Hugo

Then it is not government in the political sense. If everybody who is governed agreed to be governed and agreed to the terms of their government, then it is not coercive, it is voluntaryist. After all, a person has the right to live in peace without violence being done upon them, but one can voluntarily abrogate ones own rights. Now, if some of the teamsters were there against their will, that would be analogous to government. When do they not solve this problem? More examples, less rhetoric, August. "Government never furthered any enterprise but by the alacrity with which it got out of its way." - Henry David Thoreau

Did you make that up yourself?

Was the "wall" an argument you couldn't defeat? Or was it your own self-contradictions? This is an incredibly lame argument. Why was it necessary to whip shirkers? Why could the other teamsters not expel him from the team? Why could the shirker, who didn't want to work, not quit? There has to be coercion involved, so what you are saying is that more coercion is necessary to correct the effects of coercion. But if you want to continue this discussion, I'd suggest you resume posting in the relevant thread.

-- John Quincy Adams – William Penn -- Harry Browne

Oh, oh, I have some! -- Goethe -- Gary Lloyd -- John Adams. -- Alexander Tytler -- George Washington -- Mark Twain -- James Bovard -- Thomas Jefferson -- Herbert Hoover

Well, August, we had a 9-page thread on this subject in which you were completely unable to defend this assertion, and eventually you bowed out altogether, leaving it to Theloniusfleabag, who couldn't defend it either. Repeating what you'd prefer to be true will never make it so.

Blackdog's point is perfectly valid. Democracy is a compromise, usually a huge one, since the only way to get an elected representative who agrees with everything you do is to run yourself, and then what of everybody else? Democracy is a big sham. It's called freedom, but all it really is is a system to allow the slaves to choose their slave-driver, and a system for people to confer rights over others that they don't have on to politicians, and call it justice. Whoever gets elected will retain the ability to abuse your freedom, violate your property rights and more. None of it is helped by the braying of the media that one should "get out and vote". No system of slavery is more secure than the one that manages to convince its slaves to fight for it. Yes, Kerry is a pretty normal political leader. He lies, he changes his mind depending upon the latest polls, he tells people what they want to hear, his true opinions are a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma, he makes promises he could never possibly deliver on, he demands the right to commit crimes and to call them just, and so forth. Blackdog, I love your signature. I heard a very similar quote, and I can't remember who said it or exactly how it went (really useful, I know), but it said something like, "A nation is the success of an attempt to deceive several million people into thinking they could ever be a community."

A right is a natural entitlement (life, property) that could exist even solipsistically, whereas license is a grant of entitlement. A right generally has responsibility as well as entitlement, for instance, the right to life carries with it the obligation to respect the right of others to live. License does not necessarily hold any obligation or responsibility, in fact, it is usually used to mean a lack of responsibility. Nihilism is not a specific value or a disagreement with a consensus, it is a belief that there are no values. Usually, it's used to refer to morality. Nihilists believe nothing is moral or immoral. Nihilism is often wrongly used as a slanderous term against those who disagree with current popular opinion, and perhaps this is where your confusion stems from. Personally, I hold that since we have free will, and in the Cartesian sense that is all we may have, that is the foundation of all rights and values, to whit, the exercise of free will and the respect of the free will of others. Basically, no rule or action of man should transgress on free will, and if one has the exercise of free will one is not held to any course of action one considers immoral or restrained from any course of action one considers moral. Each person is free to exercise their own morality. Since no man is inherently and demonstrably superior to other men, none of them have the right to oblige others to follow their morality. Only a superhuman could do this, and the Son of God taught exactly what I have said above, so that settles that. That isn't a valid answer. You are saying that the majority can grant rights or take them away, so as the majority of the world disagrees with the foreign policy of the USA, that would make them wrong, or strip them of their right to wage war in Iraq, wouldn't it? Either that, or democracy doesn't make right, in which case your original contention that the people of the USA could grant legitimacy to the Patriot Act or any public policy must be wrong. Your third alternative is that you are a nihilist, and there is no "right" or "wrong", in which case our actions are solely limited to what is practical, not what is "moral", Hitler was perfectly justified in his slaughter of 11 million innocent people, and so forth. But you have already denied being a nihilist, so that alternative is closed to you. Then you have a dilemma. Abortion is the majority consensus, but you disagree. Either you can allow the majority to hold sway, in which case you are violating your own moral code with your implicit consent to an immoral act. Or, you protest the decision of the majority, in which case you are violating your principles of democracy and stating that democracy can and does fail, and that your will should transcend that of your fellow man. Once again: Since you have not rescinded this self-contradiction I'm afraid I'm going to have to keep throwing it in your face.

