Confederate Statues, Liberalism, Moral Relativism and White Supremacists

[twc01]

Assuming confederate statues represent racism, I would like to ask a few questions of liberals that seems odd to me. The majority of liberals are atheistic, moral relativist and evolutionist. Since all man evolved from random chemicals that got together for a survival advantage, and there is no God there can be no higher moral code or absolutes. This is why liberalism will be angry with Christians for saying there are absolutes right and wrongs such as abortion, gay marriage etc. To a moral relativist, there is no right or wrong.

"In a universe of blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, and other people are going to get lucky; and you won’t find any rhyme or reason to it, nor any justice. The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is at the bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good. Nothing but blind pitiless indifference. DNA neither knows nor cares. DNA just is, and we dance to its music."
Richard Dawkins, --Out of Eden, page 133

So given those assumptions often believed by the liberal. How can they turn around and say white supremacy is evil. To be clear as a christian I cant find any justification for white supremacy, but I appeal to the bible for justification. The moral relativist claims there is no higher authority or absolute right and wrong. So a white supremacists is just acting on his chemical reactions and just "dancing to his genes" by being what he is just as a homosexual is acting on his own genes.

So if moral relativism is true, how can a liberal claim it is wrong in any way to be a Nazi [who were big government socialist]or racism? I would also like to mention it is the left that is obsessed with race and seeks to divide us.

]http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...s-White-Guilt]


How much more so can they also claim diversity and tolerance and yet be intolerant of a culture other than there own towards a different people in a different time to tare down statues of confederates? Are we not to seek understanding of other cultures instead of hatred and violence? are we no longer cultural relativist?

Moved from the Mudpit due to its general scope. ~Iskar

[Dante Von Hespburg]

Interesting premise. Am on my rubbish phone (touch screen sucks for those cursed with large clutz hands), so just to keep things short at the moment. Are you talking liberal is the us, European or historic sense? As all 3 are very different beasts. Also do you mean this pragmatically or theoretically when you question? As a liberal theoretically wouldn't give two figs what your private beliefs are providing you didn't try to enforce them in any political/institutional way on anyone else- that is where your neo-nazis and racists typically tend to fall flat. Liberalism in the traditional sense doesn't care about private beliefs, so long as they are just that. And do not affect someone else. Also just to address Nazi point, they are indeed 'right-wing' but one of two types of the right in the 'west' (I'd recommend Mazower if iirc as a fine academic source for sorting through the bumpf of this). One was your traditional 'conservative' right, who were mostly monarchist, the other was the right-wing fascism of the Nazis, Mussolini and Hungary who took advantage of mass politics as introduced by social democrats (European that is, not US). They rejected though the contemporary left/liberal thinking based on enlightenment principles of a debate and discourse and individualism in favour of a rejection of this in favour of action and 'masculine virility'. Also the right of both Conservative and 'modern' brands and traditionally until recently been focused on the 'big state' globally, the us is a slightly different animal of course, but it was only in the 1980s with Thatcherism and reganomics when the conservative right adopted a small state stance, borrowing it from the liberals..its ironic too as Thatcher particularly actually believed in a 'strong state' and attempted to centralise further. She was somewhat of a paradoxical figure though. So the small state, free market' that we now consider conservative positions was at the time and for a long time prior the domain of the liberals, who were one of two types of leftwing movements contemporarily, sharing the spectrum on that side with various types of social democrats (to generalize). Communism I'd also put on the left naturally but since they wanted to 'break' the system and replace and not just evolve/change it they achieve a catagory of their own

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[twc01]

Interesting premise. Am on my rubbish phone (touch screen sucks for those cursed with large clutz hands), so just to keep things short at the moment. Are you talking liberal is the us, European or historic sense? As all 3 are very different beasts. Also do you mean this pragmatically or theoretically when you question? As a liberal theoretically wouldn't give two figs what your private beliefs are providing you didn't try to enforce them in any political/institutional way on anyone else- that is where your neo-nazis and racists typically tend to fall flat. Liberalism in the traditional sense doesn't care about private beliefs, so long as they are just that. And do not affect someone else. Also just to address Nazi point, they are indeed 'right-wing' but one of two types of the right in the 'west' (I'd recommend Mazower if iirc as a fine academic source for sorting through the bumpf of this). One was your traditional 'conservative' right, who were mostly monarchist, the other was the right-wing fascism of the Nazis, Mussolini and Hungary who took advantage of mass politics as introduced by social democrats (European that is, not US). They rejected though the contemporary left/liberal thinking based on enlightenment principles of a debate and discourse and individualism in favour of a rejection of this in favour of action and 'masculine virility'. Also the right of both Conservative and 'modern' brands and traditionally until recently been focused on the 'big state' globally, the us is a slightly different animal of course, but it was only in the 1980s with Thatcherism and reganomics when the conservative right adopted a small state stance, borrowing it from the liberals..its ironic too as Thatcher particularly actually believed in a 'strong state' and attempted to centralise further. She was somewhat of a paradoxical figure though. So the small state, free market' that we now consider conservative positions was at the time and for a long time prior the domain of the liberals, who were one of two types of leftwing movements contemporarily, sharing the spectrum on that side with various types of social democrats (to generalize). Communism I'd also put on the left naturally but since they wanted to 'break' the system and replace and not just evolve/change it they achieve a catagory of their own

