Who is arguing that? I'm just noting what is common sense. That the manner in which we are indoctrinated as children and the manner in which we accumulate uniquely personal experiences and relationships and access to information and knowledge are going to have an important impact on how we come to view the world morally and politically. And that over time historically and across the globe culturally, there have been any number of different and conflicting moral narratives and political agendas.
If you're sayin' our
yesterdays influence, sometimes in subtle or powerful ways, our
todays: okay.
But, if you're sayin' our
yesterdays determine our
todays: nope.
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Okay, with respect to your convictions regarding guns, what experiences and relationships shaped you...but did not comprise you? How do you make that distinction "for all practical purposes"?
Like I said: I concluded a baseball bat wasn't enough to cover my ass in a clinch. I thought about it, considered my options, settled on a sweet Stoeger coach gun. I got instruction in the use and maintenance of it. I practice regularly (as well as hunt).
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So, when you were a child your parents sat you down at around 5 or 6 years of age and told you to figure out for yourself which behaviors were good or bad. You were on your own morally and politically right from the start. Something like that?
Nope. They taught me things, some which I've kept close, others I've tossed.
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Though, sure, the word indoctrination can seem inappropriate in that most parents are merely passing on to the children what their parents passed on to them. It's usually done out of love and concern for their child's well being. But that doesn't make it any less an inculcation.
Teaching is not synonymous with indoctrination.
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Here all I can do is to note the arguments I make in my linked threads above and ask you to explain why, given an issue like gun control, abortion or the queen, they are not applicable to you. You'll either go there in depth or continue to just insist my narrative is "manure".
As I say: you want me to comment on what you've posted
there, then bring it
here.
Copy & paste.
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Again, you focused on differences in opinions being just matters of perspective but, in my opinion, being the arrogant and autocratic and authoritarian objectivist that you are, all legislation must revolve solely around your own arrogant and autocratic and authoritarian strictures regarding property rights. Perspective then gives way to nothing short of a doctrinaire ideology that only the morons don't subscribe to.
Yes, when I ascend to power as Global Master I will enforce the following...
You are free.
You have a natural, inalienable right to your, and no one else's, life, liberty, and property.
...oh, the billions who will suffer under my iron-fisted enforcement of natural rights! Oh, the horrors of bein' expected to self-direct, self-rely, and be self-responsible! All those slavers and rapists and thieves and murderers and liars out of work and no welfare program to sustain them!
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And speakin' of slavers and rapists and thieves and murderers and liars...
And of course those on the other end of the ideological spectrum boast of the same powers. Only it's in confiscating all guns.
...fuck 'em...they're evil morons.
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Ah, I see...your own "private and personal" understanding of moral realism. Not this one:
"Moral realism is the position that ethical sentences express propositions that refer to objective features of the world, some of which may be true to the extent that they report those features accurately."
They're the same thing, Mr Google.
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That one connects the dots between morality and one's capacity to link it to objective features of the world. Yours, on the other hand, merely assumes that the manner in which you understand things like queens and guns and abortions and property is the equivalent of the objective world. That anyone who does not concur with you is quite simply wrong.
Nope. I say a free man, like you, has an inalienable right to his, and no other's, life, liberty, and property. That's it, that's all.
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Okay, how late in life?
Well, let's see: I'm 60 and I've owned my shotgun for about 30 years or so, so I guess I decided to arm myself around age 30.
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And what were your childhood experiences in regard to guns and property rights?
I was a kid. Property was what you owned, guns were what you hunted with. My experiences were not anything memorable one way or another.
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What you call "moral fact" others call "personal opinions".
As I say: anyone who doesn't agree I'm a free man with a natural, inalienable right to my life, and no other's, life, liberty, and property is wrong-headed, a moron, and my enemy.
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And given how many construe the history of gun violence in the Uited States, to insist that gun control is not a moral issue is nothing short of laughable.
The moral issue is unjust killin' (murder), not the tool used to do it.
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Now, sure, if you lived entirely separate from all other human beings, you can believe whatever you wish about your guns. But once you choose to interact with others in a community, you are not the only one who gets to say what is good or bad in regard to guns.
About my gun, my property? Unless I use it to violate another's life, liberty, and property, I'm the only one who has a say.
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That's the part where democracy and the rule of law comes into play.
Fuck democracy. Two wolves and a lamb votin' on what to have for dinner. Rule of law? If it aligns with natural rights:
If not: fuck that too.
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The part where you basically say "fuck that" and are prepared to go full-blown Ruby Ridge on anyone who dares not to subscribe entirely to your own arrogant, autocratic and authoritarian dictums.
