Did The Tuck get Cucked here?

[Huked on foniks]

My God, more ducking of substance and responding with dishonest personal attacks. It's funny how mad you get when your arguments are shown to be wrong.

Kid, either contribute to the discussion or shut the fuck up. I'm not going to tell you again. OK maybe I'll ask 5 more times but still.....

 

[Jack V Savage]

What substance?

"Majority rule is just how we decide which values will drive policy. I don't think anyone believes that whatever the majority decides is good, but a lot of people have decided that allowing a process by which everyone has their say and then the majority view (with certain restrictions) will temporarily prevail is better than just allowing or even encouraging everyone who doesn't get their way to start murdering people."

Etc.

And I'm very much aware that a lot of people get mad when their views are intelligently challenged. It's normal. I'll note that you're changing the subject from a (likely) specific example of you misrepresenting someone's views to a general attack. That's typically what you do when you know you're wrong.

 

[Greoric]

Even if I shot Stalin himself, because he had bumped into my car, this wouldn't be morally justifiable in my view.

Wait you're proposing that you wouldn't be justified to shoot Stalin if you even just happened to encounter him on the streets of Leningrad (or anywhere for that matter)?

 

[ultramanhyata]

The best part is any opinion you have about what "should" be the case is proof of the point. I only have to show that there is such a thing as ethics. Absent a better description, I just have to show that the concept of maximized harmony of any given group of individuals exists. If varying states of harmony (or synergy, or whatever you want to call it) exists in groups of people then its maximization also has to follow.

And just to clarify I better not catch you making a value judgment besides stoic statements about actions as they are or what you predict their out come to be.

You following? Because as soon as you make any value judgement you are demonstrating an ethical standard you think should be the case. That means no more opinions on UHC, wealth redistribution, and condemnation of conservatives, condemnation of anything or any action, as well as any support for anything or any action. You want a majority rule? Sorry bitch!! That's a proposed applied ethical standard.

Cliffs: Because it's true that each individual operates out of some type of personal, moral worldview it is evidence that a universal set of moral absolutes exist. And that Greoric (and Molyneux) have accurately deciphered them.

You're batshit crazy. You know that, right?

 

[Greoric]

And I'm very much aware that a lot of people get mad when their views are intelligently challenged. It's normal. I'll note that you're changing the subject from a (likely) specific example of you misrepresenting someone's views to a general attack. That's typically what you do when you know you're wrong.

Yeah I realize you like to rationalize it away like that, but I guess that answers my other question. You've never considered you're the problem.

There's plenty of people on here that are able to handle dissonance. Its just amusing that you think its anyone that doesn't call you dishonest.

 

[WiolentOne]

The first part isn't even a factual statement. We don't have a representative democracy, and even if we did that still wouldn't be policy decided on by majority rule.

In any event though, there's plenty of people on here that subscribe to the majority rule is moral philospohy. @m52nickerson is one. In this thread alone, it looks like @cincymma79 is another.

Poor Jack probably doesn't understand the founding fathers created a Constitutional Republic to severely counter Jacks mob rule i.e tribalism (which ironically he so often condemns when beneficial to his rhetoric).

Poor Jack can't be consistent with any of his views. What a nincompoop.

 

[TheGreatA]

Wait you're proposing that you wouldn't be justified to shoot Stalin if you eve just happened to encounter him on the streets of Leningrad (or anywhere for that matter)?

I would be morally justified to shoot Stalin for reasons other than bumping my car, in this imaginary scenario, of course. But if I suffer from an extreme case of road rage, and the target of my violence happens to be an all-around piece of shit that probably deserved to be killed, I cannot make any claims to having operated from any kind of a "moral highground" whatsoever. And I would still be extremely dangerous to the rest of the society.

In this case, did the man attempt to commit murder purely out of his personal grievances and frustrations, or because of pure, selfless convictions? I lean towards the former. But then again it is impossible to know, as all such cases are quickly cast aside by the media as "lone wolf maniacs" without any sort of an ideological foundation.

 

[Greoric]

Cliffs: Because it's true that each individual operates out of some type of personal, moral worldview it is evidence that a universal set of moral absolutes exist. And that Greoric (and Molyneux) have accurately deciphered them.

You're batshit crazy. You know that, right?

Let me approach this from a different angle. There's two parts here that you're conflating. You can assert what something is NOT before you have to assert exactly what something is.

Like @WiolentOne pointed out, one is just observing that there is some kind of ethical standard. It could be anything from majority rule, to the golden standard, utilitarianism, a categorical imperative, UPB?... or any combination of the above that we haven't thought of yet.

Second, there's the part of being able to detail exactly what that standard actually is. I have no problem with conceding I don't know for sure what that standard consists of, but it's obviously not relativism, because taken to its ultimate conclusion it eliminates itself as a form of ethics.

So in other words, I can rule out a patient from having Karategener's Syndrome before I may be able to diagnose them with Hereditary Spherocytosis. Make sense now?

 

[WiolentOne]

I was just throwing that out there. Harmony may not necessarily be the penultimate objective of ethics. But even going off that, no one would agree that harmony among a group is maximized if a majority ordered the minority to slaughter. Even further, just ratifying that the majority has that authority is a claim to a standard in and of itself.

