Hammegk and slavery

[Mossy]

In this (http://www.randi.org/vbulletin/showthread.php?threadid=9937) thread, Hammegk said (to WMT1):


I doubt if you want to know what I "think" about the benefits of slavery.


So rather than go off into a tangent on that thread, I thought I'd ask here.

Can you explain your thoughts on the benefits (or lack thereof) of slavery?

-Ed

[hammegk]

I doubt you want to know either.

Have you been to Africa? Lately? S. Africa? Lately?

Haiti? Killed all the massas in ?1857 I vaguely recall.

Good examples of throwing off the chains of oppression.

Would most people prefer the amenities of downtown Wash.DC or of downtown Lagos, if one were down & out? Would you rather be black in Rio or Sao Paulo, or in Dar es Salaam? Or Kano?

Actually, imperialism/colonialism "in-country" would be best I suppose.

[Q-Source]

Originally posted by hammegk
I doubt you want to know either.

Have you been to Africa? Lately? S. Africa? Lately?

Haiti? Killed all the massas in ?1857 I vaguely recall.

Good examples of throwing off the chains of oppression.

Would most people prefer the amenities of downtown Wash.DC or of downtown Lagos, if one were down & out? Would you rather be black in Rio or Sao Paulo, or in Dar es Salaam? Or Kano?

Actually, imperialism/colonialism "in-country" would be best I suppose.

Hammegk

I am a bit slow, sorry.

Was that a yes or no for slavery?

[hammegk]

Originally posted by Q-Source


Hammegk

I am a bit slow, sorry.



I'm sorry for you too.

[hgc]

Q-Source:

Since hamm has just insulted you for not understanding his non-reply, I'll take a crack at explaining his position.

He thinks that all those descendents of slaves in the western hemisphere ought to be thankful for and should be the first to admit that slavery has turned out to be a damn good thing for them. And if even they'll admit it, then what a swell idea it must have been.

Is that right, hamm?

[hammegk]

I've have 8 questions pending answers for your one. Care to take a shot?

Why was my my answer a non-reply? YOU seem to have caught a bit of it.

And, I may be wrong. Perhaps slaveowners & their descendents take too bad a rap (cost) to justify the benefits supplied to the slaves & their descendents.

Yeah, very possibly imperialism/colonialism is the best current answer.

[Q-Source]

Originally posted by hgc
Q-Source:

Since hamm has just insulted you for not understanding his non-reply, I'll take a crack at explaining his position.

He thinks that all those descendents of slaves in the western hemisphere ought to be thankful for and should be the first to admit that slavery has turned out to be a damn good thing for them. And if even they'll admit it, then what a swell idea it must have been.

Is that right, hamm?

Thank you hgc, you are very kind. I was asking too much.

Following that reasoning, then Jews must be thankful for the Holocaust, thanks to that Germany gave them money and now they have Israel!

Wow.

Q-S

[hammegk]

I notice you find answering questions also too difficult.

And yeah, Slavery=Holocaust. YAAFI. :rolleyes:

[Mossy]

[edited to add answers to your questions]

Originally posted by hammegk
I doubt you want to know either.

Have you been to Africa? Lately? S. Africa? Lately?

Yes

Haiti? Killed all the massas in ?1857 I vaguely recall.

Honestly don't know.

Good examples of throwing off the chains of oppression.

Would most people prefer the amenities of downtown Wash.DC or of downtown Lagos, if one were down & out? Would you rather be black in Rio or Sao Paulo, or in Dar es Salaam? Or Kano?

Again, don't know. In all honesty, I think they both have their advantages depending on your perspective - but for my tastes, of course I would D.C.

Actually, imperialism/colonialism "in-country" would be best I suppose.

So hgc's characterization of your position is accurate?

Are you, in effect, saying that the black people in the US are much better off than the black people of Africa, and since they are in America primarily because of slavery, then that is the benefit?

And the follow-up question, if you answer "yes" to the above: would you therefor say that slavery was a good thing? (which isn't to say that slavery would be good now, just that "the ends justify the means" so if it ended up good - we shouldn't be too critical of it)

(not trying to be dense - just trying to understand your position)

-Ed

[Q-Source]

Originally posted by hammegk
I notice you find answering questions also too difficult.

And yeah, Slavery=Holocaust. YAAFI. :rolleyes:



Are you talking to me??

I don't discuss with someone who does not respect me.

Good bye

Q-S

[hammegk]

Originally posted by Q-Source


Are you talking to me??
You ARE quick; did someone else mention "Holocaust"?

I don't discuss with someone who does not respect me.

Good bye

Q-S

Sorry, kiddo. I don't mind rhetorical questions, but acting dumb at the same time doesn't get much "respect" from me.

Originally posted by Mossy

(not trying to be dense - just trying to understand your position)

No, I don't think I owe anyone reparations, or even an apology. If you can't make a life for yourself in the US today you are worthless. And, if you are also African-American, I'll take up a collection to send your sorry ass back "home".

Colin Powell & Condy Rice must thank God every morning for their ancestral good fortune.

[Tmy]

Whiteys history of imperialism and colonialism is the root cause of most of the problems in Africa, MidEast, and in most parts of the world. They moved in, carved up new contries with concearn for local ethinicites and rivalries, throw in some puppet goverments, took what they wanted, then left once the going got tough.

Some Brit Politician has been bringing this up lately.

[BPSCG]

Originally posted by Q-Source

Following that reasoning, then Jews must be thankful for the Holocaust, thanks to that Germany gave them money and now they have Israel!

Hey, I'm thankful for Hitler, 'cuz if he hadn't wanted to turn my paternal grandparents into soap, they wouldn't have fled France in 1940. And if he hadn't declared war on the US the following year, my dad wouldn't have gone back to France wearing a uniform and wouldn't have met my future mom.

So let's hear it for Hitler!!! :p

Should I say that next Thursday when we're all going around the Thanksgiving dinner table and saying what we're thankful for this year? :confused:

[Doubt]

hammegk,

I request a little clarification on the issue.

1.) Do you assume that the average Black American has a better life than the average African?
2.) Assuming the above is true, does the current situation justify slavery?

If number two is true that sounds a lot like stating that the ends justifies the means, even when the current "ends" was never a goal of slavery and was not foreseen by the slave owners.

Correct me if I am wrong about your perspective.

[Michael Redman]

I'm thankful for Osama bin Laden, because the terrorist attacks helped put (keep) our economy in the tank, prompting lowered interest rates, which caused a whole slew of home mortgage refinancing, and I just got a job in the home mortgage industry due to the increased business!

[headscratcher4]

Serious question:

Colin Powell & Condy Rice must thank God every morning for their ancestral good fortune.

If this is true, and I assume you believe it, should not a proud, happy and indipendent Isreali thank-God every morning, because the death of 6 million jews contributed greatly to the founding of Isreal?

Why, logically, does that not follow?

[hammegk]

Originally posted by headscratcher4
Serious question:

If this is true, and I assume you believe it, should not a proud, happy and indipendent Isreali thank-God every morning, because the death of 6 million jews contributed greatly to the founding of Isreal?

Why, logically, does that not follow?

Well, darned if I know if Israelis should be as happy about 6 million educated civilized people slaughtered for no purpose as Africans could be about their 2 million aboriginals dead (+-) out of perhaps 12 million(+-) African slaves, with 10 million (+-)reaching new & better lives for their descendents.

What does logic tell you about costs/benefit to human-kind?

Originally posted by Tmy

Whiteys history of imperialism and colonialism is the root cause of most of the problems in Africa, MidEast, and in most parts of the world. They moved in, carved up new contries with concearn for local ethinicites and rivalries, throw in some puppet goverments, took what they wanted, then left once the going got tough.

Yeah, they stopped the process to soon; that was the only mistake. Had they hung around, installing infrastructure & civilization, the crummy job of sorting out rational country boundries might even have occurred.

[hgc]

Let's face it: everything about the world today, good and bad, is the result of everything that led up to it -- history. There's no way to determine what things would be like, better or worse, if something in history had gone differently. That's the nature of contingency.

When we ask ourselves if some historical phenomenon was a good or bad thing, what's the purpose of the question? I think it has to do with whether it would be good or bad in our present circumstances -- whether under our current moral standards such a thing is desirable. You may also wonder if you lived "back then" if you might have supported such things or not. Or would have even had the context with which to judge (prevailing moral standards).

Robert Novak expressed a similar sentiment as hamm a few years ago on one of those political shows he's on. He apologized the next week. Why does hamm express himself so obliquely instead of coming out and saying what he means? Why does he keep insulting anyone who asks him to clarify. I think he's ashamed of his position.

[hammegk]

Originally posted by hgc
I think he's ashamed of his position.

You think wrong. The benefits of ancestral salvery far exceed any costs the current descendents suffer, imnsho.

I don't advocate additional slavery, but think a good 25 yr program of imperialism/colonialism is the best hope for most of the underdeveloped world.

[hgc]

The benefits of ancestral salvery far exceed any costs the current descendents suffer, imnsho.

Such a thing is unknowable. We cannot imagine, in our wildest dreams, what the lives of the descendents of 17th/18th/19th century Africans would be like today without the history of slavery and colonialism.

[Michael Redman]

Originally posted by hammegk


Well, darned if I know if Israelis should be as happy about 6 million educated civilized people slaughtered for no purpose as Africans could be about their 2 million aboriginals dead (+-) out of perhaps 12 million(+-) African slaves, with 10 million (+-)reaching new & better lives for their descendents.Where do you get these numbers? Can you substantiate that as many as 5 out of 6 taken into slavery lived long enough, and were able to reproduce?What does logic tell you about costs/benefit to human-kind?Nothing. There's no objective way to compare the suffering and death of one person to the benefit of another.

You are simply stating that today's decendants of slaves are better off than their cousins who've been in Africa the whole time, right? And not that slavery was a net benefit to the whole of effected Africans?

[specious_reasons]

Normally, I have hammegk on ignore, but I decided on a lark to read this thread.

Here's a wacky thought-experiment: What would have happened to the Africans in this country if they were brought over as workers, not as slaves?

Even if the average condition of African Americans wasn't improved over our version of history, wouldn't it still be that much better that their ancestors didn't suffer in slavery?

[Doubt]

I notice that hammegk has not answered my request for clarification.

I will put it in simplest terms:

Does the ends (current conditions of black americans,) justify the means (slavery.) Take into account that the current conditions for blacks in the US was not intended by those who owned slaves.

[Bluegill]

This thread brings to mind a question, on a much smaller scale, from my personal life. A few years ago I got a divorce. Though it was not a very rough divorce as divorces go, it was nonetheless the most painful and upsetting period of my life.

Very soon after the divorce, I fell in love with someone else. She and I are now married, and I have never been so happy in any relationship, and never thought that this kind of personal joy and deep-down love was possible outside of sappy fiction.

That makes it really hard for me to call my divorce a bad thing, despite it being the worst thing that has ever happened to me. It’s also the best thing that ever happened to me. Now I know that, if I could, I would never choose to go back in time and prevent that awful loss.

I think that it would be possible for a person to consider slavery “evil” in pretty much any sense of the word I can think of. But it IS possible for good to come of bad. Asking whether hundreds of years of slavery justifies the better lot of African Americans today seems to me to be worthless question. More appropriate questions would be, “How can we correct the Great Evils in today’s world, and how can we do it so that the most people get the greatest possible benefit?”

I would think that, for instance, a Jew in Israel would not give thanks for the Nazis that sent his poverty-stricken family out of Europe towards a prosperous life. Instead, he’d be thankful that he, and those that came before him, we able to take such a bad situation and not only survive, but end up better off than before.

[hgc]

Bluegill: very well put.

What can we do?
- Understand history
- Do the right thing by your neighbor
- Build for a better tomorrow

[Tmy]

Originally posted by hgc
Bluegill: very well put.

What can we do?
- Understand history
- Do the right thing by your neighbor
- Build for a better tomorrow

Screw that! Once I finish my time machine I'm going back and fix history.

First thing, go back and kick Eli Whitney's ass! Him and his lousy cotton gin.

So what would you **** with if you could time travel?

[hgc]

So what would you **** with if you could time travel?

If I had a way-back machine, find a way to stop Michael Jackson from having children.

[Bluegill]

Originally posted by Tmy


Screw that! Once I finish my time machine I'm going back and fix history.

First thing, go back and kick Eli Whitney's ass! Him and his lousy cotton gin.

So what would you **** with if you could time travel?

This seems like a major thread-hijacking. My first one! How exciting! I'm wearing a ski mask and waving a pistol!

I'd go back in time and convince who ever named the Teapot Dome that it should be called The Giant Clitoris. Then, in high school history, I might have actually been able to pay attention when learning about The Giant Clitoris Scandal. Yeah, I DEFINITELY would have paid more attention.

[hgc]

OK hi-jacker, you wanna play rough?

I'd go back to when those nice pilgrims were sharing the first Thanksgiving feast with the friendly natives, and change the main course form turkey to chocolate pudding.

[The Fool]

I'm really not sure why Hammy is doing this, Most Racists avoid displaying their opinions.

[hgc]

I'm really not sure why Hammy is doing this, Most Racists avoid displaying their opinions.

Let me speak for hamm again.

He doesn't think it's racist. He only thinks we think it's racist. So he's willing to say it in a dance-around-it kind of way, but not actually come out with the words, "slavery was good and righteous." Instead it's more like, "look at the benefits," etc.

hamm, as always slap me down if I misrepresent.

hamm, I think you are being too dodgy in this discussion. If you feel white men are superior to black men, then come out and say it. I think we would all appreciate straightforwardness more than this guessing game you are encouraging.

If you are saying that you are against reparations to American blacks, I'm with you. But I may have different reasons than you do.

Seems like everyone has pretty much formed the opinion that you are a rascist, so what difference would it make to speak plainly? And if we are wrong, then straighten us out.

Then we can discuss the reasoning behind each of our thoughts.

The only reason I can see for dodginess is that one isn't secure in one's position.

Racial discussions can be very emotion-laden, but they don't have to be. Nor do they have to be statistics wars. I'm sure we can find a middle ground.

I can't speak for black people, but it would be reasonable, I think, to assume it is possible for a black man to be grateful to be living in America today and not in South Africa, while not grateful that his ancestors were enslaved.

Originally posted by The Fool
I'm really not sure why Hammy is doing this, Most Racists avoid displaying their opinions.

On the contrary. If a person believes themselves to be in the right, they can be quite vocal about it.

[hgc]

Seems like everyone has pretty much formed the opinion that you are a rascist, so what difference would it make to speak plainly?

Actually, I have not formed the opinion that hamm is "racist," notwithstanding my previous posts. The reason I say that it's very hard to define, except for the extreme cases. I would say that it's possible and unproven. More importantly, hamm's apparent attitudes about how Africans would be better off if recolonized by us, in that it's probably prevalent, is very harmful in how that attitude transfers over the way black Americans are treated here in this country, today.

For that matter, it's not actually worth debating whether the slavery of the past was harmful or not. That's over and done with. We know, at least most of us do, that to institute slavery today would be real bad. Personally I think that because of the way blacks came to America and were treated here the first few hundred years (slavery) has resonated in ways that are continue to be harmful to them. Is it because the collective white psyche can't get it out of its head that black people are subhuman and were enslaved for a good reason? That's where hamm's thinking leads. Is that overtly racist? I also look for malicious intent too before I toss around a harsh label.

[subgenius]

This is the most sickening thread I've read, even surpassing JK's defense of the DC snipers, the U of A mass murderer and abortion clinic bombers.
Why doesn't this butthead sell himself into slavery, so his descendents can have a beautiful life? Ooooh someone would have to procreate with him. And if someone has, someone help those kids.

[hammegk]

Originally posted by subgenius
This is the most sickening thread I've read, even surpassing JK's defense of the DC snipers, the U of A mass murderer and abortion clinic bombers.
Why doesn't this butthead sell himself into slavery, so his descendents can have a beautiful life? Ooooh someone would have to procreate with him. And if someone has, someone help those kids.
Wow! You can spell & string words together to form sentences. One of your better posting efforts; did your Mommy help you?

My offspring are doing fine, thanks for your concern though.

[hammegk]

Originally posted by Michael Redman
Where do you get these numbers? Can you substantiate that as many as 5 out of 6 taken into slavery lived long enough, and were able to reproduce?
A quick googol, the 2 mm -- 12 mm are high end estimates. No idea on reproductive stats, but slaves were valuable merchandise, and a well-bred slave was an asset worth having. A dead slave was fertilizer.


Nothing. There's no objective way to compare the suffering and death of one person to the benefit of another.
To that I say horse****, as non-pc at it might be. For example, one of my family is worth all of yours from my viewpoint. Nice of you to feel less certain.


You are simply stating that today's decendants of slaves are better off than their cousins who've been in Africa the whole time, right? And not that slavery was a net benefit to the whole of effected Africans?

You got it.

Originally posted by subgenius
This is the most sickening thread I've read, even surpassing JK's defense of the DC snipers, the U of A mass murderer and abortion clinic bombers.
Why doesn't this butthead sell himself into slavery, so his descendents can have a beautiful life? Ooooh someone would have to procreate with him. And if someone has, someone help those kids.

Why don't we try to actually discuss this issue? I think it is as relevant to our society as psychics are.

hammegk, are you familiar with White Nationalists? Are you in agreement with their general premises?

[Skeptic]

Originally posted by Michael Redman
I'm thankful for Osama bin Laden, because the terrorist attacks helped put (keep) our economy in the tank, prompting lowered interest rates, which caused a whole slew of home mortgage refinancing, and I just got a job in the home mortgage industry due to the increased business!

Hell, why stop there? If it wasn't for the holocaust, my grandparents would never have met and I wouldn't have been born.

I guess I should be thankful it happened.

[specious_reasons]

Originally posted by LukeT
hamm, I think you are being too dodgy in this discussion. If you feel white men are superior to black men, then come out and say it. I think we would all appreciate straightforwardness more than this guessing game you are encouraging.


Speaking of guessing games, I thought that hammegk was a proponent of eugenics. Along with what else he's said on the thread, it implies he does think white people are better. I agree with LukeT - Come out with it, it's not like you care what we think.

[subgenius]

Originally posted by specious_reasons


Speaking of guessing games, I thought that hammegk was a proponent of eugenics. Along with what else he's said on the thread, it implies he does think white people are better. I agree with LukeT - Come out with it, it's not like you care what we think.
Or we care what bigots think.
I bet you're happy to share your views with all of your Black friends, neighbors and co-workers. And if you don't have any (I can't imagine that), with any random Black person you see in public.
You are man enough to do that, right?

[Michael Redman]

Originally posted by hammegk
A quick googol, the 2 mm -- 12 mm are high end estimates. No idea on reproductive stats, but slaves were valuable merchandise, and a well-bred slave was an asset worth having. A dead slave was fertilizer.A "well-bred" slave might be worth having, but that doesn't mean that a such a slave is worth raising and caring for, when you could ship new adults fresh from Africa to replace the dead, rather than waiting more than a decade to farm raise more. I've seen the 12 million number as those taken from Africa in a number of sources, but where do you get the idea that anywhere near 10 million of those survived for any meaningful amount of time? My quick search yielded a claims that 20% - 35% died in transit. That's more than you say died, period. Also, in the Carribean, where most of the slaves were shipped, the lifespan was said to be 7 years after arrival. If this is anywhere near the truth, then the vast majority of those taken from Africa as slaves in the New World were dead a few years later. Those that lived to be the ancestors of modern black New-Worlders were a "fortunate" few.

Further, your comparative analysis of slave v. free ignores the fact that millions of black New Worlders don't live in the US, but in such wonderful places as Haiti and Jamaica. Do you suppose Haitians thank god every day that they're not back in Africa?

(I'll be disapointed if you don't get in at least 4 of your trademark condescending ad hominems. Make them good, I could use a laugh.)

[Fade]

To that I say horse****, as non-pc at it might be. For example, one of my family is worth all of yours from my viewpoint. Nice of you to feel less certain.

Hammegk, I know you have this thing against reading and understanding what people say, but the poster you're quoting said -objective- way. Your opinion is as subjective as the next.

And, I think this thread proves to those who haven't already figured it out, that you are a mindless idiot.

[The Fool]

Originally posted by hammegk


You think wrong. The benefits of ancestral salvery far exceed any costs the current descendents suffer, imnsho.

I don't advocate additional slavery, but think a good 25 yr program of imperialism/colonialism is the best hope for most of the underdeveloped world.

Hammy, Hammy, Hammy.... what a silly little fellow you are. Maybe a little taste of Slavery or Colonial rule would wake you from your fantasy world. How long did it take you to construct this little world you live in? Maybe we could ship you and your family off to an African nation to provide slave labor so they can build a nation off the back of your suffering. Then in a few generations some dickhead would be able to say that your great great grandchildren are better off for it.

You piece of racist garbage, you don't deserve the freedom your society provides for you.

[a_unique_person]

Originally posted by Q-Source




Are you talking to me??

I don't discuss with someone who does not respect me.

Good bye

Q-S

I have hammegk on ignore, and this thread is like listening to south park with hammegk taking the part of Kenny in a conversation.

mffm mfff mmfff mffm mf mf mfmfmf mffm

[hammegk]

Originally posted by LukeT


hammegk, are you familiar with White Nationalists? Are you in agreement with their general premises?

Separate but equal makes no sense to me. The epithet *igger describes a behavior choice not skin color.

Originally posted by The Fool

You piece of racist garbage, you don't deserve the freedom your society provides for you.
It's called freedom of expression, a concept you obviously prefer didn't exist.

How is your local aborigine population doing? Is multiculturalism making your society better or worse? What is the composition of the slums in your metro areas?

[hammegk]

Originally posted by a_unique_person


I have hammegk on ignore, and this thread is like listening to south park with hammegk taking the part of Kenny in a conversation.

mffm mfff mmfff mffm mf mf mfmfmf mffm

Yeah, it seems most atheists/materialists think South Park is an exact description of reality, and use it to bolster their personal beliefs.

[hgc]

from the inimitable hamm:

The epithet *igger describes a behavior choice not skin color.
Typical of bigotry apologetics.

[hammegk]

Originally posted by hgc

Typical of bigotry apologetics.

Do I seem "apologetic" to you? If so you are a loon.


Originally posted by hgc

Hammegk, I know you have this thing against reading and understanding what people say, but the poster you're quoting said -objective- way. Your opinion is as subjective as the next.

And, I think this thread proves to those who haven't already figured it out, that you are a mindless idiot.

How does one separate the subjective from any objective evaluation? That is a problem most of you prefer to ignore.

If mindless idiocy is a prereq, most posters here fit right in, although you seem to be the type section par excellance.

[Mossy]

Correct me if I'm wrong hammegk:

You aren't saying that it would be morally okay to now take native tribes living somewhere in the tropical rainforest, and bring them to some industrialized part of the world to be slaves for a couple generations (in the hopes that their descendants would be better off).

You are saying that because the descendants of slaves have a better life than the slaves themselves did before they were taken, then it would be unfair to say that slavery had no benefits. Kind of a retrospective ends-justify-the-means approach.

If that is accurate:

It seems to have a couple problems with it. In Europe there are many africans (first or second generation Europeans) who are the descendants of those african people who weren't taken as slaves - and their lives are also much better now than the lives of those who were originally taken as slaves.

It seems to me that the effect is because of a passing of time and a general improvement worldwide- and not related to whether or not their ancestors were slaves. For example - our lives are also much better now than the lives of our ancestors from 400 years ago.

Why conclude that it was slavery that made their lives better? Also, as someone else pointed out - they could have come over here as free workers - wouldn'T that yield even better results?

-Ed

Originally posted by Michael Redman
A "well-bred" slave might be worth having, but that doesn't mean that a such a slave is worth raising and caring for, when you could ship new adults fresh from Africa to replace the dead, rather than waiting more than a decade to farm raise more. I've seen the 12 million number as those taken from Africa in a number of sources, but where do you get the idea that anywhere near 10 million of those survived for any meaningful amount of time? My quick search yielded a claims that 20% - 35% died in transit. That's more than you say died, period. Also, in the Carribean, where most of the slaves were shipped, the lifespan was said to be 7 years after arrival. If this is anywhere near the truth, then the vast majority of those taken from Africa as slaves in the New World were dead a few years later. Those that lived to be the ancestors of modern black New-Worlders were a "fortunate" few.

Further, your comparative analysis of slave v. free ignores the fact that millions of black New Worlders don't live in the US, but in such wonderful places as Haiti and Jamaica. Do you suppose Haitians thank god every day that they're not back in Africa?

(I'll be disapointed if you don't get in at least 4 of your trademark condescending ad hominems. Make them good, I could use a laugh.)

Michael, I don't have the information right at my fingertips at the moment, but I recall that by the end of the 18th century, slave numbers in America were pretty much self-sustaining. That is to say, there were enough slaves in America procreating to actually increase their number without bringing more in from overseas.

[hammegk]

Originally posted by specious_reasons


Speaking of guessing games, I thought that hammegk was a proponent of eugenics. ...

Not quite yet. What is your solution to the exploding populations in the wordwide ghettos? Ignore it, & it'll go away?

I suspect some virus or bacteria will crawl out of its' hiding place when we disturb it & do the eugenics job for you.

[Victor Danilchenko]

The whole discussion is based on implicit acceptance of hammy's presumption -- that the consequence of an act is the sole, or even primary, source of its ethical valuation.

Suppose someone tries to mug you, and accidentally shoots a murderer that was trying to kill you at that moment; he then proceeds to strip you of all your valuables. What does it mean? Sure, you will be happy that you aren't dead -- but the mugger is still the mugger, and the mugging is still the mugging. What matters here for the purposes of the ethical valuation of the act is the intent, not the accidental -- unintended -- consequence. This is why we aren't grateful to Hitler for Israel, and this is why the american blacks, while being happy about their good fortune, should in no way feel indebted for it to the institution of slavery.

The ethical position where the action's consequences are the sole source of its ethical valuation is called "consequentialism". It doesn't work, and others are most certainly under no obligation to accept hammy's consequentialist assumption here.

[richardm]

Originally posted by LukeT


Michael, I don't have the information right at my fingertips at the moment, but I recall that by the end of the 18th century, slave numbers in America were pretty much self-sustaining. That is to say, there were enough slaves in America procreating to actually increase their number without bringing more in from overseas.


.. Nevertheless, there was still a roaring trade in fresh slaves right up until (and perhaps still existing, but less roaring after?) the American Civil War.

Certainly, it was not uncommon for some slavers to distribute slave women to white crew members in order to attempt to get them pregnant, on the grounds that the resulting child would be mulatto; a half white child would be "more intelligent" and thus more valuable.

[Mossy]

"consequentialism" - I knew there had to be a better name than "end-justify-the-means-ism".

I agree with you, that end-justify-the-means-ism isn't a valid way of judging the value of some act. But even if I'm willing to assume that's true, I don't think that stands as a "benefit of slavery" since there are other causal factors. Not to mention the fact that those who didn't have that "causal factor" are also better off, and many who had the causal factor aren't better off.

Either way, I don't see how one can label it a benefit of slavery, even with consequentialism...

-Ed


Originally posted by Victor Danilchenko
The whole discussion is based on implicit acceptance of hammy's presumption -- that the consequence of an act is the sole, or even primary, source of its ethical valuation.

Suppose someone tries to mug you, and accidentally shoots a murderer that was trying to kill you at that moment; he then proceeds to strip you of all your valuables. What does it mean? Sure, you will be happy that you aren't dead -- but the mugger is still the mugger, and the mugging is still the mugging. What matters here for the purposes of the ethical valuation of the act is the intent, not the accidental -- unintended -- consequence. This is why we aren't grateful to Hitler for Israel, and this is why the american blacks, while being happy about their good fortune, should in no way feel indebted for it to the institution of slavery.

The ethical position where the action's consequences are the sole source of its ethical valuation is called "consequentialism". It doesn't work, and others are most certainly under no obligation to accept hammy's consequentialist assumption here.

[Michael Redman]

Originally posted by LukeT
Michael, I don't have the information right at my fingertips at the moment, but I recall that by the end of the 18th century, slave numbers in America were pretty much self-sustaining. That is to say, there were enough slaves in America procreating to actually increase their number without bringing more in from overseas. Possibly, but that was after the millions were churned through the sugar plantations, a style of slavery much different than that in the US. Most slaves did not go to the US, so the typical slave experience was not the American slave experience. My understanding is that self-supporting populations only really got going with the combination of big cotton, and the end of the slave trade.

However, even the most rosy picture of slavery looks pretty bad to me.

[Doubt]

Originally posted by Victor Danilchenko
The whole discussion is based on implicit acceptance of hammy's presumption -- that the consequence of an act is the sole, or even primary, source of its ethical valuation.



Victor,

This is the same thing that I was trying to hammy down on, but he won't even acknowledge the concept.

[BPSCG]

Originally posted by Michael Redman
I'm thankful for Osama bin Laden, because the terrorist attacks helped put (keep) our economy in the tank, prompting lowered interest rates, which caused a whole slew of home mortgage refinancing, and I just got a job in the home mortgage industry due to the increased business!
Let's hear it for Osama AND Hitler!!! :D

[BPSCG]

Originally posted by Michael Redman
A "well-bred" slave might be worth having, but that doesn't mean that a such a slave is worth raising and caring for, when you could ship new adults fresh from Africa to replace the dead, rather than waiting more than a decade to farm raise more.
Actually, importation of slaves into the US was prohibited after 1820. One of the compromises required to get unanimous acceptance for the US Constitution.

[BPSCG]

Originally posted by Michael Redman
A "well-bred" slave might be worth having, but that doesn't mean that a such a slave is worth raising and caring for, when you could ship new adults fresh from Africa to replace the dead, rather than waiting more than a decade to farm raise more.
Actually, importation of slaves into the US was prohibited after 1820. One of the compromises required to get unanimous acceptance for the US Constitution.

[Michael Redman]

Originally posted by BPSCG
Actually, importation of slaves into the US was prohibited after 1820. One of the compromises required to get unanimous acceptance for the US Constitution. That's true, but we're not talking specifically about the merits of slavery in the US after 1820, but about the entire cost of slavery to Africans. Most Africans taken into the slave trade did not end up in the US, and were taken well before 1820.

[specious_reasons]

Originally posted by hammegk

Not quite yet. What is your solution to the exploding populations in the wordwide ghettos? Ignore it, & it'll go away?

I suspect some virus or bacteria will crawl out of its' hiding place when we disturb it & do the eugenics job for you.

So, why would you even consider eugenics a possible "solution" to a problem that nobody's asking you about? Why are you on this board?

[hammegk]

Originally posted by specious_reasons


So, why would you even consider eugenics a possible "solution" to a problem that nobody's asking you about? Why are you on this board?

Why don't you go suck a di*k, since you obviously have nothing better to do.

Why are *you* on this board?

[hammegk]

Originally posted by Mossy
Correct me if I'm wrong hammegk:
How long do we have? Where would you like to start?

You aren't saying that it would be morally okay to now take native tribes living somewhere in the tropical rainforest, and bring them to some industrialized part of the world to be slaves for a couple generations (in the hopes that their descendants would be better off).
Interesting concept. Are you pursuing it? I'm not.

....a retrospective ends-justify-the-means approach.

If that is accurate:

It seems to have a couple problems with it. In Europe there are many africans (first or second generation Europeans) who are the descendants of those african people who weren't taken as slaves - and their lives are also much better now than the lives of those who were originally taken as slaves.
I'm discussing, specifically,slaves taken to the US. The Euro-dopes & their minor problems don't worry me in the least. Just let the US know when we need to send over our military & bail out their sorry asses one more time.

It seems to me that the effect is because of a passing of time and a general improvement worldwide- and not related to whether or not their ancestors were slaves. For example - our lives are also much better now than the lives of our ancestors from 400 years ago.
I wonder if the average African would agree with you that he is better off today than his ancestors were 400 yrs ago.

Why conclude that it was slavery that made their lives better? Also, as someone else pointed out - they could have come over here as free workers - wouldn'T that yield even better results?

-Ed
Too busy living in harmony with nature & each other probably to worry about extending their short, brutish, lives by going somewhere, and certainly not to "work". Why work when lunch is growing on the trees & it's too damn hot anyway. ;)

hamm, you seem to have a viewpoint that is at odds with a majority of people. But we can't tell exactly what that viewpoint is. Nevertheless, I have a feeling this could be a topic we can sink our teeth into. A change of pace from the rubbish that we are currently plagued with.

So why not speak directly? Why all this oblique behavior?

Man, two pages and we've gotten nowhere. Is this just another waste of time here?

Your thoughts have some interesting potential in both the political and philosophical realms. Let's go!

[hgc]

LukeT

So why not speak directly? Why all this oblique behavior?
I enjoy answering for hamm, and he hasn't corrected me yet (that I can tell), so here goes:

hamm

Too busy living in harmony with nature & each other probably to worry about extending their short, brutish, lives by going somewhere, and certainly not to "work". Why work when lunch is growing on the trees & it's too damn hot anyway.
hamm thinks that Africans are lazy good-for-nuttin bums that deserve whatever colonization or enslavement comes their way. He thinks that getting your dinner out in the bush doesn't constitute work, although he does describe life there as short and brutish (apparent contradiction).

This took so little time and space to spell out. I don't understand why he spends so much effort on deflecting direct questions. As I said before, he lacks the courage of his convictions.

[hammegk]

Originally posted by hgc

I enjoy answering for hamm, and he hasn't corrected me yet (that I can tell), so here goes:
My thanks.

hamm thinks that Africans are lazy good-for-nuttin bums that deserve whatever colonization or enslavement comes their way. He thinks that getting your dinner out in the bush doesn't constitute work, although he does describe life there as short and brutish (apparent contradiction).
Not exactly. As a group they have not done well joining modern life under self-rule. See Haiti as the prime example; S. Africa is quickly becoming another ugly mess. Work ethic? Feel free to provide stats that support your position; looking around at US problems I don't see a lot of it, unless crack-whore & crack-dealer/thug is high on your scale of work ethics.

Although tropics life is not as demanding food-wise as harsher climes, no, life ain't a perpetual picnic either.

...As I said before, he lacks the courage of his convictions.
I seem to be getting across to some people, who don't seem to like what I'm saying much. Who lacks conviction & courage? Do you predict I'll be the person who abandons this thread? (or board, until JREF/Randi/mods do make it nice-nice suitable for the kiddies)

[Michael Redman]

Originally posted by hammegk
Who lacks conviction & courage? Do you predict I'll be the person who abandons this thread? You are confusing courage with obstinance.

[hgc]

hamm

Work ethic? Feel free to provide stats that support your position;
I didn't state my position regarding work ethic. I stated your position as best as I could discern it from your oblique banter. I don't think I could find reliable statistics regarding work ethic.

hamm

Who lacks conviction & courage?
Try to be careful when quoting me. I didn't say you lack conviction & courage. I said you lack the courage of your convictions. This means that you strongly believe in something, but aren't willing to admit it in public. I believe this based on the way you're dancing around in this thread, not coming out with it. On the other hand you'll let me say it for you so that no one can actually pin it on you.

[hgc]

While I'm at it, I have another one for the reading comprehension file:

hamm:

The epithet *igger describes a behavior choice not skin color.
hgc:

Typical of bigotry apologetics.
hamm:

Do I seem "apologetic" to you? If so you are a loon.

hamm, your initial statement in this string of quotes is your way of justifying this bigoted behavior by changing the meaning of "n*gg*r" from the way that bigots use it and always have. That makes you an "apologist" for bigotry.

A little help with definitions:
apologetics (http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=apologetics) apologist (http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=apologist)

[hammegk]

Originally posted by Michael Redman
You are confusing courage with obstinance.

Care to describe how you would tell the difference from posts on a BBS?

Like porn? You'd know it when you saw it, maybe? LOL!


for hgc
bigot

n : a prejudiced person who is intolerant of any opinions differing from his own

I am often "intolerant of any opinions differing from my own". So what.

The charge of prejudice is yours to make stick, and I deny it. Bigoted opinions are not founded on facts imo. Document facts I've misstated and I'll retract them.

Also hgc:
On the other hand you'll let me say it for you so that no one can actually pin it on you.
And that makes you what??? An innocent bystander???

OK by me.....;)

[hgc]

I've stated my opinion elsewhere in this thread. Slavery Bad. There it is again. I stated your opinion too, because you would only hint at it.

I will drop out of the thread now. I think it's played out as far as it can. Unless hamm comes up with something new.

[hgc]

I'm back.. one more thing:

bigot (http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=bigot) - One who is strongly partial to one's own group, religion, race, or politics and is intolerant of those who differ.

And this is what I call people who use the use of "n*gg*r" as an racial epithet. Which is what I accuse you of being an apologist for, based on your redifinition of said epithet above.

[subgenius]

This is not a thread "we can sink our teeth into."
There aren't 2 sides to every issue. The Klan does not have a valid point, for instance, nor the Nazis.
Racist punks go home!
This scumbag still hasn't said he's got the guts to discuss this face to face with any black person.
You can't give this crap any slack.

[hammegk]

Originally posted by subgenius
This is not a thread "we can sink our teeth into."
There aren't 2 sides to every issue. The Klan does not have a valid point, for instance, nor the Nazis.
Racist punks go home!
This scumbag still hasn't said he's got the guts to discuss this face to face with any black person.
You can't give this crap any slack.

hgc, see above for a bigot.

On the defn "One who is strongly partial to one's own group, religion, race, or politics and is intolerant of those who differ", where will you pin the label on me, and why? Do you even know my "group, religion, race, or politics"?

Do you believe everything posted on JREF gives you the complete picture of the poster?

[hgc]

I tried to drop out.

hgc, see above for a bigot.
hamm, I did not call you a bigot. I called you an apologist for bigotry, and I stated my reason for that twice above. You can also see further up the thread that I defended you against the charge of racist. Maybe "defended" is not the right word. I said that I don't think you're necessarily a racist.

Do you believe everything posted on JREF gives you the complete picture of the poster?
No. But I think that even though you won't state your opinion about certain things clearly, a lot can be gleaned about your opinions based on what you do say. Many examples of what I think I know about your opinions above.

I assume this constitutes only a fraction of the complete picture.

[hgc]

hamm: Mossy began this thread as a spinoff of another to get to the bottom of a statement you made about slavery having turned out to be a good thing for the descendents of slaves.

I, for one, have my answer.

I also don't think this thread is going to produce anything else of value. We've gotten to the "I said this, you said that" stage, and it's just not interesting.

hamm, your statements so far are right in alignment with White Nationalism.

[Michael Redman]

Originally posted by hammegk
Care to describe how you would tell the difference from posts on a BBS?Now you're acting stupid. (and I know that you are not.) You responded to what you believed was a challenge to your courage and conviction by asking, "Do you predict I'll be the person who abandons this thread?" I then said that this was not courage, but obstinance. Do you really need for me to explain how I can tell the difference?

Fine. Hanging around an BBS and arguing longer than your opponents takes no courage whatsoever. It does, however, take obstinance. Threatening to stick around longer than your opponents does not demonstrate the conviction of your beliefs, but your intractability.

On the other hand, my responding to you at this point probably demonstrates my foolishness.

[hammegk]

Originally posted by Michael Redman
....Threatening to stick around longer than your opponents does not demonstrate the conviction of your beliefs, but your intractability.

On the other hand, my responding to you at this point probably demonstrates my foolishness.

Might intractability be based on a conviction? or a belief? or both? ;)

BTW, So far as I can see you've haven't demonstrated any foolishness (yet)! :)

Originally posted by LukeT
....
hamm, your statements so far are right in alignment with White Nationalism.

I state again that racial characteristics are not my personal evaluation criteria for an individual. Behavior however is.


hgc thanks for your comments... :)

[a_unique_person]

Originally posted by hammegk


Might intractability be based on a conviction? or a belief? or both? ;)

BTW, So far as I can see you've haven't demonstrated any foolishness (yet)! :)



I state again that racial characteristics are not my personal evaluation criteria for an individual. Behavior however is.


hgc thanks for your comments... :)

So what are we to make of your behaviour in this thread?

Originally posted by hammegk


I state again that racial characteristics are not my personal evaluation criteria for an individual. Behavior however is.


You haven't been speaking about individuals. You have been speaking about large groups of people, specifically blacks. For example:

As a group they have not done well joining modern life under self-rule. See Haiti as the prime example; S. Africa is quickly becoming another ugly mess. Work ethic? Feel free to provide stats that support your position; looking around at US problems I don't see a lot of it, unless crack-whore & crack-dealer/thug is high on your scale of work ethics.

That is textbook White Nationalist.

[Major Billy]

Originally posted by hammegk
Colin Powell must thank God every morning for his ancestral good fortune.

I'm sure he is thankful that his ancestors, (like mine) were fortunate enough to have immigrated to the United States as free people not slaves.

[Skeptic]

I state again that racial characteristics are not my personal evaluation criteria for an individual. Behavior however is.

Right.

Which is why you reply in a such an objective, behavior-centered way such as "Why don't you go and suck dick, since you obviously have nothing better to do".

Your position is, essentially, is "I hate n*gg*rs and fags--but its, um, due to their BEHAVIOR, so I'm not a bigot."

[Skeptic]

According to someone in this thread, blacks should be grateful for slavery since it brought them to the US.

Well, the potato famine brought over many Irish. Should irish-americans celebrate it?

For that matter, WWII and the holocaust brought over many jewish refugees. Should they celebrate the holocaust?

What about the famine and war in China, which brought many Chinese to the west coast? Should they celebrate it?

Hell, why stop there? The puritans came over due to religious prosecution in England. Should there be a "thank the prosecution" day in the caledar for white americans from the British Isles?

Or should ONLY blacks be thankful for the disasters in their history due to their unintended positive effects hundreds of years later?

[specious_reasons]

Originally posted by Skeptic
hammegk said, "I state again that racial characteristics are not my personal evaluation criteria for an individual. Behavior however is."

Right.

Which is why you reply in a such an objective, behavior-centered way such as "[offensive comment removed, so we don't have to see it again]".


To be fair about his comment, I was being a jerk, and he was responding in kind. I was engaging in troll-baiting, and duly apologize to the forum.

[Brooklyn Dodger]

Why is it that when slavery is discussed all eyes are on African Americans? Is that the only group that was ever slaves? I seem to recall slavery was practiced worldwide for thousands of years before the first slave was brought to North America. Does anyone know if there was a group not subjected to slavery? I know that slavery is still practiced in parts of the world today, but only where Islam flourishes.

[hammegk]

Originally posted by Brooklyn Dodger
Why is it that when slavery is discussed all eyes are on African Americans? Is that the only group that was ever slaves? I seem to recall slavery was practiced worldwide for thousands of years before the first slave was brought to North America. Does anyone know if there was a group not subjected to slavery? I know that slavery is still practiced in parts of the world today, but only where Islam flourishes.

Easy answer; because only the USA has enough left-wing whiny nuts of every color who think individuals have no responsibility for their actions, and sufficient tax-payers that "reparations" sounds like a swell idea.

Being able to actually discourse freely is another added benefit to life here.

Originally posted by Skeptic
Or should ONLY blacks be thankful for the disasters in their history due to their unintended positive effects hundreds of years later?
Considering what the ones who stayed have accomplished with what they had to work with, yes. Know many US blacks who'd like to go back permanently? Do you think Africans don't want to immigrate to the US? Wake up.

[a_unique_person]

Originally posted by Brooklyn Dodger
Why is it that when slavery is discussed all eyes are on African Americans? Is that the only group that was ever slaves? I seem to recall slavery was practiced worldwide for thousands of years before the first slave was brought to North America. Does anyone know if there was a group not subjected to slavery? I know that slavery is still practiced in parts of the world today, but only where Islam flourishes.

it was hammegk who wanted to defend american slavery of africans. his pick.

if you want to talk about slavery in general, i don't think anyone here would want to defend it. hammegk is using special pleading.

[Brooklyn Dodger]

Originally posted by a_unique_person


it was hammegk who wanted to defend american slavery of africans. his pick.

if you want to talk about slavery in general, i don't think anyone here would want to defend it. hammegk is using special pleading.

Slavery was a fact of life, now gone. It was the way things were throughout the world, not just here.

It still exists. If you want a defense of it, why not ask a Muslim, since they are apparently the last ones who still practice it.

[CWL]

Hammegk,

If we just for one moment lose the collective perspective and look at this from the point of view of the individual, what positive effects of slavery do you feel that any individual subjected to slavery should consider?

Should an individual subjected to slavery rejoice about the fact that his descendants may have a better life in the country to which the individual has been brought, as compared to a life in the individual's country of origin?

[The Fool]

I'm uneasy about giving racists a platform to speak from. Maybe this thread is best left to sink........

[hammegk]

Originally posted by The Fool
I'm uneasy about giving racists a platform to speak from. Maybe this thread is best left to sink........
Er, wouldn't ttt have been easier to type, Fool? :rolleyes:

[The Fool]

Originally posted by hammegk

Er, wouldn't ttt have been easier to type, Fool? :rolleyes:

wtf does ttt mean bwana?

Originally posted by The Fool
I'm uneasy about giving racists a platform to speak from. Maybe this thread is best left to sink........

Maybe I already said this, maybe I didn't, but this is a forum to discuss ideas, and to examine beliefs with a skeptical eye. And not just psychics and magic crystals.

Racial beliefs are just as much a part of our world as psychics. Even more so. I believe these matters are the LAST topic we should avoid.

[CWL]

I would have to agree with Luke. Better to expose "the dumbness of racists" I say.

Let me just outline what I have learned about White Nationalism from my time on another discussion forum here on the internet that is specifically for WNs. Over there, they label people like me as an "anti."

That's it. Just "anti." :D

Anyway.

White Nationalists seem to believe that Whites are a superior race. Superior in intellect and achievement. Nailing them down on who counts as "White" is not an easy task. Everyone seems to have their own opinion.

Interestingly, they seem to like Palistinians, though I don't think they consider them "White." But Palistinians don't like Jews. So it is a kind of "enemy of my enemy" thing.

WNs believe that, left to their own devices, other races self-destruct. Other races never seem to get off the ground and accomplish anything of merit. All great accomplishments and inventions were done by Whites, or through significant White influence.

WNs also believe that it is inevitable that the races will one day separate into their own little nation-states. Thus the name, White Nation, and White Nationalists.

Here in the U.S., they imagine Blacks will break away and form their own little country. But they don't seem to want the Blacks to have a piece of the American landscape.

Nailing a WN down on exactly where, and exactly how, the Blacks will settle their own country, is difficult.

Most of the more intelligent of the WNs will tell you they don't believe in genocide. They believe in "live and let live." Or, more accurately, since they believe other races will self-destruct once they are out of the White-influenced orbit, they believe in "live and let die."

Once all the other races die out, the world will become one big happy White Nation, living in peace and harmony.

Of course, there are those who call themselves White Nationalists who don't have the intelligence of my labrador retriever. I believe the more intelligent WNs see them as a nuisance, and poor representatives of the "real" White Nationalist cause.

A person who reflexively hates all things racist might fail to see the important nuances and subleties involved here. But if you look at White Nationalism like you would this forum right here, you have your good and your bad. Your smart and your not-so-smart. In other words, it is just like any other societal model you care to name.

It is possible to have an intelligent discussion about these matters with White Nationalists.

Don't get me wrong about the more intelligent WNs. They live in fear of the government, and are very guarded about their true innner feelings. They believe if they stated their darkest thoughts, they would be immediately arrested.

There is a definite whiff of bonfires and gas ovens in the air when you speak with a WN. While they claim not to believe in genocide, I have a feeling that if they really had things their way, things would turn really ugly, really quick.

Some WNs seem like they can hardly wait for racial war.

[hammegk]

Originally posted by CWL
Hammegk,

If we just for one moment lose the collective perspective and look at this from the point of view of the individual, what positive effects of slavery do you feel that any individual subjected to slavery should consider?

For an individual, during his lifetime, none. The question is imo at societal/cultural level, and how does that society interact with the world. Are first-world values inherently "better" than those of a pygmy in Central Africa, or a lost tribe in the Amazon basin? Not necessarily; the question is what world do you wish to inhabit.

What would be a significant indicator of ability to "switch" from either worldview to the other? From first-world to stone-age culture, a combo of physical and mental, from stone age to first more likely 1) mental and of lesser importance 2) physical is my thought.

