Blame the farmer!
firstoftwins
"Dutch" <n...@email.com> wrote in message
news:MOX98.13881$A44.7...@news2.calgary.shaw.ca...
> "firstoftwins" <firsto...@hotmail.com> wrote
> > "Dutch" <n...@email.com> wrote in message
> > > "firstoftwins" <firsto...@hotmail.com> wrote
> > > [..]
> > > > > > If these animals are being killed, then it would be wise
> > > > > > to focus on who's actually killing them. Don't you agree?
> > > > >
> > > > > That depends on what one is doing. I am tracing the whole
> > > > > process, so I am naturally interested in what motivates the
> > > > > farmer, which it turns out is your hunger.
> > > > >
> > > > Money is what motivates the farmer. Do you think he would
> > > > give up his wares without payment? My hunger doesn't drive
> > > > him.
> > >
> > > It drives you to pay the farmer money, which allows him to
> > > continue killing.
> > >
> > So, he kills these animals for money. That's a fair assessment.
>
> Thank you, YOUR money, which you pay willingly
>
So, we've established and agreed upon the farmers
motivation for killing these animals; it's for money. He
doesn't have to farm to earn money so he is not forced
to do it. There is no compulsion from anyone that he
farms or any outside influence from me on the methods
he uses. His actions are entirely voluntary and under his
own control.
[The remainder of Aristotle's discussion is devoted to
spelling out the conditions under which it is appropriate
to hold a moral agent blameworthy or praiseworthy for
some particular action or trait. His general proposal is
that one is an apt candidate for praise or blame if and
only if the action and/or disposition is voluntary.
According to Aristotle, a voluntary action or trait has two
distinctive features. First, there is a control condition: the
action or trait must have its origin in the agent. That is, it
must be up to the agent whether to perform that action
or possess the trait --* it cannot be compelled externally.
* Second, Aristotle proposes an epistemic condition: the
agent must be aware of what it is she is doing or bringing
about.] *my emphasis*
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-responsibility/#2
According to Aristotle's concepts of moral responsibility,
the farmer is definitely our agent for blame for the CD he
causes.
Some say I must also share in this blame because of my
trade with him. I have looked high and low for concepts
of shared moral responsibility that allows me to share in
this blame but to no avail. In fact;
[ Moral responsibility is a personal, individual matter, and
we should never be expected to bear responsibility for the
wrongdoings of another (unless we have agreed to do so
voluntarily, as when we take responsibility for the actions
of our child, our subordinate, or our senile parent). Moral
responsibility is not something which can somehow spread
spontaneously through a whole group of people; it is
confined to each individual exactly in proportion to what the
individual has done or failed to do.]
http://www.calvin.edu/academic/philosophy/writings/crintro.htm
Blame the farmer!
--
What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason!
how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how
express and admirable! in action how like an angel!
in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the
world! the paragon of animals!
Hamlet
dh...@nomail.com
[...]
>According to Aristotle's concepts of moral responsibility,
>the farmer is definitely our agent for blame for the CD he
>causes.
>
>Some say I must also share in this blame because of my
>trade with him. I have looked high and low for concepts
>of shared moral responsibility that allows me to share in
>this blame but to no avail. In fact;
>
>[ Moral responsibility is a personal, individual matter, and
>we should never be expected to bear responsibility for the
>wrongdoings of another (unless we have agreed to do so
>voluntarily, as when we take responsibility for the actions
>of our child, our subordinate, or our senile parent). Moral
>responsibility is not something which can somehow spread
>spontaneously through a whole group of people; it is
>confined to each individual exactly in proportion to what the
>individual has done or failed to do.]
>http://www.calvin.edu/academic/philosophy/writings/crintro.htm
>
>Blame the farmer!
So meat eaters aren't responsible for the lives or deaths
of the animals we eat either.
firstoftwins
<dh...@nomail.com> wrote in message news:3c6975a1...@news.mindspring.com...
They aren't responsible for the CD caused by the farmer, but they
are very much responsible for the deaths of the animals they have
killed for them on their behalf.
rick etter
>
> <dh...@nomail.com> wrote in message news:3c6975a1...@news.mindspring.com...
> >
snippage...
> >
> > So meat eaters aren't responsible for the lives or deaths
> > of the animals we eat either.
>
> They aren't responsible for the CD caused by the farmer, but they
> are very much responsible for the deaths of the animals they have
> killed for them on their behalf.
--------------------------
Not at all, I don't pay him to kill the animals, I only pay him for a
nice juicy steak. Whatever he does to obtain that is none of my moral
responsibility.(the world according to 1stoftwits)
Dutch
Exactly right, and so are yours. Nobody is forcing you to patronize evil
farmers, you do that of your own volition. As a result, animals are
harmed, displaced and killed, you know it, and you carry on anyway.
[....]
> According to Aristotle's concepts of moral responsibility,
> the farmer is definitely our agent for blame for the CD he
> causes.
>
> Some say I must also share in this blame because of my
> trade with him. I have looked high and low for concepts
> of shared moral responsibility that allows me to share in
> this blame but to no avail. In fact;
You don't share the blame for HIS actions, your bear the responsibility
for your own, knowingly buying cd tainted foods.
>
> [ Moral responsibility is a personal, individual matter, and
> we should never be expected to bear responsibility for the
> wrongdoings of another (unless we have agreed to do so
> voluntarily, as when we take responsibility for the actions
> of our child, our subordinate, or our senile parent). Moral
> responsibility is not something which can somehow spread
> spontaneously through a whole group of people; it is
> confined to each individual exactly in proportion to what the
> individual has done or failed to do.]
> http://www.calvin.edu/academic/philosophy/writings/crintro.htm
>
> Blame the farmer!
Right, for what HE does. He is not responsible for YOUR actions,
knowingly buying the wares of killers.
firstoftwins
These animals are killed "as a result" of his actions, not mine.
There's the difference.
> [....]
> > According to Aristotle's concepts of moral responsibility,
> > the farmer is definitely our agent for blame for the CD he
> > causes.
> >
> > Some say I must also share in this blame because of my
> > trade with him. I have looked high and low for concepts
> > of shared moral responsibility that allows me to share in
> > this blame but to no avail. In fact;
>
> You don't share the blame for HIS actions, your bear the responsibility
> for your own, knowingly buying cd tainted foods.
>
down pedestrians while chasing car thieves. I'm not
responsible or blameworthy for paying them to do so.
I pay farmers through my taxes too, and I'm not
responsible or blameworthy for what they do to
provide me with food either. You're completely wrong
to conclude that paying into a system such as these two
implies any causal connection.
> >
> > [ Moral responsibility is a personal, individual matter, and
> > we should never be expected to bear responsibility for the
> > wrongdoings of another (unless we have agreed to do so
> > voluntarily, as when we take responsibility for the actions
> > of our child, our subordinate, or our senile parent). Moral
> > responsibility is not something which can somehow spread
> > spontaneously through a whole group of people; it is
> > confined to each individual exactly in proportion to what the
> > individual has done or failed to do.]
> > http://www.calvin.edu/academic/philosophy/writings/crintro.htm
> >
> > Blame the farmer!
>
> Right, for what HE does. He is not responsible for YOUR actions,
> knowingly buying the wares of killers.
>
not responsible for CD and he's not responsible for what
I spend my money on.
Dutch
> "Dutch" <n...@email.com> wrote in message
> > "firstoftwins" <firsto...@hotmail.com> wrote
> > > "Dutch" <n...@email.com> wrote in message
> > > So, we've established and agreed upon the farmers
> > > motivation for killing these animals; it's for money. He
> > > doesn't have to farm to earn money so he is not forced
> > > to do it. There is no compulsion from anyone that he
> > > farms or any outside influence from me on the methods
> > > he uses. His actions are entirely voluntary and under his
> > > own control.
> >
> > Exactly right, and so are yours. Nobody is forcing you to patronize evil
> > farmers, you do that of your own volition. As a result, animals are
> > harmed, displaced and killed, you know it, and you carry on anyway.
> >
> These animals aren't killed "as a result" of my payment to him.
> These animals are killed "as a result" of his actions, not mine.
> There's the difference.
It's like a domino toppling game Derek. The first domino doesn't touch the
last one, which may be a good distance away, yet toppling the first one
results in the last one falling. If I topple the first one, am I not
responsible for the last one falling, since I know they are all in a row?
> > [....]
> > > According to Aristotle's concepts of moral responsibility,
> > > the farmer is definitely our agent for blame for the CD he
> > > causes.
> > >
> > > Some say I must also share in this blame because of my
> > > trade with him. I have looked high and low for concepts
> > > of shared moral responsibility that allows me to share in
> > > this blame but to no avail. In fact;
> >
> > You don't share the blame for HIS actions, your bear the responsibility
> > for your own, knowingly buying cd tainted foods.
> >
> I knowingly pay my taxes to the ploice who I know run
> down pedestrians while chasing car thieves. I'm not
> responsible or blameworthy for paying them to do so.
Do you have any choice in that matter? No, taxes are extracted from your
paycheque without your consent. Do you protest against high-speed police
chases? I do.
> I pay farmers through my taxes too, and I'm not
> responsible or blameworthy for what they do to
> provide me with food either. You're completely wrong
> to conclude that paying into a system such as these two
> implies any causal connection.
Those were your examples, not mine. Your examples are not so clear cut
because taxes are not a matter of choice, they are imposed on us, and the
manner in which they are spent is a matter of democratic (and other)
processes in which you have some say, but in general you are far removed
from, and no reasonable person can connect you causally to every outcome.
Your aquisition of food is not controlled in this way, you have personal
free choice in the matter. Your personal free choice is what links you
directly to the outcome.
[..]
> > > Blame the farmer!
> >
> > Right, for what HE does. He is not responsible for YOUR actions,
> > knowingly buying the wares of killers.
> >
> Neither am I. We're only responsible for what we do. I'm
> not responsible for CD and he's not responsible for what
> I spend my money on.
Are you denying that you knowingly buy the wares of killers?
Jonathan Ball
> "Dutch" <n...@email.com> wrote in message
> news:0jxa8.3228$5R2.30...@news1.van.metronet.ca...
[...]
>>Exactly right, and so are yours. Nobody is forcing you to patronize evil
>>farmers, you do that of your own volition. As a result, animals are
>>harmed, displaced and killed, you know it, and you carry on anyway.
>>
>>
> These animals aren't killed "as a result" of my payment to him.
> These animals are killed "as a result" of his actions, not mine.
> There's the difference.
You're trying to split hairs here, play a dirty
lawyer's game; sleazily focusing attention on matters
of timing, because having attention focused on your
moral involvement is too painful. It's the whole
activity, from start to finish, that is - in your view
- morally tainted. You are a party, an ONGOING party,
to the transaction.
Go back to my stolen goods analogy - an excellent
analogy. If you are arrested for buying stolen
property, you might be able to escape prosecution,
once, by arguing you didn't know the goods were stolen,
and you didn't know the seller was a thief. But when
you repeatedly go back to the same thief and buy goods
from him, then you clearly share in the moral blame.
The only reason he keeps stealing is because you and
others keep buying. If no one, ever, bought the stolen
merchandise, then theft as a way of earning a living
would stop.
The importance of this for you is that you could
conceivably be forgiven for contributing to the deaths
of animals killed during vegetable farming back when
the thought hadn't occurred to you, and before it was
pointed out to you here. But, NOW YOU KNOW! And you
have known for a long time. If you *really* believed
that animals have or ought to have rights against being
killed for human convenience, you would be morally
compelled to take drastic, and I do mean drastic,
action to avoid being involved in their deaths in any
way. You do not do so.
You are in precisely the same moral situation as the
repeat buyer of stolen merchandise.
We do not "only" blame the thief. The buyer of his
stolen goods is correctly seen as morally, and legally,
culpable. That's why knowingly buying stolen property
is also a crime, a separate crime from the theft itself.
firstoftwins
"Jonathan Ball" <jon...@mindspring.NS.com> wrote in message
news:3C6ACC49...@mindspring.NS.com...
> firstoftwins wrote:
>
> > "Dutch" <n...@email.com> wrote in message
> > news:0jxa8.3228$5R2.30...@news1.van.metronet.ca...
> [...]
> >>Exactly right, and so are yours. Nobody is forcing you to patronize evil
> >>farmers, you do that of your own volition. As a result, animals are
> >>harmed, displaced and killed, you know it, and you carry on anyway.
> >>
> >>
> > These animals aren't killed "as a result" of my payment to him.
> > These animals are killed "as a result" of his actions, not mine.
> > There's the difference.
>
> You're trying to split hairs here, play a dirty
> lawyer's game; sleazily focusing attention on matters
> of timing, because having attention focused on your
> moral involvement is too painful. It's the whole
> activity, from start to finish, that is - in your view
> - morally tainted. You are a party, an ONGOING party,
> to the transaction.
>
process.
> Go back to my stolen goods analogy - an excellent
> analogy.
It's a flawed analogy because you are supposing the stolen
goods are the property of the crook who stole them.
> If you are arrested for buying stolen
> property, you might be able to escape prosecution,
> once, by arguing you didn't know the goods were stolen,
> and you didn't know the seller was a thief. But when
> you repeatedly go back to the same thief and buy goods
> from him, then you clearly share in the moral blame.
That would be because I would be paying for his illegal
endeavours, not the goods that he stole. The courts don't
like the people who wage the crooks.
> The only reason he keeps stealing is because you and
> others keep buying.
You can't buy something that is not for sale by its rightful
owner. If you buy a car stolen from my drive, I can get it
back for nothing because it wasn't sold to you. Your money
paid the crooks wages, nothing more.
> If no one, ever, bought the stolen
> merchandise, then theft as a way of earning a living
> would stop.
>
No one can buy stolen goods. You can pay someone for
doing something illegal easily enough though.
When I pay a farmer I pay for his goods, not his labours
in getting me those goods. When I pay a crook I pay for
his labours, not his goods because they're not his. Your
analogy is flawed because it is focusing on two separate
commodities.
> The importance of this for you is that you could
> conceivably be forgiven for contributing to the deaths
> of animals killed during vegetable farming back when
> the thought hadn't occurred to you, and before it was
> pointed out to you here. But, NOW YOU KNOW! And you
> have known for a long time. If you *really* believed
> that animals have or ought to have rights against being
> killed for human convenience, you would be morally
> compelled to take drastic, and I do mean drastic,
> action to avoid being involved in their deaths in any
> way. You do not do so.
>
Not so fast, Jon. What I do KNOW is that CD are caused
by the farmer to fatten his profits and are not a prerequisite
to producing food. He can produce my veg without causing
CD but voluntarily chooses to make a higher profit instead.
His voluntary actions make him morally responsible for the
deaths he causes. My trade with him has no moral implication
for me as I do not have any control over his actions.
> You are in precisely the same moral situation as the
> repeat buyer of stolen merchandise.
>
Not at all. Your analogy is a joke.
> We do not "only" blame the thief. The buyer of his
> stolen goods is correctly seen as morally, and legally,
> culpable. That's why knowingly buying stolen property
> is also a crime, a separate crime from the theft itself.
>
We blame the thief for stealing goods that don't belong to him.
We blame the recipient for paying the thief to commit the theft.
firstoftwins
> "firstoftwins" <firsto...@hotmail.com> wrote
> > "Dutch" <n...@email.com> wrote in message
> > > "firstoftwins" <firsto...@hotmail.com> wrote
> > > > "Dutch" <n...@email.com> wrote in message
> [..]
> > > > So, we've established and agreed upon the farmers
> > > > motivation for killing these animals; it's for money. He
> > > > doesn't have to farm to earn money so he is not forced
> > > > to do it. There is no compulsion from anyone that he
> > > > farms or any outside influence from me on the methods
> > > > he uses. His actions are entirely voluntary and under his
> > > > own control.
> > >
> > > Exactly right, and so are yours. Nobody is forcing you to patronize evil
> > > farmers, you do that of your own volition. As a result, animals are
> > > harmed, displaced and killed, you know it, and you carry on anyway.
> > >
> > These animals aren't killed "as a result" of my payment to him.
> > These animals are killed "as a result" of his actions, not mine.
> > There's the difference.
>
> It's like a domino toppling game Derek. The first domino doesn't touch the
> last one, which may be a good distance away, yet toppling the first one
> results in the last one falling. If I topple the first one, am I not
> responsible for the last one falling, since I know they are all in a row?
>
> > > [....]
> > > > According to Aristotle's concepts of moral responsibility,
> > > > the farmer is definitely our agent for blame for the CD he
> > > > causes.
> > > >
> > > > Some say I must also share in this blame because of my
> > > > trade with him. I have looked high and low for concepts
> > > > of shared moral responsibility that allows me to share in
> > > > this blame but to no avail. In fact;
> > >
> > > You don't share the blame for HIS actions, your bear the responsibility
> > > for your own, knowingly buying cd tainted foods.
> > >
> > I knowingly pay my taxes to the ploice who I know run
> > down pedestrians while chasing car thieves. I'm not
> > responsible or blameworthy for paying them to do so.
>
> Do you have any choice in that matter? No, taxes are extracted from your
> paycheque without your consent. Do you protest against high-speed police
> chases? I do.
>
in a system merely because I trade with that system.
> > I pay farmers through my taxes too, and I'm not
> > responsible or blameworthy for what they do to
> > provide me with food either. You're completely wrong
> > to conclude that paying into a system such as these two
> > implies any causal connection.
>
> Those were your examples, not mine. Your examples are not so clear cut
> because taxes are not a matter of choice, they are imposed on us, and the
> manner in which they are spent is a matter of democratic (and other)
> processes in which you have some say, but in general you are far removed
> from, and no reasonable person can connect you causally to every outcome.
> Your aquisition of food is not controlled in this way, you have personal
> free choice in the matter. Your personal free choice is what links you
> directly to the outcome.
>
No it doesn't. My choice doesn't affect the methods of farming.
The only person with a control on CD is the farmer who causes
them.
> [..]
> > > > Blame the farmer!
> > >
> > > Right, for what HE does. He is not responsible for YOUR actions,
> > > knowingly buying the wares of killers.
> > >
> > Neither am I. We're only responsible for what we do. I'm
> > not responsible for CD and he's not responsible for what
> > I spend my money on.
>
> Are you denying that you knowingly buy the wares of killers?
>
No.
Jonathan Ball
> "Jonathan Ball" <jon...@mindspring.NS.com> wrote in message
> news:3C6ACC49...@mindspring.NS.com...
>>>>Exactly right, and so are yours. Nobody is forcing you to patronize evil
>>>>farmers, you do that of your own volition. As a result, animals are
>>>>harmed, displaced and killed, you know it, and you carry on anyway.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>These animals aren't killed "as a result" of my payment to him.
>>>These animals are killed "as a result" of his actions, not mine.
>>>There's the difference.
>>>
>>You're trying to split hairs here, play a dirty
>>lawyer's game; sleazily focusing attention on matters
>>of timing, because having attention focused on your
>>moral involvement is too painful. It's the whole
>>activity, from start to finish, that is - in your view
>>- morally tainted. You are a party, an ONGOING party,
>>to the transaction.
>>
>>
> I have no moral involvement at any stage of the ongoing
> process.
You can deny it all you want, but it's quite clear you
do. You have an ongoing relationship with "the
market", and you know what goes on. If there is any
moral stain to *the transaction* you share in it.
>
>
>>Go back to my stolen goods analogy - an excellent
>>analogy.
>>
>
> It's a flawed analogy because you are supposing the stolen
> goods are the property of the crook who stole them.
No, I'm not. I'm supposing the buyer knows that they
are stolen. But the buyer isn't going to get them from
the thief unless he pays the thief for them.
They're not the thief's rightful property to sell, *and
the buyer knows it*. But he pays him anyway, because
if he didn't, he'd have to pay more money to buy them
from someone who does rightfully own them. Stolen
goods are always sold at a discount from their legal price.
The analogy fits like a glove. In your view, the
farmer has "stolen" the lives of the animals he has
killed, and the theft is INEXTRICABLY bound up in the
merchandise he sells you.
>
>
>>If you are arrested for buying stolen
>>property, you might be able to escape prosecution,
>>once, by arguing you didn't know the goods were stolen,
>>and you didn't know the seller was a thief. But when
>>you repeatedly go back to the same thief and buy goods
>>from him, then you clearly share in the moral blame.
>>
>
> That would be because I would be paying for his illegal
> endeavours, not the goods that he stole. The courts don't
> like the people who wage the crooks.
No, you're paying for the goods. No money, no goods,
as far as the buyer is concerned.
>
>
>>The only reason he keeps stealing is because you and
>>others keep buying.
>>
>
> You can't buy something that is not for sale by its rightful
> owner.
Of course you can, you idiot. As far as the
transaction between you and the thief goes, he "owns"
the goods: he has them, and he's not giving them to
you unless you pay him for them. You're not paying him
for his criminal efforts; you're paying for the goods.
You won't give him the money UNLESS he gives you the
goods.
You've lost, Derek.
> If you buy a car stolen from my drive, I can get it
> back for nothing because it wasn't sold to you. Your money
> paid the crooks wages, nothing more.
You can get it back for nothing because the transaction
between the crook and the buyer was queered. In
effect, the thief has now stolen from the buyer.
But if the goods are never recovered, the buyer enjoys
them until they are discarded or he in turn sells them.
>
>
>>If no one, ever, bought the stolen
>>merchandise, then theft as a way of earning a living
>>would stop.
>>
>>
> No one can buy stolen goods.
You're trying, unsuccessfully, to redefine your way out
of a problem. It doesn't work.
Of course you can "buy" the goods. The illegality of
the transaction doesn't change the essence of it: that
one person has goods in his possession, the other has
money, and they trade them. That is a purchase, any
way you look at it.
[snip remaining sophism about stolen property]
I'm not arguing this with you any more, Derek. You've
lost. You cannot *legally* buy stolen merchandise, but
you *can* buy it. And people do, knowingly. It is
their knowledge of the provenance of the goods that
gets them in trouble; it's what makes their
participation in the purchase a separate crime from the
theft itself.
>
>>The importance of this for you is that you could
>>conceivably be forgiven for contributing to the deaths
>>of animals killed during vegetable farming back when
>>the thought hadn't occurred to you, and before it was
>>pointed out to you here. But, NOW YOU KNOW! And you
>>have known for a long time. If you *really* believed
>>that animals have or ought to have rights against being
>>killed for human convenience, you would be morally
>>compelled to take drastic, and I do mean drastic,
>>action to avoid being involved in their deaths in any
>>way. You do not do so.
>>
>>
> Not so fast, Jon. What I do KNOW is that CD are caused
> by the farmer to fatten his profits
No, not to "fatten" his profits. It's just the current
way of farming.
> and are not a prerequisite
> to producing food.
They are unavoidable if he is going to farm *and*
provide you your food cheaply. It would be enormously,
probably prohibitively, expensive to change farming
methodology so that animal deaths and injury got down
to the levels at which human death and injury occur in
industry.
You are unwilling to pay that much for food.
> He can produce my veg without causing
> CD but voluntarily chooses to make a higher profit instead.
Derek, you would be paying AT LEAST many hundreds of
times what you currently pay, if farmers all took steps
to reduce animal CDs down to the level at which human
industrial accidents occur. For one thing, simply the
cost of monitoring would put most farming operations
out of business.
You simply couldn't afford it.
> His voluntary actions make him morally responsible for the
> deaths he causes. My trade with him has no moral implication
> for me as I do not have any control over his actions.
You are buying stolen lives, Derek.
You've lost.
>
>
>>You are in precisely the same moral situation as the
>>repeat buyer of stolen merchandise.
>>
>>
> Not at all. Your analogy is a joke.
The analogy is superb. It fits you and your shitty,
sanctimonious moral stance like a glove.
>
>
>>We do not "only" blame the thief. The buyer of his
>>stolen goods is correctly seen as morally, and legally,
>>culpable. That's why knowingly buying stolen property
>>is also a crime, a separate crime from the theft itself.
>>
>>
> We blame the thief for stealing goods that don't belong to him.
> We blame the recipient for paying the thief to commit the theft.
He didn't pay the thief to commit the crime. He bought
the goods from the thief. He wants the goods, and he
knows they're stolen. But he doesn't simply steal them
from the thief. He gives the thief money for them.
If he pays the thief to commit the crime, that's a
separate offense still.
You've lost, Derek.
firstoftwins
> firstoftwins wrote:
>
> > "Jonathan Ball" <jon...@mindspring.NS.com> wrote in message
> > news:3C6ACC49...@mindspring.NS.com...
>
> >>>>Exactly right, and so are yours. Nobody is forcing you to patronize evil
> >>>>farmers, you do that of your own volition. As a result, animals are
> >>>>harmed, displaced and killed, you know it, and you carry on anyway.
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>These animals aren't killed "as a result" of my payment to him.
> >>>These animals are killed "as a result" of his actions, not mine.
> >>>There's the difference.
> >>>
> >>You're trying to split hairs here, play a dirty
> >>lawyer's game; sleazily focusing attention on matters
> >>of timing, because having attention focused on your
> >>moral involvement is too painful. It's the whole
> >>activity, from start to finish, that is - in your view
> >>- morally tainted. You are a party, an ONGOING party,
> >>to the transaction.
> >>
> >>
> > I have no moral involvement at any stage of the ongoing
> > process.
>
> You can deny it all you want, but it's quite clear you
> do.
Only according to your obvious ignorance on the concepts
of moral responsibility.
> You have an ongoing relationship with "the
> market", and you know what goes on. If there is any
> moral stain to *the transaction* you share in it.
>
No I don't. Moral responsibility isn't your strong point in
the discussions here. You need to study the subject before
making any silly uneducated statements like that.
> >
> >>Go back to my stolen goods analogy - an excellent
> >>analogy.
> >>
> >
> > It's a flawed analogy because you are supposing the stolen
> > goods are the property of the crook who stole them.
>
> No, I'm not. I'm supposing the buyer knows that they
> are stolen. But the buyer isn't going to get them from
> the thief unless he pays the thief for them.
>
He doesn't pay for *them.* How can a buyer buy something
that isn't for sale? He pays the crook for his risk in nicking
*them.*
> They're not the thief's rightful property to sell, *and
> the buyer knows it*. But he pays him anyway, because
> if he didn't, he'd have to pay more money to buy them
> from someone who does rightfully own them. Stolen
> goods are always sold at a discount from their legal price.
>
Stolen goods aren't sold. They are passed to his employer for
"what it's werf." You try telling the real owner you bought them
and he'll quickly tell you they were never for sale. That's why
your er analogy stinks like a tramps crotch.
> The analogy fits like a glove.
It stinks.
> In your view, the
> farmer has "stolen" the lives of the animals he has
> killed, and the theft is INEXTRICABLY bound up in the
> merchandise he sells you.
>
He hasn't stolen the lives because they weren't for sale.
> >
> >>If you are arrested for buying stolen
> >>property, you might be able to escape prosecution,
> >>once, by arguing you didn't know the goods were stolen,
> >>and you didn't know the seller was a thief. But when
> >>you repeatedly go back to the same thief and buy goods
> >>from him, then you clearly share in the moral blame.
> >>
> >
> > That would be because I would be paying for his illegal
> > endeavours, not the goods that he stole. The courts don't
> > like the people who wage the crooks.
>
> No, you're paying for the goods. No money, no goods,
> as far as the buyer is concerned.
>
That's true. I only pay for the goods. Thanks for coming round
to my way of thinking, at last.
> >
> >>The only reason he keeps stealing is because you and
> >>others keep buying.
> >>
> >
> > You can't buy something that is not for sale by its rightful
> > owner.
>
> Of course you can, you idiot. As far as the
> transaction between you and the thief goes, he "owns"
> the goods: he has them, and he's not giving them to
> you unless you pay him for them. You're not paying him
> for his criminal efforts; you're paying for the goods.
> You won't give him the money UNLESS he gives you the
> goods.
>
Wrong. As far as the transaction goes, he doesn't own the
goods and I'll pay for the risk he took in getting them. Just
because these goods are in his possesion doesn't mean he
"owns" them. If I want them bad enough I'll simply take
them from him by force and he'll have no legal right for
them to be returned to him.
> You've lost, Derek.
>
I'm gaining speed and you know it, Jon. You're scared stiff.
> > If you buy a car stolen from my drive, I can get it
> > back for nothing because it wasn't sold to you. Your money
> > paid the crooks wages, nothing more.
>
> You can get it back for nothing because the transaction
> between the crook and the buyer was queered. In
> effect, the thief has now stolen from the buyer.
>
A very good point! BUT. If the thief "sells" to an unwary
buyer then he has indeed stolen his money too, which is
why the courts are lenient on this victim. However if the
"buyer" learns the goods were stolen, the transaction can
and often is re-examined by the "buyer" and a new price
is settled to cover the crooks wages because the goods
are not part of the transaction anymore. Nice try though.
> But if the goods are never recovered, the buyer enjoys
> them until they are discarded or he in turn sells them.
>
He cannot sell what does not belong to him. He can only
pass them on at a considerably lower price because the
goods themselves are worthless.
> >
> >>If no one, ever, bought the stolen
> >>merchandise, then theft as a way of earning a living
> >>would stop.
> >>
> >>
> > No one can buy stolen goods.
>
> You're trying, unsuccessfully, to redefine your way out
> of a problem. It doesn't work.
>
There is no problem.
> Of course you can "buy" the goods.
No you can't. You're talking like a ciminal yourself now; a
person without ethics or in a position to offer moral teaching.
> The illegality of
> the transaction doesn't change the essence of it: that
> one person has goods in his possession, the other has
> money, and they trade them. That is a purchase, any
> way you look at it.
>
Wrong. An illegal transaction has a completely different
essence to it. The only purchase from such a transaction
is in the form of a wage to the crook.
> [snip remaining sophism about stolen property]
>
>
> I'm not arguing this with you any more, Derek.
Thanks for the easy win, Jon. Hah! I've not even got my
second wind yet. What a lightweight you are.
> You've
> lost.
I've just started. You haven't the stamina for this sort of
thing anymore, Jon. Don't make me bully you anymore.
> You cannot *legally* buy stolen merchandise, but
> you *can* buy it.
No you can't. You can hire a thief for his labour and pay
for his derring do, but you can't buy something that
doesen't belong to him. tch tch tch
> And people do, knowingly. It is
> their knowledge of the provenance of the goods that
> gets them in trouble; it's what makes their
> participation in the purchase a separate crime from the
> theft itself.
>
It's their knowledge of the risks involved that sets the wage
payable to the crook, not the value of what he stole.
> >
> >>The importance of this for you is that you could
> >>conceivably be forgiven for contributing to the deaths
> >>of animals killed during vegetable farming back when
> >>the thought hadn't occurred to you, and before it was
> >>pointed out to you here. But, NOW YOU KNOW! And you
> >>have known for a long time. If you *really* believed
> >>that animals have or ought to have rights against being
> >>killed for human convenience, you would be morally
> >>compelled to take drastic, and I do mean drastic,
> >>action to avoid being involved in their deaths in any
> >>way. You do not do so.
> >>
> >>
> > Not so fast, Jon. What I do KNOW is that CD are caused
> > by the farmer to fatten his profits
>
> No, not to "fatten" his profits. It's just the current
> way of farming.
>
If he didn't kill the vermin they will eat into his profits.
> > and are not a prerequisite
> > to producing food.
>
> They are unavoidable if he is going to farm *and*
> provide you your food cheaply.
So it is all down to his profits after all. You're not being
very consistant here, Jon.
> It would be enormously,
> probably prohibitively, expensive to change farming
> methodology so that animal deaths and injury got down
> to the levels at which human death and injury occur in
> industry.
>
So what?
> You are unwilling to pay that much for food.
>
Irrelevant.
> > He can produce my veg without causing
> > CD but voluntarily chooses to make a higher profit instead.
>
> Derek, you would be paying AT LEAST many hundreds of
> times what you currently pay, if farmers all took steps
> to reduce animal CDs down to the level at which human
> industrial accidents occur. For one thing, simply the
> cost of monitoring would put most farming operations
> out of business.
>
> You simply couldn't afford it.
>
Irrelevant. The cost of his food has no moral importance.
>
> > His voluntary actions make him morally responsible for the
> > deaths he causes. My trade with him has no moral implication
> > for me as I do not have any control over his actions.
>
> You are buying stolen lives, Derek.
>
Those lives are not for sale. Only his food is. The lives
he takes are only morally significant to him and have no
moral importance to me whatsoever. What is the moral
importance in CD to me, fuckwit?
> You've lost.
>
I won a long time ago.
> >
> >>You are in precisely the same moral situation as the
> >>repeat buyer of stolen merchandise.
> >>
> >>
> > Not at all. Your analogy is a joke.
>
> The analogy is superb. It fits you and your shitty,
> sanctimonious moral stance like a glove.
>
I have no moral obligation for the farmers CD. I have no control
over his actions or traits and am completely seperate from them.
> >
> >>We do not "only" blame the thief. The buyer of his
> >>stolen goods is correctly seen as morally, and legally,
> >>culpable. That's why knowingly buying stolen property
> >>is also a crime, a separate crime from the theft itself.
> >>
> >>
> > We blame the thief for stealing goods that don't belong to him.
> > We blame the recipient for paying the thief to commit the theft.
>
> He didn't pay the thief to commit the crime.
Yes he did. He couldn't be paying him for anything else.
> He bought
> the goods from the thief.
He can't buy those goods because the thief doesn't own them.
> He wants the goods, and he
> knows they're stolen. But he doesn't simply steal them
> from the thief. He gives the thief money for them.
>
Wrong. He pays the thief for nicking them.
> If he pays the thief to commit the crime, that's a
> separate offense still.
>
Which is what I've been saying all along.
> You've lost, Derek.
>
Throw again, fuckwit.
Dutch
Have you never seen domino toppling on the tube? You tip the first one over
causing thousands of others to fall. You are tipping the first domino when
you buy food.
> > > > [....]
> > > > > According to Aristotle's concepts of moral responsibility,
> > > > > the farmer is definitely our agent for blame for the CD he
> > > > > causes.
> > > > >
> > > > > Some say I must also share in this blame because of my
> > > > > trade with him. I have looked high and low for concepts
> > > > > of shared moral responsibility that allows me to share in
> > > > > this blame but to no avail. In fact;
> > > >
> > > > You don't share the blame for HIS actions, your bear the
responsibility
> > > > for your own, knowingly buying cd tainted foods.
> > > >
> > > I knowingly pay my taxes to the ploice who I know run
> > > down pedestrians while chasing car thieves. I'm not
> > > responsible or blameworthy for paying them to do so.
> >
> > Do you have any choice in that matter? No, taxes are extracted from your
> > paycheque without your consent. Do you protest against high-speed police
> > chases? I do.
> >
> Irrelevant. The point is; I'm not responsible for what happens
> in a system merely because I trade with that system.
That is true, such a generalization would be incorrect, but that's not what
I said. If you buy goods which you know are stolen you become an accessory
after the fact to the crime of theft. You again are reduced to using
strawmen arguments. Thank you for constantly reinforcing my knowledge that I
am on the better side of this argument.
>
> > > I pay farmers through my taxes too, and I'm not
> > > responsible or blameworthy for what they do to
> > > provide me with food either. You're completely wrong
> > > to conclude that paying into a system such as these two
> > > implies any causal connection.
> >
> > Those were your examples, not mine. Your examples are not so clear cut
> > because taxes are not a matter of choice, they are imposed on us, and
the
> > manner in which they are spent is a matter of democratic (and other)
> > processes in which you have some say, but in general you are far removed
> > from, and no reasonable person can connect you causally to every
outcome.
> > Your aquisition of food is not controlled in this way, you have personal
> > free choice in the matter. Your personal free choice is what links you
> > directly to the outcome.
> >
> No it doesn't. My choice doesn't affect the methods of farming.
> The only person with a control on CD is the farmer who causes
> them.
But you control him.
> > [..]
> > > > > Blame the farmer!
> > > >
> > > > Right, for what HE does. He is not responsible for YOUR actions,
> > > > knowingly buying the wares of killers.
> > > >
> > > Neither am I. We're only responsible for what we do. I'm
> > > not responsible for CD and he's not responsible for what
> > > I spend my money on.
> >
> > Are you denying that you knowingly buy the wares of killers?
> >
> No.
That makes you an accessory after the fact to murder under the law.
