Single Issue Voter?

[DanS]

Laz: Did you look for part time jobs? Did you try piecing together a couple of these?

"Banks are not noted for extending credit facilities to people living on unemployment benefit"

Nowadays they are available to students, however. We have to recast your experience to present time, which is a little difficult.

"Keep the helpful suggestions coming..."

I think we can do without this attitude. You opened your situation to criticism when you told it. I'm just fleshing it out by exploring options that I have found helpful for myself in similar circumstances, except without recourse to unemployment.

[loinburger]

Originally posted by David Floyd
Well, without having read Godel's writings on the subject, I'm gonna have to disagree.
...
What we call "logic" simply seems to be our articulation for a natural condition, in the same way that the word "rights" is also an articulation of a natural condition.

I'll try to find Godel's proof somewhere online.

OK, I can probably agree with this, but language can be created by two people coming together and deciding that if one of them decides to piss in the river, they should cry out "Urdulagu" first so that the other person doesn't walk in on them.

Language is as simple or as complex as it needs to be. (Besides, I doubt that these people would have formed a language with a single word -- how are they going to come to their agreement without having a more complex form of communication available to them?)

Well, I think there's a substantive difference between a clan structure and founding a village. Sure, they're both societies, but in the context we are talking about, a village fits more within our understanding, I think. Ancient man would have formed clans, I imagine, primarily for protection, whereas it seems to me that one would found a village as not only a means of mutual protection but also as a means of mutual agriculture, production, whatever.

Ancient man hunted in groups -- that's how they were able to take out game much larger than themselves.

Sure, but having a concept of property is just as natural as having a concept of liberty. It doesn't matter if one can articulate it or not. Grog instinctively isn't going to want Lug to take his the shiny rock they both fancy any more than he's gonna want Lug to bash him over the head and tie him up in his cave.

I disagree that property rights are an instinct. In your example, Grog is behaving in a strictly utilitarian manner, not in a deontological manner -- he isn't taking the rock because Lug is going to kill him if he does so, and isn't honoring Lug's "right" to own the rock. He probably doesn't even recognize that Lug has in fact taken possession of the rock, at least not without Lug having some means to communicate that "Lug owns this rock" -- all he recognizes is that it is safer to not take the rock than to take the rock.

A couple of points. First of all, "worthwhile existence" is by definition arbitrary - the definition depends upon the society, the relative wealth of the members of the society, etc.

If the definition of a "worthwhile existence" is dependent upon society, then it isn't arbitrary. Arbitrary means "Based on or subject to individual judgment or preference," not "Based on society's judgment or preference."

But a person living hand-to-mouth isn't having any actual rights violated. They aren't being killed, no one is impeding their liberty, and they can own whatever property they can create or afford.

They're possibly being denied the opportunity to excel, and they would not be denied this in a state of nature. In a state of nature in which everybody is born with equivalent wealth (assuming that "wealth" is a meaningful term in a state of nature) then everybody has the same opportunity to improve their lot in life to the best of their abilities.

And remember, even without living their particular society's definition of "worthwhile existence" doesn't mean they'd be better off outside of society. Without society, they would still have their rights, of course, but anyone could come along and take them away and no one could or would do anything about it. That's what the government is for - protecting one's rights. Not providing a "worthwhile existence" - that's YOUR responsibility to YOURSELF

They very likely would be better off if there were no society to speak of. Everybody would start out on an equal footing, so everybody is given the same chance to forge a worthwhile existence for themselves. However, a genius born to crippling poverty who doesn't have access to student loans and/or public education has very little (if any) opportunity to improve his lot in life. Why would he be better off living in a society than outside of a society?

Ah, child labor, what a tricky issue.

I'd rather not get into it -- I didn't realize that we'd be in disagreement over it, I was intending it as an "Of course that sucks" example.

Your point seems to be that the wealthy shouldn't prey on the poor. I would agree, in the context that the wealthy shouldn't be allowed to violate the rights of the poor. Outside of that, as long as the contracts are voluntarily arrived at - and one can't voluntarily contract themselves into slavery, in my opinion - then there is no real problem.

A contract can be unfair even if it is voluntarily arrived at. Joe has an oil monopoly, and Bill needs access to this oil in order to run his widget manufacturing business. In this case, Bill has the option of being taken to the cleaners by Joe and seeing almost no reward to his hard work, or he has the option of shutting down his widget manufacturing business. That's not much of a decision at all.

