The object of the discussion wasn't at all to convince you of the validity of the conservative position, but it was too offer the underlying principle for that position so that it's beliefs could be understood.

If, for example, you observed a South American tribe behaving in a peculiar way and all that behavior could be explained by reference to the underlying principles of its religion, it would make little difference if you thought their behavior stupid if all you were seeking was an understanding for why they were behaving like they were.

I suspect you'd find it equally irrelevant to this conversation if I announced that I found left leaning principles stupid.

I've not dismissed the myriad of problems an assertion of God brings and mine isn't an argument for why he should be accepted. I do think the other side has an equal problem though in their steadfast insistence that there really are certain rights. The planet, women, children, etc. all have sacred places in the mind of the left, but he can no better support his position than the person who inserts God as the explanation for why certain things are in fact sacred.

All of this is impenetrable to me, I'm afraid. — Thorongil

Push harder I always say. The payoff is worth the effort.

At the risk of repeating myself too many times, I will only emphasize once more that these terms OVERLAP. They are not totally mutually exclusive. They answer different questions but they are perfectly compatible with each other. — Thorongil

I can only say how I use and understand terms. I take the person who simply does not know whether God exists to be an agnostic. He throws his hands up and shrugs his shoulders when asked the question.

Do you think O.J. killed Nicole? You've got three choices: yes, no, or I don't know. If you say yes, you're a believer, no a non-believer, and if you just don't know, you're an agnostic. That's how I use the terms.

And that's all that this is about: belief. It's not about knowledge. That is, do you believe in God is the question. If you say you "know" God exists, you're simply trying to emphasize how firm your belief is, but I'd contend you can't know it in the traditional sense of the term "know" because your justification is not based upon a rational basis, but it's based upon faith.

Lemme fill you godless heathens in on the reasons behind conservative ideology:

The death penalty -- just desserts, reaping what you have sowed
Opposition to drugs -- sanctity of human body, work ethic, personal responsibility
Anti-abortion -- sanctity of human life
Strict law and order -- absolute right and wrong
Critical of unemployed -- idle hands, personal responsibility
Critical of government -- rights are inherent (endowed by the Creator), not given by, but only protected by, the government.
Guns -- self reliance, anti-government (as noted above)
Critical of environmental regulation -- human's right to dominion and control over the universe

The reasons can be summarized as being (if not directly religious) based upon absolute notions of right and wrong, the placement of humans as the central and dominant feature of the universe, and the demand that each infinitely sacred person contribute his fair share to the world and accept responsibility for his actions. Little sympathy is offered for those who fall short, largely because most failures are thought to arise from bad choices and the poor exercise of one's free will.

It is not at all coincidental that the right tends toward religion. It is also not coincidental that the right is referred to as conservative, as those holding firm to tradition and to the rules that have brought our society to where it is. The left is seen as dismantling the sacred traditions and casting society into ruin.

Before scoffing at the right for their clinging to religion, there really isn't much of a solution to the age old question of where to hang our most basic beliefs. We can demand that humans be treated a certain way because such are the dictates of morality, but without an absolute power out there establishing our authority, such are just emotionally stirring words. That is not to say that imposing a god as the support for our beliefs doesn't pose countless problems of its own. God: can't live with him, can't live without him.

I did a quick Google search and found that Mars Man/Oliver Carter was active in a number of forums. One of his close friends provided a good bit of detail about his life and the sort of person he was. You can read about it here: http://www.jref.com/forum/threads/rest-in-peace-mars-man.58490/

The strong agnostic knows that there is no God. — Thorongil

"Know" here is being used in a confusing way. Knowledge generally requires that the object of the knowledge be true, else it's not knowledge. If I am certain Joe Biden is President and claim to know he is, the fact that he's not the President makes the statement "I know Joe Biden is President" false. Truth is a condition of knowledge.

So, someone can only know there is no god if there is no god and he has a justified belief there is no god.

At any rate, if we change the word "knows" to "believes" in my quote of you above, I don't agree with the statement. You have defined "strong agnostic" how I would define "atheist." An agnostic does not know whether there is God or not because he's unable to arrive at an adequate justification for his belief one way or the other. An atheist does not know (he only believes such) there is a God unless you're either (1) stipulating there actually is no God and he believes it, or (2) you're equivocating with the term "know" and just using it to emphasize the strength of his belief (as in, e.g., "I just knew Clemson would beat Alabama, but it didn't work out that way").

