Tuesday, November 07, 2006

Another Moral Authority Card


3 comments:

mkfreeberg said...

Moral: of, pertaining to, or concerned with the principles or rules of right conduct or the distinction between right and wrong; ethical.

Authority: the power to determine, adjudicate, or otherwise settle issues or disputes; jurisdiction; the right to control, command, or determine.

Huh. So moral authority is the power to control, command, and/or determine what's right and what's wrong. This would have to mean -- at a minimum -- that individuals cannot decide what's right or wrong for themselves, when someone with "absolute moral authority" is within earshot or line-of-sight. It ceases to be a matter of individual discernment; it's got to.

I wonder if it's possible for people to have respect for "right and wrong" if some master is "absolutely" deciding this on their behalf. You know, I feel a real sense of responsibility for what any given government does if I'm allowed to have a voice, even if I get outvoted all the time it's still, in a sense, "my" decision that's being carried out. It's completely different if someone else wants to be an "absolute" authority on what's right/wrong, or wants to annoint a third party with that kind of stature. Once I'm just a big zero in the equation of figuring out what's right and what's wrong, well, what do I care? Throw babies on the bonfire, kick old ladies around; do whatever you want. It doesn't reflect on me because it's not "my" decision anymore -- someone else spoke with "absolute" authority.

I'm afraid that's what being a liberal is all about nowadays: "we want ABSOLUTE authority to determine what's right and what's wrong." It leads to dystopian trends because the individual ceases to have any feeling of obligation for what the leadership is doing. Leadership becomes the leadership, not our leadership.

Phil said...

Pretty much.

The idea behind these cards is to help expose the hypocricy in these claims. Nobody can criticize what Cindy Shehan says because she lost a son in the war, nobody can ever criticize what a member of a minority has to say (unless he's a conservative).

Basically, you get a certifed Victim™ to carry your message so that all criticism of the message can be deflected as criticism of the Protected Certified Victim™ -- and therefore -- dismissed out of hand.

Phil said...

> It ceases to be a matter of individual discernment; it's got to.

What they've really done here is they have carefully choosen a messenger that already agrees with them on what is "right" regarding the position being addressed, had that person make their statement, and then wait to jump down the throats of anyone who would criticize the message -- as I was saying above.

Perhaps it is kind of the mirror image of the Ad Hominem attack Bill Whittle recently talked about (scroll down to CHICKENHAWKS). Instead of attacking the argument because of the message they can't argue with, WE are not allowed to attack their message because they equate it with attacking the messenger. The messenger to whome they have granted what we're sarcastically calling their Absolute Moral Authority status.

Most religious people do believe there is some master (God, Allah, Jehovah) is "absolutely" deciding what is right or wrong on everyone's behalf, and they (if they are true believers - otherwise they're not really religious) have a great deal of respect for "right and wrong". Of course, then they do care whether or not they throw babies on a bonfire or kick old ladies around, because they believe that God will punish them for it... or because they truly agree with said God that said activity is wrong and they actually don't want to do these things.

What Liberals have done in discarding the idea of God -- which in my book is a collection of accumulated moral judgement by various cultures over the ages codified into something that is to be respected -- is that they have come up with their own "religion" in which they are the new arbitrators of right and wrong. It is essentially an attempt to discard the accumulation of moral judgement and write a completely new one that suits their agenda.

Of course, they will slowly get it codified into "State", making State the religion, effectively erasing the "separation of church and state" -- and then, ironically, since no one has any respect for the State anyway, especially lefty freaks, it will all become a game of "what can I get away with".

< /end stream-of-thought rant >