PillPuppetPoet

Part II is now available also: https://madnessaformoflove.blogspot.com/2018/06/thucydides-ii.html

I will be posting work on the history of political philosophy here over the next few months. This is the first, larger part of an essay on Thucydides (the ancient Greek historian), based on the studies of the Jewish emigre philosopher scholar, Leo Strauss. It explores the notions of justice, international justice, and justice in its relation to compulsion. Readers would do well to compare with more recent 'empires', such as the British, American, Nazi and Zionist ones. To be followed shortly by a shorter, concluding piece, focusing more on individual justice. https://madnessaformoflove.blogspot.com/2018/06/on-thucydides-part-i.html

Sorry I haven't come back to this yet, if anyone is still interested in this I do intend to get to it eventually. Having said that, I did find the conclusion to this work rather disturbing when I read it, which put me off somewhat promoting it further. Also I don't believe the conspiracy element is well-enough supported by references, facts, etc., (which, however, isn't to say it can't be true).

Ah, good point. Still, they could just stick closer to the data itself or deal with it honestly like Stefan does. I would still argue there's a lot of deliberate, politically motivated obfuscation despite such arguments, but, as I say, you make a great point!

I take your point that even in the physical sciences, there is sometimes room for multiple theories. I would tend to agree the author of this article seems a bit over-optimistic in that regard. But how does that explain the author's observation of the discrepancy between hard science and social science ? Isn't it likely that the over-abundance of competing, heavily ideological theories is partly due to ideological bias, obfuscation, and divide and rule tactics ? Isn't it lamentable that Professors can't just look honestly at the data and give a reasonable account of it, rather like Mr. Molyneux does in his videos?

Thank you for your time @barn. If you still have any interest, you'll be able to see some more of the highlights on this thread soon.

Its O.K., I'm going to re-read it anyway. And yes, of course, its up to you if you are interested or not. It may not be for everyone. You may well have better uses of your time, in fact I admit I have some connection with the author who has personally tasked me to broadcast the work. It does have quite a lot of interesting insights and arguments though, particularly the chapters on education and religion. I don't personally agree with all its conclusions.

I really don't have an answer to that, but my personal recommendation would be to marry a Jew and convert!

(I'll see if I can sum up some of its insights and conclusions more briefly for you too once I've -reread it, if that's what you're after.)

'With Trump coming to power in the US through campaigning with an often anti-globalist or nationalistic "America First" narrative, we can only deduce that the dominant power structure has noticed that it has run into some snags in its quest to control the entire world via subversion of Western nation-states and globalization, and needs a new plan for dealing with closed off and self-sufficient nations like Russia and China. The elite finance capitalists must feel very conflicted, because, on the one hand, they wish to continue to degenerate the West with subversive ideology, but on the other hand they realize that the only way to complete their ultimate goal of global domination is probably through implementation of major worldwide military conquest, for which they would depend on the West, and need it to be stronger than it is now, especially since Putin's recent demonstration that neither the US nor Israel itself any longer have first-strike capability. The fact that Trump has not been impeached or assassinated is very significant, as is the relationship between these two powers, US and Israel, and the fact that Israel is very militant about maintaining its status as a fortified Jewish ethno-state with ruthless border control. Jews in Israel, as well as the wider population of Jews in the west, are being exploited by the identity politics pushed by the Zionist elites.'

'Since the nineteenth century, “western” countries have been controlled by lining people up into different political camps by means of elections, and to make the elections seem meaningful it is necessary to line people up behind “rival” politicians, who in fact are all agents of the major globalist capitalists. To accomplish this requires the creation of a great deal of misleading propaganda and polarisation of opinion. Thus some people will be pro-welfare, proabortion, etc. and some will be anti-welfare, anti-abortion, etc. But, this only lines people up behind politicians who are agents and puppets of the elite members of the power structure, who have their own strategically considered policies on these issues, which they will require the politicians to implement. In the states over which they exercise control, they will want a welfare system, to prevent their victims from becoming violent, and, under current conditions, they will want a moderate abortion policy, because either extreme would create unrest, and so on. '

