Jump to content
Objectivism Online Forum

Objectivism Vs. Environmentalism?

Rate this topic


NewYorkRoark

Recommended Posts

Let me get something straight. If ten people dump cyanide into a river, and I die from it, do I have the right to sue all of them? Who's to know whose cyanide did me in? Is it the person who happened to add the cyanide that pushed it above a lethal level?

If a nuclear power plant radiates a stream, and I eat a radiated fish and give birth to a deformed child, how do I know who to sue? I could have been radiated at any point in my life. How would I know that the fish caused it? How could I prove it?

If I developed lung cancer from carcenogenic chemicals in the air released from thirty factories in my city, can I sue all of them? I mean, whose carcenogens actually incited the mutation? How do I prove that it was actually the chemicals that caused the cancer and not just some coincidence? To paraphrase an argument Rand uses against socialism, how many corpses must pile up before we can conduct the proper correlational studies?

The car industry conducts recalls in a manner similar to that which you are suggesting. If there's a defective part, they calculate how much it would cost to perform the recall, and then they calculate how much they would probably have to pay in settlements to people who sued. Only if it's less damaging to do the recall does the company actually do it.

Now, no one's forcing you to buy cars, so you don't have to be impacted by this practice if you object. However, if someone's polluting the air, I still have to breathe. Because of biological ties that reality thrusts upon us, the rules should not be the same for something which I have no choice but to consume.

I don't understand why everyone's acting like I'm saying Marx is right here, I'm just saying that you guys have interpreted certain things in a way that I don't agree with.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 72
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

As for unskinned, here would be a part of my response:

You said earlier that "an Objectivist government would literally spackle the country with nuclear power plants, which have no effect on the environment as long as there is a capitalist around to watch over the spent rods.

OK, fine. But who's going to pay the capitalist to watch over the spent rods and why? The owner of the plants. What if he doesn't think spent rods are harmful? Then what do you do? This, I believe is the problem. First you need right and wrong to develop principles. Then you need near universal acceptance of those principles. Then you need action upon those principles. Then you can say that the owner will pay for to trash the spent rod's.

http://chemcases.com/nuclear/nc-13.htm

http://www.ncpa.org/iss/bud/pd112801b.html

Here are two sites that give an interesting idea. The unmanagability of radioactive waste comes from the fact that it should not be considered waste at all, but more fuel to be recycled. There are sites in England, France, and soon in Japan that are producing energy this way. The articles seem to suggest that the new wastes will be much less radioactive as they have been processed several times. One site even says that these materials will be so neutralized that they can be encased in class and stored the way more traditional hazmats are stored at sites such as Concord in Colorado. Furthermore, their volume will have been drastically reduced. This is experimental, but it is not pie in the sky.

Asking why it is still experimental, we are told that Jimmy Carter mandated the end of this research while he was riding the peace train. Again, socialist intervention is the problem. Noticing a pattern yet?

Another idea is that the issue of leakage from the "dry" slugs stored at places like Yucca can be stored in specially prepared facilities on frozen tundra in Greenland, where the water contamination issue is less important.

All these little issues can best be solved by capitalism. No matter how complicated a piece of praxis you toss at capitalism as a supposed proof of it's naivete, the issue is ultimately best handled by capitalism. It isn't a battle by battle thing, these victories represent a deeper issue. Here is a moral right: in any society the mind must be left free. The individual uses his mind to deal with a complex world. Capitalism isn't about some ideal world, it's that this is the ideal world for Capitalism. And we're talking about El Dorado.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Let me get something straight. If ten people dump cyanide into a river, and I die from it, do I have the right to sue all of them? Who's to know whose cyanide did me in? Is it the person who happened to add the cyanide that pushed it above a lethal level?

Under capitalism, someone has a right to fish the stream. Presumably the fish will die before you do. THis will happen the first time someone dumps and it will be put in the papers: "Local stream has been poisoned, fisherman pissed."

Or, were you implying a scenario in which 10 different companies all dump cyanide on the same day at the same time, let's call it the witching hour on Cyanide Dumping Day. If that is your argument, you have truly stumped me.

Of course, you get your water from the water company, don't you? I don't think I need to explain that one.

"If I developed lung cancer from carcenogenic chemicals in the air released from thirty factories in my city, can I sue all of them? I mean, whose carcenogens actually incited the mutation? How do I prove that it was actually the chemicals that caused the cancer and not just some coincidence? To paraphrase an argument Rand uses against socialism, how many corpses must pile up before we can conduct the proper correlational studies?

