Gurdur

I'm interested if you have any evidence for the myth you're creating with your chain of assertions.

thefugitivesaint

i wish to send out a quick nod of appreciation to theyeti for that post concering Libertarianism as it saved me the time of writing one of my own.

also, i could not let this pass (even though i have absolutely NO desire to rehash this argument:

1st- tribal cultures are very much a form of social organization. All have possessed forms of organization given the need of the specific group in question. "Rights" are inherently SOCIAL in nature and have no meaning on an individual level unless that level is involved in a larger social platform. What need would the term "individual" serve if not used explicitly in relation to the "social?" i would say none. "Rights" are derived from the interaction of many "individuals" within (and between) their social grouping. They are not handed down from God and they certainly do not exist independent of the needs of those who utilize them.

We've all been over the whole "objective" morality issue. It has no real credible strength in the arguments that have taken place on these boards. I find the premise untenable and intellectually lacking. This is, of course, my opinion and i present it as such.

Well, things are not so simple as that. There is a great deal of cultural indoctrination involved in the maintenance of any society. As most countries around the world will tell you constitutions burn rather quickly when the fires of a coup come along with its torches.

If there was not a system of assimilation teaching the population of any given society the values and mores of that society than i suspect that a "symbol" like the constitution would hold very little weight or importance.

-theSaint

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99Percent

Actually the Roman empire boomed because it was the first empire to attempt a rule by law and not by men. Obviously it was not perfect because the concept of universal individual rights had not been thought of yet. But still it was not entirely dictorial. But lets not get into yet another historical argument. You are concerned that the indigent would be left unprotected. Unprotected against what exactly? That the rich and wealthy would abuse their money to force the indigent to work? Remember that in a libertarian society there is supposed to be a constitution that protects the innocent from the initiation of force from others no matter their economic status. This requires a governmental apparatus (for courts and such) which granted, costs money to maintain. However this is but the bare minimum needed for a society to prosper and work. As I stated I think that no more than 1% of a flat taxation on all created wealth would be more than enough required to maintain such a bureaucratic apparatus and also a military to defend against foreign invasion or renegade private police forces. Libertarianism is an ideology, like most other ideologies, that can be adopted to different degrees. As I said, my type of libertarianims is to lean toward the ideology, not to adopt it in its pure form which would be almost like anarchy and would require an almost complete clean conscience and responsibility by all. Some extreme libertarians claim that no taxation is required to support a government because it can come from free donations of the more enlightened, but that I agree is a bit too idealistic. Again, I think 1% is more than enough taxation that should be enforced which is a very very far cry from the current levels of taxations. The GDP of the U.S. for example is 10 trillion yet 2 trillion of it will come from government spending which means thats the amount coming from taxes!! Now this is what I would call the tragedy of commons. See the constitution is the fundamental qualifying element of a society which commands how a society work, so you should not be able to change it, unless you want to scrap society entirely. IMO the founding fathers made a blunder by allowing the constitution to be ammended. This loophole has allowed politicians to gradually (even if with the support of the people) to increase the role of government in society when the intention of the FF was to make government as less as intrusive as possible allowing the people to be as free as possible because they knew by the historical perspectives they had at the time that the bigger a government is, no matter what its system, the less freedom its citizen enjoyed. No because the military is always sworn into protecting the constitution foremost which demands the protection of such rights. If you think about it, the commander in chief (this case Bush) has actually the power to command the whole military yet it cannot do so against its subjects without due process because every single soldier in the military is sworn to obey the constitution even above that of the generals that might command them. Even in a democracy the majority could vote to command the military to kill of the minority.

I will get to your environment and monopolies arguments later.

August Spies

Here is kind of a theoretical question for you 99percent. But if the constitution is the whole groundwork of a society and it can't be changed altered etc....

how do we get there? No constitution has been brought about through a truly democratic (or even a truly republican) measure. They have all been made by a small group of people, often in VIOLATION of pre-existing constitutions (for example, the United States)

and since citizens can't get the constitution changed does this not invalide all constitutions??

