Political Crossfire Forums

Kt · Joined: 23 Jan 2006 Posts: 3806

Infinite911911 wrote: Helena` wrote: Infinite911911 wrote: Once again on the ice packs off its Atlantic coast Canada is preparing to begin another season of reckless killing of innocent life. The season of brutally clubbing baby seals less then 3 months old is about to start once again, unfortunately. Around a million seal pups were killed for their fur in the last three years, and there is no indication that the pace is about to let up. This government-sanctioned eradication of hundreds of thousands of seal pups jeopardizes a species already facing an uncertain future as their habitat melts out from underneath them. This must be stopped! What right does a Human have to eradicate another species. Not for food or survival, but for fashion. Canada's new Prime Minister, Stephen Harper promised to make his government "more accountable and effective." Let's see if he is a man of his word and stop this government-sanctioned killing.

Infinate911911, I didn't expect you of all people to care about this kind of stuff, ask yourself Infinate911911, Do you have the right to b**** about the canadians killing baby seals, whilst you eat your veal?

I don't eat veal. This thread isn't about eating anything. It's about the cruel inhumane killed of hundreds of thousand baby seals so some idiot can walk around in a fur coat.
Infinate911911, do you eat ANY meat? DO you eat eggs? Are you aware of the inhumane treatment that factory farm animals go through so that you may eat them? Are you aware of what is done to hens so that they can be fit into tiny cages and decrease the space of the farm needed? Are you aware that those hens are de-beaked in many cases?

grim · Joined: 22 Oct 2004 Posts: 1366 Location: Ottawa

grim wrote: Infinite911911 wrote: I don't eat veal. This thread isn't about eating anything. It's about the cruel inhumane killed of hundreds of thousand baby seals so some idiot can walk around in a fur coat.

Oh man.... I love veal. So cute ..... and delicious. That's it. I'm having veal for supper.

THOSE TWO!!! There's supper kids.

Infinite911911

Helena` wrote: Infinite911911 wrote: Helena` wrote: Infinite911911 wrote: Once again on the ice packs off its Atlantic coast Canada is preparing to begin another season of reckless killing of innocent life. The season of brutally clubbing baby seals less then 3 months old is about to start once again, unfortunately. Around a million seal pups were killed for their fur in the last three years, and there is no indication that the pace is about to let up. This government-sanctioned eradication of hundreds of thousands of seal pups jeopardizes a species already facing an uncertain future as their habitat melts out from underneath them. This must be stopped! What right does a Human have to eradicate another species. Not for food or survival, but for fashion. Canada's new Prime Minister, Stephen Harper promised to make his government "more accountable and effective." Let's see if he is a man of his word and stop this government-sanctioned killing.

Infinate911911, I didn't expect you of all people to care about this kind of stuff, ask yourself Infinate911911, Do you have the right to b**** about the canadians killing baby seals, whilst you eat your veal?

I don't eat veal. This thread isn't about eating anything. It's about the cruel inhumane killed of hundreds of thousand baby seals so some idiot can walk around in a fur coat.
Infinate911911, do you eat ANY meat? DO you eat eggs? Are you aware of the inhumane treatment that factory farm animals go through so that you may eat them? Are you aware of what is done to hens so that they can be fit into tiny cages and decrease the space of the farm needed? Are you aware that those hens are de-beaked in many cases?

I'm not sure what you trying to accomplish by high jacking the thread but that has nothing to do with what we are discussing. Maybe if you read the thread you'd know that.

josnowman · Joined: 08 Mar 2006 Posts: 6 Location: Saskatoon

There are about six million seals in that herd and the government put a cap of 325 000. Its not like I support the seal hunt but you have to remember that over-population has serious side effects to the ecosystem. We must also not forget that these people have been doing it for hundreds of years and it is a way of life for them. If you live on a farm and are raising cattle and people started protesting about killing cattle, would you stop? I undrestand that it is very brutal the way they kill them (clubing them to death) and I feel sad about it. Maybe instead of stopping the killing, we should just try to end the the beating and find new and more humain ways to hunt them :!?:

Kindred · Posted: Thu Mar 16, 2006 6:16 pm Post subject:

Quote: Our evolutionary roots form the basis of how we reason and how we behave and cannot be significantly altered. Considering that morals are the constructs of man, how much are they influenced by evolution then? It would be great if we could make every decision based on what is moral, but this is unrealistic thinking. Whether an act driven by evolutionary history is moral or not is an irrelevancy. And also consider the arbitrary nature of morals. If tendency to rape was a trait that increased fitness, then it would increase in frequency and as such would eventually become accepted by society. Absurd, yes, but so is the hypothetical of rape being a trait that is beneficial.