The car industry conducts recalls in a manner similar to that which you are suggesting. If there's a defective part, they calculate how much it would cost to perform the recall, and then they calculate how much they would probably have to pay in settlements to people who sued. Only if it's less damaging to do the recall does the company actually do it.

Now, no one's forcing you to buy cars, so you don't have to be impacted by this practice if you object. However, if someone's polluting the air, I still have to breathe. Because of biological ties that reality thrusts upon us, the rules should not be the same for something which I have no choice but to consume.

I don't understand why everyone's acting like I'm saying Marx is right here, I'm just saying that you guys have interpreted certain things in a way that I don't agree with."

It is inappropriate to compare products with pollutants for the reasons you have suggested. You can't recall air. I think that if science demonstrates objectively that certain air pollutants cause lung cancer then it shouldn't be difficult to establish a causal link between incidents of lung cancer and a factory that produces them. That is negligence or possibly manslaughter. I'm not sure. If this law is established and a company knows it might be doing something that would kill someone, then it won't do it. Or it will lose a lot of money or the people in charge might be arrested.

But correlation is not sufficient. Example: "Power lines cause cancer! How many bodies have to pile up before we will acknowledge it." And of course the correlation in the stats are very convincing to a socialist. Then we read that powerlines are generally over poorer neighborhoods and occupants of poorer neighborhoods generally smoke more or eat burnt fatty barbeque foods more often, the two main causes of cancer.

Edited by unskinned
Link to comment
Share on other sites

What I'm saying is, if there's no way to prove whodunnit exactly, a system of "accuse and thou shalt be avenged" doesn't work. Therefore it might be necessary to violate certain rights to prevent the violation of other rights. For example, if someone wrongs me, why shouldn't it be in my hands to avenge the wrong? I am to turn the case over to the police because "it works out a lot better, empirically, that way." The same thing comes into play in this discussion. Ideally, no one would pollute because it represents a tort. However, if people do pollute (and I'm talking about the negative kind), they should have to recompense those damaged by it. Because, empirically, it's impractical to set the system up where people have to individually "sue" the polluter, it's better, empirically, to say, "if you pollute, you must contribute towards the cleaning of your mess." Even this isn't a perfect solution, but because we're dealing with a necessary imperfection (the destruction certain elements of the big picture environment as a consequence of human existence, or any existence) we have to set up a "common law" type of thing to make sure that this problem is addressed.

People's rights are going to be violated when pollution is necessary. When you say, "we shouldn't make the polluter pay, because they don't choose to," you are okaying the violation of the affected's rights. If rights are going to be violated, therefore, it's up to the government to create a mechanism that will limit the damage. I would propose a mechanism of penalizing polluters proportionally to their contribution to the problem, and applying this penalty money towards the fixing of the problem. Please stop implying my blasphemy. By raising questions, I'm following in the spirit of what created this philosophy. By saying that my questions are stupid without explaining your points in any way but a regurgitation of something I've already read, you're not proving anything. I've read it. I understand what Ayn Rand said about the general principals.

Rand, however, does not provide logical backing for certain social constructs. For example, as I refered to earlier, she provides a somewhat empirically based argument for a police force (in The Virtue of Selfishness), but doesn't drag out a long logical explanation. This might be because the idea of a police force is a social construct. An example of why this is NOT logical, as alluded to (possibly unintentionally) by NYRourk, is the fact that a society places a trust in the government that would imply that it is not corrupt. What if it is? There's no possible way to completely prevent corruption from bringing down a government. We accept this as a necessary risk because "empirically, it just works better that way." I apply this train of thought to the problem of pollution that has earned our philosophy ridicule outside of its own circle. I hear the arguments, and I don't see adequate reasoning supporting our side. Call it devil's advocate, but until I can figure it out myself, or one of you can, I can't just posit that "we are right because we tend to be right about other things."

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't understand why everyone's acting like I'm saying Marx is right here, I'm just saying that you guys have interpreted certain things in a way that I don't agree with.

It's because you forget whose "house" you are in. This board has a specific purpose, and a specific focus, that involves the discussion and promotion of Objectivism and it's principles. That purpose and that focus DO NOT involve spreading socialist tenets, or advocating that the government should be violating the rights of innocent people in order to "protect" rights.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

donnywithana,

Therefore it might be necessary to violate certain rights to prevent the violation of other rights.
If you're really talking about rights here, that the rights of rational men in a free society cannot conflict with each other. So, if you're okay with violating some "rights" to uphold other "rights", by what means do you choose which "rights" are okay to violate for the sake of which other "rights"? Perhaps, because any business may be defrauding the public, we should tax every business who may be defrauding the public (i.e., any business), to protect people's right against being defrauded? Or perhaps, since every customer of every store might be shoplifting, we should impose a fine on anyone who has ever walked in a store to protect the rights of the store owners to keep their property?

