I personally think this is generally for the best. When we look at environmental issues, we have the extreme protectionists, and the extreme exploiters ("drill baby drill"), the crowds with actual influence (as always) are the extreme vocal fringes of the spectrum. Through the conflict between these two, we can hope that a more moderate compromise, or equilibrium, will be reached through the conflict. This seems to be what generally happens.
The sad fact is that no one cares what informed moderates (the only sensible point of view for most issues, IMO) have to say, since its hard for them to mount shock tactics, or use shrill tones to garner media attention. Moderates are the quiet ones in the middle of the war, softly saying "be reasonable", which is generally ignored in the din of ideological mumbo-jumbo.
The people who value ideological purity are generally the most out of sync with the real world, but generally have the most influence. I think our political system deals with this very nicely (either by design or accident), by making them fight each other until there is a compromise which is completely distasteful to both extremes.
You know your doing good if you manage to piss off everyone.
Personally I don't care one bit, it was a pretty good publicity stunt. Sure, it is a bit tasteless, but not harmful.
But then again I refuse to take PETA seriously (even if parts of their agenda are fine) because they are shrill. I stopped listening the second they compared my love of cheese burgers to Auschwitz. Greenpeace at least has a more serious (and timely) message, and generally presents it in a somewhat tasteful way (at least more tasteful than saying beef = genocide, or equating dumb man-made animals with humans).
. Why you'd want to replace Capitalism, which has shown itself to work better than anything else, with a system that has failed spectacularly every time it has been tried is beyond me.
I think when people talk of "replacing capitalism" they mean "capitalism" in the libertarian or "free market trumps all" sense, not in the semi-regulated you speak of. When the greed of a select few is capable of causing huge amounts of harm to all of society then there is a problem (economy exists for people, not visa versa), as is when wealth equals political power directly, with no reguard for the the people whatsoever. This is what a lot of people (mostly zealots) mean when they talk of "capitalism", not "any market in which good are exchanged".
Is this in-authenticity worth the extra money? To you, perhaps, but to others perhaps not. Personally it sounds hellish, playing people, and office drama just annoys me. I could probably live with a 10% pay-cut just to avoid the stuff you talk about in your post. Life is too short for it. Not to say that connections are worthless, but generally you can make them by just being yourself, and not being an ass. I'd rather save the time spent play-acting to actually be GOOD at my job, which speaks much more than just manipulating people.
I don't mean to sound snarky, if you enjoy it fine. It just isn't a lot of peoples cup of tea.
Am I the only one who can't stand half of New Belgium's offerings? Most of their beers are too sweet and mild for me, just like the other "macromicrobrewery" Sam Adam's. They are better than Budweiser, but still make rather mediocre beers for the mass palate. 1554 isn't bad, but I really can't name another brew I'd buy if I had alternatives.
Nothing wrong with supporting your locally brewery. Actually it is kind of nice since every region of the US has a plethera of local brews to try that you can't really get anywhere else, just like things used to be.
When I was young, me and my friend both were having problems in grade school. Both of our grades were failing, and both of us had behavioral issues. He got withdrawn, and I started trying to create my own stimulus. Eventually they decided he was gifted, and that I was mentally ill (ADHD). He went into the advanced programs, and I into "special ed". This is despite the fact that I could, at the time, read at a high school level, and won every writing contest in grade-school.
I ended up in classes telling me about "self-esteem" instead of teaching me basic math, he ended up skipping grades eventually. This is in spite of me helping him with his homework, and in spite of tests showing me to have a pretty high IQ. Basically I didn't get any education what-so-ever from 4th grade until my freshman year of high school. This led to bad grades in high school because I was un-prepared for the work due to lack of education (and being a drug zombie for years thanks to the misdiagnosis of having ADHD). This also allowed me to network with some of the "bad kids" who actually were bad seeds, both due to familiarity, and due to my labeling of myself as such. My old friend went to college after accelerated schooling, while it took me 5 extra post-high-school years to finally get there.
