Every question or problem today comes back to

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
1

in thinking about this, the many problems of today’s America,
and think that we have these problems because we view them
in a non-helpful fashion…

In thinking, every single issue that bedevils America is not
a social or political, economic or legal or even philosophical
issue, but in reality, every single problem we face today in
America is a moral/ethical issue… we see homeless people
and we think of it as a political or an economic problem, but
in reality, it is a moral/ethical issue…
and this is true with virtually every issue that has been discussed here
on ILP… is homosexuality an economic, or political or a legal
issue? nope, it is an ethical issue… and should be treated as such…
is homosexuality wrong? realistically, homosexuality is not
a legal or political or an economic problem… it is an moral/ethical
question… and as such, on what moral/ethical grounds is
homosexuality a problem? and as usual, those who oppose
homosexuality, do so on the grounds of ‘‘The children’’ what
about the children? Virtually every single argument against
homosexuality comes down to the ‘‘children’’…

‘‘What about the children’’ becomes the rally cry of those who
oppose homosexuality… and this really comes from something
else… the children have nothing, absolutely nothing to do with
the so-called ‘‘homosexual’’ problem… the problem lies within
us for attacking homosexuals being immoral as that suggests
that there is a moral or ethical question about being homosexual…
but the fact is that comes down to love… and seeking out love
is biological imperative for human beings… it is as fundamental
as food, water, shelter, health care, education, it is a biological need,
and as important as those psychological needs like safety/security,
as sense of belonging, of being needed and needed others, and of
course love is a psychological need… and how can a need, either
biological or psychological be morally wrong? there is nothing wrong
with needing love or food or to be safe/secure, or wanting to have
health care or an education… how is that morally wrong?
It isn’t… but those who are morally against homosexuality,
have no grounds or basis for such a charge of homosexuality
being wrong… but this, as noted is a moral/ethical problem
and we other moral and ethical issues to discuss…

Abortion, those against abortion claim, without any evidence,
that life is sacred… if life is so sacred, then we must also end
police violence which last year killed over a 1,000 people…
and we must also end capital punishment… if life
is sacred, morally, then it must be sacred at all times, with
all people… it must become universal…but ethics, morals
don’t work that way… there is nothing in ethics or morals that
is universal, applicable to everyone… there are omissions and
exceptions to every single rule and law ever made… and let us remember,
that the reason that abortion is legal, because its supposed to be about
the sacredness of life and yet, dozens of women have died to ‘‘save’’
the feutus… how is the fact, FACT, that women are dying to save
a fetus, how is that supposed to be about the sacred nature of life?

so, we come down to the real question of our modern age…
what does moral or ethical actually mean and how do we judge
such a thing?

Every single question that bedevils us today is a moral, ethical
question… and how do we approach this?

Kropotkin

Honesty & Openness
2

As usual, every single problem that needs answers, begins
with an acknowledgement that there is a problem…
and here is where the left and right differ…
and here we think about the various public policies of the
US today and ask ourselves, is this a moral/ethical answer to
a problem…

so, we take immigration as a problem… the right says there is
way too much immigrations, especially illegal immigration…
but they don’t actually explain why this is a problem?
and even within their explanation of the problem, they
run into a failure to understanding the question as a moral, ethical one…
and another real problem with conservatives and MAGA types is
their refusal to accept facts unless it supports their own ism
and ideology…the right talks about how violent illegal
immigrants are, and yet, the facts are quite clear, the FBI
itself has stated that crime of all types have gone down over
the last few years… both murder and violent crimes have
gone down over the last few years… but one wouldn’t know it
listening to the right… and therein lies a tale… illegals in fact,
by every single study ever done, bring in billions of dollars in money
spent and in taxes collected, far more then they take out of the system…
that is a fact…and the right will deny this because it refutes their
own twisted ism/ideology… and therein lies why we face an
moral, ethical problem in America… because basic facts
are doubted which causes those people to engage in actions
that harm, seriously harm America… an example of this is
the ongoing disaster that is ICE… removing anyone who does
not fit the profile is damaging America in ways, we can’t even
see yet, and does it benefit America? not in any, way, shape or
form… removing illegals does nothing to solve the issues of
America because it is based on a false understanding of what
ails America today… and that question of what ails America today
is a lack of ethics and morals… every question we face is an ethical
moral question… illegal immigration… is that a social, political,
legal, philosophically or an economic question? NOPE…
It is a ethical, moral question…how does one justify
ICE and the illegal removal of illegal immigrants, within
a moral, ethical standard? Can you justify ICE and its
illegal removal of illegal immigrants within moral or
ethical constraints? so, that is my challenge to you…

