Rights & Religion: The Unending Saga

Them: "Rights are different from government because rights are voluntary."
Me: "Then why don't you voluntarily choose not to respect people's Rights and pursue a career as a freelance or government-payroll criminal?"

Them: "Because I believe in Rights."
Me: "You mean you believe Rights are rational and self-evident and you don't want people to think you're irrational and a moral relativist if you disobey Rights?"

Them: "Yes."
Me: "Then it's not voluntary is it? Rights-theists are using the fear of irrationality and moral relativism to keep you parroting their dogmas on Facebook."

Them: "I can quit anytime I want. I just don't want to"
Me: "Spoken like a true addict. Nothing voluntary about it."

Rights and State: convincing you they are two different things for millennia while both using fear to control your mind.

Them: "Anti-vaxxism is different from government. I have reviewed the evidence, and I have concluded vaccines aren't safe and effective as billed by the medical establishment."
Me: "Then why do you keep playing up the risks of vaccines and downplaying their benefits?"

Them: "Because I believe the risks are real and the benefits overstated. I'm not 'playing up' or 'downplaying' anything."
Me: "You mean anti-vaxxers have preyed on your fear of autism and asthma to dissuade you from vaccination?"

Them: "You're couching my position in tendentious terms, but for all intents and purposes, yes."
Me: "Then it's not voluntary is it? Anti-vaxxers have indoctrinated you."

Them: "I can quit anytime I want. I just don't want to"
Me: "Spoken like a true addict. Nothing voluntary about it."

Anti-Vaxxism and State: convincing you they are two different things for decades while both using fear to control your mind.

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Men want to rule others, so how do they do it?

1. Convince people you are a god! When that doesn't work anymore . . .

2. Convince people you represent god! When that doesn't work anymore . . .

3. Convince people you have god's authority to rule. When that doesn't work anymore . . .

4. Convince people that god is on their side. When that doesn't work anymore . . .

5. Create your own god called Rights and convince people that disobeying Rights is "irrational" and "morally [!] relativistic" and protecting Rights is their duty and that they should be willing to kill and die for their duty.

(Note: keep the old god sprinkled in for effect. "I have the Right!", "You have *violated* my Right!" etc. )

It makes no sense that someone would be anti-state but pro-Rights or anti-Rights but pro-state. They're the same thing.

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Some people might tell you there's no natural right to violate natural rights, but when those entrusted with protecting natural rights by violating natural rights are attacked by those defending their natural rights, the natural rights-upholding natural-rights violators fight back. Why does such legitimate authority fight back, if there's no natural right to violate natural rights and the permission of legitimate authority is not required?
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I'm taking a break from social media. For forty days and forty nights, plus a handful of Sundays, I will be incommunicado. Smoke signals, carrier pigeons, and telepathy may yet reach me.

Don't take any wooden nickels. Fiat coinage is a grave affront to the Great God Natural Rights, with Whom I'll be communing. 

Against Infanticide? Don't Kill Infants!

Our common humanity springs from my high-sounding abstractions. Everything else--"religion," "nationalism," shared history and language and cultural soil--is just anti-human noise.

Embrace my high-sounding abstractions. At some point, you may decide you've succeeded only in chanting mantras to yourself. You may even suspect self-mesmerization is really a thing. The feeling will pass. I promise.

Against anti-vaxxism? Proceed to vaccinate.
Against Sky-Wizardry? Renounce all brands but your own.
Against infanticide? Don't kill infants.

See? It really is that easy.