The gun lobby is deranged

[GenSeneca]

There are only two examples where I said I would initiate force -- the suicide and "trolley problem" examples.

And I gave you several more examples where you fully support initiating force against people. Here's a more comprehensive list: Welfare, Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare, Unemployment Insurance, Universal Health Care, Subsidies and bailouts, Climate Change legislation, Foreign Aid, CAFE Standards, Public Education, Government Regulations, Taxation, and, of course, the topic of this thread - Gun Bans/Control.

I would characterize your behavior as you being a bastard

Bastard: A child whose birth lacks legal legitimacy—that is, one born to a woman and a man who are not legally married.​

​

That doesn't seem to be a very accurate term for people who intentionally violate the rights of others.

Evil: morally reprehensible, arising from actual or imputed bad character or conduct.​

​

That's the most accurate term but it's so overused, and misused, that people don't take it seriously.

I strongly recommended against it (i.e. I used force.).

You strongly recommended against it? The horror!!! How many people ended up in the hospital and/or the morgue after that verbal massacre? ...10 pages and you still have no idea what the initiation of force actually is: Initiating force against someone is the only way you can violate their Rights. There are only two ways an individual's Rights can be violated - Force (physical and/or coercive) and Fraud.

Which did you use in your strongly worded recommendation? Did your recommendation involve blackmail (coercion), did you lie or cheat (fraud), did you resort to theft of any kind (physical), did you use a weapon of any kind (physical), or in any other way threaten your coworkers lives, liberty, or property (coercion) if they refused to agree with your recommendation?

When you and I disagree on political issues, you and your gang of thugs resort to coercion - the threat of physical force - as a means of violating my Rights - legally of course. You pass laws that threaten me with a loss of my life, liberty, or property if I don't comply with your bans on things I have a Right to do or mandates that force me to do things I may or may not choose to do voluntarily. An individual's Right to Disagree is not merely a Right to speak out against things he disapproves of, Freedom of Speech covers that, a Right to Disagree is the Right to not have the will of others imposed on you by force.

The dictum of Rand is too simple minded to resolve complex controversy.

I thought you weren't going to make this about her but here you are, once again, trying to make it about her. I made that statement, me, GenSeneca, not Rand. Also, and I've mentioned this before, attacking my views (or Rand's) is not the same thing as defending your own.

Your support for initiating force against others is what I've taken issue with from my very first post in this thread. What we've uncovered about your views on that subject are not very surprising:

• You admit you have no Right to violate the Rights of others but choose to do so anyway and cite "Common Sense" as justification for choosing to violate the rights of others.
• You think it's moral to violate the Rights of others when there's a good excuse but immoral if the excuse is bad or if there is no excuse at all.
• The difference between a good excuse and a bad excuse depends entirely upon whether or not you agree with the excuse.
• You don't respect the Rights, beliefs, opinions, or judgement of people with whom you disagree and, therefore, see no rational or logical reason why you shouldn't just ignore their Rights, beliefs, opinions, and judgements. So, you choose to violate their Rights and simply impose your will on them by force.

I would like to say that I am grateful you've been so candid about your complete and utter disregard for Individual Rights. Many people feel the same way as you but they don't usually have the audacity to actually admit it.

You are talking nonsense when you talk about conflation, equivocation, and rationalization applying to gray area situations.

Me: Is murder moral or immoral?
You: Both, depends on the circumstances... Like the Trolley Problem.
Me: Using a circumstance to plausibly justify the act of murder is a Rationalization: In psychology and logic, rationalization (also known as making excuses) is an unconscious defense mechanism in which perceived controversial behaviors or feelings are logically justified and explained in a rational or logical manner in order to avoid any true explanation, and are made consciously tolerable – or even admirable and superior – by plausible means.Rationalization encourages irrational or unacceptable behavior, motives, or feelings and often involves ad hoc hypothesizing. It is also an informal fallacy of reasoning.
You: But murder is a gray area!
Me: There is no gray area in logic.
You: My logic has lots of gray areas.
Me: That's because you're using fallacies, not logic.
You: That's nonsense.

