NEWS: Controversial Bush Judicial Appointee Approved

ANOTHER EDIT: Tomorrow afternoon (Friday, July 16th) I will be leaving town for a few days. I won't be responding to any posts until Monday or Tuesday at the earliest. I just wanted to mention this so nobody thought I was ignoring this discussion. I hope you all have a nice weekend.

The political left tends to have a misguided and tyrannical view of compassion. Compassion requires choice. Forcing people to subsidize others isn't compassion. It's slavery for "the common good".

EDIT: Don't take my criticism of the political left as an endorsement of everything the political right stands for.

I know. That's my standard response to those who justify socialism with variations of the "everyone supports all those social programs, anyway". If people did support these programs, they wouldn't be necessary in the first place because donations would be pouring in.

Our rights don't deserve to be discarded, either. Seriously, I'm all for charity. I just don't think it should be mandatory.

Why shouldn't the education system be subject to the same competition as other providers of goods and services?

I'm not in favor of a world without governments. I'm in favor of a world without oppressive, socialist governments. And I'd be interested in what your definition of a "common level of respect" is. I get the impression that has something to do with everyone's "right" to everyone else's paycheck.






[Edited on Jul 15, 2004 by Pariset]

Probably not, since my socio-economic views have little to do with parasitism. But thanks for substituting a personal attack - and a really lousy one at that - for rational debate.

Not all unemployed people are lazy, but I see no real excuse for any person of sound mind and body to never have any form of gainful employment.

So it's okay to take whatever you want from people as long as you leave them with what you believe is enough to get by?

My biggest complaint about most of the nations of the world is the excessive level of government intervention in the lives of the citizens. If that is my complaint about the rest of the world, why would I be demanding here in my own country?

But people should be forced to spend their lives serving others if they don't want to?

I wasn't aware that FICA "donations" were voluntary.

[Edited on Jul 15, 2004 by Pariset]

Actually, I'd like for everyone in the world to have a decent education, a nice house, a fast car and a big television. I just dispute the claim that I am somehow obligated to pay for all of this.

So do I. I think the problem is that we're looking at same picture, but from very different perspectives.

By my logic, the military, police/emergency services, court systems, etc. would always be well-funded, as they are performing the legitimate duty of government: Protecting the individual rights of the citizens.

Do you understand the concept of individual rights, and how human "rights" to a house, a job, a car, etc. (the stuff that tends to show up on lists of such "rights") can trample those rights since these "rights" can only be enforced by taking property from its rightful owner?

Don't get me wrong; I'm all for charity. If I was a wealthy man I'd be helping people out. But I have issues with the gun-point "charity" we tend to have these days.



[Edited on Jul 15, 2004 by Pariset]

It's called a community. Under what I'm getting from what you're talking about, you want to have polar opposties. The extremely rich and the poor/lower middle class. Guess what? You benefit from what you want to do away with. How the hell do you think firemen learn to be firemen? Where do you think the money comes from to buy police the right equipment? Who do you think pays for the equipment to be made? Who do you think pays for the materials to be made and extracted from the ground? Who pays for the engineers education to make the sewers run smoother? You put money in their pockets so they stick with their profession. Who would drive your gas to the gas station? Who would deliver the food to the grocery store without PAY?? Do you really think Safeway takes good care of their truck drivers and stocking boys (anybody who brings up that girls can stock too gets a brownie shoved up their ass). So then who would set up the stores for you to buy food? You gonna hunt, skin, prepare, cook and store you're own food? WOW!! THANKS FOR TALKING US BACK 300 YEARS!!!!

First off, quit using the word charity. Charity is taking old clothes down to the Salvation Army on your day off. And YOU as well as most people have those things laying around, so dont act like you cant do real charity. Human rights being are individual rights, in most cases. The right to provide for your family, no matter your creed, sex, religion or color. Human rights can't exist with individual rights, and vice versa. SWEET DUDE!!! EVEN THOUGH IM A MEXICAN, I HAVE THE RIGHT TO WORK!!! Human Right. Yeah, son, you can work, but for half the wages as the white guys. Individual Right.

