With the press and many people feeling that Barrack Obama is going to be our next President. There has been some talk of the Democratic parties desire to renew a draft. By and large such talk draws contempt and disgust at the idea of such a thing. The sheer audacity of such a thing is enough to raise the blood pressure of any self respecting Libertarian and most Republicans as well.
But, hold on, I say lets consider this idea. What about rather then a military draft. Instead tacked on to the end of ones high school experience. There is a 2 year or 4 year, depending on the program, contract that either involves going to trade or university. Or volunteering in some other form or manner in a way that would benefit America. Then when the time is up you are free to do as you like, but ideally and it would not be the case for some. These people might find that they enjoy what they are doing and they will have learned a useful job skill at the same time.
As well as being able to give back to this America that has provided them with schooling and safety and allowed them to live in a world where frankly we are very lucky to be living in. Would it be to much to ask for a person of a certain age to give back to the system. To help support the system in which they grew up? I do not think so. I, in fact, would argue that the eventual result would be one of more patriotism then exists now along with a greater understanding of what is needed to provide the services that most of us take for granted.
I do not claim to have all the answers and often what I write is an experiment to allow me to dialogue with others who think the same or even those who think differently then me. So please add your thoughts and help me to refine mine because with out discussion nothing can be achieved.
183 comments:
Hi Lance - nice to see this discussion carried further:
Could I ask for clarifications?
Do you believe that other human beings belong to you?
1) Why is a contract necessary if service is compulsory? Isn't that just another form of falsehood (similar to much of what the State does?)
2) If this is to be a compulsory program - mandatory participation under threat of violent reprisal if refused, how does this fit in:
"...Or volunteering in some other form or manner in a way that would benefit America..."
Questions:
1) Would you say that the only way America benefits from the labor of its citizens is if they are compelled to participate in specific programs?
1a) If so, who will decide which programs these will be?
2) Would you say that compelling people to volunteer by threatening violence is the best way to teach them to volunteer?
2a) Would you say that voluntary compliance is the only way a person learns the value of voluntary labor?
3) What would kids just coming out of high school think about the spirit of volunteering if they are taught that it must be compelled? (Or, what kind of people will be the result of a society that compels people to serve it?) Will such people be MORE inclined, or LESS inclined to treat others as property to be used if this is the way they are taught?
"...As well as being able to give back to this America that has provided them with schooling and safety and allowed them to live in a world where frankly we are very lucky to be living in.
Are you saying that we must be forced to be thankful for the State we live under?
Would it be to much to ask for a person of a certain age to give back to the system..."
What system is this?
To help support the system in which they grew up?
So, working in the private sector, providing goods for their fellow men is NOT supporting the system? Again, I guess I have to wait to see what you mean by the word 'system.'
"...I...would argue that the eventual result would be one of more patriotism then exists now along with a greater understanding of what is needed to provide the services that most of us take for granted...."
What is your definition of patriotism? It seems to me that your argument (completely disregarding the ethical portion of it) depends upon the idea that the style of government we have developed over the past century is desirable and people need to learn how to accept it.
Now for my take (The MORAL aspect of this):
Compulsory servitude is a synonym for slavery. Slavery depends upon devaluing the worth of a person to such an extent that they become the property of someone else.
The entire idea that we must be compelled to serve the State (for our own good, of course and, of course, to be eternally grateful for all the State does for us) is drawn under the assumption that each individual is State property. It assumes that the State is providing things that we cannot possibly, in ANY way, under NO circumstances, provide without the threat of force.
It assumes we can't educate our children unless the State dictates what they learn. It assumes that we cannot even PAY for schools unless the State extracts that money from us by force. It assumes that we are incapable of making decisions about what products to buy, how to clean the street, what foods we can ingest, and how much to pay for items without the strict supervision of a State official.
Question still unanswered:
I believe it is MORALLY wrong to enforce compulsory servitude for the benefit of the State. I believe it is MORALLY wrong to use slavery to benefit anyine else. (I believe there is a place for a certain type of slavery - but that is response to an immoral act by the person under servitude.)
Since there are MANY people who think the way I do, what do you propose to do with them? Are you saying that since you think its perfectly acceptable to force people to work for the State, it is MORALLY right to ignore the value judgments of people like myself - we must sacrifice our values for YOUR benefit?
Do you really believe that people learn to love their neighbors faster and more completely by being forced (at gunpoint if necessary) to serve them?
Hello David, please bear with me and I will do my best to answer your questions. But it may not be all at once. I will answer in CAPS but I am not doing so to shout. Just to be able to tell the difference.
"Do you believe that other human beings belong to you?"
NO I DO NOT.
"1) Why is a contract necessary if service is compulsory? Isn't that just another form of falsehood (similar to much of what the State does?)"
PERHAPS, CONTRACT ISN'T THE RIGHT CHOICE OF A WORD FOR WHAT I AM PURPOSING? I THINK OF A CONTRACT BECAUSE IT WOULD PROTECT THE "STUDENT" FOR WANT OF A BETTER TERM. TO ALLOW THEM TO GET OUT WHEN THEIR TERM OF SERVICE IS DONE.
"2) If this is to be a compulsory program - mandatory participation under threat of violent reprisal if refused, how does this fit in:
"...Or volunteering in some other form or manner in a way that would benefit America...""
I AM THINKING THAT HERE I USE THE TERM VOLUNTEERING BECAUSE I AM SEEING A CHOICE WITHIN THE FRAMEWORK OF THE SYSTEM. THE "STUDENT" GRADUATES HIGH SCHOOL AND THEN EITHER ENTERS TRADE SCHOOL OR UNIVERSITY OR JOINS THE PEACE CORP OR SOME OTHER HABITAT FOR HUMANITY (THESE ARE EXAMPLES ONLY) IT COULD BE ANY NUMBER OF THINGS JOIN THE MILITARY JUST SOMETHING THAT IN SOME WAY GIVES BACK OR PAYS AHEAD INTO THE WORLD AROUND US. AS FAR AS THE MANDATORY PARTICIPATION UNDER THREAT OF VIOLENT REPRISAL IF REFUSED PART OF IT. I WOULD NOT WANT THAT AND I DO NOT FORESEE THAT AS THE ONLY WAY. PERHAPS WE COULD TIE IT TO A SCHOOL LOAN OR A VOUCHER PROGRAM AND IF YOU CHOOSE TO OPT OUT THEN YOU WILL NOT RECEIVE THOSE BENEFITS.
I WILL TRY TO ANSWER THE OTHER QUESTIONS IN ANOTHER COMMENT BUT FEEL FREE TO HIT ON THESE FOR A BIT IF YOU FEEL SO INCLINED.
It could be that any number of things join the military just something that in some way gives back or pays ahead into the world around us.
Here's the question that always comes to mind: you seem to be saying that people need to take part in society. It doesn't seem to be more than that, but I could be wrong. The question is,
Do you think that people who work in society are NOT giving 'back' or 'passing ahead' anything into the world unless they do it in a State instituted program?
If so, what would you say of the people who work in construction, service, repair, teaching, or religious areas, etc...? It seems to me that ANYONE who works in ANY field in some way is already helping society. I don't get what is missing.
OR, is it that you consider that we are not serving the State enough? If so, why is that in any way necessary?
"...AS FAR AS THE MANDATORY PARTICIPATION UNDER THREAT OF VIOLENT REPRISAL IF REFUSED PART OF IT. I WOULD NOT WANT THAT AND I DO NOT FORESEE THAT AS THE ONLY WAY...."
The threat of violent reprisal is the backing incentive for any and all forms of COMPULSORY servitude. Earlier, you asked people who hold that a life of liberty is a desirable form of life to rethink their position on conscription (in the main body of this post): to quote, "...But, hold on, I say lets consider this idea. What about rather then a military draft. Instead tacked on to the end of ones high school experience..."
How else do you draft someone other than by holding the threat of death for disobedience over their head?
If, instead, you are talking about an entirely voluntary form of service to the State, then we have a different set of questions to consider; I doubt anyone is adverse to an entirely voluntary form of service, especially a libertarian.
"...Perhaps we could tie it to a school loan or a voucher program and if you choose to opt out then you will not receive those benefits...."
So would you then say that people should be forbidden from furthering their education unless they participate in a state sponsored program in their early adult life? Or are these benefits only additional incentives, not necessary to progress?
Thanks David, I feel like if we break it down into more manageable chunks it makes it easier to have a conversation.
"Do you think that people who work in society are NOT giving 'back' or 'passing ahead' anything into the world unless they do it in a State instituted program?
If so, what would you say of the people who work in construction, service, repair, teaching, or religious areas, etc...? It seems to me that ANYONE who works in ANY field in some way is already helping society. I don't get what is missing."
The people that work are great and if you choose to opt out of the program and continue to have a job and take part in society then I do not have a problem. My problem lies with those that get out of school and do nothing. They do not work, they do not give back to the system that put them through school. They take, they take by way of medical benefits or by way of food voucher programs but they just take.
" "...Perhaps we could tie it to a school loan or a voucher program and if you choose to opt out then you will not receive those benefits...."
So would you then say that people should be forbidden from furthering their education unless they participate in a state sponsored program in their early adult life? Or are these benefits only additional incentives, not necessary to progress?"
Nobody would be forbidden, much like how is today with the Peace Corp or if you take a teaching job with a lower income school a large amount of your school loans are waived. So, like you said they would be additional incentives, I am just thinking more incentives then are available today.
I see your point in that if everything was compulsory then there would not be a lesson learned. So, perhaps a form of fiscal assistance then. So, the choice would be up to the person but if they truly wanted the most help possible and in some cases that would mean a completely free college education then they would join the program. Am I clearing the murk a little bit?
Lance: The people that work are great and if you choose to opt out of the program and continue to have a job and take part in society then I do not have a problem. My problem lies with those that get out of school and do nothing. They do not work, they do not give back to the system that put them through school. They take, they take by way of medical benefits or by way of food voucher programs but they just take.
Like you, I am concerned with the idea of the 'welfare' mentality of many people. But how about this: Lets make a free society where people are allowed to make decisions and take responsibility for them.
The person who will not work.....doesn't eat! Its that simple. End welfare altogether. The lesson people learn from that would be that in order to live, you must earn your way.
Leave feeding the poor, homeless and anyone else to the free decisions of charitable organizations. If someone wants to set up a charity to feed lazy people, let them! As long as you are not compelled to donate money, who cares? (Might be a LOT of takers - but I'll bet REALLY few donations.)
The real problem comes when we are FORCED to fund programs with which we disagree. That's how taxation works, and it is wrong.
Lance: Nobody would be forbidden, much like how is today with the Peace Corp or if you take a teaching job with a lower income school a large amount of your school loans are waived. So, like you said they would be additional incentives, I am just thinking more incentives then are available today.
I am still confused on the idea of incentives - it seems you believe that if we revamp welfare, it will teach people responsibility.
If that is so, I respectfully disagree. People by nature are self-indulgent. I believe that any form of welfare:
1) will be used by people who are clever enough to find ways to minimize their efforts at the expense of everyone else, and
2) Will become modified over time (all for the good of the children, of course) right back into the system we have now.
(Fitting quote: A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until a majority of voters discover that they can vote themselves largess out of the public treasury. – Alexander Tyler)
Lance: I see your point in that if everything was compulsory then there would not be a lesson learned. So, perhaps a form of fiscal assistance then. So, the choice would be up to the person but if they truly wanted the most help possible and in some cases that would mean a completely free college education then they would join the program. Am I clearing the murk a little bit?
Yes, you are! (=
How about I throw in a wrench? Your programs would be dependent upon financing, garnered.....how? Would this financing, the free schooling, etc... be financed by taking money from people who are working already?
Are you F'ing serious?
"PERHAPS, CONTRACT ISN'T THE RIGHT CHOICE OF A WORD FOR WHAT I AM PURPOSING?"
Correct, Contract isn't the right word, SLAVERY is.
David's hit all the key issues already, I doubt I'm able to tone myself down to the level of insults at the moment, so I'll leave it there.
Except for this, think about the underlying principles of what you say, what has to be accepted for it to be so, and what has to be denied.
Woah!!! Van, relax......please I am just trying to process some thoughts. I know you are concerned about the potential election of Obama. But that is no reason for you and I to have an huge argument over this. I am trying to process my way toward something. I do not want to enslave people. What I would like is for people to feel a sense of ownership again for this country. So I am playing with ideas. One of the first ideas that I had was for their to be some sort of program that would help to instill that while at the same time learning some much needed skills and helping to grow that person to a better life. I ma willing to be wrong about my ideas but I dont want this to be a shouting match and I do value your opinion because even if I do not agree with you they are always well thought out. So please help me to understand why I am so wrong in this case.
This may be the most important point you bring up!
"...What I would like is for people to feel a sense of ownership again for this country..."
Here are some things to consider: what is the country of which you speak? (Is it a geographic area, or a concept?)
What do you mean by 'a sense of ownership'?
It seems to me that in order to have a sense of ownership, you should actually own the possession for which you have this attachment.
Since I do not know if you mean actual physical material ownership (the only real kind there is) or a psychological sense of possessing things that have no clear owner, I cannot go into this much.
Seems to me that the real problem we have regarding welfare, pollution, etc, is that people actually DO think they own everything, and they disdain the idea that individuals may instead have sole proper possession of property.
I think the key to changing values in America would be return to the idea that ownership is a private affair - a collective can no more own anything that can it think. If we understood the value of property and ownership, we would have a very different society.
And I don't think you can bring this sort of respect and honor to anyone by using a collective method of enforcement.
"What I would like is for people to feel a sense of ownership again for this country."
By disposing of the very foundations of what it means to own anything at all? How can you increase any sense of ownership by taking away a persons fundamental right to choose to what to do with their own life?
Ownership, loyalty, patriotism, are increased by setting people free to choose how to live their own lives, not by compelling them to do what you think they should want to do.
You're right, I am worked up tonight. Listening to Obama discuss, cooly and clearly, how the built in restraints on governmental power, fundamental keys to our Constitution, were tragic hindrances holding Gov't back from what it could and should do... that has me very worked up, and anyone or anything sounding in line with that is going to draw my fire... fair or not.
However, here's something to think about, and I'm not saying it to be inflammatory or insulting, but as an actual, very relevant, and important thought for people to be thinking about, and I'm really not trying to make any point of equivelance.
Google up the pictures of early Nazi Germany - forget the nazi policies at the moment, back before Hitler was seen as a bad guy; focus on the people, especially at the rallies, look at the people's faces as they crowd around trying get a glimpse of, or shake Adolph's hand. Look up the comments people made about how the Feurher made them feel, how they all felt unified, in it together, part of something bigger than themselves, world changing and important, how they were glad to give themselves to 'do their part' for the fatherland - which worked out well, since the fatherland had done away with their ability to refuse to do otherwise.
Here's the point: Those people weren't bad people, the regular Germans at those rallies were not evil, they didn't intend any harm to anybody, they wanted to be 'ein volk', and they were eager for the Gov't to put things in order for them, to end the hard economic times, to spread the wealth around and regain some prosperity.
When the people have lost, or given up, claim of ownership of their property in themselves and their goods - the Gov't will use them both as it sees fit, and the first priority of those in power, is Power, not the people. Without a clear restraint upon the reaches of gov't power, clearly and unambigously defined, understood, insisted upon by the people and enforced - those restraints will not exist.
There was nothing evil about the people who voted the Nazi's into power. Above, I mentioned 'spread the wealth around' a current buzz-word, but you'd miss the point if you tied it directly to Obama. If you read Gore's 'Earth in the Balance', there are many mucho phrases and policies equally reminiscent and relevant to the same comparison. If you haven't read Mein Kampf, you should, it's on the net, there is much in that that should ring many familiar sounding bells in peoples heads.
The reason why this election, and policies such as 'community service' are no longer a normal election or eye-rolling bromides, is because Bush just allowed Paulson to dictate the defacto ownership of most of our economy. He allowed Paulson to call in, to order to present themselves to a Gov't called meeting, the heads of the top banks in America, and told them that they were going to sell significant shares in their banks to the Gov't and that they had no choice in the matter.
The Republican response (other than a few house members) wasn't that that was an outrageous violation of the rights of private citizens and businesses, but only that he was taking too much.
And on top of that, we've got the front runner for the Presidential election not only clearly, calmly and cooly describing how the constitution is a disturbing obstacle to his idea of what Gov't should do, but he's presenting himself as having no such ideals and that the people should have no such fears about him having such preposterous ideals.
That means power is being sought, under false pretences, to be used as a tool to do whatever those who get it wish to use it, for what they think is right, not as the people they duped into voting for them, think they will use it; and thanks to this Gov't bailout, all the precedence they need to do whatever the hell they want to, has been set and handed over.
That should make you very afraid. Sorry to be so serious and on edge... but I am now officialy, very afraid.
Well said Van - you nailed it. And I do not think you have any need to apologize for being worried. I read an article today that alluded to crossing the Rubicon, and I thought that was so fitting. We are seeing some serious stuff and I can only beg people to start getting prepared for anything. Its gonna get bad.
Thank you Van, I am understanding why you are so nervous and I am glad you could tell me without it turning into insults and shouting. I hope you are wrong. But, I have a feeling that you probably hope you are wrong as well.
I just do not know what to think in all honesty, just last week I read a column and they were comparing Obama to the rise of the antichrist. Don't all new presidencies face some of these same accusations? Didn't some people make the same case against Bush after 9/11? I in fact know people who are pretty sure that this election on Nov 4th is not even going to happen. They think that Bush will manufacture an emergency and declare a state of emergency and stop the election.
Can we just have faith in the system of checks and balances in the government that they will be enough to stop whatever might happen and feel secure that at most 8 years is the time we will have to face?
I in fact know people who are pretty sure that this election on Nov 4th is not even going to happen. They think that Bush will manufacture an emergency and declare a state of emergency and stop the election.
For a long time I was worried about this as well. The current administration did work toward such a contingency, based upon the fear that an upcoming administration might be a threat to the powers that rest in Washington. Since Mcbama is no threat at all, the current administration can retire in comfort - their work will continue unabated (although possibly in a different direction than planned.)
Can we just have faith in the system of checks and balances in the government that they will be enough to stop whatever might happen and feel secure that at most 8 years is the time we will have to face?
Certainly you can have faith in such a thing. As to whether that faith is based upon true propositions, well, that is another matter entirely.
What sort of checks and balances have stopped the continual growth and entrenchment lately? It seems to me that nothing impedes the expansion and intrusion of the State anymore. We aren't smart enough, or moral enough to choose good representatives (we choose 'leaders' instead). We aren't powerful enough to remove them from office. We aren't skeptical enough to distrust ANYTHING syllable that comes from a politician's mouth - we have been trained, no, brainwashed into thinking that this is the way it has to be and this is for the best and insert any other placard here.
You get what you pay for. You reap what you sow. We have spent 100 years voting ourselves deep into each others pockets, and teaching our children that dependency upon this form of a State is the only way to live - to the extent that we can no longer make our way out of the thicket. And we have left the gates open for any scoundrel who seeks power - as long as he recites the correct manta.
"I just do not know what to think in all honesty, just last week I read a column and they were comparing Obama to the rise of the antichrist. Don't all new presidencies face some of these same accusations? "
Nutter's you can't do anything about. There were similar fears under Clinton, Bush 1, Reagan, etc, but at least the appearance of checks and balances were still there, and they were just a result of the declining ability of people to think, which logically follows from the underlying philosophy which claims that nothing can be known.
"Can we just have faith in the system of checks and balances in the government that they will be enough to stop whatever might happen and feel secure that at most 8 years is the time we will have to face?"
That's the point. Obama believes those checks need to be bounced, and that means no balance. As I tried to say earlier, what makes this election different, now - dating from post bailout - is that those checks and balances are hugely eroded and undercut. Those checks depend upon a President, a Senate, a Congress and a Judiciary and a Press AND a people, who believe that those checks are necessary and good.
That is not the hallmark of Obama, Reid, Pelosi or the Ginsberg type Justices he will appoint, and if you've ever asked an obama-ite to explain their faith in his vast experience and accomplishments, you shouldn't count much on their supporting any old dead white guy document keeping him from bringing the Change! we deserve.
That wouldn't be a completely dispiriting situation, if that were all there was to it, after all FDR was another charismatic who had full control of congress, who seized all of the non-collectible gold in the nation, completely unconstitutional, and we eventually recovered, but although he severely watered down the idea of Rights (with "economic rights"), he didn't push for pushing the other rights off the map.
Wilson publicly repudiated the Constitution and agitated for a 'living constitution', which would free Gov't to do whatever the hell it felt it should do, but the country still had educated people then, and it was pretty much freaked out by Wilson and the extent Gov't intruded into their lives under him, it was after Wilson, after all, that Progressives, whether Democrat or Republican, stopped calling themselves Progressives, and absconded with the name of Liberal instead.
But even through the time of FDR, the Four horsemen of the Supreme Court reigned him in for years, and even as they finally began to cave, people still understood the importance of the written constitution to our Gov't, even if they didn't fully understand it themselves. They still understood that Gov't 'spreading the wealth' around was a bad thing, and at that time it WAS only a last resort used for those Individuals in the direst of circumstances.
That is gone today, or damn near it, today everybody feels that they deserve something. And even worse, the next President is going to inherit the unbridled power that has now been laid upon the Sec. of the Treasury (which means, the Executive Branch, nothing like this has ever been passed from one administration to another), which will make it very easy to give those outstretched hands something - and now, each day shows the Treasury Dept undertaking multi-billion dollar measures that are seemingly off the cuff, actions that are orders of magnitude larger than what spurred a huge national debate with the Chrysler bailout just a few decades ago.
Obama will be the first President since Wilson, to have publically repudiated it. FDR resented the constraints it put upon him, but he still tried to put his opposition in a pro-constitutional light. Obama believes, like Wilson, that the Constitution needs to be got around, but the community organizer in him knows damn well that it doesn't matter what the laws on the books are, there were laws on the books to prevent FDR from seizing all of the Gold in the nation; if they aren't enforced, or if judges spin their judgment around them in 'penumbras', and the media don't say anything differently, and the people can be conned into calling for the "Change!" needed, it will disappear as a restraint upon their efforts.
Even that could have been overcome 4 or 8 years (or 12) later, but the difference now, is that the constitution still had judges then who understood it, and people who respected it, but now, together with a one party Gov't, united in their belief in a ghost of a constitution, and the astounding and unprecedented steamrolling of property rights and unhampered Gov't power to do as it pleases to powerful businesses and individuals alike - with the peoples approval and apathetic shrugs – or hands out...omg... the entire world has changed in the last month, and Nov 4th could seal the deal.
The precedents have been set, and unless the next administration backs away from it, they will become the norm. McCain would probably back away from it.
Obama isn't going to back away from it. Pelosi isn't going to back away from it. Reid isn't going to back away from it. They are licking their chops. Google their plans for taking over retirement accounts, as a start. The Reid Pelosi Obama Ginsberg types also do not believe, DO NOT believe, that the U.S. has the Right to stand against the needs and desires of the U.N. They DO NOT believe that Israel has a right to exist. They DO NOT believe that Western Civilization is even AS good as other cultures, they are mostly ready and willing to burden us with kow-towing to the Palestinians, Venezuela, etc.
I would have banked on a huge conservative backlash half-way into an Obama administration, but the leftist dominated one party congress and senate are also planning on muzzling talk radio with the Fairness Doctrine... so how would that get off the ground? They are also friendly to the idea, that's been brought up repeatedly, of letting oversight of the internet fall from U.S. oversight, to being controlled by the freedom loving star wars cantina bar of dictatorships of the U.N. If free speech goes, and the current state of this public’s understanding of the nature and purpose of Gov't, and the pitiful excuse for education we have now, if that is all that is passed on to the next generation, then this exercise in Republican Gov't and Liberty is over.
Period.
I've made numerous comments and even a post or two criticizing Chicken Little's in the past, whining that all is lost after a bad election, and I will be thrilled to be proven wrong in 4 years. But I'm not seeing it. Before the bailout I would have laughed it off. But if what I'm seeing doesn't happen, it will only be due to incredible incompetence (Pelosi offers some hope there) and unexpected accidents only. The very best rosy optimistic scenario I can see, is 20-30 years (40 has a better ring to it) as followed FDR, though of unrestrained bureaucratic rule, at which point perhaps that mindset loses its indoctrinated steam, and maybe slowly gets rolled back afterwards, but to what? And why?
Here’s to me being a nutter and overlooking something obvious. My fingers are crossed, but they're numb.
.
I wouldn't count on much 'conservative' opposition either - even if it isn't somehow stifled under any sort of 'fairness to Dear Leader' operation. The conservatives abandoned their particular philosophy a long time ago, and are living on borrowed capital (the kinetic energy of their forebears) -- the conservative movement is in its final stages of entropy, most 'conservatives' don't even hold to half of the ideas that made it a powerful force.
My particular take on this (should I say 'peculiar'?) is that the one salvation we have is the fact that our monetary system is sinking at a faster rate than the State can bale. We are looking at the market system doing its job and removing the support system our current State system has set up.
Our hope (that is, the good news) is that with a collapse of the economy, the State will be far less powerful than the one Balama must have to enforce his 'salvation'.
Notable quote: "There can be no such thing, in law or in morality, as actions forbidden to an individual, but permitted to a mob." - Ayn Rand
"The most serious financial problem for the Nazi State is not the danger of a breakdown of the currency and banking system, but the growing illiquidity of banks, insurance companies, saving institutions, etc. . . . Germany's financial organizations are again in a situation where their assets which should be kept liquid have become 'frozen'. . . . But the totalitarian State can tighten its control over the whole financial system and appropriate for itself all private funds which are essential for the further existence of a private economy. Yet the institutions which still exist as private enterprises are not allowed to go bankrupt. For an artificial belief in credits and financial obligations has to be maintained in open conflict with realities."
From Gunter Reimann, The Vampire Economy: Doing Business Under Fascism (1939), p. 174, about German economic policy under Hitler.
Well this conversation has certainly come a long way from discussing the feasibility of instituting a program to help people feel some responsibility and some ownership for the country that they live in. I like it. I just wish I could get a few more people to comment.
I still think my idea has some workable aspects to it but like most of my ideas the implementation is the biggest problem.
"I wouldn't count on much 'conservative' opposition either...the conservative movement is in its final stages of entropy, most 'conservatives' don't even hold to half of the ideas that made it a powerful force."
Eh... depends on what you mean by conservative.
From the 20th century on, the Republican party has been an odd mix of traditionalists, socially conservative/economic progressives, and Classical Liberals, and they have vied for leading it and mixing/muddling their messages.
The best thing that could happen now, is that those on the classical liberal end rudely boot the others out (the McCain, Bush, Huckabee, Powell types), or form their own party - the former being more likely (but probably only in a partial fashion) than the later.
"My particular take on this (should I say 'peculiar'?) is that the one salvation we have is the fact that our monetary system is sinking at a faster rate than the State can bale. We are looking at the market system doing its job and removing the support system our current State system has set up."
Heh, how very Atlas Shrugged of you!
;-)
Another Ayn Rand quote, "In any compromise between food and poison, it is only poison that can win.", and this has been the certain path since the Progressives succeeded in 'permanently' mixing the market of capitalism and statism.
Our best, most likely wish upon a star scenario, would be that somehow the Classical Lib Conservatives become so damn fired up and ignite a grassfire revolution to junk the system... (I do believe in faeries, I do!, I do!). But for any such response to have any lasting success, will require the repeal of the 16th & 17th amendments (Income tax and leveling of the Senate), and the wholesale razing of the regulatory agencies... we'll see.
"But the totalitarian State can tighten its control over the whole financial system and appropriate for itself all private funds which are essential for the further existence of a private economy. Yet the institutions which still exist as private enterprises are not allowed to go bankrupt. For an artificial belief in credits and financial obligations has to be maintained in open conflict with realities."
Amazing, isn't it? Funny thing that all the lefties who rail at Bush for being a fascist, don't seize upon that (and so much more... ) as proof... of course the unfortunate part of that for their side, is that they couldn't do so without identifying their fascist affiliations as well.
Sort of the same reasons why Brown vs Board of Ed. and Roe vs Wade had to go to such outrageously flawed, convoluted and flat out invalid reasonings to come up with their opinions... because they'd already disavowed Property Rights and a person's right to their own life in earlier judgments... oh what a tangled web we weave....
Lance said "I still think my idea has some workable aspects to it but like most of my ideas the implementation is the biggest problem."
Sigh. Lance, I would dearly like to hear you put together even one coherent, principled, sentence that stated how your idea has workable aspects, without throwing out a persons right to their life, rights and property, before getting to the end of the sentence.
If you want to promote responsibility and 'ownership' in their country, begin an organization, a fraternity (Now THAT would be a campus radical!) that studies and promotes the ideas THAT ARE THIS NATION! America is NOT REAL ESTATE! It is an IDEA! An Idea of Freedom and Liberty, that is even more radical today than it was nearly 250 years ago.
Do that, and you would accomplish something, and be a hero for the ages.
I am Serious.
"...Well this conversation has certainly come a long way from discussing the feasibility of instituting a program to help people feel some responsibility and some ownership for the country that they live in..."
There are some relevant questions here:
1) What is your definition of patriotism (I assume this is the essence of the "ownership of the country" portion here.)
2) What is ownership?
For Van -
"...Our best, most likely wish upon a star scenario, would be that somehow the Classical Lib Conservatives become so damn fired up and ignite a grassfire revolution to junk the system... (I do believe in faeries, I do!, I do!). But for any such response to have any lasting success, will require the repeal of the 16th & 17th amendments (Income tax and leveling of the Senate), and the wholesale razing of the regulatory agencies..."
I think this is actually starting to happen - people are starting to figure this out. I am convinced that is the driving force behind the Ron Paul stuff that happened earlier - the constant, consistent debate by people like you and I is starting to pay off.
I still see an economic crash as the means by which we are somewhat preserved as a viable entity - all we have to do is survive and continue the work the Founders began. David the Dreamer talks again...
"I think this is actually starting to happen - people are starting to figure this out. I am convinced that is the driving force behind the Ron Paul stuff that happened earlier - the constant, consistent debate by people like you and I is starting to pay off."
That would be an interesting situation... a meeting of the minds between even the Sarah Palin type conservatives, and by that I just mean un-pretentious, self confident, get-gov't-outta-da-way types, and Ron Paul types... if they could get past punching eachother in the nose, that would be an interesting new force on the political scene.
"...the constant, consistent debate by people like you and I is starting to pay off..."
Now this I have and do give some thought to. If you look back at the period between Englands 'Glorious Revolution' and the run up to 1776, what you see happening out of the spotlight, and what built up the real heat and force into the times, were...
... wait for it...
Coffee shops. Circulated letters of opinion, philosophizing and agitation, ranging the gamut from rowdy discussions at the neighborhood Inn, broadsides posted up on every corner, and on up to higher profile people like Montaigne, Montesquieu, Locke, Voltaire, S. Adams and Ben Franklin's anonymous discussion societies... what were they, but a low-tech blogosphere?
Sometimes, in the deep of night, that streaks across the edges of my mind like a shooting star....
"all we have to do is survive and continue the work the Founders began. David the Dreamer talks again... "
Hey, where there is no vision, the people perish...
... second star to the right, and straight on till morning!
Van said:"Sigh. Lance, I would dearly like to hear you put together even one coherent, principled, sentence that stated how your idea has workable aspects, without throwing out a persons right to their life, rights and property, before getting to the end of the sentence."
Ok, I will give this a try and I do get what you and David are both saying. It isn't that I want to enslave or to throw out peoples rights to their life and property. That, believe me, is the furthest thing from my mind. By ownership I do not mean actual physical ownership, I mean a intrinsic feeling of pride at the very idea that we are American. A feeling of pride that we can and do have the freedoms that allow us to have such lively and passionate arguments that in some countries would not be allowed. I guess I err in wanting it to be a mandated thing. I do see the flaw in that idea. I also think this may be bigger then what I can put down in a few lines.
