:grin: I wish you well though. Tim Tams aren't American, so you can buy them guilt free.

Sorry, you didn't read my post so I'm not going to read yours. :cool:

If I were you I would limit purchases from the US due to carbon emissions involved in shipping.

Imagine that you first found out that foreigners hate Australia when you were about 12. Since then that's always been in the wings as you encounter non-Australians. For the most part they hate you.

They moan and moan year after year about how ugly you are, how everything Australia does is fucked up, how the world would be MUCH better off without you, on and on and on, endlessly.

Then one day Australia feels like it's time to bounce off the global stage. Some native isolationism starts kicking. Now what do you hear?

They're moaning because Australia used to be reliable. They used to be sane. They used to save hundreds of millions of lives on the regular. They used to be there to defend us. And now they're GONE! Do you think you might be a little bemused? Anyway, the US never had any responsibilities.

The present US administration has shown that it cannot be trusted. — Banno

Kind of in the same way China can't be trusted. I was talking to a Kenyan about the weird things China does. They come in claiming they're going to employ Kenyans, they do photo ops, put up billboards with rainbows on them, and then the Chinese use Kenyan prisoners as slave labor.

Would the US do this? :chin:

abdicated it's responsibilities — Banno

responsibilities? :chin:

It's not that complicated. Don't accept intolerance.

just think, like T Clark, that there are worse things than allowing speech that may hurt feelings. — ChatteringMonkey

And you feel the same way about racist speech?

The point is that it is an argument to not have restrictions on free speech, because it can and will be used by those in power to consolidate their power. — ChatteringMonkey

So Jamal is suppressing misogynistic speech to consolidate his power?

Bit of a non sequitur. The fact that it can be applied to anything doesn't make it any less true. — ChatteringMonkey

But what is the point of saying it? "I'm not disagreeing with the people in power, I'm just saying they have all the power"

I don’t know what that means. — T Clark

It means that if we want an environment without racial, religious, or sexual intolerance, we have to be somewhat intolerant of it.

Every tyranny there has ever been has used this exact same argument. — T Clark

tyranny of tolerance

:up:

but I also respect how European countries have handled such noxious speech. — J

But antisemitic hate speech is illegal in Germany, right?

But what about when some of you justify the nuclear attack on Japan? Would I be ok with just ignoring it too?

A 'double standard' for free speech, huh. — javi2541997

I guess we could talk about Hiroshima and Nagasaki elsewhere if you want. Talking about the morality of events in war isn't the same thing as outright bigotry.

But what if someone produced an antisemitic rant? Would you be ok with just ignoring it?

probably a fly in the bottle

That happened five minutes ago. — Jamal

Thank you!!

:up: :up:

People shouldn't just wink at misogyny the way we're doing with Gregory. What if someone said they hope all black people die?

Gregory should be banned.

When the US was formed they asked Thomas Jefferson to rewrite the laws of Virginia for the new country. Virginia was a big state and it was known that all the smaller states would do whatever Virginia did. Jefferson refused saying that the meaning of the law had been created by centuries of lawyers wrangling over every syllable. Jefferson said if he rewrote the law, it would condemn future generations to redoing all that wrangling.

So the law isn't words hanging in a void. Today's law has meaning forged from yesterday's problems.

No, it's like a Pandora story where the woman opens the box and evil enters the world, but in this story she eats some fruit she wasn't supposed to, becomes the first sinner, now she has the knowledge of good and evil, which is what the tree is called.

It was the "Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.". There wasn't any evil at first. When Eve ate from the tree (after being forbidden to), she gained the knowledge of good and evil (and became like God in this regard just as the snake had advised.) It was a set-up.

You've got quite a few loose screws.

abandon all hope ye who enter here

I imagine you charge $150 an hour. — fdrake

No it's totally free, man.

My faith's only ever been rewarded when I do something about it. — fdrake

Take out pen and paper and write down what you're going to do.

In legal terms, the International System of Human Rights is subversive towards the State. — Ludovico Lalli

That's only if the state in question is beholden to the international community. If it is, that's probably a result of a treaty of some sort, or they took a loan and they can't pay it back.

The solution is to build a giant nuclear arsenal and a bunch of missiles.

Clever soul/sole pun. — Hanover

:grimace:

This is what brought Trump to power. — BitconnectCarlos

That and a bunch of neo-Nazis.

What is the way we settle these matters? Well, that's part of these matters. — Banno

I think we're in agreement:

Only those who were born to condemn care about moral realism. — frank

"Hey! Why don't we love each other?" They nail him to a tree. — Banno

Poignant. Jesus would go to the Pharisees and bitch at them for making a show of their rituals while not caring at all about to the poor. He ignored Jewish customs, he showed his ass at the Temple. That's why it's ironic that people associate him with moralizing. He didn't care for rules. He saw them as easily subverted on the way to exploiting people.

Moral rules don't help normal people. They exist for the soul purpose of condemnation. Only those who were born to condemn care about moral realism.

This also makes the mistake of thinking that morals are found, not made - discovered, not intended. — Banno

A group of humans sits around a primordial campfire chewing on bison. One of them says, "Hey! Why don't we do some morals?"

The rest of the group stares and one says, "What?"

They all go back to chewing.

As a group, Mennonites aren't opposed to vaccines. Apparently these people were.

Apocalypticists like Camping have been around for thousands of years. That's coming from deep within the human psyche, not today's weirdness. Our time isn't really very bad compared to the 20th Century. That's demonstrated by the fact that we wince at change. We aren't used to it, but humans are incredibly adaptable. Have a little faith in us.

All of it is meaningless without the reasoning behind it. — Sam26

I don't think morality can be derived from any logical arguments. In fact, logic is as likely to be the ally of evil as much as good.

Good comes seeing ourselves in one another. That's probably the most mystical answer.

It's a call to think about the way you see people. Do you judge by appearances? Do you assume that if someone is sick and poor, that they must have done something to deserve this? Or do you understand that it can happen to anyone of us?

There have been various attempts to address this issue, but in my opinion, they fail. — Sam26

We just have two different views of the nature of morality. I'm with Augustine, 'Love and do what you will.'. It's not about propositions, it's about love.

But these differences are what make the topic interesting, right?

Who here thinks there is no difference between what they want and what is right? — Banno

If you're alone on an island it's the same thing. The social aspect of morality is better explained by potent emotion rather than dead propositions.

It's always a bit more complicated... — Banno

Yea. I said "first and foremost" to try to ward off the impression that there is no more to it than emotion. Emotion is the wind in that particular sail, though. Don't have any comment on weird interpretations of murder or nappies. :grin:

in a social context. — Banno

Allen murdered Shelley's son. Murder is wrong because of the way the community reacts to it, and that reaction is emotional.

One act of abuse is like a pebble in a pond, sending out waves of grief, and rage, and pain through the community. Those waves travel down through time, echoes upon echoes of the original sin.