Ray said:
"ipse dixit" <[email hidden]> wrote in message "]news:[email hidden]...
Quoted message said:Ray said:
When somebody posts on Christmas day, the word "Sad" comes to mind.
"Actually I think he is presently engaged in some secret work for the US Government. George W. is
growing a new form of virus in JBs underpants.
Top
Quoted message said:Secret - don't tell anyone." Camcompany Date: 2002-12-25 08:55:03
"Some may be critical of Christmas Day postings, but animal abuse and exploitation is a 365 day
operation and I see little reason for a break in the fight of evil. Ray." Camcompany Date: 2002-12-
25 08:36:
"Not a pleasant message for Christmas Day, but how many innocent children have starved to death
during a time when a majority of The Western World have been stuffing themselves with food?
Best wishes Ray" Camcompany Date: 2002-12-25 06:04:06
Nice one Derek,
Can't get out of that one can I? In fact I won't even try because you are right, 'Google' proves
your case.
It always does. Google shows a good deal about you and proves you are the dirty man of Usenet. You
lie, blackmail and goof around these animal related NG's as if they were nothing more than teen
chatrooms.
Quoted message said:Now, about those tablets you take, all tested on animals. Will you be equally truthfull and admit
that you are a hypocrite?
I'm not a hypocrite for taking meds, because I don't make the empty claim that I'm responsible for
the suffering caused by drug producers and testers. You seem to think you are, yet you continue to
cause these harms anyway, so you're the hypocrite rather than I.
History shows that I have always rejected moral responsibility for the farmer's collateral deaths
and for the suffering meted out to animals by the vivisectionist. While some here believe my reasons
are selfish in that I don't want to be thought of as a part of the problem for these animals,
especially being that I advocate rights for them, the very real reason for rejecting responsibility
for another's actions is that I believe accepting it makes one an enabler. In an essay on rejecting
responsibility, Russell Madden describes an enabler as, [In the social sciences, an "enabler" is a
person who inappropriately accepts responsibility for another's life and creates the conditions
allowing that other to continue in self-destructive actions without facing the full negative
consequences of such behavior.]
The essence of that corresponds with something I wrote here as "firstoftwins" over two years ago;
"My refusal to accept the blame for cd invigorates me to challenge the problem even more. If we all
acted like you and just accepted the blame without even thinking, nothing would ever get done, would
it? While you all walk around in self pity proclaiming, "we're all to blame, nothing can be done
about it", some of us are looking at it in a more realistic way and arguing that the farmer must do
more to minimise it." firstoftwins 2001-08-08
Madden's essay, showing why we should reject responsibility for the wrong actions of others, else we
become an enabler, demonstrates that I was on the right track even then. For those interested in
Madden's essay and why I believe it goes some way in explaining my own concepts on responsibility,
I've included parts of it here. It's a very well written and worth spending a few minutes over.
[Morally, we all should act responsibly. Also, morally, we all are responsible for our own
existences, whether we behave responsibly or not. Politically, however, the State should concern
itself only with the latter. When the government steps beyond the boundary of acknowledging the self-
responsibility of each individual and instead seeks to force its citizens to act responsibly, it is
itself behaving, well, irresponsibly.
As Nathaniel Branden once observed, no one plays the helplessness game on a desert island. Alone, a
person must either acknowledge and accept the reality of his self-responsibility or he must die.
Only in a social situation can a person pretend that his beliefs, his actions, his destiny can be
directed or caused by someone else. In the context of the present discussion, however, the essential
point to remember is that such evasion can succeed only to the extent that others accept and take on
that ignored responsibility.
As important as the recognition and acceptance of self- responsibility are morally, politically, the
failure to reject responsibility which is not theirs is the stone upon which all current "reformers"
must stumble. Only when people appropriately delimit what rightly belongs to their spheres of
personal responsibility -- and what does not -- will the "helpless" face the full consequences of
trying to avoid the requirements of reality. Only when the national political debate takes into
account the problems arising from well- intentioned meddling will actual reform occur. Only when
each of us realizes precisely what personal responsibility entails -- and where it ends -- will true
freedom be established in this country.
Adults must be able to act in ways that are objectively foolish, silly, or harmful as long as they
respect the rights of others. As much as a person may cringe to witness the self-destructive
behavior of others, he must respect the moral autonomy of those people and not impose his own
standards upon them. What is permissible or even desirable between parents and their children must
be rejected when dealing with those who are not family members. Contrary to the wishes and words of
so many in this country today, we are not all "part of one big family, " we are not our "brothers'
keepers," we are not "children" subject to the dictates and punishing hand of a governmental
"parent" who must ascertain and obtain what is in our best interest. Those and similar communitarian
metaphors are fundamentally flawed.
In the social sciences, an "enabler" is a person who inappropriately accepts responsibility for
another's life and creates the conditions allowing that other to continue in self-destructive
actions without facing the full negative consequences of such behavior. On every level, the State is
the biggest enabler of all time. Government "over-functions" when it makes it easier for people to
abrogate their obligations, to slide along while others pay the price for their mistakes. If it is
important within a family to allow children to fail at times and to suffer the results of their
mistakes, it becomes crucial in a civilized and free society.
Any number of reasons may explain the desire of some individuals to direct others' lives. For some,
"pragmatic" considerations of maintaining power, position, or prestige demand that a substantial
number of citizens not accept personal responsibility. If no such group of "helpless" or "misguided"
souls existed, no justification could be offered for most bureaucrats' jobs. Not only their perks
but their livelihoods would disappear. Others who champion the State may require a pool of people to
"help" in order to feel superior or to feel good about themselves.
Yet even more dangerous than the "pragmatists" are those who seek to manage the lives of the
unfortunate or incompetent or lazy because of "moral" considerations. The pragmatists might be
convinced to abandon their positions if they could be shown other avenues offering better prospects.
The moralists, however, will stick to their course no matter how much destruction their activities
create. Though both groups depend on suffering and the prolonging of pain for their raison d'etre,
those who hold selfless service to others as their moral imperative have more to fear from a society
in which the guiding political principle is rejection of inappropriate responsibility. The altruist
descendants of Comte or Kant would find moral behavior impossible in a culture in which every person
refused to violate the moral autonomy of any other individual. When a purported moral system leads
to such a self-contradiction, it must be in error.
Acceptance of this very error, however, still permeates the political landscape of the world.
Refusal to reject responsibility for the mistakes and misfortunes of other people sends our troops
to hopeless hotspots around the globe. It creates and perpetuates the modern welfare state. It
subverts our system of justice and gives rise to a criminal class unprecedented in this century. It
demeans the dignity of not only those who evade the mantle of their personal responsibility but also
the dignity of those who stoop to pick it up.
In Atlas Shrugged, John Galt's credo echoed across the pages: "I swear -- by my life and my love for
it -- that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine. "
Here Ayn Rand encapsulated the idea that not only must each person accept ultimate responsibility
for himself but must refuse to accept responsibility for the life of any other individual in the
deepest metaphysical sense of the term.
Knowing when to reject responsibility is a skill most people have yet to learn. Until that lesson is
well mastered, the painful consequences flowing from the actions of the well-intentioned do-gooders
of the world will continue to lead us down that rocky road to hell.
home.earthlink.netRejecting Responsibility.htmlOpen ↗
You, like everyone else who inappropriately accepts responsibility for vivisectionists and farmers,
enable them to continue. You're an enabler.
