(January 21, 2012 at 12:38 pm)reverendjeremiah Wrote: As a nihilist, you should understand and openly admit this. As a nihilist you should be openly opposed to any type of government or any type of system period.
I'm openly opposed to most types of government both as a nihilist and as a Libertarian (minarchist). You should be aware by now that I support capitalism as an economic system, not as some government mandated and controlled entity (i.e. crony capitalism). I am completely against the government interfering with the economy. People should be able to interact with the economy in any way they want to; whether they set up small socialist / communist communities, or embrace the free market.
Quote:Citation needed on the claim that "morality" is needed "to some degree" for society to function.
No citation; just common sense. If you have a community that lacks any sort of moral compass, then whoever can kill / enslave the rest of the community fastest wins. You cannot prosecute thieves, rapists, or murderers without resorting to some sort of moral argument in order to back up your reason for prosecuting.
Quote:I challenge you to a formal debate on this. In no way have you shown that my position is indefensible
Agreed, and I look forward to it.
Quote:Okay, so now you have thrown an anti-racism activist in jail. Sure, it was the mans property according to legislation and if the laws are made that way then I go to jail. There is neither right nor wrong in this part of the discussion, merely clarifying the extent to which you will go to legislate this. Step one, if someone destroys a racist sign, you support them going to jail.
Them being an anti-racism activist has nothing to do with the jail term, or the reason why they were jailed though. This would be like arguing I'm being sexist or supporting sexism because I threw a female bank robber into jail.
Quote:Wrong. Dead wrong. A shop cannot turn away someones business or purchases merely for the color of their skin. There is legislation that can be shown to prove this. They have to have a legitimate reason other than prejudice.
Noted. Let me change my wording to "most reasons".
Quote:And when the mass majority of societys whites come together, not through the government, but by their mere property rights, they will oppress the minorities. By allowing the racism, and enforcing laws against those who actively oppose this, you have allowed racism to florish. Dont tell me that it will not happen. What you are describing is EXACTLY how America was for the longest time.
Step two: enforce racism through the back door through the government. By not SPECIFICALLY legislating racism, but instead calling it another, you have now supported racism in suberterfuge.
I find it very hard to believe that the majority of white people in any civilised country would come together and oppress the minorities. A lot of the reasons "racists" give for hating minorities is that they take all their jobs and get special status by the government. One could argue this isn't true racism, and whether a fairer society where the government doesn't rule on race would encourage them to be more accepting has yet to be seen.
I should also point out that black people in America won their freedom and their rights not by becoming the majority, but by convincing the majority that such treatment was wrong. It was white people who gave blacks their freedom and rights, and yet somehow you think it will be white people who take them away again? I severely doubt this.
Quote:Its shit like this that gives libertarians a bad name. This isnt civil libertarianism. This is support of the destruction of civil liberties through the back door. It can be compared to the creationism/Intelligent design afront to science. By changing the name, and removing any mention of racism, you have allowed it to to flourish socially and economically...over something as idiotic as skin tone.
There is no civil liberty I know of to either let someone (a) trespass on someone else's property, or (b) tear up someone else's property and get away with it. You keep saying racism will "flourish" and yet you give no proof.
Quote:And you would passively sit back and allow such racism to flourish? That isnt true. You said yourself you would have no problem with the police breaking out the dogs and the firehoses on a group of blacks trying to enter such an establishment veiling it in a slightly racist remark of " depends on how violent the group of blacks is". So if the group is non violent, then you would let them in the "whites only" building, or you would still support them being arrested? And if they refused to leave because they are starving and all the other shops refuse to serve them food then what? Yup, out come the dogs and the firehoses.
This is NOT libertarianism. This is NOT civil libertarianism.
And when all of the food stores have "whites only" signs up, what are the blacks to do? Starve or leave the city? Honestly dude, you are supporting racism through the back door, which means you support racism without wanting to be called a racist. America is FULL of people who make these same arguments you do. When sober and in public they are very careful of letting their thoughts be known. After getting a few beers in them, they start railing "nigger this...nigger that...I wish this bar was whites only..." Now, Im not saying that YOU go off saying "nigger this or that" but you have DEFINITELY put the side of the law in their favor all in the name of greedy property rights above all else.
Someone owning a peice of paper saying they own land, to you, is justification for them to be the biggest prick in the world.
Again with the "flourishing". If I admit that my optimistic view is speculation, will you admit that your pessimistic view is speculation, and drop it and move on? I have no hard evidence that racism won't flourish, but I certainly think the fact that your country managed to elect a black president and pass civil rights legislation seems to be more on my side than yours.
As to your questions, if they are trespassing, then they can either leave or be arrested. It matters not if they are starving; the property owner has rights. Your scenarios keep getting more and more ridiculous, and you offer no proof that they would ever even happen.
I do not support racism; I do support the free exchange and expression of ideas. One of those ideas happens to be racism; another happens to be that only Christians will go to heaven. I don't support either, but I support the rights of people to hold them and enforce them as they wish on their own property. I have not put the law in anyone's favour; minorities are perfectly entitled to put "non-whites only" signs up too. This is the only system where favouritism is distinctly not a problem. In your society, governments legislate against ideas that they don't agree with. At first, it seems like a good idea, but where do you let them stop? What if your government passed a law that nulled the first ammendment, and made Christianity the state religion? The point of letting all religions be equal under the law is because it is fair. Don't complain that my scenario is unlikely; I find yours equally so.
