Single Issue Voter?

[Jon Miller]

it seems to me that libertarians (and even more so anarchists) want to transport society back to the time before civilization

Jon Miller

[David Floyd]

Erm, did you even READ my last post, Jon?

[tandeetaylor]

Originally posted by loinburger
He can, and people have done so in the past,

Good. I'm glad you agree.

but man's natural inclination is to socialize with a group (clans, nations, whatever).

I agree. We're much better off when we can voluntarily trade with each other.

What rights?

I believe we already covered this. You never properly explained why I don't have a right to my life. If I don't need "society" in order to survive, what do I owe it?

Where are you getting your rights from?

Me. Alright? I'm getthing them from me.

Since you're deriving them from the "nature of man," and since man's natural inclination is to socialize

Right, but since man doesn't need society, what does he really owe it?

then your rights are derived from society

No. If I was the only person alive, then, maybe finally, I would have all my rights. I'm not saying I want to be the only person alive, just that, if I was, I would still have what I call rights. Of course, not what you call rights.

not from some sociopathic utopian ideal that doesn't actually exist.

You think I'm a sociopath? Why are you even attempting to discuss with me? Do you really think I'm crazy? I want to know.

Doesn't exist or couldn't exist? One doesn't exlcude the other.

[Jon Miller]

yes...

I said that you were not as bad as anarchists (putting an end to civilization on purpose), but I think the end result would be the same

in otherwords I think the end result of a libertarrian civilization would be collapse

Jon Miller

[tandeetaylor]

So you're claiming that people have never been able to effect change within a society?

No. I don't know where you got that. I was being sarcastic. I was saying that individuals don't mean anything in your worldview. Why should they try to change things if a lot of people tell him he's wrong? Doesn't that society which "gave" him his rights have a right to tell him he's wrong? If so, why should he even try to do anything at all? Obviously, if it was right, society would have made things that way.

If not, then why is my claim bull****? If you are claiming that individuals can't have an impact upon society, then you're a fool.

You're the one undervaluing the individual, not me. Get it straight buddy.

Those who remain permanently on welfare who are capable of working yet never attempt to find a job are not upholding their responsibilities.

And... What? What should happen to him?

What's truly stunning is that you came up with such a long-winded strawman in response to such a simple statement on my part. Try responding to what I post, rather than to the words that you put in my mouth.

I'm sorry, you seemed to be implying that you believe in the draft-- that we have a responsibility to fight whenever the govt comes a callin'. If I can't argue against that then don't bring it up.

How are you going to protect this orange grove from bandits who're after your oranges?

I could try to do this myself, or I could trade someone some of my oranges to do it.

What will you do when a blight strikes your orange grove, or when an early freeze destroys your crop?

I guess I'll die. Or, if I was smart, I've traded some of my oranges for less perishable foods that will last through the winter.

How will you supplement your diet (man does not live on oranges alone)?

Umm... I will trade my oranges for other food.

Your claim was that I can't produce anything by myself. I was simply refuting that. If there were no other people around, I won't just be growing oranges, will I?

What will you do if you ever fall sick or suffer some temporarily crippling injury?

See above winter solution.

For that matter, what will you do when you become too old and frail to tend the grove by yourself?

If no one values me, I'll probably die. My nearing death doesn't give me the right to get a gun and go shoot up the neighboring orange grove. What always seems to get lost is that the power of government is the power of force. If you live by force, you are an animal, and you don't belong in human society.

Absolute freedom is the same as absolute lawlessness, and personally, I'd rather have laws to keep all of the sociopaths in check.

I never called for "absolute" freedom. I believe in laws that restrict others from infringing on my rights.

"They exist"?

Yeah.

So you believe that there is some Universal Law called "property rights" that's just floating around the cosmos, just waiting for intelligent species to evolve and recognize them?

Yeah. And some of us have. When you gonna catch up?

That's cute.

Thanks. I try.

