An arguement between TX and I got me thinking about laws.

There are plenty of rediculous laws out there. For instance, (I am NOT sure if this is true, but it's very possible) I heard recently that there is a law against curing a disease without the use of drugs. Like if you found out that vinegar cured heart cancer, it would be illegal for you to advertise that fact.

Some however I find understandable. Selling crack for instance. I wouldn't want my children to be pestered by a cracktoting salesman while walking home from school, and I'd feel comforted knowing that there is a law against it, which would make anybody think about the consequences of jail before trying it.

Or murder. Don't commit murder, there are legal consequences.

Of course one could say that any law is made to control you.
And yes, some have only that purpose, but some it seem are for protection. Speed limits for instance.

Any thoughts?

The reason behind laws is the reason behind government - we create the organization of the government out of mutual consent in order to protect our rights and to increase our abilities. Some laws achieve this end while others do not. Only laws that do should exist.

There is no government nor has there ever been any government that was created out of consent of the governed.

Governments are created to control others, and nothing more. They are created to centralize power so that those who seek power can more easily seize it. Laws are the means by which they do this.

The few laws which seem to have some sort of justification are those which are in line with the moral rules, and these can be counted on two hands. The rest of the millions of laws out there have no basis whatsoever in even the illusion of protection, rather stand as clear examples of bold power grabbing. No law has ever increased ability, nor will it.

A quick reminder, when your claim or position is in direct contradiction with reality, it is NEVER reality which is mistaken..

First, I'd like to gues as to what those laws which are in line with morals are.

Don't kill.
Don't steal.
Don't rape.
Don't physically attack.
Don't destroy another ones things.

Next I'd like to ask about leadership.
I do think that leadership is reflected in almost all groups within humans as well as groups within nature. There is a leader, an alpha wolf, who decides what to do. I figure this as well is a form of government, for they would have control over others, for one reason or another.

Third, the "consent of the governed". Why would one consent to what we see today as government? I would guess, survival at first. Something that has balooned into a horrible continuous act against mankind. Or is it wrong at the core? Should nobody ever consent to the government of someone else, even if it means thier own lives?

Leadership is a voluntary relationship. Government is not and cannot be a voluntary relationship.

No rational person would ever consent to be governed by another on a permanent basis. There are short term exceptions, but even then it is a well spelled out voluntary arrangement which necessarily really leaves the individual in a self-governer position.

Perhaps I should have said "the reason...should be". Government as it stands is definitely perverted.

Why not?

We all have the right to life, liberty, and property, and the right to protect them. The law is just a lot of people banding together to defend their rights. Even if government didn't exist, you would still be morally bound to not infringe on the rights of others. The law simply stops those who would try anyways, and it's much more potent than anything a single person could put together.

This post was last modified: 12-20-2006 03:40 PM by Einsteinmonkey.

Government as it is is necessarily how it is. Nature of the beast.

Your utopian vision of the law ignores the fact that the only situation in which your law could possibly exist would be one where those who do not consent are forced via coercion or direct violence to submit to the desires of others. THey are necessarily not free and not respected as persons.

We agree that the law/government is more powerful than any individual. I recognize that this is a grave danger and necessarily a threat to all persons, rather than celebrating in it. The law/government is a weapon and nothing more. That weapon has always and will always serve those who wish to use such weapons on others. It does not and cannot protect those who wish to be left alone, wish to be respected as individuals.

What about punishment? With no law, anybody can walk into your house and kill your spouse and all that's there to make sure they stand any consequence, is you. (maybe family and a few close friends)

Further, I realize that this is a vigilant and vengeful thought. Yet it rings true (to me) when faced with the fact that a homocidal maniac may well destroy everybody around him if there was no organized system against it.

A general example being Hitler, (or for those who think he was just a puppet) the people behind the genecide of Jewish people. Once no law in Germany could stand in his way, murder became easily done on a large scale.

Actually a great many alternatives have been suggested over the years. Insurance companies, protection services, etc. As for punishment for punishment's sake (which is what we are necessarily speaking of since deterrence is a failed notion) that is revenge not justice.

As for your hypothetical maniac, you are assuming that no one can or will act, that nothing would exist to deal with such instances, and that people are completely helpless. None of these assumptions are true.

Hitler is a fine example, just not of what you seem to think it ought to be. Hitler could not have done what he did without the consolidation of power into the hands of a few, in otherwords without government and laws the attrocities commited by the Third Reich could not have occurred. The power necessary would not be consolidated therefore simply would not exist.

Good point.

It couldn't have been done if it wasn't for government in the first place huh? I didn't even realize that..

BTW- I wonder about something... before getting into the specifics of "what is innocent?"

