dan2100

Regarding Henry George, the problem is, for me, his idea leads to or is statist -- even if he and his modern followers don't believe it does. (This is, in some ways, no different than how some libertarian minarchists truly believe minimal government will work -- that they can tame the beast, e.g., with a well written constitution -- when I believe it's painfully obviously that won't work in practice -- save by the greatest of luck.) Aside from this, I think the economics of and other justifications for his idea are flawed.

Wrong link? --Brant Yeah, my bad. It should've been: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science_and_environment/10307048.stm I chalk it up to jet lag. Sorry...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/10284289.stm This might help with future mining operations...

For more on Crèvecœur, see the Wiki article. Ghs Letter XII is described as including his views on American Indians. Anything interesting in that one?

Nations states make war on other nations states and individuals. That is in my data set and I have forgotten more about the history and techniques of war than you ever knew. I am a weapon-smith by trade. I used to make infernal devices that killed thousands of people. And I am proud my work. This is kind of like the guy who changes my car's oil filter telling me he knows all about oil production after demonstrating that he can barely find the dipstick. (Let me draw you a map. Making weapons doesn't give anyone special insight into geopolitics, strategy, the nature of law (including international law), and the like. You haven't demonstrated any special insight here. You've merely stated things just about any warmonger whose familiarity with history and many other topics begins and ends with watching TV.) But if you take that position, then, again, why not drop your rhetoric about them -- the Sea Shepard crew -- interfering with "travel and commerce on the High Seas"? This interference makes them no different than the US Coast Guard -- or should if you're consistent with your view. After all, the USCG is only enforcing laws which are, to you, "just rationalization for violence and war." Which gets me back to my fantasy. I want to see you actually present a rational argument and defend it. Well, we all have our dreams...

Nope, I think rather because it's that good. Who dares gild the lily? If you didn't quite say it all when it comes to each person's personal (some might say, subjective) pursuit of that elusive happiness, you came pretty close, I believe. Tony (my "Yung" got the upper hand over my "Hitake" many years ago.) Thanks! I wanted to write a follow-up to it, but others projects got in the way.

Was it really that bad that no one even bothered to comment on it?

Maybe, though almost everyone I know seems quite capable of holding contradictory stances on many things.

You are playing word games. Not at all. It's you who never even deigned to define what you think "international law" means. On the other hand, I presented a definition. My intent too -- if it matters -- was not to play word games with such a definition, but to try to get at the heart of the matter, especially since you railed against international law. If you're going to rant and rave about something, it's usually go to be clear what you mean, don't you think? In other words, the way to stop playing word games is to be clear from the start -- and not to accuse others of doing so when you start out in a muddle. You'll have to protest with those nation states that make treaties with each other that then go and enforce them "on third parties," including other nation states. (An example of the latter is all manner of secrete agreements where two or more aligned nation states agree to divide up the territory claimed by another nation state.) Now we finally have your definition of international law! What happens in the case, as happens often enough through the course of history, where two or more nation states agree to certain rules, standards, or laws, and some nation state or other decides it can violate these and yet the two or more nation states agreeing on the rules, etc. enforce them? Wouldn't that be international law in the sense usually meant? (True, you can call this just tow or more nation law, but, to be consistent, why not call national law merely the rules or edicts of the gang ruling the nation, such that said gang can and actually does enforce? After all, the national law in the US is, correct my if I'm wrong, one can't buy, sell, and use cocaine, but plenty of people seem to not agree with this. So much for national law.) I think this paragraph is muddled. Did you leave out a "not" from your first sentence and did you mean to have "They" starting your second one? Again, this has nothing to do with what I like or want. My piont here is the US Coast Guard does interfere with "travel and commerce on the High Seas." (And I do mean high seas here. The USCG has boarded vessels on the high seas for drug interdiction.) Yes, it has the blessing and backing of a nation state. So? This goes back to La Boétie point, if my memory's correct (though I think Augustine made the point ever earlier), that a single ship attacking others on the high seas is a pirate while a fleet of such ships is called a navy. (Or a small group of mean stealing from a few others is called a gang of bandits while hundreds of such people stealing from millions is called a government.) If you really want to not play word games here, then why not drop the statist talk? The difference between Sea Shepard and the USCG is simply that the latter has a bigger, more organized gang backing it up. And if you're willing to go that far and still maintain your bloodlust, then why does it only extend to a tiny group of misfits focused on whales and not to a giant organization linked to an even bigger oppressor? Again, why bs us about the Sea Shepard people being pirates or interfering with "travel and commerce on the High Seas" when you really have little concern for such piracy or interference, but merely have don't like them and do like states? See above. Nation states do enforce rules and laws on other nation states. I guess the last few millenia of history are not in your data set.

