iambiguous wrote:The only thing that matters to you is that "here and now" someone has done no harm with their hand guns or rifles or AR-15s or bazookas or grenades or artillery pieces or RPGs or IEDs or chemical and biological weapons.
Even though, for any number of reasons, that might change -- someone pisses them off, their circumstances change, they become afflicted with a tumor or a mental disease.
Again, just imagine someone like Charles Whitman in that Texas tower with military grade weapons. And then on up to today where at one time these guys -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_shoo ... ted_States -- had done no harm to anyone either.
henry quirk wrote: Yes. Here, in America, we punish someone for crimes committed, not crimes he may commit (that's how it used to be, anyway). Don't you know this? Innocent till proven guilty, not guilty till proven innocent.
iambiguous wrote:Come on, what does that really have to do with my point? Okay, someone with grenades and bazookas and artillery pieces, etc., has done no harm to anyone. But then someone does piss him off or his life does change or he is afflicted with a brain tumor or a mental disease.
henry quirk wrote: Everything. I can offer a list as long as my arm of items and conveyances that, should a body go koo-koo, can be devastating. By your logic, every last one ought be removed from the grocery store, sporting goods department, car lot, etc. Guilty till proven innocent: that's your bag.
Okay, and when these items and conveyances become newsworthy in the manner in which guns often are, you can bring them to our attention. Someone goes nuts and uses an item or conveyance other than a gun to create a body count.
Note to others:
Not only does henry snip my own points in these exchanges but he often snips out his own points as well!! He'll note something that I posted but then over and over and over again he snips out the points that he made prompting me to respond to it in the first place!!!
Back to the list of "shooters" above. What personal experiences reconfigured them into mass murderers? And, again, suppose they used bazookas instead of handguns or rifles?
henry quirk wrote: If I've done no wrong, and they come my shotgun, yeah, they're friggin' immoral. If anyone, who's done no wrong, has life, liberty, and property taken, the taker is a thief.[/b]
And around and around you go. As though gun laws are always going to revolve around the way citizens are now [peaceful, posing no danger] and not anticipate them becoming something altogether more threatening. And for any number of reasons. It just comes down to where in each jurisdiction the line is drawn. Some nations prefer minimal restrictions, others considerable restrictions. And both sides have access to reasonable arguments able to defend each point of view. Except for the "my way or the highway" fanatics like you.
henry quirk wrote: No sir, they do not. Any people, society, government, or State the undergirds its conventions, procedures, policies, or legislation with violations of individual life, liberty, and property is wrong, wrong-headed, and down-right immoral.
Classic quirk!!! If someone does not share his own "general description intellectual contraption" assessment of life, liberty and property they are perforce flat out wrong and immoral. By definition. God's perhaps?
That way he doesn't have to address at all the points raised by those who do advocate gun control in the community:
https://gun-control.procon.org/
It's simple. He is in possession of a God-given intuitive understanding of the issue such that it's practically a Divne sanction that rational men and women were put on this Earth to buy and sell grenades, bazookas, artillery pieces, RPGs, IEDs, clymore mines and chemical and biological weapons. All they need is a "just cause". Not sure what that is? Ask henry.
henry quirk wrote: But, hey, let's play a game: you, the anti-gunner (who owns a revolver), make your 'reasonable' arguments why I, the natural rights promotin' shotgun owner ought not have my twin-barreled instrument of DEATH, and I shall respond 'reasonably'. (As you like: you may substitute any instrument of DEATH you like for the shotgun...won't make any difference to my position).
Unbelievable. Over and again, I note the arguments of those who are opposed to the buying and selling of grenades, bazookas, artillery pieces, RPGs, IEDs, claymore mines and chemical and biological weapons in their community. But they don't respond "reasonably". Why? Because they don't respond as he does. A classic arrogant, autocratic, authoritarian "my way or the highway" fanatic pretending it's really all about "principles", "self-evident truths", "conventional wisdom" and "common sense".
And, of course, God-given.
How about responding to this, henry? Again, how is this not applicable to you?:
You mean this..."Look, henry, if you can actually convince yourself that no matter the historical era and culture you were born into, no matter your childhood indoctrination or the uniquely personal experiences and relationships you had over the years, no matter that you happened to read, hear and view these things rather than those things, you'd still think about abortion, guns and transgender men and women as you do today, I won't attempt further to suggest just how ludicrous that is."...?
henry quirk wrote: It's not worth responding to. My views on murder, property, nutjobbery, all extend out of my recognition of my own natural rights and the natural rights of others. As I say, I am not a receptacle into which the world pours an outlook. I'm a free will and an apprehender: I go a'lookin', and I'm never satisfied with the 'shiny & new'. It's gonna take more than the mewling of a a shallow tart and her cuckold husband to 'move' me. More than the caterwauling high school-level 'rhetorician' to break me.
