Clayton
That’s not up to you, is it?
I’m not arguing that the decision is mine. I’m expressing my preferences, and stating my case for the morality of those changes.
how many people there are on planet Earth is not up to you or me. It’s under no one’s control, not even governments
Again we differ. I say that it does matter–even whether I make my case or not. I too would love to see zero-point energy; and I wouldn’t be surprised if Tesla or his scientific heirs have invented it. The point is, that our simply discussing this preference openly, on this forum, may tip off someone to the technology–someone who is in a position to find out what the government already has, and make it known. But if we don’t voice our opinions and our preferences, even at the risk of ridicule, or of stigmatizing the innocent, then we’re marginally shirking our moral part in that improvement process.
The substances that people ingest is not up to you and me … even if we use the same apparatus of State to hurt a lot of people who ingest the “wrong” substances.
Amendment XV – The manufacture, sale, transportation or use by citizens of the United States, twenty-one years of age or older, of any intoxicant which is not likely to induce severe physiological addiction and withdrawal or temporary insanity, as understood by law, is hereby legalized and made subject to all laws respecting regulation of agriculture and commerce.
But the use of any intoxicant, legal or illegal, concurrent with a violation of a federal, state, local or precinct law shall be a felony crime: an offense that suspends the self-sovereignty of the accused before and during trial and abrogates it upon conviction; until the accused shall have been exonerated, or shall have served no less than one year in state or federal incarceration. And the use of any illegal intoxicant by a custodial parent shall be, ipso facto, felony child neglect and cause the immediate loss of custody of all minor children upon arrest; whereupon custody shall be restored only upon exoneration, or completion of sentence and judicial consent.
Sorry. Couldn’t help myself. And your argument for no policy, because a policy implies a state, is more of a moral abdication, than a defense of pure freedom. Even in a society with common law, one must expect that some “policy” would evolve. And in such a society, you might be called upon to put in your two cents. Should a mother of young children face any sanction–e.g. lose her kids–if she’s addicted to crack, beating the kids, and prostituting herself? Or is this just the freedom of the free market, and the kids, its units of marginal utility?
To charge the taxpayers money in order to try to change things that you don’t like but which aren’t up to you is like investing money into researching unaided human flight (h/t Rothbard).
As for public policy having no effect on behavior, I don’t believe that either. I promise you, even setting the minimum wage aside for the moment, that if welfare were ended altogether, there would be huge changes in incentives and deterrents, and ultimately in individual choices, vis a vis, single, welfare mothers. Guaranteed. Look at China, for goodness sakes: they can make vast changes, whether it’s right or not. And I like the element of public shaming brought into play, the message of morality: it is immoral to bring kids into the world at other’s expense, or when there isn’t enough food to keep them fed. It’s vulgar. Just like I think it’s vulgar to perpetuate the myth that companies operate under such tight competitive restraints that it would be unthinkable to guarantee full-time workers, at mid to large-sized companies, a wage sufficient to establish financial subsistence–a place to live, enough food and clothes, heat, AC, etc. We’ve all seen the policy idiocies and gross inefficiencies of corporations, both from the customer’s point of view, and from within.
At the very least, look at it like this: If we were to disassemble the market-distorting intervention of the state, we should start with corporate subsidies, unnecessary regulation, monetizing debt, cross-generational SS/Medicare transfers, and paying people who are capable of work, not to work. Of all the market distortions from government, and I agree that it is one, the very LAST thing to go should be the friggin’ minimum wage.
this process that is underway will take the control freak by the short and curlies and throw them against the wall.
I wax. (Just kidding.) I’m not torqued up about changing anything. Frankly, I feel as though I’ve already largely done my part, by making public a blueprint for what I believe a moral, functional society would look like–my direct democracy Constitution. At the margin I decided that I ought to make some effort to make its existence known; since it doesn’t exactly pop right up with every related search–but never with the expectation that I would, or could, force others to buy into it. So, about a month ago maybe, I entered into my first such forum, making mention of the document, defending it, and providing links for it. And in the past few weeks I’ve posted arguments here in defense of principles and perceptions of human nature that undergird my blueprint for society and morality.
But, believe me, I’m quite resigned to go down with the ship. I hold no illusions, nor have any ambitions, of using duplicitous language to advance some ulterior agenda. I just feel obliged to try to make a difference in whatever unique way I might be able, given the realities of the current state system. And if the state fails, so be it; but if your scenario of free, common-law cultures doesn’t bear fruit, and it’s more of a hellish squalor, then I’ll have the consolation that I at least tried to make possible a workable, peaceful transition to a freer society. I’m more focused upon first teaching how to swim, before tossing everyone in the deep end.
The government just wants more money for itself and its wars and it will spend whatever it has to spend on the security and propaganda apparatus to ensure the smooth flow of revenue.
You tend to talk of government as though it were a single, cognizant entity: It’s a direct reflection of the weaknesses in human nature. And human nature is a constant, subject only to influences of force and persuasion. Yes, I’m trying to persuade others of the morality of forcing the immoral to act morally, much as we use prisons to force rapists to not rape. All I hear in your protestations against the force of government, as far as what would actually result without it, is a resignation to, and perhaps even a desire for, an ammoral chaos, given real human nature.
Yet I give you the benefit of the doubt that you believe that ultimately from this chaos would emerge a common-law freer society. I just don’t see how you don’t see that the problem isn’t a “government-entity”: it’s damn near everyone. And without some force to control the aggressive among us, they would run roughshod over the supporters of liberty–or keep us constantly at gunpoint. I suppose you like your odds better that way–me, I’m not so sure: I like leaving aggression to the aggressive, on a day-to-day basis. They have their lessons to learn, about the discipline and utility of force; I have other lessons to learn.
