During the last season of “West Wing,” reporters tried to pin down candidate Arnie Vinnick (Alan Alda) on the subject of his religious beliefs. Vinnick–who wanted to keep the fact that he’d lost faith in God under wraps–stated that his personal views on God were off limits, he’d never discuss them, that they weren’t relevant to the job he was to do as president, and that as far as he was concerned that was the end of it. To all intents and purposes it was. It never came up again in the series.
I commented at the time that in the real world, that would never happen. That such an assertion would only be the beginning of the story, not the end of it.
Now it seems that we’re seeing the scenario played out in real life as Rudy Giuliani asserts that his personal religious beliefs are just that–personal–and should have no bearing on his campaign.
This promptly became front page news on “Newsday” and now we’ll see just how fast the question goes away. I suspect it won’t anytime soon.
The ironic thing is that Giuliani is both right and wrong. The fact is that his personal beliefs *shouldn’t* be a factor. If he doesn’t want to discuss them, he should be entitled to that. The problem becomes that the automatic assumption is that he is either agnostic or atheist, and in a society where the vast majority of people assert a belief in SOME sort of divine spirit, that’s not going to go over very well.
On the other hand it really IS a relevant question because look who we’ve got running the country now: A man who believes that he’s operating at the personal behest of God. Bush doesn’t simply believe in God; he KNOWS there’s a God and that he and God are tight. If a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, too much “knowledge” can be a lethal thing.
If Giuliani is an atheist and doesn’t want to discuss that beause he figures it’s nobody’s business and that it might cost him votes, I can understand both viewpoints. Still, knowing that a candidate will not run this country and world affairs under the belief that he’s taking his marching orders from God might not be such a bad thing.
PAD
• 
Ok, I’m breaking my silence on Mike, but only because I think he’s actually engaged in a somewhat interesting argument and he’s making good points. I still don’t condone or approve or like the attitude he brings here with him, but it’s not like I have to deal with him all the time.
The US government is not an institution of morality. It’s an institution of governance. However, I think you’d have to be blind to not see that through the government, people try to impose morality on the public.
There are no US laws against infidelity? Many states do have laws against adultery, and some even occasionally enforce them. In many states, if not all, it’s legal grounds for getting a divorce. And if we back up one step from infidelity and view it in a more general manner, there are plenty of lawas that deal with deceit, lying, fraud, and deception, all qualities that are in line with infedelity. Basically, they are all forms of cheating, and there can be serious legal and criminal consequences for certain kinds of cheating.
There are also many laws regarding children. I’ll admit as well that I don’t fully understand Mike’s reason for making this point, but if I get it even partially, he’s meaning to say that a moral government would make laws targeting or specifically affecting children. We have then in spades. Children cannot make legally binding contracts. They can only work under very limited conditions. They cannot consent to having sex, so any kind of sexual relationship is by law a crime. Children are legally incapable of forming an adult intent to commit a crime, and this are subject to an entirely separate and unique penal system when they do break the law.
Laced throughout each of these laws are moral judgements. The government is not created to do such things, but it’s open-ended enough that such moral regulations get drafted, ennacted, and enforced.
You don’t trust me, so much so your inability to find anything wrong with what I say does nothing to disqualify that mistrust. Where is the law even remotely resembling the prohibition against infidelity such as mine?
Where is the law against being a suspect?
Micha insists:
Thank you, Counselor, for demonstrating how laws nurture dependence.
My question is not so much relevant to Bobb’s response than Micha’s general premise that the US government is a morality-enforcement institution and that trust is inherently moral.
Going by trust as a moral indicator, Martin Luther King was immoral for the mistrust Jerry Falwell had publicly expressed in him.
So, hold on a second…for the moment, I’m ignoring Mike when he “responds” with “You don’t trust me, so much so your inability to find anything wrong with what I say does nothing to disqualify that mistrust. Where is the law even remotely resembling the prohibition against infidelity such as mine?”…which so far as I can tell has absolutely NOTHING to do with my examples of laws that in fact have their origin in legislating morality…
but, am I correct in understanding that Mike’s entire premise here…that the Us government is not a morality enforcing institution…is based on the fact that he can find areas where the US government does NOT try to enforce a moral position, such as his question “Where is the law against being a suspect?”
Because if that’s the case, I totally take it back…Mike’s NOT making any good points, he’s NOT making sense, and what appeared to be a genuine attempt at debate is more of the same that we’ve seen from him. His lack of a response to my examples of morality-baed laws seems to support that conclusion.
“Going by trust as a moral indicator, Martin Luther King was immoral for the mistrust Jerry Falwell had publicly expressed in him.”
And if you trust Jerry Falwell to be ANY judge of character, then you are a brain-dead zombie (gotta start merging all these separate topics co-mingling in this thread)
Bobb, you’ll note that Mike is crediting you for giving him the idea that no one can find anything wrong with what he says. Allegedly, he was all set to take his leave of us but you gave him the courage to continue soldiering on.
Curse you, Bobb Alfred!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 😛
There’s a sorta, kinda ok book on the market called Monster Island that plays around when and where the brain dies off and what you can do about it. A medical student comes up with a way to die and keep his intellect. Not the best zombie book I’d ever read, but it played with some interesting ideas here and there.
I’ve been working on a script for over 10 years based on a similar premise–the main character is killed and immedidately placed in ice water and comes out of it with his mind intact. Like most 10 year scripts it now would require a budget in the millions and will never be made so I’m glad someone has played with the idea.
There are no US laws against infidelity
I have zero interest in Mike’s nuttiness at this point but I saw this and nobody seems to have pointed out that there are, indeed, quite a few laws against infidelity, if by infidelity one means adultery. Very few are ever enforced but they are on the books, for what it’s worth.
Ooops, just read Jerry’s post. Oh well, great minds and all…
Annnnnnd I just read Mike’s response. Oh well, small minds and all…
(I’ll save you the trouble typing, Mike– Thank you, Counselor, for agreeing with my distilled reason of a heretofore unknown purity (now in attractive amber bottles!)
What if that’s why they eat brains? One of the weaker arcs of Sliders explored a nonetheless interesting scenario where a man with a degenerative neurological condition injected himself with fluids from other people’s brain-stems, killing them in the process. This is to zombies as photo-sensitive blood-consuming disease is to classic vampirism.
The idea that zombies are particularly drawn to brain tissue is, as far as I can recall, solely due to RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD. Prior to that they pretty much ate any part of you they could get their hands on.
