Child Neglect

I was recently called a statist for making an off the cuff remark. I believe this person a troll however it made me think about the topic. Let me provide some background and then my thoughts on it.

Over the weekend we enjoyed kayaking down the Thornapple as a family. Beautiful day. We eventually came upon swarms of those who had taken to tubes. Many of them were drunk (by many I mean it was all we could do to paddle around the masses of people who had tied their tubes together with twine.) It wasn’t long before we were constantly hit by the pungent smell of weed. It was constant. Many of these people were stoned and drunk.

I believe if you want to do this - fine. However, many of them had children. In my opinion they moved into an area where they should be charged with neglect.

Comments?

OK - so I'm not floating around in left field (hehe.)

It seems these individuals (who I suspect range in age from 18-25) are likely single, have no children and believe being a Libertarian means one gets to do whatever one feels like.  Down with statism in ALL it's forms - which to me sounds a lot like anarchy and not Libertarianism. I want to naively believe there is a bit more common sense among this group of people.  My mistake!

It will take a lot of hard work, including both study and analysis, to pin down what, exactly, should be required of parents, whether there should be any relativism relating to culture, economic wherewithal, or other considerations, and if so, how much.  For example, there are some cultures that practice "female circumcision", which I think would be more aptly named "female castration".  I vaguely remember an issue of someone from such a culture who had come to the U.S. and still performed the procedure, or wanted to.   I don't think that should be permitted because of the serious permanent harm it does to the victim.

Doug Morris,

Re: arbitrary:  Take vaccines for example.  An injection of human/other organism proteins & micro materials, with some viral materials, and ALUMINUM... into a human's muscle cells.  Do you think the human immune system is smart enough to figure out which things in that mix it should attack, vs which ones it should leave alone?

How well do vaccines actually work?  After a vaccine, for how long is a person immunized?  What kind of autoimmune diseases are caused by the injection of aluminum into human muscle tissue?

Do vaccines do more harm than help, given today's medical technology and high nutrition/health standards?  Do healthy people really die from these viral/bacterial infections that are being given... when their argument is these viruses killed people back during severe depressions and wars (with malnutrition and untreated injuries)?

You would think that science could answer these questions...  maybe it could... if there were Trustworthy studies performed.  But if you don't do an aluminum vaccine vs placebo water injection study yourself... it is just hearsay.  Who funds the "science" vaccine studies today?  Hearsay.  Arbitrary, based on who you believe more, me, who says "its really bad to inject aluminum into your body and play autoimmune lottery and are likely not even effective nor necessary", or the monopolistic gov/med/science industry, who says "vaccines are safe and protect you".

I might suggest making a law that says "No injection of strange foreign/toxic materials into the incompotent human body, even for immunological purposes.  One must be an adult to consent to such injections to their own body."  Others might suggest making a law "You must inject your incompetent with X toxic materials for immunological purposes."

Cheers,

Dean

Here is a definition of arbitrary copied from the Ayn Rand lexicon.

“Arbitrary” means a claim put forth in the absence of evidence of any sort, perceptual or conceptual; its basis is neither direct observation nor any kind of theoretical argument. [An arbitrary idea is] a sheer assertion with no attempt to validate it or connect it to reality.

If a man asserts such an idea, whether he does so by error or ignorance or corruption, his idea is thereby epistemologically invalidated. It has no relation to reality or to human cognition.

Modern definitions of "arbitrary" are a corruption of the words original meaning.  When I say arbitrary, I mean a threshold (or value judgement) is selected based on reason and evidence for a goal's attainment.  It doesn't matter how many people are involved or share the goal.  You say "government", which is a group, maybe the subjects of the government are in agreement with those in voting majority/minority power, maybe not.  A thing is arbitrary, specifically, because people have different goals, not because of differences in evidence availability or deductive work.  Although in reality, differences in information/evidence availability, deducted/accepted premises, and conclusions, can also result in different conclusions...  I specifically call something as arbitrary because differing thresholds/policies result from differing goals/preferences.

If we had the same goal, evidence, and went through the same reasoning process then we would agree on a threshold (or value judgement) (come to the same arbitrary conclusions).

It is a issue in Objectivist factions imo that the members think they all have the same goal.  To live man qua man right?  We all share the same ideal of what a man should be, right?

Value judgements are easier in a free market, most things can be estimated in value.  Thresholds on the other hand, for things like negligence, abuse, are determined by subjective _goals_/culture.  Over evolutionary scales, and through mental development in short term, do we want to nurture people to become fragile pansy men or reliable ballsy men?

Is it neglect to not take your retard premature baby to the hospital for $10 million in hospital bills for it to live on machines until all of its core failing organs can be fixed/replaced with health ones, so that it can live for the rest of its life spoon fed in a wheel chair with diapers?  Insurance companies, hospitals, and doctors would be financially motivated to say yes.

Cheers,

Dean

Culture is not deterministic.  We can use reason to rise above it, and should do so where appropriate.

Different people may have different goals and preferences, but this is not relevant to the question of what obligations parents accept by choosing to have children.