The Evil that is Obama

[Tedesco]

Originally Posted by master_of_muppets

the problem there is that eventually i'm going to do something that everyone would agree is wrong (or most everyone). for instance, if your neighbor were to become blatantly, publicly romantic with a 5 year old, you'd know in your gut that it was wrong.

but how?

There are laws against dating 5 year olds, unless I am mistaken.

My examples should be considered happening well within applicable law. If I am doing nothing that is breaking the law; if I am living my life while obeying the law, then you really should have no right to dictate to me how I should live my life.

to your neighbor he feels it's what is best for his life,

Good for him, but he is still breaking the law. Openly flaunting his love for young kids will land him in jail.

and he resents you judging him.

And he would know I was judging him.... how? I barely talk to my neighbors as it is. I suddenly want to strike up a conversation with a pederast?

who are you to judge him - God? on what basis can you judge him? laws? made by other judgmental people? that flies in the face of the whole premise of doing what you feel is best for your life, and asking that others butt out.

the other, bigger, underlying thing at work here is that Moral Relativism tries to sell the idea that there is no such thing as Absolute Truth. this is impossible. if you believed Absolute Truth is impossible, then you'd be believing that it doesn't exist…absolutely.

so since there are Absolute Truths, there must be a Giver of these Truths, since it cannot be that human beings created them, especially with considerations made to the evolution of people.

that bring this all full-circle back to why the "leave me alone" thing is bunk when it comes to Life. i don't want to be bothered by people when it comes to man-made law or things, but where it concerns the yet-to-be-determined question of when life begins, people will have to choose between yielding to the unmoving fact of Absolute Truth, or begin a roaring chant of "four legs good, two legs bad."

This is where you start to lose me. Please leave religion out of this. Religion serves its purpose if you want to base how you live your life off of it, and more power to you, really, but do not begin to use it as an example of how I should live mine. It's presumptive and arrogant and too often is the default answer for how or why something should be done.

[master_of_muppets]

tedesco, my apologies for losing you in my thread of thinking. i didn't intend to push God or religion, just that what is "good" or "bad" has to have a source for knowing what is what.

that's the ultimate question: where does good and bad come from?

that question is at the center of the abortion issue for me.

[Tedesco]

If you don't like abortion, then do not participate in it. It's really that simple. Why waste your time trying to tell other people how to handle their lives? Is there nothing in your life that deserves your attention more than what some stranger is doing?

[White Magic]

It seems to me that the crux of Tedesco's argument is that if something is currently legal, it must be ok. Great. If you follow this logic, no law need ever be passed or repealed again.

This debate boils down to the personhood of a fetus vs. the right to scrape out one's uterus at will. What is currently legal vs. what is currently illegal is not germane to the conversation.

The Holocaust is a relevant example - The fact that it was state sponsored didn't make it any more legitimate.

[Tedesco]

Originally Posted by White Magic

The Holocaust is a relevant example - The fact that it was state sponsored didn't make it any more legitimate.

It didn't take you long to go there, did it? Oh, Tedesco is not going to get a point unless you somehow reference his religion. Is that it? I would have thought you would know better by now Scot. I guess you are still the same asshole you were 4 years ago. I better stop talking now. I don't want to say anything to defend myself that might make you want to threaten to come over to my house and kill me.

[White Magic]

That response makes no sense. You're a weird, angry dude.

Actually after thinking about it, Slavery is a better example of an issue where its legality had little to do with its legitimacy. If this were 1850, would your position on the matter be, "Oh well, it's legal. It's not right for me to own slaves, but live and let live." Or would you be an abolishionist?

[master_of_muppets]

tedesco, i don't know your religion - frankly it's none of my business - but i read WM's post as pertaining to morality as dictated by consensus law, not as a malicious examination or reference to your specific religion.

sounds like there's some history to your and WM's thing, so it may have been esoteric for all i know.

the question has to be asked: how does any one person determine what is right and wrong? individuals vote others into office to make bigger decisions, and the question above is the systemic question to every choice we voters and those we elect have to ask. the answer cannot be a morality dictated by consensus law. if you say there are not Absolute right or wrong, then you would be arguing that you are Absolutely right in your belief, negating your point. so with that in mind those of us whom are capable of going deeper need to ask tough questions like these.

[White Magic]

I almost hate reviving this thread at this point because this is one of those issues where people dig in their heels and pretty much refuse to consider the issue in ways they hadn't thought too much about before. That said, I found this blurb in a blog post from Camille Paglia (noted feminist) and I thought it was relevant to the discussion. This is the first time I've heard someone who's pro-choice frame their position in this way. It's refreshing and disturbing at the same time.

I wonder how many of the "Pro Choice" advocates in this forum would agree with her rationale?

Camille Paglia on Sarah Palin's debut, John McCain's rebirth, and Barack Obama's tenuous position | Salon

But the pro-life position, whether or not it is based on religious orthodoxy, is more ethically highly evolved than my own tenet of unconstrained access to abortion on demand. My argument (as in my first book, "Sexual Personae,") has always been that nature has a master plan pushing every species toward procreation and that it is our right and even obligation as rational human beings to defy nature's fascism. Nature herself is a mass murderer, making casual, cruel experiments and condemning 10,000 to die so that one more fit will live and thrive.

Hence I have always frankly admitted that abortion is murder, the extermination of the powerless by the powerful. Liberals for the most part have shrunk from facing the ethical consequences of their embrace of abortion, which results in the annihilation of concrete individuals and not just clumps of insensate tissue. The state in my view has no authority whatever to intervene in the biological processes of any woman's body, which nature has implanted there before birth and hence before that woman's entrance into society and citizenship.