Will You Anti-romney People Apologize?

[Aloysius]

umm.. have you been listening to me at all?. I have consistently said: I am not holding out for a perfect candidate, not even Ron Paul was a perfect candidate. There is always a choice to pick the better over the worse. I don't think that Romney's better, that's the point man. But even if he was, the lesser of the bad candidates is always a viable choice, and you can argue over which one is better; but it is never a morally obligatory choice.

[Aloysius]

[quote name='qfnol31' timestamp='1351711621' post='2501340']
Don't kill my trolling.

[size=4]I honestly took that idea from here: [/size][url="http://www.ronpaul.com/on-the-issues/abortion/"]http://www.ronpaul.c...ssues/abortion/[/url]


[/quote]
he does want the individual states to have their own laws, just like they do regarding murder; but defining life as beginning at conception would not turn abortion into a federal crime (he believes there are only a few crimes that should be federal crimes, constitutionally); but if one were to define life as beginning at conception at a federal level then the protections of the Constitution would apply; meaning that every state would have its own laws regarding abortion, but that no state would actually be allowed to permit abortion anymore than a state is allowed to permit murder, because that violates the Constitution's protection of the unborn baby's right to life. States themselves would still vary on how it is policed or punished, but it could never be permitted by a state if all of the pieces of his plan were to get into place (there would be a time period in which some states legalized it and most illegalized it as a transitional time during his plan, it's the only way to get real change done)

[dUSt]

Yes, I have read what you say. I just can't get over the fact that you actually believe that Romney is not a better choice than Obama. How you equate the two is unfathomable to me. No matter how many times I re-read your reasons, they simply don't make sense. Sorry.

[Aloysius]

man, I listed them out issue by issue in the Don't Vote For Romney thread; if any of my reasoning was faulty it would've been cool to get a point-by-point refutation.

but like I said, even IF Romney was a slight improvement over Obama (I'm willing to allow for the possibility that he might be), that doesn't mean one is morally obligated to vote for him. For the sake of argument let's say there was a more clear-cut choice between, say, two people who wanted to explicitly exterminate a whole bunch of people. Say one of them wanted to exterminate 100,000 people, and the other guy only wanted to exterminate 90,000 people, and somehow those were the only two people that were "viable"... would I be obligated to vote for the 90,000 guy? What if it was someone who wanted to exterminate 100,000 people vs. someone who only wanted to exterminate 50,000 people... would I be obligated to vote for the 50,000 guy? Say it was the 100,000 guy vs. a 10,000 guy... I mean, I could save 90,000 lives by voting for the 10,000 guy, right?

Ooooo just as a random ethical aside, what if the 10,000 included my family, and the 100,000 included your family; or vice-versa?

See how this works? Limiting evil is NEVER as cut and dry as you are making it seem, and that is why while it can be an acceptable line of reasoning to "limit evil", it is never obligatory. For instance, it is entirely possible that if I vote for Romney it is more likely that many more Iranians will die than if Obama wins. I actually have a friend from Iran whose family lives there... he's actually an atheist who doesn't like Ahmadinijad but also doesn't want to get bombed to smithereens... what the hell kind of choice do I have? Obama will likely kill an entirely different subset of people with his very high-civilian-casualty drone strikes (though Romney's just as likely to kill all of those people to), he might also bomb Iran or he might not, it's less certain with him than with Romney... Obama has a secret assassination list that Romney would get to inherit if he won, he'd get to add or subtract from it to decide who the US Military is authorized to search for and assassinate without any kind of due process. what kind of choice is there? between one guy who wants to kill x people and the other guy who wants to kill y people, most of whom will overlap, and both of whom wanting to continue the types of strong-collateral-damage civilian-casualty tactics that we've been using?

All of that, and there has been no marked changed in the Abortion rate under the Obama presidency.

Edited October 31, 2012 by Aloysius

[dUSt]

[quote name='Aloysius' timestamp='1351713698' post='2501368']
Say one of them wanted to exterminate 100,000 people, and the other guy only wanted to exterminate 90,000 people, and somehow those were the only two people that were "viable"... would I be obligated to vote for the 90,000 guy?
[/quote]
Yes. My conscience tells me to vote for the guy who would save 10,000 lives. That is very cut and dry to me.

[Nihil Obstat]

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[quote name='dUSt' timestamp='1351714472' post='2501376']
Yes. My conscience tells me to vote for the guy who would save 10,000 lives. That is very cut and dry to me.
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Wow. I guess that is where the difference is.

Edited October 31, 2012 by Nihil Obstat

[dUSt]

[quote name='Nihil Obstat' timestamp='1351714552' post='2501378']



Wow. I guess that is where the difference is.
[/quote]
Your "wow" reaction to me wanting to save the 10,000 lives is what I don't understand. I guess that is where the difference is.

