why fairness is infantile...

[Jules Troy]

Moral relativism doesn't work because man qua man is one thing only at the core.

Yeah... evil.

Greg

Oh, original sin comes to an Objectivist site?

--Brant

now that's funny!

[Jules Troy]

I had a good laugh over that one.

?

[moralist]

Oh, original sin comes to an Objectivist site?

There's absolutely nothing original about sin, Brant...

...because everyone sins exactly the same way.

People naturally do evil. Doing good means overcoming our nature through self awareness to become conscious human beings. Literally homo sapiens... a wise man. The dictionary definition of homo sapiens also includes Ayn Rand's definition...

... a rational man.

Greg

[Brant Gaede]

Oh, I meant, "Original Sin."

Sorry for the confusion.

--Brant

[Jules Troy]

What a crock of shit. People are NOT naturally evil.

[Brant Gaede]

Jules, obviously your silly feminist left wing supplications reveal you for the goody goody that's ruining this country. But that's all right; we can't all be right.

--Brant

like me

[BaalChatzaf]

What a crock of shit. People are NOT naturally evil.

No. But many are confused and have lost their way

Ba'al Chatzaf

[moralist]

What a crock of shit. People are NOT naturally evil.

Take a look at the world's nations, Jules. The vast majority are either evil parasite infested big government socialist entitlement dispensing shitholes, or evil violent dictatorial shitholes.

And why is this so?

Because they represent human nature which is evil.

Free Capitalist America used to be exceptional in that it was formed by rising above human nature. But it has been steadily and inexorably devolving back to the natural evil human state of just another dime a dozen liberal socialist big government benefits dispensing shithole.

It is human nature to be enslaved to evil. Slaves to big government handouts, slaves to drugs and alcohol, even slaves to debt because of personal fiscal irresponsibility.

This self imposed slavery to evil is completely deserved, because it is the completely normal result of failing to overcome human nature.


Greg

[moralist]

Oh, I meant, "Original Sin."

Sorry for the confusion.

You didn't get my play on the word original, Brant.

You're implying that the human nature to do evil is "unfairly" imposed upon humanity. Well, join the liberals, for they too believe the lie that human nature is good. And it is belief in that lie that denies the existence of evil.

Goodness can only exist by overcoming human nature.

Greg

[Brant Gaede]

What a crock of shit. People are NOT naturally evil.

Take a look at the world's nations, Jules. The vast majority are either evil parasite infested big government socialist entitlement dispensing shitholes, or evil violent dictatorial shitholes.

And why is this so?

Because they represent human nature which is evil.

Free Capitalist America used to be exceptional in that it was formed by rising above human nature. But it has been steadily and inexorably devolving back to the natural evil human state of just another dime a dozen liberal socialist big government benefits dispensing shithole.

It is human nature to be enslaved to evil. Slaves to big government handouts, slaves to drugs and alcohol, even slaves to debt because of personal fiscal irresponsibility.

This self imposed slavery to evil is completely deserved, because it is the completely normal result of failing to overcome human nature.

Greg

Human beings are biologically primed for survival. Now there are almost 7 billion of us. Good vs evil is an acquired human artifact. It sits on top of family and tribe and society. Neither good nor evil is responsible, starting out, for what is. In the context of this inner conflict comes a bleed down into social existence where its many manifestations corrupt or better human beings through philosophy powered human action. The ultimate triumph of individualism--freedom and capitalism--comes when people generally use their minds for critical thinking and right, moral, actions. And that triumph is here now in this country for those who want it. In the meantime, being a parasite works--sort of. Parasitism has many manifestations and facets from the economic-political all the way down to the psychological. Overall, more goes in than comes out. The surplus mostly comes from true, productive activity. The irony is the necessary conflation of productivity with parasitism because at best we only have a badly mixed economy.

--Brant

highfalutin bs, my specialty

[Jules Troy]

Why do I bother..