The problem is that in order to have such a concept as property you first need two or more individuals ("property" is a meaningless concept if there's only one person in the world), and then you need for these individuals to develop some way to communicate that "this piece of land is mine" and "this rock is yours." Before they even come up with the idea of "property rights" they first come up with social constructs such as language, i.e., without socialization there are no such things as "rights." They don't exist without some form of communication.

I really don't know where you've been, but, ummm, humans have had the ability to communicate for thousands and thousands of years.

[tandeetaylor]

The irony is that I wasn't whining

Then why add "due to.... blah blah blah."

(if you really believe that the job market isn't crappy then you're a fool or worse)

Well, my husband has no special skills or training, and he has a job, and could get others if it wasn't for his immigration status. I see Help Wanted signs all the time.

while you've been whining throughout this entire thread

When does complaining about legitimate violation of rights become whining? You haven't proved to me that I don't have the rights which I articulated before... all those whiny Tianamen Square bastards....

("Oh boo hoo, the mean old government won't let me behave like a greedy child, life is so unfair").

Do you think I'm a greedy child? Really? Damn. Loinburger thinks I'm acting like a greedy child. What the **** am I going to do now?!

Greed and selfishness are by no means "moral," nor is behaving in such an insultingly childish manner as you have been.

Why isn't selfishness moral? Can you please explain?

Or do you have a natural right to insult those who disagree with you?

Yes. Why not? It's called free speech.

The owners and moderators of this board have seen fit to allow me to use their forum and haven't decided to restrict me for my comments. You are equally free to stop reading and responding to them.

[loinburger]

Originally posted by David Floyd
So, then, in the absence of society, your assertion is that man has no rights at all? Further, you seem to be implying that one's basic rights can differ, based upon the subjective whim of the leaders of whichever society he happens to be in. Correct? Just to clarify your position, of course...

Yes, without society there are no rights, but here "society" consists of the government (or lack thereof) as well as all of the social constructs with which we live (such as logic, language, and reason). Rights are derived more from reason (which is a function of both logic and language) moreso than they are derived from the government, since reason (and its parts) supercedes the government. So, in the absence of government, it is still possible to have rights. However, in the absence of all social constructs (logic, language, reason), rights cannot exist.

OK, now you're being fairly unclear. I would take the same position - that one should attempt to rectify injustice, and that one must be able to function within society and uphold his responsibilities towards society. Trouble is, I think we would define "function" and "responsibilities" differently. I would define one's function and responsibilities to simply be not to infringe upon the rights of others. Can you clarify your definition for us?

I would define one's responsibilities to be 1. not to infringe upon the rights of others, and 2. to make reasonable attempts to provide opportunity for those who would otherwise lack any kind of opportunity. I consider it grossly unfair that some people are denied any kind of opportunity to excel due to misfortune (born to a poor family and can't afford a private education, economy takes a wrong turn and gets laid off, whatever) and believe that it is the duty of a just nation to attempt to provide "freedom of opportunity" for its citizens, but I also believe that if somebody can work but refuses to work that they should not expect to eat (hence "freedom of opportunity," not "egalitarianism"). Those who have been given the opportunity to excel (either through government intervention or through good fortune) and who have excelled (i.e. those who are earning money) have the responsibility to give back to the society so that others can also get a chance. Life shouldn't be a hit-or-miss deal that's decided by the luck of the draw.

This brings up the obvious counter-argument that slavery could be said to function to the benefit of society. Granted, slavery is a bit of a strawman (and there are numerous other examples I could bring up), but the point is, where would you draw the line? Who defines what is necessary for society, or what is beneficial?

Reason itself usually defines the line. F'rinstance, slavery was an efficient economic system, but as time went by it became clear that it was morally repugnant due to the fact that there really wasn't a substantive difference between those who were slaves and those who were free -- it was easy to claim that the slaves were inherently inferior when they were left without any kind of education, but the education of some slaves dispelled that myth. It was inconsistent (and therefore unreasonable) to keep slaves when it was shown that slaves were not inherently inferior.

