Michael Archer

Sure it does. It takes time and effort to grow raw materials and you are not entitled to those materials. So we do agree that you cannot argue for the fetus' right to life without also arguing with its right to live as a parasite. So you are in fact saying that there is a "right" to live as a parasite i.e. the "right" to the fruits of another labor despite having no claim to them. This is statism in its basic form; it's the theory that a government is not a body to secure rights through retaliatory force, but rather that the government is a group of thugs who initiate force at whim and in whatever measure they see fit. It goes hand in hand with the reasoning that you may take from whoever you want against their will. This is pure evil. Well actually, it's not the government's place to be...*slaps self*. NO! END SENTENCE! BEGIN A NEW! *ahem* I think I mentioned something about that in the Capitalism vs. Statism thread. If not, it'll be brought up eventually. I'm sorry, I cannot get beyond the absurdity of this statement. An abstract thought is a stage to human life e.g. a couple discussing when to have a kid; does that thought get rights? After conception, there is a point where the fetus' is less complex than a tadpole; does that clump of organic tissue get the benefit of all the rights of fully thinking rational adult? Or, are you saying that the government should assign the protection of rights accordingly to how complex it is? If this is the case, then this is just involve arbitrary designation. The "complexity" of a cell can not be objectively determine e.g. you can not objectively say that during the second week, it has no rights but then after the third week it gets a few basic rights; this is all subjective. The government is supposed to use force objectively; the government should not arbitrarily determine the point where a fetus becomes a human being. Using force subjectivity=statism. But maybe you were in favor of that? I couldn't help but notice that you used the word "most" meaning majority. Does this mean the majority gets to "decide" what rights are? Is the individual subject to the majority? No, the individual is protected from the majority through individual rights; there is no such thing as collective rights e.g. hypothetically, if everyone in the country voted that we execute a certain someone for the reason that we simply did not like it, it would be legally and morally void. Most first world governments have constitutions for this very reason; to stop the will of the majority infringing the right of the individual. Do you think this would never happen? Remember Socrates? But anyway: Do unto others? Sure. I know that if I was pregnant and my reason would tell me death (being irrational=death since reason=survival) would come if I didn't abort, I would want others to fight for my right to get an abortion. This brings up a good scenario in my mind: let's say you were pregnant and you did not want it and reason told you that death would follow if you kept it; I don't believe you would condemn yourself to death despite what other people (the anti-abortionists) said. As we approach the future, the capacity for everything become infinite; kind of like how as a function approaches an asymptote, it approaches positive or negative infinity. E.g.: I saw something about sperm cells being made from stem cells. That means that stem cells have the capacity to be sperm cells, that has the capacity to the fertilize an egg...ad nauseum. My point is, is that capacity can be infinite. We can't deal with everything that might be or what isn't; it's literally impossible. We have to deal with what is, right now Are you saying I'm wrong? You never actually said; "no, they don't oppose the right to the pursuit of happiness and liberty!" What are their motives then? To make a society full of biological slaves? One could argue that kidneys and liver are necessary for the life of a person, so removing these are synonymous to abortion. i.e. removing=death. It is a transformation. Upon birth, the fetus, which was once completely dependent on the mother and a part of her in a sense, becomes physically separated, becomes a baby and lives and breathes on its own and it no longer is in a physical parasitic relation; all its actions from this point until death are completley social and are protected by individual rights (although, slightly different than an adult). A fetus is when it's growing in a uterus. A baby is when it's born. Both your statement and my response are semantics. Just because something is unavoidable, does not negate rights. E.g. A psychopath could claim that it was unavoidable for him to murder another person. Are you saying that you do have the right to get an abortion if you were raped? If so, I don't know what you're thinking. You've told me that the fetus has a right to life and it's not its fault that it has to live as a parasite and be such a burden. It would also follow that since it has the right to life, it wasn't up to the fetus that it's a byproduct of rape so all your anti-abortion statements should still apply. Also, who's to decide whether one reason is acceptable and one is not? Who gets that power and how do they decide? This is also subjectivity at its worst. "Right to live" does not mean someone has to feed it; it just means no one has the right to murder it. The alternative is scarier: the government initiates force on its own citizens and forces them to take care of a baby to which it has no relation and feed it out if their own pocket. Fortunately, this never happens. There are plenty of couples looking to adopt and there is no shortage of charitable orphanages. The thing you created doesn't disappear; it's the result of using something. We live in a closed system; things are renewable. Well, yes. Viable in a sense that it should be allowed to be done? Yes. Viable in the sense that should it be done? Probably not, there are a lot of health risks and really late in the pregnancy, it would be more dangerous to abort it then deliver it normally. Isn't a c-section kind of like an abortion? You're terminating a pregnancy before you let biological fact take place i.e. birth, but because the doctor is recommending c-section, the natural path (the one you're advocating) is the baby coming in breach birth, or something that will leave it in danger. Or it could mean death for the mother) Abortion is fundamentally identical to birth: the fetus becomes physically separated from the mother. It just so "happens" that if it becomes separated before a certain time, unfortunately, the baby usually dies. Fetuses sometimes survive abortions, especially if it's really late in the pregnancy. In that case, the moment of abortion, it would get all the rights of a human baby. Tell that to the ten million soviet peasants who's government corporations couldn't feed them. Oh wait, that's right, you can't. They starved to death. This is off topic. I should shut up.