[Nihil Obstat]

[quote name='dUSt' timestamp='1351714661' post='2501380']
Your "wow" reaction to me wanting to save the 10,000 lives is what I don't understand. I guess that is where the difference is.
[/quote]
The fact that you do not understand makes this whole conversation very surreal to me.

[dUSt]

[quote name='Aloysius' timestamp='1351713698' post='2501368']
All of that, and there has been no marked changed in the Abortion rate under the Obama presidency.
[/quote]
Which is sad, because the abortion rate had been steadily dropping since 1990 before Obama took office. I'm sure now that he has made the rate stay the same, he'll make sure it starts going up again in his second term.

[Aloysius]

[quote name='dUSt' timestamp='1351714472' post='2501376']
Yes. My conscience tells me to vote for the guy who would save 10,000 lives. That is very cut and dry to me.
[/quote]
that's pretty unreal to me. you would therefore be supporting a mass murderer, 10,000 less people would be killed, sure, but since people are not numbers, why not go into the ethical side issue: what if the 100,000 group included only strangers, but the 90,000 group included your family?

[dUSt]

[quote name='Aloysius' timestamp='1351715135' post='2501387']
that's pretty unreal to me. you would therefore be supporting a mass murderer, 10,000 less people would be killed, sure, but since people are not numbers, why not go into the ethical side issue: what if the 100,000 group included only strangers, but the 90,000 group included your family?
[/quote]
I would save 10,000 lives.

I honestly don't understand what you don't understand.

You would do nothing to save 10,000 lives. I would do something to save 10,000 lives. What is unclear?

[Aloysius]

[quote name='dUSt' timestamp='1351715042' post='2501386']
Which is sad, because the abortion rate had been steadily dropping since 1990 before Obama took office. I'm sure now that he has made the rate stay the same, he'll make sure it starts going up again in his second term.
[/quote]
it plateaued between 2005-2008 and has been relatively unchanged over the course of the Obama presidency as well. The plateauing trend started before Barack.

[Aloysius]

[quote name='dUSt' timestamp='1351715224' post='2501389']
I would save 10,000 lives.

I honestly don't understand what you don't understand.

You would do nothing to save 10,000 lives. I would do something to save 10,000 lives. What is unclear?
[/quote]
I don't even feel the need to refute that, it speaks for itself.

People are not numbers. Killing one set of 90,000 people to keep a different set of 100,000 people from getting killed is by no means a clear or easy choice. acting like it is quite frankly comes off as a little bit sociopathic.

[Anomaly]

[quote name='Aloysius' timestamp='1351713698' post='2501368']
but like I said, even IF Romney was a slight improvement over Obama (I'm willing to allow for the possibility that he might be), that doesn't mean one is morally obligated to vote for him. For the sake of argument let's say there was a more clear-cut choice between, say, two people who wanted to explicitly exterminate a whole bunch of people. Say one of them wanted to exterminate 100,000 people, and the other guy only wanted to exterminate 90,000 people, and somehow those were the only two people that were "viable"... would I be obligated to vote for the 90,000 guy? What if it was someone who wanted to exterminate 100,000 people vs. someone who only wanted to exterminate 50,000 people... would I be obligated to vote for the 50,000 guy? Say it was the 100,000 guy vs. a 10,000 guy... I mean, I could save 90,000 lives by voting for the 10,000 guy, right?

Ooooo just as a random ethical aside, what if the 10,000 included my family, and the 100,000 included your family; or vice-versa?

[/quote]Al, It depends on how your prudencial analysis to determine the question.
#1 Do you Vote that you don't care if Person O will do nothing to slow or stop killing 100,000 people and his party is fundamentally (per principle and action) antagonistic against organizatoins that want to stop the slaughter.

#2 Or vote for Person R that MAY make it possible that the slaughter may be reduced by 10,000 and MAY be marginally less antagonistic against organizations that want to stop the slaughter.

Either #1 or #2 WILL happen. The time and opportunity for other options is a long term opportunity and cannot affect the #1 or #2 question next month and other options will have NO effect to change the immediate reality #1 or #2 will happen.

[dUSt]

[quote name='Aloysius' timestamp='1351715505' post='2501391']
I don't even feel the need to refute that, it speaks for itself.

People are not numbers. Killing one set of 90,000 people to keep a different set of 100,000 people from getting killed is by no means a clear or easy choice. acting like it is quite frankly comes off as a little bit sociopathic.
[/quote]
Firstly, you made up the numbers, not me.
Secondly, I would rather be labelled a sociopath rather than do nothing to save the lives of 10,000 people.