It's kind of funny in the face of the previous meltdown over "lost" immigrant children that people are upset the federal government is keeping children in centralized locations.

As I understand the law and jurisprudence, kids cannot be kept in federal facilities their parents are detained in. Also they can be released to guardians, if ties can be proven.

okay

Depends on the source and jurisdiction.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/murder

Murder occurs when one human being unlawfully kills another human being. See Homicide. The precise legal definition of murder varies by jurisdiction. Most states distinguish between different degrees of murder. Some other states base their murder laws on the Model Penal Code.

In 2004, Scott Peterson was convicted of 2nd degree murder for the death of his unborn son in California.

Does all human life have rights, does a sperm have rights? — Sam26

Sperm does not contain the human genome, therefore it is not human life. Life begins at conception.

That part is academic.

I am pro choice, and I have considered that children under two can be executed on the parents’ choice. Some go as high as four.

Is that immoral?

Rights is a philosophical construct. — Hanover

Right. I pointed out an issue regarding language and the construction of human rights.

I don't believe that a zygote is equivalent to a person, it's just not the same thing. — Sam26

A person is a philosophical construct.

Barring severe mutation or inter species breeding, we know the zygote is human life. We talk of “human rights” not “person rights.”

Life obviously is not a human right.

Because rightly or wrongly, it was considered an act of war and not murder. And furthermore, he was acting in pursuance of Government policy, and not in pursuit of his own commercial or political interests. — Wayfarer

Right or wrong is the question.

Who determines governmental vs personal politics? Is a president reigning in what could be considered a done investigation not in the interest of the government being fair to those under its charge?

Other facts ought be considered by just plain common sense. — creativesoul

Are we talking about "spirit of the law" here?

Sometimes preparation is necessary for what may or may happen. — creativesoul

What’s your prep then - does the Constitution preclude it?

It would as easy as saying the President is not above the law.

Obama assassinated Anwar al-Awlaki in a drone strike. If not for being the President, that would be straight up murder in cold blood.

However, in accordance with his duties as a government official, the President is not culpable of murder in such a case.

He learned his craft as a reality tv star. — fishfry

I would submit politics is the original reality TV.

I actually addressed that in the next line and put the difference as the last line.

It would seem objective/subjective depends on the frame of reference.

Me liking orange juice is subjective.

You knowing I like orange juice is objective.

If time is relative due to our reference, then why can’t other concepts be? The point is you have to state the circumstance we are evaluating from.

Seems like opinion is the acceleration that creates subjectivity.

Capitalism is a system by which the vast majority are defrauded of much of the value of their labour in order to transfer it to a few very rich crooks. To do this it must keep the mugs living totally in the past. — iolo

As opposed to what? Settling into communities started wealth inequality to the degree it exist to in the present.

The means of production being controlled privately or centrally always seem to produce a 1%.

Are you advocating for the end of civilization to save our progeny from the crooks?

Does life having no meaning mean we cannot like french fries?

How you choose to treat people is like any other opinion, yours to choose.

Equivocation around “collusion” played a large part in fueling the public’s imagination that a crime had been committed.

Still, if Chelsea Clinton got busted for having a meeting with Russians, after her mother claimed there was no contact with Russians, would be harped upon endlessly by the likes of Hannity, Levin, and Wilkow as a smoking gun.

In the US, nationalism is expressed as severe isolationism (as if maybe the rest of the world might do us a solid and disappear) — frank

FDR was nationalist and far from an isolationist. His sentiments have not died out in the US.

If earths and moons ceased to exist, truths about earths and moons would cease to exist. If Sam did not exist, he would not have likes - what's the difference? — unenlightened

The moons and stars are not value judgments.

I wouldn't say "speculation," I'd say preference. My view is not a majority view. — T Clark

I don't understand the point. The nature of metaphysical things like free will are simply speculation unless we can somehow observe them.

I don't see it that way. I think philosophical and scientific issues are different in kind. — T Clark

How so? I mean I noted they were different, so we do not need Democritus' philosophizing on atomic theory any longer, as we are smashing atoms together to study the subatomic level.

This seems like a non sequitur. Anyway, to me, it's not the fact that homosexuality is not voluntary that makes it not a moral issue, it's because it's none of our damn business. As for pedophilia, we shouldn't prosecute people for thoughts or fantasies, but if they hurt a child, throw them in the slammer. For a long time. — T Clark

It's more of an object lesson in subjectivity. Why exactly is anything other individuals do our business? What does "hurt" a child mean? Why are you characterizing pedophilia as a crime rather than a mental disease?

