Words have to have meanings. If A defines "freedom" as "everyone else doing exactly what I want them to do", and B defines "freedom" as "being left alone other than according to agreements that I voluntarily enter into", can A and B discuss freedom in any rem...

For the esteemed members here who still hold to the latter persuasion, forget Abraham and whether or not camels were ridden in his day, what do you think about the question of whether women should keep silence in the churches and whether they should have their heads covered (in other words New Test...

The irony is awfully thick in here, what with Kshartle advocating criminal charges against somebody.

Ok well I have one more question if you would please humor me. If your neighbor's house was burning down and you saw him frantically grab a bucket filled with fluid and run at the house thinking it was water, but you knew it was gasoline.....would it be ok to tackle him? If so....why? This one shou...

Today I was watching Fr Robert Barron's commentary on the latest Superman movie, and somewhat surprisingly, it fit right into a lot of the discussions we've had here on this topic. He sees the movie (and has direct evidence from the movie itself) as a battle between Platonic totalitarianism in the f...

Compare and contrast with my idea of a private society; I think a lot of things would still be shit, and people would still be violent and greedy, but simply that the systemic properties of the society's institutions would tend to discourage these things to a greater extent that contemporary govern...

What shoe is that? You're a Utopian. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/utopian: Noun utopian (plural utopians)     Someone who supports or heralds the establishment of a utopia https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/utopia: Noun utopia (plural utopias)     A world in which everything and everyone works in per...

At any rate.....I'm not interested in back tracking the discussion. I'm over the governemnt thing. It's not the cause of our problems....it's the symptom of them.....as I've said on about 100 or more occasions here. So PLEASE stop lecturing us about what government should or shouldn't do, and go st...

Scour my posts for the word utopia and you'll see I am constantly telling you guys that there will never be a utopia, no matter how many times you bring it up. You're certainly right that there won't be one.  All you've demonstrated, though, is that you don't like to apply the word to your own phil...

I don't beleive in any utopia. Please, man, please!  You're the most Utopian person I've ever come across, alive or dead.  I'm not sure why you'd deny it.  I don't think there's anything about Utopia that by definition means it's unattainable.  If you believe in a Utopia that you think is attainabl...

Did you ever read the other post, the one I just linked to? It describes that pretty well, I think. You yourself say that government is a symptom, a result, not the cause, of the problem, and that only once children are raised without being "hit" will force go away. So... Please go work o...

I think it's easy to see where my confusion came from, the language in the sentence leaves significant room for interpetation. Sorry about the unclear wording. Regardless....how does being "pre-eschaton" prove that we agree the initiation of force agaisnt other people is necessary? Did yo...

Nice modding there, TennPaGa! i suspect "whatever exactly that might be" refers to the differences in your belief in a NAP eschaton and his in a christian one. or another way of saying "what ever form it may take" Simon, you are correct in your interpretation of "whatever ex...

Can you please link to where you proved it? Yes: http://gyroscopicinvesting.com/forum/other-discussions/abortion-and-19th-century-science/msg89510/#msg89510 "Since we all agree we're pre-eschaton (whatever exactly that might be), then we all agree that some force is necessary." I don't kn...

I'm not sure what you're still arguing about, Kshartle.  Since we all agree we're pre-eschaton (whatever exactly that might be), then we all agree that some force is necessary. You can argue the pros and cons of particular proposals, and it may well be (and I would argue, is) a plus if a proposal us...

Wow, Reub, that's terrible!  Glad you're feeling better.  And yes, this certainly would make me think twice about getting on one of those ships...

Thanks, PS.

Mountaineer, I think I've seen you mention that work here before.  I'll have to look that up!

I'm not sure just what hairs I'm splitting and goalposts I'm moving, but whatevs.  I'm assuming that your refusal to answer my question: So, if you somehow had the power today to repeal all the laws against murder, would you do it, or not, and why? is because it leads you down a path you don't want ...

Yes in fact think everyone should murder everyone. You nailed it. Brilliant analysis. You sliced right through everything I wrote and got right to the heart of the matter. I think murder should be legal. Love it. Never has a nail been stuck so squarely on the head before. You got me. I think murder...

Yes brilliantly said Lowe. As I've said countless times....Government is the effect, not the cause of the problem. The problem is the acceptance and support of the initiation of force as a solution to problems. The elimination of government will be the effect, not the cause of the rejection of the ...

Do you think there would even be any more if they declared it legal? Yes!  I honestly don't see how you can disagree with this.  You chastise people for missing the "blindingly obvious", even when it isn't.  You certainly agree that the law affects behavior, or else you wouldn't care abou...

It looks like the most recent numbers are from 2010.  In the United States, you have a .0048% chance per year, or 1 in over 20,000, chance of being murdered.  And I'm sure that number drops a LOT if you're not in a street gang.

"Extremely high"?

Kshartle wrote:They barely discourage crime at all. Look at how many murders rapes and thefts take place in America, and I'm not even talking about the crimes committed by the government.

That's a pretty big logical fallacy there, isn't it?  Your conclusion seems to have come from thin air.

It's because I reject such nonsense that I oppose the state and the laws and the violence. Create an agency of violence to solve the problem of violence.....wow way to think that one out. Government is an agency of violence, whose effect is to lower the overall violence in society.  Forcing people ...

Here's an interesting (and brief) article on the perfectibility of man.  I think that's a delusion which is quite common here. http://mortalweight.blogspot.com/2012/09/perfectibility-of-man.html This fellow refers to the "tyranny of nature", which is something Moda often brings up, althoug...