'Social theorists, political analysts, and historians who are brave enough to attempt to be objective in taking into consideration the notable Jewish element of the powers that be (eg. The cryptoZionism of the neocons in the American deep state) often present many facts concerning Jewish influence and reactions to it, but sadly only end up obfuscating what was and is actually going on, sometimes even producing antisemitic narratives. Major Jewish capitalists have always used Jewish identity to get other Jews to act on their behalf, and this is why enemies of Jewish cognitive elites, who deploy Zionist ideology in Jewish society, have always acted against Jews in general, not just the individual Jews who were responsible, throughout all of history. During the feudal age, the attitude towards territory was the same as what the attitude of capitalists is towards capital today, but eventually the highly influential Rothschild bank family, who support Zionism, came to the realization that the annoying residual geopolitical tensions from the feudal age that exist between nations didn't have to be taken for granted, if nations could be subverted and/or dissolved. It is a complex situation: on the one hand, one should not tar every Jew with the same brush, but on the other hand, one should not overlook the role of Jewish identity in the schemes of major Jewish capitalists. The global ambitions of the major capitalists in the world today involve a pathological obsession with maximization of power and wealth, and they ultimately want to dominate the entire "free" world at any cost. To best understand how they are covertly yet effectively accomplishing these goals, one needs to take into account the dominance of Jewish capitalists in particular, who use Jewish identity as a tool, and trace the tactics that they use, noting the obstacles which have emerged, and the responses to them. '

'In a physics class, where the goal is to learn how the physical world operates, it would obviously raise suspicion, if the class began by laying out a myriad of alternative theoretical frameworks, each with their own disadvantages and limitations, that are saturated with ideology, through which to engage with the physical world, rather than by simply applying logic to the evidence. The humanities, and social sciences in particular, all take this approach, however, when it comes to "teaching” about matters of political significance. '

I will post quotes from it over the next week or so, so hopefully you can decide for yourself. 'The state-run education system in the West is completely hijacked by the powers that be, so as to deploy and maintain the George Soros narrative, and it is especially fair to say this when you consider all of the money Soros pours into these universities around the world, directly or indirectly, as well as events like pride parades and women's marches and political activist groups like black lives matter. Identity politics are used as a tool to lower the quality of education – one of the main ways in which this is happening is by replacing academic activity with propaganda battles that generate more heat than light, and this subversion of Western academia also diverts a lot of attention from the public, leaving the power structure free to pursue its own agenda, centered on maximization of wealth and power for the globalist finance capitalists. Propaganda is deployed through all of the media, which the power group controls, to make it seem that all of these artificially implemented sicknesses and corruptions are coming about through a grassroots origin, or at the very least are being embraced by ordinary people, especially those who are high-minded and "progressive", and causing them to flourish. Meanwhile, teachings of LGBTQ+ curriculum and "white privilege" have been introduced into the public school system, and are being pushed towards the earliest grades of elementary school.'

Check out this major new work by an anonymous Canadian philosopher; a highly insightful critique of Western Civilization: https://www.scribd.com/document/381862525/Canadian-Manifesto#download

Kindle version now available: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07BWG2Y4W

Interesting post, there. And that isn't even allowing for the tendency of medical peers to stick together and avoid diagnosing each other with the stigma of 'mental illness'. When is the last time you heard a shrink diagnose another shrink as a psycho?! What you say about the Mental Hellth field is, I'm sure, correct. Thanks for your interest.

