The Everlasting CCCP !

[Maniac]

Hey guys, has anyone read the discussion between me and Archaic (and GT)? I'd like to know your opinion about who has provided arguments, and who just didn't reply decently to the other theirs.

[Cedayon]

I skim the arguments (even Archaic's), and sometimes actually read them in detail if I have time... I think discussion on our economic options is very important and necessary, although the branching-into-RL discussions are somewhat less so. The participants of this argument need to understand, however, that they're not really getting through to the other side to the degree necessary to actually change positions. The main benefit is working out what, exactly, the points of contention are for the less decided among us.

One thing that might help is for the participants to try a bit harder to see what position the others are actually trying to support with their arguments, and for those making arguments to make the point more clear (that nice big Huge Bold part of Maniac's post is a good example, although raised voices aren't always a good way of doing it). It's hard enough for these arguments to be fruitful, and if person A is arguing about one issue while person B is arguing about another issue (while they both are certain that the other is arguing the same issue) ... well, let's just say it doesn't go anywhere good

Then there's the various parts that are essentially useless due to the "style" of the "argument", but those are to be expected.

[lucky22]

I haven't had the time to closely follow all details of the exchanges in the last couple of weeks. Looks like I'm going to have a chance this weekend.

How is this "Challenge Against Archaic" pbem going, by the way?

[Maniac]

The participants of this argument need to understand, however, that they're not really getting through to the other side to the degree necessary to actually change positions.

Well in the special case of arguing against Archaic, it's not at all the goal of convincing him. I just do it as a sport.

[Cedayon]

Originally posted by Maniac
I just do it as a sport.

I am often surprised at the frequency with which sports border upon (or completely cross into) maschocism

[GeneralTacticus]

Being free for man means being acknowledged, considered and treated as such by another man, and by all the men around him. Liberty is therefore a feature not of isolation but of interaction, not of exclusion but rather of connection...I myself am human and free only to the extent that I acknowledge the humanity and liberty of all my fellows... I am properly free when all the men and women about me are equally free. Far from being a limitation or a denial of my liberty, the liberty of another is its necessary condition and confirmation.

If you grant total liberty to all people, without any limits whatsoever, you also grant people the right to infringe upon other's liberty should they so wish. Hence, in order to ensure that everyone is free, certain limits must be imposed to prevent one person from restricting the liberty of another.

And that pretends to be a democrat, while whining for more "safety" and "order". By the same means that you call me naive, I call you paranoid.

So I'm paranoid because I believe that if you remove any and all restrictions on people's behaviour, they will not suddenly become nice?

Can you demonstrate this, that you can take away part of sopmeone's liberty without taking it all away, or are you just capable to quote (bad) examples and idiotic proverbs ?

Can you demonstrate that to take away any part of a person's liberty is destroy all of it? You haven't addressed any of the examples I presented of freedom being a scale rather than simply being 'present' or 'absent', you've merely repeated your original, unsupported claim.

As for your example, the fact that someone can de legomurder you doesnt change anything concerning your freedom, since there will always be someone who can de factomurder you. The possibility of being killed is not a restriction of freedom.

It is when there's nothing to prevent this happening. Obivosuly, even when something is prohibited, there will still be people who do it, but if you *DO* permit it, then there's no way to prevent people from doing it.

Maybe you havent realized it yourself, but saying that someone is not only a product of its environment and can, despite his environment, be born, inherently means that there is another cause than its environment for his evilness. What other cause than a person's environment can affect this person, if not its nature ? This is why I think you strongly believe that some people are naturally born bad, but I'm open to any explanations that could let me think you dont.

You seem to be missing my point. I do not believe that certain people are born bad and nothing will change them. what I do believe is that, no matter what environment you put people in, there will always be some who will not grow up to be good. It's not inherent in them, it's just there. do you see my point now?

All this jabbering can be sum up in the same idea : prevent people to commit evilnesses.
Scary answer, IMHO. How do you exactly intend to prevent everyone from being evil, without education ?

Ever heard of 'Law Enforceemnt', Pan? They're the people that are supposed to prevent people from committing crimes if possible, or to minimise the effect of the crime if that's all they can do.

And once somebody has done something 'evil', you examine what he's done, see if they can be educated (yes, there's nothing wrong with education, and it's preferable to punishment, but it doesn't aways work), and if they can't, prevent them from re-offending, i.e. put them in prison. Also require them to make amends for tehir cimres; e.g., a thief should return and/or pay back the value of what he stole.