Oh, and one parting shot: If whatever the majority decides to be right is right, as you have said, does that not make the position of the US government wrong and immoral since the majority of world opinion is that they are wrong and immoral?

No, my point is not irrelevant, no matter how dearly you wish you could wriggle out of this in such a fashion. What you originally said was: These are your words. Now, as we have established, the will of "the people" does not guarantee against wrongdoing or of just policy, therefore, majority opinion cannot confer a just and legitimate right but merely a license which may or may not concur with rights. For instance, majority opinion may deny the right of certain people to live and may grant license to other people to kill them. However, "rights" have not changed, only recognition of them. You were wrong and you are unable to defend your point. Are you going to answer the question? Yes or No. It's a pretty easy question. If you can't answer it without refuting a part of your argument then that should speak to the viability of that argument. Read what you said. You stated that 'Whats "right" and what "moral" is all in the eye of the "beholder".' Your words, again. There are no qualifiers in your statement and if you meant it to have them, you should have included them. If you lack the ability to verbalise your thoughts properly you're going to have a hard time debating! I can only react to what you write, and I don't know what you think, so when the two don't coincide it is your problem. Yes, hence my use of the qualifier "necessarily." Read what I wrote properly. Their opinion is irrelevant to whether or not they are right. I can believe 2+2=5 with the most concrete and unyielding faith, but that will never make it so. This is why the concept of "fact" is distinguished from that of "opinion." Why? And do you mean the right, or the license? Then we return to the question you steadfastedly refuse to answer: if the majority voted to gas the Jews, would that be morally legitimate? And here we have your answer: So according to you, any act is moral and just as long as the majority assent to it. There's not much point continuing this debate, then, since by your own admission you have no concept of "right" and "wrong" and your moral compass is dictated entirely by other people. It's pointless to discuss an issue of ethics with you because you don't have any ethics. Your flailing and floundering is laughable. You've contradicted yourself repeatedly, held opposing opinions in the course of this thread and refuted your own arguments. Every question is met by more questions of increasing irrelevance and obfuscation. I suggest that you need to do a lot of thinking and research and actually formulate a coherent opinion before trying to debate from it.

That's also irrelevant. The fact is that democracy put Hitler into office who then proceeded to enact thoroughly unjust and immoral public policy, therefore, democracy is not a guarantee of a moral or just public policy. That is what I am saying and you are repeatedly missing that point in your efforts to construct strawmen. Just answer this question: Does democracy guarantee that the actions of the government will always be ethical and just? Yes or no. That was not what you said. I already cited your quote, which was of a nihilist viewpoint. Now you are saying you are not a nihilist. Fine - but you contradict yourself. In any case, if you believe in moral absolutes it therefore follows that what is right and good does not necessarily rest with the majority but with an absolute that transcends the numbers and qualities of people and their opinions. Therefore, the majority cannot make something just and right simply by their assent. From the moral absolutist viewpoint, something is just and right or it is not, no matter how many people believe it. From this, we can see that your initial remark that the US electorate can legitimise and have legitimised the Patriot Act is necessarily false because the majority cannot confer moral legitimacy. Does that make it just? To reiterate my earlier example, if your opinion was "voiced and shared" and "made law" in a democracy, and that opinion happened to be gassing Jews, would that be just? This is absolutely no relevance to the question I asked you. But if your opinion was founded on universal law, this would mean that you were right and those who disagreed, wrong. For instance, if it's your opinion that perpetual motion is impossible, then you are correct because of the universal laws of thermodynamics. Those who disagree are wrong. This, of course, assumes that you know the absolute. Of course it is wrong! What in my previous posts could possibly lead you to think otherwise? I never requested for the government of Canada to "govern over" my property. For other Canadians to have conferred this right on the government against my will means that they must have had that right (since you can't give what you don't have), so basically, "other Canadians" - Liberal voters, perhaps - have the right to govern me and my property. Is this what you are saying? Do I have the right to tell you you can't use your computer between 8am and 4pm? Or do you have that right over me?

