IAmMetaphysical

You're still missing a reason BD. WHY? WHY? WHY? Why does someone have the right to be warned about sights they might regard as loathesome?????? WHY?

Good Luck, and welcome!

I agree, I bought it, read most of it and came the conculsion that the authors didn't know what they were talking about.

That makes it much easier then as it is never rational to steal. (It follows from that that irrationality is never in one's self interest)

Because its mean. But seriously, there are whole host of threads about THAT. Just do a search on "Prudent Predator." I am not going to get into it, yet again.

If they had a system that protected individual rights, then some people being poor would be the poor's own fault. It isn't in anyone's self interest to steal food from others.

I think it's safe to say that you're obsessed.

So in your ideal world, everyone one would be an asian girl? Does it matter where in asia? Japanese girls better than Indian girls?

I don't know if this is a unversal rule, but I know that I get no added satisfaction from beating others. The satisfaction I get isn't even "doing my best." It comes from doing well, and doing good, achieving. The sport I play the most is golf and when I play with my friends in a competitive way, the result of the competition is secondary. If I play well and blow out the field, I am satisfied with my play. If I play well and am beaten by a better competitor, I am satisfied with my play and feel a sense of admiration of the better player and an admiration of the level at which we both played, usually expressed in the phrase: "That was a good game!" If I play horrible and beat an even worse player, I am dissatisfied with my play and the fact that I beat him is no consolation, in fact it would be better if I could admire his good play and salvage an otherwise dissatisfying game. EDIT: I think that a rational man is driven by the desire to achieve, not the desire to beat others. Being the best out of a bunch of mediocre losers is no achievement. The only thing about beating others I can see as being a rational form of enjoyment is if you have a deep respect for the ability of the others you beat, and thier defeat reveals your achievment only in as much and because they are seen by you as being a standard of greatness.

I went to see Hot Fuzz friday night and thoroughly enjoyed it. Being a big fan of Shaun of the Dead I expected to enjoy the comedy aspect and the producer's sense of humor. I was surprised however at some of the non-comedic elements of the picture. First a short synopsis: Nicholas Angel (Simon Pegg) is the finest cop London has to offer, with an arrest record 400% higher than any other officer on the force. He’s so good, he makes everyone else look bad. As a result, Angel’s superiors send him to a place where his talents won’t be quite so embarrassing -- the sleepy and seemingly crime-free village of Sandford. Once there, he is partnered with the well-meaning but overeager police officer Danny Butterman (Nick Frost). The son of amiable Police Chief Frank Butterman (Jim Broadbent), Danny is a huge action movie fan and believes his new big-city partner might just be a real-life "bad boy," and his chance to experience the life of gunfights and car chases he so longs for. Angel is quick to dismiss this as childish fantasy and Danny’s puppy-like enthusiasm only adds to Angel’s growing frustration. However, as a series of grisly accidents rocks the village, Angel is convinced that Sandford is not what it seems and as the intrigue deepens, Danny’s dreams of explosive, high-octane, car-chasing, gunfighting, all-out action seem more and more like a reality. It's time for these small-town cops to break out some big-city justice. First of all Nicholas Angel is a real hero, and unlike some movies that might make fun of the overachieving big city cop, this hero has NO shortcomings and ALL of the comedy comes from his frustration with a world that doesn't have the nerve to be principled. The first scene with his "superiors" sets the tone for the movie, showing Angel utterly baffled at his transfer to an out of the way country village, and when the inspector lets him in on the real reason for his transfer(that they don't want him around making the rest of them look bad) his puzzlement turns to anger and the last ditch effort to rally the support of his peers, which to his disspointment are equally as eager for his transfer as his "superiors" are. This dynamic, of Angel's naivete and puzzlement at the people around him who are content to live in mediocrity, is the underlying motif that sets the stage for the humor, the humor which lets us laugh at the people around Angel, while being desperately on his side, rooting for him all the way. Spoilers:

Awww, sad panda.

See my ammendment above.

What does that even mean Binni?

If you equate fetuses with men. Note: Just read the other thread and learned a little bit more about "partial-birth abortions" and that they are performed usually before the fetus is viable so I would like to ammend my above statement to Sophia to read: "Notice how I qualified very very very late term abortions of viable fetuses as being okay if they are necesitated by the health of the mother.

