Walter E Williams - The Salt Tyrants

Professor Williams warns Americans of the next batch of busybodies wanting to mind YOUR business. http://www.LibertyPen.com

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[Brantoc]

give an inch and they take a yard. Government is force, and there is no limit.

[selfrealizedexile]

@truthadvocate

You nihilists may not admit it, but you carry with you almost as many presuppositions. No one is a blank tabula rasa. You couldn't make sense of the world if you didn't possess certain a priori principles.

[selfrealizedexile]

the Civil War by "strengthening" it against potential European invaders and, thus, achieved a better utilitarian outcome (even went so far as to suggest the 600,000 dead to be possibly less than what a European country might do). The only limit utilitarianism puts on its rationalizations is the human imagination--very shaky ground, indeed. Every statist might call himself (and most do explicitly) a utilitarian.

[selfrealizedexile]

I should also mention regarding Utilitarianism. It isn't a strong foundation with which to build a belief system. If you want to achieve "the most good for the most people" (I think it's better said as 'Justice' and 'Liberty'--absolute ideals), you can only achieve that through deontological Libertarianism. Utilitarianism is subject to all kinds of rationalizations, statist or otherwise. For example, I had a conversation yesterday with someone who said that Lincoln saved the Union through

[selfrealizedexile]

cult leader, huh? lawl.

[selfrealizedexile]

However, I should say I find many problems with the conventionally understood God, not even getting into Judeo-Christianity. I find a lot of good sense in pantheism. There's a number of problems with the concept of creating from a void and thinking of God in terms of how Man views himself. Overall, though, I look at myself as Deist where I can come to subtely experience God through rational metaphysics. I call this Beauty. You're probably thinking in the back of your mind I'd make a great

[selfrealizedexile]

@truthadvocate

all matter and the deep mechanisms connecting them (logic, causality, etc.) can't itself be victimized by morality. He created that, too, by definition.

[selfrealizedexile]

@truthadvocate

The point is your whole paradigmic approach. "alienate the public" The "public" is a complete afterthought. Even moreso to some, it is synonymous with nonsense. "Social" Justice, "public" goods, etc. All are as nonsensical as 'moral' stones as Hayek wrote.  They are not entities in themselves, but, rather, shorthands for a sum of individuals.

I think the term malicious God is a contradiction in terms. Omnipotence = Benevolence in my world. The being which creates

[truthadvocate]

@selfrealizedexile,

5 of many

Let me ask you something. Imagine if a malicious God created us. And the true nature of all individuals was a tendency toward self-torture, violence, horrible pain & emotional suffering similar to the idea of hell. In such a situation, liberty would lead to immense human suffering. In such a scenario would you promote liberty as an objective value because it is our true metaphysical nature? If you say yes, you scare me. If you say no, you are a utilitarian.

[truthadvocate]

@selfrealizedexile,

4 of many

"There is no logical rejection of coercion of select individuals." I just gave you one earlier. Statism & the initiation of force does not improve the quality of life for human beings! You and I both know that. Violent movements alienate the public & result in ostracism.

[truthadvocate]

@selfrealizedexile,

3 of many

Logical positivism is just a combination of empiricism & rationalism. Just because I rely on these for confirming my interpretation of reality does not mean I deny that there are things I don't understand about the universe. When you start making conclusions without rationalism you yourself are planting the seed for chaos. A belief based on faith likely to be false, undermining our understanding of reality & resulting in a butterfly effect of it's own.