Comments Elsewhere

At one point, one of the white dudes said something to the effect of “We have never witnessed a wage increase due to illegal immigration.”

Ah, nativism.

Of course, immigrant workers’ wages increase from “illegal immigration”; it’s precisely for the wage increase that they immigrate. Nativist bully boys would like you to believe that they are merely looking out for the little guy; it always turns out, however, that they are avoiding a real discussion of class and labor in America, and trying to prop up the Anglo-American little guy’s standard of living at the expense of other workers who are even worse off. It would be ridiculous, if real people’s lives weren’t at stake.

Holocaust denial is a pretty rough edge.

Bithead: Look, John, that infrastructure was set up by mutual agreement within this society, within this culture, within this country…. years before any of us were born.

The decision to fund that out of public monies was done long ago. That choice is now part of that society. Call it baggage, call it history, call it what you will, it is part and parcel of what the society has become, so far.

I think this is perfectly absurd. Even if the decision to fund roads by coercive taxation were legitimate then, I don’t see how that obliges anyone now, who (ex hypothesi) wasn’t party to the “mutual agreement.” But let’s pretend for the second that that’s not so. Let’s go ahead and suppose, with you, that using government roads involves you in an obligation to pay taxes.

Fine. I’ll swear not to use government roads, if it means that I don’t have to pay any tax anymore. Will you support my right to refuse to pay taxes as long as I don’t use the roads?

scott: ok john, what ought i do? or would you like to start a new blog entry for this never-ending issue?

I think, in spite of your put-on of ignorance, you actually know some of the answer to this question, or at least some of the things that you need to get a start on answering it. In any case, if you don’t, there’s nothing I can do to help you.

For, while we must begin with what is evident, things are evident in two ways—some to us, some without qualification. Presumably, then, we must begin with things evident to us. Hence any one who is to listen intelligently to lectures about what is noble and just and, generally, about the subjects of political science must have been brought up in good habits. For the fact is a starting-point, and if this is sufficiently plain to him [sic], he will not need the reason as well; and the man [sic] who has been well brought up has or can easily get starting-points. And as for him [sic] who neither has nor can get them, let him hear the words of Hesiod:

Far best is he who knows all things himself;
Good, he that hearkens when men counsel right;
But he who neither knows, nor lays to heart
Another’s wisdom, is a useless wight.

—Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics Bk. I, section 4.

Mandos: “within a paradigm of male supremacy, equality between the sexes is impossible…” Er, um, isn’t this immediately and redundantly tautological anyway? Supremacy obviously can’t mean equality.

I think the point is that people (mostly men) often try to assert that equality between men and women exists in this or that limited domain based on superficial resemblences, but that they are mistaken: under a society-wide system of male supremacy the superficial resemblences do not actually play the same role or get taken up in the same way for the men that they do for the women. It’s obvious that supremacy and equality can’t coexist at the same time and in the same respect, but it’s not always obvious that male supremacy in particular is pervasive and systemic. It’s true that it is, but many (especially men) ignore or deny it.

scott: but first one must define right and wrong, which is a problem in itself.

Says who?

“Right” and “wrong” are pieces of ordinary English. As a competant speaker of the language I am quite familiar with what they mean; I figure that you are too. One may, or may not, be able to say what they mean in the form of an articulate definition, but the ability to use them consistently and correctly isn’t dependent on being able to give the definition. It can be demonstrated simply by buckling down and applying them consistently and correctly in concrete cases.

Kennedy: I strongly suspect this is not a learned behavior at all but rather something to which men are generally predisposed.

Why?

scott: JK, how do you know what right is? and what is meant by right anyway? you can’t answer these questions without simply leading to others.

The fact that you can raise a question does not guarantee that it is a cogent one. And the fact that there are outstanding philosophical questions about ethics does not mean that no-one can competantly reason about right and wrong (any more than the fact that there are outstanding scientific questions about matter means that no-one can competantly reason about tables and chairs).

TH: I’d tolerate the StripperGram, the boob and underwear obsession, the whole nine yards—if only she had a friggin’ platform, biography page…you know, stuff that might indicate that she’s actually interested in running for office.

From the Flash animation page:

1. Click “Visit the Nall for Governor Website!”

2. Scroll down content area on the right side of the page for links to campaign updates and news coverage

3. Scroll down through the sidebar on the left of the page.

4. Click “Bio” for a biography

5. Click “Platform” for a platform

6. Click “News Releases” for a press release announcing the candidacy and bullet-listing the most important planks of the platform

You can tolerate or not tolerate whatever you want, but it is a bit silly to complain about your difficulty in finding campaign information when I found this material in the few seconds that it took to load the campaign website.

Paging Carol Adams. Carol Adams to the TV, stat…

Ann: Do you think everyone should be allowed to pick and choose, and to follow only those laws that they personally consider tasteful?

No, everyone should be allowed to pick and choose, and to follow only those laws that are, in fact, just. Forcing people to comply with unjust laws is tyranny, and doing so in the name of “the rule of law” is just tyranny with a powdered wig on.

You express a great deal of anxiety over our willingness to break laws. This is certainly a legitimate concern. … One may well ask: “How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?” The answer is found in the fact that there are two types of laws: There are just and there are unjust laws. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with Saint Augustine that “An unjust law is no law at all.”

—Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” Emphasis added.