Communists, Don't Fear the Reaper....:D

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Originally posted by Agathon


But this is irrelevant to the justice of the law. If the law is something they would have agreed to anyway, what case would they have?

You need to show that there is some added value to a law that is enacted by consent over the same law enacted by the tyrant. It's the same law in both cases and has the same effects..

What's the moral difference?

Are you truly arguing the efficacy of decision made by a larger group verses that of an individual. It has been shown repeatedly that group decisions whilst harder to achieve offer a far better result than that of an individual. Refer to any team training to verify.

[Velociryx]

Was that a green light, Kid?

I'm making sure before I prove you wrong.

-=Vel=-

[Agathon]

That one is imposed upon them and one was freely chosen makes all the difference in the world.

But you've already conceded the opposite.

Is a just law:

(i) just because it is enacted democratically?

or

(ii) enacted by a democratically elected government because it is just?

You've already denied that a law is necessarily just because it is enacted by democratic means, so you denied (i).

That leaves (ii) which entails that the justice of a law is independent of the method of its enaction (if you denied this, you would be saying that democrats enact a law because it is enacted by democrats).

This means that a just law enacted by a tyrant is just as just as a just law enacted by a democracy.

So you can't object that tyranny is unjust in principle, only that tyrannies that enact unjust laws are unjust. Good tyrants are exempt from your wrath.

[Agathon]

More to the point, if a just tyrant refuses to bow to the will of the majority because their will is unjust, then he seems to have done the right thing.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Define just.

[Velociryx]

No such thing as a good tyrant.

Anyone who imposes his will on others and denies them any possible recourse other than his own death is morally wrong. Therefore unjust....EVEN IF some of his actions may be just.

Because it is wrapped in the veil of force, it matters not at all.

-=Vel=-

[Velociryx]

and *yawn* for the love of god, don't bring up the prison-guard example. You know better, I trust.



-=Vel=-

[Agathon]

Anyone who imposes his will on others and denies them any possible recourse other than his own death is morally wrong.

Really, what about an armed Frenchman who refuses to let Nazi officials into his town to see whether they have any Jews about? He is imposing his will on them, and they'll have to kill him to find the Jews. Is he morally wrong?

Therefore unjust....EVEN IF some of his actions may be just.

Why? Why can't all his laws be just? Even if he intends to do evil, and through his own stupidity ends up enacting just laws, what is the problem?

And you've already said that the question of whether a law is just is independent of whether a democracy enacts it, so now you appear to be contradicting yourself.

[Velociryx]

I knew it.

I knew you'd bring it down to the microcosm.

Damn I hate being right.

'k....let's get it straight.

We're talking about a Dictatorial Tyrant and his power over a whole societal group, NOT over a particular individual.

We're talking about one man, or a small elite, imposing his will...his view of "Fair" and "Justice" upon a larger societal group.

See the difference here between this and the one on one interaction? There IS a difference. Just as communism has proved not to be scalar in its nature, just as the laws of physics change at the quantum level, some things change at the macro level.

And such a tyrant, imposing his will on his subjects, decreeing by fiat what is fair and just, giving them no recourse but to kill him if they wish to effect change....this is what I object to.

If you don't have a particular problem with it...fantastic!

That was never a part of the debate.

However, the point is....if this is how you plan to structure your utopia, then it falls to you to sell me on it.

So...spin it. Sell me.

Why should I view this as a vast improvement over the system I already live under?

Got any snappy arguments close at hand, or would you like to go another eight or ten rounds with deviating from the core issue?

-=Vel=-

[chequita guevara]

/me belches in this threads general direction, and it's a nasty garlic one too.

[Velociryx]

I observe that Kid got real quiet, too....

Re-considering giving me the green light, Kiddero? Your call.

-=Vel=-

[Velociryx]

And yes...I did misspeak myself and allow you to take my words out of the context of the original discussion...so the fault is mine.

That should have been: Any leader (keeping the context tied to leadership of the government...ie, a tyrant, a dictator, as we have been discussing this whole time, rather than a frenchman with an arquebus).

[Agathon]

So you are now saying that any law enacted by a tyrant is necessarily unjust?

[aneeshm]

Originally posted by Kidicious

I'm using the word to mean use someones labor and not give them the full benefit of it. You caught me with this hypothetical example because the workers are getting paid more than they were before, but capitalism is an exploitive system. Preventing a capitalist system from being created is justified as long as it is fair to every individual. Those within the system owe those outside of the system nothing, so it's fair not to trade with them.

Maybe you want to ask these questions a different way now.

To me the purpose of the govt is to make sure that each individual is treated fairly. Justice. There are other purposes that may conflict with it, but it's the most important.

According to you , it is OK for those in they system not to trade with those outside because it sould be unjust if the system followed by those outside came to prevail . But what if those people who were in capitalist were very much in thy system , paying taxes to it , and contributing to the system itself ?

And is it justice if those same people who contributed to the system and actually helped further its interests are forced out of work or forced ( because of unemployment , which the state is supposed to prevent ) to work at lower wages ( the state pays less , remember ) ?

I'm guessing that you missed my previous post saying that the business pays ( comparatively ) hefty taxes and contributes to various local government programs . The workers also pay taxes .

[Ned]

Just a small comment here. One can see Kid's thinking running throughout socialist dogma: equality of results based on denial of freedom of contract and "progressive" taxation. Nothing is "fair" about socialism if "fair" is understood to mean to be getting equal value for what one gives up.