Looking at the cesspool slums around the planet, the move to modernity assuming multiculturalism as the basis is not working, the haves/have-nots gap ever widening.



Should an individual subjected to slavery rejoice about the fact that his descendants may have a better life in the country to which the individual has been brought, as compared to a life in the individual's country of origin?

Nope, and if he does not reproduce, from his view a worst possible outcome.

In the USA, we are now examining survivors here vs survivors remaining in Africa. Culturally & societally, which system is providing better benefits across the human spectrum?

As an aside, Fool complains about non-pc discussions. Would he care to comment on the assimilation of Australia's aboriginal population?

At final level, all we are seeing is the effects of more technically advanced cultures interacting with less-so-advanced groups. Is the racial component the key to apparent disparities? I have no idea.

[The Fool]

Originally posted by hammegk




As an aside, Fool complains about non-pc discussions. Would he care to comment on the assimilation of Australia's aboriginal population?

At final level, all we are seeing is the effects of more technically advanced cultures interacting with less-so-advanced groups. Is the racial component the key to apparent disparities? I have no idea.

The problems of Black australians are due to the racist attitudes of white australians. Your attitude that the conditions that white colonialism leaves behind is the fault of the indiginous population Is what I complain about not "non-pc discussions" I suppose we could discuss many "non-pc" topics and invite someone from each area of interest to make us all feel slightly Ill. Well bwana, you have your platform....go ahead. Tell us more of your white mans magic.

[hammegk]

Originally posted by The Fool


The problems of Black australians are due to the racist attitudes of white australians.
Ok, I don't know much about Australia & its assimilation of cultures. Do ya'all have a lot of po'white'trash ghettos?

How many generations do you think might be a reasonable amount of time for a stone-age culture to assimilate to a first-world lfestyle & culture?

If the white man had never arrived where would the Abos be
culturewise?

Your attitude that the conditions that white colonialism leaves behind is the fault of the indiginous population Is what I complain about not "non-pc discussions" ....

Seems to me the question is which culture should survive, and why? Shall we all go back to stone age?

As an aside, how are your buddies the Maori doing? They appeared to be a non-white culture closing on technology by their own efforts.

[The Fool]

Originally posted by hammegk

Ok, I don't know much about Australia & its assimilation of cultures. Do ya'all have a lot of po'white'trash ghettos?

How many generations do you think might be a reasonable amount of time for a stone-age culture to assimilate to a first-world lfestyle & culture?

If the white man had never arrived where would the Abos be
culturewise?


Seems to me the question is which culture should survive, and why? Shall we all go back to stone age?

As an aside, how are your buddies the Maori doing? They appeared to be a non-white culture closing on technology by their own efforts.

Not that it probably worries racists but the term "Abos" in australia is rougly as offensive to Black Australians as your term "N*gg*rs". I would encourage you to come here and use that term near some black australians.
You are a coward and a piece of human garbage, welcome to my Ignore list. I would ask other posters to this forum if they should also consider If they should continue to entertain racist scum such as you.

[CWL]

Originally posted by hammegk
Seems to me the question is which culture should survive, and why?

Lovely. I seem to recall a gentleman from Austria who asked the very same question...

[hammegk]

Originally posted by The Fool


Not that it probably worries racists but the term "Abos" in australia is rougly as offensive to Black Australians as your term "N*gg*rs". I would encourage you to come here and use that term near some black australians.
You are a coward and a piece of human garbage, welcome to my Ignore list. I would ask other posters to this forum if they should also consider If they should continue to entertain racist scum such as you.

Fool, you forgot to answer any of the questions. A truthful examination of facts you don't care for *is* painful isn't it? Well, since you have me on ignore I guess we'll never find out.

Racists are people who think some races are in trouble because some other race is keeping them down, and refuse to allow personal responsibility as a basis for ones own behavior and life.

CWL
You really think that your comment applies to me? What a bunch of knee-jerk liberals we seem to have uncovered here.

I've never been on their board but you might be happier thowing crap at posters on stormfront.

[Brooklyn Dodger]

Simply amazing. The ad hominem attack has become the trademark of the left. The specialty is the accusation of "racism". Has a ring to it, doesn't it? And it eliminates the need for rational discussion, as if it, in itself IS rational discussion! We must never forget that leftism is about what you FEEL, not what you THINK. As long as your motives are pure, who cares what the results are? Conservatives have lived with such invective for decades, and have developed rational responses to questions and invective. The left has not, and when confronted by issues, now must resort to ad hominem attack.

I might have hoped to hear some discussion of, for instance, non-black slavery in Europe predating black slavery in the Americas. Or the Back to Africa Movement. Or whether those who actually made it to Liberia feel themselves blessed to be in Africa, or would they feel better off in the United States. For bringing up these subjects, however, I must be racist.

[CWL]

Originally posted by hammegk
CWL
You really think that your comment applies to me?

I am merely implying that your choice of words is... shall we say... interesting.

What exactly do you mean when you say it is a matter of "which culture should survive"? "Should" in which sense? From which perspective?

[Victor Danilchenko]

Brooklyn Dodger

We must never forget that leftism is about what you FEEL, not what you THINK.This is something I never understood. Whence comes the stereotype that "thinking" is the province of the right? As far as I can tell, the left has more brains (you know, the vaunted academic left and all that), and more thought behind it, then the right -- and yet I see these stereotypes perpetrated all the time, even by big fat idiots (tm) like Limbaugh. What gives? Since when has left been not about rational thought?

[Brooklyn Dodger]

Originally posted by Victor Danilchenko
Brooklyn Dodger

This is something I never understood. Whence comes the stereotype that "thinking" is the province of the right? As far as I can tell, the left has more brains (you know, the vaunted academic left and all that), and more thought behind it, then the right -- and yet I see these stereotypes perpetrated all the time, even by big fat idiots (tm) like Limbaugh. What gives? Since when has left been not about rational thought?

Vaunted academic left? Where? Are you saying there are lots of leftist professors on college campuses, like termites? I agree. That is no guarantee of intelligence, unfortunately. As the expression goes, those who can, do. Those who can't, teach.

As far as Limbaugh being a big fat idiot, I'll have to ask you to demonstrate your statement with proof. I believe he is about 6'3" and 220 pounds. That seems at variance with the term fat. At one time, and he would agree, he was fat. The past few years, however, he's been proportionate. As far as being an idiot, well, that is a word that has a meaning as well, and I must ask you to prove it.

Let's see some of your vaunted rational thought, or was that just an ad hominem attack?

[Victor Danilchenko]

Brooklyn Dodger

Vaunted academic left? Where? Are you saying there are lots of leftist professors on college campuses, like termites? I agree. That is no guarantee of intelligence, unfortunately. As the expression goes, those who can, do. Those who can't, teach.have you tried to get a PhD? Do you know what the competition is like? Do you know what sorts of people end up in grad school, and what sort of people graduate?

Academics may have many faults, but lack of intelligence and thinking aren't among them.

Let's see some of your vaunted rational thought, or was that just an ad hominem attack?Ah, we are demanding proof now? Fine. You made the original claim -- that left FEELS and right THINKS -- you prove it. You know, support your original contention.

Have fun, "thinking right". Seeing how your first salvo plowed into the ground on launch, I don't expect much.

As to my rational thought (nevermind that you shifted the topic right there) -- it's all over the place. Read the R&P forum. Whatever else about me you may doubt, my rational facilities aren't in question.

[Brooklyn Dodger]

Originally posted by Victor Danilchenko
Brooklyn Dodger

have you tried to get a PhD? Do you know what the competition is like? Do you know what sorts of people end up in grad school, and what sort of people graduate?

Academics may have many faults, but lack of intelligence and thinking aren't among them.

Ah, we are demanding proof now? Fine. You made the original claim -- that left FEELS and right THINKS -- you prove it. You know, support your original contention.

Have fun, "thinking right". Seeing how your first salvo plowed into the ground on launch, I don't expect much.

As to my rational thought (nevermind that you shifted the topic right there) -- it's all over the place. Read the R&P forum. Whatever else about me you may doubt, my rational facilities aren't in question.

While the academics were pursuing their difficult PhDs, I was taking the easy way out. After I graduated with a BA I received a military commission, learned such subjects as radar, aviation, flew transports and fighters, learned air navigation, employment of munitions, weapons and tactics, counter air, suppression of enemy air defenses, and other not very difficult or competitive subjects. Guess I should have stuck around with the intelligent folk.

[hammegk]

Originally posted by Victor Danilchenko
Whatever else about me you may doubt, my rational facilities aren't in question.

Your problem is the premises you accept, not the logic you employ. :eek:

[a_unique_person]

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by hammegk

Ok, I don't know much about Australia & its assimilation of cultures. Do ya'all have a lot of po'white'trash ghettos?

How many generations do you think might be a reasonable amount of time for a stone-age culture to assimilate to a first-world lfestyle & culture?

If the white man had never arrived where would the Abos be
culturewise?


Seems to me the question is which culture should survive, and why? Shall we all go back to stone age?

As an aside, how are your buddies the Maori doing? They appeared to be a non-white culture closing on technology by their own efforts.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



Not that it probably worries racists but the term "Abos" in australia is rougly as offensive to Black Australians as your term "N*gg*rs". I would encourage you to come here and use that term near some black australians.
You are a coward and a piece of human garbage, welcome to my Ignore list. I would ask other posters to this forum if they should also consider If they should continue to entertain racist scum such as you.



the maoris beat the british to the point that the british called it a draw, and drew up a treaty granting them land rights etc, way back in the 19th century, and they didn't even have guns.

the aboriginies were a very scattered population in a very large, and mostly desert, country. while i am not saying they lived a lifestyle i would have wanted, they had the distinction of having a culture that went back literally tens of thousands of years. if longevity of a culture is a sign of success, they have been the most successful on the planet.

a culture is not something you create overnight, but over hundreds of years. all the cultures in the world reflect this fact. if you destroy a culture, which is what happened to a large extent with the aboriginies, you destroy the people.

the remnants of the culture and people are slowly being built up again, but it is a long, slow process.

other factors are also difficult to deal with. alcohol, for example.

don't tell me the white race has this issue, and other drug issues under control yet, or that it doesn't take a long time for an accomodation with alcohol to be developed, especially when a race that never had alcohol before has been presented with very cheap and potent alcohol in a very short period of time.

many of the more remote tribes have banned alcohol and other drugs, although that doesn't stop white people trying to make a dollar out of selling it outside the tribal areas.

[CWL]

Seriously Hammegk,

1) Don't be so sure that I am a "knee-jerk liberal". You know nothing or very little about my political views; and

2) don't dodge the question.

What exactly do you mean when you say it is a matter of "which culture should survive"? "Should" in which sense? From which perspective?

[Victor Danilchenko]

Brooklyn Dodger

I noticed how conveniently you failed to answer my request that you support your original lunatic contention -- your claim that the left FEELS and the right THINKS. Somehow, I fail to be surprised.

While the academics were pursuing their difficult PhDs, I was taking the easy way out. After I graduated with a BA I received a military commission, learned such subjects as radar, aviation, flew transports and fighters, learned air navigation, employment of munitions, weapons and tactics, counter air, suppression of enemy air defenses, and other not very difficult or competitive subjects. Guess I should have stuck around with the intelligent folk.Ah, that touched a nerve... :D

I guarantee you that average intelligence of a military officer is lower than an average intelligence of a PhD. I trust you realize that as well, even if you consider such simple criteria as the competitiveness of getting into each respective field.

All the subjects you learned are fine applied fields, I am sure, but you have no idea what is involved in learning advanced academic subjects. In my grad school, for example, the required computational complexity theory class is on average taken twice by each student -- and these are the students with intelligence far, far above average; and it's not because the class requires lots of work, but because it requires a very sophisticated and abstract thinking. Some people take it three or four times, and this is not the only class that's this difficult. You simply have no idea what a truly intellectually demanding subject is.

Yeah, I daresay that PhD gratuates are pretty *********** smart, and know how to think quite well. Your contention -- that the left (and academics are predominantly left) doesn't think -- is nothing but a kneejerk defensive reaction, a silly myth propagated by the right; unless of course you can actually support your original contrary claim...

[Brooklyn Dodger]

Originally posted by Victor Danilchenko
Brooklyn Dodger

I noticed how conveniently you failed to answer my request that you support your original lunatic contention -- your claim that the left FEELS and the right THINKS. Somehow, I fail to be surprised.

Ah, that touched a nerve... :D

I guarantee you that average intelligence of a military officer is lower than an average intelligence of a PhD. I trust you realize that as well, even if you consider such simple criteria as the competitiveness of getting into each respective field.

All the subjects you learned are fine applied fields, I am sure, but you have no idea what is involved in learning advanced academic subjects. In my grad school, for example, the required computational complexity theory class is on average taken twice by each student -- and these are the students with intelligence far, far above average; and it's not because the class requires lots of work, but because it requires a very sophisticated and abstract thinking. Some people take it three or four times, and this is not the only class that's this difficult. You simply have no idea what a truly intellectually demanding subject is.

Yeah, I daresay that PhD gratuates are pretty *********** smart, and know how to think quite well. Your contention -- that the left (and academics are predominantly left) doesn't think -- is nothing but a kneejerk defensive reaction, a silly myth propagated by the right; unless of course you can actually support your original contrary claim...

I THOUGHT that it was self evident, but perhaps not. The war on poverty is an example. It cost this country trillions of dollars, and was foisted upon us by leftists of "noble spirit" who only had the highest intent. It was a disaster. But we cannot judge these perpetrators of this disaster on their actual results. No, only a conservative stoop to that. No, we must consider their intent, which was so wonderful. They were trying to end poverty, don't you see. That they were told by conservatives that there was no chance in hell that they could end it that way is beside the point. It is their intent that is given points. And so it is for every one of their myriad of failed programs to this very day. All they need to do is show their pure FEELINGS and they have a pass on the result, even when we see the inevitable result. Generations of welfare cases? Well, that's unfortunate, but we so wanted to help them. Sorry if the result was the opposite to what we intended!

JFK was hornswaggled into signing a bill into law (his final one, it turned out) to de-institutionalize the insane, who were supposedly warehoused in anylums. Fair enough. But failing to see the outcome of this scenario, his people, probably PhDs, by the way, soon saw those insane heading out onto the streets on the cities of America, where they joined what we used to call bums. They now became the group we called the homeless, a new Democrat constituency, and a new cause. The head of the Community for Creative Non-Violence in Washington, DC, Mitch Snyder, who later committed suicide, made a living off the homeless, and by making wild statements such as that there were 3 million homeless. The real number was about ten percent of that, but the left and its friends in the media were delighted to parrot Snyders wild assed numbers. Liberal pols and celebrities would line up for photo ops with the homeless, rather than do anything about the problem, which leftist politicos actually created in the first place.

As to your contentions concerning the relative intelligence of university PhDs versus military officers, I believe I will go with the military officers. I have spoken with some conservative university professors as well, and they are not particularly impressed with the brain quality on campuses. It seems some of the SDS of the 1960s and 1970s decided to stay on campus, and quite a number of these people have earned tenure and PhDs. When they are not thinking pure thoughts, they are intimidating students who might otherwise be non-PC.

[Victor Danilchenko]

Brooklyn Dodger

I THOUGHT that it was self evident, but perhaps not.if it was self-evident, people wouldn't be laughing at fools who make pronouncements like yours.

The war on poverty is an example. It cost this country trillions of dollars, and was foisted upon us by leftists of "noble spirit" who only had the highest intent. It was a disaster. But we cannot judge these perpetrators of this disaster on their actual results. No, only a conservative stoop to that. No, we must consider their intent, which was so wonderful. They were trying to end poverty, don't you see. That they were told by conservatives that there was no chance in hell that they could end it that way is beside the point. It is their intent that is given points.A little thinking here, please.

Conservatives by definition resist change -- if you don't try, you won't fail (but you will also not succeed). Your point is like a fan watching a soccer match and badmouthing the goalie.

Yes, liberal agenda often fails -- and it often succeeds; simply because liberal agenda actually includes making changes. Do you realize that most changes that make our society decent, are due to liberals? 40-hour work week, social security, universal suffrage, de-segregation, welfare (yes, it's a good thing to not have children starve for their parents' fault) -- there are many more.

Secondly, conservatives have plenty of failed programs as well. Not nearly as many as liberals, certainly -- simply because they don't try to effect as many changes; but this also means that conservatives have less successes. Consider the prohibition and the War on Drugs, both major failures; or how about McCarthyism and Vietnam? We are talking about major stuff here, dude.

You display exactly the level of intelligence I would expect from someone who proclaims that "liberals FEEL, conservatives THINK"; which is to say, you mistake intellectual sloth for thought. Sure, if all you do is watch soccer, you will never miss a goal, but that kinda misses the point, no?..

[hammegk]

Originally posted by CWL


What exactly do you mean when you say it is a matter of "which culture should survive"? "Should" in which sense? From which perspective?

The cultures themselves seem to "make the choice", and history books are usually written by the survivors.

Technology, Economics & Religions appear to have the most significant inputs.

[Brooklyn Dodger]

Originally posted by Victor Danilchenko
Brooklyn Dodger

if it was self-evident, people wouldn't be laughing at fools who make pronouncements like yours.

A little thinking here, please.

Conservatives by definition resist change -- if you don't try, you won't fail (but you will also not succeed). Your point is like a fan watching a soccer match and badmouthing the goalie.

Yes, liberal agenda often fails -- and it often succeeds; simply because liberal agenda actually includes making changes. Do you realize that most changes that make our society decent, are due to liberals? 40-hour work week, social security, universal suffrage, de-segregation, welfare (yes, it's a good thing to not have children starve for their parents' fault) -- there are many more.

Secondly, conservatives have plenty of failed programs as well. Not nearly as many as liberals, certainly -- simply because they don't try to effect as many changes; but this also means that conservatives have less successes. Consider the prohibition and the War on Drugs, both major failures; or how about McCarthyism and Vietnam? We are talking about major stuff here, dude.

You display exactly the level of intelligence I would expect from someone who proclaims that "liberals FEEL, conservatives THINK"; which is to say, you mistake intellectual sloth for thought. Sure, if all you do is watch soccer, you will never miss a goal, but that kinda misses the point, no?..

I see it was a mistake for me to avoid ad hominem attacks. It was not reciprocated.

Not only that, you admit to watch soccer! And you claim some level of intelligence? Prohibition and the war on drugs were not cnservative programs, they were socialist efforts toward control of the individual. Vietnam was most harshly prosecuted by the JFK-LBJ wiz kids that McNamara brought in from the universities, not unlike yourself. You think conservatives could have invented a war like that? The 1964 civil rights act was passed only because LBJ had the support of Republicans, after his own southern Democrats, like Gore's father, had deserted him.

But I can understand your attachment to the failed god of liberalism. It's not unusual that failures retain adherents long after they are exposed as the frauds they are. Charles Manson, after all, still has his fans. You are very much like one of them.

[Mossy]

Originally posted by Brooklyn Dodger

Prohibition and the war on drugs were not cnservative programs, they were socialist efforts toward control of the individual.


Uh, what? Are you redefining conservative so as to exclude conservatives?

Can you explain how you came to the understanding that prohibition and the war on drugs were committed by liberals?

Is any attempt to control the individual an act of socialism, thus excluding "real" conservatives from the blame?
-Ed

[CWL]

Originally posted by hammegk
The cultures themselves seem to "make the choice", and history books are usually written by the survivors.

Technology, Economics & Religions appear to have the most significant inputs.

So are you saying that for example the Native American cultures "choose" to be overrun by Europan culture?

How was this "choice" made in practice?

:confused:

[Brooklyn Dodger]

Originally posted by Mossy



Uh, what? Are you redefining conservative so as to exclude conservatives?

Can you explain how you came to the understanding that prohibition and the war on drugs were committed by liberals?

Is any attempt to control the individual an act of socialism, thus excluding "real" conservatives from the blame?
-Ed

Woodrow Wilson was a conservative? He was a hardcore leftist. I don't know how you define conservative, but the definition in the post I saw above, which was apparently supplied by an academic, was woefully deficient. It had sothething to do with resisting change. It seems to me conservatives are the ones who wish to see radical change ... back to the Constitution.

[Mossy]

Originally posted by Brooklyn Dodger


Woodrow Wilson was a conservative? He was a hardcore leftist. I don't know how you define conservative, but the definition in the post I saw above, which was apparently supplied by an academic, was woefully deficient. It had sothething to do with resisting change. It seems to me conservatives are the ones who wish to see radical change ... back to the Constitution.

It is true that Prohibition was intended to improve society, the same for the war on drugs (keep people out of jail, stop people from doing something harmful, etc...).

And in that way, you could get away with calling it "socialist", but that is the only way. The religious right have all kinds of agendas that they believe will improve society - it has absolutely nothing to do with "going back to the constitution" (reminds me of a good quote, I'll try to find it), it has to do with an attempt to enforce personal morality (no un-approved sex sounds familiar, no gambling, no drinking, etc...).

The biggest supporters of prohibition were the religious right (I forget the name, some like "the women's christian temperance movement" and many others) - but you seem to be trying to say that they were the leftists?

I don't understand that.... :confused:

-Ed

[Brooklyn Dodger]

Originally posted by Mossy


It is true that Prohibition was intended to improve society, the same for the war on drugs (keep people out of jail, stop people from doing something harmful, etc...).

And in that way, you could get away with calling it "socialist", but that is the only way. The religious right have all kinds of agendas that they believe will improve society - it has absolutely nothing to do with "going back to the constitution" (reminds me of a good quote, I'll try to find it), it has to do with an attempt to enforce personal morality (no un-approved sex sounds familiar, no gambling, no drinking, etc...).

The biggest supporters of prohibition were the religious right (I forget the name, some like "the women's christian temperance movement" and many others) - but you seem to be trying to say that they were the leftists?

I don't understand that.... :confused:

-Ed

You ask a very good question. Conservatives are frequently misidentified these days. Imust agree with you that the "religious right" and Womens Christian Temperence Union seem out of place on the left, and yet, if one examines their PHILOSOPHIES, they really do not seem in tune with the general bent of conservatism. That is, that the government ought to be restricted, and that the rights of individuals increased.

I would also like to rearrange the general perception of where many of us place each other on the political spectrum. Left and right seems adequate for certain simple purposes, but when you get into more complex ideologies, this appears inadequate. For instance, where do we place the Nazis? The liberals, who are on the left, would have us place Nazis on the left. My own scale, however, would measure an ideology based on it's stance regarding the relative strength of government versus the rights of the individual, with strength of government moving the ideology farther left. Libertarians would be somewhere to the right of center, farther right than, say, conservatives. Nazis would be well to the left, along with communists, and farther left than, say, liberals and democratic socialists. Not surprising, since Nazi is a contraction of National Socialist Party, and was a true socialist group, but not actually socialist despite the election.

The WCTU would therefore be somewhat to the left of center, since it would enlist the force of government for a moral or religious cause. This is un-conservative. Since this was essentially their only cause, this is the only thing we can measure them on. The religious right has several issues to measure them on, and since I am not one who bothers to follow them much, I leave it to you to determine how to measure their general philosophy as compared with others on this scale.

This philosophical scale is mine and mine alone. My only claim is that it makes more sense than the so-called scale most assume is in use today. In that one, people claim that left and right seem to meet in the extremes. They usually refer to coomunists and Nazis. In mine they meet too, because they are philosophically very similar, in that they both emphasize government over the individual.

[Victor Danilchenko]

Brooklyn Dodger

I see it was a mistake for me to avoid ad hominem attacks. It was not reciprocated.You, avoid ad hominem attacks?!. The entire topic -- your claim that liberals tend to FEEL rather than THNINK -- is one big f**king ad-hominem. A little thinking here, please!

Not only that, you admit to watch soccer!No, I don't. I don't have any interest in any team sports. I simply used it as an example -- because, as a european expatriate, it is the team sport i am most familiar with.

And you claim some level of intelligence? Prohibition and the war on drugs were not cnservative programs, they were socialist efforts toward control of the individual.No, they were conservative efforts to enforce public morality at the gunpoint of law; just as the sodomy laws are, just as the gay discrimination is now -- all conservative causes.

if you are pro-freedom in general, then you are not a conservative, because conservatives tend to be for economic freedom, but quite oppressive in their social agenda.

But I can understand your attachment to the failed god of liberalism. It's not unusual that failures retain adherents long after they are exposed as the frauds they are. Charles Manson, after all, still has his fans. You are very much like one of them.And of course you failed to address the actual points in my post -- about the reason why liberals have more failures and more successes simply due to being more interested in change. How utterly unsurprising.

if one examines their PHILOSOPHIES, they really do not seem in tune with the general bent of conservatism. That is, that the government ought to be restricted, and that the rights of individuals increased.That's not conservatism, dude, that's libertarianism. Conservatives are quite happy to restrict others' social freedoms all over the place -- always were. Your point is based on simply defining conservatives to be pro-freedom. Just like my friend Angus (http://www.infidels.org/news/atheism/logic.html#scots).

As i said, you exhibit exactly the level of intelligence i would expect from someone making the idiotic proclamations of the sort you made about liberals FEELING and conservatives THINKING.

[Brooklyn Dodger]

Oh great! Now we have conservatism, as defined by liberals! That's rich!!!

[Mossy]

Originally posted by Brooklyn Dodger
Oh great! Now we have conservatism, as defined by liberals! That's rich!!!

I gotta say, it even sounds to me like you are pulling a "no true scotsman". (and I definitely wouldn't call myself a liberal)

These are issues that conservatives (as they call themselves) support - and you are effectively saying, "Well, they aren't true conservatives".


-Ed

[Brooklyn Dodger]

Originally posted by Mossy


I gotta say, it even sounds to me like you are pulling a "no true scotsman". (and I definitely wouldn't call myself a liberal)

These are issues that conservatives (as they call themselves) support - and you are effectively saying, "Well, they aren't true conservatives".


-Ed

What are issues that conservatives support? Prohibition? Are you joking? What iissues are you talking about?

[Victor Danilchenko]

Brooklyn Dodger

Oh great! Now we have conservatism, as defined by liberals! That's rich!!!Why are you poisoning the well (http://www.infidels.org/news/atheism/logic.html#hominem)? Can't you deal with the fact that conservatives only defend some freedoms (the ones they like) and oppose others (the ones they dislike)? Are you that intellectually dishonest?

It looks to me like you simply can't support your original moronic assertion, that liberals FEEL and conservatives THINK; nor even your second moronic assertion, that conservatism is generally about the defense of liberty (conservatives are quite happy to restrict liberty in the areas they dislike) and limiting the government (conservatives are quite happy to enlarge the government, as long as the growth is in the areas lthey like -- such as the military). You surprise me less and less with each post, though.

Just face up to the fact that you were wrong, and that you ********** up. Show some of that integrity that conservatives tout to be their hallmark!

What are issues that conservatives support? Prohibition? Are you joking? What iissues are you talking about?how about war on drugs? The opposition to that comes mainly from the left, you know. How about the opposition of equal rights for gays?

[Mossy]

Originally posted by Brooklyn Dodger


What are issues that conservatives support? Prohibition? Are you joking? What iissues are you talking about?

For starters, yes:
Prohibitionist Party (http://www.prohibition.org/values.html)

Their list of value seems, to me, to be fairly in line with the standard conservative values. Even according to your definition of conservative (a return to the constitution).

Other issues that are typically conservative (some repeats from the previous link, but I think that strengthens my point):

Right to life
Against homosexual rights
Prayer in pubilc schools
The war on drugs - The phrase was coined by nixon, and the strongest supporters of it have been republicans (conservative)

All of the above are issues that are supported by conservatives. And are social issues. (in that the supporters believe it would be a benefit to society)

Even you, when you say the conservatives only want a return to the constitution, it is implied that this is better for society - a social issue.

-Ed

[Brooklyn Dodger]

Many conservatives oppose the war on drugs, just like libertarians. It is wasteful and criminalizes people for harming only themselves. It makes millionaires of people who would be paupers if not for the "war". Just like prohibition. William F. Buckley has been one of many conservatives who has been for decriminalizing marijuana and other recreational drugs. Opposition to ending the war on drugs comes from politicians of all kinds, left and right, and from law enforcement leaders, most of whom are liberals, appointed by the liberal mayors of big cities. They use it as a means of keeping their budgets high.

I am unaware of any conservatives who are opposed to EQUAL rights for homosexuals or anyone else. As individuals. However, conservatives would be opposed to SPECIAL rights for them, such as single sex marriage.

[Mossy]

Here again, it sounds like a "no true scotsman". You asked for examples of issues that conservatives support - you were given those examples.

Just so we're on the same sheet of music, is the Republican Party conservative? (I'm not asking if every member meets your definition of conservatism, just whether or not you would agree that it is conservative. )

If not - then you are doing the same thing you accused Victor of doing, of telling "them" what to call themselves because it doesn't fit your definition.

If yes - then you have to accept that the war on drugs, anti-abortion, religious in schools, etc... are issues supported by conservatives.

-Ed

[Brooklyn Dodger]

Originally posted by Mossy


For starters, yes:
Prohibitionist Party (http://www.prohibition.org/values.html)

Their list of value seems, to me, to be fairly in line with the standard conservative values. Even according to your definition of conservative (a return to the constitution).

Other issues that are typically conservative (some repeats from the previous link, but I think that strengthens my point):

Right to life
Against homosexual rights
Prayer in pubilc schools
The war on drugs - The phrase was coined by nixon, and the strongest supporters of it have been republicans (conservative)

All of the above are issues that are supported by conservatives. And are social issues. (in that the supporters believe it would be a benefit to society)

Even you, when you say the conservatives only want a return to the constitution, it is implied that this is better for society - a social issue.

-Ed

Right to life cuts across ideological lines. I am not a right to life advocate. In fact, I advocate mandatory abortion for liberals.

I am against prayer in public schools, so does that make me a liberal? I don't understand your selection of issues.

The war on drugs is something I addressed in my last post. Mrs. Reagan had the best approach of all: Just Say No!

Concerning President Richard Nixon, are you suggesting that the author of wage and price controls and the Environmental Protection Agency and at least two cabinet departments was a CONSERVATIVE? The man Barry Goldwater asked to resign? I will grant you only that he was a Republican. Are you also going to suggest that President Eisenhower was a conservative because HE was a Republican?

[Mossy]

Originally posted by Brooklyn Dodger


Right to life cuts across ideological lines. I am not a right to life advocate. In fact, I advocate mandatory abortion for liberals.

I am against prayer in public schools, so does that make me a liberal? I don't understand your selection of issues.

The war on drugs is something I addressed in my last post. Mrs. Reagan had the best approach of all: Just Say No!

Concerning President Richard Nixon, are you suggesting that the author of wage and price controls and the Environmental Protection Agency and at least two cabinet departments was a CONSERVATIVE? The man Barry Goldwater asked to resign? I will grant you only that he was a Republican. Are you also going to suggest that President Eisenhower was a conservative because HE was a Republican?

Alright then, since providing examples of conservative issues, as supported by the people that call themselves conservatives, doesn't answer your question, then:

Please tell me, what are the conservative issues? Are there none? Is the only conservative issue that we return to the constitution?

So what do we now call all of the parties that support issues outside of that claim? Are they all liberal?

-Ed

[Victor Danilchenko]

Brooklyn Dodger

I am unaware of any conservatives who are opposed to EQUAL rights for homosexuals or anyone else. As individuals. However, conservatives would be opposed to SPECIAL rights for them, such as single sex marriage.As i thought.

Straights already have special rights not afforded to gays -- the right to marry a person they love. Gays are denied this right. "marriage" is defined by the government in a manner that discriminates against gays. So yes, when demanding a right to marry, gays are demanding to be granted equal rights with straights.
You are quite typical of conservatives, AFAICT. You prove with every word why the statement that liberals FEEl and conservatives THINK, is flat-out false.

What was the topic again? Oh, yeah, hammegk and slavery.

Just checking.

[Mossy]

Originally posted by LukeT
What was the topic again? Oh, yeah, hammegk and slavery.

Just checking.

My thread. :p

Actually, I'm glad that topic died, it was a mistake to start it.

-Ed

[Regnad Kcin]

Originally posted by Brooklyn Dodger
I am not a right to life advocate. In fact, I advocate mandatory abortion for liberals.:rolleyes:

[Brooklyn Dodger]

Originally posted by Mossy


Alright then, since providing examples of conservative issues, as supported by the people that call themselves conservatives, doesn't answer your question, then:

Please tell me, what are the conservative issues? Are there none? Is the only conservative issue that we return to the constitution?

So what do we now call all of the parties that support issues outside of that claim? Are they all liberal?

-Ed

The main issues for conservatives are national security, the economy, and the ability to live one's life as one wishes in accordance with one's likes and the Constitution. Each of these requires as little interference from government as possible, with the exception of national security, since that cannot be provided by the people themselves.

National security requires the defense not only of our borders (in my opinion not adequately accomplished today) but our allies, friends, and interests worldwide. I do not believe we need NATO to accomplish this goal, but that's just my personal opinion. I feel we can reduce our number of carrier battle groups by at least two (non-nuclear-powered carriers should be taken out of active service). We should not have gone to Somalia or any of the European conflicts the previous administration got us into.

The economy requires minimal federal interference for maximum performance, which means the lowest practical tax rates. Less tax means the government has less power to interfere in the lives of the citizenry. Congress has voted itself the power to intercede on behalf of business, to the detriment of other business. Therefore, businesses must construct vast and expensive lobbying organizations and spread millions upon millions of dollars to protect themselves from the damage that can be done if Congress favors a competitor over them in legislation. These powers do not exist in the Constitution. They will not cease to exist under the new Campaign Finance law. So long as Congress insists on retaining these powers, money will rule Washington, and this is what conservatives should be aiming to eliminate. Not some small symptom.

In living life according to my likes and the Constitution, I am referring to the general drift of lost rights since I was young. To see the difference, you must really have been around in say, the 1950s and 1960s and come quickly to today. See what children are taught today in our PC schools. Then, there was no doubt as to what Christmas was, or the Second Amendment, and opening a business was far easier. We have far more regulations eminating from government, not because there are more dangers, but because there is more government. Conservatives would wish to eliminate the reach of government except for that which was necessary, and the level of government regulating (assuming that something actually must be regulated) something would be the lowest level necessary. For the most part, however. regulation under conservatives would be eliminated where possible.

[Mossy]

Originally posted by Brooklyn Dodger


The main issues for conservatives are national security, the economy, and the ability to live one's life as one wishes in accordance with one's likes and the Constitution. Each of these requires as little interference from government as possible, with the exception of national security, since that cannot be provided by the people themselves.

But that is the problem: when you asked me for examples, you excused them because you know conservatives who don't support them.

With that same test of validity, your examples fail, because I know conservatives who don't agree with what you've posted.

With that standard, there are no "true" conservative or liberal issues.

That is the problem with the way you've decided what "counts" as conservatism.

-Ed

EDITED TO ADD:

When I mentioned "right to life", you said:

Right to life cuts across ideological lines.


Could not the same be said for all of your examples? There are certainly liberals that feel those things are important - even if they disagree with your specific solutions to some of the problems.

[Brooklyn Dodger]

Originally posted by Mossy

But that is the problem: when you asked me for examples, you excused them because you know conservatives who don't support them.

With that same test of validity, your examples fail, because I know conservatives who don't agree with what you've posted.

With that standard, there are no "true" conservative or liberal issues.

That is the problem with the way you've decided what "counts" as conservatism.

-Ed

EDITED TO ADD:

When I mentioned "right to life", you said:


Could not the same be said for all of your examples? There are certainly liberals that feel those things are important - even if they disagree with your specific solutions to some of the problems.

May I ask who your source of conservative philosophy is? I was a reader of National Review since the 1960s, and that was their main thrust. I wrote several articles for them over time, though I admit they were on defense issues, not conservative philosphy.

William Buckley would, I am sure, agree. Rush Limbaugh says virtually the same thing. Many conservatives will ALSO be against abortion and against drug decriminalization, but that doesn't mean that it differentiates liberal from conservative. As I pointed out, Buckley, among others, is for decriminalization of marijuana.

[Mossy]

Originally posted by Brooklyn Dodger


May I ask who your source of conservative philosophy is?

My source of conservative philosophy? I gave you examples of what conservatives (that's what they call themselves) consider their issues. You replied:

Many conservatives oppose the war on drugs, just like libertarians.

and

I am unaware of any conservatives who are opposed to EQUAL rights for homosexuals or anyone else.

When you gave your list, I used the exact same criteria. I know of people, conservatives by their own admission, who don't agree with some of your examples.

Why does it only work when you do it?

William Buckley would, I am sure, agree. Rush Limbaugh says virtually the same thing. Many conservatives will ALSO be against abortion and against drug decriminalization, but that doesn't mean that it differentiates liberal from conservative. As I pointed out, Buckley, among others, is for decriminalization of marijuana.

Your list:

national security
the economy
and the ability to live one's life as one wishes in accordance with one's likes and the Constitution

First off, liberals and conservatives alike support the iterms on your list, so by your standard: they "cut across ideological lines" and can't rightly be considered "conservative".

So then, we get into your analysis of the solutions, since the problems themselves are too general to be called conservative. I know conservatives who don't agree with the solutions/critiques you've provided.

Again, what I am suggesting is that to simply use your definition of what is and what is not a "conservative issue" and to exclude the rest, amounts to the same thing you accused Victor of doing.

Further, when you ask for an example of a conservative issue, I give you one, and you follow it up with (paraphrasing), "Those aren't the issues of true conservatives" - you are committing the "no true scotsman" maneuver.

My question, I guess, is why your selection criteria only work when you do it - but not when I do it?

-Ed

[Brooklyn Dodger]

I gave you the core issues, the central source documentation (National Review), and two main spokesmen (William Buckley and Rush Limbaugh). Though conservatives may disagree on some fringe issues, agree on other issues not in the core, those which comprise the core are those which actually define conservatism.

Again, I would like to know where your own definition of conservatism comes from. If it is anecdotal, then fine, but I would give that less credence than sources such as, say, NR.

[Mossy]

Originally posted by Brooklyn Dodger
I gave you the core issues, the central source documentation (National Review), and two main spokesmen (William Buckley and Rush Limbaugh). Though conservatives may disagree on some fringe issues, agree on other issues not in the core, those which comprise the core are those which actually define conservatism.

Again, I would like to know where your own definition of conservatism comes from. If it is anecdotal, then fine, but I would give that less credence than sources such as, say, NR.


But that is my point - my definition is irrelevant. If I define it, and they disagree - they can accuse me of the same thing you've accused Victor. Which, as I said, is the same thing that you have effectively done to those who call themselves conservatives, yet disagree with your examples.

What are the issues that conservatives (as they call themselves) typically support? Yes, you've outline some core issues given by what you have already decided are conservative spokespeople. And I've already explained why, using your criteria, those core examples can't be considered "conservative" (because other people who call themselves conservative, don't agree with them).

Maybe I'm not making myself clear (it is a problem of mine, admittedly). I will think about this some and see if I can find some way of clarifying.

-Ed

[Victor Danilchenko]

Mossy

Maybe I'm not making myself clear (it is a problem of mine, admittedly). I will think about this some and see if I can find some way of clarifying.You are quite clear. The real problem here is that BD has shoved both feet into his mouth, and now he is trying every fallacy in the book trying to not appear an idiot, instead of simply admitting that he ********** up, and moving on.

[Mossy]

Originally posted by Victor Danilchenko
Mossy

You are quite clear. The real problem here is that BD has shoved both feet into his mouth, and now he is trying every fallacy in the book trying to not appear an idiot, instead of simply admitting that he ********** up, and moving on.

What?! I was clear about something?

That almost never happens to me!

(although, I just finished reading through 700 pages of posts by Stimpson, maybe he is rubbing off on me? :cool: )

-Ed

[Brooklyn Dodger]

Originally posted by Victor Danilchenko
Mossy

You are quite clear. The real problem here is that BD has shoved both feet into his mouth, and now he is trying every fallacy in the book trying to not appear an idiot, instead of simply admitting that he ********** up, and moving on.

Pity you are unable to post without an ad hominem attack on me. Do you do that in your "scholarly" or other writings? Or do you have any? Any time you want to consult what I've written you may. I have several hundred articles in print. None contain ad hominem attacks.

[Victor Danilchenko]

Brooklyn Dodger

Pity you are unable to post without an ad hominem attack on me.Pity you started the discussion with one hu-***********-mopngous attack on liberals.

Pity you can't actually support your point, nor address the opposition relevantly.

pity you are so invested in your faith that you cannot admit to having been wrong in your original proclamation.

[Brooklyn Dodger]

Originally posted by Victor Danilchenko
Brooklyn Dodger

Pity you started the discussion with one hu-***********-mopngous attack on liberals.

Pity you can't actually support your point, nor address the opposition relevantly.

pity you are so invested in your faith that you cannot admit to having been wrong in your original proclamation.

That's what I thought. Incapable of a post without ad hominem atack, nor obscenity, nor by directly addressing my points. Typical of the left. Oh, and apparently, never been published either.

[Victor Danilchenko]

Brooklyn Dodger

That's what I thought. Incapable of a post without ad hominem atack, nor obscenity, nor by directly addressing my points.Very funny. Do you really think that just by accusing the opposition of doing what you are doing, your own idiocy will be overlooked? You have still failed to offer any support whatsoever for your moronic assertion that the liberals FEEL while conservatives THINK.

Oh, and apparently, never been published either.I have a couple of conference publications here and there -- not hundreds, certainly. Then again, we are talking about academic standards here...

but this isn't relevant to the fact that you initiated the ad-hominem attacks, and you failed to support your assertions, and you tried to pull of a "no true scotsman" in th eprocess of evading like a bow-legged weasel, is it?..

Conservatives have plenty of failures, liberals have plenty of successes, and conservatives support the liberties they like, not liberty in general. Swallow those facts, "thinking conservative".

[Brooklyn Dodger]

Originally posted by Victor Danilchenko
Brooklyn Dodger

Very funny. Do you really think that just by accusing the opposition of doing what you are doing, your own idiocy will be overlooked? You have still failed to offer any support whatsoever for your moronic assertion that the liberals FEEL while conservatives THINK.

I have a couple of conference publications here and there -- not hundreds, certainly. Then again, we are talking about academic standards here...

but this isn't relevant to the fact that you initiated the ad-hominem attacks, and you failed to support your assertions, and you tried to pull of a "no true scotsman" in th eprocess of evading like a bow-legged weasel, is it?..

Conservatives have plenty of failures, liberals have plenty of successes, and conservatives support the liberties they like, not liberty in general. Swallow those facts, "thinking conservative".

Academic standards, eh? Oh yeah. I get PAID for my writing, bub.

And I did support my assertions. You didn't. As far as swallowing anything, I take it you are a swallower, not a spitter.

[Victor Danilchenko]

Brooklyn Dodger

And I did support my assertions. You didn't.Nope. I explained why liberals would have more failures and more successes -- the explanation which you completely ignored; I also showed you the conservative failures, which you feebly attempted to wave away by copious application of "no true scotsman" fallacy. You also utterly ignored my point that most of the recent social advances making our life livable -- universal suffrage, civil rights, etc. -- are due to liberals and not to conservatives.

PUH-LEEZE. "I did support my assertions" seems to be your code for 'I can't support my stupid claim, but i won't back off anyway". And so you are still on record as asserting that liberals FEEL while conservatives THINK (and that all liberals should be subject to mandatory abortions...)

As far as swallowing anything, I take it you are a swallower, not a spitter.Oh, a homophobic insult! Gee, I never heard one of those before! :rolleyes:

And you, you, you icky breeder -- you stick your wee-wee into women's pee-pees! YUCK! Your mommy will be SOOO MAD!

[BillyTK]

i wasn't intending to contribute to the current side-topic, although it's interesting reading, but then i discovered that george orwell's 1984 and animal farm, and aldous huxley's brave new world are favourite conservative classics (http://www.heritage.org/about/community/insider/reading_list.html) :eek: i realise now i've no bloody idea what conservativism means!

[hammegk]

Originally posted by CWL


So are you saying that for example the Native American cultures "choose" to be overrun by Europan culture?

How was this "choice" made in practice?

:confused:

Why are you confused? Higher tech & greed made the decision.


BillyTK

And why are you confused? Animal Farm describes the real world result of every pc'lib we-are-all-equal ******** pie-in-the-sky idea ever conceived.

[BillyTK]

Originally posted by hammegk

BillyTK

And why are you confused? Animal Farm describes the real world result of every pc'lib we-are-all-equal ******** pie-in-the-sky idea ever conceived.

well, that's as subjective an interpretation as the idea that it's a conservative classic, what with old george being a socialist and all, and what with his concern about the version of communism being practised in russia...

[a_unique_person]

Originally posted by BillyTK


well, that's as subjective an interpretation as the idea that it's a conservative classic, what with old george being a socialist and all, and what with his concern about the version of communism being practised in russia...

george was fighting with the anarchists, IIRC. he hated what stalin did in spain, as he found it politically expedient to sacrifice the spanish communists for other interests.

[CWL]

Originally posted by hammegk
Why are you confused? Higher tech & greed made the decision.

Does this mean that your use of the word "should" in "Seems to me the question is which culture should survive" was purely accidental?

As to the native american cultures, WHO made the choices? "Higher tech & greed" is not a personified entity capable of making decisions as far as I know.

[BillyTK]

Originally posted by a_unique_person


george was fighting with the anarchists, IIRC. he hated what stalin did in spain, as he found it politically expedient to sacrifice the spanish communists for other interests.

wow... thanks for the info unique! certainly puts that "conservative classic" in context!

[Victor Danilchenko]

BillyTK

i wasn't intending to contribute to the current side-topic, although it's interesting reading, but then i discovered that george orwell's 1984 and animal farm, and aldous huxley's brave new world are favourite conservative classics (http://www.heritage.org/about/community/insider/reading_list.html) :eek: i realise now i've no bloody idea what conservativism means!Eh? Why are you confused/ Those books should be on everyone's reading list, unless one is an outright authoritarian (which some conservatives -- and some liberals -- indeed are).

[hammegk]

Originally posted by CWL


Does this mean that your use of the word "should" in "Seems to me the question is which culture should survive" was purely accidental?

As to the native american cultures, WHO made the choices? "Higher tech & greed" is not a personified entity capable of making decisions as far as I know.

Er, accidental? I think not. Both (or all) cultures had opportunity to proact/react to the new challenges.

For the Amerinds intereacting with euroAms, high-tech + greed, by history, appears to have been the deciding factors.

That darned old "human nature" that pc'libs think no longer exists.

[BillyTK]

Originally posted by Victor Danilchenko
BillyTK

Eh? Why are you confused/ Those books should be on everyone's reading list, unless one is an outright authoritarian (which some conservatives -- and some liberals -- indeed are).

...or totalitarian even?

anyway, agreed. my stated confusion was for effect to illustrate my bemusement that any of those books could be considered "conservative classics", particularly considering the political orientation of both writers. and especially at the following statement about 1984 from the website i linked to:
A frightening look at a future under socialism, describing the horrors of central planning and government control, contempt for the individual and freedom, and the abuse and distortion of language for political means
(my emphasis)

there's always an element of fluidity in textual interpretation, but that's derridan in the extreme!!!

[WMT1]

Originally posted by Victor Danilchenko
Yes, liberal agenda often fails -- and it often succeeds;

Well, maybe according to liberals' definition of success. But not everyone who must participate in or contribute to these programs shares that view, and this applies to some of the examples you cite. I can think of all kinds of goals I could achieve more successfully if I could make others provide my funding without having to worry about little details like their consent.


Do you realize that most changes that make our society decent, are due to liberals?

I'm not so sure about most. There are certainly contributions in areas that concern people having the freedom to run their own lives, but when it comes to letting them have control over their own property and earnings? Well, not so much.


social security,

Are you assuming social security is a good thing?


welfare

And I guess mandatory charity is one of the things that "make our society decent" too, right?


(yes, it's a good thing to not have children starve for their parents' fault)

Are you of the opinion that only liberals think "it's a good thing to not have children starve for their parents' fault"? Besides, there are all kinds of things that may be "a good thing". Shouldn't the actual determination of whether a particular goal is enough of "a good thing" to contribute to be left to whoever is being asked to contribute to it?