Ross, peak oil sounds scary, and there might be some truth in it. But keep in mind, oil scares has always had its roots in green energy, green energy has always had its roots in environmentalism, environmentalism has its roots in anti-industrialism. And anti-industrialism is anti-capitalism. The way I see it: people that don't want us to use oil are environmentalists who hate human progress (i.e. capitalism) and who want to revert humans back to the dark ages; any reasonable and probably legitimate evidence that we're peaking oil is obscured by this fact. NONONONONONONO. That is totalitarianism at its worst. The government doesn't own me or my ability to make more humans. I've got an idea: get rid of your social programs and then you'll be able to afford everything that matters: military, police and the courts. That's another thing I hate about statism: more people=threat. Also, do you really want to follow China's example? China is one of the worst offenders of human rights.

I don't need to imagine. They, and a bunch of neighboring states, declared their succession in 1861 to form a society based on the "right to own slaves." They lost, and the USA remains one country, but over half a million people died.

"Open policy" can suck, but it's great sometimes. I took on the remaining five redcoats by myself when the rest of my team was dead. I was given leadership.

Damn, that sucks. This is why we need to take education out of the hands of the government and give it to the profit-making industry, where it rightfully belongs. Education is too important and too valuable to give to the government.

Yes...yes I am. Good observation! In a perfect government, government property would be owned by public corporations (a corporation that traded on the stock market). The government will decide what happens to the property and how it's used, but the actual physical ownership of the property would belong to the corporations. Remember: in capitalism, all property is privately owned, even streets and government buildings! Do you have a better idea of who would own the property? The government can't own it, since the government is just representative of the people: "government owns x"="people owns x". "Public ownership" is an absolutely meaningless phrase perpetuated by the Marxists. If no one decides to make corporations or invest in corporations that hold government property, then we have no government. We need a government to exist peacefully as a society, so you should want to invest in the corporation; it is in your own self-interest. If you cannot even conceive a world where this is possible, then the current statist governments has gotten so good at spreading the lie that taxes (i.e. legalized robbery) is the only way to fund a government. Although, this part should probably moved to the Capitalism vs. Statism thread, but you mentioned this here, so I'll respond here. In fact, the abortion thread, the animal "rights" thread (I refuse to not put quotations around "rights" when applying them to irrational animals) should be locked and all related conversations should be moved to the Capitalism vs. Statism thread; really, that's what all issues boil down to. It would be slavery if the "resources" in question were produced, owned, and rightfully earned by another person. You would be exploiting their work for your own purposes while giving nothing in return, all against their will. How is that not slavery? Ok, fine. Then let's start on universal agreement. You said earlier that you do not believe that some humans have the right to own others. You also said that human beings have the right to life. I could not agree more. You cannot argue that a fetus has the right to life, without also arguing that the fetus has a right to live in a woman against her will (if it was aborted it would die and lose its life). You cannot argue one without the other; it's impossible by definition. Do we still agree? A parasite is something that takes resources from its host against the host's will, and gives nothing in return. The parasite feels entitled, if you will. If you said to the CEO of a multi-billion dollar corporation, "I'm entitled to the fruits of your labor, despite the fact that you created this company from nothing, despite the fact that I did nothing to help this corporation, so I'm going to use the government to make you give some of your rightfully earned money to me so I can get a benefit I did not earn or deserve!", that is parasitism. So really, it all comes down to this: Do you believe that you are entitled to the work of another person? i.e. Do you believe that if you took no part in the creation of something, you're still deserving of a share? Or do you believe that you own the sweat of your brow? (Appropriate Bioshock reference) If you said "no" to the first two questions and "yes" to the third, logic dictates you must think that abortion is an inalienable right. If you believe that you are entitled to the sweat of your brow, that means you think no one is entitled to live as a parasite. "No one" includes a fetus. Now, if