<DIV> <BLOCKQUOTE class=replbq style="PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #1010ff 2px solid"> Interlinear: > Exactly. Which is why I find jks/Rawls proceduralism so tepid. It does nothing to to help clarify the choices that have to be made when considering the issue of suffering. It's supposed to be tepid and superficial. It's very carefully designed to avoid deep questions about which people cannot agree..  Choices about what to do about suffering are mainly best left to the legislature. > Their approach is also vulnerable to the influence of power and money. And you have an approach that is immune to this? Please share it with the world! > Capitalism creates appetites that it can't fill,thus suffering. > JKS" I should also say that the whole point of the constitutional protections for discrete and insular minorities is that anti-minority legislation has to pass by a lot more than a supermajority -- basically it requires a constitutional amendment. > I think all the constitutional amendments passed/proposed so far only needed/need a simple majority. See U.S. Const. Art V., requiring 2/3 of both houses, application of the legisaltures of 2/3 oif the states to propose an Amendment, and ratification by 3/4 of the state legislatures to pass one. > DOMA also needed only a simple majority. That's not a Const. Amendment. > When it comes to issues of civil rights, I believe a supermajority should be required. Are you sure? Would you want to require a supermajority to pass civil rights legislation? > JKS: I am still unclear about your idea of nondomination. > Nondomination means that I would live in a society where my rights as a minority can be abrogated only after the most arduous of processes and evaluations (one can never guarantee that they would never be violated). Queers are not in control of their own destiny in this country. They live under the whim of heteros. That is domination. Not exactly, I think. Domination is actually suffering disadvantages for the benefit (in a broad sense) of a dominant group. Lack of control of one;s own destiny -- well, that's the human condition, hmm? >JKS  But, as Rawls emphasizes, you can't base the constitution of society on your particular conception of the good, even if it seems obvious to you that reduction of overall suffering is the right thing to do, it's not obvious to others. > But suffering can be measured -- suffering is not a concept, but an empirical reality. Is there any documented society that was/is organized around the principle of increasing suffering for its people? But who cares if it can be measured (assuming that is true -- without getting complicated about it, the issue is very vexed and very complicated), the question is, how much does matter? Should I care, or how much should I care, if putting someone who has done something bad in jail will only increase thea mount of net suffering? That's not solved by pointing out that the net total of suffering is greaterthan it would be if we didn't jail him. > JKS Likewise, you cannot base the fundamental rules of society on a controversial metaphysical view about the nature of the self. > Agreed. That is why I argue from Buddhism since Buddhism is not metaphysical (though metaphysical beliefs have been added on to the Buddha's teachings over the centuries, I am referring here to the tenets taught by the Buddha). Its tenets are empirically provable. Sorry, Cholly, you can't favor your religion's tenets this way. Of course you have a metaphysical view -- anyone who talks about "the nature of the self" is already talking metaphysics. > JKS: That is something about which reasonable people must be free to differ, and will always disagree about. The basis of a free society must be much more superficial. If you are, as you say, pragmatic, that should be obvious, although it is a deep point. > Reasonable people are free to differ all they want. But I do not believe that their differing should be allowed to result in the domination and suffering of others. Being a pragmatist, I take into consideration the end result, not just the procedures leading to the result. Ah, so people are free to differ unless they disagree with your religion. That is a common view, I am sorry to say. jks</BLOCKQUOTE></DIV> <hr size=1>Do you Yahoo!? <a href="http://us.rd.yahoo.com/mail_us/taglines/aac/*http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail/static/ease.html">Yahoo! Mail Address AutoComplete</a> - You start. We finish.