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Anonymous
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natural rights... and a question for the collectivists...
#2263692 - 01/22/04 07:07 PM (20 years, 2 months ago) |
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you own your self. to deny self-ownership is to imply that another human being has a higher claim on your own life than you do. as a necessary part of being alive, you have an ability to make decisions and to act on them. without this ability to decide and act, you would not live, and if you were not alive, you would not have this ability. if someone claims authority over your ability to make decisions and act on them, they have claimed authority over your life. your actions are what make up your life. they are yours. to deny this means that some other person may have a higher claim on your own life than you do. if you have the highest claim on your faculties of action, you also have the highest claim (and responsibility) for what comes as the product of your action. if you, by your own productive effort, produce something, no other human being may have a higher claim on it than you do. if you by your own actions destroy something, the blame cannot be shifted to another person. you have the highest claim on the product of your actions. after all, if you had not acted as you did, the result of your actions would have never become manifest. let's say something was produced by the product of your actions. if you had not acted in the way you did, it would never have come into existance. it was brought into existance as a product of your existance and freedom to act, and you therefore have the same claim to it as you do your life. again... to deny this means that another human being has a higher claim on your own life than you do. collectivists... what do you make of this? is this line of reasoning somehow flawed? is it correct? is the principle of self-ownership not a valid concept? how can one person (or group) have a higher claim on a man's life than he himself does? who owns a person if not himself? other individuals? the state?
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GazzBut
Refraction
Registered: 10/15/02
Posts: 4,773
Loc: London UK
Last seen: 2 months, 24 days
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Re: natural rights... and a question for the collectivists... [Re: ]
#2264714 - 01/23/04 02:06 AM (20 years, 2 months ago) |
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Yeah but I am more than willing to pay taxes. ZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
-------------------- Always Smi2le
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recalcitrant
My Own God
Registered: 04/20/02
Posts: 2,927
Loc: Canada West
Last seen: 7 years, 10 months
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Re: natural rights... and a question for the collectivists... [Re: ]
#2264833 - 01/23/04 03:20 AM (20 years, 2 months ago) |
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You think you own yourself? If you live in the police states of amerika, u'd be wrong.
A man goes into a hospital. A blood sample is taken to determine if he has a specific illness. The labwork determines he does not. A researcher takes some stem cells from the sample and uses them in experiments. The researcher develops a great new thing and makes a million dollars.
The man sues. The court decides that the man has no right to his DNA.
...and do you know why? BECAUSE BIG BUSINESS MADE MONEY!!!
-------------------- We have to answer our own prayers
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luvdemshrooms
Two inch dick..but it spins!?
Registered: 11/29/01
Posts: 34,247
Loc: Lost In Space
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Re: natural rights... and a question for the collectivists... [Re: recalcitrant]
#2264857 - 01/23/04 03:38 AM (20 years, 2 months ago) |
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Can you provide an example of someone doing just that?
-------------------- You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the wealthy out of prosperity. What one person receives without working for another person must work for without receiving. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for that my dear friend is the beginning of the end of any nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it. ~ Adrian Rogers
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Anonymous
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Re: natural rights... and a question for the collectivists.. [Re: GazzBut]
#2265005 - 01/23/04 06:18 AM (20 years, 2 months ago) |
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Yeah but I am more than willing to pay taxes.
you'll notice that that isn't the question here.
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Anonymous
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Re: natural rights... and a question for the collectivists.. [Re: recalcitrant]
#2265017 - 01/23/04 06:24 AM (20 years, 2 months ago) |
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unless that man was a fetus, the scenario you've described would be impossible.
lets say that the blood was used for something else though... not stem cell research. if the hospital signed some kind of agreement about what the blood could and could not be used for, then it'd be wrong for them to use it in a way they had said they wouldn't. if they made no such agreement, and the man gave them their blood with no conditions about what could be done with it when they were finished testing, then they could do whatever they wanted with it, and it would be legal.
you see, he gave them his blood. voluntarily. and most likely with no conditions attached other than that they test it in order to see what's wrong with him. if they kidnapped him and stole his blood, it'd be a different story.
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GazzBut
Refraction
Registered: 10/15/02
Posts: 4,773
Loc: London UK
Last seen: 2 months, 24 days
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Re: natural rights... and a question for the collectivists.. [Re: ]
#2265039 - 01/23/04 06:43 AM (20 years, 2 months ago) |
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Quote:
you'll notice that that isn't the question here.