Yes, our evolutionary roots influence our morality, but we actually do have that ol’ chest-nut reason which can be employed to differentiate between the two. Evolutionary roots are to mind what legs are to jump, but neither our roots nor our legs can say what ought to be conducted at any stage of any event, whether the question is should I consume dead animals, or should I jump.

I brought up rate because there is actually a rather sizeable body of evidence, and many leading anthropologists who contend rape is naturally. Proof lies in the behaviour of our primate cousins, men during war time, the genetics of chimps, pregnancy rates for rape events, the logic of promoting heterozygosity between groups. It may not be an essential part of our nature, however, and hence we may exclude from modern culture in the hope that other traits we possess will over-ride the loss of genetic fitness- and even if it didn’t, from a moral perspective, it’s still impermissible.

Remember, evolution doesn’t work on a singular line- we have many different genes and traits, some which compete with others within our selves. Morality is no doubt an evolved trait, but does that render it worthless? Only if you accept the premise that rape is not bad, that murder is indifference, and genocide is acceptable. Reason tells us otherwise .

As for ‘the arbitrary nature of morals’, that’s just a cop-out. All your deontological theories (i.e. rights based theories) are simply expressions of morals anyway. Are they arbitrary?

more later........

Gnostic

Helena` wrote: Infinite911911 wrote: Helena` wrote: Infinite911911 wrote: Once again on the ice packs off its Atlantic coast Canada is preparing to begin another season of reckless killing of innocent life. The season of brutally clubbing baby seals less then 3 months old is about to start once again, unfortunately. Around a million seal pups were killed for their fur in the last three years, and there is no indication that the pace is about to let up. This government-sanctioned eradication of hundreds of thousands of seal pups jeopardizes a species already facing an uncertain future as their habitat melts out from underneath them. This must be stopped! What right does a Human have to eradicate another species. Not for food or survival, but for fashion. Canada's new Prime Minister, Stephen Harper promised to make his government "more accountable and effective." Let's see if he is a man of his word and stop this government-sanctioned killing.

Infinate911911, I didn't expect you of all people to care about this kind of stuff, ask yourself Infinate911911, Do you have the right to b**** about the canadians killing baby seals, whilst you eat your veal?

I don't eat veal. This thread isn't about eating anything. It's about the cruel inhumane killed of hundreds of thousand baby seals so some idiot can walk around in a fur coat.
Infinate911911, do you eat ANY meat? DO you eat eggs? Are you aware of the inhumane treatment that factory farm animals go through so that you may eat them? Are you aware of what is done to hens so that they can be fit into tiny cages and decrease the space of the farm needed? Are you aware that those hens are de-beaked in many cases?

I've heard that humans taste pretty good. Some say human meat tastes like checken, others say it's like a sweet pork. In either case, it sounds yummy actually.....once and if you can get past the "taboo-ness" of it.

Are you aware of the inhumane treatment that 18 year old kids get put through in wars? Like the one we have in Iraq right now. Kids getting crippled, maimed, all sorts of nasty, painful, debilitating stuff. So, what would be the difference, say, if I were a cannibal, and decided to go out and shoot myself a human for dinner tonight....any random human I come across....and then JUSTIFY it by saying, hey, look, all I'm doing is giving them a clean kill, a shot to the heart or head, it's all over in a second....but just LOOK at what those humans go through over in that war.....

