Louisiana Lawmaker Forced to Clarify There Was No ‘Good’ in Slavery

[Ouroboros]

Where did they say they didn't mind if fellow blacks get murdered by gangs?

Demonstrated by their flagrant and stupid actions.

 

[j brown's body]

Demonstrated by their flagrant and stupid actions.

Where is your evidence that BLM is behind or supportive of the "flagrant and stupid actions" that you don't describe?

 

[Ouroboros]

Where is your evidence that BLM is behind or supportive of the "flagrant and stupid actions" that you don't describe?

Read the post about the BLM members who dragged a guy from a truck and beat him.

I’m sure the leaders have ably covered their tracks, just as gang leaders do. Doesn’t take away their guilt.

 

[j brown's body]

Read the post about the BLM members who dragged a guy from a truck and beat him.

I’m sure the leaders have ably covered their tracks, just as gang leaders do. Doesn’t take away their guilt.

How do you know they were acting on behalf of BLM?

 

[Alizia Tyler]

This is a claim without proof. If you want to argue that whites who don't believe your racist ideology are fooling themselves then go ahead and provide the evidence.

Sure, I can understand that you believe and understand that my assertion that many people, and especially Whites in America, are under *self-deception* is false and based in bad-faith or immoral ideology. I could explain the *causal chain* of how the present ideological position came to be framed much better than you. There was a time when the preservation of America, or an aspect of it, was defined through protecting the dominant demographic, and this was seen as *right, proper, normal and necessary*. And as I have often said a transvaluation of values-process was engineered. This involves public relations science and also propaganda. These are all part of the *causal chain* I refer to.

I also understand that you believe that every observation that I have, or that *we* have, about the demographics of America, and about the folly of multi-culturalism and deliberate policy to change demographics, is based in the *racism* you always talk about. But what I make the effort to point out is that if I am describing, let’s say, a sound policy which enlightened government should hold to, you are also describing a social policy, and you advocate for a social policy, in exactly the same way. But I gather that you couch the *rightness* of your policy-choice in democratic power. And this is part of my point: demography is destiny. And as it is turning out the choice to adulterate the predemonantly Caucasian-European demographics of the United States is leading to the *demographic demise* of that population — the population that built the nation.

So what I try to do — reasonably and patiently — is to point out your advocacy is *destructive* in the sense I define it and, I can also suggest, is unethical.

You notice that I spend time mulling over past policy decisions. For example by referring to the 1965 Immigration Reform Act and the social changes that were initiated in the Sixties, Seventies, Eighties and beyond. I recognize that you interpret this as *crying* but I am not sad or lamenting necessarily. I am trying to show that there is a causal chain, that *view* *perception* and *attitude* were manipulated, but principally that the results are unwholesome.

I do not have any particular plan or policy about *what should be done* in the present. I observe all the strange things happening, like everyone, and do not know how to interpret it. I do not know where it is going.

And finally I do not really write any of this for your benefit since I know that you are totally opposed to seeing any of the logic in my presentation or logic. I write it in relation to what you say, what you seem to stand for.

If I have *evidence* it is simply in the observation that the social glue binding the Nation together is coming undone. And in that process a sort-of tyranny (assertion of power by a centralized government in association with tech and the sectors that define and establish ideological positions) begins to show itself. But this is one of the down-sides of democracies — they tend to verge to tyranny and the manifestation of demogogues and demagoguery (and I am certainly including Donald Trump here).

 

[Alizia Tyler]

Why do you assume just because people are white they share your culture? Plenty of non racist whites have no reason to feel ashamed about themselves or their culture because they don't believe in the racist ideology you do and the don't venerate slavers.

Oh I certainly do not believe that anyone in particular *shares my culture*, but then What is my culture? I see myself as having had unique opportunities and to have been able to spend years reading a wide range of materials that have to do with *the foundations of Occidental culture*. As I say, but not in a mean-spirited intention, you are a man who is fundamentally illiterate (in the sense of lacking familiarity with the foundations of Occidental culture). You are as I said an ex-slave and you have the mind of an ex-slave. Your *cultural connections* are to those, like you, ‘fighting the powers that be’. You have a vague self-consciousness that rationalizes the burning rage that animates you — and here I extend the you-singular to a cultural and widely social plural of persons — and yet you do not in any sense understand what your destructiveness will bring about.

