Fallacy Files, "Life begins at conception"

Brian37
atheistSuperfan
Brian37's picture
Posts: 16424
Joined: 2006-02-14
User is offlineOffline
Fallacy Files, "Life begins at conception"

The bread and butter tactic of right wing politicians when they are clearly loosing on economic and social issues is to scramble for the worst in their base to rally the troops. Often used when they don't want the rich taxed is "I want government out of my life".

WELL, yes, but selectively. They, especially those without vaginas of their ilk, have no problem intruding on the lives of others and playing doctor for others. Or denying the rights of gays and lesbians. Why? I think most of these politicians, if it were not for want of power, probably wouldn't give a shit what you do in the privacy of your own home. Unfortunately they do not have the intellectual bravery to tell the public the truth in that YOUR BODY is yours, not theirs. And how hypocritical of these fuckwads to claim to want limited government only to turn around and play morality police for the rest of us.

Scrotorum is now pandering to his base about, not even abortion, but contraception. A person who has no medical degree, no training in the psychology of teenagers, no study to prove that contraception causes more disease and more unwanted pregnancy. And he does NOT work for the CDC.

I hate to tell these theocratic nuts, that a sperm is ALIVE before it meets the egg. THE EGG is alive before it meets the sperm. A cluster of cells right at that point has as much feeling as a single blood cell that you might lose if you cut your finger and bleed.

Now, it is idiotic that because us lefty commie cooite spreading liberals value our privacy, to suggest that we want orgies in the street and tons of unwanted babies is absurd. It is also equally absurd that for somehow valuing the rights of an individual, that somehow we are advocating pregnancy simply so a woman can say "I fucked, made a baby just so I could kill it", is equally absurd.

I do not want to hear shit from the right about morality when they intrude more than any other party on the individual rights of all of us, with the most sectarian theocratic zealotry on par with theocracies. Now if there are, however few, on the right that are willing to stay the fuck out of my life and off my body, please, do us all a favor, and do the right thing and tell the idiots in your camp to back the fuck off on the issue of contraception and abortion.

IF we are individuals and free to choose then don't be a fucking hypocrite and choose for us. Politics in a secular pluralistic society should not be about playing morality police. It should be about our common law and our common economic direction.

 

 

 

"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog


Vastet
atheistBloggerSuperfan
Vastet's picture
Posts: 13234
Joined: 2006-12-25
User is offlineOffline
I already defeated this

I already defeated this argument. More than once. Against everyone who ever posited it here. Your opinion is not a fact. A human conceived is a human. Period. An egg is not a human, it's an egg. A sperm is not a human, it's a sperm. Neither have any capacity to become human without the other. While a human embryo can only be human or dead.

Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.


Brian37
atheistSuperfan
Brian37's picture
Posts: 16424
Joined: 2006-02-14
User is offlineOffline
Vastet wrote:I already

Vastet wrote:
I already defeated this argument. More than once. Against everyone who ever posited it here. Your opinion is not a fact. A human conceived is a human. Period. An egg is not a human, it's an egg. A sperm is not a human, it's a sperm. Neither have any capacity to become human without the other. While a human embryo can only be human or dead.

A baseball and a bat are separate, but they are still part of the same game.

The sperm is not a human life, nor is the egg a human life, but they are still ALIVE. If they had no fuel they wouldn't have motion. The sperm and egg are part of evolution as well. To treat the sperm and egg as less important is stupid, because if they didn't exist there would be no conception.

BUT I am NOT going to treat a cluster of cells as being as important as a baby that has left the womb. You are treating our species as above nature when you do this. The fact is we CANNOT put ourselves above nature we are NOT.

Making babies is as mundane as taking a shit . Humans are only important to those who they are closest to and the societies they live in. WE are not however, special to evolution. If I had never been born evolution would have still happened. LIFE is ultimately a crap shoot.

You cant have it both ways. If someone had aborted King, that would have sucked. If someone had aborted Hitler that would have been good. But evolution is going to take place no matter what. It will always produce good people and bad people and life would have continued in either case because it is a crap shoot.

SINCE it is not my body, and since you do not have a vagina yourself, make decisions for yourself, not others.

And quality of life matters too. Unless you want to adopt every baby or can find a home for all of them, I'd suggest you stop playing morality police for women and girls you don't personally know.

I am only for convicting someone who kills or injures a woman or girl who WANTS the kid. But it is not my body and I am NOT morality police.

You haven't defeated any argument, you simply have a predilection based on emotion.

SPERM provides potential life. Eggs provide potential life, they are no less potential than if they are together, Conception is merely ONE PHASE in evolution, it is not the entirety of evolution. And failure even without human intervention happens. Intervening in this setting to me is no different than any other artificial medical procedure.

If you are going to treat a cluster of cells as having a brain and feelings that is as silly as accusing your fingernail of having its own brain because it is attached to your finger.

Were you an almost aborted baby? Is this why you take this position? Or do you know someone who is alive because they were not aborted? Because there is no scientific reason for you to take this position, it is merely you making claims by proxy of emotion,

A human cannot be born until a sperm and egg meet. DUH and thanks for the update. But a human cannot be born without the sperm or egg, take away one, or the other, and you still end up with no birth. So it is STILL an arbitrary point you are picking.

Otherwise you are comiting mass murder by getting a blow job. You cannot call a cluster of cells life, when it depends on the life of the sperm to make it to the egg, and the egg to be there. The sperm is not a human life but it is STILL LIFE. Just like a baseball and bat are still part of the same game. Try playing baseball without the ball or the bat.

FACT, sperm IS alive. FACT eggs ARE alive. You are ignoring that that is PART of evolution, and the conceived cluster of cells IS NOT more important, because it COULD NOT HAPPEN without the prior existence of the sperm or the egg. Evolution is in constant motion and requires all phases to happen.

Now if we are treating everything as mere opinion, then that is even MORE reason to stay out of the lives of bodies you didn't become as a sperm and egg yourself.

Vaset, we agree most of the time so the only thing you might be arguing is not a moral one, but a "factual" one. I agree that "conception" happens, but not as a "beginning" but a transition and part of ongoing evolution. It cannot be separate than evolution.

So take this rant with a grain of salt here. Passions always run high on this issue. I find lots in common with you on other issues.

 

 

 

 

 

"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog


Philosophicus
Philosophicus's picture
Posts: 362
Joined: 2009-12-16
User is offlineOffline
...

Bill Maher calls the birth control issue part of the "Republican war on the vagina."  He's got a point.  The religious right is kooky.  The birth control issue isn't even abortion, it prevents pregnancy.  The only reason the religious right is against birth control is so people don't fuck outside of marriage.  That or every sperm is sacred, sex is only for reproduction, pleasure is sinful, or whatever other nonsense they tell their sheep.  This is another issue that has no bearing whatsoever on human well-being, but they continue to cause suffering. 


Beyond Saving
atheist
Beyond Saving's picture
Posts: 5520
Joined: 2007-10-12
User is offlineOffline
 Deciding where life begins

 Deciding where life begins and whether or not that individual is protected by law is and can only be arbitrary. Really, what is the difference between a 2 minute old infant and a fetus 1/2 hour before birth? I see none. At some point you are making an arbitrary decision that this life form has developed enough to deserve some legal protections and be considered at least at to some extent part of our society. Whether you claim it is right from conception, 7 months into the pregnancy, the day the heart beats or the moment the baby is delivered the decision can't be anything other than arbitrary. It is a purely legal/political/social question, not a scientific one, as such it is one that can only really be made on an emotional level.

 

Personally, I don't really care. I'm not convinced that there is some massive group of people aborting babies for kicks and giggles like the xtian right tries to portray. It is a serious decision and I believe that most people who make it take it seriously. I am inclined to let them use their best judgement. For legal purposes I think babies should get legal protections from the moment of birth. Kind of a wet foot- dry foot policy. Sure it is arbitrary, but it is the easiest to enforce and infringes on the liberty of the parents the least.

 

I do have a problem with being made to pay for your contraceptives. I also have a problem being made to pay for your colds, strep throat, bronchitis or whatever other thing you go to the doctor for. 

