Posted by:
Troy
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Date: September 30, 2010 02:25AM
"Simply doing the bare minimum in society is nothing to be praised for. It is only the bare minimum. If you do less than that, we will put you in prison."
Who is "we" that will put a person in prison? And why have a minimum if its is, in fact, not enough?
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Who is "we?" I'm sorry if I didn't make that clear. It is "we the people of the United States." I didn't want to make it that formal, but that's the reality. If you fail to do the bare minimum, which is to do no harm, we will put you in prison because what you've done is violate someone's human rights in not refraining from doing them harm. You pick the violation, I'll give you a list: Murder, robbery, rape, larceny, forgery, embezzlement, polygamy, sexual conduct with a minor, etc.
Criminals are people who have failed to do the bare minimum.
"If we perform positive duties, then we can enjoy corresponding positive rights, like the right to an education and medical care."
This statement shows that you don't understand what a right is. Rights are the things we don't have to ask permission for; they are the things we have inherently, they aren't bestowed upon us by a government, or king, or "society," or group. Like the right to wave my arms around like this. (You can't see me, but trust me, I'm waving.) The right to say whatever I want to. (I just said "Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn.") I don't need to perform positive duties in order to earn the priveledge of speaking or moving my arms. Rights originate from within ME. Right don't come from outside entities.
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I'm sorry, but it is you who does not understand. It's all a matter of how deep I choose to go into detail. If you don't think I understand human rights, please contact the philosophy department at the University of Utah. After all, I'm sure they don't want to award someone a PhD who isn't up to snuff on this stuff.
The theoretical underpinning of human rights is largely based on social contract theory. This comes in two varieties. Social contract theory is not something we agree to in writing, it's an unwritten and usually unspoken kind of agreement between people. The negative variety of social contract theory is what libertarians espouse. It holds that we all have a duty to do no harm. In exchange for recognizing that we must not harm, we have a corresponding right to be free from harm. This is about as fundamental as it gets, but I can go into equisite detail if you wish. But simply put, if I recognize that I must not harm anyone, and our society is somewhat built on this assumption, then I can reasonably expect nobody to harm me. If they do, we have laws against it.
If you don't like this, please tell me what part I don't understand. Better yet, tell me what you don't understand.
A positive social contract is a bit more complicated, but not on the human level. It is more community-oriented in that we have an unwritten agreement among ourselves that we will all pool our resources and talents together and create something that lifts our society as a whole and makes life better for everyone. Positive duties are more charity-related in that they go beyond the bare minimum and we all share the wealth, to some extent. This is more common in Asian societies and as I've stated already, this is what the libertarians reject. I don't know what is controversial about any of this. It is mere technicality. To bring it to the individual level, libertarians are most critical of this pooling of resources when government is employed as the medium by which we coordinate our resources and services. Again, this is just technicality. I think anyone here who considers themselves libertarian would agree.
Libertarians only want a negative social contract; not a positive social contract. My disagreement with them is because I see government as the most powerful tool we have for performing the positive duties I've mentioned and maximizing the benefit of the rights that correspond to these duties. Libertarians, if they want to be charitable, want to do it themselves and not through government. Is that fair to say? This is not to say that the concept of positive rights does not exist. Libertarians simply reject the concept if it involves government.
"The problem with thinking that education and medical care are rights, is that these services must be provided by OTHER people. Therefore, to claim you have a right to medical care is to claim that you have the right to force someone else to provide you with a service. In libertarian philosophy, it's wrong to force someone else to serve you. That's called slavery."
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This is where we disagree. I do not see it as force for us to utilize our government to maximize our effectiveness as a society. This includes providing public education and, I would argue, public health care. If you think you are being forced, you are under a completely different paradigm from me. I consider it voluntary, and I consider it the professional interest of people like me to keep government in the hands of the people. It is our own responsibility to keep it from getting out of control.
The problem with libertarianism is it has no future. The problems of consumerism and excess always come at the cost of the weaker members of society and libertarianism has nothing to offer minorities who don't have equal opportunities, simply because the affluence and consumerism has come at their expense! It's a philosophy of affluence and consumerism and as I've mentioned already, the emphasis on liberty comes at the expense of justice. How much more detail do you want?
"No, actually, it is built on the fact that the default actions of government violate citizens rights. Taxes are not voluntary; the government takes a portion of your earnings without your consent. This is called theft. With this stolen money, they build schools, that they then force your children to attend. This in no way represents the "right to an education." This is theft and conscription, nothing more."
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This is 18th Century thinking if you ask me.
