Anarcho-Capitalist criticism of "animal rights"
I've been kindly advised to confine controversial political / philosophical debates to the "Food Fight" area of the forum, so I'm going to start this thread, copy quotes addressed to me from other sections of the forum, and reply here instead.
Alex I think you need to look up the definition of Facisim.
Fascism is a strongly statist (opposite of libertarian) form of government that believes a society exists for a common purpose that trumps individual rights.
The pro-government bias in government-controlled education has tried to redefine fascism for its own benefit, placing it on their irrational left-right political paradigm scale, while in reality it overlaps with communism and many other forms of statism (including what many "animal rights" activists advocate) on the bottom end of the authoritarianism vs freedom scale.
One of the main tenents of such a system is valuing property rights over basic human rights.
That is completely false. Fascism puts the interests of the state above individual rights, including the Natural Right to create, keep, defend, and control your property. A fascist state dictates who may own property and how it is to be used. There is a theoretical difference between fascism and communism in that fascism still uses the profit motive to some degree, but in practice the communist ruling classes have always benefited from their political power in ways that are functionally indistinguishable from a fascist corporatist (the polar opposite of a free market capitalist) making an explicit profit.
It also promotes class inequality and prevents individuals from having a say in their government.
No, in fact there is a strong correlation between a government's authoritarianism and the popularity of its leaders, for very obvious reasons. Places like Nazi Germany and modern-day North Korea are examples of perfect democracy - their governments are very popular and would be reelected in a landslide every single time. The fact that their government has far more influence over the public than the public has over the government is similarly true in any other democracy in the world today. The opposite of all those forms of statism (fascism, communism, democracy) is individual liberty, which in the political context is referred to as libertarianism and in the economic context is referred to as capitalism.
Capitalism does not promote an equality of outcomes of people's actions, which would be absurd, but it absolutely requires an equality of individual Rights. Your capital is your ownership of yourself and the consequences of your actions: your body, your mind, your time, your physical and mental health, your skills, your speech, your reputation, your rights over your children (or any other dependents who don't have full self-ownership), any agreements that you have made with other people, any resource that you have brought into the human economy (i.e. homesteading), and any resource that you acquired from another human being on a voluntary basis. That means Socrates has a Right to life, no matter how many people may vote for him to drink the hemlock, and the same applies to Michael Vick and his property Rights as well!
I would like to know were you get your information.
Ayn Rand and Murray Rothbard have been the strongest of my philosophical influences, but they stand on the shoulders of a libertarian canon that includes Aristotle, Locke, Bastiat, Spooner, Thoreau, and many others.
It seems that you follow no real economic school of thought or any clear social science theory.
My economic theory is firmly based in the so-called Austrian School of free market economics, which I consider to be the only school to be grounded in solid scientific theory - everything else is politically biased demagogy.
Other noteworthy economic influences have included the three generations of the Friedman family (more David than Milton, and Patri's ideas on intergovernmental hyper-competition played their part as well), and many of the agorist ideas floating around the Free State Project movement, of which I am a member.
(I'll reply to some other posts addressed to me in a bit.)
I would like to see this human meat/pig meat study, and I believe you may have misinterpreted the term "double-blind study."
Double blind study is when neither the administrators nor the participants know which is the control or variable. This is generally used in medical studies to prevent results from being scewed by a reseracher bias. How did he use it?
A double-blind study has shown that most consumers aren't willing to pay much more for human meat than they pay for pork, which is much cheaper to grow and harvest.
Such a study wouldn't get past any research board. It violates the Geneva Convention on Human Rights and all federal and international laws pertaining to research participants rights. Obviously, this guy is either pulling our chain or just a crackpot.
The only alternative to using animals for human purposes is killing them.
How is that supposed to make sense? First, killing animals IS using them for human purposes...one is just a means to the same end. Second, allowing animals to flourish in their natural environments, free of harrassment, is the only true alternative to using animals for human purposes. We do not have to destroy everything we touch, believe it or not.
How do you define the "natural environment"? If you mean an environment where animals can exist in their wild state but man does not, then such a place does not exist. Animals exist on a planet that is conquered by man and is still needed for man's well-being. Animals exist only if and where the individual human property owners allow them to exist.
You must have some strange ideas about where humans came from. Humans and animals, believe or not, have the same "natural environment". Humans actually are not living in their natural environment right now. Our natural environment is eating fruit in the tropical rainforests of Africa.
