BrianBlackwell wrote: ↑Tue Jun 11, 2019 12:05 pm
How legislation "solves" problems:
Civil rights: Force a person to associate with those he does not choose to associate with on his own property (by threat of violence).
Whose freedom is more important? The freedom of business to discriminate against minorities or the freedom of the minorities to use whatever businesses and utilities they like?
Almost every time you grant freedom to a particular group, you take away the freedom of someone else. Like, for example, the civil rights act of 1964. It took away the right for businesses to discriminate against blacks, but it granted the freedoms of blacks to use any utility or business regardless of race.
And if you break this law, there isn’t going to be violence, but there will be lawsuits out the ass (rightfully so).
And let us grant that, for the times when you commit a crime or misdemeanor, there is a use of violence for that particular transgression. You’re a consequentialist, right? Violence, when not overused, is effective in ensuring that certain laws are not broken, so as to ensure maximum welfare for the citizens. If you can show that there are better ways to manage these things when violence will be used, please tell us (and provide evidence).
BrianBlackwell wrote: ↑Tue Jun 11, 2019 12:05 pmEnsuring healthcare: Forcing people to pay for something they would not otherwise willingly pay for (by threat of violence).
Oh no, paying for someone to have access to something which should be a human right is just terrible! Our society is just entering the next totalitarian regime!
Seriously, are you a Randroid or a consequentialist? Having everyone paying into a system to help more people live is something a consequentialist values. Again, I’m not concerned with granting maximum freedom for everyone, I care about doing the most GOOD, and the former does not necessarily help achieve the latter.
BrianBlackwell wrote: ↑Tue Jun 11, 2019 12:05 pmWell-being of workers: Forcing people to desist from making mutually-agreeable agreeable arrangements (by threat of violence).
Regulations are for things that AREN’T mutually agreeable if I’m not mistaken. There are more workers than managers, and the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few (or the one), and workers often have little say in their conditions (I do not identify as a Democratic Socialist although I think the system has potential). These regulations are very important, and have had a positive impact (look at legislation passed in the United States during the Progressive Era, and Europe in the middle of the Industrial Revolution).
Are some regulations excessive, ineffective, and overall harmful? I’d say so. But it’s outrageous to conclude that we should get rid of all regulations because of those bad ones.
BrianBlackwell wrote: ↑Tue Jun 11, 2019 12:05 pmWell-being of the environment: Forcing some people to comply with the demands of others (by threat of violence), while protecting others' ability to ravage the planet in ways that are 1,000 times worse (food and oil industries, for example).
The environment is the most important issue today. I’m willing to sacrifice the freedom of oil and coal companies so millions of people won’t die within 10 years.
And I don’t disagree that government is pretty incompotent when it comes to issues like this (not restricting fossil fuel companies significantly, having trouble instituting nuclear because of quacks in government), but legislation has diminished human impact on the environment. Look at the Environmental Protection Agency, and a lot of the legislation passed during the Nixon Administration. I think most notably the banning of CFCs, which were killing our Ozone layer. Since we banned CFCs, the Ozone layer has recovered considerably.
BrianBlackwell wrote: ↑Tue Jun 11, 2019 12:05 pmAnd we must understand that every act of legislation is a threat of violence - it's the only thing a government can do.
There you go again with the government using violence. You’re starting to seem more like a dogmatic deontologist rather than a rational consequentialist.
BrianBlackwell wrote: ↑Tue Jun 11, 2019 12:05 pm It begins with a fine, then escalates to a series of greater fines, then an attempt at arrest, then a beating, then outright murder if the person can not be made to comply at some point along that chain of control. When a cop pulls you over on the highway, his lights are a threat of death at the most fundamental level. Don't believe me? Successfully refuse to comply at every stage of their attempt to control you and watch what happens.
I know you got this from a meme that I can’t find at the moment.
Why not just pay the fine and not have to worry about the violence? Or, better yet, just don’t break the law, even if you disagree with it? Or are you one of those “What’s wrong with crime?” anarchists?
BrianBlackwell wrote: ↑Tue Jun 11, 2019 12:05 pm What you say "makes sense" (like requiring payment and legal permission to drive without being violently accosted) only seems to make sense when we myopically ignore everything outside our consideration of the topic in a vacuum.
You need to prove that complete freedom adheres more to consequentialism than governments keeping the people in line through various methods (it isn’t just violence as you so pertly assert). The burden of proof is on you to show this.
BrianBlackwell wrote: ↑Tue Jun 11, 2019 12:05 pmMan is free to drive. What does this statement mean? It means he is free TO do this because the action is free FROM adverse consequences (i.e. it's in accord with his free will nature, and does not inherently impede the authentic expression of others' natures). Now, he may drive stupidly, and this would be dangerous, but what does it mean to drive stupidly? It means to ignore some aspect of the nature of things (the laws of physics, the required conditions for others' safety, etc.). THAT is the wrong-doing, not the act of driving itself, which may be done safely and cause no harm.
Right, and that’s what governments try to stop.
BrianBlackwell wrote: ↑Tue Jun 11, 2019 12:05 pmTo require payment and permission to drive (backed up by threat) is a wrong-doing because it is treating an innocent person as though they are guilty. They are being fined and subject to the domination of others when they have committed no wrong.
This sounds like pretty deontological reasoning if you ask me.
You don’t seem to understand that legislation is put in place so as to prevent people from committing wrongdoings. Some people getting hurt as a result of a crime they have committed is a small price to pay, since more often than not the long term consequences are good.
Of course, we should also be concerned with rehabilitation rather than punishment, but that’s a discussion for another time.
BrianBlackwell wrote: ↑Tue Jun 11, 2019 12:05 pmIt's an "original sin" perspective. This is a wrong-doing that will have adverse consequences, even if it mitigates other adverse consequences. It's plugging one hole in the dam, only to have another spring elsewhere.
The other hole might be smaller.
I don’t know what you’re getting at here exactly; are you saying that certain actions will always have bad consequences? If so, you need to prove this.
BrianBlackwell wrote: ↑Tue Jun 11, 2019 12:05 pmI know this sounds strange, but we are considering the topic on the most fundamental seed level, and seeds look quite a bit different than the trees which eventually spring forth from them. But it is the seed that ultimately determines the expression. It is the principles at the foundation of our thought which determine the consequences of our actions.
I’m starting to think you don’t have a good understanding of what consequentialism is.
BrianBlackwell wrote: ↑Tue Jun 11, 2019 12:05 pmThis is definitively a moral issue at its core, not a political one.
You are definitely treating it as a political one.
BrianBlackwell wrote: ↑Tue Jun 11, 2019 12:05 pmSo where does this leave us? How do we solve our problems? There is only one true solution: widespread wisdom as a sum of individual expressions of wisdom. Education, not legislation.
How do you plan on instituting education without legislation? There have to be standards for the quality of the education, and making sure to teach the facts, not opinion or rhetoric.
The education system in America has a lot of problems (I can a write small book detailing all my issues with it), but other countries have very effective education systems (as well as strong governments). Look at Finland, for example. Public education is an essential utility and it must be improved.
BrianBlackwell wrote: ↑Tue Jun 11, 2019 12:05 pmThis is highly inconvenient compared to simply dominating people, and the latter has been normalized to the point that it does not seem wrong or strange; but a consequentialist must understand that the effects of ignoring this imperative is all the man-made chaos we see in the world - war, disease, famine, widespread emotional dysfunction, etc., etc., etc.
A consequentialist must also understand that what they think is just is not necessarily what is right.