This speaks volumes regarding the gap between what I am asking you to do and how you actually believe that you are doing it! Mr Wiggle on steroids!! And then double it!!! At least!!!!
Over and over and over again, in my view, your flagrant hypocrisy.
Might is not a dirty word or an immoral tool in regard to guns if those in political power in your community leave both yours and those who own grenades and bazookas and artillery pieces and RPGs and IEDs and chemical and biological weapons alone. If they share precisely your own political prejudices in regard to what could easily become actual weapons of mass destruction then might is a great thing. Right makes things might for you here.
But if political might is used by those at the other end of the moral and political spectrum? Over your dead body!!! God and guns seem synonymous to you. "Intuitively" you just know that when God created men and women to be reasonable, He had you in mind."
henry quirk wrote: First off, I don't give a sparrow's fart what you think about me. You're just words on a screen to me (and not particularly 'thoughtful' words either).
Right, that probably explains why you keep responding to my posts over and over and over again. That when most of the objectivists here avoid me like the plaque. They know what is at stake if they don't keep me out of their heads. While, in my opinion, you are particularly blind to your own rooted existentially in dasein political prejudices qua dogmas. You will almost certainly take them all the way to the grave because, again, in my view, your thinking is especially shallow. All you do basically is iterate your own "general description intellectual contraption" assessments of life, liberty and property. Then on automatic pilot dismiss the arguments of those who don't share your own didactic "philosophical" facsimiles. But at least i don't construe you to be an, at times, insufferable pedant like iwannaplato and AJ and Satyr.
henry quirk wrote: Second, there's not much in the second and third paragraphs I haven't already responded to. It's not about 'right' vs 'left' (really, you think the 'right' has my back? you think I have 'theirs'?). Its about, fundamentally, the free man vs the slaver. No free man looks at mass destruction kindly, and no slaver ever takes mass destruction off the table (which side of the Russia-Ukraine conflict are 'you' on?)
Yes, you "respond" by noting over and over again that only your own God-given "intuitively rational" and "natural" assessment of life, liberty, property, abortion, guns, free man, slaver etc., count. Whereas I am always willing to acknowledge that my own value judgments are derived existentially from dasein given the particular life that I have lived. And that over the years I really have changed my mind again and again regarding truly important things in my life.
henry quirk wrote: As for God, and his place in my thinkin' as end-point & explanation (rather than beginning & 'justification'): when you've demonstrated you understand my view, we can talk about it. Right now, you obviously don't understand.
Your view? Above you yourself spoke of your own God-given intuitive capacity to grasp these things rationally.
Thus over and again in regard to an issue like abortion I ask you to intertwine your own understanding or God and intuition and reason into the life that you have live...as I did in the OP here:
https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop ... 1&t=194382
And, over and again, in my opinion, you reconfigure into Mr. Wiggle and refuse to.
henry quirk wrote: If murderers, slavers, and thieves come for me and mine, or our various properties, yep, there's gonna be a problem. I expect if I came to you under the guise of authority and demanded your life, liberty, or property, when you'd done no wrong, you'd fight back too (mebbe not though...you've already admitted you'd give up your gun if legislators simply said you'd had to...I'm guessin' you're so whipped you'd do just whatever TPTB commanded, includin' bustlin' your keister into the boxcar).
You simply iterate your "as long as 'here and now' I'm hurting no one with anything that I choose to own" then the community is morally obligated to let me own it argument.
henry quirk wrote: Yes. Can you counter me? Have at it, if you can. If not: shut up about it. Like my granddad -- RIP -- used to say: 'shit or get off the pot'. Your 'incredulity' over my views is no longer convincing. Counter them...'reasonably'.
What's to counter? You merely repeat the same point. "In your head" no one who buys or sells grenades and bazookas and artillery pieces and claymore mines and RPGs and IEDs and chemical and biological weapons ever harms anyone else. So why should they be prohibited from doing so? All the points I note to counter that are simply ignored by you.
Thus...
