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Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TimF who wrote (4993)	2/5/2001 8:26:52 PM
From: Dayuhan	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 82486

If it is literally just what you want for yourself then it can conflict with what others want for themselves. I said that we, meaning we as a group, decide what we want for ourselves. That frequently means deciding that we as individuals must forego certain forms of behaviour that we might find individually expedient. We do not allow ourselves, or each other, to steal, or to kill each other. We forbid these things not because they violate some external moral code, but because experience, observation, and reason tell us that proscribing these behaviours makes life better for all of us. The intagible part I was talking about includes decideing which useful or practical goal is more important or how efforts should be decided between them... To a large extent the value that you place on these tangible goals relies on intangible ideas. I see absolutely no reason why this should be the case. We make our decisions based on assessment of facts at hand and reasonable expectations about the results that various courses of action will yield. We choose the course that we believe will yield the greatest practical, measurable result. What's intangible there? Not exactly. I have made a rational arguement, but it rests on premises that depend on my moral and philisophical beliefs. If an argument rests upon an assumption that is not supported by fact or logic, that argument cannot be rational. I am attacked for assumeing that can not be proven and using them as the basis of my arguments, but everyone does this. Not everyone does this. My support for a woman's right to choose rests upon the belief that government should intrude upon the private lives of its citizens only when it is necessary that it do so. This is not some abstract external notion that I plucked out of thin air. I believe it because experience, observation, and logic all indicate that small intrusions lead to big ones, and that societies with intrusive governments are less pleasant and less stable than societies with minimalist governments. If you care to debate that assumption, I'm perfectly willing to debate it, and I can debate it because I don't pretend it's an external absolute.