You were myopic when you considered the "trolley problem" as two separate problems -- murder vs. saving kids.

So you weren't actually paying attention to what I said.... There were two separate concepts being conflated: means and ends - The means: Murder - The ends: Saving some kids.

Conflation occurs when the identities of two or more individuals, concepts, or places, sharing some characteristics of one another, seem to be a single identity — the differences appear to become lost. In logic, it is the practice of treating two distinct concepts as if they were one, which produces errors or misunderstandings as a fusion of distinct subjects tends to obscure analysis of relationships which are emphasized by contrasts.

Logic requires that we separate the two concepts so they can be dealt with individually - Murder: Immoral - Saving Lives: Moral. Conflation is how you Rationalize (create a plausible but rationally fallacious excuse for) the situation and thereby conclude that the immoral act of murder is actually moral - "It's moral to murder innocent people as a means of saving the lives of some children"

you never did tell me what you would do in that counterexample.

My "dictum" wasn't clear? I would not intentionally initiate the use of force against anyone, not ever, not under any circumstances.

Your turn... How many convicted felons would you intentionally murder to save the life of one innocent little girl?

I was actually surprised you balked at that question before... You had claimed that your "morality" was better suited for dealing with gray areas than my own 'rigid and inflexible' morality but you actually thought the question was too gray an area for your "common-sense morality" to handle. But I guess it makes sense... When you think the answer is obvious you don't have to think about it, it's just "common sense" but when the answer isn't so obvious you actually do have to think about it..

Since you've crippled your mind with fallacies of logic and reason to create plausible excuses for "common sense" answers to "obvious" questions, having to actually think about a situation that isn't so obvious must be agonizing, like trying to walk on broken legs. To answer the question you will have to rationally assign a subjective value to both the life of the little girl and to the life of a single convict. If you use rational thought to arrive at the number, then you'll be able to explain how and why you arrived at that number. If you ignore rational thought and rely on your emotions to pick a number that feels right, then you wont' be able to explain how or why you arrived at the number, it's just "common sense" that you did.

It seems that Ayn Rand gave you your authority.

What authority do I need? I'm not the one who thinks it's moral to impose my will onto others by force. Respecting your Rights as an individual, and choosing to never violate them, requires no authority - just a 'rigid and inflexible' adherence to morality. Only the people who seek to violate the rights of others require some form of authority to do so.

 

[Iolo2]

not nearly as weird as foreign extremists ignoring the facts regarding the millions murdered by tyrants. more than a few children among those millions.

But you pay for the tyrants, after all, because you make money by it. Heil Netemyahu! American rightwingers really are WEIRD aren't they?

 

[Lagboltz]

And I gave you several more examples where you fully support initiating force against people. Here's a more comprehensive list: Welfare, Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare, Unemployment Insurance, Universal Health Care, Subsidies and bailouts, Climate Change legislation, Foreign Aid, CAFE Standards, Public Education, Government Regulations, Taxation, and, of course, the topic of this thread - Gun Bans/Control.

Welfare, Social security, Medicaid, Medicare, Unemployment Insurance, ....
The horror! How many people ended up in the hospital and/or the morgue? Were weapons used?
The horror! See below.

Bastard: A child whose birth lacks legal legitimacy—that is, one born to a woman and a man who are not legally married.​

​

That doesn't seem to be a very accurate term for people who intentionally violate the rights of others.

Your nit-picking comment on bastard is one of the more inane that I have seen. I will now nit-pick your nit-picking comment. If you want to cite a dictionary definition don't cherry pick a silly one. Can you guess which one of the following would be appropriate in the context of my usage?
Hint: Don't pick 4.

