Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Clinton's Scandals: Is this corruption the worst ever? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: j_b who wrote (4133)	9/8/1998 11:10:00 AM
From: Zoltan!	Respond to of 13994

Subject 22775

To: j_b who wrote (4133)	9/8/1998 11:40:00 AM
From: The Philosopher	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 13994

<<I find this extremely troubling when people believe we need Congress to start legislating moral values. Kind of an oxymoron.>> An argument could easily be made that all laws legislate morality (laws against killing, stealing, parking in a handicap zone). Bingo. This has been a thesis of mine for years. Disregarding procedural laws (whether you go on green and stop on red or vice versa) EVERY substantive law ever passed legislates one set of moral values at the expense of another. Laws against murder? What about those whose moral beliefs are that anything I can get away with is moral, that I am the only person responsible for my personal safety. Those people are denied the right to follow their moral leading and those people who believe that society generally should protect them get their moral belief enshrined in law. Laws against incest? Rape? Obviously they elevate one moral position over another. Even property laws have a moral component: I am entitled to have the state protect what I have worked for (less the cut the state takes) even if it means I eat steak and drink champagne while others are starving. Our property laws completely reject the Christian moral of giving to the poor, feeding those that are starving, in favor of my right to throw away my money any way I choose to. We ALWAYS legislate morality. In many cases we don't notice it becase we approve of the moral position being taken, and perhaps can't even conceive other people taking the alternate position as a moral position. But if you look deeper, you will always find someone who believes it is moral to take from the rich and give to themselves, or to kill those who frustrate one's desires, or to rape a women if one has the ability to do it. Contemplate this: if there weren't different standards of morality, if everybody believed in one moral imperative, we wouldn't need any laws! It's scary to contemplate that we give our legislature the power to legislature morality; in fact it's so scary that we deny it; but the reality is that that is most of what they in fact do, and we need to accept that and elect legislators with some moral sense in them.