Waiting for Fitzgerald

[taxwonk]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
ironically, the most prolific Jewish poster here, Taxwonk, was not able to be circumsized.

They hadn't invented microsurgery yet! Ha!

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

[Penske_Account]

Originally posted by Secret_Agent_Man
That has nothing to do with what I said.

Who thinks that Cindy Sheehan is a true pacifist, expressing a well-defined philosophy developed after significant moral reflection?

I don't know whether Soros is a pacifist, and there is no evidence that MoveOn.org is a pacifist organization. IIRC -- MoveOn was founded to develop a progressive movement to oppose Bush, not to end the war.

You surely know that opposition to The Bush administration and/or the War in Iraq does not equate to pacifism or, for that matter, moral relativism.

For once, cut the crap.

S_A_M

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.

[Penske_Account]

Originally posted by Secret_Agent_Man
Doesn't take much. npi. nttawwt. fwiw.

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.

[nononono]

Originally posted by Penske_Account
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.

Is an inauthentic pacifist still a pacifist?

[taxwonk]

Originally posted by Secret_Agent_Man
For once, cut the crap.

S_A_M

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

[Penske_Account]

Originally posted by Secret_Agent_Man
So, the Jews and Muslims have it right, then . . . Christ was just a prophet/holy man?

Or, is he truly the path to salvation? If you believe the latter, your argument doesn't work.

S_A_M

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?

[Penske_Account]

Originally posted by Spanky

Penske seems to get all the attention from the liberals. It is very difficult to get noticed around here.

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

[taxwonk]

Originally posted by Spanky
Wonk has already defined moral relativism and I accepted his definition. For the upteenth time moral relativism is:

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.

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.

[Penske_Account]

Originally posted by taxwonk
That's valid if life begins at conception. I don't accept that premise. Furthermore, there is a difference between a medical treatment to prevent an event from occurring and the act of killing a four year-old.

Affirmative homicide aside, we make choices between one life and another all the time in the allocation of scarce resources. Ask anyone on an organ donor list.

We also make economic allocation resource decisions that may affect human life on a daily basis. I show up at the hospital with angina and I'm rushed into the operating room for an angioplasty at once. The waitress at a place I eat a lot has heart trouble but she doesn't have health insurance. She waited six months to have her angioplasty done at County.

I generally don't favor abortion. But I also believe that each decision to abort or not is so particular to the mother and the fetus that the procedure is not susceptible to regulation by the state or federal government. So you could say that, while I'm generally anti-abortion, I'm also pro-choice.

By declaring itself pro-life, the anti-abortion movement hurts itself by coming off as hypocritical and by politicizing what is a social, not a governmental problem.

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.

[Spanky]

Originally posted by taxwonk
Perhaps this definition is more closely aligned with what I mean by relativism:

Relativism

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

The source is Dictionary.com

I can't accept your philosophy.

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.

Originally posted by taxwonk In the first place, I think it's inconsistent to argue that a universal moral code is instinctual and that it comes from God.

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?

Originally posted by taxwonk But setting that aside, if man's sense of right and wrong is instinctual, then it would not need to be learned, which has been a cornerstone of your argument all along.

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.

Originally posted by taxwonk Finally, man has consistently moved away from instinctual to learned behaviors. This is widely asserted to be what separates us from the other animals, our ability to learn and reason.

I agree with that.

Originally posted by taxwonk If right and wfrong were isntincutal, then we would see a common acceptance of your universal moral code from the beginning..

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.

Originally posted by taxwonk If anything, history would demonstrate a pattern of moving from behaviors that are more moral in the past to more decadent in the present, as our society moved from more primitive to more developed, or at least a consistent, higher morality from the beginning forward. ..

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.

Originally posted by taxwonk I think we would agree that the opposite situation has in fact occurred...

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.

Originally posted by taxwonk While I agree that we have a general moral code that is more respectful of human rights and of human life than many other societies, we are faced with a paradox. How can we force our superior moral code on others without violating the very rights that we profess to be enforcing?

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.

Originally posted by taxwonk If we use military pressure to force those societies that practice savery to cease, are we enslaving them?

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

Originally posted by taxwonk If we invade Iraq to "bring democracy" to the oppressed Iraqis, is our forced conversion not undemocratic?

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.

Originally posted by taxwonk You cannot claim that all people everywhere have the same rights and are subject to the sme moral code and then break that code to force them to adopt it. That is why I am a relativist.
?

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.

Originally posted by taxwonk I agree that the regime in Iraq was evil and had to come down. I just don't accept that that was the true motiviation for our going in. I'm also very sceptical that Iraq was as great a catalyst in fomenting Islamist terrorism as it has become in the wake of our invasion.

Right cause, wrong reason.

That is fair. I disagree but is fair.

[Penske_Account]

Originally posted by taxwonk
Now if only we could get Penske to see it and adjust his posting style accordingly, I think this would be a better place.

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.

[Penske_Account]

Originally posted by nononono
Is an inauthentic pacifist still a pacifist?

Depends, is there a universally recognised governing body?

[Spanky]

Originally posted by taxwonk
And you said you didn't know why I started this with Penske.

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

[Penske_Account]

Originally posted by taxwonk
And you said you didn't know why I started this with Penske.

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

[Spanky]

Originally posted by taxwonk
Now if only we could get Penske to see it and adjust his posting style accordingly, I think this would be a better place.

And people accuse me of being naive.