From: mikedilger at 11/03 18:59

> If you ignore all history your moral lines will shift markedly.

I don't think that's true. There are some moral absolutes.

>Capital punishment appears as murder.

No, it appears as killing, but not as murder. One can question the morality of capital punishment without calling it murder. The same is true of abortion.

>A retaliation becomes an attack. In fact it is possible to view Hamas's attacks as slow motion retaliations that happened much later because it takes a very long time to prepare in their condition.

Retaliations are provoked attacks. Whether they are moral depends on the conditions. If two parties agree to stop fighting, and then one suddenly "retaliates" then that party has crossed the moral line.

> Some people have different moral rules.

I don't fully agree. There are certain absolutes that some people rationalize away. Or, perhaps a better way to say this is that some people's morals are not valid because they cross the absolute moral lines. A sociopath, like Hitler, may consider themself to be moral; but their morality is not valid. Who defines the line of validity? We do. We organize our societies around those lines. When two societies disagree on those lines there is likely to be war.

> Having said that, should I abandon sympathy for Palestinian children because their society runs on different moral codes,?

No, because you (and I, and all moral people) have certain absolute morals the demand that sympathy.

> Is it okay to treat them as animals and exterminate them because by following their moral guidelines they threaten my society?

Animals? No, for the same reason. But that doesn't mean you won't fight them if they come for you and your family.

CC: #[4]