You seem to have a strange definition of the phrase “worthy of respect” - were slave laws worthy of the respect of Americans during that time in our history? You specifically call out “no matter how erroneous or morally depraved” so I can’t but conclude that your answer is that you do think the slave laws were worthy of the respect of Americans.
Why? If might makes right and you can get away with breaking a law (might) and it is to your benefit, yet you don’t, it seems to me that your actions belie your words. With your lips, you say might makes right but when it comes down to it, you act as if legislation makes right.
So, just anybody may sit down and write a law which thereby becomes a binding - though unenforced - law?
You (bloomj31) also owe this man your bank account - you just haven’t paid him yet. He’s waiting!
Because I have never been very good at breaking rules and getting away with it. The worst thing I’ve done lately is jaywalking or maybe changing lanes without signaling.
Sure. But if they can’t enforce it, it doesn’t matter much.
Also, I’ve seen that video. He can try to come collect whenever he wants.
We can all be more specific sometimes. If you ask me, semantics lies at the heart of debate.
If I may be so bold, this does seem consistent with your earlier statement that human might can be contested. God’s might, presumably, can’t be. So your concern about being immoral in the eyes of God actually seems consistent with your entire framework of morality, values, and “might makes relevant”. My question to you now is, what do you think God values?
With all due respect, I don’t think you need specifics here. Clayton was clearly referring to all slave laws that have ever existed in the United States, IMO.
Well I’m sorry I don’t know every single slave law that ever existed.
Perhaps if we could narrow this discussion down to a case or a particular piece of legislation then I could do the proper research and make an educated response.
Clayton had some good responses to your post, so I will only address part of it.
If it is not enforced, it is not a law. I did not make the claim that if one person doesn’t recognize it, then it ceases to be law. I made the claim that if the community doesn’t recognize it, then it ceases to be law. So, for the sake of honesty, let’s all try to frame each other’s arguments correctly whenever possible.
Firstly, you stated, “Ok fine, that definition will do.” If you were not okay with this definition, then you should not have said you were okay with it. This definition is a complete definition, as it encompasses all types of law and legal systems, instead of the narrow definition you were using, which only covered statutory law. Statutory law is only one type of legal system, but it has not always been the dominant legal system throughout the world, and even today, common law still influences many statutory law based states.
Secondly, I do not believe that if I don’t pay taxes, then the tax laws will cease to be. I specifically used the word “community” earlier. I would appreciate that you do not try to straw man my arguments. Perhaps you are sour because we have stated you believe in might makes right? Well, as I said before, when you dodge and ignore questions for several posts, that tends to make people think you are doing so because you are trying to avoid answering the question. I have answered your posts, and I have not dodged your questions. So there is no need to try and get back at me by mischaracterizing my arguments.
Thirdly, I do not state how many individuals it takes for something to either become law or cease to be law for a good reason: Nobody knows the answer! How many people does it take for a particular good to become money? The definition of money is “a generally accepted indirect medium of exchange”. What is generally accepted? At what point does it become generally accepted? It’s the same with language. When did “gay” change to mean “homosexual”? After enough people used the word that way. How many people? I don’t know. Neither do you. It’s the same with law. If a community does not recognize something as law, then it is not law, whether it is written down or otherwise.
What’s your point here? I don’t have any dog in the race over statutory rape. Furthermore, it would not be necessary for all the individuals in a community to “like having sex with underage people” in order for a law to cease being. The community would just have to cease recognizing the law. So the only reason I can think of that you stated that I could get a community full of individuals who like having sex with underage people and try to nullify the law is that you were trying to intimidate me about this particular subject. Why?
Clayton did not say for each and every dispute. Perhaps it is what he meant, and if that is the case, then I disagree with him on that particular point. Not every dispute requires that both parties threaten the implicit or explicit use of violence. That you have always threatened violence, implicitly or explicitly, by no means disproves my statement that it is not the case that every dispute require the implicit or explicit threat of violence. For a categorical statement, all I need to do is provide one example that makes it false in order to disprove it. I have done so. That particular categorical statement is false. I do not know why you are continuing the issue.
Why does it matter about the specifics? Clayton is clearly asking that if the state has a law making some people into slaves (which it has had in the past…), would you believe that this law is worthy of respect?
It’s the same with the Jim Crow laws. Do you believe that the Jim Crow laws were worthy of respect? You might respond with, “But which one!?!? Specifics please!” But it is not necessary. The government regulated blacks into second class citizens with those laws. Were those laws worthy of respect? “But which one??!!?!” It doesn’t matter, pick one. Forcing blacks to sit on the back of the bus. Different drinking fountains. I don’t care. Do you believe those laws were worthy of respect?
This is essentially a semantic argument. You say it’s not a law, I say it is. Doesn’t really matter. You say a “community” can nullify a law through disobedience and non-recognition but you decline to say how many people in any given “community” are necessary for this to occur. I accepted your definitions for the sake of argument. I did not believe at the time nor do I believe now that you’ve made a particularly compelling case for community dissolution of law because you know neither you nor I can actually meaningfully define “community” as it’s being used in this context. Could be 100 people could be 1,000,000. The concept is so broad, vague and non-descipt as to be completely useless and utterly meaningless.
K. Well good luck to NAMBLA then.
Yes they do. Your example is not a contradiction, you just think it is. Both you and your friend would have understood that such a disagreement could have come to blows. You just chose not to fight in your example. Doesn’t mean you couldn’t have fought over it. The possibility of violence looms over every encounter every human being ever has with another human being, though to different degrees. We are all aware of our fragility and mortality all the time. What clayton was pointing out, I think, was that that knowledge, that fear, is what holds social order together because it gives people reason to seek peaceful resolutions.
