Gyroscopic Investing

Simonjester wrote:

moda0306 wrote:
When you choose to give your property back to the Native Americans as a show of good faith that you respect original claims to property, I'll vote for the anarcho-libertarian party. Deal?

that is a heck of an argument .. how far back do you want to take it? maybe we should all get DNA tests, and anybody whose DNA proves they were not related to the first migration out of Africa should give up any claim to the rest of of the world and move back to their original continent....

Yeah, there's no undoing past evils. I mean, my catholic ancestors were driven from Scotland by the protestants who persecuted them terribly barely more than 100 years ago… should I be entitled to some land that the government of Scotland would confiscate from protestant churches? Down that road lies madness.

Kshartle,

Your utopia (short of being implemented in a totally enlightened and rational society...that has also been indoctrinated to believe in one particular philosophical system) would result in more violence and catastrophe than anything the Marxists created over the last 100 years. I think you are in complete denial as to the reality and limitations of the human species. You are an intelligent guy who is so wrapped up in your grandiose theories of how things should operate, that you fail to acknowledge the messy reality that we are working with.

Repeated statements like this lead me to believe that you are operating in some sort of delusion: "Zero physical aggression against others and respect for their ownership of their justly acquired property are definately my moral standards."

What you just wrote above is utterly meaningless nonsense....how do you enforce "zero physical aggression?" without violating your own damn principles? And don't even get me started on the concept of "ownership of property"...I don't believe that a human can own something that they didn't create...like the earth itself. Now what? I don't want to play by your rules....are you going to force me to?

doodle wrote: Kshartle,

Your utopia (short of being implemented in a totally enlightened and rational society...that has also been indoctrinated to believe in one particular philosophical system) would result in more violence and catastrophe than anything the Marxists created over the last 100 years.

Possibly.

What is more enlighted and rational than the rejection of aggresive violence to solve problems in favor of negotiation and voluntary exchange?

You're basically arguing that a rationale and enlighted society will only work when people are rationale and enlightened. Yes you're right. I agree. That's what I'm arguing as well. People should be rationale and enlighted.

Let's start here.

You guys are capable of rejecting aggresive violence to solve your personal problems right? Why do you advocate them to solve other people's problems? Why do you think being violent against people who have not threatened or attacked you or anyone else solves problems and why do you support it?

doodle wrote: I don't believe that a human can own something that they didn't create...like the earth itself.

I didn't create this computer, do you not believe I own it? I didn't create my car, do you not believe I own it?

If that is really where you are at mentally I would say there is a deeper issue.

BTW can I have all that stuff that it looks like you own but according to you you don't?

doodle wrote: I don't believe that a human can own something that they didn't create...like the earth itself. Now what? I don't want to play by your rules....are you going to force me to?

Your beliefs, while insane and bizzare and destructive to your life aren't of great interest to me as long as you don't act them out. Now if you go around stealing and attacking people and doing whatever you want.....well.....you'll get consequences with or without a so-called "government".

What do you think would happen to you if you attack people and steal from them, even if there was no government?

Kshartle wrote:

doodle wrote: I don't believe that a human can own something that they didn't create...like the earth itself. Now what? I don't want to play by your rules....are you going to force me to?

Your beliefs, while insane and bizzare and destructive to your life aren't of great interest to me as long as you don't act them out. Now if you go around stealing and attacking people and doing whatever you want.....well.....you'll get consequences with or without a so-called "government".

What do you think would happen to you if you attack people and steal from them, even if there was no government?

That depends....am I like Ghenghis Khan or Carrottop? History, Kshartle...look to the past. We have had human societies living in a relatively sparsely populated world without government before. In those societies more than 25% of the male population died a violent death at the hands of another human. Can you acknowledge that the historical record shows that anarchistic societies in the past had very high levels of violence and that the number of violent deaths dropped greatly after governments and armies came into being? If you deny this, then you might as well start denying the dinosaur fossil record.

doodle wrote:

Kshartle wrote: What do you think would happen to you if you attack people and steal from them, even if there was no government?