[Pandemoniak]

Originally posted by GeneralTacticus
If you grant total liberty to all people, without any limits whatsoever, you also grant people the right to infringe upon other's liberty should they so wish. Hence, in order to ensure that everyone is free, certain limits must be imposed to prevent one person from restricting the liberty of another.
...
Can you demonstrate that to take away any part of a person's liberty is destroy all of it? You haven't addressed any of the examples I presented of freedom being a scale rather than simply being 'present' or 'absent', you've merely repeated your original, unsupported claim.

But one person's freedom doesnt stop where other people's liberty starts. I see neither of us have demonstrated his point anyway

So I'm paranoid because I believe that if you remove any and all restrictions on people's behaviour, they will not suddenly become nice?

Im calling you paranoid as you call me naive. And if you look carefully, you'll se my point is not that people will suddenly become nice, I'm saying all the good will of "restrictions" is wasted by the simple fact that they are forced.

It is when there's nothing to prevent this happening. Obivosuly, even when something is prohibited, there will still be people who do it, but if you *DO* permit it, then there's no way to prevent people from doing it.

Well, the fact that someone is or is not forbidden to kill you is NOT a restraint of your liberty.
And again, there is no permission, it is an absence of interdiction, and when there is no interdiction at all, there is no permission neither, the whole permission/restriction system disappear.

Ever heard of 'Law Enforceemnt', Pan? They're the people that are supposed to prevent people from committing crimes if possible, or to minimise the effect of the crime if that's all they can do.

And once somebody has done something 'evil', you examine what he's done, see if they can be educated (yes, there's nothing wrong with education, and it's preferable to punishment, but it doesn't aways work), and if they can't, prevent them from re-offending, i.e. put them in prison. Also require them to make amends for tehir cimres; e.g., a thief should return and/or pay back the value of what he stole.

There I will note something really remarkabale : at my question "How do you exactly intend to prevent everyone from being evil, without education ?", you reply me "prevent people from committing crimes". I think it is very interesting to see that we are here talking on two very different scales : I am talking about morale, good and evil, while you reply me laws and juridictions. It's like you cannot think out of a legal system -- no offence. While I'm sure you won't say that laws and juridictions separates absolutely the right from the wrong -- and I'm sure you dont believe it's the fact -- I can clearly see that when I talk you right and wrong, you reply laws and juridiction.
I think both systems are coherent -- anarchism and non-anarchism --, though probably the non-anarchist system can face more contradictions, since it has always been applied and has the full support of experience.
And since neither you nor me have demonstrated the righteousness of our theory about liberty, I would like to ask you if you deny that the whole anarchist system is coherent, and that everything is justified by the fact that liberty is a whole which you cant take a part without destructing the whole (Im not asking you to judge this very theory, but to tell me if you think that once you accept this basic element, everything is justified, coherent and logic.

You seem to be missing my point. I do not believe that certain people are born bad and nothing will change them. what I do believe is that, no matter what environment you put people in, there will always be some who will not grow up to be good. It's not inherent in them, it's just there. do you see my point now?

Yup, and I seen it before. But you still dont answer the question : what causes it to be "just there" ? What causes persons to be bad if neither their environment nor their nature ? You can understand I cant accept an answer such as : "it's just there".

[GeneralTacticus]

But one person's freedom doesnt stop where other people's liberty starts. I see neither of us have demonstrated his point anyway

Do you consider the right to be alive part of liberty? If so, would you not agree that for someone else to exercise their right to kill you would be a violation of your liberty?

Im calling you paranoid as you call me naive. And if you look carefully, you'll se my point is not that people will suddenly become nice,

What you've said is precisely what you claim you haven't said. You've claimed that if you remove all restrictions on people's behaviour, they won't abuse the sudden lack of restrictions because criminals and murders will somehow vanish. They're here now, what makes you think they're going to go away?

I'm saying all the good will of "restrictions" is wasted by the simple fact that they are forced.

'good will of restrictions'? What on earth do you mean here?

Well, the fact that someone is or is not forbidden to kill you is NOT a restraint of your liberty.

Why not? Do you not consider staying alive to be a part of liberty?

And again, there is no permission, it is an absence of interdiction, and when there is no interdiction at all, there is no permission neither, the whole permission/restriction system disappear.

They're the same damn thing. Ever heard the phrase 'anything not forbidden is permitted'? If you don't restrict people from killing, you are allowing them to kill.

