Oakes

Well, Aunger's book The Electric Meme is supposed to reveal the physical basis for memes - some have said that Aunger is to Dawkins what Mendel was to Darwin. I haven't read it yet, though... it's been collecting dust on my desk for over a year. I'm not sure, but I believe this is behaviorism. Dan Dennett, also connected to the meme movement, wrote the book Freedom Evolves which might be considered behaviorism. BTW the internet is filled with info about the meme theory so you don't need to buy any of these books. Maybe some more knowledgable board members can shed some light on this.

Judeo-Christian Philosophy and the Founding of America

I think you're talking about the Meme Theory, first formulated by Richard Dawkins in The Selfish Gene. Two other major books, which I have, are The Meme Machine by Susan Blackmore, and The Electric Meme by Robert Aunger. I was planning on making a topic on this, because the Meme Theory influenced me more than anything else before Ayn Rand - nothing else is more responsible for my Marxism and nihilism during that time. BTW, I think I saw Sam Harris on Bill O'Reilly awhile ago. He seemed pretty rational. He said that it is religion as such - not Islam in particular - that is the danger. O'Reilly conceeded that the Inquisition happened under Christian rule, but still disagreed with him.

It seems like you were making a distinction in this post. Yes, Yaron Brook's audio called the Morality of War. This is what I meant by the distinction between moral and practical. Replacing a non-free government with a free one is always moral, but whether or not it is practical depends on the circumstances.

I’m intrigued by the distinction between moral and practical. Early on, I figured that while Brook clearly outlined what is moral, I still needed to figure out if nuking civilian populations and leaving them to recreate their government is at all practical. As for nuking populations, I definitely agree that we shouldn’t take Lind’s approach of doing everything we can to not anger the locals or create a backlash here in the states. He says we’ve lost every asymmetric engagement so far because we didn’t take the “moral level” into consideration, turning both the local populous and the American populous against the war effort. I think this is wrong, because (1) the local populous can think what it wants, as long as it is afraid of us, and (2) the Americans will not backlash, because a philosophical change would’ve already taken place before an Objectivist ever reached the White House. As for leaving them to recreate their government, it seems clear that Japan is the economic powerhouse that it is because we didn’t leave them to recreate their government. In his book, Tom Barnett suggests that all our national security threats originate from the fact that third-world goverments are oppressive, and so they keep their countries disconnected from the globalizing world. He suggests that occupying a country after invading it, to direct them to something more free, will make us safer. However, I also know that a cultural change always preceeds a political change, so perhaps a more covert approach of helping the freedom fighters do it themselves will be more effective. Any thoughts?

Did the baby ever sign it? What kind of contract is this? Contracts are law-protected agreements between multiple people, and protecting them is a matter of protecting negative rights. Children, on the other hand, are not having any negative rights violated when they are neglected or orphaned. Their "contract" is far different from the ones you are comparing it with. You are ignoring it because you said that a positive right is a "positive obligation on others", and then you referenced Rand saying "There can be no such thing as a right to enslave." Now, if you are under no compulsion to pay taxes, exactly who is being enslaved?

Oh please, you're playing with semantics. You know damn well I was talking about the law in a capitalist society. My bold. Your problem is that you extracted something that wasn't there. If I argued solely on dependency, all forms of welfare would be necessary. My argument is based on the specific fact that children are the only beings who have a positive claims on other beings (their parents), and that those rights can only be protected with positive action. I'm not sure what to do with this paragraph, seeing as how you layed on a lot of hard-hitting accusations with nothing to back them up. You took that quote WAY out of context. That person knew there was something about the nature of children that made them deserving of childcare, but instead of listening to his "gut instincts", he took the round-about way and rationalized it. Far from condoning the use of emotion, I was actively discouraging it.

How do you protect such a right without being willing to provide the service when the children are denied it? What do you call such a demand, if not a right? Inspector, you're STILL ignoring the fact that taxation is voluntary in a capitalistic society, so until you explain why under such circumstances a positive right is a right to your property, there's nothing else I can say.

That's because the reality is that the mental level is stronger than the physical level I'm glad we agree then.

Lind also says that the 1200-1600 enemy body count will "prove as phony as those in Vietnam." He offers no evidence for this, but unwittingly shows us just how much he relies on his theory that Iraq is just another Vietnam. But this again brings me back to my criticism of Lind's ideas in general. Even if Lind is right to say that civilian casualties work against us, this is essentially saying that we should pander to the moral code of the world and sculpt our foreign policy with their reactions in consideration. This is the pragmatist's way out; long-term victory can only be achieved by sticking to your principles through thick and thin. And it should be clear why Lind takes this way out. At the bottom of that article, he is identified as the Director for the Center for Cultural Conservatism for the Free Congress Foundation: "Will America return to the culture that made it great, our traditional, Judeo-Christian, Western culture?" (http://www.freecongress.org/about/index.asp) His moral code is the moral code of the world.

Inspector, you're still ignoring the fact that taxation is voluntary in a capitalistic society, so until you explain why under such circumstances a positive right is a right to your property, there's nothing else I can say. Also, I share in GC's confusion over your belief that parents can choose after the fact whether or not to care for their children. However: It shouldn't matter whether she had the choice to have an abortion. She accepted responsibility the minute she decided to have sex. Unless of course she was raped, in which case the aggressor accepts responsibility (not that the state would actually let him have custody of the child, but they could take his property). Well I don't know how else to convince you, other than emphasizing that children are fundamentally different in the eyes of the law, so you shouldn't be so quick to make these sweeping, context-ignoring proclaimations. Children are the only ones who can demand upon someone else (their parents) the right to something; when you demand payment for a service, on the other hand, you are essentially demanding that your customer not steal from you. The former right is protected with a positive service; the latter right is protected with a negative one (the police).