Or, Bob owns the only factory in town, and he's paying starvation wages. Workers in the town have the option to move to another town (assuming that they have the funds necessary to relocate, otherwise this option is not available to them), work for starvation wages, or not work and starve. Again, that's not much of a decision at all.

Men can't be reduced to animals, because men are not animals.

And life certainly can be solely about survival. What do you think life was about before things like agriculture, medicine, etc.? Yep, primarily survival.

We're not living in times before agriculture, medicine, etc. Society has moved on. Even back before agriculture, medicine, etc., life was not about mere survival -- there was art, religion, etc. Animals live only to survive, and if humans live only to survive then they've been reduced to animals.

I'm gonna have to disagree. Reason is expressed and defined through language, yes. But we all once spoke the same language. In the case of English, a rough track of our language would be English-Germanic-IndoEuropean-EuroAsiatic-Nostratic-ProtoWorld. Now, that's going from memory without looking it up, and I might have gotten a couple wrong or left out a couple, but the point remains that many serious linguists believe (and I agree) that all languages go back to the same place.

Language has evolved though. There are concepts in English that could not be expressed in Protoworld, or even in Hebrew. Just as language has evolved, so too has reason evolved, since the two are inextricably linked.

In any case, the concept of reason is not something that is particular to one language - a concept that only a few people have defined correctly. Everyone has the ability to reason, and, using their language, can reason out the same rights as we can.

If somebody does not understand a concept because it has never made its way into their language, then that concept will have no bearing whatsoever upon their reasoning. F'rinstance, the ancient Greek term that loosely translates to "courage" is connoted to masculinity, so ancient Greeks did not have a word that would apply to courage displayed by a woman (unless this woman were performing some masculine task, like fighting in a war or whatever have you). They had no concept of courage as it applies to tasks besides warfare or sailing or whatever, so this concept would have no bearing on their reasoning as it would for us. So the ancient Greeks could reason just fine, but without access to the same concepts as us they would draw different conclusions on many matters.

Again, I disagree. Reason is already universal, and as such everyone doesn't need to speak the same language to arrive at the same reasoned conclusions. If that were the case, how could people who speak different languages independently discover the same thing, around the same time?

Many concepts exist in several languages, and it is possible to make discoveries by different paths of discovery (regardless of what happens in Civ ).

No, slavery was morally repugnant all along because Africans are just as human as Europeans, whether Europeans realized it or not.

Morals are a function of action as well as intent. Europeans who didn't realize that Africans were just as human as Europeans would be better classified as "ignorant" or possibly "stupid" than as "immoral," since they did not intend to cause harm to another human.

And, in a free market, if a business is being unfair, consumers have the ability to change these unfair practices.

Assuming that they have the opportunity to do so. It may take several years or even decades before somebody is able to break the back of the oil monopoly by discovering an alternate source of energy, and even then the consumers had better hope that the producers of the new energy source don't form a monopoly and fix energy prices with the oil monopoly.

Well, one point here. I would wager that much of that unfairness was propagated by the government. Ramo or chegitz might know more about that than I do, but I would imagine the source of much of the unfairness was within the government.

Irish/Italians Need Not Apply.

OK, this is what I was alluding to above when I said you used "substantial equivalence" differently. Initially, you used "substantial equivalence" to mean being able to function within society. You even used it that way in the first paragraph in the above quote.

But then, in the second paragraph, you used the term to mean being able to function THE SAME in society.

I don't think that I used the term differently between the first and second paragraphs. Do you mean that I used it differently in the third paragraph?

And I disagree. To use your term, a poor man and a rich man are "substantially equivalent" because they are both recognized as human and as such possess the same basic rights. They simply have different financial abilities.

"Substantive equivalence" means that two people are equivalent in one (or perhaps multiple) relevant factors. Obviously Johnny with the IQ of 250 and Billy with the IQ of 100 are unequal, since Johnny is a genius and Billy is a average. However, when determining how free they ought to be, they are still substantively equivalent since IQ is irrelevant to whether or not somebody is capable of functioning in society (within reason, somebody with an extremely low IQ might be a danger to themselves or others, but both Johnny and Billy do not fit into this category). So in terms of liberty, two people are substantively equivalent if they are both capable of functioning in society.

