❝❝Private property.

Take me for example. I pay for the domain name registration and the web hosting on my sites. I choose what I put there. I am no more required to give someone else access than I am required to let that someone else sell used cars off my patio or erect a Decalogue monument on my front lawn.

Having said that, if your company advertises and has built it's services on allowing people to speak or write their mind, it's hypocritical to allow one viewpoint without others provided no one advocates harming others, taking or destroying property, or breaking the law.

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Private property still applies.

They can't do it in my place and I can't do it in theirs.

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The road is a commons. The shopping mall isn't. The portals to the internet are provided by your ISP, not the social media.

Social media is something you choose to use. As the old saying goes, if you are not paying for the product, you are the product. Or at least your data and your access to the "cool sites" is.❞❞

Tags: private property ∙ domain registration ∙ web hosting ∙ choose ∙ speak or write their mind ∙ road ∙ commons ∙ shopping mall ∙ portals ∙ you are the product

❝❝Understand that I am still torn on the subject.

But not every pregnancy results in live birth, even without abortions. Not every pregnancy comes to term.

Under those circumstances, it's hard to call abortion murder or killing babies.

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I saw it. I also was treated to a film series in high school called Whatever Happened to the Human Race?

I come from a long line of farming stock. Death happens. It's not pretty. But it's a part of life.

Incidentally, the big reason why the US has a higher infant mortality rate than many other nations is because in other nations babies aren't always counted as "alive" until they've gotten through the first year or so.

There are a great many things that our country does that are not civilized. I'm pretty sure that if I were deciding what is and is not acceptable to society, there would be complaints. Public nudity wouldn't go over well. Neither would removing body parts from those who abuse children.

All that being said, if abortions were not government subsidized, I suspect there would be fewer. I think that is a more workable solution than banning abortions outright.

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Well, that depends. For the most part, yes.

But let's acknowledge that is an artificial distinction. For example, my mother, stepsibs, and I in accordance with my stepdad's wishes from years before decided not to extend his life. Those last couple of years, he was on a feeding tube and incapable of communicating. Years before that, he had lost the ability to understand what was going on around him.

So yes, it was a death from willful causes. But at that point, what kind of life was it?

On another board, I've had talks with people with terminal illnesses who were considering assisted suicide.There were also surviving family members of people who had done that. What kind of life was it? Would you want someone to live with pain and having their body fall apart?

This is not a clear issue. We should accept that if nothing else. People die. Babies die. How much do we mourn? How much do we blame?

There's no absolute here. We should stop pretending that there is.

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It is a distinction, but I am not convinced it has bearing. It's a while before a baby has awareness of self and even longer before the beginning of language.

I agree it's a fuzzy area and that there are many moral questions that can't be easily answered.

It gets even more complicated when considering the implications. If we accept the sense of self as the defining point of where killing is and is not ethical, what does that say about our companion animals? Or our food animals?

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I'm not trying to justify abortion. I'm saying it's not easy to justify outlawing abortion and it raises certain moral issues.

The sense of self is different from perception. Humans develop a sense of self as we mature. We can also lose that sense of self.

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Admittedly it is a fuzzy concept and psychologists argue over it. At it's most basic, it's a recognizing the distinction between "I" and "Other." It's a mental framework that probably arises from brain structure. It's the key to individuality.

As a libertarian, I don't give "society" an ethical justification to do squat. That includes ending lives and mandating clothes in public.

Here's the thing, if we do recognize rights, the only workable way is to make those rights individual rights. Not granted because of some label or gifted by government. You have rights because you are an individual and you share those rights with other individuals.

At that point, we're really defining "personhood" by individuality. That means you must be functionally an individual and accept that others are individual too.

Without individuality, we're hunks of flesh with automatic responses. With individuality,we can choose.❞❞

Tags: abortion ∙ individual ∙ choose ∙ Other ∙ rights ∙ terminal illness ∙ society ∙ justification ∙ infant mortality ∙ awareness of self

❝❝If you choose to do something, that's freedom. If you're compelled to do something, that's coercion.❞❞
     — NeoWayland

Tags: compel ∙ choose ∙ coercion ∙ freedom ∙ maxims

❝❝Let people choose and accept responsibility for those choices. It won't be perfect, but it will shed less blood.❞❞
     — NeoWayland

Tags: maxims ∙ choose ∙ responsibility

❝❝Free choice. Choose your beliefs, just don't choose mine. And I will do the same. Faith imposed is no faith at all. The only faiths and beliefs worthy of freedom are those freely chosen.❞❞
     — NeoWayland, United We Stand - Dragging religion into politics

Tags: maxims ∙ free choice ∙ choose ∙ faith ∙ freedom

❝❝Let's just say that I choose to perceive and acknowledge Deity in a different form than you do and leave it at that.❞❞
     — NeoWayland

Tags: maxims ∙ Diety ∙ choose

❝❝It's no secret that I believe that free market ideas apply to any human exchange.

Free to choose. It's not just for economics anymore.❞❞
     — NeoWayland

Tags: choice ∙ choose ∙ maxims

❝❝Government is reactive. What individuals choose is much more important than the credit that politicos claim. Lasting change only happens when enough people got angry enough to demand change.❞❞
     — NeoWayland

Tags: maxims ∙ government ∙ individual ∙ choose ∙ reactive ∙ change ∙ politicos ∙ claim ∙ angry

❝❝Individuals are free to be bigots. Just as they are free to be heroes.❞❞
     — NeoWayland

Tags: maxims ∙ individual ∙ bigotry ∙ hero ∙ choose

❝❝You demand bondage, I choose liberty.❞❞
     — NeoWayland

Tags: demand ∙ bondage ∙ choose ∙ maxims