Pets: The Forgetten Victims

Discussion in 'Drugs, Alcohol & Tobacco' started by Starjet, Apr 17, 2018.

  1. Starjet

    Starjet Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Absolutely, every individual has the same rights as every other individual. One’s rights end where another’s begins.

    Additionally, if this individual is as deadly as you fear, he won’t exist very long. Also, you and your neighbors could offer to buy the property and sell it to someone who meets your standards. And lastly, and remember I am assuming meth is legal to buy and sell, if meth is as deadly as you judge it to be, it won’t take too long for the best amongst us to realize that and avoid it like plague. As to worst amongst us, they will always find ways to destroy themselves, whether legal or not.
     
    Last edited: Apr 23, 2018
  2. Le Chef

    Le Chef Banned at members request Donor

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    Episode 4 of Season 6, The Fleshy Part of the Thigh. Tony is improving after awakening from his coma, and goes to watch a boxing match on satellite TV with Paulie, a couple of rappers, and a scientist named John Schwinn. For those of you who don't remember, John Schwinn is the one who explains another bit of Schrödinger's work, 'Schrödinger's Equation':

    "It's physics. Schrödinger's equation. The boxers, you, me we're all part of the same quantum field. Think of the two boxers as ocean waves or currents of air, two tornadoes, say. They appear to be two things, right? Two separate things. But they're not. Tornadoes are just wind, the wind stirred up in different directions. The fact is, nothing is separate, everything's connected."
     
  3. Starjet

    Starjet Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I’m not the bringing a gun to my neighbor’s house because I don’t like his life style.
     
  4. Starjet

    Starjet Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It’s as simple as this: No man has the right to force another to live as he dictates.

    Ayn Rand: “The Right to the Pursuit of Happiness means man’s right to live for himself, to choose what constitutes his own private, personal, individual happiness and to work for its achievement, so long as he respects the same right in others. It means that man cannot be forced to devote his life to the happiness of another man nor of any number of other men. It means that the collective cannot decide what is to be the purpose of a man’s existence nor prescribe his choice of happiness.”-http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/pursuit_of_happiness,_right_to.html

    Not really all that hard to understand, is it?
     
    Last edited: Apr 23, 2018
  5. Heartburn

    Heartburn Well-Known Member

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    Yeah, and give all those mothers an overdose too so they will quit their damn blubbering.
     
  6. Starjet

    Starjet Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Your question implies that liberty requires the sacrifice of children to one’s irrational whims and desires. And the question’s purpose is to try to get me to acknowledge that.

    It’s a false arguement, and it’s the same argument as: “If I am free do to as I please, then I have right to murder by neighbor, rape his wife, and eat his children.” Of course you don’t. It’s a dishonest premise that seeks to smear liberty as a free for all for The Atilla the Huns of the world. The point and purpose of liberty, of individual rights is to protect the John Galts and Howard Roarks, and those they love, be they wives, mothers, sisters, friends or family, as well as the common man, from the Atillas.
     
    Last edited: Apr 23, 2018
  7. tecoyah

    tecoyah Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Likely those Moms are suffering more than the addicts, though they neither know or care.
     
  8. Le Chef

    Le Chef Banned at members request Donor

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    I was hoping you'd grasp the subtlety of the argument. You did not.
     
  9. Le Chef

    Le Chef Banned at members request Donor

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    Why are you quoting Ayn Rand? Didn't she give you permission to disagree with her?

    Just because I don't agree doesn't mean I don't understand. You seem to recognize no limits on your freedom and attempt to label all lmitations as tyranny. That's a teenager talking.

    There are millions of examples to disprove your and Ms. Rand's position, including quantum mechanics as cited above. You can't drive drunk, and you can't drive 100 mph through a school zone, no matter whether you hit someone or not. It's a preemptive limitation, and you can either accept it, vote to change it, or sit in a penitentiary complaining about it.

    You are part of something bigger than yourself, and your ELECTED representatives, not Joe Stalin or Hitler, decide what you owe to it.
     
