"When you criminalize something, you are making a de facto statement that you are ultimately fine with killing someone for it. I know this sounds hyperbolic to some, but the libertarians in the audience are probably nodding heavily. "
Eric Garner. We can debate the specifics of the situation, but the truth is a guy died because he refused to be arrested for selling loosey cigarettes. There was no other precipitating bad act.
If it weren't for looseys, I'd have never survived high school.
It's worth noting that selling loosey cigarettes is a FELONY (tax evasion). So maybe we did get a dangerous criminal off the streets after all.
Eric Garner wasn't even selling loosies that day, he had just broken up a fight. The cops were giving him shit because he PREVIOUSLY sold loosies. It was his REPUTATION that got him killed, not even anything he was doing!
The one I talk about in my article about this subject is Breonna Taylor, but there are countless other innocent victims. It wasn't that long ago that police were beating people FOR NOT WEARING MASKS!!!!
Edit: LOL I don't even remember writing this, but there it is:
------------------------
I can almost hear you now. “Surely you this is hyperbole! We don’t kill people enforcing all our laws!” And mostly, that is true. But, as in the case of Breonna Taylor, sometimes enforcement spins wildly out of control.
So “you can’t sell loose cigarettes” leads to the death of Eric Garner. (Who wasn’t even selling loosies that day!)
And “you are being too loud” leads to the death of Ryan Whitaker.
Even things like “this kid is playing in the park” can lead to tragedy.
As Walter Williams put it, every law is backed up by a gun. Even if the penalty is just a fine, if you don't pay the fine you get a court summons and be forced to pay. If you don't obey the summons they will issue a warrant and come arrest you. Refuse to be arrested and you are going to get shot. In the end, you do what they want, or you get killed.
Another thought provoking article. Many, many unanswered questions that some will search within themselves for the answers, and others will wait to be told what to believe.
I do think your perspective about the growing insanity of the lever pullers is based on some fear of retribution. While I wish that sapiens would recognize their misguided failings and repent, most undoubtedly will not and will suffer the wrath of the persecuted underdog, no matter how chivalrous they think they each are. And in my opinion the punishment is long overdue.
I simultaneously agree with everything you've said and also believe that there are answers that can- and, probably for periods of history have- been found that are not incompatible with the short-sightedness and chemical thinking of humans.
"To promote conduct in line with one’s own cultural values (bushido, chivalry, other honor cultures, Christian conceptions of mercy or compassion, etc.) to prevent degradation of these values in the home culture outside of warfare (e.g., if you don’t want your men freely raping your women, you discourage it in wartime so they won’t continue doing it when they get home)."
That the tactics used by the national security state in the War of Terror would inevitably be turned against domestic dissidents always seemed so obvious even back in the day to me as a teenager.
Most people are sadly very short sighted in this regard or not sighted at all (apathetic).
I think maybe some or even a lot of people lack the capacity to project current trends outwards into the medium and long term future in some fundamental way that's not just the product of their intelligence or their social conditioning
Is the rationalisation. Also, if you look at Europe after the Cold War?
About 90% of the representatives in any western european parliament vote the same about 90% of the time.
So there's really no risk of leadership you don't like, since all parties have virtually the same value-base, the same greater agendas, and the same vested interest in maintaining the current demokratur-system.
(Demokratur: demokrati + diktatur. It looks like democracy because you get to vote and complain, but no matter what you vote for, you get the same kind of politics. It was coined by a swedish working-class author in the 1950s.)
In the US you say "Uniparty" about the same phenomenon, yes?
I wish I knew what psychological twist lays in the human mind that some large portion of our society can be lead to view 'the Other' as "not as human,and therfore unworthy of the moral considerations I would take for myself.
I live by a set of internal ethical compasses. This is actually the reason I have used IntegrityandKarma as a handle in pseudonym for almost 30 years.
Will I kill if I must to survive an assault? Without compunction. Would I kill to protect innocent lives? Yep.