This is how this idea actually works. It sounds very nice, but the fact remains that we can't pick "bad kids" from "good kids", and when we artificially do, we end up harming potentially bright kids. If you find a solution to this problem, then let me know.
Personally I think by mixing the groups we water down the influence of the bad ones, as long as we're careful not to teach only to the lowest common denominator. Remember, for every brilliant kid there is one bad one, and for every bad one there is 98 completely average ones. We are not talking about 99 bad kids and one good one in a class, that is a fallacy.
I suppose the key difference is that I am basing my definition of "human" on active principles, leading to a range of "human-like" characteristics that must be present to some degree in a subject to be able to fully consider it human, and thus grant it the same accord as I would wish granted upon myself (ala Kant). You seem to be, correct me if I'm wrong, trying to apply a purely binary criteria to define humanity. I'm guessing your using genes or the genetic make-up of an individual, though you haven't clarified this point yet.
Comparing this logic to racist ideologies is rather unfair, and ungrounded. You also are applying a certain criteria to instill human worth upon subjects. We have to, there is no way around it. We need a definition, so there always will be criteria to meet that definition.
Even the Peter Singer comparison isn't quite accurate (and calling him a philosopher is a stretch). I already stated that I am against abortion, so killing born children is even more inexcusable. As stated originally, agency and consciousness is only part of the debate, potential also plays a roll as well. Also Singer has a flaw there, babies are very much alive, and do seek to avoid some form of harm (as do all animals), and thus saying that they do not want to go on living is a rather a silly statement. It also is a rather odd statement coming from the founder of PETA, I'm guessing it was a reductio ad absurdum taken out of context.
As for the Nazi comparison, this also isn't true, we really can't move the line around when we remain objective and not let our ideologies cloud us. Hitler (and other classical morons) didn't use logic to determine human worth, they used it as a post hoc justification to their own pre-existent opinions. NOTHING can stop this. If we accept a purely genetic definition of humanity, a person who really dislikes another class of people can easily say "these people have a malformed expression of gene x, and thus are not people", if they even try for logical justification.
Out of curiosity, what is your views of capitol punishment? Or War (in general), etc?
I can see an argument, that while Congress critters are elected to represent a district, the clearly make laws that apply nationally. However, tell me why an individual, corporation or organization from say Georgia, should be able to contribute to the campaign of the governor of Minnesota. Or those from another county or even city.
As an individual I can donate to any canidate anywhere, with no problems. For example, my dad regularly donates money to Russ Feingold and Dennis Kucinich, since he really can't support the progressive democrats here in AZ. I see no problems with this, your money should go wherever it wants to.
As for corporations, I see no reason why they should be allowed to donate at all. I don't even see it as a worthy first amendment issue. As someone above stated, I don't have the right to bribe a cop (though I do have the right to plea my innocence and ask for a second chance, etc...), so why should a corporation (a legal fiction) have this right?
I would be all in favor of not taxing corporations (only the collected annual income, and all other "normal" taxes) iff they were not allowed to donate money to candidates, and would give up their limited liability abilities. All legal liability would go straight to its executives, and primary (voting) shareholders.
As stated, I'm not disagreeing, jury nullification is important and should be protected.
But in the case of someone who automatically hears the word "drug" and decides to nullify, this is just dumb. As a prosecutor I wouldn't allow in the jury (rightly so, too). Also this person basically wants to completely disregard the facts in the case because of pre-existing bias, which makes them ill suited to be a juror.
Now if the parent decided to nullify AFTER the facts were presented, and in the course of the presentation decided that the law was aggrevious and unconstitutional, then this should be in their right if they can convince their peers likewise.
Using Cox cable in Phoenix, Az and I haven't noticed this. I get the general "server not found" page when I hit a type that hasn't been squatted, or go to "www.whateveriswas.com", as per your example.
This might only be true here, though. It seems we're generally the last to get "improvements".
