[extropy-chat] Euphamism and misspellings.

[Brett Paatsch]

Russell Wallace wrote:

> On 6/5/05, Brett Paatsch <bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au> wrote:
> > Russell, did you look at the link to the Virtual Human Embryo site?
> 
> No, you're missing the point - my opinion on that topic happens to be
> the same as yours. I do not have to personally subscribe to the
> minority view to object to a state of affairs where holders of the
> majority view do not see themselves obliged to observe civilized
> standards of discourse.

I did not missing your point. I understand that you want to defend
the right of what you regard as the minority view to a fair hearing
in this forum. That is laudible in so far as it goes but it does not
go far enough. 

This forum is not the ultimate forum. The ultimate forum is the world.
The minority view expressed by christians like John C Wright is not
the minority view in that larger forum. When John C Wright comes
into this forum he comes in of his own free will and he leaves of his
own free will perhaps even probably with a better understanding of 
how others with different views to his own think. If he is here in 
operating in good faith as a truth seeker he may be persuaded by
arguments and the good faith of others but if he is here to test only
his skills in rhetoric and to acquire a better understanding of the 
enemy so as to counter them in the larger forum then your laudible
defense of his rights here may have consequences counter to the
principle that you are standing for in that larger forum of the world
in which policy is discussed and formulated in parliaments where
those with faith based world views vastly outnumber those without.

I know from person experience that those with faith based world
views in the parliaments and congress do not constrain themselves
either to the standards of civilized discourse or indeed to the laws
of the land if they can escape them in the pursuit of what they 
regard as the higher purpose as they see it.

You say that your view is the same as mine. You do not know 
my view well enough to say that unless you are willing to look
at the evidence that I show you and to see the basis upon which
my view is formed. You objected that nothing further could be
gained by a discussion of abortion and that to discuss it here 
was a waste of electrons and of bandwidth. We have plenty
of electrons and plenty of bandwidth. What we are short on 
are tools to pursuade those who are open to being persuaded.

I ask you again, this is not a loaded or leading question, did
you look at the Virtual Human Embryo site? If so do you think
that it is misleading to say that at some stages the early human 
entity is a cluster of cells AND that therefore it is misleading
to use the word child as a catchall term to include everything
from a fertilized egg to a human infant of a couple of years of
age a child? 

John C Wright whether he knows it or not, or whether you
know it or not is actively working to remove some distinctions
between classes of entities that are necessary to begin to have
an intelligent and honest debate about morality. A distinction
between person and non person is necessary to be made not
so that non persons be stripped of dignity but so that the hard
won gains of rights for persons are not frittered away. The 
distinction between child and non child also serves as a basis
to allow the rights of the child to be upheld. It is not there to
deny rights to the class of non child. Adult humans are non
childs too. But a person that conflates the class child with
non child simply to reposition the ethical discourse onto a
basis more supportive to their rhetoric is either doing so 
out of ignorance or doing so out of bad faith.

You cannot know which of those bases John C Wright is
operating from simply because he packages his discourse
couteously. 

Brett Paatsch