Dont make me laugh. You generate an amusing theory that states taking what another man has produced is equivalent to a higher claim on the individual involved blah! blah! blah! taxation = theft ZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzz
-------------------- Always Smi2le
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Phred
Fred's son
Registered: 10/18/00
Posts: 12,949
Loc: Dominican Republic
Last seen: 9 years, 2 months
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Re: natural rights... and a question for the collectivists.. [Re: GazzBut]
#2265062 - 01/23/04 07:00 AM (20 years, 2 months ago) |
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GazzBut writes:
You generate an amusing theory that states taking what another man has produced is equivalent to a higher claim on the individual involved blah! blah! blah!
I can't help noting your inability to point out any logical flaw in the argument. Calling it "amusing" is not equivalent to discrediting it.
You appear to believe that taking what an individual has produced is not equivalent to a claim on that individual. How can that be?
Think it through. If you spend half the day making a clay pot for carrying water only to have it taken from you when it is complete, has the taker not just enslaved you for half a day? Since you still have no pot, you spend the other half of the day making another pot, only to have it taken from you as well. Who has owned your life for that day? You or those who negated your efforts to support yourself for that day?
pinky
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trendal
J♠
Registered: 04/17/01
Posts: 20,815
Loc: Ontario, Canada
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Re: natural rights... and a question for the collectivists... [Re: ]
#2265086 - 01/23/04 07:17 AM (20 years, 2 months ago) |
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There are no flaws that I am aware of in that argument! Very well put.
I have dreamed of a place where Natural Law could rule...where we could all be our own owners
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Once, men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.
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GazzBut
Refraction
Registered: 10/15/02
Posts: 4,773
Loc: London UK
Last seen: 2 months, 24 days
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Re: natural rights... and a question for the collectivists.. [Re: Phred]
#2265242 - 01/23/04 09:15 AM (20 years, 2 months ago) |
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Quote:
I can't help noting your inability to point out any logical flaw in the argument. Calling it "amusing" is not equivalent to discrediting it.
Why would I bother? Its just the same arguement we have been having over and over again anyway. Cunningly rehashed maybe but still the same.
Quote:
You appear to believe that taking what an individual has produced is not equivalent to a claim on that individual. How can that be?
Sigh. I think if we live in organised societies we must be expected to contribute.
You appear to believe that people deserve to have an organised society spring up around them without the individual having to contribute unless they see fit. How can that be?
By the way, im not interested in your clay pot example, just as I was completely uninterested in Mushmasters mythical village of a shoemaker, psychic and whatever else it was. Please provide examples that relate to the real world.
-------------------- Always Smi2le
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trendal
J♠
Registered: 04/17/01
Posts: 20,815
Loc: Ontario, Canada
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Re: natural rights... and a question for the collectivists.. [Re: GazzBut]
#2265270 - 01/23/04 09:24 AM (20 years, 2 months ago) |
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You appear to believe that people deserve to have an organised society spring up around them without the individual having to contribute unless they see fit. How can that be?
They should have the right to not contribute to the society that "springs up around them"...however if that is the case they wave all rights towards taking from the society that they have refused to give to.
If I don't want to pay taxes...that should be a decision of mine. As with any decision, there are consequences - in this case I should not be given any of the products of society which said taxes would have gone towards (health care, police protection, ect).
Explain what you find wrong with this scenario: a person who does not give to society but who also does not take from society. Where have they wronged society, or anyone else?
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Once, men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.
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GazzBut
Refraction
Registered: 10/15/02
Posts: 4,773
Loc: London UK
Last seen: 2 months, 24 days
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Re: natural rights... and a question for the collectivists.. [Re: trendal]
#2265302 - 01/23/04 09:34 AM (20 years, 2 months ago) |
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Im not saying you shouldnt have the right to not pay taxes but just dont expect to drive on any roads etc etc. I dont even think you should be permitted to use the same currency as tax paying citizens.
-------------------- Always Smi2le
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trendal
J♠
Registered: 04/17/01
Posts: 20,815
Loc: Ontario, Canada
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Re: natural rights... and a question for the collectivists.. [Re: GazzBut]
#2265330 - 01/23/04 09:42 AM (20 years, 2 months ago) |
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That's exactly what I said
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Once, men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.
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muhurgle
Turtles all theway down
Registered: 10/29/03
Posts: 299
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Re: natural rights... and a question for the collectivists... [Re: ]
#2265383 - 01/23/04 10:10 AM (20 years, 2 months ago) |
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to deny self-ownership is to imply that another human being has a higher claim on your own life than you do.
Why? Where does the idea of ownership come from? It's a social construct, not a natural law, right?
If I didn't believe in ownership at all, then how does that imply that somebody has a higher claim on my life?