The welfare system is similar. Welfare was unnecessary when those who were unemployed were just considered to be lazy (or were immigrants and not worth worrying about anyway), but when the Depression hit it became clear that it's entirely possible for somebody to become unemployed through no fault of their own. Since it wasn't fair that somebody should starve through no fault of their own ("fair" in this case meaning "being in accordance with relative merit or significance", i.e. it was unfair because it was undeserved) the welfare system was ostensibly introduced to correct this unfairness. The problem is that it is also unfair that somebody should be made to pay extra taxes to fund the welfare system when they see no personal benefit to the system (they're not going to get laid off, or possibly they're too proud to receive welfare if they were laid off, whatever) -- however, these taxes do provide an indirect personal benefit to those who pay them (if welfare succeeds in getting people back into the workforce more quickly then the entire economy benefits, and if welfare allows consumer demand to remain high then the entire economy benefits) which helps to significantly reduce the "unfairness" of the situation to those who pay the taxes, and the utilitarianism of the situation tends to benefit those who are flat broke over those who are still employed, which is why I favor an intelligently run welfare system over no welfare system -- it's more fair (thus it's more just/moral), and it's also more utilitarian.

Go ahead and [define your position], and then we can go from there.

Hopefully the paragraphs above will do a better job of the situation. (There's no need to clarify the hermit paragraph, that was pretty much just a response to tandeetaylor's sociopathic invective).

Now this isn't true at all. Without a society, one can certainly produce goods, and one can even produce services to sell or trade to others. The point of a society (well, one of the points, the main point being the protection of rights) is to maximize potential wealth, based on the argument that the total is greater than the sum of its parts. 10 people working independently will tend to be less productive than 10 people working together, basically.

So in that way, one is already deriving all the benefit they are entitled to. Entering into a society and making voluntary agreements to work with others in order to maximize wealth does not mean that you are obligated to some other ill-defined, arbitrary, and subjective "responsibilities", in order to give others extra benefits.

I'll leave "ill-defined" alone, since hopefully I've done a better job of defining responsibilities above.

As for "arbitrary" and "subjective," that's not the case with rights or responsibilities. Both are defined almost entirely by reason (logic and language), and reason is actually quite non-arbitrary and also quite objective (since logic is extremely objective, language is quite objective barring a few ambiguities, and reason adds very little subjectivity to the blend). If somebody doesn't give me a reasonable justification for their concept of rights/responsibilities ("I have a right to drinkn all of your beer, because I say so"), then I tell them to sod off.

[tandeetaylor]

Originally posted by loinburger
Rights are derived more from reason (which is a function of both logic and language) moreso than they are derived from the government, since reason (and its parts) supercedes the government.

Woo hoo!

I would define one's responsibilities to be 1. not to infringe upon the rights of others

Woo hoo!

2. to make reasonable attempts to provide opportunity for those who would otherwise lack any kind of opportunity.

Aww.... you were on such a role....

I agree that that's a good thing to do, I just disagree that I should be forced to do if I can't or don't want to.

I consider it grossly unfair that some people are denied any kind of opportunity to excel due to misfortune (born to a poor family and can't afford a private education, economy takes a wrong turn and gets laid off, whatever)

Then maybe you'd like to send me a check? OK, my address is....

Those who have been given the opportunity to excel (either through government intervention or through good fortune)

But harder work never. Never never...

and who have excelled (i.e. those who are earning money) have the responsibility to give back to the society so that others can also get a chance.

What if you did it all by yourself? All by your lonesome? What if you never took anything that wasn't voluntarily given to you? What if society treated you like ****, and you had a horrible family that kicked you out when you were 16 and you had to work every day of college? Who do owe? Tell me, who do you owe?

Life shouldn't be a hit-or-miss deal that's decided by the luck of the draw.