99Percent

The rights in question are the rules of a society, I agree. They don't come God of course, but from our capacity to reason and to be moral. Rights are derived from the idea that society must respect the individual's right for liberty, life and property regardless of the societal needs. In short the individual is more important than society.

Because in such countries the symbol or idea of a constitution is not suficiently appreciated by its citizens. Society in effect self destructs when the constitution is trampled upon.

Perhaps but what I think really holds the value of the constitution is the conscientious efforts of us citizens who are culturally, intellectually and historically adept at recognizing its importance.

BTW, I just stumbled upon this funny but very alarming "news bit" by the Onion that is related to this topic.

August Spies

Rights are derived from the idea that society must respect the individual's right for liberty, life and property regardless of the societal needs.

you have the really silly habit of assuming your PERSONAL views are the objective truth.

There are other strains of theory that believe in rights yet dont' believe they are the three you listed. In fact, most of the famous rights-theoreticians don't believe in the exact same natural rights. Why are we to believe the ones YOU like are the true ones?

99Percent

Like which ones?

Radcliffe Emerson

Go to just about any independent news site, or a foreign news site that isn't being controlled by our government and you'll find all kinds of news items our public isn't being told about through normal news channels.

Kip

I tend towards Libertarianism. Although I know much less about politics than most of the people at this message board, I will post my reasons for favoring libertarianism. Most of my reasons are not mathemically certain or dogmatic but rather the result of a simple recognition of the tendency of government to become corrupt and skepticism towards any increase of government.

1. The government keeps getting bigger. This is undeniable. Of course, as government expands, the appropriateness of each expansion becomes more controversial. I think that this tendency is natural "human nature" or mob mentality, not some conspiracy, and that this psychology of groups (as opposed to individuals) is a perennial danger that we must beware.

2. I recognize the problem of the majority enforcing their wills upon the minority. While I also recognize that there is no easy solution to this problem (if the majority does not define human rights, what does?), I think this phenomenon should be curbed as much as possible and that the best solution is maximum toleration and a fundamental "Bill of Rights" that is not subject to revision.

3. I am more of a libertarian for the social policy rather than economic policy, however, I think that economic policy is more important and has more consequences for the fate of society. So, I tend to favor liberarianism because I think people should have the right to watch porn and smoke weed but I realize that these rights are trivial, in a sense, compared the rights for economic freedom, because the consequences of losing porn or marijauna is slight compared the poverty and ruin potentially created by bad economic policy.

4. Regarding economic policy, although I am not dogmatically committed to free markets, I have yet to be convinced that any market intervention is ever helpful and I think that most efforts (such as the minimum wage) are usually counterproductive (I think that most of these efforts are heavy handed solutions to obvious, unpopular problems in one area but create subtle, equal or greater problems in other areas - economic slight of hand). These solutions are often popular and win votes because the benefits are obvious but the adverse consequences are hidden. I think the attractiveness of these "quick fix" solutions that you can simply vote for and tax explains the expansion of government and the criticisms that liberatarians receives. The failure to recognize the subtle, adverse consequences of policies leads the critic of libertarianism to believe that the libertarian is committed to horrible selfishness or foolish recklessness with the environment - when in fact the libertarian agrees with that pollution and poverty should be stopped but that "voting and taxing away the problem" is not the best way to accomplish that.

5. Phenomena such as the space program, the food pyramid, and billion dollar airplanes are only a few of the most notable examples of the government taking money from people and pissing the money away foolishly.

6. I am very skeptical of all wars, because these tend to increase government power and subtract from civil liberties. These would include the War in Iraq, as well as the War on Poverty and the War on Drugs.

