If you had a time machine would you go back in time and kill baby Hittler?

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CanHasPants wrote:

Oh? Is man’s capacity to externalize his will—to include eradicating evil—not a self evident truth? I’m not sure how to interpret this without concluding a position that either contradicts or is ignorant of nature.

Your "capacity" is what you are technically able to accomplish within the rules of nature and your "rights" are what you are allowed to accomplish within the judicial and ethical rules of the society in with you live.

IIPheXII was talking about "rights" and simply put, it's just not a human right to go ahead and set the world on fire just because you believe something.

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

(To the Democratic Socialists of America, may I suggest emigrating to Venezuela?)

Personally I'd recommend giving one of the nordic countries a spin but that's just me.

“Rights” are not granted by societies or their governments or other organizations, but are either recognized or not. Regardless of whether they are recognized, they are conferred by a higher power. Christians call that higher power God; simply “nature” will suffice.

“Capacity” is one’s means to externalize their will. One of the most fundamental reasons to organize into societies is to mobilize a response against bad actors and protect that society’s interests. This in itself fulfills my definition of capacity; in this way, a society’s capacity and a bad actor’s capacity are competing forces. Capacity is not prevented by law or its enforcement, but remedied.

The existence of laws or political philosophies does not preclude another’s capacity to inflict their will upon the world—to include “setting it on fire”.

just adopt him

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CanHasPants wrote:

“Rights” are not granted by societies or their governments or other organizations, but are either recognized or not. Regardless of whether they are recognized, they are conferred by a higher power. Christians call that higher power God; simply “nature” will suffice.

"Where do rights come from?" is not the same as "what are rights?" But the answer to the latter informs the former.

I hinted at the definition of "rights" in the previous post: a right implies a duty, or at least moral permission, to protect others, especially strangers or even enemies, from force that would compel the to abstain from whichever behavior(s) it is they have a right to. However, by "protect" in this context we mean the use of force to compel abstinence from a second set of behaviors — because the original set of behaviors, or "rights," should not be infringed, the second set of behaviors that infringe upon them should be infringed — and furthermore, infringed consistently.

Any prohibitions enforced by physical force or the credible threat thereof is a law, and any entity that creates such prohibitions, searches for violators, and carries out such threats is a government. Although laws are by their nature prohibitive and therefore inherently negative, in their infringement of certain behaviors they can be seen as indirectly protecting other behaviors from infringement, both by intent and by accident. Thus, the proper definition of a right: a behavior that a political system should protect by law.

One or more rights are the only valid justification for one or more laws. Thus, it should be no surprise that the authoritarian believes in a great many rights to include ones invented at the slightest provocation, while an "anarchocapitalist" (who is not a proper anarchist so much as a believer in the individual exercise of sovereignty) prefers to recognize only a small number of rights, to which no more shall be added in the future, such that even a one-man government can and could feasibly see to their protection.

Yet because we don't tend to think of individual rights so much as a justification for law so much as we uncritically accept the "right" of the majority to tyranny — that is, according to the rules of democracy — even good-natured folks too easily find themselves in the mental trap of laws that please the greatest number, floating without conscious justification, rather than laws justified by proper rights. If you were true to the concept of natural rights as you describe them, you'd be much more of a radical ancap.

I, on the other hand, don't see rights as granted by a higher power. I'm a prosperity centrist — one can tell which rights are worth protecting using the scientific method and empirical measurement of prosperity (or lack thereof). As Bill Clinton said, it's the economy, stupid.

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CanHasPants wrote:

“Capacity” is one’s means to externalize their will. One of the most fundamental reasons to organize into societies is to mobilize a response against bad actors and protect that society’s interests. This in itself fulfills my definition of capacity; in this way, a society’s capacity and a bad actor’s capacity are competing forces. Capacity is not prevented by law or its enforcement, but remedied.

The existence of laws or political philosophies does not preclude another’s capacity to inflict their will upon the world—to include “setting it on fire”.

Fighting is not productive. The credible threat of force is far more cost-effective as a deterrent than actually having to follow through with that threat. Any government that actively seeks out combat with "bad actors" will quickly find that the costs of enforcement outweigh the benefits, its "capacity" depleted, and its people vulnerable. Ultimately, it's not about dueling capacities, so much as a size comparison that acts as a tool to persuade the likely loser out of a physical conflict.

There aren't enough resources to persuade every form of "bad actor" in this way and simultaneously grow the economy. It behooves one to be selective.

Nnaahhh, stop bothering about this nonsense about travelling back in time to kill Hitler.
Travel forward to Spring/Summer of ´20 and stop the beginning of the Nuclear War that will eradicate Millions of lives.

No need to bother about Hitler anymore.

No his kung fu is too powerful.

Except it totally is based on a preexisting franchise. I'm pretty sure we just read the plot of Kung Fury 2.

While the strip definitly predates Kung Fury 1, none of that matter because I just learned that Kung Fury 2 is a thing and I need to go watch it.