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Publius

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Everything posted by Publius

  1. Those are good questions I've never seen directly addressed here either. I have no idea how you could own a resource that migrates like water within, say, the several drainage basins of the United States. But at the same time, in a true Objectivist world, everything is owned by someone, so it would have to be worked out somehow.
  2. I think you yourself are doing an outstanding job of context dropping here. Slavery didn't end until it was convenient to do so, but you ignore that and contend that it was just some magnanimous decision that America made on principal alone. No one would ever understand the real history coming from such an oversimplification of it. The real truth involves things that are ugly, beautiful, horrific, humane, intelligent, ignorant, etc. Whitewashing history does no one any good but the propagandists. We don't need to love our country like a 2-year old loves his mommy; we need to recognize and understand our country for what it is, and has been, warts and all, and embrace it all the same. Here is a link to the previous discussion and my points regarding your assertions.
  3. I haven't been back in awhile but I wanted to at least post one last thought on this thread. My arbitrary selection of pre-1492 America is just an attempt at trying to narrow down some concrete examples to work with, much as your arbitrary selection of the Northwest. There seems to be a big difference of opinion on what constitutes property in societies that don't recognize individual property rights. I don't see why you feel I'm being wrong-headed, because I don't know of any real world historical circumstances such as this (no civilization, no government, total anarchy) since perhaps the stone age. I give Kendall credit for at least taking this question head on and coming up with some objective criteria to make a determination of the limits of property rights for such societies. You seem to keep scooting around the issue, but regardless you don't seem to want to say definitively whether or not individuals in such societies, based on the criteria I laid out earlier, would have any property rights beyond what they physically were living on. I don't know why you brought genetics into this but clearly it is not a factor. Cultural conditioning is a powerful force, and I'm saying you could not expect them to understand and accept another way of seeing property overnight, when it would probably take at least a generation to truly overturn their cultural norms, even when a more enlightened view is handed to them. Surely you can see your inflexible approach to the matter would visit suffering on a great many people, simply because they were unenlightened enough to override their cultural conditioning. So its cool if great numbers of them die as long as the ethnic group still exists? I'm just saying I wouldn't be so rigid in my implementation of property rights when confronted with a culture where that idea had not yet evolved. My determination of a land rights would have to include enough of the claimed land to keep such a society viable, with access to water and natural resources relative to its population. However, I am not an expert on early Native American societies. It is possible, as Kendall points out, such claims to land would be far more limited than the territories they laid claim to.
  4. I don't know why you are bringing this up again as I thought you and I had settled this issue in another thread a while back. But okay, at the risk of side-tracking this thread even more, I'll bite again. America gets credit for vanquishing slavery, but it doesn't get a free pass on perpetuating it for almost 100 years after gaining independence. And it was only as a bi-product of the Civil War that slavery ended, it was never a magnanimous decision made on principal alone until it was politically convenient. And your complete omission of Christian Abolitionism is astounding. If you have something new to add please go back to that old thread and post there, rather than continue here.
  5. Right, that is what I meant by "resemble important aspects." We are talking about societies without the concept of property rights, but trying to figure out if they may still procure property rights based on their use/occupation of the land. You have sketched out some broad fundamental guidelines as to how to evaluate a society's claim to land, particularly in post 40 of this thread. Let's stick with the Native American example. My understanding is that many Native Americans farmed, built structures, occupied the land permanently. Are any of these three criteria alone worthy of respecting that tribe's land ownership (if collectivism is a sticking point, perhaps consider it a 10,000 person co-op)? Does meeting all three of these criteria add enough weight to the claim to constitute ownership? The same question to you: would any pre-Columbus Native American tribes enjoy any land ownership rights, given their useage and occupancy of the land as expressed above? This assumes that we can agree that such peoples did more than "picking berries", "pitching tents", or "crapping in the woods." Given the thoughts you have expressed on this thread, particularly with Gary, my guess is that you would not agree that some de facto property rights have been established. Again, I have to assert that most Native American tribes should have property rights on at least some of what they considered their territory, because I would be more liberal as to what constitutes land ownership for peoples who had not yet advanced intellectually enough to make more proper claims. Consider this partially benevolence, or whatever, but the alternative is clearly condemning these peoples to die, or significant numbers of them, as it is unrealistic to expect them to reverse centuries of tradition overnight to adapt. Look how long it took the Cherokee to see the light, and hell they still got screwed.