Would I lie( something I truly truuuuly despise) in order to save s life? " You say you're here to gun down everyone who's name has a Q?! My son's name is Sean....yes. Sean Xavier..."
Will I say the end justifies the means? No. Would I make poor judgment calls? Undoubtedly.
I worry about some fpljs regarding things so simple as " Amnesty" . I'm ok with never trusting some folks again,as some have shown that the life of a Brownshirt would have suited them well... but holyshit... I wish sone folks had an inkling about Karma and Intentionality. How ugly are they making our and their own futures??
....did I go off on a tangent? I think not. It's all one messy Gordian Knot of human psychology...and I swear animals often are better people than humans.
Indeed. Lots of words cover big conceptual frameworks... that's one of the reasons for diplomacy and foresight.
" I accept you were a dumbest when you were frightened and mentally ill. I accept thst you're sorry now,but you're going to have to prove you've learned from your past delusional state. No, I don't hope you die. Yes, I admit to not ever being ok with giving you power over me ever again,fir any reason..." yada yada...
"I wish I knew what psychological twist lays in the human mind that some large portion of our society can be lead to view 'the Other' as "not as human,and therfore unworthy of the moral considerations I would take for myself."
Think of the opening scene in 2001. The battle for the water-hole.
Also, as babies we discover that we are separate entities from Mother and Father: for us to be a single individual, there must be Others that are not us.
Othering is necessary for us to exist: treating Others like garbage is not.
Hehe, I'm trying to go to bed, it's almost midnight and you allare keeping me up with you're wonderful discussions! And being a dyed-in-the-steel wool nitpicker, it'snot your writing but my reading. :)
They still think they will be free to be their 'unique' selves and do nothing all day instead of slaving away in the factories like their political enemies.
The pace of the 'liberal project' over there is breathtaking when viewed from here. The one that gets me is rejecting recovery programmes in favour of 'safe use' for drug users. I do recognise your observation that they no longer trouble to hide what they do. They presumably feel untouchable right now, but history is long and still unfolding...
Dagnabbit, Mrs. Mouth. I still owe you one, and I have to prioritize getting the new computer (Win11. Insert spitting, imprecations and procrastination here) set up so that I can take part in convos w/out using a clotshotted phone touchscreen.
“War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war, is much worse.” John Stuart Mill
Adam Smith seems to worry the most about the "violence of faction" within a country, where hatred for political opponents drowns out truth and justice, leading to civil war. I find it disturbing how much that seems to apply today. It doesn't help that everything these days sounds like the prequel to 1984.
Since we're waiting on the New Year by talking about war in all its gore-ious panoply, and you opened the floor for using quotes:
"Silent enim leges inter arma", Marcus Tullius Cicero.
That's a rather good divider between peace and war. Now look at all the things governements make war on. For every "War on ________", more laws fall silent or become tools of oppression instead of limits founded in necessity and consent. Now, finally, we live when rulers yet again make war on reality.
“It was so much easier to blame it on Them. It was bleakly depressing to think that They were Us. If it was Them, then nothing was anyone's fault. If it was us, what did that make Me? After all, I'm one of Us. I must be. I've certainly never thought of myself as one of Them. No one ever thinks of themselves as one of Them. We're always one of Us. It's Them that do the bad things.”
― Terry Pratchett, Jingo
Sad thing is, that's how it is, always was and always will be.Until all men are created equal in dignity and worth, meaning all are equally vile and worthless, as any man is replacable with any other, if they truly are equal.
“Pacifism is objectively pro-fascist. This is elementary common sense. If you hamper the war effort of one side, you automatically help out that of the other. Nor is there any real way of remaining outside such a war as the present one. In practice, 'he that is not with me is against me'.”