 

If, if a white man puts his arm around me voluntarily, that's brotherhood. But if you - if you hold a gun on him and make him embrace me and pretend to be friendly or brotherly toward me, then that's not brotherhood, that's hypocrisy.- Malcolm X


Brian37
atheistSuperfan
Brian37's picture
Posts: 16424
Joined: 2006-02-14
User is offlineOffline
Beyond Saving

Beyond Saving wrote:

 Deciding where life begins and whether or not that individual is protected by law is and can only be arbitrary. Really, what is the difference between a 2 minute old infant and a fetus 1/2 hour before birth? I see none. At some point you are making an arbitrary decision that this life form has developed enough to deserve some legal protections and be considered at least at to some extent part of our society. Whether you claim it is right from conception, 7 months into the pregnancy, the day the heart beats or the moment the baby is delivered the decision can't be anything other than arbitrary. It is a purely legal/political/social question, not a scientific one, as such it is one that can only really be made on an emotional level.

 

Personally, I don't really care. I'm not convinced that there is some massive group of people aborting babies for kicks and giggles like the xtian right tries to portray. It is a serious decision and I believe that most people who make it take it seriously. I am inclined to let them use their best judgement. For legal purposes I think babies should get legal protections from the moment of birth. Kind of a wet foot- dry foot policy. Sure it is arbitrary, but it is the easiest to enforce and infringes on the liberty of the parents the least.

 

I do have a problem with being made to pay for your contraceptives. I also have a problem being made to pay for your colds, strep throat, bronchitis or whatever other thing you go to the doctor for. 

 

Beyond, it is rare that I agree with you, but you are dead on on this, partially. The only laws I am for as far as pre birth is when an assault takes place and the woman wants the kid. But no girl/woman gets pregnant just to have an abortion. Ultimately since I don't have a vagina and I cant have a kid, and since it is not my body, then it can only be their choice, no matter what someone thinks of their choice.

But as far as being forced to pay for medical care, you are still stuck on the stupid bullshit "all taxes bad". You are already forced to pay for roads, police and fireman. What the fuck is your problem taking care of people who don't have the money for health care? You are advocating genocide of the poor.

It is NOT socialism to care about others. It is creating a stable environment so that people CAN be less dependent. NOW again, since you as a business owner don't want business in general taking care of it's workers where the fuck do you suggest they turn to? Or is money the only thing that should have any power in politics? You don't need a democracy for that. Gaddaffi was a billionaire who owned stock in GE.

Again your class is not the only class that has the right to vote. It is NOT robbery when WE THE PEOPLE decide the rules of the road. Your ilk has had a monopoly on lawmaking which has created the pay gap and cost of living gap. Instead what you should be doing, WHICH WOULD cost less, is to give more directly to the worker in terms of better pay and health care. What the insurance and drug industry should be doing, is caring more about cost to cover more people. SINCE they only give a shit about profit DAMNED FUCKING RIGHT people are going to turn to government.

It is OUR government, it is not solely there to protect the rich, and if the rich are not going to do shit to make life more affordable and create more jobs here, and better pay here, we have every fucking right to appeal to OUR elected leaders. Otherwise work  on a law banning non business and non property owners from voting. Good luck with that. See how far you get.

NOW I keep offering you a simple solution which your too dense to see. DO MORE directly for those under you. The more you do directly, and the more they have in their wallets and the less they have to chose between health care and bills and food, the less dependent on government they are. The less dependent they are, the less cost there is for everyone.

SINCE you don't want to do that, we will use the voting booth to make that happen. What will not continue is the monopoly of corporate America on politics. What will not happen is the continuing pay gap that is crippling us.

You are just as good at playing "poor me" victim with "they want to rob me" as any theist who claims we want to oppress religion. There is a class war. It has been waged on the middle class and working poor in order to create the living standards of India and China to maximize profits. That may be your idea of an open market, but it will never be mine.

 

 

"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog


Beyond Saving
atheist
Beyond Saving's picture
Posts: 5520
Joined: 2007-10-12
User is offlineOffline
Brian37 wrote:NOW I keep

Brian37 wrote:

NOW I keep offering you a simple solution which your too dense to see. DO MORE directly for those under you. The more you do directly, and the more they have in their wallets and the less they have to chose between health care and bills and food, the less dependent on government they are. The less dependent they are, the less cost there is for everyone.

As far as I know everyone who works for me has a smart phone, except for one man in his early 20's. He doesn't have a smart phone but plays poker virtually every night. If you own a smart phone and are paying the monthly fee or gambling your money but you don't have health insurance your problem is one of priorities, not finances. I fail to see how that is my problem. The vast majority (all?) of people are not choosing between health insurance and food. They might be choosing between cable tv, smart phones, a new car etc and health care. Maybe their spending choices are not wise, but the vast majority of Americans could purchase health insurance if they chose to, especially when you consider only those who work. The only exceptions are those with significant existing health problems and those who don't work at all. 

 

Brian37 wrote:

SINCE you don't want to do that, we will use the voting booth to make that happen. What will not continue is the monopoly of corporate America on politics. What will not happen is the continuing pay gap that is crippling us.

Yet you continue to contribute to the pay gap by refusing to get a better paying job. If the pay gap is "crippling" us, don't you have a moral obligation to make more so that you aren't contributing to the problem? (I am still waiting for some evidence that the pay gap is in fact a bad thing. In fact, it seems that the pay gap almost always gets larger in economic booms and shrinks in recessions. Currently, our pay gap is shrinking. The top 1% made 16.93% of all income in 2009 (the latest year all numbers are available) down from an all time high of 22.83% in 2007. The rich got poorer than everyone else at a faster rate. The top 50% went from making 87.25% to 86.52% of all income while the bottom 50% went from 12.75% up to 13.48% of all income. A similar occurrence happened 2000 to 2002, 1989-1991 and 1980-1981- the three major recessions we have had in the last 30 years are the three times where the dreaded pay gap as contracted.

http://www.taxfoundation.org/news/show/250.html#Data

 

It is easy to understand why. If you made $15000/year for several years, chances are you are going to continue making $15000/year. There is a fairly large group of people at the bottom who's income doesn't change. Some are receiving government benefits like social security/welfare, others work minimal wage jobs and have no desire or intention of ever doing anything else. Some are people like my brother who work for charitable organizations and only take a minimal salary to pay for living expenses. For the most part, their income is not affected by recessions. Of course, there are those who leave this group- what I refer to as the transient portion such as young kids working their first job or college kids working a part time job while finishing school. They tend to go on to better paying employment in the future, but are usually replaced by more young workers.

 

On the other hand, if you made $350,000 in 2008 (eeking into the top 1%) your income has lots of room to fall. The economy is in recession and you are faced with the decision of firing an employee or taking a hit to your personal income. If your income is consistent with the national average for your income group you would have earned about $275,000 in 2009. Now $275,000 is more than enough for most people to live on, but $75,000 is nothing to sneeze at. With that kind of cash you could easily hire one or two new people for a year. Since you don't have it, you don't hire, unemployment goes up. Others in this situation decide to lay off an employee. Can't say I blame them. 

 

At those kind of income levels, such variance is far more common. Both on the positive and the negative side. Your income is usually much more closely related to the performance of the company in the form of bonuses, commissions or because you are a direct owner. You sacrifice stability for opportunity. 

 

There are two ways to reduce the pay gap. Either the poor need to make more money, or the wealthy need to make less. But the poor will never make more money. No matter what you do a certain percentage of the population isn't going to work, a certain percentage has no desire to make more, a certain percentage is reliant solely on what the government gives them and a certain percentage is content sitting in entry level jobs. So the only solution is to make the rich more poor, but why? How does that help anyone?

 

The only question that concerns me is could you, Brian37, make a higher income if you decided that it was an important goal to you. My answer is yes, you could. For whatever reasons, you have made a career choice that isn't going to pay you a six figure salary. I'm cool with that, it is your life- live it however you desire. Unless you can provide me evidence that you can't, that somehow you are forced into your job and your salary with no opportunity to earn more your argument amounts to "I want to be paid more even though I am unwilling to do a job that pays more." You can lead a horse to water, you can't force him to drink. I point at the water and you're blaming me for your thirst.