All along over the years as I have toyed with this idea my thought has always been that this would just be something that was tacked on after high school like citizen ship training. I guess I did not fully understand the issues and problems behind the idea. But one thing that I do not understand is if what I am proposing is slavery? Then what is high school and middle school and grade school? We do not give students a chance to opt out of those. Why is my idea so much worse? Is it an age thing?
Am I wrong to feel some responsibility to the society that I have grown up in, that has sheltered me and educated me and allowed me to thrive? I really just want others to understand and appreciate the chances that we have been given by the pure luck of being born and/or raised here. I feel that it took me till late in my life to realize that and it irks me that I wasted so many years stumbling around after high school. While I may not agree with the politics of the left or the right I am at least thankful that I do have the freedom to be informed and to vote how I see fit.
Am I making any sense?
Lance said "…Then what is high school?"
Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding!
Exactly! If a parent doesn't even have right to their own children (btw that was and is a goal of the educationistas, and it’s not hard to find – start with Dewey), then what right can they have?!
This is what I've argued time and again. What never was and never will be - Modern Madness:
"The Slide Towards Today
By 1918, every state in the Union had laws establishing compulsory education. If a citizen, a Parent, didn't have complete say so over their most valuable possessions, their children, what was the fuss over such trifles as Income Tax, the Federal Reserve, or how Senators should be elected?"
When do you think High School, Middle School and Elementary School, came into existence? In the same progressive era that brought us the FED, Income Tax, Regulatory Agencies and Prohibition... they all came from the progressive idea that Experts know better, and should direct the actions of society to conform for the greater good.
Ask yourself, when were these signs of people NOT feeling patriotic feelings towards their country begin? Go back and check... when did it first start popping up as an issue? You'll find that it also began with the progressive era, when people first started feeling the gov't getting into their lives where they all knew damn well that it didn't belong.
Tell me, how do you feel when you want to do something... doesn't matter what, the more trivial the better... smoke in public, drive without your seatbelt on... and there is a law against it? Do you not resent the Gov't telling you, a responsible adult, that you aren't capable or trustworthy of making that decision on your own? What does that say to you about the Gov't confidence in your responsibility and trustworthiness? How much stronger and prevalent does that feeling become and extend, as you rise above the trivial, such as getting authorization from the state to open a business, be drafted into military or community service, or that you must turn your own children over to an educational system - especially one you think is actually de-educating your children?
Bad law produces bad feelings, resentment towards, and withdrawal from, the community, the state and the nation. When Law is allowed to extend beyond protecting citizens rights and into forcing behavior and compliance. Good feelings and behavior come from understanding and appreciating something worthy of your respect, and are given almost involuntarily from the person who grasps its nature.
Good feelings and behavior and respect cannot be forced - nothing good, no good evaluations and judgments can be created, through force! The Law is Force - when used properly, it is moral, when used improperly, it is immoral and fast approaches becoming an evil.
The USA had always been the most literate and educated society in history WITHOUT mandatory public schooling, the progressives played on fears of unwashed and uneducated immigrants flooding and destroying the country, to push the mandatory laws through, so that every child could be forced to become civilized and literate Americans (yeah, most parents endured coming here in order to avoid that possibility, good thing gov’t was there to set them straight) in the same way that Morrill (a progressive republican) re-spun his bill (vetoed by Buchanan) for fed a controlled land grant policy (the first successful breach of the constitution that the progressives pulled off) to fund education as a war measure essentially "To prevent further civil wars, we've got to edumacate those hicks", and Lincoln bought it(also in the link above).
As I've said over and again, Education was the first target of the progressives in this country, and it has been the most devastating, and it is the one that has made all the rest possible. Read "Graves of Academe" by Richard Mitchell (online or free to download as .pdf or Word.doc), he wasn't a Republican or Conservative, just a Prof of English Lit, who became fed up with the horrendous grammar used by administration and other professors, and began the Underground Grammarian, and then slowly realized the faulty and often uttler lack of thinking being hidden in their abominable grammer, and discovered
"... the brooding monstrosity of American educationism, the immense, mindless brute that by now troubles the waters of all, all that is done in our land in the supposed cause of "education," since when, as you see, I can rarely bring myself to write that word without quotation marks, or even fashion a sentence less than nine or ten lines long, lest I inadvertently fail to suggest the creature's awesome dimensions and seemingly endless tentacular complexities. I will try to do better. The somber subject requires clarity."
His newsletters (from the mid 70's thru the early 90's) are, aside from sparkling wit and insight, a fascinating examination of a top quality thinker slowly but surely discovering that is pet peeve was actually a sign of a grave evil, and one that he was unspectingly involved in. The book, is an exercise in clear thought applied to the issue - WORTH YOUR TIME!
Ok, soap box stored. But still accessible.
"Am I wrong to feel some responsibility to the society that I have grown up in, that has sheltered me and allowed be to thrive?"
Of course not, but our society has become one of a divided nature. On the one hand, from its source and better half, we protect the rights of our citizens to become the best they can, enable them to live their lives as they see fit, free from the brutal nature that runs rampant in the rest of the world. But on the other hand, our society engages in those same barbarisms, though given a makeover, towards our own people. You might ask yourself, why did your schooling leave you stumbling around (did me too) after high school? Is it because it helped to create a self confident, self assured, knowledgable and capable mind ready, willing and able to engage the world and certain of your right to live your life... or did it produce more of a fog which you endured and muddled through, resented and gained little out of? There's more going on here than just the typical students annoyance at sitting in class.
Take a walk through an inner city school, if you dare, and see if you think they are having any success forcing an education, a civilizing influence, upon their students - and ask yourself why that might be.
Lack of Money?
Please.
It is true that I do and did not know the history of education in America. It has always been there and I attended it. I did have friends who were home schooled and I attended a small private Christian school for awhile. But it honestly never occurred to me to look at when education became mandatory. Thanks, Van
My thanks to Van for that last post - it gives a lot of material that frees me to supplement rather than provide.
By ownership I do not mean actual physical ownership, I mean a intrinsic feeling of pride at the very idea that we are American.
Is this your definition of patriotism? What is an American?
A feeling of pride that we can and do have the freedoms that allow us to have such lively and passionate arguments that in some countries would not be allowed.
While I agree that it is nice to experience an emotion of pride over the things you have in life, I view it as a choice. It cannot be enforced or taught. My question here addresses the issue differently. You cannot put emotions into a person. Emotions are a physical reactions thoughts.
We hear and talk about the idea that we are more free in this country than others to discuss these ideas. Yet this same freedom has existed in Britain and many other nations for a long time (ever seen the soap-box discussion in public parks in London?)
Talking about differences is not a threat to most forms of a State - acting on the ideas discussed is. Hence, many States allow people to talk all they want. Freedom is found in the ability to really make a difference.
We consider this nation to be a 'free' one - but - are we really free when the air you breathe, the water you drink, the size of your toilet tank, the water pressure in your shower, the words you can speak under oath and in private, how your physician treats your illness, what your children study in grade school, how fast you can drive your car, and what you can drink before you drive it are all regulated? (My thanks to Karen DeCoster for that list.)
I home school my kids - and we watch documentaries as part of their education: watching a video one night we noticed that in one city, people piled into the back of pickup trucks, and climbed on top of buses to get across town for work, etc. While it certainly was evidence than many people did not own their own vehicles, it showed something else to me: how far would a pickup truck laden with 4 or 5 un-seatbelted individuals get in 'free' America?
Why is America the leader of the entire planet in prison population, both by number and percentage per capita? How free is that? Yes, we should celebrate a free country - but we need to have a free one to celebrate first!
"...But one thing that I do not understand is if what I am proposing is slavery? Then what is high school and middle school and grade school? We do not give students a chance to opt out of those. Why is my idea so much worse? Is it an age thing?..."
The way these things are set up is indeed slavery. Children are considered property of the State, and herded into cells to be formally indoctrinated. This is one of the two main reasons I am totally against State schools (the second is the method of funding.)
The philosophical purpose of these schools is to create a class of good citizens. That is the primary purpose, proper education is secondary. On the surface that sounds like a noble goal. That is, until you go further into the issue and learn what is meant by a good citizen. A good citizen is one that does not question the authority of the State.
The main purpose of the State mandated system we have in place (the reason it was set up the way it was, as Van points out) is to create a society that is no threat to the power structure of the State. By removing the ability of entire generations of people to competently question the reasoning of those in power, the power elite have guaranteed themselves a much easier time of maintaining their position.
My argument, contrary to what many people state, is that the 'Public' school system is extremely successful.
There is an easy fix to the problems of the schools in America, but it should be a different thread because it will stir up a nest of debate as well. Regardless, State education is a primary (possibly the single most important) reason why we have the form of State we have now, and I can understand your argument about wishing to expand it a few more years:
Since the purpose of State education is to create a society that lives in appreciation of its Leaders - but is failing to do so, it follows that we must not be doing enough and need to increase the amount of education.
I propose that, unless modified, your definition of patriotism must include, or be limited to, an awe of the State. That is understandable - it is what you were taught in 'school' (so was I - took me a long time to see the problem.)
Hence, when you write:
Am I wrong to feel some responsibility to the society that I have grown up in, that has sheltered me and educated me and allowed me to thrive?
No. The question here is, do we force others to behave as if they think the same thoughts, or do we leave them the freedom to be themselves?
I really just want others to understand and appreciate the chances that we have been given by the pure luck of being born and/or raised here.
May I point out that to do this correctly, you should teach children to think clearly and allow them to come to the conclusions themselves. This cannot be done when the entire mechanism is immoral. All that is done in this instance is to conjure an environment of confusion, from which people strive to escape (can anyone say 'drugs'?)
While I may not agree with the politics of the left or the right I am at least thankful that I do have the freedom to be informed and to vote how I see fit.
Do you think other countries don't also have the freedom to be informed? I won't even touch the illusory power of voting :P
As well as being able to give back to this America that has provided them with schooling and safety and allowed them to live in a world where frankly we are very lucky to be living in.
That's how Senator McCain views America: our great benefactor whom we must serve loyally and honorably. Guess what: your parents paid for your schooling. They paid taxes for the military we have. Parents paid with their health and lives in some cases.
"America" didn't and doesn't give you those things. Americans do.
Christopher said: "your parents paid for your schooling. They paid taxes for the military we have. Parents paid with their health and lives in some cases.
"America" didn't and doesn't give you those things. Americans do."
That is why I am willing to give back into the system for me it amounts to simple respect for those who have done this before me and while it has it's problems. It is what it is and there doesn't seem to be anything else in the world to rival it. I think that in all honesty for the changes that David is arguing for the United States would need to be broken up into smaller areas that would be more manageable maybe even *gasp* letting States have more control on these issues.
David every time I try to narrow a topic down you insist on widening it up. :) Can we save the discussion about the differences between America and the European nations until a later date?
CT: "America" didn't and doesn't give you those things. Americans do."
Lance: That is why I am willing to give back into the system for me it amounts to simple respect for those who have done this before me..."
Question: what is this 'system' to which you refer?
"...and while it has it's problems. It is what it is and there doesn't seem to be anything else in the world to rival it...
It is in reference to this belief that I pointed to the 'European nations' (see later paragraphs). The operative here is "seem to be anything else." I'll 'splain that later. (Note: there are several areas around the world with similar systems. Of all places, check out Chile! Seriously!)
I think that in all honesty for the changes that David is arguing for the United States would need to be broken up into smaller areas that would be more manageable maybe even *gasp* letting States have more control on these issues.
Does this imply that we the system to which you infer is the Federal government?
David every time I try to narrow a topic down you insist on widening it up. :) Can we save the discussion about the differences between America and the European nations until a later date?
My point was not to examine any other nation, it was emphasize what we have here. This is SUCH an emotionally charged issue we deal with here: when someone points out problems in America, the immediate response is some form of 'what un-American thinking!'. The idea is that America is the freest, most prosperous and most moral nation that has ever existed, and to question this verges on heresy.
I would like to posit a simple idea: This mindset is the product of nearly 100 years of progressive social experiment in State operations. Nearly everyone has been trained to respond in an almost Pavlovian manner in defense of what America has become.
But this is not the America of 20 years ago, and that America was not the America of 20 years before that. I know - I've observed the past 40 years. The American I was born into was not the one that my father was born into.
People argue that the world has changed. Well, some things have, but most things have not. For darned sure human nature has not changed, progressive education or not. What has changed is the power we have surrendered to those we are supposed to consider our leaders. Think about this - every time we send another batch of kids off to kill foreigners (all in the name of defending freedom at home, of course) they come back to less freedom!
And now you are asking us to surrender two to four more years of our lives to supporting the very forces that are removing those freedoms - and the purpose of this surrender? To learn to be thankful to the ones who have taken those freedoms away!
My single question: "Why?"
There is a great scene in the movie 'Eric the Viking' where the island of Hy-Brasil is sinking into the sea. All the inhabitants are seated on the highest point in of the island, surrounding their king, who continually assures them that nothing is happening, the island is not sinking. He does this until all that is left are bubbles rising to the surface.
'We are a free country - nothing is wrong! Go about your business, use your credit cards - the island is not sinking!'
There is a story we all know of an Emperor who is tricked into parading around naked. The people are so swayed by the 'authority' of the king that they all pretend nothing is amiss.
'Nothing is wrong here! You should be grateful for all the freedoms your leaders have given you - go about your business. (And no, the State cannot GIVE freedom - it can only take it. Moreover it cannot give rights.)
Setting a frog in a bowl of cold water and slowly raising the temperature will result in the frog eventually boiling to death.
'Don't worry - you are free! Thank us for all we've given you!....this is a FREE country'
(There must be limits to freedom, right? - and don't waive that goddamned piece of paper in our faces!)
We've surrendered our freedoms until there are almost none left, and now you are worried that people just aren't appreciative enough of what they have! At what point do we really start becoming concerned, and actually begin to demand the water be turned down. When do we point out that the king has no clothes? When do we note that the island is, indeed, sinking, and we are all going to drown?
Why should we be giving 'back' to the system that continually takes from us?
"I think that in all honesty for the changes that David is arguing for the United States would need to be broken up into smaller areas that would be more manageable maybe even *gasp* letting States have more control on these issues"
I think you should keep in mind that these "changes" are not matters of re-forming existing norms into altered states, but of removing statist growths, tumors, from our society, in order to return to the norms that were the norms, just a century ago. These are not radical new, exhortations for societal changing measures, but a wake-up call to 'tilt' the machine, and return it to its normal operating structure.
It is all of the progressivist agenda that has been grafted onto our society, that is the unnatural growth.
We had freedom, we had liberty, we had a nation that was the envy of the world NOT for what it did, but for what it DIDN'T do, and that stirred deep and profound feelings of patriotism in those who were its citizens, and those who wished they were.
Not that this is a desirable example, but only one that illustrates the difference, at the turn of the century, in the new sporting stadiums that were being built, there were several incidents of people being beaten, and I think in a few cases killed, for not standing up for the Nat'l anthem, or what served as that at the time. Today, those who do stand are often snickered or glared at.
That change of feeling has come about because of the unnatural intrusions that have been smeared upon our society, and which have made it difficult to even locate what is admirable about America, let alone stir patriotic feelings for it.
Remove them, educate the people again about what it means to be free people in a land that makes it possible, and the effect, Patriotism, will follow form its causes, virtue and liberty..
Van said:"Not that this is a desirable example, but only one that illustrates the difference, at the turn of the century, in the new sporting stadiums that were being built, there were several incidents of people being beaten, and I think in a few cases killed, for not standing up for the Nat'l anthem, or what served as that at the time. Today, those who do stand are often snickered or glared at."
Boy, I do not know what sporting events you are going to. But the ones I attend people still stand and are respectful even to the Canadian anthem at the hockey games I go to.
I agree with you though with education and a return to the freedoms that we took for granted long ago. Things will change. I hope it is for the better.
I agree with you though with education and a return to the freedoms that we took for granted long ago. Things will change. I hope it is for the better.
Very important point, and one that is incompatible with the premise you started with:
You cannot expect the State to educate people that it is operating immorally and unconstitutionally. That would be equivalent to a gang of thieves holding classes to let their victims know that they were being robbed. It's just not good for business.
And the effect of learning this in the 'compulsory' classes would NOT be a spirit of thankfulness and brotherly love....
Heh, Richard Mitchell put this as something like "In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is King... and the two-eyed man is a threat"
Sort of also points out that if we were to incrementally re-introduce liberty to America the single most important step we could take would be to free the education system from State control.
Privatizing schools would do more for promoting freedom and pride in our way of life than any other step. Of course, this also means that this would be the hill on which the State would certainly take a stand - it might let other things go, but this would be the very last bastion. As long as you have the minds of children under your control, you can easily control the rest of society - either through blackmail ("Think of the children!") or just through the process of many years of constant, consistent 'education'.
"Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it." (Proverbs 22:6)
The State knows this, and it is it's most important tool. It will NEVER give this up without a big fight and probably a great deal of bloodshed. Its better to kill parents than return their children, don't you know.
Sorry for the length, but from the end of Book VII of Plato's Republic:
"...and regarding justice as the greatest and most necessary of all things, whose ministers they are, and whose principles will be exalted by them when they set in order their own city?
How will they proceed?
They will begin by sending out into the country all the inhabitants of the city who are more than ten years old, and will take possession of their children, who will be unaffected by the habits of their parents; these they will train in their own habits and laws, I mean in the laws which we have given them: and in this way the State and constitution of which we were speaking will soonest and most easily attain happiness, and the nation which has such a constitution will gain most.
Yes, that will be the best way. And I think, Socrates, that you have very well described how, if ever, such a constitution might come into being.
Enough then of the perfect State, and of the man who bears its image --there is no difficulty in seeing how we shall describe him.
There is no difficulty, he replied; and I agree with you in thinking that nothing more need be said. "
The trouble with Irony, is not everyone gets it. Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot read that, and said "Yes, that will be the best way" and began by sending out into the coutry all the inhabitants of the city old enough to know better, took their possessions, took their children... and... well what do you do with people you send out into the country...who after all, you don't want coming back? Kill them of course, that is afterall, what fields are for.
If you think it's that far fetched, ask home schooler's in California... it's not that much of a stretch.
Education was their first inroad into America, and they spread through our culture like a philosophical staph infection. We won't recover until their control of deEducation is broken.
That's a fact.
Just to append to Van's statement: here's what the home-schooler's in California are facing:
The CA Supreme Court:
"In obedience to the constitutional mandate to bring about a general diffusion of knowledge and intelligence, the Legislature, over the years, enacted a series of laws. A primary purpose of the educational system is to train school children in good citizenship, patriotism and loyalty to the state and the nation as a means of protecting the public welfare."
(I added the emphasis)
"The court stated that the California government has the right to regulate and supervise schools and to ensure that all students of the 'right age' attend school. It explains that California law requires "public full-time days school … unless (1) the child is enrolled in a private full-time day school and actually attends that private school, (2) the child is tutored by a person holding a valid state teaching credential for the grade being taught, or (3) one of the other few statutory exemptions to compulsory public school attendance …"
(Thanks to Steven Greenhut for the above quotes)
Van, I'm glad you posted the quote from The Republic. We are seeing that entire book become reality. Thank you.
OT, Boiling a frog on the Bar-BAustralia's compulsory internet filtering 'costly, ineffective'
"THE Federal Government is planning to make internet censorship compulsory for all Australians and could ban controversial websites on euthanasia or anorexia.
Australia's level of net censorship will put it in the same league as countries including China, Cuba, Iran and North Korea, and the Government will not let users opt out of the proposed national internet filter when it is introduced."
Meanwhile, old news still churning out there,
"Although many are under the impression that the Internet is unregulated, this is not entirely the case. There are a number of technical issues ... allocation of the dot-com or dot-net designations ... codes that are attached to e-mails ... determined by a central entity...This job is currently handled by an American nonprofit: the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). ...While ICANN functions on a charter from the Commerce Department, the U.S. government has followed a strict hands-off policy...
But demands are growing for the "internationalization" of Internet governance. To this end, a number of countries are pressing to remove oversight from ICANN and place it under the auspices of a new organization that would be part of the U.N. system. "
Can't wait till Obama, Pelosi & Reid get power. Fairness doctrine first, 'Net next....
Unless you keep the lights on, it's lights out.
Lance, sorry for plopping so much of my blog onto the page.. but... here I go again, the subject gets me riled up, from the same one of mine ref'd above,
"John Dewey wrote in his 1897 My Pedagogic Creed, that "I believe that the schools is primarily a social institution.... Examinations are of use only so far as they test the child/s fitness for social life..." and later in 1916 in Democracy and Education, he wrote, "There is always a danger that increased personal independence will decrease the social capacity of an individual.... It often makes an individual so insensitive in his relations to others as to develop an illusion of being really able to stand and act alone - and unnamed from of insanity which is responsible for a large part of the remedial suffering of the world.", and even more clearly in "Earlier liberalism regarded the separate and competing economic action of individuals as the means to social well-being as the end. We must reverse the perspective and see that socialized economy is the means of free individual development as the end".
What do these people of the 19th and the early 20th centuries have to do with our world today? Well, Dewey's views became the views of the Educationists, and in particularly those of the NEA, which as early as 1946, formed their educational goals in their Journal under "The Teacher and World Government" "In the struggle to establish an adequate world government, the teacher can do much to prepare the hearts and minds of children for global understanding and cooperation. At the very top of all the agencies which will assure the coming of world government must stand the school, the teacher and the organized profession."
What do these people of the 19th and the early 20th centuries have to do with our world today? Well, Dewey's views became the views of the Educationists, and in particularly those of the NEA, which as early as 1946, formed their educational goals in their Journal under "The Teacher and World Government" "In the struggle to establish an adequate world government, the teacher can do much to prepare the hearts and minds of children for global understanding and cooperation. At the very top of all the agencies which will assure the coming of world government must stand the school, the teacher and the organized profession."
And if that is not clear enough for you, in 1948, in "Education for International Understanding in American Schools: Suggestions and Recommendations” produced by the NEA, contained the following statements: "The idea has become established that the preservation of international peace and order may require that force be used to compel a nation to conduct its affairs within the framework of an established world system. The most modern expression of this doctrine of collective security is in the United Nations Charter. Many persons believe that enduring peace cannot be achieved so long as the nation-state system continues as at present constituted. It is a system of international anarchy, a species of jungle warfare. Enduring peace cannot be attained until the nation-states surrender to a world organization the exercise of jurisdiction over those problems with which they have found themselves unable to deal singly in the past."
Freedom has no place in such a philosophy, and consequently America has no place in such a philosophy. If you wonder why the Leftists of the United Nations, and of our own countrymen seem to be Anti-American, it is because they are."
People get all riled up about the media... guess where they learned their ideas from?
Van, I don't mind at all you plopping stuff from your blog over here. I myself am enjoying the conversation even if it seems like it is just you and David agreeing with each other and taking shots at me :) But I do not mind honestly. One of the main reasons being that I have not met many people that think like you or David and this keeps me on my toes. Even if I disagree it keeps me on my toes and I like being kept on my toes. It is easy for me at school to spend my time talking with people that all think the same. So I try to get around that if I can by using the internet.
A question for the both of you....When people move to the United States and they want to legally become a citizen. They must take a class and a test. Is this legal or moral or is it just another aspect of slavery?
Further comment: John Dewey and Horace Mann were the primary architects of the 'public' school system America uses. What Van points out above just scratches the surface of what you can uncover by reading their materials and looking at the arguments built on the foundation they laid.
The entire State school system is an experiment in social engineering, and I argue that it has been 100% successful, and people who find fault with the schools, or think they have somehow failed - aren't looking around at the result of the program. It works exactly how it was planned to work, and it is nearing its goal.
Just for reference: the Founding Fathers were asked to observe a similar system of education - initiated by Frederick The Great. They took one look and said......"Uh......NO!"
It took over 100 years to get to a point where the idea could be approached again...
Lance said "When people move to the United States and they want to legally become a citizen. They must take a class and a test. Is this legal or moral or is it just another aspect of slavery? "
This is a situation of an application for citizenship in the USA - America is not a nation of geography or blood, but of Ideas and Laws, I find it hard to see how anyone could argue with testing their knowledge of the language the nations laws are written in, and their comprehension of what is expected of a citizen and familiarity with the Constitution.
The mandatory class... I don't think the Gov't should be involved in any schooling, especially teaching prospective citizens about our Gov't.
We also used to have a property requirement for voting, to ensure that responsible people, with a stake in the community, were the ones who voted.
Again we were never designed to be a democracy - for the very reasons we are seeing now.
Van said: "Again we were never designed to be a democracy - for the very reasons we are seeing now."
That is funny because the stupidity of the masses was one of the reasons that Plato made up his Republic. I mean a Democracy killed Socrates that can't have been a good thing. :)
David said "Just for reference: the Founding Fathers were asked to observe a similar system of education - initiated by Frederick The Great. They took one look and said......"Uh......NO!""
The goals and purposes of modern education, in a straight line from Rousseau down to the present, have been anti-conceptual, anti-intellectual, anti-freedom, anti-individualistic, and in its very black heart and soul, anti-Education.
I do not say that with any rhetorical flourish at all, if you read the sources, the 'intellectual' and philosophical leaders and their message, are horrifying and sick. Voltaire, on reading Rousseau's 'Social Contract', replied: "I have received your new book against the human race, and thank you for it. Never was such cleverness used in the design of making us all stupid. One longs, in reading your book, to walk on all fours. But as I have lost that habit for more than sixty years, I feel unhappily the impossibility of resuming it..."
That was the height of pure erudition and wit, compared to Rousseau's 'Emile' (which was a source of inspiration for Kant), which is the granddaddy of all modern educational theory.
I went into some other aspects of the relation between modern education, philosophy and the destruction of modernity, in The trees that bare the barren fruit.
Lance - I don't think either Van or I have been taking ANY shots at you - hopefully this is not taken personally. We happen to agree on the issue of education (and I suspect a great many other things) and simply want to point out that the problems you want to solve by using State education are the problems CAUSED by that very entity.
The goal you want to accomplish (a society of people who care for one another and feel a sense of pride over their way of life) is arrived at in direct contradiction to the method you wish to employ. The State cannot make people appreciate it, because by it's very nature, it is predatory.
The prey never thanks the predator.
This is as good a time as ever to repeat my question from above:
What is patriotism?
Van - I just wrote a paper on examining 'Emile,' arguing against the segregation of children into grade levels by age. Weird how things come up in cycles. You can go years without a thought of the book and then it comes up twice in a month!
Oh, I am not taking it personal at all. Let's see....
What is patriotism?
Hmmmm that is a good question. I know it isn't what school and the church have been telling me it is for so many years. It has always seemed to me to be way of thinking and of understanding. Ummmm of being aware of the benefits that I have received from growing up here but also being aware of the problems that are inherent in the system of government that we have. Though I would argue on a side note that no system of government will be without its problems.
I do not think patriotism is blindly approving of everything my country does. It is not my country right or wrong. One of the reasons that I feel that way is that I just happened to be born here it was not due to anything I did. My Grandma was Swedish and My Grampa was Canadian on my Mom's side and my Mom was born here and then I was but I could just have easily have been born in Sweden. So it bothers me sometimes that people take pride over being born in a country that they had no control over. I feel like I am babbling here and not answering the question. Did I answer at least part of it David?
Lance said "So it bothers me sometimes that people take pride over being born in a country that they had no control over."
I would, sight unseen, trust an immigrant to be, to understand what it means to be an American, to be willing to stand up for that, and be far and away more American in, mind, body and soul, than someone native born - with one caveat. That caveat being that they came here to become an American, not just to get some cash and go back home. That goes for Mexican, Irish, Chinese, Kenyan or any other country of origin you want to name.
Like my neighbor and his dad, who fled Poland when they were told the Russians were coming for them (early 80's), they know what it means to BE an American.
Awesome and very fitting interview:
Warning, it's 50 minutes or so
I wish more people could hear this one.
Rockwell usually ticks me off, but I'll give it a listen this weekend.
BTW, if you haven't read it, Leonard Piekoff's "The Ominous Parallels" did an excellent job of describing the philosophic fundamentals behind the German slide into Fascism, and pointed out how another culture, ours, different in most other ways, was heading in the same direction, because of the common philosophic and educational beliefs, rooted back through Marx, Hegel, Kant & Rousseau.
There's also Goldberg's "Liberal Fascism", which does a good job, though more on the journalistic level, of tracing how fascism arises from the left, and how we've been sliding towards it for the last century.
Funny thing is that the leftists get all bent out of shape over the comparison, thinking that any comparisons are invalid... for no deeper reasons than they don't wear toothbrush mustaches or like wearing storm trooper uniforms... completely missing the fact (and denying it), that the 'Third Way' economic policies of fascism, merging Gov't & Business, are precisely what they have been pushing for over a century.…
In response to the question: "What is patriotism?"
I know it isn't what school and the church have been telling me it is for so many years. It has always seemed to me to be way of thinking and of understanding. Ummmm of being aware of the benefits that I have received from growing up here but also being aware of the problems that are inherent in the system of government that we have. Though I would argue on a side note that no system of government will be without its problems.
Perhaps it might clear up some confusion for you if we define it a bit differently. Could we accept this as a good working definition? Loyalty to the set of ideals under which this nation was founded.
If so, could that not solve the problems you bring up here:
"...I do not think patriotism is blindly approving of everything my country does. It is not my country right or wrong..."
I am persuaded that the error that faces us is that we have - through a process of direct education (indoctrination) - come to view patriotism as loyalty to the State. Hence the idea of 'my country - right or wrong.'
True patriotism should stand against what has happened to this nation, and I believe that is the ideas under which Van and I operate.
David said: "Could we accept this as a good working definition? Loyalty to the set of ideals under which this nation was founded."
I feel like I can accept that. I do not know if I am willing to go as far as you and Van on some of the other issues but that definition does seem a more feasible one to me.
I think that sounds like a good starting point, at any rate. I'm curious Lance, which parts that we mentioned, do you think go too far, and in what direction?
Van said "I'm curious Lance, which parts that we mentioned, do you think go too far, and in what direction?"
Well, I think one area that comes to mind right now, without lots of thinking time, is the importance of the Constitution. I understand that it like the Declaration of Independence really form the backbone of America. But, I guess my question would be. Does the fact that when the Constitution was written America consisted of 13 colonies make it any less powerful of a document and was it even intended to be something to guide such a large nation?
Please be gentle in your replies :)
"Does the fact that when the Constitution was written America consisted of 13 colonies make it any less powerful of a document and was it even intended to be something to guide such a large nation?"
How many years of college have you had?
"Please be gentle in your replies :)"
Don't think that's possible at the moment. Perhaps later.
Come on buddy, I know we are all tense with the election coming up but it won't help me to learn if I get yelled at and I am not trying to get your goat. If I am completley mistaken and I sense from your response that I may be just let me know and I can rework the thinking. I have not been studying a lot of my American history lately and I know you are far more knowledgeable then me in that category.
The proper bounds, operations and limitations upon governmental power are defined in the Constitution of the United States of America.
The rights of the citizens of the United States of America are defined and rely upon the constitution of the United States of America.
Ask yourself who is served by 'educated' people not being educated to understand that?
If you seek power, power to do whatever you wish, preferably without restraint, what is it you are going to seek to devalue in the publics mind?
A few quotes from this page for you:
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." --Thomas Jefferson to Charles Yancey, 1816. ME 14:384
"I know no safe depositary of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education. This is the true corrective of abuses of constitutional power." --Thomas Jefferson to William C. Jarvis, 1820. ME 15:278
"Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves, therefore, are its only safe depositories. And to render even them safe, their minds must be improved to a certain degree." --Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Virginia Q.XIV, 1782. ME 2:207
"The most effectual means of preventing [the perversion of power into tyranny are] to illuminate, as far as practicable, the minds of the people at large, and more especially to give them knowledge of those facts which history exhibits, that possessed thereby of the experience of other ages and countries, they may be enabled to know ambition under all its shapes, and prompt to exert their natural powers to defeat its purposes." --Thomas Jefferson: Diffusion of Knowledge Bill, 1779. FE 2:221, Papers 2:526
Do they make any impression on you? Do you see any relevance to you and your life, or is that a different world with no relevance to you because human nature has no constants and no similarities between their time and ours?
