- What if that lazy, good for nothing leech has a child for instance?

His son does not deserve to suffer from the effects of poverty.

- The church would help them then?

Well, now you have an America filled with sympathy leeching families. The children from these families will continue to leech even more.

- How do we fix this?

Passing the job on to the government. Having been issued fast food coupons, the lazy welfare recipients will self-select themselves out of the gene pool. Once the future is brighter, those trillions will be paid off in no time.

what if the suicidal person still felt the same way twenty years later?

Thomas Aquinas wanted to prove that eternal damnation was compatible with god's mercy. He wrote that every being will come to love their selves. According to this line of logic suicide is always an act of evil. It doesn't matter if pain is caused, it's better than nothingness. Anyway, perhaps the tendency of all beings to resolve back into a state of fulfillment justifies the general rule.

If people want to stop global warming they do it for future persons. People have no idea who "they" are yet they assume "their" equal value and acknowledge no right to harm "them". Preceding a person in time gives you the same right to terminate them that standing behind them next to cliff does. Every act is coerced, forced and beaten into the fabric of reality, screw libertarianism. Hardly any act is truly justified in the end, suicide much less.

I don't like the idea of allowing people to commit suicide

I think there are moral problems outside of subjective preference: the basis of my reservations. You on the other hand have no basis to even "force someone to go to therapy", if you don't rationally articulate the problem.

I don't mean to be normative. I believe people choose to remain healthy and educate themselves because of this sort of perceived duty. They don't think of "themselves" in the narrow sense. I think most would agree with me however that you need a decent reason to kill yourself however and I believe the reason is what I stated.

This is a case of conflicting values, there's no need to generalize everything into a theory that can be applied 100% of the time.

There are problems with defining democracy in the first place. If 51% of people vote so that the remaining 49% have no right to vote, that would qualify as undemocratic, because the very process of measuring the consent of the governed becomes skewed.

Equally, you can't allow human hunting because it would skew further measurement to favor hillbillies and rednecks so to speak. Some other issue could have gone in favor of the now-extinct hipsters for instance. Hypothetical pure democracies are automatically republics.

Some rights, like the right of private property, can't be directly derived from this though. I think those rights serve as the line between a democracy and a republic.

If human nature doesn't allow for people to have power, then distributing the power undemocratically should be expected to yield the same or worse result.

The reason is simple. People praise the abstract knowledge that he was killed, but actually seeing the act of terror would wake a proportion to consider it an illegal act of terrorism outside of due process.

There is also an aesthetic subjective side to helping the poor. People give money to beggars for the same reason they wear make-up. People can also profit and help the impoverished at the same time.

If that was the case, why would establishing more authority help? How would people of who have this in their nature be able to establish a republic?

Nature produces adaptations that look to the best possible result despite rationality or sacrifice. Sometimes we are kind despite rational self-interest, because it is the way we can best spread and maintain our population in this specific environment.

The fly that distributes malaria depends on a warm environment and can't reach north America or Europe, places that would have the best resources to stop it.

Things "don't need help" merely because they give you something in return, but there are others with more pressing demands than your own. Malaria has killed approximately half of all humans who ever lived. Charities stopping malaria are effective, but "need help".

The problem is that you indeed can steal wheelchairs and shoot deaf people, but by not helping those charities you are doing worse.

Sure, you can be selfish, enlightened self-interest alone would carry the world a long way, but the moment you apply a higher standard (such as proposing a policy for the world) you run into problems.

Nature doesn't let the weak flourish during good times. The kind chieftain would attract the most fertile women. Only the strongest could afford to be kind, so the weak and cruel get less offspring. Kindness goes hand in hand with strength. It is a driving force in development.

Arguing against helping the poor is like asking an indian peafowl to cut off it's useless feathers. If you can't see the beauty of a kind person, no one can tell you why you should. Even if there is no utility in altruism, your aesthetic goes against human nature.

Going against that which has developed naturally shouldn't be called Darwinism in the first place. Oh, and when it comes to utility, you don't mess with mother nature.

They care for one another, but only to a degree that isn't damaging to the other members.

Even the encumbering feathers of the peafowl are of remarkable utility. Due to kindness, the strongest tribe would carry the biggest number useless members. The capable members had to get more food as the sassy cavewoman wouldn't stand a selfish mate. The cruel would get less offspring.

It must contribute if it isn't it must die.

In some civilizations for instance, the elderly leave community themselves. Your argument is this altruism: "we should accept the consequences for the development of humanity". Should the weak then be heralded?

There is no better model for the development of humanity than kindness. It is of remarkable utility, and suggesting otherwise is a misreading of evolution.

The peafowl doesn't die off due to its feathers, on the contrary, it ensures that inefficient individuals won't flourish when food is plenty. During rough times, the trait deteriorates as fast as it flourished, leaving a more efficient peafowl.

