- 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.
There are healthy aspects of any belief just as there are unhealthy ones. A healthy belief which isn't found in Buddhism or hedonism for instance is "falling into" the chaotic world fully as an agent of responsibility.
You may see it as a case of idiocy, but when there's a story of a three year old shooting himself playing around with "dad's toys" people see at something else. In fact, if it makes society feel better they can restrict guns and this can be worth it for the utilitarian even if crime rates go up.
Just because the UN or US say so doesn't mean it should be or is so. When US presidents after Roosevelt are tried for aggression, crimes against humanity and international terrorism I would give the US and UN a listen.
A nuclear weapon also is an inanimate object. That doesn't mean they should be made available to everyone and that the right to own one should be supplied with tax payer money. The difference is that cars are not designed to kill or destroy.
Land has two sources of value:
1) The cost of buying it within full property protection.
2) The cost of seizing it.
Note that "seize value" doesn't increase when scarcity is introduced. Self-regulating mechanisms aren't there. Value 1 may be higher than 2 due to scarcity. Trying to monopolize will be artificially beneficial in this case.
Merging, collaborating and monopolizing provides the best and cheapest product. The strongest agency collective benefits from the ability to impose seize value that others can't protect against. They can set artificially low prices in lower price brackets or buy weaker agencies at seize value.
It has happened repeatedly during history. There were hundreds of communist societies during the Spanish revolution and in the Russian free zones.
This means communism in the sense that Marx originally meant, free from the state. Though not in the sense of an inevitable future utopia.
Some forms of socialism mean the lack of authority established by police or other violence. The Spanish revolution is an example of this.
It isn't always the action a person that triggers the gun. Accidents occur also, which they would less if there was successful action, coercive or not, against gun ownership. At least this argument goes to the utilitarian.
When something is seen as universally desirable it may be regarded as a right. You assume that the right of property out-weights the right of contraception, whereas you must prove your case.
There's only the right of self-ownership that out-weights all others. It enables us to determine what is desirable or good, and when the process by which these conclusions are arrived at is impaired, the conclusions are also gone.
Protection of property requires labor, and self-ownership maintains labor should be voluntary. Property is therefore a right only to the extent that it is perceived as good, and so it contraception. You must justify your arbitrary preference.
Not in the context of anarcho-capitalism. The private agency best able to provide the free market gains eventual dominance trough consumer choice. Other agencies would be unable to compete against the one that covers the majority of people. When one agency protects the land, a de facto libertarian state is born.
Yet right-libertarians don't see a problem with monopolies as long as they are formed free of coercion.
It would seem to me that precisely the system that fails horribly in the hands of the human can be a standard for some species to avoid the lethal properties of the mutation of intelligence. They would be more likely live on to convert all matter in the universe into energy until the big rip.
Adam Smith from the Wealth of Nations (1776)
Book 5, Chapter 1, paragraph V.1.178.
http://www.econlib.org/library/Smith/smWN.html
----------------------------------------------------------
"The man whose whole life is spent in performing a few
simple operations, of which the effects are perhaps always
the same, or very nearly the same, has no occasion to
exert his understanding or to exercise his invention in
finding out expedients for removing difficulties which
never occur. He naturally loses, therefore, the habit of
such exertion, and generally becomes as stupid and
ignorant as it is possible for a human creature to become.
The torpor of his mind renders him not only incapable of
relishing or bearing a part in any rational conversation,
but of conceiving any generous, noble, or tender
sentiment, and consequently of forming any just judgment
concerning many even of the ordinary duties of private
life"
-----------------------------------------------------------
The free market was a rather unorthodox notion back then. As the argument didn't go: "Here are the characteristics of a person and the good life, here is a system that enables and protects it", some clarification was probably necessary. Smith also expressed criticism of corporatism which is something I find lacking in contemporary economics: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/
Smith would advocate direct action for both the emergence of free markets and positive human characteristics. And by all means, point out if misrepresented his ideas. I just feel as if Smith is ideologically contorted and his ideas cherry picked. (Perhaps also by leftists like Chomsky, in his understatement of the invisible hand.)
Freedom is an essential aspect of human nature as it pertains to all creatures.
I agree with that. I only implied that people might not distinguish, or might even mistakenly embrace, their non-freedoms if market-ideology gains too much prominence.
