Rights Do Not Exist

[osan]

https://freedomisobvious.blogspot.com/2020/12/rights-do-not-exist.html


If the seemingly outlandish title has gotten your attention, then I say "good!" But what does it mean, that rights don't exist?


Let us hearken back a few years where I addressed the question, "What Are Rights?" In that essay we defined a "right" as a "just claim". What I neglected to elaborate upon, however, was the fact that a right does not exist in any meaningful way whatsoever until it is asserted by an individual. That act defines the birth of a right. Proper action pursuant to the claim keeps it alive. The moment the claim is abandoned, it ceases to exist and that which was claimed, arguably comes up for grabs in some manner and degree, the implications at times being profound and wide-reaching.


A right does not exist if it is not asserted in the face of challenge. Where rights are concerned, assertion is tantamount to defense. It is certainly the first step, though in some cases it may not be sufficient, other measures becoming necessary as challenges grow in magnitude of threat.


If I fail to assert my right to my First Property (i.e., my very life), it can be validly argued in some circumstances that I do not in fact hold that right. This, of course, assumes that I am not asleep, in a comatose state, mentally impaired such that I am incapable of making the assertion, and so on. In other words, the statement is qualified with the usual caveat of "all else equal".


This is the stark and most fundamentally real nature of the notion of a right. Because it is a claim, it must in some cases be explicitly asserted in order for it to become manifestly valid and due the respect of one's fellows. If our history has shown us anything about ourselves, it is that we tend not to respect our fellows, unless given good reason.


Consider one's abode - their home, as it were. If I fail to assert my right to my home by allowing strangers to enter thereupon, uninvited, and to rifle through my refrigerator to eat as they please, consume that very costly bottle of single-malt whiskey, sleep in my bed to the exclusion of myself, shower, use the toilet, and basically act as if they owned the place, I have then pretty well relinquished my claims to those properties. Furthermore, reestablishing a claim that has been allowed to the ravages of rivaling scavengers most often proves difficult, at times very costly, is risky at best, and is potentially hazardous to life and limb in some cases.


Does this mean that a man must assert all his rights every time he moves his eyeballs in order that those around him be made clear? No. We assume many of the claims tacitly and this is even reflected in Law. For example, just because I do not tell you that I claim my life as my First Property, it does not follow that you may murder me, or render me into slavery to yourself or another.


But there are those circumstances, which I will conveniently call "special", where the explicit assertion of one's rights is required if one wishes not to be trampled by some third party. Interactions with "government" is perhaps the ultimate example of this, especially in the courtroom. In court, if you fail to assert your rights, chances are good to excellent that you will be procedurally disemboweled, drawn, and quartered by opposing counsel as the judge passively allows it because it is not his job to see to it that your interests are served, as that would indicate bias in one who must remain impartial. The responsibility lies wholly with YOU, which is why the smart man secures the services of a competent and diligent lawyer for all such matters as may end up in a courtroom. In court, the only person interested in your welfare is you, and maybe (hopefully) your attorney. The rest are, at best, neutral. Onus rests solely with you so see to your welfare in court. And so it is with life in general.


Many people see a right as an entitlement. While this is true in an abstract sense, it only becomes real with assertion, and only in the case where sufficiently reasonable action is taken pursuant to the claim in the face of third party threat. That which defines "sufficiently reasonable" can become a complicated and messy issue for another day's discussion, so just accept it on faith for the time being that there exists proper answers for this question, somewhere out there in the aether. The only time one's rights need explicit assertion is when there exists a threat, real or potential, of disparagement, deprecation, denial, or some other violation. That is always the case in courts of law and virtually always so in any interaction with "government", precisely because the "state" is always on record as assuming authority that it cannot prove to hold, in point of fact, yet maintains at the point of the gun.


Therefore, onus rests with every individual to stand tall and to make clear to anyone or anything posing so much as the minutest potential challenge to one's sovereign rights, that they waive no whit of even the seemingly most insignificant of them, for no right is insignificant. The moment you lose sight of this centrally important truth, you have in principle lost it all.


