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From: rat@tybalt.caltech.edu.Caltech.Edu (Ray Trent)
Newsgroups: net.abortion
Subject: Sure, let's all pass laws based on B.S. Logic ? what's that?
Message-ID: <885@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu>
Date: Sun, 10-Aug-86 19:30:32 EDT
Article-I.D.: cit-vax.885
Posted: Sun Aug 10 19:30:32 1986
Date-Received: Sun, 10-Aug-86 23:59:49 EDT
References: <1619@videovax> <1655@videovax> <2504@jhunix.UUCP> <1677@videovax> <877@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu> <524@andromeda.RUTGERS.EDU>
Sender: news@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu
Reply-To: rat@tybalt.caltech.edu.UUCP (Paul Torek)
Distribution: na
Organization: California Institute of Technology
Lines: 36
Summary: opinion masquerading as opinion

Sender:


In article <524@andromeda.RUTGERS.EDU> marco@andromeda.RUTGERS.EDU () writes:
>In article <877@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu>, (I, Paul Torek) wrote:
>> How does it follow from "X is a matter of opinion" that "we should not
>> pass laws about X"?  Hint:  it doesn't.
>
>	Since laws function to restrict the actions of others, they should
>be based on logic, not religon, intuition, opinion, or any other garbage.
>[..].  Laws should be limited to the reality of positive knowledge,
>not based on someone's half-assed guess about truth.  Since no opinion is
>more true than another, there can be no basis for passing laws based on
>opinions.  Just think of all the opinions you'd hate to see made law.  The
>above is why they should never be.  Your reasoning is the reason so many of
>them are.
If it is a matter of opinion that (the moral equivalent of an adult) human
life begins at time t, then it is equally a matter of opinion that it
doesn't.  So if we can't make laws based on opinion, what, pray tell, are
we supposed to vote for?  "Easy," I hear the audience thinking, "just vote
for the side that wants to leave the law out of the issue."  Sorry, not
possible, at least not without a drastic change in our legal structure.
Question:  suppose pro-lifers want to picket an abortion clinic forcibly
preventing anyone from entering.  Or suppose they want to destroy the
clinic's equipment.  (Not-so-hypothetical questions, eh?)  Do you want
our legal system to stop them?  Aha ...  If so, you are giving your
opinion the force of law!

And I haven't even gotten into the problems about beginning at t
versus beginning at t+epsilon, and how opinion grades off into knowledge
(or does it?).


P.S.  Does anybody pay attention to the "References:" line in headers?
If not, I'm going to get rid of mine.

		Paul Torek, not necessarily reflecting the views of:
		rat@tybalt.caltech.edu