Is freedom a joke?
You seem to think so.
You’re going to have to do better than this, troll.
How does the state enjoy a monopoly on violence, exactly? I don’t see how it does.
I see that you’re well-versed in the employment of circular definitions. Try again.
Actually, let me help: do you mean “the ability of the state to maim, kill, or imprison anybody for any act that the state deems warrants it”?
This definition is even worse than the last one. Try again. I’m not going to help you this time.
I know of no instance where any human being has ever suffered “such metamorphoses”, so your point is entirely moot.
Another circular definition. Try again.
I think I can help you on this one, too: if you consider “law” to be “the ability of the state to maim, kill, or imprison anybody for any act that the state deems warrants it”, then perhaps “police the law” means “to exercise the law”, i.e. “to exercise the ability of the state to maim, kill, or imprison anybody for any act that the state deems warrants it”. Does that sound right?
Even assuming that nothing else would stop drug use from continuously increasing in popularity, that in no way means that drug use therefore would continuously increase in popularity, so you’ve put forth a non sequitur. Furthermore, your non sequitur contains an implicit assumption that societal time-preferences will necessarily fall in the future. Perhaps you’d like to support that.
This is an example of the fallacy of division. Immigration, by common definition, concerns nations, not subdivisions within nations.
I figured it was you, Centinel. Only you continually and intentionally equivocate between “aggression” and “violence”.
I didn’t know that you live in one of the Commonwealth countries, Centinel. Good to know.
But anyway, imprisonment does not per se mean learning “vital assembly-line skills”, so there’s another non sequitur.
Well, the style of childrearing you support must fall somewhere between rigorous application of violent discipline and a complete absence of discipline. As I’ve demonstrated the state is extremely competent both at neglect and violence, surely it’d also be competent at any intermediate point that falls between these two extremes?
Do you deny that the state’s faculty to be neglectful in the maintenance of infrastructure could also be used for being neglectful in the rearing of children?
By a monopoly on violence, I mean the state has a monopoly on nationally accepted, arbitrary violence. The state can say “okay, you owe me 30% of your income”, walk into your house, and apply violence to you if you don’t give them what they ask for, and the majority of the other inhabitants of the nation will think the state justified in this action. If however any other agent attempted the same thing, they’d generally be regarded as acting in an unacceptable manner by the majority of the nation’s inhabitants.
How is my definition circular? By “any act the state deems unlawful”, I mean exactly the same as your definition “any act that the state deems warrants it”; an unlawful act is just the word the state gives to an act it doesn’t like. My point was that private parents don’t have the ability to maim, kill or imprison their kids for any act the parent labels ‘unlawful’ (at least not to do so and get away with it), whereas the state does.
Try again? Okay, by ‘proper development’ I mean two things. Firstly, developing into an individual with a understanding of the nature of logic, deduction and induction, basic economics, the statistical/scientific method; all the things necessary for an individual to minimise the number of fallacious ideas about the world they acquire as they navigate their life. By fallacious ideas, I mean thing objectively demonstrable to be false, such as the idea that mixing an apple and vinegar produces peanut butter, or that one can create real wealth by printing money. The fewer fallacious ideas an individual has about how the world works, the better they’ll be able to achieve whatever goals they may have. Secondly, I mean developing into an individual with a maximal amount of ‘freedom’, in the Spinozan sense of the word. In this sense, a dog or cat has no ‘freedom’, as its actions are entirely determined by instinct, biology. Humans however have the ability to reason, and to the extent that they base their actions and preferences around this, towards some goal of their choosing, rather than being complete slaves to instinct and biology, they exhibit greater ‘freedom’ (essentially, even though humans - or any finite entity - can’t be the ultimate first cause of their own actions, and hence can’t be truly ‘free’, they can still work towards being the more direct cause of as many of their actions as possible). It’s explained far better in Spinoza’s ‘Ethics’ here: http://users.erols.com/nbeach/spinoza.html Don’t let all the mention of ‘god’ put you off, as it’s meant in a sense synonymous with ‘the universe’, not in the Abrahamic sense.
Yes, that sounds right. The state would be better able to exercise the ability to maim, kill, or imprison children for any act that it deems warrants it, if children were raised by agents of the state rather than by private parents.
My argument for why drug use would continuously increase in popularity was that alcohol use has increased to over 90%. Considering some illicit drugs, like marijuana, are generally less dangerous or harmful than alcohol, and harmfulness would likely be the most significant reason for people to avoid drugs if they were legal， why should the use of such drugs not rise to a similar level as alcohol use? There was no implicit assumption that societal time-preferences will necessarily fall in the future in my argument, rather I was referring to how time preferences seem to have fallen since the beginning of the war on drugs, if one takes savings rates and obesity rates as indicators of time preference.