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/bastard
1. Informal, offensive; an obnoxious or despicable person
2. Informal, often humorous or affectionate; a person, esp a man... lucky bastard
3. Informal, something extremely difficult or unpleasant... that job is a real bastard
4. Old-fashioned or offensive; a person born of unmarried parents; an illegitimate baby, child, or adult
5. something irregular, abnormal, or inferior

Your lack of clear logical insight on the use of dictionary terms is really telling. You are continually promoting logic but don't use it in this obvious usage of words.

You strongly recommended against it? The horror!!! How many people ended up in the hospital and/or the morgue after that verbal massacre? ...10 pages and you still have no idea what the initiation of force actually is: Initiating force against someone is the only way you can violate their Rights. There are only two ways an individual's Rights can be violated - Force (physical and/or coercive) and Fraud.

Which did you use in your strongly worded recommendation? Did your recommendation involve blackmail (coercion), did you lie or cheat (fraud), did you resort to theft of any kind (physical), did you use a weapon of any kind (physical), or in any other way threaten your coworkers lives, liberty, or property (coercion) if they refused to agree with your recommendation?

The Horror!! See above.

When you and I disagree on political issues, you and your gang of thugs resort to coercion - the threat of physical force - as a means of violating my Rights - legally of course. You pass laws that threaten me with a loss of my life, liberty, or property if I don't comply with your bans on things I have a Right to do or mandates that force me to do things I may or may not choose to do voluntarily. An individual's Right to Disagree is not merely a Right to speak out against things he disapproves of, Freedom of Speech covers that, a Right to Disagree is the Right to not have the will of others imposed on you by force.

Poor you. That's what you and your Rand libertarians have to suffer in this country.

I thought you weren't going to make this about her but here you are, once again, trying to make it about her. I made that statement, me, GenSeneca, not Rand. Also, and I've mentioned this before, attacking my views (or Rand's) is not the same thing as defending your own.

Then stop idolizing Rand's dogma. It doesn't work. You are the one making it about her. She is not an Authority and you keep referring to her dogma as the voice of Authority.

Defend my own views? I am not here to defend my views. I am here to understand how far you will take a black and white dogma that can fail miserably in gray areas. My dispute is not to defend something I think is right. That is your stance. My stance is to criticize your stance that I think is wrong.

.......
So you weren't actually paying attention to what I said.... There were two separate concepts being conflated: means and ends - The means: Murder - The ends: Saving some kids.

Conflation occurs when the identities of two or more individuals, concepts, or places, sharing some characteristics of one another, seem to be a single identity — the differences appear to become lost. In logic, it is the practice of treating two distinct concepts as if they were one, which produces errors or misunderstandings as a fusion of distinct subjects tends to obscure analysis of relationships which are emphasized by contrasts.

Logic requires that we separate the two concepts so they can be dealt with individually - Murder: Immoral - Saving Lives: Moral. Conflation is how you Rationalize (create a plausible but rationally fallacious excuse for) the situation and thereby conclude that the immoral act of murder is actually moral - "It's moral to murder innocent people as a means of saving the lives of some children"

My "dictum" wasn't clear? I would not intentionally initiate the use of force against anyone, not ever, not under any circumstances.

So you would allow a bus load of kids to die. To me that is extreme moral cowardice. I bet even Rand wouldn't let a bus load of kids die. You can be sure the parents and citizens of the town would tar and feather you, or worse. Thereby they would ironically violate Rand's dogma about initiating force on you.

However, on the bright side, the druggie will want to be BFF with you.

Using conflation you want to separate two concepts logically when there is a solid and intrinsic physical link between the two. The decision you must make is binary:
Yes = switch train.
No = don't switch train.
Conflation is not an appropriate concept to separate two concepts linked like that.
A decision to kill a felon is identical to a decision to allow a bus load of kids to live.
The decision to not kill a felon is identical to a decision to allow a bus load of kids to die.
You are indeed using conflation as a rationalization for your lack of appropriate action.

I don't know how to think like you but lets try this:
Switch the track and save the kids as self defense to keep the town from lynching you. Self defense can become the rationalization using your strict Randian philosophy. Yes, it's a win-win for you -- you save the kids, save your own life, and become a hero as a bonus. (But not a hero to a dead druggie.)

