An Open Letter to Objectivists on Ron Paul

[sjw]

Are you paid to anal rape monkeys?

So you're not just a troll, you're a redneck as well?

Boy you love those begging the question fallacies, thought I'd give you another one.

It's not a fallacy to ask if you are paid to post here, it's refusing to indulge your stupid questions and changing the subject to something more relevant.

Assuming you are not a paid troll: I refuse to respond to your vomiting up of unwarranted assumption after unwarranted assumption about what I think. You aren't a mind-reader, you aren't even good at logical inference. You waste my time with your pretense at being able to read minds/infer. You simply can't do it. And even after repeated demonstrations of your incompetence, you keep trying to. There isn't any deeper offense to Reason and morality than your behavior on this point. You are committing the most atrocious, vile, disgustingly filthy sin imaginable that does not involve initiation of force, for that you should be shunned by any thinking person.

Shayne

[Matus1976]

Are you paid to anal rape monkeys?

So you're not just a troll, you're a redneck as well?

My neck is quite pale. bla bla bla, can we move on now?

Boy you love those begging the question fallacies, thought I'd give you another one.

It's not a fallacy to ask if you are paid to post here, it's refusing to indulge your stupid questions and changing the subject to something more relevant.

Shayne, is anyone paid to post here, let alone paid to be a troll? Yeah you are very clever and funny, moving on, it certainly is a fallacious and time wasting quesiton.

Assuming you are not a paid troll: I refuse to respond to your vomiting up of unwarranted assumption after unwarranted assumption about what I think. You aren't a mind-reader, you aren't even good at logical inference. You waste my time with your pretense at being able to read minds/infer. You simply can't do it. And even after repeated demonstrations of your incompetence, you keep trying to. There isn't any deeper offense to Reason and morality than your behavior on this point. You are committing the most atrocious, vile, disgustingly filthy sin imaginable that does not involve initiation of force, for that you should be shunned by any thinking person.

Shayne

Then answer the quesiton, make your points. But try to do so without calling people trolls, morons, idiots, etc. I do not consider your appraisel of my charachter worth the time it takes you to type it, as you have yet to demonstrate your own ability to formulate, recognize, and respect good charachter as demonstrated to me by your inclination to immediately devolve into name calling stereotyping anytime someone disagrees with you.

So, back to the point, no I am not a mind reader, nor have a professed to be, yet the logical implications of your sentiments are very clear, and again (like our last conversation) you try and try and try to obfuscate the point. If I am not infering correctly than simply correct me, don't whine, complain, moan, insult or berate. If my inferences are so far off as to be the most "atrocious, vile, disgustingly filthy sin imaginable" then surely you can clear the air with a simple clarification or two of your points and what the obvious implications of them actually are.

You explicitly said that in some circumstances it is just to support a lesser evil against a greater one. A nation which uses conscription for self defense is in my opinion a lesser evil than one which uses conscription for perpetual slavery. Would you support said nation in it's fight against the more evil nation? yes or no? (assuming supporting it was in your rational self interest)

As a corrolary, where your nation was more free than an aggressor nation, yet required conscription to defend its self against massive invasion, would you support conscription (which for this example you can expect being conscripted and then released after the war is over), when your only other option is likely to be either being killed, imprisoned, or held in perpetual slavery.

Stop obuscating and make your points, stop the name calling and grand standing and lets just have a discussion.

I do not pretend to have an answer to this quesiton, I think it is a very difficult one. I assert that all men have a right to their own lives, yet we would have had very little progress toward real tangible freedom historically if lesser evils were not used to fight greater evils, especially when manpower was the primary determining factor in war (which it is not now) Please give me a compelling argument that conscription was never necessary even when used as a lesser evil to fight a much greater one, I would love to be rid of this extremely reluctant position I hold that *maybe* in some contexts, unfortunately, conscription was a 'necessary evil' I find it disheartening yet the only logically supportable position when one advocates (as I do) supporting a lesser evil against a greater evil, and certainly in light of the historical precedences of this (the revolutionary war, civil war, persian wars, etc)

[studiodekadent]

Or, I should say, is there any scenario where an ally is attacked in which you would support active military engagement of that enemy along side our ally in our allies territory.

Like Shayne, the answer is very much a "yes" to that question. There are contexts within which intervention is justified. Also, I do not think actual libertarian foreign policy would disagree... I have never met a single libertarian that truly believes an acontextual, platonic type of noninterventionism (I dont think even Ron Paul holds that belief... All libertarians I have met are more than willing to consider context).

