Francisco Ferrer

Oh, I see. It was addressing the bad drugs.

The amount of alcohol Americans consume today is truly frightening. At present levels how can we possibly maintain our moral fiber and defend our freedoms? If only we could return to the good old days! In 1770, the 2.1 million American colonists consumed some 8 million gallons of rum; 20 years later, a population that had nearly doubled, to 3.9 million, drank only 7 million gallons. But as rum consumption sank, whiskey consumption exploded. By 1810, whiskey far outpaced rum as the national drink. Between 1800 and 1830, annual per capita consumption of liquor, primarily whiskey, hovered around 5 gallons, the highest in American history. --How America Learned to Love Whiskey

A skeptic is one who requires that claims be well supported by evidence. Accordingly, I dispute the existence of God, Nessie, the Tooth Fairy and unicorns. I also reject intrinsicism, agnosticism, and fatalism. But mentioning all this is probably pointless. Obviously you're not going to let facts stand in the way of building a case a against me. In subscribing to free will you've already shown a low threshold for belief in non-existent things. I took a moment to do some observation, introspection, concept-formation and abstraction. After rummaging around a bit I couldn't come up with even a whiff of free will. I also failed to detect any sign of ectoplasm, auras, halos, astral bodies, or feathers from angel wings. Thus your own methodology disproves the existence of free will.

I must say you have been clear throughout, and that I appreciate. Notwithstanding the glaring unreason in the position of determinism - and here in your statement, a logical fallacy. For only by accepting the premise of man's determinism may one conclude that man's free-will was determined! You've operated from your own assumption that "no human thought or activity [is] without a prior cause" and continued to its illogical end. The Stolen Concept, no? Once again, you completely misunderstand me, on purpose or by accident, I know not which. You have claimed that thought and action are the result of a "free will." Since you have provided no scientific evidence for the existence of such a "free will," then the only rational response is to say that free will is non-existent or that it is merely a shorthand expression for the complex interplay of biological and environmental forces that underlie all human activity. In other words, "free will" is a form of metaphor, a figure of speech like "Mother Nature" and "Father Time." Rapidly rising warm air and the presence of moisture can produce thunderstorm. The uninformed and the poetic can call it "nature's fury." Similarly, the uninformed and the poetic an speak of "free will" being at work when a bar patron calls for another beer. Now, on the other hand, if you think that free will is not just a figure of speech but has an existential referent (something apart from all physical forces surrounding human activity), all you have to do is offer scientific evidence for its existence. And don't worry about hauling a great deal of evidence onto this forum. I'll settle for a single iota. You continue to submit further proof that you are responding to my posts without reading them. I have already differentiated my position from fatalism. But go ahead and argue with a stawman if it makes you happy. In Post #200 you falsely described my position as arguing that man is a being of pre-programmed soul... I know Rand's use of the word, but unlike her I take pains to avoid terminology such as "soul," "spirit," "essence," "élan vital" and other words that are associated with dogmas for the existence of things beyond this world--in other words, mysticism.

Show some empathy. Imagine what thoughts might be triggered in you by a hyper-realistic statue of a woman in her underwear.

"Certain consistent causal factors" in a man are what others would call personal integrity. (But I'm forgetting- by you, man is a being of pre-programmed soul...;)) Perhaps part of the problem in your not understanding the argument for determinism is in your not reading it. I never used the term "pre-programmed soul." Programmed by whom? Allah? Jehovah? Zeus? And where in the human anatomy do we find this "soul"? Since there is no human thought or activity without a prior cause, there is no will separate from the genetic-biological-environmental-social context which an individual inhabits. The only plausible basis for a "will" is to call the universe itself the "will"--which would put willism in its proper category--that of mysticism. Then my computer must have free will because it performs logic. I look forward to the first example of a human who successfully turned off his thinking switch.

So exactly what level of marijuana consumption qualifies as "abuse"? Twelve joints a day? Six? One?

I'm not telling anybody where to buy their energy. I will only point out that the configuration of how energy is produced at present is largely the result of utility monopolies granted by cities and states a century ago. The power companies used the most efficient technology available. I do not know that it is efficient at all. In every industry I am aware of that has competition, there is a steady, continuous and predictable supply of the product or service. However, when it comes to electric power, I have to put up with frequent outages. Instead of shopping for a new provider, my only option is to phone a mentally handicapped employee of the public utilities commission.

