[Kevin Andrew Murphy]

Originally posted by Seree Zohar:
Kevin -
perhaps it is time to stop judging by your (personal &/or californian &/or american) standards; perhaps it's time to allow for cross cultural differences, proficiency in language notwithstanding; perhaps it is time for a little less nitpicking on the small issues, (her facial movements and intonation), time for a little more tolerance (of which americans are so proud), and a bit more overall viewing of the really big issues?

Seree--

Unfortunately, that way lies the path of extreme cultural relativism. If you judge a society only by its own values, disregarding all others, you must only conclude that everything's spiffy, even if that includes what you would define as murder, rape, torture and a whole gift assortment of various forms of repression.

I reserve the right to cluck my tongue and sniff disapprovingly at any country, including my own, which does not match my personal/Californian/American-as-I-and-my-friends-define it values.

Besides which, those values are "really big issues." Life, liberty, pursuit of happiness. I can't claim originality in holding those as American, Californian or even personal values, but there they are.

Three dozen children dead? That goes right there under "Life." If someone comes out and offers formal words of sorrow and regret but the words do not match the facial expression, my conclusion is that that person is either an empty suit or a sociopath and possibly both.

Originally posted by Seree Zohar:
I could, without looking too hard, find footage of leaders of state (Ahmedinjan, for starters) grinning with glee over the loss of human life (or does such loss, in Israel, have lesser value? even when it is quite a number of otherwise peaceful Arab villages in Israel, that were badly hit over Saturday?)

Please, by all means, link to them. I think Ahmedinjan is a religious nutjob, but the upsetting thing is the past couple weeks, all I've seen in the way of pull quotes from him are requests for economic boycotts and assorted other arrows from the diplomat's quiver.

As for value of human life, I use the fairly common calculus of valuing civilians over soldiers and children over adults. Apart from that, the only way lives in my book have lesser value is if less of them are being lost.

[This message has been edited by Kevin Andrew Murphy (edited August 06, 2006).]