Michael Archer

The pepper spray video? How is that "insanity"? The police uses force in retaliation to the initiation of force; that's the entire purpose of the police. The students were using force to stay on the sidewalk (property on which the owner did not give consent). When they were being asked to leave, they chose to stay; that's is the initiation of aggression and force. The police even gave them the opportunity to leave without a struggle, and they said no. I fail to see how the pepper spraying was inappropriate. So you're saying that the effort that someone undertook to create wealth means nothing? What kind of responsibilities are you referring to? Keep in mind that no wealth was "taken" from society (a robber should "give back" to society); the businessman created the wealth. Well in that case, I would give the bean since my survival at that point probably depends on cooperation. Someone who didn't give the bean would be acting immorally, unless he can survive on his own, if he didn't give the bean. But as a fundamental issue, I don't think that the responsibility for someone's life falls to anyone but that person. The problem is that there's absolutely no middle ground between what you're saying and what I'm saying. I say that someone is entitled to their own lives and effort, and you say they're not. I say that all human relationships should be voluntary, and you say they shouldn't be. I say that you should be free to act based on your best judgement, and you say you shouldn't be. I guess you're right, in a sense. But my problem is that her parents worked hard and gave her all that because they love her and they want her to have a comfortable life, and now she says she hates what they did. I think she's biting the hand that feeds her. That "overall good" part is a utilitarian idea. I consider myself a moral absolutist, so I guess it's not surprising when we differ so greatly. I think people are entitled to the wealth they make, since I believe that individual rights are moral absolutes. I think when you say "most powerful people", you're missing a lot of important subtext. There's a BIG difference between economic "power" and political power. Case in point: let's compare the late Ghaddfi and the late Steve Jobs. They were both very powerful men, but one's power was economic power obtained through hard work and the other one was political power through the initiation of force and fear. The difference between political power and economic power is that the latter is through positive reinforcement, voluntary relationships, voluntary exchange of goods and production; while the former is through fear, coercion and force. I think peaceful production is good and cannot morally be halted while force is bad. Are you sure? I remember reading some sort of "tax poem". Back in the days of President Andrew Jackson, there was no income tax, no debt and an enormous middle-class. There wasn't an income tax until the Civil War happened. In your medical bill situation, I would say yes. When you cut taxes, it means nothing if you don't cut expenses. Likewise, if your paycheck gets cut in half, then you have to cut expenses as well. If you have one expense that's not cut, that puts you into debt. That's the way I see it, anyway. I remember he was also bragging about how low the homeless rate was. He cut taxes, but he also bullied banks into making bad loans so he could say how prosperous America was. Little did he know that he was laying the foundation for the recession.

Plus, I think God killed a helluva lot more people than Satan in the Bible if I'm not mistaken.

Yes. Provided he is operating in a free market environment. However, colluding with others or using his monopoly market power to block competition should NOT be his right. I'm confused. It seems to me like you're saying two conflicting things. Isn't the keyword in "free market" free? As in, free to trade with who you want under what conditions you want? I don't see how. The United States is a semi-free country that more or less upholds the individual rights of its citizens. If it invades a dictatorship in the middle-east; if one were to say that the dictatorship has the moral high ground, that implies that the dictatorship has a right to exist which would be a contradiction in terms i.e. they would be saying that there's such thing as the right to initiate force. This is true. That's why even though the United States would be morally justified in invading an African dictatorship, it shouldn't. It has no self-interest in going to Africa. Except, you forgot that America DOES have a self-interest in the middle-east: oil. While I don't support the Iraq war, America DOES have an interest in Iraq. Remember: a government's job is to protect the rights of its citizens. It would be immoral to send our boys to die in a country that we have no interest in liberating. I don't excuse Israel's fault e.g. their failure to completely separate synagogue and state, the fact that they're a mixed-economy. However, Israel is the only hint of freedom and progress in the middle-east. They are a peaceful people surrounded by savages that want nothing more than to kill them. When civilized men fight barbarians, you side with the civilized men. Remember how I said that America should only get involved militarily if it's in their own self-interest to do so? If America helps Israel, it's not out of altruism or "helping the Israeli people", but it's because that Israel is America's front line for the war on terror. "surrounded by savages". That's a very dissapointing opinion Michael. What word would you use to call people who run dictatorships and attacks a peaceful country upon its creation with the sole intent of wiping them off the face of the planet. I'm born and raised in the United States, and I was a dual-citizen from birth. I live in Canada right now.