    Last edited: Apr 23, 2018
  10. Starjet

    Starjet Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Oh. I think I nailed it.
     
  11. Starjet

    Starjet Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    You can if you own the school and the roads in a free nation which respects property rights. Of course, if you start running over children, you’ll lose your customers pretty quick, not mention to criminal negligent charges, plus possible reckless manslaughter.

    It’s you who hold that liberty is a no holds barred free for all for the deranged, the pyschitoc, and the homicidal. It’s you who can’t grasp the principle of individual rights. I want rights that protect me from my neighbors using the government’s whips and guns to force me to live my life as they deem proper. You want a tryanny in the name of then common good that runs roughshod over unbridled individualists who don’t live by the same values you do.

    As I said, time will tell who is right. I’m willing to reality be final judge.

    As for quoting Ayn Rand, I use her for same reason Newton quoted Copernicus, she’s right.

    As for limitation on my rights—my rights end where another’s begins. In other words, the limitation on individual rights is individual rights, not the common good, not the social welfare, not the needs of the many outweighs the need of the one, not social justice, not for the good of the children, not diversity, not Mother Earth, not in the name of Allah, not for the sake God, and on, and on, and on. Nothing but the moral absoluteness of individual rights. That is the principle that guarantees liberty and justice for each and every individual that is now or ever will be in existence, no matter what creed, what hopes, what aspirations, and what dreams they possess.
     
    Last edited: Apr 23, 2018
  12. Le Chef

    Le Chef Banned at members request Donor

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    You're describing a make believe world. And no private corporation that buys a town, and all the ingresses and egresses, will ever tolerate drivers speeding through its school zones while high on meth or alcohol. It presents an absurdly high risk against which they cannot insure. And even if they did, everyone would leave. Except the meth addicts. Who don't work. Therefore, no tax base to pay for road repair.

    "Sheriff, I just seen Billy Joe a-roarin' through the kindergarten zone in his new Charger, and he looked drunk as a skunk. Let's git 'im!"

    "He done kilt anybody?"

    "Naw sir, but --

    "Deputy, ain't you never read the constitution? We can't a- touch him till he runs over some little kids and kills 'em daid."

    Time to climb down from the clouds.
     
    Last edited: Apr 23, 2018
  13. Starjet

    Starjet Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    No sht, Sherlock.

    You seem to have missed this part:

    The rest of my quote:”Of course, if you start running over children, you'll lose your customers pretty quick, not to mention the criminal negligent charges, plus the possible reckless man slaughter.”

    Do you often quote out of context to misrepresent your oppostion?

    Point being; There is nothing in the principle of individual rights or liberty that permits criminal neligence. The purpose of individual rights is to protect your rights from being violated by your neighbors or your neighbors acting like a mob and demanding the government force others to live as they have decided is proper in the name of the common good, majority rule, divine providence, social justice, economic equality, or any other such nonsense. The whole point of the Bill of Rights was to emphasize that the rights of the individual are not up for vote, are not to be abridged by majority rule, and are not subject to community approval. They are inalienable.

    Such a simple principle, but so misunderstood, and so often ignored and violated.
     
    Last edited: Apr 23, 2018
  14. Le Chef

    Le Chef Banned at members request Donor

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    Right, you would criminalize the running over of children. Good for you. Your problem is that you don't recognize that no sane society is going to let you run wild on drugs, at high speed, through school zones, because of your supposedly unfettered liberty interests, so long as you do not run over kids. That's why you mention "If you START running over children," i.e, not BEFORE, then, and only then, in your fantasy world, would penalties be incurred.
     
  15. Starjet

    Starjet Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Liberty is not a license to rape, murder, rob, slander, libel, or any other action that violates the individual rights of another. If meth is legal, legally bought and sold, and legally used, it is no one business or problem. It is the criminalization of meth that creates that black market and the criminal activity. What I do in my house, on my property, with my life is not your business. You seek to smear liberty for reasons I'd rather not guess about, and if I knew, would only recoil from.

    Live free or die.
     