If someone asked me how I dealt with very smart people that disagreed with me, I would respond by asking if they meant how I dealt with very smart people who disagreed with me. That would be my entire response.

Temerity is my humblest virtue.

I wasn't around when PF first began, but I must assume it began with less than what we have here. We at least have a base of good posters. These things take time, and I'm in no real hurry. Someone was talking about some sort of Google crawler that creeps around websites and moves them up or down the search page. We need to bait that thing over here.

My concern with PF really wasn't the ads. Every site I go to has ads, and if that were my concern, I'd be back to reading newspapers, which also have ads. My concern with PF is that I think I'm morally and intellectually superior to the folks running it. I also think I'm more reasonable and exercise better judgment than they do. For those reasons, I don't want my posts scrutinized by them, and I can't stomach someone inferior to me telling me how I ought to be doing things. Only Baden can tell me what to do.

I have thought of a way to market and it includes soliciting the 100s of philosophy departments across the English speaking world. The emails of every professor are available online as are the graduate students in some departments. That would require hours of work, but it could be completed in a few days. A catchy email topic might get opened by maybe a few percent of the people who get it, a smaller number will click on our link, and then we'll get a few dozen new people right off the bat. They'll then bring their friends over, and we'll be huge I tell you.

The other way is to join other sites and to include our link there for people to check out. That idea worked fairly well at bringing folks over from PF.

I'd also suggest putting fliers on mailboxes. I'll do my cul de sac and see what happens.

So, get to work guys. I'm the idea man, not the do it man.

If the concern is that the level of discussion is too high and that makes some uncomfortable, I would be willing to bring the level of discussion to a lower level. I'll help out as best I can.

I do think some bad posts are helpful to morale. They create a feeding frenzy and some bonding. Maybe Baden can pretend to be a 17 year old girl whose hotness keeps causing her moral dilemmas. I'd like that. If he'll accept the challenge, I'll pretend to be an equally hot, yet eyeless young woman. I mean how unfair is that? You're hot as all get out, but you can't even see yourself. This should work well.

What's the story on the murdering of the cat? I heard tale of it, but it was never explained to me.

Gettier problem. Theories of knowledge are in flux at present. The problem is central to philosophy of mind. — Mongrel

Your epiphany was that truth was an object of knowledge, and my response was that your epiphany was what was already traditionally accepted.

If actuality is a dream, all the parts still have to interrelate — Mongrel

If actuality is a dream, all the parts still have to interrelate. — Mongrel

Unless I can dream up an example where they don't.

No, it's not correspondence. I'm saying truth is the object of knowledge (or potentially the object of it) as opposed to a property of statements. — Mongrel

If your argument is epistemological, setting out what knowledge is, it's generally (although certainly not universally) accepted that knowledge is a justified true belief. That being the case, it's generally accepted that truth is an element of knowledge.

Actuality is the world I inhabit (as opposed to some other possible world). Apriori, all the parts of this world have to relate to one another in some way, so actuality is, in a sense, all there is from beginning to end. — Mongrel

I don't know if it's a priori that all parts of the world must interrelate unless you are referring to the world in an external sense. Dreams need not interrelate with one another, and I don't see why it's necessary that actuality not simply be a dream. I'll acknowledge that we intuitively believe the rock we perceive is "out there," but that's not necessarily true nor is it universally accepted as true.

If you want to talk about what happens then talk about what happens. — Michael

"What happens" is synonymous with "what the truth is." If you tell me what happened and tell you that something else actually happened, then our dispute is over what happened, which is a dispute over the truth.

What's wrong with "Truth is actuality?" Why doesn't this work? — Mongrel

That's a restatement of the correspondence theory of truth. It's discussed here in detail, with all the various arguments for and against: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/truth-correspondence/#5

In your formulation, you will need to define "actuality," which you've equated to truth. Is it something as it is, unmediated by the perceiver, and what would that look like?

Just a little background on these rightwing welfare queens and how they leech off taxpayers — Landru Guide Us

Is your objective simply to point out the hypocrisy of those who claim to be conservatives by showing that they receive the same sort of government subsidies they condemn when received by those on the left? While I get that you wish to present your position in the most mocking and inflammatory way possible, when logically considered, all that you're really doing is demanding consistency. That would mean that you would be perfectly satisfied if the government ceased providing any subsides to anyone.