you do believe that you are entitled to something that you did not produce, create, or earn, you should come to the capitalism vs. statism thread and make a convincing case for statism. I don't really want to talk about that in this thread; I'll get confused too easily. Remember: rights are secured by a government. "The right to life" does not mean the government must force other people to feed and clothe you; it means that you have the right to work to sustain your own life and no one may stop you from doing that. The right to freedom of speech does not mean that the government must force people to listen to you and give you a means to address the nation; it means that no one can stop you from talking. That's it. In even a semi-free society you are not legally obliged to take in the invalid because the invalid's right to life, does not mean they have the right to live as a parasite. They reside in your house only by your permission that may be revoked at any time. You've said, but you've never said why. Maybe that's why we're at an impasse. If you take it out of context, yeah. It was a response to the claim "life get's rights, period". Skin cells are life, but do not have rights. So rights are not a condition for life per se. I never said that a fetus was not potential life. What I did say is that it's a potential human being. "Being" means a physical separate entity. A fetus is part of a woman, just like her kidneys and liver. Eventually, the fetus will not be part of her body, it will be a human being. If it is moral to commit suicide and sell your kidneys for money, then it is moral to get an abortion. What do these three things have in common? They're all modifications of your own body: something that you own and is legally, morally, and ethically, your property. None of these actions violate the rights of anyone around you. "Being" implies a physical separate entity. It does transform from a physically dependent parasite to an independent entity: it's called birth. If you believe in the non-existent right to live as a parasite, yeah. I don't though. True. And because of this certain biological aspect and the circumstances, it is moral for a woman to get an abortion while the fetus is living as a parasite. Did I say anything to the contrary? Wait...maybe I'm missing something; are you saying that it's immoral to abort a fetus because it's detrimental to the species? If yes, then you have no understanding of individual rights. Also true; the burden of proof is on me. I don't think it's ulterior at all; I think they're pretty "in your face" about it. When you oppose the right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness and property, then you hate mankind since mankind's condition of existence are those things. They oppose the right to property: A woman's body is her property; they think she doesn't own it and other people/fetuses get to dictate the terms of it. They oppose the pursuit of happiness: A woman's reason is telling her that she would be much happier for her own well-being than getting an abortion; this is pursuing happiness and rational self-interest. The anti-abortionists are saying it's not up to her to decide what's in her own self-interest and how she pursues her own happiness, despite the fact the fetus is living as a parasite. They oppose the right to liberty: this is very similar to the right to property; they don't believe you're free to decide how you use your own resources. And worst of all, they oppose the right to life: The right to life is the stem from where all these other rights come i.e. you can't oppose all of the above without also opposing the right to life. Not true. The parasite stage is totally avoidable. It's not a parasite if it's there by permission, since the woman is voluntarily giving the fetus all of her resources; the woman views it as beneficial to her own happiness and well-being if she keeps it. Once it's not wanted, it becomes a parasite. Do you have the right to live as a parasite? Physically, it does. Socially, no; this is why you're not obligated to claim guardianship (do you think that you have the right to give it up for adoption?). There are many couples who can't conceive and are looking for adoption. There are so many in fact that they're fed up with the wait time from the adoption centers since there are so many people looking to claim guardianship, that they go to China where hassle of adoption is not as bad. Yeah, by working and earning those resources, not forcibly taking them from other people. We can produce enough food to feed everyone, don't worry. As long as people are hungry, business want to make money so they grow as much food as they can. You can thank capitalism for that. "Drain" means to take without giving back. You get a job, work to get money to buy food. You earned the food and are entitled to it since you paid money. You're entitled to that money because you did work for a company. The company benefits, and you benefit. That is not a drain. We're separate entities and are not physically dependent on anyone else.

