You know a conversation is headed sideways when the topic turns to morals and ethics. For any major social issue of our time – gay marriage, women’s reproductive rights, freedom of speech, religion in public schools, even climate change – you can find normally reasonable people who reach contradictory conclusions on the ethical choice. [...]
Posts Tagged ‘ethics’
The golden rule, AKA The Ethic of Reciprocity is at the very heart of Christian thinking. (Not that Christians actually practice it, but that’s a rant for another time). However, “do to others what you would like to be done to you” suffers from an obvious logical flaw: not everyone wants to be treated the [...]
Jessie Ventura for President
by Kavan Wolfe
Just watch Jesse Ventura tell it like it is to Larry King, then smack down Sean Hannity and finally make a fool out of that cunt on The View, Elisabeth Hasselbeck.
The American Torture Defense: Nuanced or Nonsense?
by Kavan Wolfe
I have seen two separate defenses of torture from U.S. officials, media and pundits. I call these the Jack Bower defense and, since he gave it a few days ago, the Barrack Obama defense.
Jack Bower Defense
The Bower Defense goes like this: ‘If you’ve got a nuclear bomb about to go off, and the only way [...]
Many adults do not understand human rights – what they are, why they’re important, how their presence or absence affects the well-being of society. As far a I can tell, the reason adults don’t understand human rights is that they didn’t learn about it in school. What’s worse, even if human rights issues are covered [...]
United Nations Hijacked by Religious Whackjobs… jumps shark
by Kavan Wolfe
This is just fucking crazy. On March 26th, the U.N. Human Rights Council adopted a non-binding resolution calling “defamation of religion” a human rights violation.
I don’t think so. When, under Islamic law, Saudi Arabia beats a woman half to death and then throws her in jail for the heinous crime of being gang-raped, that’s a [...]
The Hypocrisy of the Freedom Rhetoric
by Kavan Wolfe
Many people have been led to believe that freedom is good and lack of freedom is bad; that the world can be divided into free societies and oppressed societies; that any limits to freedoms, be they through taxes, laws or regulations on corporations or individuals, are inherently evil. Let’s explore some of these, shall we?
I [...]
American Corporatism: An Abridged History
by Riley Firth
There is an idea that is pervasive in American capitalism that entrepreneurs are the great producers, great men who move the Earth through intelligence, perseverance, and creativity. You can hear it echoed from Ayn Rand to Ted Nugent: the executives are the people who produce and keep the world moving, while the knuckle-draggers shuffling to [...]
The Corporate Whipping Boy
by Riley Firth
As I watch the situation with AIG and Congress unfold, I can’t help but think about the nature of corporations, and what will happen to people like Edward Liddy – the CEO who authorized $4 million bonuses for the executives in charge of the insurance company despite the failure of the corporation. Is it really [...]
The American Work Ethic: Destroying Families for Decades
by Riley Firth
I recently had a discussion with a conservative acquaintance of mine about the nature of public assistance programs – him arguing that they are inherently evil, while I, of course, argued that they are absolutely necessary if a nation is to consider itself civilized. And of course, the issue that came up is what is [...]