However, in the matter of wealth distribution, the relevant factor is wealth/income. Two people are substantively equivalent if they have the same amount of wealth/income -- if Johnny earns $20,000 per year and Billy does likewise, then they are substantively equivalent even though Johnny is a genius and Billy is average. However, if Johnny earns $200,000 per year and Billy earns $20,000, then they are no longer substantively equivalent, since Johnny has far more wealth/income (the relevant factor) than does Billy.

Also, "abilities" is not the appropriate term to use. Billy might be an absolute whiz at business as well as a hard worker while Johnny is incredibly lazy, but since Billy's widget factory shut down due to oil prices being driven up by the oil monopoly he has not been able to put his good business sense and work ethic to good use, while Johnny was given a cushy job by his oil baron father-in-law.

Certainly both Johnny and Billy have the same right to life and liberty (assuming that neither is a crook or whatever have you) because they are substantively equivalent in their worth as human beings and in their ability to function in society, but an equal right to property does not follow unless they have substantively equivalent financial means.

I don't see how that follows. Everyone within the society is already substantially benefitted from society...

Everybody may be benefitted, but even then not everybody is benefitted equally.

[loinburger]

Originally posted by tandeetaylor
Oh don't try to take some moral high ground that you're all great because you can say nice things about me in the end. You've said several things that disqualify the above statement. So either apologize for those things and admit that you were wrong to say them in the first place, or stick with calling me a foolish sociopathic half-wit. I don't really give a damn, I just wish you would be consistent.

If it makes you feel any better, I was being sarcastic with my "there's hope for you yet" remark.

[tandeetaylor]

Originally posted by loinburger
They very likely would be better off if there were no society to speak of.

Sociopath.

[tandeetaylor]

Originally posted by loinburger
If it makes you feel any better, I was being sarcastic with my "there's hope for you yet" remark.

It does. And now that I see you're treating jt with more respect than you did me, I can officially take you off my list of People Who Are Worth Talking To.

[loinburger]

Originally posted by tandeetaylor
It does. And now that I see you're treating jt with more respect than you did me, I can officially take you off my list of People Who Are Worth Talking To.

Who's jt? Do you mean Floyd? Well of course I'm treating him with more respect than you, seeing as how he doesn't maliciously throw around insults just because somebody happens to disagree with him. He's stubborn, sure, but he's still pretty reasonable, and he doesn't behave like an immoral halfwit. I don't treat you with respect because you don't deserve to be treated with respect.

[tandeetaylor]

Originally posted by loinburger
Who's jt?

My bad.

I don't treat you with respect because you don't deserve to be treated with respect.

You're right.

[JohnT]

And to imagine that this all started because I asked Tandee to look at a Social Security thread.

[Capt Dizle]

None has permission to treat me with any measure of respect. Fruitcakes.

[David Floyd]

Language is as simple or as complex as it needs to be. (Besides, I doubt that these people would have formed a language with a single word -- how are they going to come to their agreement without having a more complex form of communication available to them?)

Original point being that, regardless of the specific example, two people can dream up whatever type of communication or spoken language they want to. They don't really need a well ordered society for that.

Ancient man hunted in groups -- that's how they were able to take out game much larger than themselves.

Right, and I've already said that I agree men cooperated outside of what we would call society.

I disagree that property rights are an instinct. In your example, Grog is behaving in a strictly utilitarian manner, not in a deontological manner -- he isn't taking the rock because Lug is going to kill him if he does so, and isn't honoring Lug's "right" to own the rock. He probably doesn't even recognize that Lug has in fact taken possession of the rock, at least not without Lug having some means to communicate that "Lug owns this rock" -- all he recognizes is that it is safer to not take the rock than to take the rock.

Well, since neither of us are anthropologists, neither of us can authoritatively say one way or another.

From a logical point of view, though, I find it extremely tough to believe that a concept of "mine" isn't natural.

They're possibly being denied the opportunity to excel, and they would not be denied this in a state of nature.

I fail to see how they're being denied any opportunity.

But even still, I don't really agree that having an opportunity to excel is a right, when put in those terms. One has the right to liberty, and one can use that liberty to attempt to excel, or one can use one's property in the same attempt, but no one has any right to demand that someone else give up whatever natural advantages they possess - such as strength, intelligence, or whathaveyou in order to level the playing field.