The free market alone, if useful, isn't at any rate the ultimate goal for society, and people should recognize the aspects of human nature they might find suppressed within it and address them. I think it is a process that a coherent classical liberal such as Smith would support and a process which, if left undone, undermines the classical liberal justification for a free market severely.
In a rational deal between parties whose interests are tied to the resource at hand every party is a priori considered an equal partner in conversation. One has to make the rational case that they have earned a specific resource. When you apply that principle you get perhaps vague democracy.
In free markets, resources (that can't be considered to belong to anyone) are distributed to those with the means to defend them. Leverage over resources is maintained with the forceful enforcement of property: the language of force and not the language of reason.
I claim only the language of reason, which contains these specific a priori notions, can be an alternative to force. The fact that you're convincing others why they should agree with you already assumes you speak this language, and should be able to distinguish it to grasp my point.
Why would anyone limit access to resources when a market economy is based on consumer sovereignty.
If someone owns something, they may do whatever they want with it. Power is the ability to limit access or destroy resources at will. It doesn't imply that there is incentive to do so. That superfluous, luxurious ability nevertheless ought not be instituted without justification.
On the other hand, people for example have claimed ideas as property. How would this directly detrimental activity be stopped, when it has instituted itself in market societies across the world? I claim even this can't be the only test of legitimacy.
What claims would be rationally legitimate as opposed to just violent? What forms of force or power are legitimate (be they retaliation, something assumed a priori, something not assumed at all)? What specific greater principle of efficiency or justice would this arrangement adhere to that would otherwise not be achievable?
In a market society, consumption and production are the meaning of life. Everything is a commodity. Every human is inadvertently harnessed to serve the longevity of the system by the institutions of work and consumption.
People will not miss freedom once it is taken from them. A prostitute does not make a free decision to sell themselves, they do it because of the power exerted by others, but even freedom itself will be defined to serve the power interests. Advertisement and power affects everyone regardless of ideals of exchange.
The classical liberal Adam Smith said that a person who engages in repetitive labor as a means of survival will mostly become as stupid as a human being can be. As such, it is an awesome way of reducing crime.
The way to earn the resource involves limiting other people's access to it with violently enforced authority. When people try their best to agree what belongs to whom, they are likely to make a deal that involves less violent enforcement by trying to satisfy the demands of every party.
In this case it doesn't matter if the party earned the resource, limiting their access is crime, which ought to be minimized if possible. The deal which is to the utility of it's participants is the least violent arrangement.
If drugs get legalized, crime rates would drop. However, the reason for this is that the police state governs the drug makers operations, reducing violence by monopolizing it, and therefore giving power to those organizations. People have defined economic freedom and negative liberty such that they are compatible with and arguably require a police state. Something I would consider the metaphysical hustle of the century.
Stop right there. Obama gave them handouts to the job creators who then created jobs. America has only 7% unemployment while EU is lagging behind.
Job makers like wallstreet are nescessary so that our young people can pay off their student debt by leeching off of the hard work of others and destabilizing the food market in developing countries.
Government can redistributes to the corporations to make job and cash prosperity money.
Legalization isn't the correct term here. It's not that same change marriage is illegal, it's just not supported and endorsed by the state. Therefore any libertarian view is not expressible within this debate.
Are you going to make gay marriage illegal? You would stop a consensual religious ceremony with force? Within the wording of this debate this seems the only reasonable position.
The unchangeable self is an interesting concept indeed. On the other hand I believe there are always ways for a person to change. We are made up of the things we experience. Perhaps how we interpret those experiences is something that changes less.
If someone punishes a murderer to death, why should the executioner not be put to death? The issue doesn't have anything to do with self-defense.
College education is provided free of charge in many European states. A cheaper educated workforce provides a competitive advantage.
There isn't a free press in Britain in the first place due to the overkill libel laws. A big media conglomerate can shut down any small newspaper at will and at no cost. If you analyze the coverage on say Iran's nuclear weapon you'll see it's closer to what you could read on Pravda than a free press.
These weren't simultaneous events. Hiroshima is justifiable, but not Nagasaki. I at least the second nuclear weapon was a bit of overkill. The intention was to end the war quickly for US advantage against the Soviet Union.
some things there simply isn't any evidence for but you must believe anyways.
