NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #31/NN_1992_31.iso/spool/alt/fan/rushlim/11237

Internet Message Format | 1993-01-02 | 3.9 KB

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From: [e-mail] (Tristan Riley)
Newsgroups: alt.fan.rush-limbaugh,alt.rush-limbaugh,talk.politics.misc
Subject: Re: Your own words, of course != bigot
Date: 2 Jan 1993 05:18:23 GMT
Organization: University of California, San Diego
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In article <1993Jan01.180401.23989@crash> [e-mail] (Milo D. Cooper) writes:
>
>    On the contrary, Mr. McAngus, I can safely point out that the
>abolition of slavery was a good thing, especially since I'm a black male.
>Only a political anarchist would dare declare that ethics and morals are
>beyond judgment.  Please support this assertion of your's with a lucid and
>obvious example or two, or better yet, prove my submission that slavery
>is immoral false.
McAngus' point (as i understand it) was not that
morals are "beyond judgement"
but that there is no transcendental standard upon which to erect
them (unless you're the kind of neo-fascist christian who thinks
you've got the answers for everybody and you'd like to tell every
other culture in the world which happens to adhere to different
definitions of morality that they're WRONG and better change their
ways or go to hell--or better yet we'll come over with our little
missionaries and whip ol' christ into you).  morality is culturally
relative and historically specific--this is why the same kind of
morons citing r. limburger now re: the moral incorrectness of
homosexuality were 150 years ago whipping your ancestors and
citing god's eternal system of morality as justification for
"keeping the darkies in their place."  the simple fact is that
slavery was quite moral in the minds of lots of slave owners--you
are indulging in a quite a bit of egocentric (not to mention
feeble) argumentation to
imply that your self-interest as "a black male" creates moral ground
for one action while the self-interest of gays and lesbians who are
interested in the same freedom from persecution cannot do likewise
because you have decided their morality is faulty.

someone else writes:

Prove to me that butt fucking is a legitimate expression of
>by vociferous groups or not.

to whom i would answer:  prove to me that vagina fucking is a
legitimate expression of love between a man and a woman.

Milo continues:

 legitimacy and morality are
>not always subject to mutually synonymous definitions.  To cry out
>in disgust using foul language is a legitimate display of anger, but
>to do so before children is immoral.
>
what are you talking about here?  immoral TO YOU.  i hate to break
the news to you, but there is no schematic grid all humans are born
with in their brains which tell them "cursing in front of the kids
is immoral."  certain cultures might hold certain actions immoral,
but that doesn't make them universal by definition (not even if it's
christian culture we're talking about).  and before you try to make
the overly obvious (and well-worn) reply of "well then, OUR (u.s.) culture
says so and so for us it holds"--there is no monolithic thing called
"u.s. culture" (at least i've never seen it--maybe it's what moses
carried down from the mountain? yeah, right).  there are CULTURES
(see the 's' at the end?)--lots of 'em: working class cultures,
african american cultures, yep, even christian cultures.  they
overlap sometimes, sometimes they're quite antagonistic to one
another, and whenever they have profound disagreements, the
historical record shows that the one with more resources usually
knocks the other on the head and calls on universal decrees from
somewhere (god, the state, whatever) to justify the knocking.
you seem to advocate more of the same.

alexander