Disgust as a basis for morality

It is striking that so many conservatives spend so much energy condemning gays. They don't just criticize gays; they condemn gays with intense passion. Nor does this process of moral judgment usually involve any sort of delicate weighing process. Too often it is a visceral and unrelenting moral harpooning delivered by the likes of Ted Haggard—or, at least, the sort of judgment previously delivered by the then-closeted version of Ted Haggard, whose name is now synonymous with “reaction formation.” Many of the people who condemn gays on street corners and pulpits remind me of steam boilers on the verge of blowing up. Anti-gay bigots are rarely if ever attempting to work through the details of any of the three main historical philosophical approaches to morality (consequentialism, deontology or virtue) when they condemn gays. No, there is nothing much philosophical about the way most people rail against the gays. They are not driven by any sort of philosophy. In my experience, they are primarily driven by disgust. What especially disturbs conservative Christians are images of men kissing men and men having sex with other men. Such images are so incredibly disgusting to those who hate gays that it has become a favorite insult on the streets and in the military to shout "You're GAY!" And when this insult is hurled in the process of casting moral judgment, it is done by people whose faces are contorted with utter disgust. Because such condemnations of gays are so visceral, this raises the issue of whether disgust is a valid basis for morality . . .

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Supreme Court strikes down the only way to challenge illegal executive branch support of religion

The following excerpts are from a report posted on the website of the plaintiff, the Freedom From Religion Foundation:  The U.S. Supreme Court's 5-4 decision today in Hein v. FFRF granting the executive branch the freedom to violate the separation of church and state without court review spells "imperial presidency,"…

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Kangaroo trials at Guantanamo Bay now confirmed

We suspected it.  Now we know it.   The Gitmo trials were cooked, according to this article from MyWay:  SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) - An Army officer with a key role in the U.S. military hearings at Guantanamo Bay says they relied on vague and incomplete intelligence and were pressured…

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Families seek to find out why contractors died. Contractor sues them for $10M

The best justice money can buy.   Pretty amazing.   The story was covered on Alternet.org: The following article is by the lawyers representing the families of four American contractors who worked for Blackwater and were killed in Fallujah. After Blackwater refused to share information about why they were killed, the families…

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Legal consequences of failing to read fine print

For the past couple years, I have had the privilege of working as a consumer attorney.  I’ve occasionally written about some of the topics I’ve encountered as a consumer lawyer.  In this post, I’ll address another issue that I commonly encounter in my practice: illegible forms full of fine print that deprive consumers of fundamental rights.

What provoked this topic is a lawsuit I am currently handling.  My client sued a payday lender based on a payday loan that she alleges the defendant repeatedly processed and renewed in violation of the payday lending laws of Missouri.  This is a big deal to my client and to all of the numerous potential class members of this class action.  Why is it important?  For starters, this particular payday lender (and many others) charged 469% interest.  This is not a typo.  I have often asked friends and acquaintances whether they’ve heard of payday loans.  They usually say they have heard of those sorts of businesses.  I then ask them how much interest they think payday lenders charge.  Most people say something like this:

“Oh, I hear that it is an exorbitant rate of interest, perhaps 25%.” 

They are shocked to hear that it is legal to charge consumers 400 or 500% interest on a small consumer loans.  They are shocked to hear that some of these companies make it part of their business plan to repeatedly violate Missouri lending laws.  They are also shocked at one other thing, the topic of this post.  …

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