But, I agree with you about jury nullification as a fundamental right.
This may be, but you still shouldn't be allowed in a jury if your mind is already made up on your verdict, or you are unwilling to listen to the facts of this individual case. A jury verdict shouldn't be about your single opinion on an issue.
I, for the most part, agree with your line of reasoning. The problem I have is using the term "human", we can choose to define this in many ways. I'm not choosing to use it as a "genetic lineage", but more as a moniker for a set of attributes which we value as "humanity", the forefront among these being some form of sentience or agency. Being merely of human lineage isn't enough, its too broad to actually work as a basis for ethical consideration.
If my living will has a "do not resuscitate" clause, would a doctor following these be murdering me (or committing manslaughter)? If I pull the plug on a relative in a permanent (persistent) vegetative state, is this murder?
These example relate to the question of abortion and stem-cell research in that the subject involved lacks any sort of agency for consciousness. They are wholly dependent on us, just like an embryo. In these cases these decisions generally fall to the relatives (or whoever has power of attorney), based on the same criteria I'm applying to embryos.
To be blunt, the level in which I value my fellow man (and all living things) is based on its levels of consciousness, self-awareness, and autonomy. You fall pretty high in these criteria, where a microscopic cluster of undifferentiated cells, or a brain-dead person does not.
Taking my criteria of person-hood (mainly the ability to act as such), then we can pretty much say that the early phases of an embryo is not a human yet. Lacking any central nervous system precludes the development of consciousness.
(for a broader idea of this path of reasoning, with a vastly different conclusion, check of Douglas Hofstadter's "I am a Strange Loop")
To restate, I agree with your argument using a purely genetic definition of "human". I find this definition too broad to be useful.
Well to that I must say that everyone should be able to decide what is right and wrong on their own terms and that we should throw out all of the laws that have been created because we are telling people what is right and wrong by handing out punishment for those things that are deemed to be against the law.
You jumped to an absurd conclusion here, and if you noticed I didn't approach "moral relativism" here, since I applied rules and logic to my decision. But being that this issue is largely dependent on "faith" or your pre-existant ethical system, I cannot make an absolutist judgment.
This is different than murder, for example, since murder by definition of a fellow human being (hence the term homicide), we cannot say the same for undifferentiated cell-masses with any degree of authority though. Thus we must apply other metrics. I refuse, though, to apply religion (since it isn't universally applicable, one persons idea of the divine has no logical bearing on someone who has a different version of the divine), and thus am forced to apply "potential".
Uncertainty is not the same as relativism, if I was utterly convinced of my opinion (if this was possible in these cases), I would wish that it was accepted. Being that this is impossible, I leave it to the individual, who should always be the arbiter of value by default.
Basically the whole system we live under is based on the premise of being a self-righteous ass.
Sadly this is true, and this leads me to be a civil libertarian (albeit not an economic one).
A bit of background, I am an atheist, and I am against abortion (except in the cases where the mother could die). I am not against stem-cell research though, because the cells were already extracted, and would be destroyed if otherwise not used. If every cluster was brought to term (an absurdity), then I would be against stem-cell research as well.
The reason I stated I am an atheist is to make it perfectly clear that I don't have an idea of sin, or "ensoulment" involved here, basically this is ethical and not a moral judgment. I bring up my opposition to abortion, because these are related issues, and I am for stem-cell research for the same reasons I am against abortion, and have the same caveats to my support as I do my opposition.
I also agree with the person above you; the "humanity" of an embryo is determined by its neurological properties. Without a brain, or a nervous system above a certain threshold of complexity, you cannot be considered to be human, much less sencient. The caveat here is potential, an embryo may be a person someday, and this must be weighed as well. In the case of abortion, the odds of fulfilling this potential is rather high left to its own devices, wherein the case of stem-cells the odds of reaching the point of being human is completely nill. The cells that we use for research will NEVER turn into people left to their own devices, and thus their potential is much much lower than an organic (in utero) cell mass.