-- there are many more.

Then why couldn't you come up with any better examples for your short list?


Secondly, conservatives have plenty of failed programs as well. Not nearly as many as liberals, certainly -- simply because they don't try to effect as many changes; but this also means that conservatives have less successes. Consider the prohibition and the War on Drugs, both major failures;

Did I miss a meeting? Where are all these courageous liberals speaking out against the war on drugs?


You display exactly the level of intelligence I would expect from someone who proclaims that "liberals FEEL, conservatives THINK"; which is to say, you mistake intellectual sloth for thought.

Kind of like someone who cites social security and welfare as examples of what makes our society "decent", as if that's just a given?

[WMT1]

Originally posted by Brooklyn Dodger
Many conservatives oppose the war on drugs, just like libertarians.

It's probably a safe bet that most libertarians oppose the war on drugs. Can you say the same about conservatives?


William F. Buckley has been one of many conservatives who has been for decriminalizing marijuana and other recreational drugs.

Where are the "many"? So far, I think Buckley is the only one you've actually mentioned.


I am unaware of any conservatives who are opposed to EQUAL rights for homosexuals or anyone else. As individuals. However, conservatives would be opposed to SPECIAL rights for them, such as single sex marriage.

If "single sex marriage" is a "special right" doesn't that mean heterosexual marriage is as well? If not, what's the difference?

[Victor Danilchenko]

WMT1

I'm not so sure about most. There are certainly contributions in areas that concern people having the freedom to run their own lives, but when it comes to letting them have control over their own property and earnings? Well, not so much.People already had control over their property and earnings -- and that control was already limited in a variety of ways, too. Most major recent changes in our society have been major changes in social, not economic, structure. Since we were specifically speaking about the changes (and their successes or failures), the changes effected by the liberals are much more relevant than the general views they hold.

Are you assuming social security is a good thing?Yes. it may suffer from bad implementation; but having malfunctoning social security is way better than having no social security IMO.

And I guess mandatory charity is one of the things that "make our society decent" too, right?Sure beats the hell out of some kid starving because their parents are unable to provide due to being dead/disabled/dumb/whatever.

Are you of the opinion that only liberals think "it's a good thing to not have children starve for their parents' fault"?No, I am of the opinion that liberals' actions upon this belief is a good example of the success of liberal ideology.

Besides, there are all kinds of things that may be "a good thing". Shouldn't the actual determination of whether a particular goal is enough of "a good thing" to contribute to be left to whoever is being asked to contribute to it?Not necessarily. Some structures only work properly on social rather than individual level. For example, it's best left to society to determine whether an act of killing you comitted is a murder og a legitimate case of self-defense -- an individual surely cannot be trusted to make such a determination on their own.

The way I see it, is that we as a society decide that certain things -- right to life, for example -- are of paramount importance. We also grant the government the right to taxation, and to use of the tax money for the appropriate goals; it's a part of the implicit social contract, which contract you can always sever by emigrating. Ensuring that individuals unable to provide for themselves do not have to die for that reason, is one of such valid goals to spend tax money on.

Then why couldn't you come up with any better examples for your short list?i think that the examples I came up with are pretty good. My point was to simply expose the stupid lie that liberal ideology is a failure in general, and the complementary stupid lie that liberals FEEL while conservatives THINK.

[CWL]

Originally posted by hammegk
Er, accidental? I think not. Both (or all) cultures had opportunity to proact/react to the new challenges.

For the Amerinds intereacting with euroAms, high-tech + greed, by history, appears to have been the deciding factors.

That darned old "human nature" that pc'libs think no longer exists.

OK. Some questions for you hammegk:

1) Are the individuals "making the choices" or the "cultures as such"? Anyone else involved in "making the choices"?

2) Do you feel that the "stronger culture should survive"?

3) If your answer to 2) above is "no", please ignore the following question. If the answer to 2) above is "yes"; what distinguishes your view from that of the colonialists ("White Man's Burden" etc.) or, indeed, from the views on which a certain German political movement was based?

[WMT1]

Originally posted by Victor Danilchenko
People already had control over their property and earnings -- and that control was already limited in a variety of ways, too. Most major recent changes in our society have been major changes in social, not economic, structure. Since we were specifically speaking about the changes (and their successes or failures), the changes effected by the liberals are much more relevant than the general views they hold.

And if you wanted to make the case that most of those changes are what make our society "decent", you've still got some work to do.


Are you assuming social security is a good thing?

Yes. it may suffer from bad implementation; but having malfunctoning social security is way better than having no social security IMO.

They why can't you, and those who share the opinion you just expressed, pool your own resources to support it, without dragging the rest of us along with you?


And I guess mandatory charity is one of the things that "make our society decent" too, right?

Sure beats the hell out of some kid starving because their parents are unable to provide due to being dead/disabled/dumb/whatever.

You say that as if you think we're stuck with one or the other.

Besides, if there's a lot of that kind of thing going around, then doesn't the indecency rest with people who bring kids into the world without adequate preparation? The inability to place responsibility where it really belongs kind of suggests feeling more than thinking, doesn't it?


Are you of the opinion that only liberals think "it's a good thing to not have children starve for their parents' fault"?

No, I am of the opinion that liberals' actions upon this belief is a good example of the success of liberal ideology.

Wouldn't it be a truer reflection of "success" if liberals were able to solve such problems with their own generosity, rather than using political power to force everyone of means to contribute to policies and programs they may not agree with? Or, at the very least, if you're going to insist on some minimum standard of charity, wouldn't it be more successful (not to mention "decent") if people were allowed to at least channel all such required contributions to the charitable institutions of their choice, rather than requiring that they support government's version?


Besides, there are all kinds of things that may be "a good thing". Shouldn't the actual determination of whether a particular goal is enough of "a good thing" to contribute to be left to whoever is being asked to contribute to it?

Not necessarily. Some structures only work properly on social rather than individual level. For example, it's best left to society to determine whether an act of killing you comitted is a murder og a legitimate case of self-defense -- an individual surely cannot be trusted to make such a determination on their own.

Apples and oranges. My question was specifically about an individual deciding how (or whether) to contribute from his own property/earnings to a particular goal, and all you're talking about is determining the facts in a possible criminal case. But since you are trying to present these two situations as analogous - are you suggesting, with regard to charitable contributions, that "an individual surely cannot be trusted to make such a determination on their own"? And if so, can you explain why anyone else's judgment should take precedence?


The way I see it, is that we as a society decide that certain things -- right to life, for example -- are of paramount importance. We also grant the government the right to taxation, and to use of the tax money for the appropriate goals;

Who is this "we" you're talking about? When you say "society", don't you really just mean the majority? In fact, this has a familiar ring to it. Isn't this the sort of rhetoric that skeptic was recently using to defend some of his views? When you get right down to it, isn't the use of such expressions as "we as a society" just a way to help you feel better about arguments or opinions that reflect blind support for majority rule?


it's a part of the implicit social contract, which contract you can always sever by emigrating.

Why should I have to "sever" something I never agreed to in the first place? Do you understand how contracts work?

Here's a tip. Relying on such nonsensical terms as "implicit social contract" to bolster your arguments doesn't exactly reflect a lot of thinking, and is another one of those things that even suggests a certain tendency to feel your way to your conclusions. Similarly, the emigration thing just comes across as a liberal version of "love it or leave it".


Ensuring that individuals unable to provide for themselves do not have to die for that reason, is one of such valid goals to spend tax money on.

Sorry, but that's an opinion, not an absolute. Nothing is stopping you, and anyone else who agrees with you, from supporting such causes with your own resources. But your comment reflects a feeling that seems to be common among liberals - that if their goals are "valid" enough, they have some rightful claim on the resources of everyone to fund those goals.


Then why couldn't you come up with any better examples for your short list?

i think that the examples I came up with are pretty good. My point was to simply expose the stupid lie that liberal ideology is a failure in general, and the complementary stupid lie that liberals FEEL while conservatives THINK.

Then you should probably work on coming up with some stuff that reflects a bit more thinking, and rely less on expressions like "we as a society" and "implicit social contract".

[Victor Danilchenko]

WMT1

I couldn't help noticing that you completely ignored the other two of my examples of the success of liberal ideology -- universal suffrage, and de-segregation. Doesn't this suggest a certain lack of thinking on your part -- or at least the high selectivity of your thinking? :rolleyes:

And if you wanted to make the case that most of those changes are what make our society "decent", you've still got some work to do.i made no such claim. I didn't say that most liberal changes make our society decent, I said that most changes that make our society decent are liberal changes. You have inverted the implication there -- a basic logic error, dude.

They why can't you, and those who share the opinion you just expressed, pool your own resources to support it, without dragging the rest of us along with you?because the tough individualists' (like yourself) opinions tend change when they end up in the *******.

As far as I am concerned, i would be happy to let people opt out of SS; but 20 or 30 years down the line, they would be a voters' outcry to support the helpless old folks who have no income...

Besides, if there's a lot of that kind of thing going around, then doesn't the indecency rest with people who bring kids into the world without adequate preparation?Indeed. However, it's not the kids' fault.

The inability to place responsibility where it really belongs kind of suggests feeling more than thinking, doesn't it?it would, if I displayed such inability. As it is, I did say that it's the parents' fault much of the time (the "dumb" clause for example) -- but we cannot make the parents support their children adequately. Therefore, this society has decided that spending a portion of tax income on ensuring the livelihood of certain children is a worthwhile way to spend tax money.

No, this approach doesn't suggest feeling instead of thinking -- it suggests feeling and thinking.

Wouldn't it be a truer reflection of "success" if liberals were able to solve such problems with their own generosity, rather than using political power to force everyone of means to contribute to policies and programs they may not agree with?As I said, I do not claim that SS and welfare systems are perfect; but I do claim that even in their current sorry state, they are better than none. As such, this sort imperfect success of liberal ideology is still a success.

Or, at the very least, if you're going to insist on some minimum standard of charity, wouldn't it be more successful (not to mention "decent") if people were allowed to at least channel all such required contributions to the charitable institutions of their choice, rather than requiring that they support government's version?Quite likely; however -- and let me repeat something which i already said more than once, and which point you have refused to heed -- this sort of success, imperfect though it may be, is still a success.

I suggest that you actually bother to understand what I am saying, instead of playing the part of a libertarian chihuahua. As i said to you before in a different thread, what you are doing is not constructive, and it will not help your cause.

Apples and oranges. My question was specifically about an individual deciding how (or whether) to contribute from his own property/earnings to a particular goal, and all you're talking about is determining the facts in a possible criminal case. But since you are trying to present these two situations as analogous - are you suggesting, with regard to charitable contributions, that "an individual surely cannot be trusted to make such a determination on their own"? And if so, can you explain why anyone else's judgment should take precedence?I would agree that a choice of charitable target might be a good improvement; in fact, this might be a good policy WRT the tax allocation in general, to allow at least a part of our taxes to go to the destinations we choose. However, no, I do not think that an individual can be trusted to decide whether to make the charitable contribution in lieu of taxes -- it's simple economics, such a situation would lead to one huge Prisoner's Dilemma. The Prisoner's Dilemma is solved by means of participants explicitly abandoning their purely selfish perspective, and ceding some control to the society (prisoners as a group, rather than individually).

lockean theory of government, that's all it is -- we create the government to do things we cannot do individually (and no, we cannot individually ensure that kids don't pay for their parents' lack of ability to provide for them).

Who is this "we" you're talking about? When you say "society", don't you really just mean the majority?More or less, yes.

In fact, this has a familiar ring to it. Isn't this the sort of rhetoric that skeptic was recently using to defend some of his views?So? A decision being made by a majority vote does not disqualify it; what disqualifies it from being justifiable by mere majority, is it being a bad decision. Majority vote may be perfectly adequate to pass criminal laws for example, but not segregation laws. The devil is in the details. In this specific case, given that the people already granted the government the right to collect and use taxes, I think it's perfectly reasonable to allow the government to use those taxes towards a worthwhile goal (worthiness being decided by majority of course) in a non-discriminatory manner.

When you get right down to it, isn't the use of such expressions as "we as a society" just a way to help you feel better about arguments or opinions that reflect blind support for majority rule?I don't support majority rule blindly. I very explicitly reject mere majority rule when it infringes upon individual rights, for example. I support majority rule in many cases, and reject it in others.

Can you be bothered to not assume your opposition to be cheesy libertarian strawmen?

Why should I have to "sever" something I never agreed to in the first place? Do you understand how contracts work?yes, I do; do you? No, I don't think so. You can for example inherit your parents' condo -- you may have never signed the condo contract, but you are nonetheless party to it. Many contracts are thus implicit -- and it's not at all unreasonable to view the citizenship as such an implicit contract.

Here's a tip. Relying on such nonsensical terms as "implicit social contract" to bolster your arguments doesn't exactly reflect a lot of thinking, and is another one of those things that even suggests a certain tendency to feel your way to your conclusions.:rolleyes:

Making comments like the above suggests an exceedingly great deal of ignorance, and a too-small deal of thought, on your part; for that matter, so does your attitude in general -- seems like all you do is seek out perceived offenses to libertarian cause, and start yapping.

Similarly, the emigration thing just comes across as a liberal version of "love it or leave it".Accept it or not accept it, yes -- and guess what? that's how it is. You can accept the system or reject the system, the choice is yours. Rejection may amount to either a rebellion or an emigration -- again, the choice is yours. just as it would be with your parents' condo -- you can live by the condo association's rules, perhaps trying to change them from within; or your could sell the condo and leave; or you could defy the association, and effectively become a squatter. Nothing strange there.

The problem with "love it or leave it" is not that it poses invalid alternatives, but that it engages in false bifurcation, excluding other valid alternatives. The alternative to leaving it or loving it may be staying and simply accepting (but not loving) it; or staying and defying it; or staying and working to change it from within -- it's in fact to make an emotional strike against the last option that the "love it or leave it" ******** is usually employed by -- you guessed it -- conservatives.

But you didn't bother to think before you wrote, did you?

Sorry, but that's an opinion, not an absolute.indeed. however, given that this is not a discriminatory way to spend tax money, nor does it abridge others' rights (any more than the taxation itself does at least), I think that mere majority opinion is indeed sufficient to justify such position.

But your comment reflects a feeling that seems to be common among liberals - that if their goals are "valid" enough, they have some rightful claim on the resources of everyone to fund those goals.Your comments reflect a certain lack of, shall we say, thinking. Sorry, old chap, but you are simply not keeping up here.

Then you should probably work on coming up with some stuff that reflects a bit more thinking, and rely less on expressions like "we as a society" and "implicit social contract".You should have learned your limitations when you discovered yourself unable to parse a single relatively straight-forward (by the standards of intellectual discussion) passage, dude. As it is, you are simply yapping and making emotional proclamations about what you regard as "thinking" rather than "feeling" -- emotional, since these proclamations are quite clearly based on little more than your gut reaction (if he disagrees with my interpretation of freedom and the role of society, he must be feeling rather than thinking!).

[WMT1]

Originally posted by Victor Danilchenko
I couldn't help noticing that you completely ignored the other two of my examples of the success of liberal ideology -- universal suffrage, and de-segregation. Doesn't this suggest a certain lack of thinking on your part -- or at least the high selectivity of your thinking?

Of course not. All it suggests is that, among your examples, there were two that I didn't particularly take issue with, or otherwise feel the need to comment on. How do you get a "certain lack of thinking" or "high selectivity" from that? Unless you would prefer it if I comment on every statement you make, or every example you cite, whether I agree with it or not, how about avoiding the temptation to use a microscope to look for things to criticize?


And if you wanted to make the case that most of those changes are what make our society "decent", you've still got some work to do.

i made no such claim. I didn't say that most liberal changes make our society decent, I said that most changes that make our society decent are liberal changes. You have inverted the implication there -- a basic logic error, dude.

Have it your way, dude. If you wanted to make the case that "most changes that make our society decent are liberal changes", you've still got some work to do.


They why can't you, and those who share the opinion you just expressed, pool your own resources to support it, without dragging the rest of us along with you?

because the tough individualists' (like yourself) opinions tend change when they end up in the *******.

You mean they adopt the view that their misfortune gives them a rightful claim on what belongs to others? If not, what "opinions" are you talking about? And just out of curiosity, does supporting someone else's right to be an "individualist" make me one as well?


As far as I am concerned, i would be happy to let people opt out of SS; but 20 or 30 years down the line, they would be a voters' outcry to support the helpless old folks who have no income...

First, who do the "helpless old folks who have no income" have to blame for their situation?

And second, what would be the purpose of such an "outcry" anyway? Would there be something keeping those doing the crying out from just going ahead and pooling their own resources to provide that support themselves?


Besides, if there's a lot of that kind of thing going around, then doesn't the indecency rest with people who bring kids into the world without adequate preparation?

Indeed. However, it's not the kids' fault.

True enough. So how does that place any responsibility on the shoulders of strangers, many of whom are spending their lives working hard to provide for the kids they brought into the world?


The inability to place responsibility where it really belongs kind of suggests feeling more than thinking, doesn't it?

it would, if I displayed such inability.

Can I take it then that you agree that it is not the responsibility of the strangers I just mentioned?


As it is, I did say that it's the parents' fault much of the time (the "dumb" clause for example) -- but we cannot make the parents support their children adequately. Therefore, this society has decided that spending a portion of tax income on ensuring the livelihood of certain children is a worthwhile way to spend tax money.

Not everyone in this society. Again, since we're just talking about "the majority" anyway, what's wrong with that majority spending their own money on whatever they think is "worthwhile", and leaving everyone else alone? All you really seem to be doing here is once again pointing out that the majority sometimes imposes its will on everyone. Do you think that these kinds of statements help validate your position in some way?


No, this approach doesn't suggest feeling instead of thinking -- it suggests feeling and thinking.

Still waiting on the "thinking" part.


Wouldn't it be a truer reflection of "success" if liberals were able to solve such problems with their own generosity, rather than using political power to force everyone of means to contribute to policies and programs they may not agree with?

As I said, I do not claim that SS and welfare systems are perfect; but I do claim that even in their current sorry state, they are better than none. As such, this sort imperfect success of liberal ideology is still a success.

I guess if you're going to set the bar that low, you'd be hard pressed to identify much of anything that was not a success. I've heard some people use almost the exact reasoning in response to criticisms of the drug war.


Or, at the very least, if you're going to insist on some minimum standard of charity, wouldn't it be more successful (not to mention "decent") if people were allowed to at least channel all such required contributions to the charitable institutions of their choice, rather than requiring that they support government's version?

Quite likely; however -- and let me repeat something which i already said more than once, and which point you have refused to heed -- this sort of success, imperfect though it may be, is still a success.

Is "refused to heed" how you usually refer to it when someone else doesn't share your conclusions about things like what qualifies as "success"?


I suggest that you actually bother to understand what I am saying, instead of playing the part of a libertarian chihuahua.

Namecalling so soon?

(And by the way, is it really necessary to point out to you that disagreement is not the same as a failure to "understand"?)


As i said to you before in a different thread, what you are doing is not constructive, and it will not help your cause.

I can understand how it might serve your cause, whatever it is, to convince me of that. But all I've been doing is trying to examine whether the liberal changes you're referring to as a "success" are all that successful, as well as taking a closer look at that whole feeling vs. thinking thing, certainly worthwhile goals in a forum like this. Of course, I doubt anyone is paying much attention anyway, and even if they are, I don't think it's likely that anyone's mind will be changed by either of us. But just in case anyone else is looking on whose mind wasn't already made up, having them see how quickly you resorted to namecalling probably couldn't hurt.


Apples and oranges. My question was specifically about an individual deciding how (or whether) to contribute from his own property/earnings to a particular goal, and all you're talking about is determining the facts in a possible criminal case. But since you are trying to present these two situations as analogous - are you suggesting, with regard to charitable contributions, that "an individual surely cannot be trusted to make such a determination on their own"? And if so, can you explain why anyone else's judgment should take precedence?

I would agree that a choice of charitable target might be a good improvement; in fact, this might be a good policy WRT the tax allocation in general, to allow at least a part of our taxes to go to the destinations we choose.

This would be one of those things I normally wouldn't comment on, because relatively speaking at least, I don't disagree with it. Does the lack of any further comment mean I am being too "selective" for you?


However, no, I do not think that an individual can be trusted to decide whether to make the charitable contribution in lieu of taxes -- it's simple economics, such a situation would lead to one huge Prisoner's Dilemma.

Then that brings us to the other question I asked, which you did not answer. Can you explain why anyone else's judgment should take precedence?


The Prisoner's Dilemma is solved by means of participants explicitly abandoning their purely selfish perspective, and ceding some control to the society (prisoners as a group, rather than individually).

Does your "as a group" qualification mean that the majority is making that decision for everyone in the group, whether they consent to it individually or not? And if so, would you consider it to be a "selfish" perspective if someone was willing to cede that control for himself, but also took the position that those individuals who did not wish to should not be forced to?


lockean theory of government, that's all it is -- we create the government to do things we cannot do individually (and no, we cannot individually ensure that kids don't pay for their parents' lack of ability to provide for them).

Just to be clear, are you under the impression that the only way to accomplish something that cannot be done individually is through government?


When you say "society", don't you really just mean the majority?

More or less, yes.

Just including this as a reminder.


In fact, this has a familiar ring to it. Isn't this the sort of rhetoric that skeptic was recently using to defend some of his views?

So? A decision being made by a majority vote does not disqualify it; what disqualifies it from being justifiable by mere majority, is it being a bad decision.

Then can I take you realize that "we as a society decide" has no value in arguing for the merit of any particular decisions?


Majority vote may be perfectly adequate to pass criminal laws for example, but not segregation laws. The devil is in the details. In this specific case, given that the people already granted the government the right to collect and use taxes,

(Isn't "the people" just another feel-good euphemism for "the majority" too?)

I think it's perfectly reasonable to allow the government to use those taxes towards a worthwhile goal (worthiness being decided by majority of course) in a non-discriminatory manner.

But taxes do discriminate. They discriminate against those who have more from which to collect.


When you get right down to it, isn't the use of such expressions as "we as a society" just a way to help you feel better about arguments or opinions that reflect blind support for majority rule?

I don't support majority rule blindly. I very explicitly reject mere majority rule when it infringes upon individual rights, for example.

Well, except maybe for the right to decide how to spend one's own earnings? Earlier you made the statement "We also grant the government the right to taxation". Since you didn't "explicitly reject" this idea, how did you arrive at the conclusion that just because the majority gives the government the power to confiscate the property/earnings of its citizens without their consent, that that's somehow not a violation of "individual rights"?


Can you be bothered to not assume your opposition to be cheesy libertarian strawmen?

If that's your reaction, then maybe it would help to remind you of some of your earlier statements:

"The way I see it, is that we as a society decide that certain things -- right to life, for example -- are of paramount importance. We also grant the government the right to taxation, and to use of the tax money for the appropriate goals;"

And you've already agreed that what you mean by "society" is, more or less, the majority. So, if you don't support majority rule blindly, of what possible value are such statements?

You also said more recently:

"I think it's perfectly reasonable to allow the government to use those taxes towards a worthwhile goal (worthiness being decided by majority of course) in a non-discriminatory manner."

Sure looks like at least part of your views are based on whatever the majority wants. And at the very least, since you appeared to be trying to pass all of these statements off as actual arguments, that made my question about "blind support for majority rule" relevant. So let's avoid getting too carried away with debating terms like "strawmen", shall we?


Why should I have to "sever" something I never agreed to in the first place? Do you understand how contracts work?

yes, I do; do you? No, I don't think so. You can for example inherit your parents' condo -- you may have never signed the condo contract, but you are nonetheless party to it.

I may be "party to it", but I am not bound by its terms unless I consent to them by accepting that inheritance. If you are this dismissive of the role consent plays in contracts (at least valid contracts), you don't appear to understand how they work after all.

But just to pin you down a bit, does your use of this analogy mean that you think anything that government does is reasonable, as long as you have the option to leave the country if you don't like it? Or do you only use it to defend government actions that you happen to agree with, but cannot otherwise defend?


Many contracts are thus implicit -- and it's not at all unreasonable to view the citizenship as such an implicit contract.

Sure it is. I try to avoid relying on the words of others to make my points, but occasionally it seems worthwhile ...

Note that "you don't have to stay here and be taxed, you could always move to another country" is not an acceptable retort, because I don't have to stay in the neighborhood where a single thug steals my car either. The fact that I can avoid some petty crime by moving to a different neighborhood does not excuse that crime or the criminals. If living in East Palo Alto doesn't mean I consent to a "social contract" which includes having my car broken into, then living in the US doesn't mean I consent to a "social contract" which includes income taxes.
-Glen Raphael

I hope that helps.


Here's a tip. Relying on such nonsensical terms as "implicit social contract" to bolster your arguments doesn't exactly reflect a lot of thinking, and is another one of those things that even suggests a certain tendency to feel your way to your conclusions.

Making comments like the above suggests an exceedingly great deal of ignorance, and a too-small deal of thought, on your part;

Ouch. Some people sure get cranky when criticized. I just re-read the comments you referred to, and they appear to be right on target. So which part did I get wrong exactly? And if your comments reflect so much thought, then please demonstrate that by telling me exactly what the "implicit social contract" you've referred to consists of, and where you got your information.


for that matter, so does your attitude in general -- seems like all you do is seek out perceived offenses to libertarian cause, and start yapping.

Actually, I've taken care to be both clear and thorough in my responses to your posts. It seems a bit lazy for you now to dismiss it all as "yapping".

And how did you come up with the "seek out perceived offenses to libertarian cause" thing anyway? You already know my views are libertarian. Am I supposed to not respond to anything just because my comments are going to be from a libertarian perspective?

I guess when you break it down, all your comment really amounts to is an attempt to spin some kind of criticism out of the fact that I actually respond to some of the stuff I read.


Similarly, the emigration thing just comes across as a liberal version of "love it or leave it".

Accept it or not accept it, yes -- and guess what? that's how it is. You can accept the system or reject the system, the choice is yours. Rejection may amount to either a rebellion or an emigration -- again, the choice is yours. just as it would be with your parents' condo -- you can live by the condo association's rules, perhaps trying to change them from within; or your could sell the condo and leave; or you could defy the association, and effectively become a squatter. Nothing strange there.

Nor is it particularly analogous to remaining in one's country, and objecting to its laws. You do understand the difference between that and trespassing on private property, don't you? If not, let me know, and I can probably come up with an analogy of my own that might be of some help.


The problem with "love it or leave it" is not that it poses invalid alternatives, but that it engages in false bifurcation, excluding other valid alternatives. The alternative to leaving it or loving it may be staying and simply accepting (but not loving) it; or staying and defying it; or staying and working to change it from within -- it's in fact to make an emotional strike against the last option that the "love it or leave it" ******** is usually employed by -- you guessed it -- conservatives.

But you didn't bother to think before you wrote, did you?

Wow. You sure seem to be jumping through hoops to imply some kind of failure on my part where none has actually occurred.

Your exact words were:

"We also grant the government the right to taxation, and to use of the tax money for the appropriate goals; it's a part of the implicit social contract, which contract you can always sever by emigrating."

Sorry, but in the absence of any actual contract, trying to represent that as significantly different from the sentiments behind "love it or leave it" is a stretch at best, your hairsplitting commentary about "alternatives" notwithstanding.


Sorry, but that's an opinion, not an absolute.

indeed. however, given that this is not a discriminatory way to spend tax money, nor does it abridge others' rights (any more than the taxation itself does at least), I think that mere majority opinion is indeed sufficient to justify such position.

But as I already pointed out, it is a discriminatory way to spend tax money.

I'm also glad you added the part about "any more than the taxation itself does at least", since that suggests that, at some level, you probably really know that it does abridge rights.

Unfortunately, both of these things make your conclusion pretty shaky, don't they?


But your comment reflects a feeling that seems to be common among liberals - that if their goals are "valid" enough, they have some rightful claim on the resources of everyone to fund those goals.

Your comments reflect a certain lack of, shall we say, thinking. Sorry, old chap, but you are simply not keeping up here.

If you think you have an actual point here, then let's take another look at the statement of yours that I was commenting on:

"Ensuring that individuals unable to provide for themselves do not have to die for that reason, is one of such valid goals to spend tax money on."

Now, if my comment about your comment reflects a lack of thinking, then maybe you can explain where it goes wrong?


Then you should probably work on coming up with some stuff that reflects a bit more thinking, and rely less on expressions like "we as a society" and "implicit social contract".

You should have learned your limitations when you discovered yourself unable to parse a single relatively straight-forward (by the standards of intellectual discussion) passage, dude.

You mean that exercise in pedantry that just about anybody out there in the real world would have to read 4 or 5 times to figure out what it meant? I may be accused of many things, but failure to comprehend stuff that is actually comprehensible isn't one that comes up very often.


As it is, you are simply yapping and making emotional proclamations about what you regard as "thinking" rather than "feeling" -- emotional, since these proclamations are quite clearly based on little more than your gut reaction

And amazingly, I could have easily (and just as accurately) said the same thing, word for word, about some of the comments you posted that prompted my entry into this discussion in the first place. This is the thanks I get for opting for the more tactful approach.


(if he disagrees with my interpretation of freedom and the role of society, he must be feeling rather than thinking!).

I just went through a whole thing with somebody else who insisted on basing most of their commentary on bad paraphrasing. Are you gonna start relying on that now too?

[Brooklyn Dodger]

Cue Barbra Streisand: FEELINGS!

[Frank Newgent]

Originally posted by Brooklyn Dodger
Cue Barbra Streisand: FEELINGS!

Barbara Streisand? What were you THINKING? Everyone knows that the #2 karaoke hit "Feelings" was written and performed by Brazilian artist Morris Albert.

Next thing you'll be saying is the #1 karaoke favorite of all time "Aoi Sports Car no Otoko" is by, who, Steve Earle?

[Brooklyn Dodger]

Originally posted by Frank Newgent


Barbara Streisand? What were you THINKING? Everyone knows that the #2 karaoke hit "Feelings" was written and performed by Brazilian artist Morris Albert.

Next thing you'll be saying is the #1 karaoke favorite of all time "Aoi Sports Car no Otoko" is by, who, Steve Earle?

Oh my! Shows you what a sheltered life I've lead. I've never been in a karaoke bar! Who the heck is Morris Albert? I've heard of Morris the Cat. I've heard of the Duke of Earle (no, not a favorite, by the way)., but not Steve Earle.

Well, anyway, Cue the best durned singer of FEELINGS, whoever that might be!

[Victor Danilchenko]

WMT1

Of course not. All it suggests is that, among your examples, there were two that I didn't particularly take issue with, or otherwise feel the need to comment on. How do you get a "certain lack of thinking" or "high selectivity" from that?because the issue was involving the liberal successes collectively. BD claimed that liberals FEEL rather than THINK, and as evidence of that cited the "war on poverty" failure (which was a joke in and of itself). In response to that, I offered multiple examples of successes of liberal ideology; therefore, in order to counter my response, you have to address those successes collectively -- otherwise, even if I concede that welfare and SS are failures, you will still have to contend with the successes of universal suffrage and desegregation.

This is why you pounding down on these two specific issues is stupid. Sure, they may be issues worth addressing, but the way yu are doing is irrelevant to the topic. Therefore, in addressing only those two issues, you are either thinking selectively (by concentrating only on what you perceive to actually be failures), or being selectively blind (by missing the bigger picture, the context and purpose of this thread).

Frankly, I am beginning to lean towards the latter. You seem to generally miss the bigger point, always concentrating on minutae. This is why arguing with you is just so damn boring -- as boring as trying to pick up spilled rice grain by grain. Take a lesson from your fellow libertarian Shanek -- I disagree with a lot of his positions, but at least he can keep the big picture in mind.

Have it your way, dude."have it your way"? How about "I am sorry for being so illogical"? You sound as if you are wearily conceding to an annoying pest, rather tyhan admitting a glaring error in your thinking.

First, who do the "helpless old folks who have no income" have to blame for their situation?Very often, nobody but themselves; and very often, they couldn't have possibly done anything about it. So what? Prevention and education is great, but you can't change the past -- so what do we do when confronted with someone in major need of help? Leave them hanging and perhaps dying, 'cuz it's their own fault? Surely they will learn little from the death they themselves so thoughtlessly brought about...

And second, what would be the purpose of such an "outcry" anyway? Would there be something keeping those doing the crying out from just going ahead and pooling their own resources to provide that support themselves?How about old age and infirmity?

Letting others learn from their own mistakes is only useful inasmuch as they can actually learn from them and better their lot in the future. Stringing out the children (who aren't at fault) and the elderly (who won't be able to better their lot) accomplishes nothing constructive; for even as you sit and smugly proclaim that it's their own (or even worse, their parents') fault, people would suffer and die, and the society would get desensitized, causing even more pain and suffering.

Yeah, I am feeling here -- in addition to thinking; you have to, because feeling ultimnately is the sole source of motivation, because logic and reason are GIGO (Garbage In, Garbage Out)). You are doing neither.

True enough. So how does that place any responsibility on the shoulders of strangers, many of whom are spending their lives working hard to provide for the kids they brought into the world?The strangers -- us, though elected representatives -- assume this responsibility. Deal with it.

Can I take it then that you agree that it is not the responsibility of the strangers I just mentioned?No, you cannot. Strangers assume this responsibility -- responsibility being a social construct, it means what people take it to mean. Your idea is based on considering only the nuclear family, you lack the breadth of thought to recognize that there is a complex web of interconnections in society. You are thinking purely in terms of the local lines of choice and responsibility, but such links are much broader, although also weaker in their breadth. Nuclear family is a very recent invention, and it's frankly a ludicrous idea -- in descending order of the strength of connection, it's nuclear family, extended family, and the society. This is why people tend to feel responsible for their nephews, even though they may not be the ones who gave birth to them. Therefore, even though the responsibility of the society for a child may be minute in the normal case, when the first two tiers fail -- when the nuclear and the extended family fail to provide -- our society explicitly elevates its hitherto-minute resposibility to the level of the primary.

Your idea of "responsibility" simply is a construct having little to do with the reality of that term's usage in society; and construct of your myopic one-trick-pony ideology.

Not everyone in this society. Again, since we're just talking about "the majority" anyway, what's wrong with that majority spending their own money on whatever they think is "worthwhile", and leaving everyone else alone? All you really seem to be doing here is once again pointing out that the majority sometimes imposes its will on everyone. Do you think that these kinds of statements help validate your position in some way?Majority doies impose its will on the minority -- say, law-abiding citizens impose their will on criminals. After all, a crime is only a crime because the majority created the laws under which it's a crime.

No, the real issue here is whether this specific case is one where majority's will can be imposed justifiably. The answer, given that this occurs in accordance with our social contract and without discrimination nor additional abridgement of freedom, is obviously yes.

Still waiting on the "thinking" part.of course you are -- you wouldn't recognize thought if it run up and bit you on the leg; you would instead scream and whack it on the nose with a rolled-up newspaper.

I guess if you're going to set the bar that low, you'd be hard pressed to identify much of anything that was not a success. I've heard some people use almost the exact reasoning in response to criticisms of the drug war.War on drugs is more failure than success -- it's failure on the balance. Both welfare and SS are successes on the balance, because, despite all the abuses and problems, they do provide an incredibly important and humane service to those who are in dire need of such.

You seem to be deliberately missing the point, refusing to recognize the gradations of success and benevolence, instead trying to lump it all together; by obscuring these very real differences of grade, you are tryint to corral the ideas either into the total, perfect success (of which you will of course see none, anywhere), or into the same group as obvious failures. "False bifurcation" is the name of this sort of fallacy.

You are racking up fallacies quite fast, aren't you?..

Namecalling so soon?I just thought you might need to have someone point out to you the fundamental flaw in your debating approach.

I can understand how it might serve your cause, whatever it is, to convince me of that.Indeed it does. While I dislike libertarianism for being simplistic and one-dimensional, the libertarian defense of freedom is important. This is why I would rather see you advocate freedom in a way that would tend to get people to understand, rather than wave you away as a buzzing fly. As it it, you seem to be more interested in feeling right (no matter how minute or irrelevant the subject) than in actually addressing the opposition. I would love to see libertarianism succeed -- it surely beats the hell out of republicans or democrats; but what you are doing is not a progress towards that goal.

But all I've been doing is trying to examine whether the liberal changes you're referring to as a "success" are all that successful, as well as taking a closer look at that whole feeling vs. thinking thing, certainly worthwhile goals in a forum like this.The former goal is already lost to you because you are conceding that at least two of the improvements I mentioned -- universal suffrage and desegregation -- are such successes; and either one alone would be sufficient to exonerate its causative ideology of the change of lacking in successes. The latter goal is utterly failed by you, because all you are doing is spouting emotional remarks about what you consider to be lack of thought on my part -- you aren't bothering to actually demonstrate such lack of thought, you simply take a well-reasoned position and declare, by fiat of one, that it's not based on thinking.

But just in case anyone else is looking on whose mind wasn't already made up, having them see how quickly you resorted to namecalling probably couldn't hurt.Nor would it hurt to see how utterly lacking in actual reasoning facilities you are...

I've been told more than once that my approach detracts from the contents I present. Frankly, I don't give a flying ****. I have enough content to compensate for lack of tact, and I detest tact for its own sake; so bite me.

This would be one of those things I normally wouldn't comment on, because relatively speaking at least, I don't disagree with it. Does the lack of any further comment mean I am being too "selective" for you?See? this is why I say that you miss the bigger picture, this is why you are so superficial. You don't understand the context. You don't understand what goes on under the very shallowest level of discourse, you don't see beyod the immediate short-term give-and-take.

Of course there is a difference. You not addressing two of my examples was critical to the very point of this tangent. That is why I called your thinking on the subject selective.

Then that brings us to the other question I asked, which you did not answer. Can you explain why anyone else's judgment should take precedence?Yep. I can explain why collective judgement of the society in cases like this should indeed take precedence over the individual judgdment. It's basic decision theory, and the problem is perfectly exemplified by Prisoner's Dilemma; but i already said it, and you missed it the first time around.

Does your "as a group" qualification mean that the majority is making that decision for everyone in the group, whether they consent to it individually or not? And if so, would you consider it to be a "selfish" perspective if someone was willing to cede that control for himself, but also took the position that those individuals who did not wish to should not be forced to?But you are in this situation voluntarily -- you can always bail out of the social contract, just as you can always bail out of the condo association.

Just to be clear, are you under the impression that the only way to accomplish something that cannot be done individually is through government?Not necessarily; there are certainly alternatives in many situations. The government however is the best at quite a number of things.

Then can I take you realize that "we as a society decide" has no value in arguing for the merit of any particular decisions?of course. however, the specific merit of any proposition dictates whether it can legitimately be decided by a majority.

But taxes do discriminate. They discriminate against those who have more from which to collect.Ummm... why do you regard that as discrimination? Discrimination occurs against the backdrop of that which is non-discriminatory -- that is now we know what is discriminatory and what isn't; but taxes are wholly a social construct, and thus you cannot simply decide that, say, flat tax (which is what I presume you had in mind) would be fair, and everything else non-discriminatory -- that would be nothing but one man's unsupported opinion. In general, progressive tax is pretty universally regarded as being the baseline fair system of taxation.

Well, except maybe for the right to decide how to spend one's own earnings? Earlier you made the statement "We also grant the government the right to taxation". Since you didn't "explicitly reject" this idea, how did you arrive at the conclusion that just because the majority gives the government the power to confiscate the property/earnings of its citizens without their consent, that that's somehow not a violation of "individual rights"?How do you get the idea that just because a majority of the condo association gives the association the power to charge condo fees, that's somehow not the violation of individual rights?.. And while we are at it, how come the condo association as a whole gets to decide whether to spend the fees on a new pool or a better parking lot, without allowing each member to allocate their fees any which way they please?..

:rolleyes: And you have the cojones to accuse me of not thinking?!.

And you've already agreed that what you mean by "society" is, more or less, the majority. So, if you don't support majority rule blindly, of what possible value are such statements?they are of value because i can hold more than one thought at a time. In some cases, majority will is sufficient justification; and in others, it's not.

Sure looks like at least part of your views are based on whatever the majority wants.No, not whatever; I have corrected you on this matter more than once. I think that there are some subjects on which majority will is an acceptable justification, and others on which it isn't. So yes, my views are in part based on majority will -- but not on whatever majority wants. That was a chear demagogic shot.

And at the very least, since you appeared to be trying to pass all of these statements off as actual arguments,Just as I said, you couldn't recognize an actual thought if it bit you on the ass...

I may be "party to it", but I am not bound by its terms unless I consent to them by accepting that inheritance.that's right. You don't have to stay in the condo, even if you were born and raised there, when you parents die; but you can only stay in the condo if you accept the terms. Same with the citizenship.

If you are this dismissive of the role consent plays in contracts (at least valid contracts), you don't appear to understand how they work after all.As i said, you can't be bothered to think.

But just to pin you down a bit, does your use of this analogy mean that you think anything that government does is reasonable, as long as you have the option to leave the country if you don't like it?of course not. The government is also bound by the social contract. However, as long as the gopvernment upholds its end, your options are to accept it or leave (or stay and reject it anyway, of course, but then you are in trouble).

Or do you only use it to defend government actions that you happen to agree with, but cannot otherwise defend?My defense is Constitution. :D

Sure it is. I try to avoid relying on the words of others to make my points, but occasionally it seems worthwhile ...

I hope that helps.:rolleyes: more stupid rhetoric. how dumb can you be?

Any contract involving criminal actions is by definition null and void. Therefore, there can be no such contract involving having your car broken into. This in turn means that you quote, by simply assuming that taxation is equivalent to crime in some critical respect, is begging the question. The obvious answer is that because taxation is lawful, it can be a part of the social contract. To turn your quote on its head -- well, duh, you may dislike living in a neighborhood with little greenery, but your choices are either to accept it (and perhaps try to change it) or to leave. Yessireebob.

And if your comments reflect so much thought, then please demonstrate that by telling me exactly what the "implicit social contract" you've referred to consists of, and where you got your information.I got my information from reading up some on the elementary political theory and philosophy -- something you are obviously in dire need of. Our social contract is in fact explicit -- it's the Constitution (and it was amended by the means specified therein in order to instate income taxes, so it's legit). What is implicit is the acceptance of the social contract.

Actually, I've taken care to be both clear and thorough in my responses to your posts.And fallacious and utterly superficial. Carry on.

Nor is it particularly analogous to remaining in one's country, and objecting to its laws.Yes, it is. In fact, a condo association is indeed a government in miniature -- you can have some property as a part of it, but it's conditional and subject to association's rules ("you have to pay condo fees", "you can't keep pets", etc.)

Wow. You sure seem to be jumping through hoops to imply some kind of failure on my part where none has actually occurred.I think I have clearly demonstrated the failure to think things through on your part.

Sorry, but in the absence of any actual contract, trying to represent that as significantly different from the sentiments behind "love it or leave it" is a stretch at best, your hairsplitting commentary about "alternatives" notwithstanding.So. You are trying to wave away a valid exposition of the difference between my position and your strawman as "hairsplitting". My, my, I have never seen this tactic used before!

The point is that yes, there is a critical difference between "love it or leave it" and "accept it or reject it". The latter is in fact a simple logical statement, the axiom of excluded middle, while the former is an insiduous and manipulative instance of a logical fallacy.

But as I already pointed out, it is a discriminatory way to spend tax money.that's what you asserted -- but of course you haven't supported your claim.

I'm also glad you added the part about "any more than the taxation itself does at least", since that suggests that, at some level, you probably really know that it does abridge rights.How so? i added that statement because I prefer correctness; but taxation is a part of the social contract.

Unfortunately, both of these things make your conclusion pretty shaky, don't they?Only if one is as clueless about political theory and semantics as you are...

You mean that exercise in pedantry that just about anybody out there in the real world would have to read 4 or 5 times to figure out what it meant?This is why most people out there in the real world tend to not have involved intellectual discussions on complex topics. I am glad to see you get the point. :D

[Victor Danilchenko]

Brooklyn Dodger

Cue Barbra Streisand: FEELINGS!Just as i thought -- you have no substance to support your idiotic claims. Ho hum, you thinking conservative, you...

[WMT1]

Originally posted by Victor Danilchenko
because the issue was involving the liberal successes collectively. BD claimed that liberals FEEL rather than THINK, and as evidence of that cited the "war on poverty" failure (which was a joke in and of itself).

Why is that a "joke"? Did it finally get rid of poverty?



In response to that, I offered multiple examples of successes of liberal ideology; therefore, in order to counter my response, you have to address those successes collectively --

You've been misinformed. If I don't agree that all the examples you cite qualify as "successes", the ones that do not are the only ones I need to address. And in this case, after I did that, what you were basically left with were two - not very compelling, if you're trying to make the case that "most changes that make our society decent are liberal changes".



otherwise, even if I concede that welfare and SS are failures, you will still have to contend with the successes of universal suffrage and desegregation.

Why do I have to "contend" with them at all? Are you under the impression that, if you give a list of examples to support your position, and someone thinks that some of your examples fall short, they're supposed to keep quiet unless they specifically disagree with all of them??? Sorry, this makes no sense.



This is why you pounding down on these two specific issues is stupid.

"Pounding down"??? Give me a break. You cited some examples, and I've questioned some of them. You don't much like having any real scrutiny applied to your comments, do you? Something tells me that if this conversation goes on much longer, you're going to be trying to find even more colorful ways to put a negative spin on that scrutiny.



Sure, they may be issues worth addressing, but the way yu are doing is irrelevant to the topic.

Well, if you're talking about the "hammegk and slavery" topic, your comments are irrelevant too. But if you're talking about whether liberal stuff has been a "success", that's exactly what I was addressing. You're not explaining yourself very well.



Therefore, in addressing only those two issues, you are either thinking selectively (by concentrating only on what you perceive to actually be failures),

Well, gee whiz, Victor, that's what I usually do in a forum like this. I'm not much for preachin' to the choir. I find it much more interesting to challenge people on the stuff I think they got wrong, or at least where I think a closer look is called for. These exchanges get longwinded enough as it is. But if you can provide a straight answer to this next question, it might clear things up a bit. Do you comment on every statement/example submitted by someone you're arguing with, including the ones you agree with?



or being selectively blind (by missing the bigger picture, the context and purpose of this thread).

Let's break it down a bit:

being selectively blind - This just seems to be another way to extract some criticism from the fact that I didn't comment on all your examples.

missing the bigger picture - You don't identify what "bigger picture" I'm missing, so apparently just another attempt to create the impression of a valid criticism where none exists.

the context and purpose of this thread - The purpose of this thread, if its title is any indication, seems to be to discuss "hammegk and slavery", and nothing in your post (the one I initially responded to, at least) made any reference to either hammegk or slavery. So if I'm off topic by responding to what you posted, you certainly wandered off topic first. When I entered the conversation, the purpose of your participation seemed to be to make the case that liberals think more than feel, and that "most changes that make our society decent are liberal changes". That hasn't been goin' so well for you, has it?



Frankly, I am beginning to lean towards the latter. You seem to generally miss the bigger point, always concentrating on minutae.

Actually, wouldn't taking the time to comment on the examples you provided that I already agree with be more consistent with "concentrating on minutae"???

Yet again, you appear to be trying to extract another criticism from nothing, with nonsensical stuff like "miss the bigger point". (Do you see a pattern emerging here?) Since you make no attempt to identify what you think that "point" is, what you're probably mistaking for missing "the bigger point", or "concentrating on minutae", is just precision, or attention to detail in examining your comments, which should be welcome in this forum. If you are troubled by this level of detail, that could help explain why some of your reasoning is more problematic than you seem to realize.



This is why arguing with you is just so damn boring -- as boring as trying to pick up spilled rice grain by grain. Take a lesson from your fellow libertarian Shanek -- I disagree with a lot of his positions, but at least he can keep the big picture in mind.

From what I've seen, Shanek tends to respond with almost the same point-by-point style that I employ. Once again, you seem to be grasping for stuff to criticize. And by the way, you're hardly the first person I've encountered who's found it "boring" to have someone else calling attention to the weaknesses in his position.



And if you wanted to make the case that most of those changes are what make our society "decent", you've still got some work to do.

i made no such claim. I didn't say that most liberal changes make our society decent, I said that most changes that make our society decent are liberal changes. You have inverted the implication there -- a basic logic error, dude.

