Any action that does not directly screw over another human being (I don’t view a fetus as such, different debate, different time) should be perfectly legal.
The government’s duties should encompass national security (military and otherwise), law enforcement, and judicial/penal systems entirely. Social programs ought to be minimal.
Anyone who does hurt or rip off another human being forfeits his or her freedom and should be punished severely once proven guilty.
As Kenneth Arrow so aptly demonstrated, it’s quite possible that out of a list of principles or criteria all of which seem indispensible, it is quite possible to have an unsolvable inconsistency, and we should always be aware of this possibility.
That said, I don’t see much room for inconsistency in those statements. Then again, the real problem isn’t avoiding inconsistency, but getting anyone to agree that those are the correct or only core principles they should agree to.
Not so much inconsistent as incoherent, in the sense of not fully thought out.
F’rinstance:
(Bolding mine)
What does “rip off” mean in this context? I’m guessing that you’re talking about some offence against property or labour, but this presupposes all kinds of values and rules about labour, who controls labour, who controls the product of someone’s labour, who owns or controls land, minerals and other resources, who owns manufactured or fabricated goods, who owns or controls intangible property like ideas, designs, works of literature, etc, how social interest in property can be reconciled with private interest, etc . . . . The concept of “rip off” also involves some notion of fairness, but if the idea of fairness can be used to underpin laws on property ownership, on what basis are you rejecting the concept of social programmes?
In short, a whole lot of values have to be arrived at and then imposed on society, and they will tend to favour some at the expense of others, relative to different values which might have been adopted instead. These are open to exactly the same objection as social programmes; on what basis are you going to adopt and implement a set of values that favours one citizen over another.
Paladud I completely agree with your belief system and really hope I can one day start or find a country which bases its legal system on those principles.
The major problem with it was pointed out by Hannah Arendt in her essay “What is Freedom”. You see this system has no way to ensure social equality (may or may not be a good thing). So there will be strong and weak, rich and poor etc… So the rich will do what they do in the US - they’ll use the slippery slope argument to keep changing the definition of “Any action that does not directly screw over another human being” to suit their needs and oppress the poor how they please. Like say “hey don’t smoke in the lung cancer ward it hurts us directly” and month later “hey don’t smoke in bars it hurts us directly” then “Possession of tobacco or any other nicotine containing plant carries the penalty of 3-5 years in jail to prevent any chance of us being hurt directly”.
While I do hope/believe that we can define “Any action that does not directly screw over another human being” well enough to avoid this Hannah definitely has a point and I sure would like to hear people’s counter arguments to her other then the really strict and precise definition of “Any action that does not directly screw over another human being” which might land us in trouble as progress gives people new ways to hurt people which might not fit our very strict definition.
Well, 1 and 3 are sort of the same thing, aren’t they? To say that not screwing some one over should be legal sort of implies that screwing someone over should be illegal, since you would have included it with the other items that should be legal. So now you have two items:
Not screw=legal; screw=illegal.
Scope of government.
Since you’ve put judicial/penal authority into the hands of the state, that component is taken care of. However, you haven’t given who is the authority for deciding what acts qualify as screwing a person. So, it is arguably incomplete; unless you want the system to work out as one where the offendee takes the offender to court if she feels she has been wronged. In that case you need to define an advocate for murder victims, unless they don’t count.
I guess it doesn’t seem inconsistent. You only have two premises and they only intersect to allow for the scope of government to include being the arbiter of screwing.
My problem is that there is so little to work with. Your axioms describe America, no? Every advocate of every social program will tell you that its funding is minimal. The laws are meant to protect people who have been screwed—hell, I’ve been told that smoking pot harms people because it harms society. And the rest is just to collect enough money to pay for the state’s minimal obligations.
That is obviously sophistry; however, I feel that your axioms are broad to the point of not being very meaningful.
In my mind, “rip off” implies deceit for the purpose of gain with respect to money, physical or intellectual property, etc. One’s property ought to be defined as something under one’s absolute control while in compliance with federal laws. I don’t claim to know much about patent/copyright laws and such, though.
Fairness as I perceive it amounts to the freedom of every individual to pursue happiness to the best of one’s ability without infringing on that of others. Social programs do just the opposite - they force individuals to involuntarily provide for the happiness of others at their own expense. I feel that while there is a need for a government that provides a nation’s collective basic needs as described in the OP, contribution to any charitable programs should be purely voluntary.
Social equality is only attainable (barring unforeseeable leaps in genetic technology) via the other extreme: reducing the capable to the lowest common denominator, as hyperbolically shown in Vonnegut’s Harrison Bergeron and Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged. Some measure of inequality is preferable to this.
