Moral Equivalence Exercise!
Another mental exercise for the intellectually honest:
Part 1: When I hug a small child and tell her to trust me, it is because she is my daughter and I love her. When another man hugs a small child and tells her to trust him, it is because he is a pedophile and wants to do unspeakable things to her.
We have both performed precisely the same act, but any rational human being can tell you that these two acts are not morally equivalent, and the reasons for this don't require an advanced degree in philosophy or ethics to explain.
Part 2: When the United States invaded a sovereign country, it was to remove a violent, oppresive regime that was a threat to both national security and global stability. When Germany invaded a sovereign country, it was for a silly little thing called lebensraum.
Again, the act, invading a sovereign country, is the same in each case. And again, citing that mythical, rational human being and his keen perceptive abilities, these things are not morally equivalent. And yet the left continues with the "BUSH=HITLER" meme, which seems, frighteningly, to be creeping beyond the fringe into the mainstream of the left-of-center.
The lesson here is that identical acts do not imply moral equivalence! The end may not always justify the means, but it certainly differentiates the means.
Part 1: When I hug a small child and tell her to trust me, it is because she is my daughter and I love her. When another man hugs a small child and tells her to trust him, it is because he is a pedophile and wants to do unspeakable things to her.
We have both performed precisely the same act, but any rational human being can tell you that these two acts are not morally equivalent, and the reasons for this don't require an advanced degree in philosophy or ethics to explain.
Part 2: When the United States invaded a sovereign country, it was to remove a violent, oppresive regime that was a threat to both national security and global stability. When Germany invaded a sovereign country, it was for a silly little thing called lebensraum.
Again, the act, invading a sovereign country, is the same in each case. And again, citing that mythical, rational human being and his keen perceptive abilities, these things are not morally equivalent. And yet the left continues with the "BUSH=HITLER" meme, which seems, frighteningly, to be creeping beyond the fringe into the mainstream of the left-of-center.
The lesson here is that identical acts do not imply moral equivalence! The end may not always justify the means, but it certainly differentiates the means.
Labels: politics
posted by Benjamin at 1:38 PM
1 Comments:
The problem with so much of the Left is that, for their minions, a simplistic mindset works. Both Bush and Hitler went into another country, therefore Bush=Hitler.
I've noticed many times that when explaining Conservative policies, I have to invoke a second or third level of complexity, at which point these folks are lost.
Another example; "The rich got more back from Bush's tax cuts than the middle class". This is true as stated, but when you explain to them that everyone got money back, and that by percentage, the middle class got back more. And give them the example of a low earner who may have gotten back 100% of his $100 tax ($100 total), while a high-earner only got back 1% of his $50,000 tax bill ($500 total), thereby increasing the overall "progressiveness" of our tax code. And that the net effect of all this is increased productivity, and job growth and even increased total tax revenue (due to higher overall productivity)..... well, their eyes glaze over.
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