Devil Bush?

[Roxanne Appleby]

The Geneva things are multiple, and have changed through time. Conventions in general about legitimate weapons and illegitimate ones, about chemical warfare, about biological warfare, and so on, seem to increase with time, encompassing more and more. Partly this is the march of technology, partly of history. But it's happening. Roxanne says that the Left is rabid, and to some extent, as the noose closes, the prisoner becomes more desperate.

That said, let us be dispassionate, here. It is absolutely true that all such international agreements between states-- indeed all treaties of any kind-- limit sovereignty. Bush gave this answer when he repudiated the test ban and the ABM treaty, before the 9-11 thing. Rightists I speak with cite this obvious fact as though it answered the argument. Whereas, in fact, 'sovereignty' does not preclude signing a treaty and meaning what you have said. We are going about the world, ourselves, seeking trade agreements with other nations, and we wouldn't bother to do that if we imagined their sovereignty could enable them to throw those things away at a whim. Agreements between states may even ultimately be valuable in reducing the Hobbesian condition of the scene, in the world of states.

Please overcome your distaste for Europe, about which no goo goo eyes must be made, Roxanne, but there has supervened a sizable structure of agreement over there, and the situation now between, for example, Germany and France is much less Hobbesian than it was in 1940. The consensus they have achieved is quite remarkable regarding slavery & human trafficking, torture, and so on-- human rights issues which we, too, have seemingly embraced. Indeed the most important opposition (besides that of our own FBI) to the renditions-for-torture program has been the efforts of various European states through which the black planes passed to investigate and publicize those abuses, and all of the nations of Europe who had an opportunity were willing to point them out and oppose them, on moral grounds having to do with human rights of the most basic kind.

Survivors of the renditions have also gone public. There was a Canadian, for example. Bush himself has acknowledged the 'black prisons' and Cheney has acknowledged the renditions, as for example, to Syria. So the time for denial of those things is past. Much of the rightist press and punditry still denies it, but the issue is dealt with more straightforwardly in most news outlets, now.

I don't play weird games with torture. In answer to your question, no. I have been too long writing letters in a respectful tone to torturing pricks all over the world, for Amnesty. You can have your contrived game about would-you-torture-under-this-condition-or-that. The answer is still no.

What enables torture is impunity. I repeat it. Impunity is what makes it happen. Not desperation, not patriotism, not threat. Writing a letter urging Aung San Suu Kyi's release, a letter from a firefighter in Maine, can have no hope of doing so, else. But after a few hundred or a few thousand such letters arrive, she is set free. Why? Because, quite simply, it has become clear that everybody knows what they are doing. Impunity is lost, and the injustice can't proceed, any more, without it.

This is true in Burma, in Indonesia, in Liberia, in Uganda, in Turkey, in Argentina. I have written such letters to torturing villains in all those places and dozens and dozens of others. On the whole, they responded to the clear evidence that their dirty secret was out by releasing the person. It's a bizarrely indirect method, isn't it? But it works.

Now our little dirty secret is out. The people responsible are twisting around, seeking to deny or seeking to impute the blame on others. The letters, consequently, to speak metaphorically, need to keep coming. Otherwise, more and more people will scream in some secret place far from hope.

Not all the people doing that have actually done anything to warrant ill treatment; these processes are not that accurate. A real trial, flawed as a lot of those are, stands a much better chance of at least picking the right man to wreak vengeance on, if vengeance is what you like. Many people die in a welter of pain for no good reason at all. And all you need to do to enable that is to shrug and do nothing when it comes to your attention.

Let us suppose that in the Hobbesian world of states, we wish to affect something. If we want to rape Peru of its oil wealth, then the proper tool is coercion. We have plenty of coercion ready to hand, and it will do that. But if we want to have an effect more subtle than acquisition of things which don't belong to us, then we will need other means. Our powers of persuasion outside the scope of coercion, our ability to ask a favor of some other state, will be less, the more we rely on coercion, and much less, the more we shield slavers or torturers from prosecution.

I respect what you say, Cant, and don't really disagree with any of it, I don't think, except maybe what you call the "wierd game," which really isn't so wierd, and I'm not sure is torture, but even there I'm not sure I disagree.

My problem is that the issue has become all wrapped up in the poisonous partisan politics of the day. Pure tries to challenge me on philosophical grounds that a statement is true or not without regard to motive, which is correct, but when statements are pouring forth in great numbers and I know many of them have been made up or more typically twisted so far out of context that they are just as untrue, then it is impossible to accept any of them at face value, and I for one don't have the time to chase down the truth.

The problem is illustrated by something I said to She above: 'I'm not one to play the "the other side is just as bad" game, but I have no doubt that if your sources spent the same amount of energy flyspecking and twisting in the same manner every little event that happened under Clinton's watch, the picture would be just as ugly, and just as misleading.' I suspect that you would not completely disagree with this. Given this, how can I trust anything that is coming from those quarters now, or even the sincerity of many of those pushing this stuff? (With almost no exceptions I do trust the sincerity of those engaging in these debates on AH, if not their sources.)


~~~~

The associating Roxanne with Hitler thing - I goofed. I thought the "Munich" was a reference to the Hitler demonstrations of the 1930s. It has been pointed out to me that it refers to the murder of Israeli athletes in 1972.

I apologise for the error.

