Pornography, same-sex marriage, etc. are all individual cases or examples within a broader question about the government should or can be allowed to do. Where you and I disagree, probably, is that I think that the government definitely should be able to intervene in the lives of the peoples within its boarders, but that it is often best or right not to. And insofar as people elect a government and the will of the government is in some way representational of the will of the people, I'm ok with saying that if a broad swath of a population wants the government to crack down on something—be it gay marriage or sweets, then fine. Though that doesn't mean that I need to be ok with those decisions have there are various forms of recourse an exasperated citizen can take.
We're not MILES apart here; I view it from a different perspective of "will". The government CAN intervene, if the people allow them to, and only to the extent they are allowed to. But I see no moral or ethical reason that they SHOULD intervene, or that they should intervene at the expense of the will of the people.
I don't know what you mean by "getting people killed"; if someone dies, it's no longer a moral or ethical thing, it's a civil rights thing.
In what universe do the two not coincide in practically every respect? Surely it is the job of the government to make sure we live in some at base moral way. I find it hard to believe that when you strip back all the jobs of government broadly conceived, from as limited as you can get to as expansive, the government is in some way regulating, legislating, and guiding morality.
In any universe where the person in question isn't averse to killing. In any universe - such as ours - where there are exceptions to the laws against homicide. There are several ways I can legally and without any consequence effect the homicide of another person. Those distinctions are almost always when we deem the right to life lesser than any other rights that are immediately being compromised.
Look, we're splitting hairs here in a practical sense, but I don't see any need for a government to enforce morals. As I've written before elsewhere, "laws" are not our optimal existance, they are our base existance. They are the limits to what we can DEMAND of others. "Morals" and "ethics" are what we can ASK of others. I understand that there are laws on the books now that seem to "demand" morals, and that's true, but that's not to say I think those are a good thing. I think we need laws to make sure rights are honored and respected, no more.
Also, the "I stand back and let you do your thing while you let me do mine" is the attitude of those who stand by while "government authorities" trample over the so-called "rights" to speech and peaceful assembly, with many citizens dying in the process.
But - and I say this respectfully - you can't change the focus of the discussion midway like that. If RIGHTS are being trampled then there's no standing back. I'm very clearly talking about all of those instances where rights ARE being trampled. It's a mindset; we have to get out of this idea that we can set morals for everyone, and get back into the mindset of "where do my rights and your rights intersect, and how do we deal with that?" And I'm not naive or living under a rock; I recognize that has implications in our every day life. Half of the identity politics platform is undermined when you make that shift; I'm okay with that, because the other half is strengthened, and strengthened more than the undermine.
For me, whether it's a lawyer, a politician, or someone else, the "ethical" argument for practical legal positions is, more often than not, the argument of the weak. For me, ANY of the so-called ethical arguments we can talk about boil down also to some infringement on rights, and that's where the DEMAND comes from.
Very Nietzschian. Quite badass.
I don't know about "badass"; but I do know that increasingly in today's debates the arguments are getting weaker and weaker, and (I do not at all thing coincidentally) the "moral" arguments are getting more and more prominent. Here, in this topic, my junior senator has made gun control his personal
meal ticket crusade, and since he doesn't have the data and science behind him - or, to be fair, he knows that what little data and science he does have will fall on deaf ears - he falls back on "our moral obligation" in photo ops with the Sandy Hook (also my state) survivors and their families.
I'm aware. This is the crux of the issue and of all good government. Ultimately though, I think the government should be able to force you to do quite a lot.
Where we disagree.
"Climate change" is but one of many, obvious, egregious examples of that idea. Climate change is bogus?
No, climate change is not bogus, but I'm deeply uncomfortable with the way the notion of the tragedy of the commons has been interpreted as a something of a manifesto for the benefits of private ownership in the wake of the idea's initial publication.
Well, I can understand and even agree with that. I don't view it as a manifesto of "private ownership" per se. I see it as a tool to understand the interaction between public and private ownership, and how human nature left to its own devices is ineffective. (There's also a decent argument in there as to why common sense is utter bullshit too, but I'd be stretching things.)
There's the rub. I've always had a soft spot for originalists on the supreme court because I didn't think it made much sense for unelected judges to legislate from the bench, and originalism provided a fine (but often specious) method for maneuvering around the pitfalls of too strong a judiciary. That is to say, I didn't like the idea of the constitution being molded by progressively minded judges (no matter how much I agreed with them) because a hack like Alito could always come along and fuck it up. So I get you. You want to institute a government where its institutions allow for all sides to be heard, all viewpoints to be considered, and there's no tyranny of the majority, etc.
Yet, re that social contract you talked about earlier, that's still there. And there are those who break the social contract: citizens and rulers alike. And when they break that contract egregiously enough, even if not everyone agrees the contract's been broken, then force is necessary. Where is the line? No idea. But it's there.
Sure is, don't disagree. But you really hit the nail on the head. Not only do I want to minimize the "tyranny of the majority", I don't trust it, and I don't have faith in it. I fear it, actually. There's no justification in numbers, and that has been proven over and over and over and over. Doubly insidious when we pull in meaningless sops like "we're on the right side of history!" At that point, we're only steps away from being told we have a "moral obligation" and we're back where we started 300 words or so ago. I want us to be great humans. I want us to be compassionate, to be kind, and to, as i like to put it, tend our own garden. I just don't want government, which can so easily fall into the hands of people like Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton, to be the arbiter of that.
Topic: Guns: Yay or nay? (Read 38688 times)
