What ever happened to RESPECT

[H2Andy]

But ......freedom of speech is still in the constitution.

only against the Government. You dont' have freedom
of speech as to private citizens (my house, my conversation rules), private institutions (you have
no right of freedom of speech at the Mason Lodge), or in a private medium such as this board.

however, if an entity or insitution takes Federal money, then
you have a better case that your freedom of speech applies.

otherwise, you're SOL.

remember, the First Amendment tells the Government what
it (ostensibly) can't do TO YOU, not what private citizens
can't do TO EACH OTHER.

 

[Potapko]

Boy h2,
using your logic i understand why they call these things "threads"

We were talking about being in open space telling somebody something they may not like and suddenly I am in your living room, wild eyed, and force-feeding you my beliefs. hahahahahahahahahahaahahaha
and within certain guidelines we do have freedom of speech on this board, and in the mason lodge (where I wouldn't be caught dead by the way). spin spin spin all you like,

 

[Green_Manelishi]

however, if you murder even one person (not to mention
a million) you have violated the law,

Whose law? Mans law? Are laws and morals based on absolutes or societal values? Why is murder bad? Is it murder if the person is less than a specific age, or does not enjoy a quality of life, or is the wrong ethnic group? Why? Because someone else says so? What about a society that practices genital mutilation? Is that wrong? Infanticide? ??? Why is it wrong? Because a subjective 'trooth' says it's wrong?

There is very little difference between belief and action. If someone 'believes' an act to be acceptable, for him, he will act on that belief. Why? Because he is following a different truth ... his truth.

And if you come along and say "well, that just ain't right", the only argument you can use to support your claim is "because it just ain't right." There is no right, or wrong, or trooth.

It's no wonder the legal system is such a mess. Lawyers themselves claim there is no single trooth. Therefore, when someone 'swears to tell the trooth, the whole trooth and nothing but the trooth' they simply tell the trooth as they see it.

G_M

P.s. "international law" is a pathetic joke.

 

[H2Andy]

spin spin spin all you like

well, jeez... i am talking to you in good faith and you are saying i'm a spin-meister.
that doesn't show much respect.

keep in mind that you only have First Amendemt rights AS TO THE GOVERNMENT. the gubmin can't infringe those rights. if there is no gubmin infringement, there is no problem. by definition, since everybody else is not prohibited from infringing your FA rights, there can not be a FA violation by anybody BUT the gubmin.

yes, you do have freedom of speech rights in public forums AGAINST THE GUBMIN.
in other words, the gugmin can't stop you from preaching
on a corner. however, that doesn't mean that *I* as a private citizen have
infringed your First Amendment rights if i ask you to stop. You don't have to,
of course, but no infringement has happened without government action.

and no, you are wrong. you have NO freedom of speech rights on this board or
on the Mason lodge. since these are not gubment entities, there is no government action, and without gubmin action, there is no first amendment infringement.


you know, on this thread, you and Green_Maneleshi have called me a fool, a dope,
ignorant, and a spin-meister. those are personal attacks, and show no respect.

as i said before, it's easy to respect those who agree with you. it's the true measure
of a person who can respect those who disagree with his or her most deeply-held
beliefs.

 

[Potapko]

H2, You may have claimed those labels for yourself. But they were never attached to you from the outside. Oh, sorry, the spin-meister one I will accept.

Shall I go back and list the personal attacks from your side? In the latest you are calling names directly. Why does this seem to only go one way?

 

[H2Andy]

Whose law? Mans law? Are laws and morals based on absolutes or societal values?

please read some history.

about the first thing societies did when they got to farming
and ended up with large populations was to set down
LAWS so that they could function smoothly.

these laws included murder, robbery, rape (understood
then as marrying a woman against her father's wishes)
and so on.

these LAWS had two basic effects:

1. it allowed large numbers of strangers to live together
by common, well-known rules; and

2. it provided for a dispute resolution system without
resort to private vendettas.

without these two, large societies simply can't exist.
and yes, these are MAN'S laws. the Ten Commandments is
not even close to being the first set of such laws.
and, by the way, to give these laws credence, a usual
practice was to say "the GODS have told us to do blah
blah blah." religion was just a way to give validity to
the man-made laws.

now, you are saying that everybody has a version of their
truth. well... a quick lingusitic lesson:

there are two levels of meaning: denotative meaning
and connotative meaning.

at the denotative leve, we can prove things. for example,
i can PROVE that a coin falls to the floor at a certain
constant speed. i can measure that speed and PROVE
that i am right.

however, at the denotative level, i don't really know WHY it
does that. i call it "gravity" and the "gravitational constant"
but i can't realy PROVE that i am right as to HOW OR WHY
gravity works.

thus, at the denotative, i can PROVE that the
gettaway car was GREEN, driven by someone who looked
JUST LIKE YOU, and that when the cops pulled you over,
you had TEN BILLION DOLLARS in the trunk of your green car.
hence, i can prove you ROBBED THE BANK.

now, at the connotative level, things get really tricky.
what is love? what does it mean to be a good person?
is there life after death?

simply put, you can't really prove these things. thus,
at the connotative level, there is no "truth" other than that which you ultimately choose to believe.

see the difference?

 

[H2Andy]

Shall I go back and list the personal attacks from your side? In the latest you are calling names directly. Why does this seem to only go one way?

yes, please, if i called you names, point them out to me.

i will apologize and stop immediately.

 

[Green_Manelishi]

now, is Jesus Christ the Son of God. where is the law on that?
You say yes and I say no.

Actually, He claimed to be the Son of God. Despite best efforts, the many attempts to disprove any of the Bible have failed, so reason indicates that all of it is factual.

at this level, your truth and my truth are no more valid
than each other. you can't prove i am wrong, and i can't
prove you are right.

Actually, my truth is more valid than your trooth. Of course, that will be viewed as intollerant but that is fine. You have no apparent source of absolutes (the law is not an absolute. it is ever changing. abortion was illegal, now it is not) therefore whatever I choose to believe, which is that you are wrong, should be acceptable. Just view it as "my trooth".

 

[H2Andy]

Actually, my truth is more valid than your trooth.

no, you BELIEVE your truth is more valid than my truth.
that don't make it so

 

[Potapko]

Here we also have a paradox. It is not disrespectful to say that someone is absolutely wrong about something. People have the right to believe the moon is made of green cheese if they want, they can even believe we came from a rock due to an explosion 20 billion years ago. Saying that is foolishness is not disrespectful, anymore than someone else denying the Trinity or that Jesus is God in the flesh is disrespectful, (to me at least, it certainly is to God) It is somehow often construed as disrespectful to tell a person, look, you are wrong and your opinion is incorrect, although you may hold to it if you want to.