Yes, it's all based on luck. Everything is based on luck. This is what the inadequate man tells himself for comfort.

It was inconsistent (and therefore unreasonable) to keep slaves when it was shown that slaves were not inherently inferior.

Not before? Jefferson shouldn't have freed his slaves because it hadn't been "shown" yet?

The problem is that it is also unfair that somebody should be made to pay extra taxes to fund the welfare system when they see no personal benefit to the system

I'm glad we agree! Why are we still arguing? Oh, yes, it's because you forget this when you're talking about everything else.

[loinburger]

Originally posted by tandeetaylor
I believe we already covered this. You never properly explained why I don't have a right to my life. If I don't need "society" in order to survive, what do I owe it?

The concept of "rights" doesn't exist independently of human language, so without having the social construct of language you wouldn't have any rights (since they wouldn't exist).

Me. Alright? I'm getthing them from me.

Neat. So can I make up some rights too? "I have a right to all of the beer I can drink." Woo-hoo, I'm off to the bar!

Right, but since man doesn't need society, what does he really owe it?

"Doesn't need" isn't the same as "Isn't benefitting from."

No. If I was the only person alive, then, maybe finally, I would have all my rights. I'm not saying I want to be the only person alive, just that, if I was, I would still have what I call rights. Of course, not what you call rights.

Sure, you could make up all of the rights you wanted then, and nobody would be around to gainsay you.

You think I'm a sociopath? Why are you even attempting to discuss with me? Do you really think I'm crazy? I want to know.

Sociopaths aren't necessarily crazy. They're just extremely anti-social, like people who imply that they'd be better off without society.

Doesn't exist or couldn't exist? One doesn't exlcude the other.

Why does it matter? If something doesn't exist, then it's not a good basis on which to ground your principles. Snoggo the Wonder Rainbow could exist, but that doesn't mean that I'm going to say "Snoggo has given me the right to property."

I was saying that individuals don't mean anything in your worldview.

Oh, you were putting words in my mouth again. Is "making **** up" your usual debating tactic, or do you only use it when discussing welfare?

You're the one undervaluing the individual, not me. Get it straight buddy.

You're the sociopath, so I guess that's all settled...

And... What? What should happen to him?

He should get a job, or not expect to eat.

I'm sorry, you seemed to be implying that you believe in the draft-- that we have a responsibility to fight whenever the govt comes a callin'.

Try to put some more words in my mouth, why dontcha. Make up some more ****, since that's clearly the only way you know how to debate.

Your claim was that I can't produce anything by myself. I was simply refuting that. If there were no other people around, I won't just be growing oranges, will I?

Ah yes, I'd forgotten that you'd automatically assume that you were living in your sociopathic utopia, as opposed to an anarchy in which your orange grove would be up for grabs since one individual would have no means of protecting it against a group of adversaries.

Yeah. And some of us have. When you gonna catch up?

I really don't know where you've been, but, ummm, humans have had the ability to communicate for thousands and thousands of years.

Okay, so first you say that "there is some Universal Law called 'property rights' that's just floating around the cosmos," then you imply that of course the concept of property exists since humans can communicate (completely missing my point in the process). Are you trying to be obtuse, or does it come naturally?

Then why add "due to.... blah blah blah."

It's called an "explanation." Look it up, you can learn all sorts of things in the dictionary.

Well, my husband has no special skills or training, and he has a job, and could get others if it wasn't for his immigration status. I see Help Wanted signs all the time.

Great, so the fact that there are unskilled labor jobs available means that the economy is fantastic? You really are a fool.

When does complaining about legitimate violation of rights become whining? You haven't proved to me that I don't have the rights which I articulated before... all those whiny Tianamen Square bastards....

It's truly pathetic that you think that "I say that I have rights" is a sound justification for your argument. What's even worse is that you're so hung up on throwing around childish ad hominems that you completely missed my point about rights being language dependent.

