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Starblade Enkai

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    Matthew Finnigan

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  1. America has gradually become more and more ethical over the years, but in its day there is always contention over some of the policies enacted. http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/08...13fa_fact_mayer http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/08...?printable=true While I accept the argument the statement that in general it's the enemy that's responsible for this, we can't take that principle to the extreme of using nuclear weapons against any country that we feel might be a threat to us. There has to be a sense of proportionality, and that falls under the concept of justice. Is there any justice in these so called "black sites"? When justice isn't held as the ideal function of government, even if self defense is held, there is a possibility of unjust actions in the name of self defense. You can usually have both, but sometime you can't. I would say that as long as the torture methods aren't SO bad that any rational person would consider death a more desirable alternative that there isn't really torture so much as harsh interrogation. Furthermore, as long as there are checks and balances to ensure that cool heads prevail, any mistakes made in determining who is in fact an enemy combatant and who is not are justifiable as collateral damage. This way not only is it unlikely that we harshly interrogate an innocent, but we don't do any irreversible damage to said innocent. There ARE boundaries on what a government can do, even if that government is in dire emergency situations. The idea of emergency situations should not apply exactly the same to individuals and governments because they are different entities. What's your take on this?
  2. I voted religion because, let's face it, religion will always lead to some form of socialism, whereas socialism can be rooted out if the only thing to be dealt with was socialism itself. I'd rather own my mind and not own 50% of what I make than own all of what I make but only own 50% of my mind.
  3. Could it be that truly random or otherwise indeterminite events are also statistically bound to follow this law? If so, that says a lot about our assumption about randomness as it pertains to its existence/identity. The link is as follows: http://www.physorg.com/news98015219.html Quite interesting... but why would it work?
  4. ... publicly (which is to say forcibly) viewable... Now HERE is the CRUX of the argument. Thank you. You automatically make the assumption that you have a positive right to go to the public. I'm sorry, but there is only a negative right, IE no right for people to use force to prevent you from going on the public. Just because you've demonstrated a public nuisance does NOT give you the right to proscribe said nuisance. For example, if somebody had a bad smelling scent on them and any rational person would try to avoid it once they knew of it; you could say that it is a nuisance. Where is the line drawn between when a public nuisance is simply inconvenient and when it is actually a violation of rights? There IS a line, not just a gray area. Visible pornography, drunk driving, public possession of a gun without state verification of ones responsibility... these are all things which would go away naturally if there were no public spaces except for what government NEEDS to own in order to operate, which means that roads and sidewalks and all other things not government owned would be open to private ownership. Even worries about violation of intellectual property could conceivably be relieved if we simply assured that everything, even individual quanta of information in space-time, could be protected by property rights. However, the typical Objectivist response to this is that this is Libertarianistic wishful thinking. However, I argue that the principle of action counts more than cause and effect pertaining to said action. In the end, principle wins, no matter how long it takes. There will always be an end because there are no infinities in the actual, only a concept of infinity as the lack of a limit, and that is a potential.
  5. There is no such thing as implicitly agreeing to something. You either agree to it consciously or you do not. If there is no general violation of rights in using it on unliscenced drivers, then there is no specific instance of violation of rights simply because the creator doesn't want you to use software a certain way.
  6. A person is a whole unit sum of mind and body. A person's mind may be beautiful but that person's body may not be, and vice versa. In either case, only the mind or body is beautiful but not the other. However, for a person to be beautiful, both mind and body must be beautiful. We should make judgements of that person's mind and body, not as seperate entities, but as necessary conjugates. I think that is something upon which we can all agree.
  7. Not Sudan in particular. However, he did write an article about economic freedom being a prerequisite for social freedom.
  8. I hope Thomas Sowell was correct. Is there still political freedom? Even if there is no constitutional process by which to select new laws, politicians can be persuaded by large donations of money. Furthermore, if everybody is allowed to own guns, and copies of pro-freedom books, I suspect that political freedom will soon follow economic freedom, and thus fuel social freedom.
  9. Okay, can you name the defining characteristic of these groups and then explain why each and every item you listed belongs in there? Sex matters, obviously, but having sex on the sidewalk does not interfere with anybody else. They can always choose to avert their eyes and put on headphones so that they neither have to see nor hear something which is obviously disguesting. Now if those two were in your way, that would be different, since they are blocking you from getting to your destination, but that's a right-of-way issue, not a sex issue.
  10. Any notable flaws in this argument: http://theferrett.livejournal.com/884512.html ? I want to hear your judgement of this little pseudophilosophical livejournal post. Mine? Well, suffice it to say I think this guy needs to check his premises. PS: If you discover which post (or posts, should this guy respond) is (are) mine... do NOT refer to me as Starblade Enkai or anything like that. Please. My real name is Matthew Finnigan and given the point I make it is ESSENTIAL that you refer to me the way any normal human would.
