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Posts posted by ggdwill

  1. Hunterrose,

    This whole business about me supposedly contradicting myself in regards to how they would otherwise spend their money is only because you conveniently omitted from your quote of me the following, qualifying sentence: "The fact is that they want to buy me lunch instead of sell me lunch or buy themselves dinner." While I [edit]could[edit] have been more precise and stipulated that should they not buy me lunch, this entire topic would be moot since there wouldn't be any altruism (or alleged altruism, if you like) to discuss. But since I said the sentence that you quoted in this thread, I figured that that would be rather obvious. Any confusion or disagreement we might have regarding this comes from a belief that you've attributed to me that someone can be "altruistic." I haven't used that word or stated that belief because, well, I don't believe it. Instead, I believe that certain specific actions can be motivated by altruism - even in an otherwise totally self-interested individual - and that those actions are being undertaken to assuage a fuzzy emotion rather than a concious desire. This is why that emotional urge, should I refuse to abbett it, will likely find relief in the stomach of another altruist playing the part of recipient. That should iron out any supposed contradiction between the use of my theory in my response to your previous post and my restatement of the theory itself.

    Moving on, I am impressed with your observation that should I be able to conclude that my co-workers are altruists when it comes to their lunching habits, I should be able to conversely prove that if I were to accept, I would be a moocher. However, I think a more serious consideration would be why this sudden bout of skepticism is warranted. Is it because this particular example is inadequate despite the fact that I have given quite alot of evidence to support my belief that these people are altruists when it comes to food? I am not prepared to say that the questions that you raise are not without merit. Since I do not know any of these people well enough yet to conclusively say that they are food socialists, nothing about this example should impact the deeper theoretical structure under discussion. You do agree that altruism exists don't you? As I said in earlier posts, while psychologically it may not, existentially it is alive and well in nearly every corner of our culture. Consider this: should someone mistakenly, as a result of inadequate attention, believe that by behaving benevolently toward another that they will ultimately derive a greater benefit and ends up just wasting his time. Does that qualify as altruism? Isn't that the mistaken rationale behind just about every major social program in this country? Or should I assume that 1/2 of the people in this country, who vote Democratic, are conciously evil?

    Lastly, speaking from personal experience, your suggestion to test it can become ugly very quickly. It is my contention that actions motivated by altruism, since they hold an unwarranted position of moral superiority in our culture, are not customarily met with resistance. Should they be, the bearer of gifts - believing falsly that the only alternative to altruism is contravention - will passionately denounce your worthiness to recieve his gifts. Of course this flies in the face of his other belief, which you stated, that it is not anything except my need (eg: to be included) that makes me worthy. But this is to be expected since altruism, being an irrational notion, is, well, irrational.

    Would my co-workers denounce me as a sociopath or would they do the Christian thing to do an give me their food anyways? I don't know. But as I've said, the purpose of this thread is not to guage the altruism to self-interest ratio of particular people I know. The existence of altruism as a concept and practice will not rise and fall based on the amount of time the people I know spend being altruists or being capitalists, much less their emotional makeups.

    - Grant

  2. Even though everthing everyone else has already said it correct and, if you're like me, encouraging, I'd like to point out one more reason to stick with it.

    Every business that becomes successful necessarily has to start small. While certainly you can't invent horse-training since it's already been done (although there's probably quite a bit of innovation still left to do - you'd know much better than I would!), you can invent new and exciting ways to make horse training more efficient, more intelligable to more people, and cheaper to do.

    Since it's obvious that the idea of doing something relatively repetitive doesn't appeal to you, the best way to quench your thirst for new and exciting challenges is to create them yourself. They don't come out of thin air. You have to work hard to acquire the resources necessary. It's great that you already have so many of them under your belt!

    If I were you I would nurture those contacts and those skills that you have (they don't stay skills for long unless you continuously practice them, btw) and, instead of still walking horses in circles, imagine yourself in 60 years watching 1,000 horses walking around in circles from the balcony of your office at the top of the huge boarding facility you started.