No offense intended, but your tobacco analogy is not the best argument for such a flaw. Obviously, smoking in a cancer ward ought to be illegal for a reason beyond the dangers of tobacco: the patients are unable to leave to avoid inhaling smoke. Thus the smoker infringes on their freedom of maintaining their health. The legality of smoking in a bar, on the other hand, should be determined by the owner of any given bar, not a government authority, as any bar patrons who object to smoke (or desire to smoke, depending on the bar owner’s choice) are perfectly free to leave.
I apologize for any incoherency in the OP and this post. English isn’t my first language.
So shoplifting from Wal-Mart, since it doesn’t directly screw over another human being, is perfectly legal?
What about a business that attains a monopoly in a poor area on a staple such as land, and then raises prices in such a way as to force growers in the area into a state of basic slavery? Is that perfectly legal?
What about designing a product that, due to a defect you know about, is likely to kill someone (e.g., a car with a high center of gravity that’s likely to roll over)? Is that perfectly legal?
You’ll need to have clear definitions of “directly,” “screw over,” and “human being” in order for this to be clear. In addition, if you consider property rights to equal or trump other rights, you need to state that, so that there’s no confusion.
For the most part, i guess. There is one distinct point: I consider the notion of rehabilitation for violent felons absurd. This is a debatable point in itself but isn’t very important to this thread. Thus I definitely don’t perceive the punishments in Western societies as severe.
That’s more or less it. Everyone would have the options of representing themselves in court or being represented by a government lawyer. As law is purely a government function, there are no private lawyers in this hypothetical world. The standards for government lawyers would naturally have to rise. I have to admit that this isn’t an aspect I gave much thought to.
A murder case ought to be between federal lawyers (since these ideas are not limited to the US, I guess the state/province roles are mitigated) and the accused. Isn’t it currently like this or something close to it?
Well, the idea is that my axioms SHOULD be as broad as possible; nobody wants to read through a War and Peace - length post on the views of one undistinguished individual
As mentioned one post above yours, “In my mind, “rip off” implies deceit for the purpose of gain with respect to money, physical or intellectual property, etc.” I guess I should phrase it better, but your points one and three are clearly illegal in my hypothetical world.
Point two is a whole different beast. If the business attains that land by legitimate means, it is free to do as it likes. This isn’t a feudal system; the growers are free to go elsewhere to rent or purchase land or do whatever they wish. Unless I misunderstood some other implication of your question, it should be legal.
Directly affecting - affecting one’s state of being or property in a direct manner.
Screwing over - as above, with an “adversely” in front of it.
Disclaimer: I self-identify and vote libertarian but the national party strikes me as intellectuals who could use a stiff dose of political realism delivered with a baseball bat.
That said, sure, you’re attempting to describe an ideal society. Willy nilly that’s great.
But human beings will always angle for advantage. It’s what we do. We’re both competitive and cooperative in our social structures.
Look at business, inconsistency of data is what makes most market transactions possible. If all transactions (buying and selling) were made with perfect data then the exact value of the transaction would be known and profit would become more difficult to acheive (call me a Ferengi). Certainly I (as a businessman in the publishing field) have tried hard to make sure the data I had was better than the guy on the other side of the table…even when that guy was ostensibly my partner in a venture. I have certainly withheld data that would allow the other guy to make a better decision. Would I then be guilty of a crime?
Also, would this society be a democratic one? If that’s the case what’s to prevent the inevitable preponderance of lower-income people from voting themselves social programs that assist them? This is one of the true balancing points in the United States (and most democracies but I know this one best)…if enough people fall below the poverty line they (who normally don’t vote) begin to vote in greater numbers and they vote for social support programs.
And if this society ISN’T democratic what’s to prevent it from becoming a political monopoly of the wealthy and powerful?
I like libertarian ideals…I truly do. But without some practical application and political thought they’re just masturbation looking for a hankerchief. Pleasant but untidy.
This society is by no means ideal. Of course there will be bickering over advantage.
Of course not. It’s one thing when lies are involved or a faulty product is sold. It’s another entirely when the guy on the other side of the table makes the deal without researching the whole thing properly. For example, if you buy a computer for $900 and see another with identical hardware at a hundred bucks less the next day, it’s no one’s fault but your own.
Ideally, it would be a military democracy along the lines of that described in Heinlein’s Starship Troopers, wherein only people who have completed several years of military service have the right to vote or run for office.
More realistically, it would be a conventional democracy with certain irreversible provisions against social programs embedded in the constitution so that people cannot vote themselves bread and circuses.