You really need to read about Ruby Ridge: it ain't what you think it is, and ultimately it didn't turn out as you think it did.
Anyway: you love the mob rule (as long it favors you, I reckon): fair enough. I, however, don't. Scoff the law, I say.
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Dictums that come not from the existential parameters of the life you lived but from your God-given capacity to "follow the dictates of Reason and Nature".
Nah, I followed my heart...my stony, anarchistic heart.
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Congratulations. You are clearly the exception given my own experiences with objectivists. Most of them take one or another One True Path along the lines of the Ayn Randroids. On the other hand, I'm sure you've bumped into any number of fellow travelers...online?
Nope. This forum is the only one I haunt. You see any of my fellow travelers here? I know of no other natural rights libertarian deists on-line or off, and that's not cuz they aren't there: I haven't gone lookin'. Why? Cuz I have a life and most of it isn't on-line.
Fuck Rand: she ain't my goddess in polyester.
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Then, once again, you are far removed from most of the arrogant, autocratic and authoritarians objectivists I have come across over the years. And, in fact, given my 20 odd years as a radical political activist, I was once one of them myself. And I've known hundreds of them...liberal and conservative. Left and right.
Then I deserve a
. Don't kid yourself: you're as much the objectivist fulminator as anyone here.
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Okay, but your understanding of the "self" here is clearly different from mine. And when you are ready to explore that with me, we'll see what unfolds.
I'm not too interested in explorin' it, but if you wanna tell me what you think about
self, I'll listen.
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And, to the best of my recollection, I wasn't the first to broach the buying and the selling of bazookas. I merely bring it up in order to note just how far you are willing to go in defending your own right to bear arms. Nothing is not permitted, right?
I didn't say you were first: I said you bring it up guns and bazookas way more than I do. And I'll defend my kid and my life, liberty, and property, no matter what, no holds barred.
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No, you argue that in any particular community that you are a member of, only you get to encompass what being free entails in regard to such things as owning guns or having an abortion or property rights.
No, I argue that I, like anyone, am free man with an inalienable right to my, and no one else's, life, liberty, and property. That's it, that's all.
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Your God provided you with the capacity to grasp these things objectively and your childhood indoctrination and personal experiences while shaping your value judgments, pales next to your God-given capacity to "think up" the most rational and natural truths about, well, everything, right?
I surmise, based on the evidence, God exists, yeah. I know I, like anyone, am free man with an inalienable right to my, and no one else's, life, liberty, and property.
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On the other hand, just out of curiosity, how many moral issues are there that you do have any doubts regarding?
I don't know. Throw out some examples and let's see how I do.
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Evidence? What accumulated evidence do you have that the Deist/deist God does in fact exist?
We're all free wills with natural rights. This is self-evident, so much so even hard determinists can't stop themselves from arguing for determinism as though they are free wills, so much so even amoralists can't deny they have a right to their lives, liberties and properties.
From science: the work of guys like Wilder Penfield and John Eccles, along with almost every example of split brain and hemispherectomy, indicates mind and brain are not synonymous.
There's your primer.
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Evidence, as I posed to IC, along the lines of proof that Catholic Popes reside in the Vatican. Do you have your own collection of videos?
Sorry, can't give you videos of God on the toilet, no.
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How can anyone mischaracterize something that is has never been shown to actually exist? Instead, mischaracterizations here revolve around those who don't describe this God of yours as you do...in your head.
You can refer to some of my posts (posted today) in the Christianity thread.
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What "big stuff"?
Are you blind. Review my posts above.
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Once you do admit to being wrong about things of this sort, you are acknowledging that you may well be wrong about such things today.
Right?
Er, I've acknowledged I've been wrong
yesterday, could be wrong
today, might be wrong
tomorrow. And I gave you a way to prove me wrong.
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No, what you insist on being absolutely right about here is that how you define the meaning of each of the words above is the point of departure in any and all discussions with others.
As though "free" and "natural" and "right" and "liberty" etc., were things you could take out of your pocket, hold in your hand and point to. Rather than as words invented down through the ages to mean many, many different things to many, many different people.
In all our back & forths, all our tusslin', you never once brought up definitions.
I do believe you're reachin', and you're reachin' cuz your flailin'.
But, okay: you wanna argue definitions? We can. You brought it up, so you go first. Lay out the words and definitions that concern you and we'll see where you and me match up or don't.
Who knows? Mebbe you'll have your
gotcha! moment.