― George Orwell
Yep, too true. It's all good and dandy when the war is make-believe, to have rules and whatnots, but those rules only ever apply in one of two circumstances: you lost, or there's a bigger bully around who has something to gain from enforcing them on you. How many Allied soldiers and commanders were tried in Nuremberg, for carpet bombing civilian targets? Zero. How many Soviets were tried for the rape and murder of over 500 000 civilian german women and small girls? Zero. Victory forgives all isn't just pithy, it's a truth that makes me cry if I think too much on it.
“You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word. It is victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival.”
― Winston Churchill
Hard to argue against that, but I wonder if he ever thought the same about all the zulus and indians fighting to be free of the british?
Final one, promise:
"My son, never commence a war", attributed to Konung Karl den Nionde (King Charles XI of Sweden). He worked his entire much too short life to create the order necessary for Sweden to consolidate it's gains from the Thirty Years War, and to build lasting peace with the Danes and Russians.
Needless to say, his successors squandered it all on pointless wars.
I find this to be one of the pitfalls of the written word among strangers . Without the aid of subtle facial cues or body language, much is left to guessing meaning and intent.
I believe the farther we get from up close and personal communication, the easier it is to lose whatever humanity we once had. Perhaps that is why the younger generations are feeling more and more internally isolated. The more they have their eyes on a screen the more disconnected from humanity they feel. Once one is disconnected, it’s not a major leap to take the next step of dehumanizing and then eventually hatred and vengeance.
Moral law is certainly a thing, as all law is based on moral. But not all morals are the same, and that's where Sun Tzu as so many others fall apart, when looked at with modern eyes.
I can virtually guarantee you he meant moral as in the moral of what was his China at the time, and nothing else. Not any kind of universal, pan-cultural, multi-racial moral - the idea simply didn't exist.
So what's a crime against one of your own, doesn't have to be a crime against the Stranger, the Other or the Enemy.
Sadly, it's from that bitter fruit the post-modernists of today draw their erroneous conclusion that moral is a yoke or shackel best gotten rid of. But that's another topic.
The version of Art of War that I own- and consulted for the quote at the beginning, besides the other chapters I've read numerous times- has commentary detailing that what is commonly translated as "moral" had more to do with the idea of "morale" or "willing spirit" than of anything resembling ethics or goodness.
I specifically avoided any of the quotes about "moral <whatever>" for that reason; the meaning is too ambiguous.
Then we obviously use different definitions. Laws based in nature, biology and such I'd call grounded or natural (I don't know US terminology in this field so I'm translating).
Laws based in "people ought to be/act like this" is what I'd call "moral laws".
Like banning cigarettes because they are harmful, yet allowing far more harmful substances (say phtalates): that would fallunder "moral" for me, since the decision isn't based in "how harmful is substance X?" or else we'd ban anything as or more harmful than tobacco.
Eh, it,s 15 to Midnight and we opened a jug of apple-mead for dinner so maybe I'm muddling things?
Codified instincts of self-, family-, and pack-survival is probably what became the Code of Hammurabi, once the packs became large enough that we'd call them tribes, peoples and states.
Gah. This is easier in swedish. Then I could write "moraliska lagar" meaning laws based on a moral, justified by being compliant with over-arching ethical frameworks, and "morallagar" meaning laws governing the morals of the governed.
Eh. It's New Year's and we're talking laws. Bah!
Happy New Year and cheers! Going to have a snifter of Salmiakki Koskenkorva (ammonium chloride-flavoured black liqourice vodka) and go to bed.
"When you criminalize something, you are making a de facto statement that you are ultimately fine with killing someone for it. I know this sounds hyperbolic to some, but the libertarians in the audience are probably nodding heavily. "
--------
I see you subscribe to my live webcam!
Eric Garner. We can debate the specifics of the situation, but the truth is a guy died because he refused to be arrested for selling loosey cigarettes. There was no other precipitating bad act.
If it weren't for looseys, I'd have never survived high school.
It's worth noting that selling loosey cigarettes is a FELONY (tax evasion). So maybe we did get a dangerous criminal off the streets after all.
