This is philosophically incoherent given that you’re opposed to welfare. What distinguishes one kind of parasitism from another?
This is all very interesting, but I still want to know exactly what this “welfare state” is, because I do suspect that chimera is the source of the OP’s opinion.
No, it’s called the Non-Aggression Principle. The idea is that you cannot use force against people without a clear justification. (Ex: Mugging a guy is wrong. Shooting the aforementioned mugger is not. Get it?)
Now, what aggression has an unborn child committed? Answer: Zero. Therefore, under a word-for-word interpretation of the NAP, abortion is morally unjustified in that aborting said child would require aggression (obviously) against someone who has committed no aggression. Get it?
Note: Whether or not the mugger in the above example dies as a result of being shot is irrelevant.
Yes, in that I’ve seen the movie. No, in that I’m not seeing how that applies to the arguments that you’re making. There is no larger group that both liberals and conservatives should be united in struggling against, as the various Jewish insurrectionist groups should have been united against the Romans. As far as I’m concerned, you are the Romans. And, in fairness, I should be the Romans to you.
I mean, what exactly should I be uniting with you in struggle against? The social safety net? I think it should be bigger - you want to starve it. Abortion? I’m strongly pro-choice - you equate abortion to murder. Economics? You think Ludwig von Mises has good ideas - I think his economic theories would be the worst thing to hit this country since the Great Depression. Literally, almost every single thing you think is good policy, I think is terrible policy, and vice versa. Why shouldn’t we be struggling against each other?
Trespassing, and theft of services.
Whether a fetus is “a person” boils down to a moral judgment on the nature of life. Why do your morals get to control the law on this issue? Seems like an aggression on people who have different moral views. So much for principles.
Wow. That is just…:(:(:(:(
No. Just…no. For so many reasons, no. :smack::smack::smack:
Not to mention the mother stealing my intellectual property (my dna) and creating derivative works!
An inaccurate translation of Sozialstaat (“Social State”), which was what the Conservative Otto von Bismarck created in Nineteenth Century Germany to take the wind out of the sails of the Left, which wanted broader reforms. Essentially, the Social State gave the people enough to prevent outright revolts, and deprived the more progressive groups of talking points they could use to get support at the polls.
The more modern welfare state is much the same: A fundamentally conservative* philosophy and practice which provides the people with the essentials of life and prevents the worst excesses of unchecked Capitalism but does not attempt swift reforms or anything which could be described as a utopian program. In specific, it is not concerned with moving towards a Communist “dictatorship of the proletariat”, and does not see any form of anarchism as its end goal. In fact, the welfare state is not teleological at all; it has no end goal in mind, it exists to make the here and now better.
*(I say “conservative” somewhat hesitantly, because the usual meaning of the term in American political discourse is synonymous with “reactionary”: A conservative, the way I use the term and the way most political scientists use the term, is someone who wants moderate change and is skeptical of radical movements. A reactionary is someone who wants a radical shift away from changes already made in order to re-create some aspects of the past. The mainstream GOP is reactionary. The mainstream Democratic Party is conservative.)
Of course, our local beach bum thinks it is the apotheosis of ultra-liberal thought and action, somewhere to the left of the Khmer Rouge and well beyond what you can achieve without gulags and literal pyramids of human skulls. This is rather distant from the political reality in Western Europe, where multiple welfare states have existed for generations now, and show no sign of killing everyone who got some of that there book-learning.
What? It’s all property law, right? I own my body, and nobody else does. If a fetus is a person, it owns its body, and nobody else does - including it’s mother. Mom never entered into an agreement to allow some other person access to her body. And you can’t argue implied consent because she agreed to sex - not if you want to be consistent about it, otherwise the fact that you use roads is implied consent to tax you for their upkeep.
Ah, ah, ah, is your name HawaiianBeachBoy1959? We want to know what s/he means by the term.
HBB? What do you perceive “welfare” to be?
Thank you.
I was going to challenge the concept of “unborn child”, but, well, thank you.
Hey, you were the one confused by a common phrase.
I think the point is that HawaiianBeachBoy is confused by the phrase, not j666.
Yes, it is a common phrase, but I find it meaningless, particularly in this context.
Libertarians have been part of the Republican coalition for decades now. The question isn’t whether they will be able to unite but whether they will split apart.
List a few of them.
Why does this non-agression principle apply to non-people? Does it also prohibit me from committing violence against my toaster?
And I do find myself wondering how such hyper-rationalists as Libertarians purport to be can stomach the GOP in its present iteration.