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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: one_less who wrote (71016)	6/6/2008 7:13:07 PM
From: Rambi	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 542946

I dislike the terms "right-wrong". It gets too confused with religion and subjective moral measurements. I prefer your description of conduct based on agreement of what's best for society while protecting as many individual rights as possible. That can place individuals at odds with law, of course, as abortion does. But it doesn't begin and end with absolutes. What might be considered "absolutes" have evolved over many years and through many societies as the most practical of survival guides. (thou shalt not kill.) This is why I value our system over all others, and what keeps me from becoming too liberal- or too conservative. We allow a great deal of latitude for individual expression, as much as possible without violating those necessary "absolutes" for a healthy safe society. I view too much liberalism as cutting into individual choice, and conservatism as controlling behavior in a more subjective moral sense than it should (as in abortion or gay rights). But once you get into "moral" law, it gets pretty wobbly- we don't all agree on what constitutes a moral action. That's probably why we see "mitigating circumstances" appearing in our courts.

To: one_less who wrote (71016)	6/6/2008 7:19:33 PM
From: spiral3	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 542946

The common basis for decision making in America is 'laws' based on legally correct action. I would simply say that rightful conduct and laws co-arise. Corrupt conduct is more about allowing wrong conduct within one's sphere of responsibility Yes, I agree. That can be a pretty large sphere depending on where you draw the line. Generally we elevate individualism as good value in our society and do not view private conduct as a corruption of laws designed to govern society as a whole. Yes, we have a separation of Church and State. Fine with me. In reality things are not so binary, hence the middle way. One's ultimate individual responsibility is often to others, but to be effective, you have to save yourself first. You figure it out ? Personal decision making is founded upon the same system of law and legitimacy even though moral/ethical law may not be codified, it is considered common and agreed upon by members of society. So this too can be viewed as a common basis for making decisions about action. Yes, good post. It is not a fixed thing. There can be unfair, outdated, arcane even useless laws, what's common and agreed upon, like the self, is a moving target.