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Politics : Evolution -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Solon who wrote (42263)	9/30/2013 9:19:07 PM
From: GPS Info	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 69300

The next quote sounds like an entirely different person "I will not make a moral judgement unless someone puts a gun to my head." No, it's the same person. You may have intended to ask if that statement is consistent these other statements: “I would have to think more on how forcing sex on anyone would be right” “I can pay the required taxes and make a judgement based on the overall affect on my quality of life” “I trust my instincts when I have no time to formulate a judgment.“ In these last three statements, I have not made any moral judgments, but instead I suggest a hypothetical judgment on a type of threat, a economic judgment, and the time availability of a judgment, respectively. NONE of these are moral judgments in the respect of determining the good or evil nature of someone or something. I am quite willing to explain this further, if needed. Now, I have more questions to understand you better. Is it correct in Objectivism that a socialist or communist government is consider to be evil? I can see where an individual or a set of individuals are considered evil and hence the social system they represent is itself evil. To me, the communist systems were poorly thought out and poorly implemented and didn't not allow its people enough freedom to prosper within the system. I can see the natural instinct for some to label the USSR as the Evil Empire. It does make for a good sound bite. On another issue, there are many European countries with much higher tax rates compared to the US. Are they more evil than the US because of their higher taxes? If the US tax code reduces taxes for a certain income range, has the government become less evil to those in that specific income range, but equally evil in all other income levels? What is your moral judgment about the evilness of the tax code or the lobbyists and their paymasters? I mean, we vote on moral issues such as gun control, gay marriage, etc.--don't we[?], I have come to understand that you make moral judgments and I know of many other people who do the same. For me, gun control is not a moral issue; it is a public safety issue which balances the rights of the individual against rights of the public to protect themselves from random gun violence. In my mind, gay marriage is a constitutional issue. Should we allow two legally consenting adults to have the same privileges of law that a heterosexual couple has? I think is it unconstitutional to ban gay marriage. I don't think I am making a moral judgment about gay people or allowing them to marry. The devoutly religious have made, and will continue to make, moral judgments on gays or guns or taxes. Generally, I believe that we judge degrees of immorality by degrees of harm. I think we make legal judgments based on the intent of the person who causes the harm, and also the degrees of harm. In certain instances, this is so subjective as to make fair judgement very difficult. I completely agree with this last statement.