I thought you agreed a person with smallpox could be quarantined. My bad.
As humans we are able to organise they type of society we want to live in. We have the capacity to intervene to regulate dangerous materials and quarantined dangerous people. In the case of fertiliser, as we discussed earlier, the case of a person with smallpox, we know that lives will be saved if we do intervene. Since we have the capacity to save these lives, failing to intervene is facilitating extra unnecessary killings.
Do you have a moral basis for stopping us?
I did agree with a person being quarantined, but that's because they were the weapon. |
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The NAP says its fine to regulate nuclear weapons and smallpox as you saw from the chat with Atlas.
The NAP doesn't speak to anything specific regarding nuclear weapons or smallpox. Additionally, if Atlas says it does, I would disagree with him. You can directly react to violence or threats thereto (overt gestures indicating such). If you wish to call that regulating, that's fine, but it should only affect the person specifically in conjunction with the use of the weapon, not independent of it. Just possessing a "dangerous" object independent of the person who may act upon it doesn't qualify any object for regulation. To wit you don't regulate the materials themselves just because they have the potential to do harm. |
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Once again, THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS PERSONAL LIBERTY EXCEPT INSOFAR AS THOSE AROUND YOU PERMIT IT. You have been proposed simple problems to solve, and you cannot solve them with your idealogy. Just in case you've fogotten, here they are again:
So if there was nobody around me, or I was the last living human, I would become incapacitated, supposedly because I'm only enabled by those who permit me to have "personal liberty"? It's not like we're giving you complicated problems to solve. If you make any problem complicated enough, then no political philosophy will solve it. But THESE ARE PROBLEMS THAT CONCERN THE VERY FOUNDATION STONES OF LIBERTARIANISM ITSELF. To wit: your liberty and my liberty ARE NOT COMPATIBLE, and I'm using the word 'liberty' in your sense of the word; that is, something I define for me, you for you, Hawker for Hawker, and so on. How can you "build on top" of something that is fundamentally flawed?
I am at liberty to do everything insomuch as it only concerns me and my things (excepting mutual contract), but I am not at liberty to prohibit you from the equal supremacy to act upon you and yours. Liberty is justifiably constrained by the NAP. Nothing particuarly difficult to understand about that. Give or take a few far-fetched edge cases where it takes a little more imagination, it works pretty well. |
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...My questions are: how can we resolve this conflict? Fred insists he has the right to carry a gun around unless otherwise prohibited. I insist he does not, and would be willing to engage in mortal violence if necessary to defend myself. I come from a country where guns are outlawed, but I've been in Texas - all I could do was take a big gulp, keep my head down, and try not to piss anyone off.
Funny how that quote (in bold) sounds awful Libertarian-like. As in, the right to defend oneself. I would carry a gun if necessary, so that at a moments notice, should someone threaten my life, I could defend myself. Taking the right to defend myself from me equates to unprovoked violence or threat thereto. Do you agree that you have a right to self-defense and ownership of a gun (among other things), or am I missing something? Seemingly you have no problem "engaging in mortal violence", so what's the problem? |
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You're right though. If everyone in the world magically turned into perfect, god-like beings with ZERO variance in opinion, it would work. And if everyone in the world grew wings we could fly. But what do those idiotic fantasies have to do with discussing real-world issues? They can't seem to see the irrelevance.
Nobody said nothing bad would happen in a Libertarian world. It's just the only ideology that has the fewest 'is-ought' constructs and logical incompatibilities. Your Socialist/Communist/Oligarchy/Fascist/Name-you-flavor-of-might-makes-right world isn't perfect either, in fact, far from it. I can point out more logical inconsistencies in your ideology than you can in mine. Libertarianism starts with the NAP and builds on that, yours is just majority rules, personal liberties be damned. But of course you will say that libertarian ideas are too "simplistic" and we must "complicate" them because of the "real world", and due to these supposed "real world" problems, it's just easier to threaten violence upon your neighbor to achieve your goal, than envision some other way. There's more than one way to "skin a cat", and thus, not all means to an end should be justified. I know of one too many politicians, dictators, kings, princes, and thugs that espouse that sort of poppycock. |
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Ahhhhhhhhhhh, AT LAST, we realize that it was Fergalish's, and Hawker's sole intent to annoy Freddy. They weren't interested in logic or reason, law or justice, just annoy and chide... Haaaaa Haaaa. It was just a joke. You really are Libertarians in Socialist clothes. Ahhh, funny, *busting a gut* now. How "Feraglishisly Absurd" and "Hawkishly Annoying"  |
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Fred, you've lost. You've said you'd prefer a nuclear wasteland to infringing a single person's rights. You've said people can't act until they establish intent. You've said it's not possible to establish intent with an unknown assailant. You've said people can't prohibit dangerous goods even when they know there are such people as would use them violently. For you, the right to hold any arbitrarily dangerous item supersedes the right to life.