Sorry, you can not have it both ways, either you are principally opposed to 'entangling alliances' and 'interventionism' or you are not. Which is it? It sounds like you are, in fact, NOT, in principal opposed to intervention even when our nation is not directly attacked, and we only differ on what justifies a reaction.

You are correct that the principle of non-interventionism does have a context. Non-interventionism does not apply in the case of a clear, credible, serious and present threat. Our difference fundamentally is in the justification of reaction.

In the context of this rapidly accelerating technological growth, the threat these terrorist organizations pose WILL eventually be GREATER than the threat the entire Soviet Union posed. Further down the line, the threat a single individual poses, if we do not adequatly address such things, will be greater than the whole of the Soviet Union. The critical questions are how to address these threats. In an age of nanotechnology and artificial life, burying our head in the sands and pretending like we don't live on the same planet as the people who want to wipe out all infidels do is really pretty suicidal.

I havent thought that much about the issue. Its certainly one to consider, I will grant that.

I find this an interesting topic and I tend to agree with you that context is important to consider here. Is conscription *ever* justified under *some* contexts? My background was libertarianism before getting interested in objectivism, my reaction is a visceral NO, BUT, looking at contexts, I don't know. It's hard to imagine our legions of coffee shop hippie moral relativistic bums taking up arms voluntarily against an aggressor nation which will in all likelyhood kill them all. But even in the face of the likely destruction of our own nation, is conscription even in that case justified? I would be interested to hear in what contexts you think conscription would be justified if it ever is.

Virtually every nation of the ancient world subsisted on conscription, in that day, if they did not, they would have immediately been defeated by which ever neighboring nation conscripted more people, and the whole world would have descended into the tyranny of the most conscription and despicable ruler. A nation which had conscription for the purposes of defense (like Athens) was far more just than a nation which had universal and perpetual conscription (like Persia)

My comment here applies to both yourself and Shayne... Context is vitally important. Even Ayn Rand stated that the principles of individual rights were more or less tentative until the Industrial Revolution which proved them true. Now that we all have seen and benefitted from the truth, the truth is undeniable. Its an empirical process of discovery... Of course that does not mean that the Ancient World was not a rights-violating hellhole (albiet with very different degrees of hellhole-dom), rights still existed back then, but they were not discovered.

You have all ready acknowledged that the Soviet Union posed a grave threat to the United States, and I imagine you felt it posed a grave threat to freedom in general. You seem to suggest it's ok to "support" other nations which are attacked, but only "soft" support.

What about 'interventionism' ? In many cases, waiting for an outright attack would have meant we lost the fight before it began, and "intervention" was absolutely necessary, ultimately led to far fewer people being killed, and often prevented overt conflicts. Is "interventionism" justified in fighting an enemy?

As I stated I do concede that there are contexts within which non-interventionism does not apply.

So you do agree, that in the case of the Cold War, it was right to support our allies against this common enemy? And that, in principle, there are some circumstances which it is just for our nation to support an ally?

Yes, although there are some methods of support that I would never approve of doing (i.e. conscription, which after the vindication of individual rights cannot be justified, except possibly in an absolute nightmare scenario (i.e. Soviet Invasion of the US and we needed conscription to have a fighting chance), but as we both know these scenarios are really beyond the realm of standard ethical theorizing).

The War on Terrorism does not exist in an isolated fog removed from the the cold war, and principles of military action and retailation in general, and when discussing principles I don't think it is reasonable to confine the discussion only to one particular context.

However the War on Terrorism is totally different. A different kind of enemy, a different kind of ideology (actually two intermingling ideologies: Islamism and Arab Nationalism), different economic contexts, different theatre of concern (an area filled with multiple states rather than one monolith), etc. I simply want to take all of these into account in my analysis.

Also, sorry for the slow reply. Ive been busy.

[sjw]

My comment here applies to both yourself and Shayne... Context is vitally important. Even Ayn Rand stated that the principles of individual rights were more or less tentative until the Industrial Revolution which proved them true.

I don't regard *my* rights as tentative *in any context*. I don't give a damn about who knew what, about what I might know then vs. now, all I have to say is for people without my consent to keep their god-damned paws off my person and property unless I had done something to justify it. PERIOD.

Shayne

[sjw]

Shayne, is anyone paid to post here, let alone paid to be a troll? Yeah you are very clever and funny, moving on, it certainly is a fallacious and time wasting quesiton.