We're in agreement here. Notice how I qualified partial birth abortions as being okay if they are necesitated by the health of the mother. I think that once you get to be about 8 months pregnant, if you want to get rid of the baby, you should do so once you've given birth to it, or have your doctor induce labor.

Hehe, nicely said.

This is exactly why I think the two issues are related and why whenever I get into arguments about the paren'ts responsibility after birth I always try to link it to the abortion issue, which the other side usually misses since they defend abortion on the wrong principle thinking that being inside a uterus makes the entire difference. If a mother has the obligation to care for a child if she chooses to carry it to term because she made it the way it is, i.e. fully dependant on someone else, then the same logic applies to a fetus, on that issue we are in total agreement. That's where the "if" comes into play. The issue here is that NO person has the right to have its life provided for it by another person, simply by virtue of existing. Giving birth to a helpless being is not the same as crippling an already existing human being. Lack of self-sustainability is a metaphysically given fact about the nature of infants, just as it is the metaphysically given nature of a fetus. Being responsible for the damages incurred to others presupposes a "normal" state to which you are trying to restore them. In the case of a fetus or an infant, the "normal" state would be non-existence, as that is the state from which you brought them in the current condition as no other condition was possible. For an infant, there are two options in regards to the nature of their existence: as a being incapable of surviving on its own, and stillborn. The parent's are no more responsible for the first as they would be for the second(even less so as some parental action can cause a baby to be stillborn, while no parental action can affect the nature of human biology.) In the same respect, there are two options for the nature of the existence of a fetus: as a parasite, and as a miscarriage(here the parent's are absolutely not responsible for either.) You can not hold a person morally or legally responsible for something which is not in their control, you can not hold a person responsible for the metaphysically given, only the man-made. Yes, people are responsible for the existence of a fetus as it is usually the result of a choice to have sex, but they ARE NOT responsible for the circumstances the fetus finds itself in, nor are they to become slaves to it, simply because it can not survive without a uterus. Even if a fetus were a fully functioning fully rational and aware human being but could not survive without the nourishment of a placenta, it would still not have a right to that placenta as the placenta is the mother's body and no one owns another's body, even their mother's. The same applies to an infant.

There's an important separation here that must be made between the two characterisitics of being "viable," i.e. able to survive unnatached to a placenta, and being "separate," i.e. being unattached to a placenta. Nobody has a right to be attached to a placenta, not even a fully functioning rational as hell 18 year old. At anytime during a pregnancy a mother has the absolute right to detach the fetus growing inside her from her placenta and remove it from her uterus. She has the right to do this if it means the fetuses death because it is not viable, she has the right to do this if it means birthing the child prematurely, she has this right if it means collapsing the otherwise viable fetus's head in order to get it out of her uterus, if that is the best and safest means of extracting it; the fetus does not have the right to a c-section. The distinction between being separate and being viable is important because it means that a woman DOES NOT have the right to completely birth a fetus and then kill it once its completely outside of her uterus just because it's still attached via umbilical cord. The only action she has a right to is the removal of the fetus from her uterus and the removal of attachment of the umbilical cord because once that is done, her body is no longer being leeched off of by the baby; she has a right to HER body, not a righ to kill anything attached to it.

Aren't they supposed to still be at war?? Since when do countries at war feed each other?? Oh wait, thats how its been since 1945. Sigh as well.

You're not getting it, and I don't think its honest. See you later.

Brutus was only a month off.

Amen Sister!

We do not "hold" the thought of black whiteness in our minds, that is impossible, we can talk about blackness and whiteness, but once we join the two the thought and the phrase become meaningless.

It is not a contradiction to say: there is a tree in reality, and I'm imagining reality without one. This is because existence has primacy, your imagination does not change reality or make it the same and different at the same time and in THE SAME RESPECT. One can say "black whiteness" but that phrase has no cognitive or conceptual meaning whatsoever. Proper concepts refer to actually existing existents, "black whitness" refers to nothing in reality, even imaginary things, thus it is not a concept, it is a zero and only has existence as three meaningless syllables strung one after the other.

They probably don't want to discourage other rape victims from pressing charges if they fear that if they can't prove it, they will be jailed.