Your turn... How many convicted felons would you intentionally murder to save the life of one innocent little girl?

Good question. It's well in the gray area.

I was actually surprised you balked at that question before... You had claimed that your "morality" was better suited for dealing with gray areas than my own 'rigid and inflexible' morality but you actually thought the question was too gray an area for your "common-sense morality" to handle. But I guess it makes sense... When you think the answer is obvious you don't have to think about it, it's just "common sense" but when the answer isn't so obvious you actually do have to think about it..

Since you've crippled your mind with fallacies of logic and reason to create plausible excuses for "common sense" answers to "obvious" questions, having to actually think about a situation that isn't so obvious must be agonizing, like trying to walk on broken legs. To answer the question you will have to rationally assign a subjective value to both the life of the little girl and to the life of a single convict. If you use rational thought to arrive at the number, then you'll be able to explain how and why you arrived at that number. If you ignore rational thought and rely on your emotions to pick a number that feelsright, then you wont' be able to explain how or why you arrived at the number, it's just "common sense" that you did.

You got it backwards. I was claiming your Randian moral dogma is erroneous, more than I was claiming moral superiority.

What authority do I need? I'm not the one who thinks it's moral to impose my will onto others by force. Respecting your Rights as an individual, and choosing to never violate them, requires no authority - just a 'rigid and inflexible' adherence to morality. Only the people who seek to violate the rights of others require some form of authority to do so.

Summary: You are rigidly in bed with Ayn Rand and her dogma. You are judging me with bitter outbursts and insults on a dogma that few people believe including me. I believe that your understanding of morality is deeply flawed.

Your arguments are very much like a Christian using Biblical passages to try to convince an atheist that God exists when the atheist doesn't believe in the Bible as the full truth in the first place.

 

[GenSeneca]

Welfare, Social security, Medicaid, Medicare, Unemployment Insurance, ....
The horror!

Individuals are threatened with a loss of life, liberty, and/or property if they refuse to comply with the above examples. Not so in your example of a 'strongly worded recommendation'.

I'm sure you can think of many examples of your political opponents wanting to use, or having already used, government to impose their will on you by force... If you think it's right for you to do it to other people, on what grounds can you claim it's wrong when your political opponents do it you?

Defend my own views? I am not here to defend my views.

"There is no rational or logical way to defend my views, so I just attack the views of others" - An honest Collectivist

Using conflation you want to separate two concepts logically when there is a solid and intrinsic physical link between the two.

Conflation is the fallacy of combining two concepts because they share a link. Separating the two concepts, despite their common link, is not conflation, it's sound logic.

​

Conflation occurs when the identities (morality) of two or more ... concepts (means: the act of murder vs. ends: saving lives)... sharing some characteristics of one another (circumstance), seem to be a single identity (a "moral" dilemma) — the differences (the morality of the actions) appear to become lost.​

You are indeed using conflation as a rationalization for your lack of appropriate action.

You're adorable...

So you would allow a bus load of kids to die. To me that is extreme moral cowardice.

You would allow 770,000 homeless and hungry to remain homeless and hungry simply because you refuse to execute our nation's convicted felons... Isn't that "extreme moral cowardice" on your part?

And what of the 46 million Americans living in poverty... Executing the top 1% and redistributing their wealth would eradicate all poverty... You would allow that poverty to continue. Isn't your refusal to execute the top 1% an act of "extreme moral cowardice"?

...."your lack of appropriate action" would indicate that it is "extreme moral cowardice".

Good question. It's well in the gray area.

It is a good question... You explained the process by which you navigate gray areas before, so go ahead and apply your concept of "fairness" to your "common sense morality" and provide an answer to the question.

 

[cashmcall]

There are only two examples where I said I would initiate force -- the suicide and "trolley problem" examples. I already gave you reasons and we beat that to death. I am not going over that again.