Hint of sarcasim, first of all. Second of all, not all people are of sound mind and body. But fuckem, people in wheelchairs arent real people anyway, right? Thats where the majority of you're money goes. Same with the single mom with 4 kids. Stupid Slut. She doesnt deserve shit if she isnt smart enough to keep her legs shut, right?

DUMB. Your on a paysite featuring nude hotties using a computer im sure in the comfort of your own home after you drive home from work and eat dinner. Your doing ALOT better than getting by. Get over it.

Please. Serving others? Is life really THAT hard? For you, no, it isnt, dont act like it is. See above. But for the mexican who has liver cancer and cleans the hospital for 11 hours a day so he can pay the bills for the exact same hospital because he's not in good enough health to get real insurance (sure he's a human but he's too much of a buisness risk), yes, lifes that hard. SuicideGirls, the site you and I pay for isnt a nessicity. My friends fathers life is. Oh yeah, he only makes about 15,000 a year, his wife makes about 17,000. i believe. How much do you make? But dude, I understand! Why help this and other people out when you are fortunate enough? More importantly, why wait an extra month to get that new big screen or buy that new album you want so bad?

FICA isnt voluntary, there in lying the cleverness.

I think you, as well as all of us, should feel privledged to be well off enough that we can help out our fellow man. Mankind was worked for THOUSANDS of years to get us here, and its extremely bullshit for people to bitch about it. The other alternative is let those less fortunate than you die. Or kill off half the world. So please, have fun selecting the 3 billion people which get to die to make your life better. I'm not saying the goverment is great and that all FICA money or donated money or any money/resources are spent right, they arent. Cutting 40,000 scholarships (not dollars, but scholarships) to fund a private war is wrong. Taking money from the Boys and Girls Club to put into the military is wrong, in my opinion. But dude, this system is a start. Its not perfect, it never will be, nor can it be. But getting rid of it for that reason is like never driving again because laws on the road are broken.

First of all, human rights and civil rights are the rights of each individual human, each individual citizen.

Second, sorry, but it is actually your responsibility.

is this the same judge who ruled against holocaust educational
projects because they didnt include the nazis point of view?????

So the "community" has more claim to my life than I do? I can think of a more accurate description for this scenario than "community".

I don't want there to be polar opposites, but I understand that it may be necessary to protect individual rights.

Police, emergency services, militaries, roads and the like would be paid for by taxation, as they are necessary for the protection of individual rights. As for gas stations, shelf-stockers and the like; such things will be supplied as long as there is a demand. If people demand gasoline, for example, there will be someone to supply it (including all the necessities of supply, such as delivery drivers).

I never said I couldn't do "real charity". I only said that I'd definitely do a lot more if I were wealthy.

I wouldn't say most cases. Some cases, but not most. But I suppose that depends on which version of human "rights" you are going by.

You only have a right to that which you create/provide for yourself.

Sure they can, and often do. For example, I've heard people demand universal healthcare on the grounds that it is a human "right". The fact that universal healthcare can only be funded by expropriating the property of others means that it clearly violates individual rights. The same goes for any other "right" to that which you have not created yourself.

You have the right to seek work, but nobody is entitled to a job.

Sure they're people, but they aren't entitled to my money any more than any other person. I would be much more likely to support charities for people unable to support themselves than charities for those who may simply be unwilling, but the issue of individual rights remains the same.

Why should we the taxpayers be punished for the irresponsible behavior of others?

You didn't answer the question. Is it okay to take whatever you want from people as long as they are left with enough to get by? What percentage of our income is up for grabs? What standard of living are we entitled to, regardless of how much or how little we produce?

The fact that life could be more difficult doesn't change the fact that funding an omnipresent welfare state requires that citizens spend their lives in service of others.

Are you saying that I only have a right to that which I need?

I make enough to get by, but I'm hardly wealthy.

I believe in helping people. I don't believe in being forced to help people.

In other words, it isn't private.

