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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jacob Snyder who wrote (106022)	7/17/2003 2:23:47 PM
From: epicure	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

I am willing to call the ideas evil- I don't think you are hearing me. America, though, isn't about judging good and evil "thoughts" and "ideas"- that is up to each individual- real freedom means you can be evil and think evil, but the rule of law means you can't ACT evil. This is a central theme in a Clockwork Orange- if you take away the right of people to choose "evil", can you call them "good"? (I hated that book, btw, but I really liked that one philosophical point) It's easy to be a land of the free for "good" people (good of course being highly relative) the test is, are you a land of the free for "bad" people- who aren't acting "bad", but are just thinking "bad", and talking about things you think are "bad". Being a traitor or UnAmerican means specifically that the person is working against America to destroy it- not that they have "evil" plans to establish a different America (that is still America) that you see as evil. You will convert no one with your emotion laden language. That kind of language only appeals to the already converted- but it does serve to turn moderates off. If your methods are wildly emotional, you will lose the debate. Your opponents may not understand this, but they will enjoy the fact that you are just like them. In fact they will revel in it.

To: Jacob Snyder who wrote (106022)	7/17/2003 2:32:34 PM
From: marcos	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

I could never understand this charge of 'moral relativism' .... do we not always compare patterns of thought on morality for their relative value and effectiveness? ..... is there any other way to evaluate them? The bunch in the back rooms of DC deciding to slaughter campesinos centroamericanos because it is reported they have in their village a doctor born as cubano, and citing for justification a hastily invented factoid that the village is seventy-two hours by tank from the río Bravo, are they not making a judgment in relative morality? ... i mean leaving aside the fact that it would be quite the tank that could do this, and that no tank drivers had any interest whatsoever in making that trip in the northward direction, it does seem clear that the back room bunch is weighing their own personal values here, finding the murder of civilians to be relatively superior in morality to the alternative process of themselves grabbing a frickin clue The 'Idea' though, it is a great Idea ... and how close we can get to it, relatively speaking in a moral sense, will determine whether we can survive as a species