LOFF56 STILL SPARRING, SO...

[For the original exchange between L56 and I, and for my piece on Obama's "rigid character structure," scroll down a bit.]

I'll address your questions/criticisms/comments, L56, in the context of your submission:

L56:

"Hmmm... OK...
I have to say I find your answer both a cop-out and over-simplistic.
You've touched on two extremes of what one can hold an opinion about. These extremes make your argument too obvious. Of course taste doesn't warrant a judgment of character, and of course believing that genocide, rape etc... is ok is obviously a sign of something awry in the individual."

PL:

Thanks for the diplomatic opening - "a cop-out AND simplistic." Well, L56, I actually am trying to make my argument obvious. I'm not trying to be clever or couch what I'm saying. Remember my favorite 8 words - "We hold these truths to be self-evident..."

L56:

"What about things in between?
I see that you're defining a benchmark or dividing line as being something that's harmful to other people. But even an opinion of taste can be harmful to a degree. A vegetarian makes a very good argument that eating a hamburger (rare or well done) can be harmful to your health. Do you have a character flaw because you like hamburgers? As well, our decision to enter into World War II was a decision that was very harmful to a large number of our soldiers who went to war. But did our country have a character flaw because we wanted to stop a madman from eliminating every Jew on the planet?"

PL:

Yes, eating hamburgers is potentially harmful to our health, and going to war certainly is, and as such represent flaws in the current state of the human psyche. There are surely ways of obtaining protein for our bodies that don't include killing animals, and Hitler was a gross manifestation for all of us of some major flaws in our collective mentality, flaws that we are still grappling with today - nationalism, racism, xenophobia. These aren't "qualities," they're disabilities. If you continue to take things out of the bigger context, L56, where we're all one and mirrors for each other, then you will always be able to justify things like war with "simplistic" arguments from the schoolyard of childhood like: "They attacked us first!" or "They're evil!"

L56:

"Furthermore, where is the line between having a character flaw and being misinformed or uneducated? A lot of people have opinions that are based on the information at hand, which is not always complete. They make judgment calls that are arguably morally sound based on that information despite the fact that they may ultimately be wrong. Do these people have character flaws? They're making good judgments based on what they know. Isn't everyone misinformed to varying degrees? How is it possible for anyone to know absolutely everything? Hopefully we're all striving for more and more knowledge. But knowledge is endless, we'll always be just a little bit in the dark doing the best we can with the information we have."

PL:

Children and "baby souls," for example, who can be easily misled, shouldn't be judged for their ignorance. For that matter, no one should be judged for anything. Nonetheless, ignorance is a flaw, and yes, I would agree that it is an ongoing "imperfection" in all of us, at different levels. Perhaps part of your disgruntledness with me here, L56, is that you think I am judging our flaws. I am not. I am making an assessment of them, and again, being flawed is inherent in being human. However, some amount of some people's ignorance is deliberate and intentional, and not everyone is "striving for more and more knowledge," which brings me back to Obama and my original point. I am confident that he is able to re-evaluate his positions and change course when necessary, unlike his predecessor, because he accepts that he is flawed. So do I. My pointing out what I perceive to be his character structure is not a judgment of him.

L56:

"I'm not suggesting that there aren't people out there that are just plain off their friggin' rocker. But I am suggesting that more often than the therapist wishes to admit, an opinion is just an opinion."

PL:

Here, I must agree with you - there are definitely people out there who are crazy, more than most of us want to admit, and yes, my point exactly is that "an opinion is just an opinion." And nothing more.

Thanks, L56.