Agreed. Recall, too, a few years ago the "death of privacy" was touted as social networking flourished and then, suddenly, when people discovered that others could easily net stalk them (or much worse: market to them) almost everyone now has all their settings on private.

Regarding the Constitution, my view, much influenced by George's writings, is that ratifying it was a definite watershed in the move towards centralized statism in America. The Articles of Confederation, while not perfectly libertarian, were much better because the national government had little power. The adoption of Constitution did much to strengthen the national state and that state's elite. Also, much of what I've read seems to reinforce that this was partly a power grab in similar fashion to many power grabs done today: talk starts of a looming crisis, organized interests who stand to benefit earnestly push for a change, then the change comes about, mostly molded behind the scenes and foisted on the nation, and, finally, after the change court intellectuals start churning out a mythical history surrounding it. I also don't think the choice was between a flesh and blood king or the Constitution (or national state) as king. I do think the powermonger began in earnest much earlier, too. Not just with the Constitution itself -- though recall people like Alexander Hamilton were involved. Certainly, he was no stranger to powerlust. It started long before that and, in my view, gave impetus to having a Constitutional Convention in the first place. (That and the drive of many influential debt holders to get paid off -- hence the drive to have a national government with tax powers.) Also, I wouldn't paint Washington as free of this taint either and I think ever his admirers should admit that he was far from flawless.

Why? Because the Whale War people are pirates interfering with travel and commerce on the High Seas. That is why. They are thugs with an ecological vocabulary. I think these rascals should be seized and hanged from the highest available yardarm. Ba'al Chatzaf Would you say the same about the U.S. Coast Guard's drug interdiction operations -- that these are "thugs with a [statist] vocabularly" "interfering with travel and commerce on the High Seas"? If not, please explain the difference. One is legal (but not just) the other is piracy, plain and simple. I would prefer seeing the drug laws go away too, but as long as the law is the law, the Coast Guard is executing the law. Your view here seems contradictory. Don't you agree that states "interfer[e] with travel and commerce on the High Seas" -- even completely peaceful "travel and commerce on the High Seas"? It seems to me you're setting up a special category here: when states or their agents do this, it's okay. When non-state groups do this, they need to, in your view, be "seized and hanged from the highest available yardarm." You remind of Étienne de La Boétie here. Also, why bring up "interfering with travel and commerce on the High Seas" and "thugs with an ecological vocabulary"? You should merely have said that what the Sea Shepard does is illegal while government drug interdiction is legal. I can think of a reason: few here would care whether this or that is legal and care more about whether or not it meets another standard. Again, isn't "international law" law made between nation states? Wouldn't those nation states agreeing to it be the ones to enforce it? Or what do you understand international law to be? To your argument, it doesn't matter what bothers me; it matters, at least in terms of consistency, why you don't hold the same views regarding one and the other. So, I take were the decrees made by your rulers -- the governments you are subject to and pay tribute to, but no doubt think serve you -- altered so that the activities of the Sea Shepard's crew made legal, you would cheer them on. I somehow doubt it. In other words, I believe you must be appealing to some other standard other than what's on the law books at this time.

As jailer and jailed, no? At least, that's the common perception, except one doesn't know, half the time, which is which. Obviously Israel has all the power. But then again, at least psychologically, Israelis feel imprisoned by this seemingly endless problem. On top of that, their own (the majority) moral sense of justice, fairness, and compassion is just as much as a restraint. Israel is trapped within their sense of responsibility. Not so, with Hamas, who continue the contradiction of one day being the vulnerable victim begging humanitarian assistance; the next, making belligerent words and acts. Actually, who really is the jailer? Who holds the key? Tony Cui bono? Who benefits from this seige mentality continuing both in Gaza and in Israel? It seems the militant elites in both camps do -- at the expense of everyone else.

Happy Birthday! This reminds me, I've had a copy of An Intoduction to Philosophical Analysis on my shelves since college. It's about time I read the thing through... Well, after the next dozen or so books maybe...

Why? Because the Whale War people are pirates interfering with travel and commerce on the High Seas. That is why. They are thugs with an ecological vocabulary. I think these rascals should be seized and hanged from the highest available yardarm. Ba'al Chatzaf Would you say the same about the U.S. Coast Guard's drug interdiction operations -- that these are "thugs with a [statist] vocabularly" "interfering with travel and commerce on the High Seas"? If not, please explain the difference.