It's not fallacious. You ask a lot of stupid questions and make a lot of stupid assertions, which makes me think you are motived by something other than wanting to participate in a dialog. Now perhaps you just want to yank my chain with the stupidity. Which makes you a troll. Being curious about what's up with you is not a fallacy. But your calling it one is yet another troll, it's a stupid comment that no one would make if their purpose was a dialog, so it must be designed to yank my chain, for some reason I don't know.

Stop obuscating and make your points

Here's yet another troll. I've already told you I've stopped discussing the issue with you because of what I regard as dishonest assumptions/questions. I'm not obfuscating, I'm changing the subject to something relevant. Actually, I'm following your lead, you've implicitly already changed the subject from being about the issue at hand to something else.

Supposing you are not a troll, you can do one of two things. You can regard my objections as honestly stated and try to discern why I would think that of you, or you can keep telling me what to do and pretend I don't think what I actually think--your questions and assumptions are stupid and/or dishonest. Now why would you call that an obfuscation when it's really just telling you the reason why I don't want to continue having the discussion with you unless you were indeed a troll?

Shayne

[studiodekadent]

I don't regard *my* rights as tentative *in any context*. I don't give a damn about who knew what, about what I might know then vs. now, all I have to say is for people without my consent to keep their god-damned paws off my person and property unless I had done something to justify it. PERIOD.

Shayne,

If you lived 1000 years ago, you would not even be aware of the concept of individual rights. The fact that you so passionately embrace individual rights depends on the previous discovery of them. You live in a society blessed by an enlightenment tradition, and as such you inherit a great gift.

This does not mean that in the past, it was not (excuse the french) a shithole. It WAS a shithole back then. An unenlightened scumbucket. Even ancient Athens was a cesspool of slavery, and even Aristotle was a wife-beating pederast. I am not trying to say that back then individual rights did not exist, and I am not trying to say that individual rights are merely social convention. All I am saying is that the world back then was phenomenally ignorant. Errors of knowlege are not errors of morality.

We now live in the modern world. And as such, we men of reason know that violating rights is evil. The concept of individual rights has been proven, so no it is not tentative anymore. But it once was. Hell, there was once a time when believing in God made sense!

As much as I respect you and your reasoning, I do believe you are getting a bit Platonic vis a vis Individual Rights. Please do not take this as a personal attack.

[tjohnson]

We now live in the modern world. And as such, we men of reason know that violating rights is evil. The concept of individual rights has been proven, so no it is not tentative anymore. But it once was. Hell, there was once a time when believing in God made sense!

I can't believe you are using 'reason' and 'evil' in the same sentence. IMO, "men of reason" do not entertain the idea of evil or evilness as it has a definite religious connotation. Also, what does it mean to "prove a concept"?? I can conceive of anything I please, what has 'proof' got to do with it?

[studiodekadent]

I can't believe you are using 'reason' and 'evil' in the same sentence. IMO, "men of reason" do not entertain the idea of evil or evilness as it has a definite religious connotation.

"Evil" is simply a term from ethics. Religion, admittedly, has attempted time and time again to monopolize the field of morality (for example witness the current cavalcade of Calvinistic divine subjectivists proclaiming their interpretation of Christianity is the only possible objective morality), however there is no inherent link between religion and morality.

So yes, I am eschewing the religious connotation of "evil" but I maintain the term itself is valid.

Also, what does it mean to "prove a concept"??

To demonstrate that the concept has valid referents, i.e. to trace the concept back to the particulars that make it up.

[tjohnson]

To demonstrate that the concept has valid referents, i.e. to trace the concept back to the particulars that make it up.

Sorry, that doesn't help me. I understand 'prove' in mathematics for example;

Definition: A function is said to be linear if it can be written in the form y=mx+b, where m and b are constants.

Theorem: f(x,y) such that 2x +3y=4 is a linear function.

Proof: 3y=4-2x => y=4/3-2/3x => y=-2/3x+4/3 => f is linear with m=-2/3 and b=4/3.

Can you give an example of proving a concept?

Edited April 8, 2008 by general semanticist

[Matus1976]

It's not fallacious. You ask a lot of stupid questions and make a lot of stupid assertions, which makes me think you are motived by something other than wanting to participate in a dialog.

Nope, it's still fallacious. I've managed to engage in a reasonable dialog on this topic with everyone except for you. Hmmm....

Stop obuscating and make your points

Here's yet another troll. I've already told you I've stopped discussing the issue with you because of what I regard as dishonest assumptions/questions. I'm not obfuscating, I'm changing the subject to something relevant.

