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Original post by nobodynews
Is that really the reality of it though? Or is it like a minority clamoring for 'equal rights' only to turn around and deny equal rights to a different minority group (like how a high percentage of black people in California voted to ban gay marriage)? That is, on the off chance that free market advocates really do say they are for it because it best serves humanity, how many would really stand by their principles when the free market starts to shaft them? After all, how many in the financial industry would have said they were supporters of the free market days before the collapse that caused many of them to seek a bailout?
The issue you're pointing out is similar to the one I'm pointing out, you just don't have the same perspective. It takes a herculean effort to roll back all of the programming involved in growing up under the thumb of a ruling class.
You're right that much of the financial industry would describe themselves as free marketeers and those same people went running for taxpayer money once it was clear it was there for the taking.
Your post is all about paradox; I'm trying to point out the paradox in your philosophy(by your I mean the general progressive philosophy, I don't know you well enough to put you in that specific box, although your initial reply certainly leans you that way)
It seems we can agree that government taking from the public and giving to corporate interests constitutes corporate welfare and is a negative thing. Now based on your myth of government, government is comprised of individuals. The thing is, corporations are comprised of individuals as well.
Why should giving to X group of individuals be different from giving to Y group of individuals? It shouldn't, and it isn't. But your paradox is that you support giving to Y, but not to X.
As for the trend of black voters voting to ban gay marriage. The problem was and is that individual rights should not be voted on. They should be considered inherent in existence. Because your philosophy cedes that rights are a privledge granted by the state you really can have no quarrel with the ruling. What the state gives it is equally suited to take away.
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We only know what individual rights ARE by collective consensus. The religious seem to believe rights are granted by their creator, but you don't strike me as religious so that's out. As a practical matter, I don't think that every individual should get to decide what their own rights are because some crazy people believe they have the right to murder, rape, and steal at the expense of others. So 'individuals' must 'collectively' decide what they agree are rights. And I think we, collectively, have decided that we can't allow people to do whatever the damn hell they want, but I see no reason why one person couldn't think that an individual 'right' couldn't include the right to kill people. That is to say, how can you be for minority rights when it's probably impossible to get a everyone to agree on what a minority right even is? And aren't some 'rights' conflicting as well? I really think you're making individual rights out to be far more black and white than they really are.
Again I disagree. Individual rights are inherent in existence. Another way of saying this is that we have Natural Rights. The boundaries for these rights are easily defined. What you don't have is a right to impede or violate another's rights.
This precludes your reducto absurdum about the right to kill or steal, as they violate another person's natural rights. However, it also points out another paradox. You cede the state as some type of super citizen, that does indeed claim and jealously protect the right to kill and steal. So the government that you are defending is in fact that awful citizen that proclaims it has the right to violate the rights of all others.
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I don't think you're even close to understanding my philosophy, actually. I don't have the skill of language with which to properly describe it to anyone. Partly because my philosphy is, for lack of a better word, ethereal in nature and is essentially founded on paradox. What you're getting is really the fruit of that philosphy combined with my own pyschological development. The fruit just happens to be easiest to communicate to people.
I agree that your philosophy is founded on a variety of paradoxes. [smile]
It must be in order to contort to a pro-state position.
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In any case, I think your problem is you think the individual has total rights while at the same time believing that every individual should respect the rights of other people. I suggest that this is a paradoxical thing to believe as the only reason an individual has rights is because other people believe that person has rights. Phrased another way, the minority will only have the 'rights' that the majority gives them. I don't think that's 'great' or 'right', but it seems like it IS and always will be. I can only hope that decency will win out in the end and the majority will just accept what other people do that doesn't directly affect them and will punish people who don't get that. We seem to be heading that way, over all so I'm hopeful.
This goes back to the issue of Natural Rights. Your position is that rights are granted by the state(the mythical super-citizen), based on your position I can understand your conclusions. But I'd also like to point out that if you were to look at government as less than a holy writ, you would see the nature of your paradoxes.
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I'm inconsistant? Your argument was a tautology! "A monopoly falls short because it is a monopoly"?
My statement was based on the premise that we agreed that monopolies are inherently inferior to non-monopolys, as it regards the concept of a public good. Can I take it that you disagree?
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You're inconsistency is that you keep talking like governments aren't composed of individuals. You think that the individual is king, but without the support of others an individual will always fail. People NATURALLY group together. If we didn't, if we were meant to be individuals, why would we keep doing this throughout history? Could it be because against a group an individual always fails? And a small group against a larger group almost always fails (My history on this subject is a bit light, but I'd assume that technology being equal the larger group would tend to 'win').
Assume for a moment an individual. Imagine his rights as you feel they exist. Now assume two individuals, now three, etc... At what magical number does this collection of individuals assume the right to kill and steal?
If your answer is "there is no number" then you must admit that government is not composed of individuals, and that it is a noun unto itself, and not a pronoun.
If you answer, "a majority", then you are ceding mob rule and shouldn't have a problem with civil liberties being willed out of existence by vote. Indeed, you should absolve your claim of any proclivity to minority rights at all.
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As long as one person will follow another people will group together and as long as people group together we will have government. Why do you think your philosophy will become universal enough to prevent this from happening? What is following another person except a change in their liberty to something slightly less than it was before in exchange for purpose? People will ALWAYS tend to give up something that you consider their rights unless other people band together to protect them from giving up that right. It IS a paradox. I do value individual rights, but everything I know about history suggests that there will always be people willing to give up those rights in exchange for something else and this will always result in some few people having a lot more power. How the hell do you think we began to have monarchs and dictatorships in the first place? Do you seriously think you'll get everyone on board with your philosphy forever or will things just go back to where they are now after a few hundred years?
The reason we have monarchs and dictators is very simple. The power of brute force. One person organized force better than another and ultimately collated into government as we know it today. As population and technology grows generations of lemmings are raised into a cultural environment and groomed to worship at the altar of the state.
New control mechanism and cultural pressures are hatched to combat technology, which as a rule tends to increase the freedom of the populace. This is the reason that China censors the internet, and government regulates personal mobility. In extreme cases you may not leave the country, in the most extreme case you may not leave your cell.
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I don't actually support huge government that controls everything. But I don't think there CAN be such a thing as a perfect system of individual rights. It. Is. A. Paradox. I currently support the government in the hopes that with our current level of technology we can keep an eye on it and that the individual will retain a relatively high level of autonomy. No it's not perfect, but I can see the flaws in big government and hope for a nice hybrid while you seem to be oblivious to the problems with individualism.
Individuals are free to consort with whomever they wish, to combine efforts with whomever they wish. So long as it is consenual no rights are violated. It is the coercive collection of individuals that violates rights. I suffer no illusion that a man on a deserted island is living in the optimal human condition. We are social creatures, and thus were designed to interact as such.
Your point about technology is a valid one. The problem is that as technology rolls out so too do laws pass that regulate them, and by extension, regulate us. It could be that at some tipping point technology will unroll the majority's programming and make government blatantly redundant. At that point do you think the powers that be will roll over and die?
