Principle vs Expediency

[Just_A_Guy]

3 minutes ago, anatess2 said:

We’ve had a slew of philosophers gracing history for thousands of years.  And here we are.  Still arguing our “reasons”.

Sillybilly.  People who don’t think like I do are per se unreasonable.  

Edited April 7, 2019 by Just_A_Guy

[2ndRateMind]

1 hour ago, anatess2 said:

We’ve had a slew of philosophers gracing history for thousands of years.  And here we are.  Still arguing our “reasons”.

Indeed we have. And a slew of prophets, as well, some of which have had the presumption to claim to be the second coming. Philosophy, however, is more about asking questions, and deciding which questions are right to investigate, and clarifying their meaning, than providing answers. Once it is clear what the question is, and how to answer it, philosophy hands the issue over to science. Nevertheless, even in the most difficult of enquiries, gradually over those thousands of years, philosophers have made progress, and I recommend them to you.

Best wishes, 2RM

Edited April 7, 2019 by 2ndRateMind

[Just_A_Guy]

4 minutes ago, 2ndRateMind said:

Philosophy, however is more about asking questions, and deciding which questions are right to investigate, than providing answers. 

With all due respect, this seems a little like a cop-out given that this thread opened with a proposal for a concrete government actions—actions that may well hurt people—purportedly justified (mandated?) by those philosophies.

If we don’t know, we don’t know.  But let’s not then start meddling in the affairs of lives and nations as if we do know.

Edited April 7, 2019 by Just_A_Guy

[2ndRateMind]

26 minutes ago, Just_A_Guy said:

With all due respect, this seems a little like a cop-out given that this thread opened with a proposal for a concrete government actions—actions that may well hurt people—purportedly justified (mandated?) by those philosophies.

Yup. I agree. But if there is a better way to demonstrate the incompatibility between two nation states' moral points of view than ceasing to trade with them (which in absolute terms will inevitably hit the rich and powerful more seriously than the poor and powerless) I have yet to hear of that proposal. The underlying question is; are the richest nations in the world, largely in the (allegedly) Christian West, prepared to take the hit in their wallets for the sake of their moral principles, or not?

Put this way, there are four options:

• Brunei law is not against my principles, and I will trade with them
• Brunei law is not against my principles, but I will not trade with them.
• Brunei law is against my principles, but I will trade with them
• Brunei law is against my principles, so I will not trade with them

Take your pick.

Best wishes, 2RM.

 

Edited April 7, 2019 by 2ndRateMind

[Just_A_Guy]

1 hour ago, 2ndRateMind said:

Yup. I agree. But if there is a better way to demonstrate the incompatibility between two nation states moral points of view than ceasing to trade with them (which in absolute terms will inevitably hit the rich and powerful more seriously than the poor and powerless) I have yet to hear of that proposal. The underlying question is; are the richest nations in the world, largely in the (allegedly) Christian West, prepared to take the hit in their wallets for the sake of their moral principles, or not?

Put this way, there are four options:

• Brunei law is not against my principles, and I will trade with them
• Brunei law is not against my principles, but I will not trade with them.
• Brunei law is against my principles, but I will trade with them
• Brunei law is against my principles, so I will not trade with them

Take your pick.

Best wishes, 2RM.

 

I do agree that first world nations should be prepared to walk away from any benefit they receive by virtue of the existence of a tyrannical regime elsewhere (France and Oil-for-Food, I’m lookin’ at YOU).

But I’m disinclined to accept your assertion that economic sanctions hit the powerful harder than the weak, at least in a relative way.  Brunei’s sultan can do without a couple million dollars much more easily than his $2-per-day chef’s third assistant can do without his job, or his Las Vegas hotel’s minimum-wage housekeeping staff can do without theirs.  And at any rate, the notion that we should deliberately hit the weak in hopes that the strong may in time yield to our preferred dogmas seems both ethically suspect, and (as a practical/historical proposition) not particularly likely to work.  

As far as better means of “demonstrat[ing] incompatibility”—we can start by getting our own houses in order to re-enshrine the principles of individual liberty, privacy, self-sufficiency, live-and-let-live, and equality before God that made the US a supposed “city on a hill” in the first place; and revamp our immigration and asylum policy to re-establish ourselves as a place of refuge for people who sincerely subscribe to those ideals.  

And we can also quit apologizing for our culture, fight back against the lie that the first world is only the first world because we stole something from virtuous and superior third-world societies, and proudly re-assert that the main reason western Judeo-Christian civilization is economically and socially successful is because its foundational precepts just plain work.  Maybe people would take western culture more seriously if our own intellectuals weren’t constantly saying that western culture is the only culture in the world that has no right to exist.  