Decentralized power production is generally less economical that centralized power production. There is an economy of scale to be realized by using larger capacity generators. Of course this is offset to some extent by power losses over the the transmission lines so an optimal mix of generator size and distance to ship power has to be reckoned. Putting a self contained power generator in every home or apartment building is the least economical way of powering up. Great. Let's keep centralized power generation and protect it by having the government assign a platoon of soldiers to guard every station and sub-station. Since the government will be paying for this extra service, nobody's costs will go up. What would you recommend? That we all go off grid and keep warm by burning wood? I can tell you from personal experience that trying to keep a moderate size house going off a gasoline or diesel generator costs a bloody fortune. Several years ago central New Jersey experienced a seven day (!!!!) outage. My neighbor who had a diesel generator was able to keep his refrigerator and a few electric lamps burning. He could only power up has all electric heating (in our community we are all on electric heating) by not powering his refrigerator (it kept cold over night). It cost him over 50 gallons of diesel to get minimal heating and minimal lighting. The economic of powering up a house are very much against individual generators. Industry could work if big enough firms clustered in a limited area share a largish generator. Since there would be no long distance power transport it would be easy to feed all the participants with underground wires. If we want to get chicken shit then communities would have to pay for medium size units that could light up area of less than a square mile and trasnport power under ground. Getting to that point will cost a bloody fortune. Ba'al Chatzaf I'm not telling anybody where to buy their energy. I will only point out that the configuration of how energy is produced at present is largely the result of utility monopolies granted by cities and states a century ago.

Your proof for free will is the existence of randomness. Randomness is the opposite of control. No control means there is no force able to will something to happen. QED, no free will. I go hunting with my friend because I know that human behavior is not a roll of the dice. It is predictable to a very large degree in particular individuals because of certain consistent causal factors.

Decentralized power production is generally less economical that centralized power production. There is an economy of scale to be realized by using larger capacity generators. Of course this is offset to some extent by power losses over the the transmission lines so an optimal mix of generator size and distance to ship power has to be reckoned. Putting a self contained power generator in every home or apartment building is the least economical way of powering up. Great. Let's keep centralized power generation and protect it by having the government assign a platoon of soldiers to guard every station and sub-station. Since the government will be paying for this extra service, nobody's costs will go up.

It is not a tax, flat or otherwise, if people can choose not to pay for it.

Can you name one society which assessed each person exactly what it cost to defend him? Probably not, for historically defense has been monopolized by the government which undertakes a great many other projects, such as "education" (indoctrination) "healthcare" (socialized medicine) and "economic development" (corporate welfare). And why should the person who objects to being assessed for a "service" he did not ask for be the one to decamp for the wilderness? It is the gang of monopolists and robbers threatening, beating and caging people who resist their legalized piracy who should be exiled, not the individual who is minding his own damn business.

This serves as one more reason to favor decentralization: both in energy and political control.

If you like collecting fallacies, here's one: randomness proves free will. If thought and action are truly random, occurring without any cause at all, how can we say they are caused by human will? If all human choices are just random, why should I go hunting with my best friend? True randomness in behavior means he's just as likely to shoot me as he would a deer. Why do corporations do background checks if all behavior is random? A person with no criminal past would be just as likely to become a murderer as a someone with a history of violence.

Off the Map is definitely worth watching. I saw it in the theatre ten years ago. It's time to Netflix it.

On Liberty is often cited as one of the foundational documents of individualism and laissez-faire. But one can observe within that work the fatal compromises that would later direct Mill to embrace the welfare state, including redistribution of income ("Even what a person has produced by his individual toil, unaided by any one, he cannot keep, unless by the permission of society."). This is from the third paragraph of the chapter JTS linked to: Though society is not founded on a contract, and though no good purpose is answered by inventing a contract in order to deduce social obligations from it, every one who receives the protection of society owes a return for the benefit, and the fact of living in society renders it indispensable that each should be bound to observe a certain line of conduct towards the rest. This conduct consists, first, in not injuring the interests of one another; or rather certain interests, which, either by express legal provision or by tacit understanding, ought to be considered as rights; and secondly, in each person’s bearing his share (to be fixed on some equitable principle) of the labors and sacrifices incurred for defending the society or its members from injury and molestation. "Each person’s bearing his share" in "defending the society"? Is not this the principle behind conscription, the income tax, and "war socialism"?