'One must still have chaos inside oneself to give birth to a dancing star' - F. W. Nietzsche. As a psychiatric survivor, one of the things that warmed me to Stefan Molyneux so very much is his strong stance against the Mental Hellth system and evident compassion for its victims, grounded in his general principle of non-aggression and insight into the dysfunctional environment that gives rise to so-called 'mental illnesses'. I hope that many of you here share these insights, and passion for defending those who are undergoing psychic or emotional upheaval. Without further ado, I hereby introduce my collection of verse and prose poems, first published today, exploring this topic, (among a smattering of other concerns, from David Beckham's metrosexual males, to the 322 'Skull and Bones' terrorist attack, to Brexit, euthanasia, and sex-change operations) that may encourage interest from a wider audience, in the hope that you will consider supporting my work and providing a platform for those like me who have been chemically or electrically fettered and bludgeoned by this cruel, obnoxious State program. From the synopsis: "P.N.P. (POETRY NOT PILLS) Madness has always fascinated and terrified the mind of man, in equal measure. In today's medicalized, 'normalized' world, it has come to be seen simply as a 'disease', an ugly blight on the smooth, cog-like operation of the social organism. Our very language has become impoverished by the steady stream of scientistic neologisms which have rushed to take its stead, leaving us with only the cold apparatus of an all-too suspect, bullying and anti-septic 'reason'. Once the most intimate bedfellow not only of depthless despair, but also of high ecstasy and genius, we seem to have all but forgotten the myriad enchantments with which this fateful 'daimon' – to quote Socrates - once tempted us. This book is both a chronicling of the author's own personal voyage through such altered states of conscious, through to the far greater, far more intimidating battle with the very system that was allegedly put in place to try to 'heal' him. Here is his invitation to all sufferers and practitioners alike to glimpse beyond the borders of the straight-jacketed, dysfunctional status quo, and just maybe rekindle that sense of mystery and magic, the sense of possibility, once associated with this most uncanny and uncompromising of guests. At times an exuberant Jubilee to pure lunacy, at others a scathing, disabused presentation of the current 'Mental Health' establishment, and at still others as melancholy, cathartic a song as the trail of Dionysus's adoring attendants: 'Madness: a form of love' is a gambit not to anesthetize and sedate our 'dangerous gifts', but to joyfully embrace them - and with them our own secret innermost selves - to live authentically in light of the absurd, inconvenient, M.A.D. (short for 'Miracles A Dozen') truths of our existence.(Caution: This book contains POETRY, side-effects include ecstatic, trance-like states, life-changing epiphanies, rebellious outrage, vomiting up society's propaganda, foaming at the mouth, increased working vocabulary, uncontrollable weeping or laughter, mild shortness of breath and slight dizziness!)" About the author: "Born crown-prince of Hell, aka the dreary and poverty-stricken South Wales valleys, Max James Lewy (1983-) spent an eternity in limbo before arising to take his proper and rightful throne. As he was scaling the almighty steps of the empyreal palace, called the Word, a beast most foul and uncouth, in the garb of a physician, cast itself upon him. The chemical-wielding barbarian known to the slumbering masses respectfully as a 'psychiatrist' slew by dint of overwhelming idiocy what a million petty hours of boredom (and computer games) had only mildly arrested. He lingers on merely as a memento to this unhappy happening, worshiping and picking over the ever-fragrant corpses of his spiritual ancestors, such as the great and lonely Friedrich Nietzsche, the wily Leo Strauss, the exquisite fanatic Yukio Mishima, and the electrocuted yet graceful Townes Van Zandt." https://www.amazon.com/dp/1986974324/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1522754973&sr=8-1&keywords=max+j.+lewy https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1986974324/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1522756420&sr=8-1&keywords=madness+a+form+of+love Thank you for your time, and may you all yet give birth to another 'dancing star' or two before this old civilization of ours finally collapses... :-/

Mr. Molyneux closes the book with some more sections of a society run according to UPB, which would be free of the harmful myths of religion and the State. These are rousing and still valid in their way, but unfortunately the UPB framework that was supposed to buttress them here seems faulty. To my mind, there is also somewhat of a lack of connections drawn between the UPB framework, even if it was valid, and the better society they are intended to create. I just cannot see how the supposed 'logical' contradictions in a Statist regime necessarily lead to its failure, which seems to be far more a result the other considerations – for instance the inherent problem with public property, for which no-one has any direct incentive to keep in good condition, as explained in 'Practical Anarchy' – than the 'violations' of UPB argued for here. While he does make some excellent general points, (for instance the way in which a society founded on a false, Statist morality will draw morality itself into discredit), I think Mr. Molyneux could conceivably have done a better job of joining the dots for us, although, given the problems with the alleged proofs in the book there is probably not that much point until a wholesale re-think of the theory has been achieved. My own view is that most of the proposals for society, such as a reduced State, are far better argued for on a practical basis as Stefan has done in his other books. As far as morality goes, I would sooner base it on a combination of natural selfishness, agnosticism or tentative faith as regards religion, and the good conscience i.e. on the desire and the nihilism-vanquishing reflection that all individuals rationally and objectively prefer to attain happiness, and how for all we know there may yet be some kind of mysterious, unseen Oneness to humanity or the Universe, some karmic law and divine plan which hasn't yet been discovered, the mere possibility of which makes in advisable, on a Pascalian like wager, to behave beneficently towards others for the sake of one's own soul in this life and the next. Along with that, one should of course add and expatiate upon that fact that one of the best ways to attain happiness, even in this life, in any functioning society is to contribute positively towards the lives of others with as much empathy, kindness and law-abidingness as possible - to contribute magnanimously to society, which is the very 'ship of fools', the precious life-raft that we are all sailing on - which is one of the most inspiring and motivating aims in life, that, for socio biological reasons if nothing else, fills one with a momentous pathos, impetus, serenity and energy, of which Stefan Molyneux's heroic project to save the dying Western world through the battle of ideas is undoubtedly a remarkable example and model for our times. END.

