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FeatherFall

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Everything posted by FeatherFall

  1. If adultery is a spouse having sex with someone who isn't his or her spouse then I'd say no, that's not necessarily immoral. As long as all parties consent I see no reason to judge it as immoral simply because the people engaging in the "affair" aren't married to each other. I'd also like to know by what standard you're judging this issue.
  2. Do you object to using her smoking as an example because you think polyamorous relationships are less moral than smoking?
  3. The creator says that he was inspired by the novel that inspired the movie: Make Room! Make Room! In the novel, Soylent is not people.
  4. Has anyone else been following Soylent? I'm intrigued.
  5. If you're thinking of Rick Perry, he's still the governor.
  6. The next person to post a personal attack (directed at a specific person or general audience) will have his posts reviewed by moderators before they appear.
  7. RedWanderer, try to be more civil. In regards to the perfect circle you said, "Perfect circle" is a higher-order concept that subsumes concepts such as shape and distance. Shape and distance are concepts that are arrived at after perceptually recognizing meaningful differences in form at a very early age. These are not the only concepts employed; measurement-omission is explicitly employed by the concept, for instance. A full treatment of all concepts at play would take more time than I have, but it would be a brilliant confirmation of some of Rand's positions on epistemology. Edit: Is there a specific concept subsumed by the concept, perfect circle, that you don't think requires the integration of sense-perception?
  8. I thought it was a worthwhile post, JASKN. Crow, I created some confusion, then I got Jerky, and now I'm sorry. The example I gave in my second post really didn't address the point I'm trying to make in this thread, which is about legal tender and non-negotiated debts. I disagree that regulations have nothing to do with legal tender laws; they were crafted in the wake of such laws to conform to them. I also don't share your evaluation that such regulations are miniscule (which I read to mean, trivial or negligible); such an apathetic response to force makes me think you suffer from what I'll call "Stockholm Patriotism." If your point is that the force, put in context, isn't really that bad compared to past abuses, then fine. The real bummer happened when the government owed specie and defaulted, cent by cent, through the introduction of crap pretend money. What we experience today are the lingering after effects, which amount to a market distortion as whatever values we trade require another meaningless conversion step. PS: I had to write this post twice because my original double-posted. When I tried to delete one of the doubles, both died. I'm going to bed.
  9. It works both ways. A creditor could simply forgive the debt. You can offer a creditor the opportunity to rub your feet for ten minutes in exchange for his forgiveness. Or, he can refuse that wonderful opportunity and in stead settle for monetary compensation. On the other hand (and this is the point Crow keeps dodging), debts can be incurred irrespective of prior negotiation. Such as when a tort triggers a debt. Or when the government taxes you. Anyway, what happens today with the monetary system is hardly the worst example of force. The real bummer came when the US owed debt in precious metals and then, cent by cent, defaulted by issuing it's own crap pretend money. After this initial devaluation, the force pretty much just amounts to a market distortion; it adds another degree of conversion when exchanging values. The threat of economic bloodletting by rapid currency devaluation remains, but so far it's been kept to a slow leech-induced anemia.
  10. [bold mine] Your history of emotionally-charged carelessness suggests that you may not be constructing this strawman on purpose. So breath for a minute and think about what I'm writing. I didn't say legal tender refers to what must be accepted for sales, but rather for debts. And just in case there might be any confusion about what can and can't be offered, I also didn't say that a debtor can't offer something else as payment of that debt. Legal tender is a restriction on creditors; if a debtor wants to pay in federal reserve notes (dollars), the creditor must accept. The argument you have isn't with the statute, it's with the definition of legal tender. But for what the statute is worth, Here you go. The law establishes that federal reserve notes (dollars) are legal tender. Also, you are confused about bait-and-switch. Legal tender laws don't have anything to do with advertising financing (or sales advertisements) in dollars. They have to do with debts. Again, that's debts. Debts can be incurred irrespective of marketing or prior contracts. Let's say I crash into (and total) your 67 Chevy Camaro. I now owe you a debt. If I offer to pay you the dollar value of a Camaro to satisfy that debt, you may not refuse the money and instead demand that the debt be satisfied with a replacement 67 Chevy Camaro. If I happen to have one and offer that to you, you are free to accept it as satisfaction of the debt. But you may not refuse the money and still have the debt recognized in court.