Eric Garner wasn't even selling loosies that day, he had just broken up a fight. The cops were giving him shit because he PREVIOUSLY sold loosies. It was his REPUTATION that got him killed, not even anything he was doing!
The one I talk about in my article about this subject is Breonna Taylor, but there are countless other innocent victims. It wasn't that long ago that police were beating people FOR NOT WEARING MASKS!!!!
https://simulationcommander.substack.com/p/there-oughta-be-a-law
Edit: LOL I don't even remember writing this, but there it is:
------------------------
I can almost hear you now. “Surely you this is hyperbole! We don’t kill people enforcing all our laws!” And mostly, that is true. But, as in the case of Breonna Taylor, sometimes enforcement spins wildly out of control.
So “you can’t sell loose cigarettes” leads to the death of Eric Garner. (Who wasn’t even selling loosies that day!)
And “you are being too loud” leads to the death of Ryan Whitaker.
Even things like “this kid is playing in the park” can lead to tragedy.
As Walter Williams put it, every law is backed up by a gun. Even if the penalty is just a fine, if you don't pay the fine you get a court summons and be forced to pay. If you don't obey the summons they will issue a warrant and come arrest you. Refuse to be arrested and you are going to get shot. In the end, you do what they want, or you get killed.
The State is just an opinion with a gun.
Best place for cats on the ‘net.
😆😆😆
Another thought provoking article. Many, many unanswered questions that some will search within themselves for the answers, and others will wait to be told what to believe.
I do think your perspective about the growing insanity of the lever pullers is based on some fear of retribution. While I wish that sapiens would recognize their misguided failings and repent, most undoubtedly will not and will suffer the wrath of the persecuted underdog, no matter how chivalrous they think they each are. And in my opinion the punishment is long overdue.
I simultaneously agree with everything you've said and also believe that there are answers that can- and, probably for periods of history have- been found that are not incompatible with the short-sightedness and chemical thinking of humans.
Superbly written article, well done GM, and Happy New Year to you.
Thanks, fellow primate. Have a hopeful 2023.
I'm surprisingly sanguine.
Thank you.
I'm increasingly fascinated by their "I will not tolerate intolerance". It's the perfect alagory, but I can't quite decide what for exactly
Every time I ask about it I just get shown that tiresome Popper comic. :)
Oh that's new to me?
It seems to be popular on The Bird.
https://skepchick.org/2017/08/popper-and-the-paradox-of-tolerance/
That's Marcusse's "repressive tolerance" in a nutshell - Tolerance for me but not for thee. Or as the cat puts it - "Punch, No punch backs".
It's like the P+P= R bullshit. Or Marxism for that matter (especially Leninism/Vanguardism) - obviously self serving bullshit. I can't stand it.
It is a slogan phrase that Stalin would be proud of.
"To promote conduct in line with one’s own cultural values (bushido, chivalry, other honor cultures, Christian conceptions of mercy or compassion, etc.) to prevent degradation of these values in the home culture outside of warfare (e.g., if you don’t want your men freely raping your women, you discourage it in wartime so they won’t continue doing it when they get home)."
That the tactics used by the national security state in the War of Terror would inevitably be turned against domestic dissidents always seemed so obvious even back in the day to me as a teenager.
Most people are sadly very short sighted in this regard or not sighted at all (apathetic).
I mean, the concept of "imagine this thing being used by leadership you don't like" seems so fucking simple to grasp.
I think maybe some or even a lot of people lack the capacity to project current trends outwards into the medium and long term future in some fundamental way that's not just the product of their intelligence or their social conditioning
There have been plenty of glib statements about the nature of the human brain suggesting it's an immutable trait.
I just don't know.
It’s lack of imagination.
We/us are inflicted and blessed with a synesthesia of sorts that would drive the vast majority of people mad.
They do not have the sensory gear to see all the "colors" in the spectrum...let alone to "hear" colors.
