You are sensing sensations. You see sight. You smell smells. It’s not reality because it doesn’t apply to anything in reality. All we’ve done is taken a predicate, abstracted it, added a suffix or modified it in some other way, and moved it to the object position, holding it up as reality. Soon it will be a subject where it can do its own things and have a life of its own, all at the expense of what performed the action and whatever objects the action was performed upon in the first place.

If sensation is reality, what are you sensing?

A single act of charity or sacrifice can bring tears to the eyes, much like a piece of music. So I think there is something to the idea that morality, even basic manners, has a certain beauty to it.

As Oscar Wilde wrote, “the only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely”. The beautiful is often useless, and theism is in possession of both qualities.

Do you experience experience? Or sense sensations? It’s like saying that I walk a walk. In any case, it feels like we’re multiplying zeroes, at this point.

Sensations are by definition mind-dependant. As it is and as it was, it represents another layer of abstraction inserted between what is sensed and what is doing the sensing, leading some to believe that we somehow sense sensations and nothing besides.

Sensations, like impressions, perceptions, qualia, feelings, etc. arises from the inability to be objective about one's own body and its interaction with the rest of the world. A noun-phrase serves rightly to fall upon the subject: our body, its parts, the things we come into contact with; but considering the predicate as a subject forces us to use another noun, making a nothing into a thing in the grammar and in thought. it's place in the grammar subverted, the body is excised from consideration, replaced as it was with a pseudo-object. it isn't long before these objects get their own predicates and we are half-way into believing that these things can and do exist.

Better to realize this and be comfortable with this linguistic discrepancy, or to repudiate the use of the term entirely, which is exceedingly difficult.

Do you believe rocks are conscious? I can’t help ya there.

There is also a difference between leading by example and leading by dictate.

There is a problem wherever you try to force people to believe what you believe. In the same way they cannot force you to abide by their conscience, you cannot force them to abide by yours. You have to convince them. The best way to do that is through an expression, both physical and rhetorical, of your ways. If it is all you dream it to be, it will reveal that to them.

You don’t require force to get others to conform. With leading by example you do not sacrifice any one else’s autonomy on the alter of your own, and history will recognize this before it will recognize some authoritarian.

The culprit here is the autocratic mindset, usually, though not exclusively, the predominant attribute of conservative & reactionary ideologies. :mask:

Conservative, communist, socialist, fascist, progressive—all collectivist. Besides some variations in rhetoric, it’s hard to see any difference between them in practice. They want power and to tell people how to live their lives.

The mental act of moving a person into an in-group or out-group will breed the sort of hatred you’re speaking about. When that happens, all individual and unique characteristics inherent in each human being becomes diluted with the characteristics you attribute to the group as a whole. Unfortunately, this act is a sine qua non of collectivist politics.

The reason we don’t know much about conservatism is because intellectual conservatives are rare and academia and the press are mostly captured by the opposition.

I read Roger Scruton’s “How to be a conservative” a while back due to the same interest. According to him, he watched as the communists and socialists rioted in France in '68, and all he knew was he opposed everything they believed in. So he spent the rest of his life trying to articulate his beliefs.

What I remember most is the notion of “inheritance”. Since it is much easier to destroy but not so easy to create, we owe it everyone to pass on the Good to the future, as a sort of bond between the past, the present, and posterity. Even if these things and institutions are useless, like royalty, they are forged through generations, are often beautiful, and indicate this inheritance.

In any case, everyone is conservative about what they know and value.

So according to you there are no situations where lying is unjustified and immoral?

Not according to me because I never said anything close to that.

I've seen you making appeals to nature, which is a fallacy.

I never said something is good or bad because it is natural or unnatural, which is a fallacy. I said nature is a good indicator of what is necessary for survival and to enjoy living. That means simply that nature provides us with evidence.

What is your evidence? What do you observe in order to inform your position? Law? Empathy?

from your list, everybody has a right to eat, drink and breathe. So if you have enough food for two, another starving person has a right to half of it?

Everyone has a right to eat, drink, and breathe. It just means that one should not prohibit another from eating, drinking, and breathing. This is basic stuff.

In the natural state, there's also no property. Which I'm pretty sure you think is rather important.

Sure there is. Men have always occupied land and had their things.