Do you think I'm a greedy child? Really? Damn. Loinburger thinks I'm acting like a greedy child. What the **** am I going to do now?!

You could try participating in a reasonable discussion here, for starters. All you've done so far is make unsubstantiated claims, throw around insults, and put words in other people's mouths.

Why isn't selfishness moral? Can you please explain?

Try looking up "benevolent" in a dictionary. In mine it says

1. Characterized by or suggestive of doing good.
2. Of, concerned with, or organized for the benefit of charity.

"Charity" (a non-selfish task) is "good," ergo "lack of charity" (selfishness) is "bad." Also try "philanthropy" (attempting to increase the well-being of humankind) and its antonym "misanthropy" (hatred of humankind).

Now, could you please explain how selfishness is moral?

Yes. Why not? It's called free speech.

The owners and moderators of this board have seen fit to allow me to use their forum and haven't decided to restrict me for my comments. You are equally free to stop reading and responding to them.

Ah, so since you're allowed to do something, it therefore makes it right for you to do something. The irony is that you claimed to have a superior moral system and disparaged my own, yet you apparently see nothing wrong with selfishness or complete disregard for others. A winner indeed.

[loinburger]

Originally posted by tandeetaylor
Aww.... you were on such a role....

I agree that that's a good thing to do, I just disagree that I should be forced to do if I can't or don't want to.

If you can't then I'll agree that you shouldn't have to. If you don't want to then I don't see why you should be excepted just because you're more selfish than everybody else.

But harder work never. Never never...

People excel through hard work. Opportunities to excel are generally beyond the control of individuals, though.

What if you did it all by yourself? All by your lonesome? What if you never took anything that wasn't voluntarily given to you? What if society treated you like ****, and you had a horrible family that kicked you out when you were 16 and you had to work every day of college? Who do owe? Tell me, who do you owe?

You sound like Speer now.

Yes, it's all based on luck. Everything is based on luck. This is what the inadequate man tells himself for comfort.

Now you're just being obnoxious, though that's no big surprise given your behavior thus far. Opportunities arise primarily through luck, excellence results from individual merit. What's with you and putting words in people's mouths? Is it a habit, or are you doing it intentionally?

Not before? Jefferson shouldn't have freed his slaves because it hadn't been "shown" yet?

Ah, of course everybody else obviously has perfect knowledge, since your own knowledge is also perfect...

I'm glad we agree! Why are we still arguing? Oh, yes, it's because you forget this when you're talking about everything else.

At least you didn't put words in my mouth this time -- instead you just read what you wanted to hear and ignored the rest. It's a start, a suppose -- you might yet become competent enough to participate in a reasonable discussion!

[Ramo]

Hey, I though this is about bashing libertarians. Why are us anarchists being dragged into this?

Are there issues that you feel are SO important that you would ignore all other issues when determening who gets your vote?

Yep. For instance, if a candidate had a decent shot of winning an election, and supported decriminalizing drugs, I would vote for him without doubt.

So what you are, in effect, saying is that you support one sort of coercion, but oppose other sorts of coercion. You seem to be drawing a distinction as to degree of coercion, and also making unconscious judgements as to which types of coercion are worse than others (in this example, stamping out dissent is worse than taking your money). But I don't think this is really intellectually honest. Coercion IS coercion. I don't see how it is reasonable to support one form of coercion on the one hand, while categorically rejecting another form on the other hand.

Don't you support the police and prisons? Those are incredibly coercive state institutions even in the best circumstances. Not to say that I don't support these institutions [properly run], but no one can possibly argue that locking a person up, controlling where he goes, what he eats, who he interacts with, or even if he dies is not coercive.

Also, don't you support immigration restrictions? Don't you support the sales tax? These are certainly coercive as well.

And what of coercion from organizations that don't call themselves governments?

I said that you were not as bad as anarchists (putting an end to civilization on purpose),

Care to justify that? There's a tiny minority of anarchists who don't like civilization, but that's about it.

