SimonF

I agree with what you say here, the labour argument becomes absurd. If we accept the labour argument, then if children later grow up and pay off national debt their parents benefitted from, do the children then own their parents? I really liked the clarity you gave to needing to classify and that subdivisions can be arbitrary. Race and gender certainly did play a major mole in the assignment of legal rights, a practice now rejected. So how do people define ownership anyway, I'd like to hear?

I don't think they will agree with this, they might say if you have less stuff you can steal from someone with more.

Agreed with a caveat. I define ownership as a right to exclusive control of something. A living body housing a sentient being cannot be controlled remotely. One can make threats or use force as a form of control but this is not exclusive. On the other hand a book or a brick can be owned because they can be exclusively controlled (they don't have a will of their own). caveat: Some inanimate things also cannot be owned (at least not at the moment), for example the sun because there is also no means of control.

Relativist mish mash. I think Sam Harris has a pretty good handle on some kind of objective scale of immorality. Our knowledge of medicine and physchology is such that we can get a reasonable view of what damages people and relatively and absolutely how much.As for what the right thing to do in any situation is I think we can only say based on reasonable assumptions about what might happen in the moment to the persons involved. I think ideas about "common good" are nebulous when large numbers of people are involved. The non-aggression principle could also be divorced from pure intellectualism and rooted objectively in the instinct to survive.

but will the money be borrowed from China? [View:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SP5aHMRHdA0]

Good grief, imagine if more people with less money could afford more books! No the glorious socialist leaders will look after the little people.

This reminds me of the criminalising of using the services of a prostitute in Sweden, although Id' say this is even more morally repugnant.

Yup, the solution to too much legislation is.... more legislation, says the great legislator! "President Barack Obama announced plans today that will address concerns surrounding the antiquated patent system in the US. The plans include a series of five executive actions and seven legislative recommendations to curtail the number of patent-related lawsuits bogging down the nation’s legal system while encouraging and rewarding the people who really create new technologies." http://blog.experts-exchange.com/ee-tech-news/the-president-takes-on-patent-trolls

The original function of a "bank" was to safely store deposited commodity money and I think most people still think of it as something like that to some extent. Safety deposit box vendors are now the true "banks". Once banks started trading their deposit notes as money and risking insolvency by overprinting deposit notes and lending they, became risky investment vehicles.

The "King" could be understood as symbolic* of wisdom and kindness (like Jesus "king of the jews") or perhaps even as a father, rather than literally as a supreme ruler. Tolkien loved myth such as King Arthur**, it's most likely symbolism. Much of the films themes seem symbolic, for example I believe the ring of power represents democracy, so I wouldn't take things at face value. *http://www.masculinity-movies.com/articles/king-warrior-magician-lover **http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/booknews/10078482/Tolkiens-epic-about-the-legend-of-King-Arthur-published-for-the-first-time.html

The teacher who had care needs to be sued. If there was no teacher on duty, then the principle is next in line for suing. I reckon if every case of bullying or other form of attack were sued state education would soon be shut down, or else they'd rig the "law" to create some kind of exemption for schools.

Thousands of Texas Department of Public Safety troopers are slated to receive the largest pay raise in the agency’s history as part of the new state budget that awaits Gov. Rick Perry’s signature. The salary increase for about 4,400 state law enforcement officers, 80 percent of whom work for the DPS, averages 20 percent over the next two years, dwarfing the 3 percent pay raise for general state employees. It will cost the state $100 million. When coupled with an existing program that allows DPS troopers to earn overtime for working an extra hour a day, the cumulative increase in pay could total as much as 35 percent. http://www.statesman.com/news/news/state-regional-govt-politics/dps-troopers-in-line-for-20-percent-pay-hike/nX9Dc/

http://rt.com/news/turkey-protest-erdogan-istanbul-131/

so exercising on a mat is dealing with "magic" whereas "exorcising" on demons is not

It would seem logical that if more grain/land is available because production for the meat market declines then prices would lower so that more poor people are able to afford enough basics to eat r land to subsist on. Alas more of the world is consuming more meat. On the other hand, there are some serious political and economic issues in places where famine is worst that would not be affected by changes in dietary trends in the more developed places.