Ayn Rand

[tinyp3nis]

Wraith:

No, apparently not. I perfectly understand where Chomsky is going with his little example, which is why I'm so irritated with it. People blatantly misrepresenting those who don't agree with them is one of the lowest forms "debate".

That kind of form of debate should be avoided? Are you sure?
You mean like this :

Aga:

--"Philosophers because it just ignores the last 100 years worth of arguments in ethics"

You:

If age were the primary requirement of an argument, we'd be living on a flat earth.

So, what do you think? Did he say that because there have been good arguments iin etchics within the 100 last years, or because it's just old? What gives value? Were you being an ass or dumbass?

And David:

I'm reminded of the last time Agathon got into a debate with Berzerker and myself. Let's go ask orange - who is certainly no Libertarian - who won that debate

Does orange agreeing with you make you right? How about me disagreeing? I was there lurking too you know, and even said something too. Sorry if I was mean to you then and I'm reminding of you that, but you are bringing it up, so I'm going to be honest, it was so silly thread.
Actually berz made so big clown of himself I'm a bit surprised you still believe he was right and wan't be lumped up with him. Everyone who disagreed with him just gave up on him, (except for Agathon) including me. It was not about him making good arguments, but about his impaired debating skills that made others give up, and that was exactly why I gave up. The above whining of mine of Wraiths words is a good example of how berz argued in that thread... A true classic thread (actually it was 500+another thread ).

Now, if berz you see this, I don't have personal vendetta againts you, eventhought this is the second time outside that thread I'm going back there, but this time I'm just responding to David.
It's like I have witnessed something and I see that people are making the total opposite statements of what I saw, if Matt is being accused of something, but really the one who is to blame is Peter, I think I should say something.

[tinyp3nis]

Originally posted by Narz
Man, who cares about winning arguements on the internet? I'm just interested in discussion, arguing doesn't change people's minds anyway, intelligent pursuasion sometimes does.

My philosophy about philosophy is best summed up by Bruce Lee : "Absorb what is useful, discard what is not, add what is uniquely your own."

- Narz

Well who? Quite a few actually!

[Urban Ranger]

Wraith,

"I'd point out the whole "rational self-interest" thing again, but I do realize it's pointless to argue this here."

We did that many moons ago and it got nowhere. But, even assuming that is true, "rational self-interest" does not lead to laissez-faire capitalism (i.e. Libertarianism). It leads to socialism.

Originally posted by Rex Little
You state this as fact; do you have a source? His version was that she wanted such an affair, but he refused. That seems realistic to me; she was 20 years older than him. Her version was that it was all a lie.

That's Nathaniel Branden, husband of the aforementioned Barbara Branden IIRC. Source: Why People Believe Weird Things.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by monolith94
The idea of irrationality is one that OBSESSES me.

Yes, you don't exist, you are just a brain in a vat with electrodes attached to various areas for stimulations.

[Lancer]

IMO, any non mass murderer who is so universally hated can't be all bad. Read her other book, the ahhh...the ummm....


Damn.

[Berzerker]

Wraith -

Please stop making statements about what Libertarianism does or does not do. Your track record there is very poor.

And please stop ignoring my point above about force or threat of force.

Damn it, this is exactly why I stopped getting into these sorts of arguments.

I see you've discovered Agathon. Ask him how "prisoner's dilemmas" prove that libertarianism is contradictory.

tinypen!s -

Does orange agreeing with you make you right? How about me disagreeing? I was there lurking too you know, and even said something too.

Lurking? You were there to launch insults and little more (and that's being generous), that was the extent of your "contribution". Gee, Tiny even said something too.

Actually berz made so big clown of himself I'm a bit surprised you still believe he was right and wan't be lumped up with him.

My signature came from that debate, and Orange is hardly a libertarian sympathesizer.

Everyone who disagreed with him just gave up on him, (except for Agathon) including me.

You? You weren't debating, you were trolling. Since you forgot, Agathon entered that thread claiming libertarianism is contradictory, and when I asked for proof, he claimed "prisoner's dilemmas" were the proof. But when I asked or one these "PD's", all his examples were shot to pieces in much the same way Rex and Wraith are shooting down his claims about libertarianism in this thread. That's when he decided to use insults instead of arguments. But you didn't waste any time with debate, you just went right to the insults...

It was not about him making good arguments, but about his impaired debating skills that made others give up, and that was exactly why I gave up.

Like I said, you weren't debating in that thread. You even said you were "lurking"...

Now, if berz you see this, I don't have personal vendetta againts you, eventhought this is the second time outside that thread I'm going back there, but this time I'm just responding to David.

No personal vendetta Fine, if you say so, but I won't let you get away with making false claims about your so-called participation in that thread.

It's like I have witnessed something and I see that people are making the total opposite statements of what I saw, if Matt is being accused of something, but really the one who is to blame is Peter, I think I should say something.

I leave you with my signature as proof to the contrary.

[Berzerker]

Agathon - Here's your chance to present your "prisoner's dilemma" proving libertarianism is contradictory. I'll stay out of it given our history, so let Wraith and Rex have a crack at your arguments.

