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Concepts such as 'rational' or 'conceptual' condense facts of reality about humans. You could spend the rest of your life enumerating concrete specific instances for those concepts. Look at the endless stream of ways in which humans are different from other animals, including specific instances of the facts which give rise to the moral principle of rights. The more you do that, the less tempted you will be to apply 'conceptual' as some sort of percentage-based litmus test for rights, i.e. if an animal seems sorta conceptual then maybe it sorta has rights. No, rights are moral principles which arise in a specific and unique context, and animals don't even come close to recreating that context. If you recognize that the idea of animal rights is 'ridiculous', what makes you think you can change the minds of those who hold such a position? Leaving aside the problem of 'proving' (showing the connection to self-evident facts of reality) the non-existence of something (i.e. something not in reality), how do you condense an education in the primacy of existence and proper formation and use of concepts to a single writing or conversation? Better to take the opportunity to practice some philosophic detection and try to figure out where your opponent's most fundamental error is, and see if you can figure out an engaging way to encourage them to rethink it.

I'm afraid that your posts must be treated as if nothing is said, as without a 'greater semantic set' your outlook can not be treated as a proposition, and being inherently mathematical, it it can't be treated as anything else. This requires more psychological distinctions of 'belief'. We can supposedly do all of these separately: 1) say something is true 2) act as if something is true 3) think something is true 4) pretend something is true (for drama, gaming...), but not really act as if it was true (you can pause) 5) consider a hypothetical (or listen to a story) But you can't fully think something is true and at the same time fully think it isn't true, so I think this would be #4. You probably root for the Lakers for the same reason you root for fictional characters.

Government most definitely has a purpose: 1) To protect its borders from threats of invasion; 2) To secure the physical and property rights of its citizens through a code of moral laws; 3) To provide a court of justice to interpret and enforce that code of moral laws. This is clearly expressed in the writings of Ayn Rand. I may have taken liberties with the wording, and the of course there are details she clearly expressed.

Too late. Talk about the slap that launched a thousand words... For what is perhaps one of the most peaceable, peaceful (no, never pacifist!) and rational bunch of individuals there is probably around, I find it sorta ironic Objectivists spend so much energy arguing over the initiation of force.