Locke

Exactly. People only care about Darfur because a few rich celebreties have latched onto it to gain personal publicity for themselves. People like George Clooney who oppose removing Saddam from power (a mass murderer) but support sending our troops to die in Darfur to stop mass murder. What a hypocrite. Our troops should not leave our borders unless it is to defend countries who have allied with us. My assumption is that you are in the same group of people who support the war in Iraq then. Ridiculous. No one poses a threat to our country as long as we're protecting it. Invading other countries like Iraq and Darfur only sends our army away from the Heartland, making an attack at home easier for the enemy.

It is my personal belief that these events are a form of natural selection. I believe that countries who have risen above the level of such atrocities should completely isolate themselves from countries that cannot seem to get it together. In every way, any country involved in the UN should withdraw any form of contact with countries that can't seem to shape up and ignore anything that happens in them. This is the reason I have strongly opposed any form of intervention in Iraq despite Saddam being a mass murderer, and its the same reason I oppose any intervention in Darfur. I don't believe it is any country's responsibility to act as the World Police.

In countries where arranged marriage is the cultural norm, the idea of marriage has nothing to do with pursuing romantic interests. The idea of marriage is an institution just like family, one that you don't choose, and one that is useful to the families as a whole, and therefore benefiting society. To answer your last sentence, I do believe there is an absolute right, and that there is an absolute wrong, but I don't see his problem having either. I don't think our idea of marriage is any more right than any other, because I don't see it harming anyone. Like Shadow did, you could say that it is robbing people of their freedoms they deserve, but then I could just say that not allowing children to be allowed to leave their family and pick a new one is robbing them of freedoms. In cultures where marriages are arranged, the idea of "family" is much more of a life-long commitment than it is here. "Marriage" is just an extension of the same family you were born into, and since its purpose is not self-serving, but for the entire family, our idea of choosing our own mate her meets certain romantic criteria is irrelevant. That is not what marriage is about in other cultures. It is no more restricted than children not being allowed to leave one family and choose their own. Is our idea of family barbaric? Freedom is such a relative word. You are being inconsistent by suggesting that its barbaric because freedoms are restricted, yet you ignore all of the freedoms restricted in our culture. It's exactly like what John Locke wrote about. Everyone is born with liberty, and we sacrifice some freedoms that accompany that liberty for the betterment of society. Why is it barbaric if a culture chooses to sacrifice one freedom, but when your society sacrifices another it isn't barbaric? Your society has decided that it is good for it if people pursue romantic interests in order to find a mate of their own - it is a product of the much more separated idea of family that is prevalent in our culture. Our families don't have the life-long commitment that cultures that have the tradition of arranged marriage have towards each other. You just don't seem to give enough evidence to make me think that the loss of the freedom to choose your own mate is the important of a freedom that it would make it "barbaric" for a society to decide it was better to not have it. No, as your topic title suggests, you are here to discuss why they are barbaric, in an absolute sense. If instituted in our culture, of course its barbaric, but from a transcultural standpoint, I don't see the loss of the freedom to choose your mate as something you have proven to be 'barbaric' AND been able to stay consistent with your own beliefs.

Sorry. I didn't realize you wanted to exclude yourself from any type of serious discussion based on the idea that you play video games. Won't make that mistake again.

Never did I say, "it's their culture, you can't criticize it," nor is that my point of view. My point is that you are giving your definition of marriage and applying it to theirs and trying to compare the two, but they are two different things that serve two different purposes in society. I am also saying that your definition of freedom is inconsistent. If freedom is "being allowed to choose what you want" then you are blindly ignoring the lack of freedoms you have that would also be considered barbaric. Your definition of freedom is, in fact, limited, and happens to include "being allowed to choose a spouse," yet you fail to give any reasons as to why choosing a spouse should be considered a universal freedom. It's inconsistent to the idea that you don't suggest that not being able to choose your family is barbaric, yet not being able to choose your spouse is. I'm not saying you can't criticize it, nor am I saying that you can't criticize other cultures just because they are different cultures. What I'm saying is that if you are going to criticize a culture for their practices, not only do you have to be consistent about it, but you also have to use logical arguments that speak to a universality of humanity.

It's no more slavery than forcing someone to live with their family growing up. There are plenty of freedoms that you don't have because its not cultural for you to have them, and the same goes for arranged marriage. Your definition of freedom is also shaped by your culture, and everyone's definition of what constitutes "free" is different. Even in your response you show that you are still looking at this from your culture's perspective. "The ability to choose what you want" is not a universal definition of freedom. Once again, you cannot choose your family when you are born. A person coming from a cultural tradition of arranged marriage will view family as something that is not chosen, its just what it is, and that goes for who you marry as well. Your definition of freedom requires people being allowed to choose your spouse, but where you live, a child is not allowed to leave his parents and pick new parents. He is not free in that sense, and therefore, ANY idea of family is "barbaric." Your are still defining marriage in your own way to suit your purposes. Now you are defining freedom in your own way to suit your purposes. To you, marriage is about choosing who you want to live with - but that is YOUR cultures definition of marriage. That is what marriage is in your culture. In other cultures, marriage is like the rest of the family you are born with. You just live with it because that's the way it is. It is not about pursing an eros form of love and choosing who you want to live with, in the same way children don't get to pick which parents they want.

