I’m not quite sure what prompted this, but I’m not a moral relativist.
But, that’s where the line of reasoning ends; moral relativism. Sometimes things are offensive yet true. Sometimes things are true yet offensive.
Unanawered is this: Should Gregory be silenced by the mob who shouts him down as offensive?
If he’s making a speech on private property, the rules are up to the landlord. If someone’s speaking in public they should be subjected to public criticism.
Ok. What about the legal concept of a heckler’s veto where the heckler creates a disturbance that forces the police to end the speech. In other words: How do you define criticism? Do Robert’s Rules of Order define discussions in the public arena? When does criticism rise to the level of an offense or disturbance?
Take this example: The superintendent of my local school district is lieing in order to pass a school tax increase. I have called him a liar. Some people find that offensive, mean-hearted, uncalled-for, what have you. Should I instead couch my comments in obtuse, yet polite, references? Or should I state things as they are?
It seems like you are putting more stock in the existence of the State than the existence of life. How can life mean nothing, yet the State mean something - namely oppression? Without life, the State could not exist. You fail to understand the difference between proximate and ultimate cause. According to you, the State is the ultimate cause of oppression, while individuals mean nothing. I would argue that the State is the proximate cause of oppression while existence and human life itself constitute the ultimate cause of oppression. I’ll repeat it - human life is the ultimate cause of human oppression.
Individuals are perfectly free to attempt to protect or increase their freedom. This is the essence of freedom, since humans live in a state of anarchy. There exists no cost-less way for one to stop one’s fellow man from exercising his freedom to attempt to limit one’s freedom. In other words, freedom isn’t free. It takes real resources to acquire and protect individual freedom. So, freedom is the degree to which man is free minus the resources man expends to acquire and protect his freedom. Much like energy, freedom is lost during its acquisition. As a result, freedom is never perfect, but is subjective like ‘cost’ and ‘value’. Freedom is just a commodity with subjective value and cost. Until you accept 1. we live in anarchy & 2. this is why freedom can never be free, you will continue to live in hate and contempt.
If I am nothing, why are you so upset? If you are nothing, why write on this forum? I agree with much of what you say, but I don’t understand why you back up your position with philosophical inconsistancies. The State is evil, but not because it exists. It is evil because it fails to allow for unmitigated private property. Private property must be unassailable if man is to be free. Once public property becomes private it must never be allowed to go back except under free-market mechanisms. The forced dissolution of government or State, is not the answer, since the enforcement of such can only occur as a result of coercive government itself.
This is where I agree with you. The State is a product of man’s thought.
Where I disagree with you is in your over-reaction. The State is not all-powerful. It is not more powerful than individuals, since it has no control of individual will. I speak of ‘relativity, anarchy, and an existence I know nothing about’, because that is the core of human thought and of the State itself.
Brilliant argumentation, if I may say so. You respond to accusions of using irrational labels by using irrational labels. Absolutely brilliant…
Ah, ok. I assume you don’t pay taxes, don’t obey authority figures with a violence monopoly and in general don’t follow the rules of the criminal state? What size cell did they give you?
Or are you just articulating out of your rectum?
That really depends. I would suggest that you try to be direct and to avoid personal insults and slang - not because it’s less offensive, but because it’s more effective. If you focus your comments on how ugly the man’s beard is or how fat his wife is, you’ll be ignored.
Someone who doesn’t want the whole of the movement to be painted racist just because Rockwell’s a racist 'tard who feels the need to associate his name with everything libertarian?
It’s more than just some blog writer. Inside info from the core people in the RP campaign itself says that it’s Lew (both my g/f and one of my close friends have been heavily involved in the campaign since its inception and have connections at the top), and I found out about it many months ago. We’ve been waiting for this to finally come out, and it’s expected/10 that there’d be the usual line-up of vulgar/political libertarians to defend Lew. It’s not like it’s a big surprise that Lew’s a racist; it’s been a sort of open secret among many of the long-time members of the movement that he is one, and it’s unfortunate that he’s been given a pass on it for this long because, thanks to LewRockwell.com and his involvement in the Mises Institute, he has the ability to taint the whole movement.
I wasn’t aware that calling someone a paedophile was tantamount to criticizing their views on economics.