~~~~~

I will reinforce something else I said above, and this is to everyone: It is not civil to ascribe to me or anyone else statements and positions made or held by others, which is what you are doing when you demand that I defend them or denounce them. I said what I really think in post 153 above, which is an odd one, because it expresses uncertainty, and what I think is humbleness in this area. I don't think I need to go further from that sincere statement, and I think demands that I do are improper. I'm not "in a snit" or anything like that; I've become pretty innured to the slings and arrows around here.

Something to consider is the apparent switch that has happened here, where those who insist there is no certain moral right and wrong when we're talking about individuals living in civil society appear to express absolute moral certainty when the issue is nation-states in a state of nature, and vice versa. I'm not trying to be contentious with this; it's just an observation.

 

[elsol]

Cant, I'm a libertarian, so I'm opposed in principle to such things, and think they should be against the law. Having said that, let's say the a cop has caught the guy who just planted a suitcase nuke in NYC, set to go off in seven days. Let's say that the sleep deprivation thing is determined to be an effective way to get someone to talk - I don't know if it is, but let's pretend. In that case, which I admit is contrived and artificial, with the 'givens' I've presented, don't you kind of hope that this cop violates the law and subjects this guy to sleep deprivation to find out where the nuke is? If he does, saves the city, is prosecuted by Elliot Spitzer for 'torture,' and you are on the jury, are you going to vote for life in prison, or a $100 fine? I have to tell you, my "conscience is not shocked" by this deed.

Not jump on you with both feet Roxanne (you get that enough around here).

The 'in principle' thing has always struck me as one of the most ridiculous things a person could say. Essentially, to me, it translates to saying "I know this is not how things have worked, how they do work, or how I would want them to work should it actually ever be about me but... Look, aren't I a good person for having principles!"

You posit a question that is not about the morality of the act of torture, but about a willingness to punish an invididual who does it in an extreme circumstance. The more relevant question if we're discussing principles is would you do it if you were the cop or would you allow it if you were in the room?

Your answer says to me that you're are not, in fact, oppossed to torture. Either A or not A, right? (Cant does seem to be oppossed to it.)

So when someones asks am I oppossed to torture... my answer has to be no.

I'm oppossed to it being used on me (the whole rational self-interest thing); I'm oppossed to it being used on someone that might cause me to have to kill a whole lot of you and thus make it necessary for you to kill me (again rational self-interest of preventing things that might make me choose to die); I'm oppossed to it being used in a majority of circumstances where I may accidently be dragged into the mix and end up being tortured myself.

Clearly, I cannot say I'm oppossed to torture if in the circumstance you offered:

I could honestly say... tuck your kids into bed.

And like Cant... your laws would be meaningless to me, as would a judgement that I did moral 'right' or 'wrong'. My only hope was that I found it necessary in a state with the Death Penalty so I can forgo the whole 'life in prison' thing if you do decide to punish me.

I've never feared the abyss looking into me.

 

[rgraham666]

I've never feared the abyss looking into me.

Most people don't. Which is why so many get claimed by it.

 

[Pure]

mind boggling.

Rox:

It is not civil to ascribe to me or anyone else statements and positions made or held by others, which is what you are doing when you demand that I defend them or denounce them.

P: whew! logic, here! Persons are said to *ascribe* (attribute) a view to Roxanne if they demand that she defend or denounce someone else's position!

P: So if I say, Roxanne, "Do you defend or denouce Gonzales' and top Generals' approval, in written memos, of 'torture lite' [i.e. rarely causing death]?" these being publically available, then I'm saying "Look, Roxanne approves of 'torture lite.'"

Does this make sense?

On these boards, often a quotation or a position is laid out, and people asked for comment (hurray for lifelong monogamy). But apparently if i say, "Amicus, I insist you answer!" that's unfair, since it ascribes a position.

I will agree that if a simple question is avoided repeatedly one can draw a number of inferences: *sometimes* to a desire not to be on record with an unpopular opinion. or maybe the person has a very subtle position and is just too busy to lay it all out.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

To those who keep trying to drag me into supporting, denouncing, rejecting, approving, etc. statments that they make on this issue, or that they cite others making, I refer once again to this post, No. 153 here, which expresses as best as I know the uncertainty that I genuinely feel and that I believe to be proper in the foreign policy sphere, which involves nation states existing in a Hobbesian state of nature, where none of the actors have renounced the use of force. If you've read that post then it's hard for me to ascribe good motives to continued efforts to to stick these provoking challenges in my face.

Cant has pointed to the foolishness of the "oppose in principle" statement, and he has a point. I think that rather than saying something genuinely foolish I just I worded line badly though, because the context provided by the rest of the post explains what I was trying to say.

I'll repeat one more thing I said above: Isn't it curious, "the apparent switch that has happened here, where those who insist there is no certain moral right and wrong when we're talking about individuals living in civil society appear to express absolute moral certainty when the issue is nation-states in a state of nature, and vice versa."

