What is your main issue?

[ClayTrainor]

If there wasn't another human being involved I would agree with that.

a sperm and an egg is not equivalent to a human being.

It's pretty funny that you ignore the overwhelming scientific evidence that life begins at conception.

A seed does not become a tree the moment i plant it in the ground.

 

[brandon]

Can't pick two, just wish they would leave me alone.

 

[ClayTrainor]

Can't pick two, just wish they would leave me alone.

haha, true that. There's only a need for 1.

1. Non-Aggression principle.

 

[osan]

Point taken. I apologize for calling you that. I just thought your argument was way over the top.

OK, thank you for the apology - accepted. As for the argument, fair enough. THAT response I find completely acceptable.

I believe we are friends here - fellows in liberty, and I take that very seriously. If I am wrong on the abortion issue, I am more than willing to be convinced of it. I am pro-choice ONLY because I cannot definitively say that it is wrong. I do NOT like abortions and have stated this candidly many times here. But my displeasure with it does not justify aggression against another when I cannot substantively demonstrate to myself that what they are doing is violating the rights of another human being, particularly in the case of a fertilized egg. When I come to be smart enough to know one way or the other, my views will change.

 

[osan]

Maybe because your proposal to cut off all immigration is much more anti liberty than any proposal to protect all human life. Your philosophy is about as anti liberty as you can possibly get.

Hold on thar cowboy... I said SECURE OUR BORDERS - not shut the world out. Allowing people to traipse across the border at will when there are all kinds of free goodies available, courtesy of the tax payer pretty well removes the point of having a nation in the first place, does it not? And I can even live with that, but for a couple of practical problems that arise therefrom: for example, how is liberty preserved? What is to stop Canada from rolling its tanks across the tundra of ND and crushing us? (1/2 sarcasm).

I have no problem with an open border in principle, but as long as we have a welfare state that is sucking the life out of hard- and smart-working Americans, I do not see how this can be allowed without placing us in some very non-trivial peril.

 

[scottditzen]

Traditional Conservative beat me too it.

Osan I apologize for not doing a better job of communicating on this issue...the very one I listed as most important to me. I sincerely don't mean to be argumentative. I've read your posts and you do pose intelligent and thought provoking questions. I simply disagree with your opinions on what it means to be pro life, I suppose.

OK, thank you for the apology - accepted. As for the argument, fair enough. THAT response I find completely acceptable.

I believe we are friends here - fellows in liberty, and I take that very seriously. If I am wrong on the abortion issue, I am more than willing to be convinced of it. I am pro-choice ONLY because I cannot definitively say that it is wrong. I do NOT like abortions and have stated this candidly many times here. But my displeasure with it does not justify aggression against another when I cannot substantively demonstrate to myself that what they are doing is violating the rights of another human being, particularly in the case of a fertilized egg. When I come to be smart enough to know one way or the other, my views will change.

 

[Maximus]

Pro Life in all its forms (Anti-abortion, torture, war, etc)
Cutting the deficit

 

[Deinonychus]

Spending and foreign policy.

 

[osan]

Osan, so are we to understand that you are fine with abortion up to the point that the baby is actually born?

No, and I am at a complete loss as to how you could have inferred this from anything I wrote.

 

[LibertyEagle]

I'm not an advocate of making our job harder. That is why I listed education as my main issue. Abolishing public education would go a long way helping the population become more liberty-oriented, much more so than building a giant wall (which wouldn't work anyways, and at this rate this new expenditure is not feasible).

I agree that the education being directed at our children right now from federal government programs is absolutely horrid. It is targeted at dumbing down our children and making them "world citizens" so that they feel comfortable with merging into a world government. Our children are no longer taught the principles upon which this country was founded and the reasoning behind them. They are taught to hate this country and believe that our borders are just imaginary boundaries. They have done their job well.

How would having more immigrants in the country make our job significantly harder? The country gains more statists already when the birth rate increases, since all new persons added will go through the public school system, the majority of them becoming good statists and or philosophically apathetic. So to these souls born on American soil, a libertarian or constitutional re-education is also required.

True, but I see no reason to make our job harder by allowing a massive flood of people who are used to a horrible government to enter our country illegally, that we cannot reasonably assimilate into our even current less than desirable situation here. Why compound the problem? As Jefferson spoke of, the only government many of these people know is dictatorial and never had a history of anything much better. This is the government they know and unless they are taught differently, it is the type of government that they will vote for. We both know that currently our schools are not teaching much of anything that we want furthered with regards to liberty.

