? In all seriousness this definition is pretty similar. If all criteria of judgement are relative to the individuals and situations involved, then the judgement of right and wrong can change depending on the people involved in the situation. In other words, right or wrong can change from society to society and culture to culture because the people doing the judging are changing. If in Pakistan, femal circumsicission is occuring, it might be OK because from the perspective of the people doing the judging (the religiosu leaders in Pakistan) that is OK.

If God wrote the code then why couldn't he hard wire it into all of us. He gave us a conscience. What is so inconsistent about that?

It does not need to be learned. I have never said it had to be learned, let alone said "having to learn it" is the cornerstone of my argument. People seem to be born with a consicence.

I agree with that.

Here you lose me. I think man has always had a conscience. It is this consicience that has guided us towards the universal code. But the our conscience has always been competing with other instincts (like the survival instinct). I think over time man has been able to understand the difference between the two and separate the two.

Again this is wrong, because it assumes that our conscience is our only instinct. As a wise man said it is much easier to have a conscience when you are not starving (worried about every day survival). As society advances we can focus more on our conscience and less on our survival instincts and our primal fears.

Over time people in all societies seem to agree with what is right and wrong. Look at the universal declaration of human rights signed by almost every country on the planet. If there were no universal moral code our ideas of Justice would not converge.

People do not have a right to be unjust. Societies do not have right to act immorally. There is nothing wrong with enforcing justice. When you spread justice you are not violating anyone's rights.

No we are not enslaving them. Did we enslave the Germans or the Japanese? We are spreading Justice and that is a good thing.

I don't have any problem with using undemocratic methods to bring democracy to a country. I think this is in line with the universal moral code. Why would using undemocratic methods to bring a democracy be a problem?

We used unprecedented violence and undemocratic methods to bring democracy to Germany. But now Germany has a stable Democracy and is much more in alignment with the code. I think most of what happened there did not violate the code in any way.




You don't need to break the moral code to have them adopt it. I don't know why you think that. In the moral code I believe in, there is a time in place for violence, killing and coercion. Sometimes all three of these things are a moral imperative. You are assuming that if there is a moral code that it has to be some pacifistic code that eschews all violence etc. I don't think the universal moral code is even close to the pacifistic one that someone like Ghandi envisions.

That is fair. I disagree but is fair.

Just a small request.......
 

If only we could get you to STP then maybe we wouldn't have to read purely PoPD crap like this, and I think this would be a better place for it.

Differing Concepts of Justice and Freedom
 

Depends, is there a universally recognised governing body?

Differing Concepts of Justice and Freedom
 

Its like you guys are addicted. You just keep going there.

Differing Concepts of Justice and Freedom
 

Have you ever been to a MoveOn rally? Do you know first hand what the message is?

Just a small request.......
 

And people accuse me of being naive.

Differing Concepts of Justice and Freedom
 

It is intelligent design.

Differing Concepts of Justice and Freedom
 

The liberals on the board like to project their biased hatred and intolerance of the Republicans, W, Capitalism, free markets, freedom, national security and defense, fiscal conservatism, tax reform, federalism, democracy and/or the culture of life upon me. Much like W is the bogeyman for the left on a national level or America is the bogeyman for the Internationalists, I am the bogeyman of this board.

Meanwhile America continues to lead the world on a march in the Right(eous) direction and the left recedes into the dustbin of history, much like their failed Soviet experiment.

Differing Concepts of Justice and Freedom
 

That is not what I am saying. I am saying that a moral relativist believes that morality is a social construct that can change from society to society. In that case, a moral relativist can not critisize the moral decisions that are made in other cultures and societies.

That is not moral relativism. If the facts and the circumstances change then the moral judgement can change. You can have different moral judgement in different situations. For example. It is OK to kill someone when they are trying to kill you but not OK when they are just standing next to you. That is not moral relativism.

Where moral relativism comes in is where the facts and circumstances are the same and your moral judgement changes.

In other words, for example: is it OK to terminate a fetus to save the life of the mother? Specific facts and circumstances. A non-moral relativist would say that there is a right or wrong answer here and the answer is universal. A moral relativist would say that the answer to this question could be different in different locations. In other words terminating the fetus could be moral in California but immoral in Massachusettes. Or this is moral now but would have been immoral back in 1955.

Bush Kills Again
 

BREAKING:

DATELINE: NEW HAMPSHIRE, USA:

Serious floods following more than 24 hours of heavy rain forced evacuations in many Monadnock and Lakes Region communities today. The state has declared an official emergency.

State officials said one unidentified person in Unity had died while trapped in a car.