A cynic would conclude that this means it's all just politics parading as high principle. I won't go there, because I know that just about everyone on this forum is sincere, but it's something worth thinking about for all of us.

 

[cantdog]

Something to consider is the apparent switch that has happened here, where those who insist there is no certain moral right and wrong when we're talking about individuals living in civil society appear to express absolute moral certainty when the issue is nation-states in a state of nature, and vice versa. I'm not trying to be contentious with this; it's just an observation.

Firstly thank you. The weird game I refer to is a constantly recurring one on threads and in conversations like this one. Perhaps there's a manual somewhere recommending its use? "Would you torture the man who had just planted the bomb and you had only one day and you knew he could tell you..."

Well, it's just a silly question. For one thing, rhetorically, it is part of a strawman argument:
1) You say torture is wrong
2) You say you would twist his pinky to know where the bomb is
3) Therefore you agree torture is NOT wrong under exigent circumstances

And the poser of the question knows that the strawman is on deck, and I know that he is there, too, and the question is not a real question in any way. Thus I say, in reply to people who haul this question out, fuck off, I say, I don't play weird games about torture. Torture isn't about response to threat or danger, torture is about power and impunity. Your question does not reflect any of the actual realities of torture, it is bogus. Torture actually would not help you find the bomb, you would have simply panicked and ripped out his nails or whatever to no purpose, because you responded to pressure in a mistaken way.

I'm not sure if I'm asking you to support a given statement about someone's position. Certainly there's some of that here. But that torture question is expressly an attempt to have me support or not support a position, however unrealistic, about the issue.

I think you mistake my position about the usefulness of absolute positions, which is perhaps in short the platypus idea, as a conviction that no moral statement can be made at all. This is not the case. I have been trying, with Joe W and even with amicus, and now with you and Pure, to explain that any absolute position has logical consequences, and that all such positions must lead to a platypus, because in fact the human being was not designed by any such system, and won't jibe with one.

Just as the range of natural creatures was not designed to any particular system of taxonomy and won't conform well to one: it will be fine for awhile, through some of the animals, but then you strike a platypus, and your categories don't fit well. It is not that the platypus is odd. The platypus, on the contrary, is an animal, minding its own business, swimming and eating and reproducing. The species actually has been on the planet longer than you have, with your logical system designed to be agreed upon, and designed to answer all questions about animals with regard to their classification and interrelatedness. It isn't the platypus, but the system, which is not right, do you see? So it is with your absolute moral ideas. They haven't a prayer. They will strike a platypus sooner or later, and look stupid, or else blame the platypus.

None of this means that no moral statement can be made. None of it implies that someone who realizes the inadequcies of such a system must needs be a moral bankrupt or someone who swaps out to a different idea on a whim. That kind of imputation about me is really unwarranted. All I have done is try to show you the platypus; I have not confessed to amorality.

Here it is again: those who insist there is no certain moral right and wrong when we're talking about individuals living in civil society appear to express absolute moral certainty when the issue is nation-states in a state of nature, and vice versa. I'm not trying to be contentious with this; it's just an observation. This seems to imagine that I am uncertain about what is right and wrong, whereas that is not the case in the slightest. I just don't need some abstraction to tell me what is right or wrong. I don't have an obligation to make my morals conform to some basic absolute in order to hold them true. In fact, I believe the platypus shows me that absolute ideas of that kind will actively mislead me if I slave my morality to them.

I have spoken about the sources of my morality at some length, but they are not derived from the rational faculty, so you have discounted them. Amicus goes so far as to deny that any of the mind's contents exist outside the rational faculty, emotions included. Happily for us all, that is not true.

 

[Pure]

ho hum

[people who]
R: appear to express absolute moral certainty when the issue is nation-states in a state of nature, and vice versa."

P: a silly little debate ploy from Ayn Rand for Dummies:

who is meant? me, cantdog, who?

P: Please quote any expressions of 'absolute moral certainty.'

As I said, before, you condescend to all your opponents who question your absolutes and falsely ascribe to them the silly view
"I'm certain there is no certainty." Cute. But False.

ADDED: Elsol supplies a nice variant: "I'm absolutely sure there are no absolutes."


I've seen your reply by the way. Lame. _OK, pure, cant and others never exactly say they ascribe to 'absolute moral certainty' and they appear to make qualifications, but I know they have this delusion even though it's not exactly stated._

I suppose it's rude to ask about evidence--how you know our minds and, that they don't agree with our statements.

---
Speaking of torture, do you agree with the essay interpreting and quoting Ayn Rand on torture that I posted.?

---
OH, and why exactly to the principles of rational egoism NOT apply to nation states? Do you say *your* nation state, being in a 'state of nature' (alleged) just does and should do as it pleases, might makes right, grab what you can? (This would seem to follow if nation states are not subject to Reason and Morality.)

Or do you have a more 'mixed' view: Nations states, when at peace and unthreatened and in routine situations can be paragons of virtue, but in cases of danger or crisis, moral rules are set aside, and it's only might that is of the essence?