For example, if someone wrongs me, why shouldn't it be in my hands to avenge the wrong? I am to turn the case over to the police because "it works out a lot better, empirically, that way."

No, the real reason that we must defer our moral right of retaliatory force to the government is to uphold the Rule of Law, which is a principle. Without this, society would devolve into anarchy, with vigalante gangs roaming around dispensing whatever twisted versions of law and justice they might accept. I'm surprised that you missed that point in your reading of Rand.

However, if people do pollute (and I'm talking about the negative kind), they should have to recompense those damaged by it. Because, empirically, it's impractical to set the system up where people have to individually "sue" the polluter, it's better, empirically, to say, "if you pollute, you must contribute towards the cleaning of your mess."

How does this follow? Why does the "impracticality" of a huge number of individual suits necessitate empowering the government with the power to tax all companies that "pollute", regardless of whether their pollution is actually hurting others? A flurry of individual lawsuits is not necessary-- if the pollution affects a wide number of people, one can always bring a class action suit against the company in question. Maybe you meant something else by this passage, but as it is, I can't make sense of it.

To everyone else,

Could nuisance laws be used in some way to address this problem?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Ok, let me try to make a parallel to what I'm advocating here.

If you have a child and don't want to take care of it, do you have to? Is it your responsibility? Objectivists point out that people could donate towards helping these children voluntarily, but Rand says that we should only help people if an emergency situation puts them in immediate harm.

Now, if you follow Objectivism to its end, you would find that because no one actually has any "responsibility" towards anyone else, the "best" possible solution would be simply letting these children starve, because what right do they have to something they did not produce? To help them would be altruistic.

Do you agree with this paradigm? Or would it be possible that since children don't operate under the same rules that adults do, we might consider changing the rules for them?

Critics of Objectivism say that we dream of a world of belching smoke stacks. I'm trying to find out if this is an accurate assessment. When I say people should be taxed for pollution, I'm saying that they should be fined based on how much they actually pollute. This isn't saying they should be fined for something they did not do. It's just saying that we shouldn't wait until someone gets hurt to penalize them for it. Do you believe that someone needs to be hurt before negligence can be pointed out? Is attempted murder alright if no one actually gets hurt? Pollution doesn't operate under the same rules that assault or murder do. The same rules that apply to those things don't work with pollution. Because pollution is different, it should be subject to different rules. Can someone argue with that assertion without bringing in the fact that I'm advocating oppression? I'm not! I'm saying that if someone DOES something wrong, they should be penalized accordingly. Someone shouldn't have to sue them personally.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You (donny) apparently ignored most of what I said, so I am not inclined to continue this, but I will try once more: Define the concept "pollution". And explain how there can be *anything whatsoever* emitted by human beings or their creations that doesn't fall under this (putative) concept.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Rand, however, does not provide logical backing for certain social constructs.

I take offense to this. Just because you haven't read all that you bloddy should be reading does not mean that Rand did not explain the things you're confused about. You shouldn't assume such things.

If you have a child

Okay, now you're really pissing me off! :wacko:

There's already a thread on this and I do NOT accept "changing the rules" for children as you imply. And you are being highly annoying by constantly flitting about bringing up 10,000 issues when you need to stick to ONE until we can hash it out.

And it is a personal pet peeve of mine for a person to bring children into an argument as a means of silencing reason. And you've done that TWICE in this thread.

What I'm saying is, if there's no way to prove whodunnit exactly, a system of "accuse and thou shalt be avenged" doesn't work.

Not all murders can be proven. By your logic, the government would be justified in calling out the population of every city and decimating them, Roman style, (killing every tenth man) just to keep us "in line."

You seriously need to examine the ideas that you are advocating. I don't know about you, but I take ideas seriously and your ideas are seriously insane.

The simple fact is that you cannot and should not punish people without proof. If crimes happen and nobody can prove them, this is unfortunate, but your attempts to stop this creates a MONSTEROUS injustice that is at least ten times as great as the crimes which, in your mind, "necessitate" it.

Therefore it might be necessary to violate certain rights to prevent the violation of other rights.
You are now embracing open contradiction. I hope you're proud of yourself.