The greatest political science education to be had, can be had through a study of the Constitutional Convention, the essentials of which are covered in Madison's notes taken during it, which I have in a medium sized paperback, which, complete with several appendixes and an index, totals 229 pages.
A basic understanding of this could easily be communicated in a high school level course.
A college level course could be found in a deeper look into Madison's convention notes, Federalist and Anti-Federalist papers, which fill two additional paperback books.
Between high school and college, you've had numerous essays, books and textbooks assigned to you during classes in social studies, civics, American History and poly sci.
Why do you suppose these were neglected?
Is it important?
What do you think?
Read a non political, non agenda driven piece, Chp 1 "Propositions Three and Seven", from THE GRAVES OF ACADEME by Richard Mitchell. It's worth your time.
Thanks Van, I have started reading the piece you linked. It looks very interesting.
I am very tired, so please forgive in advance if this gets confusing....
"Does the fact that when the Constitution was written America consisted of 13 colonies make it any less powerful of a document and was it even intended to be something to guide such a large nation?"
The purpose of the constitution was to form a limited system of government. The idea at the time (and one which I believe is universally true at all times) is that the written word is the primary means of conveying knowledge. Instead of a tradition of inherent Statehood passed through generations, or one of coup and violence, they understood that a document could be crafted which would address the fundamental requirements of government, and limit the actions of those in power to those fundamentals only. The government thus created would be limited to certain specific actions only.
Those fundamentals are unchangeable and universal; they don't change with time. The reason is simple: the constitution limits the ability of men to seize power for their own gain. I may disagree with Van a little on the idea of rights - I hold that the rights of men are assumed by the authors of the constitution to be prior to the document - man's rights don't rely on the constitution - they exist regardless of the document (actually, I think that is what Van would argue anyway). The constitution is designed in such as way as to limit what those who would hold power can actually do regarding the rights of those they rule. It is very specific for the most part.
It also assumes rights that are not delineated: for this reason alone I would argue that the constitution is not limited to a specific historic time. It is just as potent and valid now as it was then.
I think one of the biggest problems people nowadays have (BECAUSE of the education they receive by the State) is that they think the constitution is created to limit the ruled, rather than the rulers. That was a monumentally Orwellian task, but one that I think the State school system has done with a lot of skill.
Yes, Lance, the constitution was created to guide an even larger nation - because the issues it addresses are done so at the level of the individual, not a group. The largest group in the world is still created of individuals. Number doesn't matter - it is the identity of the individual that matters.
I agree with David's comment on the whole. If there's confusion over my idea of Rights, I believe that they originate in our nature as human beings, and are not in any way granted by Gov't only recognized, and the Constitution only acknowledges the fundamental political rights which it must not infringe upon.
FDR's (and obama's) idea of granting 'economic rights' are anathema to the principles the Constitution was founded upon, and will ultimately lead to its destruction, if not discarded.
Thank you both, that was a better and more rational answer then I have received from other people. Follow up question.
Is the Constitution an infallible document? What do the amendments represent then, new inspired thought or mistakes that changed the document?
Is the Constitution an infallible document? What do the amendments represent then, new inspired thought or mistakes that changed the document?
The Constitution is not a perfect document - it has some weaknesses (the commerce clause and the term 'general welfare' are not well defined, for example.)
Regarding the amendments: both of your statements are correct. Some of the amendments (the first 10, for example) are in place to address 'weaknesses' in the main body of the document. [Note - I use the term weaknesses in quotes because they are weaknesses only from the view of the governed, not the power structure. Those in power would be much happier if specific amendments - in particular the 2nd - did not exist.]
On the other hand, some of the amendments are negations of the principles the founders worked under, so I would say they are mistakes that changed the document. The 16th amendment jumps to mind. Also the 17th is not all that good.
The issue of whether or not the Constitution is error free or not does not justify any acting against it. It is the law of the land, and as such is the ultimate authority. No official, regardless of rationalization, can legitimately ignore the law. To do so is an act of treason against the nation. Christians should pay very close attention to this statement in particular, because they are Scripturally bound to submit to the governing authority of the land - which, in the case of America, is the Constitution. All State officials are under that authority of the Constitution, none are above it. Any official that breaks that law no longer holds legitimate authority over those he supposedly rules. In fact, the only power he then holds is the gun he waves at you. And the gun is not a legitimate legally binding device.
Is the Constitution an infallible document? What do the amendments represent then, new inspired thought or mistakes that changed the document?"
Infallible document? Wtf? Of course it's not infallible, it's an attempt by fallible men to establish a "more perfect union" for governing the affairs of men. The 'necessary and proper' clause, the commerce clause, and lacking a separation between state and economy, are a few imperfections.
"What do the amendments represent then, new inspired thought or mistakes that changed the document?""
Depends upon the amendment, doesn't it? The amendments removing property requirements for voting, or 16th & 17th amendments (grafting on the ability to have an income tax, dropping the election of the Senate to direct vote by the people)... these are a few very mistaken amendments, IMHO.
The 13th, 14th & 19th amendments (ending slavery, preventing states from stepping on the rights of U.S. Citizens, women’s suffrage are examples of good amendments (with some exceptions…).
Either case is an example of people updating the Constitution through its defined methods for doing so, where the people and their legislators, across a span of time, have defined a problem that seems to be rather important, and proposed solutions to fix those shortcomings, but none of that invalidates the Founders, or a diminishes their achievement.
Did Newton have everything right? Would his oversights or errors diminish his achievement? Should Einstein have been barred from updating the laws of Physics? Some new theories were thought correct, but afterwards proven wrong... I sure wouldn't want someone such as Carl Sagan or Richard Dawkins amending the laws of Science, no matter how good they are (were) at stiring up peoples interests for and participation in science. No, there isn't any proper comparison between Constitutional Law and the Laws of Physics, but in neither case should any changes be made to promote a personal, heartfelt desire, to have reality conform to their wishes; or some judges and legislatures agreement to hide behind convoluted and meaningless verbiage in order to ignore the constitution or proceed as if it meant something other than what it actually did; changes should only come through new observations and new questions being raised, examined, debated and tested, before proposing and enacting those changes and additions.
As the Truth becomes more clearly known, through new experiences exposing gaps, it is right and proper to do so, however it is a process that should be undertaken with great hesitancy and care, in order to better our form of Gov't - but not to alter or abolish it in order to enable a freer exercise of power through infringing upon the rights of the people to their lives and property.
Re the earlier issue of what makes one an American,
"BAGHDAD: Almost 200 U.S. soldiers serving in Iraq celebrated Tuesday's elections in a special way — they were sworn in as U.S. citizens.
But the 186 men and women — who hail from 60 different countries — won't get to cast that first ballot for Democrat Barack Obama or Republican John McCain, at least not this year. They became citizens too late to vote in Tuesday's presidential election.
...
"Diverse as your backgrounds may be, you all now have one thing in common: you are all Americans," the top U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. Ray Odierno, said. "You represent the very best of all that our nation stands for: freedom, opportunity, equality and service."
..."I'm excited to be able to vote," said Spc. Ruth McKoy, from the 62nd Quartermaster Company, 553rd Sustainment Brigade.
"If something good comes out of a future election, I can say I had something to do with that. It's like my voice is being heard now," said McKoy, who was born in the West Indies, Jamaica and joined the Army in December 2002.
Spc. Rasha Hennessy, from the 1st Higher Headquarters Battery, 1st Battalion, 206th Field Artillery, 39th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, was born in Baghdad not far from where she took her oath.
"Honestly, I can't even think of how blessed I am to have this privilege," she said. "It's a great thing."
"
Those are Americans!
(and no, not because they are serving in the military).
Ahh... phooey. David beat me to it.
Great, great stuff. This is actually more interesting to me then lots of other topics right now. Ok, next question
Do states rights trump Federal rights? As I understand it the Constitution seems to make that pretty clear unless we are dealing with commerce issues? I look at Oregon's assisted suicide law as one example. I also look at the mandatory drinking age of 21 being an example of Federal pressure taking the decision away from the states.
“Do states rights trump Federal rights?”
A snippet from Rights CHAPTER 14 Introduction:
"...In this context the agitation over a bill of rights that distinguished many of the critical fights in the state ratifying conventions takes on a somewhat different appearance. However much the opponents of the Constitution may have used the issue of a bill of rights as a tactical device (hoping thereby to secure a second convention that might undo some of the more odious features of the proposed new government), they also intended something more. There is a deeper meaning to their discontent. The debate over the need for a bill of rights stirs fundamental questions of American constitutionalism, for much of that debate expresses the people's continuing and conflicting need for, and fear of, a government that could truly govern..."
, and the list of links under the section on Rights, gives a clearer view of what they had in mind, spanning a period from 1639 to 1789.
At the time of the Constitutional Convention, the individual States had their own Constitutions and their own Bills of Rights, and their concern was for a Federal Gov't above them (a 'Nat'l Gov't' was the wary watchword during the convention) which might not recognize their rights. As new states came into the Union, and legal issues played out, the conflict became apparent that the reverse was becoming an issue, that states wouldn't recognize rights which it was becoming expected that all citizens of the United States of America should and did have, which the 14th amendment attempted to lay to rest.
I tend to believe that the Federal Constitution recognizes and defines the broadest, foundational Rights of the citizens of all the states, and if a States law is in conflict with that, it is the state’s law that should be struck down. However as you get closer to the community of actual individuals, progressing down from Federal through State, County, Township, Ward, etc, those people in those communities should have the ability and right (without contradicting the larger framework) to set their local standards without interference from above. I think that the idea of a Federal Ban on drinking under the age of 21 (or any age) is overstepping their bounds from recognizing and defending the broadest of Individual Rights, and infringing upon the communities right to choose and determine how they will conduct their lives.
Take a look at the Contents, or the indexes, what this site has brought together, and how it is organized, is impressive. The only drawback is that it stops with the 12th amendment, but the window it gives into the thinking of those who gave such an outstanding quality of thought to the matter, is an invaluable insight to aid us in considering the Constitution.
BTW, I assume you voted?
haha. I voted. In Oregon it is vote by mail and I voted last week. Also since one of the current county commissioners had no opposition I wrote myself in. Look out!!
Copied and pasted from Lewrockwell.com
We are in for a big fall:
Preparing for the Hard-Left State
Posted by Bill Anderson at November 4, 2008 06:27 AM
I believe that it is inevitable that the voters today will give the United States a hard-left government, and our lives will change for it. We libertarians have been very critical of the Bush administration -- and rightly so -- for its wars, its economic interventions, and its crushing of civil liberties.
Yet, I believe that what is to come will make the Bushies look like clones of Ron Paul. The Democratic Party of today is not the Democratic Party which gave us Jimmy Carter or even Bill Clinton. It is the party of people like George Soros and Billy Ayers and ACORN, and do not think for a second that these people do not realize that there will be no barriers at all to implementing the hard-left state. The political correctness that people think was only confined to the modern university campus will have no restraints at all, especially after Obama is able to fill numerous vacancies on the U.S. Supreme Court.
In the past, we have been able to write critical material of both Republican and Democratic politicians and policies and be able to do it without paying a real price. That day will be past. Not only will the airwaves be "re-regulated" to make sure that no critical word of the Regime will be uttered, but the Internet itself is going to fall under the kind of political control that we now see in communist countries. What has been the remnant of the rule of law will be officially dead, and legal outcomes now will be determined solely by the political "merits" of the case.
Don't forget that Obama already has called for bankrupting the coal industry, and I believe that the energy, transportation, and medical industries will decimated in the way that the government went after the tobacco companies. Wal-Mart will be smashed beyond recognition.
Furthermore, soon into his presidency, Obama will sign legislation that basically gives labor unions the power to organize any company or entity at will, and he also will sign legislation removing any "right-to-work" legislation from the states. We will be forced to join labor unions if we want to be able to work at all.
We can talk about gold as money all we like, but the Federal Reserve System will be empowered, not weakened, by this new government, and there will be no restraints at all on the Fed as it destroys the dollar. When prices go up, the government will blame businesses, levy price controls, and then put business owners in prison for "price gouging."
Our children will be conscripted into "national service" and anyone who resists will go to prison. There will be no exceptions, and that includes people from religious groups like the Amish. Our taxes will be raised to ruinous levels, and when businesses are bankrupted, the government will blame businesses and call for even more socialization.
Don't look for churches and non-profit groups to be exempted. This is a government that will not tolerate dissension and any church that does not toe the line on environmental and sexual dogma from the state will lose its tax exemption and ultimately be shut down.
On the environmental side, one of the first things Obama will do is to sign an executive order claiming carbon dioxide is a "dangerous pollutant," which will mean massive cost increases being dumped upon us. Furthermore, we will be forced to purchase "carbon credits" if we wish to travel anywhere, and look for the prisons to be filled with thousands of people who have traveled "without permission" from the state. The criminal penalties for violation will be severe, and I predict that many readers of these words will end up being incarcerated.
I do blame the "conservatives" and especially the "national greatness" conservatives" for leading us down this path, just as Herbert Hoover led the country to Roosevelt. Their wars and economic interventions not only weakened our economy and the very fiber of this country, but they also still claimed the mantle of "low taxers" and "small government."
Because this non-existent state of affairs failed -- as it always will -- the Left has been able to claim that free markets "don't work" and that their "vision" of economic planning must be implemented.
When I was in college, my professors held places like Cuba, North Vietnam (before the Vietnam War ended during my senior year), China, and North Korea to be the real "workers paradises." People even more radical than they now will be in power, and they will make sure that they never will lose power again.
My wife and I adopted three children from Third World countries, and all of them left behind lives of poverty and certain disease and early death. Yet, as I watch the United States implode forever into a virulent, hard-left state, I cannot help but wonder if we did the right thing. I don't know, but I do know that the freedom and liberty that I have cherished will be gone forever.
We are like the Cambodians who hopefully greeted the conquering Khmer Rouge with flowers and cheers. The same day those soldiers came into the capital city, they began their campaign or murder, terror, and forcing people into the countryside, where a quarter of the population died. We hope that the new people in power will be gentle, but I believe that the groups that now control the Democratic Party are so anti-liberty (except for promoting unlimited abortions) that they are just one step above the Khmer Rouge.
To re-phrase Sir Edward Grey, the lamps are going out all over the USA, and they will not be lit in my lifetime or the lifetime of anyone else.
David, I agree that Obama will try to do most, if not all that Rockwell has stated, but I will not accept that it is inevitable. And I will not sink to the fetid level of the leftists; we Americans have elected the 44th President of the United States of America, to whom I will give all due respect and best wishes, even as I oppose him in probably every policy he promotes and every step of the god damned way - but the deed is done, and we now have a decision to make - deal with it as civilized people who value Reason, or as sniveling leftist curs who value nothing but power at any cost.
I choose America and what it really stands for, no matter what condition it has fallen to, we can pick it back up. I imagine that Classical Liberals, at the election of FDR, felt a similar numbness, but for men of the mind it is not all as lost as it seems, their apparent victories, will be the source of the potential resurgence of classical liberalism.
If we keep our heads, and if we apply them to the task before us.
I summed it up here.
Do you really think it will be as bad as all that David? I just find that impossible to comprehend. I hope you are completley wrong.
Lance, what is there in anything Obama has said in sincere moments, that would lead you to believe that he didn't intend to do those things? Not rallies where he's said both sides of every issue plus a third, but what he's said in earlier interviews on the constitution, or in his plans for coal plants, or civilian defense forces to match the military in power and size, or in the violent anti-american activists he feels so comfortable hanging around, or...?
He is a Saul Alinsky power disciple - have you not read his books? Skimmed them even? If he doesn't attempt these things, it will not be because he hasn't given people reason to believe he would, only that he played them for fools as well.
Does it make you feel better to know that what he doesn't attempt, depends upon his calculations of power divided by whim, coming up opposed to them?
Personally, I think the people who are going to be the most surprised about Obama, are going to be Reid and Pelosi - I think they think they're going to control him, but my suspician is that they are about to find that they are woefully out of their league.
We asked for it, we've got it. Deal with it and oppose it where you can, or not.
Change is coming... will you allow it to change you?
(sorry, third scotch)
Well, it just seems like the other side of the theories I used to hear about Bush from the lefty people that I know. I think it is to early to start flying those flags.
There is a difference Lance, those theories about Bush, invariably stemmed from hidden connections and secret societies and shadowy corporate powers that 'obviously' pulled Bush's strings.
Obama, on the other hand, has stated his belief in a 'flexible' constitution which whould be improved if it didn't stiffle gov't action 'for the best', and has stated the principles of the rest flat out as actual ideals to be striven for.
We will see.
I am SO eager to be proved wrong.
Well, it looks like Russia isn't wasting anytime in pushing at Obama to see what he will do. I wonder if Bush will do anything of if he will wait for the 74 days?
Yeah... I don't think Russia will do anything but talk until Obama is sworn in... or maybe right before, but they might be misjudging the situation a bit.
I could be wrong, but everybody seems to have the idea that Obama is a standard whiner lefty lib in the tradition of other 'take my blood and ease my guilt' milque toasts like Kerry, Dukakis, Carter and Adlai Stevenson. I don't think they realize yet that he is more in the mold of the 'Get power at any cost, hold it and USE it' mold of Saul Alinsky & Lenin.
The next few years are going to be very active, one way or the other.
Lance, you asked about Slavery last time. This raise any alarm bells for you in that direction... or does it just fit right in with what you were thinking of?
"...Obama will call on citizens of all ages to serve America, by developing a plan to require 50 hours of community service in middle school and high school and 100 hours of community service in college every year... "
Whether my wife likes it or not, that happens, and we become home schooler's.
I've never owned a gun before, not out of any objection, just never had a particular interest or time & money to indulge in one.
That might be changing real damn quick.
Hmmmm, if that is true, and it looks like it is. I can see it really splitting up the populace. This might do it even more so then a so called class war. It will be interesting to see if this pans out for him. I will be graduating in less then two months so it looks like I am going to miss out on all of the fun.
Here's just one perfect example for you to think about, Lance. When I read Obama's plan to "require" 50 hours community service in middle school and 100 hours in high school and college, I thought of you and your plan almost immediately. Somewhat sounds like the fruition of your proposal... But here's the problem: I am in college at Chemeketa for Assoc. of Arts to major in Psych. From what I can see, I would be required--not requested or suggested but REQUIRED--to perform 100 hours of service to the community for free in some way. I'm not sure but I think it's in some way tied to student grants and loans.
I do not have one hair on my head that wants to serve the City of Salem, State of Oregon, or the federal government, and it's not because I'm lazy or unpatriotic. It's because I wholeheartedly do not agree with the State interfering as it does, and so I would not want to have to do work to support an entity with which I most strongly do not agree. Yet I will be REQUIRED to do that which I as a patriotic American do not want to do. Does that sound like FORCE to you--because it does to me!? Where is my FREEDOM to choose according to my conscience? How about civil liberties--as in being able to CHOOSE whom I want to worship (and it's not the State)?
In my opinion this really is the very definition of slavery: forcing another to do an activity they don't want to do for a system they do not support. I was hoping that maybe it would be easier to see the immorality of it when it's something that's being forced on someone you know.
~CJTaylor (aka David's wife and CT's sis-in-law)
P.S. Just so you get an idea--I do love our country and do things voluntarily that I believe in and support to better my community. So the idea of doing community service VOLUNTARILY is not what I'm talking about here. ;) Working for a charity I believe in is one thing. Being REQUIRED is another.
All valid points CJ, I guess my first question would be do we know yet what this is community service is going to consist of? In my younger, wilder, days I had to do some community service and for me it involved stacking wood and the other time I did some work around the local church. So it was pretty much up to me. I wonder how they are even going to implement this in all honesty. But, I also wonder what type of community service are they talking about? Are they going to let you choose? Are they going to mandate that it is state related? We just don't know what the plan is yet. I do understand the concerns that you have about this. I am really interested to see how it all pans out actually.
Lance said "All valid points CJ, I guess my first question would be do we know yet what this is community service is going to consist of?"
I thought a moment about whether or not I should reply to your last comment, and I've decided that it would be less proper and polite, were I not to say what I have to say.
In pre-civil war America, a black man who was kidnapped by slavers and woke up on a ship headed for America and told he was now a slave, would react and think as best as they possibly could, as they did on the Amistad, do everything possible to take over the ship and get their life back, or die trying.
In pre-civil war America, a black man in the south on waking up and being told he was being sold to a different plantation, the first thoughts that would probably have occurred to him would have been 'I wonder this service is going to consist of? Whether I'll get a house or field position?'
Your comment was spoken like a true slave. It is at turns alarming, disgusting, frightening and sobering.
I spent '79 through '87 playing in a travelling band on the west coast, pretty much an underground economy. We hurt no one, made agreements to perform for whatever fee we could negotiate, did our best, and if we did well, we'd be asked back and try for more money, if we sucked, or if the crowd there just didn't like us, we could be kicked out the second night of a 4 week booking. If someone tried to mess with us or take what was our, I'd slam them into a wall and through them across the room (musicians, smart ones, don't throw punches). It's not like we made a lot of money, but we paid no taxes, paid no fica, had no OSHA or union concerns, or any regulations that we knew of). In short, for nearly a decade I had the opportunity to live as very few Americans are ever able to do - as a free man.
My first post-band 9-5 job was a shock. I actually called up the local Gov't office to see how the hell I got off the damned social security roles, I wanted to opt out. I've had a sense of waking up on the Amistad, ever since, but as one of the unlucky ones who couldn't take over the ship and throw the slavers overboard.
Maybe we are, as a Roman circa year 30 b.c., living through the end of the approx 200 yr old Republic, I don't know. It took another nearly 500 years for the Western 'empire' to fall, and in that time the average Joe the plumber lived a pretty decent life. It took another 1,000 plus years for a people to come along that could match and surpass the Roman Republic, again for approx 200 yrs.
I don't know, but since I don't, I'm not willing to calmly give it up. But it is a terrible though to realize that so many others have. It's not over yet, and I'll play by the rules, though for 90% of them only because there is a gun behind them, but I sure as hell want them changed. Scary thing to realize so many others are just fine with them.
Keep this in mind though, if your first reaction to being told you are to be treated as a slave is "what this is community service is going to consist of?", you already are one. You've already conceded the principle that your life is not your own, and you only have to negotiate with your slave masters over the conditions of your servitude. It should horrify you. It is terrible that it doesn't.
But, you and I have had this conversation before. Perhaps, I am blind and ignorant in my "Slavery" but I see for myself when I am doing these things that I am giving back to the system that has sheltered and educated me for so long. I feel a social responsibility to do these things. I do not see it as "Slavery" I do not feel as if I am being forced. I feel that I am doing something that I need to do to give back. In a sense, to give back into the system that allowed my family to raise me so that I can help others to have the same opportunities that I was lucky enough to have received. I really feel that this goes back to a fundamental difference of thought for us. I do not think any less of you and I hope you do not think less of me. It just seems that we are coming from completley opposite sides toward this issue.
Lance, it is easy enough to not feel as if you are being forced. It is quite a different thing to attempt to think that though.
If you are told you are going to 'contribute' your service to the community, and you are not able to decline, then you are being forced. If you feel no anger or revulsion at that, then you are already a slave of that community, and are free only to mask it with whichever euphemism you prefer, which explains much about your point of view on many an issue.
You can say that you disagree with me, but having typed "the system that allowed my family to raise me ", you cannot do so with any credibility.
" I hope you do not think less of me. It just seems that we are coming from completley opposite sides toward this issue. "
It was bad enough when Bush sr. and Powell were making their calls for Gov't to establish voluntary community service programs to 'give back' to the community, this latest call to impose such things is beyond the pale. After the discussions we've had here, you are at the very least aware of the full meaning of the issue, and yet are only concerned with whether or not you will agree with what you are forced to do.
We are indeed on different sides of the issue, but its not like this country hasn't seen such a situation before; where friend and friend, brother and brother, even parent and child were on different sides of the issue, and I suspect it didn't change how they felt towards each other as friends and family, but then as now, there are two distinct sides to the issue. You are on the side of the slavers, eager to expand the reach of the slave state, and I am in opposition to it.
All of the way up to 1860, people had hopes that the issue could be resolved civilly and peaceably, and I hope so as well now.
I wonder what year this is?
Lance said: "All valid points CJ,..." Thank you-thank you! I have no problem admitting that I was, indeed, right! LOL :P
Next, Lance said: "I guess my first question would be do we know yet what this is community service is going to consist of? "
At this point there are few or no "specifics" but I have a question for you. Let's assume it's NOT sewer dredging--but something rather pleasant like volunteer game-testing God of War. (heehee) And my community service as a 46yo college student is "Mrs. John Q. Public we want you to game-test God of War for any scenes that indicate it is good to stand up against the government and then fill out this form." And that's it. Piece of cake! Right? I think in your mind I should be willing to do that relatively pleasant task in exchange for the freedom...er...because I have the good luck of being born and raised here in the past.
Here's my issue, Lance. I work 40+ hours a week. I'm taking 12 credits and with the homework that probably another 24 hours. And I have a family whom I like and want to spend time with. But wait that's not all! I also work with several people online, on the phone, via email, and in person to save their marriages and return to a godly life--I do that voluntarily! So MY choice, MY priority list is family-work-school-marriages. Which one do I have to give up to do what is being forced on me? Also I'm 46yo and don't really game all that well. I'm okayish (as CT he'll confirm) but not a true gamer-geek, and plus God of War is kind of violent for my taste. How do I choose between not getting the diploma I earned or playing a video that I find a little too violent? (Sorry I'm not a big violence person.) Why is it that I did all the work for a degree that I've earned, but in order to get it I HAVE TO do something that's just too violent FOR ME?
Lance said: "In my younger, wilder, days I had to do some community service and for me it involved stacking wood and the other time I did some work around the local church. So it was pretty much up to me. I wonder how they are even going to implement this in all honesty. But, I also wonder what type of community service are they talking about? Are they going to let you choose? Are they going to mandate that it is state related? We just don't know what the plan is yet. I do understand the concerns that you have about this. I am really interested to see how it all pans out actually."
Yeah I can see what you're saying, like "Hey this may not be so bad. Maybe they'll have you do stuff that's kind of okay to do!" Not all chores are bad after all. I guess the issue for me is that I serve the community already. I'm raising a family and raising them well. By working my mandated SS is being taken. I'm a good citizen and don't commit crimes. I'm going to classes, doing the work, and learning. And I have quite a few people whom I'm helping of my own free accord because it's work I love that I have a talent for!
I've participated in S*H*A*R*E and in that program the idea was "do any community service you want and in exchange you get a share of food." I could choose to do what I wanted and just have it documented. I could choose when to join and when to leave. The share of food was a bag of "staples" like macncheese, peanut butter, or tuna. The difference is that I was free to come, free to go, and free to choose where to serve! Here we don't know but even if it's pleasant servitude, it's still servitude. I am NOT free to join in. I am NOT free to go. And I'm not free to earn what I've earned! NOT COOL!
Lance: "...Perhaps, I am blind and ignorant in my "Slavery" but I see for myself when I am doing these things that I am giving back to the system that has sheltered and educated me for so long.
You are the fine product of State indoctrination, conditioned to respond with those exact phrases. You've been trained not to think any harder than is necessary to maintain a status quo. The State did its job 'educating' you with all success - you are a model, unquestioning 'citizen'.
Can you not accept that there are alternatives that are both more efficient and more moral? Hopefully this post can give you a little insight.
Lance: I feel a social responsibility to do these things.
Why must these things be mandated, or required, for you to do them? What kind of person will not do things to help others without the State telling him he must?
Quote from Rahm Emmanuel: "We propose universal civilian service for every young American. Under this plan, All Americans between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five will be asked to serve their country by going through three months of basic training, civil defense preparation and community service."
Note the terms 'universal civilian service' and 'will be asked to serve.'
Another quote: "...Young people will know that between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five, the nation will enlist them for three months of civilian service..."
Note the terminology: 'the nation will enlist.'
Now, you write:
Lance: "...I do not see it as "Slavery" I do not feel as if I am being forced. I feel that I am doing something that I need to do to give back...
Question number one:
Why do you need to give back? Did you steal it in the first place? Wasn't it 'given' to you? Wasn't it paid for already by your parents and neighbors (without their choice, I might add...)?
Question number two:
Are you not giving back simply by being a working member of society? Does not the labor you engage in provide things that the rest of society needs? Where does all your work go if not back into the community - into a black hole?
Question number three (by far the most important):
Even if YOU do not 'feel' that you are being forced (you should rely on thinking and quit relying on emotive responses) - what about those who DO believe this is force? Are they simply inconsequential? (I will address this in more detail in a moment.)
Lance: ...to give back into the system that allowed my family to raise me so that I can help others to have the same opportunities that I was lucky enough to have received.
1) This system allows your family to raise you? Oh how magnanimous!
I have noted that it MANDATES what you must learn, and how you must learn it - and leaves some of the rest to you r parents (as long as they conform!)
2) The fact that you use the term 'allow' here is frightening. It is a dead giveaway that you are thinking in a slave paradigm. ANY entity that claims the right to 'allow' a parent to raise their child is an entity that has already assumed that parent - and the child - is it's property! You want to THANK these people for not stepping in more than they did?
Good GOD man! So if you are kidnapped and tortured, you will be indebted to the kidnappers for the rest of your life for not cutting off your toes after they cut off your fingers? And you want the kidnappers to REQUIRE you to thank them? They 'gave' you so much - the use of your toes!
Harry Browne has a great quote for this: Government will break your leg and then give you a free crutch and say, 'See how much we take care of you!'
Lance: I really feel that this goes back to a fundamental difference of thought for us. I do not think any less of you and I hope you do not think less of me. It just seems that we are coming from completely opposite sides toward this issue.
Yes, it does, and it is a terrifying thought. In all of your posts, you always (conveniently?) forget a very important point:
YOU may not 'feel' that required civilian service is a form of slavery, but this does not mean other people do not THINK it is so. And instead of looking at this issue from the idea that this should be a free country. Remember the definition of patriotism? The ideas upon which this country were founded deny the exact service you wish to impose on EVERYONE (except State officials, I presume, since they are already doing the work of the king...)
Look at it this way: I understand what you 'feel' about the issue: that is a given. Its also irrelevant. Your feelings about an issue do not negate the ideas that other people have. In a free country, everyone is free to live according to their ideals (with the limitations of property rights, etc.) In fact, a free society is based upon respect of property.
So what do you think about the people who object to being required to serve the State?
What do you think of people who believe that society is best served by allowing business to commence voluntarily between individuals?
What do you think about the idea that participation in ANY aspect of moral civil life is ALREADY a giving to society?
The reason I say this difference is terrifying is because it leaves open a question: what will you do if the State begins rounding up everyone it declares is a dissident? (This is an historic fact: it has happened many many times in many countries.) What makes you think this can't possibly happen here?
Because Master told you it wouldn't?
"Because Master told you it wouldn't?"
David,
Come on man, thanks for the cheap shot. I realize that you guys are all up in arms about this but leave the anger at home. I do not need it nor does it benefit the conversation. Believe me, if the state were to start rounding up dissidents then I know I would be involved in the resistance.
I have advocated for a long time for there to be a separation of Oregon and Washington and Northern California so that they could form their own more "perfect union". I am not a pawn or tool of the state. But, the "perfect union" that I want is modeled after Sweden and from several other sources. It isn't about controlling others it is about us all working together to form a better society then the one that we have now. That was the point of my idea it is not the point to enslave or force and perhaps I need to rethink it because if it isn't done out of a person's desire to help others and society then you are right it would not be beneficial.
But the key difference here seems to be that I do not see in a small system that some type of Socialism is a bad thing. You do! You want the freedom to do whatever, whenever, you want to do it. I just do not believe that a society can function in that way. I think it would implode upon itself. There are laws and regulations for some very good reasons. Not all are good but some are. I do not think Adam Smith's "Invisible Hand" is the answer.
I will wait for you I am sure enlightening response.
I wrote: "Because Master told you it wouldn't?"
You responded: "...Come on man, thanks for the cheap shot. I realize that you guys are all up in arms about this but leave the anger at home. I do not need it nor does it benefit the conversation. Believe me, if the state were to start rounding up dissidents then I know I would be involved in the resistance...."