Ah, I thought international law was law made between nation states, so wouldn't those nation states agreeing to it be the ones to enforce it? Or what do you understand international law to be? (I imagine George H. Smith might provide some historical insights here as he seems much more familiar with the works of theorists in this area such as Grotius and Pufendorf. And, yes, Pufendorf is a cool name.)

I don't want to downplay this too much, but, unlike the Wrights -- at least in my understanding -- SpaceX is not only launching from a NASA site, but has a big contract with NASA. (And their earlier launches in the Pacific were from US military sites.) In other words, this is not exactly a totally privately funded venture -- not the sort of free market launch company in the same way that the Wrights' company was private. What might be said about about SpaceX is it's less of a NASA or Air Force insider and is doing most of the work outside government oversight and funding -- and not that this is a totally privately funded effort for non-government customers.

What is Beck's main fear from atheists and atheism? You'll have to ask him. I'm only going by what I've seen on his show or clips of it online, such as his comments with that person who was beaten to death on camera and Beck's blaming that on "godlessness" -- if I'm recalling his words exactly. I don't know if he presents any strong case for why this is so. Also, there are other religious types I do know better who do make similar arguments. In these cases, they're not people who are merely battling statism and wouldn't mind coalitions with atheists, but who tend to see atheism as part of the problem. (Why do they believe this? Again, ask them. I'm sure they're not all that rare wherever you are.)

But do you believe that?

Why?

Should this really be under metaphysics?

I haven't had time to read the posts in this topic, but have any of you heard or read Stephen Kinzer's Reset: Iran, Turkey, and America's Future? I've started listening to the audiobook version and it's interesting so far. He's actually arguing for changing US relations in the Middle East more toward closer relations with Turkey and Iran -- and less close relations or, at least, very different ones with Israel and Saudi Arabia.