 

If, if a white man puts his arm around me voluntarily, that's brotherhood. But if you - if you hold a gun on him and make him embrace me and pretend to be friendly or brotherly toward me, then that's not brotherhood, that's hypocrisy.- Malcolm X


Brian37
atheistSuperfan
Brian37's picture
Posts: 16424
Joined: 2006-02-14
User is offlineOffline
Bullshit, why should money

Bullshit, why should money determine access to information? Cell pones are cheap, so that does not mean someone who is poor has the most expensive one. I have cable and a internet and I am poor myself. I am not going to apologize for that. It evens the information playing field. Money is not the only important thing in life and my voice counts to.

And the other stupid attitude you advocate is live to work. You want to make slaves out of everyone. Did it ever occur to you if the pay gap were not so lopsided those with less could be at home with their families, in turn less crime, less need for police, more stable society?

And if the idea is to employ more people, if someone has two part time jobs instead of one 40 hour a week job, thats one more job that person is taking from from someone else and one less job for someone else to take.

If things continue the way you want everyone will be working 40 jobs one hour each. As long as the extraction market your ilk has set up continues to take it out on labor, because that is the quickest way to cut costs, you will always be part of the problem and not the solution.

I do not want to see our working class and working poor end up like the slave conditions of India and China. You seem to think that money should be the only fucking thing that matters.

NOW AGAIN, if money is the only important thing in life, then go work on a law banning people like me from voting. And while you are at it, since I am poor, make laws banning me from having internet. Good luck with that.

Since you know damned well that wont happen then YOU need to get your head out of your ass and stop thinking your class is the center of the universe and deal with the reality that life is not a script.

 

 

 

 

"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog


Beyond Saving
atheist
Beyond Saving's picture
Posts: 5520
Joined: 2007-10-12
User is offlineOffline
Brian37 wrote:Bullshit, why

Brian37 wrote:

Bullshit, why should money determine access to information? Cell pones are cheap, so that does not mean someone who is poor has the most expensive one. I have cable and a internet and I am poor myself. I am not going to apologize for that. It evens the information playing field. Money is not the only important thing in life and my voice counts to.

It costs an extra $50 a month for a smart phone as opposed to a regular cell phone. You have a choice, you can either spend that $50/month towards your data plan on your smart phone, which is a luxury, or you can put it towards something else like your health insurance. If you are spending money on a smart phone ($50 a month), cable (at least another $50 often more), internet (another $50) you are suddenly talking enough money to at least put a serious dent in the costs of a catastrophic health insurance plan. You can live with a regular cell or even land line, you can live without cable and internet is widely available for free at virtually every public library in the country. Those are luxuries, not necessities to live. If you want more luxuries than you can afford, I suggest you get a higher paying job. Prove to me that you can't, I can show you a lot of people who have and explain precisely what you should do if you desire to make more.  

 

Brian37 wrote:

And the other stupid attitude you advocate is live to work. You want to make slaves out of everyone. Did it ever occur to you if the pay gap were not so lopsided those with less could be at home with their families, in turn less crime, less need for police, more stable society?

If you want money, you have to provide value to other people. Often that requires a lot of time/effort. That often means sacrificing time with your loved ones or sacrificing time doing things you enjoy. I leave it up to every individual to decide what balance of work/pleasure they want to maintain in their lives. Some people live for their jobs, they work 70-80 hours every week and become experts at what they do. They tend to get paid extremely well for it. Other people prefer to work 30-40 hours and have extra leisure time but make less money than they could. So what? The bottom line is that the amount of money you make is directly related to the amount of value you provide your fellow citizens. If you provide many people with things they value a lot, you will make good money. If you provide fewer people with things they value less, you make less. If you want to make more money, figure out what goods/services you can provide people that they value more than what you provide them with now. 

 

Brian37 wrote:

And if the idea is to employ more people, if someone has two part time jobs instead of one 40 hour a week job, thats one more job that person is taking from from someone else and one less job for someone else to take.

If things continue the way you want everyone will be working 40 jobs one hour each. As long as the extraction market your ilk has set up continues to take it out on labor, because that is the quickest way to cut costs, you will always be part of the problem and not the solution.

 

There are as many jobs as there are people, the question is simply whether or not people are producing. I have been "unemployed" many times in my life, I have always worked. You don't HAVE to have someone like me telling you what to produce and where. It is easier to have someone else figure that out for you, it is easier to have someone else find customers, but nothing prevents you from finding a way to provide goods or services to others without an employer (except laws and permit requirements).

 

I don't employ people for the sake of employing people. I employ people for the same reason you go to the barber- I have a job that needs to be done and I am unwilling/unable to do it myself so I pay someone else to do it. Does it matter whether you go to the same barber every month or if you go to a different one every time? 

 

Brian37 wrote:

I do not want to see our working class and working poor end up like the slave conditions of India and China. You seem to think that money should be the only fucking thing that matters.

When it comes to work, money is the main motivating factor. People work for the express purpose of making money. If they don't get paid, the vast majority of people would quit working. I imagine if I didn't issue paychecks this week I wouldn't have any employees next week.

 

Note, I am not the one demanding money from you, you are demanding it from me. I don't expect you to give me a penny unless you purchase a product from me. You expect me to give you money simply because I have more money than you. Money that was given to me voluntarily in exchange for products/services that I provided my customers with.

 

For every dollar I get, I can point at a customer and explain precisely what they got in exchange. Exactly what am I getting from you in exchange for paying for your healthcare? 

 

Brian37 wrote:

NOW AGAIN, if money is the only important thing in life, then go work on a law banning people like me from voting. And while you are at it, since I am poor, make laws banning me from having internet. Good luck with that.

I have no interest in laws banning you or trying to control how your money is spent. If you are paying for a cell phone/cable/internet etc. and are not paying for health insurance, I believe your priorities are messed up. And if you end up in a hospital, you will have to face the financial ramifications of that decision. I don't think it is the governments job to protect you from your own poor financial decisions. My only objection is when you make what I believe is poor decisions, then insist that I have to pay for them with my money that I made from my good financial decisions.

 

If I am going to pay for your poor financial decisions then there is some basis for me to control your decisions. Which is precisely why the new healthcare law requires you to purchase health insurance. I don't think you should be forced to give up your cell phone/cable/internet etc. to buy health insurance. I think you can make that decision by your big boy self and face the consequences yourself. I don't want to live in a country where the government tries to control your decisions because it has a financial stake in the decisions you make. 

 

If, if a white man puts his arm around me voluntarily, that's brotherhood. But if you - if you hold a gun on him and make him embrace me and pretend to be friendly or brotherly toward me, then that's not brotherhood, that's hypocrisy.- Malcolm X


Brian37
atheistSuperfan
Brian37's picture
Posts: 16424
Joined: 2006-02-14
User is offlineOffline
Beyond Saving wrote:Brian37

Beyond Saving wrote:

Brian37 wrote:

Bullshit, why should money determine access to information? Cell pones are cheap, so that does not mean someone who is poor has the most expensive one. I have cable and a internet and I am poor myself. I am not going to apologize for that. It evens the information playing field. Money is not the only important thing in life and my voice counts to.

It costs an extra $50 a month for a smart phone as opposed to a regular cell phone. You have a choice, you can either spend that $50/month towards your data plan on your smart phone, which is a luxury, or you can put it towards something else like your health insurance. If you are spending money on a smart phone ($50 a month), cable (at least another $50 often more), internet (another $50) you are suddenly talking enough money to at least put a serious dent in the costs of a catastrophic health insurance plan. You can live with a regular cell or even land line, you can live without cable and internet is widely available for free at virtually every public library in the country. Those are luxuries, not necessities to live. If you want more luxuries than you can afford, I suggest you get a higher paying job. Prove to me that you can't, I can show you a lot of people who have and explain precisely what you should do if you desire to make more.  