They very likely would be better off if there were no society to speak of. Everybody would start out on an equal footing, so everybody is given the same chance to forge a worthwhile existence for themselves. However, a genius born to crippling poverty who doesn't have access to student loans and/or public education has very little (if any) opportunity to improve his lot in life. Why would he be better off living in a society than outside of a society?

Very obviously because it is virtually impossible to survive outside of society. The skills of certain people in society provide clean drinking water (for a price, unless someone gives it as charity, naturally), for example, and one can't survive without clean water.

A contract can be unfair even if it is voluntarily arrived at. Joe has an oil monopoly, and Bill needs access to this oil in order to run his widget manufacturing business. In this case, Bill has the option of being taken to the cleaners by Joe and seeing almost no reward to his hard work, or he has the option of shutting down his widget manufacturing business. That's not much of a decision at all.

Or, Bob owns the only factory in town, and he's paying starvation wages. Workers in the town have the option to move to another town (assuming that they have the funds necessary to relocate, otherwise this option is not available to them), work for starvation wages, or not work and starve. Again, that's not much of a decision at all.

True, but you're forgetting the option that these people have to simply start their own factory or business, and break the monopoly in that way. Surely if they can do a better, more fair, job, they will be successful, because they will attract both the workers and the customers.

We're not living in times before agriculture, medicine, etc. Society has moved on. Even back before agriculture, medicine, etc., life was not about mere survival -- there was art, religion, etc.

True, but my point was changes in society do not grant people any more rights than they would have regardless of society.

Language has evolved though. There are concepts in English that could not be expressed in Protoworld, or even in Hebrew. Just as language has evolved, so too has reason evolved, since the two are inextricably linked.

Well, I'm pretty sure you can find some concept of "mine" in any given language. We can't find it in Protoworld, of course, because no one knows, and most likely will never know, what Protoworld was like.

If somebody does not understand a concept because it has never made its way into their language, then that concept will have no bearing whatsoever upon their reasoning. F'rinstance, the ancient Greek term that loosely translates to "courage" is connoted to masculinity, so ancient Greeks did not have a word that would apply to courage displayed by a woman (unless this woman were performing some masculine task, like fighting in a war or whatever have you). They had no concept of courage as it applies to tasks besides warfare or sailing or whatever, so this concept would have no bearing on their reasoning as it would for us. So the ancient Greeks could reason just fine, but without access to the same concepts as us they would draw different conclusions on many matters.

Again, true, but my whole argument is that some concepts and rights exist naturally - people have them, and know they have them, without language. People know they have the right to life in that they have a strong desire to survive. That's why Grog will fight back if Lug tries to kill him.

Morals are a function of action as well as intent. Europeans who didn't realize that Africans were just as human as Europeans would be better classified as "ignorant" or possibly "stupid" than as "immoral," since they did not intend to cause harm to another human.

Very true. But then again, I think it's very probably that the Europeans really didn't care. They regarded Africans - or Chinese, or whomever - as inferior because it suited their economic purposes to do so.

In addition, just because you don't know something is wrong doesn't make an action right.

I don't think that I used the term differently between the first and second paragraphs. Do you mean that I used it differently in the third paragraph?

Probably.

...Certainly both Johnny and Billy have the same right to life and liberty (assuming that neither is a crook or whatever have you) because they are substantively equivalent in their worth as human beings and in their ability to function in society, but an equal right to property does not follow unless they have substantively equivalent financial means.

An "equal right to property"? What does that mean? It seems as if you are saying people should have a right to equal amounts of property. But I don't agree with this at all. Even a person who owns nothing has the right to property, they just don't happen to own any property at the moment. That doesn't preclude them from acquiring property. Just because they will likely never be as rich as Bill Gates doesn't mean that they aren't exercising their basic property rights in the same way he is.

Everybody may be benefitted, but even then not everybody is benefitted equally.

When did I ever say the point of society was to ensure everyone derived an EQUAL benefit?

Everyone is deriving SOME benefit from society, meaning that it is better for them in society than on their own.

