The Social Contract?

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by David Floyd
That assumes that it is OK for people to steal in certain situations. I certainly don't grant that point.

So what's a fair punishment for a mother stealing bread for her babies?

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Kidicious


Maybe you don't benefit from the armed services, but you do benefit from society.

You don't say!

Tell me, will the sun come up tomorrow?

[Kidlicious]

I didn't say people benefited or used the military nye.

[notyoueither]

Maybe we agree on this, kid, and I was just cracking wise.

[Kidlicious]

Ok, I get your point.

[Whoha]

Originally posted by General Ludd
If you don't spend money on social spending, what the hell else are you going to spend it on?


Oh yeah, more bombs. yay.

paying off debt.

[Ben Kenobi]

My choice is to continue to pay into the system, to avoid going to prison, with the caveat that if I make a decision with a gun pointed at me, it isn't really an un-coerced decisioin.

Fair enough. Now, you want to change social security, how are you going to acheive your goals, and also prevent us from having grandparents begging on the streets or eating catfood?

At the same time, is it fair to ask of us a greater burden than you are willing to put in yourself?

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Blake
The thing is, all the old debts can be just written off anyway. Like say the global economy gets a bit poopy and then collapses. So a new money standard is created [probably backed to make people value it], all old money is worthless.
All the accumulated "wealth" is still around, the fences, factories, skyscrapers dont disappear because all savings, debts and investments have been written off. It's just a matter of reallocating resources to people under the new system. How that works really depends who has power after the revolution.

For example lets say the Goverments retain power somehow and sieze all assets, issuing new currency, running a social credit style economy. Just like that, all the national debts are gone. Theres no debt for the children to pay, and they get to enjoy all the infrastructure.

The thing is, those who currentely have the money, that is the tiny %age of the population who control a large %age of the wealth, are going to fiercely resist a "wipe the slate clean scenario", so the only way it can happen is everyone loses faith in the old money, thus stripping the very wealthy of their power. (but theres really nothing stopping them from re-accumulating power under the new system)

So we could keep up our payments to old retired people by destroying the economy (notice I didn't say capital) and in the end taking the devalued capital mostly from... old people! After all they are by far the most afflluent segment of the population (in the U.S. at least). Good idea, and the only cost is the complete paralysis of the economy as it is destroyed, reallocated and then builds itself up from scratch. It should be as good as new within a generation, maybe sooner.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara

Serious tort reform, i.e., abolishing American's access to tort. The only people who want serious tort reform are the companies who make defective products and doctors who hurt their patients.

I'm for serious tort reform (though not as serious as you define it above) and belong to neither group. We could cut medical costs by 10-25% simply by reforming the tort system, and that is only one aspect of the economy that might benefit from reform.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara

Philidelphia is not America. It is a ****hole. You make the classic conservative mistake of looking around you and assuming what you see is universal. Having lived all over the country, I can assure you that most of the country does not live like your urban hell.

This mistake is a common one, and not at all a conservative only phenomenon. In fact it is in large part responsible for the "media bias!" / "what media bias you right wing loon!" arguments. The vast majority of the national press is located in urban areas where the vast majority of people in the U.S. don't live, and hence the "obvious truths" vary depending on local circumstances.

[Tingkai]

David: You're part of a society and you gain benefits from being in that society so you have a moral responsibility to contribute to the welfare of that society. To do otherwise is to be a thief.

If you don't like it, your only choice is to live somewhere in complete isolation. Otherwise, you either accept your social responsibility or be proud of being a leech.

About public education, relative to today, the US was a poor country and so was the UK, Canada, etc. They were dirt poor compared to what we have now.

But anyways, you agree that public education played an important role in economic development. That means your financial success today is partially a result of social services. So why should you get a free ride?

Of course, American schools are going down the drain.
That's because people like you lobby governments to cut taxes and spending resulting in fewer resources for the school system. There massive cutbacks in US funding for books, physical structures, etc.

If public schools are eliminated, people will become less education. The poor would not be able to pay for a child's education. That would condemn the child to the poverty trap.

The middle class will have fewer choices, higher school fees, poor schooling for their kids.

In Hong Kong, parents can "choose" which school their child attends, but the good high schools either only except children with high entrance exam marks or charge lots of money.

Elementary schools do the same, so do kindergartens and pre-school.