We seem to have settled into a pattern–whenever PAD takes too long to toss us a juicy thread topic the posts will, at some point, devolve into two competing threads: A- zombies and B- The Adventures of Mike, Agent of N.U.T. I’m not complaining, it’s just an interesting thing.
Posted by: Lea at June 20, 2007 04:05 AM
One word: Reavers.
OK, Zombies I know nothing about and have even less interest in (with the exception of movies where Bill Mulligan is involved, in which case they become more interesting to me). But Reavers? Oh, YEAH!
I LOVED SERENITY, Lea! I always thought the Reavers were somewhat too over-the-top prior to the movie — but leave it Joss Whedon to throw a curve ball and have them: a.) make sense, and b.) tie in with the main storyline.
One of my goals this summer is to finally watch all of FIREFLY.
Hey Bill Myers, would you send me all your contact info to my email? I’m in PA right now for a few weeks and supposed to get to NY early July–with the new complication that, at some point this summer, my lovely wife will probably be having an operation to remove her gall bladder, which adds an element of uncertainty to my summer travels.
Briefly getting back to the original topic of discussion, there is an interesting page at http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=3865&page=1
that looks at failed countries and why they are what they are.
One graph shows pretty clearly that failed states are also the most likely to be intolerant of religious freedom. Now the question–is it that intolerance of religious freedom leads to failure or are failed states just more likely to institute repression against religion as a result of their failure?
“Bobb, you’ll note that Mike is crediting you for giving him the idea that no one can find anything wrong with what he says. Allegedly, he was all set to take his leave of us but you gave him the courage to continue soldiering on.
Curse you, Bobb Alfred!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :P”
Me and Aqua Scum…yeah, good company.
Although it’s a bit ironic that I get blamed for Mike doing anything…as if he’s got this long track record of saying things that make logical sense. I can’t be bothered to go back and check, but just because he gives me credit for something doesn’t mean that what he’s saying is true.
And for the record (I guess I can be bothered to remember, after all), I didn’t say that no one can find anything wrong with what he says…it’s that I said no one can find anything wrong with what he says BECAUSE NO ONE CAN UNDERSTAND HIM.
I don’t speak Spanish, either, so I couldn’t tell you whether the little girl that lives upstairs from me was right or wrong in what she was trying to tell me about the chipmunk the other day. The difference is, I doubt that little girl goes around telling other people “the man downstairs can never find anything wrong with what I say.” In Spanish, of course.
Posted by: Bobb Alfred at June 20, 2007 11:25 AM
Although it’s a bit ironic that I get blamed for Mike doing anything…
I was only jokin’.
Posted by: Bobb Alfred at June 20, 2007 11:25 AM
I can’t be bothered to go back and check, but just because he gives me credit for something doesn’t mean that what he’s saying is true.
I know. I was only jokin’.
Posted by: Bobb Alfred at June 20, 2007 11:25 AM
And for the record (I guess I can be bothered to remember, after all), I didn’t say that no one can find anything wrong with what he says…it’s that I said no one can find anything wrong with what he says BECAUSE NO ONE CAN UNDERSTAND HIM.
Yep. That’s why I find it so amusing that he believed that statement provided him with some sort of verbal kevlar with which to deflect criticism. As if thanking people for not finding anything wrong with what he says in any way changes the fact that his arguments are nonsensical. It’s further amusing that he believes he has “distilled reason to a heretofore unknown purity.”
Well, amusing, and a little scary. I’m becoming further and further convinced that Mike is mentally ill, and (I’m NOT joking here) fear that it would not be hard to push him over the edge. As annoying as he is, perhaps it’s better that he has an outlet like this. If it means he’d be less likely to snap and hurt himself and/or someone else it’s definitely a good thing.
Bobb, this whole sub-discussion is the result of Mike’s twisted mind and weak ability to express himself, although it can lead more intelligent people into interesting subjects related to law, politics and morality. It is a shame he lacks the capacity to engage in such discussions. In any case, this was not the point of my original post, and I had no intention to open a discussion on the US government as a morality enforcing institution.
My point was to show that the framers of the constitution held the philosophical view that the moral characteristics of humans — i.e. equality and unalienable rights of people — are objectively inherent from their nature.
Anyway, all these subjects (ethics, politics and the realtion between them) are worthy of serious discussion. But we are dealing with Mike unfortunatly, whose agenda is completely different.
Re: Spinoza
Mike, would it be a disaster if once in your life, instead of brow beating everybody and acting like a jerk, just so you can claim an imaginary victory, you actually learned something?
Spinoza is an interesting guy. His ideas are forerunners of some of hte moral ideas that were discussed on this thread. But you never come to a discussion with the purpose of learning, expanding all our knowledge, conversing. It is a shame.
In any case, like I said, Spinoza is not a good example of objective morality. His ideas about morality are more complex than that. They have three layers.
1) That regular morality among humans is a reflection of their psychology. (which was the point of the bullet you provided)
2) That nature is deterministic.
3) That he recommends an ideal of human life which involves humans recognizing in their mind this reality.
(This is too much of an oversimplification already. You have to read more about him).
The first concept is shared by other philosophers who view morality as subjective, but his ideas go beyond that.
Thus spake Mulligan “We seem to have settled into a pattern–whenever PAD takes too long to toss us a juicy thread topic the posts will, at some point, devolve into two competing threads: A- zombies and B- The Adventures of Mike, Agent of N.U.T. I’m not complaining, it’s just an interesting thing.”
So, what you’re saying Bill, is that if the threads here were Distilled to a Heretofore Unknown Purity ™ the end result would be Zombie Mike (pat pend)!
So, what you’re saying Bill, is that if the threads here were Distilled to a Heretofore Unknown Purity ™ the end result would be Zombie Mike (pat pend)!
How would we know the difference?
So, Mike would like to change his story from his having said that there are no US laws concerning infidelity to having said that there are no Federal laws concerning infidelity. Fine, but his basic point is still wrong. Two reasons.
1) The Federal framework was created to, amongst other things, address and enforce only the most egregious infractions of the law, crimes that would cross multiple state’s jurisdictions or crimes against the nation itself. Yes, that’s somewhat oversimplifying it, but it’s nonetheless accurate.
Previsions were made for the states to enact their own laws for dealing with what were essentially local issues. Adultery is essentially a local issue. Why should a federal law enforcement official waste his time dealing with Jim Bob and Susie’s problems stemming from Jim Bob’s dalliances with Daisy May? Intelligent delegation of authority does not automatically equal the abandonment or absence of authority.