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Liberal in the modern american/progressive terms. Those who want to take down the statues. I dont see politics the same as you, I view as in liberty vs big government totalitarianism. The modern left, like the nazis were both big government, the modern republicans to me are big government, that tells you some of how crazy i am, libertarian.

[Alwyn]

Do you think that the majority of liberals are atheistic and that most Christians are politically conservative? No doubt, many liberals are atheists and some Christians do lean towards the right. However, this table seems to suggest a more complex picture in which the political leanings of faith groups in the United States vary enormously, from Mormons (70% preferring the GOP) to the African Methodist Episcopal Church (92% leaning Democratic, a higher proportion than the 69% of atheists who lean in the same direction).

Yes, moral relativists tend to reject the idea of moral absolutes - which is not the same thing as "having no right or wrong". Whether you are a religious believer or an atheist, you can believe that killing is generally wrong without believing that it is always wrong (such as a killing in self-defence.)

How can the left say that white supremacy is evil? For the same reasons that many conservatives would say that white supremacy is evil. Because it is based on a false claim - disproved by scientists long before you or I were born - that there is such a thing as a white race. Because it violates the moral principle that discrimination is wrong. Because, for many Christians, Christian teaching supports a belief in the equality of humans, not in the supremacy of a group identified by the colour of their skin.

You have linked Nazism to big government socialism. Yes, the Nazis used socialist ideas. However, their programme of big-government spending on public developmens such as roads was not the reason why people reacted in horror to their conduct and said "Never again". Holocaust memorial museums tend to say that the way that Nazis convinced their supporters to attack Jewish people and to participate in industrialised mass murder has a lot more to do with their white supremacist and fascist thinking than their ambitious plans for new roads and other infrastructure.

You suggest that the left is obsessed with race. Many people on the left are certainly concerned about racism. When extremists chant "Jews will not replace us" and the slogan "Blood and Soil" as they march, identifying themselves with anti-Semitism and a political movement which murdered millions, is it surprising that some people on the left would want to protest against that?

[Love Mountain]

~snip~

Rejection of absolute right or wrong is not rejection of right or wrong. Moreover, I would say that the majority of atheists, leftists, whatever, do not deny existence of morality. They simple deny the existence of some fundamental truth. Any attempt to establish a single, diving "truth" and attempting to build a logical framework of morality from that point is flawed and runs into many challenges.

Interesting premise. Am on my rubbish phone (touch screen sucks for those cursed with large clutz hands), so just to keep things short at the moment.

Oh well. At least big hands mean big... gloves?

[Dante Von Hespburg]

Liberal in the modern american/progressive terms. Those who want to take down the statues. I dont see politics the same as you, I view as in liberty vs big government totalitarianism. The modern left, like the nazis were both big government, the modern republicans to me are big government, that tells you some of how crazy i am, libertarian.

More power to you and your libertarian views. Especially in a world where currently the trend is towards governments of all colours centralizing and increasing their powers over peoples private lives (a la the Conservative Parties Snoopers Charter over here). Its a very good ideology to abide by particularly with the principles surrounding not harming others. My only encounter with their attempting (ish) to be implemented was with Britains 'night-watchmen' state in the 18th/19th Centuries- and even that wasn't a purposeful stride- alas then much like Communism and Russia it was a failure as the ideology couldn't be pragmatically implemented as envisioned, so it led to a series of disasters that saw the growth of the 'big state'.

But i understand your premise now so cheers mate and i can understand totally how you'd view modern republicans as big government . I think then with this context in mind the answers from my perspective are that firstly you've assumed that an absence of an 'absolute' good, or evil and a being/god/authority to enforce those absolutes mean that their is no concept so to speak of defining something as 'right' or 'wrong'. Further i think your implying that Christianity is a necessary prerequisite for this to be so?

