What makes the initiation of force/fraud wrong?

SLAM: debunk creationism, pseudoscience, and superstitions. Discuss logic and morality.

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SirNitram
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Post by SirNitram »

The Question wrote:
SirNitram wrote:
The Question wrote:
Property - that is, the fruits of one's own labor - is the mechanism by which man sustain's his life, as a rational being.
So you are now redefining 'property' as 'things which sustain life'. So it's perfectly acceptable to steal a PS2.

The more you try to defend your absurd ideas, the more ridiculous you get.


You want to try eating air? Drinking nothing?
So anything not directly related to sustaining life is not property, and, by logic, you would include excesses of the things required to sustain life as not property.

So I can take your computer unchallenged.
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Post by Darth Servo »

The Question wrote:You want to try eating air? Drinking nothing?
Another BEAUTIFUL display of evading the point. Property is MORE than just what you eat and drink. You do NOT eat your TV. You do NOT need it to survive.
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Post by The Question »

Darth Servo wrote:
The Question wrote:You want to try eating air? Drinking nothing?
Another BEAUTIFUL display of evading the point. Property is MORE than just what you eat and drink. You do NOT eat your TV. You do NOT need it to survive.


The most basic reason for your labor is to sustain life.

To be able to secure life by these means, you must be secure in that which you create or gain by mutual trade, even if it goes beyond what is needed immediately to survive - a surplus, or a farmer's tool, for example. Your gains can increase from there.

What you create or gain my mutual trade is yours, and no man has a right to take it against your consent, based on the fact that your labor, and your life, are your own.
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SirNitram
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Post by SirNitram »

The Question wrote:
Darth Servo wrote:
The Question wrote:You want to try eating air? Drinking nothing?
Another BEAUTIFUL display of evading the point. Property is MORE than just what you eat and drink. You do NOT eat your TV. You do NOT need it to survive.


The most basic reason for your labor is to sustain life.

To be able to secure life by these means, you must be secure in that which you create or gain by mutual trade, even if it goes beyond what is needed immediately to survive - a surplus, or a farmer's tool, for example. Your gains can increase from there.

What you create or gain my mutual trade is yours, and no man has a right to take it against your consent, based on the fact that your labor, and your life, are your own.
Now prove this extends beyond what is required to sustain life.
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Post by The Question »

SirNitram wrote:
The Question wrote:
Darth Servo wrote:Another BEAUTIFUL display of evading the point. Property is MORE than just what you eat and drink. You do NOT eat your TV. You do NOT need it to survive.


The most basic reason for your labor is to sustain life.

To be able to secure life by these means, you must be secure in that which you create or gain by mutual trade, even if it goes beyond what is needed immediately to survive - a surplus, or a farmer's tool, for example. Your gains can increase from there.

What you create or gain my mutual trade is yours, and no man has a right to take it against your consent, based on the fact that your labor, and your life, are your own.
Now prove this extends beyond what is required to sustain life.


If you accept that one's labor and life are his own, then whether the property is necessary to sustain life immediately or not is irrelevant.

Rights are not determined by expediencies.
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Post by Darth Servo »

The Question wrote:What you create or gain my mutual trade is yours, and no man has a right to take it against your consent, based on the fact that your labor, and your life, are your own.
Yes, its called 'stealing' and no one is arguing that stealing isn't bad. What we ARE arguing is that when faced with a choice between stealing and DEATH is that stealing is the preferable alternative. Why is this beyond your feeble comprehension?
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Post by The Question »

SirNitram wrote:....


PS - I have to go now - important thread at TK with additional evidence that RDJ is ASU Coward is cooking (feel free to look in), but I do appreciate that you eased off your initial antimonious tone and sought to engage me in real dialogue, even though we disagree.

Ciao,
-SR
Last edited by The Question on 2003-06-23 05:52pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Frank Hipper »

The Question wrote:PS - I have to go now - important thread at TK with additional evidence that RDJ is ASU Coward is cooking (feel free to look in), but I do appreciate that you eased off your initial antimonious tone and sought to engage me in real dialogue, even though we disagree.

Ciao,
-SR
:lol:
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Post by The Question »

Darth Servo wrote:Yes, its called 'stealing' and no one is arguing that stealing isn't bad. What we ARE arguing is that when faced with a choice between stealing and DEATH is that stealing is the preferable alternative.

And I agreed with that.

But in violating or stealing property for the sake of saving a life, one cannot evade the fact that they committed an immoral act, and should make appropriate restitution.

Ciao,
-SR
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Post by aerius »

The Question wrote:
SirNitram wrote:So you are now redefining 'property' as 'things which sustain life'. So it's perfectly acceptable to steal a PS2.

The more you try to defend your absurd ideas, the more ridiculous you get.
You want to try eating air? Drinking nothing?
Going by your logic I should kill you for breathing my air you worthless oxygen thief.
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Post by The Question »

You're welcome to try. :mrgreen:
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Post by Andrew J. »

The Question:

After careful study of your arguments and ideas, it has been determined that you are not, in fact, a human. Since you are, therefore, no longer entitled to human rights, our people will be around to confiscate your liberty, property, and life shortly.

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Post by Raoul Duke, Jr. »

Andrew J. wrote:The Question:

After careful study of your arguments and ideas, it has been determined that you are not, in fact, a human. Since you are, therefore, no longer entitled to human rights, our people will be around to confiscate your liberty, property, and life shortly.

