[Vision2020] "Please do not continue to confuse people with facts."
keely emerinemix
kjajmix1 at msn.com
Sat Jul 25 11:04:26 PDT 2009
Really?
I'm sorry, but is the definition of "persons," in a philosophical sense, simply that they enjoy a "right-to-life"? Isn't there an argument from necessary ontology that results in something being described as having "personhood" -- i.e., volition, awareness of self, capacity for relationship, and, of particular importance for the religious, a soul as a creation in the imago Dei?
I am becoming more and more convinced that, for me, and certainly for the world in an ecological sense, the eating of animals is wrong. They're sentient beings, in my mind deserving of at least minimal safeguards to their well-being - no torture for the benefit of my mascara -- but they're not "persons." All human beings are persons; necessarily, from an ontological, not a philosophical, perspective, all persons are human beings. The necessary traits that define biological human beings include personhood if that biologically human being is allowed to develop, if for no other reason than her creation in the image of God.
Most religious people I know value, in some form or another, animal life -- even if only in the service of their sustenance. Some, myself included, believe that while animals do not possess souls -- are not created in the image of the Creator -- they will be in heaven, Eden recreated and teeming with the animals that delight God, even if not created in God's image.
Keely
http://keely-prevailingwinds.blogspot.com/
From: philosopher.joe at gmail.com
To: lockshop at pull.twcbc.com
Date: Sat, 25 Jul 2009 10:04:22 -0400
CC: vision2020 at moscow.com
Subject: Re: [Vision2020] "Please do not continue to confuse people with facts."
I should add that if erring on the side of caution were relevant, you should be in favor of laws againts eating non-human animals. After all, some think they're persons too -- not humans but persons, things deserving of the right to life -- and who are you to say otherwise? After all, we don't want to unknowingly kill persons, do we?
Sent from my iPhone
On Jul 24, 2009, at 3:40 PM, "the lockshop" <lockshop at pull.twcbc.com> wrote:
"He believes
that his view that the fetus is a person trumps all other views. I believe it is
not the kind of issue that anyone can be certain of and that the law should deal
with knowledge, not certainty."
Since I believe that the fetus is a person, how
could I not believe that it trumps all other views? Since, as you admit there is
uncertainty, I prefer to err on the side of caution and allow a fetus to live
rather than take a what the hell attitude and have an innocent person
die.
g
----- Original Message -----
From:
Joe
Campbell
To: Wayne Price
Cc: the lockshop ; vision2020 at moscow.com
Sent: Friday, July 24, 2009 11:36
AM
Subject: Re: [Vision2020] "Please do not
continue to confuse people with facts."
Wayne,
I share your beliefs -- exactly. And in the past Crabtree has made fun of
these same beliefs, so don't expect him to respond. As in the case of Sunil's
questions, he'll remain silent when his inconsistencies are obvious. The
diiference between our views and Crabtree's is that we genuinely respect
freedom and think people should decide for themselves about personal,
religious, philosophical issues. Crabtree is only for those freedoms that
coincide with his own world view. He is not for freedom per se. He believes
that his view that the fetus is a person trumps all other views. I believe it
is not the kind of issue that anyone can be certain of and that the law should
deal with knowledge, not certainty.
Joe
Sent from my iPhone
On Jul 24, 2009, at 2:14 PM, Wayne Price <bear at moscow.com> wrote:
Gary,
I too am stuck with this one. While I am personally anti-abortion, I am
still pro-choice on the matter. IF I were in a situation where the abortion
decision had to be made, I would choose NOT to terminate the pregnancy
and put the child up for adoption. HOWEVER, I still believe that the choice
to be made should NOT be the governments to make but the
individuals.
Wayne
Is mis-stating my position really the only
way you can think of to try and make a valid point?
As I have said repeatedly, I believe that if
homosexuals can find someone who is willing to pronounce them man and man,
wife and wife, or man, wife, wife, or any permutation thereof then
swell, I wish them the best. What I am not in favor of is in my or the
state being forced to recognize it.
With regard to the abortion issue though
I've really got to admit that you've got me caught on the horns of a
delimma. How could I not see the similarity between making a choice
that has a 1 in 15 chance of potentially damaging the health of the
person doing the choosing and making a decision that
has a 100% chance of killing an innocent party?
