Another Strategy to Enact Positive Change

Posted by Rozar 10 years, 5 months ago to Culture
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If you skip to the 39 minute part you'll be about to enter the actual strategy. I'd highly recommend watching the whole thing, it's even somewhat entertaining.

SOURCE URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLSkhR-ve8s


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  • Posted by $ MikeMarotta 10 years, 4 months ago
    I am sorry that I wasted time with this, waiting for the magic answer. If you tell one of your slave friends that they are complicit in the evil of the state, then what?

    In his own way, he is evidence of a deeper problem. Molyneux is telling a passive array of listeners what to do. And they sit and listen to his tangents. Given that the audience shares his premises (libertarian politics), he could have said this in one minute at the beginning. If he had written it, they could have read it faster than he spoke it.
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  • Posted by Hiraghm 10 years, 5 months ago
    "Today, in the United States, it is popular among self-styled "intellectuals" to sneer at patriotism. They seem to think that it is axiomatic that any civilized man is a pacifist, and they treat the military profession with contempt. "Warmongers" -- "Imperialists" -- "Hired killers in uniform" -- you have all heard such sneers and you will hear them again. One of their favorite quotations is: "Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel."

    What they never mention is that the man who made that sneering remark was a fat, gluttonous slob who was pursued all his life by a pathological fear of death.

    I propose to prove that that baboon on watch is morally superior to that fat poltroon who made that wisecrack." - Robert A. Heinlein, "The Pragmatics of Patriotism"
    http://www.xtimports.com/text/The%20Prag...

    I apologize to baboons everywhere for comparing this sack of shit to them.
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    • Posted by 10 years, 5 months ago
      I remember you posting this before, or at least seeing it on this site.

      I'd like to hear your views on right and wrong sometime.
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      • Posted by Hiraghm 10 years, 5 months ago
        Well, that essay by Heinlein sums it up, pretty well. "Moral" behavior is that which tends to survival of the species, which is largely dependent on individual survival, most of the time.

        In one science fiction anthology, there was a story called "We Hold These Rights", by Henry Melton. A loose society had formed in the asteroid belt, and Earth had decided to take control, which included shipping people back to Earth. The main characters were on a ship assigned the job of destroying a navigation beacon.

        Two of the characters were all patriotic in defending their "rights". The third crewman they thought a coward, because they couldn't understand how he thought (people here would "get" him, though...)

        There's an Earth patrol ship they have no hope of whipping guarding the beacon. The "coward" locks himself in the engine room, and orders the other two to plot a course away from the beacon as fast as they can. They're forced to comply, and as they're blasting away from the beacon, it, and the patrol ship are blown to hell by the energy surge the "coward" had bounced off of Jupiter.

        When they try to apologize, he freaks out and shouts (this is from memory) "I destroyed a beacon worth more than I'll earn in my entire life! I had no *right* to do so! I did it because I had a reasonable chance to get away with it, and I didn't want to see the Earthmen run the belt anymore than you did. But I had no *right*. Rights don't exist! There's only power and action. Clement Ster, if you have to lie, cheat, steal or kill, then do so, but have the guts to take responsibility for your actions!"

        It made me think, and realize that rights can't originate with men. Rights are a convenient fiction, unless they are given us by a higher power, such as the Creator. They're a convenient fiction for governing how men interact with one another.

        Rearden was quite wrong it questioning the court's "right" to try him; the court had no "right" to try him, since only individual humans have rights, not courts. But, it did have the *authority* to try him, granted it by the existing government. Whether that government itself had the power to grant that authority is another argument.
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  • Posted by Hiraghm 10 years, 5 months ago
    What is this idiot, an anarchist?

    There IS NO IRAQ WAR.
    It is one of the three theaters of the War on Terror.
    He complains about throwing the "e-bomb", then he throws the "m-bomb", calling those of us who support the use of deadly force against threats to our nation (state) "murderers".

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    • Posted by 10 years, 5 months ago
      Lol yes he is an anarchist. And he wasn't complaining about throwing the e-bomb but advocating it. Murder is either evil, or it is not. It can't be moral for some and evil for others.
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      • Posted by Hiraghm 10 years, 5 months ago
        Murder is a crime.

        Killing is either evil or not evil. If you wish not to kill, enjoy your diet of fruits and nuts.
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        • Posted by 10 years, 5 months ago
          We both know that because something is illegal doesn't mean it is moral or immoral. Killing is not evil obviously.

          But murder is extinguishing an individual consciousness against there will and without provocation. I do make the distinction between murder and self defense.
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  • Posted by LetsShrug 10 years, 5 months ago
    I'm sure this will work wonders....I'm anxious to try it. Actually, I've been desperate for over a year to have such a conversation, but what I have discovered instead is that almost no one is willing to HAVE a conversation to begin with. As soon as I find a person who will discuss something important..I'll do it.
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