Now come on man! What is your freaking problem? If a source of pollution can be PROVEN to be harming people, the law will step in and prevent it. There's no reason at that point that the law wouldn't act to stop, or at least watch, all other people who are using that substance or process. Don't you have a clue how the law works? It has this thing called precedent...

There's no possible way to completely prevent corruption from bringing down a government. We accept this as a necessary risk because "empirically, it just works better that way."

You're ignoring the fact that Capitalism is, by its nature, the LEAST corruptable form of government, and that corruption is essentially caused by the nature of non-capitalistic government.

But oh wait, you'd know that if you had done your homework instead of coming here and running your mouth off.

You come onto this board all half-cocked, openly attacking the philosophy of Ayn Rand, and you don't have the common decency to actually READ that philosophy, nor do you do this in the debate forum, where it would at least be halfway appropriate.

If you're here to debate, do it there. If you're not, then address your concerns in the form of QUESTIONS and not STATEMENTS.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

... you bloddy should be reading ...
Did you mean bloddy-with-and-extra-o-and-one-less-d. :wacko:

Suggestion: Seriously though, I have a suggestion about this thread: change it into a debate, in the debate sub-forum. I think having two voices will keep the discussion focused. Just a thought.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Ok. I'm going to try and settle this down. Feel free to jump down my throat after this.

In terms of things that Rand doesn't explain...I have read what I bloody well should have. I agree with it almost completely. However, I'm pointing out that certain premises that Rand uses as bases for her arguments are based on values.

Here's what I mean. The mosquito is an animal that can not survive on its own. It requires the input of other animals to survive. According to logic, the mosquito's way of life is immoral. The mosquito may utilize a tiger's blood in order to reproduce, and that tiger might be alive through immoral practices too. The tiger can't actually produce its own life force, it must feed on animals in order to live. This is immoral, according to logic. The tiger might feed off of a rabbit in order to live (I don't know if tigers actually eat rabbits...whatever). The rabbit also can not produce what it needs to survive, and must feed off of grass. This, according to logic, is immoral. The plant must use light energy which it didn't produce, minerals from the soil that it didn't put there, etc. In fact, nothing that lives can survive without the consumption of something else.

Rand asserts that this type of consumption is not immoral, because it's a fact of life. That's fair, but it's still agreeing that we must violate certain rights in order to achieve other rights. In other words, the life of the rabbit is worth the sacrifice of the plant, and the life of the tiger is worth the sacrifice of the rabbit.

We as humans assert that our lives are worth the sacrifices made by our environments. This is not an objective truth, but because we exist, we must accept this as true in order to continue to exist. It is, as Rand recognizes, a necessary concession, but it is a values statement. We value our lives above the rights of the organisms and bodies that produce the energy that keeps us alive. We can define what "we" are, but that doesn't give us any objective right to the life of something not "human."

The point I'm making in this forum is this. I understand that we as Objectivists hold human life as the highest value, but this is not an objective truth, it is a value statement. Thus, we are falsifying reality in a way that is necessary to continue our own existence. What I mean is, if we don't say "we as humans have the right to the lives of things that aren't human," we will die. Because we don't want to die, this makes sense. We overlook the "monsterous injustice" perpetrated upon the innocent plants, animals, photons, etc because we don't feel that they have rights in the first place. This isn't an objective fact, it's just something we hold to be true in order to survive. Not to mention that we're the only ones around who actually worry about the rightness or wrongness of the whole arrangement.

If we do falsify this part of reality, however, in order to grant ourselves rights that do not exist independently of our recognition of them, we are faced with the consequences of having to shift the rest of our views in order to incorporate this falsification.

Why is anarchy bad? If I do whatever I want for my own benefit, why isn't that good? Obviously, because then others will do the same, and the result will inevitably be catastrophic. So we AGREE to not have anarchy, and instead put a government in place to make sure that we are all civil. Governments don't just exist, they are not a necessity of life, but they streamline the process so the empirical result is better.

In the same vein, we have a police force to make sure that we don't violate these rights that we've set up for ourselves. Police forces are not facts of life, they are constructions that are linked back to the idea that people "have" certain rights, and these rights must be protected. Something that violates our conception of what someone deserves to be protected against is "outlawed." For example, murder, theft, assault, etc are banned from practice because we see that someone only benefits at the cost of someone else, and nothing positive is produced. What about the feeling of happiness from kicking someone's ass? We know this to be an irrational benefit, and therefore don't recognize it as a productive end.