Dutch
> "Jonathan Ball" <jon...@mindspring.NS.com> wrote in message
> > firstoftwins wrote:
> > > "Jonathan Ball" <jon...@mindspring.NS.com> wrote
[..]
> > >>Go back to my stolen goods analogy - an excellent
> > >>analogy.
> > > It's a flawed analogy because you are supposing the stolen
> > > goods are the property of the crook who stole them.
No it doesn't, it only assumes he has possession of them and is willing to
sell them.
> > No, I'm not. I'm supposing the buyer knows that they
> > are stolen. But the buyer isn't going to get them from
> > the thief unless he pays the thief for them.
> >
> He doesn't pay for *them.* How can a buyer buy something
> that isn't for sale? He pays the crook for his risk in nicking
> *them.*
If you look at it that way, by analogy you are even closer to the farmer's
murderous acts. At any rate, you are wrong, to buy means to give currency in
exchange for some goods, ownership does not come into it like you are saying
at all. The term buy is used in reference to stolen goods as well. As usual
you are making a fool of yourself.
Jonathan Ball
[crap]
We'll blame you, Derek. You are in the same moral
stance as the buyer of stolen goods. You can try
sleazily to redefine terms all you want; that won't
work with plain speakers and competent readers.
You share the moral responsibility for the animal CDs
that occur in the course of the production of the food
you eat. There is simply no question. Your flimsy
protests are those of the convicted criminal.
Your attempt to explain away the purchase of stolen
goods is laughable in the extreme. Of course you can
buy stolen goods. A purchase isn't *defined* as being
only a legal transaction; not in the law, not in
economics, not in logic. That's your own juvenile
belief, and it's flatly wrong. A purchase is simply a
voluntary exchange of value between two consenting
parties. In this case, it's between you and the thief
(unless you're the thief, in which case it's between
you and someone else; that can't be ruled out.) It
doesn't matter if one of the parties to the transaction
has come by his thing of value by illegal means; in
terms of the two transactors, it's a purchase or a
sale, no question about it.
It's simply bizarre that you think you're paying the
thief for his thievery, rather than the goods. If you
have bought, say, a stolen CD player, what you took
home with you was a CD player, not some abstraction
called "theft". You did not pay the thief for his
thievery.
In fact, the value of the thievery, to you, lies in
what you did NOT pay: the differential between what
you paid the thief for the ghetto blaster, and what you
would have had to pay for it in the high street.
Thieves sell at a discount compared to the high street;
that's why you buy from them.
Just like why you buy from conventional farmers.
Compared to what you would have to pay if they
undertook to reduce animal CD and injury to a level
comparable to what is found in human industry, you save
a fortune. But this comes at the cost of animal lives,
lives you claim to believe should not be taken from
them. These lives are inseparable from the
merchandise, once they've been taken. The difference
is, you goddamned thief at heart, that you know you'll
never have to give them back, even though they weren't
the farmer's to sell to you.
And you won't lift a finger to try to reduce the toll.
You are just as interested in fattening *your*
profits, in the form of ease and cheap food, as you
unjustly accuse the farmer of being.
I don't have any expectation of reducing you to a
quivering, sobbing heap, like ~~ratsleaze's~~ annual,
but understand, thief, that everyone here, including
those on your Side, sees you for what you are: not
only a thief, but sociopath who blames his thievery on
others.
firstoftwins
> "firstoftwins" <firsto...@hotmail.com> wrote
> > "Jonathan Ball" <jon...@mindspring.NS.com> wrote in message
> > > firstoftwins wrote:
> > > > "Jonathan Ball" <jon...@mindspring.NS.com> wrote
>
> [..]
>
> > > >>Go back to my stolen goods analogy - an excellent
> > > >>analogy.
>
> > > > It's a flawed analogy because you are supposing the stolen
> > > > goods are the property of the crook who stole them.
>
> No it doesn't, it only assumes he has possession of them and is willing to
> sell them.
>
to you.
> > > No, I'm not. I'm supposing the buyer knows that they
> > > are stolen. But the buyer isn't going to get them from
> > > the thief unless he pays the thief for them.
> > >
> > He doesn't pay for *them.* How can a buyer buy something
> > that isn't for sale? He pays the crook for his risk in nicking
> > *them.*
>
> If you look at it that way, by analogy you are even closer to the farmer's
> murderous acts.
Not at all. You're just supposing without giving any reason for
me any reasons to accept that claim.
> At any rate, you are wrong, to buy means to give currency in
> exchange for some goods, ownership does not come into it like you are saying
> at all. The term buy is used in reference to stolen goods as well. As usual
> you are making a fool of yourself.
>
I'm merely pointing out to you where the flaw is in the analogy.
You can't liken a farmer to a car thief in the hope of gaining
acceptance to your argument that I am responsible for CD.
You and Jon are using an analogy that just doesn't work.
firstoftwins
> firstoftwins wrote:
>
> [crap]
>
> We'll blame you, Derek.
I thought you said it wasn't a matter of blame?
[From: Jonathan Ball (jon...@earthlink.NS.net)
Subject: Re: The meaning of Animal Rights.
Newsgroups: alt.animals.ethics.vegetarian, free.uk.politics.animal-rights,
talk.politics.animals, uk.politics.animals
Date: 2001-08-09 12:08:25 PST
The point is not to "blame" vegans. It's to show that they can't blame
others while remaining free of blame themselves.]
You're not very consistent lately.
> You are in the same moral
> stance as the buyer of stolen goods.
I've just proved you wrong on that point.
> You can try
> sleazily to redefine terms all you want; that won't
> work with plain speakers and competent readers.
>
What if your analogy was credible? How would equating CD with
theft suggest I am responsible for CD? You've spent so long trying
to convince me the two are inseparable that you've lost the plot
altogether.
> You share the moral responsibility for the animal CDs
> that occur in the course of the production of the food
> you eat. There is simply no question. Your flimsy
> protests are those of the convicted criminal.
>
You're the one talking like a criminal if you think you can
"buy" stolen goods. You walked right into that one.
[Some philosophers, such as H.D. Lewis, find the whole
idea of collective responsibility utterly repugnant and
oppose all efforts to portray it as philosophically respectable.
To Lewis's way of thinking it is, in all of its manifestations,
something barbaric and out of place in the thinking of
people in the twentieth century. Thus, some find an extreme
individualist approach to their liking, and they will regard as
utter nonsense claims typified by the correspondent for
National Public Radio to the effect that vast groups of people
can be collectively responsible for various problems in the
world.]
http://www.calvin.edu/academic/philosophy/writings/crintro.htm
[ Moral responsibility is a personal, individual matter, and
we should never be expected to bear responsibility for the
wrongdoings of another (unless we have agreed to do so
voluntarily, as when we take responsibility for the actions
of our child, our subordinate, or our senile parent). Moral
responsibility is not something which can somehow spread
spontaneously through a whole group of people; it is
confined to each individual exactly in proportion to what the
individual has done or failed to do.]
http://www.calvin.edu/academic/philosophy/writings/crintro.htm
Why should I believe in your concepts of shared moral
responsibility when the concepts have already been
addressed in a better form elsewhere? You haven't got
a clue what you're talking about.
I've been very thorough in producing plenty of evidence to
show shared moral responsibility doesn't exist and all you've
brought is a pathetic analogy of a car thief and a farmer.
You're an idiot.
> Your attempt to explain away the purchase of stolen
> goods is laughable in the extreme. Of course you can
> buy stolen goods.
No you can't.
[Bull dykes usual effort to equate a car thief to a farmer]
> I don't have any expectation of reducing you to a
> quivering, sobbing heap, like ~~ratsleaze's~~ annual,
> but understand, thief, that everyone here, including
> those on your Side, sees you for what you are: not
> only a thief, but sociopath who blames his thievery on
> others.
>
I'm always willing to listen to anyone's view on why I should
hold myself responsible for CD, but their tacit approval should
tell you you're on your own on this one. But, if there are posters
of my own side who could offer something from their own
perspective to show me where I'm mistaken, no one need think
they would be arguing against their own side in putting me right,
and they could certainly count on my best behaviour.
firstoftwins
No.
> You tip the first one over
> causing thousands of others to fall.
Other what? What are you talking about.? You're not
talking sense.
> You are tipping the first domino when
> you buy food.
>
Are you trying to form an analogy with the domino principle?
[..]
> > > Do you have any choice in that matter? No, taxes are extracted from your
> > > paycheque without your consent. Do you protest against high-speed police
> > > chases? I do.
> > >
> > Irrelevant. The point is; I'm not responsible for what happens
> > in a system merely because I trade with that system.
>
> That is true, such a generalization would be incorrect, but that's not what
> I said. If you buy goods which you know are stolen you become an accessory
> after the fact to the crime of theft. You again are reduced to using
> strawmen arguments. Thank you for constantly reinforcing my knowledge that I
> am on the better side of this argument.
>
Were you in doubt at some recent time then, Dutch?
> >
[..]
> > No it doesn't. My choice doesn't affect the methods of farming.
> > The only person with a control on CD is the farmer who causes
> > them.
>
> But you control him.
>
A candidate for blame cannot be excused because of a notional
external compulsion. Aristotle backs me up on this, which is nice.
[..]
> > > Are you denying that you knowingly buy the wares of killers?
> > >
> > No.
>
> That makes you an accessory after the fact to murder under the law.
>
You'll have to explain how, because I'm not about to take your
word over those of Aristotle.
Jonathan Ball
> "Jonathan Ball" <jon...@mindspring.NS.com> wrote in message
> news:3C6B6807...@mindspring.NS.com...
>
>>firstoftwins wrote:
>>
>>[crap]
>>
>>We'll blame you, Derek.
>>
>
> I thought you said it wasn't a matter of blame?
It isn't, really. But you keep coming back to the
word. It'll serve as a synonym for "hold responsible".
>
>>You are in the same moral
>>stance as the buyer of stolen goods.
>>
>
> I've just proved you wrong on that point.
No, you definitely have not.
>
>
>>You can try
>>sleazily to redefine terms all you want; that won't
>>work with plain speakers and competent readers.
>>
>>
> What if your analogy was credible? How would equating CD with
> theft suggest I am responsible for CD? You've spent so long trying
> to convince me the two are inseparable that you've lost the plot
> altogether.
I haven't lost it at all. You have. You have a short
attention span.
You are responsible for animal CDs, as the buyer of
stolen property is responsible for the theft of the
property, in the sense that if you don't buy, the
original perpetrator has to stop his criminal behavior.
>
>
>>You share the moral responsibility for the animal CDs
>>that occur in the course of the production of the food
>>you eat. There is simply no question. Your flimsy
>>protests are those of the convicted criminal.
>>
>>
> You're the one talking like a criminal if you think you can
> "buy" stolen goods. You walked right into that one.
You can buy them, Derek. The fact of "purchase" is not
negated by the fact that the things of value changing
hands might be ill-gotten. The thief has goods that
you want; you have money that he wants. You exchange
them, each considering yourself better off after having
made the exchange.
That's all a purchase is. You can't introduce some
notion of the provenance of the goods and/or money, and
say that if one or both are ill-gotten, then it wasn't
"really" a purchase.
It is a purchase; a buy, if you will. It is an illicit
transaction, but a transaction all the same.
>
> [Some philosophers, such as H.D. Lewis, find the whole
> idea of collective responsibility utterly repugnant and
> oppose all efforts to portray it as philosophically respectable.
And some others don't.
> To Lewis's way of thinking it is, in all of its manifestations,
> something barbaric and out of place in the thinking of
> people in the twentieth century. Thus, some find an extreme
> individualist approach to their liking, and they will regard as
> utter nonsense claims typified by the correspondent for
> National Public Radio to the effect that vast groups of people
> can be collectively responsible for various problems in the
> world.]
> http://www.calvin.edu/academic/philosophy/writings/crintro.htm
>
> [ Moral responsibility is a personal, individual matter, and
> we should never be expected to bear responsibility for the
> wrongdoings of another (unless we have agreed to do so
> voluntarily, as when we take responsibility for the actions
> of our child, our subordinate, or our senile parent). Moral
> responsibility is not something which can somehow spread
> spontaneously through a whole group of people; it is
> confined to each individual exactly in proportion to what the
> individual has done or failed to do.]
> http://www.calvin.edu/academic/philosophy/writings/crintro.htm
>
>
> Why should I believe in your concepts of shared moral
> responsibility when the concepts have already been
> addressed in a better form elsewhere? You haven't got
> a clue what you're talking about.
I have an excellent clue. You don't. For example, you
don't understand the difference between collective
responsibility and shared responsibility. There is
one, but you don't know what it is.
>
> I've been very thorough in producing plenty of evidence to
> show shared moral responsibility doesn't exist
No, you haven't shown that it "doesn't exist". You
have shown a couple of citations, only one of which
named an actual philosopher, indicating they don't find
the concept useful.
> and all you've
> brought is a pathetic analogy of a car thief and a farmer.
> You're an idiot.
No, you don't even believe that. You know I'm actually
very smart; you even know I'm much smarter than you.
>
>
>
>>Your attempt to explain away the purchase of stolen
>>goods is laughable in the extreme. Of course you can
>>buy stolen goods.
>>
>
> No you can't.
Yes, you can. You "buy" something when you exchange
something of value for something else of value. The
legality of the exchange doesn't change it from
"buying" to "not buying".
Jonathan Ball
> "Dutch" <n...@email.com> wrote in message
> news:QZHa8.29829$A44.1...@news2.calgary.shaw.ca...
>
>>"firstoftwins" <firsto...@hotmail.com> wrote
>>
>>>"Jonathan Ball" <jon...@mindspring.NS.com> wrote in message
>>>
>>>>firstoftwins wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>"Jonathan Ball" <jon...@mindspring.NS.com> wrote
>>>>>
>>[..]
>>
>>
>>>>>>Go back to my stolen goods analogy - an excellent
>>>>>>analogy.
>>>>>>
>>>>>It's a flawed analogy because you are supposing the stolen
>>>>>goods are the property of the crook who stole them.
>>>>>
>>No it doesn't, it only assumes he has possession of them and is willing to
>>sell them.
>>
>>
> You are forgetting; you can't sell something that doesn't belong
> to you.
You are ignoring: you can indeed sell it; it isn't a
legal sale, but it is a sale. Things of value have
changed hands. That's all a sale is. You're trying to
redefine it to suit your sleazy,
responsibility-shirking purposes, and it won't work.
>
>
>>>>No, I'm not. I'm supposing the buyer knows that they
>>>>are stolen. But the buyer isn't going to get them from
>>>>the thief unless he pays the thief for them.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>He doesn't pay for *them.* How can a buyer buy something
>>>that isn't for sale? He pays the crook for his risk in nicking
>>>*them.*
No, he doesn't. You don't take the "risk" home with
you; you take home the merchandise. You are buying
merchandise, at a deep discount because it was stolen.
>>>
>>If you look at it that way, by analogy you are even closer to the farmer's
>>murderous acts.
>>
>
> Not at all. You're just supposing without giving any reason for
> me any reasons to accept that claim.
>
>
>>At any rate, you are wrong, to buy means to give currency in
>>exchange for some goods, ownership does not come into it like you are saying
>>at all. The term buy is used in reference to stolen goods as well. As usual
>>you are making a fool of yourself.
>>
>>
> I'm merely pointing out to you where the flaw is in the analogy.
> You can't liken a farmer to a car thief in the hope of gaining
> acceptance to your argument that I am responsible for CD.
> You and Jon are using an analogy that just doesn't work.
It works very well, for honest people who don't butcher
the English language in order to try to win a
rhetorical point.
You can buy stolen goods, Derek; just not legally.
Jonathan Ball
[...]
> [Some philosophers, such as H.D. Lewis, find the whole
> idea of collective responsibility utterly repugnant and
> oppose all efforts to portray it as philosophically respectable.
> To Lewis's way of thinking it is, in all of its manifestations,
> something barbaric and out of place in the thinking of
> people in the twentieth century. Thus, some find an extreme
> individualist approach to their liking, and they will regard as
> utter nonsense claims typified by the correspondent for
> National Public Radio to the effect that vast groups of people
> can be collectively responsible for various problems in the
> world.]
> http://www.calvin.edu/academic/philosophy/writings/crintro.htm
You're pulling a ~~Slutweed~~ here, Derek. Why am I
not surprised?
You have quoted this material from Gregory Mellema very
much out of context. Dr. Mellema has written a book,
whose title is _Collective Responsibility_, in which he
is advocating IN FAVOR of a notion of collective
responsibility. But the passage you have cited from
his introduction is one in which, as an honest
academic, he points out that some of his professional
peers disagree with him.
You, of course, being as dishonest and foul as
~~venerealdiseaseweed~~, have tried to portray the
entire page as arguing against collective
responsibility. I would like to think you did this out
of incompetence and bad reading comprehension, but you
are too well known here.
Here's more from Dr. Mellema himself, from the same page:
The discussion in this book is mainly concerned with
the second of these senses of collective
responsibility, and to avoid confusion I will follow
the lead of most writers on this topic in not employing
the term at all to refer to the first of these senses.
Instead I employ the term "shared responsibility" to
refer to situations in which several individuals are
responsible for the same state of affairs. In an
earlier book I focused upon the topic of shared
responsibility (Mellema, 1988). In the present book, by
contrast, I focus upon the topic of collective
responsibility understood as the view that a collective
consisting of two or more moral agents can bear
responsibility for what happens. For the remainder of
this discussion I will speak of collective
responsibility strictly in reference to this view.
.
.
.
Recently the concept of moral taint has been introduced
into discussions of collective responsibility. Roughly,
the idea is that an agent can sometimes be tainted by
the wrongdoing of others with whom the agent is
significantly associated. One of the ideas which will
be developed in this book is that if moral taint
exists, then it can be regarded as corresponding to
still another level of involvement in harm.
Specifically, an agent who is tainted by the wrongdoing
of another person through the agent's association with
that person is involved in the events of the wrongdoing
to a lesser extent than an agent who belongs to a
collective which bears responsibility for this
wrongdoing or its effects. This means that in and of
itself the fact that an agent is tainted by evil is not
sufficient to warrant the judgment that the agent is a
member of a collective which is morally responsible for it.
.
.
.
Characterizing what it means for an individual to bear
moral responsibility can be an enormously complex
undertaking, and in the moral literature are many
lengthy and detailed discussions and debates on the
topic. Since this book deals with the group or
collective dimension of moral responsibility, I shall
not recount or comment upon these discussions and
debates. Instead, I will rely upon an account proposed
by Larry May which includes most of what is standardly
considered to be the key components of moral
responsibility (though, strictly speaking, it is not
intended to be a definition). Those who participate in
the details of the debates on moral responsibility may
find this account unsophisticated or simplistic, but
for the purposes of serving a discussion of the group
dimensions of moral responsibility I will, following
May's example, regard it as suitable.
May's characterization is as follows. A person is
morally responsible for a given harm or character
defect if the person's conduct played a significant
causal role in that harm or defect, the person's
conduct was blameworthy or it was morally faulty in
some other way, and the aspect of the act that was
faulty was also ***one of the aspects in virtue of
which it was a cause of the harm*** (May, 1992, p. 15).
Here the conduct or act in question might consist in
the person's omitting to act, for often a person comes
to bear moral responsibility for a harm by his or her
not doing anything. Understood this way, the central
components of the account are that harm results, it
results because of a person's conduct, and this conduct
is morally blameworthy or faulty. I will depart
slightly from May by allowing that in some cases a
person's contributing to harm may render the person
responsible for the harm, ***even if the contribution
is not strictly a causal contribution***. My reasons
for relaxing this requirement will be made clear in
subsequent portions of the discussion, and others have
likewise explained why in general relaxing this
requirement is advantageous (Ellin, 1981, p. 21).
[emphasis added via '***']
.
.
.
The view I defend states that a moral agent is a member
of a collective which bears moral responsibility for a
state of affairs only if the agent performs a
"qualifying act," an act which qualifies an agent for
membership in the collective [JB: like buying
groceries from farmers who kill defenseless animals].
Since a moral agent bears moral responsibility for
having performed this qualifying act, in some sense
collective moral responsibility can be said to
distribute to the moral responsibility of its
constitutive members.
==========================================================
You are morally blameworthy, Derek, if you feel that
killing the animals is wrong.
dh...@nomail.com
>firstoftwins wrote:
>>
>> <dh...@nomail.com> wrote in message news:3c6975a1...@news.mindspring.com...
>> >
>
>snippage...
>
>
>
>> >
>> > So meat eaters aren't responsible for the lives or deaths
>> > of the animals we eat either.
>>
>> They aren't responsible for the CD caused by the farmer, but they
>> are very much responsible for the deaths of the animals they have
>> killed for them on their behalf.
>--------------------------
>Not at all, I don't pay him to kill the animals, I only pay him for a
>nice juicy steak.
And in most cases the farmer doesn't kill the animals he
raises anyway, does he? If he did, it would spare the animals
having to experience the cruelties of loading on and off the
truck, and the journey to the slaughterhouse. IMO it would
really be better for the animals if they were killed right there
on the farm, but there are regulations which prevent that in
most cases where the meat will be sold to the public, aren't
there?
Jonathan Ball
Probably not. It's a matter of efficiency. Why should
every ranching operation incur the cost of setting up
an expensive slaughtering facility, when relatively few
of them can handle tens of thousands of cattle?
It's called the benefits of specialization. It's the
same reason we don't all do our own dry cleaning, nor
our own car repair, nor a whole range of services.
It's too expensive; specialists can do it cheaper.
Dutch
> "Dutch" <n...@email.com> wrote in message
> > "firstoftwins" <firsto...@hotmail.com> wrote
> > > "Dutch" <n...@email.com> wrote in message
> > > > [..]
>
> No.
forget the analogy then..
>
> > You tip the first one over
> > causing thousands of others to fall.
>
> Other what? What are you talking about.? You're not
> talking sense.
>
> > You are tipping the first domino when
> > you buy food.
> >
> Are you trying to form an analogy with the domino principle?
Yes
>
> [..]
> > > > Do you have any choice in that matter? No, taxes are extracted from
your
> > > > paycheque without your consent. Do you protest against high-speed
police
> > > > chases? I do.
> > > >
> > > Irrelevant. The point is; I'm not responsible for what happens
> > > in a system merely because I trade with that system.
> >
> > That is true, such a generalization would be incorrect, but that's not
what
> > I said. If you buy goods which you know are stolen you become an
accessory
> > after the fact to the crime of theft. You again are reduced to using
> > strawmen arguments. Thank you for constantly reinforcing my knowledge
that I
> > am on the better side of this argument.
> >
> Were you in doubt at some recent time then, Dutch?
Yes, a year or so ago. And my point is valid, you are an accessory.
[..]
> > > No it doesn't. My choice doesn't affect the methods of farming.
> > > The only person with a control on CD is the farmer who causes
> > > them.
> >
> > But you control him.
> >
> A candidate for blame cannot be excused because of a notional
> external compulsion. Aristotle backs me up on this, which is nice.
I'm not suggesting he be excused, I am telling you that your actions have
consequences for which you are responsible. You are deliberately
misconstruing my statements aren't you?
[..]
> > > > Are you denying that you knowingly buy the wares of killers?
> > > >
> > > No.
> >
> > That makes you an accessory after the fact to murder under the law.
> >
> You'll have to explain how, because I'm not about to take your
> word over those of Aristotle.
It's a basic legal principle, and Aristotle does not disagree with it.
knowledge+action=culpability. Your efforts are all about misquotation and
misinterpretation.
rick etter
> >
> A candidate for blame cannot be excused because of a notional
> external compulsion.
Exactly. You are the agent making your choices. Choices you know
violate your so-called 'ethics'.
> Aristotle backs me up on this, which is nice.
------------------------
Nope, he tells you you are to blame for the actions you take. You are
morally responsible for buying the death and suffering of animals
because that is the product you *choose* to buy. You could make other
choices, but since your 'ethics' are non-existent, you don't.
------------------------------
> [..]
> > > > Are you denying that you knowingly buy the wares of killers?
> > > >
> > > No.
> >
> > That makes you an accessory after the fact to murder under the law.
> >
> You'll have to explain how, because I'm not about to take your
> word over those of Aristotle.
=====================
Then read him again, this time for comprehension, not agenda.
firstoftwins
> firstoftwins wrote:
>
> > "Jonathan Ball" <jon...@mindspring.NS.com> wrote in message
> > news:3C6B6807...@mindspring.NS.com...
> >
> >>firstoftwins wrote:
> >
> > [Some philosophers, such as H.D. Lewis, find the whole
> > idea of collective responsibility utterly repugnant and
> > oppose all efforts to portray it as philosophically respectable.
>
> And some others don't.
>
responsibility is concerned. I'd rather go along with a real
philosophers account of it that your guesses.
agreeable to my own interpretation. You have made the claim
that there is a difference between the two, so in fairness the
onus is on you to present yours first.
> >
> > I've been very thorough in producing plenty of evidence to
> > show shared moral responsibility doesn't exist
>
> No, you haven't shown that it "doesn't exist". You
> have shown a couple of citations, only one of which
> named an actual philosopher, indicating they don't find
> the concept useful.
>
but that's what I've come to expect from you so I'm not surprised.
He "finds the whole idea of collective responsibility utterly
repugnant and oppose all efforts to portray it as philosophically
respectable."
> > and all you've
> > brought is a pathetic analogy of a car thief and a farmer.
> > You're an idiot.
>
> No, you don't even believe that. You know I'm actually
> very smart; you even know I'm much smarter than you.
>
Absolutely. I don't even doubt you could surpass me in my own
fields given half the time, but the issues raised here require very
little else than a common sense notion of what is right and wrong.
Even a child will confirm that harm and killing is wrong, and that
intuitive good in some of us is what you must persuade is nonsense
in order to keep treating animals like holocaust Jews. You won't
do it, no matter how smart you are.
firstoftwins
> firstoftwins wrote:
>
> [...]
> > [Some philosophers, such as H.D. Lewis, find the whole
> > idea of collective responsibility utterly repugnant and
> > oppose all efforts to portray it as philosophically respectable.
> > To Lewis's way of thinking it is, in all of its manifestations,
> > something barbaric and out of place in the thinking of
> > people in the twentieth century. Thus, some find an extreme
> > individualist approach to their liking, and they will regard as
> > utter nonsense claims typified by the correspondent for
> > National Public Radio to the effect that vast groups of people
> > can be collectively responsible for various problems in the
> > world.]
> > http://www.calvin.edu/academic/philosophy/writings/crintro.htm
>
> You're pulling a ~~Slutweed~~ here, Derek. Why am I
> not surprised?
>
> You have quoted this material from Gregory Mellema very
> much out of context. Dr. Mellema has written a book,
> whose title is _Collective Responsibility_, in which he
> is advocating IN FAVOR of a notion of collective
> responsibility. But the passage you have cited from
> his introduction is one in which, as an honest
> academic, he points out that some of his professional
> peers disagree with him.
>
You certainly weren't capable of finding any material FOR shared
moral responsibility yourself in the year you've been trying to
defeat me on the subject, so I thought I'd give you a fighting chance.
> You, of course, being as dishonest and foul as
> ~~venerealdiseaseweed~~, have tried to portray the
> entire page as arguing against collective
> responsibility. I would like to think you did this out
> of incompetence and bad reading comprehension, but you
> are too well known here.
>
I've behaved impeccably here by offering you material that
gives both views on shared moral responsibility with a link
to the page to examine yourself.
That holds very well for my claim. I'm not a member of a
collective responsible for CD. The collective responsible
would be a herd of farmers.
> .
> Characterizing what it means for an individual to bear
> moral responsibility can be an enormously complex
> undertaking, and in the moral literature are many
> lengthy and detailed discussions and debates on the
> topic. Since this book deals with the group or
> collective dimension of moral responsibility, I shall
> not recount or comment upon these discussions and
> debates. Instead, I will rely upon an account proposed
> by Larry May which includes most of what is standardly
> considered to be the key components of moral
> responsibility (though, strictly speaking, it is not
> intended to be a definition).
Noted!
> Those who participate in
> the details of the debates on moral responsibility may
> find this account unsophisticated or simplistic, but
> for the purposes of serving a discussion of the group
> dimensions of moral responsibility I will, following
> May's example, regard it as suitable.
>
> May's characterization is as follows. A person is
> morally responsible for a given harm or character
> defect if the person's conduct played a significant
> causal role in that harm or defect,
My conduct; buying a farmers goods, is not causal to CD.
> the person's
> conduct was blameworthy or it was morally faulty in
> some other way, and the aspect of the act that was
> faulty was also ***one of the aspects in virtue of
> which it was a cause of the harm*** (May, 1992, p. 15).
That would better fit the meat eaters directive that an animal
be killed on his behalf rather than my trade with a farmer that
isuues no such a directive.
> Here the conduct or act in question might consist in
> the person's omitting to act, for often a person comes
> to bear moral responsibility for a harm by his or her
> not doing anything. Understood this way, the central
> components of the account are that harm results, it
> results because of a person's conduct, and this conduct
> is morally blameworthy or faulty. I will depart
> slightly from May by allowing that in some cases a
> person's contributing to harm may render the person
> responsible for the harm, ***even if the contribution
> is not strictly a causal contribution***.
He can "depart slightly from May's non definition" to allow
his own definition if he wants, but his definition isn't as cogent
as H.D. Lewis's which I ascribe to. It's what I ascribe to that
matters to me, and it seems some very great thinkers have
come to the same conclusion as myself, so it would be unfair
of you to assume I am unethical purely because you don't
agree with me.
> My reasons
> for relaxing this requirement will be made clear in
> subsequent portions of the discussion, and others have
> likewise explained why in general relaxing this
> requirement is advantageous (Ellin, 1981, p. 21).
> [emphasis added via '***']
> .
> .
> .
> The view I defend states that a moral agent is a member
> of a collective which bears moral responsibility for a
> state of affairs only if the agent performs a
> "qualifying act," an act which qualifies an agent for
> membership in the collective [JB: like buying
> groceries from farmers who kill defenseless animals].
I don't believe it is a qualifying act. CD would occur without
my act. If I delivered the cides to his farm then I would agree
that I have committed a qualifying act similar to an arms
dealer, but my act as a consumer of his produce; produce
that doesn't need my act to aquire CD, doesn't give me
membership in the collective.
> Since a moral agent bears moral responsibility for
> having performed this qualifying act, in some sense
> collective moral responsibility can be said to
> distribute to the moral responsibility of its
> constitutive members.
>
I agree. These farmers are all the bloody same. Throw again
Jonathan, and this time try some material of your own you lazy
bastard.
> ==========================================================
>
> You are morally blameworthy, Derek, if you feel that
> killing the animals is wrong.
>
Fat chance.
Snuffles
"firstoftwins" <firsto...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:a4en34$418$1...@newsg4.svr.pol.co.uk...
>
> "Jonathan Ball" <jon...@mindspring.NS.com> wrote in message
> news:3C6ACC49...@mindspring.NS.com...
> > firstoftwins wrote:
> >
> > > "Dutch" <n...@email.com> wrote in message
> > > news:0jxa8.3228$5R2.30...@news1.van.metronet.ca...
> > [...]
> > >>Exactly right, and so are yours. Nobody is forcing you to patronize
evil
> > >>farmers, you do that of your own volition. As a result, animals are
> > >>harmed, displaced and killed, you know it, and you carry on anyway.
> > >>
> > >>
> > > These animals aren't killed "as a result" of my payment to him.
> > > These animals are killed "as a result" of his actions, not mine.
> > > There's the difference.
> >
> > You're trying to split hairs here, play a dirty
> > lawyer's game; sleazily focusing attention on matters
> > of timing, because having attention focused on your
> > moral involvement is too painful. It's the whole
> > activity, from start to finish, that is - in your view
> > - morally tainted. You are a party, an ONGOING party,
> > to the transaction.
> >
> I have no moral involvement at any stage of the ongoing
> process.
Yes you do - You state that the process is wrong and that you
don't agree with it - Yet you choose keep on to using it!
You ARE morally involved because you have the
choice not to take part !
Jonathan Ball
> "Jonathan Ball" <jon...@mindspring.NS.com> wrote in message
> news:3C6C14FF...@mindspring.NS.com...
> > firstoftwins wrote:
> >
> > > "Jonathan Ball" <jon...@mindspring.NS.com> wrote in message
> > > news:3C6B6807...@mindspring.NS.com...
> > >
> > >>firstoftwins wrote:
> [..]
> > >
> > > [Some philosophers, such as H.D. Lewis, find the whole
> > > idea of collective responsibility utterly repugnant and
> > > oppose all efforts to portray it as philosophically respectable.
> >
> > And some others don't.
> >
> I do though. H.D. Lewis knows his onions where shared moral
> responsibility is concerned. I'd rather go along with a real
> philosophers account of it that your guesses.
You've never heard of H. D. Lewis before. You don't know a thing
about him.
As I pointed out in another post (you may have replied to it already,
but it isn't showing up in Google yet; there's a delay of several
hours), you sleazily pulled this citation about Lewis, by Mellema, out
of context. Mellema himself very much *does* believe in both shared
and collective responsibility, and was only making reference to Lewis
in order to tell the reader, as he should, that not everyone in the
field agrees with what he (Mellema) is saying.
But for you to cull this one passage out of Mellema's lengthy
introduction to his book and post it as if it is *the* relevant and
important piece of the introduction is something straight out of
~~whoreweed~~. No wonder you gush over her contributions to your
"side"; you're as big a sleaze as she is.
Go back and read Mellema.
> > >
> > > I've been very thorough in producing plenty of evidence to
> > > show shared moral responsibility doesn't exist
> >
> > No, you haven't shown that it "doesn't exist". You
> > have shown a couple of citations, only one of which
> > named an actual philosopher, indicating they don't find
> > the concept useful.
> >
> Not the most honest appraisal of what Lewis says on the subject,
Nothing dishonest about it. But there is immense dishonesty in your
having cited Mellema talking about Lewis, and not indicating that the
author of the piece is arguing *against* Lewis.
> but that's what I've come to expect from you so I'm not surprised.
No, Derek. I am scrupulously honest. You, as this Lewis citation
shows, are completely dishonest.
> He "finds the whole idea of collective responsibility utterly
> repugnant and oppose all efforts to portray it as philosophically
> respectable."
>
> > > and all you've
> > > brought is a pathetic analogy of a car thief and a farmer.
> > > You're an idiot.
> >
> > No, you don't even believe that. You know I'm actually
> > very smart; you even know I'm much smarter than you.
> >
> Absolutely. I don't even doubt you could surpass me in my own
> fields given half the time, but the issues raised here require very
> little else than a common sense notion of what is right and wrong.
Something you lack, thanks to your father's utter moral bankruptcy.
> Even a child will confirm that harm and killing is wrong,
No, not killing in every case. And children are unsurpassed for
cruelty when it comes to inflicting harm. The idea that children are
intrinsically good, and only "society" corrupts them, is the worst
sort of dreamy, romantic bullshit there is.
> and that
> intuitive good in some of us is what you must persuade is nonsense
> in order to keep treating animals like holocaust Jews. You won't
> do it, no matter how smart you are.
No one is treating animals like holocaust Jews. Animals have no
rights, so there's nothing immoral about their overall treatment.
Dutch
> > > "Jonathan Ball" <jon...@mindspring.NS.com> wrote in message
> > > > firstoftwins wrote:
> > > > > "Jonathan Ball" <jon...@mindspring.NS.com> wrote [..]
> >
> > > > >>Go back to my stolen goods analogy - an excellent
> > > > >>analogy.
> >
> > > > > It's a flawed analogy because you are supposing the stolen
> > > > > goods are the property of the crook who stole them.
> >
> > No it doesn't, it only assumes he has possession of them and is willing
to
> > sell them.
> >
> You are forgetting; you can't sell something that doesn't belong
> to you.
You know bloody well that you have lost this argument, stop embarrassing
yourself and move on. If I had a suggestion how you could save some face I
would offer it, but if it's any consolation, your credibility is at rock
bottom already so you can't fall far.
<snip firstoftwit's shame>
dh...@nomail.com
I understand what you're saying. But I've known
people who have complaints about regulations.
