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Taxes ARE Theft (but so what?)
One of the oft-made claims by self-styled Libertarians is that ‘taxes are theft’ (and are therefore ‘bad’). This kind of assertion underpins most of the Libertarian position, and also the bulk of any anti-tax/pro-small-government arguments by folks of any political stripe. Unfortunately, it’s rare to hear this position defended as the self-styled Libertarians don’t seem…
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Because Abortion needs to be explained, apparently.
I am irate. Look, I realise that I am in a position of privilege, and I realise that I’m not angry about this all the time because I’m male and that this is something that I have the privilege of simply not-concerning-myself-about for the vast bulk of my life. I rationalise this as that I…
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Ayn Rand, and Obscurantism
People often wonder at the success of Ayn Rand’s writings, at how otherwise intelligent people get sucked in to the Randian circle-jerk. I want to take some time to deconstruct one of her essays, on “Man’s Rights”, with two purposes in mind: 1) to demonstrate that her writing is not 100% vacuous crap, and 2)…
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A Framework for Social Justice
[This is, as the title says, a framework for social justice, not the only one. There is more than one way to go about framing social justice. This is just one of more effective ones, in my opinion. Also, I’m talking about ‘touching’ and ‘conventions’ here, so consider this a trigger warning, if relevant] Talking about social…
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Two philosophers walk into a bar…
This is primarily a response to commenters asking for my own opinion on the origin of the universe. If this is not your bag, I beg your patience, and suggest you skip on to Crommunist’s and Edwin’s most excellent discussions. This is written in two parts. First, I’m going to outline the general philosophical discussion…
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In Defence of Abused Fallacies
Y’know, if you don’t think that a horse is defined as such due to some innate form of ‘horseness’, then you should go read some Aristotle.* If you don’t think that Evolution has any basis in reality, then Darwin has some things to tell you. If you think that we can’t know anything at all…
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Science vs Philosophy
Recently, a number of people have opened their mouth to deride Philosophy. Notably, they tend to be people who are well-placed academics such as Krauss and Dawkins. Likewise, Atheistlogic has stuck their oar in too, though much more articulately. Atheistlogic spells out the general objection quite well, I think, so I’m going to focus on…
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The Essentials of our movement
DJ Grothe and his ambivalent stance regarding sexual harrassment. Dawkins and his ‘Dear Muslima’ letter. Penn and… well, frankly, everything. All of these freethinkers and atheists and skeptics taking a wrong turn here… They must be bad freethinkers and atheists and skeptics. Right…? [See links at the end of post for background info] I am…
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The Watchmaker Analogy: not an argument
The ‘watchmaker analogy‘ has been around for quite some time (about 209ish years by my count), and it was refuted shortly after it’s explication (in fact, Paley was refuted by Hume before Paley was born). Several folk have gone after it, in a variety of ways but the damned thing just keeps showing up. To be…
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Vaccines and the State
Here’s a report from Australia: “The Australian government has decided to deprive parents of their tax benefits if they do not immunise their children against diseases. Some families could lose over $2,000 per a child. And while the benefits of vaccination, for individual children, and for the population, far outweigh any risks, some parents question…