  11. That a person could be required to notify ANYONE, absolutely ANYONE who MAY, not who will ultimately because people do have free will, but MAY be subjected to the objectionable is not logically distinct from banning the objectionable. It is de-facto a violation of civil liberties. Even if the requirements only be that from a distance a person going toward the area be notified, the idea that one has to notify others is rediculous. That it would make somebody a part of the sex act is an invalid concept, since it violates locality. Locality in the context of intellectual property rights means that there is some interaction between the information you create and the person using the intellectual property. If sufficient information about the given piece of intellectual property is given to recreate the essential qualities of the intellectual property, and someone does so, they are in violation of intellectual property. As for slander or libel, that's trickier, since it assumes that one is entitled to what WOULD be given to them in situations devoid of fraud. But assuming this is true, then the time of the trade that would have taken place that locality is preserved. Furthermore, there is another act of fraud that occurs to the person who is told the mistruth, and that occurs locally as well. That is effectively analogous to killing one's significant other and denying someone the income that the other person would have made, and then the criminal being subject to civil suits. If I hurt someone who was about to do trade with you, and in such a manner that they can no longer do it, the rights violation occurs to both the direct subject and the inderect subject. All of these explanations infer local abuse. Now you could go on and say that ones rights were violated when one witnesses it, but there is another thing you should know: no coercion has occured. That certain perceptions are evil without being deceitful nor destructive of ones ability to perceive assumes you have a right not to perceive what is actually happening in reality. That is absurd. In fact, that is the crux of the argument against burdens on those wishing to perform non-damaging acts. That someone third-party to the act of sex is being harmed can only exist if there is a right for them not to be causally affeted by anything that is objectionable. That is, their objection to it is more harmful than the methods to remove what is objectionable. That is patently false. Oh, and one more thing. What if you are entering someone's private property? What if you assumed you were invited? What if you WERE invited, according to law? What if they could not remove you from the premises without violating your rights? Could sex be illegal then, even if the sex did not involve anybody who actually owned the property?
  12. I think you are confused about human rights, those of you who would ban sidewalk pornography and actual public sex acts. All our rights derive from the necessity to not only survive, but to be able to pursue our dreams. Life, liberty, property... if you can't explain how having sex in front of somebody somehow deprives them of: 1. Life, 2. Liberty, 3. Property, or 4. Pursuit of our dreams, then you haven't established a legal basis for government intervention. Ultimately, 1, 2, 3, and 4 are our ultimate rights, and there can exist no rights other than these. To establish a right of sexual integrity is to make up an imaginary right. To make up an imaginary right is to murder the concept of rights. Rights are grounded on our OBJECTIVE needs. I'm not saying that sexuality isn't objective, but to say that seeing and hearing sex going on is somehow including you in the act of sex is implying coercion-at-a-distance, something that's just as impossible as action-at-a-distance. Locality is a logical necessity to define when a right is actually being violated. The presence of sex is not a form of coercion, becuase to assume it is would be to allow a nonlocal form of rights violation. I hope I've made my point.
  13. I know that in mathematics it becomes a necessity to conjure up units such as i, j, k, and the like in addition to the unit 1. However, I don't see how nonreal numbers can pertain to something physical. I have heard that Pisaturo and Marcus have attempted to explain nonreal numbers, but I can't quite find their arguments. Now I know such numbers are USEFUL. I just don't know how to derive these from first principles.
  14. If you want to define anarchy in a way that means anything else other than abscence of government, at least have the rationality not to equivocate that definition of anarchy with the one that means "a situation in which there is effectively no government". This is the problem with using a term with two different definitions. If you intend to use a word with multiple meanings, either it must be clear which definition you are using (assuming the definitions are essentially different) or else you run into the problem of equivocation. For example, real and imaginary in terms of cognition means something else than real and imaginary in mathematics. Something else ENTIRELY. However, causality has a different meaning when you ask Hume than it does when you ask Ayn Rand. The defining characteristics are similar enough to be confused, but the details are different enough so that you cannot use the two interchangably. This is when equivocation occurs. It does not make sense to be for anarchy and against governmental regulations that suppress it given the standard "no government" definition of anarchy, but in other cases governmental intrusion would not only be unnecessary, but evil, given that you're using a definition of anarchy that subsumes your ideal of ettequitte, IE anarchy being the lack of rules of conduct which would prohibit noncoercive activities. That is the problem of using the term anarchy the way you do.
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