Help from Libertarians/Anarchists
POSTED BY: Geezer
UPDATED: Friday, January 18, 2008 14:04
VIEWED: 12974
PAGE 18 of 18
I'm gonna answer in the next thread 'cause tis is getting waaay too slow for me!
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Always look upstream.
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1. "The government's function would be limited to these: political structure, public roads, taxation, courts, police, and military."
And while I hate to keep harping on this, who takes care of the people who can't take care of themselves ? In most primitive cultures this is considered a basic social function. You are proposing a society even more primitive than those.
5. "All rights are derived from the bedrock principle of individual sovereignty. All citizens are sovereigns of the state."
Now here is where HKC, FremD, SergeantX, CTS and LeGuin have divergent opinions, especially when it comes to children, parents and school.
I'll start with LeGuin first b/c hers is the most completely thought out, and, I b/c I also presume its HKC's position. In her society (which I have to say she stacks quite carefully to give the best chance of working, down to a new language) families stay together out of mutual agreement. Children who are old enough to find their way can live in the 'dorm' and eat at the 'refectory'. In her vision, there is some kind of 'care' consistently available for very young children. (While she doesn't state it explicitly care is either given by someone who likes spend their spare time doing that kind of thing, or by voluntary selection from a 'worklist' of basic social tasks.) In her vision there is also no school - everything is open, children hang out where it's interesting and people teach children what they're doing if / when the mood is on them to teach.
How do these children learn to read, write and do math ? A very few will pick that up from general exposure, but they are difficult enough tasks for most children that it will require some concentrated effort an somebody's part. How this happens isn't clear.
Frem's answer as best I can tell is private school. What I get from his posts is that 'public school' is all about killing the spirit, and that that is exactly what's happening to his niece. And that's why public schools should be abolished.
Personally, I don't see how private schools would fix that. Let's take the situation of his niece. If the parents are bad enough to pick a public school on its spirit-crushing ability, why would giving them a choice of a private school (or tutor) that they would chose for the exact same result be any different ? Or if the idea of mandatory school is the issue, how would home schooling be any better ?
His other answer as I understood it (and which I hope he was dissuaded from) is giving kids a piece to pack. How would this NOT create pathological children in large numbers ? Feeling burdened ? Put upon ? Misunderstood ? Don't like your vegetables ? You can solve all your problems with the equalizer !
Yes definitely ! there are children - too many - who are victimized sexually, physically and emotionally. But taking away any public interest in children's welfare and turning homes into inviolate hellholes doesn't count as an answer with me.
SergeantX as best I can tell seems to think there is no justification for public interest in children's welfare. Period. Now he doesn't say so explicitly but my impression is that a family is a private unit on which nothing can intrude, until it ends up in rape, death or beatings which leave permanent bodily damage, which are then crimes. Though this sounds like FremD's nightmare.
Now as best as I can tell (and I'm sure CTS will loudly complain that I'm picking on her no matter what I say) schooling is all about choice. No schooling ? Fine. Home schooling ? Great. Private schooling ? No problem. Whatever floats your boat and whatever you can afford.
It's all about the parents choice and the price. Should you decide to deny your children an education it's all good. Should you chose a madrassa that's great, the curriculum is your choice. Should you be unable to afford one for your children, it's all good too. Though again this does all seem to be about the parents rights, abilities and prerogatives, and not so much about the children.
So, whose vision do we follow ?
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Quote:There is no such implication. As a sovereign, you would have complete autonomy over your properties and business transactions. Whatever contract you and your employee agree to is binding.
If you are implying that to become a citizen I have to provide constitutional protections for personal and business interactions that just won't fly.
Quote:The CTSLand scenario is different from my reply to Sig about direct democracy. That is, I like the idea of direct democracy as a reform measure for our existing country (Sig asked what we would take away from our current situation, I agreed with him on "politicians"). The CTSLand constitution would be my ideal if I were to start a country from scratch. I wouldn't have direct democracy (except to elect the President) in CTSLand.
If there is no law but the constitution (which is not in fact a law at all) then how can a direct democracy function?
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I have no reason to suppose, that he, who would take away my Liberty, would not when he had me in his Power, take away every thing else.
