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2 points

Although I don't want to actually get involved in the debate as a whole, I did just have one point that I wanted to make.

"Domesticated cats are just as artificially selected as dogs are. You don't know what you're talking about."

It is actually now thought that "domesticated" cats are the product of natural selection in response to Human agriculture, rather than direct artificial selection for favourable characteristics. So in a way, the evolutionary path to domestication does differ between dogs and cats.

5 points

Firstly we must establish that justice is indeed mutable when concerning law within a democratic political system before we discuss measures of righteousness or solutions for dealing with a lack of such.

The majority of western justice systems include measures to amend the law through either the courts or government (in some cases, both). In fact, nearly every democratic country has measures for law addition or amendment by the government. Whilst democracy itself is purely a system of government rather than a statute for how justice is to be determined or whether it be by the elected government, the political theory behind democracy clearly includes the principle that all citizens are equal before the law. Whilst not implicitly stated, it is implied within the very values of democracy that a democratic government should have the power to amend the justice system to better reflect the principle of all citizens being equal before the law.

So, we assume for the remainder of this argument that the justice system is intimately entangled with the principle of a democratic governance system, and therefore measures of a democracy's "righteousness" can theoretically be performed on the quality of the justice system. This measure, as laid out in the description for this debate, should be discretely measurable.

What is far harder to assert within the context of this debate is whether a measure of the righteousness of a democracy in regards to its justice system is even possible, and if so, whether this should affect the ability to amend the law. Scientific measurability is extremely difficult to perform on something that is firmly routed in concept rather than physicality. How exactly does one measure righteousness, and how does one apply that inexact measurement to something as complex as an entire nation's justice system?

Measures of the ability of a justice system are usually performed on conviction rates, or some other measure of effectiveness of conviction or reduction of criminality. However, the current amount of offenders currently being processed (either in prison or awaiting a trial, etc) within the justice system is simply a measure of the effectiveness of the implementation of the laws in place and the effectiveness of enforcing those laws. This is evidently no measure of how right (morally or otherwise) those laws are, or how right the enforcement of those laws are. How do we even begin to discretely quantify a measure of righteousness, and even if we jump that hurdle, how do we apply it to laws? The simple answer, and the one posited at the beginning of this debate, is that we are unable to effectively measure (in any scientific manner, at least) how righteous a law or the enforcement of said law is.

However, I disagree entirely with the solution suggested. I would even go so far as to say that a lack of any scientific measure of the righteousness of justice would in fact point to a solution that specifies that justice must be mutable.

If we ever found an effective measure of righteousness, then justice would be eternal. We would create our laws, create measures to enforce those laws, set up a fair justice system and then effectively end any discussion of what is and isn't fair and just. This assumes an absolute morality though. This would be the only situation where we could have an immutable justice system, because there would never be a need to modify it.

Morals and society change. What would be classed as both morally and legally acceptable even a hundred years ago may now be deemed wrong and illegal. Is this because society was moulded by changes in justice, or was justice moulded by changes in society? (This is most likely a subject best kept to another debate, as it is extremely wide ranging). I suggest that society is always at the forefront when it comes to either justice or morality.

The morals of society drive and mould justice, and this is heavily reflected in the way that the current democratic systems work. Actual governing is carried out by the people governed or the power to do so is granted by them. Members of society choose to elect leaders who, in turn, reflect the wishes of the people within the law. Society picks it government, and its government amends the laws based on the will of the people. (Again, this is something that can be left to another debate: is democracy really the will of the people, or a charade of such?).

If we stick purely to the theoretical aspects of democratic government, it should hold that justice is entirely mutable, and, in fact, a mutable justice system (one with an effective measurement of its righteousness other than by reflecting the wishes of the people) is one of the indicators of a democratic government.

1 point

"Have you ever talked with a Canadian or a Brit asking them their honest truth about the health care? I have and they hate it."

As a Brit, I can tell you that this is certainly not the case. The NHS is one of the most cherished British institutions in place. Attempting to insinuate that the NHS is a broken and/or unvalued system to try to push your political bias is at best untruthful and at worst insulting to the millions of people (including members of my family and Stephen Hawkings) who owe their lives to it.

I absolutely love the NHS, and most other Brits do too. Don't use the "Brits hate the NHS" argument, because it doesn't hold water.

1 point

"By the way if you want the truth Obama is the biggest fraud out there he won't even open up is file so that we Americans can read is college thesis, gee I wonder what he must be hiding"

The following extract taken from this source:

A spokesman said that no student technically could have written a thesis in 1983, since the university didn’t even have a thesis requirement for undergraduates then.

