Here is some food for thought:
What do you think?
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The most lucid examination of the gun control issue to date
March 1, 2013 — xanthippaC0nc0rdance is a scientist who often appears on The Magic Sandwich Show, which I sometimes watch. And while I do not agree with all the views expressed on that show, I do like the level and manner at which the discussion occurs.
So, when C0nc0rdance put out a video on the topic of the 2nd Amendment and the whole gun control issue, I expected a well thought out, well supported position.
Having heard C0nc0rdance’s views on individual vs. collective rights, I also expected that his conclusion will not be the same as mine.
I was not disappointed – on either count.
I was, however, surprised how long into the video I agreed with each and every word he said. His conclusion and mine hinge on one very important distinction in how we perceive ‘rights’….
It is my core belief that the only way for a society to function is to recognize the inalienable rights of each and every individual within that society. The very concept of ‘collective rights’ is anathema to our civilization, where all rights derive from the individual. It is therefore not possible for any group to have different rights than those the individuals within that group have….because if it did, then those individuals within these privileged groups would have greater rights than other individuals in society and we would no longer have equality before the law.
In other words, in order to ensure that each citizen is treated equally by the courts and the law, we are limited to only legally recognizing individual rights. This makes any argument based on ‘group rights’ invalid.
Despite this insurmountable difference of opinion in individual vs. collective rights which makes C0nc0rdance arrive at a different conclusion than I, I think his argument is very good and well worth listening to.
Reality Check: VP Biden, “No law abiding citizens fears 2nd amendment infringement”
March 1, 2013 — xanthippa
The Reference Frame: EU bureaucrats’ new strategy to close Czech nuclear power plant
October 3, 2012 — xanthippaThis really should not surprise me, but the EU bureaucracy is rising to new ‘Randian’ heights!
Here is the short version of the story: the Czech republic is good at producing electicity. In addition to hydro dams and other sources, it has invested heavily into nuclear power plants – over many decades, so that 1/3 to 1/2 of their electricity comes from nuclear power plants. The Czech energy policy has been so successful that now, green-invested Germany buys much of its electricity from the Czechs.
While some of the Czech nuclear power plants are brand-spanking new, some are older and pre-date Czech’s entry into the EU. These older plants use uranium fuel enriched in Russia.
So far, so good.
Then, Czrch became a member of EU.
Still OK.
Except that now, the EU bureaucrats came and told the Czechs they will have to shut down the power plant(s) that use Russian enriched uranium, because there is a pre-existing EU regulation that only EU enriched uranium may be used in EU nuclear power plants…
From TheReferenceFrame (note: Temelin and Duchovany are Czech nuclear power plants):
‘Temelín – with its combined Russian-American design – was opened after the fall of communism, in 2002 (although the construction began in 1981), and it was a frequent target of attacks by the Austrian Luddite activists. However, Dukovany (constructed started 1974, opened in 1985-1987) which has apparently invited almost no opposition just came under a vicious assault by the EU bureaucrats.
…
We are learning that the Europeans are not allowed to buy uranium enriched outside of the EU due to some strange paragraph agreed upon at the 1994 EU Corfu Summit (island in Greece). Holy cow. How many shocking ghosts of this magnitude does the EU have? We weren’t members of the EU at that time and the citizens who were deciding about our EU membership in a referendum were not told that “Yes” could mean that some stunning assholes could get a weapon to close our nuclear power plants because of some silly sentence okayed by some drunk and corrupt jerks at an island belonging to a country that shouldn’t have been in the EU at all. If this information were the case, I would consider the referendum to be fraudulent.’
UN has plans to ‘regulate’ the internet…
June 5, 2012 — xanthippaThis is more than UN’s Agenda 21 which seeks to gain control over parts of nation states through bypassing their legitimate governments (and which Alabama had just banned within its borders), it is an attempt to re-shape the internet to the liking of Russia, China, Saudi Arabia and Iran!
‘ISOC’s Sally Wentworth, senior manager of public policy for the group, warned that the proposals to be considered are not “compatible” with the current open manner in which the Internet is managed.
Vint Cerf, Google’s chief Internet evangelist, co-creator of the TCP/IP protocol, and former chairman of ICANN, said the ITU meeting could lead to “top-down control dictated by governments” that could impact free expression, security, and other important issues..
“The open Internet has never been at a higher risk than it is now,” Cerf said.’
In my never-humble-opinion, it is time to dissolve that toxic tumour upon our society also known as the United Nations!
