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

To: Dayuhan who wrote (4999)	2/6/2001 1:14:05 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 82486

I said that we, meaning we as a group, decide what we want for ourselves. I would probably discribe that as having democracy as either the highest value or very close. That is assumeing the group you are talking about is a political entity. I was focusing on decisions on that level. I hold democracy as a very high value, but not necesarily all by itself at the top. We choose the course that we believe will yield the greatest practical, measurable result. What's intangible there? Results do not come with numbers where you can pick result 99 over result 42 because it has a higher number. Deciding what result is greater requires a value judgement about what type of results you like best. Furthermore the result itself is often intangible rather then just something like GDP growth. For that matter the idea that decisions should be based on whatever produces the greatest good for the greatest number is itself a philisophical idea that is not universally accepted. If an argument rests upon an assumption that is not supported by fact or logic, that argument cannot be rational. All arguments eventually rest on unprovable assumptions. If your statement is true then no argument is rational. 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. You believe less intrusive governments are less pleasant. Some one else (not me BTW) might not agree, or might think that another value is more important then being pleasant. As for stable the same thing applies (someone might care more about somthing else besides stability), but also I'm not sure that minimalist governments are really more stable. I think very interventionist governments have been less stable in the 20th century but how much of that is because they are interventionist and how much of that is because of some other factor which interventionist governments share is uncertain. Before the 20th century (there where some very stable interventionist governments). I am not asserting that interventionist governments are more satable or even as stable as governments which intervene less I am just saying that it is something unproven. Also you are assuming that some interventions are justified and some are not. You are not proposeing a government that never intervenes in anything (there can be no such government because whatever it is it would not be a government) so some interventions are necessiary or disireable why some are not. To pattern my argument after yours I am pro-life because I believe that socieities that respect the rights of all people and care about the weak and the defenceless are more pleasant. I don't normally try to argue a position merely as an intelectual exercise but I propose we do so here. You start with the assumption that a fetus is equivilent to a newborn child. Then argue that it should not be protected anyway and that abortion should be allowed. If you want I'll start with the assumption that the fetus is just a blob of cells and try to argue that it should be outlawed anyway but I don't think I can make any good arguments in this senario. (If you want I will try). The point of this (perhaps we can skip the whole game and just talk about the point), is that to me the central question about abortion is what you consider a fetus to be, is it a child, a human life, or is it a blob of unimportant cells or is it inbetween. It it is a human person I would submit that protecting it from being killed isn't against even libertarian ideas. If it is just a blob of insignifigant cells then I can't see how anyone except maybe a fundementalist seeking to impose a theocracy would push making abortion illegal. Tim