That being the case, I'll just assume you're a rightwing conservative, but just a bit disillusioned by those who claim to be in your camp because they too accept government handouts when it's to their benefit. The solution (and I think this would work for both of us) is that these nut jobs should not be considered rightwing, but should instead better be understood to be what they really are: liberal wolves in conservative lamb clothing.

Later on, I found that the blue jeans costume fit well in working class anarchist / socialist circles too -- well, maybe not the chaps without blue jeans underneath. — Bitter Crank

If you are the sort who spends considerable time creating the perfect "I don't care" look, then you fall squarely in the gay camp (but could also be metro). If you truly don't care but wear what you must in order to avoid harassment, then you're hetero. If you are just now finding out that you are in fact hetero and have been going about things the wrong way all these years, I expect you'll be feeling a certain amount of embarrassment, but who among us hasn't committed some sort of faux pas?.

Despite your abandonment of your people by not being a snazzy dresser, I have remained true to my roots by being frugal at every turn, despite my occasional ability to be otherwise. You will often find me at my local Wal-Mart, shopping among my fellow bargain hunters, with various $15 shirts in my basket along with perhaps an under $20 mix and match lamp base and shade and other discounted odds and ends. I recently bought a $35 vacuum cleaner, which, although fairly limited, cleans my mismatched area rugs fairly well. I also must say that I do enjoy me a steamed White Castle (called Krystals out here) from time to time. A word to the wise: if you're going to buy 5 Krystals with cheese and fries, you'd be better off getting the combo that includes 5 burgers with cheese fries and asking for no cheese on the fries (too rich for my blood). It's actually cheaper to buy it that way.

Yeehawist National Forest. I say that because I wish to remain on topic.

Again, as others have pointed out, if Muslim extremists or the Black Panthers took over an isolated area, the GOP would be demanding air strikes. So you're really not dealing with the issue of how big a role race plays in this. — Landru Guide Us

Had it been the Black Panthers staging a sit in at a Housing and Urban Development building, refusing to leave until changes were made to policies affecting housing for African Americans, no, there wouldn't have been air strikes. If it were Muslims demanding fair treatment, I'd say the same. Of course, we can tinker with the facts and change the outcome, like if people were being held hostage or if demands were being made that the US accept Islam as its official religion. That is to say that all the variables make a difference, with race only being one of them, and not dispositive of whether there would be air strikes, where the term "air strike" is defined as any sort of over the top crazy response where people get slaughtered.

If the general point is that blacks have it tougher than whites in the US, where if you could pick your skin color, you'd be prudent to choose white, I suppose I could agree. Of course, that revelation is hardly provocative and exciting. If you're asking, though, whether this Oregon situation is proof of anything important, it's really not, other than showing that folks are at the ready to race bait at the drop of a hat.

So by your own standard, we should be shooting these creeps with snipers while Fox news cheers the shooting on. But of course, they're white guys, so that won't happen. — Landru Guide Us

Another reason it won't happen (although I'm not really conceding the well thought out point that it's only their whiteness that is acting as their shield) is because they took over a shed deep in the wilderness that no one really cares about other than the media and those who see it as an analogy to something great big and important, as opposed to it really just being a shitty old shed in the freezing ass woods of Oregon.

What was important to the Established Order was suppressing workers rights. — Bitter Crank

What hurts workers wages and their work conditions isn't an Established Order of Illuminate who control the levers of society. It's not them. It's you. You're the bastard. Look in the mirror and own it.

You want cheaper food, cheaper clothes (just a guess, but I'm thinking you've got a pretty shabby wardrobe), cheaper books, cheaper movies, cheaper everything. Every time prices rise, you scream about your right to a reasonable life at your income level being infringed upon. Every time those prices drop to quell your screeches, the workers start to rise up and offer their screams at their dwindling wages. That the workers screaming has been silenced only means that you've been successful in silencing them.

The more interesting thought experiment is the Muslim one. Muslim's are the new "other" in the US at the moment. — Baden

You'll need to complete your thought experiment with some additional facts. Why exactly have these Muslims seized this federal outpost? Are they trying to start a Muslim state, or are they just cattle ranchers who happen to be Muslim? It would seem that if their objective is to start a theocracy in the rugged hills of Oregon, then there'd be a reason to take that threat more seriously (especially in light of ISIS) than a bunch of pissed off ranchers who want better access to grazing land.