That's not what your argument was. I quote: A positive right is necessarily a claim on the labor (and therefore the life) of another. I was simply debunking that argument. Now, if you want to talk about the proper function of the government, we can do that. I've already acknowledged that the government's sole purpose is to protect individual rights. I don't suggest that voluntary taxation gives the go-ahead for welfare.

Oh I certainly don't advocate walled fortresses, but if both sides are fighting by attrition, and neither exploits the mental level of war, the story is much different.

Voluntary taxation. Read the second sentence in that quote. The main thrust of my argument wasn't that it is cruel to throw children on the streets; it was that it is useless to save them from their parents, if you will only put them in an even worse situation.

When your car is stolen, or a house-builder defaults on his contract with you, your right to property is violated. That is a negative right. When a child is neglected, their right to care is violated. That is a positive right. So if the gov't prosecutes an abused child's parents, and the child has no inheritance nor is anyone willing to care for it, you would throw it out on the streets? Don't you think the child was better off with bad parents, than with no parents? Certainly not! The government still has a single function that it must stick to, and that function is the protection of individual rights. I'm not arguing that voluntary taxation gives the go-ahead for any welfare program.

By conventional threat, I mean an organized body (a government) that indirectly harms us by supporting terrorists. Mass bombing will take care of this quite well, but the terrorists themselves could take advantage of the state of anarchy that erupts afterwards.

Stephen, you've made your point abundantly clear, but taking down governments that support terrorists will only remove the conventional threat; if a government of individual rights doesn't replace it, we can only assume that the "cesspool" you're leaving behind will be used to the advantage of our enemies.

I heard about it on Hannity & Colmes. Hannity and Oliver North were tip-toeing the whole way through. They kept stressing that the tape is only one side of the story, but reaffirmed that if indeed this turns out to be what they think it is, the man should be punished. The coverage of Abu Ghraib, though right to expose wrongdoing, wasn't worth the gigabytes it was stored on. This time, however, the neo-cons and liberals have gone too far: In their zeal to defend the rights of the enemy, they've shown it does not matter if the uncertainty and urgency of self-defense required it.

You could always shorten Aristotle to Ari, a common name which also happens to stand for Ayn Rand Institute

Are you suggesting we investigate every orphan's case and give them care only if we find that their parents volitionally chose to neglect them? I think this is flawed reasoning, because positive rights, unlike negative rights, can be violated simply through lack of parental action - therefore they are violated by deceased parents for the same reason they are violated by neglectful parents. Now, for the purpose of legal and moral judgement, obviously the distinction is still important to make. No, need or dependency is not the issue here. Yes, the child's need of a guardian to exercise his rights is what creates the responsibility on the parents, but the government's involvement has nothing to do with need. It intervenes when legal responsibility is neglected. The difference with all other dependents is that nobody was legally responsible for them in the first place - i.e., they could claim no positive rights on anyone. Children are the single exception.

Yes, but when the parents don't fulfill their obligation, the government must intervene and provide the care that the child was denied (otherwise there's no point in intervening). I can understand, though, why you are having issues with this. Childhood is the only situation in which one has positive rights, and for the government to protect positive rights, it might have to engage in positive action (childcare). A positive right is not a general obligation on the populous; it is an obligation on the government. Like I said to Duncan, you have no obligation to give your money to the government in a capitalist society, therefore neither you nor anybody else is specifically obligated to care for the child. I don't pretend to speak for stephen, but I've answered most of those already. I told you what would happen if there isn't enough money donated to cover the cost of childcare (click), I've said on several occaisons who violated the orphans' rights (click, click), and I've also explained several times (including the previous quote) why positive rights in a capitalist society do not mean you are obliged to give up your property.

Where did you hear this?

I play it but I'm really horrible. Look for Killrah when you go online - that's my little brother's name and I use it when I go on. When it comes to FPS I like Battlefield Vietnam for PC much more.

I still think you’re attributing too much similiarity between business contracts and parent-child contracts. The dictionary definition of contract is “an agreement between two or more parties, especially one that is written and enforceable by law.” Violating it would indeed be a violation of rights - negative rights, to be exact. The responsibility to take care of your child, on the other hand, comes from the fact that children need a guardian, and you are the one who created that need. Therefore, unlike business contracts, in which you agree to give money to a store and the gov’t protects your negative right to the book, by violating a parent-child “contract” you are violating a positive right. Yes, but what those needs are will be determined by experts, not me.

That goes without saying. You’re really making something out of nothing. You obviously haven’t been reading very carefully. I’ve repeatedly asserted that passersby don’t initiate force by not helping someone, even if that someone is a child. But the child's parents, by virtue of bringing him into existence, are responsible for him, and if for whatever reason they do not provide the needed care, they are initiating force on him and the government must intervene. One of my principles is that lying is wrong. Should I apply it to everything? Is it wrong for a mother to lie to a kidnapper when he asks her where her children are? Principles are meaningless without context. That's right, and in a capitalist society you will have no obligation to give your money to the government, therefore if a child's deceased parents leave him with no property and the government intervenes to protect the child's right to life, you need not support that.