7. I recognize that free markets have some fundamental problems. Theyeti did a good job of describing these:

"2. The libertarian solution to every problem is simply to privatize everything. But this simply can't be done with many resources that we use, such as the air we breath, sunshine, the oceans, the noises that we her, Earth's climate, and so on. Non private property is subject to what is known as the "tradgedy of the commons"; individuals have no reason to limit their use or abuse of a resource, because if they do, someone else will just come along and use it to get a comparative advantage. This is especially true when it comes to things like pollution, where the costs are spread out amongst everyone, yet the direct benefits only accrue to a small portion of people. Anyone who stops polluting will give an advantage those who don't, so there's a strong incentive not to stop. In cases where a resource cannot be priviatized, the only solution to the "tradgedy of the commons" is government regulation. Thus anytime some one affects these things in a way that affects other people's welfare, the government must intervene. But since libertarian ideology forbids any government interference, they have no solution to these kinds of problems. They often suggest litigation as a means to correct these kinds of abuses, but without any clearly defined property that's being harmed, it's not clear how a libertarian society would recognize even who the litigants are. (For example, would every car owner be put on trail in a global warming dispute? Who would be the plaintif in such a case?) And of course there are serious pragmatic problems with allowing litigation to solve these problems.

A related issue is that of natural monopolies. Things like the roads, power lines, and water and sewer can only exist one at a time (or at least it only makes sense to do so), so it's not feasible to have competing groups providing these services. These need to be publicly run or heavily regulated as well. "

All of these problems are quite real and I am not sure what the actual solution should be. These would seem to be those situations that require government intervention, in which case I would hope that the intervention was as minimal as possible, and that the action was as popular as possible (close to unanimous vote as opposed to a slight 51% majority vote). Although privatization cannot solve everything, privatation should be sought out as much as possible because private solution do not increase the government expansion and tend to provide more elegant, efficient solutions to problems.

thefugitivesaint

99percent:
This is, in fact, not true. All states previous and currently in existence recognize the need to respect and protect individual rights but this recognition does not override the need of a state to suppress those rights if it feels a legitimate need to do so.

Societies that do not protect themselves from individuals who abuse the "rights" they have been granted (and "rights" are granted under whatever societal contract the individual happens to be born into or joins) do not last. Society has to be able to curb the activities of its members if said members do not acknowledge their participation in said society.

The idea of the individual being more important than society is a pretty modern phenomenon and is certainly not an idea written in stone. Individuals are important but they are part and parcel of the society that composes their developmental environment. I try not to place to much weight on the group or the individual as one is an essential part of the other. Without a "society" we would not have a need to acknowledge "individuals." Without "individuals" we would have no body for a "society." The ecology of our social systems is ignored when you place an overwhelming emphasis on "individuals" at the expense of "society." But, to place to much importance on "society" over the "individual" amounts to the same thing in the end. When weighing the importance of the two ideas i too favor the "individual" but i do so with a firm understanding of that "individuals" place in the wider scope of things.

Not necessarily true. Coups are not a citizen run activity but an activity of militaries. Most "citizens" have little say as to the history or intentions of their constitutions. Most "citizens" feel that political participation is a waste of their time as the people in power are not truly representing their wants or needs. This goes for so-called "democratic" countries like the United States as well. Look at the poor voter turn out for elections, referendums, etc.

When constitutions are broken by the activity of those in power the immediate effects are going to ripple throughout the society in question. Why should the "citizens" of a country abide by the terms written on a piece of paper when the very power structure that is said to be an experession of it is blatantly disregarding the contract itself? Coups are an extreme example but even little abuses, mounting over time, are not forgotten when discovered and defection occurs as a response. It's not that people don't care it's just that most feel powerless and helpless to alter their situations so they resign from participation or they rebel in whatever form they can.

When a civilization falls everyone is to blame or no one is to blame. The implications of that kind of degeneration are to complex to give any one face, one class or one specific subgroup.

But you are merely repeating what i said. "Citizens" assumes the "assimilation" i discussed. These participating members have been taught the values of the general group they were raised in and have internalized those values as their own. Without the system of indoctrination present, constantly reinforcing a certain set of assumptions, values and viewpoints would prove a very difficult task.
-theSaint

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