Re: Ready to vote on 2004-003?

[tb@becket.net (Thomas Bushnell, BSG)]

Craig Sanders <cas@taz.net.au> writes:

> having a principle which is so hard to live up to that it requires a
> special exemption for the sake of convenience is pointless.  either
> the principle is valid or it is not.  there is no ethical middle
> ground which says the principle is valid but we should just ignore
> it because it's inconvenient right now.

It would be hypocrisy if I thought the perfect of the social contract
was to give a perfect statement of all the relevant values.  But I
think there are many values, and I don't intend the social contract to
be the sole repository of them.  One of my values is that values in
general ought to be interpreted flexibly depending on the needs of the
moment.

That may not be one of your values, but that's a different question
from whether I'm hypocritical for having the values I have.  Hypocrisy
would be if I professed one set of values and then acted on another,
and I don't do that.  (And importantly, the social contract is nowhere
near the sum total or the only statement of my values, or Debian's
values, in my opinion.)

Thomas