  6. Your position seems to be that regardless of how the land is used, how much of it is physically occupied, no person can make any claim to land without the prerequisite concept of individual property rights, and certainly all land claims based on collectivism are invalid. Hence, someone such as yourself who comes along, a person who properly recognizes such a concept, and makes a claim on the same land, is morally justified in taking it? I am not clear as to whether you would take into account how the land is used, or how much of it is occupied. If the less-evolved thinkers use the land in ways that resemble in some important aspects how modern property rights respecting peoples would, you would pay it no heed? To gobble up and fence off a tribe's territory because they didn't "think" of it the right away strikes me as wrong, especially if they demonstrated occupancy and improvement of the land. As I stated earlier, negotiating with said primitives would be the most moral course to me in such a case, exchanging something of value for the land, provided they were in fact using or occupying the land on a permanent/regular basis. Can there be no de facto recognition of property rights based on certain circumstances?
  7. Not to be too disrespectful but this Onion headline almost made me spit up my coffee. Charlton Heston's Gun Taken From His Cold, Dead Hands
  8. Since we're mostly on the subject of Native American peoples, I'm curious as to why you feel a significant percentage of them "roamed." Before Columbus the Americas were chock-full of people who lived in permanent locations, creating elaborate dwellings, working the land, and burying their dead in those locations with the implied thought that they considered the land more or less their permanent home. The rampant European diseases wiped out entire villages and tribes, probably reducing the population of the Americas by about 90 percent. This brought about complete civil disorder and chaos for most indigenous tribes, and gave Europeans the impression that all this open land was just there for the taking. With such divergent ideas about what constituted ownership, the only equitable solution I can see is entering negotiations with the "primitives" and offering something of value in exchange for a piece of their land. There are examples of this being done. This does not mean negotiating with a rogue tribe of the Sioux nation, then declaring the land parcel has been bought and subsequently all other Sioux tribes need to vacate the land. The criteria for ownership would be roughly: 1) worked the land, such as planted crops, including physically making use of all portions of the territory. They couldn't just claim land they didn't physically occupy with some regularity 2) other indigenous peoples recognized their claim to the territory, documenting its authenticity It would be up to the party with the more established concept of property rights to make these determinations for the most part. If the indigenous peoples made unwarranted claims on land, then others would have the right to take it by force.
  9. One thing to mention is that Native American peoples did recognize the territory of other tribes, so somehow this idea of land ownership was understood amongst each other without a written deed as such. "Primitive" peoples such as the Mayans had many fascinating innovations and achievements without ever demarcating plots of land to individual owners. Seems this should count for something. If you refuse to accept their less evolved cultural interpretation of property, then they can be stripped of their access to the land, more importantly, their means of survival?
  10. I can't figure out why Objectivism would have a problem with prostitution per se, given the prostitute in question is doing it of their own volition and for rational reasons, i.e. money. I also think the relative stigma on prostitution, not to mention danger, makes few women choose this path unless under duress. Therefore it can be a lucrative business for the women who do choose it (on the higher end, that is), given the high demand for no-strings-attached sex so many guys are looking for. Guys who want a hooker aren't interested in a "relationship." I don't see how this goes away under capitalism. In fact I see it becoming more prevalent.
  11. That was quite the arcane link you dug up there I did flip through it a little but I couldn't find the specific quote. Seems like you know something about this Walls. Was she an advocate for violent civil disobedience? I'm guessing not, but I'd like to see what you're basing this assumption on. Most civil rights advocates repudiated violence. I have to say that to make that quote out to be condoning the initiation of force to resolve grievances is a pretty fantastic distortion. It's just the realistic recognition of cause and effect, not an implicit "threat." If I told you that ignoring your termite problem would have devastating consequences for your house, that is not a threat.
  12. I think you could be making too much of it. I don't know who said this or what the context was, but note the phrasing "...don’t have the opportunity...". This is hardly the same as your unsuccessful job application at Microsoft, where you surely had the opportunity to get that job, but were not selected. Citing the likelihood that civil disobedience will ensue if people are held down by, say, a brutal dictatorship, is not the same as advocating violence. It is simply a warning that to eliminate the opportunities people have to better themselves, bad things will happen.
  13. No offense but this paper is not "research". None of the information is cited back to an original source. The closest he comes is by just citing the names of other people.
  14. I think this is the point, your initial impression. I saw the image moving CCW first, but after further observation could see it either way. Interestingly after seeing the image reversed, my initial impression was that the reversed image was moving CW, but then my brain shifted to seeing it CCW the more I watched, so for whatever reason I think I'm wired to seeing it CCW.