  11. Right, Aleph. I wasn't writing about WMDs or the decision to go to war. I was writing about the whole process once the decision was made to go to war.
  12. Federal law mandates that creditors accept cash as payment. That's what that bit of writing on the money means. If you sell something big enough to require financing, federal law mandates that you accept cash for installments. Forcing cash to be the medium for the largest transactions represents an economy-wide use of force, and this is a big reason for why smaller purchases are usually made in cash. Force, Crow. Cash is forced on you and I.
  13. It looks to me like it could be both a protest and the first steps, not to a return to a gold standard, but to a system of competing currencies.
  14. Sort of. Incompetence may not be the right word. Better words would be confused, morally uncertain, etc.
  15. I supported the war in the beginning, too. My realization was that our political leaders don't know the first thing about defining, fighting and winning a war... Which leads me to the uncertain and uncomfortable position that we may be better off not trying to fight some wars that would otherwise be in our interest to fight.
  16. Where are you getting this, "men and women shouldn't be friends," stuff, Cosmo?
  17. M, I share the concern that the pie chart may make no distinction between arson-type terrorism, attacking state/governmental targets, and the intentional mass-murder of civilians. On the other hand, I don't entirely agree with what I'll call the "Epstein position" (I know that many others have expressed this idea, but he is the latest popular Objectivist to be referenced in this thread, so...). All religions venerate the afterlife; sometimes just a little more than the real world, sometimes infinitely so. This is a bad ethical premise. When consistently followed, it causes very bad things. But following any non-life based standard of value is bad. The epistemological error of the "Epstein position" is a form of the fallacy of composition - the position identifies this singular ethical premise as the essence of all "brands" of Islam. Some versions of the position go further and say that this interpretation of Islam is actually some sort of ubertheology that all other religions aspire to. This is an error, but I don't regard this as an egregious error, for reasons I am about to explain. The metaphysical nonsense involved in religion prevents it from achieving ethical consistency. Mystic metaphysics literally can't be used to construct a set of premises which can be consistently followed. The result is that each religion has a suite of competing ethical premises. Of course, premature death is the result of failing to consistently follow ethical premises based on accurate metaphysical assumptions. So to varying extent, every religion will lead to earlier death or valueless life. But again, it is a category error to even say that the essence of religious/mystical ethics is death; it would be more accurate to say that the essence of religious ethics is metaphysical contradiction. Identifying essential differences between religions becomes a process of identifying which premises are held more consistently. Islamic supremacists like the Tsarnaev brothers are death cultists. They want rewards they believe will come at the moment of death, and the way they think they will achieve those rewards is by bringing death to other people. This is not that different from people like Adam Lanza, who want to bring death to other people and know that their own death will swiftly follow. The ethical outcomes are essentially the same; both could be called death worshipers. But the metaphysical premises are different; one bases his ethics on a metaphysical contradiction, the other on no metaphysical premise at all. Contrast these kinds of death worship with someone who believes they will gain rewards at the moment of death by "bringing light into this world" or by feeding the poor or by taking a bullet to protect a child. If you accept that the essence of religious ethics is metaphysical contradiction, you can begin to identify which premises are in greater conflict with life as the standard of value. You now have a useful tool to make meaningful distinctions between Islamic supremacist death cults, Islamic totalitarians, Islamic reformists, Saalafi's, Sufi's, Wahabi's, etc. These are different religions based on different premises that hold different ethical outcomes, and the "Epstein position" fails to account for them. The only unity between these competing forms of Islam is their own followers' reluctance to expressly differentiate themselves from each other.
