Free Speech & Right to Privacy/Libel/etc (more fun with PZ!)

[hadespussercats]

It isn't about legal matters. I've been talking about sub-law issues... as in, how people treat other people on a daily basis (without breaking any laws). And tit-for-tat is a short-hand phrase I've been using - it only goes to a vendetta when it is done to destruction, i.e. taken too far. So, stupidity aside, that isn't an issue. Vendettas don't allow for apologies, redemption or an easing of hostilities.

As for how laws handle justice, any law that doesn't punish a criminal to the degree that the criminal punished others... is an act of injustice. Sometimes, justice is impossible*, but when it's possible... it should be carried out.


* If you murder 2 people, you can't be killed twice.

If you value these bolded items, why resort to tit-for-tat tactics in the first place?

[Red Celt]

There is a great deal of sense in "do unto others as you would have them do unto you" as opposed to "do unto others AS they do unto you".

How about version 1 then version 2?

Version 1 offers zero justice. If someone were to do something bad to you, you still treat them well.

Fuck that.

[Red Celt]

If you value these bolded items, why resort to tit-for-tat tactics in the first place?

Read my book. Once I've written it.

[PsychoSerenity]

There is a great deal of sense in "do unto others as you would have them do unto you" as opposed to "do unto others AS they do unto you".

How about version 1 then version 2?

Version 1 offers zero justice. If someone were to do something bad to you, you still treat them well.

Fuck that.

Zero justice? Well that rather depends on your definition of justice. If by justice you simply mean dealing out a punishment, then you are correct, but you've merely asserted without argument that you think punishment is necessarily the right thing to do. If by justice you take the deeper meaning of 'doing what is right', then you get to questions like 'what is right ?' or 'is punishment always right, and why?', and the chance to put forward an actual argument for your position beyond "Fuck that".

[Pappa]

There is a great deal of sense in "do unto others as you would have them do unto you" as opposed to "do unto others AS they do unto you".

How about version 1 then version 2?

Version 1 offers zero justice. If someone were to do something bad to you, you still treat them well.

Fuck that.

There's quite a big difference between treating someone well and just not treating them badly. Tit-for-tat is pointlessly hostile in most cases. Personally, I'm more inclined to shrug my shoulders and walk away if I'm in a rational state of mind.

[hadespussercats]

If you value these bolded items, why resort to tit-for-tat tactics in the first place?

Read my book. Once I've written it.

Only if you read mine first. Heh.

[Red Celt]

If you value these bolded items, why resort to tit-for-tat tactics in the first place?

Read my book. Once I've written it.

Only if you read mine first. Heh.

Well, now... that means that you're going to have to write yours, first.

[JimC]

One day, this forum will actually do the right thing, and provide some tit for Tatt...

[Red Celt]

One day, this forum will actually do the right thing, and provide some tit for Tatt...

Funny stuff, but sadly flawed. Hades, herself, has done exactly that. Unless you mean flesh-on-flesh?

[Rum]

Tatt needs tit. That's not tattle at all.

[Coito ergo sum]

You don't know enough to teach your dog to eat dog food out of a bowl.

Jolly good. Your personal insult gives me free reign to return it. Please pay attention to that fact (aimed at anyone with an itchy trigger finger vis-a-vis the Report Button).

Err... did you forget your insult towards me to which I was responding. I merely followed your analogy and returned it to you. You stated that you would go teach your dog quantum mechanics and that you'd have better luck there. I responded to that in kind.

Now you're pretending that I'm the one who insulted first? Silly.

Coito, you're a fucking moron. You not realising that you're a moron doesn't make you less moronic. I mean... you voted for Romney, right. I could say case closed, but no... every word you've said in this thread keeps that case wide open.

LOL -- grow up, you big baby. Nothing more pathetic than a guy like you who likes to dish it out, but you can't take it.

Your home. Your car. Your lawn... I mean... a lawn FFS.

It's an example for the purposes of discussion. If you exercise your brain cells, and struggle with it real hard, you may be able to realize that it doesn't matter what the property is. If a house,car, garage, driveway and lawn is not sufficiently important for you to use as an example of property in your "nobody owns anything" world, then pick something else.

Not once, at any point, did you ascertain the suggestion of the idea that maybe, just maybe, the imaginary world that I suggested didn't have homes, or cars, or lawns.

You need to describe your own imagined world. It's not unreasonable to think that in a world where nobody owns anything people still live in places (homes), and use transportation (cars), and have the places in which their families sleep (homes) surrounded by areas where grasses grow (lawns). If you're adding to your imagined world the idea that people will somehow either be prevented from making or just won't make places for themselves and offspring to sleep (homes) and won't use their ingenuity to make four wheeled machines to ride on (cars) and won't have grassy areas around the places where their families sleep, well, you ought to have said so. I would have picked a different item of property to use for discussion purposes.

