And imagine the barely suppressed glee in his voice as he pronounced George Bush dead.

I remember the questions to Peter Jennings and Mike Wallace - and how innocent Jennings wanted to appear before Wallace "set him straight". Contempt is too mild a word for what Wallace deserved that night.

But also remember the horror in Mike Wallace's expression when asked about his racist remarks (about watermelon, of all things). As though he were immune to scrutiny.

The NYT suffers from the same delusions.

Jim,

I had forgotten the watermelon story--fortunately, Google didn't!

Ed

"The Times is out of joint."

I remember Charleton Heston fulminating about Peter Arnett's self-proclaimed "neutrality" in Gulf War 1. His classic line: "Who does he think he is--Switzerland?"

I would be interested to hear from certain secular (and very patriotic) posters here as to exactly why Wallace et.al. are wrong. No baiting, I'm just interested in hearing the logic of why patriotic duty should trump personal freedom and choice.

"Here I am in New Haven , CT. The person referred to as the Unabomber has informed me that a package being delivered here today is of consequence. So, we can reliably anticipate what will happen; this has NEVER been filmed before. As a journalist I cannot interfere with the passage of history, just document it, to inform you, the world citizenry."

"Here I am, Mike Wallace, on the ___ floor of the Dallas School Book Depository, prepared as a journalist to present a significant look upon history. I feel so privileged, to serve mankind in this capacity as a neutral observer and presenter of history. OK, we can hear the motorcade coming - - note the poise, the skill as this man in his 20's checks his rifle and other gear for the last time."

"Here I am, Mike Wallace, in Forsythe County, Georgia, bringing you exclusive live coverage of a Klan lynching. This sort of extrajudicial racist execution has NEVER been filmed before. As a journalist I cannot interfere with the passage of history, just document it, to inform you, the world citizenry."

--or--

" . . . reporting live from Auschwitz, Poland, this is Mike Wallace, CBS News, good night! . . . Are we off air yet? God, this smell is really getting to me!"

Peter B,

The two preceeding posts suggest why many of us would find it difficult to answer your question in practice -- as opposed to in theory. In practice it is so obvious that those leading the so called cause of "freedom of choice/speech" vs "patriotism" are far more interested in being anti-patriotic than pro-freedom. (Any of those examples would reveal them as quite selective in what really "matters" to them.)

"America is like a healthy body and its resistance is threefold: its patriotism, its morality, and its spiritual life.
If we can undermine these three areas, America will collapse from within."
-- Josef Stalin
(1879-1953) Communist leader of the USSR

OJ

And haven't his minions here tried ... and still trying.

Peter:
I'll give it a try.

They are adults, and are entitled to make ethical decisions.

They are also entitled to live with the consequences of those decisions.

It may come as a surprise to you that secularists actually do have values--the ideals embodied in the Declaration and the Constitution are to me what religion seems to be to you.

As a consequence, despite being secular, I would find it impossible to conclude American soldiers and the North Koranese are morally equivalent.

Why? Because we have yet to go to war with a morally equivalent--or even barely equivalent--country.

Therefore, despite being secular, I would conclude the journalists were well and truly wrong.

Am I guilty of presuming moral superiority? You betcha.

Did I need God to make that conclusion. Sorry, no.

On the first night of Desert Storm One, CNN broadcast our airplanes taking off live (in Turkey, they could get right up to the base fence).

Several weeks later, Larry King had a show on military security and journalists. The second caller was a Sgt. from the base command post. He ripped Larry a new one.

Jeff:

Those ideals are religious. They can't be derived absent God. Who Created equal otherwise?

Dear Orrin,

Thanks for powerfully juxtaposing the two stories. I'd heard of the "we're just journalists" story, but had never read it. I followed the links and did. Mike Wallace, of all people, who is at least 83 years old, and thus was a grown man when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, should know better.

I don't see Wallace's feigned journalistic neutrality as a case of some sort of relativism, as some would, but rather as a mask for disloyalty. Such sophistry would have been foreign to an Ernie Pyle.

As for Peter Jennings, the intervening years have erased any doubts as to where his disloyalties lie.

Regards,

Nicholas Stix

Dear Jim and Ed,

Thanks for the watermelon story and the link.