How does one justify ICE and the illegal removal
of illegals within ethical/moral considerations?

Kropotkin

3

How is unlimited foreign mass immigration sustainable for any civilization, society, nation, or state?

Liberals hate this question and avoid it all costs, if they address it at all there is always the accusation of racism.

:clown_face:

4

MrAuthoritarian:
How is unlimited foreign mass immigration sustainable for any civilization, society, nation, or state?

Liberals hate this question and avoid it all costs, if they address it at all there is always the accusation of racism.

K: and who exactly has advocated ''unlimited foreign mass immigration""
did Obama practice this? nope, did Clinton or Carter practice ''unlimited
mass immigration" So, your very statement is wrong, as usual…

the question is, as it ought to be, this question of morals and ethics?

Kropotkin

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It has become a legal problem once the privilege nonsense has hit affirmative action levels.

99.9% of the population aside from the 0.1% which has a mental illness of their own for which they use homosexuals as an outlet… do not give a singular f about homosexuals.
How does homosexuality impact people?
It doesnt.
Thats how.
So why should they care about it?

Unless of course homosexuality decides to take it upon itself to MAKE ITSELF everyone’s problem by targeting people’s children, by creating legal exemptions and privileges for themselves, by pushing their nonsense down everyone’s throat.

Nobody cares what you are doing in your bedroom.
Its the LGBTQ community’s choice to bring their bedroom into schools, streets and everyone’s face. And then it becomes a problem.

How exactly has it been not explained? It has been explained a hundred thousand times and then some more.
Of course not on CNN. Maybe thats where your problem is?

The story starts with the first word of the two, namely “illegal”. If you cant figure out from that whats wrong with it, then the problem is not with the right.

“Illegal removal of illegals”
lol
Took you only 3 words to present the entire microcosm of the issue.

Whats next? How does one justify POLICE and the illegal imprisonment of criminals within ethical/moral considerations?
Pretty easily Peter. Thats how.
Start with not breaking the laws. We can progress from there.

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You.
The moment you suggested that illegal bordercrossing is not illegal and removal of illegals IS illegal.

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@Peter_Kropotkin

“Between 2001 and 2026, the United States received an average of 1 million to 1.1 million new Lawful Permanent Residents (LPRs or green card holders) per year during normal periods, with overall net international migration experiencing a massive spike from 2022 to 2024 before sharply dropping by 2026.”

:clown_face:

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8

the question becomes, is America a moral, ethical country?

and the answer is clearly no…the right, which claims to be
moral, and yet, it has no interest in practicing actual bible
morals or ethics… ‘‘love thy neighbors’’… not if they
are immigrants or gays/trans or liberals, or people of color…
not interested in being moral or ethical there… or as I have
stated before, Christian American’s practice situational ethics,
there morals and ethics are dependent on their superstitions
and bigotry/prejudice… not on the bible…and if you are
practicing ethics based on your prejudice/bigotry, you are not
being moral/ethical in any way, shape or form…

if banning abortions to protect life, all life, then you must practice
that all the way, ending capital punishment, police murdering
innocent civilians, the American glorification of war and solidiers…
but no, Christian’s practice selective enforcement of the bible, not
all the bible, for example, people who engage in adultery, are stoned
in the bible, I don’t see that being practiced in modern day America…
Which means that IQ45 would have been stoned to death, decades ago…
as would have been Clinton and even W would have been stoned to death…
Selective enforcement of the bible has no, zero interest for me…
and why should I be interested in the punishment of people based
on religious reasons? as religion is being practiced on a selective
basis, as Christian are doing, then America is not a Christian country
either…