 

[elsol]

Pure:

I think the accusation is more like, "I'm absolutely sure there are no absolutes."

I am absolutely sure... a whole lot of people think they know the absolutes.

I am absolutely sure... one of us, maybe many of us, might be right.

I am absolutely sure... we might all be full of shit.

I am absolutely sure... most of my day is spent not giving a shit because it has nothing to do with getting my bills paid.

I am absolutely sure... I think McKenna is probably a hottie, but I have never seen her so I can't be sure that I really think she's a hottie.

I am absolutely sure I've taken this too far... until someone says differently... then I'll be sure they're right as far as it pertains to them thinking I haven't gone too far... unless they're just fucking with me.

 

[cantdog]

Well, pure, the torturing the bomber question is a silly one, but everyone supporting the present regime asks it. It contains too many unspoken assumptions to be answerable. I try to make it a point not to answer questions with more than three unstated assumptions contained in them.

Ayn Rand's line about the only thing left is who will be running the gestapo is not a bad one. Consistently enough, the present New American Centuryites are indeed building the foundation of a secret state police as fast as they can get their pusillanimous congress to vote for it.

Roxanne is quite correct about the poisonous politics of the times we currently must live through. Every president unfortunate enough to have a real war to deal with, in the eras I have studied-- Lincoln, FDR-- has indeed suspended habeas corpus and done other things completely at odds with their oaths of office. They swore to defend the constitution and threw it out as soon as things looked tough.

But this gang doesn't even have a real war. Terrorism is not an enemy, it is a technique. No one thinks, do they, that a War on Poverty is an actual war? A War on Drugs? You don't go around suppressing the first amendment or the fourth because you're in a war on poverty or crime or drugs, and the reason you don't is because it's only a rhetorical device to communicate that you really mean to do something about poverty or drugs. Not a war, really, a figure of speech.

And okay, as a figure of speech, fine. Have a war on terrorism. It'll be no stupider than the war on drugs, although it'll cost more per year, I bet. But what the hell, it might keep somebody somewhere from being blown up to make a point, so have your fun. Just don't ask me to believe that it's an actual war, like the war on the Confederacy or the war on the Axis.

But damn if he don't start calling himself a "war president," right off the bat! And in wartime, actual wartime, Confederacy wartime or Axis wartime, yes, the people of the country can be asked to make some pretty serious sacrifices, undergo checkpoints, rationing, conscription, even bombing raids from the enemy. But in a War on Drugs or a War on Crime, you gotta be kidding me.

Then they attack Iraq! Not some terrorists, mind you, that might have made some sense, in a way, but Iraq! Suddenly there's a real killing war, but the enemy is laughably incapable of bombing raids, no rationing will ever be requested, no conscription is contemplated, and the proper response is to shop.

And the really dangerous enemy turns out to be the people we supposedly went to liberate, rather than Saddam Hussein or any of his boys, who went down like the paper tigers they were. No, the Iraq we attacked, as anyone could tell, was no danger at all. The Iraqis we went to help, on the other hand, seem to be doing pretty darn effective work, handing us defeats like Fallujah.

Well, the proper response is certainly not to roust everybody brown who looks like they come from any country along the entirety of southern Asia, shlep them into back rooms for a search, deport them to their grandfather's home country or torture them in some black prison somewhere overseas, or in Syria or someplace, all without any trial or even a hearing. A resistance in Iraq doesn't have much more to do with terrorism than did Saddam, actually. If they are rousting south asians as a part of a campaign to check terror attacks, then why haven't they taken the obvious steps to protect nuclear plants, rail systems, and port facilities or done any of the other things which might help make terror attacks less likely to succeed?

Those general attacks on immigrants, and suspending the bill of rights-- they must certainly be for some other purpose, because it is stark lunacy to do either on account of Iraq, and they aren't doing much at all about actual security.

I think this is enough provocation to make a competent observer expect more than a little poisonous politics.

All these measures are un-American, from the 'free speech zones' in New York to the extrajudicial shananigans with the poor schmucks who happen to be named Singh or Abd al-Kader or Chatterji to the searches of library records, phone records, and on and on with no warrant or good sense to them.

The anthrax thing was an American. The 9-11 thing was a pack of Saudis. If they were tied to Osama, we know they resented the bases in the Kingdom, since that's what Osama cares about, he said so over and over. As a puzzle these things are second rate, and as an excuse to attack Iraq they are inadequate.

And IT"S WARTIME!! And YOU'RE EITHER FOR US OR AGAINST US!!! And THE FEAR INDEX IS WAY WICKED HIGH!! Well, I'm not particularly panicked, dude, and I'm against you. And guess what else? It didn't have to be wartime, by a country mile. You just wanted to have a war with Saddam and look tough, and I suspect you also are looking to parley fear into dictatorship.

The opposition party votes to support the whole thing! They give up all opposition entirely, and even years later, after we've all forgotten the anthrax scare and the sheer foolishness of the Iraq venture is so obvious Ray Charles could see it, the opposition party runs a candidate who supports the Iraq thing all the way, one who voted to have Iraq be attacked in the first place. Kerry. Bush Lite. Where is the opposition? There really is none at all in the two major parties. Whoever inherits the Presidency now will find the office carries a lot more unchecked power, and it could be either party. They both want empire.