The state has called up 500 New Hampshire National Guard troops to help. One hundred have already been deployed in the Keene area, while 400 more remain on standby at the Guard's armories in Manchester, Plymouth, Littleton and Concord.

Wow, I am surprised that there any Natioanl Guard troops there, I would have thought Bush sent them all to their deaths in Iraq by now. I wonder how many more lives will be lost in NH due to Bush's actions, errors, and omissions. Impeachment?

Blame the Jews........
 

And while we are on the subject of the Jews, don't get all annoyed with me about the universal moral code, you can blame your ancestors. They were the ones that first discovered it (or made it up depending on your point of view).

The Jews said that this idea of different Gods and different morals for different people was B.S. There is just one God and there is one universal moral code. If it is immoral to have sex with your mother in Judea it is immoral to have sex with your mother in Rome.

And like most people who discover the truth, they have been paying for it ever since. Like Einstein said, great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds. First the Romans, then the Inquisitors and then the Nazis did not like hearing that they were violating the universal moral code.

The Jews have also been arguing what is in the moral code for thousands of years. But just because Jewish scholars disagree on what the moral code says, or because they think it is very complicated (have you seen the size of the rule book and the commentary?) does not mean they think it is relative. They believe it is universal.

When the idea of a universal moral code was created, my ancestors were running around Northern European forests with bones through their noses and were throwing rocks at each other. So don't blame me.

The American Dream
 

Formula:

1. Marry a powerful, successful spouse;

2. Stand by that spouse and stoically (in public) absorb the shame and embarassment of his sins, lies, and crimes, including his force feeding of his weenie to the 19 yo secretarial aide; and

3. Leverage his power and your victimhood into deluding the lemmings of NY to elect you to the Senate.

Result:

Induction Into the Women's Hall of Fame

http://members.aol.com/mspeel8/eyeswideshut.jpg

Blame the Jews........
 

Is it immoral to have sex with Hank's mom in Detroit?

Ta ta
 

I'm off to the babyjesuschristsuperstar's house for Sunday Mass.

Because I care, I will pray to the babyjesus to give W and the Senate guidance on the Harryette Miers nomination.

I will pray for total victory in the ME and the destruction of our enemies there and here.

And I will also pray my liberal pals here find common sense and stop repressing their natural instinct for the UMC.

Finally, I will pray for end to the bias and the hate and the resulting PoPD.

PTL.

Amen.

Paging Spanky
 

I agree with most of this, although I may be able to favor certain tax breaks that encourage new technologies, such as clean energy.

Amen
 

I have returned from Mass and again, I have felt the babyjesus' words coming to me in answer to my prayers,

'Go get a new peaceful Avatar and get a new olive branch style sig line, and get peace on the Board'.

And, by God, I'm gonna do it.

Paging Spanky
 

Slippery slope my friend, slippery slope. Whoooosssh!

Blame the Jews........
 

I warned her about checking into hotels with you, and not being the first to use the bathroom.

Differing Concepts of Justice and Freedom
 

Not for nothing, but if your argument is that rights are handed down to us from God, then a companion argument that those rights are of the kind of "irreducible complexity" that is the hallmark of ID doesn't reflect well on you.

Paging Spanky
 

I know, and that is why I say "may." The problem is that with experimental technologies, the costs and the risks of failure or inefficientcy is very high, though the magnitude of potential success is also very high. In areas of such import as energy, I think it may be beneficial to encourage more entres into the industry in order to increase the chances of success by mitigating, at least to a small degree, the costs involved.

The pharm/biotech industry has a great model in this regard. Many of the assets/technologies are developed by the universities and then licensed or sold to private companies in the development/exploitation stage. Not sure if this is done in the energy industry.

Paging Spanky
 

Technolgy in energy areas has developed. Now it just has to sell.

The hybrid cars are a big step forward, but because we have to have such big cars they have the approximate gas milage as the cars being sold in the late 70's early 80's. So the technology benefits us how?

You want to reduce energy problems the thing you need to do is make the consumer change. There are incentives being put out for hybrids like access to HV lanes even though you only have a driver.

Differing Concepts of Justice and Freedom
 

2 to all this. I also think Penske's photoshops are contrary to his alleged Christianity. Those are bearing false witness, plus the one's on Adult board are obscene. Plus, i invented the Jesus avatar, and he stole the idea and stealing isn't Christian.

Differing Concepts of Justice and Freedom
 

This doesn't mean that an individual cannot be a relativist and conclude that a particular action is right or wrong. You are taking a very simplistic view of the definition. If I look at a situation, balance the relative good and evil involved in taking action one way or another, then that is also relativism.