[David Floyd]

By the way, I'm slightly buzzed, so if I said something blatantly stupid, call me on it and I'll fix it later

[tandeetaylor]

I'm sorry that you have no respect for me Loinburger. If that is really the case then don't answer this message, please. Don't even read it.

I'm sorry that I copped out about where rights come from. The truth is I don't how to explain where rights are derived from. I'm not very skilled in that type of discourse at this point in my life. Hopefully someday I will be.

I do simply believe that they exist. Just like I exist and this computer does and so on. But rights is a concept right, not a physical being? Love is a concept as well, and I don't know that anyone can prove that it exists, yet, I think, most people agree that it does. (And I don't think we need language for the concept of love to exist) If one cannot accept that reality exists, he will never be able to discover anything about it. Someone has a right to my life, and it's either me or someone else. To me, it doesn't make any sense that it would be someone else. If it makes sense to you, I'm just not good enough to argue you out of it.

But I'm not a liar. I consider honesty to be the trait to which I am most strict, if only because it is a simple and clearly defined matter. I do care about the rights of everyone. You can ask my husband. He started laughing about a politician that was murdered in his country after making a promise to fight against some organized crime. And I got mad at him. He said, why should I care? I told him that when someone's rights are violated somewhere, it's bad for everyone. I know what the dictionary defines selfish as. But I think it's wrong. Surely it was written by men, and they are not infallible. We give language its meaning, by its usage. If this was not the case, the dictionary would never have to be revised.
And I have never been malicious. Maliciousness implies intent, and surely I know best my intents. I am simply blunt. I'd rather be blunt than non-commital or dishonest. No, I didn't have to say the things that I said to be honest, but I don't shrink from hurting people's feelings. You said what you said for the express purpose of hurting my feelings. I have never done any such thing.

[Viking Berserk]

First, i would not care about the politicans private life.
As long as they are against EU, willing to spend more money on defence, refuse foreign companies to do free trade in Norway and stop giving away our oil.

[Mercator]

Originally posted by David Floyd
Well, without having read Godel's writings on the subject, I'm gonna have to disagree. I don't think logic is created so much as it is articulated. Let's take a simple statement: "If I jump off this cliff, I will die." Regardless if a person was able to articulate this in words, that person would still die if he jumped off the cliff. He might not KNOW he would die, and he might jump off for fun, but the fact that if a person jumps off a cliff, they will die, remains true no matter what (barring parachutes, rivers, whatever).

That's not logic, that's physics.
Logic is the ability to deduce unknown facts from known facts. For you and me, that statement would be logical, because we have enough information to know we would most likely die if we'd jump off a cliff.

What we call "logic" simply seems to be our articulation for a natural condition, in the same way that the word "rights" is also an articulation of a natural condition.

Not necessarily so. If I had never seen or heard of anyone falling any significant height, and then saw someone miraculously survive a fall, I would logically deduce falling does not kill, while that would not properly reflect the "natural condition".

Similarly, your concept of "rights" is formed by your upbringing in the American/Western society. Had you been raised in some fundamentalist society, you might have thought, say, women have no rights, and fiercely defended that on this very forum.

Rights are not something universal, they're issues generally agreed upon by a society.

Everyone has equal rights, no? But not everyone has equal opportunities. Without equal opportunities, having equal rights means ****. An organised government that looks after people's rights therefore tries to give everyone equal opportunities as well by providing things such as social security.

[loinburger]

Originally posted by David Floyd
Original point being that, regardless of the specific example, two people can dream up whatever type of communication or spoken language they want to. They don't really need a well ordered society for that.

They don't need a government with all of the bells and whistles, but I said previously that language supercedes government. However, they do require a fairly stable social order. Two people aren't going to communicate with one another if their intent is to kill one another, or if their social interactions are minimal to non-existent -- communication would form quite easily under a clan structure, but two strangers would probably never find it necessary to come up with such complex terms as "right" and "wrong" or "property" or "rights." Lug just needs to wave his spear around in order for Grog to leave him in peace.

Right, and I've already said that I agree men cooperated outside of what we would call society.

You were saying that men only banded together for protection prior to the advent of agrictulture, and I was saying that this isn't true -- they've always banded together under the premise that 10 people together could take out a wooly mammoth, while 10 people separately would be mammoth fodder.

Well, since neither of us are anthropologists, neither of us can authoritatively say one way or another.