That depends....am I like Ghenghis Khan or Carrottop? History, Kshartle...look to the past. We have had human societies living in a relatively sparsely populated world without government before. In those societies more than 25% of the male population died a violent death at the hands of another human. Can you acknowledge that the historical record shows that anarchistic societies in the past had very high levels of violence and that the number of violent deaths dropped greatly after governments and armies came into being? If you deny this, then you might as well start denying the dinosaur fossil record.

I can't wait to show you the chapter on this subject in the book I'm writing describing how a hypothetical modern non-government society could come to pass and be implemented in modern times. Moda's urging finally got me off my butt to start writing. 

Also, I believe the 25% statistic included animal attacks, but I could be misremembering. Moda, would you confirm, and maybe also post a link to the source? It's some really interesting stuff.

doodle wrote:

Kshartle wrote:

doodle wrote: I don't believe that a human can own something that they didn't create...like the earth itself. Now what? I don't want to play by your rules....are you going to force me to?

Your beliefs, while insane and bizzare and destructive to your life aren't of great interest to me as long as you don't act them out. Now if you go around stealing and attacking people and doing whatever you want.....well.....you'll get consequences with or without a so-called "government".

What do you think would happen to you if you attack people and steal from them, even if there was no government?

That depends....am I like Ghenghis Khan or Carrottop? History, Kshartle...look to the past. We have had human societies living in a relatively sparsely populated world without government before. In those societies more than 25% of the male population died a violent death at the hands of another human. Can you acknowledge that the historical record shows that anarchistic societies in the past had very high levels of violence and that the number of violent deaths dropped greatly after governments and armies came into being? If you deny this, then you might as well start denying the dinosaur fossil record.

Why do you think so called "anarchist" societies of the past would be re-born in people now?

First of all, I have no doubt those societies were ruled by the strongest Attilas and witch doctors and the people were not rational and had not rejected aggressive violence as a problem solving mechanisim. This is not anarchy. It is closer to what we have now...chaos.

How many male deaths occured in societies where people rejected aggression and violence as a solution to their problems?

If aggressive violence and murder (as well as kiddnapping, theft, etc.) are bad......why do you advocate them as a solution to problems?

Do you think you can teach a kid that hitting is wrong by hitting them? Do you think stealing from people to pay for cops prevents stealing? It...is....stealing.

Something like this http://reason.com/archives/2012/01/11/t ... f-violence

doodle wrote: Something like this http://reason.com/archives/2012/01/11/t ... f-violence

If I go into a bank and point a gun at the clerk and demand the money, and he/she hands it over, then I leave, was that violence?

Kshartle wrote: How many male deaths occured in societies where people rejected aggression and violence as a solution to their problems?

All of them, when they were conquered by government agricultural societies that had developed specialized, full-time armies. Pacifist societies never last long in the face of aggression. The question is how people can maintain proficiency in defensive violence against aggressors while not descending into aggressive violence themselves.

Pointedstick wrote:

Kshartle wrote: How many male deaths occured in societies where people rejected aggression and violence as a solution to their problems?

All of them, when they were conquered by government agricultural societies that had developed specialized, full-time armies. Pacifist societies never last long in the face of aggression. The question is how people can maintain proficiency in defensive violence against aggressors while not descending into aggressive violence themselves.

Solving the problem of how a group of people can defend themselves against violent aggression from others is definately important. I would submit though that this is irrelavent as long as that group supports violent agression amoungst itself. It's like a bunch of people dying of cancer saying before they figure out a cure they need to figure out how to prevent catching HIV from other people.

Simonjester wrote:

moda0306 wrote:
When you choose to give your property back to the Native Americans as a show of good faith that you respect original claims to property, I'll vote for the anarcho-libertarian party.  Deal?

  that is a heck of an argument ..  how far back do you want to take it? maybe we should all get DNA tests, and anybody whose DNA proves they were not related to the first migration out of Africa should give up any claim to the rest of of the world and move back to their original continent.... 

