by legislating the morality that we can find in the Bible
“Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor” Mark 10:21
“You cannot serve both God and money.” Luke 16:13
“If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also.” Matthew 5:39
“Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you,” Luke 6:27
ACLU affiliate NYCLU (New York Civil Liberties Union) sued the private ivy league Columbia University over the “suspension of pro-Palestinian groups” so the ACLU of Florida could choose to help these neo-nazis; since the ACLU has in the past helped neo-nazis, Republicans, the KKK, and other horrible groups.
Your comments are welcome to my response to user Calfpupa above.
According to the 2019 data at https://ourworldindata.org/causes-of-death 0.4% of deaths are from nutritional deficiencies (this may be defined differently from starvation), and 0.2% from war battle deaths, but that graph includes deaths which would occur because of aging so the percentages massively downplay these causes - I haven’t been able to find good sources for stats on preventable deaths.
What I also can’t find is the percentage of indirect deaths caused by wars, which from that graph would probably mostly be from disease which could be big. Not to mention injuries, disabilities, etc…
Sanctions probably are also a big cause of death from disease, neonatal deaths (3.3%), maternal deaths (0.4%), etc., but I personally think lots of sanctions and boycotts (of e.g. apartheid South Africa, Russia, North Korea, Palestine, Israel, Iran, USA) are actually good (I don’t know much about the Cuban) even-tho innocents are victimized long before the authoritarians and/or oligarchs are ousted by the sanctions.
True, and the scientific method and results have made wars more intensely deadly; but science doesn’t make ridiculous claims like religions and other scam-artists who claims that if you say some magic words you can have absolutely anything you want. The scientific method is by far the best way we’ve found that lets us figure out what is real and what is nonsense - no other method comes anywhere close to it.
Does anyone have sources for this?
I’m not an expert, and a quick look on Wikipedia shows that comparing just 2 recent big wars, the USA coalition’s invasion of Iraq (2003-2011) killed approximately 151k to 655k[i] Iraqis, while the major Russian invasion or Ukraine (2022-ongoing) killed about 200k[u] Ukrainians.
Anyone have better numbers, and other non-defensive invasions?
[i] 151000 (2003-03/2006-06) New England Journal of Medicine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_Family_Health_Survey
460000 (2003-03/2011-06) PLOS Medicine Survey https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3797136/
654965 excess (2003-03/2006-07) Lancet survey, 186318 by coalition, 144246 by others, and 276472 by unknown https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lancet_surveys_of_Iraq_War_casualties
[u] BBC https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ce8n4l8elpgo This is just Ukrainians - if you include the Russian casualties then it may be more than 3 times that, and since some Russian soldiers may have been forced into the war (unlike in the Iraq war on the Western side), Russia should be held responsible for them getting killed also.
I’ve twice asked Christians to pray in Jesus’ name asking for the immediate and permanent end to torture, rape, murder, and war. They prayed, and when I next met them they were still Christians despite none of those things ending.
I think religious people are dishonest and/or unable to differentiate between reality and fairytales.
Matthew 7:7-11
7 Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened to you. 8 For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened. 9 Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? 10 Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? 11 So if you who are evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!
I’m not convinced that voting for genocide and mass extinction is OK, and I’ve looked at arguments in favor of them like the lesser-evil. I may be too stupid to understand the arguments in favor of them, but I don’t think I’m being a perfectionist because I actually disagree with many things in Green and socialist platforms - but they’re not things that cross the line for me.
From your point-of-view, the Democrats winning may be good, and the Republicans winning bad. You might see them on a left-right scale of 0-10, where 0 is good, the Ds are at 3, the Rs at 9, and Hitler at 10.
Some other people see a bigger window than that: look at https://www.politicalcompass.org/uselection2020 and compare how these people see the distance between Trump +9+9 and Biden +7+6, compared to the distance between both and Hawkins -5-3. These people agree that the Rs are worse than the Ds, but they don’t want to help the Ds win because they don’t want more genocide, a climate cascade causing a mass extinction event, a psychotic economic system, a food system torturing 2-6 trillion animals to death a year and enslaving 2-4 trillion animals in torturous conditions a year, unsustainable pollution, biosphere degradation…
They might instead want to help in the long fight towards an ethical civilization instead. It may be a long defeat, but for those who won’t cross the ethical lines listed above, doing the right thing (even if they lose) is better than being culpable in actively supporting those who are making the system more evil. The difference between +9+9 and +7+6 is real, but for some the ethical lines they won’t cross is below +7+6.
If Stalin is the lesser-evil compared to the greater-evil Hitler, then there’s still the option to vote for unpopular Gandhi and maybe start the process where people realize they don’t have to be culpable in actively supporting Stalin.
If people want to follow Douglas’ example of supporting the lesser evil, they can - as about a third do. But I’m mostly not writing for them, because they don’t care enough that their actions are actively helping and giving legitimacy to genocide, a climate cascade causing a mass extinction event, a psychotic economic system, a food system torturing 2-6 trillion animals to death a year and enslaving 2-4 trillion animals in torturous conditions a year, unsustainable pollution, biosphere degradation… They don’t care enough that by voting for the lesser evil, they’re actively culpable of the system getting more evil after every election.
