Goodbye

I'm closing Restraint of the Heartless now.

I think now you deserve to know the meaning of "Nulono".

In Esperanto:

• "nul" is the word for zero.
• "-on-" is the suffix for creating a fraction ("kvar", meaning four, plus "-on", plus "-o", makes "kvarono", a fourth or a quarter)
• "-o" is the standard grammatical ending for nouns

Thus a "nulono" would be a "zero-th", or one divided by zero.

Now, division by zero is impossible (as far as we know in 02009), and would have some very serious implications if it was possible. Consider the expression a=b, where a and b can be any numbers. Let's say, for the sake of discussion, that a=2 and b=3002.

• 0*2 = 0
• 0*3002 = 0

By the reflexive property, 0=0.

Because 0*2 and 0*3002 are both equal to zero, we can substitute them in as such:

• 0*2 = 0*3002

So, by the multiplicative property of equality, if divide both sides by zero (multiply them by one "nulono"), we will arrive at an equation that still holds true.

Thus:

• (0*2)*(1/0) = (0*3002)*(1/0)

or

• (0*2)/0 = (0*3002)/0

Simplifying, we get:

• 2 = 3002

This exact same procedure works with any two numbers. Thus, the existence of 1/0 would make any number equal to every other number. Numbers, thus, would be completely meaningless, and the entire field of mathematics would come crumbling down.

What does this have to do with me, you ask?

Yes, I am an atheist (in fact, I am an antitheist). I am also a liberal (in fact, I'm a communist). I am also a feminist (In fact, I support the Equal Rights Amendment*). I am also pro-gay. I am also in favor of helping those in need. I am also pro-science.

Yet I am also pro-life.

I make many people's stereotyping world-views crumble to the ground, just like 1/0 would do to mathematics. I chose "Nulono" because I pretty quickly decided "Cde. Oxymoron" was setting me up for trouble.

*, though equal protection is already in Amendment XIV, so it's technically redundant.

Call to Action

As we approach the year two thousand and ten, we approach the year of the Personhood Amendment. With activity in 32 states, at least one is likely to pass, but fight vigorously anyway to make sure.

But don't let this very important issue mak e you loose track of the bigger picture. Fight for the unborn, yes, but also fight for the poor, the young, the old, the gay, women, et cetera. Fight for free speech, freedom of religion, for the separation of church and state, for school reform, for a more reasonable language (Esperanto), for a more reasonable numeral system (dozenal), and for logical arguments.

Fight against euphemisms, restrictions on freedom, and unequal treatment.

Lighting a fire under the anti-abortion movement

I've always been opposed to abortion intellectually, but things like the Grantham Collection and Justice [f]or All exhibit have really got me invested emotionally.

WARNING: Graphic images. But remember that this is common, completely legal, and defended vigorously by many well-meaning people.

Plan C

After my earlier post on the issue of positive versus negative rights, you may wonder whether or not I support rape victims taking pills that may or may not inhibit implantation, suck as .

Well, I believe in erring on the side of not taking lives until it is conclusively shown one way or another.

So, let's talk about a hypothetical drug that we know prevents implantation, and thus causes the death of the pre-embryo. We'll call it Plan C.

Should a rape victim be allowed to take Plan C? After all, the embryo has no positive right to life*.

It should be taken into consideration that, like unplugging the violinist, taking Plan C is not an act of inaction. Nobody would object to having the pre-embryo removed, frozen, and implanted in another woman. Because the taking of Plan C causes the death of the pre-embryo, it violates his or her negative right to live.

Imagine you are out on a cruise and there is a sleeping man in a life raft drifting towards you. You can either do nothing, in which case the man will dock and be saved. Or you can grease the dock, thus causing his death. Because the man is innocent and greasing the dock is not an act of inaction, doing so would be an act of manslaughter.

*Where the pregnancy has resulted from consensual sex, the embryo does have the positive right to life, because his or her mother has placed the pre-embryo in jeopardy, and, thus, has a responsibility towards him or her to protect the pre-embryo from harm.

Alert: Stupak Condemns Amendment

Join Bart Stupak in Condemning Pro-Abortion Language

Dear _____, Today, the Senate approved an end to the debate on the Manager's Amendment that finalizes abortion funding in theSenate Health Care Reform Bill. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) praised the Senate bill, describing it as having "abortion language that is completely different from the House -- thank God." One thing is clear to me. Nancy Pelosi sees the chance to replace the pro-life Stupak-Pitts Amendment in the House with the pro-abortion Manager's Amendment. Tell your Senators and Representative to oppose any bill that includes this pro-abortion Manager's Amendment. Bart Stupak (D-MI) called the Manager's Amendment "unacceptable" and said, "We are going to hold firm and make sure that the Stupak-Pitts language stays when this amendment is brought back to us. We will not vote for the bill if that language is not there." If Nancy Pelosi strips the Stupak Amendment out of the HouseHealth Care Reform Bill and dares Bart Stupak to defeat the bill on the final vote, we need him to know that we have been with him every step of the way. Go here to tell your elected Members of Congress that anything less than the Stupak-Pitts Amendment is unacceptable. For Life, Marjorie Dannenfelser President, Susan B. Anthony List www.sba-list.org P.S. Tell Congress to reject the Manager's Amendment that forces taxpayers to fund health care plans that cover elective abortions.