Yes, my comparison is silly and twisted. But no more twisted than your justification for cold blooded murder of innocent beings for their fur, for "fashion", or for food. Since there are such treatments of factory farm animals, why, it should be perfectly fine to go out and slaughter a few yourself as well, to satisfy that old blood lust for the "hunt". Don't tell me it's for food, most hunters spend FAR more money on camping gear, trips out to remote areas, guns, ammo, gear.....than they ever would just simply going to the store and buying their meat. But what really sickens me is the fur trade. Mankind now has so many synthetic and man made materials now that are actually warmer and more relible than animal fur, and so there's no more justification for it except for fashion and vanity. And I view that as just as despicable than any cannibal.

thefranzkafkafront · Posted: Fri Mar 17, 2006 7:51 am Post subject:

A.D wrote: Quote: When i say concious, i mean quite spesifically a nervous system capable of receiveing processing and most important systhesising emperical data and concepts to a level which allows the mechanism of doubt and thus allowing the entitity to justfy its own extance.
Thus to be meta-physically an entity and thus in possession of rights the organism must be able to invoke cartesan doubt.

Horrible flow. You haven’t even provided a single reason why something must be ‘meta-physical’ in order to possess ‘rights’.

Rights must stem from somthing, this is my attempt at a extension of Lockes concept of rights steming from personhood.

Eveything else, be it social contract, or emotional construct is a fallible base for rights, and if rights are fallible they are no more than opinions and well.

Quote:
Quote: You've just illustrated one of the main examples about innate knowledge, how can children idiots and the comatose doubt there own existance and thus be provided rights.

Indeed this raises a problem, however the affordatory element is not the use of the carteasan mechanism but instead the existance of the mechanism.

I know all about Cartesian philosophy, but I have very little understanding of what you’re going on about.

Again my bad for invoking rather rague priniples, the point is that in the serch for rights we must first apply universal sceptisim to all of our belifes.

Quote:
Quote: A man may go through his entire life never invoke any form of philosophical sceptisism, however he exists as an entity as should he so choose to at any time he can do so.

Still awaiting a line of reasoning which connects human intelligence with ‘rights’.
Im not going to pretend this is a any question to answer, i would simply say at this stage basing rights on personhood and then trying to analyse what is personhood is the least fallible stance on rights.

Honeslty give me a few years to work on this one.

Quote:
Quote: As for the comatose again not an easy obsicle, we must take that the person did at one time possess a working mechanism of doubt, being comatose there is no way its repair can be accurately predicted, so you should never repess this mans rights as you can never be sure that at any moment he would not awake and again be the posessor of them.

Still waiting.
I know.

Quote:
Quote: For the right of life being given to eveything at birth, if eveything 'alive' (a uselessly romatic term refering to nothing more than organic mollecules utilising bio-chemical pathways) has a right to life, how can you then justfy bleeching a toilet or eating a stake.

Well, no one is arguing that all living things have rights, merely that some do. You seem to be stuck in a false dichotomy: either only humans have rights, or every living creature has rights. Such a dichotomy is misleading for reasons outlined in my post above.
No no noe, you've misunderstood, at no point (i hope) have i claimed that only humans have rights, what im trying to say is that rights stem from the faculty of reason. Anything with the faculty of reason will have rights.

Quote:
Quote: Rights are non-inferatory, if eveything has a right to life, how can we justfy the destruction or consumption of organic matter?

Are you just making up words or what? ‘affordatory’ ‘inferatory’

Re/ your pioint, see above.

Probally just shi**y spelling, inferatory, is to interfear with something, and affordatory is the ability of something to afford.

Quote:
Quote: Egro, for something to be in possession of rights it must posses itself a concious capable of the mechanism of doubt.

Seriously, there is no ‘ergo’ from what is written above to your final conclusion. There was no flow in that post whatsoever. You jumped from point to point while avoiding the actual topic. You clearly have a premise i.e. that only conscious beings possess rights, yet you’ve offered no insight into why, and then have concluded something without ever backing your premise.
My argument then needs futher expansion, i may have time on sunday to do this. I agree i have not outlined it in a completely linear fashion, this is less a fault of my logic and more of my writing skills however.

Quote:
Quote: My only answer can be, as we are trapped behind a viel of perception we can only base our conclusion on the assumptions that emperical sense data is correct.

Thus for the proposition that 'animals' possess a concious to be taken as true (rember it can never be taken as false only unproven as a nessity of logic) animal x would be required as an embassador to its species to show emperical evidence that it possessed a concious capable of philosophical doubt.
Untill we have evidence of this, we must work on the assumption that the proposition is unproven.

………..

What else can a man base his opinions on if not emperical evidence. Belife requires evidence.

Quote:
Quote: Thus animals (or seals to be more spesific) at this current point in time cannot be said to be inpossession of rights.