  15. So many of these homeschoolers are fundamentalist Christians who want to indoctrinate their kids in BS, creating any army of ignorant religious zealots. So there is definitely an upside to this. Currently there is a Christian school suing the University of California because it won't allow some class credits to count towards admission. The denied credits are are all from classes based on distorted Christian textbooks. I haven't heard an update on that one but last I heard it was going to trial last November.
  16. Is there any evidence that the implementation of the Fair Tax would create a massive black market for good and services, to circumvent the tax? Perhaps the low sales tax effective in most places that have one, is too low to create much of an incentive to break the law.
  17. Its not racism, I already explained why. Where you're getting this information is what I'm interested in. It sounds like you are going by what other people think of it, not by reading primary materials on it that don't automatically pre-judge it. You might benefit greatly by going to some forums, or even someone in person, and asking some open-ended questions to find out more. Did that published ad even mention the Duke lacrosse players? You might want to look that one up again. Talk radio is notorious for bad and misleading information, its purpose is to get people juiced up ("I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore!"). You can hear a lot of good stuff too, and its generally entertaining. But its not a good reliable medium for getting any real information. Check out this site I found, a quick passage: Walter Williams is an economist, not a historian, so he is not an authority. The Enlightenment ideals certainly made some people feel guilty about slavery, but didn't do much to actually end it. I will concede that reading this made me take more seriously the Enlightenment's influence on popular thought about slavery. But, as the source I cited says, it was more pragmatic and circumstantial reasons why it ended it the north, and then eventually the south. Say there is an overweight person who finds out that to lose weight he should start eating more fruits and vegetables and cut out the saturated fat, but does nothing for years until he marries a woman who cooks all his healthy meals for him. Then when he loses weight he attributes his success to his discovery of important nutritional guidelines years ago, when in reality he only succeeded in losing weight because of his wife's cooking. He may have felt increasingly guilty about ignoring his health, but he let circumstances solve his problem rather than acting on what he knew to be the proper dietary principals. This is similar to the argument that you are making.
  18. Where are you getting this definition? How does this mesh with the explanations I already gave you on why this isn't racism? So you have never read anything on multiculturalism? Rather, you are just gleaning information from 3rd parties? BTW, what Duke professor are you referring to in particular? Is there a specific quote about something he/she/they said about the Duke lacrosse players? What "we" are you referring to? And how are multiculturalists running America? That sounds like talk radio kind of stuff. Christianity has led to all sorts of contradictory things, including slavery and Abolitionism. Why don't you want to acknowledge Christianity's role in ending slavery? God is mentioned in the opening and closing paragraphs of the DOI. Ending slavery is nowhere to be found in the DOI. Why do you use "they" when referring to ideas of the founding fathers? They were not of one mind on anything. The Constitution was a document of compromise. I just showed you an early document from France, and France abolished slavery in 1794, so this contradicts your earlier pronouncement. Also if you read the Federalist Papers you'll see clearly the workings of Founding Fathers' minds when it came to government. As an interesting side note, they explicitly endorsed taxation as fair and just, albeit indirect taxation. Where did you read this? If this was the motivating factor it has been conspicuously left out of every history book I've ever read.
  19. The example you just gave is racism, as I defined earlier, by assigning traits to people by race. Multiculturalism doesn't do that. Are you asking this question rhetorically? As far as what "truth" they believe in and how it applies, you'll have to ask a specific multiculturalist I guess. I think you need to try to apply your abstract idea of what you think racism is to multiculturalism as a concept. I don't believe they would see universal truth as applying to multiculturalism, although that is a broad statement, but I don't feel most aspirants even link the two concepts. What universal truths about "abstract human values and ethics" do you know that would invalidate multiculturalism, and how do you know them? I dismiss it as being impractical in a ethnically diverse country, not because it is racist. Have you ever talked at any length to a multiculturalist about this concept?
  20. My disagreement is with the idea that multiculturalism is racist, by any definition in any dictionary. Is the idea that one can have pride (irrational as it may be) in their culture mutually exclusive from the idea that such pride constitutes tacit acknowledgement that said culture is superior? I don't think so, because the culture only sees value in the social mores as they apply to that culture. So in their understanding there is no universal truth as to what is good for everybody. Their thinking on this doesn't extend beyond that, as far as I know. So I don't think you have to worry about it being racist. Although perhaps you have a particular example of racist multiculturalism that you heard or witnessed that sheds light on your stance. Talking in generalities like this without tying to specific examples can lead to sloppy thinking. I can allow that you feel multiculturalism is irrational, but your assumption that having pride in one's culture makes one racist as much as Duke, just not overtly so, I can't agree with. During the class I took there was never any implication that one race had any superiority over another. You make a leap from "having pride in one's ethnicity" (probably better concept to use than race), to being racist. Feeling good about oneself because one is part of a group, something bigger than oneself, is the message. The individual mores of the culture are just the markers of that culture, commonalities that bind people. The pride is in the collection of these mores, not really in any individual one, and it only applies to the those who identify with that culture. You've already explained why this is incorrect according to Objectivist thought, but personally I don't find anything racist about it. Your logical progression tying it to racism is pretty strained, IMO.