We've only spoken of the muder of an innocent person.
What about killing a murderer?
Is this completely justified within morality? What about rehabilitation?

If you or another innocent is threatened by the would be murderer you are clearly justified in taking his life. This does not mean that you must take his life, only that if you choose to do so you are wholly justified.

Rehabilitation is another subject entirely. It may well be a practical and perhaps even an ideal solution for many cases, especially cases such as theft and other crimes which are not permanent harms to others.

So, to prevent a murder, the murderer himself could justly be murdered.

I still wonder about rehabilitation. Say a murderer gets away, and is found later, may he be subdued and sentenced to rehab as apposed to death?

Murder is the taking of the life of an innocent moral agent. The murder is an immediate threat to another and therefore NOT an innocent.

JFTR I am NOT arguing for the death penalty. I am arguing self defense or the defense of an innocent other who is in immediate danger.

rehab may work, but as I say this is a separate topic entirely.

Yeah it is.

I'm not a fan of the death penalty, however I believe anybody would fight, to the death, for thier lives. So I understand this.

Again, you would already be bound by morality. The law is simply a more solid barrier. Those who 'do not consent' are those who would violate the rights of others. Even if there were no such system of law in place, you would still defend yourself against those who would try to harm you. You said yourself that "If you or another innocent is threatened by the would be murderer you are clearly justified in taking his life."

Think of it this way:
A few men break into your house clearly intending to steal from you.
Alone, you might have a gun and could attempt to stop them.
The law is essentially that your neighbours would help you to combat such individuals (in whatever way was deemed appropriate) and you would help them as such in return, granting increased security to all of you.
While the rest of your group could use their force to steal all of your stuff themselves, this would nullify the security that was the whole point of the system in the first place, since if such a thing could happen to one random member, it could happen to any other.

Further,
Let's say government all around the world completely dissolves one day and everyone is left to their own devices. The smart thing to do would obviously be to become part of a group in order to be able to better protect oneself. Everyone else would do the same, and you'd have a bunch of tribes. One person wouldn't be sacrificed to the rest because this would decrease the stability of the group and the members would know it. In the same way, tribes would join up to become larger and larger, eventually leaving us with states. Now, understandably, at too large of a level, the "communal sacrifice" bit would become a minor point, capping state size. Still, a larger alliance of states would be smart in order to increase abilities - for instance, by ensuring the mass cooperation in certain Prisoner's Dilemmas, to back up currency, and to resolve various inter-state issues. This alliance of states would be a country. And possibly there could be larger alliances of countries.

Maybe I'm optimistic for thinking that people aren't utterly stupid.

How do you figure that those who do not consent to have their property stolen, their voluntary peaceful associations controlled or prevented, their choices about their own lives which have no bearing on the lives of any others, etc. are in fact aggressors?

My neighbor is free to help me without the law. In fact in most places my neighbor will be subject to penalties for daring to help me BECAUSE of the law.

What a fine description of what occurs daily under the law.

While this is not true, let's look at this suggestion and note the core difference between this and law and government. This situation is entirely voluntary. Those who do not want to join are not forced to do so. No government on the planet will allow someone within the territory the government claims to own to refuse the government anything whatsoever. There is no hint of any voluntary nature, nor can there be.

Strange, I was thinking that your argument necessitates that people in fact cannot and will never think for themselves, live responsibly, etc.

How do you resolve the problem of the assumption that those in power get progressively more angelic as their power increases, as your dystopian vision necessitates? How do you handle the radical change in human nature which is necessary under your suggested view?

Where did I say that?

Note that I said: "at too large of a level, the "communal sacrifice" bit would become a minor point" which would be due to the scale and information transfer. However, with the increased information transferring capabilities of modern times, this sort of problem would be eased somewhat.

Because?

Because geographically, you will invariably have some kind of interaction with people, which leads to social contract theory and all that jazz.

How?

If the structure is set up correctly, the interests of those in power would be tied to the success of the nation. By contrast, under democracy as it stands today, the structure is such that politicians should try to steal and run. Would it require large changes? Yes, since any significant shift in government structure would entail large changes. Possibly some kind of cultural shift would be required as well. Will this happen in our lifetimes? Not likely, and such a transformation still wouldn't be perfect, but it would be better than the system we have now.

This post was last modified: 12-21-2006 01:33 PM by Einsteinmonkey.

Here is where you said it:

Are you actually saying that security has INCREASED with the advent of computers and ease of information gathering by the powers that be??

Rather than easing those problems they are made exponentially worse as history has shown us.

Assuming your conclusion as a premise is not a sound way to reason.

Which will necessarily be at odds with the interest of the individual.