There was no anger involved at all, nor was that a cheap shot. It is a legitimate question: you reply to just about everything we write with 'it doesn't feel that way to me.' Yet that leaves open the very question I am asking. I don't see this as slavery 'just because I don't want someone telling me what to do.' I see it as slavery because of the precise definition of slavery - regardless of how it feels.
Yet your rebuttal to the charge that this is slavery seems to be that it's ok with you, hence its no problem. And that leads to my question: what happens when all of the sudden it's time to start punishing people that DON'T feel the way you do? It would be beneficial to move from emotive response to logical analysis. Logic, in the end, is the only thing that determines whether something is true or false.
Lance: ...I am not a pawn or tool of the state. But, the "perfect union" that I want is modeled after Sweden and from several other sources. It isn't about controlling others it is about us all working together to form a better society then the one that we have now...
Then you cannot mean Sweden! The entire means of production in Sweden is coercion - its an entire nation with a populace enslaved to an elite few (i.e., a socialist State.) People in Sweden do not serve each other because they desire to help others. They serve each other because that's the role they have been assigned.
Lance: "...That was the point of my idea it is not the point to enslave or force and perhaps I need to rethink it because if it isn't done out of a person's desire to help others and society then you are right it would not be beneficial..."
And again I would ask, does not a working person fit the model you desire exactly? Does not a person working at the gas station, the bank, MacDonalds, a construction site, a school building, do the exact thing you want: help others? I am very confused about why you 'feel' a need to make people do what they would do naturally...
Lance: But the key difference here seems to be that I do not see in a small system that some type of Socialism is a bad thing. You do! You want the freedom to do whatever, whenever, you want to do it. I just do not believe that a society can function in that way. I think it would implode upon itself. There are laws and regulations for some very good reasons. Not all are good but some are. I do not think Adam Smith's "Invisible Hand" is the answer.
I have never, ever proposed a society where people could do whatever they want, whenever they want. I have always given a specific guideline:
It is morally wrong to aggress against a non-aggressor. And;
It is morally wrong to damage or take the property of another without their express voluntary permission.
How, in the name of all that exists, can that be construed (in any rational way) as "the freedom to do whatever, whenever, you want to do it."
I do argue for a society where people are free to do whatever they want, whenever they want to do it, as long as they do not transgress the above restrictions.
It is the desire to stop people from doing things that do NOT injure or damage the person or property of another that I cannot understand. What is the criteria you use to make these decisions? Whether it 'feels' like it or not to you, any time YOU are deciding what a person can do with their property, or their person, you have AT THAT MOMENT made it clear that YOU OWN the other person.
And I am not about to let you slip out of that one by saying 'well, I personally wouldn't do such a thing' because to the extent you approve of someone else owning another person, to that extent you approve of slavery, and are an enemy to liberty.
Re: I have advocated for a long time for there to be a separation of Oregon and Washington and Northern California so that they could form their own more "perfect union".
I read through the proposal you offered - I can't see how replacing one form of a State with an identical, smaller form, is in anyway better.
Here's an appropos blog on the issue we discuss. An important point he brings up:
The Rahm Emanuels of the world explicitly or implicitly endorse this view, suggesting that Americans should "give something back" -- as payment for what, they never specify. What do we owe the government, after all? And why? I suppose it's possible that some individuals may have an unpaid obligation to an agency or an official, but it's impossible to say that about people at large.
In fact, it's government that owes us -- it owes us respect for our individual rights, and careful efforts to not infringe on our liberty.
I can't see a flaw in his argument....
"I realize that you guys are all up in arms about this but leave the anger at home. I do not need it nor does it benefit the conversation."
I assume I'm included in that, but I don't apologize or acknowledge there being anything wrong with it. I've made no neurotic mischaracterizations or other traits of unhealthy, uncontrolled anger.
There's nothing wrong with a bit of well placed anger, anger is a proper response to non-accidental threats upon your values, assuming that you do understand your values, you know them to be well founded, and you are willing to stand by them, and that you understand the threat to your values to be real and substantial, to which I can answer 'Yes' to all. However to ease your mind, I assure you that I do not have spittle flying from my finger tips, I am not touched with rage or thoughts of violence, and were we sitting next to each other you'd be able to see a broad, somewhat incredulous, smile on my face (though in the interests of full disclosure, you would probably be plugging your ears... I do tend to get loud, but it's out of high spirits, not loss of control, and usually mixed with laughter).
"I have advocated for a long time for there to be a separation of Oregon and Washington and Northern California... "
Wow. Just... wow.
"But the key difference here seems to be that I do not see in a small system that some type of Socialism is a bad thing. You do! You want the freedom to do whatever, whenever, you want to do it. I just do not believe that a society can function in that way. I think it would implode upon itself. There are laws and regulations for some very good reasons. Not all are good but some are. I do not think Adam Smith's "Invisible Hand" is the answer."
And here I think can be seen lurking the ancient, Royalty/thug notion of 'wealth', of money only being acquired in the old fashioned European way - thieving it. But it is not Adam Smith's "Invisible Hand' that steals from the defenseless and muscles people into doing it's bidding, that cannot happen in a Free Market, only Gov't can do, or aid in doing that. Such ideas also come with the unmistakable whiff of resentment towards reality for being the way it is, of requiring efforts to produce effects, and not just spilling out the sugar candy mountain goodies because we are all good boys who thought nice thoughts and wanted to feel good about ourselves.
There has always been a nastiness, usually masked by an elitist sniff, inherent in the leftist attitude towards having to work to get paid, towards earning a living, and especially towards those earning so much they become marvelously rich; and it is blind to the fact that you are only paid, only can be paid, because you have created a Value, first. Just because they, or you, have lost, or never gained, the ability to follow the conceptual chain of cause and effect inherent in ALL of the operations of a Free Market, and are incapable of seeing how a trader taking a risk on Futures Trading is actually creating value, doesn't mean that it isn't hugely important and not helping to create actual, real and tangible values. Your economic ignorance doesn't make their efforts worthless, only your opinion and understanding of what they do.
Lance, I'm not rich. At all. If I were out of work for more than a couple months, we'd lose everything. I don't defend free market capitalism because I have money, or even because I hope to earn money, but because it is the only moral system for human society. I do not denounce socialism, statism, communism, etc, because they wave ugly flags and write pompous self serving crap, but because it is a system of theft which requires and ensures raw, naked, force and violence in human society, and cannot be practiced in any other way.
And it is not in any way opposed to charitable efforts and giving, as CJ illustrated, on the contrary, it is the one and only system which makes it possible for people to become so productive, that they can give of their time and efforts, because they have been able to create the surplus wealth which makes it possible.
There is of course, nothing stopping you from gathering you people of like minds together to live in a sharing, caring, kumbaya society somewhere in the woods of Oregon, Washington or Northern California - or even in an entire town or city if there's enough of you. It has been attempted hundreds, thousands of times in America, from almost as soon as the first settlements were settled. Some have lasted quite awhile. None succeeded... but some of the people sure persisted in trying. And if that's the way you and your fellows want to try to make things work, I sure as hell ain't going to stop you - unless you try to force me to live the same way. Then you'd see real anger.
It is because free market capitalism is the best, most moral system for human society, even the hobbled versions we've practiced here, have enabled the people of this nation, and others who've made similar practices, to create an abundance of wealth, prosperity, and real good cheer and happiness in a couple short centuries, unmatched in all of human history. Lance, it isn't just about money.
Money would quite literally be worthless without what makes it possible. People living morally, respecting each other's lives and rights and property, and enabling each other to give aid and value to each other, even to those you dislike or despise, through the matchless value of a free market economic system.
Lance, I get angry, not because I disagree with you, but because what you are advocating, is, in real, rational, secular terms - immoral. It is wrong, and cannot be practiced by any Gov't without the real threat of violence, and cannot be sustained without real forms of slavery being imposed and enforced upon its populace. That is the world you are advocating my children be impressed into, and you'd better believe it sparks some anger.
There has never been a people who would scrape together their hard earned savings to help people not just in the next town, but on the other side of the world, because they heard they were hurt and in danger. The people of the West have in general, and of America in particular, and the most generous have been those least encumbered by socialistic systems. Do you wonder why? At all? For uncounted thousands of years of human history, it was quite otherwise... what is it you suppose caused things to change? What is it that deludes you into thinking that it will continue if that which made it possible, is altered out of existence?
(although I am serious, I am still smiling. Honest)
Thank you Van. I really wasn't taking a swing at you but I appreciate your candor and your explanations. I think I would enjoy sitting next to you and having a beer. I really would. But, I guess I am, if David is to be believed, at heart a person who wants to control and enslave all around me. So, I would order a light beer for you it would be in your best interests after all.
"...But, I guess I am, if David is to be believed, at heart a person who wants to control and enslave all around me..."
Lance, I've never made such a charge about you. I have no idea if you want to 'enslave all around' you, or even, that you want to control anyone. Only you know that.
What I have pointed out, over and over, are the ramifications of your viewpoints, and asked directly how you would act in given situations.
I also agree with Van here regarding Socialism. There are several great books that demonstrate how and why Socialism cannot work. I'm not at all concerned with that. Even if it DID work, I'd have the same objection: it is wrong. So my questions return to the same thing: you advocate socialism 'as a small system'. Such as system would be built on the basis of theft, and nothing else.
When I ask questions such as 'is it ever right for you to require someone else to sacrifice their values for your benefit' (moral values, Van) I am not implying that you, Lance, are forming some sort of evil plan to take over the world. I am asking you to think about the ramifications of the things you want to see implemented.
Hence I can say things like: "And I am not about to let you slip out of that one by saying 'well, I personally wouldn't do such a thing' because to the extent you approve of someone else owning another person, to that extent you approve of slavery, and are an enemy to liberty." My intention is to show that it is no better to sit on the sideline and let some other agency accomplish the things you want (isn't that what 99% of all voting really is?). You are still as culpable of the action, because you approve of it.
Here's the gist of what I've been wanting you to get to:
What exactly is the issue that you wish to solve by requiring all people to be involved in volunteering for the state;
What is it that you do not see being done right now;
what do you want done, etc.
And, again I ask the same question (in another form) that I have asked several times before (rewording J.D. Tuccille's blog):
Doesn't anyone who works an honest job, creates art, writes poetry, owns a business or does a myriad of other productive activities "give" more to the world at large in terms of producing wealth, culture and community than they ever could by grudgingly picking up trash by the side of the highway or giving flu shots in a clinic under threat of fines or imprisonment?
Why is that freedom not more desirable than any form a slavery to the State?
Lance said "So, I would order a light beer for you it would be in your best interests after all."
Ooh... you're speaking to someone who enjoys Mackesson's Triple Stout (Makes Guiness seem like.. well... light beer), so them thar's fighting words!
;-)
Ok, well David posed some very good questions, and I look forward to your answers to them.
For my part, I want to ask you Lance, can you refute a single one of the ideas we've examined here? If not, does that cause any discomfort for you at all? Do you somehow think that by not following your ideas to their roots, the points we've made will vanish?
Pardon me, but I'm beginning to feel a little like we're being played here for your amusement; David & I are making an effort here involving not a little investment of time, to explain our ideas, why we Think they are important, and what the consequences of them are, and all you have done in exchange, is to say that you don't feel that you want your positions to be taken in that way, and so apparently since you don't wish them to mean that... somehow they don't?
What is it that you see your ideas as meaning?
And what possible mockery of generosity or charity is it that you think survives into practice, when it is practiced not through feelings of generosity and charity, but through being being ... I won't use the 'F' word, you seem to derive some moral escape clause through "pshaw! They said 'Force', I don't believe in that!"... you fill in the blank, will you? What is it that you see as being the mechanism that allows the state to ... somehow... uhm... arrange their citizens behavior in such a way... as to bring about their acting in... such a fashion that... they didn't choose to take... by making them an offer they cannot refuse?
Wow, that's tortuous Is that what happens in your mind?
David, you said something I found curious, "'is it ever right for you to require someone else to sacrifice their values for your benefit' (moral values, Van) ", what is the distinction you are making here between ... I suppose 'moral' and 'material' values? And if that's it, why?
Personally, I find it difficult to separate them completely, material values, if earned, are moral values... and in an important way, the 5$ someone earns, is not the same 5$ which someone steals... I haven't dived very deeply into that one, but I suspect I'll find much to substantiate it, when I do get around to doing so.
I just realized that the last part of my last comment could be taken as trying to reduce moral issues to the level of material concerns, but that is most definitely not my intent, I just meant to say that I don't think that material values can be severed from moral values.
Ooh... you're speaking to someone who enjoys Mackesson's Triple Stout (Makes Guiness seem like.. well... light beer), so them thar's fighting words!
Oooooooooooohhhh!!!! (Droooling here....) The thicker and darker the stout, the greater an indicator of the love with which it was crafted, the enjoyment to be had in its taste, and the better the conversations heard around it........ooooooohhhh!!!!!
David, you said something I found curious, "'is it ever right for you to require someone else to sacrifice their values for your benefit' (moral values, Van) ", what is the distinction you are making here between ... I suppose 'moral' and 'material' values? And if that's it, why?
It could be the senility creeping in - or that light beer someone forced me to imbibe, but I remember being pounced for wanting to allow a drunk driver to plow into pedestrians because that was his value....wanted to make sure that didn't happen again...
David said "I remember being pounced for wanting to allow a drunk driver to plow into pedestrians because that was his value....wanted to make sure that didn't happen again..."
Oh. My. Quite obviously they were a Light beer drinker.
;-)
Why is it that the three of us can agree on the glories of dark beer and not on how right I am ? :)
That would be because rumors of your correctness are greatly exaggerated ( and inaccurate :P ).
It's great to see a meeting of the minds on Triple Stout though! I say we tip one back in honor of our unanimous agreement! HERE HERE!
Awesome post from a different blog (and I assume NOT a Beach Boy):
The Dark at the End of the Tunnel
by Brian Wilson
This just in from the Rubber Room at the Wilson Think Tank and Kosher Yak Breeding Farm:
Now that The Election is over and the pundits have had their say, I think I may have it figured out.
Totalitarianism is inevitable. It is a product of human nature, original sin, a character flaw in mankind. Many have given it different names but it is the force that drives human history.
Every human is motivated by an effort, risk and reward triangle. Whether emotionally or rationally, everyone is acting under those three factors. Reward differs for everyone. Everyone has a different view of risk. Different people are willing to invest vastly differing amounts of effort. Different forms of government are the result of the majority of the people being more concerned about one of these factors above the other two.
Tyranny is the result of too much risk. People are worried about their survival. They aren't worried about effort and reward – just being around tomorrow. Socialism is also the product of risk. People don't believe the reward justifies their effort. They'd rather put in minimum effort for a small guaranteed reward. A democracy is low risk while minimizing effort. A republic is low risk with the emphasis on reward.
None of these forms of government are permanent because their own success changes the effort-risk-reward equation. As a Republic acquires wealth, it becomes risk averse and degenerates to a democracy by distributing government control to the people. A democracy continues to generate wealth but attempts to spread it among the masses to reduce risk. This redistribution becomes socialism. Socialism consumes wealth because effort and reward become disconnected. When this system breaks down, risk becomes excessive. People face starvation and look for a tyrant to save them from themselves. In a tyranny, the concentration of power breaks the relationship of effort, risk and reward. The people have nothing and nothing to lose. The only outcome is a revolt. External forces can affect the time and direction of these changes but have never prevented them.
History has shown us the destination but few of us have actually made the trip. For Freedom's lovers, Bette was right: "...It's gonna be a bumpy night."
No trees were killed in the sending of this message but a large number of electrons were terribly inconvenienced.
November 13, 2008
Hmmm... sorry David, maybe I'm just late to the triple stout, but I'm missing the awesomeness in that post.
I have a suspicion that you are bringing far more to that post within your own mind, than is there is to be found in itself. It seems to me, at best, to be so over generalized as to be meaningless. Yes, everything involves risk, effort and reward, but using them as any significant gauge for such deeply conceptual propositions as political philosophy... is something I'd more expect from the likes of a B.F. Skinner. IMHO, you've far out shown that post in your own comments here.
Sadly, all I have at hand is a Holiday Porter, so maybe it's just me.
uh, Van - you are looking too deeply into it - heh heh. I was more or less referring to the surface value of the statements - the decay of a State from one form to another following a pretty recognizable pattern - a growing refusal to take risks (selling yourself for safety) until you own nothing and all that is left is your life...which is either taken or you give....
Not to veer away from my answering your questions. I will get to that I promise. But isn't what is being described in David's post the same pattern that Marx was describing in his path to Communism. First Capitalism and then when people find it corrupted they revolt and move to Socialism and then from there to Communism. Am I misunderstanding the context?
I am not saying the path is correct I am just wondering if I am observing that correctly.
Well, in a manner of speaking this is similar - except that Marx believed Socialism was the end result of a progress toward perfection, this guy thinks that it is a step or two from the bottom on the way down. Perhaps a reverse of Marx?
And Socrates/Plato described the same thing (only better) long before that.
Ah well, now for the trully important question... did I get Comment#100?
I DID! #100!!! WINNER!
(uh... where's my stuff?)
Actually Lance is keeping it for you--for your own good. He's donating it to a worthy community cause. :P LOL! Okay sorry just being goofy!
Yes, I am keeping Van's no prize until the committee feels that he is acting as a proper citizen of this blog site. (bribes are welcome) :)
Is this the system for which we are supposed to be 'thankful' enough to want to repay by 'volunteering' our time?
DUMB, DUMBER, DUMBEST
"The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie—deliberate, contrived, and dishonest, but the myth—persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic. Belief in myths allows the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought."
JOHN F. KENNEDY
If the Biblical saying (Hosea 4:6) “My people perish from lack of knowledge.” is indeed true, Americans should be placed at the top of the endangered species list.
Just how dumb are we? Consider a new report from the Intercollegiate Studies Institute about civic literacy concludes that the average American is too dumb to vote intelligently.
Over 70% of the test takes, including college students and elected officials flunked the 33 multiple choice question test which covered basic civics.
How bad were the results? Consider the fact that 27% of the elected officials surveyed could not name on right contained in the first amendment. How will we know when the country is placed under martial law? The answer: We won’t! But neither will the majority of our leaders.
Rick Shenkman, author of the book Just How Dumb Are We, found that 87% of American college students could not find Iraq on a map. In fact, Shenkman also found that:
- Only 1 in 5 know that we have 100 United States senators.
-Only 2 out of 5 citizens can name the three branches of the federal government.
-Only 20% of young Americans between the ages 18-34 read a newspaper daily. An amazingly low 11% report surfing Internet news sites.
Among 18- to 24-year-old Americans given maps:
-83 percent cannot find Afghanistan
-76 percent cannot find Saudi Arabia
-70 percent cannot find New Jersey
-11 percent cannot find the United States
Only 17% of college graduates understood the contrast between a free market economy and centralized planning. Perhaps this explains why America was not rioting in the streets following the passage of the bail out. I am left wondering what percentage of Americans actually believe that the Federal Reserve is both Federal and has reserves. Soon, nearly 100% of Americans will not be able to find their wallets
“If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.”
THOMAS JEFFERSON
From blog by Dave Hodges
phew...........those are valid observations David. But, I do not know if I should condemn the whole American education system or education systems in general. Should I condemn the individual students for myself I received a good education on the topics that you listed but I am a Political Science major so that is my field of study. It doesn't excuse the poor results but there also must be personal responsibility for your own education. I can think of other reasons to not give back rather then just the quality of the education that people have received.
Lance, pardon me, but you are in college as a Political Science major who knows little or nothing about the U.S. Constitution, the underpinnings of Individual Rights and I would venture to say even less about other formative moments in the development of the concept of Rights, such as England's 'Glorious Revolution', Locke, Blackstone, Cicero... Aristotle? Plato? Not their biographies, but their ideas? Or of the development of Progressivism, individual rights direct antithesis - not the lists of 'values' it asserts as being Modern!, Better!, Intellectual!, but the metaphysical assumptions under them and the 'principles' which follow from them, the meaning and implications of them.
An education which boasts that as a norm, has nothing to do with Education, and the system which not only promotes that but finds it acceptable and worthy of a degree, is contemptible at best. At the very best.
I guess I am better off leaving it to the big brains to talk. So go ahead I will wait for you and David to enlighten me. Do you mind if I take notes? When is the midterm by the way?
Sigh. Ok, if I’m coming off that way, I apologize. Lance, look back at the entrance requirements for college in 1900, you had to be able to translate and discuss Homer – they weren’t smarter than you then.
Greek and Latin were once requirements for High School… I wouldn’t be able to tease much out of it beyond gnothi seauton and ipse dixit … and that is not because my Grandpa was that much smarter than I, just that it was taught, and taught with the expectation that it was worth learning, and would be no problem learning.
You saw the middle school exam I posted part of back when we first started going at it, 7th & 8th graders were expected to know not just some, but all of the stuff David just pointed out that most adults and college graduates haven’t a clue about today.
The real point is that this isn’t big brain stuff, it should (and once was) the most common of stuff, it just isn’t taught anymore. The people haven’t changed, the system has… or at least it has become more brazen in acting on its assumptions, and only ignorance and destruction can, have, and will follow from that.
They have deliberately robbed several generations of huge swaths of their own potential… and that is beyond criminal.
That people don't recognize that, or scoff at it... it's painful.
I do not know if I should condemn the whole American education system or education systems in general. Should I condemn the individual students for myself I received a good education on the topics that you listed but I am a Political Science major so that is my field of study.
Trying to understand the gist of your sentences here. The first is a query - should you condemn the whole education system, or education systems in general?
My answer would be to distinguish the systems - making a judgment in general about a variety of specific things usually ends up with the wrong conclusion. There are many types of educational systems, with varying goals. In fact, I would suggest that the goal of the education system be the thing you look at most intently.
Ask yourself, what should be the goal of educating a child?
Once you have that answer, go back and examine the systems.
I believe that the goal of an educational system should be to give children the gift of critical thought. Period. Nothing else. Once they have learned the fundamental aspects of clear precise thinking, they are then ready to make choices about their lives. That's where a variety of apprenticeships, trade schools, liberal arts universities, etc., come into play - to offer choices to students.
The goal of the American system of education is designed to do almost the exact opposite. It's goal is to create willing, unquestioning followers for the State to manipulate. It uses a variety of methods:
1) Limit critical thinking;
2) Track children for State identification and compartmentalization.
3) Move students into 'job' slots that the State has identified as necessary for it's smooth operation. Those slots do not necessarily include money making careers - welfare living is also a necessary condition for a large State operation.
I am not making these observations from a mean spirit, or a sense of gloom. These are easily discerned if you study the philosophies behind the American education system (John Dewey and Horace Mann come to mind.) I can provide the arguments if you want - its just that I try to keep my posts 'short.'
You can see the results everywhere you look. People cannot use logic to save their own lives (literally - look at how many people die trusting the FDA to be their guide.) Look at how many people have died as the result of direct Nation State operations (i.e., wars) over the past century. They exist in sheltered, ignorant lives and dutifully turn over their property and lives to every State official who either whispers nice things in their ears, or threatens them with violence. Thank the State for this?
Should I condemn the individual students...It doesn't excuse the poor results...
Making a judgment on the individual students depends on what choices they make with the tools they have. You cannot blame students for failing in schools that do not teach. Nor can you blame students for the 'failure' of the American education system for not being able to do things that you (or I, or anyone else) believe they should know or understand.
As I have stated before, the American education system is working perfectly. It does its job with magnificent efficiency. It gets an A+ in it's own books, which is why it still exists. It has never failed.
Hence, my question still stands: what is it about that particular aspect of the state for which we should be thanking the State?
...but there also must be personal responsibility for your own education
How can anyone be held responsible for the education they receive if there is a monopoly on the material taught in the classrooms?
The responsibility for the child's education rests upon the parent, not the child. Doing the work assigned is the responsibility of the child. Most kids do their work. Most parents do not take responsibility for education.
for myself I received a good education on the topics that you listed but I am a Political Science major so that is my field of study
I have to side agree with Van here - maybe not as harshly, but Political Science - to be a true Science, is not modified Geography. And, as you stated before - "there also must be personal responsibility for your own education..." If you are not immersed in the works Van listed, what kind of education are you really recieving?
I can think of other reasons to not give back rather then just the quality of the education that people have received.
I can too - but it is an area that is involved, and by locating areas where there is reason to doubt, and removing each objection (or, the area itself) from the discussion, we have a process of reducing the argument to its real form. The truth becomes clearer with each step. Hopefully.
I'd say this: the State education system in American is one area where we would be wrong to prostrate ourselves in thankful submission to the State. It does not give, it takes away. If anything, if in this area alone, we should be demanding repayment. At best, the State should be thanking us for accepting it's perverted replacement for education.
Van, I am sorry about my reply. I just got my feathers ruffled. It just bothers me because I have read a good portion of what you mentioned. I am reading Aristotle and Plato right now as a matter of fact. I just think that just because my interpretation of the origins of the Constitution or even the intent of the founding fathers, is different then yours or Davids. I do not think that means that I do not understand it.
David, I understand what you are saying. I guess that for the students personal responsibility I can only think of myself and the books that I seek out online as well as in used book stores to increase my education beyond what I receive at university. But, I have chosen to do that. I was not told to do it and I haven't been discouraged from the quest. The quest is one of the reasons that I started this blog. I am well aware that there are problems in, (I think all educational systems), the American schooling system. I think I am also understanding your logical defense for not seeing a reason to give back or be what you consider forced to give back. I still am not sure if I agree with them but I am starting to see them and the ideas in a different light.
Speaking of books I just picked up a series from Anvil books. They all were published in the fifties but they are titled "Basic Documents in American History", Basic Documents in United States Foreign Policy", Fifty Major Documents of the Twentieth Century", and "Fifty Major Documents of the Nineteenth Century". I am looking forward to digging into them.
Lance said "Van, I am sorry about my reply. I just got my feathers ruffled. "
I cannot relate to that. I have absolutely no understanding of what you are saying.
What?
(ahem)
"It just bothers me because I have read a good portion of what you mentioned. I am reading Aristotle and Plato right now as a matter of fact. I just think that just because my interpretation of the origins of the Constitution or even the intent of the founding fathers, is different then yours or Davids. I do not think that means that I do not understand it. "
... ok... seems to me though, that either some few comments up in this thread, or the previous one, David & I asked for you to explain your understanding of Rights, and how they supported your view... giving no response does convey an impression of the ability to respond... ya know?
And of course it is also not just what books you read, but how their ideas are integrated, that marks an education as good or bad. David said ".. the goal of an educational system should be to give children the gift of critical thought...", which is a bit sparse, but not inaccurate... but I'd like to tack on a qualifier from Aristotle of "... Inability to distinguish arguments germane to the Subject from those foreign to it, is a lack of education... " and also words to the effect of having the ability to "... not expect more precision than the subject-matter admits...".
It is good to hear that you are reading some of the key books and materials on your own (I've no doubt that you'll get more out them than most prof's would guide you into), good for you! And no, of course agreement with myself or David's interpretation of them, is not a requirement to prove an understanding of anything from Aristotle to the Constitution - J.S. Mill, who I profoundly disagree with would have busted a gut over my claiming to know Aristotle or the material of philosophy in comparison to him; the Nazi Judge who condemned Dietrich Bonheoffer to death, was himself a schooled in the classics, and probably knew Aristotle and much more, far better than I do. They are not guarantors of an education or of wisdom, but I think they do make the issues and your choices clearer to you.
And it also matters how you study the subjects you study as well... my kids schools all boast of all the huge amounts of time they spend on mathematics, but all of them spend hours and hours on clever gimmicks, shortcuts and 'strategies' for 'computing', but literally zero time drilling on addition & multiplication tables - which we only noticed with our oldest (would have been about 12-15 yrs ago) when we noticed he was always twiddling his fingers whenever we asked what something like 3x5 was... he was calculating it - he didn't have it memorized, which is a huge handicap in math. Even in the 60's in the L.A. School I attended, we spent zero time on 'strategies' for math, and loads of time standing up and reciting our tables... sparing me from having to turn my fingers into an abacus to try and find out what 6x9 was.
Such things are typical of progressive education, they spend gobs of time on hot button educational issues and subjects, but they Teach very little. These teaching gimmicks aren't done just because some administrator made a foolish decision thinking it would help kids learn faster, but as David mentioned, they purposefully (by dint of progressive educational philosophy and policies) want to divide students into worker and elite classes, and herd the workers into socialized industrial classes. This isn't conspiratorial supposition, Dewey and others stated clearly as their intentional goals, some of which I've noted before, such as Woodrow Wilson's comment to the Federation of High School Teachers: "We want one class of persons to have a liberal education and we want another class of persons, a very much larger class of necessity in every society, to forgo the privilege of a liberal education and fit themselves to perform specific difficult manual tasks."
What they understood a "Liberal Education" to be, was one that, as Montaigne put it, was “A traditional liberal arts curriculum of history, language, and literature--the arts that liberate," of educating one to be worthy of Liberty. When they purposefully set out to undo what was at their time the popular understanding of 'Education', it should give you pause.
Teachers who teach irrelevancies, or teach the subject so disjointedly as to to obscure any principles completely (as my 16 yr olds history class which has no trace of continuity to it, let alone doing anything as mundane as start from the beginning and move forwards in time - keeps me involved in what I'd really like to do - Teaching, or rather unschooling and re-teaching), are schooling, or indoctrinating, but they are not Teaching.
That is the problem and the issue.
Lance - may I add a book to your list - one that you could read over the Christmas break with no problem. I would even humbly request that you read it before you read the other books into which you delve. Read "Atlas Shrugged" this Christmas. You can buy it, check it out from a library, whatever - but it is a rather timely book, considering the current economic situation around here.
Of course, if you've read it, then disregard my request. On the other hand - what an enjoyable Christmas break!
Interesting video
Any comments?
Well... overall I thought it a shallow screed seeking to evoke some equivalent of a class warfare type mindset on the part of those who see themselves as individualists against groups of the 'powerful'. As with most most cynical & conspiratorial views, I find them to be immature, at best only second level readings of history and philosophy.
It's one note jab attempting to scrape at the nerve of the listener, is the repetitive speaking in "Quotes" manner of saying the word 'freedom' (understood to mean 'you have to be an idiot to believe that 'freedom' is anything more than a con to keep you enslaved').
Along with the worst possible pictures of everyone from Hillary through McCain... Sorry, but it was just tiresome. As opposed as I am to statism and any infringement of Individual Rights, it managed to put my back up and want to smash the person supposedly denouncing statism.
The last few seconds don't excuse the previous 16 minutes. I don't like being forcefed or con'd, no matter the ends that are supposed to justify it.
So. ahem. ah... pass the Guiness please.
(and a hearty thumbs up on 'Atlas Shrugged'!)
LOL Van - kinda figured that's what you'd say. I wasn't so hard on it - my take was that it was someone trying to say '...if voting really mattered it would be illegal...'
I think its a decent means to stir up a sleeping mind - using the same methods that have been used to put it to sleep - if only to get them riled up enough to say 'nuh uh!' - can always ask 'if not, why not?"
I am kind of with Van on the video. I just felt manipulated and I do not buy the earth as a farm scenario either.
I just felt manipulated and I do not buy the earth as a farm scenario either.
I agree, the ideas of the video are offered in a sophomoric and irritating fashion. I don't agree with all of them, but I do think the analogy of the farm has a lot of merit. The reason I posted the video was because of the ideas it contained, not the way it was presented.
The farm analogy fits because of the ideas of ownership and liberty that your initial ideas address.
You say you do not buy the 'earth as a farm' scenario. Consider the analogy, though, if just for the sake of further understanding the objections to socialism and slavery that your education ideas present.
On a farm, who believes it is a farm, the free-ranging chickens, or the farmer? From the viewpoint of the chickens, its a great place to live - food, shelter, safety, etc. Their 'thoughts' do not go beyond those limited notions. The idea of the farm is in the mind of the farmer, not his livestock! The purpose of organizing a farm is production (in this case, meat and eggs.) The chickens are part of the farmer's means of production. So is the land to which he is deeded, the tools has uses, etc.