But let us return to this idea that ism’s and ideologies need to
be engaged within the term of ethics and morality…
for example, millions of children are suffering from a lack
of proper nutrition… and that is not a economic or social or
even a political problem, that is an ethical, moral problem
and should be seen as such…Ethical, how do you justify
having children forced to suffer from a lack of proper nutrition?
Not socially, not economically, not politically or legally, but
ethically, morally…we must learn to see issues as
children having a lack of proper nutrition, as an ethical/
moral problem, not as a political or economic problem…

The failure of America is a failure in a lack of morals and ethics…

Kropotkin

9

Do you love your neighbors when you want to flood them with criminals PK?

The most fascinating thing about liberals is their selective morality.
Outraged for the poor illegal border crosser, but couldnt give any less of a f about the tens of thousands murdered, raped, disembodied by them.
No. Those are part and parcel. Inconvenient exception nobody needs to pay attention to and if you do, then you are just generalizing, you are hateful, you are racist.

Lets turn this around the PK.
What is the left’s morality like that ignores death and suffering based on skin color?
Where every evil is assigned a position in the victim olympics and if you dont have a high score, then your pain and suffering can be disergarded as a whole?

Love thy neighbors huh PK?
Do you? Or do you love only the current high score holder of the victim olympics while everyone else can be raped and torn apart for all you care?

10

One of the interesting responses is always the law…
It is illegal, against the law to immigrate illegally, as if
that is a justification for preventing immigrants from entering
this country…and for ICE and the illegal removal of immigrants…
in other words, we justify immoral, unethical actions to
a obeying the law…

let us discuss this for a moment… that the law is an arbiter
of what is moral, ethical… that argument fails once we
see what the law protected as the law… it allowed slavery,
slavery was legal, and it at one time protected the idea that
women are the property of men, and it protected the idea
that blacks and whites cannot marry… being a law isn’t
a protection that an idea is moral or ethical…

the problem is that the law is often used to protect immoral
and unethical situations… ethical, slavery is immoral,
and few will deny this, mostly extreme right wing politicians…
but being legal isn’t about being moral or ethical…
and if it is against the law to prevent people to moving into
America, defend that law in an ethical or moral standpoint?
not on a political or social or economic standpoint, because
it is clear from an economic standpoint, that allowing people
into this country is a major plus for America…

As the law itself cannot be used to judge ethical or moral
situations, what can we use?

science? the problem with science, in this regards anyway,
there is no way we can equate science with morals or ethics…
for example, how do we justify 1 + 1 = 2… within a moral
or ethical choice? or how do we turn the earth is 93 million
miles from the sun… Ok, so, how does this in any way, shape
or form, justify an ethical position? Science as is, cannot be
used to justify or deny an ethical, moral position?

So, we cannot use the legal or scientific justification for
ethics or morals, what can we use?

We can see how those Christians have abandoned the bible
in their ethical and moral understanding of the universe…
‘‘love thy neighbor’’ not if he is gay or trans or an illegal alien,
or even a woman in many areas are treated unethically,
immorally as being the property of men…

So, what is being moral or ethical in America mean today?

Kropotkin

11

Naus: Do you love your neighbors when you want to flood them with criminals PK?

The most fascinating thing about liberals is their selective morality.
Outraged for the poor illegal border crosser, but couldnt give any less of a f about the tens of thousands murdered, raped, disembodied by them.
No. Those are part and parcel. Inconvenient exception nobody needs to pay attention to and if you do, then you are just generalizing, you are hateful, you are racist.