To which i'd say that while indeed moral relativists refuse to deal in absolutes, they can indeed shun, despair, disagree or find despicable the attitudes, actions and views of others that are typically considered thus. Nazism for instance is an ideology wrapped up in self-sacrifice to the nation, action over reason, a stringent racial hierarchy and the elimination of so called 'undesirable' elements (along the lines of racial purity both in a national sense, but also in terms of dealing with homosexuals the disabled etc)- now if you don't believe there is such a thing as an ultimate 'evil' you can still agree with/ purport that such an ideology is wrong/ on the evil side of things and to be disallowed from civil society- this is simply because its based upon a premise of doing harm (physical or theoretical) to other people, and what's more based upon an incredibly flawed way of thinking, That's something that naturally almost most humans would shun- it doesn't take Christian morality or the belief in the existence of absolutes to feel that it has no place in our political landscape, let alone our social one as it is an inherently destructive way of thinking.

Racism while slightly different, is the same thing- it is the abuse of a person at the hands of another- either physical, mental or theoretical- due to this it also has no real constructive place in society- all it does pragmatically is create pain and division- things that human nature riles against. So you can again see that it pragmatically has no place- thus when its voiced, its met with opposition and to quash it. In a way its the traditional liberalism rearing its head- now i can't speak much of US liberalism having had no experience of it personally, but traditional and i'd agree European liberalism has an attitude of individuality...and the fact that you as an individual can think what you like in private...providing it doesn't 'hurt' someone else. Racism and Nazi-ism to use your examples do just that- and its why liberals have such an issue with them.

In the context of though calls for historic monuments to be pulled down or indeed their vandalism, as a liberal myself i'm disgusted by this. If its a democratic vote to remove them- fair enough, its a social decision that has been reached by consensus (Hence why personally for instance while i disagree with how its being done and whose doing it, as quite frankly their incompetent, the principle that Britain should leave the EU due to the referendum vote is one i don't challenge by directly demanding we ignore it- though i would as the 'leave' camp did for thirty years, argue we should have a vote to see if we want to rejoin if the 'deal' as it looks likely to be is complete bullocks). But people like antifa and its sub-groups who promote violence and 'action' over debate and discussion are to be shunned, just as fascists are- and are groups i personally would not consider to be liberals (but again perhaps that is the American version?).

Rejection of absolute right or wrong is not rejection of right or wrong. Moreover, I would say that the majority of atheists, leftists, whatever, do not deny existence of morality. They simple deny the existence of some fundamental truth. Any attempt to establish a single, diving "truth" and attempting to build a logical framework of morality from that point is flawed and runs into many challenges.



Oh well. At least big hands mean big... gloves?

About the only good thing ....and even just wait until retailers realize they could charge us more for the extra material...

[I_Damian]

You're making the mistake of thinking those people who want to take down the statues are doing so because the statues are of racists, or slave owners, or white supremacy. It has absolutely nothing to do with those things - that's just their casus belli. What do you notice when you talk to ANY "progressive"? Well the first thing you notice is that they're not progressive, they're actually regressive. What's the second thing you notice?

They absolutely HATE white people. Even white "progressives" hate white people. They hate white nations, they hate white people having any kind of power, having any money, having history. So they destroy statues of confederate generals because that's the lowest hanging fruit. They can pretend they're doing it for a moral reason. Trust me, when there are no confederate statues left, they'll take down any statue of any white person. When there are no statues of white people left they'll burn books written by white people (again, starting with authors from centuries ago who may have been racist or owned slaves, and eventually move on to just any white author).

The great irony of all this is that they say they're taking down the statues because the people the statues are honouring were racist... but they're not. They're taking them down because they're racist. Because they hate white people.

[twc01]

You're making the mistake of thinking those people who want to take down the statues are doing so because the statues are of racists, or slave owners, or white supremacy. It has absolutely nothing to do with those things - that's just their casus belli. What do you notice when you talk to ANY "progressive"? Well the first thing you notice is that they're not progressive, they're actually regressive. What's the second thing you notice?

They absolutely HATE white people. Even white "progressives" hate white people. They hate white nations, they hate white people having any kind of power, having any money, having history. So they destroy statues of confederate generals because that's the lowest hanging fruit. They can pretend they're doing it for a moral reason. Trust me, when there are no confederate statues left, they'll take down any statue of any white person. When there are no statues of white people left they'll burn books written by white people (again, starting with authors from centuries ago who may have been racist or owned slaves, and eventually move on to just any white author).

The great irony of all this is that they say they're taking down the statues because the people the statues are honouring were racist... but they're not. They're taking them down because they're racist. Because they hate white people.

Amen. You might like

http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...65#post6514265

Do you think that the majority of liberals are atheistic and that most Christians are politically conservative? No doubt, many liberals are atheists and some Christians do lean towards the right. However, this table seems to suggest a more complex picture in which the political leanings of faith groups in the United States vary enormously, from Mormons (70% preferring the GOP) to the African Methodist Episcopal Church (92% leaning Democratic, a higher proportion than the 69% of atheists who lean in the same direction).