The next section of the book concerns the practical implications of the theory, where we can clearly see the nature of Mr. Molyneux's own reformist agenda, as present in his other books such as 'Practical Anarchy' and 'Everyday Anarchy'. Here he argues, in effect, that soldiers cannot legitimately kill, because all that differentiates them from civilians in a costume. This is, in my opinion, a rather rhetorical and facetious, a 'straw-man' argument, since few people have seriously argued such a thing. While perhaps Mr. Molyneux has some cause to be contemptuous of such official stamps of approval, (in view of the way many armies have historically conducted themselves) it would be sophistical to deny that the 'costume' is merely part of the paraphernalia that tends to come with job, which gains any legitimacy it may have from the selection process and military policy, ultimately derivable from the consent and approval of some high ranking sectors, if not most or even all sectors, of the nation - often in view of that nation's self-defence, which Mr. Molyneux has already argued is a legitimate concern. Furthermore, even soldiers – whatever costume they are wearing - are rarely allowed to kill indiscriminately, away from the field of combat. But, the point here I would like to make is that there are other factors which legitimate or incriminate particular actions than mere biological factors - in this case, it would be something like 'the consent of the governed', just as consent of a woman is relevant to whether or not sexual activity is classed as love-making or rape. Next Mr. Molyneux presents his view that the government uses violence to exact obedience, in the form of taxation, etc. This is an important insight, but he stretches it a bit far by arguing there is no distinction to be made between this kind of violence and more vigilante attacks, and by saying that there is 'no social contract' at all. As Socrates argued in Plato's Crito, there does exist some kind of tacit contract between the individual and society if he has in some sense chosen to live there - just as Mr. Molyneux believes there is a tacit contract of parents to care for their children, since they have chosen to have them. While the contract may not be as strong as in this latter case, (given the relative difficulty in today's society of living anywhere else but the society one happens to be born a citizen of), and I think Mr. Molyneux is hitting at a very important point in view of his total philosophy, which in my opinion presents a possibly far better way of doing things ( I urge everyone to read 'Practical Anarchy' and 'Everyday Anarchy' before beginning to form an opinion of this matter), I might argue that it is still a bit wrong to over-look the aspects of consent which are involved in such things as armies and taxation, relative to brute vigilante activity, and reduce it to purely a kind of 'alternate universe' thinking where up becomes down, and down becomes up – although I must admit there is an element of that in it which people would do well to take on board (and of course, the fact that citizens have a duty to obey the laws of society doesn't relieve the law-givers of the duty to make just laws which don't stifle the economy or overly restrict human freedom). The other point that I would like to make, is that since Mr. Molyneux has failed, (or so it seems to me), in arguing for the strictly immoral nature of all murder and theft, even if armies and taxation are examples of these his argument is not totally conclusive that these are necessarily immoral or negative. The reason why a policeman can only do his job with a 'uniform' on is clearly so that other people are aware the source of his (however alleged, in Mr. Molyneux's view) authority, and do not feel that they can call on the defence of the (however alleged) authorities in resisting it, which, (even if you don't think this authority is ultimately valid), would most likely breed all kinds of mayhem and unnecessary devastation. Mr. Molyneux makes a good argument about the irrationality of signing over one's rights to others, i.e., that if one is not competent to make decisions oneself, one is doubtless even less competent to sign over one's entire fate to supposed 'experts'. However this may be, that doesn't seem to address whether or not it is rational to arrogate the right to make decisions about other people's lives to oneself. If one really is able to make better decisions for others than they are, that may well be a good reason, based upon benevolence, to arrogate such decisions. However, suffice to say, there are good arguments against this as a general social policy, at least in practice, one of which is the one Mr. Molyneux makes here, and others which are dealt with rather well in Mr. Molyneux's other books. The next section makes a number of good arguments about the problematic nature of centralized monopoly of violence (i.e. 'government'), although for more detail I recommend the aforementioned two books on anarchy. I must admit, I'm not sure that Mr. Molyneux has totally dispatched the notion that a break-down in such a centralized 'authority' may result in civil war, at least if the transition wasn't very wisely handled, but he has certainly made an encouraging and powerful contribution to clarifying this topic. Next Mr. Molyneux makes some interesting points about religion, and more points about government. But we will move onto his assertions regarding the 'majority', which he basically asserts, on my interpretation, is an artificial category that cannot have attributes lacking in its individual members. While I think what he says has some validity, and I would by no means rush to enshrine the holy sanction of any majority decision in society or among other groups, I would still tend to take issue with it on the basis that, just as a group of atoms can make up something larger than its parts (for instance, a biological cell), so a majority is not just significant in terms of the qualities of its individual members but has a significance and power of its own, by virtue of its collective force, i.e. the sum and amalgamation of these qualities when taken together. In social terms, I am imaging this means, for instance, that the majority has a basic power to inflict its will on the rest of society, which if they fail to submit to the society will tend to disintegrate into civil war. Admittedly, this is partly only a convention, and a more advanced society may be based more in the voluntarism that Mr. Molyneux envisages, but at a certain stage it may seem useful to enshrine majority rule as a value to prevent anarchy (in a more negative sense). Another example would be the hand, which is commonly composed of five fingers. For this hand to be effective, it is necessary for all 5 fingers to work together, even if I am only 51% certain of the goal which I am operating towards. Thus a kind of 'majority rule' ideally operates in that realm, too. Having said this, I think there are other, often much more important values than majority rule which also need to be very much taken into consideration. To be continued...