K: I find this interesting… you are leading with your own bigotry
and prejudice disguised as pretend facts… for example, the very
comment "“when you want to flood them with criminals”
that is a common enough prejudice/bigotry as to be not even noticed
and yet, it isn’t true… and we continue with the next paragraph…
''but couldn’t care less of a fuck about the thousands murdered and raped
and disembodied by them… (illegals)

and yet, there are zero facts that anyone illegal or even legal
is engaged in the ‘‘thousands being murdered and raped and
disembodied’’ so, is there any evidence or facts proving that
illegals are actually doing what you claim or are you just making
shit up? for example, a website I came across says that
(according to the national academy of sciences) that
undocumented immigrants have a substantially lower rate
of arrest across all felony offenses compared to US born
citizens…and a study from the Texas department of public
safety estimated the rate at which undocumented immigrants
are arrested at less then half the rate of native born citizens
for violent and drug crimes… you might say, Kropotkin, you are wrong,
OK, show me the evidence… where are the facts that illegals
are engaging in the acts you claim they are…

N: Lets turn this around the PK.
What is the left’s morality like that ignores death and suffering based on skin color?
Where every evil is assigned a position in the victim olympics and if you dont have a high score, then your pain and suffering can be disergarded as a whole?

K: I have no idea what you are babbling about here…

N: Love thy neighbors huh PK?
Do you? Or do you love only the current high score holder of the victim olympics while everyone else can be raped and torn apart for all you care?

K: again, leading with your bigotry and prejudice… of course, in your world,
the only ones committing crimes is the illegal aliens… but the reality is
that crime has fallen in the US for years now… but hay, make
sure your bigotry and prejudice is always on display…
want to disprove me, show me the evidence, facts that illegals
commit more crimes than native born citizens… I await your next set
of lies and propaganda…

Kropotkin

12

It is absolutely true Peter.
If you cant figure out how illegal bordercrossing and being a criminal is connected, then please close down this thread because you lack every basis, every faculty, every idea, every concept to be able to discuss it.

So decide. Now. Whether or not you can even figure out the very first thing about what you are even talking about.

13

Nausamedu:
It is absolutely true Peter.
If you cant figure out how illegal bordercrossing and being a criminal is connected, then please close down this thread because you lack every basis, every faculty, every idea, every concept to be able to discuss it.

K: You have made the false connection that violating the law, is
morally wrong… ok, let us try this, in Texas? I believe, I could be wrong
about the state, has made it illegal to give people standing in line, to vote,
made it illegal to give them water or other drinks… and because its
the LAW, does that mean that is immoral or unethical to give them
water on a hot day, even if they are voting? in other words, you are
connecting the law with being moral… and the law really has nothing
to do with morality or ethics… recall that slavery was legal and anyone
who helped a slave was ‘‘breaking the law’’ so, how is that being
moral or ethical? Obeying the law doesn’t mean one is being moral
or ethical…and that is the question…where does the line
in being moral or ethical, in terms of what it means to be an American?

As I have made the case, that today anyway, the moral, ethical
thing to do is to protect illegals… but Kropotkin, you are then
breaking the law… what is more important, the law or the life of people?
and of course, of course what you can do, is lie,
create, manufacture some fake evidence that aliens are killing
‘‘thousands of Americans’’ but we both know that isn’t true…

How about this… make some statements that aren’t driven by
your bigotry and prejudice… I’ll wait…

Kropotkin

14

Meet just one of the mothers of these nonexistent americans i am lying about Peter.
Please by all means do pay extra attention to the part at 6:25 where its underlined in bold: Some of the states lead by geniuses such as yourself have intentionally outlawed keeping track of how many murders these illegals commit.
Because you know: Its perfectly sensible to make sure that there is no record of something that (according to you) never happens in the first place. Unless it does. And unless you are fucking lying about it.