    - Grant

  3. AtlasShrug9,

    I just reread your post and finally understood the point you were making. I've heard it before so I apologize for not recognizing it sooner. Loosely, speaking you're correct. In a psychological or emotional sense noone really does anything for purely altruistic reasons. However, because altruism exists, it has a specific definition and that definition doesn't include anything about emotional benefit for good reason. Proper ethical codes have to assume full psychological health since their purpose is to guide actions and not necessarily thoughts. No matter how secretely self-interested someone might be, altruism is when someone performs a purely selfless act and there is no net gain. It matters not why someone behaves as altruistically just as, to use an extreme example, it matters not why someone committs murder; they have still behaved unethically.

    Ironically, I suppose the central question that I'm trying to answer by creating this thread is if I'm better off suffering the psychological detriments (to myself [hypocricy] as well as to the giver [delusion]) resulting from me abetting altruistic acts and capitalizing on the existential benefits. Or should I avoid the existential detriment of me refusing them since if I do, they're likely to eventually go to another altruist anyways (not to mention further delusioning two people now instead of just one) . Once I find the answer, I should know which policy to adopt.

    - Grant

  4. GaltGulch,

    You're right, I should have used "whom" instead of "that". I didn't proofread my post. That's all there is to it. I guess you're trying to get established on this forum and so you're eager to participate, but I don't see why you would create some sort of philosophical underpinnings for why people use incorrect grammar. The idea that there is some sort of conspiracy to dehumanize people and strip them of their individual identities through the promotion of incorrect grammar is very bazzar.


    Yes, the idea that someone sacrificially buying me lunch cannot be a value to me does seem highly questionable. That's why I created this thread and posted a competing theory.

    Also, I don't really think it matters what they would do with their money should I not allow them to buy me lunch. The fact is that they want to buy me lunch instead of sell me lunch or buy themselves dinner. The purpose of this thread is not to establish the altruism to self-interest ratio of particular people throughout my life. Rather, it is to establish the superior course of action when confronted with this type of behavior by weighing the pros and cons of accepting their gift against those of refusing it.

    As for your analogy with giving to charity; what I am attempting to do here is to establish the proper course of action in a very specific context. I am not attempting to create a categorical, be all and end all answer to the issue of giving gifts. Of course there are many contexts in which it is perfectly rational - ie: self-interested - to give something to someone without expecting anything specific in return. I have already mentioned one in this thread. I mentioned that it was appropriate for my co-workers to buy me lunch during my first week as a way making me feel welcome.

    Instead, what I am discussing is situations in which someone is fully aware that they are giving me something that I don't need and that they don't intend to derive any type of value - regardless of how broad or narrow it might be - as a result of giving it to me. I've pointed out that my co-workers are aware that I have food to eat even though it is not the same food they eat. I've also pointed out that when I have accepted, they have made no attempt to gain anything from me - dispelling the possibility that having lunch with me is a way of getting to know me (they have all but ignored me).

    With this evidence in mind, it's quite obvious to me that instead of wanting to keep me from starving to death so that I can keep coming into work or better understanding my personality, what they are really doing when they offer is satisfying an unanalyzed sense of duty to include everyone in what they believe is a communal activity. I suppose that they assume that I wish to be included in this commune and so they feel obligated to offer. Eating lunch together has nothing to do with work and thus has no personal value to them aside from the pseudo-value of fulfilling a sense of duty.


    I don't suspect that they are trying to lure me into their religious beliefs. I just think that it's their religious beliefs that creates that sense of obligation that I discussed above.

    Your idea of trading food for thought is a good one. Once I have a better grasp on their appetite for ideas, I will decide if this will be something worth proposing.


    Values are objective. Feeling good about something does not necessarily qualify it as good for you. In fact, it doesn't qualify it at all. An individual's emotional estimation of something has no bearing on how it will actually affect them. A given object or action will affect a given individual in a specific way regardless of how he feels about it. Simply the feeling itself tells you tells you nothing about the object. Your judgement of something being good or bad, if you are judging objectively, consists of only thoughts and is devoid of emotion. Good and bad describes a relationship between you and something else. In order to understand that relationship, you must first understand what the thing is as well as who you are - including your emotional tendencies. Of course it is possible and desirable to align your emotional reactions to your conciously held estimations of things, but this doesn't just magically happen.