Empire is in fact the reason for terrorism, though. I find myself sounding a lot like Cicero, defending senatorial, republican Rome against Imperial Rome. It doesn't matter which party, Dem or Rep, becomes emperor. We don't need any goddamned emperors in the first place.

 

[shereads]

I'm not one to play the "the other side is just as bad" game, but I have no doubt that if your sources spent the same amount of energy flyspecking and twisting in the same manner every little event that happened under Clinton's watch, the picture would be just as ugly, and just as misleading.'

Ahem. Your logic is melting. Specificially,

Re: your certainty that if 'my sources' spent the same time and energy, etc - Ahem. Have you forgotten about the Starr Report? Conservatives had 6 years and $40 million in resources dedicated to 'flyspecking and twisting' the Clintons. Given the same resources, do you really think we'd need to entrap Bush/Cheney into committing an impeachable offense, a la lying about Monica? They've already lied to Congress - that's what's meant by presenting 'shaped evidence,' isn't it?

Re: 'every little event' - Of the examples I offered in my post, can you name one that you'd describe as a 'little event?' Or is the phrasing just a Rove-esque attempt to minimize the seriousness of what you might otherwise need to admit was heinous behavior? The most dangerous lies are the lies you tell yourself, Rox, when you refuse to acknowledge the truth.

Re: 'my sources' - I didn't rely on a few partisan sources like the Heritage Foundation or even my favorite liberal websites for the information I presented here; I don't need to. The examples I asked you to address are all matters of record with multiple sources. Additionally, the most incriminating facts haven't been specifically denied by the Bush White House. They've simply been ignored - a luxury afforded to this president by the happy circumstance of having a majority hold on all three branches of government.

Interestingly, one of the sources I begged my Republican friends and family to read before voting to re-elect Bush was written by a lifelong Republican, whose credentials as a conservative were unimpeachable, so to speak: Bush's former Secretary of the Treasury, whose book "The Price of Loyalty" is so thoroughly documented, I was certain it would cost Bush/Cheney the 2004 election. Hardly. Faced with a source they had no excuse to mistrust, my conservative friends simply refused to read the book. One wrote O'Neill off as a Clinton supporter; another called him a "disgruntled employee." Nothing short of a confession by Bush himself will sway the faithful.

Ever since candidate Bush accused Al Gore of 'talking as if Social Security is some kind of federal program,' I've wondered what this man would have to say or do to turn his fans against him. No source can be trusted, no fact is quite factual enough, no offense is more serious than a 'little event.' A lot of these little events, presented all at once, are 'misleading.'

This week's revelation that terrorism has been made worse by the Iraq invasion is already being written off as irrelevent. "The point is, we're there, and we have to deal with the present," says future candidate John McCain. So much for holding presidents accountable.

"It was the right decision," says the president. So much for reality.

 

[cantdog]

[sort-of-threadjack]
Absolutely. This is something that I've said over and over and over again. So nice to see someone like-minded on this issue.
[/sort-of-threadjack]



Yes. I once had an employee tell me that I was actually born in the wrong era, and that he had me pegged as "one of the original free spirits." I think he was correct.

I don't think I'm such a free spirit as all that. My problem accepting authority has ponderable roots in my childhood, and it seems to be ineradicable. It may even be a disadvantage: I can speak and I can think; I might have had a career in law, had I not had this resistance, this repugnance for such things.

In any case, there it is. I can't endorse 'the rule of law' with the same enthusiasm as others can. I mistrust it. And sure enough, rarely do these laws apply to all persons. Upper classes need fear them little, and that worldwide. Darker skinned folk need not even infringe them to be jailed in any event, in this country. So the rule of law is no guarantee of justice, not by a damn sight. It beats the rule of a despot, on the whole, but you don't get to relax once it's in place.

 

[Pure]

law-- note to cant; note to el.

those of us who reached adulthood in the 60 and 70s have our experience of 'the law'. it's NOT an object of reverence, though, until recently , the SC did *eventually* straighten things out. But we remember Dred Scott.

the central insight about law is roughly what Marx said. it by and large reflects the interests of the ruling class. any exceptions, such as providing for unions, come because of a lot of political struggle.

hence Rand and others never got straight about "force", by which they mean, of course, "illegitimate or illegal use of force." It's supposed against the spirit of 'trade' and capitalism. as the law existed in 1900, if a union struck, THAT was interference with trade and the union could be fined. further, if the co. hired Pinkertons--as they were known--to bust the heads of the (illegal) strikers, that was no problem. The employers did not violate the law, but rather 'protected their property' and their 'rights as employers.'
So the employers 'force' was legitimate, per Rand's definition--asserting your right to 'clear your property' of rowdies. AND the union's act, even supposing there was no force, was coercive and improperly affecting 'free market,' so it was illegal. Alternatively, one might use the example: a lockout was legal, but a strike was illegal.

