One of the things I try to do in my life, with widely varying degrees of success, is to apply the principle of moral and ethical consistency when I'm considering my position on a topic. What's that mean? It's a form of intellectual fairness doctrine that I find easier to illustrate with a couple of examples rather than a philosophical position statement.
How many people give to charity around Christmas time but never the rest of the year? Is hunger more acute over the holidays? What percentage of Americans send relief money overseas but would walk over the homeless on our own streets? How many of us rant and rave about our freedom yet cast a blind eye to injustice toward others?
How many NRA members also belong to the ACLU? Since many claim that their defense of the Second Amendment and its protections of the relationship between a boy and his guns is based in large part on the need to be ready to defend freedom, why not support an organization which was created to defend all of the Bill of Rights? What percentage of Second Amendment supporters who claim to be willing to die to preserve the original wording of this addendum to the Constitution are in support of a new Amendment to limit the definition of marriage? Many who would recoil at the stereotyping of gun owners would seem to have no compunction badmouthing those dreaded liberals who think that the rest of the Constitution is pretty important as well. Of course this doesn't apply to everyone but this is a classic example of the kind of thing I'm talking about. It becomes a somewhat circular argument unless you accept the notion of ethical and moral consistency. If you think the Constitution is fine the way it is, then you cannot support any modifications. If you want to see it modified for some purpose unpredicted by the founders, then you have to accept the fact that any part of the Constitution is tentative as well - including your personal favorite parts. That's moral and ethical consistency. Of course the founders told us how they viewed the matter by creating a method (just hard enough to pull off) to evolve the document in the first place. (I find it hard to imagine any of the wealthy property owning founders attending a modern gun show and writing the Amendment as it is today...). The point here is not to bash gun owners but merely to try to illustrate an example of how we often seem to have no problem being inconsistent in our beliefs.
I'm curious what others think about this. For me, this attempt at balance allied with empathy is my ideal approach to complex issues. And it's one I often fail miserably attempting.
How many people give to charity around Christmas time but never the rest of the year? Is hunger more acute over the holidays? What percentage of Americans send relief money overseas but would walk over the homeless on our own streets? How many of us rant and rave about our freedom yet cast a blind eye to injustice toward others?
How many NRA members also belong to the ACLU? Since many claim that their defense of the Second Amendment and its protections of the relationship between a boy and his guns is based in large part on the need to be ready to defend freedom, why not support an organization which was created to defend all of the Bill of Rights? What percentage of Second Amendment supporters who claim to be willing to die to preserve the original wording of this addendum to the Constitution are in support of a new Amendment to limit the definition of marriage? Many who would recoil at the stereotyping of gun owners would seem to have no compunction badmouthing those dreaded liberals who think that the rest of the Constitution is pretty important as well. Of course this doesn't apply to everyone but this is a classic example of the kind of thing I'm talking about. It becomes a somewhat circular argument unless you accept the notion of ethical and moral consistency. If you think the Constitution is fine the way it is, then you cannot support any modifications. If you want to see it modified for some purpose unpredicted by the founders, then you have to accept the fact that any part of the Constitution is tentative as well - including your personal favorite parts. That's moral and ethical consistency. Of course the founders told us how they viewed the matter by creating a method (just hard enough to pull off) to evolve the document in the first place. (I find it hard to imagine any of the wealthy property owning founders attending a modern gun show and writing the Amendment as it is today...). The point here is not to bash gun owners but merely to try to illustrate an example of how we often seem to have no problem being inconsistent in our beliefs.
I'm curious what others think about this. For me, this attempt at balance allied with empathy is my ideal approach to complex issues. And it's one I often fail miserably attempting.
