Libertus

So you're saying, that.... correlation does not equal causation? I agree! Let alone a weak correlation...

Good point, WasatchMan. Star Trek is a series designed to show how the Prime Directive is wrong, wrong, wrong and must be broken in every season, by every captain, multiple times.

You literally got the opposite from what I was saying. Should I have used quotes? Let me try and make my point more clear. IS and other god-state-constructs is what happens when religious people become the majority and then use the state to shape society the way it pleases their "god". The friendly and moderate religious people, like the pope who says cute and popular things is what we see when religion has very little power. The churches and other institutions will quickly change their tune once they get even a little bit of power back. Just look at the Middle East. Since you were asking for feedback: please don't use "ISM" as a noun, i.e. as if the suffix alone means something. It makes zero sense to do so. Can you make your point in a different way?

Well, OP does not see the necessity to answer questions, as he explained to me. Socratic method doesn't work with these kind of people.

Exactly. Religion is only concerned with people's freedom from the state insofar as the state takes power that in their eyes, belongs to their "god". Religion sounds reasonable as long as it isn't in power. If you want to know how free society becomes once religious people get their say, have a look at IS.

To me, this conversation is all a gigantic correlation / causation fallacy, clouded in group think. Atheism and statism correlate, theism and statism correlate a little bit less.

I grew up in Germany and the government didn't do anything to "push" atheism on people. We still have our church holidays, religious indoctrination in schools, a great influx of muslim people coming into the country, building new mosques, tax money for churches, extra rights for churches to hang up signs and billboards all over the country, a christian party in power, ... and yet the total number of theists is in decline, has been for the last 40 years.

It doesn't make any sense but communists advocate for a dictinction between "personal" and "private" property - the former is totally cool and encompasses things that we allow e.g. prisoners to have: clothes, an extra set of clothes, a pair of boots, a toothbrush - basic necessities but nothing beyond. The latter are everything the community deems "means of production" and everything that is not totally necessary for survival. It comes down to: you're allowed to keep what we allow you to keep. If we (the "community") decide that someone else needs your car more than you do, we'll redistribute it.

Marx introduces Communism as a hypothesis first (by analysis of history) and an ideology (how things should be) later. And that is just Marxian communism, there are many other brands that are prescriptive and not just descriptive. Communism today isn't just what Marx originally imagined.

> there is no personal right to private ownership Except for personal property, which is tooootally different and not arbitrary at all

If the ideology of communism is not based on pragmatism, then it should be based on moral axioms. But which ones?

Who said it was all or none? It's definitely not all or none. You need to establish a definitive causal chain for each of your examples. Does the mafia boss hiring a killer cause a person to be killed? If so, both actions are immoral, the hiring and the killing. Does an abductor threatening to kill your son cause you to blow up a school? If so, both actions are immoral, the (credible) threatening and the blowing up. When a slave votes for being caned instead of being whipped, does he cause his and his cellmates' slavery? Without a causal chain, you're not going anywhere definitive.

You can take all sorts of factors into account in your thinking, it would then be economics plus psychology plus genetics. But that doesn't mean you improve one field of study by adding many others to it. About psychology in economics. Can you read minds?

> Most atheists are leftists. Most leftists despise the philosophy of freedom. Therefore atheists oppose libertarian ideas. Most A are B. Most B do X. Therefore, some A do X. That's a valid syllogism. Therefore, all A do X Therefore, most A do X Are not. If you leave out the qualifier some you're being vague on purpose (sophistry). Imprecise language like "atheists oppose" leaves wide open whether you're talking about all atheists, or some, or most. Most commonly you will be interpreted as implying all or at least most. Especially when you talk about "atheism" as a whole, which doesn't make sense either, since absent group there's no rational reason to lump a bunch of people together who have nothing in common except for lack of belief in the existence of a certain thing. This is nothing more than sophistry based on group think. Most libertarians are male Most males masturbate Therefore libertarians are a bunch of wankers. Do you see the problem with this "syllogism"? As long as you're being vague, it's not even called a syllogism. You need to remove all vagueness to reveal the underlying structure. This structure is called a "syllogism".

You got it backwards. The theory does not assume anything about the content of a person's mind. Not a thing. It's postulated that humans *act* according to their perceived needs and wants, and that's it. Just because a theory names one thing all humans have in common doesn't mean that's all they are and therefore we are all the same. The opposite is true. We can't know what someone is hoping, wishing or thinking and therefore our theory stops at one thing we do know: humans *act*.