[Brant Gaede]

Just as people "naturally do evil" they naturally do good. It's a wash for the doing.

--Brant

[Francisco Ferrer]

Governments are evil for the same reason that the Mafia and other crime syndicates are evil. The "service" that the state performs is to confiscate wealth from one part of the population and and bestow it upon another. This is a universal feature of the institution.

To derive a conclusion about human nature by examining only the organized predators of the world is as foolish as forming an opinion of human athletic ability by focusing on patients in a assisted living facility.

Let me add that there is an arcane school of thought that argues that a citizen gets from government only what he deserves. If that is the case, government must not be seen as a predator but as a dispenser of perfect justice. By this theory, a survey of world governments (provided that it takes in only present examples and none from the dead past) would reveal not evil but wisdom and fair dealing.

[moralist]

Human beings are biologically primed for survival.

Animals are biologically primed for survival at the expense of others. However, humans learn to not just survive but to flourish by serving each other to their betterment.

Now there are almost 7 billion of us.

Us, and them.

"...there are only two races, the decent and the indecent."

--Viktor Frankl

Good vs evil is an acquired human artifact.

Yes, it is.

Males and females acquire self awareness of their moral accountability as they mature into men and women... at least some of them do.

It sits on top of family and tribe and society. Neither good nor evil is responsible, starting out, for what is.

Outside our front door is over 10,000 acres of raw land. There is no good or evil there. Just amoral animals ripping the heads off of each other and eating them.

In the context of this inner conflict comes a bleed down into social existence where its many manifestations corrupt or better human beings through philosophy powered human action.

Yes... the two races. Some love good, while others love evil.

The ultimate triumph of individualism--freedom and capitalism--comes when people generally use their minds for critical thinking and right, moral, actions. And that triumph is here now in this country for those who want it.

Absolutely.

It's the responsibility of each individual American to secure that freedom within their sphere of personal influence... regardless of what others choose to do. America still allows that freedom.

Ayn Rand alluded to that with her concept of Galt's Gulch. You have to build your own. And if you need others to build it for you, it damn well WON'T be Galt's Gulch!

In the meantime, being a parasite works--sort of. Parasitism has many manifestations and facets from the economic-political all the way down to the psychological. Overall, more goes in than comes out. The surplus mostly comes from true, productive activity. The irony is the necessary conflation of productivity with parasitism because at best we only have a badly mixed economy.

Americans learn how to enjoy the goodness of the mixed economy by operating in the private sector free Capitalist zones while avoiding stepping into the socialist shitholes.

Greg

[moralist]

Governments are evil for the same reason that......the citizens who created government in their own image are evil.

The "service" that the state performs is to confiscate wealth from one part of the population and bestow it upon another. This is a universal feature of the institution.

The parasitic majority simply voted for their own benefits. This is bound to happen when a republic degenerates into a democracy.

To derive a conclusion about human nature by examining only the organized predators of the world is as foolish as forming an opinion of human athletic ability by focusing on patients in a assisted living facility.

The best conclusions about human nature can be arrived at by first examining ourselves.

Let me add that there is an arcane school of thought that argues that a citizen gets from government only what he deserves. If that is the case, government must not be seen as a predator but as a dispenser of perfect justice.

In America the government is less a dispenser, but more of an instrument of perfect moral justice. It's giving you exactly what you deserve for how you live, just as it is giving me exactly what I deserve for how I live. And this is because the government is subject to exactly the same moral law that everyone is.

By this theory, a survey of world governments (provided that it takes in only present examples and none from the dead past) would reveal not evil but wisdom and fair dealing.

The flaw in your assumption is ignoring the exceptional quality of America.

Greg

[BaalChatzaf]

In America the government is less a dispenser, but more of an instrument of perfect moral justice. It's giving you exactly what you deserve for how you live, just as it is giving me exactly what I deserve for how I live. And this is because the government is subject to exactly the same moral law that everyone is.