Your destructiveness connects to a wide range of destructive trends — nihilistic and one could say *suicidal*. And for this reason I speak about the existence of these destructive trends. I only want to point them out so that they can be seen. I do not have clear ideas as to if they can be reversed or annulled, but I do feel I have at least some clues about what awareness is needed in relation to them so to be able, I hope, at some point to counter them.

I fully grasp that you not only have a hard time understanding what I am saying, but principally that your entire orientation is so bound to your hatred and destructiveness that your will will intervene at every point to oppose the logics of what I am trying to communicate.

I do have legal rights on my side.

If it happens that *the mob* takes over a nation (let’s look at this as an abstract case) and asserts its will through democratic processes, there is no guarantee that what had been decided and chosen by that democratic mass made the best choices. That is essentially the Platonic criticism of *democracy*. It’s next evolution tends to be tyranny. And as I have tried to say many times, in a dozen ways, you are the emblem of that tyranny! You are the emblem of that mob. Looking at you (microcosmically) one is able to discern the macrocosm.

I know that in your diminished intelligence a bit of light goes on because you can understand, to as degree, what I am getting at. But then your negating will intervenes! And this repeats itself time and time again . . .

Here:

It's also racist. Wanting one race to be above another is racist, I don't know what else to tell you. Do you need a link to a dictionary?

I understand why you make this connection. So, to be concerned about ethnographic issues or problems, to be concerned about what policy determines immigration policy, to have concerns about the negative aspect of multi-culturalism — all of this can be none else than the dread *racism* you refer to constantly.

But I suggest that though consideration of these issues involves consciousness of race, it is not *racist* in the way that you mean. But as I say you *possess* the term *racist* and it is a weaponized term and an armament in your destructive war.

This all has to be seen, thought about, and if possible countered. With sound and ethically-based argument.

 

[Ouroboros]

How do you know they were acting on behalf of BLM?

I know it from their actions and associations, which is more evidence than you have for believing Ray Garafalo is racist on the basis of his violating political correctness.

 

[Master Debator]

Sure, I can understand that you believe and understand that my assertion that many people, and especially Whites in America, are under *self-deception* is false and based in bad-faith or immoral ideology. I could explain the *causal chain* of how the present ideological position came to be framed much better than you. There was a time when the preservation of America, or an aspect of it, was defined through protecting the dominant demographic, and this was seen as *right, proper, normal and necessary*. And as I have often said a transvaluation of values-process was engineered. This involves public relations science and also propaganda. These are all part of the *causal chain* I refer to.

There is always a chain of events that leads to something else so what? And who cares if people somewhere at one time or another found something proper? Does that make a lick of difference whether it is actually proper? There was a time when a lot of those same men didn't think it was proper for a woman to speak on politics or matters of state. Is that proper simply because they believed it? Was slavery? And why are you wasting time saying that you could explain what was unethical about this change in values but never actually doing so. Do you at any point in time in this unnecessarily long post about nothing ever actually try to make that case or do simply think telling us you could is supposed to impress us?

I also understand that you believe that every observation that I have, or that *we* have, about the demographics of America, and about the folly of multi-culturalism and deliberate policy to change demographics, is based in the *racism* you always talk about. But what I make the effort to point out is that if I am describing, let’s say, a sound policy which enlightened government should hold to, you are also describing a social policy, and you advocate for a social policy, in exactly the same way.

Not exactly the same way. I can actually make my case with reasoned arguments instead merely alluding to the capability.

But I gather that you couch the *rightness* of your policy-choice in democratic power.

I couch the legality of my policies in the process of democratic government. Their righteousness is determined by whether or not they accomplish their goals. If they don't then they aren't the right policies.

And this is part of my point: demography is destiny. And as it is turning out the choice to adulterate the predemonantly Caucasian-European demographics of the United States is leading to the *demographic demise* of that population — the population that built the nation.

Your key word in that paragraph is choice. The Caucasian-European demographic that preceeded you chose to do so. And thought that choice was good and proper, which according to you, really means a lot.

So what I try to do — reasonably and patiently — is to point out your advocacy is *destructive* in the sense I define it and, I can also suggest, is unethical.

Suggest it all you like the question is can you prove it with reason and logic? Also is there something inherently wrong with destruction? Kind of depends on what you're destroying doesn't it? You have to do more than cry about me being destructive! You have to reason why that's a bad thing.