  16. Starjet

    Starjet Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Ayn Rand: "Individualism regards man—every man—as an independent, sovereign entity who possesses an inalienable right to his own life, a right derived from his nature as a rational being. Individualism holds that a civilized society, or any form of association, cooperation or peaceful coexistence among men, can be achieved only on the basis of the recognition of individual rights—and that a group, as such, has no rights other than the individual rights of its members."--http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/individualism.html

    The question of drugs is nothing more than the question of who has rights, the mob or the individual? I side with Ayn Rand.

    For further enlightenment, watch Henry Fonda in the "Oxbow Incident".
     
    Last edited: Apr 24, 2018
  17. Le Chef

    Le Chef Banned at members request Donor

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    Look, I read Ayn Rand years ago and I get it. "My life is my life." My views on the validity of this are plain enough: it hasn't caught on with normal people, for a variety of reasons, but it's essentially what was stated by junkieturtle above with more force and clarity than I can:

    But your life doesn't exist in a vacuum and neither do the lives of every other person that becomes addicted to hard drugs. This isn't the United States of You. It's not the United States of Anybody. You and the rest of your libertarian anarchic brethren have got to open your eyes and realize that whether you like it or not, whether you agree or not, you live within a society and a country and your actions affect those around you. The actions of drug addicts affect those around us all.

    You keep citing Ayn Rand as though she is a final authority on all this. She isn't. She was just a fiction writer with a worldview, and it's rather shallow and simplistic.

    I am tired if this, but would request an unequivocal answer to the following, without citation to Ayn Rand, so that I know where you stand:

    May the rest of us, via our police departments, legitimately stop you from driving your car 100 mph, through a school zone at, say, 3pm? Assume the law says you cannot (it does) and that you are not in the act of actually running over anybody.

    Second, may the rest of us, again via the police, legitimately stop you from driving through a school zone while drunk on alcohol or high on drugs? Assume again that you're not in the act of actually injuring anyone.
     
  18. Starjet

    Starjet Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink. Ayn Rand isn’t quoted or referenced because she’s Ayn Rand, any more than Thomas Payne, John Locke, or Aristotle are quoted because of who they are; or Galileo, Newton, Copernicus, or Einstein are quoted because of who they are. All of them are quoted because what they’ve discovered and written has the merit of truth.

    And though it’s true man doesn’t live in vacuum, he also doesn’t belong it a gulag, or a concentration camp, or a re-education camp, or a sensitivity training seminar, or a diversity class. As Ayn Rand stated, and I paraphize: only a society based on the principle of individual rights can a man live as civilized being.

    I want to be free to do as I wish; those, like you, want to point a gun at my head and demand I sacrifice my wants, dreams, wishes, desires, promises, and hopes, for the welfare of all, for the common good, for the sake of the majority. To which I say, drop dead.

    As to the question of government regulation of me on my property...no if it’s my property: I have the right to whatever I wish, which includes driving drunk on my proprety. The only limitation on my rights is another’s individual’s rights. In other words, I am free to move my hand wherever until is strikes the face of another.

    Liberty does not require the destruction of others; it requires others to respect the rights of the individual. In other words, liberty is not the spirit of Liberty Vance, it’s the spirit of Howard Roark.



    Why so hard to understand? It’s not that hard. My right to live my life as I choose doesn’t give me the right to rule another’s, to rape another’s, rob another’s, to cheat another’s, or to murder another’s. The right to live your life doesn’t presuppose or grant you the right to take another’s, except in self defense, nor grant you the right to initiate force against another.

    Now you answer me: Where in Ayn Rand’s work of fiction, philosphical writings, speeches, where anywhere did she sanction murder, theft, rape, torture, irresponsibility, or any type of irrationalism?

    Additionally, I’m curious, why do you equate liberty with self destructive murderous irrationalism?

    And finally, again and once more, the right to use drugs as a free man, doesn’t give you the right to steal to get those drugs, anymore than the right to drive your car on your property gives you the right to steal another’s car to go for joy ride.

    I am really baffled, the concepts of liberty and individual rights are not that complicated, yet they are so misunderstood and feared. Has all reason left the planet?
     
