73% support the "Buffett Rule"

Ok, let us take at face value that you feel this way...what about the people that don't?

It is the old story of how far does one's right go to infringe of other's rights. . .

In my opinion (and you already know I am a little weird in term of social conscience), it should go back to "first do no harm. . . " which of the two will be the most hurt if his/her right is somewhat limited by someone else's right? Whose life will be the most affected?

If a sick child is asleep in a hospital bed, and a person in the next room decides that it is their right to blast their heavy metal rock music, which right (the right for the sick child to sleep, or the right of the person to play his heavy metal music as loud as he/she chooses) should logically prevail?

You probably guess what my answer would be.
 
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If a sick child is asleep in a hospital bed, and a person in the next room decides that it is their right to blast their heavy metal rock music, which right (the right for the sick child to sleep, or the right of the person to play his heavy metal music as loud as he/she chooses) should logically prevail?
There is no right that permits one to violate the rights of others. For example, your freedom of speech does not include forcing me to listen to what you have to say. So while you would be well in your rights to stand on a soapbox on some street corner and complain about the inequities of the world, you would be violating my rights by following me around with a megaphone and shouting the same things.
 
There is no right that permits one to violate the rights of others. For example, your freedom of speech does not include forcing me to listen to what you have to say. So while you would be well in your rights to stand on a soapbox on some street corner and complain about the inequities of the world, you would be violating my rights by following me around with a megaphone and shouting the same things.

You haven't answered my question.

Obviously, if the sick child in the bed could escape out of his hospital room, he would be able to protect his right to sleep.

And, obviously I have the right to walk away from a person who is spewing a lot of hate speech, although he/she has the right to spew that hate speech.

These two rights are not "clashing" with each others. There is an "out" for both party.

I'm talking about rights that infringe, not merely encounter, each other.

When the rights of one must be limited by the rights of another because they are basically mutually incompatible.
 
When the rights of one must be limited by the rights of another because they are basically mutually incompatible.
Then as BigRob asked, you'll have to be more specific. I don't recognize myself as having a "right" to your money any more than I recognize you as having a "right" to my money... So if you believe, for instance, our Right to life is a "right" to have everything we need to survive provided to us by someone else, and at someone elses expense, then we drastically disagree on the Right to life.
 
It is the old story of how far does one's right go to infringe of other's rights. . .

In my opinion (and you already know I am a little weird in term of social conscience), it should go back to "first do no harm. . . " which of the two will be the most hurt if his/her right is somewhat limited by someone else's right? Whose life will be the most affected?

If a sick child is asleep in a hospital bed, and a person in the next room decides that it is their right to blast their heavy metal rock music, which right (the right for the sick child to sleep, or the right of the person to play his heavy metal music as loud as he/she chooses) should logically prevail?

You probably guess what my answer would be.

You stated "Your rights end where mine begin." It seems however in this statement you are willing to compromise on that.

But I don't think the guy in the hospital has the right to blare the music however, but we will set that aside.
 
You stated "Your rights end where mine begin." It seems however in this statement you are willing to compromise on that.

But I don't think the guy in the hospital has the right to blare the music however, but we will set that aside.

Well, the hospital probably would have rules about blaring music. . .and this shows you that, when necessary, your rights can be curbed!

And, yes, I am willing to compromise on my rights. I am willing to give up my right to free speech in order to avoid hurting a person. I am willing to give up my right to shoot an intruder because I would rather loose my TV and my I-pad, than shoot someone.

I am willing to renegotiate my contract at work even if I lose some on the new contract, if this prevents some of my colleagues from being furlowed.

The question is. . .how many people would be willing to compromise on their rights based on someone else's needs and rights?

Another interesting quote:
"ALOHA is the essence of relationships in which each person is important to every other person for collective existence" from the Hawaiian State Law, 1986
 
Well, the hospital probably would have rules about blaring music. . .and this shows you that, when necessary, your rights can be curbed!

And, yes, I am willing to compromise on my rights. I am willing to give up my right to free speech in order to avoid hurting a person. I am willing to give up my right to shoot an intruder because I would rather loose my TV and my I-pad, than shoot someone.

I am willing to renegotiate my contract at work even if I lose some on the new contract, if this prevents some of my colleagues from being furlowed.

The question is. . .how many people would be willing to compromise on their rights based on someone else's needs and rights?

Another interesting quote:

Again...we take at face value that you feel this way...what about those that do not?
 
Again...we take at face value that you feel this way...what about those that do not?


I guess that is the whole core of the conflict, isn't it?