The shift which would be required is at least two fold:
1. Fundamental change in human nature.
2. Reality would have to change its very nature.

This is why dystopian visions such as yours, and utopian visions as well, are completely and forever impractical and ineffective when they are tried in the real world. There are some who simply seek power. When you consolidate power (by stealing it from individuals) you are simply setting the table for this type of individual to come feast.

You said "their property stolen, their voluntary peaceful associations controlled or prevented, their choices about their own lives which have no bearing on the lives of any others".

Their choices about their own lives which have no bearing on the lives of any others wouldn't be prevented.

Makes sense to me (although I wasn't only referring to information transfer by those in power, but for everyone, eg. to bring certain issues to light)...could you tell me how it wouldn't? I'm not seeing it.

I'm not. The premise is that you will have some kind of interaction with people by virtue of geography. These interactions have inherent [moral] restrictions on them. If you want to avoid anything of this sort, you'd have to move to some remote region.

Could you elaborate?

Again, you stated quite explicitly that the mere act of not consenting to the coercion of the government makes one an aggressor.

The act of not consenting is itself a peaceful act, yet under your scheme those of us who stand upon principle and right, recognizing that the individual is not subordinate to some government thug, are inherently aggressors simply because we do not agree to have our property stolen and our lives controlled by a government.

The increase in information on our individual lives allows those in power to better track us, better limit our actions. Given the high profile cases of honest innocent people being harrassed and imprisoned since 9-11 based upon book choices, travel arrangements, skin tone (as listed on the DL) etc., how can you not see that this occurs?

The social contract nonsense is not identical to the moral issues. The social contract nonsense dictates obligations to "society" (a non-entity) for the individual. Social contract nonsense is just a weak excuse for consolidation of power in the hands of the few, aka government. Therefore clearly this IS your conclusion, therefore the argument is necessarily circular.

Okay the notion of the success of the nation itself necesitates success of the government only. Secondly, since there is no unified definition of success, nor is one possible in this context, necessarily some portion if not the whole of the individuals will have to be forced to sacrifice so that others can achieve their own ends. Third, you assume that those in power will suddenly become angels, never seeking nor using power. This requires a fundamental change in human nature, one that will never occur. The previous points cited refer to the fundamental changes in reality which your argument necessitates.

Now, as to why dystopian and utopian notions always fail is that they begin with what the author believes to be a nifty scheme. This alone can be amusing, but it does not and will never reflect reality for reality has not been allowed into the process for creating this nifty scheme. So when this nifty scheme is thrust upon reality, reality continues as it always has and always will, and lo and behold, the nifty scheme never brings about the pie in the sky promises it makes..

As to the consolidation of power, think of the old line about why bank robbers rob banks: "that is where the money is!" Same with those who seek power. They become cops, priests, politicians, etc. They seek out positions of power. Now when you steal power from the individual, or con it out of him, and consolidate it with the power from other individuals who have either been conned or robbed, you have an irresistable feast for the power hungry.

Sorry, that was really bad wording on my part.

Ethnic profiling doesn't have anything to do with increased information.

Sorry, I was incorrectly thinking what social contract theory was. Anyhow, it only proposes that the reasonable thing to do would be to consolidate power in the hands of the government not for the sake of giving them power, but to enforce laws.

No, they would probably use the power they had.

Not all who seek power gain it.

And I'm not saying that it would be perfect; no system is (here's the nice reality part). I'm just claiming that it would be better.

What would you propose, out of curiosity?

These are identical.

As for perfection, that is not the issue nor is that an excuse. What you are proposing requires fundamental changes in human nature as well as changes in reality itself, therefore perfection is not the primary problem, but rather impossibility is the primary problem. You seem to assume that taking exactly the same actions that have been taken throughout time with regard to government would magically result in a different conclusion, but as we know, this is the very definition of irrationality.

Actually the arrest of these individuals since 9-11 has everything to do with increased information. They neem only consult data bases of last names, or of travel arrangements, professions, etc. and combine characteristics however they see fit. All of this pivots on the enormous amount of information available to those in power.

The problem is clearly the consolidation of power. So do not consolidate power, do not steal it from innocent individuals to grant to, or at least dangle in front of, those who seek it. As for the fact that a few who seek power do not achieve as much power as they desire, this is completely irrelevent. The fact is that power always ends up in the hands of those who seek power. That some fail only goes to show that with the consolidation of power the number of those seeking power is greater than the number of bits of consolidated power, thus ensuring that necessarily power will always be in the hands of those who seek it.

Anarchy, then? Wouldn't it be even more foolish to try and sustain that, considering some sort of power hierarchy has virtually always existed?