And yet oddly enough this professed reason you have chosen to stop answering these questions (and yet still respond to me over and over again) is indistinguishable from merely not being able to answer them. If I am drawing incorrect inferences, it's is but a simple matter to clarify them. 5 posts later you still make no effort to. As you have already stated, I am not pyschic, I don't know what you are thinking, so to get so incredibly frustrated by my lack of omniscience in divining your true meaning is really rather irrational. If you make a statement, and I present logical implications of that, and you think those implications are wrong EXPLAIN WHY YOU THINK THEY ARE WRONG. This is how discussion works. Instead you huff and haw and get all indignantly offended that everyone does not instantly understand exactly what you are saying. Perhaps this is more evidence of your inability to convey your ideas clearly and your impatience then it is of any ill will on my or everyon else you are so quick to call a 'moron' here.

So, really now, this is a waste of time. I do not care to answer all your ridiculous charges of incorrect inferences and trolling when you refuse to clearly identify your points or the logical implications therin. Lets try one more time.

You explicitly said that in some circumstances it is just to support a lesser evil against a greater one. A nation which uses conscription for self defense is in my opinion a lesser evil than one which uses conscription for perpetual slavery. Would you support said nation in it's fight against the more evil nation? yes or no? (assuming supporting it was in your rational self interest)

As a corrolary, where your nation was more free than an aggressor nation, yet required conscription to defend its self against massive invasion, would you support conscription (which for this example you can expect being conscripted and then released after the war is over), when your only other option is likely to be either being killed, imprisoned, or held in perpetual slavery.

Actually, I'm following your lead, you've implicitly already changed the subject from being about the issue at hand to something else.

Supposing you are not a troll, you can do one of two things. You can regard my objections as honestly stated and try to discern why I would think that of you

Your near instataneous reaction to almost anyone who disagrees with you is to call them a moron, I think that is enough evidence about the manner in which you debate and what might lead you to 'think that of me'

[sjw]

If you lived 1000 years ago, you would not even be aware of the concept of individual rights. The fact that you so passionately embrace individual rights depends on the previous discovery of them. You live in a society blessed by an enlightenment tradition, and as such you inherit a great gift.

There is a difference between being aware of individual rights and being able to philosophize about that awareness. There is a difference between being able to philosophize, and writing that philosophizing down.

I do not accept that the idea of individual rights burst on the scene only after someone started talking about it. Nor do I believe that it is a particularly sophisticated concept that required the industrial revolution. It is a *radical* idea given human history (i.e., looking at the *collective* and making some kind of average it looks radical), but an honest human being can grasp the concept easily, and I would be surprised if there weren't humans throughout history, who left no writing on any subject, yet during their lifetime had grasped the basic idea of individual rights.

The real problem hasn't been that individual rights is hard to grasp or that it's a sophisticated development. The real problem has been that most of mankind has been brainwashed for most of its existence through the use of force or threat of force. Accepting, from the time they were children, the notions of God and State, virtually erradicates the possibility of the grasping simple and honest notions of respecting the rights of others.

I grant that it is sophisticated to be able to apply the simple ideas of individual rights to creating laws and just government.

As much as I respect you and your reasoning, I do believe you are getting a bit Platonic vis a vis Individual Rights. Please do not take this as a personal attack.

I don't think I'm being Platonic, I think you're slipping into a bit of collectivism. You think that because the collective of mankind left you no evidence that someone grasped an idea, then no one did. You think that because the average of human history is abject Statism, then that's all anyone ever thought. I recognize the difficulty of grasping individual rights when the main thing on your mind is keeping people from killing or enslaving you, which is precisely my point. My guess is that there were plenty of those who took lifetime walks from the collective, who lived off of Nature on their own terms, and had time to think about it and recognized that the world would be better if people would keep their hands off others' property and person.

Shayne

[sjw]

And yet oddly enough this professed reason you have chosen to stop answering these questions (and yet still respond to me over and over again) is indistinguishable from merely not being able to answer them. If I am drawing incorrect inferences, it's is but a simple matter to clarify them.

This is yet another convenient example of your trolling. For you, by your own admission, you cannot properly infer why I stop answering. So instead of taking the reason I gave you, you reject what I told you regarding the contents of my mind--that only I am privy to--and go with something you have no evidence for.

You do this when I tell you what I think over and over again, regardless of circumstance. When you disagree with my conclusion, you supply bullshit reasons for me rather than asking, and then when I supply my own reasons, you ignore them. It is easy to understand why someone would do this. They are essentially religious about what they think. It is not open to change. Therefore they accept no rationale, they only deal in conclusions and pseudo-rationale.