You propose initiating 'programs' where people are required to 'give back' to the State (and as yet have not given clear answers as to why we need to 'give back') Are you not considering the citizens of this nation to belong to the governing class? Does not the metaphor of a farm fit here? If the State owns you, your production is used by the State for its reasons (whatever they may be.) In the same way, the production of the chickens (eggs, meat, etc.) are used by the farmer for his purposes!
Question:
Do you believe that your fellow men are tools to be used by the State to obtain its perceived needs?
Or, to rephrase:
Are your needs so pressing that you must use the mechanism of the State (monopoly of force) to make sure they are met?
If so, what needs are so pressing that it is necessary to point guns at people to fill the need? If it is not a matter of life and death, would you not, at least for the sake of argument, consider the use of threat or force to accomplish your goals excessive? And if it is excessive, why not consider alternatives? Does not the refusal to consider alternatives point to an internal character trait that may be questionable?
Related question: Why is it not possible to use other mechanisms to obtain the same result - the meeting of a need? Why must the collective force of the State be used - if non-violent methods are available?
Is it ever going to be possible to get answers to any of my questions?
David said "Is it ever going to be possible to get answers to any of my questions?"
You mean those aren't rhetorical?........hmmmm
"Question:
Do you believe that your fellow men are tools to be used by the State to obtain its perceived needs?"
No I do not believe that.
"Are your needs so pressing that you must use the mechanism of the State (monopoly of force) to make sure they are met?"
No, my needs are not so pressing as that nor do I feel that my idea as I purposed it was just to benefit me but to benefit society as a whole.
"If it is not a matter of life and death, would you not, at least for the sake of argument, consider the use of threat or force to accomplish your goals excessive? And if it is excessive, why not consider alternatives?"
I believe that earlier in the discussion I said that I had been wrong to say that my idea should be mandatory but rather tied to extra money for school loans or some such thing. So, I formally retract they mandatory concept but rather assert that if a individual freely chooses to enter the "Good Citizen Act" then they would receive a substantial discount on the cost of college or trade school should they decide to enter either one. Or, failing that, upon leaving the program they would be remunerated at a wage commiserate with the prevailing wage.
Is that better? Did I answer your questions?
Lance, I like your first two answers, but I don't see how they square with many of the other policies you support. Let me do a little paste in a couple 'chapters' here, to maybe help clarify the status of those existing policies (healthcare, public education, etc.) and maybe some of the new Change you can believe in, addressed effectively back when they also weren't anything new, in 1850, by the last worthwhile Frenchmen,
Frédéric Bastiat, in 'The Law'.
The Law Defends Plunder
But it does not always do this. Sometimes the law defends plunder and participates in it. Thus the beneficiaries are spared the shame, danger, and scruple which their acts would otherwise involve. Sometimes the law places the whole apparatus of judges, police, prisons, and gendarmes at the service of the plunderers, and treats the victim—when he defends himself—as a criminal. In short, there is a legal plunder, and it is of this, no doubt, that Mr. de Montalembert speaks.
This legal plunder may be only an isolated stain among the legislative measures of the people. If so, it is best to wipe it out with a minimum of speeches and denunciations—and in spite of the uproar of the vested interests.
How to Identify Legal Plunder
But how is this legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply. See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them, and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime.
Then abolish this law without delay, for it is not only an evil itself, but also it is a fertile source for further evils because it invites reprisals. If such a law—which may be an isolated case—is not abolished immediately, it will spread, multiply, and develop into a system.
The person who profits from this law will complain bitterly, defending his acquired rights. He will claim that the state is obligated to protect and encourage his particular industry; that this procedure enriches the state because the protected industry is thus able to spend more and to pay higher wages to the poor workingmen.
Do not listen to this sophistry by vested interests. The acceptance of these arguments will build legal plunder into a whole system. In fact, this has already occurred. The present-day delusion is an attempt to enrich everyone at the expense of everyone else; to make plunder universal under the pretense of organizing it.
Read the rest (total printed pages (HTML) is about 50 pgs) at your own risk... the cognitive dissonance it might raise between a self image of helpful and caring citizen, and complicit thug... could be harmful to your mental health (one of the common side effects of Truth).
(Btw, still waiting for my Guiness...)
You mean those aren't rhetorical?........hmmmm..."
Nah - I ask questions because I am trying to understand fully what you are talking about. Also (I have to be honest) I ask questions in order to get to the direct philosophies that underly the things I wonder about. I ask them in order to see if there is a way to point out the irrationalities of many commonly held beliefs.
"Question:
Do you believe that your fellow men are tools to be used by the State to obtain its perceived needs?"
No I do not believe that.
How, then do you expect the State to be funded? Is not everything you produce considered State property - and you are allowed to keep some of your production as a 'wage'? If what you produce is not yours until after the State takes what it wants, is it not safe to assume that the State considers you a tool to meet its needs? And is it not then logical to assume that anyone who finds no problem with this arrangement is at least giving the nod to, if not wholeheartedly supporting the idea that we are all tools of the State?
If you don't believe your fellow men are tools to be used by the State, then how can you support any idea that the result of their production is State property to be dispensed? Or is it that you do not consider all men to be your 'fellow' men?
"Are your needs so pressing that you must use the mechanism of the State (monopoly of force) to make sure they are met?"
No, my needs are not so pressing as that nor do I feel that my idea as I purposed it was just to benefit me but to benefit society as a whole.
Next question: What do you mean when you use the term 'benefit society as a whole'? (First, what do you mean by 'benefit' and then 'as a whole' - as in 'as opposed to what?', etc.
"If it is not a matter of life and death, would you not, at least for the sake of argument, consider the use of threat or force to accomplish your goals excessive? And if it is excessive, why not consider alternatives?"
"...if a individual freely chooses to enter the "Good Citizen Act" then they would receive a substantial discount on the cost of college or trade school should they decide to enter either one. Or, failing that, upon leaving the program they would be remunerated at a wage commiserate with the prevailing wage...."
Normally I would ask where the funding comes from, pointing at the use of taxes to fund such things. But right now, we are in a free-fall of counterfeiting - the State can't tax us enough to keep up with demands for services people don't want to really earn, so my questions are almost moot.
Couple of questions though:
1) What is a good citizen?
2) Should colleges be forced to discount the cost of their services if people want to become these 'good citizens' (whatever those are)?
3) Where does the money come from to 'remunerate' at a wage commiserate with prevailing wages?
And finally, as I posted earlier:
4) "...Doesn't anyone who works an honest job, creates art, writes poetry, owns a business or does a myriad of other productive activities "give" more to the world at large in terms of producing wealth, culture and community?..."
I'd also like to change a question I asked - "And if it is excessive, why not consider alternatives?" I'd like to change that to "And if it is immoral, why not consider alternatives?"
Just a heads up, it is finals week guys so you are probably not going to get much in the way of response from me right now. I have to much other thinking to do.
"1) What is a good citizen?"
Well that was just a quick name for the plan. I hadn't really thought of a name.
"2) Should colleges be forced to discount the cost of their services if people want to become these 'good citizens' (whatever those are)?"
I didn't look at it like forcing the colleges to discount their services but then again I haven't ran a costs study to see what the overall result is going to be. You seem to be concerned with the practical while I am concerned with the theoretical. :)
"3) Where does the money come from to 'remunerate' at a wage commiserate with prevailing wages?"
Good question and again not one I am worried about right now.
And finally, as I posted earlier:
4) "...Doesn't anyone who works an honest job, creates art, writes poetry, owns a business or does a myriad of other productive activities "give" more to the world at large in terms of producing wealth, culture and community?..."
I believe that I answered that one in the affirmative already. But, it is a completley different issue. No one is being forced to join the program.
"I'd also like to change a question I asked - "And if it is excessive, why not consider alternatives?" I'd like to change that to "And if it is immoral, why not consider alternatives?""
Once again, I am not interested in discussing moral or immoral I think this isn't a question of immoral. I think morality is a whole different issue. But, I know we already disagree on what we see as morality.
Lance, this may be the most evasive post I've ever seen - maybe you should be a politician! (= Rarely do I see so much squirming in so little space. The questions I ask are entirely relevant to the topic at hand, because the answers to them reveal a great deal about how to implement any idea you may have in the issue.
I asked: "1) What is a good citizen?"
To which you replied (and completely avoided a real answer): "...Well that was just a quick name for the plan. I hadn't really thought of a name..."
Regardless of the name, the issue at hand is that you are concerned that people do not appreciate all that the State does for them. Somewhere in this topic (the relationship between the State and the citizen) lies the concept of 'a good' citizen as opposed to 'a bad' one!
The question was very simple, and the answer to it would do two things:
First, it would clarify the confusion in my head about what exactly you seem to think people are missing and need to learn (the purpose of the 'Program') and;
Second, it would help you define what sort of program you are proposing: what exactly you want to be the end result of the program. Surely you do not intend for it to be two years of 'busy time' with no other purpose!
So the question remains: What is a good citizen?
By the way, for purposes of discussion, I'll call the program the "State Appreciation Program" (or S.A.P. for short.)
I then asked: "2) Should colleges be forced to discount the cost of their services if people want to become these 'good citizens' (whatever those are)?"
To which you replied (without answer - 'yes' or 'no' would open conversation): "...I didn't look at it like forcing the colleges to discount their services but then again I haven't ran a costs study to see what the overall result is going to be. You seem to be concerned with the practical while I am concerned with the theoretical. :)...
I am completely unconcerned with the practical. Little confusing how you can get that out of the question I asked, but maybe I didn't phrase it correctly. You idea was to offer discounted education to people who went thru the S.A.P. before college. I can't see why a costs study is necessary at all. Either education costs something or it does not. Even if it is only one dollar, it is still a cost. A costs analysis would only be relevant to either the college finance office, or a government agency preparing to dictate how that college finance itself. Which are you proposing?
In order to offer a discount, either:
The school voluntarily offers a lower rate to people who have completed the S.T.P. (and the accompanying question here: what could possibly be the incentive to such a thing?) or;
The school is compelled the school to lower its costs for those who have completed the S.A.P.
I then asked: "3) Where does the money come from to 'remunerate' at a wage commiserate with prevailing wages?"
This was a direct question regarding a line you wrote: "...upon leaving the program they would be remunerated at a wage commiserate with the prevailing wage..."
You then reply (without answering): "...Good question and again not one I am worried about right now..."
While on the surface this appears to be a direct dismissal of my question (if you are really not interested in discussing this topic any further, just say so. I have other stuff I can do with my time) I am assuming that it is more of a way of saying this does not seem important or relevant to the topic.
To refresh a bit: direct quote from the topic:
"...To help support the system in which they grew up? I do not think so. I, in fact, would argue that the eventual result would be one of more patriotism then exists now along with a greater understanding of what is needed to provide the services that most of us take for granted...."
Why is it that you can make a direct statement about remunerating people, without a single moment of thought as to where that remuneration comes from? Seems to me that if you are going to offer people money, you had better have a source for it! Either that, or simple don't make the statement at all, since it apparently must be a false one!
I also asked:
4) "...Doesn't anyone who works an honest job, creates art, writes poetry, owns a business or does a myriad of other productive activities "give" more to the world at large in terms of producing wealth, culture and community?..."
To which you replied (a bit more of an answer, but still an evasion):
I believe that I answered that one in the affirmative already. But, it is a completley different issue. No one is being forced to join the program.
I find it difficult to believe your affirmation. This is NOT a completely different issue! It is exactly the same issue! If anyone who works, who creates, who produces, is giving to the world, then why do you need STATE-RUN PROGRAMS to do the same thing? HOW does the State IMPLEMENT and FINANCE these programs? Is it not by depriving the productive of part of their produce? At best, does that not just leave the playing field as it is?
What is the point of the program? To make a good citizen? What is a GOOD citizen? (See above.)
Finally, I wrote:
"And if it is immoral, why not consider alternatives?"
To which you wrote:
Once again, I am not interested in discussing moral or immoral I think this isn't a question of immoral. I think morality is a whole different issue. But, I know we already disagree on what we see as morality.
So you don't believe that this statement: "...being able to give back to this America that has provided them with schooling and safety and allowed them to live in a world where frankly we are very lucky to be living in...." contains any moral premises!
How about when you make a statement like:
"...I am giving back to the system that has sheltered and educated me for so long. I feel a social responsibility to do these things..."
You say there is no morality involved? That it is neither the right nor the wrong thing to do? I don't beleive, for a single second, that when you say "...I feel a social responsibility to do these things..." that you don't think that is the RIGHT thing to do! Don't give me that crap - you can't pull that wool over my eyes.
Maybe I can explain what I see as morality. Thinking about morality is to think about the rightness or wrongness of any particular choice or action you take. Since you disagree with what I see as morality, I am dying to know what you think it is!
If you can think of a way to discuss the operation of the State without somehow believing that it is the right way to do it, or the wrong way to do it, I'd say you are just not thinking. And if I were you I'd seriously reconsider any more education. Why waste your time? You can do just fine in a world where nothing is right or wrong.
Morality has to do with doing something the right way as opposed to doing it the wrong way. Is there a right way to implement the S.A.P.? Then morality is most certainly a part of it.
Lance said "Once again, I am not interested in discussing moral or immoral I think this isn't a question of immoral. I think morality is a whole different issue. But, I know we already disagree on what we see as morality. "
(stare)
(blink)
If you don't see the connection, I believe Gov. Blagojevich has some positions open, I'm sure he'd be happy to talk to others who think that morality is a who different issue.
Let me ask a question that might have some relevance for you; why are you blogging?
A quick short stop into the morality issue that I had thought you guys would remember but maybe you do not. The three of us had a conversation awhile ago about the morality or as David alleged the immorality of the IRS. That was what I was referring to I was not referring to behavior in general. I was making too vague of a reference I guess.
I apologize for not answering the questions with the gravitas that you feel they need David. Being a "Good Citizen" is helping out others. I see thing being possible by using my program to help others who are unable to get a leg up. True, it wouldn't and shouldn't work for everyone and perhaps I am being naive ab out how to actually implement such a thing and the real world costs of it.
But I guess I would ask isn't what I am suggesting much like an adult version of 4H or the Boy Scouts? A group that teaches skills and gives you help stepping forward with your life what is the harm in that?
Lance said "Being a "Good Citizen" is helping out others."
Ah. Political Science major? Hmm.
"But I guess I would ask isn't what I am suggesting much like an adult version of 4H or the Boy Scouts? A group that teaches skills and gives you help stepping forward with your life what is the harm in that?"
Depending upon whether your organization is a private one, funded by people choosing to contribute and improve things as they see fit, as are 4H & the Boy Scouts, or a public one, where someone in the gov't decides you will contribute to what they think will improve things as they see fit, regardless of your opinion in the matter, makes a big difference in whether or not there is harm in that.
Lance said " The three of us had a conversation awhile ago about the morality or as David alleged the immorality of the IRS. That was what I was referring to I was not referring to behavior in general. I was making too vague of a reference I guess.”
Not too vague, only that you somehow see them as compartmentalized, unrelated, applies there and not here… I think David & I have great difficulty seeing how that is done.
I do not see the collecting of Taxes by the American government as an immoral or moral act. I see it as the cost of having a police force and good highways and a functioning infrastructure.
lance said "I do not see the collecting of Taxes by the American government as an immoral or moral act."
My what a broad definition of 'infrastructure' you must have in mind to cover your plans.
It is proper and moral for gov't to tax in order to raise the money needed to defend your rights (shouldn't be necessary, but it is, all of which rest upon property rights) through the establishment of objective law and it's implementation through police, judiciary and military.
It is unjust and immoral for gov't to tax in order to raise the money needed in order to infringe upon your rights and take your property through the establishment of such things as non-objective law (is not defined or definable... read the FTC reg's sometime - there is no way to tell if you are behaving legally or not) enforced through the power of the police, judiciary and military in order to reward one pressure group at the expense of another.
You have demonstrated no defense of your positions, you have, and can have, no defense or justification for them, and apparently don't care whether that is right or wrong (except that it might feel uncomfortable to come out and say that) other than the fact that you want it to be your way, you want to feel like a 'good citizen' doing what you think would be good to do to others, and since the mob is on your side, not ours, tough cookies for David and I.
I eagerly await your refutation of any of that. Still. After... what... 200 comments between the last post and this? I double dare you (stocking up on Guiness on the drive home).
"shouldn't be necessary, but it is"
shouldn't be necessary to say, but it is
Lance wrote:I do not see the collecting of Taxes by the American government as an immoral or moral act. I see it as the cost of having a police force and good highways and a functioning infrastructure.
Before I go any farther, I am going to ask a question that I really would appreciate an answer to:
I believe it is absolutely immoral for the State to fund itself through coercion (pay or die.) You apparently don't think it is either 'right' or 'wrong' (however you can justify THAT is a mystery!) Here's my question(s):
If I believe it is wrong, why am I forced to continue in something that I believe is wrong?
Why isn't this optional? Why not allow people like you, who have no problem with this form of State activity, to pay for it?
Accompanying question:
Would you make a moral judgment about me, telling me that I am evil and need to be punished for not agreeing with the State's method of financing? Would you support it (if just intellectually)?
Let me clarify my position here then. Unfortunately for Lance (who apparently considers it optional) this is directly related to ethics:
1) I do not see the collection of money for a service offered to me - which I willingly accept - as immoral. It would be wrong (there's that old 'morality' thingy again) of me to accept a service and then not pay for it. To do so would be theft.
Here's the catch. If someone has a service they wish to offer me, it is up to me to determine if I want and need that service. The entire offering should be optional. It may be foolish of me to refuse that service, but that is my own responsibility to bear the consequences if I do not accept the service.
If, on the other hand, I am obliged by threat of punishment to accept to accept the service, I make the following observation. The person who is offering me the service considers me to be their property. I am told what I can and cannot do. To the extent that I am not at liberty to make decisions regarding my life, to that degree, I am the possession of the person(s) who make those decisions for me.
*****
2) I see the collection of money in the form of tax as immoral, because the definition of tax is "compulsory payment to a State to raise revenue, levied on income, property, or goods and services." In other words, I am offered services by the State that I MUST both fund and use. The only choice I have in the matter is to either accept my 'fate' or die at the hands of those who demand I use their service.
For the sake of argument, just for a moment, in order to consider this:
DIVORCE THE IDEA FROM THE STATE.
Suppose a local businessman decides a service I MUST have. Lets say (for the sake of argument) that the service offered is a weekly trip to his grocery to purchase food for my family. Not only MUST I have it, but I am OBLIGED to pay for it out of the work I do. If I refuse to use this service, the businessman will come into my house with guns, grab any items that he sees which may be of comparable worth to the service he has deigned to offer. On top of this, he decides that I must be punished for not complying with his demands, and so he carts me off to a holding pen for a set amount of time.
What would you say about the actions of the businessman? Can they be considered GOOD? Cannot it be said that food for my family is a GOOD thing? Why would this man's actions be considered evil?
1) So how come the State gets a pass on this?
2) How does it become moral for the State to do something that is immoral for EVERY SINGLE OTHER LIVING ENTITY? And most importantly - a question I would love to have answered:
3) How do you KNOW its right for the State to do this?
BTW Van, I disagree with you on this:
"...It is proper and moral for gov't to tax in order to raise the money needed to defend your rights (shouldn't be necessary [to say], but it is, all of which rest upon property rights) through the establishment of objective law and it's implementation through police, judiciary and military..."
I see no logical reason why these services cannot be offered by neutral parties. However, for the sake of argument, I am willing to concede a minimal amount of State manipulation of ;justice' and 'law' in order to point out that EVERY SINGLE OTHER SERVICE is absolutely not a requirement for State involvement. I'd prefer to leave that argument out, just wanted to make a clarification - maybe for later reference.
"I believe it is absolutely immoral for the State to fund itself through coercion (pay or die.) You apparently don't think it is either 'right' or 'wrong' (however you can justify THAT is a mystery!) Here's my question(s):
If I believe it is wrong, why am I forced to continue in something that I believe is wrong?"
Isn't that the nature of life. We all do things that we do not want to do from the time we are children and as we grow older in school and just life in general. There are all kinds of rules that I do not think should apply to me but I understand the reasons for them being in place so I choose to obey them. You will probably call me brainwashed here.
"Why isn't this optional? Why not allow people like you, who have no problem with this form of State activity, to pay for it?"
That is a good question. Perhaps the confusion of does the fire department help that person or not would depend on if they had paid there fire tax.
Accompanying question:
"Would you make a moral judgment about me, telling me that I am evil and need to be punished for not agreeing with the State's method of financing? Would you support it (if just intellectually)?"
No I would not call you evil. That is just one of the reasons that I do not see it as immoral. You are evil if you murder or rape break the 10 commandments. If there was a realistic way for you to opt out of the tax system and to not get the benefits (what I choose to call benefits) out of it I would be in favor of that. But since that isn't the case it seems that the threat of punishment is the only way to get people to pay. (shrug) I have no idea
David said "BTW Van, I disagree with you on this:
...
I see no logical reason why these services cannot be offered by neutral parties. However, for the sake of argument, I am willing to concede a minimal amount of State manipulation of ;justice' and 'law' in order to point out that EVERY SINGLE OTHER SERVICE is absolutely not a requirement for State involvement. I'd prefer to leave that argument out, just wanted to make a clarification - maybe for later reference. "
Glad you noted that... and not as argument, but just to clarify my position, the proper functions of the state are a proper and just obligation which is assumed by any person living within it's jurisdiction, and which taxation is the traditional method of exacting payment for; I wouldn't rule out other possible methods ("Stamp taxes" on commercial transactions, etc), but it would have to be examined well, and if didn't suffice to pay for proper gov't services, taxation would have to be reverted to - not that taxes are the best way to fund anything, but that they are the only dependable method known at this time.
More importantly, anything the state does that is not in the service of writing, clarifying, upholding and enforcing objective law, arbitrating civil disputes and upholding or defending the peoples rights and property from enemies foreign and domestic, is an improper activity for the Gov't to engage in (and immoral to boot).
Lance said "Isn't that the nature of life. We all do things that we do not want to do from the time we are children and as we grow older in school and just life in general."
No relation or similarity in any way, shape , manner or form whatsoever at all between a child being annoyed at enduring the process of becoming an adult, or the requirements of earning an honest living and having your rights to life and property violated by a state hurtling towards tyranny.
"You will probably call me brainwashed here."
No... I wouldn't anyway. 'brainwashed' implies some manner of cleanliness. Willfully ignorant and/or apathetically turning a blind eye towards wrong's you are sympathetic towards, would be the direction I'd tend towards.
"That is a good question. Perhaps the confusion of does the fire department help that person or not would depend on if they had paid there fire tax."
There is a reasonable intellectual argument that can be, and has been, made that Fire Dept's are justifiable in order to defend the life and property of of the citizenry. There is no such legitimate argument to be made, that can credibly stand upon principle, to support any leftist (and many Republican) policies and positions which rob and infringe upon the rights of the citizenry - every single one will at root rest upon "We want it to be so, and we're going to force everyone to comply".
Prove me wrong. More importantly, justify your positions to yourself without evasion. The inability to do so makes being a 'good citizen' impossible, and the willingness to continue in such a fashion does real and lasting harm to the entire nation.
Seriously.
"There is a reasonable intellectual argument that can be, and has been, made that Fire Dept's are justifiable in order to defend the life and property of of the citizenry. There is no such legitimate argument to be made, that can credibly stand upon principle, to support any leftist (and many Republican) policies and positions which rob and infringe upon the rights of the citizenry - every single one will at root rest upon "We want it to be so, and we're going to force everyone to comply"."
But, haven't I already acknowledged the mistake I made earlier of saying what I wanted had to be mandatory? I believe primarily I am concerned with how do you fund things like the Police and Fire and Highway departments with out taxes. I do not think that those would be viable services opened up to the lowest bidder for contracts or to private enterprise.
When I wrote:
If I believe it is wrong, why am I forced to continue in something that I believe is wrong?"
Lance wrote:
Isn't that the nature of life. We all do things that we do not want to do from the time we are children and as we grow older in school and just life in general. There are all kinds of rules that I do not think should apply to me but I understand the reasons for them being in place so I choose to obey them. You will probably call me brainwashed here.
Not sure if it's brainwashing or not - not enough repeated aphorism and cliche to come across as mental conditioning. Seems more to me like you aren't considering with all of your mental capacity what is being said. Not a lack of ability; more a lack of willingness or practice.
In essence, what comes out of your dismissive paragraph is, 'hey, that's life, sucks to be you, doesn't it?' The essence comes across as though the person speaking it has given up on existence and is simple waiting to fade away. What a life! And that, my friend, IS the direst result of current Political Science teaching. As long as you look at the State in that fashion, the power elite, those who hold sway, are in no danger of being exposed for what they are. They are safe to continue bidnizz as usual, 'cause you aren't about to question it. 'It just IS.....'
While things happen in life that we do not like, things that are outside our control, like death, weather, etc., there are things over which we do have control, and there is a reason for that.
You are a human being. As such you are capable of thinking, of using the process of inference to come to a full conclusions. By putting that to use, you can parse the causes for human action out past the dismissive 'hey, thats the way its always been' attitude. Can you imagine what the world would be like it everyone acted in that fashion? Suppose Thomas Edison, or George Washington Carver just sat back and claimed, 'Isn't that the nature of life. We all do things that we do not want to do from the time we are children and as we grow older in school and just life in general. I might as well just get oon with my existence, because I'm going to die anyway.
Its the dissatisfaction with 'the way things are' that causes men to rise up and invent new things. Thats why Van and I are willing to spend so much time talking about this subject - there ARE ways to do things that are NOT immoral.
"...Perhaps the confusion of does the fire department help that person or not would depend on if they had paid there fire tax..."
Perfect example, too - thanks. I propose that fire insurance be sold by local fire stations. If you don't want to pay a monthly premium (the equivalent in what you are taxed now?) then you have no service available from teh fire department, and they are not liable for any damages to your house - YOU ARE. THAT is a free society.
"...I would not call you evil. That is just one of the reasons that I do not see it as immoral. You are evil if you murder or rape break the 10 commandments.
Note: Theft is condemned in one of the ten commandments. Theft is defined as the involuntary transfer of property. Taxes are NOT, I repeat, NOT, NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT voluntary. Tax is the INVOLUNTARY transfer of property from me to a State Official to do what he wants with that money.
If you disagree with me, then why are not taxes simply VOLUNTARY contributions? Let's consider voluntary taxation in detail!
"...If there was a realistic way for you to opt out of the tax system and to not get the benefits (what I choose to call benefits) out of it I would be in favor of that. But since that isn't the case it seems that the threat of punishment is the only way to get people to pay. (shrug) I have no idea....
The reason there is no way out is because the State claims a monopoly on the use of force and is not shy to use it. If I want to stay alive, I must comply. And because I am coerced into compliance - as are you (as you admitted here):
There are all kinds of rules that I do not think should apply to me but I understand the reasons for them being in place so I choose to obey them.
:then there is a distinct moral issue to be considered.
And trust me, I do not allow the idiotic argument that the you 'voluntarily' exchanged property with the thief holding a gun to your head simply because you handed the property over (hence justifying the robbery.)
Also - could you explain this in detail? I mean, really parse this out. I fail to see the use of any form of rationality here - I must be missing something....
"...I do not see the collecting of Taxes by the American government as an immoral or moral act.
Given: ethics is the examination of the rightness or wrongess of a particular belief or action.
Collecting is a human action. Taxes are the funds by which the State finances itself.
Hence, your statement is that the action of collecting funds to finance itself is neither good nor bad.
Would you say that this applies only to the state, or am I free to use the same method because it is neither good nor bad...
But, haven't I already acknowledged the mistake I made earlier of saying what I wanted had to be mandatory? I believe primarily I am concerned with how do you fund things like the Police and Fire and Highway departments with out taxes. I do not think that those would be viable services opened up to the lowest bidder for contracts or to private enterprise.
I absolutely see ways these can be bid upon and provided by the best possible provider, a voluntary market system. But as I said before, I am willing to grant a minimal form of State intervention. The question remains: why Public HEALTH, WELFARE, EDUCATION, DRUG USE, regulation of air waves, building of roads, on and on and on and on....
Regulation of banks, financing of businesses.....on and on and on...
Lance said "But, haven't I already acknowledged the mistake I made earlier of saying what I wanted had to be mandatory? I believe primarily I am concerned with how do you fund things like the Police and Fire and Highway departments with out taxes."
I think we can agree to set aside the reasonably, debatably, legitimate functions of Gov't (police, fire, judiciary, military) for future discussions; it's the regulatory (FCC, FTC, ETC), forced 'services', entitlements and nanny-aid intrusions that are completely indefensible, yet are the very core of leftist (Dem & Rep) policy, which I don't believe you've acknowledged as being either a mistake or a problem, or have made much of an effort to justify.
Those are the issues I'm spending my Guiness upon here.
David said "Taxes are NOT, I repeat, NOT, NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT voluntary. Tax is the INVOLUNTARY transfer of property from me to a State Official to do what he wants with that money."
ehh... straying towards that interior argument of what is the proper role and function of Gov't.. which we'd probably be better off postponing... but now I can't stop myself from at least putting out a couple comments (I'm probably falling for Lance's divide and conquer strategy).
You use 'involuntary' as if it cancels, overrules or rules out, what is obligatory. I do not think it does. Once you are an adult, and you choose to continue living within the jurisdiction of a polity, you are obliged to obey the laws of your polity, like it or not (and if it's 'not' you should work for their being changed), which include supporting that which secures your rights and property, gov't, and at this time in history, paying the taxes is the mode of doing that. And you do have the option to opt out - with your feet. Don't like it? Move. May not be a pleasant thought, but until we move over into USSR mode, it is the proper way of refusing to voluntarily comply with just laws and taxation.
... Fire Dept is debatable. I believe it was tried once in ... Pennsylvania I don't remember the details, but Voluntary fire depts are certainly a case in point, but I think they become less practical as populations become more dense, where it can be impossible for a contracted Fire Dept to not put out the fire in bldg B, which hadn't contracted for its services, while they are contracted to cover bldg's A & C. I suppose it could then resort to a lean upon the title of bldg B and its owners, but... I don't see a problem with a community, not county, state or federal, but a municipal community voting such a service which clearly is designed to preserve life and property, into a tax supported feature of their gov't.
Highway's are more difficult to justify (water & sewer & power as well, though people should look into how power was being handled before FDR) , though it isn't difficult to see how people throw up their hands and say "well how else would you get roads,etc, built?!" - I personally think that there are many legitimate ways to do a far better job at building and maintaining roads and other utilities than to have the local gov't do it, but still, I can see a reasonable grounds for debate.
That's about the limit though. Everything else, is fully covered under the existing parameters of law, whether a person or business's actions are negligent, gross negligence, deliberate endangerment of the customers lives and property. All that is required is swift, effective and consequential prosecution of existing reaches of the law.
The only thing the alphabet regulatory agencies have accomplished, is to draw the attention and influence of businessmen into politics, whether to influence politicians against harming their interests, or seeking to influence politicians to use the power of gov't to hobble their competitors and make it more difficult for new competitors to enter the marketplace.
Nothing has done more to contribute to the corruption of gov't, and its growth, than the establishment of regulatory agencies - with the possible exception of the 17th amendment which turned the Senate from a deliberative body, loyal to their states interests and above the fickle fads of popular passions, able to act as a cooling, reasoning, governor on the House (which was supposed to be responsive to the immediate will of the people), a body that could and would be more likely to demand principled actions; and turned it into nothing but glad handing congressmen with longer terms, obligated to play up to the passions of the people in order to get a vote, and the sucking up to lobbyists in order to secure funding in order to secure funding for their next election.
And of course it was put across as one of the first 'campaign finance' reforms put across by progressives.
Argh.
Van said "it's the regulatory (FCC, FTC, ETC), forced 'services', entitlements and nanny-aid intrusions that are completely indefensible, yet are the very core of leftist (Dem & Rep) policy, which I don't believe you've acknowledged as being either a mistake or a problem, or have made much of an effort to justify."
