Comments by "Aristocles Athenaioi" (@aristoclesathenaioi4939) on "Don't you think you should finally start caring about politics?" video.
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@2DTL You have a moral obligation to participate in politics at least to extent of voting, and you should make your vote an informed vote. Also in the Nero Wolfe novels by Rex Stout, the character Archie Goodwin says this about voting, "The most interesting incident Tuesday morning was my walking to a building on Thirty-fourth Street to enter a booth and push levers on a voting machine. I have never understood why anybody passes up that bargain. It doesn't cost a cent, and for that couple of minutes, you're the star of the show, with top billing. It's the only way that really counts for you to say I'm it, I'm the one that decides what's going to happen and who's going to make it happen. It's the only time I really feel important and know I have a right to. Wonderful. Sometimes the feeling lasts all the way home if somebody doesn't bump me." Of course, the old lever voting machines that I grew up using in New York State have long since passed away. I did get much more satisfaction from pulling down the little lever than I do by filling in a dot on a paper form. However, the old lever machines were easily tampered with, and the current paper scanned systems have a much better audit trail.
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@2DTL A person has every reason judge the culture and legal (not moral) standards between cultures. (Morality is universal based on what is rational behavior, and as all humans ae reasoning creature the concept of rationality applies equally. I hope I don't get some moral relativism from you. Before you write such reply, please make sure you can explain even one moral principle: "Avoid killing another person except in self-defense" Now I feel certain that you will say the exceptions to the "do not kill" imperative may vary from culture to culture, but the underlying principle, "Avoid killing people" remains. To test any moral relativism, here are some other top principles:
+ "Avoid causing pain to another"
+ "Avoid dismembering another person without that person's consent"
+ "Avoid depriving freedom of movement by another person"
+ "Avoid causing loss of pleasure for another person"
+ "Avoid lying"
+ "Avoid Stealing"
+ "Obey the Law"
Now even in Western culture we allow exceptions to this, and the exceptions are interesting. A doctor is allowed to cause pain, and to dismember a person if that is with the intent to improve the person's help. Law Enforcement is allowed to cause pain to a specific person and to incarcerate the person to prevent that people from harming society by violating the rules of society's Law.
Once again, one society may have a different set of laws than another society. but both societies would agree on the moral requirement to "Obey the Law." A person in a society may object to a Law because due to a belief that the Law violates a higher moral principle. In which case, if the person demonstrates their objection in a non-violent and non-threatening way then their behavior remains within the scope of morality. Every society may have different ideas about how to non-violent, passive resistance, but the possibility of non-violent, passive resistance should be honored.
Stalinist Russia violated every canon of morality I have listed here. In fact, at the height of the Nazi domination of Germany, an individual person had more personal freedom such as the freedom to move while Russians under Stalin had fewer personal freedoms.
We use Moral Principles to judge the moral character of a society, and we do that when we choose to live in one kind of society than another, and that can be within the same political, economic and cultural group.
If people are forbidden from comparing and judge one culture and religion to one another then how do you explain a person chooses to convert from one religion to a different religion? Keeping in mind that the word "culture" derives from the word "cult" and that cultures different from one primarily by how they practice their religion even if they practice the disbelief in organized religion or the presence of one or more dieties. Have people who converted from one religion to another because they judged that one religion or religious practice was better. Did they break a rule that says, "Avoid comparing one culture against another." ?
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