Have it your way, dude.

"have it your way"? How about "I am sorry for being so illogical"? You sound as if you are wearily conceding to an annoying pest, rather tyhan admitting a glaring error in your thinking.

If it sounds that way, it is probably at least partially because there was no "glaring error". What I'm conceding is a pretty minor point, and you're overlooking the more important one that went with it, which is that you haven't made your case. You seem more interested in focusing on stuff like this than finding stronger support for your initial assertions. (The word "minutae" comes to mind.)

For instance, it was at about this point in my last post that the following exchange took place:

They why can't you, and those who share the opinion you just expressed, pool your own resources to support it, without dragging the rest of us along with you?

because the tough individualists' (like yourself) opinions tend change when they end up in the *******.

You mean they adopt the view that their misfortune gives them a rightful claim on what belongs to others? If not, what "opinions" are you talking about? And just out of curiosity, does supporting someone else's right to be an "individualist" make me one as well?

Now, is there some reason you skipped over these questions, in favor of focusing on making a big deal out of the fact that I didn't bother to comment on the examples of yours that I agreed with?



As far as I am concerned, i would be happy to let people opt out of SS; but 20 or 30 years down the line, they would be a voters' outcry to support the helpless old folks who have no income...

First, who do the "helpless old folks who have no income" have to blame for their situation?

Very often, nobody but themselves; and very often, they couldn't have possibly done anything about it. So what? Prevention and education is great, but you can't change the past -- so what do we do when confronted with someone in major need of help? Leave them hanging and perhaps dying, 'cuz it's their own fault? Surely they will learn little from the death they themselves so thoughtlessly brought about...

Great points, if what you're trying to do is persuade someone to contribute to the relief of such conditions. It hardly establishes any rightful claim on anyone's property/earnings to do so. This is a pretty significant point, one that many liberals conveniently ignore in their rhetoric, and that lapse certainly suggests feeling more than thinking.



And second, what would be the purpose of such an "outcry" anyway? Would there be something keeping those doing the crying out from just going ahead and pooling their own resources to provide that support themselves?

How about old age and infirmity?

Letting others learn from their own mistakes is only useful inasmuch as they can actually learn from them and better their lot in the future. Stringing out the children (who aren't at fault) and the elderly (who won't be able to better their lot) accomplishes nothing constructive; for even as you sit and smugly proclaim that it's their own (or even worse, their parents') fault, people would suffer and die, and the society would get desensitized, causing even more pain and suffering.

Again, these would all be good reasons for those who share such views to avoid wasting time on some childish "outcry", and simply pooling their own time and resources to solve the problem. You included both of my questions above in your own post, but you completely ignored the second one, which specifically asked about this. Aren't you being "selective" now?



Yeah, I am feeling here -- in addition to thinking; you have to, because feeling ultimnately is the sole source of motivation, because logic and reason are GIGO (Garbage In, Garbage Out)).

Which is precisely why you should probably shed some of the garbage you've been using to form some of your conclusions, like all that rhetoric about "society", "the people", and an "implicit social contract".



You are doing neither.

Oh yeah? Well ... your posts suck too!



So how does that place any responsibility on the shoulders of strangers, many of whom are spending their lives working hard to provide for the kids they brought into the world?

The strangers -- us, though elected representatives -- assume this responsibility. Deal with it.

"Elected representatives" are not necessary to assume a responsibility. They are only necessary to try to impose that responsibility on someone else. So thanks for the conveniently placed example of one of those things that reflects a hell of a lot more feeling than thinking. In fact, what you've done here not only reflects a lack of understanding of responsibility, but it pretty much abandons all thinking in favor of putting yet another positive spin on that blind support for majority rule I referred to earlier. Kinda helps make my case. Thanks.



The inability to place responsibility where it really belongs kind of suggests feeling more than thinking, doesn't it?

it would, if I displayed such inability.

Can I take it then that you agree that it is not the responsibility of the strangers I just mentioned?

No, you cannot.

Then it's quite obvious that you do display such an inability. Thanks for clearing that up.



Strangers assume this responsibility --

That's fine for any strangers who are assuming it voluntarily, and only for themselves. But then, that's not really what you mean, is it?



responsibility being a social construct, it means what people take it to mean.

And clearly some of them get it wrong. By the way, isn't "social construct" just new rhetoric for trying to make your blind-support-for-majority-rule thing sound like something else?



Your idea is based on considering only the nuclear family, you lack the breadth of thought to recognize that there is a complex web of interconnections in society.

Whoosh! That's the sound whatever credibility you had left going out the window. Good luck supporting such assertions with anything I've actually said.



You are thinking purely in terms of the local lines of choice and responsibility, but such links are much broader, although also weaker in their breadth.

Actually, I've said several times that if 90% of a population (nation, small town, doesn't matter) want to pool their own resources to make something happen, I have no objections. Since I said so in other threads, you may have missed it, but what you're attributing to me here certainly isn't supportable by any statements I've actually made, even in this discussion. Accuracy and precision aren't exactly your strong points, are they?

In any case, how do your comments place any responsibility for someone else's kids on the shoulders of someone trying to raise and support their own? Can you manage to scrape up any arguments that aren't just a variation on "the majority says so"?



Nuclear family is a very recent invention, and it's frankly a ludicrous idea -- in descending order of the strength of connection, it's nuclear family, extended family, and the society. This is why people tend to feel responsible for their nephews, even though they may not be the ones who gave birth to them.

That's their [i]choice, a distinction that not only seems to be of little importance to you, but one which you also tend to overlook in your bungled attempts to characterize my priorities.



Therefore, even though the responsibility of the society for a child may be minute in the normal case, when the first two tiers fail -- when the nuclear and the extended family fail to provide -- our society explicitly elevates its hitherto-minute resposibility to the level of the primary.

Well, even though it's pretty clear what you mean here, you do seem to be slipping back into that speech pattern where you're trying to make something sound more profound than it actually is, or, more specifically, to make a simple observation about the status quo sound like an actual argument. For instance, it didn't escape my notice that you once again seem to be using "our society" as if to give some sense of authority or nobility to what is really just "the majority" telling everyone what to do.



Your idea of "responsibility" simply is a construct having little to do with the reality of that term's usage in society;

Nonsense. The way I'm using it, it's essentially interchangeable with "obligation" or "duty". Is it your position that this is an uncommon use? If anything, you seem to think that all it takes for someone to actually have a responsibility they wouldn't otherwise assume is for the majority to decide that they have it. Any chance I can get you on record specifically agreeing with that position?



and construct of your myopic one-trick-pony ideology.

Do you even have a clue as to what that ideology is? If so, please explain, using as little spin as possible. (This should be good.)

Besides, the fact that you're finding all kinds of different rhetoric to describe blind-support-for-majority-rule, and making flawed use of concepts like "discrimination" to try to make it sound like something else, doesn't exactly keep that from being a one-trick-pony ideology, now does it?



As it is, I did say that it's the parents' fault much of the time (the "dumb" clause for example) -- but we cannot make the parents support their children adequately. Therefore, this society has decided that spending a portion of tax income on ensuring the livelihood of certain children is a worthwhile way to spend tax money.

Not [i]everyone in this society. Again, since we're just talking about "the majority" anyway, what's wrong with that majority spending their own money on whatever they think is "worthwhile", and leaving everyone else alone? All you really seem to be doing here is once again pointing out that the majority sometimes imposes its will on everyone. Do you think that these kinds of statements help validate your position in some way?

Majority doies impose its will on the minority -- say, law-abiding citizens impose their will on criminals. After all, a crime is only a crime because the majority created the laws under which it's a crime.

Yeah, I know. And yet again, all you really seem to be doing here is pointing out that the majority sometimes imposes its will on everyone.

Now, back to my questions. Since we're just talking about "the majority" anyway, what's wrong with that majority spending their own money on whatever they think is "worthwhile", and leaving everyone else alone? And do you think that these "majority" statements help validate your position in some way?



No, the real issue here is whether this specific case is one where majority's will can be imposed justifiably. The answer, given that this occurs in accordance with our social contract and without discrimination nor additional abridgement of freedom, is obviously yes.

I guess when you can hide behind terms like "social contract", and play fast and loose with what constitutes "discrimination" and "abridgement of freedom", it's easy to pave the way for the "obvious" conclusion you want to get to, huh?

Out of curiosity, without jumping through too many hoops to get there, can you explain how is it not discrimination to take from those who have, to give to those who do not? Similarly, can you explain how it is not an "abridgement of freedom" to take someone's property or earnings from them without their consent? Or will this just take us back to the old "you can always leave"?



No, this approach doesn't suggest feeling instead of thinking -- it suggests feeling and thinking.

Still waiting on the "thinking" part.

of course you are -- you wouldn't recognize thought if it run up and bit you on the leg; you would instead scream and whack it on the nose with a rolled-up newspaper.

Is the heavy reliance on insults supposed to be proof of this "thinking" I'm supposedly missing?



As I said, I do not claim that SS and welfare systems are perfect; but I do claim that even in their current sorry state, they are better than none. As such, this sort imperfect success of liberal ideology is still a success.

I guess if you're going to set the bar that low, you'd be hard pressed to identify much of anything that was not a success. I've heard some people use almost the exact reasoning in response to criticisms of the drug war.

War on drugs is more failure than success -- it's failure on the balance. Both welfare and SS are successes on the balance, because, despite all the abuses and problems, they do provide an incredibly important and humane service to those who are in dire need of such.[/quote]

No, they are not, because they are only able to provide those services by taking what doesn't belong to them. Now, what makes your standard for "success" any better than mine?



You seem to be deliberately missing the point, refusing to recognize the gradations of success and benevolence, instead trying to lump it all together; by obscuring these very real differences of grade, you are tryint to corral the ideas either into the total, perfect success (of which you will of course see none, anywhere), or into the same group as obvious failures.

You're doing it again. Can anyone else translate this mess?



"False bifurcation" is the name of this sort of fallacy.

You are racking up fallacies quite fast, aren't you?..

Since you seem to like showing off your knowledge of debating terms, is there any sort of term to describe accusing someone of a fallacy, but without being able to cite something they've actually said and clearly explain which part they got wrong?



I suggest that you actually bother to understand what I am saying, instead of playing the part of a libertarian chihuahua.

Namecalling so soon?

I just thought you might need to have someone point out to you the fundamental flaw in your debating approach.

And how much thinking went into the conclusion that calling me a "libertarian chihuahua" achieves that goal?



As i said to you before in a different thread, what you are doing is not constructive, and it will not help your cause.

I can understand how it might serve your cause, whatever it is, to convince me of that.

Indeed it does. While I dislike libertarianism for being simplistic and one-dimensional,[/quote]

This is rich. So far, despite using a lot of different rhetoric to describe the same thing, and once you get past the flawed use of concepts like "discrimination" and "abridgement of freedom" to make it sound like something else, your arguments essentially boil down to blind support for majority rule. Can it get any more "simplistic and one-dimensional" than that?



the libertarian defense of freedom is important.

This is why I would rather see you advocate freedom in a way that would tend to get people to understand, rather than wave you away as a buzzing fly.

Actually, I do pretty well in the persuasion department. Usually the only ones inclined to wave me away "as a buzzing fly" (or for that matter, whose purpose is served by implying that that's how others respond to me) are those who are outspoken in their criticisms of libertarianism, who have trouble defending those criticisms, and end up relying heavily on insults where answers and rebuttals should be. You've demonstrated this pattern yourself, you've just dressed it up in a more impressive vocabulary than most.



As it it, you seem to be more interested in feeling right (no matter how minute or irrelevant the subject) than in actually addressing the opposition.

What the hell are you talking about? Addressing the opposition is exactly what I've been doing. FYI that's what's happening when I'm doing stuff like questioning your characterization of liberal programs as successful.



I would love to see libertarianism succeed -- it surely beats the hell out of republicans or democrats; but what you are doing is not a progress towards that goal.

Yeah, I have to admit (*chuckle*), all those people whose minds I've helped change out here in the real world don't seem like much now, in comparison to having you respond unfavorably.



[quote]But all I've been doing is trying to examine whether the liberal changes you're referring to as a "success" are all that successful, as well as taking a closer look at that whole feeling vs. thinking thing, certainly w

[WMT1]

Originally posted by Victor Danilchenko
because the issue was involving the liberal successes collectively. BD claimed that liberals FEEL rather than THINK, and as evidence of that cited the "war on poverty" failure (which was a joke in and of itself).

Why is that a "joke"? Did it finally get rid of poverty?



In response to that, I offered multiple examples of successes of liberal ideology; therefore, in order to counter my response, you have to address those successes collectively --

You've been misinformed. If I don't agree that all the examples you cite qualify as "successes", the ones that do not are the only ones I need to address. And in this case, after I did that, what you were basically left with were two - not very compelling, if you're trying to make the case that "most changes that make our society decent are liberal changes".



otherwise, even if I concede that welfare and SS are failures, you will still have to contend with the successes of universal suffrage and desegregation.

Why do I have to "contend" with them at all? Are you under the impression that, if you give a list of examples to support your position, and someone thinks that some of your examples fall short, they're supposed to keep quiet unless they specifically disagree with all of them??? Sorry, this makes no sense.



This is why you pounding down on these two specific issues is stupid.

"Pounding down"??? Give me a break. You cited some examples, and I've questioned some of them. You don't much like having any real scrutiny applied to your comments, do you? Something tells me that if this conversation goes on much longer, you're going to be trying to find even more colorful ways to put a negative spin on that scrutiny.



Sure, they may be issues worth addressing, but the way yu are doing is irrelevant to the topic.

Well, if you're talking about the "hammegk and slavery" topic, your comments are irrelevant too. But if you're talking about whether liberal stuff has been a "success", that's exactly what I was addressing. You're not explaining yourself very well.



Therefore, in addressing only those two issues, you are either thinking selectively (by concentrating only on what you perceive to actually be failures),

Well, gee whiz, Victor, that's what I usually do in a forum like this. I'm not much for preachin' to the choir. I find it much more interesting to challenge people on the stuff I think they got wrong, or at least where I think a closer look is called for. These exchanges get longwinded enough as it is. But if you can provide a straight answer to this next question, it might clear things up a bit. Do you comment on every statement/example submitted by someone you're arguing with, including the ones you agree with?



or being selectively blind (by missing the bigger picture, the context and purpose of this thread).

Let's break it down a bit:

being selectively blind - This just seems to be another way to extract some criticism from the fact that I didn't comment on all your examples.

missing the bigger picture - You don't identify what "bigger picture" I'm missing, so apparently just another attempt to create the impression of a valid criticism where none exists.

the context and purpose of this thread - The purpose of this thread, if its title is any indication, seems to be to discuss "hammegk and slavery", and nothing in your post (the one I initially responded to, at least) made any reference to either hammegk or slavery. So if I'm off topic by responding to what you posted, you certainly wandered off topic first. When I entered the conversation, the purpose of your participation seemed to be to make the case that liberals think more than feel, and that "most changes that make our society decent are liberal changes". That hasn't been goin' so well for you, has it?



Frankly, I am beginning to lean towards the latter. You seem to generally miss the bigger point, always concentrating on minutae.

Actually, wouldn't taking the time to comment on the examples you provided that I already agree with be more consistent with "concentrating on minutae"???

Yet again, you appear to be trying to extract another criticism from nothing, with nonsensical stuff like "miss the bigger point". (Do you see a pattern emerging here?) Since you make no attempt to identify what you think that "point" is, what you're probably mistaking for missing "the bigger point", or "concentrating on minutae", is just precision, or attention to detail in examining your comments, which should be welcome in this forum. If you are troubled by this level of detail, that could help explain why some of your reasoning is more problematic than you seem to realize.



This is why arguing with you is just so damn boring -- as boring as trying to pick up spilled rice grain by grain. Take a lesson from your fellow libertarian Shanek -- I disagree with a lot of his positions, but at least he can keep the big picture in mind.

From what I've seen, Shanek tends to respond with almost the same point-by-point style that I employ. Once again, you seem to be grasping for stuff to criticize. And by the way, you're hardly the first person I've encountered who's found it "boring" to have someone else calling attention to the weaknesses in his position.



And if you wanted to make the case that most of those changes are what make our society "decent", you've still got some work to do.

i made no such claim. I didn't say that most liberal changes make our society decent, I said that most changes that make our society decent are liberal changes. You have inverted the implication there -- a basic logic error, dude.

Have it your way, dude.

"have it your way"? How about "I am sorry for being so illogical"? You sound as if you are wearily conceding to an annoying pest, rather tyhan admitting a glaring error in your thinking.

If it sounds that way, it is probably at least partially because there was no "glaring error". What I'm conceding is a pretty minor point, and you're overlooking the more important one that went with it, which is that you haven't made your case. You seem more interested in focusing on stuff like this than finding stronger support for your initial assertions. (The word "minutae" comes to mind.)

For instance, it was at about this point in my last post that the following exchange took place:

They why can't you, and those who share the opinion you just expressed, pool your own resources to support it, without dragging the rest of us along with you?

because the tough individualists' (like yourself) opinions tend change when they end up in the *******.

You mean they adopt the view that their misfortune gives them a rightful claim on what belongs to others? If not, what "opinions" are you talking about? And just out of curiosity, does supporting someone else's right to be an "individualist" make me one as well?

Now, is there some reason you skipped over these questions, in favor of focusing on making a big deal out of the fact that I didn't bother to comment on the examples of yours that I agreed with?



As far as I am concerned, i would be happy to let people opt out of SS; but 20 or 30 years down the line, they would be a voters' outcry to support the helpless old folks who have no income...

First, who do the "helpless old folks who have no income" have to blame for their situation?

Very often, nobody but themselves; and very often, they couldn't have possibly done anything about it. So what? Prevention and education is great, but you can't change the past -- so what do we do when confronted with someone in major need of help? Leave them hanging and perhaps dying, 'cuz it's their own fault? Surely they will learn little from the death they themselves so thoughtlessly brought about...

Great points, if what you're trying to do is persuade someone to contribute to the relief of such conditions. It hardly establishes any rightful claim on anyone's property/earnings to do so. This is a pretty significant point, one that many liberals conveniently ignore in their rhetoric, and that lapse certainly suggests feeling more than thinking.



And second, what would be the purpose of such an "outcry" anyway? Would there be something keeping those doing the crying out from just going ahead and pooling their own resources to provide that support themselves?

How about old age and infirmity?

Letting others learn from their own mistakes is only useful inasmuch as they can actually learn from them and better their lot in the future. Stringing out the children (who aren't at fault) and the elderly (who won't be able to better their lot) accomplishes nothing constructive; for even as you sit and smugly proclaim that it's their own (or even worse, their parents') fault, people would suffer and die, and the society would get desensitized, causing even more pain and suffering.

Again, these would all be good reasons for those who share such views to avoid wasting time on some childish "outcry", and simply pooling their own time and resources to solve the problem. You included both of my questions above in your own post, but you completely ignored the second one, which specifically asked about this. Aren't you being "selective" now?



Yeah, I am feeling here -- in addition to thinking; you have to, because feeling ultimnately is the sole source of motivation, because logic and reason are GIGO (Garbage In, Garbage Out)).

Which is precisely why you should probably shed some of the garbage you've been using to form some of your conclusions, like all that rhetoric about "society", "the people", and an "implicit social contract".



You are doing neither.

Oh yeah? Well ... your posts suck too!



So how does that place any responsibility on the shoulders of strangers, many of whom are spending their lives working hard to provide for the kids they brought into the world?

The strangers -- us, though elected representatives -- assume this responsibility. Deal with it.

"Elected representatives" are not necessary to assume a responsibility. They are only necessary to try to impose that responsibility on someone else. So thanks for the conveniently placed example of one of those things that reflects a hell of a lot more feeling than thinking. In fact, what you've done here not only reflects a lack of understanding of responsibility, but it pretty much abandons all thinking in favor of putting yet another positive spin on that blind support for majority rule I referred to earlier. Kinda helps make my case. Thanks.



The inability to place responsibility where it really belongs kind of suggests feeling more than thinking, doesn't it?

it would, if I displayed such inability.

Can I take it then that you agree that it is not the responsibility of the strangers I just mentioned?

No, you cannot.

Then it's quite obvious that you do display such an inability. Thanks for clearing that up.



Strangers assume this responsibility --

That's fine for any strangers who are assuming it voluntarily, and only for themselves. But then, that's not really what you mean, is it?



responsibility being a social construct, it means what people take it to mean.

And clearly some of them get it wrong. By the way, isn't "social construct" just new rhetoric for trying to make your blind-support-for-majority-rule thing sound like something else?



Your idea is based on considering only the nuclear family, you lack the breadth of thought to recognize that there is a complex web of interconnections in society.

Whoosh! That's the sound whatever credibility you had left going out the window. Good luck supporting such assertions with anything I've actually said.



You are thinking purely in terms of the local lines of choice and responsibility, but such links are much broader, although also weaker in their breadth.

Actually, I've said several times that if 90% of a population (nation, small town, doesn't matter) want to pool their own resources to make something happen, I have no objections. Since I said so in other threads, you may have missed it, but what you're attributing to me here certainly isn't supportable by any statements I've actually made, even in this discussion. Accuracy and precision aren't exactly your strong points, are they?

In any case, how do your comments place any responsibility for someone else's kids on the shoulders of someone trying to raise and support their own? Can you manage to scrape up any arguments that aren't just a variation on "the majority says so"?



Nuclear family is a very recent invention, and it's frankly a ludicrous idea -- in descending order of the strength of connection, it's nuclear family, extended family, and the society. This is why people tend to feel responsible for their nephews, even though they may not be the ones who gave birth to them.

That's their choice, a distinction that not only seems to be of little importance to you, but one which you also tend to overlook in your bungled attempts to characterize my priorities.



Therefore, even though the responsibility of the society for a child may be minute in the normal case, when the first two tiers fail -- when the nuclear and the extended family fail to provide -- our society explicitly elevates its hitherto-minute resposibility to the level of the primary.

Well, even though it's pretty clear what you mean here, you do seem to be slipping back into that speech pattern where you're trying to make something sound more profound than it actually is, or, more specifically, to make a simple observation about the status quo sound like an actual argument. For instance, it didn't escape my notice that you once again seem to be using "our society" as if to give some sense of authority or nobility to what is really just "the majority" telling everyone what to do.



Your idea of "responsibility" simply is a construct having little to do with the reality of that term's usage in society;

Nonsense. The way I'm using it, it's essentially interchangeable with "obligation" or "duty". Is it your position that this is an uncommon use? If anything, you seem to think that all it takes for someone to actually have a responsibility they wouldn't otherwise assume is for the majority to decide that they have it. Any chance I can get you on record specifically agreeing with that position?



and construct of your myopic one-trick-pony ideology.

Do you even have a clue as to what that ideology is? If so, please explain, using as little spin as possible. (This should be good.)

Besides, the fact that you're finding all kinds of different rhetoric to describe blind-support-for-majority-rule, and making flawed use of concepts like "discrimination" to try to make it sound like something else, doesn't exactly keep that from being a one-trick-pony ideology, now does it?



As it is, I did say that it's the parents' fault much of the time (the "dumb" clause for example) -- but we cannot make the parents support their children adequately. Therefore, this society has decided that spending a portion of tax income on ensuring the livelihood of certain children is a worthwhile way to spend tax money.

Not everyone in this society. Again, since we're just talking about "the majority" anyway, what's wrong with that majority spending their own money on whatever they think is "worthwhile", and leaving everyone else alone? All you really seem to be doing here is once again pointing out that the majority sometimes imposes its will on everyone. Do you think that these kinds of statements help validate your position in some way?

Majority doies impose its will on the minority -- say, law-abiding citizens impose their will on criminals. After all, a crime is only a crime because the majority created the laws under which it's a crime.

Yeah, I know. And yet again, all you really seem to be doing here is pointing out that the majority sometimes imposes its will on everyone.

Now, back to my questions. Since we're just talking about "the majority" anyway, what's wrong with that majority spending their own money on whatever they think is "worthwhile", and leaving everyone else alone? And do you think that these "majority" statements help validate your position in some way?



No, the real issue here is whether this specific case is one where majority's will can be imposed justifiably. The answer, given that this occurs in accordance with our social contract and without discrimination nor additional abridgement of freedom, is obviously yes.

I guess when you can hide behind terms like "social contract", and play fast and loose with what constitutes "discrimination" and "abridgement of freedom", it's easy to pave the way for the "obvious" conclusion you want to get to, huh?

Out of curiosity, without jumping through too many hoops to get there, can you explain how is it not discrimination to take from those who have, to give to those who do not? Similarly, can you explain how it is not an "abridgement of freedom" to take someone's property or earnings from them without their consent? Or will this just take us back to the old "you can always leave"?



No, this approach doesn't suggest feeling instead of thinking -- it suggests feeling and thinking.

Still waiting on the "thinking" part.

of course you are -- you wouldn't recognize thought if it run up and bit you on the leg; you would instead scream and whack it on the nose with a rolled-up newspaper.

Is the heavy reliance on insults supposed to be proof of this "thinking" I'm supposedly missing?



As I said, I do not claim that SS and welfare systems are perfect; but I do claim that even in their current sorry state, they are better than none. As such, this sort imperfect success of liberal ideology is still a success.

I guess if you're going to set the bar that low, you'd be hard pressed to identify much of anything that was not a success. I've heard some people use almost the exact reasoning in response to criticisms of the drug war.

War on drugs is more failure than success -- it's failure on the balance. Both welfare and SS are successes on the balance, because, despite all the abuses and problems, they do provide an incredibly important and humane service to those who are in dire need of such.

No, they are not, because they are only able to provide those services by taking what doesn't belong to them. Now, what makes your standard for "success" any better than mine?



You seem to be deliberately missing the point, refusing to recognize the gradations of success and benevolence, instead trying to lump it all together; by obscuring these very real differences of grade, you are tryint to corral the ideas either into the total, perfect success (of which you will of course see none, anywhere), or into the same group as obvious failures.

You're doing it again. Can anyone else translate this mess?



"False bifurcation" is the name of this sort of fallacy.

You are racking up fallacies quite fast, aren't you?..

Since you seem to like showing off your knowledge of debating terms, is there any sort of term to describe accusing someone of a fallacy, but without being able to cite something they've actually said and clearly explain which part they got wrong?



I suggest that you actually bother to understand what I am saying, instead of playing the part of a libertarian chihuahua.

Namecalling so soon?

I just thought you might need to have someone point out to you the fundamental flaw in your debating approach.

And how much thinking went into the conclusion that calling me a "libertarian chihuahua" achieves that goal?



As i said to you before in a different thread, what you are doing is not constructive, and it will not help your cause.

I can understand how it might serve your cause, whatever it is, to convince me of that.

Indeed it does. While I dislike libertarianism for being simplistic and one-dimensional,

This is rich. So far, despite using a lot of different rhetoric to describe the same thing, and once you get past the flawed use of concepts like "discrimination" and "abridgement of freedom" to make it sound like something else, your arguments essentially boil down to blind support for majority rule. Can it get any more "simplistic and one-dimensional" than that?



the libertarian defense of freedom is important.

This is why I would rather see you advocate freedom in a way that would tend to get people to understand, rather than wave you away as a buzzing fly.

Actually, I do pretty well in the persuasion department. Usually the only ones inclined to wave me away "as a buzzing fly" (or for that matter, whose purpose is served by implying that that's how others respond to me) are those who are outspoken in their criticisms of libertarianism, who have trouble defending those criticisms, and end up relying heavily on insults where answers and rebuttals should be. You've demonstrated this pattern yourself, you've just dressed it up in a more impressive vocabulary than most.



As it it, you seem to be more interested in feeling right (no matter how minute or irrelevant the subject) than in actually addressing the opposition.

What the hell are you talking about? Addressing the opposition is exactly what I've been doing. FYI that's what's happening when I'm doing stuff like questioning your characterization of liberal programs as successful.



I would love to see libertarianism succeed -- it surely beats the hell out of republicans or democrats; but what you are doing is not a progress towards that goal.

Yeah, I have to admit (*chuckle*), all those people whose minds I've helped change out here in the real world don't seem like much now, in comparison to having you respond unfavorably.



But all I've been doing is trying to examine whether the liberal changes you're referring to as a "success" are all that successful, as well as taking a closer look at that whole feeling vs. thinking thing, certainly worthwhile goals in a forum like this.

The former goal is already lost to you because you are conceding that at least two of the improvements I mentioned -- universal suffrage and desegregation -- are such successes; and either one alone would be sufficient to exonerate its causative ideology of the change of lacking in successes.

You really should stop going out of your way to sound like a college professor. It doesn't help. You seem to be trying to attribute some agenda to me that doesn't apply. So just to refresh your memory, one of the things you said that prompted my participation in this thread was:

"most changes that make our society decent, are due to liberals"

and I responded:

"I don't know about most, but there are certainly contributions in areas that concern people having the freedom to run their own lives. However, when it comes to letting them have control over their own property and earnings? Well, not so much."

I then questioned some of the examples you cited that were relevant to that concern. Now you seem hellbent on extracting some criticism out of the fact that you managed to come up with two examples that I didn't specifically have anything to say about. I guess it speaks well for my posts that that's where you have to find your, um ... victories. Now, if somewhere along the line I'd accused you of not having cited any examples of success, then you might have a point.



The latter goal is utterly failed by you, because all you are doing is spouting emotional remarks about what you consider to be lack of thought on my part -- you aren't bothering to actually demonstrate such lack of thought, you simply take a well-reasoned position and declare, by fiat of one, that it's not based on thinking.

Kind of like you're taking a not-really-all-that-well-reasoned position and simply declaring it to be "well-reasoned"? I think this is what they call a difference of opinion. You seem to be trying to make the case that the opinion that liberals feel more than think is wrong. In my opinion, you haven't made that case, and you've been looking anything but "well-reasoned" in your attempts to do so. An example would be using a word like "society", when all you really mean is the majority. That is the sort of stuff that demonstrates the lack of thought. Another would be the tendency to confuse arguments for persuading someone to contribute to something with justification for taking their property without their consent. Another would be your confusion over concepts like "discrimination". How many examples would you like?



Of course, I doubt anyone is paying much attention anyway, and even if they are, I don't think it's likely that anyone's mind will be changed by either of us. But just in case anyone else is looking on whose mind wasn't already made up, having them see how quickly you resorted to namecalling probably couldn't hurt.

Nor would it hurt to see how utterly lacking in actual reasoning facilities you are...

Easily a match for yours, any day of the week. Remember, I'm not the one who keeps hiding behind such nonsensical terms as "implicit social contract", or tries to pass off observations about majority will as argument.



I've been told more than once that my approach detracts from the contents I present. Frankly, I don't give a flying ****. I have enough content to compensate for lack of tact,

Sure, if volume is what you're going for.



and I detest tact for its own sake; so bite me.

Actually, so do I. It's just that, in your case, you seem to be using the lack of tact to compensate for a lack of content, which doesn't really make much sense.



This would be one of those things I normally wouldn't comment on, because relatively speaking at least, I don't disagree with it. Does the lack of any further comment mean I am being too "selective" for you?

See? this is why I say that you miss the bigger picture, this is why you are so superficial. You don't understand the context.

Your response doesn't seem to have much of anything to do with the point that I was making. And since that point seems to be lost on you, it was about how silly it is to try to extract some criticism out of the fact that somebody actually focuses on what they disagree with, and may not comment at all on what they agree with.



You don't understand what goes on under the very shallowest level of discourse, you don't see beyod the immediate short-term give-and-take.

Nonsense. I just don't care to let people like you get away with vague, rhetorical ********. That's the reason for the closer point-by-point examination that you're now trying to put a negative spin on. Given your heavy reliance on the former, I can understand why you'd have a problem with the latter.



Of course there is a difference. You not addressing two of my examples was critical to the very point of this tangent. That is why I called your thinking on the subject selective.

No, it's really not "critical" at all. They were points I did not dispute, period, so I didn't mention them. I went through this earlier. They would only be "critical" if I'd claimed that none of your examples were actually successful. Since I did not, that kind of renders your whole "selective" thing pointless.

But given how much you're trying to milk this thing for, can I take it that you won't be at all selective in responding to my points and questions from here on?


(cont.)

[WMT1]

Victor:
However, no, I do not think that an individual can be trusted to decide whether to make the charitable contribution in lieu of taxes -- it's simple economics, such a situation would lead to one huge Prisoner's Dilemma.

WMT1:
Then that brings us to the other question I asked, which you did not answer. Can you explain why anyone else's judgment should take precedence?

Victor:
Yep. I can explain why collective judgement of the society in cases like this

... in other words, the will of the majority ...

should indeed take precedence over the individual judgdment. It's basic decision theory, and the problem is perfectly exemplified by Prisoner's Dilemma; but i already said it, and you missed it the first time around.

No, it isn't "perfectly exemplified", and no, I didn't miss it. You described the "Prisoner's Dilemma", and nowhere in that description did you explain why anyone else's judgment should take precedence. Were you hoping it would pass for "well-reasoned" without doing so? (And will I have to ask the question a third time?)



The Prisoner's Dilemma is solved by means of participants explicitly abandoning their purely selfish perspective, and ceding some control to the society (prisoners as a group, rather than individually).

Does your "as a group" qualification mean that the majority is making that decision for everyone in the group, whether they consent to it individually or not? And if so, would you consider it to be a "selfish" perspective if someone was willing to cede that control for himself, but also took the position that those individuals who did not wish to should not be forced to?

But you are in this situation voluntarily -- you can always bail out of the social contract, just as you can always bail out of the condo association.

That's nice, but you didn't do a very good job of answering what I actually asked, particularly with regard to the second question. Please stop being so selective.

And since you keep falling back on that "social contract" thing when you can't think of anything else, what are the terms of that contract again? And where did you get your information?



lockean theory of government, that's all it is -- we create the government to do things we cannot do individually (and no, we cannot individually ensure that kids don't pay for their parents' lack of ability to provide for them).

Just to be clear, are you under the impression that the only way to accomplish something that cannot be done individually is through government?

Not necessarily; there are certainly alternatives in many situations. The government however is the best at quite a number of things.

And no one has any objections to you giving as much as you want from your own resources in support of that opinion. But again, where do you get the idea that you have any rightful claim on the property of those who don't happen to share your particular views about whatever it is that government does well? (Are we headed for another majority rule argument dressed up in a bunch of rhetoric about "society" or "the people"?)



Then can I take you realize that "we as a society decide" has no value in arguing for the merit of any particular decisions?

of course. however, the specific merit of any proposition dictates whether it can legitimately be decided by a majority.

And is it the majority itself that determines the "specific merit"? If not, then who? And if so, this is almost as laughable as claiming that the validity of the Bible as the "Word of God" is established by the fact that it says so in the Bible. Yeah, I can tell a lot of thinking is going into your rationalizations.



I think it's perfectly reasonable to allow the government to use those taxes towards a worthwhile goal (worthiness being decided by majority of course) in a non-discriminatory manner.

But taxes do discriminate. They discriminate against those who have more from which to collect.

Ummm... why do you regard that as discrimination?

Here's a definition that should help:

to make a difference in treatment or favor on a basis other than individual merit



Discrimination occurs against the backdrop of that which is non-discriminatory -- that is now we know what is discriminatory and what isn't;

Or you could just consult a dictionary. (You do have to engage in some fancy footwork to try to make this stuff work, don't you?)



but taxes are wholly a social construct, and thus you cannot simply decide that, say, flat tax (which is what I presume you had in mind) would be fair, and everything else non-discriminatory -- that would be nothing but one man's unsupported opinion.

Well, now that's not what I said, is it? You seem to be trying to attribute a view to me that I have not expressed, just so you can then call it an "unsupported opinion". On this point, all I did was point out that taxes are discriminatory, and I pointed out how. When you take more from people just because they have more, that qualifies. So unless you've got some new material on this point, we can pretty much throw out that "non-discriminatory" thing as an accurate description of taxation from here on. And once that goes out the window, your previous defense of what is "justifiable" kind of falls apart too, doesn't it? (Something tells me that won't stop you from trying to recycle it at some point, though.)



In general, progressive tax is pretty universally regarded as being the baseline fair system of taxation.

You sure make a lot of references to stuff like what other people think, as if that has some weight as an argument. Is that among the things you think qualify as thinking? And how much do you suppose would remain in the way of actual arguments if you couldn't rely on that kind of stuff at all? (In fact, since you like throwing debating terms around, isn't there such a term for this kind of argument?)



I don't support majority rule blindly. I very explicitly reject mere majority rule when it infringes upon individual rights, for example.

Well, except maybe for the right to decide how to spend one's own earnings? Earlier you made the statement "We also grant the government the right to taxation". Since you didn't "explicitly reject" this idea, how did you arrive at the conclusion that just because the majority gives the government the power to confiscate the property/earnings of its citizens without their consent, that that's somehow not a violation of "individual rights"?

How do you get the idea that just because a majority of the condo association gives the association the power to charge condo fees, that's somehow not the violation of individual rights?..

Actually, I don't recall taking that position. But if there's something in the ownership agreement giving them that power, well, that would be where I would get that idea. If there isn't, you could probably argue that it is a violation of individual rights.

Now, back to my question. How did you arrive at the conclusion that just because the majority gives the government the power to confiscate the property/earnings of its citizens without their consent, that that's somehow not a violation of "individual rights"?



And while we are at it, how come the condo association as a whole gets to decide whether to spend the fees on a new pool or a better parking lot, without allowing each member to allocate their fees any which way they please?..

Well, that, too, would probably be spelled out in the conditions of the contract. It all just comes down to the whole contract thing - you know, actual contracts, rather than "implicit"ones? I hope that helps.



And you have the cojones to accuse me of not thinking?!.

Inasmuch as your question suggests you thought you were going to stump me with the questions that preceded it, and you didn't, that would be a resounding yes.



If that's your reaction, then maybe it would help to remind you of some of your earlier statements:

"The way I see it, is that we as a society decide that certain things -- right to life, for example -- are of paramount importance. We also grant the government the right to taxation, and to use of the tax money for the appropriate goals;"

And you've already agreed that what you mean by "society" is, more or less, the majority. So, if you don't support majority rule blindly, of what possible value are such statements?

they are of value because i can hold more than one thought at a time.

This makes no sense. Not a lot of thinking reflected here. I'm guessing you've realized they are of no real argumentative value, and you just don't want to admit it.



In some cases, majority will is sufficient justification; and in others, it's not.

Let me get this straight. To support your position, you rely heavily (if not almost exclusively) on rhetoric that really amounts to nothing more than pointing out that the majority agrees with you, and yet you turn around and claim that majority will is not always sufficient justification??? Now, where's that thinking again?



Sure looks like at least part of your views are based on whatever the majority wants.

No, not whatever; I have corrected you on this matter more than once.

And such corrections are meaningless until you renounce all attempts to support your position with statements about what the majority (or "the people", or "society", etc.) wants or deems "worthwhile". I'm kind of surprised a "thinking" person such as yourself isn't at least a little bit embarrassed to have been relying on them so heavily.



I think that there are some subjects on which majority will is an acceptable justification, and others on which it isn't. So yes, my views are in part based on majority will -- but not on whatever majority wants. That was a chear demagogic shot.

No, it wasn't, and the failure to see the worthlessness of your own rhetoric is yours. Either majority will has weight as an authority to support your arguments, or it doesn't - just like any other authority. You can't just rely on it when it suits your purposes, and expect to be taken seriously. If anything, that is the sort of stuff demagogues tend to do. And it's a little like trying to bolster your claims with nothing more than "Bob agrees with me", even though you yourself admit that Bob isn't always right.



And at the very least, since you appeared to be trying to pass all of these statements off as actual arguments,

Just as I said, you couldn't recognize an actual thought if it bit you on the ass...

Like I said before, with retorts like this, it just looks like you're starting to realize just how much your arguments would crumble if you couldn't rely on some form of the majority will thing to support them, and you just don't want to admit it.



Why should I have to "sever" something I never agreed to in the first place? Do you understand how contracts work?

yes, I do; do you? No, I don't think so. You can for example inherit your parents' condo -- you may have never signed the condo contract, but you are nonetheless party to it.

I may be "party to it", but I am not bound by its terms unless I consent to them by accepting that inheritance.

that's right. You don't have to stay in the condo, even if you were born and raised there, when you parents die; but you can only stay in the condo if you accept the terms. Same with the citizenship.

Uh, no, not exactly. You continue to demonstrate confusion not only over contracts, but also the difference between living in the country of one's birth, and trespassing on private property. However, if you think this is a sound analogy, then you should have no trouble plainly stating that anything the government (or the majority, if you prefer) chooses to do to someone is acceptable, as long as that someone is given the opportunity to leave the country first. If you can't do that, then the whole condo analogy falls apart too.

Incidentally, I just noticed a question from an earlier exchange that you didn't exactly answer, so I'll ask it again now. Why should I have to "sever" something I never agreed to in the first place?



If you are this dismissive of the role consent plays in contracts (at least valid contracts), you don't appear to understand how they work after all.

As i said, you can't be bothered to think.

And you just keep saying stuff like this when you can't seem to come up with any legitimate criticisms or rebuttals. I'm guessing the irony is lost on you.



But just to pin you down a bit, does your use of this analogy mean that you think anything that government does is reasonable, as long as you have the option to leave the country if you don't like it?

of course not. The government is also bound by the social contract. However, as long as the gopvernment upholds its end, your options are to accept it or leave (or stay and reject it anyway, of course, but then you are in trouble).

And what are the terms of this contract again? And how do you know it's "implied"?



Or do you only use it to defend government actions that you happen to agree with, but cannot otherwise defend?

My defense is Constitution.

Aside from being a bit "simplistic and one-dimensional", this has a similar ring to "my defense is the Bible". Sure makes it easier when you can let a document do your thinking for you. But then, that kind of takes the wind out of the sails of your claims about "thinking", doesn't it?

Incidentally, does this mean you think something is right just because it's in the Constitution, or at least, as long as it's not specifically prohibited by the Constitution?



Many contracts are thus implicit -- and it's not at all unreasonable to view the citizenship as such an implicit contract.

Sure it is. I try to avoid relying on the words of others to make my points, but occasionally it seems worthwhile ...

Note that "you don't have to stay here and be taxed, you could always move to another country" is not an acceptable retort, because I don't have to stay in the neighborhood where a single thug steals my car either. The fact that I can avoid some petty crime by moving to a different neighborhood does not excuse that crime or the criminals. If living in East Palo Alto doesn't mean I consent to a "social contract" which includes having my car broken into, then living in the US doesn't mean I consent to a "social contract" which includes income taxes.
-Glen Raphael

I hope that helps.

more stupid rhetoric. how dumb can you be?

And amazingly, in attempting to support such a lazy response, you manage to provide us with a demonstration of just how dumb someone can be. This is going to be fun ...

Any contract involving criminal actions is by definition null and void. Therefore, there can be no such contract involving having your car broken into.

More evidence of your inability to understand the role of consent in contracts. If I put it in writing that a particular individual can break into my car whenever he wants, that pretty much removes the criminal aspect of it.

But to examine your logic a little closer, does that also mean that passing a law allowing what would otherwise be criminal behavior is by definition null and void? Or is it your position that anything becomes okay simply by virtue of being made law, and therefore part of the "contract"? And if that's the case, and given your heavy dependence on majoritarian arguments, can I take it you'd never be prepared to argue against anything being made into law, if it's what the majority wanted?



This in turn means that you quote, by simply assuming that taxation is equivalent to crime in some critical respect, is begging the question.

Well, actually, it is equivalent to at least one type of crime. What both taxation and the crime of theft have in common is that they involve someone's property being taken from them without their consent. Sorry if you couldn't see that.



The obvious answer is that because taxation is lawful, it can be a part of the social contract.

That may be the "obvious answer" to something, but not to anything I asked. Whether something actually is lawful at any given point is irrelevant to whether it should be. Otherwise, you could shoot down any attempt to change laws by simply arguing that something already is the law, so therefore it shouldn't change. For instance, using your logic, you could have argued at one time that because slavery was lawful, it could be a part of the social contract. So once again, what were you saying earlier about "dumb"?



To turn your quote on its head -- well, duh, you may dislike living in a neighborhood with little greenery, but your choices are either to accept it (and perhaps try to change it) or to leave. Yessireebob.

You really suck at this whole analogy thing, as evidenced by the fact that you apparently see a lack of "greenery" as being analogous to having your property taken from you without your consent. That one's gotta win some kind of prize.

Based on the stuff you keep posting, all your position really boils down to is that the majority has a right to bully the minority, as long as anyone in the minority has the option of leaving the country, and all because of some imaginary "contract", the terms of which you have yet to explain. Glen Raphael's analogy basically kicks the ass of your position, and your inability to understand that, or to respond to it without such silly comparisons as the "greenery" thing, finally removes all doubt in my mind about what a lightweight you are. Congrats. Took you longer than most.

Incidentally, you referred to the Raphael commentary as "more stupid rhetoric". Well, I've pretty much just shot down all the muddled stuff you tried to support that characterization with, but that commentary was only a follow-up anyway, to some other stuff in which he asks a series of pretty straightforward questions. They should be easy for anyone to answer, if their opinions are well thought-out. And I'd be interested in your answers to them. If you think you're up to it, let me know, and I'll post it. I just don't want to bother unless you have enough confidence in your position to commit to answering all of them.



And if your comments reflect so much thought, then please demonstrate that by telling me exactly what the "implicit social contract" you've referred to consists of, and where you got your information.

I got my information from reading up some on the elementary political theory and philosophy -- something you are obviously in dire need of.

Well, thanks for the thought, but your answer isn't very specific. Are you under the impression that there is something I could read that would somehow lead me to think I had some rightful claim on my neighbor's property to support my goals, just because I could get enough other people to agree with me?

And if you were really doing all this reading with a critical eye, why weren't you asking some of the same questions of the material that I've been asking of you, rather than simply absorbing whatever these authors had to say? All the reading in the world apparently hasn't prepared you for such inquiry, or enabled you to come up with arguments any more compelling than majority will, or the mysterious "contract". It just seems to have provided you with enough fancy rhetoric to make you think your arguments are stronger than they are. So how valuable could it really be?

By the way, with your comments above, you're still just coming across as someone who, because of what he's read, thinks he has some kind of monopoly on the truth. Sound familiar?

That aside, since you apparently do think all that reading counts for something, exactly where are the terms of this contract outlined? And more importantly, since apparently all you're talking about is "theory" and "philosophy" anyway, where do any of these authors get the authority to infer consent to the "contract" from anyone who does not leave the country?

(*crickets*)



Our social contract is in fact explicit -- it's the Constitution (and it was amended by the means specified therein in order to instate income taxes, so it's legit).

Well, except for one little detail. Relatively few people actually signed it. I certainly didn't. You still seem to be confused about the relevance of consent. Can I take it that, if an amendment were passed re-instituting slavery, you would be okay with it, as long as anyone who would be enslaved by such an amendment had the option of leaving the country to avoid it?

Besides, if all you were talking about was the Constitution, why didn't you just say so, rather than all that nonsense about "implicit social contract"? Sure has the smell of a last ditch attempt to wiggle out of whatever it was you initially meant by the term.



What is implicit is the acceptance of the social contract.

This is another one of those things you keep saying, but you seem clueless about the concept of actually backing it up with anything.



for that matter, so does your attitude in general -- seems like all you do is seek out perceived offenses to libertarian cause, and start yapping.

Actually, I've taken care to be both clear and thorough in my responses to your posts. It seems a bit lazy for you now to dismiss it all as "yapping".

And fallacious and utterly superficial. Carry on.

If my responses have been "fallacious", then why have you had so much trouble coming up with anything I've actually gotten wrong? And there's also kind of a built-in irony to using a word like "superficial" without identifying what you're talking about, isn't there? If anything, just throwing such words out there in this manner is pretty consistent with the laziness I just mentioned. Once again, you're kind of helping to make my points for me.



Nor is it particularly analogous to remaining in one's country, and objecting to its laws.

Yes, it is. In fact, a condo association is indeed a government in miniature -- you can have some property as a part of it, but it's conditional and subject to association's rules ("you have to pay condo fees", "you can't keep pets", etc.)

If they're so much alike, then why do you suppose condo associations don't rely on an "implicit" contract???

