Get the government out of my bedroom!
I need more room for the sheep.
We have about finished degrading humans in general, now it’s time to work on the animals.
Every time I hear somene rip off some bullshit about “You can’t legislate morality, man!” it make me want to jam a face eating monkey down their pants. How fucking stupid do you have to be to say something that ignorant?
No, you cannot pass a law that will make people be moral anymore than you can pass a law that will stop Tupacs Abeer from busting a cap in MC Twoturntablesandamicrophone, but the POINT of law is to PUNISH IMMORAL BEHAVIOR.
Witness:
Murder. Immoral. Illegal.
Rape. Immoral. Illegal.
Theft. Immoral. Illegal.
See a pattern emerging here? The morality of jamming your pecker in an 11 year old’s mouth/ass is not even a question among civilized people, and neither is the morality of cornholing a sheep and then cooking it for dinner. This is different from “GET THE GOVERNMENT OUT OF MY BEDROOM!!!!. What consenting adults do with their time is their own business, unless they do it in the SUBWAY in front of a TROOP OF GIRLSCOUTS. And there is absolutely no sane person who thinks otherwise. But it’s an issue in every election because the media and the left MAKE it an issue. No. You cannot make people act in a certain manner by making laws, as has been repeatedly demonstrated through human history. But you can put them in the stripey hole if they don’t obey the laws, and the laws SHOULD be limited to REWARDNG MORAL OR PUNISHING IMMORAL BEHAVIOR. (This dichtomy between not making laws because they don’t do anything to change human behavior and the general illegality of firearms makes the People’s Socialist Republic of Illinois the most schizophrenic state in the union, IMHO)
Driving 170 on the expressway (If you have a car that will do that!) is illegal, and will get you a ticket and if you do it often enough it will get you a lot more. But it is not intrinsically immoral so long as your driving skills are up to the task and the road conditions are appropriate.
Driving 170 in a busy school zone just as the kids are getting off school is stupid, and the case can be made that it is immoral.
Why both of these situations are more or less equal in the eyes of the law blows my mind. But it is the way things are; we have spent the last 50 years or more concentrating on the politically correct and ignoring the moral; so that every special interest group has a group of nanny laws that protect it like a cocoon, and god forbid you commit a crime that involves a “protected” person because then it’s a “Hate crime” which enhances your penalty. How the fuck can a crime be less offensive if it’s committed against a white male?
Which brings me to:White Males, the Fat, the Religious, and Smokers are the last people on whom the season is always open; they are the vermin of the New Humanity, and need to be eliminated at all cost. Scratch that, enslave them with onerous taxes so they can support the lifestyles of the True Real Extra Good people who are never judgemental. (The Rich are also in there, but everyone knows all rich people are white males, right? A black man can’t be rich anymore than he can be racist. GET YOUR FILTHY HANDS OUT OF HIS BANK ACCOUNT!!)
Which brings me to Tam via Marko links to a piece about Hungarians making lists of Jews. if you listen, you can hear the melody, I’m sure we all know this song.
We don’t learn. As a race, Humans have lost the ability to learn from their mistakes and grow. It’s still possible as individuals, but soon that may go away.
Famously, Twain said “History does not repeat itself, but it does rhyme.” Yes, Mr Clemens, yes it does.
22 comments Og | Uncategorized
“(T)he POINT of law is to PUNISH IMMORAL BEHAVIOR”
“(T)he laws SHOULD be limited to REWARDNG MORAL OR PUNISHING IMMORAL BEHAVIOR”
I agree with your OVERALL conclusion (We don’t learn, etc.), but not your premise here.
Laws in this country are expressly prohibited from enforcing a moral code, “Congress shall make no law regarding the establishment of religion or the free exercise thereof.” HOWEVER, our founders still made laws, therefore we must ask, “To what purpose, if not to enforce/reward moral behavior and punish immoral behavior?” The answer, if I’ve divined it correctly, was to maintain ORDER.
Murder (immoral…yes, but) causes disORDER.
Rape (immoral…yes, but) causes disORDER.
