After giving it a lot of thought, I’ve realized that if the state has the power to use force to uphold a ruling against another state in the name of the majority, they also have the power to infringe on personal choice in the name of the majority. That’s fascism.
However, I still do not see how a society can work without centralized force. It’s a conundrum to me.
But I thought I’d try to be humble and admit that I realize that at least part of what you were saying was right.
I also do not see how morality has anything to do with any of this, it’s just…logic. If an argument can be made to allow one thing to happen, it can be made for another thing to happen. It’s simple cause and effect.
I don’t experience anything like internal morality. I don’t think you do either. You just ask yourself “what’s going to get me what I want?” And you do that.
Society is a broad topic. What specifically in do you think is untenable without centralized force? Chuches? Roads? Airports? Museums? Cabs? Beer? Hot Dogs? Apple pie? Shopping malls? Fine literture?
Since you believe the free market works in most of the above cases it would help to have a more specific objection.
Without making a moral value judgment how do you know that infringing on personal choice and/or fascism are bad?
Because voluntary selfishness makes economies run. If you coerce people, you take away their ability to make decisions about what’s best for them. Thus you bring economies to their knees. This is undesirable. Morality is about absolutes. I don’t think in absolutes. I merely ask “is this the best way to get what I want?” I know there are more effective ways to get what I want than by killing people and stealing from them. I can just convince them to give things to me. And then they’ll be there the next time to give me more.
All laws require an enforcer. No one enforces morals. However, if I kill someone, another person will say “I don’t want him killing me or anyone else, we need to lock him up!” So they do. Morality isn’t enforced, logic is. Before you can murder twice you have to murder once.
At any rate, having a system which is not consistent, i.e., a system that can overrule individual rights in the name of ‘the majority’ doesn’t sound like a good idea after all eh ? =P
I have an instinct about what I can and cannot do and get away with. I have an instinct about what is the best way to get what I want. I can afford things without stealing. Stealing big things is risky. Cutting people off the road is unnecessary. My brother doesn’t have a girlfriend. If he did, and I thought she was hot and that he’d never find out, I’d probably screw her.
That’s never what I wanted. But I realize now that I can’t argue for free markets and argue that the majority is best served overriding the will of the minority with an army.
“There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance. That principle is contempt prior to investigation.” ~ Herbert Spencer