It's irrelevant. The fact is that democracy produced Hitler's government, which is an example that proves my original point: having democracy is absolutely no guarantee that the government will do the right or the just thing at any given time. This, combined with your moral-absolutist stance, means that your original argument (that the Patriot Act was just because it was approved by the majority and/or their elected representatives) is invalid, using your own logic. Then you are in direct contradiction of your earlier statement: ...Which is an inherently nihilistic argument. I would suggest you need to examine the self-contradictions in your own thinking and decide which side of the fence you're actually going to stand on. Sure you do what? The question I asked was an either/or, not a yes/no. Recognise whatever you want. But for you to use violence or the threat thereof to force others to share your recognitions is wrong. Obviously. I can impose rules regarding the use of my own property, and I can insist that those who won't follow those rules leave my property. I cannot impose rules regarding the use of somebody else's property, nor can I insist that they leave unless they follow them. Therefore, you are saying that the government of Canada owns the entire country and everything in it, or that the "majority" (which changes every election) owns the entire country.

This question would not need an answer had you not edited out the second part of my sentence to make your point look stronger. A libertarian anarchist such as Jesus can give advice. I can say "don't buy a Chrysler" to you, but without force or the threat thereof it's just a piece of advice and you aren't compelled to obey it. Since Jesus completely forsook the use of force, the only possible explanation of this quotation is that Jesus was giving advice. Anarchy does not forbid morality, nor does it forbid holding an opinion or attempting to convice others of it. It just forbids using fraud, violence or threat thereof to impose your opinion on another human being. Finish the sentence! "it declares that there are commandments to be kept [if you love Christ]." Once again, Jesus is not compelling anybody to do anything. He says, "if you love me, you'll act this way." A wife may say to her husband, "if you love me, you'll be faithful to me." Is the wife her husband's government? Would she be right to use violence to ensure her husband's fidelity? Is she even threatening to use violence to ensure his fidelity? Or is she simply giving conditions for their strictly voluntary relationship? I find Jesus rebuking Peter for drawing his sword in Jesus' own defence, warning him that those who live by the sword shall die by it. I also find him teaching people to turn the other cheek should somebody use violence against him. I also find him refraining from summoning an army of angels to smite his enemies even though it would cost him his life. How do you reconcile any of this with a supposed endorsement of violence by Jesus? That's a pretty clever answer from John. It's very hard to be a soldier without intimidating anybody. That's the Old Testament. Jesus goes against a lot of the teachings in the Old Testament, his is the new covenant and is overriding. Jesus says in Matthew that you cannot invoke God as a witness, therefore, Jesus refutes this teaching in Malachi. I would argue that somebody who complies with all of the teachings of Jesus, like Gandhi, loves him. They clearly love what he taught and what he stood for, from which it follows that you'd love the man. I find it hard to believe that Jesus, always a man of compassion and love, would condemn Gandhi to burn in hell because he called God "Rama" and not "Jehovah." Then why would he give us instructions in how to live? If he has taken the punishment for all of us, what does it matter?

He made them pretty clear in Mein Kampf, which was published several years before he came to power. That isn't the question at hand. I'm asking if you're a nihilist. I did ask you to answer the question, obviously I should have qualified that: Answer the question being asked. You consider some things wrong, so is this just your opinion (in which case, you have no right to make it law since it's no better than anybody else's opinion) or is it a part of some universal law, a moral absolute? Is somebody forcing you into same-sex marriage? If not, you're claiming that your "rights" include the right to tell other people what to do. What choice is that? Where's the contract bearing my signature whereby I agree to abide by the rules of democratic government?

If you want to go back to the moon, what you have to do is really simple. Start a company with the goal of sending a man to the moon, and solicit for investors and even donations. Whoever is interested in such a project can put their money where their mouth is. Your investments will represent the true level of interest that exists for another lunar landing. But please, don't assume that everybody else feels that returning to the moon is a great idea (evidently they don't, judging by the response you've had) and propose to expropriate their hard-earned money from them against their will to pay for such a project.

You guys are talking about transferring liability, which is fine with me. Any person can voluntarily assume liability for another, and even charge a fee for it, like an insurance company. Other examples would be archaic Letters of Introduction, Anglo-Saxon borhs or even a reference for an employer and so forth, basically, a guarantee of a given person's character by a reputable authority of good standing. Let's say you run a cable company. One of your technicians, while installing a cable, damages a house. The technician is responsible as he caused the damage. The company can either hang him out to dry and make him fully responsible or it can assume responsibility for the damage, in which case the technician's liability has been transferred to whoever would be liable - the supervisor, the directors, or if the company itself pays the damages from its funds, the shareholders. As long as everybody involved knew what they were getting into, i.e. everything was voluntary, there's no problem. I think we're in agreement. I'm against all force.