"To a libertarian who values personal freedom, government IS an oppressor. And to anyone with one eye open, changing this fact is impossible. Voting for this candidate or that candidate will not change the system, and that is the only avenue we are given to "initiate change." The "grand experiment" in limited government has failed, and failed miserably. Government spies on its citizens, jails people for smoking the wrong type of plant, spends trillions of dollars on foreign occupations, on secret prisons, and on deals with its wealthy friends. It murders innocent civilians, it buys off drug lords, it props up foreign dictators, it asserts full monopolistic control over the money supply, it controls licensing for hundreds of industries and imprisons both those who prefer not to get a government license, as well as those who prefer to patronize businesses that don't have government licenses. Having too much water in your toilet tank is against federal law. Saying certain words on TV at certain times of day is against federal regulation. The idea that, oh, hey, this is America and the boys in Washington work for me, is an illusion.
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Under the libertarian way of thinking, you are no doubt correct about it being an illusion. Sort of like the illusion that if nobody keeps a check on liberties in an effort to keep them in balance, justice will magically appear. But if you're going to throw your hands in the air and not try to take control, I can't force you to do anything. You have the liberty to not lift a finger for anyone else. But you are being vastly outnumbered in your philosophy. We have a whole world to think about. We have to learn to share, just like children.
"You're confusing justice with fairness."
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That's the irony of the evening. Justice is the principle of applying fairness, to put it in a nutshell.
"I completely agree; however, this is totally counter to your above statements. If you believe that polygamy is wrong because subjugates women and forces them to do things against their will to serve others, then it stands to reason that what you call "the right to medical care" is wrong by the same logic. It's just as wrong to subjugate Wife #12 as it is to subjugate Dr. Jones at County General. Why? Because it violates the rights of these individuals."
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It's not at all inconsistent with my underlying principle, that government is by the people. We have to have a supreme institution to enforce the fairness you mentioned, which I use the term "justice" to describe. If we don't enforce justice, people will take more liberties than they are rightfully entitled, like the liberty to kill someone in cold blood. We don't allow that and we put people in prison for it.
"Consent is not such a clear concept as many seem to believe. It has to be "informed consent" or it isn't consent at all."
This is a point worth debating, for sure; however, NOTHING about government's actions fall into the category of consent. I did not give my consent for the government to rack up $13 T in debt that it expects me to repay through taxes and inflation. I did not give my consent to have 34% of my pay whisked away with the income tax. I did not consent to paying into Social Security. I did not consent to invading Iraq. I did not consent to the PATRIOT Act, or to the bailouts. I didn't consent to any of it, and the majority of laws passed in this country are not up for a public vote. My consent is not only not given, it's never asked for."
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That must be what it's like to be female and living in a polygamous society. But I haven't given up my right to take part in government. When I give a speech to a bunch of loser politicians, I have the ability to motivate them because they can't defend their inconsistencies. In this way, I can be even more imposing than they are and indeed, that's the strategy. I don't envy anyone who thinks this kind of citizen participation is alien and unreal. It's no wonder libertarians are constantly complaining about being enslaved by the government.
"With all due respect, your arguments against polygamy are drastically inconsistent with your arguments FOR government-provided public services. You seem to be in favor of the government violating individual rights, but not in favor of any other person or group doing so. And worse, you see government as YOU (not THEM). Which basically means, you're in favor of violating other people's rights to achieve the things you want (health care, education), but you're not in favor of others violating YOUR rights to achieve what they want."
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My rights? I don't have the right to achieve what anyone else wants. That's ludicrous. I'm in the business of working on behalf of people who can't get the government to protect them. You see taxes as a violation of your rights and I see them as a way of taking our own responsibility for things. So there is nothing at all inconsistent the way I see things. Of course it seems inconsistent under your prevailing assumptions, but you are the one laboring under slave morality, not me. I'm taking control of government on behalf of us, the people who the government is working for. Your taxes help pay for a lot of positive rights already, like public education. If you think that makes you a slave, I feel sorry for you. The way I see things, it makes me feel empowered and highly effective.
"Which is it -- are rights inviolable, or are they up for grabs as long as you have a government seal of approval?"
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That's an easy one. We are all entitled to basic human rights, like life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. But we are unable to ensure those rights for ourselves on our own. If that be the case, we have no rights and it's pointless to claim that we do. We have to put our resources together to provide equal protection for everyone's rights. We call this justice and the tool we use to administer this justice is what we call the United States Government.
I haven't thrown away the tool. I've learned how to use it. This is what I teach to political philosophy students at the university. Some of them may run for political office later. If they learn anything from me, it will be how to use their power effectively and in the name of the people.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/30/2010 04:08AM by Troy.