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MisterSwig

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15 hours ago, 2046 said:

I don't mean prove guilt as in convicted of a crime. I mean meet positive standards before acting.

It's hard to do this when you keep changing your tune. You first said that we must prove you "acted wrongly." That's proving your guilt, which requires some sort of trial. Now you say you mean "meet positive standards." And later you refer to "probable cause" and an "evidentiary standard."

15 hours ago, 2046 said:

If the government is required to meet an evidentiary standard before subjecting the citizen to screening, then that seems to call into doubt indiscriminate and general border screenings, even ones Objectivists seem to favor.

I've already addressed this issue. And the answer is in your very quote. Non-citizens at the border are not citizens. They therefore do not have the rights of a citizen, such as the right to be in this country. If a non-citizen is trying to cross the border without authorization, that is evidence of illegal activity and meets the evidentiary standard for detainment.

Also, checking everyone at the border, including citizens, is not indiscriminate. It is checking people at the border, as opposed to checking everyone everywhere. We check a specific group: those at the border. And we check them for a specific reason: to see if they are coming here illegally. If we don't check, we can't possibly know.

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On 1/27/2019 at 8:58 PM, MisterSwig said:

It doesn't seem like you've read The Objectivist Ethics, or you'd know that the phrase is "survival qua man." She makes it very clear and argues the point several ways. Also, I don't think you grasp the concept "life." You present a living being that cannot die. But that is an invalid idea. The concept of "life" comes from the fundamental alternative of existence or nonexistence which pertains only to living things. Life is the process of action required to stay alive and not die. If a being cannot die, then it doesn't live, it just moves.

A living being with an extremely long life is not an "invalid idea".  People can and will be "hacked" or exist in other long living forms, that this will happen is not some radical idea-- it's where science is quickly happening. Today, for instance, I read an article where a group in Israel have claimed the discovery of a cure for cancer, that they are going to try to bring to the market in a year. If "immortal" bothers you, and think it changes things so much then change the wording to extremely long-lived. Eventually our part of the universe is likely to undergo a "heat death" anyway so "immortal" isn't a completely accurate term anyway. An extremely long-lived lifeform will still need morality and it will not change. 

I've read The Objectivist Ethics either fully or in parts countless times fwiw. 

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On 1/27/2019 at 9:20 PM, MisterSwig said:

Why would a nation that's 99.9% full of socialists protect your rights? They don't believe in your rights. That's kind of the whole point of this thread.

They won't. The government will if one is ever properly created. 350 million + would have no ability to violate my rights under a proper government without committing a crime that they would instantly be held accountable for without the ability to "change" the government in any way. A system (like todays) that allows voting to do so either directly or via proxies is immoral and an improper government. The US Constitution can never be "fixed", it needs to be replaced with a proper constitution and a proper form of government that only rights-respecter's have an ability to interact with.

Edited by EC
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12 hours ago, Nicky said:

The notion that you should keep a large chunk of the population from influencing the government contradicts American values. And the notion that you can...well that's just naive.

No, populations "influencing the government" is what contradicts American values. Democracy in any form is evil.

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11 hours ago, MisterSwig said:

Why then do we have the Bill of Rights? Keeping certain people from influencing the government is why America was founded in the first place. We don't want tyrants here.

But that's all we have, and it's the logical progression that had to happen.

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8 hours ago, EC said:

No, populations "influencing the government" is what contradicts American values. Democracy in any form is evil.

You know Americans fought a war over not being represented in their government, right?

By the way, when you go around making simplistic statements like this, you're misrepresenting Objectivism too, not just American ideals. Just because there are a set of fundamental principles that should supersede popular will doesn't mean that democratic mechanisms should play no role in deciding how those principles are implemented.

Through history, democratically elected governments have been by far the most successful in protecting individual rights, and Ayn Rand never disputed that fact. Even monarchies only last if there are mechanisms for popular input built into the government. When a monarch tries to rule alone, the system becomes highly unstable withing a generation or two, at most.

Edited by Nicky
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On 1/29/2019 at 8:19 AM, Nicky said:

(1)You know Americans fought a war over not being represented in their government, right?

(2)By the way, when you go around making simplistic statements like this, you're misrepresenting Objectivism too, not just American ideals. Just because there are a set of fundamental principles that should supersede popular will doesn't mean that democratic mechanisms should play no role in deciding how those principles are implemented.