 

Brian37 wrote:

And the other stupid attitude you advocate is live to work. You want to make slaves out of everyone. Did it ever occur to you if the pay gap were not so lopsided those with less could be at home with their families, in turn less crime, less need for police, more stable society?

If you want money, you have to provide value to other people. Often that requires a lot of time/effort. That often means sacrificing time with your loved ones or sacrificing time doing things you enjoy. I leave it up to every individual to decide what balance of work/pleasure they want to maintain in their lives. Some people live for their jobs, they work 70-80 hours every week and become experts at what they do. They tend to get paid extremely well for it. Other people prefer to work 30-40 hours and have extra leisure time but make less money than they could. So what? The bottom line is that the amount of money you make is directly related to the amount of value you provide your fellow citizens. If you provide many people with things they value a lot, you will make good money. If you provide fewer people with things they value less, you make less. If you want to make more money, figure out what goods/services you can provide people that they value more than what you provide them with now. 

 

Brian37 wrote:

And if the idea is to employ more people, if someone has two part time jobs instead of one 40 hour a week job, thats one more job that person is taking from from someone else and one less job for someone else to take.

If things continue the way you want everyone will be working 40 jobs one hour each. As long as the extraction market your ilk has set up continues to take it out on labor, because that is the quickest way to cut costs, you will always be part of the problem and not the solution.

 

There are as many jobs as there are people, the question is simply whether or not people are producing. I have been "unemployed" many times in my life, I have always worked. You don't HAVE to have someone like me telling you what to produce and where. It is easier to have someone else figure that out for you, it is easier to have someone else find customers, but nothing prevents you from finding a way to provide goods or services to others without an employer (except laws and permit requirements).

 

I don't employ people for the sake of employing people. I employ people for the same reason you go to the barber- I have a job that needs to be done and I am unwilling/unable to do it myself so I pay someone else to do it. Does it matter whether you go to the same barber every month or if you go to a different one every time? 

 

Brian37 wrote:

I do not want to see our working class and working poor end up like the slave conditions of India and China. You seem to think that money should be the only fucking thing that matters.

When it comes to work, money is the main motivating factor. People work for the express purpose of making money. If they don't get paid, the vast majority of people would quit working. I imagine if I didn't issue paychecks this week I wouldn't have any employees next week.

 

Note, I am not the one demanding money from you, you are demanding it from me. I don't expect you to give me a penny unless you purchase a product from me. You expect me to give you money simply because I have more money than you. Money that was given to me voluntarily in exchange for products/services that I provided my customers with.

 

For every dollar I get, I can point at a customer and explain precisely what they got in exchange. Exactly what am I getting from you in exchange for paying for your healthcare? 

 

Brian37 wrote:

NOW AGAIN, if money is the only important thing in life, then go work on a law banning people like me from voting. And while you are at it, since I am poor, make laws banning me from having internet. Good luck with that.

I have no interest in laws banning you or trying to control how your money is spent. If you are paying for a cell phone/cable/internet etc. and are not paying for health insurance, I believe your priorities are messed up. And if you end up in a hospital, you will have to face the financial ramifications of that decision. I don't think it is the governments job to protect you from your own poor financial decisions. My only objection is when you make what I believe is poor decisions, then insist that I have to pay for them with my money that I made from my good financial decisions.

 

If I am going to pay for your poor financial decisions then there is some basis for me to control your decisions. Which is precisely why the new healthcare law requires you to purchase health insurance. I don't think you should be forced to give up your cell phone/cable/internet etc. to buy health insurance. I think you can make that decision by your big boy self and face the consequences yourself. I don't want to live in a country where the government tries to control your decisions because it has a financial stake in the decisions you make. 

 

No you are trying to make all of society out to be a script. If we are going to make everything about strings and decisions then where the fuck is the punishment for the assholes at the top who wrecked the car? Name me one bank or car or drug or insurance company that has someone in prison right now?

I am not advocating all poor. You damned well know that. What I am advocating is compassion.

When you take labels and class and nationality out of life, and focus on evolution, what we see are two scripts and both are reality and BOTH WORK.

Life gains resources two ways, MIGHT or cooperation. BOTH WORK. I am not advocating either or. Since our motivations in life will always be different we cannot think monochromatic.

When life reaches an African dessert and there is a tiny pool of water for the lion and the elk and the aligator they all fight for it.

Our species does that too. The difference is that WE have the capability to help and not just say "fuck em".

But even other species when the water is abundant, will at that point, only take what they need.

That is the downside of humanity. We don't simply stop at what we need. You continually try to make this out to be about strings and scripts.

But here is the bottom line, humans are NOT above evolution. If the top continues to fuck the rest of us, just like every other society in history that starved the population for it's own benefit, eventually by its own hand, it cut off the resource that kept it in power.

You can only make life about money for so long before the people fleeced get wise to the scam.

 

"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog


Beyond Saving
atheist
Beyond Saving's picture
Posts: 5520
Joined: 2007-10-12
User is offlineOffline
 Brian37 wrote:No you are

 

Brian37 wrote:

No you are trying to make all of society out to be a script. If we are going to make everything about strings and decisions then where the fuck is the punishment for the assholes at the top who wrecked the car? Name me one bank or car or drug or insurance company that has someone in prison right now?

Richard A Maize- 18 months + $4 million in restitution (he paid $3.6 million before running out of money, hence the jail term)

Charles Elliot Fitzgerald- 14 years

Mark Allen Abrams- 6.5 years

Jamieson Matykowski- 18 months

Lila Rizk- 3 years

Kyle Grasso- 1 year

Lee Farkas- 30 years

Jennifer Hughes-Boyles- Has been charged with mortgage fraud and is awaiting her day in court

Daniel Mudd and Richard Syron have been charged of Fannie & Freddie respectively have been charged with fraud and are awaiting their day in court.

Kerry Kilinger, David Schneider, and Stephen Rotella of WaMu are being sued by the FDIC to the tune of $900 million (more than their combined net worth).

Four bankers from Credit Suisse are supposed to be charged soon. 

I'm sure I could find plenty more but you only asked for one, I've already over delivered with 5 minutes of work using my bookmarks. I'm sure plenty more will be charged, sued and face fines and jailtime before it is over. By nature our justice system moves slow. It takes time to get evidence, build a case, press charges, go through trial etc. The people already given jail terms mostly pled guilty. Those who choose to fight may or may not go to jail, if they do they will probably have longer sentences if convicted. With peoples general attitudes towards bankers right now I don't think I would want my fate up to a jury if I was them.  

 

 

Brian37 wrote:

I am not advocating all poor. You damned well know that. What I am advocating is compassion.

Is it compassion when forced by the government? I have no problem with you saying "You should give this person X because it would be compassionate." I may or may not agree, and I may or may not choose to be compassionate. I do have a big problem when you say "Give this person X or else I'm going to make the government take X from you because I think it would be compassionate." If someone wants to be selfish and greedy I think that is their right. I'm not going to force them to be generous. 

 

Brian37 wrote:

Life gains resources two ways, MIGHT or cooperation. BOTH WORK. I am not advocating either or. Since our motivations in life will always be different we cannot think monochromatic.

Yet you are advocating might. You said business owners can either pay for their employees healthcare or you will use the government to take it from them. How is that anything other than using might to try to force business owners to do what you think they should? I AM advocating against might, voluntary cooperation is the best basis for economic activity. 

 

Brian37 wrote:

That is the downside of humanity. We don't simply stop at what we need. You continually try to make this out to be about strings and scripts.

But here is the bottom line, humans are NOT above evolution. If the top continues to fuck the rest of us, just like every other society in history that starved the population for it's own benefit, eventually by its own hand, it cut off the resource that kept it in power.

 

How are you being fucked? Did you provide me with some service or good I didn't pay for? On what basis am I screwing you by refusing to give you money in exchange for nothing? If someone mugs you on the street, are you screwing them when you refuse to hand over your wallet?

 

Brian37 wrote:

You can only make life about money for so long before the people fleeced get wise to the scam.