I can honestly say that I have never even thought about those agencies. It isn't that I am being evasive they have always been there in my lifetime and I have never even looked into them or even the given reasons for their existence. It just never occurred to me. I just........it didn't even occur to me.
David said "Hence, your statement is that the action of collecting funds to finance itself is neither good nor bad.
Would you say that this applies only to the state, or am I free to use the same method because it is neither good nor bad..."
You already know the answer to this. But I will let you bait me. You consider taxation a sin and an immoral act. I do not. That is an area that I do not think we will ever agree on. I agree that there is waste in government and I will agree that things are being regulated that do not need to be regulated. So lets move to change that but attacking taxes as an immoral act gets us nowhere. No it would not be ok for you to tax others to raise funds for yourself. Go ahead and tell me how wrong I am.
Lance writes: "...I do not see the collecting of Taxes by the American government as an immoral or moral act...."
Now I am going to assume on Lance's part that the word 'American' is not relevant to the issue. Or, should I assume that Lance sees the collecting of (T)axes by the English government as immoral (or moral)?
Since that word is irrelevant, I suggest we leave it out. When you use the term 'see' I assume you mean the term 'think'. So, the phrase in question becomes:
"I (Lance) do not think the collecting of taxes by the government (IS) an immoral, nor a moral act."
I (David) do. Regardless of our viewpoints, the issue I have with this question is in regard to something else.
You write that 'act' (the subject of the statement) is 'collecting'.
Collecting is defined as "to gather together". Tax is defined as "a compulsory payment to a government to raise revenue, levied on income, property, or goods and services."
Hence, the statement is now 'I (Lance) do not think the gathering together of compulsory payment to a government to raise revenue is either immoral or moral. Examining ethics is looking at the 'rightness' or 'wrongness' of an action or a belief.
Am I safe to assume that in any situation where the actions of one person or a group of persons affects another person or group of persons has an ethical element? Is there not a right way and a wrong way to perform the act?
Is not gathering money an action? If so, how can it be argued that the action of a group of people gathering money cannot be considered as done in a moral or immoral fashion?
So I ask, since Lance does not consider the gathering of fund to be an act that has any moral elements, why would it be wrong for me to use the EXACT SAME METHOD as the State does to gather revenue? Why must I do it in a different manner?
And Lance replies: You already know the answer to this. But I will let you bait me. You consider taxation a sin and an immoral act. I do not.
I understand that you have divorced the entire means by which the State funds itself from any moral consideration. Makes it a lot easier for the State to fund itself!
I may have an answer but I do NOT know yours, Lance. I consider this form of coercion to be immoral - it is the involuntary exchange of property; when Lance does the same thing as the State, he is called a thief. When the State does it, Lance praises it. I call it a sin, Lance says it is not. I have to ask, with all sincerity: by what authority do you determine what is a sin and what is not?
Moreover, Lance again seems to refuse to consider my willingness to discuss an entirely voluntary system of tax. Why is that, Lance? You afraid someone might not decide to participate in accepting services OFFERED by the State - such that they must be FORCED to use them?
Here's the gist:
What is the difference between me and the State, such that when I do something it can be considered right or wrong, while the State, when it does THE EXACT SAME THING, cannot be questioned morally?
Accompanying the answer to this, I would also like to know HOW you know this is TRUE. Is it so difficult or wrong to want to know HOW you know something is the way you know it is?
Lance said "I can honestly say that I have never even thought about those agencies... It just never occurred to me. I just........it didn't even occur to me. "
As someone majoring in political science... why not?
They've always been there in my lifetime as well... and spending a decade as a travelling musician didn't exactly cause them to noticeably intrude into my life...and yet I became aware of them, and you the political science major, haven't... how is that possible?
I suppose I had an advantage over you by not taking Poly Sci in college, but instead in leisure, I've pursued what the 'Great (and near great) Books' sought after instead. That being done, such agencies, and much more, very much intrude themselves upon my attention.
Indoctrination (a bit harsh, but not unfounded) and Education are two very different things.
Although I very much would like to see Lance's answer to David's questions, I've got to toss my two cents into the pot.
David said "Now I am going to assume on Lance's part that the word 'American' is not relevant to the issue. Or, should I assume that Lance sees the collecting of (T)axes by the English government as immoral (or moral)?
Since that word is irrelevant, I suggest we leave it out."
Oh... I don't think that is at all wise or proper. It very much matters whether the Gov't is a moral one, whether or not the act of taxation is a moral action. While the other Gov't you mentioned, England, still has a thin claim on being a proper Gov't itself, if you kept substituting names, you'd soon run into problems with the assumption that the particular Gov't in question, isn't relevant to the question or answer. Russia? China? DPRK? It is VERY much relevant which nation is referred to in determining whether or not the act of taxation is moral or not. Does the Gov't in question have a moral leg to stand on itself? America does, because it does, still, in some part, uphold the rights of the individual to live their own life, and so does have a moral right and obligation to secure the funds necessary for its proper operations. England... can still can make the claim, though even more weakly than America can. The rest? That slope is way past slippery.
"So I ask, since Lance does not consider the gathering of fund to be an act that has any moral elements, why would it be wrong for me to use the EXACT SAME METHOD as the State does to gather revenue? Why must I do it in a different manner? "
Because you, David, are not a representative of the law. As an individual, you, or anyone else, would be doing nothing but initiating force and breaking the law. Even if that person actually owed you money, you are forbidden from using force against him to retrieve what is rightfully owed you, you must bring it before the law. Because in order for Gov't to have any meaning or standing or success in its purposes whatsoever, which are the preservation of justice and peace in society through the protection of its peoples rights through the administrations of the law, it must be the sole repository of force in society.
All civilized men assign over their rights of exercising force, other than that of immediate self defense to the Gov't; it is the Gov't that is to be through the law, the arbiter of justice, debt and punishment for crimes, and that assigning over is done by virtue of being there in that nation, at all. No one entering the country by birth or passport needs to sign over a document saying "I voluntarily agree to not break the laws of this country and I voluntarily agree to pay taxes to support it", nor are they able to forego such an agreement and then claim "But I didn't agree to obey the law or pay taxes for its support! Therefore you are robbing me!", no, it is an implied consent, a very real and just obligation and it is inescapable.
Whether or not the Gov't in question is morally worthy of that claim, is another matter altogether.
As you've pointed out before, no one may initiate force in a civilized society, and that does include Gov't as well, but the citizen living within the jurisdiction and protection of the laws of the Gov't , who withholds paying his taxes, his obligation for enjoying that protection, is, just as an embezzler does though he does it surreptitiously rather than with a gun in hand, initiating force against not only the Gov't , but all of society as well.
Alright Lance, your turn, ante up.
As you've pointed out before, no one may initiate force in a civilized society, and that does include Gov't as well, but the citizen living within the jurisdiction and protection of the laws of the Gov't , who withholds paying his taxes, his obligation for enjoying that protection, is, just as an embezzler does though he does it surreptitiously rather than with a gun in hand, initiating force against not only the Gov't , but all of society as well.
Van, while I agree in part with your assessments, I want to point out something:
The reason I argue against the States means of collecting fees is BECAUSE it is a pre-existing initiation of force. The services it offers are in NO WAY necessarily the sole domain of State arrangement. Is has dominated and then executed all competitors in all fields where it operates, demands absolute compliance and THEN tells us that since we are using the service, it is only moral that we pay for it. It has put the cart before the horse, and demanded that we pay no attention to this fact.
In short, your argument is a capitulation - "Hey, it exists already, therefore we have to live with it. In fact, lets not think about whether it's right or wrong." My argument is, "Hey, since the initiation of force is wrong, lets find ALTERNATIVES that never require threat of or use of force."
As you clearly state, "...no one may initiate force in a civilized society, and that does include Gov't as well...."
I wish to hold the State to this moral objective. I have NEVER once argued that we should stop paying taxes. Those services are in place. We use them. We must pay for them, or be guilty of theft!
What I am trying to do is show that the MEANS is wrong - the very nature of CREATING a service, DISALLOWING anyone else to provide it, REQUIRING universal adherence to that service, and then demanding payment for it....
...is wrong!
I don't care WHICH Nation State is adhering to this method of market management, it is purely wrong.
Here's why.
If it is wrong for an individual to murder someone, this is NOT because of the particular identity of that individual, as though Bob is somehow morally different from Steve. It is also wrong for Steve to commit murder.
It is wrong universally for an individual to murder.
Does it become right when TWO individuals decide to do it? Three? Four? How about 50%+1
Does the NUMBER of individuals or a division of the number of individuals change the moral nature of the act of murder?
I say, no.
Well, what about theft?
Again, I say no.
So how does the State all of the sudden receive the moral dispensation to commit those very acts? Is not the State composed of individuals? Of COURSE it is. Only individuals act. Hence, the distinct actions of each individual - a member of the State is just as bound by the universal moral restraints that cause the act to be wrong in the first place as anyone else!
A REPRESENTATIVE of the LAW is BOUND by moral restraints to the SAME laws as anyone else! Your argument that the reason I cannot do the things the State can do, simply because they are members of the State, is justification for the State to participate in ANY immoral act, which by definition is no longer immoral (by some twist of law) What is to stop the State? Individuals? How do they receive this authority, if the State is the LAW, which the officers represent? ANY act against the State must by definition be immoral!
BTW, if you disagree with my reaching the conclusions above, you might want to reword the sentence "...Even if that person actually owed you money, you are forbidden from using force against him to retrieve what is rightfully owed you, you must bring it before the law..."
How can I bring something 'before the law' unless that law is something with I can see and hear - perhaps a State court? Equating the court with the law is an error, IMHO.
Incidentally, I would challenge your definition of a good citizen as someone who has surrendered "...his rights of exercising force, other than that of immediate self defense to the Gov't...." That is an OBEDIENT, or compliant citizen (and in the eyes of the STATE, a good one.) It is not a moral judgment of the citizen, is it?
David said "In short, your argument is a capitulation - "
No... your argument is an evasion of what Man, the political animal, is.
David said "Incidentally, I would challenge your definition of a good citizen as someone who has surrendered "...his rights of exercising force, other than that of immediate self defense to the Gov't...." That is an OBEDIENT, or compliant citizen (and in the eyes of the STATE, a good one.) It is not a moral judgment of the citizen, is it? "
Ok, two things before going further.
1) I didn't offer up a definition of a good citizen.
2) How you mischaracterized what I said, makes it to something I didn't write. I said,
"All civilized men assign over their rights of exercising force, other than that of immediate self defense[,] to the Gov't;"
Assign is not the same as surrender, and following the implications of your statements leads (not surprisingly) to a 'state' of anarchy and vigilante action.
Before letting loose on this, please explain this,
"That is an OBEDIENT, or compliant citizen (and in the eyes of the STATE, a good one.) It is not a moral judgment of the citizen, is it? "
How in the hell is following the law, reduced to mere 'obedience'? Do you actually intend to say that behaving in a civil manner and respecting the law (for arguments sake, we'll assume the laws in this state are just), not going around and overpowering anyone you have a beef with, to be mere obedience?!
I'm being hauled off to Christmas decorating duty... I'll cool off and be back later.
I realized that what I've been writing has lead to some slightly off topic tangents to the conversation; slightly off topic but not completely. I also think that what I've been saying is not as far different from what others have written here as it on the surface seems. I thought maybe I'd try a different approach to see if maybe that cleared up any confusion I may have caused.
First, my method. Yes, there is a madness to my method. The first thing I always try to do is get to the precise definitions used in a conversation, so that there is no confusion about what is being said. I try to use my words carefully, giving each one specific meaning. This is a lot easier in written form than speech, because I can revise my sentences to tighten meanings.
The second thing I try to do is completely isolate an action from the person performing it, so that only the act itself can be examined. What I mean will be more clear in a short while.
Suppose you are starving and homeless, and happen across a fruit stand in front of Mr. Hooper's Grocery. Hungry, near death, you grab an apple and eat it. Doing so may have saved your life.
Now look at the action: you picked up a piece of fruit and ate it. There is nothing in that action that is of a moral nature - maybe you used bad manners and didnt chew each bite enough times before swallowing, but certainly no one can judge you for picking up a peice of fruit, or eating it.
But the act you performed does have moral elements. Why? Because the apple was not your property - it was the propoerty of Mr. Hooper. You took it without his permission; by definition this is stealing. Possibly Mr. Hooper is forgiving and understanding and forgives you. BUt that does not change the act itself. Perhaps it saved your life. But THAT does not change the act itself. The act of taking possession of the apple without the voluntary permission of the real owner makes the act a form of theft.
Now, does the necessity of need remove the notion of theft? I argue that it does not, but it may mitigate the actions of those involved. How does this relate to other areas of life. What if your TV breaks down and you cannot afford to buy a new one or have it repaired? Is it therefore acceptable to go forth and steal a new one? I would argue, 'No!'
So lets translate this over to the topic we are discussing: the State and its many services. Like I have said before, many people are unable to concieve of any viable alternatives to a State-run military, police force, and judicial system. I am willing to allow those institutions for the sake of argument. My objection is to how they are funded. By definition, taxation is the compulsory garnering of money to fund State services. Because it is compulsory, the idea of a voluntary exchange of property is uncessesary. The State simply creates a bill, and takes the money from you in some way or another.
This calls into question the actual definition of ownership (call it the ability to dispense with your property as you see fit.) Since the State simply creates a bill and then takes the money it wants from you, there is no question of property ownership involved here: if you cannot dispense with property in the way you see fit, you simply do not own it. The State does.
SO the question arises (in my mind, anyway): Since we accept that the SAtate owns everything, and allows us to use whatever it does not need, is it not right for us to look for ways to extend our own ownership and diminish the ownership of the State?
If the State is going to take money to fund its services - an act, which, if isolated into an analysis of the act itself, is theft - should we not carefully consider wthe services the State is going to steal from us to operate?
In another post I will demonstrate that the State actually has no inherent 'rights' - only individuals do - but for the time being, I think a good direction for this discussion to take would be to look at various services of which the State claims ownership, and see if it would not be better - both from a moral and a practical standpoint - to allow the real people of the country to run them.
Van, to put things a curtly as you:
Assign is not the same as surrender, and following the implications of your statements leads (not surprisingly) to a 'state' of anarchy and vigilante action.
In absolutely no way. And the misuse (doublespeak) definition of the word 'anarchy' doesn't help the conversation. What you mean is CHAOS, not anarchy.
How in the hell is following the law, reduced to mere 'obedience'? Do you actually intend to say that behaving in a civil manner and respecting the law (for arguments sake, we'll assume the laws in this state are just), not going around and overpowering anyone you have a beef with, to be mere obedience?!
Two things:
1) Only if by the Law you refer to the directions of State officials, rather than the law by which they, as well as I, am bound; and
2) Only if the laws being enforced are NOT 'going around and overpowering anyone you have a beef with.
Compliance with the State, simply because is CLAIMS the right to 'boss you around' is suspect (for me) at all times, because I hold all men to the same standard, regardless of the nice uniforms they might wear.
And I've made those abundantly clear. They are:
It is morally wrong for any person to initiate force against another.
and
It is morally wrong to acquire or damage the property of another without their voluntary agreement.
Upon those two rules, one can build an entire system of law.
WOW! Hey guys I work all day on Saturday and I have family Christmas stuff tomorrow so it might be a bit but you gave me some things to chew on. Thank you Van for clarifying my position a bit as to the gathering of Taxes. You seemed to say it more clearly then I was able to.
“Van, to put things a curtly as you:”
Ok, perhaps the caffeine had kicked in. I’m going through my initial reac… responses, and de-curtly-ifying them… as much as is possible, for me, anyway.
“The reason I argue against the States means of collecting fees is BECAUSE it is a pre-existing initiation of force.”
It is a pre-existing claim, an obligation; it is not a pre-existing initiation of force. Not to invoke a paternalistic view or position for the state, but as a distant analogy, a child is born with an obligation to honor and obey their parents, that is not a pre-existing initiation of force.
” The services it offers are in NO WAY necessarily the sole domain of State arrangement.“
There is nothing in the existence or nature of our gov’t as the preeminent legal system, even in today’s debased form, that excludes independent investigative & security forces or a systems of binding arbitration for resolving civil matters. Wells Fargo, the Pinkertons, etc. Private security, flourishes today, there are many stores, business areas, subdivisions who employ their own security services, and of course there's the people like the Guardian angels... even quasi military outfits such as Blackwater… you can't not know of these, so your issue can't be that Gov't somehow forbids independent police and civil arbitration, or is the only source for these, but seemingly must be against there being a supreme authority at all, one which has final say and ‘rank’ over all others, in and of itself.
Every organization, every form of knowledge, has a highest authority, where the libertarian idea of competing legal systems, with none having any higher legal authority who they must answer to, would mean nothing more than a flattened assortment of competing gangs. What is done when Police Brand X can't agree on extradition issues with police Brand Y? Without a highest authority, the classical idea of anarchy would be unavoidable. And extending that out to military establishments… well… ever hear of Crassus, Pompey & Ceasar? Come on.
“ My argument is, "Hey, since the initiation of force is wrong, lets find ALTERNATIVES that never require threat of or use of force…What I am trying to do is show that the MEANS is wrong - the very nature of CREATING a service, DISALLOWING anyone else to provide it, REQUIRING universal adherence to that service, and then demanding payment for it....
...is wrong!
I don't care WHICH Nation State is adhering to this method of market management, it is purely wrong.”
It is imperfect, it is not wrong. To label it ‘wrong’ requires that there be a ‘right’ that is available to choose instead. It is not wrong, because there is not a known viable alternative, and it would be imprudent and incredibly reckless for Gov’t to just switch the laws and defense of the nation over to an untested proposition, jeopardizing the real and necessary services it properly provides. I will say that the gov’t should be seeking viable alternatives; there are many other possible ideas and options that have been floated, and doubtless others to be discovered, and many ways where those different options could be tested, and they should be investigated… something that we the people should be pushing for.
“If it is wrong for an individual to murder someone, this is NOT because of the particular identity of that individual, as though Bob is somehow morally different from Steve. It is also wrong for Steve to commit murder.
It is wrong universally for an individual to murder. … Does the NUMBER of individuals or a division of the number of individuals change the moral nature of the act of murder?”
Nope. The context of the situation does however change the nature of the commission of the same physical act, say a bullet being fired through someone’s head. It is universally wrong to commit murder, it is not universally wrong to kill. In either individual Self defense or societal self defense, war, it is justifiable, proper and necessary. Context matters, the context is an integral part of situation being described, and attempting to drop essential contexts in order to show something in stark relief, is only to misrepresent the situation, and hinder the development of reasonable alternatives, not advance them. Sort of like the video linked to earlier. A’hm agin’ it.
It is universally wrong to steal. Proper Taxation in support of a just Gov’t is not stealing.
“A REPRESENTATIVE of the LAW is BOUND by moral restraints to the SAME laws as anyone else! Your argument that the reason I cannot do the things the State can do, simply because they are members of the State, is justification for the State to participate in ANY immoral act, which by definition is no longer immoral (by some twist of law)”
Poppycock. An individual, acting as an individual, is of course bound by the same laws, laws which also recognize and delimit or extend certain abilities and authorities to those reasonably and properly designated to perform them.
It would be wrong for me to switch on my hazard lights, jam my horn and tear off through traffic after someone I thought was a murder suspect, haul him out of his car, cuff him, and take him down to the local lockup, but those actions would be entirely proper for a policemen to perform. As a representative of the law, as a policemen, that individual is granted the use of force in the execution of his duties. As an individual, he is responsible to see that he doesn’t overstep or misuse that power as a policemen, and if he does, he as an individual is responsible and will be punished for any crime or transgression committed.
“ What is to stop the State? Individuals? How do they receive this authority, if the State is the LAW, which the officers represent? ANY act against the State must by definition be immoral!”
What is to stop the state from transgressing the law is the law itself, and the people who elect those who make the laws. That too is one of the duties and responsibilities of a good citizen, and of the policeman’s (or whatever gov’t position of authority held) fellows, superiors, and subordinates as well, for that matter. The structures of our form of gov’t is rooted in checks and balances to expose just such matters, but if any citizen is fool enough to think that they can completely trust those they’ve entrusted with power, with that power, they fully deserve the abomination they will (have) receive(d).
“BTW, if you disagree with my reaching the conclusions above, you might want to reword the sentence "...Even if that person actually owed you money, you are forbidden from using force against him to retrieve what is rightfully owed you, you must bring it before the law..."
How can I bring something 'before the law' unless that law is something with I can see and hear - perhaps a State court? Equating the court with the law is an error, IMHO.
One, the law, if it is proper law, it is written law, it does exist, something that you can see and read in a published constitution, statutes, codes, etc. There are many ways of being “brought before the law”, a common expression and an old phrase, which I didn’t think would need a lot of explanation. My mistake. You can bring an issue before the law through filing suit, swearing out a complaint, calling the police, and many other variations on the theme. It in no way equates a court with the law. The law is prior to the court which upholds it, or the police who enforce it. The constitution is prior to the laws written to be applied within its framework. And reality comes prior to it all, which we attempt to use reason and experience to determine what the proper higher rules are, or Natural Law, within which any manmade laws should be written. When someone believes that a law has been violated, a right infringed upon, they bring the issue before the law in which ever manner is appropriate.
In absolutely no way. And the misuse (doublespeak) definition of the word 'anarchy' doesn't help the conversation. What you mean is CHAOS, not anarchy.”
Double speak? Really... I think it more likely that it is you who is seeking to redefine. Here are the common definitions you’ll find in looking up ‘anarchy’:
"Anarchy (from áŒÎœÎ±ÏÏία anarchĂa, "without ruler") may refer to any of the following:* "Absence of government; a state of lawlessness due to the absence or inefficiency of the supreme power; political disorder. ..."
"a state of lawlessness and disorder (usually resulting from a failure of government) "
These are the traditional definitions of the word. It didn't enjoy the fond spin you assign to it, until the thinkers who sprouted up prior to and during (and subsequently Marxist influenced 'thinkers' who followed them) the French revolution ... and what a happy, carefree period of liberty, equality and fraternity that was! Aside from all the rolling of heads that is. Bother.
No it is not doublespeak, and I do not mistake it with chaos, chaos is what those who have actually known the state of anarchy, know to follow in its wake, and excuse me but I'll go with the estimation of those who actually saw it in practice, and which my reasoning on the matter tells me is most likely to result from men too cock sure that they are sure they know how things should now be, and must be, and will be, if only it could be done their way.
IMHO your rather flat libertarian ideology blinds you, and hubris awaits you and your libertarian friends with warm embrace. It’s here, as always, where I part with dreamy eyed libertarians, who somehow expect to see all men soon living in peace and happiness together once freed from all obligations and restraints, if only all would leave each other alone... as if they ever would.
No, anarchy and chaos are not equivalent, but one follows the other as surely night the day, and for someone to refer to the first while somehow assuming the second will not accompany it, is beyond me. Belief in the viability of anarchy as a mode of society requires such an unrealistic and modern therapeutic view of man as to be, to me, incomprehensibly naĂŻve and even juvenile in its utopianism.
It's always doubly shocking to me, coming from someone with a religious caste of mind, as if in this minor aspect of man, politics that is (!!!), man would cease falling if only he could be free to be free, then no man would seek power, no man would covet what others have, no man would seek his independent legal franchise to have more power and influence than one of his competitors, yes indeedy, that would all disappear if only we'd all renounce a central legal authority.
Poppycock.
It is a view less suited to someone whose beliefs come from Mt. Sinai than Mt. Olympus, though even there Zeus was above the other Gods, and the Greeks and Romans had far too many memories of scenes such as the tumult of Corcyra, to put any stock in such pie in the sky musings.
I think we can probably agree that we will not agree on this one.
“[I’d said: How in the hell is following the law, reduced to mere 'obedience'? Do you actually intend to say that behaving in a civil manner and respecting the law (for arguments sake, we'll assume the laws in this state are just), not going around and overpowering anyone you have a beef with, to be mere obedience?!]
Two things:
1) Only if by the Law you refer to the directions of State officials, rather than the law by which they, as well as I, am bound; and
2) Only if the laws being enforced are NOT 'going around and overpowering anyone you have a beef with.
Compliance with the State, simply because is CLAIMS the right to 'boss you around' is suspect (for me) at all times, because I hold all men to the same standard, regardless of the nice uniforms they might wear.
Do you have some flower power issues you’re working out here? Any state official that is acting beyond the power and authority the law permits is abusing their power. That we have entire regulatory agencies established and operating outside of and in opposition to the constitution, doesn’t say a lot about our current crop of citizenry, but that’s the particular state of affairs we find ourselves in, not the idea of the state itself.
A short break.
David,
I’m sure you’ll correct me if I’m wrong, but the impressions I get from Libertarians, is that they seem to have decided to try going beyond anything so simple as a ‘state of nature’ social compact theory, towards something more like a loose association of lone wolves, living in proximity, but assiduously unassociated with anyone else except by explicit choice, and most definitely not being answerable to anyone else. This seems not so much unrealistic, as misunderstanding what Man is to begin with. Any truth to that? Being strongly influenced by Objectivism, and constantly being told that I’m unrealistic, hate the poor and am greedy and anti-social, etc, I’m willing to admit that I may be missing something, but… if I am, it’s hiding quite well.
We've been pouncing on Lance for his definitions of a good citizen, I'd be interested in your definition of Man as the political animal - do you go for the 'society is an illusion, only individuals exist'?
To hit a couple obvious points, and not to retread what I’ve already noted above, the society of course cannot exist without the individuals, and frankly, the individuals cannot exist without the society. That society must and will be structured, or there will be chaos, and those structures will either be one of two forms of anarchy (without a leader or govt), one being a completely lawless Hobbesian free for all, or the second being a geographically contained mass of competing groups which ultimately in situations of disagreement, when push comes to shove, will be ruled by power alone; or on the other hand, some form of state having a hierarchically structured society, ruled either directly by the whims of men, or through men who recognize the preeminence of laws.
Law supplies a sort of pre-fabricated source of reasoning, of tested tried and true examples of applying truth and reasoning to various situations, which can then be applied to solve conflicts in various situations that arise in society, through the aid of lawyers and judges, who act as craftsmen skilled in working with such materials. When the existing laws are found to be unable to provide solutions to new situations, then legislators get to work and fashion a new law. This is the sort of thing that has become necessary, and more often than not abused and/or done incompetently, when new technologies and social changes have come about, trains, telegraphs, radio, changing demographics, internet, etc.
There is of course one really big caveat to the process of lawmaking and of applying them, the laws created, and the rules for applying them must be rooted in reality and be truthful to the nature of man and society. If that is flawed, no matter the good intentions, bad things will unavoidably follow.
There are flaws in the U.S. Constitution, but it is the best that has yet been conceived. There are flaws in the idea of taxation, but a better method has not yet proven to have been found. There were huge flaws in the idea of conscription (another defacto slavery), but a solution has been found, in the all volunteer military. We do make advances, but it is earlier in human development than modernity's self esteem likes to admit, and we've still got quite a ways to go. However, the actual progress yet to be made, will not be found by taking a step that is not even going backwards, but off the path completely, as anarchy, anarcho-capitalism, anarcho-syndicalism, etc, would be, IMHO.
It is the states obligation, if making a claim to being a moral state, to take no actions which are not directly found in, and limited to, the establishment, maintenance and enforcement of objective law; Laws written for the purposes of upholding its peoples individual rights of life, property and speech and for lawfully resolving disputes, and defending them against any and all enemies foreign and domestic. To accomplish this, it is incumbent upon the state to, as fairly and appropriately as possible, secure the funding it requires for its proper purposes.
It is the obligation of the State to do so, it is the obligation of the people to provide the funding. Because the available options for providing funding through taxation are bad and worse, does not make the action itself wrong, only in need of improvement.
Various forms of taxation have been tried such as taxes on sales, real estate, import-export, tariff's, and upon income and others have been tried. Of them, tariff's have been shown to not only directly target too narrow a band of the population, but to actually damage the business of it's people. Income tax is nothing more than a window dressing on slavery - if the state has first claim to your income, then you have no right to it yourself, but are only allowed such scrapes’ from the states table as it is pleased to let fall to you. A flat percentage tax upon all sales seems to me the least unfair of current proposals. Other options, such as a chosen Stamp as a tax upon sales, which would give access to certain arbitration services in civil disputes, and exclude you if not purchased at the time of sale, or others of that type, might be worth investigating, at any rate some voluntary form of raising revenue would be the ideal and should be sought after, but it would be negligent for the state to jeopardize the continued delivery of its proper and necessary services by abandoning present methods of taxation without reasonable proof that another form would adequately function in their place.
In any case, there is one more responsibility upon the people of a state, a republic such as ours, and that is that it is the responsibility of the individuals to ensure that the whole doesn't overstep its bounds and infringe upon the rights of many, they and their fellow members. This is where we can begin to approach closer to a definition of a 'Good Citizen', it isn't found in their abiding by the law, though that is an expected trait of one, it isn't found in their moral and physical support of the nation in times of war, though that should be a trait as well.
The real roots (roots, not definition) of being a good citizen lies in the individual doing their conscientious best to ensure that their elected representatives are moral, ethical, reasoning individuals who won’t demagogue issues to attain power, and who understand the concept of individual rights, the constitution and possess enough grasp of history to make wise judgments in supporting both. And to actively monitor and work towards removing those who fail these requirements.
Obviously that’s not a common trait among the citizenry today. It is far, far earlier in the development of civilization, than we grasp.
Hello?
(looks around. checks breath.)
Hello? Something I said?
HI Van!! I am sorry I haven't been around much we got hit with kind of a freak snowstorm so I have been taking care of my parents a little bit. I am also kind of waiting with interest for David's response to your latest posts.
Oh sure, put your parents before blogging.
Sheesh. Kids these days.
"I am also kind of waiting with interest for David's response to your latest posts"
Yep.
Franz Choderov argues in 'Taxation is Robbery' - "...on this question of morality there are two positions, and never the twain will meet....")
It is a pre-existing claim, an obligation; it is not a pre-existing initiation of force. Not to invoke a paternalistic view or position for the state, but as a distant analogy, a child is born with an obligation to honor and obey their parents, that is not a pre-existing initiation of force.
I'd argue that the analogy of parent-child and state-citizen is weak at best, but has far worse connotation. Regardless: The 'pre-existing' claim of the State contains within its domain the threat of force if its injunctions are not obeyed. The closest analogy is to think of a child born of slave parents. Your arfgumen bears the same force as the slave-parent telling the slave-child that since they are born into the office of slave, it is no way an immoral state of being. The basic structure of this argument is that since it already is in place, we must abide by it. I counter by arguing that we can always look for alternatives that do NOT require the modus operandi of the State.
"...the libertarian idea of competing legal systems, with none having any higher legal authority who they must answer to, would mean nothing more than a flattened assortment of competing gangs..."
This is a dismissal without due (or any) consideration. It is not a rebuttal of the system offered by free-market anarchists.
What is done when Police Brand X can't agree on extradition issues with police Brand Y? Without a highest authority, the classical idea of anarchy would be unavoidable. And extending that out to military establishments… well… ever hear of Crassus, Pompey & Ceasar? Come on.
I will 'come on'! The world is made up of competing States. Which one is the highest authority? Or do they all cooperate in the method I ascribe as being moral (albeit misused at times) - that is, the 'flattened' assortment of competing gangs?
It is imperfect, it is not wrong. To label it ‘wrong’ requires that there be a ‘right’ that is available to choose instead.
And I have offered and can always offer a 'right' way to approach it. Dismissing my argument does not disprove it. But, as I said before (many times) - I am willing to ignore the areas the collectivist or minarchist find most necessary - police, military, etc. for the sake of examining every other aspect of the issue. My only caveat is the repeated statement that the METHOD of establishing (or capturing) a service, requiring compliance in its use, and mandating payment for that service rendered, is immoral. Hence, if we are going to use an immoral method of doing something, we should minimize its use to the best of our abilities.
It is not wrong, because there is not a known viable alternative, and it would be imprudent and incredibly reckless for Gov’t to just switch the laws and defense of the nation over to an untested proposition, jeopardizing the real and necessary services it properly provides.