Yes, moral relativists tend to reject the idea of moral absolutes - which is not the same thing as "having no right or wrong". Whether you are a religious believer or an atheist, you can believe that killing is generally wrong without believing that it is always wrong (such as a killing in self-defence.)

How can the left say that white supremacy is evil? For the same reasons that many conservatives would say that white supremacy is evil. Because it is based on a false claim - disproved by scientists long before you or I were born - that there is such a thing as a white race. Because it violates the moral principle that discrimination is wrong. Because, for many Christians, Christian teaching supports a belief in the equality of humans, not in the supremacy of a group identified by the colour of their skin.

You have linked Nazism to big government socialism. Yes, the Nazis used socialist ideas. However, their programme of big-government spending on public developmens such as roads was not the reason why people reacted in horror to their conduct and said "Never again". Holocaust memorial museums tend to say that the way that Nazis convinced their supporters to attack Jewish people and to participate in industrialised mass murder has a lot more to do with their white supremacist and fascist thinking than their ambitious plans for new roads and other infrastructure.

You suggest that the left is obsessed with race. Many people on the left are certainly concerned about racism. When extremists chant "Jews will not replace us" and the slogan "Blood and Soil" as they march, identifying themselves with anti-Semitism and a political movement which murdered millions, is it surprising that some people on the left would want to protest against that?

not how they identify, but worldview beliefs. I am speaking of justification for claims like killing is wrong, not for i think killing is wrong. I am taking the liberal mindset and applying it to there claims of thinking racism is wrong. Please reread with that understanding, the justification for right and wrong.

Rejection of absolute right or wrong is not rejection of right or wrong. Moreover, I would say that the majority of atheists, leftists, whatever, do not deny existence of morality. They simple deny the existence of some fundamental truth. Any attempt to establish a single, diving "truth" and attempting to build a logical framework of morality from that point is flawed and runs into many challenges.



Oh well. At least big hands mean big... gloves?

than there is no right or wrong and racism is neither right nor wrong.

[Love Mountain]

You're making the mistake of thinking those people who want to take down the statues are doing so because the statues are of racists, or slave owners, or white supremacy. It has absolutely nothing to do with those things - that's just their casus belli. What do you notice when you talk to ANY "progressive"? Well the first thing you notice is that they're not progressive, they're actually regressive. What's the second thing you notice?

They absolutely HATE white people. Even white "progressives" hate white people. They hate white nations, they hate white people having any kind of power, having any money, having history. So they destroy statues of confederate generals because that's the lowest hanging fruit. They can pretend they're doing it for a moral reason. Trust me, when there are no confederate statues left, they'll take down any statue of any white person. When there are no statues of white people left they'll burn books written by white people (again, starting with authors from centuries ago who may have been racist or owned slaves, and eventually move on to just any white author).

The great irony of all this is that they say they're taking down the statues because the people the statues are honouring were racist... but they're not. They're taking them down because they're racist. Because they hate white people.

Really seems like a lazy explanation for defending Southern secessionists who wanted independence to maintain slavery.

[ioannis76]

https://www.usnews.com/news/national...e-in-baltimore

Not even the statue of Christopher Columbus was spared. What kind of mentally ill person would actually do that?

[Roma_Victrix]

First things first: this whole debate about statues has a simple solution. If a local municipality votes to remove statues from public spaces and ship them to museums or national parks, then that city has every right to do so in their own district. If a representative city council has not made any actions to do so, then you have no right to tear down a public statue, or deface it with vandalism. If everyone followed this simple damn rule, then there wouldn't be a problem, would there? Instead we have turned these small local affairs into some giant national existential crisis.

https://www.usnews.com/news/national...e-in-baltimore

Not even the statue of Christopher Columbus was spared. What kind of mentally ill person would actually do that?

LOL. Vandals are retarded, yes, but targeting Christopher Columbus or lumping him together with the Confederates is equally retarded. The man was a product of his environment, that being late medieval Italy and Spain. Slavery was a small aspect of Western civilization at that time, since Christians in Europe didn't enslave fellow Christians and the major slave trade only came about with the growth and expansion of the Portuguese and Spanish empires in the first half of the 16th century, when Columbus died of old age (and was obviously more a man of the 15th century). He did some brutal stuff in the Caribbean, but his name is rather irrelevant in regards to the history of slavery itself. And for that matter he was not unique for the time period, considering the brutality of contemporaries such as Vlad the Impaler in Eastern Europe, Timur the Lame in the Middle East/South Asia, and the Yongle Emperor purging thousands, including members of his own family, in Ming-dynasty China.