 

Who am I scamming? My employees? I pay them for their services at an amount that was negotiated when they were first interviewed plus bonuses for good work. If at any time they are dissatisfied with their treatment, pay or benefits they are free to leave- or hit me up for more money, I have a lot of respect for people with the balls to ask for a raise, so few do nowadays. Most of them are capable intelligent people who could probably easily get a job elsewhere, even in this economy. Getting a job when you are already employed is much easier than getting a job when you are unemployed.

 

My business partners? Sure, they put in a disproportionate amount of labor compared to me but I shouldered a disproportionate amount of the financial burdens and risks- in every case we had a very detailed contract born from aggressive negotiations and came to a mutually beneficial arrangement. If they think I take too big of a cut they should have thought of that before signing the contract, but they are always welcome to buy my stake in the company from me for a reasonable price.

 

My customers? Well I spend most of my time when I am working ensuring my customers are satisfied, over the years my business interests have spanned several industries but customer service and sales are the same regardless of product so I usually put my focus there. I have had a few who weren't and I either resolved the problems or they are no longer a customer. I had a particularly large contract I lost last year because my customer thought I was charging too much. Oh well, there are more fish in the sea, I hope they are satisfied with the other company. If the company can do as high quality a job as my company would at the price they charge, more power to them. If not, maybe I will get that contract back next year.

 

You? Well as far as I know you have never been an employee, a business partner or a customer of mine, nor have I been a customer or yours. So on what basis do you make a claim there should be a financial exchange between us either directly or indirectly through the government? What basis do you have to demand that the government take my money and give a portion of it to you to buy healthcare? What exactly do I get in exchange from you? 

If, if a white man puts his arm around me voluntarily, that's brotherhood. But if you - if you hold a gun on him and make him embrace me and pretend to be friendly or brotherly toward me, then that's not brotherhood, that's hypocrisy.- Malcolm X


Jean Chauvin
Theistard
Jean Chauvin's picture
Posts: 1211
Joined: 2010-11-19
User is offlineOffline
Hello

Hello,

There is always a presuppositional issue to the argument. The Roe/Wade thing turns out to have been a scam to begin with. "Roe" never had an abortion or a baby at the time. And "Roe" has been a Chrisitan for many many years.

But this is an example of why atheism is so toxic. They enjoy killing and death. They enjoy redefining reality to suit their evil.

When the egg and sperm meet and DNA is formed life is found. The sperm is not alive nor the egg unless fertilization talkes place.

Respectfully,

Jean Chauvin (Jude 3).

A Rational Christian of Intelligence (rare)with a valid and sound justification for my epistemology and a logical refutation for those with logical fallacies and false worldviews upon their normative of thinking in retrospect to objective normative(s). This is only understood via the imago dei in which we all are.

Respectfully,

Jean Chauvin (Jude 3).


Brian37
atheistSuperfan
Brian37's picture
Posts: 16424
Joined: 2006-02-14
User is offlineOffline
Jean Chauvin

Jean Chauvin wrote:

Hello,

There is always a presuppositional issue to the argument. The Roe/Wade thing turns out to have been a scam to begin with. "Roe" never had an abortion or a baby at the time. And "Roe" has been a Chrisitan for many many years.

But this is an example of why atheism is so toxic. They enjoy killing and death. They enjoy redefining reality to suit their evil.

When the egg and sperm meet and DNA is formed life is found. The sperm is not alive nor the egg unless fertilization talkes place.

Respectfully,

Jean Chauvin (Jude 3).

Jean you are a fucking idiot. So asshole, prey tell what should happen to us "evil" killers?

Let me finish your childish script for you, "My sky daddy is going to beat the shit out of you". YAWN


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog


Al G. Funguy
atheist
Posts: 33
Joined: 2012-01-13
User is offlineOffline
Brian37 wrote:But as far as

Brian37 wrote:

But as far as being forced to pay for medical care, you are still stuck on the stupid bullshit "all taxes bad"...It is NOT socialism to care about others.

It should be easy to grasp the situation after contemplating the following:

1. Mugging someone on the street at gunpoint is theft and it is wrong

2. Getting together 10 of your neighbors to break into someone's house and steal stuff is theft and it is wrong

3. Banding together with 1 million voters to expropriate someone's property is theft and it is wrong

The point is that unprovoked acts of aggression don't change their moral nature depending on the number of aggressors involved or the complexity of the apparatuses of coercion employed or the selfish reasons for which the aggression is undertaken. Ends do not justify means.

AFAIK this insight came from Rothbard although it may be even older.

Brian37 wrote:
NOW I keep offering you a simple solution which your too dense to see. DO MORE directly for those under you.

Why? The employer does not want to pay more than necessary for your labors just as, mutatis mutandis, you do not want to pay more than necessary for a company's product.

Brian37 wrote:
What the fuck is your problem taking care of people who don't have the money for health care?

Is it justified for you to take health care if the benefit to you outweighs the cost that he incurs?

Is it justified for a man who is desperate for sex to rape a woman if the pleasure he obtains can be added to her suffering to obtain a positive quantity?

These utilitarian lines of thinking do not yield objective answers: there is no means to compare or to sum the subjective valuations of different people. What we have is simply selfish pleading.

Brian37 wrote:
where the fuck is the punishment for the assholes at the top who wrecked the car?

Many go unpunished. Unfortunately, monopoly providers of goods - in this case judicial services - provide goods of lower quality and at higher prices than competing enetrepeneurs would.


Brian37
atheistSuperfan
Brian37's picture
Posts: 16424
Joined: 2006-02-14
User is offlineOffline
Al G. Funguy wrote:Brian37

Al G. Funguy wrote:

Brian37 wrote:

But as far as being forced to pay for medical care, you are still stuck on the stupid bullshit "all taxes bad"...It is NOT socialism to care about others.

It should be easy to grasp the situation after contemplating the following:

1. Mugging someone on the street at gunpoint is theft and it is wrong

2. Getting together 10 of your neighbors to break into someone's house and steal stuff is theft and it is wrong

3. Banding together with 1 million voters to expropriate someone's property is theft and it is wrong

The point is that unprovoked acts of aggression don't change their moral nature depending on the number of aggressors involved or the complexity of the apparatuses of coercion employed or the selfish reasons for which the aggression is undertaken. Ends do not justify means.

AFAIK this insight came from Rothbard although it may be even older.

Brian37 wrote:
NOW I keep offering you a simple solution which your too dense to see. DO MORE directly for those under you.

Why? The employer does not want to pay more than necessary for your labors just as, mutatis mutandis, you do not want to pay more than necessary for a company's product.

Brian37 wrote:
What the fuck is your problem taking care of people who don't have the money for health care?

Is it justified for you to take health care if the benefit to you outweighs the cost that he incurs?

Is it justified for a man who is desperate for sex to rape a woman if the pleasure he obtains can be added to her suffering to obtain a positive quantity?

These utilitarian lines of thinking do not yield objective answers: there is no means to compare or to sum the subjective valuations of different people. What we have is simply selfish pleading.

Brian37 wrote:
where the fuck is the punishment for the assholes at the top who wrecked the car?

Many go unpunished. Unfortunately, monopoly providers of goods - in this case judicial services - provide goods of lower quality and at higher prices than competing enetrepeneurs would.

YOU WOULD BE RIGHT, IF IF IF IF IF IF IF IF IF IF, your right to vote was taken from you. WE get to decide. AND all of us pay taxes for things we don't want to pay for. I had no choice but to pay for TWO FUCKING WARS. Other than they didn't do shit and ran up the dept, that is the price you pay in a society THAT IS NOT A DICTATORSHIP. Sometimes you win and sometimes you lose. It would only be robbery if your right to vote was taken away from you.

TAXES are not theft. But if you want to use that as an example, what about the theft at the top that we had to pay for in bailing out the car companies and banks? You want to talk about theft THAT WAS FUCKING THEFT. And to this day no one in those industries has ended up in jail.

Reducto ad surdum? No taxes at all? Or only taxes when you get what you want? Sorry, thats not the way it works. WE, not you, not on party and not one class, WE get to decide.

