On 2/18/2012 8:08 PM, George Plimpton wrote:

No, it is exactly the opposite of that. It is what Jefferson and the
other founders saw as the essence of natural law. Natural law is another
topic of which you, as the holder of a worthless degree in a worthless
"discipline" scoff from a ****ty university, know nothing.

I'm not interested in Jefferson's views here because

Because you're a totalitarian, and Jefferson was a democratic republican.

I'm not interested in Jefferson's views for two reasons. One, I know
them, and two, they are not applicable here. Third, where does a
Fascist, control freak like you get off calling someone else a totalitarian?


Don't even start with natural law. It's not valid.

It is valid.

Not valid because you can't interpret it without clergy.


For the record I also am trained as a paralegal so

Good for you. That's a clerical job, you know.

You call it whatever kind of job you like. What it means though is that
once again you are in over your head arguing law with a paralegal when
you don't know anything about the subject. You presume to know when you
are ignorant. That's how fools operate.



Where you got this right is the question.

I am endowed with it (by the "Creator", if you wish) at birth. End Of
Story, Hawke-Ptooey - no one "gives" me the right, no "society"
gives it
to me, I do not have to purchase it. I am endowed with it simply for
being born human.

So you're claiming god or creator or whatever name you want to use for
some non human being gave you this right.

Check to see what Jefferson said about it, okay, Hawke-Ptooey?

He's dead and I don't care about his opinion on the subject.

You don't care about the opinion of any great philosophers and notable
political figures except for far-left crazies like Marx and Lenin and Mao.

Not when you're talking about natural law. Neither Marx, Lenin, or Mao,
care about it either because they were atheists. So neither do I. You
pretend that you got some rights handed to you by a spiritual being if
you want. All that does is make you look like an even worse crackpot
than before. You have to go to spirits to justify yourself. What a buffoon.



You don't admit to getting any rights from
society or government

Correct: because they have no authority to do so.

That authority comes from the people themselves and

No. "The people" do not have any power to grant or withhold rights. They
may not *recognize* rights, as the majority of southerners in the US
didn't recognize the basic human rights of Negroes for a long time, but
the people do not have any valid authority to grant or refuse to grant
any rights.

You are so ignorant about politics it should shame you. People are the
ultimate source from which all your rights come. They are what
legitimizes the power of the state to grant or deprive you of your
rights. Your ignorance of how things work is amazing.


Once again, since you're stupid and forgetful: "society" is not an
organic entity. It is merely a description of individual persons living
in loose association with one another. "Society" has no will, no
independent or autonomous existence. Humans don't even create society,
except indirectly by living in association with one another.

But you are acting like you know all about society when you have not
studied sociology and

Sociology is worthless for understanding any legitimate aspect of
society.

So says a man who has not taken the time or made the effort to learn
what sociology does teach.


As I've said several times already, "society" is not an entity
- it is a description of people living in some kind of association with
one another. Society has no will, no organic existence of any kind; it
does not act. *People* who have their hands on the levers of power act,
ostensibly in the name of society, but it is always a matter of
individual persons. "Society" is not an entity.

That is a fact. Get used to it.

Maybe the problem is you don't know what the word entity means. Or maybe
you just don't understand how an organization works. You probably
believe that a corporation is a person, right? Well, that's how a group
of individuals is a society and acts as a society and not as simply a
group of individuals. So your fact is not a fact. It's your opinion.



Individual persons *do* create governments.


It has nothing to do with the duty of others.

It *defines* duties of others, Hawke-Ptooey.

Your right defines their duties?

Absolutely, Hawke-Ptooey. That's exactly what a right does.

So that means you are automatically connected to them.

No. It means that *IF* I am connected to them, they have certain duties
based on my rights. I may not be connected to others at all, but *if* I
am, there are certain duties imposed on all of us. The only legitimate
duties are all negative - duties not to interfere. There are no positive
rights - there *cannot* be, without violating the most basic right of
all: the right to one's life.

You are connected to them. You are connected to everyone by being part
of society. You mistakenly think you are only connected to someone if
you interact with them directly but that's not how it is. Is a society
you are connected to everyone else, in one way or another. You are a cog
in the machine no matter how much you say you aren't. Everybody is
depending on everybody else. The soldiers fighting in Afghanistan are
connected to you, for example. The duties and rights you talk about are
in effect between you and them and between every one else too. You can't
be a part of society and outside of society at the same time. You are
either in it or you are not. YOU ARE IN THIS SOCIETY! Too bad for you.
So you have to go along with it or pay the price.



Doesn't that kind of make you boss of them?

No, negative rights don't do that at all, Hawke-Ptooey. However, your
sense of positive rights would do that.

Sounds a lot like your right is imposing duties on them.

That's exactly what rights do, Hawke-Ptooey.


If you can impose a duty on another

*I* imposed nothing on them, Hawke-Ptooey.