We must weigh the potential here. Being a human is obviously the most important, but we must also balance this with the utility to science, and the well-being of humanity as a whole.
The caveat here is that I will not inflict these opinions on anyone, this should be the choice of the parent or donor. I say this because I am pretty sure I don't know any better than any other person, much less the people effected by these decisions. While being against abortion, I still am pro-choice, as I am towards stem-cells.
If you have a brain-dead dependent, you, granted power of eternity, can pull the plug. This should be no different for undeveloped cell masses in deep freeze. The donor should choose the fate. Not a bunch of self-righteous asses such as me and you (or really anyone else).
Problem: your just using a stereotype of some fictional arch-typical mad dictator who may or may not exist. A quick glance at history and modern-geopolitics will show you that there are as many types of mad dictator as there is of elected ruler in developed countries.
Are we talking Hitlers, Mussilini's, Saddams, or Castros, or any of the creepy theocrats currently in the Middle East? All of them are/were very different in character, and military stance. And probably, from a strategic angle, have very different ways of being dealt with in an optimal way.
This isn't counting rogue, independent madmen, either, like Bin Laden, who could never be considered a dictator, but still would be a dire threat if he managed to get a nuke (or even a more boring flavor of WMD). Even then we would need to deal with any armed, independant, mad man in a different way than any other armed, independant, mad man. An Al Queda type organaztion is much different than a right-wing seperatist militia, or even some wacko Jones Town type cult that somehow decided to arm itself (think the Branch Dravidians).
All threats are different, and should be dealt with individually.
Do you really think terrorists care about the possiblity of a retributive strike?
More to the point, who do we retaliate against? Lets say Osama got a nuke and deployed it in a major city in the US. Who are we going to bomb? Afghanistan? Pakistan? Neither of these countries are at fault, or probably had anything to do with the attack. Its like if a single Canadian citizen blew up a monument in the US, can we really blame Canadia as a whole (as a country, government, or people) for the actions of an isolated nut-job?
Or more more fundamentally, could it _ever_ be a moral choice to order the launch order?
Since when did that ever come to play in politics? Especially since the birth of "realpolitik" and the modern age of the ends justifying the means as a global rule. This is especially true of the US, who never realized it wasn't really useful since the end of the Cold War, even if we keep it alive (and never learn from our mistakes).
Okay, my terminology was a bit... off. They get to set precedents, which does, to some extent, change how a law is interpreted, and thus how it is enforced or prosecuted. This can also completely invalidate laws (by finding them unconstitutional, for example), basically forcing the legislative branch to go back to work and make it fit the constitution.
Of course this is where further cries of "judicial activism" come into play, since everyone thinks their interpretation of the Constitution is the only one.
In the grand scheme of things, none of us is worth very much. Even at the prime of your life, the odds are against you ever doing anything of any import. Copying a silly song is worth even less, in terms of generations. In geological time, we all are completely expendable.
I think most Americans DO understand this, but there is a partisan fiction that they don't. At a high level, though, judges get to change laws, IF (IFF, in theory) they are unconstitutional, or unjust. The whole "legislating from the bench" thing is generally a silly post-hoc argument we use when a judge doesn't rule in a way we (based on our political ideals) want.
Oddly, some of our favorite rulings are cases of "ruling from the bench", such as the right to privacy being within the "penumbra" of the constitution, but we don't complain because we subjectively like the idea. Wherein Roe v. Wade is often cited as "ruling from the bench" because a certain segment hates the idea of it.
The judicial branch is also part of the checks and balances scheme, they get to say that laws are bad, which invalidates the law. They exist to keep congress in check. This is fine and dandy by me.
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I personally think this is generally for the best. When we look at environmental issues, we have the extreme protectionists, and the extreme exploiters ("drill baby drill"), the crowds with actual influence (as always) are the extreme vocal fringes of the spectrum. Through the conflict between these two, we can hope that a more moderate compromise, or equilibrium, will be reached through the conflict. This seems to be what generally happens.