This sort of crap makes me sick.

Look, debate the effectiveness of a vaccine all you want, but...

Well, just read this.

Merry Christmenos!

Broken spacebar

My spacebar is sticking, so forgive the lack of original content.

Happy HumanLight!

The Violinist

The violinist argument fails for several reasons, mainly the fact that the intent of an abortion is to kill the fetus, not to terminate the pregnancy. However, it also fails because it assumes that it is morally permissible to unplug the violinist.

First of all, in this analogy you in no way caused the violinist to hook up to you. This attachment occurred against your will and "the society of music lovers" has in this case severely violated your rights. I would like to demonstrate in this post, however, how the common moral intuition in this case fails when scrutinized logically.

As I see it, the main reasons many people see unplugging the violinist as acceptable are twofold.

Firstly, being attached to the violinist is a huge pain in the neck. You need to stay in bed until the violinist recovers. I doubt many people would have the same sense of outrage if you could more or less go about your business. However, as I demonstrated yesterday, the right to life supersedes the right to liberty. Just like the intention of act of causing the avalanche, the intention of act of unplugging yourself is to regain your liberty and to "undo" the situation you have been unjustly placed in to.

The objection based on positive and negative rights will be addressed in the next section.

Secondly, the situation they are placed in is incredibly unjust, and unplugging is seen as merely returning to the situation prior your kidnapping in which the violinist was dieing of natural causes and you had no greater moral obligation towards him than towards a man on the other side of the planet. However, regardless of how this situation came to pass, we need to consider the present situation.

I will grant that the violinist lacks the positive right to life: the right to use your body; if you could unplug yourself without killing the violinist, I doubt anyone would object. Also, if the violinist were to approach you and demand your assistance, I would be the first to say that you have no obligation to come to his aid; this represents a situation in which you are passively letting the violinist die.

However, in the present situation, you are already hooked up to the violinist. As such, you cannot disconnect yourself because the violinist's death would be a direct result of your action; this is a situation in which you are actively killing the violinist. Because of this fact, the violinist's negative right to life comes into play, just as in the avalanche scenario. Regardless of how this situation came to pass, even though the violinist has no right to your body, your moral obligation to not kill (cause the death of) him takes over.

I may seem like I'm repeating myself, but I want to make sure I have made my point in a way everyone can understand. It may seem counterintuitive that the society of music lovers could impart upon you an obligation that you didn't previously have, or impart upon the violinist a positive right he never had, but the point I'm trying to make is that the application of negative rights is more than adequate to show why unplugging yourself is wrong. Positive rights apply to inaction while negative rights apply to action. Many see the act of unplugging as merely choosing not to allow the violinist usage of your body, but that choice has already been made (I'm sure we can all agree that the society of music lovers have violated your rights).

Because unplugging the violinist is not an act of inaction, the violinist's negative right to live comes into play, and as such, it is immoral to unplug yourself.

However, because your intent was not to cause the violinist's death, in the current legal system of the United States would most likely charge you with manslaughter and not murder. In addition, if the violinist chose to be plugged in, unplugging would be justified as self-defense.

To sum up, while you have no moral obligation to remain plugged in, you do have an obligation not to act in such a way that said action leads to the death of an innocent human being.

Life > Liberty > Pursuit of happiness

It can easily be demonstrated that the right to liberty supersedes the right to pursue happiness.

Proving that life outweighs liberty is more complicated, but this quote from Libertarians for Life does a great job.

...[Y]ou are on a mountain, and I attack you and throw you into a place filled with rocks that will tumble down below if given a push. The only way you can leave that spot is by causing a landslide. On a perch below is someone else I also forced there. If there's a landslide, their perch will be destroyed and they'll fall to their death. There is no way for your calls for help to be heard; you have to wait until you are discovered missing and a rescue party is sent. Let's assume that you are in no danger; one of your hobbies is to be a survivalist; you know how to attract game birds. You are able to live off them until found, but that will take nine months. The other person is also able to survive because your efforts to attract birds will inevitably attract birds to their perch, too.

Does your right to liberty include a right to push the rocks out of the way and cause the death of the other person?

The law of transitivity can show that life supersedes the right to pursue happiness, or you can consider that every single murder has had a motive.

It is also important to point out each right is predicated upon the previous one(s). You can't pursue happiness if you aren't free and you can't be free if you're not alive and you cannot pursue happiness if you'ren't alive.

"Clean Feed"

Okay, by now everyone knows that the Senate health care bill funds abortions but has otherwise been pussified to the point of being a giant handout to insurance corporations* (still a mandate to buy but no public option and not even the Medicare buy-in for those 55-64).

Maybe you haven't heard that Australia is considering across-the-board censorship on anything deemed "inappropriate".

*...and yet Republicans STILL are fighting against it!