I'm still confused; why does any life that has perspective, consciousness, and the capacity of feeling, have rights? I agree with the everything before the third comma; since life is the standard for all rights, things like property rights are limited i.e. you cannot exercise your property rights in a way that violate other's right to life e.g. building a bomb in your basement, holding a bonfire on your own property too close to other buildings. As for what I have to say in response to what you said after the third comma, please refer to what I said after your first quote in this post. I also believe it is morally wrong to cause an animal undue pain, but not for that reason. I think it's wrong because it says a lot about yourself i.e. how you view life and the others around you. Again: refer to what I said after your first quote in this post. But because I deal with absolutes and objectivity, they never will.

"Parasite" implies that it takes everything for its own benefit and gives nothing in return; a fetus that is unwanted fits this definition. A mother takes care of her baby, because she's want to; the baby gives nothing back, but the mother has decided to use her life to nurture an infant; because this is from her own volition, she keeps her right to life and the baby is not a parasite, since it's wanted. If she didn't want to, she could get an abortion, or not claim guardianship when it's born i.e. put it up for adoption. Axeldeath, you bring up some good points. I appreciate it.

Half-Life 2 is my favorite video game of all time. The graphics are drop-dead gorgeous, even seven years later. There are no cutscenes; all exposition is in very immersive scripted sequences. Every time you play the game, you encounter something new, even if you're playing through it for the twentieth time. Although I like the character Alyx, I hate her voice actor personally. She's a racist! If you don't believe me, listen to one of the commentary nodes in Half-Life 2 Episode 2 in the part where Alyx is reunited with her father in White Forest.

I love Left 4 Dead 2. Initially, I refused to buy it; I had played it at a friends house and it felt like it was something that could've been easily released as DLC for Left 4 Dead 1. Then there was a steam sale. Left 4 Dead 2 was about six bucks, including tax and you got Ellis' hat for TF2. I've beaten all the campaigns on Advanced, but I can't seem to get past the second or third safehouse in any of the campaigns in Expert. Have any of you guys beaten campaigns on Expert? If yes, did you do them with random people, friends that you knew well or a mixture of friends and random people?

True...but it's not null. A baby exercising its right to life is not infringing on anyone else's right to life; a fetus doesn't have a right to life because to assume it had a right to life, you would have assume that it would have the right to live as a parasite. There is no right to enslave. They're surprisingly similar topics.

Hey, I'll see you online sometime! The 420th is not great, but it's a hell of a lot better 29th. When the 29th runs linebattles, I go there to exact my revenge on the evil commander.

Axeldeath: You brought this up in the other thread. It's a good point, so I'll post the response for posterity: By humans that have no capacity to reason, I assume you mean humans like children (their capacity to reason is limited), babies, and retarded humans. Keep in mind, babies and children and retarded humans do not have the same rights as adults, for this very reason. We still give babies and children basic rights, because infancy and childhood are very important steps in developing a fully rational being i.e. you can't have a rational being without it first being a baby. Retarded humans have rights, because they are part of a species that is rational and under normal circumstances, they are rational. An animal will never be rational at any stage of its life under normal development. Also, with the progression of medicine (which is being done through animal testing: that horrible procedure that is saving many lives that the "animal rights" people think is immoral) these retarded humans may become rational beings someday. I believe there are some drugs for learning disabilities already e.g. Ritalin.