And wouldn't immigrants who fled other countries be open to the opportunities and standard of living a liberty orientated society would have? Since the reasons they flee their former country, often are directly related to political corruption? The only reason a significant portion of them might be statist, is if they are looking to receive welfare benefits and their children are put in the publication education system. But that is an argument for ending welfare and the public education system, not against immigration. As the country moves more and more in the direction of economic and personal liberty, it will become an even more desirable place to live for foreigners, just as America was the land of opportunity in the 1700s. A war on immigration can't stop people from moving, anymore than the prohibition of a product can stop people from buying and selling.

That is why Ron Paul wants to end all government handouts. If we we were not providing them birthright citizenship, free medical care, free school, in-state tuition at our colleges, etc., I have no doubt that the flow would be stemmed.

And it is not clear to me why erecting a wall would make the United States more liberty orientated, or prevent it from becoming more statist, when building the wall itself is not a pro-liberty position?

I said nothing about a wall.

As for your George Washington quote, I suspect any anti-immigration views some of the founding father's held had more to do with personally disliking or disapproving the lifestyle choices and their cultural differences of the immigrants that were unrelated to their advocacy (or lack thereof) of liberty. Thus their anti-immigration tendencies would have more to do with controlling the population, which has nothing to do with liberty. It does seem weird that people who had just witnessed the birthing of a country by immigrants, would be anti-immigration. Doubtless they wanted to keep America a certain way once they gained power. The desire for cultural conservatism and uniformity is a separate thing from the desire to have a pro-freedom populace. Suffice it to say, not every view the founding father's held was right. I'm sure there are some I could selectively quote that were for immigration, or at least not in favor of hindering it.

I think you are very wrong. No one here is against legal immigration. I say "legal", because of what I said earlier. We cannot continue to let our borders be overrun. There is no earthly way to assimilate such numbers. The vast majority will vote for the government that they are used to.

The handouts must stop immediately. I think that alone would pretty much solve the problem.

---

If this post hasn't succeeded in making people rethink their pro-border control position, I think I've at least made a few successful points that education is more important than immigration.

I'm not sure why you think these are mutually exclusive events. They are not.

And again, we cannot take on the whole world. The best thing we can do is to carve out a small area where like-minded lovers of liberty can agree to live by a certain set of principles. What the rest of the world chooses to do is their own business, as long as they do not attack us.

 

[LibertyEagle]

No, and I am at a complete loss as to how you could have inferred this from anything I wrote.

Did I get you confused with someone else? That's possible. heh. I'll go look.

Nope. I said what I said because of your apparent approval of abortion. If you wouldn't mind, please go back and address the entirety of what I said, rather than taking this one sentence out of context. Thanks.

 

[mczerone]

Your points are well taken, but please explain how it is that you draw the line at the pill? The egg id fertilized and the drug causes it to be expelled. How is that less of an aggression?

We can draw this line arbitrarily closer to pre-sexual activity as well - after all, what is there in principle from stopping us? Use of any form of contraception could be viewed as an aggression - condoms, the "pill", and perhaps most importantly the IUD, which at the bottom if it all functions in a way very similarly to RU486 in that it establishes a hostile environment for embryonic implantation and growth, thereby causing the prospective mother to spontaneously abort.

I would be most interested in knowing the basis for placing the line where you do.

Are you asking why I think this is the line, or why I think that this would be the standard line that would be drawn given competitive rule sets?

To answer why I think this is the line, I have a number of reasons. First, this method allows women the right to say "I don't want my body being used for reproduction" even after having sex. This resolves the issue of rape, drunken or lustful mistakes, or otherwise non-consensual pregnancies. The effect of the medicine is the same whether there has been conception or otherwise, and knowledge of a successful pregnancy is taken out of the picture.

Second, this method would acknowledge the rights of a human embryo only after it was known to be present, and a free market in adoption would likely be sufficient to compensate the mothers enough to ensure that they carry the pregnancy at least until the child can be supported outside the womb.

Third this method recognizes the impossibility of prohibiting substances. The pill cannot be effectively pushed out of use through law, as black markets would supply it even if laws made this more risky and costly. In effect, since there is no action by a third party, like a doctor, it would be impossible to police.