I would characterize your behavior as you being a bastard to you being a savior depending on the circumstances. We would have to talk over each incident to see where the problem is/was.

Again, it all depends on the situation. Marketing insists on bells and whistles on a product that would delay the project by 6 months. I say we would miss a marketing window, and overrun product costs, so I strongly recommended against it (i.e. I used force.). Marketing was sore. Marketing pushed it behind my back (i.e. they used force.) The product was way too expensive and missed the window, we didn't go into production, and we wasted $100,000 on unnecessary R&D. I was sore. I used common sense, and was unfortunately right. If the product sold like hotcakes because of the bells and whistles, then their common sense would have been right. It was a gray area. Rand's sense of morality seems to be no help in conflict resolution. Don't say she requires rational reasoning because that is what is done anyway without her advise.

Let me tell you there was lots of rational and logical explanation behind that event. The dictum of Rand is too simple minded to resolve complex controversy. That is where common sense comes in.

The example real-life problem I just cited was a gray area that required lots of rational analysis, and in the end it required experience, and logical foresight -- common sense. That conforms to my definition of common sense.

You are talking nonsense when you talk about conflation, equivocation, and rationalization applying to gray area situations. You were myopic when you considered the "trolley problem" as two separate problems -- murder vs. saving kids. The problem was a single intertwined problem. When you considered it as conflating two separate aspects you lost the essence of the situation and became frozen in uncertainty to the extent that you never did tell me what you would do in that counterexample. That paralyzation is what can lead you to decisions in complex gray areas, not rationality.

It seems that Ayn Rand gave you your authority. She is not my authority.

As I said, my judgment would range from considering them as somewhere between a bastard to a savior depending on the circumstances.

This is perhaps most associated with Ayn Rand and Murray Rothbard, but its roots go back to Spencer, Mill, Locke, Pufendorf, and even Epicurus....I learned this today...

 

[dogtowner]

man... you boys love to type.

 

[Lagboltz]

This is perhaps most associated with Ayn Rand and Murray Rothbard, but its roots go back to Spencer, Mill, Locke, Pufendorf, and even Epicurus....I learned this today...

Well, I guess I learned this today too.

 

[Lagboltz]

Individuals are threatened with a loss of life, liberty, and/or property if they refuse to comply with the above examples.

Exactly how are Welfare, Social security, Medicaid, Medicare, and Unemployment Insurance threatening a loss of life, liberty, and/or property?

Conflation is the fallacy of combining two concepts because they share a link. Separating the two concepts, despite their common link, is not conflation, it's sound logic.

Conflation occurs when the identities (morality) of two or more ... concepts (means: the act of murder vs. ends: saving lives)... sharing some characteristics of one another (circumstance), seem to be a single identity (a "moral" dilemma) — the differences (the morality of the actions) appear to become lost.

If you want to think of the morality of the actions becoming lost, that's fine with me. I call it gray areas.

It is a good question... You explained the process by which you navigate gray areas before, so go ahead and apply your concept of "fairness" to your "common sense morality" and provide an answer to the question.

As I said in your other thread, I'm not interested in your silly game.

 

[dogtowner]

Exactly how are Welfare, Social security, Medicaid, Medicare, and Unemployment Insurance threatening a loss of life, liberty, and/or property?

If you want to think of the morality of the actions becoming lost, that's fine with me. I call it gray areas.

As I said in your other thread, I'm not interested in your silly game.

#1 all involve loss of property (your wealth)
#2 if its not right, its wrong. no gray.

 

[Lagboltz]

#1 all involve loss of property (your wealth)
#2 if its not right, its wrong. no gray.

It seems you are saying is that it all boils down to taxes. Social security is the exception to that because I very specifically paid all my life for it and now that I'm retired I am getting it back.

