Wednesday, August 21, 2019

Rights Vs. Wants

Let me offer my own definition of libertarianism. It is the political theory that freedom and peace serve the common good better than violence and state control, thus suggesting a normative rule: societies and individuals must be left unmolested in their associations and commercial dealings so long as they are not threatening others.--Tucker


The Subaru has been rescued.

Global meat production causes more climate change than emissions from every single plane, train, and automobile in the world. The problem is that feeding crops to animals and then eating part of the animal is inherently inefficient. According to the World Resource Institute, it takes nine calories of crops to get one calorie of chicken meat. A review in the journal Nature found that per calorie of protein, poultry causes 40 times more global warming than legumes.
There are so many sinners, so little time.

The Trump administration’s next round of tariffs on Chinese imports will for the first time target an array of apparel, and the brunt of that will fall on clothing for women and girls.

The discrimination never stops.

Lauren Hashian has married Dwayne Johnson. They have two kids. Her father is John “Sib” Hashian, who has been the drummer for rock band Boston since 1975.


Faculty judgments regarding excellence of achievement are subordinated to the moral imperative of greater diversity, as defined by a nonacademic corps of bureaucrats whose involvement in the work of teaching and learning is peripheral at best.--Kronman, on the shrinking academic world.


Berkshire Hathaway holds nearly $100 billion in financial-services stocks, underscoring the size of the billionaire’s bet on the future of the U.S. economy.


Malaprop: To misuse a word by confusing it with a similar-sounding word, producing a humorous effect. For example, “pineapple of perfection” for “pinnacle of perfection.” After Mrs. Malaprop, a character in Richard Sheridan’s play, The Rivals (1775), who confused words in this manner. The name Malaprop is coined from French “mal à propos” (inappropriate). Earliest documented use: 1959.

On this day in 1858 Senator Stephen Douglas of Illinois and Abraham Lincoln, a Kentucky-born lawyer and one-time U.S. representative from Illinois, begin a series of famous public encounters on the issue of slavery. The two politicians, the former a Northern Democrat and the latter a Republican, were competing for Douglas’ U.S. Senate seat. In the seven Lincoln-Douglas debates–all about three hours along–Lincoln argued against the spread of slavery while Douglas maintained that each territory should have the right to decide whether it would become free or slave. Lincoln lost the Senate race, but his campaign brought national attention to the young Republican Party.

                              Rights Vs. Wants

The rights of a man have been a topic of discussion forever. What can a man claim as his own? What he is owed is the result of a contract, what he has by birthright is from either his god or his nature.

In essence, what comes first?

Things can get sticky. Religions tend to have disregard for the temporal; no earthly rewards for them. And those things we deserve because of our nature, what exactly are they? If they are part of our nature, then they can't be one of our creations, our products. Rights, if ours by nature, must have risen with us, developed with us. They cannot be external to us, created by us, be made up of something that in itself is variable. And they cannot depend upon the kindness--or the submission-- of others. We, by our nature, might have a right to life, or freedom, or property but not to Tupperware or Buicks or another's wife or income. Not to something that might be unavailable because of a shipping error or over-demand or because it was another's.

Our rights are not just a product of our nature, they are part of our nature. They are inherent, not granted. And they are profound, not so trivial as to be vulnerable to logistics.

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