Maybe we shouldn't go back any years at all.  Maybe we should abolish all social recognition of property as-is and start from scratch with our skills?

Either way, it's arbitrary, but the "owners" today act like it's an easy question.

Simonjester wrote:
why because you feel guilty about the rough and tumble origins of property? or to meet your sense of "fair" we should all start over? if you want a society that has no property you must propose something to base it on, and some way to make it happen without the use of some powerful overloads enforcing your ideas of fair, otherwise a property and ownership based society is not only the best we have.... its all we have...

basing a society on a nebulous understanding of fair is impossible.. basing one on property has a proven track record for enriching mankind, and just because we didn't start out there, or that we are are not fully enriched enough to meet, or fully enlightens enough to handle "the librarian ideal" yet, doesn't mean we shouldn't move toward it..

Kshartle wrote:

moda0306 wrote: Kshartle,

In this country?  Could you show me a country WITH morality?  Somalia, with their "free socety?" (no need to respond... snarky rhetorical statement haha) - Somalia is riddled with violence. This is not an example of freedom in anyway.

Did we once have morality?  When was that? No definately not. For males, and non-blacks in the South in the 19th century and early 20th property rights were not violated by the government in any way close to the way they are now though. People were not taxed based on their income, be it from labor or investment. Do you think perhaps that contributed to building the highest living standard in the world and all of the wonderful inventions of the 19th and 20th century?

That being said, physical abuse of children, people with different skin pigment and sexual preference is not accepted the way it used to be and this is a very good thing.

Human beings have been sticking weapons in each other's faces for thousands of years.  Thing is, they used to actually use those weapons a lot more.  Any of doodle's statistics on the nature of violence/death over human existence ring any bell? What is your point?

There are moral standards... they are just not YOUR moral standards.  You're asking us to abandon our current government, and recognize what YOU deem to be legitimate claims on property and what you deem to be legitimate mob-rule ("communities" defending property and fighting wars). Zero physical aggression against others and respect for their ownership of their justly acquired property are definately my moral standards. What are yours? Saying that behavior is moral based on the outcome is actually a complete lack of a moral standard. Anything goes as long as the end result is whatever you like. Can you see how that is not an actual moral standard (i.e. a rules-based code of what behavior is right). What I hear advocated here constantly is a 100% lack of a moral standard and then the lie that this is somehow moral. When people point out a moral standard it's derided as not being one. 

When you choose to give your property back to the Native Americans as a show of good faith that you respect original claims to property, I'll vote for the anarcho-libertarian party.  Deal? No deal. Why are they entitled to my property? I don't steal anything from anyone. I am stolen from constantly and I'm sure a few of those coins have made their way into the hands of so-called "Native Americans".

- Somalia is a stateless society (or was, mostly).  This is what you get when you experiment with "no force."  You get lots of it, sometimes.

- For males and non-blacks in the South, property "rights" weren't violated... sure.  Good for them.  Some people were "more equal" than others... but we had extremely high tax rates for most of the 20th century, and those inventions kept coming.  What's your take on that?

- People are violent when 1) left with no other option, and 2) given few negative consequences.  It's ridiculous to think that abolishing goverment will reduce the amount of violence.  And you're free to move, so you can only use the "robbing a bank" example a couple April 15ths before you're now just whining that things aren't your way.  If it's so violent here, and freedom is so valuable, thank GOD we have the freedom to just move out.

- Zero physical aggression against others?  Other what?  Human beings?  Or only human beings in my tribe or that have modified land to their advantage before I could do it?

What about animals?  What about all the animals in an ecosystem?  Do they have rights?  I really can't tell based on your wonderfully arbitrary and convenient moralizing on what our rights consist of.