If you will not assert your rights, then they do not exist. Period. Imagine you're on the street and someone asks you about your car that happens to have the keys laying on the seat, saying "hey buddy, is this your car?" If you say "no", you have told that guy that you make no claim to the vehicle. If he then gets in and drives away, you have no basis for complaint in the wake of no longer having a car. Indeed, if you were to file a criminal report with the police, the fact that you failed to assert your claim might well have the cops telling you to take a walk for that very reason. It would be similar to giving him your car and then going to the police afterward. And in the case where cops did your rotten bidding, chances are good that if it went to trial, a reasonable jury would look at you as the architect of your own misfortune, precisely because you failed in your duty to yourself to make clear to another human that you claim the vehicle in question. I know I'd find for the defendant, all else equal.


One cannot lazily count on the good will of others to protect his claims to Life, for his trust will almost certainly prove grossly misplaced at precisely the moment when its fruits are needed most. This is a sad truth about the empirically observable and common behavior of the mean human being. If you will not help yourself when able, you merit none and deserve that which comes to you, such as it may prove.


Failure to assert and defend one's rights is the ultimate abdication of responsibility for oneself. Such failures ought not, and must not be rewarded. If in the face of sufficient ability, one fails to make and reasonably affect the defense of his rights, then in terms of positive reality he holds no such rights, nor any defensible claims in Law against the acts of others whose behavior would have become criminal, had he faithfully and properly discharged due diligence with respect to the affirmations to which he ought to have attested, had at the time he wanted that which a valid assertion would have made manifest.


Absorb this; understand it; accept it; alter your behavior in accordant comport and habit with it, that is, if your rights are important to you. Otherwise, much of the world will trample you into the dust and never bat an eyelash because at the end of the day, even the best among us tend to look out for ourselves first and foremost, which is precisely as things ought to be. This is the nature of life on planet earth and one either gets smart and acts the part, or is consumed by the manifold interests that conflict with his own.


Look at it as maintaining a balance between yourself and a potentially hostile world. It is a necessary skill and habit for all who do not wish to be consumed in the frenzy of human activity, which cares no whit for any individual's welfare.


Stand tall or risk being stricken. The choice is yours. It always has been.


Until next time, please accept my best wishes.

[Working Poor]

Only people with good moral character are truly able to assert rights

[Brian4Liberty]

How does one “assert” their right to free tampons?

http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...o-Free-Tampons

[A Son of Liberty]

@osan, in your view are others able to legitimately assert rights on your behalf? If one was in a coma, asleep, etc.?

[alivecream]

Rights seem to be subjective nowadays. I can have the right as the law says and somehow this could be taken away by someone who thinks, out of nothing, otherwise. Crazy world.

[osan]

@osan, in your view are others able to legitimately assert rights on your behalf? If one was in a coma, asleep, etc.?

A sticky question, but I think yes, at least in principle. The problem there, of course, being able to discern with sufficient confidence whether the agent truly speaks in the name of he who cannot for himself. But this is perhaps not very much more difficult than the similar issues regarding an executor's actions, the difference being that there is a presumably valid last will and testament as a standard by which to know the deceased's mind and thereby judge an executor's actions.

But I also feel there is a pretty good instrument in assuming certain things about one who is become incapacitated. For instance, we assume he wishes to live if there is no explicit and trustworthy countervailing expression. But I can see how incapacity can readily lead to very sticky wickets.

[osan]

Rights seem to be subjective nowadays. I can have the right as the law says and somehow this could be taken away by someone who thinks, out of nothing, otherwise. Crazy world.

If they seem so, it is only because of gross general ignorance on the subject and other corruptions that lead men's opinions astray from reason and truth.

Recall that a "right" is defined as a "JUST AND VALID claim". I may claim Vatican City as being mine. Is that claim just and valid? Most likely not. But if I lay claim to my life, chances are pretty good that that is indeed just and valid.