Not if might makes right.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[moralist]

Not if might makes right.

You have that backwards, Bob.

Right makes might.

There's nothing stronger than moral strength of character... in a nation, or in an individual.

Greg

[Francisco Ferrer]

Governments are evil for the same reason that...

...the citizens who created government in their own image are evil.

The men who created the U.S. government are dead.

The "service" that the state performs is to confiscate wealth from one part of the population and bestow it upon another. This is a universal feature of the institution.

The parasitic majority simply voted for their own benefits. This is bound to happen when a republic degenerates into a democracy.

All governments, republic, democracy or autocracy, are parasitic because they all exist by theft and coercive monopoly.

To derive a conclusion about human nature by examining only the organized predators of the world is as foolish as forming an opinion of human athletic ability by focusing on patients in a assisted living facility.

The best conclusions about human nature can be arrived at by first examining ourselves.

Then we would have to conclude man is not necessarily evil by nature because, unlike governments, not all men engage in mass theft and murder.

Let me add that there is an arcane school of thought that argues that a citizen gets from government only what he deserves. If that is the case, government must not be seen as a predator but as a dispenser of perfect justice.

In America the government is less a dispenser, but more of an instrument of perfect moral justice. It's giving you exactly what you deserve for how you live, just as it is giving me exactly what I deserve for how I live. And this is because the government is subject to exactly the same moral law that everyone is.

Then Obama, like Jesus, is an instrument of God's will. Praise the federal government from which all blessings flow! Obama is proof that men are not evil but good, because Obama, God bless him, gives us the things we deserve.

Let us also praise David Cameron, the head of state of our close ally, the United Kingdom, where there is also perfect moral justice along with perfect socialized medicine.

By this theory, a survey of world governments (provided that it takes in only present examples and none from the dead past) would reveal not evil but wisdom and fair dealing.

The flaw in your assumption is ignoring the exceptional quality of America.

Greg

The French flag is red, white and blue. So is the U.S. flag. Politicians in France buy votes with stolen goods. So do U.S. politicians.

[moralist]

The men who [originally] created the U.S. government are dead.

While that's true, the people who are creating the government in their own image today are alive. Government today is the literal incarnation of people who have failed to properly live their own lives.

All governments, republic, democracy or autocracy, are parasitic because they all exist by theft and coercive monopoly.

Governments can only represent the values of the people who created them... for better or for worse. Some governments are better than others, because some people live by better values than others.

Then we would have to conclude man is not necessarily evil by nature because, unlike governments, not all men engage in mass theft and murder.

No, "we" (queenly liberal we) wouldn't.

Men who don't steal and murder, have risen above their evil nature to that extent.

Beginning with with a flawed premise insures you will arrive at a flawed conclusion.

I can guarantee you that your own personal experience of getting the government you deserve varies wildly from my personal experience of getting the government I deserve...

...because you and I live by completely different values.

This is why your view of the world is so different from mine.

This difference is utterly irreconcilable.

Greg

[Jules Troy]

And then there is me in that 10000 acres trying to take pics of the above mentioned animals trying to rip off each other's heads and eating them!

[Peter]

Brant wrote:

This is paid wsj content. It doesn't belong on OL.

end quote

John Stossel had an interesting show the other night with Libertarians who think copyrights are an obsolete concept.

I just got back from the library. I donated about twenty books, many of them new and hardbound. And I donated seven reprints of the Travis Magee series by John D. McDonald with a forward by Lee Childs, author of the Jack Reacher series. In a way, is the act of donating copyrighted material and a library lending the material an infringement upon the authors right to a profit?

[Brant Gaede]

I don't think so, but we are talking about current law respecting property.

--Brant

[Francisco Ferrer]

While that's true, the people who are creating the government in their own image today are alive. Government today is the literal incarnation of people who have failed to properly live their own lives.

Since the U.S. government has already been created (some 225 years ago), you must be referring to another government being created in someone's "own image today."