I was unaware of that one.

Regards,

Nicholas Stix

Jeff:

Thanks. One last question. Do you see patriotism as a universal virtue? What would you advise people from, say, Britain or Mexico?

Peter:
Now that is a tough question.

Blind patriotism, like blind religiosity, or any unthinking loyalty is a vice. "My country, right or wrong," is a saying with nothing to recommend it.

Universal? Yes. Virtue?

The difference for an American is loyalty to a set of ideals, rather than some cult of personality or particular stretch of dirt. Britain, along essentially all Western countries, espouses similar ideals. Although Britain does so far more manfully than most.

Notice my central assumption above, though. It is easy to justify one's patriotism when facing the likes of the Soviet Union or Saddam.

Thankfully, so far, it seems those holding Western ideals have had no cause to test their respective patriotisms against each other.

OJ:
Those ideals are man made. Men wrote them, and their success or failure is determined entirely materially.

Otherwise, it is hard to account for their utter absence from human history until the last couple hundred years.

Jeff:

So you can't derive them, eh?

You can't either, without using God as an alternate form of "because."

God Created Man.

Jeff:

"The difference for an American is loyalty to a set of ideals, rather than some cult of personality or particular stretch of dirt."

Thanks Jeff. I will certainly try to remember that soaring thought next Canada Day. :-)

Peter:
I didn't intend any slight--my comparision was against a country like Saddam's Iraq, or North Korea.

Note that I included essentially all Western countries in that they share similar ideals. The difference between the US and France is one of degree; between the US and N. Korea is one of kind.

OJ:
Sure I can. My fist's rights stop at your nose.

Yes, but I've decided mine don't stop at yours. And since we're both equals, no one has the right to decide between our differing moralities. Right?

You assert that rationalists can't arrive at morality, a doctrine of moral conduct, which relates to the principles of right and wrong in behavior.

"My fist's rights stop at your nose" appears to fit that description.

Nothing in the definition of morality includes an enforcement mechanism. Your choice to ignore this moral code does not, in and of itself, render the moral code itself invalid.

Presuming enough people buy in to a moral code, then they will decide for you--in essence, your assertion that societies will do whatever they want to outliers.

The "what" of a moral code is disinct from its enforcement, and both can be substantiated by different "whys."

You require God, despite the fact that numerous apparently God-fearing societies have utterly failed the moral test I posed.

I don't require God. Rather, I assert that societies are successful to the degree they observe this little moral test.

So as a rationalist, I am able to arrive at morality, and a reason for doing so.

Therefore, your assertion that a rationalist is unable to do such a thing is wrong.

Jeff:

Here we arrive at the epicenter of your error: "Nothing in the definition of morality includes an enforcement mechanism. " The point isn't enforcement--obviously we all violate even the one moral code willy nilly--but that the morality must be objectively derived. You insist that a subjective morality suffices. But everyone is a subject so you end up with 6 billion moralities and there's no reason yours should be prefered to Ted Bundy's. Few societies, including our own, observe the My fist standard, yet they succeed admirably. In fact, you yourself refuse the "my fist" test, believing your fist should be allowed to cave in fetus skulls and unplug the infirm.

OJ:
Judeo-Christian morality is not objectively derived. Unless you consider someone saying God told them so objective.

Which is where we arrive at the epicenter of your error. The effectiveness of religiously derived moralities is determined by their material results. Which is precisely the same test for a rationalist morality. Since the measure of both is the same, then a rationalist is no more prohibited arriving at morality than a religionist.

Just like my rationalist strawman. I assert it would, by and large, sort acts into the same "good" and "bad" piles yours does. In some cases, since my strawman is completely universal, it might even work better, since there is no way to define an "other" minority.

I submit that the most successful societies have most adhered to the "my fist" standard. There are plenty of religious societies who didn't and weren't. Ireland provides the perfect example of the difference in results between the former and the latter.

I don't refuse the "fist" test. The abortion procedure you refer to is among the rarest surgical procedures performed in the US. In those cases, was there a less awful option? If there was, then the act was wrong, otherwise, there was no good alternative, and your religious morality can't provide one. In any event, the assessment of right and wrong goes to material results, doesn't it?

