Waiting for Fitzgerald - Page 153

taxwonk · 10-07-2005, 07:54 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Spanky
How can you be a moral relativist but believe in absolute right and wrong?

I said I believe in SOME absolute rights and wrongs. Very few, but some. Examples: I believe in the absolute right of each person to vote and I believe that rape is absolutely wrong.

taxwonk · 10-07-2005, 08:03 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Spanky
The whole point of the legal system is to constantly change it so it conforms to a higher law. "We change the laws all the time so they can conform close do our idea of justice. Our rights come from our creator, but we need the government to enforce them. Some criticism of the Bill of Rights was that if you write them down, someone will assume that what you right down is all there is when there are clearly more.

When someone says that a law is unjust, they are saying that the law does not conform to what is right and wrong. It does not conform to the concrete universal code that we all assume exists. We expose our beliefe in this universal right and wrong when we say a law is unjust so it needs to be changed. We don't say it is wrong so it needs to only apply to some people and not others. We always argue that law should be applied equally to all men and women and that such laws should be just. In other words conform to the universal moral code.

Are you arguing that against the idea that Jefferson invoked the universal moral code when he justified our separation from England?

I would have thought that I made this much clear if nothing else in my debate with Penske this week. I don't believe there is a universal moral code. I believe that there are some basic universal principles upon which the relations between humans must balance. But, if there can be no black and white line on somethiing so simple as whether or not life is absolutely sacrosanct, then how can anything else be absolute?

ltl/fb · 10-07-2005, 08:05 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Spanky
The whole point of the legal system is to constantly change it so it conforms to a higher law.

So higher law is constantly changing? How do we know when higher law has changed? Because Bush hears it from God?

I think you need to move to Vatican City.

Penske_Account · 10-07-2005, 08:12 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by taxwonk
I said I believe in SOME absolute rights and wrongs. Very few, but some. Examples: I believe in the absolute right of each person to vote

How about Felons? Children? Dead persons (I think Cook County allows this)?

Penske_Account · 10-07-2005, 08:13 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by ltl/fb
So higher law is constantly changing? How do we know when higher law has changed? Because Bush hears it from God?

I think you need to move to Vatican City.

And you should move to France. Or Gaza.

Penske_Account · 10-07-2005, 08:15 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Spanky
The whole point of the legal system is to constantly change it so it conforms to a higher law. "We change the laws all the time so they can conform close do our idea of justice. Our rights come from our creator, but we need the government to enforce them. Some criticism of the Bill of Rights was that if you write them down, someone will assume that what you right down is all there is when there are clearly more.

When someone says that a law is unjust, they are saying that the law does not conform to what is right and wrong. It does not conform to the concrete universal code that we all assume exists. We expose our beliefe in this universal right and wrong when we say a law is unjust so it needs to be changed. We don't say it is wrong so it needs to only apply to some people and not others. We always argue that law should be applied equally to all men and women and that such laws should be just. In other words conform to the universal moral code.

Are you arguing that against the idea that Jefferson invoked the universal moral code when he justified our separation from England?

2.

Penske_Account · 10-07-2005, 08:18 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Spanky
Give me a break........

To clarify: Bush's moral clarity comes from his faith in the the universal moral code, which is backed up by his belief in that code emanating from a higher power.

eta: all of which is confirmed when God talks to him

Penske_Account · 10-07-2005, 08:20 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Gattigap
Yes.

Okay. I will vote no because I am a contrarian and I also think it would be more entertaining to see her dinged or withdrawn (especially because, unlike Bork, she is not qualified).

Yes: 5

No: 3

Other: 1

Penske_Account · 10-07-2005, 08:44 PM

Oct. 7, 2005 - ....................Dutiful she is, but Supreme Court material she is not..........Miers put in long hours and was the last person to put paper on the president’s desk, but she wasn’t mulling over constitutional issues.

