Subject:
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Re: Just Teasing, I Have No Intention of Debating Any of This...
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Mon, 24 Mar 2003 18:49:41 GMT
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Viewed:
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1119 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Christopher L. Weeks writes:
> What are the criteria used to determine if an analogy is adequate? No analogy
> will be perfect because it isn't the exact situation that is being discussed.
> It is a tool used to point out certain particular similarities that are
> important to the author/speaker.
Oh, come on. An analogy is inadequate if the salient characteristic
likened between the two subjects is fundamentally distinct, as in the case
of a slave who cannot leave the US and a citizen who can freely expatriate
(and renounce that same citizenship).
> > You've got to stop using the slaves as an example, because you're hurting
> > your argument. The slaves were forcibly removed from their homeland and
> > forcibly kept at work here as property. They had no opportunity to renounce
> > citizenship and leave the US, which an option that you have.
>
> So it's perfectly reasonable to hold a person to a contract that they didn't
> sign up for merely because they have the opportunity to leave the contract and
> take another more odious contract?
Well, let's try not to spin it. It is perfectly reasonable to hold a
person to a contract once that person has entered the contract, even if the
person entered the contract on the belief that no preferable contract
existed elsewhere. I don't like my apartment, for example, but I can't
afford a better one; am I therefore free to ignore the terms of my lease
contract simply because I don't like my other options? Is it the fault of
my landlord that I can't find anything better somewhere else?
> It's like there are three guys surrounding you with cattle prods. One of them
> want to jab you in the eyes, the other in the balls, and the other in the
> foot. And when you whine about the guy jabbing you in the eyes, I suggest
> moving toward one of the others. And when you complain about being coerced
> by a guy with a cattle prod, I point out that you _do_ afterall have
> choices. I mean, do you hear yourself Dave?
I appreciate your desire to keep this free of sensationalism.
In your ficticious example, certainly I wouldn't be thrilled to be zapped
anywhere. In the real world (remember?), you can renounce your citizenship,
buy a boat and live at sea in international waters, free of taxes or
US-granted amenities. Your analogy is again flawed because you are painting
every possibility as hideously objectionable, when that's not the case in
the real world.
For what it's worth, I'll take the zap in the foot, rather than the other
two options.
> > Furthermore, it is frankly offensive that you identify the minor
> > inconvenience of your tax burden with the systematic (and the privately
> > maintained, I hasten to add) enslavement, abuse, and dehumanization of
> > millions of human beings.
>
> I've detected over time that no matter what I write, you're offended, so I
> guess I'm having trouble getting too worked up over it.
As I recall, I was offended when you presumed to tell me that I was unfit
to sire children, and I am also offended that you presume to equate your
small tax liability with the organized enslavement of humans. Do I seem
unreasonable in either of these objections?
> But, while I do absolutely think that taking by force a part of someone's
> productive time is like -- in kind, if not degree -- taking all of someone's
> productive time, I do certainly acknowledge that there are differences between
> the legal status of those slaves and myself.
And now that you've qualified it, it's less offensive, but it's still
sensationalistic grandstanding. Slaves had no legal status as humans, and
that's where your analogy fails and ends. You are a citizen empowered to
leave the country to free yourself of tax liability to that country. But
the very fact that you are using a computer (developed through subsidies by
the Federal government) means that you are willingly maintaining your social
contract. Leave the contract, and forfeit the amenties you enjoy under that
contract, and you will be free of the enslavement of tax liability.
Dave!
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