Objectivism and Supporting Government

[Brant Gaede]

That's just one context. It's quirky, so it makes the point with clarity--i.e., you need context for principles. And there are oodles of contexts.

Okay, I understand your point. So I'll modify my question as follows:

Is it moral for people who call themselves "government" to initiate the use of force against others when those others do not consent? This removes things like "boxing" from the context, since presumably boxers consent (and we would probably both agree that a boxing match where the boxers did not consent would be immoral).

There aren't "oodles" of principles.

If there is consent to the initiation of force it is not initiation of force respecting the consentor. It's a contradiction. That's why Dominique wasn't raped by you know who. Never mind they were both stupid about what happened, but her character was so badly written apropos real human psychology she needed to get it that way to begin to get real.

You seem to want to deal with the consent of the governed-existence of government issue. It can't be dealt with, ultimately, because government will always be violating rights to some extent and people will always be fighting for their freedom, if they deserve freedom. You cannot make government self destruct by saying you're violating human rights so evaporate! However, let's take a hypothetical government with no rights' violating at all. 100% pure. Goodness! Then when you say you didn't consent to being governed by that government it doesn't mean anything at all, but if you violate someone's rights and the cops come you cannot say you can't arrest me for I never consented to the government that employs you. That's because you are claiming the right to violate rights by virtue of getting away with it through your personal anarchy. Contradiction!

--Brant

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I think what Michael is trying to say here, Nick, is that principles are inconvenient things, because they keep leading you to conclusions you don't want to reach. It's better to rely on "common sense," i.e., whatever seems right and reasonable to you for whatever reason it happens to seem right and reasonable. That way, you can have your cake and eat it, too.

Actually, this is inaccurate.

I hold that political principles have to apply to human beings to be valid, i.e., they must be based on human nature--which in MSK-speak includes (among other things) the tendency of individuals to periodically bully others when they can get away with it.

I hold that forcing human beings into a mold not suited to them in order to make sense of a principle with incomplete conceptual referents, but pretending you are not doing that, is trying to have your cake and eat it, too.

It's probably my limited intelligence that leads me to conceive of such things...

Michael

EDIT: For further clarification, I don't mind letting equals duke it out--in the name of principle--when one gets the itch to be ornery and starts smacking the other around, but I do support giving the underdog a handicap when he or she is severely outgunned or just plain too weak to fight a bully.

(I'm not too big on the right of bullies to start bullying at whim...)

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

So long as I am on this kick about human nature, I want to add something I see all around me.

Whenever a crowd gathers, if one individual within it starts accusing and scapegoating someone near who is different, and the accuser's arguments are loud enough and sound like they a minimum amount of plausibility, irrespective of how tortured the rationalization may be, the crowd gradually turns into a lynch mob.

I keep seeing this over and over in human history and I keep seeing it currently in human society.

I keep seeing good people temporarily turning into bullies under the right circumstances.

It's all over the place. It happens so much, I say this has to be part of human nature.

And I worry about the scapegoat. I want him or her to be protected against bullies and mobs.

But, hell... that's probably because of my own tendency to get carried away with conspiracy theories...

Michael

[jriggenbach]

I think what Michael is trying to say here, Nick, is that principles are inconvenient things, because they keep leading you to conclusions you don't want to reach. It's better to rely on "common sense," i.e., whatever seems right and reasonable to you for whatever reason it happens to seem right and reasonable. That way, you can have your cake and eat it, too.

Actually, this is inaccurate.

I hold that political principles have to apply to human beings to be valid, i.e., they must be based on human nature--which in MSK-speak includes (among other things) the tendency of individuals to periodically bully others when they can get away with it.

I hold that forcing human beings into a mold not suited to them in order to make sense of a principle with incomplete conceptual referents, but pretending you are not doing that, is trying to have your cake and eat it, too.

It's probably my limited intelligence that leads me to conceive of such things...

Michael

EDIT: For further clarification, I don't mind letting equals duke it out--in the name of principle--when one gets the itch to be ornery and starts smacking the other around, but I do support giving the underdog a handicap when he or she is severely outgunned or just plain too weak to fight a bully.

(I'm not too big on the right of bullies to start bullying at whim...)

Oh, yes. I'd almost forgotten. Because there are bullies, we must take an institution that was originally invented by bullies to enable their bullying, an institution that in all of human history has never been anything but a tool to further the goals of bullies, and put our faith in that institution to protect us from bullies. Uh huh. The logic of this is so compelling, I can't believe it slipped my mind when I was writing my earlier misguided post.

JR

[jriggenbach]

So long as I am on this kick about human nature, I want to add something I see all around me.

