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To: Smile-n-Win
Morality is determined by ... oh, I hate to say this ... the majority.

I think you're confusing morality and law. The two most certainly are not one and the same.

For example: A person is prohibited from reading objectionable material. If he refrains from doing so because he fears legal problems (force), is he moral? No. Fear and morality are different. He didn't refrain because he thought it was the wrong thing to do (moral decision), he refrained because he's scared of men with guns (fear decision). To the casual observer the end result may seem the same, and to many that's all that really matters, but in reality, that individual is not one bit more moral than without the law.

To make matters worse, once people begin to assume law is morality, they believe anything legal is moral. So lets take another example, some person who believes that law is morality. Say there is no law against trespass. He then trespasses, without contemplating the moral implications, because he has abdicated moral decisions to a majority vote. Is he moral? No. Is trespass moral because the majority says it is? No.

See the problem?

203 posted on 02/19/2002 11:23:33 AM PST by freeeee
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To: freeeee
...that individual is not one bit more moral than without the law.

I agree completely. The threat of force does not make people moral. I was just saying that the same applies to the Libertarian morality of "no force, no fraud" : if you refrained from fraud only because of the threat of force, you would still be immoral. And you would still question the right of law enforcement to threaten you with that force.

To make matters worse, once people begin to assume law is morality, they believe anything legal is moral.

Conservatism, in my view, is about matching the law as closely to morality as possible. There will never be a perfect match, and people should be made aware of this, but it is wrong to forbid things that are no immoral, or allow immoral things to be done unpunished.

208 posted on 02/19/2002 11:40:59 AM PST by Smile-n-Win
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