In either case, I have no problem with cities removing their own statues if they've come to that decision with a democratic vote. What I do take issue with is this strange iconoclasm that seems to be creeping into the Left. It's not religious-based like ISIS tearing down ancient Assyrian, Parthian, and Roman statues, and has a lot of justified passion over the recent history of slavery and subsequent segregation, but it's stupid vandalism nevertheless. If you think a statue is offensive, then convince your fellow denizens in town to put pressure on their city council to have it removed. That's how we do things in a civil society. Something tells me a lot of people failed their civics course in high school. Likewise, if you're a right-winger who is displeased that a statue has been removed in your own city, then by all means stage a PEACEFUL protest, not a violent one, and certainly not one hundreds of miles from where you live. No one living in Savannah, Georgia should really care about what Charlottesville, Virginia is doing with its own public statues.

Assuming confederate statues represent racism, I would like to ask a few questions of liberals that seems odd to me. The majority of liberals are atheistic, moral relativist and evolutionist. Since all man evolved from random chemicals that got together for a survival advantage, and there is no God there can be no higher moral code or absolutes. This is why liberalism will be angry with Christians for saying there are absolutes right and wrongs such as abortion, gay marriage etc. To a moral relativist, there is no right or wrong.

As a lapsed Catholic, I think I have a unique perspective to offer here. Yes, our Western civilization is based on our republican Greco-Roman past as well as the binding glue of the Christian faith cemented with the stamp of authority in late antiquity by Constantine the Great. From then onward Judeo-Christian values and biblical literature have guided the actions and mores of kings and paupers alike. That being said, the Bible is not the only source of morality, as you seem to suggest here. Morality, especially the universal "Golden Rule" present in virtually every civilization throughout history, is also built on simple human experience and social interaction, legal precedents and communal attitudes, philosophical discussion, and the formation of ethics. It is a product of human culture if anything. The 1689 English Bill of Rights, the foundation for the US Bill of Rights in our Constitution, are ultimately rooted in the political philosophy of the 17th-century English Enlightenment thinker John Locke.

In essence, Judeo-Christian values form a bedrock of sorts for modern Western civilization and culture, but let's not pretend it is the only element.

So given those assumptions often believed by the liberal. How can they turn around and say white supremacy is evil. To be clear as a christian I cant find any justification for white supremacy, but I appeal to the bible for justification. The moral relativist claims there is no higher authority or absolute right and wrong. So a white supremacists is just acting on his chemical reactions and just "dancing to his genes" by being what he is just as a homosexual is acting on his own genes.

So if moral relativism is true, how can a liberal claim it is wrong in any way to be a Nazi [who were big government socialist]or racism? I would also like to mention it is the left that is obsessed with race and seeks to divide us.

Simple: killing is wrong and so is discriminating others for their inherent traits, such as being born Jewish (not just a religion, also an ethnic distinction). The Nazis were political fascists who killed a lot of people, not just for political expediency like the the 1934 Night of the Long Knives (in which rival members of the Nazi party were purged), but also because they weren't seen as being purely Aryan. They did this systematically, in concentration camps that attempted to wipe out Jews, Gypsies, the mentally and physically handicapped, political dissenters, and other undesirables. You don't have to be a Christian to consider this sort of carnage and genocide as a despicable and depraved act. Your average Buddhist, Sikh, Daoist, or Shintoist surely doesn't agree with this. Hell, even the ancient Germanic pagans would find the idea of the need for systematic racial genocide to be an alien concept, certainly nothing that Oden would bother with. There were both Christians who supported and opposed the Nazis, just as there were agnostics who joined either side. Meanwhile Himmler built his neo-Germanic pagan occultist religion on the sidelines, within the SS, which seems to be the only religious movement specifically tied to the Nazi regime and its policies of racial superiority.

[twc01]

As a lapsed Catholic, I think I have a unique perspective to offer here. Yes, our Western civilization is based on our republican Greco-Roman past as well as the binding glue of the Christian faith cemented with the stamp of authority in late antiquity by Constantine the Great. From then onward Judeo-Christian values and biblical literature have guided the actions and mores of kings and paupers alike. That being said, the Bible is not the only source of morality, as you seem to suggest here. Morality, especially the universal "Golden Rule" present in virtually every civilization throughout history, is also built on simple human experience and social interaction, legal precedents and communal attitudes, philosophical discussion, and the formation of ethics. It is a product of human culture if anything. The 1689 English Bill of Rights, the foundation for the US Bill of Rights in our Constitution, are ultimately rooted in the political philosophy of the 17th-century English Enlightenment thinker John Locke.
n essence, Judeo-Christian values form a bedrock of sorts for modern Western civilization and culture, but let's not pretend it is the only element.

as a christian i would say the "golden rule" no matter how many nations agree with it [they do because we are created as moral being by a moral god] have no higher authority other than, random chemicals coming together produced a common thought [the golden rule]. It does not make it a moral right or wrong. It has no justification. So what if Hitler won ww2 and killed off all non white supremacists, than indoctrinated the next generation with white supremacy. Would it than be ok and morally good?

