Liberte,
Well said.
Bloom’s value judgement is his alone. As is mine, as is Liberte’s. What I am alluding to is that who is the state to interfere with the victim’s choice of punishment? If the victim forgives her/his rapist, it should be left at that. Their value scale of the damage the rape has done is different than the states.
Jailing people because of “thought crimes” seems very dangerous. Rape, Murder, Theft… All of the above. .
Not that it is relevant to a system of justice that criminalizes precrime but Is anyone familiar with the cases of all five petitioners?
In SCOTUS the brief I was scanning it read as if three of them were sex offenders by convictions for possession of child pornograpy on computers.
“Just out of curiosity, what would your position be if the supreme court upheld a law saying that you specifically are to be locked up indefinitely?”
I’d be screwed. Obviously I wouldn’t be in favor of it because it wouldn’t benefit me. But if that’s the law, that’s the law.
“the people with the guns make the law, and have always done so historically speaking, and if you disobey they will shoot you to get compliance. Whether you or I personally think a legal system based on coersion is a good thing is beside the point that we are living in such a system.”
This.
“But it’s illegal, so it’s wrong.”
I have never said that I have to think something is wrong for me to be willing to punish it, it simply has to be against the law.
Again, I will say this for what seems like the thousandth time. The law has nothing to do with right and wrong, it has to do with what is and is not allowed. Until you understand this, you will not understand how morality and law are totally separate. All that is required for a law to be a law is power. It doesn’t have to be morally justified or logically justified, it simply has to be enforced. If the government has the power to enforce this law, it can do it.
Whether or not you think punishing jaywalking is moral or logically justifiable is totally irrelevant. Whether you think this law is morally or logically justifiable is irrelevant. The only relevant question is: does the government have the power to enforce this law? I think they do.
“It’s the law, so it must be the best, most just, thing for society to do.”
This is absolutely not what I’m saying. I’m not interested in best or morally just, I’m simply interested in seeing the rules applied as they are written down. The law has nothing to do with moral justice or what’s best for society. It has to do with order. Order requires no moral justification, it requires no logical justification, it simply requires that the rules are enforced regularly as they are written.
“switches his argument to fallaciously justify the governments action”
Again, no I’m not trying to morally justify anything.
But even the deranged criminals you blindly support (i. e. your governmemt) claim that their laws are morally justified.
For instance, things like prohibition and laws against sex are ‘morally justified’ in the minds of ignorant people who haven’t got a clue about morality and think that their judeo-christian puritanism is ‘morally right’.
You are presenting something that’s a pure version of might-makes-right and legal positivism, but not all the criminals in the legal system you worship subscribe to your version of might-makes-right - they actually attempt to justify their crimes.
So, even as a parody of a brainless spokesman, you are wrong.
This is not might makes right. This is might makes possible. This is might precedes questions of right or wrong.
Without might, law is not possible. Might is a precondition for law. Without might, there can be no law.
Just because people think that the law has something to with right and wrong doesn’t mean it does. People can think any law is either morally just or morally unjust, but without the power to enforce the law, it doesn’t matter what they think it is, it’s not a law. And lawmen can think their acts are morally justified, but that’s irrelevant. If they didn’t have the might to enforce the law, it wouldn’t matter what their values were.
For instance, you could pass a law yourself right now but if you lack the might to uphold it, it won’t be a law. Conversely, if our government passes a law and can enforce it, it’s a law whether you think it’s right or wrong.
People can certainly pass laws that are consistent with their values, but the law itself has nothing to do with right and wrong. It has to do with might. Might cannot make things right or wrong, it can simply make them so. People can inject their own set of moral values into any set of laws and declare them either just or unjust but the actual mechanism of law has nothing to do with right and wrong.
We must separate the values inserted into laws by people from the actual functional mechanism behind law, which is the use of force to uphold rules. We must also separate ourselves from the idea that laws require moral and/or logical justification. They do not. Laws simply require that someone has the power to enforce them.
EDIT: As an answer to another poster: if you really look at the way our common law system works, it’s all based on precedent, so it’s inherently conservative and inherently dedicated to the status quo. What was held to be law yesterday will mostly likely be held to be law today and tomorrow unless the court overturns precedent, which is not as common as the court upholding precedent. I personally tend to favor the status quo myself. I don’t like too much change. I like things to be predictable. So I find myself naturally drawn to the law because it facilitates my personal preferences.
Thanks for the news flash. This is why we are so bored with you.
So be bored bro.
I’m sorry. Do you not know why its important to discuss the the overall disutility of particular laws? Why its important to be able to explain how anarcho capitalist law will work to the benefit of everyone? Sheesh.
Wed. 10/05/19 10:10 EDT
.post #94
[url=Sex Offenders Get Life in Prison, Even after their sentence ends. - #65 by bloomj31]
[url=Sex Offenders Get Life in Prison, Even after their sentence ends. - #67 by bloomj31]
It seems to me that morality, or at least, the popular perception of moral justification, must come first; this is why the state supplements its gun power with propaganda, including the delusion that “democracy=freedom.” When the propaganda fails, so does the state’s ability to enforce the law. As easy examples, drug and alcohol prohibition laws have failed, as have copyright and prostitution laws. The state certainly has the guns and the prisons, but there has been and is mass disobedience (or at least, non-compliance), because the laws are popularly perceived to be immoral.
