The Exploitation of Trayvon Martin

[anthony]

So what of all those people demanding "Justice for Trayvon"? Why are they wrong? And did Zimmerman get his justice?

You can't legislate morality. There will never be enough rules, enough caveats, to make sure that everything everyone does is moral... nor is there anyone smart enough to make such rules or any process to determine who would be smart enough if it were possible.

And again, objective morality is not within our reach at this time as we cannot even define objective values.

We cannot? Perhaps you speak for yourself. It depends on your idea of morality.

"Life, as the standard of value" -> rational selfishness -> individual rights -> objective law and justice.

Why the protesters are wrong is they were pursuing an issue not directly relevant to the facts, or the case.

Was RZ in fear of his life? Relevant. Was he in danger of serious harm? Relevant. Did he have the right to defend himself. Relevant. Does he hate or fear black people. Irrelevant.

What do you want, a trial by popular opinion? Do you sincerely believe a democratic majority knows best?

(I'll have an idea later when the Zimbabwean vote results are out).

[Brant Gaede]

Jeeezusss!

Justice is subjective? Morality cannot be built into the law?

I used to think people on this site were interested in Objectivism--or at least knew the basics.

Dayaamm!

Michael

Blame Xray.

Blame Canada.

"Bomb Canada!"

--Brant

[anthony]

A high-flying local celeb hip-hop musician - "Jub Jub" - gets himself coked up and drunk, and goes drag racing his Mini Cooper against his friend's vehicle, in front of dozens of admiring teenagers a few years ago in Soweto. They lose control, piling into the throngs and killing 4 boys and brain-damaging 2 more.
Public outcry.

The Prosecutor went after them for murder (!), and attempted murder. Guilty on both counts. Sentenced to 20 years each. Great jubilation and righteous finger-wagging by all those perfect citizens who've never driven drunk, or done stupid things with a car.
A horrendous miscarriage of justice, designed obviously to "make an example", to "put the rich and famous in their place", and still many clamour that 20years was not enough for 4 lives.
Save us from the sanctimony of mobs.

Subjective justice.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Tony,

Some things are so out there, why bother?

It's like arguing with a person who goes to Google and says there are no objective Internet systems, that it's all subjective, and btw Google should look into search one day.

What on earth can you say to a person like that?

I get it that a person is too lazy to read Ayn Rand and cannot be blamed for not knowing what he doesn't read as he pontificates.

But come on...

Michael

[Dglgmut]

Rothbard thought two-eyes for an eye is just. Is this right or wrong and how can you really say?

Do I believe a democratic majority knows best? Of course not. That's why I think they should be limited to non-violent collective actions--like blacklists and boycotts.

As far as the Zimmerman trial goes, my opinion is that Zimmerman did not deserve jail time, but more importantly I believe the law was followed and I also believe that law is good for society (the right to self-defense and innocent until proven guilty beyond reasonable doubt).

Laws do not guarantee justice, but we should not expect any guarantees. Principles exist to give us the best results the majority of the time, and we cannot be too hasty to throw away good principles on the off-chance they produce unsatisfactory results.

[Peter]

Dglgmut wrote:

Laws do not guarantee justice, but we should not expect any guarantees. Principles exist to give us the best results the majority of the time, and we cannot be too hasty to throw away good principles on the off-chance they produce unsatisfactory results.

end quote

I agree. The only people who may disagree are the Progressive / totalitarians, and the Rational Anarchists unless the influential George H. Smith has changed his mind. By the way, I just wrote an impromptu review for his newest book, “The System of Liberty,” on Amazon. I probably should have proofread it more.

Monday and Tuesday I was in Lancaster, PA to see “South Pacific” at the Dutch Apple Dinner Theatre. The food was top shelf. The cut of ham actually had bacon on the top. The production was very good and the singing was grand, definitely of “off Broadway” quality!

“South Pacific” has the theme of WWII and of racial prejudice primarily against Asians. The heroine from Little Rock, Arkansas falls in love with a widowed French plantation owner but breaks it off when she discovers he has two mixed race children.

I think Dinner theatres would go out of business if it weren’t for retirees. We must have made up three quarters of the audience. The last time I was in Lancaster was early June to see “Between the Covers,” and the smell of horse and cow manure was overwhelming. It’s not so bad in late July. There were plenty of Amish in their buggies and the boys in their straw hats, get around on skateboards and scooters.

Peter

[moralist]

Laws do not guarantee justice, but we should not expect any guarantees. Principles exist to give us the best results the majority of the time, and we cannot be too hasty to throw away good principles on the off-chance they produce unsatisfactory results.