From a logical point of view, though, I find it extremely tough to believe that a concept of "mine" isn't natural.

Why would a distinction such as "My rock" and "Not my rock" matter if somebody were the only person in the world? Or if somebody were living in a communal clan structure? In both cases a concept of personal possession would not be at all beneficial or necessary -- a rock is a rock.

I fail to see how they're being denied any opportunity.

Bob is a brilliant toolmaker, and in a state of nature he would be able to excel as a trapper. Within a society, though, he may never have the opportunity to put his talent to good use if he cannot even get a basic education -- in a state of nature he would have been quite skilled and successful, while in society he might wind up digging ditches on a starvation wage.

But even still, I don't really agree that having an opportunity to excel is a right, when put in those terms. One has the right to liberty, and one can use that liberty to attempt to excel, or one can use one's property in the same attempt, but no one has any right to demand that someone else give up whatever natural advantages they possess - such as strength, intelligence, or whathaveyou in order to level the playing field.

Property is not a "natural" advantage. It isn't something that is inherent to somebody's person, unlike strength or intelligence.

Very obviously because it is virtually impossible to survive outside of society. The skills of certain people in society provide clean drinking water (for a price, unless someone gives it as charity, naturally), for example, and one can't survive without clean water.

I'd thought that a state of nature would assume that there would be no adverse effects of society to contend with (like water pollution).

True, but you're forgetting the option that these people have to simply start their own factory or business, and break the monopoly in that way. Surely if they can do a better, more fair, job, they will be successful, because they will attract both the workers and the customers.

This is only an option of they have the capital available to start their own factory. Without the necessary capital they don't have the opportunity to compete. Even if they have the necessary capital (through a loan, perhaps), they had better hope that they have much more capital available than the owner of the first factory, because otherwise the first owner will just cut his prices (and take a loss) until the new factory is run out of business. Hopefully the new factory owner only lost his own savings during the whole affair, because if he got that capital through a loan then he's saddled with debt for the rest of his life.

True, but my point was changes in society do not grant people any more rights than they would have regardless of society.

While my point is that rights are language and society dependent, and so a change in language/society will effect a change in rights.

Well, I'm pretty sure you can find some concept of "mine" in any given language. We can't find it in Protoworld, of course, because no one knows, and most likely will never know, what Protoworld was like.

You probably can find "mine" in any given language (though the languages of more primitive communal cultures may not incorporate a concept of personal possession, but I'm no anthropologist), but that doesn't mean that the concept would exist independently of language. Wolf-boys (children abandoned before they learn any concept of language who manage to survive in the wild) don't show any apparent recognition that something can "belong" to somebody else.

Again, true, but my whole argument is that some concepts and rights exist naturally - people have them, and know they have them, without language. People know they have the right to life in that they have a strong desire to survive. That's why Grog will fight back if Lug tries to kill him.

Grog understands the concept of "survival," but he doesn't need to understand the concept of a "right to life" in order to fight back when threatened. Animals have a concept of survival as well (since they try to survive), but that doesn't necessarily mean that animals have a concept of a "right to life."

Very true. But then again, I think it's very probably that the Europeans really didn't care. They regarded Africans - or Chinese, or whomever - as inferior because it suited their economic purposes to do so.

Probably.

In addition, just because you don't know something is wrong doesn't make an action right.

Agreed. Morality refers to action and intent, so even if somebody's intentions are righteous their action might still be dunderheaded. They wouldn't necessarily be "immoral," but they'd most likely be classified as "nincompoops."

An "equal right to property"? What does that mean? It seems as if you are saying people should have a right to equal amounts of property.

No. I'm saying that somebody's right to property is a function of how much property they possess, and that two people would only have an equal right to property if they had substantively equivalent amounts of property. I've previously said that equality of property ownership (communism) is unfair.

When did I ever say the point of society was to ensure everyone derived an EQUAL benefit?

Everyone is deriving SOME benefit from society, meaning that it is better for them in society than on their own.

My point has been that if somebody has a responsibility (above and beyond the basic responsibility to respect the rights of others) to society that is related to the benefit they derive from society. The guy on the starvation diet isn't deriving much benefit from society, so his responsibilities toward society are minimal. The merchant prince is greatly benefitted by society, and so his responsibilities toward society are significant.