Rights are only moral; legally, a government is supposed to protect rights, but in reality they don't a lot of the time. If rights don't come from identity, from where do they come? I want to understand your train of thought. I'm talking about moral and I'm talking as if legal should follow moral, which is doesn't a lot of the time. Aristotle, John Locke (if you thought of the Lost character, please leave right now, lol) , Thomas Jefferson, Ayn Rand, mostly. But it makes sense. Rights exist because reason exist. To survive, man has to use reason. Therefore, it is right for him to use reason as it is right for him to exist and survive. Humans do not create rights; they were there the second humans with the full rational capacity of today existed. The only thing that has changed is the government that's supposed to secure and recognize them. Probably (pun intended). I don't know what will make the world perfect, but I do know it won't make it better by advocating the abrogation of the basic right to life. Axeldeath: Good question! I'm suprised Geneaux didn't bring it up earlier. By humans that have no capacity to reason, I assume you mean humans like children (their capacity to reason is limited), babies, and retarded humans. Keep in mind, babies and children and retarded humans do not have the same rights as adults, for this very reason. We still give babies and children basic rights, because infancy and childhood are very important steps in developing a fully rational being i.e. you can't have a rational being without it first being a baby. Retarded humans have rights, because they are part of a species that is rational and under normal circumstances, they are rational. An animal will never be rational at any stage of its life under normal development. Also, with the progression of medicine (which is being done through animal testing: that horrible procedure that is saving many lives that the "animal rights" people think is immoral) these retarded humans may become rational beings someday. I believe there are some drugs for learning disabilities already e.g. Ritalin.

Hey. Take that back. This is the internet; keep it classy. J.C....you know that's a text-book example of the Golden Mean Fallacy? Just sayin'...

Yes it does. If you claim your right to food and education, you're claiming a right to monetary value. Because they're valuable, someone must pay for it. Because you say it's a "right", and the government's job is to protect rights, this mean that the government can seize money from people against their will to pay for it. You're using an agent of force to obtain money from someone who does not want to give you money. How is that not slavery? You 're right: reason is not a perquisite for rights, rights are the prerequisite for reason i.e. reason can not exist without rights. The woman has the right to life and property, the fetus does not. There is no such thing as a right to live as a parasite, although you seem to think there is since you said we have a "right" to education and food, so that does explain your stance on abortion. And what fallacy is that, exactly? Ok fine, let's change the analogy. Say it's a brutal winter and the person is an invalid. If you kick them out of your house, they would surely die. Despite this, they still stay only in your house by your permission which I say again, is not a right. Rights extend to any being that has the capacity to reason; as I said before, reason cannot exist without rights. So, if we met an alien race who had the capacity of reason, they too would have rights. Rights are not relevant to life per se. Skin cells are life, but they have no rights. Are you saying that we should ascribe rights to a skin cell? What exactly is your point? Semantics. A fetus is akin to an acorn in the sense that they're both potential, but not actual human beings/oak trees. Acorns are not dead until they're planted; they are very much alive before they are planted. Would you still call a group of acorns a forest? We do not have the right to decide to kill the fetus, but whoever is housing it does. A developing human being =/= an actual human being i.e. killing an actual human being would involve initiating force, and is murder; killing a developing human being is not initiating force, since there is no right to exist as a parasite. We weren't aborted because our mothers decided to keep us and we are now separate entities that do not live as parasites. If we claim our right to life, we don't violate any one else's rights. You cannot argue the right to life of a fetus without arguing its right to exist as a parasite against someone's will. If they think that a fetus' life can and should come at the expense of a real human's life, then they do not support life at all stages. Just because you say they do, doesn't mean they do. Good thing that we live in a republic and not a democracy; in the former, the rights of others are not subject to a majority vote. Vote away. How is that the same argument? Killing a human being involves initiating force and violating rights, killing a fetus does not since its right to life means right to live as a parasite. Of course there are risks to abortion; that's why a pregnant woman must use the power of her reason to decide what is the best course of action for her own well-being: birth or abortion.