    - Grant

    [edit]: Grammar <_<

  5. Vladimir,

    Do you understand the difference between a safe headache medicine and an unsafe headache medicine? Can you tell me the exact medical reasons why certain ingredients improve the condition and certain ingredients aggravate it? I sure can't. I don't know exactly why drinking two glasses of milk every day and eating 3 serving of green, leafy vegetables is good for me, but I still do it.

    That level of precision is what I meant by "education" and it seems to be what you mean when you keep clamoring about creating an informed, educated population.

    Yet then you keep promoting the need for "education in a general sense". Simple empirical evidence of repeated success is all the "education" the average, lay consumer needs. It's not as if the words "FDA Approved" are any more credible or precise or explanatory than "9 out of 10 doctors recommend" simply because the first was funded by tax money.

    Although, if, for some anal retentive reason, a person wants to know more, they are free to seek it out. But that seems like a pretty big waste of time given that modern medicine has earned alot of scientific credibility over the last 200 or so years.

    - Grant

  6. I'm sure that I'm not attributing a malevolence to them and and I am fully aware that they are simply philosophically confused. Like I said, I realize that these people are not consistent, devoted altruists - not only because, as you said, that would be impossible, but also because I trade values with them nearly every day.

    I recognize that it is not categorically altruistic to buy me lunch. For instance, my first week on the job they bought me lunch twice and I gladly accepted - realizing that this was a way of welcoming me and making me feel comfortable. However, now that I've been there for awhile, I find it hard to believe that it's anything other than some sort of moral (probably religious) obligation they have to help me out and/or include me in their communal meal. Since they are aware that I cannot afford to eat restaurant food every day I suspect it is the latter because they are aware that I can afford to eat store-bought food. Yet they still offer to buy me lunch.

    So your point about having me join them (since I don't when I go home to eat my food) is the only thing I am not sure about. I don't know why they can't simply eat without me when it's obvious that I don't mind being excluded. I suspect that since we don't know one another all that well yet, it would be improbable that I'm really that much of an enhancement to their dining experience or that they're trying to get to know me better. Besides, the few times I have eaten with them, they haven't paid all that much attention to me anyways.

    With all of those facts in mind, I have no reason to believe that buying me lunch is anything but a sacrifice. While it is most likely only a small one, it is still clearly a sacrifice.

    I have no problem whatsoever accepting gifts from people that I am confident understand and value me as an individual. These people don't qualify just yet.

    - Grant

  7. I am not interested in getting into some Randian debate over the semantics of the words "community" or "public." My point concerns real-world issues pertaining to the level and sophistication of food and drugs in a given nation. And my point is simply that without education, safe food and drugs will simply not be available on a consistant basis.

    I disagree. I think that all the "education" the average consumer of sophisticated drugs needs to know is if they achieve their stated goals. If someone with frequent headaches reads that 90% of people who took Tylenol got relief from their headaches, he needn't have the same level of understanding as a neurologist or a pharmacist to safely, reliably benefit. Repeated successful performance over a long period of time inspires enough confidence in me that I feel comfortable doing other things with my time. I guess I'm just not as paranoid about fraud and incompetence as you are.

    - Grant

  8. I have been toying with a new policy regarding receiving things from people who are motivated by anything other than mutual trade or a benevolent feeling towards me personally. Specifically I am talking about people motivated by altruism in any form. The types of situations I encounter run the gambit. Apparently my co-workers believed their third grade teachers when they said that if you're going to bring candy, you have have to bring enough for the entire class because these people know that I'm on a tight budget and so they are constantly trying to buy me lunch. Also, I have distant relatives that give me things like Christmas and birth day presents since I suppose they view me as a member of their tribe and so I must be taken care of.