-------------------- "To make this mundane world sublime Take half a gram of phanerothyme." Aldous Huxley
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Anonymous
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Re: natural rights... and a question for the collectivists.. [Re: GazzBut]
#2265484 - 01/23/04 11:08 AM (20 years, 2 months ago) |
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Why would I bother? Its just the same arguement we have been having over and over again anyway. Cunningly rehashed maybe but still the same. you didn't the first time, or any other time after that. Sigh. I think if we live in organised societies we must be expected to contribute. to whom? in return for what? an exchange is balanced only if both parties agree to it. if you take something without consent, then you are recieving more from someone than you have contributed in return. You appear to believe that people deserve to have an organised society spring up around them without the individual having to contribute unless they see fit. How can that be? i've already shown you how free exchange is contributing fairly to the rest of the community in return for what you recieve from it, but it seems that you've written it off as irrelevant and "mythical" without explanation. By the way, im not interested in your clay pot example, just as I was completely uninterested in Mushmasters mythical village of a shoemaker, psychic and whatever else it was. Please provide examples that relate to the real world. that's pretty weak. other than the fact that the use of currency has been omitted for the sake of simplicity, these examples are very much like what happens in "the real world". they exist to illustrate general principles.
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Anonymous
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Re: natural rights... and a question for the collectivists.. [Re: muhurgle]
#2265511 - 01/23/04 11:18 AM (20 years, 2 months ago) |
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If I didn't believe in ownership at all, then how does that imply that somebody has a higher claim on my life?
ownership of things is a fact of life, whether you agree with it or not. human beings lay claims on things. the question here is what they may claim. can someone lay claim on another's life?
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Azmodeus
Seeker
Registered: 11/27/02
Posts: 3,392
Loc: Lotus Land!! B.C.
Last seen: 19 years, 2 months
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Re: natural rights... and a question for the collectivists... [Re: ]
#2266102 - 01/23/04 02:53 PM (20 years, 2 months ago) |
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I agree with your statement.
Quote:
mushmaster said: as a necessary part of being alive, you have an ability to make decisions and to act on them. without this ability to decide and act, you would not live, and if you were not alive, you would not have this ability.
But what do you make of animials? they don't consciously 'decide' and then act...does instict cover this gap?, hard to say. Does it play a part in humans also?, most definately. Yet in nature you have the strongest ruling over the weak...if you cannot defend the food (instead of pot) you spent half a day looking for, it doesn't belong to you despite the fact that it was taken. We are all creatures on this earth...natural rights are the strong rule the weak. And if you think about it, its similar to today society, with money being more powerfull than mere pysical ability.
good post.
-------------------- "Know your Body - Know your Mind - Know your Substance - Know your Source. Lest we forget. "
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muhurgle
Turtles all theway down
Registered: 10/29/03
Posts: 299
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Re: natural rights... and a question for the collectivists.. [Re: ]
#2266120 - 01/23/04 02:58 PM (20 years, 2 months ago) |
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I'm not saying wether I agree or not about ownership, I'm saying that your reasoning is whack.
I agree with you that the want for property seems to be a basic human trait. That still doesn't explain the idea of ownership. In your first sentence you assume that ownership is essential, to prove that ownership is essential.
-------------------- "To make this mundane world sublime Take half a gram of phanerothyme." Aldous Huxley
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Anonymous
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Re: natural rights... and a question for the collectivists.. [Re: muhurgle]
#2266535 - 01/23/04 05:06 PM (20 years, 2 months ago) |
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I agree with you that the want for property seems to be a basic human trait. That still doesn't explain the idea of ownership. In your first sentence you assume that ownership is essential, to prove that ownership is essential. ownership means that you have the highest claim on the use of a certain resource. humans beings will, whether you agree with it or not, lay claim on the use of particular resources. i own my toothbrush. you cannot use it unless i let you. whether i decide to use it once a day, twice a day, or not at all is up to me. i can throw it away if i want to. i can use it to clean small engine parts. what i do with it is up to me. this is ownership. i am making a claim on my toothbrush. if i do not place a claim on my toothbrush, it is not mine, and therefore, another person may make an ownership claim on it. you see... if no one has a claim on a particular thing, it has no owner, and someone can put a claim on it without taking from anyone. if you haven't got the highest claim on your life, it is not wrong for someone else to assume control of it. what i said was not that ownership was essential, but more that it is inevitable. someone will say, "this is my toothbrush and no one else can use it". someone will say, "this is my body and i will do what i want with it". another person may say, "your life is mine and i will do what i wish with you..." the question becomes, who can make such claims of ownership and what can they make them on?
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muhurgle
Turtles all theway down
Registered: 10/29/03
Posts: 299
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Re: natural rights... and a question for the collectivists.. [Re: ]
#2266620 - 01/23/04 05:42 PM (20 years, 2 months ago) |
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Yes, I totally agree with you. I also think ownership is inevitable. I'm just being pissy about the meaning of ownership, or the ultimate basis for such claims. Sorry for derailing.
-------------------- "To make this mundane world sublime Take half a gram of phanerothyme." Aldous Huxley
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