You don't need to believe in them, you only need to act as if you believed in them. We do this all the time. We agree that we dont smell funny or look weird.
I have evidence that would justify the belief that she will pay me back.
The justification for the belief is her insentive to prefer your beneficial friendship over the rather irrelevant 40 bucks. People are known to function according to their self-interest. The justification holds true for anyone who'd lose more than 40 bucks upon failure to repay. You don't need the notion that she is trustworthy, only that she acts rationally.
The government of the United States? No. Even if governments could censor what their citizens see, no one should be allowed to take down sites that might be legal in other countries. How would you feel if China took down megaupload?
But should everybody have these privileges?
Rights, not privileges. The burden of proof is on the aggressor: the one who interferes: the government that takes away negative liberty.
Even if they do happen rarely it is a unadressed problem. If no candidate gets the majority a second round should be set up. This would enable more candidates and more parties.
The aspect of the Electoral College that I imply is undemocratic is that the votes of some people end up mattering more than others. I think that a system is at least partly undemocratic as long as non-temporary political authority is distributed unequally by a law that is constitutional (or legally harder to change than other laws).
My ability to trust someone is based on their track record, therefore it is based on evidence.
Your ability to trust would have to be based on supposed evidence that the person you're trusting never lies.
For truth value, it doesn't matter who happens to make the claim. The track record isn't evidence of actual claim in question. It is only evidence of other claims made by that person beign true.
People believe in things for more complicated reasons than evidence. The extent differs: Belief in god; trust in wife.
http://www.youtube.com/
As you can see, the House of Representatives is very disproportionate. The problem that gets "solved" is very simple, but the complex process is unnecessary and even undemocratic.
It makes smaller states more important in elections with over two viable candidates. The simple fact that there is usually only two candidates seems peculiar to me as a non-American. If tax payer money is to be used on this process it should be streamlined.
Prayer is like canned laughter. Even though you aren't really doing anything to help, you still feel good at the end of it. Even though you aren't really telling anyone about your problems, you still feel safe. What it gains in effect, it lacks in meaning.
The feeling goes away as soon as you notice the something isn't there. My whole profile will tell you how much liberty and enjoyment I take in hiding things about myself, but the feeling of doing an act is never the intrinsically meaningful part of an experience. I want to acknowledge and even embrace meaninglessness in certainty things I do in my life, as opposed to pretending everything is equally meaningful, wonderful and unexplainable qualia.
That's why I consider prayer corrosive: It's false meaning.
Justice is the primary virtue of society just as truth is the primary virtue of a scientific theory.
A society can be efficient just as a scientific theory can be simple and intricate, but an efficient but unjust society is just like an intricate but untrue scientific theory.
There is no doubt that justice trumps efficiency. If your views on justice (or lack of them Á la ThePyg) demand anarchism, then efficiency is no objection to that.
There comes a time when kids get naturally curious about these things. When the time comes it's imporant that children get into P.E. in a safe classroom environment at the guidance of the teachers. There's no point in denying children penis examination.
If one president doesn't win the majority of the vote the entire process becomes very complicated and even undemocratic. This is due to the way the rules are set up.
Why do we need the whole points system anyway? It's meaningless, exploitative gamification that undermines the inherent value of the argument and it's content.
The pen is whatever color the ink is. We don't know the color of the ink.
People inherently know what is good or bad for them
Yet that is exactly what advertising seeks to distort. People are taught through advertising a non-intrinsic, artificial and misleading idea of good food.
Why would they air them if they wouldn't? The PR industry defines the elections. The best misleader is more often than not the winner.
I would support such an effort at least on pluralist grounds. Democracy and communism shouldn't be mutually exclusive in my opinion though.
If you're going to have monarchy go all the way. Making this fantasy about heroic queens and brave kings will only downplay in our eyes real kings and real queens who might actually oppress someone.
If there is indeed heroism or wisdom in the monarchs deeds there is only one right thing to do: Let it go, don't overproduce or distort it with this meaningless constitutional adaptation. It will live on in our culture.
Depends on where you set the comparison. American politics would be considered extreme in Europe. Both American and European politics would be considered extremist a couple of hundred years ago.