Ignorance will be the death of liberty. Actually, liberty is already dead for the most part, with Themme seemingly making their preparations to clean up the few remaining crumbs of true individual prerogative. Those remnants may seem insignificant, but in fact they are centrally important because so long as they remain, notions of liberty and the true choices it implies with such direct force remain in the minds of people, however vaguely and tacitly. That carries the threat of stray thinking and that is the single greatest threat that Theye face. It must be eliminated - crushed, destroyed utterly so that coming generations no longer even have the concept of liberty upon which to cogitate and reflect. That is why Orwell included the various elements such as the destruction of language and the Newspeak dictionary that was intended to remove ideas by removing the words which carry them. Freedom is slavery, only in a real world, "freedom" might no longer even exist, all usage and references having been expunged. Couple that with time and perhaps incentives not to use such words by the older generations, and in a couple of generations liberty is literally erased from the collective conscience. Easier said than done, but the idea itself is very simple and basic.

That is the direction in which this world has been going now for over 100 years. The twentieth century was the era of industrialized tyranny and it worked fabulously well. For the most part, people no longer give a $#@! about freedom. What they want is pretty slavery as Merecogs in that thing which is greater than themselves, having been bread to be Weakmen wanting things more than freedom.

Theye are brilliant, treacherous, and utterly implacable in their determination to shape the world as they would have it. Liberty has vanishingly small chances of survival now.

[osan]

Only people with good moral character are truly able to assert rights

I might modify that to say that such people are the only ones who can assert proper rights. Lefties assert the right to free buttsex and to be "gender fluid" and all that sort of abnormal idiocy.

[BSWPaulsen]

Over the years I have read the posts on this discussion board, osan's writings have remained one of the reasons to return. I quite fancy the thread title and wholly endorse the idea that rights are only reified through their assertion and defense.

[BSWPaulsen]

Only people with good moral character are truly able to assert rights

Anyone can assert rights, but it is the following ramifications that matter most.

Firstly, are those rights rationally derived? This serves to make them understandable and explainable to others. Secondly, is it rational and in the self-interest of others to accept your assertion? Thirdly, assuming multiple parties agree to a defined definition for rights, will they agree to secure each other's rights?

All of this serves to highlight why a common culture is important in giving potential force to the defense of a common concept of rights. Good moral character is required for people to not shirk their self-imposed duty to uphold their rights. Essentially, a healthy culture also incorporates characteristics extending beyond rights (such as self-sacrifice) to foster sustainability. I think of this as foundational requirements for the aspirational man to create a harmonious society benefiting their kind for generations.

People of bad moral character can assert and defend their understanding of rights. They can even succeed at it due to humanity's penchant for hierarchical arrangement and frequently do. The issue they should face is rational men that can use logic to undermine their assertions and a willingness to oppose them no matter the cost. Unfortunately, in my experience, good men are prone to overthinking and people of bad moral character are more frequently opposed by other people of bad moral character in an endless cycle of individuals pursuing temporary goals.

[Working Poor]

I might modify that to say that such people are the only ones who can assert proper rights. Lefties assert the right to free buttsex and to be "gender fluid" and all that sort of abnormal idiocy.

Yea there are a lot of people calling abominations rights. That is one of the main reasons society is so confused. Something that I find just insane is all the talk about slavery of the past in America while living people today are slaves in China who are being forced to work for Apple and other companies propping up this economy with their forced labor and young people are being taken and having their organs removed for rich elites. I can hardly sleep thinking about this horrible injustice. I just can't stop crying and praying for these poor people.

[Invisible Man]

a right does not exist in any meaningful way whatsoever until it is asserted by an individual.

This is true, not just of rights. But of all things that exist, except for one single uncaused first cause, the unmoved mover, the unasserted asserter, whose self-existence undergirds all else. Aside from this being, everything that exists exists because it was asserted to exist by someone with the authority to make that assertion. Light exists on account of the Creator asserting, "Let there be light."

But note that in that sentence prior to the existence of the asserted thing was the authority to make that assertion. That authority is also something that exists (either as as something that was delegated/legislated by a higher authority, or as the innate authority of the self-existent first cause).

So, to follow the reasoning of the OP, we cannot simply retreat to the line that, while we can only have rights if we assert them, we also only can have the authority (i.e. the right) to assert rights if we assert it as a right as well. That would be a vicious circle. So if there is such a thing as legitimately asserting rights, it must be based on a prior right that we have independently (i.e. unalienably) of our assertion of it.