You can't just shoot the animals in the pasture, and
then haul them off to be butchered. There are regulations
about how soon it must be bled, and refrigerated, and
whatever else. There are also regulations about how
it's killed...like they can't just shoot them in the head
with a rifle, they have to be killed with something that's
been sanitized to a certain degree I believe. For your
own use anything goes I guess. We used to shoot our
own pigs with a rifle, and we watched a neighbor down
the road kill his cattle that way, but the meat couldn't
be sold...at least not just anyplace.
firstoftwins
> "firstoftwins" <firsto...@hotmail.com> wrote
> > "Dutch" <n...@email.com> wrote in message
> > > "firstoftwins" <firsto...@hotmail.com> wrote
> > > > "Dutch" <n...@email.com> wrote in message
> > > > > [..]
> > > Have you never seen domino toppling on the tube?
> >
> > No.
>
> forget the analogy then..
Sorry Dutch. I'm mucking about a bit. I knew what you
were getting at. You seem too serious lately and I'm just
trying to coax a little banter from you.
[..]
> > Were you in doubt at some recent time then, Dutch?
>
> Yes, a year or so ago.
This is very interesting. Were your doubts general or specific?
firstoftwins
point I'm making. For God's sake use a different one more
acceptable that we can seriously use before I find one for you.
This is getting ridiculous! I'm even giving Jon my best material FOR
shared moral responsibility that I've had in my folder for months, just
to get a decent discussion these days. You're bone idle.
firstoftwins
"Snuffles" <fourth...@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
news:lMYa8.35822$YA2.5...@news11-gui.server.ntli.net...
the system. There is no choice in the matter or moral consideration
I can make to change that.
> You ARE morally involved because you have the
> choice not to take part !
>
You're wrong. It's the same with meds; there is no choice but to
take them.
firstoftwins
"Jonathan Ball" <jonb...@altavista.com> wrote in message
news:e435dead.02021...@posting.google.com...
> "firstoftwins" <firsto...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:<a4hhcn$sv$1...@news5.svr.pol.co.uk>...
> > "Jonathan Ball" <jon...@mindspring.NS.com> wrote in message
> > news:3C6C14FF...@mindspring.NS.com...
> > > firstoftwins wrote:
> > >
> > > > "Jonathan Ball" <jon...@mindspring.NS.com> wrote in message
> > > > news:3C6B6807...@mindspring.NS.com...
> > > >
> > > >>firstoftwins wrote:
> > [..]
> > > >
> > > > [Some philosophers, such as H.D. Lewis, find the whole
> > > > idea of collective responsibility utterly repugnant and
> > > > oppose all efforts to portray it as philosophically respectable.
> > >
> > > And some others don't.
> > >
> > I do though. H.D. Lewis knows his onions where shared moral
> > responsibility is concerned. I'd rather go along with a real
> > philosophers account of it that your guesses.
>
> You've never heard of H. D. Lewis before. You don't know a thing
> about him.
>
> As I pointed out in another post (you may have replied to it already,
> but it isn't showing up in Google yet; there's a delay of several
> hours), you sleazily pulled this citation about Lewis, by Mellema, out
> of context. Mellema himself very much *does* believe in both shared
> and collective responsibility, and was only making reference to Lewis
> in order to tell the reader, as he should, that not everyone in the
> field agrees with what he (Mellema) is saying.
>
Neither do I. He's already had to ameliorate and stitch together
half a dozen philosophers accounts for his forward in explaining
his own theory. Lord knows what other concepts he's had to
take out of context to in the rest of his book.
If a ne'er-do-well like Ward can get a book on the shelves on the
subject of AR with his fallacious arguments and lack of knowledge,
then maybe Mellema can get away with it too.
> But for you to cull this one passage out of Mellema's lengthy
> introduction to his book and post it as if it is *the* relevant and
> important piece of the introduction is something straight out of
> ~~whoreweed~~. No wonder you gush over her contributions to your
> "side"; you're as big a sleaze as she is.
>
Grow up.
I have already. You first.
> > > >
> > > > I've been very thorough in producing plenty of evidence to
> > > > show shared moral responsibility doesn't exist
> > >
> > > No, you haven't shown that it "doesn't exist". You
> > > have shown a couple of citations, only one of which
> > > named an actual philosopher, indicating they don't find
> > > the concept useful.
> > >
> > Not the most honest appraisal of what Lewis says on the subject,
>
> Nothing dishonest about it. But there is immense dishonesty in your
> having cited Mellema talking about Lewis, and not indicating that the
> author of the piece is arguing *against* Lewis.
>
Have you any points to make on the article, or are you
going to keep blowing smoke? I gave you the link to the
page and didn't put anything into or out of context. You're
just pissed off because you didn't find the page yourself,
and even though I had to produce you your own counter
argument against mine, you're still knackered.
> > but that's what I've come to expect from you so I'm not surprised.
>
> No, Derek. I am scrupulously honest. You, as this Lewis citation
> shows, are completely dishonest.
>
I've been most honest in giving you that link. It refutes my claim
and gives you something to argue with, but you're still not keen
to take the points on and argue them. You'd rather concentrate
on trying to denigrate me. Does my honesty shock you that much?
> > He "finds the whole idea of collective responsibility utterly
> > repugnant and oppose all efforts to portray it as philosophically
> > respectable."
> >
> > > > and all you've
> > > > brought is a pathetic analogy of a car thief and a farmer.
> > > > You're an idiot.
> > >
> > > No, you don't even believe that. You know I'm actually
> > > very smart; you even know I'm much smarter than you.
> > >
> > Absolutely. I don't even doubt you could surpass me in my own
> > fields given half the time, but the issues raised here require very
> > little else than a common sense notion of what is right and wrong.
>
> Something you lack, thanks to your father's utter moral bankruptcy.
>
Get off his back.
> > Even a child will confirm that harm and killing is wrong,
>
> No, not killing in every case. And children are unsurpassed for
> cruelty when it comes to inflicting harm. The idea that children are
> intrinsically good, and only "society" corrupts them, is the worst
> sort of dreamy, romantic bullshit there is.
>
> > and that
> > intuitive good in some of us is what you must persuade is nonsense
> > in order to keep treating animals like holocaust Jews. You won't
> > do it, no matter how smart you are.
>
> No one is treating animals like holocaust Jews. Animals have no
> rights, so there's nothing immoral about their overall treatment.
Yes there is. We have a moral duty to protect the rights of
moral patients.
firstoftwins
> firstoftwins wrote:
>
> > "Dutch" <n...@email.com> wrote in message
> > news:QZHa8.29829$A44.1...@news2.calgary.shaw.ca...
> >
> >>"firstoftwins" <firsto...@hotmail.com> wrote
> >>
> >>>"Jonathan Ball" <jon...@mindspring.NS.com> wrote in message
> >>>
> >>>>firstoftwins wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>>>"Jonathan Ball" <jon...@mindspring.NS.com> wrote
> >>>>>
> >>[..]
> >>
> >>
> >>>>>>Go back to my stolen goods analogy - an excellent
> >>>>>>analogy.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>It's a flawed analogy because you are supposing the stolen
> >>>>>goods are the property of the crook who stole them.
> >>>>>
> >>No it doesn't, it only assumes he has possession of them and is willing to
> >>sell them.
> >>
> >>
> > You are forgetting; you can't sell something that doesn't belong
> > to you.
>
> You are ignoring: you can indeed sell it; it isn't a
> legal sale, but it is a sale. Things of value have
> changed hands. That's all a sale is. You're trying to
> redefine it to suit your sleazy,
> responsibility-shirking purposes, and it won't work.
>
the Crown Jewels they would be worthless until I melted them
down and sold them for Ł50 an ounce. However, if I could
persuade Lizzy to sell them to me for a song I could auction
the lot and buy the house across the street from you with the
proceeds.
> >
> >>>>No, I'm not. I'm supposing the buyer knows that they
> >>>>are stolen. But the buyer isn't going to get them from
> >>>>the thief unless he pays the thief for them.
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>He doesn't pay for *them.* How can a buyer buy something
> >>>that isn't for sale? He pays the crook for his risk in nicking
> >>>*them.*
>
> No, he doesn't. You don't take the "risk" home with
> you; you take home the merchandise.
You DO take the risk home with you. You can be charged
at any time for "recieving" ( I've never heard of the phrase,
"buying stolen goods") stolen goods.
> You are buying
> merchandise, at a deep discount because it was stolen.
>
Because the merchandise is so valueless, you merely pay
for the risks the crook took.
> >>>
[..]
> > I'm merely pointing out to you where the flaw is in the analogy.
> > You can't liken a farmer to a car thief in the hope of gaining
> > acceptance to your argument that I am responsible for CD.
> > You and Jon are using an analogy that just doesn't work.
>
> It works very well, for honest people who don't butcher
> the English language in order to try to win a
> rhetorical point.
>
As I said to Dutch in another thread, "Get yourself a better analogy!"
> You can buy stolen goods, Derek; just not legally.
>
You cannot buy stolen anything. Buying requires a vendor and
the vendor must have ownership in full or in part.
Swan & Rat
<snip>
> Your examples are not so clear cut
> because taxes are not a matter of choice, they are imposed on us, and the
> manner in which they are spent is a matter of democratic (and other)
> processes in which you have some say, but in general you are far removed
> from, and no reasonable person can connect you causally to every outcome.
Exactly the same as CDs. Taxes may be imposed on
the population in general, but you _choose_ to pay
them or not. ARAs are as responzible for CDs as
you are for police beatings, government aid to
ENRON, and civilian deaths in Afganistan. How
responsible are you for little children killed
by US bombs? For police brutality and government
corruption? After all, you voted, and whether your
candidate won or not, that vote was a vote to support
the system as a whole.
Rat
<snip>
Jonathan Ball
No, not your taxes, FirstAnimalKiller. The cash you
cheerfully fork over for fruit and vegetables at
Sainsburys or Safeway or wherever it is that poor,
weary Belinda trudges off to in order to buy the
blood-soaked produce that you greedily stuff into your
18 stone dumpster of a body.
I can almost hear it coming now: you're going to end
up blaming poor Belinda, because *she* is the one who
actually hands over the money to the grocer.
>
>
>>You ARE morally involved because you have the
>> choice not to take part !
>>
>>
> You're wrong. It's the same with meds; there is no choice but to
> take them.
No, there is an entire universe of choice. You choose
to do that which is most convenient for you. And the
most convenient thing for you is to eat the cheap,
blood-drenched fruits and vegetables.
You clearly do not believe that the animals have
inherent rights. Your behavior proves it.
Jonathan Ball
> "Jonathan Ball" <jonb...@altavista.com> wrote in message
> news:e435dead.02021...@posting.google.com...
>
>>"firstoftwins" <firsto...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
>>
> news:<a4hhcn$sv$1...@news5.svr.pol.co.uk>...
>
>>>"Jonathan Ball" <jon...@mindspring.NS.com> wrote in message
>>>news:3C6C14FF...@mindspring.NS.com...
>>>
>>>>firstoftwins wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>"Jonathan Ball" <jon...@mindspring.NS.com> wrote in message
>>>>>news:3C6B6807...@mindspring.NS.com...
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>>firstoftwins wrote:
>>>>>>
>>> [..]
>>>
>>>>>[Some philosophers, such as H.D. Lewis, find the whole
>>>>>idea of collective responsibility utterly repugnant and
>>>>>oppose all efforts to portray it as philosophically respectable.
>>>>>
>>>>And some others don't.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>I do though. H.D. Lewis knows his onions where shared moral
>>>responsibility is concerned. I'd rather go along with a real
>>>philosophers account of it that your guesses.
>>>
>>You've never heard of H. D. Lewis before. You don't know a thing
>>about him.
>>
>>
> I've had this page for many months to fall back on.
That doesn't matter. You wouldn't know H.D. Lewis if
he came up and kicked you in the shins. You've never
read a *single* word he's written.
Anyway, I'm the one who first posted a link to
Mellema's page. You found it through me, not the other
way around.
>
>
>>As I pointed out in another post (you may have replied to it already,
>>but it isn't showing up in Google yet; there's a delay of several
>>hours), you sleazily pulled this citation about Lewis, by Mellema, out
>>of context. Mellema himself very much *does* believe in both shared
>>and collective responsibility, and was only making reference to Lewis
>>in order to tell the reader, as he should, that not everyone in the
>>field agrees with what he (Mellema) is saying.
>>
>>
> Neither do I. He's already had to ameliorate and stitch together
> half a dozen philosophers accounts for his forward in explaining
> his own theory.
No, he didn't "have" to. That's what respectable
academics do. They always acknowledge that they are
building on a body of knowledge, not all of which came
from them.
That's what proves that Saint Tom is not really a
respectable academic, at least as far as his "animal
rights" contribution goes. He would have the world
believe that he, alone, saw this alleged "lexical gap"
that necessitated his coining the expression "subject
of a life".
BTW, it ought to tell you something that Saint Tom
spent his entire academic career at a true academic
backwater. North Carolina State University is not
exactly Harvard Divinity School.
> Lord knows what other concepts he's had to
> take out of context to in the rest of his book.
You're showing your ignorant ass here, Derek. Because
you're a minimally educated dunderhead, you have no
awareness of how academics work.
> If a ne'er-do-well like Ward can get a book on the shelves on the
> subject of AR with his fallacious arguments and lack of knowledge,
> then maybe Mellema can get away with it too.
>
>
>>But for you to cull this one passage out of Mellema's lengthy
>>introduction to his book and post it as if it is *the* relevant and
>>important piece of the introduction is something straight out of
>>~~whoreweed~~. No wonder you gush over her contributions to your
>>"side"; you're as big a sleaze as she is.
>>
>>
> Grow up.
The retort of a mortally wounded fool.
>>>>>Why should I believe in your concepts of shared moral
>>>>>responsibility when the concepts have already been
>>>>>addressed in a better form elsewhere? You haven't got
>>>>>a clue what you're talking about.
>>>>>
>>>>I have an excellent clue. You don't. For example, you
>>>>don't understand the difference between collective
>>>>responsibility and shared responsibility. There is
>>>>one, but you don't know what it is.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>Maybe you can explain the difference here and I'll see if it's
>>>agreeable to my own interpretation. You have made the claim
>>>that there is a difference between the two, so in fairness the
>>>onus is on you to present yours first.
>>>
>>Go back and read Mellema.
>>
>>
> I have already. You first.
I read it before you did. Your first reference, ever,
to Mellema and the www.calvin.edu/academic/philosophy
web page was in response to my having posted it, last
August. Look it up in Google if you don't believe me.
By the way, that first link -
http://www.calvin.edu/academic/philosophy/writings/smrintro.htm
- contains Mellema's introduction to his earlier book
on *shared* responsibility, rather than the more recent
one on collective responsibility. If you had *really*
read either one of them - CLEARLY, you have not fully
read either one - then you would understand the
difference between the two.
Here's a little excerpt from his introduction to the
book on shared moral responsibility:
In spite of the predicament of Frank [a fictitious
junior manager introduced earlier in the page] and many
others like him, it should nevertheless be noted that
in recent years philosophers have begun addressing
issues relevant to group responsibility with an
intensity of more than modest proportions. No doubt
some of this recent activity has been inspired by Joel
Feinberg's classic 1968 paper, 'Collective
Responsibility', or a 1971 anthology, Individual and
Collective Responsibility: The Massacre at Mai Lai
(edited by Peter A. French). And while Frank may find
scarcely more straightforward advice now than twenty
years ago, I believe that a clearer understanding of
the issues surrounding the concept of group
responsibility has been in the process of evolving in
recent years.
If you knew your ass from your face, Derek, you would
understand that shared *and* collective responsibility
are perfectly respectable areas of moral inquiry, and
that academics have been studying and writing about
them for years. But you're an ignorant, self-important
blowhard who would rather spout his uninformed
prejudices than really learn something.
>
>>>>>I've been very thorough in producing plenty of evidence to
>>>>>show shared moral responsibility doesn't exist
>>>>>
>>>>No, you haven't shown that it "doesn't exist". You
>>>>have shown a couple of citations, only one of which
>>>>named an actual philosopher, indicating they don't find
>>>>the concept useful.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>Not the most honest appraisal of what Lewis says on the subject,
>>>
>>Nothing dishonest about it. But there is immense dishonesty in your
>>having cited Mellema talking about Lewis, and not indicating that the
>>author of the piece is arguing *against* Lewis.
>>
>>
> Have you any points to make on the article, or are you
> going to keep blowing smoke? I gave you the link to the
> page and didn't put anything into or out of context. You're
> just pissed off because you didn't find the page yourself,
I did find the page myself, you shitfaced liar. You
only found that entire site through me.
> and even though I had to produce you your own counter
> argument against mine, you're still knackered.
You're teeth are kicked right down your fucking throat
on this one, ShitStirrer.
I have made my point, and made it well: you culled the
bit about "H. D. Lewis", with whom you have no
familiarity whatever, from a page you found through me,
and which you clearly do not understand. You cited the
culled material out of context.
You never *could* have succeeded in university,
ShitStirrer. You can't get away with that kind of
bullshit there. You'd have been expelled in your first
semester.
>
>
>>>but that's what I've come to expect from you so I'm not surprised.
>>>
>>No, Derek. I am scrupulously honest. You, as this Lewis citation
>>shows, are completely dishonest.
>>
>>
> I've been most honest in giving you that link.
No, ShitStirrer. I gave *you* the link. Do a Google
search on "http://www.calvin.edu/academic/philosophy/"
in a.a.e.v. and t.p.a., and see whose name appears
first. Mine.
> It refutes my claim
> and gives you something to argue with, but you're still not keen
> to take the points on and argue them. You'd rather concentrate
> on trying to denigrate me. Does my honesty shock you that much?
How could it? I haven't seen any.
I cited from Mellema's page at length to show that your
primitive, uneducated notions about responsibility are
at odds with those of respectable philosophers. You
couldn't address them.
>
>
>>> He "finds the whole idea of collective responsibility utterly
>>>repugnant and oppose all efforts to portray it as philosophically
>>>respectable."
>>>
>>>
>>>>>and all you've
>>>>>brought is a pathetic analogy of a car thief and a farmer.
>>>>>You're an idiot.
>>>>>
>>>>No, you don't even believe that. You know I'm actually
>>>>very smart; you even know I'm much smarter than you.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>Absolutely. I don't even doubt you could surpass me in my own
>>>fields given half the time, but the issues raised here require very
>>>little else than a common sense notion of what is right and wrong.
>>>
>>Something you lack, thanks to your father's utter moral bankruptcy.
>>
>>
> Get off his back.
Get out of his pocket. Learn to think for yourself.
Stop being a sociopath.
>
>
>>>Even a child will confirm that harm and killing is wrong,
>>>
>>No, not killing in every case. And children are unsurpassed for
>>cruelty when it comes to inflicting harm. The idea that children are
>>intrinsically good, and only "society" corrupts them, is the worst
>>sort of dreamy, romantic bullshit there is.
>>
>>
>>>and that
>>>intuitive good in some of us is what you must persuade is nonsense
>>>in order to keep treating animals like holocaust Jews. You won't
>>>do it, no matter how smart you are.
>>>
>>No one is treating animals like holocaust Jews. Animals have no
>>rights, so there's nothing immoral about their overall treatment.
>>
>
> Yes there is. We have a moral duty to protect the rights of
> moral patients.
You have to show that they have rights. Not all moral
patients have rights. In particular, animals *cannot*
have rights. It is simply impossible.
Jonathan Ball
Derek: you've simply lost this. You are wrong, and
you know it.
Of *course* something stolen has value; that's why the
thief stole it, you fat pillock. And he can trade that
value for something else of value.
You simply cannot logically deny that a trade takes
place between the thief and the person giving the thief
something of value, usually money, in exchange for the
stolen goods.
You are trying to invest "buy" and "sell" with meaning
they do not have. You are wrong. But in your stubborn
ignorance - or do you prefer ignorant stubbornness? -
you simply can't let go of your error.
You are wrong. Stolen goods can be, and are, bought
and sold all the time.
> If I stole
> the Crown Jewels they would be worthless until I melted them
> down and sold them for Ł50 an ounce.
No, that's absolutely untrue. There is a brisk trade
in stolen art and jewels.
> However, if I could
> persuade Lizzy to sell them to me for a song I could auction
> the lot and buy the house across the street from you with the
> proceeds.
Oh, no! The house directly across the street is owned
by a couple who have a little boy exactly three weeks
younger than ours. The wife in the couple, Christie,
is one of the most beautiful women I've ever met, and
she and my wife are good friends, so I get lots of
opportunities to gaze at her beauty.
The other house is purple. I'm not kidding. I'll take
a digital picture of it and try e-mailing it to your
hotmail address, if you don't object. Actually, the
color of the house "works", given the landscaping.
It's just that it was pretty glaring when they first
had it repainted (it was purple before, too, but faded.)
>
>>>>>>No, I'm not. I'm supposing the buyer knows that they
>>>>>>are stolen. But the buyer isn't going to get them from
>>>>>>the thief unless he pays the thief for them.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>He doesn't pay for *them.* How can a buyer buy something
>>>>>that isn't for sale? He pays the crook for his risk in nicking
>>>>>*them.*
>>>>>
>>No, he doesn't. You don't take the "risk" home with
>>you; you take home the merchandise.
>>
>
> You DO take the risk home with you.
Not the THIEF'S risk, you idiot. You acquire your own.
Anyway, you don't play your Abba CDs or "Bob the
Builder" on the risk. You play those on the boom box.
> You can be charged
> at any time for "recieving" ( I've never heard of the phrase,
> "buying stolen goods") stolen goods.
Right. But what you gave the thief money for was the
merchandise. That's what you wanted. If you could get
the same merchandise at the same price, but without the
risk, you'd do it. The risk is what (unfortunately)
comes with the risk.
>
>
>>You are buying
>>merchandise, at a deep discount because it was stolen.
>>
>>
> Because the merchandise is so valueless, you merely pay
> for the risks the crook took.
No, Derek, you're paying for the merchandise. It's the
merchandise you want, not the risk. The risk is what
you acquire as a result of what you DIDN'T pay.
>
> [..]
>
>>>I'm merely pointing out to you where the flaw is in the analogy.
>>>You can't liken a farmer to a car thief in the hope of gaining
>>>acceptance to your argument that I am responsible for CD.
>>>You and Jon are using an analogy that just doesn't work.
>>>
>>It works very well, for honest people who don't butcher
>>the English language in order to try to win a
>>rhetorical point.
>>
>>
> As I said to Dutch in another thread, "Get yourself a better analogy!"
It's a good analogy. The better the analogy, I've
noted, the worse your reasoning. Yours is wretched, in
this thread.
>
>
>>You can buy stolen goods, Derek; just not legally.
>>
>>
> You cannot buy stolen anything. Buying requires a vendor and
> the vendor must have ownership in full or in part.
No, that is no requirement of being a "vendor". "Vend"
means "sell", and there is no requirement that the
goods being sold be legally owned. The vendor (thief)
*does* "own" the goods, in the sense that he has them
in his possession, and he won't give them to you unless
you give him something of value.
That's all a "sale" is: the trading of things of
value, whether legally owned or not.
You are simply wrong. You might not like the analogy
to animal CDs, but you can't oppose it on these
ridiculous technical grounds, because you are
misdefining technical terms.
The whole point of the analogy is not to suggest that
you should be criminally prosecuted for the animal CDs
your diet causes. It's to show, rather, that your
demand for vegetables at a particular price, a demand
that is ongoing despite your knowledge of what happens
in their production, is what motivates the farmer to
keep on farming the way he does.
You and other fatuous, ignorant "aras" believe, or
rather *claim* to believe, that the wanton disregard
for animals' lives that *leads* to animal CDs ought to
be illegal; such wanton disregard for *human* lives in
industrial production already is illegal. But your
cheerful, uncoerced purchases from the farmer who kills
them are EXACTLY analogous to the cheerful, uncoerced
receiving of stolen property from thieves.
The analogy is superb, and it proves that you share in
the moral responsibility - IF THERE IS ANY - for animal
CDs.
Move on, Derek. You've lost.
Jonathan Ball
> Dutch wrote:
>
> <snip>
>
>>Your examples are not so clear cut
>>because taxes are not a matter of choice, they are imposed on us, and the
>>manner in which they are spent is a matter of democratic (and other)
>>processes in which you have some say, but in general you are far removed
>>from, and no reasonable person can connect you causally to every outcome.
>>
>
> Exactly the same as CDs. Taxes may be imposed on
> the population in general, but you _choose_ to pay
> them or not.
No, ~~ratsleaze~~. The "choices" are not comparable.
One of them is coerced by lethal force, the other is not.
> ARAs are as responzible for CDs as
> you are for police beatings, government aid to
> ENRON, and civilian deaths in Afganistan.
No, this has been conclusively demonstrated to be
false. You can easily choose not to buy from anyone.
No similar option exist to avoid *some* government
taxing you. And the choice of *which* government is
extremely limited.
You had your ass kicked on this before.
> How responsible are you for little children killed
> by US bombs? For police brutality and government
> corruption? After all, you voted, and whether your
> candidate won or not, that vote was a vote to support
> the system as a whole.
No. That's a typically false, sophistical interpretation.
firstoftwins
"Swan & Rat" <lab...@NOSPAMpacbell.net> wrote in message
news:3C6C95...@NOSPAMpacbell.net...
giving one membership into the collective as some here suggest.
[The view I defend states that a moral agent is a member of a
collective which bears moral responsibility for a state of affairs
only if the agent performs a "qualifying act," an act which qualifies
bears moral responsibility for having performed this qualifying act,
in some sense collective moral responsibility can be said to
http://www.calvin.edu/academic/philosophy/writings/crintro.htm
Delivering cides or setting traps would be a qualifying act. The
food producers actions are without doubt qualifying acts too. I
knew I was right about this all along.
> Rat
> <snip>
>
firstoftwins
aren't needed for the moment. I've spent a lot of effort
backing my defence against your CD guilt trip and I'm
confident I have enough material to fall back on to last
me 10 years.
> Anyway, I'm the one who first posted a link to
> Mellema's page. You found it through me, not the other
> way around.
>
You realised pretty quickly how useless that page was
even then because you've never used any points he made
against me. I was hoping you would've made more of an
argument by now from better sources, because Mellema's
"qualifying act" clearly doesn't apply to me.
> >
> >>As I pointed out in another post (you may have replied to it already,
> >>but it isn't showing up in Google yet; there's a delay of several
> >>hours), you sleazily pulled this citation about Lewis, by Mellema, out
> >>of context. Mellema himself very much *does* believe in both shared
> >>and collective responsibility, and was only making reference to Lewis
> >>in order to tell the reader, as he should, that not everyone in the
> >>field agrees with what he (Mellema) is saying.
> >>
> >>
> > Neither do I. He's already had to ameliorate and stitch together
> > half a dozen philosophers accounts for his forward in explaining
> > his own theory.
>
> No, he didn't "have" to. That's what respectable
> academics do. They always acknowledge that they are
> building on a body of knowledge, not all of which came
> from them.
>
> That's what proves that Saint Tom is not really a
> respectable academic, at least as far as his "animal
> rights" contribution goes. He would have the world
> believe that he, alone, saw this alleged "lexical gap"
> that necessitated his coining the expression "subject
> of a life".
>
I agree with Tom here too. Kantian personhood requires intellectual
capabilities to qualify a person as being in reciept of rights, and this
clearly is an error. His linguistic marker fills the gap perfectly.
> BTW, it ought to tell you something that Saint Tom
> spent his entire academic career at a true academic
> backwater. North Carolina State University is not
> exactly Harvard Divinity School.
>
For a man who claims not to notice or be affected by class; you
ain't arf a snob.
> > Lord knows what other concepts he's had to
> > take out of context to in the rest of his book.
>
> You're showing your ignorant ass here, Derek. Because
> you're a minimally educated dunderhead, you have no
> awareness of how academics work.
>
I think it's about time you stopped questioning my education.
I've already muted murdering Mercer twice using mathematics
and you're even further away from beating me on this than
when you started. Not bad for just an electrician, eh.
>
> > If a ne'er-do-well like Ward can get a book on the shelves on the
> > subject of AR with his fallacious arguments and lack of knowledge,
> > then maybe Mellema can get away with it too.
> >
> >
> >>But for you to cull this one passage out of Mellema's lengthy
> >>introduction to his book and post it as if it is *the* relevant and
> >>important piece of the introduction is something straight out of
> >>~~whoreweed~~. No wonder you gush over her contributions to your
> >>"side"; you're as big a sleaze as she is.
> >>
> >>
> > Grow up.
>
> The retort of a mortally wounded fool.
>
Hardly.
>
> >>>>>Why should I believe in your concepts of shared moral
> >>>>>responsibility when the concepts have already been
> >>>>>addressed in a better form elsewhere? You haven't got
> >>>>>a clue what you're talking about.
> >>>>>
> >>>>I have an excellent clue. You don't. For example, you
> >>>>don't understand the difference between collective
> >>>>responsibility and shared responsibility. There is
> >>>>one, but you don't know what it is.
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>Maybe you can explain the difference here and I'll see if it's
> >>>agreeable to my own interpretation. You have made the claim
> >>>that there is a difference between the two, so in fairness the
> >>>onus is on you to present yours first.
> >>>
> >>Go back and read Mellema.
> >>
> >>
> > I have already. You first.
>
> I read it before you did. Your first reference, ever,
> to Mellema and the www.calvin.edu/academic/philosophy
> web page was in response to my having posted it, last
> August. Look it up in Google if you don't believe me.
>
Did you think I hadn't already? Sorry to waste your time, Jon.
Just like non-animal techniques instead of calf serum are
evolving. So where's the concepts that make me morally
responsible for these CD, Jon? You've indicated they could
be written somewhere, but you need to bring those
concepts here to prove they make me share responsibility
yet.
>
> If you knew your ass from your face, Derek, you would
> understand that shared *and* collective responsibility
> are perfectly respectable areas of moral inquiry, and
> that academics have been studying and writing about
> them for years.
That's good news. Let's see some of it.
> But you're an ignorant, self-important
> blowhard who would rather spout his uninformed
> prejudices than really learn something.
>
I'm willing to learn but can't see anything written on the blackboard
to study yet. You're bluffing.
> >
> >>>>>I've been very thorough in producing plenty of evidence to
> >>>>>show shared moral responsibility doesn't exist
> >>>>>
> >>>>No, you haven't shown that it "doesn't exist". You
> >>>>have shown a couple of citations, only one of which
> >>>>named an actual philosopher, indicating they don't find
> >>>>the concept useful.
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>Not the most honest appraisal of what Lewis says on the subject,
> >>>
> >>Nothing dishonest about it. But there is immense dishonesty in your
> >>having cited Mellema talking about Lewis, and not indicating that the
> >>author of the piece is arguing *against* Lewis.
> >>
> >>
> > Have you any points to make on the article, or are you
> > going to keep blowing smoke? I gave you the link to the
> > page and didn't put anything into or out of context. You're
> > just pissed off because you didn't find the page yourself,
>
> I did find the page myself, you shitfaced liar. You
> only found that entire site through me.
>
I've had that site in my folder for months and months. I
knew of it long before you did.
>
> > and even though I had to produce you your own counter
> > argument against mine, you're still knackered.
>
> You're teeth are kicked right down your fucking throat
> on this one, ShitStirrer.
>
> I have made my point, and made it well: you culled the
> bit about "H. D. Lewis", with whom you have no
> familiarity whatever, from a page you found through me,
> and which you clearly do not understand. You cited the
> culled material out of context.
>
> You never *could* have succeeded in university,
> ShitStirrer. You can't get away with that kind of
> bullshit there. You'd have been expelled in your first
> semester.
>
I might be able to prove you wrong here too. I might be
going to university to study philosophy at the end of the
year if I'm physically fit enough. I feel naked without a
degree all of a sudden.
> >
> >
> >>>but that's what I've come to expect from you so I'm not surprised.
> >>>
> >>No, Derek. I am scrupulously honest. You, as this Lewis citation
> >>shows, are completely dishonest.
> >>
> >>
> > I've been most honest in giving you that link.
>
> No, ShitStirrer. I gave *you* the link. Do a Google
> search on "http://www.calvin.edu/academic/philosophy/"
> in a.a.e.v. and t.p.a., and see whose name appears
> first. Mine.
>
But not to the page I provided I notice, and that's what you're
arguing about. I provided that to give you a bit of a leg up.
> > It refutes my claim
> > and gives you something to argue with, but you're still not keen
> > to take the points on and argue them. You'd rather concentrate
> > on trying to denigrate me. Does my honesty shock you that much?
>
> How could it? I haven't seen any.
>
> I cited from Mellema's page at length to show that your
> primitive, uneducated notions about responsibility are
> at odds with those of respectable philosophers. You
> couldn't address them.
>
I have. Melanie's "qualifying act" doesn't describe my trade with
the farmer.
[ Since a moral agent bears moral responsibility for having
performed this qualifying act, in some sense collective moral
responsibility can be said to distribute to the moral responsibility
of its constitutive members. Each member of a collective morally
responsible for a state of affairs is morally responsible either for
the same state of affairs or for a related state of affairs, *where the
related state of affairs is that of having performed the relevant
qualifying act.*]*my emphasis*
SHARED MORAL RESPONSIBILITY 3
http://www.calvin.edu/academic/philosophy/writings/crintro.htm
My emphasis shows clearly that even Melanie's concepts can't
pin your CD guilt trip on me. My act does not bring about the
farmers act in causing these CD. He can and does perform his
action without my act. Therefore, my act is not a qualifying one.
> >
> >>> He "finds the whole idea of collective responsibility utterly
> >>>repugnant and oppose all efforts to portray it as philosophically
> >>>respectable."
> >>>
Why don't you comment on this?
> >>>
> >>>>>and all you've
> >>>>>brought is a pathetic analogy of a car thief and a farmer.
> >>>>>You're an idiot.
> >>>>>
> >>>>No, you don't even believe that. You know I'm actually
> >>>>very smart; you even know I'm much smarter than you.
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>Absolutely. I don't even doubt you could surpass me in my own
> >>>fields given half the time, but the issues raised here require very
> >>>little else than a common sense notion of what is right and wrong.
> >>>
> >>Something you lack, thanks to your father's utter moral bankruptcy.
> >>
> >>
> > Get off his back.
>
> Get out of his pocket. Learn to think for yourself.
> Stop being a sociopath.
>
I never brought him into this conversation.
> >
[..]
> > Yes there is. We have a moral duty to protect the rights of
> > moral patients.
>
> You have to show that they have rights. Not all moral
> patients have rights.
I believe they do.
> In particular, animals *cannot*
> have rights. It is simply impossible.
>
I don't believe it is.
firstoftwins
[Exactly the same as CDs. Taxes may be imposed on
the population in general, but you _choose_ to pay
them or not. ARAs are as responzible for CDs as
you are for police beatings, government aid to
ENRON, and civilian deaths in Afganistan. How
responsible are you for little children killed
by US bombs? For police brutality and government
corruption? After all, you voted, and whether your
candidate won or not, that vote was a vote to support
Paying taxes which are taken without my consent is not
a qualifying act imo.
btw. I've lost 12lb in 3 weeks.
> I can almost hear it coming now: you're going to end
> up blaming poor Belinda, because *she* is the one who
> actually hands over the money to the grocer.
>
She even admits to being responsible for the Lea & Perrins
incident now. We don't have condements at the table. She
adds to taste in the kitchen and brings the plate in for me.
> >
> >>You ARE morally involved because you have the
> >> choice not to take part !
> >>
> >>
> > You're wrong. It's the same with meds; there is no choice but to
> > take them.
>
> No, there is an entire universe of choice.
Not with taxes there isn't. Pay them or go to prison.
> You choose
> to do that which is most convenient for you. And the
> most convenient thing for you is to eat the cheap,
> blood-drenched fruits and vegetables.
>
Now you're beginning to sound like YOUR little troll; Etter.
You're not going to take his lead are you? Life here has
been so much more pleasant since I blocked his posts from
appearing on my screen.
> You clearly do not believe that the animals have
> inherent rights. Your behavior proves it.
>
Moral patients have rights, and I believe some animals to
be in reciept of them.
Jonathan Ball
> "Jonathan Ball" <jon...@mindspring.NS.com> wrote in message
> news:3C6D437F...@mindspring.NS.com...
[...]
>>Anyway, I'm the one who first posted a link to
>>Mellema's page. You found it through me, not the other
>>way around.
>>
>>
> You realised pretty quickly how useless that page was
> even then because you've never used any points he made
> against me.
Unlike "aras", I don't need to make continual reference
to saints and sacred texts. I put the reference out
there; those who chose to read it have probably done so
long ago.
