From the classical Kantian perspective, we only have direct moral obligations to persons, defined as rational people with self control. A Putinist is not a person, and therefore, we need not worry about being nice to them. It is like being nice to a rock, or to rats. From a Utilitarian perspective, anyone who can experience pain or pleasure has some kind of moral standing. Putinists, however, only experience degraded pleasures, like the pleasure from treachery or lying. No matter how I approach it, I can’t think of a good reason to be very nice to them.
The propaganda from BOTH sides is the work of fantasy.
It's still the policy of Free Republic that there will be no personal attacks.
It's incumbent on both of you to honor that policy.
If you have a gripe about the content of a particular post the the beliefs of a particular poster, bring it up to Admin or Jim.
But don't dishonor his site.
Interesting reading. The reading of the 'Kantian perspective' implies consent attained by dishonesty and coercion is ruled out as not viable through words in actual practice of language word usage, by persons, which all know is never the case otherwise rulers would never be able to utilize words to attain consent attained by dishonesty and coercion. Examples: hitler, obama, putin and assorted others throughout history prove the Kantian theory incorrect (imho). That is my understanding. Do you have another opinion?