Agnostics make terrible missionaries.

Edited April 7, 2019 by Just_A_Guy

[JohnsonJones]

1 hour ago, 2ndRateMind said:

Yup. I agree. But if there is a better way to demonstrate the incompatibility between two nation states' moral points of view than ceasing to trade with them (which in absolute terms will inevitably hit the rich and powerful more seriously than the poor and powerless) I have yet to hear of that proposal. The underlying question is; are the richest nations in the world, largely in the (allegedly) Christian West, prepared to take the hit in their wallets for the sake of their moral principles, or not?

Put this way, there are four options:

• Brunei law is not against my principles, and I will trade with them
• Brunei law is not against my principles, but I will not trade with them.
• Brunei law is against my principles, but I will trade with them
• Brunei law is against my principles, so I will not trade with them

Take your pick.

Best wishes, 2RM.

 

Or...there is the traditional Western way to do things.

You have colonists move there under the auspices of trade.  You forcefully take their land and either kill or imprison the natives under the auspices that they are barbarians and you are enlightening them with your religion (morals).

After you commit genocide and take their lands, you then look back and consider it horrific what you did.  You still keep their lands and if a few of them are left alive and allowed to continue existence but refuse to bow to your superior morality...you place them on the most desolate parts of the land that you took from them.

You then teach how wrong it was to kill them all and take their land, but still present that you have the moral high ground.

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I'm not quite certain that's the best approach to take...but it seems to work the best for enforcing Western Morality upon a group of people who don't want to accept our choice of morality.

OR, we could go all Star Trek and have the Prime directive where we do not interfere with the cultures of other people until they reach a certain point.  After they reach that technical point, we might interact but the prime directive still has us stay away from interfering as much with their culture unless they decide that for some odd reason, they want to join us out of their own will and desire.

Various other ideas could be implemented as well, without going with the absolutes you mention...or more drastic ideas which you do not include (conquest, destruction, forcibly causing them to convert to our morals, etc.).

[2ndRateMind]

6 minutes ago, JohnsonJones said:

Or...there is the traditional Western way to do things.

You have colonists move there under the auspices of trade.  You forcefully take their land and either kill or imprison the natives under the auspices that they are barbarians and you are enlightening them with your religion (morals).

After you commit genocide and take their lands, you then look back and consider it horrific what you did.  You still keep their lands and if a few of them are left alive and allowed to continue existence but refuse to bow to your superior morality...you place them on the most desolate parts of the land that you took from them.

You then teach how wrong it was to kill them all and take their land, but still present that you have the moral high ground.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I'm not quite certain that's the best approach to take...but it seems to work the best for enforcing Western Morality upon a group of people who don't want to accept our choice of morality.

OR, we could go all Star Trek and have the Prime directive where we do not interfere with the cultures of other people until they reach a certain point.  After they reach that technical point, we might interact but the prime directive still has us stay away from interfering as much with their culture unless they decide that for some odd reason, they want to join us out of their own will and desire.

Various other ideas could be implemented as well, without going with the absolutes you mention...or more drastic ideas which you do not include (conquest, destruction, forcibly causing them to convert to our morals, etc.).

Indeed. You have made a significant point. The best I can suggest is that we should learn from our moral errors, not that we should consider morality to be whatever the subjective expression of this despotic rule, or that. And, if we have more than a certain degree of confidence in our moralities, we should be prepared to do, as well as think and speak. Albeit with feedback mechanisms built in to our policies, to help us decide if they are net beneficial to humanity, or net detrimental.

Best wishes, 2RM.

[askandanswer]

There is a certain morality to using our resources in the most efficient and productive manner, and sometimes this could mean trading with nations whose laws we disagree with. 

[2ndRateMind]

15 hours ago, askandanswer said:

There is a certain morality to using our resources in the most efficient and productive manner, and sometimes this could mean trading with nations whose laws we disagree with. 

Indeed. Thus far I have laid out binary options: agree or disagree with the principles at stake; trade or do not trade.

But of course, in the real world things are more subtle and nuanced. We might agree or disagree strongly, slightly, or have no distinct opinion as to a nation's policies. Similarly with our trading options; we might place no restrictions at all, or only restrictions on weaponry and military equipment that might be used to oppress the population, or restrictions on commercial goods and raw materials necessary to the functioning of the economy in question, or restrictions on all goods and services that are not food, or medical, or educational. I think most people, given these spectra of possibilities, will be able to find some position that they think apposite to the situation in Brunei. Perhaps, therefore, using our resources in the 'most efficient and productive manner' possible, would be to deny them, in measured reaction, to authoritarian regimes. And so to take down governments that flout human rights, in the pursuit a better world for all.