There's nothing they can do about it.
We are blessed and cursed.
In a similar vein: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDBiLT3LASk
Happy New Year, Guttermouth.
Nice.
Countless blessings upon your house, doc. For strength and wisdom.
Thank you, Guttermouth.
Inconceivable!
Is the rationalisation. Also, if you look at Europe after the Cold War?
About 90% of the representatives in any western european parliament vote the same about 90% of the time.
So there's really no risk of leadership you don't like, since all parties have virtually the same value-base, the same greater agendas, and the same vested interest in maintaining the current demokratur-system.
(Demokratur: demokrati + diktatur. It looks like democracy because you get to vote and complain, but no matter what you vote for, you get the same kind of politics. It was coined by a swedish working-class author in the 1950s.)
In the US you say "Uniparty" about the same phenomenon, yes?
I really like "demokratur."
https://youtu.be/_7U5JVk_y7U
Superb article,GM.
I wish I knew what psychological twist lays in the human mind that some large portion of our society can be lead to view 'the Other' as "not as human,and therfore unworthy of the moral considerations I would take for myself.
I live by a set of internal ethical compasses. This is actually the reason I have used IntegrityandKarma as a handle in pseudonym for almost 30 years.
Will I kill if I must to survive an assault? Without compunction. Would I kill to protect innocent lives? Yep.
Would I lie( something I truly truuuuly despise) in order to save s life? " You say you're here to gun down everyone who's name has a Q?! My son's name is Sean....yes. Sean Xavier..."
Will I say the end justifies the means? No. Would I make poor judgment calls? Undoubtedly.
I worry about some fpljs regarding things so simple as " Amnesty" . I'm ok with never trusting some folks again,as some have shown that the life of a Brownshirt would have suited them well... but holyshit... I wish sone folks had an inkling about Karma and Intentionality. How ugly are they making our and their own futures??
....did I go off on a tangent? I think not. It's all one messy Gordian Knot of human psychology...and I swear animals often are better people than humans.
I don't think it was a tangent. "Amnesty" is a big word, though. It can mean a lot of things up to and including complete absolution.
Anything that compels us to abandon pattern recognition is worthy of scrutiny, I think.
Indeed. Lots of words cover big conceptual frameworks... that's one of the reasons for diplomacy and foresight.
" I accept you were a dumbest when you were frightened and mentally ill. I accept thst you're sorry now,but you're going to have to prove you've learned from your past delusional state. No, I don't hope you die. Yes, I admit to not ever being ok with giving you power over me ever again,fir any reason..." yada yada...
"I wish I knew what psychological twist lays in the human mind that some large portion of our society can be lead to view 'the Other' as "not as human,and therfore unworthy of the moral considerations I would take for myself."
Think of the opening scene in 2001. The battle for the water-hole.
Also, as babies we discover that we are separate entities from Mother and Father: for us to be a single individual, there must be Others that are not us.
Othering is necessary for us to exist: treating Others like garbage is not.
Well,yeah...I wasn't clear as crystal ,but considered my context to be speaking as to the extreme context if Other ingredients.
Hehe, I'm trying to go to bed, it's almost midnight and you allare keeping me up with you're wonderful discussions! And being a dyed-in-the-steel wool nitpicker, it'snot your writing but my reading. :)
Happy New Year, cheers!
Godnat :)
Poop! .... ( better??)
Happy New Year,Rikard! 😁
Hehehe, poop.
I'm going to get shit dumped on my head in 3 2 1....
As I just told people what I think about fireworks ( the boom-y kind) on another stack.
Dammit!! I hate it when spellchecker changes a word after I hit send! * of Other-ing
the left fail to see any consequences - yet
They still think they will be free to be their 'unique' selves and do nothing all day instead of slaving away in the factories like their political enemies.
its a shame so few read solzhenitsyn
The pace of the 'liberal project' over there is breathtaking when viewed from here. The one that gets me is rejecting recovery programmes in favour of 'safe use' for drug users. I do recognise your observation that they no longer trouble to hide what they do. They presumably feel untouchable right now, but history is long and still unfolding...
