on PolicyMic
Aaron Fried I would certainly hope that if the science proved that Miss Fox possesses no advantage from being formerly male, the league wouldn't exclude her. There would be no reason to, after all. But what is alarming about that comment? It's a statement of fact. There's nothing transphobic about it. You will certainly grant the fact that men are brawnier than women. That's simply the result of the way that the human body is formed - gender identity is not the same as gender physiology. In a contact sport, natural brawn matters. For the same reason that UFC has weight classes, it separates fighters by sex. That's because males simply have more muscle. If Miss Fox has the musculature of a man, then effectively, she would have an unfair advantage.
Aaron Fried Calling things 'denigrating' is just an emotional appeal. The question is whether or not her physiology is allowing her to fight at male strength levels rather than female strength levels. If the answer is the former, then it'd be like letting Anderson Silva fight women. It's simply unfair.
Aaron Fried Please include these in your next article on the topic, as this is really the relevant issue here. It's obvious that men are the stronger sex in terms of brute physical strength, which is a big part of a fighting sport. The question of whether or not transgender folks like Miss Fox ought to be allowed to fight amongst women rests on the deeper question of whether or not she has that physiological advantage.
Aaron Fried I think the MMA community's judgment will end up resting on the science behind whether or not her advantages are negligible at best. Of course, that needs to be conducted first.
Aaron Fried It doesn't matter whether or not the legislative branch wants to get things done! They're elected to make laws, and the logical corollary of that is that they're elected to choose what laws not to make. If the President wants a law passed that Congress doesn't want, that doesn't authorize him to pass it anyway. Even if our system was designed to have a King, this one doesn't have a popular mandate - the majority of the American people didn't vote at all!
Aaron Fried Very good article. Also, the reminder of Delta Halo in Halo 2 from the picture makes me very nostalgic.
Aaron Fried This was an issue when Ron Paul was up for the GOP nomination. No other candidate, be it Blue Donkey or Red Elephant, draws millenials like he does.
Aaron Fried What will Romney do differently?
Aaron Fried To clarify, I will be voting for Gary Johnson. But, given the "choice" between President Obama and Governor Romney, I can only shrug. There's no choice there.
Aaron Fried Looks like we've found a human polygraph, folks...
Aaron Fried How do you define poverty? I define it as persistent hunger, homelessness, lack of capital, etc. A static percentage-based "poverty line" on the bell curve of income is not the definition of poverty.
Aaron Fried http://www.southparkstudios.com/clips/412200/make-bullying-kill-itself ^ This is you
Aaron Fried Sure it is. Having a mental or physical defect, whether it is a hampering of the ability to think, speak, or walk, is certainly a medical condition. Whether you decide to call those things "retardations", "defects" (like I just did), or "special conditions", that doesn't change what they are. Denying that only builds the argument of the people that you are fighting, who would use someone's medical misfortune as an insult, when, in reality, it is neutral.
Aaron Fried The problem isn't the word "retard". If you replace it with "special", people will begin to use "special" the same way that they use "retard" - as an insult. Retarded and stupid are not synonyms. That's what most people fail to understand. If someone is born with a type of retardation, that means that a part of their development was prevented (duh). If someone is stupid, they are making poor and incorrect decisions consciously. Stupid is definitely an insult. A medical condition is not an insult, and it should not be used as one (whether you call it "retarded", "special", or "wablashabababa"). People may as well use "blond" or "tall" as an insult. Long story short, if you use "retard" in lieu of "stupid", you're probably stupid.
Aaron Fried People should be offended by these shoes because they look stupid. That's all.
Aaron Fried Hippocratic? Lol, I'm laughing too hard to even refute you. I'll have to come back to this later.
Aaron Fried "If you don't like 'Murica, you can git out!" Let's drop that silly line of argument. Taxes are not voluntary. They are coercive by nature - if you do not cooperate and fork over a check to the government, they take your property from you, and/or bring you to jail. If you don't cooperate with that, there are always guns to persuade you, or at the very least, end your objections once and for all. Make no mistake: The threat of force is, in principle, as coercive as actual physical force.
Aaron Fried The issue is that morally, (people, including the) government may not initiate force - it can certainly (at least in my view) use force in defense. So, if someone robs me, and there is sufficient evidence to warrant an arrest, the government is not committing an aggressive act by arresting the thief. As far as funding that government goes, most non-anarchist libertarians don't take as heavy an issue with any taxes that aren't the income tax, which is the moral equivalent of slavery.
Aaron Fried I don't see how taking from people who violated no one's rights to remunerate someone who had their rights violated is justice. If anything, you are creating more victims. If I steal from you, the role of the government is to punish me, and return to you what was stolen, at my expense. That, in my view, is proper justice.