I’m sorry, that’s just horrible logic.
Well rember i've defined rights as being from the faculty of reason, i see no indication that seals possess this faculty.

Quote:
Quote: What makes us so great, well science is pretty kick ass, overall though its philosophy in which we completely trump eveything else on this planet. Mankind if the first species in our known universe that has analysied knowledge in itself.

If you’re interested in philosophy, I suggest you read some Peter Signer- he is the most influential moral philosopher of the past 100 years, and will challenge your dangerously comfortable views.

I know a lot of peter singer, indeed a very intresting ethicist. however the principle of utility is fundamentally flawed, and in all the material his i've read or hear in lectures this appears to be his starting point.

Also quite clearly i don't agree with his stance of suffering being the centre point of any ethical debate.

Kindred · Posted: Fri Mar 17, 2006 8:25 am Post subject:

Quote: Probally just shi**y spelling, inferatory, is to interfear with something, and affordatory is the ability of something to afford.

I'll get to your other points soon, but..............dude, they're not words .....You're making up words as you go along! :lol:

Kt · Joined: 23 Jan 2006 Posts: 3806

Gnostic wrote: Helena` wrote: Infinite911911 wrote: Helena` wrote: Infinite911911 wrote: Once again on the ice packs off its Atlantic coast Canada is preparing to begin another season of reckless killing of innocent life. The season of brutally clubbing baby seals less then 3 months old is about to start once again, unfortunately. Around a million seal pups were killed for their fur in the last three years, and there is no indication that the pace is about to let up. This government-sanctioned eradication of hundreds of thousands of seal pups jeopardizes a species already facing an uncertain future as their habitat melts out from underneath them. This must be stopped! What right does a Human have to eradicate another species. Not for food or survival, but for fashion. Canada's new Prime Minister, Stephen Harper promised to make his government "more accountable and effective." Let's see if he is a man of his word and stop this government-sanctioned killing.

Infinate911911, I didn't expect you of all people to care about this kind of stuff, ask yourself Infinate911911, Do you have the right to b**** about the canadians killing baby seals, whilst you eat your veal?

I don't eat veal. This thread isn't about eating anything. It's about the cruel inhumane killed of hundreds of thousand baby seals so some idiot can walk around in a fur coat.
Infinate911911, do you eat ANY meat? DO you eat eggs? Are you aware of the inhumane treatment that factory farm animals go through so that you may eat them? Are you aware of what is done to hens so that they can be fit into tiny cages and decrease the space of the farm needed? Are you aware that those hens are de-beaked in many cases?

I've heard that humans taste pretty good. Some say human meat tastes like checken, others say it's like a sweet pork. In either case, it sounds yummy actually.....once and if you can get past the "taboo-ness" of it.

Are you aware of the inhumane treatment that 18 year old kids get put through in wars? Like the one we have in Iraq right now. Kids getting crippled, maimed, all sorts of nasty, painful, debilitating stuff. So, what would be the difference, say, if I were a cannibal, and decided to go out and shoot myself a human for dinner tonight....any random human I come across....and then JUSTIFY it by saying, hey, look, all I'm doing is giving them a clean kill, a shot to the heart or head, it's all over in a second....but just LOOK at what those humans go through over in that war.....

Yes, my comparison is silly and twisted. But no more twisted than your justification for cold blooded murder of innocent beings for their fur, for "fashion", or for food. Since there are such treatments of factory farm animals, why, it should be perfectly fine to go out and slaughter a few yourself as well, to satisfy that old blood lust for the "hunt". Don't tell me it's for food, most hunters spend FAR more money on camping gear, trips out to remote areas, guns, ammo, gear.....than they ever would just simply going to the store and buying their meat. But what really sickens me is the fur trade. Mankind now has so many synthetic and man made materials now that are actually warmer and more relible than animal fur, and so there's no more justification for it except for fashion and vanity. And I view that as just as despicable than any cannibal.

As for 18 year old soldiers, they signed a contract and are in Iraq under their own free will.

As for using meat as a justification, no, you are incorrect, I am not justifying killing and eating seals, I am calling Infinate911911 out on his hypocracy, I don't believe in hunting or meat eating, In an ideal world, there would be neither, but this is not an ideal world, and you can't pick and choose what animals are suitable for death and which aren't that is hypocracy...