Maybe you missed my questions:

How do you know whether a legal right is morally right or wrong? How would law make illegal a legal right to own slaves? Were the Nazis innocent because they were just following the law?

I’ll try to make it more clear. As I said, rights are a kind of normative principle. A principle is a basic idea or rule. A normative principle is a basic idea or rule that informs conduct and behavior. This would include legal rights.

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Your moral obligations do not make sense to me because they are unjust and born of feelings. They do not consider whether someone is deserving of being lied to, or whether the situation demands that someone lies. Sometimes lying and insult are key to various art forms, like satire, irony, and fiction. It is because of justice, not feelings, that the freedom to speak includes the right to lie and be mean.

Nothing happens once you confer a right. A right is declared, and that’s about it, I’m afraid. Nothing is exchanged. No one has to care. The one who declares the right must reify it, must promote and defend it, or do nothing, and it will end up a meaningless gesture.

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No, not everyone has a right to be violent because it would violate another’s rights. But if someone transgresses your rights and becomes violent toward you, you absolutely do have the right to be violent. So some people have the right to be violent. It is also why we ought to have the right to own weapons.

No one is saying that because it is natural it must be good, or one ought to do something because it is natural. It’s just that human nature is a far better indicator of what rights are necessary to live and enjoy living. It is far better than the circularity of observing law, in my opinion. How do you know whether a legal right is morally right or wrong? How would law make illegal a legal right to own slaves? Were the Nazis innocent because they were just following the law?

From August 2015 to December 2017, the Defendant orchestrated a scheme with others to influence the 2016 presidential election by identifying and purchasing negative information about him to suppress its publication and benefit the Defendant’s electoral prospects.

He was influencing the 2016 election all through 2017. Trump is so powerful he can influence elections in the past.

I’ve never seen a conscious brain and nervous system. And if I ever saw a brain and nervous system, perhaps in a jar or something, I’d be hard-pressed to describe it as conscious.

That’s because consciousness is a property of organisms, which are a great deal more than brains and nervous systems. Sapiens, for example, have digestive, endocrine, skeletal, respiratory and other systems. Each of these are required for human consciousness.

Neuroscience has a great deal to say about consciousness, but it is not the full story.

Rights are a kind of normative principle. We entitle people to act within a sphere of acceptable activity. These entitlements are afforded to others in order to let them know we will not intervene in these activities, and defend them if necessary.

I observe that humans tend to speak. I conclude that it is in their nature to speak, that speaking is required to live. So I confer the right to speak. Since I confer the right I do not intervene when they speak and defend them as they do. No institution required.

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The quoted statements do not contradict each other because one is concerned with human nature and the other with sub-group characteristics and dynamics. One can observe what is universal about human beings while at the same time remembering what is unique and original about each of them.

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The biology is universal. From it comes a variety of needs and tendencies. We need to eat, drink, and breathe, for example. We tend to move. We tend to speak. We tend to find shelter. We tend to associate with others. What is wrong with founding a set of principles upon these most basic needs and tendencies?

Viper 2: a vicious or treacherous person.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/viper

Trump has landed in the viper's den, New York, where the two-tiered justice system is at its strongest and most blatant. I hope we get to watch this Potemkin court in all of its glory, but my guess is a media circus will be barred and a gag order thrown upon the accused.

Collectivism of the national sort does compel one to conform, and conformity does work well towards “social cohesion”. Many embrace it as it can give one a sense of belonging in an otherwise alienating world.

But wherever a group is represented in people’s minds through its more salient features, whether it be shared government, religion, race, and so on, those features will invariably be used against that group in a fashion that blinds one to the unique and original characteristics of any individual person.

One need not adopt another collective myth to find affinity with other others, especially one that is exclusive to a vast majority of human beings. Nationalism is often used as an excuse to persecute outsiders, to engage in war, and to increase state prestige and power at the expense of individual human rights, and no amount of social conformity is worth it.

I think that is a good point. What’s missing from both is the morality. It would be nice if we didn’t need both, either state-enforced cooperation or private interest, to tackle social ills such as poverty and redistribution.

All I know is morality cannot be developed through immoral means such as coercion and involuntary association. We’ve tried all that and the results are nothing to be proud of. Freedom has always been the only condition under which any kind of moral fiber can be developed. Unfortunately I fear those conditions will never be realized.

Hah. Thanks.