Or perhaps you all see things differently? ⁉️

Best wishes, 2RM.

Edited April 8, 2019 by 2ndRateMind

[unixknight]

22 hours ago, Just_A_Guy said:

This is one of my big philosophical disagreements with progressivism:  it takes an almost narcissistic position, suggesting that our current society is the inevitable culmination of all history, but for—perhaps—a smattering of final “tweaks” that will make things truly perfect; and it assumes that the things we like about the status quo are essentially self-perpetuating.  

The reason we don’t crucify religious or social heretics isn’t that we don’t still want to silence heretics, or that we are now immune from waves of social hysteria that lead us to want to inflict terrible suffering on others.  The reason is that right now we live in a society that has worked very hard to devise and maintain systems of government that simply didn’t give people the power to do all that was in their hearts.    Put a weak government like Weimar Germany in power and give it a decade or two, and it may as well be 1500 again.  

The reason we don’t have slavery is that we don’t need it.  If you’re a conservative like me, you’d point out that the masses can use government to appropriate for themselves the value of the saving and investment and labor and prudence of others.  If you’re a leftist, you’d point out that social systems like capitalism allow the indolent wealthy to take what they want from virtuous workers under color of law.  Either way, though—take those redistributionist institutions away, and you’ll be right back to a primitive state where the strong and/or amoral will be more than happy to take what they want from the weak and/or moral, by any means and with whatever force necessary.  

The reason we don’t murder each other for religion is that a few centuries ago we were blessed with genius ancestors who suggested that we shouldn’t do that; and once they’d had their way for a generation or two a few more geniuses figured out that letting heretics live might be to our mutual economic advantage; and our economic experience then tended to bear that out and make us not care so much about dogma.  When the economy tanks and/or the social order seems otherwise to be in decay, heretics and social outcasts don’t do so well—see, e.g., the recent emboldening of white supremacists in America’s “rust belt” and the rise of what you’d call “far right” groups across Europe.

The reason we pay more attention to domestic violence isn’t that we at one point thought it was OK; we simply didn’t have the social institutions to be very interventionist about it. Part of that was social stability, part was technology . . . And part of that was the fact that until very recently, there was simply no secular government that could be trusted to wield that kind of power over family life in a benevolent manner (some of us would say there still isn’t.  Didn’t your own NHS just put a couple of kids under house arrest until they died, over the objections of their parents, because NHS didn’t want to risk the humiliation of the American health care system curing children that NHS doctors had said were terminal?  Didn’t Venezuela, formerly one of the most stable democracies and strongest economies in Latin America, just get caught rationing health care for political gain?)

If we have progressed so far, why is it still legal across the western world to kill children by literally tearing them apart, limb from limb, until they die—and just so that their “mothers” don’t have to get fat for a couple of months, and so their “fathers” don’t have to pay money for their care and maintenance?  You think we’ve moved behind genocide and holocaust?  We’re in the middle of one right now.  We’ve just trained ourselves not to look.

If Nazi Germany has taught us anything, it’s that no matter how much we pat ourselves on the back for our degree of “civilization”, the sixth century BC century is never more than a decade or two away.  The only difference is that this time we have surgical scalpels, and cyanide gas, and gunpowder, and nukes.

/threadwinner.

[2ndRateMind]

1 hour ago, unixknight said:

The reason we don’t murder each other for religion is that a few centuries ago we were blessed with genius ancestors who suggested that we shouldn’t do that; and once they’d had their way for a generation or two a few more geniuses figured out that letting heretics live might be to our mutual economic advantage; and our economic experience then tended to bear that out and make us not care so much about dogma.  When the economy tanks and/or the social order seems otherwise to be in decay, heretics and social outcasts don’t do so well—see, e.g., the recent emboldening of white supremacists in America’s “rust belt” and the rise of what you’d call “far right” groups across Europe.

Well, if that is a hypothesis, it seems we shall soon be able to test it. Due to Brexit (Britain leaving the EU), it looks as if our economy is about to 'tank' and our social order challenged. We shall see if the extreme left, and the extreme right, do well out of the process, or not. Or whether, as I suspect, the pragmatic but essentially decent character of the people of these islands weathers the coming storm without the necessity to scapegoat minorities.

Best wishes, 2RM.