--John Locke
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Quote:OK, we gotta have some common ground on the word "force" here, because it is a MAJOR concept, and we seem to have different definitions.
Originally posted by AgentRouka:
But if a "feeble" person has no family, no friends to speak of, and there is no governmental "net" (however flawed), aren't you forcing people to volunteer?
When libertarians speak of force, they mean someone is pointing a gun at your head threatening you with prison or death unless you comply. So no, people are not "forced" to volunteer.
Quote:There is no alternative to volunteer to help. But here's the thing. Believe it or not, people don't need to be forced to help, esp if they know there is no safety net (no diffusion of responsibility). I've seen it time and time again in societies with no social net. They help each other for the sake of helping.
..what would the alternative be to "voluntarily" helping?
Quote:Death is never completely all right. It isn't different from watching rape and torture from being carried out--and note that there is no law that says you MUST stop rape and torture if you happen to see it. Note that in our society, it is NOT a crime to refuse to help even when rape and torture is going on. It is not even a crime to not call the police. It is not a crime to watch your neighbor starve to death.
Would that be... completely alright? How is it really different from watching rape and torture be carried out? Would that even be a crime? Refusing to help is refusing to help, right? Is the only crime, then, the one that gets reported by the victims?
Current law does not force you to help your neighbor. All it does is force you to pay taxes, then rationalize that this force is necessarily because a very small fraction of it goes to help your neighbor. It is an illusion that hides the fact that had you not been forced to pay taxes, you would have had plenty of money spare, and would have helped your neighbor anyway.
Quote:Social will is all good. We can express it all we want, and put our money where our social will lies. But government has nothing to do with social will.
I suppose, I am uncomfortable with a society that doesn't provide some right for physical care for the helpless. Some officially expressed social will to prevent suffering.
Here is another illusion of government: that law is the society's moral compass. In other words, if it is moral, it should be legal. And conversely, if it is immoral, it should be illegal. If helping your neighbor is the right thing, it should be legally required. If it is wrong to watch your neighbor starve to death, it should be illegal. And if it isn't reflected in the law, then the society must not be very moral.
In reality, citizens can be plenty moral without anything said in the law. Social or moral responsibilities do not have to be government responsibilities. People are capable of acting in good will outside of government purview.
The thread has apparently moved here:
http://www.fireflyfans.net/thread.asp?b=18&t=32312&
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Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his conscience to the legislator? Why has every man a conscience, then? I think that we should be men first, and subjects afterward.
--Henry David Thoreau
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Quote:
Originally posted by canttakesky:
There is no alternative to volunteer to help. But here's the thing. Believe it or not, people don't need to be forced to help, esp if they know there is no safety net (no diffusion of responsibility). I've seen it time and time again in societies with no social net. They help each other for the sake of helping.
Oh, I'm well aware of that. "Volunteering", though, in that case doesn't really imply doing it freely or without resentment.
I also, though, know that caring for someone sick and old can be an extreme burden, time consuming and not always rewarding if you don't have personal ties to that person, and the person "volunteering" to do it can come to resent it quite a bit. If there is no diffusion of responsibility, society doesn't equally participate and it ends up with the person unlucky enough to be close by, not a paid professional. That kind of resentment can easily translate into bad care.
If times are good and people have time and resources to spare, I can even easily see this working better than institutionalized care. But if times are bad and people need their time, attention and resources elsewhere, I see this going down ugly places.
Quote:
and note that there is no law that says you MUST stop rape and torture if you happen to see it. Note that in our society, it is NOT a crime to refuse to help even when rape and torture is going on. It is not even a crime to not call the police. It is not a crime to watch your neighbor starve to death.
Somehow I cannot believe that if you are in a room where rape is being carried out and you do nothing, the law will not have something to say about it. Isn't that aiding the crime?
Quote:
Current law does not force you to help your neighbor. All it does is force you to pay taxes, then rationalize that this force is necessarily because a very small fraction of it goes to help your neighbor. It is an illusion that hides the fact that had you not been forced to pay taxes, you would have had plenty of money spare, and would have helped your neighbor anyway.
I would have helped my neighbor, yes. But I would likely have hated it a lot.
Is it irrational of me to favor a system that doesn't make me choose between giving up my life to care for a stranger if I don't want to watch them die?