But this is a forum for discussion of pollution, and so I'll get to that point. If someone pollutes, is there any objective truth stating that they shouldn't? Of course not. If you do something that produces a marginal profit for you (your benefit from polluting is more than the harm it does to you), then there's nothing that actually will stop you. Just like there's nothing that will actually stop you from killing someone or stealing their stuff. However, we agree that killing and stealing is wrong, and so we create a mechanism that says, "If you kill, this will be your punishment." This punishment is not existent by itself, it requires social support to exist. I'm saying, if someone does something that will harm others, they should be stopped.

If you kill someone, they're not responsible for suing you. They're too busy being dead. A representative of society says, "Hey, we made a rule against that," and you are punished by society. Why is there no rule against contributing directly towards someone's demise? If everyone pollutes, and I lose a year of life because of it, who compensates me for it? I've surrendered a year of life, and what have I gained? Apparently very little, except maybe lower prices, because producers won't be responsible for paying for cleaning things up.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Rand asserts that this type of consumption is not immoral, because it's a fact of life. That's fair, but it's still agreeing that we must violate certain rights in order to achieve other rights.

What you're saying here is nonsense. Tigers don't have RIGHTS. Individual Rights are derived from human ability to reason. Animals eating other animals is natural, there is nothing immoral about it. If your example was humans eating humans, it would be immoral -- but Rand would never propose it be done. You, on the other hand, are trying to justify such behavior with this line of argument.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

What aspect of reason sets it up as the granter of rights? Does a tiger recognize our reason as a reason not to eat us? Is there anything that would actually make a cannibal now want to eat you? Or is it just that we can agree that eating each other is bad, because we're all of the same type of being, and we use reason to realize that "rights" are beneficial to have?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

What aspect of reason sets it up as the granter of rights?

Our defining characteristic as human beings is our faculty of reason, and we must be permitted to use it freely in order for us to survive, which means that other human beings cannot initiate force against us to prevent us from doing so.

Does a tiger recognize our reason as a reason not to eat us?
It doesn't matter because morality depends on human choice and action, not on the behavior of nature (including animal behavior). A tiger makes no moral choice when it tries to eat us, we cannot charge it with violating our rights.

Or is it just that we can agree that eating each other is bad, because we're all of the same type of being, and we use reason to realize that "rights" are beneficial to have?

We don't have rights because they're beneficial, we have them because they're part of our nature as human beings.

(P.S. if any of you more articulate Objectivist posters out there can explain this better than I can, feel free to do so, but I think I got the gist of it right)

Edited by Captain Nate
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I would debate whether or not rights are "part of our nature." I might understand why you would say this; is it because in order to live, we must produce, and no one has the right to what I produce besides me? I mean, I agree with this, but there is no actual mechanism for making someone not simply take something from you besides one constructed by a society. Rights are not simply a fact of existence, they must be agreed on. If someone does not choose to use reason, they can do a bunch of really counterproductive things. For example, "I don't need to produce something that I can simply steal from someone else." We, as Objectivists, say, "No, you shouldn't be able to do that." Thus, a law is established. Another thing they might do is say, "That person's existence makes mine more difficult. If I killed him, this would no longer be a problem." Objectivists find the wrong in this, too. However, what happens when someone says, "Why should I limit the toxic chemicals that I dump? As long as the effects of my pollution don't begin causing problems until after I'm dead, there's no reason for me not to dump them." Apparently Objectivists on this forum don't see that as wrong. I'm trying to figure out why.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The mosquito is an animal that can not survive on its own. (more plant and animal stuff snipped)

Okay, as Captain Nate pointed out, you have no idea what the Objectivist position is here. Plants and animals do not have rights or morality. Further, it's becoming clearer the more you speak that you do not understand other parts of Objectivism and it's principles very well.

Secondly, you need to stop speaking in terms of "we" Objectivists, particularly when discussing values. Objectivists DO NOT intrinsically value human life as their highest value. Rather, most Objectivists specifically value THEIR life as their highest value. I won't be presumptuous enough to speak for all of them. Any other human life they value is dependent upon CONTEXT.

The objective truth (that you refer to) is that we NEED the environment to survive. We NEED to make use of the environment to produce things that allow us to live our lives as human beings. This doesn't mean living to the minimal standard of simply staying alive, although we need it on a rudimentary level too, but rather we need it to live fruitful, productive lives meeting higher level needs and desires. This means industry and pollution are necessary, at least until manufacturing means are developed to eliminate pollution.

