Slashdot Mirror
Reconciling Information Privacy and Liberty?
thetan asks: "F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote that 'The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.' However, for many outsiders, it's hard to understand how cliques reconcile seemingly contrarian views.
For example, many US Republicans are against abortion but in favour of the death penalty (no doubt they have their reasons). Amongst the Slashdot commentariat, one often hears that information wants to be free, almost as a catchcry of the open source, copyfight and related info-libertarian movements. OTOH, these same Slashdot readers stridently guard their privacy, so presumably information about their shopping preferences or websurfing does not 'want to be free'. How does the intelligent and functional Slashdot crowd reconcile the liberty of other people's information with the privacy of their own?"
Republicans are against killing innocent beings but for killing guilty people, while the Democrats are for killing innocent beings but for saving guilty people. Seems that the Republican stance is logical to me although I acknowledge that the government perhaps should not have say what women do with their bodies.
> People often have a hard time setting aside their personal beliefs and
> end to view things in a biased manner.
But this trend is universal on the Left. Like most issues the words they use mean exactly the opposite thing when it issues from their mouths. So when the speak of Tolerance it of course means "You must accept our views as correct and we shall not tolerate dissenting opinions."
In table form
Tolerance: Intolerace to all opposing viewpoints
Liberal: Opposed to everything 'liberal' meant before they hijacked it.
Progressive: When 'liberalism' (as we now call socialism here in the US, some other countries still use it in the original meaning) became unpopular, they rebranded themselves 'progressives'. Of course since this coincided with their being forced to play defense they have now perloined Bill Buckley's famous line and are now standing athwart history yelling "STOP!" Doesn't sound like progressive to me... sounds exactly opposite. Perhaps they should perloin "conservative" instead and force us classical liberals to rebrand ourselves yet again....
Diversity: This one is a little trickier. In thought it means exactly the opposite, i.e. absolute conformance to orthodoxy. It also means diversity of skin color, sexual organs.... so long as the minority is question votes for Democrats of course. Ever notice how racial and social subgroups who don't vote overwhelmingly Democratic find it hard to get 'minority status?'
Open Minded: Closed minded bigots, violently intolerant of any who dare speak a different view, especially any viewpoint directly opposing their enlightened visions.
Democrat delenda est
"For example, many US Republicans are against abortion but in favour of the death penalty (no doubt they have their reasons)."
Wow that has got to be the oddest statement I have ever seen!
How about this statement, "For example, many liberals are for abortion but against the death penalty (no doubt they have their reasons)."
Since you are such a clueless soul I will explain it to you.
Most people that are Pro-life feel that a fetus is a human. To kill an innocent person is wrong. The ones that are for capital punishment fell that to kill a murderer is just. I.E. Killing a killer is okay. Killing an innocent child is evil.
Now the Pro-Choice side looks at it this way. A fetus is not a human or even not alive. So killing it is not wrong. The ones that are anti-death penalty feel that for the state to kill anyone except in the case if defence is wrong.
Both are logically based on OPINION. When is a human a human really is a matter of opinion. Some have in the past claimed that people of different races are less than human or that the mentally challenged are not human. Others feel that even sperm cell is human.
The fact that some people can not step outside of their own little belief system and see where these other people are coming from is frightening!
What really does not make any logical sense to me are the people that will not even eat Shrimp or Oysters because it is wrong to kill another living thing but are pro-choice. A first trimester fetus is at least as alive as an oyster!
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Being pro-life is about saving innocent lives.
The death penalty is about ending guilty ones.
But fetuses are guilty - guilty of the crime of trespassing in a woman's uterus, and of stealing resources from her body. All of this against her permission - obviously, if she had given her permission, she wouldn't be going in for the abortion.
No, it's not relevant that she "chose" to have sex. If you invite a person in for coffee, and then they decide they're going to stay for nine months and eat all your food, don't you have a right to remove them from the premises? And use deadly force, if they simply won't leave by any other means?
It doesn't matter in that situation that they'd be leaving in a few months; neither therefore does it matter that a fetus is vacating the premises in a few months. If it's there a second longer than you want it it's trespassing.
Women have an absolute right to control who is living in their uteruses. They have a right to enforce that will with deadly force, if necessary, just as you have that right for your own property.
I never have frustrations, the reason is, to wit:
If at first I don't succeed, I quit!
Of course killing all those Iraqis is about ending guilty lives too. Guilty because they have oil.