In order for society to function at all it takes those who break it's rules. Those who use cheap immigrant labor, supply drugs etc. People don't take all laws seriously and that's what allows for free behavior, the flexibility that makes everything function, that even makes the broken law function. Measures against illegal immigration for instance should be just the right strength, so they have no rights, but so we don't get caught.

What is democratic eugenics?

I know at least that a person persuaded of his genetic inferiority would never go trough an irreversible procedure, because it would seems pointless to him. It's hardly a democratic thing for 51% of people to see themselves as superior and permanently hinder the minorities unable to make children.

There is no "right" to decide for others. How much do you have in common with yourself 20 years ago? 5 years ago? If that person decided to end their lives they would have ended yours as well. The problem here is the same as in the case of abortion. Of course, there should be exceptions but you can't consider such an act to be a "right".

If the government should have the duty to protect all of its citizens, it should extend especially to the murderer.

You could argue that the criminal has already "given consent" to being killed by killing someone else, but this is merely a justification and provides no real reason as to why we in fact should kill him. The obvious reason why we shouldn't on the other hand is the same as the reason why are against him killing a person in the first place.

Even if a death penalty is justifiable on the grounds that it is only wrong to take innocent lives, you are forgetting that the quilt of the defendant can never be 100% certain, whereas the fact that you are taking his life is a certainty. Therefore the punishment exceeds the crime.

The average strength of the individuals in the group is far from the strength of the group. Only by having others to rely on can obstacles be overcome.

Furthermore, a weak society is better than an extinct society. Would you rather have Africa be a free breeding ground for viruses? Would you salute a nuclear first strike?

Caring for others is a Darwinian idea. Instead of just competing endlessly with each other, members of the same species help each other in a pack. Humans also have adopted altruistic behavior. The idea that war and conquest are natural and that peace is incompatible with the ontological nature of our reality is just plain incoherent.

You would expect things like charity and workers rights instead of conquest and domination. The latter has so far caused over 100 nuclear launches stopped by human intervention at the last minute, the former has stopped polio and established relative peace and freedom.

Marriage is and has always been a privilege by nature. People feel more natural about it being limited to certain groups than say, water. And of course these are rationally defensible positions.

One has the choice to eat or not eat based on the decisions of humans even if it means death.

You use the term "decisions of humans" which separates the nature of the human being from the nature of the decision.

To fully respect the decisions of others is to act as an automaton of duty: to deny ones own nature merely to "buy" a right to exist. As you say, the decision to die of starvation isn't a "human decision", it is a "decision of a human". Going against ones desires is unnatural.

Countries like Sweden have found out that increasing the tax percentage over 50% reduced the amount of revenue gained in taxes. Therefore a progressive tax rate capping at that level is the highest reasonable one.

Socialistic policies work relatively well with regard to healthcare, protection of the commons, infrastructure, planning land use, education, elections, protection of the commons, protecting consumers, welfare, maintaining non-profitable institutions such as universities and the prevention of social and environmental problems.

Capitalistic policies work well in the fields of maintaining discipline, marginalizing the public, instilling cultural hegemony, advertising, public spending, protecting institutions of power, instilling authority and misleading voters to vote against their own self-interest.

Kiddies who know nothing of how the world works would like to decrease the "capitalism" part in favor of more "socialism", but when it comes to those necessary functions, they are better taken care of by the capitalist. Socialism can't properly instill authority without extensive violence. The capitalist on the other hand gives you something nice to do for 8 hours a day and provides you with burgers and entertainment. Sure he ran off with the money, but it does sting less than being sent to a gulag.

We're not going to take a gun to the head of people and force them to be Libertarians

General Pinochet killed for a free market in Chile. Chile has seen a period of growth, this could have saved many more lives than what was necessary to achieve the goal.

Of course we may never really know what would have happened otherwise, but can you say this is wrong on principle, especially if the free market is indeed the best system of economic affairs?

we want to put our views out there and influence the government

Most libertarians would conclude that this is the same thing as holding a gun to someones head. Certainly if a socialist argued for market socialism in the same manner, he would receive that argument from the libertarians.

The author is basing his views on his fear of the unknown and his fear that the status quo of a deadlocked government is going to change.

This would seem like a valid fear to me at least. Why try something on 300 000 000 people when there are only limited and contradictory examples of it's practical implications?

I don't hold a gun to someone else's head and force them to buy me condoms.

There is only the rational agent who makes the claim and the current state of affairs on which it is done. The word "right" will only come to have the meaning "universally desirable" as people disagree on questions of values.

If 51% of people agree with contraception rights, then protecting a right of property becomes enforcing a privilege. Who are you or the state to hold a gun on the voters head and force them to follow a code of morality?

Coherent libertarian action doesn't justify coercion, but people are greedy. They would follow my minimal rationality for their right to have whatever they want outside of market discipline.