Because there is no proof for a God, isn't Atheism the epistemological status quo?

You stop laughing at Family Guy, South Park, and The Simpsons. People I know say, "man, those shows have started to suck recently!" I usually respond "they're not starting to suck; YOU'RE just getting older."

It is the right of the inventor to sell his products to whomever he wants under what conditions he wants. And that we agree. Setting your prices independent of the market can only lead into trouble for your company. I know it didn't. America has a interest in the middle east: oil. However, it doesn't matter for what reason the Americans go in; a dictatorship has no right to exist. Israel is one of America's closest allies and one of the few stations of freedom in the middle-east. Israelis enjoy relative freedom while being surrounded by savages. The United States would be justified in invading Egypt and and Jordan, but it has no self-interest in doing so. No, I was talking about dictatorships and people who initiate force. You cannot claim a right to initiate force; that's a contradiction in terms. Before I respond to this, can you please tell me what you think lassiez-faire capitalism? If you can't state what my position is accurately enough to make me say "that's what I think", I don't think a discussion is possible.

I have to admit that I'm really liking the current season of Arby n' the Chief. Not really machinima, but whatever. The current season is great. In hindsight, the past few seasons have been terrible. Just awful. Remember Todd and Travis? What a disaster.

I've been playing video games ever since I was little, but the first game that made me a gaming nut is Halo: Combat Evolved.

I can't get over how good this episode was! It was adorable, it was funny, it was clever, Rainbow Dash is TOO charming and... OH MY GOD, I NEED HELP. What's wrong with me?! Is it possible that ponies are like that teddy bear species like from that episode of Fairly Odd Parents? An alien species that seduces a planet with its cuteness and then kills and imprisons all the indigenous species when we're least expecting and then moves on to the next planet? If so, all I have to say is that: I HAD AN AMAZING LIFE. THANK YOU, RAINBOW DASH.

Batman: Arkham Asylum. I agree with Mike the Metro Cop that Batman has the best superpower. Despite this, I never really was big on Batman. Also, almost every single superhero game I've seen was either really juvenile or really bad. So when Yahtzee from Zero Punctuation said it was amazing, I borrowed it from a friend. THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO REASON THAT THIS GAME SHOULD BE THIS GOOD. Seriously, it's amazing! Think Assassin's Creed meets Splinter Cell: Conviction. A lot of very well implemented stealth and really smooth fighting. Definitely recommend. Off topic: Axeldeth, I'm LOVING the new avatar.

