Sorry, Flinty, nothing personal
 

Something must be wrong with me because I understand most of Hank's posts.

Sorry, Flinty, nothing personal
 

club, now would be a good time to present your arguments for government sanctioned rape and torture. Spanky sounds like he might be receptive.

Sorry, Flinty, nothing personal
 

And gluttony- do we all know its wrong but some supress the knowledge?

Sorry, Flinty, nothing personal
 

Something is definitely wrong with you if you understand most of Hank's posts and you don't give him shit about them.

Sorry, Flinty, nothing personal
 

I hate to quote that moron tax wonk, but now we are going around in circles.

The president of Egypt would argue that it could be done under anasthesia, that if done right it has no negative long term health consequences, and that it benefits the society as a whole because it reduces immorality. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.

I still stand by my original statement. When telling the leader of any country that we are going to impose our moral will on them (because that is what we are doing) there are only three possible explanations.

1) It is in our national interest

2) Our mutation tells us to do it, so we are going to do it.

3) There are universal human rights. If there are universal human rights they have to come from somewhere. We will call it the creator (if they don't come from the creator where do they come from?). We feel it is our duty to protect and enforce those rights wherever and whenever we have the ability to do so.

Sorry, Flinty, nothing personal
 

I have met this Taxwonk fellow, and he is definitely not a moron.

I don't believe that there is female circumcision in Egypt, but if there were, and they were doing it in this way, and there were no adverse health consequences, and there were some real moral argument rather than some simple assertion about "reducing morality", then maybe the moral calculus would change. I'm a pragmatist. Sometimes the good of the public trumps individual rights, like when club tortures the terrorist to find out where in Manhattan the nuclear bomb is hidden.

Well, I was talking about trying to persuade them differently, not about imposing our will on them.

A variant of self-defense, perhaps?

Strangely unconvincing, if you ask me.

Why do we have to agree on where they came from? I say a Creator, and you say it derives from a respect for your fellow man, and someone else says 'just because' -- what difference does it make? You can always keep asking "so" or "why" in response to any answer to your question. It proves that you are stubborn, not that you have a monopoly on moral reasoning.

Sorry, Flinty, nothing personal
 

If it's under anaesthesia and there are no health risks, I don't have enough of a problem with the practice that I would object to it much more than I object to any number of other things. It's kind of icky, but not that much more than say piercing ears or male circumcision. It's not like allowing women to keep their clitorises is suddenly going to cause the society to place any kind of value on female sexual satisfaction.

The "no health risk" is bullshit in the traditions that also sew the vagina mostly shut -- that pretty much guarantees tearing during intercourse, and you are much more likely to contract AIDS if infected semen can hit the bloodstream directly. Not to mention that any kind of rending of flesh runs the risk of leading to infection.

Sorry, Flinty, nothing personal
 

1) You may not think he is a moron, but his posts today were certainly moronic. He assumed facts not in evidence, he could not discern the issues that were being discussed and he resorted to the usual last refuge of the moronic, he attacked the person and not the idea. In addition, I always find the combination of arrogance and ignorance especially annoying.

2) It seems we agree that there are universal human rights. You seem to be OK with the fact that you can't locate their origin. The fact that their origin is in question vexes me. I guess you will sleep better at night.

Sorry, Flinty, nothing personal
 

How's the wall feeling now?

Sorry, Flinty, nothing personal
 

You don't seem to have any question about their origin. The only thing that seems like it might be bothering you is that the rest of us don't buy your answer. Why lose sleep over that?

Oh, maybe you are worried about our immortal souls and hellfire.

Sorry, Flinty, nothing personal
 

I think that much of morality stems from a basic respect for other people -- for their autonomy, and dignity, and worth. The Golden Rule, if you will. The hard questions come when different moral claims collide. For example, is it OK to compel parents to innoculate their kids against certain diseases? You pit the parents' preferences, and role as parents, against the potential harm to other people from the spread of disease. There's no obvious answer -- it depends on things like the risks posed by the innoculation, the threat of disease, and the number of people who want to skip the innoculation.

Much religious doctrine can be understood as trying to strike the same sort of balance on similar questions. But I suspect few religions say anything about innoculation, since it's too new a problem.

Sorry, Flinty, nothing personal
 

Say if I'm a Christian Science parent and a health professional comes to my door with an order to put my kid in the hospital because he's bleeding non-stop from a snakebite. Can I chop his head off because he doesn't follow my god, or would that be wrong?

Sorry, Flinty, nothing personal
 

I think that chopping his head off is probably wrong, unless you are sure that your God will heal him such that he will not need to spend any money on medical care.

Sorry, Flinty, nothing personal
 

When I am telling a person of another culture how to conduct their life, I would like to have a strong backing for doing so. When they ask me, "how can you enforce these international human rights, when I tell I don't believe in any such nonsense." If my reply is, just because, that does not seem very solid.

Sorry, Flinty, nothing personal
 

you have to be able to read to get cured, so no. I do believe you are to the point where your beliefs add up to Sidd seeing you as a racist fuck, but let's see.