That's true, but it would seem to be a good reason for not disregarding the object of a moral proposition when determining whether or not the proposition is valid, no? Also, who says the NAP doesn't apply to fish? Also, Stefan didn't prove the NAP, at least not satisfactorily; his only argument that I could make out was 'rocks fall down', i.e. the universal quality of his theory, which as I have argued is as weak as arguing that 'all birds can fly' is superior to and more scientifically accurate than 'many birds can fly' simply because it is more general. Thank you for your reply.

We will briefly look at Mr. Molyneux's argument against the initiation of violence, and in favour of self-defence. Once again he says that if the initiation of violence is moral, it requires 'that he resist virtue to enable virtue, which is self-contradictory'. As we have already seen, this is far from a water tight argument. When Mr. Molyneux does try to prove the right of self-defence, his first and second arguments are by analogies, saying it would be 'akin to a medical theory that said that illness is bad, but that it is evil to attempt to prevent or cure it' – since this is merely an analogy, it lacks any rigorous binding force, but, if one does try to take it seriously, one may well opine that often the best way to 'treat' an illness is not to engage in any dramatic procedures, any dramatic 'self-defence' that might make the ailment worse, but merely to carry on in a good-natured and stoical way. Next Mr. Molyneux argues that if one tries to place self-defence in any category other than moral or immoral, it 'is to say that violence cannot be inflicted on others – but the very nature of violence is that it is inflicted on others'. This seems like a confusion between the violence of justice enforcement and the violence of the act itself, which for clear understanding are important to differentiate. Just because the act itself is violent, that doesn't automatically mean that violence is justified in resisting it, which seems to be what Mr. Molyneux is saying by lumping it in his 'immoral' category: as moral philosophers, that is something that we have to try to demonstrate, not assume. Anyhow, as far as I can see, Mr. Molyneux has nowhere given any good reasons to think that all violence is either moral or immoral, he has merely built it into his definitions. I think this all relates to the above where it was insufficiently demonstrated that rape, or other forms of violence, could not fall into 'personally positive' or 'personally negative' categories of behaviour. Mr. Molyneux's assertion that 'self-defence cannot be required behaviour, since required behaviour can be enforced through violence, which would mean that anyone failing to violently defend himself could be legitimately aggressed against. However, someone failing to defend himself is already being aggressed against, and so we end up in a circular situation where everyone can legitimately act violently against a person who is not defending himself, which is not only illogical, but morally abhorrent.' doesn't seem strictly correct, because it is quite possible for the powers that be to enforce such required behaviour, for instance, a child who is bullied at school may be punished further by his parents for not standing up for himself (although obviously I am not recommending this, but it is not strictly 'illogical'). One of the weirdest sections in the book is entitled 'Don't eat fish'. Here Mr. Molyneux argues that 'fish' is too specific a word to be part of a moral rule, rather 'eating is either moral, immoral, or morally neutral.' Suffice to say, when your moral theory entails that devouring whole living human beings is morally indifferentiable from munching on a carrot, it may be a good time to pause and reflect if you might have gone awry somewhere... In the next section, on 'Animal Rights', Mr. Molyneux makes some interesting assertions but doesn't really come to any conclusions. When he says that 'No human being can exist without killing other organisms such as viruses, plants or perhaps animals. Thus “Human life” is defined as “evil.” But if human life is defined as evil, then it cannot be evil, since avoidance becomes impossible.', this is a fallacious argument, because human life itself is avoidable - for instance by not eating. Again, when he says the proposition 'it is evil to kill people' doesn't make sharks evil, because they can't avoid it, this is faulty logic. Presumably, what he means to say here is that it is NOT always evil to kill people, just as he has just argued that it is not always evil to kill fish, for the reason that some non-human organisms simply can't avoid it. He goes on to opine that rational consciousness is a necessary distinction to a moral theory, which I would agree with, but I would argue that there are probably quite a lot of other relevant distinctions which Mr. Molyneux overlooks for the misguided pursuit of 'universality', which, as we have just seen in his 'Don't eat fish' section, leads to him coming sadly acropper in some areas. To be continued...