“It’s true but does he really think we don’t realize this? Civilized people attempt to justify punishment.” - E.R. Olovetto
True, but then my guess at least would be that his point is how do you civilize the legal system when you’re surrounded by very uncivilized types who seem to like using the government to bash each other over the head? Setting up a theoretical basis for an Anarcho Capitalist or Minarchist world is one thing, what’s the way from here to there though? How do you get positive law to more or less match a system of ethics and morals based on property rights? In the end it would be a practical solution: people would either adopt such a system on their own because they realize the superiority of it; or, it would be imposed via force much as current laws are. This would have to include using force of some kind to stop those who want to expand the scope of the laws to things like victimless crimes, etc.
“The law has nothing to do with right and wrong, it has to do with what is and is not allowed. Until you understand this, you will not understand how morality and law are totally separate. All that is required for a law to be a law is power.” - bloomj31
This is not correct. What is required for a law to be a law is power and enough aquiesence on the part of the populace such that the law is tolerated. Otherwise the public or competing authorities can undermine enforcement and even render a law completely void.
It is also not correct to say law and morality are totally separate. Ethics and morality both inform law even though they are not the same thing as the law. And law is subserviant to them. Law is subject to ethical and moral review, ethics and morals are not subject to legal restrictions.
@Xahrx and Mark,
I disagree, I think power comes before ethics and morals because without power, the morals and ethics are irrelevant.
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. If, however, I had the power to do it, I could do it, and there would be nothing that could stop me except for an opposing force against me. So power comes first, everything else is second.
Another practical demonstration of how morals and ethics comes second is to see how libertarians have been marginalized despite having the most rational, moral and logical arguments because libertarians are a minority and have relatively little influence or power. If morals and ethics really were more important, libertarians would be in charge of making laws, but this is not so.
So, tying it back to the ruling, it has been ruled that the Congress has the authority to make laws such as this. Unless there is some great uprising against this law (which I doubt), there will be no power that rivals Congress. Therefore, the law will be sustained and enforced. If there is an uprising against this law, even if it’s value based, the only way things will be changed is with rivaling force. Either way, morals and ethics will take a backseat to power as they always have and always will. It’s not possible, in a legal sense, for morals or ethics to matter more than power because while power/might are preconditions for law, logical and rational moral values and ethics are not.
“Do you not know why its important to discuss the the overall disutility of particular laws? Why its important to be able to explain how anarcho capitalist law will work to the benefit of everyone? Sheesh.”
I understand talking about the undesirability of particular laws, but I do not see how it can possibly take precedence over the question of authority.
Moreover, I am not primarily interested in laws that will “work for the benefit of everyone,” I am primarily interested in laws that are enforced regularly, with a single set of institutions deciding what the substance of those laws shall be to avoid too many disputes over power. I do not care about “everyone’s benefit” because I do not see that as being the fundamental purpose of law.
The fundamental purpose of law, in my view, is to tell people what to do whether they like it or not.
“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.” - bloomj31
I would agree and disagree. You’re right that judgement without power carries no weight in the legal system, you’re wrong in that people with the views espoused here are inherently powerless. They are merely out numbered at the time and so over powered. Their views do not lack backing though.
“If morals and ethics really were more important, libertarians would be in charge of making laws, but this is not so.”
Again I disagree. I think you’re conflating decisive with important. Power is the deciding factor, but even the powerful feel the need to morally and ethically justify their laws.
“It’s not possible, in a legal sense, for morals or ethics to matter more than power because while power/might are preconditions for law, logical and rational moral values and ethics are not.”
Incorrect. In our system power is the decisive attribute. Other systems of law like private law, have been postulated and even exist to a certain extent in some places.
This is no different than talking to a gestapo officer.
“You must do what the führer says”
Of course, as long as atrocities are expressed using fake politeness and hypocrisy everything is OK.
Because the question of authority is ideaological. You can only see the very short term where the state uses violence to preserve its foothold. As the quotation explains, and apparently you didn’t read, the state cannot survive any length of time without some political philosophy to lend plausibility to its position.
Then you cannot sell your ideology. Practically no one will be interested in your opinion then. Opinions of intellectuals matter as stipulated in the quote.
Law has no intrinsic purpose. There is only the purpose of man.
Now be polite to the gestapo officer. Remain intellectual and don’t forget to be touchie, feelie as he talks about his gun, and whips it around and shows it to everybody on numerous occassions as he is sooo powerful with that phallus lookin’ thingy. You wouldn’t want to appear uncivil in the gestapo officers presence. Let’s be nice to those that support criminality and immoral behavior because ya wouldn’t want to get the natives restless.
“I would agree and disagree. You’re right that judgement without power carries no weight in the legal system, you’re wrong in that people with the views espoused here are inherently powerless. They are merely out numbered at the time and so over powered. Their views do not lack backing though.”
Fair enough.
@JakobM, you must do what the law says, but there is no fuhrer. In fact, our executive doesn’t really make laws. That’s the Congress’s job.
Also, I’ve never said everything is ok.