Edited April 8, 2019 by 2ndRateMind

[2ndRateMind]

23 hours ago, Just_A_Guy said:

If we have progressed so far, why is it still legal across the western world to kill children by literally tearing them apart, limb from limb, until they die—and just so that their “mothers” don’t have to get fat for a couple of months, and so their “fathers” don’t have to pay money for their care and maintenance?  You think we’ve moved behind genocide and holocaust?  We’re in the middle of one right now.  We’ve just trained ourselves not to look.

The latest figures I have suggest that people die in approximately equal quantities from malnutrition and hunger related disease as do from abortions. But conservatives tend not to worry about the former, only the latter. So, it's not just one post-modern holocaust we need to tackle, but two, and I see no reason why they should not receive equal weighting. Maybe you do?

Best wishes, 2RM.

Edited April 8, 2019 by 2ndRateMind

[anatess2]

26 minutes ago, 2ndRateMind said:

The latest figures I have suggest that people die in approximately equal quantities from malnutrition and hunger related disease as do from abortions. But conservatives tend not to worry about the former, only the latter. So, it's not just one post-modern holocaust we need to tackle, but two, and I see no reason why they should not receive equal weighting. Maybe you do?

Best wishes, 2RM.

The bolded is BIG FAT LIE.

And I'm calling out @JohnsonJones for liking this post with that big fat lie in it.

[The Folk Prophet]

18 minutes ago, 2ndRateMind said:

But conservatives tend not to worry about the former, only the latter.

Conservatives are against socialist ideas because they believe it leads to situations like Venezuela where children are literally starving to death and this leads leftists to the brilliant conclusion that conservatives don't care about starving children.

This is one of those ridiculously stupid things leftist put on conservatives that's absolute rubbish and does little more than prove how out of touch and/or moronic leftist think is

[2ndRateMind]

1 minute ago, anatess2 said:

The bolded is BIG FAT LIE.

Hmmm. I can only speak as I find. In justification, I detect more political and media activity around abortion than starvation. And I would point out that conservatives tend be rich, and those who die of hunger, poor. If the conservatives were a little less rich, and the poor a little less poor; well, problem solved. Whereas banning abortion is just a matter of the exercise of political power, which costs much less.

Best wishes, 2RM.

[unixknight]

44 minutes ago, 2ndRateMind said:

Well, if that is a hypothesis, it seems we shall soon be able to test it. Due to Brexit (Britain leaving the EU), it looks as if our economy is about to 'tank' and our social order challenged. We shall see if the extreme left, and the extreme right, do well out of the process, or not. Or whether, as I suspect, the pragmatic but essentially decent character of the people of these islands weathers the coming storm without the necessity to scapegoat minorities.

Best wishes, 2RM.

@Just_A_Guy said that, not me.  I don't want to take credit for someone else's wisdom.

[unixknight]

5 minutes ago, 2ndRateMind said:

Hmmm. I can only speak as I find. In justification, I detect more political and media activity around abortion than starvation. And I would point out that conservatives tend be rich, and those who die of hunger, poor. If the conservatives were a little less rich, and the poor a little less poor; well, problem solved. Whereas banning abortion is just a matter of the exercise of political power, which costs much less.

Best wishes, 2RM.

In the U.S., the divider between Conservatism and Liberalism has a lot more to do with geography than with income.  Go to the inner cities of Baltimore and you won't find a single declared conservative.  Go to the deep Appalachians where people live as poor as any in our country and you won't find any liberals.  In the U.S., urban areas are mostly liberal and rural areas are mostly conservative.  

And why aren't Conservatives out there making as much noise about starvation?  It's because we're too busy doing something about it.  Most of the private charities in the U.S. are run by churches or conservative groups.  Liberals want the Government to handle it and so they're always yelling for it while signaling their virtue.

Edited April 8, 2019 by unixknight

[Vort]

44 minutes ago, 2ndRateMind said:

The latest figures I have suggest that people die in approximately equal quantities from malnutrition and hunger related disease as do from abortions. But conservatives tend not to worry about the former, only the latter.

Seriously, why does anyone listen to this guy's blather?

[anatess2]

16 minutes ago, 2ndRateMind said:

Hmmm. I can only speak as I find. In justification, I detect more political and media activity around abortion than starvation. And I would point out that conservatives tend be rich, and those who die of hunger, poor. If the conservatives were a little less rich, and the poor a little less poor; well, problem solved. Whereas banning abortion is just a matter of the exercise of political power, which costs much less.

Best wishes, 2RM.

2RM, are you interested in learning or are you just interested in sitting there in your elitist chair spouting stupid statements out like "Conservatives tend to be rich".

