Your moral values.

Yeah, pdog, I drive better drunk than most people who are sober do, as well.

Of course, I am also bullet-proof.

Rats, I am gone off for a week
for xmas, no computer
Love you guys,
be back in a week.
boy will i ever miss A2K
Happy Holidays!

1) Tax evasion by withholding important information.
2) Politicians, to get money for themselves, using their influence to get a law passed which they know to be against the public's interest.
3) Kidnapping and holding a child ransom.
4) Buying stolen goods.
5) Newspapers treating crime as news and making a known criminal appear heroic
6) Cheating on your spouse.
7) Not voting in a national election.
8) Driving while well over the legal limit of alcohol.
9) Keeping $10 of extra change given by a clerk by mistake
10) Smoking in elevators.

I sincerely believe that my moral values are better than sixty percent of the people living today. I do not discriminate against any human , I always return over-changes , I contribute money to the Second Harvest Food Bank and Habitat for Humanities , I love all peoples , but especially children , I challenge anybody I think is bigoted , I always make it a point to bring school supplies when I visit third world countries , have given money donations to schools in Africa and Fiji , and I have friends in Egypt, Tanzania, Australia, Germany, Iran, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, England, Holland, and the US . I have received Holiday Greetings from four foreign countries thus far. Not bad for an atheist. c.i.

Craven - been a while lad!

Morality is I would say, an absolute; the judgment of degree is irrelevant!

It is important to satisfy one's own standards of acceptable dealings with our fellow "travelers", so that one is able to sleep soundly.

Too long!

I'll concede that it's an absolute as long as you concede that circumstance makes it impossible to dictate simplistic criteria.

What I'm saying is that details can change one's opinion of a situation's morality.

This topic was supposed to go hand in hand with another discussion on morality but I haven't had time to post it. I'll get back to this later.

Here goes craven again, always so "orderly" and
organized about things .... is THIS what is what
they call anal retentive? Could this personality feature
have anything to do with craven's moon over the USA
from "the sex in outer space thread"?
Alright, let me see what's what ...
#1 Kidnapping and scaring a poor kid half to death takes #1
spot
#2 is CHEATING ON YOUR SPOUSE, now normally this would rank
considerably lower on the scale as far as I am concerned
but with married women currently holding the #1 at risk
group for getting AIDS, (usually from their hubbie) I think
this rates second place.
#3 is DRIVING DRINK and risking not just your own drunk ass
but other's asses as well
#4 would be our politicians who do exactly whatever craven
said they do & always NOT in our best interest.
#5 goes to THE NEWS - although, the public who WATCHES
(and or reads) the news for its daily dose of disgusting &
vile crime and horror stories ... DO play a vital part in THAT
situation. If readers did not buy, crime would not be such
an attractive & profitable topic.
#6 Buying stolen goods, since this perpetuates the practice
of robbing people's homes, stores, etc - which then
leads to higher cost of insurance, which we ALL end up
paying for in the end, anyway.
#7 Smoking in elevators is probably dangerous to all concerned.
#8 Keeping the extra $10 in change, because the clerk may end
up having the money taken out of her/his check..not fair
#9 evasion on income tax ... this, would be #10, except that
#10 is #10, because the rich people can easily avoid paying
on their share of income taxes legally, while the rest have
to take the chance on getting caught - and made to pay
interest and yada yada yada
#10 Not to vote. What can I say, after the last presidential
election, ( I live in FLORIDA ) I would say that this no
longer matters much. If you enjoy the fantasy that your
vote counts, go for it. If not, oh well... whatever.

I'm far from orderly. Just ask jes, she's orderly and my disjointed haphazard manner must drive her nuts.

and, by the way I had absolutely NO idea
that Venus is the only one that rotates
clockwise, but I SURE do appreciate that
little tidbit of information, craven. In fact,
I have enjoyed ALL your little daily factoids
They are fun & enjoyable. Thanks

I put smoking, drunk driving and failure to vote at the bottom and all the rest at the top.

1,9,2,6,5,3,8,4,10.