Your right, my strawman would allow "unplugging" someone where that someone has previously specified just such a thing happen under the circumstances. I think even the Catholic church's position is not in disagreement with that.

I don't claim anything other than usefulness as a target for my strawman. It is really nothing more than the negative of the Golden Rule.

But what I do claim is that your assertion that rationalists can't arrive at a useful moral code is simply wrong, because the utility of any moral code is materially judged.

Jeff:

Yes, Judeo-Christian morality, rendered thousands of yours ago by a non-0human is objective. It binds everyone.

And effectiveness is no test. Obviously killing the poor and infirm, etc, is more cost effective for a society, but we don't do it because of morality.

OJ:
How do you know J-C morality wasn't rationally made up, then cloaked under an invented divine revelation?

Assuming for the moment it binds everyone, that makes it comprehensive, not objective.

That we don't kill the infirm and the poor has at least as much to do with the fact that everyone realizes they too at any time could become one, the other, or both.

And most people are reasonably good at understanding that goose-gander thing.

Jeff:

It's objective in that we have no say in it.

Of course, the "effectiveness" of your second point is amply denied by your own vision of killing the unborn and infirm.

Except that you do.

J-C morality isn't what it was 100, 500, or 1000 years ago.

If it is absolute, and we have no say in it, then it can't change. But it did.

Meaning it is just possible that J-C Morality was made up, then justified by an invented divine revelation.

You have no idea what my vision of killing the unborn is, and you grotesquely caricature my notion of a living will.

It hasn't changed, we have. Legalizing sins doesn't make them moral. Nor does making morally neutral acts illegal create new imoralities.

As a very quick and obvious example, check out the history of interest.

It changed.

But not the immorality of usury.

The original teachings prohibited interest in any amount greater than zero.

Christianity doesn't see it that way anymore.

It changed.

Jeff:

There's a principle: you should not exploit the need of a neighbor for a loan by charging exorbitant interest. Where we set the line on that interest is a technical issue that each generation can decide. But no matter where society sets it, you have an obligation to follow the moral law.

That is as may be. Exorbitant interest used to be anything greater than 0%, and the justification had nothing to do with exploiting a neighbor.

It had to do with creating something that didn't previously exist, something that only God can do.

So either the original Biblical teachings were wrong, interest doesn't actually do that. Meaning the original divine revelation was wrong.

Or it does, and Christianity has a new morality, different from the old. Meaning J-C Morality changes over time, and is not an absolute standard.

As I said, you are pointing out rationalist spots with a dirty finger.

In any event, the laws society sets are material things, set for material reasons.

Jeff:

"In any event, the laws society sets are material things, set for material reasons."

Yes, laws are different than morality for Jews and Christians. However, because you lack a moral basis the law establishes "morality".

I'm sorry, I missed the part where you explained how changing views over something as clearly distinct as interest doesn't render your morality less than completely objective.

Jeff:

the view didn't change--usury is immoral. We even have usury laws now.

Most certainly the view did change. Your logic chopping via the word "usury" (a word the Church did not use) doesn't avoid the point.

The moral view did not change, though the view of what represents a fair rate of interest has been subject to variation as economic theory has varied:

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15235c.htm

Sorry. According to what I read, to charge interest of any kind at all was sacreligious.

Not immoral, sacreligious.

This sentence comes from your link:

Nevertheless, the 12th canon of the First Council of Carthage (345) and the 36th canon of the Council of Aix (789) have declared it to be reprehensible even for laymen to make money by lending at interest. The canonical laws of the Middle Ages absolutely forbade the practice.

Maybe it all depends on what the meaning of "forbade" is.

Jeff:

You're confusing morality and legality.

I'll tell you what is confusing.

That link is a dog's breakfast of sophistry, logic chopping, and the very essence of subjective morality. I couldn't for something to illustrate my point better than this.

They were making it up.

Besides, the first sentence is important. "Reprehensible" is a term of moral, not legal, art. And they aren't talking usury either. Making money in any amount is reprehensible.

I'm sorry; was reprehensible.

It seems things have changed.

"make money by lending at interest", not make money. Given that the laws were written for Christians it may well have been considered reprehensible by those authorities to do so. But they wrote laws, they didn't propound the morality--which was fixed ages before.