- What is theft?  You use terms like "my property" or "property rights" or "stolen from" without any true, identifiable link other than, "I landed here, planted some seeds and put up some signs.  I can do whatever I want with this."  Just because you control your limbs doesn't mean you have a moral claim to everything they touch... at least not without some structure that is deductively sound.


You have NO basis for your moral position, yet you argue with us from a pedestal, acting like you have the moral high-ground, which is an utter joke.  When doodle and I ask you what happens if we disagree, you just say "I don't care as long as you don't steal "my property.""  That surely is some circular logic.  Care to expand on this a bit.  Entire wars have been fought by people over what both sides very surely thought was "their property."

Just as your tax dollars MIGHT go to some Native American somewhere, so might mine go into your hands for Social Security... we can play this game all day long.  What if I want to "recollect my theft."  Since I know the government is better armed, can I just steal my old lady neighbor's Lexus?  Since she's using the government as an agent to steal from me, don't I have the right to reclaim what is mine?

Your entire premise is built on a moral/emotional house of cards:  You like stuff.  You like the house you live in.  You don't like taxes.  You don't like being told what to do.  You don't like seeing others skate by.  Can we just end it there rather than having this grand argument over "force," when the very property we hold would be nomadic hunting land, but for a government/settler partnership to spread west and displace Indians?


Theft implies prior ownership.

Prior ownership implies a LEGITIMATE moral claim to something.

This is something you simply cannot prove by wishing it so.

What if I think something is my property, but you think it is your property?  Do you see room for disagreement EVER on this?  Don't you find it a bit arbitrary that people can just make claims on stuff because it's their and they can put a sign on it or till it up for their use?

moda0306 wrote: - Somalia is a stateless society (or was, mostly).  This is what you get when you experiment with "no force."  You get lots of it, sometimes.

What are you talking about experiment with "no force"? You are not playing with a full deck here. Somolia is not representative of a group of people rejecting aggressive violence as a solution to problems. This is argument by repetition. If you repeat this lie over and over maybe someone will believe and think that you might be right about other things without examining them. No one has ever held up Somolia as a place where people have rejected aggression or the use of agressive force (distinguished from defense).

Do you honestly think Somolia represents the rejection of agressive force or violence? If you don't....please stop repeating it. Argument by repetition is fallacious.

Kshartle wrote: Do you honestly think Somolia represents the rejection of agressive force or violence? If you don't....please stop repeating it. Argument by repetition is fallacious.

I think the argument is that Somalia is what happens when there's no central government apparatus of violence to keep the aspiring private apparatuses of violence in check.

If you're waiting for humans to reject aggression before a Private Society can come into being, I don't predict it ever will. In order not only to exist, but also be robust and resilient society, it would have to deal with the present reality that some people are aggressively violent rather than hope for a utopian world in which we've transcended our barbaric tendencies and resemble Star Trek humans.

moda0306 wrote: we had extremely high tax rates for most of the 20th century, and those inventions kept coming.  What's your take on that?

Again you have repeated this many many times. It is not true. No one was paying these high rates. It is missleading at best when you say stuff like this.

Here is the article from the WSJ from last year. It was written by your favorite.....Schiff. There is an amendment at the bottom by the editor to correct a mis-reading of the tax tables.

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB1 ... 1554982808

Marginal rates might have been higher for the wealthy but the taxes paid were lower.

Lower taxes on the rich mean they will be able to invest in more businesses, hire more people etc.  I just played tennis with a guy over the weekend who owns 40 subways and a couple car dealerships. He said he pays well over 40% in taxes and that doesn't even count all the extra he has to pay employees to cover their taxes amoung other things. He looked me right and the eye said he could open so many more stores and other businesses and hire more people if he didn't have to hand over more than a million in taxes every year.

