Phikokalia's Virtue Oriented World

Originally posted by @philokalia
Virtue, then happiness and meaningful livelihood thst results in justice and good living, which is superior to freedom and rights while simultaneously being a source for the same fruit as freedom and rights.

I am all for moral education, for the development of ethics, virtue, righteousness, justice and good living, etc. You have no argument from me on this.

Originally posted by @philokalia
Do you find it meaningful to discuss issues only on the surface and ignore the greater question? Do you know other intellectuals who like to do that?

Well, I certainly have come across self-declared and self-styled "intellectuals" who use rhetorical gimmicks like characterizing what they themselves seek to peddle as being "the greater question" while at the same time dismissing disagreement as being "shallow" or "only on the surface" or "schoolboy tripe" etc. It's nothing new. Nor is it as sophisticated as such pundits think.

Originally posted by @fmf
Well, I certainly have come across self-declared and self-styled "intellectuals" who use rhetorical gimmicks like characterizing what they themselves seek to peddle as being "the greater question" while at the same time dismissing disagreement as being "shallow" or "only on the surface" or "schoolboy tripe" etc. It's nothing new. Nor is it as sophisticated as such pundits think.

Then come and dismantel the argument!

I left you alone for hours & hours & hours to mount some kind of defensive or to go deeper, but you did not take the opportunity.

The recap of our discussion is like this:

Philokalia:
- Observations about history
- Observations about virtue as the origin of all good in the society
- Observations about how "rights" and "Freedoms" on paper without virtue are worthless
- Observations about how, with virtue, one gets the real equivalent of freedom & liberty even if there is no actual paper trail of "rights" and "freedoms"
- Observations about how rights & freedoms, while clearly enumerated in Britain, W. Europe, and the USA, are on a gross decline and degenereating.

FMF
- "I believe in Muh Rights."
- What about Indonesia?
- Should Indonesia not have Muh Rights?
- I don't want to talk about the West.
- I agree that virtues are very important but I am going to refuse to confront the idea that this is fundamentally more important than Liberty or Freedom.... I will just leave my statement there..

Etc.

Have I unfairly characterized any of this?

You ahve FAILED to mount any kind of depth in your responses.

I think we all see exactly why FMF chooses to confront things in a superficial fashion: this is his version of having a debate.

He honestly does not want to cover a topic extensively.

Dare I say, this is exactly why he wants nothing to do with the Debates forum and refused to confront the topic that I had posted there initially.

In that forum, people routinely demand that others go to the mat and discuss things at length.

Guys, when you deal with FMF, just demand that he goes deeper.

Of course, we can fully expect him to say Oh I talked about that so much over the last ten years!

But, based on the patterns of his discussion and the course of this debate, is there really anything that can be said to be a topic that FMF covered in depth?

Originally posted by @philokalia
Then come and dismantel the argument!

I left you alone for hours & hours & hours to mount some kind of defensive or to go deeper, but you did not take the opportunity.

The recap of our discussion is like this:

[b]Philokalia:
- Observations about history
- Observations about virtue as the origin of all good in the society
- Observations a ...[text shortened]... rly characterized any of this?

You ahve FAILED to mount any kind of depth in your responses.[/b]

"Muh Rights"?

Originally posted by @philokalia
Observations about how rights & freedoms, while clearly enumerated in Britain, W. Europe, and the USA, are on a gross decline and degenereating.

I think "Britain, W. Europe, and the USA" would be worse places to live for ordinary people if there were no human rights and no freedoms.

Originally posted by @philokalia
FMF (supposedly asked) 'Should Indonesia not have Muh Rights?'

Have I unfairly characterized any of this?

Yes, I didn't ask "Should Indonesia not have Muh Rights?". But I did ask you this "Citizens of Indonesia should have a right to free speech and free press or the citizens of Indonesia should NOT have a right to free speech and free press: which?" However, your perspective on "virtue" seemed to prohibit you from answering the question.

Originally posted by @philokalia
...with virtue, one gets the real equivalent of freedom & liberty even if there is no actual paper trail of "rights" and "freedoms".

"Paper trail"?

People where I live, I am sure, would like there to be actual protections from people in power rather than what you call "the real equivalent of freedom and liberty".

Who gets to decide what the "equivalent" to human rights should be? The bishops of your church, a military junta, oligarchs?

Originally posted by @philokalia

Do you support the right to believe in zero immigration and in maintaining a homogeneous society?

I certainly support the right to believe it and also to speak out about it. I would work for or with people in that society who sought to overturn such a policy.

Do you believe in the right to refuse to cater gay weddings?

Yes, I do.