I really think you need to open your eyes. You are very closed minded and sometimes just need to sit down and shut up and not get so argumentive.
Just listen to others, and maybe you could learn a thing or two. Your arguements are very exhaustive and most of it is completely pointless.
Such a study wouldn't get past any research board. It violates the Geneva Convention on Human Rights and all federal and international laws pertaining to research participants rights. Obviously, this guy is either pulling our chain or just a crackpot.
I'm imagining that the "study," if it in fact exists, was an anonymous survey or something, asking if people would eat human flesh if, you know, it were available. Or something like that. That's why I figured he was mis-using "double blind," taking it to mean anonymous.
What a fucking idiot!! :-D
How did this turn into a thread about cannibalism?
What a fucking idiot!! :-D
+1
Such a study wouldn't get past any research board. It violates the Geneva Convention on Human Rights and all federal and international laws pertaining to research participants rights. Obviously, this guy is either pulling our chain or just a crackpot.
I'm imagining that the "study," if it in fact exists, was an anonymous survey or something, asking if people would eat human flesh if, you know, it were available. Or something like that. That's why I figured he was mis-using "double blind," taking it to mean anonymous.
Now, I understand what you mean. I am also very particular about how people quote research findings and statistics. Far too many people do not properly understand research and the siginificance of results. Even fewer people understand the whole scientific process. Sometimes studies are flawed or findings do not hold up in later trials. Also, theory is just an interpretation of how things operate in reality. It is not meant to be a philosophy or a mod of operation that is to be applied to real world situtations.
(Below replies imported from the ad hominem attack thread. I'll find the time to catch up with this thread later...)
Mr. Libman, are you even a vegan/vegetarian? I think you may be on the wrong website.
I've linked to a description of my diet elsewhere. The fact that my diet excludes all animal products for rational (non-animal-rights) reasons can be used to call it a (small-v) "vegan" diet, but that's not how I prefer to think of it. I avoid animal products for the same reason I avoid most fruits, sugar, tea, coffee, alcohol, tobacco, soy, artificial flavors, etc - they are impractical for an agorist tax resistance / economic secession movement that tries to grow its own food in a northern climate. This has nothing to do with the reason I am on this forum: to address the threads that call for government force in the name of your subjective beliefs!
He said earlier that he eats a vegan diet because he doesn't eat foods that are taxed by the government.
If I had to enumerate my reasons, it would have to be: (1) regulations, (2) subsidies, (3) agricultural efficiency, (4) taxes, and (5) health.
Regarding the first: you can't run an economic secession movement when the government can use your livestock as an excuse to crack down on you at any time, which has already happened to one of the members of our movement because of his horses.
Regarding the second: subsidies is something free market capitalists / libertarians and vegans / vegetarians / greens should agree on. Without government involvement to subsidize a dozen different animal farming costs, reduce animal-related pollution liabilities, provide free advertisement for animal products in government-run indoctrination centers (aka "public schools"), etc I'd bet the amount of animal products consumed in this country would be cut by 75%!
And something along the lines of being vegan is more economical
Yes, plant / fungus based foods are always the most efficient sources of nutrients that human beings cannot get from inorganic elements directly. Animals don't bring any value at all. Even the fish are nothing more than pests when you consider how the oceans can be used to grow sea vegetables instead.
But all the talk about animals just being tools for human use is pretty stupid... Especially on a vegan website
It's not stupid, it's an indisputable scientific fact. And I'm here only because this site contained blatant propaganda in support of fascistic government force. I cannot let that stand unanswered. I am not dictating to you how you treat your own animals and any other legitimately-acquired property, just as you have no right to dictate your opinions to others with the guns of government backing you up!
Yes, plant / fungus based foods are always the most efficient sources of nutrients that human beings cannot get from inorganic elements directly. Animals don't bring any value at all. Even the fish are nothing more than pests when you consider how the oceans can be used to grow sea vegetables instead.
Wow. Way to completely not understand how ecosystems work. I know, let's get rid of all wild ruminants so that grass can grow over the Sahara! Best plan evarrr! *facewall*
But all the talk about animals just being tools for human use is pretty stupid... Especially on a vegan website
It's not stupid, it's an indisputable scientific fact. And I'm here only because this site contained blatant propaganda in support of fascistic government force. I cannot let that stand unanswered. I am not dictating to you how you treat your own animals and any other legitimately-acquired property, just as you have no right to dictate your opinions to others with the guns of government backing you up!