There I will note something really remarkabale : at my question "How do you exactly intend to prevent everyone from being evil, without education ?", you reply me "prevent people from committing crimes". I think it is very interesting to see that we are here talking on two very different scales : I am talking about morale, good and evil, while you reply me laws and juridictions. It's like you cannot think out of a legal system -- no offence. While I'm sure you won't say that laws and juridictions separates absolutely the right from the wrong -- and I'm sure you dont believe it's the fact -- I can clearly see that when I talk you right and wrong, you reply laws and juridiction.

There's no way to prevent people from 'being evil' as a state of mind. What you can do is prevent them from committing 'evil' acts on others. Assumign they don't actually hurt anyone else, their state of mind is their own concern and nobody else's (unless of course they wish it to be).

And since neither you nor me have demonstrated the righteousness of our theory about liberty, I would like to ask you if you deny that the whole anarchist system is coherent, and that everything is justified by the fact that liberty is a whole which you cant take a part without destructing the whole (Im not asking you to judge this very theory, but to tell me if you think that once you accept this basic element, everything is justified, coherent and logic.

If you accept the idea that liberty is something that is either present in full or absent, and that people have the right to do whatever they wish, regardless of what it is, then I don't see any logical flaws in the anarchist position. I think you may run into problems on the practical side, which I've been pointing out for days, but that doesn't have any bearing on whether it's logically coherent - after all, if you accept the principle that there is a God, practical matters count for very little.

Yup, and I seen it before. But you still dont answer the question : what causes it to be "just there" ? What causes persons to be bad if neither their environment nor their nature ? You can understand I cant accept an answer such as : "it's just there".

My answer was not that the 'evilness' is "just there". I was saying that the 'evilness' was not inherent; they wouldn't become evil in all cases, but the fact is that in this particular instance, they do.

i.e. Person A becomes evil. Persons B-Z do not. There was nothing in particular which made it inevitable that A would become evil and none of the others would; it could just as easily have been any of the others, assuming they were raised in the same environment. Do you get what I'm saying now?

[Pandemoniak]

Originally posted by GeneralTacticus


Do you consider the right to be alive part of liberty?
...
Why not? Do you not consider staying alive to be a part of liberty?

Yes, this is the very foundation of liberty.

If so, would you not agree that for someone else to exercise their right to kill you would be a violation of your liberty?

If they exercise it yes, it would be a violation of my liberty. But if they're not forbidden, either someone kill someone else, depriving him of his life and of his liberty, and depriving myself of my liberty, by consequence ; either no one kills anyone and my liberty is not restarined.
To sum up, if "they exercise their right" (and note that once again you're talking by the law while I talk morally), they deprive me of this liberty. But they can be not forbidden to and still freely "exercise they right to not kill anyone", thus leaving my liberty intact.

What you've said is precisely what you claim you haven't said. You've claimed that if you remove all restrictions on people's behaviour, they won't abuse the sudden lack of restrictions because criminals and murders will somehow vanish. They're here now, what makes you think they're going to go away?

That isnt what I've said : I said they will vanish by education, meaning by the modification of their environment which, IMHO, determines them entirely.

'good will of restrictions'? What on earth do you mean here?

These restrictions on my freedom -- and therefore the anihilation of it --, call it these laws for your juridic language, are based upon good will : "we shouldnt let people do [insert wrong], lets forbid it". But the fact that you're forced to not to commit wrong things spoil the whole good will. Is it clearer ?

They're the same damn thing. Ever heard the phrase 'anything not forbidden is permitted'? If you don't restrict people from killing, you are allowing them to kill.

Certainly not. It is not forbidden to eat with your feets in a restaurant, but it's not permitted either. Once again, you're thinking "by the law" -- a law says what is forbidden, and what is not forbidden is therefore authorized -- but on a moral level, things are much more complicated.

There's no way to prevent people from 'being evil' as a state of mind. What you can do is prevent them from committing 'evil' acts on others. Assumign they don't actually hurt anyone else, their state of mind is their own concern and nobody else's (unless of course they wish it to be).

Certainly, but I wasnt talking about evil state of mind, of which I dont care. I was talking about acts as well, which are dicted by moral considerations.

My answer was not that the 'evilness' is "just there". I was saying that the 'evilness' was not inherent; they wouldn't become evil in all cases, but the fact is that in this particular instance, they do.

i.e. Person A becomes evil. Persons B-Z do not. There was nothing in particular which made it inevitable that A would become evil and none of the others would; it could just as easily have been any of the others, assuming they were raised in the same environment. Do you get what I'm saying now?

