[MoreMoschops]

So how do you justify where you draw your own line? Is it okay for you to murder someone because every day somewhere there is a massacre? No? Well then, is it okay for you to shoplift because someone else, somewhere, is stealing much more than you? Is it okay for you to push someone over because every day, somewhere, someone gets assaulted?

The list goes on and on. If you draw the line anywhere then you've applied the exact same principle you just espoused against; you just choose to draw the line in a slightly different place.

[rdavl]

I think what you are looking for is called "common sense".

You won't be going around murdering people since it is common sense and you are brought up this way.

Murder and dirty joke is not the same thing if you have any common sense and that's why usually murder has priority over dirty jokes in court. You usually don't get sued for dirty joke. That's why we don't call dirty jokes a murder nor we call murder a joke.

And the common sense is what should set our priorities. Who would you rather see in court first mass murderer or a thief? And on what grounds do you decide this? How do YOU decide which is more offensive? Do we have scales for it?

[MoreMoschops]

"Common sense" is not much more than a myth now that (many, including those of the majority of the posters here) societies are not homogenous and not filled with people all subscribing to a very narrow view of what is right and wrong. I believe "common sense" is, in this context, a way of stating a belief without feeling that any evidence is required. A bit like religion.

There was a thread around here somewhere in which the correct, acceptable behaviour of a society (real, not an imaginary example, unless I radically misread it) involved boys becoming men by giving oral sex (and swallowing) to older men. A neighbouring society decided anal sex was the way to go. This is simply "common sense" in those societies. Everyone agrees.

We live in societies where one person's "common sense" is another person's completely unacceptable behaviour.

"Who would you rather see in court first mass murderer or a thief?"

Will you be petitioning the courts to refuse to try thieves unless everyone accused of murder has been tried already? That would essentially legalise theft.

[zemelb]

I think you miss my point. Where I come from, nobody - and that can be taken very literally - will be offended by a joke about penises between to friends. Why not? Because it is not something to be offended about. There is a lot of crap happening in the world today and jokes about penises is not one of them. That's all there is to it. If you do make this a big priority in your live, and even feel offended by it, your brain is kind of broken. Like when you believe in God and thus think it's OK to murder others that don't follow your beliefs. That's a broken brain symptom.

So it's not so much about drawing a line as there should be no need to draw it.

It's a bit - in a far fetched way - like the song Tim Minchin sang about the pope: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sph8Qu8wLAk

[MoreMoschops]

"Thats all there is to it."

An unbending, absolute rigid belief? Sounds like a religous style "broken brain".