Absolute morality is impossible for us mortal humans. In fact, absolute morality may be impossible even for God. Even worse, absolute morality may also be relative. That's 3 conjectures that I have to explain so let me start with the middle.

"Absolute morality may be impossible even for God." I've heard more than once that God must exist because otherwise we couldn't have absolute morality. I contend that not only doesn't God factor in to the argument but that God can't be an absolutist. If God is by definition omni-everything then certainly God must be the example of absolute morality. But God must also be the example of absolute im-morality otherwise God is not omni-everything. Or to put it another way who are we to change the definition of God to suit us? If God is truly the be-all and end-all then it holds that God has elements of good and bad, morality and immorality. Therefore God can not be an example of absolute morality. And, to use the Torah, as an example we have the commandment "Thou shalt not kill" - plain, simple, absolute. Yet God kills (Egyptians and parting of the waters) and commands others to kill (Israelites wiping out tribes to conquer their land) so God's word and actions conflict. So much for absolute morality for God.

"Absolute morality is impossible for us mortal humans" - too wordy. Simply put, we can't be moral absolutists. If we were we'd likely die or go crazy from paranoia. Consider "Thou shalt not kill." That's pretty absolute and damn near impossible to live up to. You'd end up living off of dairy products and nuts - no fresh-picked fruits or vegetables. No fresh meat. - and be afraid to walk outside for fear of crushing ants. Ants? Ants?!? Yes, ants. They're living and the law states "Thou shalt not kill" without any qualifiers. It means all living things are sacred and protected, including ants. It means anything else - any qualifiers - are us humans interfering with the commandment of God. Do you think you could go through a day without killing anything? Very doubtful. And consider this scenario: you're being attacked unto death. Do you kill your attacker? The absolute moralist must say no, let the attacker kill you. But this is against our nature to defend ourselves. So right there the absolute law must be amended and once amended becomes subject to other amendments and thus a relative morality.

"Absolute morality may also be relative." Above I stated "Thou shalt not kill" as an absolute moral example. But someone else could come up and claim that it's not a valid example at all. They could claim that "Thou shalt not steal" is an absolute moral law. In other words what defines an example of absolute morality is itself a relative judgement.

We are, I believe, all relative moralists. Some might strive to become absolutists - yay, for them - but by our very human nature we tend towards relativism.

What I'm wrestling with is "the more moral a person the less freedom they have." To have absolute freedom you'd need a complete lack of a morality, which doesn't sound right. Certainly to have complete freedom you'd need a lack of oversight - no neighbors, no government, no religion - which then implies that morality would be at ones discretion. A corollary of this is that the greater the morality and/or the fewer liberties for an individual requires a greater oversight by a government or religion. And we see this with our own government as the Right tries to assume more power, impose "morality", and restrict liberties, we see our Government has grown to enforce those positions. Homeland Security has many meanings and purposes.

Bush Predictions
Time for some predictions:

"The Hussein trial will end before November with a guilty verdict." A "Not guilty" verdict would make Bush look even more foolish but worse if the trial extends past November and Bush loses then he and his cronies can be called as witnesses. They wouldn't be able to hide behind their Governmental positions! Look for a quick trial.

If Bush wins in November expect an agreement with Iraq that the U.S would "help" with security by maintaining a permanent military presence. To keep the military in its numbers expect the draft to return with the proviso that college students would be exempt from duty. The catch here is that many colleges and universities are facing massive budget crises so given a choice between accepting an in-state applicant or a higher-fee paying out-of-state applicant or an out-of-country highest-fee paying applicant guess who'll they'll choose. Which means if you're poor or middle-class the choice will be the military and McDonalds or the military and a body bag.

You thought Bush et al were secretive now, if they get elected you'll see a lot more secrecy, stuff you'll never find out about because it's a secret. By the way, the LA Times had a little blurb about the U.S. moving uranium out of Iraq without getting permission from the U.N.. It was to keep the stuff from getting to terrorists. Uh-huh!

Stoopid Is As Stoopid Does
Tony Blair says the WMDs may never be found but he believes they exist. Bush says he doesn't care about evidence to the contrary he believes that Hussein had WMDs and was a threat to the U.S.. Kids, there's a life lesson here. Disregard facts and act how you see fit because if you believe in yourself enough then your actions are OK. I'm sure those parents and spouses who've lost folks in Iraq will want to hear that. And the 13,000+ Americans injured in Iraq can take comfort in knowing their injuries resulted from the actions of a President acting off of intuition.