The ideas argued in this dialogue owe a great deal to Ayn Rand and David Kelley, though my proximate impetus (big words!) was reading George Berkeley's Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous. I intended, at the time, to write a second dialogue, since this one is incomplete – it raises some issues which it doesn't settle, but I guess Brant is right about me having a lazy side... HITAKE: Doesn't everyone deserve to be happy? YUNG: What!?! Why? HITAKE: Shouldn't everyone experience some joy; at the very least some vague hint of life's beauty; some radiant brilliance outshining all despair, even if only for an instant? YUNG: I'm not sure. Should those who do nothing to earn it be allowed the same reward as those who do? I won't endorse any egalitarianism of happiness, any socialism of the soul, without asking this. There are men and women who sacrifice their hope on the various altars for an unseen 'higher' purpose – HITAKE: That's bullshit! What purpose could be higher than happiness? Why would anyone want to live a life untouched by it? What could drive such people to give up their birthright? YUNG: The range of human weakness is too large for anyone to catalog much less deny. Happiness is an effect, not a cause. Remove its conditions and none can expect it to remain. If you plant a seed but allow it no sunlight or water or warmth it will not sprout. HITAKE: There's something to what you say, but I can find no reason to breathe other than to be happy. I can't stand by while each grain in life's hourglass spills away and not at least have some – YUNG: Perhaps this is as it should be: Each seeking the happiness you speak of. But each doesn't. Look at the world. Most can't define what it is that would make them happy much less pursue it. The few who can do both are few indeed. HITAKE: Is this why people invent gods? To set something high above their suffering to prove their sorrows are somehow natural and necessary? YUNG: I don't know. These things puzzle me, but I find no answers to your questions. Suffering is real – too real to be overlooked. It seems given this fact one can either rebel or accept – try to change the conditions to suit one's happiness or try to change oneself to suit the conditions. I wonder if acceptance is out of laziness or futility. I wonder if hope is born of despair or ignorance. I can't say. HITAKE: I'm sure it depends on the case, but to give in as a consistent policy is to die before one's death. Once the passion for joy has died for whatever reason – laziness, futility or what have you – life has ceased. Life has a nature and it must be obeyed. Mankind has a definite nature, a need for happiness – YUNG: Does it? What is this definite nature? Can it be clearly defined for all men at all times? Surely, you jest! How can you make such a claim, being merely one person at one time? HITAKE: I can with confidence make it because of each individual's ability – which I too possess – to think, to understand, to take the evidence before one's senses and build a true, if incomplete, picture of the world. YUNG: This is not the time or the place to examine your beliefs about human knowledge, but I will say they are indefensible. Let's get back to the subject of happiness. HITAKE: I don't know if that's possible. With this matter so basic to human existence – and we are humans – I can't see how any could not examine the fundamentals of that existence, especially those upon which happiness rests! YUNG: But isn't happiness merely an emotion, a simple feeling that has little link with anything else, including ideas and other feelings? And aren't feelings to be taken as given and unexaminable? HITAKE: Surely, you jest! A few moments ago you talked of happiness as an effect with definite causes. Now you maintain it's an inexplicable primary. Feelings can't be taken merely as they are. Whether one fears this or desires that is dependent on one's values and experiences. Would you expect a newborn to fear a loaded gun aimed at its head? YUNG: I apologize. I do believe happiness has causes, but it would seem that the variation in people is enough to dispel any notion that the same causes produce the same results in different persons. If there were a human nature, over and above the individual humans, don't you think all humans would be alike? HITAKE: I'm glad you admit your mistake, but it seems you compound it with one as great. Surely, we can discern 'redness' from the red objects, such as an apple, a drop of blood, the morning sun, or a rose. Yet each is not red in the same way to the same degree. The apple may be a bright red while the flower is a soft red and so on. YUNG: I see, but wouldn't you say that 'redness' is just an arbitrary term denoting a mere collection, a pile of random things that the mind in its need for order sticks together? From this we think we know profundities such as 'human nature' or 'redness'. HITAKE: People can make that error. Imagination can create ideas out of bits and pieces fancily sewn into an intricate and, in many cases, believable tapestry. Unicorns, dragons and such are conjured up in this manner. YUNG: Do you agree that human nature is but a phantom, a mirage to tempt but not quench our understanding? HITAKE: No. While some ideas are made without concern for the truth, this needn't be the case. To see why, one must ask what ideas are and what their function is. YUNG: Why ideas are images inside our minds, nothing more. Their function is merely to delude, and in deluding to quiet the mind. HITAKE: I must say you have a very bleak view of our capabilities and their purpose. How do you understand the very idea of 'delusion' or 'mind' or 'idea' if the function of ideas is to shield us from the truth? YUNG: They're merely words we use. Being words they have certain rules of usage, just as there are laws of chemistry and economics. HITAKE: You speak of 'laws', but what are laws but ideas about how the world works. Being 'laws' they are probably – at the very least – thought to be true. Now how would one come up with the ideas of 'delusions', 'redness', 'human', 'rules of usage', or 'laws of the sciences'? Surely, there must be something more to it than mere habit or fancy! This is especially so since certain ideas must be grasped first to grasp others. YUNG: I imagine that it's habit guided by necessity. Those uses that are successful survive. In this light, to use a word out of its common usage would lead to confusion. After all, one can't expect a whale to live as a man does. HITAKE: How would one distinguish habit from necessity, the common from the uncommon, whales from men without ideas? According to you, there can be no human nature, so how can you know some men aren't whales? YUNG: You are merely playing with words. An idea is formed, as I've said, by sticking together different things and calling them by one name. Ideas are just random piles. They are random since no person has all the facts about a given thing or group of things. HITAKE: If you use perfection as a standard for happiness, we would all appear to be in hell. If you use omniscience as your standard, all human knowledge is doomed to failure. You fail to tell just how the mind sticks the different things together and how it is possible that such an arbitrary process can contribute to survival much less come to be known by its practitioners. You use ideas, often precisely, yet you undercut them. You can't enjoy the flower if you never allow it to grow from its roots. YUNG: Poetry is not argument! It's