The hearings on Alberto Gonzales' appointment to become Attorney General would have been more focused had the Senators explained, up front where moral frameworks come from -- from people with a sense of time and their place in it, who can project the consequences of not having them.
Without moral frameworks people revert to the level of others in the world of nature -- governed by the rules they must live by and nothing more. A seal that snips off the fins of a fish (leaving it as a terrified, living, helpless toy to be batted around until boredom and hunger make it lunch) has no conception of good and evil. Good and evil don't exist in the world of seals and fish. They live outside the framework of morality, which is purely a creation of thought.
People choose whether or not to receive protection from the framework by their actions. Violators of the framework, living just by the laws of nature, are unprotected -- exposed to any action those within the framework choose to use to defend themselves. That's how nature works.
Although those under the protective umbrella of morality can use any means against outsiders, often it is not to their advantage to do so. Powerline reminded us that President George W. Bush reaffirmed this position on February 7, 2002.
Twenty-five years ago I wrote about this. Nothing has changed.