> I was hoping you would've made more of an
> argument by now from better sources, because Mellema's
> "qualifying act" clearly doesn't apply to me.
Of course it does, you mullet. Your qualifying act is
your *continual* purchase from someone whose production
methods do something you *claim* to believe is unethical.
>
>>>>As I pointed out in another post (you may have replied to it already,
>>>>but it isn't showing up in Google yet; there's a delay of several
>>>>hours), you sleazily pulled this citation about Lewis, by Mellema, out
>>>>of context. Mellema himself very much *does* believe in both shared
>>>>and collective responsibility, and was only making reference to Lewis
>>>>in order to tell the reader, as he should, that not everyone in the
>>>>field agrees with what he (Mellema) is saying.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>Neither do I. He's already had to ameliorate and stitch together
>>>half a dozen philosophers accounts for his forward in explaining
>>>his own theory.
>>>
>>No, he didn't "have" to. That's what respectable
>>academics do. They always acknowledge that they are
>>building on a body of knowledge, not all of which came
>>from them.
>>
>>That's what proves that Saint Tom is not really a
>>respectable academic, at least as far as his "animal
>>rights" contribution goes. He would have the world
>>believe that he, alone, saw this alleged "lexical gap"
>>that necessitated his coining the expression "subject
>>of a life".
>>
>>
> I agree with Tom here too. Kantian personhood requires intellectual
> capabilities to qualify a person as being in reciept of rights, and this
> clearly is an error. His linguistic marker fills the gap perfectly.
You don't know your ass from your face on this stuff,
Derek. You should drop it right now. There's simply
no way you'd ever understand it.
>
>
>>BTW, it ought to tell you something that Saint Tom
>>spent his entire academic career at a true academic
>>backwater. North Carolina State University is not
>>exactly Harvard Divinity School.
>>
>>
> For a man who claims not to notice or be affected by class; you
> ain't arf a snob.
We're not talking about something as empty as social
class.
>
>
>>>Lord knows what other concepts he's had to
>>>take out of context to in the rest of his book.
>>>
>>You're showing your ignorant ass here, Derek. Because
>>you're a minimally educated dunderhead, you have no
>>awareness of how academics work.
>>
>>
> I think it's about time you stopped questioning my education.
Nope. You're bone-ignorant.
> I've already muted murdering Mercer twice using mathematics
Don't make me laugh!
> and you're even further away from beating me on this than
> when you started. Not bad for just an electrician, eh.
>
>>>If a ne'er-do-well like Ward can get a book on the shelves on the
>>>subject of AR with his fallacious arguments and lack of knowledge,
>>>then maybe Mellema can get away with it too.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>But for you to cull this one passage out of Mellema's lengthy
>>>>introduction to his book and post it as if it is *the* relevant and
>>>>important piece of the introduction is something straight out of
>>>>~~whoreweed~~. No wonder you gush over her contributions to your
>>>>"side"; you're as big a sleaze as she is.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>Grow up.
>>>
>>The retort of a mortally wounded fool.
>>
>>
> Hardly.
Precisely.
>
>>>>>>>Why should I believe in your concepts of shared moral
>>>>>>>responsibility when the concepts have already been
>>>>>>>addressed in a better form elsewhere? You haven't got
>>>>>>>a clue what you're talking about.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>I have an excellent clue. You don't. For example, you
>>>>>>don't understand the difference between collective
>>>>>>responsibility and shared responsibility. There is
>>>>>>one, but you don't know what it is.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>Maybe you can explain the difference here and I'll see if it's
>>>>>agreeable to my own interpretation. You have made the claim
>>>>>that there is a difference between the two, so in fairness the
>>>>>onus is on you to present yours first.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>Go back and read Mellema.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>I have already. You first.
>>>
>>I read it before you did. Your first reference, ever,
>>to Mellema and the www.calvin.edu/academic/philosophy
>>web page was in response to my having posted it, last
>>August. Look it up in Google if you don't believe me.
>>
>>
> Did you think I hadn't already?
Yes. If you at least *thought* you were telling the
truth, anyway, about who introduced whom to the page.
If you *did* look it up beforehand, then you were
deliberately lying.
Which was it, FirstShitStirrer: ignorance, or
deliberate lying?
Your ongoing participation in voluntary exchange,
knowing how the farmer produces his goods.
> You've indicated they could
> be written somewhere, but you need to bring those
> concepts here to prove they make me share responsibility
> yet.
It's been done. You know how the farmer raises his
crops, and you know that by buying from him, you are
"telling" him that he's doing a good job.
Your share of the responsibility is established beyond
doubt.
>
>>If you knew your ass from your face, Derek, you would
>>understand that shared *and* collective responsibility
>>are perfectly respectable areas of moral inquiry, and
>>that academics have been studying and writing about
>>them for years.
>>
>
> That's good news. Let's see some of it.
Read some of the material referenced by Mellema.
>
>
>>But you're an ignorant, self-important
>>blowhard who would rather spout his uninformed
>>prejudices than really learn something.
>>
>>
> I'm willing to learn but can't see anything written on the blackboard
> to study yet. You're bluffing.
No, you're too lazy and incompetent. The references
have been made, if you care to find the material and
read it, but you don't. It's not my job to track it
down and post it for you.
>>>Have you any points to make on the article, or are you
>>>going to keep blowing smoke? I gave you the link to the
>>>page and didn't put anything into or out of context. You're
>>>just pissed off because you didn't find the page yourself,
>>>
>>I did find the page myself, you shitfaced liar. You
>>only found that entire site through me.
>>
>>
> I've had that site in my folder for months and months. I
> knew of it long before you did.
No, you didn't. I first referenced it on August 11,
2001. That was the first you'd seen it.
You found that by jumping about from the link I provided.
>
>
>>>It refutes my claim
>>>and gives you something to argue with, but you're still not keen
>>>to take the points on and argue them. You'd rather concentrate
>>>on trying to denigrate me. Does my honesty shock you that much?
>>>
>>How could it? I haven't seen any.
>>
>>I cited from Mellema's page at length to show that your
>>primitive, uneducated notions about responsibility are
>>at odds with those of respectable philosophers. You
>>couldn't address them.
>>
>>
> I have. Melanie's "qualifying act" doesn't describe my trade with
> the farmer.
> [ Since a moral agent bears moral responsibility for having
> performed this qualifying act, in some sense collective moral
> responsibility can be said to distribute to the moral responsibility
> of its constitutive members. Each member of a collective morally
> responsible for a state of affairs is morally responsible either for
> the same state of affairs or for a related state of affairs, *where the
> related state of affairs is that of having performed the relevant
> qualifying act.*]*my emphasis*
> SHARED MORAL RESPONSIBILITY 3
> http://www.calvin.edu/academic/philosophy/writings/crintro.htm
He didn't specify any particular qualifying act, nor
what made it one. I have. It's obvious that your
participation in trade is a qualifying act, *when* you
know how the goods on the other side of the trade are
produced.
>
> My emphasis shows clearly that even Melanie's concepts can't
> pin your CD guilt trip on me.
Your emphasis was Harrisonesque. It pointed to nothing.
> My act does not bring about the
> farmers act in causing these CD.
Yes, it does. By continuing to buy from him, you
encourage him to go back and do it again.
> He can and does perform his
> action without my act. Therefore, my act is not a qualifying one.
He does *not* do it without your act. Your act is to
give him money, even if it's indirectly. If you and
everyone else stopped buying from him, he'd have to do
something else; he'd be bankrupt as a farmer. He'd
probably have to do something much easier and requiring
less skill, like automotive electronics.
The qualifying act is unambiguous: You know what he's
doing and how he's doing it, and you continue to reward
him for it.
>>>>Something you lack, thanks to your father's utter moral bankruptcy.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>Get off his back.
>>>
>>Get out of his pocket. Learn to think for yourself.
>>Stop being a sociopath.
>>
>>
> I never brought him into this conversation.
You did, long ago. He never left: when you speak,
he's speaking.
>
> [..]
>
>>>Yes there is. We have a moral duty to protect the rights of
>>>moral patients.
>>>
>>You have to show that they have rights. Not all moral
>>patients have rights.
>>
>
> I believe they do.
Ipse dixit.
>
>
>>In particular, animals *cannot*
>>have rights. It is simply impossible.
>>
>>
> I don't believe it is.
We're even less likely to believe that you have had a
breakthrough philosophical insight than we are to
believe it of Saint Tom.
Jonathan Ball
> "Jonathan Ball" <jon...@mindspring.NS.com> wrote in message
> news:3C6D3DEE...@mindspring.NS.com...
>>>My taxes will always be used to prop up farming; you can't escape
>>>the system. There is no choice in the matter or moral consideration
>>>I can make to change that.
>>>
>>No, not your taxes, FirstAnimalKiller. The cash you
>>cheerfully fork over for fruit and vegetables at
>>Sainsburys or Safeway or wherever it is that poor,
>>weary Belinda trudges off to in order to buy the
>>blood-soaked produce that you greedily stuff into your
>>18 stone dumpster of a body.
>>
>>
> Yes, my taxes.
No, not the taxes. You cheerfully fork over thousands
of pounds per year to the "ugly farmer", not in the
form of taxes, but in the form of cash you simply hand
to him, in exchange for blood-drenched vegetables.
> As Karen points out in another thread;
[...]
Forget what ~~ratsleaze~~ points out; it's pure
sophistry, and it is simply a terrible, incomparable
analogy.
> Paying taxes which are taken without my consent is not
> a qualifying act imo.
> btw. I've lost 12lb in 3 weeks.
I'm not talking about taxes. I'm talking about the
after-tax money you cheerfully use to reward the farmer
for following the same methods year after year.
>
>
>>I can almost hear it coming now: you're going to end
>>up blaming poor Belinda, because *she* is the one who
>>actually hands over the money to the grocer.
>>
>>
> She even admits to being responsible for the Lea & Perrins
> incident now. We don't have condements at the table. She
> adds to taste in the kitchen and brings the plate in for me.
You sexist asshole. Get out in the kitchen yourself,
why don't you?
>
>>>>You ARE morally involved because you have the
>>>>choice not to take part !
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>You're wrong. It's the same with meds; there is no choice but to
>>>take them.
>>>
>>No, there is an entire universe of choice.
>>
>
> Not with taxes there isn't. Pay them or go to prison.
We're not talking about taxes. We're talking about the
money you cheerfully funnel through your "fence":
Sainsburys or Safeway, or whoever-the-hell.
>
>
>>You choose
>>to do that which is most convenient for you. And the
>>most convenient thing for you is to eat the cheap,
>>blood-drenched fruits and vegetables.
>>
>>
> Now you're beginning to sound like YOUR little troll; Etter.
> You're not going to take his lead are you? Life here has
> been so much more pleasant since I blocked his posts from
> appearing on my screen.
What did you do that for?
>
>
>>You clearly do not believe that the animals have
>>inherent rights. Your behavior proves it.
>>
>>
> Moral patients have rights,
Not if they're not human.
> and I believe some animals to be in reciept of them.
You believe lots of screwy bullshit.
firstoftwins
> firstoftwins wrote:
>
> > "Jonathan Ball" <jon...@mindspring.NS.com> wrote in message
> > news:3C6C15AD...@mindspring.NS.com...
> >
> >>firstoftwins wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >>>"Dutch" <n...@email.com> wrote in message
> >>>news:QZHa8.29829$A44.1...@news2.calgary.shaw.ca...
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>>"firstoftwins" <firsto...@hotmail.com> wrote
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>>"Jonathan Ball" <jon...@mindspring.NS.com> wrote in message
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>>firstoftwins wrote:
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>>"Jonathan Ball" <jon...@mindspring.NS.com> wrote
[..]
>
> Derek: you've simply lost this. You are wrong, and
> you know it.
>
their value altogether on the black market. Especially first
hand hot goods. Sometimes their value is so reduced as
to be too hot to handle and aren't worth anything.
> Of *course* something stolen has value; that's why the
> thief stole it, you fat pillock. And he can trade that
> value for something else of value.
>
In some cases it may be true, but never in my case.
[..]
>
> > If I stole
> > the Crown Jewels they would be worthless until I melted them
> > down and sold them for £50 an ounce.
>
> No, that's absolutely untrue.
Blatantly true, Jon. Shergar, a race horse worth many thousands
was pinched and probably fetched £50 for dog meat.
> There is a brisk trade
> in stolen art and jewels.
>
But not in stolen lives accumulated during the production of my
food.
> > However, if I could
> > persuade Lizzy to sell them to me for a song I could auction
> > the lot and buy the house across the street from you with the
> > proceeds.
>
> Oh, no! The house directly across the street is owned
> by a couple who have a little boy exactly three weeks
> younger than ours.
Just over 14 months is he?
> The wife in the couple, Christie,
> is one of the most beautiful women I've ever met, and
> she and my wife are good friends, so I get lots of
> opportunities to gaze at her beauty.
>
Wife swapping can lead to all sorts of jealousy later on.
I'd keep things as uncomplicated as possible if I were you.
> The other house is purple. I'm not kidding. I'll take
> a digital picture of it and try e-mailing it to your
> hotmail address, if you don't object.
Not at all. My addy isn't spam proof and I'd look forward
to recieving a piccy of your neighbourhood. How nice of
you to offer.
> Actually, the
> color of the house "works", given the landscaping.
I envisaged you lived on the edge of an orchard. I'm
sure I came across it during my google searches of you
somewhere.
> It's just that it was pretty glaring when they first
> had it repainted (it was purple before, too, but faded.)
>
Sounds like a good opportunity for a bet. Send me proof of
the colour they have just painted it, and I'll bet you £20 you
can't get them to change it to the colo{u}r of you're own
choosing within 2 months.
> >
[..]
> >>>>>
> >>No, he doesn't. You don't take the "risk" home with
> >>you; you take home the merchandise.
> >>
> >
> > You DO take the risk home with you.
>
> Not the THIEF'S risk, you idiot. You acquire your own.
>
> Anyway, you don't play your Abba CDs or "Bob the
> Builder" on the risk. You play those on the boom box.
>
?
> > You can be charged
> > at any time for "recieving" ( I've never heard of the phrase,
> > "buying stolen goods") stolen goods.
>
> Right. But what you gave the thief money for was the
> merchandise. That's what you wanted. If you could get
> the same merchandise at the same price, but without the
> risk, you'd do it. The risk is what (unfortunately)
> comes with the risk.
>
And *those* risks have to be paid for. The crook has to make his
living by his labo(u)rs, and my risks in keeping the goods needs
compensating. How much payment for each individual risk depends
on the circumstances. If you shot a security guard during a raid on
some gems, the "price" would be greatly affected.
They would be sought after as evidence by the police which would
make them too hot to keep as they would put you at the scene. Any
possible fence for the gems would probably back out of the trade too
for the same reasons. The risk exceeds the initial value of the
merchandise.
> >
> >>You are buying
> >>merchandise, at a deep discount because it was stolen.
> >>
> >>
> > Because the merchandise is so valueless, you merely pay
> > for the risks the crook took.
>
> No, Derek, you're paying for the merchandise. It's the
> merchandise you want, not the risk. The risk is what
> you acquire as a result of what you DIDN'T pay.
>
I can steal the merchandise myself, thereby cutting out the
middleman and get it free. It's only when the thief becomes
involved that a trade takes place. This is why your analogy
stinks, Jon. It just doesn't work any way you look at it. Try
using another more appropriate analogy and stop wasting my
time helping the newbies from your trolls.
> >
[..]
> >
> >>You can buy stolen goods, Derek; just not legally.
> >>
> >>
> > You cannot buy stolen anything. Buying requires a vendor and
> > the vendor must have ownership in full or in part.
>
> No, that is no requirement of being a "vendor". "Vend"
> means "sell",
I know that. You're starting to sound like Sue, more and more.
> and there is no requirement that the
> goods being sold be legally owned. The vendor (thief)
> *does* "own" the goods, in the sense that he has them
> in his possession, and he won't give them to you unless
> you give him something of value.
>
Having something in one's possession does not make it a chattel.
Try selling Christie's purple house when you babysit for her one
evening.
> That's all a "sale" is: the trading of things of
> value, whether legally owned or not.
>
And as I've patiently pointed out to you a dozen times; once
a chattel is stolen it becomes valueless and can only be fenced
for the value of the crook's efforts and risks involved.
> You are simply wrong. You might not like the analogy
> to animal CDs, but you can't oppose it on these
> ridiculous technical grounds, because you are
> misdefining technical terms.
>
I'm using real terms understood and easily identifiable to everyone.
> The whole point of the analogy is not to suggest that
> you should be criminally prosecuted for the animal CDs
> your diet causes.
That's a ridiculous statement as well . How can a diet "cause"
CD? A physical act "causes" them.
> It's to show, rather, that your
> demand for vegetables at a particular price, a demand
> that is ongoing despite your knowledge of what happens
> in their production, is what motivates the farmer to
> keep on farming the way he does.
>
The farmer sin't using methods according to my prescriptions
or taboos and voluntarilly performs his acts according to
his own. My act of buying his goods isn't causal to his CD.
> You and other fatuous, ignorant "aras" believe, or
> rather *claim* to believe, that the wanton disregard
> for animals' lives that *leads* to animal CDs ought to
> be illegal; such wanton disregard for *human* lives in
> industrial production already is illegal. But your
> cheerful, uncoerced purchases from the farmer who kills
> them are EXACTLY analogous to the cheerful, uncoerced
> receiving of stolen property from thieves.
>
No it's not. We buy the goods from the rightful owner rather
than pay a crook to risk his liberty. There's the big difference.
> The analogy is superb, and it proves that you share in
> the moral responsibility - IF THERE IS ANY - for animal
> CDs.
>
The analogy is flawed from the start and I won't accept it illustrates
my trade with the farmer. Get yourself a better one and stop wasting
my time.
> Move on, Derek. You've lost.
>
Never!
Jonathan Ball
> "Jonathan Ball" <jon...@mindspring.NS.com> wrote in message
> news:3C6D4C5...@mindspring.NS.com...
>>>Something swiped has no value and cannot be sold.
>>>
>>Derek: you've simply lost this. You are wrong, and
>>you know it.
>>
>>
> No, I believe I have a strong point here. Stolen goods lose
> their value altogether on the black market.
You are altogether an idiot. Of all the incredibly
stupid things you've ever written, that has to be the
unquestionable champion.
It's flatly wrong.
> Especially first
> hand hot goods. Sometimes their value is so reduced as
> to be too hot to handle and aren't worth anything.
>
>
>>Of *course* something stolen has value; that's why the
>>thief stole it, you fat pillock. And he can trade that
>>value for something else of value.
>>
>>
> In some cases it may be true, but never in my case.
Well, I would *hope* you would at least say, here, that
you've never bought stolen merchandise.
> [..]
>
>>>If I stole
>>>the Crown Jewels they would be worthless until I melted them
>>>down and sold them for Ł50 an ounce.
>>>
>>No, that's absolutely untrue.
>>
>
> Blatantly true, Jon. Shergar, a race horse worth many thousands
> was pinched and probably fetched Ł50 for dog meat.
Doubtlessly false, pillock. Why risk stealing a well
guarded race horse when you could pinch some old
dobbins from some fat ugly farmer who isn't watching
him at all?
>
>
>>There is a brisk trade in stolen art and jewels.
>>
>>
> But not in stolen lives accumulated during the production of my
> food.
So what? They still morally stain, in your view, the
merchandise. I didn't introduce the analogy to try to
show that the lives can be sold. The receiver of
stolen property is prosecuted because he shares in the
overall responsibility for theft: by rewarding the
thief, and encouraging him to keep thieving.
Similarly, if there is any wrong being done to animals
by the farmer in the course of his farming to provide
you with food, and you keep buying from the farmer,
then you are encouraging him in exactly the same way as
the receiver of stolen goods encourages the thief, and
you share in the moral responsibility for the dead animals.
>
>
>>>However, if I could
>>>persuade Lizzy to sell them to me for a song I could auction
>>>the lot and buy the house across the street from you with the
>>>proceeds.
>>>
>>Oh, no! The house directly across the street is owned
>>by a couple who have a little boy exactly three weeks
>>younger than ours.
>>
>
> Just over 14 months is he?
>
>
>>The wife in the couple, Christie,
>>is one of the most beautiful women I've ever met, and
>>she and my wife are good friends, so I get lots of
>>opportunities to gaze at her beauty.
>>
>>
> Wife swapping can lead to all sorts of jealousy later on.
> I'd keep things as uncomplicated as possible if I were you.
No wife swapping; not even any hanky panky. She's just
lovely to look at, and a good neighbor and friend. We
have them over for dinner on the weekend pretty often.
They especially like my barbecue-roasted pork roast,
and chicken cooked the same way.
>
>
>>The other house is purple. I'm not kidding. I'll take
>>a digital picture of it and try e-mailing it to your
>>hotmail address, if you don't object.
>>
>
> Not at all. My addy isn't spam proof and I'd look forward
> to recieving a piccy of your neighbourhood. How nice of
> you to offer.
Okay, the picture is on its way.
>
>
>>Actually, the
>>color of the house "works", given the landscaping.
>>
>
> I envisaged you lived on the edge of an orchard. I'm
> sure I came across it during my google searches of you
> somewhere.
Nah. I wish I did. Up until a little under two years
ago, I lived on the edge of a national forest. There
were all kinds of varmints coming into the yard:
raccoons, skunks, possums, rattlesnakes, and coyotes.
I still get the first three in this house, but not as many.
>
>
>>It's just that it was pretty glaring when they first
>>had it repainted (it was purple before, too, but faded.)
>>
>>
> Sounds like a good opportunity for a bet. Send me proof of
> the colour they have just painted it, and I'll bet you Ł20 you
> can't get them to change it to the colo{u}r of you're own
> choosing within 2 months.
You'll bet that I can NOT get them to change the color?
Why would I take a bet like that? I wouldn't even
ask them to change it.
Anyway, the proof is on its way already.
>
> [..]
>
>>>>No, he doesn't. You don't take the "risk" home with
>>>>you; you take home the merchandise.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>You DO take the risk home with you.
>>>
>>Not the THIEF'S risk, you idiot. You acquire your own.
>>
>>Anyway, you don't play your Abba CDs or "Bob the
>>Builder" on the risk. You play those on the boom box.
>>
>>
> ?
What do you mean, "?" You don't take the thief's risk
home with you. What you take home with you is the
merchandise, along with your *own* risk for having
bought hot goods.
>
>
>>>You can be charged
>>>at any time for "recieving" ( I've never heard of the phrase,
>>>"buying stolen goods") stolen goods.
>>>
>>Right. But what you gave the thief money for was the
>>merchandise. That's what you wanted. If you could get
>>the same merchandise at the same price, but without the
>>risk, you'd do it. The risk is what (unfortunately)
>>comes with the risk.
>>
>>
> And *those* risks have to be paid for. The crook has to make his
> living by his labo(u)rs, and my risks in keeping the goods needs
> compensating.
That's the discount, you pillock. You're "compensated"
to the extent you don't have to pay as much money as
you would if you bought in the high street.
> How much payment for each individual risk depends
> on the circumstances. If you shot a security guard during a raid on
> some gems, the "price" would be greatly affected.
No. The buyer is only willing to pay what he's willing
to pay; he doesn't care that the thief incurred more
risk or not. As long as the buyer can't be tied ex
ante to the crime, he's not on the hook for any other
crimes that were committed in the course of obtaining
the goods.
> They would be sought after as evidence by the police which would
> make them too hot to keep as they would put you at the scene. Any
> possible fence for the gems would probably back out of the trade too
> for the same reasons. The risk exceeds the initial value of the
> merchandise.
>
>>>>You are buying
>>>>merchandise, at a deep discount because it was stolen.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>Because the merchandise is so valueless, you merely pay
>>>for the risks the crook took.
>>>
>>No, Derek, you're paying for the merchandise. It's the
>>merchandise you want, not the risk. The risk is what
>>you acquire as a result of what you DIDN'T pay.
>>
>>
> I can steal the merchandise myself, thereby cutting out the
> middleman and get it free.
No. You still acquire the risk of getting caught, and
being prosecuted for theft. That risk does *not*
transfer to the receiver, *unless* it can be shown that
he had prior knowledge of the crime, or perhaps even
commissioned it. But then he isn't prosecuted for
receiving; he's prosecuted for the theft itself.
> It's only when the thief becomes
> involved that a trade takes place. This is why your analogy
> stinks, Jon. It just doesn't work any way you look at it. Try
> using another more appropriate analogy and stop wasting my
> time helping the newbies from your trolls.
The analogy is excellent. It shows that someone
connected, but without a "hands on" connection, to a
morally tainted act can bear responsibility for the
act, even though the second person didn't actually
commit the tainted act.
The analogy is fully applicable to your involvement in
animal CDs, and establishes that if there is *any*
moral responsbility for the CDs, you share in it.
>
> [..]
>
>>>>You can buy stolen goods, Derek; just not legally.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>You cannot buy stolen anything. Buying requires a vendor and
>>>the vendor must have ownership in full or in part.
>>>
>>No, that is no requirement of being a "vendor". "Vend"
>>means "sell",
>>
>
> I know that. You're starting to sound like Sue, more and more.
You're starting to sound like David, more and more.
>
>
>>and there is no requirement that the
>>goods being sold be legally owned. The vendor (thief)
>>*does* "own" the goods, in the sense that he has them
>>in his possession, and he won't give them to you unless
>>you give him something of value.
>>
>>
> Having something in one's possession does not make it a chattel.
Of course it does:
Chattel (n): an item of tangible movable or immovable
property except real estate, freehold, and things (as
buildings) connected with real property.
It's a tangible movable piece of property; it's
chattel. So what?
> Try selling Christie's purple house when you babysit for her one
> evening.
No, Christie doesn't live in the purple house. And
luckily, we've never had to babysit their little
nipper. He's a monster.
>
>
>>That's all a "sale" is: the trading of things of
>>value, whether legally owned or not.
>>
>>
> And as I've patiently pointed out to you a dozen times; once
> a chattel is stolen it becomes valueless and can only be fenced
> for the value of the crook's efforts and risks involved.
No, that's patently false. It isn't valueless at all.
Stop to think, Derek: in many cases, the buyer does
*not* know that the goods are stolen; he thinks he's
buying legitimately owned stuff, perhaps from an
odd-lots seller. That buyer certainly doesn't *think*
he's acquiring any risk. So far as he knows, the stuff
is selling at discount because it's last year's model,
or perhaps because some merchant went out of business.
>
>
>>You are simply wrong. You might not like the analogy
>>to animal CDs, but you can't oppose it on these
>>ridiculous technical grounds, because you are
>>misdefining technical terms.
>>
>>
> I'm using real terms understood and easily identifiable to everyone.
You're redefining terms to have meaning they don't
have. "To buy" merely means to acquire something of
value in exchange for something else of value; "to
sell" means to relinquish something of value in
exchange for something else. There is nothing in the
everyday definition of either word that specifies the
things exchanged must have been legally obtained in the
first place. You're simply incorrect to keep insisting
they do have such a dimension.
>
>
>>The whole point of the analogy is not to suggest that
>>you should be criminally prosecuted for the animal CDs
>>your diet causes.
>>
>
> That's a ridiculous statement as well . How can a diet "cause"
> CD? A physical act "causes" them.
Your acquisition of food from farmers incentivizes them
to keep farming.
>
>
>>It's to show, rather, that your
>>demand for vegetables at a particular price, a demand
>>that is ongoing despite your knowledge of what happens
>>in their production, is what motivates the farmer to
>>keep on farming the way he does.
>>
>>
> The farmer sin't using methods according to my prescriptions
> or taboos and voluntarilly performs his acts according to
> his own. My act of buying his goods isn't causal to his CD.
It is. You keep paying him for farming the same way
he's always farmed.
>
>
>>You and other fatuous, ignorant "aras" believe, or
>>rather *claim* to believe, that the wanton disregard
>>for animals' lives that *leads* to animal CDs ought to
>>be illegal; such wanton disregard for *human* lives in
>>industrial production already is illegal. But your
>>cheerful, uncoerced purchases from the farmer who kills
>>them are EXACTLY analogous to the cheerful, uncoerced
>>receiving of stolen property from thieves.
>>
>>
> No it's not. We buy the goods from the rightful owner rather
> than pay a crook to risk his liberty. There's the big difference.
It's not a difference at all. The food is tainted, on
*your* view, by the fact of the CDs its production
caused; just as the stolen goods are tainted by the
thief having stolen them. Because you are willingly
paying the farmer, knowing he has killed the animals,
the taint spreads to you.
>
>
>>The analogy is superb, and it proves that you share in
>>the moral responsibility - IF THERE IS ANY - for animal
>>CDs.
>>
>>
> The analogy is flawed from the start and I won't accept it illustrates
> my trade with the farmer. Get yourself a better one and stop wasting
> my time.
You've lost, Derek. The analogy is excellent. It
describes perfectly the manner in which you acquire
moral responsibility for animal CDs.
>
>
>>Move on, Derek. You've lost.
>>
>>
> Never!
You've lost, Derek. You're really thrashing, now.
firstoftwins
> firstoftwins wrote:
>
> > "Jonathan Ball" <jon...@mindspring.NS.com> wrote in message
> > news:3C6D437F...@mindspring.NS.com...
> [...]
> > I was hoping you would've made more of an
> > argument by now from better sources, because Mellema's
> > "qualifying act" clearly doesn't apply to me.
>
> Of course it does, you mullet. Your qualifying act is
> your *continual* purchase from someone whose production
> methods do something you *claim* to believe is unethical.
>
responsible for CD caused by farmers.
> >
[..]
> >>That's what proves that Saint Tom is not really a
> >>respectable academic, at least as far as his "animal
> >>rights" contribution goes. He would have the world
> >>believe that he, alone, saw this alleged "lexical gap"
> >>that necessitated his coining the expression "subject
> >>of a life".
> >>
> >>
> > I agree with Tom here too. Kantian personhood requires intellectual
> > capabilities to qualify a person as being in reciept of rights, and this
> > clearly is an error. His linguistic marker fills the gap perfectly.
>
> You don't know your ass from your face on this stuff,
> Derek. You should drop it right now. There's simply
> no way you'd ever understand it.
>
I've no intention of dropping this until someone sees some sense
here.
> >
> >>BTW, it ought to tell you something that Saint Tom
> >>spent his entire academic career at a true academic
> >>backwater. North Carolina State University is not
> >>exactly Harvard Divinity School.
> >>
> >>
> > For a man who claims not to notice or be affected by class; you
> > ain't arf a snob.
>
> We're not talking about something as empty as social
> class.
>
realise having read his book. His choice of university would
certainly be guided by this.
> >
> >>>Lord knows what other concepts he's had to
> >>>take out of context to in the rest of his book.
> >>>
> >>You're showing your ignorant ass here, Derek. Because
> >>you're a minimally educated dunderhead, you have no
> >>awareness of how academics work.
> >>
> >>
> > I think it's about time you stopped questioning my education.
>
> Nope. You're bone-ignorant.
>
>
> > I've already muted murdering Mercer twice using mathematics
>
> Don't make me laugh!
>
of 0.065 still suggests we accept the alternative hypothesis.
>
[..]
> >>I cited from Mellema's page at length to show that your
> >>primitive, uneducated notions about responsibility are
> >>at odds with those of respectable philosophers. You
> >>couldn't address them.
> >>
> >>
> > I have. Melanie's "qualifying act" doesn't describe my trade with
> > the farmer.
> > [ Since a moral agent bears moral responsibility for having
> > performed this qualifying act, in some sense collective moral
> > responsibility can be said to distribute to the moral responsibility
> > of its constitutive members. Each member of a collective morally
> > responsible for a state of affairs is morally responsible either for
> > the same state of affairs or for a related state of affairs, *where the
> > related state of affairs is that of having performed the relevant
> > qualifying act.*]*my emphasis*
> > SHARED MORAL RESPONSIBILITY 3
> > http://www.calvin.edu/academic/philosophy/writings/crintro.htm
>
> He didn't specify any particular qualifying act, nor
> what made it one. I have.
Which I don't agree is a credible.
> It's obvious that your
> participation in trade is a qualifying act, *when* you
> know how the goods on the other side of the trade are
> produced.
>
[The word "obviously" is also often viewed with suspicion.
It occasionally gets used to persuade people to accept false
statements, rather than admit that they don't understand why
something is 'obvious'. So don't be afraid to question
statements which people tell you are 'obvious' ]
My trade with the farmer is not an "obvious" qualifying act.
> >
> > My emphasis shows clearly that even Melanie's concepts can't
> > pin your CD guilt trip on me.
>
> Your emphasis was Harrisonesque. It pointed to nothing.
>
> > My act does not bring about the
> > farmers act in causing these CD.
>
> Yes, it does. By continuing to buy from him, you
> encourage him to go back and do it again.
>
He can and does do it without my act of encouragement.
This makes my act innocent.
> > He can and does perform his
> > action without my act. Therefore, my act is not a qualifying one.
>
> He does *not* do it without your act. Your act is to
> give him money, even if it's indirectly. If you and
> everyone else stopped buying from him, he'd have to do
> something else; he'd be bankrupt as a farmer. He'd
> probably have to do something much easier and requiring
> less skill, like automotive electronics.
>
I don't agree. His CD make his job easier and more profitable
not essential. He can work elsewhere for money if he can't take
the responsibility for all the deaths he causes. He should change
his methods or get out of farming. I don't force him to farm.
> The qualifying act is unambiguous: You know what he's
> doing and how he's doing it, and you continue to reward
> him for it.
>
You are mistaken. I don't reward him for his methods, just his
produce.
Jonathan Ball
> "Jonathan Ball" <jon...@mindspring.NS.com> wrote in message
> news:3C6D7232...@mindspring.NS.com...
>>>I was hoping you would've made more of an
>>>argument by now from better sources, because Mellema's
>>>"qualifying act" clearly doesn't apply to me.
>>>
>>Of course it does, you mullet. Your qualifying act is
>>your *continual* purchase from someone whose production
>>methods do something you *claim* to believe is unethical.
>>
>>
> That act is not a qualifying act. My tax payments do not make me
> responsible for CD caused by farmers.
Not your tax payments; the money you cheerfully pay to
the "fence" - the grocer - for blood-soaked vegetables.
Stop trying to change the subject. We're not talking
about any subsidies the farmer might receive from the
government, in trying to establish your culpability.
We're talking about the money he earns *directly* in
the marketplace, from selling to *you*.
>
> [..]
>
>>>>That's what proves that Saint Tom is not really a
>>>>respectable academic, at least as far as his "animal
>>>>rights" contribution goes. He would have the world
>>>>believe that he, alone, saw this alleged "lexical gap"
>>>>that necessitated his coining the expression "subject
>>>>of a life".
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>I agree with Tom here too. Kantian personhood requires intellectual
>>>capabilities to qualify a person as being in reciept of rights, and this
>>>clearly is an error. His linguistic marker fills the gap perfectly.
>>>
>>You don't know your ass from your face on this stuff,
>>Derek. You should drop it right now. There's simply
>>no way you'd ever understand it.
>>
>>
> I've been reading this issue long enough to use it in my discussions.
> I've no intention of dropping this until someone sees some sense
> here.
We'll be here a long time. YOu refuse to see sense,
even when it's spitting in your eye.
>
>>>>BTW, it ought to tell you something that Saint Tom
>>>>spent his entire academic career at a true academic
>>>>backwater. North Carolina State University is not
>>>>exactly Harvard Divinity School.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>For a man who claims not to notice or be affected by class; you
>>>ain't arf a snob.
>>>
>>We're not talking about something as empty as social
>>class.
>>
>>
> Regan came from a less than affluent backround as you no doubt
> realise having read his book. His choice of university would
> certainly be guided by this.
I'm talking about the university where he *worked*, not
the ones he attended. NC State is not widely viewed as
a first rate school, academically, in anything. They
*did* have a good basketball team, back when Jim
Valvano was the coach. That's getting to be a long
time back, and Jimmy V is dead.
>
>>>>>Lord knows what other concepts he's had to
>>>>>take out of context to in the rest of his book.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>You're showing your ignorant ass here, Derek. Because
>>>>you're a minimally educated dunderhead, you have no
>>>>awareness of how academics work.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>I think it's about time you stopped questioning my education.
>>>
>>Nope. You're bone-ignorant.