Absolutely!

I never expect moral choices to be easy.

(e.g. you notice how long I wrangled with this response!)

1) Politicians, to get money for themselves, using their influence to get a law passed which they know to be against the public's interest.

To my mind, there can be no greater betrayal than betrayal of Public Trust.

2) Newspapers treating crime as news and making a known criminal appear heroic.

Pretty much as above.


3) Kidnapping and holding a child ransom.

About as cowardly, despicable a crime as there is, as far as I'm concerned.


4) Driving while well over the legal limit of alcohol.

Arrogant Stupidity which places the property and well being of others at risk. Inexcuseable.

5) Buying stolen goods.

Not only condones but enables crimes of property and increases probability of crimes of violence.

6) Tax evasion by withholding important information.

Theft, pure and simple, given no justification by its wide practice.

7) Not voting in a national election.

Folks who don't vote not only get the government they deserve, they have no right to complain about it.

8) Cheating on your spouse.

If one's word (The Vows) means nothing, and the trust given by one's spouse means nothing, one means nothing.

9) Keeping $10 of extra change given by a clerk by mistake.

Again, theft, pure and simple, and inexcuseable.

10) Smoking in elevators.

Apart from the health-of-others issue, it is incredibly rude ... and I'm a smoker.



timber

dear canine friend
it sounds as though,
thou dost protest too much
thy lengthy argument & debate
over drunken driving is telling on
yourself in a most unfortunate way....
while i am sure that your driving when drunk
perhaps is far superior to my driving when sober
the police generally puts the drunken one in the slammer!

so Craven, do you hold any opinion
regarding your own list, or is it just
for fun, for the rest of us?

1) Kidnapping and holding a child ransom.

It does not hurt as many people as #2 but it requires a degree of coldness to human life that #2 does not. In #2 one can delude oneself into thinking it's a victimless crime, this one requires a vicious cakllous heart and a propensity for cruelty. Then again it could be a kidnapping like the one in "A Perfect World" and many people's opinions about the severity of the moral breach would change. In addition to my opinion this is illegal. More on that later.

2) Politicians, to get money for themselves, using their influence to get a law passed which they know to be against the public's interest.

This affects a broad segment of the population and I think that if a public sevarnt does a bad job in a high position he should be jailed. If he intentionally breaks the law while holding this authority he should be jailed in a 1 meter by 1 meter cell for life with only an IV to feed him/her. I'm kidding but I really hate abuse of this kind of authority. This is also illegal.

4) Buying stolen goods.

This directly sdupports crime, it might be an item that cost someone their life and is illegal.

6) Driving while well over the legal limit of alcohol.

It is illegal and a threat to the lives of others.

8) Tax evasion by withholding important information.

It is illegal.

5) Newspapers treating crime as news and making a known criminal appear heroic.

As despicable and devastating this is to society this is not illegal so this is why it's lower on my list than other acts. Law is in effect collective morality. Since we all have different views on morals law is the only way to enforce a logical set of moral rules. If this were illegal it would be high on my list because it's devastating to society.

10) Keeping $10 of extra change given by a clerk by mistake.

Theft, can ruin someone's life.

9) Cheating on your spouse.

Not illegal but it's a violation of a trust. If one cheats on someone without having made any commitment to fidelity I do not even think it's cheating though.

3) Smoking in elevators.

Very rude.

7) Not voting in a national election.

Not illegal (in the US, in Brazil voting is mandatory). In Brazil since the vote is mandatory many ignorant votes are made (like people who do eeny mini miney mo to choose at the polling booth). I think that people should only vote if they care about the issues enough to follow them and have an educated opinion on them. If someone is motivated enough to vote they care. If they are too lazy to vote then their vote might not have been one that was well thought out.

Minor details in the situations can skew it all. I'll deal with this in an interaction I post in the future.