Lastly any type of pre-coital measures do not end an already instigated process of independent life, and therefore should not be prohibited on the grounds of "protecting life". Any type of contraception should be allowed, as any limitation on this is a direct restriction on the liberties of existing persons, without there being any cause of action based on the injustice borne by a third party. Grandma and Grandpa might really want a grandchild, but they cannot justly use aggression against their children to ensure that no contraception is used.

I'm not arguing that this is the only non-aggressive solution. There may be others that arise if competing associations of behavior were allowed to thrive, and I would be open to changing my stance in a concrete injustice can be shown that arises from this policy.

 

[LibertyEagle]

a sperm and an egg is not equivalent to a human being.

True enough. However abortion does not involve removing isolated spermatazoa and unfertilized eggs. It involves sucking out a fetus, limb-by-limb.

 

[osan]

What? How is that a valid response to ChaosControl saying...

​

She issued an opinion as fact. I called ChaosControl on it. If there is a convincing response, then great, but I am not just taking their word (or anyone's for that matter) on the issue. I require proof. Also note they said "ending of life". I killed a fly this morning. Am I guilty of murder? I will take it they failed to qualify "life" with "human". Assuming this, we still come to the question of when an egg becomes a person and to that I will repeat myself for what seems the 543rd time today: I don't know. I do not share the certainty that some here appear to hold. I envy them, but in all good conscience I am unable to adopt that position because I have no basis for so doing. Wanting to is not sufficient in this case. Not for me, anyhow.

Finally, who should be paying for said abortion? Should the government be funding it as they now are doing? Or, is that ok?

Government funding of abortion is immoral if for no other reason than that government is forcing some people to pay for what those people regard as murder. That alone is sufficient reason not to fund such things. That the money is forcibly expropriated from us to pay for anything is questionable in my mind - even roads and other elements of the commons.

 

[Vessol]

Morality

Our current Statist system is immoral because at every corner it depends on coercive violence.

 

[Andrew-Austin]

Well,I figured the first point pretty much covered everything else. Clearly not everyone took it the same way I intended. Mea culpa.

LOL no my mistake. I was just looking at the more specific issues people listed, so I really only noticed your number two.

I didn't mean to imply that people cannot come here.

Oh. I just don't see any valuable difference between illegal immigration and legal immigration. I don't care if they pass some stupid history test written by the government, and have the proper papers. The legal method is just slower and more inconvenient for them, and pretty much useless to us if technically we say anyone can move to this country.

Please refer back to what I somewhat clumsily wrote: seal ourselves off also psychologically and politically... the point being not to allow ourselves to be inundated with those who do not share our love of freedom. Consider a large number of the Mexicans that come here - they HATE the USA and Americans, and this I know from first hand experience as well as the likes of "La Raza" and so forth, who make no attempt to hide their bald contempt for this nation and its people. Many of those are here for a few less than honorable reasons: to take advantage of the free money, to take advantage of higher earning potential this land offers, and to act as a drain on the economic health of the nation.

We have racists in the country already, we have people who hate "what the country stands for" already, native born people.

And for the welfare queens, we solve that problem by ending welfare, not limiting immigration. Only the former should be done in my opinion. The latter should not be viewed as some placeholder policy until we can end welfare.

Such people I cannot in all good conscience welcome here. As for other nations... harder to tell as I have had less first hand experience with most of them, but the principle stands in any event. Go back 100 years or so and the people who came here from Europe could not wait to become AMERICAN. Now, thanks in the main to ourselves, those who come here are often expecting the rest of us to kiss their third-world backsides and accommodate them with language and this and that.

Its up to people to choose what language they speak, and if they want to learn a new language. Its up to businesses if they want to accommodate people who speak difference languages. As for the public sector, I don't care if the majority vote that English should be the official language, so long as that does not require everyone to speak English.

As for your reference to history, go back further to early America, which had many different cultures and spoken languages. Some were crying for means to use the government as a way of enforcing uniformity, they viewed the diversity as such a big problem. The public education system for instance was advocated to get all the stubborn foreigners to speak English and conform, and I believe in some cases advocated to push religious conformity.

No need to be sarcastic.

Sorry, nothing personal, I'm just addicted to sarcasm.

Diverse in many respects, yes, but at the core we must be in agreement, and that agreement lies along the lines of a very basic and small set of propositions that delineate and define what it means to be free. If we do not have that, then as far as I can see we are lost because the moment enough people decided we need to go formally communist or fascist or what have you, liberty is out the door. Then what? The majority gets what they want and the rest of us can eat cake? What is your answer to that threat posed to the liberty-minded minority?

