On feeling sorry for people

It was not I who thought it was a moral matter. I was giving an example of the other side of life to counter your pictures of baby birds and flowers. Some people said that my feeling itself of sympathy was immoral in that I was assuming and judging and demeaning the veterans. Others said that if I was going to be sympathetic then I ought to have done something about it. Some suggested volunteering or giving them money or whatever. Others, such as yourself, merely said that I should have talked to them.It was these posters that made a moral matter out of it, not me. I opened this thread because Mangy Tiger suggested it might be an interesting topic. This thread is not about me but about a principle, what I am calling a PC principle but which others claim is something else. Interpretation: my heart did not really go out to them. You are making this out to be a matter of personal taste, like our choice of foods, and then you say it's a matter of the "right thing.""Right," Jar, means "moral." If's it's the right thing, it's a moral matter. Personal tastes are neither right nor wrong. They are aesthetic choices. This characterization is very unfair. I used my personal experience as an example of a general idea. To do so is legitimate in argument.Edited by robinrohan, : No reason given.

Do you mean an original response such as this?

That's not what I said nor what I meant. Your pictures of birds and flowers had nothing to do with morality and neither did my description of the Veterans.The responses of other posters to my description turned it into a moral matter. Your response was mild compared to some of them. If you look at the OP, you will see that I referred to those reactions that called my feeling "dehumanizing" to the Vets. That's particularly what I was responding to.When we got to this new thread, you responded to it less mildly, but perhaps you were just irritated that I brought the subject up again. Since you responded, I responded to you, although you were not one of the posters whose comments were extreme.So it was not a moral matter with me originally--neither your pictures nor my description of the Vets.But my overall point was to suggest that this negative reaction for my feeling sorry for the vets was a PC concept. Creavolution, I think, agreed that it was a PERVERSION of a PC concept.

Discreet Lebel, #260, "Boasts of Atheists."

What is this supposed to mean?Edited by robinrohan, : No reason given.

It might be better if you just tell me what the song was supposed to mean. I'm not musically minded.

This strikes me as mere petty rudeness.

I think an impartial reader would see the following as criticism, either in or out of context of his other remarks in that post: He denied that this was criticism. All he was saying, he said, was that I had missed a "golden opportunity." That, he says, is not criticism.When pressed on this point through numerous threads by Neurocycle, we start seeing another theme emerging: The idea that emerges here in these last few remarks can be summed up as follows: If Robin doesn't want to be criticized, what did he start the thread for? Does he just want everyone to agree with him?I think an impartial reader will agree that this will not do. I (with the help of Neurocycle) wanted Jar to admit that he was criticizing me for not talking to the Vets. He has steadfastly refused to admit it. And then in these passages I've quoted he starts insinuating that I shouldn't complain about being criticized if I start a thread on the subject.I was just wanted him to admit that he was criticizing me, and then I wanted him to say why--that it violated, as I understand it, his moral code (presumably).But Jar doesn't care for the word "moral." It sounds too judgmental to him. So he subsititutes instead the word "right."In explaining his ideas, he says: I think that "being moral" consists of doing "what is right."Jar wants to criticize me, in regard to the veterans, but he doesn't want to say he is criticizing me, because that would seem to be violating another rule he has vaguely in his mind about "not judging."His comments are very inconsistent.Edited by robinrohan, : No reason given.Edited by robinrohan, : typos

Here's another inconsistency. You claim that your code is personal and applies only to you. But if that was the case, you wouldn't be able to judge anybody ever in a moral sense, because your rules would apply only to you.So your code is not just personal.

That's not what you said before. You said this:

If you judge them, then you are saying they ought to live by your moral code. It's not about "expecting." It's about judging them for not living up to your moral rules.You are saying, "This person violated my moral rules."We all do this.I also have my moral code. And you have violated one of my most important rules.

I don't think I've done that, but you are guilty of a GRAVE SIN:You are guilty of intellectual dishonesty.Edited by robinrohan, : No reason given.

Yeah, well, you don't care about the truth, but I do. The truth is what guides me through life. But you don't care about that sort of thing. You're interested in being PC and presenting Christianity as PC. Christianity is not PC, Jar.But you don't care about that. You want things to be nice. So do I, but that is not how life is. Contrary to your birds and flowers concept, life is hard. That's what I was trying to illustrate with the Veterans example. And no, we are not these great unselfish people.We--you and I---are quite selfish. You don't care about the central issue of any religion--the fact of human suffering--you just dismiss it and call it "natural." But it cannot be dismisssed in that fashion. And you think I'm a jackass for even bringing the matter up.How dare I suggest that people suffer!