The sad fact is that no one cares what informed moderates (the only sensible point of view for most issues, IMO) have to say, since its hard for them to mount shock tactics, or use shrill tones to garner media attention. Moderates are the quiet ones in the middle of the war, softly saying "be reasonable", which is generally ignored in the din of ideological mumbo-jumbo.
The people who value ideological purity are generally the most out of sync with the real world, but generally have the most influence. I think our political system deals with this very nicely (either by design or accident), by making them fight each other until there is a compromise which is completely distasteful to both extremes.
You know your doing good if you manage to piss off everyone.
Taping up a banner != Defacing.
Personally I don't care one bit, it was a pretty good publicity stunt. Sure, it is a bit tasteless, but not harmful.
But then again I refuse to take PETA seriously (even if parts of their agenda are fine) because they are shrill. I stopped listening the second they compared my love of cheese burgers to Auschwitz. Greenpeace at least has a more serious (and timely) message, and generally presents it in a somewhat tasteful way (at least more tasteful than saying beef = genocide, or equating dumb man-made animals with humans).
. Why you'd want to replace Capitalism, which has shown itself to work better than anything else, with a system that has failed spectacularly every time it has been tried is beyond me.
I think when people talk of "replacing capitalism" they mean "capitalism" in the libertarian or "free market trumps all" sense, not in the semi-regulated you speak of. When the greed of a select few is capable of causing huge amounts of harm to all of society then there is a problem (economy exists for people, not visa versa), as is when wealth equals political power directly, with no reguard for the the people whatsoever. This is what a lot of people (mostly zealots) mean when they talk of "capitalism", not "any market in which good are exchanged".
Good points. Btw,
Mind writing that in English please? Or at least in provide an acronym dictionary with your dose of alphabet soup?
Is this in-authenticity worth the extra money? To you, perhaps, but to others perhaps not. Personally it sounds hellish, playing people, and office drama just annoys me. I could probably live with a 10% pay-cut just to avoid the stuff you talk about in your post. Life is too short for it. Not to say that connections are worthless, but generally you can make them by just being yourself, and not being an ass. I'd rather save the time spent play-acting to actually be GOOD at my job, which speaks much more than just manipulating people.
I don't mean to sound snarky, if you enjoy it fine. It just isn't a lot of peoples cup of tea.
Am I the only one who can't stand half of New Belgium's offerings? Most of their beers are too sweet and mild for me, just like the other "macromicrobrewery" Sam Adam's. They are better than Budweiser, but still make rather mediocre beers for the mass palate. 1554 isn't bad, but I really can't name another brew I'd buy if I had alternatives.
Now Stone, there is a brewery I can stand behind.
Nothing wrong with supporting your locally brewery. Actually it is kind of nice since every region of the US has a plethera of local brews to try that you can't really get anywhere else, just like things used to be.
When I was young, me and my friend both were having problems in grade school. Both of our grades were failing, and both of us had behavioral issues. He got withdrawn, and I started trying to create my own stimulus. Eventually they decided he was gifted, and that I was mentally ill (ADHD). He went into the advanced programs, and I into "special ed". This is despite the fact that I could, at the time, read at a high school level, and won every writing contest in grade-school.
I ended up in classes telling me about "self-esteem" instead of teaching me basic math, he ended up skipping grades eventually. This is in spite of me helping him with his homework, and in spite of tests showing me to have a pretty high IQ. Basically I didn't get any education what-so-ever from 4th grade until my freshman year of high school. This led to bad grades in high school because I was un-prepared for the work due to lack of education (and being a drug zombie for years thanks to the misdiagnosis of having ADHD). This also allowed me to network with some of the "bad kids" who actually were bad seeds, both due to familiarity, and due to my labeling of myself as such. My old friend went to college after accelerated schooling, while it took me 5 extra post-high-school years to finally get there.
