ELSEWHERE

Ethics: Keith Burgess Jackson has just put up a simplified taxonomy of metaethical positions which divides them into either consequentialist or deontological ones. Since I regard ethical statements as being usually translatable into ordinary empirical statements, I suppose it is no surprise that I do not feel comfortable with that classification. I think that most "is right", "is good" or "ought" statement boil down to "leads to generally desired long-term consequences" statements so, while I am clearly a consequentialist in that regard, I also think such statements have truth value -- they can be tested -- so that makes me a sort of deontologist too, I think. So I utterly reject moral relativism -- because it denies that moral statements can be tested or have truth value. I think, for instance, that "honesty is right" is not only true but testably true (i.e. one can at least in theory test whether or not honesty does usually lead to generally desired long-term consequences) and that anybody who denies that such a statement can be evaluated or compared in any way is not being serious. I am happy to concede however that people can use moral language in ways other than what I have just described and I say more about that here.

China pisses into the wind: "Chinese officials have recently demanded that the Australian government "review" its 50-year-old treaty with the United States. Australia "needs to be careful," Beijing Foreign Ministry official He Yafei reportedly warned, lest it wind up in a confrontation with China as part of its treaty obligations to the United States"

I have just put up here an article by a disillusioned black Democrat who details the very long history of oppression of blacks by Democrats. A very curious thing about this article is that it has been taken down from everywhere where it originally appeared -- perhaps because it uses the "n" word -- as blacks are wont to do. The High Court of Australia has recently ruled that the "n" word is not offensive in Australia so I will re-post the article on an Australian site if need be.

Scott Hogenson has some choice comments about the hypocritical silence from the Left about an inexperinced blogger being given access to White House press briefings -- after they howled blue murder about an inexperienced conservative journalist being given access.

Zacht Ei has the background on the dummo Italian journalist who was kidnapped in Iraq and then came under U.S. fire. She was sure that the Islamists would welcome Communists!

My latest posting on MarxWords notes that Marx was hopeless with money. No wonder he was such a naive economist! My latest posting on "A scripture blog" looks at the Ascension.

For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE and LEFTISTS AS ELITISTS. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here

**************************

That power only, not principles, is what matters to Leftist movers and shakers is perfectly shown by the 2004 Kerry campaign. They put up a man whose policies seemed to be 99% the same as George Bush's even though the Left have previously disagreed violently with those policies. "Whatever it takes" is their rule.

Leftist ideologues are phonies. For most of them all that they want is to sound good. They don't care about doing good. That's why they do so much harm. They don't really care what the results of their policies are as long as they are seen as having good intentions and can con "the masses" into giving them power.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist"

Comments? Email me here (Hotmail address). If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Page is here or here.

********************************