(3)Through history, democratically elected governments have been by far the most successful in protecting individual rights, and Ayn Rand never disputed that fact. Even monarchies only last if there are mechanisms for popular input built into the government. When a monarch tries to rule alone, the system becomes highly unstable withing a generation or two, at most.

(1) Yes. That doesn't make it valid

(2) When people use the word "simplistic" they are usually boxed in thinkers who are incapable of simultaneously thinking in both principles and uniquely using intuition to create new abstractions. Just because something is "good enough" for one time period doesn't mean that it's ideal for use in the future.

(3) I agree with all of this. It has no bearing on my conclusion though, as what happened in a non-technological past isn't important for an ideal society of a highly technical future. We are just now at the dawn of actual civilization, it's never truly existed before.

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1 hour ago, EC said:

 When people use the word "simplistic" they are usually boxed in thinkers who are incapable of simultaneously thinking in both principles and uniquely using intuition to create new abstractions.

I'm not one of those people. I used it because I found your post simplistic. I also find your next post (all we have is tyrants) simplistic. The world isn't divided into good people and evil people. The vast majority of people are somewhere in between. And the only realistic path to a better world is through convincing as many of them as possible to believe in it.

1 hour ago, EC said:

 I agree with all of this. It has no bearing on my conclusion though, as what happened in a non-technological past isn't important for an ideal society of a highly technical future. We are just now at the dawn of actual civilization, it's never truly existed before. 

This statement sounds very similar to the communist and fascist approach to politics. They too thought their systems were so modern and advanced compared to those bumbling ancient civilizations (well, supposedly not civilizations) , that it fully justified substituting them for individual judgement.

So if what's your getting at is the technological elites (Objectivists or otherwise, it's entirely irrelevant) using robotics and AI to impose their politics on the masses, that's the polar opposite of everything Objectivism stands for. The whole basis for Objectivist politics is the human capacity for reason. That's why Ayn Rand was opposed to the use of physical force. Substituting technology for individual judgement would be just as much a denial of man's basic nature as the communists' and fascists' forceful imposition of their supposedly modern, superior social orders.

Edited by Nicky
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14 hours ago, Nicky said:

I'm not one of those people. I used it because I found your post simplistic. I also find your next post (all we have is tyrants) simplistic.

Rand considered "simplistic" to be an anti-concept. A statement or argument is not bad or good by virtue of its simplicity or complexity. Yet that seems to be your implicit view.

Besides, EC's statement was by no measure simple. Just in the part you quoted, he presents a high-level, political notion: that democracy is an evil form of government whereby populations influence the government, and that this contradicts our American values. If we give him the benefit of the doubt, we can assume he means that populations dictate the laws of the government, not merely the people comprising it. After all, that is the classical definition of a democracy. And here he would be reasonable. Our laws should be influenced by the protection of our rights, by political science, not by whatever the popular will cries out.   

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48 minutes ago, MisterSwig said:

Rand considered "simplistic" to be an anti-concept.

And I consider this an excellent example of why your understanding of Ayn Rand's philosophy is simplistic.

Quote

A statement or argument is not bad or good by virtue of its simplicity or complexity. Yet that seems to be your implicit view.

No, it's not. If it was, I would've used the word simple instead of simplistic.

Edited by Nicky
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  • 4 weeks later...
On 1/27/2019 at 7:37 AM, MisterSwig said:

Go ahead and bail, if you want.

Yes, and it was magnificent.

On 1/27/2019 at 7:37 AM, MisterSwig said:

You just accused me of having zero respect for reason.

Indeed. I don't know how else to square your responses in this thread. Do I really need to recap them? (Technically you should be able to read them over again for yourself, but I don't know that I can trust you to do that honestly, either.) You argued that people should not be allowed to advocate for socialism; I questioned whether that was consistent with Objectivism (or at least with Rand's views), and I provided quotes to demonstrate that Rand supported free speech, specifically including that for communists/socialists. In direct response, you claimed consistency with Rand and that you were not arguing against free speech.