Are you being deliberately obtuse? I asked if you would be OK with something. Therefore, who defines "OK" is you! I'm asking you, if the majority voted for an atrocity like genocide, if you would accept that, or if you would think that the majority was wrong to desire genocide. Yes or no. Very simple really. In the case of the Charter, Trudeau's Parliament. In the case of the Constitution, a bunch of fat middle-aged political critics in the late 18th Century. You should know this stuff. As to who can change it, it's very difficult to change it. This is because even those who created our democracies knew that the majority, that elected representatives, are fallible and can do the wrong thing on occasion. Hitler came to power according to the letter of the Weimar constitution. He came to power democratically. Think about that. So you are a nihilist and believe that nothing is moral and right? That one is entitled to do whatever one is able to do? That murdering 6 million Jews is no morally worse or better than saving 6 million Jews? It doesn't matter how many voted for it because as long as there is one lone American who disagrees with the Patriot Act, that Act is unjust. The majority cannot justly force their views and opinions on the minority and violate their rights nor can they confer power on others to do so. All you need for oppression is one man who disagrees and is forced to comply by force or threat thereof. That's what we have. Then the BC Liberals are merely their partners in crime. They handed out what didn't belong to them to people who had no business accepting it. More to the point, you're still dodging the actual question. How can A confer a power over B to C that A does not have over B in the first place? How can one give what one does not have? As I said before, try to actually answer.

So you are saying that the majority of people are able to trample the rights of others simply because they are more numerous. What about if the "American people" or the "majority" wanted to send Jews to the gas chambers, would you be OK with that too? Or does the very existence of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the US Constitution prove that the majority cannot be trusted to do the right thing and that popular mandate does not make something automatically right? That even our "democracies" tell us that the people and the majority are not always right, and there is something more - the law and received morality - that is above even them and overrides their desires? Which is it, Stoker? Answer a direct question for once. You still have not told me how a politician can forge a national public policy for the best interests of the nation. I asked you how a politician could see the future and divine the best course of action. You answered that the people grant him this power. Seeing as none of us can see the future, your proposal is of the blind leading the blind, or rather, the blind selecting the blind. Furthermore, as I said before, you cannot delegate or transfer a right or authority you do not have. I can grant Caesar a power of attorney over my affairs because I already have power of attorney over my affairs. I cannot grant Caesar the right to kill you because I don't have the right to kill you. Therefore, if the US government has the right to pass the Patriot Act and to use it, this means that any Republican voter has the right to go poking through your bank account, medical records, etc. etc. any time they feel like, without consulting you and without your consent. Otherwise, the majority voters (Republicans) couldn't possibly confer this right on their government. The only other way to make your argument consistent is if Caesar starts shopping for rifles, if you follow me.

Obviously! If beauty is in the eye of the beholder, is "more beautiful" not? This. Attempting to distract, now? I'm asking you what right the US government had to pass Patriot. You're telling me that it was "safer", that there's no harm done, and all sorts of answers that are of absolutely no relevance to my question whatsoever. This is analogous to our debate so far: Me: "Aren't there addictive substances in chocolate?" You: "Chocolate tastes nice!" Me: "But isn't it addictive?" You: "People can have chocolate if they want to!" Me: "Isn't it addictive, though?" You: "What are you, some nutcase who lives in the woods?" Then you proceed to allege that I think that the US and Canadian governments are wholly responsible for 9/11 and SARS, that I must be a bunker-dwelling tinfoil hatter, that I yearn for the setting of Mad Max, and so forth. Complete strawmen all, not to mention the veiled insults that you're attempting to pass off as reasoned debate. You could start by answering any of my questions. You still haven't told me what gave the US government the right to pass the Patriot Act. Then you could answer my question about whether or not a majority mandate lends any moral legitimacy to an action or a concept, basically, whether you are a nihilist or a moral absolutist. Then you could answer my question as to what makes a politician inherently superior to all other men in such a way that allows him to correctly divine the best course for the country, discounting the fact that "best" is as subjective as "safe". And as to when I'll answer yours, as I told you a few days ago, I'll do that after you answer mine. Properly, of course, since ad hominem slander and strawmen won't do. I might also be inclined to answer them if you'd filter out all your strawmen and your insults and lay them out concisely for me.