In both of your examples the decision extends
to others who will not be given a choice to participate. Bar patrons and
employess do get to make an informed choice and as a result your comments
seem a trifle lame.
g
----- Original Message -----
From: Joe Campbell
To: the
lockshop
Cc: TIM RIGSBY ; <starbliss at gmail.com> ; <vision2020 at moscow.com>
Sent: Friday, July 24, 2009 9:29
AM
Subject: Re: [Vision2020] "Please do not
continue to confuse people with facts."
You don't even think that ADULTS are able to make decisions about
whom to marry or whether pr not to have children, so stop pretending to
respect a person's right to make decisions for him or
herself!
Sent from my iPhone
On Jul 24, 2009, at 12:11 PM, "the lockshop" <lockshop at pull.twcbc.com>
wrote:
It would seem that you, Mr. Moffet, and our city
council have a mighty low opinion of the intelligence of the patrons
and employees of bars and taverns. I can't speak for your students
but, I find it very difficult to believe that by the time a citizen
reaches the age of 21 in the United States he hasn't heard
the anti-smoking mantra to the point of nausea.
How lucky we are that there are people out there
who will take it upon themselves to prevent emancipated Americans from
making their own decisions with regard to the risks they take in
life.
g
----- Original Message -----
From: TIM RIGSBY
To: starbliss at gmail.com ; vision2020 at moscow.com
Sent: Friday, July 24, 2009 7:47
AM
Subject: Re: [Vision2020] "Please do
not continue to confuse people with facts."
I would like to add the idea of this
saying,
"Don't let the facts get in the way of a good
story."
Either way Ted, you brought up some very valid points
that tend to be forgotten when people discuss tobacco/smoking
regulation and legislation. What scares me as a Health Teacher
is when I hear my junior high and high school aged students talking
about how safe, they think anyway, Hookah bars are. When asked
if they would ever smoke cigarettes, they claim that they
won't. Yet what these students don't realize is that they are
actually smoking tobacco at the high school hookah parties.
What is even scarier is a lot of the parents think that hookah is a
safe alternative as well.
The hookah bar
closest to my house in Boise is constantly packed with young people
all of the time. Often times, other substances are being laced
into the tobacco as well and these young people are unknowingly
smoking illegal drugs along with their fruit and tobacco
mixture.
I predict in the not so distant future, Boise and
possibly the State Legislature will enact legislation to
regulate/control these hookah establishments.
Here is a
question to ponder. By definition based on Idaho Code, what is
a hookah bar categorized as? A restaurant, a bar, a private
club? If it falls under the bar definition, then people under
21 should not be allowed in. It seems as though hookah bars
would fall into an undefined gray area of the Idaho Clean Indoor Air
Act. However, Moscow seems to have covered hookah bars in
their recent ban of smoking, I could be wrong though.
"
'Politics is the art of controlling your environment.' That is one
of the key things I learned in these years, and I learned it the
hard way. Anybody who thinks that 'it doesn't matter who's
President' has never been Drafted and sent off to fight and die in a
vicious, stupid War on the other side of the World -- or been beaten
and gassed by Police for trespassing on public property -- or been
hounded by the IRS for purely political reasons -- or locked up in
the Cook County Jail with a broken nose and no phone access and
twelve perverts wanting to stomp your ass in the shower. That is
when it matters who is President or Governor or Police Chief. That
is when you will wish you had voted." - Hunter S.
Thompson
Date: Thu, 23 Jul 2009 21:39:45 -0700
From: starbliss at gmail.com
To: vision2020 at moscow.com
Subject:
[Vision2020] "Please do not continue to confuse people with
facts."
The "Off List" response referenced, from someone I regard as
one of the most educated and honest Vision2020 participants,
that I received to my post below on tobacco regulation, is in
total what is stated in the subject heading of this post. Wise
words, no doubt, that I ignore at my own risk...
Notice there is limited or no discussion of some of the
critical facts my post presented: that tobacco
(nicotine) is a physically addictive drug, with
underage tobacco addiction common, raising questions if whether
adult "choice" is in effect regarding employees or consumers in
tobacco related decisions; that tobacco is the leading cause of
premature death (nuclear waste or energy or even nuclear weapons
production is not even close as a cause of premature death); that
other drugs doing less harm to society than tobacco are criminalized
and prosecuted aggressively, involving civil and human rights
violations, yet who among those opposing regulation of
tobacco, will as aggressively advocate for these drugs to
be managed by free choice and the marketplace, rather than a
government "Big Brother?" Some, perhaps... While there are
others who should know better playing some on this list as
fools, for the sake of debate, or political advantage, or popular
image or whatever... Or they are as deluded as those they are
debating with...