Just as we today are appalled at the arguments of colonialists, the status quo of todays protectionism, authoritarianism and exploitation will be considered extremist.
It's a serious waste of paper. Having two parties is already a hassle, but three, four? That would be way too complicated for the average American voter. Hell, most people couldn't choose even if we cut it way back to one.
With two parties it's easiest to frame it up so that each will blame the other for beign controlled by the elite and causing all of Americas problems.
While free market capitalism is a debateable term I must define my percieved conflict between capitalism and libertarian values.
Strict free market capitalism is asking the poor to suffer or starve in situations where they have no product to sell or no charity to support them. Ought implies can. The only reasonable legal demand in this situation is for the rich to give a part of their surplus to the poor.
Pure capitalistism is unable to deal with pollution and issues that affect the livelyhood of everyone. Conflicts of interest and affectd third parties are too hard to trace. Negative liberty can also get trumped by private property for example in the absence of the freedom to roam.
If the freedom to own another person is trumped by human rights then the freedom to own massive amounts of property at the expense of others should also be trumped by equal human rights.
Definition of SELF-DEFENSE
1
: a plea of justification for the use of force or for homicide
2
: the act of defending oneself, one's property, or a close relative
----------------------
Attacks are a part of self-defense. If you want to leave attacking be then that is fine, but "defending yourself" mostly involves running fast.
There is not a single person who is trustworthy, only people who have to be assumed trustworthy for saving valueable doubting-resources or increasing the quality of life.
In order to trust something you must doubt it is a valid claim, but in order to trust someone you must doubt some portion of their claims is invalid. Trust is always assumed. It's impossible for a person to "earn" valid trust.
There's a drug syndicate trafficing defenseless children to do their dirty work? Why not just deal with the cartel instead? The drawback of what you're proposing is the definition of self defense. Kids, especially teenagers would end up hurt or in juvie. What if there's a violent "problem-child", should he be tought self-defense on a compulsory basis?
I was tought a bit of judo in my compulsory gym class. I think it's great that people have the opportunity to try out different sports. Self-defense on the other hand is a very narrow legally defined term. Teaching kids "self-defense" for use in real situations will only make sure the bullies have wrist control on poor guy as well. On the other hand, if citizens don't feel safe there's a wider problem at hand.
There is no boys in single sex school for girls and mutually for the boys, and it is clear that children pay more attention to studying and their education.
A 60-minute PowerPoint presentation on the Congress of Vienna will do wonders for your standards and preferences. In all honesty, I'm not the only one who'd end up looking at the boys instead. Adolesence is also a time for "uncertainty".
What educational purpose is achieved by having a school consist only of one genre? I can't think of any. The burden of proof is on you guys on the "agree" section.
I like the fact that he's a real weedsmoker and a OG. I heard he has a kill list. Kind of wierd, but that's how he runs business abroad.
He imprisons people for smoking weed thou, thats not cool. That weed was theirs he should go get his own.
Ok, so he's real dangerous G, but he has his PR-swag going all the time. A real boss who wont let anyone get in his way. Now thats what I like for president. Not sure if the Hague would be cool with him tho.
Spoken like a true patriot. America needs money savers like you to make sure we don't have to cut the military or increase taxes!
Remember the debate implies you are the one who gets punished. YOU. So, how does your justice feel now?
"life inprisonment" is only 16 years at the very longest where I live. The prisons are also known for beign nice and comfortable places to crash in if you want to feel safe for the night.
Enjoy waiting 20 years for your lethal injection while getting molested by Tyrone.
The question is not as you imply: "should we allow them to choose", but should it be done or should it be encouraged. Of course there is no cap for "gifted", but that is often used for rather normal A students. Most students who are gifted and learning well shouldn't be encouraged to study separately, but instead to enjoy the pace.
If education fails to encourage students to learn by any other means than competition for grades there is also an unavoidable problem. Provided the student is an adult that has no true willingness to learn he shouldn't be in school anyway. Competition for grades causes people to study like maniacs before exams only to forget everything the following day.
"Non-gifted" students don't have a corrosive presence about them. If the standard of public education is so low that a society sees fit to have gifted students be shielded from it a larger issue needs to be adressed.
