aeonicentity

Just to play devil's advocate here: is it possible that this is litterally the first time this woman's hit her kid? I feel like we're making a judgement based solely off one incident which may (or may not) be indicative of this woman's life. That being said, I think we're ALL hypothesizing off of one incident. This begs an interesting question: Is violence acceptable to convince your child to stop doing an imminent, dangerous, violent behavior? A similar, less controversial example might be smacking a child's hand to prevent them from touching a hot stove (there is no time to explain the 1st law of thermodynamics when your toddler is reaching for the burner). In this case, is the mother simply utilizing violence to get her child to back down from a potentially more dangerous more violent situation which is imminent? And is that like the child and the burner an acceptable option in this case?

Donnadogsoth: I think the only kind of "slavery" you'd see in a free market would be voulntary indentured servitude as an option for repayment of debts, or invoulentary indentured servitude as a punishment for a crime as enforced by some kind of court system. Either way, Indentured servitude differs from slavery in several ways: 1) Indenture is for some term. Its defined through contract, and must expire at some point, usually when the debt is considered repaid through labor. 2) Indenture implies some level of care for the servant. If the servant dies while under contract, repayment is impossible. While chattle slavery death is meaningless because you were never going to release the slave in the first place. In either case, it is unnecessary to treat the servant poorly because their servitude is a voluntary decision reached in compromise for their poor behavior. That being said, I would not live in a voulentary community which supported Indentured servitude as a punitive or voluntary measure. It degrades the dignity of a human being as being solely responsible for their own poor decisions, and you don't fix those problems by selling yourself into bondage. I don't think that any honest objectivist, or even anyone who really believes in individual liberty would agree that indentured servitude is a good or moral relationship, since it generally teaches learned helplessness. Slavery, of the varriety ISIS is practicing, or that was practiced in anti-bellum America is entirely the product of a state run economic system. You cannot enforce slavery without the assistance of the state.

http://www.iraqinews.com/features/exclusive-isis-document-sets-prices-christian-yazidi-slaves/ My favorite argument against free markets: "We can't let the free market determine the price of X because X is so important to the economy!" Well, ISIS just declared X to be women. The real irony here is that if the free market had been allowed to rule here, ISIS might have even slowed or stopped selling slaves, since they glutted the market with a commodity that has no market outside of cookoostan. Obviously the Free Market is too dangerous to apply to the slave trade because it might end human suffering and oppression, so government regulation is needed. I think that its interesting to watch the rise of ISIS, because here we have a classic and unmasked version of how a state arises, and the real motivations behind state control.

I love how none of those solutions address the problem: They have subsidized water use for too long to farmers, and other special interests.

The only thing democracy needs to fail is to let idiots vote...

Is this your bookstore? Anyone who talks about Oppression in our modern era really wants to talk about one things: Money. Since we've long since done away with actual oppression, and the only thing that's left is people's perception that people owe them things, either because of the past, or because of their own choices, or because of the virtue that life isn't fair. Just remember that. Next time someone keeps talking about oppression, ask them how much money they're asking for to stop whinging about how unfair life is.

crazy radical anybody walks into my store I'd probably refuse to do business with them, since its already been established, they're crazy and radical. The gay thing is incidental to the fact that they want to sue you for not catering their wedding.

Plenty of people legitimately want to work for under $15 an hour. For example, kids under the age of 18 probably are willing to work really hard for a small amount of money since video games cost an order of magnitude less than renting an apartment. In fact, before minimum wage laws became ridiculous, those jobs usually were held by kids who were going to school and such. Now those jobs are being held by the kinds of people who should probably be doing some form of skilled labor, who are hiding in a BK because the economy is still bad. However, let me put some things in perspective for you: Low-skill IT workers can expect to be hired for about $12-15 an hour. That's a pretty normal wage for people who are interns in Computer Science, or who are talented kids who know more than your average bear. You're saying that people who've spent at least 2-3 years learning to code, or maintain computers are not needed or worth more than $15 an hour? Their jobs are extremely important, they usually maintain the equipment that runs businesses, and maintains transactions, sometimes for thousands of customers. Damn skippy those guys are important. But often don't get paid in excess of $15 an hour. Old retired folks probably would love to make a few dollars an hour doing some easy task that makes them feel useful, gives them excercize, but has NO BURDEN OF RESPONSIBILITY. Young bucks trying to buy the latest video game system or some new toy, or their first car so they can go on dates would probably love to work at some easy job they can do in between school that lets them both work and have fun while they're young! Your opinion would foist on others the requirement to ad-hear to YOUR sense of moral superiority, and I reject it entirely.

http://www.knrs.com/articles/national-national-news-104668/woman-stole-unborn-now-dead-baby-13452933/ I'm speechless, there are no words.

Can i just point out here that chivallry or 'knightly behavior' has very few perscriptions for behavior towards women except "don't kill them", and most of its codes pertain towards not killing you fellow knights. It was an early convention to try to reign in mass violence in central europe. It is not very sexist, or mysoginstic unless you consider not killing women and children mysogny.

