I was think about conflicting interests... can beliefs be black and white... or is it necessary to have a gamut of greys that blur your other beliefs. Like to me, for instance, I think that groups such as Murder Victim's Families for Reconciliation are admirable for taking a black or white stance. Murder is wrong, someone was murdered, don't execute the killer because it perpetuates the cycle of murder, murder is wrong. ... but on the other hand sometimes a grey shade of belief is better. For example: American groups missioned to eradicate practices by other cultures that are seen as reprehensible. Who's to say that it's culture or torture? Me? I don't know. Things like PETA's boycott of bullfights. Isn't this part of a people's culture? Yet it is torture. Is it our job to stop such things? Yet on the other hand, Female Genital Mutilation is also a traditional, cultural practice, but it's torture... it should be eradicated. So where do we draw the line, or does it lie somewhere in between. It's not our job to recreate the world in the image of America. Footnote 1: I made up this word. Symferonomachy is not a real word. I did, however, use proper grammar rules to create it. Symferon is Greek, as is the suffix -machy. What I need is a word that is defined as "a conflict of interests," however I can find no such word. Footnote 2: I think PETA does some great things, but they're a little too fanatically propagandistic in their approach to such causes. Footnote 3: This just popped up while I was researching female genital mutilation, which is commonly referred to as female circumcision. In a word, "Ouch." In two, "No thanks." This is looks just about as painful to use volutarily as circumcision was to receive involuntarily. Footnote 4: Circumcision is a funny word... it literally means "to cut around in a circle." In this sense, a hole-puncher circumcises paper. Footnote 5: Fuck the self-centered, self-righteous feminist who belittled male circumcision in comparison to the atrocity of female genital mutilation... hmmm, last time I checked: a) Both are mutilation of the genitalia. b) The clitoris and the foreskin are the same piece of skin, just developed differently. c) Being the same flap of skin, they have the same nerve-endings, and therefore it's the same procedure (though tools differ). d) Male circumcision was began as a "rejection of the sins of the flesh" and "spiritual purification," not as a sanitary issue. Sins of the flesh is pretty much the same excuse for female genital mutilation, although the terminology isn't the same e) Moslem boys aren't circumcised until they're 15, as part of a manhood passage. So don't try the argument that boys don't remember it because they're a baby. Sure, Judaism may call for it on the eighth day, and Christians will snip snip as soon as possible to deter a life of wanton abandon, but go and find a 20ish Moslem male, and ask him about his circumcision. I'm sure he'll have vivid memories of said occasion. f) I'm circumcised and you're not, get some first-hand experience and then come back to me with your data. I'll listen to your argument then.