Texas and Washington DC are not ‘subdivisions within nations’ in the sense of the word ‘nation’ that I’m using, as my use of the word refers to the area over which the state enjoys a monopoly on ‘legitimate’ (socially accepted) aggression. In quantitative terms, the federal state’s power is weaker in Texas, because it is limited by the local state government there, and because of the more anti-federal attitudes of the populace there compared to in DC. So, my point is that in Texas where the federal government (state) has quantitatively less power, there’s quantitatively more illegal immigrants.
Who is Centinal? If he’s someone preaching a bill of economic rights, then obviously The State doesn’t support that notion, as it limits the state’s ability to direct resources towards ensuring correct development of the nation’s youth
Why should writing in British English necessarily indicate that one lives in the Commonwealth? Maybe it’s just an indication of opposition to the centralisation of language, as most of the spelling differences you reference came largely from the efforts of one man, Noah Webster, to change the English language so as to make it more to his liking.
The State and Autolykos, get a room.
How about yours? I call eminent domain!
Really? And why is that? Please do explain.
You’re making at least one category mistake here, as the state is not neglectful when it comes to violence. Furthermore, if neglecting children is a form of raising them, then there’s no way to not raise children.
See above. Also, I think your point proves too much. For example, it could be said that I am supremely “neglectful” with respect to flying airplanes, as I’ve never flown one. Therefore, by your reasoning, my faculty to be neglectful in the flying of airplanes could also be used for being neglectful in the rearing of children. Therefore, if one thinks the best way to raise children is to neglect them, then all children should be raised by me.
Obviously, there are many more examples of people being supremely “neglectful” in this way, so the general conclusion reached is that all children should be raised by people.
I see. So you’ve been employing an unqualified phrase to convey a qualified meaning, without explaining the qualification(s) to begin with. That’s called “dishonesty”.
Hence the state does not enjoy a monopoly on all violence, which was my point. Thanks for implicitly conceding it.
Because it contains a word that is derived from the very word you’re defining: “unlawful”.
I figured, which is why I put forth that alternative definition. But note that the alternative definition is not circular.
I think what you mean to say is that the state does not allow private parents to maim, kill, or imprison their kids for any act that the parents deem warrants it. Note that this is different from saying that private parents don’t have the ability (i.e. the physical means) to do so (and get away with it).
Do you think the state (necessarily) agrees with you about the meaning of “proper development” in this sense? Also, do you think you’ve provided an exhaustive list of “all the things necessary…”?
There are apparently people who consider that second example to not be objectively demonstrable to be false. How do you reconcile this?
Are you sure about that? Can you provide support that that’s necessarily the case?
Let’s investigate this Spinozan sense of “freedom”:
Can it be said that, regardless of one’s point of view, human action is necessarily determined by the human self alone? I know of at least one point of view that says otherwise - neuroscience.
Right, and that makes your argument almost tautological. It boils down to “the state is better able to do what it wants when it’s in direct control”.
Who knows? My point was that your argument here is a non sequitur.
Yes, there was an implicit assumption in your argument that societal time-preferences will necessarily fall in the future: “without laws against it, what would stop drug use from continuously increasing in popularity as societal time-preferences fell, until it was at over 90% like alcohol use? [emphasis added]”. If you were referring to a hypothetical alternate course of events in the past, you would’ve used the phrase “what would have stopped” instead.
An area can be subdivided, yes? So if a nation is an area, then a nation can be subdivided. Hence Texas and Washington, D.C., for example, are indeed “subdivisions within nations” in the sense of the word “nation” that you’re using.
By that reasoning, the federal state’s power should be even weaker in, say, the Persian Gulf, because the Persian Gulf is even farther away from Washington, D.C. than Texas is.
There’s another way in which your argument doesn’t follow. The federal state employs far more agents near the national borders than it does in e.g. Nebraska. So why are there more illegal immigrants in Texas than in Nebraska?
I think it’s clear that you are Centinel. By the way, evading bans is normally strongly prohibited in internet forums.
I never said it necessarily indicates that. But based on the evidence, I consider it safe to assume that you do live in a Commonwealth nation. Feel free to present evidence to the contrary. (Note: at this point, I won’t consider subsequent changing of your spelling habits to be evidence to the contrary.)