"Countless" simply means "too many to be counted; very many," but not necessarily an infinite number. In other words, in the space and time I have been allotted, there are more than I can name. Now regarding the randomness issue: if our thoughts and actions are merely the product of accidental, aimless and arbitrary forces, then there can be no pilot at the helm, i.e. no control, no free will.

There are plenty of good arguments against a belief in God.* The fact that Augustine, Aquinas, and many medieval theologians took the existence of a supreme being on faith does not negate their contributions to the development of a theory that subordinates the king's law to higher law and holds all individuals accountable to it. By comparison, the good that the classical liberals of the 18th and 19th centuries, such as Adam Smith and David Ricardo, did for civil liberties and limited government is not negated by their belief in the labor theory of value. Nor is Aristotle's contribution to formal logic overturned by his defense of slavery. _______________________________ *The frequent OL contributor George H. Smith has given us a superb work on the topic.

Without the influence of Christianity, there would be no individual rights as we know them today. See in particular "The Christian Foundations of the Rule of Law in the West" by the legal scholar Augusto Zimmerman.

Very well then, the words, "Congress shall have the power to . . . establish Post Offices and post Roads," means, "Congress has a duty to have the power to . . . establish Post Offices and post Roads." It still doesn't say Congress must exercise that power. If it actually meant "must exercise that power" then Congress could never be in session without declaring war, issuing letters of marque and paying U.S. government debt--things it used to do only occasionally and at present never does. Notice the difference in language between "shall" and "shall have the power to." Article II Section 3 states with regard to the President: "He shall from time to time give to Congress information of the State of the Union and recommend to their Consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient." In this case there is no option not to give a State of the Union address "from time to time."

We hold the individual responsible because individuals are the only rationally definable units in a society. Again, see Mises on methodological individualism Nobody is avoiding anything here. Legal/moral responsibility is a matter entirely separate from the question of whether or not there is a long chain of causation that results in a particular thought or action. Is my "free will" responsible for me running a red light? No, because there ain't no such thing. No ghost in the machine saying, "Boo!" Am I, as an individual, legally and morally responsible for actions under a rational legal code? Of course, because the individual is the basic unit of criminal law. Nope, I've never had to depend upon the existence of free will to come to a conclusion about whether or not something is in my self-interest--any more than a computer depends on free will in order to win a chess game.

The old saying is: charity starts at home. Like John Quincy Adams, I go "not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy" when there are plenty of them right here to keep me busy for a while.

I will never stand in the way of any Objectivist who wishes to sail to the far reaches of the earth--on his own dime--to punish some act of aggression. I may at some point even contribute loose change to the effort. Right now I'm pretty busy fighting off home grown aggressors, including the ones who occupy this edifice:

Very well, if you want to believe the phrase means "Congress must have the power to . . . establish Post Offices and post Roads," we may still, constitutionally, be left without post offices, for nothing in the document requires Congress to exercise that power. If you recall, the Contsitution also says, "Congress shall have power to ... declare War." I don't suppose you think that means Congress must now and each day henceforth declare war. Incorrect. Might have been why I used the word "generally." Whether "shall" generally means "must" 51% or 100% of the time, the vital point is that Congress is only granted the power to establish post offices. ("The Congress shall have Power To") It is not required by the Constitution to exercise that power, any more than it is required to declare war whenever it is in session. Now if Article I, Section 8 really means Congress has no choice but to set up a postal system, why is there currently no declaration of war and no grants of Letters of Marque and Reprisal, which Congress under Section 8 is also empowered (but not required) to issue? And if "The Congress shall have Power To" actually means "Congress has no choice but to," why hasn't Congress paid the debts of the United States as stated in the first paragraph of Section 8?