The end result is an education based on passing entrance exams, starting when a kid is two years old!

Choice is illusionary.

You also assume that you can always take care of yourself without anyone's help. You've obviously never gone through a major economic depression.

Your value to an employer is meaningless if hundreds of businesses are closing.

Your savings can disappear if the stock market crashes or your bank closes.

No matter what, it takes time to find a new job. In your dream world where there are no social services, your savings could quickly dry up if you have to pay school fees, unexpected medical bills (you're unemployed so you won't have medical insurance). Maybe you're 50 and no one wants to hire someone that old.

You would quickly find yourself in the poorhouse and your tune would quickly change.


On healthcare, if an economically developed country has full public health then odds are that people there will have a longer life expectancy than the US.

Population diversity in the US and Canada are similar so that's not a reason.

The simple fact is that if you don't have access to medical care than you are more likely to die young.

And the US is not the be all and the end all of health care.

There's a thriving medical tourism trade in Asia. People from around the world, including the US, travel here to get special operations, particularly to Thailand.

It's a weird form of tourism, but it exists. Why? because it's cheap and excellent quality in places like Thailand.

As for medical training, the quality of training in many countries is on par with the US. That's beyond question.

[Berzerker]

chegitz -

Despite conservative predictions, SS will neither go under nor be abolished. No politician will ever let their constituants' grandparents be kicked out onto the streets.

Is that where they lived before Social Security?

While serfs had god-awful lives, even yoeman peasants didn't have lives we'd consider enjoyable. ****, just look at the plaines settler stories to see what a hell being a free land farmer was in the 19th Century.

That wasn't an answer. Were the peasants living under feudalism free to keep the fruits of their labor or not?

That's like saying frogs discredit fish. One has nothing to do with the other.

Bingo! But you used feudalism to dis-credit a ~modern nation without a welfare state.

That's captalism for you. The only difference is that today you have a choice of masters and the master/salve relationship is masked with a money payment. You still don't own the fruits of your labor.

Not as long as y'all are taxing us to pay for your welfare state. But this "choice" is rather important - it's the difference between slavery and freedom. This master is called nature, my need for resources is not my employer's fault...

Which is why most people think your morals are ****ed. Morality was the basis of the creation of the welfare state.

Might make right ("democracy") is not the basis of morality and I'm shocked to see you endorse legalised theft and act like your opponents are akin to feudal lords who stole "legally" too... Just shocked!

That was someone else, though I agree. If you don't wish to live by the rules of the group, you are free to leave the group (or try and change the rules).

Since y'all assume the moral authority to steal "legally" from others, why would you stop at some border?

It's not just silly, it's impossible. Human beings can only exist because of the obligations we have to one another.

But you're making up these "obligations" to satisfy your needs - that is not a contract, it's authoritarian.

In the case of liberarian arguments, however, I think it is a fair retort. They deny that society has any right whatsoever to regulate behavior that doesn't result in the harm of another. Membership in society, however, is voluntary, and if you don't like the fact that a society has the right to govern you, you are free to seperate from it. There is the little problem of all territory in the world being divided up by the various social groups, but you could live on the high seas. There's no government or taxation there. We'll even throw in free weather reports.

I'll remember that suggestion the next time you complain about Bush, maybe early in November?

Every group of humans that has ever existed has regulated the behavior of its members. That is how humans live and exist. Behavior that enhances the survival of the group is legalized. Behavior that hurts the group is outlawed. Libertarians would seek to do away with a fundimental aspect of our existence. We may as well try to outlaw sex or eating as trying to outlaw law itself.

Aren't you usually decrying how people have lived and using it as an excuse to "regulate" other people's lives?
Now past regulation justifies today's? Hey, people have always practiced slavery...

It isn't merely that they seek to end the social groups right to regulate their own behavior, they seek to end social groups right to regulate any behavior whatsoever. They seek the most fundimental transformation of humanity ever, the complete seperation of people from each other into atomized indivuals, completely devoid off any responsibility for one another, a situation that has existed nowhere at anytime except in the most disrupted of societies, and in such "societies," not even the rule of "an ye harm none" was obeyed.

Can we speak for ourselves? I just had a flashback to the GOP convention and Bush et al telling us what Kerry thinks... Now, define "social group". A "social group" to me has a right to regulate my behavior even if I'm not in the group - they can ban me from murdering them and do so morally. What they cannot do morally is steal my property and call it "legal" or a "social contract".