That is especially well put.

[moralist]

And again, objective morality is not within our reach...

...but it is always worthy of our highest aspirations.

[Brant Gaede]

A high-flying local celeb hip-hop musician - "Jub Jub" - gets himself coked up and drunk, and goes drag racing his Mini Cooper against his friend's vehicle, in front of dozens of admiring teenagers a few years ago in Soweto. They lose control, piling into the throngs and killing 4 boys and brain-damaging 2 more.

Public outcry.

The Prosecutor went after them for murder (!), and attempted murder. Guilty on both counts. Sentenced to 20 years each. Great jubilation and righteous finger-wagging by all those perfect citizens who've never driven drunk, or done stupid things with a car.

A horrendous miscarriage of justice, designed obviously to "make an example", to "put the rich and famous in their place", and still many clamour that 20years was not enough for 4 lives.

Save us from the sanctimony of mobs.

Subjective justice.

In the context of justice there is no subjective. There is no arbitrary in justice unless it is in the law itself. Nazi justice, communist justice is not the justice of right and wrong. Not even "Objectivist justice." There is no "Objectivist justice" or "Objectivist physics" or "Objectivist psycholoy." Etc. Objective justice is the only real justice and a whole another kettle of fish. All that's needed to objectify justice is to objectify human beings doing human things. Can't do that? Try something else. Why? As the negative needs the positive so the parasite needs the host, the subjective needs the objective. Thus, though Rand's "the impotence of evil" is fundamentally and theorectically valid, it keeps crashing into the complicated rocks of reality for free will is in us all and we are entities unto ourselves harboring this seeming contradiction. This is because the complexity is properly observed to be on different levels from each part within same and so seemingly co-exist not because they metaphysically can but because there is room within the organism, which is strong.

--Brant

choose!, or I'll SHOOT!

Bang!, Bang!, I shot him down, that damn guard down!, Bang!, Bang!

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Are we suddenly discussing philosophy in platitudes?

The generalities and switched meanings are so thick in this discussion it's all mush. In particular, I begin to wonder what people mean by justice.

But hell, that doesn't matter because it all means something else the next instant. Just so long as the platitude sounds good.

It's subjective, you know...

Bah!

I'm not even going to quote from the following links. But that's only because things have gotten so vague right now there is no clear concept to discuss. Talk about floating abstractions! They're like soap bubbles, floating in the air, carried by the wind as they fall to the ground and burst. Except a soap bubble has a definite form.

If anyone is interested, he or she can go to the following links and read. For those with short attentions spans, they can rest easy. The following are short texts.

Simple definition of justice.

Legal definition of justice.

For those with slightly longer attention spans:

Ayn Rand on justice.

And, for those with normal attention spans adult humans should have, here is some mush justification from trying to be all-inclusive across wildly different standards. But at least each flavor of mush is distinct. So it's possible to adopt one and stick to it, thus end up with objective clarity (right or wrong) instead of a formless blob impersonating an idea:

Wikipedia article on justice.

Michael

[moralist]

Morality cannot be built into the law?

It had better be built in, because the sole rightful purpose of law is to serve morality.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Morality cannot be built into the law?

It had better be built in, because the sole rightful purpose of law is to serve morality.

M.,

No argument there. See Ayn Rand in "Man's Rights": (which you probably have read, but I'm quoting this for the reader who has not):

Individual rights are the means of subordinating society to moral law.

Since the law is based on individual rights, the law is grounded in "moral law."

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

Morality cannot be built into the law?

It had better be built in, because the sole rightful purpose of law is to serve morality.

M.,

No argument there. See Ayn Rand in "Man's Rights": (which you probably have read, but I'm quoting this for the reader who has not):

Individual rights are the means of subordinating society to moral law.

Since the law is based on individual rights, the law is grounded in "moral law."

Michael

My grandfather's (Irving Brant's) book, The Bill of Rights, It's Origin and Meaning, is filled with stories of the great English heroes who put their lives on the line, and sometimes paid with their lives, for individual rights. They had no moral compulsion? Ya gotta be kiddin'!

--Brant

[moralist]

Morality cannot be built into the law?

It had better be built in, because the sole rightful purpose of law is to serve morality.

M.,

No argument there. See Ayn Rand in "Man's Rights": (which you probably have read, but I'm quoting this for the reader who has not):

Individual rights are the means of subordinating society to moral law.

Since the law is based on individual rights, the law is grounded in "moral law."

