Aardvark

The government should have a responsibility to ensure that no company deliberately misleads people about its products and that any addictive substances should be clearly labelled.

Basically the government is there to ensure businesses are honest. That should be enough surely?

For example' date=' if my father dies from lung cancer, should I be able to sue to government for not providing him with enough information about the dangers of smoking? (he doesn't actually smoke, just an example).[/quote']

 

In my opinion, no. Your Father should only be able to sue if the government or the cigarette company deliberately witheld information. If the cigarette company was secretly manipulating nicotine levels and suppressing information about the dangers then it would be cupable. Not otherwise.

Thats an attitude that assumes people are always capable of acting in their own best interests. If that was the case why would we even have laws? Why are there laws requiring you wear a helmet when you drive a motorcycle? This is common sense and if you choose not to do so your only endangering yourself, yet there is a law there in place forcibly regulating people's behavior because some are too careless or unintelligent to make the safest choice themselves.

In Florida the law requiring helmets has been rescinded. Helmetless bikers are now known as organ donors.

Also it would seem laws against drunk drivers are there to protect both other motorists and the drunk driver himself from harm.

Personally i that people should be able to do what they want as long as it does not harm anyone else. Which means laws against drunk driving are quite reasonable.

On another note there are warnings on almost every consumer product you buy these days. Dont spill the coffee on yourself, its hot. Don't let your children play with plastic packaging materials as they may suffocate, don't sit there in an enclosed space and breathe in chemical fumes, dont take 30 aspirin because you have a migraine,dont operate unshielded electronic equipment while immerses in water =P

Fair point. I don't want to live in a nanny state where the government tries to wrap everyone in cotton wool and no one takes responsibility for their actions. It does seem like people can do anything stupid and then blame anyone but themselves and make mony from it.

What i do want is for people to be given relevant information, for instance, if a product contains an addictive substance. Once people know that they can make their own choices and take responsibility for their own actions.

After all, isn't being an adult about taking responsibilty for your own actions? In my opinion Western society is becoming infantalised, with people taking less and less responsibility for their own lives and decisions. (rant, rant;))

Why is the government's responsibility to protect people from their own ignorance?

Because freedom implies choice. People can only make valid choices if they have the relevant information.

It's not the governments responsibility to stop people choosing to smoke, but i think it does have a responsibility to ensure that the public is given the relevant information. If products contain addictive compounds then it seems right that consumers know that so they are able to make informed choices rather that becoming inadvertantly addicted.

I don't know does caffeine give you cancer?

Caffeine is an addictive drug. Its levels are manipulated in the same way as nicotine levels are manipulated. Presumably to get people 'hooked' on the product.

In what way would the relatively smaller health consequences of that drug alter the principle here. An addicitive substance is added to get people to consume more product. Caffeine is added to Cola drinks, they might not cause cancer, but they do contribute to obesity and diabetes.

Perhaps the Coca Cola corporation should be investigated for the same charges that cigarette companies have faced.

Whats the difference?

How about just a "nicotine content" label on cigarettes? That way they can't do anything sneaky (at least with nicotine!).

Pretty much everywhere does that. Except the USA apparently.

Would anyone characterise the manipulation of nicotine in cigarettes as being any different from the manipulation of caffeine levels in coffee?

though' date=' ironically, I wrote a sci-fi short story that deals with this theme somewhat. The time scale was in the millions of years.[/quote']

 

If you were to use micro organisms with very short life spans then useful results could be gained in a relatively short period of time. This would be useful in giving us information about the capacity of life to adapt to different environments rather tahn giving us any specific information about any alien ecosystems.

George W. Bush is Christian' date=' and he's much worse than Hitler.

[/quote']

 

Sense of perspective a little skewed today?

The militant Islamist in Pakistan are fueled by the favorable treatment the US has given India during their conflicts.

The USA did not provide any favourable treatment to India during their conflicts. The USA provided favourable treatment to Pakistan. India was aligned with the Soviet Union, receiving military equipment and economic assistance. The 'militant Islamist' has no grounds at all to hate the USA on the basis of any so called bias against Pakistan.

I doubt the Taleban would have been able to gain power without the environment created by the US activities in the region.

