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legislating morality

which laws?

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obvious Child said:
Maybe you should actually read what I wrote before fabricating arguments I never made. It's bad when you make up an argument that was refuted within the very words you quoted.
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Is the problem you had with my post initially that I dared suggest the left is equally as interested in controlling people's behaviors and choices? You deny that or is your argument that it's just different and ok if the it's the left doing it? Would you ever support an individual mandate if it hadn't been liberals instituting it? In my experience, conservatives want big government when it comes to crime, national security and abortion, and there is legit criticism over the sheer number crimes that keep getting added to the books every year. Liberals want to control what's available out of this notion we need to be protected from ourselves - unless it's marijuana - that should be available in every school lunch. lol
 
obvious Child said:
Except that the side you dislike doesn't call for laws that would push women back towards being chattel. Granted, the Soviets were pretty evil, but you do have to give them a hand in how they had far better equality. Unlike, oh, say Tehran or Riyadh.
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Oh and this is pretty frikkin' idiotic and lame but I'm actually glad to see you finally embracing being the leftist apologist you are (instead of acting as if you're just all above it). Tell me what laws I support making women property or admit you're just regurgitating bull****.
 
mpg said:
had to?



If it wasn't, you'd be putting the child above the mother. I have no desire to do that. I believe in equality.
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Good, you acknowlege it was not 'equal' for women before Roe v Wade for starters.

And so then you are putting the child above the mother, being willing to let the mother die to save it. Thank you for the admission.

Not sure what part of 'unequal' you dont understand there....please try a dictionary.

I've never said it was equal, I've always stood for a woman's rights over something unborn, and that might not even survive to be born or might end up severely defective in ways undetectable in the womb.
 
EMNofSeattle said:
abortion was not an issue in colonial america, that's a fallacy, so of course there's nothing in the constitution about it.
.
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Abortion was well known, esp to men and women of the higher classes, esp. to the men who had mistresses, such as some of the Founding Fathers. It was no secret at all and there were resources for dealing with unwanted pregnancy. It wasnt an 'issue' because women really had few ways to exercise their rights apart from men at the time.
 
EMNofSeattle said:
abortion was not an issue in colonial america, that's a fallacy, so of course there's nothing in the constitution about it.
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Abortion was practiced at the time the constitution was written. If it wasn't an issue, it was because there was no objection to it.

there's nothing about cars or computers or genetically modified corn or what have you. you can argue the constitution espouses a philosophy of limited government involvement and as a result government shouldn't be involved in choice to abort, that would be a valid argument IMO but saying "the constitution doesn't recognize rights of the unborn" is, at least to me, not a great argument because it presupposes the founders even considered the issue.
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I believe the Framers were quite conscious of what they were doing, and were aware of what the word person means as demonstrated by the way they distinguish between "person" and "citizen". If they had believed that the unborn had rights, or that the govt should have the power to protect those rights, they would have put it in the constitution.

I do not favor making abortion illegal BTW....
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Yes, I got that. But the point we're discussing goes beyond abortion, as you seem to clearly understand.
 
Lursa said:
Abortion was well known, esp to men and women of the higher classes, esp. to the men who had mistresses, such as some of the Founding Fathers. It was no secret at all and there were resources for dealing with unwanted pregnancy. It wasnt an 'issue' because women really had few ways to exercise their rights apart from men at the time.
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Re: the Const, it wasnt focused at abortion, it was really just acknowlegement not recognizing the unborn (because it's a dumb idea), and there was no reason to do so. And there still isnt.
 
EMNofSeattle said:
clearly the parties are not equal in your opinion if the mother gets the preference.....
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I'm willing to let the mother have the preference if she wants it. She wouldn't get it automatically. Sometimes with Siamese twins, one has to be sacrificed to save the other. Someone has to choose who lives, and the mother seems like the obvious person to make that choice.
 
mpg said:
I'm willing to let the mother have the preference if she wants it. She wouldn't get it automatically. Sometimes with Siamese twins, one has to be sacrificed to save the other. Someone has to choose who lives, and the mother seems like the obvious person to make that choice.
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So the govt would still have the legal authority to tell a woman she cant have chemotherapy if it would kill the fetus then, for ex. You know, say if the doctor told the authorities that the mother only had a 40% chance of survival, well then the govt could decide to stop the treatment. Hey, let me ask you...what would you decide for that woman? Kill her or the fetus? Because that is exactly the decision you are claiming you should be able to make for her. I mean, *when exactly* is the mother the "obvious" person to make that decision?
 
Lursa said:
So the govt would still have the legal authority to tell a woman she cant have chemotherapy if it would kill the fetus then, for ex. You know, say if the doctor told the authorities that the mother only had a 40% chance of survival, well then the govt could decide to stop the treatment. Hey, let me ask you...what would you decide for that woman? Kill her or the fetus? Because that is exactly the decision you are claiming you should be able to make for her. I mean, *when exactly* is the mother the "obvious" person to make that decision?
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Even in that situation, that would be saving the life of the mother, so I would let her make the decision.
 
All laws are based on morality to some degree. However, for us here in the US, we have placed into law a main, general morality of our society in the form of the Constitution. It is pretty general in its nature as to what the goal of laws should be (although it is written in a way to limit what laws the government can make to restrict freedom, rather than actually listing specific goals directly). From that base set of laws, we get into more objective lawmaking but that still holds some subjectivity to it, for the most part.

And individual morals are subjective because they are opinions of each person, even if many people or a vast majority of people share certain morals. There are an indeterminable number of questions on morality, and if any two people were given the chance to answer each and every possible moral question that could ever be asked, then the likelihood of any two people answering every single one of those questions the exact same way would be extremely small, almost to the point of non-existent.

