Again, man made or not, it is still real.
No one has ever questioned my intelligence so I wouldn’t know about that.
The fact that you can’t tell the difference between questioning education and questioning intelligence pretty much sums up my point.
Did someone say it isn’t?
Well, thank you.
So, to all, let me catch up on who is libertarian and who is not. In the meantime, I’ll just say I myself am sort of a trad/localist conservative who doesn’t really view libertarians as natural allies.
Yes. Sloth said it’s just a matter of opinion with no real right or wrong. A matter of opinion is real thus right and wrong are real. The problem is that he has trouble with the idea that concepts are real. That’s why I question his education.
Or “real” refers to the authenticity of the right and wrong, or a level of “correctness” as it were.
It’s a turn of phrase. Normally I enjoy your semantic trolling, but when you insult intelligence while at the same time not being able to grasp a simple common phrase your options are trolling and ignorance of the phrase
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It’s cool guys. I appreciate you explaining on my behalf, pfury. Yes, I understand opinions are real. I obviously have many of my own. I thought it was clear I was speaking of the reality of something actually being right/wrong (good/evil, perhaps). The authenticity, indeed.
To be fair, I did give my man zecarlo a bit of a hard time on another thread. Well, we had a dust-up. I did apologize for my part, however. I was hoping we’d be pals. Heck, I apologize again if it makes things less tense. It’s a forum. Things will blow over, heh.
No, but seriously. I’m good. Just going to give some space and let folks cool off. Honestly, you all take care. Hoping to head out of town this weekend, departing tonight. But, I do want to chime in on libertarianism when I get back!
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It is a human construct considering people only have rights according to their governments and they don’t exist in nature. Predators don’t respect or know of any rights of their prey. Does a lion know of the rights of a gazelle? And if a gazelle has rights, will a lion give a damn about them if he needs to eat? Perhaps snobby, cosmopolitans should consider that when they contemplate that with enough coaching everyone on earth who they consider “backwards” will evolve and we’ll all eventually think, act, and behave similarly and want the same things.
And rights of humans aren’t worth a damn unless they’re backed up by the consequence of physical force! Hence, although I’m Jewish, I’ll give everyone’s favorite meanie credit for stating, “Only force rules. Force is the first law!”
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It would seem like it to us but we’ve never really suffered under an oppressive political system like Russian communism. I’ve had the pleasure of knowing a guy that was born and raised in the Ukraine under communist rule.
It was amazing what happened once he was “free”. No longer being told he was a machinist, it turns out he was an amazingly talented stained glass artist among other things. Having met him and a few Africans it makes me wonder about the true nature of man (people), their natural state, and the desire to express a given talent or skill (including violence) and what happens to them when those abilities are oppressed or somehow removed.
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Real, as he has been using across more than one thread (so I am taking into account context), is related to existence. His argument was: if there is no such thing as natural rights then rights are not real. That is nonsense. Cars are not natural, we make them, but they are still real.
I don’t know what you are talking about. There was no dust up. It’s an internet forum, we aren’t married or something. You didn’t shoot my dog. I’m not angry. I think your interpretation of things is an example of what you meant by not being real.
Which is still nonsensical. If society says that murder is wrong then it is actually wrong. The authenticity of that opinion comes from the fact it exists.
That’s because governments themselves don’t exist is nature. The way human societies are structured are unnatural. Cities, nations, they are all unnatural. Unnatural structures need unnatural laws.
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Just look at Americans of Italian descent. Many of their ancestors came here from the south of Italy which was poor and the people uneducated because of a feudal system that made them that way and kept them that way. Some people blamed the culture and even genetics. But look how successful they have been in America. Several mayors of NYC, governors, great actors, musicians, doctors, lawyers, scientists, etc. I know many who were tradesmen who ended up with their own businesses.
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Yeah.
Why they are successful and industrious is partly because of their genes. Any group or individual that’s successful is so because of genetic material. Millions of people can try their hardest at anything but will end up nothing like those they seek to emulate.
I don’t know you from a whole in the wall but if you’re an egalitarian and think culture precedes genes (no one ever concluded how this can be) then I guess I’ll stick to other topics in the thread (not being rude or sarcastic).
@zecarlo and I don’t really get along. But I think where he was going with that was that poor illiterate emigrants are more successful when they get somewhere where a culture exists that lets them own property, go to school etc.
It’s not that moving continents changes your genes, it just lets people achieve whatever potential they had innate.
Also he’s by no means egalitarian given his comments about inner city students.
None of this has anything to do with libertarianism though. Big long derail. Rather Raj like.
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Whether or not it’s genetic is not the point. The point is that when barriers are removed you can see if a people or individual has what it takes to succeed. The Irish were discriminated against in England and the US. They were depicted as apes in newspapers, in America. Watch any old, and even not so old, western and the town drunk is usually an Irishman.Yet, those who were able to leave Ireland and come to the US did eventually succeed in spite of the racism they encountered here since it wasn’t as oppressive as that which they endured back home or in England.
You could have an IQ of 200 but if you are told that you are going to work picking cotton until the day you die and that’s that, well, your genes don’t matter. Were the noblemen who employed artists and scholars smarter than their employees or just more ruthless? And since culture is a human product it would be illogical to state that it precedes genetics.
I think equal rights and protections under the law is a better way of defining egalitarianism. I personally believe that there should be equal opportunity to succeed according to your potential, which my first sentence somewhat addresses. The idea that we are all blank slates at conception or birth and can all achieve the same success at the same things could probably be scientifically proven false.
As far as inner city kids, I want to believe that their genetic issues are the result of the socioeconomic conditions they are conceived in. When you see the high number of kids who have cognitive issues and who are what we used to call borderline retarded, you wonder what the hell is in the water their mothers are drinking. But the fact remains they have intelligence and cognitive issues which can’t be reversed.
One could make the case that it does. This is the world that libertarians live in so how they feel about these issues matters.
If society says that “those people” being allowed to live outside of bondage (perhaps deeming it wrong to allow “those people” to live at all) is wrong, then is (was) it actually wrong for those poor souls to be free? I mean, thank gosh for abolitionists out front of society. As to the authenticity/correctness/rightness (not the existence) of an opinion coming from the simple existence of the opinion…Ok, guess we just have to agree to disagree. Have a good evening!
It’s wrong according to them. The Bible doesn’t outlaw slavery so is God wrong? People decide what is right and wrong, not nature. In nature things just are. A lion eats a baby zebra, is it moral, immoral or neither? Human relationships are more complex than nature intended. It’s up to us to make the rules.