How odd. The Soviet Union invades Afghanistan creating turmoil, civil war and anarchy, and you blame the USA?

The fact that the Taliban and other radical Muslims blame everything on the USA does not actually make it true.

Is it your opinion that Islam and it's followers should be treated like the Aryan Nation' date=' the KKK and the Nazi party with regards to our policies regarding Racist / Prejudiced Remarks?[/quote']

 

Of course the followers of Islam should not be treated like the followers of the KKK or Aryan Nation.

 

After all, the Aryan Nation and the KKK have never planted bombs on the train my brother takes to work, or on the bus route i occasionally use to get into town.

Well' date=' i agree. I should have said "i've heard that" or "read it somewhere", but that's beside the point. Or did you mean you have evidence against it? I hoped for one of you guys to "answer" that.

Keep 'em coming! [/quote']

 

If you want any creditability you have to back up your assertations with some reasoning, logic or evidence.

 

Simply asking if there is any evidence against something doesn't hack it.

I don't know why I hadn't considered those terror attacks by the IRA and such. Although, I do believe alot of that had to do with British domination in the region.

'British domination in the region'? You might as well complain about the American domination of Texas or New York.

Anyway, the IRA always publicly stated that they were NOT motivated by religion. The Islamic terrorists openly state that they are directly inspired by religion.

You could make a case that Christianity and Islam are both guilty of racist or violent intent, albeit limited and sparse relevant to the total amount of content available by each religion's documentation.

If you were to make that case you would be wrong.

I still believe that Islam has more of a blatant racist tone than Christianity, but I'm also beginning to think that's like saying Stalin was worse than Hitler. Neither have anything to brag about.

Trying to draw a moral equivalence between Islam and Christianity is foolish. Christianity is based on the teachings of Christ, who preached peace and love. Islam is based on the teachings of Mohameed, who preached violent conquest.

.

If it is determined' date=' through study and experience, that all of Islam is a religion which ultimately calls for either conversion or condemnation, then we can easily determine that the ideology is not one with which we can peacefully live, and that it is like the Aryan Nation, the KKK and the Nazis with regards to prejudicial remarks.[/quote']

 

Islam is quite easy to study and understand as it is not ambiguous. The Koran is believed to be the absolute and direct word of God. Its instructions are the uncontradictable orders which Muslims must obey.

 

And they have such charming rules as the mandatory death sentence for any Muslim who converts to another religion. That rule is imposed.

 

Mohammeds last words were an injuction to his followers to force all the world to convert. Everywhere in the world that is majority Muslim is the result of bloody conquest.

 

Imagine if their was a law in Britain that any Christian who convertd to another religion was to be executed. And that this law was implemented. Imagine that the building of Mosques and Synagoges was banned and the display of any religious symbols other than Christian ones was severely punished by beatings.

 

I imagine you would be quite outspoken in your condemnation of that. Yet Islam always seems to be judged by much easier standards.

 

Why is that?

 

 

Aardvark' date='

 

Are you sure about that? It isnt even clear to me that Hitler actually had any exposure to Darwinism at all.

 

 

[/quote']

 

Quite sure. Hitler and the Nazis repeatedly explained and justified their actions by reference to spurious perversions of Darwinism. They rewrote biology textbooks and set up biological research units working on the basis of those beliefs.

 

In both words and actions Hitler made it very clear that he believed in a form of group selection with evolution operating at the level of different human groups or races.

 

Hitler was both clear and consistent on that matter.

What is an environmentalist?

 

I think most are agreed on the following points:

• Islam is part of the problem with terrorism but not all of the problem
   
  
• Not all terrorists are Islamic and not all Islamics are terrorists
   
  
• It is important to continue to study Islam to make sure it can tolerate non-believers
  

The first two points are reasonable as far as they go (although the second point is a little like refering the WW2 and saying that not all Nazis are German and not all Germans are Nazis) but the third point confuses me.

How does our studying Islam have any effect on its tolerance of non believers?

If your opinion is discriminatory towards a group, should it matter whether the group is gays, blacks, Muslims, or Poles? We have a policy against Prejudiced / Racist remarks to prevent people from being judged by what their "group" does. Do remarks like this against Islam count as a violation?