You are. By demanding your right to life you are imposing duties on
them. So your right to life is putting you in a position where you have
the power to impose your view of what duties they owe to you. Maybe they
don't want to owe you any duties. Will you give up your right to live so
they won't? Hell no, so you are forcing your will on others. But then
you're a Fascist so that's normal for you.

then you have power over them.

See above, Hawke-Ptooey.





They have no part in your claim to a right to life.

They are obliged not to interfere in my life, subject to the proviso
that I am not interfering in theirs. That is what it means,
Hawke-Ptooey, you stupid cretin.

First off. who is it that determines whether you are interfering in the
lives of others or they are interfering in yours?

If you are attempting to seize some value I create, Hawke-Ptooey, or if
you are trying to suppress or tax a voluntary transaction into which I
and someone else wish to engage, then you are interfering in my life.

Sounds like it's you that gets to decide exactly what constitutes
interfering in your life or not, doesn't it? Like always you are the one
who gets to make the decision. Mr. Pimpton, the little dictator. You're
everybody's boss. Notice that? At every turn it's you who decides
everything. And you accuse me of being a totalitarian? What a joke.
You're a baby dictator. Good thing you have no power in "society".

You're to thick to see that others not interfering with you is one
thing, and you having a right to live at all is another?

They are not different; they are the same.

Oh brother, you really are the dull one.

That's not an argument, Hawke-Ptooey.

No it isn't. It's an observation.


You having the right to live is
not the same thing as not having others interfere with you.

That is *EXACTLY* what it is, Hawke-Ptooey.

No it is not and you would have to be pretty dumb not to be able to see
the difference. I won't bother explaining it again, you won't get it.



So why can't "those people" claim a
right to clothing, shelter, medical care, haircuts, shoeshines,
etc.?

Those are positive rights that would imply a duty imposed on someone
else to give them those things, and there is no such duty.

Yes, so you say.

It is so.


Other people say the opposite.

They have no moral basis for it. All they're doing is advocating force.

Heh heh heh...cat got your tongue, eh, bitch?

What can one say to such utter nonsense? It doesn't deserve a reply. I
mean you using the word moral just doesn't fit. Your philosophy is amoral.




You forgot to add, in my opinion to the end of your sentence.

Nope; I didn't forget anything. I have no innate moral duty to give
any
good or service to anyone.

But the creator says you do and

No.

Heh heh heh... You don't know a ****ing thing about any "creator", do
you, Hawke-Ptooey?

Huh, uh, I don't. But I bet you think you do though, right? Tell me
about him or her or whatever? Oh, and where did you learn about it from?
Church?


I may choose to take on such a duty
voluntarily, but absent that, no one has any moral right to compel
me to
furnish any good or service to him - none whatever. If you're naked
and
starving in the street and I find you there, I am not under any innate
moral obligation to feed or clothe you.

So you set yourself up as the highest and best judge of whatever is to
be done.

Nope - just as the only valid judge of my positive duties to others. It
is so: I *am* the only valid judge of my positive duties to others.

What you are saying is that nothing but your decision matters in how you
treat anyone else.

No, I'm *not* saying that, you liar. I'm saying only my decision matters
in deciding what my positive duties to others are.

I have no say in what my negative duties to others are. My negative
duties are imposed by their rights. I must not interfere in their lives,
as long as they aren't immorally interfering in mine. A dirty homeless
person may beg from me, because that isn't an interference. If he
assaults me and tries to force me to give him something, that's an
interference, and I am entitled to kill him.

Get it, Hawke-Ptooey?

What I get is that you are not rational. Your conclusions do not
logically follow from your premise. You jump radically from one thing to
another with no connection between them. Then you say it makes sense.

The reality is you are setting yourself up as judge, jury, and
executioner, over everything and everybody. You concoct one excuse or
irrational argument after another so that in the end all that matters is
that whatever you decide that is what is right. The truth is that's
getting into the realm of real mental disease. At least it demonstrates
some kind of thought disorder. You wind up sounding like some kind of
little child demanding he get everything done his way or else.

I saw from an article in the NY Times yesterday that at least 48% of
Americans are receiving some kind of government benefits although
many
don't even know it.

The NY Times publishes a lot of bull**** opinion masquerading as fact.


What kind of a person rejects information and calls it bull**** when

I reject completely *your* classification of anything as information.
You are stupid and a known liar, so if you call something "information",
it almost assuredly isn't.

You're just one major weasel.

You're just one minor and inconsequential lying totalitarian,
Hawke-Ptooey. You're a ****bag, but you're basically just a minor
annoyance. I toy with you.

So you end with childish personal insults as you usually do because you
have nothing of value to say. Thanks for showing everyone how ignorant
someone can be when all they have is an old outdated degree in
economics. As many have pointed out, a college degree doesn't mean very
much as far as brains or knowledge are concerned. You're worthless and
unsupported arguments have more than proven you got nothing from going
to college. You should have saved your money.

Hawke