L-C Posted July 21, 2009 Report Share Posted July 21, 2009 "Excessive taxation" is not a mere nuisance. Do you have any idea of what we've been robbed of due to taxes? We might've been able to live healthily for 200 years by now. Huge amounts of people don't exist because of it. Entire lineages never came to be. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jake_Ellison Posted July 21, 2009 Report Share Posted July 21, 2009 If the ideology threatens ones existence then one could justify it; lets hypothetically say that a Jew heard Hitler propagating his political ideology of the final solution - would it be ethical for that Jew to kill Hitler to save millions from death camps? Bad arguments, but more importantly, a very bad conclusion you should've caught and stopped yourself from ever uttering. First, the argument: You're saying that someone who propagates Hitler's ideology will turn into a mass murderer. The reality is that only happened once, even though there are thousands of people doing exactly that in the US, right now. It does not follow that because Hitler spoke of certain ideas in a bar or in unemployment lines, and then proceeded to murder millions of people, someone who speaks of the same ideas in the same place, today, will do the same. That's bad logic. You are ignoring important tenants of Objectivism, such as proper logic and free will, and making an extremely weak argument for a very foolish conclusion: you are advocating wiping out a huge number of people, because their ideas are similar to those of a mass murderer. There were quite a few murderers in history, with quite a few ideas, which are all still present in today's society. Letting everyone be killed off would mean allowing a huge massacre, of people who are wrong but not guilty of any crimes. If a Jew sees someone who says things Hitler said, and murders him, that Jew is a murderer. Not ethical. P.S. Or did you just forget to mention that it's a Jew with a time machine? Then, it would be fine to go back and murder Hitler. Not because of his ideas, but because of his actions. Impossible, and not related to the subject of the thread, but fine ethically. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Greebo Posted July 21, 2009 Report Share Posted July 21, 2009 P.S. Or did you just forget to mention that it's a Jew with a time machine? Then, it would be fine to go back and murder Hitler. Not because of his ideas, but because of his actions. Impossible, and not related to the subject of the thread, but fine ethically. Only if you went back to a point in time after which Hitler had actually started acting, however. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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