Now you can sit there and think he's just a greedy business owner. I'll tell you flat out he's a nice guy who said he lives on about 20% of his income and would just like to keep expanding and employing and building.

moda0306 wrote: - People are violent when 1) left with no other option, and 2) given few negative consequences.  It's ridiculous to think that abolishing goverment will reduce the amount of violence.  And you're free to move, so you can only use the "robbing a bank" example a couple April 15ths before you're now just whining that things aren't your way.  If it's so violent here, and freedom is so valuable, thank GOD we have the freedom to just move out.

#1 Abolishing government will not end violence. Everyone knows this Why do you persist in this strawman argument? Why do you advocate violence as a solution to violence? Seriously, why do you think certain types of aggressive violence is ok and other aggressive violence is not ok? Talk about wanting things your own way and dissregarding the methods to get there.

#2 Are you agreeing that sticking a gun in someone's face is violent? How about when a business man goes to pay his employees? Is it violence if someone sicks a gun in their face and says hand over 20% or else? What about if they write them a letter saying if they don't hand it over they'll come put you in a cage? My point is the guy from Harvard is disregarding all the violence present in society. He only recongizes something as violence if someone resists and is hurt. The fact is the entire society is subject to violent threats from the government. The government is so good at administering the violence and everyone is so supportive of it that people don't resist.

If the bank teller hands over the money and doesn't resist it's still violence though. That's the point. The guy from Harvard missed that. He can't see the forest for the trees. He thinks the violence has decreased because people don't resist anymore. He's a dunce spreading propaganda and suckering people.

#3 Moda....the love it or leave it argument? Am I on Duck Dynasty or Cajun Justice? Excusing theft by saying you can leave one group of theives for another.....this is not a rational argument.

moda0306 wrote: - Zero physical aggression against others?  Other what?  Human beings?  Or only human beings in my tribe or that have modified land to their advantage before I could do it?

What about animals?  What about all the animals in an ecosystem?  Do they have rights?  I really can't tell based on your wonderfully arbitrary and convenient moralizing on what our rights consist of.

Yes other people...all of them.

No that doesn't apply to animals. Animals don't have rights. Animals don't have self-ownership. They are not responsible for themselves and don't control themselves. They are a slave to instinct and biology. They can learn stuff, but they aren't capable of understanding moral principles. They do not have a way to judge the correctness of their actions, they are completely different from humans in that respect.

You wouldn't sentence an animal to life in prison for killing another animal right? Why? If an animal stole your picnic basket, would you take it to court? Would it owe you? No. It's not responsible for it's actions because it can't really choose. Yes they can learn what works and take chances etc. but it can't decide if something is wrong based on any principles. This completely separates people from animals. We are (with a few exceptions, small children, the insane) responsible for ourselves and our actions. Part of the expression of this is our property which we create or earn.

Animals can't do any of this. They don't have ownership rights of anything. If they can't even be responsible for themselves....how can they be responsible for anything else?

If your dog bites the neighbor kid is your dog responsible or are you? If you are responsible...why? Ohhh that's right, beacuse you own the dog!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That being said a human who derives pleasure simply from hurting an animal is a very sick and twisted individual indeed.

moda0306 wrote: - What is theft?  You use terms like "my property" or "property rights" or "stolen from" without any true, identifiable link other than, "I landed here, planted some seeds and put up some signs.  I can do whatever I want with this."  Just because you control your limbs doesn't mean you have a moral claim to everything they touch... at least not without some structure that is deductively sound.

More strawmen....we've gone over this one over and over and over. Tech listed many of the ways in which people have legitimate claim on property, so have I. Repeating it over and over is useless.

"Just because you control your limbs doesn't mean you have a moral claim to everything they touch" - I have to smile at this because you're making my argument for me! Just because you come over and put in a gun in my face or hire a guy to do it for you (gubmit)....doesn't make my property yours. Moda this is exactly what I've been saying, thanks, I agree.

Kshartle wrote:

moda0306 wrote: we had extremely high tax rates for most of the 20th century, and those inventions kept coming.  What's your take on that?

Again you have repeated this many many times. It is not true. No one was paying these high rates. It is missleading at best when you say stuff like this.

