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Correct. But Allegory did argue that by giving it to someone else, you gave them the same amount of liberty you took away. Presumably, this position is intended to support the idea that the net effect on liberty is zero, so we haven't done any "harm" to society as a whole and can judge the action on purely utilitarian points.


My argument is that it's valid to judge the action in a utilitarian way, but we must count the net liberty effect as negative. The act of taking infringes liberty. The act of giving does not give liberty. We have to take that into account when considering this sort of thing.



It's a "twisting" when the weight of a word is based on a specific meaning, but it's used in a way that not only does not carry that same meaning, but in this case is in direct opposition to it. By arguing that by providing someone with a benefit we're giving him "Liberty" (from pain, suffering, whatever), you are in effect twisting the meaning of the word. It's a purely semantic game. Whatever other meanings of the word you want to use, it's incorrect to say that the same type of "liberty" being infringed when you take property from someone is being gained by giving free medical care to someone else. Yet that's effectively what Allegory argued.


Hence, it's a fallacious statement. One does not counter the other because the two are not the same.

I'll state this again. It does mean that it's incorrect to use a different meaning of the word "liberty" to counter the one I used. Allegory's argument assumed that the "liberty" gained by being the recipient of something (free medical care perhaps) was equivalent to the "liberty" lost by being taxed to pay for that thing.

Inventing some new definition of "liberty" and then using it as an equivalent to a completely different one is fallacious. You have to use the same meaning. Whatever he's talking about when he says "liberty" is *not* the same thing I'm talking about. Yet he acted as though one balanced out the other. They don't.

In the context of my statement about a loss of liberty represented by the taxation, his use of the word "liberty" was incorrect. In exactly the same way, if we were playing poker, it would be incorrect for you to insist that you could toss a potato chip in as your ante. Both are "chips", but your use of the word in that context is incorrect. We'd all understand instantly that you were just playing a funny word game, laugh, and then move on in that case. Yet when someone does the same thing in the context of something far far more serious, I have to go to ridiculous lengths to make others understand that we should not take seriously Allegory's use of the word "liberty".

The problem with your assertion that we can't argue with you here, is that you were trying to use the idea of liberty to show some ultimate truth. You were attaching significance to it. All allegory was pointing out is that looking at liberty under a different light, it pointed to different conclusions. If you value liberty either way, you can see how it's important.

false. See a and b.

here, I'll elaborate for you.

a. The condition of being free from restriction or control.

Using the convenient apple metaphor if you can't afford to buy an apple, that is a restriction.

b. The right and power to act, believe, or express oneself in a manner of one's own choosing.

Someone who has the right to buy apples but has no money does not have the power to buy apples.

In both cases giving the person money will give them liberty. Personally I don't think this then implies that everyone who has more then they need should give all their excess to people who do not have excess. You can argue that taking away liberty is worse morally or something then the gain from giving it to someone else. This is in fact true in some cases and false in other cases. But it's absurd to argue that your definitions somehow indicate that liberty cannot be given.


Edited, Jan 6th 2010 11:01pm by Xsarus

You can mention it, but seriously, no one cares. Ok, varus does.

Oh and I clarified a and b. Feel free to read my edit.

No, I'm definately not.

Ok, I'll make this very simple.

A) If I only have enough money to buy one apple I am restricted by that. Do you agree with this?

B) If You give me enough money to buy all the apples I want, that restriction is gone. Do you agree with this?

This then matches the very first definition, in that I am now free from restriction. Ergo I have more liberty.



For part b of the definition, in the definition itself it says liberty is the power to do something. that refers to the fact that you have to be able to do it in order for it to be a liberty. able yes they are related.

now now anna, don't you realize that the poor are truly the most free, as they have the least taken away from them.

No ****, Sherlock. I bet you are great at parties.

No, Allegory, you take a flippant comment and become overly pedantic about it. It's irritating. You don't think I know that there are relative degrees of freedom?

And you don't write well. In your effort to achieve precision, your meaning gets lost in the dithering.

Oh, I have no illusions of convincing him of anything.


You can post information that makes your point obvious in the most crystalline of terms and he'll still insist that it means the opposite because it didn't match what he wanted. At some point, you need to realize that you can't teach astronomy to a goat no matter how much you dumb it down.

I don't know how successful I could reasonably expect to be, but I don't think years of effort is a fair comparison to 2 pages of conversation.

What I am attempting to do, regardless of how successful it has been so far, is determine why gbaji I disagree. More importantly, what are the first branching points of our thought processes. The goal is to discover and investigate those earliest divergences, and by addressing the disagreements on how we arrive at our conclusions, rather than the differences of the conclusions themselves, we can ultimately agree on something.

Whenever confronted with a new contradiction, the first response most people have is to check their reasoning. They work through the problem again (using the most surface level reasoning) to see if they arrive at their previous conclusion. If the same conclusion is reached then the individual begins to feel more certain of her position and less so of the opponent's. This is why addressing the main argument in these situations is pointless with respect to the goal of convincing the other person. The one being contradicted will always arrive at the same conclusion using her reasoning (which may be flawed). Ig you argue about method, and fix the method, then the correct answer will natural be arrived at by each person.

In talking with gbaji there seems to be a few underlying assumptions so far that we disagree on, which took me the first few pages to discover. Gbaji appaears to believe that liberty can only be limited by an intelligent entity, and I do not. Gbaji appears to believe that there is a meaningful difference between "can" and "may," in this context and I do not. Gbaji appears to see a difference between taking away less liberty and giving someone liberty (such that the latter doesn't exist), and I see equivalency. Without addressing these differences I don't see how anyone could expect either of us to consistently agree or convince the other of notions derived from these ideas.

Most people give up on gbaji after a few posts.

Anyway, I'll probably still be here in a few years, so I'm happy to resume this conversation then. I highly doubt you'll have changed his mind about anything, but I'll give you kudos if you manage it. If I had to hazard a guess, though, it would be that you assume gbaji uses a logical thought process in arriving at his conclusions. That's a common mistake that budding gbajiologist often make. In reality, the gbaji works the other way round. He starts with an unwaverable conviction, and goes backwards from that point on, finding all sorts of justifications and definitions that may or may not support his conviction. That's partly why it's all so futile. He's like a jelly fish, if you see what i mean.

It's the difference between "freedom from" and "freedom to".

But anyway, I generally cut my efforts short when either Gbaji or Varus reframes the argument in different terms. It's a win, in my book, if you have to change the subject.