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

To: TimF who wrote (6386)	2/23/2001 5:49:14 PM
From: Lane3	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 82486

Even when we are talking about an fertilized egg then we are talking about something which is obviously alive. When we try to understand people who are coming from some totally different place, no matter how hard we try, it's just not always possible. We have to try to put the other person's ideas into some construct that we can relate you. I've labeled my best understanding of what you're saying as sentimentality. I guess you don't feel that word fits or you wouldn't have repeated your position. That doesn't surprise me because I know I don't really understand. I agree with everything you say right up to the point where you conclude that this alive, human, distinct thing is entitled from conception to all the rights and privileges of a newborn. I'm pretty sure that I will never get it so it's probably not worth your spending any more time on helping me to understand. But let me ask you this--do you think you understand where I'm coming from better than I understand you? I know you don't agree, but do you think you understand? Just curious about whether this communication problem works both ways. BTW, I don't mean sentimental as an put-down. I can be pretty sentimental. I'm looking at a mature star magnolia out my front window. If anything happened to it I'd be heartbroken. I'm sentimental about most animals, about music and painting, about places I've traveled. I'm even sentimental about fetuses. Just for the record. Some would even call me "specieist". Yup. That's what I'd call you. I don't mean anything derogatory by that. I think you're very comfortably in the mainstream on that. It's pretty well ingrained in our religions and probably in our wiring. I'll admit a preference for humans. I see a continuum. I put mammals over "lower" species and animals over plants. Humans are awesome creatures. I'm so glad that I have the capacity to ponder myself and my species and the world around me. Concurrently, I'm a systems person so I also look at humans in context. It makes no sense to me to add another billion humans to the planet at the expense of the extinction of the tiger. I don't take myself and my species so personally that I can't see the parallels between humans and weeds. A long time ago I used to daydream about doing a survey to see how "specieist" people really are. In my mind I created a scenario in which the participant had to choose a course that would result in the death of either column A or column B. Column A would be a human and column B would be another animal. For example, a condemned serial killer one hour from execution vs. the participant's companion animal. Or a person in an irreversible coma vs. the last mating pair of bald eagles on earth. I'd bet most people would pick the human in all cases. I wouldn't. Karen

To: TimF who wrote (6386)	2/25/2001 10:34:51 AM
From: 2MAR$	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 82486

On the carrying capacity of the earth... * we do have some available space on my home planet Mars. I would be happy to sell you an acre or two for a good price, your great-grandchildren may need it , and thank you for your forsight ! ;-) ------->a picture is worth many words : antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov I would suggest you might want to rethink your position ...or at least trip the light fandango sometime down to Rio, Mexico City or Bogata... or 300 other major cities on earth that are becoming more squalid , polluted , and largely unlivable every day . The distinction you make for saving a foetus because of some "higher " moral purpose , and only saving the tiger from extinction on the whim of pure sentimentality seems something you may want to rethink. If your goal is to find a way of becoming a whole human being , and promote greater compassion with sentience and grace , and achieve protection for the foetus thru instilling a basic right-to-life premise .... then concern for the rights of animal beings as well as human beings would be our ultimate course . It is without a doubt the height of realism , blended with deepest moral precepts and divine aesthetic that we care for the suffering of all living things ,and strive to protect them from our own excesses. Sad for some that this seems like such mysticism , but a trip down to some of South Carolina's huge pig farms would cure ( excuse the pun) them that mass destruction of animals is really an appalling reality , to the pollution of surrounding streams with the 100,000's of gallons of pig~urine run-off. To see animal rights as well as human rights is the way of a whole human being . It is the ultimate in "pro-choice" ...and the first Law of God of every major "revealed" religion on the planet. ......" thou shall not kill " It's not a matter of semantics , but actualized by reason and deepest contemplation and was taught by the most sacred of the enlightened Sages, Prophets, Buddhas , Messiahs , and Philosophers that have walked among us as a species. Rationalists would call the "Ideal"... religionist would call it the "God" within us , and early man would have known it as common sense or what is now known as the "mystical". colophon.com regards ;-) Mars PS: only godless "dorks" and satan worshippers eat at MacDonalds , BurgerKing, Jack-in-the-Box .<vbg> The ethic is changing , and this should speed it along: siliconinvestor.com