Here is the article from the WSJ from last year. It was written by your favorite.....Schiff. There is an amendment at the bottom by the editor to correct a mis-reading of the tax tables.

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB1 ... 1554982808

Marginal rates might have been higher for the wealthy but the taxes paid were lower.

Lower taxes on the rich mean they will be able to invest in more businesses, hire more people etc.  I just played tennis with a guy over the weekend who owns 40 subways and a couple car dealerships. He said he pays well over 40% in taxes and that doesn't even count all the extra he has to pay employees to cover their taxes amoung other things. He looked me right and the eye said he could open so many more stores and other businesses and hire more people if he didn't have to hand over more than a million in taxes every year.

Now you can sit there and think he's just a greedy business owner. I'll tell you flat out he's a nice guy who said he lives on about 20% of his income and would just like to keep expanding and employing and building.

In 1958, approximately two million filers (4.4% of all taxpayers) earned the $12,000 or more for married couples needed to face marginal rates as high as 30%. These Americans paid about 35% of all income taxes. And now? In 2010, 3.9 million taxpayers (2.75% of all taxpayers) were subjected to rates that were 33% or higher. These Americans—many of whom would hardly call themselves wealthy—reported an adjusted gross income of $209,000 or higher, and they paid 49.7% of all income taxes.

This article loves to jump around from "were taxes higher, overall" to "who paid the most taxes, the rich or the poor?"

Notice how in 1958, 4.4% paid 30% or higher, but in 2010, it was 2.75% (yes... at a 33% tax rate... hard to compare apples to apples).

But this is just federal income tax, so it's pretty irrelevant that it's so progressive today, as most of our other taxes are decidedly regressive.

So all we have left is the fact that half-again as many people as a percentage of the population were above 30% in 1958 than today.

So nice try, K... Care to try again?

Kshartle,

The empirical evidence indicates that you are wrong...and for that matter so is MediumTex when he makes the claim that governments have led to more violence. That is absolutely not the case.

reason: Why has violence declined? I think most people would be astonished to hear that.

Steven Pinker: First of all, I have to convince people that there’s a fact that needs to be explained—namely, that violence has declined. And it has, as I demonstrate with 100 graphs and data sets. The reasons, I think, are multiple. One of them is the spread of government, the outsourcing of revenge to a more or less disinterested third party. That tends to ramp down your rates of vendetta and blood feud for all the reasons that we’re familiar with from The Sopranos and The Godfather. If you’ve got a disinterested third party, they’re more likely to nip that cycle in the bud. Not necessarily because they have any benevolent interest in the welfare of their subject peoples, especially in the early governments. Their motive was closer to the motive of a farmer who doesn’t want his livestock killing each other. Namely, it’s a deadweight loss to him. 

But even without this benevolent interest, you find that with the first states in the transition from hunting and gathering to settled ways of life, violence goes down, and in the consolidation of kingdoms during the transition from medieval times to modernity, rates of homicide go way down.

reason: What else? 

Pinker: A second one is the growth of commerce; opportunities for positive-sum exchange, as opposed to zero-sum plunder. When it’s cheaper to buy something than to steal it, that changes the incentives, and you get each side valuing the other more alive than dead—the theory of gentle commerce [that comes] from the Enlightenment.

reason: How much has violence declined? 

Pinker: [During] the transition from tribal societies to settled states, there was a reduction from about a 15 percent chance of dying violently down to about a 3 percent chance in the first states.

Right now this thread is on course for a locking. Let's settle down a bit.

moda0306 wrote:
You have NO basis for your moral position, yet you argue with us from a pedestal, acting like you have the moral high-ground, which is an utter joke.  When doodle and I ask you what happens if we disagree, you just say "I don't care as long as you don't steal "my property.""  That surely is some circular logic.  Care to expand on this a bit.  Entire wars have been fought by people over what both sides very surely thought was "their property."