And if Warren Buffet and Suze Orman aren't crying over paying more, I don't see why you have a problem.

I think it just pisses your mindset off that the rest of us are getting wise to the scam of corporate welfare.

We have a monopoly by the corporate class that is strangling the middle class and killing the healthy free market by replacing it with an extraction market. It is precisely because the foxes are paying off both parties to set the rules to benefit, not the most, but the CEOs and shareholders. It has become one giant pozey scheme where they inflate a bubble, skim off the top, and dump the losses on the rest of us. And of OWS fades and doesn't fix this now, in another 5 or 10 or 15 years we will end up with even worse.

Now, I've had enough of it, and I will either vote to stop the corporate monopoly on our politics, or if that doesn't work, you WILL see our species do what every species does. I'd advise the top not to starve the rest of us to death.

You can set up any damned system of government you want and the same shift of power happens when people lack resources. The Soviet Union rose because of a monopoly of power, and fell for the same damned reason. Monopolies can work for a while but eventually people get tired of them.

Money has no right to dictate and if your attitude is "every man for themselves" and your idea of "cooperation" is "I don't owe you shit", then fine, we can go that route. Just remember, there are more workers than their are owners.

TAX IS NOT THEFT. It can be wasteful, but it is not theft, otherwise if non of us, except GE and EXXON, if none of us paid taxes we'd have no cops, no roads, no military. I find it sick that you think tax is theft. If I being as poor as I am am willing to pay taxes then you have even less of an excuse.

There is selfishness going on here, and it is not the middle class and working poor.

 

 

"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog


Al G. Funguy
atheist
Posts: 33
Joined: 2012-01-13
User is offlineOffline
Brian37 wrote:YOU WOULD BE

Brian37 wrote:

YOU WOULD BE RIGHT, IF IF IF IF IF IF IF IF IF IF, your right to vote was taken from you... It would only be robbery if your right to vote was taken away from you.

I was talking about theft of funds, not about whether or not I also get a say in who is to be victimized.

You know I'm right and that's why you can't produce a valid refutation. But I understand. The democratic state is your God and it will take time and hard work to unlearn the nonsense you were fed as a child in the government-run child concentration camps. The result of proper understanding is clearer and more penetrating vision, less cognitive dissonance, effortless thinking, and a much calmer disposition. The first step on this path is for you to question your assumptions. Be particularly wary of argumentum ad antiquitatem. I also recommend learning about praxeology, as described in Human Action by Ludwig von Mises.

Brian37 wrote:
But if you want to use that as an example, what about the theft at the top that we had to pay for in bailing out the car companies and banks? You want to talk about theft THAT WAS FUCKING THEFT.

Of course it's theft. Though other crimes are involved such as counterfeiting ("quantitative easing" ) and fraud (e.g. bailment fraud / Ponzi schemes at fractional reserve banks ). 

Brian37 wrote:
And if Warren Buffet and Suze Orman aren't crying over paying more, I don't see why you have a problem.

And some Jews are suicidal and might not complain about being placed in an oven.

Brian37 wrote:
I think it just pisses your mindset off that the rest of us are getting wise to the scam of corporat welfare.

I'm glad you recognize it as a scam, and hope someday you will be able to see all of the scams.

FWIW, I also think the criminal actions of the 1% will prove to not be in their interest. They may be numerically wealthy on paper but they still live in the same impoverished, wracked world that we live in. They will not reap the full blessings of a peaceful world organized by divison of labor and voluntary exchange.

 


Beyond Saving
atheist
Beyond Saving's picture
Posts: 5520
Joined: 2007-10-12
User is offlineOffline
Brian37 wrote:YOU WOULD BE

Brian37 wrote:

YOU WOULD BE RIGHT, IF IF IF IF IF IF IF IF IF IF, your right to vote was taken from you. WE get to decide. AND all of us pay taxes for things we don't want to pay for. I had no choice but to pay for TWO FUCKING WARS. Other than they didn't do shit and ran up the dept, that is the price you pay in a society THAT IS NOT A DICTATORSHIP. Sometimes you win and sometimes you lose. It would only be robbery if your right to vote was taken away from you.

So absolute democracy is always right? What about when 50%+ people vote to enslave others? Just because you can vote for it, doesn't make it right or something that you should do. There are many things that people can and do vote for that are immoral, cruel and/or undesirable. 

 

Brian37 wrote:

TAXES are not theft. But if you want to use that as an example, what about the theft at the top that we had to pay for in bailing out the car companies and banks? You want to talk about theft THAT WAS FUCKING THEFT. And to this day no one in those industries has ended up in jail.

Income taxes are the forceful confiscation of money. Tax money should not have been used to bail out anyone. No one I voted for, and I'll go out on a limb and guess that no one Al voted for supported the bailouts (sorry if I'm assuming too much Al). The president you voted for did, maybe we should send him to jail. Also, you apparently missed the list of people who have gone to jail and are charged. Your statement that no bankers went to jail is demonstrably false. 

 

And wait a minute- you said taxes aren't theft because I have the right to vote. Why were the bailouts theft? You had the right to vote AND voted for the people who supported them. Why is it theft to redistribute to corporations but not theft to redistribute to "the poor"?

 

Brian37 wrote:

Reducto ad surdum? No taxes at all? Or only taxes when you get what you want? Sorry, thats not the way it works. WE, not you, not on party and not one class, WE get to decide.

I support tax systems where taxes are direct fees in exchange for government services. The gas tax is one example where you pay a fee for using the roads maintained with the money. If you choose to use roads you pay the tax in proportion to the amount you use them. If you don't use them at all you pay nothing, sounds fair to me. 

 

Brian37 wrote:

I think it just pisses your mindset off that the rest of us are getting wise to the scam of corporate welfare.

So corporate welfare is wrong- but individual welfare is ok? Why? If it is ok for the government to take from one person for the purposes of giving it to someone else, why is it suddenly wrong to give it to a corporation? I have consistently been against both, the only purposes tax money should be used for are purposes that help everyone. I once offered a $100 contribution to a charity of your choice if you can find a post where I have supported corporate welfare, that offer still stands. Your suggestion that I support corporate welfare is a flat out lie, I have been extremely detailed about the policies I support, I don't think it is necessary for you to lie about it. 

 

Brian37 wrote:

Now, I've had enough of it, and I will either vote to stop the corporate monopoly on our politics, or if that doesn't work, you WILL see our species do what every species does. I'd advise the top not to starve the rest of us to death.

 

So when you vote to take my money for yourself I'm supposed to suck it up, after all I had a vote so anything is fair game, but when someone else votes to take money from you and give it to corporations you support violence? Pot meet kettle.

 

Brian37 wrote:

You can set up any damned system of government you want and the same shift of power happens when people lack resources. The Soviet Union rose because of a monopoly of power, and fell for the same damned reason. Monopolies can work for a while but eventually people get tired of them.

Agreed. Power is always abused in any government, the logical solution is to reduce the governments power so there is no power to abuse. On the other hand, you routinely argue for more centralization of power in more areas of our lives. You allow that centralization in return for promises of "free" things for you. The Soviet Union gained its power by making the same promises and never delivered. 

 

Brian37 wrote:

Money has no right to dictate and if your attitude is "every man for themselves" and your idea of "cooperation" is "I don't owe you shit", then fine, we can go that route. Just remember, there are more workers than their are owners.

TAX IS NOT THEFT. It can be wasteful, but it is not theft, otherwise if non of us, except GE and EXXON, if none of us paid taxes we'd have no cops, no roads, no military. I find it sick that you think tax is theft. If I being as poor as I am am willing to pay taxes then you have even less of an excuse.

There is selfishness going on here, and it is not the middle class and working poor.

 

We are not talking about cops, roads or military. We are talking specifically about whether or not the government should take money from one person to give to another. In the case of cops, roads and military the money is being taken from me in return for offering me direct services, namely police protection, infrastructure and military protection. While I would prefer to adjust the method of tax collection and reduce the significant waste in these areas, at least I theoretically am getting something in return. 

