Limits of State Power
POSTED BY: SergeantX
UPDATED: Sunday, December 14, 2025 21:53
VIEWED: 37205
PAGE 16 of 36
Frem: Treating people fairly with a gray perspective of morality, all concerning the ultimate goal of making sure children are safe?
In Utah?
Most of the public and lawmakers around here are thoroughly incapable of seeing sides of a moral issue beyond "good" and "evil" judgments. I think next to Texas, we have the largest concentration of Minute Men in the entire nation. Culture being as it is around here, the same people "in the know" around here are the same people who law enforcement would LOVE to deport to Mexico on a technicality.
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Imma take these two in reverse order, since they dovetail so nicely.
First, Siggy...
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Many sticky questions remained unanswered. Who mined (or recycled) the iron and coal to make the parts to fix the railroad engines to run the railroad ? Who mined and refined the minerals to manufacture the chips to run the computer that listed areas where work needed to be done ? Who gathered the resources to create the nutrition/ food lab to research new and better food supplies ?
I can address that one, at least insofar as our little meritocracy goes.
Yanno, I actually hold no authority whatsoever, right ?
Not the purse strings, not by force, knowledge (outside of my specialties I can be a downright blockhead), rules, or any other method of coercion - and I severely, SEVERELY stomp on anything resembling personality cultism or hero mythology in any form, not that it stops a couple of folk, bleh...
But, despite the fact that in practice it's a friggin cat-herd, when something needs doing, and everyone looks at someone else, and most of em are lookin at the same person, it's prettymuch a given that unless whatever concept or idea they espouse is especially stupid - they will voluntarily take that persons directions or advice.
It's a hard concept to describe, but despite it being a coordinated effort, there's no real coercion required - everyone knows we need to get this thing or that thing done, and whoever happens to be in their judgement the most likely to cause that to happen efficiently gets the nod, so long as they are willing and able, which occasionally results in the one getting the nod stating "I have no idea" and either finding someone else, or someone else research cramming while giving directions.
Once you remove the NECESSITY of work, you will quickly find that folks as a rule prefer to have something meaningful to DO - and feeling involved in the process as a direct beneficiary of the end result, will go about it quite cheerfully and diligently.
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Basically, it comes down to a lack of large-scale organization that you need to get complicated things done.
For a large scale project, it runs just about the same, one guy winds up with the nod to coordinate it, and then each sectional pack throws the nod to someone within who winds up as team leader for the duration, and so on and so forth.
Swarm theory meritocracy is the closest way to describe it.
I HAVE seen a capsule description of that in film once, quite masterfully, in fact - Edgar Friendly and his little pack of folks.
And then Rue...
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Unless of course you are a font of ideas that you can sell very well. In which case, you 'abuse' your power by persuading others to go along. And if your ideas test out over over time as being generally good ideas, you'll probably get a better listening-to over time.
Exactly, which splices right in with the above.
Of course, that can lead to a bit of hilarity when everyone looks at you and you're only answer is "I have no idea" (this is a running joke, for us) followed by a moment of ok-what-the-hell-do-we-do-now ? before someone else steps up or starts cramming on it to get the process started.
-F
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Originally posted by Righteous9:
we can't really afford for those stupid voices to get a whole lot of traction, without regressing as a society every time the American people as a whole, get complacent, and content to not know shit about whats going on.
Couple of points in response. First off, who decides which are the stupid voices? You? Me? An educated elite? The Majority? Would any of these be reliably right? Enough to justify forcing their opinions on everyone else?
Second, if complacency is your concern, that's exactly what these 'caretaker' laws breed. I've seen the change in the few years I've been alive. The more we round off all the corners and install baby bumpers on all the sharp edges of society, the more people demand that they should be able to stumble through life, exercising little or no judgment of their own - and suffer no ill consequences as a result. The more we bailout failing businesses, the more risk those business take on. It's all good, the government will take care of everything.
SergeantX
"Dream a little dream or you can live a little dream. I'd rather live it, cause dreamers always chase but never get it." Aesop Rock
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Byte ?
Re: Utah.
Give us a couple of years - because of what happened in Texas with the FLDS and our involvement with that, and the aftermath of trying to help hold them together while purging the bad elements, we've wound up with massive "cred" within the mormon community on both sides of the line - and we intend to spend it wisely.
One thing I'll say about mormons, minus certain really bad elements we're currently assisting with the purging of, they really do love their kids, and if that means having to temporarily stay their hand from smiting evil in order to better protect them, I think that given time we can convince them, especially given a still-painful example of how hurtful going overboard with the smiting can be to them.
-F
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But we don't need it to tell us the right way to live. We don't need it to tell us what church to go to or what books to read. We don't need it to maintain our health, to feed us, to cloth us, to make sure we brush our teeth before bed or tuck us in at night.
Well, to some extent I agree with you. I'm arguing though that there IS a case for limited government intervention in our lives, I've even drawn a line to say where it is permissible. Basically I'm arguing that there's a difference between government intervention to get people to wear seat belts and government intervention to get people to stop smoking - because one is a personal lifestyle choice and the other is primarily just thoughtlessness. The level of intrusiveness is not comparable, and as far as I'm concerned when government can intervene in an effective way that save lives, and it doesn't affect citizen's life choices, it's a no brainer.
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the most important was "the right to think freely"
A seat belt law doesn't infringe that as much as you think - it only kicks in when you have neglected to think at all. It's in this area of human mental deficiency, where we are weak or lazy minded to our own detriment, that I think a steadying (and otherwise largely invisible) hand of government can be justified.
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I'm saying such laws are unnecessary because they don't relate to the reasons we need government in the first place. We need government (settle down, Frem - merely stating the prevailing theory) so that we can have civilized social interaction. We need it to settle disputes, to apprehend bullies and violent predators. We need it maintain a commons where we can interact with some sense of order and trust.