2) The creation of laws by man is a way, with a few exceptions, that man attempts to impose some level of common morality on the general population. You can disagree with the laws all you want, but that doesn’t change the intent. Moreover, the fact that you can point to a single law that is absent does not change the intent of the multitude of laws that do exist.
This would be like me pointing out that Mike is poorly educated and incapable of constructing a proper sentence or paragraph due to isolating examples of his spelling errors that are common amongst all of us here from time to time (there/their, do/due, tense errors while editing on the fly, etc.) Mike can obviously spell and put a sentence together despite these occasional lapses. It would be foolish to claim otherwise. Just as it is foolish to claim the point mike is making by pointing out an example of the absence of a local enforcement issue from federal law codes.
“Where is the law even remotely resembling the prohibition against infidelity such as mine?”
Mike, we don’t wanna know about whatever strange form of infidelity you believe you’ve engaged in that violated whatever strange form of relationship you may have been in. Just don’t do it again, be happy that it didn’t get you in any trouble the first time and stop talking about it before it attracts the wrong peoples’ attention. The dumb criminals that get caught are often the ones who talk way too much about their crimes or point out the loophole that they’re using so that it gets fixed. Just be happy, don’t do it anymore and shut up about it.
And your child enforcement argument still only makes the smallest lick of sense to only you and your pal Harvey.
“–the main character is killed and immediately placed in ice water and comes out of it with his mind intact.”
Actually, he has his zombie/madman of the story use a different trick. This isn’t giving anything away because it’s revealed in the first two or three chapters of the book. The guy had a theory about the point of intellect lose and countered it by hooking himself up to a dialysis machine that was hooked into a back-up generator. He kept his blood oxygenated and circulating through both his death and his reanimation. There were still some… interesting side effects. Like I said, it’s only a slightly above ok level book. They want something like $10 for it new, so I’d pass on it unless you see it second hand, bum it from somebody or talk someone into getting it for you as a gift.
“We seem to have settled into a pattern–whenever PAD takes too long to toss us a juicy thread topic the posts will, at some point, devolve into two competing threads: A- zombies and B- The Adventures of Mike, Agent of N.U.T. I’m not complaining, it’s just an interesting thing.”
We’re not the only ones on that first issue. I’m giving a friend a crash course in obscure zombie stuff right now because of the blog he’s signed up for. He joined AK-Forum to find some hard-to-find parts for his guns and do the general gun nut chat and was shocked as hëll when an entire thread on their site turned into rabid discussion/debate on 28 Weeks Later and “official” zombie movie rules and history. He even met a couple of the local members at a local range the second weekend that Weeks was out and found that they tended to joke about the toys that they’ve added to their guns as “essential zombie killing equipment” as discussed by Max Brooks, PHD in Zombicide.
Besides, do you know how hard it is around here to start a horror discussion that doesn’t involve Buffy, Anita, Rob Zombie’s Halloween or King? Maybe ten guys at work are diehard comic, b-movie, schlock films & depraved novel nuts and the general population around conservative Richmond, VA either doesn’t go that way or refuses to stop calling me sir due to my being close to or over twice their age. Actually, that last bit falls under the whole “deaf ears” thing, doesn’t it?
Mike gets discussed because… well… I’m not really sure. Micha seems to find amusement in it and I think the rest of us still occasionally find whatever new depths of insanity’s abyss Mike seems to dredge concepts and ideas up from somewhat amazing and startling. Just when you believe that Mike can’t say something dumber, stranger or more deranged then before…
I think it’s kinda like the same urge that many have to look at a roadside accident. You wanna fight it, but sometimes you still end up looking at the carnage.
“How would we know the difference?”
Because “oooooooooouuunnnngggghghhhhaaahhhgsgsgg” as a debating point would make for more sense then pretty much anything Mike has yet to say.
See what happens when I go away?
First, Mike. The legal defference between infidelity and adultery, and this is from 3 (count ’em) seperate and reliable sources who I will now cite:
My (divorced) younger sister.
My (divorced) younger sister’s (divorce) lawyer.
US civil codes.
Infidelity is any action that should be reserved for one’s spouse up to BUT NOT INCLUDING actual sexual intercourse to whit actual vaginal penetration by the male. (Google it up, they’ll explain everything.)
This humourous definition actually makes it technically impossible for a married man to commit adutery through homosexual intercourse.
Mike gets discussed for th same reason that a mystery smell gets discussed. It’s there, it’s annoying,it impses itself on the senses, and somehow, it’s just gotta be dealt with.
The guy had a theory about the point of intellect lose and countered it by hooking himself up to a dialysis machine that was hooked into a back-up generator. He kept his blood oxygenated and circulating through both his death and his reanimation.
That’s actually pretty clever. I may have to pick that book up.
Now if someone else has a character reanimating a hated enemy after first chopping off his limbs and leaving him alone in a dark room full of hungry rats I’ll be ticked off. But good ideas don’t last forever.
This Monster Island (there are several on the market) was written by David Wellington. His website is http://www.thirteenbullets.com and he covers some of his zombie work there as well as other genre stuff.
“Mike gets discussed because… well… I’m not really sure. Micha seems to find amusement in it and I think the rest of us still occasionally find whatever new depths of insanity’s abyss Mike seems to dredge concepts and ideas up from somewhat amazing and startling. Just when you believe that Mike can’t say something dumber, stranger or more deranged then before…”
Actually, i’ve been trying to avoid talking to Mike. It’s not as fun, and I’ve walked away from several discussions by now. But what happened here was that I responded to Ben Lesar’s post, Mike replied to something I said, so I replied back, and next thing I was in the middle of the insanity. It’s often like that. I start by just a quick reply to something, and then he says something silly which I feel needs reply, and then things get crazier and crazier, and I always think, “OK, now i’m stopping, just one last quick thing,” only to get deeper in the forest of his insanity.
Let’s remember that Mike is actively trying to keep these crzy discussions going by any means necessary. Even when you drop something he will keep harping on it again and again.
He certaily has the tenacity of a zombie.
Posted by: Micha at June 20, 2007 03:58 PM
…and next thing I was in the middle of the insanity.
Micha, for what it’s worth, you are generally one of the sanest posters here. Every time I think, “Ðámņ, I’ve got to start redirecting my attention to other things,” you draw me back in with your impressive knowledge and intellect.