Whenever a crowd gathers, if one individual within it starts accusing and scapegoating someone near who is different, and the accuser's arguments are loud enough and sound like they a minimum amount of plausibility, irrespective of how tortured the rationalization may be, the crowd gradually turns into a lynch mob.

I keep seeing this over and over in human history and I keep seeing it currently in human society.

I keep seeing good people temporarily turning into bullies under the right circumstances.

It's all over the place. It happens so much, I say this has to be part of human nature.

And I worry about the scapegoat. I want him or her to be protected against bullies and mobs.

But, hell... that's probably because of my own tendency to get carried away with conspiracy theories...

Michael

I guess when we look out at the world, we tend to see what we expect to see - what we're looking for.

JR

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

... an institution that in all of human history...

Jeff,

Do you mean that you believe that government has existed in all of human history?

As in this is what human beings have always done?

Be careful... you're premise is slipping...

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I guess when we look out at the world, we tend to see what we expect to see - what we're looking for.

This is correct.

After being beaten to a pulp a few times by bullies, who somehow were always immune to my stunning intellect and impeccable arguments from principle, I decided to start looking out for them and finding ways to restrain them before the beating.

I don't need anyone to defend my right to life after I have been killed.

Here's how it works. You either get power under the exercise of human beings--and you get what you get when the leader's a bully or lynch mobs get lathered up (i.e., the vast majority of human history), or you put power under the exercise of charter documents based on principles (like a constitutional republic), split the power up with checks and balances, and make it hard as hell to change the principles in the documents--and things get a little better for individuals and a little harder for the bullies and lynch mobs (or, I should say, a little better for individuals when they are peaceful and a little harder for them when they act like bullies and/or become part of a lynch mob).

The utopia of power being totally erased from human nature has not yet existed on earth. When you ignore that, and you dismiss charter documents for group living, reality serves you up a "savior" who will take you to a promised land. And look where that is--way too often it is war, genocide, oppression, etc. We already got a good dose of that crap with the best charter documents the world has ever seen, the USA Constitution--but at least we have a peaceful form of correcting the abuses.

That's just the way it is. There ain't no other choices with the nature we humans have.

You can dream, I suppose, but trying to imagine people will not respond to power when they get in groups is sort of like living in cartoon-land, where you can paint a door on the side of a mountain, then open the door and walk on through.

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

... an institution that in all of human history...

Jeff,

Do you mean that you believe that government has existed in all of human history?

As in this is what human beings have always done?

Be careful... you're premise is slipping...

Michael

Or, his slip is premising.

--Brant

[studiodekadent]

Jeff,

I have a lot of respect for free market anarchism and have learned a lot from FMA's. However, in your understandable desire to bolster the FMA case against MSK's arguments, I think you've read his argument in a highly uncharitable manner.

He isn't saying that principles are inconvenient. He's arguing that the FMA view of human nature is a touch excessive in its optimism.

I partly agree with MSK and partly dissent from this argument. I think that human nature does have, UNFORTUNATELY, some evolutionary remnants of pack-animalism (See E.S. Raymond's "The Myth of Man The Killer" for more on this). I accept that rationality CAN override these remnants, but rationality is not automatic.

The majority of people are epistemologically mixed; rational on some things and irrational on others. If almost everyone basically accepted Objectivist-style morality and respected individual rights, I think FMA would be viable. However, that's a very distant goal (although I support working towards it).

I dissent from the traditional Objectivist view of a minimal state as a necessary good; I see it as a necessary evil (I accept the FMA case that the State is ultimately immoral to some degree) in the context of how most current human beings act. As the moral character of the general public improves, that "necessary" will begin to diminish.

MSK is (probably) a lot more skeptical than I am about the chances of this happening. So lets say I sit somewhere between your two positions. However, I think that your uncharitable reading of MSK's argument is at least a bit unfair.

I'm not trying to provoke more debate. Merely to advocate fair understanding of arguments; and I'd be lying if I didn't say I think this forum has a fantastic track-record in fostering such fair understanding. Let's try to continue this track record.

I should add, that whilst I think your reading of MSK's argument is a bit uncharitable, I don't intend to sound like I'm attacking your character or accusing you of intellectual dishonesty; I'm most emphatically doing nothing of the sort.

[jriggenbach]

I guess when we look out at the world, we tend to see what we expect to see - what we're looking for.

This is correct.

After being beaten to a pulp a few times by bullies, who somehow were always immune to my stunning intellect and impeccable arguments from principle, I decided to start looking out for them and finding ways to restrain them before the beating.