You notice that I spend time mulling over past policy decisions. For example by referring to the 1965 Immigration Reform Act and the social changes that were initiated in the Sixties, Seventies, Eighties and beyond. I recognize that you interpret this as *crying* but I am not sad or lamenting necessarily. I am trying to show that there is a causal chain, that *view* *perception* and *attitude* were manipulated, but principally that the results are unwholesome.

Except you haven't shown what's so unwholesome about it, you've only described it as such.

I do not have any particular plan or policy about *what should be done* in the present. I observe all the strange things happening, like everyone, and do not know how to interpret it. I do not know where it is going.

That surprises no one.

 

[Master Debator]

And finally I do not really write any of this for your benefit since I know that you are totally opposed to seeing any of the logic in my presentation or logic. I write it in relation to what you say, what you seem to stand for.

You've presented no logic only further claims for which you give no evidence for.

If I have *evidence* it is simply in the observation that the social glue binding the Nation together is coming undone.

The social glue that binds this country together is a belief in democracy and equality and despite the recent actions of a sad minority of losers those beliefs are stronger than they've ever been. Equality and democracy continue to increase throughout the U.S. and the world despite the occasional setback, the 2020 election had record high turnout in the midst of a pandemic.

And in that process a sort-of tyranny (assertion of power by a centralized government in association with tech and the sectors that define and establish ideological positions) begins to show itself.

If you assert tyranny then provide the evidence.

But this is one of the down-sides of democracies — they tend to verge to tyranny and the manifestation of demogogues and demagoguery (and I am certainly including Donald Trump here).

What's the alternative to democracy that avoids tyranny?

 

[j brown's body]

I know it from their actions and associations, which is more evidence than you have for believing Ray Garafalo is racist on the basis of his violating political correctness.

Their actions don't match the BLM mission statement and anyone is free to be "associated" with it.

I didn't say Ray Garafalo is racist. But he does want to perpetuate racist myths.

 

[Alizia Tyler]

Not exactly the same way. I can actually make my case with reasoned arguments instead merely alluding to the capability.

To be truthful I do not see you as bringing forth arguments. You describe what you do and you often describe the emotional motives behind it. You celebrate through gloating and emboldened claims. But that is not really argument.

I tend to go slow with the development of my arguments, nevertheless I have presented entire chains of argument, which also involve descriptions of what is going on in the present time.

You simply do not accept, and often cannot understand the argument that I do make, and then assert that no argument has been made.

Just thought to clear that up a bit . . .

 

[Alizia Tyler]

There is always a chain of events that leads to something else so what?

What a silly thing to say. “So what?” In the world of ideas the causal chain is crucial.

And who cares if people somewhere at one time or another found something proper? Does that make a lick of difference whether it is actually proper?

Yes indeed. Because I work with the notion of the deliberate, the willed, transvaluation of values. The revolutionary transformation of our societies has many different contributing factors. These can be located and understood, and if understood then explained.

There was a time when a lot of those same men didn't think it was proper for a woman to speak on politics or matters of state. Is that proper simply because they believed it?

You are setting up a trap, similar to the one about associating the Confederacy with Nazi Germany and the Holocaust and then demanding that I make some statement about the Holocaust! You are proposing that if at one time people thought that women should decline to assert themselves in the public domain, and you are completely sure that this is regressive (and indeed opinion supports your view), that therefore other ideas and notions could be or should be seen as outmoded.

Progressive thought tends to be ‘revolutionary’ and boldly asserts that its tenets and objectives are sound and necessary. Conservative thought tends to ground itself in *reasoned argument* that requires time and patience even to grasp.

I definitely am asserting that you fall into the category of *revolutionary hot-head* and you are part of a wide-spread social movement that feels these choices are best. To argue the points I tend to feel are more sound and thus more valid takes time. Everything has to be gone through slowly.

That is why I said:

“There was a time when the preservation of America, or an aspect of it, was defined through protecting the dominant demographic, and this was seen as *right, proper, normal and necessary*. And as I have often said a transvaluation of values-process was engineered. This involves public relations science and also propaganda. These are all part of the *causal chain* I refer to.”

Was slavery? And why are you wasting time saying that you could explain what was unethical about this change in values but never actually doing so. Do you at any point in time in this unnecessarily long post about nothing ever actually try to make that case or do simply think telling us you could is supposed to impress us?

The present time, insofar as the present time is more and more dominated by what seem to be revolutionary impulses, ideology, dogma and praxis, arfe definitely extensions and evolutions of transvaluations of value.

