Dear KMB,

"Whenever two good people argue
over principals,
they are both right."
- Marie von Ebner - Eschenbach.

Dear BB,

Thanks for the John Pilger reference - I'll
look it up. It should prove interesting
reading.

Taken from a website and -
as I wrote on another thread - 'If Obama did
as well as Gerald Ford, Bush senior, or W.
Would that be good enough?

'The best he can hope for is doing well and
counting 20 - 30 years of history to
recognize his record...'

Foxy,

<<"Whenever two good people argue
over principals,
they are both right."
- Marie von Ebner - Eschenbach.>>

Of course the good members of a selection committee might argue over which principal to appoint to a position and they might well both be right.
However when people are arguing over principles, "basic truths or laws or assumptions", which can be "used as a basis for reasoning or conduct" then they can't both be right.
One might prevail but they can't both be right.
Your feel-good quote is illustrative of the relativist swamp which is engulfing our society.
An example to clarify my point:
Obama's principle in relation to babies who are born alive after a botched abortion attempt is that to let them live would impose an unfair burden on the mother and the abortionist, therefore they must be left to die.
http://illinoisreview.typepad.com/illinoisreview/2008/01/top-10-reasons.html
http://www.jillstanek.com/archives/2008/02/links_to_barack.html
Most people I know would totally oppose Obama's stance on this issue.
These contradicting viewpoints can in no way be reconciled and they cannot both be right.
Or we could accommodate your quote simply by recognising that Obama is not a good person.
There, now we're all happy.

So we're talking about abortion now?
Men need to get right out of anything to do with 'womens business' Sow the seed and bugger off till you are permitted to see if their is any result.
Women have always known what to do about childbirth it's only men that have stuffed it all up and never ask a politician

neilium,
<<Men need to get right out of anything to do with 'womens business' Sow the seed and bugger off till you are permitted to see if their is any result.
Women have always known what to do about childbirth it's only men that have stuffed it all up>>

Very perceptive analysis.

It would be interesting to compare pre-industrial revolution maternal mortality rates to modern maternal mortality rates.

Effectively we can...

Afghanistan: 1600 per 100,000 live births.
No male interference there, what with Islamic prohibitions on such things.

USA: 11 per 100,000 live births.
Must be all that medical technology invented, designed and manufactured by women.

You're right on the ball neilium.

Dear KMB,

The subtlety of the quote I gave you
by Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach, has
apparently been lost on you.

She said:

"Whenever two good people argue over
principles,
they are both right."

Her inference was - they're both
convinced they're right, not
that they necessarily are.

Few issues in recent years have so divided
most people as the morality of abortion.
Many women feel that a decision about
abortion should be a strictly personal one,
and they deeply resent other people insisting
that they should bear a child they don't want
to have...

In any case, the American abortion rate, which
is believed to be the highest in the Western world,
must be seen in the context of social changes in
American premarital, marital, and family life -
particularly the climate of sexual permissiveness
and the sense of individualism that leads people
to make decisions primarily in terms of their
personal desires rather than of traditional
norms.

In Islamic countries - Muslims look with horror
at America's sexual permissiveness, at the
relative assertiveness and immodesty of American
women, at the high rates of illegitimacy, abortion,
and divorce, at the pre-occupation with pleasure,
drugs, alcohol, pornography, and at the search for
individual self-fulfillment at the expense of
obligations to kin and community.

The fundamentalists regard Americans as essentially
barbarians - whose economic, technological, and
military influence threatens the integrity of Muslim
societies and traditions.

That would be the Useless Idiot spherical take on Moslem Societies Foxy; - If you actually look further than the professed propaganda, you will find that the Arab underworld of LIBERALISM , is alive and just as depraved as what exists in Western society-

The only difference is the philosophical ante theistic notion of Primitivism as superior- whilst normal thinking westerners who do not subscribe to the decadent self indulgent Liberalism are made to feel Guilty of crime they have not committed.

And to save you time Foxy – John Pilger – Just study what constitutes Neurological disorders – and that will explain John Pilger without ambiguity.
Shame on you BB – JP is a working experiment in clinical terms , not an intellectual reference.