Aaron Fried Morality is the concern of man's dealings with himself and other men. Given that the State represents every person's dealings with one another, morality certainly applies. It is entirely appropriate to make the judgment that taxation is morally equivalent to theft. Further, human rights are the notion that your life belongs to you. Whether you live in an anarchist or totalitarian society, you own yourself (in the natural sense). Any encroachment upon your self-ownership is a violation of rights.
Aaron Fried Correct, letting him die isn't right - but that is not a matter of Rights (capitalizing for differentiation). You object to letting that little kid die, because a human life is of value to you. Unfortunately, that value does not supersede the moral absolute of Rights, which are each man's claim to own himself and his actions. His flu does not grant him higher Rights than others, so he cannot rob them to pay for his medicine. That being said, everyone should kick in voluntarily to help the kid.
Aaron Fried Yes - morality by the standard of man's life on earth, not by the standard of some mystical right to arbitrary and subjective morality. To say that morality doesn't belong in discussions of government is silly. You use it when you advocate that people help one another. Now, the question becomes: Is it moral to steal from some to help others? I think not, because the right to property ought to be inviolable in a truly free society. That doesn't rule out charity - personally, I love charity.
Aaron Fried To paraphrase your argument: "It's been this way forever, and most people have always been okay with taxes!" Your claim is that because something is entrenched in social structure, it has value, must be correct, and ought not be changed. Would you apply the same logic to despotism, slavery, and the murder of innocents - which have all been entrenched in societies from the dawn of man to the modern day? Surely not. Also, spirituality (aka mysticism) is antithetical to reason.
Aaron Fried We agree on the non-right to murder, I think we're just phrasing it differently. Having a right means that it belongs to you and no human can take that away from you. If you lose your life due to nature, you are not due remediation from that force (if that were physically possible). Rights are protections against physical force and fraud from other humans. If you are incorrectly assess the facts of nature, you have not been defrauded. If you are killed by a disease, you have not been murdered.
Aaron Fried I'm very eager to see how the country reacts to hearing Ron Paul give a speech on national television. Most people have never heard him speak, and many of those who have heard him have only heard rapid-fire "debate" snippets. It's going to be one of the first real tests of the viability of the libertarian message on a national scale.
on PolicyMic
Aaron Fried I would certainly hope that if the science proved that Miss Fox possesses no advantage from being formerly male, the league wouldn't exclude her. There would be no reason to, after all. But what is alarming about that comment? It's a statement of fact. There's nothing transphobic about it. You will certainly grant the fact that men are brawnier than women. That's simply the result of the way that the human body is formed - gender identity is not the same as gender physiology. In a contact sport, natural brawn matters. For the same reason that UFC has weight classes, it separates fighters by sex. That's because males simply have more muscle. If Miss Fox has the musculature of a man, then effectively, she would have an unfair advantage.
Aaron Fried Calling things 'denigrating' is just an emotional appeal. The question is whether or not her physiology is allowing her to fight at male strength levels rather than female strength levels. If the answer is the former, then it'd be like letting Anderson Silva fight women. It's simply unfair.
Aaron Fried Please include these in your next article on the topic, as this is really the relevant issue here. It's obvious that men are the stronger sex in terms of brute physical strength, which is a big part of a fighting sport. The question of whether or not transgender folks like Miss Fox ought to be allowed to fight amongst women rests on the deeper question of whether or not she has that physiological advantage.
Aaron Fried I think the MMA community's judgment will end up resting on the science behind whether or not her advantages are negligible at best. Of course, that needs to be conducted first.
Aaron Fried It doesn't matter whether or not the legislative branch wants to get things done! They're elected to make laws, and the logical corollary of that is that they're elected to choose what laws not to make. If the President wants a law passed that Congress doesn't want, that doesn't authorize him to pass it anyway. Even if our system was designed to have a King, this one doesn't have a popular mandate - the majority of the American people didn't vote at all!
Aaron Fried Very good article. Also, the reminder of Delta Halo in Halo 2 from the picture makes me very nostalgic.
Aaron Fried This was an issue when Ron Paul was up for the GOP nomination. No other candidate, be it Blue Donkey or Red Elephant, draws millenials like he does.
Aaron Fried What will Romney do differently?
Aaron Fried To clarify, I will be voting for Gary Johnson. But, given the "choice" between President Obama and Governor Romney, I can only shrug. There's no choice there.
Aaron Fried Looks like we've found a human polygraph, folks...