Governments can only represent the values of the people who created them... for better or for worse. Some governments are better than others, because some people live by better values than others.

Given that many of the creators of the U.S. government were slaveholders, it is only fitting that today 57% of the population is forced to pay for the government benefits of the other 43%: in other words, tax slavery.

Men who don't steal and murder, have risen above their evil nature to that extent.

1. If people do not commit theft or murder or other crimes, there is no justification for referring to their natures (that they are supposed to rise above) as "evil." This is a conclusion that you have sneaked in without supporting evidence.

2. Men "who don't steal and murder" are not the ones in command of the U.S. government, an institution you described a day ago as "an instrument of perfect justice."

Beginning with with a flawed premise insures you will arrive at a flawed conclusion.

Then you are misinformed about logic. From Wikipedia:

• If the streets are wet, it has rained recently. (premise)
• The streets are wet. (premise)
• Therefore it has rained recently. (conclusion)

The first premise is false, but the conclusion may in fact be true.

To support your point that people are naturally evil, you wrote yesterday, "Take a look at the world's nations, Jules. The vast majority are evil parasite infested big government dispensing shitholes, or evil violent dictatorial shitholes."

But only a minority of the world's population makes decisions about government policy. The idea that conclusions about man's nature can be derived from focusing on governments, which are nothing more than criminal gangs operating on a national scale, is flawed methodology.

In logic, your argument is called the Fallacy of the Hasty Generalization.

If you want to argue that man's nature is evil, offer better, more inclusive evidence.

[william.scherk]

Greg is quoting Francisco Ferrer.

The men who [originally] created the U.S. government are dead.

While that's true, the people who are creating the government in their own image today are alive. Government today is the literal incarnation of people who have failed to properly live their own lives.

There is something attractive about Greg's moral calculus (or moral arithmetic). It is simple, it is categorical, it fits every situation in every corner of the world, in every time; its generalizations have no exceptions. It's kind of a happy Panglossian confidence that everything is perfectly balanced in a perfectly moral world. It reminds me of the calculus of the Red Queen in Wonderland, who could believe in six impossible things before breakfast.

So, government today is a magical reincarnation of perfectly awful failure of people who were perfectly awful in the past. And Wendy. And Satan. The only possible exceptions to 'getting the government you deserve' are those who are perfectly self-governing. And in this, they also reach perfection... though they die young from vaccine-preventable illness and lack of a fire code.

Everything is related to everything and everyone gets the pony God promised, and two and two is four except when you are evil then it's six plus devils and your pony is dead.

Magical and solipsistic, sweetly feminine and perfectly irrational, who can resist the attractions of this calculus?

(in some arguments, Greg seems to calculate that he is utterly and completely different from other folks -- because he has a perfected relation to government and magic Jesus that renders him beautifully free from its awfulness, while others (say Francisco or Jonathan) are doomed and entwined within government. So, although Greg is subject to the law of the state of California, to the county, to the various grasping and controlling fingers of the awful things called government, zoning, health and safety codes, licencing regimes and so on -- he seems to tell us that he is free of the tentacles in a way that other US citizens on OL are not. This is the rot in Greg's Red Queen logic, to my eyes)

All governments, republic, democracy or autocracy, are parasitic because they all exist by theft and coercive monopoly.

Governments can only represent the values of the people who created them... for better or for worse. Some governments are better than others, because some people live by better values than others.

So, there are actually differences in governments. Some are good, some bad, some really bad. Without attaching his characterizations to real-world entities, Greg, you leave the issue in the murk.

Then we would have to conclude man is not necessarily evil by nature because, unlike governments, not all men engage in mass theft and murder.

No, "we" (queenly liberal we) wouldn't.