Why limit it to that, if there is another potential role for it where it can intervene effectively to make lives and society better, at no significant cost to individual freedoms? I'll try to think of some other cases besides the seat belt example where intervention is justified, but so far with just this single case I think i've made an argument for government having such a role in theory.
Let me double check though, since it's so important to my argument; does a seat belt law feel like a serious infringement on your rights to you? Or maybe just your ideological purity on the role of government? I suppose it pre-empts your freedom to think for yourself, but is that demeaning?
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I don't think it's wise for society to force conformity when it's not required. For one thing, it puts all our eggs in one basket and commits us to one solution. And, sometimes the majority is just plain wrong (hard to believe, I know). Why not hedge our bets and let the free thinkers try out alternatives?
Fair point, but some things, like a seatbelt law, carry no real risk.
Heads should roll
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but some things, like a seatbelt law, carry no real risk.
I beg to differ.
Allow me to retort,
Firstoff, there's the fact that they ARE used as bullshit "fishing expeditions" like this particularly over-the-top incident in TN...
http://libertarianvegan.today.com/2009/04/04/tennessee-cancels-illegal
-checkpoint-included-dhs-and-military-police/
And really, how is this much different than a street gang shakedown ?
https://www.checkpointusa.org/blog/index.php/2007/02/27/p27
http://www.thenewspaper.com/rlc/related.asp?S=3
And finally, should you think it's not harrassment, there's the typical BEHAVIOR of our local street gang protection racket, despite their official "legitimacy", which was handily caught on tape by one Brent Darrow (and more than once, mind you!)
http://www.thenewspaper.com/news/15/1522.asp
Yes, it does carry a risk, and a large one, anything that can be used as a blanket excuse for dragnet style fishing expeditions while impeding folks right to go about their business unmolested without direct suspicion of a crime is inexcusable.
Ergo, the statement that such laws carry no risk is demonstrably false in practice.
-Frem
It cannot be said enough, those who do not learn from history, are doomed to endlessly repeat it
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well,
I never suggested that any voices be totally cut out of the equation...
I should point out again, that there is a national identity that we all share, an indoctrination that those of us who are happy to be Americans all mostly agree upon, and that's the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. We don't neccesarily interpret it the same way.
Would it be safe to assume that you have no problem having the Constitution and Bill of Rights taught to all children in the U.S.? or do you feel that it should be the decison of the parents and the schools they enroll their children in, whether or not to teach anytihng about the Constitution.
If you are in agreement that these things should be taught, then I think there are many other fundamental things, that I think most people, even educated people's of different philosophies about America, can agree our children should be learning collectively.
If you don't think this is neccesary or right, then how do you protect those ideals when it comes time for people to vote? How do you ensure that it won't be eroded by sheer ignorance and apathy?
Anyway,
ideally, the educated elite would make these decisions, which ideally, would be the populace at large.----so educated elite/majority.
The getting there is what i'm trying to figure out, and the point of my post was that as a nation, there needs to be a sense of responsibility instilled in the American puplic to stay educated, and appraised of issues.
....
you may have a point that society has rounded all the edges so that people don't have to be pragmatic minded, or thoughtful, or alert in their every day lives----
I don't propose that we resharpen those same edges though---that's just a solution that will continue to mire everybody in daily survival rather than deeper more philosophical, and complicated matters that everybody should have an opportunity, the time, and even the responsibility to navigate.
I think the deeper cause of our dumbing down, is that there is no cultural drive for people to be "more informed." We have simply used money as the only measure of success in this country for too long, and that has made people slothful in too many ways.(not in the daily grind and the struggle to get ahead- but in critical thinking)
If we have granted relative safety(without the loss of liberty), which has granted us more liesure time, longer life,less reliance on the reptilion brain's survival mechanisms, to everyone, then we all have a responsibility to make sure that we counter the new complacency that has been ushered in with something more, cerebral.
......
Edit to adress your comment about bailing out failing businesses---
Bank bailout Does seem like absolute bullshit to me too(though I don't know enough about the complexities to say that firmly)
...if we needed the banks not to fail so that they could give loans to small businesses, why didn't we just let the banks fail, and then have the treasury make the loans to small businesses...
it would have been far more concentrated in the very area it was meant to be used----and at least then we could have been sure the money was going into stimulating the economy, rather than into junk stocks or whatever.
Auto industry is another deal. Company's were run absolutlely poorly, but they seem to be industries with too many peripheral industries attatched to them to just give up on them...plus they are our factories, plus this has been used as an opportunity to try to union bust----
this may have been more appropriate
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Originally posted by rue:
As (probably) the only person to have belonged to a co-op -
If the bylaws are written correctly, it'd be VERY hard to 'abuse' power in a coop. The co-op that I belonged to ran under direct democracy.
Since every member is a voting member, it would be very difficult for anyone to have the time and resources to actually coerce enough people to coerce the vote to abuse their power in the co-op.
And this is fine, as long as everyone in the co-op is in it voluntarily, and can opt out at any time. Trying to force everybody into such a situation would be quite a violation of individual rights and choice.
"Keep the Shiny side up"
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How can you "force" people into a specific co-op?
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We should have strapped him into a glider, filled it nose heavy w/ explosives, and dropped his Allah lovin' ass into a large, empty field. After which, release wild boars into the area so they could make good use of his remains. Now THAT's justice.- rappy
Yeah, that's what Sheikh Issa said. Seems you both have a lot in common.- signy
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Originally posted by SignyM:
How can you "force" people into a specific co-op?
Or into any co-op at all. To me that seems to be where the "Business and government run by self-elected boards" falls down. Not everybody wants to be involved in such a cooperative/communal enterprise.
"Keep the Shiny side up"
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