Signed,
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Can someone photoshop that quote into a stock photo of a hillbilly in front of a mobile home bracketed in crosshairs?
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Post by CaptainChewbacca »

I would, but I'm out of crosshairs. ;)
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Post by AdmiralKanos »

The Question wrote:But in violating or stealing property for the sake of saving a life, one cannot evade the fact that they committed an immoral act, and should make appropriate restitution.
Isn't it amazing how he just continues to state his beliefs as facts in a debate over the validity of those beliefs, even after this behaviour has been pointed out clearly by his detractors? And how he continues to peddle an ethical system which is basically worthless for guiding one's actions, even by his own admissions, since it produces absurd recommendations in many common ethical scenarios?

There is nothing immoral about serving the greater good. People like him denigrate the "greater good" as some kind of Stalinist brutality, but it's really a simple matter of comparisons. If you agree that life is worth more than property, then saving a life is a greater good than protecting someone's property rights, therefore it is moral to choose the greater good. If, on the other hand, you think that property is just as valuable as life, you are SR.
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Post by The Question »

AdmiralKanos wrote: There is nothing immoral about serving the greater good.


It is when it is bought at the expense of individual rights, sonny jim.

If you agree that life is worth more than property, then saving a life is a greater good than protecting someone's property rights, therefore it is moral to choose the greater good. If, on the other hand, you think that property is just as valuable as life, you are SR.

You're not even trying to dress up your strawmen anymore.

I said nothing of the sort. I said you may and should choose to save the life, but that doesn't absolve you of responsibility for violating the property rights of the owner.
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Post by HemlockGrey »

PS - I have to go now - important thread at TK with additional evidence that RDJ is ASU Coward is cooking (feel free to look in), but I do appreciate that you eased off your initial antimonious tone and sought to engage me in real dialogue, even though we disagree.
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Post by AdmiralKanos »

The Question wrote:I said nothing of the sort. I said you may and should choose to save the life, but that doesn't absolve you of responsibility for violating the property rights of the owner.
Wrong. You said it is IMMORAL to do it, irrespective of whether you pay the guy back someday. This means that you admit your ethical system is utterly worthless for guiding your actions, since you admit that you yourself would disregard its recommendations in this situation. So I ask again: what is this system good for, then?
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Post by The Question »

AdmiralKanos wrote:
The Question wrote:I said nothing of the sort. I said you may and should choose to save the life, but that doesn't absolve you of responsibility for violating the property rights of the owner.
Wrong. You said it is IMMORAL to do it, irrespective of whether you pay the guy back someday. This means that you admit your ethical system is utterly worthless for guiding your actions, since you admit that you yourself would disregard its recommendations in this situation. So I ask again: what is this system good for, then?


No, you can keep trying to twist my words but they are there for those who see them.

I said one may choose in an emergency situation to commit an immoral act to achieve a greater value, but achieving that greater value does not justify the immoral act, nor does it mean one can escape the need to make restitution for the immoral act, nor can one claim it is not an immoral act.

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Post by Perinquus »

AdmiralKanos wrote:
The Question wrote:But in violating or stealing property for the sake of saving a life, one cannot evade the fact that they committed an immoral act, and should make appropriate restitution.
Isn't it amazing how he just continues to state his beliefs as facts in a debate over the validity of those beliefs, even after this behaviour has been pointed out clearly by his detractors? And how he continues to peddle an ethical system which is basically worthless for guiding one's actions, even by his own admissions, since it produces absurd recommendations in many common ethical scenarios?

There is nothing immoral about serving the greater good. People like him denigrate the "greater good" as some kind of Stalinist brutality, but it's really a simple matter of comparisons. If you agree that life is worth more than property, then saving a life is a greater good than protecting someone's property rights, therefore it is moral to choose the greater good. If, on the other hand, you think that property is just as valuable as life, you are SR.
He doesn't seem to understand the principle embodied in an age old legal principle called "the doctrine of competing harms", also known as "the doctrine of necessity". Basically, it allows you to commit a crime, if by doing so you prevent a greater harm from taking place. For example: there was an actual case a few years ago where an ex-convict, a convicted felon, happened to be inside a bank as it was being robbed. During the course of the crime, the bank robber shot a teller, and when he threatened the ex-con, the ex-con disarmed him and shot him with his own gun during the struggle. Legally, the ex-con was thus liable to prosecution, since convicted felon are prohibited by law from possessing a firearm (to possess in the legal sense does not mean only ownership, but merely having it in your hands - having control of it). However, the ex-con was never charged. It was recognized that not only did the ex-con have an absolute right to defend his own life by any means necessary, but that in shooting the bank robber, he may also have prevented other innocents in the bank form being shot and killed. Thus, while he did technically comit another felony in taking the gun, he prevented a greater crime, i.e. his own or another's murder, and was protected under the doctrine of competing harms. He was therefore not held to account for something that, in other circumstances, would command a stilff prison term. His acting for the greater good, in a sense, wiped the slate clean.
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Post by DPDarkPrimus »

Of course he doesn`t understand the doctrine of necessity. He thinks that anything he wants, he can just take from someone else. :P

BTW, isn`t it a bit pointless to continue the debate, since he has been banned now?
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Post by CaptainChewbacca »

That's what I was thinking. Its kinda unfair to keep kicking him when he can't respond.
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Post by Darth Wong »

CaptainChewbacca wrote:That's what I was thinking. Its kinda unfair to keep kicking him when he can't respond.
That's why I gave him the last word. Not that it helps him any, since it wasn't any better than his second-last word.
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Post by DPDarkPrimus »

The horse is dead, let`s stop whipping it already.
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Post by Darth Wong »

DPDarkPrimus wrote:The horse is dead, let`s stop whipping it already.
Agreed.

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