Slavery, genocide, infanticide - maximum harmony because the majority said so!

 

[Greoric]

I would be morally justified to shoot Stalin for reasons other than bumping my car, in this imaginary scenario, of course. But if I suffer from an extreme case of road rage, and the target of my violence happens to be an all-around piece of shit that probably deserved to be killed, I cannot make any claims to having operated from any kind of a "moral highground" whatsoever. And I would still be extremely dangerous to the rest of the society.

In this case, did the man attempt to commit murder purely out of his personal grievances and frustrations, or because of pure, selfless convictions? I lean towards the former. But then again it is impossible to know, as all such cases are quickly cast aside by the media as "lone wolf maniacs" without any sort of an ideological foundation.

Ah OK, I see what you're saying here.

 

[ultramanhyata]

But it is the same point at which all of us are morally justified to resort to lethal violence, and that is the point of immediate endangerment to one's livelihood.

 

[TheGreatA]

Not in the sense of working a particular job, of course, but rather the ability for citizens to live a meaningful life and provide for themselves. If the state actively represses its citizens and only contributes to making the lives of its citizens worse, compared to the state of self-governance, then it is a failure of a state, and those actively contributing to this failure ought to receive no protection from commonly agreed upon social contracts.

For example, the shooting of Nikolai Bobrikov, a Russian lord governing over an autonomous Finland, who wished to "Russify" the Finns and trampled upon the autonomous liberties provided by the Czar of the Russian Empire.

Sometimes the point is reached when political violence must be used, as no other options are left available. But somehow, I doubt, that in the United States other options aren't made available.

 

[ultramanhyata]

Let me approach this from a different angle. There's two parts here that you're conflating. You can assert what something is NOT before you have to assert exactly what something is.

Like @WiolentOne pointed out, one is just observing that there is some kind of ethical standard. It could be anything from majority rule, to the golden standard, utilitarianism, a categorical imperative, UPB?... or any combination of the above that we haven't thought of yet.

Second, there's the part of being able to detail exactly what that standard actually is. I have no problem with conceding I don't know for sure what that standard consists of, but it's obviously not relativism, because taken to its ultimate conclusion it eliminates itself as a form of ethics.

So in other words, I can rule out a patient from having Karategener's Syndrome before I may be able to diagnose them with Hereditary Spherocytosis. Make sense now?

You just keep reiterating the same failed argument.

People creating and adopting and enforcing rules of behavior throughout human history is not evidence of the existence of one true and perfect set of moral laws.

Anymore than people worshiping various gods throughout history is evidence of the existence of one true and perfect God.

How is this not obvious to you?

 

[Greoric]

You just keep reiterating the same failed argument.

People creating and adopting and enforcing rules of behavior throughout human history is not evidence of the existence of one true and perfect set of moral laws.

Anymore than people worshiping various gods throughout history is evidence of the existence of one true and perfect God.

How is this not obvious to you?

It is, but OK, just don't let me catch you making a value judgement.

 

[ultramanhyata]

Not in the sense of working a particular job, of course, but rather the ability for citizens to live a meaningful life and provide for themselves.

Hopefully you understand how meaninglessly eye-of-the-beholder this standard is.

For example, if I refuse to pay my income taxes and the IRS freezes by bank accounts and places a garnishment on my wages, am I morally justified in coming out, guns blazing?

 

[Greoric]

Hopefully you understand how meaninglessly eye-of-the-beholder this standard is.

For example, if I refuse to pay my income taxes and the IRS freezes by bank accounts and places a garnishment on my wages, am I morally justified in coming out, guns blazing?

What are you talking about moral justifications for now?

 

[TheGreatA]

Hopefully you understand how meaninglessly eye-of-the-beholder this standard is.

For example, if I refuse to pay my income taxes and the IRS freezes by bank accounts and places a garnishment on my wages, am I morally justified in coming out, guns blazing?

Depends on your justification to no longer pay your income taxes.

If it is because you live in a state which actively under-mines your existence, and puts road-block after road-block in front of you to prevent you from providing for yourself and your family, dooming you to poverty and starvation, which gives you no other alternative to voice out your frustrations than the use of violence, then yes, you are justified.

But again, I do not see how an American could honestly say that they aren't given alternatives. As long as there is any alternative to using violence, such an option must be explored to the fullest before one can claim to any legitimate moral justification to the use of violence.

 

[ultramanhyata]

It is, but OK, just don't let me catch you making a value judgement.

So if I say "It's wrong for people to cheat on their taxes," I have proven your assertion that taxation is theft, carried out through the coercion of monopolized violence.

I'll try to be careful.

 

[ultramanhyata]

As long as there is any alternative to using violence, such an option must be explored to the fullest before one can claim to any legitimate moral justification to the use of violence.

I can meet you here.

 

[Greoric]

So if I say "It's wrong for people to cheat on their taxes," I have proven your assertion that taxation is theft, carried out through the coercion of monopolized violence.

That's a strawman (again), but you've demonstrated that you believe there's an ethical standard.

Thank you in advance for no longer making any value judgement.