Here's the conservative map of the USA.  The coastal elites running down the Eastern seaboard boasting the multi-millionaires of the Silicon Valley plus the coastal elites of the Northeastern seaboard of "Old Money", add to that the rich land of Miami are bright blue.  On the other hand, the American Heartland and farm country is bright red.  So yeah, conservatives don't whine about starvation because they're busy running the farmlands to feed all you whiny people.

Edited April 8, 2019 by anatess2

[2ndRateMind]

3 minutes ago, anatess2 said:

Here's the conservative map of the USA.

That's interesting.

Maybe I need another theory! But meanwhile, I still think that those who vote for conservative, small government, low intervention policies are those who stand to benefit from them, personally, by way of tax minimisation, while those who vote centre and centre left (the concepts do not describe the same political distinctions in the UK and the USA), tend to realise that, maybe for the first time in all of history, we have the potential worldwide wealth to eradicate absolute poverty, and save many lives, if only we decided to do so.

That, said, this topic has been something of a digression from the main theme of the thread, so I shall let you all respond with the last word, and try to bring the focus back to something approaching the OP, which was: should adulterers and homosexuals be stoned to death? And if not, what should we do about it, when they are?

Best wishes, 2RM.

[anatess2]

9 minutes ago, 2ndRateMind said:

That's interesting.

Maybe I need another theory! But meanwhile, I still think that those who vote for conservative, small government, low intervention policies are those who stand to benefit from them, personally, by way of tax minimisation,   

False.

Those who vote for conservative, small government are those who believe that GOVERNMENT POWER is easily corruptible and should not be trusted with a single dime to address very important issues such as Poverty.  Do you want more proof than the EU and British History to tell you how corrupt Governments are???

Those of your ilk who think the answer to everything is GOVERNMENT - is the CAUSE OF POVERTY worldwide.  Yes.  I said that.  

Here.  It's a simulation but it's pretty insightful for big government people such as you:

 

Edited April 8, 2019 by anatess2

[anatess2]

12 minutes ago, 2ndRateMind said:

That, said, this topic has been something of a digression from the main theme of the thread, so I shall let you all respond with the last word, and try to bring the focus back to something approaching the OP, which was: should adulterers and homosexuals be stoned to death? And if not, what should we do about it, when they are?

Best wishes, 2RM.

No.  Nobody should have to be stoned to death.  I am against capital punishment.  What we should do about it is TEACH PEOPLE ABOUT THE GOSPEL OF CHRIST.  

Now, isn't that interesting?  The one solution to every single one of your questions is found by true conversation to Christian principles where charity is valued and stoning to death is not.  Yet here you are... dismissing that one simple solution because it's not.... I don't know - philosophical enough or something.

So yes, you want to solve social problems?  Go talk to a missionary.  Start with the social problem within yourself then spread it outwards to the people you have stewardship over.  Such that, when you can successfully get your family to hold the same Christian values, then you can go get your neighbors to do the same.  Then pretty soon, you won't see anybody stoning people to death around you.

[Just_A_Guy]

1 hour ago, anatess2 said:

The bolded is BIG FAT LIE.

And I'm calling out @JohnsonJones for liking this post with that big fat lie in it.

Amen, amen, and amen.  @2ndRateMind, when you speak of being “sent to Coventry”—this is why.

The distinction between conservative demands for government action on abortion versus starvation is that conservatives see a big difference between humans actively depriving other humans of their God-given right to exist and be left alone, versus humans who are being given their God-given right to exist (and outside of our jurisdiction, to boot!) be left alone and are (unfortunately) failing to prosper under that regimen.  We do a lot, outside of government action, to help that latter group; and we’d be able to do more outside of government action to help the former group except that government is trying to force church adoption ministries to become evangelists for abortion.

Edited April 8, 2019 by Just_A_Guy

[2ndRateMind]

1 hour ago, anatess2 said:

Go talk to a missionary. 

Actually, I'm quite happy to do that. But do not think he will get an easy time! It's not as if I am getting one, from you lot.

Best wishes, 2RM.

Edited April 8, 2019 by 2ndRateMind

[Guest Mores]

4 hours ago, 2ndRateMind said:

The latest figures I have suggest that people die in approximately equal quantities from malnutrition and hunger related disease as do from abortions. But conservatives tend not to worry about the former, only the latter. So, it's not just one post-modern holocaust we need to tackle, but two, and I see no reason why they should not receive equal weighting. Maybe you do?

3 hours ago, 2ndRateMind said:

should adulterers and homosexuals be stoned to death? And if not, what should we do about it, when they are?

Should God allow these things to happen?  And if not, what should we do about it when He does?