Aswad
Posts: 9374
Joined: 4/4/2007
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quote:
ORIGINAL: LafayetteLady
Obviously, it is a one way street.
I hope I misread this, else I've left you with the wrong impression.
Please don't mistake my posting habits for a lack of respect.
quote:
However, failing to have the ability to draw a line in the sand between what is simply kink and what surpasses risk into dangerous and harmful behavior indicates a lack of social consciousness that says you would happily take that knife and slice the person's neck without remorse, empathy or any sense of morality.
Social consciousness, maybe. Empathy, yes. Morality, yes. Remorse, no. Cutting necks, limit. 
My social consciousness is framed in the context of my morality and worldview. I believe it is important to individuals, communities and the species as a whole to not only permit, but encourage, freedom and the attendant accountability for all adults. Especially those whose goals and priorities we do not share, as it is meaningless to speak of the freedom to be copies of ourselves. In the final analysis, causality enforces accountability more consistently than any of us, and it is at times a kindness to educate on unforeseen consequences as well as possible. The choice, however, I would not deprive someone of needlessly.
Your life is not a game to be played by my rules, nor is theirs.
I have drawn plenty of lines in the sand, and even the occasional stick figure, but I keep it to my corner of the beach as a general rule. Whether people go for a swim, or stick to sunbathing, or want to play volley, that's not my concern. I might even participate. But crossing the lines I have drawn is usually dealt with in person, the possible outcomes tending to be few in number. Telling someone something is stupid doesn't solve a problem and it doesn't adequately or effectively enforce the lines.
The way you handle your car is likely to strike me as an unwarranted risk benefit tradeoff, given that it's been the case for essentially all drivers I've spoken to from the same continent. Assuming you can somehow survive without, then it's also beyond my vocabulary to express what my objective assessment of petroleum based fuel use is. But I've no need to do it, and it likely won't cause you to stop using it until you can retrofit it to using some other energy source, or indeed even to perform such a retrofit. And environmental concerns are far down on the list of issues when making this analogy.
Respecting unshared goals, choices, priorities and so forth, while allowing some leeway for mistakes and plain, honest ignorance, is essentially the only way I can condone the continued existence of the species... from a social consciousness perspective, at least.
Health,
al-Aswad.
_____________________________
"If God saw what any of us did that night, he didn't seem to mind.
From then on I knew: God doesn't make the world this way.
We do." -- Rorschack, Watchmen.
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RE: Internal Water Sports? - 
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