The problem with this view is twofold. First, you claim the power to determine unilaterally what is and what is not just. Second, you then argue that it is always acceptable to act with force to compel people to follow your view of what is just.

If you are correct, and what you espouse is moral or just, then, since your code is universal, people will choose to conform their society to act in the way you are advocating. If "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" are universal human rights (which, incidentally, I also believe they are) then we cannot deprive people of their liberty in the guise of bringing to them our interpretation of democracy. Persuasion is acceptable, economic incentives are acceptable, but orce is not always acceptable.

Why would using undemocratic methods to to bring democracy be a problem? Perhaps because it is undemocratic? Perhaps because if you need to use force to implement it it isn't so universal?

I am not assuimng that a universal moral code has to be pacifist. I am suggesting that it is logically impossible to say the democracy is a universally moral virtue and then assert that it is not a violation of that code to deny people the right to self-determination.

Differing Concepts of Justice and Freedom
 

I haven't been to a MoveOn raally, because from what I've read of them on the net, I don't agree with their message or their methods.

Differing Concepts of Justice and Freedom
 

PoPD. Noted.

Paging Spanky
 

I am not sure either. I have a friend who is a CEO of an alt energy company. I am going to see him next weekend. I'll ask and report back.

Differing Concepts of Justice and Freedom
 

How do you define "obscene"?

ps: thanks for getting my back here.

Differing Concepts of Justice and Freedom
 

Not according the definitions you have been using.

1) rel·a·tiv·ism ( P ) Pronunciation Key (rl-t-vzm)
n. Philosophy
A theory, especially in ethics or aesthetics, that conceptions of truth and moral values are not absolute but are relative to the persons or groups holding them.

2) Relativism

n : (philosophy) the philosophical doctrine that all criteria of judgment are relative to the individuals and situations involved

A moral relativist can only conclude that something is right or wrong for a particular time and place. But in a different culture (different groups or different individuals) or at a different time, what is considered right or wrong can change.



I never claimed this. You need to start quoting me because you never seem to get it right. Let me speak for myself.

Again, I never said this. Please show me where I said this.

I do not agree with that at all. Just because what is just is universal does not mean that the powers that be in a chosen society will choose to follow it.

If you believe these rights are universal then you are not a moral relativist. According to your prior definitions what is right and wrong can change in different groups. Now you are saying these rights apply to all people at all times (in other words they don't change when you have different groups, different individuals or different siutations).

I don't think we have done this. Especially in Iraq. The people under Saddam had no liberties. They have much more liberty under the occupation reqime than they ever had under Saddam. When people have no liberties or rights we can use force to bring such liberties and rights to them.

I agree with that statement.





You are using faulty logic. There is no problem with using undemocrtic means to bring democracy to a people. Why would there be? If there is a dictatorship, is there a way to bring democracy using democratic means? It may have happened once or twice, but generally force is always needed to topple an undemocratic government. There is no democracy, you apply force, and you get democracy. What is wrong with that?

Now you are getting ridiculous. Did I say everything needs to be universal? I just said that the moral code is universal. Just because I like large amount of money does not also mean I like large amounts of snakes. Using force to implement democracy is not a problem.




I don't know what you are talking about. Who is denying anyone the right to self determination. In Iraq we are trying to give the people a chance at self determination. Before we came along they did not have self determination. We used force to give it toe them - what is wrong with that?

Differing Concepts of Justice and Freedom
 

Maybe you should to get a full understanding of the pacificism and communistic heresey they put forth, as they are out front of the left wing's message and perhaps are unfairly hijacking your party much as the Islamofacists have done with the religion of the masses of Muslims in the liberal enlightened countries of the ME. Its good to understand the enemy before you seek to destroy, which is why I spend so much time attending their rallies.

Differing Concepts of Justice and Freedom
 

I think you confuse the extreme DU/MoveOn libs with the more mainstream. SHP is the only one here with a DU login (besides you and me of course).

TaxWonk Ty and them, they're content to follow politics on The West Wing. "I think Santos will make a Great President!"
The new Geena Davis show will split the ticket as to Lib President fantasies, but, really having that choice is something to be happy about. all in all- it's a good time to be a lib with a healthy ability to suspend disbelief.

Paging Spanky
 

The current technology is in its infancy, and I think what ultimately prevails will look a whole lot different than what is prevailing today. I'd like to see 10X the number of models/ideas as is currently in the marketplace.

The consumer is changing and will continue to chage for as long as there is price pressure to do so, and not a minute longer.