You have not disproved my categorical statement because it cannot be disproven. There is always the possibility for violence. Always. It’s just understood at such a deep level that you don’t even seem to think about it when your buddy refuses to pay his fair share. You automatically jump to unfriending him but this was never the only option.
Well the devil is always in the details. I’m not going to pick some random slave or segregation law out of a hat. You guys pick a law or a case or whatever and I’ll study it and give you an educated response.
I’m also not being asked what I think about them today, but what I think I might have thought about them had I been alive at the time they were still current. So I’m being asked to speculate about what my attitudes MIGHT have been in the 18th and 19th centuries. Seems pointless to me but whatever floats your boat.
We don’t think specific laws are necessary because of how we’re interpreting this statement of yours:
I guess the question is, did you mean for the word “potentially” to modify both “enforceable” and “worthy of my respect…”? Or only the former (which is our current interpretation)?
I don’t really know for sure. The concept of God is so foreign to me I find it hard to even contemplate what such a being would value or if it would value things the way we do. God is eternal. Its “desires” if it desires at all would probably be incomprehensible to me because my life is nothing compared to its eternal existence.
As you can tell, I struggle with this question every day. I think I will struggle with it for the rest of my life.
In that case, why are you even concerned about being immoral in the eyes of God? How can you hope to know whether you’re ever immoral in His eyes? By your reasoning, shouldn’t you be in a state of mortal terror all the time?
So I’m being asked if I were exactly the same person I am now, with the same values I have now and I was time-travel-transplanted into the time of slavery in america, would I have respected slavery laws?
I noticed how you ignored the analogies for language and money, both of which have definitions as “vague” as this. So, I suppose the definition of money is “so broad, vague and non-descipt [sic] as to be completely useless and utterly meaningless.” Congratulations, you have just disproved Austrian Economics…not!
Why wish them luck? I certainly don’t. I have yet to figure your morality out.
Tell that to Ghandi and other practictioners of Jainism. “Oh God, what have we been thinking?! Despite our vow of strict pacifism towards everything, we really do threaten violence against people we have disagreements with!”
Look. I think at this point we have to define dispute - which is a disagreement. Because the last I checked, I have not felt threatened by - nor have I threatened - any body over what TV show to watch next. Obviously, there are people, such as yourself, who find it necessary to try and intimidate others into watching what you want to watch. But this does not mean that it is the case that people threaten violence over what to watch next.
Legal disputes do have the threat of violence, but that is why they are legal disputes. Not every dispute, i.e. disagreement, has the threat of violence hovering in the air. Period. That there are other possibilities does not mean that the parties in question are necessarily aware of these possibilities.
Your mere presence is a potential threat. You could at any time decide that violence is a preferable solution to any problem.
You simply don’t go that route. Doesn’t mean that violence was never a possibility. Just because it never occurs to you doesn’t mean it’s not there.
I don’t know enough about language or money to be able to say whether or not your analogy makes any sense. My gut tells me it doesn’t but as I am not learned enough in either subject I really can’t say.
Does it really matter? I think it goes without saying that slavery is immoral (if we can’t agree on this, then there’s no further point to the discussion) so any law that enforces or enables slavery is a law that is not worthy of respect in my view.
I asked you why laws are worthy of respect and this is what I’m really getting at - answer the question however you like, I’m not picky.
Autolykos noted that semantics are the at the heart of debate - I doubt that you and I use the word “worthy” and “respect” in the same way. I don’t consider the bully who beat me up and took my lunch money in 8th grade to be “worthy of my respect.” He’s worthy of nothing, he was just bigger and stronger and took my lunch money. He is no more worthy of respect than a rabid dog. If he was worthy of anything, it was a kick in the head that I was not able to give him.
Taxation is in precisely the same category of action as the bully who beats up kids and takes their lunch money. They do it because they can. Where is the worthiness (worshipfulness) in that? What is there to respect (hold a sense of reverence or awe) in that?
Okay, so then Clayton, GotLucky, and myself were correct in our understanding of your quoted statement. That means the “potentially enforceable” part can be excised like so:
Notice that I emphasized the word “all” in the above. Since you explicitly declared all federal, state, and local laws (i.e. all laws) in the US to be worthy of your respect, which law(s) we bring up doesn’t make a difference. Furthermore, by your reasoning, you must logically conclude that, had you lived in the US before the total elimination of slavery within it, you would have necessarily considered all slavery laws in the US to be worthy of your respect.
Clayton, I don’t pretend to know if slavery is truly immoral or not. I have no idea how God would view such a thing, or if God would really give a damn.
I know that, at present, the thought of slavery makes me very queasy. As a Jew, I am part of a history of people who have been treated as second class citizens and worse. Would I have been spared the hatred of white people who also hated blacks? Probably not.
But I am the person I am now in large part, I believe, because of my environment. I’ve grown up in a time where slavery is seen as awful. But anything can be seen as awful. Would I have respected slavery laws? I have no idea. I don’t find slavery particularly appealing now, that’s for sure.
When I use the word “respect” it’s not really about honoring something. It’s simply about acknowledging power. I did respect my 8th grade bullies. So much so that I went out of my way to avoid them. Power, to me, is always worthy of respect and fear.
EDIT: I definitely could not see myself as an active abolitionist, sneaking slaves away from their masters and smuggling them into safe zones. Too risky.