End things like welfare benefits, decentralize power heavily, and end public education. Anyone that comes here will then be coming for opportunity, they will be fleeing their more statist home country. If they are fascist or communist, they will not move to a capitalist country. If they do, then they won't have the means to move the country in to becoming more fascist or communist, assuming we've already become a more libertarian society.

But we're not a liberty-oriented society at present. All I'm saying is that border enforcement can't change this. Other things have to change first.

Yes I want there to be an agreed pro-liberty consensus in the country, but there is not such a consensus even among natives. So why immigrants are singled out does not make sense to me.

Oh but there is. What do you think our basis in liberty is? THAT is our essence and culture. That is what allows the Muslim to come here and live as a Muslim if that is what he pleases while his Hindu neighbor does the same, and so on for the Chinese and Spanish, Mexican, Christian, Russian, Jewish, and all the other neighbors. Live. Let live. THAT is our essence. That is not statist by any means, nor it is nationalistic. It is the recognition and prizing of a set of principles that allows us to live in harmony with one another. When that is gone one of two things are likely to happen. Either the guys with the biggest sticks will take over and impose their lifestyle on all or we devolve into a truly feudal nightmare where neighbors build walls to separate each from the other and they either fight constantly or live their days, nervously eyeballing each other from across the walls. Is that what we want? Is that what we are arguing for?

I want my liberty. I want to live and act in accord with the dictates of my conscience. If a bunch of the neighbors want to live in a commune with no private property, that is OK with me just so long as they are not forcing me to join them. THAT is my point - preservation of the framework of freedom such that we who live within the imaginary boundaries we call the United States of America can remain in such circumstances that we are able to choose what sorts of lives we shall lead without interfering with those of others or being interfered with by them. Does this make sense to you?

Yes, but immigration control can't work as "a way to ensure that the people who come here are pro-liberty."

It is slightly confusing to me that you are defining "being American" as being "liberty orientated", which is just your personal definition of being American which isn't rooted in facts. Sure I obviously want people to become more liberty oriented as well, I'm just not going to equate this with "Americanism".

Its also confusing that you earlier in this post complained about immigrant's unwillingness to learn English, but that you are now defining your criterion for who should be allowed in to the country as "just be liberty oriented."

 

[Sola_Fide]

Morality

Our current Statist system is immoral because at every corner it depends on coercive violence.

Good point. We have to take back the "moral" argument from collectivists.

 

[LibertyEagle]

I understand. I agree. But to rid society as a whole of this practice, a fiat prohibition is insufficient. The only way to convince everyone that this type of practice is barbarous is to allow them the choice to do so, and then to visit upon them consequences that are within the non-aggression principle (of course you would also be free to do more than this, but itself would create a further injustice and open your practice up to intervention from other third parties who allege the injustice).

Perhaps I don't understand what you are suggesting. What do you suggest should happen to someone who aborts her baby?

Do you have the same perspective on someone murdering their neighbor? If not, why not?

Personally, I view any post-coital action beyond the use of the Morning After pill an aggression, and feel that true liberty would quickly settle upon this and a liberal adoption policy as the "answer" to abortions. But I am in no position to force anyone to adopt this view, nor is a government.

Government's proper function is to protect liberty. Even of the unborn.

 

[LibertyEagle]

Thanks, Osan, but this was the entirety of what I was at least hoping you would respond to:

What? How is that a valid response to ChaosControl saying...
(Chaos' post not included)

Do you consider it imposing an opinion, if someone has a problem with someone else murdering someone? I doubt it. Which brings us back to your question of when life begins. Do you believe that it begins at any point whatsoever before the baby is born? If not, does that mean you are ok with an abortion being done anytime at all before birth? If you do believe that life begins at some point before birth, even 5 minutes, when do you believe the cutoff for abortion should be and what reasoning do you use?

Finally, who should be paying for said abortion? Should the government be funding it as they now are doing? Or, is that ok?

 

[Vessol]

Good point. We have to take back the "moral" argument from collectivists.

Yup. That's what I've been trying to do on other forums. The leftists and collectivists always try to argue that their system is better because it is based on morality. I then point out the gun in the room and they either vehemently deny it or they justify that the gun is good because the ends justify the means.