My point is not to settle each and every sole element but only to allude to the nature of the revolutionary and progressive tendencies. I am not in any sense wasting time in constructing the arguments that I construct as a way of countering your(-plural) assertions and forward-motion. You do not understand nor agree with why I do what I do and your get impatient.

My purpose in these conversations is to question and to challenge the general direction that has been chosen over a 50-60 year period. That is, in the Sixties and Post-Sixties. In order to *see* and understand The Present, the causal chain that led to it has to be clearly seen.

Any sort of argument that operates and advocates against your set of assertions and beliefs is of course unnecessarily long!

Impress you? Who would I impress? If I have an *audience* I prefer to see it as rather abstract and ideal.

​

 

[Master Debator]

I fully grasp that you not only have a hard time understanding what I am saying, but principally that your entire orientation is so bound to your hatred and destructiveness that your will will intervene at every point to oppose the logics of what I am trying to communicate.

I think you confuse diatribe for logic. Logic requires for you to do more than simply state I'm destructive but also prove that I am. If you want to go further and then prove this destruction is bad then you'd need evidence to prove that point. @ashurbanipal tried valiantly to explain this to you, the need to provide supporting evidence in order to convince anyone that your arguments are logical and reasoned and so far you keep missing that mark by a wide margin.

If it happens that *the mob* takes over a nation (let’s look at this as an abstract case) and asserts its will through democratic processes, there is no guarantee that what had been decided and chosen by that democratic mass made the best choices. That is essentially the Platonic criticism of *democracy*.

Democracy isn't a perfect solution to ordering society its just better than the rest. The benefit to democracy is that when we make a bad choice we have many opportunities to correct it and many alternative ideas to choose from.

It’s next evolution tends to be tyranny. And as I have tried to say many times, in a dozen ways, you are the emblem of that tyranny! You are the emblem of that mob. Looking at you (microcosmically) one is able to discern the macrocosm.

Demagoguery is no substitute for sound argument and the alternative to democracy is tyranny from the start.

I understand why you make this connection. So, to be concerned about ethnographic issues or problems, to be concerned about what policy determines immigration policy, to have concerns about the negative aspect of multi-culturalism — all of this can be none else than the dread *racism* you refer to constantly.

But I suggest that though consideration of these issues involves consciousness of race, it is not *racist* in the way that you mean. But as I say you *possess* the term *racist* and it is a weaponized term and an armament in your destructive war.

That all would depend on what exactly you think the ethnographic and multi-cultural problems are and whether or not they are rooted in racism.

This all has to be seen, thought about, and if possible countered. With sound and ethically-based argument.

Then go ahead and try to make one already. If you can.

 

[Alizia Tyler]

Logic requires for you to do more than simply state I'm destructive but also prove that I am.

I have no way to *prove* such a thing. But I do make the suggestion that what is destructive in you and your intentionality is played out, in different forms, on the social landscape of today. I reference this. More I cannot do, nor could anyone.

I suggest that destructive tendencies operate in you. I refer to what you say and the way that you say it. I notice your anger and your ressentiment. But *prove* what I asser to you is completely impossible — you’d accept none of it.

So asking for a *proof* is silly. You will assert “You offered no proof” but only as a tactic to avoid having to consider the logic and sense of what I propose and say.

You say that my discourse is diatribe. But the fact is that your-plural entire approach is bound up in diatribe as it is defined:

a forceful and bitter verbal attack against someone or something.

You may not like what I say but there is little and possibly no *bitterness* in what I write.

The discourses of the Progressive/Left today, and certainly when Critical Theory is present, are significantly diatribe-based.

What I am engaged in is *discourse* and presentation of ideas, alternative views, confronting or challenging views, etc.

 

[ashurbanipal]

No, many people who respond to what I write do so reflexively. And it is also something I observe across this forum, and operating in the larger society. People with a Left-Progressive orientation tend to seek out those they feel are opposed to their way of thinking to rehearse mortal combat.

Well, maybe they do. But why should someone believe that such is the case? And why, even if such is the case, would it be bad that someone responds to you reflexively?

You are free to make any sort of assertion you wish to.

I have already told you that I stopped taking you seriously — meaning that I no longer felt it necessary to respond to what you write — some days back.

Every statement I have made on this thread to date I stand by.

I have only made the ones that seemed pertinent.