DCCLXXXIX

Well, they've been kicked out and maybe the police can clean up the street. I can already hear the socialist liberals crying, "Tyranny! Our freedom of speech is being abridged! Our First Amendment right is being violated!" I've explained this earlier, but the freedom of speech does not give you the right to force other people to listen to you or forcibly occupy another's property, or vandalize public streets. Mayor Rob Ford of Toronto also kicked the occupy protesters off Bay Street (Toronto's Wall Street--the stock exchange is there). It's the first good thing he's done since he's been elected. I'm surprised: Toronto was always a very liberal city, but then they elect a rather conservative guy. At least he's not as bad as the last guy. Anonymous is threatening to attack Toronto's internet, if Ford doesn't let the protest continue. I don't even know what that means! Like, how they took down Facebook (spoiler: they didn't.) Didn't Anonymous organize the protest? If so, I guess this just shows how OWS and Anonymous believe that might makes right and that the 99% is bigger, so they'll get their way. No. He's a hard working, honest man who is living by his own means. A parasite would be someone who doesn't pay taxes, yet demands for more government programs to be paid for with other people's money. Yeah, I guess you're right. That was kind of short-sighted of me. Sorry 'bout that. That's not lassiez-faire capitalism. That's crony capitalism and I think we can agree that that DOES hurt everyone. I'm going to have to disagree when you say it's harmful to the middle class. Before capitalism, there was no middle class. Saying that capitalism is bad because some of the middle class struggles is like saying that oxygen is bad because it fuels criminals. If there was no oxygen, there would be no criminals; likewise, if there was no capitalism, there would be no struggle middle class to suffer. If she practice what she preaches, she'd disown the trust fund. Hopefully, she did. Can you imagine, "My family is evil because of all the stuff they provided me! Not my trust fund...I need that". But seriously: Aren't those the same things? My problem isn't that she wants to give her money to the government: my problem is that she denounces all the good things that her parents gave her because they love her, and she presumes to speak for every other rich person in the country. She thinks that all the money in the country belongs to her to decide what she will do with it--I think that's unspeakable. She didn't earn anything. Nothing in the poster does it says that she has a high-earning job. Her parents got her everything. Not only is she spitting in the face of her parents, but she's thinks that other people who rightfully earned their money don't deserve it. I think that's a very condescending attitude. I'm not trying to offend or insult you, but it sounds to me like you're saying "That individual doesn't need that extra twenty million dollars--he's fine with what he has". Does this justify you robbing him and gunpoint? Because you don't think he needs that money, that means it's fine for you to take it? Why do you get to tell him what happens with his money? I use the word "you", since a government derives its power from the consent of the governed. You used the word "tradeoff"; are you a utilitarian? The problem is that when you say "benefits thousands or millions of individuals and inconveniences a few individuals" is that this implies that some individuals are more important than other individuals; it implies that it's fine to treat some people as your personal ATMs, regardless of the whether or not they agree with it as long as they're the minority. You say "a pretty good tradeoff for society". This means that "good" is something independent of the good of an individual. Are you saying that it's fine for society (i.e. a majority) to take what doesn't belong to them as long as the majority says it's ok? I could be wrong about this, so correct me if I am. This is very terrible, and I feel like a horrible person for saying it, but I think it needs to be said just for the sake of reductio ad absurdum: the "good for the majority" means that it is fine for the KKK to lynch an individual, since that individual is a minority and the that the majority thinks that it's for the "common good". After all, since they're the majority, they get to decide what's best for the majority. That's what always puzzled me about the phrase "common good" or "good for the majority" is that the majority decides what's good for them. Convenient? Personally, I think that no good can be achieved by violating an individual's rights because no good has ever been achieved by a lynch mob; because of this, I don't think using the phrase "for the good of society" or "the common good" ever justifies violence of a mob rule onto a helpless individual. You've got me cornered. At this point, I really don't know. Regardless, other people's need is never a claim on the lives of other people. Isn't Social Security bankrupt? Wasn't that a big cause of the whole debt crisis? Also, Bush isn't the poster boy for capitalism. I also don't know what caused the poverty rate to increase. But shouldn't have Obama's job plans decreased poverty also? I'm also not saying that in lassiez-faire, no one would be poor. Anyone who would be willing to work and would be able-bodied would be fine, is what I'm saying. This guy. He's the founder of one of the largest charities in the world, an Objectivist (and therefore, a lassiez-fare capitalist), and a huge admirer of Ayn Rand, like me. Unfortunate, but I can respect that. You're absolutely right when you say I won't compromise the rights of the individual. As I said before, I think rights are moral absolutes; I don't compromise principles. This is why I fail to understand how some people can claim to achieve good for society--a group of individuals--by violating the rights of an individual. No. I assume that you rightfully earned the calabar bean through hard work and voluntary trade. Just because I can't afford to buy your antidote, does not give me the right to stick a gun in your face and demand that you give it to me. I should have been more prudent, and planned for the future. You didn't kill me. I think I understand it fine. I agree that man exists and prospers best in a society; all the more reason that it's imperative the social concepts known as "rights" be strongly upheld. I'm going to have to stop you there. It's not up to you to decide who gets what wealth because that wealth doesn't belong to you. You have no right to treat other human beings as ATMs. I point you to the Soviet Union and North Korea for societies that one of their many fundamental principles in the redistribution of wealth. I don't even know what that means! Isn't man nature? Doesn't man come from nature? I don't think that man exists independent of nature. I'm confused by your statement Have you read Johnathan Swift's A Modest Proposal? It's about the Irish famine. Basically, he say that we should eat babies (it's a satire). He's criticizing the treatment of other human beings as commodities and he's criticizing utilitarianism. I could be wrong, but I think that's just an unfortunate choice of wording. I think by "natural law" they refer to our "natural rights" like the right to property and pursuit of happiness. I highly doubt that they're saying "Oooh, we musn't disturb the nature! Everything happens for a reason!"