If one turns to Mr. Molyneux's discussion of murder, we see that his arguments are mostly analogous to the case of rape and so dubious for the same reasons. One point that I could still make, is that in his discussion of whether an opposite moral rule could apply to a man who was asleep, i.e. 'I can shoot a man in his sleep anytime I want.' During this discussion, he says this is absurd because 'a man's nature does not fundamentally alter when he naps'. I would just like to say here that there are, however, cases when certain states of being may indeed call for opposite moral rules (although 'sleeping' hardly seems to be one of them). For instance, if I have murdered someone else, then arguably 'murdering' or executing me could be justified, even though my 'nature', at least biologically speaking, is still largely the same. In this case, my status is not really 'naturally' different, but artificially so – i.e. as a result of human (my own) actions. Another example would be if my tribe is at war with another tribe, I may be able to justify putting to death my enemies although the difference is not based on nature but on society. In other words, reversing moral rules, at least in some circumstances, is not really the obvious 'logical impossibility' that Mr. Molyneux maintains, but a procedure that is probably necessary to most, if not all, moral theories. Let us now discuss Mr. Molyneux's approach to the topic of theft, which is important to understand as from his arguments here he goes on to make very bold assertions regarding the immoral nature of government taxation, that make up a large part of his practical philosophy. He begins by trying to demonstrate that we own our own bodies and, in general, are responsible for their effects. He says that 'the very act of controlling my body to produce speech demands the acceptance of my ability to control my speech – an implicit affirmation of my ownership over my own body'. But as he points out himself in the next paragraph, this control may be by a 'demon' or some other agent. In other words, one might say the agent which controls the body, may not be the same one who experiences pleasure and pain within it and so bears the brunt of the 'justice' inflicted upon it. Logically, one has need to enforce justice on the demon, not on the person the demon is possessing; how that can be achieved seems highly uncertain, though. He goes on to say that 'rejecting ownership of the body is to reject all morality, which as we have seen above, is utterly impossible', then using the same argument as his very first one for UPB, i.e. that 'to reject morality is to say that it is universally preferable to believe that there is no such thing as universal preferences'. Firstly, one should point out here that Mr. Molyneux has already seemed to admit in the previous paragraph that a person can be insane, or theoretically demonically possessed, in which case they cannot be held morally responsible. Rather than saying that this leads to the absurdity, if generalized, that there is no morality, to be consistent he should simply accept the fact that if one allows of it in specific cases there is no ostensible reason why it cannot be generalized, and thus ownership of the body and morality remain moot. If he still wanted to affirm ownership of the body and morality, he would have to do it on an empirical rather than a logical basis, inferring their responsibility not from their speech acts, which may or may not be controlled by demons, but from his own inner experience of control of his own body and extrapolation to others. Going back to the second stage of his argument here, as I have already argued, one is not necessarily asserting 'that it is universally preferable to believe that there is no such thing as universal preferences', but merely that oneself has this preference. Mr. Molyneux argues that unless there is a right to exclusive self-ownership of one's body and ownership of the effects one's body, in effect other people have a right to our organs. Although this idea is repugnant to most of us, it is neither the only way to interpret the negation of such a right (it could be that other people have a lesser right to our organs, for instance in harvesting them after we die) , nor in itself necessarily absurd. The next section is where Mr. Molyneux brings in his view that mentally deficient people cannot be considered equally responsible to the more able, which, as I have already argued, seems to conflict with his seemingly dubious insistence on universality. Next he argues that saying men have less than 100% property rights involves an infinite regress, 'wherein everybody ends up with infinitely small ownership rights over pretty much everything'. Clearly, saying 'one owns 50% of what they own', does involve such a regress. But, that just seems like sophistry to me, since one can logically maintain that 'one only owns 50% the body one has direct use of', or 'one only owns 50% of the speech utterances that come out of “one”s mouth', or 'one only owns 50% of “one”'s monetary takings in the last fiscal year'. In fact, given the fact that all these things, particularly the latter two, are partly caused by social factors, i.e. the actions of 'others' - not merely our own volition - there is prima face a rather good reason for saying such things. Which is not to say that Mr. Molyneux doesn't have some strong practical arguments against such policies, but as far as I can see, you won't find them in this book. Another point I would like to make is, that if we are 100% responsible for and possess total ownership of the effects of our bodies, that would seem to imply that children are the property of their parents, which needless to say, seems a rather repugnant and practically indefensible view. In the next sections, Mr. Molyneux repeats some similar arguments as for rape, saying in this case that theft 'both affirms and denies the existence of property rights', since the thief necessarily wants to hold onto what he has stolen. This argument seems sound enough, although it appears the 'thief' may have different notions of what constitutes property than Mr. Molyneux, which may in his own mind, and even according to UPB, legitimate his own 'reallocation' (for instance, I cannot see a logical contradiction in the Marxism dictum 'to each according to his need, from each according to his capacity'). To be continued...