Well....you keep responding. Anyway, I'm not just making assertions. I'm making arguments. It's odd that you characterize things in the way you do (i.e. "make assertions")--you've used this verbiage a number of times now. Do you think that academic discourse is merely a bunch of assertions? Of course, in the first instance, it is true that that's what academic discourse is. But that's not all that it is. There is a way that some assertions fit together to produce a logical force. That is, academic discourse starts with assertions that everyone in a given audience already believes, and reasons validly from those assertions to other less obvious ones that the audience does not believe, but which, because they are logical consequences of the ones they do believe, they are forced by the strength of their commitment to reason to adopt.

You seem not to understand that, preferring to believe that everything anyone believes is only due to some form of political pressure. And despite others straight out telling you that they don't believe what they believe merely due to such political pressure, you go right on assuming that such is the case, and never once adducing any kind of argument in favor of your position.

So, I'm quite happy that someone like that does not take me seriously.

 

[ashurbanipal]

I have no way to *prove* such a thing.

I realize this was not addressed to me, and MD is perfectly capable of responding on his own, but look: what you've said right here is a bald admission that you have no case. If you cannot prove it (in the loose sense of the word "prove"), you should not say it.

 

[Alizia Tyler]

Well....you keep responding.

Out of politeness. I believe that this is a necessary habit for a forum like this (where people are often very impolite).

What I suggest to you is to focus on some other area of my argument since what I have said on the topic (in post #7) stands without further commentary on my part.

But perhaps you can select some other assertion or claim or idea of mine and say if you believe it or don’t.

Just looking for a potential way forward.

 

[Alizia Tyler]

I realize this was not addressed to me, and MD is perfectly capable of responding on his own, but look: what you've said right here is a bald admission that you have no case. If you cannot prove it (in the loose sense of the word "prove"), you should not say it.

You misunderstand. I have no way to prove to him, in the terms he demands *proof*, that what I propose or say has validity and should be considered. He will not accept any aspect of the proof that I do offer.

But I prefer not to use the word *proof* in any case. I suggest. I propose. And I present angles of view that support what I suggest and propose. Look into them if you so choose. That is what I do in relation to all the topics that I research and examine. I take in the propositions, mull them over, compare them with other ideas and assertions. I am personally undecided as to what, in the human world, can be absolutely concluded.

In this medium, on a forum like this, that is all we can do.

In regard to the assertions, proposals, and perspectives that I do present, yes, I think they make a solid case and thus are ‘proofs’.

But you want mathematical proofs, and these cannot be presented. Because this domain of consideration does not correspond to mathematics.

Your error is there.

 

[Ouroboros]

Their actions don't match the BLM mission statement and anyone is free to be "associated" with it.

I didn't say Ray Garafalo is racist. But he does want to perpetuate racist myths.

The BLM mission statement means nothing. “By their fruit you shall know them,” and BLM’s legacy is to stoke hatred and greed, so that their followers terrorize cities while the leaders keep their hands clean.

Did any of the BLM honchos who incited the Ferguson violence apologize when Obama’s DOJ vindicated the officer who shot that moron Michael Brown? No, they knew that they had a profitable scam, so it was on to the next alleged victim, so that they could promote a racist myth far more corrosive than any piddling positive remark on the Old South.

 

[Tigerace117]

You’re also still not accomplishing your purpose of showing that modern conservatives are in any way defined by the statements of earlier conservatives.

In contrast, my point that all modern activists of the BLM stripe have betrayed the spirit of MLK remains unassailed.

Modern conservatives are doing the exact same thing conservatives did back in MLK’s day.

MLK wouldn’t have remained silent over the murder of George Floyd and others like him.

 

[Master Debator]

To be truthful I do not see you as bringing forth arguments. You describe what you do and you often describe the emotional motives behind it. You celebrate through gloating and emboldened claims. But that is not really argument.

No, those aren't arguments and I don't pretend that they are. I do admit most of our interactions involve me laughing at your attempts to reason but that's only because I'm a simple man and easily entertained. In the instances I do make arguments I do use logic and reason to support them including when responding to you like my previous post where I used the fact of a record turnout in the last election to prove that the brief in democracy is stronger than ever.

I tend to go slow with the development of my arguments, nevertheless I have presented entire chains of argument, which also involve descriptions of what is going on in the present time.

Those descriptions are nothing more than your opinions and assertions. You have yet to link any supporting facts to any of them. For instance you've called me destructive and tyrannical but what facts have you used to support any of this?