    Whenever I accept these gifts, it is usually with a thin veneer of greatfulness. While this veneer provides enough cover to avoid akward encounters usually involving a chaotic discussion of my atypical ethical beliefs, it never has failed to make me feel guilty of hypocricy. In fact, even when this veneer has failed, the same people have continue to perform these ritual offerings despite my protests and, for reasons I will explain, I have accepted.

    I have felt this guilt because I know that it is true that over time allocating resources based upon an altruistic ethic will result in a net loss to the extent that it is practiced. It is also true that by willingly acting as a repository for a practice that I know to be destructive, I am contributing to the degradation of someone who otherwise exists as a value to me.

    However, despite this knowledge I am left wondering if it has been simply a fear of social dischord or the lingering presence of evidence to the contrary that has really guided my behavior. So in the interest of trying to establish if this sense of guilt is undeserved, and if so to extinguish it, I have chosen to present the following, conflicting theory for discussion since it has haunted me long enough:

    By labeling my view of the people that do these kinds of things as "otherwise valuable" to me, I am not lending equal validity to the simultaneous fact that they are altruists to some degree. Their altruistic acts are not some kind of betrayal or diminishment of their self-interested interactions with me since it is their altruistic tendencies that exist and consume only a potential for complete self-interested interaction. I should view them as entire persons, including their faults as well as their virtues in my view of them.

    Having said that, I think that it is appropriate - ie: rational and moral - to accept these gifts of charity should they come to me not because I support altruism per se, but because it is in my best interest to promote the most rational allocation of resources. Since I neither profess nor practice altruism, this means that by giving these things to me, they will be put to use in a proper, productive way by being consumed or traded instead of given away.

    - Grant

  9. Since the purpose of this forum is philosophical rather than scientific inquiry, I'm going to risk changing the focus of this topic.

    While the examples you list are compelling, I don't think they're compelling enough to dislodge man from his position as sole possessor of a conceptual conciousness - at least not in any context relevant to the less-fundamental branches of philosophy (which is what you will discover the rest of OPAR addresses).

    While it may be true that some animals are capable of forming primitive concepts - I don't know, I'm not a scientist - it is glaringly obvious that nothing any animal has ever done approaches the cognitive level necessary to include animals in moral or political affairs.

    With that in mind, be careful not to misconstrue the observation made in OPAR that because man can form any concept, he possesses rights. While the ability to form concepts is certainly the basis, it is the ability to form certain specific concepts - as well as concious adhearance to those concepts - that endows him with rights. These would be the concepts of personal sovereignity as well as private ownership of property.

    Assuming the examples you listed were true, Dr. Peikoff would have done well to point out that it is not solely the capacity to think conceptually, but rather a much greater capacity to think conceptually, that makes humans unique.

    - Grant

  10. I don't think that is correct. Something that happened is still a fact. It doesn't just blink out of existence all of a sudden.

    Certainly the past is objective and can be logically inferred. However, in a physical sense, it doesn't exist. Since the definition of "reality" is that which exists, you cannot include past events in a description of it. Reality is not a sum total of every previous arrangement of all that exists stretching infinitely into the past. The Civil War is certainly an indisputable fact of history, but it is no longer properly thought of as part of reality that can be brought back to life by taking it out of some cosmic filing cabinet. Metaphysically, history certainly affects the current conditions of existence but physically speaking it is irrelevant in a proper definition of reality since that which exists would not include that which existed.

    - Grant

  11. Why can't you differentiate an existent from a non-existent? You could say that the property of existents (or all existents in this case) that differentiates it from non-existents is that existents possess properties whereas as non-existents do not. Of course, while the "property" of not possessing any properties does not actually exist, it can serve as an abstract foil by which to perform the task of creating the concept "reality".

    Another technique to consider is that reality is constantly changing. What constitutes reality *now* may not be reality *now*. In that two second interval perhaps a bug died or a piece of an ice berg broke away. While certainly you wouldn't include these details in an integrated, definitive concept of reality, they were part of it's identity and now they are not. The fact that you can remember how reality was (a non-existent) and also observe how reality now is (an existent) is another way to form the concept.

    - Grant

  12. If it were true, there would be no volition, because who says that this is the FIRST TIME. Without volition, there is no morality.