Ross, I don't mind if you take another three years to make the next episode that's the same length; I'm sure the quality of the video is better with that time.

Yes, me too. I really want to split and grow an army of mes. I don't want to have to bother with seducing a woman, marrying her, waiting nine months while she complains at me and then spend the next eighteen years of my life raising a child that's just annoying. It would be much easier if I could reproduce like bacteria, but cruel nature has made me a heterosexual.

Back your guarantee. No problem; I claimed that they didn't disprove evolution, so I must prove that. Do you see how this works? Roger Bacon, according to the link, was one of the first people to advocate modern scientific method; the same scientific method that came up with the blasphemous evolution theory. The next five names were chemists and physicists; evolution is biology; they never talked about that stuff. van Leeuwenhoek discovered protozoa: a single-celled life form that only supports evolution. Linnaeus is the father of ecology; another scientific field that's taken seriously by biology professors i.e. it supports evolution. Euler, Dalton, Faraday and Herschel were not biologists and never claimed creation was scientific truth. Maury is know for being a Civil War hero, not for science. Joule was a physicist. Mendel discovered goddamn genetics; if this doesn't prove evolution, I don't know what does. Kelvin was a chemist. Maxwell was a physicist. Carver was concerned with cultivating plants; he did not concern himself with the diversity of life. Eddington was a physicist. Now, please do not post all the Jewish scientists. Instead, post the scientists who have brought up evidence contrary to evolution.

Yes, many statist governments protect animals i.e. many government who believe it's ok to abuse their monopoly on physical force and initiate force on its own citizens; this is why I'm an advocate of capitalism where only retaliatory force may be used by the government. You say that they should have rights because they can feel pain, but this is not why humans have rights. Humans have rights because they use reason to survive. Because force and mind are opposites, humans cannot exist on earth without rights. Rights protect man's reason from force. That's why they have rights; no one decided humans have rights, they just do; rights are a condition of man's existence. Animals survive using force i.e. it is possible for animals to exist without rights. "Dependent on" means "exploit" i.e. exploiting nature and trading with each other is how humans survive. Sorry, I should've made that clearer. The government should do protect forests if you're a statist and and don't believe individual rights should be respected and upheld. To outlaw the use of private property under certain circumstances despite those circumstances being completely peaceful, would be initiating force and rendering men's minds (more specifically, the minds of whoever owns the forests) useless. You need to reason to survive, so in a sense, the government would be sentencing the forest owners to death. All countries are statist to some degree; the world is far from perfect. Yes, but this does not involve any reason. Rights protect reason, ergo no rights are involved in that situation and nothing for a government to protect.

But see, that's the great thing about science; it doesn't matter what the person's background is. Science doesn't ask for your opinion, it just asks for your eyes. These could be mass murderers and it wouldn't make what they're saying any less true. But I guarantee you that these people found no legitimate evidence disproving evolution and confirming creation.