My response to the "Off List" comment discussed
here:
Ummm... OK, I guess... However, being an idealist in belief
that expressing the truth is morally mandated (where did I get that
dangerous idea? I''ll end up in serious trouble! Oh, I
forgot, I already am...), I may not comply. I recently read a
variation of this same expression in James Lovelock's "Revenge
of Gaia:" "Don't confuse me with the facts, my minds made up."
Lovelock was referring to this mentality regarding the rejection of
nuclear power by many in the environmental movement.
Ted
Please do not continue to confuse people with
facts.
----- Original Message -----
From: Ted
Moffett
To: Moscow Vision 2020
Sent: Wednesday, July 22,
2009 1:55 AM
Subject: [Vision2020] Tobacco:
Targeting the Nation’s Leading Killer: Centers for Disease
Control
Tobacco (nicotine) is a physically addictive drug.
Once addicted, "choice" becomes a problematic concept. And
many people become addicted while underage, encouraged to
continue their addiction in bars, where cigarettes are
often shared between customers.
The fact tobacco is physically addictive is absent from the
comments of many opposing the smoking ordinance, as are the
facts regarding the magnitude of the
damage. Comparisons to other harmful behaviors
are drawn (fatty food, etc.), suggesting that a slippery slope
of regulation will lead to government control over too many
aspects of life, but many of these behaviors do not involve
a drug addiction. Of course alcohol has dramatic negative
impacts. But workers in bars are not forced to drink the
drinks the customers order, as they breathe the smoke
of the customers.
I find it incredible that the health of workers exposed to
an addictive drug when they breathe in the workplace is
approached so callously. They can work elsewhere, it's
announced with smug authority, as if in this economy workers
have the luxury of choosing whatever job suits their fancy,
rather than an urgency to take whatever work they can
find. If it was cocaine or heroin or methamphetamine that
workers were exposed to, the attitude might be
different.
Profits from exposing workers to addictive drugs in the
workplace should be protected based on free market, free choice,
adult responsibility? If this is the logic, where are the
protests against laws imposed on those selling
cocaine, heroin or methamphetamine, et. al., to consenting
adults, which can result in long prison sentences? Let the
free market decide! Why stand in the way of
profits and the free choice of adults?
If those opposing the smoking ordinance were consistent in
their outrage against limits on the free market, their ideology
might have more intellectual credibility. Instead, the
libertarianism proposed is inconsistent and conformist. Or
perhaps those opposed to the smoking ordinance will now protest
that bars do not allow legal cocaine, heroin or methamphetamine
use? Think of the profits to be made! And remember,
tobacco prematurely kills more people than those three drugs
combined...
If attempts were made to criminalize tobacco like cannabis
is, resulting in prison sentences, home invasions, for sale or
use, I would oppose this vehemently. But an ordinance
regulating smoking in bars does not stop any adult from legally
using tobacco products in settings where they do not expose
workers.
If worker freedom of choice was a valid argument to justify
the exposure of workers to tobacco smoke in bars, than OSHA
could be mostly eliminated. After all, if workers exposed
to hazards monitored or banned by OSHA don't want to work with
those risks, they can work elsewhere, as long as signs posted in
the workplace inform them of the risks. A "Big
Brother" government bureaucracy gone.
--------------------------
http://www.cdc.gov/NCCDPHP/publications/aag/osh.htm
The Burden of Tobacco UseTobacco use is the single most
preventable cause of disease, disability, and death in the
United States. Each year, an estimated 443,000 people die
prematurely from smoking or exposure to secondhand smoke, and
another 8.6 million have a serious illness caused by smoking.
For every person who dies from smoking, 20 more people suffer
from at least one serious tobacco-related illness. Despite these
risks, approximately 43.4 million U.S. adults smoke cigarettes.
Smokeless tobacco, cigars, and pipes also have deadly
consequences, including lung, larynx, esophageal, and oral
cancers.
The harmful effects of smoking do not end with the
smoker. More than 126 million nonsmoking Americans, including
children and adults, are regularly exposed to secondhand smoke.