    And no, I don't think that it is "debatable".

    Uh, I think that aleph_0 made it pretty clear that at least he didn't take the Eternal Rerun literally. I liked what he said about the lesson having that attitude teaches. He said it in a very eloquent and compelling manner that, at least for me, made me appreciate the supreme value and sacredness that my life holds for me.

    I know you're metaphysical, but don't be a party pooper.

    - Grant

    P.S.: I like the title of this thread. Very clever :)

  13. I work with a part-time co-worker who is also a fireman. Although I was thoroughly disgusted yesterday as he he was hoping for the latest hurricane to hit Orlando so that he could get overtime pay, when he was going on today about how cushy working for the government is, he started a bragging about his intentions to join the bomb squad - apparently part of the Orlando Fire Department. Although I felt my usual resentment as he listed all of the days off, the benefits, and the altruism that motivates him to serve, he did spark this question in me; and it has been nagging at me all day.

    Should the government be in the business of defusing bombs?

    On the surface, this function seems like just another protection of individual rights an so the answer should be a confident "yes", but when I thought about it more, I wasn't so sure. Since protecting someone from a criminal with a bomb is essentially the same as protecting someone from a criminal with a gun, I believe that forming a clearer definition of what exactly the role of the police should be is necessary.

    It seems to me that the reason why the government maintains a police force is not merely to protect people from immediate threats, but rather to apprehend individuals known to have committed a crime (or reasonably suspected of). Simply because many times the protection that the use of police force provides happens to occur at the same time as the apprehension of a criminal (eg: a police officer shoots and then arrests someone he just saw fire a gun at someone) doesn't mean that they're the same thing.

    I believe that cops carry guns for the same reason any one who regularly encounters dangerous situations would carry one. However, it is not the - or at least it shouldn't be - the responsibility of the government to protect people from immediate threats - especially at a risk to their own lives. So what makes a criminal with a bomb so special as to warrant a round-the-clock government department specifically devoted to defusing bombs? Defusing bombs is a very risky endeavor and I can't think of any situation in which the diffusion of a bomb leads to the apprehension of a criminal.

    Now, of course, the placement of a bomb on someone's property is very serious and should be thought of legally as akin to pointing a gun at someone, but I just cannot see how disarming them is part of the process of injustice.

    In certain circumstances, I can understand why it would be valuable for the police (and obviously the military) to employ people with that type of specialized knowledge - such as in the preparations to serve a warrant at a house that may be booby-trapped. But outside of tactical considerations for specific missions, it just seems like another government-funded service operating under a nebulous definition of the word "justice".


    - Grant

  14. The reason why the only businesses cited in that article are either frivilous or small is because large companies that deal in products and services that are most essential to human life believe that they have too much to lose by openly proclaiming admiration for Ayn Rand.

    No large company, which sells its wares to all kinds of people, wants to develop a "bad" reputation for being selfish. The trend in big business is to curry favor by presenting the company as a servant of the community rather than a privately owned, for-profit enterprise. Also, as the economy becomes more and more regulated and tax rates grow ever higher, profit margins begin to shrink. In order to compensate for this, since improved performance is increasingly becoming a unfeasible solution, many companies take to things such as providing goods and services to government-run programs or filing anti-trust suits, or lobbying for legislation that would hinder their competition.

    - Grant

    [edit]: typo

  15. Because they are attempting to force them into sex, I put it almost at the same level as attempted rape. An employer could try and make an employee do a lot of things that the employee may not want to do, and the employer has every right to fire them if they do not comply, unless there's some sort of contract involved. I think this only applies though if it's something the employer wishes to gain through an employee's labor or efforts. If the employer wishes to violate an employees rights, take something away from an employee with the threat of firing, such as forced sex, or telling an employee he must surrender personal property to continue to work, I think the line has been crossed to where it's initiation of force.

