Suppose you board a bus with a suicide bomber. At the appointed stop, the suicide bomber pulls the cord to detonate the belt of explosives around her waist, hidden under her jacket … and nothing happens. She lives to die another day. No one on the bus, including you, is any the wiser. There are no victims that day. But a crime has been committed. Attempted murder is a serious crime. A victimless crime, but a serious crime, nonetheless.
If you drive home blind drunk at 150 kph, with your children unseatbelted in the back and passenger seats, and you’re fortunate enough that there is no oncoming traffic on the several occasions when you veer into the other lane … and you and your children arrive home safely … it’s a victimless crime. But a crime has been committed. Driving while drunk is a crime. A victimless crime, but a crime, nonetheless.
There are obvious differences between the two cases. The suicide bomber intends to initiate lethal force against others, and the odds of success are relatively high. Whereas the drunk driver does not have murderous intent, and the odds of killing anyone are relatively low.
There are laws against attempted murder and laws against drunk driving. As there should be. But why?
Some libertarians get themselves into a tangle trying to justify a prohibition on drunk driving. At first glance, the non-initiation of force (NIOF) principle seems insufficient to justify a law against drunk driving. The drunk driver who arrives home safely does not, and does not intend to, initiate force against other road users. A common libertarian perspective is one where drunk driving is seen as a breach of contract between the road user and the road owner. In a libertarian utopia, roads are privately owned, and the road owner sets the terms of road use. When it’s in the commercial interests of road owners to offer safe passage to road users (as, almost invariably, it will be), sobriety will be a contractual obligation. Take this perspective, and you get the right answer … but for the wrong reason.
Drunk driving is wrong, not because it is a breach of contract (implicit in the case of our state-operated roads), but because it endangers the lives of others. It’s really quite simple. There ought to be a law against drunk driving because there ought to be a law against endangering the lives of others.
Please note carefully. In cases where it is other adults only whose lives are endangered, and those adults have consented to having their lives endangered, no laws should apply.
Roads are dangerous places. When I go for a drive, I’m endangering my own life and that of others, simply by being behind the wheel, sober or otherwise. But there ought to be no law against driving per se, even though such a law would dramatically lower the road toll. But why not?
It’s really quite simple. It’s a matter of degree. The question is, where to draw the line? And the answer is, at 80 milligrams per 100 millilitres of blood.
The above figure is arbitrary, and blood alcohol level is only a proxy for driver impairment, but this approach to endangerment is right in principle. Importantly, we can quantify the risk that a driver who has been drinking poses to other road users. We can multiply the chances of a fatal collision by the number of lives lost in the collision and come up with a number. And we can set a threshold. If the number is over the threshold, you’re too drunk to legally drive. If the number is below the threshold, it’s legal to risk getting behind the wheel.
We can apply the principle of an endangerment threshold to other issues, including the issue of parents endangering the lives of their children: allowing their children to climb trees, be vaccinated, be unvaccinated, ride bikes without helmets, travel to dangerous countries, sail, eat food cooked on an unlicensed Komodo Kamado or have their children live with them in Lyttelton houses in danger of being flattened by falling boulders.
In all cases, the same endangerment threshold should apply. Is the risk of staying with your children in your Lyttelton house more or less than driving them to safety after you’ve had one drink too many?
In my view Britney Speers is a very interesting Woman! She ranks very highly in my books.
She’s a picture of Divine Art!… She has God given Looks and Talent. She’s successful and wealthy.
And buys her man a cool ride!
What a Gal!
“When I look at a beautiful Woman I know there is a God!”
Tim Wikiriwhi
Browsing the NZ Herald yesterday today I noticed an article which claims clinical studies have shown that an infant human beings cry is at such a pitch as to provoke an unusually fast response in Adults.
I found a link to this topic here:
http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-world/babys-cry-triggers-fast-response-20120111-1ptxq.html
Now I want to use this story to point out a very important observation regarding the interpretation of evidence.
Firstly as a bare observable fact, this mechanism for provoking a ‘Fast response’ is quite extraordinary.
The real dilemma for us is when we attempt to conceptualize how such a relationship could come into being.
At face value this ‘relationship’ appears to have a reasoning underpinning it… It looks like a designed order. Thus by looking at such things , to conclude there must be a Wise God, is perfectly rational.
This is what Richard Dawkins means when he confessed… “biology is the study of complicated things that appear to have been designed for a purpose.”
The Blind Watchmaker, 1996, p. 1.