In essence, there is no moral bedrock for a moral relativist.

Simple: killing is wrong and so is discriminating others for their inherent traits, such as being born Jewish (not just a religion, also an ethnic distinction). The Nazis were political fascists who killed a lot of people, not just for political expediency like the the 1934 Night of the Long Knives (in which rival members of the Nazi party were purged), but also because they weren't seen as being purely Aryan. They did this systematically, in concentration camps that attempted to wipe out Jews, Gypsies, the mentally and physically handicapped, political dissenters, and other undesirables. You don't have to be a Christian to consider this sort of carnage and genocide as a despicable and depraved act. Your average Buddhist, Sikh, Daoist, or Shintoist surely doesn't agree with this. Hell, even the ancient Germanic pagans would find the idea of the need for systematic racial genocide to be an alien concept, certainly nothing that Oden would bother with. There were both Christians who supported and opposed the Nazis, just as there were agnostics who joined either side. Meanwhile Himmler built his neo-Germanic pagan occultist religion on the sidelines, within the SS, which seems to be the only religious movement specifically tied to the Nazi regime and its policies of racial superiority.

how does the moral relativist justify saying killing is wrong? we are just chemicals fighting for a survival advantage randomly evolved, "survival of the fittest" so how can we justify murder is wrong?

"if it all happens naturalistic whats the need for a god? cant I set my own rules? who owns me? I own myself".
Jefery dahmer DVD documentary Jeffrey Dahmer the monster within


“ He who does not wish to fight in this world, where permanent struggle is the law of life, has not the right to exist”.
Hitler A Mein Kampf, english translation by James Murphy, 1939 Fredonia Classics, New York, p266 2003

“The stronger must dominate and not mate with the weaker, which would signify the sacrafice of its own higher nature. Only the born weakling can look upon this principle as cruel,and if he does so it is mearly because he is of a feebler nature and narrower mind for if such a law did not direct the process of evolution
thenthe higher development of organic life would not be conceivable atall”.
Hitler A MeinKampf, english translation by James Murphy, 1939 Fredonia Classics,New York, p262 2003

“if nature does not wish that weaker individuals should mate with the stronger, she wishes even less that a superior race should intermingle with an inferior one. Because in such a case all her efforts, throughout hundreds of thousands of years, to establish an evolutionary higher stage of being may thus be rendered futile.”
Hitler A Mein Kampf, english translation by James Murphy, 1939 Fredonia Classics,New York, p263 2003

[Roma_Victrix]

as a christian i would say the "golden rule" no matter how many nations agree with it [they do because we are created as moral being by a moral god] have no higher authority other than, random chemicals coming together produced a common thought [the golden rule]. It does not make it a moral right or wrong. It has no justification. So what if Hitler won ww2 and killed off all non white supremacists, than indoctrinated the next generation with white supremacy. Would it than be ok and morally good?

In essence, there is no moral bedrock for a moral relativist.



how does the moral relativist justify saying killing is wrong? we are just chemicals fighting for a survival advantage randomly evolved, "survival of the fittest" so how can we justify murder is wrong?

"if it all happens naturalistic whats the need for a god? cant I set my own rules? who owns me? I own myself".
Jefery dahmer DVD documentary Jeffrey Dahmer the monster within


“ He who does not wish to fight in this world, where permanent struggle is the law of life, has not the right to exist”.
Hitler A Mein Kampf, english translation by James Murphy, 1939 Fredonia Classics, New York, p266 2003

“The stronger must dominate and not mate with the weaker, which would signify the sacrafice of its own higher nature. Only the born weakling can look upon this principle as cruel,and if he does so it is mearly because he is of a feebler nature and narrower mind for if such a law did not direct the process of evolution
thenthe higher development of organic life would not be conceivable atall”.
Hitler A MeinKampf, english translation by James Murphy, 1939 Fredonia Classics,New York, p262 2003

“if nature does not wish that weaker individuals should mate with the stronger, she wishes even less that a superior race should intermingle with an inferior one. Because in such a case all her efforts, throughout hundreds of thousands of years, to establish an evolutionary higher stage of being may thus be rendered futile.”
Hitler A Mein Kampf, english translation by James Murphy, 1939 Fredonia Classics,New York, p263 2003

Killing is wrong not only because it is a thing that you wouldn't want others to do to you or your loved ones (i.e. Golden Rule again), but also because it is stupidly counterproductive. Society would cease to function and would break down if one day everyone woke up and decided murder was suddenly okay. We'd have a world more akin to Mad Max in that case, survival of the fittest as you have highlighted here with all your Hitler quotes. Even in societies with routine human sacrifice like the ancient Romans with gladiatorial games and the Aztecs in pre-Columbian Mexico who sacrificed prisoners of war, murder was still not an acceptable practice and you could obviously be punished for it by killing the wrong person. There is an innate reason why it was illegal in all ancient, medieval, and early modern societies, many of which were non-Christian, by the way. Yet even in Christian societies of the Middle Ages, there were some cases where killing others was an acceptable practice, such as nobles fighting in duels.