Yes, it's possible that those who do come to own grenades, bazookas, artillery pieces, RPGs, IEDs and claymore mines and biological and chemical weapons will never cause others harm. But many, many citizens will argue [reasonably] that they are not willing to take that chance.
henry quirk wrote: What are their 'reasonable' arguments for depriving others of life, liberty, or property, when those others have done no wrong? List these 'reasonable' arguments for me. I got a fiver sez you, as their mouthpiece, ain't got a single argument that doesn't involve folks provin' their innocence or that's 'reasonable' in any way.
Again, back to all these guys:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_m ... ted_States
At one point in their lives they had never harmed anyone, right? But then something changed in their lives or they went off their rocker. Now imagine them instead with grenades, bazookas, artillery pieces, RPGs, IEDs and claymore mines and biological and chemical weapons.
How about a dirty bomb, henry? It's okay to buy and sell them as long as it's never actually used to go after others who come to piss them off? As long as from time to time a shrink examines them to make sure they aren't off their rocker?
If Joe has claymore mines surrounding his home and children come on his property and blow themselves up he insists he had a just cause to plant them.
henry quirk wrote: He doesn't need just cause to plant them. He has a right to turn his land into a mine field. It's his property. So, teach your kids to stay the hell offa other people's lawns when not invited. Or, let 'em get retroactively aborted.
Note to others:
Bingo! He really means it!!
This actually is as far as the "my way or the highway" moral and political fanatics will take it!! All the way to Adolph Hitler who, as far as he was concerned, owned Germany!!!
henry quirk wrote: With this you demonstrate that you clearly don't understand a friggin' thing about my views. Hitler? Again? Really?
Oh, you made your views crystal clear here henry:
[Joe] doesn't need just cause to plant them. He has a right to turn his land into a mine field. It's his property. So, teach your kids to stay the hell offa other people's lawns when not invited. Or, let 'em get retroactively aborted.
And Hitler made it crystal clear regarding his own "my way or the highway" account of ruling Germany. He wrote a book about it, remember? He constructed many "death camps" to carry it all out. Only he didn't choose bazookas or claymore mines as his own weapon of choice, did he?
henry quirk wrote: If Mary -- the lovely creature who, along with John, done broke you -- is carrying nuthin' but human meat, then nobody ought give her grief for roto-rooterin' that right out. If she carries a person, well, that's the basic question isn't it? What is the pregnant, Iam-shatterin', Mary carrying when pregnant?
Well, for the particularly fierce "my way or the highway" moral fanatics like you, whatever you say she is. Right, henry? [/b]Your God-given intuitive capacity to "just know" these things need be as far as it goes of course.[/b]
henry quirk wrote: Nope. And sure as hell not whatever 'you' say she is either.
Nope? Well, that's bullshit, henry. She is carrying whatever you say she is. Before and after 12 weeks, right? I'm the one who is fractured and fragmented here, not you.
henry quirk wrote: Or mebbe he goes off his rocker and plows his Tesla through a crowd of Antifa of BLM. We just can't be sure he won't...he is white (obviously a racist)...let's be safe and take his car before he can do wrong.
Hmm. You seem to be a bit off the rocker here yourself, henry. The point being that when someone does go off his or her rocker, God help those who come between them and their bazookas. Only, your God isn't even around anymore.
henry quirk wrote: That's not the point at all. Hell, it's not even 'a' point: just more faux-incredulity.
More Mr. WIggle bullshit. People do go off their rocker for any number of reasons relating to things like tumors and mental illness or medical afflictions in the brain. And only a complete and utter fool, in my opinion, would argue that if they do it doesn't matter if they own grenades, bazookas, artillery pieces, RPGs, IEDs and claymore mines and biological and chemical weapons and dirty bombs. And for this reason alone any sane community would outlaw the buying and selling of them.
henry quirk wrote: In an amoral world (exactly the kind you and so many in-forum imagine we live in) killing kids is amoral. In a moral universe (exactly the kind we all actually live in) killin' kids is murder.
Right. Again, your God-given intuitive capacity to "just know" these things are rational. A moral universe indeed. But it damn well had better be one where you and your "arrogant, autocratic, authoritarian" objectivist ilk determine what is moral. Even if occasionally off their rockers.
henry quirk wrote: I'll ask again: how is respecting the life, liberty, and property of every person a bad thing? That's the sum total of my 'arrogant, autocratic, authoritarian objectivism'. What's your 'reasonable' counter? That's your homework. Your semester grade is ridin' on it. Don't come back till you can state your case...'reasonably'.