No, I'm not saying that at all. Where did I even come close to saying that? What I'm saying is that our definition of what marriage should be is based off of a romantic love interest that we pursue on our own - that's our culture. But other cultures view marriage differently, and just because its a similar concept, doesn't mean it's the same. For a culture that traditionally follows arranged marriage, marriage is NOT about pursuing an individual eros kind of love. In the same way you love your family because they are your family, not because you chose them yourself, marriage is something that is beneficial to the family and therefore beneficial to the society, and love (more of a philia love than eros, usually) just happens in the same way it does when you realize you love your family. The problem is you are looking it from your own perspective and your own idea of marriage. To you, marriage is something you pursue when you find someone you have fallen in love with and want to spend the rest of your life with. But that is because in your culture, that is what marriage is. In a culture that follows arranged marriage, the idea of finding someone you have fallen in love with and want to be with is NOT the definition nor the purpose of marriage. Arranged marriage is barbaric if you are defining marriage under your culture's concept of it, but marriage is seen as an entirely different concept with an entirely different purpose in other cultures. It's not that there isn't love, but an eros type of love that dominates the concept of marriage is not an functioning idea in the society. It's not barbaric, it is just a different way a society sustains itself.

You should care since dropping that many atomic bombs would kill everyone on the planet.

Arranged marriage is only barbaric in a society that puts love as the reason for marriage. In other societies, where romantic feelings are not the foundation of a marriage, why should it be called barbaric? It would be no more barbaric than saying it is barbaric to be forced to live with your parents and siblings growing up. It is only barbaric under our definition of marriage, but just because its the same word, does not mean its the same idea.

So if his views of human nature is they are incapable to controlling passion and insubprdiante to the idea of justice i don't see how Grim_Jokes' view of human nature to be irresponsible can't be considered philosophical. I can give you irresponsible, but his entire statement is diminished by him first stating that all humans are "morons." If he had said irresponsible as a stand alone statement, then its arguably philosophical, but to claim that all humans are "morons" isn't even close, and demonstrates that 'irresponsible' should be taken in an entirely different context than philosophical because it is being used along with a word like "moron," which is not philosophical.

I guess my point between the lines is that Grim_Jokes did not present a philosophical view of human nature, but instead, a testable a verifiable statement about the makeup of mankind. Intelligence can in fact be tested, and one's responsibility in how they act is also testable - it would fall into a social science of some form. To classify the statement, "all humans are morons and are irresponsible" as a philosophy is an absolute disgrace towards an otherwise respectable school of thought. Grim_Jokes statement was nothing but arrogance, and for you to defend it as a philosophical view on human nature is painfully damaging to philosophy.

So his philosophy, which is based on proof, is not a philosophy because the point of philosophy is that it can't be proven according to you, yet it is a philosophical view of human nature? --- I'm an ancient ethicist and an absolutist.

That's exactly why I don't think they're going to sell a lot of the phones. I've got a Zune ($250) and the with the plan I'm looking at I can get a Razor for $30. That's $280 for movies, music, photos, and phone as opposed the rediculous price of the iPhone. True. But the functionality of a RAZR pales in comparison to an PDA phone.

But if we did that, we'd be hypocrites. :-k Do you believe that it is okay to fine people for speeding, littering, or other small offense?

Your research is poor. That statement is made based off a guess about what the processor might be and why that means it couldn't run OS X. It's just a guess, yet you try to present it as fact. http://www.roughlydrafted.com/RD/RDM.Tech.Q1.07/081A0C60-AD28-40EE-89EE-D54F1024FDBB.html

I'd say he looks into it and makes a 1976-Reagan like run for it just to test the waters. He's behind Hillary and all the major Republican choices in all the polls, and he has dropped in the polls, not moved up. I think he needs to prove himself more. He's a great speaker - but what does that mean he'll do? His 2 years in the Senate haven't shown us much so far.

Some estimates put Saddam's death total at over a million.

That is a belief, an opinion, that you hold. It does not make it truth just because you say it. There are people who believe that justice exists, and that capital punishment can be just, just because you disagree, doesn't make it untrue.

That is an improper characterization of the American justice system, actually. The death penalty is not handed out for someone who kills someone else, that would be "an eye for an eye." In order to receive the death penalty, the criminal has to do something that goes beyond just murder. If you put someone in jail for life, why is that not revenge? The only reason is because YOU don't believe that it is revenge, you see that as justice. No matter how long the person is in jail, no matter what kind of reeducation the person receives, it is still an act that is being done in response to the crime. That is either revenge, or justice, depending on your belief - and just because you think capital punishment can only be thought of as revenge doesn't mean it is. People can very easily see what you view as acceptable punishment to be nothing more than revenge, but that doesn't mean its so. You do not have the sole authority to define the difference between revenge and justice, so quit pretending you do. Accept that fact that although you think it is wrong, vengeful, and nothing more than blood lust, other completely rational people see it as justice.

I've heard season 4 is the best of the 5.

It was his own people.

But that isn't what the person said. He said its not fair to have taxes go to support a mass murderer's life. There is a difference in principle, not just in cost. But it's OK to have more taxes go to support a mass murderer's death? So, basically your "principle" is just revenge and blood lust. Okay, I understand that when you see capital punishment, you believe it is nothing more than revenge and blood lust. You need to understand, however, that some people view capital punishment as justice, and whether or not you agree that it is justice, people do believe that. So if I say that tax payers dollars supporting a mass murderer's death is just, it is not my belief that it is revenge or blood lust. That's your belief, not mine.

But that isn't what the person said. He said its not fair to have taxes go to support a mass murderer's life. There is a difference in principle, not just in cost.

So true, I remember how many people were pro war shortly after 9/11, now everybody is using the government as a scape goat and pretending like it was all their idea to go there. Pretty sad :S I remember everyone being anti war from the start, it depends on where you're from. USA Today reported that around 76% of America supported the war when the United States invaded. You can argue about whether or not the support came from being mislead or not, but the country overwhelming supported the invasion.

So... The Iraqi civilians dying to these terrorist attacks that are being redirected from American soil are what exactly? Are these different than the Iraqi civilians dying to Saddam's hands?