In order for such an unalienable, unasserted, right that undergirds other asserted rights to exist, there must be such a thing as justice, which we might also call by the name of natural law. This must be a moral law that exists independently of us, that stands over us all, wherever in the universe and whenever in time we may be, regardless of our acknowledgement of it, just as the laws of physics, logic, and math do. This law must either, like light, owe its existence to an assertion/legislation by the Creator, or else itself eternally belong to the uncaused nature of the Creator, or a combination of both. Due to the existence of justice/natural law, as a thing that exists whether we assert it or not, there are such things as right and wrong, that exist whether we assert them or not.

Acknowledging this truth, we may return to the original thesis of the OP, and rightly question whether what it says is true about all of the rights that we might consider. Is it really true that no rights exist until they are asserted? We have already established that the right to assert other rights must exist without being asserted. But what about any other rights? Since justice/natural law exists, it is at least possible for this law that exists independently of our assertions to include certain rights and wrongs beyond that one right to assert other rights. Indeed, I'm certain that it does. It may require some other posts to establish what some of those are.

[Invisible Man]

Over the years I have read the posts on this discussion board, osan's writings have remained one of the reasons to return. I quite fancy the thread title and wholly endorse the idea that rights are only reified through their assertion and defense.

Anyone can assert rights, but it is the following ramifications that matter most.

Firstly, are those rights rationally derived? This serves to make them understandable and explainable to others. Secondly, is it rational and in the self-interest of others to accept your assertion? Thirdly, assuming multiple parties agree to a defined definition for rights, will they agree to secure each other's rights?

All of this serves to highlight why a common culture is important in giving potential force to the defense of a common concept of rights. Good moral character is required for people to not shirk their self-imposed duty to uphold their rights. Essentially, a healthy culture also incorporates characteristics extending beyond rights (such as self-sacrifice) to foster sustainability. I think of this as foundational requirements for the aspirational man to create a harmonious society benefiting their kind for generations.

People of bad moral character can assert and defend their understanding of rights. They can even succeed at it due to humanity's penchant for hierarchical arrangement and frequently do. The issue they should face is rational men that can use logic to undermine their assertions and a willingness to oppose them no matter the cost. Unfortunately, in my experience, good men are prone to overthinking and people of bad moral character are more frequently opposed by other people of bad moral character in an endless cycle of individuals pursuing temporary goals.

It seems to me that the claims made in these two posts contradict each other.

Notice that the second post presupposes the existence of justice. It doesn't call it by that word. But it speaks of rationally derived rights in a way that assumes there exists a standard against which some assertion of rights can be measured as rational or not. By this same standard some people may be called "people of bad moral character." This standard must be a thing that actually exists, and furthermore, for the above claims to make sense, it must exist independently of any assertions people may make about it. Some may believe that this standard demands something, while being objectively wrong in that belief. That being the case, it's even theoretically possible that the entire human race could share misconceptions about this standard after which they grope in the dark and to which they try to appeal.

That being the case, it is that standard which has authority over us, and not the other way around. Its laws are real (i.e. reified) whether we assert and defend them or not.

It may be that there exist some rights that are alienable. But for this to be so, there must be others that are not.

[BSWPaulsen]

It seems to me that the claims made in these two posts contradict each other.

Notice that the second post presupposes the existence of justice. It doesn't call it by that word. But it speaks of rationally derived rights in a way that assumes there exists a standard against which some assertion of rights can be measured as rational or not. By this same standard some people may be called "people of bad moral character." This standard must be a thing that actually exists, and furthermore, for the above claims to make sense, it must exist independently of any assertions people may make about it. Some may believe that this standard demands something, while being objectively wrong in that belief. That being the case, it's even theoretically possible that the entire human race could share misconceptions about this standard after which they grope in the dark and to which they try to appeal.

They do not contradict. The latter builds on the former and simply contains some premises incorporated into my broader philosophy - premises that can be disagreed with and discussed. As it concerns a standard of rationality, that is determined by the human minds involved in the discourse. As it concerns rights or moral character being good or bad, these are subjective evaluations rendered by me. Other people are perfectly capable of producing their own qualitative judgements of moral character via their reasoning. These interpretations can be debated and accepted or rejected by the parties involved. As for your focus on a "standard that actually exists", that standard exists in my mind and nowhere else absent agreement by others (at which point it is a shared standard among those involved).