I think a major problem is that many think that because so many people agree on certain very general morals (killing is wrong, stealing is wrong, lying is wrong), that they think that the laws dealing with these things must be objective. It isn't true though. Most people allow for certain situations, at the least, where any of these things would not be considered wrong, even if they were against the law. Killing is justified for many reasons. In fact, most people have no issue with the killing of non-human organisms, particularly the further away from humans an organism is within the biological classification (DKPCOFGS). And even when we get to killing humans, almost everyone has some exceptions they make for this. Actually, there are likely less known exceptions made for stealing than for killing. Although I would argue that many would say that stealing was okay if there was one person or a small group of people who claimed legal ownership to most of the planet's resources, and others were dying because they were basically not sharing. Nor would many say that "stealing" habitat or resources from animals was wrong, claiming that the animals could not make a legal claim to those resources, being animals. Lying of some form is generally acceptable to most people, plus there is a subjective view of what exactly is lying and what is simply not telling what a person knows (lying by omission is a subjective concept in itself).

Although I do want to address the difference between murder and killing. Killing is taking a life. Murder is killing a human in a way that violates a law. For individual societies, murder is defined in a certain way, making those laws that deal with murder objective. However, when we look at what is considered murder in different societies, that shows that the laws are based on individual societies' beliefs on what is or is not justified/morally right or wrong when it comes to taking another person's life. Plus, not everyone in a society will agree with what should or should not be considered murder.
 
sangha said:
No, it need not be a moral imperative but rather a selfish one.

I can protect my tribe, not because it's the moral thing to do, but because I benefit from doing so.
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And if that is so, does the selfish tribesman believe it to be moral to benefit himself? Is it moral to be self interested? Bottom line is that each and every act is either moral or immoral. Therefore every law that regulates behavior has a moral basis, even if that morality is subject to societal norms.
 
X Factor said:
Is the problem you had with my post initially that I dared suggest the left is equally as interested in controlling people's behaviors and choices?
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I never argued they didn't. I just pointed out your examples apply, equally if not more to the right. To which you had no rebuttal but to attack me. Did you give any counter argument? No, you did not.

You deny that or is your argument that it's just different and ok if the it's the left doing it?
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Would help if I actually argued what you claimed....rather than you just making fabrications. Also, if you paid attention (which you failed to do) is that I have argued that all laws are some form of morality and I have repeatedly argued for years that the sole difference between big Democrat government and big Republican government is women's rights. We both end up with power hungry overbearing governments. You are basically pretending those arguments I've made for years don't exist. Which is dishonest.

Would you ever support an individual mandate if it hadn't been liberals instituting it?
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Yes, because it's the conservative thing to do assuming we do not repeal Reagan's hospital philosophy. Explain this to me, how is it is conservative to promote the theft of insurance monies to pay for those who are unwilling to get their own insurance? Tell me how it's the conservative thing to do to penalize responsible folks who are taking care of themselves and reward the freeloaders. I'd love an answer to this because none of the ACA's detractors here have ever been willing to address this argument. They all cowardly just run away.

In my experience, conservatives want big government when it comes to crime, national security and abortion, and there is legit criticism over the sheer number crimes that keep getting added to the books every year. Liberals want to control what's available out of this notion we need to be protected from ourselves - unless it's marijuana - that should be available in every school lunch. lol
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So you think all of the social conservatism rules regulation private behavior aren't Conservative? That's pretty.....screwed up.

Oh and this is pretty frikkin' idiotic and lame but I'm actually glad to see you finally embracing being the leftist apologist you are (instead of acting as if you're just all above it). Tell me what laws I support making women property or admit you're just regurgitating bull****.
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Easy, by making healthcare choices for them. ER dysfunction drugs for years were covered under medicare/medicaid. But contraceptives, which often aren't even used for that, see cramping alleviation were not. See the huge fight over getting federal coverage for them now. Tell me how that's expanding women's rights to the level that men had for years. Please, try.

Note that your two posts are nothing but personal attacks. You attempted no rebuttals, provided no facts, did nothing but personally attack me.

What does that say about you?
 
Lursa said:
So the govt would still have the legal authority to tell a woman she cant have chemotherapy if it would kill the fetus then, for ex. You know, say if the doctor told the authorities that the mother only had a 40% chance of survival, well then the govt could decide to stop the treatment. Hey, let me ask you...what would you decide for that woman? Kill her or the fetus? Because that is exactly the decision you are claiming you should be able to make for her. I mean, *when exactly* is the mother the "obvious" person to make that decision?
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mpg said:
Even in that situation, that would be saving the life of the mother, so I would let her make the decision.
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You would *let* her make the decision? How generous of you. How about if she had a 30% chance of survival? 20%? 10%? What gives you or the govt the right to make that choice balancing her life against the fetus?
 
Lursa said:
You would *let* her make the decision? How generous of you. How about if she had a 30% chance of survival? 20%? 10%? What gives you or the govt the right to make that choice balancing her life against the fetus?
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As long as her life is threatened, the decision should be hers, even if she has a 99% chance of survival.
 
We don't need no stinkin laws. Just everybody, everywhere pray for bad people to die.
 
faithful_servant said:
DING! DING! DING! WE HAVE A WINNAH!!!
The very definition of laws is forcing the common morality of the society in which you live upon the members of that society. That's what a law is. The idea that some people have in thier heads that they're having someone else's morality forced on them and that that's a bad thing is gross immaturity.
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No. The idea that laws are based upon religious principles is flawed. Although those religious zealots that fund the right wing movement would like you and the rest of the right wing apostles to keep singing that tune.
 
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