Instead, for the plurality that don’t vote at all, I’m pointing out there are other options: like voting for ethical people instead, and starting the long fight towards an ethical civilization. It may be a long defeat, but for those who won’t cross the ethical lines listed above, doing the right thing (even if you lose) is better than actively supporting those who are making the system more evil. The difference between +9+9 and +7+6 is real, but for some the ethical lines they won’t cross is between +7+6 and -5-3.
From your point-of-view, the Democrats winning is good, and the Republicans winning is bad. You might see them on a left-right scale of 0-10, where 0 is good, the Ds are at 3, the Rs at 9, and Hitler at 10.
Some other people see a bigger window than that: look at https://www.politicalcompass.org/uselection2020 and compare how these people see the distance between Trump +9+9 and Biden +7+6, compared to the distance between both and Hawkins -5-3. These people agree that the Rs are worse than the Ds, but they don’t want to help the Ds win because the Ds are mass-extinction causing capitalists. To convince these people to vote for the Ds instead of Greens/socialists/not-voting at all, you have to convince them that the Ds actions of:
are good, and worth voting for.
The Democrats are not Left wing. They’re left of the Republicans, and less authoritarian, but they’re a right-wing party who crippled banking regulation in favor of oligarchy, bailed out the worst banks, lied about drilling for oil[1] and causing a mass extinction event, and kept giving Israel weapons even after they went from defending themselves to committing genocide.
The goal for ethical people is not to get the Democrats to win, but instead to elect ethical people to government, e.g Hawkins and Nader.
It’s possible, even in FPTP voting systems, for people to reject the 2 parties that usually wins - see the UK where the Tories or Labour have been the only 2 winning parties for more than 90 years (including 2 short coalition governments); but where polling shows the 5th party (the horrible Reform) and 8th party (Greens) are now leading.
“It is infinitely better to vote for freedom and fail than to vote for slavery and succeed.” - Eugene V. Debs, Appeal to Reason, 1900-10-13
“Wage-labor is but a name; wage-slavery is the fact.” - Eugene V. Debs, The Socialist Party and the Working Class 1904-09-01
[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2024/08/16/biden-oil-drilling-production/ As he campaigned for president in 2020, Joe Biden made a bold promise at a New Hampshire town hall, adding repetition for emphasis: “No more drilling on federal lands. Period. Period. Period. Period.” […] The Biden administration has now outpaced the Trump administration in approving permits for drilling on public lands, and the United States is producing more oil than any country ever has.
Maybe because 98.1% keep voting for either evil or the lesser evil; but almost none of them vote for the good like Nader?
“Everybody complains about politicians. Everybody says they suck. Well, where do people think these politicians come from? They don’t fall out of the sky. They don’t pass through a membrane from another reality. They come from American parents and American families, American homes, American schools, American churches, American businesses, and American universities - and they are elected by American citizens. This is the best we can do folks. This is what we have to offer. It’s what our system produces: Garbage in, garbage out. If you have selfish, ignorant citizens, […] you’re going to get selfish, ignorant leaders. Term limits ain’t going to do any good; you’re just going to end up with a brand new bunch of selfish, ignorant Americans. So, maybe, maybe, maybe, it’s not the politicians who suck. Maybe something else sucks around here… like, the public.” – George Carlin https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBrbXOmnW70
“It is infinitely better to vote for freedom and fail than to vote for slavery and succeed.” - Eugene V. Debs, Appeal to Reason, 1900-10-13
“Wage-labor is but a name; wage-slavery is the fact.” - Eugene V. Debs, The Socialist Party and the Working Class 1904-09-01
The order of magnitude higher incidence of colon cancer in the west, comes from the western diet’s higher intake of animal protein and fat, and lower intake of fibre:
O’Keefe SJ, Li JV, Lahti L, et al. Fat, fibre and cancer risk in African Americans and rural Africans. Nat Commun. 2015;6:6342, (video).
Getting a diagnosis of early colon cancer isn’t prevention. Prevention is eating a healthy diet with 60-120g of fibre per day from a whole-food plant-based diet, instead of the average 18g fibre per day from a typical western diet (video).
62% now have confidence in SCOTUS, while 38% do not.
In 2024, Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for the majority, said Trump has immunity for his official acts as president.
I don’t think that applies to at least Kosovo, Vietnam (didn’t bring any kind of freedom, oil was discovered later), Germany, Japan.
Can you think of a non-Muslim country where 99% of the people want to have the country’s laws be religious instead of secular, and 79% of those want the death penalty for anyone not wanting to be a member of that religion anymore?
Even 50%?
I could then look up if anyone have thought of even asking that question in such countries.
Not that I know of.
It doesn’t seem like a sensible question to ask Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, Shintoists, or Taoists.
For Christians, hundreds of years ago: yes.
“Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you,” - Jesus, according to Luke 6:27
“If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also.” - Jesus, according to Matthew 5:39