  18. 2046, it sounds like he's going a step further and saying anarchy not only breeds subjective applications of force, but that it also goes a step further and disproportionately affects virtuous people. That last bit does sound like a non sequitur to me.
  19. The OIC issued The Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam. I suggest reading through it before reading my commentary below. Article 25 expressly states that any article of this declaration must be interpreted by referencing Sharia law. This is consistently reinforced throughout the document. I am not an expert on sharia, and I admit that experts could modernize any of these provisions given enough time and effort. However, I am troubled by what I believe to be the prevailing consensus. Specifically, here are just some of my concerns: 1) Express guarantees to religious freedom will be mitigated by the application of sharia law. For instance, Article 10 states, "Islam is the religion of unspoiled nature. It is prohibited to exercise any form of compulsion on man or to exploit his poverty or ignorance in order to convert him to another religion or to atheism." Notice that physical compulsion to convert to Islam is not prohibited. I am concerned that apostasy will be met with capital punishment, while the kidnapping and conversion-by-marriage of non-Islamic girls will be ignored. To my knowledge, there are no Christian-majority countries where the state executes apostates. 2) Article 22 will be interpreted to forbid blasphemy and thereby destroy freedom of speech. This is particularly troubling to me because the European world (and many in the US) seem open to laws against so-called hate speech. 3) Article 23B will be interpreted so as to bar non-Muslims from government office. 4) The declaration seems to mandate an expansive welfare state. 5) One good provision is Article 12, which recognizes a right to immigration. Of course, political asylum is not allowed if it is used in an attempt to escape punishment for a violation of sharia law. I fear that will mean that Islamic countries without, say, apostasy laws will refuse asylum seekers who are trying to evade capital punishment.
  20. Was that a joke, Erik? To waste resources keeping out peaceful people is foolish. One opportunity cost is that we have less resources for identifying terrorists.
  21. I thought there was a quote from the Koran that explained later passages in conflict with earlier ones negate the earlier ones, but it seems I was mistaken. There is a relevant concept called Naskh, or abrogation, which, as far as I can tell, is an interpretive doctrine that Koran-nerds can argue over. In other words, people have to apply logic to explain away the contradictory directives (do this or don't do that, not this is or this isn't). The funny thing is, the Koran is just one guy's revelations. The differing circumstances surrounding each pronouncement start to paint a consistent picture of a Machiavellian quest for political power. Do the unbelievers outnumber you in the city? Don't kill them. Can you ambush them on the road? Kill ten of them for every one of you. Have the upper hand? Ok, kill them two to one instead of ten to one. Contrast that to the revelations of a handful of Judeo-Christian prophets, retold through many different messengers. Unity through the application of context becomes much harder.
  22. Aleph, I suggest you let the Muslims hash that argument out. Islam cannot be divorced from how it is practiced. So if someone within Islam is trying to reform how it is practiced, to make it benign and non-political, you'd do well to get out of his way if you can't help him.
  23. I think the key here is whether or not the Muslim in question supports state sharia law, particularly laws that ban criticism of the religion. If they don't support freedom of speech, they will condemn cartoonists rather than violent rioters. That kind of behavior is incredibly widespread, and the kind of change it promotes is never positive. The American Islamic Forum for Democracy is an organization that accepts freedom of speech and could promote truly positive change. I'll elaborate on the other points when I have some more time.
  24. M, I I would offer a more detailed response, but I am writing on a tablet at the moment. I will respond later to elaborate on the following points: 1) There are Muslims that effectively divorce their religion from their politics. They can be valuable allies. 2) Unlike the Bible, the Koran offers it's own guide to resolving apparent contradictions. That guide favors the violent passages over the peaceful ones. 3) The Organization of Islamic Cooperation is a 57-member diplomatic organization, second in size only to the UN. The way it defines human rights presents the troubling implication that it actively promotes Islamic theocracy.
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