Thanks Bill, it’s mutual.
“the question–is it that intolerance of religious freedom leads to failure or are failed states just more likely to institute repression against religion as a result of their failure?”
Both.
When are you going to present any reasoning to back up your premise?
Thank you for confirming your answer to my question is “no.”
“Harping” on a point “again and again” sounds more like “a mean” than “any means necessary.” Going by your hysteria, who fulfills any challenge by anything other than “any means necessary?”
And I wouldn’t be able to harp on anything if you didn’t rely on arbitrary denials. And when you do withdraw an arbitrary denial, I simply move on, often thanking you.
I simply rephrased to include an explicit reference to the constitution in my response, rather than continue to allow the reference to the constitution to reside only in the original statement I was responding to. I wasn’t being contradictory. “Changing his story” can be inclusive of contradiction, and is a bigger tent than what I’ve done.
So I’m wrong there are no federal laws against infidelity… because there are no federal laws against infidelity?
I am not married, and I am an infidel to most of the religions I’m guessing you are also an infidel to.
As I said in my last post, “Where is the law against being a suspect?” is an appropriate response to Micha’s premise the US government is a morality-enforcing institution, and that trust is a moral virtue (as if there can be betrayal without trust). The nonsense is not mine.
…
…
Thank you for not disqualifying anything I’ve said.
I have demonstrated no reservation against rephrasing when its necessity has been pointed out to me. Unless you cite something nonsensical I’ve said, your accusation is arbitrary.
Bill, it now occurs to me that you simply don’t understand that that which is arbitrary is, by definition, independent of reason or law. So accusations that are only justified by your whims, which is to say arbitrary, qualify as nonsense. When I say any particular accusation against me is arbitrary, that is a cue to the accuser to present some reasoning to justify his accusation — which he (and you) never does. Whatever nonsense you cite does not seem to be mine.
No Mike, sorry, but you were not trying to simply say that there are no federal laws against infidelity. You said:
“Are you joking? The US government is not a morality-enforcing institution.”
You then tried to make that point by saying that there were no US laws against infidelity. You then got proven wrong and changed that to saying that there were no federal laws against infidelity. You also threw in some rather deranged blather about laws against children.
It was then pointed out to you that the absence of infidelity laws does not support your argument about the nature of the government and the enforcement of morality. So you then sidestep that and are now trying to argue that your point was just about there being no infidelity laws on the federal level? Oooooooooooooooookay.
Thank you for admitting that you’re wrong, Mike. Several of us have discussed you and your antics and worked out that you sidestepping the points of others and trying to flail about and confuse the issue in order portray your new or revised point as your original point is actually Mikese for, “these guys are handing my butt to me in this debate. Time to throw up the smokescreen.”
It’s a bit like how everyone here has worked out that…
“Thank you for not disqualifying anything I’ve said.” = “If I repeat my lies and delusions enough, will anybody here other then myself believe any of them? What the heck, there’s no harm in trying.”
… in Mikese.
Anyway, thanks for admitting your errors yet again. Don’t worry too much about it. One day you might actually say something sane.
Bill Mulligan”Now if someone else has a character reanimating a hated enemy after first chopping off his limbs and leaving him alone in a dark room full of hungry rats I’ll be ticked off. But good ideas don’t last forever.”
The closest I’ve heard to that is in the Ian M Banks novel The Algebraist. In that one of the vilain of the pieces has just the head of a beheaded enemy revived complete with intelligence and added healiing ability just to use as punch bag. The head of course went insane pretty quickly.
How weird Mike is. On the one hand it seems that we’re dealing with a guy who simply lacks the ability to process language, and so ends up missing and misunderstanding things. On the other hand, it seems as if he purposefully twists and misunderstands the positions of others and shifts his own positions for his own insane purposes. It almost seems as if he’s being stupid on purpose, but for what purpose I do not know.
Strange.
Micha insists:
If these statements were true, being a suspect would be illegal. Your incredulity demonstrates the ridiculousness of what Micha contends — I am merely the messenger.
First you say my rephrasing is Fine™ then you say I was proven Wrong.™
Well, do you want to go back to Walbrook or do you want to stay with Charlie Babbit — because you can’t do both, Rain Man.
“Micha insists:
1. the US government is a morality-enforcing institution, and
2. trust is a moral virtue.
If these statements were true, being a suspect would be illegal. Your incredulity demonstrates the ridiculousness of what Micha contends — I am merely the messenger.”
What. The. Hëll?
Mike, you’re one big on always calling on people to back up what they say with proof. You often refer to other sources in an attempt to lend credence to your points, however densly they are made.
But this last statement? You may as well have said that Micha insists
1. The sun rises in the east, and
2. The sun sets in the west.
For these statements were true, the moon would be made of cheese.
Your conclusion has no obvious or logical connection to micha’s contention.
Now if someone else has a character reanimating a hated enemy after first chopping off his limbs and leaving him alone in a dark room full of hungry rats I’ll be ticked off. But good ideas don’t last forever.
Not exactly the same thing, but a few years ago in a Star Wars game a buddy of mine was running, a Sith trio captured one of their rivals, cut off her limbs, hooked her up to life support equipment, then chemically enhanced the cognitive portions of her brain while tapping into the pain and pleasure centers to keep her under control, and essentially used her as a living computer.
-Rex Hondo-
“Your conclusion has no obvious or logical connection to micha’s contention.”
Even more so becase this was not what I said.
Bob, I hope you understand the original point I was trying to make because it was squeezed into the meat grinder that is Mike’s insane logic?
That’s why it is pointless to talk with Mike. He, either deliberatly or because of some mental disability, is incapable of understanding language they way normal people do. So when you try to make a point in a discussion, it is unlikely that he will address that point in a meaningful way, but rather reply to and with his own insane delusions. There also doesn’t seem to be a point in trying to explain, or simplify, or clarify, as you would do with a normal person who just misunderstood your point. Since it seems that he is deliberatly choosing to misunderstand things just so he could win an imaginary victory.
Mike, Mike, Mike, Mike, Mike… You can stop now. We get it. We’ve all checked our Mikese to English Dictionariesâ„¢ at least twice and verified the translation. We understand that you’re admitting your mistakes and your failure to make a coherent point in your debate with Micha and, to a lesser extent, with me. It’s ok.