Or, to be more exact, you decided to start yelling for someone else to restrain them before the beating. Some people, after being beaten to a pulp a few times, might conclude that they had been foolish to entrust their personal security to the State. They might conclude that the State was useless for personal security (it is, of course, since its actual purpose is something else entirely). They might conclude that they should provide for their own personal security from that point forward - just as they provide for their own footwear. After all, they don't sit around explaining on Internet forums why the State needs to provide everyone with footwear because if people don't have footwear bullies might step on their toes.

You seem to have concluded none of this. You seem to have concluded that it was obviously necessary for the State to take care of your personal security - and everyone else's, too. Was this because the State had done such a good job of providing you with personal security up to that time? I'm a little confused, here. Did I miss a meeting?

JR

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Jeff,

Your ability to sidestep my observations on human nature (especially power) as you slap everything down into NIOF dogma in order to make incredibly off-the-mark presumptions about my character and motives extend to the level of the true believer.

Here's a little Bible fer ya' (it came to mind right now): "If thine eye offends thee, pluck it out."

You've got a good mind that doesn't need any plucking. But that's your choice.

Michael

[BaalChatzaf]

Badges? Badges? We don't need no steeenking badges!

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

... in your understandable desire to bolster the FMA case against MSK's arguments, I think you've read his argument in a highly uncharitable manner.

Andrew,

Jeff needs a Lindsay Perigo or Peter Schwartz (or imitators) to poke fun at.

He tries to treat my words as if I am them, but since I'm not, I think that gets him pissed.

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

Governments were directly responsible for at least 100 million deaths from genocide and war in the last century. Against this NIOF is a dogma or is it good sense?

Governments and the masters of government are the biggest bullies out there. They'll break into your home and gun you down. They'll put you into prison and not because you've violated anyone's rights.

FMA is posited as a solution to this kind of crap, which it is and isn't depending on one's perspective relative to the principle. In the meantime where is this minarchy all and sundry would find so desirable if it only existed? Jeff would be delighted with minarchy but minarchy assumes too much optimism about human nature, it would seem.

I find both minarchy and FMA to be too optimistic or Utopianistic if each is the expected end result, but there is no end result; there is only a process. Either people generally demand and move to more and more freedom slaying the dragons of statism as they go or everything goes in reverse, as today.

--Brant

[Selene]

When the choice is between freedom and food, the masses choose that latter.

As we found out in Vietnam rice won against rights in the short run.

[BaalChatzaf]

Governments were directly responsible for at least 100 million deaths from genocide and war in the last century. Against this NIOF is a dogma or is it good sense?

Governments and the masters of government are the biggest bullies out there. They'll break into your home and gun you down. They'll put you into prison and not because you've violated anyone's rights.

"To be GOVERNED is to be watched, inspected, spied upon, directed,

law-driven, numbered, regulated, enrolled, indoctrinated, preached

at, controlled, checked, estimated, valued, censured, commanded,

by creatures who have neither the right nor the wisdom nor the

virtue to do so. To be GOVERNED is to be at every operation, at every

transaction noted, registered, counted, taxed, stamped, measured,

numbered, assessed, licensed, authorized, admonished, prevented,

forbidden, reformed, corrected, punished. It is, under pretext of

public utility, and in the name of the general interest, to be placed

under contribution, drilled, fleeced, exploited, monopolized, extorted

from, squeezed, hoaxed, robbed; then at the slightest resistance, the

first word of complaint, to be repressed, fined, vilified, harrassed,

hunted down, abused, clubbed, disarmed, bound, choked, imprisoned,

judged, condemned, shot, deported, sacrificed, sold, betrayed, and to

crown all, mocked, ridiculed, derided, outraged, dishonored. That is

government; that is its justice; that is its morality."

P. J. Proudhon, _General Idea of the Revolution in the

Nineteenth Century_

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Brant Gaede]

When the choice is between freedom and food, the masses choose that latter.

As we found out in Vietnam rice won against rights in the short run.

That had absolutely nothing to do with the Vietnam War.

--Brant

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Governments were directly responsible for at least 100 million deaths from genocide and war in the last century. Against this NIOF is a dogma or is it good sense?

Brant,

There are two issues here. One is cognitive and the other is normative. One is identification of reality and the other is judgment as to the best form of human behavior (according to a standard).

If you identify that government arises from human nature, you are not saying whether it is good or bad. You are simply observing what people do and drawing a conclusion about what you see. Wherever people gather in group over an extended period of time, they end up forming a government. I don't see how anybody can dispute that and I have yet to see one argument that identifies the contrary. I am talking about reality-based arguments, not speculations about what ifs.

If you set a standard, like, say, individual volition, then you can go normative and claim that NIOF is the best form of behavior according to that standard so that it applies to all.

Now, if you try to replace the cognitive identification of government as an outgrowth of human nature with the normative conclusion of NIOF as the best way for freedom to exist, and then you mock those who disagree as your best argument, I say you are practicing dogma.