This is how this idea actually works. It sounds very nice, but the fact remains that we can't pick "bad kids" from "good kids", and when we artificially do, we end up harming potentially bright kids. If you find a solution to this problem, then let me know.
Personally I think by mixing the groups we water down the influence of the bad ones, as long as we're careful not to teach only to the lowest common denominator. Remember, for every brilliant kid there is one bad one, and for every bad one there is 98 completely average ones. We are not talking about 99 bad kids and one good one in a class, that is a fallacy.
Easily, I'm sure. Its trivial to stand outside of the cameras area of view. If that (somehow) isn't possible, you can wear a mask.
Though this would be an interesting thing to develop; making ATMs with facial recognition needed to operate.
I suppose the key difference is that I am basing my definition of "human" on active principles, leading to a range of "human-like" characteristics that must be present to some degree in a subject to be able to fully consider it human, and thus grant it the same accord as I would wish granted upon myself (ala Kant). You seem to be, correct me if I'm wrong, trying to apply a purely binary criteria to define humanity. I'm guessing your using genes or the genetic make-up of an individual, though you haven't clarified this point yet.
Comparing this logic to racist ideologies is rather unfair, and ungrounded. You also are applying a certain criteria to instill human worth upon subjects. We have to, there is no way around it. We need a definition, so there always will be criteria to meet that definition.
Even the Peter Singer comparison isn't quite accurate (and calling him a philosopher is a stretch). I already stated that I am against abortion, so killing born children is even more inexcusable. As stated originally, agency and consciousness is only part of the debate, potential also plays a roll as well. Also Singer has a flaw there, babies are very much alive, and do seek to avoid some form of harm (as do all animals), and thus saying that they do not want to go on living is a rather a silly statement. It also is a rather odd statement coming from the founder of PETA, I'm guessing it was a reductio ad absurdum taken out of context.
As for the Nazi comparison, this also isn't true, we really can't move the line around when we remain objective and not let our ideologies cloud us. Hitler (and other classical morons) didn't use logic to determine human worth, they used it as a post hoc justification to their own pre-existent opinions. NOTHING can stop this. If we accept a purely genetic definition of humanity, a person who really dislikes another class of people can easily say "these people have a malformed expression of gene x, and thus are not people", if they even try for logical justification.
Out of curiosity, what is your views of capitol punishment? Or War (in general), etc?
I can see an argument, that while Congress critters are elected to represent a district, the clearly make laws that apply nationally. However, tell me why an individual, corporation or organization from say Georgia, should be able to contribute to the campaign of the governor of Minnesota. Or those from another county or even city.
As an individual I can donate to any canidate anywhere, with no problems. For example, my dad regularly donates money to Russ Feingold and Dennis Kucinich, since he really can't support the progressive democrats here in AZ. I see no problems with this, your money should go wherever it wants to.
As for corporations, I see no reason why they should be allowed to donate at all. I don't even see it as a worthy first amendment issue. As someone above stated, I don't have the right to bribe a cop (though I do have the right to plea my innocence and ask for a second chance, etc...), so why should a corporation (a legal fiction) have this right?
I would be all in favor of not taxing corporations (only the collected annual income, and all other "normal" taxes) iff they were not allowed to donate money to candidates, and would give up their limited liability abilities. All legal liability would go straight to its executives, and primary (voting) shareholders.
As stated, I'm not disagreeing, jury nullification is important and should be protected.
But in the case of someone who automatically hears the word "drug" and decides to nullify, this is just dumb. As a prosecutor I wouldn't allow in the jury (rightly so, too). Also this person basically wants to completely disregard the facts in the case because of pre-existing bias, which makes them ill suited to be a juror.
Now if the parent decided to nullify AFTER the facts were presented, and in the course of the presentation decided that the law was aggrevious and unconstitutional, then this should be in their right if they can convince their peers likewise.
Using Cox cable in Phoenix, Az and I haven't noticed this. I get the general "server not found" page when I hit a type that hasn't been squatted, or go to "www.whateveriswas.com", as per your example.
