rigorousintuition.ca

Rick Steves put out this travel/history/current events documentary about Iran three years ago. . .



http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... 8733568709

Easily should dispel any and all myths idiot Americans believe about Iran (or applying that logic to just about anywhere). But, I'm sure that's too much to hope for.

Hi all! Sometime I wonder if Israel was totally wiped out of the face of the earth,would there finally be peace on earth?If yes why?If no why?

153den wrote:Hi all! Sometime I wonder if Israel was totally wiped out of the face of the earth,would there finally be peace on earth?If yes why?If no why?

No. All should be mature in dealing with the life that exists anywhere.

pssst. . .

Not something to bring up here, dude.

"Evil grows unchecked in the space between double standards."

REALLY sharp take there, Alice. That could serve as the foundation for a whole human-rights and political accountability campaign for education and public awareness. I could see t-shirts, banners, placards, bumper-stickers and pamphlets expounding on that basic comment. Double standards encourage silence and blindness about contradictions to claimed standards which enable outrages and atrocities to proliferate. That underlines the duty of obligation nations have to be true to their principles -- or else their fake idealism becomes a blot of dishonor that corrupts everything they touch.

StarmanSkye wrote:"Evil grows unchecked in the space between double standards."

REALLY sharp take there, Alice. That could serve as the foundation for a whole human-rights and political accountability campaign for education and public awareness. I could see t-shirts, banners, placards, bumper-stickers and pamphlets expounding on that basic comment. Double standards encourage silence and blindness about contradictions to claimed standards which enable outrages and atrocities to proliferate. That underlines the duty of obligation nations have to be true to their principles -- or else their fake idealism becomes a blot of dishonor that corrupts everything they touch.

Beautifully put. Truth rings from every word.

"Evil grows unchecked in the space between double standards."

I will now shamelessly steal this comment.

Quote:"Not something to bring up here,dude." I know!!

sunny wrote:"Evil grows unchecked in the space between double standards."

I will now shamelessly steal this comment.

And so Alice's little meme began its journey out into wild blue yonder of the Internet, where who knows what adventures it might have or where it might end up...

sunny wrote:"Evil grows unchecked in the space between double standards."

I will now shamelessly steal this comment.

Ha, I made it my sigfile the moment I read it (catching up)

153den wrote:Quote:"Not something to bring up here,dude." I know!!

(biting on trollbait) So why'd you do it?

Searcher08 wrote:

StarmanSkye wrote:"Evil grows unchecked in the space between double standards." [Alice]

REALLY sharp take there, Alice. That could serve as the foundation for a whole human-rights and political accountability campaign for education and public awareness. I could see t-shirts, banners, placards, bumper-stickers and pamphlets expounding on that basic comment. Double standards encourage silence and blindness about contradictions to claimed standards which enable outrages and atrocities to proliferate. That underlines the duty of obligation nations have to be true to their principles -- or else their fake idealism becomes a blot of dishonor that corrupts everything they touch.

Beautifully put. Truth rings from every word.

It is a brilliant, original coinage. Thank you Alice, and Starman for the exposition.

In this case, however, I have to say, there is no double standard, except in a very thin layer of rationalization pretending that actions are motivated by a code of justice, or morality, or self-defense. There is only one real, lone standard: The United States and its Israeli animus are Good, Noble, The Best, Holy, Always, and whatever they do is Right. All other nations (with the sometime exception of the UK and other "natural" allies like the oligarchies of Latin America) are naturally varying degrees of Wrong, held back only and to the extent they are restrained by conforming entirely to the Will of the righteous, however it may express itself.

It is what Adam Smith called the "vile maxim of the masters of mankind: all for ourselves and nothing for other people."

.

There many threads this video more appropriately belongs to than this one. Many locked. After I thought about starvation, and how many persons are starving, and will starve, this thread seemed most appropriate. Why? Because there is not a food shortage in 'most' of the world but there is a shortage of coinage with which to buy food. I suppose it is that compromise thing again. Human beings 'could' compromise with persons and persons could be allowed to live comfortably, and the PTB could still be the ptb. Compromise is the preferred option by most human beings these days and only a few human beings disagree with the premise of compromise. An ever growing number of human beings are in agreement that compromising with persons is the best option for sustainability.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=p ... 7gAgjTvtjc

The coinage might be slightly original, but it's only a variation on the essential truth about Good and Evil that has been recognized and articulated in strikingly similar ways since the dawn of history, in all major spiritual and ethical traditions, and which contains the key to solving so many of humanity's most intractable problems, but which we continue to ignore, and suffer so much as a result.

There are many definitions of 'evil', but to me they all begin with the forcible imposition of double standards of what's right and just depending on "who" rather than "what". A simpler way of defining evil is "that which violates the Golden Rule".

JackRiddler wrote:In this case, however, I have to say, there is no double standard, except in a very thin layer of rationalization pretending that actions are motivated by a code of justice, or morality, or self-defense. There is only one real, lone standard: The United States and its Israeli animus are Good, Noble, The Best, Holy, Always, and whatever they do is Right. All other nations (with the sometime exception of the UK and other "natural" allies like the oligarchies of Latin America) are naturally varying degrees of Wrong, held back only and to the extent they are restrained by conforming entirely to the Will of the righteous, however it may express itself.

It is what Adam Smith called the "vile maxim of the masters of mankind: all for ourselves and nothing for other people."

But here you are simply giving an example of what double standards are, and how they are used to justify evil actions. If those who perpetrate evil, even when they have the coercive power to impose their will, didn't find it necessary to justify them, would they bother? Yet, with rare exceptions, throughout human history those who have committed the greatest evil acts against others have expended a lot of effort and resources to define them with the loftiest language of morality.

How they do this is quite simple, and your example illustrates this. What makes it possible for entire, towering edifices of evil to be built begins with a classic bait-and-switch: redefining Good and Evil as something that a person is, rather than something a person does. From there, it becomes relatively easy to introduce the corollary that an entire category of persons are evil, and vice versa. Once this very basic premise has been introduced, everything becomes possible, and any actions can be justified as "good". Evil then can proceed to grow unchecked -- the sky is literally the limit.

In other words, what most people are fooled into believing is one morality, is in fact two, diametrically opposed to each other. The first is focused on actions, which are defined as either good or evil, and the second is focused on persons or categories of people, which are defined as good or evil. The first is humanity's most potent weapon for fighting evil, the second blesses and cloaks it and gives it free rein.