Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Le Congrès, c'est moi

Anonymous said:

You have absolutely no right to force your sense of morality on another person, nor do you have any right to force what your religious beliefs are on anyone else. If you think you do, you are no better then opressive states and regimes that force their citizens to believe a certain religion/certain world view. we live in a free and open society, let's keep it that way, lets we want to turn into the next libya, egypt, china, north korea, etc etc etc. 


I replied:


1) How do you know?
2) If the 19C slaveowner said, "you have absolutely no right to force your sense of morality on another person, nor do you have any right to force what your religious beliefs are on anyone else," would you be on their side too, or on the slaves' side?
3) If my belief that kidnapping healthy 30 year old women for ransom money is morally reprehensible is religiously-motivated, will you allow me to make my argument, or will you use this same kind of biased language to shut me up?


And those are societies largely characterised by a LACK of respect for human life and rights. That's so funny.

Anonymous replied:


I know because it's in the first amendment to the constitution, bucko. Perhaps hou (sic) ought to read it. 


By the way, since you want to basically pretend to take the moral high ground by likening yourself to a slavery abolitionist, I'll play that game.


By forcing me to be an incubator, at detriment to my physical, emotional, and mental health, and to suffer painful labor and childbirth, YOU are enslaving MY body. It cuts both ways.


I replied:


Yes, and when it's over, it's over. The unwanted use of your body is over. 
You're just giving us arbitrary reasons why you don't want to. You'd rather kill the baby than inconvenience yourself, but that's not permissible.


The 1st Amendment reads:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.


May I ask what in that text is relevant to the question I asked you?

4 comments:

David said...

"If the 19C slaveowner said, "you have absolutely no right to force your sense of morality on another person, nor do you have any right to force what your religious beliefs are on anyone else,..."

Did not 19C slave owners make that argument? They did exercise their right to argue this viewpoint, but lost in the marketplace of ideas. In a free society not all ideas win.

"If my belief that kidnapping healthy 30 year old women for ransom money is morally reprehensible is religiously-motivated, will you allow me to make my argument, or will you use this same kind of biased language to shut me up?"

Strawman. Who is arguing against this?

Rhology said...

Hi david,

Yes, your "free society" comment scores a point against Anonymous' contention, not mine.

And Anonymous is arguing against the same thing when s/he says I can't "force my morality" on others. S/he does that very thing with respect to kidnapping, so why make that argument?

Anonymous said...

David,

By "the marketplace of ideas", you don't by any chance mean "the Civil War"? Sure, marketplace. And Sherman's March to the Sea would be what, a factory recall? C'mon - the end of slavery in America was not determined by "a free society", it was imposed, via a five-year bloodbath, on one half of the country at the hands of the other half.

bossmanham said...

You have absolutely no right to force your sense of morality on another person

I assume he thinks this is a moral imperative...haha. People don't think before they post.