All art is inherently useless. All application of purpose to art is salesmanship. There is a central human idea to use tools, but no one can use art without arbitrarily implied meaning. All of this implied meaning can be expressed without art more efficiently.
A beautiful building has "useful" effects on people, but there is no rational reason in why people are affected by it. It makes us persons and not rationally designed robots: The surplus phenomenon of art.
Exploiting cheap labor and supporting protectionism in trade. Two in one.
As long as they aren't bought, yes. You are educating your children on the track to responsible piracy. Some items can be bad, some are good. There's no common rule.
If the guns have a useful purpose, then yes. Otherwise, why would you have the government support a culture of violence? Ideally, there is no reason to carry firearms, and there is no demand in the black market. If this can't be achieved then selling legally is a good temporary fix.
You passed out and Tyrone sodomized you. You could be raped without noticing it, just as you could be killed without torture. The point is that people who care about you will suffer more if you die than if you are tortured or raped. It's selfish to say torture is worse than death.
If these are indeed comparable, I wouldn't argue for the death penalty even in murder. An eye for an eye.
Government employees pay all taxes (except arguably income tax, because they are paid by the government in the first place). This is the only system that makes sense if you want to have property or consumption taxes. Who are you to imply that all government workers make all of their money from the government?
The real harm is done by society. People are given unrealistic expectations by the institution of marriage. They are blinded to what is important.
Other research has pointed out that children these days are too lazy to copy the violence they see on television and in video games.
The police have a greater responsibility to act according to the law. Policemen deserve, due to their responsibilities, less respect and less of a special regard than other citizens in the form of higher standards. Oh, and the police in Norway for example don't carry guns.
The death penalty for RAPE? Step away from the cave or enter it. Don't impose barbaric rituals on civilized society.
Who am I to say no one ought to be killed for justice? The part of the world and the timeperiod I live in hasn't seen real war. There are people who were given extraordinary circumstances to allow them to commit the most cruesome acts mankind has ever seen.
The Nuremberg Trials were applied when we Europeans actually saw war for ourselves. With the crime of aggression we are talking of such numbers that the life of a single US president or African warlord would be meaningless in the equation.
Why should humanity allow something to live that has caused devastation, death and terror to hundreds of thousands of people? If these anomalies of individuals were contained it wouldn't take long for someone to extort their release. Justice, while we have the hold of it, should be democratic and swift in these manners.
When I first joined the site, Hellno sent me an image of his enormous six pack abs next to his Lambourghini and two naked women time stamped with the message: "leave you fucking nerd loser". I'm afraid to come on, as Hellno claimed he is a real boss and wont let anyone "fuck with his shit".
Recently he sent me a video of himself speeding on his Lambourghini and taking money from an orphanages Christmas kettle saying: "I don't give a shit... I'll fucking crush you you little fucking nerd shit".
The video was timestamped with my full address and booked fight tickets to an airport near me. I really hope all those who have been abused like this could speak out before hopping the border.
I argue you have to go through the debate so that the presuppositions are assumed correct. It should be welcome to have assumptions in debates as long as everyone plays along. They make the debate more specific or in some cases ironic.
Biological factors determine partly our behaviour. Freedom implies responsibility, because while under the influence of these factors the individual can't be considered as responsible as usual he can't be held as free as usual.
The brain has different characteristics about it at different ages. A child can't be held to full accountability or to full freedom. The brain at that age has characteristics that undermine accountablity and therefore freedom. Since freedom and accountability have to apply to all a simple age limit is a useful tool. Rules are needed in place of total understanding of every little factor.
Really? The streets are organized, there is no disagreement about which religion is correct and all people everywhere live good lives. No one is starving and all are accepted as gods children. Humanity feels as if it has found its direction and meaning. How can you argue against these presuppositions imposed by the debate creator?
It would be horrible. People would no longer share the wealth of the world justly, but instead violently rob each other spawning massive inequality. Children would be left starving and all people would believe in different religions, even Pat Robertson could argue for legalization.
The biggest terrorists would indeed be awarded the most honorary of titles while the petty criminals would be jailed. Democracy as we know it would be tempered with by market forces and anonomous donations. How could such a world work?
The law defines which actions it will consider theft and so will the individual. Or is there an objective account of the rightful owner that everyone agrees with but the law wont take into account?
