Sex Offenders Get Life in Prison, Even after their sentence ends.

[MMMark]

Wed. 10/05/19 18:08 EDT
.post #95

[url=Sex Offenders Get Life in Prison, Even after their sentence ends. - #74 by bloomj31]

@bloomj31

[/url]I’m not saying that subjective value judgments aren’t used to review laws, I’m saying that without power, those value judgments carry no weight, no practical significance whatsoever.

For a very simple demonstration of this, I could say that all libertarians will now be killed because they are libertarians and libertarianism is against the law. But without the power to enforce this edict, I cannot make it so.

What do you mean by “make it so”? Actually follow through and kill all those deemed “libertarians”? But you need neither “the power to enforce this edict” nor any law at all to kill. Without moral justification and hence popular acceptance, you have neither law nor compliance, only victims. Libertarianism would simply be driven “underground,” and you’d have failed to “make it so.” If compliance is a measure of “practical significance,” surely such a law must be considered a failure. Is this not true of all bad laws (i.e. all laws that ignore morality)?

I suppose my point is that it is morality that differentiates law from mere coercion. Your point seems to be that there really is no difference, that it’s all just coercion. But if that’s the case why have two different words for the same thing? And if morality is immaterial to law, why do people discuss it? I ask the questions rhetorically to suggest that what you are saying doesn’t seem consistent with real life. If what you are saying were true, if coercion were sufficient to enforce compliance, then people wouldn’t behave as though morality was important; they’d all just obey the law.

[url=Sex Offenders Get Life in Prison, Even after their sentence ends. - #75 by bloomj31]

@bloomj31

[/url]The fundamental purpose of law, in my view, is to tell people what to do whether they like it or not.

Perhaps your view, or your imagination, is limited? What about the concept of law as the explicit expression of popular morality?

@bloomj31

I disagree, I think power comes before ethics and morals because without power, the morals and ethics are irrelevant.

One important difference between state-enforced law and thuggery is that the former enjoys popular moral sanction, while the latter does not. Hence, the state’s coercive thugs can brutalize with impunity, whereas private thugs cannot.

This reality tells me that you’ve got it backward.