However, just for conversation's sake, if nobody has a home in your world, then where do they live? Out in the open? Do they have enclosures protecting them from the weather?

No. The imaginary world has to be as identical to this world as possible. Have you no imagination whatsoever? Apparently not, if you think that a standard-issue, machine-cut uniformity of artificially shortened blades of grass is the cornerstone that can break an imagined world.

Well, I can imagine my own imaginary world. What we're talking about is the one that YOU have claimed you have imagined could actually exist and in which liberty can exist without individuals having any property rights or owning anything at all. If my assumption that people would still live in structures is too much of a stretch, you'll have to give a little bit more detail. You didn't have to get all snotty about it -- just say it -- "in this imagined world, people do not have homes at all." That, of course, would be something you'd need to expand on, because, well, it seems to stand to reason that people will have to live somewhere, inside some sort of enclosure to be protected from the elements, predators, other people, etc. That's generally what a home is -- a place for people to live, and safely protect and care for offspring.

You're not only stupid... you're an excrescence on the shoe-heel of stupidity. And there's few ways better than getting the shit off of a shoe than to wipe it on the lawn of someone unimaginative enough to think that it has value enough to be owned... with pride.

LOL -- I can tell a nerve has been hit with you. You're obviously realizing that you're, quite simply, wrong. You know that your world couldn't exist, and that you have absolutely not even suggested a world where liberty could exist without private property. You've revealed your idea to be superficial, at best, as well as juvenile, sophomoric, and the musings of someone whose depth of thinking doesn't even reach the level of "I say liberty can exist without property rights, well, because I can say 'there will be a world where nobody owns anything.'" That's the sum total, at best, being the most charitable to you, of what you've presented.

An imaginary world, where the sun is never too hot and the nights are never too cold... humans, without the need for homes, moving freely from pasture to pasture... like a Hippy dreamworld, with no property of any description whatsoever... and as liberal as liberal can be.

And my claim has been proven to be true - a liberal world that doesn't require ownership.

I guess that an imagined world is a real struggle for people without imagination.

That wasn't the original claim, anyway. It was LIBERTY existing without property rights.

The conversation began as imagining a world that could actually exist. Anyone can imagine anything. But, like imagining a world where the sun is never too hot and the nights are never too cold -- that "can't" actually exist. So, you can never have that kind of world. It's a great example for you to raise, though, because it is precisely as likely for that kind of sun to exist as for liberty to exist without property rights. You certainly hit on it there.

Anyone can imagine anything, Red Celt -- I could just say "of course liberty can exist without property rights, because I can imagine a world where nobody ever dies, everyone gets to do everything they want to do when they want to do it." That's not really the point, though, is it?

[Coito ergo sum]

Coito ergo sum, regarding your post here: http://www.rationalia.com/forum/viewtop ... 3#p1324163

Robert has already explained that it can be difficult to decide who to address in an argument that has started with small, indirect personal attacks and is escalating to more aggressive ones. We feel it's right to issue a reminder to both parties and so would like to remind you to play nice and not to make personal comments.

Mousy, with all due respect, my post there, which you cautioned me, was not in the least different in character than Red Celt's comment, "I'm off to teach my dog quantum mechanics. I think I'll make more progress there." This small, indirect personal attack did not start with me. That isn't hard to determine. If Red Celt is allowed to say what he said, I can certainly respond with telling him he wouldn't be able to teach his dog how to eat food from a bowl (much less quantum mechanics).

The bottom line is -- I did not cross the line -- Red Celt did. Trying to create a false equivalence is like holding the bully and the bullied equally responsible for a fight. Red Celt is the one who got hot under the collar and lashed out. The only thing I responded to was his, as was pointed, rather mild insult. But, the key there is that "I" responded to his rather mild insult with a rather mild insult in return, which followed the very allusion he used (the reference to his dog).

Red Celt then explicitly stated that my response to him was justification to go ballistic. This isn't a question of needing to determine which insult to intervene on and that no matter what happens, someone is going to be unhappy. The clear aggressor here was Red Celt, because his was the first rock hurled. If the two comments, his and mine, about the dog were not playing nice, then we both ought to have been chided for "not playing nice." Fair enough. I've seen worse get ignored by mods when reported, but it's a difficult thing to be a mod, so que sera sera. But, there doesn't seem any justification whatsoever in chiding me for saying "you couldn't teach your dog to eat food from a bowl," but not saying anything at all about his initial comment about the dog (which was clearly as much an insult directed at me as my response was).

[Robert_S]

We forgot "dummy" as well.

[Red Celt]

(lots of white noise)

tl;dr

[Coito ergo sum]

We forgot "dummy" as well.

...which, of course, is contained in my post which immediately follows him accusing me of being so unintelligent that he'd have better luck teaching his dog quantum mechanics.