There goes your argument. How clever.

So I should embrace this vision of a kinder, gentler version of the Soviet Union?

I'd say that in America, the height of our freedom was right after the Revolutionary War (except for slavery, which never should have been allowed). We have become progressively less free pretty much every year since then.

Regardless of my opinions on the war in Iraq, I'd rather our money be used to fund the military, which is absolutely necessary for the protection of individual rights.

So, in other words: The money isn't spent right. It never will be. How dare I voice my disapproval!

You say that our system is "a start". What, may I ask, is the end result? What should it be, in your opinion?

Define human "rights" and civil "rights", and we'll see.

Prove it.

If individuals have rights, they have them by virtue of being humans. We don't have rights because we are individual chairs or sausages or chickens. We aren't those things. We are humans, hence we have rights. (Where do you think we derive our rights? Some novel that claims greed is a virtue? It isn't, by the way.)

Certain of these rights are written into the laws and constitution of our country. These are civil rights.

Your insistence on a difference between "individual rights" and human and civil rights is far more semantic and rhetorical than it is substantial. Unfortunately, it is neither good semantics nor good rhetoric.

Take, to begin with, the phrase "individual rights." What do those words mean when placed next to each other? Not "the rights of the individual." I will use this phrase correctly to demonstrate its meaning: The rights to food, shelter and education are all "individual rights."

The individual does not, however, have a right to allow others to starve.

(I judge from your posts here that you wouldn't, in a society based on libertarian ideals, allow others to starve. I don't think you're some kind of jerk. I just disagree completely with your political ideas.)

Only humans have individual rights, but that doesn't mean that human "rights" and individual rights are an interchangeable concept.

Actually, they are Constitutional rights, and aren't necessarily the same thing as individual rights.

My insistence on the difference between individual rights and human and civil "rights" is far more philosophical and logical than semantic and rhetorical. Fortunately, it is good philosophy and good logic.

You still haven't proved it. You have just claimed it in a far more verbose way than in your first post.

By the way;I find it fascinating that your concept of individual rights includes the "right" to the property of others, but no mention of the rights of the legitimate owners of said property.

Sure I do. I have a right to do what I wish with my property, provided it doesn't violate the rights of others (I don't have the right to use my car to intentionally run people over, for example). And since nobody but me has a legitimate claim to my property, I absolutely have the right to let others starve. Would I let others starve? Probably not, unless they deserved it (like an able-bodied person who simply refuses to find a job). But any charity I give is due to my generally kind character rather than any kind of moral or philosophical obligation to do so.

Thanks...I think.

The individual DOES have a right to not be forced to feed the starving person.

You can not take forcibly from one person and give to another without it being theft, regardless of how noble or worthwhile the cause.

Pariset,
1. There is no difference between civil rights and constitutional rights. They're the same thing. Really. Look up 'civil' in a dictionary. This what I mean when I say your argument rests in word play.

2. The right to life, to continue living supersedes the right to property. To allow others to starve is to commit an act of violence. You can twist a logical corkscrew around the word 'agency' all you want, if you let someone die you are responsible for his death.

[Edited on Jul 20, 2004 by the1stblindman]

To respond to bean's post and get back on topic... this judge has no business on any bench outside a city park. He remind me of the North Carolina state legislator who claimed that conception wasn't possible during a rape because "the juices aren't flowing."

I said that civil "rights" were actually Constitutional "rights" (my logic being that any law or legal "right" must pass Constitutional muster), and that neither were necessarily individual rights.

My property is the end product of my life - using my time, my brain and my body to create wealth which I then use to buy cool stuff. Violating my right to my property is, by default, violating my right to my life.

No, it isn't. Allowing someone to starve means that you are doing nothing to cause or prevent it. How is nothing violence?

You're only responsible for a death if you cause it by a violation of the dying/dead person's rights.

Nobody derailed any threads. It just worked out that the thread became focused on on particular facet of the discussion.

Yeah, I can think of plenty of people I'd rather have as president, but John Kerry ain't one of them.