Why say it if not to suggest that’s what he’s doing?
Nonsense! I would be surprised if Lew was a racist, and I have read lots of his articles. If Lew were to believe that there is genetic variation between the races, then I would expect that there is some evidence that Lew has to back up his claims. It is impossible to deny the empirical evidence, which suggests that genetic variation between the races of humans create significant statistical differences. To argue such, does not make one a racist any more than one would be a ‘racist’ for believing that, on average, Greyhounds are faster than Dachshunds.
If you have some evidence that Lew does, in fact, believe that there are differences between the races that are non-empirically justified, I’m sure others would be glad to hear it. The problem with your remarks is that they amount to school-yard gossip. Deliver the goods to back up your claim that Lew is a racist, or continue to reveal youself as a backbiting blatherskite who cares more about your reputation as a member of a movement than the truth about your speculations.
I agree. This thread is based on accusations that have no hard evidence. So, we engage in counter-factual arguments that assume the evidence exists.
Folks such as JC and Rich333 make accusations without offering any proof, then they have the nerve to claim some holier-than-thou status while continuing to make their unfounded character assassinations.
In particular, JC says that one should not engage in “personal insults and slang”, yet the premise of his whole argument against Lew is nothing less than insults and slang. Am I missing something here?
Please, show me where I say that I fully believe the accusations. All that I’ve seen is a collection of circumstantial evidence. My criticisms are based on how I perceive that the issue has been handled. I care because it reflects poorly on LVMI. If I did not care, I would not be posting here.
Correct.
10x10
That was a couple of months ago though.
The existence of the state means that the existence of life has been marginalized to non-existence. Man ceases to have a soul when he allows the state to take it. I’ve revolted against that and created a new soul with a new life and an objective to live for.
With very little intelligence needed to comprehend.
The state means that the life means nothing. What does life mean if it is not free? Nothing. What can it create of worth? Nothing. Because the creation is hampered, inhibited, taken, killed, massacred, etc. by the state there brings no use for it. Life is sad if it only means existence. The state represents oppression, what does it oppress? Liberty. The existence of life means nothing if life can not be led in liberty. The state takes away liberty, if liberty is required for life to possess meaning, then the state takes away the meaning of life - thus life means nothing with a state. Liberty can be attained without overthrowing a state, but one must alienate and separate himself from the state with no allegiance to it and only hostile interaction with it. Freedom does not mean safety though, as the state is a thug freedmen must fight and kill it - not reform it or connect with it. This is the second part of Agorism, being the organization of a Revolutionary Agorist Cadre to protect freedmen against the state and the conversion of the enslaved to liberating their souls from their enslavement to the state.
For all the other incoherencies and the vomit you spew about less and more freedom, they’re lies and deceptions telling people that freedom does not matter and people can be happy without it - you’re a drunkard, a fool, and a preacher for statism and the statist mentality. You conflate freedom with security and justice as if they were synonymous. You can neither conceive of reality, nor do you possess the intellect to speak of it. Quit bothering me with your regurgitations of subjectivity as if it possessed an ounce of relevance and learn to be free.
Where is your online stuff? You say all this about posting refutations and arguments, but I don’t know where it is.
I am not blaming you, but I am a drop-out too (or whatever). I don’t pay taxes, I hide from the system, I live under the radar. I undermine the State. It is by tax and criminal laws, that I earn my income. I aim to be a pure parasite. This is the behavior that is rewarded - and my nature is to flow like water. If we lived in an Austrian world, I would be rich - I am very clever and hard working. But we live in a Socialist world, so I am ‘poor’ and live off the government. They cannot stop me because I break no laws. I fail to earn income. I don’t exist. The system is ridiculously easy to take advantage of. Sometimes I feel bad - then my welfare arrives.
I know it’s wrong, but I am a passive aggresive. We are all individuals. We all contribute at the margin.
Vote Ron Paul!
JC,
I offer this from one of your previous posts
There’s no reason to stoop to the level of youtube comment language, especially if you’re pushing your mid-60s. I would’ve been embarassed to write like that as a kid on the internet - the grown men on the LRC blog are making themsleves look like fools, and it’s really quite disappointing for me to watch as someone who has a great deal of respect for the work many of the same people have published on mises.org.
