Sutter Cane said:
Honestly for the purposes of my disagreement with you i don't really care about the woman here. My disagreement with you is that laws trump morals and ethics. In fact in one of your posts you linked be to civil disobedience by Thoreau. Wasn't that one of the points that he was trying to make in this essay.
Also I find it interesting that you seem to assume that I am not in college, or that I do not know how to write a college level paper.
I see you are not only talking down to me at this point, but also seemingly to Dags90 as well. I know nothing about the history between you two, but from where i'm sitting, nothing in his post seemed to be particularly antagonistic about his post, he just expressed a different opinion than you did. In fact if anyone in here is coming off as antagonistic, it's you. I don't know if you realize this, but you're coming off as very arrogant.
My outrage at your post stems from the fact that you chose to present only the most incendiary comment that I made. I backed up my position later in the same post, and yet you chose (yes, CHOSE) to try to present my position in the most absolute of terms, rather than to include everything in my post that was germane to the conversation. Perhaps I overreacted, but in my experience, that sort of behavior is what demagogues pursue, rather than an actual discussion, or debate.
Let me present it to you in this light: Laws
do in fact trump morals or ethics, because morals and ethics are individual decisions, whereas laws affect all individuals in the jurisdiction where you live. In other words: morals and ethics = the rules you choose for your self, while laws are the rules that everyone has to abide by. Simple logic: you have to abide by the rules that apply to everyone first, because (even if you don't like it) those are the ones that will result in you being cast out from society (in the form of incarceration).
Am I talking down to you? Well, yes: a little bit. From your profile, I know that you are young. You may be in college, or just graduated high-school. Regardless, my personal experiences (which I will admit color my opinions) are such that I think the majority of your learning is ahead of you. Yes, you seem to be intelligent, but at the same time, I could tell that you haven't been trained/ (whatever is least offensive to you) how to defend your position.
For example, you suggest that one of the points Thoreau was trying to make supports your point of view. In fact, it does not. Thoreau was arguing against extreme injustices perpetrated under the excuse of 'well, it's *legal*', and dealt largely with the 'Tyranny of the Majority', which you can also read in the Federalist Papers (James Madison wrote the bulk of this theory)... but ultimately, if you read Thoreau, you'll find that he never advocates breaking the law directly, but rather engage in protest (not paying taxes, sit-ins, etc.) to address
grave injustices such as slavery. This is the type of behavior that Martin Luther King, Jr., one of the greatest human beings ever, engaged in, directly crediting Thoreau as his inspiration. Not simply ignoring a law that you don't like.
As for the 'talking down to you/Dags90' thing, I talk down to
anyone who tries to pull off some bullshit like "I feel blahblahblah" and provides no foundation to it-- as I said in my previous post: Dags, yet again, said something akin to "Other people say different, but I can't be bothered to actually provide examples." And, like I said in my previous post, that's all well and good, but I'm not going to give you (or him) the time of day unless you provide examples and references. Why? Because any schmuck can say " Oh I read that somebody somewhere said something different than what the well-respected philosophers you're quoting said. " Doesn't that strike you as being a little lame? Seriously?
Bottom line: I am not attacking you, or Dags. I am attacking the point of view you both seem to espouse, which I feel is very youthful and naive.
Do I think you're unintelligent? No. Do I think that you shouldn't contribute to a conversation? HELL NO. But I do think that you (and everyone here on the Escapist) should use logic and reasoning when entering into a debate...
As opposed to quoting someone, editing out everything but the very first line of the post, and trying to make that person look like they are unreasonable. (Do you deny that was your intent in your original quote of me? Because I fail to see why you would take the time to delete the rest of the post from your quote of me if it wasn't.)