>>
>>
> I'm a natural.
I'd hate to think you *worked* at being so stupid.
>
>>>I've already muted murdering Mercer twice using mathematics
>>>
>>Don't make me laugh!
>>
>>
> He has never responded to my P-value definition and how a value
> of 0.065 still suggests we accept the alternative hypothesis.
He shouldn't, either. You don't know what you're
talking about.
>
> [..]
>
>>>>I cited from Mellema's page at length to show that your
>>>>primitive, uneducated notions about responsibility are
>>>>at odds with those of respectable philosophers. You
>>>>couldn't address them.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>I have. Melanie's "qualifying act" doesn't describe my trade with
>>>the farmer.
>>>[ Since a moral agent bears moral responsibility for having
>>>performed this qualifying act, in some sense collective moral
>>>responsibility can be said to distribute to the moral responsibility
>>>of its constitutive members. Each member of a collective morally
>>>responsible for a state of affairs is morally responsible either for
>>>the same state of affairs or for a related state of affairs, *where the
>>>related state of affairs is that of having performed the relevant
>>>qualifying act.*]*my emphasis*
>>>SHARED MORAL RESPONSIBILITY 3
>>>http://www.calvin.edu/academic/philosophy/writings/crintro.htm
>>>
>>He didn't specify any particular qualifying act, nor
>>what made it one. I have.
>>
>
> Which I don't agree is a credible.
Too bad. It is credible (what do you mean "a"
credible?) It is perfectly analogous to the qualifying
act of the receiver of stolen property: it
incentivizes the person doing the "hands on" criminal
or immoral thing.
>
>
>>It's obvious that your
>>participation in trade is a qualifying act, *when* you
>>know how the goods on the other side of the trade are
>>produced.
>>
>>
> [The word "obviously" is also often viewed with suspicion.
> It occasionally gets used to persuade people to accept false
> statements, rather than admit that they don't understand why
> something is 'obvious'. So don't be afraid to question
> statements which people tell you are 'obvious' ]
> My trade with the farmer is not an "obvious" qualifying act.
It's "obvious", because it is perfectly analogous to
the receiver's action, *when* he knows the goods are
stolen. *You* know the CDs are lurking behind the
green beans.
>
>>>My emphasis shows clearly that even Melanie's concepts can't
>>>pin your CD guilt trip on me.
>>>
>>Your emphasis was Harrisonesque. It pointed to nothing.
>>
>>
>>>My act does not bring about the
>>>farmers act in causing these CD.
>>>
>>Yes, it does. By continuing to buy from him, you
>>encourage him to go back and do it again.
>>
>>
> He can and does do it without my act of encouragement.
No, he doesn't. Your act of encouragement is to give
him money again and again, knowing that he is doing
something of which you disapprove; and that "something"
is to grow food that you *want*.
> This makes my act innocent.
>
>
>>>He can and does perform his
>>>action without my act. Therefore, my act is not a qualifying one.
>>>
>>He does *not* do it without your act. Your act is to
>>give him money, even if it's indirectly. If you and
>>everyone else stopped buying from him, he'd have to do
>>something else; he'd be bankrupt as a farmer. He'd
>>probably have to do something much easier and requiring
>>less skill, like automotive electronics.
>>
>>
> I don't agree. His CD make his job easier and more profitable
> not essential.
No one said they are "essential". They are intrinsic
to the current method of farming.
Making them illegal would have the effect of raising
the price, just as you have to pay more for
legitimately sold merchandise.
> He can work elsewhere for money if he can't take
> the responsibility for all the deaths he causes. He should change
> his methods or get out of farming. I don't force him to farm.
No, and you don't "force" the thief to steal, either.
But if he steals, and you buy goods from him, you're
providing him with the wrong incentive. Similarly,
when you keep buying from the farmer who directly
causes the CDs, you're providing him with the wrong
incentive, too.
>
>
>>The qualifying act is unambiguous: You know what he's
>>doing and how he's doing it, and you continue to reward
>>him for it.
>>
>>
> You are mistaken. I don't reward him for his methods, just his
> produce.
You're paying for the whole package. Because you know
what he's doing, you share in the moral responsibility
for anything bad he's doing.
Snuffles
What Taxes do YOU pay?
>
> > You ARE morally involved because you have the
> > choice not to take part !
> >
> You're wrong. It's the same with meds; there is no choice but to
> take them.
Why do you have no choice?
>
>
>
Swan & Rat
>
> Swan & Rat wrote:
>
> > Dutch wrote:
> >
> > <snip>
> >
> >>Your examples are not so clear cut
> >>because taxes are not a matter of choice, they are imposed on us, and the
> >>manner in which they are spent is a matter of democratic (and other)
> >>processes in which you have some say, but in general you are far removed
> >>from, and no reasonable person can connect you causally to every outcome.
> >>
> >
> > Exactly the same as CDs. Taxes may be imposed on
> > the population in general, but you _choose_ to pay
> > them or not.
> No, ~~ratsleaze~~. The "choices" are not comparable.
> One of them is coerced by lethal force, the other is not.
Ridiculous. All you have to do is drop below the
income limit for taxation. (And when was the last
time anyone was shot for non-payment of taxes? Sent
to jail, sure. Aren't you willing to do a bit of
jail time to avoid supporting murder, police beatings,
and Enron? )
> > ARAs are as responzible for CDs as
> > you are for police beatings, government aid to
> > Enron, and civilian deaths in Afganistan.
> No, this has been conclusively demonstrated to be
> false. You can easily choose not to buy from anyone.
> No similar option exist to avoid *some* government
> taxing you. And the choice of *which* government is
> extremely limited.
False on both counts.
> You had your ass kicked on this before.
Ipse dixit, blowhard.
> > How responsible are you for little children killed
> > by US bombs? For police brutality and government
> > corruption? After all, you voted, and whether your
> > candidate won or not, that vote was a vote to support
> > the system as a whole.
> No. That's a typically false, sophistical interpretation.
It's a correct interpretation. You participate, you
give consent to the legitimacy of the system. Nobody
makes you vote.
Rat
Jonathan Ball
> Jonathan Ball wrote:
>
>>Swan & Rat wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Dutch wrote:
>>>
>>> <snip>
>>>
>>>>Your examples are not so clear cut
>>>>because taxes are not a matter of choice, they are imposed on us, and the
>>>>manner in which they are spent is a matter of democratic (and other)
>>>>processes in which you have some say, but in general you are far removed
>>>>from, and no reasonable person can connect you causally to every outcome.
>>>>
>>>>
>>> Exactly the same as CDs. Taxes may be imposed on
>>> the population in general, but you _choose_ to pay
>>> them or not.
>>>
>
>
>>No, ~~ratsleaze~~. The "choices" are not comparable.
>>One of them is coerced by lethal force, the other is not.
>>
>
> Ridiculous. All you have to do is drop below the
> income limit for taxation.
No more a real choice than not paying them if you incur
them.
> (And when was the last
> time anyone was shot for non-payment of taxes? Sent
> to jail, sure. Aren't you willing to do a bit of
> jail time to avoid supporting murder, police beatings,
> and Enron? )
It isn't that you're subject to lethal force for not
paying them. You are for resisting being sent to jail.
>
>
>>> ARAs are as responzible for CDs as
>>> you are for police beatings, government aid to
>>> Enron, and civilian deaths in Afganistan.
>>>
>
>
>>No, this has been conclusively demonstrated to be
>>false. You can easily choose not to buy from anyone.
>>No similar option exist to avoid *some* government
>>taxing you. And the choice of *which* government is
>>extremely limited.
>>
>
> False on both counts.
Absolutely true on both counts.
Don't you feel like kind of a dirty asshole for just
writing something stupid like that and running away
from it?
>
>
>>You had your ass kicked on this before.
>>
>
> Ipse dixit, blowhard.
Yeah, sure, asshole.
You lost. The power of limited choice in the market
doesn't begin to compare to the power of the state.
Your comparison is bullshit, ~~ratsleaze~~. Just as
you are bullshit.
>
>
>>> How responsible are you for little children killed
>>> by US bombs? For police brutality and government
>>> corruption? After all, you voted, and whether your
>>> candidate won or not, that vote was a vote to support
>>> the system as a whole.
>>>
>
>
>>No. That's a typically false, sophistical interpretation.
>>
>
> It's a correct interpretation.
It's a false, sophistical interpretation. You are
comparing completely unlike things.
> You participate, you
> give consent to the legitimacy of the system. Nobody
> makes you vote.
How do you know I even voted?
You arrogant fucking asshole. Your comparison is
bullshit, you know it's bullshit, and you are bullshit.
Swan & Rat
>
> Swan & Rat wrote:
> >>>Dutch wrote:
> >>> <snip>
> >>>>Your examples are not so clear cut
> >>>>because taxes are not a matter of choice, they are imposed on us, and the
> >>>>manner in which they are spent is a matter of democratic (and other)
> >>>>processes in which you have some say, but in general you are far removed
> >>>>from, and no reasonable person can connect you causally to every outcome.
> >>> Exactly the same as CDs. Taxes may be imposed on
> >>> the population in general, but you _choose_ to pay
> >>> them or not.
> >>No, ~~ratsleaze~~. The "choices" are not comparable.
> >>One of them is coerced by lethal force, the other is not.
> > Ridiculous. All you have to do is drop below the
> > income limit for taxation.
> No more a real choice than not paying them if you incur
> them.
As real a choice as asking a person of limited means
and no farming experience, living in a city, to
avoid buying any vegetables. It's possible not to
pay taxes as a protest. A few people have done it.
You could do do. It's just very difficult.
> > (And when was the last
> > time anyone was shot for non-payment of taxes? Sent
> > to jail, sure. Aren't you willing to do a bit of
> > jail time to avoid supporting murder, police beatings,
> > and Enron? )
> It isn't that you're subject to lethal force for not
> paying them. You are for resisting being sent to jail.
So don't resist. Go to jail.
> >>> ARAs are as responsible for CDs as
> >>> you are for police beatings, government aid to
> >>> Enron, and civilian deaths in Afganistan.
> >>No, this has been conclusively demonstrated to be
> >>false. You can easily choose not to buy from anyone.
> >>No similar option exist to avoid *some* government
> >>taxing you. And the choice of *which* government is
> >>extremely limited.
> > False on both counts.
> Absolutely true on both counts.
> Don't you feel like kind of a dirty asshole for just
> writing something stupid like that and running away
> from it?
Don't you feel like an idiot for writing something
which is so clearly ridiculous on the face of it?
> >>You had your ass kicked on this before.
> > Ipse dixit, blowhard.
> Yeah, sure, asshole.
> You lost. The power of limited choice in the market
> doesn't begin to compare to the power of the state.
Your (collective) choices are no more limited than
the veggie-buyers' choices.
> Your comparison is bullshit, ~~ratsleaze~~. Just as
> you are bullshit.
Ah, such insight, such eloquence, such...complete
lack of logical argument....
> >>> How responsible are you for little children killed
> >>> by US bombs? For police brutality and government
> >>> corruption? After all, you voted, and whether your
> >>> candidate won or not, that vote was a vote to support
> >>> the system as a whole.
> >>No. That's a typically false, sophistical interpretation.
> > It's a correct interpretation.
> It's a false, sophistical interpretation. You are
> comparing completely unlike things.
> > You participate, you
> > give consent to the legitimacy of the system. Nobody
> > makes you vote.
> How do you know I even voted?
I don't.
> You arrogant fucking asshole. Your comparison is
> bullshit, you know it's bullshit, and you are bullshit.
Ah, such insight, such eloquence, such...complete lack
of logical argument....
Rat
Jonathan Ball
> Jonathan Ball wrote:
>
>>Swan & Rat wrote:
>>
>
>>>>>Dutch wrote:
>>>>>
>
>>>>> <snip>
>>>>>
>
>>>>>>Your examples are not so clear cut
>>>>>>because taxes are not a matter of choice, they are imposed on us, and the
>>>>>>manner in which they are spent is a matter of democratic (and other)
>>>>>>processes in which you have some say, but in general you are far removed
>>>>>>from, and no reasonable person can connect you causally to every outcome.
>>>>>>
>
>>>>> Exactly the same as CDs. Taxes may be imposed on
>>>>> the population in general, but you _choose_ to pay
>>>>> them or not.
>>>>>
>
>>>>No, ~~ratsleaze~~. The "choices" are not comparable.
>>>>One of them is coerced by lethal force, the other is not.
>>>>
>
>>> Ridiculous. All you have to do is drop below the
>>> income limit for taxation.
>>>
>
>
>>No more a real choice than not paying them if you incur
>>them.
>>
>
> As real a choice as asking a person of limited means
> and no farming experience, living in a city, to
> avoid buying any vegetables.
No, a much less real choice. Forget "means"; most
people who live off the land are deliberately poor.
And forget "experience". It isn't really that hard to
grow vegetables.
And you sure as hell don't have to live in your trendy,
socialist city. Unlike the tax protester picking up
and heading off to some other country, you can pick up
and move to a rural area without anyone's permission.
No one tells you, "you can't do that".
> It's possible not to
> pay taxes as a protest. A few people have done it.
> You could do do. It's just very difficult.
>
>
>>> (And when was the last
>>> time anyone was shot for non-payment of taxes? Sent
>>> to jail, sure. Aren't you willing to do a bit of
>>> jail time to avoid supporting murder, police beatings,
>>> and Enron? )
>>>
>
>
>>It isn't that you're subject to lethal force for not
>>paying them. You are for resisting being sent to jail.
>>
>
> So don't resist. Go to jail.
Not a real option. Not like living free but without
causing animal death. You can do that without losing
your liberty.
No, ~~ratsleaze~~, this dirty little sophist's game
simply won't fly. You're wrong, and you know you're wrong.
>
>
>>>>> ARAs are as responsible for CDs as
>>>>> you are for police beatings, government aid to
>>>>> Enron, and civilian deaths in Afganistan.
>>>>>
>
>>>>No, this has been conclusively demonstrated to be
>>>>false. You can easily choose not to buy from anyone.
>>>>No similar option exist to avoid *some* government
>>>>taxing you. And the choice of *which* government is
>>>>extremely limited.
>>>>
>
>>> False on both counts.
>>>
>
>
>>Absolutely true on both counts.
>>
>
>
>>Don't you feel like kind of a dirty asshole for just
>>writing something stupid like that and running away
>>from it?
>>
>
> Don't you feel like an idiot for writing something
> which is so clearly ridiculous on the face of it?
I wouldn't know; I haven't done it.
>
>
>>>>You had your ass kicked on this before.
>>>>
>
>>> Ipse dixit, blowhard.
>>>
>
>
>>Yeah, sure, asshole.
>>
>
>
>>You lost. The power of limited choice in the market
>>doesn't begin to compare to the power of the state.
>>
>
> Your (collective) choices are no more limited than
> the veggie-buyers' choices.
They aren't choices at all, ~~ratslease~~, and you know
they're not.
>
>
>>Your comparison is bullshit, ~~ratsleaze~~. Just as
>>you are bullshit.
>>
>
> Ah, such insight, such eloquence, such...complete
> lack of logical argument....
You are bullshit, ~~ratsleaze~~. You're playing a
dirty, lying sophist's game, and you know you it.
>
>
>>>>> How responsible are you for little children killed
>>>>> by US bombs? For police brutality and government
>>>>> corruption? After all, you voted, and whether your
>>>>> candidate won or not, that vote was a vote to support
>>>>> the system as a whole.
>>>>>
>
>>>>No. That's a typically false, sophistical interpretation.
>>>>
>
>>> It's a correct interpretation.
>>>
>
>
>>It's a false, sophistical interpretation. You are
>>comparing completely unlike things.
>>
>
>
>>> You participate, you
>>> give consent to the legitimacy of the system. Nobody
>>> makes you vote.
>>>
>
>
>>How do you know I even voted?
>>
>
> I don't.
What does voting have to do with it, anyway?
>
>
>>You arrogant fucking asshole. Your comparison is
>>bullshit, you know it's bullshit, and you are bullshit.
>>
>
> Ah, such insight, such eloquence, such...complete lack
> of logical argument....
No. All the logical argument came long ago. But it
was completely lost on a lying, sleazy, sophist asshole
like you.
You lost, ~~ratsleaze~~. There is no comparison.
Dutch
> > Your examples are not so clear cut
> > because taxes are not a matter of choice, they are imposed on us, and
the
> > manner in which they are spent is a matter of democratic (and other)
> > processes in which you have some say, but in general you are far removed
> > from, and no reasonable person can connect you causally to every
outcome.
>
> Exactly the same as CDs.
Totally wrong. Taxes, wars and other government choices are the result of a
democratic process where each individual has a single voice among millions,
and the consensus theoretically prevails. With your diet, there is no
voting, YOU are the sole arbiter and the resonsibility for those choices is
yours alone, you decide what food sources YOU will use.
> Taxes may be imposed on
> the population in general, but you _choose_ to pay
> them or not.
Refusing to pay taxes is a federal offense, refusing to eat rice is your
personal choice.
> ARAs are as responzible for CDs as
> you are for police beatings, government aid to
> ENRON, and civilian deaths in Afganistan.
I don't recall being presented with one choice which caused Afghani deaths
and the another not. Yet EVs have the responsibility and ability to escape
their connection to CDs, and all they do is try to rationalize it away like
you are doing.
> How
> responsible are you for little children killed
> by US bombs? For police brutality and government
> corruption? After all, you voted, and whether your
> candidate won or not, that vote was a vote to support
> the system as a whole.
A very small degree of responsibility, since our opinion only counts for a
small fraction of a goverment decision, and we do not have any direct
control over individual isolated actions of our officials and agents.
Contrast this to the responsibility an urban vegan has for CDs, they have
the total freedom to choose a different, less cruel diet. If a farmer
doesn't please you, choose a different one, or grow your own, problem
solved. If your government doesn't please you, too bad, you have no direct
remedy within the law, apart from gradual political change.
Dutch
> "Dutch" <n...@email.com> wrote in message
> > "firstoftwins" <firsto...@hotmail.com> wrote
> > > "Dutch" <n...@email.com> wrote in message
> > > > "firstoftwins" <firsto...@hotmail.com> wrote
> > > > > "Jonathan Ball" <jon...@mindspring.NS.com> wrote
> > > > > > > "Jonathan Ball" <jon...@mindspring.NS.com> wrote [..]
> > > >
> > > > > > >>Go back to my stolen goods analogy - an excellent
> > > > > > >>analogy.
> > > >
> > > > > > > It's a flawed analogy because you are supposing the stolen
> > > > > > > goods are the property of the crook who stole them.
> > > >
> > > > No it doesn't, it only assumes he has possession of them and is
willing
> > to
> > > > sell them.
> > > >
> > > You are forgetting; you can't sell something that doesn't belong
> > > to you.
> >
> > You know bloody well that you have lost this argument, stop embarrassing
> > yourself and move on. If I had a suggestion how you could save some face
I
> > would offer it, but if it's any consolation, your credibility is at rock
> > bottom already so you can't fall far.
> >
> I've spent more time trying to defeat this blasted analogy than the
> point I'm making.
You can never defeat it, it's accurate. Buying cd tainted food is exactly
analagous to buying stolen goods.
For God's sake use a different one more
> acceptable that we can seriously use before I find one for you.
Be my guest.
> This is getting ridiculous! I'm even giving Jon my best material FOR
> shared moral responsibility that I've had in my folder for months, just
> to get a decent discussion these days. You're bone idle.
What does shared moral responsibility have to do with anything? Why don't
you concentrate on individual moral responsibility? And take some for your
decisions. Wishing that animals weren't killed to feed you is a pretty cheap
price to pay for the holy status you claim to occupy. You will surely get
wings if you ever actually decide to stop supporting the cycle that is
killing them.
Dutch
> "Dutch" <n...@email.com> wrote in message
> > "firstoftwins" <firsto...@hotmail.com> wrote
> > > "Dutch" <n...@email.com> wrote in message
> > > > "firstoftwins" <firsto...@hotmail.com> wrote
> > > > > "Dutch" <n...@email.com> wrote in message
> > > > Have you never seen domino toppling on the tube?
> > >
> > > No.
> >
> > forget the analogy then..
>
> Sorry Dutch. I'm mucking about a bit. I knew what you
> were getting at. You seem too serious lately and I'm just
> trying to coax a little banter from you.
Diversions..
> [..]
> > > Were you in doubt at some recent time then, Dutch?
> >
> > Yes, a year or so ago.
>
> This is very interesting. Were your doubts general or specific?
Another diversion, you don't get to ask me questions until this thread is
resolved, you still refuse to acknowledge the analogy with stolen property.
firstoftwins
> "firstoftwins" <firsto...@hotmail.com> wrote
> > "Dutch" <n...@email.com> wrote in message
> > > "firstoftwins" <firsto...@hotmail.com> wrote
> > > > "Dutch" <n...@email.com> wrote in message
> > > > > "firstoftwins" <firsto...@hotmail.com> wrote
> > > > > > "Dutch" <n...@email.com> wrote in message
[..]
> > >
> > > Yes, a year or so ago.
> >
> > This is very interesting. Were your doubts general or specific?
>
> Another diversion, you don't get to ask me questions until this thread is
> resolved, you still refuse to acknowledge the analogy with stolen property.
>
on some of the anti arguments here, then it's only natural for me to
ask what they were and how you resolved them. They might be of
help in resolving some of the reservations I have in my own arguments.
I have them too you know.
firstoftwins
> "Swan & Rat" <lab...@NOSPAMpacbell.net> wrote
> > Dutch wrote <snip>
> > > Your examples are not so clear cut
> > > because taxes are not a matter of choice, they are imposed on us, and
> the
> > > manner in which they are spent is a matter of democratic (and other)
> > > processes in which you have some say, but in general you are far removed
> > > from, and no reasonable person can connect you causally to every
> outcome.
> >
> > Exactly the same as CDs.
>
> Totally wrong. Taxes, wars and other government choices are the result of a
> democratic process where each individual has a single voice among millions,
> and the consensus theoretically prevails.
What if you didn't vote for that particular government or
abstained altogether? Paying taxes isn't tacit approval of
the methods used by that government.
> With your diet, there is no
> voting, YOU are the sole arbiter and the resonsibility for those choices is
> yours alone, you decide what food sources YOU will use.
>
I think you're overlooking the goverment handouts to
farmers from our taxes. Growing your own food without
CD doesn't stop farmers causing them with our taxes.
> > Taxes may be imposed on
> > the population in general, but you _choose_ to pay
> > them or not.
>
> Refusing to pay taxes is a federal offense, refusing to eat rice is your
> personal choice.
>
> > ARAs are as responzible for CDs as
> > you are for police beatings, government aid to
> > ENRON, and civilian deaths in Afganistan.
>
> I don't recall being presented with one choice which caused Afghani deaths
> and the another not.
The EV doesn't recall being presented with the choice whether
or not to contribute to farmers handouts from our taxes either.
> Yet EVs have the responsibility and ability to escape
> their connection to CDs, and all they do is try to rationalize it away like
> you are doing.
>
Wrong. We have no choice but to pay the farmer with our taxes.
> > How
> > responsible are you for little children killed
> > by US bombs? For police brutality and government
> > corruption? After all, you voted, and whether your
> > candidate won or not, that vote was a vote to support
> > the system as a whole.
>
> A very small degree of responsibility, since our opinion only counts for a
> small fraction of a goverment decision, and we do not have any direct
> control over individual isolated actions of our officials and agents.
We have no control over farming methods either.
> Contrast this to the responsibility an urban vegan has for CDs, they have
> the total freedom to choose a different, less cruel diet. If a farmer
> doesn't please you, choose a different one, or grow your own, problem
> solved.
No it's not. Our taxes are taken at source before we get paid.
> If your government doesn't please you, too bad, you have no direct
> remedy within the law, apart from gradual political change.
>
If our farmer doesn't please us we have the same lack of
control too.
firstoftwins
> firstoftwins wrote:
>
> > "Jonathan Ball" <jon...@mindspring.NS.com> wrote in message
> > news:3C6D4C5...@mindspring.NS.com...
>
> >>>Something swiped has no value and cannot be sold.
> >>>
> >>Derek: you've simply lost this. You are wrong, and
> >>you know it.
> >>
> >>
> > No, I believe I have a strong point here. Stolen goods lose
> > their value altogether on the black market.
>
> You are altogether an idiot. Of all the incredibly
> stupid things you've ever written, that has to be the
> unquestionable champion.
>
You would either have keep it in your private collection or sell
it to someone willing to take the risk. And the compensation
for that risk would reduce the price to an unrecognisable figure.
It would be worthless in comparison to it's true value. Only the
rightful owner could ask the right price for it. A crook couldn't.
> It's flatly wrong.
>
I'm right on this issue.
> > Especially first
> > hand hot goods. Sometimes their value is so reduced as
> > to be too hot to handle and aren't worth anything.
> >
> >
> >>Of *course* something stolen has value; that's why the
> >>thief stole it, you fat pillock. And he can trade that
> >>value for something else of value.
> >>
> >>
> > In some cases it may be true, but never in my case.
>
> Well, I would *hope* you would at least say, here, that
> you've never bought stolen merchandise.
>
I've never bought stolen merchandise. I even return wallets
to the police if I can't find the owners address or phone
number.
> >
> >>>If I stole
> >>>the Crown Jewels they would be worthless until I melted them
> >>>down and sold them for Ł50 an ounce.
> >>>
> >>No, that's absolutely untrue.
> >>
> >
> > Blatantly true, Jon. Shergar, a race horse worth many thousands
> > was pinched and probably fetched Ł50 for dog meat.
>
> Doubtlessly false, pillock. Why risk stealing a well
> guarded race horse when you could pinch some old
> dobbins from some fat ugly farmer who isn't watching
> him at all?
>
It won about 4 Grand Nationals in a row. It got knobbled.
> >
> >>There is a brisk trade in stolen art and jewels.
> >>
> >>
> > But not in stolen lives accumulated during the production of my
> > food.
>
> So what? They still morally stain, in your view, the
> merchandise. I didn't introduce the analogy to try to
> show that the lives can be sold. The receiver of
> stolen property is prosecuted because he shares in the
> overall responsibility for theft: by rewarding the
> thief, and encouraging him to keep thieving.
>
> Similarly, if there is any wrong being done to animals
> by the farmer in the course of his farming to provide
> you with food, and you keep buying from the farmer,
> then you are encouraging him in exactly the same way as
> the receiver of stolen goods encourages the thief, and
> you share in the moral responsibility for the dead animals.
>
It's not the same at all. My trade encourages the farmer to
grow food and any trade with a thief encourages his crime
wave, not the production of more merchandise.
> >
> >>>However, if I could
> >>>persuade Lizzy to sell them to me for a song I could auction
> >>>the lot and buy the house across the street from you with the
> >>>proceeds.
> >>>
> >>Oh, no! The house directly across the street is owned
> >>by a couple who have a little boy exactly three weeks
> >>younger than ours.
> >>
> >
> > Just over 14 months is he?
> >
> >
> >>The wife in the couple, Christie,
> >>is one of the most beautiful women I've ever met, and
> >>she and my wife are good friends, so I get lots of
> >>opportunities to gaze at her beauty.
> >>
> >>
> > Wife swapping can lead to all sorts of jealousy later on.
> > I'd keep things as uncomplicated as possible if I were you.
>
> No wife swapping; not even any hanky panky. She's just
> lovely to look at, and a good neighbor and friend. We
> have them over for dinner on the weekend pretty often.
> They especially like my barbecue-roasted pork roast,
> and chicken cooked the same way.
>
BBQ's ruin every summer evening. They should be banned.
> >
> >>The other house is purple. I'm not kidding. I'll take
> >>a digital picture of it and try e-mailing it to your
> >>hotmail address, if you don't object.
> >>
> >
> > Not at all. My addy isn't spam proof and I'd look forward
> > to recieving a piccy of your neighbourhood. How nice of
> > you to offer.
>
> Okay, the picture is on its way.
>
Hey, thanks for the photo. You must be living in a very
pretty and affluent neighbourhood to be surrounded by
properties like that. You've done very well in life it seems.
What would a property like that go for these days? It's
lilac btw.
> >
> >>Actually, the
> >>color of the house "works", given the landscaping.
> >>
> >
> > I envisaged you lived on the edge of an orchard. I'm
> > sure I came across it during my google searches of you
> > somewhere.
>
> Nah. I wish I did. Up until a little under two years
> ago, I lived on the edge of a national forest. There
> were all kinds of varmints coming into the yard:
> raccoons, skunks, possums, rattlesnakes, and coyotes.
> I still get the first three in this house, but not as many.
>
[ Belinda ] Nice place Jonathan. Is there any work round there for
draughtswoman 10 years out of practice? Not CAD rubbish; real drawing?
> >
> >>It's just that it was pretty glaring when they first
> >>had it repainted (it was purple before, too, but faded.)
> >>
> >>
> > Sounds like a good opportunity for a bet. Send me proof of
> > the colour they have just painted it, and I'll bet you Ł20 you
> > can't get them to change it to the colo{u}r of you're own
> > choosing within 2 months.
>
> You'll bet that I can NOT get them to change the color?
> Why would I take a bet like that? I wouldn't even
> ask them to change it.
>
> Anyway, the proof is on its way already.
>
Got it, thanks.
> >
> >>>>No, he doesn't. You don't take the "risk" home with
> >>>>you; you take home the merchandise.
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>You DO take the risk home with you.
> >>>
> >>Not the THIEF'S risk, you idiot. You acquire your own.
> >>
> >>Anyway, you don't play your Abba CDs or "Bob the
> >>Builder" on the risk. You play those on the boom box.
> >>
> >>
> > ?
>
> What do you mean, "?" You don't take the thief's risk
> home with you. What you take home with you is the
> merchandise, along with your *own* risk for having
> bought hot goods.
>
You miss my point. Two risks are being taken when you
ask someone to steal on your behalf. The criminal has his
own risks and there is the potential risk to the reciever too.
Both these risks are compensated for by the payment of
the reciever. If the risk in keeping the merchandise is
higher than those of the thief who merely stole it, the
reciever will be compensated more by paying even less.
> >
> >>>You can be charged
> >>>at any time for "recieving" ( I've never heard of the phrase,
> >>>"buying stolen goods") stolen goods.
> >>>
> >>Right. But what you gave the thief money for was the
> >>merchandise. That's what you wanted. If you could get
> >>the same merchandise at the same price, but without the
> >>risk, you'd do it. The risk is what (unfortunately)
> >>comes with the risk.
> >>
> >>
> > And *those* risks have to be paid for. The crook has to make his
> > living by his labo(u)rs, and my risks in keeping the goods needs
> > compensating.
>
> That's the discount, you pillock. You're "compensated"
> to the extent you don't have to pay as much money as
> you would if you bought in the high street.
>
My compensation would be directly proportionate to the risk
in holding on to it. If the theft was a local car then the value
to me would only be it's scrap value unless I had someone
interested far away who was able to pay more in proportion
to his lesser risk in keeping it. The true value of the car would
hardly be an issue. I'd be better off "buying" a bent old Ford
than a bent Merx. The bent Merx would probably come
cheaper.
> > How much payment for each individual risk depends
> > on the circumstances. If you shot a security guard during a raid on
> > some gems, the "price" would be greatly affected.
>
> No. The buyer is only willing to pay what he's willing
> to pay; he doesn't care that the thief incurred more
> risk or not. As long as the buyer can't be tied ex
> ante to the crime, he's not on the hook for any other
> crimes that were committed in the course of obtaining
> the goods.
>
I dissagree. The gems would lose even more of their value
from being evidence to a murder. They would be hotter.
It's crap, and even if I did tire of refuting it it certainly doesn't
establish my trade with the farmer as being a qualifying act
that would make me responsible for his CD. You've wasted
hours and hours on this and it's got you nowhere nearer to
foisting your guilt trip on me.
> >
[..]
> >
> >>and there is no requirement that the
> >>goods being sold be legally owned. The vendor (thief)
> >>*does* "own" the goods, in the sense that he has them
> >>in his possession, and he won't give them to you unless
> >>you give him something of value.
> >>
> >>
> > Having something in one's possession does not make it a chattel.
>
> Of course it does:
>
> Chattel (n): an item of tangible movable or immovable
> property except real estate, freehold, and things (as
> buildings) connected with real property.
>
> It's a tangible movable piece of property; it's
> chattel. So what?
>
I've always counted a chattel as being a saleable asset. You
know what I'm getting at!
>
> > Try selling Christie's purple house when you babysit for her one
> > evening.
>
> No, Christie doesn't live in the purple house.
My mistake.
> And
> luckily, we've never had to babysit their little
> nipper. He's a monster.
>
>
> >
> >
> >>That's all a "sale" is: the trading of things of
> >>value, whether legally owned or not.
> >>
> >>
> > And as I've patiently pointed out to you a dozen times; once
> > a chattel is stolen it becomes valueless and can only be fenced
> > for the value of the crook's efforts and risks involved.
>
> No, that's patently false. It isn't valueless at all.
>
> Stop to think, Derek: in many cases, the buyer does
> *not* know that the goods are stolen; he thinks he's
> buying legitimately owned stuff, perhaps from an
> odd-lots seller. That buyer certainly doesn't *think*
> he's acquiring any risk. So far as he knows, the stuff
> is selling at discount because it's last year's model,
> or perhaps because some merchant went out of business.
>
Excellent! Now, if I did buy something I thought was legitimately
owned but later found it was bent, I would feel cheated out of
my money. I would realise my purchase could easily be taken
from me by it's rightful owner with the help of the police. It would
not be mine to own and keep. It would be worthless unless I could
dupe someone else into committing an illegal act as I did.
> >
> >>You are simply wrong. You might not like the analogy
> >>to animal CDs, but you can't oppose it on these
> >>ridiculous technical grounds, because you are
> >>misdefining technical terms.
> >>
> >>
> > I'm using real terms understood and easily identifiable to everyone.
>
> You're redefining terms to have meaning they don't
> have. "To buy" merely means to acquire something of
> value in exchange for something else of value;
But a stolen item has no value. How much would I get for a stolen
VC? It would be unsaleable on the open market unless I had a
sale receipt from a legal trade with it's rightful owner.
> "to
> sell" means to relinquish something of value in
> exchange for something else. There is nothing in the
> everyday definition of either word that specifies the
> things exchanged must have been legally obtained in the
> first place. You're simply incorrect to keep insisting
> they do have such a dimension.
>
You're wrong because you are forgetting the worthlessness
of stolen goods.
>
> >
> >
> >>The whole point of the analogy is not to suggest that
> >>you should be criminally prosecuted for the animal CDs
> >>your diet causes.
> >>
> >
> > That's a ridiculous statement as well . How can a diet "cause"
> > CD? A physical act "causes" them.
>
> Your acquisition of food from farmers incentivizes them
> to keep farming.
>
Yes, you're right. It's the aquisition of food he knows I want.
The CD he causes while producing it comes pro bono.
> >
> >>It's to show, rather, that your
> >>demand for vegetables at a particular price, a demand
> >>that is ongoing despite your knowledge of what happens
> >>in their production, is what motivates the farmer to
> >>keep on farming the way he does.
> >>
> >>
> > The farmer sin't using methods according to my prescriptions
> > or taboos and voluntarilly performs his acts according to
> > his own. My act of buying his goods isn't causal to his CD.
>
> It is. You keep paying him for farming the same way
> he's always farmed.
>
I keep paying him for his food, not his method of producing it.
> >
> >
> >>You and other fatuous, ignorant "aras" believe, or
> >>rather *claim* to believe, that the wanton disregard
> >>for animals' lives that *leads* to animal CDs ought to
> >>be illegal; such wanton disregard for *human* lives in
> >>industrial production already is illegal. But your
> >>cheerful, uncoerced purchases from the farmer who kills
> >>them are EXACTLY analogous to the cheerful, uncoerced
> >>receiving of stolen property from thieves.
> >>
> >>
> > No it's not. We buy the goods from the rightful owner rather
> > than pay a crook to risk his liberty. There's the big difference.
>
> It's not a difference at all. The food is tainted, on
> *your* view, by the fact of the CDs its production
> caused;
The food isn't tainted by the farmers actions. I'm not letting you
get away with saying that. The methods he uses to produce it is
marred by the fact of his CD, but the food itself isn't tainted and
neither am I by paying him for it. Heh heh heh.
firstoftwins
producing it can be tainted. The food is all I pay for, not the
tainted methods used by the farmer.