Shayne

[Matus1976]

Or, I should say, is there any scenario where an ally is attacked in which you would support active military engagement of that enemy along side our ally in our allies territory.

Like Shayne, the answer is very much a "yes" to that question. There are contexts within which intervention is justified. Also, I do not think actual libertarian foreign policy would disagree... I have never met a single libertarian that truly believes an acontextual, platonic type of noninterventionism (I dont think even Ron Paul holds that belief... All libertarians I have met are more than willing to consider context).

Thanks for your reply. While I don't doubt that you feel there are contexts where intervention is justified, I have never discerned this as a general aspect of libertarianism from my many years of involvement. The Libertarian Party home page lp.org states this

IV. Foreign Affairs

American foreign policy should seek an America at peace with the world and the defense -- against attack from abroad -- of the lives, liberty, and property of the American people on American soil. Provision of such defense must respect the individual rights of people everywhere.

The principle of non-intervention should guide relationships between governments. The United States government should return to the historic libertarian tradition of avoiding entangling alliances, abstaining totally from foreign quarrels and imperialist adventures, and recognizing the right to unrestricted trade, travel, and immigration.

(emphasis added) I think that statement is very clear, and gives no provisions for context. The stance on foreign policy of Libertarians is it's single biggest failing.

Sorry, you can not have it both ways, either you are principally opposed to 'entangling alliances' and 'interventionism' or you are not. Which is it? It sounds like you are, in fact, NOT, in principal opposed to intervention even when our nation is not directly attacked, and we only differ on what justifies a reaction.

You are correct that the principle of non-interventionism does have a context. Non-interventionism does not apply in the case of a clear, credible, serious and present threat. Our difference fundamentally is in the justification of reaction.

I agree, I would generally avoid getting involved in conflicts unless it is in our rational long term self interest and we are acting in a reasonable manner to replace a less free nation with a more free one, and we would certainly be justified when in clear credible threat is presented. The official libertarian party stance does not appear to coincide with yours though.

In the context of this rapidly accelerating technological growth, the threat these terrorist organizations pose WILL eventually be GREATER than the threat the entire Soviet Union posed. Further down the line, the threat a single individual poses, if we do not adequatly address such things, will be greater than the whole of the Soviet Union. The critical questions are how to address these threats. In an age of nanotechnology and artificial life, burying our head in the sands and pretending like we don't live on the same planet as the people who want to wipe out all infidels do is really pretty suicidal.

I havent thought that much about the issue. Its certainly one to consider, I will grant that.

fair enough

I find this an interesting topic and I tend to agree with you that context is important to consider here. Is conscription *ever* justified under *some* contexts? My background was libertarianism before getting interested in objectivism, my reaction is a visceral NO, BUT, looking at contexts, I don't know. It's hard to imagine our legions of coffee shop hippie moral relativistic bums taking up arms voluntarily against an aggressor nation which will in all likelyhood kill them all. But even in the face of the likely destruction of our own nation, is conscription even in that case justified? I would be interested to hear in what contexts you think conscription would be justified if it ever is.

Virtually every nation of the ancient world subsisted on conscription, in that day, if they did not, they would have immediately been defeated by which ever neighboring nation conscripted more people, and the whole world would have descended into the tyranny of the most conscription and despicable ruler. A nation which had conscription for the purposes of defense (like Athens) was far more just than a nation which had universal and perpetual conscription (like Persia)

My comment here applies to both yourself and Shayne... Context is vitally important. Even Ayn Rand stated that the principles of individual rights were more or less tentative until the Industrial Revolution which proved them true. Now that we all have seen and benefitted from the truth, the truth is undeniable. Its an empirical process of discovery... Of course that does not mean that the Ancient World was not a rights-violating hellhole (albiet with very different degrees of hellhole-dom), rights still existed back then, but they were not discovered.

I am not sure I follow the idea that the principle of individual rights was more or less 'tentative' until the industrial revolution. Can you elaborate more on that? I would never consider it tentative, only undiscovered. The industrial revolution would have also been the time in which manpower was no longer the major determining factor in warfare, but why would it relate to the concept of individual rights explicitly?

I think it is important to note in a classical context, all people of the earth were permanent slaves of their local despots, and *only* the greek city states had *any* concept of freedom, even though they were brutal hell holes by todays standards, the ideas of freedom had to take root initially somewhere, and every salient advance forward in the cause of freedom, especially it's first steps, should be celebrated.

