And you guys thought *I* was nuts.

[Diogenes]

Hell,

Why aren't we doing what Japan has done and shutting down all nuke plants.

Japan is being motivated by a currently active political meme. Till the meme runs out of fuel, or is doused, it will keep on burning.

Fortunately we've been able to keep the same meme under control over here.

And speaking of collateral risks why is alcohol still legal?

Because enough people thought the benefits of alcohol were worth the number of deaths it cost.

I actually don't have a problem with people drinking alcohol, but there ought to be a way of slowing-down/weeding-out abusers.

[CKay]

I'm not the one claiming that objective evidence can show an act to be morally right or wrong.

No, you are the one claiming that a position you support cannot be defined by objective evidence.

No. I can define it - just not to your satisfaction (remember the continuum fallacy - vagueness alone does not necessarily imply invalidity).

(So you're no longer claiming that you can prove the objective existence of a universal moral law?)

[MSimon]

Nuclear plants. Japan has shut them down due to collateral damage.

And of course there is alcohol. The only drug statistically associated with an increase of violence.

Ah. I forgot guns. And knives. The Brits are wise to have practically outlawed both. They get collateral damage.

[Diogenes]

I'm not the one claiming that objective evidence can show an act to be morally right or wrong.

No, you are the one claiming that a position you support cannot be defined by objective evidence.

No. I can define it - just not to your satisfaction (remember the continuum fallacy - vagueness alone does not necessarily imply invalidity).

That there is a clear and defining line belies your resort to the continuum fallacy. You choose to put a threshold where one is not clear, and to ignore a threshold where one is indeed very clear.

A Star and a life begins with the first fusion. There is no need to look for commencement boundaries in the subsequent lifetime of either.

(So you're no longer claiming that you can prove the objective existence of a universal moral law?)

I didn't claim that in the first place, I said I believe I it can be so proven. (Not to you of course, but to people with objectivity.)

[MSimon]

I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it. - Thomas Jefferson

[Diogenes]

Nuclear plants. Japan has shut them down due to collateral damage.

And of course there is alcohol. The only drug statistically associated with an increase of violence.

Ah. I forgot guns. And knives. The Brits are wise to have practically outlawed both. They get collateral damage.

Simon, most of your arguments appear to me to be variations of false equivalencies. You casually mention one thing, and then say something else is exactly the same thing, when in fact they are quite different.

To you the drug war is depriving people of "freedom", to me it is constraining sick people from spreading their illness to others.

It is like demanding the "freedom" to shoot guns into the air randomly, and then to refuse to be held accountable for where the bullets land.

Drugs CAUSE sickness, death, murder, robbery, etc. and it has nothing to do with the fact that they are illegal. In other words, they cause damage FAR beyond their black market destruction. They cause DIRECT destruction. It is as a result of the destruction they caused that they were made illegal in the first place.

And now we have once again turned another thread into a discussion on drugs.

[MSimon]

(Not to you of course, but to people with objectivity.)

Where can we find such wise rulers and how do we insure that only they control us? And how do we insulate them from greed which is known to cause corruption?

[Diogenes]

I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it. - Thomas Jefferson

It isn't "liberty" when it leaves behind the bodies of innocents.

[MSimon]

Nuclear plants. Japan has shut them down due to collateral damage.

And of course there is alcohol. The only drug statistically associated with an increase of violence.

Ah. I forgot guns. And knives. The Brits are wise to have practically outlawed both. They get collateral damage.

[MSimon]

It isn't "liberty" when it leaves behind the bodies of innocents.

Guns will have to be the first to go. Obviously.

[Diogenes]

(Not to you of course, but to people with objectivity.)

Where can we find such wise rulers and how do we insure that only they control us? And how do we insulate them from greed which is known to cause corruption?

You can find them within. All you have to do is give up your preconceived notions, especially those that you have rationalized to suit you.

[Diogenes]

It isn't "liberty" when it leaves behind the bodies of innocents.

Guns will have to be the first to go. Obviously.

Really? I thought guns are needed to leave behind the bodies of the guilty?

[CKay]

You choose to put a threshold where one is not clear, and to ignore a threshold where one is indeed very clear.

There is certainly a difference between an unfertilised egg and a zygote, but there is also qualitative difference between a zygote and a person (and any vagueness in defining a precise boundary does not invalidate the existence of qualitative difference).

You're threshold isn't 'better' than mine. /shrug

[MSimon]

OK. I'm thinking you have a point about collateral damage.

Prohibition does not stop the flow of drugs and causes lots of collateral damage. Oh wise objective one when will you be ready to call for an end of it?

Or has the experience of alcohol prohibition not reached your wise consciousness yet?

BTW drug use rates in Holland are 1/2 of those of the US. Oh wise one when will you support a policy that decreases drug use?

My thinking is that there are no wise ones. It is a conceit to cover for a Power and Control addiction.

[MSimon]

You choose to put a threshold where one is not clear, and to ignore a threshold where one is indeed very clear.

There is certainly a difference between an unfertilised egg and a zygote, but there is also qualitative difference between a zygote and a person (and any vagueness in defining a precise boundary does not invalidate the existence of qualitative difference).

You're threshold isn't 'better' than mine. /shrug

I often ask "is an acorn a tree?" When? I have yet to see an OBJECTIVE answer.

But not to worry D. It seems I have infected even conservative kids with the libertarian disease. You don't want to be alive when they come into power. Besides the dead are free of fear. As far as we can tell. Objectively.