> For God's sake use a different one more
> > acceptable that we can seriously use before I find one for you.
>
> Be my guest.
>
I've forgotten it.
> > This is getting ridiculous! I'm even giving Jon my best material FOR
> > shared moral responsibility that I've had in my folder for months, just
> > to get a decent discussion these days. You're bone idle.
>
> What does shared moral responsibility have to do with anything?
Parents have a shared responsibility for their children because
they have control on the methods they use in bringing them up.
They voluntarily take on any praise or blame for their upbringing.
When turning into adults they take control over their own lives, they
become responsible for themselves.
> Why don't
> you concentrate on individual moral responsibility?
I do.
> And take some for your
> decisions. Wishing that animals weren't killed to feed you is a pretty cheap
> price to pay for the holy status you claim to occupy. You will surely get
> wings if you ever actually decide to stop supporting the cycle that is
> killing them.
>
What?
firstoftwins
> firstoftwins wrote:
>
> > "Jonathan Ball" <jon...@mindspring.NS.com> wrote in message
> > news:3C6D7232...@mindspring.NS.com...
>
> >>>I was hoping you would've made more of an
> >>>argument by now from better sources, because Mellema's
> >>>"qualifying act" clearly doesn't apply to me.
> >>>
> >>Of course it does, you mullet. Your qualifying act is
> >>your *continual* purchase from someone whose production
> >>methods do something you *claim* to believe is unethical.
> >>
> >>
> > That act is not a qualifying act. My tax payments do not make me
> > responsible for CD caused by farmers.
>
> Not your tax payments; the money you cheerfully pay to
> the "fence" - the grocer - for blood-soaked vegetables.
>
> Stop trying to change the subject. We're not talking
> about any subsidies the farmer might receive from the
> government, in trying to establish your culpability.
> We're talking about the money he earns *directly* in
> the marketplace, from selling to *you*.
>
him nontheless. It's crucial we includes our taxes to him to prove
my payment an unqualifying act.
> >
> >>>>That's what proves that Saint Tom is not really a
> >>>>respectable academic, at least as far as his "animal
> >>>>rights" contribution goes. He would have the world
> >>>>believe that he, alone, saw this alleged "lexical gap"
> >>>>that necessitated his coining the expression "subject
> >>>>of a life".
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>I agree with Tom here too. Kantian personhood requires intellectual
> >>>capabilities to qualify a person as being in reciept of rights, and this
> >>>clearly is an error. His linguistic marker fills the gap perfectly.
> >>>
> >>You don't know your ass from your face on this stuff,
> >>Derek. You should drop it right now. There's simply
> >>no way you'd ever understand it.
> >>
> >>
> > I've been reading this issue long enough to use it in my discussions.
> > I've no intention of dropping this until someone sees some sense
> > here.
>
> We'll be here a long time. YOu refuse to see sense,
> even when it's spitting in your eye.
>
and as yet cannot find anything persuasive in your argument to
suggest animals cannot be offered rights as moral patients.
Simply shouting, "It's impossible to give them rights" isn't very
productive for you argument against the idea.
> >
[..]
> >>>>You're showing your ignorant ass here, Derek. Because
> >>>>you're a minimally educated dunderhead, you have no
> >>>>awareness of how academics work.
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>I think it's about time you stopped questioning my education.
> >>>
> >>Nope. You're bone-ignorant.
> >>
> >>
> > I'm a natural.
>
> I'd hate to think you *worked* at being so stupid.
>
>
> >
> >>>I've already muted murdering Mercer twice using mathematics
> >>>
> >>Don't make me laugh!
> >>
> >>
> > He has never responded to my P-value definition and how a value
> > of 0.065 still suggests we accept the alternative hypothesis.
>
> He shouldn't, either. You don't know what you're
> talking about.
>
discuss quite a broad range of mathematical subjects. You
are clearly at odds with my explanation of a null hypothesis
to Mercer, and he doesn't seem able to refute it, so here's
your chance.
> >
> >>>>I cited from Mellema's page at length to show that your
> >>>>primitive, uneducated notions about responsibility are
> >>>>at odds with those of respectable philosophers. You
> >>>>couldn't address them.
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>I have. Melanie's "qualifying act" doesn't describe my trade with
> >>>the farmer.
> >>>[ Since a moral agent bears moral responsibility for having
> >>>performed this qualifying act, in some sense collective moral
> >>>responsibility can be said to distribute to the moral responsibility
> >>>of its constitutive members. Each member of a collective morally
> >>>responsible for a state of affairs is morally responsible either for
> >>>the same state of affairs or for a related state of affairs, *where the
> >>>related state of affairs is that of having performed the relevant
> >>>qualifying act.*]*my emphasis*
> >>>SHARED MORAL RESPONSIBILITY 3
> >>>http://www.calvin.edu/academic/philosophy/writings/crintro.htm
> >>>
> >>He didn't specify any particular qualifying act, nor
> >>what made it one. I have.
> >>
> >
> > Which I don't agree is a credible.
>
> Too bad. It is credible (what do you mean "a"
> credible?)
I missed the rest of the sentence out inadvertently.
"qualifying act."
> It is perfectly analogous to the qualifying
> act of the receiver of stolen property: it
> incentivizes the person doing the "hands on" criminal
> or immoral thing.
>
Nope.
> >
> >>It's obvious that your
> >>participation in trade is a qualifying act, *when* you
> >>know how the goods on the other side of the trade are
> >>produced.
> >>
> >>
> > [The word "obviously" is also often viewed with suspicion.
> > It occasionally gets used to persuade people to accept false
> > statements, rather than admit that they don't understand why
> > something is 'obvious'. So don't be afraid to question
> > statements which people tell you are 'obvious' ]
> > My trade with the farmer is not an "obvious" qualifying act.
>
> It's "obvious", because it is perfectly analogous to
> the receiver's action, *when* he knows the goods are
> stolen. *You* know the CDs are lurking behind the
> green beans.
>
The farmer knows they're there you mean.
> >
> >>>My emphasis shows clearly that even Melanie's concepts can't
> >>>pin your CD guilt trip on me.
> >>>
> >>Your emphasis was Harrisonesque. It pointed to nothing.
> >>
> >>
> >>>My act does not bring about the
> >>>farmers act in causing these CD.
> >>>
> >>Yes, it does. By continuing to buy from him, you
> >>encourage him to go back and do it again.
> >>
> >>
> > He can and does do it without my act of encouragement.
>
> No, he doesn't.
Yes he does.
> Your act of encouragement is to give
> him money again and again,
...for his food.
> knowing that he is doing
> something of which you disapprove; and that "something"
> is to grow food that you *want*.
>
The only thing I disapprove of is his methods which my money
does not pay for.
>
> > This makes my act innocent.
> >
> >
> >>>He can and does perform his
> >>>action without my act. Therefore, my act is not a qualifying one.
> >>>
> >>He does *not* do it without your act. Your act is to
> >>give him money, even if it's indirectly. If you and
> >>everyone else stopped buying from him, he'd have to do
> >>something else; he'd be bankrupt as a farmer. He'd
> >>probably have to do something much easier and requiring
> >>less skill, like automotive electronics.
> >>
> >>
> > I don't agree. His CD make his job easier and more profitable
> > not essential.
>
> No one said they are "essential". They are intrinsic
> to the current method of farming.
>
So what? They're his problem.
> Making them illegal would have the effect of raising
> the price, just as you have to pay more for
> legitimately sold merchandise.
>
Again; so what. I'll pay it.
> > He can work elsewhere for money if he can't take
> > the responsibility for all the deaths he causes. He should change
> > his methods or get out of farming. I don't force him to farm.
>
> No, and you don't "force" the thief to steal, either.
True.
> But if he steals, and you buy goods from him,
No, you're forgetting the fact that you cannot buy stolen
goods. Stop smoking that grass; your short term memory
is getting affected.
> you're
> providing him with the wrong incentive. Similarly,
> when you keep buying from the farmer who directly
> causes the CDs, you're providing him with the wrong
> incentive, too.
>
The only incentive I give the farmer is to grow more food.
> >
> >>The qualifying act is unambiguous: You know what he's
> >>doing and how he's doing it, and you continue to reward
> >>him for it.
> >>
> >>
> > You are mistaken. I don't reward him for his methods, just his
> > produce.
>
> You're paying for the whole package. Because you know
> what he's doing, you share in the moral responsibility
> for anything bad he's doing.
>
No I don't. He's probably a kiddie fiddler too. I reckon 2/3
of all farmers get wood with kids.
firstoftwins
> firstoftwins wrote:
>
> > "Jonathan Ball" <jon...@mindspring.NS.com> wrote in message
> > news:3C6D3DEE...@mindspring.NS.com...
>
> >>>My taxes will always be used to prop up farming; you can't escape
> >>>the system. There is no choice in the matter or moral consideration
> >>>I can make to change that.
> >>>
> >>No, not your taxes, FirstAnimalKiller. The cash you
> >>cheerfully fork over for fruit and vegetables at
> >>Sainsburys or Safeway or wherever it is that poor,
> >>weary Belinda trudges off to in order to buy the
> >>blood-soaked produce that you greedily stuff into your
> >>18 stone dumpster of a body.
> >>
> >>
> > Yes, my taxes.
>
> No, not the taxes.
Oh yes, the taxes.
> You cheerfully fork over thousands
> of pounds per year to the "ugly farmer", not in the
> form of taxes, but in the form of cash you simply hand
> to him, in exchange for blood-drenched vegetables.
>
That's right; in exchange for his veggies. Glad to see you
coming round to my way of thinking after all this time. Is
this the free card you promised?
> > As Karen points out in another thread;
>
> [...]
> Forget what ~~ratsleaze~~ points out; it's pure
> sophistry, and it is simply a terrible, incomparable
> analogy.
>
It's perfect and infinitely better than your efforts in
comparing a farmer to a thief.
>
> > Paying taxes which are taken without my consent is not
> > a qualifying act imo.
> > btw. I've lost 12lb in 3 weeks.
>
> I'm not talking about taxes.
You will, whether you like it or not.
> I'm talking about the
> after-tax money you cheerfully use to reward the farmer
> for following the same methods year after year.
>
I don't reward him for his methods, just his food.
> >
> >>I can almost hear it coming now: you're going to end
> >>up blaming poor Belinda, because *she* is the one who
> >>actually hands over the money to the grocer.
> >>
> >>
> > She even admits to being responsible for the Lea & Perrins
> > incident now. We don't have condements at the table. She
> > adds to taste in the kitchen and brings the plate in for me.
>
> You sexist asshole. Get out in the kitchen yourself,
> why don't you?
>
"Condiments" I let her have things her own way.
> >
[..]
> >>No, there is an entire universe of choice.
> >>
> >
> > Not with taxes there isn't. Pay them or go to prison.
>
> We're not talking about taxes.
We are you know.
> We're talking about the
> money you cheerfully funnel through your "fence":
> Sainsburys or Safeway, or whoever-the-hell.
>
That money pays for the goods, not the methods in
producing them.
> >
> >>You choose
> >>to do that which is most convenient for you. And the
> >>most convenient thing for you is to eat the cheap,
> >>blood-drenched fruits and vegetables.
> >>
> >>
> > Now you're beginning to sound like YOUR little troll; Etter.
> > You're not going to take his lead are you? Life here has
> > been so much more pleasant since I blocked his posts from
> > appearing on my screen.
>
> What did you do that for?
>
He really has nothing to say on any single issue raised here.
He's a troll and I have nothing to learn from him. My "drug
crazed mind" gets easily bored with his trivia and above all;
he's insulting. I've put up with him for a year now to help the
newbies around his guilt trip, but I've had enough of him.
He's the only one I've ever blocked and my life here on
usenet is all the better for it.
> >
> >>You clearly do not believe that the animals have
> >>inherent rights. Your behavior proves it.
> >>
> >>
> > Moral patients have rights,
>
> Not if they're not human.
>
I can't see why not.
> > and I believe some animals to be in reciept of them.
>
> You believe lots of screwy bullshit.
>
But not any of yours I'm glad to say. Well, not all of it.
Jonathan Ball
> "Jonathan Ball" <jon...@mindspring.NS.com> wrote in message
> news:3C6D9C3A...@mindspring.NS.com...
>
>>firstoftwins wrote:
>>
>>
>>>"Jonathan Ball" <jon...@mindspring.NS.com> wrote in message
>>>news:3C6D4C5...@mindspring.NS.com...
>>>
>>>>>Something swiped has no value and cannot be sold.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>Derek: you've simply lost this. You are wrong, and
>>>>you know it.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>No, I believe I have a strong point here. Stolen goods lose
>>>their value altogether on the black market.
>>>
>>You are altogether an idiot. Of all the incredibly
>>stupid things you've ever written, that has to be the
>>unquestionable champion.
>>
>>
> How much do you think you could get for a half inched Monnet?
> You would either have keep it in your private collection or sell
> it to someone willing to take the risk. And the compensation
> for that risk would reduce the price to an unrecognisable figure.
Derek, your willful stupidity is simply astounding:
Furthermore, now that the law
enforcement authorities have all but
acknowledged their inability effectively to
police the theft of art and antiques crime -
conservatively estimated to be worth in
the region of £500 million per annum in
the UK alone - it is incumbent upon the
fine art and antiques trade, salerooms,
museums and private collectors to
become more vigilant in their dealings and
to forge greater and more effective
dialogue and communications with one
another in order to close down the
options available to professional criminals.
http://www.museums.gov.uk/pdf/security/DatabasesOfStolenArt.pdf
You call £500 million per annum "valueless"?
You simply don't know what the FUCK you're talking
about, Derek. People are not paying for the risk;
they're paying for the art. They're not *willing* to
pay anything for the "risk". They're willing to pay
for the art, but not as much as what they'd have to pay
to acquire the art legally.
Your analysis of stolen goods is simply wrong. Full Stop.
> It would be worthless in comparison to it's true value. Only the
> rightful owner could ask the right price for it. A crook couldn't.
You're a fucking moron, Derek. You've lost. You do
not understand any markets, let alone black markets.
>
>
>>It's flatly wrong.
>>
>>
> I'm right on this issue.
You are absolutely wrong.
>
>
>>>Especially first
>>>hand hot goods. Sometimes their value is so reduced as
>>>to be too hot to handle and aren't worth anything.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>Of *course* something stolen has value; that's why the
>>>>thief stole it, you fat pillock. And he can trade that
>>>>value for something else of value.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>In some cases it may be true, but never in my case.
>>>
>>Well, I would *hope* you would at least say, here, that
>>you've never bought stolen merchandise.
>>
>>
> I've never bought stolen merchandise. I even return wallets
> to the police if I can't find the owners address or phone
> number.
Empty wallets.
>
>>>>>If I stole
>>>>>the Crown Jewels they would be worthless until I melted them
>>>>>down and sold them for £50 an ounce.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>No, that's absolutely untrue.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>Blatantly true, Jon. Shergar, a race horse worth many thousands
>>>was pinched and probably fetched £50 for dog meat.
>>>
>>Doubtlessly false, pillock. Why risk stealing a well
>>guarded race horse when you could pinch some old
>>dobbins from some fat ugly farmer who isn't watching
>>him at all?
>>
>>
> It won about 4 Grand Nationals in a row. It got knobbled.
The thieves miscalculated.
No one steals a race horse to make dog food, you idiot.
>
>>>>There is a brisk trade in stolen art and jewels.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>But not in stolen lives accumulated during the production of my
>>>food.
>>>
>>So what? They still morally stain, in your view, the
>>merchandise. I didn't introduce the analogy to try to
>>show that the lives can be sold. The receiver of
>>stolen property is prosecuted because he shares in the
>>overall responsibility for theft: by rewarding the
>>thief, and encouraging him to keep thieving.
>>
>>Similarly, if there is any wrong being done to animals
>>by the farmer in the course of his farming to provide
>>you with food, and you keep buying from the farmer,
>>then you are encouraging him in exactly the same way as
>>the receiver of stolen goods encourages the thief, and
>>you share in the moral responsibility for the dead animals.
>>
>>
> It's not the same at all. My trade encourages the farmer to
> grow food and any trade with a thief encourages his crime
> wave, not the production of more merchandise.
Both encourage suppliers - farmers and thieves - to
keep supplying what they supply. The analogy fits.
>
>>>>>However, if I could
>>>>>persuade Lizzy to sell them to me for a song I could auction
>>>>>the lot and buy the house across the street from you with the
>>>>>proceeds.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>Oh, no! The house directly across the street is owned
>>>>by a couple who have a little boy exactly three weeks
>>>>younger than ours.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>Just over 14 months is he?
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>The wife in the couple, Christie,
>>>>is one of the most beautiful women I've ever met, and
>>>>she and my wife are good friends, so I get lots of
>>>>opportunities to gaze at her beauty.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>Wife swapping can lead to all sorts of jealousy later on.
>>>I'd keep things as uncomplicated as possible if I were you.
>>>
>>No wife swapping; not even any hanky panky. She's just
>>lovely to look at, and a good neighbor and friend. We
>>have them over for dinner on the weekend pretty often.
>> They especially like my barbecue-roasted pork roast,
>>and chicken cooked the same way.
>>
>>
> BBQ's ruin every summer evening. They should be banned.
Won't happen.
>
>>>>The other house is purple. I'm not kidding. I'll take
>>>>a digital picture of it and try e-mailing it to your
>>>>hotmail address, if you don't object.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>Not at all. My addy isn't spam proof and I'd look forward
>>>to recieving a piccy of your neighbourhood. How nice of
>>>you to offer.
>>>
>>Okay, the picture is on its way.
>>
>>
> Hey, thanks for the photo. You must be living in a very
> pretty and affluent neighbourhood to be surrounded by
> properties like that. You've done very well in life it seems.
Uh...not really. I've not suffered, but I can't say
I've done "well", financially. These houses are very
small, by American standards.
> What would a property like that go for these days? It's
> lilac btw.
>
>>>>Actually, the
>>>>color of the house "works", given the landscaping.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>I envisaged you lived on the edge of an orchard. I'm
>>>sure I came across it during my google searches of you
>>>somewhere.
>>>
>>Nah. I wish I did. Up until a little under two years
>>ago, I lived on the edge of a national forest. There
>>were all kinds of varmints coming into the yard:
>>raccoons, skunks, possums, rattlesnakes, and coyotes.
>>I still get the first three in this house, but not as many.
>>
>>
> [ Belinda ] Nice place Jonathan. Is there any work round there for
> draughtswoman 10 years out of practice? Not CAD rubbish; real drawing?
I *knew* you'd eventually want to take us up on our
offer to harbo(u)r you when you had had enough of the
brute ;-)
Unfortunately, I don't know much about the market for
drafting/draughting at all. If my friend the graphics
artist is any indication, I'd say the market is bad;
he's just about gone bankrupt trying to continue doing
hand-drawn illustrations for commercial clients;
everyone simply uses public domain clip-art now.
>
>>>>It's just that it was pretty glaring when they first
>>>>had it repainted (it was purple before, too, but faded.)
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>Sounds like a good opportunity for a bet. Send me proof of
>>>the colour they have just painted it, and I'll bet you £20 you
>>>can't get them to change it to the colo{u}r of you're own
>>>choosing within 2 months.
>>>
>>You'll bet that I can NOT get them to change the color?
>> Why would I take a bet like that? I wouldn't even
>>ask them to change it.
>>
>>Anyway, the proof is on its way already.
>>
>>
> Got it, thanks.
>
>>>>>>No, he doesn't. You don't take the "risk" home with
>>>>>>you; you take home the merchandise.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>You DO take the risk home with you.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>Not the THIEF'S risk, you idiot. You acquire your own.
>>>>
>>>>Anyway, you don't play your Abba CDs or "Bob the
>>>>Builder" on the risk. You play those on the boom box.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>?
>>>
>>What do you mean, "?" You don't take the thief's risk
>>home with you. What you take home with you is the
>>merchandise, along with your *own* risk for having
>>bought hot goods.
>>
>>
> You miss my point. Two risks are being taken when you
> ask someone to steal on your behalf.
Buying from a thief is not (necessarily) the same as
asking someone to steal on your behalf. If the
prosecution could show that you knew the thief
beforehand, and asked him to steal something for you,
after which you would pay him for it, then you would
not be charged with the separate crime of receiving
stolen property; you would be charged as an accomplice
in the theft itself.
We've been through all this before. You lost that
time, too.
> The criminal has his
> own risks and there is the potential risk to the reciever too.
A *separate* risk altogether, if you really are a
receiver as opposed to being an accomplice to the theft
itself. Of course, the reason receiving is a crime is
because, in a way, you *are* an accomplice to theft;
just not to a *particular* theft, as you had no
foreknowledge of it.
[snip all the rest of Derek's absurd misunderstanding of black markets]
>>
>>
> It's crap, and even if I did tire of refuting it it certainly doesn't
> establish my trade with the farmer as being a qualifying act
> that would make me responsible for his CD. You've wasted
> hours and hours on this and it's got you nowhere nearer to
> foisting your guilt trip on me.
No, the analogy - the *excellent* analogy - establishes
your trade with the farmer as the qualifying act for
your share of the moral responsibility, because your
trade is *perfectly* analogous to that of the receiver,
and *his* share of moral (and legal) responsibility for
theft is beyond dispute.
The excellence of this analogy, Derek, is established
in part by the increasing foolishness of the bullshit
you say to try to refute it.
We've all noticed this over many months. There is an
inverse relationship between the strength of the "anti"
argument, and the quality of your attempts to refute
it: the stronger "anti" argument, the more absurd is
yours, ultimately involving bizarre redefinitions of
words, flatly wrong understandings of market phenomena,
and so on.
>
> [..]
>
>>>>and there is no requirement that the
>>>>goods being sold be legally owned. The vendor (thief)
>>>>*does* "own" the goods, in the sense that he has them
>>>>in his possession, and he won't give them to you unless
>>>>you give him something of value.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>Having something in one's possession does not make it a chattel.
>>>
>>Of course it does:
>>
>>Chattel (n): an item of tangible movable or immovable
>>property except real estate, freehold, and things (as
>>buildings) connected with real property.
>>
>>It's a tangible movable piece of property; it's
>>chattel. So what?
>>
>>
> I've always counted a chattel as being a saleable asset. You
> know what I'm getting at!
Then you were wrong on another count, because not all
saleable assets are chattel; that lilac house across
the street from, me for example, is specifically
excluded from definition.
But if it never was recovered, the way most smaller
stolen chattel items never are, then you'd have it for
good. And the value of it to you would be its use
value, or in the case of artwork, the psychic value of
owning something beautiful. The risk is of no positive
value to you at all; it's what you incur for having
bought something stolen.
>
>>>>You are simply wrong. You might not like the analogy
>>>>to animal CDs, but you can't oppose it on these
>>>>ridiculous technical grounds, because you are
>>>>misdefining technical terms.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>I'm using real terms understood and easily identifiable to everyone.
>>>
>>You're redefining terms to have meaning they don't
>>have. "To buy" merely means to acquire something of
>>value in exchange for something else of value;
>>
>
> But a stolen item has no value.
Wrong. It has value to the buyer. That's why he gives
up something that *does* have value to him, which may
or may not be legally obtained itself.
You have the proof of your error within your grasp
right here, Derek. Suppose you take money you've
legally earned, and you trade it for a telly that you
know to be stolen at the time you acquire it. The
money you give up obviously has value to you. You're
not about to trade it for something valueless. You
value the telly, just not enough to pay the full market
price for it.
> How much would I get for a stolen
> VC? It would be unsaleable on the open market unless I had a
> sale receipt from a legal trade with it's rightful owner.
Right. That's why it sells at a discount in the black
market. It's perfectly salable, there.
>
>
>>"to
>>sell" means to relinquish something of value in
>>exchange for something else. There is nothing in the
>>everyday definition of either word that specifies the
>>things exchanged must have been legally obtained in the
>>first place. You're simply incorrect to keep insisting
>>they do have such a dimension.
>>
>>
> You're wrong because you are forgetting the worthlessness
> of stolen goods.
You're wrong, because you are incorrectly - and now
ridiculously - asserting the worthlessness of stolen
goods, when they obviously have value.
>
>>>
>>>>The whole point of the analogy is not to suggest that
>>>>you should be criminally prosecuted for the animal CDs
>>>>your diet causes.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>That's a ridiculous statement as well . How can a diet "cause"
>>>CD? A physical act "causes" them.
>>>
>>Your acquisition of food from farmers incentivizes them
>>to keep farming.
>>
>>
> Yes, you're right. It's the aquisition of food he knows I want.
Just as it's the acquisition of the stereo or telly or
what-have-you that the thief knows his "customers"
want. So far, so good: the analogy works.
> The CD he causes while producing it comes pro bono.
And in supplying you with the telly or the stereo, the
thief produces the theft "pro bono" as well, *at least
from your perspective*. The analogy continues to work.
>
>>>>It's to show, rather, that your
>>>>demand for vegetables at a particular price, a demand
>>>>that is ongoing despite your knowledge of what happens
>>>>in their production, is what motivates the farmer to
>>>>keep on farming the way he does.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>The farmer sin't using methods according to my prescriptions
>>>or taboos and voluntarilly performs his acts according to
>>>his own. My act of buying his goods isn't causal to his CD.
>>>
>>It is. You keep paying him for farming the same way
>>he's always farmed.
>>
>>
> I keep paying him for his food, not his method of producing it.
And the receiver pays the thief for the goods, not the
thief's method of "producing" the goods. The analogy
continues to work, and to close its steel jaws around
your throat.
>
>>>
>>>>You and other fatuous, ignorant "aras" believe, or
>>>>rather *claim* to believe, that the wanton disregard
>>>>for animals' lives that *leads* to animal CDs ought to
>>>>be illegal; such wanton disregard for *human* lives in
>>>>industrial production already is illegal. But your
>>>>cheerful, uncoerced purchases from the farmer who kills
>>>>them are EXACTLY analogous to the cheerful, uncoerced
>>>>receiving of stolen property from thieves.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>No it's not. We buy the goods from the rightful owner rather
>>>than pay a crook to risk his liberty. There's the big difference.
>>>
>>It's not a difference at all. The food is tainted, on
>>*your* view, by the fact of the CDs its production
>>caused;
>>
>
> The food isn't tainted by the farmers actions. I'm not letting you
> get away with saying that. The methods he uses to produce it is
> marred by the fact of his CD, but the food itself isn't tainted and
> neither am I by paying him for it. Heh heh heh.
The food is tainted by the CDs, *on your view*, exactly
as the telly sold by the thief is tainted by its having
been stolen.
The analogy is complete, and your throat is ripped out.
You are now dead.
Belinda can come on over now with a clear conscience.
B, just pleaase do tell us the flight number.
Dutch
My reservations were centred around comparing particular diets, a lacto-ovo
veg diet changed from a typical omnivore diet. I clung to the belief for a
time that I was lessening animal suffering with that particular diet change.
I no longer cling to that illusion because it is impossible to support. I no
longer feel the need invent ways to try either, which is the real relief.
Now you promise to get back to your topic? remember ?
Blame the farmer! = Blame the thief!
It's inescapable, concede.
Jonathan Ball
> "Jonathan Ball" <jon...@mindspring.NS.com> wrote in message
> news:3C6DA03B...@mindspring.NS.com...
>
>>firstoftwins wrote:
>>
>>
>>>"Jonathan Ball" <jon...@mindspring.NS.com> wrote in message
>>>news:3C6D7232...@mindspring.NS.com...
>>>
>>>>>I was hoping you would've made more of an
>>>>>argument by now from better sources, because Mellema's
>>>>>"qualifying act" clearly doesn't apply to me.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>Of course it does, you mullet. Your qualifying act is
>>>>your *continual* purchase from someone whose production
>>>>methods do something you *claim* to believe is unethical.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>That act is not a qualifying act. My tax payments do not make me
>>>responsible for CD caused by farmers.
>>>
>>Not your tax payments; the money you cheerfully pay to
>>the "fence" - the grocer - for blood-soaked vegetables.
>>
>>Stop trying to change the subject. We're not talking
>>about any subsidies the farmer might receive from the
>>government, in trying to establish your culpability.
>>We're talking about the money he earns *directly* in
>>the marketplace, from selling to *you*.
>>
>>
> And my taxes. If I stop buying from him my taxes will still wage
> him nontheless. It's crucial we includes our taxes to him to prove
> my payment an unqualifying act.
No. It's completely extraneous. Your *willing*
payment to him for produce is perfectly sufficient as a
qualifying act. Your further payment to him via taxes
is, in your good friend and close associate
~~ratsleaze's~~ view, *also* a qualifying act.
>
>>>>>>That's what proves that Saint Tom is not really a
>>>>>>respectable academic, at least as far as his "animal
>>>>>>rights" contribution goes. He would have the world
>>>>>>believe that he, alone, saw this alleged "lexical gap"
>>>>>>that necessitated his coining the expression "subject
>>>>>>of a life".
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>I agree with Tom here too. Kantian personhood requires intellectual
>>>>>capabilities to qualify a person as being in reciept of rights, and this
>>>>>clearly is an error. His linguistic marker fills the gap perfectly.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>You don't know your ass from your face on this stuff,
>>>>Derek. You should drop it right now. There's simply
>>>>no way you'd ever understand it.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>I've been reading this issue long enough to use it in my discussions.
>>>I've no intention of dropping this until someone sees some sense
>>>here.
>>>
>>We'll be here a long time. YOu refuse to see sense,
>>even when it's spitting in your eye.
>>
>>
> I'm looking for sensibility in this issue from all different directions
No, you clearly are not. You are looking to muddy the
water in any way you can, in a desperate attempt to
shirk moral responsibility that is rightfully yours.
It's your m.o., and it has been for as long as you've
been here.
> and as yet cannot find anything persuasive in your argument to
> suggest animals cannot be offered rights as moral patients.
> Simply shouting, "It's impossible to give them rights" isn't very
> productive for you argument against the idea.
I've laid out sufficient parts of Cohen's lucid
explanation of why it's impossible. You claim to have
read the book yourself. As I suspected, you have
incredibly poor reading comprehension.
>
> [..]
>
>>>>>>You're showing your ignorant ass here, Derek. Because
>>>>>>you're a minimally educated dunderhead, you have no
>>>>>>awareness of how academics work.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>I think it's about time you stopped questioning my education.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>Nope. You're bone-ignorant.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>I'm a natural.
>>>
>>I'd hate to think you *worked* at being so stupid.
Come on, admit it: that was a good line, even though
you practically set yourself up for it.
>>
>>
>>
>>>>>I've already muted murdering Mercer twice using mathematics
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>Don't make me laugh!
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>He has never responded to my P-value definition and how a value
>>>of 0.065 still suggests we accept the alternative hypothesis.
>>>
>>He shouldn't, either. You don't know what you're
>>talking about.
>>
>>
> Would you like to take up the point on his behalf?
No. I have enough on my hands beating your brains in
as a receiver of stolen lives.
[...]
>>>>>http://www.calvin.edu/academic/philosophy/writings/crintro.htm
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>He didn't specify any particular qualifying act, nor
>>>>what made it one. I have.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>Which I don't agree is a credible.
>>>
>>Too bad. It is credible (what do you mean "a"
>>credible?)
>>
>
> I missed the rest of the sentence out inadvertently.
> "qualifying act."
>
>
>>It is perfectly analogous to the qualifying
>>act of the receiver of stolen property: it
>>incentivizes the person doing the "hands on" criminal
>>or immoral thing.
>>
>>
> Nope.
Yes, it does. It incentivizes the thief in exactly the
same way as you incentivize the farer, which you've
already admitted in a different reply this morning.
The thief doesn't steal the goods in order to keep them
for himself. He does it in order to sell them, and
it's the continuing patronage of his "customers",
exactly as you continue to patronize the farmer, that
causes him to keep doing what he does.
>
>>>>It's obvious that your
>>>>participation in trade is a qualifying act, *when* you
>>>>know how the goods on the other side of the trade are
>>>>produced.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>[The word "obviously" is also often viewed with suspicion.
>>>It occasionally gets used to persuade people to accept false
>>>statements, rather than admit that they don't understand why
>>>something is 'obvious'. So don't be afraid to question
>>>statements which people tell you are 'obvious' ]
>>>My trade with the farmer is not an "obvious" qualifying act.
>>>
>>It's "obvious", because it is perfectly analogous to
>>the receiver's action, *when* he knows the goods are
>>stolen. *You* know the CDs are lurking behind the
>>green beans.
>>
>>
> The farmer knows they're there you mean.
And you know it, too.
Recall that I've never attempted to shift the
responsibility from the farmer to the consumer. IF the
CDs are wrong, then the farmer and the consumer share
the moral responsibility for it.
>
>>>>>My emphasis shows clearly that even Melanie's concepts can't
>>>>>pin your CD guilt trip on me.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>Your emphasis was Harrisonesque. It pointed to nothing.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>My act does not bring about the
>>>>>farmers act in causing these CD.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>Yes, it does. By continuing to buy from him, you
>>>>encourage him to go back and do it again.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>He can and does do it without my act of encouragement.
>>>
>>No, he doesn't.
>>
>
> Yes he does.
No. He farms because you pay him to farm. When you
continue to pay him for farming using a particular
method, when you find something objectionable about the
method, then you are paying him to keep doing something
objectionable.
If it really mattered to you, you would do *something*
meaningful to make him stop. The obvious first step
is, you would stop buying from him. But you don't.
>
>
>>Your act of encouragement is to give
>>him money again and again,
>>
>
> ...for his food.
For the method, too.
>
>
>>knowing that he is doing
>>something of which you disapprove; and that "something"
>>is to grow food that you *want*.
>>
>>
> The only thing I disapprove of is his methods which my money
> does not pay for.
Your money pays for them, Derek, when you know what
they are, and you continue to pay him when he employs them.
>
>>>This makes my act innocent.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>>He can and does perform his
>>>>>action without my act. Therefore, my act is not a qualifying one.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>He does *not* do it without your act. Your act is to
>>>>give him money, even if it's indirectly. If you and
>>>>everyone else stopped buying from him, he'd have to do
>>>>something else; he'd be bankrupt as a farmer. He'd
>>>>probably have to do something much easier and requiring
>>>>less skill, like automotive electronics.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>I don't agree. His CD make his job easier and more profitable
>>>not essential.
>>>
>>No one said they are "essential". They are intrinsic
>>to the current method of farming.
>>
>>
> So what? They're his problem.
No, they're *your* problem: you believe they're wrong.
For you to continue to consume something that has
this moral taint just demolishes your claim to being an
"ethical" vegetarian.
>
>
>>Making them illegal would have the effect of raising
>>the price, just as you have to pay more for
>>legitimately sold merchandise.
>>
>>
> Again; so what. I'll pay it.
But you don't!
>
>
>>>He can work elsewhere for money if he can't take
>>>the responsibility for all the deaths he causes. He should change
>>>his methods or get out of farming. I don't force him to farm.
>>>
>>No, and you don't "force" the thief to steal, either.
>>
>
> True.
>
>
>>But if he steals, and you buy goods from him,
>>
>
> No, you're forgetting the fact that you cannot buy stolen
> goods. Stop smoking that grass; your short term memory
> is getting affected.
People can and do buy stolen goods all the time, Derek.
The legal ownership of the things being sold, or the
lack of it, does not change the essential economic
features of the transaction; it does not turn it into
"not buying".
You're simply wrong on the point, in every conceivable way.
>
>
>>you're
>>providing him with the wrong incentive. Similarly,
>>when you keep buying from the farmer who directly
>>causes the CDs, you're providing him with the wrong
>>incentive, too.
>>
>>
> The only incentive I give the farmer is to grow more food.
No, you are telling him that his method of growing it
is acceptable.
>
>>>>The qualifying act is unambiguous: You know what he's
>>>>doing and how he's doing it, and you continue to reward
>>>>him for it.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>You are mistaken. I don't reward him for his methods, just his
>>>produce.
>>>
>>You're paying for the whole package. Because you know
>>what he's doing, you share in the moral responsibility
>>for anything bad he's doing.
>>
>>
> No I don't. He's probably a kiddie fiddler too. I reckon 2/3
> of all farmers get wood with kids.
That's pretty disgusting, but not surprising coming
from you. You don't have any basis for that (supposed)
belief. I don't even think you believe it; you were
just looking to say something outrageous.
