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

To: Andrew Martin who wrote (9887)	1/2/1999 8:05:00 PM
From: 1SFG	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 13994

<Well, what do you think laws are based upon in the first place? "Moral absolutes"-you know, stuff like lying, stealing, extortion...'bribery, treason and other high crimes and misdameanors'.> Get your head out of the sand. What is absolute about the law? Deals are made, punishment has a sliding scale (ie, 6-10 years), different punishments for the same crime in different jurisdictions.........etc. Yea, I see the absolute in that.

To: Andrew Martin who wrote (9887)	1/2/1999 11:01:00 PM
From: j g cordes	Respond to of 13994

Andrew, morals aren't absolute.. laws aren't absolute. Only vodka is absolute. Seriously, I sympathize with your connecting morals as being the basis of just laws. However in practice there's rarely a one to one correspondence. Everyone claims to have morals. If you pursue some history on the subject you'll find that Islamic law draws on its interpretation of morals, as does Christianity, Hindu law, Japanese law, indeed all law around the world, and not surprizingingly Scientoloty and even Satanic worshippers. So one must ask what morals are exactly that everyone claims to find in nature, yet manifests itself with often very contrary results. In our Western English law tradition, Jeremy Bentham who lived a nice long life of 84 years dying in 1832, is recognized as having laid out 'scientifically' many of the relationships of morals to law we use. His Principles of Morals and Legislation proposed the greatest happiness for the greatest number should be the key principle guiding how we craft law. The force of his arguments changed English and helped evolve American law. Its a key concept underlying the rule of law as having validity in a democracy. This is why there is such a tension between an absolute interpretation of rule of law as proposed by Starr, versus the broader moral claim of rule of law which derives from enforcing the greatest good through the will of the electorate. The party isn't over at all, so long as there aren't any absolutes there's the potential to change for the better.

To: Andrew Martin who wrote (9887)	1/3/1999 6:27:00 PM
From: j g cordes	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 13994

Clinton was right in bombing, fast breaking news: By Tim Reid, Philip Sherwell and David Bamber UK News: Autopsy may solve riddle of dead Britons THE FBI has evidence that the Yemeni extremists involved in the kidnap and deaths of three British tourists last week were trained at terrorist camps run by the international terrorist Osama BinLaden ...... The officers, who have been joined by four Scotland Yard detectives - including three anti-terrorist experts - have already established that the Islamic Jihad militants, who were armed with rocket-propelled grenade launchers, automatic weapons and equipped with a laptop computer and satellite telephone, received funding from bin Laden. The exiled Saudi terrorist leader is accused by the Americans of planning the US embassy bombings in East Africa last year. A US intelligence officer said last night: "He has been deeply involved in the funding and training of Islamic extremists in the Yemen for several years. Despite being a Saudi, he is one of the most powerful men in the Yemen. We are convinced these men were trained by him." telegraph.co.uk:80/et?ac=000387808654031&rtmo=lwQ...