I disagree. Almost all good things in the world come from someone acting in their self-interest e.g. Google comes from people wanting to make money, your computer comes from someone wanting to make money, your food comes from someone wanting to make money. Even a charitable organization like Wikipedia is run because of a man's self-interest: Jimmy Wales likes that fact that human knowledge is easily accessible in one place. If he didn't like doing it, he wouldn't. The way I look at it is: the more people there are, the more demand there is for sufficient infrastructure--which motivates the "selfish" people to build it so they can make money. Why does the United States have a higher standard of living than in South Sudan? There's lots of social and economic factors, but in the United States, businessmen have a great deal of people to whom they can sell their goods. More people=more business opportunities and infrastructure. I would be amazed if you could find reliable, high-speed fibre optic internet in Wyoming i.e. a state that has a lower population density than Canada which is the SECOND LARGEST COUNTRY IN THE WORLD. Heh, I just thought of a Team Fortress 2 counter-argument to this: If you're playing on a team of five, just two snipers or three spies will be devastating. On a much larger team, two snipers and three spies are almost expected, especially when taking on many sentry nests. More population means more people acting in their self-interest and erecting dispensers and sentries. Also: an engineer erects dispenser and teleporters out of self-interest. The dispenser heals himself and teammates and allows his teammates to get the front faster; if they can get to the front faster, they'll win and everyone wants to win. On smaller teams, people usually go Scout; engineers are only effective as a group. Alright, fine...you got me. But in this case, I wouldn't say this was a population problem. Back then, they didn't have half as many taxes as we did now and the government's purpose was to protect rights. President Jackson would probably call Obama a tyrant and a dictator because of how big Obama think the government should be.

You know, I've never actually given this scenario that much thought. But now that I think about it, I fail to see the difference between this scenario and a Japanese banzai charge. In World War II, the Japanese did not believe an individual's life was important; one of the war-recruiting slogans was something along the lines of "die for your emperor". Giving up your valuable life in exchange for a "higher cause", I think, is unspeakable. I believe that the life of an individual is the standard for morality, so I don't think there's any higher cause than the life of an individual. On the other hand, I guess your scenario implies that they all would have died anyway; the soldier jumping on the grenade would have died regardless--then I guess jumping on the grenade is fine.

Most of these must be fake. There's a website where you can make them.

Ross, I just want to tell you that I'm kind of a stickler for horror i.e. I think there's "proper" horror and dumb juvenile horror. So whenever someone asks me for something that's proper horror, I tell them to watch: The Youtube series Marble Hornets, Silent Hill 2, Amnesia: The Dark Descent (I haven't finished it--so far, so good), and Civil Protection's The Tunnel.

Man, how badly I wanted to lucid dream. I just couldn't do it. I kept a dream journal, I tried to remember them, but I just couldn't. It happens maybe twice a year, if I'm lucky nowadays.

