....had to stop the post to comment, excellent stuff, by the way-Another by-product, and he may get to this, is that people are becomming increasingly less able to make decisions that will benefit them, in a healthy, tangible, and productive way. The fundamentals of morality, values, and personal responsibility, being eroded at a break-neck pace....

And, my personal peave, folks are, for the most part, either unwilling to, or incapable of dealing with confrontation....they simply turn into robots, reacting to stimulus, instead of dealing with it....This sick little disease, infecting most of the so-called "civilized" world..?? Passive Agressive Behaviour-saying or doing something as a reaction to stimulus they are unable to process....One of the reasons, no doubt, that my flagrant abuse of expletives, and my percieved Backward, Un-progressive, Fundamentalist, Arcane, andDe-Evolutionary(monkeys love labels) world view on this sift, is a thorn in some flesh for some....

Rambling as they can get, editorials are not meant to make folks feel cozy, warm, happy,etc...
they are catalytic ,and meant to produce discourse which leads to mutual understanding, awareness, and enlightenment, for whom it will....and to piss off the peanut gallery, of public mastubators, myself included....

....damn , did I get off a subject?? which waaaaaasss, oh yeah, TED, wish we had more Theodores like him!

For the record, next time you are in a car accident and need blood or plasma, please tell them your moral values decline to take medical products harvested from "low-income women" that endured a "painful medical procedure". Tell me in one way how it is different. (Obviously price goes with market demands and risk involved)

Well immediately after the elecetions I felt it failed. I mean we had all these celebrities going against Bush getting reelected, we had that Micheal Moore movie that did raise TONS of questions, various other works on other media, but ultimately the public was just swayed in the wrong direction... diverted by moral values? homosexuality? immigration? at a time of war? wildly high gas prices? destroyed international reputation?

I don't dobut the ability of popular revolt to institute change like it did in the 60s and 70s with Vietnam but this is particular case, there was just too much political apathy. Thus indeed too little too late.

What is that they're stealing? A television set like in the video? Then, yeah, it's still wrong. Food because they have none? Go for it - to live is of higher moral value than not stealing. Munitions or other equipment with which to thwart or overthrow the Nazi regime? Go for it - to save lives is of higher moral value than them all.

You're making my point. What you just described is moral equivalence, you draw conclusions that say everything is the same be it war, weapons, terror, self-defence, everything is equal. It also frees you from the burden of having to make a moral judgement and choosing sides. Nothing is ever created equal.
You need to look beyond these superficial philosophies. War is war: One the surface, yes every war is the same, but when you examine the details they are all very different. People are people: yeah, but you don't have to look very far to see that each and every individual on this planet is different.

1. Galloway says that Iran giving weapons to Hezballah is the same as the U.S. giving weapons to Israel. On the surface, they are both supporting their own side in a conflict so yes, they are the same. But what he's not going to tell you is that the U.S. is going to be held accountable with what happens with those weapons, while Iran ultimately in the context of this conflict will not. Equal? I don't think so.

2. People who kidnap foreign soldiers are asking for trouble, yeah I'd say thats true. People who throw foreign citizens in jail indefinately without trials are asking for trouble, I'd say that's true too. But what Galloway is not going to tell you that those "thousands of citizens" are Hezballah and Hamas milita arrested because they either committed or were an accomplice to a terrorist act. Not exactly your most innocent of people. As for the 2 Israelis that were kidnapped, while they do represent Israel's military; as far as I know they were not directly complicit in any crimes against the Lebonese people, they were simply targets of opportunity. Again, not exactly equal.

It's time to pull your head out of the sand and see what is really happening and fully examine the details of your positions. Whatever side you think has the greater moral value is not my decision, but sooner or later you are going to have to make a moral judgement call on actual values. And the belief that everything is equal is going to cause some serious trouble someday.

Moral Equiva-what? You are talking about something that cites the following as it's factual source: ("Right to Exist: A Moral Defense of Israel's Wars", p.260)

War is war, death is death, people are people, missiles are missiles. People who blow themselves up are terrists, people who drive armored bulldozers through villages are terrirsts. People who kidnap foreign soldiers are asking for trouble. People who throw foreign citizens in jail indefinately without trials are asking for trouble.

I looked on wikipedia, and nowhere does it says Israelis or Jews have greater moral value.