Trans journalist Erin Reed called Douthat’s interview “hostile” and noted that El-Sayed previously stood up for trans rights when asked in August by Fox News’ Jesse Watters whether he supports “sex changes for minors.” El- Sayed replied, “The government shouldn’t tell you what kind of health care you should have, and if you’re a minor, that’s between you and your doctor and your parents.”
In September, a state university student asked about his position on gender-affirming care. El-Sayed answered, “I don’t think the government gets to have a say about what health care is provided in what circumstances and why.”
Reed also praised El-Sayed for remaining steadfastly committed to trans rights at a time when other Democratic politicians have adopted right-wing framing, saying they oppose government-funded surgeries for trans kids (something that almost never occurs) and “biological men in women’s sports” (an inaccurate and insulting reference to trans girls and women athletes who want to play on sports teams matching their gender identity).
“El-Sayed’s race will be one of the most important to watch on election night,” Reed wrote. “If he can win a highly contested seat despite the anti-transgender Republican money spent against him and the attacks from the right-leaning wing of his own party, it will be a clear case that embracing anti-trans views is not required to win swing states and swing districts across the United States.”
On his campaign website, under the heading “Healthcare Freedom for Women and LGBTQ+ Americans,” El-Sayed wrote, “Healthcare decisions should be made by a patient (and their parents if they are a minor) and their doctor–no one else. That includes reproductive and gender-affirming care…. I oppose any effort to criminalize certain medications and the use of lawfare or funding cuts to stop healthcare providers from providing full-spectrum healthcare that meet all the needs of their diverse communities.”
Well, I have to admit, I wasn’t expecting you to actually concede the Mars example.
“Fundamentally, if you are the first person to ever desire exclusive authority with all of Mars, then Mars is your property.”
That’s genuinely remarkable.
So according to your philosophy, someone can establish exclusive ownership of an entire planet simply by thinking about owning it before anyone else does.
No occupation. No use. No labor. No agreement. No interaction with the property whatsoever.
Just desire and chronological priority.
And somehow you’ve convinced yourself this is an objectively necessary conclusion of logic rather than an arbitrary rule you’ve invented.
Consider what that means.
If I was the first person to desire exclusive ownership of Mars, every future human being would apparently be morally obligated to respect my claim. Even people who have never met me, never agreed to my ownership, and have absolutely no reason to recognize my authority.
You’ve effectively established that my desire can generate obligations for other people without their consent, while simultaneously claiming that your entire philosophy protects individuals against the imposition of another person’s will.
How did my private desire acquire moral authority over everyone else’s future actions?
You still haven’t answered that question. You’ve simply asserted that being first is what matters.
But why?
Chronological priority is an observable fact. The moral authority you attach to it is not.
And this brings us back to the problem you keep avoiding.
You say:
“I never said you needed to respect anyone’s will. I said it’s illogical not to.”
Okay. Demonstrate the logical contradiction.
Suppose I acknowledge that your desires have no greater objective value than mine, recognize that you don’t want your property taken, and nevertheless decide to take it because doing so benefits me.
My behavior might be immoral under your ethical system, but what proposition have I contradicted?
I’ve made no claim that you want your property taken. I’ve made no claim that my will possesses objectively greater value. I’ve merely pursued an outcome you oppose.
Where is the logical inconsistency?
You appear to be confusing three entirely different propositions:
Those propositions are not interchangeable.
You then spend several paragraphs discussing religion, transgender identities, geopolitics, and people threatening to murder children.
None of that establishes the missing deduction.
Nobody here is advocating murder. Nobody is arguing that assault should be permissible. And nobody has suggested that people should be allowed to murder your children.
Questioning the logical foundation of your ethical theory is not an attempt to justify atrocities. That’s a spectacular non sequitur.
In fact, I agree that consent and nonaggression are extremely important moral considerations. I just don’t pretend that my agreement makes them mathematical theorems.
And your claim that society cannot coexist without your particular philosophy is another unsupported assertion. You’ve moved from claiming your principles are logically unavoidable to arguing that they produce preferable societal outcomes.
That’s a completely different argument, one that requires evidence about consequences rather than appeals to logical necessity.
The irony is that you repeatedly criticize other people for constructing moral systems around arbitrary assumptions, while your own framework relies on an assumption you have never justified: that an earlier desire for exclusive control creates a legitimate property right.
You haven’t eliminated arbitrary moral premises. You’ve selected your preferred premises and declared them objective.
So we can skip the next five paragraphs about how terrible murder is. We agree.
Let’s address the actual philosophical question:
What rule of logic establishes that being the first person to desire exclusive control of something gives you a moral right to exclude every other human being from it?
Not a moral intuition. Not a practical argument about social stability. Not an example of something we already consider wrong.
An actual logical derivation from your original premises.
Because so far, the only thing you’ve conclusively established is that under your philosophy, someone can become the rightful owner of Mars by calling dibs.
And I’m struggling to see how that’s less arbitrary than the moral systems you’re criticizing.