It's pretty damn stupid to think that 'fines' are 'fascistic government force' while consumers shunning someone who goes against their beliefs (essentially imposing a fine by lost profit) is hunky-dory. I think somebody needs to look up what fascism is while he's doing his homework on basic biology.
Oracle database still on fire...
There goes my weekend...
Enjoy this while I'm gone...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_udqEp_YR4
Signed,
Your faithful troll. ;)
I don't really think anyone cares how long you take to answer, or if you answer. If you have no time then why do you go off finding Youtube videos to let us know you'll be answering later.
Stupid.
I know you only really post on one thread, but one is far too many.
There goes my weekend...
Enjoy this while I'm gone...
(etc.)
You've said in past posts you don't want to debate by PM, since you want to leave your noble legacy of reason and logic (blahdy-blah, something like that) for future readers... since, like, your arguments (in your own head, anyway) are so very deep and thoughtful and logical and reasonable (etc. etc. etc.).
Surely you realize that by posting this video here, you are acting like a second-grader at recess who runs around pulling girls' ponytails... even if any future reader of this thread has somehow been considering your convoluted verbal antics and thinking, 'Hey, yeah, wow, cool ideas!' instead of 'Hey, yeah, wow, that guy's a douchebag!'... well, you just lost 'em. Guess that's ok, though, since they were all just hypothetical people anyhow...
My point: juvenile-asshole behavior doesn't make you any more right than you were before; is a transparent and pathetic attempt to entertain yourself and garner attention, by provoking negative emotion in others; and has no place in a debate about ideas.
Or, to put it in the grade-school vernacular which may be easier for you to grasp: You have cooties. Go home and eat boogers. (Are we having a good debate yet? Maybe I should post a video of someone beating up a capitalist...?! Yeah, that'd REALLY show everyone that I'm right! So nyah, nyah, nyah-nyah nyah!!)
Don't you have anything better to do? Really? What a wasted life, if this behavior is any indication of what you're doing with it on a daily basis. You inspire me, Alex: by providing such an excellent example of the kind of person I never want to be. I hope that was your goal! (... since your antics accomplish nothing else on this site.)
Everyone else: this is all just for AL's personal amusement, to fill his (presumably lonely) free time... kind of a verbal masturbation technique that we're helping him with, by continuing to respond. This will be the last time, for me; if we all stop, it won't be fun anymore, & he'll straighten his clothing, clean up, & drift on to other pursuits (btw, AL, I hear www.opposingviews.com is single & looking for a 'special someone' to show her a good time!)... Life's just too short to deal with such juvenile crap, when we don't have to.
Wow. Way to completely not understand how ecosystems work. I know, let's get rid of all wild ruminants so that grass can grow over the Sahara! Best plan evarrr! *facewall*
....
I think somebody needs to look up what fascism is while he's doing his homework on basic biology.
;D ;)b
Indeed, in looking for some amusement tonight I looked up this thread. (Unfortunately, I can't stand American TV anymore.)
Truly, for all the talk of "scientific" this and that, the man has NO basic guidelines nor understanding of TRUE scientific principles, much less picked up a REAL science textbook or magazine.
All of the following... (Yes, I collected them! To share with friends also needing a good laugh. ;)) proven to be the OPPOSITE of what he elucidates by REAL EDUCATED scientists:
# "The universe is sterile in our absence..."
# ""Global Warming" a hoax, ..."
#"because it is a scientific fact that all variations within the human species have a fundamental capacity for individual thought..., which animals do not."
And for this...
#"Prove it- "Animal rights aside, people who mistreat animals are dangerous in our society.""
Well, it has been proved.
For starters, after your basic biology course, you might try getting your feet wet here: http://www.sciencedaily.com/
Before moving on to a subscription to the AMA Journal or researching pubmed - free resource of peer-reviewed published scientific articles/research studies.
Thanks for an evening of laughs! :-D :-D
(I wouldn't reply unless you are looking to provide more internet-wide entertainment.)
The purpose of this thread is not entertainment. I don't care if you are convinced or not, I only care about the logical quality of my arguments. I do not pander.
Note that this thread is specifically about "animal rights", that is use of violence against humans for the purpose of regulating animal ownership. The issue of Global Warming can be discussed elsewhere.
Also note that you've misquoted me in implying that I dismiss the possibility of extraterrestrial intelligence.
I will continue this thread if/when I'll have more time.
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