The implicit dishonesty involved in such a thing is just staggering. I don't know whether "Orwellian" or "Trumpian" would be more damning, but they both apply -- it is doublethink, pure and simple, on par with 1+1=3. A month on, fresh off of a vacation, and I'm still blown away by it. So I'll put it this way: perhaps it goes too far to say that you have zero respect for reason (how could I possibly know such a thing to such a degree?)... but if you do have any respect for it, that respect will drive you to understand your incredible error, and the disregard for reason and reality it conveys, make amends for it, and try to root it out from all future conversation -- because it is the kind of error that renders all such conversation worse than worthless (to say nothing of what it portends for your thinking).

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4 minutes ago, DonAthos said:

You argued that people should not be allowed to advocate for socialism

You can't even properly state my position. Take a deep breath and pay special attention. You have left out the most important part. People should not be allowed to advocate for socialism IN PUBLIC! Let me know if you ever get around to addressing my actual argument, as I have done with your objections.

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Here is the main issue, as I see it. I think everyone agrees that free speech does not trump private property. People can't come on your property and say whatever they want. You have a right to set speech codes on your private property. If someone violates that code, you have the right to ask them to leave.

But when it comes to public spaces, suddenly we disagree. Now free speech trumps public property. Now the public has no right to set speech codes for public spaces, like streets and state institutions.

Our anti-rights opponents rely on our tolerance of them in order to take over the public spaces and institutions. It starts with them preaching socialism in public, then shutting us down with violence and harassment in public, then electing their own to office, then passing laws against us, all to violate our rights. This is the nature of evil. If you let evil into the public, it will keep attacking and attacking outward until the public space expands into your bedroom.

Evil currently has an advantage, because it is willing to initiate the use of force in order to expand the public space. If we are to win this battle, we must be willing to retaliate with force to drive them out and shrink the public space.

Edited by MisterSwig
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3 minutes ago, MisterSwig said:

then shutting us down with violence

The main difference is that our tolerance (in terms of law) ends here, not at advocating.

6 minutes ago, MisterSwig said:

Now the public has no right to set speech codes for public spaces, like streets and state institutions.

Nope. Just restate the 1st ammendment, and then that's the position.

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 2/22/2019 at 10:13 PM, DonAthos said:

You argued that people should not be allowed to advocate for socialism

 

On 2/22/2019 at 10:24 PM, MisterSwig said:

You can't even properly state my position.

 

On 1/24/2019 at 3:32 PM, MisterSwig said:

I submit that advocating for socialism today is the initiation of physical force.

I don't know the extent to which this is potentially subject-specific, or "compartmentalized," but you are being deeply dishonest. I cannot help you with that. Whatever respect you claim to have for reason should provoke you to reflection.

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Do you have an argument? Or just quotes and accusations?

You still left out the "in public" part. And I stand by my prior arguments. Advocating for socialism is the initiation of force, just like threatening to steal someone's money is the initiation of force. The only difference is the M.O. This does not mean such threats should be illegal. But if they include threats of illegal force, then they should be crimes. Socialism is the threat of legal force, so it should be allowed on private property. But the public has the right to control speech on public property, as I have argued extensively. So I think we should ban it in this case.

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2 hours ago, Eiuol said:

Why do you keep saying this? Advocating means in public.

Because I am talking about advocating on public property as opposed to private property. There is a difference. If you give a speech at a public school, that's different than a private school. But in both cases you might be doing it in front of the "public" who can freely attend.

If you don't like the word advocate, replace it with espouse or promote. It's not a big deal.

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35 minutes ago, MisterSwig said:

If you don't like the word advocate, replace it with espouse or promote. It's not a big deal.

No, it's not a big deal, but if you use the wrong word to describe your position, of course it would look like people don't understand you. 

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10 hours ago, Eiuol said:

No, it's not a big deal, but if you use the wrong word to describe your position, of course it would look like people don't understand you. 

If you research the word you'll see that it doesn't always mean "in public." That's not the original meaning, nor is it the only meaning today. My Webster's dictionary has three meanings for the verb form: "to speak or write in favor of; support or urge by argument; recommend publicly." And three for the noun form: "a person who speaks or writes in support or defense of a person, cause, etc.; a person who pleads for or in behalf of another; a person who pleads the cause of another in a court of law." If you only go by the first definition that pops up on a Google search, you're going to have a tough time following my context. 

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We don't need to get into a dictionary debate. Adding "in public" doesn't change the nature of the disagreement. Besides, you spoke of screening immigrants for their beliefs, which definitely is all about "in private" beliefs. Unless you changed your mind about that.

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