Now, just chill out and stop. Your continued posting to declare in Mikese that you acknowledge your shortcomings and failures is just going to come off as the self flagellating antics of a masochist.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
“Now if someone else has a character reanimating a hated enemy after first chopping off his limbs and leaving him alone in a dark room full of hungry rats I’ll be ticked off. But good ideas don’t last forever.”
No reanimations or zombies, but I did read a vampire story yeeeaaarrrrrrssss ago where a Vampire Lord cut the limbs of of a rival and then sealed him into an underground cave filled with rats. Two hundred years later, the vampire had, in a massively credibility stretching plot point, re-grown his limbs, dug himself out and set out to get revenge for two hundred years of the bug, rat, lizard and snake diet. The story was just awful. I can’t even remember how it ended. The only thing that ever stuck in my head about it at all was the two hundred years in a cave thing and that the story stunk on ice.
Micha, I somewhat agree with you. I don’t know that the US government was set up as a morality enforcing institution, although laws I think inherantly are an attempt to codify morals and values. But certainly there are countless examples of the government trying to enforce moral standards through law or legal action. As just another example that doesn’t include making being a suspect illegal…does anyone other than Mike even know what that’s supposed to mean?…look at the Federal action over the Terry Schiavo case. If that’s not a clear example of the Federal government attempting to legislate morality, I’m a monkey’s uncle.
“Micha, I somewhat agree with you. I don’t know that the US government was set up as a morality enforcing institution, although laws I think inherantly are an attempt to codify morals and values.”
My point was not about the government trying to enforce morality, as much as the underlying moral assumptions of the US constitution, namely that people have rights that need to be protected. Even the more libertarian reading of the constitution assumes the need to protect the inherent rights of citizens from the government. So, even saying that the government should not enforce morality is, in effect, a moral attitude.
Beyond that, on a different level, it is naive (or in Mike’s case just stupid) to assume that laws and the actions of governments are divorced from any considerations of morality. In the past governments were pressured by the citizens to more actively promote public morality, while today the moral ideal among many is one of guarenteeing the right to make personal choices.
“As just another example that doesn’t include making being a suspect illegal…does anyone other than Mike even know what that’s supposed to mean?”
You have to remember that Mike doesn’t process information the way normal people do. Words have no context, no complexity. They exist on their own as abstract binary dictionary entries open to what ever linguistic twisting and bending are allowable by the wording of the dictionary (which is also subject to the same rules). It’s all a game of words for him.
In this kind of logic, if suspects are not to be trusted, and trust is a moral virtue, and governments act to promote moral virtues, than being a suspect must be be illegal.
In his mind this makes perfect sense. He is convinced that’s what I said, and that by proving the opposite he has nullyfied my whole point, which he was never able to comprehend anyway.
This is the reason for this whole silliness. For Mike the statement: the US constitution is not a morality enforcing institution, is not understood as a moral-political-philosophical position in a debate about ethics and politics. For him it is a binary logical statement like 1+1=2. That means that the US government can never, in no way, be involved in morality, and its constitution or laws can have no moral content. And he would go to any length of absurdity to insist it is so, because the alternative is not possible either logically or from the point of view of his self esteem.
So, if you show him laws that have promoting morality as their intent, then they must be state laws not US laws, because if they were that would logically negate the statement that the US government is not a morality enforcement institution (as he misreads it). It is completely lost on him that the position that holds that the US government should not enforce morality would equally disaprove of the states doing so, because for him it is not a political position but a logical statement.
All he has is words copied and pasted and bolded and matched to each other to infinity.
They don’t only have to be State laws that one points out. Federal laws on the books cover murder, theft, fraud, contract issues, etc. There are any number of fedlaws that deal with issues that = common moral standards. But because no federal law exists to cover one item on a massive list of items, then all evidence against Mike Logicâ„¢ is thrown out and reality is chucked out the window.
“all evidence against Mike Logicâ„¢ is thrown out and reality is chucked out the window.”
Reality is not important to Mike. He’s staked all his self esteem that the statement: the US government is not a morality enforcing institution’ as he understands it, is an absolute truth. To suggest otherwise is a personal mortal attack. If it isn’t true, in any way, he will turn into a pumpkin. So he will do anything in order to deny this fate worse than death.
Posted by: Bobb Alfred at June 21, 2007 09:06 AM
“But this last statement? You may as well have said that Micha insists
1. The sun rises in the east, and
2. The sun sets in the west.
For these statements were true, the moon would be made of cheese.”
Bobb, I’m with ya, all except that…well…uhmmm…the sun does rise in the east and set in the west, unless your on Venus. Unless I missed something, in which case I’ll quietly sit in a corner and gaze at my navel.
It can however be argued that government is in fact a morality enforcing body. Prohibition is one example, current narcotics laws are another. Claims that marijuana laws, like the sad experiment in the 20’s and 30’s, were anything other than attempts to regulate morality are the most basic obfuscation.
Prostitution laws aren’t much better. At their hearts, the laws are designed under the ideal that sex, inside or outside the institution of marriage, is immoral. We are all (at least in N. America) taught this, and the laws are written under those morals.
Come to think of it, aren’t all laws pretty much based on some kind of moral? Even laws that appear to be ojectively baed on safety considerations…speed limits for example…isn’t that just based on the idea that there’s a moral imperitive to not endanger others through your actions? Sure, you can point to the economic benefits of safety, but I don’t think you can divorce the moral incentive from any legislation.
Bob, manny, you’ve caught on to a distiction that is an important part of this discussion, but has not been articulated.
We’ve been talking about morality in two different senses.
One sense is the general sense of good and bad, and general human behavior and interaction, like virtue or perfection. For example, giving charity to orphan children is good, killing orphan children is bad. Freedom is good, slavery bad, etc.
Then you have a more narrow sense in the context of a discussion of the role of government. In that context we speak about personal moral choices that are not, or should not, be subject to the government, and other issues which are related to the public good. So in that sense we would say (but only recently) that homosexuality is a personal moral choice, while murder affects the public good. So when we say that the government should not be a morality enforcing institution, we mean that the government should not be involved in personal moral choices, unless they involve the public good, like protecting citizens from being murdered. And of course, there are some libertarians and anarchists who would say that the government shouldn’t even do that.
Now, a government like that of the US assumes that the state is a union of people who may hold different personal moral attitudes, and that the role of government is to find a way that all these people can live together and the state functions. But morality is still connected to politics in two ways.
