If evil is a judgement and not a reality, then no one and no action is evil, and thusly, all actions are justifiable.

You may disagree with someone elses justification, but that's just your opinion of the facts in evidence, no more important or correct than any other fools opinion.

This is the understanding that the Bush/Cheney Administration have. Their actions are justified because they are doing good, and their enemies deserve it. That is moral relativism.

Just because you are a moral relativist and judge others to be evil does not make them absolutists. Only those who hold uniform beliefs about the quality of actions devoid of purpose are absolutists. Absolutists do not need jusitification for their actions, relativists do.

All human life is equal, therefore any action to cause suffering to any human is evil.

It's absolute an absolute definition and not a relativistic definition.

Now you can have a relativistic definition of evil, just as you can have a relativistic definition of motion, temprature, etc.

The question is whether you will measure something in absolute or relative terms, that is a phiosophical choice each person makes depending on thier needs.

There are times when one should be absolute with regard to things, and times when a relativistic point of view is more practical.

You can be absolutist with temprature and wear shorts at 70 degrees Ferinheit and not before. Or you can be a relativist and do so when the temprature suits you.

For things of greater importance like, say the use of torture, or other violent or terrible acts against fellow humans, an absolute scale of right and wrong may seem better.

Why do you presume the punishment for evil is death, and not forgivness?

If one is an absolutist, that is your option when faced with evil. To passivly resist or forgive the infraction. Such a stance doesn't sit well with many who feel an eye for an eye is the better rule.

But even the Talmud aknowledges that such a plan for retribution leaves everyone blind. Absolutism is not legalism, legalism justifies and sets punishments and rewards, absolutism mearly defines, and sorts actions into one group or another, and leaves you with a choice to be good or evil.

It is largel a semantic argument.

And you are also right that the term evil does carry with it a bit of baggage.

But in the end I think we all agree that torture and related activities are not good, the question seems to arise from whether this notion is absolutist, or relativistic, though the larger moral question of what is good and what is not good is also at its core, and weather or not one can define good and not good as independant entities within the human experience.

When discussing good and not good I always come back to a particular scene a strange little film from the 80's called Rock and Rule.

The villian of the piece argues the relativistic understanding of good and not good, and his childlike thug presses for further clarification due to the entreatments of a character called Uncle Mikey.

Is the man being good to the cow, or evil? Uncle Mikey Asks.

Evil spelled backwards is live, and we all want to do that now don't we, retorts Mok.

Such a simplistic understanding is the core of absolutism. That these things can be defined and are universal, something the modern mind often rejects, even as we drawn back to it, and I have yet to see someone endorse a relativistic stance that is not used to justify their own not good actions towards those they feel have wronged them.

Yes the recount was later done...Gore lost that too. Sorry, George W. Bush stole an election he actually would have won any way.

Gore only wins a recount with the most broad use of counting rules that were unanimously rejected by all (that includes the liberal members) of the Supreme Court.

The problem is just the constant obsession with loss that Demcrats seem to have.

Republicans, for what ever else are constant optimists that the people are on their side, even when all evidence is to the contrary.

Democrats do seem to get obsessed with all the many ways they can lose...and are rarely shocked when they do.

So perhaps with the Left Leaning republicans brought in by Clinton and Obama, a new Democratic party can emerge. One were we actually believe that people want what we're selling. One were we actually believe that we can and will win in November. And one, were instead of falling in love, and then out of love with Candidates, we approach each election with a business like understanding of costs and benefits, and we vote for the person who will further our agenda, even if we find them personally repugnant, or disagree on a single issue with them.

Maybe.

I certainly hope at the convention I see a lot of Clinton Supporters for Obama Signs, or vice versa if she is the Nominee.

I read the link you provided...suffice it to say I'm sure the John Birch Society has an opinion on the subject as well.

Reality is that those who conducted a recount found that George W. Bush did win Florida by all but the most broad reading of the votes, which was rejected by the Supreme Court in its entirety.

Al Gore still won the popular vote, and certainly George W. Bush did know, and probably didn't think he had actually won at the time he usurped the election. But the bottom line is, he did win Florida in 2000.

Ohio in 2004 was uncontested so it is much harder to determine what level (if any) of chicanery was involved.