Wikipedia is blacked out globally for 24 hours to protest SOPA and PIPA. Wikipedia says
The originally proposed bill would allow the U.S. Department of Justice, as well as copyright holders, to seek court orders against websites accused of enabling or facilitating copyright infringement.
YouTube is such a website.
Lucky for us that the world’s most famous Objectivist is on our side.
[Cross-posted to SOLO.]
A man was trapped in his house during a flood. He began praying to God to rescue him. He had a vision in his head of God’s hand reaching down from heaven and lifting him to safety. The water started to rise in his house. His neighbour urged him to leave and offered him a ride to safety. The man yelled back, “I am waiting for God to save me.” The neighbour drove off in his pick-up truck.
The man continued to pray and hold on to his vision. As the water began rising in his house, he had to climb up to the roof. A boat came by with some people heading for safe ground. They yelled at the man to grab a rope they were ready to throw and take him to safety. He told them that he was waiting for God to save him. They shook their heads and moved on.
The man continued to pray, believing with all his heart that he would be saved by God. The flood waters continued to rise. A helicopter flew by and a voice came over a loudspeaker offering to lower a ladder and take him off the roof. The man waved the helicopter away, shouting back that he was waiting for God to save him. The helicopter left. The flooding water came over the roof and caught him up and swept him away. He drowned.
When he reached heaven and asked, “God, why did you not save me? I believed in you with all my heart. Why did you let me drown?” God replied, “I sent you a pick-up truck, a boat and a helicopter and you refused all of them. What else could I possibly do for you?”
By definition, there are no murder victims.
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?
And one last question. Who gets to decide?
So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets. (ESV)
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!
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2074982/Britney-Spears-splashes-45-000-motorcyle-Jason-Trawicks-40th.html
Now IMO If she was also a Dispensational King James Bible believing Libertarian Christian… she would almost be the Perfect/ Ideal Woman!
Kiwi Hottie/ Model Rachel Whitwell.
“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.
Beauty transcends Language!