So "demented" that you just have to ...
Posted on 05/19/2002 3:02:10 PM PDT by aconservaguy
True.
collectivist policies of the United States
Another attack on America's systems of representative government..
You proceeded to attempt to change the subject
Traditional institutions versus clueless libertarianism is the subject of the thread. Hard to imagine how you missed that.
Finally, you did essentially admit that you believe the state is the source of all power.
Another strawman. When history, the law and reason are against you, false accusations are all that remain.
"Different rights have different sources." --RoscoeSo by your own admission, different rights have different sources."Maybe is Roscoe's land of make-believe." --Alan Chapman
"voting is not a 'natural' right, - it is a political 'right'" --tpaine
Why did it take so long to admit it?
Ah, yes, the 'unalienable rights.' Each year someone quotes that magnificent poetry. Life? What 'right' to life has a man who is drowning in the Pacific? The ocean will not hearken to his cries. What 'right' to life has a man who must die if he is to save his children? If he chooses to save his own life, does he do so as a matter of 'right'? If two men are starving and cannibalism is the only alternative to death, which man's right is 'unalienable'? And is it 'right'?As to liberty, the heroes who signed the great document pledged themselves to buy liberty with their lives. Liberty is never unalienable; it must be redeemed regularly with the blood of patriots or it always vanishes. Of all the so-called natural human rights that have ever been invented, liberty is least likely to be cheap and is never free of cost.
Colonel Dubois in Starship Troopers.
The cult believes that all rights are some kinda free lunch. As you pointed out, RAH didn't.
A "right" that is granted by no one/nothing and is not enforced or protected is meaningless. Who enforces or protects the hypothetical sailor's "right" to life?
This is simple, self evident logic for most of us. You seem to be the stupid exception.
**YAWN**
Children and those who are losing arguments throw ad hominem when getting spanked. How old are you?
Can you agree strela ?
Nope. And, since you made the assertion that this "right" to life is self-evident, natural, and inalienable, it is your responsibility to back up your wild claim with something other than "neener-neener" arguments and jumping up and down like a spoiled 4 year-old.
I'm waiting.
Yes indeedy. And, there's a remarkably large amount of heat and an equally remarkable lack of light generated each and every time Heinlein's questions come up.
The cult believes that all rights are some kinda free lunch. As you pointed out, RAH didn't.
Conversely, many whose opinions I happen to respect believe that the "right to life" actually exists and is enforced by ... (whomever, deity of choice, "the gooberment", use your own term here, etc.). And, I suppose there are worse ways of conducting one's life than to believe that there is indeed a little guy with a green felt visor, quill pen, and big book sitting on a cloud somewhere, making sure all the Universe's sums balance at all times and that every cat has the possibility of being rescued from whatever tree in which she ends up getting stuck. However, the point and the contradiction remains; "What meaning is there in a "right" that one can't taste, see, or touch"?
You call others America-haters and now imply that they're also society haters. You're getting desperate, Roscoe.
Society does not and cannot posses rights. Rights belong to individuals. Society is an imaginary construct. Individuals exist. I don't know how one goes about assigning rights to something which doesn't exist.
How do you reconcile your advocacy of financing of government schools through coercive means (including lethal force) while presuming to ascribe to a philosphy that espouses "Thou shalt not steal" and "Thou shalt not murder" and "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house, nor anything that is thy neighbor's?" Do these rules apply only to other people? Is there a special set of rules only for Roscoe?
Wrong again. Your cult dogma is meritless, your contempt for our nation's rights is predictable.
"Every society has a right to fix the fundamental principles of its association, and to say to all individuals, that if they contemplate pursuits beyond the limits of these principles and involving dangers which the society chooses to avoid, they must go somewhere else for their exercise; that we want no citizens, and still less ephemeral and pseudo-citizens, on such terms. We may exclude them from our territory, as we do persons infected with disease." -- Thomas Jefferson
Don't you support the repeal of all taxes, Roscoe? Do you hope there are taxes for as long as you live? Exactly what is the proper amount of taxation individuals should pay?
GWB said that no one should pay more than a third of his income to the federal government. This implies that he believes that any amount up to, and including, a third is acceptable (of course, he didn't factor in inflation which is also a form of taxation). Do you agree with GWB that people should pay as much as a third of their income to the federal government?
"It is self-evident that no number of men, by conspiring, and calling themselves a government, can acquire any rights whatever over other men, or other men's property, which they had not before, as individuals. And whenever any number of men, calling themselves a government, do anything to another man, or to his property, which they had no right to do as individuals, they thereby declare themselves trespassers, robbers, or murderers, according to the nature of their acts." - Lysander Spooner
But, you know, Roscoe, all this collectivist sophistry of yours is really a charade. I know what you're getting at so let me boil it down. The weak and covetous often try to achieve through legislative force what they are unable to attain morally through the free-market.
"It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself." - Thomas Jefferson
Bleating out inane invective is a sign of a weak mind driven past its limited resources. You're betraying yourself.
A right is always a right, and can always be redressed if violated. My hypothetical example of a drowning sailor has no "right" for his or her deity to conjure up a safe harbor, any more than I have a "right" to expect that a hammer will fall up when I drop it, just because I have some "right" to proclaim the repeal of the law of gravity.
Here you've presented something resembling argument. But you go far wrong early. "A right... can always be redressed if violated," is BS. I suppose you think you've refuted something, which shows that you are, quite simply, delusional. The very concept of rights exists to provide a moral argument for why certain things that can be done shouldn't be. That is, precisely the lack of redress leads to the idea of rights.
And as I said before, the thing with the sailor is stupid. That's all there is to it. God is under no obligation to do anything for anyone, but He did impose the obligation on us to refrain from murder, robbery, and so on.
But what should we expect from someone who admits the only reason she doesn't go around killing people is fear of punishment?
Wrong on both suppositions, hon. You're batting a big fat goose egg today, aren't you?
"I don't kill others because the consequences brought upon me by other earthly powers for doing so would be unacceptable to me, and because I don't need to and have no desire to."
Needs and desires being as stable as water, there's only one solid reason left, fear of punishment.
The sailor possesses a natural right to life, regardless of whether his life is threatened. - This is simple, self evident logic for most of us. You seem to be the stupid exception.
A "right" that is granted by no one/nothing and is not enforced or protected is meaningless. Who enforces or protects the hypothetical sailor's "right" to life?
Our rights to life, liberty & property "come from" our own ablity to reason, and are self evident, natural, and inalienable.
We establish constitutonal governments to help protect our rights from our enemies. - However, nothing can protect us from mother nature, as you should know. - and apparently don't.
Can you agree strela ?
Nope. And, since you made the assertion that this "right" to life is self-evident, natural, and inalienable, it is your responsibility to back up your wild claim with something other than "neener-neener" arguments. I'm waiting.
Odd remark, seeing you started the 'neener' bit.
But whatever, -- if you refuse to acknowlege that the writers of our Declaration of Independence used those same words & principles in justifying our rights & freedoms, so be it.
So "demented" that you just have to ...
Actually, what I'm waiting for you to do is "refute something" without urinating in your trousers from apoplexy at the same time, a task at which you are failing miserably so far.
If individuals group together, call themselves a government, and then proceed to commit theft and murder are their acts right and just?
People choose and purchase their own groceries, clothes, homes, cars, computers, personal hygeine products, entertainment, periodicals, books, and furniture. Why do you believe the coercive force of state is needed to provide education?
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