I’m not a Ron Paul supporter – and his lengthy attack on the self-ownership rights of pregnant women on Piers Morgan’s show tonight didn’t exactly inspire me to change my mind – but I nevertheless have to cheer Jon Stewart’s attack a few minutes ago on the attempted media blackout of Paul’s campaign.
There’ll presumably be a higher-quality version of this available later, but here’s what’s online right now:
I don’t watch much TV so I had no idea it was that blatant. How can Fox (or CNN) or any of the GOP pundits even take themselves seriously? Especially now that a national media outlet has blasted them for it publicly.
Interesting you’re not in favor of a Ron Paul Presidency in the near future, because I thought even an anarchist should vote for Ron Paul. Though, I suppose I’m just not convinced of anarchism.
Also, how weird it is that the mainstream media is blocking out Ron Paul.
During the last election I had a number of posts explaining why I didn’t support Paul. Probably the two most substantive ones are here and here.
I don’t find that especially weird, at least if being weird implies being surprising.
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-august-15-2011/indecision-2012—corn-polled-edition—ron-paul—the-top-tier?xrs=playershare_fb
The one (and major) problem I have with that Stewart clip: he conflates libertarianism with “conservatism.” He states that “Fox News should love this guy …” Maybe if Stewart understood the different schools of thought, he would understand why Fox would NOT love this guy, for libertarianism is emphatically not conservative at all.
I also thought that was a strange thing for Stewart to say, but I’m not sure he’s conflating libertarians with conservatives. He’s too smart for that. I’m not sure what the hell he was trying to say there. Conservative nutjobs like the FoxSnooze staff probably consider RP to be a kook, a liberal, or an evil moderate.
Well, it’s true that there’s a fair bit of overlap between what Ron Paul says and what Fox News folks say about rolling back taxes and regulations, getting back to the Constitution, etc. And Stewart recognised that Paul really means it while the others are just Moral Majority types in tricorn hats.
I’m sorry but “self-ownership” rights ? I suppose only adults and not children possess human rights. This is not 1973. Ever seen an ultrasound or read anything about fetal development ?
Early fetuses are not persons and so do not have self-ownership rights. (What ultrasound has to do with the question is unclear.)
Later fetuses are arguably persons and so do possess self-ownership rights, but those rights do not include the right to inhabit someone else’s body.
The objection you are almost certainly about to make in response is handled here and here.
Due to religious beliefs, I believe that personhood starts at conception. However, I would not put a gun to someone’s head to keep them from an abortion nor would I get a third party (the state) to do so.
I let go of my statist view that the state should outlaw abortion, when I realized that the state is the single largest destroyer of children.
Perhaps Ron being an OBGYN has some effect on his stance on abortion. He mentions in his books having witnessed a nasty abortion as a medical student, wherein the baby was placed in a bucket in the corner and left to die (paraphrasing as I don’t have the text in front of me.)
I think Paul would love to unleash a true anarchist Rothbardian policy, but to even be a part of the system he has to moderate a bit. He does this with the strict Constitutionalism (which is highly questionable.) Rand does this even more, and while it sometimes leaves a bitter taste, I think the overall amount of good light shed upon libertarianism is inherently good.
I printed the abortion links and will read them. I have found that I am morally against killing a fetus, but to “ban” it would require such a ridiculous overkill of The State that would be a much, much worse result. Consequently, I resolved myself to never have sex with a woman who disagreed with my opinion. Through my own personal action, I eliminated it from my life without harming others. People would do well to act accordingly.
For those using ZAP to defend a fetus’ right to life they must use science to define exactly when life begins, and the religious argument fails to do so.
Well, it’s not so much about when life begins. As long as one cell exists, it’s alive (bacteria are alive too!) The real question is when do they achieve legal personhood, and ergo recieve whatever rights you believe such entails.
It is further complicated when you consider the slimers populating the apparatus of the state seem to be infatuated with eugenics — does inserting some gene now make this otherwise human lifeform not worthy of rights?
This standard of when a person receives their rights and what they are will never be agreed on; attributing them to being gifts from some omnipotence (be it god or the state) seems to be the only mechanism found so far in which some standard set of rights is reliably enforced.
I’m curious as to Roderick’s thoughts as to where rights come from, and why? Or do they exist at all?
Have you read his “Abortion, Abandonment…” essay?
Looks like the short version is that requiring someone to do something (like bring a child to term) would be a positive right, which is sorta the gateway drug to slavery.
My conception of the whole abortion issue is twofold:
1. It’s an edge case; largely irrelevant — there are plenty more lethal abuses of rights (the state is still #1 in murder) to worry about more than this one (unless you are black — I’ve seen some estimates that as many as 1/3 of black kids aren’t born thanks to abortions, which certainly has some social consequences — can’t know whether they are good or bad though). But, it is an emotional issue for everyone who’s actually been involved in one.
2. It is a moral catch-22. You can’t very well violate the mother’s rights and say “well, you just gotta have that baby”, but if you accept the premise that you have rights at conception (which I do), or any time before it’s out of the womb, the kid has a right not to be killed either.
Why do I accept that premise? Well the time anyone chooses is always going to be arbitrary, so do I need a reason? I’ve held the belief that it was adulthood, and the minimum time at which the child could survive (even with life support) outside the womb, and I realize that I have about the same amount of real reasons to believe what I do now as I did then (no philosophically sound reason). Sure feels right though.
In situations like this I generally fall back on the old “you can’t legislate morality” chestnut; and there are certainly religious and utilitarian arguments to back up letting the mother decide (as you can always just have another kid, after all). I’m generally satisfied with this being an unresolvable issue (hey, I’m an agnostic!)
Not exactly.
But you can grant that the fetus has a right to life and still defend abortion. That’s the whole point of both my and Watkins’ piece.
Yeah! The precise borderline between plants and animals is fuzzy, so why not call elephants vegetables?
How do you know? There are plenty of disputes that were intractable in the past (the legitimacy of chattel slavery, for example) that have almost entirely given way to consensus.
How is that any more reliable? Among those who think rights come from God’s decrees, I seem to recall disagreements as to the content and interpretation of those decrees. Ditto for governmental sources like the Constitution.
I discuss this here.
I’m wary of just saying “oh we’ll all agree someday”. There’s no guarantee that our societal hatred of slavery won’t change (just look at how many countries re-institute conscription). We must have a philosophically sound reason (like we do against slavery — it is a violation of inalienable property rights) if we are to be consistent. That’s what I was trying to get at here — what is a sound philosophic reason to settle on some particular stage of a human’s physical development over all others?
As to the reliability of enforcing rights, at some point you have to fall on to some social norm, none of which are reliable, be they god, guns, philosophy or plain old people. At some level, people are just gonna do what they want regardless of the norms (praexologically speaking), because that’s what the information they have suggests is the proper course of action (regardless of the veracity of said info).
Thanks for the link to that seminar. I’ve been curious as to the rationale for the “natural rights” that doesn’t rely on squishy stuff like god or the state. Sadly, it seems to me we have to rely on equally squishy stuff — (utilitarianism) to an extent, but overall I think your position certainly has more rock to stand on than “turtles all the way down”, though not too much more. Which is an improvement on my current understanding.