Can states secede? There are three levels on which this question can be answered:

[X-Man]

Halftrack, Think of it as the War of Federal Aggression. A good reason, even today, for The Several States to keep the federal government on a very tight leash.

[Adam-12]

"Right" is being moral. Guess who writes the morals? Going back to the Nazi Germany thing, had they won, jews would have been exterminated, and today, it would be accepted truth that jews are evil and it was the morally proper thing to do, to exterminate them. That might sound morally reprehensible to us, but only because we have a different set of morals...

OK, it's as I feared: you happen to embrace moral relativism.

In a certain sense I even agree with you: I can give all sorts of arguments why my morality is preferable to all the others, but NOBODY can PROVE that X is moral, because "moral" is in the mind. It can't be weighed, measured, tasted or felt.

Nevertheless, morality is useless if we don't treat it as absolute. If you and I someday became neighbors, in a place where stealing is the norm, I would have no way of knowing whether I could trust you, because to you the wrongness of stealing is nothing but a personal preference. From my perspective that makes you dangerously unpredictable. I have to assume that if you want to do something badly enough, and you think you can get away with it, you'll do it.

My morality has something else going for it. Natural law rests on the premise that nobody has a right to harm another, or another's property, except to defend against such harm already initiated against oneself. One advantage of this law is that it's universal. Everyone knows where he fits into society, and it doesn't change if he discovers that he's actually a Jewish orphan adopted by Lutherans. It's also fair. Everyone is the same before the law. And it's natural, in that very small children instinctively know these rules and expect each other to live by them (even though they break them themselves).

And finally, my morality automatically maximizes everyone's prosperity. It also maximizes happiness, except among people who wish they could rule, rob, rape, etc.

Yes, I grasp that this can't be proven rigorously, and that God may never step in and vindicate me, and that I may be utterly defeated by vile brutes who hold my morality in contempt. But as the universal, fair, natural thing it is, and calculated as it is to make everyone on the planet as well off and happy as possible, it's worth defending and even dying for.

Because you lack such a core of conviction, all of our real-world interactions are hampered by the friction of distrust. Not to put too fine a point upon it, moral relativists are like a stranger's dog.

[General Geoff]

Natural law rests on the premise that nobody has a right to harm another, or another's property, except to defend against such harm already initiated against oneself.

Incorrect. Natural law is survival of the fittest. The end.


The problem is that you assume the existence of god. If god exists, then god is the one true sovereign, upon which he has passed down morals to his subjects (all of us). That's the easiest way to think of it.

I am an atheist, however, and as such I have no choice but to assume morals are relative. They are a man-made concept.

[Adam-12]

That is correct, knight. Having rights does NOT make you sovereign. Having supreme power makes you sovereign...

By which definition, only God is sovereign. Anyone who claims sovereignty is claiming to be God, and I hope I live to see God give the almighty smackdown to anyone who's such a disgusting egomaniac to claim that.

The United States as a whole being a sovereign republic, the state thus recognizes and protects certain rights of its constituents, even though they are not in and of themselves sovereign over the nation.

You realize that the Constitution says something very different than you're saying here? That in what you're saying, you're daming the US as an utter failure from the framers' perspective?

[Adam-12]

Right and wrong is IRRELEVANT between sovereign powers. The sovereign DECIDES what is right or wrong.

So we've found two moral relativists so far in this thread. Like I already said, the only problem with moral relativists is that they can't be trusted. They need to be kept at arm's length and watched, because the compass that steers them is nothing stronger than a whim.

[General Geoff]

You realize that the Constitution says something very different than you're saying here? That in what you're saying, you're daming the US as an utter failure from the framers' perspective?

The Preamble of the Constitution would disagree with you.

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

[General Geoff]

Like I already said, the only problem with moral relativists is that they can't be trusted. They need to be kept at arm's length and watched, because the compass that steers them is nothing stronger than a whim.

You believe so-called moral relativists cannot have true conviction in their morals? Why is that? Just because we recognize them as man made concepts?

You recognize that the United States Code is made by man, thus it is not universal. By your logic, that means I can't trust you not to break the law.

[Adam-12]

The problem is that you assume the existence of god...

No I don't: didn't you read my summary of the benefits of non-aggression? It's universal, fair, maximizes both prosperity and happiness, and satisfies most humans' natural sense of what's right. For these reasons I would defend non-aggression to the death especially if I were an atheist. My religion actually limits me in this regard.

I am an atheist, however, and as such I have no choice but to assume morals are relative. They are a man-made concept.

Sure. But some people will cling to their morals to the bitter end, and other humans will throw them aside at a whim. The humans whose morals are deeply woven in their being, I can trust--as much as any human can be trusted. The ones who lack powerful moral convictions are similar to sociopaths: dangerous and unpredictable.

[General Geoff]

You're making very little sense. What makes you think I won't cling to my morals till the bitter end?

[Adam-12]

You believe so-called moral relativists cannot have true conviction in their morals? Why is that? Just because we recognize them as man made concepts?

I recognize morals as a man-made concept as well--haven't you been reading? On an intellectual level that might make me a "relativist" too. What convinces me that certain people can't have true conviction in their morals is... watching them consistently fail to demonstrate conviction in their morals.

People with normal amounts of moral conviction, for example, suffer cognitive dissonance when they imagine "twin worlds," one having their morality and the other having its opposite. They wouldn't be capable of coolly observing that in a parallel world, exterminating the Jews would be hailed as a human triumph. The thought would cause them pain, and they'd leak some evidence of that pain.

I reserve the term "relativist" for people who repeatedly fail to demonstrate such convictions. It makes me nervous because it has a sociopathic whiff about it, but I assume it's different from clinical psychopathy. One thing it has in common with psychopathy: the problem is extremely obvious to everyone who doesn't have it; but those who have it are convinced that there's nothing for anyone else to see.


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