[geeks] Re: [rescue] It's official, the U.S. is screwed for 4 more years

[velociraptor]

On Tue, 9 Nov 2004 10:27:31 -0600, Brian Dunbar <brian.dunbar at plexus.com> wrote:
> On Nov 8, 2004, at 8:21 PM, Francisco Javier Mesa-Martinez wrote:
> 
> >  I do, however, find alarming
> > the rise in the whole "moral based" voting as "morals" are
> > relative and hard to point as real policies or issues.
> 
> Morals are not, in my opinion, relative.  There things that are right
> and wrong, good and bad.

I think what Francisco was pointing to were things like gay marriage
and similar.

There are certain things which are "less" relative, given a normal
societal context, i.e. killing, stealing, etc.

But other things, like, whether people should have the right to marry
based on their gender preference being addressed as a "moral" issue,
for the majority of people, is based on their religious preferences.

> Morals and values do count, and they count for a great deal - absent
> those and you have a society with no checks, no borders, no place where
> you can chalk a line and say "this is wrong".
> 
> It's possible that is a simplistic point of view - but I don't think so.

Morals seem clear cut and black and white, but when you put it in
context, I think it's never simplistic.  For instance, I doubt that
anyone would argue that killing is "morally" acceptable.  But when you
frame the discussion in the context of say, chasing down terrorists in
another
sovereign nation, the ground becomes a little less clear-cut.

Not trying to argue for one side of the morality fence or the other,
just noting that a discussion of morals is pointless without a
contextual framework--i.e. what's the situation--to my way of
thinking.

=Nadine=