That being the case, it is that standard which has authority over us, and not the other way around. Its laws are real (i.e. reified) whether we assert and defend them or not.

It may be that there exist some rights that are alienable. But for this to be so, there must be others that are not.

Abstract concepts, such as rights, are not reified without human action (assertion and defense both being actions undertaken to reify and actualize them). Absent that occurrence, any talk of an authoritative standard is meaningless. Human assertion and defense of rights is the only observable standard.

As it concerns the alienability of rights: all rights are alienable absent their defense by force (whether personally or by proxy). One of the ironies of the Declaration of Independence citing inalienable rights is that the founders could only uphold their claim by force of arms. Anything else and the supposed inalienable rights would have been rendered little more than meaningless nonsense.

[osan]

Anyone can assert rights, but it is the following ramifications that matter most.

Firstly, are those rights rationally derived?

By definition, a right is a just claim, which is to say a valid one. A rational derivation would, as you note below, serve as the means of affirmation such that chicanery on the questions of validity becomes less likely to meet with success.

This serves to make them understandable and explainable to others. Secondly, is it rational and in the self-interest of others to accept your assertion?

We agree.

Thirdly, assuming multiple parties agree to a defined definition for rights, will they agree to secure each other's rights?

They will if they are properly educated such that enlightened self-interest drives them to it.

All of this serves to highlight why a common culture is important in giving potential force to the defense of a common concept of rights.

The truth and significance of this statement cannot be overestimated. Your insight is 100% proper, accurate, and brimming with essential truth. I have been putting forth this notion for decades and have done so here more than once. The modern notion of "diversity" is deeply mistaken, and I suspect it is purposely so, for having foisted this cancer upon an accepting world, Theye have destroyed our core strength in the act. Not knowing the most basic truths, we are as putty in the hands of a sculptor; a mad, ravening chiseler who seeks only to hobble those who are not him, for all the trite and clapped out reasons upon which the filthy tyrants of all human history have stood.

Good moral character is required for people to not shirk their self-imposed duty to uphold their rights. Essentially, a healthy culture also incorporates characteristics extending beyond rights (such as self-sacrifice) to foster sustainability. I think of this as foundational requirements for the aspirational man to create a harmonious society benefiting their kind for generations

We had that until recently, and for thousands of years, no less. While the Christian institutions may have sucked, the ethic that bound Europe as one at the most fundamental cultural strata served to anchor those people in a way that a man from Spain could venture to Finland, and at that basic level of cultural abstraction know what to expect from his foreign hosts. That has been destroyed by Themme, replaced with their absurd and destructive notion of "diversity", which is nothing better than a cancerous plague upon the human race, weakening us in every respect, save that which drives the individual to perpetuate his diseased condition upon his own soul, as well as those of every man on the planet.

People of bad moral character can assert and defend their understanding of rights. They can even succeed at it due to humanity's penchant for hierarchical arrangement and frequently do. The issue they should face is rational men that can use logic to undermine their assertions and a willingness to oppose them no matter the cost. Unfortunately, in my experience, good men are prone to overthinking and people of bad moral character are more frequently opposed by other people of bad moral character in an endless cycle of individuals pursuing temporary goals.

They get away with that which they do because the epistemic fundaments have been torn asunder by those who have so cleverly and successfully sown doubt in the minds of those unprepared to understand truth from that which is false. Because of a common dearth of basic epistemic training, those of a "left" bent are able to assert with seeming impunity any idiocy as an assumption upon which they may conveniently build their mangled syllogisms, claiming the most outrageous stupidities to be truths. Those upon whom they seek to foist their filth are unprepared to deal analytically with these onslaughts, Couple all that with the cultural drift twoard enfagging the younger generations, especially the males, we see an absence of purpose to drive such people into the sea where they belong.

[Invisible Man]

Abstract concepts, such as rights, are not reified without human action

Do the laws of logic and math exist without human action?