Yes I do have a basis. It's the concept of self-ownership. It's very basic and everyone expresses it's validity without even thinking twice about it.

What is the circular logic? You can believe whatever nonsense you want....just please don't steal and attack me or others and we'll generally be cool. Keep the violent beast caged and we'll just pretend it doesn't exist alright? I'm not going want to see you punished for your thoughts.

Wouldn't it be better if rather than "fighting" over property people used peaceful negotiation instead? Ohhh wait, I forgot we lived in bizzaro world where you end wars by invading and making war.

Trying to solve property disputes by denying that it exists is like trying to get across the English channel by walking and pretending you won't drown.


I'm not saying you are violent or anyone else here is. I don't know you guys except through this forum. You do advocate it though whether you recognize it or not. If that feels like I am taking the moral high road then so be it. There are no potholes on the high road so I hear.

Kshartle wrote:

moda0306 wrote: - Zero physical aggression against others?  Other what?  Human beings?  Or only human beings in my tribe or that have modified land to their advantage before I could do it?

What about animals?  What about all the animals in an ecosystem?  Do they have rights?  I really can't tell based on your wonderfully arbitrary and convenient moralizing on what our rights consist of.

Yes other people...all of them.

No that doesn't apply to animals. Animals don't have rights. Animals don't have self-ownership. They are not responsible for themselves and don't control themselves. They are a slave to instinct and biology. They can learn stuff, but they aren't capable of understanding moral principles. They do not have a way to judge the correctness of their actions, they are completely different from humans in that respect.

You wouldn't sentence an animal to life in prison for killing another animal right? Why? If an animal stole your picnic basket, would you take it to court? Would it owe you? No. It's not responsible for it's actions because it can't really choose. Yes they can learn what works and take chances etc. but it can't decide if something is wrong based on any principles. This completely separates people from animals. We are (with a few exceptions, small children, the insane) responsible for ourselves and our actions. Part of the expression of this is our property which we create or earn.

Animals can't do any of this. They don't have ownership rights of anything. If they can't even be responsible for themselves....how can they be responsible for anything else?

If your dog bites the neighbor kid is your dog responsible or are you? If you are responsible...why? Ohhh that's right, beacuse you own the dog!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That being said a human who derives pleasure simply from hurting an animal is a very sick and twisted individual indeed.

Hard to say that an animal can't judge the "correctness" of his actions if you can't first logically tell me what is "correct."

My old golden retreiver KNEW when she was doing something "incorrect."  Well some things anyway .

So if a being can't judge the morality of their actions, they have no true rights.  Babies can't.  Can we kill them?

Kshartle wrote:

moda0306 wrote: - What is theft?  You use terms like "my property" or "property rights" or "stolen from" without any true, identifiable link other than, "I landed here, planted some seeds and put up some signs.  I can do whatever I want with this."  Just because you control your limbs doesn't mean you have a moral claim to everything they touch... at least not without some structure that is deductively sound.

More strawmen....we've gone over this one over and over and over. Tech listed many of the ways in which people have legitimate claim on property, so have I. Repeating it over and over is useless.

"Just because you control your limbs doesn't mean you have a moral claim to everything they touch" - I have to smile at this because you're making my argument for me! Just because you come over and put in a gun in my face or hire a guy to do it for you (gubmit)....doesn't make my property yours. Moda this is exactly what I've been saying, thanks, I agree.

Please, can you give me a fool-proof blue print to help people decide who owns what property, why there is a fundamental link to that property that as deductively evident, etc. 

Further, when property is taken from one person, when does it finally become the thief's property?  Does the original victim's claim last forever?

Is there such a thing as intellectual property... I wrote a song and I have "rights" as to whether it's aired and CD's of it are made... that kind of thing?

Pointedstick wrote: Right now this thread is on course for a locking. Let's settle down a bit.

Yes yes... Sorry I'm cooled down.  My bad.  I'm out for a while... I look forward to returning to a scorched earth .