Quote:What? Sure. Have at it. Please show me the evidence that inherent negative rights exist in the cosmos and NOT merely in the opinions of the human who holds them.
They don't exist in the "cosmos"; they exist inherently due to logic: Everyone has the negative right to life, because nobody has the (positive) right to take someone's life away. Lack of inherent positive rights logically leads to the existence of inherent negative rights. Note that these rights are still subjective, because they still require human understanding (and use of logic) to exist. Thus negative rights pose no problems to me as a moral nihilist, since they are not objective.
(January 22, 2012 at 3:05 pm)reverendjeremiah Wrote: So basically rift, to Tiberius, A white man owns his store, and can hang "whites only" on his premesis, and even have the police forcefully remove non-violent blacks from the store who merely want to buy a sandwich and have them imprisoned..
...BUT...
Even though a woman owns her own womb, she is NOT allowed to have the baby booted out of her very own body. In fact if she tries to boot the unwanted baby from her body, Tiberius is all for imprisoning her and forcing her to keep the baby until she goes into labor.
The right to buy a sandwich does not exist (at least not in the form of a negative right), and even if it did I'd find it hard pushed to argue that such a right overrules the right of someone to allow / ban people from their private property. The difference with abortion is that the right to life (for the baby) exists as a negative right. Yes, the woman still has the negative right to deal with her private property (her womb in this case) how she wants, but as I've explained before, there is a conflict of rights. If abortion removed the baby without killing it, you would resolve the conflict perfectly; however, abortion is the killing of the baby, which violates one of the rights in the conflict. Some would argue this violation is acceptable; some argue it is not. I personally need to know the circumstances.
Quote:..and that is where you are wrong. You automatically call it a killing. Its not to the mother. All the mother wants is to get rid of the baby from her body, and if the mother had an option that DIDNT kill the baby dont you think they would choose it?
It is not the mothers fault that the technology is limited, nor is it the mothers fault that the baby is killed in the process.She merely does not want the baby. Just like you dont support racism, you just want white people to hang up "whites only" signs" Accusing the woman of murder is over simplifying the system, and I will be calling you on this in the official debate we will be having.
If you accuse a pregnant woman having an abortion of murder, then I can just as easily accuse you of being a racist for supporting "whites only" signs. You dont get to have your cake and eat it too.
If you are not a racist for supporting a persons freedom for kicking blacks off their property, then abortion is not murder because the woman is merely kicking the unwanted phoetus from her body. It is not the "whites only" business owners fault if the black man dies from starvation, then it is not the womans fault if the baby cannot survive outside of her womb.
Best prepare for it bro...this is your only warning...abortion is one of my best debating topics. I have converted several pro-life evangelical people to pro-choice and I wear them conversions openly as a badge of honor. You are not going up against a n00b on this topic.
Whether you like it or not, abortion involves the killing of a baby. There are other ways to define it of course, but before the abortion takes place, the baby is alive, and afterwards, it is dead. At some point during the abortion, the baby is killed. There is no getting around this fact, even if you object to the wording.
You seem to use non-sequiturs to make up a point. It does not follow that supporting the freedom of a racist to kick black people off their property makes you a racist too. In abortion, the one doing the abortion (NOT neccesarily the mother) is killing the baby. The mother is certainly implicated in the baby's killing if she agreed / paid for the abortion to happen, but just like hiring a hit squad to kill someone doesn't make you a murderer, paying someone to perform an abortion on you doesn't either. A counter example to your charge that I am a racist would be something like this:
"If you support the freedom of people to own and use guns, and some people use guns to murder others, then you are a murderer."
That statement should be as absurd to you as it is to me and everyone else, but it is exactly the same structure you are using to level the charge of racism. Yes, I support the freedom of people to kick people off their land. Yes, some people will use that freedom in racist ways. No, in no way does that make me a racist.
Oh, and you may have converted several pro-life people, but I converted myself from pro-choice to pro-life not too long ago. I don't expect you to change your mind, and I don't expect to have my mind changed. I expect to educate people on the logical arguments behind abortion, and why there is a distinct double standard that most people use when deciding the issue.
(January 22, 2012 at 11:14 pm)Ryft Wrote: What if the pregnancy is a product of rape or incest (i.e., the woman did not herself wish to become pregnant)? That represents a very small percentage of the cases but, since it does happen, how do you respond to her plight? An unfortunate bit of luck, that? Since the human life inside her has the same right to life that she does, she must carry it to term regardless? (I am assuming arguendo that carrying to term will not kill her.)
Well first I wouldn't say that all instances of pregnancy because of incest are instances where the woman didn't wish to become pregnant. I'd also say that not all instances of incest result in majorly deformed babies.
However, this is one side of the issue which I still haven't completely made my mind up on. There are good arguments both for and against, but I guess what it really comes down to is at what point you define the life inside the womb as human, and whether we can violate the baby's right to life if it is the product of a violation of rights itself (in this case rape). Other considerations are whether the right to life means the right to a decent life (e.g. pain free), and whether we should abort babies who have little to no chance of lasting outside the womb, or will endure large amounts of pain due to their deformities.
So yeah, I'm honestly not sure where I stand, but I'd love to hear your opinion / arguments on the issue.
