Frank wrote on Mar 1
st, 2022 at 3:20pm:
Confused, possibly deliberately confused garbage. Crap, in a word.
Honestly, not "deliberate"..... so no need to worry about that. But crap?
Let's read on, hopefully you can enlighten us....
Quote:You say that individual rights are a soyrce of power in the West.
The
delusion of individual rights in the source of power in the West, yes, I stand by that statement (explained many times, the only refutation so far has been over who manages to hold onto the power) - after all, if the King is not the legitimate source of power, who or what is?
Quote: You do not say that the source is actually the collectively given consent to be governed within a legal framework ....
Note, ANY system of governance involves the
collectively given consent to be governed; we have discussed this before, you were unable to see the difference between consent by individuals given at
divisive elections, or consent arrived at by consensus without elections.
Quote:.....where the individual rights of the governed and the governing ade upheld and where the consent is repeatedly asked for and is given in democratic elections at the various levels of p oi wer.
As I said, that is only one model of governance.
Quote:You say that the alternative is piwer exercised on the basis of morality (not clarified) of fairness and justice ( again not clarified) that have nothing to do with individual morality or faitness and justce for individyals.
Morality is obviously a human invention, and can therefore be manifested in many different forms depending on ideology; fairness and justice are obviously NOT compatible with a postulated freedom of the individual to always act in his own self-interest, because individuals have different sets of self-interest.
Quote:You add that humans can decide the conventions they will live by - but obviously not by democratically coming together as free, individual moral agents but by some other, unstated, authority.
Free, individual (even if "moral") agents will differ in their conception of morality, based on self-interest, rather than collective well-being.
That's why Putin - and every other world leader when it suits his own (or his nation's) self-interest - can thumb his nose at the UNSC.
Quote:What the source of that authority is is unstated, how it is allocated, checked or recalled is not stated.
Morality based on 'reverence for life' (of the species) cannot, and does not need to be, checked or recalled
Quote: How much power it can exercise over autonomous human individuals is also unstated.
The power of the concept of 'reverence for life' exists, whether it is exercised or not.
Quote:By what means that power is upheld is unstated.
By a Constitution dedicated to achieving universal well-being.
Quote:You both misrepresent - since you do not understand - the philisophical bases of Western liberal democratic political practice
I understand it is based on a posited supremacy of the individual over collective well being; that's why the UN Syrian delegate was able to point to the failure of the UNSC to achieve its "moral" aims ie collective well-being, in the absence of war,...war which is the opposite of 'morality' and reverence for life (of the species).
Quote:and you lapse into hopelessly garbled rhetorical mystification and contradictory garbage, elison and ommission when talking up the grusome one party dictatorship of the CCP.
The ongoing attempt to ameliorate the disastrous effects of the 'sovereign individual' delusion, noted above, has taken many unsatisfactory turns.
But we must persevere, seeking to create a worthy civilization on earth, in fact we have no choice but to achieve
universal sustainable prosperity on earth, in the age of MAD.