From: Harvey Newstrom (mail@HarveyNewstrom.com)
Date: Mon Jul 22 2002 - 00:11:48 MDT
On Monday, July 22, 2002, at 01:12 am, Samantha Atkins wrote:
> Jeff Davis wrote:
>> --- Reason <reason@exratio.com> wrote:
>>> I would argue though that bioethics at root has
>> nothing to do with ethics and everything to do with
>> the age-old ugly fight to control what other people do
>> with their own lives and own bodies. ****No particular aim beyond
>> control itself;****
>> BINGO!
>> Nothing more or less than (religious) authoritarianism
>> ravening after political power, and cloaked in
>> credentials. Talibanditry in bioethicists' cloathing.
>
> Religous is not necessary to meere authoritarianism rearing its ugly
> head to limit choice. Calling it "Talibandry" doesn't really help the
> problem.
Worse than that, it confuses the issue. Anybody who thinks that the
Taliban, banditry, and bioethicists have anything to do with each other
is just lumping everything they don't like into one category and calling
it "bad". This doesn't help resolve the issue. The first rule of any
conflict is to know thy enemy. Statements like the above clearly show a
lack of understanding of the enemy. Such a viewpoint that these groups
are "the same" would lead one to try to solve all these problems in the
same way. That would be disastrous. Instead, we must properly
identify, classify and understand opposing groups before we have any
hope of dealing with them.
As a general rule, I am against any name-calling or pun-making at one's
enemies. It almost always is a distraction and an inaccuracy. Call
them whatever evil name accurately define them, but insulting them or
linking them to other bad groups that they clearly are not associated is
just a distortion of reality and will never help one deal with reality.
-- Harvey Newstrom, CISSP <www.HarveyNewstrom.com> Principal Security Consultant <www.Newstaff.com>
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