You have all ready acknowledged that the Soviet Union posed a grave threat to the United States, and I imagine you felt it posed a grave threat to freedom in general. You seem to suggest it's ok to "support" other nations which are attacked, but only "soft" support.

What about 'interventionism' ? In many cases, waiting for an outright attack would have meant we lost the fight before it began, and "intervention" was absolutely necessary, ultimately led to far fewer people being killed, and often prevented overt conflicts. Is "interventionism" justified in fighting an enemy?

As I stated I do concede that there are contexts within which non-interventionism does not apply.

Acknowledged.

So you do agree, that in the case of the Cold War, it was right to support our allies against this common enemy? And that, in principle, there are some circumstances which it is just for our nation to support an ally?

Yes, although there are some methods of support that I would never approve of doing (i.e. conscription, which after the vindication of individual rights cannot be justified, except possibly in an absolute nightmare scenario (i.e. Soviet Invasion of the US and we needed conscription to have a fighting chance), but as we both know these scenarios are really beyond the realm of standard ethical theorizing).

So here I think we see our fundamental conclusion. We both agree then that in some, albiet extreme circustances conscription is in fact justified, as I stated primarily when a more free nation which needs it to overcome a reasonably clear threat to it's existence against a less free nation which uses conscription to hold it's population in perment bondage

I don't think these scenarios are really beyond the realm of standard ethical theorizing, and instead they have in fact happened over and over again historically and were in fact critical to the ultimate promulgation to the of civil liberties and freedom in the world. They were certainly applicable in ancient Greece and Rome and right up to the American Revolutionary War and Civil War.

Were we probably agree is that in no context would it be justified today, and probably not since the Industrial Revolution. I would say primarily because manpower is no longer the critical factor in warfare and instead resources and technology are. The implication to me here is that while conscription may have been justified in a historical context in some cases to defeat an even greater enemy, today taxation might be justified in very specific contexts to defeat an even worse enemy.

The War on Terrorism does not exist in an isolated fog removed from the the cold war, and principles of military action and retailation in general, and when discussing principles I don't think it is reasonable to confine the discussion only to one particular context.

However the War on Terrorism is totally different. A different kind of enemy, a different kind of ideology (actually two intermingling ideologies: Islamism and Arab Nationalism), different economic contexts, different theatre of concern (an area filled with multiple states rather than one monolith), etc. I simply want to take all of these into account in my analysis.

Understandable. When discussing over arching principles (such as intervetionism) I believe it relevant to discuss similiar aspects of other contexts. The War on Terror is certainly different in many aspects to the Cold War, but in many aspects it was similiar enough to warrant discussion.

I do not profess to have an easy or clear answer for our ultimate policy, however as noted I do not think the severe long term consequences are being sufficiently wieghed by people when judging the right course of action. The world 25 years from now will be far far different than the world today, just as today it is far different than it was 250 years ago, and things which would have been in our long term rational self interest in the age of sailing ships and whaling might not be applicable to an age of nanotechnology and personal biotech labs.

[Matus1976]

And yet oddly enough this professed reason you have chosen to stop answering these questions (and yet still respond to me over and over again) is indistinguishable from merely not being able to answer them. If I am drawing incorrect inferences, it's is but a simple matter to clarify them.

This is yet another convenient example of your trolling. For you, by your own admission, you cannot properly infer why I stop answering.

By my own admission I am not omniscient, and as such, I do not axiomatically know exactly what you are trying to convey. It is up to you as a rational human being to attempt to convey information clearly, it is up to me as yet another rational human being to make a reasonable attempt to understand you. You can attribute my lack of omniscience to malice all you want, but that does not make it any more true. Here we are in yet ANOTHER response by you in which you STILL make no effort to clarify your position, but instead still blather on about how annoyed you are.

So instead of taking the reason I gave you, you reject what I told you regarding the contents of my mind--that only I am privy to--and go with something you have no evidence for.

Your reason is that I am either a troll or a moron, neither are true, and you pretty much think everyone is a troll or a moron, so your conclusions are not rationally derived anyway. You seem more like a frustrated spoiled and solipsistic child who gets indigantly angry anytime anyone doesn't instantly understand what you are trying to say, even if you babble incoherently or perpetually obfuscate your points.