Greg, sometimes you appear disabled by Red Queen magical thinking. You presume Francisco is a liberal despite ample counter-evidence -- as you have presumed Jonathan is also a liberal. This is illogical and unwarranted. It is almost as if your only option when criticism comes your way is to slop on the brush of the dread femme. Who actually stands beyond Man's tools of reason, and takes to a throne? Who opposes rigors of thought and argument and prefers to pronounce regally from Above it All? Is it Francisco or is it you? Who waves the white handkerchief of 'feminized' exception to logical entailments? Who offers queer conclusions and coy smileys?

(You do appear to be transfixed if not disgusted by the feminine. Female is bad. Male is good. Queens are bad. Kings are good. Feminized is awful beyond awful. Saying 'we' is queenly and feminized and awful. Gays and lesbians are likely child-molesting monsters to a person)

Men who don't steal and murder, have risen above their evil nature to that extent.

Everyone posting in this thread is probably glad that they haven't murdered anyone so far, or stolen anything belonging to someone else, or copied an entire paywalled article without comment or link. I know I am glad I avoided my essentially evil nature and stopped short of murder and thievery and dead ponies.

Beginning with with a flawed premise insures you will arrive at a flawed conclusion.

Sometimes true. So, if you start with a flawed premise, you are more likely to arrive at a false conclusion. As with your wittering about The Gays, their universal child sexual abuse histories, and The Gays compulsion to abuse fresh children in order to carry on Gayitude generation after generation.

A flimsy and wholly unsupported premise (child sexual abuse is present in the history of every homosexual person) leads to crashingly wrong conclusions (every homosexual person is inclined to perpetrate child sexual abuse).

Now, back to government, self-government, self-management. It seems, Greg, that you may not happily acquiesce to the rules and regulations that hem you in (partilally listed above) ... keeping your state licensing as an electrician up to date, or respecting the same laws as any other resident of Greater Los Angeles, or obeying local land use restrictions and watering bans and septic field regulations, or gaining a driving license and vehicle insurance. You don't like these creepy-crawly fingers of government in your life, but you obey just as does anyone else in your neighborhood.

It's thus kind of odd that you pretend you are special, or specially exempted from the same dang government that has its fangs in the rest of us here at OL. You pay your taxes, fees, charges, and you drive between the lines same as the folks you bitch at.

Of course, you might say that all this government you obey can be folded in to the cost of doing business, the cost of living in a society together with other people. You might take the moral throne and declaim that nobody on OL has learned the magical secret of avoiding governments like you have ...

So what I find exceeding odd is that you blithely insist that you remain superior to everyone, that you are somehow free-est, best, wisest in your relation to government -- as if the folks you bitch about here somehow do not carry the same or similar burdens in their lives.

In other words, you are no more morally of consequence than either Francisco or Jonathan, whatever your Panglossian fantasies suggest.

I can guarantee you that your own personal experience of getting the government you deserve varies wildly from my personal experience of getting the government I deserve...

...because you and I live by completely different values.

This is why your view of the world is so different from mine.

This difference is utterly irreconcilable.

This is all utter magical pink pony ride logic. You know sweet eff all about Francisco and his 'view of the world.' You have not an effing clue about his relationship to government, and so imputing unsavory values and morals to him is mere girls change room put-down. Not a single person here buys that kind of crappy "I see into your feminized soul" bumf. Time to hang up them skates, princess.

Beyond self-serving twaddle, I think you have a crippled epistemology. I believe you have indulged in a weird kind of mirror-image feminist postmodern moonbeam reasoning. Not the hard work of reason, but the rank illogic of 'if I think it is true, then it is true.' This is worthy of Peter Pan or the pixies in the garden, not a man of intellectual rigor, honor and substance. Whatever the Moral Royalty preening and pretense. Whatever the failure to face reality like a man.

You get the government you deserve, Greg, perfectly. The same government that looms over, taxes, hamstrings and harries everyone else who joins you in discussion here.

.

Edited February 3, 2015 by william.scherk

[Jules Troy]

Dayum that was a good read William!