Categories
Moral Agency

Stop smoking!

The EU has banned smoking altogether.

I’m not a fan of the policy. Who would enFORCE it? While that is superficially a good idea—I agree that smoking is bad—such a policy abrogates agency. I can just hear some politician say: “I will save EVERYONE from smoking. And surely I will do it, therefore give ME the glory.” Sounds good, right? Lots of people have followed that path, because it is VERY attractive. Tale (literally) as old as time…

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not enamored with smoking. At all. But I AM a fan of moral agency…

And how punitive are YOU willing to get? More restricted areas? Fines? Jail time? Death penalty? Yeah, it didn’t work with prohibition (which led to gangs and bootlegging and rampant human misery). It also won’t work here. Mark my words, there will be a HUGE black market for cigarettes in the UK!

Alternative: My idea is that you don’t behave in a way that impinges on others—whether it is smoking or bank robbery. But now we are NOT talking about external rules, we are talking about personal morality.

In short, what works in such situations is CONVERSION, a way-of-being. Not force and coercion. But when there is actual moral agency, there will ALWAYS be people who choose poorly. Even the very elect can make a wrong choice…

Categories
Lefty Violence Moral Agency Political philosophy

Understand well.

The Left is congenitally violent.

That violence is not a “bug” of Leftism, it is the beating heart of Leftism itself! There simply is no Leftism without at least threatened violence. And often it is not just threatened…

Yes, the Left are (obviously) the theoretical heirs of National Socialism, and the violence and force and intimidation of the Gestapo is quite naturally inherent in Leftism.

Those who are Conservative, OTOH, value freedom and moral agency. Taken to an extreme, it is Libertarian in nature. Conservatives value persuasion and conversion, while Leftists hang their hat on coercion and the lack of moral agency.

Indeed, the lack of moral agency is the defining characteristic of Leftism. Leftism is, at base, a distorted, deformed, evil parody of moral agency.

Categories
Lefty Political Philosophy Moral Agency

Have you not

understood that for the Left, it is always and only about power?

That’s why VIOLENCE and FORCE are logically necessary parts of Leftism!

It is ALL about force and lack of moral agency! The battle has always been about moral agency. Leftism is just the latest variation on that theme. As always, it is wrapped in a patina of fairies and unicorns and good intentions so as to fool people and Judo-like,”flip” good intentions into evil actions.

Understand well that even the very smart are fooled. YOU are not too smart to be taken in, here!

Categories
Lefty Political Philosophy Moral Agency

Don’t be fooled.

The Left is dangerous. If you become a thorn in their side, they will actively seek to destroy you. Violence and force is indeed the dark side of Leftism, and the reason there have been so many violent and oppressive Lefty regimes is that such violence is intrinsic to Leftism itself!

There simply IS no Leftism without force and violence.

It is the embodiment of “We will force you to do what (we think) is right–and you WILL be grateful.”

But moral agency is the key to moral progress. As Tolkien clearly saw and wrote about:

And now at last it comes. You will give me the Ring freely! In place of the Dark Lord you will set up a Queen. And I shall not be dark, but beautiful and terrible as the Morning and the Night! Fair as the Sea and the Sun and the Snow upon the Mountain! Dreadful as the Storm and the Lightning! Stronger than the foundations of the earth. All shall love me and despair!’

She lifted up her hand and from the ring that she wore there issued a great light that illuminated her alone and left all else dark. She stood before Frodo seeming now tall beyond measurement, and beautiful beyond enduring, terrible and worshipful. Then she let her hand fall, and the light faded, and suddenly she laughed again, and lo! she was shrunken: a slender elf-woman, clad in simple white, whose gentle voice was soft and sad.

‘I pass the test,’ she said. ‘I will diminish, and go into the West and remain Galadriel.’

Now Lefties, will YOU pass the test?

Categories
Freedom Moral Agency

THIS is

the bitter fruit of Leftism!

Categories
Despotism Force Moral Agency

I guess I have to

say it again: Folks in rural western Oregon are very different from the unhinged Lefty freaks in Portland and Salem! And naturally, these people don’t want to be associated with those unhinged Lefty freaks in Portland and Salem. And that is why they want to join Idaho, which is far more sane.