Am I entitled to hold a nuclear weapon in a city, that is detonated should a drop of liquid fall anywhere on its surface? Assume I legitimately acquired all the raw materials to manufacture such a device, and my intent is merely to show how much faith I have in the umbrellas manufactured by my factory.
Now you're just being freakishly absurd. Should we have nuclear weapons if they can be detonated when anybody accidentally sneezes too? If I rolled my eyes any harder, they'd get lost in the back of my head. The problem with this line of argumentation, is that the second I concede (I won't), you can immediately justify regulating any object or compound as long as it can be proven to be potentially dangerous in at least one case, hypothetical or otherwise. One more nail in the coffin of Liberty, six more feet under the thumb of Totalitarianism. I ain't buying, so stop trying to sell me. |
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So, in the libertarian world you are advocating, the rule is "if someone establishes that another intends to do him harm, he is entitled to immediately defend himself; through violence if necessary". You then stated that observation is necessary to determine a person's intent, but you admit that this is not always possible, and also that it is subjective. Let me repeat myself: Let me try to reduce this to the minimum: - Do I, or do I not, have the right to immediately defend myself, with mortal violence if necessary, as soon as I perceive a threat to my life?
- Do you, or do you not, have the right to carry a gun into a room where you and I are discussing the solution to a mutual conflict?
Question 1: Yes. Question 2: It depends. Who owns the room? edit: the sun example was not necessary. It was pathetic. FirstAscent asked you a legitimate question, you replied with an absurdity.
Here's the original quote: Tell me how you measure intent of some individual that you have never met, nor even know exists?
The answer is there is nothing to measure. It's nearly equivalent to asking what to do when you don't have anything to act upon. |
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There is no lie. Your own text shows you to be happy to have innocents killed.
By all means ignore me. You acknowledge that regulating materials works. You don't actually care about the consequence of not regulating them. I do. We won't agree.
What you are describing is a society in which people are being killed. A society where they know how they can save their own lives. Regulating materials will save them. But your strange ideology means they "shouldn't" do it. They should die.
Not nice.
Liar again. I pointed out your lies. Redact them, or admit you have nothing more to add other than ad hominem. |
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Now, my question to you is this; if I do prove that a nuke is a threat to me regardless of whether the owner intends violence, are you happy to recognise that we have a right to ban possession of nukes?
No ...(don't try to read in between the lines)... No. ...snip... OK - you believe that even when I have proven there is a threat, the potential victim has to wait for their fate. You didn't prove threat. You attempted to equate danger with threat. Nuclear materials, gasoline, semtex, bullets, guns, kitchen knives, and cigarretts are all potentially dangerous. How you act while using them represents a possible threat. |
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So your first response is that we should wait until the crime takes place, the victims are dead and the killer put on trial. Are you aware that in Ireland we have special jury less trials because the IRA killed jurors who convicted them? And that there are no witnesses? Its too dangerous - a witness would have to leave the country. Real world law 102.
Your second response is that regulating materials doesn't work.
Wrong! It has worked for 40 years. We don't need to debate this - a quick look at the history of the UVF tells you that the year fertiliser was regulated was the year they stopped their major bombings.
Who cares about criminal intent? Possession means DANGER and we have a right to protect ourselves. Regulating material is proven to work. Do you feel that the people who are alive today as a result of regulating fertiliser sales don't deserve to be alive? Because in Ireland alone, thats a few thousand people.
Again, to put it bluntly, you lie. I did not say that "we should wait until the crime takes place". If you put words in my mouth one more time I will ignore you. In response to your "regulating materials works" law theory. Of course it works, but you should't do it. I could wipe out my entire neighborhood and I'd be a lot safer (no people, less danger), but that wouldn't be the lawful, just, and fair thing to do. |
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Now, my question to you is this; if I do prove that a nuke is a threat to me regardless of whether the owner intends violence, are you happy to recognise that we have a right to ban possession of nukes?
No ...(don't try to read in between the lines)... No. Count the percentage of semtex-laden cars that tend to be intended for peaceful purposes, then count the percentage of gasoline-laden tankers that tend to be used as bombs. b2c, this is pathetic debating on your part too - not so bad as Fred asking us how we know the sun is hot though.
I know the sun example was obvious, but nevertheless necessary. I was asked whether I could respond to an unknown event, caused by an unknown assailant, that hadn't happened yet, or that didn't exist. How exactly would anybody respond to such nonsense. If you read my response, you would have noticed that observation is the key to determining intent, just like indirect observation of the suns emissions is one indication that the sun is hot. It's a corollary, and an obvious one at that. Sorry for the crushing simplicity of it. Then why did you ridicule FirstAscent when he asked you how you plan on measuring the intent of a supposed aggressor?
See above. |
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We live in the real world and have to deal with the fact that once the trigger is pulled or the button pressed, its too late to respond. Its time you acknowledged that we have the ability to create a safe environment and that its pointless saying "it wouldn't hurt if the UVF had nukes." It really would hurt. They really like killing Catholics, they are happy to die for their cause and the only sane response is to limit their access to weapons. We even regulate the sale of fertiliser because they used it to make bombs. And you know what? Their use of bombs dropped off after they no longer had access to fertiliser.