    You couldn't be more wrong. If an employer makes a request that the employee doesn't wish to do, then the employee has every right to quit. If a boss threatens to fire the employee if she doesn't have sex with him, that should be his right. It's simply his right to do what he wants with his property - his property being the job. The job that the employee is hired to do is not hers, it is the boss', and so it cannot be taken away from her. If he decides that he will include "having sex with me" in the job description, then the employee has a right to accept the changes or quit.

    My original post addressed that it's not the what is said that determines if it's harrassment, but if it's said after a request to stop in a location that an individual has a right to determine what goes on. To allow it to be defined in type-specific ways is what leads to the fascistic micromanagement advocated in the quote above.

    This is the difference between a real violation of rights like rape and what you call "almost" a violation of rights like 'sexual harassment'. If you're going to acknowledge that they seem similar, but are not, then it seems rather pointless to devote the rest of a paragraph to explaining how they're the same.

    - Grant

  16. I contradicted myself in my two most recent posts when I said in one that pornography is beyond the realm of morality and in another I said that pornography is immoral. I should have been more specific because I did not intend to pronounce contradictory judgements upon the same object.

    What I meant in the first post is that, yes, pornography (more specifically it's use - something I didn't bother to specify initially because I assumed [wrongly] that everyone would recognize this) is immoral; however this shouldn't matter when it comes to pornography's (again, it's use's) relationship to the law.

    This brings me to the wider abstraction that I was alluding to that I should have made explicit - and I think is the crux of this entire thread. Of course I believe that the nature of a government and the laws it enforces are derived from some set of moral principles, contradictory or not. However, when I argue in favor of allowing property owners to display "offensive" material and/or objects with impunity it is because I believe that the prohibition of it constitutes an immoral act of greater degree (the violation of the sanctity of property rights). Consequently, to knowingly a subordinate a greater value (freedom) for the sake of a lesser value (feeling comfortable) is an immoral course of action, and thus should not be pursued by anyone - certainly not the government. This is what is commonly known as utilitarianism, which an incorrect moral system.

    That should adequately address the question posed to me earlier about whether or not I was a logical positivist.

    The other half of the contradiction in my posts that I created was in my post exclusively discussing the moral status of pornography as it relates to adults explicitly consenting to it's use. Since this is an unrelated topic, I should not have allowed myself to go on this tangent. However, I would like to help out the person that asked for the source of Dr. Peikoff's comments that I cited. I read it in a transcription of one of his radio shows. It has been a few years, so I don't know which one it is.

    - Grant

  17. I actually read an editorial in the WSJ a couple of weeks ago entitled "Alaska and You" where they discuss the fund that you guys are debating. They don't criticize the fund, or the 4 and even 5 figure annual payments that Alaskans receive itself (although they should), but instead they point out that part of the reason why the expansion of oil drilling in Alaska is moving so slowly is because the Alaskan State Gov't is benefiting from the high price of oil.

    The implication being that if this fund didn't exist, then the government - the only entity capable of preventing oil expansion (most notably through it's ownership of like 90% of Alaska) - would not have an incentive to curtail development.

    The editorial also spends alot of time complaining about the fact that Alaska receives more federal money per capita than any other state, yet pays very little in federal taxes.

    I wish I could find this piece. I accidentally threw it away and I don't subscribe to OpinionJournal.com

    - Grant

  18. Lanthanar,

    Where is all of this talk about morality coming from? This thread was created to discuss what should be the legality surrounding sexual topics, not necessarily their morality.

    I am confident that most, if not all, pornography is immoral. As Dr. Peikoff has discussed before, the only contexts in which pornography is acceptable is in it's moderate use as some sort of sexual/psychological maintenance. If you find yourself in an isolated or heavily regimented environment, it might be helpful to use pornography to stay in touch emotionally with the value of your sexuality. The other context might be if two people are in a committed, stable relationship, and they wish to use it to enhance their sex life together the same way they would use candles or lingerie.

    But none of that matter anyways, because that's not what this thread it about.

    - Grant

    [edit]: Not that I should have to say this, but I hope those exceptions make it clear that it's not the pornography itself that is immoral, but rather it's relationship to human life; it's use.