    Last edited: Apr 24, 2018
  19. Le Chef

    Le Chef Banned at members request Donor

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    Thank you for the speech, Mr. Roark, but I've already read it. Once in Ayn Rand's book, and several times in this thread.

    Fair-minded monitors of this thread will notice that Starjet has again refused to answer whether we may deprive him of his "liberty" to drive, at very high speed, through a school zone, while intoxicated.

    Presumably he believes himself entitled to do so, "because Ayn Rand," up until he actually runs over and kills a child.

    I actually wonder whether even Ayn Rand was quite so obtuse.
     
    Last edited: Apr 24, 2018
  20. Starjet

    Starjet Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Geez, are you dense.

    My individual rights end were another’s begin.

    Specifally: You can’t tell me how fast to go on my property. On that which I don’t own, only under parameters of the principle of individual rights.

    To put it as bluntly as possible: No one has the right to drive anything drunk at 100 mph into another human of any age for the self-destructive madness of blind rage. Not because the majority says so, not because the common good demands it, and not because the state commands, but because you are violating the principle of individual rights and turning yourself into mindless monster who seeks to destroy the life of other individuals.

    Again, equating liberty with reckless and dangerous activity in public doesn’t invalidate the principles of individual rights or liberty, but it does say something about you and your view of man.

    BTW: Thanks for the Howard Roark compliment.
     
    Last edited: Apr 24, 2018
  21. Le Chef

    Le Chef Banned at members request Donor

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    See, he STILL can't admit that the arrest of the speeding drunk is improper UNLESS he drives "into another human being."

    But we can, and will, preemptively arrest you for dangerous conduct, even BEFORE you injure another. This is not only inconsistent with your "party on, Garth!" philosophy generally, but also runs afoul of your more specific claim -- equally ridiculous -- that no one has the right to confiscate your dealer's meth, which we would do for the same prophylactic purpose.
     
    Last edited: Apr 24, 2018
  22. Starjet

    Starjet Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    And the soul of a tyrant speaks. Well, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, John Adams, and many more showed us the proper way to treat tyrants who come barging in one's door with a gun.

    And absolutely, positively, without a doubt, and without a moment's hesitation, in a free country governed under the principle of individual rights, not only would the police have no right to give you a speeding ticket, the state would have no right to confiscate your property nor imprison you for living your own life, making your own choices, pursuing your own happiness. Furthermore, the state would be prohibited from owning any property except that needed to protect the rights of individual. This means no public roads, no public parks, no public housing, no public schools, no public hospitals, no public aid, no public food stamps, no IRS, no FCC, no HUD, no EPA, or any other government department not dedicated to protecting the rights of the individual. No nothing but what a government is for: The defense and protection of the rights of the individual, i.e., ..."life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."

    It is sad men died for liberty just to have small--souled bureaucrats slowly torture it to death in the name of the public good. What kind of drooling monstrous society practices human sacrifice? I know, cannibals of the souls and flesh, i.e. the mystics and the Attila the Huns.

    Imagine, a country of free men ruled by objective law instead of whims dictated by czars, bureaucrats, and Presidents who are nothing more than power lusting egoless tyrant wannabes. Presidents like Bush, Clinton, Obama, and Trump--and Trump is the worst of the lot.
     
    Last edited: Apr 24, 2018
  23. Starjet

    Starjet Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Ayn Rand: "Do not open your mouth to tell me that your mind has convinced you of your right to force my mind. Force and mind are opposites; morality ends where a gun begins. When you declare that men are irrational animals and propose to treat them as such, you define thereby your own character and can no longer claim the sanction of reason—as no advocate of contradictions can claim it. There can be no “right” to destroy the source of rights, the only means of judging right and wrong: the mind."--http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/physical_force.html

    To which I say, Amen, Sister. Amen
     
    Last edited: Apr 24, 2018
  24. Starjet

    Starjet Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Yaron Brook on public highways:
     
  25. Starjet

    Starjet Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    The Right to Chose Drugs
     

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