See my point about leaving the minimal 'necessary' services (I cannot be convinced that private entities cannot provide these more efficiently, more morally, and more inexpensive) for a later discussion. However, there are viable alternatives available. The reticence to approach anything because the 'proposition' has not been tested is a capitulation and avoidance of risk, but I'd point out that the 'proposition' has been tested millions of times, everyday. If you thought about it you'd see what I mean.
"...there are many other possible ideas and options that have been floated, and doubtless others to be discovered, and many ways where those different options could be tested, and they should be investigated… something that we the people should be pushing for...
Which I am consistently doing.
I wrote: "...It is wrong universally for an individual to murder. … Does the NUMBER of individuals or a division of the number of individuals change the moral nature of the act of murder?”
You replied: "...Nope. The context of the situation does however change the nature of the commission of the same physical act, say a bullet being fired through someone’s head. It is universally wrong to commit murder, it is not universally wrong to kill. In either individual Self defense or societal self defense, war, it is justifiable, proper and necessary....
The context offered is the TAKING OF AN INNOCENT LIFE. The act considered is NOT the taking of a life. There is NEVER a situation that will arise where it becomes RIGHT to take an INNOCENT life (i.e., MURDER.) The act considered is MURDER. In the example of a man taking an apple from a farmer's field without asking, the act considered is not the physical hoisting of an apple to the lips. It is the TAKING OF PROPERTY WITHOUT PERMISSION.
If I tried to drop the notion of murder from my syllogism and simply stated that it is wrong to kill, you would have rational grounds to disagree. But because I carefully defined the 'context' I am logically consistent. Hence, the statement:
Context matters, the context is an integral part of situation being described, and attempting to drop essential contexts in order to show something in stark relief, is only to misrepresent the situation, and hinder the development of reasonable alternatives, not advance them. Sort of like the video linked to earlier. A’hm agin’ it...."
You are introducing a straw man into the argument (or a red herring, depending on 'context'). My argument over theft is simple, and the context is sound: it is ALWAYS wrong to take property from someone without their permission. Context cannot change that. If I isolate the act itself (taking something from someone without their permission) how am I misrepresenting ANY situation?
Here's a clue under which I operate: "...morality must be based on a universal and logically-consistent set of principles – if it is just a matter of opinion, then no course of action can be "better" than any other course of action – any more than liking blue is "better" than liking red." (Stefan Molyneux)
The only way your red herring would work is if I were to argue picking up an apple is wrong. Or, 'firing a bullet into someone is wrong' - but I rarely make those mistakes, so all I see is that you waste your typing skills trying to lern me that there are 'contexts' where it is RIGHT to take someone's property without their permission (unless you truly hold to a weakened concept of ownership (I guess I could have read all of your previous statements incorrectly.)
"...It is universally wrong to steal. Proper Taxation in support of a just Gov’t is not stealing....
Yes, it is. Government could use subscription, sales of insurance, etc. It is not necessary to use force or the threat of force to fund any service. Ever. If you did the same thing, you would be convicted.
"..It would be wrong for me to switch on my hazard lights, jam my horn and tear off through traffic after someone I thought was a murder suspect, haul him out of his car, cuff him, and take him down to the local lockup, but those actions would be entirely proper for a policemen to perform..."
Why would that be wrong for you? Better, how do you know that is wrong? My guess is that you enter a petitio principii and say that this is the job of the State.
I wrote:"... What is to stop the State? Individuals? How do they receive this authority, if the State is the LAW, which the officers represent? ANY act against the State must by definition be immoral!”
You answered: What is to stop the state from transgressing the law is the law itself, and the people who elect those who make the laws.
Yeah, right - the law is going to just jump out of the page and stop the State from acting. Good luck with that. The law is a concept- concepts cannot act, period. The only thing that will stop someone from transgressing the law is either the person them self making a specific decision not to transgress, or someone else physically restraining.
"...IMHO your rather flat libertarian ideology blinds you, and hubris awaits you and your libertarian friends with warm embrace. It’s here, as always, where I part with dreamy eyed libertarians, who somehow expect to see all men soon living in peace and happiness together once freed from all obligations and restraints, if only all would leave each other alone... as if they ever would.
I am a strict libertarian, and I have NEVER, not once, EVER viewed the Utopian 'all men living together in peace and happiness once freed from all obligations and restraints' as any goal. Such a thing is virtually the opposite of libertarianism.
You need to study the philosophy much more before you make these silly claims. Moreover, if you look at any of the consistent libertarian authors, you also will not find anyone to jump into this comical (an fantasy) description. The realization is that men live peacefully, but are always prepared to defend (hence the consistent libertarian defense of the right to bear arms, and the implicit premise found in the libertarian plank: "it is wrong to INITIATE force."
Example of the crude stupidity offered in place of honest discussion: "once freed from all obligations"
If one is to live under the notion that it is wrong to initiate force, one is obligated to NEVER initiate force - in ANY situation. Hence, your argument is demolished at this point, because an obligation is present in the initial premise. In order for your repulsive mischaracterization to have any hold here, the statement would have to be 'it's okay to do whatever you want.' No libertarian has EVER made that claim.
Next example of the blind idiocy (or deliberate slander) offered in place of honest discussion: "once freed from all restraints"
If one is restrained from taking or damaging someone else' property without their express permission, then the argument (miscarachterization) falls flat on its ugly face. Since that restriction exists in an initial plank of libertarian philosophy, the implication that libertarian expect to see all freed from obligations and restrains is ludicrous. Poppycock. Horseshit.
Libertarian society is based upon the idea of contracted arrangements: a contract is both an obligation and a restriction. If you can't see that, you aren't even trying, and I am forced to assume this is simply hostility.
The declaration that individualism is 'flat' can only be made if one considers collectivism to be 'round.'
"...No, anarchy and chaos are not equivalent, but one follows the other as surely night the day, and for someone to refer to the first while somehow assuming the second will not accompany it, is beyond me. Belief in the viability of anarchy as a mode of society requires such an unrealistic and modern therapeutic view of man as to be, to me, incomprehensibly naĂŻve and even juvenile in its utopianism..."
I would say you have NOT studied the arguments: you present no rebuttals, only characterization and ad hominem arguments. Who cares about those? Sounds all deep and stuff, but it is all straw men and smoke.
"...It's always doubly shocking to me, coming from someone with a religious caste of mind, as if in this minor aspect of man, politics that is (!!!), man would cease falling if only he could be free to be free, then no man would seek power, no man would covet what others have, no man would seek his independent legal franchise to have more power and influence than one of his competitors, yes indeedy, that would all disappear if only we'd all renounce a central legal authority.
--- Ah yes, and where have I EVER made ANY argument that if men were granted liberty, that no man would seek power?
Where did I ever say that? Where did Mises ever say that. Where did Rothbard ever say that? Hayek? Chodorov? Acton? Bastiat?
--- Ah yes, and where have I EVER made ANY argument that if men were granted liberty, no man would covet what others have?
Where did I ever say that? Where did Mises ever say that. Where did Rothbard ever say that? Hayek? Chodorov? Acton? Bastiat?
--- Ah yes, and where have I EVER made ANY argument that if men were granted liberty, no man would seek his independent legal franchise to have more power and influence than one of his competitors?
Where did I ever say that? Where did Mises ever say that. Where did Rothbard ever say that? Hayek? Chodorov? Acton? Bastiat?
--- Ah yes, and where have I EVER made ANY argument that if men were granted liberty, that would all disappear if only we'd all renounce a central legal authority?
Where did I ever say that? Where did Mises ever say that. Where did Rothbard ever say that? Hayek? Chodorov? Acton? Bastiat?
I expected more from you. Making stuff up and then refuting it is a waste of time.
From the sting in my bottom, I believe I've just been spanked. I'm going to break the cycle here, and pause before responding.
...well... almost,
"Hayek? Chodorov? Acton? Bastiat?"
Hayek together with Bastiat? I'm not so comfortable with that (for Bastiat's sake).
"--- Ah yes, and where have I EVER made ANY argument that if men were granted liberty, no man would covet what others have?
Where did I ever say that? Where did Mises ever say that. Where did Rothbard ever say that? Hayek? Chodorov? Acton? Bastiat?
--- Ah yes, and where have I EVER made ANY argument that if men were granted liberty, no man would seek his independent legal franchise to have more power and influence than one of his competitors?
Where did I ever say that? Where did Mises ever say that. Where did Rothbard ever say that? Hayek? Chodorov? Acton? Bastiat?
--- Ah yes, and where have I EVER made ANY argument that if men were granted liberty, that would all disappear if only we'd all renounce a central legal authority?
Where did I ever say that? Where did Mises ever say that. Where did Rothbard ever say that? Hayek? Chodorov? Acton? Bastiat?"
Honestly, David, I always felt that is was implied that for you if the libertarian ways were embraced then some kind of utopia would result. I just thought that was a given. Hey, why doesn't anybody mention Lyndon Larouche I thought he was the founding father of the Libertarian movement?
Ok, I think it's fair to say that we've both managed to hit each other's hot buttons. I've got to reply to your last comment, and then I'll get to a, hopefully, cooler assessment of what specifically in Libertarian philosophy, I find failing.
"The closest analogy is to think of a child born of slave parents. Your arfgumen bears the same force as the slave-parent telling the slave-child that si..."
Oh for the love o... I knew I shouldn't have used that, I suspected you'd probably seize upon the incidental rather than the point I'd hoped to illustrate (an obligation that is not directly chosen by you, but pre-exists your conscious consent), but I was in a hurry. The situation itself is without direct analogy, none will be apt, how about this for missing the mark perhaps less: an obligation made upon a title to land by a previous owner, which requires donations from future title holders to funding a college endowment, such measures cannot be alienated by successive inheritors. Yes, that's flawed as well. Duh.
"This is a dismissal without due (or any) consideration. It is not a rebuttal of the system offered by free-market anarchists."
No, that was a dismissal without due (or any) consideration. It's purpose seems to be to ignore the point from the previous paragraph, which was,
"...you can't not know of these, so your issue can't be that Gov't somehow forbids independent police and civil arbitration, or is the only source for these, but seemingly must be against there being a supreme authority at all, one which has final say and ‘rank’ over all others, in and of itself."
and you've completely ignored my later comment of 12/15/2008 5:34 PM, which I can only take as a complete dismissal without any consideration, which frankly is a bit less than I expected of you. It is a rebuttal of the Libertarian notion that the substitution of one highest authority, for interrelated competitive companies, which will always supposedly agree upon an end point to arbitration, and because of such agreements maintain justice and order. You are quick to declare 'strawman', but I wouldn't get to close to a flame if I were you.
I have given the matter much consideration over the years. It was the position I first came to, many, many moons ago, when I first began reconsidering how 'things could be, should be', right along with the idea than taxation was slavery. They are both second level considerations that are reached on first realizing the critical importance of property rights and the threat of a state that will always and perpetually seek to expand its powers.
After much, much consideration, upon the nature of justice, of law, of property rights, of our conceptual method of grasping the world and the importance and inseparable nature of hierarchy in the human grasp of knowledge and in the structure within which we act, I came to the conclusion that the two, which really do go together (taxation, competing gov't), were in fact a shallow, pie in the sky notion, they aren't a principled method for dealing with the nature of the situation, but more like an adolescent, blinders down, stomping of the feet display at the apparent injustice of taxation without due consideration of the wider and deeper issues, it is that One Hundred Percentilism I mentioned earlier, similar to Kant's categorical imperatives - a declarations bereft of appropriate context or conceptual depth, and ultimately destructive to principle.
"The world is made up of competing States. Which one is the highest authority? Or do they all cooperate in the method I ascribe as being moral (albeit misused at times) - that is, the 'flattened' assortment of competing gangs?"
Yes, that is exactly how the world is, filled with competing states, and in disagreement war - is that really supposed to help your position? At the moment the USA is the highest authority, meaning the one with the most power, and fortunately for the rest of the world, we are still a moral nation, uninterested in domination. Perhaps you recall the previous situation with the cold war? If we weren't the pre-eminent force, how do you think that situation would have played out (I'll deal with Rothbard's treatment of that question later)? How about Rome and Carthage? Athens and Sparta?
The chief characteristic of Gov't is that it has a monopoly on the use of force within a geographic area, what libertarians propose, is by way of contracts, dispersing that attribute, the use of force and restraining men's actions (which is inseparable from Law and Policing), among companies competing for business. Creating a competition in force, with no higher indisputable referee.
Speaking of Strawmen and context dropping, the portion of your comment about my use of context dropping, is hilarious. You only included this portion of the quote from you that I was replying to,"It is wrong universally for an individual to murder. … Does the NUMBER of individuals or a division of the number of individuals change the moral nature of the act of murder?”, but you left off the portion of the quote preceding it, which I had included in full, which was “If it is wrong for an individual to murder someone, this is NOT because of the particular identity of that individual, as though Bob is somehow morally different from Steve. It is also wrong for Steve to commit murder."
In my interpretation of your point, the act of 'murder' was a mere particular of your comment, an example used to illustrate the wider idea that the justification for, or condemnation of, the actions a person takes are not dependent upon their identity, but the action being taken - which is not altered by quantities of people involved.
You then attacked me upon the narrow particulars used in your example, rather than on the principle I took you to be illustrating - and if you weren't attempting to illustrate the wider principle, in my eyes it loses any value whatsoever beyond that of 'duh'. You seemingly attack my analogy, in order to miss my meaning, I wasn't responding to 'murder' but to the fact that an act (such as 'taking property from somebody', which is the overall point)
"If I tried to drop the notion of murder from my syllogism and simply stated that it is wrong to kill, you would have rational grounds to disagree. But because I carefully defined the 'context' I am logically consistent."
You either dropped, or missed, the context and the point I was trying to make, and since it is, or should be, a fairly obvious point that 'Murder' (which is a term that describes action and purpose, not action alone) is always wrong... I guess I don't see the point of your even stating it.
"You are introducing a straw man into the argument (or a red herring, depending on 'context'). My argument over theft is simple, and the context is sound: it is ALWAYS wrong to take property from someone without their permission. "
Here you do a similar gyration with the word 'theft' - again a term that carries act AND purpose within it's definition, it contains it's own portable context by implication, and which you use, as with murder, apparently to smuggle in your moral interpretation in order to discard and avoid dealing with the points that I have been making, before even dealing with it.
You are inverting the analogies and our ability to use them It is the nature of the context we are debating, not the action of taking property, and by using 'Theft', you attempt to preempt even the discussion of the context. Are you aware you are doing that?
But let me go ahead and zap one where you assumed the inversion, but actually used the lower level particular example ('take' rather than the complex 'theft') in a way that is useful, and which we can discuss. You said,
"it is ALWAYS wrong to take property from someone without their permission." and to which I can say that your conclusion "Context cannot change that. " is very much wrong. I don't even have to come up with an example of my own, Socrates having done it many moons ago in the Republic,
"Polemarchus: He said that the repayment of a debt is just, and in saying so he appears to me to be right.
Socrates: I should be sorry to doubt the word of such a wise and inspired man, but his meaning, though probably clear to you, is the reverse of clear to me. For he certainly does not mean, as we were now saying that I ought to return a return a deposit of arms or of anything else to one who asks for it when he is not in his right senses; and yet a deposit cannot be denied to be a debt. "
The same would equally apply with taking such objects from a person in such a situation, as with returning them. Again, the context matters.
"[I said]"...It is universally wrong to steal. Proper Taxation in support of a just Gov’t is not stealing....
You said "Yes, it is. "
Again, no, it isn't.
Taxation and Theft both describe similar actions, but their meaning, intent and context are vastly different, and your attempt to equate them completely discards that context in favor of your preferred conclusion. I disagree with it. I explained further in my other comments why I don't think they are properly considered equivalent.
To summarize one aspect of it yet again, to equate the larcenous actions of an individual intending to steal the property of another, intentionally violating the property rights of another for the purposes of improperly enriching themselves, theft, with the actions of an entity, Gov't, charged with representing and defending the property rights of all, and claiming the just requirements of wealth required to support its carrying out that vital task, is just plain wrong. There is no comparison so long as Gov't is within it's proper bounds. You can argue for better methods of acquiring the necessary funds, but it is completely improper to call it theft - again keeping in mind the proper context, that the Gov't is keeping within it's proper bounds. It's using tax money for supporting the arts, or subsidizing an industry, etc, IS theft.
You continually choose to discard any and all discussion of that. I suppose you have your reasons... but they are not clear in any way beyond your insistence that they Theft and Taxation are the same. I say they are not, and I have stated why, you have not addressed my reasoning. Why?
"I am a strict libertarian, and I have NEVER, not once, EVER viewed the Utopian 'all men living together in peace and happiness once freed from all obligations and restraints' as any goal. Such a thing is virtually the opposite of libertarianism.
You need to study the philosophy much more before you make these silly claims."
David, I'm very much aware that these are not the stated policy or intent of the libertarian philosophy. However in what I have learned in studying history, the men of history, the nature of man, there is nothing that leads me to believe or suspect that men can live without law and a government, and the idea that they can, is, utopian.
""Next example of the blind idiocy (or deliberate slander) offered in place of honest discussion: "once freed from all restraints"
If one is restrained from taking or damaging someone else' property without their express permission, then the argument (miscarachterization) falls flat on its ugly face. Since that restriction exists in an initial plank of libertarian philosophy, the implication that libertarian expect to see all freed from obligations and restrains is ludicrous. Poppycock. Horseshit.
Libertarian society is based upon the idea of contracted arrangements: a contract is both an obligation and a restriction. If you can't see that, you aren't even trying, and I am forced to assume this is simply hostility. "
What is the status of someone who doesn't subscribe to one of your Police co's? If one of your Police Co's subscribers 'brings charges' against someone who doesn't choose to subscribe or even recognize your Police Co's right to charge them? By what right and authority will they seize him if he hasn't agreed to enter into their web of 'justice' contracts? A higher law does exist, and I contend that it cannot be avoided simply by choosing to no longer recognize it, or avoid it through a system of contractual epicycles of Police Co's, it IS and must be represented by a higher authority, Gov't, IMHO.
"If one is to live under the notion that it is wrong to initiate force, one is obligated to NEVER initiate force - in ANY situation. Hence, your argument is demolished at this point, because an obligation is present in the initial premise. In order for your repulsive mischaracterization to have any hold here, the statement would have to be 'it's okay to do whatever you want.' No libertarian has EVER made that claim."
David, thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt not covet. Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not lie. Do I need to go on? That has always been the ideal. Men have long held those ideals in the the highest regard. Men have never, and never will, consistently abide by them. The idea that they will, and can be trusted to when their interests conflict, simply by virtue of contract, is utopian.
It may be repulsive to read, but it is not a mischaracterization.
"I would say you have NOT studied the arguments: you present no rebuttals, only characterization and ad hominem arguments. Who cares about those? Sounds all deep and stuff, but it is all straw men and smoke."
Uh-huh. I'm rubber, you're glue... yadda yadda yadda. I have studied them, long and hard, and after initially accepting them, found them to be flawed, and discarded them. I have made arguments you have conveniently ignored, in order to address the portions of analogies you think further your ideas. You said,
"Here's a clue under which I operate: "...morality must be based on a universal and logically-consistent set of principles – if it is just a matter of opinion, then no course of action can be "better" than any other course of action – any more than liking blue is "better" than liking red." (Stefan Molyneux)"
A fine sentiment, I hope however, that you are not under the impression that your intent to do so means that you are always successful in doing so, or that any errors you might make in doing so, automatically imply an earnest attempt to distract with 'strawmen' and 'red herrings' , evasions and more. I do not ever, in any way, consciously attempt to use such tactics in any arguments I have ever made. If you find that I have been sloppy (and one of the reasons I've enjoyed our back 'n forth, is that you do nail me on those instances, and that I value), a simple correction, of a "there's a flaw in what you're saying, it misses the actual point", rather than accusations of "Strawman! Strawman! Strawman!" would be more conducive to what have been a very valuable couple threads.
"Ah yes, and where have I EVER made ANY argument that if men were granted liberty, that no man would seek power?
Where did I ever say that? Where did Mises ever say that. Where did Rothbard ever say that? Hayek? Chodorov? Acton? Bastiat?"
And BTW, Hayek made so many direct statements, and many more whose implications should have been obvious, that were pure statism - I deeply object categorizing Bastiat together with him. If you can find something I've said that is in opposition to what Bastiat has said, particularly in The Law, What is seen and what is not seen, etc, I'd be very much interested in becoming aware of that.
I'll address where that is the clear implication of what has been said, I'll focus on where one, Rothbard, has said what I find implies just that. For those playing along at home, I'll pick on,
For a new liberty: the Libertarian Manifesto, specifically in the section:
The Public Sector, III: Police, Law, and the Courts
Last (first) minute Christmas shopping calls, probably back tomorrow.
Just a couple of observations here, FWIW.
Certainty in defense of one's own position is the opposite of a virtue. Without the ability to accept an opposing viewpoint on its own terms, even hypothetically, we are doomed to intellectual ossification, eventually and inevitably leaving us on the wrong side.
Many things may be wrong and/or represent undesirable outcomes, but that does not mean that they in any way represent equally undesirable outcomes. While governmental coercion may rightly be viewed as undesirable, residents of an ideologically pure society eliminating such coercion may view its absence somewhat more circumspectly while drinking tainted water, enduring foreign invasion, or suffering any number of arguably less desirable outcomes.
A thoughtful position would not be couched in abstract absolutes of no coercion vs. police state, but in a pragmatic discussion re: the minimal level of collective coercion necessary to maintain a society representing the minimum number of weighted undesirable outcomes, INCLUDING collective coercion.
Thanks for the comment S, I think what you are saying is a valid observation.
quick question on this form of 'wisdom' (no logical proof provided:)
"...Certainty in defense of one's own position is the opposite of a virtue. Without the ability to accept an opposing viewpoint on its own terms, even hypothetically, we are doomed to intellectual ossification, eventually and inevitably leaving us on the wrong side...."
Are you absolutely certain you are correct on this? Would you be willing to say that you are certain of defense of your position? If you aren't certain that you are right, why bring it up?
"...A thoughtful position would not be couched in abstract absolutes of no coercion vs. police state, but in a pragmatic discussion re: the minimal level of collective coercion necessary to maintain a society representing the minimum number of weighted undesirable outcomes, INCLUDING collective coercion..."
A thoughtful position can be offered involving complete lack of coercion. In fact, a LOT of thought goes into the discussion. Moreover, a thoughtful position can most certainly be couched in abstract absolutes. Let's discuss the use of irrational numbers - and perhaps the square root of negative one!
I would require PROOF that my position is not filled with thought before I would accept that it should not be couched in abstract absolutes.
I claim, with certainty, that it is morally wrong to take the life of an innocent person. Taking all the definitions used in my phrases: innocent, life, person, etc., I wonder how anything can rationally be argued otherwise.
Lance, Lyndon Larouche has nothing to do with the libertarian movement.
Moreover, libertarianism deals with the opposite of utopia - that's the realm of socialism (if everyone just gave their part, we'd all be happy) and Statism (if we just had enough police, there'd be no crime, and we'd all be safe....
Libertarianism holds that men are entirely self-interested and hence are most content when benefiting themselves to the highest degree. To that end, any society that leaves men open to benefit themselves to the highest degree also regulates itself to the highest degree.
"Lance, Lyndon Larouche has nothing to do with the libertarian movement."
Fair enough, I do not know why I thought that he had been involved in some way. Odd.
"...David, thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt not covet. Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not lie. Do I need to go on? That has always been the ideal. Men have long held those ideals in the the highest regard. Men have never, and never will, consistently abide by them. The idea that they will, and can be trusted to when their interests conflict, simply by virtue of contract, is utopian...."
And when you find a libertarian worth his salt who makes such an argument (there are always some flakes that are attracted to any philosophy) I will gladly reconsider the arguments. Until then, I am still lead to assume that you have do not understand the premises and induce your opwn meanings into them.
In my examples of murder and theft, I specifically DID write the obvious - that those things are universally wrong (your 'duh' moment) because I hold that in order to examine any mortal action, you need to start with those 'ideals' and attempt to place them into actual use.
"...In my interpretation of your point, the act of 'murder' was a mere particular of your comment, an example used to illustrate the wider idea that the justification for, or condemnation of, the actions a person takes are not dependent upon their identity, but the action being taken - which is not altered by quantities of people involved...."
This is most certainly true - but the specific definition of the terms used are required fore understanding. Hence, I use the term murder rather than kill. And my argument still holds: theft is the taking of someone's property without their permission.
In the example given (your notion of taking property from someone not in their right mind: I would note two things. First, the notion of taking property without permission is always theft - but the reasons may mitigate both the understanding of the victim and the penalty for the theft) and two, you are on the verge of equivocating on the term 'take'. However, we've had this discussion, and I will hold till the day I die that situations cannot change ethics.
A fine sentiment, I hope however, that you are not under the impression that your intent to do so means that you are always successful in doing so, or that any errors you might make in doing so, automatically imply an earnest attempt to distract with 'strawmen' and 'red herrings' , evasions and more. I do not ever, in any way, consciously attempt to use such tactics in any arguments I have ever made. If you find that I have been sloppy (and one of the reasons I've enjoyed our back 'n forth, is that you do nail me on those instances, and that I value), a simple correction, of a "there's a flaw in what you're saying, it misses the actual point", rather than accusations of "Strawman! Strawman! Strawman!" would be more conducive to what have been a very valuable couple threads.
I would have, but I am not convinced that my opinions nor reasons hold enough value to escape ridicule and dismissal enough to come back.
Oh, by the way, I did not dismiss your 'later comment' of 12/15 - I had been working on it, but am really busy right now and did not have time to post it.
Blogger David Taylor said...
Are you absolutely certain you are correct on this? Would you be willing to say that you are certain of defense of your position? If you aren't certain that you are right, why bring it up?
Certainty is nice for the ego, but it shuts the door on new information when the ego sees that nicety as being threatened (IMHO, of course). If we accept as valid the tools of reason (and it's not as if we have much in the way of an attractive recourse), and trust that careful and honest application of reason will lead us to the greatest possible likelihood of a correct position, whether any specific position later turns out to be incorrect is inconsequential, as the self-correcting nature of reason is the very root of its power. Ownership of a position robs us of impartiality, which, in turn, blinds us to contrary argument, no matter how compelling.
"...A thoughtful position would not be couched in abstract absolutes of no coercion vs. police state, but in a pragmatic discussion re: the minimal level of collective coercion necessary to maintain a society representing the minimum number of weighted undesirable outcomes, INCLUDING collective coercion..."
A thoughtful position can be offered involving complete lack of coercion. In fact, a LOT of thought goes into the discussion. Moreover, a thoughtful position can most certainly be couched in abstract absolutes. Let's discuss the use of irrational numbers - and perhaps the square root of negative one!
If the complexity of human ethical experience had objectively true mathematical solutions, much time and effort could be saved by many people of good conscience.
In my experience (and this is, of course, mere opinion), any solution to a societal problem of any consequence that can be described in ten words is unlikely to prove effective.
I would require PROOF that my position is not filled with thought before I would accept that it should not be couched in abstract absolutes.
That would be proving a negative, which, by definition, is unprovable ;).
I claim, with certainty, that it is morally wrong to take the life of an innocent person. Taking all the definitions used in my phrases: innocent, life, person, etc., I wonder how anything can rationally be argued otherwise.
It can't.
The rub, of course, is whether we attempt to assert that ALL 'morally wrong' actions or outcomes are equal in their 'wrongness'. A ranking of undesirable outcomes is necessary, in a practical sense, in order to ensure that the fewest undesirable outcomes (both in severity and frequency) occur in a given society. While I am sympathetic to the distaste libertarians feel for governmental coercion (a distaste which I share), does that necessarily mean that governmental (or collective) coercion is ALWAYS the least desirable outcome?
Similarly, while I am sympathetic to the distaste engendered in the act of abortion (a distaste which I again share, and where I assume you were going with your previous statements), does that necessarily mean ending an innocent life is necessarily the least desirable of all outcomes?
David said "I would have, but I am not convinced that my opinions nor reasons hold enough value to escape ridicule and dismissal enough to come back."
Ok, first off I am not ridiculing you. Certainly we disagree on some fundamental points, and probably won't get to a point of agreement on them, but it is fascinating for me to see those fundamental disagreements 'in action' so to speak, and I hope you'll continue with this. I do tend to comment as I speak in conversation, and while I do tweak, it isn't meant in the disrespectful aspect of ridicule - I suppose without voice inflection, etc... I'll try to keep the 'personality', such as it is, in the corner and stick more to just the facts.
"Oh, by the way, I did not dismiss your 'later comment' of 12/15 - I had been working on it, but am really busy right now and did not have time to post it."
Sorry for the assumption and impatience.
To my 'Thou Shalt' comment, you answered,
"And when you find a libertarian worth his salt who makes such an argument (there are always some flakes that are attracted to any philosophy) I will gladly reconsider the arguments. Until then, I am still lead to assume that you have do not understand the premises and induce your opwn meanings into them."
I do understand the premises, and because I disagree with them, and their more fundamental premises, of course I do induce different meaning from them. Earlier you'd said,
"Libertarian society is based upon the idea of contracted arrangements: a contract is both an obligation and a restriction. If you can't see that, you aren't even trying, and I am forced to assume this is simply hostility."
My 'Thou Shalt', and others similar to it are based upon what I see as a fundamental problem in this. I fully understand the idea of contracted arrangements, and that 'Libertarian society' assumes and intends to be based upon that. That is one of the key points in which I find libertarian ideas to be flawed and unworkable. I think that the assumption that having a contracted arrangement will hold them to the arrangements contracted for, will somehow keep people to the same interpretations of that contracted arrangement, and ensure fully rational responses upon both parties, does not square with human nature and history. It is also of course, the lynchpin idea of Libertarian society, of anarcho capitalism, which enables it to believe that it can do without a central gov't.
"The declaration that individualism is 'flat' can only be made if one considers collectivism to be 'round.'""
Sorry for that, I imported a commonly understood term from another setting (One Cosmos), which of course without that context (poetic justice strikes), would completely warrant that and more. 'Flat' refers to variations of either taking a concept out of its conceptual hierarchy and declaring it to be whole and complete on its own, or denying conceptual hierarchy and integration altogether, or denying that concepts do actually integrate.
"First, the notion of taking property without permission is always theft - but the reasons may mitigate both the understanding of the victim and the penalty for the theft) and two, you are on the verge of equivocating on the term 'take'."
And where you see only mitigation of the term in question, I see it as no longer being the valid term to be applied to the situation. As you said,
"However, we've had this discussion, and I will hold till the day I die that situations cannot change ethics."
that's one we'll probably have to agree to disagree upon... and likely disagree upon often. To avoid the need for further elaboration and analogies, it'd be handy to have a term to refer back to for this... maybe our "Granular difference"?
Two things delaying my comment on Rothbard's Manifesto, one being my idea of being all ready for Christmas isn't squaring with my wife's idea of being all ready (BIG difference in granularity there!) and so am busier than expected as well, two being that I thought I could just hit the highlights from the section I mentioned, but it of course requires reference back to earlier sections, which is threatening to push my comment to manifesto size itself. I'm trying to whittle it down to the bare essentials, I'll also try to purge it of unhelpful 'personality' as well. If I'm not able to finish it today, it may be this weekend before I can, but we'll see.
David, I'm not under the illusion that we're going to get to agreement here, but I am very interested in seeing just how it is that we do disagree, and all the more so because you do have an excellent grasp of the issues and terms, and the ability to apply them, which is a rare and valuable treat for me indeed. I'd like to point out that disagreement and impatience with, and even consternation with, your interpretation of the issues, does not mean a lack of respect for you. Very much the opposite. I do hope you'll stick it out.
I promise to respect you in the morning ("Personality! Hey! Back in the Corner! Now! Lay down! Doowwwnnnn! Stay") .
S said "Certainty is nice for the ego, but it shuts the door on new information when the ego sees that nicety as being threatened (IMHO, of course)."
If you do allow your ego to have any claim or influence upon what you define as 'certainty', it probably doesn't mean what you think it does.
