Obama '08?

You can't guarantee happiness. In fact, I know from having children that sometimes the more you do to increase someone else's happiness the more it actually decreases.

DrewDad wrote:

Just because some folks two hundred years ago decided that Liberty was the most desirable thing in the world doesn't mean we have to follow in the same path.

If you remember, one key thing was the freedom to pursuit happiness. I think they understood that if you protected liberty then people could pursue their own happiness, to varying degrees of success. You can't guarantee happiness. In fact, I know from having children that sometimes the more you do to increase someone else's happiness the more it actually decreases.

Quote:

Nuanced indeed ! An interesting comment from one who is so given to black and white distinctions; his own "invisible" sources of moral judgements; and (usually empty) authoritarian bullying in his rhetoric.

My sources of moral judgment are not invisible, but eminently real and practical ones: an examination of who benefits and who is harmed by an action. No appeal to some mystical principles or invisible authority, but instead the cold knife of Logic.

Your repeated description of me as 'authoritarian' is entirely without merit, and reflects more about you than it does about me. I would also add that those who continually make assertions and demand that others accept them at face value, without any supporting logic or factual documentation, has a little bit of an Authoritarian inside themselves as well, George. It seems to be that you are not against Authoritarianism, provided that you are the Authority

Cycloptichorn

Richard Cohen wants Obama to nuke Iran for Israel. Got it

Free Duck, if you would listen to your own advice, you would conclude that many of the Democrat's and Obama's socialistic policies are therefore the wrong road to follow.

And you still haven't explained what you are and why. Solutions to problems and issues are determined by applying basic principles, and therefore you must have some foundational principles to solve problems.

DrewDad wrote:

Just because some folks two hundred years ago decided that Liberty was the most desirable thing in the world doesn't mean we have to follow in the same path.

If you remember, one key thing was the freedom to pursuit happiness. I think they understood that if you protected liberty then people could pursue their own happiness, to varying degrees of success. You can't guarantee happiness. In fact, I know from having children that sometimes the more you do to increase someone else's happiness the more it actually decreases.

Frankly, maximizing personal liberty would also mean abolishing a host of laws and programs that I think make life better. Everything from the FDA to local law enforcement would be affected.

DrewDad wrote:

Frankly, maximizing personal liberty would also mean abolishing a host of laws and programs that I think make life better. Everything from the FDA to local law enforcement would be affected.

I guess I don't think that maximizing personal liberty (within the constraints of living in a society) necessarily means abolishing things like the FDA. The freedom to be poisoned by defective drugs doesn't rank high on my list of liberties.

I would say that the goal is not solely to maximize personal liberty, but to balance personal liberty with societal safety. And that balancing point is different for different people.

The freedom to be poisoned by defective drugs doesn't rank high on my list of liberties.

Maximizing personal liberty does not imply that there are no other constraints. Societal safety, itself ensuring liberty to an extent, is just such a constraint.

FreeDuck wrote:

DrewDad wrote:

Frankly, maximizing personal liberty would also mean abolishing a host of laws and programs that I think make life better. Everything from the FDA to local law enforcement would be affected.

I guess I don't think that maximizing personal liberty (within the constraints of living in a society) necessarily means abolishing things like the FDA. The freedom to be poisoned by defective drugs doesn't rank high on my list of liberties.

Still, in some ways he is correct. The FDA bans, for example, steroids and many recreational drugs; personal liberty maximization would say that you can't do that.

Cycloptichorn

FreeDuck wrote:

Maximizing personal liberty does not imply that there are no other constraints. Societal safety, itself ensuring liberty to an extent, is just such a constraint.

That's what it means to you. I'm not sure that's what it means to Foxfyre.

I would say that the goal is not solely to maximize personal liberty, but to balance personal liberty with societal safety. And that balancing point is different for different people.

I still find it incredible that the highest form of morality and authority in your view comes from you, your view of whoever has the power at any particular time. No wonder Democrats and liberals are authoritarianist, I guess in your view might makes right. Thankfully, a few of our greatest politicians that have guided this country through the toughest times had something more credible and appealing than that. That is precisely why we had the moral backbone to oppose the worst of the worst, people like Hitler, that also thought he was the highest moral authority, since he had all the power at that time in Germany, and he simply thought the world's evils could be eradicated if he could expand his brand of ultimate moral authority. Such thinking is totally bankrupt and vacant.

I am still shaking my head over your theory that the only reason we can exercise our power over animals is because we are stronger, not because we we were designed to do by the Creator. You really are really really whacked out, cyclops. I wonder if you know how whacked out you are, or if this is all an act here.