(*crickets*)



But you didn't bother to think before you wrote, did you?

Wow. You sure seem to be jumping through hoops to imply some kind of failure on my part where none has actually occurred.

I think I have clearly demonstrated the failure to think things through on your part.

I'm sure you do. Sadly, that doesn't speak well for that whole "thinking" thing you're trying to get across.



Your exact words were:

"We also grant the government the right to taxation, and to use of the tax money for the appropriate goals; it's a part of the implicit social contract, which contract you can always sever by emigrating."

Sorry, but in the absence of any actual contract, trying to represent that as significantly different from the sentiments behind "love it or leave it" is a stretch at best, your hairsplitting commentary about "alternatives" notwithstanding.

So. You are trying to wave away a valid exposition of the difference between my position and your strawman as "hairsplitting".

Well, no. In the first place, it wasn't particularly "valid", it was more along the lines of that "minutae" you mentioned earlier. Thus my use of the term "hairsplitting". Second, it wasn't a strawman. Your words: "you always have the option of leaving the country". Continuing to try to spin this as significantly different from the sentiments behind "love it or leave it" only makes you look ridiculous. If, however, you'd like to renounce all your arguments based on it, this might be an appropriate time to do so.



The point is that yes, there is a critical difference between "love it or leave it" and "accept it or reject it".

Haven't seen it yet. That hairsplitting rationalization you submitted before sure doesn't qualify as "critical".



The latter is in fact a simple logical statement, the axiom of excluded middle, while the former is an insiduous and manipulative instance of a logical fallacy.

You know, when you were in debating class, you probably would have done well to become a little less enamored with all the new terms you were learning, and should have focused a little more on learning how to debate, or at least how to communicate effectively. (You really think your above statement qualifies, don't you?)



indeed. however, given that this is not a discriminatory way to spend tax money, nor does it abridge others' rights (any more than the taxation itself does at least), I think that mere majority opinion is indeed sufficient to justify such position.

But as I already pointed out, it is a discriminatory way to spend tax money.

that's what you asserted -- but of course you haven't supported your claim.

Sure I did, certainly more than you've supported many of yours. You apparently weren't paying attention. My exact words:

"But taxes do discriminate. They discriminate against those who have more from which to collect."

And I have since provided a definition:

to make a difference in treatment or favor on a basis other than individual merit

Now, can you tell me where I went wrong - you know, without relying on yet more arguments based on majority will, or the mysterious "social contract"?


(cont.)

[WMT1]

WMT1:
I'm also glad you added the part about "any more than the taxation itself does at least", since that suggests that, at some level, you probably really know that it does abridge rights.

Victor:
How so?

Well, I thought that was obvious. But let's review. Your statement was:

"however, given that this is not a discriminatory way to spend tax money, nor does it abridge others' rights (any more than the taxation itself does at least), I think that mere majority opinion is indeed sufficient to justify such position."

Now, if you were really convinced that "taxation itself" does not abridge rights, your qualifier would be utterly meaningless. So whether you intended this or not, the fact that you included it pretty much reveals that you really know, or at least suspect, that taxation abridges rights. That explanation probably won't satisfy you, but I'm sure it would be clear to just about anyone else. Moreover, it is certainly more explanation than you've provided for most of the insulting comments that you've chosen to substitute for rebuttal.



i added that statement because I prefer correctness; but taxation is a part of the social contract.

You mean that "social contract" that you were having so much trouble establishing the validity of that you decided to just make it about the Constitution? Or are we back to something else now? And are you under the impression that if something is supported by a written document, it is somehow immune from the characterization "abridges rights"?



Unfortunately, both of these things make your conclusion pretty shaky, don't they?

Only if one is as clueless about political theory and semantics as you are...

Well, given some of the nonsensical "majority" reasoning you've used to support your arguments, not to mention your ideas about contracts, and your weakness when it comes to analogies, you don't appear to be all that, um ... clueful yourself. Out of curiosity, is it your view that someone's vocabulary or education should be at a certain level before they can legitimately protest when you try to claim what doesn't belong to you?


And incidentally, this pattern of substituting insults for rebuttal seems to be getting worse. For instance, regarding the following exchange:

"Ensuring that individuals unable to provide for themselves do not have to die for that reason, is one of such valid goals to spend tax money on."

But your comment reflects a feeling that seems to be common among liberals - that if their goals are "valid" enough, they have some rightful claim on the resources of everyone to fund those goals.

You criticized my comment, claiming it reflected a lack of thinking, but provided no further explanation. I asked you to tell me where I went wrong, and got no response. Would you care to explain that now?



You should have learned your limitations when you discovered yourself unable to parse a single relatively straight-forward (by the standards of intellectual discussion) passage, dude.

You mean that exercise in pedantry that just about anybody out there in the real world would have to read 4 or 5 times to figure out what it meant?

This is why most people out there in the real world tend to not have involved intellectual discussions on complex topics. I am glad to see you get the point.

Oh, I probably get involved in these discussions as much as you do, if not more. These topics aren't really all that "complex". It only appears that way sometimes because of some of the convoluted reasoning some people use to justify their views - you know, implicit social contracts & stuff like that. And anyone can show off their vocabulary by making use of uncommon words to make their nonsensical views sound more credible to the casual observer.

And by the way, to most of the people I've encountered who do engage in such discussions (which has included quite a few people over the years whose intellect and vocabulary is easily a match for yours), some of the rhetoric you've used to defend your positions would make you a laughing stock.

[Brooklyn Dodger]

FEEEELLLLIIIIIINNNNGGGGSSSSSSS!!!!!!

[Frank Newgent]

Hey WMT1,

Are traffic signals recommended or mandatory?

http://www.theonion.com/onion3624/libertarian_convention.html

[WMT1]

Originally posted by Frank Newgent:
Hey WMT1,

Are traffic signals recommended or mandatory?

As far as I know, they're mandatory just about everywhere they're used. I hope this helps.

[Victor Danilchenko]

WMT1

As far as I know, they're mandatory just about everywhere they're used. I hope this helps. Ah, but it's an abridgement of individual rights! After all, you never signed a contract to abide by them! (and even if you treat driving tests as such a contract, you are still subject to the said lights as a pedestrian).

I will answer your humongo posts when i have time.

[Frank Newgent]

Are traffic signals recommended or mandatory?
As far as I know, they're mandatory just about everywhere they're used.

You mean like streets and roads? I'll drive wherever I damn please...

Texas has a total of 300,424 miles of roads of which approximately 26 percent are on the state system. This includes 6,421 miles of frontage roads. Of the total miles of non-federal roads (i.e. not Interstate highways or United States numbered highways), 22 percent are State Highways, 50 percent are county roads, and 27 percent are city streets. An additional 625 miles are off-system-non-county maintained roads and 149 miles are designated on the state system, but maintained locally.

Sounds like a lot of toll booths to me.

[Yahzi]

WMT1
You mean they adopt the view that their misfortune gives them a rightful claim on what belongs to others?
News flash: human beings are social animals. They cannot exist without society. It's not just that the unfortunate children need you: you need them, too.

The social cost of allowing people to starve to death is vastly greater than the cost of feeding them. This has been known since Roman times (bread and circuses, anyone). Your clever logic does not refute two thousand years of empirical data.

Not only does Libertarian thought fail to account for the past, it fails to account for the future. The idea that the economically unemployable should be discarded like capitial equipment no longer worth maintaining fails to realize that in the not-so-distant future, most of us will be economically unemployable. As the pundits say, curing unemployment is easy: outlaw farm machinery. The obverse of this realization is that as technology progresses, more and more of us fall under the bar of profitable employability.

At some point we keep our fellow humans alive not because of their economic value, but because of their social value. Man does not live by bread alone.

[Victor Danilchenko]

WMT1,

The size of this thread is getting ridiculous. Therefore, I will respond only to what I consider to be important. Furthermore, given the sheer size of even this limited reply, I probably will not follow up again, unless you tpresent a small and explicitly defined set of points you want addressed.

You've been misinformed. If I don't agree that all the examples you cite qualify as "successes", the ones that do not are the only ones I need to address. And in this case, after I did that, what you were basically left with were two - not very compelling, if you're trying to make the case that "most changes that make our society decent are liberal changes".Why not? What other changes do you have in mind, that aren't liberal changes but that make our society decent?

When I think of good changes, I think of the two I mentioned -- universal suffrage and de-segregation; and also 40-hour work week, repeal or slow abandonment of various sexual laws, anti-discrimination laws (not just racial, but also gender), and somesuch. now I can think of more, but these are the ones that I think you will also agree to be good. At the same time, I cannot think of any changes (say, over the last century) that make our society significantly better, that weren't supported by liberals. I can however think of plenty of such changes that weren't supported by conservatives (remember, this tangent was about contrasting liberals and conservatives).

Why do I have to "contend" with them at all? Are you under the impression that, if you give a list of examples to support your position, and someone thinks that some of your examples fall short, they're supposed to keep quiet unless they specifically disagree with all of them??? Sorry, this makes no sense.I already explained this to you. In this specific case, as relating to the assertion that liberals feel rather than think, and to the support of such an assertion by the claim that liberal agenda generally fails (for lack of thought), countering the claim in question requires addressing the counter-examples of liberal successes en masse.

Well, gee whiz, Victor, that's what I usually do in a forum like this. I'm not much for preachin' to the choir. I find it much more interesting to challenge people on the stuff I think they got wrong, or at least where I think a closer look is called for. These exchanges get longwinded enough as it is. But if you can provide a straight answer to this next question, it might clear things up a bit. Do you comment on every statement/example submitted by someone you're arguing with, including the ones you agree with?No; but if the statements I agree with render irrelevant my opposing of the other points, I would probably simply drop the point altogether.

If it sounds that way, it is probably at least partially because there was no "glaring error". What I'm conceding is a pretty minor point,it was a glaring error of logic. Yes, you could argue that it was a minor point -- but it exposed your sloppy thinking quite well.

Now, is there some reason you skipped over these questionsYes. Your relationship to "individualists" is irrelevant to the topic, and I have no desire to write a dissertation as a post each time I respond to you.

Again, these would all be good reasons for those who share such views to avoid wasting time on some childish "outcry", and simply pooling their own time and resources to solve the problem. You included both of my questions above in your own post, but you completely ignored the second one, which specifically asked about this. Aren't you being "selective" now?The second one was "Would there be something keeping those doing the crying out from just going ahead and pooling their own resources to provide that support themselves?" -- to which I answered "How about old age and infirmity?". I did answer your second question.

Which is precisely why you should probably shed some of the garbage you've been using to form some of your conclusions, like all that rhetoric about "society", "the people", and an "implicit social contract"."Social contract" is a basic concept of political philosophy. That you don't know about it, only says something about your ignorance.

That's fine for any strangers who are assuming it voluntarily, and only for themselves. But then, that's not really what you mean, is it?I don't mean individual strangers, but "strangers" collectively as a society. You seem to be having a real hard time understanding this simple concept.

And clearly some of them get it wrong. By the way, isn't "social construct" just new rhetoric for trying to make your blind-support-for-majority-rule thing sound like something else?As i said numerous times, you little liar, I don't support majority rule blindly; and 'social construct" is a simple fact of reality -- a lot of concepts we deal with every day, such as "language" or "responsibility" or "justice" are social constructs. You seem to have a naively objectivist leaning in your thought.

Whoosh! That's the sound whatever credibility you had left going out the window. Good luck supporting such assertions with anything I've actually said.You said that it's only the parents' responsibility to care for their child, thus considering trhe nuclear family but ignoring the extended family and the society. :rolleyes:

In any case, how do your comments place any responsibility for someone else's kids on the shoulders of someone trying to raise and support their own? Can you manage to scrape up any arguments that aren't just a variation on "the majority says so"?I already did -- I pointed out that responsibility for children reaches beyond their parents alone. You simply assume that only the parents are responsible, and you for some unfathomable reason treat this as the default position; but it's not inherently better that the alternative position, which is that the responsibility for the children rests, in order of diminishing degree, or parents, extended family, and society. As Yahzi said, no man is an island, we all in society are bound by multiple lines of relationships and responsibilities, and treating a nuclear family as a completely independent unit in this respect is simply myopic.

You seem to be unable to grasp the fact that your assumptions are only assumptions, that there is nothing inherently rational about placing the responsibility for children only on the shoulders of the parents. Of course my position is not inherently superior -- but the point is that responsibility is a social construct, and thus the social conceptualization thereof defines it in the same way usage defines language.

That's [extended family's and strangers'] choice [to feel responsible for children who aren't theirs],No more so that it's your choice to feel responsible for your own kids. The difference is only in degree, not in kind.

Nonsense. The way I'm using it, it's essentially interchangeable with "obligation" or "duty". Is it your position that this is an uncommon use?All three concepts are mutually dendent -- are are essentially trying to pull off a circular definition.

If anything, you seem to think that all it takes for someone to actually have a responsibility they wouldn't otherwise assume is for the majority to decide that they have it. Any chance I can get you on record specifically agreeing with that position?No. There is one constraint -- there is no responsibility without power; no taxation without representation. That constraint is also inherent in the nature of a free society. Once that constraint is satisfied, yes, majority decides what responsibility is.

Do you even have a clue as to what that ideology is? If so, please explain, using as little spin as possible. (This should be good.)Start a different thread. This one is big enough.

Besides, the fact that you're finding all kinds of different rhetoric to describe blind-support-for-majority-rule, and making flawed use of concepts like "discrimination" to try to make it sound like something else, doesn't exactly keep that from being a one-trick-pony ideology, now does it?My pony does many, many tricks. it's a realistic pony, you see, and it conforms to reality rather than expecting reality to conform to it.

Out of curiosity, without jumping through too many hoops to get there, can you explain how is it not discrimination to take from those who have, to give to those who do not? Similarly, can you explain how it is not an "abridgement of freedom" to take someone's property or earnings from them without their consent? Or will this just take us back to the old "you can always leave"?You assume that this is discriminatory because you, just like so many libertarians, see property as an absolute, abstracted from society. Property is never absolute (not even your possession of your own skills). If you go far enough back, much of the property was first established by virtue of a simple claim -- land, for example; a claim which was made with society's consent and validated by society's rules. As such, any such property is already automatically dependent on society. Furthermore, your skills and your very person, and thus that which you earned with those skills, where enabled by society -- the culture around you, the social infrastructure, etc. Thus in effect nothing you own -- nor your house, not your car, not even your skills -- are absolute property not subjected to society's constraints. You cannot simply claim "it's mine, all mine, and nobody else has any control over it whatsoever". The same social underpinnings that enable the confiscation of the tools of a crime, for example, also enable taxation; and society (yes, that's majority) decides what form of taxation is "fair", because, given the infinite entanglement of all property with society, there is no objective standard of "fairness" to be seen here.

You're doing it again. Can anyone else translate this mess?Why don't you just go back to reading ARI tracts?..

Since you seem to like showing off your knowledge of debating terms, is there any sort of term to describe accusing someone of a fallacy, but without being able to cite something they've actually said and clearly explain which part they got wrong?i did explain specifically what you got wrong. In one case you inverted the implication (which you already conceded to), in the other case you supported a false bifurcation (this is what "love it or leave it" is -- false bifurcation) by queating it with a statement representing the axiom of excluded middle. yes, I daresay I very explicitly pointed out how you comitted the fallacies in question.

And how much thinking went into the conclusion that calling me a "libertarian chihuahua" achieves that goal?A fair deal. I observed your behavior in four different threads: the thread of libertarian education programme (where I was doing my best to ignore you and only talk to Shanek, because you just couldn't lift your eyes above minutae), the thread of sexuality (where you just couldn't be bothered to look beyond the perceived mischaracterization of your views by RandFan, and save everyone a whole lot of pain by simply saying that yes, you have no problem with bestiality or consensual necrophilia), the thread on comparison of libertarianism to anarcho-socialism (where you were just plain stupid), and this thread. the emerging pattern is quite clear: you are a libertarian chihuahua (http://www.winternet.com/~mikelr/flame7.html).

You really should stop going out of your way to sound like a college professor.I don't go out of my way for that -- it comes naturally. I blame this horrible thing called "education".

"most changes that make our society decent, are due to liberals"

and I responded:

"I don't know about most, but there are certainly contributions in areas that concern people having the freedom to run their own lives. However, when it comes to letting them have control over their own property and earnings? Well, not so much."Nice of you to bring it up again. I already answered that one the first time, and you ignored the answer: there have been very few changes in economic policy over the decades, certainly much fewer than in social policy; and I can't think of many such changes that make our society decent. So my statement -- "most changes that make our society decent, are due to liberals" -- stands unopposed, given that you concede that most such social changes are indeed due to liberals, and you have failed to cite any such economic changes, that aren't.

See, it's simple; Most serious changes improving our society have been the changes in social rather than fiscal policy; and you already concede those social to have been due to liberals. Quod Erat Demonstrandum (yeah, another one of those pesky college things).

Easily a match for yours, any day of the week. Remember, I'm not the one who keeps hiding behind such nonsensical terms as "implicit social contract", or tries to pass off observations about majority will as argument.Indeed. that's because you understand neither basic political theory (and thus are ignorant of the concept of 'social contract') nor semantics (and are thus ignorant of the constructed nature of meaning).

And no one has any objections to you giving as much as you want from your own resources in support of that opinion. But again, where do you get the idea that you have any rightful claim on the property of those who don't happen to share your particular views about whatever it is that government does well? (Are we headed for another majority rule argument dressed up in a bunch of rhetoric about "society" or "the people"?)No, we already covered your question, above -- i explained why ownership is not absolute but contextual in, and dependent upon, society.

And is it the majority itself that determines the "specific merit"? If not, then who?Reason does (and it's not a "who"); but yes, it is indirectly governed by majority -- by the sort of society that the majority set up. Out society, thanksfully, happens to be geared towards freedom.

Or you could just consult a dictionary. (You do have to engage in some fancy footwork to try to make this stuff work, don't you?)No, you simply want everything to be simple -- too simple; simplistic, in fact. Hence your objection to complex reasoning, which is probably not in a small degree prompted by your actual inability to understand such.

Well, now that's not what I said, is it? You seem to be trying to attribute a view to me that I have not expressed, just so you can then call it an "unsupported opinion".See what I mean about your seeking out of things to object to? I know that's not what you said -- this is why I, first, wrote "you cannot simply decide that, say, flat tax" (where "say" is equivalent o saying 'for example), and the qualified it with "which is what I presume you had in mind".

Go yap at someone who cares, dude.

You sure make a lot of references to stuff like what other people think, as if that has some weight as an argument.of course it does. What people think determines what many things -- th social constructs -- are.


Actually, I don't recall taking that position. But if there's something in the ownership agreement giving them that power, well, that would be where I would get that idea. If there isn't, you could probably argue that it is a violation of individual rights.

Now, back to my question. How did you arrive at the conclusion that just because the majority gives the government the power to confiscate the property/earnings of its citizens without their consent, that that's somehow not a violation of "individual rights"?Because, as i already explain, all property is entangled with and dependent upon society, and thus society can claim a portion thereof.

Well, that, too, would probably be spelled out in the conditions of the contract. It all just comes down to the whole contract thing - you know, actual contracts, rather than "implicit"ones? I hope that helps.it is spelled out in the contract -- in Constitution; and Constitution was amended in the way specified therein. This means that taxation is indeed a part of the social contract.

Let me get this straight. To support your position, you rely heavily (if not almost exclusively) on rhetoric that really amounts to nothing more than pointing out that the majority agrees with you, and yet you turn around and claim that majority will is not always sufficient justification??? Now, where's that thinking again?Apparently somewhere too complex for you to reach. I explicitly said that abridgement of individual rights cannot be justified by mere will of majority. There may be additional justifications rendering the will of majority sufficient -- for example, the abridgment of your right to swing your body in any direction is done by a majority, and justified by the fact that you having such freedom would abridge others' freedoms. Contrawise, given that there is no solid reason to abridge the right to eat fondue, mere majority will to ban fondue eating would not be a sufficient justification.

Of course I explained this position numerous times, but you seem to be too dense to actrually understand why I sometimes recognize majority will as sufficient, and sometimes I don't. You want a simplistic black-and-white world, apparently for your lack of cognitive sophistication required to grasp something more complex.

No, it wasn't, and the failure to see the worthlessness of your own rhetoric is yours. Either majority will has weight as an authority to support your arguments, or it doesn't - just like any other authority. You can't just rely on it when it suits your purposes, and expect to be taken seriously. If anything, that is the sort of stuff demagogues tend to do. And it's a little like trying to bolster your claims with nothing more than "Bob agrees with me", even though you yourself admit that Bob isn't always right.Don't you *********** get it, dude? majority can decide that "tree" means "fence", and the word will change its meaning; majority can decide that "justice" does not entail "death penalty", and the word will change its meaning; but majority cannot decide that 2+2=5.

Are you really so dense as to be unable to grasp the situation where a given support is sometimes sufficient?..

Incidentally, I just noticed a question from an earlier exchange that you didn't exactly answer, so I'll ask it again now. Why should I have to "sever" something I never agreed to in the first place?You implicitly agreed to it my emigrating -- just as you would implicitly agree to assume the condo responsibilities by not moving out when your parents die. yeah, the social contract is unique in that one respect -- its acceptance is implicit for native-born individuals (immigrants accept it explicitly).

Incidentally, does this mean you think something is right just because it's in the Constitution, or at least, as long as it's not specifically prohibited by the Constitution?No. Just as you cannot have a valid contract conditional upon illegal actions, you cannot have a valid social contract conditioned upon unjustified abridgement of rights (such as the prohibition amendment).

And amazingly, in attempting to support such a lazy response, you manage to provide us with a demonstration of just how dumb someone can be. This is going to be fun ...Oh boy, will it ever...

More evidence of your inability to understand the role of consent in contracts. If I put it in writing that a particular individual can break into my car whenever he wants, that pretty much removes the criminal aspect of it.You are really that dumb, huh?

Contract is not just an agreement. it's an enforceable agreement. it's a given that as long as individuals consent to some act and don't harm others or their property in the process, they can do what they please; but a contract involving illegal terms is not valid and thus not enforceable.

For example, imagine that you rent an apartment to someone, and in the rental agreement there is a clause that you will be allowed to burglarize the said apartment and rape the inhabitants. If you then try to break in and find that the renters have made it impossible for you to do so, you cannot declare them in breach of contract -- the US legal system will not recognize the illegal clause as a part of the contract, and may render the entire contract void; furthermore, if you do indeed steal their jewelry and rape the occupants, they will be able to press charges, and such actions being stipulated by the contract will be no defense.

But to examine your logic a little closer, does that also mean that passing a law allowing what would otherwise be criminal behavior is by definition null and void?this is a meaningless statement, because what is "criminal behavior" is defined by laws.

Or is it your position that anything becomes okay simply by virtue of being made law, and therefore part of the "contract"? And if that's the case, and given your heavy dependence on majoritarian arguments, can I take it you'd never be prepared to argue against anything being made into law, if it's what the majority wanted?of course not. I already said that there is a fundamental criterion for what constitutes an abridgement of rights, which criterion is inherent in the very nature of society (i.e. in the very core of the social contract).

Well, actually, it is equivalent to at least one type of crime. What both taxation and the crime of theft have in common is that they involve someone's property being taken from them without their consent. Sorry if you couldn't see that.But it is with their consent -- you consent to the laws by accepting the social contract, and you accept that by not renouncing your citizenship and emigrating. As long as taxation is not discriminatory, it's OK.

That may be the "obvious answer" to something, but not to anything I asked. Whether something actually is lawful at any given point is irrelevant to whether it should be.Often true (and often isn't -- say, the which-side-of-road driving convention is of the latter type); and I demonstrated that it's not the case that taxation is immoral and unjustified.

change laws by simply arguing that something already is the law, so therefore it shouldn't change. For instance, using your logic, you could have argued at one time that because slavery was lawful, it could be a part of the social contract.yeah, and slavery was discriminatory, and thus not a valid part of social contract.

You just can't grasp views which are more than one-dimensional, can you?..

Based on the stuff you keep posting, all your position really boils down to is that the majority has a right to bully the minority, as long as anyone in the minority has the option of leaving the country,And as long as the decisions of the majority aren't discriminatory. You keep ignoring this clause...

and all because of some imaginary "contract", the terms of which you have yet to explain. Glen Raphael's analogy basically kicks the ass of your position,:rolleyes: that analogy is, as i demonstrated, basically begging the question by assuming a-priori that taxation should be illegal. Duh.

And if you were really doing all this reading with a critical eye, why weren't you asking some of the same questions of the material that I've been asking of you, rather than simply absorbing whatever these authors had to say?I did. I just also found the answers to them that reflect reality rather than a one-dimensional ideology.

By the way, with your comments above, you're still just coming across as someone who, because of what he's read, thinks he has some kind of monopoly on the truth.Well, you are coming across as someone who is utterly ignorant of the subjects involved, and holds actual knowledge in contempt. "We don't need to fancy learnin'" kinda thing, ya know?..

That aside, since you apparently do think all that reading counts for something, exactly where are the terms of this contract outlined?I already told you, dummy -- in USA, it's Constitution. Furthermore, it doesn't have to be -- the contract can be unwritten, contracts often are (ever hear of "verbal contract")?

And more importantly, since apparently all you're talking about is "theory" and "philosophy" anyway, where do any of these authors get the authority to infer consent to the "contract" from anyone who does not leave the country?Well, they don't -- the Founding fathers did.

Well, except for one little detail. Relatively few people actually signed it. I certainly didn't.So what? people who signed it, did so on behalf of the population, as the population's representatives, and built into the contract the means for the people to amend it.

You don't sign a contract to buy 2 drinks when you walk into a two-drinks-minimum bar either.

You still seem to be confused about the relevance of consent. Can I take it that, if an amendment were passed re-instituting slavery, you would be okay with it, as long as anyone who would be enslaved by such an amendment had the option of leaving the country to avoid it?Slavery would be an unjustifiable abridgement of rights, and thus it couldn't be justified by a mere majority. i already told you that.

Besides, if all you were talking about was the Constitution, why didn't you just say so, rather than all that nonsense about "implicit social contract"? Sure has the smell of a last ditch attempt to wiggle out of whatever it was you initially meant by the term.of course Constitution wasn't what i initially meant by 'social contract' -- social contract is much bigger, and US Constitution is just one limited instantiation thereof. I gave you constitution when you, having demonstrated your utter ignorance of the concept of 'social contract' and thus political theory, demanded an example of such.

This is another one of those things you keep saying, but you seem clueless about the concept of actually backing it up with anything.what would you accept as a support? Would "we, the people" phrasing do it for you?.. No, I doubt it.

If my responses have been "fallacious", then why have you had so much trouble coming up with anything I've actually gotten wrong?I told you specifically where and how you committed logical fallacies.

If they're so much alike, then why do you suppose condo associations don't rely on an "implicit" contract???Social contract is explicit in USA -- US Constitution. Its acceptance is implicit, as is generally the case with social contracts. This is a unique feature of social contracts -- they are generally accepted implicitly by the natives. The US social contract is accepted explicitly by anyone immigrating into the country, though. it's still a contract.

(*crickets*)Oh my, how clever you are...

Well, no. In the first place, it wasn't particularly "valid", it was more along the lines of that "minutae" you mentioned earlier. Thus my use of the term "hairsplitting". Second, it wasn't a strawman. Your words: "you always have the option of leaving the country". Continuing to try to spin this as significantly different from the sentiments behind "love it or leave it" only makes you look ridiculous. If, however, you'd like to renounce all your arguments based on it, this might be an appropriate time to do so.i already told you, dude, that the problem with "Love it or leave it' is that the alternative to leaving it is only loving it (rather than merely not leaving). "Love it or leave it" is used to squelch dissent -- which seems to be a pretty *********** critical difference. Given that you seem to consider the squelching of dissent to be unimportant, i don't know what else i can say.

Haven't seen it yet. That hairsplitting rationalization you submitted before sure doesn't qualify as "critical".As i said, ig you don't consider the squelching of dissent in one case, and lack of such squelchjing in the other, to not be a relevant difference, you have my condolences.

You know, when you were in debating class, you probably would have done well to become a little less enamored with all the new terms you were learning, and should have focused a little more on learning how to debate, or at least how to communicate effectively. (You really think your above statement qualifies, don't you?)Why yes, it does. "Accept it or reject it" is indeed an axiomatic tautology, and 'love it or leave it" is a false bifurcation aimed at suppressing dissent.

"But taxes do discriminate. They discriminate against those who have more from which to collect."yeah,. And hispitals do discriminate in hiring -- they discriminate against those without medical education. ;rolleyes:

And I have since provided a definition:

to make a difference in treatment or favor on a basis other than individual merit

Now, can you tell me where I went wrongFor the purposes of taxation, income is the kind of individual merit. not only is it reasonable to have flat tax, where Joe making 10 times more than Bob pays 10 times more in taxes -- it's also reasonable to have progressive tax. You see, per dollar spent, each of poor Bob's dollars does society more good than each of rich Joe's dollars (both economically and socially), and thus the society, in collecting tax for its services, is perfectly justified in collecting tax from joe at a higher rate than Bob. This is not discriminatory.

you know, without relying on yet more arguments based on majority will, or the mysterious "social contract"?there is nothing mysterious about it.

You mean that "social contract" that you were having so much trouble establishing the validity of that you decided to just make it about the Constitution?No, I decided to make it about Constitution because it's a kind of social contract, and because you seem to be both too ignorant and too incapable of abstract thought to actually talk about social contract in proper terms.

[WMT1]

Originally posted by WMT1
You mean they adopt the view that their misfortune gives them a rightful claim on what belongs to others?

Originally posted by Yahzi
News flash: human beings are social animals. They cannot exist without society.

That's nice. I'm not sure why you're addressing this to me though (especially with the condescending "news flash" opening), since nothing I've said is in conflict with those statements; or, for that matter, why you chose to repeat a question of mine in your own post, only to then not answer it.



It's not just that the unfortunate children need you: you need them, too.

Well, to tell you the truth, the only children I actually need are the ones who are (or will be) among my family and friends. And you can be sure that if they ever need my help or support with anything, they'll have it.



The social cost of allowing people to starve to death is vastly greater than the cost of feeding them. This has been known since Roman times (bread and circuses, anyone).

Uh-huh. And what does this have to do with anything I've posted???



Your clever logic does not refute two thousand years of empirical data.

I'm flattered if you think my goals are that lofty, but I'm pretty sure all I've been doing is questioning some of Victor's comments. If I've gotten something wrong in that pursuit, or more specifically, if there is anything in your comments, or in that "two thousand years of empirical data", that specifically refutes anything I've posted, I'm sure you'll get around to letting me know what it is at some point.



Not only does Libertarian thought fail to account for the past, it fails to account for the future.

Actually, some does, and some doesn't. Just depends on which libertarians you talk to, and how they choose to apply the principles. But so what? That isn't its job anyway. What is important about libertarian philosophy is that it allows you and anyone else who agrees with you to pool your own resources and "account" for the past and/or future in whatever way you think is best, as long as you don't seek to impose your priorities on anyone, or take what doesn't belong to you to finance those goals. Isn't it really just that last part you have a problem with?



The idea that the economically unemployable should be discarded like capitial equipment no longer worth maintaining fails to realize that in the not-so-distant future, most of us will be economically unemployable.

Umm ... are you somehow under the impression that the "idea" you just described is a part of anything I've argued for? Are you sure you don't have me confused with somebody else?



At some point we keep our fellow humans alive not because of their economic value, but because of their social value.

Who is "we"? Is there someone who has argued for not keeping someone alive? You're not making much sense. If you're going to address your comments to me, it would be sporting of you to try to make them relevant to stuff I've actually said. Thanks.

[WMT1]

Originally posted by Frank Newgent
Are traffic signals recommended or mandatory?

Originally posted by WMT1
As far as I know, they're mandatory just about everywhere they're used.

Frank:
You mean like streets and roads? I'll drive wherever I damn please...

Texas has a total of 300,424 miles of roads of which approximately 26 percent are on the state system. This includes 6,421 miles of frontage roads. Of the total miles of non-federal roads (i.e. not Interstate highways or United States numbered highways), 22 percent are State Highways, 50 percent are county roads, and 27 percent are city streets. An additional 625 miles are off-system-non-county maintained roads and 149 miles are designated on the state system, but maintained locally.

Sounds like a lot of toll booths to me.

I guess it would be. Is this supposed to have something to do with anything I argued for?

[WMT1]

Well, Victor, I just got through an initial reading of your latest response, and it appears to be just another mess of tap-dancing, namecalling, substituting insults & eye-rolling for rebuttal, mistaking disagreement for ignorance, spinning your own inability to support your position as someone else's lack of education or understanding, accusing me of conceding things I haven't conceded, or of making assumptions, when in fact that's all your whole position is based on, stuff like that. (The most hilarious line I ran across was probably "You seem to be unable to grasp the fact that your assumptions are only assumptions". The term "implicit social contract" comes to mind for some reason.)

Sadly, it's all going to have to stand unchallenged for the time being. I want to give your response the usual thorough treatment, and I don't have that kind of time right now, so it'll probably have to wait until after the holidays.

[Frank Newgent]

Are traffic signals recommended or mandatory?
As far as I know, they're mandatory just about everywhere they're used. I hope this helps.

You mean like streets and roads? I'll drive wherever I damn please...

Texas has a total of 300,424 miles of roads of which approximately 26 percent are on the state system. This includes 6,421 miles of frontage roads. Of the total miles of non-federal roads (i.e. not Interstate highways or United States numbered highways), 22 percent are State Highways, 50 percent are county roads, and 27 percent are city streets. An additional 625 miles are off-system-non-county maintained roads and 149 miles are designated on the state system, but maintained locally.

Sounds like a lot of toll booths to me.

I guess it would be. Is this supposed to have something to do with anything I argued for?

http://www.window.state.tx.us/ or http://www-cta.ornl.gov/Publications/FuelTaxProcess/ also http://www.biketexas.org/pdf/Fair_Share_ResSheet.pdf

[Victor Danilchenko]

WMT1

Well, Victor, I just got through an initial reading of your latest response, and it appears to be just another mess of tap-dancing, namecalling, substituting insults & eye-rolling for rebuttal, mistaking disagreement for ignorance, spinning your own inability to support your position as someone else's lack of education or understanding, accusing me of conceding things I haven't conceded, or of making assumptions, when in fact that's all your whole position is based on, stuff like that.I see your intellectual wimpitude is still waving proudly above you on your flag pole -- you still confuse your inability to understand with my lack of content. Good going.

(The most hilarious line I ran across was probably "You seem to be unable to grasp the fact that your assumptions are only assumptions". The term "implicit social contract" comes to mind for some reason.)haha. This is what you get for being clueless about the very elementary political theory.

Sadly, it's all going to have to stand unchallenged for the time being. I want to give your response the usual thorough treatment, and I don't have that kind of time right now, so it'll probably have to wait until after the holidays.Fine. Just try to either keep it brief (if each round we reduce the size of the response rather than enlarge it in respect to the original, there will be world peace soon!), or at least give me a concise list of questions you want addressed, probably at the end of the post.

[Brooklyn Dodger]

Hailie shoma chitorid

[WMT1]

Originally posted by WMT1
Well, Victor, I just got through an initial reading of your latest response, and it appears to be just another mess of tap-dancing, namecalling, substituting insults & eye-rolling for rebuttal, mistaking disagreement for ignorance, spinning your own inability to support your position as someone else's lack of education or understanding, accusing me of conceding things I haven't conceded, or of making assumptions, when in fact that's all your whole position is based on, stuff like that.

Originally posted by Victor Danilchenko
I see your intellectual wimpitude is still waving proudly above you on your flag pole -- you still confuse your inability to understand with my lack of content. Good going.

And I see you still confuse a talent for coming up with new and colorful ways to insult your opponent with the ability to defend your views. Good going.


(The most hilarious line I ran across was probably "You seem to be unable to grasp the fact that your assumptions are only assumptions". The term "implicit social contract" comes to mind for some reason.)

haha. This is what you get for being clueless about the very elementary political theory.

haha. I just pointed out one of the clear absurdities in your position, and rather than address it, the best response you can manage to come up with is essentially "Oh yeah? Well ... you're just stupid!" Come to think of it, despite all your education, many of your responses have really just been amounted to this one simple childish retort dressed up in fancier wording.


Sadly, it's all going to have to stand unchallenged for the time being. I want to give your response the usual thorough treatment, and I don't have that kind of time right now, so it'll probably have to wait until after the holidays.

Fine. Just try to either keep it brief (if each round we reduce the size of the response rather than enlarge it in respect to the original, there will be world peace soon!)

That will be much more achievable if you will stop giving me so much to pick apart. And a good start would be to try and respond, just once, without a single insult, and let's see just how much is left.


or at least give me a concise list of questions you want addressed, probably at the end of the post.

I'll tell you what. Get back to me with advice about how to post when you've corrected some of the problems in your own approach.

[Brooklyn Dodger]

Az shoma tashakor mikonam.

[Victor Danilchenko]

WMT1

haha. I just pointed out one of the clear absurdities in your position,No, you asserted that the use of "social contract" is, as you say it, clearly absurd. My dismissive response was so simply because "social contract" is a fundamental concept in political philosophy, and its use is no more absurd or hilarious or unjustified, than the use of the concept of "mass" would be in discussion about physics. By pressing your claim about absurdity of the use of "social contract", you are simply showing that you lack the basic conceptual foundation to talk about political theory.

and rather than address it, the best response you can manage to come up with is essentially "Oh yeah? Well ... you're just stupid!"No, "you are just ignorant" -- I would have said the same is we were discussing physics and you assaulted my use of the concept of mass, or if we were discussing information theory and you assaulted my use of the concept of arity.

I'll tell you what. Get back to me with advice about how to post when you've corrected some of the problems in your own approach.It wasn't an advice, it was a request. if you want me to address you, then pick a manageable set of questions you want addressed. If you don't do so, I can't guarantee that you will get answers to the questions you consider important, or indeed that you will get an answer at all.

You demand that I be civil (your profound provocations notwithstanding), yet you refuse to work with me on making the content more manageable. That says something about your purpose in these threads -- something I noted before...

P.S. In fact, "social contract" was a concept upon which Locke's theory of government was built; and US Constitution was largely based on locke's theory of government, and is one of the earliest explicit social contracts. You could for example take a look at http://www.constitution.org/soclcont.htm or http://members.aol.com/markje/locke.html for some more info.

[WMT1]

Sorry for the delay, Victor, but I wanted to give your posts the usual, thorough treatment, and it's getting harder to find that kind of time.


Originally posted by WMT1
(The most hilarious line I ran across was probably "You seem to be unable to grasp the fact that your assumptions are only assumptions". The term "implicit social contract" comes to mind for some reason.)

Originally posted by Victor Danilchenko
haha. This is what you get for being clueless about the very elementary political theory.

haha. I just pointed out one of the clear absurdities in your position,

No, you asserted that the use of "social contract" is, as you say it, clearly absurd.

I suggest you avoid paraphrasing if you can't get it right. In this case, what I did was point out the absurdity of trying to make any kind of point about anyone else's "assumptions" when your own views rest so heavily on an assumption like the "implicit social contract", and the assumptions about consent that it's based on.



My dismissive response was so simply because "social contract" is a fundamental concept in political philosophy,

So is a dictatorship. Merely identifying something as a "a fundamental concept in political philosophy" falls a bit short of supporting claims about its validity, or about who has consented to it, now doesn't it? Belief in God is a "fundamental concept" in religious philosophy. Some people would probably even claim there's an "implicit contract with God", and would try to impose the terms of that contract on others, if they had the power to do so. What else ya got?



and its use is no more absurd or hilarious or unjustified, than the use of the concept of "mass" would be in discussion about physics.

Sure it is. The concept of "mass" doesn't assume consent to something where none has been communicated, and then call it "implicit". I hope that helps.



By pressing your claim about absurdity of the use of "social contract", you are simply showing that you lack the basic conceptual foundation to talk about political theory.

No, I am talking about political theory (you do know what "theory" means, right?). But your lazy, relentless, misplaced expressions of snobbery to cover for your failure to critically analyze what you've read are not going unnoticed.



and rather than address it, the best response you can manage to come up with is essentially "Oh yeah? Well ... you're just stupid!"

No, "you are just ignorant" --

Ignorant of what? You've had every opportunity to enlighten me as to what part of your vast knowledge and education makes the case for the validity of your "implicit social contract" stuff. But so far, all you seem to be able to do is insult me for not having read what you've read, or for not sharing all those assumptions that you're trying to pass off as something more.



I would have said the same is we were discussing physics and you assaulted my use of the concept of mass, or if we were discussing information theory and you assaulted my use of the concept of arity.

I hate to break it to you, but if you were trying to use either of those concepts to justify imposing your will on others, knowledge of them would not be a prerequisite to challenging your attempt to do so.

You seem to be under the impression that your education in political theory (which is really just other people's opinions anyway) are a valid substitution for actual argument, or that it somehow renders your judgments to be superior. (There's also a special debating term for this approach, isn't there?) It's no different than someone who has made a study of religious theory claiming superior moral wisdom, or special knowledge about God's will, that should enable them to impose their judgments about morality on others without having to resort to pesky little details like logic and reason. Do you think someone would have to have a similarly thorough religious education in order to legitimately challenge such religious authoritarianism? Or if they lacked such education, would their "ignorance" disqualify them from doing so? In case you hadn't noticed, you're coming across as embarrassingly similar to someone who would say "You haven't read the Bible, so you just don't get it". Now, rather than trying to retort with your own observation about how I'm coming across, how about learning from a bit of constructive criticism?



I'll tell you what. Get back to me with advice about how to post when you've corrected some of the problems in your own approach.

It wasn't an advice, it was a request. if you want me to address you, then pick a manageable set of questions you want addressed. If you don't do so, I can't guarantee that you will get answers to the questions you consider important, or indeed that you will get an answer at all.

I try to be thorough in my own responses, but in the interest of making them more "manageable", I'll be highlighting some of the questions along the way, that I'd particularly like for you to answer if you respond.



You demand that I be civil

I've made no such demands. Again, it would be so helpful if you would stick to what's actually been said.



(your profound provocations notwithstanding),

What provocations? I express disagreement, you respond by calling me ignorant. Who's provoking who?



yet you refuse to work with me on making the content more manageable.

What the hell are you talking about? My only "content" is to respond to whatever you post.



That says something about your purpose in these threads -- something I noted before...

Feel free to refresh my memory, if it's of any importance to you to actually make a point here. But though my actual purpose may vary somewhat, depending on whatever I'm posting at any given point in time, I'd say a couple of recurring themes in this thread would be calling attention to your attempts to pass off blind support for majority rule as something else by dressing it up in fancier rhetoric, and pointing out the reliance on assumptions necessary to support your stuff about the "social contract", and glaring errors in logic with regard to consent, stuff like that.



P.S. In fact, "social contract" was a concept upon which Locke's theory of government was built; and US Constitution was largely based on locke's theory of government, and is one of the earliest explicit social contracts. You could for example take a look at http://www.constitution.org/soclcont.htm or http://members.aol.com/markje/locke.html for some more info.

That's nice. But I'm not all that interested in focusing on what someone else thinks just because you can't defend your position using logic and reason. In terms of this discussion, it doesn't make all that much difference what Locke thought, unless Locke is around to answer for what he has to say, particularly regarding the things I've been asking you about. I also wasn't particularly surprised to find the link about the social contract so laden with assumptions. (Once the rest of our conversation has run its course, I'll be happy to deal with them in more detail, if you're interested.) And even with those assumptions, nowhere in it did I see justification for taking what belongs to your neighbor without his consent, just because you can get enough people in society to agree with you. Are you sure you've been doing all this reading without any bias?

[WMT1]

Originally posted by WMT1
You've been misinformed. If I don't agree that all the examples you cite qualify as "successes", the ones that do not are the only ones I need to address. And in this case, after I did that, what you were basically left with were two - not very compelling, if you're trying to make the case that "most changes that make our society decent are liberal changes".

Originally posted by Victor Danilchenko
Why not?

Because two isn't a very large number. Someone who believes that there have been no more than three "changes that make our society decent" might think you have a point. But that's about the only way I see for two examples to make a strong case for "most".



What other changes do you have in mind, that aren't liberal changes but that make our society decent?

I didn't really want to open this can of worms, but since you asked, it is worth noting that some of the changes you mentioned are at least as libertarian as they are liberal, perhaps more so, since "libertarian" is a more clearly defined concept anyway. But if I'm wrong about that, since you are the one trying to make the case for the value of "liberal" changes, maybe you can explain what makes a change "liberal" in the first place?



When I think of good changes, I think of the two I mentioned -- universal suffrage and de-segregation; and also 40-hour work week, repeal or slow abandonment of various sexual laws, anti-discrimination laws (not just racial, but also gender), and somesuch. now I can think of more, but these are the ones that I think you will also agree to be good. At the same time, I cannot think of any changes (say, over the last century) that make our society significantly better, that weren't supported by liberals.

Being supported by liberals doesn't make them liberal changes any more than libertarian support for some of them would make them libertarian changes. Now, if you want to admit that most of the changes that make our society decent are every bit as libertarian as they are liberal, we might actually find some common ground.



I can however think of plenty of such changes that weren't supported by conservatives (remember, this tangent was about contrasting liberals and conservatives).

Is this really what your position boils down to then? That whatever those changes are that have made society decent, at least a few of them are somewhat attributable to a philosophy that is relatively change-oriented anyway, and fewer than that are attributable to a philosophy that is known for not being very change-oriented? If that's the case, plainly saying so might save some time, and it's a point on which you might even get a concession out of me, it's just not a very significant one. Because if you don't count the changes that are also libertarian in nature, and if you also don't count the changes that take from some people without their consent in order to pay the way for others, that really doesn't seem to leave you with all that much to crow about.



otherwise, even if I concede that welfare and SS are failures, you will still have to contend with the successes of universal suffrage and desegregation.

Why do I have to "contend" with them at all? Are you under the impression that, if you give a list of examples to support your position, and someone thinks that some of your examples fall short, they're supposed to keep quiet unless they specifically disagree with all of them??? Sorry, this makes no sense.

I already explained this to you.

No, you didn't. You've provided no explanations that specifically answer the question I just asked. But if it helps, a simple yes or no will suffice.



In this specific case, as relating to the assertion that liberals feel rather than think, and to the support of such an assertion by the claim that liberal agenda generally fails (for lack of thought), countering the claim in question requires addressing the counter-examples of liberal successes en masse.

This is another one of those things I had to read a couple of times to figure out what the hell you meant. In any case, I don't agree. All that is required to question some of your examples is to talk about those examples. If you're trying to make the case that there are many colors, and among your examples are "red", "blue", and "telephone", legitimately questioning your inclusion of "telephone" as an example doesn't require making any mention whatsoever of "red" or "blue".



Do you comment on every statement/example submitted by someone you're arguing with, including the ones you agree with?

No; but if the statements I agree with render irrelevant my opposing of the other points, I would probably simply drop the point altogether.

Well, if the statements I agree with rendered irrelevant my opposing of the other points, I'd probably drop it too.



If it sounds that way, it is probably at least partially because there was no "glaring error". What I'm conceding is a pretty minor point, and you're overlooking the more important one that went with it, which is that you haven't made your case. You seem more interested in focusing on stuff like this than finding stronger support for your initial assertions. (The word "minutae" comes to mind.)

it was a glaring error of logic. Yes, you could argue that it was a minor point -- but it exposed your sloppy thinking quite well.

Nope. Just another stretch on your part to try and manufacture a "gotcha". Let's take another look ...

"most changes that make our society decent are liberal changes" (your words)

vs.

"most of those [liberal] changes are what make our society 'decent'" (my words)

Now, I do understand the difference, but does your attempt to spin it as a "glaring error of logic" mean you don't agree the second statement?

And do you really want to revisit all the things you've posted that reflect "sloppy thinking"? Buying into that whole "implicit social contract" thing, and mistaking it for something other than blind support for majority rule, certainly comes to mind. Same for your assumptions about consent. Not exactly a lot of critical thinking going on there. If you need more examples, let me know how many, and I'll be happy to submit a special post of them for you.