Jonathan Ball
> "Jonathan Ball" <jon...@mindspring.NS.com> wrote in message
> news:3C6D732D...@mindspring.NS.com...
[...]
>>You cheerfully fork over thousands
>>of pounds per year to the "ugly farmer", not in the
>>form of taxes, but in the form of cash you simply hand
>>to him, in exchange for blood-drenched vegetables.
>>
>>
> That's right; in exchange for his veggies. Glad to see you
> coming round to my way of thinking after all this time. Is
> this the free card you promised?
I haven't come around to your way of thinking at all.
I'd sooner eat cyanide.
>
>
>>>As Karen points out in another thread;
>>>
>>[...]
>>Forget what ~~ratsleaze~~ points out; it's pure
>>sophistry, and it is simply a terrible, incomparable
>>analogy.
>>
>>
> It's perfect and infinitely better than your efforts in
> comparing a farmer to a thief.
It's an absurd comparison, as I've conclusively shown.
But since you don't seem to realize what she's saying
in it, allow me to fill you in: your tax payments
*are* a qualifying act, on her view.
>
>>>Paying taxes which are taken without my consent is not
>>>a qualifying act imo.
>>>btw. I've lost 12lb in 3 weeks.
>>>
>>I'm not talking about taxes.
>>
>
> You will, whether you like it or not.
You'll regret it. ~~ratsleaze~~ regards your payment
of them as yet another qualifying act.
Are you sure you want to pursue this?
>
>
>> I'm talking about the
>>after-tax money you cheerfully use to reward the farmer
>>for following the same methods year after year.
>>
>>
> I don't reward him for his methods, just his food.
The whole thing, Derek. Just as buying from a thief
encourages him to keep thieving, so buying from a
farmer who kills animals collaterally encourages him to
keep doing that.
The analogy works.
>
>>>>I can almost hear it coming now: you're going to end
>>>>up blaming poor Belinda, because *she* is the one who
>>>>actually hands over the money to the grocer.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>She even admits to being responsible for the Lea & Perrins
>>>incident now. We don't have condements at the table. She
>>>adds to taste in the kitchen and brings the plate in for me.
>>>
>>You sexist asshole. Get out in the kitchen yourself,
>>why don't you?
>>
>>
> "Condiments" I let her have things her own way.
>
> [..]
>
>>>>No, there is an entire universe of choice.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>Not with taxes there isn't. Pay them or go to prison.
>>>
>>We're not talking about taxes.
>>
>
> We are you know.
Pity for you.
>
>
>>We're talking about the
>>money you cheerfully funnel through your "fence":
>>Sainsburys or Safeway, or whoever-the-hell.
>>
>>
> That money pays for the goods, not the methods in
> producing them.
It pays for all of it. That's why proponents of a
boycott, over issues like third world slavery or
low-wage child labor, urge people not to buy the goods
produced in that manner.
>
>>>>You choose
>>>>to do that which is most convenient for you. And the
>>>>most convenient thing for you is to eat the cheap,
>>>>blood-drenched fruits and vegetables.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>Now you're beginning to sound like YOUR little troll; Etter.
>>>You're not going to take his lead are you? Life here has
>>>been so much more pleasant since I blocked his posts from
>>>appearing on my screen.
>>>
>>What did you do that for?
>>
>>
> He really has nothing to say on any single issue raised here.
> He's a troll and I have nothing to learn from him. My "drug
> crazed mind" gets easily bored with his trivia and above all;
> he's insulting. I've put up with him for a year now to help the
> newbies around his guilt trip, but I've had enough of him.
> He's the only one I've ever blocked and my life here on
> usenet is all the better for it.
>
>>>>You clearly do not believe that the animals have
>>>>inherent rights. Your behavior proves it.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>Moral patients have rights,
>>>
>>Not if they're not human.
>>
>>
> I can't see why not.
Go back and re-read Cohen. He explains it better than
I can.
>
>
>>>and I believe some animals to be in reciept of them.
>>>
>>You believe lots of screwy bullshit.
>>
>>
> But not any of yours I'm glad to say. Well, not all of it.
You're caving in. Good. You'll be caving in to
legitimate virtue when you fall all the way in.
Dutch
> > > Dutch wrote <snip>
> > > > Your examples are not so clear cut
> > > > because taxes are not a matter of choice, they are imposed on us,
and
> > the
> > > > manner in which they are spent is a matter of democratic (and other)
> > > > processes in which you have some say, but in general you are far
removed
> > > > from, and no reasonable person can connect you causally to every
> > outcome.
> > >
> > > Exactly the same as CDs.
> >
> > Totally wrong. Taxes, wars and other government choices are the result
of a
> > democratic process where each individual has a single voice among
millions,
> > and the consensus theoretically prevails.
>
> What if you didn't vote for that particular government or
> abstained altogether? Paying taxes isn't tacit approval of
> the methods used by that government.
Exactly, your input is minimal, so your responsibility for outcomes is
correspondingly less.
>
> > With your diet, there is no
> > voting, YOU are the sole arbiter and the resonsibility for those choices
is
> > yours alone, you decide what food sources YOU will use.
> >
> I think you're overlooking the goverment handouts to
> farmers from our taxes. Growing your own food without
> CD doesn't stop farmers causing them with our taxes.
I think you are erecting a huge strawman to avoid responding to my point.
YOU choose your diet, but the government IMPOSES taxes.
> > > Taxes may be imposed on
> > > the population in general, but you _choose_ to pay
> > > them or not.
> >
> > Refusing to pay taxes is a federal offense, refusing to eat rice is your
> > personal choice.
Well? There is the core problem with the argument in a nutshell.
> >
> > > ARAs are as responzible for CDs as
> > > you are for police beatings, government aid to
> > > ENRON, and civilian deaths in Afganistan.
> >
> > I don't recall being presented with one choice which caused Afghani
deaths
> > and the another not.
>
> The EV doesn't recall being presented with the choice whether
> or not to contribute to farmers handouts from our taxes either.
bad strawman Derek. very unethical ploy.
The EV_IS_presented with legal and acceptable options to buying cd tainted
food, he CHOOSES to accept the deaths of animals quietly.
> > Yet EVs have the responsibility and ability to escape
> > their connection to CDs, and all they do is try to rationalize it away
like
> > you are doing.
> >
> Wrong. We have no choice but to pay the farmer with our taxes.
Of course, but outcomes over which you have no control are not attributable
to you. You DO have control over your dietary choices.
>
> > > How
> > > responsible are you for little children killed
> > > by US bombs? For police brutality and government
> > > corruption? After all, you voted, and whether your
> > > candidate won or not, that vote was a vote to support
> > > the system as a whole.
> >
> > A very small degree of responsibility, since our opinion only counts for
a
> > small fraction of a goverment decision, and we do not have any direct
> > control over individual isolated actions of our officials and agents.
>
> We have no control over farming methods either.
You have absolute control over which farming methods you patronize, you have
nearly ZERO control over what your government does with your money.
> > Contrast this to the responsibility an urban vegan has for CDs, they
have
> > the total freedom to choose a different, less cruel diet. If a farmer
> > doesn't please you, choose a different one, or grow your own, problem
> > solved.
>
> No it's not. Our taxes are taken at source before we get paid.
Now you are arguing against yourself.. tch tch
>
> > If your government doesn't please you, too bad, you have no direct
> > remedy within the law, apart from gradual political change.
> >
> If our farmer doesn't please us we have the same lack of
> control too.
You have APATHY as your only barrier, you don't change your habits or your
food sources because you don't really care about "vermin" as much as you
value your own convenience. Your AR rules make you try to pretend that you
do, but it's not convincing anyone. The philosophy of AR and the rules it
promotes don't match up, and you get left in the unenviable position of
defending the indefensible.
firstoftwins
Once it has been stolen it becomes worthless until recovered.
Nice try though.
> You simply don't know what the FUCK you're talking
> about, Derek. People are not paying for the risk;
> they're paying for the art.
Of course they're paying for the risk. They can't be paying
for anything else because nothing else is for sale. You can
only buy from a rightful owner.
> They're not *willing* to
> pay anything for the "risk". They're willing to pay
> for the art, but not as much as what they'd have to pay
> to acquire the art legally.
>
They have nothing else but the risk to pay for. They can't buy
the art because it isn't for sale.
> Your analysis of stolen goods is simply wrong. Full Stop.
>
I'm right. I know what I'm talking about. You can't buy stolen goods
and that's what flaws your analogy.
>
> > It would be worthless in comparison to it's true value. Only the
> > rightful owner could ask the right price for it. A crook couldn't.
>
> You're a fucking moron, Derek. You've lost. You do
> not understand any markets, let alone black markets.
>
No need to get touchy just because you have been defeated on this.
You'll win arguments when you get the facts on your side one day.
You just keep picking arguments with the facts stacked against you
that's all. If it's any consolation to you; you did put up a good point
or two to prove you're not entirely out of touch with on issue.
> >
[..]
> >>
> > [ Belinda ] Nice place Jonathan. Is there any work round there for
> > draughtswoman 10 years out of practice? Not CAD rubbish; real drawing?
>
> I *knew* you'd eventually want to take us up on our
> offer to harbo(u)r you when you had had enough of the
> brute ;-)
>
[ Belinda ] You only get a small piece of what he's like on this. I can't
say a word without 'talking fellatiosly' these days. He keeps saying I
take pills and pray to god. I nearly through his toast over him when he
started drawing up a truth table of implication after I told him it was his
fault for that Worcester sauce episode. He wont let me have a dog either.
> Unfortunately, I don't know much about the market for
> drafting/draughting at all. If my friend the graphics
> artist is any indication, I'd say the market is bad;
> he's just about gone bankrupt trying to continue doing
> hand-drawn illustrations for commercial clients;
> everyone simply uses public domain clip-art now.
>
[ Belinda ] It was just a thought but thanks anyway and see if you get Derek
to let me have a dog. All the kids have gone nearly and all I get to do is look
at the back of his head while he 'talks to you etc.
Dutch
[..]
> > Your analysis of stolen goods is simply wrong. Full Stop.
> >
> I'm right. I know what I'm talking about. You can't buy stolen goods
> and that's what flaws your analogy.
First of all, your defintion of "buy" is wrong, buy means to aquire with
money, period. Stop trying to reinvent the language. But even_IF you
narrowly define buy as meaning aquiring goods "from the rightful owner", it
makes no difference. You are still_aquiring these goods with full knowledge
of their past.
[..]
> [ Belinda ] It was just a thought but thanks anyway and see if you get
Derek
> to let me have a dog. All the kids have gone nearly and all I get to do is
look
> at the back of his head while he 'talks to you etc.
Derek, you selfish cad, if you won't pay attention to your old woman at
least let her have a pet.
Belinda, if he doesn't give in, go live with Jonathan..;^\
[..]
Jonathan Ball
> "Jonathan Ball" <jon...@mindspring.NS.com> wrote in message
> news:3C6D9C3A...@mindspring.NS.com...
[...]
>>>Blatantly true, Jon. Shergar, a race horse worth many thousands
>>>was pinched and probably fetched £50 for dog meat.
>>>
>>Doubtlessly false, pillock. Why risk stealing a well
>>guarded race horse when you could pinch some old
>>dobbins from some fat ugly farmer who isn't watching
>>him at all?
>>
>>
> It won about 4 Grand Nationals in a row. It got knobbled.
I don't know this word, "knobbled", so I tried to track
it down through Google. The only worthwhile thing I
came up with was this rude joke. I thought you might
like it:
One misty Scottish morning a man was driving through
the hills to Inverness.
Suddenly out of the mist, a massive red-haired
highlander stepped into the middle of the road. The man
is at least six feet four and built like a brick
shit-house. He has a huge red beard and despite the
wind, mist and near freezing temperatures, is wearing
only his kilt, a tweed shirt and a tam-o'-shanter at a
rakish angle. At the roadside there also stands a young
women. She is absolutely beautiful - slim, shapely,
fair complexion, golden hair....... heart stopping.
The driver stops and stares, and his attention is only
distracted from the lovely girl when the red thing
opens the car door and drags him from his seat onto the
road with a fist resembling a whole raw ham.
"Right, you Jimmy" he shouts, "Ah want you to masturbate",
"But......" stammers the driver.
"Du it now...or I'll bluddy kill yer!"
So the driver turns his back on the girl, drops his
trousers and starts to masturbate. Thinking of the girl
on the roadside this doesn't take him long.
"Right" snarls the highlander "Du it again!"
"But....." says the driver.
"Now!"
So the driver does it again.
"Right laddie, du it again" demands the highlander.
This goes on for nearly two hours. The hapless driver
gets cramps in both arms, he has rubbed himself raw,
has violent knob-ache, his sight is failing (as
promised for years by his priest) and despite the cold
wind has collapsed in a sweating, jibbering heap on the
ground, unable to stand.
"Du it again" says the highlander.
"I can't do it anymore - you'll just have to kill me",
whimpers the man.
The highlander looks down at the pathetic soul slumped
on the roadside.
"All right laddie," he says, "NOW you can give ma
daughter a lift to Inverness".
http://www.laughs.com.au/Jokes/JOTD77.htm
firstoftwins
I've been trying to find the proper terms and expressions used
in law that defines the "value" of stolen goods in the hope that
the value is changed or reduced at the time of being stolen. I
was successful too, but the argument is in your favour it seems.
[Some of the terms used in this definition have their own special
meaning in our law. I will now give you the meaning of the
following terms: "knowingly," "possess," "property,"
"stolen property," "intent," "owner," and "value."
A person KNOWINGLY possesses stolen property when that
person is aware that he or she is in possession of property and is
aware that such property is stolen.
[NOTE: If the property consists of three or more airline tickets
or two or more credit, debit or public benefit cards, or if the
defendant is a collateral loan broker or dealer in property, add
the appropriate presumption(s) from the "Additional Charges"
section of this Article.]
POSSESS means to have physical possession or otherwise to
exercise dominion and control over tangible property.
PROPERTY means any money, personal property or thing of
value.
STOLEN PROPERTY is property that has been wrongfully
taken, obtained, or withheld from an owner by a person who
did so with the intent to deprive another of such property or
to appropriate such property to himself or herself or a third
person.
INTENT means conscious objective or purpose. Thus, a
person acts with intent to benefit himself or herself or a person
other than an owner of property or to impede the recovery of
property by an owner when that person's conscious objective
or purpose is to do so.
Under our law, a person who knowingly possesses stolen
property is presumed to possess it with intent to benefit
himself or herself or a person other than an owner thereof or
to impede its recovery by an owner thereof. This means that,
if the People have proven beyond a reasonable doubt that the
defendant knowingly possessed stolen property, you may, but
you are not required to, infer from that fact that the defendant
possessed it with the intent to benefit himself/herself or a
person other than an owner thereof or to impede its recovery
by an owner thereof.
An OWNER means a person having a right to possession of
the property superior to that of the person who possesses it.
VALUE means the market value of the property at the time and
place the defendant is alleged to have possessed it [or if such
cannot be satisfactorily ascertained, the cost of replacement of
the property within a reasonable time thereafter].
http://www.courts.state.ny.us/cji/art165sv.htm
It's pretty clear from this that the value of stolen goods remain
unchanged when stolen. You're right and I must move away
from my claim on this issue. Good argument though.
firstoftwins
> "firstoftwins" <firsto...@hotmail.com> wrote
> > "Jonathan Ball" <jon...@mindspring.NS.com> wrote in message
> > > firstoftwins wrote:
> [..]
>
> > > Your analysis of stolen goods is simply wrong. Full Stop.
> > >
> > I'm right. I know what I'm talking about. You can't buy stolen goods
> > and that's what flaws your analogy.
>
> First of all, your defintion of "buy" is wrong, buy means to aquire with
> money, period. Stop trying to reinvent the language. But even_IF you
> narrowly define buy as meaning aquiring goods "from the rightful owner", it
> makes no difference. You are still_aquiring these goods with full knowledge
> of their past.
>
and everyone gets the chance chaulk one up at my expense - this
time.
>
> > [ Belinda ] It was just a thought but thanks anyway and see if you get
> Derek
> > to let me have a dog. All the kids have gone nearly and all I get to do is
> look
> > at the back of his head while he 'talks to you etc.
>
> Derek, you selfish cad, if you won't pay attention to your old woman at
> least let her have a pet.
>
was in the middle of, and she made a load of mischief for
me and posted it before I had a chance to read or finish it.
> Belinda, if he doesn't give in, go live with Jonathan..;^\
>
She's in the sin bin and has to observe the exclusion zone set up
around my PC - without a puppy. She's too gullible to take part
here and doesn't realise the damage she could bring to my
argument with her anti views.
Dutch
> > > "Jonathan Ball" <jon...@mindspring.NS.com> wrote in message
> > > > firstoftwins wrote:
> > [..]
> >
> > > > Your analysis of stolen goods is simply wrong. Full Stop.
> > > >
> > > I'm right. I know what I'm talking about. You can't buy stolen goods
> > > and that's what flaws your analogy.
> >
> > First of all, your defintion of "buy" is wrong, buy means to aquire with
> > money, period. Stop trying to reinvent the language. But even_IF you
> > narrowly define buy as meaning aquiring goods "from the rightful owner",
it
> > makes no difference. You are still_aquiring these goods with full
knowledge
> > of their past.
> >
> I've had to give up on this one, Dutch. It's clear I've been mistaken
> and everyone gets the chance chaulk one up at my expense - this
> time.
Very good, that takes guts. The point remains though, you are compelled to
admit that you are complicit in cds, just like the buy of nicked goods.
> >
> > > [ Belinda ] It was just a thought but thanks anyway and see if you get
> > Derek
> > > to let me have a dog. All the kids have gone nearly and all I get to
do is
> > look
> > > at the back of his head while he 'talks to you etc.
> >
> > Derek, you selfish cad, if you won't pay attention to your old woman at
> > least let her have a pet.
> >
> I left her for 5 minutes to reply to Jon in a lengthy post I
> was in the middle of, and she made a load of mischief for
> me and posted it before I had a chance to read or finish it.
It was the best laugh I've had in ages.
> > Belinda, if he doesn't give in, go live with Jonathan..;^\
> >
> She's in the sin bin and has to observe the exclusion zone set up
> around my PC - without a puppy.
She should give you the boot and get a puppy instead.
> She's too gullible to take part
> here and doesn't realise the damage she could bring to my
> argument with her anti views.
She's too sensible to argue mindlessly and endlessly with made-up arguments.
Swan & Rat
> Swan & Rat wrote:
<megasnip> of repeated stuff
> > As real a choice as asking a person of limited means
> > and no farming experience, living in a city, to
> > avoid buying any vegetables.
> No, a much less real choice. Forget "means"; most
> people who live off the land are deliberately poor.
In money, not in produce. If they are "living
off the land," they don't need money to buy veggies;
if they are living in a city, with no land, they need
money to buy (at least some) food.
> And forget "experience". It isn't really that hard to
> grow vegetables.
It's harder than you suggest. Especially in a windowbox.
> And you sure as hell don't have to live in your trendy,
> socialist city. Unlike the tax protester picking up
> and heading off to some other country, you can pick up
> and move to a rural area without anyone's permission.
> No one tells you, "you can't do that".
Except my boss, who says, "No, we don't have a branch
in that area." Without considerable money, one can't
buy land; without experience in farming, one can't
hire out on someone else's land. You're supposed to
be an economist. If so, it seems to be all theoretical.
> > It's possible not to
> > pay taxes as a protest. A few people have done it.
> > You could do do. It's just very difficult.
> >>> (And when was the last
> >>> time anyone was shot for non-payment of taxes? Sent
> >>> to jail, sure. Aren't you willing to do a bit of
> >>> jail time to avoid supporting murder, police beatings,
> >>> and Enron? )
> >>It isn't that you're subject to lethal force for not
> >>paying them. You are for resisting being sent to jail.
> > So don't resist. Go to jail.
> Not a real option. Not like living free but without
> causing animal death. You can do that without losing
> your liberty.
Of course it's a real option. Is your liberty more
important than the death of innocents?
> No, ~~ratsleaze~~, this dirty little sophist's game
> simply won't fly. You're wrong, and you know you're wrong.
I'm right, and I know I'm right. It was Mercer's
dirty little sophist's game all along, and we see
it for what it is now.
<snip>
> > Your (collective) choices are no more limited than
> > the veggie-buyers' choices.
> They aren't choices at all, ~~ratslease~~, and you know
> they're not.
Of course they are possible choices. You just don't
like them.
<snip>
> >>>>> After all, you voted, and whether your
> >>>>> candidate won or not, that vote was a vote to support
> >>>>> the system as a whole.
> >>>>No. That's a typically false, sophistical interpretation.
> >>> It's a correct interpretation.
> >>It's a false, sophistical interpretation. You are
> >>comparing completely unlike things.
> >>> You participate, you
> >>> give consent to the legitimacy of the system. Nobody
> >>> makes you vote.
> >>How do you know I even voted?
> > I don't.
> What does voting have to do with it, anyway?
Voting gives consent to the system which carries out
governmental actions, including such things as
military action, police brutality, and economic
corruption. Voting for one candidate rather than
another is equivalent to buying one brand of carrots
or soda rather than another: it's all merchandizing.
By buying any candidate at all -- i.e., by casting
your vote for anybody -- you support the system in
which all political "brands" are products.
<snip>
Rat
Swan & Rat
<snip>
>I no
> longer feel the need invent ways to try either, which is the real relief.
The only honest thing you've ever said: you want to
defeat ARAs so that you won't feel guilty about
not trying. You're so transparent. Truth doesn't
matter to you at all; your arguments are only a
psychological band-aid to cover up your guilty feelings.
Some of us, Dutch, still care, and are still trying.
Rat
<snip>
Swan & Rat
have rights. He merely asserts it.
Rat
<snip>
Dutch
> Dutch wrote:
>
> <snip>
> >I no
> > longer feel the need invent ways to try either, which is the real
relief.
>
> The only honest thing you've ever said:
Interesting comment, it's falseness is self-evident.
> you want to
> defeat ARAs so that you won't feel guilty about
> not trying.
Not true. I want to defeat their arguments so they grow as people.
You're so transparent. Truth doesn't
> matter to you at all; your arguments are only a
> psychological band-aid to cover up your guilty feelings.
Nope, you're projecting.
> Some of us, Dutch, still care, and are still trying.
You care about your narrow, misguided AR agenda.
Dutch
>
> > Swan & Rat wrote:
>
> <megasnip> of repeated stuff
>
> > > As real a choice as asking a person of limited means
> > > and no farming experience, living in a city, to
> > > avoid buying any vegetables.
>
> > No, a much less real choice. Forget "means"; most
> > people who live off the land are deliberately poor.
>
> In money, not in produce. If they are "living
> off the land," they don't need money to buy veggies;
> if they are living in a city, with no land, they need
> money to buy (at least some) food.
>
> > And forget "experience". It isn't really that hard to
> > grow vegetables.
>
> It's harder than you suggest. Especially in a windowbox.
It's the box you made for yourself with your proclamation of great caring
for animals.
>
> > And you sure as hell don't have to live in your trendy,
> > socialist city. Unlike the tax protester picking up
> > and heading off to some other country, you can pick up
> > and move to a rural area without anyone's permission.
> > No one tells you, "you can't do that".
>
> Except my boss, who says, "No, we don't have a branch
> in that area." Without considerable money, one can't
> buy land; without experience in farming, one can't
> hire out on someone else's land. You're supposed to
> be an economist. If so, it seems to be all theoretical.
Then your connection to the cds remains, and your convenience wins again
over animal suffering and death.
[..]
> > > So don't resist. Go to jail.
>
> > Not a real option. Not like living free but without
> > causing animal death. You can do that without losing
> > your liberty.
>
> Of course it's a real option. Is your liberty more
> important than the death of innocents?
You can't stop the deaths of innocents by exercising political choices, you
can do so by exercising PERSONAL dietary choices.
>
> > No, ~~ratsleaze~~, this dirty little sophist's game
> > simply won't fly. You're wrong, and you know you're wrong.
>
> I'm right, and I know I'm right. It was Mercer's
> dirty little sophist's game all along, and we see
> it for what it is now.
You are miles off. Your PERSONAL choice and your political choice are very
different issues. You are only one voice among millions wrt to political
choices, you are ALL POWERFUL wrt to your diet.
> <snip>
> > > Your (collective) choices are no more limited than
> > > the veggie-buyers' choices.
>
> > They aren't choices at all, ~~ratslease~~, and you know
> > they're not.
>
> Of course they are possible choices. You just don't
> like them.
Those political choices have no effect since the majority rules, your
personal dietary choices have a known effect.
[..]
> Voting gives consent to the system which carries out
> governmental actions, including such things as
> military action, police brutality, and economic
> corruption.
Also health care, roads and good government policy, it all comes as a
package. Your dietary choice however is much simpler and more directly under
your control.
[..]
firstoftwins
> "firstoftwins" <firsto...@hotmail.com> wrote...
> > "Dutch" <n...@email.com> wrote in message
> > > "firstoftwins" <firsto...@hotmail.com> wrote
> > > > "Jonathan Ball" <jon...@mindspring.NS.com> wrote in message
> > > > > firstoftwins wrote:
> > > [..]
> > >
> > > > > Your analysis of stolen goods is simply wrong. Full Stop.
> > > > >
> > > > I'm right. I know what I'm talking about. You can't buy stolen goods
> > > > and that's what flaws your analogy.
> > >
> > > First of all, your defintion of "buy" is wrong, buy means to aquire with
> > > money, period. Stop trying to reinvent the language. But even_IF you
> > > narrowly define buy as meaning aquiring goods "from the rightful owner",
> it
> > > makes no difference. You are still_aquiring these goods with full
> knowledge
> > > of their past.
> > >
> > I've had to give up on this one, Dutch. It's clear I've been mistaken
> > and everyone gets the chance chaulk one up at my expense - this
> > time.
>
> Very good, that takes guts. The point remains though, you are compelled to
> admit that you are complicit in cds, just like the buy of nicked goods.
>
remains the same after they're pinched. Nothing more than a
point of law really. My argument as a whole still remains intact.
Obtaining goods from a farmer can and often does only
include two persons. The money is paid to the farmer.
Obtaining goods from a farmer via a thief includes three persons. The money is
paid to the thief.
When comparing these two trades the beneficed isn't
even the same, and to allow the farmer to be similar to
a thief requires an extra person; a thief. These trades
aren't analogous to each other and they are a million
miles from illustrating I'm responsible for the farmer's
CD.
> > >
> > > > [ Belinda ] It was just a thought but thanks anyway and see if you get
> > > Derek
> > > > to let me have a dog. All the kids have gone nearly and all I get to
> do is
> > > look
> > > > at the back of his head while he 'talks to you etc.
> > >
> > > Derek, you selfish cad, if you won't pay attention to your old woman at
> > > least let her have a pet.
> > >
> > I left her for 5 minutes to reply to Jon in a lengthy post I
> > was in the middle of, and she made a load of mischief for
> > me and posted it before I had a chance to read or finish it.
>
> It was the best laugh I've had in ages.
>
> > > Belinda, if he doesn't give in, go live with Jonathan..;^\
> > >
> > She's in the sin bin and has to observe the exclusion zone set up
> > around my PC - without a puppy.
>
> She should give you the boot and get a puppy instead.
>
It's a phaze; she'll grow out of it.
> > She's too gullible to take part
> > here and doesn't realise the damage she could bring to my
> > argument with her anti views.
>
> She's too sensible to argue mindlessly and endlessly with made-up arguments.
>
She already has to ;)
--
Sent using an unregistered copy of RMRNews v1.02
Check out our website at http://www.rmrsoft.com/
for other high quality software for EPOC machines.
Whozat
lab...@NOSPAMpacbell.net wrote on 2/16/02 11:26 PM:
> Jonathan Ball wrote:
>
>> Swan & Rat wrote:
>
> <megasnip> of repeated stuff
>
>>> As real a choice as asking a person of limited means
>>> and no farming experience, living in a city, to
>>> avoid buying any vegetables.
>
>> No, a much less real choice. Forget "means"; most
>> people who live off the land are deliberately poor.
>
> In money, not in produce. If they are "living
> off the land," they don't need money to buy veggies;
> if they are living in a city, with no land, they need
> money to buy (at least some) food.
>
>> And forget "experience". It isn't really that hard to
>> grow vegetables.
>
> It's harder than you suggest. Especially in a windowbox.
Why are you limited to a windowbox? By choice?
>
>> And you sure as hell don't have to live in your trendy,
>> socialist city. Unlike the tax protester picking up
>> and heading off to some other country, you can pick up
>> and move to a rural area without anyone's permission.
>> No one tells you, "you can't do that".
>
> Except my boss, who says, "No, we don't have a branch
> in that area."
I don't get this excuse either. Why are you limited to working for a
particular employer?
[...]
firstoftwins
> firstoftwins wrote:
>
> > "Jonathan Ball" <jon...@mindspring.NS.com> wrote in message
> > news:3C6D732D...@mindspring.NS.com...
> [...]
> >>You cheerfully fork over thousands
> >>of pounds per year to the "ugly farmer", not in the
> >>form of taxes, but in the form of cash you simply hand
> >>to him, in exchange for blood-drenched vegetables.
> >>
> >>
> > That's right; in exchange for his veggies. Glad to see you
> > coming round to my way of thinking after all this time. Is
> > this the free card you promised?
>
> I haven't come around to your way of thinking at all.
> I'd sooner eat cyanide.
>
> >
> >>>As Karen points out in another thread;
> >>>
> >>[...]
> >>Forget what ~~ratsleaze~~ points out; it's pure
> >>sophistry, and it is simply a terrible, incomparable
> >>analogy.
> >>
> >>
> > It's perfect and infinitely better than your efforts in
> > comparing a farmer to a thief.
>
> It's an absurd comparison, as I've conclusively shown.
>
addressed and found in your favour. Why do you keep doing
that?
> But since you don't seem to realize what she's saying
> in it, allow me to fill you in: your tax payments
> *are* a qualifying act, on her view.
>
So what. My view is that it isn't. Paying taxes is not a qualifying
act to make me responsible for police brutality or the farmers
CD.
> >
> >>>Paying taxes which are taken without my consent is not
> >>>a qualifying act imo.
> >>>btw. I've lost 12lb in 3 weeks.
> >>>
> >>I'm not talking about taxes.
> >>
> >
> > You will, whether you like it or not.
>
> You'll regret it. ~~ratsleaze~~ regards your payment
> of them as yet another qualifying act.
>
And we all respect Karen's unfailing perspicacity....
> Are you sure you want to pursue this?
>
My argument differs from Karen's.
> >
> >> I'm talking about the
> >>after-tax money you cheerfully use to reward the farmer
> >>for following the same methods year after year.
> >>
> >>
> > I don't reward him for his methods, just his food.
>
> The whole thing, Derek. Just as buying from a thief
> encourages him to keep thieving, so buying from a
> farmer who kills animals collaterally encourages him to
> keep doing that.
>
> The analogy works.
>
It sucks. As I said to Dutch in another thread:
[Obtaining goods from a farmer can and often does only
include two persons. The money is paid to the farmer.
Obtaining goods from a farmer via a thief includes three
persons. The money is paid to the thief.
When comparing these two trades the beneficed isn't
even the same, and to allow the farmer to be similar to
a thief requires an extra person; a thief. These trades
aren't analogous to each other and they are a million
miles from illustrating I'm responsible for the farmer's
CD. ]
> >
> >>We're talking about the
> >>money you cheerfully funnel through your "fence":
> >>Sainsburys or Safeway, or whoever-the-hell.
> >>
> >>
> > That money pays for the goods, not the methods in
> > producing them.
>
> It pays for all of it. That's why proponents of a
> boycott, over issues like third world slavery or
> low-wage child labor, urge people not to buy the goods
> produced in that manner.
>
Paying into a system like government taxes for example,
is not a qualifying act that makes me bear any responsibility
into the machinations of that system. I'm not responsible for
the road deaths caused by speeding police during the pursuit
of their jobs any more than I'm responsible for the CD
caused by farmers doing theirs.
> >
[..]
> >>>>You clearly do not believe that the animals have
> >>>>inherent rights. Your behavior proves it.
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>Moral patients have rights,
> >>>
> >>Not if they're not human.
> >>
> >>
> > I can't see why not.
>
> Go back and re-read Cohen. He explains it better than
> I can.
>
He's an idiot. He even tries to misinterpret Regan's summary
of what moral agents and patients are and then goes on to
say he holds them unconditionally equal. Regan explicitly
states that moral patients are not equivalent to animals and
that moral agents are not equivalent to humans. As Regan
says, " Granted, someone might object to my position by
arguing that all human being are moral agents (which is false)
or that no humans are moral patients (which is also false).
But it is one thing to challenge my position, quite another
accurately to say what that position is."
Jonathan Ball
> Jonathan Ball wrote:
>
>
>>Swan & Rat wrote:
>>
>
> <megasnip> of repeated stuff
>
>
>>> As real a choice as asking a person of limited means
>>> and no farming experience, living in a city, to
>>> avoid buying any vegetables.
>>>
>
>
>>No, a much less real choice. Forget "means"; most
>>people who live off the land are deliberately poor.
>>
>
> In money, not in produce.
No, pretty much in everything. The produce doesn't
just fall out of the sky.
> If they are "living
> off the land," they don't need money to buy veggies;
So? You were whining and crybabying about "asking a
person of limited means and no farming experience,
living in a city, to avoid buying any vegetables."
There is no requirement to live in a city; that's a
choice you make. And it doesn't require a lot in the
way of means to farm a small patch of land that you can
rent or sharecrop.
You're making excuses, ~~ratsleaze~~. You have a real
and relatively cheap choice, cheap in terms of external
impediments, to move into a rural area and raise
vegetables "ethically". You don't do it, because you
prefer the ease and comfort of living in the city, so
you can more readily partake of homosexual art and gay
freedom day parades and other frivolity.
Your appetite for urban frivolity and trendiness comes
at the cost of animal slaughter. Your "ethics" are
bullshit.
> if they are living in a city, with no land, they need
> money to buy (at least some) food.
Get out of the city.
>
>
>>And forget "experience". It isn't really that hard to
>>grow vegetables.
>>
>
> It's harder than you suggest. Especially in a windowbox.
Get out of the city.
>
>
>>And you sure as hell don't have to live in your trendy,
>>socialist city. Unlike the tax protester picking up
>>and heading off to some other country, you can pick up
>>and move to a rural area without anyone's permission.
>>No one tells you, "you can't do that".
>>
>
> Except my boss, who says, "No, we don't have a branch
> in that area."
You don't have to work in any particular job. People
give up their jobs and move elsewhere all the time.
It couldn't be that you have a featherbedding,
do-nothing job, could it? A soft, cushy sinecure that
allows you to buy some blood-drenched food, view some
pornographic "art" in galleries, and pay the utility
bills and property taxes for the house you inherited?
> Without considerable money, one can't
> buy land;
Rent it or sharecrop it.
> without experience in farming, one can't
> hire out on someone else's land. You're supposed to
> be an economist.
You're supposed to ethical. Your ease gets in your
way, though, so you ditch it.
> If so, it seems to be all theoretical.
>
>
>>> It's possible not to
>>> pay taxes as a protest. A few people have done it.
>>> You could do do. It's just very difficult.
>>>
>
>>>>> (And when was the last
>>>>> time anyone was shot for non-payment of taxes? Sent
>>>>> to jail, sure. Aren't you willing to do a bit of
>>>>> jail time to avoid supporting murder, police beatings,
>>>>> and Enron? )
>>>>>
>
>>>>It isn't that you're subject to lethal force for not
>>>>paying them. You are for resisting being sent to jail.
>>>>
>
>>> So don't resist. Go to jail.
>>>
>
>
>>Not a real option. Not like living free but without
>>causing animal death. You can do that without losing
>>your liberty.
>>
>
> Of course it's a real option. Is your liberty more
> important than the death of innocents?
Your comparison is invalid, ~~ratsleaze~~, and you know it.
>
>
>>No, ~~ratsleaze~~, this dirty little sophist's game
>>simply won't fly. You're wrong, and you know you're wrong.
>>
>
> I'm right, and I know I'm right.
You're wrong, and you know you're wrong. That's what
produced your nervous breakdown last year. Your
"ethics" is simply obscene.
> It was Mercer's
> dirty little sophist's game all along, and we see
> it for what it is now.