Thank you! I could not agree more! But this is where you have a problem: In order for you to be convincing, your points have to be consistent. No one will take you seriously if you have completely opposite and mutually exclusive ideas, like this one: These two ideas to do not work. First you say a human being should never own another, but in the very next breath, you say that people are allowed to own other people in their resources; food and education are valuable; they must be payed for. You advocate people owning other people as financial slaves to pay for their education and their food. The fact that you made this comment, tells me you do not believe the concept individual rights. This says a lot about your stance on abortion. Are you saying that we humans make up and define rights i.e. that reality and rights are subjective? Humans use reason to survive; reason does not function without rights. Rights exist, because humans exist and use reason; it's not up to humans to decide what rights are. Do you remember the Deceleration of Independence? "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal...that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." They're saying that they're not making these rights up; they're just there and we're just perceiving them. Now you are changing what you said earlier. You said you wanted to ascribe rights to a fetus as if it was a real human being i.e. self-autonomy and the right to life. I never said I didn't want to treat a fetus as what is isn't; you said that. You said you wanted to treat it and ascribe the same rights to it, as a baby. We are sometimes dependent on other people, by their permission only; permissions are not rights. It wouldn't invalidate your right to life if you chose to keep the fetus. I do not have the right to go into your house and demand you feed and clothe me; if you want want to feed and clothe me, you can and you still retain your autonomy. I have your permission only, which can be revoked at any time. It's the same situation with a woman and her fetus. Distinction without a difference. Moving on. Fetus doesn't have free will? Good, but I'm going to hold you to that. Rights are only relevant to beings in social situations where their faculty of reason must be free for it to function normally i.e. human beings. You said yourself that a fetus is not yet a fully functioning human being; I'm going to hold you to that, too. A fetus is not a human being, it's a potential human being; an acorn is to an oak tree as a fetus is to a human being. Yet, you would be crazy to call a pile of acorns a forest; you would also be crazy to call a fetus a human being, if you accept the first premise. To force a woman (keyword: force) to remain pregnant, does invalidate her life. You're sentencing her to nine months of enslavement; to carry a fetus that consumes her resources against her will and you're forcing her to go through a very painful and potentially dangerous child birth; the whole process might leave her emotionally depraved for the rest of her life. Her right to liberty and property come from her right to life ergo by taking away her right to liberty and property by forcing her to remain pregnant, you are invalidating her life. They are not saying that they're "in favor of life at all stages." They're saying they're in favor of the embryos at the expense of a woman's life. That's anti-life. If they were truly in favor of life in all stages, they would recognize that the woman was there first and she's a completely rational being and that no human is allowed to live off another as a parasite. That's why it makes me mad when they call themselves "pro-life." Actually, you're right. You can oppose abortion without violating anyone's rights; to do this you would have to say, "I think abortion is wrong, but I'm in no position to tell anyone how to run their lives." But if you say, "I think abortion is wrong, so I'm going to my congressman to get him to pass a law to outlaw abortion", that would be condemning a person by violating their rights, but the anti-abortionists are saying the latter. You are condemning someone to force them to bear and give birth to a child against their will.

Because the role of the government is and only is to protect individual rights. Animals do not have rights, so the government should not protect them. Why should nature be protected from abuse? Nature doesn't have an intrinsic value; its only value is what humans can use from it. Are you saying that we should protect nature, because we shouldn't abuse it? There's a lot of things we shouldn't do but are fully within your right e.g. advocate genocide, insult people, walk by a person having a heart attack and do nothing. The government shouldn't do anything because they're supposed to protect rights; only humans have rights so the government should only protect humans. Now, if you think the government should do more, that's a different story all together. There's a capitalism vs. statism thread if you want to discuss that further. And rights would help in this situation...how? If the fish's actions were sanctioned and recognized by a government, how would this help the fish use his reason to survive? As far as I'm concerned, a symbiotic relationship between two different species is too different than two humans engaging in a trade. In a symbiotic relationship, two different species exploit each other in order to survive; the anemone would gain nothing in having the fish's mind free, nor would the fish gain anything if the anemone's "mind" was free. In a trade, two rational beings exchange goods or services for the purpose of surviving and becoming wealthy; in a trade, the humans can negotiate a deal, make a better one, threaten to go to another human etc. While the former uses animal instinct, the latter uses reason. Reason must be free from force to function normally, that's what the government is for. The symbiotic relationship does not need a government sanction to work; it's been working fine for millions of years. And of course, I never said it was. What I did say is that anarchy is how animals live with each other. Not that there's anything wrong with that; any system other than anarchy would be impossible and absurd in the animal kingdom.