1) The underlying moral assumptions (in the case of the US) that a good government is one that protects the natural rights of the citizens to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
2) The government makes moral decisions that are perceived to relate to the good of the public at large. In a democratic country these moral choices are supposed to reflect the moral attitudes of of a majority of the idividuals who are the citizens of the country.
Dispite the above, up until recently it has been the view of many that governments should work to promote morality and virtue on the individual level. Today less so. However, then, and more so now, people who want to promote certain laws or policies try to present them as relating to the public good and not just individual morality.
So, when people talk about why prostitution or gambling or drugs or guns are bad, they try not to speak about why it is bad for an individual to be or go to a prostitute, own guns, gamble or take drugs, but of why its bad for the public — crime etc.
On the other hand, those who want these things to be legal and unrestricted say it is good for the public, but they also make a moral statement — it is their rights as individuals.
“Prostitution laws aren’t much better. At their hearts, the laws are designed under the ideal that sex, inside or outside the institution of marriage, is immoral. We are all (at least in N. America) taught this, and the laws are written under those morals.”
The moral assumption of those who support legal prostitution is that consentual sex between adults is a personal moral choice and should not be subject to government.
Opponents of prostitution (and often pornography) counter by claiming (among other things) that there is no real consent: that women are forced into prostitution/pornography, are brutalized, and that essentialy it is rape, which is an immorality that is the concern of the public — the role of government to protect the rights of its citizens.
[We have a very vocal feminist lobby in Israel].
Hi Micha. Stop making my brain hurt!!!
Before we decide to resolve issues of morality, the question remains of defining the point at which the morality and rights of the collective infringes on the morality and rights of the individual.
As an example, my wife buys me a subscription to Playboy every year. She has no problem with it. Since the new issues usually arrive while I’m on the road, she will often read them before handing them over.
My younger sister finds the whole arrangement, to be charitable, uncomfortable. She can’t comprehend a woman who does not find Playboy, Maxim, or anything like them offensive. She is of the “it’s all abuse and coercion” school.
To get to the point of morality, the question is whether these publications harm the general public, or are they a matter of personal choice? Does the individual’s right to purchase and read them override society’s need to be protected? Does society even need to be protected?
The realm of adult entertainment is only one area where the question of morality vs. choice comes into play. Recreational drug use, prostitution, censorship…name an arena and you will find someone offended by the proceeding.
Morality changes with the times. Yesterdays execution of justice is today’s torture.
“Hi Micha. Stop making my brain hurt!!!”
I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to do it.
There was a story about Maxim magazine that I think made it to the US. The magazine had an issue with Israeli scantily clad models. The Israeli embassy used the cover on an invitation, and two feminist parlamentarians were furious about it.
Meanwhile, Jerusalem was at an uproar because of the gay pride parade which was conducted today in the city. The good news is that Jewish, Muslim and Christian clerics were united in the spirit of interfaith — none of them likes gays. In any case, there was a poster claiming that god doesn’t like lewdness.
I used to be a bouncer in strip joints (gentlemen’s clubs, whatever). What I found interesting was feminists who would scream blue murder over female dancers, claiming it was abusive and immoral, but would be right at the edge of the stage (pervert row, we used to call it) when the Chippendale dancers were in town.
I’ve often been told by my sisters that “women don’t look at men like that”. Yet both my sisters, universtity educated (one a BA in psychology, the other a PhD in biochemistry) are completely unable to explain the existence, let alone the popularity, of Playgirl, Chippendale’s, firefighter calenders and the like.
The best they come up with is a very large gay customer base. That, however, does not explain the audience whenever various male dance troupes are in town.
Manny,
I don’t believe that you’ll ever find a clearly defined and absolute point at which the morality and rights of the collective infringes on the morality and rights of the individual. The best we shall ever obtain is a “happy medium” at best.
The population of, as a single example, just the Commonwealth of Virginia ranges morally from people that would ban alcohol, cigarettes, strip clubs and the sale of things like Playboy to people who think that anything and everything should be legal so long as people want it. Every General Assembly we get both the drug legalization lobby and the groups that want to see drug users and drug sellers get life for a first offense screaming and yelling at each other. Fun to watch.
My Aunt is, to steal a term from Bill Mulligan, a Conservative Jihadist Catholic. I hate being in the same state as that woman, let alone the same room. Jenn’s got one just like her. Both of them complain constantly that the laws in America aren’t strict enough. They’ll never be any happier with the laws anymore then my druggy, con artist Uncle will be.
The one extreme is always going to find the laws too oppressive. The other will always fear that there are not enough restrictions. Those of us in the middle will always be hit or miss with the laws.
Ideally, there would be very few laws and the rights and freedoms of the individual would have very few, if any, restrictions. But, as they say, there’s one in every crowd. They go and screw it up for the rest of us. The idiocy of the few mandates the restrictions of the many. Thus, we have to survive with our happy medium.
The one thing that does work in our favor is that the common morality is flexible as times change or new factors are introduced. Most laws get voted on by our representatives, but if a matter is of enough import, then it can be put on a ballot and decided by a vote by the people.
Your strip club story is pretty funny. I did the same thing as a part time gig for about a year. Saw the same thing and more. The thing I thought was the funniest though was the large number of people I knew to be members of the local church organizations praying at the alter every Friday night. Just loved the humor in that.
Micha,
I remember the Maxim story. There was another one involving Maxim and English soldiers back during the beginning of the Iraq conflict. A lot the locals were outraged over the soldiers possession of the magazine and the depictions of women inside of it. For those of you who have never seen an English Maxim Magazine, they do the full nude thing. It’s funny as hëll sometimes because you get actresses who won’t do Playboy or nudity here go over there and do semi-nude to full nude pictorials for FHM, Maxim and Bizarre.
Manny,
I don’t believe that you’ll ever find a clearly defined and absolute point at which the morality and rights of the collective infringes on the morality and rights of the individual. The best we shall ever obtain is a “happy medium” at best.
The population of, as a single example, just the Commonwealth of Virginia ranges morally from people that would ban alcohol, cigarettes, strip clubs and the sale of things like Playboy to people who think that anything and everything should be legal so long as people want it. Every General Assembly we get both the drug legalization lobby and the groups that want to see drug users and drug sellers get life for a first offense screaming and yelling at each other. Fun to watch.