 

Now in the case of taking my tax money to pay for your healthcare- what am I getting in return? 

If, if a white man puts his arm around me voluntarily, that's brotherhood. But if you - if you hold a gun on him and make him embrace me and pretend to be friendly or brotherly toward me, then that's not brotherhood, that's hypocrisy.- Malcolm X


Brian37
atheistSuperfan
Brian37's picture
Posts: 16424
Joined: 2006-02-14
User is offlineOffline
Quote:So absolute democracy

Quote:
So absolute democracy is always right?

HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO REPEAT MYSELF

We are not mob rule by vote, but we are not here just to protect the rich either. DAMN you are like a broken record stuck on one speed.

We are a system of checks and balances where NO monopoly should take hold, be it voter, president, supreme court, OR CLASS!

You are simply getting pissy because I am competing with my voice and are merely going whine like a baby because SOMETIMES you don't win. Get over it, if mob rule by vote is wrong THEN SO IS MONEY EQUALS POWER!

You are not going to falsely cry theft and and use that any more. It is a hollow bullshit argument. I am not calling to end your right to vote. I am simply using my voice and the same system you have access to. If you cant win, well to use what you fire at me "TOO BAD".

So if you don't like hearing "too bad" and cry like a baby claiming I am trying to oppress you, then maybe "too bad" isn't a good mantra to sell yourself, other wise what is good for you is good for me. Either way, it is OUR system, not yours just there to protect you.

Your mantra mindset is getting called out for it's abuses and I don't want to hear it. Maybe you need to get your ilk to stop wrecking the car. But you have no right to bitch in a country where I have the right to vote to to bitch about me voting. If you are going to masturbate about competition, and if that includes political competition, and I have the right to vote, THEN STOP BITCHING. Sour grapes does not equal oppression, it just means I am competing and you don't like losing.

 

 

"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog


Watcher
atheist
Posts: 2326
Joined: 2007-07-10
User is offlineOffline
It's not about what is

It's not about what is "human" or not.  It's about what is a person or not.

Genetically a blastocyst is a human.  But it ain't a person.  So it shouldn't have rights like it is a person.

All it is, is a potential person.  Over 40% of the time it will be automatically aborted before it's more than a couple weeks old.

Potential persons should not be legally recognized as an existing person.

Our genetically human bodies are only life support for our brains, where personhood exists.  No brain with higher brainwaves, no person.  No crime by eliminating it.

Or should we illegalize cockblocking?  You just destroyed any potential of a person eventually coming into existence starting on that day.

"I am an atheist, thank God." -Oriana Fallaci


Al G. Funguy
atheist
Posts: 33
Joined: 2012-01-13
User is offlineOffline
Brian37 wrote:You are not

Brian37 wrote:

You are not going to falsely cry theft and and use that any more. It is a hollow bullshit argument.

But you've failed to rebut my argument. Pretending it doesn't exist means you aren't really a participant in this debate any longer.

You are merely undermining the SNR (signal-to-noise ratio) of this thread.

 

Beyond Saving wrote:

In the case of cops, roads and military the money is being taken from me in return for offering me direct services, namely police protection, infrastructure and military protection

Which of these scarce economic goods should be provided by the government, i.e. provided whether you want them or not and paid for with money extorted from the unwilling?

1. Security services

2. Charitable funds distribution

3. Dog grooming services

4. Hamburgers

5. Roads

6. Prophylactics and abortion services

7. Whiskey

Brian37 probably would say 1, 2, and 5, and maybe 6. You're saying 1 and 5. But why not 3, 4, and 7?

What are the criteria for deciding whether it's justified for a given scarce economic good to be provided by a violent monopoly and paid through extortion? When is it that voluntary exchange between willing customers and competing entrepeneurial providers won't work?

 


Beyond Saving
atheist
Beyond Saving's picture
Posts: 5520
Joined: 2007-10-12
User is offlineOffline
Al G. Funguy wrote: Which

Al G. Funguy wrote:

 

Which of these scarce economic goods should be provided by the government, i.e. provided whether you want them or not and paid for with money extorted from the unwilling?

1. Security services

2. Charitable funds distribution

3. Dog grooming services

4. Hamburgers

5. Roads

Brian37 probably would say 1, 2, and 5. You're saying 1 and 5. But why not 3 and 4?

What are the criteria for deciding whether it's justified for a given scarce economic good to be provided by a violent monopoly and paid through extortion? When is it that voluntary exchange between willing customers and competing entrepeneurial providers won't work?

#1 is a necessity because humans will use force against others and it is desirable to have some form of government to seek to prevent/punish those actions and to protect from external threats. If everyone was like me, we wouldn't need government, unfortunately there are those who wouldn't hesitate to set up their little dictatorships if there wasn't a larger power to prevent them. People will steal from each other, people will kill other people and people will breach contracts, it is desirable to have a framework with some enforcement power to play referee and attempt to minimize those abuses. Furthermore, it is impossible to limit the benefits solely to those who willingly pay. For example, when the police arrest a serial killer everyone who was a potential target benefits regardless of whether or not they wanted the police protection.

 

In a small society, it might be perfectly possible to flourish without a police power when those who attempt to use force can simply be dealt with on the micro level. As society gets larger the development of gangs, cabals and organized crime become more likely and in absence of a larger police power essentially become the police power. It is better to give police power to an entity that can be restrained to some extent. Although history seems to prove that whatever restraints are placed on the police power it will eventually overcome those restraints. I don't know the solution to that, I am open to ideas. If we could find a way to structure society in a way where #1 is not necessary then we have no need for any government at all.

 

#5 I think should solely be funded by those willing to pay. I am happy to entertain any sort of fee for service option where roads and such are paid for by people who use them in proportion to how much they use them. In the context of modern politics the money spent on infrastructure is so small compared to what is taken for other things that it isn't worth fighting over right now. I would love if the question of whether or not the government should be building/maintaining highways was significant enough to be an issue, but right now it is less than 3% of our federal budget. Arguing about it is the equivalent of worrying about a paper cut while the ax is chopping off your head.

If, if a white man puts his arm around me voluntarily, that's brotherhood. But if you - if you hold a gun on him and make him embrace me and pretend to be friendly or brotherly toward me, then that's not brotherhood, that's hypocrisy.- Malcolm X


Beyond Saving
atheist
Beyond Saving's picture
Posts: 5520
Joined: 2007-10-12
User is offlineOffline
Brian37 wrote:HOW MANY TIMES

Brian37 wrote:

HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO REPEAT MYSELF

Apparently 10087 times so far. Yet you still ignored every question I have asked you. I'll keep it short,

#1 Why should I be willing to pay for your healthcare? Do I get any benefit at all? Or will you admit that you want something from me while giving me nothing in return?

#2 You keep saying my "mindset" is responsible for our current mess. Name one person with any significant power who holds my views.

#3 What have I (as a convenient avatar for any lousy employer you have ever had) ever done to "screw" you?

If, if a white man puts his arm around me voluntarily, that's brotherhood. But if you - if you hold a gun on him and make him embrace me and pretend to be friendly or brotherly toward me, then that's not brotherhood, that's hypocrisy.- Malcolm X


Al G. Funguy
atheist
Posts: 33
Joined: 2012-01-13
User is offlineOffline
Beyond Saving wrote:#1

Beyond Saving wrote:

#1 [security] is a necessity because humans will use force against others... 

Yes, there are dangerous and crazy people in the world. Security and arbitration services are very important. But why can't they be voluntarily paid for, like the service of hamburger preparation? Why do those who seek to protect people against criminal aggression need to be criminal aggressors themselves?

BTW, under a system with privatized security, even poor people will be able to seek justice. A poor person who is not in a position to pursue their own suit against an aggressor can depend on champerty, i.e. they could sell their claim to someone who can pursue it.

Beyond Saving wrote:

unfortunately there are those who wouldn't hesitate to set up their little dictatorships if there wasn't a larger power to prevent them.