Over the past year of untimely awakening, I have become increasingly aware of the circle of youtube truth-terrorists known as the alt. Right. It is now clear to me that politics today is divided between, on one hand, those who enjoy a good lie, and on the other, these disreputable folk who are constitutionally flawed so as to be incapable of enduring one. One Stefan Molyneux stands out as a particularly egregious example of the kind of righteous, valiant little fraud-fighter I'm talking about here. Whether the topic be State welfare, immigration, civil liberties, the war in the Middle East, mental illness, hereditary differences in IQ, or male rights, this bare-faced dispute-resolving organizer can be relied upon without fail to take the politically incorrect, most bald-headedly honest stance with almost pitiable disregard for personal safety or even fitting in with 'polite' society. Had he learned for just a short time to dissimulate, this faithful wordsmith could have surely made it as a speech-writer for any number of brown-nosed politicians, or even had his own t.v. show disseminating crucial propaganda to the trance-laden masses on a weekly basis. Perhaps he could have made it as lawyer, admirably weaselling his new-found cronies out of the tax laws he so bluntly and shamelessly now despises. Instead, he has ventured almost certain martyr-dom by the burgeoning Social Justice Warrior class of professional, and altogether far more savvy obscurantists. This 'idiot', (to quote Dostoyevky), is quite frankly a monster of intellectual integrity driven clearly by the same vengeance against the 'just and the good' that drove The Christ to such a sticky end. It is now obvious that this truth-addict longs for the intimacy of soul's union under haloed presence of almighty veritas like the junkie craves his next fix. One would not be surprised to find him one morning with a compass inserted up his wrists, with angles and ruler pointing straight at his innocent little heart. For someone who talks relentlessly about 'red pills', this first-class cultural physician has probably never even swallowed a bland old white one. He'd be much too HONEST to dupe his body out of its 'justly-earned' symptoms, let alone to trick kids into swallowing them with fancy colors! If you ever find yourself stumbling into his stark den of misplaced equity, be prepared to be led astray.

I'm calling you out, Stefan !! The game is up, Mr.! ... :swoosh:: Right over the lefties heads!