And I'll note again that, in regard to when the unborn becomes a genuine human being and thus when abortion fits into a God-given intuitively rational and natural medical operation revolves entirely around what you insist this encompasses. Here it does fit into your own God-given intuitively rational and natural parameters of life liberty and property. And if others disagree? Well, perforce they refuse to be "reasonable"
Are you actually completely oblivious to how all of this revolves
around your own arrogant, autocratic, authoritarian objectivist assumptions here, henry?
henry quirk wrote: You can blame the God you claim not to believe in for whatever you like. Me, I'm grateful that His Creation produced me, a wildcard, to live in this marvelous clockwork of a Reality...and, should I ever meet Him, I'll tell Him so.
henry quirk wrote: Of course He didn't. I know you don't accept this (bein' nuthin' but a materialist, necessitarian, 'meat machine' type of guy) but it's not logically possible for free wills to be without the possibility of evil and natural disaster. And it's not possible that omniscience and free wills can exist in the same universe.
Please. You can't even come remotely close to demonstrating empirically, materially that this God of yours even exists let alone pinning down what He either is or is not responsible for in regard to the totality of the "human condition".
And to actually ascribe human logic to miscarriages and the natural disasters that devastate us over and over and over and over and over and over again? Why on Earth do you suppose most of these guys...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_r ... traditions
...invented Gods? And, of course, God's "mysterious ways".
Any other Deists here? Please relate your own under undertanding of God and human biology and natural disasters as they relate to free will and evil.
henry the Stooge quirk wrote: As an aside: we both know you don't give two drizzly shits about miscarriages or abortions or any of it. You're far too self-absorbed. No, all of that is just your grocery list of crimes you levy against a God you claim not believe in. Like so many in-forum: you protest just a little too much.
Truly pathetic henry. This [to me] is just another example of what I am able to reduce you [and those like Satyr...or from time to time iwannaplato, Flannel Jesus and phyllo]...down to: making this all about me. Someone, in my view, you hold in contempt, because you can't deal with the possibility that your own precious Self in the is/ought world may start to crumple some day. I get this though. After all, I can still recall when others were increasingly more successful in crumpling mine.
henry quirk wrote: I might disagree with those about the status or necessity of guns but I'm guessin' we'd all agree that a person's property is his.
What property in what set of circumstances? Again, down through the history, in different historical and cultural contexts, property was understood in very different ways. Still, I recall reading once where Ayn Rand actually argued that the only reason more primitive cultures focused more on "we" instead of "I" was because there wasn't a Joh Galt around to set them straight!!
And on and on. What you disagree about and what you assume all rational and virtuous folks would agree regarding is flagrantly biased to reflect your own political prejudices. Which, in my view, you cannot even grasp the extent to which is rooted existentially/subjectively in the life you lived. Instead, it is ultimately about your "intuitions" derived from a God who, apparently, created you to be the model citizens for all things Rational.
henry quirk wrote: No it wasn't. What differs are the ways slavers and thieves presented and present their slavin' and thievin' ways to their prey. Some are blunt: they take. Others are connivers, they hoodwink. But as far as what constitutes property, that hasn't changed. It's been the same everywhere and -when, to everyone.
Just like Rand. Forget about the fact that historically and culturally there were many, many, many conflicting assessments of human social, political and economic interaction -- of life, liberty and property. Nope, the only thing that counted was how she grasped them.
The same with you, henry. Only you need a God to fall back on and Rand would have held you in contempt for being so weak.
henry quirk wrote: There's nuthin' to forget. Strip away all jargon, all nonsense about party and ideology, all 'philosophy', all 'religion', all economic constructs, and every society, nation, or government -- any where or when -- can be judged on how any recognize and respect individual natural rights. Any and all have all manner of rationalizations why they don't or can't (your a very good mouthpiece for those rationalizations), but there are no 'reasonable' arguments. However, if you have some: offer 'em.
As for conflicts: yes, since before we fell out of the trees there's always been one man lookin' to lord over another, or one group lookin' to lord over another. As I've said many times: there's always someone lookin' to violate another's natural rights. The highway man, a government: it's all the same.
Again, your point here having little or nothing to do with mine above. Both of you insist that only the manner in which you construe the meaning of "life, liberty and property" [as intellectual/philosophical concoctions] will be tolerated in any discussion and debate. About anything. She just never needed a God to "prove" that reason goes all the way back to a supernatural, Divine origin.
