Doug and Chris

[I AM ME]

[Bandalero]

[I AM ME]

[Bandalero]

[I AM ME]

[Venom]

[doug]

[nelison]

[Venom]

[Venom]

[doug]

Libertarian is probably the closest thing to a political preference that i have. If somebody held a gun to my head and told me to vote, i'd vote libertarian.

Here are two excellent links on my political philosophy. I'm writing a thesis on this for my own enjoyment as well, but it's not done yet.




Read those and "debunk" away.

[Narbus]

[Bandalero]

[Venom]

[doug]

[Narbus]

The point of my statements was that Halbrooks is putting forth (heavily implied if nothing else) the argument that humans are to be afforded these rights because they are capable of exisiting...not "without," but let's say "beyond" the flesh. That the (rational) human mind is powerful enough to override the (instinctual) human body.
This is not true, nor is it a very practical nor intelligent use of the human brain and body. If you accidently put yourself in pain, your body reacts, generally in a manner that gets you away from the pain. The child who keeps pricking himself shows that people must mature before they are capable of the rational thought that Halbrooks' argument is built on.
Maturity is a slipperly concept, one that's such an idividual thing that it's impossible to quantify, and therefore it's not feasable to build a social system off of it.

We can't figure out what soliders are going to do next for the same reason we can't predict the weather (accurately). There are too many variables for us to deal with. The storm passing by a forest takes the punch out of it, that Bobby's been playing outside on a hot summer day means he's tired and not working up to par, the butterfly that flaps its wing in Tokyo, the precise mix of chemicals in the brain, so on and so on.

Basically, refute this:
Electrical and chemical reactions, whereupon the variables are all known, are completely predictable (you can't run a current through a resistor and not have the voltage come out as the product of the current and resistance (Ohm's law), and you can't put Na and Cl together and not get a reaction).
The brain is a physical organ operating entirely on electrical and chemical reactions.
Therefore what happens in the brain is completely predictable.

That the brain is a marvelously complex cause/effect system does not mean it's any less a cause/effect system. No cause/effect system, no matter how complex, can give rise to free will.

As for Herbert's test, again I point out that animals are well known to risk life and limb (going against the self-preservation instinct) to save their young.
And before the "gene preservation" argument even lands, there are species of bird that mate for life, something hardly conducive to spreading genes as far as possible.

I understand the state, libertarian leanings, blah blah blah. The point was the Halbrooks' highway man analogy isn't as accurate as he wants it to be.

"You own your own life."
I ask again, what right, then, do parent's have to discipline their child? In your social theory, the ONLY acceptable method of child-rearing would be abandonment. I have no rational right to tell my son to not put his hand on the stove, nor do I have any rational right to tell my son not to beat up the neighbor boy, nor do I have any rational right to do anything without my child's 100% approval.

[Venom]

[Narbus]

The right to raise your child hardly exists solely due to government, nor does government exist because I have the right to raise my child. It is entirely feasible that a person could raise their child without the government intervening, and it's entirely feasible that a government could exist without telling people how to raise their children.

Try again.

[Bandalero]

[thirdhour]

*gets out the popcorn*