There was no sophistry involved, and you know it. You
could have combatted it if that's all it had been. It
won't do for you to try to mischaracterize the debate.
John proved to you, with airtight logic, that your
"ethics" wasn't worth the breath it takes to lie about it.
>
> <snip>
>
>>> Your (collective) choices are no more limited than
>>> the veggie-buyers' choices.
>>>
>
>
>>They aren't choices at all, ~~ratslease~~, and you know
>>they're not.
>>
>
> Of course they are possible choices. You just don't
> like them.
They are not comparable to the free choices you elect
not to make, due simply to your desire to live a life
of convenience, which comes at the cost of any real
"ethics".
[...]
Jonathan Ball
>
> Some of us, Dutch, still care, and are still trying.
The only thing you care about, ~~ratsleaze~~, is your ego.
firstoftwins
invent ways (lie) to yourself to hide or avoid facts about CD?
I thought you cast the scales from your eyes and could see
when you abnegated. Either you did or you didn't. You either
lied then or are lying now.
On the basis of these reservations and the lies you made to
delude yourself and other posters here, I don't think your
participation in aaev is a wholesome or honest one. Why
didn't you voice your concerns and debate for answers
honestly instead of pounding other posters with your own
delusions hoping for a moment of clarity? You're a fraud.
Jonathan Ball
> "Jonathan Ball" <jon...@mindspring.NS.com> wrote in message
> news:3C6EB6A...@mindspring.NS.com...
[...]
>>>>>As Karen points out in another thread;
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>[...]
>>>>Forget what ~~ratsleaze~~ points out; it's pure
>>>>sophistry, and it is simply a terrible, incomparable
>>>>analogy.
>>>>
>>>It's perfect and infinitely better than your efforts in
>>>comparing a farmer to a thief.
>>>
>>It's an absurd comparison, as I've conclusively shown.
>>
> You have an irritating habit of proclaiming a point as already
> addressed and found in your favour. Why do you keep doing
> that?
I only do it when it's appropriate. It is, in this case.
>
>
>>But since you don't seem to realize what she's saying
>>in it, allow me to fill you in: your tax payments
>>*are* a qualifying act, on her view.
>>
>>
> So what. My view is that it isn't. Paying taxes is not a qualifying
> act to make me responsible for police brutality or the farmers
> CD.
Well, maybe I can get you and the ~~ratsleaze~~ to go a
few rounds. Probably not; I don't think she likes to
talk with you. How's that for Side loyalty? Here I am
on the other (right) side, and I'm even sending you
nice photos. Would you like a photo of the house up
the street that has a 15-foot statue of Peter Rabbit in
the front yard? I'm not making that up, either.
>
>>>>>Paying taxes which are taken without my consent is not
>>>>>a qualifying act imo.
>>>>>btw. I've lost 12lb in 3 weeks.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>I'm not talking about taxes.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>You will, whether you like it or not.
>>>
>>You'll regret it. ~~ratsleaze~~ regards your payment
>>of them as yet another qualifying act.
>>
>>
> And we all respect Karen's unfailing perspicacity....
See if you can get her to wrangle with you.
>
>
>>Are you sure you want to pursue this?
>>
>>
> My argument differs from Karen's.
>
>>>>I'm talking about the
>>>>after-tax money you cheerfully use to reward the farmer
>>>>for following the same methods year after year.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>I don't reward him for his methods, just his food.
>>>
>>The whole thing, Derek. Just as buying from a thief
>>encourages him to keep thieving, so buying from a
>>farmer who kills animals collaterally encourages him to
>>keep doing that.
>>
>>The analogy works.
>>
>>
> It sucks.
It works. It figures you wouldn't like it.
> As I said to Dutch in another thread:
>
> [Obtaining goods from a farmer can and often does only
> include two persons. The money is paid to the farmer.
>
> Obtaining goods from a farmer via a thief includes three
> persons. The money is paid to the thief.
>
> When comparing these two trades the beneficed isn't
> even the same, and to allow the farmer to be similar to
> a thief requires an extra person; a thief. These trades
> aren't analogous to each other and they are a million
> miles from illustrating I'm responsible for the farmer's
> CD. ]
No, that's false. The idea that there's a "fence" (is
that term used in the U.K., to denote a third criminal
party who acts as the middleman between the thief and
the ultimate buyer?) between the receiver and the
thief, or the veggie-eater and the farmer, does nothing
to lessen the receiver's/veggie-eater's moral
responsibility for the initial immoral act.
>
>>>>We're talking about the
>>>>money you cheerfully funnel through your "fence":
>>>>Sainsburys or Safeway, or whoever-the-hell.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>That money pays for the goods, not the methods in
>>>producing them.
>>>
>>It pays for all of it. That's why proponents of a
>>boycott, over issues like third world slavery or
>>low-wage child labor, urge people not to buy the goods
>>produced in that manner.
>>
>>
> Paying into a system like government taxes for example,
We're not talking about taxes. We're talking about
your free-market payments to the farmer or the thief,
possibly through a middleman.
> is not a qualifying act that makes me bear any responsibility
> into the machinations of that system. I'm not responsible for
> the road deaths caused by speeding police during the pursuit
> of their jobs any more than I'm responsible for the CD
> caused by farmers doing theirs.
Try telling that to the city council that raises your
taxes to pay the court judgment brought by the
deceased's survivors against the police department.
>
> [..]
>
>>>>>>You clearly do not believe that the animals have
>>>>>>inherent rights. Your behavior proves it.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>Moral patients have rights,
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>Not if they're not human.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>I can't see why not.
>>>
>>Go back and re-read Cohen. He explains it better than
>>I can.
>>
>>
> He's an idiot. He even tries to misinterpret Regan's summary
> of what moral agents and patients are and then goes on to
> say he holds them unconditionally equal. Regan explicitly
> states that moral patients are not equivalent to animals and
> that moral agents are not equivalent to humans.
I haven't read that part yet, but if Regan does say it,
he's lying and he knows it. He *would* say it: it's
the only way he can try to wriggle out of being a
speciesist, himself, which he needs to try to wriggle
out of, given what he said earlier about speciesism.
Would you be so kind as to give me the page number, or
at least the chapter, where he says it? I'll send you
the pic of the 15-foot Peter Rabbit straightaway if you
do...
> As Regan
> says, " Granted, someone might object to my position by
> arguing that all human being are moral agents (which is false)
> or that no humans are moral patients (which is also false).
> But it is one thing to challenge my position, quite another
> accurately to say what that position is."
So, he's deliberately *trying* to make it hard to pin
him down, is he? That's despicable.
firstoftwins
> ~~ratsleaze~~ wrote
>
>
> >
> > Some of us, Dutch, still care, and are still trying.
>
> The only thing you care about, ~~ratsleaze~~, is your ego.
>
hide his duplicity. He pretends one set of feelings while
acting under the influence of another and he's fully
prepared to delude himself and others with his own
lies. What a fraud and a liar.
Dutch
The thief is only the agent which introduces a component of misdeed into the
equation, the fact he is a different person is irrelevant. The farmer
introduces it himself by killing animals, an act for which he is
responsible, and about which you are aware. That brings us to the same
point, YOU become an accomplice to the misdeed by knowingly patronizing the
misdoer.
[..]
firstoftwins
> firstoftwins wrote:
>
> > "Jonathan Ball" <jon...@mindspring.NS.com> wrote in message
> > news:3C6EB6A...@mindspring.NS.com...
> [...]
> >>>>>As Karen points out in another thread;
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>[...]
> >>>>Forget what ~~ratsleaze~~ points out; it's pure
> >>>>sophistry, and it is simply a terrible, incomparable
> >>>>analogy.
> >>>>
> >>>It's perfect and infinitely better than your efforts in
> >>>comparing a farmer to a thief.
> >>>
> >>It's an absurd comparison, as I've conclusively shown.
> >>
> > You have an irritating habit of proclaiming a point as already
> > addressed and found in your favour. Why do you keep doing
> > that?
>
> I only do it when it's appropriate. It is, in this case.
>
> >
> >>But since you don't seem to realize what she's saying
> >>in it, allow me to fill you in: your tax payments
> >>*are* a qualifying act, on her view.
> >>
> >>
> > So what. My view is that it isn't. Paying taxes is not a qualifying
> > act to make me responsible for police brutality or the farmers
> > CD.
>
> Well, maybe I can get you and the ~~ratsleaze~~ to go a
> few rounds. Probably not; I don't think she likes to
> talk with you. How's that for Side loyalty?
It's nothing to do with Side loyalty. I'm a bloke, and she hates
men, period. I can cope with prejudice. The average hetro
caucasion male vegan is the most persecuted animal since
Arthur Scargill.
> Here I am
> on the other (right) side, and I'm even sending you
> nice photos. Would you like a photo of the house up
> the street that has a 15-foot statue of Peter Rabbit in
> the front yard? I'm not making that up, either.
>
Yes, absolutely. I get a better psychological profile of someone
if I know what their neighbourhood looks like.
> >
> >>>>>Paying taxes which are taken without my consent is not
> >>>>>a qualifying act imo.
> >>>>>btw. I've lost 12lb in 3 weeks.
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>I'm not talking about taxes.
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>You will, whether you like it or not.
> >>>
> >>You'll regret it. ~~ratsleaze~~ regards your payment
> >>of them as yet another qualifying act.
> >>
> >>
> > And we all respect Karen's unfailing perspicacity....
>
> See if you can get her to wrangle with you.
>
I can glean her position on every issue raised here by just
ghosting her in tpa and aaev without interfering.
It's quantum mechanics. If I try to measure something by
direct measurement I end up altering the subject under
scrutiny.
[..]
> >>The analogy works.
> >>
> >>
> > It sucks.
>
> It works. It figures you wouldn't like it.
>
> > As I said to Dutch in another thread:
> >
> > [Obtaining goods from a farmer can and often does only
> > include two persons. The money is paid to the farmer.
> >
> > Obtaining goods from a farmer via a thief includes three
> > persons. The money is paid to the thief.
> >
> > When comparing these two trades the beneficed isn't
> > even the same, and to allow the farmer to be similar to
> > a thief requires an extra person; a thief. These trades
> > aren't analogous to each other and they are a million
> > miles from illustrating I'm responsible for the farmer's
> > CD. ]
>
> No, that's false. The idea that there's a "fence" (is
> that term used in the U.K., to denote a third criminal
> party who acts as the middleman between the thief and
> the ultimate buyer?) between the receiver and the
> thief, or the veggie-eater and the farmer, does nothing
> to lessen the receiver's/veggie-eater's moral
> responsibility for the initial immoral act.
>
One side of the analogy holds a third person, and this third
person is the beneficiary. The other side of the analogy
isn't similar in persons or in who benefits. It's a flawed
analogy.
> >
> >>>>We're talking about the
> >>>>money you cheerfully funnel through your "fence":
> >>>>Sainsburys or Safeway, or whoever-the-hell.
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>That money pays for the goods, not the methods in
> >>>producing them.
> >>>
> >>It pays for all of it. That's why proponents of a
> >>boycott, over issues like third world slavery or
> >>low-wage child labor, urge people not to buy the goods
> >>produced in that manner.
> >>
> >>
> > Paying into a system like government taxes for example,
>
> We're not talking about taxes. We're talking about
> your free-market payments to the farmer or the thief,
> possibly through a middleman.
>
I'm not ready to introduce the "middleman" yet. But I will warn
you that I intend to later on when we come to making another
similarity; between him and the taxman. (not that you needed
any warning of where I was going with this. My compliments)
>
> > is not a qualifying act that makes me bear any responsibility
> > into the machinations of that system. I'm not responsible for
> > the road deaths caused by speeding police during the pursuit
> > of their jobs any more than I'm responsible for the CD
> > caused by farmers doing theirs.
>
> Try telling that to the city council that raises your
> taxes to pay the court judgment brought by the
> deceased's survivors against the police department.
>
I'm glad you're beginning to see impossible predicament every
EV is in while paying taxes to a farmer to who causes CD.
That's why we don't perform a qualifying act when buying
food from the farmer. A qualifying act would include an
amount of direct control in the point of action.
> >
> >>>>>>You clearly do not believe that the animals have
> >>>>>>inherent rights. Your behavior proves it.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>Moral patients have rights,
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>Not if they're not human.
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>I can't see why not.
> >>>
> >>Go back and re-read Cohen. He explains it better than
> >>I can.
> >>
> >>
> > He's an idiot. He even tries to misinterpret Regan's summary
> > of what moral agents and patients are and then goes on to
> > say he holds them unconditionally equal. Regan explicitly
> > states that moral patients are not equivalent to animals and
> > that moral agents are not equivalent to humans.
>
> I haven't read that part yet, but if Regan does say it,
> he's lying and he knows it. He *would* say it: it's
> the only way he can try to wriggle out of being a
> speciesist, himself, which he needs to try to wriggle
> out of, given what he said earlier about speciesism.
>
> Would you be so kind as to give me the page number, or
> at least the chapter, where he says it? I'll send you
> the pic of the 15-foot Peter Rabbit straightaway if you
> do...
>
287. is where I quoted from, but go to page 284 if you want
to start at the beginning of the chapter.
> > As Regan
> > says, " Granted, someone might object to my position by
> > arguing that all human being are moral agents (which is false)
> > or that no humans are moral patients (which is also false).
> > But it is one thing to challenge my position, quite another
> > accurately to say what that position is."
>
> So, he's deliberately *trying* to make it hard to pin
> him down, is he? That's despicable.
>
Read the bloody thing before you comment and get forced into
defending something you were uninformed about. Don't you
EVER learn by my mistakes at all?
Dutch
Because if one doesn't invent arguments to support AR, there aren't any.
Your argument that goods cannot be bought except from the rightful owner is
just the most recent in your own history of made-up arguments. You all do
it, you have to or your philosophy falls apart. The first thing I noticed
when I "switched" was that arguments never had to be "invented" any more,
they just come into your mind and you type them. It is MUCH easier to think,
be in touch with more refined notions, without the arbitrary and confused
ideas of AR trying to direct your thoughts, making you rationalize, divert,
use sophistry, make ad hominem attacks. Bottom line, AR involves lying to
yourself, and I saw through it.
> I thought you cast the scales from your eyes and could see
> when you abnegated. Either you did or you didn't. You either
> lied then or are lying now.
What do you think I am or was lying about?
> On the basis of these reservations and the lies you made to
> delude yourself and other posters here, I don't think your
> participation in aaev is a wholesome or honest one.
I don't find your case very conclusive, to put it politely. As far as I know
I may be the only one who ever publicly changed their mind about AR and
stayed around to talk about it. That seemed like the ethical thing to do, I
can't help it if you disagreed.
> Why
> didn't you voice your concerns and debate for answers
> honestly instead of pounding other posters with your own
> delusions hoping for a moment of clarity? You're a fraud.
I debated openly and honestly right from the beginning, I still am. You have
no cause for these ridiculous accusations except your desire to avoid the
topic of discussion, your complicity in animalcide.
> > Now you promise to get back to your topic? remember ?
> > Blame the farmer! = Blame the thief!
> >
> > It's inescapable, concede.
As I predicted, your diversion, now a full blown ad-hominem attack, has
taken over your attention, not mine however, you are still an accessory
after the fact to animal murder. Learn to live with it, it's not hard
really.
How about getting a cat, does Belinda like cats?
Dutch
> >
> >
> > >
> > > Some of us, Dutch, still care, and are still trying.
> >
> > The only thing you care about, ~~ratsleaze~~, is your ego.
> >
> The only thing Dutch cares about is his being able to
> hide his duplicity. He pretends one set of feelings while
> acting under the influence of another and he's fully
> prepared to delude himself and others with his own
> lies. What a fraud and a liar.
Would you be a little more explicit here please?
Jonathan Ball
> "Jonathan Ball" <jon...@mindspring.NS.com> wrote in message
> news:3C6FD660...@mindspring.NS.com...
>>>>>It's perfect and infinitely better than your efforts in
>>>>>comparing a farmer to a thief.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>It's an absurd comparison, as I've conclusively shown.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>You have an irritating habit of proclaiming a point as already
>>>addressed and found in your favour. Why do you keep doing
>>>that?
>>>
>>I only do it when it's appropriate. It is, in this case.
>>
>>
> Why, because you have no argument to offer?
No. Because I've already done it, and don't feel like
doing it again.
>
>>>>But since you don't seem to realize what she's saying
>>>>in it, allow me to fill you in: your tax payments
>>>>*are* a qualifying act, on her view.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>So what. My view is that it isn't. Paying taxes is not a qualifying
>>>act to make me responsible for police brutality or the farmers
>>>CD.
>>>
>>Well, maybe I can get you and the ~~ratsleaze~~ to go a
>>few rounds. Probably not; I don't think she likes to
>>talk with you. How's that for Side loyalty?
>>
>
> It's nothing to do with Side loyalty. I'm a bloke, and she hates
> men, period. I can cope with prejudice. The average hetro
> caucasion male vegan is the most persecuted animal since
> Arthur Scargill.
Arthur Scargill! What a joke! That guy was an
out-and-out stalinist. I was tickled pink (oops!) when
Lady Thatcher busted his balls back in 1984 or 1985.
Those collieries were absolutely uneconomic, and should
have been shut down years before. Then the coal miners
could have gone off and become ethical vegatable farmers.
The only thing better than Scargill committing
political and union-leadership suicide would have been
if Lady Thatcher had personally cut his nuts off on the
BBC in prime time...without anesthetic.
>
>
>>Here I am
>>on the other (right) side, and I'm even sending you
>>nice photos. Would you like a photo of the house up
>>the street that has a 15-foot statue of Peter Rabbit in
>>the front yard? I'm not making that up, either.
>>
>>
> Yes, absolutely. I get a better psychological profile of someone
> if I know what their neighbourhood looks like.
I thought I had one on the PC already, because I took a
picture of it already to send to someone else. But I
can't find it; I'll have to wander down the street and
snap another.
The people who live in the house call it the Bunny
Museum. I've never been inside it, but apparently
everything in the house is bunny this-and-that. They
open it up for public viewing from time to time; my
wife and the lovely Christie went down to see it last
year. They said the people are *really* weird.
>
>>>>>>>Paying taxes which are taken without my consent is not
>>>>>>>a qualifying act imo.
>>>>>>>btw. I've lost 12lb in 3 weeks.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>I'm not talking about taxes.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>You will, whether you like it or not.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>You'll regret it. ~~ratsleaze~~ regards your payment
>>>>of them as yet another qualifying act.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>And we all respect Karen's unfailing perspicacity....
>>>
>>See if you can get her to wrangle with you.
>>
>>
> I can glean her position on every issue raised here by just
> ghosting her in tpa and aaev without interfering.
> It's quantum mechanics. If I try to measure something by
> direct measurement I end up altering the subject under
> scrutiny.
Glad to see you're familiar with Heisenberg's
Uncertainty principle. It's a safe bet ~~ratsleaze~~
isn't. Of course, she can look it up in Google and
pretend to be, now that I've identified it by name.
No, they're perfectly similar; there's no flaw whatever.
In the case of a receiver and thief, there may or may
not be a "fence" in the middle. If there is, then he
is criminally culpable as well. For vegetable
consumers and farmers, there may or may not be a grocer
in the middle. If there is, then he shares in the
moral responsibility for the CDs...IF there is any
moral responsibility, which you haven't yet shown.
>
>>>>>>We're talking about the
>>>>>>money you cheerfully funnel through your "fence":
>>>>>>Sainsburys or Safeway, or whoever-the-hell.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>That money pays for the goods, not the methods in
>>>>>producing them.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>It pays for all of it. That's why proponents of a
>>>>boycott, over issues like third world slavery or
>>>>low-wage child labor, urge people not to buy the goods
>>>>produced in that manner.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>Paying into a system like government taxes for example,
>>>
>>We're not talking about taxes. We're talking about
>>your free-market payments to the farmer or the thief,
>>possibly through a middleman.
>>
>>
> I'm not ready to introduce the "middleman" yet.
It doesn't matter if you do or don't. A middleman in a
private transaction, i.e. not taxation, doesn't in any
way lessen your moral culpability for some moral
problem with the origins of the transaction.
> But I will warn
> you that I intend to later on when we come to making another
> similarity; between him and the taxman. (not that you needed
> any warning of where I was going with this. My compliments)
>
>>>is not a qualifying act that makes me bear any responsibility
>>>into the machinations of that system. I'm not responsible for
>>>the road deaths caused by speeding police during the pursuit
>>>of their jobs any more than I'm responsible for the CD
>>>caused by farmers doing theirs.
>>>
>>Try telling that to the city council that raises your
>>taxes to pay the court judgment brought by the
>>deceased's survivors against the police department.
>>
>>
> I'm glad you're beginning to see impossible predicament every
> EV is in while paying taxes to a farmer to who causes CD.
Argue it with ~~ratsleaze~~. I don't view being
compelled to pay taxes, under threat of lethal violence
if you resist the seizure of your assets, as a morally
qualifying act. She does. I'm afraid you're going to
have to argue this with her, not me.
> That's why we don't perform a qualifying act when buying
> food from the farmer. A qualifying act would include an
> amount of direct control in the point of action.
Bollocks! That's another empty, and false, assertion
by you, right along with your blarney assertion that
stolen goods have no value.
>>>>Go back and re-read Cohen. He explains it better than
>>>>I can.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>He's an idiot. He even tries to misinterpret Regan's summary
>>>of what moral agents and patients are and then goes on to
>>>say he holds them unconditionally equal. Regan explicitly
>>>states that moral patients are not equivalent to animals and
>>>that moral agents are not equivalent to humans.
>>>
>>I haven't read that part yet, but if Regan does say it,
>>he's lying and he knows it. He *would* say it: it's
>>the only way he can try to wriggle out of being a
>>speciesist, himself, which he needs to try to wriggle
>>out of, given what he said earlier about speciesism.
>>
>>Would you be so kind as to give me the page number, or
>>at least the chapter, where he says it? I'll send you
>>the pic of the 15-foot Peter Rabbit straightaway if you
>>do...
>>
>>
> 287. is where I quoted from, but go to page 284 if you want
> to start at the beginning of the chapter.
Thanks. I'll try to get that picture for you some time
today. It's raining right at the moment, and I don't
want the digital camera to short out.
>
>
>>>As Regan
>>>says, " Granted, someone might object to my position by
>>>arguing that all human being are moral agents (which is false)
>>>or that no humans are moral patients (which is also false).
>>>But it is one thing to challenge my position, quite another
>>>accurately to say what that position is."
>>>
>>So, he's deliberately *trying* to make it hard to pin
>>him down, is he? That's despicable.
>>
>>
> Read the bloody thing before you comment and get forced into
> defending something you were uninformed about. Don't you
> EVER learn by my mistakes at all?
;-)
firstoftwins
To make any equation equal it must have the same sum on
each side. An analogy must be balanced.
(farmer + thief + reciever) is not analogous to (farmer + reciever)
> the fact he is a different person is irrelevant.
Why? You can't just add a thief into one half of the analogy
and try to use it to imply I am responsible for a farmers CD.
Square pegs and round holes.
> The farmer
> introduces it himself by killing animals,
The elements of an analogy can't introduce extra elements
into it all by themselves. The analogist brings the elements
together, and if it's to be a sound analogy it must be
balanced.
> an act for which he is
> responsible, and about which you are aware.
Yes, he's responsible. I'm well aware of that.
> That brings us to the same
> point,
Does it, fuck!
> YOU become an accomplice to the misdeed by knowingly patronizing the
> misdoer.
>
You're deluding yourself - again.
Dutch
You are referring to an equation. An analogy is not as restrictive as an
equation. There you going inventing bogus technical exemptions again.
>
> (farmer + thief + reciever) is not analogous to (farmer + reciever)
>
> > the fact he is a different person is irrelevant.
>
> Why? You can't just add a thief into one half of the analogy
> and try to use it to imply I am responsible for a farmers CD.
> Square pegs and round holes.
The thief's role is like the farmhand's role, he is simply the doer of the
original misdeed. There were never only two people involved.
> > The farmer
> > introduces it himself by killing animals,
>
> The elements of an analogy can't introduce extra elements
> into it all by themselves. The analogist brings the elements
> together, and if it's to be a sound analogy it must be
> balanced.
It is a perfectly good analogy, it's balanced enough to be equation,
although it doesn't need to be.
you-fence-thief = you-grocer-farmer
> > an act for which he is
> > responsible, and about which you are aware.
>
> Yes, he's responsible. I'm well aware of that.
>
> > That brings us to the same
> > point,
>
> Does it, fuck!
There was never a doubt.
> > YOU become an accomplice to the misdeed by knowingly patronizing the
> > misdoer.
> >
> You're deluding yourself - again.
It's what the law says, and I assume being a law it is based on some basic
principle of fairness. Do you claim that the laws regarding accomplices are
unfair laws?
firstoftwins
support impossible illusions and accuse ARA's of doing
exactly the same thing when promoting AR.
[I no longer cling to that illusion because it is impossible
to support. I no longer feel the need invent ways to try
either, which is the real relief.]
Clinging to impossible, unsupportable illusions and inventing
ways to try makes you fraud and a liar. How much more
explicit would you like me to be, Dutch?
Dutch
> > > "Jonathan Ball" <jon...@mindspring.NS.com> wrote in message
> > > > ~~ratsleaze~~ wrote
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > Some of us, Dutch, still care, and are still trying.
> > > >
> > > > The only thing you care about, ~~ratsleaze~~, is your ego.
> > > >
> > > The only thing Dutch cares about is his being able to
> > > hide his duplicity. He pretends one set of feelings while
> > > acting under the influence of another and he's fully
> > > prepared to delude himself and others with his own
> > > lies. What a fraud and a liar.
> >
> > Would you be a little more explicit here please?
> >
> You're argument has been a fraud.
Which one? I don't have only one argument, and the ones I do have are not
particulary unique.
> You invent ways to
> support impossible illusions
such as?
> and accuse ARA's of doing
> exactly the same thing when promoting AR.
You invent arguments all the time, so does Harrison, that's why he belongs
on your team, I'm putting him on waivers.
> [I no longer cling to that illusion because it is impossible
> to support. I no longer feel the need invent ways to try
> either, which is the real relief.]
> Clinging to impossible, unsupportable illusions and inventing
> ways to try makes you fraud and a liar. How much more
> explicit would you like me to be, Dutch?
That's not explicit, it's generalized ad hominem rant, however, I shall
press on.
You forget, I changed my point of view, I wasn't comfortable with the
irrational thinking any more, so I adjusted, and fairly quickly. I was a
person who never discussed EVism, ever. Issues never came into question
until I discovered this newsgroup and began to examine some of my
assumptions. That's when I begin to become aware of many inconsistencies and
other flaws in AR and it's supporters. It was a relatively easy for me to
change perhaps because I never staked a whole lot of my identity on it. I
think RubyStars, only two months a vegetarian and still with head screwed
on, will probably survive intellectually now that she has been through here.
It's what I always hope for.
Jonathan Ball
> "Jonathan Ball" <jon...@mindspring.NS.com> wrote in message
> news:3C6FD660...@mindspring.NS.com...
>>>>>>>Moral patients have rights,
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>Not if they're not human.
>>>>>>
>>>>>I can't see why not.
>>>>>
>>>>Go back and re-read Cohen. He explains it better than
>>>>I can.
>>>>
>>>He's an idiot. He even tries to misinterpret Regan's summary
>>>of what moral agents and patients are and then goes on to
>>>say he holds them unconditionally equal. Regan explicitly
>>>states that moral patients are not equivalent to animals and
>>>that moral agents are not equivalent to humans.
>>>
>>I haven't read that part yet, but if Regan does say it,
>>he's lying and he knows it. He *would* say it: it's
>>the only way he can try to wriggle out of being a
>>speciesist, himself, which he needs to try to wriggle
>>out of, given what he said earlier about speciesism.
>>
>>Would you be so kind as to give me the page number, or
>>at least the chapter, where he says it? I'll send you
>>the pic of the 15-foot Peter Rabbit straightaway if you
>>do...
>>
>>
> 287. is where I quoted from, but go to page 284 if you want
> to start at the beginning of the chapter.
Nice. On page 288, after giving three examples from
"The Case for Animal Rights" that show him saying that
not all humans are moral agents, Regan sleazes and lies:
Nothing could be clearer, even to those who read my
work in the most superficial manner, than that in my
hands *"moral patient" is not equivalent to "animal"
and "moral agent" is not equivalent to "human
being"*.
But no one ever said that *Regan* was saying that no
humans are moral patients. And in nothing he has
written does Regan suggest that there are *some* moral
agents who are *not* human beings.
In other words, half of what he wrote, that I've
reproduced above, is a lie: OF COURSE he believes that
"moral agent" is equivalent to "human being". That is
not the same as saying that "human being" is equivalent
to "moral agent".
Regan cannot point to a SINGLE moral agent, anywhere or
at any time, who is not or was not a human being.
Thus, in asserting that "subject-of-a-life" beings have
rights *only* with respect to moral agents, he is
saying that they have rights only with respect to human
beings. Not with respect to all human beings, of
course; but if a "subject-of-a-life" being holds a
right of the kind Regan is talking about, it holds it
in respect to a human being, and *only* in respect to a
human being.
In fact, though, because the overwhelming majority of
human beings *are* or *will become* moral agents, Regan
is effectively saying that animals hold rights with
respect to *all* humans. For him to pretend otherwise
is an extraordinary (because of its shallowness) lie.
One reason it is a lie is that human moral agents are
expected to act *on behalf* of human moral patients.
Say a mouse or a fledgling bird is caught by the cat
across the street, and the cat is "torturing" it the
way cats do. The cat certainly isn't doing anything
"wrong"; impossible, as she is not a moral agent. And
neither you nor anyone else is morally obliged to try
to rescue the animal victim, although you might choose
to do so out of a sappy, weepy sense of sentimentality.
But replace the cat with a small child, one clearly
under the age of moral agency. Or replace the cat with
the neighborhood's resident lunatic (and perhaps
replace the mouse or bird with the cat). *Of course*
human moral agents will intervene to stop the
"torture". Effectively, all humans *are* moral agents,
either directly or through the agency of those
responsible for them.
Regan is a liar twice on one page: in claiming not to
be a speciesist, and in claiming that he doesn't define
"moral agent" as equivalent to "human being".
Thanks for pointing out two more colossal lies by Regan
that I had missed.
firstoftwins
Why did you support AR in the first place if it was illogical to
you? You forced yourself upon an idea and deluded yourself
by inventing something about it to qualify your support for it
in a self serving manner. Are you sure you're not still deluding
yourself? There are some very persuasive voices in this forum
that have been shown to invent all sorts of arguments with
near hypnotic effect to the wavering loon who is inclined to
"invent arguments to support" an idea or political opinion.
You've been got at, Dutch! But it serves you right for being
a liar and a fraud in the first place. You're a weak person
and lack moral fibre.
> Your argument that goods cannot be bought except from the rightful owner is
> just the most recent in your own history of made-up arguments.
No, I truly believed it. I didn't invent lies to back my
position.You'll notice how I even unearthed the
evidence against my own claim after weeks of rigourous
defence too. I'm here to debate honestly with an open
mind and agenda. You clearly are not.
> You all do
> it, you have to or your philosophy falls apart.
You just don't get it. Why would anyone be here debating if
they didn't have an original point of view. You came here
without a point of view but chose the more hip one. You
invented arguments and lied to carry off your duplicity and
of course, something had to give in the end.
> The first thing I noticed
> when I "switched" was that arguments never had to be "invented" any more,
> they just come into your mind and you type them.
So, you have been brain washed then. If you invented and
lied to support your original duplicity, how can you guarantee
me you're not doing exactly the same right now? These arguments
that "come into your mind as you type them" are not your
arguments at all; they're Jonathans. You're a ventriloquists dummy.
You have nothing to say of your own accord but like acting as
Jonathan's medium because of the protection he can offer you
while you make up arguments and lie to the newbies that come
here.
> It is MUCH easier to think,
> be in touch with more refined notions, without the arbitrary and confused
> ideas of AR trying to direct your thoughts, making you rationalize, divert,
> use sophistry, make ad hominem attacks. Bottom line, AR involves lying to
> yourself, and I saw through it.
>
Bottom line; you came here without a point of view either way
and you're prepared to invent arguments and delude yourself
with you're own lies. How bizarre.
> > I thought you cast the scales from your eyes and could see
> > when you abnegated. Either you did or you didn't. You either
> > lied then or are lying now.
>
> What do you think I am or was lying about?
>
You was lying to yourself. You've said it with your own words.
I don't know what the heck you've been lying to yourself about.
What's the matter with you?
> > On the basis of these reservations and the lies you made to
> > delude yourself and other posters here, I don't think your
> > participation in aaev is a wholesome or honest one.
>
> I don't find your case very conclusive, to put it politely.
You're deluding yourself.
> As far as I know
> I may be the only one who ever publicly changed their mind about AR and
> stayed around to talk about it.
You weren't in mind of anything to begin with. You've
admitted you came here with self delusions when opting
for The Side. Why should anyone be interested in your
"public" change of side when you weren't on any particular
side to begin with anyway? You're a fraud.
> That seemed like the ethical thing to do, I
> can't help it if you disagreed.
>
The ethical thing to do is to at least be honest with yourself.
Inventing arguments and deluding yourself with your own lies
is hardly what qualifies as an ethical thing to do.
> > Why
> > didn't you voice your concerns and debate for answers
> > honestly instead of pounding other posters with your own
> > delusions hoping for a moment of clarity? You're a fraud.
>
> I debated openly and honestly right from the beginning, I still am.
You're lying again, Dutch. You came here a loon, or so you
tried to make out, and defended arguments you considered
impossible to defend with lies and made up some of your
own too. You weren't openly honest from the beginning and
you're not ever going to be. I said things were going to get
interesting, didn't I?
firstoftwins
> "firstoftwins" <firsto...@hotmail.com> wrote
> > "Dutch" <n...@email.com> wrote in message
> > > "firstoftwins" <firsto...@hotmail.com> wrote
> > > > "Jonathan Ball" <jon...@mindspring.NS.com> wrote in message
> > > > > ~~ratsleaze~~ wrote
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Some of us, Dutch, still care, and are still trying.
> > > > >
> > > > > The only thing you care about, ~~ratsleaze~~, is your ego.
> > > > >
> > > > The only thing Dutch cares about is his being able to
> > > > hide his duplicity. He pretends one set of feelings while
> > > > acting under the influence of another and he's fully
> > > > prepared to delude himself and others with his own
> > > > lies. What a fraud and a liar.
> > >
> > > Would you be a little more explicit here please?
> > >
> > You're argument has been a fraud.
>
> Which one? I don't have only one argument, and the ones I do have are not
> particulary unique.
>
> > You invent ways to
> > support impossible illusions
>
> such as?
>
You were the one that said it. Read the post.
> > and accuse ARA's of doing
> > exactly the same thing when promoting AR.
>
> You invent arguments all the time, so does Harrison, that's why he belongs
> on your team, I'm putting him on waivers.
>
We don't invent arguments or cling to illusions like you've admitted
to doing. Other posters here from both sides argue about the things
they believe in honestly.
> > [I no longer cling to that illusion because it is impossible
> > to support. I no longer feel the need invent ways to try
> > either, which is the real relief.]
>
> > Clinging to impossible, unsupportable illusions and inventing
> > ways to try makes you fraud and a liar. How much more
> > explicit would you like me to be, Dutch?
>
> That's not explicit, it's generalized ad hominem rant, however, I shall
> press on.
>
Really? With what in particular? You've admitted to defending
your position by inventing arguments, and you've also admitted
to using your own lies to delude yourself. What on Earth is there
for you and I to press on with, and how will I gain from any
further exchanges with you on such delicate issues raised here?
> You forget, I changed my point of view, I wasn't comfortable with the
> irrational thinking any more, so I adjusted, and fairly quickly. I was a
> person who never discussed EVism, ever. Issues never came into question
> until I discovered this newsgroup and began to examine some of my
> assumptions. That's when I begin to become aware of many inconsistencies and
> other flaws in AR and it's supporters. It was a relatively easy for me to
> change perhaps because I never staked a whole lot of my identity on it. I
> think RubyStars, only two months a vegetarian and still with head screwed
> on, will probably survive intellectually now that she has been through here.
> It's what I always hope for.
>
Yeah, whatever.