For instance, it was at about this point in my last post that the following exchange took place:

They why can't you, and those who share the opinion you just expressed, pool your own resources to support it, without dragging the rest of us along with you?

because the tough individualists' (like yourself) opinions tend change when they end up in the *******.

You mean they adopt the view that their misfortune gives them a rightful claim on what belongs to others? If not, what "opinions" are you talking about? And just out of curiosity, does supporting someone else's right to be an "individualist" make me one as well?

Now, is there some reason you skipped over these questions, in favor of focusing on making a big deal out of the fact that I didn't bother to comment on the examples of yours that I agreed with?

Yes. Your relationship to "individualists" is irrelevant to the topic,

Then why did you bring it up? Just to refresh your memory, "because the tough individualists' (like yourself) opinions" was your reference. If you think it's relevant to the topic for you apply a label to me that I have not applied to myself , then how does it become "irrelevant" for me to ask you about it?



and I have no desire to write a dissertation as a post each time I respond to you.

Quit whining. If you don't want to take the time to explain your use of a label, then don't use it. If you can't stand the heat, and all that.



The second one was "Would there be something keeping those doing the crying out from just going ahead and pooling their own resources to provide that support themselves?" -- to which I answered "How about old age and infirmity?". I did answer your second question.

Actually, all you did was respond with another question, and one that didn't make much sense. Your initial description was of "a voters' outcry to support the helpless old folks who have no income". Are you now saying you were just talking about an outcry from voters who are old themselves? And if so, what the hell have they been doing all their lives that they now find themselves without income? And even if they do, what's wrong with their families, friends, churches, and you, for that matter, as well as all the others who agree with you, pooling your own resources to provide the support they seek? That way, everyone involved gets to decide for themselves who is really deserving of their charity, rather than having someone else's judgment about such matters imposed on them.



Yeah, I am feeling here -- in addition to thinking; you have to, because feeling ultimnately is the sole source of motivation, because logic and reason are GIGO (Garbage In, Garbage Out)).

Which is precisely why you should probably shed some of the garbage you've been using to form some of your conclusions, like all that rhetoric about "society", "the people", and an "implicit social contract".

"Social contract" is a basic concept of political philosophy. That you don't know about it, only says something about your ignorance.

Who says I don't know about it? That you keep trying to spin disagreement with your assumptions as "ignorance" only says something about your need to manufacture insults for which there is no basis, to cover for your own incompetence at defending those assumptions.

Speaking of which, when you first encountered this "concept of political philosophy", did you bother to ask whoever was presenting it how they knew that they could simply assume consent and call it "implicit"? Or did you add that part to the concept yourself?



Strangers assume this responsibility --

That's fine for any strangers who are assuming it voluntarily, and only for themselves. But then, that's not really what you mean, is it?

I don't mean individual strangers, but "strangers" collectively as a society. You seem to be having a real hard time understanding this simple concept.

You seem to be having a real hard time understanding that disagreement with your views does not qualify as a lack of understanding. People use all kinds of absurd concepts to try and defend positions that won't otherwise hold up, and your use of "collectively as a society" when talking about the assumption of responsibility is just one example, since it reflects your lack of understanding of how actual responsibility works. It is not your place to impose responsibility for the well-being of others onto me or anyone else, and that doesn't change just because you can get enough other people to "collectively" agree with you. In fact, when you get right down to it, you apparently can't keep any kind of argument afloat without falling back on blind support for majority rule. You do realize that that is all support for what is done "collectively as a society" amounts to, don't you?



responsibility being a social construct, it means what people take it to mean.

And clearly some of them get it wrong. By the way, isn't "social construct" just new rhetoric for trying to make your blind-support-for-majority-rule thing sound like something else?

As i said numerous times, you little liar, I don't support majority rule blindly;

Nonsense. That's exactly what you're doing, your protests notwithstanding. And you're doing it fairly consistently, you're just dressing it up in different rhetoric. So here's a suggestion. Retract every statement you've made in which you've used references to "society", or the "collective", or "implicit social contract", or support for anything just because it is a "social construct", or anything along those lines, in order to support your position, and agree not to use those references again, and then we can take another look.



and 'social construct" is a simple fact of reality -- a lot of concepts we deal with every day, such as "language" or "responsibility" or "justice" are social constructs.

So is religious authoritarianism. Hell, for that matter, so is racism. Do you automatically support everything that is, or ever has been, a "social construct"?



You seem to have a naively objectivist leaning in your thought.

Who the hell ever said I was objectivist at all? Is your use of labels just another way of getting around the absence of actual arguments?

And what am I "naive" about? See, these are easy terms to throw around, but so far, all you seem to be able to do is accuse me of lack of "understanding", of being "naive" or "ignorant", stuff like that, just because you can't defend your views with logic and reason. It seems as if you haven't thought any of your views through very well, you've just swallowed up whatever you've read without much critical thought, just like some Bible thumpers have been known to do, and that is more consistent with being naive than anything I've posted.



Your idea is based on considering only the nuclear family, you lack the breadth of thought to recognize that there is a complex web of interconnections in society.

Whoosh! That's the sound whatever credibility you had left going out the window. Good luck supporting such assertions with anything I've actually said.

You said that it's only the parents' responsibility to care for their child, thus considering trhe nuclear family but ignoring the extended family and the society.

The key words that you overlooked were "with anything I've actually said". Instead, just like others in this forum have done, you've merely defended your own bungled characterization of my views with more paraphrasing. Of course paraphrasing isn't a problem when you get it right, but you haven't. I'm amazed that someone who is as well-read as you claim to be has so little regard for precision.



In any case, how do your comments place any responsibility for someone else's kids on the shoulders of someone trying to raise and support their own? Can you manage to scrape up any arguments that aren't just a variation on "the majority says so"?

I already did -- I pointed out that responsibility for children reaches beyond their parents alone.

You mean "responsibility" as decided by ... (drum roll) ... the majority?



You simply assume that only the parents are responsible,

Like you assume that "responsibility for children reaches beyond their parents alone"? See, this is the kind of stuff I'm talking about. It's why you look ridiculous when you make a statement like "You seem to be unable to grasp the fact that your assumptions are only assumptions". Everything you're arguing for is based on assumptions, like the one you just "pointed out". And the only way you ever end up defending them is with some variation on majority rule.



and you for some unfathomable reason treat this as the default position;

First, let's be clear about what my position is, since your paraphrasing only confuses the issue. Responsibility for children lies with their parents, and anyone else who accepts that responsibility by choice (you know, that word so many liberals like to self-righteously throw around when it suits their purposes?).

And the perfectly, um ... fathomable reason for that position is that neither you nor I have any justification for imposing that responsibility on anyone else without their consent. So, now that we've cleared that up, didn't your use of the word "unfathomable" in this case reflect a certain lack of "understanding" on your part?



but it's not inherently better that the alternative position, which is that the responsibility for the children rests, in order of diminishing degree, or parents, extended family, and society.

Actually, that's not the only alternative position. Another is that the responsibility rests with the parents, and any extended family, friends, or anyone else who chooses to share in that responsibility.



As Yahzi said, no man is an island, we all in society are bound by multiple lines of relationships and responsibilities,

Would it be helpful to you if I actually start keeping a counter of the number of assumptions contained in your arguments?



and treating a nuclear family as a completely independent unit in this respect is simply myopic.

That's nice, but that's not what I've done, now is it? Incidentally, what is more "myopic" than blind support for majority rule?



You seem to be unable to grasp the fact that your assumptions are only assumptions,

Yet again, from the master of assumptions himself. Are you going for self-parody again?



that there is nothing inherently rational about placing the responsibility for children only on the shoulders of the parents.

See, bringing stuff like this up is a part of what keeps making these exchanges grow larger. If you want to streamline the discussion, it would be a good idea to stick to what's actually been said. As far as I can tell, I've argued for nothing that would prevent anyone else from sharing in that responsibility who chooses to.



Of course my position is not inherently superior --

I'll do you one better. It's inherently inferior, because it imposes a responsibility on people that isn't anyone else's place to impose. My position allows individuals to make those decisions for themselves. If 90% of a population think it's a good idea to share in the responsibility for raising each other's kids (financially or otherwise), I've got no problem with them pooling their own resources to do so. Moreover, if even 50-70% wish to, shouldn't that be enough to cover anyone truly in need? And if it's less than 50% who wish to do so ... uh-oh ... I guess if that's the case, "society" doesn't agree with you as much as you thought, huh? (These are serious questions, designed to help you figure out why you really think what you think, especially with regard to all that rhetoric about "society", "social constructs", "implicit social contracts", etc. - questions you yourself apparently never thought to ask when you were reading all that political theory.)



but the point is that responsibility is a social construct,

Sure it is. And like other social constructs, it can be misused. That's what you're doing when you seek to impose a responsibility on others that it isn't your place to impose, and then pretend it's okay just because you can get enough other people to agree with you ...



and thus the social conceptualization thereof defines it in the same way usage defines language.

"Social conceptualization thereof"??? Oh, I guess we're back to majority rule, huh? Thanks for the help.



Nuclear family is a very recent invention, and it's frankly a ludicrous idea -- in descending order of the strength of connection, it's nuclear family, extended family, and the society. This is why people tend to feel responsible for their nephews, even though they may not be the ones who gave birth to them.

That's their choice,

No more so that it's your choice to feel responsible for your own kids. The difference is only in degree, not in kind.

These would be among those assumptions I was talking about. Thanks for continuing to provide examples.



Your idea of "responsibility" simply is a construct having little to do with the reality of that term's usage in society;

Nonsense. The way I'm using it, it's essentially interchangeable with "obligation" or "duty". Is it your position that this is an uncommon use?

All three concepts are mutually dendent -- are are essentially trying to pull off a circular definition.

You're obviously making stuff up. Challenging your attempt to impose responsibility on others that it isn't your place to impose is nothing like "trying to pull off a circular definition". In fact, the only reason I even mentioned the other two terms was to correct your mistaken assessment of my use of "responsibility". Now, it is your position that using these terms in very similar ways is uncommon or not?



If anything, you seem to think that all it takes for someone to actually have a responsibility they wouldn't otherwise assume is for the majority to decide that they have it. Any chance I can get you on record specifically agreeing with that position?

No. There is one constraint -- there is no responsibility without power; no taxation without representation. That constraint is also inherent in the nature of a free society.

Well, actually, no taxation at all (or at least, no taxation without consent) is what is inherent in the nature of a free society. Merely having "representation" while the majority is imposing its will on you doesn't make you free.



Once that constraint is satisfied, yes, majority decides what responsibility is.

Since your views are so heavily dependent on what the majority thinks, can I take it you would re-evaluate your opinions about who is responsible for whom if you found yourself in a society where majority thinking about such matters was much more in line with mine? And if your answer is no, what would your arguments be then, since you could no longer rely on terms like "social construct" or "implicit social contract"?



and construct of your myopic one-trick-pony ideology.

Do you even have a clue as to what that ideology is? If so, please explain, using as little spin as possible. (This should be good.)

Start a different thread. This one is big enough.

Well, actually, that ball would be in your court. If you actually have an answer, nothing is stopping you from starting a different thread to provide it. It might be a good exercise in precision for you.



Besides, the fact that you're finding all kinds of different rhetoric to describe blind-support-for-majority-rule, and making flawed use of concepts like "discrimination" to try to make it sound like something else, doesn't exactly keep that from being a one-trick-pony ideology, now does it?

My pony does many, many tricks.

Then why do you have to keep coming back to majority rule?



it's a realistic pony, you see, and it conforms to reality rather than expecting reality to conform to it.

When did I communicate any expectation about anything conforming to anything else? Again, you seem to be making stuff up, based on statements you've apparently heard somewhere else, just so you can make bogus comments about "reality".

[WMT1]

Out of curiosity, without jumping through too many hoops to get there, can you explain how is it not discrimination to take from those who have, to give to those who do not? Similarly, can you explain how it is not an "abridgement of freedom" to take someone's property or earnings from them without their consent? Or will this just take us back to the old "you can always leave"?

You assume that this is discriminatory because you, just like so many libertarians, see property as an absolute, abstracted from society.

Wrong on both counts. Taking from those who have, to give to those who do not, makes "distinctions on the basis of class or category without regard to individual merit". That's what makes it discriminatory. Will I need to point this out again?

And no, I don't "see property as an absolute, abstracted from society", I just don't share your assumptions about your claim on someone else's property. This is another one of those things where not sticking to what's actually been said not only reflects "sloppy thinking" on your part, but also bogs down the discussion.



Property is never absolute (not even your possession of your own skills).

(I'm sure it escaped your notice, but your statement is another one of those assumption thingies.)

If you go far enough back, much of the property was first established by virtue of a simple claim -- land, for example; a claim which was made with society's consent and validated by society's rules. As such, any such property is already automatically dependent on society.

Sure. And sometimes, "society" gets it wrong. Are you aware that "society" once thought of certain people as property?



Furthermore, your skills and your very person, and thus that which you earned with those skills, where enabled by society -- the culture around you, the social infrastructure, etc. Thus in effect nothing you own -- nor your house, not your car, not even your skills -- are absolute property not subjected to society's constraints.

Well, depending on what "constraints" you're talking about, I may or may not agree with the second statement. I seem to recall asking you to provide a list of these constraints in an earlier discussion, and offering to tell you which ones were acceptable, but you never got back to me on that point. But what is more relevant is that your second statement (the one beginning "Thus...") does not follow logically from the first one anyway. If I pay someone in my "society" or "culture" to teach me a skill, and they do so, that pretty much completes the transaction. The money is now theirs, the skill is now mine, and nobody else has any rightful claim on any portion of either.



You cannot simply claim "it's mine, all mine, and nobody else has any control over it whatsoever".

Maybe, maybe not, just depends on what you're talking about. Much of your commentary is hard to follow because you sometimes seem to be using observations about how things are interchangeably with how they should be, and it's not always clear which you're referring to. (Maybe you have trouble distinguishing between the two concepts?) But in terms of the latter, with regard to stuff that actually belongs to someone, and on which nobody else has any rightful claim, they certainly should be able to say "it's mine, all mine, and nobody else has any control over it whatsoever, as long as whatever choices I make do not violate or endanger anyone else, or their property".



The same social underpinnings that enable the confiscation of the tools of a crime, for example, also enable taxation;

I hate to keep correcting you on stuff, but those are not the same "social underpinnings". There is nothing about the confiscation of the tools of a crime that has anything to do with stealing from some in order to pay the way for others. Come to think of it, that itself should be a crime, shouldn't it?



and society (yes, that's majority) decides what form of taxation is "fair", because, given the infinite entanglement of all property with society, there is no objective standard of "fairness" to be seen here.

Again, the second part of your statement doesn't provide the justification for the first that you seem to think it does. (Weren't you the one making statements earlier about "glaring" errors in logic?) I don't dispute that the majority does what you say. It's just that they get it wrong, since letting individuals pay for the services they choose, and which they agree to pay for, would come a lot closer to actual "fairness" than the majority imposing a package deal on everyone. If anything, the lack of any objective standard for "fairness" is exactly why individuals should make such determinations for themselves.



You seem to be deliberately missing the point, refusing to recognize the gradations of success and benevolence, instead trying to lump it all together; by obscuring these very real differences of grade, you are tryint to corral the ideas either into the total, perfect success (of which you will of course see none, anywhere), or into the same group as obvious failures.

You're doing it again. Can anyone else translate this mess?

Why don't you just go back to reading ARI tracts?..

What the hell does that mean? You know, it might be a better use of your time if you would spend more of it addressing the problems with your arguments, rather than on making obscure references just so you can then set yourself up to insult someone for not knowing what you're talking about.



"False bifurcation" is the name of this sort of fallacy.

You are racking up fallacies quite fast, aren't you?..

Since you seem to like showing off your knowledge of debating terms, is there any sort of term to describe accusing someone of a fallacy, but without being able to cite something they've actually said and clearly explain which part they got wrong?

i did explain specifically what you got wrong. In one case you inverted the implication (which you already conceded to),

Is that all you were referring to when you said the following?

"You seem to be deliberately missing the point, refusing to recognize the gradations of success and benevolence, instead trying to lump it all together; by obscuring these very real differences of grade, you are tryint to corral the ideas either into the total, perfect success (of which you will of course see none, anywhere), or into the same group as obvious failures"

If so, since it was a single, minor error in wording, long ago admitted, why are you still harping on it, and what did you mean by "racking up fallacies quite fast"?



in the other case you supported a false bifurcation (this is what "love it or leave it" is -- false bifurcation) by queating it with a statement representing the axiom of excluded middle.

Again, can anyone else translate this mess? Are you seriously under the impression that normal people talk this way? I'm gonna go out on a limb here, and guess that "queating" is just a mis-typed "equating", but what the hell is an "axiom of excluded middle"??? Your explanations really need a lot of work.



yes, I daresay I very explicitly pointed out how you comitted the fallacies in question.

You just get funnier and funnier.



And how much thinking went into the conclusion that calling me a "libertarian chihuahua" achieves that goal?

A fair deal. I observed your behavior in four different threads: the thread of libertarian education programme (where I was doing my best to ignore you and only talk to Shanek, because you just couldn't lift your eyes above minutae),

I just took another look at how that one started, and apparently this is really just your way of putting a negative spin on my correcting your lack of precision, isn't it?

the thread of sexuality (where you just couldn't be bothered to look beyond the perceived mischaracterization of your views by RandFan, and save everyone a whole lot of pain by simply saying that yes, you have no problem with bestiality or consensual necrophilia),

I did. That would be when I said "I don't care". Since most people don't have any trouble inferring "no problem" from indifference, I can only guess you weren't paying as much attention as you're now pretending.

And as far as mischaracterizations of my views in that discussion, I seem to recall that they were numerous. But if you think I misidentified any of them, feel free to point them out, and we can take a closer look. So far, you're 0 for 2.

the thread on comparison of libertarianism to anarcho-socialism (where you were just plain stupid),

You mean the one where you tried to characterize their goals as "nearly identical"? If so, I guess I'm not the one who was being "just plain stupid" after all.

and this thread. the emerging pattern is quite clear: you are a libertarian chihuahua.

Now that's what I call "circular". To explain your use of "libertarian chihuahua", you cite this thread as one of your examples, and your only support for doing so is to simply re-assert that I am a libertarian chihuahua? Is there a special debating term for that particular tactic?

And based on the description in the link you provided, how is it any more accurate to describe me as a "libertarian chihuahua" than it is to describe you as a "liberal chihuahua"?

Let's break it down a bit:

"Ill tempered and aggressive,"

Does calling people "stupid", or otherwise substituting insults for rebuttal, qualify as "ill tempered and aggressive"?

"Tiny Yapper is always right out at the end of his leash and barks furiously at the slightest provocation."

And I guess this is supposed to apply to this situation because I keep pointing out the problems with your arguments? If it's something else, maybe you can provide some statements from my posts to help make the connection. If not, I guess this characterization doesn't really apply at all, does it?

"Though his constant high pitched yips can be very annoying,"

What you're mistaking for "high pitched yips" are probably all those questions and comments that expose the problems with your views. But I'm not at all surprised if you find them annoying, especially since there have been so many.

"his diminutive stature"

Doesn't apply. But even if it did, wouldn't the mention of something so superficial as if it was a valid criticism be fairly consistent with "yapping"?

"and limited strength pose no real threat to other Warriors."

By that measure, I guess the term you're applying to me also applies to everyone else in this forum. What "strength" does anyone around here have? What "threat" does anyone really pose, other than to call attention to the problems in whatever somebody else posts? And by that measure, I'm doing just fine with this particular "warrior". I've certainly exposed the simplistic, "myopic", majority-rule thinking on which some (if not all) of your views are based, as well as the fact that you keep trying to dress them up as something more "complex" by hiding behind terms like "society" and "social construct", and the absurdity of some of the assumptions, like those about consent, that you're trying to support those views with.

So, like most of what you post, your insults don't hold up to much scrutiny either. If anything, there's a bit of irony in your heavy reliance on them. After all, doing so is far more consistent with the "chihuahua" characterization you've been trying to pin on me than anything I've posted, now isn't it?



You really should stop going out of your way to sound like a college professor. It doesn't help.

I don't go out of my way for that -- it comes naturally. I blame this horrible thing called "education".

Then the blame is probably misplaced. Most of the adults I know are college educated, and I've never heard any of them say stuff like "sufficient to exonerate its causative ideology of the change of lacking in successes" or "axiom of excluded middle" in everyday conversation. You probably just need to get out more. Try this stuff out on people out there in the real world, even educated ones. Just a hunch, but something tells me then you'll see some real eye-rolling. In fact, for your subsequent responses, here's a tip. Pretend you're communicating with, let's say, about a hundred average, college educated adults, and that you'd like for at least half of them to know what the hell you're talking about.



You seem to be trying to attribute some agenda to me that doesn't apply. So just to refresh your memory, one of the things you said that prompted my participation in this thread was:

"most changes that make our society decent, are due to liberals"

and I responded:

"I don't know about most, but there are certainly contributions in areas that concern people having the freedom to run their own lives. However, when it comes to letting them have control over their own property and earnings? Well, not so much."

Nice of you to bring it up again. I already answered that one the first time, and you ignored the answer: there have been very few changes in economic policy over the decades, certainly much fewer than in social policy;

Um .. what was I supposed to do to not ignore it? I'm not sure how your "answer" is responsive to my comment anyway. Liberal programs have certainly worn away at the ability of people to have control over their own property and earnings. Was your statement about "economic policy" supposed to somehow refute that?

In any case, I wish you'd make up your mind. Do you want to streamline the discussion, or do you want me to comment on everything you say?



and I can't think of many such changes that make our society decent.

Well, if you're talking about the changes that take what belongs to some in order to pay the way for others, I'm with you on this one.



So my statement -- "most changes that make our society decent, are due to liberals" -- stands unopposed,

No it doesn't. I certainly don't agree with it. Even sticking with the examples you cited, it looks like most of the changes that make our society decent are at least due to libertarians as much as liberals.



given that you concede that most such social changes are indeed due to liberals,

Where the hell did I do that??? You really should try and stick to what's actually been said. What I did was agree that there have been contributions in areas that concern people having the freedom to run their own lives. I hardly said that these changes are "due to liberals". In fact, on these particular issues, many of the liberals in question might have just been libertarians who didn't know it yet, as I once was.



and you have failed to cite any such economic changes, that aren't.

So what? That wasn't my goal. Again, you seem to be trying to create the impression of failure on my part where none actually exists, apparently to divert attention from the problems I've pointed out in some of the examples you cited.



See, it's simple; Most serious changes improving our society have been the changes in social rather than fiscal policy; and you already concede those social to have been due to liberals.

Again, no, that's not what I did. (More precision problems again.) I guess I shouldn't be surprised if you failed to recognize misrepresentation of my views in another thread, when you're guilty of the same thing yourself.



Quod Erat Demonstrandum (yeah, another one of those pesky college things).

Now, if only you had spent less of your time in college memorizing useless stuff like this to show off with, and a little more on learning how to think critically, and on how to communicate effectively.

In fact, I'm gonna go out on a limb here and guess that, in the past, at least some potential opponents who were less well-educated than you might have been intimidated by the snobbery reflected in such comments, as well as all that language like "axiom of excluded middle", and have therefore been less likely to challenge you, and that it has left you unaccustomed to having the problems in your arguments exposed, and that is what has you in such a foul mood.



Of course, I doubt anyone is paying much attention anyway, and even if they are, I don't think it's likely that anyone's mind will be changed by either of us. But just in case anyone else is looking on whose mind wasn't already made up, having them see how quickly you resorted to namecalling probably couldn't hurt.

Nor would it hurt to see how utterly lacking in actual reasoning facilities you are...

Easily a match for yours, any day of the week. Remember, I'm not the one who keeps hiding behind such nonsensical terms as "implicit social contract", or tries to pass off observations about majority will as argument.

Indeed. that's because you understand neither basic political theory (and thus are ignorant of the concept of 'social contract') nor semantics (and are thus ignorant of the constructed nature of meaning).

Translation: Victor's arguments are collapsing all around him, so he has to make as much noise as he can, as often as he can, to spin his own failure as someone else's.

[WMT1]

And no one has any objections to you giving as much as you want from your own resources in support of that opinion. But again, where do you get the idea that you have any rightful claim on the property of those who don't happen to share your particular views about whatever it is that government does well? (Are we headed for another majority rule argument dressed up in a bunch of rhetoric about "society" or "the people"?)

No, we already covered your question, above --

But we didn't really answer it, did we?



i explained why ownership is not absolute but contextual in, and dependent upon, society.

Society being the majority, of course. So, I guess I was right after all, huh?



Then can I take you realize that "we as a society decide" has no value in arguing for the merit of any particular decisions?

of course. however, the specific merit of any proposition dictates whether it can legitimately be decided by a majority.

And is it the majority itself that determines the "specific merit"? If not, then who?

Reason does (and it's not a "who");

Um ... whose reason? (You're just trying to ******** your way through this now, right?)



but yes, it is indirectly governed by majority -- by the sort of society that the majority set up.

So, to relate this to the question I actually asked, does this mean that you consider whatever the majority decides to always be right? A simple yes or no will do. And if "no", then once again, can I take you realize that "we as a society decide" has no value in arguing for the merit of any particular decisions?



Out society, thanksfully, happens to be geared towards freedom.

Well, not so much in terms of economic freedom. In that area, it's more like permission to have control over some of what you've earned.



Discrimination occurs against the backdrop of that which is non-discriminatory -- that is now we know what is discriminatory and what isn't;

Or you could just consult a dictionary. (You do have to engage in some fancy footwork to try to make this stuff work, don't you?)

No, you simply want everything to be simple -- too simple; simplistic, in fact.

You mean like blind support for majority rule?



Hence your objection to complex reasoning,

Oops! There's that accuracy problem again. I haven't objected to "complex reasoning" at all. What I do object to, however, is someone blindly supporting majority rule, and trying to pass it off as something more "complex" with rhetoric about "society" etc.



which is probably not in a small degree prompted by your actual inability to understand such.

And of course, I have to keep correcting you on this one, too. Neither my disagreement, nor your inability to defend your simplistic majority nonsense, means a lack of understanding on my part. It might help if you write it down.



but taxes are wholly a social construct, and thus you cannot simply decide that, say, flat tax (which is what I presume you had in mind) would be fair, and everything else non-discriminatory -- that would be nothing but one man's unsupported opinion.

Well, now that's not what I said, is it?

See what I mean about your seeking out of things to object to? I know that's not what you said -- this is why I, first, wrote "you cannot simply decide that, say, flat tax" (where "say" is equivalent o saying 'for example), and the qualified it with "which is what I presume you had in mind".

Actually, my response had absolutely nothing to do with your use of the word "say" in that comment. You could have replaced it with "for example" and my response would have been the same. Either way, you seemed to be attributing a view to me that I had not expressed. I don't "seek out" things to object to. You just seem to naturally post a lot of stuff that needs to be corrected or clarified.

And to repeat what I also said on this point, when you take more from people just because they have more, that qualifies as discrimination. In the absence of any arguments to the contrary (insults don't qualify), we can pretty much throw out "non-discriminatory" as an accurate description of taxation from here on. And once that goes out the window, your previous defense of what is "justifiable" falls apart too.



Go yap at someone who cares, dude.

Um ... well ... go yap at someone who cares, dude yourself.

???



In general, progressive tax is pretty universally regarded as being the baseline fair system of taxation.

You sure make a lot of references to stuff like what other people think, as if that has some weight as an argument.

of course it does. What people think determines what many things -- th social constructs -- are

That's nice, but here's another case where your first statement does not follow logically from the second, as you seem to think it does. But let's put you to the test. If enough people think XYZ would be a good "social construct", would their thinking so have any weight as an argument in support of XYZ? In other words, could the statement "XYZ is pretty universally regarded as a good idea" legitimately stand alone as an argument in support of XYZ?



I don't support majority rule blindly. I very explicitly reject mere majority rule when it infringes upon individual rights, for example.

Well, except maybe for the right to decide how to spend one's own earnings? Earlier you made the statement "We also grant the government the right to taxation". Since you didn't "explicitly reject" this idea, how did you arrive at the conclusion that just because the majority gives the government the power to confiscate the property/earnings of its citizens without their consent, that that's somehow not a violation of "individual rights"?

How do you get the idea that just because a majority of the condo association gives the association the power to charge condo fees, that's somehow not the violation of individual rights?..

Actually, I don't recall taking that position. But if there's something in the ownership agreement giving them that power, well, that would be where I would get that idea. If there isn't, you could probably argue that it is a violation of individual rights.

Now, back to my question. How did you arrive at the conclusion that just because the majority gives the government the power to confiscate the property/earnings of its citizens without their consent, that that's somehow not a violation of "individual rights"?

Because, as i already explain, all property is entangled with and dependent upon society, and thus society can claim a portion thereof.

I know it can. That wasn't my question. I asked how doing so was not a violation of "individual rights", and I've asked it twice now. Answering something other than what I actually asked is another one of those things that bogs down the discussion. If your use of the word "can" simply means you're saying that society has a rightful claim, then you're demonstrating sloppy thinking again, since the second part of your statement does not follow logically from the first. (Don't these missteps qualify as "logical fallacies"?) And all you're left with is relying on majoritarian assumptions again.

It might be a good learning experience for you if you would actually abandon the use of the term "society" altogether, and replace it with "the majority", since you've admitted they're essentially the same. It may not necessarily alter your views, but it could at least open your eyes as to just how simplistic and one-dimensional they are.



And while we are at it, how come the condo association as a whole gets to decide whether to spend the fees on a new pool or a better parking lot, without allowing each member to allocate their fees any which way they please?..

Well, that, too, would probably be spelled out in the conditions of the contract. It all just comes down to the whole contract thing - you know, actual contracts, rather than "implicit"ones? I hope that helps.

it is spelled out in the contract -- in Constitution; and Constitution was amended in the way specified therein. This means that taxation is indeed a part of the social contract.

For all the supposed education you've been crowing about, you don't learn very well, do you? Either that, or you sure have to resort to playing fast and loose with the meaning of words in order to keep your arguments on life support. As I keep trying to point out to you, real contracts involve consent - agreement of all (not some) of the parties to be bound by the terms of the contract - in order for them to be legitimate.

Now, would you like to go on record stating that anything that happens to someone who remains in the country of their birth is consensual, as long it was agreed to by someone, written down somewhere, and they were given an opportunity to flee the country before it happened to them?



In some cases, majority will is sufficient justification; and in others, it's not.

Let me get this straight. To support your position, you rely heavily (if not almost exclusively) on rhetoric that really amounts to nothing more than pointing out that the majority agrees with you, and yet you turn around and claim that majority will is not always sufficient justification??? Now, where's that thinking again?

Apparently somewhere too complex for you to reach.

Yeah, that's it. Just keep right using words like "complex" to try to spin what is muddled and inconsistent as something else, and I'll just keep right on pointing out that that's all you're doing.



I explicitly said that abridgement of individual rights cannot be justified by mere will of majority.

And yet amazingly, you also continue to use majoritarian arguments dressed up with "society" rhetoric to support the abridgement of individual rights.



There may be additional justifications rendering the will of majority sufficient -- for example, the abridgment of your right to swing your body in any direction is done by a majority, and justified by the fact that you having such freedom would abridge others' freedoms.

An analogy which fails with regard to taxation, because not paying taxes does not abridge anyone else's freedoms. (Just keep'em comin'.)



Contrawise, given that there is no solid reason to abridge the right to eat fondue, mere majority will to ban fondue eating would not be a sufficient justification.

Does that mean you're finally on board with the idea that there is no sufficient justification for abridging a right which, if exercised, does not abridge anyone else's?

(You do realize you're arguing for libertarianism now, right?)



Of course I explained this position numerous times, but you seem to be too dense to actrually understand why I sometimes recognize majority will as sufficient, and sometimes I don't.

You know, it might help if you actually provided a coherent explanation for such inconsistency. But your attempts thus far are riddled with all kinds of problems (which has pretty much been feeding the monster that this discussion has become), or they just end up supporting something other than what you've been trying to argue for. For instance, that thing you tried about abridgement of rights just now kind of backfired on you, didn't it? Now, what's that you were saying about being "dense"?



You want a simplistic black-and-white world,

Nope. There's that sloppy thinking again.



apparently for your lack of cognitive sophistication required to grasp something more complex.

You mean like blind support for majority rule?

(Just curious, do expressions like "cognitive sophistication" help you get dates?)



I think that there are some subjects on which majority will is an acceptable justification, and others on which it isn't. So yes, my views are in part based on majority will -- but not on whatever majority wants. That was a chear demagogic shot.

No, it wasn't, and the failure to see the worthlessness of your own rhetoric is yours. Either majority will has weight as an authority to support your arguments, or it doesn't - just like any other authority. You can't just rely on it when it suits your purposes, and expect to be taken seriously. If anything, that is the sort of stuff demagogues tend to do. And it's a little like trying to bolster your claims with nothing more than "Bob agrees with me", even though you yourself admit that Bob isn't always right.

Don't you *********** get it, dude? majority can decide that "tree" means "fence", and the word will change its meaning;

Sure, if your primary authority for the meaning of words is the majority. But unless they are also the primary authority for your political views, what's the relevance?


majority can decide that "justice" does not entail "death penalty", and the word will change its meaning;

Actually, if the majority decides that "justice" does not entail the death penalty, all that means is that that is the majority opinion, not that the word's meaning has changed. In some parts of the world, the perception of "justice" includes oppression of women. I don't know about you, but in my book, that doesn't change the meaning of justice, it simply illustrates that some people can get it wrong.



but majority cannot decide that 2+2=5.

Well, technically, they could decide that, they'd just be mistaken. But if that's all you really mean anyway, then I'm glad you finally acknowledge that the majority can get things wrong. But since that's true, it's also worth pointing out that an argument does not become stronger just because you can say "the majority agrees with me", no matter what words you use to say it. Does this mean you're finally on board with this now?



Are you really so dense as to be unable to grasp the situation where a given support is sometimes sufficient?..

Are you really so dense as to be unable to grasp that it is never sufficient to justify violating individual rights?

[WMT1]

Incidentally, I just noticed a question from an earlier exchange that you didn't exactly answer, so I'll ask it again now. Why should I have to "sever" something I never agreed to in the first place?

You implicitly agreed to it my emigrating --

When did I do that???



just as you would implicitly agree to assume the condo responsibilities by not moving out when your parents die.

Something tells me it is more likely that you would explicitly agree to them when you sign the papers necessary to assume ownership as the estate is being settled. (Thanks again for continuing to make this so easy.)



yeah, the social contract is unique in that one respect -- its acceptance is implicit for native-born individuals (immigrants accept it explicitly).

For someone who's made such a big deal out of someone else's education level when he should have been coming up with better arguments, your own education seems to have left you a little confused in some areas. You do understand that in order for acceptance of something to be "implicit", that acceptance has to be implied, right? And for that to be the case, there has to be intent on the part of the person doing the implying. Otherwise, all your left with is someone else doing some assuming, and guess what? That just gets us back to assumptions, doesn't it? So, now that we've cleared that up, are you finally able to grasp the fact that your assumptions are only assumptions?

(It's probably also relevant at this point to note that I asked you how you know the social contract is "implied", and though most of your views rest on the answer, it's one of the questions you chose to ignore. I'm guessing it's also not a question that you yourself have bothered to ask when you've encountered the concept in all your reading about political theory. You just seem to have gobbled up some people's political theory the way some people gobble up others' religious theory.)



Incidentally, does this mean you think something is right just because it's in the Constitution, or at least, as long as it's not specifically prohibited by the Constitution?

No. Just as you cannot have a valid contract conditional upon illegal actions, you cannot have a valid social contract conditioned upon unjustified abridgement of rights (such as the prohibition amendment).

Or the one about income taxes. Maybe you're coming around.



Any contract involving criminal actions is by definition null and void. Therefore, there can be no such contract involving having your car broken into.

More evidence of your inability to understand the role of consent in contracts. If I put it in writing that a particular individual can break into my car whenever he wants, that pretty much removes the criminal aspect of it.

You are really that dumb, huh?

Back at ya. Read on.



Contract is not just an agreement. it's an enforceable agreement. it's a given that as long as individuals consent to some act and don't harm others or their property in the process, they can do what they please;

Um ...what about harming someone's property with their consent? After all, that is what we're discussing in this example.



but a contract involving illegal terms is not valid and thus not enforceable.

You really do seem confused, and your confusion continues to reflect a disturbing lack of regard for the importance of consent in the legitimacy of contracts. Are you unaware that one of the effects a contract can have is to render legal that which, without the contract, would otherwise be illegal? If I contract with you to demolish a building I own, do you agree that such a contract can be legitimate and enforceable? And do you agree that, without the contract, or the permission it represents, the very same act could be considered criminal? If you want to say that contracting with someone to break into your car seems kind of pointless and ridiculous, I might agree with you, but once permission is established, how is it anything that should be considered criminal?



For example, imagine that you rent an apartment to someone, and in the rental agreement there is a clause that you will be allowed to burglarize the said apartment and rape the inhabitants.

Let me stop you right there. Remember when I told you that analogies weren't your strong point? Well, citing an example of two people contracting to violate the rights of others doesn't have much relevance if you're trying to make a point about a contract which doesn't. Back to the drawing board for you.



But to examine your logic a little closer, does that also mean that passing a law allowing what would otherwise be criminal behavior is by definition null and void?

this is a meaningless statement, because what is "criminal behavior" is defined by laws.

Not necessarily. First, it was a question, not a statement. And second, it is not meaningless, because I included the word "otherwise". Moreover, people sometimes use the word "criminal" as part of of a subjective assessment, since it is not always necessarily synonymous with "illegal". For instance, most people probably wouldn't hesitate to refer to burglary or rape as "criminal behavior" without having to give the slightest thought to the current legal status of these behaviors in any particular location.

Let's take rape, for instance. If there have historically been laws against it, and those laws are changed to specifically allow it, would you consider such laws to be valid, and the behavior now allowed by law to no longer be criminal, by any definition?



Or is it your position that anything becomes okay simply by virtue of being made law, and therefore part of the "contract"? And if that's the case, and given your heavy dependence on majoritarian arguments, can I take it you'd never be prepared to argue against anything being made into law, if it's what the majority wanted?

of course not. I already said that there is a fundamental criterion for what constitutes an abridgement of rights, which criterion is inherent in the very nature of society (i.e. in the very core of the social contract).

Again, could you make your explanations a little more coherent? I know you're using English, but you seem to just be trying to ******** your way through again, without actually saying anything. As nearly as I can tell, I've just asked you some rather pointed questions that you don't really want to answer in any kind of clear, straightforward manner.

And regarding this latest reference to the "social contract", are you still talking about the Constitution, or are we back to some different contract now? And if it's the latter, could you please, once and for all, identify the exact terms of this contract, and how you know that everyone who stays in the country has implied their consent to it?

And are you saying that "the very nature of society" is synonymous with "the very core of the social contract"? You really do just seem to be making stuff up. But if you actually read these things somewhere, didn't it cross your mind to ask any of these questions yourself? And if you did, what, specifically, were the answers?



This in turn means that you quote, by simply assuming that taxation is equivalent to crime in some critical respect, is begging the question.

Well, actually, it is equivalent to at least one type of crime. What both taxation and the crime of theft have in common is that they involve someone's property being taken from them without their consent. Sorry if you couldn't see that.

But it is with their consent -- you consent to the laws by accepting the social contract, and you accept that by not renouncing your citizenship and emigrating.

Wow. This is getting ugly. More confusion. More assumptions. More sloppy thinking. More glaring errors of logic, particularly about what constitutes consent.

But since you can't quite seem to work this out for yourself, how do you know anyone accepts the social contract by not doing what you say? Is it because it says so in the contract???

(As logical fallacies go, that one would rank right up there with "the Bible must be the word of God, because it says so in the Bible".)



As long as taxation is not discriminatory, it's OK.

So many screwups. So little time.

First, despite your convoluted jumping-through-hoops rationalizations to the contrary, taxation is discriminatory, since it makes "distinctions on the basis of class or category without regard to individual merit". Do you dispute this definition? (I'm not asking for any ******** commentary on whether something is simplistic or complex, it's a straightforward, yes/no question.)

Second, it wouldn't really matter whether it was discriminatory or not. If something would be a violation of rights when done to an individual, it does not become "OK" just because it's done to everyone. Do you dispute this last statement?

As I told you before, there were quite a few questions in Glen Raphael's example that preceded the portion I actually posted before, questions which apply some scrutiny to these points. Do you have enough confidence in your statements to agree to answer these questions if I post them? I initially thought it might be a challenge you'd be interested in, but the more I think about it, it's starting to make sense that you might be reluctant to do so, since your views don't hold up very well under critical examination.



The obvious answer is that because taxation is lawful, it can be a part of the social contract.

That may be the "obvious answer" to something, but not to anything I asked. Whether something actually is lawful at any given point is irrelevant to whether it should be.

Often true (and often isn't -- say, the which-side-of-road driving convention is of the latter type);

Actually, it's always true if there are any arguments on the side of repeal, and it's certainly true in this case. But if all it takes to be part of the social contract (as defined by you) is for something to be "lawful", can I take it that you would have been among those claiming, at an earlier point in history, that "because slavery is lawful, it can be a part of the social contract"? And if not, then why do you rely on such a simplistic, circular argument to defend taxation?



and I demonstrated that it's not the case that taxation is immoral and unjustified.

No you didn't. You merely asserted it. I'm not sure why you seem to think that, in your case, that somehow qualifies as a demonstration. Remember, your whole case is based on assertions and assumptions, and on referring to those who don't share them as "ignorant".



Otherwise, you could shoot down any attempt to change laws by simply arguing that something already is the law, so therefore it shouldn't change. For instance, using your logic, you could have argued at one time that because slavery was lawful, it could be a part of the social contract. So once again, what were you saying earlier about "dumb"?

yeah, and slavery was discriminatory, and thus not a valid part of social contract.

You just can't grasp views which are more than one-dimensional, can you?..

Once again, your inability to support your views without playing fast and loose with the English language does not qualify as someone else's inability to "grasp" anything. Some of the points you keep recycling that have already been refuted, like the whole "discrimination" thing, are more consistent with an inability to "grasp" than anything I've posted, and your repeatedly telling someone what they can't "grasp" or "understand", to cover for the failures in your own explanations, only makes you appear weak and manipulative.

So let's go through it yet again, and you can ignore both of the following points, yet again.

1. Taxes are discriminatory, in that they make "distinctions on the basis of class or category without regard to individual merit". If you really believe otherwise, you should have no problem going on record disputing this definition of discrimination.

2. Whether something is "discriminatory" is irrelevant to whether it is a violation of rights anyway. However, to be consistent, all you have to do on this point is go on record plainly stating that anything the majority approves of, and which does not discriminate, is a "valid part of social contract", and we'll see where that takes us.



Based on the stuff you keep posting, all your position really boils down to is that the majority has a right to bully the minority, as long as anyone in the minority has the option of leaving the country,

And as long as the decisions of the majority aren't discriminatory. You keep ignoring this clause...

Nope. You're making stuff up again. I've pointed out that taxes are discriminatory, and I've done so more than once. And it is you who keep ignoring that they are. (And yes, pointing out that taxes are discriminatory is sufficient, until you are prepared to go on record specifically disputing the definition I've provided.) In fact, it is your own support of taxation that disqualifies "non-discriminatory" from being part of an accurate assessment of your position about the "social contract".

And it is particularly silly for you to be trying to create the impression that I've ignored anything, given the thoroughness with which I've responded to your posts, and all the points in mine that you've ignored.



and all because of some imaginary "contract", the terms of which you have yet to explain. Glen Raphael's analogy basically kicks the ass of your position,

that analogy is, as i demonstrated, basically begging the question by assuming a-priori that taxation should be illegal. Duh.

Boy, talk about jumping through hoops to create the impression of a point! As assumptions go, you've been basing your whole case on some real whoppers, the most laughable of which are your ideas about what constitutes consent. Now you're assuming what someone else is assuming? And then trying to justify a claim of having "demonstrated" something based on that assumption???

(I'd lose that "duh" thing. It's tends to be most effective when you precede it with something you've actually gotten right, and you haven't been doing much of that.)



And if your comments reflect so much thought, then please demonstrate that by telling me exactly what the "implicit social contract" you've referred to consists of, and where you got your information.

I got my information from reading up some on the elementary political theory and philosophy -- something you are obviously in dire need of.

Well, thanks for the thought, but your answer isn't very specific. Are you under the impression that there is something I could read that would somehow lead me to think I had some rightful claim on my neighbor's property to support my goals, just because I could get enough other people to agree with me?

And if you were really doing all this reading with a critical eye, why weren't you asking some of the same questions of the material that I've been asking of you, rather than simply absorbing whatever these authors had to say?

I did. I just also found the answers to them that reflect reality rather than a one-dimensional ideology.

A "one-dimensional ideology" like blind support for majority rule?

In any case, nice dodge. You're turning it into a fine art. Looks like you don't really even know why you believe what you believe. I'm sure you'll understand if I remain skeptical about whether you really did ask any of those questions, since you can't seem to articulate the answers to them yourself. After all, if you really had those answers, you wouldn't have to rely so heavily on simply referring to stuff you've read, and insulting someone else for not having read it, would you?

For example, before you read all this stuff, were you completely neutral on the subject of taxation, or were you already somewhat convinced that it was justified? And if you actually were neutral, can you quote any statements from what you read that were particularly persuasive (and which should be just as persuasive to anyone else), in taking you from that position of neutrality to believing you are justified in taking from your neighbor without his consent (or justified in joining the majority in doing so) in order to finance whatever the majority thinks is a good idea?

And in case you just respond with more of your muddled ideas about consent, here's another example. Somewhere along the line you must have encountered, for the first time, the idea of merely assuming consent by people who have not left the country, and then calling it "implied" or "implicit". If you didn't already agree with this from the start, did you bother to ask "how do you know they consent?"? And if you did ask, what was the answer you got that reflected "reality"?



All the reading in the world apparently hasn't prepared you for such inquiry, or enabled you to come up with arguments any more compelling than majority will, or the mysterious "contract". It just seems to have provided you with enough fancy rhetoric to make you think your arguments are stronger than they are. So how valuable could it really be?

By the way, with your comments above, you're still just coming across as someone who, because of what he's read, thinks he has some kind of monopoly on the truth. Sound familiar?

Well, you are coming across as someone who is utterly ignorant of the subjects involved, and holds actual knowledge in contempt. "We don't need to fancy learnin'" kinda thing, ya know?..

Nope. Just another desperate mischaracterization from which to extract an insult. Read slowly: Your inability to coherently provide the knowledge you claim to have does not constitute someone else holding knowledge "in contempt".

This is essentially the same thing that happens when I argue with religious authoritarians. I challenge their views, and when those views don't withstand scrutiny, they tend to attribute their failure to my disregard for "the truth". So I was right. You're basically just another Bible-thumper who thinks he has "the truth", and insults anyone who doesn't share his conclusions. It's just a different "Bible".

[Victor Danilchenko]

WMT1,

I trust you realize that i am not going to waste time answering the entire steaming pile you wrote, right?.. Unless you collect a specific and restricted set of points for me to address, of course.

BTW, "axiom of excluded middle" is one of the basic axioms of classical logic; anyone who actually knows anything about logic, would know what it is. For someone who makes such a big stink about logic and precision, you display a surprising (or, rather, unsurprising) ignorance thereof. It goes nicely along with your ignorance of pretty much everything else relevant to this discussion.

[WMT1]

That aside, since you apparently do think all that reading counts for something, exactly where are the terms of this contract outlined?

I already told you, dummy -- in USA, it's Constitution.

Hey, don't call me "dummy", when it took you forever to get around to identifying it. Are you now claiming that any and all references to "social contract" in your posts have been referring to the Constitution, and nothing else? And if so, just exactly why didn't you say so from the beginning? And do you agree that no part of a contract is valid if it imposes something on someone who has not agreed to it?



Furthermore, it doesn't have to be -- the contract can be unwritten, contracts often are (ever hear of "verbal contract")?

Sure. But consent (you know, actual consent, rather than the imaginary kind) usually plays a significant part in those as well. After all, if that consent is merely assumed, then it isn't even verbal, is it? So, now that we've cleared that up, how does pointing out another kind of contract based on consent bolster your defense of those that don't require it?



