Gov. Shutdown?

[bluebooger]

People should have the freedom to pursue happiness as long as they don't get in the way of some other person's pursuit of happiness.

says who ?

just because that's your point of view doesn't make it the correct point of view

and it certainly isn't the point of view demonstrated by people through out history
the definitions of "happiness", "freedom, and even "person" has always been defined by the time and place and people involved

The french empire, the british empire, the spanish empire, the mongol empire, greeks, the babylonians ...

it certainly seems to me that by looking at history and nature the natural order of things is to conquer, the strong survive

It is more logical to not believe in something that had never been observed.

you certainly seem to believe in some magical, "everybody lives happily ever after fairy tale"

but like you said let's look at what's observed

Humans and other animals have the natural instinct to survive. It's biologically ingrained in us. As highly intelligent social animals, we have learned things through trial and error and passed those things down to our children. Other highly intelligent animals have social structures, and they don't follow any religion. All you have to do is take a look at the great apes.

yes, let's look at, observe those great apes

---------------------
Primate Behavior: Social Structure

"An even darker side of male chimpanzee behavior is that they occasionally murder members of other chimpanzee communities. Groups of males periodically go on aggressive raids into neighboring territories where they isolate individual males and then violently beat and bite them to death. Over time, these marauding gangs will kill all of the males in the targeted communities if they can. They also have been observed eating the infants there"
---------------------

primates.com : great apes : gorillas

"Lone silver-back males will challenge a resident silver-back and try to get the females to come with him (Estes, 1991). The resident male does actively prevent the females from going with him, but rather performs elaborate displays to keep the lone silver-back from approaching (Estes, 1991). A lone silver-back will generally approach a group that has a female undergoing estrus (Estes, 1991). Infanticide has been known to occur when a lone silver-back challenges the resident silver-back, he would do this because a female will start estrus sooner if her infant has died and is no longer nursing (Estes, 1991)."
---------------------

infanticide, cannibalism, war, challenges for power

there is your NATURAL order

human are trying to evolve the most UNnatural order imaginable

Bluebooger, I think that you'll find that few people would agree with you. If you phrased it that values enshrined in British colonial policy resulted in better lifestyles for Africans you may have some who would agree. (insert European overlord nation as you see fit) The issue has always been about rule of law and the power to enforce it. The British always used the power of the musket to enforce the rule of law on the societies they controlled (Stationing on troops in Boston is but one example) It was never about colour of skin but about the power to force people to conform. Pigmentation has nothing to do with natural order, although Darwin did espouse it in his writings.

whether people today would agree with me or not doesn't matter
what's important is people (insert European overlord nation as you see fit) at the time agreed with me

they surely didn't believe "People should have the freedom to pursue happiness as long as they don't get in the way of some other person's pursuit of happiness."

they believed in the natural order

so if anyone doesn't want to believe in god, that's fine
I don't care

but if you don't believe in a god then don't come up with this crap about freedom and rights and social justice and the natural order is to do good

Why ?

because as sanantone himself says
"Nothing is absolute in the social sciences and there is nothing wrong with that."

of course he immediately contradicts himself by stating this as an absolute
"Humans can only do their best to try to make sure that individuals are free to pursue happiness. "

when its nothing more than his opinion
an opinion that has not been prevalent in history and is not present in the natural world

if there is no god, then I agree with sanantone on only one point
"Nothing is absolute in the social sciences and there is nothing wrong with that."