Circumstantial excuses can be made for almost every point, so that they either become less bad, or more bad.
Let's take smoking in an elevator. I'm not a smoker myself, but was raised in a family where everybody else smoked, never bothered me much, so I'm ok with it I guess.
So if the person smokes in an empty elevator, no big deal.
If the same person smokes in an occupied elevator, it's more serious.
If one person politely coughs to state (s)he doesn't appreciate the smoking, but is being ignored, it is becoming rude.
Finally, if there are people in the elevator with a disease/condition that makes breathing difficult, and the person in question, KNOWING THIS, still lights a cigarette, said person starts to rank worse as the politicians and or kidnappers.

As far as drunk driving goes : If it's an emergency, what then? A friend of mine had a father who was driving some drunk friends of his home, while he was sober. Unfortunately, he had a heart attack in the front seat. This was before cellular phones spread rapidly, so noone had one. One of his drunk buddies climbed in the front seat and drove to the hospital. In my opinion, this man is excused.

Still, after this somewhat unneccesary and tediously lengthy reply so far, here's my list of assigned values.
1) Kidnapping (worst of crimes, ranks right up there with murder)
2) Cheating on spouse/drunk driving/Corrupt Politicians ( Either very harmful to single person, or moderately harmful to lot of persons)
3) Buying stolen goods/tax evasion/Newspapers distorting news (Money crimes will not directly harm, but they can : the newspaper one is insidious is so far that over a longer timeperiod this can corrupt the values of its audience, which is BAD indeed, but even as a one time episode it's still wrong)
4) keeping change.(compromising your own ethics : not good)
5) smoking in elevators/not voting during election. (Neither rates as a crime in my opinion, but this depends on the circumstance. As far as not voting goes, if your faith in politics is eroded away due to corrupt politicians, I can understand why someone doesn't feel like voting anymore. For the record : I still vote! )

Regards,
naj

Kidnapping
Driving drunk
Cheating on spouse
Politicians using influence
Newspapers treating crime
Buying stolen goods
Keeping $10
Smoking in elevator
Tax evasion
Not voting

Let me give it a crack.

1) Kidnapping and holding a child ransom.
2) Politicians, to get money for themselves, using their influence to get a law passed which they know to be against the public's interest.
10) Smoking in elevators.
3) Buying stolen goods.
7) Newspapers treating crime as news and making a known criminal appear heroic.
8) Driving while well over the legal limit of alcohol.
9) Not voting in a national election.
4) Tax evasion by withholding important information.
6) Cheating on your spouse.
5) Keeping $10 of extra change given by a clerk by mistake.

If one is willing to take a child for ransom, he/she is also capable of doing all the rest.
Politicians that are willing to enrich themselves over their constituency are crooks of the worst kind. They have sold their soul for money.
Buying stolen goods shows how dishonest one is. Doesn't care how it hurts the victim.
Tax evasion is probably a mixed bag, because I think the majority of Americans practice it. But as an ex-bean counter, I abhor any type of dishonesty. People who cheat on their taxes can't decry the Enrons and Arthur Andersens.
Keep change that doesn't belong to you is dishonest. Anybody willing to forego ethics for $10 cannot be trusted.
Here's another one of those popular and/or majority does it questions. I will not go into other's bedrooms no matter the reasons. I just worry about myself.
I can't be the watchdog for all the newspapers. One must learn to be skeptical of any news that comes out, and any bias it may represent.
It's the police's responsibility to make sure this is controlled. I can't do anything about his type of criminal behavior, except to make sure I don't engage in such.
It's not up to me to make sure everybody eligible to vote go to the polls. That's a personal responsibility issue.
There are laws that outlaws smoking in any building in California. My exposure to smokers is limited, so it's not a problem for me, a non-smoker.

While most of the items mentioned are bona fide crimes (the general level categorization chosen by most suits me), there are a few:

Buying stolen goods; - second hand theft,
Keeping the $10; - theft by default,
Smoking in an elevator, or bus shelter; - totally inconsiderate,
Tax evasion, or "omision", - stealing from oneself,
Not voting; - not caring

that to me, are symptoms of an a-social behavioural propensity; perhaps they are stealing from themselves; honesty and decency are important factors in your own self image.