[David Floyd]

Loinburger,

Yes, without society there are no rights, but here "society" consists of the government (or lack thereof) as well as all of the social constructs with which we live (such as logic, language, and reason).

Logic, language, and reason all exist outside of society. In fact, those are three of the things that make society possibility, so they in fact MUST exist outside of society.

Unless you are trying to say that there was NEVER a "state of nature" - and I don't agree that a state of nature existed for any considerable amount of time, by the way - and that man was living in a society since man, well, WAS, then what I am getting from you is that man does not need government or society in order to understand and exercise rights.

If you ARE defining "society" as every second of man's existence, then I think we need to find another word to describe the situation in which a group of people come together in a group for protection of rights, defense, wealth accumulation, etc.

Rights are derived more from reason (which is a function of both logic and language) moreso than they are derived from the government, since reason (and its parts) supercedes the government.

Well, I would say that the understanding of rights is derived from reason, but other than that, I'd agree.

So, in the absence of government, it is still possible to have rights. However, in the absence of all social constructs (logic, language, reason), rights cannot exist.

Well, I would say that it is quite difficult - almost impossible - to exercise one's rights without logic, language, or reason. I wouldn't say that the rights aren't there. Once one acquired language, for example, one would be able to exercise their right to speak. But the right didn't pop out of thin air when one learned language, but rather the ability became apparent.

However, you're missing another point. Even in the absence of logic, language, and reason, one can still walk around in the forest. That is, one can still exercise their right to liberty, even if they don't understand the concept.

I would define one's responsibilities to be 1. not to infringe upon the rights of others,

Excellent.

and 2. to make reasonable attempts to provide opportunity for those who would otherwise lack any kind of opportunity. I consider it grossly unfair that some people are denied any kind of opportunity to excel due to misfortune (born to a poor family and can't afford a private education, economy takes a wrong turn and gets laid off, whatever) and believe that it is the duty of a just nation to attempt to provide "freedom of opportunity" for its citizens,

I can envision a few cases in which people are unable to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. I cannot envision a case where one has no options open to them in order to survive (unless this situation came about as a result of THEIR incompetence) - there are always families, churches, and charities available to ensure one doesn't starve to death. It won't be a comfortable existence, but, as you (and others) like to argue, society is certainly better than lack of society.

but I also believe that if somebody can work but refuses to work that they should not expect to eat (hence "freedom of opportunity," not "egalitarianism").

But you see, this situation makes up the vast majority of welfare benefits - people unwilling to work or help themselves in anyway, or subject themselves to asking or begging for help from others.

Those who have been given the opportunity to excel (either through government intervention or through good fortune) and who have excelled (i.e. those who are earning money)

Excuse me. People have the opportunity to excel when the form a society, based upon the argument that 10 people together can produce more wealth than 10 people separately. A big government does not make this true - in fact, a big government tends to hamper this. The only government intervention that is necessary to ensure people have an "opportunity to excel" is intervention against those who violate the rights of others - rights you have already admitted exist outside of government and organized society.

have the responsibility to give back to the society so that others can also get a chance. Life shouldn't be a hit-or-miss deal that's decided by the luck of the draw.

That has nothing to do with reality, at least not in the type of system I espouse.

But in any case, there is no "right to excel". That idea is preposterous. One can only excel if one works hard and acts appropriately within society (which I define as not violating other people's rights). There are situations where hard work may not lead to "excellence", but rather "only" survival - but then again, survival itself is quite excellent when compared to death, which is a very possible result if one tries to live outside of society.

Reason itself usually defines the line.

Reason? Well, that's a very interesting answer. I don't think it's a complete answer, but it still brings up an interesting point. If reason defines rights, then you must admit that everyone has the same rights, regardless of the society they live in - the concept of reason doesn't exist solely within a particular society, but rather is a universal concept.