It took some doing to straighten these matters out; get rid of private police and armies, etc, which *until then* were legal.

the history of environment legislation shows the same pattern. Dow did not bring it in, to say the least.

OCCASIONALLY, there is an enlightened capitalist who breaks the pattern. Heinz supported the pure food legislation, early this century, because his factory was clean and most others weren't.
This has an almost Adam Smithian flavor, since he acted out of self interest, yet the result was some good legislation and the 'general welfare' benefited.

Of course, against Smith, the other factory owners opposed the legislation and just happened to lose; in other cases, e.g. now, owners see to it that weak legislation happens or that decent laws are weakened. So the 'invisible hand' guided by self interest HARMS, or allows harm to-- the society: the outcome of all the selfish acts is NOT in the general interest.

--
El,
the problem of skepticism is very old. most philosophers agree that total skepticism, "you can't know anything" "there is nothing that you can say for sure is true" is virtually self refuting-- though maybe you can't know even that, for sure!

HOWEVER, the problem of Rand, Roxanne and other is they put all statements in the same category, in their attempt at a *moral* absolutism. All partial skeptics are treated as extreme ones. Consider



1.I'm absolutely sure that 1+1 = 2.
2.I'm absolutely sure that I'm of the belief that I'm awake.
2b. I'm absolutely sure I am actually awake.


3 I'm absolutely sure I'm having the sensory experience (seeming to see) of a computer monitor.
3b I'm absolutely sure I'm looking at a real, actual computer monitor.

4. I'm absolutely sure that murder, not in self defense or to save a life is wrong.
5.I'm absolutely sure that the Mona Lisa is beautiful, in objective terms.

You can see that there are *BIG* deferences in the claims. What Rand and Roxanne ignore is that there are a number of positions available, i.e. limited skepticisms.

First case. Major Skepticism. I endorse 1,2, and 3, but no others. IOW, I maintain there is certainty about math statements and reports of sensory experience (that don't claim to be necessarily real).

As to 2b and 3b, I can only attain 99.9% certainty-- because, for instance, I could be dreaming, hallucinating, having brain surgery, etc.

Second Case. Skepticism about Value Judgements.

I endorse 1,2, 2b, 3,3b but not 4 and 5. IOW I refuse to admit that ANY (value) judgements of 'right' or 'beauty' are absolutely, 100% certainly, provably true.

Particularly in the second case, Rand/Roxannes refutation falls flat.
IOW the statement "There are no moral absolutes" does NOT fall flat, and turn back on itself, in the way "There, absolutely, are no absolutes" does.

 

[elsol]

El,
the problem of skepticism is very old. most philosophers agree that total skepticism, "you can't know anything" "there is nothing that you can say for sure is true" is virtually self refuting-- though maybe you can't know even that, for sure!

HOWEVER, the problem of Rand, Roxanne and other is they put all statements in the same category, in their attempt at a *moral* absolutism. All partial skeptics are treated as extreme ones. Consider

1.I'm absolutely sure that 1+1 = 2.
2.I'm absolutely sure that I'm of the belief that I'm awake.
2b. I'm absolutely sure I am actually awake.


3 I'm absolutely sure I'm having the sensory experience (seeming to see) of a computer monitor.
3b I'm absolutely sure I'm looking at a real, actual computer monitor.

4. I'm absolutely sure that murder, not in self defense or to save a life is wrong.
5.I'm absolutely sure that the Mona Lisa is beautiful, in objective terms.

You can see that there are *BIG* deferences in the claims. What Rand and Roxanne ignore is that there are a number of positions available, i.e. limited skepticisms.

First case. Major Skepticism. I endorse 1,2, and 3, but no others. IOW, I maintain there is certainty about math statements and reports of sensory experience (that don't claim to be necessarily real).

As to 2b and 3b, I can only attain 99.9% certainty-- because, for instance, I could be dreaming, hallucinating, having brain surgery, etc.

Second Case. Skepticism about Value Judgements.

I endorse 1,2, 2b, 3,3b but not 4 and 5. IOW I refuse to admit that ANY (value) judgements of 'right' or 'beauty' are absolutely, 100% certainly, provably true.

Particularly in the second case, Rand/Roxannes refutation falls flat.
IOW the statement "There are no moral absolutes" does NOT fall flat, and turn back on itself, in the way "There, absolutely, are no absolutes" does.

Pure...

I am, by no means, a 'skeptic', but I believe rational doubt has to play a part in my thinking the farther and farther away I get from pure mental constructs and myself.

 

[cantdog]

There are plenty of moral absolutes. People love them. They mislead lots of people every hour. I just don't like to be misled by them, and I'm not going to buy into the idea. One step further, the people who like them seem to think that if everyone got in there and pitched, buying the absolute they like, then unity of purpose would supervene in the race. That too is delusion, and I'm not going to believe that, either.

I don't need to. I got a moral sense which operates just fine. So does everyone else, barring pathology. You'll never get them all lined up, however, and they don't rely on a rational construct.