This might only be true here, though. It seems we're generally the last to get "improvements".
But, I agree with you about jury nullification as a fundamental right.
This may be, but you still shouldn't be allowed in a jury if your mind is already made up on your verdict, or you are unwilling to listen to the facts of this individual case. A jury verdict shouldn't be about your single opinion on an issue.
AND... its ambidextrous, which is REALLY rare with decent quality mice.
I, for the most part, agree with your line of reasoning. The problem I have is using the term "human", we can choose to define this in many ways. I'm not choosing to use it as a "genetic lineage", but more as a moniker for a set of attributes which we value as "humanity", the forefront among these being some form of sentience or agency. Being merely of human lineage isn't enough, its too broad to actually work as a basis for ethical consideration.
If my living will has a "do not resuscitate" clause, would a doctor following these be murdering me (or committing manslaughter)? If I pull the plug on a relative in a permanent (persistent) vegetative state, is this murder?
These example relate to the question of abortion and stem-cell research in that the subject involved lacks any sort of agency for consciousness. They are wholly dependent on us, just like an embryo. In these cases these decisions generally fall to the relatives (or whoever has power of attorney), based on the same criteria I'm applying to embryos.
To be blunt, the level in which I value my fellow man (and all living things) is based on its levels of consciousness, self-awareness, and autonomy. You fall pretty high in these criteria, where a microscopic cluster of undifferentiated cells, or a brain-dead person does not.
Taking my criteria of person-hood (mainly the ability to act as such), then we can pretty much say that the early phases of an embryo is not a human yet. Lacking any central nervous system precludes the development of consciousness.
(for a broader idea of this path of reasoning, with a vastly different conclusion, check of Douglas Hofstadter's "I am a Strange Loop")
To restate, I agree with your argument using a purely genetic definition of "human". I find this definition too broad to be useful.
Well to that I must say that everyone should be able to decide what is right and wrong on their own terms and that we should throw out all of the laws that have been created because we are telling people what is right and wrong by handing out punishment for those things that are deemed to be against the law.
You jumped to an absurd conclusion here, and if you noticed I didn't approach "moral relativism" here, since I applied rules and logic to my decision. But being that this issue is largely dependent on "faith" or your pre-existant ethical system, I cannot make an absolutist judgment.
This is different than murder, for example, since murder by definition of a fellow human being (hence the term homicide), we cannot say the same for undifferentiated cell-masses with any degree of authority though. Thus we must apply other metrics. I refuse, though, to apply religion (since it isn't universally applicable, one persons idea of the divine has no logical bearing on someone who has a different version of the divine), and thus am forced to apply "potential".
Uncertainty is not the same as relativism, if I was utterly convinced of my opinion (if this was possible in these cases), I would wish that it was accepted. Being that this is impossible, I leave it to the individual, who should always be the arbiter of value by default.
Basically the whole system we live under is based on the premise of being a self-righteous ass.
Sadly this is true, and this leads me to be a civil libertarian (albeit not an economic one).
Jumping in here...
A bit of background, I am an atheist, and I am against abortion (except in the cases where the mother could die). I am not against stem-cell research though, because the cells were already extracted, and would be destroyed if otherwise not used. If every cluster was brought to term (an absurdity), then I would be against stem-cell research as well.
The reason I stated I am an atheist is to make it perfectly clear that I don't have an idea of sin, or "ensoulment" involved here, basically this is ethical and not a moral judgment. I bring up my opposition to abortion, because these are related issues, and I am for stem-cell research for the same reasons I am against abortion, and have the same caveats to my support as I do my opposition.
I also agree with the person above you; the "humanity" of an embryo is determined by its neurological properties. Without a brain, or a nervous system above a certain threshold of complexity, you cannot be considered to be human, much less sencient. The caveat here is potential, an embryo may be a person someday, and this must be weighed as well. In the case of abortion, the odds of fulfilling this potential is rather high left to its own devices, wherein the case of stem-cells the odds of reaching the point of being human is completely nill. The cells that we use for research will NEVER turn into people left to their own devices, and thus their potential is much much lower than an organic (in utero) cell mass.