My Aunt is, to steal a term from Bill Mulligan, a Conservative Jihadist Catholic. I hate being in the same state as that woman, let alone the same room. Jenn’s got one just like her. Both of them complain constantly that the laws in America aren’t strict enough. They’ll never be any happier with the laws anymore then my druggy, con artist Uncle will be.
The one extreme is always going to find the laws too oppressive. The other will always fear that there are not enough restrictions. Those of us in the middle will always be hit or miss with the laws.
Ideally, there would be very few laws and the rights and freedoms of the individual would have very few, if any, restrictions. But, as they say, there’s one in every crowd. They go and screw it up for the rest of us. The idiocy of the few mandates the restrictions of the many. Thus, we have to survive with our happy medium.
The one thing that does work in our favor is that the common morality is flexible as times change or new factors are introduced. Most laws get voted on by our representatives, but if a matter is of enough import, then it can be put on a ballot and decided by a vote by the people.
Your strip club story is pretty funny. I did the same thing as a part time gig for about a year. Saw the same thing and more. The thing I thought was the funniest though was the large number of people I knew to be members of the local church organizations praying at the alter every Friday night. Just loved the humor in that.
Micha,
I remember the Maxim story. There was another one involving Maxim and English soldiers back during the beginning of the Iraq conflict. A lot the locals were outraged over the soldiers possession of the magazine and the depictions of women inside of it. For those of you who have never seen an English Maxim Magazine, they do the full nude thing. It’s funny as hëll sometimes because you get actresses who won’t do Playboy or nudity here go over there and do semi-nude to full nude pictorials for FHM, Maxim and Bizarre.
Thank you for confirming that Micha insists:
To which I responded:
A suspect, by definition, is not trusted. Governments enforce standards of behavior by issuing punishments and rewards for transgressions of and compliance with laws.
Who includes the locations of the rising and the setting of the sun in their qualification for cheese?
From the Tallahassee Democrat April 2005:
If the federal government is a morality-enforcing institution, why did republicans deny a memo simply saying that doing their jobs would please their constituents?
That’s like asking don’t all successful businesses qualify as virtuous: they provide services to a community, they spend money, and they hire people.
Do you remember “ThirtySomething?” No one is in the business of doing good. The good we do comes from how we do business. “Based on some kind of moral” is not the same as enforcing morality.
Your admission Spinoza is not a good example for making the case for objective morality demonstrates and your arbitrary accusations demonstrate how when you can’t attack the message (which seems to be always), you attack the messenger.
Thank you for admitting the US government abstaining from the enforcement of morality serves a moral purpose.
First you say that government abstaining from the enforcement of morality serves a moral purpose. Then you deny government abstaining from the enforcement of morality serves a moral purpose. Only nonsense tolerates contradiction.
That’s another disqualification for the US constitution portraying an objective morality: objective morality would not qualify as objective if it tolerated abiguity, and therefore would not qualify as objective if it shelters dissent — which the US constitution does.
The whole notion of an objective morality continues to seem like an idea only worthy of the time of a retard.
Thank you, Jerry, for not denying your contradiction. Only nonsense tolerates contradiction.
Your sisters’ attitudes are not representative of all feminism. Sometime around the publication of The Handmaid’s Tale emerged as a movement what’s considered “sex-positive” feminism, as typified by Madonna. I know feminist painters who have made pornography their subject matter in the way Lichtenstein made comics his subject matter.
Manny, Jerry and Bob, it is nice to have an intelligent discussion about these issues. When you spend time talking to trolls you start forgeting it’s possible.
Manny: “I used to be a bouncer in strip joints (gentlemen’s clubs, whatever).”
Jerry: “Your strip club story is pretty funny. I did the same thing as a part time gig for about a year.”
That puts you both in a better position to judge if the ability of strippers to consent was somehow compromised.
Manny: “What I found interesting was feminists who would scream blue murder over female dancers, claiming it was abusive and immoral, but would be right at the edge of the stage (pervert row, we used to call it) when the Chippendale dancers were in town.”
I’m not sure if the crowd that goes to shows like this are the same people who are against the female sex industry. However, we are now living in a time in which both men and women are ‘objectified’ (I don’t like the term, commodified would be better) in different media. It’s all pretty simple actually. Sexuality is part of human life. Therefore sexual imagery (visual or other) is appealing to them. It therefore makes commercial sense to sell sexual imagery to people. The same people who sold sexual imagery of women to heterosexual men realized that they can make money off women and homosexual males by selling sexual imagery of men. So now we have a world where there are lists of 100 hottest men and 100 hottest women, where you can find magazine with semi-naked men or women on the cover (although the male point of view is still more common). If this a positive development is another question (I’m not saying it isn’t, just presenting the question).
Manny: “I’ve often been told by my sisters that “women don’t look at men like that”. Yet both my sisters, universtity educated (one a BA in psychology, the other a PhD in biochemistry) are completely unable to explain the existence, let alone the popularity, of Playgirl, Chippendale’s, firefighter calenders and the like.”
It is possible (I’m not sure) that men focus more on visual aspects when they judge women on the sexual level, while women focus more on other things, like confident behavior and sense of power. However, both men and women measure and grade each other on a subconscious and conscious level, and the parameters used by women are neither more rational nor more lofty than those used by men. If plastic surgeons knew how to make fake machismo as they make fake breasts, men would go to them as often as women.
The view held by some that men are somehow sexual animals while women are motivated by purer instincts seems to me to promote the very same kind of puritanical, victorian, chavinistic attitude toward women that has been used to subjugate women. Ironically, this very same attitude is used by others to justify men going to strip clubs etc. by saying, oh well, they’re men, and that’s what men do.
I and my sister spend a lot of time talking about feminism and sexual imagery (especially in comics). It seemsthere was puritanical patriarchal attitde, followed by a sexual revolution and a feminist revolution, but we still haven’t figured the right balance for gender relations. There is a need for more thinking.
Jerry: “It’s funny as hëll sometimes because you get actresses who won’t do Playboy or nudity here go over there and do semi-nude to full nude pictorials for FHM, Maxim and Bizarre.”
I once saw a show about playboy on VH1, and some of the models said that playboy is better than certain competing magazines because it doesn’t objectify women. I find that interesting. On the non-moral level I fault Playboy for promoting a very narrow and artificial image of beaty and sexuality. There are more kinds of beaty in this world than nude, skinny women with giant artificial breasts, bleeched blond hair and too much make-up.