You do not have to answer those. The point is we can debate the answers, but the basis for and resulting belief will come down to "because I want it to be that way." Which is subjective.

An atom exists whether we want it to or not. Which is objective.

Objective deals with knowledge.
Subjective deals with how I feel about knowledge.

I am particularly aware of this when dealing with my favorite subject, morality.

Objectively racism exists (going by definitions as Moliere points out.)
Racism being good, evil, whatever is subjective. It is based on what guiding principle a person wants to live by.

Choosing a guiding objective is subjective. Once chosen living by it is objective. If one starts making exceptions to the rule, then how do they justify, beyond their own feelings, that others' exceptions are invalid?

Looking at The New Dualism thread, I am reading it casually, as becoming well versed enough to argue in it is not a good use of my time, utterly subjective.

The reason why is I get tired of arguing around ideas that cannot be solved. Someone mentioned that the materialists have not won. But we are winning currently (Note: I am a recovering dualist.) Through our available evidence our consciousnesses is an emergent property from our physiology. There COULD be invisible forces affecting things, but you all COULD be a fevered dream of mine, so prove otherwise.

Now that was not meant to be a slight, it is just why I do not participate in a lot of arguments beyond trying to bring up some pragmatic point for discussion.

If you want to argue about such things in your free time, or if it happens to be your job - go for it.

Racism, like so much of capitalist ideology, depends on antiquated thinking. — iolo

How is that exactly?

People pick and choose from the Bible from all sides.

Can you really not lose respect for MLK if you have disdain for Joel Olsteen?

Olsteen runs around telling people, “God wants you to be rich!!!”

Where did he get that from? The Gospel according to Goldman Sachs?

Jesus was pretty clear that his followers were to put aside concern for earthly treasures and start building heavenly treasures.

How exactly can King be excused for invoking Christianity to call for economic justice, ie a call for a fair share of earthly treasure he was told to eschew?

His Lord did not have a place to lay his head and had his ass nailed to a cross. A lot of his followers seem to think their cross is managing a mortgage and 401k plan...

Why assume God doesn't? I see God doing so all the time, it's just that many people refuse to listen. — Tomseltje

Example?

I became an atheist because I finally came to understand that I believed what I believed not because it was true, but merely because I wanted it to be true.

God(s) is made in man’s image, then ideal.

I would agree in that people's empathy does not result in equal treatment.

We have been having the mindless screaming that NFL players have 1st Amendment rights while on the clock that their employers should not interfere with.

Then Roseanne happens, and the same freedom lovers flip and say, "Wah, wah, wait. Employers SHOULD interfere with their emplyee's free speech rights!!!" She was off the clock.

How is it that so few people have noticed that Christianity only works if the world is about to end imminently?

I apologize. I meant “without” instead of “with.”

I thought the challenge was embracing atheism with nihilism.

Evolution is not a random process, and no evolutionary biologist would say that. Gene mutation is random, natural selection is non-random. — Nop

Your rebuttal would have merit if "evolution" meant "natural selection." It does not.

The theory of evolution seeks to explain how we went from our LUCA to the current biodiversity found in our world, and given that you already ceded the argument to me. Genes are passed along via heredity through some reproductive process with new traits occurring through, that's right, genetic mutation, a random process.

Simply focusing on natural selection does not even help when it is done so vaguely. The actions of the participants in natural selection are not random. However, the circumstances the participants find themselves in are random, because they come from passing genetic traits along, not choice of the participant.

If you and I survive by eating coconuts, and I can eat them faster, thus growing stronger and reproducing faster, allowing my genes to box you out, then me utilizing my advantage is not random. The fact I have the advantage is random.

Getting back to my point, what in evolution dictates that I have to be "fair" and let you consume coconuts at the same rate I do, so that we may compete fairly?

It's not a problem to society unless it manifests perniciously. Could it not eat away a person's mind and heart though? — frank

What is the best way to change people's hearts and minds?

Has anyone ever negotiated? What happens when you simply refuse to consider the other party's position? They dig their heels in. They will not budge without coercion.