Yet despite this apparent conclusion the article goes on to say…
“Evolution has decided that it is a good thing for us to look after our young, and there is something in the acoustic properties of babies’ cries that evokes a very basic response that appears to be hardwired in ancient parts of our brains,” said Prof Kringelbach.
Do you notice what happened here.? Out of thin air Prof Kringelbach invokes the strong voodoo spirit the atheists call Evolution! “Evolution Decided”. They accredit This dead and blind watchmaker with benevolence… blessing us with all good things.
It is amazing to read the Divine powers Materialist atheists atribute to their mystic power they call ‘Evolution’.
Books on Evolution written to indoctrinate the sheeple have weird titles like ‘The Miracle of life’!!!???
Atheists want you to abandon your inclinations towards concluding that such amazing relationships as exist between Parents and children are Artworks of a purposeful/ meaningful/ All powerful designer… by accepting their 100% fabricated myth which is contrary to what the facts suggest to the rational and open minded thinker!
The Atheists are trying to Smoke you!
They claim Science is on their side. Indeed they swear Science is their God, yet Like wolves in Sheep’s clothing… They love to pontificate wearing white overcoats (The Religious garb of the Atheist priesthood) …to make fools think they are Holy / absolutely objective / absolute masters of scientific truth… when in fact they are so lost in myth and superstition that they may as well have bones through their noses… The white overcoat has become pseudo religious garb of the atheist priesthood.
And the theory of Evolution is one of the greatest delusions ever believed.
I would like to point out that this article would show far greater scientific integrity if they had simply published the results of their studies… and not put in their biased/unscientific opinion/ explanation of Evolution.
It would read something like this. “ Studies have shown that a Babys cry provokes an unusually swift response from adults” .*FULL STOP*
That’s where the Science in this article finishes!
The spiel on evolution that followed afterwards was an add on Bullshit opinion… a personal faith position of the writer…not science at all!
Design is an observable principle in reality. I am typing this post via many products of Design… Not merely the Keyboard and Hard drive, but my very hands, Eyes, and mind.
This goes to prove my argument I have that The entire theory of evolution could be removed, indeed completely thrown out… without harming any real scientific knowledge!
It is an example of how the perverse theory of evolution is unnecessarily thrown over all data, not because of the conclusions drawn from observation… but to thwart the most obvious rationale that is derived from contemplating the ramifications of the data.
The theory of Evolution is a Giant smoke screen, hiding the most stark of truths!
*There is a God* indeed “ The Fool hath said in his heart there is no God” Psalm 14vs1.
I have never been one who is comfortable talking about my faith in the political arena. In fact, the pandering that typically occurs in the election season I find to be distasteful. But for those who have asked, I freely confess that Jesus Christ is my personal Savior, and that I seek His guidance in all that I do.
Some evangelicals get a little bit annoyed because I’m not always preaching and saying, “I’m this, I’m this, and this.” I think my obligation is to reflect my beliefs in my life. I like the … part in the bible about not showing off … we’re instructed to pray quietly … [and] not to play big fanfare. I’m trying to strike something in between there; where I’m not bashful and ashamed of it, at the same time I don’t want to look like others who …look to get votes because they were willing to say and do something in public. … You don’t do it out on the streets and brag about it and say, “Look how holy I am.” If a person has true beliefs and is truly born again, it will be reflected in their life. … I’d rather my views and my convictions and my faith be shown by my actions rather than [by] what I say …
Growing up, my family was very much involved in religious teaching and interested in religious faith and actually encouraged all five of us to become ministers. Two became ministers and I decided I could minister through medicine…. People have asked me what influenced me most in my family and upbringing and it was the work ethic and church. It was faith-based. We spent a lot of time at our church and that was part of our routine.
I didn’t have much choice about the Lutheran church because I was born that way. It was very conservative and we spent a couple years in catechism and that was when I made my commitment to Christ and joined the church. And then when my wife and I got married it was sort of an accident because there wasn’t a Lutheran church handy and there was an Episcopal church handy and we enjoyed the older traditions of the old prayer book and at that time it was a much more conservative religion. As the years went on both of us became more annoyed with the liberalization of the Episcopal church and it didn’t fit us. None of our children stayed in the church…. we drifted away from it. We now go to a Baptist church.