These freaks need to be surrounded and arrested, and if they don't go peacefully, they should be shot dead. They are armed insurrectionists who represent a much greater threat to the US than some ISIS maniacs. These guys threaten the rule of law. — Landru Guide Us

The problem with taking a position that you clearly don't believe in is that no one will take you seriously when you say it, but maybe it was fun to say it anyway.

I think they should kill everyone everywhere. That way, there'll be no more violence.

Do you really believe that this Oregon conflict will end with an air strike? — Moliere

I don't think it will, nor do I think it will end in a deadly inferno like Waco.

The bottom line here is that you likely admit that the danger posed in Ferguson was greater than that in Oregon. That being the case, why complain about the disproportionate response if the dangers are different?

Here's what's fairly obvious to me: The ranchers are upset because their livelihood is being negatively impacted by government action and they feel their way of life is being unfairly jeopardized. It's hardly ideological at its base, but they've tried to turn it into an over-reaching government argument, suggesting that if the government would just let them be, they could live independently. As we've all pointed out, their argument fails. They are just as dependent on the government as others, and their way of life, despite being romantic and rugged, is no more sacred than the hot dog vendor who depends upon his exclusive license to sell at the corner of 42nd and Main.

That their political views aren't terribly consistent makes them pretty much like every other group. Their just mad because it's their ox being gored. They've reacted in a political way (which makes them also pretty much like every other group) by drumming up support from those who idolize the Old West and the individualism it requires. As a group, they aren't terribly dangerous, although there are likely some nut jobs who might actually do something dangerous among them.

Ferguson was a street riot, causing imminent danger to all nearby. It was not a black lives matter movement. There was damage to people, property, and the community. It deserved immediate action. If everyone would ignore the Oregon situation, no person or property would be harmed.

Anyway, following your logic, if "all lives matter" and Ferguson is directly analogous to Oregon and you believe the Ferguson folks were treated too harshly, then the correct response would be to treat the Oregon folks as gently as you believe the Ferguson folks should have been treated. That is, if all lives matter, then neither should be mistreated, not that if you mistreat one group, you should mistreat the other. Your argument ought to be that everyone should be treated fairly, not that if one is treated unfairly then fairness requires the other to be treated unfairly as well.

This rather misses the point. If some Muslim activists or Black Lives Matters took over an empty federal office with guns, want to make a bet they wouldn't be surrounded by SWAT and federal marshals with an ultimatum to surrender or die? — Landru Guide Us

Yes, I'll take that bet. If they were black or Muslim and in a remote Oregon outpost arguing that some ranchers got unfair treatment, then there would not be a response greater than what we see here. It'd be confusing no doubt given the strange demographics for the region, but I don't see a dissimilar response.

Here's where you say "it would too be different," and I say "no it wouldn't." We then would go back and forth calling each other out of touch for a little while and then we'd go on talking about something else.

To the extent that you want to change the facts to include an urban area or an argument over some other cause, then we'd have dissimilar, inapplicable facts.

So, equality in this case wouldn't be an equality of the lowest common denominator. Rather, all people deserve to be treated as if they are human, with the needs and rights that entails. — Moliere

In Ferguson (which seems to be the alluded to other event), a young man stole some stuff from a convenience store, knocked down the store owner, and, when confronted by police, charged at the officer and attacked him through the officer's window. He was shot in what was described as a struggle for the officer's gun.

That death resulted in a number of false reports by witnesses at the scene, all contradicted by the physical evidence. As a result of the death being ruled justified, the citizens threw rocks, fired guns, burned buildings, and looted stores.

So, let's treat everyone equitably, but first explain to me how the two are similar so that we can properly apply precedent. Would you rather be standing in that town in Oregon right now or in Ferguson during the riots? I'd suspect the former (despite it probably being really cold there right now). Why? Could it be that you realize that the former is much safer than the latter. If so, wouldn't the safer place require less police action? Isn't that how it works?

We don't have to like the crap the Established Order offers, but it is a waste of outrage to complain that a bunch of white guys out in the woods weren't greeted by a SWAT team. — Bitter Crank

I agreed with the first half of your post where you pointed out that varying responses to varying threats made sense, but then you devolved into arguing that really it was all political.

