stealing bread

You know as a former hippie I took a bit of offense at being told how we adopted moral relativism in order to do wrong things, as if, if we wanted to do bad things we had to adopt some different moral code than the one we grew up with which was being good boys (and girls).  I am still waiting to hear what those wrong things were, and unless those things are different than drugs and sex, I fail to understand how Beagles, who has said he indulged in those same things (alcohol being a drug) is without sin while I am tarnished as the driven coal.  This is the third time I am asking.

From the wiki article Moral Absolutism is like what I call Stoicism, an act is good or bad in itself, and consequentialism is like utilitarianism where an action is judged by its results.  Beagles, who I would have pegged as an MA crosses into the utilitarianism camp when he steals that bread for his starving family.  One might well ask if he stole it from another starving family.  Which raises the interesting question is it then moral because your own family is more important to you than those strangers?  If not, then is it the right thing to do to let your family starve because the other family had it first and therefore it belongs to them?

If Beagles had the money to pay for the bread he stole he wouldn't have stolen it in the first place. This obligation to pay it  forward sounds specious.  It appears that Beagles himself is the judge of what act fulfills atonement and I don't think any judge in the county is going to accept that,  But since Beagles is a good boy, I guess he can always be trusted to do the right thing, as opposed to like a hippie, Man, who like can only be trusted to do wrong things,  And what makes Beagles a good boy, when he has yet to define what he means by being good?  Apparently because he says so.


Back in the 60s colonialism was considered a very bad thing, there were still some colonies then which have since then been freed and have they vaulted into proud first world because now they are free and can chart their own course over God's green Earth?  They have not.  Compare the countries that have been colonized with those that haven't, and you won't see any big differences, The Brits were mighty proud of the sun never setting on their empire but eventually they realized that it was cheaper and more efficient to just buy and sell their crap on the world market than from a bunch of pesky colonies that were always pissing and moaning and revolting.

The Amerindians of today have nice shirts and pants and smartphones and all, but they drink a lot and life on the res is awfully drab.  Likely they were happier before the white man than they are now. And so it goes with much of the third world, I think.  But unless we define better than when, and what makes a person better off the discussion is much too vague.