So, http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2719281/Couple-kept-two-girls-5-10-locked-filthy-trailer-littered-used-condoms-three-years-played-World-Warcraft.html If women get 3/5 of the responsibility for an identical crime, can we only give them 3/5 of a vote? Edit: Accidentally posted in the wrong forum, can you please move this to men's issues?

Please stop growing a Peter Joseph beard. Thank you, A faithful subscriber.

I just looked up "Radical Socialist" in the dictionary and the definition read: Cenk Uygur.All jokes asside, I would define radical socialist as "A socialist who holds views not often found among other socialists, which some socialists might consider extreeme. Cenk Uygur thinks Barak Obama is too conservative, sooo....

Specifically regarding your coworker: Shit happens. Would it do anyone any good if he was running around pulling his hair out and handing in his resignation to the boss because he blew up a transmission? No. Be careful not to mistake people not reacting the way you'd like them to or think they should with cognitive dissonance. Its possible those people who live next to the dam do so to save 20 min. on their commute, or to get the breath-taking view of the canyon. Its worth the risk to them. Cognative Dissonance can and should be more closely linked towards behaviors which are obviously bad and have no rational justification, such as a woman being loyal to the man who is a convicted child molester, or a person who says "I love you so much!" while beating his wife.

I didn't say Nixon was right in floating the dollar, but I am saying that the gold standard (or any other commodity based currency) MAY NOT BE the best idea moving forward, for all of the reasons I stated.

Mieses wasn't always right about everything. More importantly, There are actually really good reasons why not to use comodities as currency. 1) Commodity currencies can be devalued by supply, or inflated by demand. This has been a serious problem with all commodity based currencies, including gold. If the gold supply increases dramatically, the value of gold drops dramatically as well. 2) Commodity currencies can be consumed rather than exchanged. If there is an option to consume a currency, the currency can be destroyed, which can really screw up the money supply. The one thing that can be said about the US dollar, is that you can't eat the things. 3) Commodity currencies all inherently have a restriction on fluidity. This is because not all commodities have the same value at the same time to the same people. While this is true of all currencies, non-commodity currencies don't have it to the same degree. Commodities are NOT ideal exchange mediums, since they physically have to be present in one place or another to be redeemed for that commodity. For example, in a true Gold economy, a dollar would represent x oz of gold, and in order to exchange it someone else must physically posess that commodity. This is one reason why perishable currencies are so bad: Cows, plants, and food all loose value with distance, which makes them terribly unfluid. Gold doesn't loose value with distance, however, transporting it is risky, slow, and expensive, which makes gold a poor currency for an age when money might travel from the US, to Belgium, to Moscow, and then to China all in the same day, for the same deal. This is one reason why we have transitioned away from gold as a standard in the face of increasing global capitalism. My concluding thought is this: I know we all like the stability that gold provided in the past, but past performance is not a guarantee of future results, and it is entirely possible that we will find ourselves worse off in the future because we decided to retain an outmoded and poorly suited currency to the age in which we live. While it is tempting to reach back into the past to find something that worked then it is not always a good idea. I advocate traditionalism as a general rule, but in this case there is good reason find alternatives to gold, and think outside the box on what we need in a currency in the next century.

Heart and soul are poor indicators of the value of a product. Be careful about projects that require a lot of time but only serve a small fraction of people. Generally speaking, your target audience matters a lot too: Kids don't pay for anything. Parents might pay for something, but usually if its for themselves. They may not pay for it if its marketed towards their kids. Its nothing personal, but they're trying to get little timmy to shut up, not spend an extra $10. Businesses are VERY likely to pay for a donation-based thing. If you offer it for free, and ask kindly for $10, they'll throw a bone your way happily. These are the only demographics im personally familiar with. For example, I don't know how likely women are to donate over men, or what age demographic is the best. I would suggest investing as much market research into any product you offer for free as you would any product you'd require payment for. If no one will pay for it, even if payment was required, don't bother.

1) while the minimum wage is now the lowest it has been since the 1940's relative to cost of living, this is actually a good reason to NOT utilize a minimum wage to set wages. If it takes an act of congress to move the damn thing, wouldn't we all be better if the market could set wage prices? markets respond much faster and the market doesn't require consensus, or majorities to change its self. 2) the minimum wage has dropped in purchasing power because of the minimum wage, since we always set the minimum wage higher than the standard of living, it will re-adjust the standard of living upwards to compensate for the higher price of goods, and general inflation. An argument could be made for lowering the minimum wage actually lowering the cost of living, since inexperienced teens who lack the need for things like houses, apartments, and child care could now produce the products consumed by now much wealthier middle-income familes. 3) The 'standard of living' proposed is insanely high. I make almost $15 an hour and I still live at home, not because I couldn't afford to move out, but because I couldn't afford to move out AND pay cash for school. The average person who makes the minimum wage shouldn't: 1- Be married. 2- Live on their own 3- have a family 4- be buying education on a cash basis. It is a wise man who says, "Don't raise your goals, lower your expectations". The reality is that we in America have a massively skewed sense of the 'standard of living' because the standard of living we've lived for the past 50 years has been entirely financed on debt and leverage. Its exactly like the 20's when people woke up and realized their mansions and Gatsby's liquor had cost too much, and we had a depression when all the bad debt came due. finances like life, is about sacrifices. I sacrifice x to gain y. I spend more here, to make more there. Save now to make more in the future. But you can't have your money now, then have more money in the future. Fundamentally this is what minimum wages do.