I thought this thread was about evolution vs. creation being taught in schools, not discussing evolution exclusively? It's about what is being taught in schools, and is definitely what Michael Archer has been successfully propaganda'd into believing. Another ad hominum attack? *sigh* If you're going to do that, the least you can do is come up with an attack that can't also be applied to you. Scientists have developed a model that explains how things work in real life based on facts and empirical evidence; until we have something better, we're going with that. Do you even know what science is and how it works?

Oh quite the contrary: they are very similar as in they're both natural stages of life. Birth cannot come without eventual death. My point and my analogy was to say that it's absurd to treat a human in one stage of life as if they were in another i.e. we shouldn't treat alive people, like dead people and we shouldn't treat fetuses like babies. You keep on saying "it has rights" without saying why. You said that it has rights because it is life and I responded that just because something is alive does not mean it has rights. e.g. are cells in your body are alive, do they all have their own individual rights? You've said nothing in response. Existence does not qualify for rights i.e. just because something exists does not mean it gets rights. I'm sure you already knew that. Who are you to dispose of the lives of other people? What gives you the right for you to make people live their lives as you see fit? That's arrogance at its extreme. You are obviously not aware of what deserves rights if you're willing to throw away the life of a person in favor of a fetus. That's the complete opposite of individual rights. Man's interpretation=the byproduct of epistemology. We don't know a lot of things, but we know in order to function in a society, the mind must be free with some sort of body capable of making sure we don't kill each other; to make sure of that, there's a force. The purpose of the government is to put that force into objective hands. Now, are you saying that we do not know that reason needs freedom? Are you saying we do not know that we need individual rights? Epistemology is something altogether; I should make a thread for that, but I'm not sure where it would go. Why must it extend to all stages? It's easy enough to say that it must, but what's the reasoning? As I explained before, it's absurd to extend rights that protect people in social contexts to all stages of life where they simply wouldn't apply. A dead person does not have rights because they are not interacting with their fellow human. Fetuses do not have rights because while born humans need freedom to survive and function normally and peacefully in a society, a fetus does not. A government that claims value to human life would actually do the opposite: it would allow the inalienable right of a woman to get an abortion and objectively determine the difference between all stages of life and treat humans in different stages accordingly. Death is just another stage of life, as natural as birth. A government is supposed to protect individual rights. Your mind needs freedom to function normally, so rights protect that. Fetuses do not interact with other humans in a way that their mind needs to be free; this is why they don't have rights. A government that valued life would recognize this and uphold the right to get an abortion as it comes from the right to property, which comes from right to liberty, which comes from the right to life. So it's ok for fetus to own a woman and her life uterus, but not ok for her to own her own body, her uterus and her life? In what universe is that fair or makes sense? I'm not saying that a woman owns her fetus; I am saying that she owns her body and she gets to decide what goes in and out of it. I don't believe that you don't believe one person owns another; you're trying to convince me that a fetus has a right to reside in property that its owner does not approve or want. You think that the fetus gets to dictate the terms of its host's life. If you truly did believe in self-autonomy, you would be pro-abortion. Are you even reading what I'm saying? Rights will never violate rights for the simple reason that you don't have a right to a resource. I can see how you'd think it was possible; you probably think that it's possible to have a right to a good or service. As I said before, rights are only to action and they won't violate anyone else's rights. You have yet to name one right that can possibly used to violate another right. The "limited resource" thing doesn't count, since you do not and can not have a right to a resource. Why does the pro-life movement anger me? I see these people who link hands to block abortion clinics; they claim to have love for the embryos, but in reality, they actually hate mankind; some of them go and shoot up abortion clinics and doctors in the name of "the right to life". Parenting and even giving birth to a child is a horrible experience for one not prepared for the physical and mental turmoil involved. These tasks are impossible if you're not ready for them. I'm shocked by the fact that people can condemn a fellow human being to such horror against their will. I'm at a loss for words when they claim that your body does not belong to you and that you serve only as a human breeding pig. They don't love embryos, they hate life, liberty and reason. And then they call themselves "pro-life".