Dagnabbit, Mrs. Mouth. I still owe you one, and I have to prioritize getting the new computer (Win11. Insert spitting, imprecations and procrastination here) set up so that I can take part in convos w/out using a clotshotted phone touchscreen.
Great one here. Really great.
Glad to hear it. Happy New Year.
“I confess, without shame, I am sick and tired of fighting—its glory is all moonshine.” - W.T. Sherman
“War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war, is much worse.” John Stuart Mill
Great point.
I think there’s room for Sherman and Mill both.
Adam Smith seems to worry the most about the "violence of faction" within a country, where hatred for political opponents drowns out truth and justice, leading to civil war. I find it disturbing how much that seems to apply today. It doesn't help that everything these days sounds like the prequel to 1984.
Happy New Year?
I don't see the connection to his comment.
Some day it may be that my typing skills ( read: lack thereof) will be the grounds for some legal dismissal. No, probably not.
Since we're waiting on the New Year by talking about war in all its gore-ious panoply, and you opened the floor for using quotes:
"Silent enim leges inter arma", Marcus Tullius Cicero.
That's a rather good divider between peace and war. Now look at all the things governements make war on. For every "War on ________", more laws fall silent or become tools of oppression instead of limits founded in necessity and consent. Now, finally, we live when rulers yet again make war on reality.
“It was so much easier to blame it on Them. It was bleakly depressing to think that They were Us. If it was Them, then nothing was anyone's fault. If it was us, what did that make Me? After all, I'm one of Us. I must be. I've certainly never thought of myself as one of Them. No one ever thinks of themselves as one of Them. We're always one of Us. It's Them that do the bad things.”
― Terry Pratchett, Jingo
Sad thing is, that's how it is, always was and always will be.Until all men are created equal in dignity and worth, meaning all are equally vile and worthless, as any man is replacable with any other, if they truly are equal.
“Pacifism is objectively pro-fascist. This is elementary common sense. If you hamper the war effort of one side, you automatically help out that of the other. Nor is there any real way of remaining outside such a war as the present one. In practice, 'he that is not with me is against me'.”
― George Orwell
Yep, too true. It's all good and dandy when the war is make-believe, to have rules and whatnots, but those rules only ever apply in one of two circumstances: you lost, or there's a bigger bully around who has something to gain from enforcing them on you. How many Allied soldiers and commanders were tried in Nuremberg, for carpet bombing civilian targets? Zero. How many Soviets were tried for the rape and murder of over 500 000 civilian german women and small girls? Zero. Victory forgives all isn't just pithy, it's a truth that makes me cry if I think too much on it.
“You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word. It is victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival.”
― Winston Churchill
Hard to argue against that, but I wonder if he ever thought the same about all the zulus and indians fighting to be free of the british?
Final one, promise:
"My son, never commence a war", attributed to Konung Karl den Nionde (King Charles XI of Sweden). He worked his entire much too short life to create the order necessary for Sweden to consolidate it's gains from the Thirty Years War, and to build lasting peace with the Danes and Russians.
Needless to say, his successors squandered it all on pointless wars.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_XI_of_Sweden]
Happy New Year!
One of my favorites: "It is good that war is so terrible, or else we should grow too fond of it." - Napoleon Bonaparte
We would be extinct without war. War is necessary for primacy. Survival depends on primacy.
War is default.
Peace is an ethereal illusion.
Considering the tools to wage it we now have, it may be the reason we go extinct.
Very true.
Ironic eh?
Indeed.
I’m reminded of a deeply haunting line in Carl Sagan’s Contact where the protagonist is discussing violent species with the alien Dad guy.
They aren’t a problem because they tend to “sort themselves out” long before they’re any threat.
Oof.
