Well, I've been toying with the idea of joining smiley in an exodus out of xanga...and today i toy no longer.  I am now at http://mmuntz.blogspot.com/.  Catcha later.

~marty

Currently Listening Clumsy By Our Lady Peace see related

Well, I was going to post just a comment in response to this conversation, but I think it might be profitable to just start a new topic here...(besides, it'll be at the top of the page which means i can save time from scrolling down to check up on the responses).

So. Kyle.  I think we're generally agreed.  I think I agree with you're rejection of the "adding-based" notion of increasing virtue (maybe not for the same reasons--i'm more inclined to reject it because I don't think that virtue is somethign that can be quantified like that, rather than the argument that those with more resources could get more virtue, but we can get into that later if it's pertinent).  And I do tend to think that the best that a law can hope to accomplish in terms of one's virtue is the status-quo.

I guess the next question is what is the law supposed to do?  (And i'm not asking this rhetorically, i'm just pondering it as i type).  Is it supposed to attempt to maintain the status quo of virtue, or to attempt as much as possible to push us towards acting with virtuous intent?  Or is it simply to maintain order, without regards for what we do with our own intentions?  Both? Neither?

I'm inclined to say that it's more the purpose of a law to keep order first, but that what makes a law better or worse depends on (a) what kind of order one thinks that society should be structured around (i.e., the principles underlying a society's laws), and (b) if the law is actually effective in keeping the adopted order.

and with that, i'm heading to bed, cause i'm rired and i'm gonna start saying stuff that makes me look real foolish if i don't.

Currently Listening The Process of Belief By Bad Religion see related

Yeah, so I shaved...just didn't feel like growing the beard out again.

In other news, I received two pretty sweet complements on friday at work.  First, I apparently "kick ass."  Cool. Got told that by a big black woman for stealing a balloon and doing the hellium high-voice thingamajig.  Believe it or not, she didn't believe that it actually made your voice go high.  What a poor, sheltered soul.  Later on, Russell (our neighborhood semi-agnostic who used to practice catholocism but now likes Kant and eastern philosophy who's pretty much an all around cool guys), tells me that I do not fit the steriotype for a youth pastor.  That just about tickled me pink.  Apparently, if you ask most youth pastors what music they're listening to, they will not tend to respond with "Bad Religion."

http://www.compassionatespirit.com/Vaclavik-Review.htm

Just one random quote which is only a taste of the innane stringing together of words that this guy seems to consider intelligent and provocative: "Pythagoras was thus, amazingly enough, a prophet of Christianity. The ancient Hebrews included both the priestly faction which advocated and practiced animal sacrifice, and the prophets who condemned animal sacrifice."   And this, apparently, helps demonstrate that Jesus was a vegitarian.

And the only reasonable response: WTF!!!!

Currently Reading Turn Neither to the Right Nor to the Left By Eric D. Schansberg see related

"By preventing, punishing, subsidizing, or mandating behaviors, government necessarily reduces or eliminates the virtue and morality behind those decisions.  In addition, government activism reduces the vitality of other institutuions that are typically responsible for promoting virtue, most notably the church--whether in helping the poor or ministering to 'sinners.'" -D Eric Schansberg, Turn Neither to the Right nor to the Left, 35.

Now, thus far in the book, I generally agree with Schansberg in principle (I havn't gone far enough to be able to say more than that yet).  And the second sentence in that quote is, I think, very true: whether we think this is good or bad, other institutions to tend to atrophy as the instituion of the government grows stronger (or at the very least, the government sees a need/opportunity to grow stronger when other institutions atrophy, and that certainly does not usually help to put those other institutions back on their feet in the same way).

Nevertheless, I wonder about that first sentence in that quote, which often seems to be an argument which the idealisticly driven libertarians often rely on.  How is it that mandating behaviors "neccesarily reduces or elimates the virtue and morality behind those decisions"?  I guess the problem I have is with the word "neccesarily."  That government mandates of morality "neccesarily" corrupts good actions with the wrong reasons is, in my opinion, flatly untrue: the fact that one decides to obey the law does not mean that he must do so out of compulsion, which is what this arguement would seem to imply.

Now, it might be generally true that governmental mandates of morality tends to sap the virtous intent from many actions, which means that there might be room for a good many more libertarian policies (or at least policies that look libertarian) than many typical contemporary conservatives might be willing to admit.  On the other hand, I still need to think more about this since I'm not so sure that this line of thought isn't at accepting a partly flawed notion of what constitutes a virtueous action.

Anyway...I'd like to hear thoughts on this...Will? Kyle (by the way, let me know if you think I'm missing Schansberg's point on that particular issue)?  Anyone else who might happens to read this crap?