I wrote a response to the entire morality vs law thing but i deleted it, because its meaningless.
You gonna stand there and spit on every victim your virtue bullshit creates, and then you gonna run your mouth about morality.

Sorry my brother. That aint gonna work out.
If you cant even contend with the piles of bodies your feelgood nonsense creates, then you have no right of any kind to speak about morality because you are just about the most amoral and immoral kind of person one could find in regards of this topic.
One that uses virtue and morality to make himself feel good, and not only can everyone die for all you care, you gonna even deny their existence.

Love thy neighbor.
Unless you just gotten them murdered.
Then its “deny the existence of thy neighbor”
Right Peter?

15

I believe that many of history’s greatest failures arose not simply from fanatical commitment to an ideal, but from a profound failure of moral imagination and the inability or unwillingness to imagine the full humanity of others, alternative ways of living together, or the long-term consequences of one’s actions. That does not mean ideals played no role; rather, ideals often became vehicles through which failures of imagination were expressed.

I’ll give you several examples.

First, dehumanisation is an imaginative failure. Before mass violence becomes possible, victims almost always have to be imagined as something less than fully human: vermin, traitors, parasites, heretics, infidels, enemies of the people. The inability to picture another person’s inner life is what makes extraordinary cruelty psychologically possible. It is easier to kill an abstraction than a neighbour.

Second, many perpetrators were remarkably unimaginative people. Far from being visionary idealists, many were bureaucrats, functionaries, and ordinary citizens following routines. Hannah Arendt famously described this in her discussion of the “banality of evil”: evil often flourishes not through demonic genius but through thoughtlessness—the refusal to think from another person’s perspective. The bureaucrat processing deportation orders may never imagine the family arriving at a death camp.

Third, dogmatism narrows imagination. Totalitarian ideologies encourage a single permissible narrative about reality. Once one explanation claims absolute authority, curiosity dies. Alternatives become literally unthinkable. Imagination is replaced by repetition. This is true whether the ideology is religious, nationalist, racial, or revolutionary.

Fourth, wars often emerge from failures to imagine alternatives to violence. Diplomacy requires imagining how one’s opponent sees the world, what compromises might exist, and how future generations might judge present actions. Leaders who cannot imagine any outcome except victory or defeat often stumble into catastrophes that later appear tragically avoidable.

Fifth, fear itself contracts imagination. Under perceived existential threat, human cognition becomes narrower. People think in binaries: us or them, survive or perish, loyalty or betrayal. Complex societies become reduced to simple stories. This psychological narrowing has accompanied many genocides and civil wars.

There is also an irony here. The ideologies themselves often claimed to be extraordinarily imaginative—a thousand-year empire, a classless utopia, a purified nation, a restored caliphate, a divine kingdom. Yet these grand visions were frequently impoverished imaginatively because they allowed no place for ambiguity, dissent, or the irreducible complexity of human life. They imagined a perfect future but failed to imagine the suffering required to reach it.

This is why literature, art, and storytelling are often regarded as antidotes to violence. Martha Nussbaum has argued that literature cultivates the moral imagination by allowing us to inhabit lives unlike our own. Similarly, Iris Murdoch saw moral growth as learning to attend lovingly to the reality of others rather than projecting one’s own fantasies onto them.

However, it is important not to overstate the case. Some atrocities were driven by sincerely held ideals. The perpetrators of the French Revolution, the Holocaust, or the Cultural Revolution did not generally see themselves as simply lacking imagination; many believed they were creating a better world. Yet even here, the ideals became lethal precisely because they excluded the imaginative capacity to recognise the dignity of those who stood outside the vision. The problem was not that they possessed ideals, but that their ideals overwhelmed empathy and curiosity.

One might therefore distinguish between visionary imagination and moral imagination. Visionary imagination asks, “What kind of world could exist?” Moral imagination asks, “What is it like to be this other person?” History suggests that the former without the latter can become dangerous.

