Harvey wrote:
>My take on "extremism" is that extremists try to go as far as possible in
one direction or the other. I think the real answer is always somewhere in
the middle.
Maybe I have this wrong, but are we suggesting that the guiding principle
for making decisions is to be its placement on the scale of popular beliefs?
Why not base your decisions on your rational analysis of the facts? Yes you
might come to a position that many people may not hold, but you will have
been honest with yourself and not compromised your opinions for the sake of
being "non-combative" i.e. You want to figure out whether the 2nd amendment
is morally sound? Well read it, then read the federalist papers, then read
anything about it written by the authors (and anyone else) about why it is
there. Then come to a conclusion and stand by it. I can understand why this
angle may seem combative to majority of people, only because most people
suffer from the lack of self esteem to trust their own decisions so they go
for the nice gooey safe middle.
>The fact of the matter is that any position can be taken to unreasonable
extremes.
I don't think the correct and "right" solution is to go to far. I cant
imagine an engineer thinking like this when building a product. Like him
saying "Steel is the hardest material we can build this bridge out of and
Jell-O is the softest, lets find something in the middle to use". Just as
the engineer building a product used the right material, a judge or lawyer
should use the right law to build a correct objective moral system (the
alternative is a system based on the whims of the masses).
>It confuses them when they push for their solution and suddenly they go too
far.
Who decides what is too far?
>They become disoriented when someone allows their solution to be applied
"hypothetically" in all cases, to the point they start running into
problems.
Applying the solution to all cases is starting to sound like the concept
"principle". Yes, I think we can apply principles to many vast areas and
must do so. They are not to be taken without context though, like killing
someone that is breaking into your house with the intent of killing you and
your family would be considered morally acceptable.
>As a self-test, I would argue that anybody who agrees with one side of an
issue all the time is an extremist.
I think the killing of innocent people is morally wrong 100% of the time
(which is different then saying I wouldn't do it. i.e. WWII was brought to a
quick ending in the Pacific with the use of the nuclear bomb. It was morally
wrong to kill those people, but in the context of the war, more innocent
people would have died if it wasn't done). So context is key here.
>No group is right 100% of the time.
Is that statement correct 100% of the time? If so, then you just
contradicted yourself ;P
Jerry Mitchell
P.S. to board owner, can you write me and tell me why I am considered a
non-member because I do get the list in email so I must be a member of it or
is something else meant by non-member?
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Mon May 28 2001 - 09:56:17 MDT