- Joined
- Nov 3, 2010
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- Socialist
Self-interest is a fundamentally natural trait of living things. Living things tend to want to survive and thrive. Therefore their behaviors are inherently competitive. You need to shake yourself of this idea that something fundamentally natural is "disgusting."
Some competition is. But when you pretend that it's all competition and no cooperation merely because you're coming out on top, that makes you a selfish prick and a liar.
No, it's about recognizing that the only way to learn and grow is to notice and acknowledge that our own personal actions have personal consequences (naturally), and that if we don't like those consequences, we can change our actions.
Which is a fine philosophical argument, but is still continually invoked to claim that poor people deserve to be poor.
You're straw manning.
I don't think you know what that is. I did not set up a caricature in order to discredit your ideas. I criticized your ideas for their inherent flaws. Don't deflect by incorrectly invoking a logical fallacy that I did not do.
It also doesn't allow any person to choose if they want to be associated with all those schemes. If a person wants nothing to do with you or your ideas, he should be able to opt out, foregoing both the work/sacrifice as well as the rewards. You know what forced work is, right?
And yet your philosophy never manifests as opting out. It manifests as reaping the rewards while discharging the obligations. It's like the morons who don't want to pay for schools because they personally don't have children attending them. They want to reap the benefit of an educated society but not have to contribute to paying for it. It's a small-minded and self-centered mentality.
It's up to each person to decide if they feel morally obliged to help others, and how they think it's most appropriate to try to do so. You can't legislate a sense of morality into people. You can only restrict their freedom or property for your own ends.
No, it's not. It's not up to each person to decide if they feel like being moral. It's right to help other people. It's wrong to hurt others for selfish benefit. Period. That's what's right and wrong. A philosophy rooted in selfishness, which this form of modern American libertarianism is, is wrong. Pretending that selfishness is a moral choice is wrong.