>>68
If I cannot understand the point of your argument it is because it's obscured by your clumsy and inept writing. And since you even now seem to propagate that I am a "liberal" I take it that my previous post struck close to home.
Your claim that the golden rule is self-evident is bold at best and ridiculous at worst. It is obviously self-evident to you, just as my morals are self-evident to me. Howeever, the arrogance you display in claiming that your morals are somehow superior to everyone elses is stunning.
The principles from which you derive the golden rule, although you haven't shared them with me, could very well be self-evident. But I don't see how you could argue that the way you interpret them is, especially since you aren't by any stretch in majority. It seems that you are trying to patent "rational" and apply it exclusively to your way of reasoning. As I have already stated, whether a code of reciprocity is rational or not depends on what your goal is. If I desperately want to be the richest guy in town it simply isn't rational to be nice to other people when lying and scheming would benefit me a lot more.
The argument that the golden rule can be observed independently in different cultures is poor. Slavery, for example, can also be observed indepently all over the globe and 2000 years from now som other weird custom will be popular.
As for me writing more than you, I actually enjoy writing.