  21. Just to reiterate these are not my views, I'm just trying to lay out what multiculturalism is. Now when you say the above, this seems to be wholly in another category from racial discrimination, or believing in racial superiority, or assigning traits to individuals based on race. You're using a broad brush to define what you view as being racist. I wouldn't lump the average multicultural professor in the same category as David Duke.
  22. I just wouldn't go so far as to use the word racist. Maybe race biased would be a better terminology. You haven't responded yet as to what your experience has been with multiculturalism. A class? A book?. I think you got a hold of some bad information possibly. There is nothing inherent in multiculturalism that says "down with whitey." I think you're having a visceral overreaction to multiculturalism, painting it as being so sinister. You can disagree with it, even vehemently, without attributing the future downfall of civilization to it. Curious as to where are you getting this. It is much more historically supportable that slavery ended primarily due to the convenient timing of the Civil War, and the principals that were drawn on in reference to ending slavery were largely that of Christianity. You can give the Enlightenment some credit, but it was not the driving factor. Most people, even Lincoln, thought whites were superior and blacks should not be treated as equals. Intellectuals going back to the Founding Fathers had contradictory ideas on slavery and blacks. I'm not sure you can say America was the first to address the rights of man in its founding documents. Just doing a quick look-see on the internet I found some interesting stuff. Did you know the issue of slavery has been touched upon often in the course of history? The institution of slavery was addressed by French intellectuals during the Enlightenment. Later, during the French Revolution, the National Assembly issued the Declaration of the Rights of Man, which declared the equality of all men. I've never heard this interpretation before. Do you get this directly from Walter Williams or did you see this some other place? Every historical reference I've ever seen said the 3/5 compromise was made in order to satisfy the southern slave holding states on the issue of determining population for representation in the Federal Government. The northern non-slave holding state didn't want slaves to count as a whole person, or the population in the south would be too much. The southern states wanted the slaves to be counted. The compromise was that 5 slaves would count as 3 people.
  23. I gather you believe multiculturalism is a racist concept, the "intellectual" version, anyway, although I'm not sure why. You seem to assume that members of ethnic groups just have some kind of preference on their traditions and customs, and it is not central to their identity, and I think you would be mistaken (although I'm sure there are exceptions). I think your isolation of any particular element of culture, like food, is not a good method of understanding cultural identity, as I don't think most people have a strong identity-attachment to just food, per se. I think it is more a package deal. As far as "pride", I think it is fair to say someone could feel that the particulars of their culture, such as wedding traditions or burying of the dead, are preferable and superior for them, but would not be for other ethnic groups. That is the distinction. Say Muslims like to bury their dead within 24 hours, and a family washing and shrouding of the body, no embalming. Do Muslims feel that this is the care for the dead for Muslims? Yes. Do they feel it is the best way for French Catholics, Jews, or Guatemalans? No. Not sure why this is racist.
  24. I'm not defending multiculturalism, but my understanding is it has to do with group identity. Nevertheless, it is a concept that is repudiated by Objectivism, obviously.
  25. I was getting the impression that you and others would undermine any proffered hypothetical by playing a semantic game, offering any imaginable reason why the hypothetical couldn't occur, and then forcing the one offering the hypothetical to essentially prove that your strained objections were not plausible. And it is impossible to prove a negative, so essentially the argument goes in circles and the evasion is successful. We could argue ad infinitum as to the plausibility of this hypothetical, but in the end an answer still must be furnished. Hypotheticals are used by the Bush Administration to justify the use of waterboarding in interrogation, such as in the hypothetical case of the Ticking Time Bomb scenario: a captured terrorist knows the precise location of a bomb in a populated area and refuses to reveal the location. I could undermine this hypothetical as being impossible all day (e.g. you couldn't capture a terrorist before he could kill himself, he would never reveal the bomb source, terrorists use mobile explosives so there wouldn't be a price location to reveal, etc., etc.), but I would still have to answer as to whether I thought waterboarding was a legal means of interrogation.
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