There is a difference between protesting in favor of greater workers rights and physically blocking people from going to work. The first is legal, the second not.

The SWAT team didn't greet the folks in Oregon, not because all the protestors were white, but because, other than the local sheriff and maybe a deputy or two, there is no additional law enforcement there, much less a SWAT team.

How does the Yeehawist National Front differ from the Yahooist National Front (think Gulliver's Travels, not has-been internet company)? — Bitter Crank

The Yahooists were replaced by the Googlists, both of whom were predated by the AOLists.

Granted, a similar response came out from the state during Occupy Wallstreet, but not during the Tea Party rallies — discoii

The Tea Party didn't camp out in public places. There's a difference between protesting and living in the street.

Regarding the Oregon situation, these folks seized an unoccupied outpost, so it's not like they ousted anyone or confronted anyone. Had the media not shown up, I'm not sure anyone would have known. Who knows, maybe the same thing is going on somewhere in rural Idaho but word hasn't gotten out yet.

We both know what would have happened if 150 brown people went to some federal building armed with assault rifles and occupied it by force. — discoii

No, I don't know what would have happened if 150 African Americans converged in rural Oregon to protest someone's prison sentence. It'd have been odd, given the demographics of rural Oregon, but I don't expect that there would have been a shootout as you suggest. The location is significant, considering I'd expect a very different response from the government had these protestors (and that's not really what they are: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2016/01/03/militia-members-occupy-us-building-in-oregon-after-protest/78226600/) staged a takeover of a federal courthouse in Manhattan, for example. I'd also expect a different response if the protestors took to the streets in an urban area and set fire to police cars.

There is a context here that cannot be overlooked, and the fact that these nuts are far away from civilization fighting for causes that most of us care little about is critical, having little or nothing to do with race. But, for the record, if these folks are all beaten with sticks and taken to jail, you won't get an objection from me.

Using the Hebrew lunar based calendar, my birthday was on the 2nd day of Sivan, 5726. I'd like a birthday wish each 2nd of Sivan. All else is gentile bullshit.

The sun is stupid. The moon rocks.

I was born on the 21st day of May in the year of your Lord, nineteen hundred and $ixty $ix.

I say your Lord because I'm Jewish and we started counting when God separated light from darkness, not from when some random dude was born.

I use $ for S because I'm big money, that's why.

This is hopelessly unclear. Some will think you were born March 1 and others the 3rd day of January.

Point, step, throw: the basics taught during Little League practice to boys and boys alone. That's one reason girls don't throw right.

There's a lot of misinformation around. I trust the WHO statistics that I provided, rather than Hanover's university studies :)

I do admit that Hanover brought up some information which does put in question some of my claims. Is that bad? Not really, no. I don't want to prove my point on this matter - there's no proving as there's too much uncertainties involved - but merely offering you different perspectives :) — Agustino

Even if we accepted the WHO data as gospel (and note that the article I cited performed the same DALY analysis as WHO and achieved very different results), it states, "Data on the relative prevalence of major depression among different ethnic groups have reached no clear consensus. However, the only known study to have covered dysthymia specifically found it to be more common in African and Mexican Americans than in European Americans." This is an indication that the poorer minority groups in the US are driving depression stats up, contrary to your claim that wealth is the cause of depression.

To the specific question of whether those in poverty are more depressed than those not in poverty in the US, the answer is clearly that they are, with a rate double those not in poverty. http://www.gallup.com/poll/158417/poverty-comes-depression-illness.aspx

I don't want to prove my point on this matter — Agustino

Why don't you want to prove your point?

Eastern European peasants are some of the most moral (and happy!) people I have ever met. — Agustino

This is useless information. I don't mean that in a mean way; it's just that your personal assessment of the folks you've met is pretty irrelevant.