And if rights are not real until reified by human action, then whence comes the right to reify rights by human action? This right cannot itself require being reified by human action, since to do that would presuppose that this right already existed prior to its own establishment. But if this right doesn't exist at all, then we have no right to establish rights even with human action, thus, the ostensibly reified rights wouldn't actually be reified at all, but just believed and acted upon as falsehoods.

[BSWPaulsen]

Do the laws of logic and math exist without human action?

What humans determine to be the laws of logic and math are our agreed upon descriptions of human observations. Those descriptions do not exist absent human action.

And if rights are not real until reified by human action, then whence comes the right to reify rights by human action? This right cannot itself require being reified by human action, since to do that would presuppose that this right already existed prior to its own establishment. But if this right doesn't exist at all, then we have no right to establish rights even with human action, thus, the ostensibly reified rights wouldn't actually be reified at all, but just believed and acted upon as falsehoods.

A right is not required for humans to reify their understanding of rights - the only requirement for reification is the ability to act. Rights are an idea developed by human minds and pursued to their personal and/or social ends through action. Whether those rights are tantamount to falsehoods is for independent parties to determine for themselves. Fundamentally, the concept is of most importance to groups of people that seek commonality in developing a mutually beneficial society. Absent the ability to defend their understanding, any given interpretation of rights can be sundered by brute force from another group of people with different beliefs.

Strictly speaking, the reification of rights invokes a logical fallacy (appropriately named the fallacy of reification). However, humans are not strictly logical and derive benefit from rational enterprises that lack concretism. The concept of rights and its potential benefit to the species is one example of this phenomenon.

[r3volution 3.0]

Talk of rights is talk of how the speaker would like the world to be in contrast to how it is.

"Such and such is the case, but thus and so ought to be the case."

That is all that a "right" is, an expression of subjective preference.

For those who think that morality is objective, this sounds like a denigration of mortality, but it isn't.

It is perfectly possible for morality to be both subjective, and recognized as being subjective, and also deeply held.

...just as if it were (believed to be) objective.

This was Nietzsche's entire point, more or less.

[r3volution 3.0]

God is dead, long live God - that is Nietzsche's argument in a line.

Materialist doofuses view him as an atheist.

He was, but that's quite missing the point.

[osan]

Talk of rights is talk of how the speaker would like the world to be in contrast to how it is.

In many cases it is so, but try to relieve me of my life and witness how the normative becomes positively made manifest. Rights are real when we make them so and we are not quite at the point where this is no longer possible... though we are approaching it with disturbing rapidity.

"Such and such is the case, but thus and so ought to be the case."

That is all that a "right" is, an expression of subjective preference.

Au contraire. A right is a just claim. Preference plays a role, but does not define the broader notion.

For those who think that morality is objective, this sounds like a denigration of mortality, but it isn't.

Morality is demonstrably objective, once one has chosen a frame of reference. In the case of human rights, human life itself becomes the standard by which judgment is made in such regards, thereby rendering proper morality eminently objective. This is the truth that "progressives" and other human vermin have attempted to erase from the collective consciousness, but have thus far failed. I do point out, however, that the day is yet young.

In times not too far past, "God" was the objective standard and He was anthropomorphized deeply so that humans would be able to identify with The Infinite. That is PRECISELY why the old Jewz wrote in Torah about creating man in God's image. Otherwise God remains too distant, especially to the emotions, and the establishment of that objective morality becomes hazardously difficult. Doing that way made it relatively easy, and while we could argue all day and night about the deeper motivations behind it all, we can readily see that the act produced great benefit. I will further assert that the liabilities of that particular system of world view were entirely the result of its abuse, rather than any flaw of evil inherent there.

The virulent scum of the left has done nothing other than supplant one set of assumptions for another, the new set being one of pure idiocy in the raiment of something better. Their genius lies precisely in their evil by appealing to everything rotten and entropic in the human spirit; that which is easy v. difficult, but whose rewards are ultimately hollow and deeply unsatisfying, which is why so much of the world is so deeply miserable in the midst of material wealth that is nothing short of staggering. Consider all those suburban kids in places like NJ and CA - $1500 cell phones that do everything for you short of chewing your food and breathing. Cars nobody could dream of when I was their age. Jet travel, computers, free seX (OK I engaged in plenty of that), and every convenience imaginable - and they are utterly dissatisfied with everything, they know nothing while thinking they know everything, are brittle, delicate, paltry of spirit, have no skills worthy of the mention, and seem to seek their own destruction without even being sufficiently self-aware to realize it. THAT is the demonstration of the vapidity and utter incorrectness of what the so-called "left" has foisted upon us. Results speak with more eloquence of force than can any words and the results have been dismal in the extreme.