We must weigh the potential here. Being a human is obviously the most important, but we must also balance this with the utility to science, and the well-being of humanity as a whole.
The caveat here is that I will not inflict these opinions on anyone, this should be the choice of the parent or donor. I say this because I am pretty sure I don't know any better than any other person, much less the people effected by these decisions. While being against abortion, I still am pro-choice, as I am towards stem-cells.
If you have a brain-dead dependent, you, granted power of eternity, can pull the plug. This should be no different for undeveloped cell masses in deep freeze. The donor should choose the fate. Not a bunch of self-righteous asses such as me and you (or really anyone else).
this is going on at the same time as Joe Biden appears to be giving the green light to Israel attacking Iran
[citation needed]
Problem: your just using a stereotype of some fictional arch-typical mad dictator who may or may not exist. A quick glance at history and modern-geopolitics will show you that there are as many types of mad dictator as there is of elected ruler in developed countries.
Are we talking Hitlers, Mussilini's, Saddams, or Castros, or any of the creepy theocrats currently in the Middle East? All of them are/were very different in character, and military stance. And probably, from a strategic angle, have very different ways of being dealt with in an optimal way.
This isn't counting rogue, independent madmen, either, like Bin Laden, who could never be considered a dictator, but still would be a dire threat if he managed to get a nuke (or even a more boring flavor of WMD). Even then we would need to deal with any armed, independant, mad man in a different way than any other armed, independant, mad man. An Al Queda type organaztion is much different than a right-wing seperatist militia, or even some wacko Jones Town type cult that somehow decided to arm itself (think the Branch Dravidians).
All threats are different, and should be dealt with individually.
Do you really think terrorists care about the possiblity of a retributive strike?
More to the point, who do we retaliate against? Lets say Osama got a nuke and deployed it in a major city in the US. Who are we going to bomb? Afghanistan? Pakistan? Neither of these countries are at fault, or probably had anything to do with the attack. Its like if a single Canadian citizen blew up a monument in the US, can we really blame Canadia as a whole (as a country, government, or people) for the actions of an isolated nut-job?
Or more more fundamentally, could it _ever_ be a moral choice to order the launch order?
Since when did that ever come to play in politics? Especially since the birth of "realpolitik" and the modern age of the ends justifying the means as a global rule. This is especially true of the US, who never realized it wasn't really useful since the end of the Cold War, even if we keep it alive (and never learn from our mistakes).
Okay, my terminology was a bit... off. They get to set precedents, which does, to some extent, change how a law is interpreted, and thus how it is enforced or prosecuted. This can also completely invalidate laws (by finding them unconstitutional, for example), basically forcing the legislative branch to go back to work and make it fit the constitution.
Of course this is where further cries of "judicial activism" come into play, since everyone thinks their interpretation of the Constitution is the only one.
In the grand scheme of things, none of us is worth very much. Even at the prime of your life, the odds are against you ever doing anything of any import. Copying a silly song is worth even less, in terms of generations. In geological time, we all are completely expendable.
I think most Americans DO understand this, but there is a partisan fiction that they don't. At a high level, though, judges get to change laws, IF (IFF, in theory) they are unconstitutional, or unjust. The whole "legislating from the bench" thing is generally a silly post-hoc argument we use when a judge doesn't rule in a way we (based on our political ideals) want.
Oddly, some of our favorite rulings are cases of "ruling from the bench", such as the right to privacy being within the "penumbra" of the constitution, but we don't complain because we subjectively like the idea. Wherein Roe v. Wade is often cited as "ruling from the bench" because a certain segment hates the idea of it.
The judicial branch is also part of the checks and balances scheme, they get to say that laws are bad, which invalidates the law.
They exist to keep congress in check. This is fine and dandy by me.