I can't control what others think and feel. But there should be a way to protect people's rights without negating other people's rights. . .and, as I said, the person's whose "lost" would be the lease damaging would logically be asked to temporarely bow give in to the other person's rights.

Just as if two people are stuck on the roof of a home during a flood, and the rescurers can only take one, it seems logical that the person with the greater needs (either age, or physical/mental condition) would be rescued first. Yet, there is no doubt that both persons have equally the RIGHT to be rescued. But when there is no choice and one's right has to be postponed or limited. . .it should be "the least of two evils" decision rule.

I know. . .I have weird opinions.
 
I can't control what others think and feel.
The problem is that you're trying to empower government to force people to act the way you want them to act, whether they feel that way or not. Apply that principle to something other than helping the poor, apply it to government forcing you to take an action against your will, something you would not want to do but you know others would, then think about whether or not you believe government should have such a power to force you to do things against your will, to act against your own conscience.
 
The problem is that you're trying to empower government to force people to act the way you want them to act, whether they feel that way or not. Apply that principle to something other than helping the poor, apply it to government forcing you to take an action against your will, something you would not want to do but you know others would, then think about whether or not you believe government should have such a power to force you to do things against your will, to act against your own conscience.

But, you are trying to empower the government to force people to act the way YOU want them to act, whether they feel that way or not!

Don't you see? The GOP wants the government to worry more about big corporations, and the wealthy. They want to take away every regulations that tries to protect people from excess by corporations. They want this country to live under the "survival of the fittest" rule. . .although they don't believe in evolution!

They do not seem to mind that people are forced by corporations' greed to give up their right to make a decent living, they would like corporations to be able to pay as little as "the market will bear" for employment. . .and obviously, in time of great unemployment, this would amount to starvation rates, especially if unemployment benefits are cut.

I must say that I do appreciate your willingness to debate this and other issues. I thank you for having given me a reprieve from belittleling remarks and attacks. I believe that, although we will probably never agree on most issues, we may not be so far apart on some.

And even if we never agree. . .isn't it more constructive to debate openly, without nastiness, than to spend dozens of posts in rising insults and frustration?

Thank you. :)
 
But, you are trying to empower the government to force people to act the way YOU want them to act, whether they feel that way or not!
That's simply not true. I seek a society that's based on volitional consent and mutually beneficial exchange and the government's ONLY role in such a society is the equal protection of individual rights.

Don't you see? The GOP wants the government to worry more about big corporations, and the wealthy.
You're talking to the guy who's on record as saying the Republican party should pack up the tent and cease being a political party... So your stereotype about who you think I am and the reality of who I am are in stark contrast.

Thank you.
This is not a debate. A debate would suggest that one person wins and the other person loses. This is a discussion. As I said before, I'm a trader, if we can both learn something from our discussion then we both profit. That's a mutually beneficial exchange.
 
That's simply not true. I seek a society that's based on volitional consent and mutually beneficial exchange and the government's ONLY role in such a society is the equal protection of individual rights.


You're talking to the guy who's on record as saying the Republican party should pack up the tent and cease being a political party... So your stereotype about who you think I am and the reality of who I am are in stark contrast.


This is not a debate. A debate would suggest that one person wins and the other person loses. This is a discussion. As I said before, I'm a trader, if we can both learn something from our discussion then we both profit. That's a mutually beneficial exchange.


I agree. Both about the debate/discussion and about the "cross polination" of ideas and beliefs.
I never intended to make it a "debate" in terms of "winning or losing!" If we can have a civil, respectful exchange, and we can see the other's point of view, even without agreing with it, we are both winners.

And, I apologize if I have mistaken you for a strong GOP type. I assume (please correct me if I am wrong), that you are more a liberterian type. . .

Remember what I wrote earlier about "Commons?" This is an alternative to both the system you advocate for, and the system I advocate (at least to this day) for: it is a system that holds THREE legs of the stool in equal respect and responsibility (the market, the government and the people as a community MADE UP of individuals, with individual rights that are greatly enhanced by the common rights). Where the government would provide the services that individuals cannot obtain on his own (i.e., big projects, infrastructure, research, protection, etc. .) while the market would be focus on enhancing not the INDIVIDUAL greed, but the individual and communal well being and prosperity, and where the people would be equal partner in making decisions for the good of EVERYONE, protecting the weak, and encouraging the strong, supporting everyone's special abilities, but not neglecting those whose abilities are not "quantifiable," to obtain a BALANCE between the three legs of the stool.

Utopia? Maybe. But it certainly doesn't require ANYONE to be hurt!
 