Michael

I can add that law is also based upon individual responsibilities, and that there is good law and bad law. Bad law doesn't serve morality. It serves government.

I'm woefully unread on Ayn Rand, but I do my best to live Ayn Rand.

[anthony]

Laws do not guarantee justice, but we should not expect any guarantees. Principles exist to give us the best results the majority of the time, and we cannot be too hasty to throw away good principles on the off-chance they produce unsatisfactory results.

That is especially well put.

I'm at a loss to understand this. It's sounds well put, if I only knew what it meant.

Is it 'perfect justice' we seek? Are men so imbued with mystical values that God remains the final Judge?

Do principles - morally rational ones - have a shelf life? are they 'useful' most of the time, though at risk of being discarded when they're not?

Sorry, I don't get it.

[Brant Gaede]

Laws do not guarantee justice, but we should not expect any guarantees. Principles exist to give us the best results the majority of the time, and we cannot be too hasty to throw away good principles on the off-chance they produce unsatisfactory results.

That is especially well put.

I'm at a loss to understand this. It's sounds well put, if I only knew what it meant.

Is it 'perfect justice' we seek? Are men so imbued with mystical values that God remains the final Judge?

Do principles - morally rational ones - have a shelf life? are they 'useful' most of the time, though at risk of being discarded when they're not?

Sorry, I don't get it.

Pragmatic justification of principles is contradictory and principles in action is not pragmatism because of any imperfect results: that's the cart in front of the horse.

--Brant

[caroljane]

Btw I chuckled at your little joke about socialists being mentally ill. I never make jokes myself of course, and have always stoutly refuted the canard that Objectivists are more prone to Narcissistic Personality Disorder than anybody else.

At least narcissism is relatively harmless.

Really? The judge who sentenced Ariel Castro to an eternity in prison recently described him as an "extreme narcissist."

[caroljane]

Btw I chuckled at your little joke about socialists being mentally ill. I never make jokes myself of course, and have always stoutly refuted the canard that Objectivists are more prone to Narcissistic Personality Disorder than anybody else.

At least narcissism is relatively harmless.

Whatever Obama's got is a real threat...

Carol: No, never, twasnt I. On "little" jokes, or on socialists being mentally ill. (Look to someone closer at hand...hint...hint).

My jokes are BIG, if so dry they are dessicated - and what I think of socialists is unprintable.

Calvin: Spoken evidently as someone who has fortunately not been intimate with a narcissist.a

Tony, I like dgl have been fortunate and never intimate with a narcissist, but I realize now that I have known a few, based on the symptoms that are now grouped under NPD.

My impression of these people was that they were staggeringly self-confident, had a "sense of life" securely based in their own individuality . I admired them. I didn't like them, but I definitely admired them.

[Mikee]

Impenetrable self-righteousness, unwillingness to check premises and unrestrained smarminess. This is NOT narcissism? Perhaps self-confidence offends you...

[caroljane]

Impenetrable self-righteousness, unwillingness to check premises and unrestrained smarminess. This is NOT narcissism? Perhaps self-confidence offends you...

Offends me? No. In the people I am thinking of, it scared me,, they were definitely more powerful personalities than me, personalities that repulsed me, and I just wanted to avoid their notice.

[Dglgmut]

Laws do not guarantee justice, but we should not expect any guarantees. Principles exist to give us the best results the majority of the time, and we cannot be too hasty to throw away good principles on the off-chance they produce unsatisfactory results.

That is especially well put.

I'm at a loss to understand this. It's sounds well put, if I only knew what it meant.

Is it 'perfect justice' we seek? Are men so imbued with mystical values that God remains the final Judge?

Do principles - morally rational ones - have a shelf life? are they 'useful' most of the time, though at risk of being discarded when they're not?

Sorry, I don't get it.

Principles follow from abstract concepts; they are abstract rules for dealing with reality. Everyone is principled, as everyone has some personal philosophy, the difference is the degree of abstraction. A person can be lazy on principle because they do not want to waste any of their time alive on an activity they do not enjoy--not because the task is really that difficult, but because this is how they think they ought to live.

"What fact of reality gave rise to the concept “justice”? The fact that man must draw conclusions about the things, people and events around him, i.e., must judge and evaluate them. Is his judgment automatically right? No. What causes his judgment to be wrong? The lack of sufficient evidence, or his evasion of the evidence, or his inclusion of considerations other than the facts of the case. How, then, is he to arrive at the right judgment? By basing it exclusively on the factual evidence and by considering all the relevant evidence available." - Galt's Speech

Does this sound objective to you? She's talking about an individual using one's mind, which is essentially the definition of subjectivity. Justice is an individual's effort to be objective... that does not make justice itself objective.