Mike: “Your sisters’ attitudes are not representative of all feminism. Sometime around the publication of The Handmaid’s Tale emerged as a movement what’s considered “sex-positive” feminism, as typified by Madonna. I know feminist painters who have made pornography their subject matter in the way Lichtenstein made comics his subject matter.”
True. There is a division inside feminism that is not always apparent. In Israel most visible spokeswomen of feminism adhere to the anti-pornography view very vocally. So I only became aware of the other kinds recently. But the question remains: which one of them is right?
——————-
Mike: “Only nonsense tolerates contradiction.”
Thank you for confirming my description of the way your mind works. It is obviously not arbitrary. It is a shame that it prevents you from participating in meaningful discussions.
That which is arbitrary is, by definition, independent of reason or law. So accusations that are only justified by capriciousness, which is to say are only arbitrary, qualify as nonsense. Your accusation that I am not arbitrary seems to be your only non-arbitrary portrayal of me, and I see no disadvantage in it. Thank you.
The idea of one’s reason preventing his participation in discussions that are meaningful, however, seems completely nonsensical.
“Thank you for confirming that Micha insists:
1. the US government is a morality-enforcing institution, and
2. autonomy is a moral virtue.”
My actions are independant of whatever Micha did or did not insist. I’ve confirmed nothing.
“To which I responded:
‘If these statements were true, being a suspect would be illegal.’
A suspect, by definition, is not trusted. Governments enforce standards of behavior by issuing punishments and rewards for transgressions of and compliance with laws.”
And……..how does that mean that if the US government is a morality enforcing institution, suspect status would be a crime? I appreciate that you’re actually making an effort to respond, on-point, to my question, but you’d do better if you were to, say, actually respond instead of make all that effort to re-quote that which we well already know. Your two-sentence reply gives us Webster’s #4 definition of the verb “suspect,” in noun form. Then it tells us what you think it is that governments do. That’s part of what they do, among the many other things they do. But that tells me nothing about why being a suspect would be a crime in a morality enforcing institution like a government.
So, I’m going to guess, that you’re inferring that being untrusted…I think I just made a word up, call Colbert and tell him not to steal it from me…violates some moral standard, and (once again, in the World According to Mike) a morality enforcing institution like a goverment must be perfect in it’s actions, so all morally violative states must be criminalized.
Thank you for proving that there’s no logic in your logic.
“Who includes the locations of the rising and the setting of the sun in their qualification for cheese?”
The same person that includes a perfect institution as his basis for rejecting an argument.
I once saw a show about playboy on VH1, and some of the models said that playboy is better than certain competing magazines because it doesn’t objectify women. I find that interesting. On the non-moral level I fault Playboy for promoting a very narrow and artificial image of beaty and sexuality. There are more kinds of beaty in this world than nude, skinny women with giant artificial breasts, bleeched blond hair and too much make-up.
Assuming she meant Maxim and others of that ilk (as opposed to Hustler and other hard core mags, assuming the internet hasn’t made them all go out of business) I can only assume she’s talking about the style of the photos–Playboy was always using a fairly romantic soft focus look while the newer ones go for more of the hard edgem chrome skinned MTV vibe. The usual Maxim layout could be CGI for all I can tell. Of course, the men in it look like they are chisled out of pixels as well.
I don’t know that Playboy need be faulted for promoting a narrow view of beauty. yes, there are probably a higher than normal pecentage of blondes, which would seem to reflect Hefners own tastes but I recall more than a few Asian, black and older women gracing the pages. Certainly the women chosen are better examples of normalcy than the stick thin gulag suvivors in the modeling industry.
All of which is academic. I only ever bought it for the articles…
Mike: “The idea of one’s reason preventing his participation in discussions that are meaningful, however, seems completely nonsensical.”
No. The idea that a person is incapable of understanding normal language prevents him from participating in a discussion, makes perfect sense.
It’s like trying to talk to a blind man about colors or a deaf man about music. You lack the capacity to understand language, so you cannot understand or participate in the discussion. And this is not arbitrary but proven by your own posts.
Until you’ve proven that you have learned to understand language and are willing to communicate in a normal manner all communication with you has no purpose other than entertainment value.
———————–
“So, I’m going to guess, that you’re inferring that being untrusted…I think I just made a word up, call Colbert and tell him not to steal it from me…violates some moral standard, and (once again, in the World According to Mike) a morality enforcing institution like a goverment must be perfect in it’s actions, so all morally violative states must be criminalized.”
The nefarious effect of mike is not that he makes arguments totally devoid of logic or connection to reality, but that he drags him with you. Instead of talking about the real issues you start spending all your time trying to extract yourself from his mazes of illogical arguments. The real world issues discussed are forgotten.
“Assuming she meant Maxim and others of that ilk (as opposed to Hustler and other hard core mags, assuming the internet hasn’t made them all go out of business)”
I think she was refering to hustler.
“I don’t know that Playboy need be faulted for promoting a narrow view of beauty. yes, there are probably a higher than normal pecentage of blondes, which would seem to reflect Hefners own tastes but I recall more than a few Asian, black and older women gracing the pages. Certainly the women chosen are better examples of normalcy than the stick thin gulag suvivors in the modeling industry.”
The main stream modelling industry has its own faults.
I havn’t actually read a playboy, so i’m making my judgement based on what I’ve seen elsewhere, but my problem is not with blonds as much as with the whole artificial, plastic, manufactured look that seems to be popular, and seems to have been promoted also by Playboy.
The mainstream modeling industry seems to take underage girls who have natural beauty, starve them, make them miserable, cover them with layers of artifice, and then stick them into ridiculuos costumes and have them walk back and forth on a dais.
I’ve heard that magazines moved from using models on the covers to using TV and movie actors, because they were more relatable — they had more dimmensions to them (while stil being beautiful).
A morality enforcing institution would prohibit that which is immoral. If autonomy is a moral virtue — as you agreed Micha insisted — then suspicion, trust’s polar opposite, would qualify as immoral, and would therefore be illegal.
You agreed Micha insisted autonomy is a moral virtue — we are in agreement in the inferences from Micha’s insistences you ridicule me for making.
As for your whole “perfection” angle, thank you for confirming why the notion of portraying the federal governmental as enforcing an objective morality is stoopid with two ohs. Again, your incredulity demonstrates the ridiculousness of what Micha contends — I am merely the messenger.
n ≠ Rocket+Surgery
Uh, yeah, you haven’t disqualified, or demonstrated how your criticism applies to, anything I’ve said. Thanks for playing.