If you admit that, then what you are really saying is that rights are universal. If this is the case, then it simply becomes a matter of defining what these universal rights, possessed by everyone, are. I think the most reasonable definition is the right to life, liberty, and property (which is really just the fruits of one's labor). These are the most core rights - what everything boils down to, ultimately.

So, to continue this, everyone possesses the universal right to life, liberty, and property regardless of what society they are in. It is also reasonable to say that they possess these rights regardless of the existence of ANY society, because again, reason exists outside of society, and if you can reason your way into rights IN a society, you can certainly do so OUTSIDE society.

Thus, society becomes irrelevant to the concept of rights, except insofar as society is able to prevent rights from being violated. If society is irrelevant to rights, then isn't it reasonable to say that rights are, indeed, natural?

F'rinstance, slavery was an efficient economic system, but as time went by it became clear that it was morally repugnant

Are you saying it was morally repugnant all along, or that it was only morally repugnant when people thought it was?

due to the fact that there really wasn't a substantive difference between those who were slaves and those who were free -- it was easy to claim that the slaves were inherently inferior when they were left without any kind of education, but the education of some slaves dispelled that myth. It was inconsistent (and therefore unreasonable) to keep slaves when it was shown that slaves were not inherently inferior.

Actually not quite right. It was inconsistent to keep slaves when it was shown that slaves were human. By your own argument, everyone possesses the same universal rights, regardless of what society says about it. You can argue the definition of inferior all day long, and a case can be made that I am "inferior" to a person with an IQ of 200 or an Olympic athlete, depending on how you are defining the term. You CAN'T, however, argue that I am not human just because I am inferior in certain ways.

The welfare system is similar. Welfare was unnecessary when those who were unemployed were just considered to be lazy (or were immigrants and not worth worrying about anyway), but when the Depression hit it became clear that it's entirely possible for somebody to become unemployed through no fault of their own.

Two points. Poverty has nothing to do with slavery in that, on its own, poverty is not a violation of anyone's rights. Secondly, the Depression came about because of government intervention in the economy (whether you want to blame interest rates, tariffs, monetary policy, fiscal policy, manufacturing/agricultural subsidies, immigration, or what have you, it boils down to government intervention). This is not something a Libertarian government would do, as it does not fit within the definition of the proper function of government - preventing the violation of rights. So, arguing that welfare was necessary because of the Depression is not really a good argument, because if things were run along Libertarian lines worldwide, I find it hard to imagine that the Depression as we know it would have happened.

Since it wasn't fair that somebody should starve through no fault of their own ("fair" in this case meaning "being in accordance with relative merit or significance", i.e. it was unfair because it was undeserved) the welfare system was ostensibly introduced to correct this unfairness.

But the ultimate source of that unfairness was the government itself, not some magical, out-of-thin-air Depression.

The problem is that it is also unfair that somebody should be made to pay extra taxes to fund the welfare system when they see no personal benefit to the system (they're not going to get laid off, or possibly they're too proud to receive welfare if they were laid off, whatever) -- however, these taxes do provide an indirect personal benefit to those who pay them (if welfare succeeds in getting people back into the workforce more quickly then the entire economy benefits, and if welfare allows consumer demand to remain high then the entire economy benefits) which helps to significantly reduce the "unfairness" of the situation to those who pay the taxes, and the utilitarianism of the situation tends to benefit those who are flat broke over those who are still employed, which is why I favor an intelligently run welfare system over no welfare system -- it's more fair (thus it's more just/moral), and it's also more utilitarian.

Wait a second. I thought we already established that slavery was wrong, regardless of its effect upon the economy. Now, the slaves may have been reaping an indirect benefit from the system (being in the United States rather than in Africa, especially in the time period we are discussing, is certainly a benefit), but that doesn't mean slavery was OK.

Same thing with wealth transfer programs. Sure, the person being taxed may reap an indirect benefit from them, but that doesn't make forced taxation a good thing.