Theft (immoral…yes, but) causes disORDER
Despite your crotchety nature and your manifold past (and likely continuing–based on human nature and your own writings) sins, you are a fundamentally GOOD man, with both a moral code you aspire to meet AND a love of/desire for ORDER. Living up to your moral code would enhance order–and moreso if the rest of us did as well. Therefore, you see parallelism and assume congruency of purpose. The Venn diagrams don’t match, but they DO have overlap and parallelism.
You seem like a pretty smart guy. How do “Morals” equal “religion”.
What I’ve written is clear enough. o venn diagrams required.
Murder. Immoral. Illegal. Tell me which par t is in error.
Wait, you can’t.
I’m going to have to work on “How do ‘Morals’ equal ‘religion’.”, mainly because I’ve learned that if the idea isn’t fully formed and defined early, the discussion goes off the tracks. I want the foundation right, so I’m going to dig a bit to ensure I’m on bedrock before I try to answer. Get back to you on that part in a bit.
What I WILL answer, to answer the second question, is:
“Murder. Immoral. Illegal. Tell me which part is in error.”
None of that is in error, for Murder, Rape, or Theft.
My later comment regarding the Venns meant to imply that whereas you are saying (Murder is immoral, therefore illegal), my position is (Murder is immoral) AND (Murder disrupts social order, therefore illegal). The path to illegal is different, but I don’t dispute that it is either immoral OR illegal.
“My later comment regarding the Venns meant to imply that whereas you are saying (Murder is immoral, therefore illegal), ”
Wow.
How on earth can you make that assumption from what I wrote? I cannot possibly imagine what brings you from that A to that apricot.
The point of what I’m saying is we MAKE LAWS TO PUNISH IMMORAL BEHAVIOR. Murder is not illegal because it is immoral. We have made LAWS to make murder illegal because it is immoral but we also make laws to make moral things illegal. because somethingis immoral, though, it doesn’t automatically become illegal, which seems to be the conclusion you are drawing
OK, if that was the wrong way to read “the POINT of law is to PUNISH IMMORAL BEHAVIOR.
Witness:
Murder. Immoral. Illegal.
Rape. Immoral. Illegal.
Theft. Immoral. Illegal. ” then I withdraw the statement of causality that I interpreted as implicit and stated as explicit.
I may be being inadvertently obtuse, but while I understand all the words, if the above causality interpretation is NOT correct, then what do these sentences mean together?
“The point of what I’m saying is we MAKE LAWS TO PUNISH IMMORAL BEHAVIOR. Murder is not illegal because it is immoral. We have made LAWS to make murder illegal because it is immoral”
(I’m cutting off the “but we also…” portion intentionally because I (think we) agree we DO, and probably SHOULD NOT)
And here I see one place you’ve again taught me to ensure I include all the words I think should be there. The causality statement I thought was in your original post was: (Murder is immoral, therefore *we have made it* illegal). The corresponding statement in my “path” to illegality of murder would be (Murder disrupts social order, therefore *we have made it* illegal.)
Nothing is illegal without laws to make it so. I don’t dispute that.
Im driving so cant respond now but think about it.
You bet. I’ll be working through “morality” and “religion” in our context for a later answer too.
While your at it show how the non religeous cant be moral
I’m not sure I agree completely either Og. There’s some overlap between the legal and moral, but it’s not 100%. Not all immoral behavior is punished (say, adultery), and not all punishable behavior is immoral (driving 60 mph in a 55 mph zone).
Theoretically, laws are made to punish those who violate others rights (in practice, er, we seem to keep getting further away from that ideal). We punish pedophiles because the child isn’t capable of giving consent. We don’t punish adulterers (legally) because they’re two consenting adults, although for instance if the adulterer is Roman Catholic they may be punished by their church for their immoral behavior.
Whenever I find myself disagreeing with you, I wonder what I’m missing.
Thanks Og. Said the same things myself on many occasions. Can’t add a thing.
I too, disgree on the implied relationships, however, I am no philospher, on TV or by trade.