Yes, and it doesnt change the point. Unless if you say that some evilness have no cause and exist in themselves.

[GeneralTacticus]

Yes, this is the very foundation of liberty.

Then why do you think that others should have the right to take it away?

If they exercise it yes, it would be a violation of my liberty.

Then why do you think they should be allowed to? Is part of liberty being permitted to violate someone else's liberty?

But if they're not forbidden, either someone kill someone else, depriving him of his life and of his liberty, and depriving myself of my liberty, by consequence ; either no one kills anyone and my liberty is not restarined.

To sum up, if "they exercise their right" (and note that once again you're talking by the law while I talk morally), they deprive me of this liberty. But they can be not forbidden to and still freely "exercise they right to not kill anyone", thus leaving my liberty intact.

You're making no sense here. What you seem to be saying is that they have the rgiht to deprive you of your liberty, and yet it would violate theirs to prevent them from doing so.

That isnt what I've said : I said they will vanish by education, meaning by the modification of their environment which, IMHO, determines them entirely.

Do you believe genetics plays no part in people's development? It plays a prt in detemrining how the brain is structured, which in turn helps to determine how you develop. It isn't the sole factor, by any means, or the most important, but it's there, and no amount of education will make it go away.

These restrictions on my freedom -- and therefore the anihilation of it --, call it these laws for your juridic language, are based upon good will : "we shouldnt let people do [insert wrong], lets forbid it". But the fact that you're forced to not to commit wrong things spoil the whole good will. Is it clearer ?

Goodwill of who, precisely?

Certainly not. It is not forbidden to eat with your feets in a restaurant, but it's not permitted either. Once again, you're thinking "by the law" -- a law says what is forbidden, and what is not forbidden is therefore authorized -- but on a moral level, things are much more complicated.

What's to prevent you from eating with your feet in a restaurant?

Certainly, but I wasnt talking about evil state of mind, of which I dont care. I was talking about acts as well, which are dicted by moral considerations.

You wna tto prevent people from committing evil acts by educating them about how bad that is and that they shouldn't do it, which is all well and good. But education doesn't always work, and thus there needs to be a way of preventing those who want to commit evil acts from doing so, or at elast from doing so repeatedly. If there was no punishment for doing so, a serial killer could just carry on killing until he died, even if people knew about him (unless, of course, they exercised their right to kill him).

Yes, and it doesnt change the point. Unless if you say that some evilness have no cause and exist in themselves.

Do you think that if you take a hundred different children and raise them in the same environment, they will all tur out the same? They won't. Every person devleops differently, and not always in a positive direction.

[Pandemoniak]

Originally posted by GeneralTacticus


Then why do you think that others should have the right to take it away?
...
Then why do you think they should be allowed to? Is part of liberty being permitted to violate someone else's liberty?

Try to understand that : if people are not forbidden to do something, they wont necessarly do it. On the other hand, if people are forbidden to do some things, then, their liberty will be anihilated. The fact that people are forbiddent o kill is a restriction of their liberty, therefore a destruction of my liberty as well, since my own liberty depends on others liberty.
And once again, stop being blind and consider it is allowing : it is about non forbidding

You're making no sense here. What you seem to be saying is that they have the rgiht to deprive you of your liberty, and yet it would violate theirs to prevent them from doing so.
It would violate their liberty to forbid them to do so.


Do you believe genetics plays no part in people's development? It plays a prt in detemrining how the brain is structured, which in turn helps to determine how you develop. It isn't the sole factor, by any means, or the most important, but it's there, and no amount of education will make it go away.

Here we are at the big far rightist topic : genetics... Genetics determines physical things (structure of proteines, organs, etc...), not moral things. No one is genetically evil, despite all the nazi propaganda says.


Goodwill of who, precisely?

Goodwill of thr lawmakers is spoiled by the fact that they forbid things instead of inspiring people to freely choose the good things.


What's to prevent you from eating with your feet in a restaurant?

Respect of other people that could be bothered by someone eating with his feet; no laws.

You wna tto prevent people from committing evil acts by educating them about how bad that is and that they shouldn't do it, which is all well and good. But education doesn't always work, and thus there needs to be a way of preventing those who want to commit evil acts from doing so, or at elast from doing so repeatedly. If there was no punishment for doing so, a serial killer could just carry on killing until he died, even if people knew about him (unless, of course, they exercised their right to kill him).

