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To: annalex
Error has no rights.

Sadly, the exact reverse is often practiced. Truth all too often has no rights, which is especially startling when one reflects that Truth is a person.

The post-enlightenment political systems take a few features that exist under natural law and elevate them at the expense of the entire body of the natural law.

Just the other day I was wondering about modern invocations of the Golden Rule. Like everything else it is as malleable as a wax nose when taken out of context.

A libertarian type might say "how would you like it if Muhammed imposed his values on you?" while a more traditionally-minded Christian who favors morals legislation might say "how would you like it if you were left completely unchecked and unreprimanded in a state of sin?" The latter, at least, has the benefit of a formation in a community that keeps the memory of the context in which the Golden Rule was uttered, but it seems their argument, limited to one principle, is bound to be unresolvable.

Granted, the Golden Rule shows up in many cultures, which is an indication it flows out of a sort of universal intuition or recognition of justice, but it is terribly odd when people cite the Rule's formulation in the Gospels or the Analects of Confucius, while often completely ignorant of the rest of the material.

19 posted on 05/02/2005 3:36:36 PM PDT by Dumb_Ox (Be not Afraid. "Perfect love drives out fear.")
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To: Dumb_Ox
I spent a few years on FR arguing that natural law is a systematic application of the Golden Rule, and that it can be done objectively.

After I realized that the Golden Rule, thus applied, leads to

I kind of lost currency with the libertarian crowd.
20 posted on 05/02/2005 4:17:18 PM PDT by annalex
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