Maybe I haven't communicated that very well, but I find my argument particularly effective against people who believe that animals are moral actors because if they do believe that, they must also obviously consider the trade of animal freedom for their own satisfaction, and enjoyment just as attrocious as the trade of human freedom for other's satisfactions. The idea that you personally didn't do any of those things and therefore it isn't bad is just like a slave owner saying "It's ok I own slaves, because some one else did the enslaving and brought them over from Africa!". Simillarly the idea that its OK that you own another moral actor because you treat them well is no different than a slave owner saying that "its ok I own slaves, I treat them well!" So this is why I find this a pertanant point to bring up, because if someone truely believes animals are Moral actors, but thinks its OK to keep pets, they obviously don't believe what they're saying, or at least haven't considered the moral implications of what they're saying.

First I'd like to thank you for your post. I wish I could reply to all of it, but I can't. I did read all of it a couple of times though. I'm not suggesting anything of the sort. What I am suggesting is that at the very least I can have an opinion about your drug use. I would also suggest that it may be within the rights of certain organizations (ones you join voluntarily) to enforce drug policy. And particularly the point I make is that the 'it only effects me argument' is a poor moral argument, since its resoundingly untrue, especially in the face of facts. If you want to make the argument that the effect drug use makes no NEGATIVE effect on me, fine, but you can't make the argument that it effects no one and therefore is morally justifiable. I'm not saying that drugs in particular are violent impositions on others (although there might be violent imposition on others placed through the utilization of drugs, especially hard drugs). What I am saying is that this particular defense is not a good one. There are indeed GOOD arguments for and against drug use, but that this particular one is NOT among them. If you've never heard this one, great! I have a hard time believing it since I run across so many libertarians who DO believe it (my boss among them) but if you haven't, more power to you.

That is a very narrow number of markets. In fact if you define markets as that, no markets existed, even in times of general economic freedom, in which case capitalist theories should NEVER work until such a free market exists. Which is obviously NOT true. I look at capitalism like its a principal, I.E. gravity. The existence of it is always true, but the degree to which you understand and embrace it is the degree to which you understand the nature of the universe.but merely acknowledging the existence of capitalism. But capitalism is entirely sans morality. Good capitalists can cheat on their wives, and beat their kids, but still understand free market principals. Being a good capitalist doesn't make you a good person.

The point is wesley is that if they were agents what we would be doing would be as immoral as slavery. The fact that they are not, is what makes all of the things we do to our pets NOT immoral. And how is force breeding specific character traits into animals, then reinforcing it through training NOT utilization of force? If I took a population of humans captive, paired off acceptable couples to breed, and either euthanized, or sterilized the 'unacceptable ones' you'd call me a monster on par with Hitler. What makes this OK in the world of dogs is that they're not agents. And while you personally sound like a wonderful dog owner (and I'm sure your dog enjoys being owned by you) fundamentally the relationship is NOT voluntary, at the very least at its outset, since Dogs generally do not get to choose their owners.

Wesley, Just calling it like it is. I'm not saying owning pets is immoral, actually quite the opposite. Lets be honest with ourselves, if they were moral actors, we'd all be deep into shit right about now. Your dog is socialized because you enforced that structure onto him. He would not be that way if you didn't train him to be so. It sounds like you've done a good job training him, but training doesn't make you a moral actor, any more than programming a computer makes it a moral actor. Perhaps you have both mis-read my statement. I'm pointing out that 'animal empathy' is not likely a result of their natural instincts showing through, but a reflection of the life we teach them to lead through force and training rather than through reason. All I'm saying is this: they're surely NOT moral actors.

Fundamentally, we enslave pets. Looking to creatures which are functionally our slaves for examples of 'normal' and non-socially enforced behavior is ridiculous. Many animals become friends because in the screwed up world in which they live they're forced to live in a house against their will with other animals they would have otherwise eaten if they didn't think their masters would be upset at them for it. They often live socially isolated from other animals of their species, cooped up indoors for entire days on end (if not their entire lives) and only rarely get to procreate and have their own children. And then we castrate them for our convenience. IF such a dog develops emotional responses to say, a cat, its probably for the same reason the Castaway made friends with Wilson: Circumstantial necessity. To mistake this for 'complex natural relationships' or the ability of your pet to reason out the realities of inter-racial relations is childish and naive.

I don't know how true that is. Capitalism the economic concept is the idea that consumers drive market forces which intern creates economic pressures, which in turn drives production (overly simplified), however this doesn't inherently make any moral or philosophical statements.