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Originally Posted by World's King
Did your daddy not play catch with you? Mommy not tell you that she loved you as much as you'd have liked? Sister touch you in a wierd way in the bathtub at a young age?
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A well reasoned and coherent response to an interesting question if ever I read one. Thank you for your rational, respectful reply.
Not to mention that your entire post is about smoking, not about the topic actually being discussed in this thread. So if I may, let me sum up your entire response to this article:
"Politicophile, you make me really mad."
There. That's all you said in relation to the thread. But thanks for that information on smoking in Colorado and getting hummers from hookers on dirty toilet seats.
World's King is not, however, the only one to respond in such a manner. It's only the most blatant. Most of the responses I've read in this thread have been either a) completely irrelevant to the original question (i.e. lambasting Politicophile for his particular morals) or b) just plain irrelevant.
In response to the original question: I believe that society by its nature must impose a certain set of morals in order to exist. There are some absolutes, some of which have been mentioned, namely "don't intentionally harm others who are not harming you." If you can't agree with this, then you have no place in a society that provides you any sort of protections or freedoms. You are an anarchist.
If you
do agree with this, and you enjoy the safety and stability of government and society at large, then you agree with the original poster. Of course there are different shades of grey between the two standpoints, but I think most of you are getting caught up in the emotions of disagreeing with Politicophile's lofty opinion of himself. Ultimately, that is irrelevant to the argument.
Allow me to recap the general idea, for the many of you who either forgot or intentionally skipped that part of the post:
Moral imposition and direction is necessary for a society to remain stable. Without laws and directives based in an agreed upon code of morality, society cannot exist.
The large portion of you arguing about everything else, you're missing the point.
I agree in a large part with the original point, mainly for the reasons already stated: a society, by its definition, must have laws. Those laws, in order to be effective at keeping the peace, must be based on something, and that something is moral imposition. Morality will shift with time, as will laws. There is no end to this game, no one right answer. The answer is, instead, to continue to challenge everything, to continue to share, learn, and grow as a society.
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Originally Posted by politicophile
It is vitally important that we continue to make these sorts of judgments because this is the method through which society shapes its prohibitions, expectations, and priorities.
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