NYE -

That's why it is a social contract, not a family contract.

The phrase I hear most often when this social contract stuff comes up is, "Am I my brother's keeper?" Cain and Abel were actual brothers, not neighbors.

That's a good rule, but it's pretty silly to try to build a modern society on just that.

Not as immoral as building a society on the corpse of said rule.







AS -

are you and dave stupid? where are you pulling this stuff from? where did i say the welfare state enhances morality. i was just saying the existance of a welfare state is irrelevent to morality... it's comparing apples and oranges. welfare can, however, help some of the effects of moral decay (such as poverty) but thats about it. theyre two different things.

I'll quote you:

we had moral decay in the 20's before the welfare state and we had great moral strength in the 50's with the welfare state...

If you weren't making a point, was that a pointless claim? And if you say there is no link, why add that caveat about the welfare state helping a little? We should be more moral than the people of the 50s and according to you we are less. Explain why increasing the welfare state hasn't produced an even more moral society.

[Berzerker]

David: You're part of a society and you gain benefits from being in that society so you have a moral responsibility to contribute to the welfare of that society. To do otherwise is to be a thief.

But "society" doesn't "contribute" based on morality, but on a vote - "Give us Barabbis" comes to mind regarding the morality of "democracy". As this member of "society", you are also claiming the authority to decide how much property everyone get's to keep even though it isn't yours (and liberals complain about inheritance?). Calling that freedom or moral requires a hefty explanation and telling us we have some "social contract" to not only hand over our money, but our children's and so on doesn't cut it.

If you don't like it, your only choice is to live somewhere in complete isolation. Otherwise, you either accept your social responsibility or be proud of being a leech.

Did black people have a social responsibility to be slaves 150 years ago? But I sure will remember the "love it or leave it" mentality y'all have, just another thing in common with the warmongering right.

Calling people you've ripped off "leeches"

[Tingkai]

If you use something and you don't pay for it, then in this context, it is fair to call you a leech.

If you don't want to pay taxes, then you're trying to be a leech.

Government spending provides direct and indirect benefits to everyone.

A person's wealth is not created in a vacuum. Our ability to make money and own property is determined by the health of our community.

If you live in a chaotic place like Somalia, then your ability to make money is reduced.

In most places, your community helps create your wealth.

How do we decide how much each person should contribute to maintain their society. Democracy is the best answer.

Americans have a low tolerance for taxes and are willing to put up with a less ordered society.

Canadians and Europeans place a higher premium on maintain a stable society and have a higher tolerance for taxes.

To each their own.

[Al B. Sure!]

berzerker:

If you weren't making a point, was that a pointless claim? And if you say there is no link, why add that caveat about the welfare state helping a little? We should be more moral than the people of the 50s and according to you we are less. Explain why increasing the welfare state hasn't produced an even more moral society.

blah? i'm not understanding where you getting this stuff from...

first of all, YOU were the one that claimed that our moral decay was a result of the welfare system, claiming that the welfare state broke up the traditional family, etc. (which, as Imran pointed out, was already broken what with the industrial revolution and the end of family farming and what not).

To respond to YOUR claim that the welfare state causes moral decay, i pointed out that prior to the welfare state there was moral decay, meaning immorality occured when there was no welfare state... I proved the welfare state is not the main cause of immorality.

Then i noted that the 1950's saw great moral decency as well as the welfare state... unlike as you claimed, the introduction of a welfare state didn't cause moral breakdown. therefore, a welfare state does not cause immorality, at least not in the first two decades.

therefore, your claim that the welfare state is the cause of present immoralities is not true when considering pre-welfare and post-welfare (the first 20-30 years) america.

i did note though that welfare, while not aiding morality, can improve some of the effects of a breakdown of morality such as neglected children, abandoned grandparents, single motherdom, etc. Welfare is a system by which those people can be helped but anything that helps alleviate the negative effects of moral decay is not equivalent to curing moral decay.

as for what causes moral decay, my finger is pointed to what happened in the 1960's with the feminists, new ageists, hippies, druggies, etc. they ****ed it all up...

damn... i thought i had made my point clearly before with no room for interpretation yet both you and dave came up with crazy mess. i dont know what's going on.