I've seen the old trope of complaints regarding calling out those intolerant of intolerant people. But there is no logic in that.

You mentioned evil in your OP. Is racism evil? No, it is not.

Trump is considered by many to be a racist. Okay, so what? Some of our greatest Presidents have been racists. In fact, we have a monument to one of the alleged greatest, who is from the modern era - Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

How can people speak with moral authority authority about the wrongness of racism, when this country put up an idol to a racist? Trump is compared to Hitler, but he has done nothing worse than FDR.

Ah, but it was a different time, right? That is the most common excuse used. However, that confirms exactly what I have come to believe - morality is an exercise in subjectivity. It is all opinion. Do people like having their opinion dictated to them. I would say for the most part no.

I submit that a racist is entitled to their belief. I in no way say people should sit quietly in the face of racism, but the counter must come from a place of respect, as we are merely arguing opinion. As I stated before, a world without prejudice is not the principle we are seeking to implement. Given all the mixed messages our society has floating about regarding racism, pretending not to be racist makes one morally superior is absurd.

The overall problem is that people do not want to dispense with prejudice, they just want to condemn the prejudices they dislike.

Who cares if someone is racist? If dumb beliefs are a sign of poor character, then we all lack good character.

The problem isn't that someone is racist. It is if that racism manifests itself in pernicious ways.

We have civil rights laws that address this in areas, such as employment. We engage in social measures in private settings outside of the law, like shunning a Nazi.

Some people cannot just countenance allowing someone a belief that they find repugnant. It goes back to some wanting to control others' thoughts, like religious, government, etc.

Personally, I don't see how you can anchor any idea of a 'true good' without some form of either belief in a transcendent God or at least a transcendent moral order (e.g. as Buddhism and Taoism do). — Wayfarer

That is pretty much it as far as "higher moral ground" goes.

A lot of people just think their opinion is the objective moral reality everyone else should abide by.

No one has. It would require metaphysical evidence not available to us. With the evidence we can gather there is no objective meaning to life.

We come from a random process - evolution. Where does objectivity fall into a random process?

As an atheist, who has embraced nihilism as the nature of the universe, where’s the problem? It is the ultimate freedom.

We spent centuries learning that humans are not the center of the universe, yet we still want to put ourselves there. Humans cannot resist the need to find patterns in noise.

That doesn’t mean we ignore the subjective social constructs we build.

You are right.

I think, therefore I am.

That is an a priori conclusion that Descartes drew up. It requires no inference from experimentation, that is no sensory evidence is needed.

Descartes believed that only certain knowledge could be known a priori, like mathematics.

He believed some knowledge, such as physics, required empirical study.

A priori vs posteri Is differentiated by how you can know the truth, either through rationality alone or through sensory input.

"prior to experience" means prior to experience, ie knowledge can be deduced theoretically without empirical evidence. You are not predicting. You already have the knowledge.

I think you are equivocating.

A priori is about having knowledge prior to experience. That is different than guessing outcomes.

You can determine that the angles on a four sided foundation will add up to 360 degrees before laying one foundation, as it can be determined strictly through rationalistic means.

There is neurological research that strongly suggests we do not have free will. Our decisions are made in our subconscious before they reach our conscious minds, and our conscious deliberations are just an illusion created by our minds.

The explanation comes from this course I recently listened to.

https://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/exploring-metaphysics.html

The funny thing is I heard the argument in the early 2000s, from a friend who is a theoretical physicist. Turns out they are friends, as the professor mentioned my friend’s name in regards to calculations on time dilation at the core of Jupiter.

The professor also brings evidence of quantum mechanics into discounting free will. The universe is not viewed as strictly deterministic from our point of view because the quantum nature of our reality is probabilistic, only collapsing into an outcome by observation, but we do not choose outcomes so much as get pulled along.

I graduated in 99, so things seemed to have changed.

The head of the department had to approve it. He asked me why I wanted to do it, as it would not help me make money. I told him I was not worried about money, just the experience.

Looking back, it might have been a test.

After all my time observing, human psychology seems solved.

At our essence, we are all rent seekers - we seek to stack the rules of the game in our favor.

This feels as an intuitive outcome of the process that spawned us, evolution.

We are engaged in natural selection, which has all participants in intraspecies competition utilize their natural advantages. Humans seem novel because we can create advantages through persuasading others to follow social constructs that promote our own self interest.