I believe that all people are born understanding the difference between good and evil. This gives rise to values. Morals arise from values, religion arises from morals.
Laws arise from social contracts that bind the disparate sets of moral code. At least as long as they are mutually beneficial.
From this perspective, I can say that laws that appear dumb and have stupid consequences exist because the prevailing value set lets it exist. Or, in other words, evil will prevail as long as good men do nothing.
In this context: Murder = let us not live in fear of being murdered without legal consequence = illegal. I am not free from the worry of being murdered because the act is immoral. I know that there are people who do not see murder as being immoral, in each case. And they live in the same country as I. For the most part they also abide by the social contract (rule of law), for the same benefits.
Yall are confusing morality and theology
Good ones Og, and you got a troll on this one… People just cannot believe morality and religion are separate… sigh
NFO, I hope you’re not calling me a troll. We’ve communicated outside blog posts and were mutually respectful. Somewhat similar backgrounds and interests in our careers.
Unless one is an agnostic or atheist, I don’t see how anyone COULD hold a position that what their religion teaches would not be the moral code to which they should subscribe. That seems to be the key feature of most religions. Part of the reason I’m not prepared to just type what would have been immediate answer is I want to ensure I’m not ignoring the agnostic or atheist who can surely hold a moral code as well.
Now, I’m going to keep working on why the Founders used “religion”, and not “morality” (I think there’s an obvious answer, but I want to find backup). Work is interfering with this at the moment.
And, I’m curious about Og’s comment re: confusing morality and theology.
So, I’m chewing on that as well.
Old NFO. Sometimes religions DO define morality. For instance the Sustainability worshipers have redefined what constitutes and innocent. (That’s a new religion. Because it has successfully avoided being defined as one (“We believe the planet has limits, therefore the number of humans allowed to exist needs to be limited.”) it has succeeded to involve itself with much of our statecraft and laws. The number of ways to bring about the death of infants and oldsters will increase until those who still abide the old moral codes realize that they are under attack.
Essentially under cover of denying that the new moral codes are religious based the ideologies based on them have essentially created a state religion.
Bottom line: Morals need not be religious based, but beware the ones that ARE (but not yet designated as such) because they seem to be driving forces behind new and deadly laws. For instance, the morality of sticking a scissors in the skull of a child in process of being born and sucking its brains out.
Errata
1. an
dinnocent2. the death of infants, deformed, disabled and oldsters — and maybe even the non-compliant (declared incurably insane and thus also disabled aka political victims).
Morality and ethics were never really covered in my public school education. My moral and ethical education happened in Sunday School. It would be easy to mistakenly assume that because I learned it in Sunday School that such subjects are inherently religious.
For example, just because the most famous utterance of the principle treat others as you wish to be treated was Jesus Christ doesn’t make it an inherently religious principle.
I’m sure that many atheists follow it, and would agree it’s a good idea. You can’t be a very good Christian without following it.
For the life of me, I can’t see how something as simple and obvious as og posited could be turned into a debate.
Maybe because it’s a late Friday night, I can’t follow jetfxr69.
There are enough atheists who believe (sorry og) that they can be moral without religion, that I can’t understand how religion got into this discussion. There are people whose conscience dictates their moral behavior without acknowledging a supernatural cause of that conscience that we may agree that “religion” didn’t form their morality.
Murder is wrong. If you disagree the term for your condition is “sociopath”.
Society deems murder as “wrong” and punishes it.
It also misdefines murder (by not including abortion), but that is different than what og posited..
I agree with Og. But, if you think even more about it those immoral behaviors are punished because they interfere with other individuals lives, liberty, and their pursuit of happiness.
Bingo, Joe. Basic morality involves denying someone of their basic human rights. No theology required.
Now I’m wondering, is it simply that so many think “Oh, it couldn’t POSSIBLY be something like that again!” about the crap from Hungary, or that they just cannot conceive of someone actually doing that?
Does that make it ‘unable to learn from mistakes’, ‘unable to learn at all’, or ‘unable to understand just how evil some people can be’?