 

[dogtowner]

It seems you are saying is that it all boils down to taxes. Social security is the exception to that because I very specifically paid all my life for it and now that I'm retired I am getting it back.

you are not "getting it back". your money went to pay people drawing at that time. and when tjete was.more of that income to cover expenses the rest went to the general fund. well now there isnt enough its being paid by taxpayers.

and as a bonus read the law behind it and you will find thst there is ko guarantee of payment.

im not begrudging you drawing but rather addressing your point regarding property.

 

[BigRob]

It seems you are saying is that it all boils down to taxes. Social security is the exception to that because I very specifically paid all my life for it and now that I'm retired I am getting it back.

What about someone like me? I am still young. I am paying into Social Security, but what if I die at 45? I will have gotten nothing back. CATO did a study a few years back that found I needed to basically live until I was 90 to break even in Social Security. What are the odds of that?

Plus, it gets worse. Every year I pay off the Social Security tax fairly early, but now, the idea is to just have me pay that tax with no cap, (more money I won't get back), and to add insult to injury, now BOTH parties seem to want to "means test" me out of getting any real benefit -- because I don't need it.

I may not need it, but it is absurd to demand I pay more into a system under the idea I will get some benefit back, and then means test me out of getting any benefit.

Why can't I just opt out altogether? I don't want Social Security, and it is insulting to demand I pay more for a "benefit" that both parties are beginning to acknowledge they will never give me.

 

[Lagboltz]

you are not "getting it back". your money went to pay people drawing at that time. and when tjete was.more of that income to cover expenses the rest went to the general fund. well now there isnt enough its being paid by taxpayers.

and as a bonus read the law behind it and you will find thst there is ko guarantee of payment.

im not begrudging you drawing but rather addressing your point regarding property.

Yes, I'm well aware of the SS debacle. I will break even at 85. Last I heard the govmt owes the SS trust around 3 to 4 trillion in "IOUs". It's LBJ's fault with his shortsighted "Great Society". When you say there is not enough coming from tax payers, you are not including the trillions owed to the SS "trust". It's part of the debt now, but it belongs to the people who put it there, unless the law has been changed and the trust fund is totally defunct.

Greenspan's Fraud by Ravi Batra is a book that covers what idiocy the government has played since LBJ in 1965.

As far as Rob's objection, I always considered it as insurance -- a large pool so that retirees or the disabled would not starve when they no longer worked. Of course there are some that will not see what they put in. That is the nature of the pool. However the government since LBJ mucked things up.

 

[dogtowner]

Yes, I'm well aware of the SS debacle. I will break even at 85. Last I heard the govmt owes the SS trust around 3 to 4 trillion in "IOUs". It's LBJ's fault with his shortsighted "Great Society". When you say there is not enough coming from tax payers, you are not including the trillions owed to the SS "trust". It's part of the debt now, but it belongs to the people who put it there, unless the law has been changed and the trust fund is totally defunct.

Greenspan's Fraud by Ravi Batra is a book that covers what idiocy the government has played since LBJ in 1965.

As far as Rob's objection, I always considered it as insurance -- a large pool so that retirees or the disabled would not starve when they no longer worked. Of course there are some that will not see what they put in. That is the nature of the pool. However the government since LBJ mucked things up.

there was never a trust fund. I know FDR pitched it as otherwise but it was never put in the legislation. and there never was an intention to do so.

 

[Lagboltz]

there was never a trust fund. I know FDR pitched it as otherwise but it was never put in the legislation. and there never was an intention to do so.

You are partially correct. This are excerpts from our beloved gummint.
http://www.ssa.gov/history/BudgetTreatment.html

In the Social Security Act of 1935 the income from the payroll tax was to be credited to a Social Security "account." Benefits were to be paid against this account, but there was no formal trust fund as such.
...
In the 1939 Amendments, a formal trust fund was established and a requirement was put in place for annual reports on the actuarial status of the fund.
...
In early 1968 President Lyndon Johnson made a change in the budget presentation by including Social Security and all other trust funds in a"unified budget."

The damn progressive LBJ spent my SS on the Vietnam war.