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From: cramer@kontron.UUCP (Clayton Cramer)
Newsgroups: net.misc
Subject: Re: Poor People/Lazy People
Message-ID: <1134@kontron.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 14-Oct-86 14:19:34 EDT
Article-I.D.: kontron.1134
Posted: Tue Oct 14 14:19:34 1986
Date-Received: Wed, 15-Oct-86 00:56:13 EDT
References: <1010@cad.cs.cmu.edu> <1050001@hpspkla.HP.COM>
Distribution: na
Organization: Kontron Electronics, Mt. View, CA
Lines: 34

> > >you have obligations to people you don't even know.  If you've got
> > >any semblance of ethics in your yuppie, designer brains you know that
> > >you *do* have such obligations. [...]
> > 
> > Okay, Ken. You're on.
> > 
> > Why not let us in on what _your_ ethical system is that demands this
> > obligation? I'm not arguing the obligation; I am curious to hear to
> > your justification.
> 
> *My* ethical system that demands "this obligation"?  You say this as if
> it had to be some bizarre cultist dogma.  I'm a Jew, and my religion
> specifies 613 obligations in some detail.  Some of these are obligations
> to my family, to my friends, to my community, and to G-d.  If you're
> interested in these duties, all of which derive from Scripture, there
> are some good translations of Maimonides around.  He lived and wrote in
> the 12th Century, and it's interesting to see how he tried to justify
> Torah with Aristotle.  I am not a very observant Jew--I do not even try
> to fulfill most of those obligations--and I am an incomplete (or if you
> prefer, "worse") person for not doing so.
> 
> ken perlow       *****   *****

1. You are attempting impose your moral and religous code on everyone
else.  How would you like it if the majority religious belief system was
imposed on you?  (There is historical precedent, alas.)

2. By your own admission, "I do not even try to fulfill most of these 
obligations" yet you are quite willing to require everyone else to obey
SOME of the obligations you feel compelled to obey.  Can you say "Hypocrite?"
But of course, you believe in the welfare state -- you don't have to be
intellectually honest.

Clayton E. Cramer