And by the way, don't jump all over me for comparing slavery to welfare - you did it first

Hopefully the paragraphs above will do a better job of the situation.

Yes, thank you. I wasn't really confused with what you meant, as I knew intellectually the type of thing you supported, but you really weren't giving me much to respond to or disagree with.

As for "arbitrary" and "subjective," that's not the case with rights or responsibilities. Both are defined almost entirely by reason (logic and language), and reason is actually quite non-arbitrary and also quite objective (since logic is extremely objective, language is quite objective barring a few ambiguities, and reason adds very little subjectivity to the blend). If somebody doesn't give me a reasonable justification for their concept of rights/responsibilities ("I have a right to drinkn all of your beer, because I say so"), then I tell them to sod off.

Look, you ignored the substance of my paragraph in order to rebut my use of two words that I could have left out and made the same point anyway.

I'll repost what I actually said for everyone's benefit, with the unnecessary words removed:

"Now this isn't true at all. Without a society, one can certainly produce goods, and one can even produce services to sell or trade to others. The point of a society (well, one of the points, the main point being the protection of rights) is to maximize potential wealth, based on the argument that the total is greater than the sum of its parts. 10 people working independently will tend to be less productive than 10 people working together, basically.

So in that way, one is already deriving all the benefit they are entitled to. Entering into a society and making voluntary agreements to work with others in order to maximize wealth does not mean that you are obligated to some other "responsibilities", in order to give others extra benefits."

Better?

[David Floyd]

Don't you support the police and prisons? Those are incredibly coercive state institutions even in the best circumstances. Not to say that I don't support these institutions [properly run], but no one can possibly argue that locking a person up, controlling where he goes, what he eats, who he interacts with, or even if he dies is not coercive.

The point of government is to prevent one's rights from being violated. Once a person (we'll call him a "criminal") violates the rights of another person (whom we'll call a "victim"), then the government must exercise their power of defensive force (derived from their power to prevent the violation of rights) to prevent more rights from being violated. If this extends to putting a criminal in prison as a punishment, that is fine, because the criminal was not acting appropriately within society.

Also, don't you support immigration restrictions?

Um, no.

Don't you support the sales tax?

Upon reflection, no.

These are certainly coercive as well.

Agreed.

And what of coercion from organizations that don't call themselves governments?

You mean sorta like a business telling a worker that if that worker does not do what the business tells him to, then the worker will be fired? Yes, that's certainly coercive, but it would only be a bad thing if the person was forced to work for the company to begin with. He voluntarily contracted to perform a certain labor for a certain wage, and if he breaches his side of the contract, I fail to see why the other party would have to fulfill theirs.

[David Floyd]

I'll let tandee reply to loinburger's response to her points...otherwise I'd be up all night....

[Ramo]

The point of government is to prevent one's rights from being violated. Once a person (we'll call him a "criminal") violates the rights of another person (whom we'll call a "victim"), then the government must exercise their power of defensive force (derived from their power to prevent the violation of rights) to prevent more rights from being violated. If this extends to putting a criminal in prison as a punishment, that is fine, because the criminal was not acting appropriately within society.

I'm not arguing the merits of the police and prisons (which, again, I support). You mentioned that one can't support one kind of coercion and oppose another kind without being consistent... I don't see how it can be argued that the police and prisons aren't coercive.

Um, no.

My bad.

Don't you also support intellectual property laws? Clearly, they're coercive.

You mean sorta like a business telling a worker that if that worker does not do what the business tells him to, then the worker will be fired? Yes, that's certainly coercive, but it would only be a bad thing if the person was forced to work for the company to begin with. He voluntarily contracted to perform a certain labor for a certain wage, and if he breaches his side of the contract, I fail to see why the other party would have to fulfill theirs.

That's only true if you argue from the standpoint that the business has justification to do what it wants with what the government says it owns. Which is not substantially different if a government asserts it owns something (say, all the property in the country).