Cedric Chang wrote:

> Difficult or not, I draw a line and act on it.  I get annoyed by people
> who point out how difficult it is to make judgments or make choices. 

You may get annoyed for the wrong reasons and by the wrong people. Being
annoyed usually gets very quickly in the way of understanding what's going
on.

> ( I think they use this difficulty to avoid doing anything )  

And you may think wrong -- exactly because you're getting annoyed. That's
not a good state for clear thinking.

> And my primary axiom is to preserve the maximum freedom for the maximum
> number of people.

How will you ever have a chance of getting near that axiom (or goal) if you
get so annoyed by other people that your chance of understanding them (and
what they think is their freedom) seems rather small? Without that
understanding, you may end up trying to preserve your own, personal
freedom, rather than the maximum freedom for the maximum number of people.
It takes a lot of patience, understanding and sensibility to do anything
for a larger number of people.


FWIW, and in case you didn't understand this, my post was a reply to
Russell who stated (his believe?) that "corruption is bad" is a
"self-evident truth". In order for that to make sense, one has to
objectively define what is corruption. "Objectively define" means the
definition may not depend on subjective criteria like intention. Good luck
with that. 

(It's rather easy to use one's own personal judgment on a case-by-case
basis. No definition necessary; you just judge however you want, do
whatever you want, and that's it. But "self-evident truth" sets a somewhat
higher standard WRT definition of what exactly is true here.)

Gerhard

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