<<http://www.livejournal.com/users/triggur/104525.html>>
I know a young woman who has the misfortune to have contracted genital herpes. She is on a daily regimen of Valtrex to prevent symptoms from manifesting themselves. Recently she took her prescription to a pharmacist who was apparently a fundamentalist Christian. Not only did he refuse to fill the prescription, but he tore it up and handed it back to her, saying, "God is punishing you for your sin." ------ "Morality is not the basis of the governance of the state. Machiaveli noted that. Those who attempt to govern the state for moral ends, find themselves committing immoral acts and rarely achieve moral ends. The basis of government is the monopoly of organized violence and the supremacy of force. This is inherently immoral or amoral at the best. The virtues of the state are the virtues of ethics and not of morality. We seek to have an ethical state and not a moral one. This is supremely difficult for most men to grasp, for morality is sentimental and parochial and ethics is dispassionate and relative. People always ask that the state should be moral. But then the question arises, whose morality? And it turns out that there are many different moralities and they all end up squabbling over whose shall dominate. And then madmen and scoundrels promise each side that theirs shall triumph in order to gain power and distribute favor and use the state for their own gain. The definition of the ethical state is that it should treat all equally unfairly, high or low, rich or poor, regardless of color or gender, living or dead. Because it is impossible to make everyone happy all the time, but it is possible to treat everyone unfairly all the time. That is the function of the state, which is to create unhappiness, and it succeeds when it gives everyone an equal measure. Morality therefore is far removed from any such discussion." --Oldman (RIP) BopNews _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