OK then, I'll abandon the term "murder", I don't need it to discuss the issue at hand, and its legal definition brings irrelevant aspects into the conversation. An innocent kid is not threatening you in any way (therefore "innocent"), so when you bomb a school you're not acting in self-defense by any stretch of the imagination. Since the only permissible justification for an attack is self-defense (according to the non-aggression-principle) it logically follows that bombing a school under the described circumstances is a breach of the NAP and therefore an immoral action. That's the argument... 1. premise: any breach of the NAP is an immoral action 2. premise: attacking someone who has not harmed you and isn't credibly threatening you is a breach of the NAP 3. premise: there are people in the school building who have not harmed or threatened you 4. conclusion: bombing a school is an immoral action. Note that nowhere in this argument appears the threat of a third person (mafia boss etc.) you would have to either demonstrate how one of my premises are incorrect, or how the conclusion 4 does not logically follow from premises 1-3. Or you can reject the NAP altogether, and I haven't seen you make the case. Your objections so far: 1. But, but, what if someone is threatening me? Can I then initiate violence against the innocent? Doesn't matter, still a breach of the NAP, still selfish, still immoral. 2. But, but, what if someone is threatening someone I care about? Can I then initiate violence against the innocent? Doesn't matter, still a breach of the NAP, still selfish, still immoral. 3. But, but, what if society says it's OK? Can I then initiate violence against the innocent? Nope. Also, note how you are, maybe unknowingly, make the case for a government. "But what if Saddam has WMD, can we then kill a million innocent Iraqis?"

> I certainly wouldn't judge you to be an immoral person because of it. What you would do is irrelevant. Also, only actions, not persons are moral or immoral. Bombing a school is immoral no matter what the reason behind it is, because you're going to be hurting innocents. I also think you gravely misjudge society's reaction. Can you give an example of a situation where things played out similar to what you're describing? You're also very close to making your argument circular: Murdering someone, while being threatened, is not immoral, because society wouldn't judge him, because it isn't immoral.

jpahmad, instead of switching around the examples, how about you respond to my point, without the attitude? > Great, you are very brave and noble Libertus. How about if someone threatened to set you kid on fire in front of you if you didn't bomb a school? I'm sure that changes things. If I did it, I'd be doing something immoral for selfish reasons (my kid is valuable to me).

If they threaten me with death, and I believe them, do I not have a choice? I gave an example of a terrorists threatening to kill me if I don't bring a bomb to a school. Would you bomb a school to save your own life? I think I wouldn't. I believe, and I can't say for sure, since, luckily, i have never been in such a situation, that I would decline and say "kill me if you must". Such acts have taken place. Sometimes, humans refuse to murder other humans, and are ready to suffer death or abuse as the consequence. They make a choice, even though there is coercion involved. I would rather be a murder victim than a murderer, thank you very much, and I hope, many people think the same way. That's why I don't think the case has been made to say "if you're threatened, it absolves you of all responsibility for your actions". It's the Nuremberg defense, it didn't work then, and it doesn't work today.

It's human. I believe the debate is about whether being human and alive are sufficient conditions for having the right not to be killed, or whether it's some construct called "personhood" that makes all the difference, and why. One side thinks being human and alive is enough, but never makes the case (neither have you), the other side insists on some legalese definition that sounds like an excuse to kill people. Neither seems to be totally convincing. My intuition says, killing a fetus is wrong, since I don't see any reason why an alive human being should not have the same rights as any other.

Nope. Let me clarify. A fetus has DNA separate from its mother, therefore it's a separate entity. I did explain my position a bit by adding "not a body part of someone else". So you think a fetus is a body part, therefore she can kill the baby. YOU MONSTER.

That's merely another assertion.

Will somebody please step up and make that case instead of repeating the conclusion?

Moral actor this or that doesn't matter to me. A human being has to be human (genetically), alive and "separate / unique" (i.e. not a body part of someone else). It can have the mental capacity of a pot plant (or the average voter) for all it's worth, doesn't matter, still a human being.

"Anarcho-" means "no rulers" and "capitalist" is a prediction of which economic system will come out if we're going to have rules, and private property and contract, since we're not using the Marxist-laden scapegoat for the term "capitalist" but the proper dictionary term for an economic system.