You do this when I tell you what I think over and over again, regardless of circumstance. When you disagree with my conclusion, you supply bullshit reasons for me rather than asking, and then when I supply my own reasons, you ignore them. It is easy to understand why someone would do this. They are essentially religious about what they think. It is not open to change. Therefore they accept no rationale, they only deal in conclusions and pseudo-rationale.

You seem to have pretty accurately described yourself here Shayne. But feel free point to the post in which you differentiated between supporting a lesser evil against a greater one from supporting less evil conscription against a more evil conscription, or, simply state your differentiation now.

You could, for instance, say that conscription *always* is *completely* evil, and no nation which ever used conscription was ever just in using it to fight, even if it was fighting an even less free nation which it reasonable expected would completely destroy it and permanently enslave it's entire population. This is probably the fourth or fifth time I have simply asked you to clarify your position and why the logical implication of supporting a lesser evil against a greater one does not also lead to the logical implication that in some contexts conscription ought to be supported.

I invite other readers (if there are any) to comment, as possible objective third parties, does it appear I am deliberately mis-interpreting Shayne's positions, or does it appear that Shayne seems reluctant to clarfiy his position and is quick to get indignant? If most commenters feel I am deliberately misinterpreting Shayne's comments, then clearly I am not able to accurately assess something based on the same information being provided by Shayne.

[studiodekadent]

To demonstrate that the concept has valid referents, i.e. to trace the concept back to the particulars that make it up.

Sorry, that doesn't help me. I understand 'prove' in mathematics for example;

Definition: A function is said to be linear if it can be written in the form y=mx+b, where m and b are constants.

Theorem: f(x,y) such that 2x +3y=4 is a linear function.

Proof: 3y=4-2x => y=4/3-2/3x => y=-2/3x+4/3 => f is linear with m=-2/3 and b=4/3.

Can you give an example of proving a concept?

The most well known example of "proving a concept" is Aristotle's method of objectivity. It consists of asking "to what in reality does this concept refer?" If the concept refers to other concepts, to what in reality do those concepts refer? Keep going until you arrive back at concrete particulars. If you do not, you are dealing with floating abstractions.

[sjw]

it is up to me as yet another rational human being to make a reasonable attempt to understand you.

True. Ready to start doing that? Didn't think so.

Shayne

[studiodekadent]

I do not accept that the idea of individual rights burst on the scene only after someone started talking about it. Nor do I believe that it is a particularly sophisticated concept that required the industrial revolution. It is a *radical* idea given human history (i.e., looking at the *collective* and making some kind of average it looks radical), but an honest human being can grasp the concept easily, and I would be surprised if there weren't humans throughout history, who left no writing on any subject, yet during their lifetime had grasped the basic idea of individual rights.

I never said that the concept of individual rights required the industrial revolution. I said that the industrial revolution was vindication of individual rights. It certainly is a radical idea, but I do disagree that "anyone who is intellectually honest" should be able to grasp the idea easily (for the same reasons as Kelley wrote in Contested Legacy of Ayn Rand... philosophical reasoning is a monumentally complex process and individuals can make many honest errors at many points).

The real problem hasn't been that individual rights is hard to grasp or that it's a sophisticated development. The real problem has been that most of mankind has been brainwashed for most of its existence through the use of force or threat of force. Accepting, from the time they were children, the notions of God and State, virtually erradicates the possibility of the grasping simple and honest notions of respecting the rights of others.

I agree for the most part. However, I was educated in public school for primary, and in a shockingly collectivist-conservative private school for secondary education. Admittedly I am an atypically intelligent man so I could think for myself, and many cannot. I would not go so far to call our lesser-intelligenced brethren "brainwashed".... I certainly agree that they have a very unquestioned belief that needs questioning.

You think that because the collective of mankind left you no evidence that someone grasped an idea, then no one did.

You cannot ask me to accept something without evidence

You think that because the average of human history is abject Statism, then that's all anyone ever thought.

Maybe not everyone, but certainly we have very, very few recorded texts from the past advancing the notion of individual rights. I dont think anything in western civilization before Locke does so (many have defended points that logically imply individual rights, but we do not know if they saw the implication).

My guess is that there were plenty of those who took lifetime walks from the collective, who lived off of Nature on their own terms, and had time to think about it and recognized that the world would be better if people would keep their hands off others' property and person.

I certainly do not doubt the possibility. I just would like to see solid evidence.