I also think the urge to murder other people is evidence of someone who has a mental defect. Most people aren't criminal minded, whatever their religious beliefs happen to be. And among those who are criminal-minded, not many of them are true sociopaths with murderous intent. A good many kill others out of fear of being killed themselves by rival gangs/criminals or being caught by law enforcement and facing the consequences for their other illicit activities.

All of that being said, if you want to appeal to a higher power such as God as the ultimate reason why you simply should not murder other people, that's fine with me. The universe works in mysterious ways, after all. Some would call it "karma" when murderers get their just desserts at the hands of those they've wronged, and more often than not murderers are arrested by law enforcement, convicted in a court of law and jury of their peers, and sentenced by a judge for their crimes.

[twc01]

Killing is wrong not only because it is a thing that you wouldn't want others to do to you or your loved ones (i.e. Golden Rule again), but also because it is stupidly counterproductive. Society would cease to function and would break down if one day everyone woke up and decided murder was suddenly okay. We'd have a world more akin to Mad Max in that case, survival of the fittest as you have highlighted here with all your Hitler quotes. Even in societies with routine human sacrifice like the ancient Romans with gladiatorial games and the Aztecs in pre-Columbian Mexico who sacrificed prisoners of war, murder was still not an acceptable practice and you could obviously be punished for it by killing the wrong person. There is an innate reason why it was illegal in all ancient, medieval, and early modern societies, many of which were non-Christian, by the way. Yet even in Christian societies of the Middle Ages, there were some cases where killing others was an acceptable practice, such as nobles fighting in duels.

I also think the urge to murder other people is evidence of someone who has a mental defect. Most people aren't criminal minded, whatever their religious beliefs happen to be. And among those who are criminal-minded, not many of them are true sociopaths with murderous intent. A good many kill others out of fear of being killed themselves by rival gangs/criminals or being caught by law enforcement and facing the consequences for their other illicit activities.

All of that being said, if you want to appeal to a higher power such as God as the ultimate reason why you simply should not murder other people, that's fine with me. The universe works in mysterious ways, after all. Some would call it "karma" when murderers get their just desserts at the hands of those they've wronged, and more often than not murderers are arrested by law enforcement, convicted in a court of law and jury of their peers, and sentenced by a judge for their crimes.

We are talking on two separate levels. I am talking on presuppositions and worldview/logic levels. Why is killing wrong? what is the justification to claim killing is wrong? why is something that is counter productive to society wrong. If some random chemicals [people] say it is right, others say it is wrong, than who is correct and how do we judge? how do we know whos chemical are correct, and in fact their is no correct just chemicals, no moral law code.


Yes some non christian nations decided murder was wrong, they are after all created in the image of god. But what justification in the case of this thread, does a relativist, liberal atheist claim murder or racism is wrong. how are they better than another who claims they are good.

[swabian]

First things first: this whole debate about statues has a simple solution. If a local municipality votes to remove statues from public spaces and ship them to museums or national parks, then that city has every right to do so in their own district. If a representative city council has not made any actions to do so, then you have no right to tear down a public statue, or deface it with vandalism. If everyone followed this simple damn rule, then there wouldn't be a problem, would there? Instead we have turned these small local affairs into some giant national existential crisis.

I'm not an archaeologist, but i feel ya.

[Gaidin]

I'm not an archaeologist, but i feel ya.

I'm not sure you do. You know which general has a number of statues you can count on one hand? Longstreet. In spite of being lauded by Lee as his right hand. Want to know why? Look at the groups who built them. Look when most of them were built. Look at Longstreet's actions following the war. Do your own math.

[dogukan]

I am a leftist with radical leanings. I am not a westerner nor I live in the west.

I absolutely hate the new liberal youth wave that emerged in the west and I do not really see them in the same team though we share similar values(but they are LIBERALS, not exactly left in the classical sense). I really hate the way they express themselves in full ignorance.

I do not believe that morality is universal or platonic. I believe the truth is what we make of it. I don't give that much credit to humanity. If we were born to nazi victory WWII, we'd have a much more different worldview. I guess I could say I am a moral relativist, but I am not exactly a "cultural relativist" who suggests all cultural position should be respected. On the contrary, I am quiet the interventionist.