The ultimate goal of the anti-religious elites is to transform America into a completely secular nation … biased against Christianity. …
I think it’s systemic … in court cases that say you can’t say a prayer at a football game. Where is it in the Constitution that said that somebody can prohibit prayer? The First Amendment says the federal government shouldn’t write any laws regarding freedom of speech and prayer. And if it becomes offensive … then the local people have to deal with it. … it should be the school board or somebody. But there can’t ever be under the First Amendment a prohibition. The Founders never thought that to be the case … It’s systemic, especially the aggressive atheists who are always going to courts, to say that their attitude because they’re atheists means a prohibition against expression of Christianity and that of course didn’t happen 30 or 40 or 50 years ago. It’s much more so today because there are some people aggressively trying to undermine Christianity.
A lot of times [secular liberals] love to have an ally and broaden their base … then all of a sudden, they’ll be a few [secular anti-war liberals] who will come off and break off and say, “Do you know who your ally is? He’s somebody in prayer, we have to attack them! He’s not even for the welfare state!” And they say, “He can be our friend, but not too friendly,” and then some of them will start attacking me.
I get to my God through Christ. … I pray for wisdom and grace.
This post started out as a comment On Dr Goode’s blog post ‘Is Ron Paul a Libertarian’, yet as it focused on just one aspect of his post, and grew longer and longer by the minute, I decided to make it a post in its own right.
Richard was responding to a Not PC blog post criticising Ron Paul in which he lists a set of ‘Ron Paul positions’ which in Peter’s view are incompatible with Libertarianism. One of these was the fact that Ron Paul is opposed to abortion.
PC is expressing a commonly held view, and because many Christians oppose Abortion and want it recognized as murder, they tend to agree with PC that ‘to be a Libertarian means you must condone abortion’ and therefore conclude from this that ‘No Godly Christian can be a Libertarian’
Today I seek to destroy this false assumption. I have herd Abortion is the most common medical operation performed in New Zealand. A huge number of Woman have had abortions, and so this is a very difficult subject to discuss. It is a Subject many prefer to keep hidden in the shadows.
I am a Christian, and a Libertarian, and I am 100% anti-abortion.
Politically speaking Abortion is one of the most difficult of subjects to deal with.
I think its murder… yet still don’t see how it can be banned, without compromising/destroying some of the most vital principles that underpin a Libertarian government, esp the principle that woman own their own bodies, and that Government is formed by consent…a compact between people of different race, culture, and religion.
As a Christian, I don’t believe a utopian Human government is even possible.
Sinful men in power must be given as little power as possible…thus I certainly do not believe moral salvation is possible via human Legislation. Thus I don’t expect the government to be the solution to all mankind’s woes. Thus I don’t expect the Law to solve the abortion problem. Furthermore if abortion remains legal, there is nothing stopping Christians from publicly expressing their Moral outrage at the practice, and via converting souls to Christ, They convert them to the belief that an unborn child has the God ordained right to life…thus I am saying Christianity (and other anti-abortionists) can still work to convince the population to voluntarily abandon this wicked practice. Christianity operates properly via Liberty…via preaching Godly values…not by lobbying for the political oppression of unbelievers.
In such a society that allows Abortion, Homosexuality, drugs, etc a Christian can still function fully as a Christian. Just because society practices these things, does not violate his rights or liberty, doe not mean he must sanction them, etc. He can deal with these sorts of things as he encounters them… by practicing his faith and following his convictions.
In a society that allows abortion (Like the Status quo) Men can avoid having their children aborted by guarding their seed. Taking care not to impregnate girls whom don’t share the belief that a child’s life is sacred, and first asking for a life long commitment from a girl before impregnating them. This would not Guarantee the marriage, but such a process is at least the honorable course to take, because it shows honest diligence in such a weighty thing as deciding to bring Children into the world.
Sacrificing children to the God Molech.
And Even if Abortion is tolerated in a free society, getting rid of Socialism… and their anti-Christian/ Pro-abortion Nanny State would still be a great improvement on the status quo because the Tax payer would no longer be forced to fund this mass murder against their will. Thus this would then mean those who oppose abortion can exercise their right to completely separate themselves from this practice.
That the government extorts taxes from us by force, and then uses the money to pay for mass extermination of unwanted children is absolutely an intolerable situation.
I would love to put an end to the practice of Abortion. By daily propagating Christian Libertarian values I am working towards that Ideal. I really struggle to believe a social compact between Atheists and theists is possible which includes making abortion illegal. I think The Christian argument against abortion is true, yet inadmissible because it crosses the line between church and state. The social compact being framed in secular terms which are acceptable to all reasonable individuals. (Secular truth is not ‘atheist truth’, but truth that stands by its own merit… (eg Both theists and atheists accept Euclidian geometry…for self evident reasons). I think Christians who go to the Law to solve society’s ills are acting in a very unchristian way. I think Christians who actually think the government can be so constructed as to deliver perfect justice… are deluded…and expect far too much from such an all too human institution.