But I digress.

It is perfectly possible for morality to be both subjective, and recognized as being subjective, and also deeply held.

Morality cannot be subjective, perforce. The moment one chooses a set of assumptions as a standard of assessment, which is to say that they have established for themselves a frame of reference, objectification arises as a fundamental characteristic by the nature of the choice. It cannot be avoided and as a result, and all subjectivity is tossed aside.

This was Nietzsche's entire point, more or less.

Nietsche was a syphillis-addled dopeyman whose blind hatred of the so-called "church" further blinded him to deeper truths. He painted with too broad a brush, tossing the baby with the bathwater, as it were. I share his disdain for the institutions of Christianity. Were someone to nuke Vatican City, I would shed no tear for them (perhaps because I am myself a rotten bastard), but I nonetheless respect the Christian ethic and subscribe to its central tenet, the Golden Rule, which in my estimation is as close to perfection as can be anything human. It is a beautiful ideal. The fact that there have been and continue to be countless INDIVIDUALS who pervert and abuse those good ethics, does not impeach the ethics themselves, but only the defiled souls who use them to repellant, loathsome, and abhorrent ends, resulting in unjustifiable damage to others.

[r3volution 3.0]

Nietsche was a syphillis-addled dopeyman whose blind hatred of the so-called "church" further blinded him to deeper truths. He painted with too broad a brush, tossing the baby with the bathwater, as it were. I share his disdain for the institutions of Christianity. Were someone to nuke Vatican City, I would shed

no tear for them (perhaps because I am myself a rotten bastard), but I nonetheless respect the Christian ethic and subscribe to its central tenet, the Golden Rule, which in my estimation is as close to perfection as can be anything human. It is a beautiful ideal. The fact that there have been and continue to be countless INDIVIDUALS who pervert and abuse those good ethics, does not impeach the ethics themselves, but only the defiled souls who use them to repellant, loathsome, and abhorrent ends, resulting in unjustifiable damage to others.

Belief in God is on its way out; so, what's next?

There could be nihilism, as Nietzsche feared, or there could be something else.

I'll leave you with the useless syphilitic to figure it out..

[osan]

Belief in God is on its way out; so, what's next?

Auto-destruct.

There could be nihilism, as Nietzsche feared, or there could be something else.

We're already well into nihilism. San Fran, Portland, and Seattle are prime examples of it in action.

[r3volution 3.0]

Auto-destruct.



We're already well into nihilism. San Fran, Portland, and Seattle are prime examples of it in action.

The end of the old order doesn't mean nihilism

...course, I'd just prefer the old order.

[osan]

The end of the old order doesn't mean nihilism

Letting people crap on the sidewalks, refusing to charge felons, allowing felons to burn cities are all indications of nihilism.

[r3volution 3.0]

Letting people crap on the sidewalks, refusing to charge felons, allowing felons to burn cities are all indications of nihilism.

And yet no one shares my point of view; so, perhaps, the nihilism has another source?

[osan]

And yet no one shares my point of view; so, perhaps, the nihilism has another source?

Such as?

[r3volution 3.0]

Such as?

All of the popular ideologies of our time promote nihilism in some respects.

...the left's war on traditional culture.

...the Trumpenproletariat's war on reason.

My point is that this is not a logical consequence of the recognition that value is subjective.

That recognition is quite compatible with non-nihilistic thought.

[osan]

All of the popular ideologies of our time promote nihilism in some respects.

You're playing fast and loose with the term. The notion of nihilism is nothing more or less than "nothing matters".

...the left's war on traditional culture.

Nope. Something else matters to them.

...the Trumpenproletariat's war on reason.

No such group doing no such thing. ÜberFAIL.