With his presidency spinning out of control, Bush needed to reach high with this appointment. ........ “He needed to pick someone who is potentially more conservative, but certainly more qualified.” ..............David Frum, a former White House speechwriter, reported on his blog that Miers once told him that Bush was “the most brilliant man she’d ever met.” What will happen when she has a conversation with Justice Antonin Scalia? Will her head explode?

Republican Sen. Sam Brownback is the go-to person for social conservatives. Initially cool to the nomination, Brownback—a staunch opponent of abortion—told reporters that he was still undecided after meeting with Miers on Thursday.......Brownback’s ambivalence reflects how unsettled the nomination remains. Republican senators are getting bombarded with calls,” says a GOP consultant. “For the first time in a long time a real grass-roots movement is happening. This goes beyond the pooh-bahs in Washington, and it’s all about ’06 and not having the base fall asleep or go for a walk.”

Miers was in law school before Roe v Wade was handed down. “There’s been a revolution in constitutional law in the 30 years since her time in law school,” says Karen O’Connor, founder of the Women & Politics Institute at American University. “The [Supreme] Court has evolved in its thinking about abortion law, rights of criminal defendants, telecommunications. She’s going to have to take the equivalent of a bar review course. If that was me,” says O’Connor, who is a lawyer, “I would be physically ill knowing how much I had to learn in a short period of time.”

Penske_Account · 10-07-2005, 09:06 PM

Bork was interviewed on the Tucker CArlson show tonight:

CARLSON: Are you impressed by the president's choice of Harriet Miers?

BORK: Not a bit. I think it's a disaster on every level.

Penske_Account · 10-07-2005, 09:23 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Penske_Account
[URL=http://msnbc.msn.com/id/9622025/site/newsweek/#storyContinued] Oct. 7, 2005 - ....................Dutiful she is, but Supreme Court material she is not..........Miers put in long hours and was the last person to put paper on the president’s desk, but she wasn’t mulling over constitutional issues.

While I agree with a lot of what Clift said in the cited article and certainly her conclusion, one line, that I left out of the above post, really sums up how loonied out the left of America really is. In the first paragraph, cited above, Clift also notes:

Before taking over as White House counsel earlier this year, she was staff secretary, a position of so little consequence it’s not even depicted on “The West Wing,”

HUH?!?!? Do the liberals realise that the West Wing is a TV Show? A FICTIONAL TV show? Entertainment? Do they realise that Martin Sheehan is not the President? How wacked out is the left that one its leading pundits could write something like this? I suppose next she will criticise Bush as racist for not replacing Greenspan with a low level staffer who is also a minority as, after all, Benson was a butler and he became a State Budget Director of CT on the eponymous ABC-TV show.

Spanky · 10-07-2005, 09:55 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by ltl/fb
So higher law is constantly changing? How do we know when higher law has changed? Because Bush hears it from God?

I think you need to move to Vatican City.

No our legal code is constantly chaning in an attempt to conform to higher law.

Hank Chinaski · 10-07-2005, 10:13 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Penske_Account
To clarify: Bush's moral clarity comes from his faith in the the universal moral code, which is backed up by his belief in that code emanating from a higher power.

eta: all of which is confirmed when God talks to him

2.

You can tell the "God talking to him" is legit because what God tells him is for the overall Good. invade Iraq, destroy Dem party, etc.

Contrast false prophets like Oral Roberts, who, when God "spoke" to them heard things that feathered their own nests.

Penske_Account · 10-07-2005, 10:40 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
2.

You can tell the "God talking to him" is legit because what God tells him is for the overall Good. invade Iraq, [keep America strong and prosperous and free ]etc.

There's the rub, the demos don't grasp the higher ideals, like that.

Hank Chinaski · 10-07-2005, 10:48 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Penske_Account
There's the rub, the demos don't grasp the higher ideals, like that.

what's sad is that we'll never all meet unless we arrange it here. I know I'll meet you, Club, Spank and Diane in heaven, but Ty/Wonk/Rt/SS, anfd the rest of alphabet city? i can hear St. Peter now:

"oh, they're staying south of here."