It sounds like you fear the risk of security providers forming "little dictatorships" by which I assume you mean violent monopolies on the provision of security services in a given geographical area, i.e. mafia-like gangs who obtain funds through extortion. In other words, they form states. To ever form, they must succeed at extorting enough funds before those who are voluntarily paying them for legitimate services cut off their revenues out of disgust. Is the risk of these little illegitimate monopolies forming worse than an actual gigantic coercive monopoly - one that you suggest having at the outset and imbue with a patina of legitimacy?

The risk of formation of violent monopolies is no reason to embrace states. I am opposed to murder, even though I don't have a solution for completely eliminating it from the world. There will always be some portion of the population that engages in it. Likewise, I am opposed to states, even though I don't have a solution for completely eliminating them from the world. There will always be some people who try to form states.

Beyond Saving wrote:

#5 [Roads] Arguing about it is the equivalent of worrying about a paper cut while the ax is chopping off your head.

It's funny you word it that way because there are actual decapitations involved. From http://mises.org/daily/3419

Quote:

First, it is not at all true that speed, alcohol, drugs, etc., are ultimately responsible for vehicular death. Rather, they are only the proximate causes. The underlying explanation is that the managers of the roads, those in charge of them, have failed to deal with these problems. The reason Chrysler went broke is only indirectly related to car size, changing styles, competition, imports, the price of oil and gas, etc. This company was bankrupted because its managers failed to meet these challenges...

this is precisely the system — privatization — that vastly outstripped that of the U.S.S.R. in providing computers, cars, clothes, and a plethora of other products and services. Yet, instead of borrowing a leaf from our own success and applying it to highways, we have instead copied the discredited Soviet economic system and applied it to our network of roadways. That is, our highway network is governmentally owned and managed. This is why people die like flies on these roads...

We all deplore highway casualties. But at least when they occur, let us have a system wherein someone in authority loses money thereby. There is nothing that concentrates the managerial mind more. At present, when deaths take place, there is no one in a position to ameliorate matters who suffers financially.

 


Beyond Saving
atheist
Beyond Saving's picture
Posts: 5520
Joined: 2007-10-12
User is offlineOffline
Al G. Funguy wrote:It sounds

Al G. Funguy wrote:

It sounds like you fear the risk of security providers forming "little dictatorships" by which I assume you mean violent monopolies on the provision of security services in a given geographical area, i.e. mafia-like gangs who obtain funds through extortion. In other words, they form states. To ever form, they must succeed at extorting enough funds before those who are voluntarily paying them for legitimate services cut off their revenues out of disgust. Is the risk of these little illegitimate monopolies forming worse than an actual gigantic coercive monopoly - one that you suggest having at the outset and imbue with a patina of legitimacy?

Yes it is worse. I will freely admit it is an acceptance of a lesser of two evils, but I don't think there is any question that the US government is substantially more pleasant to live under than any random faction able to get enough guns and stupid young men. Despite all of its shortcomings it at least makes an attempt to protect individual citizens' rights and to some extent exercises restraint on its use of force. A quick look at countries where the central governing power has little to no control shows that gangs form quickly and rule ruthlessly through coercion e.g. Mexico, Columbia, Brazil, Somalia, Nigeria etc.

 

The development of such gangs, mafias or cabals is not theoretical. At various times and geographic locations they have and do exist in the US and at times have effectively neutralized the governments police power either through corruption or superior resources. It is ironic that you need a powerful monopolized force to help protect you from being controlled by a powerful monopolized force, but it is reality. You can't have a free trade economy unless you have basic protections that prevent physical force from being used against you, prevent you from exercising physical force against others and protect private property.

 

Now if we could find a way to set up a government that solely offered non-biased, fair and restrained police and military protection and didn't try to do anything else- well that little utopia isn't going to exist in my lifetime. Maybe when we set up a moon colony we can try for something Heinleinesque or maybe on one of the seasteadings http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seasteading 

 

For now I would be satisfied with my fellow citizens realizing that using the government as a tool to take from one group to hand to another will ultimately harm pretty much everyone. But even that low bar is probably unattainable. However, I am encouraged by the apparent growth of libertarian thought and arguments in mainstream politics. When I was politically involved I was very much alone in my views, so maybe there is a chance. 

If, if a white man puts his arm around me voluntarily, that's brotherhood. But if you - if you hold a gun on him and make him embrace me and pretend to be friendly or brotherly toward me, then that's not brotherhood, that's hypocrisy.- Malcolm X


Al G. Funguy
atheist
Posts: 33
Joined: 2012-01-13
User is offlineOffline
Beyond Saving wrote:I will

Beyond Saving wrote:

I will freely admit it is an acceptance of a lesser of two evils

I can't relieve your practical concerns, but at least there is much we can agree on.

Beyond Saving wrote:

I am encouraged by the apparent growth of libertarian thought and arguments in mainstream politics.

Yes, Ron Paul, a fan of Rothbard, is supported by a great many young people. And the theory continues to grow vibrantly, with developments like Hans Hermann-Hoppe's argumentation ethics (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argumentation_ethics) and Democracy: The God That Failed. And Stephan Kinsella's insights into the follies of Intelectual Property: http://mises.org/daily/3682

 


Vastet
atheistBloggerSuperfan
Vastet's picture
Posts: 13234
Joined: 2006-12-25
User is offlineOffline
And STILL noone has provided

And STILL noone has provided ANYTHING to even SUGGEST I'm wrong. Period. Your baseball analogy fails like all the other idiocy spouted by people who have nothing more than their own opinion to work with.

Beyond Saving wrote:
 Deciding where life begins and whether or not that individual is protected by law is and can only be arbitrary

Glad some people get it.

Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.


Brian37
atheistSuperfan
Brian37's picture
Posts: 16424
Joined: 2006-02-14
User is offlineOffline
Al G. Funguy wrote:Brian37

Al G. Funguy wrote:

Brian37 wrote:

You are not going to falsely cry theft and and use that any more. It is a hollow bullshit argument.

But you've failed to rebut my argument. Pretending it doesn't exist means you aren't really a participant in this debate any longer.

You are merely undermining the SNR (signal-to-noise ratio) of this thread.

 

Beyond Saving wrote:

In the case of cops, roads and military the money is being taken from me in return for offering me direct services, namely police protection, infrastructure and military protection

Which of these scarce economic goods should be provided by the government, i.e. provided whether you want them or not and paid for with money extorted from the unwilling?

1. Security services

2. Charitable funds distribution

3. Dog grooming services

4. Hamburgers

5. Roads

6. Prophylactics and abortion services

7. Whiskey

Brian37 probably would say 1, 2, and 5, and maybe 6. You're saying 1 and 5. But why not 3, 4, and 7?

What are the criteria for deciding whether it's justified for a given scarce economic good to be provided by a violent monopoly and paid through extortion? When is it that voluntary exchange between willing customers and competing entrepeneurial providers won't work?

 

It's not even about a "potential person", you are still cherry picking in the ongoing phases of life. Every sperm and every egg is a potential life.

Otherwise the only reality we have is that life is a crap shoot. And since that is the case, the individual holding the PROCESS and the doctor are the only two who should have any say.

I cant get pregnant PERIOD! Since I cant I have no say in what happens in a body I don't own.

"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog


Al G. Funguy
atheist
Posts: 33
Joined: 2012-01-13
User is offlineOffline
Beyond Saving wrote:Yes it

Beyond Saving wrote:

Yes it is worse. I will freely admit it is an acceptance of a lesser of two evils, but I don't think there is any question that the US government is substantially more pleasant to live under than any random faction able to get enough guns and stupid young men. 

Yeah, I've thought about this for a while and concede that you are right. Thanks.

 

 


Ktulu
atheist
Posts: 1831
Joined: 2010-12-21
User is offlineOffline
Al G. Funguy wrote: Brian37

Al G. Funguy wrote:
 

Brian37 wrote:
And if Warren Buffet and Suze Orman aren't crying over paying more, I don't see why you have a problem.

And some Jews are suicidal and might not complain about being placed in an oven.

Ok, that my friend is humor Smiling +1 I laughed out loud.  Very funny.

"Don't seek these laws to understand. Only the mad can comprehend..." -- George Cosbuc