God help us all

[Mr. Lothario]

     Mr. Lothario assumes it was because Macuber is trying to distinguish between himself and his online persona.

[Macuber]

Your assumption is correct Mr Lothario.

[jn.loudnotes]

that's a cheap shot, and pseudo-moralistic BS. would it be wrong of him if he did?

Yes, that's what I was implying.  He didn't answer my question in any case, which was how he could defend his statement that his primary motivation for supporting Bush was being personally better off.  Since millions of other people are not, I do think, from a moral, ethical, and logical standpoint, that his position is wrong.  I was just calling out the self-centeredness inherent in his statement - it doesn't take a moralist to see that.


                                                                                 

[*DAMN Bondo]

Or as Spock would say, "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few or the one."

Basic utilitarianism.

GhostSniper, the President submits a budget to the Congress, they can choose or not choose to pass it and they can choose to add take things off. The President also submitted the bills for the tax cuts that largely got us in this shit...again, yes Congress had to pass it but you cannot remove the blame from Bush. His party controls Congress, if he had asked for a more fiscally sound policy, Congress would have supported him. You also forget that Dick Cheney is President of the Senate.

No offense though GS, but you make Kerry look like he is wants to hide the fact he served in the military with how much you bring it up. I mean, good for you, and I respect it, but don't expect it to win you any points in debate.

[BTs_GhostSniper]

You also forget that Dick Cheney is President of the Senate.

Well, that one single statement shows me you know absolutely NOTHING about the Government of the United States.  Do you know what the SOLE duty of the Persident of the Senate is?  To cast a tie-breaking vote.  That's it.  Other than that, he just sits there bored off his ass.

Oh, he does get to perform one very funny duty, as Al Gore and Richard Nixon can attest to....

The Vice President (President of the Senate) is the person who reads off the winner of the Presidential Election to the Senate.  Well, in the case of Gore, who ran against Bush, and Nixon, who ran against Kennedy, the Vice President had to read off his own defeat.

[*DAMN Bondo]

And you show that you love assumptions.

I know that the President of the Senate in terms of voting capacity only breaks votes (must have been extra hard for Al Gore to announce Bush as president since Gore was the rightful winner.) However, the President at the Senate does help steer what is going on in the Senate. They are the equivilent of the speaker of the house (though usually they have a President pro tem standing in) and can try to bring the President's agendum to the table.

My point is, the executive and legislative branches are not as seperated as you claimed, and Bush actually has a lot to do with what they do and can be shouldered with some if not most of the blame for a lot of problems.

[BFG]

must have been extra hard for Al Gore to announce Bush as president since Gore was the rightful winner

Yeah, very very hard. Imagine having to say "Well you guys voted for me  but Bush has bought the election it so he's your president now, sorry"

... that sucks

[Cossack]

GS, we are both very involved in politics. The president can never control the senate directly, no he has his whips to do that for him. For instance the house bows down to Tom Delay. There are republican senators and congressmen who make sure the President's policies come to light. Politicans will always be making deals behind the tables. First rule in government: If it is not prohibited than it is permited. I am sure you knew all this but there you go.

[BTs_GhostSniper]

GS, we are both very involved in politics. The president can never control the senate directly, no he has his whips to do that for him. For instance the house bows down to Tom Delay. There are republican senators and congressmen who make sure the President's policies come to light. Politicans will always be making deals behind the tables. First rule in government: If it is not prohibited than it is permited. I am sure you knew all this but there you go.

Yes, but this isn't normally the case.  The last few years have been the first time in like a BILLION years that the Presidency, the House, and the Senate all had a Republican Majority.  I think the Democrats are going crazy right now because they had the majority since the beginning of time (using some poetic license here, don't shoot me), and now they don't know what to do to get it back.

(I purposely went a little off topic there)

[cookie]

Yes, that's what I was implying.  He didn't answer my question in any case, which was how he could defend his statement that his primary motivation for supporting Bush was being personally better off.  Since millions of other people are not, I do think, from a moral, ethical, and logical standpoint, that his position is wrong.  I was just calling out the self-centeredness inherent in his statement - it doesn't take a moralist to see that.

First of all, he didn't state that as his primary motivation. Certaintly as incentive, but his primary motivation, as i recall, is he thinks he is the best candidate. For various reasons.

And the stand you are taking on this is rooted in absolute moralism- the idea that right and wrong do exist. So, why is it wrong to put your best interests ahead of those of others? Are we in debt of one another?

You also say from a logical standpoint, it is wrong. I don't really understand, however, how it would be logical to vote for a candidate that would put you at a loss.

Ethically speaking, sure, from a deontological perspective you could argue GS is wrong. But financial gain is utilitarianism at it's finest, and hardly an applicable topic of contention if you're talking about ethics. You would also be implying absolute morals, once again, if you were to say he is ethically wrong... and I doubt anyone is in the position to tell another citizen what his civic responsibilities are and aren't.

On a closing note, I'd like to mention that you don't have to agree with GS's statements to think that it's his business how he will vote, including his reasons. You simply have to believe that morals are relative- nobody is inherently "right" or "wrong", especially when they are just doing what would be best for them or acting on their own beliefs. You can take personal and subjective standpoints, however, and I fully support the notion of an "opinion". I will vote for Kerry, but I don't think Bush voters are wrong. Perhaps misinformed, disillusioned, scared, but not wrong. They have their rights and ideas, and you have yours.

That should be respected, and I wish we would stop trying to impose our standards upon our peers. That's exactly what's getting the US in trouble with the world and its neighbors as we speak.

[jn.loudnotes]

Cookie, it sounds like we agree on more than it seems - when I said "wrong" I meant that I disagreed with it; earlier I had stated that I respected his right to an opinion, so by calling it wrong I did not intend to imply that its existence was invalid.

In the post I originally quoted, his statement implied that his own personal well-being improvement was his main reason.  Take a look at the quote - he cited it as a trump card, so to speak.

I would say, logically, that being financially better off if the majority of the nation/world is suffering is not actually being better off as a human being.  That's somewhat normative and caught up in ethics as well, but there is a logical element that argues that suffering all around you diminishes your own happiness.  So yes there is a logical standpoint - it's a weaker argument than the ethical, but it's there.  And while you do stress the important point that ethical positions can never be right or wrong, there are some that are so indefensible that consensus dictates that they are as close to falsity as possible.  I contend that GS's views, which he still hasn't supported, are so overwhelming self-absorbed (and misguidedly so) that they near this end of the moral spectrum.

And incidentally, while I agree with you in general on the folly of imposing ideas on others, I think there are times, again by overriding consensus, when those views should be forced.  For a current example - I think absolutely that any nation, or all nations, would be justified in imposing their abhorrence of genocide on Sudan by whatever means necessary to stop the violence.  Of course we're politically more likely to let it be another Rwanda, but that's for another debate.