And more importantly, since apparently all you're talking about is "theory" and "philosophy" anyway, where do any of these authors get the authority to infer consent to the "contract" from anyone who does not leave the country?

Well, they don't -- the Founding fathers did.

Um ... okay, where did they get that authority then? (Really struggling with this one, aren't you?)



Our social contract is in fact explicit -- it's the Constitution (and it was amended by the means specified therein in order to instate income taxes, so it's legit).

Well, except for one little detail. Relatively few people actually signed it.

So what? people who signed it, did so on behalf of the population,

By what authority? That's the part you can't seem to come up with.



as the population's representatives

You mean self-appointed? I certainly didn't authorize them to be my representative. Still looks like you haven't really worked this out yet. I guess that's somehow my fault too, right?



and built into the contract the means for the people to amend it.

By "the people", don't you really just mean the majority?



You don't sign a contract to buy 2 drinks when you walk into a two-drinks-minimum bar either.

You walk onto someone else's private property, you obey their rules. I see you're still confused about this distinction.



You still seem to be confused about the relevance of consent. Can I take it that, if an amendment were passed re-instituting slavery, you would be okay with it, as long as anyone who would be enslaved by such an amendment had the option of leaving the country to avoid it?

Slavery would be an unjustifiable abridgement of rights, and thus it couldn't be justified by a mere majority. i already told you that.

Good. Then you should understand that taxation would be an unjustifiable abridgement of rights too, and thus it couldn't be justified by a mere majority either. Are we on the same page yet?



Besides, if all you were talking about was the Constitution, why didn't you just say so, rather than all that nonsense about "implicit social contract"? Sure has the smell of a last ditch attempt to wiggle out of whatever it was you initially meant by the term.

of course Constitution wasn't what i initially meant by 'social contract' -- social contract is much bigger, and US Constitution is just one limited instantiation thereof.

Damn, I wish you'd keep your story straight. What the hell were you getting so insulting for when you said "I already told you, dummy -- in USA, it's Constitution", given that you've just now admitted your own inconsistency in the use of the term? Is the Constitution the only thing you mean by "social contract" or not? And if not, then what the hell are the terms of the other one, and where are they spelled out? And how do you know anyone has consented to it? And if you're just going to fall back on that thing about not leaving the country again, how do you know that not leaving means that someone consents?



I gave you constitution when you, having demonstrated your utter ignorance of the concept of 'social contract' and thus political theory, demanded an example of such.

For the umpteenth time, your utter confusion over why you believe what you believe does not qualify as someone else's "utter ignorance" about anything. Continuing to recycle such comments over and over only reflects your desperation. Your views have been getting a serious ass-whipping (frankly, the magnitude of it even surprises me a little), and you apparently think insulting your opponent often enough will create a different impression.

Moreover, you wouldn't know precision if it bit you on the ass. I did not "demand" an example of a social contract, what I asked you for were the terms of whatever contract you were already talking about. That seemed to be about the time you decided you couldn't come up with any that you could defend, and that you should probably make it about the Constitution. And if that's all it is, are you now at least prepared to admit that there is no mystical other "social contract"? Please, once and for all, pick a "contract" and stick with it.



What is implicit is the acceptance of the social contract.

This is another one of those things you keep saying, but you seem clueless about the concept of actually backing it up with anything.

what would you accept as a support? Would "we, the people" phrasing do it for you?.. No, I doubt it.

Of course not. Why should it? Anyone who has not agreed to whatever was being expressed (by those identifying themselves as "we, the people") is not bound by those terms. Usually, people are not bound by contracts that other people make. I'm not sure why you think this qualifies as a legitimate exception. I guess it can only be that, without such a glaring assumption to cling to, you must know that everything else you've been arguing for falls apart.



I told you specifically where and how you committed logical fallacies.

No, you didn't, unless you're still trying to get some mileage out of that one thing where I got the wording wrong, and immediately corrected it. Now, would you like for me to fill a post with your logical fallacies? A number of your statements about consent leap to mind.



If they're so much alike, then why do you suppose condo associations don't rely on an "implicit" contract???

Social contract is explicit in USA -- US Constitution. Its acceptance is implicit, as is generally the case with social contracts. This is a unique feature of social contracts -- they are generally accepted implicitly by the natives.

No, we've been through this before. See, having to repeat myself on so many points is also a big part of why these exchanges have become so lengthy. In order to be "implicit" something has to be implied, which means intent on the part of the person doing the implying. And without that, all you are left with are your own assumptions, remember?



The US social contract is accepted explicitly by anyone immigrating into the country, though. it's still a contract.

When they accept it explicitly, you might have a point. But that's not the part you keep screwing up.



(*crickets*)

Oh my, how clever you are...

Well, when you live up to someone else's predictions of evasiveness, you make it kind of difficult for them not to appear clever. Did you notice that you didn't even come close to answering the question I actually asked?



So. You are trying to wave away a valid exposition of the difference between my position and your strawman as "hairsplitting".

Well, no. In the first place, it wasn't particularly "valid", it was more along the lines of that "minutae" you mentioned earlier. Thus my use of the term "hairsplitting". Second, it wasn't a strawman. Your words: "you always have the option of leaving the country". Continuing to try to spin this as significantly different from the sentiments behind "love it or leave it" only makes you look ridiculous. If, however, you'd like to renounce all your arguments based on it, this might be an appropriate time to do so.

i already told you, dude, that the problem with "Love it or leave it' is that the alternative to leaving it is only loving it (rather than merely not leaving). "Love it or leave it" is used to squelch dissent -- which seems to be a pretty *********** critical difference.

Actually, on any kind of close examination, there's not really that much of a difference at all. Your "you always have the option of leaving the country" rhetoric is used to justify violating the rights of those who stay. That's at least as serious as the squelching of dissent, and the two often go hand in hand anyway. Both are a non-thinking way of justifying simplisitic, majoritarian views that you can't otherwise defend. You didn't really think this through either, did you?



Given that you seem to consider the squelching of dissent to be unimportant, i don't know what else i can say.

Given that I do not consider the squelching of dissent to be unimportant, and that there is no basis for such a conclusion, you could start by apologizing for mischaracterizing my views to yet again manufacture a point that isn't there otherwise.



The point is that yes, there is a critical difference between "love it or leave it" and "accept it or reject it".

Haven't seen it yet. That hairsplitting rationalization you submitted before sure doesn't qualify as "critical".

As i said, ig you don't consider the squelching of dissent in one case, and lack of such squelchjing in the other, to not be a relevant difference, you have my condolences.

If you don't consider the squelching of dissent in one case, and the violation of rights in another, to be very similar, you have my condolences. Besides, I didn't catch it the first time, but you're comparing the wrong statements anyway. To refresh your memory, what we were discussing was the difference between "love it or leave it" and "you always have the option of leaving the country". But I can understand why you'd be too embarrassed to try to argue that there's much of a difference between those two things, and would want to try to slip in something else.



The latter is in fact a simple logical statement, the axiom of excluded middle, while the former is an insiduous and manipulative instance of a logical fallacy.

You know, when you were in debating class, you probably would have done well to become a little less enamored with all the new terms you were learning, and should have focused a little more on learning how to debate, or at least how to communicate effectively. (You really think your above statement qualifies, don't you?)

Why yes, it does. "Accept it or reject it" is indeed an axiomatic tautology, and 'love it or leave it" is a false bifurcation aimed at suppressing dissent.

Axiomatic tautology??? Dude, get some help. This is not the way normal people talk. Once again, try and use terms that at least, say, 30-40% of college-educated adults would not have to look up in order to know what the hell you're talking about. You really do come across as someone who's trying to use vocabulary to compensate for flimsy arguments. (Is this where you respond with another retaliatory assessment of how you think I'm coming across?)



"But taxes do discriminate. They discriminate against those who have more from which to collect."

yeah,. And hispitals do discriminate in hiring -- they discriminate against those without medical education.

I can't tell which way you're going with this. Are you arguing for or against discrimination?

In any case, can I take it from your response, which does not dispute my statement, that you finally acknowledge that taxes discriminate, and that "non-discriminatory" is therefore no longer an applicable term to justify such a violation of rights? And that without it, all you're left with is blind support for majority rule?



And I have since provided a definition:

to make a difference in treatment or favor on a basis other than individual merit

Now, can you tell me where I went wrong

For the purposes of taxation, income is the kind of individual merit.

So, basically, you're just making this up as you go along, huh? Why is "income" any more of a valid barometer of "individual merit" than education? Or ethnic or religious background for that matter? And if, as you say, income is a kind of merit, are you now saying it's acceptable for the social contract to penalize individuals of greater merit? See, manipulating the meaning of words like "merit" to force your round peg into a square hole (or is it the other way around?) is another one of those things that's just gonna backfire on you, and it reflects poorly on how well you've thought all of this through.

Moreover, there was an additional definition I provided anyway, which made reference to "distinctions on the basis of class or category without regard to individual merit". Do you really want to go on record claiming, with a straight face, that making distinctions on the basis of income has more to do with individual merit than with class or category?

And it keeps getting better. You yourself said "you cannot have a valid social contract conditioned upon unjustified abridgement of rights", and you cited prohibition as an example. Just exactly how is prohibition any more of an "unjustified abridgement of rights", or any more discriminatory, for that matter, than taxation?

Basically, until you can come up with something more credible than your attempts to mangle the English language, everything that rests on your whole non-discrimination point collapses. You can certainly keep coming back with new ways to try to make it fly, but I'll just keep picking them apart.



not only is it reasonable to have flat tax, where Joe making 10 times more than Bob pays 10 times more in taxes -- it's also reasonable to have progressive tax.

And these would be among those glaring assumptions you don't seem to want to acknowledge. Moreover, you're getting off track from the initial point about "merit" as it relates to discrimination. Can't say I blame you.



You see, per dollar spent, each of poor Bob's dollars does society more good than each of rich Joe's dollars (both economically and socially),

Well, actually, you're relying heavily on assumptions, yet again. Whether the taxes are being spent on "good" things at all is a purely subjective assessment, and I'm not sure either Bob or Joe would necessarily agree with your conclusions. If they did, you probably wouldn't need to tax them, you'd only need to ask them.

You're also ignoring the bad that's being done to society, by setting a horrible example - taking what doesn't belong to you to finance what you believe to be "good". (Why, before you know it, people will start to think this is a perfectly normal and acceptable way of doing things. And they might even start to play fast and loose with expressions like "non-discriminatory" to rationalize such behavior.) Factor that in, and suddenly, dollar for dollar, more bad is occurring as a result of what you take from Joe than what you take from Bob.



and thus the society, in collecting tax for its services, is perfectly justified in collecting tax from joe at a higher rate than Bob. This is not discriminatory.

This one has got to set some kind of record for glaring errors of logic to get to a pre-determined conclusion. Congrats. You win the prize.

However, let's say for the sake of argument that you've established that income is a valid measure of merit, in order to support your "non-discriminatory" characterization. Is it also your position that anything that is done to people that is based on individual merit cannot qualify as a violation of rights, even if it means they are actually being penalized for merit, rather than for the lack of it?



- you know, without relying on yet more arguments based on majority will, or the mysterious "social contract"?

there is nothing mysterious about it.

Sure there is. You've already admitted that "of course Constitution wasn't what i initially meant by 'social contract'", and yet amazingly, you still haven't been able to cite the terms for whatever you did mean, or explain how you just magically know that anyone consents to it just by not leaving the country. You just keep asserting it.



You mean that "social contract" that you were having so much trouble establishing the validity of that you decided to just make it about the Constitution?

No, I decided to make it about Constitution because it's a kind of social contract, and because you seem to be both too ignorant and too incapable of abstract thought to actually talk about social contract in proper terms.

And yet again, along the lines of what I would point out to any Bible thumper, your failure to think through what you believe, and your incompetence at defending those beliefs, does not mean that someone else is "ignorant" or "incapable of abstract thought". And given your hilarious manipulations regarding such things as "consent" and "discrimination", you really oughtta think twice before commenting on anyone else's ability to talk about anything in "proper terms".

[Brooklyn Dodger]

WMT1, you've done a fine job for what it is, but once the dust settles, what is it? In the end, Victor is a snob, not an intellectual. I stopped arguing with snobs in the 1960s. I've debated since, but refuse to argue with snobs like him. It doesn't get you anywhere. And it is argument, not debate.

You may do it for sport or to keep you warm for real competition. I enjoyed myself when I was debating issues around Bill Buckley's dinner table in the early 1980s. I really struck a nerve when I predicted the demise of the Soviet Union within ten years. After the initial shock and disblelief, and questioning of what my reasoning was (not the usual stuff), Bill Rusher, the publisher of National Review, started to wonder as to what a USSR-free future might look like. It was quite a moment, and a guy like Victor would have been really out of place. There were no snobs around the table that night, I'll tell you that!

Victor is one of the usual leftist snobs that are on the dustbin of history. This forum is one of their few means of contact with the outside world. That is, outside of colleges and universities where they have a captive audience. Tenure is the last refuge of the scoundrel.

[WMT1]

Originally posted by Victor Danilchenko
I trust you realize that i am not going to waste time answering the entire steaming pile you wrote, right?..

Translation: Victor's own "steaming pile" just got its ass kicked.



Unless you collect a specific and restricted set of points for me to address, of course.

Well, I did highlight some key questions for you. Do you want me to "collect" them all for you too?



BTW, "axiom of excluded middle" is one of the basic axioms of classical logic; anyone who actually knows anything about logic, would know what it is.

Nonsense. It's nothing more than a vocabulary issue. Clearly I've got a better handle on logic than you do, and I didn't know what it meant. Nor, I suspect, do the overwhelming majority of logical, English-speaking adults. Again, you're mistaking an impressive knowledge of obscure terms for the ability to think logically, and to communicate effectively. Anyone who actually knows anything about logic would understand the difference.



For someone who makes such a big stink about logic and precision, you display a surprising (or, rather, unsurprising) ignorance thereof.

Where did you get the idea that logic and precision go hand in hand with knowledge of expressions that hardly anyone else is familiar with?



It goes nicely along with your ignorance of pretty much everything else relevant to this discussion.

Good grief, this is pathetic. Is there no end to this thing of covering for your own incompetence by manufacturing insults about someone else's "ignorance"? Something tells me that, even if you decide to try and answer the questions I highlighted, any that you are unable to answer will also somehow be my fault.



Have a nice weekend.

[Victor Danilchenko]

WMT1

Translation: Victor's own "steaming pile" just got its ass kicked.Ummm, no. I simply haven't the desire to waste the time it would take to address you in detail.

Well, I did highlight some key questions for you. Do you want me to "collect" them all for you too?Your "some questions", if you count all the bolded and underlined points, would still amount to an essay's worth of answers. I guess I will have to pick and choose. later today, I hope.

Nonsense. It's nothing more than a vocabulary issue. Clearly I've got a better handle on logic than you do,Now ]this is a laugh. You are clearly one of those ignoramuses who don't even know enough to realize how ignorant they are, and so you mistake your simplicity for quality. Things like this is why arguing with you is basically pointless -- you lack the knowledge and intelligence to understand what you are being told.

and I didn't know what it meant. Nor, I suspect, do the overwhelming majority of logical, English-speaking adults.the overwhelming majority of English-speaking adults aren't very logical; and the of the ones that actually understand logic (rather than the commonsensical "logic"), I betcha most would actually know what the axiom of excluded middle is.

Again, you're mistaking an impressive knowledge of obscure terms for the ability to think logically, and to communicate effectively.And you mistake simplicity for quality. [shrug] You obviously think that you mastered logic, and that if you don't understand something, it gotta be false or silly or somesuch. You have the blundering arrogance of a highschool senior, which is sad, because you are obviously older than that.

Where did you get the idea that logic and precision go hand in hand with knowledge of expressions that hardly anyone else is familiar with?Resentful, are ya?

Good grief, this is pathetic. Is there no end to this thing of covering for your own incompetence by manufacturing insults about someone else's "ignorance"?I am trying to educate you about your shortcomings. [looks up piously] There is no end to what i could do to help you! it's a thankless burden, but someone's gotta do it.

Something tells me that, even if you decide to try and answer the questions I highlighted, any that you are unable to answer will also somehow be my fault.And something tells me that any answers you don't like will be proclaimed to be "mere assumptions" and other silliness unworthy of your razor-thin mind.

[Victor Danilchenko]

Brooklyn Dodger

In the end, Victor is a snob, not an intellectual.Then I am a snob who exposed your idiotic prejudices. Let me recall... Liberals FEEL while conservatives THINK Liberals should be subject to retroactive abortions Gays who demand marriage are actually demanding "special rights"Nice pile of moronic claims you left undefended, eh? I am sure there were more, but I don't care to check now. You will have to live with the indignity of having been fscked upside down and sideways by a snob.

Of course, it's much easier to huff off than to admit that your assertions were in fact irrational and prejudiced and, frankly, asinine...

[Brooklyn Dodger]

Originally posted by Victor Danilchenko
Brooklyn Dodger

Then I am a snob who exposed your idiotic prejudices. Let me recall... Liberals FEEL while conservatives THINK Liberals should be subject to retroactive abortions Gays who demand marriage are actually demanding "special rights"Nice pile of moronic claims you left undefended, eh? I am sure there were more, but I don't care to check now. You will have to live with the indignity of having been fscked upside down and sideways by a snob.

Of course, it's much easier to huff off than to admit that your assertions were in fact irrational and prejudiced and, frankly, asinine...

First, you really ARE a snob. Second, homosexuals (there is nothing "gay" about them) may get married if they want to. Just not to each other. That would be a right no one else has. Might as well say they have the right to marry a sheep.

I did not say liberals should be subject to retroactive abortions, though actually that's not a bad idea in your case. You might however plead that you aren't a liberal but a socialist or some such nonsense. I said abortions should be MANDATORY for liberals. It was a joke, but snobs and liberals have no sense of humor, so you must have missed that one.

FEEEEELLLLIIINNNGGGSSSS. How else to describe the screed of the left? It is meant to appeal to the average female, so it MUST be FEELING. That's why it is impervious to logic. Conservatives generally fail to attract a female audience because of that fact. Liberals merely cite a litany of problems, and never solve them. They appropriate (the people's) money, nothing is ever solved, but they get credit for FEELING. Of course, the war on poverty cost trillions, but did the liberals win? Hell no. But their hearts were in the right place.

[Victor Danilchenko]

[Brooklyn Dodger

Second, homosexuals (there is nothing "gay" about them) may get married if they want to. Just not to each other. That would be a right no one else has.is this what passes for "thinking" in your world?

Straights have a right to marry to the person of their choice (providing they consent of course); gays do not. By recognizing only straight unions but not gay unions, the state grants special rights to straights, thus discriminating against gays. Gays who demand gay marriage simply demand to not be discriminated against.

of course, we all know that when you say "thinking", you really mean "feeling" -- the word "thought" is merely a potemkin villagefront for your prejudices. You seem to think that playing Orwellian semantic games will lend your mindless bigotry some legitimacy...

I did not say liberals should be subject to retroactive abortions, though actually that's not a bad idea in your case. You might however plead that you aren't a liberal but a socialist or some such nonsense. I said abortions should be MANDATORY for liberals. It was a joke, but snobs and liberals have no sense of humor, so you must have missed that one.Ah yes, it was "mandatory abortions", you are right. mea culpa, dominus socordiae.

FEEEEELLLLIIINNNGGGSSSS. How else to describe the screed of the left?i am glad you asked. i would describe it as "thinking and feeling".

It is meant to appeal to the average female, so it MUST be FEELING.So, you are a misogynist as well. My, my, what a surprise. Nice poster boy for conservatism you make!

Wait, wait, don't tell me: this is not bigotry on your part, you were merely "thinking" there, as is your usual want. :rolleyes:

That's why it is impervious to logic. Conservatives generally fail to attract a female audience because of that fact.Has it occurred to you that conservatives generally fail to attract women voters as much as liberals do, at least in part because there are too many misogynistic pricks among them? And don't forget the conservative record of opposing civil rights -- that gotta count for something with women, too!

Liberals merely cite a litany of problems, and never solve them.I dunno, universal suffrage and civil rights seem like pretty serious solutions to my poor liberal mind.

Of course, the war on poverty cost trillions, but did the liberals win? Hell no.[/B]How about the war on drugs? How about the war on Vietnam?

How about the fact that you simply ignore all logic and reason, that you ignored my counter-arguments and my statements that liberals have more failures but also more successes? How about the fact that your self-ascribed thinking amounts to little more than an obvious and transparent veneer for your unthinking prejudices?

Yeah. You should be proud of your poster-boyhood for conservatism. With only minimal promptiong from me, you have laid open your finer qualities. Thank you, dearie.

[Brooklyn Dodger]

Originally posted by Victor Danilchenko
[Brooklyn Dodger

is this what passes for "thinking" in your world?

Straights have a right to marry to the person of their choice (providing they consent of course); gays do not. By recognizing only straight unions but not gay unions, the state grants special rights to straights, thus discriminating against gays. Gays who demand gay marriage simply demand to not be discriminated against.

of course, we all know that when you say "thinking", you really mean "feeling" -- the word "thought" is merely a potemkin villagefront for your prejudices. You seem to think that playing Orwellian semantic games will lend your mindless bigotry some legitimacy...

Ah yes, it was "mandatory abortions", you are right. mea culpa, dominus socordiae.

i am glad you asked. i would describe it as "thinking and feeling".

So, you are a misogynist as well. My, my, what a surprise. Nice poster boy for conservatism you make!

Wait, wait, don't tell me: this is not bigotry on your part, you were merely "thinking" there, as is your usual want. :rolleyes:

Has it occurred to you that conservatives generally fail to attract women voters as much as liberals do, at least in part because there are too many misogynistic pricks among them? And don't forget the conservative record of opposing civil rights -- that gotta count for something with women, too!

I dunno, universal suffrage and civil rights seem like pretty serious solutions to my poor liberal mind.

How about the war on drugs? How about the war on Vietnam?

How about the fact that you simply ignore all logic and reason, that you ignored my counter-arguments and my statements that liberals have more failures but also more successes? How about the fact that your self-ascribed thinking amounts to little more than an obvious and transparent veneer for your unthinking prejudices?

Yeah. You should be proud of your poster-boyhood for conservatism. With only minimal promptiong from me, you have laid open your finer qualities. Thank you, dearie.

Let's see, where to begin. Homosexual "right" to marry other people of their own sex. Hmmm. This is recognized ... where? In what workers paradise? In what US state? Keep dreaming. I guess the world is a misogynist and you are the only realist.

Haile shoma chitorid? Try using a living language.

Conservative record opposing civil rights. Hmmm. Well, let's see. We can make this a Democrat-Republican issue for a while to make it really fun. The Democrats are the party of: secession, the Ku Klux Klan, standing in doorways to block African American school children from elementary schools and universities, of failing to back President Johnson in the 1964 Civil Rights Act (Albert Gore Sr., Talmadge, etc), of current senators who are former members of the KKK and who use the word N*gg*r (Senator Byrd), of using the NAACP as a poster child for ignorant voters in overwhelmingly Democrat counties in Florida which also have Democrat election supervisors.

On the other hand the Republicans are the party of: saving the union, freeing the slaves, calling out the National Guard (President Eisenhower) to ensure African American students were admitted to schools and classes, saving the 1964 Civil Rights Act and voting for it with greater percentages in both houses of Congress than did Democrats. By the way, Jackie Robinson was a Republican. And a Brooklyn Dodger.

Every governor or politician in the south who stood in a doorway, every tin star sheriff who unleashed the dogs or who stood with water hoses aimed at African American demonstrators ... was a DEMOCRAT. And you have the nerve to talk about Repoblican opposition to civil rights? I would remind you the first race riot in the 1960s was in 1964 in liberal New York City, then under Mayor Wagner, a Democrat. Racial animosity was so bad that busing was required
as a remedy in liberal Democrat Boston. That, in the state of Massachussets, which actually had the first black senator from the north since reconstruction, Edward Brook. a Republican, until the Kennedy machine sabotaged him. Tell me about Republican racism!

The war on drugs was a brain fart. I don't support it. Nancy Reagan had the only sensible policy: Just Say No.

The war in Vietnam was concieved under the JFK administration, really got going under the Johnson administration. Had either known what he was doing, and not been a liberal, it would have been fought and won in North Vietnam and not fought at all in South Viet Nam. If they thought it should be fought at all. Since they committed the country to it, they should have committed us to win it. That's what you get when liberals make war.

FEEELLLLIIINNNNGGGGSSSSSSS

[Victor Danilchenko]

Brooklyn Dodger

Let's see, where to begin. Homosexual "right" to marry other people of their own sex. Hmmm. This is recognized ... where? In what workers paradise?it should be recognized, for the sake of ending discrimination, in any [place which already grants the straights special right to marry the person of the opposite sex. get it? Straights have a special right to marry a person of their choice, gays don't. Discrimination.

In what US state?Vermont. Vermost supreme court recognized that straight-only marriage is discriminatory, and ordered the Vermont legislature to make equivalent rights available to gays. They don't call it marriage -- it a "separate but equal" thing for now, "civil unions" -- but the salient point is that the discriminatory nature of straights-only marriage has been recognized in Vermont (in Hawaii too, but they amended their constitution to prevent it).

Keep dreaming. I guess the world is a misogynist and you are the only realist.Actually a number of first-world states -- mostly in Europe -- recognize the discriminatory nature of straight-only marriage, and extend similar rights to gay couples.

Conservative record opposing civil rights. Hmmm. Well, let's see. We can make this a Democrat-Republican issue for a while to make it really fun. How about we keep it a liberal/conservative issue instead? I have absolutely no trust in Democratic party -- they are almost as bad a republicans, they were worse in some respects in the past, and are worse in some respects now.

No, let's keeop it a liberal/conservative issue, you little weasel. USA started with slavery and segregation and no voting rights for women, and over conservatives' objections those things were slowly abolished.

The war on drugs was a brain fart. I don't support it.but many of your fellow conservative moralizers do. If you get to use war on poverty as an example of a liberals' failure, then I use war on drugs as the example of the conservatives' failure. But you are used to being selective in examining the facts, aren't you?..

The war in Vietnam... was ended due to liberal uproar over the objections of conservatives who thought (excuse me, felt) as you do.

of course, you can say that Vietnam war failed to be won, due to liberals' interference. I can say the same about every failed liberal program, and you can probably say the same about every failed conservative program (except that now, with GOP in full control of the government, your fellow conservatives will have nobody to blame for any failures but themselves). The point is that you can't say "look, war on poverty failed, therefore liberals don't think" -- such feelings show merely your intellectual dishonesty and your partisan stupidity.

WMT1,

Nice defender you have. Politics make strange bedfellows, eh?..

Also, i don't think i will get to your posts today. I will answer them, but you may have to wait a few days. Sorry.

[Brooklyn Dodger]

Originally posted by Victor Danilchenko
Brooklyn Dodger

it should be recognized, for the sake of ending discrimination, in any [place which already grants the straights special right to marry the person of the opposite sex. get it? Straights have a special right to marry a person of their choice, gays don't. Discrimination.

Vermont. Vermost supreme court recognized that straight-only marriage is discriminatory, and ordered the Vermont legislature to make equivalent rights available to gays. They don't call it marriage -- it a "separate but equal" thing for now, "civil unions" -- but the salient point is that the discriminatory nature of straights-only marriage has been recognized in Vermont (in Hawaii too, but they amended their constitution to prevent it).

Actually a number of first-world states -- mostly in Europe -- recognize the discriminatory nature of straight-only marriage, and extend similar rights to gay couples.

How about we keep it a liberal/conservative issue instead? I have absolutely no trust in Democratic party -- they are almost as bad a republicans, they were worse in some respects in the past, and are worse in some respects now.

No, let's keeop it a liberal/conservative issue, you little weasel. USA started with slavery and segregation and no voting rights for women, and over conservatives' objections those things were slowly abolished.

but many of your fellow conservative moralizers do. If you get to use war on poverty as an example of a liberals' failure, then I use war on drugs as the example of the conservatives' failure. But you are used to being selective in examining the facts, aren't you?..

... was ended due to liberal uproar over the objections of conservatives who thought (excuse me, felt) as you do.

of course, you can say that Vietnam war failed to be won, due to liberals' interference. I can say the same about every failed liberal program, and you can probably say the same about every failed conservative program (except that now, with GOP in full control of the government, your fellow conservatives will have nobody to blame for any failures but themselves). The point is that you can't say "look, war on poverty failed, therefore liberals don't think" -- such feelings show merely your intellectual dishonesty and your partisan stupidity.

WMT1,

Nice defender you have. Politics make strange bedfellows, eh?..

Also, i don't think i will get to your posts today. I will answer them, but you may have to wait a few days. Sorry.

I think I overestimated you. A real academic does not jump up and down after each point and scream "look what I've done!!!" and call names. Maybe a student does that, but a tenured academic? Hardly. I've seen too many of them to think you might be one.

You can't "weasel" out of things so easily. You seem to have migrated conservatism from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party. Nice trick, Houdini. Didn't work for Robert KKK Byrd, did it? Actually it didn't work for any of it. You still haven't responded to my post in that regard, you simply evaded it. That's not the mark of an academic. It's the mark or a snob and a fraud.

So now you claim that heterosexuals who marry those of the opposite sex are the ones who are demanding special rights. Well, I guess that places your entire post in its proper perspective: crapola.

As I explained to you about the war on drugs, Nancy Reagan struck the right stance with Just Say No. You want perhaps William Buckley's stance? He is for decriminalizing marijuana. Many others agree. So what is your point? That some but not all conservatives are in favor of keeping drugs illegal?

Most of the drugs now illegal were completely legal in the US at one time. Until they were outlawed in the 1930s. Under the Franklyn Roosevelt administration. Typical liberal. Followed in the footsteps of The Great Experiment that began under the Woodrow "He Kept Us Out Of War" Wilson administration: Prohibition. That worked really well too. Another great liberal Democrat.

Instead of speculating about what I might say about the Vietnam War, here is what I DID say:

"The war in Vietnam was concieved under the JFK administration, really got going under the Johnson administration. Had either known what he was doing, and not been a liberal, it would have been fought and won in North Vietnam and not fought at all in South Viet Nam. If they thought it should be fought at all. Since they committed the country to it, they should have committed us to win it. That's what you get when liberals make war."

Two liberal Democrat administrations had eight years to prosecute the war and botched it. They left the mess for the Nixon administration. Leftists protested the mess the liberal democrats had made of the war. Hardly surprising. So what should Nixon have done? I believe he should have used nuclear weapons on North Viet Nam and won the war. He didn't, resigned, and Ford lost Vietnam. Hundreds of thousands more were killed who need not have died. Democrat-liberal legacy.

[Victor Danilchenko]

Brooklyn Dodger

I think I overestimated you. A real academic does not jump up and down after each point and scream "look what I've done!!!" and call names. Maybe a student does that, but a tenured academic? Hardly. I've seen too many of them to think you might be one.I am not a tenured academic, and I have no idea where you got that notion.

You can't "weasel" out of things so easily. You seem to have migrated conservatism from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party. Nice trick, Houdini.It did migrate, dude. Democratic party was formed by Andrew Jackson to oppose Federalists and defend states' rights; and it spearheaded the southern secession. Republican party was founded to stop slavery's speread and elect Lincoln, and it started out as pro-Union (and thus anti-states'-rights) party. Under FDR, Democratic party got redefined into its modern mold, with the southern pro-segregation democrats (and dixiecrats) being the left-overs of the old, more conservative, Democratic party.

Neither of the two major parties can be assumed to have been conservative or liberal through its history; at most, you can say that before GOP was formed Democrats were more liberal than Whigs. This is why I refuse to consider historic liberalism/conservatism debate in terms of democratic and republican parties -- because their alignment had shifted over time.

Ignorance is a terrible thing, especially when it's used an an excuse to hold forth a bigoted opinion, ainnit?..

So now you claim that heterosexuals who marry those of the opposite sex are the ones who are demanding special rights.they already have special rights, and they are simply working to deny equal rights to gays.

Well, I guess that places your entire post in its proper perspective: crapola.Ah, the mark of a deep thinker -- utter inability to see blatant discrimination for being blinded by bigotry and partisan bias. How quaint.

As I explained to you about the war on drugs, Nancy Reagan struck the right stance with Just Say No. You want perhaps William Buckley's stance? He is for decriminalizing marijuana. Many others agree. So what is your point? That some but not all conservatives are in favor of keeping drugs illegal?My point is that War on Drugs is being opposed mostly from the liberal and libertarian camps, even though lately, some conservatives have been joining the right side. War on Drugs is being waged most ardently by the moralistic conservatives like Ashcroft (you know, the ones who belie your assertion that conservatism stands for freedom).

Most of the drugs now illegal were completely legal in the US at one time. Until they were outlawed in the 1930s. Under the Franklyn Roosevelt administration. Typical liberal.<shakes head> Drugs started getting outlawed in 1883, when opium was outlawed in California as a totally racist measure against Chinese. The next major step occurred in 1914, with the passage of "Harrison Narcotics Act" (the titular Harrison being a fundie and Prohibitionist), which act regulated import of opium and coca, and their derivatives; so in effect most popular drugs -- opium and heroine and cocaine -- started being regulated in 1914. That act was the original federal anti-drug act. In 1922 Federal Narcotics Control Board was created, and in 1924 heroin was banned (the first federal drug ban).

What happened in 1930 was the creation of Federal Bureau of Narcotics, headed by Anslinger, the ******* who created the uproar about marijuana out of nothing in alliance with the evangelicals; cocaine and opiates were already illegal by then. He was eventually kicked out by -- guess who? -- the liberal JFK. The only major drug outlawed in 1930s was marijuana.

Just FYI. You sound like you really need a little education in history, as you seem to take half-learned facts and draw the conclusion from them that you wish to draw.

Followed in the footsteps of The Great Experiment that began under the Woodrow "He Kept Us Out Of War" Wilson administration: Prohibition. That worked really well too. Another great liberal Democrat. Dude, what are you smoking? The president does not amend the Constitution. The Prohibition movement was pushed through by evalgelical xians (sounds familiar?), who are anything but liberal. Andrew Volstead, an ultra-religious nut, pushed the "National Prohibition Act" (which was required to put 18th amendment into life) over Wilson'e veto. Wilson vetoed the law enacting prohibition, get it?

Ignorance is a terrible thing. :D

Instead of speculating about what I might say about the Vietnam War, here is what I DID say:how about what I said? You say that Vietnam war may have been won if conservatives were given head -- perhaps; but it was a wrong war, and it was opposed by, and ended through the efforts of, liberals. Yes, it was initiated by a democratic president; but there is no way to clearly label this as the "liberals' war", as you seem to be trying to do.

Two liberal Democrat administrations had eight years to prosecute the war and botched it. They left the mess for the Nixon administration. Leftists protested the mess the liberal democrats had made of the war. Hardly surprising. So what should Nixon have done? I believe he should have used nuclear weapons on North Viet Nam and won the war.Wow. You are an even worse than I thought, if you think North Vietnam should have beek nuked.

Look, dude, my point is not that liberals do no wrong; rather, my point is that your assertion -- that liberals feel while conservatives think -- it flat-out wrong, and utterly unsupported by facts.

[WMT1]

Originally posted by WMT1
Translation: Victor's own "steaming pile" just got its ass kicked.

Originally posted by Victor
Ummm, no. I simply haven't the desire to waste the time it would take to address you in detail.

Well, that may be true as well, but your previous responses have certainly been detailed enough to expose a number of problems that make it pretty clear that all the time in the world wouldn't be of much help. You'd still be getting your butt kicked.



Well, I did highlight some key questions for you. Do you want me to "collect" them all for you too?

Your "some questions", if you count all the bolded and underlined points, would still amount to an essay's worth of answers. I guess I will have to pick and choose. later today, I hope.

Any chance you'll at least "pick and choose" from the questions I highlighted before going on to anything else? Some of them kind of get to the heart of our disagreement, and you wouldn't want anyone to have the impression you were avoiding them, would you?



Nonsense. It's nothing more than a vocabulary issue. Clearly I've got a better handle on logic than you do,

Now ]this is a laugh. You are clearly one of those ignoramuses who don't even know enough to realize how ignorant they are, and so you mistake your simplicity for quality.

Translation: Victor remains stuck in the pattern of trying to spin his own incompetence as someone else's ignorance.



Things like this is why arguing with you is basically pointless -- you lack the knowledge and intelligence to understand what you are being told.

In other words, I have too much knowledge and intelligence to swallow the simplistic, majoritarian ******** you've been trying to sell as something else.



and I didn't know what it meant. Nor, I suspect, do the overwhelming majority of logical, English-speaking adults.

the overwhelming majority of English-speaking adults aren't very logical;

And yet amazingly, you need that not-so-logical majority to make your whole case. Who the hell do you think makes up "society"? If they're not logical, what does that say about all those things you've been basing on what "society" thinks? How does it feel to have to rely on the support of people you're now admitting aren't very logical in order to support your views?

(walked right into that one, didn't you?)



and the of the ones that actually understand logic (rather than the commonsensical "logic"), I betcha most would actually know what the axiom of excluded middle is.

Well, as I pointed out, that's because you're confusing actual logic with vocabulary about logic. In fact, when you get right down to it, it's kind of an error in logic to keep making this particular mistake.



Again, you're mistaking an impressive knowledge of obscure terms for the ability to think logically, and to communicate effectively.

And you mistake simplicity for quality. [shrug]

Yeah, you used this one before [shrug], and it had no more foundation then than it does now. See, at least when I point out the problems with your posts, I've got your own words to support those criticisms. Rather than trying to learn from them, you just seem to keep manufacturing baseless criticisms to post in retaliation. For instance, whereas you have made comments equating logic with vocabulary (in this case, your statement about "the ones that actually understand logic"), I've made no statements equating simplicity with quality. The closest I've come is probably something along the lines of trying to get it across to you that complexity does not automatically mean quality. Maybe this is what has you confused?



You obviously think that you mastered logic,

Uh, no, I've made no claims about having "mastered" logic, just that I have a better handle on it than you have. That isn't exactly setting the bar very high, given how badly you've mangled it, particularly with regard to things like "consent" and "discrimination".



and that if you don't understand something, it gotta be false or silly or somesuch.

Actually, it's more like if you can't defend something, it doesn't mean someone else's failure to "understand". (Why does that have such a familiar ring to it?)



You have the blundering arrogance of a highschool senior, which is sad, because you are obviously older than that.

In case you hadn't noticed, I'm not the one committing the blunders. In fact, with you it's practically one after another. The volume of my posts is largely the result of pointing out so many of those blunders in yours. In this post alone, I've already identified quite a few, and this is actually one of the shorter ones.



Where did you get the idea that logic and precision go hand in hand with knowledge of expressions that hardly anyone else is familiar with?

Resentful, are ya?

And here we have a conveniently placed example of one of those blunders. Why would someone who's been kicking your ass where it counts be "resentful" of someone who compensates for weak arguments by showing off an unusual familiarity with words and phrases that almost no one ever uses in normal conversation?



Good grief, this is pathetic. Is there no end to this thing of covering for your own incompetence by manufacturing insults about someone else's "ignorance"?

I am trying to educate you about your shortcomings. [looks up piously] There is no end to what i could do to help you! it's a thankless burden, but someone's gotta do it.

Thanks for the laugh. This one may even top that line about "assumptions", especially considering all the shortcomings that have been identified in your arguments. But you know, if you'd made better use of all this time you've been spending on trying to put the best possible spin on how you're faring in this little skirmish, couldn't you have answered at least half of my highlighted questions by now?



Something tells me that, even if you decide to try and answer the questions I highlighted, any that you are unable to answer will also somehow be my fault.

And something tells me that any answers you don't like will be proclaimed to be "mere assumptions" and other silliness unworthy of your razor-thin mind

Um ... did you forget that you were the first in this discussion to make mention of "assumptions"? And given that you had already been relying on them so heavily yourself, wasn't the "silliness" in your attempt to extract a point out of someone else doing so?

Here's a suggestion. Go back and count all the times you've made a comment like this, or something along the lines of calling me ignorant. Then divide that number by two. And whatever result you get, see if you can at least answer that many of my highlighted questions. Think you can handle it?

(If it'll make it e

[WMT1]

Originally posted by WMT1
Translation: Victor's own "steaming pile" just got its ass kicked.

Originally posted by Victor
Ummm, no. I simply haven't the desire to waste the time it would take to address you in detail.

Well, that may be true as well, but your previous responses have certainly been detailed enough to expose a number of problems that make it pretty clear that all the time in the world wouldn't be of much help. You'd still be getting your butt kicked.



Well, I did highlight some key questions for you. Do you want me to "collect" them all for you too?

Your "some questions", if you count all the bolded and underlined points, would still amount to an essay's worth of answers. I guess I will have to pick and choose. later today, I hope.

Any chance you'll at least "pick and choose" from the questions I highlighted before going on to anything else? Some of them kind of get to the heart of our disagreement, and you wouldn't want anyone to have the impression you were avoiding them, would you?



Nonsense. It's nothing more than a vocabulary issue. Clearly I've got a better handle on logic than you do,

Now ]this is a laugh. You are clearly one of those ignoramuses who don't even know enough to realize how ignorant they are, and so you mistake your simplicity for quality.

Translation: Victor remains stuck in the pattern of trying to spin his own incompetence as someone else's ignorance.



Things like this is why arguing with you is basically pointless -- you lack the knowledge and intelligence to understand what you are being told.

In other words, I have too much knowledge and intelligence to swallow the simplistic, majoritarian ******** you've been trying to sell as something else.



and I didn't know what it meant. Nor, I suspect, do the overwhelming majority of logical, English-speaking adults.

the overwhelming majority of English-speaking adults aren't very logical;

And yet amazingly, you need that not-so-logical majority to make your whole case. Who the hell do you think makes up "society"? If they're not logical, what does that say about all those things you've been basing on what "society" thinks? How does it feel to have to rely on the support of people you're now admitting aren't very logical in order to support your views?

(walked right into that one, didn't you?)



and the of the ones that actually understand logic (rather than the commonsensical "logic"), I betcha most would actually know what the axiom of excluded middle is.

Well, as I pointed out, that's because you're confusing actual logic with vocabulary about logic. In fact, when you get right down to it, it's kind of an error in logic to keep making this particular mistake.



Again, you're mistaking an impressive knowledge of obscure terms for the ability to think logically, and to communicate effectively.

And you mistake simplicity for quality. [shrug]

Yeah, you used this one before [shrug], and it had no more foundation then than it does now. See, at least when I point out the problems with your posts, I've got your own words to support those criticisms. Rather than trying to learn from them, you just seem to keep manufacturing baseless criticisms to post in retaliation. For instance, whereas you have made comments equating logic with vocabulary (in this case, your statement about "the ones that actually understand logic"), I've made no statements equating simplicity with quality. The closest I've come is probably something along the lines of trying to get it across to you that complexity does not automatically mean quality. Maybe this is what has you confused?



You obviously think that you mastered logic,

Uh, no, I've made no claims about having "mastered" logic, just that I have a better handle on it than you have. That isn't exactly setting the bar very high, given how badly you've mangled it, particularly with regard to things like "consent" and "discrimination".



and that if you don't understand something, it gotta be false or silly or somesuch.

Actually, it's more like if you can't defend something, it doesn't mean someone else's failure to "understand". (Why does that have such a familiar ring to it?)



You have the blundering arrogance of a highschool senior, which is sad, because you are obviously older than that.

In case you hadn't noticed, I'm not the one committing the blunders. In fact, with you it's practically one after another. The volume of my posts is largely the result of pointing out so many of those blunders in yours. In this post alone, I've already identified quite a few, and this is actually one of the shorter ones.



Where did you get the idea that logic and precision go hand in hand with knowledge of expressions that hardly anyone else is familiar with?

Resentful, are ya?

And here we have a conveniently placed example of one of those blunders. Why would someone who's been kicking your ass where it counts be "resentful" of someone who compensates for weak arguments by showing off an unusual familiarity with words and phrases that almost no one ever uses in normal conversation?



Good grief, this is pathetic. Is there no end to this thing of covering for your own incompetence by manufacturing insults about someone else's "ignorance"?

I am trying to educate you about your shortcomings. [looks up piously] There is no end to what i could do to help you! it's a thankless burden, but someone's gotta do it.

Thanks for the laugh. This one may even top that line about "assumptions", especially considering all the shortcomings that have been identified in your arguments. But you know, if you'd made better use of all this time you've been spending on trying to put the best possible spin on how you're faring in this little skirmish, couldn't you have answered at least half of my highlighted questions by now?



Something tells me that, even if you decide to try and answer the questions I highlighted, any that you are unable to answer will also somehow be my fault.

And something tells me that any answers you don't like will be proclaimed to be "mere assumptions" and other silliness unworthy of your razor-thin mind

Um ... did you forget that you were the first in this discussion to make mention of "assumptions"? And given that you had already been relying on them so heavily yourself, wasn't the "silliness" in your attempt to extract a point out of someone else doing so?

Here's a suggestion. Go back and count all the times you've made a comment like this, or something along the lines of calling me ignorant. Then divide that number by two. And whatever result you get, see if you can at least answer that many of my highlighted questions. Think you can handle it?

(If it'll make it easier, I'll even prioritize them for you, and you can answer them until you run out of time. Just let me know.)



Straights have a right to marry to the person of their choice (providing they consent of course); gays do not.

And some would argue that everyone has a right to marry the person of their choice, as long as they are of the opposite sex, and nobody has the right to marry someone of the same sex, and that since everyone has these same rights, it is therefore not discrimination. That's certainly no less a manipulation of the meaning of words than you were attempting by trying to characterize taxation as non-discriminatory.



it should be recognized, for the sake of ending discrimination, in any [place which already grants the straights special right to marry the person of the opposite sex. get it?

What if society disagrees with you? Marriage is a social construct, isn't it? Don't gay people agree to these terms when they consent to the implicit social contract by not leaving the country?

(How about at least answering these questions before moving on to whatever you're going to "pick and choose" from?)



Straights have a special right to marry a person of their choice, gays don't. Discrimination.

Poor people have a special right to pay nothing (or almost nothing) in taxes. Rich people don't. Discrimination.



Nice defender you have. Politics make strange bedfellows, eh?..

What matters isn't who is doing the defending, but whether they happen to be right. And regarding the observation "In the end, Victor is a snob, not an intellectual", you don't appear to be providing much evidence to the contrary.



Also, i don't think i will get to your posts today. I will answer them, but you may have to wait a few days. Sorry.

Take all the time you need. My own access to the forum is going to be kind of unpredictable for a while anyway.

[Victor Danilchenko]

WMT1,

I thought about it, and decided that the best thing I can do is reset the discussion back to basics, more or less, instead of doing the morass of point-by-point response. So, here are the key items on the taxation and social contract arc (which has become the primary focus of the recent posts). I don't consider other arcs to be interesting enough to address.

US Constitution is a legitimate social contract
As legitimate as they get, in fact. the objection that the Constitution framers weren't truly representing their constituencies misses the point that elections of representatives must occur within some governmental framework -- there must be some rules to determine how the votes are counted and what the votes mean, and these rules must in turn legitimately represent the population's wishes; so legitimacy of the government is a chicken-and-egg problem, because by this silly definition of legitimacy, you cannot hold legitimate elections to create a government, because pre-government elections are by this definition illegitimate. If the objection is that the framers didn't represent the people's wishes when they signed the Constitution, then we will end up with having no possibility of legitimate government at all -- even a minarchic libertarian government still must be established in the some manner, and there are no laws determining the meaning of voting until there is a government in place.

In short, the legitimacy objection misses the point. US Constitution is as legitimate compact as they get; and given that it specifies both the democratic governance and the method of its own amendment, it certainly seems legitimate.

Acceptance of the social contract is implicit
While I agree that it would be nice for such acceptance to be explicit, this has never been the case in any society. The simple historic fact is that acceptance of social contract has always been implicit. Since we have to deal with reality rather than expect reality to conform to our wishes, as minute a point as implicit acceptance of social contract is certainly not a reasonable block to validity of social contract, given that any individual has the option of terminating their participation therein. While this implicit acceptance may be a unique feature of social contract, it does not disqualify the social contract model of government.