This post was last modified: 12-22-2006 07:41 AM by Einsteinmonkey.

Ask yourself this simple question: which is easier to resist an individual whose power is necessarily limited, or the infinitely large armies, police, and might of the state.

BTW most of human life was in fact anarchistic, and some remains so today though there is very little because so many have followed the suggested path of giving over all power to the state.

BTW appeal to tradition is also a fallacy...

This post was last modified: 12-22-2006 07:53 AM by TXStorm.

Dead is dead. Any individual can be killed by some other. You can just as easily ask the converse of that question: is it easier to resist for a single individual, or with an army?

I'm not appealing to tradition any more than you are with the "fundamental changes in human nature".

HUH???

You explicilty appeal to tradition with this statement: "considering some sort of power hierarchy has virtually always existed"

I am not appealing to tradition by noting that you are in fact requiring a fundamental change in human nature. Notice that unlike your appeal, I never made the claim that it has always been that way therefore it is right, or whatnot, but rather noted that there is a fundamental change in our actual nature which is required to adopt your dystopian scheme. You assume that rather than power corrupting, that it will magically turn men into angels, and everyone will be peachy keen. We know that in fact when given power, the temptation to use and thus abuse that power is in fact irresistable, particularly for those who seek out power. No appeal to tradition at all can be found in these statements of fact..

Even your response here implicitly assumes that armies are necessarily inherently good, despite the fact that we know that nothing could be further from the truth. Apparently this assumption that gaining power makes one angelic is at play in this response also...

I was not saying that such a thing should exist because it always has, I was saying that it would be as much a 'denial of human nature' to maintain anarchy.

You do realize those in power are themselves still subject to laws, right?

Okay so contrary to anything that has been said you are claiming that no change in human nature must be a change in human nature, simply because you do not like the conclusion? You do realize that you cannot just toss out such claims without any basis for making them right? Especially immediately following a clear explanation which demonstrates the falseness of any such claim.. It does not follow that because X has not existed (a false assertion btw) that it cannot exist, much less cannot exist without a fundamental change in human nature. By your reasoning here, no manned flight could ever occurred, nor any progress of any sort. Since we know that progress such as manned flight did occur, your argument must be in error.

Those in power do as they will, as we damn well know. THe only time that the laws are used against those in power is when someone with greater power wants to remove the threat of another with power. Aside from that, for all practical purposes those in power are not in fact subject to the laws.

Even if they were, this would not change any of the facts already cited. Nor would this make the fundamental changes in human nature upon which this dystopian scheme rests disappear. You still have the problem of setting a feast for the power hunger to enjoy, as well as lacking any justification for stealing the liberty of the individual.

This post was last modified: 12-22-2006 11:35 PM by TXStorm.

Clearly it does not require denying reality for a government to exist since governments do exist.

There are multiple individuals and branches of government to check the others. They are still bound by law.

Except the justification is to ensure and increase liberty.

Ah.. the old let's advocate rape to protect virginity tactic.. seems that there is something more than a bit amiss.. hm.. what is it? Oh yeah, it is the use of coercion, force, threats, and stripping of individual liberty under some baseless pretense that liberty is being protected.

I suppose you could be thinking of it along the lines of a bank vault. LIberty is locked safely away where no one can get at it to enjoy it..

I did not claim that the existence of governments denies reality, I pointed out that your argument necessitates that men become angels when given power over others, which of course is a fundamental change in human nature.

As for checks, how would this work? The founders of the US thought that checks could work, and we have seen without a shadow of a doubt that they have not. In fact in most courts in the US the supposed final check on governmental power, that of jury nullification, is forbidden and even the mention of it is sufficient to get you thrown into prison.

Then too there is the real final check on governmental power, that of self-defense but this too is outlawed and severely regulated by the government in the US. So again I point out that there is literally no basis whatsoever for the claim that checks have and will work.

You do realize that there is such a thing as "profession courtesy" which runs rampant amongst the powers that be? Take for instance police. When they get their DL photos taken it is virtually always in uniform. Why is this? It is because they can use the DL to 1. Intimidate honest peaceful citizens even when out of uniform, and 2. So that if they do happen to get stopped or questioned in regard to a crime they can show the DL as a get out of jail free card.

You have not yet gotten around the fact that you are advocating the stealing of liberty from honest peaceful individuals, including those who do not consent to the theft of their liberty, in order to consolidate it into the hands of those most likely to cause harm to others with this power. Stipulating that there will magically be a fundamental change in human nature and suddenly when a politician, cop, etc. is given power they will suddenly become good, hoenst, peaceful individuals who never use thus abuse the power, in no way makes it true.