[Berzerker]

Agathon -

Anyway, Noam Chomsky came up with a wonderful one line refutation of Libertarianism.

"If someone tells me he will shoot me unless I give him all my money, according to Libertarians he has not violated my right to choose."

Why didn't Noam cite these libertarians? So no one could track down his alleged source to see if they really said that? This guy displays an astounding ignorance of freedom and coercion for a linguist.

If a roober comes up to you and says "I'll beat you up if you don't give me your wallet" he's still given you a free choice and he hasn't done anything wrong - you are still free to say yes or no: he doesn't do anything wrong until he starts beating you up.

Freedom means the absence of coercion or constraint on choice or action. If a robber threatens you to obtain your wallet, coercion is involved.

If you say no he might shrug and go away and he wouldn't have done anything wrong since he wouldn't have usurped your power to make a choice.

His use of coercion is an attempt to usurp your power to "choose" regardless of what action he takes. If you were in school and a bully came up demanding your lunch money, would you say there was no outside influence - coercion - effecting your decision?

He doesn't even have to threaten to beat you up himself. He can say, "give me fifty bucks or I'll tell that evil looking guy over there that you called him a f*ggot" and then he wouldn't be doing anything wrong at all.

Still a threat of violence, still coercion.

Face it - using voluntariness as a ground for morality is just dumb.

Yeah, involuntariness is so much better, worked so well for Hitler and Stalin.

Voluntary - 1 : proceeding from the will or from one's own choice or consent
2 : unconstrained by interference : SELF-DETERMINING
5 : having power of free choice
synonyms VOLUNTARY, INTENTIONAL, DELIBERATE, WILLING mean done or brought about of one's own will. VOLUNTARY implies freedom and spontaneity of choice or action without external compulsion.

Freedom - a : the absence of necessity, coercion, or constraint in choice or action.

Coerce - 1 : to restrain or dominate by force 2 : to compel to an act or choice
3 : to bring about by force or threat

Since I doubt Chomsky is really that ignorant, I can only conclude he is malicious and deceitful. Too bad, I had some respect for the guy until I read his "refutation" of libertarianism (assuming your quote is correct of course).

[Wraith]

--"How magical. It is considered a form of force. Why? "

Do you know what the definition of fraud is?

"Fraud requires proof that A made a knowing or intentional false representation of fact to B intending that B rely upon the representation, and that B did reasonably rely upon the false statement to his loss, detriment, or damage."

Using lies and mistruths to do damage to another certainly seems to fit the definition of force to me.

--"As for coercion - the Libertarian version of coercion is that I don't get a free choice"

Rex Little points out your fallacy here.

--" My philosophy about philosophy is best summed up by Bruce Lee : "Absorb what is useful, discard what is not, add what is uniquely your own.""

I don't know. I tried pragmatisim, and it just iddn't work for me...

--"Did he say that because there have been good arguments iin etchics within the 100 last years, or because it's just old? "

I was being a smartass. He was purposely making a mis-statement. Rand certainly does not ignore the last 100 years of philosophy. She makes long arguments against almost all of it. So I answered his wise-arse remark with the same.

--"But, even assuming that is true, "rational self-interest" does not lead to laissez-faire capitalism (i.e. Libertarianism). "

Thank you for stating your opinion as an axiom. I'll leave it with an "I disagree".

--"I see you've discovered Agathon."

I could have done without this particular discovery.

Wraith
"Either you're babbling, or you just told me in Cherokee 'my scrotum is many colored'."
-- Cornfed ("Duckman")

[SirTweek]

Originally posted by Berzerker
Freedom means the absence of coercion or constraint on choice or action. If a robber threatens you to obtain your wallet, coercion is involved.

I never could understand exactly what force meant in libertarianism.

If a oil operation sets up next to your town/home and pollutes your living enviroment are they initiating force against you? If they set up next to you in a attempt to get you to leave are they initiating force? If someone charges you a toll to get to a place you need to get to so that you will survive and you don't have the money to pay are they using force? If your ancestors use force to take land from someone and him or his ancestors return and want that land back is it in your right to use force to keep them out? Is it OK for someone to get someone else to protect your 'property rights'? If you owe a debt and the person you owe the debt to comes to you and tells you that you will be her slave since you will not pay the debt back then uses a gun to make you do what she wants, is she using force? If you pay a certain amount of money to receive certain services and then decide not to pay the money, should you still recieve the services and if the service giver decides that you owe them is it ok to use force to stop them? In the instances where force is used what redress do you have in a libertarian society, would there be a police system, and a court system or would it be up to you and anyone you can hire to defend your 'rights'?

I'm just not sure what constitutes initiation of force and what doesn't.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Rex Little
No, the Libertarian version of coercion is that you are threatened with the violation of your rights. What Libertarians do not consider coercion is when you are threatened with something which, while undesirable, does not violate your rights (such as the loss of a customer in my example above).

If you want to say that the threat of force isn't coercion even though force itself is, go ahead. Onlookers can judge for themselves if that makes any sense without us continuing to play 'tis so-'tis not.