 

[Pure]

well, cant, let's take a simple example.

is it not a moral absolute, for human morality, that you don't take an innocent life?

do you have to rely on a 'moral sense' or 'moral intuition' to figure that one out?

(being the debbil's advocate, here, )

 

[elsol]

well, cant, let's take a simple example.

is it not a moral absolute, for human morality, that you don't take an innocent life?

do you have to rely on a 'moral sense' or 'moral intuition' to figure that one out?

(being the debbil's advocate, here, )

No, see what you said: 'for human morality'.

You're already in the relative position of my neck of the woods.

 

[CharleyH]

Many of ya'll (not all) MISSED THE POINT OF CHAVEZ

And you call yourselves Christians? As an existentialist? Shame on you.

I don't talk about politics normally, as I feel I am only responding to the uninformed. In this instance I have yet to see much information - but, I will give my take in defense of Mr. Chavez as I feel his comments (having read many US administation responses and newspaper reports) was ballsy, yet directly related to George W's speech two days prior.

You see, and you really must look to see (and it does not take much), George W did something interesting in that speech of his - He aligned himself with Biblical prophecy: Chapters 2 and 3 of Revelations specifically and almost word for symbol. Sorry, his speech writers deliberately aligned him (Bush is a mere puppet, I know). I am not here to tell you, I am here to ask you to cross reference Bush's speech to the UN Assembly with Revelations 2 and 3, which address the Churches of Asia Minor and to which Mr. Bush's speech parallels in uncanny ways.

After doing this? Come back and tell me why Mr. Chavez was wrong to be sarcastic in his speech or even humourous in his Holy body cross regarding "Bush the devil" and his republican party.

Is Bush the Devil? NO. But he, or his cohorts, sure do like to align him with God a lot, and the Christian concept of right. (not right wing)

I am sorry to interrupt a good convo on other things. But I needed to go back to go forward because I am uncertain that anyone saw anything but Chavez' speech or comments as reported in newspapers.

Cheers

 

[Pure]

nice posting, Charley. as i understand you , you're saying if someone wraps himself up as prophet or God's anointed, an understandable reaction is, 'no, actually you smell of sulphur'. sort of poetic justice.

 

[Guest]

nice posting, Charley. as i understand you , you're saying if someone wraps himself up as prophet or God's anointed, an understandable reaction is, 'no, actually you smell of sulphur'. sort of poetic justice.

That, or his pits just stink.

(Barb needs to remind him to shower more often.)

 

[CharleyH]

nice posting, Charley. as i understand you , you're saying if someone wraps himself up as prophet or God's anointed, an understandable reaction is, 'no, actually you smell of sulphur'. sort of poetic justice.

My specific question was whether or not you read both addresses - Bush/Chavez?

EDIT and can you give an objective view?

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

Ahem. Your logic is melting. Specificially,

Re: your certainty that if 'my sources' spent the same time and energy, etc - Ahem. Have you forgotten about the Starr Report? Conservatives had 6 years and $40 million in resources dedicated to 'flyspecking and twisting' the Clintons. Given the same resources, do you really think we'd need to entrap Bush/Cheney into committing an impeachable offense, a la lying about Monica? They've already lied to Congress - that's what's meant by presenting 'shaped evidence,' isn't it?

Re: 'every little event' - Of the examples I offered in my post, can you name one that you'd describe as a 'little event?' Or is the phrasing just a Rove-esque attempt to minimize the seriousness of what you might otherwise need to admit was heinous behavior? The most dangerous lies are the lies you tell yourself, Rox, when you refuse to acknowledge the truth.

Re: 'my sources' - I didn't rely on a few partisan sources like the Heritage Foundation or even my favorite liberal websites for the information I presented here; I don't need to. The examples I asked you to address are all matters of record with multiple sources. Additionally, the most incriminating facts haven't been specifically denied by the Bush White House. They've simply been ignored - a luxury afforded to this president by the happy circumstance of having a majority hold on all three branches of government.

Interestingly, one of the sources I begged my Republican friends and family to read before voting to re-elect Bush was written by a lifelong Republican, whose credentials as a conservative were unimpeachable, so to speak: Bush's former Secretary of the Treasury, whose book "The Price of Loyalty" is so thoroughly documented, I was certain it would cost Bush/Cheney the 2004 election. Hardly. Faced with a source they had no excuse to mistrust, my conservative friends simply refused to read the book. One wrote O'Neill off as a Clinton supporter; another called him a "disgruntled employee." Nothing short of a confession by Bush himself will sway the faithful.

Ever since candidate Bush accused Al Gore of 'talking as if Social Security is some kind of federal program,' I've wondered what this man would have to say or do to turn his fans against him. No source can be trusted, no fact is quite factual enough, no offense is more serious than a 'little event.' A lot of these little events, presented all at once, are 'misleading.'

This week's revelation that terrorism has been made worse by the Iraq invasion is already being written off as irrelevent. "The point is, we're there, and we have to deal with the present," says future candidate John McCain. So much for holding presidents accountable.

"It was the right decision," says the president. So much for reality.

