Defense of Truth

It's just not that hard, folks.  Unless we're dealing with the context of a justified war, there's simply no moral defense for killing innocent humans if there are any other options, let alone for the convenience of the living.  And while both sides may exaggerate to make a point, only one side of the argument does insane logical backflips to hide the true and morally repugnant nature of the acts, their numbers, their consequences, and the assumptions underlying their "justifications". Ever since the leaked Alito draft hinting that Roe v. Wade was about to be overturned, pro-abortion activists have had their day.  I suppose I can understand a certain need to defend against what they perceive as a threat on their liberties and rights.  So now that they've had their time to externalize their fears and put out ad campaigns, and fake being handcuffed at protests in unlawful locations, let's stand back from the emotions and just examine the core moral argument...

 A thoughtful leftist friend of mine posted a series of "rebuttals" from a Progressive website called "So Informed" to their own caricature of Conservative talking points on recent current events.  It's worth thinking through each of them in turn, especially since I haven't posted in a long stretch, as a way to engage with the current state of our national culture's slide into centralized authoritarianism.  This friend gets full points for speaking her mind, engaging with compassion, and standing up for what she believes.  My concern here is to correct improper frames for debates, inaccurate and/or beside-the-point facts, and logical fallacies.  All of this is centered on the ideas in question, not impugning the motives of the holders of such ideas.  It's done in the spirit of believing in the other's freedom and intelligence strongly enough to offer sincere chances for them to change their mind.  The ideas themselves, however, come from somewher...

Adult topic coming up below... The first principle of morality is liberty (moral agency). The first principle of liberty is morality. Said another way, there are two fundamental truths connecting morality with liberty: 1. The degree to which people aren't free to determine right from wrong for themselves is the degree to which they are not free to choose the right, therefore all moral choices are premised on the free risk that they might choose wrong if left to; 2. While individuals must have the freedom to choose in order for any right option to be chosen, one of the consequences of choosing wrong is always a limiting of freedoms. Part of the extremely confusing problem of these principles intertwined in this way is that it's super easy to believe illusions about what's right and what's wrong, to be in denial about whether something's wrong, or about the consequences of choosing wrong.  And to further complicate things, we're living in a state of: 1. sus...

1. The "this" when they say "this could ruin his life" is an accusation.  This "it" when you say "without acknowledging it already ruined hers" is an attempted rape.  The two are not equivalent, therefore we have to temper the assumptions of both sides by examining a hypothetical under both conditions of possible truth values: If the accusation is true, most would say his life deserved to be ruined.  If the accusation is false hers was not already ruined, but deserves to be now. 2. The age of the perpetrator and victim rightly speak to both maturity level (which provides some context for why both were drinking, why both might not have the awareness to avoid a compromising situation, and why one might have impulse control issues compounded by alcohol) and level of accountability (we have special courts to determine guilt and sentencing for minors for this very purpose) but not to severity of crime or emotional impact of the events.  No one sho...

American university students are getting more rigidly dogmatic when it comes to a progressive worldview.  Activism, and a leftist bent has been a feature of college life since prior to the Soviet Union, of course, but there has never been a time like today when only students who seek it out by getting an education where conservatism is explicitly part of their university's institutional identity have access to conservative ideas in their classrooms. While the left has a stranglehold on academics, and a near total lock on theory in the humanities and social sciences, there have been at least a critical mass, up until this decade at least, of balancing academics who don't feel threatened by the existence of ideas they don't agree with, even if their goal is to indoctrinate their students into believing that their political opposition is not only wrong, but anathema.  And there still exists a faction within today's liberal arts faculty bodies who believe that exposure...

A facebook reply I decided to post here instead of with the liberal friend. https://twitter.com/twitter/statuses/998315679844618240 I'm just looking at these and finding out if they're true. Some of them aren't very balanced. 1. No background check required for "private" sales: true, but that's actually pretty standard US-wide because the state has no way to effectively know when a private sale takes place. A friend can sell/give a gun to a friend (or anyone, really) and the only way the govt would know is if they were honest enough to report it themselves. There's a lot of selling of cars that also goes on without the govt being able to do much about it. Also, it's important to remember that "private" is a special legal term here and its opposite is NOT "public" like you might expect. Private just means someone too small fry to need a license to sell. I'm sure some abuse the category and avoid needing a licens...

University of Toronto psychology professor Jordan Peterson has become something of a youtube sensation for his hardline stance against political correctness and its divisive and liberty-curtailing logic. When asked by a fellow panelist on Bill Maher's profanity-encouraged HBO talk show,  Real Time , how he squares this seeming promotion of offending with a concern he voices about giving American Trump-supporters an off-ramp in the event that Trump is impeached or otherwise removed from office, he seems to fumble the logic football a little. How I would have responded? Liberals choose to believe in an ideology that confines individuals to groups with assigned collective grievances.  Their choice leads them to believe that anyone calling into question those grievances or their assignment to a given group can only do so out of a hatred of that group even though that hatred may be disguised to varying degrees.  It is completely consistent with this choice of core...