Implications of a right to life

If you have a right to life, and your mind is your means of survival, it is your duty to use your mind to live to the best of your ability.

This does not mean that if you have a gift for cheating and lying that you should be allowed to use those gifts to cheat others.  This would be an example of violating the rights of others to get what you want.

However, anything you do to sustain your life should be yours to keep as long as you didn't violate someone else's rights to get it.

A common argument is one that says that fine, sustinence, but what about more than that?  Shouldn't you be forced to give more than a certain amount to others who have less?

In a word- NO.  Our first premise is that no one has the right to demand the life of others for their own life.  The right to live as you rationally see fit is necessary for you to have a right to live.

Also, anyone or any organization that would distribute that to someone else would be by nature violating your right to survive as best you can according to the tools you have.

They are in effect causing you to work as a slave in order to support someone else.

According to Ayn Rand, there are only two ways in which people exchange goods and services:

1) by mutual trade as equals (this includes time for wages, money for goods, or services for emotional fulfillment)

2) by force - this renders one party slave to the other and says that the one being forced to give is less of a person than the one who is receiving.

Why should someone be forced to part with their possessions simply because you don't have it?  That is irrational.

Basic Premise - You have the right to your own life

The primary premise I am working on is that everyone is entitled to their own life.

It is immoral to require or ask anyone to live or die for you.

Your life is your own.  No one else's life is yours.

Secondarily you need to look at how a people live, what is the main tool by which we live?

Wolverines have ferocity, Gazelles run and Ants live in colonies.

We can't truly say that our thumb is our main tool.  After all, primates have been shown to use tools to crack nuts or get ants, otters use rocks to open clams and beavers dam rivers to build homes.

Fire?  Well, a great many tools and a means of living can be eked out  without it.  It's not pleasant, but on a small scale people can live without fire.

I would say that the greatest tool we have is our ability to think and reason.

Because of that, anyone or anything that asks us to live outside of reason is immoral.

Would we ask a lion to eat tofu?  Of course not.

Would you ask a gazelle to hunt lions?  You'd be nuts.

Forcing any animal to act against its nature will result in the death of the animal or its life in captivity.

Rational thought as a guide for actions

I'm interested in creating a moral philosophy whereby rational behavior is used as a guide for moral actions.

When I say rational, I mean behavior judged by its merits and the ends it causes rather than by the emotions it evokes or whether it feels nice.  For instance, it would not feel nice to amputate a gangrenous limb, but to do so creates a better end for the body than to let it continue.

This is the first time I have tried to express these principles outside of a classroom and I will try to do so using different schools of thought as justification for the conclusions I draw or for possible explanation for differing conclusions that others may draw.

For my examples I will try do examine current affairs as well as classic postulates and where real-life examples are used I will try to ferret out the ultimate rather than proximate causes of the situations.

I will welcome any reasoned response to my writing, and would rather have someone disagree with me with clear and rational arguments for disagreeing with me, than to agree with my in a mindless chanting sort of way.

Please avoid reducto ad nazi, responses as well as using 7337 if you do have something to say.

The assumption here is that someone is reading this and of course, that is a huge assumption.

Thanks

05-21-2008 Dinner

For dinner I had the Arby's Turkey Club Sub.

It was afterward when I read the nutritional information that I found out how much worse it is than the roast turkey and swiss with no Mayo that I normally get.

Oh and I did eat the potato cakes and diet coke that came with it.  That doubled the calories and I'll have to do better about that in the future.

500 calories, 260 from fat.  Woof!

Tomorrow is another day.

Mid-Afternoon Snack

3 handfuls of mixed nuts (see previous recipe)

1 banana

1 1/2 tbsp organic peanut butter

On my way to a product shoot!

5/21/2008 - Lunch - Made of Awesome.

So I'm cleaning the kitchen and decide that it would be less boring and kill two birds with one stone if I were to cook lunch at the same time.

