Shanek:
Note that the animation specifically says that you don't have the right to have the government initiate force against others on your behalf.
You are completely missing the point! It is irrelevant whether the government has that 'right' or not, if it can use force no matter what.
I will try to explain it really slow:
- People have a right to defend their rights
- People have the right to ask others to help them defend their rights
- People will likely ask more powerfull people to help defend their rights.
- In doing so, they always run the risk that the people they ask to help them will abuse the power they have.
- So if people are allowed to ask others to help them in their protection, they run the risk of supporting 'evil people'.
- This is why the 'solution' offered at the end of the animation is not a solution at all, as it limits the right of people asking others to help defend their rights.
Because he recognized all liberties as being essential, just as he recognized all forms of safety as being temporary. That was his point in saying that.
So he said 'essential liberties' because he meant 'all liberties' ? Well, if you say so...
Of course it does! Most of the animation, in fact, differentiates between the initiation of force and the use of force to defend life, liberty, and property.
No it doesn't! It doesn't show any use of force. Protection is depicted as putting up a magical force field that stops the force of others. It does not show taking back stolen property, and does not show putting people in jail for murder.
Yes, it does. It says that people have a right to government protection as long as that protection does not constitute an initiation of force.
Where did it do that? I didn't see it.
In the absence of any information from you on the matter, what else are they supposed to do? It is their job, after all.
Well, duh! That is my point: in the absence of any information, they are supposed to act without consent, and it even is the moral thing to do.
No, because those people are perfectly able to express their wishes on the matter, even if there is personal risk involved in doing so.
But you can't expect them to all be able to express their wishes on the matter. If an action is used because
most were able to express their wishes, then they are forcing their wishes on the others. But they are not allowed to that!
You're in favor of forced medical treatment?
You can't see any situation where it might be justified? For instance in case of insanity, or in case of people carrying infectious diseases, and giving people a free choice might result in a few people not getting treatment and staying a health hazard?
This is my biggest problem with you. You think people are too stupid to run their own lives and must defer to some kind of authority to run it for them. This is the basis of pretty much every single post I've seen you make. And it is the very antithesis of freedom.
Please note that I am not talking about all people. I am talking about
a small minority of people: those people that are actually too 'stupid' or unable to give consent or in another way cannot be trusted to make the decision that benefits them most. Surely you can imagine who they are: people with mental disabilities, psychiatric illnesses, comatose patients, criminally insane people, very small children. Most people have no problem recognizing that these people cannot (be trusted to) make the right decisions for themselves, give consent themselves ie they are 'too stupid', if you want to use that word. This does not mean they don't have a right to health like everyone else. It just means that any health decision is effectively forced on them.
Is that the antithesis of freedom, or a caring society?
When did I EVER say there shouldn't be such an authority?
You didn't, but it is implied in the animation. It argues that an authority cannot use force against others without their consent: it cannot demand that it is able to check whether someone is using fraud or not.
That's just lame. You can still fully check out a product before buying it even if it's by mail or over the internet.
How is this possible if all you see is a small picture? Or are you saying that it should be illegal for sellers to put 'all sales are final' disclaimers in their catalogs?
Oh, and it's absolutely impossible to seek out others who have checked it out...riiiight....
No, it isn't impossible. It should not be necessary.
When you buy a car, you can not only test drive it, but you can take it to a mechanic and have him check it out.
Even before you bought it?
I wouldn't buy a car from anyone who wouldn't let me do that.
You perhaps not. Others might, and they have just as much right to a good product as anyone else.
Grammatron:
Slavery does not have to mean chains and work in the fields; it could mean complete loss of choice. Who decides what is a healthy life? And what definition of healthy will be used? I want that type of choice to be left to individuals and not society.
It is perfectly reasonable to allow the vast majority of individuals to make such decisions of themselves. It is the exceptions that I worry about: how is a baby in an incubator able to make such a choice? Or someone in a coma? In the real world, society does make choices for people. It makes definitions of 'healthy' and what constitutes a 'healthy life'.
I can imagine other situations in which people should not make such decisions for themselves, for instance if religious beliefs prohibit them treatment necessary for surival. I realize that this is a more controversial idea, and don't claim my idea is a definitive answer. What is your opinion on people who refuse to immunize their children because of religious beliefs? No matter how you cut that, whether society forces immunization on these children or the parents force the kids to have a risk of getting ill, even becoming a health risk to others... someone is forcing an important decision on someone else.