I am prejudiced against members of Aryan Nation. I judge people on the basis of their membership of that group.

Would making remarks to that effect count as a violation?

I think we'd have to prove that the vast majority of Muslims will only accept conversion or death before we can judge individual Muslims by their whole religion. If we can't then we need to stop blaming all of Islam for terrorism.

I think it is quite possible to see that the ideology of Islam is such as it leads toward and encourages violence. As such it is quite possible to blame Islam for much contemporary terrorism. That is not the same as blaming all individual Muslims, just as condemning communism was not the same thing as condemning all Russians during the Cold war.

What he actually believed is impossible to tell. Certainly he used a variety of different beliefs as they served him. One moment it's good Christians being victimized by "International Jewry,"

We do know a lot about his beliefs. He believed in a warped form of racial Darwinism whereby it was blood and not religion that mattered.

This is proven by the fact that it did not matter whether a person was a practicing Christian if they wre of Jewish origin. It was their blood that counted. Catholics and other Christians of Jewish origin were murdered with as much determination as religious Jews.

Hitler definitely was Christian though. There are no ifs ands or buts about it.

No. Hitler was not Christian. He went so far as to ban the construction of any churches in his plans for a new Berlin.

His parents were Christians' date=' he was not. It's a simple fact.

A lot of people dont like the fact that the Catholic church had such a large role in the Holocaust. (many people choose to deny it completely)

'a large role in the holocaust'? The Catholic Church may not have stood up to Hitler as much as it should but to accuse it of having a large role in the genocide is both foolish and an irrlevance to the question of Hitlers beliefs.

It's hard to believe but Germany had quite a few people like Hitler. Hitler just lead them all.

Hitler was a unique person. Others may have shared his opinions but without him personally WW2 would never have happened. Time and time again he forced through radical policies in the teeth of opposition from the army, the SA and other members of his own party.

If anybody's to blaim for WWII it's France and England for getting back at Germany after WW1. Or possibly Martin Luther for creating the foundation for Nazism in the first place (look up "on the jews and their lies,"

Is that a joke?

The US had no good reason for entering the European theatre.

Except for the fact that Germany had declared war on the USA.

That's a good reason.

Don't forget the bribe that the UK gave the US to enter the war - the UK agreed to provide the US with access to former imperial markets after the war.

That is not true. The UK did not bribe the USA to enter the war. The USA entered the war because Japan attacked the USA and then Germany declared war on the USA.

The USA did not have any choice in the matter.

You lump a lot of unrelated matters together and try and imply that there is some sort of a crisis of the governments making.

An apparently incompetent doctor has been uncovered and is no longer working in Australia. Even if the accusations against him are true this isn't a sign of any government failure. Sometimes incompetent doctors are found, regardless of the political situation, left, right or anything else. What fault is that of politicians?

An Emergency ward suffers from staff shortages. Regretable, but not the end of the world or symptomatic of any great crisis.

A doctor is found to have an undisclosed criminal conviction and is forced to stand down. This appears to be an instance of quite proper action being takn by the relevant authorities. Where is the major problem?

A surgeon has been performing surgery he is not apparently qualified to do. He has been discovered.

You have highlighted some instances of normal human failings. In any health system there will be people who perform inadequately or unethically. The system is then to be judged on how it identifies and deals with those people.

You are simply implying criticism of the authorities for the normal occurance of these problems which would arise under any system of government. You have not demonstrated that Queensland's health system is suffering 'major problems' or is in any way dysfunctional.

Like they'd ever be able to annex Lebanon.

His point, as far as i understand it, isn't that Israel could annex Lebannon, but that Lebannon and Israel could unify.

As this would give the new state an Arab majority it would be a smart move by the Arabs, it would in effect result in the elimination of Israel and the end of Zionism.

Which is probably why the Israelis would never do such a thing.

Unfortunately France.

800 million hindi, 20 million Buddhists, 5 million UKians, 5 million USians, and millions of aussies, and myself manage just fine on a vegan diet everyday, so it cant be that[/i'] hard to stay healthy on an ethical diet

I think you may be mistaking vegetarianism for veganism. For instance, Hindus are not vegans and i doubt that there are 5 million British vegans.