Infinite911911

Helena` wrote:
As for using meat as a justification, no, you are incorrect, I am not justifying killing and eating seals, I am calling Infinate911911 out on his hypocracy, I don't believe in hunting or meat eating, In an ideal world, there would be neither, but this is not an ideal world, and you can't pick and choose what animals are suitable for death and which aren't that is hypocracy...

First of all your post smells of someone who didn't even read the thread and just comes on here to troll, as you do just about every thread. Second of all the word is spelled hypocrisy. Say it with me Helena... hy·poc·ri·sy. Hypocrisy would be if I was calling for an end to this seal hunt while wearing leather pants and a seal fur coat. This has nothing to do with eating meat, if you read the thread you'd know that. Now go away and bother someone else.

social · Posted: Fri Mar 17, 2006 9:47 am Post subject:

thefranzkafkafront wrote: Eveything else, be it social contract, or emotional construct is a fallible base for rights, and if rights are fallible they are no more than opinions and well....we must first apply universal sceptisim to all of our belifes.

If you search for infallibility in philosophy or in political science, I can assure you, you won't find it... And using global scepticism to find such infallibility is not, as Wittgenstein and G. E. Moore have pointed out, the most fruitful approach. I take it you're aware of the problems of Cartesian philosophy?

Mr. Jaggers · Joined: 15 Mar 2006 Posts: 152

edited

Carly · Joined: 15 Mar 2006 Posts: 65 Location: Toronto

josnowman wrote: There are about six million seals in that herd and the government put a cap of 325 000. Its not like I support the seal hunt but you have to remember that over-population has serious side effects to the ecosystem. We must also not forget that these people have been doing it for hundreds of years and it is a way of life for them. If you live on a farm and are raising cattle and people started protesting about killing cattle, would you stop? I undrestand that it is very brutal the way they kill them (clubing them to death) and I feel sad about it. Maybe instead of stopping the killing, we should just try to end the the beating and find new and more humain ways to hunt them :!?:

You're being lied to.

Seals reproducing are not a national threat.

Because the East coast is now losing money because it depleted all the cod, they must now make up for it in this manner. They are pissed because they raped the ocean, and now there's no fish left.

Infinite911911 · Posted: Fri Mar 17, 2006 10:29 am Post subject:

Carly wrote: josnowman wrote: There are about six million seals in that herd and the government put a cap of 325 000. Its not like I support the seal hunt but you have to remember that over-population has serious side effects to the ecosystem. We must also not forget that these people have been doing it for hundreds of years and it is a way of life for them. If you live on a farm and are raising cattle and people started protesting about killing cattle, would you stop? I undrestand that it is very brutal the way they kill them (clubing them to death) and I feel sad about it. Maybe instead of stopping the killing, we should just try to end the the beating and find new and more humain ways to hunt them :!?:

You're being lied to.

Seals reproducing are not a national threat.

Because the East coast is now losing money because it depleted all the cod, they must now make up for it in this manner. They are pissed because they raped the ocean, and now there's no fish left.

/Agree.

Cod stocks were once so plentiful that early explorers to Canada joked that you could walk on the backs of the teeming fish, now they're pretty much all gone. No not because of Seals, as they been hunting Cod for thousands of years with no problems, but because of Human over fishing.

Now that the Cod's all gone they have to make money killing out another species. I wonder when the seals are all dead, what will be the next animal to be eliminated due to Human greed?

thefranzkafkafront · Posted: Fri Mar 17, 2006 5:29 pm Post subject:

A.D wrote: Quote: Probally just shi**y spelling, inferatory, is to interfear with something, and affordatory is the ability of something to afford.

I'll get to your other points soon, but..............dude, they're not words .....You're making up words as you go along! :lol:

Google appears to be taking your side.

But they 'should' be words.

Meh whatever I got my point across.

thefranzkafkafront · Posted: Fri Mar 17, 2006 5:36 pm Post subject:

social wrote: thefranzkafkafront wrote: Eveything else, be it social contract, or emotional construct is a fallible base for rights, and if rights are fallible they are no more than opinions and well....we must first apply universal sceptisim to all of our belifes.