not I that have failed, but you who has yet to succeed. You have not demonstrated how ideas work, how they are built and what use they have. Until then I can nothing but believe my somewhat faulty theory. HITAKE: You're right. I have yet to tell you what I believe of ideas. But isn't it the best course to abandon a faulty theory even if no truthful has been found? Do not answer! I will now tell you my positive views on ideas. YUNG: I will listen as a cat listens for a mouse. HITAKE: First, we must recognize that our minds can discern differences and, thereby, likenesses. If this were not possible we could not hold this conversation or tell red from non-red. YUNG: Isn't all contrast relative? I can only tell red if there are non-red things about. HITAKE: True. But does this relativeness mean 'redness' is arbitrary? Would you say the eyes can't see because they need light? YUNG: I would not condemn the eyes because of lack of light, for they operate by gathering light. Still, if something is red, really red, then its redness is not something dependent on there being non-red things about it. Thus, the mind via the eyes can't perceive the true nature of things. This is what I've maintained all along! HITAKE: Again, you make an assertion about reality while denying anyone can know reality. If the eyes operate in certain ways – a point you readily admit – then it follows that one must understand these in order to see how they work. It is not only necessary for light to fall upon open eyes for it to be seen. There are other conditions. For instance, the light must not be too little or too much. There must be a certain level of variation for the eyes to perceive the different objects and their qualities. YUNG: I will grant you these. I will even allow redness to depend on 'a certain level of variation', but what does this have to do with ideas? HITAKE: We can't start with the flower. I was showing you the roots. Since you grant they're firmly planted we can move up the stem, taking care to avoid the ants and bees. YUNG: Enough poetry! I have not granted that your foundations are firm. Rather, I wish to see where your argument is leading. I grant the eyes see something – at the very least, images. I doubt the eyes see the real objects or that the nose smells the true fragrance of a rose. HITAKE: And just how would the real rose look and smell? To claim the eyes and nose and other senses don't perceive the true nature of things there must be something for comparison. YUNG: Remember your experiences! Does not a house appear to loom larger as one approaches it? Does not the curtain look different when seen by the setting sun than by the noon sun? Does not the warmth of summer impress itself on you more firmly when you've just stepped out of a cool building, and vice versa in winter? HITAKE: Again, you argue from the relativeness of perception. Yet wouldn't you find it strange if moving closer to some object it did not appear larger? Wouldn't this be a violation of the laws of perspective? And wouldn't it be eerie if the heat of summer always imposed itself upon you the same whether your flesh was cooled beforehand or not? Wouldn't this violate the laws of thermodynamics? Need I say that the senses must obey these same laws. They are not free to apprehend things in magical ways, but must obey the laws of reality. YUNG: But how can you know these are the laws of reality? If you must learn of them through the senses, it is you who are violating logic. One can not build an argument upon itself. HITAKE: Now, you are trying to turn things on end. You maintain that we know the true nature of things yet you have yet to show in what fashion you arrived at this conclusion. I maintain the senses work and have a definite nature. I maintain the mind is likewise. YUNG: I do not disagree that both the senses and the mind have a means of operation. I will not speak of their respective natures because it is my view that their true nature is something we can't know. I am even inclined to say there is no such thing as a true nature since we have no proof for its existence except in our hopes. HITAKE: I give up! There is no sense in arguing with you over this matter. You maintain that we can't know the nature of things while at the same time assuming certain definite ideas about their natures. You undercut the senses by proposing they should apprehend objects in the same appearance under any conditions. Now, you have taken your view to its final end. If we can't know the nature, then things do not have a nature. With this being so, how can you make any claims at all? Whatever claim you make would be attaching some kind of nature to some thing or other. YUNG: Very well, let's get back to happiness. HITAKE: How can we? If happiness derives from certain causes and, according to you, we can't know the true nature of things, then it must be that we can never be aware of the causes. Also, from this, if anyone is happy it must be for reasons he can never know much less repeat. Thus, it must be a flickering, temporary thing. In short, you have undercut – in your own mind, since I have tried to present to you a different view, one compatible with our natures – everything including happiness. YUNG: What you say sounds valid, but how would you account for error, for mistakes, for all these things that stand in defiance to your model of reality? HITAKE: Mistakes happen. This I admit, but for me to do so I must know that it is a mistake. Wouldn't you agree? If I assumed all my views were mistaken, I'd have to say the view that mistakes happen was also mistaken. YUNG: What of dreams, illusions, and hallucinations? Couldn't you be dreaming this very talk? If not, how can you prove this is not the case? HITAKE: From whence do your ideas 'of dreams, illusions, and hallucinations' come? From your experiences! You could not know of them unless you were able to experience them, directly or indirectly, and for that you must be able to distinguish them from experiences which were not 'dreams, illusions, and hallucinations'. Put another way, you can't know these as deceptions without having sensed when things were not deceptive. How can you be so doubtful of certainty and, at the same time, so certain of doubt? Surely, these two attitudes must clash! YUNG: I grow tired. I wish I could argue more with you. Tomorrow, perhaps. We have come very far from happiness. I doubt you'll convince me or I'll convince you. HITAKE: I'm not sure we've have come so far. If happiness requires certain conditions, then it follows that you must be able to provide these conditions to be happy. It also follows that you must be able to know these conditions to provide them – unless you expect everyone to stumble blindly from joy to joy. If you take the later course, then the conclusion must be man can never be happy except by accident and then only fleetingly. YUNG: I agree. You have shown how the foundations must be, but they are otherwise. Human happiness is, therefore, only a random occurrence. With this I bid you farewell until tomorrow. HITAKE: Farewell!

Not to address George's points directly, with regard to Beck the main problem for me is not so much his being religious, but, aside from his other anti-libertarian stances, his position is blaming much of the bad things of American statism on atheists and atheism as such. It's not as if, from what I've heard and watched from him, that he's saying, "We can work with atheists and atheism is compatible with less intrusive government."