That is most certainly an accusation without proof.
That is what I mean. “Life is sad if it only means existence.”
It might be sad, but sadness is not nothing. You call names, but you are totalitarian. An injury is a death to you, a scratch a mortal wound. You exaggerate out of proportion to the importance of your message. To you, a chill is the absence of heat, beer is poison, a kiss is the dissolution of individuality. Your drama gives me trauma.
You fail to see the ‘catch’ and the ‘subtle’. You talk big, yet you have no answers. You are ‘The Agorist’ who relies on thread made by a taxpayer, relies on gas subsidized by government, counts on law to protect your possessions, and loves the Internet which courses through the subsidized copper and fiber optics that connect you and me.
I don’t disagree with your argument. I find your method self-aggrandizing.
Come down off your high-horse, and join us in our fight to reverse the effects of evil.
I discussed that, but the ‘accusations’ I referred to were the ones laid out in the Reason article quoted in the first post of the thread.
Ex. http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/018759.html
This is not complicated. Lew Rockwell should admit or deny. Frankly, it is preventing me from the MLK money bomb today.
While I support Ron Paul and believe that he is not racist, I find it hard to believe that he could not have known something about all of this during the years that it was occurring. Am I to believe that no one ever showed any of the newsletters to him with the questionable statements? If someone did (which seems more plausible), why were they not ceased immediately? Is Ron Paul protecting his friend? Is the campaign making a group decision which, in most cases, are compromised? For example, “Let’s wait until after the money bomb” or “Let’s address it when the number of candidates is reduced and brought up again.”
Please put this matter to an end, Lew and/or Ron. Thank you.
JC,
That’s all you have? That’s the smoking gun? Really?
It appears that you would have been weak-kneed during the Age of Revolution. Didn’t the Founders call the King a despot (a treasonous offense)? Thomas Paine, in particular, was unleashed in his comments, offending just about everyone of the times.
And, note this – also written during the Age of Revolution – from today’s FFF Email Update (by the way, Chamfort is correct in his observations, tone, and characterizations; offensive but correct):
I will say one thing, rhys, I do appreciate the wit. [;)]
I found you wesite and videos. I don’t know if I am an agorist, but I agree with many things you say. I just chafe at your method of encouragment that uses what seems like insults. I largely agree with your definition of freedom. Freedom is not the result of action, but the instigation of action - what Neitsche called the ‘will to power’. But I disagree with your contention that your life means nothing. If nothing else, your life constitutes a real impediment to unchecked State authority.
To ignore the rule of the State is to understand from whence flows sovereignty. Sovereignty does not come from the State. But you understand my point.
The reason I am motivated to post is because, for example, in your video ‘Agorist Mentality’ you want to call yourself ‘free’ and others chained not one minute before you talk about what sorts of resources and freedoms you must surrender to protect your agorist cell from State infiltration. This is exactly my point. You expend resources to protect yourself, therefore you are guilty of a performative contradiction. You taunt others for thier shackled reliance on Statists thoughts, yet you are shackled to Statist thoughts if only to defend yourself from them.
This indicates that you are too harsh in your criticism of others because it indicates that there is not an absolute or totalitarian position that can be realistically maintained. The fight to throw off the schackles of the State is one of degree not kind. For instance, I agree with your position that I may legitimately trade many things with other adults that the State attempts to prohibit. I don’t believe that all State decrees carry the force of law, and so I subvert some of them on occasion. But, I am not so irrational as to believe that the enforcement mechanisms of the State are without real consequence. As a result, I alter my behavior in order to increase my chances of escaping detection and punishment. This infringes my freedom, but I accept this and go about my business.
Anarchists may accept the State as wholly or partially legitimate. Your fight against the State, and the lengths of your resistance, are not necessarily indicative of your level of radicalism, which you seem to tout as a badge of honor. Some of the most hard-core anarchists pay taxes, own property, and break no laws. They accept the State for what it is - a ‘territorial monopoly of taxation and jurisdiction’. They seem normal until you learn that they have gold deposited in foreign banks and hidden deposits of transportation, fuel, and ammo on small pieces of property scattered across the US.
My point - it’s not nice to call names - even when addressing Statists. After all, Statists are only a few realizations away from being anarchists.