If you search for infallibility in philosophy or in political science, I can assure you, you won't find it... And using global scepticism to find such infallibility is not, as Wittgenstein and G. E. Moore have pointed out, the most fruitful approach. I take it you're aware of the problems of Cartesian philosophy?
If you can't find infallibility in philosophy it cannot be found. I can be quite confident in saying that within logic it can be found.

Wittegenstein i have a sizable amount of respect for, ill admit i only understand a fraction of his work, but anyone who states that they do here is lying.

Fundamentally barking up the wrong tree, but irregardless incredibility clever.

Moore on the other hand was overrated, to the point i would even call him a hack.
Common sense philosophy, pfft!

Im aware of most of the criticisms leveled by Wittgenstein and Moore against global sceptism, doubt being a black whole, moore two hands argument.

Again were as they would critise Descartes as being able to identify what could be rationalty doubted, i would say they failed to identify what could rationally not be doubted.

Other objections like Putman are largely tied up like Wittgenstein in an analysis of language an interesting field no doubt but one ultimately tied up far too much in the expression of concepts and not the concepts them selves.

Cogito ergo sum is in essence infallible and i challenge you to prove otherwise.

micfranklin · Posted: Fri Mar 17, 2006 10:57 pm Post subject:

And by the way, this whole sea hunting event WILL be mentioned and also featured in my books, just so you know.

Canadian_Patriot · Joined: 14 Feb 2006 Posts: 323

A few flash games that let you obliterate baby seals :lol:

http://newgrounds.com/seals/index.html

Kumar · Joined: 21 Jul 2004 Posts: 16289 Location: Prague

A.D wrote: Yes, our evolutionary roots influence our morality, but we actually do have that ol’ chest-nut reason which can be employed to differentiate between the two. Evolutionary roots are to mind what legs are to jump, but neither our roots nor our legs can say what ought to be conducted at any stage of any event, whether the question is should I consume dead animals, or should I jump.
I can't agree here. You compare evolutionary roots to our legs, but there's a key difference. The leg does not influence our thought process. In contrast, our reasoning is directly impacted by evolutionary history. And if not on the outside, then certainly on the subconscious level, which is where it really matters anyways. If you are unable to alter the way you think subconsciously, then it is irrelevant what one espouses because they do not determine actions.

Quote: I brought up rate because there is actually a rather sizeable body of evidence, and many leading anthropologists who contend rape is naturally. Proof lies in the behaviour of our primate cousins, men during war time, the genetics of chimps, pregnancy rates for rape events, the logic of promoting heterozygosity between groups. It may not be an essential part of our nature, however, and hence we may exclude from modern culture in the hope that other traits we possess will over-ride the loss of genetic fitness- and even if it didn’t, from a moral perspective, it’s still impermissible.
That's interesting. I always associated it with the natural tendency of males to seek out sexual partners in one way or another, with some being overly aggressive (perhaps provoked by the stresses of war, for example). In any case, I agree that those traits that are less essential and less prominent in evolutionary history can be better managed to accomodate society. It could even be explained by a need to have a stable and functioning society that will ultimately benefit the individual, making it in their interests to abstain from destructive behavior in most cases.

Quote: Remember, evolution doesn’t work on a singular line- we have many different genes and traits, some which compete with others within our selves. Morality is no doubt an evolved trait, but does that render it worthless? Only if you accept the premise that rape is not bad, that murder is indifference, and genocide is acceptable. Reason tells us otherwise .
As stated above, I don't view it to be worthless. I think there has to be some purpose behind it, but different people have different takes on what this purpose precisely is.

Quote: As for ‘the arbitrary nature of morals’, that’s just a cop-out. All your deontological theories (i.e. rights based theories) are simply expressions of morals anyway. Are they arbitrary?
You disagree that morals are arbitrary? As for myself, I tend not to take the "natural law" approach (ie. this action is wrong because it is immoral) when justifying my principles--something more along the lines of consequentalism.

Marcfj · Joined: 14 Oct 2005 Posts: 87 Location: California

Kumar wrote: All I'm pointing out is that you've never come out with such energy and enthusiasm against those things as you are for this seal hunt.

Perhaps, rightly or wrongly, that is because he knows deep down inside, as most of us do, that we humans, collectively speaking, are the makers of our own misery and are therefore not truly innocent victims as are the seals.