Aaron Fried How do you define poverty? I define it as persistent hunger, homelessness, lack of capital, etc. A static percentage-based "poverty line" on the bell curve of income is not the definition of poverty.
Aaron Fried http://www.southparkstudios.com/clips/412200/make-bullying-kill-itself ^ This is you
Aaron Fried Sure it is. Having a mental or physical defect, whether it is a hampering of the ability to think, speak, or walk, is certainly a medical condition. Whether you decide to call those things "retardations", "defects" (like I just did), or "special conditions", that doesn't change what they are. Denying that only builds the argument of the people that you are fighting, who would use someone's medical misfortune as an insult, when, in reality, it is neutral.
Aaron Fried The problem isn't the word "retard". If you replace it with "special", people will begin to use "special" the same way that they use "retard" - as an insult. Retarded and stupid are not synonyms. That's what most people fail to understand. If someone is born with a type of retardation, that means that a part of their development was prevented (duh). If someone is stupid, they are making poor and incorrect decisions consciously. Stupid is definitely an insult. A medical condition is not an insult, and it should not be used as one (whether you call it "retarded", "special", or "wablashabababa"). People may as well use "blond" or "tall" as an insult. Long story short, if you use "retard" in lieu of "stupid", you're probably stupid.
Aaron Fried People should be offended by these shoes because they look stupid. That's all.
Aaron Fried Hippocratic? Lol, I'm laughing too hard to even refute you. I'll have to come back to this later.
Aaron Fried "If you don't like 'Murica, you can git out!" Let's drop that silly line of argument. Taxes are not voluntary. They are coercive by nature - if you do not cooperate and fork over a check to the government, they take your property from you, and/or bring you to jail. If you don't cooperate with that, there are always guns to persuade you, or at the very least, end your objections once and for all. Make no mistake: The threat of force is, in principle, as coercive as actual physical force.
Aaron Fried The issue is that morally, (people, including the) government may not initiate force - it can certainly (at least in my view) use force in defense. So, if someone robs me, and there is sufficient evidence to warrant an arrest, the government is not committing an aggressive act by arresting the thief. As far as funding that government goes, most non-anarchist libertarians don't take as heavy an issue with any taxes that aren't the income tax, which is the moral equivalent of slavery.
Aaron Fried I don't see how taking from people who violated no one's rights to remunerate someone who had their rights violated is justice. If anything, you are creating more victims. If I steal from you, the role of the government is to punish me, and return to you what was stolen, at my expense. That, in my view, is proper justice.
Aaron Fried Morality is the concern of man's dealings with himself and other men. Given that the State represents every person's dealings with one another, morality certainly applies. It is entirely appropriate to make the judgment that taxation is morally equivalent to theft. Further, human rights are the notion that your life belongs to you. Whether you live in an anarchist or totalitarian society, you own yourself (in the natural sense). Any encroachment upon your self-ownership is a violation of rights.
Aaron Fried Correct, letting him die isn't right - but that is not a matter of Rights (capitalizing for differentiation). You object to letting that little kid die, because a human life is of value to you. Unfortunately, that value does not supersede the moral absolute of Rights, which are each man's claim to own himself and his actions. His flu does not grant him higher Rights than others, so he cannot rob them to pay for his medicine. That being said, everyone should kick in voluntarily to help the kid.
Aaron Fried Yes - morality by the standard of man's life on earth, not by the standard of some mystical right to arbitrary and subjective morality. To say that morality doesn't belong in discussions of government is silly. You use it when you advocate that people help one another. Now, the question becomes: Is it moral to steal from some to help others? I think not, because the right to property ought to be inviolable in a truly free society. That doesn't rule out charity - personally, I love charity.
Aaron Fried To paraphrase your argument: "It's been this way forever, and most people have always been okay with taxes!" Your claim is that because something is entrenched in social structure, it has value, must be correct, and ought not be changed. Would you apply the same logic to despotism, slavery, and the murder of innocents - which have all been entrenched in societies from the dawn of man to the modern day? Surely not. Also, spirituality (aka mysticism) is antithetical to reason.
Aaron Fried We agree on the non-right to murder, I think we're just phrasing it differently. Having a right means that it belongs to you and no human can take that away from you. If you lose your life due to nature, you are not due remediation from that force (if that were physically possible). Rights are protections against physical force and fraud from other humans. If you are incorrectly assess the facts of nature, you have not been defrauded. If you are killed by a disease, you have not been murdered.
Aaron Fried I'm very eager to see how the country reacts to hearing Ron Paul give a speech on national television. Most people have never heard him speak, and many of those who have heard him have only heard rapid-fire "debate" snippets. It's going to be one of the first real tests of the viability of the libertarian message on a national scale.