I think if you run the same poll often/long enough, you will get whatever results you want. Who knows, maybe the first thousand people they robocalled showed 92% against the "Buffet Rule" so they kept repeating the poll until they got the desired result.

I can see you never took stats...and also I take it this means you never belive any poll...

wait I know...you don't belive polls that don't say what you want..

better to attack the source, when you can't refute the point.

all right out of Republican play book....and of course, proving nothing outside that you can stick your head in the sand.
 
And, I apologize if I have mistaken you for a strong GOP type. I assume (please correct me if I am wrong), that you are more a liberterian type. . .
I'm a Capitalist. Feel free to visit www.capitalism.org for a brief overview of Capitalism.

Remember what I wrote earlier about "Commons?" This is an alternative to both the system you advocate for, and the system I advocate (at least to this day) for: it is a system that holds THREE legs of the stool in equal respect and responsibility (the market, the government and the people as a community MADE UP of individuals, with individual rights that are greatly enhanced by the common rights). Where the government would provide the services that individuals cannot obtain on his own (i.e., big projects, infrastructure, research, protection, etc. .) while the market would be focus on enhancing not the INDIVIDUAL greed, but the individual and communal well being and prosperity, and where the people would be equal partner in making decisions for the good of EVERYONE, protecting the weak, and encouraging the strong, supporting everyone's special abilities, but not neglecting those whose abilities are not "quantifiable," to obtain a BALANCE between the three legs of the stool.

Utopia? Maybe. But it certainly doesn't require ANYONE to be hurt!

Excerpts from The Principles of Communism, Fredrick Engels, 1847

What will this new social order have to be like?

Above all, it will have to take the control of industry and of all branches of production out of the hands of mutually competing individuals, and instead institute a system in which all these branches of production are operated by society as a whole – that is, for the common account, according to a common plan, and with the participation of all members of society.

It will, in other words, abolish competition and replace it with association.

Moreover, since the management of industry by individuals necessarily implies private property, and since competition is in reality merely the manner and form in which the control of industry by private property owners expresses itself, it follows that private property cannot be separated from competition and the individual management of industry. Private property must, therefore, be abolished and in its place must come the common utilization of all instruments of production and the distribution of all products according to common agreement – in a word, what is called the communal ownership of goods.


What will be the consequences of the
ultimate disappearance of private property?


Society will take all forces of production and means of commerce, as well as the exchange and distribution of products, out of the hands of private capitalists and will manage them in accordance with a plan based on the availability of resources and the needs of the whole society. In this way, most important of all, the evil consequences which are now associated with the conduct of big industry will be abolished.

There will be no more crises; the expanded production, which for the present order of society is overproduction and hence a prevailing cause of misery, will then be insufficient and in need of being expanded much further. Instead of generating misery, overproduction will reach beyond the elementary requirements of society to assure the satisfaction of the needs of all; it will create new needs and, at the same time, the means of satisfying them. It will become the condition of, and the stimulus to, new progress, which will no longer throw the whole social order into confusion, as progress has always done in the past. Big industry, freed from the pressure of private property, will undergo such an expansion that what we now see will seem as petty in comparison as manufacture seems when put beside the big industry of our own day. This development of industry will make available to society a sufficient mass of products to satisfy the needs of everyone.

The same will be true of agriculture, which also suffers from the pressure of private property and is held back by the division of privately owned land into small parcels. Here, existing improvements and scientific procedures will be put into practice, with a resulting leap forward which will assure to society all the products it needs.

In this way, such an abundance of goods will be able to satisfy the needs of all its members.
As I said, the "commons" looks to be a somewhat condensed, or paraphrased, version of how Marx and Engels described Communism. Far from being offered as a dictatorship that hides behind an Iron Curtain, their vision of Communism was very different from the Communism the world saw in Soviet Russia and still sees in other countries of the world. If you have an interest in learning more, I recommend reading Engels, Utopian Socialism:

The newly-created gigantic productive forces, hitherto used only to enrich individuals and to enslave the masses, offered to Owen the foundations for a reconstruction of society; they were destined, as the common property of all, to be worked for the common good of all.
 
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I can see you never took stats...and also I take it this means you never belive any poll...

wait I know...you don't belive polls that don't say what you want..

better to attack the source, when you can't refute the point.

all right out of Republican play book....and of course, proving nothing outside that you can stick your head in the sand.
Did you have anything of value or substance to add to the discussion or are you just here to hurl insults?

There are 330+ million people in the US, this poll contacted 1000 people and that's supposed to be representative of the entire population? Anyone who stayed awake during stats class would know that such a poll is not statistically relevant but it certainly does give the left an excuse to claim they have a majority of Americans on their side of the issue.
 
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