I can’t blame someone for getting on the tax-payer gravy chain, vying for state contracts, and becoming ultra-wealthy thereby. But it is stolen money. Anyone can do any of the above without stealing someone’s money and without forced cooperation.

Only for you would the use of a first-person plural lead you nowhere.

Oh dear. My rejecting of the “common good” and “we the people” does not prohibit me from using first-person plurals. What an odd little angle you’ve taken.

Calling, chanting, fomenting. The guy must be a sorcerer.

I don’t get it.

Who gets to decide how tax-payer dollars ought to be spent?

They same people who you want to decide how your money is spent get to decide how your money is spent. How is this so difficult?

They receive contracts from governments and private people. The point is, governments do not build roads.

I meant construction companies do not collect taxes.

The stupidest thing anyone has ever believed is that only taxes can pay for roads and infrastructure. Private companies build the vast majority of roads and infrastructure, and they don’t collect taxes.

As you know I’m against taxation. You are for it. I don’t want the state to dictate anything. You do. So what’s the problem with the state doing just what you want it to?

I don’t know the details of the bill but I still don’t think race and gender ideology ought to be taught in public schools. Tax-payer dollars ought not to be spent on such schooling. But if this bill extends to private institutions, businesses, and universities, then that is wrong and I oppose it.

I see nothing wrong with the Parental Rights in Education bill because it restricts the power of the state and expands the power of parents. State employees ought not have the power to instruct children in gender ideology. Those teachers can teach their own kids about sexuality as much as they wish, but they ought not have that same power over other children.

Changing election laws before an election is not suppressing a vote; it’s to ensure voting. All that dark money, those Zuckerbucks, were used to help voters, just like they helped people by suppressing stories that made Trump’s opponents look bad. Not to mention the belligerent groups conspiring to riot should Trump have won. After a full year of violent riots, surely none of those threats led to an alliance of Big Business, Big Tech, and Big Woke to fundamentally alter American elections in the lead up to one of the most important elections ever held, and all behind the backs of voters. It’s no surprise that all of it favored one candidate over the other. Meanwhile a Trump supporter was just convicted of election interference for sharing a meme on Twitter.

The Stalinism was in reference to the politicization of the justice system. Stalin’s chief of his secret police famously said “you show me the man, I’ll show you the crime”. The New York AG campaigned on getting Trump. DA Bragg frequently brought up the numerous times he sued Trump and his family. Trump has been raided while Biden gets away with the same thing for over a decade, and treated with kids gloves. Don Junior and Ivanka are sued into oblivion while Hunter Biden, a corrupt crackhead and philanderer, who left a hand gun in a garbage can next to a school, with photographic evidence of innumerable crimes, is not.

We are human beings.

It’s the nature of state education to have its curriculum determined by the state. If you want to tell kids about sex I would advise doing it at home.

Like I said, word crimes. He spoke and I felt some way, therefor it’s a crime.

His opponents (who are of both parties) fundamentally altered election laws and changed how elections are run. And now they are abusing the justice system in something resembling Stalinism. If Trump did any of that you might have a case, but all you can do is try to make the sound of his voice and words that come out of his mouth into something they are not.

The nature of Trump’s supposed crimes are invariably of the verbal variety. Word crimes. No violence, no criminal intent, just that his mouth made certain sounds at certain times. They don’t like what he says or the way he speaks, this much is obvious, but his voice can bring about the end of Democracy herself. But it is their reactions to his voice that threaten the republic.

By what mechanism do men confer rights? And how do you reconcile this with your earlier statement:

I believe rights are naturally founded, derived from human nature, and not the edicts of those in power.

We use our reason, speech, and bodies to derive, confer, and protect rights, like any right that has ever been uttered.

We observe human nature in order to find what is universal about human beings. For instance, humans need to speak, to communicate, to be creative. So we grant them the freedom to speak, refuse to intervene when they are doing so, and defend that right if necessary.

There are no such rights because you refuse to give them. You will not afford anyone the right to life or the right to own anything. And of course you will not defend them. Only government can do that.

And therefor you wouldn’t confer someone the right to life or to own property, let alone advocate or protect such rights. Is that correct?

Because rights only exist in the context of a wider society and governmental system. You have no power to give that, but people as a collective do.

If the government were to fall tomorrow, would you deny someone the right to life, or steal their property?