Posted by
cavalier973 on Sunday, May 04, 2008 11:08:45 AM
I recently got into a scuffle with a social libertarian over the game "Grand Theft Auto 4".
Here's my first salvo:
is a game called "KKK Hero", where you play a character who routinely assaults, lynches, murders and otherwise harrasses black people, Jews, etc., all the while taking orders from the "Grand Wizard" to take out a rival group, then I can count on all you GTA proponents to say "it's just a game", right?
You don't seem to believe the power of thought. If I think about something enough, like making cookies, eventually I'm going to do it. I would never have considered the possibility of pulling someone out of their car and running them over with it until I played this game (GTA Vice City was the one I played. My brothers loved it and tried desperately to get me into it. I thought it was boring, actually.) |
At some point, some other poster (named American Mom) mentioned that laws against murder are a form of legislating morality.
One Vindex responded thus:
"A society deems murder immoral, so it makes laws against murder."
It doesn't have ANYTHING to do with morality. Murder is an infringement on a persons pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness. No "moral code" needed. Just another BS justification for liberal and fascist policies from the self-described 'socons' who love to pray publically and loudly so other men can see them and be impressed and love to wear religion on their brown-shirt sleeves.
"I would not want to relinquish all of my decision-making to government, particularly since no government ever completely had the good of the little people as its highest priority."
Of course you don't. You only want them to restrict the freedom of everyone else. You don't want them to touch YOUR vices, but have no problem with them cracking the skulls of those YOU determine to be 'filthy' according to your own subjective 'moral code.' |
I asked him a question:
You write: "It doesn't have ANYTHING to do with morality. Murder is an infringement on a persons pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness."
What standard do you use to say it is wrong to infringe on a person's life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness?
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Vindex returned:
"What standard do you use to say it is wrong to infringe on a person's life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness?"
The constitution of the U.S. and the declaration of independence.
You?
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Some of you people are so irrational, it drives me insane. About as insane as I get trying to talk to liberals. Just another example of how you socons are BARELY ideologically removed.
American Mom, I am not even going to engage you any further in discussion. You are apparently mentally and intellectually handicapped and your self-boasting righteousness is EXACTLY that which I referred to when I said people that "pray loudly and publicly." Go look it up in your bible. Jesus warned us about those people.
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And here is my full response to this inanity:
You say that laws against murder is not legislating morality. You say that laws against murder are there because it's wrong to infringe on a person's life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness.
Now you say that the basis for murder being a violation of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness is "the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution." Is that the only basis? Because if it is, what did people do before these documents were written? What about people not living in the U.S.A.? Any law against violating someone else's "rights" is by definition a legislation of morality.
And, by the way, you imply that a person has a right to play mature video games; what about our right to live in a society that does not have these games? Which right is more important?
I have not advocated any banning of anything, video game or otherwise, by the way (although it's getting closer to the point where I will be writing my congressman urging him to "ban it now"); I am addressing this philosophy summed up in the phrase "it's only a game." I'm asking if there is a line drawn somewhere for libertarian philosophy. Is there any game, in your wildest imagination, that should not be produced or played? If there is, then we are really arguing over where that line should be. If there is no game concept that a libertarian finds so offensive that he would want to ban it, then I really don't have any confidence at all in his ability to think clearly about morality and social policy.
The unfettered ability to do whatever you like is not the same as liberty. If you have no self-control then you are as much a slave as any unfortunate prole in a communist tyranny. What's more, if you have no self-control, the Government eventually catches on and provides control for you. It doesn't matter if the government is a theocracy or an atheistic communist government.
In my mind, you social libertarians who are calling for the absolute abolition of "government control over our lives" are, in a roundabout way, the ones who most guarantee its existence.