Moderator Mode: ON

No further discussion will be tolerated in this thread advocating the government violating the rights of individuals under the guise of protecting other people's rights. I, and I assume others, understand that you think this is okay, but it's discussion on this forum IS NOT. It doesn't matter how you rephrase it, it all comes out the same. You want to violate the rights of some people without the burden of actually demonstrating that they have done anything to violate the rights of others, because you see it as an inconvenient or impractical to be burdened with proof. Also, if you want to discuss the benefits of Socialism, do it specifically in the Debate forum, or find a Socialist forum. The only place these discussion will permissible is in the Debate forum, under the rules and guidelines set up between the debate participants.

Moderator Mode: OFF

Edited by RationalCop
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I would debate whether or not rights are "part of our nature."

Then perhaps you did not really understand Ayn Rand's writings as you claimed.

I might understand why you would say this; is it because in order to live, we must produce, and no one has the right to what I produce besides me? I mean, I agree with this, but there is no actual mechanism for making someone not simply take something from you besides one constructed by a society.

What are you saying here? That without a lawful society, very little (except your own use of retaliatory force) stops someone from violating your rights? This is true, but it does not nullify your rights. Rights don't come into existence as a result of laws, laws should come into existance as a result of our rights -- to protect our rights, not to create them.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

In terms of things that Rand doesn't explain...I have read what I bloody well should have.

No you clearly, by your statements, have NOT.

I agree with it almost completely. However, I'm pointing out that certain premises that Rand uses as bases for her arguments are based on values.
And she traces every last one of those values back to reality, making them proven facts.

According to logic, the mosquito's way of life is immoral.

According to WHAT logic?

You couldn't have this more backwards if you were trying. Morality is a concept which applies to humans because of our essential nature. Animals don't have volition; and aren't CAPABLE of making choices as such... therefore a concept such as morality (i.e. choosing between right and wrong) doesn't APPLY to them.

Rand asserts that this type of consumption is not immoral, because it's a fact of life.
She asserts nothing of the sort. You're obviously extremely confused!

We as humans assert that our lives are worth the sacrifices made by our environments.

You've taken those words so far out of their contexts that all you're left with is nonsense. Literally, your statements may as well be gibberish. I'm not saying this to insult you; I mean that literally. I don't even know where to start! :wacko: That goes for the other statements you made following that one as well.

For some reason you're starting from the unstated premise that nature or animals posess rights for some reason... when they do NOT and by definition CANNOT. "Rights" is a concept that applies to rational, volitional beings due to their essemtial nature. Inanimate matter, mindless plants, and nonrational animals could not by definition posess rights. You think that you can get away with your contradictory attempts to violate rights by accusing Objectivism of the same, but you won't get away with it. Your nonsensical definition-switching, context-dropping, concept-stealing illogic doesn't hold water.

I'm not even going to quote your madness about "innocent" plants and animals. Put down the hippie pipe. Animals and plants do not and cannot posess rights. Nor can they posess "guilt" or "innocence."

Your accusations of Objectivism "falsifying reality" is an insult and a joke. You have much to learn.

Your subjectivist rant about how it is in peoples' interests to murder and steal and "pollute" is telling of your character I am sure. Maybe you would do those things. However if you actually apply REASON and think in terms of PRINCIPLES and realize the essential nature of man, then you would see that it is NOT in anyone's selfish interest to violate rights.

Why is there no rule against contributing directly towards someone's demise?

There would be. If you could PROVE it. Why are you so afraid of this? By your logic, you sound like you're just going to grab a gun and start shooting people that look at you cockeyed because the law might not recognize that they're all conspiring to kill you... you paranoid lunatic.

Now...

I don't want a reply to this. I want you to understand and admit that you DON'T understand the Objectivist position and that you are handily throttling a straw man. The more you speak, the more confused the issue gets. Take my well-intentioned advice and SHUT UP.

I mean that. Shut your metaphorical mouth and go to the library and LEARN the Objectivist position. If you can't be bothered to do that, then start new threads elsewhere where you ask SPECIFIC questions about ESSENTIAL issues and DO NOT be stating your ignorant opinions.

I think the moderators have been more than patient enough with you and it's time this thread was closed.

Edited by Inspector
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Okay, that was a little mean, Danny. I got a bit frustrated because you are making this a game of whack-a-mole. You raise up ten derivative issues and won't stick to one issue so that someone can answer you. You claim to understand Objectivism when you clearly don't, and you brought in my personal pet peeve by trying to use "children" in a debate.

But I hope that I at least showed that you DON'T understand the Objectivist position. Please, PLEASE just accept that and do your best to learn the truth.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...