Ugh. Sorry for this: Holton, not Houlton: 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woody_Holton

And the semantic slippery slope from moral equivalent to inalienable rights is 
just nonsense, trickery that should never be forgiven. Now, where I disagree 
with Dave is that it might be possible to establish some intrinsic properties 
of living systems (e.g. negentropy) that do imply intrinsic rights. So the 
moral equivalence lies somewhere in the technical definition (perhaps via 
integrated information theory or somesuch). But the extension to "rights" would 
then be "Every negentropic kernel has the *right* to *try* to maintain/increase 
order within -- and thereby increase disorder without." I.e. a "right to life". 
But even if they fail in their execution, they were still negentropic for at 
least a little while. And they are equal in that temporally and spatially 
scoped technical sense.


On 10/26/21 10:22 AM, thompnicks...@gmail.com wrote:
> I agree with Houlton that “All men are created equal AND they are endowed by 
> their Creator with certain unalienable rights …”  is a pretty good place to 
> start.  You will recall that I even think this leads in theory to a prejudice 
> against inheritance and in practice to taxing the crap out of rich people, in 
> which category I count most of us.
> 
>  
> 
> With respect to Dave’s “Boo God” comment, I of course agree.  My only 
> acquaintance with god was as something that came into being when my father 
> hit his thumb with a hammer.  But it is fascinating to read the above words 
> in context.  See 
> https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-transcript 
> <https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-transcript>

-- 
"Better to be slapped with the truth than kissed with a lie."
☤>$ uǝlƃ


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