Perhaps the deepest lesson is that civilisation depends less on everyone sharing the same ideal than on everyone retaining the imaginative capacity to see their opponents as fellow human beings. The worst atrocities become possible when that capacity collapses. Ideals may provide the justification, but the absence of moral imagination often provides the permission.

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Will you define the word ‘problem’ here in ‘a way’ that is actually usable and workable.

Otherwise, you are just another one stuck in a trap, of your own making.

17

This view is completely and utterly nonsensical, illogical, irrational, and narrow and closed.

Honesty & Openness
18

Very, very True.

you people talk about the “drug problem”, the “starving problem”, and all of these other so-called “problems” but never ever address the ‘actual problem’ itself. Which, by the way, is only done after you come to terms with what the word actual means and refers to, exactly.

19

I disagree. It is fair to call them ethical problems if governments repeatedly have the capacity to act but choose not to, since policy inaction itself can be morally consequential. Public policy research treats inaction as real and sometimes purposeful, and it can reflect calculated, ideological, reluctant, or even inadvertent failure to intervene.

The key distinction is between a problem being caused by structural or institutional factors and a government’s responsibility for leaving those factors unaddressed. Once officials know a harmful condition persists and still decline plausible action, the issue becomes not only technical or political but also ethical, because inaction can violate duties of care, fairness, and public trust.

Honesty & Openness
20

It is not even an ‘issue’ at all.

Some people like to have sex with other bodies with the same sex and life providing organs. Which, again, is not really ‘an issue’ at all. Well certainly not in ‘the way’ some people think it is. And, the reason why everyone is ‘the way’ they are is already known anyway.

Why exactly?

If you do not inform us of why it is an ethical issue, then there is no reason to accept your own personal claim that it is.

In regards to who or what exactly?

Obviously, homosexuality is NOT wrong to those who enjoy homosexual behaviour. So, the answer is a resounding ‘No’, which no one could refute here.

you have made this claim once already. Claiming it again does not make it true nor more true at all.

Again, you have said this once already.

you would have to prove that homosexuality, itself, is a moral/ethical issue before you could then logically claim that it is a moral/ethical question.

Will you prove this first? Or, do you really believe that just re-repeating makes it so?

Do they? Is this all of them?

Just maybe because it does come down to the children. Have you considered this?

you have made this claim once before already as well.

What is the ‘this’ word here referring to exactly?

Why did you previously say it is not ‘a problem’ but have chosen to call it ‘a problem’ here now?

And, how do you know for absolutely sure that children have absolutely nothing at all to do with the moral/ethical question or issue here?

  1. What is the supposed ‘actual problem’ here now, exactly?

  2. Did you or did you not just tell us that homosexuality is a moral/ethical question when you said and claimed, “realistically, homosexuality is not
    a legal or political or an economic problem… it is an moral/ethical
    question…”?

  3. you seemed absolutely confused here “peter kropotkin”, like you do in most of your posts and threads.

  4. Why do you attack people for preferring one thing over another?

What, supposedly, comes down to love, exactly?

And, what even is ‘love’, exactly?

Here is another prime example of one of these human beings, in the days when this was being written, who was completely and utterly confused about ‘love’ and what is actually necessary in Life.

Homosexuality and desiring sex with bodies with the same procreating and life-sustaining organs has absolutely nothing at all to do with any biological imperative for human beings.

LOL What this one is just doing here is now ‘trying to’ justify what certainly can not. Which is funny considering it just claimed that it attacks those it calls “homosexuals”.

So, this one is now, laughably, ‘trying to’ claim that humans having sex with human bodies with the same sex organs is an absolute necessity of life and living like food and water is.

Could this one be more lost and confused in Life?

Imagine believing that having sex with ‘the same’ is needed for life.

The rest of what this one wrote in this post I did not bother reading.