What you pretend to be your ideal of "prevention" ( a way to prevent those...) is actually repression (punishment). And that whole thing of repression, of educating people not by free rocognition of good and evil but by forcing them spoil completely the good will to "prevent people from commiting evil acts".
while education may not always be efficient (not because of the nature of the things it is applied to, but because the education is not intelligently engineered enough.

Do you think that if you take a hundred different children and raise them in the same environment, they will all tur out the same? They won't. Every person devleops differently, and not always in a positive direction.

Simply because you CANT have the exact same environment.

[GeneralTacticus]

Try to understand that : if people are not forbidden to do something, they wont necessarly do it.

Oh, I understand that perfectly. I'm not concerned about whether I'm going to do soemthing wrong if there are no laws, I'm concerned about whether other people are.

On the other hand, if people are forbidden to do some things, then, their liberty will be anihilated. The fact that people are forbiddent o kill is a restriction of their liberty, therefore a destruction of my liberty as well,

You have presented nothing whatsoever to support your claim that liberty is a single whole that cannot be divided accept except endless repetition. You'll have to do better than that.

since my own liberty depends on others liberty.

Why?

And once again, stop being blind and consider it is allowing : it is about non forbidding

They're the same damn thing. If you don't forbid someone from doing something (assuming that you can), and they do it, then you've allowed them to do it.

It would violate their liberty to forbid them to do so.

And it wouldn't violate yours to let them do so?

Here we are at the big far rightist topic : genetics... Genetics determines physical things (structure of proteines, organs, etc...), not moral things.

Given that morals are just thought constructs, which exist only because we believe in them, and our thoughts exist only because of our brains, and our brains are physical things, genetics do ahve some influence on how we think. There's no gene to make you think a particular way, but as teh genes set the parameters for how our brains develop (everything else is random chance and environment) they do have some influence on how we think.

No one is genetically evil, despite all the nazi propaganda says.

Of course not, however, someone can be just 'evil', due to the way they devleop, and genes do play a aprt in how we develop.

btw, you have yet to actually explain how education is going to get everybody to do what is rgiht of their own free will. It onyl works if people acccept it, and not everybody does.

Goodwill of thr lawmakers is spoiled by the fact that they forbid things instead of inspiring people to freely choose the good things.

And how exactly are they supposed to 'inspire' peple to do the right thing? You can't, because it's always up to the individual in question, and they may or may not choose to do what you consider to be the right thing.

Respect of other people that could be bothered by someone eating with his feet; no laws.

If you ate with your feet in a restaurant, othe rpeople might be annoyed and ask to have you removed, but that:

a) Doesn't have any relevance to murder, given that even fi you evict someone after they kill (which leads on to b), the victim is still dead, and:

b) To prevent them in any way would be a violation of their liberty, no?

What you pretend to be your ideal of "prevention" ( a way to prevent those...) is actually repression (punishment).

If you think punishing people who do wrong is repression, then isn't any negative consequence for doing somehting repression? After all, you're claiming that people won't do the wrong thing because othe rpeople won't like them... isn't that a punishment too?

And that whole thing of repression, of educating people not by free rocognition of good and evil but by forcing them spoil completely the good will to "prevent people from commiting evil acts".

Please rid yourself of the delusion that oen cannot combine educaiton about right and wrong with punishment of those who still do the wrong thing. that's all it is, a delusion. It is entirely possible to do both.

while education may not always be efficient (not because of the nature of the things it is applied to, but because the education is not intelligently engineered enough.

Or because the subject does not wish to be educated. And, yes, getting people to do the right thing of their own free will is preferable to having to punish those who don't, both togethe ris better than only one.

Simply because you CANT have the exact same environment.

And because all people are not the same. Everybody is different,e verybody grows up differently everybody thinks differently.

[Pandemoniak]

This conversation simply feds me up, I'm tired to repeat all the same things over and over again for someone who cannot deny any point I made, and that has to be explained several times to understand the simplest implication of a theory.

[GeneralTacticus]

Thank you for your extremely apt description of yourself. I have repeatedly asked you to actually support your statemnts, and yet the only thing you do is continue repeating them.

"Liberty is indivisible."

"Why? It's perfectly possible to take away part of somone's liberty but not all."

"Because it can't be divided."

"Why can't it be divided?"

"Because you can't divide it."

"Why can't it be divided?"

"Because it can't."

etc.

Can you come up with a better justification of "Liberty is indivisible" than "I say so, and so does Bakunin"?

[Jamski]

I'm going crazy reading this. Liberty _is_ indivisible. Either one is free, or one is not. One cannot be "slightly free". Is that good enough ?

-Jam