Then your own rendition of the contempt she felt for those who did dare to construe life liberty and property other than as Commandments:
henry quirk wrote: As I say: What differs are the ways slavers and thieves presented and present their slavin' and thievin' ways to their prey. Some are blunt: they take. Others are connivers, they hoodwink. Force and coercion.
henry quirk wrote: I never said that or hinted that. Admit it: you made that up. Or, you can post a citation. Or, you can just dissemble, obfuscate, and inveigle...like always.
Above you noted that those who have "done no harm" to others ought to be free to own anything they can afford.
henry quirk wrote: Yep. This, of course, is not synonymous with sayin' 'all the grenade, bazooka, artillery piece, RPG, IED, or chemical and biological weapon packing folks are the good guys that never, ever harm anyone'. The two aren't even in the same universe.
Okay, but what if for all the reasons I and others have noted, they do in fact configure into even your own rendition of the bad guys and have access to these weapons?
Thus:
I noted all of the contexts in which things might change for them and they do choose to harm others. Only this time with grenades and bazookas and the like."
henry quirk wrote: Yes, folks, accordin' to you, are guilty. They must prove their innocence. They must prove they won't go funny in the head. If they can't then no firearms, baseball bats, knives, cars, Drano, 2by4s, pressure cookers, etc. for them.
Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle. Anything but actually own up
to the point I am making here. Their lives
do change and they
do find themselves [for whatever reason] hating others around them...or demanding that others go along with their own "rules of behavior"; or they do become mentally ill or afflicted with some terrible brain condition. They
are guilty of or afflicted with these things. They
can't prove their innocence. And they come after others with grenades, bazookas, artillery pieces, RPGs, IEDs, claymore mines, chemical and biological weapons or dirty bombs?
henry quirk wrote: Oh, we'll argue, yes we will. But that argument has nuthin' to do with dasein and everything to do with them buttinskies and wanna-be slavers choosing to not recognize and respect my natural rights (sure as shit, though: they wanttheirs recognized and respected).
henry quirk wrote: I don't have to review those lists to know most, mebbe all, of them folks will not respect natural rights. You'd make a worthy addition to their ranks. You're a ready-made 'adherent'.
That's not the point, henry. The point is that like you, they will insist that how they feel about Guns and all those other weapons -- God or No God -- reflects either the optimal moral truth or even the only moral truth. It's your rendition of "natural rights" they think and feel about in the same way that you think and feel about theirs.
Meanwhile I'm not arguing anything about natural rights here. On the contrary, I'm suggesting that such things are rooted historically, cultural and experiential in many vast varied contexts down through the centuries and around the globe. And in a world such the contingency, chance and change can result in new experiences, new relationships and access to new information and knowledge that turns it all around for you.
henry quirk wrote: The difference between me and them is I won't violate them, but, like you, they'll sure as hell violate me. Like you, like many in-forum, they'll justify any atrocity in the name of whatever they can pull directly out of their rear ends. They'll offend. Me, I'll just self-defend.
Come on, henry, if you are in a community where the political power is in the hands of those above who, like you, practice a "my way or the highway" approach to rewarding and punishing behavior, they will construe you as violating their own dogmatic moral and political prejudices if you dare to defy them. Just as you will defy them if they embrace a political agenda that comes after your guns or embraces a transgender lifestyle." That's how it works for those of you ilk. It's just that if you are someone like Satyr over at KT, you merely call people disgusting names or ban them or "disappear" them from the discussions. But if you are someone like Adolph Hitler acting out his own rendition of life, liberty and property...?
Then you just repeat yourself...
henry quirk wrote: The difference between me and them is I won't violate them, but, like you, they'll sure as hell violate me. Like you, like many in-forum, they'll justify any atrocity in the name of whatever they can pull directly out of their rear ends. They'll offend. Me, I'll just self-defend.
Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle.
Then straight back up into the "my way or the highway" intellectual clouds...
henry quirk wrote: If they come for my property, yeah, as I say, we got a problem. But what's this about my defyin' them if men wear dresses and self-mutilate? Where did I say I would oppose them or violate their natural rights? Citation, please.
I've been citing examples of your hypocrisy over and again. And I do this by noting that only those who wholly agree with you regarding what life, liberty and property means are then said to be reasonable when in any particular community laws are passed and enforced pertaining to particular property. Or in the case of transgenders you argue that they have a "natural right" to wear dresses and self-mutilate...but not really becasue they are mentally ill.