I think this one is my new favorite episode: Fluttershy/Rainbow Dash duet, plenty of Rainbow Dash (after being surprisingly absent for a few episodes, and more Rainbow Dash. This episode made me like her even more. Ha! Best episode EVER! OH MY GOD, you're right. That's weird. I guess Pinkie speaks so quickly that the editors can't possibly catch everything.

Episode 5. I remember when it first came out, but I wanted to beat Half-Life first.

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The right-wing party in my country got a majority government i.e. they can pass or repeal anything they damn well please with no argument. Surprisingly enough, they're actually doing really well. They're about to repeal the gun registry, that's good.

Call of Duty 5. It had some very memorable levels: the Russian sniper level, the Black Cats level (a rail shooter, but a well executed rail shooter, nonetheless), and the tank level. Sgt. Reznov is too funny. DIMITRI, READY THE FLAMETHROWER. WE COULD BE BURNING GERMANS RIGHT NOW!

The more I read about it, the more I'm convinced that OWS is nihilism. Clearly, crony capitalism is a problem; it hurts everybody. That's why I say that the government and economics should be completely separate. This is not what the protesters want. They want, as a fundamental issue, to make the government as a legalized armed robber to take money from those who've earned it and give it to those who didn't. Right now, they're figuratively and literally pissing on the symbols of capitalism and the free market. CNN says that forty-seven percent of Americans don't pay taxes; I'm sure that a great number of these people are on Wall Street. Normally, I wouldn't be so indignant, but these are the parasites of America: they pay nothing to the system and demand that it does more for them (the OWS protesters who don't pay taxes, not people who don't pay taxes in general). For those that do pay taxes, why do they keep putting their money into the free market? Why don't they donate more to the government? By what right, by what standard, do both these groups say that they can force others to pay more? If the free market is so bad and corrupt and the government is so great, then why don't they give all of their money to the government instead of putting it into the corrupt free market? I know why: deep down, they know that capitalism is better than socialism; deep down, they know that the voluntary exchange of goods is better than the initiation of force. I think this is why I'm feeling this way: I was born into the "1%" that these people are talking about. My father works damn hard to support four children and an ex-wife--and he still manages to put me through university and give me amazing things. I'm infinitely grateful for everything I receive from him; I respect what he does, and I excuse his flaws because he goes out of his way to provide things for me. This is why it makes my blood boil when I see things like this: This isn't something a normal person does; this is something a spoiled, self-entitled brat who's never worked an honest day in his life does. If his parents loved him (her?), they'd make him pay for university himself. I'm saying that if you can't get these things yourself, you'll have to rely on private charities i.e. the kindness of other people. So pretty much, yes. If I was a doctor and a patient came to me but couldn't pay for his operation, I won't necessarily let him die, but I think that society should let me let him die. If it was my father, or anyone in my family, of course I would waive the bill; but I'm not going to commit my valuable services to someone just because you told me to. I operate who I want to operate on and under what conditions I say. If he dies, I didn't kill him; he died because he didn't have the foresight to buy insurance. Of course, this would only work in a lassiez-faire society where the government didn't make it difficult for doctors and healthcare professionals to make money. Whenever you say "society", you're really referring to "people who've earned that money through hard work." If you view these people not as "individuals", but as "society", then I guess you can justify the assertion that their wealth belongs to "society" and not "individuals". I think that a society is simply a collection of individuals; this is why I think it's immoral to take the concept of "for the good of society" as something that undermines an individual. They would have to rely on charity i.e. the kindness of other people. There's a difference between charity and "by right"; I would think that people who run charities would be offended if someone told them that the impoverished people should have those things "by right". Don't think that charity isn't good enough; the Christian church, a very charitable organization, raises something like one hundred billion dollars a year purely in donations in America alone. And that's just one of the bigger charities. I define a "robber" as "one that initiates an act of force against an individual without their consent, to take property that does not belong to them." So yes, a homeless person on the street who steals money would be a "robber."