I have my own morality, independently of anybody, however tied to the historical conditions we have all collectively experienced.
WHen I hear other people's moral arguments, even if I hate them, if they have rationalized it within their own logic after a rigrourous thought process, I RESPECT their position. Even the racists or an Islamist who theorizes about jihad. I cannot tolerate imposters who embrace a certain position to find themselves an identity(aka, majority of the world)

From then on, I do not choose to struggle against other positions based on them being right or wrong, but rather that believing my moral code is a good one made with good intentions that I need to spread.
When I do this, I do not claim to hold a superior position on others and I try to keep my cards open to feed my own morality. However, realworld does not want to deal with the complexity of such issues, its for intellectuals. Real world wants targets, action and propoganda.
I just think mine should be accepted and I try to persuade or if I see something really wrong/hostile coming towards me, I support various forms of action.

What scares me most is when rationality is gone and full polarization takes over and the fight become solely over imagery and symbolism. This is when cannot be controlled. It also causes a lot of friendly fire, you'll see a libertarian going into a rally and getting beaten by anti-fa with the idea that he is a white supremacist. And this is where the west is headed. Where I live is already like that

My morality is mine alone and I do not believe it is universal. And it is not a strict code. I just follow what I think is better for humanity on the long run. And it is a process where I contradict myself and reposition myself constantly.

I believe the problem isnt the choices at this point, but rather the way people express themselves.

[antaeus]

Op starts with an assumption. "Assuming the statues are racist"

They aren't. they're statues. What they represent is very individual. To some people they represent noble sacrifice. To some they represent violent oppression.

I have no problem with local government removing or keeping statues. It's their choice. If they want to keep them and are happy to deal with those who are offended then that's their issue to deal with. Each to their own.

The problem I have is deliberately framing a discussion in the binary liberal/conservative - There are conservatives who disagree with statues of oppressors in their midst. There are progressives who aren't interested in the issue at all. When you frame a conversation in absolutes, you'll only ever have a polarised conversation with no winner and two entrenched views...

A real conversation about the status of characters who did things in the past might allow for both preservation of positive memories and an understanding of how the actions of the past contribute to the suffering of the present.

Something like a quarter of a million people died fighting in confederate armies. I would expect the vast majority of them weren't fighting in order to maintain slavery and most didn't own slaves. Their reasons were as diverse as their names. Some fought for their family, some were virtually as poor as their neighbour's slaves and fought for the pay cheque. The descendants of these people must be allowed to honour their ancestors and remember the loss.

On the other hand nearly 2 in 10 Americans are the descendants of people who were violently stolen from another continent and enslaved for generations. Many of the descendants of those slaves were still prevented from participating fully in civil society within my parents living memory, and some would argue even in the present day. For them the issues of slavery and racism are still very real and must be addressed.

This discussion has been co-opted by the wider liberal/conservative Trump/Democrat debate which is a shame. But it has shone a light on a subject that is very real for many people. TWC isn't very good with nuanced discussions of issues however... neither are politicised mass movements. But both sides of this argument have legitimate interest so it wont be solved by white supremacists marching or Trump tweeting or protesters throwing stuff... and it certainly wont be solved by assuming there are two sides to the discussion, and that they have no common ground or ideological overlap.

[IronBrig4]

In the meantime, the American Historical Association has released a statement on the Confederate monuments. https://www.historians.org/news-and-...rate-monuments

To remove such monuments is neither to “change” history nor “erase” it. What changes with such removals is what American communities decide is worthy of civic honor. Historians and others will continue to disagree about the meanings and implications of events and the appropriate commemoration of those events. The AHA encourages such discussions in publications, in other venues of scholarship and teaching, and more broadly in public culture; historical scholarship itself is a conversation rooted in evidence and disciplinary standards. We urge communities faced with decisions about monuments to draw on the expertise of historians both for understanding the facts and chronology underlying such monuments and for deriving interpretive conclusions based on evidence. Indeed, any governmental unit, at any level, may request from the AHA a historian to provide consultation. We expect to be able to fill any such request...

...Nearly all monuments to the Confederacy and its leaders were erected without anything resembling a democratic process. Regardless of their representation in the actual population in any given constituency, African Americans had no voice and no opportunity to raise questions about the purposes or likely impact of the honor accorded to the builders of the Confederate States of America. The American Historical Association recommends that it’s time to reconsider these decisions.

The AHA is THE professional organization for American historians (that is, historians who study US history, and not historians who are American). I think it's best to defer to the experts on this one. I do not hold a membership in the AHA because US history is not my concentration. Instead, I'm a member of both the Economic History Association and the Society for Nautical Research. I agree with the AHA because they put in the hard research and are not motivated by Lost Cause mythology.

[NorseThing]

^^^^ Best post in the thread. Time to end the 'discussion'.