When can we justify retaliatory force and how much? No two people could agree on an answer to this question. Most of us may be able to agree on a set of principles that will help us answer this question (non-aggression principle, for example), but even that is looking very difficult to achieve. When we get into specific situations we will all interpret the evidence differently, and maybe even the principles we've agreed upon.

Socialist principles are very abstract. The purpose of their justice system is to provide justice. That's it. No more needs to be said. And this leaves a lot of room for interpretation, which is what they want, because it's easier to just follow your heart... if only that were an effective way for millions of people to self-govern.

It's not possible to self-govern that way, so then we need leaders to decide what justice is for us--and hope we get a good one or that we become one ourselves.

[moralist]

Is it 'perfect justice' we seek?

Many people are trying to escape the perfect justice of the consequences of their own actions. Reality is perfect justice. It renders the final objective verdict on how we are living our lives.

Are men so imbued with mystical values that God remains the final Judge?

In my view, God is not the final judge... but the reality of physical and moral laws that He created is. So judgment is ultimately self inflicted causality. You can't get any more fair and just than that.

Do principles - morally rational ones - have a shelf life?

In my opinion, no.

Since human nature is always the same, all moral principles are valid all of the time. They are as universal, objective, and as utterly impersonal and the law of gravity.

are they 'useful' most of the time, though at risk of being discarded when they're not?

I believe that they are not any more easily discarded than the law of gravity is.

In a larger sense, no one can violate moral law, because even if they were to act completely contrary to it, that same law still governs the consequences they get from their actions. The same law of gravity governs the person who stands safely on the ground, as well as the person who foolishly steps off of a cliff.

Sorry, I don't get it.

I doubt I've been much help there, why. It's just some other ideas that came to mind as I read your comments.

Greg

[Mikee]

Impenetrable self-righteousness, unwillingness to check premises and unrestrained smarminess. This is NOT narcissism? Perhaps self-confidence offends you...

Offends me? No. In the people I am thinking of, it scared me,, they were definitely more powerful personalities than me, personalities that repulsed me, and I just wanted to avoid their notice.

I fail to see much difference from being "repulsed by" someone versus "offended". As far as being scared, there is nothing you would ever have to fear from me, I have everything to fear from you.

[anthony]

Btw I chuckled at your little joke about socialists being mentally ill. I never make jokes myself of course, and have always stoutly refuted the canard that Objectivists are more prone to Narcissistic Personality Disorder than anybody else.

At least narcissism is relatively harmless.

Whatever Obama's got is a real threat...

Carol: No, never, twasnt I. On "little" jokes, or on socialists being mentally ill. (Look to someone closer at hand...hint...hint).

My jokes are BIG, if so dry they are dessicated - and what I think of socialists is unprintable.

Calvin: Spoken evidently as someone who has fortunately not been intimate with a narcissist.a

Tony, I like dgl have been fortunate and never intimate with a narcissist, but I realize now that I have known a few, based on the symptoms that are now grouped under NPD.

My impression of these people was that they were staggeringly self-confident, had a "sense of life" securely based in their own individuality . I admired them. I didn't like them, but I definitely admired them.

Carol, Huge differences. Although it looks like inflated egotism - NPD has nothing to do with self-confidence, is in fact its polar opposite, I think. William could bear me out on this, from a psychiatrist's perspective.

True self-confidence in one emanates a complete self-sufficiency or self-containment that isn't threatened by other people, nor over-dependent on others' attention, and he usually relates beneficently to them. It indicates his or her sense of firm boundaries, ones which don't require neurotic defending.

Whereas, a narcissist literally devours those who he or she fixates upon, as their so-called "Narcissistic Supply". It seems to denote a deep pathological void which the person can't fill. A terrible absence or constriction of ego, not an excess. In a sense, I speculate, they do not fully exist without an other person's existence.

If you are ever 'selected', you'll soon know all about it! In my experience, you will never meet a more potent charm than in a narcissist. And as pay-off, the excitement factor is highly charged and addictive - but don't even go there...

Perish the thought: Narcissism isn't remotely close to the axis of confidence, self-esteem and individualism - which may just put paid to your conjecture about Galt, Roark et al.

;)

-but maybe not.

[caroljane]

maybe not , indeed. Call me irrational, but I would be more scared of a creepy lurker and stalker, who lures people away from home to disappear from sight, and a rapist/arsonist than of any old narcissists. Just listening to their speeches would break me.