That's the real world Fred. People do bad things. We can limit the harm they cause. You have no right to tell us stop.
Of course, you have every right to stop bad people from doing bad things. You do that in one of two ways. Your life is imminently threatened and you respond to defend yourself or 2, you determine before a court of law, with sufficient evidence, that the alleged crimes in question, are the crimes attributed to the accused. Law 101. You don't regulate materials. That makes anybody who possess said materials, without the blessing of the state, an instant criminal. Your blessing doesn't make the criminals go away. What's even worse, is those types of laws tend to turn your citizens into criminals and it manipulates free markets. You create an opportunity for more crime to flourish. Black markets come to mind. I'll repeat again, possession alone does not equate to criminal intent. That forces you yield to the whims of the electorate and there's little if anything lawful about that. |
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The problem is you don't care if he gets killed. You only care about the rights of the person pointing the gun right to the point at which they pull the trigger or the person with the nuke right up to the point where they press the big red button. He does care if he gets killed.
I can't see anyone agreeing with you - we live in the real world and have to deal with the fact that once the trigger is pulled or the button pressed, its too late to respond.
Actually I'm opposed to politicians who think they can write a "one size fits all" law for any type of potential crime. Every situation is unique and should be handled as such. I'm not sure I could adequately measure intent perfectly even with the most obvious of situations, but that doesn't mean we should manipulate/regulate peoples lives and property beforehand with the hopes that there will be fewer conflicts. I'm not sure that truly serves the purpose of law. Many laws create more conflict than they resolve. |
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Just so you know, you lost this argument a long time ago. You know it. We know it. You can continue to put up a show if you want, be we all know that when you go to bed at night, you're well aware that your arguments have failed.
Was this the argument where you shoot first and ask questions later, in contradistinction to where I preferred to determine intent first? Why are you so against measuring motive or intent as necessary precursors to violent retaliation? Obviously there are some situations that can present themselves very quickly, and there isn't much to do except respond. Merely possessing something, whatever that thing may be, doesn't fall into that category. |
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The correct answer is: you can't really measure the intent of people before it's too late. If we could, we wouldn't have incidents like the Oklahoma City bombing. I think you'll find it hard to refute that the Oklahoma City bombing occurred. But you're free to try, if you want. Assuming that you accept that the Oklahoma City bombing occurred, then you'll probably have to accept that the intent of McVeigh and Nichols was not properly measured beforehand, disproving your suggestion that observations will always yield meaningful data before it's too late.
Your arguments are falling flat on their face, but that was obvious to most of us anyway. Do you care to attempt to refute the points in the above paragraph?
I won't refute anything provided sufficient evidence or logic. Obviously the Oklahoma City bombing happened. I'm not disputing that fact. The intent of McVeigh and Nichols was improperly acted upon retrospectively. Bad things happen. That will likely never change as long as violent individuals exist. I also never suggested that observation will always result in meaningful data, although I agree with that statment anyways, at least in this case. The observation did in fact yield meaningful data, just not helpful intervention. There's nothing wrong with my arguments and they're as sound as ever. |
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Are you dodging the question because your whole premise is starting to feel shaky? Answer my question: How do you measure intent of some individual that you have never met, nor even know exists?
No not dodging, just trying to make a point. If you don't know something exists because you haven't experienced it yet, there's nothing to do about it. You don't even know what it is. I use the sun example because we all know the sun exists by indirect observation. In the situation where you have 'nutcases', as you call them, they tend to interact with their environment. This interaction can be observed indirectly. To wit, I just observe their behaviors and notice things about how they (re)act in certain circumstances. If their behavior becomes violently inclined, I should probably prepare to defend myself. Once it's determined that you or I believe their actions rise to the level of imminent threat, we intervene, but not until then; and then we deal with all of the consequences that follow. But then you knew that. Maybe you're just worried I don't care, or I'm another one of your 'nutcases' laying in wait. Still concerned? |
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Tell me how you measure intent of some individual that you have never met, nor even know exists?
Riddles eh? Okay, two can play this game. How do you know the sun is hot unless you can touch it? |
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Ah, so you do know that that guy's views will remind others here of you.
Tell me, Mr. "I can't think things through", if you don't advocate violence, then why do you advocate that others should be able to have nuclear bombs in their garage? Other people, like Timothy McVeigh, Terry Nichols, the Unabomber, and other such malcontents, such as the Anthrax mailer.
I would say that I'm entirely opposed to the idea that Tim, Terry, the Anthrax mailer and other malcontents whose intent is to cause harm, should have any kind of weapon, much less a nuclear weapon. There, did that sufficiently answer your question? |
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I don't advocate violence. I however have no problem aligning myself with the likes of Washington, Jefferson, Locke, Madison, Bastiat and Spooner. |
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