I obviously wasn't clear, She. What I meant was, if someone were to look all around the world for stupid or pernicious things that might have been done by agencies and agents of the U.S. government from 1993 through 2000, including commissions and omissions, and do one's best to twist these into an indictment of the Commander in Chief, I have no doubt that a very ugly story could be told. The same holds no matter who the president is. I am making no assertion about the relative merits of one Prez vs. another, I'm just saying that if an unscrupulous critic wants to crucify any one of them by taking things that happen on their watch and twisting them out of context, they could paint an ugly picture. Maybe the reality is ugly and maybe it's not - you can't tell from the kind of agenda-driven, rabidly partisan "evidence" I'm referring to. When one side or the other becomes "unhinged" - the Clinton haters in the 1990s, the Bush haters today, they lose their credibility, because they start behaving as if the end of hurting their enemy justifies the means of twisting the truth. I don't have time to chase down what's true and what's not coming from that kind of source - who does?

 

[CharleyH]

nice posting, Charley. as i understand you , you're saying if someone wraps himself up as prophet or God's anointed, an understandable reaction is, 'no, actually you smell of sulphur'. sort of poetic justice.

Fine - I cant be a 'devils advocate' here.

Did you read and did you see the parallel as I posed? If so why? If not? Why?

BIG BUMP!

Shame that no one takes hard questions,. Bump. (DISAPPOINTEDLY)

I am left without a good answer to my questions. Can no one argue this? One smells like sulphur when there is a stink in the assembly, Pure? Did you read Bush's address or ONLY Chavez? Which stink do you refer to?

 

[cantdog]

Well, pure, no. It could be done; that is, a moral absolute could be erected on the idea. But there it would sit, generating logical consequences, aiming straight for a dilemma requiring another rule to resolve that, or striking a platypus.

As I currently see the human mind, it can hardly avoid relying on a moral sense.

It seems to me, from experience and interview, that all the faculties of mankind develop as the creature ages, and the moral sense undergoes as much change as anything else. Colly was brilliant, but she was willing to accept innocent deaths in Iraq in order to safeguard American troops, for example. It doesn't mean she wasn't compassionate, but it does mean that she had a decidedly us/them morality. A three-year-old will almost always have an entirely me/them morality. The ones on the front of the slash, me or us, are in a different category. Had the US been the country invaded, Colly wouldn't have been able to accept the deaths of innocent children here in order to safeguard invading or occupying troops, and there would have been nothing at all inconsistent there. In either case, she would have felt, I think, although here I have to say I never asked her, that exposing a girlchild for the good of the family was wrong.

 

[shereads]

Who's hinged and who's not?

I don't have time to chase down what's true and what's not coming from that kind of source - who does?

Your point seems to be that Bush's failures and misdeeds, or at least the ones I listed, are either the product of, or have been embellished by, unscrupulous sources; unless you're saying that all presidents have done something as heinous as contriving a war against terror that results in more terror. The examples I offered are not anecdotal; they are documented and multiply sourced; about as close to irrefutable fact as it is possible to get without the benefit of your having witnessed each event from inside the president's head as it took place.

There seems to be unused space in there, but you'd need a portal like the one in "Being John Malcovich."

Failing that, on what evidence do you base a decision to support the man or hold him accountable? If you don't have time to chase down the truth from allegedly unscrupulous sources, and can't support your assertion that they are unscrupulous, how do you know that the left is 'unhinged' and not rightly outraged by Bush's actions and the right's failure to hold him accountable?

My list of Bush-deeds was meant to support my belief that it's Bush's supporters who are "unhinged" and not the left. Assuming you know something I don't, you ought to be able to refute the evidence with some specific evidence to the contrary.

I find it self-evident that a sane person would be outraged by the way Bush/Cheney generated support for the Iraq invasion, their incompetence in conducting the war, their insistence that it is the key to winning the war on terror when in fact, it has done just the opposite (unless the intelligence agencies whose report was leaked last week have been misquoted, or are themselves unscrupulous sources). If my evidence adds up, your side is unhinged. If I'm wrong, you either have stronger evidence to the contrary - or you condone Bush's behavior and are looney.

 

[Pure]

to charley

C: You see, and you really must look to see (and it does not take much), George W did something interesting in that speech of his - He aligned himself with Biblical prophecy: Chapters 2 and 3 of Revelations specifically and almost word for symbol. Sorry, his speech writers deliberately aligned him (Bush is a mere puppet, I know). I am not here to tell you, I am here to ask you to cross reference Bush's speech to the UN Assembly with Revelations 2 and 3, which address the Churches of Asia Minor and to which Mr. Bush's speech parallels in uncanny ways.

P: I did read over the speech quickly, and saw the usual stuff about spreading freedom and democracy, including the mid east. I didn't see the Bible of stuff from it, mentioned. I can believe that there may be parallels in imagery with Revelations, for GWB's speechwriters aim for evangelical's support. But I think you should say what they are-- give a couple examples.

You're kind of preaching to the choir, here; I'm only saying i don't know of the particular evidence you cite. I've seen Bush wrapping himself in flag and Bible on a number of occasions, and a number of Americans see the country as "Israel", God's chosen and preferred nation.