That's why the US's divorce/marriage ratio is 53%. — Agustino

The US isn't in the top 10 among nations with the highest divorce rates. In fact, the top 4 are all Eastern European countries. http://www.mapsofworld.com/world-top-ten/countries-with-highest-divorce-rate-map.html . Divorce in the US is most highly correlated with poverty, lack of education, and early age of marriage. <a href="http://psychcentral.com/lib/the-myth-of-the-high-rate-of-divorce/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://psychcentral.com/lib/the-myth-of-the-high-rate-of-divorce/</a>

That's why US is the most depressed country in the world. — Agustino

Do you not have Google on your computer? https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2013/11/07/a-stunning-map-of-depression-rates-around-the-world/ The correlation between depression and poverty appears to be directly related, with Eastern Europe fairing poorly. The US is not on the list of the most depressed nations. Your use of the US as the best example of wealth is also flawed. The Scandanavian nations tend to have higher per capita wealth, yet often fair the best in terms of happiness. You'll note that the happiest nations on this list are all wealthy Western European countries. http://www.businessinsider.com/new-world-happiness-report-2015-2015-4

That's why suicide rates are at 15 per 100,000 population. — Agustino

The US is 50th in suicide rate. They are far behind many Eastern European nations, and many non-Western Asian nations. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_rate You're spouting off incorrect figures in an effort to make your dubious claim that there is a relationship between comfort and immorality.

Comfort is the cause of immorality. When people are comfortable, with all their needs met, they dream the most treacherous of things - the most vain and selfish desires - they desire lots of alcohol, lots of drugs, lots of new highs. — Agustino

Eastern Europe dominates the world in terms of alcohol consumption per capita. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_alcohol_consumption_per_capita

All of this is just to point out two things (1) you've done no research and have misstated all the relevant facts related to your argument, and (2) poverty does not lead to morality, happiness, and a good, solid life.

Poverty creates all sorts of challenges, many of which lead to failed relationships, drug and alcohol abuse, crime, violence, teenage pregnancy, reduced education, depression, and general hopelessness. There may be a certain vacuousness to the lives of the rich and famous, but no one really believes that those lives are more difficult than those residing in public housing.

OK, then we agree. I think you're right that it's a misconception. Rationality, in this context, seems to boil down to whether or not one acts towards one's interests, whether that be self-interest or altruism. I think we naturally tend to judge others based on our own values, and that that can result in judging the other as foolish if they don't act in accord with our own values, like my initial reaction to someone handing in a valuable lost item, rather than keeping it for themselves. — Sapientia

This assumes an ethical subjectivism, where right and wrong are simply personal preferences. As in, it's ok to take your stuff as long as I don't feel bad about it, and it's wrong to take your stuff it it's going to make me feel bad. If that is your position, then why limit it to the return of lost items? Why not simply say that it's ok to randomly punch someone in the face as long as you can live with your conscience and not ok to do that if it's going to cause you internal grief?

What I'm saying is that the mindless pursuit of self interest is in fact immoral and that showing concern and compassion for others is moral. Whether you want to define doing a moral act as rational or not is another matter, but it's entirely possible that rationality isn't the most critical guiding principle in distinguishing right from wrong. That is, if rape, robbery, and murder is my most rational course in some hypothetical situation, that hardly means I ought to do it from a moral perspective.

I'm not arguing that putting the interests of others ahead of one's own is noble or altruistic. I am saying it's a better way to live. It generates calmness and clarity and maturity. Those who are always out to get something for themselves act like children. They are comical, if not absurd. Their life is unexamined. — Landru Guide Us

Amen.

15 years later I still feel annoyed about not claiming the $100. — Bitter Crank

Not to moralize here (ahem), but had you kept the $100, it would have been theft. There's a difference between keeping abandoned property (as in the person intentionally or through gross negligence gave the property away) and mislaid property (as in simple forgetfulness), especially where the owner of the mislaid property can be easily identified.

Your perusal of her belongings was a bit suspect as well, not clearly being performed to simply to inventory them, but seemingly to assess their practical value to you.

I can say that had I kept the $100 in your situation, I would have forever felt I had done wrong, not just in violating a general moral principle, but for having taken that person's rightful possession.

Years ago, I left my wallet on top of my car. It was eventually thrown from the car near an interstate exit ramp. I was out of town at the time. Someone saw the wallet as they were driving, stopped, got out in the street and got my wallet. They then called 411 (pre Google days) and found my father's phone number. He then called me at my hotel and we exchanged information and this person drove to my hotel with the wallet. He refused any reward.

Wouldn't you have rather have been that person than the sorry ass person you were when you thought about stealing that poor woman's stuff?

I

I'll weigh in on this: it's wrong to lie, but we shouldn't outlaw lying.

The government need not intervene every time you are wronged.

The best way to stop population growth is to improve the living conditions of people. If people are more prosperous, they have less children. At least that has been the case in history. — ssu

People are good.