  19. Was Mardi Gras going on in that room when the alleged event occured? I think this discussion is getting a bit too far off from the original event. As to the pointing a gun at someone issue, I can think of one right off the top of my head, the gun that is pointed at every tax payer who disagrees with the tax code vis-avis government agents. One of the problems that I've found with the various means of arguement that you are putting forth is that there are alot of floating alternative senarios, but no consistent basis for describing a consistent ethical standard.

    Furthermore, force is not limited to the threatening of one's life, but also the threat of taking things by force. One of the methods of force that has been glossed over in your posts is the deception that was neccesary to get Jennifer Flowers into the given situation. I highly doubt that she had knowledge that she was going to be having a sexual encounter with Mr. Clinton, and that lack of knowledge constitutes a lack of consent.

    I'm only going to reply to this part of your post because it was the only part attributed to me.

    No, Mardi Gras was no going on in that room. I don't know what was going on in that room, nor in Bill Clinton's mind, when he decided to expose himself. I can't even remember what the pretext was, if there even was one and it wasn't just a case of Ms. Flowers getting cold feet, that got her into that hotel room.

    But like I and alot of other people on this threat have already said, it really doesn't matter what the reason was that made Bill Clinton feel like he should have exposed himself. Unlike pulling a gun, there are alot of plausible, and even justifiable, reasons to pull out one's genitalia. Perhaps she had said something sexually suggestive that made Clinton believe that she wanted to see him naked. Perhaps she was behaving in a manner that he didn't approve of, and he knew that by exposing himself she would be adequately disgusted and leave. Perhaps he mistook her for the doctor that was supposed to come by to check his prostate.

    [edit]: Although Bill Clinton's sexual past is certainly contemptable, to my knowledge, there is not a shred of evidence to suggest that he ever used threats of violence, blackmail, or violence itself to achieve his sexual goals. I think it's reasonable to assume that given this, his exposure was a non-threatening, albeit pathetic, attempt to get laid.

    I understand that generally speaking, exposing oneself when it is not solicited, is perceived as very creepy and even threatening - especially when it is a man doing it to a woman. However, I simply don't agree that that generality - the act of sexual exposure apart from all other relevant facts - is a valid excuse to start dictating to people what they can and cannot do on their property.

    That should also explain your weird comment about the gun pointed at tax payers; something that is so obviously symbolic it doesn't deserve much of a comment. It is not a gun being literally pointed at them that gets people to fork over their money, but rather the threat of having a gun pointed at them if they refuse. Literally pointing a gun at someone, however, is only justified in the defense of rights in the face of a clear and present danger. I understand that they are tantamount to the same thing, but they are still metaphysically distinct occurances. If you wish to absolve yourself of the threat that comes along with not paying taxes, you need to recognize it's source. It lies in the offices of numerous corrupt bureaucrats and politicians, not in any random police officer you may see on the street.

    - Grant

  20. ~Sophia~,

    I would say that in the lion's share of cases, it would be immoral for a man to abandon a woman he has impregnated, or a child that he has fathered - but not for the reason you seem to think it is. Instead of viewing it as a fulfillment of one's responsibility - which I think has already been adequately explained as a false concept - I view it as one of value comparison.

    Since a rational man would not wish to sleep with, much less impregnate, a woman who even the idea of spending the rest of his life with her makes him shudder, it would be in his own best interest to do everything he could to promote the well being of this woman. If this means that, in her particular circumstance, an abortion would be appropriate, then he should choose to help her get one. If her particular situation dictates that carrying the pregnancy through to birth would make her happiest, then he should help her raise the child.

    However, once the state becomes involved by pronouncing a moral doctrine that men are morally obligated to deal with the results of their sperm, then the decision to be a good husband and father ceases to be a decision. And just as it's immoral for a man to knowingly sacrifice a greater value (a healthy, happy family) for the sake of lesser value (a cowardly moment of relief from a emotional situation), it is immoral for a government to sacrifice to greater value of individual choice and freedom (as well as responsibility!) for the sake of the lesser, hypothetical value of government mandated two-parent homes - otherwise known as social engineering or fascism.

    - Grant

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