Do you believe that you have a right to encourage your own kid to not be gay?

I would not condone the government interfering in the raising of children or abrogating the rights of parents aside from when the child's health or life is threatened. It's been discussed here several times.

We are heading towards a situation where people are losing their livelihoods and being ostracized for believing any of the above.

It's good to live in a society where you have the right and freedom to speak out and campaign against such things. Liberty in practice is imperfect and a warts and all thing ~ and very unevenly applied across nations and cultures. It can be hard work. People need protections from those in power. People need to be able to demand those protections from those in power when they are missing or change for what they see as the worse.

The President of the US had people being physically assaulted at his campaign rallies by far leftists.

That's not good.

Originally posted by @philokalia
You literally just listed things like "Religious freedom. Freedom of thought

Religious freedom would be the right to believe in whatever deity you want and worship that deity in association with others with same beliefs as long as doing so does not abrogate the rights and freedoms of others or exhort others to harm or coerce others or to break laws that are designed to guard public safety and other cultural norms.

The freedom of thought would mean that a citizen could not be punished or repressed or harmed or coerced on account of what ideas and thoughts and beliefs they have.

These principles and arrangements are to protect ordinary citizens from those in power and from each other.

Originally posted by @philokalia
Either you are lying to all of us and feel no shame about totally ignoring basic right and wrong when dealing with people.... OR, You were never socialized properly and have some literal cognitive disorder that does not allow you to evaluate your actions or empathize with others.

So, I am supposedly 'Lying/feel no shame/no understanding of basic right or wrong' or I was supposedly 'never socialized properly/I have some literal cognitive disorder that makes empathy impossible'?

Are these my only two choices?

Originally posted by @fmf
Yes, I didn't ask "Should Indonesia not have Muh Rights?". But I did ask you this "Citizens of Indonesia should have a right to free speech and free press or the citizens of Indonesia should NOT have a right to free speech and free press: which?" However, your perspective on "virtue" seemed to prohibit you from answering the question.

You know, the way that a debater would confront this issue is by disputing my point and not repeating the same, silly questions.

If you want to dispute the point, then we can actually proceed with a debate.

But you are literally asking irrelevant questions because you seem to not even have the ability to dispute a thing.

Refer to my intiial post here about your inability to debate or discuss things on a deep level at all.

Originally posted by @fmf
"Paper trail"?

People where I live, I am sure, would like there to be actual protections from people in power rather than what you call "the real equivalent of freedom and liberty".

Who gets to decide what the "equivalent" to human rights should be? The bishops of your church, a military junta, oligarchs?

Yes, of course, everybody wants to have total and real protection of their dignity and their freedoms. But what people get, most of the time, evenw hen these things are "enshriend in law," is a shadow of that truth.

And you insist that this shadow of the truth is more important than the actual virtues that make these situations possible to begin with.

Like... Why am I literally having to re-explain to you parts of this debate that were occurring 2-3 (or more) pages ago?

Excuse me -- I should not refer to this as a debate. It is me talking, and you attempting to object to the content, but even then you fail to adequately handle the content and grasp it. You isnist on asking shallow questions.

I think that I am finally grasping one of the probelsm that you have:

FMF really thinks that he get sto be the one who akss the questions.

Perhaps it is his career in pedagogy (which I assume is what he does) that has led him to believing he can have this role where we are his non-native speaking students or fanboys that sit around and let FMF direct the conversation to wherever he wants to go.

So, after years (or decades) of this, we now have to deal with a guy who thinks he can debate and discuss things but the only tactic he has is to insist that he has some right ot redirect the debate towards shallow questions that do not actually further the debate but bring it back to talking points that he wants to have but that he does not even adequately explain.

WOuld you say that that is accurate, FMF?

Originally posted by @fmf
[b]Do you support the right to believe in zero immigration and in maintaining a homogeneous society?

I certainly support the right to believe it and also to speak out about it. I would work for or with people in that society who sought to overturn such a policy.

Do you believe in the right to refuse to cater gay weddings?

Yes, I do.

D ...[text shortened]... ple being physically assaulted at his campaign rallies by far leftists.

That's not good.[/b]

This is like the... greatest intermediary joke in the thread.

I ask a series of ... practically rehtorical questions. He already has basically answered these.

I showed that the real intention of these questions was a dialog about the state of democracy and Muh Rights in the West, and to point out that the system that he wants us all to have so much faith in is completely fragile.

He has decided to answer these again.

Why is that?

Is this because he acutally thinks that this is how to get the debate back on course?

It doesn't make sense to me.

Enlighten me, FMF, as to why you think going back to this is relevant for all of us.