From 0c072e7b1a834b069621b7fed7d951b6108e80ed Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: wellspringcp <69349872+wellspringcp@users.noreply.github.com> Date: Sat, 20 Mar 2021 23:04:07 +1100 Subject: [PATCH] Update 01-01-principles-apologia.md --- 01-principles/01-01-principles-apologia.md | 4 ++-- 1 file changed, 2 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-) diff --git a/01-principles/01-01-principles-apologia.md b/01-principles/01-01-principles-apologia.md index f8c8b19..b04d59f 100644 --- a/01-principles/01-01-principles-apologia.md +++ b/01-principles/01-01-principles-apologia.md @@ -17,11 +17,11 @@ To be even more cautious, we have decided to explicitly address each of the repu - An individual possessing such a rational faculty loses its rights only upon committing an act which violates the private property sovereignty of another such individual possessing the like rational faculty, and the infringing individual becomes subject to the jurisdiction of its victim only as far as is required to enable recovery for damages and the additional enforcement of a penalty to disincentivize repeat offenses. - The European settlers had full rights to homestead and to proceed according to the principles of capture law. They did not have the right to displace Native Americans from their own homesteaded settlements. - The European settlers had full rights to defend their own homesteaded settlements and to expand into unsettled areas which had not been homesteaded (by the Native Americans). The nascent American colonies would have best represented individualist ideals by carefully registering the title to the Native Americans in the areas where they observed the Native Americans to have settled and firmly protecting their (the Europeans') own settlements. - - We also disavow her views on the Israeli-Arab conflict; specifically, we disavow this statement which she gave at the same segment at West Point, New York in 1974: "I am incidentally in favour of Israel against the Arabs for the very same reasons [as those she gave for being in favour of the European settlers in America].", and we disavow them for the very same reasons as those we gave above. + - We also disavow her views on the Israeli-Arab conflict; specifically, we disavow this statement which she gave at the same segment at West Point, New York in 1974: "*...I am incidentally in favour of Israel against the Arabs for the very same reasons [as those she gave for being in favour of the European settlers in America].*", and we disavow them for the very same reasons as those we gave above. - However, this disavowal is not to be construed as a bias against the Israeli side or for the Arab side. This disavowal amounts to a disavowal of the reasoning Ayn Rand used when she stated her disapproval of the idea that the Native Americans had a claim to private property rights. We have explained that rights are derived from the Identity and properties (specifically the rational faculty) of the species, and that the cognitive content of an individual member of such a species' mind does not unfit that individual from securely possessing its rights. - The `WS` view on the Israeli-Arab situation is that we do not have an interest in the conflicts of foreign polities and they are merely, to us, two polities with their own dispute to resolve on their own. `WS` is an isolationist constitution, and unless a polity in the Israeli-Arab conflict triggers a condition in the `SovWI` law, we have nothing to say about them, whether good or bad; and should their actions trigger a response according to `SovWI` law, then whatever we may be forced to say about them, whether good or bad, will be based solely on their relationship to `WS` itself and on the interests of the residents of `WS`, and will have nothing to do with their past or present actions in the Israeli-Arab conflict. In short, **we take no position** on other peoples' conflicts. - Leonard Peikoff: - - We disavow the view that in war, the civilian populace of an enemy nation is in effect, fair game and acceptable collateral damage. We specifically disavow this statement he made in an interview on with Bill O'Reilly: "I'm absolutely not concerned with innocents -- people in the enemy territory. If they get killed that is the responsibility of their government for initiating aggression against us [The USA]. In any war when you fight the enemy, you have to take anyone in that territory and regard him as part of the enemy, otherwise you can't defend yourself. If you're concerned with the innocents in those countries you are pulling your punches and thereby jeopardizing the innocents in our countries. It's either or: if you believe in self defense you fight it to the full.". And we disavow it for these reasons: + - We disavow the view that in war, the civilian populace of an enemy nation is in effect, fair game and acceptable collateral damage. We specifically disavow this statement he made in an interview on with Bill O'Reilly: "*I'm absolutely not concerned with innocents -- people in the enemy territory. If they get killed that is the responsibility of their government for initiating aggression against us [The USA]. In any war when you fight the enemy, you have to take anyone in that territory and regard him as part of the enemy, otherwise you can't defend yourself. If you're concerned with the innocents in those countries you are pulling your punches and thereby jeopardizing the innocents in our countries. It's either or: if you believe in self defense you fight it to the full.*". And we disavow it for these reasons: - Information, foresight and capabilities impose ethical obligations on an actor. - A nation with the enhanced capabilities and technology to **feasibly** achieve its self-defense while limiting civilian casualties has an ethical obligation to employ those technologies in the manner which does in fact, limit those civilian casualties which its capabilities enable it to limit. - Ayn Rand and Peikoff themselves use this very same reasoning when pointing out that humankind's morality consists of humans living **as humans** (i.e, rational creatures) with a holistic view of the human identity -- that a human has two hands to labour and fight with; but a human also has a rational faculty which enables him/her to observe and scientifically learn about the world, and to use that knowledge to produce with his/her hands instead of using violence, and to trade the produce of their labour with others instead of predating on others -- that a human is a being with **both** two hands **and** a mind. The enhanced capabilities granted by the mind bind the human with new moral and ethical obligations. With increased capability comes increased ethical obligation.