Added bonus tip!:    Dishes suck way less if you have one of three options - 

1) I cook, you clean rule - this is especially good with roommates.  Keep in mind that a third person is useful so you can modify it to the She bought, I cooked, you clean rule.  

Beware the first household tip most guys figure out - "if I do it badly enough the first time, I won't be asked to do it again."  This works best with laundry anyway.

My dad was FORBIDDEN from doing the laundry when I was growing up, but when he found himself single again, well miraculously he never shrunk or "pinked" any of his own clothes.  Hmm...

2) Hire a maid to clean up after yourself (too expensive right now, but on my list of things to do...)

3) Clean while you cook!  This option works the best because you can get all the fat and any grease off of the pans before they congeal into something suitable for making candles.

Bonus, when you're done cooking you only have like two or three dishes per person and silverware!

Okay here's the recipe for the awesome salmon and mixed vegetables I made today.

Salmon and mixed veggies.

Grill salmon until flakey and awesome.

Be sure to use fresh salmon if available and "never frozen" is the best.

If it tastes fishy it is old and you should've used some sort of marinade.

Fresh salmon and meat should need nothing more than a dash of salt at the table.

Lightly Sauteed Mixed Veg - 

1/2 zuccini

1/2 summer squash

1/2 red pepper

2 handfuls sliced baby portobello mushrooms

4 tbsp walnut oil

heat oil in pan, chop veggies, sautee for 5 minutes, add mushrooms 

(you can add them earlier, I am an absent-minded doofus)

don't let them burn.

at 10 minutes remove from heat and cover until salmon is ready to eat.

Total cook time: About 20 minutes

5/21/2008 - Breakfast (should do better)

Here goes:

Morning snack - 2 handfuls of mixed nuts.

I should point out though, that the mixed nuts were made by me and include only the following:

Lightly Salted Almonds

Unsalted Hazelnuts

Lightly Salted Pecans

Unsalted Brazil Nuts

Cashews are full of fat, so I didn't include them and peanuts are a legume.

That doesn't really have anything to do with anything, but I think it is worth noting that a peanut is neither a pea, nor a nut.

Of course, that does mean that they are more closely related to peas than nuts... 

Whatever.

Starting Point

This is where I started.  179 lbs of twisted steel and sex appeal.

At the time I was 18 years old and here is a sample of my fitness regimen:

Monday through Friday:

wake up - 

go for a run

wrestling practice, cross-country, or canoeing depending on the season 

shower

go swing dancing until 1AM

Saturday: 

wrestling tournament or cross-country race

swing dancing at night

Sunday: 

rest during the day

swing dance at night

At this time I as eating well if cutting for a tournament, or eating what I felt like otherwise.

Because it is not realistic for me to go back to a schedule like this (unless I were to find some sort of patronage or sponsorship...) I'll have to moderate the exercise somewhat and rein in the diet a lot.

Oh and in the first week I started I went from 124.4 lbs to 114.4 lbs weight on an electronic scale.

Both were fully-clothed weigh-ins on electronic scales.  I hadn't been particularly careful yet, but did change my eating habits to substitue mixed-nuts for snacks and limit my fast-food intake, in favor of home-cooked meals.

New Plan

Okay.  Here goes:

Having recently come across images of myself from as little as 8 years ago, I realized that I have slowly changed the shape of my face with weight-gain.  

This is not a problem for most people because compared with the vast majority of Americans I'm practically svelte.

However, when comparing myself with... ...myself, I am forced to admit that this is not good enough.

Because of this I have set a goal to lose 45 pounds, that's 22.5 kilos for our international friends or 1 large plate for our powerlifting friends.

With a background in wrestling and a love of cooking things that *gasp* include vegetables, this shouldn't be too hard.  I'm going to include a food diary, regular images of myself and any posts that come to mind as I start to make progress on my goal.

I will try to be as accurate as possible if only so I can be honest with myself.