Would any answer change the fact that "safe" is wholly subjective? I certainly do. Do you construct strawmen out in the woods? What in my post led you to believe that I made that claim? Or are you just building another strawman? Read the book of Matthew and find out. In case you're wondering, it isn't paved with bossing people around and exerting power and violence over them. You're a veritable strawman factory. Are you going to answer any of my points, or just ask silly one-line questions in an attempt to derail the argument?

You aren't talking about your ethical concerns, only your legal ones. The fact is that you cannot transfer liability to a non-acting agent, especially an abstract concept. You are not describing how your company is responsible for things, you are simply describing how you use political processes to shield yourself from the economic consequences of your actions. They are doing business with you personally. An abstract non-acting agent cannot do anything, which includes doing business. In business transactions, a person is dealing with a person or the agent of a person, who is responsible or liable. Until we develop artificial intelligence, this is always going to be the case (and then we have a whole new debate about whether or not an AI is a person).

Of course! It's their money. The bank is free to attach whatever conditions it likes to its loan, and the prospective debtor is able to reject or accept them as he sees fit. You would probably see that degrees less likely to lead to high-paying jobs would carry a higher rate of interest for the loan. Another positive result you would see is that gluts and shortages in the labour market would correct themselves. For instance, apparently we have too many law graduates right now. What happens in the free market is the marginal value of a law graduate is pushed down, salary drops, the interest rate for law degree loans rises and people choose other degrees to attain. Similarly, where there is a labour shortage the wages rise, interest rates drop, and more people are attracted to the profession. It also encourages personal responsibility for education and career, because a person directly bears the consequences of his own choices and actions rather than forcing the taxpayer to bear them for him. To be honest, that level of coercion would almost certainly require a state, and examples of such practices are seen in totalitarian states such as Cuba. Schools are not beholden to those who'd employ their students but to their customers, the students and/or their parents, so they will meet the demands of their customers or go out of business. The employers can only manipulate education through market forces, the labour market, and such manipulation is beyond monopoly of any one employer. I think you're labouring under some misconceptions about minimum-wage jobs. Most people who work in them are under 25, most people who work in them are earning more within 12 months. Students who were a lot brighter would probably get more resources on their education. Lending institutions would be more willing to lend them large sums of money because they are going to be more successful in life. But short of the Bokanovsky process, what are you going to do about it? Some people are smarter. That's it.

What's "safe" is wholly subjective, and a lot of people want to be safe from the government and the Patriot Act, so this reasoning is equally a counter to the Act as it is an argument for it. Ah, so whomever is in the majority is able to override my rights and deny them to me? So what's ethical, in your opinion, is simply a matter of how many people you can get to back it. Murder committed by a man alone is a crime, murder endorsed by a million people isn't. Correct? Or would you instead say that some things are wrong no matter how many people endorse them, and therefore a majority mandate is no guarantee of ethics? No, I'd want the government to disband itself, and then I shall make my own choices about how and when I protect myself and whom I trust to protect me, rather than having a bunch of bureaucrats make decisions about my property and my very life without my consent and without alternative. A Stalinist Purge? A Great Leap Forward? A Cultural Revolution? A Krystallnacht? A Final Solution? All of which were the result of massive accumulation of state power and the subjugation of individual rights to the state. The existence of the modern-day USA is proof that this slippery-slope argument is valid. The US government began as a minarchist government, providing solely for national defence, and over time gradually ballooned to the modern Leviathan that consumes 55% of the national economy, taxes and spends more money than the turnovers of every Fortune 500 company combined, and employs more people than any other entity in the whole country, not even counting the armed forces. Unless a politician was God, how could he possibly know what the best interests of the nation are? Unless he is a seer or other person claiming prescience (all of whom are widely regarded as frauds), he can't possibly know the ramifications of his actions. The road to hell is paved with good intentions, and history is full of political action taken with laudable intentions leading to disastrous consequences.

That's not an answer. You've told me why the Patriot Act was passed, but I asked you what right they had to pass it, not why they passed it. One can have a reason for doing something without having a right to do it. Assuming I lived in BC (which I don't anyway), why does the Campbell government hold my rights? Shouldn't I hold them?

I tell you what, Stoker, I'll answer your question as soon as you can tell me what right the US government had to pass the Patriot Act in the first place, and what gave the US government the right to access my medical records.