Income tax is a legitimate aspect of social contract
Income tax was established my modifying the social contract in ways specified therein. As long as Constitution is considered a legitimate social contract, income tax must also be considered legitimate, pending the next point.

Contracts cannot include illegal provisions; taxation is legitimate
and thus having income tax is not the same as the previously mentioned social contract to have your car broken in. Contracts cannot stipulate criminal activity. You cannot have a contractual obligation to be raped or mugged.

The simple fact is that the difference between legitimate and criminal act is consent -- this is the difference between sex and rape, for example. Any contract that stipulates one of the signatories to be subject to criminal activity is thus internally self-contradictory, as it amounts to that party consenting to not consent. This is why you can contract to have your storefront spray-painted, but not to have it vandalized; you can (or should be able to) contract to have sex, but not to be raped; and you can contract to be taxed, but not to be robbed. If a contract does stipulate criminal (= unconsensual) activity, it will simply be held invalid in case a contractual dispute arises -- you cannot consent to not consent. On the other hand, an equivalent legitimate contract (say, a contract to have your storefront painted rather than vandalized), in case of violation by one of the parties, is subject to legitimate redress on the part of the violating party.

This is why the example about social contract to have your car broken into, is a rhetorical device. It's nothing more than a contradiction designed to elicit emotional response in the listener, by comparing income taxation to robbery.

We have a legitimate social contract with the government, which includes a legal provision -- taxation; it's legitimate, because it does not explicitly stipulate a self-contradiction (consenting to not consent) inherent in the sort of counter-example that was offered by WMT1. If an individual reneges on the contract by not paying tax, the government can seek redress through law; if the government reneges by mishandling taxation, the individual can seek redress through law. If an individual wishes to terminate their participation in the social contract, they can emigrate. All of this is a perfectly normal example of contractual obligation.Let me know if you think I missed any major points; and remember, I am trying to keep this discussion down to manageable size and away from morass of irrelevant minutae, so if you want to add something, make sure it's relevant and important.

[Victor Danilchenko]

Brooklyn Dodger,

Are you feeling OK after the whipping you've been administered?

Where's your ******** now, you "thinking conservative", you? or are you now spending all your time in the library, trying to educate yourself on real history, rather than the lies you have been believing up to now? Nah, too much to hope for, I suspect.

[Brooklyn Dodger]

Originally posted by Victor Danilchenko
Brooklyn Dodger,

Are you feeling OK after the whipping you've been administered?

Where's your ******** now, you "thinking conservative", you? or are you now spending all your time in the library, trying to educate yourself on real history, rather than the lies you have been believing up to now? Nah, too much to hope for, I suspect.

I have been out of town. Some of us have a life.

[WMT1]

Originally posted by Victor
I thought about it, and decided that the best thing I can do is reset the discussion back to basics, more or less, instead of doing the morass of point-by-point response. So, here are the key items on the taxation and social contract arc (which has become the primary focus of the recent posts). I don't consider other arcs to be interesting enough to address.

Your rationalization of your own evasiveness is duly noted, and it comes as no surprise.


Let me know if you think I missed any major points;

You missed all of them. I'm referring to those highlighted questions you keep dodging.


and remember, I am trying to keep this discussion down to manageable size and away from morass of irrelevant minutae,

(In other words, the questions that expose the problems in your arguments.)


so if you want to add something, make sure it's relevant and important.

Everything I've posted has been in direct response to something you've posted. I was more than halfway through picking apart your latest response, in the usual detail, when everything just seemed all too familiar. And it occurred to me that you're just recycling a lot of the flawed assumptions that my earlier questions (the ones you don't seem to want to answer) were meant to challenge. If anything, your choice to do so is what makes those questions relevant. For all your excuses about what is a "manageable size", you could have probably spent less time and space than you did with your latest response by simply answering those questions, especially since a number of them only call for a "yes" or "no". Your increasing evasiveness is certainly starting to smell like someone who just doesn't want to admit defeat. But if I'm wrong about that, is there something keeping you from answering them in small doses, like maybe only two or three a week?


Have a nice weekend.

[Victor Danilchenko]

WMT1,

I addressed the material objections you raised in my previous post -- your objection about legitimacy of Constitution due to founding fathers not representing their constituencies, your objection about income taxation being as illegitimate an aspect of a social contract as theft, etc. I see that you found an excuse to avoid addressing these new points. I did indeed in good faith addressed every objection of yours that I considered relevant (and asked you to supply any additional ones I may have missed!), but of course the fact that I have addressed them, thus making new points, hasn't phased you in the slightest, nor prevented you from summarily ignoring those new points.

Yes, in the past, I raised some irrelevant points, and so have you -- we both are guilty of making this thread be the monster it had recently become. If you are too intellectually cowardly to actually abandon the safety of your morass of minutae and get back to the point, that's your problem, not mine. You seem to take comfort in ignoring the forest for the trees, but I am not interested in sinking to that level of discourse.

I have given us a chance to put this discussion back on track, keeping it both relevant and meaningful. To that end, my previous post was both the addressing of your material objections, and the summary of the current state of the debate from my perspective (this was why you saw some of the points that were raised previously).

This is your last chance to give a substantitive response. I still have some hope that you can address the raised objections in good faith.

[WMT1]

Originally posted by Victor
I addressed the material objections you raised in my previous post -- your objection about legitimacy of Constitution due to founding fathers not representing their constituencies, your objection about income taxation being as illegitimate an aspect of a social contract as theft, etc.

No, you definitely did not. I've asked you some rather pointed questions on all of these issues, or on the arguments you've used to support them - questions which remain unanswered.



I see that you found an excuse to avoid addressing these new points.

Never let the facts get in the way of a good spin, right? Your pattern of evasiveness has become increasingly apparent throughout these exchanges, so the one time I decide to withhold a detailed response to try to get you to address that evasiveness, you're now trying to use that to somehow create the impression that the person who's been responding to you in excruciating detail is the one who's actually being evasive? This problem of continuing to spin your own failures as someone else's is getting worse, not better. It's another one of those tactics that might succeed with the casual observer, but to anyone following closely, it should, at the very least, be raising some questions about your honesty.

In any case, my complete response to that last post of yours is ready to go, as soon as you first deal with your own evasiveness and answer the questions I've been trying to get you to answer for quite some time now. Now that I've made that clear, any further attempts to try to score any points off of the fact that I'm not submitting it until you provide the answers to the questions I've been asking for should remove all doubt about both your dishonesty and your evasiveness.



I did indeed in good faith addressed every objection of yours that I considered relevant (and asked you to supply any additional ones I may have missed!), but of course the fact that I have addressed them, thus making new points, hasn't phased you in the slightest, nor prevented you from summarily ignoring those new points.

First, you have not addressed them. Once again, all you have to do is say the word, and I will put together a post devoted exclusively to repeating those questions for you, all of which are directly relevant to exposing the problems with the arguments you've used to support all that rhetoric you keep recycling, and which you are now trying to pass off as "new" points.

Second, I pointed out to you that the ones you missed were the ones that were highlighted. And I even asked you if you wanted me to collect them for you. A simple "yes", and I would have done so. But not surprisingly, you declined, instead just making excuses about the length of the answers they would require when, in fact, some only call for a "yes" or "no". And when you used that as an excuse to "pick and choose", I asked if you'd at least pick and choose from the highlighted questions first, and, also not surprisingly, I never got an answer. Hell, I even asked you if it would help to answer only two or three a week, and still you don't seem to want to take me up on it. Yeah, it's pretty clear who's scrambling for excuses not to answer stuff.

Just to demonstrate the problem, I'm going to provide you with a couple of simple, yes/no questions, directly relevant to the comments you just made, and though I'd like an answer to them, I'm predicting you will ignore them ...

1. Do you agree that I've asked several questions about arguments you've made that you have not answered?

2. If so, did I make it clear to you that the reason my last response to you was not as detailed as my previous responses had been was the lack of responsiveness that you have been demonstrating?

3. Is it reasonable for you to criticize someone for withholding a response, when they've made it clear that the reason they're doing so is the lack of responsiveness that you demonstrated first?



Yes, in the past, I raised some irrelevant points, and so have you --

Well, at least your half right. Remember, everything I've posted has been in response to something you posted. So, the proper way for you to express this would have been "in the past, I raised some irrelevant points, and you responded to them".



we both are guilty of making this thread be the monster it had recently become.

Again, half right. Owning up to some responsibility is a step in the right direction, but it's not a good sign that you're still trying to place some of it where it does not belong. This thread has become a monster due to your evasiveness, your attempts to make your own inability to explain your views about someone else's lack of understanding or education, and your tendency to substitute insults for rebuttal generally, none of which I'm guilty of. And continuing to just plain get stuff wrong, like with the statement you just made, hasn't exactly helped either. It just means more stuff I have to correct you on. At worst, my only contribution to the monstrosity this thread has become is my thoroughness.



If you are too intellectually cowardly to actually abandon the safety of your morass of minutae and get back to the point, that's your problem, not mine.

Translation: Victor's own statements have backed him into some serious corners, and being an intellectual coward, this, too, is something he wants to spin as someone else's failure.

Incidentally, is there anything more intellectually cowardly than running like a scared little girl from questions that challenge your arguments?



You seem to take comfort in ignoring the forest for the trees, but I am not interested in sinking to that level of discourse.

In other words, you're never going to bother answering those questions, and you're pulling out all the stops to create the impression that you're taking the high road by not doing so.



I have given us a chance to put this discussion back on track, keeping it both relevant and meaningful.

How does simply repeating the same old rhetoric, consisting mainly of assumptions that only prompt further variations on the questions you've been dodging anyway, get the discussion "back on track"?



To that end, my previous post was both the addressing of your material objections,

Again, I hate to keep correcting you, but nowhere in any of your responses was the answer to any of those highlighted questions provided.



and the summary of the current state of the debate from my perspective

The current state of the debate is that you keep doing anything and everything you can think of to avoid answering those questions I've been asking, and then trying to spin your own evasiveness as my fault somehow.



(this was why you saw some of the points that were raised previously).

And it would have been so much more helpful to actually see answers to my questions about those points that were raised previously.



This is your last chance to give a substantitive response.

Actually, that's pretty much all I've been doing, since I've answered every question you've asked, and responded directly to every point you've raised, throughout this discussion. As any self-respecting skeptic would be able to recognize, the "substantive response" that's been lacking has been in your posts. You've had several chances yourself to correct that situation, but I'm willing to give you more.



I still have some hope that you can address the raised objections in good faith.

Everything I've done in this discussion has been in good faith. Remember, I'm not the one who's resorted to namecalling, posting insults about education or understanding where a rebuttal or an answer is called for, making excuses for not answering questions, or spinning my own failures as someone else's, as you just tried to do with your own evasiveness. If anything, the suggestion that there are any "good faith" problems on my part kind of falls into that last category too.

Now, having said that, I still have hope that you can get around to answering those questions in good faith, though admittedly, that hope is fading.

[Victor Danilchenko]

WMT1

Well, I guess this is the last post.

No, you definitely did not. I've asked you some rather pointed questions on all of these issues, or on the arguments you've used to support them - questions which remain unanswered.I answered the questions I consider directly relevant to the question of legitimacy of the Constitution as a social contract, and to the legitimacy of income tax as an aspect of the said social contract. As I already said, i am ignoring the rest of them; howedver, if you thought some of the unaddressed questions to be relevant to that topic, you could bring them up.

In any case, my complete response to that last post of yours is ready to go, as soon as you first deal with your own evasiveness and answer the questions I've been trying to get you to answer for quite some time now.No. As I said, I simply will not address all of the question you raised, because there are too many of them, and most are not relevant. Even in your "limited" rendition, that is still the case. This is why I tried to reset the discussion back to the topic and to its relevant points; and if you have any objection to the four specific sub-topics I raised, ot if you think new sub-topics are relevant to the subject, feel free to bring them up. I want this sort of format in order to be able to keep the debate on topic, as you have already shown your own inability or unwillingness to do so.

First, you have not addressed them.I addressed the ones relevant to the topic. I already said that I will not address the rest; however, i explicitly asked you to suggest any additional questions that I left out but which you think relevant to the topic.

Once again, all you have to do is say the word, and I will put together a post devoted exclusively to repeating those questions for you, all of which are directly relevant to exposing the problems with the arguments you've used to support all that rhetoric you keep recycling, and which you are now trying to pass off as "new" points.I did make new points, you friggin idiot (about the fallacy in your concept of government legitimacy, or about the self-contradiction inherent in contracts for criminal acts). I don't want you to repeat your old objections -- I know them, and most are irrelevant. If you want to go through the list and pick out the ones that address my last post specifically, feel free to do so.

And when you used that as an excuse to "pick and choose", I asked if you'd at least pick and choose from the highlighted questions first, and, also not surprisingly, I never got an answer.Yeah. As I said, I was trying to re-organize the entire debate, to create a new "base point" from which to continue. I am not surprised that you dfon't wish to do so.

The creation of this new 'base point" is not debatable; I simply will not continue the old thread. however, I will address any additional questions that you think are directly relevant to this new basepoint. I just won't continue on that old chaotic ******** that's been meandering all over the place.

Hell, I even asked you if it would help to answer only two or three a week, and still you don't seem to want to take me up on it.No kidding. I haven't hours to waste on answering your collection of posts, duh.

Just to demonstrate the problem, I'm going to provide you with a couple of simple, yes/no questions, directly relevant to the comments you just made, and though I'd like an answer to them, I'm predicting you will ignore them ...Well, let's see... Every time i am asked to answer "yes/no" questions, I think : "are you still beating your wife?

1. Do you agree that I've asked several questions about arguments you've made that you have not answered?Yes. As I explained I will not do so -- the previous discussion meandered too far afield.

2. If so, did I make it clear to you that the reason my last response to you was not as detailed as my previous responses had been was the lack of responsiveness that you have been demonstrating?That was the excuse you gave, yes.

3. Is it reasonable for you to criticize someone for withholding a response, when they've made it clear that the reason they're doing so is the lack of responsiveness that you demonstrated first?Yes. I didn't withold responses, I witheld responses to some questions -- the ones that were too scrattered. I tried to address your substantitive points in that one post.

Well, at least your half right. Remember, everything I've posted has been in response to something you posted.And everything I have posted was in response to something you posted. if you don't have the intelligence to understand how such back-andc-forth can lead to the discussion being utterly off-course, you are a fool.

This thread has become a monster due to your evasiveness, your attempts to make your own inability to explain your views about someone else's lack of understanding or education, and your tendency to substitute insults for rebuttal generally, none of which I'm guilty of.Just one example from the top of my head -- I don't feel like re-reading your posts. Your accusations of me blindly supporting majority rule was a substitution of insults for rebuttal, and an incorrect one at that (I repeatedly said that I do not support majority rule as being a sufficient determinant in all case, so there's obviously no 'blindly" about it); it was also a point at which yet another irrelevant tangent was created -- this time by your efforts.

But of course you being you, you couldn't possibly admit to being wrong in your ridiculous denial of any wrong-doing. Silly me, expecting you to act more maturely than than a kid caught sneaking out candy before dinner.

So, the proper way for you to express this would have been "in the past, I raised some irrelevant points, and you responded to them".Ah, you are too foolish to see your contribution to the current problem... :rolleyes: inability to admit mistakes, a sure sighn of an idiot.

Incidentally, is there anything more intellectually cowardly than running like a scared little girl from questions that challenge your arguments?No. Fortunately, i have not done so -- the questions which actually challenged my argument as it pertains to the topic, I addressed. In case i missed some objections -- which i am sure I had -- I asked you to supply them. Running from challenge is most certainly a thing i am not guilty of.

In other words, you're never going to bother answering those questions,Not all of them, no. I will only answer the ones that relate to the topic. your questions about my "blind support for majority rule" for example deserve an answer (although I already gave you one), but they take the discussion away from the core topic.

How does simply repeating the same old rhetoric, consisting mainly of assumptions that only prompt further variations on the questions you've been dodging anyway, get the discussion "back on track"?Because I didn't just repeat it. I repeated some, in order to make the post be self-contained (so that nobody would have to go back and read the whole thread to figure out what the hell is being talked about); but I also made new points, addressing the few objections of yours that were actually relevant.

Again, I hate to keep correcting you, but nowhere in any of your responses was the answer to any of those highlighted questions provided.Wrong. While most of your highlighted questions were utterly irrelevant, the following was relevant, and was addressed:

I asked how doing so was not a violation of "individual rights", and I've asked it twice now.Well, the answer is trivial -- it's not a violation of individual rights because it's contractual (which point was included in my baseline response); this was why I responded to the same question earlier by saying, sarcastically: "How do you get the idea that just because a majority of the condo association gives the association the power to charge condo fees, that's somehow not the violation of individual rights?.." You of course utterly missed the point.

The real question here then is not "why is taxation not a violation of individual rights?" but rather, "is Constitution a legitimate social contract"? This is exactly the sort of scatter-brained meanderings that I was trying to get rid of, by creating a new baseline for the argument -- asking the question I quoted is pointless, we should have concentrated on arguing about the legitimacy of the Constitution. Try to understand it, will ya? Most objections you raised have been answered, and the entire argument rests on whether Constitution is a legitimate social contract (because if it is, then income taxation, having been introduced via constitutional means, is automatically a legitimate part of that contract).

This is in fact pretty much the only question that's still relevant, and its aspects (which I enumerated) are what we should be talking about -- whether Constitution is a legitimate social contract; hence my 4 points (of which the 4th was already bordering on being another tangent, but I included it because I felt it was important for you to have the point about contractual status of crime be addressed).

Actually, that's pretty much all I've been doing, since I've answered every question you've asked, and responded directly to every point you've raised, throughout this discussion.True; your responses werre often irraitonal or ignorant, but you did respond to everything. This -- your "thoroughness", your inability or unwillingness to distinguish the relevant from the irrelevant -- is ineed one of the reasons this thread exploded. What do you think happens if you answer each of my points with 2, and i answer each one of your points with 2? Exponential growth, that's what. basic math. It's to cut this lunacy short that I made my post -- and guess what? the lunacy is right back.

P.S. There will not be another post like this. if you are unwilling to stay on topic, i will simply stop answering. This is it (and this time, i mean it, haha).

[WMT1]

Originally posted by Victor
I answered the questions I consider directly relevant to the question of legitimacy of the Constitution as a social contract, and to the legitimacy of income tax as an aspect of the said social contract.

What about indirectly relevant? Every single one of the questions I've been trying to get you to answer is in direct response to some argument you made in support of the whole "social contract" thing, or to the absurd statements you were making about the related concepts of consent and discrimination. Are you now prepared to retract those arguments? If not, then why are you so afraid to defend them?



As I already said, i am ignoring the rest of them;

Thus my references to evasiveness.



howedver, if you thought some of the unaddressed questions to be relevant to that topic, you could bring them up.

I have brought them up. And in most cases, they were highlighted the first time I posted them. That should have tipped you off that I considered them to be particularly relevant. So what are you waiting for?



In any case, my complete response to that last post of yours is ready to go, as soon as you first deal with your own evasiveness and answer the questions I've been trying to get you to answer for quite some time now.

No. As I said, I simply will not address all of the question you raised, because there are too many of them, and most are not relevant.

Really? Name one. Cite any one of those questions that was not directly relevant to arguments you were making.

(*crickets*)


(And by the way, even if, as you claim, only "most" are not relevant, why have you not yet answered the ones that are?)



Even in your "limited" rendition, that is still the case. this is why I tried to reset the discussion back to the topic and to its relevant points.

In other words, you'd been getting your butt kicked, and wanted a "do over".



and if you have any objection to the four specific sub-topics I raised,

What I object to is your unwillingness to answer questions about stuff you've posted.



ot if you think new sub-topics are relevant to the subject, feel free to bring them up.

No thanks. Just answering the questions I've already asked would be good enough. No "new sub-topics" should be necessary for that.



I want this sort of format in order to be able to keep the debate on topic,

Translation: Victor wants this format to keep him safely removed from the tough questions.



as you have already shown your own inability or unwillingness to do so.

I know you're attached to that pattern of trying to spin your own shortcomings as someone else's, but not sharing your assessment that the debate is off topic in the first place does not reflect an "inability" or "unwillingness" to do something. In my case, indifference toward that particular concern is more like it anyway. The conversation goes wherever it goes. I'm more interested in getting you to defend your arguments at any given point than in supporting some "reset" ******** that enables you to run from them. You didn't seem so concerned about keeping your arguments on topic yourself, until the questions got too tough. Remember, before I even responded to you in this thread, you were already off topic.



First, you have not addressed them.

I addressed the ones relevant to the topic.

No, I got it right the first time. You did not address them. If you have any kind of point here, you should have no trouble citing at least one or two of those questions that had nothing to do with anything you posted; either that, or admitting that the arguments of yours that they were in response to were off topic in the first place.

Just curious, though. If, for instance, you would identify the "topic" as XYZ, are you under the impression that every statement made, or every question asked, must actually contain a direct reference to XYZ in order to be "relevant to the topic"? If not, I'd be interested in knowing what standards you're using to determine what is and is not "relevant". Because so far, it just looks like everything you don't want to answer is, by definition, not relevant.



I already said that I will not address the rest; however, i explicitly asked you to suggest any additional questions that I left out but which you think relevant to the topic.

Again, that would be those highlighted questions that were in response to arguments you made, and which you're now running from.



I did make new points, you friggin idiot (about the fallacy in your concept of government legitimacy, or about the self-contradiction inherent in contracts for criminal acts).

No, you did not, you friggin idiot. You simply invented your own mangled characterization "consenting to not consent" to try to justify calling it a self-contradiction. That's not how you make a point.



I don't want you to repeat your old objections -- I know them, and most are irrelevant.

Translation: Victor has no answer for them, and in his world, that qualifies as "irrelevant".



If you want to go through the list and pick out the ones that address my last post specifically, feel free to do so.

Why only your last post? Are you now prepared to retract all the arguments you were making before that post - you know, the ones you don't seem to want to answer questions about?



Yeah. As I said, I was trying to re-organize the entire debate, to create a new "base point" from which to continue.

Nobody asked you to, so what possible reason could you have, other than to get around the fact that, the way things had been going, you were getting trounced?



I am not surprised that you dfon't wish to do so.

No reason you should be. This whole thing of creating a new "base point" is just a way for you to avoid admitting defeat on everything that had occurred previously. And most self-respecting debaters wouldn't be too keen on the idea of their opponent getting to "create a new 'base point'" whenever the challenges to their arguments become too tough to handle.



The creation of this new 'base point" is not debatable; I simply will not continue the old thread.

So what? All that means is you're digging in your heels, and steadfastly sticking to your evasiveness.



however, I will address any additional questions that you think are directly relevant to this new basepoint. I just won't continue on that old chaotic ******** that's been meandering all over the place.

Are you admitting that was an accurate characterization of your posts? 'Cause I still haven't seen you cite a single example of anything I've posted that wasn't a direct and relevant response to something you posted.



Hell, I even asked you if it would help to answer only two or three a week, and still you don't seem to want to take me up on it.

No kidding. I haven't hours to waste on answering your collection of posts, duh.

Then why are you spending so much more time making excuses for not answering those questions than it would actually take to answer those questions? Are you saying you are incapable of providing clear, straightforward answers to them, without becoming incredibly long-winded (to the tune of "hours"), to answer only a couple of questions each week?



Just to demonstrate the problem, I'm going to provide you with a couple of simple, yes/no questions, directly relevant to the comments you just made, and though I'd like an answer to them, I'm predicting you will ignore them ...

Well, let's see... Every time i am asked to answer "yes/no" questions, I think : "are you still beating your wife?

Yeah, I've heard this one before. Some times it actually applies. But in this case, it's just more spin to get around your evasiveness. In any case, if you find such a problem in a question, how difficult is it, for instance, to simply respond "your question is based on a false premise, because I've never beaten my wife"?

(FYI, I went back and took a closer look at those questions I've been trying to get you to answer. About half of them call for nothing more than a "yes" or a "no", and you'd be hard pressed to find even one that is comparable to the "beating your wife" thing.)



1. Do you agree that I've asked several questions about arguments you've made that you have not answered?

Yes. As I explained I will not do so -- the previous discussion meandered too far afield.

What does your meandering have to do with evading questions I asked that were directly relevant to arguments you had made?

Besides, the "yes" is sufficient to answer the question. It makes it quite clear that, though you were the only one being evasive, you were prepared to try and manufacture a phony criticism from the fact that someone else would want to avoid wasting time on a detailed response to you until you dealt with that evasiveness. It's pretty clear you're a lot more about impressions than substance. This is also reflected in your response to the next point.



2. If so, did I make it clear to you that the reason my last response to you was not as detailed as my previous responses had been was the lack of responsiveness that you have been demonstrating?

That was the excuse you gave, yes.

See? Once again, "yes" was all that was necessary, but you felt you had to add further spin, by including the word "excuse" in your answer to try and create the impression that my response was less than reasonable, when there was absolutely no basis for doing so. Never let honesty get in the way of a little manipulation, right?

In any case, where that leaves us is that you have now admitted that I've asked several questions about arguments you've made that you have not answered. And you've also admitted that I made it clear to you that the reason my last response was not as detailed as my previous responses had been was the lack of responsiveness that you have been demonstrating.



3. Is it reasonable for you to criticize someone for withholding a response, when they've made it clear that the reason they're doing so is the lack of responsiveness that you demonstrated first?

Yes.

Wow. Can't say I saw that one comin'. If you're willing to go on record with this answer, it's becoming apparent that you really just don't realize how ridiculous some of your answers are.



I didn't withold responses, I witheld responses to some questions --

Um ... how the hell does the second thing fail to qualify as the first? Does not answering questions about your arguments (which you're now on record as admitting) somehow fail to demonstrate a "lack of responsiveness"? Is this kinda like one of those things where it depends on what the meaning of "is" is? You just get funnier and funnier, Victor.



the ones that were too scrattered.

What the hell does that mean?



I tried to address your substantitive points in that one post.

No, you did not. My substantive points were the ones that challenged arguments you had been making, the ones you're now running from.



Yes, in the past, I raised some irrelevant points, and so have you --

Well, at least your half right. Remember, everything I've posted has been in response to something you posted.

And everything I have posted was in response to something you posted.

Make up your mind. Have you raised some irrelevant points or not? If you're having trouble keeping your story straight, no wonder you want to "re-organize the entire debate".



if you don't have the intelligence to understand how such back-andc-forth can lead to the discussion being utterly off-course, you are a fool.

That's a lovely thought. But the problem is that all you're really doing is declaring something to be "off course" because you don't like the corners that the natural course of the conversation was backing you into.



This thread has become a monster due to your evasiveness, your attempts to make your own inability to explain your views about someone else's lack of understanding or education, and your tendency to substitute insults for rebuttal generally, none of which I'm guilty of.

Just one example from the top of my head -- I don't feel like re-reading your posts.

You don't seem to "feel" like doing much of anything that involves taking responsibility for what you've said.



Your accusations of me blindly supporting majority rule was a substitution of insults for rebuttal, and an incorrect one at that

No, your assessment that it's "incorrect" is incorrect. The majority thing is a valid and accurate observation, based on the arguments you yourself have been making, unlike the rather lazy ad homs about ignorance or lack of education you've resorted to in response to some of my questions. And if you consider it an insult for someone to correctly identify the nature of the views you've expressed, that's not my problem. Accuracy is what counts, and your views are based heavily on rhetoric about "society" and "social constructs", rhetoric which amounts to nothing without majority will. And some of those questions you don't want to answer would help support this characterization. So until you are prepared to either answer them, or to go on record retracting all arguments you've made using such expressions, your protests are meaningless.



(I repeatedly said that I do not support majority rule as being a sufficient determinant in all case, so there's obviously no 'blindly" about it);

You speak with forked tongue. If it's not a "sufficient determinant" in all cases, then it's not a "sufficient determinant" period, and there goes the whole basis for your "social contract" ********.



it was also a point at which yet another irrelevant tangent was created -- this time by your efforts.

Nope. You cannot identify a single "irrelevant tangent" that wasn't created primarily by your own arguments.



But of course you being you, you couldn't possibly admit to being wrong in your ridiculous denial of any wrong-doing.

Nonsense. The one time I actually got something wrong in this discussion, I admitted it right away. You, on the other hand, refuse to answer questions that would reveal a number of mistakes on your part. For instance, you're the guy whose rhetoric about "society" and "implicit social contract" has essentially been shattered by those questions you can't answer, but you refuse to admit that, choosing instead to continue to make transparent excuses for your evasiveness. As usual, your sarcasm is simply another attempt to try and spin your own shortcomings as someone else's.



Silly me, expecting you to act more maturely than than a kid caught sneaking out candy before dinner.

You should probably know that it also makes you look kind of ridiculous to be handling this debate the way you've been handling it, and to then attempt to score any kind of points about anyone else's maturity.



So, the proper way for you to express this would have been "in the past, I raised some irrelevant points, and you responded to them".

Ah, you are too foolish to see your contribution to the current problem...

The "current problem" is your evasiveness. If you think there's some problem I've contributed to, you're always free to explain what you think it is, rather than using vague insults to create the impression of having a point, as you've just done.



inability to admit mistakes, a sure sighn of an idiot.

You haven't identified any. You tried to come up with one - only one - and you even managed to get that wrong. So, if you're unable to admit that mistake, or the various others I've pointed out along the way, does that make you an "idiot"?



Incidentally, is there anything more intellectually cowardly than running like a scared little girl from questions that challenge your arguments?

No. Fortunately, i have not done so --

Sure you have. And until you actually answer those questions, that's all you're doing, your repetitious excuses notwithstanding.



the questions which actually challenged my argument as it pertains to the topic, I addressed.

It isn't my fault if you made arguments that didn't "pertain to the topic". The questions I'm asking you to answer are nevertheless directly relevant to arguments you made, and you should either retract those arguments, or be prepared to answer questions about them.



In case i missed some objections -- which i am sure I had -- I asked you to supply them.

What does this mean? I told you that the "objections" you missed were the highlighted questions I asked. I also asked you if you wanted me to repeat them all for you, and all you had to do was say "yes". Is there something else you're looking for? If not, then why not simply say "yes, I want you to repeat them all for me"?

Moreover, is your excuse for not answering them that you "missed" them, or is it the time thing? You can't seem to pick an excuse and stick with it.

[WMT1]

Originally posted by Victor
Running from challenge is most certainly a thing i am not guilty of.

Are you kidding? That's become the very essence of your latest responses - you know, the ones where you keep making excuses for ignoring questions you don't want to answer, questions which directly challenge arguments you've made?



In other words, you're never going to bother answering those questions,

Not all of them, no. I will only answer the ones that relate to the topic.

They all relate to the topic. Again, if you disagree, feel free to identify a single one that does not.



your questions about my "blind support for majority rule" for example deserve an answer (although I already gave you one),

Not to the questions I highlighted, you didn't.



but they take the discussion away from the core topic.

No, they don't. Your own comments are what have taken the discussion away from the "core topic". You were the first to bring up all that "social contract" crap, not me. But given how badly your arguments have failed, I can understand why you'd now want to make the "core topic" about something else.



How does simply repeating the same old rhetoric, consisting mainly of assumptions that only prompt further variations on the questions you've been dodging anyway, get the discussion "back on track"?

Because I didn't just repeat it. I repeated some, in order to make the post be self-contained (so that nobody would have to go back and read the whole thread to figure out what the hell is being talked about);

Thus my use of the expression "consisting mainly of assumptions". Besides, if you can take the time to do that, why can't you take the time to answer questions previously asked, that were directly relevant to challenging the assumptions you were simply repeating?



but I also made new points, addressing the few objections of yours that were actually relevant.

You continue to confuse relevance with "whatever isn't too tough for Victor to answer". Once again, all of my objections were relevant to arguments you were making. And once again, if you disagree, feel free to identify a single one that was not.



Again, I hate to keep correcting you, but nowhere in any of your responses was the answer to any of those highlighted questions provided.

Wrong. While most of your highlighted questions were utterly irrelevant,

Once again, all of them were relevant to arguments you were making. And once again, if you disagree, I challenge you to identify a single one that was not.

(See? Continuing to refer to stuff you're too scared to answer as "irrelevant" is one of those things I just keep having to correct you on, and that's the sort of stuff that makes for these bloated responses.)



the following was relevant, and was addressed:

I asked how doing so was not a violation of "individual rights", and I've asked it twice now.

Well, the answer is trivial -- it's not a violation of individual rights because it's contractual (which point was included in my baseline response);

And here we have a conveniently placed example of simply repeating one of your earlier assumptions in your more recent "reset" post, without addressing the problems with that assumption, or even admitting that it is an assumption in the first place. It's not "contractual" unless it was agreed to by everyone who is bound by it. And if you're just going to fall back on that "leaving the country" nonsense, that'll just get us back to some of those questions you keep avoiding.

It might help if you provided a clear definition of what you think makes something "contractual", and be sure and provide one that also makes it clear why anything that qualifies as contractual cannot, by definition, be a violation of individual rights, and then we'll see where that takes us. Something tells me you won't be able to pull this off without some circular logic involving the definitions of "legal", "contractual", "rights", etc. And of course, if some problems arise, I'm sure it will then all just become "irrelevant", and it'll be time for another "reset", right?



this was why I responded to the same question earlier by saying, sarcastically: "How do you get the idea that just because a majority of the condo association gives the association the power to charge condo fees, that's somehow not the violation of individual rights?.." You of course utterly missed the point.

Given that I politely, clearly, and thoroughly answered your question (maybe you thought you were going to stump me?) before reminding you that you had still not answered mine, how the hell does that qualify as missing the point? I guess you've discovered yet another variation on spinning your own failures as someone else's. In any case, just to remind you of my response:

Actually, I don't recall taking that position. But if there's something in the ownership agreement giving them that power, well, that would be where I would get that idea. If there isn't, you could probably argue that it is a violation of individual rights.

Now, back to my question. How did you arrive at the conclusion that just because the majority gives the government the power to confiscate the property/earnings of its citizens without their consent, that that's somehow not a violation of "individual rights"?

And, of course, you still not answered that question (simply declaring it to be "contractual" falls laughably short), and your failure to answer it does not mean that someone else "missed the point", it's only further evidence that you don't handle questions well.



The real question here then is not "why is taxation not a violation of individual rights?" but rather, "is Constitution a legitimate social contract"?

Very good. (*clapping*) It's clear that you can define what you'd like for the questions to be. (Kinda makes for an easier debate, huh?) Now, if you could only focus some of that energy on answering the questions that someone else asks about your arguments.



This is exactly the sort of scatter-brained meanderings that I was trying to get rid of,

Translation: These are the sort of tough questions Victor was trying to get rid of.

(Really, Victor. "Scatter-brained meanderings"? The use of such hyperbole to describe questions that are completely relevant to this discussion just makes you look silly.)



by creating a new baseline for the argument --

In other words, a "do over".



asking the question I quoted is pointless,

Sorry, but if taxation is part of what you're claiming to be a "legitimate social contract", then it is perfectly legitimate to ask "why is taxation not a violation of individual rights?". And continuing to simply declare everything you don't like to be "pointless" or "irrelevant", aside from being lazy, is about as intellectually cowardly as it gets.



we should have concentrated on arguing about the legitimacy of the Constitution.

Why? That's not where this whole thing started. You brought the Constitution into it fairly late in the game, when it became clear to you that the whole "social contract" thing was falling apart, and you needed something else to fall back on. It was hardly the original topic.



Try to understand it, will ya? Most objections you raised have been answered,

Try to understand it, will ya? No they haven't!



and the entire argument rests on whether Constitution is a legitimate social contract (because if it is, then income taxation, having been introduced via constitutional means, is automatically a legitimate part of that contract).

Fine. Then if that's the case, it is not legitimate. As I'm sure I pointed out somewhere along the line, the legitimacy of a contract depends on its content, who consented to it, and whether any terms are being imposed on anyone who did not. Now, if you want to go doing some more fancy footwork about the meaning of consent, that's just going to get us back to some of those questions you keep trying to claim are irrelevant.



This is in fact pretty much the only question that's still relevant,

Translation: This is in fact pretty much the only question Victor wants to answer.



and its aspects (which I enumerated) are what we should be talking about -- whether Constitution is a legitimate social contract;

Then there's not that much to talk about. To the degree that it protects the liberty/property of those who have agreed to it, it is legitimate. To the degree that it violates the liberty/property of anyone who has not agreed to it, it is not. Now that we've cleared that up, can we get back to those questions about your earlier arguments?



hence my 4 points (of which the 4th was already bordering on being another tangent, but I included it because I felt it was important for you to have the point about contractual status of crime be addressed).

But you didn't address it. And I'll be happy to explain how your attempt failed, just as soon as we cover all that old business you keep referring to as not relevant.



Actually, that's pretty much all I've been doing, since I've answered every question you've asked, and responded directly to every point you've raised, throughout this discussion.

True; your responses werre often irraitonal or ignorant, but you did respond to everything.

I'll go through this again, though I'm sure it won't be the last time. Please read the following very slowly, aloud, several times: Victor's incompetence does not translate into someone else's ignorance or irrationality. It is, however, certainly consistent with both traits to repeatedly make excuses for not answering clear, relevant, straightforward questions about the arguments you've made, and to then try to spin that evasiveness as some kind of "reset".



This -- your "thoroughness", your inability or unwillingness to distinguish the relevant from the irrelevant -- is ineed one of the reasons this thread exploded.

Then, once again, you should have no trouble identifying any statement of mine that was not a directly relevant response to something you posted.



What do you think happens if you answer each of my points with 2, and i answer each one of your points with 2? Exponential growth, that's what. basic math. It's to cut this lunacy short that I made my post -- and guess what? the lunacy is right back.

Well, I'm not the one complaining about the length of these responses anyway, so I'm not particularly concerned with keeping count. But I have noticed that your assessment leaves out a few things. For instance, an awful lot of what you post is to simply repeat stuff you've said before, stuff that's either just plain wrong, and which has previously been corrected (not such a good thing, if you're trying to create the impression that it is your opponent who doesn't admit mistakes), or about which there are some unanswered questions still on the table. Since you also repeatedly make so many comments trying to spin your failures as someone else's ignorance, inability to understand, or something else, I have to waste time pointing this out to you as well. See, all these things contribute to the "lunacy" as much as anything else. And more recently, how many times have you referred to questions you don't want to answer as not "relevant"? Well, your continuing to make this mistake only adds to the problem too.

So if you don't like the "lunacy", the way to streamline the discussion is not to eliminate the toughest, most relevant questions first, or to simply recycle the same old assumptions those questions were designed to challenge in the first place, under the guise of a "base point", but rather to answer what your opponent considers to be most relevant, and to do so in a clear, straightforward manner.



P.S. There will not be another post like this. if you are unwilling to stay on topic, i will simply stop answering.

So, you get to post stuff that's off topic, and I don't get to ask you about it?



This is it (and this time, i mean it, haha).

No problem. I'd say a concession on your part is long overdue.



Face it, Victor, in spite of all your education, you're a lightweight. I truly did not think so at first, but your views are not the result of critical thinking, you're just parroting stuff you've read, stuff that doesn't withstand any serious scrutiny, and you just lack the forthrightness to admit it. If I'm wrong about any of this, all you'd have to do to set me straight would be to actually go ahead and provide clear, straightforward, no-******** answers to those questions, and then say "See? That wasn't so hard. What was the big deal?"

[Victor Danilchenko]

it's clear that you would rather have a fight than a discussion. As I said, I will not continue to play the stupid games you so love -- I have neither the time nor the patience to indulge your ignorance and insecurity and lack of thought. Bye.

[WMT1]

Originally posted by Victor
it's clear that you would rather have a fight than a discussion. As I said, I will not continue to play the stupid games you so love -- I have neither the time nor the patience to indulge your ignorance and insecurity and lack of thought. Bye.

In other words, Victor remains too intellectually cowardly to answer questions about the problems with his arguments, and even in his parting shot, the best he can do is to hurl baseless insults to try and create the impression that his failure is someone else's fault.

[Mr Manifesto]

bump

[hgc]

Ah, it's like homecoming week at the forum. Whither Victor Danilchenko, WMT1, Brooklyn Dodger?

[LFTKBS]

Originally posted by Brooklyn Dodger
I am unaware of any conservatives who are opposed to EQUAL rights for homosexuals or anyone else. As individuals. However, conservatives would be opposed to SPECIAL rights for them, such as single sex marriage.

So wait.

Heterosexuals can marry another heterosexual when both consent and are of legal age to marry.

Homosexuals cannot marry another homosexual when both consent and are of legal age to marry.

The difference between those two sentences are the substitution of 'homosexual' for 'heterosexual' and 'cannot' for 'can.'

Therefore, the rights of homosexuals in contemporary American society are not equal to those held by heterosexuals; indeed, that heterosexuals have a least one right that homosexuals do not have makes heterosexual marriage a SPECIAL right, something that a conservative in the Brooklyn Dodger mode should be ethically bound to fight against.

I can only presume, then, that you, Brooklyn Dodger, will in your capacities as a private citizen lobby for the right of homosexuals to marry, thus establishing equality for all. If this is not the case, please explain why.

EDIT ADD: I realize that this thread is insanely old, but I thought perhaps B.D. would get an email notification of its bumpage. 'Cause I'd really like the above question answered.

[jj]

Originally posted by Q-Source


quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by hammegk
---------
I doubt you want to know either.

Have you been to Africa? Lately? S. Africa? Lately?

Haiti? Killed all the massas in ?1857 I vaguely recall.

Good examples of throwing off the chains of oppression.

Would most people prefer the amenities of downtown Wash.DC or of downtown Lagos, if one were down & out? Would you rather be black in Rio or Sao Paulo, or in Dar es Salaam? Or Kano?

Actually, imperialism/colonialism "in-country" would be best I suppose.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------




Hammegk

I am a bit slow, sorry.

Was that a yes or no for slavery?

Hammegk, I'm not the least bit slow, and I can see that you didn't answer the question.

So, what's the answer? A yes, a no, or a qualification and clarification?

[Tmy]

Originally posted by LFTKBS


So wait.

Heterosexuals can marry another heterosexual when both consent and are of legal age to marry.

Homosexuals cannot marry another homosexual when both consent and are of legal age to marry.



A heterosexual man cant marry a hetero man.
A homosexual man can marry a homosexual women.

Of course those cases would be silly cause neither would truley love each other. Then again LOVE is not a requirement for a legal marriage.

[Upchurch]

Originally posted by Tmy


A heterosexual man cant marry a hetero man.
A homosexual man can marry a homosexual women.

Of course those cases would be silly cause neither would truley love each other. Then again LOVE is not a requirement for a legal marriage. Kinda reminds ya of the good ol' days when marriage was defines as between a man and woman of the same race and it was illegal for blacks and whites to inter-marry, doesn't it?

(I'd cite the source that I read about this in just recently, but for the life of me, I can't think of what it was.)

[JAR]

Originally posted by hammegk
I doubt you want to know either.

Have you been to Africa? Lately? S. Africa? Lately?

Haiti? Killed all the massas in ?1857 I vaguely recall.

Good examples of throwing off the chains of oppression.

Would most people prefer the amenities of downtown Wash.DC or of downtown Lagos, if one were down & out? Would you rather be black in Rio or Sao Paulo, or in Dar es Salaam? Or Kano?

Actually, imperialism/colonialism "in-country" would be best I suppose.
A person I know said that the best thing that can happen to a black person is to be descended from slaves. I think that person was quoting from someone else but I'm not sure because I can't remember.

[Checkmite]

Due to the concept of slavery and the "two-thirds" mindset ingrained in many slave owners and society in general, when slavery was abolished, living conditions and quality of life remained pretty much the same for African-Americans as they were during slavery. Put another way, the abolition of slavery did not lead to the "equalization and integration" of Africans into American society; it let loose a multitude of uneducated, poverty-stricken, clannish, and insecure people who were for the most part despised by the society into which they were "integrated", and who were forced to fend for themselves without the benefit of or access to adjustment or educational programs.

To subscribe to Hammegk's opinion, you must necessarily agree with the silly proposition that no immigration from Africa to the United States would've been possible or probable independent of slavery. The opposite is true. Slavery is the worst thing that could've happened to Africans. Without slavery, Africans would eventually have immigrated just like Asians and Europeans. There would be no "Two-Thirds Comprimise" and the associated mindset; Africans would have been on equal footing from the get-go. But now because of slavery, the black man who would've been equal is now raised in an environment of distrust and self-imposed isolation - the direct result of over a hundred years of neglect and stigmatism.

[Mr Manifesto]

Originally posted by Joshua Korosi
Due to the concept of slavery and the "two-thirds" mindset ingrained in many slave owners and society in general, when slavery was abolished, living conditions and quality of life remained pretty much the same for African-Americans as they were during slavery. Put another way, the abolition of slavery did not lead to the "equalization and integration" of Africans into American society; it let loose a multitude of uneducated, poverty-stricken, clannish, and insecure people who were for the most part despised by the society into which they were "integrated", and who were forced to fend for themselves without the benefit of or access to adjustment or educational programs.

To subscribe to Hammegk's opinion, you must necessarily agree with the silly proposition that no immigration from Africa to the United States would've been possible or probable independent of slavery. The opposite is true. Slavery is the worst thing that could've happened to Africans. Without slavery, Africans would eventually have immigrated just like Asians and Europeans. There would be no "Two-Thirds Comprimise" and the associated mindset; Africans would have been on equal footing from the get-go. But now because of slavery, the black man who would've been equal is now raised in an environment of distrust and self-imposed isolation - the direct result of over a hundred years of neglect and stigmatism.

Bravo

[bignickel]

Bravo to the infinite power. That was brilliant.

I count myself lucky if I learn something new everyday, but that posting was my best bit of knowledge I learned this week. (and right up there for post of the month).

Damn, why didn't I think of that?

Actually, if anyone here would like to visit a country where African descendents ARE integrated smoothly in society, visit Paris. It was a complete eye-opener there. Over there, the color of ones skin matters just as much as the color of one's hair.

It was completely surreal for me while I was riding a subway with an completely integrated group; and I was the odd man out, due to language barrier!

[Dancing David]

Originally posted by JAR

A person I know said that the best thing that can happen to a black person is to be descended from slaves. I think that person was quoting from someone else but I'm not sure because I can't remember.

JAR is on target, there may be benefits to the descendants of the slaves but that does not excuse the evils of slavery. Nor does it justify them.

Say through acts of torture someone discovers the cure for cancer, the cure is great but the torture is still evil.

[Graham]

Originally posted by Joshua Korosi
Due to the concept of slavery and the "two-thirds" mindset ingrained in many slave owners and society in general, when slavery was abolished, living conditions and quality of life remained pretty much the same for African-Americans as they were during slavery. Put another way, the abolition of slavery did not lead to the "equalization and integration" of Africans into American society; it let loose a multitude of uneducated, poverty-stricken, clannish, and insecure people who were for the most part despised by the society into which they were "integrated", and who were forced to fend for themselves without the benefit of or access to adjustment or educational programs.

To subscribe to Hammegk's opinion, you must necessarily agree with the silly proposition that no immigration from Africa to the United States would've been possible or probable independent of slavery. The opposite is true. Slavery is the worst thing that could've happened to Africans. Without slavery, Africans would eventually have immigrated just like Asians and Europeans. There would be no "Two-Thirds Comprimise" and the associated mindset; Africans would have been on equal footing from the get-go. But now because of slavery, the black man who would've been equal is now raised in an environment of distrust and self-imposed isolation - the direct result of over a hundred years of neglect and stigmatism.


Originally posted by Dancing David


JAR is on target, there may be benefits to the descendants of the slaves but that does not excuse the evils of slavery. Nor does it justify them.

Say through acts of torture someone discovers the cure for cancer, the cure is great but the torture is still evil.


:rolleyes:

[whitefork]

Originally posted by Joshua Korosi
There would be no "Two-Thirds Comprimise" and the associated mindset...Small quibble: Three-fifths compromise.
http://www.aaregistry.com/african_american_history/552/The_ThreeFifths_compromise
Well stated, Joshua.

[Checkmite]

Originally posted by Kullervo
Small quibble: Three-fifths compromise.
http://www.aaregistry.com/african_american_history/552/The_ThreeFifths_compromise
Well stated, Joshua.

You're right. I stand corrected.