[studiodekadent]

Thanks for your reply. While I don't doubt that you feel there are contexts where intervention is justified, I have never discerned this as a general aspect of libertarianism from my many years of involvement. The Libertarian Party home page lp.org states this

IV. Foreign Affairs

American foreign policy should seek an America at peace with the world and the defense -- against attack from abroad -- of the lives, liberty, and property of the American people on American soil. Provision of such defense must respect the individual rights of people everywhere.

The principle of non-intervention should guide relationships between governments. The United States government should return to the historic libertarian tradition of avoiding entangling alliances, abstaining totally from foreign quarrels and imperialist adventures, and recognizing the right to unrestricted trade, travel, and immigration.

(emphasis added) I think that statement is very clear, and gives no provisions for context. The stance on foreign policy of Libertarians is it's single biggest failing.

Well, if these foreign quarrels actually do not have anything to do with the US, I agree with the policy. I think its agreed that there have been some, if not many, instances in the past when the US has meddled in affairs it should not have and that these affairs have greatly exacerbated anti-US beliefs. So generally I do not see too much problem with a general, broad attitude of noninterventionism, albiet with contextual allowances for situations where there truly is a clear, present, dangerous threat.

I am not sure I follow the idea that the principle of individual rights was more or less 'tentative' until the industrial revolution. Can you elaborate more on that? I would never consider it tentative, only undiscovered. The industrial revolution would have also been the time in which manpower was no longer the major determining factor in warfare, but why would it relate to the concept of individual rights explicitly?

The Industrial Revolution was the empirical proof of individual rights. The idea had been proposed and defended before then, but there was no large-scale demonstration of its power. After the Industrial Revolution, acceptance of individual rights became more or less a prerequisite for civilized discussion about politics.

[sjw]

I certainly do not doubt the possibility. I just would like to see solid evidence.

I don't need evidence for my purposes: condemning usurpers of Individual Rights. Do you?

Shayne

[studiodekadent]

I don't need evidence for my purposes: condemning usurpers of Individual Rights. Do you?

I don't need evidence since I have already seen the evidence for the existence of Individual Rights.

[tjohnson]

The most well known example of "proving a concept" is Aristotle's method of objectivity. It consists of asking "to what in reality does this concept refer?" If the concept refers to other concepts, to what in reality do those concepts refer? Keep going until you arrive back at concrete particulars. If you do not, you are dealing with floating abstractions.

I see, then it appears that you use 'concept' to mean the same as 'word'. So this process amounts to using simpler and simpler language until you reach a point where you can define no further, what you call 'concrete particulars'.

[studiodekadent]

The most well known example of "proving a concept" is Aristotle's method of objectivity. It consists of asking "to what in reality does this concept refer?" If the concept refers to other concepts, to what in reality do those concepts refer? Keep going until you arrive back at concrete particulars. If you do not, you are dealing with floating abstractions.

I see, then it appears that you use 'concept' to mean the same as 'word'. So this process amounts to using simpler and simpler language until you reach a point where you can define no further, what you call 'concrete particulars'.

Generally yes, although proper nouns refer to concrete particulars rather than concepts. It is universal nouns that refer to concepts.

[Matus1976]

it is up to me as yet another rational human being to make a reasonable attempt to understand you.

True. Ready to start doing that? Didn't think so.

Shayne

I have in fact been doing that all along. I have had no problems of communication with studiokadent or george. Either I am selectively choosing you to intentionally mis interpret, or you are not as good at conveying information as you think you are. Given your communication problems with virtually everyone, as evidence by your nearly instantaneous descent into name calling, I think it's clear where the communication problem originates.

So, now onto post, what, 8 or 9, you still do not explain your position and instead still whine and complain. So, ready to make a reasonable attempt to convey your position yet? didn't think so.

[sjw]

it is up to me as yet another rational human being to make a reasonable attempt to understand you.

True. Ready to start doing that? Didn't think so.

Shayne

I have in fact been doing that all along.

Again: Didn't think so.

I have had no problems of communication with studiokadent or george.

And if I listed the names of people I had no problems of communication with, your response would be what? You know damn well what it would be. Something along the lines of "fallacious, fallacious!" And if I had done what you just did you know what your response would be: "Intellectual dishonesty, intellectual dishonesty!"

Your lack of sincerity is all that is clear to me about you.

Shayne

[sjw]

I don't need evidence for my purposes: condemning usurpers of Individual Rights. Do you?

I don't need evidence since I have already seen the evidence for the existence of Individual Rights.

I am unclear about your purpose in the line of thinking preceding this. Why is it relevant what who thought when about individual rights? Are you trying to let some people off the hook for violating them or what? I don't understand what you are trying to say.

Shayne