The people in eastern Oregon are generally patriotic and sane, and they’re tired of being subjected to the misrule of the far-Left kleptocrats in Salem, who care about them only as a cash cow to fund their socialist pipe dreams. Accordingly, some have formed the Greater Idaho movement, which actually hopes to detach Oregon’s rural eastern counties from the state and attach them to Idaho. This movement, as fanciful as it seems, is gathering steam, and that has Democrats enraged. Whatever else it may be, their rage is revealing.

So Lefties are angry that these people want to escape and flee. Heard this before?: Think Cuba, East Germany, and the USSR… ALL states that tried (with guns) to prevent people from leaving! THAT is actually a defining characteristic of Leftism itself. Ask anyone who had to live behind the Iron Curtain!

And having once been forced to drink from that bitter cup of Leftism, they are not eager to again stain their lips…

it underscores the historical fact that Leftists can only maintain their rule by force. People who have never lived in a socialist state often long to live in one (just look at Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez), but those who have actually suffered under socialist rule know better.

And it’s not just Oregon!

This isn’t new, I wrote about it in my paper on state secession, but these state secession movements are getting stronger. Eastern California, Oregon, and Washington, southern Illinois, upstate New York, etc. They want to get away from the woke metro areas before they’re dragged down.

And THAT is why pseudo-socialist states like Oregon are bound and determined to never let them leave, if they possibly can. No, these states can’t just say, “You go your way and I’ll go mine.” Their philosophical bedrock is force, not moral agency!

Categories
Moral Agency

Yeah, well we

ALL have to choose what we will do, right? And I’m totally OK with people making their own choices. And that doesn’t make me an anti-vaxxer. I just think that people can choose. I guess that makes me a radical…

Go ahead. You be you. And I will be me. But don’t try and force ME to make choices YOU approve of. And I have no intention (or desire) to force YOU to do what I think.

Categories
Moral Agency Political philosophy

The TRUTH is

that free speech has become a Right-Wing value.

Little is more obvious than the fact that Leftism is all about squelching opinions you don’t like and forcing people to do what you want, while Conservatism is all about free speech and moral agency. Look at Twitter now, for Pete’s sake!

If you don’t support the right to speak of those with whom you disagree, you are not really for free speech! You are just a wannabe despot. Own it!

Now Conservatives own sex, drugs, rock-n-roll, and Johnny Rotten…

Categories
Moral Agency

Meat-sack morality

Most modern explanations posit that people are mere biological machines–complex ones, for sure, but mere machines nonetheless. ALL behavior is to be explained by Platonic Material and Efficient causes, and not at all by Final causes.

You “love” your spouse? It is mere cause-and-effect, how machines work. The subjective feeling of “love” is an illusion, a mere ignis fatuus.

Unless you actually chose, the action has no more (actually less) life meaning than a hammer striking a nail. In other words, no real morality and meaning as we generally think of it. There is only the necessary, and choosing is pure fantasy. Without true moral agency, there IS no existence as a moral agent–there is only reflexive and metaphysically necessary reflex action.

In short, without moral agency there is ONLY “meat-sack morality.” You act in ways that are pre-determined, just as any meat-sack would! THAT is the logically necessary end of a philosophy of biological reductionism.

And “complexity” in no way solves the problem–this is a foundational problem! Complex machines are no more intrinsically agentive than simple ones.

Categories
Moral Agency Political philosophy

Yes, that is

true: Lefties have a freakin’ COW over vigilanteism, but have no problem at all with armed and violent Lefty protests with rioting and looting. Gee, I wonder why that is?

Actually, I DON’T wonder…

I think the reason why Lefties freaked out about Kyle Rittenhouse obviously acting in self-defense is that it showed in plain relief the scummy underbelly of the Left. They want YOU to be defenseless and for THEM to have all means of inflicting harm.

THAT violence is indeed part and parcel with ALL Leftism! The violence is NOT an unfortunate and irrelevant part of Leftism. It is the beating heart of Leftism itself.

Leftism depends on force and coercion in a way that Conservatism does not.

Yeah, if you ask me to in two words say why I am Conservative, here they are: “Moral Agency.”