You simply do not accept, and often cannot understand the argument that I do make, and then assert that no argument has been made.

Just thought to clear that up a bit . . .

I don't and no one here accepts your assertions as proof of anything.

What a silly thing to say. “So what?” In the world of ideas the causal chain is crucial.

In what way?

Yes indeed. Because I work with the notion of the deliberate, the willed, transvaluation of values. The revolutionary transformation of our societies has many different contributing factors. These can be located and understood, and if understood then explained.

Why should these changes in values be seen as negative?

You are setting up a trap, similar to the one about associating the Confederacy with Nazi Germany and the Holocaust and then demanding that I make some statement about the Holocaust! You are proposing that if at one time people thought that women should decline to assert themselves in the public domain, and you are completely sure that this is regressive (and indeed opinion supports your view), that therefore other ideas and notions could be or should be seen as outmoded.

I'm questioning the reasoning behind your argument. You are the one who said Caucasian Europeans saw protecting their racial integrity as good and proper and I'm asking you what makes it good and proper other than your assertion that someone once believed it was.

Progressive thought tends to be ‘revolutionary’ and boldly asserts that its tenets and objectives are sound and necessary. Conservative thought tends to ground itself in *reasoned argument* that requires time and patience even to grasp.

Don't just say it, prove it.

I definitely am asserting that you fall into the category of *revolutionary hot-head* and you are part of a wide-spread social movement that feels these choices are best. To argue the points I tend to feel are more sound and thus more valid takes time. Everything has to be gone through slowly.

How many pages is this now? How much time do you need?

That is why I said:

“There was a time when the preservation of America, or an aspect of it, was defined through protecting the dominant demographic, and this was seen as *right, proper, normal and necessary*. And as I have often said a transvaluation of values-process was engineered. This involves public relations science and also propaganda. These are all part of the *causal chain* I refer to.”

The present time, insofar as the present time is more and more dominated by what seem to be revolutionary impulses, ideology, dogma and praxis, arfe definitely extensions and evolutions of transvaluations of value.

And so what? Why are these changes in values bad and the old ones good and proper?

 

[Ouroboros]

Modern conservatives are doing the exact same thing conservatives did back in MLK’s day.

MLK wouldn’t have remained silent over the murder of George Floyd and others like him.

You can repeat it, but you still haven’t cited anything but fallacious logic to back up your opinion.

 

[Alizia Tyler]

That is, academic discourse starts with assertions that everyone in a given audience already believes, and reasons validly from those assertions to other less obvious ones that the audience does not believe, but which, because they are logical consequences of the ones they do believe, they are forced by the strength of their commitment to reason to adopt.

You seem not to understand that, preferring to believe that everything anyone believes is only due to some form of political pressure. And despite others straight out telling you that they don't believe what they believe merely due to such political pressure, you go right on assuming that such is the case, and never once adducing any kind of argument in favor of your position.

No. I say that ideological coercion is a large factor, a present factor, an influential factor.

But I do not doubt your-singular ethical commitment to what you believe to be true. It would be (in my way of seeing) grossly unfair and improper to assert that you do not truly believe what you say you believe.

I also tend to believe that everyone is telling the truth. So I don’t believe the assertion *You are lying!*

People operate from different essential tenets though. And those different tenets often produce differences that cannot be bridged.

 

[Tigerace117]

You can repeat it, but you still haven’t cited anything but fallacious logic to back up your opinion.

I already showed how conservatives used the exact same red baiting and fearmongering tactics in the past as they do today.

As I said before, MLK would not have remained silent over the murder of people like George Floyd.

 

[Alizia Tyler]

How many pages is this now? How much time do you need?

You say really silly things. It has taken me, personally, about 6 years now to begin to confront many different ideas and presuppositions that I simply took as *truth*.

These are — I can attest to it — difficult and complex considerations that involve *confrontation with the self* and not just sorting out some rudimentary ideas, like in Ashurbanipal’s mathy moral equations.

I will not jump to making any assertions until I am convinced that what I propose is ethically and morally defensible. My object is to *get everything out on the table for consideration* and then work through things one-by-one.

But this does not mean that I doubt any assertion that I have made to you and in relation to you. I think that my assertions have been sound.

But they are not *ultimate* as far as I am concerned. They are propositions backed by sound reasoning and coherent argument.