CaptainChick said:
I've stated this before and I'll state it again, human beings and the moral rights they deserve transcend whatever their culture, and cultural norms happen to be or dictate.
That might be a defensible position.
I think the point here was one being made from an anthropological standpoint, NOT a moral standpoint.
Carebear was not advocating that any of this was "good."
He was simply stating that, as far as laws go, a community will establish laws for its own citizens... and if you are "other" -- i.e., not part of that community -- then you have no legal rights within that community.
This is why a country that does not allow murder or theft within its own community can hand guns off to its young men and send them into ANOTHER community ... where they are not punished for murdering THOSE citizens or stealing.
It might help if you also thought in terms of "tribes." If you are in a tribe, you have expanded your self-identity to include the tribe -- you treat them as you would treat yourself, and vice versa, your personal identity boundaries encompasses other members of your tribe.
But you do not identify with the OTHER tribes... so you do not have to treat them as yourself. They are "Other."
[You see this on a small scale in "Lost" -- with the "Others." The survivors of the crash are tribes, now they're TWO tribes... one run by Locke, one by Jack... and there were still the Others out there too. People protect their tribe; the other tribes are treated as outsiders and dealt with accordingly.]
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As far as INTJMom's thoughts go (and maybe yours, but hers are based on Christianity), Jesus basically said, "Love your enemy as yourself" -- do you see what he was saying, he said you have to actually identify with your enemy, your personal identity boundaries include them as part of yourself. They are no longer "other," they are YOU. Love them as you love yourself.
So your enemy -- and all of humanity -- is part of you. Part of your tribe. Thus the morality and the rights you apply to yourself applies to your enemy. There is no "other" in Christianity, at least as Jesus set it down.
Philanthropists also tend to have this attitude -- they care about ALL people as if they were part of their tribe. They think in terms of the human race being one large tribe, and no one is "other."
For a long time, the US treated the AIDS epidemic in Africa as a problem belonging to the "Other" tribe. It wasn't OUR problem. Our tribe seemed to be okay, We didn't have to be concerned about THAT problem.
But some people argued that all humans are part of the SAME tribe. They expanded their identity boundaries outwards to include Africa as part of their tribe.
So the US finally started to deal with the problem as if it were happening within its own borders.
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Carebear also points out that animal-rights activists have basically extended their identity boundaries even further, viewing ANIMALS as part of them selves in a sense and thus "part of the tribe."
Some people would disagree with that, seeing animals as separate... but it's why some people treat animals as they would treat other human beings.
Just some clarifications.