Quote:Quote:Social will is all good. We can express it all we want, and put our money where our social will lies. But government has nothing to do with social will.
I suppose, I am uncomfortable with a society that doesn't provide some right for physical care for the helpless. Some officially expressed social will to prevent suffering.
In reality, citizens can be plenty moral without anything said in the law. Social or moral responsibilities do not have to be government responsibilities. People are capable of acting in good will outside of government purview.
I'm not saying they can't. In fact, I am sure they would. I am, however, not sure that this is any more fair then taking taxes to provide care. The work needs to be done but if the responsibility is not defused in some way, it's a huge burden on a small group (or individual) rather than a small responsibility for a big group. Bottom line is that the person suffering doesn't even have any recourse.
It wouldn't even have to be governmental, so much, but would a government-free system be able to provide a system that takes care of the helplessly sick stranger than shows up needing help? I just can't see people not ending up forming some kind of health insurance system, down the line, and in squabbles over who paid in and who didn't, questions of "voluntary or not" would play in, unless those who refuse are happy to be leeches to such a system.
Unless you have a BIG generous institution like the catholic church in the middle ages. People funded free hospices then to get brownie points from God, but those were already the incredibly rich and influential to begin wit
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Quote:
Originally posted by HKCavalier:
Signy, all you're doing is plopping anarchy down on top of our existing system and saying: see, it don't work! You remind me of former Secretary Watt's quip, "If you want an example of the failures of socialism, don't go to Russia, come to America and go to the Indian reservations."
Anarchism would not and could not simply impose itself on your life one day. Anarchism is really a pretty alien way of thinking from what we get stuffed down our throats in this country. Have you read The Dispossessed? Le Guin goes into great detail about the childhood and school age years of a boy growing up in an anarchist community. The values instilled in the young are in many ways antithetical to a lot of crap we take absolutely for granted in this country.
Your example of the ambulance ride is a nightmare of impersonal mega-communal living which in an anarchic system could not/would not function. If you actually want to live like insects in a hive, then anarchy would not appeal to you. Communities would be smaller and people would have a much more thorough working knowledge of how the community functions and who to trust and such. Anarchy is a system requiring tremendous personal responsability compared to our entranced consumer culture. Different communities would have a huge database which they shared with other communities, of which you as a citizen would have to have a working knowledge. Imagine if you had the kind of knowledge you have about our elected officials in Washington about the medical practitioners and other professionals in your area. Everyone would have to dabble in all kinds of civic minded avocations--volunteer this, volunteer that--anarchy is not a system for people who want to be left alone to wallow in privileged ignorance--such folks would not fare too well.
I've been away and apparently have missed one hell of a discussion. I have a lot of reading to do ahead of me it looks like.
I wanted to comment on this particular thought HK... I've posted this story before about a year ago and I think it illustrates your point very clearly. I know Frem's read it, but I would recommend it to you or Signy or anyone who hasn't read it before.
It's called "And Then There Were None" by Eric Frank Russell. It honestly gave me chills when I read it and admittedly I do believe it actually changed the way I thought about a few things when I was 24 years old.
You can find the story here in it's entirity:
http://www.abelard.org/e-f-russell.htm
Enjoy. I'd love to hear anyone's thoughts on it who has read it or who reads it after reading this post.
anarchy is not a system for people who want to be left alone to wallow in privileged ignorance--such folks would not fare too well.
Well.... there's the catch, innit?
Liberty doesn't just come to those who sit on their fat ass and demand it. I believe someone was quoted as saying that it takes eternal vigilance. Anarchy is such a tough sell, not because of the BS consumer culture generated arguments against it, but because it's a hell of a lot of work and it requires a much more evenly spread of responsibility on those who are part of the community.
Heh.... in fact, I wanna steal Fox News's "Fair and Balanced" tag and affix it to Anarchism. Even those who outright oppose Anarchism in here I would suspect could probably agree that it fits there better than FN. At least I know PN has my back there....
"A government is a body of people, usually notably ungoverned." http://www.myspace.com/6ixstringjack
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The thread has moved here:
http://www.fireflyfans.net/thread.asp?b=18&t=32312
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Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it's time to pause and reflect.
--Mark Twain
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