Subject: Re: Property Rights To: extropians@extropy.com Date sent: Mon, 24 May 1999 17:52:05 -0700 (PDT) From: "Lee Daniel Crocker" <lcrocker@mercury.colossus.net (none)> Organization: Piclab (http://www.piclab.com/) Send reply to: extropians@extropy.com
> LC> I am prepared to take moral responsibility for laws
> LC> against violence and theft...
>
> JD> So you oppose legislation against theft, rape, child molestation
> JD> and murder?...
>
> Rational argument is easier if one has a reading comprehension level
> above 3rd grade. I suspect in your case, though, that you do in fact
> understand what I wrote, and are employing deliberate deception
> rather than honestly arguing the points raised. I will let the
> readers decide which style of argument is more credible.
>
> LC> No matter how loudly I may "rave", it is still peaceful discourse
> LC> compared to the violence of law.
>
> JD> But not compared to the massacres which are now routinely
> JD> perpetrated in our schools by those to whom we look to carry the
> JD> future. How can you defend a system which allows our children to
> JD> fatally mass murder each other? ... [more emotional rant elided]
>
> More dishonest argument. Our system certainly does not "allow"
> such activity, and you have provided no rational evidence that it
> even encourages it, or provided any alternative that might be better.
> Mindlessly reacting to the misuse of hardware by calling for laws
> restricting the hardware is irrational and groundless.
>
Mindfully reacting to the misuse of hardware by calling for laws
restricting access to the hardware by those who are most likely to
misuse it (violent criminals, spouse abusers, the insane, children,
etc.) is both rational and supported by any faculty of reason
deserving of the name.
>
> Show me some
> real thought--show me a rational argument why a particular law will
> have any positive effect on the violence you see, or I will have no
> choice but to oppose it, because the law itself is /known/ violence,
> and to practice real violence to only speculatively reduce some
> possible future violence without any evidence is morally wrong.
>
A blatant cop-out. You either know, or should, that the effects of
such measures can only be determined in practice. Pass a law
restricting access to firearms for the above groups of people
coupled with universal background checks to determine if in fact
any particular person is a member of those groups and a law
requiring trigger locks to be sold with every firearm (so that they will
either be harder to misuse if the locks are used or it will be easier
to assess responsibility through neglect if they are not), and check
in a reasonable amount of time to see if violence has indeed been
reduced. BTW, the economic prostitution of the political right to
the NRA and the placement of weapons as "problem solvers" in
movies designed to appeal to teens is not rhetoric, but fact; if you
don't like these facts, let's work together to change them. teen
>
> (Here's a hint: "It's obvious that..." is not a rational argument).
>
Nor is "be prepared to shed blood", nimrod!
>
> I don't give a shit that your motives are pure (if indeed they are).
> Motives don't count, results do. If you can't show me that laws
> will have actual results of reducing violence, then spare me your
> tear-jerking rhetoric.
>
If you can't show me without testing that the desired results (less
kids and spouses killed) would not obtain, you are simply arguing
that the absence of the invisible is difficult to detect. You are
acting just like the DEA concerning medical marijuana; first you
say there's no evidence of a beneficial effect, then you take a
dogmatic and self-righteous stand against the very test necessary
to gather that evidense, not, I suspect, because you (and they)
think it would not be forthcoming, but precisely because it WOULD
BE. In ther absence of the evidence whose gathering you forbid,
your position, like solipsism, may be difficult to refute, but when
applied to the lives of our kids, it is as morally bankrupt as
solipsism is sterile.
>
> Lee Daniel Crocker <lee@piclab.com> <http://www.piclab.com/lcrocker.html>
> "All inventions or works of authorship original to me, herein and past,
> are placed irrevocably in the public domain, and may be used or modified
> for any purpose, without permission, attribution, or notification."--LDC
>