"At the time Barack Obama was a student, the political science department had no mechanism by which undergraduate political science majors in Columbia College could receive recognition for writing an independent thesis,” said university spokesman Robert Hornsby. “The department's procedures for students to write theses were created in the 1990s."

Seriously, how hard is it to spend one minute (that is literally how long it took me to find this source) searching Google before you post irrelevant and unsubstantiated claims?

1 point

"That may be possible, but, it isn't intentional."

Well, in a way it is. The very ideology of capitalism surely accepts that there will be winners and losers. The big losers will die intentionally due to capitalism. It might not be a capitlist taking the final shot, but they both built and loaded the gun.

One example I can think of specifically is during the recent food prices increase. Developed countries pressured the developing world to abolish subsidies in the interest of trade liberalization, whilst these rich capitalist countries largely kept subsidies in place for their own farmers. Because of this, third world countries began to depend on food imports from developed countries. Subsequently, United States government subsidies which pushed production toward biofuel rather than food have meant that there is a food shortage for countries that depended on the imported food (a situation that capitalist countries pushed forward with intentionally). This is deliberate, with obviously known consequences. In this example, capitalism caused MANY deaths.

Capitalism causes untold deaths in this way. Don't think that just because people aren't being directly killed by capitalists deosn't mean that they're deaths are not a direct result of capitalism itself.

"Communism hangs political prisoners and burns them at the stakes."

Communism does nothing of the sorts. Nowhere in the ideology of communism does it mention killing political prisoners. Leaders who happened to be in charge of communist countries did those things.

"So technically, Communism kills more."

No it doesn't. Communist leaders killed. And I'd be very willing to drum home the point that capitalist ideology has resulted in more deaths than communist ideology.

"Capitalism is against executing political prisoners."

What, and communism isn't?

"An end which requires unjustified means is no justifiable end."

"In fact, the death of someone can be blamed on many things."

Not according to you. When it happens under a communist leader, you directly atrribute it to communism. When it happens under a capitalist ideology though, suddenly the blame gets attributed to many differing factors. Do you not see the hypocrisy in this? Either, as you say, deaths that occur under an ideology have many varied factors, or the deaths are directly due to that ideology. You can't pick and choose depending on your favoured ideology.

1 point

What about all of the people in Africa and third world countries who die at the hands of Capitalism? When a single person in America or another western country succeeds in a Capitalist society, many other people in Africa, Asia, etc, suffer. 36 million die each year because they can't afford food. If you have to go without because you can't afford something, that is a direct effect of Capitalism.

That's how Capitalism works; one person's gain is another person's loss. Every single ideology will have its winners and losers. I'm not bashing Capitalism, as I totally understand that the most productive societies need a good mixture of many ideologies; Capitalism, Soclaism, etc.

Just, don't be so naive as to think that Capitalism doesn't cause millions and millions of deaths.

2 points

When I eventually die, that's it. I'll be dead. My soul won't transcend to some higher plane, and I certainly won't have a use for my body. Infact, all my body is destined to do from the point of my death onwards is rot.

As I have absolutely no use for my body after death, I see absolutely no reason why I should not donate ALL of my organs to help others. There are no limits; everything that can be used should be used. The delusion of a requirement for any part of your body after death is extremely selfish and costs many lives that could otherwise be saved.

100,000 people currently require donated organs in order to live in the US alone. [source]

Organ donation upon death should be mandatory. If you're not already, sign up to be an organ donor! You'll then have the oppotunity to save a life even after yours has ended.

1 point

Tried that. Infact, that was the functionality I was attempting to test. It didn't work.

1 point

That was unfortunately my fault. I was playing about with the spam settings, and simply assumed that I would be able to report the debate as spam and then remove it from the community.

That didn't happen, and now it appears as though there is no way to delete a debate from a community. I've already contacted Loudicris about it.

1 point

Right next to the debate title at the top is a little yellow star. If you click the star then you can put the debate into other communities. I've just added it to my community to test out the functionality.

2 points

The "third way" wasn't a middle ground between socialism and capitalism. It was meant to be a different way to communism and capitalism.

A lot of European countries have both capitalist and socialist policies, and would be considered the middle ground; understanding and taking guidance from both principles. Integrating a mixture of socialist and capitalist policy isn't fascism in any way, shape or form.

4 points

"Microsoft has employed some shady business tactics to get where they are today, but as a result of Microsoft's power, everybody has access to (somewhat) easy to use computers."

As an open source developer, I thought you of all people would understand just how much innovation has been stifled by Microsoft's monopoly.

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