Libfas, please explain your ethics

1.  Why is it wrong to kill a violent criminal but okay to kill an innocent fetus?  I'm not particularly opposed to abortions, but it makes no sense that you rail against capital punishment while endorsing abortion.

2.  Why do you despise Christianity but tell everyone else that their religions are beautiful and are to be respected?  I don't understand how you can extol the greatness of science and education while while telling everyone (other than Christians) that their baseless beliefs should be protected.  I'm generally opposed to religion, so I say if you're going to hate one of them, hate all of them.

3.  Why is it wrong from conservatives to go on fear mongering about terrorism but it's okay for you to tell everyone the world is going to end because of global warming?  Whether or not you believe in either of these supposed threats it's clear that both sides are using fear to manipulate people.  Why not take the higher road if you're so educated and ethical?

4.  Why do you like Mac so much?

5.  Why do you believe the federal government can fix all of society's ills when it can barely deliver the mail?  It has been proven throughout history that large central governments lead to corruption and abuse.  Why do you continue to support big government?

So it's his responsibility, and *only* his responsibility, if he can't get a job because no one is hiring? Give me a break. The ability to earn a living is entirely dependent upon having a job, which in turn is entirely dependent upon the economy, which in turn is entirely beyond his control. Capitalism has never functioned so that it employs everyone in a society capable of working, and it never will. In fact, Heinlein demonstrated this in his 1939 novel For Us, the Living, wherein he laid out a system of capitalism in its entirety and demonstrated precisely why it never amounts to a perfectly efficient system, and while I disagree with a number of policy recommendations he comes to as a result of his model, that particular aspect of his analysis is, as far as I can tell, beyond criticism.

Individuals "own" resources because they have the ability to back up their "ownership" with the threat of force. No consensual society of free-thinking rationalists would have a distribution of goods as uneven as that which exists in modern society; thus, private ownership in modern society is explicitly based on coercion. Only a society in which the state of ownership is voluntarily accepted by all participants without the threat of force can absolute freedom of the individual truly be said to exist.

The difference between the two scenarios you have outlined is that one creates a flow of goods and thus stimulates the economy. The other results in stagnation and will ultimately result in reduced profits for everyone in the society, for reasons that once again go back to

Finally, Ayn Rand was a crackpot. She has clearly not read her Proudhon, as virtually every argument she makes in favour of unrestricted private property is countered in his writings half a century before hers. She also ignores the fact that "individuals" aren't - every bit of personal property in modern society was acquired as a result of the functioning of that society. I notice you ignored all of my previous reply pertaining to that point. Could that be because you have no rebuttal to it? Interesting indeed.