What the onlookers say is neither here nor there unless they can back it up.

Again you've just said what Libertarians consider to be a violation of rights. I couldn't care less what they consider: I care about what they are entitled to. And the fact that Libertarians have chosen a name for one kind of activity over the other shows me nothing unless they can provide a morally relevant difference between the two.

They have an argument that says roughly that violations of liberty are what is wrong - all their other moral principles are derived from it (this is the idea that I'm the owner of my life and no one else is). You are ignoring this and helping yourself to rights you aren't entitled to.

So the argument is:

Libertarians claim that violations of liberty (the usurpation of choice) are the only things that count as bad. All rights that Libertarians claim are derived from this principle.

In the robber example the victim does not have his choice usurped by the robber.

Therefore, Libertarians can't claim that this sort of robbery violates a persons liberty, rights or anything else.

The problem with coercion as you have defined it is that Libertarians have no reason to object to my robber example because no one's liberty is violated (it's a stock truth for Libertarians that a bad choice is still a choice). What you need to do is show me why that sort of coercion is wrong and not the other sort in terms of how it affects a person's liberty; or you can add more principles to your version of Libertarianism.

Don't mess around: just answer the question.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by SirTweek


I never could understand exactly what force meant in libertarianism.

If a oil operation sets up next to your town/home and pollutes your living enviroment are they initiating force against you? If they set up next to you in a attempt to get you to leave are they initiating force? If someone charges you a toll to get to a place you need to get to so that you will survive and you don't have the money to pay are they using force? If your ancestors use force to take land from someone and him or his ancestors return and want that land back is it in your right to use force to keep them out? Is it OK for someone to get someone else to protect your 'property rights'? If you owe a debt and the person you owe the debt to comes to you and tells you that you will be her slave since you will not pay the debt back then uses a gun to make you do what she wants, is she using force? If you pay a certain amount of money to receive certain services and then decide not to pay the money, should you still recieve the services and if the service giver decides that you owe them is it ok to use force to stop them? In the instances where force is used what redress do you have in a libertarian society, would there be a police system, and a court system or would it be up to you and anyone you can hire to defend your 'rights'?

I'm just not sure what constitutes initiation of force and what doesn't.

This is because you can see the problem I'm taking aim at. Libertarians help themselves to certain rights and a conception of coercion illegitimately. So far all I've had in response is: "that's not what Libertarians say" which I understand perfectly well, I just don't buy that a person is allowed to claim such things from the principle they have.

[DinoDoc]

It's a wierd debate when only one side makes any sense.

[Agathon]

All such debates are weird.

[tinyp3nis]

Lurking? You were there to launch insults and little more (and that's being generous), that was the extent of your "contribution". Gee, Tiny even said something too.

I was rude to David yes, but unfortunately also honest.

You? You weren't debating, you were trolling. Since you forgot, Agathon entered that thread claiming libertarianism is contradictory, and when I asked for proof, he claimed "prisoner's dilemmas" were the proof. But when I asked or one these "PD's", all his examples were shot to pieces in much the same way Rex and Wraith are shooting down his claims about libertarianism in this thread. That's when he decided to use insults instead of arguments. But you didn't waste any time with debate, you just went right to the insults...

-I did had opinions about matters, you did reply to my post, and then we discussed /argued /debated /whatever you want to call it, about it, then you just made irrelevent remarks without touching my points really, so I told you I would give up. I gave up after just a few posts with you so that's why maybe you don't recall it.
-My point here was that everyone expect for Agathon did give up, and me too.
-I was rude I won't deny that, but I didn't touch anything besides what the others were trying to say and what points they were making. I never inverted their stuff. Quite opposite of what you did, and that's why I mentioned it about my previous post to begin with. I believe it's called playing with semantics. Maybe you just didn't understand others, no need to explain it anymore, it was discussed to death even then.



I just said in my last post:

It was not about him making good arguments, but about his impaired debating skills that made others give up, and that was exactly why I gave up.

then you say:

Like I said, you weren't debating in that thread. You even said you were "lurking"...

-You did discuss with me.
-Don't be conserned about the word "debating". Read again. So if you discuss with me, or even argue or whatever you like to call it was, then why I can't use the definiton "debating skills" about how you discuss/argue.
-And what's with that remark about me lurking? Is that a wrong word to use? Ok I'll explain. I posted some, mostly observed, sorry if that wasn't clear enough.

No personal vendetta Fine, if you say so, but I won't let you get away with making false claims about your so-called participation in that thread.

I am not making any false claims about it. I was rude to you too (I checked it even from the threads), but I did answer everything you asked untill the point I told you I'm going to give up.

I leave you with my signature as proof to the contrary.

That is oranges opinion yes.
I still see what he did and what you did. There were others too who didn't quite share oranges opinion. Now people have seen two sides of opinions about it, but for actual proof they should go to the threads and see for themselves what was being said by you and Agathon instead of listening to orange, me, David, GP, Ted, or anyone else there.

If anyone is interested I can dig them threads up. However I don't see need to do it unless being asked to, and who would really even care.

I surely hope this is all about this. =