Finally let me note the fact that Moral virtue springs voluntarily from the Heart… not the Law. Woman are not displaying any virtue by carrying children full term simply because the Law prohibits abortion. Conversely Woman display great virtue when they choose to carry their children full term, when the easy and legal option would be to have an abortion. They are practicing their Humane values as to the sanctity of human life.
In a society that allows abortion, Woman with strong Christian values ought to be revered and courted for marriage far above Godless/ unscrupulous woman… because of their values. Thus in a free society which allows abortion… Godly woman ought to have every advantage over the infidels…and prosper.
A libertarian society is not Utopian. It cannot halt all evils. It cannot foster an angelic society. It is a Compact… a peace treaty between disparate groups and individuals. The compact lays down a minimum of terms by which these disparate groups can coexist in peace… if not harmony. Thus the government is not the font of all justice. It is strictly limited to the agreed terms of the peace treaty, and so many practices will be legal which some members of the society will find abhorrent. Eg Cigarette smoking. To many people Cigarette companies and shops which sell cigarettes are Death dealing murderers… Yet Smoking cigarettes cannot be justly banned according to Libertarian principles. So too with abortion… yet this does not mean that all Libertarians must indorse Abortion, or must submit to it as helpless victims. They can work to reduce it and even completely eradicated it without recourse to political force…via preaching. This is exactly how the Christian Missionaries effectively halted Cannibalism here in the early 1800s. They proved Christian values can overthrow ungodly wickedness. That’s Christianity in action.
The many great evils that would manifest themselves should Abortion be banned is also a heinous prospect. The rise of horrific illegal alleyway abortionism. The tortured existence of unwanted children living with desperate and malicious parents… etc etc. All Children go to Heaven when they die… All aborted children are saved… and even if Abortion is Legal, the Murderers shall not escape justice! All People whom murder their children shall stand before the judgment seat of the Almighty.
For those whom have had abortions there is but one way to escape the wrath of God… That is to call upon the name of Christ. He died to pay the penalty of sin for all whom reach out for Gods grace and mercy.
Many woman whom have had abortions carry a heavy burden of guilt. It is to you that I share this message… You can have the forgiveness of God… if you will but call upon Christ… and you will meet your child again when you go to Heaven!… Because that is where they are… right now.
End Note: I am still working on this issue in my mind…
The Jurisdiction of a libertarian Government is limited. It does not extend over all time, places and people. A NZ Libertarian Government could not protect the rights of people, or convict Criminals for crimes which occur outside the country… and in a sense this is a similar circumstance to the situation of the rights of the unborn child. If a criminal injures a pregnant woman and the child dies, this is a very serious offence, yet they are usually prosecuted for the injury and loss to the woman… not for murder. I don’t like this, yet struggle to find a solution. ?
Tim Wikiriwhi
Update: 15-3-16.
The following video puts a very important question to Pro-abortionist, many of them choosing to avoid answering it because somewhere in their consciences they realise the argument that ‘A fetus is not a person’ absolutely falls apart… and that killing a Baby a day before they are to be born is no different to killing them the day after they are born.
It is a great argument Anti-abortionists have and it makes a very good case that if not at the beginning of pregnancy… that *at some point*… the Law should protect *the rights of the unborn child* from being murdered by their mother… and that an overwhelming majority of people could be convinced that such Laws would be just. (Just to Recap my position… I do believe abortion is murder… yet this post has been all about whether or not it can be banned in a free society without violating the essential principles upon which it hangs).
This argument (below) will still work to end abortion… even when there are no laws to ban it…. by convicting individual consciousness that it is wrong.
And so Anti-abortion folk are not absolutely defeated even when abortion is legal.
They still have the power of reason to convert others to their way of thinking.
Update: 10-2-18
My Blog on this subject I wrote several years ago… Abortion poses a serious dilemma for Libertarianism, and I tended to lean towards preserving a womans sovereignty over her Body… yet this position has been almost too heavy to bear in the light of how legal abortion has turned this into virtual genocidal levels of murder… its an industry… and woman have become so callous about it.
In the dilemma between the Right of the baby to Life, and the womans sovereignty over her body… I believe the Legal weight should be in favour of the innocent children… esp given Woman can prevent themselves from having un-wanted pregnancies by other moral means.