Even brief exposure can be dangerous because nonsmokers inhale
many of the same carcinogens and toxins in cigarette smoke as
smokers. Secondhand smoke exposure causes serious disease and
death, including heart disease and lung cancer in nonsmoking
adults and sudden infant death syndrome, acute respiratory
infections, ear problems, and more frequent and severe asthma
attacks in children. Each year, primarily because of exposure to
secondhand smoke, an estimated 3,000 nonsmoking Americans die of
lung cancer, more than 46,000 (range: 22,700–69,600) die of
heart disease, and about 150,000–300,000 children younger than
18 months have lower respiratory tract infections.
Coupled
with this enormous health toll is the significant economic
burden of tobacco use—more than $96 billion per year in medical
expenditures and another $97 billion per year resulting from
lost productivity.
[A text description of this graph is also available.]
The Tobacco Use Epidemic Can Be StoppedA 2007 Institute
of Medicine (IOM) report presented a blueprint for action to
“reduce smoking so substantially that it is no longer a public
health problem for our nation.” The two-pronged strategy for
achieving this goal includes not only strengthening and fully
implementing currently proven tobacco control measures, but also
changing the regulatory landscape to permit policy innovations.
Foremost among the IOM recommendations is that each state should
fund a comprehensive tobacco control program at the level
recommended by CDC in Best Practices for
Comprehensive Tobacco Control
Programs–2007.
Evidence-based, statewide tobacco control
programs that are comprehensive, sustained, and accountable have
been shown to reduce smoking rates, tobacco-related deaths, and
diseases caused by smoking. A comprehensive program is a
coordinated effort to establish smoke-free policies and social
norms, to promote and assist tobacco users to quit, and to
prevent initiation of tobacco use. This approach combines
educational, clinical, regulatory, economic, and social
strategies.
Research has documented the effectiveness of laws
and policies to protect the public from secondhand smoke
exposure, promote cessation, and prevent initiation when they
are applied in a comprehensive way. For example, states can
increase the unit price of tobacco products; implement smoking
bans through policies, regulations, and laws; provide insurance
coverage of tobacco use treatment; and limit minors’ access to
tobacco products.
If the nation is to achieve the objectives
outlined in Healthy People
2010, comprehensive, evidence-based approaches for
preventing smoking initiation and increasing cessation need to
be fully implemented.
CDC's ResponseCDC is the lead federal agency for
tobacco control. CDC’s Office on Smoking and Health (OSH)
provides national leadership for a comprehensive, broad-based
approach to reducing tobacco use. A variety of government
agencies, professional and voluntary organizations, and academic
institutions have joined together to advance this approach,
which involves the following activities:
Preventing young people from starting to smoke.
Eliminating exposure to secondhand smoke.
Promoting quitting among young people and
adults.
Identifying and eliminating tobacco-related health
disparities.Essential elements of this approach
include state-based, community-based, and health system-based
interventions; cessation services; counter marketing; policy
development and implementation; surveillance; and evaluation.
These activities target groups who are at highest risk for
tobacco-related health
problems.
-------------------------------------------
Vision2020
Post: Ted
Moffett
Windows Live™ Hotmail®: Celebrate the moment with your favorite
sports pics. Check it out.
=======================================================
List
services made available by First Step Internet,
serving the
communities of the Palouse since 1994.
http://www.fsr.net
mailto:Vision2020 at moscow.com
=======================================================
No virus found in
this incoming message.
Checked by AVG - www.avg.com
Version: 8.5.392 /
Virus Database: 270.13.26/2257 - Release Date: 07/23/09
18:00:00
=======================================================
List
services made available by First Step Internet,
serving the
communities of the Palouse since 1994.
http://www.fsr.net
mailto:Vision2020 at moscow.com
=======================================================
No virus found in this
incoming message.
Checked by AVG - www.avg.com
Version: 8.5.392 / Virus
Database: 270.13.27/2258 - Release Date: 07/24/09
05:58:00
=======================================================
List
services made available by First Step Internet,
serving the communities of
the Palouse since 1994.
http://www.fsr.net
mailto:Vision2020 at moscow.com
=======================================================
No virus found in this incoming message.
Checked by AVG -
www.avg.com
Version: 8.5.392 / Virus Database: 270.13.27/2258 - Release
Date: 07/24/09 05:58:00
_________________________________________________________________
Windows Live™ Hotmail®: Celebrate the moment with your favorite sports pics. Check it out.
http://www.windowslive.com/Online/Hotmail/Campaign/QuickAdd?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_QA_HM_sports_photos_072009&cat=sports
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.fsr.com/pipermail/vision2020/attachments/20090725/7da685df/attachment-0001.html
More information about the Vision2020
mailing list