Randroid

Emotions are, as we know, subconscious evaluations; an automatic response that reflects rational judgement. So, when you encounter a dyed-in-the-wool collectivist, what do you feel? The reason I'm asking is this: I'd expect the "default" reaction to be anger, irritation, aggression, annoyance, chagrin, infuriation, vexation or anything else your Thesaurus can come up with. I don't. Well, I do feel that way when I talk to someone who is well-meaning but horribly misguided, like people who want to ban smoking in restaurants. But when I talk to a hardcore collectivist, I feel fear. Really. Fast heartbeat, queasy stomach, weak knees, shaky hands... the whole nine yards. It's not that their physical presence threatens me - I have the same reaction when I watch a Marxist video on YouTube. I can certainly understand this emotion. After all, this is a person who wishes slavery and death on all men, including myself. But I still wonder why my reaction is different. Is it because they are impervious to reason? Do I just not have enough experience with adrenaline? What are your opinions and how do you feel?

Like I said before: I want to grow a uterus, just so I can have his babies! And I hate babies. He's that awesome.

"Basic Economics: A Common Sense Guide to the Economy" by Thomas Sowell

First, those motherfrakkers would have some 'splaining to do: Why did they dump me on this piece-of-gosa rock?

No, education is not a right. That would mean that others have an unchosen duty to educate you and that you have the right to force others to educate you. Besides, how much education do you have a 'right' to? Just literacy and basic arithmetics? Two Ph.D.'s? As much as you want, with others being forced to pay the bill? Second, if you can't afford to send your children to school, you shouldn't have children. If you have them anyway, you can have them adopted by a childless but wealthy couple who'd send them to school. If you are too attached to your children or your financial mess was unforeseen, you could ask for donations on behalf of your children. There may even be private schools who take students pro bono.

Bookmarked.

Yes, it will. To answer your first two questions: Weston wasn't just "let go", he was stripped of basically everything, money, identity and probably even citizenship. (No idea why they didn't just kill him or lock him up.) The reason for this is that he was deemed untrustworthy, but he knows of course that he never defected. Someone had framed him, obviously. He needs to find out who so he can clear his own name and get his life back. Sorry, I can't answer the third question, I haven't started the second season yet.

We all agree that rights cannot conflict. One man's right can only impose the duty to not interfere upon other men - but no other duties. This got me thinking about the Sixth Amendment (or whatever your country's equivalent is), in which there is a positive right to an attorney. Is the practice of providing an attorney for defendants who cannot afford one a misinterpretation of the Sixth Amendment? Does it actually mean that you have a right to have an attorney represent you during police questioning and in trial if you can afford one? I can see why it is in the public's all other individuals' best interest to provide an attorney, because if we don't give the accused a chance to defend himself, his right to due process is violated. We have to provide counsel for the defendant, otherwise we'd just have to let him walk. Which opens another can of worms: At which point does the right to appointed counsel "kick in"? From what I read on the internet, most middle-class people can easily be financially ruined by their legal fees in a criminal trial, yet someone who owns an SUV and a house in the suburbs probably doesn't qualify as "unable to afford a lawyer" - not that anyone in his right mind would want an appointed lawyer, according to what I've seen on TV. I'd appreciate any feedback.

Vladimir Lenin, Leon Trotzky, Rosa Luxemburg, Karl Liebknecht...

Credit itself is not the problem. There's nothing wrong with borrowing money. However, when a bank has one dollar in the vault and lends that one dollar to forty people, it inflates the money supply. It creates money that shouldn't exist and in fact doesn't exist, as the current economical crisis shows. Most importantly though, the inflation of the money supply with money that shouldn't exist devalues the money that was actually earned instead of what basically amounts to bills being xerox'd in the bank's basement.

Does a viable fetus have a right to be delivered through a more traumatic or expensive procedure against the mother's wishes? I have no clue whether a late-term abortion is cheaper or less surgically traumatic, just asking.

The government is responsible by permitting this. Credit is money, and creating money in the form of credit (turning one dollar into forty) takes away value from the preexisting money. In other words, it's theft, which should be illegal across the board, but the government somehow makes an exception here. Paul McKeever, who is also a member here, has an excellent series of videos on YouTube explaining this: Understanding Money and Banking

That, or just not living at all. Generally speaking, not living qua man.

Education should not be public. You are forced to pay for something that you may not even want (you might prefer to send your kids to a private school, homeschool or you may not even have kids), you have little or no choice about which school your children have to go to and little to no influence on the curriculum. Ultimately, it all comes down to public education using force to make people do things they normally would not choose to do.

Check this out, it's a text-based parody: Clicky!

Like it would be impossible to have roads without the government building them? It wasn't much of a hindrance. The surgery was more of a precaution. But that's not the point. I didn't intend that piece of TMI to be in favor or opposition of any point in the circumcision debate. I just wanted to post some testimony from a guy who has experienced sexual pleasure with and without foreskin; to dispel the (in my experience) myth that circumcision is somehow detrimental to a man's sexual pleasure. That does not mean that I'm in favor of indiscriminate circumcision at birth.

I agree, except on the part where 18 is the "magic" number. Awareness and responsibility are important, not the date of birth. By the way: My foreskin was the way nature intended until around my 18th or 19th birthday, when I had most of it removed due to a light case of phimosis. No feelings of loss or regret.

Couldn't. Agree. More. Well said!

Thanks for sharing!

You're welcome. Let us know how it went.

The definition of self-defense is far from arbitrary. You have the right to use force to stop someone who initiated the use of force against you (or is about to) from causing you harm, with minimal regard (launching nukes when artillery is available and sufficient would be immoral) for innocent bystanders. Read that carefully. You can use force to stop the aggressor. Butchering the entire children's ward in a hospital to harvest organs is using force, but not to stop an aggressor. You may not use force against random strangers to rectify damage caused by an aggressor, only to prevent it. If your adversary persists that the definition of self-defense is arbitrary, ask him how he would define it. I predict he will either come up with the same definition or one that is not a definition of self-defense but of a duty to die; a license to kill for any thug who uses a human shield.

Why settle for one?

Funniest thing I read all day! Thanks for that.

I agree with what you are saying, maybe the misunderstanding was caused by a different interpretation of "to present". One possible meaning is to present someone with a dilemma as one presents a gun, in which the word is interchangable with "produce". E.g. one produces a predicament by producing a gun from one's pocket while "asking" for money. Another possible meaning, and the one I now assume you had in mind, is "present" as in "explain", e.g. saying "Look, here are your options." The latter is obviously not force. Could also be that my English skills failed me or that I just didn't read the thread thoroughly enough.

The difference is that the paralyzed man has not been put on that island by the able-bodied guy, at least not against his will. If he ended up on that desert island by chance or choice, the paralyzed man's dire situation was not created by someone else violating his rights, i.e. no force has been initiated. How disabled or how unfortunate a man is has no impact on the simple fact that he has no claim to your life or your property. If you produce food and decide to share it with him, fine. If you want to ask something in return for the food you give him, that's your right, too. If you decide against it, or he declines, you're not causing him any harm. What happens then is merely exactly the same as what would happen if you weren't there.