Yeah. And their back up is that we'd probably invite them to earth assuming they're benevolent
Isn't that Lee, not Napoleon? Or was Lee quoting Nappy?
Interesting. I had originally learned it attributed to Napoleon, but yes, Lee clearly (also?) said it!
War is hell.
Happy New Year to the Mouth family. Wishing you a healthy ‘23.
Looking at the picture, what about the war of art?
You mean like Hunter Biden’s art?
A literary editor and a consultant on Federal criminal cases and an etiquette teacher and a security professional and studying to be a locksmith. Wow.
Admittedly text complicates it.
It remains an open question whether it's worse when people can't tell when you're being sarcastic or think you're being sarcastic when you're not.
It feels like both happened a lot less before the internet, but that may be my presentism talking.
I find this to be one of the pitfalls of the written word among strangers . Without the aid of subtle facial cues or body language, much is left to guessing meaning and intent.
I believe the farther we get from up close and personal communication, the easier it is to lose whatever humanity we once had. Perhaps that is why the younger generations are feeling more and more internally isolated. The more they have their eyes on a screen the more disconnected from humanity they feel. Once one is disconnected, it’s not a major leap to take the next step of dehumanizing and then eventually hatred and vengeance.
Dead pan = challenge.
Challenge = opportunity for a reply to reveal intent/message (discovery).
Usually there's intent.
But sometimes she's seems she can't help herself from just being fucking ornery....:)
Moral law is certainly a thing, as all law is based on moral. But not all morals are the same, and that's where Sun Tzu as so many others fall apart, when looked at with modern eyes.
I can virtually guarantee you he meant moral as in the moral of what was his China at the time, and nothing else. Not any kind of universal, pan-cultural, multi-racial moral - the idea simply didn't exist.
So what's a crime against one of your own, doesn't have to be a crime against the Stranger, the Other or the Enemy.
Sadly, it's from that bitter fruit the post-modernists of today draw their erroneous conclusion that moral is a yoke or shackel best gotten rid of. But that's another topic.
The version of Art of War that I own- and consulted for the quote at the beginning, besides the other chapters I've read numerous times- has commentary detailing that what is commonly translated as "moral" had more to do with the idea of "morale" or "willing spirit" than of anything resembling ethics or goodness.
I specifically avoided any of the quotes about "moral <whatever>" for that reason; the meaning is too ambiguous.
Then we obviously use different definitions. Laws based in nature, biology and such I'd call grounded or natural (I don't know US terminology in this field so I'm translating).
Laws based in "people ought to be/act like this" is what I'd call "moral laws".
Like banning cigarettes because they are harmful, yet allowing far more harmful substances (say phtalates): that would fallunder "moral" for me, since the decision isn't based in "how harmful is substance X?" or else we'd ban anything as or more harmful than tobacco.
Eh, it,s 15 to Midnight and we opened a jug of apple-mead for dinner so maybe I'm muddling things?
We're having blueberry mead with NYE dinner!
Blueberry mead? Can I ask, american blueberries or bilberries (what we call blåbär/blueberries)?
We had the last of the left-overs from our Jolbord earlier. My belt is chafing!
American blueberries. It's made locally. We have a big local cottage industry for honey.
Codified instincts of self-, family-, and pack-survival is probably what became the Code of Hammurabi, once the packs became large enough that we'd call them tribes, peoples and states.
Gah. This is easier in swedish. Then I could write "moraliska lagar" meaning laws based on a moral, justified by being compliant with over-arching ethical frameworks, and "morallagar" meaning laws governing the morals of the governed.
Eh. It's New Year's and we're talking laws. Bah!
Happy New Year and cheers! Going to have a snifter of Salmiakki Koskenkorva (ammonium chloride-flavoured black liqourice vodka) and go to bed.
I am the only human in 100 miles (at least) that likes the flavor of black licorice.
I forever wait in fear of the day I am purged with the rest of the abominations.