No matter how much anyone twists my words around, I am not justifying bloody dictatorships or slavery. I am their enemy. Dogmatists believe otherwise, but I am not interested in practicing dogma.

Michael

[Selene]

When the choice is between freedom and food, the masses choose that latter.

As we found out in Vietnam rice won against rights in the short run.

That had absolutely nothing to do with the Vietnam War.

--Brant

Brant:

I know it had nothing to do with the war. Our populace found out that offering "freedom" to starving peasants did very little to fill their stomachs. That was the point of the post.

Adam

[Xray]

I think what Michael is trying to say here, Nick, is that principles are inconvenient things, because they keep leading you to conclusions you don't want to reach. It's better to rely on "common sense," i.e., whatever seems right and reasonable to you for whatever reason it happens to seem right and reasonable. That way, you can have your cake and eat it, too.

Pointing out and illustrating the complexity of an issue (for that was what MSK actually did in his # 24 post) has nothing to do with 'wanting to have one's cake and eat it too'.

Instead it as to do with reason. The rational insight being that a rigid thinking in black and white won't get us anywhere here.

Edited July 15, 2011 by Xray

[Brant Gaede]

When the choice is between freedom and food, the masses choose that latter.

As we found out in Vietnam rice won against rights in the short run.

That had absolutely nothing to do with the Vietnam War.

--Brant

Brant:

I know it had nothing to do with the war. Our populace found out that offering "freedom" to starving peasants did very little to fill their stomachs. That was the point of the post.

Adam

They were not starving and we never offered them freedom in any way that made any sense. The "freedom" to vote themselves into communism was denied them in the 1950s and they got the "freedom" of the Diems. Essentially the U.S. "lost" China and decided to draw a line in the sand in Vietnam. We fought a stupid war, got tired of it and left and then completely abandoned the South Vietnamese except for the boat people who fled the North Vietnamese who basically just moved in and took over. I was there 1966-67 and experienced what a cluster-fuck it was and left with all my body parts still attached and a feeling of great relief. I predicted almost exactly what was going to happen in 1971. I didn't know how long it would take.

---Brant

[Xray]

For instance, I can confidently make the claim "absolute truth is valid", because its opposite (and only alternative) is "absolute truth is invalid", which is self-contradictory.

Since it is always 'truth about what'?, '(in) valid to whom and for what purpose?', there exist enough contexts where knowing the absolute truth about an issue can be considered as invalid.

Edited July 15, 2011 by Xray

[Brant Gaede]

For instance, I can confidently make the claim "absolute truth is valid", because its opposite (and only alternative) is "absolute truth is invalid", which is self-contradictory.

Since it is always 'truth about what'?, '(in) valid to whom and for what purpose?', there exist enough contexts where knowing the absolute truth about an issue can be considered as invalid.

Absolute truth exists, but fallible humans aren't entitled to it--that is, it's a claim to an end of a discussion about something and shut up about it and respect my dogma.

--Brant

[Xray]

For instance, I can confidently make the claim "absolute truth is valid", because its opposite (and only alternative) is "absolute truth is invalid", which is self-contradictory.

Since it is always 'truth about what'?, '(in) valid to whom and for what purpose?', there exist enough contexts where knowing the absolute truth about an issue can be considered as invalid.

Absolute truth exists, but fallible humans aren't entitled to it--that is, it's a claim to an end of a discussion about something and shut up about it and respect my dogma.

--Brant

From a purely epistemological standpoint, absolute truth (about an issue) indeed exists. ("Absolute" being used for mere emphasis though).

[nickcoons]

More context. The trouble is saying "government" and lumping it all together, so a constitutional republic becomes equal to a bloody dictatorship.

In principle, yes, they are the same. The principle being that one group of people can legitimately initiate force against other people is shared in both cases. A constitutional republic simply has a bit more red tape before it can legally occur.

There is a fundamental difference between these two situations--and it isn't based on initiating force. It's not even based on the threat of using force.

It's based more on balance within context than on blind adherence to a contextless principle.

Some people in our neck of the woods see no difference in government activity in these two situations. They hold that the government is violating the individual rights and freedom of the people within those two groups.

I see a huge difference. The boundaries between prevention and oppression can get a bit fuzzy, I admit, but that does not mean I will throw common sense right out the window in certain situations. I hold that prevention is a higher moral good than retaliation in those cases.

I use "common sense", so to speak, to re-analyze my adherence to principles all the time to make sure they're valid. If I'm concerned about someone stockpiling weapons who claims to be acting under the guise of "peace and love", then I am far more concerned with the actions of the state than with any private individual, since the former is far more likely to occur than the latter.