Certainty is the summit of a contextual evaluation of the facts at hand. The attempt to declare something as 'Certain!' with the understanding that it will be somehow be an ever unchanging absolute, an unmovable conclusion even before an unmoved mover, is, IMHO, an misunderstanding of the contextual nature of human knowledge.
When Aristotle said that "The sun revolves around the earth", he was certain... and he WAS correct, within the context of the knowledge available at the time, and his certainty has not been invalidated... within that context.
As one wag put it in reply to the same issue "... yeah... but I wonder what it would have looked like if the sun did revolve around the earth."
The fact that the wider and deeper knowledge we have about the subject today tells a greatly different story about the sun's relation to the earth, doesn't invalidate the certainty Aristotle had for his observation - from the point of view of a person standing on the surface of the earth, and with no wider knowledge available, the sun does revolve around the earth. The important thing to remember, is that Certainty doesn't necessarily mean the complete and final say on the matter.
When you have reasoned a matter through and determined that a conclusion is warranted with the available knowledge, can you can say that you are certain?
Certainly. Just don't be so certain that future knowledge won't warrant a deeper consideration and understanding of the matter.
I just read this today in a Louis L'mour novel called "Over On The Dry Side" I thought it was very interesting and felt it related to our discussion.
"People often think of the law as restrictions, but it needn't be, unless it's carried to extremes. Laws can give us freedom, because they offer security from the cruel, the brutal, and the thieves of property. In every community-even in the wildest gangs and bands of outlaws-there is some kind of law, if only the fear of the leader. There has to be law, or there can be no growth, no security."
Lance again, I just felt that the above passage was an interesting one. I realize that David isn't advocating a lawless society. But I think the passage really puts into words better then I can about the need for government and society to be able to work together for good.
That's just it- certainty doesn't recognize or require context, or else it isn't certainty. A provisional conclusion is by nature uncertain.
Given our limited available information, all held knowledge is provisional (or should be). It sounds as if we're essentially agreeing here, although I feel the use of terms like 'certainty' are destructive in that they imply the sort of issues of ownership that I described earlier.
Empirical evidence towards the certainty of a given conclusion may be compelling, but the acceptance of that certainty harms our ability to recognize and receive information while providing no corresponding advantage- why would we choose to do that?
Lance said “But I think the passage really puts into words better then I can about the need for government and society to be able to work together for good.”
There’s a few ways that passage can lead to a bushwhacking, but your take on it is where I’m coming from. It’s often said that Gov’t produces nothing whatsoever, and in the strictest economic sense that is true, but there is one thing it does produce, and that is what is required in order to have rights – not that it creates rights – our rights come from our very nature as human beings (the theological or darwinista debate about the source is not our issue here), but Gov’t makes possible the most valuable resource of all, a defense of property rights.
Not enough in this here to make the case, but I’ll elaborate in the coming comment.
S said “That's just it- certainty doesn't recognize or require context, or else it isn't certainty. A provisional conclusion is by nature uncertain.”
Afraid I’m occupied elsewhere at the moment, and the full rebuttal to that requires digging in deep to Kant & Hume at the least, but suffice to say for the moment, I utterly and completely reject that. It is destructive to even the pretense to knowledge, and followed consistently leads to unprincipled pragmatism, complete skepticism and worse – see post-modernism and the like for the fruits of that idea.
Kant and Hume? Unprincipled pragmatism? Post-modernism?
You're jumping at shadows, here, friend. Recognizing the incomplete state of available knowledge describing objective reality is a very, very different thing than denying the existence of objective reality.
Back on topic, and my apologies for the diversion.
I'd go beyond Lance's initial proposal of voluntary/incentivized public service. While I find the idea of governmental coercion completely abhorrent, there may be other outcomes that are even more undesirable.
Consider this:
Within whatever limited role of legitimate government we find it necessary to allow, we may accept the function of organized defense.
Two potential dangers with ample historical precedent present themselves (and, indeed, are arguably developing even now) when such military service is voluntary. Like many others, these dangers may well be exacerbated by the scale of the society in question.
First, voluntary or incentivized military service may prove more attractive to specific subsets of a society than to others, leading to a defense force which no longer represents the entire society that it defends. Those differences may be religious, political, economic, ethnic, etc., etc., and may or may not represent a significant diversion from the values of the society in question, but when they do the outcome is grave. The military has an undeniable influence on policy, whether that be through simple PR in a patriotic society, prioritization, or (in more extreme cases) outright and direct coercion.
Secondly, a volunteer defense force, particularly one comprised primarily of those with (for whatever reason) fewer economic opportunities, makes the use of that defense force less painful for those with the economic and political wherewithal to influence the decision to use such a force in the first place. The use of military force should hurt. It should (IMHO) hurt like hell, particularly to those making the decision to exercise that force (in a democracy, theoretically us).
A nightmare scenario might be one of a volunteer military comprised of individuals with strong political/religious motivation, ordered and exercised in various adventures by a class whose own sons and neighbors largely avoid any sacrifice whatsoever. The potential horrors of such an arrangement, both as a threat to democracy and in increased carnage and loss of life, might arguably outweigh the horrors of compulsory military service.
"You're jumping at shadows, here, friend. Recognizing the incomplete state of available knowledge describing objective reality is a very, very different thing than denying the existence of objective reality. "
Actually it is you who are apparently stuck in the shadows; the key defining positions of modern philosophy, and their effects in our education, art and literature, can be very clearly traced back along a slightly frayed thread through the likes of Kuhn, Popper, James, Dewey, Marx, Peirce, Hegel, Kant, Godwin, Rousseau, Hume, Descartes, and from them all the others take their cue... but I've bored Lance with this over and again before, here's one focused on Hume (most relevant to your certainty issues) if you care to have a look.
And recognizing the incomplete state of available knowledge describing objective reality (which will always be the case), is a very different thing from asserting that daring to acknowledge certainty harms your ability to "recognize and receive information while providing no corresponding advantage"... the self refuting nature of the statement is breathtaking.
S said "A nightmare scenario might be one of a volunteer military comprised of individuals with strong political/religious motivation, ordered and exercised in various adventures by a class whose own sons and neighbors largely avoid any sacrifice whatsoever. The potential horrors of such an arrangement, both as a threat to democracy and in increased carnage and loss of life, might arguably outweigh the horrors of compulsory military service. "
Yeah, a military comprised of those forced into involuntary servitude - slaves - their lives unnecessarily ripped apart, against their will, against their beliefs and aspirations, their families left helpless, indignant and enraged against unthinking and uncaring scum who would do such a thing to them to make a point in the name of unfounded 'fairness'; that sounds so much more reassuring, after all, it did work out so smoothly in the sixties. Yeah, I'm sure that's the best course.
"...a volunteer defense force, particularly one comprised primarily of those with (for whatever reason) fewer economic opportunities... "
With my experience among family and friends across the country, and my oldest planning on going into the USAF in the summer, I've got to say that IMHO, not only is the whole premise illegitimate, but as far as the military being over represented by poor and minority demographics, although a favorite left leaning talking point, it has been debunked several times over... here's a recent one:.
U.S. military service disproportionately attracts enlisted personnel and officers who do not come from disadvantaged backgrounds. Previous Heritage Foundation research demonstrated that the quality of enlisted troops has increased since the start of the Iraq war. This report demonstrates that the same is true of the officer corps.
Members of the all-volunteer military are significantly more likely to come from high-income neighborhoods than from low-income neighborhoods. Only 11 percent of enlisted recruits in 2007 came from the poorest one-fifth (quintile) of neighborhoods, while 25 percent came from the wealthiest quintile. These trends are even more pronounced in the Army Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) program, in which 40 percent of enrollees come from the wealthiest neighborhoods—a number that has increased substantially over the past four years.
American soldiers are more educated than their peers...
"The use of military force should hurt. It should (IMHO) hurt like hell, particularly to those making the decision to exercise that force (in a democracy, theoretically us."
If you think it should hurt, then if you haven't volunteered yourself yet, perhaps you should, then you could experience the righteous satisfaction of making your point upon yourself, without forcing others who disagree with you to feel your pain.
Sorry Lance... I know it's your blog, not OC, but I just can't fathom this type of unthinking.
Van, you are consistently misstating and misrepresenting my positions. Whether this is a willful act, or one of genuine ignorance, is of little concern to me. I'm interested in continuing this discussion, but only if you'll drop the adrenaline level a bit.
I've pointed out once the error in your conflation of (ostensibly) objective opinion with objective reality, and if the difference still escapes you I won't waste the effort again.
My conjecture re: the potential virtue of compulsory military service had nothing to do with 'fairness', as you assert, nor was it dependent on economic disparities, as you further assert (and the ROTC as a microcosm of the armed forces? Please spare me). Have recent rumblings in the armed services, including Micheal Weinstein's suit against the USAF, escaped your attention?
I suspect you had a strong reaction to the (we agree on this point) abhorrent idea of such a compulsory service and failed to read the remainder carefully. Outrage is the mechanism which ensures that that which is offensive occurs as rarely as possible- that's the whole point.
A simple question:
Would you consider compulsory military service to be more or less abhorrent than military adventure of suspect justification?
In any case, have a Merry Christmas. I've got a busy social calendar coming up, so I most likely won't be back for a few days.
"U.S. military service disproportionately attracts enlisted personnel and officers who do not come from disadvantaged backgrounds. Previous Heritage Foundation research demonstrated that the quality of enlisted troops has increased since the start of the Iraq war. This report demonstrates that the same is true of the officer corps.
Members of the all-volunteer military are significantly more likely to come from high-income neighborhoods than from low-income neighborhoods. Only 11 percent of enlisted recruits in 2007 came from the poorest one-fifth (quintile) of neighborhoods, while 25 percent came from the wealthiest quintile. These trends are even more pronounced in the Army Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) program, in which 40 percent of enrollees come from the wealthiest neighborhoods—a number that has increased substantially over the past four years.
American soldiers are more educated than their peers..."
I am not sure if I totally can buy these statistics Van. My first thought is well obviously there is a portion of the ROTC enrollees who come from wealthier neighborhoods. It is a pretty simple thought. If you come from a slightly upper or solidly middle class family the only way that you can afford to go to college is through school loans. It is very hard to qualify for any type of government assistance to go to college. To use myself as an example my parents were both school teachers my mom a grade school and my dad a music teacher we were middle class all the way and probably lower middle class. So when I graduated high school there was not money there for me to go to college. I didn't have the grades for scholarships, (my fault),at the time I looked into joining the Navy to get money for school but my problems with authority were even more pronounced then and I knew it would have been a poor choice for me and we as a family didn't qualify for help so I put off going until I could be an independent student. This is the modern solider a solidly middle class who often sees it as the only way to get an education. They often are not joining out of patriotism but out of necessity. When the draft existed as vile as it was at least everyone from all economic levels was subject to being drafted and that is some IMHO seems more fair to me then the present day system.
S, I read your full comment, several times through, before replying. I got the main stated intent you wished to convey, but the subtler meaning running through most of it is what got my attention, and the grosser meaning in the last paragraph in particular. I understand what you meant to say about certainty in the previous comments, it's what you didn't say and probably don't think is implied by what you did say, that got my attention and which I addressed. You of course can discount what I had to say. There is a consistent and deep current that runs through what you've had to say, and although I've been wrong before, I'm betting that it is likely that I will disagree with most if not all that you have yet to say, in content, tone and intent, and it's likely that you'll honestly scoff at any observations I might have to make on them.
We've no interests or principles in common, so all in all, it's probably best that I leave it there.
"I am not sure if I totally can buy these statistics Van."
You don't need to buy them, check them out - not at the pundit level, but at the actual statistic level. Then work out what you think about them.
Lance, not exactly rolling in the money here either, we put away some money for college, but not enough. My son goes to community college, and works graveyard at UPS at nights to afford it.
"When the draft existed as vile as it was at least everyone from all economic levels was subject to being drafted and that is some IMHO seems more fair to me then the present day system."
Sorry Lance, but that really turns my stomach.
On that unlikely note, if I don't get another chance, Merry Christmas all.
*chirp, chirp* Man it is quite in here, I know it is the holidays but sheesh. Where did David go?
Lance & David, I've reread Rothbard's Libertarian Manifesto, and chunks of ‘MAN, ECONOMY, AND STATE', as well as a few other Libertarian tracts, and I find myself with 17 pages worth of reference quotes alone, and that’s without my scintillating commentary… too longwinded even for my hurricane comments… so I've pulled out the axe to whittle it all down to a reply to just one fundamental objection, and which I see most undercuts libertarianism as a philosophy.
Unfortunately a more pressing problem, is that being unemployed as of 01/01/2009, I've got no where to run to escape the HoneyDO! list.
I'll be back asap.
Ok, I can’t do it. The most I’ve been able to whittle it down to is 12 pages of quotes and comments… even just trying bullet points, which is just an exercise in deductive rationalism, takes 2.5 pages. Even what I’m trying to put here, I was only able to get down to 8 pages, which I’m going to painfully (and it does hurt me to do) try to cut down to three. Ok, couldn’t do that either – it's down to 5 pages without the quotes from Bastiat and von Mises, but I can’t leave them out, so 6 pages. Sorry for the length. Sue me. If you want my full argument, you’ll have to wade through the series of posts I’m going to be making on Justice and Law. This comment here can’t amount to much more than what a movie trailer represents of the movie, but I’ll go ahead and give the movie trailer assertions.
Libertarianism fails in its own most valued goal, defending property rights, because what it rests upon, the ‘non-aggression axiom’, is insufficient to define or defend property rights in particular, rights in general, or a political system at all.
Property rights are nothing but the defense of mans right to use his mind, all property rights are intellectual property rights, as expressed in different forums or modes within which property can be defined and conveyed. No right to property can be claimed without a defensible declaration of what they are; with land, a deed listing the coordinates your property markers stake out (even btw the physical stakes in the ground around your property are not your property, but only a non-portable means for defining it), with chattel a receipt (real or assumed through possession and description). No one mistakes the deed or receipts for the property, because they can see the objects, but this is exactly what Libertarians do with intellectual property, they mistake the deeds for the objects.
This can be seen with copyrights, patents, libel and slander and even a related crime of inciting to riot, which I’ll touch on, lightly, in a moment. The root of the libertarian problem is that what was a mostly sufficient starting point, an axiom (I dislike their usage of the term in this way, but that would lead to pages also) for economics, von Mises’s “Humans Act", The Starting Point of Praxeological Thinking :
“All—apart from zoology—that has ever been scientifically stated to distinguish man from nonhuman mammals is implied in the proposition: man acts. To act means: to strive after ends that is, to choose a goal and to resort to means in order to attain the goal sought."
While sufficient for economics, it is completely insufficient, negligently so, as a basis for designing a political and legal philosophy. Economics is at best, a third level philosophical derivative; an offshoot of politics, which itself is only arrived at through ethics, epistemology and metaphysics, yet it is used to determine what political and ethical philosophies should be – pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps; doesn’t even begin to describe their error..
Rothbard took von Mises axiom and converted it to his ‘non-aggression axiom’, From Rothbards: Libertarian Manifesto (for pdf format, I use a comma between numbers, the left is the ‘thumb’ and the right the page number) Re:30,22 “THE LIBERTARIAN CREED rests upon one central axiom: that no man or group of men may aggress against the person or property of anyone else. This may be called the “nonaggression axiom."
and attempted to use that as a political axiom – a starting point which requires no further explanation, and which it fails on the face of it to be. Why not aggression? Why is aggression bad? For what reasons? In what contexts? Not that there aren’t answers, but that there ARE questions alone, invalidates it as an axiom. He even admits as much with recognizing that there are three main approaches to libertarianism, what he terms emotivists, utilitarianism and natural law,
Re: 32,25 Property Rights "If the central axiom of the libertarian creed is nonaggression against anyone’s person and property, how is this axiom arrived at? What is its groundwork or support? Here, libertarians, past and present, have differed considerably. Roughly, there are three broad types of foundation for the libertarian axiom, corresponding to three kinds of ethical philosophy: the emotivist, the utilitarian, and the natural rights viewpoint. "
and while he criticizes and dismisses the first two, he provides no sensible explanation of how his utopian (and it is utopian for this reason alone, though many others as well) anarcho-capitalist competing justice co’s will manage to agree and settle competing disputes, other than vague references to a common understanding of a ‘libertarian code’. If there are at minimum three different approaches to it, there will be no common understanding of a ‘libertarian code’; on fundamentals, there will be no agreement, and no possible means to an agreement, and force will be the only fall back for ‘settling’ disputes, which will mean systems that are tribal or feudal at best.
There can be no political rights without their means of recognition, support and defense, and that means a single government. Government is the entity, the legal fiction, for monopolizing the use of force in society. To have any objective legitimacy, it must be based upon rules of evidence and decision making for settling disputes, for making clear how persons and property are to be recognized and defended.
The Rules lay out how their property is to be recognized and protected, how their rights will be defended, how disputes are to be settled, and how their collective force will be delegated, and are called Laws. Laws enable a civil transmutation of the requirements of human life, into that of politically supported Individual Rights, Law being the socialization of force in that society, or as Bastiat puts it in The Law:
"What, then, is law? It is the collective organization of the individual right to lawful defense.
Each of us has a natural right—from God—to defend his person, his liberty, and his property. These are the three basic requirements of life, and the preservation of any one of them is completely dependent upon the preservation of the other two. For what are our faculties but the extension of our individuality? And what is property but an extension of our faculties? If every person has the right to defend even by force—his person, his liberty, and his property, then it follows that a group of men have the right to organize and support a common force to protect these rights constantly. Thus the principle of collective right—its reason for existing, its lawfulness—is based on individual right. And the common force that protects this collective right cannot logically have any other purpose or any other mission than that for which it acts as a substitute. Thus, since an individual cannot lawfully use force against the person, liberty, or property of another individual, then the common force—for the same reason—cannot lawfully be used to destroy the person, liberty, or property of individuals or groups.
Such a perversion of force would be, in both cases, contrary to our premise. Force has been given to us to defend our own individual rights. Who will dare to say that force has been given to us to destroy the equal rights of our brothers? Since no individual acting separately can lawfully use force to destroy the rights of others, does it not logically follow that the same principle also applies to the common force that is nothing more than the organized combination of the individual forces? If this is true, then nothing can be more evident than this: The law is the organization of the natural right of lawful defense. It is the substitution of a common force for individual forces. And this common force is to do only what the individual forces have a natural and lawful right to do: to protect persons, liberties, and properties; to maintain the right of each, and to cause justice to reign over us all."
With Law, comes the defacto common consent for the use of the force of society to be harnessed to defend your right to your property. THAT is an enormous value, the only value which a state creates, or at least enables.
The Government receives the delegated force (and the means of carrying out that delegation is through taxation) of the people in order to enforce the laws and secure the citizens from any unjust use of force, and as it is itself only a pooled extension of each person’s rights to those requirements, it cannot properly use their pledge of ‘arms’ to violate those same rights.
By coming into society, you implicitly agree to refrain from using force, delegating that right to those that society entrusts to dispassionately defend the rights of all. Political Rights are the societies recognition of barriers between individuals, which must not be crossed without invitation and consent, they are the political equivalents of walls and doors, and breaching them either individually or on the part of society (which would then reclassify itself as a mob - collective action without the guidance of reason) should be viewed in the same light as physical trespassers and burglars. More so. The violation of Rights, properly understood, is not just a violation of custom, but of reasoned rationality, and in opposition to reality and its requirements. Hobbes and Rousseau to the contrary, Rights are not permissions, having to ask permission to exercise your rights - the requirements of human life - makes you less than human in your attributes, and yielding that makes you a slave. There can be no right to not support the defense of rights, or that which defends them (gov’t), just as there can be no right to not recognize another’s right to their property.
Property itself is not changed by the mode of conveyance, but the ability of the creator to lay definable claim to it can be. Property, to be claimed, must have identifiable boundaries which can be publicly recognized, documented and laid claim to.
This is only apparent to a philosophy of governance, of law, of man, which starts with conceptual fundamentals and builds upwards, it is not graspable from a view that attempts to take a developed set of principles, liberty, as an atomic axiom and starting point for its political and economic philosophy. The Libertarians are frozen into the view of physical movement, of human action, being THE fundamental in concerns of law and justice and governance, and are unable to see below their position. Their supposed ground floor of thought however, is at least three stories up, and should they ever attempt to step out their front door, they are in for a fall.
As example, Land is only geography, until someone defines a set of boundaries as his property, and works to transform it, to imprint it with the mark of his intellectual efforts. The principle is no different with documents. The document serves to define the ideas constructed; it is not the property itself. The boundary definition which property lines and documents establish, does serve a value as establishing permanence. Barring unusual acts of nature, the land within your boundaries, remains where it is, and is not at risk of intermingling with your neighbor’s property, and it can be passed on through inheritance with no confusion or diffusion, and as long as those inheritors adequately maintain the property, it remains theirs to own and pass on as well. A patent is only legitimate, when it has been defined in fact, constructed; that ‘stakes’ the intellectual property claim to it, just as much as the first person to a plot of land lays defensible claim to it, no matter that someone else was rushing towards the same plot, but arrived moments afterwards.
Boundary markers around intellectual property in land, chattle, copyright and patents, are viable as long as the actual property can be clearly defined, claimed and maintained. This doesn't happen often in land, but as ranchers know, disputes do rise with the fluctuation of river banks and erosion caused with rivers and streams. There is a similar problem with erosion with those modes which are usually defined as intellectual property, namely copyrights and patents.
But to the Libertarian train of thought, a Patent or a Copyright enforcement is viewed as nothing more than a Gov’t issued monopoly. What Rothbard misses, is that working and possessing the land, although establishing his claim to it, and his right to it, it doesn't fully, in and of itself, establish his legal property right to the land, or rather his right to it is justified, but without public recognition and enforcement against all comers in arbitration, it has no standing beyond his physical ability to defend it with force. It can be said that a Natural Right exists to his property, but in order for it to be properly defensible in society, it must become a legal right first.
The libertarian error becomes apparent where their ‘philosophy’ attempts to define property based upon its physical properties – a fine starting point for most economic measures, but disastrous for a legal understanding and application of the concept of Property. Examine the areas of Libel & Slander, Patents and Copyrights, and you see the Libertarians heading towards the rule of force and pragmatism which can not be avoided with such a starting point.
A copyright defines a property (the text of the document) with your rights staked to it for a period of time. In that mode, the author presented his intellectual property set out and defined into visible boundaries (book or sheet music, etc), and the Publisher went through the work of transferring that original specification to numerous physical instances, usually sharing in the legal claim to that property - both what they physically created, and as a defensible boundary against claim jumpers, anyone who might wish to duplicate (plagiarize) the physical instance which they have a property right to.
This was easily grasped with paper books and ceramic record albums, but it is no less a reality with the new digital modes of instantiating property into physical being. Just because the appearance of the physical properties have changed, that in no way changes the nature of the right to the property they convey. The durability of such claims, however, is much more transitory than that of the seemingly unchangableness of property in land.
Similar to what landowners experience with erosion, these less substantial modes of property instantiation, as they move around from person to person, it's content, the original intellectual property, becomes intermixed with the thoughts and ideas of others (such as Lockes ideas in Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence), and the ability of people to identify and use the property as something distinct, becomes strained. Even if an authors family retains the copyright, renews their maintenance and claim to it, its clear status as a definable and separable claim, becomes less and less clear. As with real estate, the property, the product of the persons mind who created/wrote/composed it, is released with their death and transferred to the next owner... but the clarity of definition can no longer be said to be clear and defined; the remains of how that original property was first expressed, such as the lines of text, can be said to remain, but the ideas and propositions it originally clearly defined, are no longer easily laid claim to (again, Locke and Jefferson). The mode of conveyance in distributing the actual property (the ideas expressed) erodes the original clear and separable claim with each consumption of it, and there needs to be a clear limit set for the authors and his assigns for laying claim to it. The standard set of life plus 50 yrs set some time ago, seems a reasonable claim to uphold.
A patent is something somewhat different, in that the idea - the material form of the idea originally created and patented, is less fixed, and shades of it will be absorbed by those using it, manufacturing it, and perhaps using it in other products. Patented inventions serve to advance related development and inventions, an extended patent would in effect lay claim to the ideas of future inventors, which is not proper. The identifiable property of the original patent, the ability to maintain its fixed parameters are eroded even more quickly than those of property such as books and music, through its success and popular use.
This highlights the problem of libertarian thought. They see only that, physically, since a digital document doesn’t physically exist in the normal way, I am not diminished by your having a copy of it, so it can’t be thought of as my property, hense no copyright laws, no patent laws, and through extensions of similar means, no libel or slander laws. But the Objectivist, and other proper users of Natural Law, have no difficulty seeing that the property exists in what is truly created, the contents of the book (as defined “staked" in its text), they do not confuse the printed instance with the actual property, it is only a conveyor of property. A granular distinction which libertarians are barred from grasping, due to their incorrect attempt to start from a floating ground floor in their thought. They are incapable of recognizing the true essential nature of property rights as being intellectual property rights, no different in land than in ideas, only their conveyance makes them appear different. As a result of the Libertarian train of thought (made possible only after the contamination of Pragmatism into intellectual thought), a Patent or a Copyright enforcement is viewed as a Gov’t issued monopoly.
(Rothbards Man, Economy and the State, pg 749 “If the State decrees that a man’s property ceases at a certain date, this means that the State is the real owner and that it simply grants the man use of the property for a certain period of time.98" no, it means that after a period, ideas do spread, they do become part of others natural and original thought, and no longer are uniquely their own genesis. “Some defenders of patents assert that they are not monopoly privileges, but simply property rights in inventions or even in “ideas." But, as we have seen, everyone’s property right is defended in libertarian law without a patent. If someone has an idea or plan and constructs an invention, and it is stolen from his house, the stealing is an act of theft illegal under general law. On the other hand, patents actually invade the property rights of those independent discoverers of an idea or invention who made the discovery after the patentee. Patents, therefore, invade rather than defend property rights.")
Copyright and Patent versions of property rights, because of the nature of the material they define, must have a fixed time of protection, a reasonable period where it can be plausibly said that the original idea is recognizably intact and identifiable as separate from the surrounding intellectual landscape – its ‘stakes’ still standing, but after which the inevitable erosion can be agreed to ahead of time, to have washed them away.
Almost the entire section of ‘Freedom of Speech’ 101,93-97 is chalk full with libertarian thought exceeding its limits, and even more so under Patents). In their failing to see how the context of some situations alter the application of a principle, or denote the use of a different principle [visible in their views of Gov’t and taxation, and with David re what is a ‘lie’ and ‘theft’] entirely, and some areas Rothbard points out in reference to “free-market economist Professor Milton Friedman who, like his classical economist forebears, holds to freedom as against State intervention as a general tendency, but in practice allows a myriad of damaging exceptions, exceptions which serve to vitiate the principle almost completely, notably in the fields of police and military affairs, education, taxation, welfare, “neighborhood effects, antitrust laws, and money and banking" and while not defending Friedman entirely on my side either, what Rothbard calls a failure to apply principles consistently, is but his blindness to the fact that others such as Friedman are applying the more granular principle properly as it applies to the situation, where Rothbard is attempting to force his handful of related principles as if they were one unit, instead of several, in effect, he tries to thread needles with yarn.
Law and enforcement are not commodities, and libertarians desire to make gov’t more efficient through competing govt’s, misses its nature and value completely. The efficient administration of gov’t is a desirable attribute, but only if the understanding and application of it is worthy to begin with. Law is the enforceable set of rules established to defend the property rights of the inhabitants of a society. Those property rights are only made defensible by the establishment of a government committed to impartial administration of those rules and judgments for each and every person in the society.
Rights can only be defensible in a Lawful manner, where the use of force has been delegated to a body charged with its rational administrations and use. Rights do not exist for individuals between govt's, only within those govt’s. Absent that, you do not have the existence of what makes Rights a defensible concern. Merely having an agreement among individuals or justice co’s to stick up for one another’s buddies, does not in anyway make for an establishment of Political Rights, it more defines vigilantes.
Here’s an instance of libertarian thought being applied, and jeopardizing, property rights in particular, and so Rights in general: From AGAINST INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY *N. Stephan Kinsella “…We see, then, that a system of property rights in “ideal objects" necessarily requires violation of other individual property rights, e.g., to use one’s own tangible property as one sees fit.94 Such a system requires a new homesteading rule which subverts the first occupier rule. IP, at least in the form of patent and copyright, cannot be justified…."
this is because they, at root, do not have a philosophical understanding of Man, Rights, Law or Govt, and at root is an anti-conceptual movement. By taking a derivative concept, liberty, as a philosophical primary, they are constitutionally unable to reach fundamentals. For all their vaunted espousal of property rights, they are rooted in the perceptual past, unable to move forward or conceptually grasp the true nature of property. If they can't touch it, it don't exist. (See Nozick vs Locke on the nature of property rights.). Again, it worked just fine for the study of economics, but again it forgets itself when applied to politics, gov’t and law, an error far more prominently on display in Rothbard, than von Mises. Von Mises saw it too: " However, in order to preserve peace, it is, as human beings are, indispensable to be ready to repel by violence any aggression, be it on the part of domestic gangsters or on the part of external foes. Thus, peaceful human cooperation, the prerequisite of prosperity and civilization, cannot exist without a social apparatus of coercion and compulsion, i.e., without a government. The evils of violence, robbery, and murder can be prevented only by an institution that itself, whenever needed, resorts to the very methods of acting for the prevention of which it is established. There emerges a distinction between illegal employment of violence and the legitimate recourse to it. In cognizance of this fact some people have called government an evil, although admitting that it is a necessary evil. However, what is required to attain an end sought and considered as beneficial is not an evil in the moral connotation of this term, but a means, the price to be paid for it. Yet the fact remains that actions that are deemed highly objectionable and criminal when perpetrated by "unauthorized" individuals are approved when committed by the "authorities."
Government as such is not only not an evil, but the most necessary and beneficial institution, as without it no lasting social cooperation and no civilization could be developed and preserved. It is a means to cope with an inherent imperfection of many, perhaps of the majority of all people. If all men were able to realize that the alternative to peaceful social cooperation is the renunciation of all that distinguishes Homo sapiens from the beasts of prey, and if all had the moral strength always to act accordingly, there would not be any need for the establishment of a social apparatus of coercion and oppression. Not the state is an evil, but the shortcomings of the human mind and character that imperatively require the operation of a police power. Government and state can never be perfect because they owe their raison d'ĂȘtre to the imperfection of man and can attain their end, the elimination of man's innate impulse to violence, only by recourse to violence, the very thing they are called upon to prevent.
It is a double-edged makeshift to entrust an individual or a group of individuals with the authority to resort to violence. The enticement implied is too tempting for a human being. The men who are to protect the community against violent aggression easily turn into the most dangerous aggressors. They transgress their mandate. They misuse their power for the oppression of those whom they were expected to defend against oppression. The main political problem is how to prevent the police power from becoming tyrannical. This is the meaning of all the struggles for liberty. The essential characteristic of Western civilization that distinguishes it from the arrested and petrified civilizations of the East was and is its concern for freedom from the state. The history of the West, from the age of the Greek down to the present-day resistance to socialism, is essentially the history of the fight for liberty against the encroachments of the officeholders.
A shallow-minded school of social philosophers, the anarchists, chose to ignore the matter by suggesting a stateless organization of mankind. They simply passed over the fact that men are not angels. They were too dull to realize that in the short run an individual or a group of individuals can certainly further their own interests at the expense of their own and all other peoples' long-run interests. A society that is not prepared to thwart the attacks of such asocial and short-sighted aggressors is helpless and at the mercy of its least intelligent and most brutal members. While Plato founded his utopia on the hope that a small group of perfectly wise and morally impeccable philosophers will be available for the supreme conduct of affairs, anarchists implied that all men without any exception will be endowed with perfect wisdom and moral impeccability. They failed to conceive that no system of social cooperation can remove the dilemma between a man's or a group's interests in the short run and those in the long run.."
Von Mises had his errors, but they were for the most part minor, and he didn’t stray dangerously from the scope of his abilities. Rothbard, the errant student, in the realm of gov’t and law, errs and risks corrupting all that is good in the capitalism von Mises so forcefully described.
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